“These are the voyages of our ‘starship’ enterprise. Its ongoing mission: to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilizations; to boldly go where no-one has gone before!”
Creating A Future History
Art by CoPilot AI
Decades later, the church building is still there, but the adjoining church hall, where Austrek held its first public meetings – forty-nine years ago today – has long since been demolished and replaced with shop fronts. The infrastructure may change, but its echo endures. In this busy street in a northern suburb of Melbourne, traces remain of past times, when a sanctuary for those seeking shelter in the past also offered shelter for those seeking consolation in the future. Of the six main public spaces where Austrek has met over the last five decades, four of them have been church halls, demonstrating the intersection between community spaces and collective belonging.
The World That Was
You may be old enough to remember a world before the digital age, when connection meant conversation, not clicks. This was a world without the Internet, mobile phones or streaming services. No instant communication or digital information. If you wanted social media, you went out and met others in real life. Instead of googling, you read a book, or headed to the library to consult encyclopaedias.
For news, you relied on the evening TV news bulletin or picked up a newspaper, knowing that the headlines were already at least a day old. I recall the Apollo 13 Moon mission, when the front page of a Melbourne newspaper was overprinted with a daily 3am “Stop Press” notice in red ink – an otherwise unthinkable notion for something as inviolate and sacrosanct as a newspaper. These were our closest to instant communication and worldly wisdom: many Star Trek fans collected scrap books full of news clippings like they were collecting holy relics.
These were the times before streaming and YouTube, before DVDs and videocassettes – even before modern marketing made copyright issues ubiquitous and inviolate. Fans of TV programs took recordings of their favourite programs on audio cassettes, for their own personal use, and replayed them endlessly until they were word perfect on the script. They photographed their favourite shows off the TV screen. Decades before mobile phones and their inbuilt cameras, photography was more of an effort and an art. Commercial photos and souvenirs were largely unavailable.
Fandom Begins with Persistence
Photos required patience: you bought a roll of film, used a camera, then handed the film over to the local pharmacy, waiting a week for your memories to be developed and printed.
In my tweens during the early 1970s, my rapt attendance at a local movie theatre to watch 2001: A Space Odyssey while university-aged couples necked, led to my attending the theatre one weekend with my pocket camera and some rolls of film so I could take photos of the spaceships. After snap-snap-snapping during the movie, I took my rolls of film to my local pharmacy and impatiently waited the obligatory week for my photos to return. I was disappointed to find that – due to the darkness within the theatre – none of my photos had come out. The pharmacist felt sorry for me and gave me a free roll of film.
“Two rolls of film, one bruised ego, and a carry bag of flash cubes — proof that fandom begins with persistence.”
Undeterred, I returned the following weekend with my camera, more rolls of film, and a carry bag full of flash cubes — determined to photograph the wondrous spaceships. This time, my attempts at photography – flashes and all – caused consternation, likely misunderstandings, and mayhem in the theatre. After surviving being nearly strangled by local university-aged boys in the audience (their girlfriends told them to “leave the boy alone”), I finished my photos and once again (rather smugly this time) presented my films to the pharmacy, waiting another agonising week — only to find that these photos had also not come out. I explained what had happened to the pharmacist, and this time he sternly told me off.
Sadly, I gave up any further attempts to photograph these filmic images — only to joyously find later that the Space Age Bookshop in Melbourne was selling slides of these exact same fictional spaceships. My amateur and failed attempts to deepen my connection with my interest in things science fictional were finally starting to be anticipated and met by rudimentary professional marketing enterprises.
Phones of that era were firmly fixed on walls or situated on shelves. Wireless phones only existed in SF programs. Most homes had a single handset connected by wires, and long-distance calls meant booking ahead through an operator. If you were out and about, you found a TARDIS-shaped phone booth on a street corner and dialled home.
Phone booths were great places to shelter from the harsh weather as you made private calls to friends that you dared not make at home (on the family phone in the living room). They were also great places for Clark Kent to change into his Superman underwear – and those phone directories! In the days before modern privacy laws, these phone books comprised hundreds of pages containing the names, addresses and phone numbers of many thousands of people; I knew fans who had fun skimming through the directory pages to find the names of their favourite fictional characters – not to ring them, of course, but just because it was fun to see fictitious names in print in the “real” world.
This was the world a generation ago: awed by the space age and watching men walking on the Moon, but still stuck in an era before space age technology had trickled down to the everyday. It would take another twenty years before the Internet or mobile phones started making public appearances, another decade after that before home computers brought the Internet into our homes, and another two decades again before AI became commonplace.
Television in those days was a box in your living room, connected to small rabbit-ears antennae that sat on top of your TV set, or connected via wires to an antenna on your roof. Reception was limited to a handful of local TV stations that were accessible via your antenna; and if you wanted to watch a TV program, you were totally reliant upon the whims of the programmers at those local TV stations. In the days before streaming or DVDs or videotapes, when your favourite TV show was taken off the air, you had no guarantee that you would ever see it again. (And if you wanted to see a movie, go to a movie theatre).
And then, as if someone flipped a switch, the future began to arrive… not all at once, but in colour.
Future Echoes
On 1 March 1975, Australia officially turned on colour television – although colour test transmissions had commenced some months beforehand, hinting at a rainbow of multicoloured diversity in our formerly monotone black-and-white TV services. In those early days of colour TV, the colour palette was turned up high, so everything appeared almost fluorescent. This was especially breathtaking, for example, when seeing that cricket matches were played on the MCG grass field that was blindingly green.
“The [television] sets cost more than $1,000, the equivalent of approximately $8,800 in today’s money. The many who could not afford to upgrade their sets continued to watch in black and white.”
As a result of colour TV, local stations pulled many old programs out of their archives and repeated them – now in living colour. Star Trek was one of these programs, airing in a G-rated (suitable for children) timeslot for about three months on Saturday afternoons.. maybe fifteen episodes. For nerdy SF-starved teens, it was wondrous.
