A year of The Official Starships Collection ships

The Star Trek Fact Files ran for 304 issues!

It's a very long story. I got the job on the Fact Files when I responded to a newspaper ad. I was already working in publishing and Star Trek was both my hobby and my passion. Back then, no-one knew how long the Fact Files would run. It's success was about an absolute phenomenon. After about a year, the company I was working for decided to try to take it to the US. That meant doing it in a different format, so we launched a US magazine that combined the Fact Files with new behind the scenes material. I was responsible for that and in many ways it was a dream come true. My job was to find out and write about Star Trek. I could literally choose who to interview myself, and they almost always said yes. The magazine ran for four years and I got to talk to almost everyone I wanted to. I made a lot of contacts and collected a lot of material, often tracking down the stuff that no-one had seen before. I still have a pretty hefty archive and I'm very happy to say that a lot of the people I interviewed became friends so if we're working on something I can dash off an email and there's a good chance someone will come back to me.

After the magazine came to an end I carried on working for the publisher, mostly on 'genre' products. I launched a couple of very successful collections - we've done three Doctor Who ones - Battles in Time trading cards, which were a big deal, a DVD collection and now the figurine collection, which I love just as much as Star Trek. I did a James Bond car collection, some DVD collections, TMNT and Transformers collections for Russia. A couple of years ago, the company got bought out by Eaglemoss and I got to add Marvel and DC comics stuff to my CV. We're doing Marvel and DC Chess sets and the Marvel Fact Files. We're pretty busy!

Issue one, a year old today.

Is it only a year?! It's being a lot longer than that for me. After the success of the Fact Files we were always looking for another Trek product. Ships seemed like a natural idea, particularly as we'd had so much success with the James Bond cars. I had a few rules: there couldn't be any holes in the ships, they had to be as accurate and as well painted as possible, and they had to be a pleasing size that you could actually get in your home. I know a lot of people wish they were in scale with one another, but I don't think many people have thought through the implications of that. If you keep the NX-01 at the size it is, then the E should be over 2-feet long. There's no way we could do them all for the same price if we did that and there's no way you'd get a Voth city ship through your letterbox.

For the magazine, I knew from the Fact Files that people have a great interest in in-universe stuff. I also knew there's lots of interesting material out there about the filming models and the design process and that's not something I, personally, can ever get enough of. I love my Art of Star Trek book but I was always very frustrated that there was no explanation about what I was looking at.

The running order is interesting. I've learned a bit as we've gone along. The point of the collection was always to give people things that they hadn't been able to get before. I think you want to make it clear from the beginning that this isn't just a collection that has the Enterprises and a Klingon Bird-of-Prey. So I tried to make it clear that it would be varied from the word go so people understood what they'd be signing up for. As we've progressed, it's become clear that people are passionate about Federation ships, so I try to make sure we never go long without a Fed ship, even if it's something fairly obscure such as the Norway class.

Will the Son'a fleet join The Collection? (screencap via TrekCore)

I have a long list of ships that we might do. It then becomes a case of tracking down the reference or the original 3D model. How good that is affects the order that I do things in. For example, I'd love to do all the ships from Insurrection but the CG models were made and saved in a different format. They never got archived at CBS - in fact, most of the models never reached an archive of any kind. I've used my own contacts to retrieve them. At the moment I'm just sending off the reference for issues 56-59. I've got a plan for another 30 but it's a very fluid one.

In most cases we use the original Lightwave CG models that were built for the show(s). By definition that reference is pretty much perfect. It gets a bit tricky when you realise that the only CG version of a ship that appeared on screen is a good but not quite perfect copy of the studio model. When a ship doesn't exist in CG we have to track down photographic reference of the model and get it built in CG. Sometimes that's easy; sometimes it's next to impossible. We have recently been talking to the legendary Greg Jein, who turns out to have a lot of photographs of a lot of ships including ones he didn't build himself.

