Star Trek fans are simply the best. I absolutely, positively love them all. One used to accept that they were usually human. I'm not so sure any longer.

One grainy ship photo is released and next the net abounds with gorgeous graphic meshes and detailed deck plans. Discussions begin in earnest on the optimal flight path in tentative shuttlecraft approaches. I fully expect by this time next week to know how many megajoules distinguish a phase pistol "stun" setting from its complement, "kill." (Somebody write and tell the Dr., OK?)

How is this possible? Computers. What allows us to meet here together? Computers. Don't think me nuts but it seems that somehow even computers anticipate the new show. So I absolutely, positively, love them all too, and welcome them into the world of fandom.

You see, personally I feel this emergence is a "good thing," subtly acknowledging the historical trend that pretty much all electronics from the transistor forward were invented just to help us appreciate Star Trek. As a child I used to believe they were really filming that show on some sort of massive "Mark of Gideon"-ish USS Enterprise replica. As an adult of course I realize that starships are, in fact, self-contained inside tiny computers.

Someday I'd like to entertain a debate on whether on the whole computers were ever portrayed as a "good thing" in TOS. Spock had his duotronic "servants," true, but any computer much smarter than that was inevitably shown as dangerous. M5, Nomad, Landru, Vaal - seemingly without exception all were machines depicted dangerously out of control. "Pull out the plug!" was never seriously considered a violation of any law or Directive.

In the world of the 1960's a bunch of pocket calculators flew our brave space pioneers up into the final frontier. Clearly we were exploring cyberspace at the same time.

So it surprises me that despite the other educated ENT guesses I have yet to see any discussion about the computers we expect to find. Think about it: NCC-1701 began her voyages right about when Gordon Moore first noticed his famous Law. In TOS terms, the pinnacle of computer achievement was Daystrom's fifth human-equivalence attempt, and well, we know how that little experiment turned out.

Somehow the NX-01 computers must turn that around. Not only are we as a society more computer literate but our expectations about them have radically changed. The development of the computer so inextricably intertwines our own that it's hard to guess where our mutual evolution will end.