textfiles/sf/fandom.txt

TECH FANDOM!!!

Welcome to the wonderful world of Tech Fandom Correctness!

This strange and wonderful movement toward I Am Right And You Are Wrong
has been sweeping the nation!  (Well, okay, it's been sweeping James
Dixon, anyway.)  And now it's time to hop on the Tech Fandom bandwagon!

But wait!  I hear you cry, "I don't know how to tell right from wrong in
Tech Fandom!  I'm just a newcomer whose watched Star Trek a couple of
times and is wondering what Warp Speed means!"

Fear not, oh intrepid acolyte!  The world of Tech Fandom is quite
simple, despite its complexity.  The only thing you have to learn is
that the Star Trek universe is absolutely black and white; there is
absolute right, and everything else is absolute wrong.

But tell me, O great one, how can I tell right from wrong?

I'm glad you asked.  Just remember, since you are a new convert to Tech
Fandom, that you are a lowly paeon, higher in rank only to the Non
Believers out there who read [shudder!] unofficial material.  To assist
you in your quest for the One True Trek Truth, I've prepared a brief
Frequently Asked Questions list to demonstrate Tech Fandom Correctness:


Q. What is Tech Fandom, specifically?
A. Tech Fandom is that area of technical knowledge about the Star Trek
   Universe gained from all the official material.  It is exceedingly
   precise in its detail.

Q. What constitutes Official Material?
A. That's an easy one!  All the Star Trek TV shows and movies.

Q. The novels don't count?
A. Well, I suppose the answer to what is Official is not as simple as I
   made it sound.  Novels CAN count as Official Material (O.M.),
   provided that they are GOOD novels.  Bad novels do not count.  In
   that same vein, only those episodes of the Star Trek Animated Series
   that are good ones count as Official Material.  By contrast, those
   exceedingly bad episodes of The Original Series and The Next
   Generation do not count either, even though I just said they do.

Q. I see.  So what constitutes a good or a bad source?
A. Again, simple.  A source is good (and thus Official Material) if its
   technical details are consistent with Tech Fandom, and bad otherwise.

Q. Isn't that a bit of a circular definition?
A. Of course it is, and that's the beauty of it!  This way, the Dixons
   and other nameless keepers of Tech Fandom in the Universe can
   essentially accept or reject just about anything they like!

Q. Can you give me an example of how to determine if something falls
   within the realm of Tech Fandom or not?
A. Certainly!  Suppose you had just watched that wretched "The Enemy
   Within" episode from Star Trek's first season.  You noticed that the
   crew was stranded down there on the freezing planet because the
   transporters were not working right, but Kirk never made an attempt
   to send down a shuttlecraft to rescue them.  Getting out your
   Official Compiled List of Tech Fandom Material (or, for this purpose,
   the Franz Joseph Constitution-Class Blue Prints would do), you see
   that the Enterprise does indeed carry a complement of shuttlecraft
   ready to launch from its rear shuttle bay.  So, that means that this
   part of the episode was not Tech Fandom and was the fault of those
   idiotic anti-technical People-magazine-reading staff writers who
   don't even know how their own garage door opener works.

   On the other hand, the WHOLE episode doesn't have to be thrown out,
   because it does have that neat bit about the transporters splitting
   Kirk into his good and evil halves, which IS allowed in Tech Fandom,
   specifically because of this episode in fact.

Q. I read some place in Star Trek: The Role-Playing Game that --
A. HEATHEN!  Don't even MENTION the Name of the Devil around here!  We
   don't care if Paramount gave Them their seal of approval, that . . .
   that "game" that you just mentioned violates nearly every directive
   of the Holy Scriptures of Tech Fandom!  In fact, I think now is the
   time, before you get in any more trouble, that you should be intro-
   duced to:


   THE TECH FANDOM LIST OF FORBIDDEN TERMS!
   --- ---- ------ ---- -- --------- ------

   Don't even mention these terms in public!  They appear here once --
   and ONLY once -- so that you'll know which words not to say!!

   FASA
   These devil-worshipping game designers have violated everything we
   Tech Fandomers know to be Holy.  Their role-playing game must be
   denounced every time you hear it mentioned.  Do not even LISTEN to
   people who speak of this game, as they might start making a little
   bit of sense to you if you did!  Mr. Dixon has a complete list of
   violations that this set of Banned Books commits.  You may read Mr.
   Dixon's list, but under no circumstances are you to actually read any
   of the material contained within the game!  And if you MUST mention
   the gaming company's name in public, please PLEASE use two asterisks
   to substitute for the middle two letters of their name, i.e. say
   "F**A", not the [shudder] full way it's spelled above.

   STAR FLEET BATTLES
   Another inconsistent game.  This would actually be worse than F**A's
   game, except that the designers have made all sorts of disclaimers to
   the effect that the Star Fleet Universe departed from the Star Trek
   Universe a long time ago.  It's also okay because no serious trekker
   takes it seriously anyway.  But if you must speak of this game, again
   use two asterisks to mask out the whole word, as in "Star Fl**t
   Battles."  This is in keeping with the ancient practice of never
   completely spelling out the name of God or the Devil for fear of
   being struck dead.

   DIANE CAREY
   No matter how entertaining you might find _Dreadnought!_, _Ghost
   Ship_, and/or _Battlestations!_, here work is clearly not T.F., and
   thus belongs on your List of Books to Burn.

   DISASTER
   One of the most un-T.F. episodes of The Next Generation of all time.
   Avoid, avoid, avoid.  No further explanation is necessary.  So there.

   ALTERNATE TIMELINES
   Boo, hiss!  We all know there is only ONE time line for Star Trek.
   If Gene Roddenberry himself were to come back to life and say that
   Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan took place in 2285 A.D., he would be
   WRONG, as the whole world of Tech Fandom knows that it took place in
   2287.  How do we know?  Simple; we know that ST2 took place in 2287
   the same way the Catholics know the world began in 4130 B.C. -- we
   count up all the Begats and references to numbers of years wherever
   we can find them, even if everything else about the episode we got
   our information from violates the Holy Scriptures of T.F..

   INTERNAL INCONSISTENCIES
   There is no such thing as Internal Inconsistency in Star Trek!  Star
   Trek is PERFECT!!  There just happen to be a few episodes/incidents
   which are Not Canon, that's all.  If Spock says that Menagerie
   happened 13 years ago, and ST3 happened at the same time as ST2 (15
   years after TOS), and the Enterprise was only 20 years old in ST3, it
   was because one of those numbers Wasn't Canon.  Your duty as a Tech
   Fandomer is to ignore these number clashes and stick to the One True
   Time Line.


Well, I hope this little treatise has enlightened you, O brave young
initiate.  If you have accepted everything that has been said as Gospel
Truth, then you are a True Believer, well on your way to being a tech
fandomer in the tradition of our great Saint Dixon of the Timeline.  For
remember, if you were to look Trek full on in the face and see all its
inconsistencies laid bare, our Mighty Empire of absolute consistency
could collapse, and that must be avoided at all costs.

So, keep thine eyes closed, wear thy Holy Blinders, and remember to say
"Live Long and Prosper" with the Vulcan salute in your RIGHT hand, since
that was how Spock did it in "Amok Time", a very T.F. episode.