I remember sitting around the dining table for our family’s traditional Saturday evening dinner, and at my pleading they allowed me to have the television turned on so I could watch while we ate. Upon hearing the opening narration: “Space: The Final Frontier…” my father laughed and commented that space was the infinite frontier. Having been suitably chastened for the gall to watch television during family tea-time, I was allowed to watch the rest of the episode without critical commentary, although I was compelled to ignore my mother and sisters rolling their eyes in patronising amusement. Within my 14 year-old brain, I felt the thrill of space-age adventure mixed with deference to a nostalgic program that dated from the Apollo space era. I was hooked. Over subsequent weeks, in between the TV episodes on Saturday afternoons, I turned to reading Star Trek books, especially when the series was withdrawn from that timeslot, and later appeared in erratic late night “graveyard shift” timeslots.
This was an era when Australian Star Trek viewers were totally dependent upon the whims of Channel 9 programmers – who took the show on and off, often late at night. I even recall late night viewing of one episode, “Amok Time”, containing a scene in which Kirk and Spock face off against each other, ready to fight to the death. Snip! A Channel 9 film editor suddenly cuts out the subsequent five minutes of action – and Kirk went from standing courageously to lying apparently dead in front of Spock. As I sat there stupefied and puzzled, the reason for this edit suddenly became clear: the scene was ended quickly, in order to make way for another five minutes of advertising Saba and Franco Cozzo furniture.
Fans became frantic for more Star Trek, a hunger which Channel 9 seemed reluctant to satiate, despite our phone calls, letters and petitions (I recall being told by one Channel Nine Programming Manager that they had enough problems in their workplace without having to worry about giving fans what they wanted). Into this vacuum stepped a local film theatre manager.
A portion of a Ritz theatre flyer, with the bottom half of the page advertising the first Star Trek Marathon on 27 November 1976
Bob Johnston was a local film enthusiast who had collected many films and ran a small theatre – the Ritz – in a hired theatrette in Errol Street, North Melbourne (his Sydney operations were likewise run out of ANZAC House). Out of curiosity, he threw a couple Star Trek episodes into a theatre night, and the audience response was so positive that he decided to run a Star Trek Marathon featuring Star Trek episodes running “from dusk ’til dawn”, and for the first time ever, he had to open the theatrette balcony in order to accommodate the audience. Naturally, this meant that the Marathons became a regular feature in both his Melbourne and Sydney theatres.
My teenager friends and I were already running an amateur student science club, the Melbourne Amateur Science Club (MASC), and we excitedly attended this first Star Trek Marathon. We even took some photocopied flyers advertising Austrek (a subsection of MASC), and these were snapped up by Marathon audience members and caused us to be overwhelmed with immediate sign-ups for new memberships (an annual membership initially costing $1, although postage costs for our newsletter forced us to quickly increase that to $2.50). We quickly concluded that we did not have the resources to run both our school children’s science club and the fledgling Austrek (which in one night had received more enthusiastic memberships than MASC had received in its years of operation), so we closed down MASC and dedicated our limited teenage time and efforts to Austrek. That first Star Trek Marathon on 27 November 1976 was retrospectively assigned as being the date of our club’s public launch. We even met a lovely young lady, a school teacher named Diane, who encouraged us to run our new club.
Science fiction fans have traditionally been voracious readers, and local fans were no exception. Concurrent to the aforementioned media activities, we had previously sought Star Trek-related material via a scarce number of books. British author James Blish had novelised the Star Trek episodes, and US author Alan Dean Foster had done the same for the Star Trek animated series. Beyond that, such books were rare. We started watching Star Trek on TV, fell in love with its magic, and scoured bookshops for more.
There were two books that particularly made a difference in the early club. Star Trek Lives! introduced us to the concept of fan clubs and fandom. We learned that there were others like us: keen and enthusiastic for Star Trek and space age excitement; running fan clubs and conventions; writing fan fiction and publishing fanzines. This book had probably helped inspire us to start Austrek as a sub-section of our humble little schoolkids science club, MASC, and begin to consider expanding that subsection into something more (the Star Trek Marathons helped that option take off like a rocket).
The second book to impact our lives was I Am Not Spock, an autobiographical account by actor Leonard Nimoy. He complained that any time anyone wrote a letter and addressed the envelope to “Mr Spock, Hollywood, California”, the Post Office delivered it to him. Encouraged by this, we did something that I would now recommend that nobody ever do: we wrote to him using that very method. Dozens of us signed a letter asking if we could officially start a Star Trek fan club, and we posted it with teenaged-sized bravery, wondering if we would ever get a reply. To our surprise, we did – but not from the man himself.
It turns out that there was an organisation called the Star Trek Welcommittee (STW) – a Star Trek volunteer-based information exchange network, based in the USA. In the days before the digital communications, they wrote a snail mail reply to us, recommending that we contact a mysterious “D. Marchant” who lived in Melbourne (but in far-away Mordialloc, a southern suburb – too far for us to visit in the days before we were old enough to own or drive our own cars). With some fear and trembling, I dialled my home phone’s rotary dial and called this mysterious “D. Marchant”. To my astonishment, my new friend – Diane from the Star Trek Marathons – answered the phone. It turned out that she was the world STW representative for every country outside the USA.
Diane mentored, encouraged and assisted us with everything from contacting local fans, to posting out our first real newsletter (she donated the stamps for us to afford the postage costs). It was full-steam ahead.
A portion of page 1 of the first Captain’s Log
The following months were a mix of frantic and exciting, especially balancing schoolwork and homework against building Austrek infrastructure. We published our first Austrek newsletter, titled Trekkie Talk, and then changed the name after Diane gently explained how the word “trekkie” was seen as a negative by many Star Trek fans at that time; leading to the newsletter being relaunched as The Captain’s Log.
