Since I saw Star Trek a little over a week ago, I’ve struggled to write an adequate review of the movie, and what it meant to me, as someone who was part of the first effort to make Star Trek relevant to the, uh, next generation of fans. I’ve started and abandoned a few thousand words, mostly because I can say everything I need to say in just six:

I realize that a column about the movie, and what it meant to me, is going to need to elaborate on that just a little bit, and that’s where the trouble begins. See, I keep feeling like I’m just rewriting what I wrote about Watchmen, which could also be reduced to six words:

I've tried to stay away from Watchmen, but I keep coming back to that comparison because they both played significant roles in my life as I came of age during my teens. I feel a deeply personal connection to them, and I was – I think understandably – worried that these movies would leave me feeling the way I felt when I walked out of Phantom Menace.

In fact, to explain why, I'm going to quote myself, from my review of Watchmen:

And that's the thing, isn't it? Star Trek has meant too much to too many people for too long for those of us who love it to blindly accept that whoever makes it will treat it with the same love and respect that we believe it deserves. I think it was normal and natural for all of us to have reservations, especially about Star Trek.

It turns out, I think, that a lot of our fears, while well-founded, were unnecessary. JJ Abrams may not be one of us in the convention-going sense, but I think he has something in common with us, and I think it's a big reason why Star Trek made so many of us so very, very happy.

A lot of Trekkies got worked up when JJ Abrams seemed to say that he didn't even like Star Trek, and was more of a Star Wars fan:

The usual blogs and geek punditry picked up on that, and freaked out that he clearly didn't care about Trek, and was going to make something that had more in common with Star Wars – and possibly its disastrous prequels and special editions – than the Star Trek we've loved for so many years. I think, living in our post-Phantom Menace, post-ET-with-Walkie-Talkies, post are-you-fucking-kidding-me-with-X-Men 3 world, that's an understandable response. The funny thing is, I never heard anyone bother to add the very next thing he said:

Let's think about that for a moment, because it could mean a couple of different things. It could mean that Lucas made Star Wars movies that were bigger spectacles than the Star Trek movies, and we need to somehow top that ... except JJ immediately says it isn't:

I think this means that JJ Abrams, self-professed Star Wars fan, left the Special Editions and prequels feeling the same way a lot of us did. That is the shadow George Lucas cast over science fiction movies, especially remakes and reboots and re-imaginings. That could be why he made sure that, even though he doesn't love Star Trek as much as we do, he surrounded himself with people who did, and listened to them when he made his movie.

I could be completely wrong, of course, but I think the story in Star Trek supports this: Spock Prime says, "Listen, I know that I've messed with the timeline in your universe, and things are never going to be the same. But the universe that existed before I traveled through time is still there, and now it's up to you to explore this universe."

It's like JJ is simultaneously telling us, "I respect you. I respect the people and starships and adventures and universe that you've loved for 40 years. I'm not going to tell you that it doesn't matter. I'm not going to tell you that you were wrong to love it, and now it's all gone because I have shiny new effects and actors. It's all there, and it's yours to continue exploring as long as you want to.

"But I do have this new starship and a new crew, and we're going to go explore some different places where no one has gone before. If you want to come along with us, you're welcome to aboard. If not, bon voyage. If you treat her like a lady, she'll always bring you home."

This is the fundamental difference between what JJ Abrams did with Star Trek, and what George Lucas did with Star Wars. Lucas told us, "Hey, you know all that stuff you love so much? That stuff that's been a huge part of your life? Well, you're stupid for liking it because I didn't mean it. These are my toys, always have been, and now I'm taking them back. Ha. Ha. Ha. Fuck you, now give me more of your money."

I hope that Star Trek's legacy is two-fold. I hope that it leads to more movies with these actors and this creative team, and I hope that it encourages more studios and film makers to follow the example laid out by people like JJ Abrams, Zack Snyder, and Peter Jackson.

I mean, can you imagine Michael Bay's Star Trek?

Sorry. Sorry. That was cruel, and I shouldn't have put that image into your head. According to some quantum physicists, though, just thinking about that created a universe where it happened, and I'd like to apologize to everyone in it.

I want to talk about something else from Star Trek, but it contains spoilers, so...

I loved a lot of different things in Star Trek. I thought the casting was perfect. I thought the story was brilliantly paced and executed. I thought the photography, editing, sound design, and visual design was superb. But I especially loved...

...because it let us know that JJ Abrams got us. I, um, was also really happy to see a teenager on the bridge again, but I doubt there is another person in the known universe who shares my precise reasons.

In other words: I loved it. It was awesome.

When Wil Wheaton buys a camel, it will wear a Fez.

Every Star Trek: The Next Generation fan dreams of the day when we will have our own holodeck to ourselves. It seems as though researchers at the University of Tucson, Arizona have brought us one step closer!

BBC News is reporting the story about how Savas Tay and his colleagues are working to make 3-D holographs more usable in today's technology.

As of right now, holographs take an abundance of time to produce, and are not very useful due to the amount of time and lengthy procedure it takes to create one.

Laaaysers.

In the amount of time it takes to create the holograph, processes like x-rays, MRI, or CAT scans can be performed to get the necessary information to treat a patient.

Mr. Tay and Co. have removed the lengthy amount of time it takes to create the holograph. Reducing the amount of time to create the holograph greatly increases the potential to be used in the medical field, and in other fields as well.

Does this mean you should call your contractor to start on the design and location of your holodeck? No. They aren't that close. Yet.

What it means is that the most current technology, being x-ray, MRI and CAT scan technology, may be used to create a holograph of your organs.

The procedure will give doctors and surgeons the ability to see the dysfunctional or unhealthy organ on a three-dimensional platform. This would aid greatly in trying to find tumors, cysts or other masses or problems with the organ, leading to a quicker diagnosis and, in the end, quicker recoveries.

It will also guide surgeons through more delicate operations:

Anything that helps guide a person through my innards without causing permanent damage, is a-okay in my book.

This research has a trickle-down effect on other technologies. Eventually it will lead to holographic televisions and other displays using holographic technology.

Though we're a ways off from having that 3-D television in your living room, so don't throw that 52" HD-TV out just yet. It does, however, have the potential to help humans, animals and society in general throughout the world.

This is DevilsReject's first attempt at an article, and he is totally looking forward to the Star Trek prequel.

My new book was reviewed on Slashdot yesterday, and while I was writing and reading comments, I noticed that the current Slashdot poll question is, simply put, “Best Star Trek?”

I was actually surprised that in all the years Slashdot has been bringing us news for nerds this is the first time this question has been asked, and when I went to vote for TNG, I remembered a story I liked to tell at conventions, back in the day.

In my first book, Dancing Barefoot, I wrote a story called The Saga of SpongeBob VegasPants (which, if nothing else, is a lesson to all you aspiring writers out there, and a reminder to the rest of us: put some fucking thought into your titles, guys, because if you don’t, you’ll be talking about The Saga of SpongeBob VegasPants for the rest of your life.) The story is about my experiences at a convention celebrating the 35th anniversary of the original Star Trek series. I’ve excerpted it for the GiR before, but I’ve never shared the particular story that the Slashdot poll brought to mind until today.

I’ll pick this story up while I’m on stage, giving my talk at the convention. Up until this point, thanks to a perfect storm of nerves, exhaustion, and being the last speaker of the day, I have absolutely sucked out loud. The audience has hated me, and some of them have walked out. I’m seriously thinking about doing us all a favor and just walking off the stage . . .

An experienced performer has a few jokes or stories that always get a good response. We call them “back pocket” material, and they are held in our minds for occasions like this. I decide to bring one of them out . . . but my mind draws a complete blank.

I have nothing, so I say, “Uh. Does anyone have any questions?”

I honestly expect someone to shout out, “How come you suck?” But nobody says anything.

I look at the crowd for a second, and I say with a smile, “Well then, I guess we're done here! Thanks a lot for coming, and have a great rest of the weekend!” I start to walk off stage, with every intention of continuing down the hall, and into the bar.

After a couple of steps, though, they all laugh. Hard.

What? That was funny? Okay, I'll take what I can get at this point. I relax a bit and begin to share my Star Trek memories. The crowd, which just moments ago was wishing their phasers were functional, warms up to me a little bit.

A woman dressed as Doctor Crusher stands up and says, “Say hello to your mother!”

“Okay . . .” I say, and turn to my real mom, Debbie, who is sitting on the opposite side of the theater. “Hey mom! Thanks for coming! Do I still suck?”

The whole room turns to find her.

“No. You're doing great, honey,” she says.

“Thanks, mom,” I say.

I call on a cute girl who wears a babydoll “Social Distortion” shirt.

“What was it like to kiss Ashley Judd?” she asks.

I smile broadly. “Come on up here, and I'll show you!”

Huge laugh. She stands up!

“Oh! No! I'm just kidding!” I hold up my hand, and point into my palm, “my ifeway isay inay the eaterthay!”

I glance at my wife. She's laughing and shaking her head, and she winks at me.

I feel good. They're laughing with me, and having a good time.

I call on an older man, who sits near the front, several bags of collectibles at his feet.

“Do you have a favorite episode of Voyager?” he asks.

“Well, The truth is, I've only watched Voyager a couple of times, and I really don't like it.”

There is a little bit of a gasp. Did Wesley just say he doesn't like Voyager?

I try to explain. “The episode was called Scorpion, and I watched it because my friend designed the monster that terrorized the crew for the entire episode.”

I hear angry sighs. People turn to talk to each other. Some of them leave.

What happened? All I said was that I don't like Voyager! What's the big deal? Lots of Trekkies don't like Voyager. Maybe I should have called it “V'ger.”

A guy waves his hand rather urgently, fingers spread in the Vulcan “Live long and prosper” salute. I point to him.

“What was your favorite episode of Deep Space Nine?”

“Well, the truth is, DS9 and Voyager just never appealed to me. The stories didn't interest me as much as the stories on Next Generation, or Classic Trek,” I say.

Big mistake. This is not what the fans want to hear. They want to hear how I love and care about these shows as much as they do, because that's exactly what they hear from the other actors. They get up on stage, and they give the fans exactly what they want.

Well, I don't do that. I tell them what it's truly like for me, warts and all. The truth is, sometimes being on Star Trek was the greatest thing in the world. Other times, it completely sucked. And, as blasphemous as this sounds, at the end of the day it was just a job.

But when all is said and done, I am still a fan at heart. I loved the original series. I am proud of the work I did on Next Generation. I cried when Spock died, and saw Star Trek IV in theaters six times.

I failed to mention all that, however. Without that information, it can piss people off that I don't have the same unconditional love for Star Trek that they do.

I look at my watch, and I have ten minutes left to fill. I have nothing to lose, so I reach into my back pocket . . . and find it filled with material.