The tricky part is the painting. You have to make sure the ship looks the way it did on screen, rather than the way the model looked itself. For example, the Ent-D shooting model was painted blue, but it definitely isn't blue onscreen. There's a yellow model of the Stargazer and so on. I was talking to Gary Hutzel about this the other day - in particular about the Jem'hadar fighter - and he told me that they deliberately desaturated the model shots by 50% to get more control over the colour.

The Bajoran Solar Sailor, a unique challenge

The difficult ones are the ones I remember - for obvious reasons. And I think on the whole they end up being my favourites. I've been very pleased with the Bajoran Solar Sailor and now the Romulan Drone just because I wasn't sure how we were going to do them when we started out. They're both very pretty models that bring something very different to the collection. There are times when I've been particularly pleased with a paint effect we've been able to achieve. I was delighted that we were able to get a hint of violet into the Jem'hadar bug, plus it's a really cool Jim Martin design. Finally, I think some ships just make more pleasing models than others at our scale. I think the Reliant is a great success.

Getting the details right on the TOS Enterprise

They all get the same amount of attention. It's just that... well, the OS Enterprise is the most important ship in the history of Star Trek. I would love for people to think we did the best possible model at the scale. There's also a practical reason. The ships that people seem to like the most are the ones with lots of details on them, in particular people seem to like aztec patterns, and lots of hatches and windows. Matt always wanted his ships to be plain and smooth. He figured that's what a spaceship would be like because you weren't going to grab a spanner and nip outside to make adjustments. That means there aren't a lot of details on the outside of the OS ships. So when we're modelling them we better make sure that all the details there are, are in the right place.

Sorry, completely failed to answer your question.

I have a lot of this material in my own archives. Concept art is one of my obsessions. I'm in pretty much constant contact with Rick Sternbach, Mike Okuda and John Eaves. Andy Probert is always willing to help, as are most people. We're working with Doug Drexler on the Enterprise-J and the NX-01.5. I'm name dropping here, but I was talking to Ira Behr about the Jem'hadar the other day and he pointed that it's nearly 20 years since they were working on the stories I'm asking him about, so I often find myself looking back to old interviews I did with people nearer the time. But, yes, they're (almost) all onboard and are lovely and helpful people.

Kelvin might be coming, the Narada more challenging (image via TrekCore)

Erm, yes. No promises but I think there's a very good chance we'll see the Kelvin next year. I was looking at the 3D model of the Narada and honestly, it fills me with fear. I'm really not sure how to make it into a die-cast model. It has a lot of very thin, fronds for want of a better word. I keep thinking about it though! Beyond that, I'm not sure. We are doing the Klingon fighter from STID after the Vengeance.

Absolutely. I'd like to do them all. Maybe not Yonada since I'm not sure people would feel a rock was good value.

The Delta Flyer is about as small as we're going at the moment. We are doing a Runabout and the Raven. Shuttles are the obvious omission from the collection. When we started out I felt that the scale was too different and that it seemed really wrong to have a model of the Galileo that was bigger than the Excelsior, but now I'm not so sure. I would love to do them. I'm not sure we can do them within the 90 issues that we've got planned at the moment. If people keep buying the collection, and it's financially viable to do more ships, I think we'll find a way.

Never say never, but it's not on my list of things to do at the moment. If - and it's a big if - we do more space stations, I'd probably do K-7 first.

V'ger concept art (via Film Sketchr)

The Doomsday Machine is long and thin and kind of looks like a log. I'm not sure it would make the most exciting model. V'ger is different. I have got artwork showing what it looks like inside the cloud that was done for the Motion Picture back in 1979. There was originally going to be a shot in the movie that showed it silhouetted against the moon but I'm not sure how people would feel about a model of a ship that they never actually saw in its entirety. I know what V'Ger looks like, but I'll be amazed if you can find me 10 people that can give me a drawing. I think that raises some questions.

