Star Trek turned 60 years old on Tuesday, and for generations, it has been a cultural phenomenon. But as the world roils with political turmoil and war — similar to how it was when the original series debuted — fans are splintered.
Elizabeth Thomas, a senior instructor at Murray State University, said it disturbed her to see Star Trek fans “not getting along,” so she set out to unite them.
Thomas’s first memory as a child was when Star Trek debuted to the world on NBC on Sept. 8, 1966. Now, Sept. 8 is recognized as Star Trek Day.
“The first thing I remember was my grandfather picking me up, putting me on his knee and saying, ‘Now, you’re going to have to keep quiet because we’re all going to watch this — it’s important,’” Thomas said.
Multiple generations of Thomas’s family, from her great-grandparents down to her and Thomas’s baby brother Dan, were present — together — that night to watch the first episode, she told the Sentinel.
“We watched in silence,” Thomas said. “Every one of us became a Trekkie; we were like ‘this is the greatest show ever’
When the show ran, she said it was her favorite moment of every week. Thomas credited Star Trek for saving her life as a child, specifically Spock, the show’s logic-dominating character, for giving her a lifeline.
Thomas remained an avid fan for decades and wrote a lead article on the show’s fandom titled “Live Long and Prosper: How Fans Made Star Trek a Cultural Phenomenon” in the book Fan Phenomena: Star Trek.”
Thomas, who teaches public relations and social media management, was inspired to act after observing the “rift” between Trekkies and how it mirrors the divide the United States experiences. She was also disturbed by what she was seeing on social media.
“For the first time in 60 years, I saw Star Trek fans not getting along,” she said. “(When) you meet a Star Trek fan, you both love the same thing, they’re the nicest — every fan I’ve ever met is the nicest, best person. All of a sudden because there's this anonymity (online) of me and a screen, everything’s divided. It really hurt my heart.”
She created Unite4Archer, a fictitious political campaign for character Jonathan Archer, which appeared on social media channels in the summer, all with the same message — Archer for president of the federation.
“People are pretty sick of the politics going on in our world,” Thomas said. “Let's give them a fictional political campaign, and let's role play.”
The concept gained momentum from speaking with Michael Sussman, Star Trek story editor and producer, who is pitching a show about the foundation of the story’s planetary government, the United Federation of Planets.
The show would predate the adventures of the U.S.S Enterprise in the original series and follow Archer as he leads as the Federation’s first president. Scott Bakula, who played Archer in a different series, Star Trek: Enterprise, has pitched the series with Sussman.
Sussman and Thomas got into contact after she spoke to Sean Preston, founder of Letters-4-Legacy, a similar campaign running off letter-writing. Thomas was helping Preston with social media gain a “significant social media following” for the organization at the time.
Preston was inspired by John and “Bjo” Trimble who had started letter writing to save the original series back in the 60s.
After receiving the rundown of the show, Sussman gave “his blessing” for Unite4Archer to take off, as the campaign would need to be a fan-run organization.
“Imagine if Star Wars: Andor met The West Wing,” Thomas said. “That's the show. I read what (Sussman) had, and I just thought it’s brilliant and what we needed.”
She attributes the campaign to folks seeking a better future, and as United Federation of Planets would take place in 2183, it provides an outlook for that future to be possible.
The campaign produced posters, buttons, stickers and t-shirts with a small team. A poster was also commissioned by Kavita Maharaj, a Canadian artist.
“Myself, Australian YouTube influencer and host Nick Hallam and Trek artist Kenneth V. did the designs, video production, social media content, news releases, signage, voting booth,” Thomas said.
The items were given away, Thomas said, with proceeds from donations going to the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, or the Astro Society, and the support for Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Mathematics education (STEAM).
Thomas noted STEAM education is not the same as STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics), claiming the latter has hurt the arts through the allocation of funding in education. She credits Star Trek for inspiring the arts as much as it did for the others.
“Everybody's cosplaying,” Thomas said. “There are thousands of people in bizarre alien costumes at this convention. The creativity of some of these people (who) are astrophysicists and astronauts and scientists and engineers, and they’re Star Trek fans because Star Trek inspired them to become explorers, artists.”
As the campaign took off, Thomas attended Star Trek Las Vegas in August. It is a large Star Trek convention in Las Vegas, which had been renamed to “Trek to Vegas” for the 60th anniversary. There, Thomas attended a Q&A with Bakula to ask him an important question.
The campaign had gotten thousands of signatures and “votes” from “Federation citizens” in support of Archer becoming president of the Federation, according to a story on Unite4Archer by ScreenRant and Thomas.
Thomas presented the statistics to Bakula during the Q&A. She asked if he, as the actor who played Archer, would accept the people’s nomination of him to become president.
Bakula stood up and told the Trek to Vegas crowd — from the stage — Jonathan Archer came to life and accepted the nomination. Thomas reflected on the experience, saying it was her five minutes of changing the world.
“I can’t change the world,” Thomas said, “but I had five minutes where I made a tiny difference in the fandom, and I’m hoping to continue it. That’s my hobby, trying to do good for the future.”
Thomas is looking for fans to make their own Archer posters and slogans to join the effort and increase the participation showcased on the Unite4Archer platforms.
Her goal is to create a new space for fans.
“More people are joining it every day, whereas they're probably on the ton of pages and groups that are all Star Trek — Star Trek this, Star Trek that — (but) they're all fighting,” Thomas said. “It's not pleasant to read anymore. So, I want to create a social space where it's just for fans. It's for people who love Star Trek, who want to share what they love, not talk about what they hate. That will have no place there because it's united. We're trying to unite everybody around what we love.”
CORRECTION: A previous version of this story erroneously identified John and “Bjo” Trimble as being involved with Unite4Archer. We apologize for the error.
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