I wanted to post in this thread earlier, but I didn't think I could do justice with my remarks before, so I relented until now. Partly because I've told this story before and wanted to do it right, and partly because I'm self-competitive and need to improve with each subsequent re-telling or I feel like I'm slipping.
In October of 2000, when Drom was just brand new, I was a very different person. After "Star Trek: Generations", I had turned away from science-fiction. I lost faith in the Trek in 1997, around when I lost faith in everything else. I had a girlfriend at the time, the first girl I ever really loved. And October was when I found out (while away at school) that she'd been cheating on me. I didn't know quite how to handle it-- in fact, I don't even remember the handling. The first thing I remember, in March of 2001, was hearing Dylan Hunt give that talk to Rev in "Devil Take the Hindmost", about staring right into the heart of the abyss.... and blinking.
Other episodes, with their fanciful, referential, poignant titles, came to play upon my mind as readily as their titles did. Angel Dark, Demon Bright. Music of a Different Drum. Una Salus Victus. The Lone And Level Sands. Banks of the Lethe. All Too Human. The Mathematics Of Tears. It Makes A Lovely Light. Its Hour Come 'Round At Last.
Dylan came to embody something bigger than even the admittedly monolithic Jean-Luc Picard ever could: he became a metaphor for my survivor's instinct, for my desire to be at the centre of the wheel again. Dylan had seen his whole world vanish in the blink of an eye, with the death of his best friend and everything else he had ever known. I knew that feeling all too well. "Nothing worth doing is easy." "All that matters in life is that we try." "Una salus victus, Tyr. It's not about being invincible. It's about being ready-- for anything." These weren't just words spoken on my television. They became rallying cries, from my soul, to hold the line.
That was how it began. I needed to tell someone what Dylan meant to me. I found those people, online, at the Andromeda Message Board. One of them was my now-ex-girlfriend. She showed me the sort of life I could have for myself if only I could set aside the angst, the grief, the rage, the depression, that came with being wounded, that came with healing and becoming the sort of survivor Dylan was.
But then, inexplicably (or rather, all too explicably), Dylan began to change and draw away from what I needed him to be. Oh, sure, Beka and Tyr and Harper and Rommie and Trance and especially Rev were all just as important in my mind, but there was a distinction that I was beginning to note. Before, I paid attention to Dylan because he was the centre of the wheel. I paid attention to him because he was the sort of man --to face any challenge dauntlessly, and endure-- that I aspired to become. Then all of a sudden, his challenges got pitifully easier. He became smug. And suddenly the centre of the wheel was a hub grounding out. Suddenly, the man I wanted to become was the man I had always been afraid of becoming.
And so I turned away. But not before I had built up a solid core of anywhere between fifty to a hundred people to whom I had given some inspiration, a lot of grief, and a few notable catchphrases, while posting under the username Nox.
You know, it's funny-- the history of our community here so closely patterns that of the Commonwealth itself. We had our glory period. We had our Betrayal, and our Fall. Fortunately, thanks to Rov, the Long Night was a couple days at most. But we've restored our fellowship, our Commonwealth, and proven that hope, indeed, does live again. (At least it has for the past year or so.)
And I look at how I've changed, from before Andromeda to now. I've been inspired by solid storytelling, characters who I wanted to be (and, in at least one example, be with--- mmmmmm, Beka....), a universe in which I could simply lay back and count the stars overhead, name them one by one, and call them my own. And I've learned so much.
I've learned that there is nothing more valuable than the frigate of imagination. She's a fast ship, that can take you anywhere, as long as you're willing to be taken for the ride. But having the map of such a brilliant backdrop as Drom had sure helps. The story that went into the story --things we saw at All Systems University, refs and nods and clues, things that left us guessing, hoping, wondering, marvelling-- are the kinds of things that fuel that vessel's engines in a way that no simpleton tales of sexual prowess and shooting things dead could ever do.
I've learned that it's one thing to love a show, another thing to love a show for its concept, and quite another thing to see in a chatroom or read on a message board online from the patient and wonderful writers *of* that show, the inventors of that concept themselves, just what they think, what they have to say. I came into this with men like Dylan Hunt, Seamus Harper, and Rev Bem as the objects of my fanboyishness. I'll come out of it seeing them as mere Mary Sues compared to the men behind them: Robert Hewitt Wolfe, Ash Miller and Zack Stentz. Interacting with the three of you gentlemen online has been a privilege and an honour I won't soon forget.
I've learned that few things in this world are quite as valuable as a concept, be it a book, a film, a television show, a stage production, whatever-- as such a thing that both gives you entertainment *and* pause to reflect on your own self. It's one thing to simply enjoy the show. It's quite another to be thinking about it, four years later, and how it's changed your way of thinking about how you tell a story, how you conduct yourself personally, or how you think about others. That's not just entertainment values--- that builds values. Really, the greatest praise I have for the first season of this show is because it reinforced my way of thinking, and served as a constant reminder to me, to hold the line until the light.
Do I still fancy myself something of a Dylan Hunt? Not anymore-- he's a pervy, smarmy bastard who I would sooner destroy than become. (No points for guessing the subtle Nietzsche ref there.)
But the ideals, the changes I've seen in myself, as a member of this and other fan communities, as a one-time boyfriend, as a friend, as a writer, as a fanboy, as a human being-- all of the many changes, all of the parts of myself I don't know if I would've become without this show.
Yeah, it's a desperate historical-inevitability style reduction to say "cheating girlfriend, Drom, Drom boards, new girlfriend that broke up with me, man I am today". Yeah, I could give you a more comprehensive analysis than that. But this thread isn't about "good things I got in the past four years". It's good things I got from Andromeda. So, you'll forgive me if I get a little poetic and simplistic all at once.
There's really nothing left to say. Except "thanks" to those who made the show in its original form possible. Thanks, for contributing to who I am today.
I don't know where I'd be without Andromeda. I suppose I never will. But I'm glad I won't. I kinda like who I am. This is the first time in my twenty-three years that I can say that. And if Andromeda contributed that to my life, then all of it --even the bad parts-- had a purpose. And I'm glad I was a part of it.
(Since I am, you know, the centre of the wheel....)
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BEKA ROCKS!!!!
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But that mantra has helped me through some terrible times. It spoke to me BECAUSE of the story it came from - that scene between Rev and Harper - speaks to me so personally. I know what it is like to have a whole lifetime of nightmares knocking around in my head and no way let them out.
@ Mary Rose And without Andromeda, I wouldn't have known Mary Rose--or any of you--at all!