It's hard to believe 8 series and a dozen movies later, but the Star Trek franchise nearly failed in its first season. Not only was the pilot widely regarded as a flop but by the mid-point of the first season they'd run out of episodes to film. Since almost nobody had watched the original pilot, anyway, Gene Roddenberry made the economical decision to re-purpose it, adding new material to stretch it into two full episodes. The resulting two-parter, “The Menagerie,” received a far better reception than the original pilot, evening winning a Hugo Award in 1967 for Best Dramatic Presentation.
As a modern viewer (read: binge-watching TOS on Netflix) “The Menagerie” gives you a feeling of déjà vu. Not only did I watch the pilot already, but I just watched it a few nights prior; the skillful re-use of the material, in this context, loses some of its brilliance. It also opens the two episodes up for more comparison and analysis.
The term worldbuilding is very familiar to most genre writers, especially those working in sci-fi and fantasy. A basic definition is that it’s the work of creating the reality of your story. Realistic fiction writers do this, too, the great ones often with the same methodical approach and depth as any genre writer. Despite this, worldbuilding isn’t taught as a crucial skill for those working in the real-world.
The overlap between DS9 and TNG that was mentioned in part 1 of this post allowed for the further development of many races. The Cardassians and Bajorans mentioned earlier are joined by plotlines that showcase Klingon, Romulan, and Trill culture in new ways. As interesting as all of these developments are, the treatment of the Ferengi and the Breen are especially noteworthy from a world-building perspective.
As far as I'm concerned, the Star Trek universe represents world building at its finest: strong internal consistency, complex thought experiments, and a host of well-populated planets. The main difference between Deep Space Nine and the other series in Star Trek is conveyed in the name. Deep Space Nine is a space station in a continuous orbit around the planet Bajor, not a ship on a mission of exploration like the other series. Most of the action still takes place in the confines of the vessel with occasional jaunts to new and unique landscapes (similar to the away mission trope of other Star Trek series), but this change allows the show to delve deeper into the cultural and spiritual worldviews of non-Federation entities. That aspect of DS9 is what makes it especially valuable from a world building perspective.
I’m slightly embarrassed to admit that I read The Epic of Gilgamesh for the first time only in my early thirties. It’s not long; about half of the 125-page copy I have is scholarly background and analysis. The actual myth is around 60 pages—and it casts a massive shadow for such a small text, if for no other reason than its status as the earliest surviving epic, believed to date from around 2,100 BC. For context, The Odyssey was written in the 8th century BC, and theologians believe the earliest Bible books were written between 1,500 and 1,000 BC.
Whether you realize it or not, a lot of Western cultural myths today owe their origin to Gilgamesh, either directly through plot points (e.g. the Bible’s story of the Flood) or indirectly thanks to the idea of the heroic epic. If you’re a genre writer, especially, Gilgamesh should be required reading at some point in your life. I’ve broken down what I found to be some of the most unique aspects of the world and tale below.
Submitting work to journals and presses can be frustrating for a variety of reasons, but for those of us who write longer fiction, just finding places willing to consider stories can be a challenge. Many journals max out at around the 5,000 mark for prose, while many presses aren’t interested in stand-alone manuscripts smaller than around 40,000 words. That leaves a pretty big gap where stories fall into a kind of publishing limbo.
Star Trek consistently takes a human-centric approach to science fiction. There are a multitude of species and worlds but the focus stays with Starfleet and its predominantly human-crewed ships. More unusual compared to other sci-fi universes, artificial intelligence is almost non-existent. In the Star Trek timeline, the first android wasn’t created until 2330, hundreds of years after technology like the transporter and warp drive. Compare that to, say, Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot, where robots are common in the 21st century, but space travel is still limited to the immediate solar system.
