Starbase Indy Convention Report
Show Coverage by Aloysius Fox
To Boldly Keep Going
Whether or not you liked the film, J.J. Abrams's 2009 reboot of Star Trek was like a defibrillator to the franchise (that might explain the blinding light) putting a boost of new life into a mythos that seemed to be fading once more from the public's imagination. Trek's true renaissance, however, occurred in the nineties after the 1987 birth of The Next Generation. With the addition of Deep Space Nine and Voyager, that decade saw the franchise maintained three television series and four movies. Star Trek was at the height of its popularity with a mainstream audience, and with it came numerous Trek conventions including Indianapolis's Starbase Indy. Unlike many of the Trek events that have since fallen to the wayside, Starbase Indy is still going strong for its 16th year and is poised to keep on trekking.
Located at Indianapolis Marriott East, Starbase Indy occupies a modest amount of convention space but certainly gives it a bigger feel with its main programming room. The main stage features the classic Enterprise captain's chair from the original series with a highly detailed backdrop of a next generation era looking bridge. Sliding doors to the left and right of the stage allow the special guests to enter as if coming in from the turbo lifts, and various computer monitors are animated with read outs and scanning charts; the large projection screen succeeds in replicating the main view screen of the Enterprise bridge. This well crafted (and well loved) set truly generated the atmosphere for the rest of the show.
There was a wide array of special guests including: John Billingsley (Dr. Phlox from Enterprise), Bonita Friedericy (Gen. Beckman from Chuck), Tony Todd (Kurn from Star Trek TNG), Jay Acovone (Major Kawalsky from Stargate SG 1), Dean Haglund (Langly from The X-Files), and Hugo award-winning screenwriter Morgan Gendel. Considering the moderate scale of the convention, it did an excellent job to provide more media guests than a number of other regional cons that boast double or quadruple the attendance of Starbase Indy. Further entertainment programming was provided by the Star Trek themed bands Five Year Mission and il Troubadore (a full Klingon tribal folk band), and of course there was filk in the form of Wax Chaotic.
Many attendees were dressed in a variety of Trek characters, but there was also a contingent of people representing other facets of fandom such as Doctor Who, Steampunk, etc., and surprisingly Star Wars, including a George Lucas look-a-like who was attacked by jedis in a masquerade skit. The best skit by far, however, had to be the reenactment of the final ship-to-ship battle at the end of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. A costumed Khan and Kirk circled the stage while riding hobbyhorse models of the ships, threw rubber balls at each other, and fired off party poppers for special effects. The camp hilarity of the scene had the crowd in hysterics. Later that night the hysteria was aided by the drink mixing skills of Barfleet as the party continued into the wee hours of Sunday morning.
Typically the mega-sized cons with thousands upon thousands of attendees tend to get all the glory and attention, but there are many who actually prefer a more low key con in which you can actually feel like a part of a gathering rather than a witness to a whirlwind. Starbase Indy is definitely a gathering of old friends and new, held together by their ongoing love of a science fiction franchise that first aired in September of 1966. It is a convention that is very comfortable and confident with where it finds itself in the Star Trek universe. Live long and prosper Starbase Indy.
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