“I have the limited edition Star Trek Monopoly game.” I say.

“Of course, it's a limited edition of 65 million. But it's extremely valuable, because I got a number under 21 million.”

They laugh. It's funny, because it's true.

I go one better. “Plus, it's got a certificate of authenticity signed by Captain Picard!

“Yes, that's right, my Star Trek Monopoly game, which I've rendered worthless by opening, comes with a certificate of authenticity signed in ink by a fictional character.”

I see a guy in the front row say something to his buddy, and they both nod their heads and laugh.

“Cool thing about the game, though, is that there is a Wesley Crusher game piece in it, and the first time we sat down to play it as a family, Ryan grabbed Wesley and proclaimed, as only an 11-year-old can, 'I'm Wil!! I'm Wil!! Nolan!! I'm all-time Wil!! I call it!!'”

I see some people smile. I start to pace the stage. I'm hitting my stride, and the stories flow out of me.

“One time, when we were renegotiating our contracts, we all asked for raises.

“We all felt a salary increase was appropriate, because The Next Generation was a hit. It was making gobs of money for Paramount, and we felt that we should share in that bounty.

“Of course, Paramount felt otherwise, so a long and annoying negotiation process began.

“During that process, the producers’ first counteroffer was that, in lieu of a raise, they would give my character a promotion, to lieutenant.”

I pause, and look around. I wrinkle my brow, and gaze upward.

“What? Were they serious?”

A fan hollers, “Yeah! Lieutenant Crusher! Woo!”

I smile back at him.

“My agent asked me what I wanted to do. I told him to call them back and remind them that Star Trek is just a television show.”

Okay, that was risky to say. It's pretty much the opposite of just a television show to a lot of these people, but I've gotten the audience back on my side, and they giggle.

“I imagined this phone call to the bank,” I mime a phone, and hold it to my ear. “Hi . . . Uh, I'm not going to be able to make my house payment this month, but don't worry! I am a lieutenant now.” I pause, listening to the voice on the other end.

“Where? Oh, on the Starship Enterprise.”

I pause.

“Enterprise D, yeah, the new one. Feel free to drop by Ten Forward for lunch someday. We'll put it on my officer's tab!”

Laughter, and applause. My time is up, and the promoter stands at the foot of the stage, politely letting me know that it's time for me to go.

The fans see this, and I pretend to not notice him.

“In 2001, startrek.com set up a poll to find out what fans thought the best Star Trek episode of all time was. The competition encompassed all the series. The nominated episode from Classic Trek was City On The Edge Of Forever. The entry for The Next Generation was Best of Both Worlds Part II. DS9 offered Trials and Tribble-ations, and Voyager weighed in with Scorpion II.”

As I name each show, various groups of people applaud and whistle, erasing any doubt as to what their favorite show is.

“Now, look. I know that Star Trek is just a TV show. Matter of fact, I'm pretty sure I just said that five minutes ago, but there was no way I was going to let my show lose. It just wasn't going to happen. Especially not to Voyager – er, V'ger, I mean.”

“So I went into my office, sat at my computer for 72 straight hours, and voted for TNG over and over again.”

The audience giggles.

“I didn't eat, and I didn't sleep. I just sat there, stinky in my own filth, clicking and hitting F5, a Howard Hughes for The Next Generation.

“Some time around the 71st hour, my wife realized that she hadn't seen me in awhile and started knocking on the door to see what I was doing.

“'Nothing! I'm, uh, working!' I shouted through the door. Click, Click, Click . . .

'I don't believe you! Tell me what you've been doing at the computer for so long!'

“I didn't want her to know what I was doing – I mean, it was terribly embarrassing . . . I had been sitting there, in crusty pajamas, voting in the Star Trek poll for three days.”

Some people make gagging noises, some people “eeww!” But it's all in good fun. They are really along for the ride, now. This is cool.

“She jiggled the handle, kicked at the bottom of the door, and it popped open!”

The audience gasps.

“I hurriedly shut down Mozilla, and spun around in my chair.

“'What have you been doing on this computer for three days, Wil?' she said.”

I look out across the audience, and pause dramatically. I lower my voice and confidentially say, “I was not about to admit the embarrassing truth, so I quickly said, 'I've been downloading porn, honey! Gigabytes of filthy, filthy, tentacled bukkake porn!'”

I have to stop, because the ballroom rocks with laughter. It's a genuine applause break!

“She was not amused. 'Tell me the truth,' she said.

“I sighed, and told her that I'd been stuffing the ballot box in an online Star Trek poll.

“'You are such a dork. I'd have been happier with the porn.'

“I brightened. 'Really?'

“'No,' she said. She set a plate of cold food on the desk and walked out, muttering something about nerds.

“I stayed in that office for another ten hours, just to be sure. When my eyes began to bleed, I finally walked away. It took several weeks of physical therapy before I could walk correctly again, but it was all worth it. Best of Both Worlds Part II won by a landslide.”

I pause dramatically, and the theater is silent.

“And it had nothing to do with my stuffing the box. It's because Next Generation FUCKING RULES!”

I throw my hand into the air, making the “devil horns” salute that adorns my satanic T-shirt, and the audience leaps to their feet, roaring with applause and laughter.

I can't believe it. I got them back. I say thank you, give the microphone to the promoter, who is now sitting on the stage pointedly checking his watch, and exit, stage left.

. . . for the record, I only voted once in this week’s Slashdot poll, and Next Generation is crushe(r)ing everyone else with 28788 votes. The closest is TOS, with 9107. As I said in 2001, it has nothing to do with my stuffing the box. It’s because Next Generation FUCKING RULES!

Wil Wheaton taught Karl Rove everything he knows about stuffing ballot boxes. Just kidding. Wil Wheaton hopes Karl Rove dies in a fire.

Last weekend, I went to Las Vegas for Creation’s annual Star Trek extravaganza. It’s the biggest Star Trek convention of the year, and the only one I’m aware of which attracts just about all the actors from each series, and thousands of devoted Star Trek fans.

As I’ve written before, I’ve been attending cons since I was a kid, and I’ve spent almost as much time standing in line to get autographs as I’ve spent sitting behind the table signing them. It’s given me a lot of perspective on why we go to cons, what makes cons good, what makes cons bad, and inspires me to do my very best to be a good guest when I’m invited.

I don’t go to nearly as many cons as I once did, but this summer I’ve appeared at more than usual, so making the convention experience awesome for fans has been on my mind. Here’s an incomplete list of things that have been on my mind this year:

Rule One: Conventions would not exist without fans.

I don’t know why this simple fact is so difficult for so many promoters and celebrity guests to understand: these people pay your fees and keep you in business. Jonathan Frakes bought his first house with money he earned at conventions. I’m putting my son through college the same way (well, first semester, anyway, we’ll do this one year at a time.) I know countless vendors who drive all over the country to sell their collectibles and crap (yes, there’s crap, and to suggest otherwise is, at best, disingenuous) to fans. We all have to understand that, without the fans who endure great expense and effort to come to the con, there is no con. Period.

Pay attention, promoters: you have no business without the fans who come to your shows. Don’t ever forget that, and respect them. I’ve personally watched promoters figure out that they could do something awesome for fans and earn nothing but goodwill for it, or alienate, exploit, and piss off fans to earn a dollar. Time and again, these people choose to earn the single dollar.

Rule Two: Conventions can not function without volunteers.

When you see a volunteer, thank them. They’re paying to be there just like you are, but they’re also volunteering their time to help make the convention run smoothly. Yes, some of them are power hungry jerks, but most of them are freely giving their time because they love the con and want to give something back to the community. They’re almost certainly being exploited by the convention promoter. They know this, and they do it anyway. The least we can do is thank them.

Rule Three: Respect your fellow fans.

Treat your fellow fans with kindness and respect, especially when you’re in line. Keep a deck of cards, some dice, or this awesome game called Pieces of Eight, and use them to make new friends. I had a lot of fun at Comic-Con this year while I waited in different lines (even the 90 minutes I waited to get into the Futurama panel, only to get cut off by about 40 people) because the people around me were so awesome, especially when we saw the kid dressed up as Link with his MILFtastic mom who was dressed up in a skin-tight spandex Poison Ivy costume and riffed on it:

speaking of waiting in line, here is the most important note I can ever give my fellow fans: Take a fucking shower every day. If you get hot and sweaty in your costume (excuse me, uh, “uniform”) and it’s stinky, guess what? You don’t get to wear it until you’ve had it cleaned. If we can see the stink lines coming off of you when you walk into the con, we shouldn’t have to endure standing next to you for two hours while we wait in an autograph line.

Rule Four: A memo to celebrity guests who sign autographs.

If someone waits in line to meet you and get your autograph, give them a moment of your undivided attention, listen to what they have to say, and honor them. If you’re not willing to seriously interact with the people who are paying outrageous sums of money to see you, do us all a favor and don’t go. When I was at the Creation Con in Vegas last weekend, I heard horror story after horror story about people I consider close friends who simply didn’t treat fans well. I heard from one fan who waited in line for over an hour to meet a particular actor. When he finally got to the head of the line, this particular actor took a call on his/her/its cell phone, carelessly scrawled his/her/its signature with one hand, and didn’t even make eye contact with this fan who: waited in line forever, paid money to get into the con, and paid money for the autograph! As I’ve written before: It’s never about the autograph; it’s about the interaction. If you don’t get that, you shouldn’t be there. If you do get that and you still treat fans like they are nobodies on an assembly line, you’re an ass.

If you doubt how memorable and wonderful the autograph thing can be, witness this experience I had in Vegas while I signed autographs on Thursday:

It wasn't about the autograph, really. That 8x10, covered with eight different signatures in black and silver and gold ink represented a journey for her. I don't know what happened on the journey, but I was there for the end of it, and it was awesome.

Rule Five: Don’t be a dick.

This one is for fans and promoters and celebrities alike. If you’re a promoter and you’re just doing whatever you can to separate the fans from their money, you’re a dick. If you’re a guest and and you’re just there to take whatever money you can from the fans without giving them any of your time or energy, you’re a dick. If you’re a fan, and you’re determined to be unhappy no matter what happens at the show, you’re also a dick. There are always fans at conventions who will not be happy no matter what happens, and we’ve all seen them. I will never understand why someone will spend the time and money to go to a show just to be miserable and complain the entire time they are there, but they are certainly a square on convention bingo.

