After serving for several years as science consultant on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager, Andre Bormanis was given the opportunity to make a more creative contribution to the Star Trek franchise by writing or co-writing several Voyager  teleplays, including "Human Error," "Nightingale," "Riddles," "Imperfection," "Waking Moments" and "Demon."  

Following Voyager, Bormanis moved on to the position of Story Editor for Star Trek: Enterprise. His first story for the new show was "Silent Enemy."  For the third season of Enterprise, Andre had a title upgrade to Executive Story Editor. His other contributions to the show include: "Horizon," "Desert Crossing," "The Communicator," "The Crossing"  and "Extinction."

In this exclusive interview, Andre talks about his career in science and how his background served him well in working for a show like Star Trek.

Interview Transcript

Q: Who are you and where are you from?

My name is Andre Bormanis. I'm the executive story editor on Enterprise. I'm a full time writer on the show. I began as a science consultant on Star Trek, in fact I began on the final season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, which was also the second season of Deep Space Nine. My job as science consultant was to help the writers and producers with all the science and technical language in scripts [as well as with] the science ideas behind some of the stories. I did that for, I believe about seven years. [I worked] on the final season of TNG seasons two through seven of DS9 and then the entire run of Voyager. It was on Voyager where I got my start as a writer. I sold a couple of stories to Voyager, and then had the opportunity to write a teleplay. Which they liked well enough to have me do another. So I ended up writing or co-writing half a dozen episodes of Voyager. Then I was brought on full-time as a staff writer when we began Enterprise.

Q: What is your background?

I majored in Physics in college. Then I went to graduate school and studied physics and astronomy for a couple of years, before I wandered off into the micro computer field (like a lot of would be astronomers in the 1980s). That gave me the opportunity to do a lot of technical writing (and I was fairly good at technical writing). I tried my hand at creative writing and took some screenwriting classes. Had a teacher who liked my work quite a bit, and encouraged me. Then I was offered a NASA fellowship to spend a couple years at George Washington University doing space policy work. I earned a Masters degree there in Science Technology and Public Policy. It was while I was doing that program that I was asked to come out to Los Angeles and be the science consultant on Star Trek. The guy who had been doing the job Nerank Shankar had been promoted onto the writing staff, so they needed somebody to come in and take over for him. They wanted someone who had both a creative writing background but also knew the science. They wanted someone who understood how to read a script and was knowledgeable about the kind of things they typically do in the Star Trek episode; vis-a vie, astronomy and space science, and I seemed to fit the bill. They hired me and needed to me start when my NASA fellowship ended. So in May of 1993 I moved from Washington, DC here to Los Angeles to start that job.

Q: What sparked your interest in science?

My interest in science began at a very young age. I think when I was six or seven, I became interested in astronomy. [I was] learning the constellations, getting books from the library about astronomy. Star Trek was certainly a big influence. I remember watching the original series when I was a little boy. My older brother really enjoyed the show. I didn't understand it, but it was fascinating to me. Then there was the space program and the Apollo moon landings. It was a very exciting time to be growing up in the late 1960s. Astronomy is the thing that stuck with me. I was just always fascinated by the stars, always wanted to know more about them. I got a telescope when I was ten or eleven years old and was pretty well hooked by that age if not sooner.

Q: What did you do as a science consultant?

The way that my job worked when I was science consultant was every day the messenger from Paramount would bring me the day's work. Whether it's a first draft script, or revisions on a script, or a final draft, I would read that material and if there was something that the writer needed to do in terms of a technical term  or if they weren't quite sure what the appropriate term was they would put the word "tech? in parentheses. Either in dialogue or in scene description, and that would be my cue to sort of fill in the blank, to come up with an appropriate term. Sometimes I would actually talk to the writers over the phone as they were writing or as they were getting ready to write a script.  I remember we did an episode of Deep Space Nine that involved a comet. In an important way the story had to do with a kind of superstition about a comet that was entering the Bajoran System. The writers basically knew what a comet was but they weren't sure about some of the specifics. How big is a comet, what is it made of, how fast do they move, how does the tail form and how long does it get? So I basically gave them a little comet overview. I told them about comets and what we know about them and what they might be like in other solar systems. They use that information in their first draft to describe this phenomenon. I would then just read their pages and make any little corrections or tweaks as needed, as that script went through the rewrite process. So it kind of worked both ways. The more they got to know me, after I'd been on the job for a year or two, they were much more comfortable calling me and talking to me about terms or story elements before they started writing. But much of the time it was simply a kind of fill in the blank.

