Were you fooled at all? Did you at least get a good chuckle? On Sunday we dallied once again in our annual April Fools' tradition, posting a slate of fake news articles designed to appeal to some of the more subversive sensibilities in all us Star Trek fans.

But we didn't quite realize how much we were toying with the emotions of Deep Space Nine fans by running a story titled "Breaking News: DS9 Returns to Daytime TV!" In it, we posited the creation of a daytime soap opera featuring the character Benny Russell called "The Guiding Orb."

"'The Guiding Orb'? If this is what I think it is, then this could be the single most mean-spirited April Fools joke I have ever encountered," said one reader who wrote in. "Dude, if this an April Fool joke you are very cruel! To think of DS9 back on the air again would be a dream come true!" said another.

In case you missed it, some of the other bogus articles we ran included a product announcement of "Star Trek: Demastered" being offered on the "Prism DuroSport 6001," a Moldovan version of the iPod; "Star Trek Remasters to Get Facelift," revealing that footage from classic CBS shows would be inserted into the Guardian of Forever in the next remastering of "The City on the Edge of Forever" (such as Mary Tyler Moore and Granny from The Beverly Hillbillies); "'Trek XI' to Feature Innovative Marketing Campaign," in which J.J. Abrams announces he will share his dailies on YouTube and let fans make the editing decisions; and a few other priceless gems.

"If you are not joking you guys are really nuts ..." commented a letter-writer about some of these "announcements."

One article for which we got some highly polarized reactions was an announcement of a new Excelsior novel called "The Metrons Cometh," with an excerpt featuring a fencing match between Captain Sulu and an "Ensign Hardaway." It was a bit ... suggestive. The responses ranged from "The Sulu one was by far the best!" to "That was despicable ... you should all be ashamed of yourselves."

Maybe the latter has a point, but we took our inspiration from George Takei himself, who hasn't hesitated for a moment to share in the parody over his newfound status as a representative gay man. Just listen to The Howard Stern Show or watch the "Comedy Central Roast of William Shatner." We should also point out that the name "Hardaway" was not just an innuendo, it was also a reference to Tim Hardaway, the former basketball star who made some infamously homophobic statements earlier this year. Takei filmed a segment for Jimmy Kimmel Live making fun of Hardaway as well as his own sexuality.

The following are some of the Letters to the Editor we received that we enjoyed reading — some from those who apparently were duped ... and a few that, well, put us in our place.

And if you didn't look on our site on Sunday and you missed our April Fools' coverage this year ... oh well! What will STARTREK.COM do next year? Only the Orb of Time can tell...

Readers' comments on Page 2