It's not a priority. I can understand why people like variants, but as a fan myself I also know that getting the "same" ship again can feel as if you are being cheated. Again, if people keep buying the collection beyond the issues I have planned and there's an appetite for it, I can see us doing some Miranda and Nebula class variants. I guess it is relevant when it comes to doing different Fed ships. One to think about for the longer term - if we get there.

The NX refit, an exception for non-canon ships

I think the NX-01.5 is a special case. Again, I know there are people out there who are passionate about the video games and the novels (or old FASA manuals for that matter) but for the moment we've drawn a line that says it has to have appeared in a live action TV series or movie for us to do it. There are a lot of those and it will keep us busy for a while. Of course, I do occasionally have dreams about doing ships from the Animated Series. That said, if more than 5,000 people sign up solemnly promising to buy a Titan or an Enterprise-F, we'll almost certainly do it. If anyone wants to make that happen then feel free - it's a serious offer. But, whatever you do, don't email me! I'm not going to count 5,000 emails.

Want a USS Titan model? Sign the petition!

I'd love to do another one, but I think Haynes feel they've done enough. I can't say enough how much I enjoyed doing the Klingon book in particular. We talked long and hard to CBS about how much freedom we'd have. I'm always concerned about books that add to the canon. Too often they don't feel quite right to me. In this case, I think having Rick onboard made a big difference and I did an enormous amount of research into the Klingon Empire.

I was amazed at how consistent it was and how easy and logical it was to fill in details in places. One of my favourite things was to do with the escape pods. We know the Bird-of-Prey has them because we actually saw one in the last season of Deep Space Nine. The rest of the team kept saying that Klingons would never use escape pods, but I always think they are a bit more practical than that. I pondered long and hard about it and decided that although they'd have escape pods they'd only use them in extreme circumstances i.e. when at least a third of the crew was dead. Then I thought about accidents and I decided that the way Klingons see it, if the ship was lost in an accident then it was the engineers' fault and there was no way they were getting in an escape pod since the ship was only being lost because of their incompetence!

So, yes, I'd love to get the team back together and do another one... all we need is a publisher.

Axanar takes place 21 years before the events of “Where no Man Has Gone Before”. It tells the story of Garth of Izar, the legendary Starfleet captain who is Captain Kirk’s hero and the role model for a generation of Starfleet officers. Garth charted more planets than any other Captain and was the hero of the Battle of Axanar. His exploits are required reading at Starfleet Academy.

This is the story of Garth and his crew during the Four Years War, the war with the Klingon Empire that almost tore the Federation apart, and whose resolution solidified the Federation and allowed it to become the entity we know in Kirk's time.

It is the year 2245, four years into the war with the Klingons.

It's the penultimate chapter of the "The Q Gambit"! Captains Kirk and Sisko must work together to fight back against the forces of the Dominion! Meanwhile, Spock attempts to free the Enterprise and her crew from the clutches of the nefarious Dukat! And just what is Q planning for everyone involved? The fate of the galaxy hangs in the balance in this all-new story produced in association with STAR TREK writer/producer Roberto Orci!

Finished the fifth issue, today. The stardate I used places it firmly within the third season. Hope I'm not making it TOO easy for the trolls!

On to 6, probably next week. Thinking about a swing in the other direction, there. A story set between the second pilot and the first episode. Just hope there are enough shots of Mark Piper! If nothing else, a chance to play with a "transitional" bridge, maybe.

For the first time ever, a visual presentation of the much-discussed, unrevised, unadulterated version of Harlan Ellison's award-winning Star Trek teleplay script, "The City on the Edge of Forever!" See the story as Mr. Ellison originally intended!

Business is down at Quark’s Public House, Café, Gaming Emporium, Holosuite Arcade, and Ferengi Embassy to Bajor. Way down. Lower level of hell down. The station is bustling, but residents and visitors are spending more time (and latinum) at the new Deep Space 9's park, sports fields, theater, swimming complex, and who knows what else, than they are at Quark’s establishment. All of Quark's misfortunes just could be reversed, however, when he finds out that one of the steamiest holonovels to hit the Alpha Quadrant in years is up for grabs. And he has an inroad to acquiring it before anyone else. Or does he?