Some of that material was Star Trek related tech. A lot of the tech we do on the show is very Star Trek specific. The terminology was coined in the Original Series and a lot of it was also developed for Star Trek: The Next Generation by Rick Sternbach and Michael Okuda. The Star Trek Technical Manual, which came out probably fifteen years ago, was an important reference and resource for me in terms of some the technical language with regard to the ship, engineering systems, the transporter, the weapons system's tactical, deflectors and so forth. All of those ideas were developed in the original series and then extended in TNG and the other shows. So a fair amount of the tech I provided was very Star Trek specific.

Q: What is the most difficult part of the job?

The hardest part about producing this show (and probably any show) is just coming up with new stories. Obviously we've done a lot of Star Trek over the years. There are something like six hundred episodes of the various series and now ten movies. Coming up with a really fresh interesting idea to do on Star Trek is our biggest challenge. The writing staff is constantly developing ideas. We also take pitches from outside writers. Rick [Berman] and Brannon [Braga] will not really embrace a story until they feel that they've found an element of that story that feels fresh and new. Something that feels like, "Hey this is something we haven't really done, at least not this way on Star Trek.? Clearly, this season on Enterprise we've got an overriding story ark. The threat from the Xindi. They are aliens who've attacked Earth and (we have reason to believe) are going to try to wipe out humanity. That is driving a lot of the development process this season. Ultimately, we want stories that have some kind of deeper meaning; not only interesting images and science fiction elements but great arcs for our characters. We've got seven really wonderful actors on this show. I don't know that we can say we've ever had a better all round cast than we do on Enterprise. We want to write great scenes for Scott Bakula, Connor Trinneer, Jolene Blalock, Linda Park and everybody else. We want to come up with really good scenes for those actors to play. Beyond the sort of raw plot and science fictional elements we want terrific character elements for these wonderful actors that we have on the show. To meet all of those requirements and to come up with twenty-six stories a year that service those requirements is really, really, really hard. Sometimes we'll take a pitch and the idea is, "Well there's something kind of interesting about that but it [has] got to have all these other elements too in order for it to really work as a good Enterprise story.? There's a lot of back and forth. There's an iterative process before a story really feels like its working. Sometimes it's a really great high concept idea, which]once you understand "oh that's the premise? the story really takes off.  The hardest part about this whole process is just coming up with those stories. Once you've got a really terrific story, laying it out and writing the script is relatively straightforward. It's coming up with those original, interesting and engaging stories that is the toughest part of our job.

Q: How do the Enterprise scripts get written?

We have a staff of writers who are all capable of writing teleplays. Teleplays are assigned depending sometimes on who came up with the story. Mike Sussman came up with a really interesting story that we filmed a couple of weeks ago. He really wanted to write that teleplay. He came up with the idea for the story so he wrote [it]. I came up with a story earlier this season that I was very interested in, so I got to write that one. Part of it is simply whose up in the rotation. It's kind of like batting in major league baseball. There is a rotation. We want everyone to get a turn at bat. Chris Black, one of our co-executive producers is up next. He co-wrote show four this season as well as show seven. He will probably write twelve or thirteen. I wrote show three, I'll probably do thirteen or fourteen. That's just kind of how the rotation works. If a writer has come up with an idea that he or she is really excited about and wants to do the script if they haven't written one in a few episodes then they'll go ahead and do it. Otherwise, it's kind of whose up in the rotation.

Q: What are some of your favorite episodes?

I have a lot of favorite episodes, it's always hard to think of just one or to even compile a list, but if I had to, from the Original Series, "City on the Edge of Forever?. I love "Who Mourns for Adonais?.? The story about Apollo was ultimately really interesting and very emotional. "Tribbles? was a lot of fun of course. Most of the episodes from the first season of the original series, I thought were really, really terrific. What a great first year of television, for any show, let alone a science fiction show.

My all time favorite of Star Trek: The Next Generation is probably "Darmok." It was such an extraordinarily interesting and original way of exploring the idea of trying to communicate with an alien culture and alien language. It was a brilliant metaphor for not only the difficulty implicit in communicating with another form of life, but just how hard it is for us to communicate with each other; even if we speak the same language. It touches on everything that is involved in genuine communication from cultural issues, to the assumptions we unconsciously make about the people we're trying to communicate with and so on. Brilliant episode, brilliantly written, directed and acted. Patrick Stewart and Paul Winfield were both just amazing. "Inner Light? was of course was a great episode. I loved "Heart of Glory? from the first season. I thought that was a real standout. That's were I really felt "Oh my gosh,? now I understand something about these Klingons.  They're not just these hardcore warrior types. There is an ethic, an ethos, and a belief system they are very committed to.

I have a number of favorite Voyager episodes. "Eye of the Needle? was a lot of fun. "Prime Factors? was a terrific story. "Body and Soul? was extraordinarily funny, that was a great episode. Jeri Ryan and Bob Picardo were both terrific as always. I guess I should plug a show that I wrote with Brannon called "Human Error? which I thought came off quite well.

