WINSTON (to Jean):  “Some of which were brilliant, I might add.  (to audience) ‘Journey to Babel’ is my favorite episode, and some of the things that she picked apart were facets of the story I had never looked into.  I heavily identified with that particular episode, and could never understand why people were saying, ‘Why did Amanda act that way?’  . . .  My mother is a school teacher — more properly, a vice-principal — and very much resembled Amanda.  And my father put me through a great deal of pain when I told him I was not going to be a lawyer, much as what Sarek did to Spock when Spock said he was not going to join the Vulcan Science Academy.  In many ways, I saw that Sarek was my father and Amanda was my mother, and people’s objections to the characterizations I couldn’t see at all, because I was living them, day in and day out for several years.  So Jean’s insight as to why characters did what they did and what we didn’t see — like why Sarek and Amanda didn’t show up for Spock’s wedding in ‘Amok Time’, and other things — made me say, ‘Egads, that’s . . . very logical!”

JEAN:  “We all know why they didn’t show up.  We all really know the reason:  they hadn’t been created yet.  (Laughter and several remarks among the audience members.)  But if you are writing in a universe that makes the assumption that TREK must be taken as a whole, and whatever happened in Third Year has to be implicit in First Year, which leaves you with sooooome contradictions . . .”  (Laughter)

WINSTON:  “Problems!  Problems!  Holes you drive starships through!”

JEAN:  “Right.  Then you have to create explanations for these things, and that is how a universe grows.  Now, if you have read THE NIGHT OF THE TWIN MOONS, FULL MOON RISING, NTM COLLECTED VOLUME ONE and NTM COLLECTED VOLUME TWO, you are heartily invited to write in that universe.  There are plenty of other stories to be told that I don’t have enough time to tell.  All I ask is if you want to write in the universe, please send me an outline before you start to write, so that if there is an inconsistency — which will probably be because I knew of something planned that hasn’t shown up in a story yet — then usually very minor tinkering can take care of that when the story is in outline form.”

WINSTON:  “Well, Pat, are you planning to open up yours?”

PAT:  “Well, anyone who would want these characters is more or less welcome to them.  Probably nobody has ever heard of the stories I have written, the few there are.  One was in a fanzine that deserves to go unmentioned.  Another one is on sale upstairs — GRIP 7 — if anybody wants to pick it up . . .”

WINSTON:  “I’ll run out and get mine now . . .”