There was a time when the majority of conventions were essentially huge organized parties where fans could gather together, take over a hotel for a weekend, and celebrate the thing they loved, whether it was Star Trek, gaming, or just science fiction and fantasy in general. Somewhere in the last fifteen years or so, though, that began to change. Screening rooms where you could watch everything from a bootleg third generation VHS copy of Akira without subtitles to a Prisoner marathon were phased out in favor of more vendor space. Fans became segregated into “gold” and “silver” and “general admission” groups, with each getting different treatment and levels of access. Celebrity guests refused to pose for photos, and wouldn’t personalize their autographs. (I was once guilty of this, and I deeply regret it. I blame my youth, and I’ve been working to make up for it ever since). It was around 2001 that I noticed that most cons (certainly the Creation cons) had become giant autograph shows, which was great for collectors, but pretty disappointing for everyone else. I know I’m tilting at windmills here, but I’d like to see less gouging of fans and more celebrating with fans. I’d like to see more fan-run cons like LosCon or Penguicon, or shows lke Dallas Comic-Con, with organizers who put the fans first and only invite celebrity guests who have the same philosophy.

It doesn’t have to be all about squeezing every last dollar out of every last fan. In fact, that’s not why these things were started in the first place. Remember that this is supposed to be fun. We’re all here because we love [Star Trek | Gaming | Battlestar | Buffy | Dressing up like characters from Naruto | Comics] and we want to celebrate it with our fellow fans. If we can meet someone responsible for helping create the object of our affection, it’s that much better. But it’s a fragile ecosystem, and a finite economy. If we all of us – fans, guests, and promoters – play a small part to care for it, we’ll have conventions to attend for years.

Wil Wheaton don't use words like that, St. Louise is listening.

Last time . . .

We headed out of the stage and back past the Hart building.

"See that window?" I said. "That used to be Gene's office."

"Mmmm," came the reply.

"Nobody is going to care about these things like you do," I thought. "Just keep it to yourself."

I looked at the window just a little bit longer. I recalled watching Shatner's infamous "Get a Life" sketch on 3/4-inch video tape in Gene's office with some of my friends who worked there during the second season.

A few Trekkie VIPs were there on a tour, and they watched it with us. (In the pre-Internet days, it was not very easy to watch that sketch on demand – come to think of it, thanks to NBC's armada of lawyers and the DMCA, it's just as hard today.) At one point in the sketch, Shatner says, "That was the evil Captain Kirk from episode 37, The Enemy Within . . ." and all of the Trekkies derisively snorted in unison, "YOU MEAN EPISODE FOUR!" I looked at my friend, who very subtly shook his head. These were Big Deal Trekkies; pointing out that they'd just brought the sketch into the real world would have created some problems.

Back in the present, I laughed out loud, and a couple of the crew looked at me. "Memories," I said.

I led them across the lot, on a route that would appear circuitous to anyone who didn't work there for the better part of four years. On the way to the stage, I passed the same familiar and significant landmarks from my youth that I wrote about in Just A Geek: That's where I met Eddie Murphy when I was sixteen . . . Hey! I crashed a golf cart there when I was fifteen . . . There's the mail room . . . There's stage six, where the bridge set started out . . . I almost got up the courage to kiss that girl at the Christmas party on that stage in . . . there's the stage where Shatner told me, "I'd never let a kid come onto my bridge."

The next line in Just A Geek is ". . . this street feels exactly the way it did when I worked here . . . here's where my trailer used to be . . .” Though I stood in that same place, it didn't feel the same, at all. Different trailers were there, filled with different actors working on different shows, but that wasn't why I just couldn't deny that twenty years had passed since I started working here. Maybe it was the knowledge that Star Trek is really gone for good, at least the way I knew it. Maybe it was the pain in my hip . . . or the responsibility on my shoulders. Maybe it was the fact that I have two sons who are older than I was when I started working on the series. Most likely, it was a combination of all those things.

I walked a bit farther, to the entrance to stages 8 and 9. In the hallway between them, where our security guard stopped tourists and Trekkies from coming onto the sets, where our bulletin board for callsheets, shooting schedules, and my brief foray into editorial cartoons used to be, there was now some sort of big, loud . . . something, with a fan and a bunch of pipes running out of it. As much as it should have prepared me, I was just gutted when I opened the stage nine door. Instead of seeing the back of a turbolift and a corridor leading to the transporter room and engineering, I saw a bunch of sets under construction. Sets that were quite clearly houses and other rooms set squarely in the 21st – not the 24th – century.

"Wow," I thought. "It's all . . . gone."

I stood in that open doorway for a long time and just stared, working hard to replace the reality inside the stage with the memories inside my head.

". . . ready?"

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Are you ready?" The producer asked.

"Uh, yeah." I reluctantly let the door close.

"It's too loud here to shoot, so we're set up behind the stage." He said.

I followed him down the street, past where my school room – what was effectively all of high school for me – used to be. There was a production golf cart for Everyone Hates Chris there now. I lingered briefly.

Moments later, we were set up in the alley behind the stage, just outside a giant open door. I looked inside. Where Sickbay once was, there was a set that looked like a child's room. Where the Holodeck once stood (and all the shuttlecraft interiors were shot) there was a large drop cloth and a several cans of paint. Where Picard used to command the battle bridge – one of my all-time favorite sets – there was a tropical backdrop.

I sighed and blinked back some tears.

"Everything okay?" The producer asked.

"Yeah," I said. "I'm just overwhelmed by a sadness right now that I can't really explain."

"I understand," he said. "This happens whenever we work with someone from Next Generation. I don't know what it was about you guys, but every single one of you loved each other and remembers working on the show very fondly."

"I didn't know that," I said, around a lump in my throat. "But I'm not surprised. I . . . I really miss those guys."

For the next few hours, we filmed host wraps. I told stories about my time on Star Trek to anyone who would listen, and a few who wouldn't.

In front of stage 16, where this photo was taken, I recalled an encounter with Lawrence Tierney (best known as Joe in Reservoir Dogs), who played Holodeck tough guy Cyrus Redblock.

"Hey," he said to me one afternoon between scenes, "do you play football?"

I was 15 at the time, and weighed 95 pounds . . . if I was soaking wet and carrying a ten-pound weight.

"Uh, no," I said.

He leaned into me, menacingly.

"Why the hell not? What are you, some kind of sissy faggot?"

I panicked, certain that he was going to beat the shit out of me because I was more comfortable throwing 3d6 than a pigskin.

"I'm not strong enough to play football!" I said.

"Well, maybe you wouldn't be so weak if you played football!" he growled.

An assistant director arrived just in time to call us to the set and save me from certain death.

"Everyone has their own story about Planet Hell," the producer said, pulling me back to 2007, "but yours is the first one that includes a fear of death unrelated to atmospheric smoke."

"Boy, we sure like to complain about that smoke. Did you know it was mineral oil-based?" I said.

"After all the cast interviews I've done over the years, I know everything in the world there is to know about that smoke." He said, dryly.

Now it was my turn to laugh.

When the day was over, we headed back to stage 24, where they were set up to interview Ron Moore.

"How's it going?" I said to him when he walked into the stage.

"It's weird," he said. "This is the first time I've been here in years."

He looked around and his voice softened. "Did you know there aren't any writers left in the Hart building? Brannon is moving out, and he was the last one. It's just a bunch of accountants right now."

"That's poetic," I said.

He looked away for a moment and furrowed his brow.

"It's just . . . I look around here and –"

"I know." I said. "I totally grok."

We talked for a few more minutes, until they were ready for his interview.

"I will kick myself later if if I don't tell you how much I continue to love Battlestar," I said before I left. I didn't get up the nerve to add, "and I'd really love to work on it if you have anything for me, because it's just about the best sci-fi on television, ever." Later on, I kicked myself, and delivered one more to Jenny and the wimp.

"It's always good to see you," he said.

"Thanks, man. You too."

I shook hands with everyone and said goodbye. When I got out of the stage, and walked past the Hart building I stopped and looked at Gene's old office window one last time. Though I'd said goodbye to Gene at his funeral in 1991, I said goodbye to him again – and to so many other things.

On my way back to the valet, I walked past the commissary, where I ate grilled mustard chicken with curly fries a few times a week during much of the series. I remembered a day, during the third season, when I didn't have a lot of cash on hand and no credit card, so my server got severely under-tipped. I planned to make it up to him the next day, but when I walked in, he silenced the entire commissary by running toward me from the back, screaming at me for stiffing him the day before. It was the first and last time in my life I wanted someone to be fired for the way they treated me. Strangely, I still feel bad that I unintentionally stiffed the guy. Funny how those things stay with you and come back when you least expect them to.

Just past the commissary, where there used to be a company store that sold T-shirts and satin jackets celebrating the wearer's affinity for Cheers, there was now a smaller company store that included a Coffee Bean. I stepped into the same room where I once bought really cheesy TNG T-shirts and insanely cool tiny communicator pins for my friends and family, and bought myself an iced green tea.

I made my way back to the valet, where I traded my orange ticket with numbers on it for my car. While I waited for it to arrive, I struggled to put the nostalgia and associated sadness of the day into perspective. I didn't mourn the loss of my sets, as much as I mourned the time in my life those sets represented: a time when my biggest responsibility was knowing my lines and getting to the set on time, not coming up with college tuition for the next four years. A time when KROQ played music that was relevant to me, and I knew all the DJs. A time when my biggest problem in the world was getting out of costume and makeup early enough to make it to the Forum for a Kings game. A time when my life was simpler and easier, when I had the luxury of taking for granted that I would always have everything I wanted and my opportunities were as numerous as the little mirrored stars on the black velvet starfield that hung behind Ten Forward on stage 9 . . . stars that are, most likely, cut up into hundreds of little bits to be doled out at auction for the next decade.

But, complicated as it is, I really like my life. I have a beautiful wife and two children who, though they don't carry my DNA, are clearly mine in every way that matters. I'm not going to be buying a boat any time soon, but I have been able to touch lives as a writer in ways that I never could have when I wore a spacesuit, just reading the words that other people thought I should say.

The valet brought my car around, and I gave him a couple bucks from my front pocket.

"Thank you, sir," he said.

Goddamn, it's weird to be “sir."

"No problem."

I got in my car and headed toward a red light on Van Ness, where a big decision loomed: turn left and drive back over Los Feliz, the way I always used to drive? Or make a right and head down across Beverly?

Luckily, this was an easy one. I hit my blinker and began my voyage home.

Wil Wheaton doesn't need to walk around in circles.

Last week, I went to Paramount to film some host wraps for the Star Trek:TNG DVD documentary, and discovered that the old cliché is true: you can't go home again, especially when your home has been torn down and replaced with sets for a Farrelly Brothers movie.

