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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Shik: [QB] Mojo: I was planning to email this to you before posting it here in an effort to promote the idea first, but...yeah. No matter. You've discussed your plans an concepts for "Unseen Frontier" here many times. Throughout it all, you've kept mentioning a variant or the same phrase: "The events we know as seen through something like National Geographic." This line is what has really stuck with me. Like most of the people here I'm sure, I've grown up reading NG all my life. I don't really look at it that often nowadays due to fiduciary concerns, but when I do, the images are always what grab me, even if they concern an article I'm not particularly interested in. I've had the good fortune to meet and talk lengthily with many NG photographers, both staff and freelance, and so the stories they have to tell are stuck in my mind as well. One of the reasons NG is held in such high regard is because it excels at its primary goal: to bring understanding of the world around us home to the average person. Whether it be through funding expeditions to the Weddell Sea and the Kalahari or simply sending a field reporter to live in Brussels or Ville De Qu�bec for three months, the experiences and stories of other places are brought to us in a short, hardhitting and striking form. Many of us on this forum are naval history fans; who among us can forget the late 1985 issue of NG in which Bob Ballard published his first mosaic images of [i]Titanic[/i]? I was ten years old and they still take my breath away. I remember leafing through old issues with articles about the circumnavigation and later polar voyage of the [i]Nautilus[/i]. I remember seeing the shots of Robert Falcon Scott's final fateful encampment in Antarctica. I've seen underwater shots of black smokers and aerial images of a barren glacier with three small dots on it--a Norwegian scaling team. These are the same things that should be captured in "Unseen Frontier," the same breathtaking feel. Some of this can come from ships, yes, but let the word "unseen" by the guide. We've seen Wolf 359; what about the aftermath, the cleanup effort? Was there one, or is it now like the [i]Arizona[/i] memorial? The comings and goings of a busy spaceport; all DS9 has shown us is a few floating vessels--nothing like a real harbor. Are there festivities for Federation Day like Independence Day? Did they have something like OpSail on the Federation's 200th birthday in 2361? But the Trek galaxy--like the real world--is more than just starships. There's people. Legends. Heroes. Cultures. So many unknowns. Celebrations after the end of a war, whether it be the Dominion War, Cardassian Wars, Romulan Wars. The memorial service for James T. Kirk in late 2293. Someone suggested the signing of the First Khitomer Accords. There's interstellar phenomena, natural wonders of black holes and pulsars and nebulae. These are all things that the average Federation citizen wouldn't know about. Even other worlds in and out of the Federation: Betazed, Andor, Tellar. Trill's oceans were said to be purple in a DS9 episode; who knows from purple water? "Omnipotent observation" is fine for calendars; there it's not expected. For "Unseen Frontier," as a reader, I'd like it to be more first-person. I'd like to feel that there was a person there who saw this perfect image and captured it so that others may share and revel in its power, its beauty, its sense of amazement. That sense of humanity is what would set this project apart from all others. (Indeed, an idea has just hit me on a way to help accomplish that feel. Often in NG itself and most definitely in its compilation tomes, there are comments from photographers and staff on the power of the imagery--what they felt when they saw the sight, how they decided to choose that particular one, how that perfect combination just happened to come together at the right moment. Comments like that--not just from humans, but others--would definitely help with the touch.) I encourage you to take all of the above to heart. Following this train of thought, this overall feeling and setting will almost guarantee that the book will reach beyond the hardcore audience that the more recent offerings have pandered to. I know for a fact that this is something many friends would be overawed at and by, not so much because it's Trek, but because of what it could BE. They are not the kind of people to purcashe technical manuals and don't care if a bird-of-prey has been rescaled or not. They are the "casual fans," the one who enjoy the stories and imagery, the ones who've been left in the lurch. This is a chance to reconcile the two ends of the markets in a most spectacular way. I, like others here have in the past, formally offer my help, advice, and knowledge on this project, and I would consider it a great honor to take part in such an endeavor from such an early stage. But let us lay the groundwork for reason and rationality here, at the beginning, so that later on we can progress smoothly. [/QB][/QUOTE]
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