The official parody guide to the unaired eighth season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, based on the popular @TNG_S8 Twitter account from creator Mike McMahan!

On Twitter, Star Trek: The Next Generation lives on for one more season in the form of @TNG_S8—a satirical eighth season that never aired! Each tweet to its more that 85,000 followers (and retweeted four times that amount) is a hilarious recap and spot-on exaggeration of one of the most beloved TV series ever aired. Now, @TNG_S8 creator Mike McMahan presents an officially licensed mockumentary-style book-length “episode guide” to Season 8. With colorful illustrations by Joel Watson of the HijiNKS ENSUE webcomic, and Jason Ho, longtime artist at Bongo Comics (publisher of the comic book versions of The Simpsons and Futurama), each “episode” contains plot descriptions, trivia, aliens new and old, set photos, and behind-the-scenes looks at the troubled production. This book will appeal to casual and obsessive fans alike, keeping the world of the show intact while hilariously exaggerating it.

...they discover this culture, that appears to be composed primarily of children and adolescents. Whenever members of this society reach the cusp of adulthood, they manifest something call the Change, which basically turns them from peaceful agrarian farmer types, into slightly homicidal lunatic demigods. And there's a brief hang-fire between when the Change begins and when all sanity departs. So a ritual has been established in their culture, that when someone exhibits the first signs of the Change, within about three days, you have to willingly cast yourself into this pit of everlasting blue fire. This is called the Cleansing, and it's something that they are all raised understanding from the earliest moments of their life; this is something they are going to have to do for the good of society.

...a woman named Nimur, and she's just had a baby, she decides she doesn't want to go into the fire, she things that this is unjust, that maybe it's hysterical. And what complicates it is that, at the moment she rebels against this, external factors begin to get involved which tip the scales in her favour, and all hell breaks loose from there. And as our heroes investigate, they learn there are deeper mysteries that tie into both the existing and already known Star Trek mythology that we're familiar with, as well as some elements from the Vanguard specific mythology...

...we're trying to keep it light, we're trying to keep it personable, we're trying to keep it fun. If Vanguard was all about being the Battlestar Galactica reboot of Star Trek, this is more about trying to be the Eureka or Warehouse 13 of Star Trek.

The original and Caswell version of Blish's Star Trek 6

I guess the condensed version of the story goes like this. As a personal project I decided to create new book covers for all twelve of the original James Blish “novelizations”, updating the imagery with details of what we were then seeing in the “remastered” version of TOS, which was airing at the time. I had so much fun with that I wanted to do more, so I created a fictional Star Trek spin off TV series – The Seekers – and popped out about five well-weathered covers, posting the results on my Deviant Art site.

Years passed and I was unaware that, behind the scenes, the writing team who handled the monumental “Vanguard” TOS novel series was looking for some new direction to take their work. They ran across my Seekers treatments and got excited with the idea of making this series idea become real, using me as the cover artist and keeping my ‘70’s Blish cover graphics treatments. To “Trekkies of a certain age” those big, bold book numbers below the Star Trek name hits a nostalgic sweet spot.

So that’s how I got pulled in – ye olde cycle of inspiration. It’s a testament to how the internet has changed our creative pursuits. Twenty years ago I may have done these images and just stuck ‘em in a drawer where no one else would ever see them. The internet offers all kinds of new ways for creative people to share their work and inspire one another.

One of Rob's illustrations from the TNG Officer's Manual

I started my illustration career in the 80’s doing pieces for many of the popular printed scifi role-playing games of the time, like Traveller, TORG, the Star Wars RPG, and others. In 1988 I was pulled in as one of the primary illustrators for FASA’s “Star Trek TNG Officer’s Manual” which was really the first licensed “tech manual” for the series. It’s long out of print now, but I think it’s still got a space on bookshelves from the period’s TNG fans.

