I walk the red dust with my boots worn thin,
Beneath a sun too pale to warm my skin.
Strange colours drift across a sky unknown,
Yet something steady guides me as I roam.
A soft rainbow shimmers where the dust winds rise,
A brief arc drifting through the Martian skies.
Another rests stitched plainly on my sleeve:
The rainbow flag, a quiet truth I believe.
My crew comes from many places and with many tongues,
Shaped by histories older than their nations or guns.
Different paths converged to bring us all here,
To build a future shaped by hope, and not fear.
For much of history, space was one nation’s claim,
A proving ground for rivalry, power, and fame.
Its triumphs were real, but its purposes were small,
A narrow vision that could not fairly serve us all.
This mission is different: born of our shared need,
A global effort where cooperation takes the lead.
No single banner rises above any of the rest;
We stand together, and together give our best.
We walk by laws that transcend all old borders or divide,
Newton’s groundbreaking insights are steady at our side.
A mind once guarded, with some truths he never voiced,
His life reminds us that our future is our choice.
These plains recall the many homes we knew:
Africa’s first footsteps pressing into the new;
The Outback’s vast honesty, sun-scorched and red and bare,
Where endurance is learned and courage grows there.
Here too, we adapt, we endure, we belong,
Sometimes in silence, sometimes in song.
A chorus of humans beneath a pale sun,
Writing a chapter no one else has begun.
History may note the risks we choose to take,
The frozen ground, and the choices we must make.
But more than footprints pressed in rust-red clay,
It is solidarity that lights our way.
And if our steps fade in the shifting dust,
What remains is the simple, unbroken trust
That humanity moves forward when we walk as one,
Even here on Mars, beneath a distant sun.
‘Star Trek’ was an attempt to say humanity will reach maturity and wisdom on the day that it begins not just to tolerate but take a special delight in differences in ideas and differences in lifeforms.”
– Gene Roddenberry
When Star Trek VI came out in 1991, its background story echoed the contemporaneous collapse of the Soviet Union and the rise of Glasnost. Fans and critics alike praised the movie for its courage to be edgy and unafraid to explore contemporary social issues. A generation later, a small faction of fan critics for the newest Star Trek series (Starfleet Academy) complain about its wokeness, and they demonstrate a fear of the social evolution and change to which it appears to allude.
What I want to explore here is this attitudinal change as an example of populist cultural collapse that is currently underway in the United States of America and some other parts of the western world.
Star Trek – Back to School
I will be honest: for all the obvious reasons, I have not yet seen the three episodes of Starfleet Academy that have been shown publicly. I am unable to comment on the show itself, nor provide a valid critique. I do believe that much of Star Trek since the reboot films (2009 – 2016) has been somewhat deficient because it often comes across as poor science and poor fiction – just generally sub-par writing (I am glad to say that many Star Trek fans disagree with me – and each other – and have energetic debates about this material). In all fairness, I will withhold airing my personal opinion of the new Starfleet Academy series until after I actually get to watch it.
The problem is that some fans appear to reject the new material outright – not primarily because of anything related to the perceived quality of the writing, but because these fans appear unwilling or unable to cope with new characterisations of sexuality, gender or gender identity, race and social evolution. I saw the same thing happen in 2017, when Doctor Who was recast as a woman; then again when a queer Rwandan-Scottish actor played the part. Many fans went hysterical. Straight white men proclaimed that they were suddenly being victimised and excluded; as though their previous fifty years of privilege had mysteriously disappeared. Similarly, when Star Trek Discovery first appeared on television that same year (2017), some fans bewailed the appearance of strong, non-white women; and a mixed-race gay male couple. Once again these armchair warriors wailed, “Why are straight white men being excluded”? Overall, they came across as a bunch of Sad Puppies.
Most recently, the idea of a new Star Trek series featuring a young cast in Starfleet Academy – possibly analogous to young people entering college (university) and for the first time leaving home, becoming independent adults, exploring their new surroundings and friendships and a mix of strange, new cultures – seems inspiring and fresh and potentially exciting. They live in a world 1000 years from now, where alien cultures (formerly enemies) have evidently reconciled and interbred; where new societal norms have swept aside old prejudices and bigotries. What could possibly go wrong?
“Star Trek” has always touted its desire to explore strange new worlds; what “Starfleet Academy” supposes is, what if college is the strangest world of all?”
