There have been a lot of problems behind the scenes of CBS/Viacom and Secret Hideout's production of Star Trek Discovery. From toxic showrunners to lawsuits claiming plagiarism, it has been a rough ride for the show, which could only hold an average of 1.7 million viewers when it aired the first season on CBS Television last year. Recently we learned via Orville Nation that Secret Hideout may have stolen an idea from Daryl Von Dunker, who is an author, editor, scriptwriter and Trekkie. She had approached CBS in January of 2019 with a plan to itemize all of their props for Star Trek using iBook. An electronic props bible, if you will.​

Discovery's prop-master, Mario Moreira, asked her for a proof of concept, so she went to work on it. For months she put this electronic props bible together for them. She worked on it from June to August of that year and came up with a first draft, which was mainly an index, a video introduction, a table of contents, and chapter examples, but opened the potential to have 3D files linked to them as well as the history of every prop, such as who made it, what materials was it made of, what colors were used, etc. as well as notes and links to scripts. 

She managed to get ahold of John Van Citters, Vice President Star Trek Brand Management at CBS, who told her in August of 2019 that he couldn't independently greenlight it due to the merger with Viacom complicating things. According to Von Dunker, "he thought it was for archiving. His assistant never understood it was to help make & create the shows."

She decided to approach them again in June/July of 2020 and they asked for a second draft, so Von ​Dunker spent ​three more months refining her props bible. She added some new features like inventory control, videos, links and visuals. In her words, "It was a 'table of contents' of what 'could' be and why." There were plans to further upgrade the book and to even make it phone accessible. ​​

A second meeting was set up for this pitch on November 2020, this time with Michelle Paradise and Akiva Goldsman in the room. She asked if Jonathan Frakes could join them for a director's point of view, but they didn't seem interested in including him. According to Dunker, Paradise seemed interested in what she was pitching. She was reading the power point slides and asking questions. Unfortunately one of the executives in the meeting then told Paradise that they had decided to do this project "in-house", meaning they planned on making their own electronic props bible within the studio instead of contracting someone else to do it. That felt threatening to Von ​Dunker, since this was her idea. ​

She continued her pitch when the executive said, "Somebody make her stop talking", cutting the meeting short by ten minutes. Goldsman ended the meeting by telling her that he liked the idea but because of Covid and funding, they couldn't pick it up. This should have meant that Von ​Dunker could take her ideas elsewhere, except for one thing: ​

The next day, prop-master Mario Moreira called Von ​Dunker and threatened that if she tried to take her electronic props bible to Disney or Pixar, she would get blacklisted from the industry. So in the end she worked all that time to make this book and they ended up not buying it or paying for her work. She can't even pitch it to other companies for fear of reprisal. They kept the files she sent them for the pitch (which were not encrypted) and she believes that they're using them to keep their hundreds of props over the last four seasons of Discovery, as well as Strange New Worlds, organized.​

Why else would they threaten the blacklist someone for taking their rejected idea to another company unless they were going to take it for themselves?

When looking up prop-master Moreira, I noticed that there was an entry on his Memory Alpha page that was linked to a tweet. That tweet and the account are now deleted, but thanks to the Way-Back machine, I was able to retrieve it. It seems like in-between those pitch meetings, Moreira was put in charge of props for Strange New Worlds and was "actively prepping, and getting new and old prop designs together" during the lockdown. Von ​​Dunker had believed that if they knew how to do what she was doing, they would have already done it. Seeing as the executive in the meeting confirmed that they were making an "in-house" electronic props bible, it looks like they were already in the process of doing that by the second pitch meeting. 

In an interview with StarTrek.com in 2018, Moreira revealed that he wasn't introduced to TOS until he began working on Discovery, saying "​For me, Star Trek is Next Generation and further on after that. My introduction to The Original Series came once I got the job on this show, when I started going back and researching." He also estimated that for season one of Discovery, they made about 120 props, which according to Dunker, had filled up about three boxes full of binders. Von ​​​Dunker's props bible would have been able to access all of those props by phone if she had gotten her way.

