Star Trek^™

The Museum Piece — Story Introduction

          Let me say by way of introduction that fan fiction is, I believe, generally poorly done, and that it has a perhaps justifiably bad reputation among both fans and professionals. But, all those adverbs aside, you may still want to read this story.

          "The Museum Piece," as it is titled, was written in the early fall of 1997 for the "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" competition run by Pocket Books. The contest was a call for fan fiction, open only to authors with two or fewer previous story credits, and I figured, "What the heck?" I'd just bought all of this computer stuff to type with, I hadn't tried writing any prose since college, and writing Star Trek seemed like it might be fun. I sat down and over the course of a few days — stretched out over a span of three weeks — I wrote, edited, rewrote and polished this story.

          Unfortunately, I had only gotten a partial set of the rules. My subject was set in the Star Trek universe, all right; it filled a major hole in the continuity; it didn't make any real changes in that universe, nor did it conflict with any established continuity; nor did it reveal any "dark little secrets" about any of the characters (ick).

          But just as I was preparing to send "The Museum Piece" off, I found that the little ad I had been writing by had left one rule out, and that was what hanged me: my story did not focus primarily on a character or characters from one of the major properties. Before I sent it in, I realized my story was de facto disqualified, so I sat down and wrote another one real quick in the week before the deadline.

          That other story, "Ambassador at Large," was one of the eighteen winners of the contest, and was printed in the anthology "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" in June of 1998. I got paid for it and everything. But that left me with this story, which I had no idea what to do with. When I decided to create this website, I figured I may as well put it out there for all you happy people and Star Trek fans to read.

          Despite the fact that this will completely devalue the story for future sale; and despite that this will expose my ideas, my only truly valuable commodity, to all forms of plagiarism. Despite the fact that Paramount and Simon and Shuster may get on my case for putting this story up at all, unsanctioned and unofficial as it is.

          But my goal is to entertain. It's what I do professionally, and it's the reason I created this site — that, and to give exposure to my work. Keeping this story to myself would do neither, and putting it up may do both. I enjoy writing in the continuity of others, as I find the rather strict rules serve to stimulate my creativity. I hope to do so again in the future, and that you enjoy the fruits of my efforts in the present. Let me know what you think.

          For all you Star Trek spoilers out there, yes, there are three continuity points that don't quite match up. But Spacedock is so much more picturesque than Earth Station McKinley, don't you think?