It wasn't the first time I'd been to Paramount since Wesley Crusher turned into a magic ball of light and floated out into the galaxy to fight crime and save amusement parks from evil developers with The Traveler. In Just A Geek, I wrote,

When I worked on Nemesis several years ago, returning to Paramount to put on the uniform and immerse myself – if only for a day – in Wesley Crusher's goofy grin and wide-eyed excitement (I wrote at the time that I couldn't tell where Wesley ended and I began) it was an emotional experience. I felt genuine regret for not appreciating Star Trek more when I was on the series every day, which morphed into a general regret that when I was a teenager, I acted like . . . a teenager. Some of Just A Geek is about this, and the catharsis that came from writing it is a large reason why I was able to accept and embrace my small role in the Star Trek universe.

I went to Paramount last week to go onto our old stages and walk a camera crew through the Guardian of Forever into 1987. I didn't expect it to be particularly emotional. I was wrong.

I live in a different part of town now, and while it's faster to go through Silverlake and across Beverly, I wanted to put myself in a place where I'd be most receptive to emotional sense memories, so I added twenty minutes to my drive and went down the 2, up the 5, across Los Feliz and down Western before cutting across Sunset to Van Ness. I took this route every single day, once I got my driver's license (and a license plate frame on my Prelude that said "My other car is the Enterprise" – awesome), and at one time could probably do it with my eyes closed. I told my iPod to shuffle my '80s Alternative playlist, and after an hour of Boingo, Depeche Mode, OMD, Squeeze and The Smiths, I was, as they say, really feeling it when I pulled up to the guard gate on Melrose.

I turned down Only a Lad and rolled down my window. "Hi," I said, "I'm Wil Wheaton, and I'm going to Stage 24 for the Star Trek documentary."

The guard, who was probably in elementary school when I was piloting the Enterprise, nodded.

"May I see your ID, sir?"

Though I'm “sir” to a lot of people these days, it was bizarre to hear it in a place where I was used to being “The Kid” or “The Boy.” I pulled it out of my wallet and handed it to him.

"Okay, you're all set, Mr. Wheaton." He said. "Just pull up to the valet there. I'm sure you know your way around here?"

I smiled. "Yeah, I do."

He handed me back my ID and leaned down toward me.

"We're not supposed to do this, but I'm a big fan," he said, conspiratorially. With anyone who really was a big deal in Hollywood, he was probably risking his job.

"Really?" I said. "You seem a little young for TNG."

He grinned. "Not Star Trek, your blog."

This took me completely by surprise. I don't think that my blog has been anything special recently. I'm so unhappy with it that I've frequently considered putting it on hiatus for a few months.

"That," I said, "is totally awesome. Thank you."

He smiled and then looked over his shoulder at the other guards. He turned back to me, nodded tersely, and waved me onto the lot.

I traded my car for an orange ticket with some numbers on it and headed toward stage 24. A few minutes later, I walked past the Hart building, where TNG's writers and our fearless leader Gene Roddenberry lived while I was on the series. I stopped for a minute and looked at what had been Gene's first-story office window. I was hit by a rapid-fire montage of all the times when I walked past that window and he called me in for a visit. I looked at the empty spot on the sidewalk where Gene's golf cart used to be – the same one I frequently got in trouble for racing around the backlot. I felt the first of many tugs at my heart.

Oh boy. This is going to be one of those days, I thought, as I pulled myself back into the present and walked to stage 24 to meet the crew.

"Glad you could make it, Wil," the producer said, as my eyes adjusted from the brilliance of the day to the darkness of the empty stage.

"Me too," I said.

I looked around for a moment. Something about this place was incredibly familiar.

"Hey, you know what I just realized? I shot Family Ties here right before I started Star Trek."

"Really?"

"Yeah, I was cast as Tina Yothers' boyfriend. I only did one episode before I booked TNG, but the word on the street at the time was that Gary David Goldberg was going to write me in as a recurring character before I went into outer space." I said. "And, uh, the future."

The stage was completely empty, except for a couple of work lights and the bleachers where audiences once sat. This stage, once filled with laughter and the energy of filming "live, before a studio audience," was now little more than an empty room. My whole life, I've been in love with the magic that goes into creating the suspended disbelief of movies and television, but it wasn't until I stood in that empty stage that I fully appreciated the effort that went into transforming 12,000 square feet of soundstage into the Keaton's lives for eight years.

"So I thought we'd head over toward stage 9," the producer said to me, "and we'll shoot our host wraps in there."

"Wait." I said. "You mean we get to walk into stage 9?"

"Don't get too excited," He said, " there's nothing left from Trek in there."

Though I knew that there was no way they'd preserve our sets for twenty years, and though I knew that someone else would eventually move into our stages, just as we'd moved into the original series' stages, I still felt a little sad.

"Nothing at all?" I said. It was a stupid question. Of course there wouldn't be anything there. But like a kid who just learned that Darth Vader was just a guy in a suit, or that KITT didn't really talk, I had to ask again, just to be sure I hadn't somehow misunderstood the cold hard reality.

"They're building sets for some reshoots on a Farrelly Brothers movie," he said, "So we'll just shoot outside." I was struck by how blasé he was, which also shouldn't have surprised me. How could I expect anyone else in the world to have the same emotional attachment to those stages as I did?

"Well . . . okay," I said.

The crew got the camera and sound equipment together and loaded it on a cart that looked heavy and awkward.

"Do you know a fast and preferably easy way to get over there from here?" the camera man asked me.

I couldn't suppress a smile. "Yeah. I do."

Next Week - Journey's End:

Wil Wheaton is going to Reseda, someday, to die.

Star Trek: The Next Generation turns 20 this year, and I'm working on a special documentary for the obligatory DVD box set. It's been really fun and cool to look at the impact TNG has had over the last two decades, in consumer products, actual science, and science fiction in general.

Yesterday, I flew up to Seattle to tour the Science Fiction Museum, and talk with a couple of their curators about Star Trek, and Gene Roddenberry's induction to their Science Fiction Hall of Fame later this year.

The SFM (try not to see FSM when you read that, and you'll get a sense of what it was like to be me yesterday) was founded by Paul Allen and Jody Patton in 2004, and contains all the things you'd expect to see in a museum dedicated to Sci-Fci: a recreation of The Day The Earth Stood Still's Gort, props from Star Trek, Buck Rogers, and the original Battlestar Galactica, concept art from classic films and television series, and the definitive collection of Star Wars action figures, on loan from one of the luckiest guys in the world.

The whole place feels magical, without any of the commercialism we've come to expect from installations like Star Trek: The Experience in Las Vegas (in fact, their gift shop could have a lot more books and DVDs and collectibles in it, but if it did, it would actually be unseemly, I think) and though I was there for just a few hours before I had to get on a plane and come back home, I made sure I took some time to walk around the place (which was closed, and opened up just for our shoot) blurting out "OH MY GOD THAT'S SO COOL!" and "DUDE!" every few feet.

There were costumes from Blade Runner, an original hand-written manuscript of Neal Stephenson's and lots and lots of robots – including the original B9 robot from Lost In Space, which has a conversation with Robbie from Forbidden Planet, using sampled dialog from their respective shows. There was also the Captain's chair and two costumes from the original Star Trek, as well as a model of the sets they built all the way back in 1966 to help block shots and explain to the studio and network exactly what the inside of the Enterprise was going to look like.

While it was truly thrilling to see artifacts from the final frontier and beyond, the museum was more than just a collection of cool things: it was an affirmation of why I and so many other people around the world love science fiction, and why science fiction, whether written by Jules Verne in 1864 or directed by Ridley Scott in 1982, endures with a relevance that transcends generations.

The main floor of the museum is divided into narrative sections that illustrate various SF themes, like Cyborgs, THEM!, nanotechnology, and "What if . . . ?" While I walked around these different areas, I noticed that, regardless of when a story was written or filmed, it reflected the time in which is was created. War of the Worlds, written by H.G. Wells in 1898, was, according to Isaac Asimov, an indictment of colonialism, sort of a hot-button topic of the day. Others say it was a commentary on the creeping modernization of the world by this new fangled steam-driven technology, and Welles' fear that the pastoral simplicity of his country would be lost as a result. While some readers would just experience the fantastic story and heart-pounding battle for survival against the invading Martians, others could see a deeper meaning, as Asimov did. If you look at the first season of the new Battlestar Galactica, it's clearly all about 9/11 . . . or maybe it's just a cool space opera. We don't have to work too hard to see what Make Room! Make Room! -- which was made into the film Soylent Green -- is all about, and 1984 and Brave New World are as horrifyingly relevant today as ever. When my wife and I watched Children of Men (an absolutely magnificent film, by the way) she turned to me about an hour into the movie and said, "This is scary, because it's so plausible." She was referring, of course, not to the infertility, but the surveillance and xenophobia . . . predicted and written about by George Orwell nearly sixty years ago.

These are but a few examples of the real power that science fiction has to address current events in a context that's safe and acceptable for most audiences, while speaking very seriously about them to others. They illustrate why SF endures and resonates with casual and hardcore fans. Whether it was written one hundred years ago, or just published last month, SF can give us warnings about the future, hope for the future, or just blissful escape from the present, into fantastic worlds that are light years away – but as close as our bookshelves.

So where does Star Trek fit into all of this? How does Star Trek's relentlessly optimistic, Utopian vision of the future fit into the larger SF cannon? Why does Star Trek appeal to such a broad audience across cultures and generations? The answer came to me when I asked one of the museum's curators about Gene Roddenberry's induction into the Hall of Fame.

Star Trek, she told me, is arguably the most important and significant science fiction franchise in history, because it brought science fiction into the mainstream. It was, she said, sort of a "gateway drug" for potential SF fans, and helped lay the foundation (she said this without any intentional pun, but I sure heard it) for all the great SF that's been on television and in movies since. As the creator of Star Trek, Gene Roddenberry deserved a place next to Ray Bradbury and Ray Harryhausen, and other SF luminaries.

I've always been aware of Star Trek's legacy, and I've always been proud to be part of it, but until she said those words to me, and put Star Trek and Gene into that context, I didn't realize just how grand and important it was, and just how lucky I am, as an actor, but mostly as a geek, to be part of it. While it wasn't the first mainstream science fiction series, it was the first one that realized the potential science fiction has to inspire while it entertains.

I've often thought that Firefly was the best way to introduce normals to the world of science fiction, but after my trip through the museum yesterday, maybe Star Trek is a better – or at least just as good – place to start. If you get a chance to take a normal to the Science Fiction Museum, I highly recommend it. If you spend your quatloos wisely, you may just walk out with One of Us.

Wil Wheaton is not a robot. He's just a geek.

As I sat down to put together this week's Geek in Review, I was faced with a choice: scream and rant and rave and foam at the mouth for two thousand words about how fucking evil and stupid the RIAA is for effectively destroying internet radio, damning many of their artists to obscurity and alienating their customers in the pathetic effort to return the music world to the 1970s, or share an entertaining convention memory about signing autographs at the 35th Anniversary convention in Las Vegas which I first wrote about in my book Dancing Barefoot.