Her ultimate idea was that if this worked out, she could make show bibles for each show, each species, etc. The sky was the limit. However, it would still take a lot of work to complete these bibles, and as an adopted member of the Lakota Nation, she was willing to hire teams of natives to help and keep up with whatever demands Secret Hideout had.​

Unfortunately because of an executive and a prop-master, that's not what happened and now Von ​​​Dunker needs help. She recently set up a Go-Fund-Me in order to pay some of her bills. She holds no ill-will towards the people who did this. Her ultimate goal is to get CBS/Viacom and Secret Hideout back on the table so that she could continue to work on the project and possibly open up some much needed jobs. ​

​She worked months on this project after asking for a proof of concept and in return, they took her idea "in-house" and threatened to blacklist her if she took that idea elsewhere. If you would like to help Von ​​​Dunker, please click here donate to her Go-Fund-Me page. Better yet, if you have a project that you think could use her services, ​check out 5th Dimensional Publishing.

​There have been a lot of blind accusations going around. The one I'm addressing today comes from Treksphere.com  and it's called, "The Star Trek Fandom And Its Hidden Bigotry".

This article assumes the same old trope of "If you don't like this show, you're a bigot". The difference here is that this author assumes that some may be engaging in bigotry "without realizing it". Ok, I guess I can buy that. So what acts of bigotry is this author referring to? 

Critiquing a tv show. No, really. 

This person is arguing that critiquing a tv show can be seen as an unconscious form of bigotry. Even if the critique has to do with canonical or historical accuracy, it still supposedly dismisses marginalized groups in some sort of way, therefore it's bigotry. I DON'T buy this. Here is their first example: 

"When the characters of Gray and Adira were officially announced as the first nonbinary and transgender characters, so much of the discourse I saw by even well-intentioned fans were about how technically that wasn’t true because nonbinary and transgender characters existed in Trek before, so they weren’t the first. Examples of the J’naii and the Trill were brought up to defend that diverse representation was not just something only newer Trek shows did, but that older shows did it first."

To the author's credit, this is true. As a marketing stunt, the people who ran NuTrek announced, before the season three premiere, that Gray and Adira were the first nonbinary/transgender characters in Trek history. However that was inaccurate and many people, including myself, pointed it out. ​

​According to this person's logic, correcting a canonical error is bigoted because, "it dismisses the importance of this huge milestone (which was still a false-first), it undermines the importance of what it means to Trek fans from those communities to see people like them accurately represented onscreen, and it sucks the joy out of what should have been a full-on celebration of Star Trek living up to its principles."

Of course, had marketing not falsely claimed that Gray and Adira were "firsts" in the first place, there would have been no reason for any pushback. In other words, marketing was so quick to claim a false-first, that IT was really the one that sucked "the joy out of what should have been a full-on celebration of Star Trek".

​Yet, they're still blaming us because we enforced accuracy. I wonder if the author ever considered that these false-firsts actually take credit away from the hard work that shows like TNG and DS9 did to push the envelope? ​

​Respectfully, I think the author of this article just doesn't understand what our issue is with shows like Discovery and Picard. They think that when we talk about "wokeness" or "pushing an agenda", that we mean we don't want anymore diversity in our Trek, which is an utterly ridiculous conclusion. Then they come up with all other sorts of assumptions after that, before arguing against talking points that you never made.

Our main problem with these shows is that the writing feels like a dark Spanish soap opera, rather than the optimistic science fiction drama I had come to expect from classic Trek. Related to that is the cringy dialogue Discovery and Picard share. After that, the breaks in canon, and finally the visual aesthetics of the shows. Yet when we try to argue about the writing or canon or whatnot, they dismiss those arguments by entirely shifting the subject to that of diversity:

Ok, maybe showing the Klingon tits in the rape flashback wasn't the smartest move, but just look at all the diversity in Discovery! Look, we have the first gay couple! What's your issue with diversity? Why do you hate strong black female leads?

​Nobody is saying that diversity doesn't belong in Star Trek. Having a diverse crew is part of Trek's original DNA, and they've always tried to push the envelope in that manner. Yet they were also able to tell good stories at the same time. The diversity of those stories was never made apart of a marketing campaign until recently. If certain classic episodes made headlines after it aired, that's one thing... but marketing never made a big deal about it back then, whereas the Adira and Gray marketing happened well before the season aired. 

