In September 1966, the weekend before Star Trek first debuted on television, Gene Roddenberry and writer Sam Peeples brought two episodes — "The Cage" and "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" — to Cleveland, Ohio, to preview the new series at the 24th World Science Fiction Convention. That auspicious association between Trek and the literary science fiction community was celebrated 40 years later, at the 64th World Science Fiction Convention held in Anaheim, California, this past August.

"Worldcon," as it's commonly abbreviated, is an annual convention sponsored by the World Science Fiction Society that travels all over the globe (last year it took place in Scotland and next year it will be in Japan). This year's event was specifically referred to as "L.A.con IV" because it was the fourth time the Worldcon has been held in the Los Angeles area.

A Worldcon event is a different environment — a different culture, even — than the star-driven Trek conventions we typically cover here. That's because the primary emphasis is on literary SF (in these circles it isn't cool to say "sci-fi") and thus the stars of the show are not actors so much, but writers: names such as Robert Silverberg, Larry Niven, Ann McCaffrey, Alan Dean Foster, and the inimitable Harlan Ellison (many of whom have Trek connections anyway).

But Worldcon does celebrate SF in all its various forms — movies, TV, comics, art — and this year a special focus was bestowed upon that TV show called Star Trek to commemorate its 40th anniversary, in the form of panels, celebrity appearances, exhibits, parties, "filksinging" and other tributes.

Writers Dorothy "D.C." Fontana and David Gerrold were two of the most prominent guests at the con specifically representing Star Trek, along with various other TV writers and published authors. Star appearances included Marina Sirtis, Walter Koenig, Robert Picardo, Chase Masterson, J.G. Hertzler, Suzie Plakson and BarBara Luna, plus several visual effects and design artists such as Ronald B. Moore and Rick Sternbach. And at a convention like this, prominent fans are also put on a pedestal, like Jacqueline Lichtenberg, who founded the Star Trek Welcommittee in the 1970s, and Bjo Trimble, who famously led the fan movement to save Trek from cancellation after its second season (with a lot of help from her husband John!).

With 1,000-plus events scheduled over five days, there would be literally dozens of things going on at any one time — often well into the wee hours! The following is a sampling of moments from some of the panels and speakers devoted to Star Trek, plus a few others of special interest.

Fontana, Arnold, et al on "James T. Kirk: Threat or Menace?"

One panel early in the weekend was a discussion by experts — pros and fans — on the topic "James T. Kirk: Threat or Menace?" Moderated by Richard Arnold, one-time assistant to Gene Roddenberry, the premise of the discussion was stated thusly: "Was a larger-than-life scenery-chewing damn-the-Prime-Directive-full-speed-ahead heroic starship commander the one primary thing responsible for the enduring success of classic Star Trek? Is the absence of such a character why the following Star Trek series all lacked the same punch?" ("That's rather opinionated," commented Arnold.) "Or should there have been more discretion, more consideration before acting? Is Jean-Luc Picard the model to follow?"

Dorothy Fontana, one of the original writers for the Original Series who also contributed to the Animated Series, The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, answered: "I do think that that kind of commander of a starship was a prime ingredient in making this show exciting and interesting to watch. Gene Roddenberry always said that his model was Horatio Hornblower. Now if you've ever read the Hornblower stories, you know that he was not a stay-on-the-deck guy — he was over the side with his men, leading the charge. And he made mistakes, he had faults and flaws, and he made errors. And I think that's kind of the way James T. Kirk, and before him Christopher Pike, were geared to be ... For me this is the kind of leader that I like to write about, somebody who was the boss but who went with his men when they went into danger."

Lance Sibley, a long-time fan and convention organizer from Toronto, offered a somewhat academic perspective: "The Star Trek universe of the Original Series was set in the 23rd century roughly 200 years after the discovery of warp drive, supposedly, in the history of the show. If you look back through real-world history, 200 years after the discovery of the Americas, what was going on? There was expansion going on, people were exploring, people were running into other groups that they considered not necessarily enemies but certainly adversaries in the way of what they wanted. And therefore the whole, to use the phrase here, 'damn-the-Prime-Directive-full-speed-ahead' approach worked in expanding the Federation, where it was 'Wagon Train to the Stars' basically. Whereas in the 24th century, Jean-Luc Picard's time, the universe of the show is a more mature one. The Federation has hit almost its limits of expansion because it's now surrounded ... Picard had to be more careful with what he did because, as I say, it was a more mature, more diplomatic era."

In response, Arnold felt compelled to address what he claimed was a popular misconception: "Gene never said it was 'Wagon Train to the Stars.' The quote is, and it's never complete, 'I sold it to them as Wagon Train to the Stars because westerns were big at the time and I wanted to sell the thing — but they felt that I had cheated them, and I had.' It was never 'Wagon Train to the Stars.'"

Arnold later added, "What Gene said about the difference between the Original Series and The Next Generation was that, if he had continued to make Star Trek right through the mid-80s, that's what it would have eventually become anyway, and the character of Kirk would have evolved into the Picard character anyway." At the end of the panel, he summed up the conclusions of the panelists by saying, "Threat or menace, James T. Kirk, for his time, was who he needed to be. For Picard's time, Picard was who he needed to be, and so on."

Page 2: Writers' Panels: Fontana, Gerrold, etc.
Page 3: Fan Panels & Activities
Page 4: Celebrities: Sirtis, Koenig, etc.
Page 5: Harlan Ellison, part 1
Page 6: Harlan Ellison, part 2; Hugos