I don't want to go to this well too often, but since everyone seemed to enjoy last week's montage of convention recollections, rather than angry up the blood this week I thought I'd tell you all a story . . .

I meet up with a convention staffer and we walk together, past several hundred fans, toward a long service hallway, where several tables have been set up. I've done this countless times before, but I politely listen to her, as she tells me how I will be spending the next few hours.

"The fans will come into this hallway in groups of 25, and stop at each table for an autograph. We've asked them to move quickly, because there are hundreds of people in this line. If you need water or pens or anything, there will be several volunteers to help you out." She points to my table, which is about fifty feet down the hallway, near a fire exit.

As I walk toward my table, I pass some of my longtime friends: Michael Dorn, Marina Sirtis, Armin Shimerman. We share handshakes and hugs. It's always great to see them, and I wish that I could see them more frequently, instead of once a year at cons. I also pass some people I know only through these events: Rene Auberjonois, and some cast members from DS9 and Voyager who I know by face, but not by name. In fact, every Star Trek series and movie is represented in this hallway, including WILLIAM FUCKING SHATNER, who is talking with Kate Mulgrew. I share smiles and waves -- and a polite nod with WFS -- as I pass. We're part of the same fraternity, and we all know what we're in for over the next several hours. This is an all-too brief calm before that storm descends, and everyone is making sure they enjoy it.

I get to the end of the hall, and sit at my table. I uncap my sharpie, and put on my game face. My pen hand is strong. I'm ready to be witty, charming and friendly. Although the actual number of autographs I've signed over the years is probably close to half a million, I am determined to make each fan I am about to see feel like the autograph I'm currently signing is the only one I've signed all day, maybe the only one I've signed in my whole life.

Over the years, I've learned something from being on both sides of this table: it's never about the signature. It's about that brief moment, that brief encounter with a Star Trek cast member, that is so important to the fans. That 30 seconds or so of hopefully undivided attention is what they're really paying for, and I always do my best to make sure they get their money's worth. Contrary to popular belief, sitting at a table signing hundreds of autographs for several hours without a break is hard. It's not just mindlessly scrawling my name; It's stopping and listening to the always excited, sometimes shaking, always sweating, sometimes scary dude who wants to know exactly why I did "X" on episode "Y" and would I please sign his picture in silver . . . because Marina signed it in gold and now I want the men in silver and the women in gold, and I hated your character and here are 25 reasons why and I expect an answer for each one of them and I'm not leaving until I'm satisfied.

This particular convention is epic, and has attracted one of the largest crowds I've seen since we sold out the Royal Albert Hall to the tune of over 5,000 Trekkies around 1997. I sure hope this doesn't turn into Altamont. Well, at least I'm close to the fire exit if it does.

The fans will come down what amounts to an assembly line, where they stop at a table, enjoy their 30 seconds of attention and trade a ticket for an autograph. They move to the next table, and repeat.

I personally think that this "assembly line" method, while the only one that really works -- especially for a huge crowd like this -- has the potential to totally suck for the fans: the first one hundred or so who come through the line will get to see a smiling, effusive, friendly actor, and will leave feeling happy and satisfied. Those unlucky ones who are at the end of the line risk seeing actors who are tired, with cramped hands and degraded signatures.

It is a challenge for me, but I never forget that not only have the last fans through the line have paid as much as the first fans, but they've also waited much longer, so they are the ones that I need to give the most attention to when I am the most drained. I know that as I get toward the end of the line, my humor slows down, and my voice fades. I'm sure I've let a lot of people down over the years, but I always do my best.

I think about all these things as I see the first fan walking down the hallway, trading tickets and getting signatures from actors. I watch her as she goes table to table. She's not wearing a spacesuit . . . that's a good sign. She has a witty sci-fi T-shirt on. Also a good sign. About 20 feet away, I still can't smell her. A VERY good sign.

She arrives at my table, and I cheerfully say, "Hi! How are you doing today?!"

"AWFUL! THIS IS THE WORST CONVENTION I HAVE EVER BEEN TO! I HATE DAVE SCOTT! I HATE LAS VEGAS! I HATE THIS CONVENTION!"

Oh boy. This is not the way I'd hoped to start out.

Though the promoter, Dave Scott, will eventually take a lot of money from a lot of people and make a lot of enemies on his way to Fandom Infamy (I believe there is a pretty serious and extensive lawsuit pending against him in Kansas, and he polls about even with Dick Cheney among Trekkies,) as of this moment, I haven't had any problems with him. As far as I know, he's a decent guy, so I try to soothe her. "Uhh . . . I think . . . that . . . this convention . . . just started . . . and . . . uhh . . . I'm sure that if you talk to Dave Scott, everyt–"

"DAVE SCOTT IS AN ARROGANT ASSHOLE!"

"Uh . . . yeah . . . well, you see, the thing is, I'm sort of not exactly involved in the planning of this convention, you know? I'm just, like, a guest . . . maybe you could try talking with som–"

"THIS IS THE MOST FAN-UNFRIENDLY CONVENTION I HAVE EVER BEEN TO!"

And she storms away, without an autograph, without another word.

I look at Marina, who's one table down from me, on the other side of the fire exit. Angry Fan has stormed past her, too. Marina shrugs, and I make the international sign for "crazy person" by twirling my finger near my temple.

Mid-twirl, I hear a man clear his throat, and I look up to see a smiling middle-aged face. He has a dark beard, and is dressed as Commander Riker. He gives his autograph ticket to the volunteer sitting next to me, and asks me to sign his model of the Enterprise D. He thanks me, shakes my hand and moves along.

And so it is in the world of Star Trek conventions. One person will scream at me, and the next will want to give me a hug. A person will walk up dressed in an elaborate Borg costume, and the next person will be dressed in a T-shirt and Dickies, quietly laughing at "all the weirdos."

For the next three hours, I sign pictures of the young, geeky Wesley Crusher. I sign posters of the teen heartthrob that I'm told I once was. I sign cast posters that I'm not even on, in silver because everyone else did, accepting the apologies from the poster owners that I'm not on the poster I'm currently signing. I always answer with the same joke: "That's okay, you just can't see me, because I'm on this planet here . . ." They laugh and feel good and so do I.

It's uneventful for awhile, until a group of very attractive German girls comes over next, and two of them tell me, in broken English, how much they love me. I think to myself, Oh yeah, tell me some more, baby. Tell daddy how you love him. Ich bin ein sexmachiner!

What?

Oh. That. Sorry. Moving along . . .

There are also two dozen Japanese twenty somethings who have all come over together from Tokyo. Every single one of them is excited, and clearly having a great time. I watch them come down the hallway, talking excitedly among themselves between explosions of laughter and peace-sign poses for pictures. The girls ask me to write their names on their picture when I sign it, and they giggle and bow and blush and thank me, over and over. They may not love me like the Germans do, but they are insanely hot in their schoolgirl outfits and Linn Minmay costumes. For a second, I feel like a rock star.

One of the Japanese group is a boy, about my height. When he presents his Wesley Crusher action figure for my signature, he tells me, "My friend all say I am you twin!"

They all nod in agreement and he smiles proudly. "We look just the same!"

Last time I checked, I wasn't Japanese, but I'm not about to tell him that. I look at him for a moment and reply, "Dude. You are so right. It's like I'm looking in a mirror!"

He turns to his friends, says something in Japanese, and they all share an excited murmur, followed by the now-familiar explosion of laughter. I pick up my pen, and write: "To Hiroyuki, my long lost twin brother: Don't Panic! -Wil Wheaton."

He thanks me over and over. His smile is so huge, I fear that his face will turn inside out. As he walks away from my table, I feel happy – I've brought joy into this dude's life, just by signing my name and being friendly. It's one of the few perks (or responsibilities, if you will) that comes with celebrity that I truly enjoy.

A bit later, about 200 or so people into the line, I have one of those memorable "battlefield" experiences that we Star Trek actors share during at an airport bar in Chicago, on our way home after a convention in Cleveland.

I've just finished signing a poster for a 40-ish man who is wearing a spacesuit that is a little too tight across the waist. He's painted his face blue, and donned a white wig topped with antennae, like the Andorians from the original Star Trek. The next person in line is a woman in her 30s, dressed conservatively.

I say hello, and she smiles at me . . . until she sees my T-shirt, and becomes hysterical. She points at it and screeches at me, "You are going to hay-ell! You are going to hay-ell!"

"Why am I going to hell, ma'am?" I ask, trying to figure out if she is joking. I am wearing a black T-shirt with a cartoony picture of a hand throwing the goat. Beneath it, it says, "Keep Music Evil." I think it's very funny, and it's a nice counter-point to the squeaky-clean image of Wesley Crusher that is so indelibly burned into these people's minds.

"You're wearing that shirt! And that shirt promotes SATAN!"

Okay, she's definitely not joking.

"So . . . I'm going to hell . . . because I'm wearing a shirt? Is that right?" I ask her, patiently.

"Yes! You! Are! Going! To! HAY-ELL!"

"Well, as long as I'm not going where you are, ma'am."

And she leaves, but not without getting my signature, on her collectible plate, in gold ink, not silver, because John DeLancie signed his in silver, so now silver is the color reserved for "Q." Nobody else can sign in silver. Not even a captain. Well, maybe Captain Picard, but not Captain Janeway.

I am able to contain my giggles until she is out of ear-shot.

"Is it always like this?" the volunteer sitting at my table inquires.

"Oh no," I say. "Sometimes it gets weird."

We laugh, and the signing goes on.

And on.

And on.

Wil Wheaton is looking forward to seeing you all in HAY-ELL! Have a nice day.

There's this great xkcd that illustrates how you can start reading about the Tacoma Narrows Bridge at Wikipedia, and three hours later find yourself with William Howard Taft and Wet T-Shirt Contest open in two tabs. It's funny, the saying goes, because it's true.

I mention this as an introduction to how I came across this rather embarrassing but hilarious photo earlier this week, while looking for "zombie wil wheaton" on google images. (The entire story behind that little affair is in my blog, if you're interested.)



I had completely forgotten about it, but the photo is from 1987 or 1988, when I made my very first official Star Trek convention appearance at a little indie con in Florida (Tampa, I think it was.) I was just about fifteen at the time, and such a nerd.

In addition to the normal convention things, they asked me to play Star Trek Jeopardy. Being fifteen, and a total nerd, I couldn't just stand up there like a normal person. Oh no. I had to walk into the dealer's room, and pester (I would have insisted that I just asked, but if I recall anything about myself at fifteen it's that I had two settings: annoy and sulk) the hapless dealers for the various bits of costume and makeup to turn myself into "Mr. Schlock," who you see pictured here.

