posted
There hasn't been a lot of action on Flare for a while, now it's all heating up at once! Well, it IS the 50th anniversary, and we've got a movie and a new series...
Now that Star Trek Beyond is out, we can share a pretty awesome story:
I'm sure most of you have been to Memory Alpha at one point or another. Some of you may recall that it was started by me and Harry Doddema, and had its start right here on Flare.
After the first couple of years, I got kinda burned out in writing so many articles to help get the whole community going, and then I got a full-time job so I had less free time to waste spend on it. Harry gradually bowed out as well. Fortunately, by that time Memory Alpha had taken on a life of its own.
Over the years, Memory Alpha got some official notice: Mike Sussman contributed a lot of background material from Enterprise, and the site was listed in the acknowledgments of a fair number of official novels. Which was pretty cool.
Then, in the spring of 2015, Harry and I unexpectedly received an email from Simon Pegg. Yes, that Simon Pegg. With an attached photo of him holding a personalized message and everything. He had been using Memory Alpha as a reference while co-writing the new movie. And more than that, he asked for our help in coming up with the name and background for a plot device used in the story!
Naturally, Harry and I had a completely geeky freak-out, we hashed out some ideas between us, and got back to him with a proposal in about 5 hours. And he loved it!
So that was exciting enough... but then, less than two weeks before the release, we both got an invitation to go to the world premiere in San Diego. Harry couldn't make it in person, but I promised to make a video call so he could participate in any excitement that might happen. Though I really didn't know quite what to expect.
Even with all the crazy stuff that had happened so far, I was still a little surprised when I got there and I was escorted over to stand on the red carpet. Sure, I was the very last person in the line, at the very end, but it was the freaking red carpet.
So Harry and I got to chat with Simon Pegg for a few minutes, on the red carpet, at the world premiere of Star Trek Beyond. There were a couple guys from Fandom/Wikia to take a video: http://fandom.wikia.com/videos/star-trek-beyond-powered-wikia
And the kicker... Harry and I are acknowledged in the credits of the film!
So yeah, it's been a pretty surreal week.
. . . . .
(Very Minor Spoilers) . . . . . .
Just what was our contribution? It was the name and background of the mineral in Uhura's necklace, vokaya. Not all of our material made it into the movie, but our idea was basically this:
On Earth, there's a mineral called trininite which is essentially radioactive glassed sand from under the Trinity atomic bomb test. It was even used in jewelry before radioactivity came to be completely understood (whoops!). Harry's idea was to apply this to Vulcan. There were atomic detonations during their Time of Awakening, and so these stones would be a physical reminder of Vulcan's past. And its unique nature as a 1500-year-old, very-slightly-radioactive stone perfectly fit the need to have a material easily detected by scanner. ("So... you gave your girlfriend a tracking device?")
For the name, we looked at a few different possibilities. I wanted to use some hyphenation to call back to koon-ut-kal-if-fee, but we decided simpler was probably a better choice. We settled on vokaya, which was a hybrid of vokau ("remember") and the fan word heya ("mountain" or "stone"), and could roughly translate to "remembrance stone". This name would relate to its significance in Vulcan history and identity. And in retrospect, also makes for a significant gift to your girlfriend, too—though we didn't know that part at the time!
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
Registered: Nov 2000
| IP: Logged
I registered 17 years ago!? There must be some mistake.
So yes. What Dan said. Sadly I couldn't make it halfway across the world to San Diego in time for the movie, but Dan was gracious enough to beam my face to the red carpet. Did you end up at any parties afterwards?
It's fun reading back that old thread. It seems I was a bit rude towards Captain Mike's Galactopedia, for which you receive my belated apologies.
posted
Awesome story! I did some googling after you first mentioned this and found out that "vokaya" also means "memory" in Vulcan. Also makes sense for a keepsake like the necklace (in addition to the background story you came up with, of course).
Registered: Aug 2014
| IP: Logged
Shik
Starship database: completed; History of Starfleet: done; website: probably never
Member # 343
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
Registered: Nov 2000
| IP: Logged
posted
Went to go see the movie yesterday. I (silently) cheered during the vokaya scene, and stayed all the way through the credits just to see your two names.
-------------------- "Kirito? I killed a thing and now it says I have XPs! Is that bad? Am I dying?"
-Asuna, Episode 2, Sword Art Online Abridged
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
![[Cool]](cool.gif)
![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
Printer-friendly view of this topic