– Clint Worthington
Recontextualising material to suit the romance literature market or the youth/teen market is not necessarily problematic. How many people complained back in the 12th century, when Arthurian stories were rebooted as medieval romance literature, changing Camelot forever from Dark Age “fall of the Roman Empire” mythology to romantic medieval chivalric code? How many Shakespeare fans have ever complained that the Bard himself rewrote earlier story versions of Romeo and Juliet, plagiarising it as fan fiction and adding extra depth of teen romance angst? Star Trek itself was rescued from being a failed television series in the late 1960s, recast as a multi-billion dollar franchise, in no small part because predominantly female fans (many of them being teens or post-teens) rewrote the material into thousands of fan fiction stories featuring “slash” material (same sex romance between Kirk and Spock).
Literature evolves to fit changing cultural norms and consumer demand. Star Trek will undoubtedly remain a science fiction franchise, but its stories must continue to follow the code of social evolution: adapt or die. In fitting with its long-time policy of incorporating “Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations”, it will continue to fulfil the vision of creator Gene Roddenberry that diversity should not just be tolerated – it should be celebrated. Bring on Starfleet Academy, youth culture and all.
Accordingly, I heartily recommend you seek out mainstream reviews of the series – most of which are balanced, rational, fair, and celebratory of diversity.
There are also reviews on social media, some of them extremely critical, such as this one, who complains at 17:30 that men apparently aren’t getting a fair representation (really, after nearly 60 years of male-dominated franchise?); and this one (who tries to rationally debate the criticisms of others about “wokeness”); and this one (who also complains about male representation) – perhaps no surprise that all of these reviews are created by men. But they do make an effort to analyse the material critically and fairly, and their comments align with fan comments I have heard about the soap opera nature of this program: a Dawson’s Creek or CW in space, with a ship that should be labelled NCC-90210.
I do not have a problem with fan reviews that express dislike of obsessive youth culture or other story elements – please wait until I see the material for myself and we can have a wonderful debate about the undoubted strengths and weaknesses of the script material – but my problem is with those fan critics who barely touch upon literary criticism and instead bewail the wrongs (real or imagined) inflicted upon them by woke warriors.
Stories can be freely criticised as being weak or garbage – but characters, and the existence of the minority groups they represent, should not.
Gay Klingons And Other Catastrophes To Befall Humanity
One British fan critic begins his review, “Window Lickers in Spaaaaaaaace!! ” with an attempt to analyse what he sees as the shortcomings of the material, although his references to the show as a “bowel movement” (0:03) and “science retardation” (4:03) suggest that his analysis is an emotional as much as a literary response. He continues to refer to “retards” (eg. 18:20) even makes a vague reference that appears to invoke (or it is to satirise?) Trump racism: “Immigrants going to Earth to steal. Wait, is this 2020?” (5:04). He adds a dismissively homophobic comment about characters: “Also, they’re gay. Probably… it’s Kurtsman Trek.” (11: 20).
He later discusses a scene in which a young black man defeats some armed guards (a trope in media science fiction since forever) but suggests that it is an example of inverse racism because the guards are all white (13:02). He even makes a comment mocking gender equality:
“Ladies and gentlemen, I bring to you the flaw in that logic that will stay here until the day everybody dies: Heavy lifting. Where’s the women? Oh, it’s the men. It’s the men doing the heavy lifting. The sexes are equal right up to heavy lifting.” (47:44)
He continues this vein in another review, within which he mocks female body image as portrayed by the show’s “robust women” (3:58 and 8:34), and summarises his criticism of the new series – not with literary analysis of its perceived script weaknesses, but with the following complaint:
“As expected, it has got nothing to do with Star Trek. It is just another far-left ideological spurge that takes a brand, a franchise name, and just puts its own messaging and inclusion and diversity into it.”(0:14)
The Vulcan “IDIC” symbol from Star Trek, representing Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations.
He chooses to forget that Star Trek has always aspired towards (but did not always achieve) inclusion, and the promotion of, “Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations”. Instead, this critic denies any historic wokeness in the franchise, dismissing such claims as, “absolute, utter bullshit” (7:17). His perspective can be further seen in his tendency to dismiss those with whom he disagrees as simply having Trump Derangement Syndrome, or to disparage the physique of men on the show (conveniently forgetting that Star Trek used to shamelessly demean women as sex objects): “Is it rules for thee, but not for me?” (4:30).
