I remember when I made first contact.
There are many Star Trek fans out there, but there is only a handful that would revolve their lives around a sci-fi show. RICHARD SI’s love affair for the show might seem eccentric to some but he tells AUDREY VIJAINDREN that he believes it has led him to do the impossible.
My “first contact” was in a dream, one cold and rainy night. I was asked to board an unusual vehicle {craft} that beamed me up into space. There I feasted my eyes on all sorts of magical {technological} wonders. Things I had never seen before, like a half human and half Vulcan being speaking in a foreign tongue.
Well, at least that’s how I would like to think it happened. But there was nothing magical about my encounter. My love affair with Star Trek was born in an empty university library.
I was studying Network Computing in England at the time. Unlike my friends who got to travel {went back-packing} around Europe during {summer holiday} semester breaks, I could only afford to walk to the nearby library. But little did I know that my misfortune brought me one of the greatest gifts of my life – Star Trek.
I spent two weeks in that library watching VHS tapes of every Star Trek episode I could get my hands on. People must have thought I was “super hardworking”. But no one really knew why or what I was doing there everyday.
Being fascinated by the show is an understatement; I eagerly waited each day to be fed with more and more knowledge of that distant space and the wonderful vehicle, The U.S.S Enterprise, which eventually became my obsession.
Star Trek spoke to me about humanity and philosophy. {I felt that} There was a moral behind each episode and I yearned to learn more.
Eventually, I extracted information from the episodes, studied the schematics of this Starfleet ship and used it to complete my final year dissertation on distributed network computing. I learnt the optical network of the Enterprise thoroughly. As an analogy, It’s sort of like a worm, although you break the head the body still moves around its parts, other parts may become autonomous and continue operating. I graduated with a first class degree.
In between studies, I took lessons in one of Star Trek’s popular language, Klingon, and became quite fluent in it. A few of us gathered in a room weekly periodically to practice the language. We called it our “spit room” because the pronunciation of many of the words demanded some expectorating of saliva to get the intonation? correct a lot of “spitting”.
When I came back from England in 1996, I started working in companies, like IBM, HP, Petronas and Shell. Although I was busy with my career, I never stopped being a die-hard fan.
My parents were shocked when box after box of Star Trek items were shipped back to Malaysia. The first thing they asked was, “why did you spend all our money on toys?” My mum said that she expected me to come back a man but instead I turned into a teenager.
I didn’t really elaborate or tell them about my love affair with Star Trek but when I got my first Kancil and changed the number plate to 1701 to match the Enterprise they noticed and started asking more questions.
They also noticed changes in my demeanor; I was more “disciplined” almost military like. My table manners were impeccable and I always stood upright. I was very proper and in that sense I did my parents proud, but my siblings called me “weird”. Those are some of the challenges I knew were in store for me if I continued this journey. I did continue and never looked back.
I got married in 2001 to my wife, May. She was a small town girl from Teluk Intan and had never heard of Star Trek. But I told her that if she loved me she must also love my interest. Thankfully, she did.
Although May is not a fan like me, she is supportive of my interest. I’ve given her a Vulcan name, T’prena, which she uses sometimes. Together we continued my interest in Star Trek and even changed our phone number so it would end with 1701.
Year after year May witnessed and supported my love affair with Star Trek. But it didn’t really hit her until I bid for a car number plate to match the starship registry number of the U.S.S Enterprise, NCC-1701, which would cost us an arm and a leg.
I was waiting for the number plate NCC-1701 to be available for five years; I kept the desire secretly in my heart. I am not a show-off but having that number plate would be a sense of achievement for me as a loyal fan.
More than a year ago, I was told I won the bid for the number plate for a mere RM25,000. The bid that lost to me was RM10,000.
I’ve owned seven cars in the past 15 years and all of them carried the numbers 1701. When my wife got her car, we even drove all the way to Melaka to register the number plate MAY1701.
My wife stood by me through all my Star Trek needs but when I told her we have to name our children after some of the series’s characters, she put her foot down. “Changing a number plate is one thing but this is a child’s life we are talking about, it is serious,” she said. So we compromised on choosing “almost human” names.
My first choice of “Data” didn’t go down well with May. Our son was named Riker Si James Tee Kirk, {after the characters Commander Riker and Captain Kirk}. Five months ago we had a daughter, she was born on January 17 (1701,yes it was a “planned” technological miracle). We were worried that our obsession with the show would cause her to have Vulcan features. But Seven Si Kathryn Janeway {after the characters Seven of Nine and Captain Janeway}is a beautiful girl with slightly pointy ears (literally).
When we registered their names, we got funny looks from the officials. But it’s a great icebreaker; everywhere we go people are instantly curious about their names.
We’re also hoping that maybe NTV7 may want to give our daughter a scholarship on their anniversary because of her name.
I wanted to give our children what I never had – a childhood filled with memories of Star Trek. So instead of lullabies, our children listen to Star Trek themes. When Riker says, “I want to see TV” he means Star Trek and nothing else.
I’ve willed my ship figurines, models and other Star Trek items to my children and have requested in my will that I want this phrase engraved on my tombstone: “To boldly go where no one has gone before”.
A few months back when I watched the private footage of the latest Star Trek movie, I was taken a back. It seems as if the director, J. J. Abrams, has changed the genre of Star Trek.
He has made it so people in their 50s and children can enjoy it. He has changed 50 years of history by changing the plot. The ships and uniforms are different too. The average person might not notice it so much, but those that follow the show closely will notice that the whole idea of the show has changed.
Probably his aim was to recruit new and younger fans. I was not disappointed because he did keep certain elements the same.
In the latest show, crewmembers were falling in love almost implying that office love affairs do happen these days. The gender bias has changed over the years. In the 1960’s, there was a more evident distinction but in this movie the females were portrayed stronger.
I’ve seen the new movie five times and cried each and every time. I must somewhat embarrassingly admit that there were scenes that brought tears to my eyes. For instance, at the beginning of the movie when Kirk was born, when I saw the Enterprise with my car’s NCC-1701 on it and when the original theme song was played at the end of the show which I’m glad this director decided to maintain.
Being a fan is something you practice all the time. It’s always on your mind. The show may come and go but Star Trek will give me a long and prosperous life.
Richard today runs full time a treasure hunt event management company and that my company name is also named after the words that Captain of starships usually utter before bring the crew into ‘warp speed’ Engage Treasure Hunts}
-- New Straits Times article draft before publication --
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