But the Seekers covers – the one’s that inspired the book series – that was just done for my own fun so it was a pure fannish indulgence that just happened to lead to something wonderful. In my day job I’m a fine art printer and I’m always telling hopeful clients that “getting discovered” is an unrealistic fantasy scenario. Now, thanks to the Vanguard guys, I’m a hypocrite.

Well there’s certainly more time and care that go into a work for publication. I liken much of the work in my Deviant Art gallery to “sketchbook doodles”. They may feel more polished than that, but it’s really about the same time investment.

Working up a similar piece for publication requires more care in postwork, fleshing out fine details via digital painting, and spending more time evaluating color, contrast, and the like. These days it’s also key to make sure the piece will still grab the eye as a thumbnail, given the volume of online sales.

Perhaps most significantly I had to add the step of creating a cover concept, making sure it meets the criteria of the writing team and the publisher. With books one and two I did about five or six concept roughs each for us to look at. I probably wouldn’t usually offer up that many on a first pass, but our cover specification left a lot of creative freedom in how to compose the elements, so it was good to explore the options.

So with the original “fan covers”, it was about a night’s work for each. Doing the two “pro covers” was about a two month long process, but there’s a lot of stop and start there… and a couple of weeks waiting for approvals.

Credit where credit’s due, I’m standing on the shoulders of some modeling giants from around the globe. The Endeavor model is the creation of Georg Angelakis (aka “Aggi”), the Sagittarius is the work of Mark Azevedo, with some additional tweaks by my buddy Geoff Edwards (aka “Ptrope”). The super nifty Klingon Bird of Prey is by Fabio Passaro, and last but not least the D-7 is the work of the prolific and talented David Metlesits.

My own modeling skills are more than rusty (I haven’t done any real 3D modeling in over 15 years), so that’s something I need to attend to in the future. But also why reinvent the wheel? I chose these models because they’re what I need and what I’d make myself (if I had the skills), so it made more sense to contact these guys and offer to arrange for a production license for their models in my work. My hat’s off to these guys and their refined talent!

The cover concept was pretty basic: the Sagittarius in orbit around a ringed terrestrial planet with a moon and engaged in an aggressive encounter with a Klingon Bird of Prey. When you look at the various roughs in a line up, it’s pretty obvious that we mixed and matched a few elements from three of the designs: the planet from one, ships from another, and the weapons fire from a third. So it was just a process of review and discussion about the elements that we liked.

For both covers we wanted the illustrations to be visual introductions to the series’ vehicular heroes. As such we knew that we wanted the registry to be visible for each cover… a sort of “Hi, My Name Is…” badge for each.

The cover for “Point of Divergence” was a sort of beefed up version of “Second Nature”. Both ships jump to a larger vessel class, so we get a Constitution class versus a Klingon D-7, but the background setting is the same. And we used the same process to refine our final choice: a discussion of what elements we thought worked best.

Well side from the shared theme of “Federation vs. Klingon in orbit”, there wasn’t much more of a master plan. So if you butt the two covers together you won’t get an “ah-ha” moment. Part of that individuality is to encourage the idea that this series is largely going to be stand alone stories, even if we did kick it off with a two-parter.

The main criteria on that piece was to do an image that showed both ships together, delivering the idea of relative ship size and the two ships as a sort of “team”. Aside from that, the goal was to try and create something that would snag Shore Leave attendees’ retinas and make them say “OOoooo!” I can’t say how well I hit that mark, but the poster seemed pretty well received. I think David Mack still has a few left and will be offering them at the New York Comicon in early October.

Yeah, it’s great that books three and four got the green light before we even hit shelves! I’ll be starting book three’s cover next month and probably book four’s shortly thereafter. We have an idea for the book three cover, but that’s all I can say on the subject for now.

