WEBVTT

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Well, my name is Andre bormanis.

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I'm the executive story editor on Enterprise.

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So I'm a full-time writer on the show.

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I began as a science consultant on Star Trek.

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In fact, I began on the

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final season of Star Trek the Next Generation, which

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was also the second season of Deep Space 9.

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So my job is science consultant was to help

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the

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writers

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and producers with all of the

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science and Technical language and

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in

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script the science idea is behind some of the

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stories

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I did that for

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About seven years on

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final season of next-gen

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Seasons two through seven of

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Deep Space Nine and then the entire run of

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Voyager.

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It was on Voyager that I got my start

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as a writer.

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I

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sold a couple of stories to Voyager and then

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have the opportunity to write a teleplay which they

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like well enough to have me to another so

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I ended up writing a co-writing

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half a dozen episodes of Voyager

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and then was brought on full-time

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as a staff writer when we began Enterprise.

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Majored in physics and college

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went to graduate school in physics and astronomy

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for a couple of years before I

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wandered off into the microcomputer field like a lot

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of would be astronomers in the 1980s

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that gave me the opportunity to do a lot

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of technical writing and I was

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fairly good at technical writing

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tried my hand at creative writing took some screenwriting

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class has had a teacher who like my work

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quite a bit and encouraged me.

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Then I

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was offered a NASA Fellowship to spend a couple

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of years at George Washington University doing space policy.

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So I heard a master's degree there in science

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technology and public policy.

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It was while I was doing that program that

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I was

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asked to

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come out to Los Angeles and be the science

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consultant

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on Star Trek.

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The guy who had been doing the job in

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Rain Shankar

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had been promoted under the writing staff.

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And so they needed somebody to come in and

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take over for him and they wanted someone who

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had both a creative writing background, but also knew

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the science and understood

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how to read a script and the kinds of

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Of

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things that

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they typically do in a Star Trek episode vis-à-vis

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astronomy and space science.

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And so I

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seem to fit the bill and they hired me

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and needed me to start right when my NASA

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Fellowship ended.

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So

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in

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May of 1993 I moved from Washington DC

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here to Los Angeles to start that job.

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My interest in science began at a very young

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age.

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I think when I was six or seven, I

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became interested in astronomy and

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learning the constellations getting books from the library about

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astronomy

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Star Trek was certainly a big influence.

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I remember watching the original series

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when I was a little boy my older brother

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really enjoyed the show and I didn't understand it,

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but it was fascinating to me

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certainly the space program

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the Apollo moon landings.

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It was a

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very exciting time to be

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to be growing up.

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In the

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late 1960s

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and astronomy is the thing that stuck with me.

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I was just always

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fascinated by the Stars always wanted to know more

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about them

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got a telescope when I was

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you know, 10 or 11 years old and

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was pretty pretty well hooked by that age if

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not sooner.

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The way that my job worked when I was

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a science consultant is every day the

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messenger from Paramount would bring me the day's work

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whether it's a

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first draft script revisions on a script or a

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final draft.

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I would read that material and if there was

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something that the

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writer needed to do in terms of a technical

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term,

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they weren't quite sure what the appropriate term was.

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They would put the word Tech in parentheses

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either in

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dialogue or in scene description, and that would be

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my cue to sort of fill in the blank

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come up with an appropriate.

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I'm here.

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Sometimes I would actually

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talk to the

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to the writers

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over the phone as they were riding or as

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they were getting ready to write a script.

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Remember.

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We did an episode of Deep Space 9 that

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involved a comet

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in an important way the story

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had to do with

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a kind of a superstition about a comet that

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was entering the bajoran system

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and the writers.

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Basically

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what a comment was but they weren't sure about

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some of the specifics like,

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how big is it common and what are they

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made of and how fast do they move and

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how does the tale for?

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And how long does it get so I basically

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gave them a little

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Comet overview

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told them about comets and

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what we know about them what they might be

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like in other solar systems.

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They use that information and their first draft to

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describe this phenomenon,

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and

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I would then just read their pages and make

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any little Corrections or tweaks as needed,

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you know, is that script went through the rewrite

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process?

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So it kind of worked both ways

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the more they got to know me.

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After I'd been on the job for a year

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or two, they were much more comfortable calling me

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and talking to me about

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about terms or story elements before they started writing

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but much of the time it was simply a

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kind of

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fill in the blank some of that material was

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Star Trek related Tech.

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A lot of the tech that we do on

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the show is very Star Trek specific.

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A lot of the terminology was coined in the

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original series

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A lot of it was

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also developed for Star Trek the Next Generation by

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Rick sternbach and Michael okuda.

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So the Star Trek Tech you technical manual

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which came out

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gosh, probably 15 years ago

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was an important

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reference and resource for me in terms of some

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of the technical language

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with regard to the ship

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and Engineering Systems are the transporter or the weapon

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systems tactical deflectors.

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And so forth.

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All of those ideas were developed in the original

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series and then extended and

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Star Trek the Next Generation in the other shows.

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So fair amount of the tech.

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I provided was was

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very Star Trek specific.