His extremist conservative nature can be intuited when he complains that people from the planet Cheron should be extinct (because the original Star Trek series revealed that last two survivors from that planet had both been male) and yet descendants have apparently been shown in this newest series, set a thousand years later. The reappearance of such people – once shown to lead to their own potential extinction because of racist hatred – could fictionally and metaphorically demonstrate that even the most doomed of intolerant characters might somehow survive and grow. Appearing to overlook this symbolism, and ignoring obvious scientific and scientifictional possibilities surrounding this situation – including time travel to rescue other inhabitants, genetic engineering, alternative universes or timelines, or just simply more survivors later being found somewhere across the galaxy (any of these possibilities providing the possible basis for a background story in any episode) – this critic chooses a homophobic rant instead:
“So unless the show is insinuating that the only last two remaining Cheron males managed to bum themselves a whole new population, then this race should be extinct. But actually thinking about what I just said and the people that are running Star Trek nowadays, I probably think that they feel that that’s a viable thing that they could do. “(3:30)
Viewers might be forgiven for wondering whether this gentleman is really simply whingeing that conservative, straight white guys – for most of the last fifty years having enjoyed privileged status in the franchise – are now finding the portrayal of equality with others to somehow threaten their privilege? (see for example 9:26) Ironically, he projects his own narrow perspective onto those people whom he criticises:
“[This new Star Trek] represents a broken bubble, a broken shell of comic Californian wankers who think the world revolves around them… it doesn’t represent Star Trek and it certainly doesn’t represent humanity and people…” (16:47)
Really? So a series that portrays diversity and new forms of inclusion – new species, new characters descended from a mix of races previously portrayed as enemies, characters who break out of stereotypes and boldly explore a strange new world that they are creating… these people don’t represent the highest aspirations of a utopian future?
Lesbians with Cats?
Jones and Ripley in Alien (Wikipedia image)
Another male fan critic spends very little time actually analysing the story and most of his time complaining about the “woke chain” (4:35) and a “lesbian relationship” (4:58) and “the gay Klingon” (5:02) and “the woke degenerate crazy thing” (5:07) and “the feminism” (7:02) and “a bunch of retards just running around” (10:43) and bewailing the possibility that viewers might (shock! Horror!) be forced to watch “the lesbians going at it… full tilt” (10:58), He complains about the injustice of a changing room scene where the men are somewhat unclothed while the women are not – implying that the men are victims of exploitation by Hollywood and suggesting that sexual harassment lawsuits may be on the way (conveniently forgetting Star Trek’s long tradition of sexually exploiting female bodies over the last half century). He even manages to refer to polyamory as “degenerate stuff” (13:00) and praise one episode ever-so-slightly because “at least it wasn’t gay” (15:32) while expressing relief that he wasn’t forced to endure a lesbian romance scene (15:55).
He repeatedly refers to Star Trek writers as 40 year-old women who sip wine and have cats, blaming them for both promoting lesbianism and for the gratuitous male nudity (without seeing any irony in the paradox of allegedly promoting both at the same time); thereby managing to mix his misogyny and homophobia together while also insinuating that the franchise needs straight white guys like him to mansplain non-degenerate perspectives to delusional woke lefties.
Queer Cringe
You get the idea: instead of attempting a balanced, rational review like this one or this one, varied reviews are homophobic, reactionary, or otherwise bigoted, like this one or this one (reviewed by a right-wing woman of colour who appears to promote white supremacist racism by blaming immigrants and their children for crime – see 5:00). Even this one, which attempts to present rational analysis, still manages to disparage the gay and lesbian characters, while this one attempts some analysis under the heading of “Star Woke” as though wokeness is itself a negative. Such unbalanced reviews may, ultimately, still be statistically insignificant, but their rise and empowerment is a cause for concern.
Perhaps the ultimate criticism has come from Stephen Miller, Trump’s White House Deputy Chief of Staff; and Nazi sympathiser Elon Musk; who have both criticised Starfleet Academy for being woke. In response, former Star Trek actor Whoopi Goldberg has criticised their comments as deliberate attempts to distract audiences from the state of the world that these men are actively creating:
“Why are you concentrating on a television show when people are being shot and killed, when people are going hungry, when farmers are losing their farms, kids can’t get meals at school? Why are you paying attention to this?”
This is probably Star Trek’s greatest message, as explored by generations of fan fiction writers exploring same sex relationships (known as “slash”) and other progressive concepts, and other fan activists promoting charity and change: taking Star Trek ideals and “making it so”. Detractors want to return to earlier times and use it as a distraction rather than as inspiration.