In Enterprise, I love the pilot ("Broken Bow") I love "Shuttlepod One? and "Dear Doctor.? I was pretty happy with, "Silent Enemy,? one that I had written. I'm very excited about this season. We have an episode coming up called "Impulse.? I haven't seen the final cut of it, but I think is going to be terrific. That, off the top of head, would sort of be my quick list of top ten or twelve Star Trek favorites.

Q: Do you find Star Trek Technology believable?

I've always felt the technical side of Star Trek, the look and feel of the ship and the language that's used to describe the systems on the ship, is very credible. That's partly because I grew up with Star Trek and partly because of Gene Roddenberry. When he was developing the original series he spoke with a lot of engineers at JPL, the RAND Corporation and so forth. He'd say "Granted this is fantasy but a hundred, two hundred, three hundred years into the future what might we see on a starship? What would we have to do? What would we have to discover and build? How might that look? How might people talk about it?? He also used his real experience in the Army Air Core and the Navy to sort of establish the look and feel of the Starship Enterprise. [He] just asked himself a lot of logical questions. People are going to get sick. They're going to be injured. We're going to have to have some kind of sick bay. What might a medical facility look like in the future? What kinds of equipment would we like to have today, that [advances in] technology may well deliver to us decades or centuries down the road. It's all very logical I think. I don't know that I would change anything specifically.

I like the way that Roddenberry, his designers and consultants approached the conception of the Original Series. That's certainly been carried through into every show since. One of the fun aspects of working on Enterprise is trying to imagine an era prior to the Original Series. In an attempt bridge what we do today in the real world on nuclear submarines or advanced aircraft and what we imagined for the Original Series. That has come off spectacularly well.

Q: What Star Trek terminology have you created?

I've come up with a number of things over the years. There was a term that I coined for a DS9 episode. It was an extremely volatile compound called Kemocite, which we've actually now incorporated into Enterprise. They needed a material that had a certain kind of property and there was nothing in the real world that quite fit the bill. So I thought it would be better to invent something. I got a call from Max Grodenchik, one afternoon as they were getting ready to film a scene. He said, "this term, I got to use this word. Is it 'CHEMosite' or is it 'KEEmosite.'?  I said, "Oh, it's KEEmosite.? I thought it was kind of funny because he was so concerned about how to pronounce this completely fictional word. But, I wanted to call it 'KEEmosite.' 'CHEMosite,' I thought sounded too much like "chemical" and I didn't want it to sound that way. So even when we do the fictional stuff there is [a] kind of a thought process behind it.

One of the things I learned very quickly when I started the science consultant job was to be sensitive to language. You can't burden the actors with a lot of polysyllabic terms that are going to be very hard to pronounce. They]are ultimately not going to make any sense to the actor, whether they're based in real science or not. I always try to find something that was fairly concise but would convey the idea that the writer was after in that story element. The actors wouldn't have to wrestle with their words while they're trying to remember how to be in the scene, relate to the other actors and all the things one needs to do when you're acting in front of a camera.

Q: Has Star Trek foretold any scientific discoveries?

One thing that sort of stands out in my mind was an episode from the first season of the original series where a black hole (which was referred to as a black star in that episode) sent Enterprise three hundred years back in time. I don't think that it was well understood at the time that black holes had the property of being able to act as time machines. That is an accepted theory today in astrophysics. That always struck me. Either, somebody was reading very cutting edge science and some scientist had speculated, "Well, if they can work space to this degree then maybe time can be warped and we can go back in time.? Or, it may have been that the writer simply made a lucky guess or even potentially misconstrued something that was being discussed at the time. An idea that most people thought was wrong but later turned out to be right. I don't know if there's anything we've conceived, which was later proven to be true.

In terms of the impact of Star Trek on real science and technology, I think it's been mostly in terms of design and style issues. Like the three and a half inch floppy disk looks uncannily like the disks Spok was using as data disks. Star Trek  has influenced the design of cell phones, of course, and flip phones.  I think that Rick Sternboch had once tracked down a statement by the engineer at Motorola, who is credited with designing the first flip phone.  He said h] was absolutely thinking about the Star Trek communicator when he came up with the idea of a folded flip phone. That is an undeniable aspect of the influence of Star Trek on the culture of science and technology.

When people dream of things, someday somebody is going to try to build them. If you look at the ideas Da Vinci had for flying machines, his helicopter is not something that ever would have been able to fly. But certainly he started people thinking about the possibility of that form of flight. Somebody eventually figured out a way to do it. I suspect Star Trek will be looked at (maybe a hundred years down the road) as being an important part of what got people thinking seriously about how humans might go about traveling among the stars. I think is a far more valuable contribution than coming up with some crazy idea in an episode; that turns out to be closer to real physics or astronomy that we might have guessed at the time.