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    Star Trek: The Magic of Tribbles
    Star Trek: The Magic of Tribbles
    Star Trek: The Magic of Tribbles
    Ebook116 pages1 hour

    Star Trek: The Magic of Tribbles

    By Terry J. Erdmann, Gary Hutzel and Paula M. Block

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    About this ebook

    Originally conceived of more than thirty-five years ago, these dimunitive creatures have become stars in their own right. With uncanny grace and ease they have won hearts and upstaged stars.
    They are tribbles.
    When the writers of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine were looking for the perfect episode ith which their characters could pay homage and interact with the crew from the original Star Trek, "The Trouble with Tribbles" instantly came to mind.
    Here is the story of how the wizards of Star Trek were able to create the magic that enabled -- with nothing more than countless hours of work -- ordinary actors to time-travel. This is the story behind the creation of the episode "Trials and Tribble-ations." This is The Magic of Tribbles.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPocket Books/Star Trek
    Release dateOct 19, 2001
    ISBN9780743446235
    Star Trek: The Magic of Tribbles
    Author

    Terry J. Erdmann

    Terry J. Erdmann (with Paula M. Block) have jointly written two previous Star Trek: Deep Space Nine ebook novellas: Rules of Accusation and Lust’s Latinum Lost (and Found). Their most recent nonfiction work, Labyrinth: The Ultimate Visual History, was the recipient of the Independent Publisher Book Awards’ 2017 bronze medal for best coffee table book. They also are the co-authors of the nonfiction titles Star Trek Costumes: Five Decades of Fashion from the Final Frontier, Star Trek The Original Topps Trading Card Series, Star Trek The Next Generation 365, Star Trek The Original Series 365, Star Trek 101, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion, The Secrets of Star Trek Insurrection, The Magic of Tribbles, and Star Trek: Action! Their additional titles include Monk: The Official Episode Guide and The 4400 Companion. During his lengthy career in film publicity, Terry authored The Last Samurai Official Companion. They live in Southern Oregon with their two collies, Shadow and Mandy.

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      Book preview

      Star Trek - Terry J. Erdmann

      Introduction

      When Margaret Clark, editor of Pocket Books’ Star Trek nonfiction line (Only the books with pictures in ’em, as Margaret says) called to tell me to stop what I was doing, I was taken aback. At the time, I was finishing my writing chores on the third-season section of the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion (which is now in bookstores!). Just a few weeks earlier, Margaret had been badgering me for that already-overdue material. But, she said, something new and fun had come up, and she was giving me permission to fall even further behind on the DS9 Companion. She wanted a book on the magic behind ‘Trials and Tribble-ations,’ the wonderful DS9 episode that had aired six months earlier. Margaret thought it would make a nice holiday book for 1997; it might even come packaged with a cute little tribble.

      Since I already had established relationships with many of the people responsible for the show (and, in fact, I had just concluded a lengthy round of interviews covering the fourth season), it seemed like a relatively easy task. I was a interviews little concerned about taking up more of their valuable time on such short notice, but this time we would deal with just one episode, not a whole season’s worth. When do you need it? I asked Margaret. I’ll let you know, she replied.

      Aware that the cast and crew would be assembled on the Paramount lot only for another two weeks before disappearing on summer hiatus, I plunged forward, trusty tape recorder in hand. It soon became obvious that working on Trials and Tribbleations had been a delight for all concerned, and I was graciously squeezed into busy schedules. Two weeks and thirty-nine interviews later, on a Tuesday morning, I sat down to transcribe nearly one hundred hours of taped material. I figured I had about a month to put it all together. Tough, but doable. Then the phone rang. It was Margaret, letting me know. A week from Friday, she said.

      Transcribing is hell. And I’m a terrible speller. But I made the deadline. The manuscript landed on Margaret’s desk, and I looked forward to seeing the book and the tribble shortly. I’d promised DS9’s executive producer, Ira Steven Behr, that he’d get to read it in the Fall.

      A few weeks passed, and Margaret called with the bad news. They don’t like the tribble. The book’s been delayed. I’ll get back to you. There’s always a they, someplace. Perhaps you’ve noticed?

      Flash forward four years. And step into a whole new technology. The Magic of Tribbles is being published as Pocket Books’ first nonfiction eBook. It’s a tribute to the tribbles, I suppose, and a greater tribute to Margaret’s tenacity. She wouldn’t let the book die—no matter how many hurdles the world threw in front of it. As for the tribble, it did come out, along with a fun little pamphlet, The Tribble Handbook.

      Now, at last, I’m happy to say, you can read the whole story. Here it is, Ira.

      Terry J. Erdmann

      1

      Genesis—Let There

      Be Cool

      It’s never easy being the middle child. The first child has everyone’s hopes and dreams pinned to it. The younger child is getting most of Mom and Dad’s attention. And then there’s you, just old enough to be taking care of yourself. Sometimes it seems that all they expect of you is to keep out of trouble….

      Spring of 1996. The 30th anniversary of Star Trek was a few short months away. Star Trek: First Contact, the second motion picture based on Star Trek: The Next Generation, was going into production. Star Trek: Voyager, the newest kid in the Star Trek franchise, had been given the go-ahead to do a special episode featuring one of the big seven actors from Star Trek. The studio was planning to produce a prime-time television special saluting Star Trek. Rumor even had it that Paramount was going to sponsor its first official Star Trek convention. But none of this activity involved the staff at Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Until The Phone Call came.

      009-01.png

      We had already heard some of the plans for the 30th anniversary, recalls Ira Steven Behr, executive producer of Deep Space Nine. They were already filtering through the building. And we kind of figured, being the middle child, we were going to miss out on this whole thing.

      But then there was that phone call from Star Trek executive producer Rick Berman, asking Behr if DS9 would be interested in doing something for the 30th anniversary.

      Behr pondered a moment. I think my exact words were, ‘Let me talk it over with the guys,’ relates Behr. The guys were the other members of DS9’s writing team: Ronald D. Moore, René Echevarria, Robert Hewitt Wolfe and Hans Beimler. And like Behr, they had some concerns. If they did create something—say, a special episode—would it air in time for the actual anniversary of September 8? If it did, would it be considered the opening episode of the fifth season? How would that affect the last episode of the fourth season, Broken Link, which, while not officially a cliff-hanger, had definitely left a variety of dramatic plot elements hanging in midair?

      All valid concerns. But they were soon overshadowed by one that played directly to everyone’s creative ego. If they did do it, how good could they make it? "The meeting kind of broke up and Ira’s last words were, ‘It’s just gotta be really cool,’ " remembers René Echevarria.

      Cool it would most definitely be—but cool is one of those serendipitous qualities that can avoid your every move one moment, and drop into your lap the next. The road to Trials and Tribble-ations would take twists and turns that no one had anticipated; at the end of the road, however, there wasn’t a person who’d worked on the show who wasn’t thrilled to death with the final product.

      Every department knew it was special, says Scenic Art Supervisor and Technical Consultant Michael Okuda. I think you see that in what everyone has done.

      First things first, though.

      In the beginning, there were the words. But no one was quite sure what the words should be. Clearly whatever they wrote should be a tribute show, a tip of the hat to Star Trek. Voyager using Sulu, however, seemed to cut out the idea of using one of the regulars from Star Trek in a similar cameo—but how about using one of the plots from the series? They came up with a few ideas, and suddenly Ron Moore suggested an idea that had been kicking around in my head for a long time, he says, "an idea that I had actually pitched to Michael Piller for the third season of The Next Generation."

      Moore wanted to take the Star Trek audience back to Sigma Iotia II, the planet visited by the crew of the original Enterprise in "A Piece of the

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