Loving the poorly educated
As people who allegedly align themselves with an ongoing franchise (that must, like all literature, adapt to the times or die), they seem remarkably devoid of understanding or empathy regarding inclusion and diversity, or of understanding disadvantage and disempowerment; instead inverting the Star Trek trope of “The needs of the one [themselves] outweigh the needs of the few… or the many [others, especially disempowered or disadvantaged groups]”. They resist the impulse towards self-education through asking questions and accommodating change; they instead prefer past times or privilege and inequality, yearning for past attitudes within which they feel most comfortable.
In doing this, they display the perspectives of extremists such as white Christian nationalists, who perceive the world and culture through a narrow fish-eyed lens:
“Rooted in a long history of American exceptionalism, it fuses white identity politics with a specific brand of fundamentalist Protestant Christianity to create a racist form of a national identity.”
Similarly, these so-called fans, who deny (or disparage as “woke”) the inadequate but sincere attempts at historic progressive inclusion within this franchise, are happy to rewrite or reinterpret the franchise in order to exclude those whom they hate. Some demonstrate a celebratory mood at news that the series may be cancelled early due to their efforts; one fan comment suggests that they would rather see the franchise die than be woke. Thus they take a franchise that seeks to promote utopian ideals, and drag it – and our world – backwards to more regressive values.
Trump and Tradition
While some may see the USA’s cultural and political turmoil as being caused by Trump and his regime, I see Trump as a symptom of a larger malaise. Swathes of US citizens actively deny and oppose their nation’s advances in vaccine and epidemiology, and scientific advances such as the 1960s space program that triggered history’s greatest technological peacetime advances. Moon landings – and their fictional counterparts, Starfleet Academy – are rejected by those who seek to deny the potential greatness and aspirations of their own country and culture; they seek to rewrite history and culture to suit their personal perspectives – as maybe so do we all. The difference is that their view of knowledge is that ignorance is equivalent to world-class expertise; their cosmos is a metaphoric flat earth instead of a rich tapestry of galactic stars and diverse cultures. Unlike them, I look forward to living long enough to having my values and perspectives challenged and educated by those who follow – that’s the value of being woke rather than asleep.
From cardassians to crucifixion, we see the same call for cultural compliance in populist fundamentalist religion having been hijacked by fascism, just as these Star Trek fans seek to rewrite and reboot their favourite quasi-religious franchise in their own image. They revel in creating division and dissent rather than social cohesion.
They are symptomatic of the potential cultural, scientific, social, educational and economic collapse of an empire:
The Archaeologist lists the decline of social cohesion as one factor creating the fall of empires:
“Social Cohesion: A strong sense of shared identity and purpose is essential for a society to thrive. If social divisions deepen and trust breaks down, a society can become vulnerable to internal conflict.”
Instead, we should view literature as an attempt to unite and contribute to our society and our world, in line with humanist values that include an appreciation and involvement in literature and culture:
“We value great works of art, music, literature and architecture regardless of their origin, and respect culturally significant landscapes, geological formations and artifacts. We support their preservation and believe in fair, equitable and culturally sensitive access for all.”
“Leave any bigotry in your quarters. There’s no room for it on the Bridge.
Do I make myself clear?” – Kirk, Balance of Terror (1969)
I grew up watching and loving the original series of Star Trek, which boasted a progressive attitude in its portrayal of African-Americans during the US Civil Rights era. I recall reading a quote from one African-American actor, who later recalled how powerful was the impact of his character, a visiting Black Starfleet Commodore, to whom the white hero James Kirk deferred and called “sir” in an an era where civil rights activists were being murdered in real life. In one episode, racial hatred was even shown as potentially destroying a planetary civilisation (the aforementioned Cheron). Star Trek tried its best within the limits of its commercial constraints for the time, even (wrongly) boasting of featuring television’s first interracial kiss (that kiss is problematic for many reasons) – although the appearance of an African-American woman on the Bridge was certainly groundbreaking for this same era.
Star Trek didn’t get everything right, particularly its early portrayals of women, and its exclusion of LGBT+ characters, but encouraged by its largely female fandom (fully inclusive of LGBT+ and neurodivergent fans) Star Trek evolved with the times, always implying the equality it frequently failed to show. So although I understand why some modern fans bewail the appearance of sexualities or racial realities that previously were never shown – only implied – I do think they need to understand the spirit of the series as much as its stories. Was Star Trek ever woke? Hell yes, ever since 1964.