Our first public meeting took place in the abovementioned church hall in Fairfield on 27 February 1977. The pastor was annoyed when I asked for a receipt for the hall hire cost: the princely sum of five dollars. He hand-wrote a receipt, making sure to exaggerate the receipt number as #1 (the 1 being preceded by a ridiculous number of zeroes) as his gentle protest.
The meeting was attended by Diane and her mother Jessie, by many of the teenage club members, and a mix of new members who had joined since the first Marathon. One teenage boy dressed as Darth Vader, managing to go to the milk bar next to the church and trying to buy a Star Wars icy pole, getting flustered, and tripping over the Twisties stand. But our youth and enthusiasm were infectious: our club sped ahead into new activities over the coming months, not being held back by wisdom or caution. We had never tried anything before, and we had no idea what was possible or impossible, so we generally went ahead and did it anyway. Any time we had an idea, we anticipated the later Star Trek mantra of Make It So, and we did. Our human adventure was just beginning.
Early Austrek logo
Austrek has organised many activities: including club meetings, car rallies, birthday parties, weddings, Christmas events, weekend events at private homes, New Year’s Day events, trivial pursuit nights, camps, fan fiction, fanzines, newsletters, collating parties, conventions, fan films, art displays, costume competitions,’courts martial’ and ‘ambassadors’ banquets’ and other cosplay events, formal debates, letter campaigns to help NASA or medical causes, charities, banquets, movie nights, sold out theatre bookings for virtually every Star Trek movie premiere, museum displays, filk songs, radio programs, Moomba floats, media interviews, medical and personal interventions, picnics to Hanging Rock, merchandise including T-shirts and cups and stickers and playing cards and lanyards, contributions to books and magazines, assisting the start of many other SF media clubs, assisting fan authors and fan artists to become professionals, providing a welcoming sanctuary for many people facing issues of diversity, isolation and difference, introducing women to science fiction and science fiction to women… the sky was our limit. Whether creative activities borne of need in the early days to find more Star Trek inspiration amidst the cultural desert; or more recent consumerist activities to accommodate the wide range of franchise material now available, the club has learnt and adapted to suit changing commercial and copyright and cultural interests.
As for me, I will never forget the many people who have told me (over the last five decades) how Austrek literally saved their lives by providing supportive social networks.
We may not have changed the world overnight, but we have changed it one life at a time. After half a century, our journey – our legacy – continues.
And the rest is history.
“Starfleet was founded to seek out new life. Well, there it sits.”
– Picard, Measure of A Man, Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Published to commemorate the birthday of Joanna Russ.
“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
— Neil Armstrong, 1969
“He was a man, and I was a woman. That’s what they told us.”
— Janelle Monáe, Dirty Computer, 2018
Genre Was Never Neutral
Speculative fiction was built on a foundation of masculine myth. From the 19th century onward, writers like Verne, Wells, and Burroughs imagined futures of conquest, invention, and control. Their heroes were white, male, cisgender, heterosexual, and rational – and women were either absent or ornamental.
Early science fiction: Explorers and inventors dominated their worlds. The alien was orientalised and othered. Women were sidelined.
Golden Age SF (1930s–50s): Pulp magazines glorified masculine genius. Women were assistants, lovers, or threats.
High fantasy (Tolkien, Lewis): Noble bloodlines, patriarchy, and exotic locations.
Space opera (Star Wars, Foundation): Empire in space. Male heroes and women as damsels in distress.
For me as a younger science fiction fan, one of my template heroes was Captain Kirk, who happened to be white, male, heterosexual and imperialist. The same with Commander Straker, Luke Skywalker, Doctor Who, R. Daneel Olivaw, and even Galen from Planet of the Apes. These generically universal straight white male heroes (or their analog) served to lead and guide science fiction by example. But from Tarzan to Tony Stark, from Sherlock to Spock, the so-called “universal” hero was never really universal. He was a product of Western patriarchy, designed to dominate and conquer.
Helena Tried to Give Them Souls
She Was the Genre’s First Media Emotional Ark
Helena Glory, the President’s daughter, arrives at Rossum’s Universal Robots (R.U.R.), a factory that mass-produces synthetic labourers. She comes as an emissary of the League of Humanity, pleading for the robots to be treated with dignity. She begs the scientists to give them souls, to make them more human. They laugh. They dismiss her. They marry her.
Years later, Helena burns the formula for creating robots (not out of malice, but grief). She’s horrified by their callousness, by the sterility of a world without care. When the robots revolt, she is killed: erased like the empathy she embodied.
One of Gnaedinger’s covers (Pulpfest)
From the beginning, women haunted the margins of speculative fiction: sometimes as authors, more often as symbols. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) gave the genre its first speculative scaffold, yet even there, women are silenced, sacrificed, or erased to propel male ambition. In colonial fantasies by Verne and Burroughs, women are romantic prizes or civilizing burdens; emblems of the empire’s moral veneer. As the genre moved into pulp fiction, women were both creators and constraints: Mary Gnaedinger edited Famous Fantastic Mysteries, while writers like Clare Winger Harris and Leslie F. Stone published under ambiguous names to slip past editorial gatekeeping. Yet on the page, female characters were often mute, decorative, or doomed: narrative decoration for masculine conquest. Even in R.U.R. (1920), where the word “robot” was born, Helena Glory’s efforts end in obliteration. These early texts excluded and obliterated women.
Maria: The Robot Was a Woman
In Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927), the first cinematic robot wasn’t a neutral machine, it was a woman. The Maschinenmensch, built in the image of Maria, wasn’t designed to liberate. She was built to deceive, seduce, and incite chaos.
