Treknobabble is a continuing series of columns written by uber-Trekkie Reed Farrington in anticipation of the upcoming J.J. Abrams Star Trek movie.

Last Treknobabble, I was building up courage to approach a lone woman at a nightclub where a 4-day Star Trek convention was just beginning. Mixed in with the coterie of Star Trek geeks were the trendy contingent who occupied most of the dance floor. I made my way down the stairs from the upper level, making sure that I was not in her direct line-of-sight so as to avoid scaring her off. Best to sneak up on the unsuspecting fawn.

“Hi, my name is Reed. You wouldn’t happen to be a fan of Star Trek, would you?” Note that this opening line works best at Star Trek conventions. Now I could make up a conversation here, but truth be told, that whole night is somewhat of a blur (and not because I was imbibing Romulan Ale). From what I can recall, she was a big fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and was looking forward to the premiere of Star Trek: First Contact.

As fate would have it, she had driven to Toronto from St. Catharines where I was currently living! She had come with her mother who was not a Star Trek fan, so the mom had went off to visit a friend while she was here. She said she was about to graduate. Assuming she meant university, I asked her what she was studying. Now you’re probably guessing where this is heading.

The music in the nightclub was unbearably loud as you can imagine. Now I don’t know if she was being coy, or if I just didn’t hear her… okay, I admit I couldn’t hear most of what she said, but I didn’t want to yell, “What!?!,” and have her have to yell. So I nodded, smiling. I was asking all the questions. She didn’t seem interested in knowing anything about me. Maybe it was because the music was too loud, I thought.

Anyway, I got her a refill on her drink. I think it was a soft-drink. A soda pop. Non-alcoholic. Just making that clear. I asked her to dance. She admitted she was here to dance, but that she didn’t like the music. She reluctantly got up to dance with me. I think it was a Fine Young Cannibals’ song. Maybe “She Drives Me Crazy.”

She didn’t seem to mind my company. I can usually tell when a woman doesn’t want me around. I have no idea how much time we spent together. To me it seemed like less than a half an hour. I wondered if I would see her at any of the convention events, but I think she was only going to be at the First Contact showing. Or so she said. When she departed, I told her I’d look for her at the movie.

If the word anti-climactic hadn’t already existed, I’m sure it would have been defined in your head right now to describe this encounter. But now that I think of it, all of The Next Generation two-parters always left something to be desired in the 2nd part. The “go to sleep” ending of one two-parter comes to mind.

The next couple of days were filled with various events around Toronto with Star Trek actors in attendance. I can’t remember the exact order of events, but I’ll describe some of the events I attended.

I should probably mention that ticket sales for this convention were way below expectations. There was supposed to be a free shuttle bus to take attendees to the various events, but that got canceled. I thought there would be so many people that I was bound to find someone or some group of friends that I could hang around with. But no such luck. Or you might expect that with a smaller group of people that this would be conducive to making friendships because of repeated contact. Again, no such luck.

Vendors were set up at Ontario Place, a somewhat futuristic locale designed appropriately in the 60’s, I believe. The only thing I remember buying was a Klingon bat’leth, which is that two-handed curved blade that Worf used on occasion. This was not licensed by Paramount. Some enterprising fellow with access to a metal cutting facility had made the things. I paid $150 for it. I think the materials only cost about $10. I can’t imagine it taking him longer than an hour to make. So that was a tidy profit for the guy. I left him my address so he could contact me about other Klingon weapons he was planning on crafting. I never heard from the guy again.

Richard Arnold had been employed as Gene Roddenberry’s assistant when Roddenberry was alive, and at the time, I think he was just on Paramount’s payroll as a Star Trek expert. But I had also heard that as soon as Roddenberry had died, he was let go by Paramount. (I hope Film Junk will pay my legal fees if any libel suits come my way.) Anyway, Mr. Arnold gave a talk. He also conducted an auction of items for charity. Because there were so few people at the auction, I snagged some autographed stuff at the opening bid. I got some dirty looks from some people because I was outbidding them on some items, and getting a lot of stuff. It was for charity! I would have gotten a lot more if I hadn’t had to run to the bank machine to get more cash.

Marc Okrand, a linguist who developed the Klingon language for Star Trek III and subsequent movies and television episodes, gave a talk. I should have brought my Klingon dictionary for him to sign. To the bar, he invited the small group of people who attended his talk. (As a bit of trivia, James Doohan aka Scotty came up with the few bits of spoken Vulcan and Klingon in The Motion Picture.)

Yvonne Fern, who wrote a book on Gene Roddenberry based on conversations she had with him, gave a talk. I asked her what she thought of Gene Roddenberry’s writing skills, because over the years, many people had written that Roddenberry was a bad writer. I had expected her to defend Roddenberry, but I think she deflected the question by saying that Roddenberry’s talent was in bringing talented people together.

Chase Masterson, who played a buxom dabo girl in Quark’s Bar on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, gave two talks and two autograph sessions. After signing a photo for me, I had her sign a photo for my friend Dave aka Spock. Because the autograph pen she was using was drying up and she wanted to get the gold ink flowing, she absent-mindedly dabbed a few blotches of gold ink on the autographed photo for me before signing the photo for Dave. I’m not sure she noticed. I was too meek to point out her faux-pas.

I happened to attend both of her talks, neither because I’m a big fan nor because she was easy on the eyes, but just because it was convenient to do so. Okay, maybe her being gorgeous did influence my decision. Her second talk was at the McLaughlin Planetarium, which no longer exists. This talk was held in a rather small room because of the small number of people. It was hard for her to avoid eye contact with me, and I think I creeped her out. Maybe she recognized me from the first talk and autograph line. Maybe she thought I was stalking her.

Ms. Masterson didn’t have a large role, but she was in a fair number of episodes and did end up marrying Rom, Quark’s brother. She made a point of saying that she found the character satisfying to play, and that she had developed a backstory for the character on her own. Not to undermine her talents, but frankly, I didn’t think there was much opportunity for her to display any range with the character. During the Q & A at the end of the talk, I thought I would ask if she would tell us some of this backstory that she had developed. Maybe if I asked something about her acting craft, then she might not find me so creepy. But my question backfired because she demurred on providing an answer, saying that she preferred to keep the backstory to herself. Had I accidentally called her bluff?

So you’re probably wondering if I happened to bump into or spot the Oriental woman from the first night at any of these talks. Nope. Maybe she had been telling me the truth. Maybe she was only going to be at The First Contact premiere. Was there even a chance I could spot her there? I’m afraid you’ll have to come back next time for the exciting conclusion!

(Oh, I’ll also have convention stories with Gates (Dr. Crusher) McFadden and the pre-gay George (Mr. Sulu) Takei! FYI: Takei rhymes with gay. If you remember that mnemonic, you’ll never have to mispronounce his name again.)