Whether or not Starfleet Academy is great literature or a great disappointment, it deserves in-depth analysis and appreciation of its values, aspirations and its potential to inspire. Straight white men have enjoyed more than their fair share of representation in the franchise for sixty years; it is time for us all to explore strange new worlds and seek out new life – learning about these others and glimpsing who we ourselves might become as an inclusive species in the future. Gay Klingons, married lesbians, and strong women should be celebrated, not dismissed as evil or deviant or disgusting because some timid people fear what is outside of their traditional life experiences. Those fans who disparage this series because of personality politics have themselves failed the Starfleet Academy entrance exam. They are free to ignore the series and enjoy other literature – or to quote Bob Dylan:
“Your old road is rapidly agin’
Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand
For the times, they are a-changin’.”
– Bob Dylan
Inclusion is for Everyone
This does not mean we should reject these problematic fans outright: one cure for White Christian Nationalism or other forms of cognitively dissonant extremism is providing a safe space for such people after they face their own disillusionment, disengagement and deradicalisation:
“Hospitality communicates ‘You are welcome here.’ When a person is ready to leave American Christian nationalism, they need a place to land, a genuine community of safe, loving people.”
Starfleet Academy is a victim of its times: an exploration of the future being opposed by luddites and reactionaries. If it has offended those who resist change, and enables them to ultimately question and grow, then it will have done its job. Otherwise, the fan critics who disparage the material are guilty of seeking to revisit and enshrine old times and old attitudes, to divide and destroy our social fabric, and to destroy our opportunities to grow as individuals and as a collective. They are the opposite of traditional fandom, where fans used slash and other diversity to promote a healthy culture of life and growth; these people today promote cultural stagnation and death. Such is symptomatic of a country and a culture that seeks to drag humanity backwards; to “make great again” a mythical concept marrying white elitism, heterosexism, misogyny, racism, authoritarianism and social regression – and even fascism. Star Trek and the future of humanity demand more. It is up to the rest of us to bring these people back from the edge.
Memory is not enough. Attention is not guaranteed. Justice must be demanded.
World AIDS Day is not just a memorial. It is a challenge.
This post is a challenge between the past and the present silence that endangers lives. It honours those lost, confronts ongoing injustice, and insists that we remember not only what happened, but what continues to unfold. From Melbourne to Kampala, from memory to moral action, our imperative to care must be honoured.
Early badge from VAAC (Victorian AIDS Action Council – later VAC and now Thorne-Harbour Health)
In a recent social media post, people were asked for their recollection of the 1980s and 1990s. Most of them happily recalled musicians or musical groups, movies, videotapes, the arrival of home computers, or generally reminisced about “the good old days” before the arrival of modern-day stresses.
My recollections are somewhat different.
The 1980s marked my arrival into young adulthood. Work. Freedom. Autonomy. Meeting others and developing my first extended family outside of my biological one (like Mary Anne Singleton and Mouse from “Tales of the City”). But the times also featured the insidious arrival of a terrible epidemic that started attacking and killing many of my friends.
The next fifteen years were frantic, full of illnesses and deaths, of stigma and discrimination, of angst and activism. There were days and months full of pain and fear and people living in a double closet: homosexuality and HIV.
Very few people nowadays seem to either know about (or recall) those days when a whole generation of young men (and others) was effectively decimated. How quickly we forget, especially because there are lessons we can learn a generation later. It seems the stigma of AIDS lingers a generation later.
This is not just an academic exercise. I recently learnt of the death from HIV/AIDS of an African Facebook friend. The dangers and outcomes are still very real.
Over forty years later, the virus still claims lives; not in the same neighbourhoods, perhaps, but in communities across Africa and Asia where silence and stigma persist. The difference now is not ignorance, but indifference. We know what works. We know what saves lives. And yet, we ignore.
In Uganda and Kenya, millions live under laws and social norms that stigmatise or criminalize their existence: laws shaped not by local tradition, but by imported hate. In 2023, Uganda passed one of the world’s harshest anti-LGBTQ+ laws, introducing the death penalty for so-called “aggravated homosexuality.” These laws were seeded by decades of lobbying from U.S. evangelical groups, exporting their hate under the hypocritical guise of “pro-life” and “pro-family” agendas.