She was created by Rotwang, not as a marvel of science, but as a monument to his lost love, Hel. In that act, the genre revealed its blueprint: women being subservient to the whims and fantasies of men. The robot wasn’t just futuristic, it was patriarchal fantasy presented in chrome.
And yet, she endures. Her silhouette haunts pop culture, from C-3PO to Beyoncé. She reminds us that speculative fiction didn’t begin with liberation — it began with discrimination.
Masculinist Literature
Science fiction, in particular, has long been a stage for masculine melodrama. From lost-world adventures to interstellar warfare, the genre has often glorified the warrior archetype. As Ezekiel Crago puts it, SF’s morality is saturated with “military masculinity”, a form of manhood that justifies violence through the illusion of protection. The “helpful hero” becomes a vessel for power.
To understand how women are written in speculative fiction, we have to start with how masculinity is constructed. The genre doesn’t just exclude women, it defines them in contrast to male protagonists. They’re presented as emotional devices, moral challenges, or damsels in distress. Feminist SF has pushed back for decades, but the genre remains stubbornly resistant.
Let’s talk about the classics: Aragorn, Paul Atreides, Luke Skywalker, Hari Seldon, and their ilk. They were role models for young white boys, and reflected what NASA would later classify as being “the right stuff” for astronauts: male, white, heterosexual, and culturally all-American.
Aragorn: Inherits kingship through bloodline and prophecy. Éowyn’s grief is sidelined.
Paul Atreides: Becomes a messiah. Women vanish in his vision.
Luke Skywalker: Cosmic destiny, paternal revelation, heroic aspirations.
Hari Seldon: Intellectual superiority. Women reduced to background decoration.
These narratives entertained and instructed. The hero wasn’t just a character. He was a role model for male emotional distance and a testimony to testosterone. Hasta La Vista, Baby!
The Treatment of Female Characters
In speculative fiction, women are rarely protagonists. More often, they’re decoration, used to provide background context for the male hero, or to soften his testosterone. They’re props.
Altaira and the Gaslight
I recall chatting to a younger SF fan about an old movie (Forbidden Planet), which I had always considered positively, but I was about to learn something. This younger guy viewed this movie as being awful, which surprised me because it is often invoked as a classic. When I asked him why, his reply was startling but made me think:
“That scene when the captain scolds Altaira for wearing a short skirt in front of a spaceship full of men who haven’t seen a woman for a year. Talk about gaslighting and rape culture!”
Maybe the Creature from the Id was wider than just a movie concept.
Narrative Roles Assigned to Women
The Love Interest: A prize or temptation. Think Leia, Arwen, Chani.
The Healer or Mother: Emotional tokenism. Often unnamed or undeveloped as a character, often sacrificed. Think Edith Keeler, Beverley Crusher, Deanna Troi, and Miramanee (Star Trek)
The Symbolic Martyr: Forgotten, or sanctified. Think Maria in Metropolis and Furiosa in Mad Max.
The Exceptional Woman: Allowed agency only by rejecting femininity or becoming “one of the boys.” Think Buffy Summers, Dana Scully, Ellen Ripley, Sarah Connor, Susan Calvin.
These clichés teach readers or viewers to see women as secondary, symbolic, or expendable. As Brian Attebery puts it, science fiction doesn’t just reflect gender norms, it teaches them. It animates machines and aliens with power, while presenting women as relatively inert, decorative, or dead.
Case Studies in Erasure
Éowyn (The Lord of the Rings): Slays the Witch-King, then vanishes into domesticity.
Chani (Dune): Warrior and guide, reduced to womb and warning.
Leia Organa (Star Wars): Rebel leader, strategist, and survivor—yet always framed through restraint and lineage.
Susan Calvin (Asimov’s Robot series): Brilliant roboticist, emotionally flattened and mocked for her intellect.
Dr Elizabeth Dehner (Star Trek pilot): Brilliant scientist, emotionally flattened and mocked as a ‘walking freezer unit’.
These women are allowed power only when it serves the hero’s arc. Their stories are shaped by the emotional logic of a genre that mistrusts vulnerability and disciplines care out of its protagonists and its readers.
The Frigid Prototype
Dr. Susan Calvin, robopsychologist in Asimov’s I, Robot, is often described as cold, emotionless, and robotic. Shmoop notes that she’s referred to as a “frosty girl” with “cold enthusiasm,” her face and voice repeatedly described as cold—like the metal bodies of the robots she studies.
Calvin is more than just a scientist, she’s a genre prototype. She embodies the masculinist ideal of intellect stripped of emotion, a woman who “protected herself against a world she disliked by a masklike expression and a hypertrophy of intellect.” Her competence is unquestioned, but her humanity is flattened. She’s allowed power only by rejecting personality complexity.
Even Asimov admitted she was “much more like the popular conception of a robot than were any of my positronic creations.” Calvin’s legacy is profound: she’s the frigid woman scientist who must become machine to be taken seriously. And yet, she endures: brilliant, unyielding, and emotionally dead.
Damsels, Temptresses, and Designed for Rescue
Speculative fiction has long relied on women as visual and figures to be rescued, desired, or punished. These characters aren’t protagonists. They’re genre tropes, designed to elevate male heroism while suppressing female agency.
From Geisha to General
Princess Leia’s Story Arc Was Evolution
She began as a captured princess, framed through defiance but rescued by men.
She was silenced in a gold bikini, her body part of the conquest and subjugation.
She became a general: grieving, commanding, mentoring, surviving.
It took a lifetime for women’s liberation to arrive in a galaxy far, far away.
Designed for Rescue
Jane Porter (Tarzan): Repeatedly rescued, framed through romantic submission.
Aouda (Around the World in Eighty Days): Intelligent, gracious, but offered as romantic reward.
Maria (Metropolis): Saintly human and seductive robot, her humanity mechanised and weaponized.
Weena (The Time Machine): Passive and childlike.
Nova (Planet of the Apes): Mute, idealized, emotionally dependent.
