StillPaisleyCat

Understood. I suspect that Roddenberry was just trying to find a role for another woman after having such pushback on a Lieutenant Commander.

It’s tricky to know because technology has changed the nature of these jobs significantly, and Star Trek has tended to map to roles as they are, despite projecting further technology.

In the 60s, 70s & 80s, a Yeoman would have held the encryption keys and would have been responsible for interactions with command. (The Comms officer would have had communications engineering and codes, but not necessarily access to the highest command codes.)

Likewise, responsibility for personnel assessment and promotion recommendations among ratings was a senior NCO responsibility that interlinked with the responsibilities of the XO.

It’s easy to portray a lot of these jobs as ‘merely clerical’ and it can be a kind of erasure of the people of colour and women who were in these ratings.

It brings to mind the work of the WW2 Wrens who did all the naval gaming in the UK and in Halifax, modeling, innovating and teaching tactics to UK and allied navies, but who got no credit. Or the women ‘computers’ and code breakers at Bletchley. Their commanding officers got all the credit and they were erased.

The level would be relative to the officer they are supporting. On a ship with a captain who was a full captain, they would be a senior NCO.

Not to mention that the ranks in the 1960s were a bit different.

That’s understating the role.

Administration does not equal secretary, except in the old British usage where the Secretary to the Prime Minister is what’s now called a Chief of Staff.

A yeoman is one of the most senior NCOs, responsible for communication with command and the admiralty, also responsible for performance assessments of all the enlisted ranks and more junior NCOs.

It’s one of the most senior NCO roles, and one that interacts regularly with a captain. It shouldn’t have been portrayed as a secretary.

Roddenberry was told he couldn’t have both an alien (Spock) and a woman as a first officer.

Good for you.

I think that the presence of writers at cons has gone down significantly actually.

There was a time when every dedicated Trek con I attended would have a panel with a writer. I remember first seeing Peter David that way. It’s what first got me trying the books.

When I look at Mack or Ward’s social media, they’re only doing 2 or 3 regional general science fiction cons per year.

As the paid availability of actors for photos and autographs has increased, we see more of them at cons, with big panels instead of single presenters. It’s however the presentations by writers and production folks that I miss. While one here’s about as much from them through podcasts and featurettes, it’s not the same as in-person.

That was likely added to quell reactions to a woman as a first officer. But the Network had notes even so on how negatively test audiences reacted to Majel Barrett’s Number One.

Roddenberry tried another tack with blonde, beehived, Whitney in a miniskirt as Yeoman Janice Rand. She was supposed to be a woman main character but even that was too much for the executives and she was written out by the end of the first season.

Vonda N McIntyre is one of the strongest Star Trek writers of that era.

She was very successful in writing her own original science fiction novels and short stories. She was a collaborator of Ursula LeGuin and a leader in a group of writers in the Northwest.

Here’s a TOR feature retrospective of her work.

The covers from the Vanguard series are phenomenally good. I’m envious.

I came to the series relatively late, and got all the physical books as either used paperbacks or trade-paperback publisher’s reprints. In neither case did the interior station diagrams promised on the covers come included. (I was able to grab them off the internet.) I’m hoping Mack’s starcharts make it into Firestorm in a format that will ensure they make it through to ebooks and reprints.

Mack’s Star Trek tie-in books are on my autobuy list, so I’ve preordered, but this one will be his first hardcover.

If you get books from your public library and they accept requests for new books to bring in, this would be a suitable one.

From the Relaunch novelverse:

David Mack - Destiny trilogy, Cold Equations trilogy

Una McCormack - The Neverending Sacrifice

Also the 23rd century Vanguard and Seeker series by Mack, Ward and Dilmore.

Earlier books

DC Fontana - Vulcan’s Glory

Diane Duane and Vonda McIntyre’s books.

Glad to hear you’re giving it all a genuine try.

Most of it is no less great on average than 90s Trek. Just different.

It’s unfortunate many longtime fans weren’t willing to give it a chance to find its groove, much the same as the TOS fans resisted giving TNG a chance.

TNG’ first season and much of the second were rough, but it was a personal risk to stand up at a Star Trek Con in 1989 and say you were a TNG fan. By 1993, when DS9 was running too, everyone at cons were TNG fans too.

As a long haul fan who saw this happen then, I’ve found it sad to see Trek fandom repeating the cycle.