The consequences are devastating: queer Ugandans are hunted, HIV-positive individuals fear seeking treatment, and human rights groups are silenced. In Kenya, similar pressures have led to rising violence and legal crackdowns. This is not just a moral failure, it’s a public health catastrophe. It’s part of a Third-World War.
In July 2025, the U.S. Congress passed the Rescissions Act, slashing $7.9 billion in foreign aid. PEPFAR was spared, but only narrowly. The broader rollback has disrupted HIV care in over 70,000 programs across 50 countries. A Lancet-backed study warns that nearly 500,000 children in sub-Saharan Africa could die from AIDS-related causes in the next five years if PEPFAR funding collapses.
“Silence = Death.” — ACT UP
“The opposite of forgetting is justice.” — Geoff Allshorn
“We are not post-AIDS. We are post-attention.” — UNAIDS advocate
World AIDS Day is not just a memorial. It is a challenge. If we forget the past, we risk repeating it; not in San Francisco or Sydney, but in Kampala, Nairobi, Dhaka. The virus is still here. So must we be.
My only surviving substantial photo of the club. Some of the MASC club members at a solar eclipse excursion, Beveridge (central Victoria), 23 October 1976. (No, we were NOT looking at the Sun through a telescope, we were using pinhole cameras and other forms of technology to observe the eclipse indirectly.)
I remember this 1976 eclipse. Even the cows in the paddocks around us knew to seek shelter when the sky dimmed, but they returned when the light came back. That day, while the rest of the world was going about its business, we looked up — not just at the eclipse, but at a future that was calling us.
Genesis: From Primary School to the Paddock
They say “show me the child and I’ll show you the adult,” but that’s only half the story…
As children, we sometimes begin something small that echoes across decades, shaping lives in ways we never imagined. I had that chance – or perhaps I created it with friends – and half a century later, I can look back with astonishment at the outcomes.
It all began with a group of free spirits in primary school, role-playing “Thunderbirds” and “Lost in Space” and “H.R. Pufnstuf” while other boys were learning to kick footballs and the girls were playing elastics. While the popular kids were modelling themselves on footballers or beauty pageant queens or whatever gender binary norms were being presented in the 1960s, we looked up to Apollo Moonwalkers, the space family Robinson, and Lady Penelope – bold, confident figures who shaped their worlds. Will Robinson (a child our own age) thrived in alien landscapes, and SHADO’s own Commander Straker built the teams to face them. These weren’t just TV characters. They were our blueprint for adulthood. Later, as an adult, I can see in hindsight that the original club members grew into diverse, independent, self-empowered (sometimes bohemian) agents of their own destiny.
I was jealous of one of the girls – Annie – because she not only had a telescope but she was subscribed to a weekly comic/magazine called “Countdown” that featured graphic art stories of everything from “Thunderbirds” and “UFO” to other British science fiction (which may have inspired one of my earliest efforts at creating a fanzine). I even remember that at the tender age of 10, she filked the song “Blowin’ in the Wind”, rewriting the words to be space-aged:
The answer my friend, is in the vacuum of space
The answer is in the vacuum of space…
My recollection of her song reveals the potential for creativity that we unknowingly captured in those early days. Our gang – our club, simply known as “the club” in those times – would expand and grow as we did. In 1972, the last year of the Apollo Moon landings, we began to develop a fanzine, The Space Age – our own voice.
Drafting the Future
As we drifted off to different high schools, I eventually lost touch with some of those early friends, but made others. Two of my new friends – Peter and Russell – joined the Astronomical Society of Victoria with me in 1973. Becoming inspired by that group’s organisational structure (its general meetings and committee meetings, its Constitution and activities), we decided to remodel our little club to copy this format.
Inspired by the organisation name SHADO (Supreme Headquarters, Alien Defence Organisation) from the early-1970s TV show “UFO”, we named our club CATSMILK (the Celestial and Terrestrial Scientific Melbourne Interplanetary Link Kommission – “yes with a K” – forgive the juvenile idea, we were only 12 years old!) A couple of years later, hitting puberty, we decided that this name was a bit childish, so we renamed it as MASC (the Melbourne Amateur Science Club) and expanded our club membership to around 13 school kids across two or three schools.
The Melbourne Amateur Science Club (MASC) became a more “mainstream” (ie. “respectable”) and informal group of late primary school and lower secondary school students who ran their own science and technology-based activities. Club meetings were held on a rotating basis at private homes.