Vina (Star Trek: “The Cage”): Reconstructed for beauty, her trauma made decorative.
Janice Rand (Star Trek: TOS): Professional, yet subordinated, her arc vanishes without closure.
Altaira Morbius (Forbidden Planet): Beautiful, naïve, emotionally reactive, transferred from father to suitor.
Dr. Ruth Adams (This Island Earth): A scientist, but emotionally subordinated, reduced to companion and witness.
Desire as Punishment
Marla McGivers (Star Trek: “Space Seed”): Betrays her crew for Khan’s love, her professionalism and autonomy forgotten.
Princess Aura (Flash Gordon): Sensual and rebellious, her quest for love made dangerous.
Barbarella:Her personality is contextualised through erotic spectacle.
Competence Undermined
Carol Marcus (Star Trek II): Brilliant scientist, but her arc is framed through romantic history and maternal sacrifice.
Maureen Robinson (original Lost In Space TV series): Qualified scientist who spends her time baking space cookies, washing the space laundry, and worrying about her children.
Tanya Adams (The Giant Claw): A mathematician, but her intellect is sidelined by romantic quests and repeated rescue.
Lois Lane (Superman): A brilliant journalist, yet frequently endangered and emotionally tethered to Superman’s arc.
These women aren’t just underwritten, they’re minimised. Their emotional power, sacrifice, and desire are used to fortify male heroism, not to explore their own arcs. They’re written to be seen, not to see.
Jessica Runs
I recall the opening episode of Logan’s Run: Jessica stands to one side, looking helpless while the men fight in fisticuffs. Just as the villain is about to defeat Logan, he is disarmed by a shot from Jessica, who has turned from damsel in distress to become a self-empowered runner!
I was sitting in a room with other teenagers, and we all cheered as Jessica discovered Women’s Lib. It wasn’t just a plot twist, it was a the birth of a new era. In that moment, speculative fiction cracked open, and we saw possibility sprint across the screen.
Point and Counterpoint: Wonder Woman
Diana isn’t rescued; she rescues the genre from itself. In a landscape dominated by male heroes, Wonder Woman emerges as a revelation.
Lasso: Compels honesty, not obedience.
Bracelets: Deflect violence, not invite it.
Mission: Peace over conquest.
She doesn’t conquer the other; she connects across difference. Where Paul Atreides erases Fremen women, Wonder Woman represents the silenced. Where Luke Skywalker inherits destiny through bloodline, she chooses empathy. She is not a masculinist hero reassigned as a woman. She is her own character.
Transitional Figures
Not all feminist characters arrive fully formed. Some characters inhabit the gap between old tropes and new ideas.
Ann Veronica (H.G. Wells): Defies patriarchy, seeks autonomy, yet returns to domesticity.
Jessica (Logan’s Run TV): Begins as companion, evolves co-architect of resistance.
Servalan (Blake’s 7): Glamorous and manipulative, yet politically dominant.
Elizabeth Dehner (Star Trek): Gains power, refuses domination, and then dies to stop Mitchell’s descent.
Nyota Uhura (Star Trek): Cultural bridge and communications officer. Like her character, her full name was not invented for decades.
Zira (Planet of the Apes): Empathetic and maternal scientist who dies in self-sacrifice.
Sarah Jane Smith (Doctor Who): Investigative journalist turned protagonist. She challenges the Doctor, leads her own spin-off.
These women signal that the genre is beginning to crack open.
Ripley Wasn’t Supposed to Survive
Ripley was originally written as a man. In early drafts of Alien (1979), the character was a standard-issue male officer. But director Ridley Scott, with a nudge from studio head Alan Ladd Jr., flipped the script: “Why can’t Ripley be a woman?”
Scott later explained the logic: a woman would be the last person audiences expected to survive. That subversion—casting Sigourney Weaver as the by-the-book officer who outlives them all—wasn’t just a twist. It was a genre detonation.
Ripley didn’t just survive. She returned, again and again, across sequels and decades, evolving from reluctant survivor to maternal protector to existential warrior. She became the spine of the franchise—and a new archetype for speculative fiction.
Feminist Interventions: Ripley and Sarah Connor
If Wonder Woman reframes heroism through care and individualism, Ellen Ripley and Sarah Connor represent a darker evolution. They are the female equivalents of violent male heroes such as the Terminator, Judge Dredd, Batman, Wolverine, or Lobo. As such, they epitomise the idea that “might makes right” and their character development needs further nuance if they are to be seen as fully fleshed out, positive role models. While they represent the idea that women are just as physically capable as men towards forms of assertive behaviour, they also represent a transition phase between the “damsels in distress” of the past and more healthy representations in the future.
Towards Intersectionality and Speculative Care
Speculative fiction doesn’t just imagine futures. It helps to create them.
Russ Drew the Map
Joanna Russ exposed the architecture of genre in speculative fiction. In her essay “What Can a Heroine Do? or, Why Women Can’t Write”, Russ mapped the literary traps that constrain female protagonists: the ornamental roles, the emotional baggage, the narrative erasure. She showed how women are written to serve, not to act.
Russ argued that the problem isn’t just representation, it’s structure. The genre’s expectations discipline women into silence, sacrifice, or spectacle. “The heroine cannot act,” she wrote, “because the plot does not permit it.”
Her work teaches us that rewriting the hero means rewriting the blueprint. Russ didn’t just ask what a heroine could do. She demanded that we build stories where she can.