As far as my personal goals with the coming covers, I want to see if I can push the painterly aspect of the images even more with the goal of capturing the wonderful feel of Lou Feck’s original Blish covers. It’s an interesting challenge trying to make crisp digital media look more like a hand made product. So I’ll be pushing both my digital painting and my fledgling modeling skills further, I hope. Of course the bottom line is always to just try and create some great Trek art – the kind of thing that people enjoy looking at again and again as they work their way through the book.

I’m not going to be doing anything for that Ships of the Line contest as I’m too booked up with other freelance work at the moment. I’m in the middle of an e-book cover for Allen Steele’s Kindle version of his novella “Escape from Earth”. After I finish Seekers 2 and 3 I may be starting some interior work for a book that Allen is currently in negotiations to sell. Beyond that the picture’s fuzzy, but my schedule has a way of filling up and it always seems like I have some personal projects warming on the back burner.

...if more than 5,000 people sign up solemnly promising to buy a Titan or an Enterprise-F, we'll almost certainly do it.

I am completely serious about doing ships like the Titan, the Ent-F, the Aventine etc IF we can get enough people committing to buying them. What I need is 5,000 plus email addresses that we can contact. If they all agree to pre-order a ship we'll do it as a special in addition to the regular ones we have planned. If you wanted it as a regular priced issue I'd need a lot more names. 5,000 is a big ask believe me!

This was a visual effects concept test to show the producers of Voyager what a launch sequence of the (as of yet) unused "Aeroshuttle" might look like. This special craft was capable of warp speeds and able to fly in a planetary atmosphere. Ultimately, the decision was made to leave the Aeroshuttle alone and introduce the Delta Flyer (this was shortly before the movie "Insurrection," which featured a launch sequence of the Captain's Yacht - the producers didn't want Voyager to "steal the thunder" of such a scene from the upcoming movie). The test was created by Voyager CGI Supervisors Rob Bonchune and Adam "Mojo" Lebowitz, under the supervision of VFX Producer Dan Curry.

The not-so-small AeroShuttle tucked up under the Voyager forward hull was based roughly on the Starfleet Runabout spaceframe, in hopes that if we ever saw it, we could modify the existing set from DS9. Ah, sadly, it was not to be, but we did get to see the ventral side and I did get to write a bit of imagined history for Star Trek The Magazine. The craft began life as a concept patterned after a manta ray and was nicknamed as such. That turned into the AeroWing, which coincidentally was a copyrighted name for a toy connected to The Mighty Ducks. Headscratching ensued. AeroShuttle became the in-house term.

One of the preliminary views of the ship based on some Runabout hardware styling, following an early approval from the producers for a smaller (smaller than Ent-D), slightly pointy vessel with down-turned pylons.

Here's a front view of the early, more angular Voyager (going backwards just a little in time). A few changes were made to the forward hull and the shape of the shuttlebay landing deck to make the third phase drawings and foamcore study model.

This sizing chart is still earlier than the first pic in this series, but it shows the thinking of the possible size for the angular third phase. I did a few versions of the chart with the ship at different lengths for the producers; this one comes in at 1250 feet. Other Starfleet ships are added to show the size relationships.

Here's a cutaway from the front of the angular Voyager, or at least a version of it, partly to get a sense of the deck numbers and partly to place standard bits of Starfleet hardware. Whatever sets got designed and built would be fit into the eventual blueprints (to marry up the interior and exterior), like Captain Janeway's ready room, the conference lounge, and crew quarters, but at this early stage it was still pretty fluid.

One additional angle on the foamcore mockup of the ship, just before curvitization. I may have mentioned this before, but this particular mockup escaped our custody, I assume about the time the art department was shutting down in 2001, but I can report that it is now in safe hands (not mine) and will be restored and a few dings repaired. A few other foamcore mockups I built, like a very early Type 6 TNG shuttle and the alien shuttle Nenebek, also went this way or that, but c'est la vie.