Overcome by nerves and a lack of hardcore Star Trek trivia knowledge (I was just a kid, after all,) I did very poorly at the game, but I think the audience was entertained, even when I got the class of the Enterprise-D – that's my Enterprise, for those of you keeping score at home – wrong. I believe I said, in my most serious and Mr. Spock-like voice, "What is 'Superhyperreallyfast Constitution Awesome Class, Vince?"

The funny thing is, until I typed those words, I didn't remember that the promoter's name was Vince, but when the sound of my fifteen year-old voice spoke to me across twenty years of memory, it sort of opened a flood of memories about my years on the convention circuit . . .

If you're unfamiliar with Star Trek conventions, this primer from my book Just A Geek may be helpful:

The first time I was on stage at a convention was in Anaheim, right around the time Next Generation started. I wasn't there "officially," but my friend and I had gone to check it out, so if I was asked to attend cons in the future, I'd know what I was getting into.

The promoter found out I was wandering around the show – I'd paid to get in and everything, so it would be on the down low – and offered me the glorious sum of one hundred bucks – in cash! – to speak for an hour. To a 14 year-old, a hundred bucks sounds an awful lot like a million, and without knowing how badly I was being ripped off (the average person who speaks at a convention earns between five and ten thousand dollars for their time,) I gleefully accepted the "generous" offer and did my best to answer questions for an hour.

If you think it went well, you haven't spent any quality time around a fourteen year-old (geek or otherwise) recently . . . but I had my one hundred bucks, which I spent on books and props in the dealer's room. If this sounds an awful lot like my short story The Trade, it's because I apparently learned nothing about negotiation and money management between the ages of eight and fourteen.

Things were really different back then, long before Creation pretty much forced everyone else out of the market and eliminated a lot of the individuality of regional conventions. Back then, there were as many convention promoters as there were Holiday Inns around the country willing to host a few hundred Trekkies for a weekend, and every single con had its own unique feeling.

I remember going to a convention with my mom in Philadelphia, where she got food poisoning. I don't remember a thing about the convention, but I can still see and feel the waiting area in the emergency room ,dark wood on the walls, old magazines on the tables and chairs, ugly white and yellow linoleum tiles on the floor, where I spent the entire night playing Tetris on my Gameboy and listening to The Final Cut on my Walkman, trying not to be too freaked out that my mom was in the hospital and we were a million miles from home. ("A million" was the default value for "a lot" when I was a kid.)

When I was 18 or 19, I learned that even if the microphone really looks like a Magic Wand massager, it's probably not the smartest thing to tell the audience, "Wow! I'm talking into some sort of marital aid!" when you're in the middle of the Bible Belt.

I remember flying to New Jersey to do a convention with Marina Sirtis, and playing head to head Tetris on our Gameboys the entire flight. I had a massive crush on her back then, and though the thought crossed my mind for most of the trip, I didn't have the courage or the nerve to suggest strip head-to-head Tetris when we arrived. In my sixteen year-old mind, it totally would have happened if I had.

Once, in Oklahoma, I was a guest at a dinner where I sat with a few other Trek actors while some Boy Scouts served us. The menu had barbecued chicken, beef, and bologna.

"Wait," I remember telling the kid, who was about the same age as me, "barbecued bologna?"

"Yeah," he said, "it's center-cut."

Neither one of us knew what that meant, but I'd grown up white trash enough to know that bologna was not something I wanted to eat, even – no, especially – if it was barbecued. The problem, however, is that barbecued bologna was a local delicacy, and I was seated at the head table.

I ate it, pretended to like it, and until today, nobody was the wiser.

At LosCon in Pasadena, right after I'd gotten my driver's license and first car (1989 Honda Prelude si 4WS, which was unintentionally one step better than Patrick Stewart's and the subject of much backstage teasing) I met my first Science Fiction idol, Larry Niven.

The meeting went something like this:

Me: Oh my god, you're Larry Niven!

Him: Oh my god, you're Wesley on Star Trek!

Both: What?

Both: Can I have your autograph?!

Both: Yes!

Both: COOL!

I still have my copies of Ringworld and Ringworld Engineers that he signed for me.

They weren't all good times, of course; while most of the cons were fantastic, and run by guys like Vince who really cared about fans and wanted them to have a good time, others were pretty awful, run by complete con artists who just wanted to take their money and get out of town before anyone figured out what they were up to, like a couple of guys who still owe a lot of fans and actors money that we'll never see.

I remember one of those guys (in the pre-internet days) convincing 16 year-old me that it was a "short drive" from Amarillo to Denton, and not having the good sense to look on a map for myself, I agreed to do two different cities in two different days. As the drive across Texas entered its third hour, I learned an important lesson about not ever trusting anyone.

On countless occasions, someone would tell fans one of us was coming to a show, take their money, and then claim that we'd canceled at the last minute. Of course, the only time any of us had heard about the show was when an irate fan wanted to know why we'd backed out of it.

For you damn kids today who have always had e-mail and the Internets and cell phones, it may be hard to picture a world where a Gameboy was high tech, but it's where I came of age. That world seemed bigger than it does today, and from time to time, I miss driving straight from Paramount to LAX on Friday after work, and falling asleep on the red eye somewhere over New Mexico while still wearing Wesley's helmet hair.

It was a lot of work to travel the country every weekend, and over the years the Holiday Inns all bled together like a smear of Sharpie ink across the heel of my hand after a marathon autograph session, but there were many more good times than bad. It was fun to see so many different places and people, all united by their love of this thing that I was lucky enough to be part of – at least until the alt.wesley.die.die.die thing really got rolling.

There are still a few regional gaming cons and comic cons and Linux cons and cavecons every year, but not a lot of purely Star Trek conventions exist any more, as far as I can tell. Part of it has to be economics, and how hard it is to compete with Creation, but I also I blame The Powers That Be for making several years of sucktastic Trek that wasn't worth watching, much less traveling to a Holiday Inn to celebrate.

Over the last couple of years, I've begun attending conventions again, but now I go as a fan. I'm glad that I stopped going to cons for work, because I don't think I would have ever been able to appreciate how fun they are when you're just there to geek out. Those of us who will cram thirteen of our friends into a hotel room for a weekend to geek out together have a place to go where not only will we not be laughed at for dressing up but encouraged to do it (except the furries; those weirdos are on their own.) We can invade a hotel for a weekend, pretend it's like the cereal convention in Sandman, and recover enough hit points to survive our real lives until the next one.

The world has changed a lot in twenty years. Star Trek has been taken off the air as a first run series and, as Ron Moore said, "returned to the care of the fans," who kept it alive with conventions and the like from its cancellation in 1969 until the movies started in 1979. Gameboys and Walkmans have been replaced by PSPs and iPods, and indie cons which were once scattered across the country have been replaced by a handful of bigger cons in major cities, run by Creation.

The last few shows I attended as a guest felt more like marketplaces for completists and collectors than real parties for the fans, but now that Trek has been given back to them, I suspect that will slowly change. And with that in mind, one thing remains unchanged in twenty years: as a speaker and as a fan, taking that Friday red eye sounds like a pretty cool thing to do.

Wil Wheaton won no awards for his portrayal of Mr. Schlock, and the role was quietly replaced by Poochie in 1989.

In Part I of this turgid tale, WILLIAM FUCKING SHATNER told your humble narrator, "I'd never let a kid onto my bridge," and humiliated, embarrassed, and crushed his fragile teenage ego.

However, the Enterprise wasn't going to fly itself, so he had to suck it up and get back to work.

Enjoy the conclusion of WILLIAM FUCKING SHATNER. I hope it was worth the wait.

I walked into the stage, and took my seat at the conn, next to Brent Spiner.

"I heard about Shatner," Brent said.

Jesus, was this on the news or something?

"Yeah," I said.

"You know he wears a toupee, right?"

I giggled. "No, I didn't know that."

"Yep. He's balder than old baldy up there." He tossed a gold thumb over his shoulder at Patrick.

I giggled some more, as the stored up adrenaline coursed through my veins. "Boy, that's pretty bald."

"Yep." Brent put his hands up on his console.

The first AD said, "This will be picture," and we all focused.

"Picture is up! Very quiet please!" He shouted, "Roll camera!"

"25 apple, take 1," the sound mixer said, "Sound has speed!"

The camera assistant clapped the slate.

"Action!" said the director.

Patrick entered from his Ready Room, and walked to the captain's chair.

"Mister Crusher, take us out of orbit, and lay in a course for the Ramatis system, warp 6" He said.

"Aye sir," my fingers danced over the CONN. "Course laid in, sir."

"Make it so, Mister Crusher."

The camera creaked back on the dolly track, as the Enterprise D went to warp speed.

"Cut! Great! New deal!" the director said.

"Wrong set! We are moving to the Observation lounge for scene 55!" said the 1st AD, "The actors can relax for about 10 minutes."

On my way back to my trailer, the DGA trainee stopped me. "Gene Roddenberry would like you to call his office, Wil."

"Okay."

I changed direction, and walked to the stage phone. My heart began to beat hard in my chest. Had Gene heard too? WILLIAM FUCKING SHATNER had known Gene for over 20 years . . . oh my god. Was Gene going to be pissed at me?

I passed the craft service table, setup behind the starfield that hung next to the Ten-Forward set. Michael Dorn and Jonathan Frakes were pouring cups of coffee.

"To hell with him, W," Jonathan said. I love it when he calls me "W."

"To hell with who?" Michael asked.

"Shatner took a shit all over the Teen Idol," Jonathan told him.

Beneath his latex Klingon forehead, Michael rolled his eyes. "You want me to kick his ass, Wil?"

"No, that's okay. Thanks, though." I said.

"I've got your back, man," Michael said.

I dialed Gene's office, and told his secretary that I was returning Gene's call.

"He's expecting your call. Just a second, Wil." There were two clicks, and Gene's soft, gentle, friendly voice was in my ear.

"Hi Wil, how are you?"

"I'm okay . . ." I swallowed hard. ". . . how are you?"

"Fine, fine. I understand that you had some words with Bill Shatner today."

Oh my god. Was he going to be mad at me?

"Uh . . . yeah . . ." I said.

"Wil, Bill Shatner is an ass. Don't you worry about him, okay? I am proud to have you on my show. Don't you ever forget that."

Did Gene just call WILLIAM FUCKING SHATNER an ass? And then he said that he was proud of me?

"Gosh, Gene, thanks," was the best I could do.

"Come by my office soon, okay?"

"Okay."

"See you then." He hung up.

I began to feel better. Although a childhood hero had kicked me in the nuts, a bunch of people who I cared about and respected had all made efforts to put it in perspective. I felt loved, and protected.

The next day, when I got to work, there was an envelope on my dressing room table. It was addressed "To Master Wil Wheaton" and was "From the Office of William Shatner."

I dropped my backpack, and tore it open.