Reading List
Attebery, Brian. Decoding Gender in Science Fiction
Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid’s Tale, Oryx and Crake
Busse, Kristina. Framing Fan Fiction
Butler, Octavia. Kindred, Parable of the Sower
Cherryh, C.J. Foreigner series
Crago, Ezekiel. “The Helpful Hero: Military Masculinity in Science Fiction”
Drapeau-Bisson, Marie-Lise. “Feminist Readings of Genre Disruption”
Fellman, Isaac. The Breath of the Sun
Haraway, Donna. A Cyborg Manifesto
Lemberg, R.B. The Four Profound Weaves, The Unbalancing
Le Guin, Ursula K. “The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction”
Studocu Editorial Team. “Feminist Analysis of Joanna Russ: A Study of Female Agency.” Studocu.
Tiptree Jr., James (Alice Sheldon). Her Smoke Rose Up Forever
Vint, Sherryl. Bodies of Tomorrow
Yang, Neon. The Tensorate Series
Unreal Worlds, Real Bodies: Speculative Fiction and the Colonial Imagination
A four-part journey through how speculative fiction echoed empire, rewrites resistance, and reclaims futurity.
Part One: Race and the Colonial Imagination
Published: 2 January 2026 Read Part One
From Lucian to Le Guin, speculative fiction’s imperial DNA is exposed: how imagined futures rehearsed conquest, racial hierarchy, and colonial logic.
Part Two: The Hero Must Be Rewritten
Published: 22 February 2026 Read Part Two
Gender and the myth of the universal hero. This chapter rewrites masculinist genre scaffolding, tracing how speculative fiction disciplines emotion, care, and female agency.
Part Three: Sexuality & Queer Futures
Published: 1 April 2026 Read Part Three
A queer reading of Star Trek and speculative canon. This chapter critiques heteronormative erasure, celebrates queer fandom’s legacy, and imagines futures beyond genre discipline.
Part Four: We Occupy the Future
Published: 5 April 2026 Read Part Four
Published on the anniversaries of the 504 Sit-In and Medibank Blockade, this chapter confronts techno-fix fantasies and reimagines futures where disabled bodies are not corrected or cured, but centred, celebrated, and architecturally included.
‘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.
Published on 31 December 2025 — the birthday of Diane Marchant, visionary fan, activist, and beloved friend.
Her legacy shaped fandom as a community. This essay honours her memory and the futures she helped us build.
Diane at home, in her Star Trek room, circa 1990. Photo courtesy of Irene Grymbaim.
This essay is the fourth in a series tracing how fandom evolved from storytelling into activism. In earlier chapters, I explored early fandoms as community, speculative fiction as ethics, and storytelling as humanitarian inspiration. Now, I honour my mentor and friend Diane Marchant not only for what she imagined, but for the legacy she built.
She took traditional science fiction fandom, and rebuilt it as an extended family. She helped to shape the Star Trek fan phenomenon, and beyond that, the modern-day media fandom community.
“I was going through a bad time. My sister died and Mum was very ill. I was just coping, going to work, looking after Mum, eating and sleeping. The TV was permanently on in the background.
When Star Trek first came on it didn’t really register, but after a couple of weeks I found I was waiting for it to start every week.
Then I read in a magazine that five women in the USA were forming the Star Trek fan club.
I wrote to them and so became a founding member.”
– Diane Marchant, as interviewed by Eric Scott, “Carry on Trekking!” in TV Times, 8 July 1978, p. 36
In 1978, TV Times magazine sent a reporter to interview Diane Marchant at her home after I had written to them suggesting that she was an important personage worthy of their attention. She spoke, in part, of how her family background had led to her becoming involved with the Star Trek Welcommittee (STW) and ultimately with Australian fans including Austrek. The STW was a US-wide fan support network and information exchange that Diane expanded to encompass the rest of the world. She was spreading the word about Star Trek to fans across Australia and many other nations.
Diane’s interview was perhaps most poignant when she spoke about her personal family tragedy that had led her to become involved in fandom. The loss of her sister (believed to be named Sandra) and her quiet family home – where she and her mother Jessie mourned in solitary silence – led her to becoming attached to a TV program that gave her hope for the future.
Diane Marchant with her mother Jessie at Trekcon 1 (Australia’s first Star Trek convention) on 15 July 1978. (Photo by Helena Binns)
The interview came at an early time of Australian Star Trek fandom, but Diane was already approaching the age of forty. Diane did not disclose much about her early life, and nothing is known about her father. Although many fan friends remember Diane mentioning the passing of her sister, nobody remembers having ever been told any other details, including her name. However, a wedding notice in Melbourne’s “Age” newspaper on Monday 20 Oct 1947 reports that two nieces of the bride – named Diane and Sandra Marchant – served as flower girl and train bearer at a Melbourne wedding. If this is our Diane, she would have been seven years old, and it seems plausible from the context of the note that these two girls were sisters (*and that her sister’s name was therefore Sandra). It is also possible that Diane again served as a flower girl at another family wedding (in country New South Wales) in 1953 when she was thirteen. Both these wedding notices use the less common spelling of the name “Diane” (as opposed to “Dianne” which is more common in Australia), which suggests that the age and name in these reports both fit our Diane. Both events also imply that as a child she belonged within a healthily extended biological family, but by the time Diane became known in fandom, this appears to have shrunk to just Diane and her mother.
Diane (on the right) catches up with her friend Judith at Victoricon in 1991.
This is not to say that Diane was lonely – she had friends and made many more through fandom. One of her oldest (childhood) friends was Judith Giarusso, who remained friends with Diane up through fandom and for all their lives. As Diane was receiving palliative care in hospital towards the end of her life, one of Judith’s granddaughters visited her from Tasmania.
Tait 317M seen passing Kensington on its way to Essendon. Photographer: Matthew Davalle (Wikimedia Commons), CC BY-SA 4.0
Diane spent her early adult life as a primary school teacher, and even used Star Trek as inspiration to encourage her students to write stories. By the time she became involved in fandom in the mid-to-late 1970s, she had already left teaching forever. This was the result of a back injury during a school excursion, when she had tried to help some students alight from a broken-down train carriage in between train stations. She told me she recalled standing on the train tracks and reaching up to lift a child who was standing in the carriage above her head – when she felt a sudden and sharp stab of pain in her lower back. She spent much of her subsequent life on a pension, battling chronic back pain, and she tried hard to live a productive life regardless. Star Trek became a new avenue for her creativity, leadership skills, and community building.