Once the perspective sketch of the curvy Voyager was approved, a preliminary set of ortho views was drawn up on our standard 24"x36" blueprint paper. The producers and the VFX folks were given copies of this one, with the added notice "Not for Construction - For Discussion Purposes Only." At this time, we still didn't have a final approval on the nacelle articulation, but I kept drawing sketches and played with the ship in rough CG printouts. As you can see, most all of the hull surface details were falling nicely into place.

Once the preliminary blueprints had been approved, drawn on 24"x36" tracing vellum, the real blueprints were started. The producers and VFX decided that the miniature would be five feet long, and that's how big I made the construction drawings. Full size, 60" long, on slightly longer paper. Luckily my drafting table was long enough to hold them. The first tricky part was getting the top/bottom plan view -and- the starboard elevation on the table together to match up. The other tricky part was having to reach three feet or more near the top of the table to draw with the t-square and triangle and a bunch of templates. Worked out, though. The general hinge area for the pylons is indicated, but the final look would be determined by the model makers based on how things came together structurally. The manta shuttle is still there, soon to be replaced. All of the other hull features are pretty much locked.

The Seventh Season Blu-ray will boast all 26 final-season episodes and a treasure chest of previously unseen interviews with cast and crew, including the three-part documentary “The Sky’s The Limit: The Eclipse Of Star Trek: The Next Generation” and the featurette “In Conversation: Lensing Star Trek: The Next Generation,” as well as deleted scenes and an unreleased gag reel.

All Good Things Blu-ray set presents the two-part epic series finale as a full-length feature remastered into high-definition. The finale is augmented by a newly produced documentary titled “The Unknown Possibilities of Existence: Making ‘All Good Things…,’” new commentaries by Ronald D. Moore and Brannon Braga, and previously unreleased deleted scenes.

2288. The U.S.S. Enterprise-A is on a vital peacekeeping mission in a remote solar system beyond the boundaries of the Federation, where two warring planets—Pavak and Oyolo—are attempting to end years of bitter conflict. Crucial peace talks are being conducted aboard the Enterprise, even as Starfleet weapons inspectors oversee the disarmament process. Losses and atrocities on both sides have left plenty of hard feelings behind, so Captain James T. Kirk has his work cut out for him, even as he unexpectedly runs into a disturbing figure from his past: Lenore Karidian.

Twenty years ago, the deadly daughter of Kodos the Executioner tried to kill Kirk, but she has since been declared sane and rehabilitated. Kirk wants to give her the benefit of the doubt and a second chance at life, but when a mysterious assassination threatens the already fragile peace process, all clues point toward Lenore—and the future of two worlds hangs in the balance.

• Randomly inserted sketch cards.
• 60 autographed cards, in 1 in 8 packs.
• 18 sticker cards, in 1 in 16 packs.
• Gold versions of the cards, in 1 in 24 packs.
• 9 "First Appearances" cards, in 1 in 24 packs.
• 9 "Quotable Klingon" cards, in 1 in 24 packs.
• 10 alien ships cards, in 1 in 24 packs.
• 6 alien badge/pin cards, in 1 in 288 packs.

• 2 case toppers, either a Borg or Klingon poster design by Juan Ortiz, 1 per case.
• Hand drawn sketch cards by Warren Martineck Card, as a 6-case incentive.
• Painted sketch cars by Mick and/or Matt Glebe, as a 9-case incentive.
• An archive box, with an exclusive "relic" card, as an 18-case incentive.

Regular and case-incentive sketch cards.

Exploring strange new worlds, new life and new civilizations for more than 50 issues, the official Star Trek magazine is the only place to find the best interviews, original features, and exclusive behind-the-scenes action! In this special edition, we talk to movie actors Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, and Bruce Greenwood, as well as Trek TV legends Gates McFadden, Denise Crosby, and Rene Auberjonois! We go behind-the-scenes of Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Into Darkness, dissect what makes Kirk the perfect captain, and discover what happens When Cultures Collide!