Inside, there was a single three by eight note card. The Paramount Pictures logo was stamped into the top in blue, and "William Shatner" was stamped into the bottom in gold.

There was a message typed on the card, which said,

He'd signed it in ink. Blue ink. My mouth hung open, and my hands trembled a bit. I held it up to the light, to make sure it was real. The phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Wil? It's Gene," I recognized his voice immediately.

"Good morning Gene," I said.

"I spoke with Bill Shatner yesterday, and he should be dropping a note off for you today."

"It's already here," I said. I read it to him.

"Good. You are a fine young actor," he said. "See you later."

I couldn't believe it. Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek and The Great Bird of the Galaxy, had called WILLIAM FUCKING SHATNER, Captain James T. Kirk and director of Star Trek V, and asked him to apologize to me, Wil Wheaton, the 16 year-old acting ensign and drooling fan boy. Of all the wonderful gifts Gene gave me over the years, that is one of the most fondly remembered, because I know that without Gene's intervention that note never would have been written.

Epilogue

Over the years, whenever I ran into WFS at a convention, he was aloof to me at best, downright rude to me at worst. I heard so many other stories from so many other people who had an experience similar to mine, I just accepted that WFS wasn't the nicest person in the world (or at least not the most personable) and what I once took personally faded into a funny-but-sad story.

Unlike a lot of Trekkies, I was able to separate the actor from the character, though, and I was able to still enjoy classic Trek, and Star Trek II - Star Trek IV, as well as many hours of TJ Hooker.

Heh. Just kidding. I only watched TJ Hooker once, and that was because I lost a bet.

Unlike a lot of Trekkies, I thought WFS's "get a life" sketch on SNL was hilarious, and I thought it was an interesting turning point for him; after that sketch, he seemed much more willing to laugh at himself, and though I continued to hear stories of him being kind of a dick to people in private, at least publicly he seemed to take himself less seriously. (See his brilliant performance in Free Enterprise for an example.)

Then, in 2001, I played on a special Star Trek edition of the game show Weakest Link, with members of every Star Trek cast, including William Shatner. I had a wonderful time, and in front of a national prime time television audience, I held my own with my peers. I didn't win, but I made the host, Ice Queen Anne Robinson, laugh three separate times (which strangely didn't make it onto TV.)

Before we began filming, I sat in the green room (a place where actors hang out while they get stuff ready. There's food, drinks and TV, usually) and watched the World Series . . . with WILLIAM FUCKING SHATNER.

Yeah. It was really weird sitting there, talking about baseball with him like . . . we were just a couple of guys watching baseball. We talked about Randy Johnson versus Curt Shilling, and discussed the various strategies employed by the teams during the few innings we watched. He was kind. He was funny. He was warm. He was genuine. He talked nerdy sabremetrics with me. He was just a really nice and charming guy. In fact, he was so friendly to me, I assumed that he'd forgotten that I was that kid from Next Generation, or had me confused with someone else he'd worked with who he liked. (It could happen; I've been mistaken for Heather Locklear so many times, I started getting my roots done regularly and bought lower heels.)

In retrospect, the whole experience felt too good to be true, so over a year later, when he did "Ask William Shatner Anything at Slashdot, I asked him . . .

I was pretty sure I'd get some solid karma-whoring points, and maybe a +5, Funny, but I didn't expect an answer. I certainly didn't expect the answer I got:

Right there, in front of every geek in the world, WILLIAM FUCKING SHATNER told me we were "cool." Of course, the "personal time" he mentioned could be in a Turkish prison, and who knows if he really meant it, but he could have simply ignored the question (I've done two Ask Wil Wheaton Anything interviews at Slashdot, and the editors send about 40 questions to you, with the expectation that you'll answer at least half of them) if he really thought I was a dick, so I decided not to read too much into it and accept it at face value. Though he'd once pulled off my fake rubber ears and pushed me face down into a puddle while the rest of the senior class stood around and laughed, as of 2002, WILLIAM FUCKING SHATNER and I were cool.

Wil Wheaton was not surprised when a crack in the ice appeared under his feet.

If you're a longtime reader of my blog, you know that I refer to the first bald captain of the Enterprise as WILLIAM FUCKING SHATNER. The origin of this charming name was first published in my book Dancing Barefoot.

Because my "Star Trek: The Experience" story from Barefoot received such a positive response back in January, I'm going to share the WFS story for the first time online, in two parts.

I first met William Shatner on the set of Star Trek V back in 1988. I was 16, and had been working on TNG for two years at the time. We were enjoying some success with our show, and I was very proud of the work I was doing. When I found out that the original series cast would be working next door to us for two months, I was beside myself.

Gene Roddenberry was still heavily involved with the production of TNG back then, and he and I were good friends. When I'd pass by his door, it was not uncommon for him to throw an executive out of his office and ask me in for a visit. He knew that I was a fan of the original series, and he knew that I was more than a little intimidated by these actors. He offered several times to make introductions, but I always declined. If I was going to meet these legends of Science Fiction, I was going to do it on my own.

Every day, I tried to get up the nerve to introduce myself. When I would walk from the stage to my dressing room or school room, I would do it slowly, looking at their stage door, hoping to catch a glimpse of Mister Spock, or Doctor McCoy, or even the legendary Captain Kirk. The few times they did appear, though, I could never find the courage to approach them.

This went on for about six weeks.

Word got around our set that I was too chicken to introduce myself to the original series actors. It became something of a joke, and the crew began to give me some good-natured ribbing about my reluctance. Next Generation was immensely popular at the time, and I was still riding high on the success of Stand by Me. They couldn't understand why I was so intimidated by these actors – my face was splashed across the cover of every teen magazine in print.

Why was I so intimidated? I was a 16 year-old geek, with a chance to meet The Big Three from Star Trek. You do the math.

One afternoon, while I was sitting outside stage 9 talking with Mandy, my costumer, they opened the huge stage door across the way, and I could see right into the set of Star Trek V. It was a large area, like a cargo bay, filled with extras and equipment. It was quite different from our set, but it was unmistakably The Enterprise. Standing in the middle of it all was William Shatner. He held a script open like it was a holy text. The way he gestured with his hands, I could tell that he was setting up a shot and discussing it with the camera crew.

I waited for the familiar rush of nerves, but it didn't come. Seeing him as a director and not as Captain Kirk put me at ease. I knew that this was my moment. If I didn't walk over and introduce myself right then, I would never do it.

I was wearing the grey "acting ensign" space suit. That costume was quite uncomfortable, so I'd take the top half off whenever I got the chance. Because it was a jumpsuit, I would tie the sleeves around my waist, and wear a lightweight fleece jacket, zipped up to cover the embarrassing muscle suit the producers had me wear.

We all wore those muscle suits, but I think I was the most traumatized by it. I've always been a very slight person without much muscle mass (even now, at age 30, I weigh 145 pounds at 5'10" and having to wear all that thick padding did little to improve my fragile teenage self esteem.

I turned to Mandy, and took off my fleece. I asked her to zip up my spacesuit, and fasten the collar. If I was going to meet William Shatner, I was going to do it looking as "Starfleet regulation" as I could.

She made sure my costume looked good enough for camera, and wished me good luck. I got a high-five from one of the teamsters as I confidently walked across the street and into the cargo bay of the Enterprise 1701-A.

It took about eight steps for my confidence to evaporate. Surrounded by extras in Starfleet dress, standing next to a shuttlecraft, William Shatner the director, was immediately transformed into Captain Kirk, the intergalactic legend. I was transformed from Wil Wheaton, fellow actor and film industry professional, into Wil Wheaton, the drooling fanboy and Star Trek geek.

I looked around. I guess I blended in well, because nobody had noticed me. I turned to make my escape, and bumped into a still photographer who had worked on TNG the first season.

"Hey, Wil. What are you doing here?" he asked.

I swallowed, and looked at the stage door.

"Oh, uh, I just came over to, um, look around, and, uh, stuff." I said. I shuffled my feet, and began to move back toward the familiarity of my own spaceship.

"Well, as long as you're here, you should meet Mr. Shatner!"

Mr. Shatner? Who was Mr. Shatner? Is he talking to Captain Kirk?

He turned toward them, and called out, "Hey! Bill! Come here a second!"

My heart began to beat rapidly as he turned toward us. Captain Kirk looked right at me. I froze. He gave his book to someone, and began to walk in our direction. I involuntarily straightened my back, and sucked in my stomach. My muscle suit felt tight and awkward around my arms and chest.

Within seconds he was standing next to us. He was about my height, and looked heavier than he did on television.

Captain James T. Kirk of the starship Enterprise said, "What can I do for you?"

"Well, Bill, this is Wil Wheaton. He's part of the cast of The Next Generation, and he'd like to meet you."

Captain Kirk looked at me for a long time.

"So . . . you're the kid on that show?" He seemed annoyed.

My throat and mouth were dry, and my palms were sweating. My heart pounded in my ears, as I answered. "Uh, yes, sir. My name's Wil."

He continued to look at me. I carefully wiped my hand on the hip of my spacesuit, and extended it. "Nice to meet you," I said.

He didn't take my hand.

"What is that, your spacesuit?" He said, and made a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a cough.

"Oh? This? Yeah. It's not as cool as yours, but it's what they tell me to wear." I put my hand down. I really wanted to leave. I felt a little light headed. Why wouldn't Captain Kirk shake my hand? And why didn't he like my spacesuit? Could he see the fake muscles? Maybe he didn't like the color. I became hyper-aware of the spandex, clinging to my body, and longed for the comfort of my fleece jacket.

"Well?" He asked.

Oh no. He'd asked me a question, and I'd missed it.

"Excuse me?" I replied.

"I said, what do you do over there?" he asked. There was a challenge in his voice.

"Oh, uh, well, I'm an acting ensign, and I sometimes pilot the ship." Maybe he'd be impressed that I'd already logged several hours at the helm of the Enterprise D, all before the age of 16.

"Well, I'd never let a kid come onto my bridge." He said, and walked away.

Captain James Tiberius Kirk, of the Starship Enterprise 1701, and Enterprise 1701-A, the only person in Starfleet to ever defeat the Kobiyashi Maru, the man behind the Corbomite Maneuver, the man who took the Enterprise to the Genesis planet to return Spock's katra, the man who I had admired since I was eight years old, was immediately transformed into WILLIAM FUCKING SHATNER.

I bit my lip, and turned to say good-bye to the still photographer who had made the introduction, but he had vanished as well.

I walked back to my own stage with my head down, avoiding eye contact the entire way. When I got to the entrance, I found Mandy, and asked her to unzip my costume, so I could put my fleece back on.

As she unzipped the back, she said, "did you get to meet William Shatner?"

"Uh-huh." I didn't want to let on that I was upset.