From 1973 to 1977, MASC published Club News and The Space Age — this latter being our launch-sequence zine inspired by Countdown magazine and named in part-homage to The Age newspaper. Its spirit-duplicated pages, supplemented by parental photocopies, carried our voices into the great unknown. Few copies survive, but the legacy endures.
MASC was composed of a series of subsections, each run by teenager with a particular interest in that field, for example: Physics, Astronomy, Archaeology, Chemistry, Electronics, even including Astrology and UFOlogy (these last two were intended to scientifically investigate these pseudosciences), with aligned subjects including Music and Photography. Each MASC subsection aimed to produce a report for club meetings, or the newsletter or zine.
Ignition: A Fandom Takes Flight
From CATSMILK (also eventually known as CATSMILC) to MASC, our club evolved from backyard experiments to a fandom that shaped lives.
One of our aligned interests — science fiction — quietly inspired the formation of a new subsection that would become Austrek in October 1975, sparked by Star Trek’s return to Australian television with the advent of colour TV. Teachers supported us: Mr D gave us access to duplicating machines, Mr M offered scientific guidance, and David A (who became more than just a teacher, but also a friend and colleague) stayed on as an Austrek member.
After distributing Austrek flyers at the Melbourne Star Trek Marathon in November 1976, the subsection grew so rapidly it absorbed MASC’s limited resources and became a standalone club. From there, the legacy unfolded.
Austrek touched thousands: inspiring careers, forging marriages, and offering community to those who felt alienated. It seeded other clubs, nurtured lifelong friendships, and — long before it was fashionable — embraced diversity, equity, and inclusion as core values.
Most school clubs are teacher-led, curriculum-bound, and short-lived. MASC was none of those things. It was self-organised, cross-disciplinary, and sustained across years and schools. Where most school clubs dissolve with the end of an academic year, ours evolved, absorbed, and ignited.
From Sneakers to Starships
Saint Ignatius of Loyola apparently once said, ‘Show me the child and I’ll show you the adult.’ But in fandom, the child is already the architect: documenting, designing, and dreaming in real time.
While Fanlore and Fancyclopedia trace a broader pattern (teenagers founding clubs, publishing zines, shaping conventions), MASC stood apart for its sustained life, cross-disciplinary visions, and its transformation into Austrek, a fan institution that has contributed to the future. Jin-Shiow Chen reminds us that adolescent authorship is not a phase, but a blueprint. MASC didn’t just imagine a future; it built one – adapted, evolved, but always true to its founding spirit. What began as youthful imagination became lasting reality.
Role-playing Will Robinson on an alien world, or Jimmy on the somewhat fantastical Living Island (home of Pufnstuf), was more than childhood fantasy. It was rehearsal for adulthood in a wondrous world, and it helped a group of schoolkids build something that continues to resonate today. Decades later, the idea remains powerful: dreams can inspire our world and shape the stories still to come.
Sic itur ad astra.
Thus we can journey to the stars — and sometimes, we bring others with us.
Legacy: To Boldly Care
The club didn’t just shape others — it changed my life.
In more than a metaphorical way, I was adopting the heroic qualities I admired in others. I met scientist and explorer astronaut David Scott — commander of Apollo 15 — as a teenager, and later encountered Ed Bishop, the actor who portrayed resilient and determined Commander Straker in UFO. These weren’t just distant icons; they were role models for how I chose to live, lead, and contribute to the community.
Austrek wasn’t just a fandom; it became an extended family. For many of us, it was the first place they felt truly seen, supported, and safe to be themselves. It offered belonging to those who felt alienated, and care to those navigating hardship. Through shared stories, mutual aid, and empowerment to develop their confidence and life skills, Austrek changed lives. It was a sanctuary disguised as a science fiction club.
Even Thunderbirds, with its ethos of rescue and humanitarian action, helped shape my sense of responsibility. The idea that helping others could be a mission — not just a story — stayed with me.
That same spirit of aspiration led me beyond fandom. As well as helping launch Austrek, I volunteered with Amnesty International Australia, where we literally saved lives and helped shape humane laws. After that and most recently, I have worked to assist LGBT+ refugees, some of the most disadvantaged people on Earth.
CATSMILK may be a silly acronym, but it provided sustenance for the growth of ideas that changed lives. The blueprint we drafted as children became a framework for action — not only for others, but also for me.
