When STARLOG announced its return last week, one of the nicest things was hearing old school fans reminiscing about the august publication’s place in a pre-internet environment. That’s immediately evident with any peek at the archive and reading the letters page, as well as the blocks of ads offering places for likeminded people to get in touch with one another.

Our computers have made the need to print this info out obsolete, but the ability to get in touch with anyone about any subject without having to get off our asses has changed everything. I don’t think we need to throw our phones off the Queensboro Bridge and do nothing but touch grass — I am actually allergic to grass! — but I do think we need to be reminded that IRL is significantly different than online. And from time to time it is necessary.

I have attended more Star Trek conventions than the average tardigrade and, while I don’t want to misrepresent by saying a Gold Pass to hear Tuvok tell the same stories he’s told for 30 years is going to make all your troubles go away, I want to report that I, Jordan Hoffman, have made some of the strongest friendships of my life in an off-strip hotel with gross carpeting while the music of Ron Jones swirled out of the PA.

Anyone in love with Thing X ought to find, if nothing else, great conversation and merriment at a Thing X Con. I was lucky early in my Trek explorations to find people who adored Gene Roddenberry’s creation in a similar way that I do. (For me, it’s a deep passion for its dopier elements, without ever negging on the spark that makes it great in the first place. It’s a tough needle to thread.)

In 2020, when COVID stopped so much public life, a group chat got started. It began with jokes lamenting we’d be unable to eat horrible Vegas food and watch people awkwardly ask questions on autograph lines. But then we just started talking about life, built on a shorthand about Starfleet.

Though I don’t see these people in the flesh too regularly, when we do meet up, even if it’s been two years, it’s just a continuation of where we’ve been online. Truly a good use of technology. But it’s absolutely worth the effort to make the trip to, say, Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, when someone in the group gets married, which is what happened last week.

While we all did shake hands and meet others, surely they were perplexed by the one table that couldn’t stop laughing while talking about Armus, Trelane, and the Hunter of Tosk. My suggestion is to seize upon your passion, and to see where it can take you outside of the screen. It can be very rewarding.

Jordan Hoffman, Communications Officer

The best part of this look back is Kennedy revealing that one member of the cast was someone she had been trying to get in one of her films for a long time. It’s a little unexpected. You can listen along as Dave and I try to suss this mystery out on The STARLOG Podcast.

Our first guest on The STARLOG Podcast from outside of the family (that is to say, after last week’s interview with our editor-in-chief Annalee Newitz) is the big-time Hollywood sensation David Koepp.

You have seen and loved so much of his screenwriting work, like Death Becomes Her, Jurassic Park, Carlito’s Way, The Paper (man, The Paper absolutely rules), Panic Room, War of the Worlds, Zathura (hey, I liked Zathura), Black Bag, and more. He also directed some terrific films like The Trigger Effect and Premium Rush. Then there’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull which I recently rewatched and liked more than I ever did before, so there.

More importantly, he’s the guy who collaborated, yet again, with Steven Spielberg to give us Disclosure Day, a box office hit from this summer that many (like me!) loved, and few felt indifferent towards.

Our chat touches on some of the above (sadly not The Paper) but does get into his boyhood love of STARLOG and movies that influenced Disclosure Day like, duh, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. We also use phrases like “The UAP Community,” which is exciting to me. You gotta listen, and be sure to subscribe to get new episodes of The STARLOG Podcast on whatever podcasting platform you prefer.

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