"What's wrong?" she asked, as she handed me my fleece jacket. There was concern in her eyes.

"Well . . ." I hesitated. Saying it out loud would make it real. "He was kind of a dick to me."

Her eyes widened, and she gasped. "What?! Why? What happened?!"

I fought back tears, and recounted our introduction.

"What an asshole!" She said, "Oh, Wil, I am so sorry!"

I nodded my head, and she gave me a hug. I drew a deep breath, shrugged my shoulders, and walked back to my trailer, where I sat down and cried. I had spent weeks getting up the courage to meet this man, and in less than five minutes he had insulted and humiliated me. With just a few words, he had reduced me from peer to peon. I had worn my stupid costume, because I thought that it would impress him, and he'd made fun of it.

15 minutes later, an assistant director knocked on my door, and told me that they were ready for me on the set. I stood up, wiped my face off, and told him that I'd need to make a quick stop at the makeup trailer on my way. He radioed this information to the 1st AD, and told me to hurry.

I walked to the makeup trailer, taking great pains to look at the ground, the walls, the sky . . . anything that would keep my head turned away from the Star Trek V stage.

I sat in the chair, and my makeup artist, Jana, began to touch me up.

"I heard about what Shatner did to you." she said. "Fuck him. He's a jerk, and has been for years. He's probably just jealous that you're younger, better looking, and more famous than he is."

I sighed. I didn't want him to be a jerk, and I didn't think that he was jealous of anything. I was certain that I'd done something wrong.

"I guess so." I said, as noncommittally as I could.

She put down her makeup sponge, and turned the chair away from the mirror, so I was facing her. She looked me in the eye, and said, "Don't let him upset you, Wil. He's not worth it."

"Okay," I lied. I knew I was going to be upset about this for a long time, and may even write a two part story about it some day.

"Okay," she said, and dusted my nose with translucent powder.

Next week:

Wil Wheaton is just a happy kid, stuck with the heart of a sad punk.

I am in Las Vegas right now for the 2007 Consumer Electronics Show, taping a couple of shows for InDigital, and trying my best not to go deaf or catch the bird flu.

As I prepared for this trip, I thought I may pull together a Geek In Review that focuses on non-gambling activities for geeks who are visiting Sin City, so I started with The Pinball Hall of Fame, and then moved on to Star Trek: The Experience at the Las Vegas Hilton.

That's as far as I got, because when I thought about Star Trek: The Experience, my mind kept drifting back to the first time I, uh, experienced it, and it's a story that seemed to fit very well with the stuff I write about in this column.

Star Trek: The Experience should be visited by every Trekkie in the world, at least once, but that's not why I wanted to write about it. I wanted to write about it because it's very important and special to me, because of an experience I had there in 2001.

What follows is excerpted from my second book, Just A Geek:

I spent the first week of September 2001 in Las Vegas, at a Star Trek convention which celebrated the 35th anniversary of the original series.

In addition to the things we Star Trek people usually do at conventions (signing autographs, posing for pictures, answering questions, and saying “Engage!”), I spent some quality time at Star Trek: The Experience. The entire convention experience is chronicled in The Saga of SpongeBob Vega$Pants, which is the centerpiece of my first collection of essays, Dancing Barefoot.

Here's a primer for readers who aren't familiar with Star Trek Conventions: Conventions (or “cons", as they are known among people who are too busy to say “conventions”) are part trade show, part collectible show, and part geek-fest. It all adds up to a celebration of everything related to Star Trek, and the atmosphere is always festive and excited.

Promoters hire actors, writers, producers and others from the show to give lectures, answer questions, and sign autographs for the fans. There are also people who sell collectibles and bootlegs, and other sci-fi and fantasy oriented merchandise. The organizers usually run episodes of Star Trek on a big screen, and there are always costume contests. Oh, the costume contests. Think Rocky Horror Picture Show, with less drag, but strangely more singing. In Klingon. Seriously.

The convention was awesome, but it was nothing compared what happened to me when I went on Star Trek: The Experience . . .

We're all in a line, watching some monitors. An actor is describing to us how the safety belts work, or something, when all the lights go out. The monitors flicker, lights strobe, there are some special effects and a gust of air. When the lights come back up, we're standing in the transporter room on the Enterprise.

I didn't expect this. I am stunned and stare at my surroundings. It's amazing.

The Transporter Chief says, “Welcome to the 24th century. You are aboard the starship Enterprise.”

She could have said to me, “Welcome to 1987, Wil. You are on Stage 9.”

She touches her communicator and says, “I have them, Commander.”

Jonathan Frakes' voice booms over the comm, “Good work, Lieutenant. Please take them to the bridge.”

We leave the transporter room and walk down a long corridor which is identical to the ones I walked down every day. I realize as we walk that, in my mind, I'm filling in the rest of the sound stage. I'm surprised when we don't end up in engineering at the end of the corridor. Instead, we are herded into a turbolift, where we enjoy some more special effects. The turbolift shakes and hums . . . it's infinitely cooler than the real ones we would stand in for the show.

When the turbolift doors open, and reveal the bridge of the Enterprise, I gasp.

The bridge is a nearly-perfect replica of ours, with a few minor differences that are probably imperceptible to anyone who didn't spend the better part of five years on it. The hum of the engines, which had only existed in my imagination on Stage 8, is now real. I stare at the view screen, where a beautiful starfield gives the appearance of motion. I remember how much I hated doing blue screen shots on the bridge and how much I loved it when they'd lower the starfield. When I looked at those thousands of tiny mirrors, glued onto a screen of black velvet, I could lose myself in the wonderful fantasy that this spaceship was as real as the view.

I am consumed by hypernostalgia.

I am 14-years-old, walking out of the turbolift during Encounter at Farpoint. Corey Allen, the director, excitedly tells me, “Picard controls the sky, man! He controls the sky!”

I am 15-years-old, sitting in my ugly grey spacesuit at the CONN. My fake muscle suit bunches up around my arms. I feel awkward and unsure, a child who desperately wants to be a man.

I am 16-years-old, working on an episode where I say little more than, “Aye, sir.” I want to be anywhere but here.

I am 17-years-old, wearing a security uniform for Yesterday's Enterprise. I am excited to stand in a different place on the bridge, wear a different uniform, and push different imaginary buttons.

I hear the voices of our crew, recall the cool fog that hung around our trailers each morning from Autumn until Spring.

I recall walking to the Paramount commissary with the cast, on our way to have lunch meetings with Gene before he died.

I have an epiphany.

Until this moment, all I have been able to remember is the pain that came with Star Trek. I'd forgotten the joy.

Star Trek was about sitting next to Brent Spiner, who always made me laugh. It wasn't about the people who made me cry when they booed me offstage at conventions. It was about the awe I felt listening to Patrick Stewart debate the subtle nuances of The Prime Directive with Gene Roddenberry between scenes. It wasn't about the writers who couldn't figure out how to write a believable teenage character. It was about the wonder of walking down those corridors, and pretending that I was on a real spaceship. It was about the pride I felt when I got to wear my first real uniform, go on my first away mission, fire my first phaser, play poker with the other officers in Riker's quarters.

Oh my god. Star Trek was wonderful, and I'd forgotten. I have wasted ten years trying to escape something that I love, for all the wrong reasons.

I am filled with regret. I miss it. I miss my surrogate family, and I will give anything to have those ten years back. Like Scrooge, I want a second chance, will do anything for a second chance. But Christmas day came and went ten years ago.

The stars blink out, and I'm looking into the smiling face of Jonathan Frakes on the view screen. I'm smiling back at him and I notice that everyone is staring at me. I become aware of wetness on my cheeks. I am embarrassed and make a joke. I say to the actors walking around the bridge, “If you need any help flying this thing, I've totally got your back!” The group laughs. Garrett says something about helping out the security guys if they get into trouble and we laugh over that too.

Johnny tells us that we have to leave the ship now and board a shuttlecraft so that we may safely return to Las Vegas.

I don't want to leave. I've just gotten here. I want to cry out “No! Don't make me leave! It's not fair! I want to stay! I need to stay! Please let me stay!”

Instead, I am silent and I stare hard at the bridge, trying to catch a glimpse of a dolly track, or a mark, or maybe my costumer waiting for me to come offstage so she can hand me my fleece jacket.

The group I'm with herds me into the turbolift, and the doors close. I remember all the times the FX guy didn't pull the doors open in time, and we'd walk into them.

The turbolift takes us to the shuttle bay, where we board a flight simulator that looks like one of our shuttlecraft. I don't pay any attention to the voyage home – I am deep in my own memories, consumed by thoughts of days gone by and time forever lost.

The ride comes to an end and we walk back to Quark's. Everyone we pass wants to know what I thought of the ride, if I enjoyed my Star Trek experience. I tell them, truthfully, that it was just like being back on the set. I tell them that it's reminded me how cool Star Trek was. I keep the rest to myself. I don't think I can even give voice to the incredible series of emotions I have felt in the past 15 minutes. I don't even know if, in recalling that experience and writing these thoughts down, I have been able to convey how it affected me.

But it did. It changed me.

Being inside those walls, even though it was in a casino in Las Vegas, I was safe. I was protected from the bullshit that had been the focus of my life since I quit the show. When that bullshit was washed away, I saw Trek for what it is: a huge part of my life. I will probably never be bigger than Trek, but why try to avoid it? Why not love it, embrace it, and be proud of it? It was cool. Gene was cool. The cast is cool. Star Trek may never be what it once was . . . but I got to be there when it was great.

We stay at the party for another hour. We talk with friends and I pose for pictures, sign a few autographs, and shake some hands. We watch Armin and Max perform a very funny sketch, and I have my picture taken with a cardboard stand up of WILLIAM FUCKING SHATNER, circa 1967.

Finally, the five days in Vegas catch up with us, and Anne and I need to leave. I seek out the promoters and thank them for a great convention. I tell them that I'll see them in a few weeks, never thinking that in just two days I will never want to board an airplane again.

We take a cab back to our hotel. Anne puts her head on my shoulder, and is asleep before we're even out of the driveway.

We drive up a wide and empty street, about a quarter mile off the strip. This part of Vegas seems lonely, desolate. The carnival glare of lights along The Strip robs the rest of the world of any light, and the whole desert is black, like outer space . . . I stare out the window into the darkness, and imagine a starfield that's fifteen years away.

I had forgotten how cool Star Trek was and how much I missed it. I feel a little sad.

The cabbie keeps looking at me in the rear view mirror, giving me that 'I think I know you but I'm not sure why' look. He says, “What brings you to Vegas?”

“Star Trek,” I tell him.

“Oh yeah? You a big fan or something?”

“Yes I am,” I tell him. “I love Star Trek.”

Wil Wheaton's mojo is risin'.