One early club member, Tracy Jackman, recalls:
“I first met Diane Marchant when I became a member of Austrek in my late teens. Long before Google and the internet, Diane was our ‘information super highway’ for all the news about Star Trek and our direct link to Gene and Majel Roddenberry and the Star Trek universe. Even more than that, Diane was a friend, a warm, funny and generous person who would have regular gatherings on a Friday night, at her home in Mordialloc, where a loyal group of Austrek members would talk into the small hours of the next morning on an array of many different life topics, not just Star Trek (Diane, if you didn’t know, was also a devoted Michael Rennie fan).
“We would all squeeze into her living room eat, drink and be merry much to the amusement (I think) of Diane’s mother Jessie. Diane also had a very special ‘Star Trek’ room full of mementos, collectables, fanzines and fan art which she would let us all enjoy. These wonderful gatherings were both entertaining and educational and a safe haven with like minded people who didn’t give you that questioning side glance which always said ‘but Star Trek, it’s just a TV show’. Diane gave generously of her time, attending many Austrek meetings and special events, Star Trek marathons and conventions and was awarded a life membership of Austrek for all her hard work and efforts especially in her official role of Star Trek Welcommittee representative for Australia (and most of the world).
“After Gene Roddenberry passed away, Diane withdrew from many of the official functions of her role with the Star Trek Welcommittee but I did my best to keep in touch with cards and letters until her passing in April, 2006. Many of us who had the pleasure of being a welcomed part of those Friday night gatherings attended her funeral and reminisced fondly of these times we spent together.”
Fandom is not a recent invention. Long before it took on its modern meaning of cultural nerdiness, it functioned as a space where people gathered to form extended family communities, imagine utopias, and practice the ethics that those imaginary worlds required. In temples, churches, forums, town centres, convention halls, schools, living rooms, and eventually in modern fan circles, fans built community across the generations – from the ancient Romans being fanboys of the ancient Egyptians and Greeks, to recent US citizens cosplaying cowboys and creating the gun-happy, wild-western ethos of their modern culture.
Diane plugged into that old fan practice of enthusing, including, and reaching out to extend welcome. She helped fans across Australia (and around the world) to network by letter in the pre-Internet age. She helped clubs to form and solidify their activities, and she assisted fans to join those clubs.
Diane (left) with Gene Roddenberry (right) at the 1975 Star Trek Lives convention in New York.
“Julie Townsend and I were in high-school when we wrote to the Welcommittee mentioned in one of James Blish’s Star Trek novelizations. Diane wrote back to us with names and addresses of other Aus. Star Trek fans who had contacted her (including Susan Batho, or Sue Clarke as she was back then.) We formed ASTREX, where I began writing fanfic and learning other fannish skills, predominantly from Sue. I wonder if my life would have been so rewarding if Diane Marchant hadn’t been the catalyst that lead me into fandom. Edwina. Rob Jan writes: Diane was one of the people responsible for me encountering fandom and was an influential lady…”
My own recollections include meeting Diane at a Star Trek film Marathon, and later having to ring a mysterious “D. Marchant” from the Welcommittee – only to discover that they were the same lady! She gave the club Austrek a great deal of moral and material support, including purchasing over 100 postal stamps for us to mail out the first club newsletter.
“Shut up…we’re by no means setting a precedent.”
– Diane Marchant’s opening words in “A Fragment Out of Time”, 1974.
Diane at the Syncon 72 convention, August 1972 (Photo by Sue Batho).
Fan fiction has been a fundamental component of fandom, from oral myths to collections of stories compiled into legends or sacred texts, or other forms of art, craft, song and dance. Many indigenous and ancient cultures continued their fanfic traditions where oral stories got retold and rebooted every generation by troubadours, griots and town criers. Beyond the epics of Homer or the fanfic of Shakespeare, what we now label ‘fic’ became a form of truth-telling; where audiences of populist culture rewrote endings, queer fans reimagined futures, overlooked minority fans recast themselves into a world of diversity and equality, and differently-abled fans crafted heroes who moved through the world with dignity.
Fanfic changed literature forever – from the Gospels collected as oral myths becoming established dogma, to Robin Hood stories empowering burglars to rob from the rich and give to themselves (the poor), or tales of Australia’s legendary drop bears scaring tourists. But medieval Europe had its own reboot that reshaped its community culture — the legends of Dark Age conflict and survival during eras of plague and pestilence, instead became the stories of Camelot, Arthur, and the code of chivalry. Knights pledged fealty not only to kings, but to ideals of love, loyalty, and sacrifice. The concept of courtly love — a knight’s devotion to a noble lady — became a cultural script, shaping literature, art, and social norms across centuries.
Troubadours and poets like Chrétien de Troyes and Marie de France remixed these myths into serialized romances, complete with quests, emotional arcs, and fan-favorite pairings. These were unauthorized continuations, alternate perspectives, and moral expansions of Arthurian canon. C.S. Lewis even called it “a religion of love”. Robin Hood stories became more romantic – Maid Marion was introduced to become the romantic lead; the Sheriff of Nottingham became the villain in the Robin Hood romance tradition.
In our lifetime, Diane did the same thing to Star Trek.
Leonard Nimoy visits Diane’s house in Melbourne during the late 1970s.
The first Star Trek fanzine, Spockanalia, was published in 1967, and this led to an explosion of paper fanzines containing Star Trek fan fiction. Australia’s first fanzine, Terran Times, began in 1969. Diane began contributing stories and artwork to this and many overseas fanzines. But her biggest single contribution to fan fiction culture was arguably a ‘slash’ story called, “A Fragment Out of Time”, which she submitted to an adult fanzine, Grup, in 1974. It featured two unnamed lovers who later turned out to be Kirk and Spock. The story’s opening line about not setting a precedent was both ironic and indicative of the idea that she had not expected it to actually be published, but she had likely written it to join a series of underground, hand-written fan stories containing adult material that were circulating covertly among fans. This may explain why she never to my knowledge talked about the story or slash to me or to anyone I knew. Maybe she was shy, maybe she was embarrassed, or perhaps she was fearful that her local Catholic church might find out she had written a naughty story – or even worse, that Paramount or Gene Roddenberry might in some way censure her for doing so. They never did.
Perhaps as a way of lessening her fears or embarassment or guilt, Diane later wrote a series of vignettes called “Fragments’ which we published in our “SPOCK” fanzine for school children; this series being about a sexual relationship between Spock and Christine Chapel (they were her favourite pairing, and accordingly she loved both Amok Time and Plato’s Stepchildren).
Ultimately, Star Trek as a television series that had commercially failed – getting cancelled and forgotten after three years – was popularised and resurrected because legions of fans were reading and writing fan stories about the Kirk-Spock relationship and similar material. A billion dollar Star Trek franchise was born, in part because Diane had pioneered a form of fan fiction that can now be found in fandom everywhere: from Sherlock Holmes to Harry Potter. It is hoped that one day, the franchise will recognise the contribution of fans.
Diane with Diddums, photo by Helena Binns
Diane eventually resigned from the Star Trek Welcommittee after Gene’s death, because she felt the magic had lessened. Instead, she became active in her local church, forming a local “Welcomming Committee” to help new congregants.
The last time I saw Diane, she was sick in the hospital; and as I left, Diane flashed me a friendly smile and gave me the Vulcan salute – wishing me to, “Live Long and Prosper” even though she knew she would do neither. I will never forget her cheeky farewell grin as she sat on her bed and smiled at me (with her Vulcan salute) as I left through the door.
On behalf of her fan friends, I was able to give a fan eulogy at her funeral, where I read aloud (with Betsi’s permission) a poem from fan author Betsi Ashton, including the following words:
She had dared to dream
Of a world where hate
And nationalism were barred.
Where the countries of Earth
Were linked as states,
And minds were no longer scarred.
She had searched through
The cloudless skies, at night
Beyond the edge of the world,
And her mind leaped out
In a boundless flight,
To mingle where stars are hurled.
If only we all had such a wondrous view of the universe around us, and such positive aspirations for the future.
The Vulcan “IDIC” symbol from Star Trek, representing Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations.
It will soon be twenty years since her departure, and the utopian future she envisaged seems possibly even further away now than it was during her lifetime. But I see Diane’s legacy continue:
Austrek has lived long and prospered.
Members who met their spouses in the club, continue to raise their now-adult families.
People whose lives were saved by the club – its social networking, its support, its existence as extended family – continue to survive and succeed.
Authors who began with writing fan fiction and who ultimately graduated to other, professional writing, continue to be thankful for the start that fandom gave them.
Fans who told Diane that they were inspired to become doctors, teachers, nurses (or astronauts!) continue to live productive, fulfilling lives and contribute to the future around them.
Austrek continues to inspire and excite, encouraging people to form new friendships and explore their own strange, new worlds.
I recall one fan from the early days of Austrek. She had medical difficulties and had been estranged by her family, so Star Trek fandom served as one of her newly-adopted extended families. We helped ensure she got eye surgery when needed, and although she became legally blind and moved interstate, she continued to be involved in fandom and its activities. When she recently passed away, a bequest was donated to Austrek in her memory – serving to demonstrate that even after fifty years, the importance of fandom as extended family continues to resonate in people’s lives. Diane helped to lay that foundation.
“With Jacqueline Lichtenburg, Diane formed the Star Trek Welcommittee in 1972. She worked tirelessly at answering the many thousands of enquiries from Star Trek fans and putting them in contact with each other. She became known for the wacky story lines she would come out with when workshopping with other writers. Susan Batho relates: “I met Diane in 1972 at Syncon 72, and we took over a panel on Star Trek and tossed around story ideas for nearly 6 hours…And we were firm friends thereafter…And for the record: she wrote the first published K/S story in GRUP. She made a difference in many peoples’ lives and will be remembered. Live long and prosper, Diane.”
Fanthropology 101: Dreaming and Doing in the Real World
A four-part journey through how fandom helps us imagine better futures, and build them.
Part One: Forgotten Futures How two dreamers imagined a better world, and gave us tools to build it
Published: 8 September 2025 Read Part One
Edward Bellamy and Gene Roddenberry didn’t just write stories, they sketched blueprints for justice, dignity, and shared humanity. Their utopias still shape how fans rehearse better futures.
Part Two: Dream It Forward Why fandom isn’t just fun, it’s how we practice empathy
Published: 4 October 2025 Read Part Two
From Arthurian quests to Star Trek conventions, this chapter shows how fandom helps us rehearse courage, community, and care, turning stories into solidarity, and imagination into action.
Part Three: Fandom’s Humanitarian Legacy How fans built real-world networks of care, long before hashtags and headlines
Published: 25 November 2025 Read Part Three
Ficathons, charity drives, and survivor support groups…this essay documents how fandom became a lifeline for many, offering help where institutions failed.
Part Four: From Fic to Future Fan fiction isn’t just storytelling, it’s ethical and pragmatic life guidance
Published: 31 December 2025 Read Part Four
Honouring Diane Marchant and the legacy of fan creators, this chapter explores how fandom helps us rewrite injustice, rehearse empathy, and build continuity across generations.
Portions of this were reworked and republished on 15 March 2026 to add material and clarify some biographical information about Diane.