Perhaps this shift in marketing is why many people tend to conflate criticism of the show with anti-diversity. Perhaps this person has fallen for the articles that accused Discovery and Star Wars sequel trilogy critics of hating strong black females or female leads. Perhaps if these people were more open to discussing the aspects of classic Trek vs. NuTrek, rather than trying to blindly put labels on people who's points of view they don't understand, maybe they would get that we just want better quality story-telling than what Discovery and Picard have offered. 

They then move on to the treatment of Michael Burnham, "saying that the character should be removed from the show, that the show would be better without her and she should be replaced by what is often suggested to be a white male character."

Hold up. Wait a minute. While I agree that there is a wish to remove the character of Michael Burnham from Discovery, NOBODY has suggested she be replaced by a white character. They don't even show proof or links to back this accusation: They just blindly suggest it in order to add some gravitas to this non-argument. If they ever did decide to remove Burnham, I don't think anybody would care who they replaced her with, as long as that character had a proper hero's journey and character arc, as well as decent dialogue. 

The author goes on to directly ask us, "consider what you are saying and where you are coming from with that statement. Do you judge male characters, especially white male characters, the same way you judge her?"

​I thought that the new Christopher Pike was too submissive to be a Starfleet captain. As the temp captain of Discovery, this would be his extent of interactions with Burnham in season two:

Pike: Don't do a specific thing, Commander. That's an order. 
Burnham: I'm gonna do that thing anyway, sir. 
Pike: Well... *Smiles and shrugs*

Don't get me wrong, Anson Mount's Pike was a slight improvement upon Hunter's version... but if he's not going to even enforce his orders against a mutinous character like Burnham, then what good of a captain is he? If she tried that with Sisko or Picard, they would have both put her in the brig. 

Also, I have several issues with Ethan Peck's Spock. While I have no issues with the actor himself, I just don't see him as Spock. Maybe if they ever gave him some decent dialogue or a decent story, that opinion may change, but until then, I kinda wish they just left the Spock character to rest. 

Maybe you're sitting there thinking, "but did you judge white male characters the same way then, as you do now?"

Yes. Meet the "Gary Sue" of the classic Trek franchise: Wesley Crusher. Lord, I really wish the people who wrote this article had read about how Wesley Crusher was hated back then. 

They go on to work off their imaginative idea that we want Burnham replaced with a white man and asks us to consider, "what does it say about Star Trek if it were to remove a Black female lead from her own show, especially if it were to replace her with a white male actor?" and then goes on a rant about something nobody actually suggested. 

Honestly, who the heck is suggesting that? They provide no links to back up these claims. They really need to do better than to indirectly suggest that my friends and I are low-key racists against black female leads. Once they start accusing people of that, they've become the very toxic thing they claim us to be, and I doubt any of us really want to engage with people who have a false premise about us. 

Let's face it: Michael Burnham is not a very good character. For three seasons, she's been mutinous and insubordinate, which is not my idea of a strong female - or male, for that matter. So what is my idea of a strong black female? Meet my mother. ​​

​I was born in the country of Panama. My mother's DNA came from the continents of Africa, South America, and a little bit of European Spanish. As a result, her complextion is a bit darker than my father's or I. 

My mother raised me in my teenage years as a single mother. It wasn't easy for her. She didn't have formal education and English wasn't her first language. Her heavy accent kept her from getting possibly lucritive jobs, which relagated her to house-keeping positions in hotels and casinos. Yet, through all that struggle, she somehow managed to raise me until I left for the Navy. That is my idea of a strong black female lead. 

Later on, my mother would permanantly lose her sight and for a few years, I was her partial caretaker. She's still alive, but has moved back to Panama to be closer to family. Michael Burnham wouldn't be qualified to be my mother's guide, much less captain a ship. Yet, they suggest my problem with Burnham isn't the contrived writing that would have her fall onto a planet's surface from space and not have her suffer internal organ ruptures over it. They think my problem is bigotry. How can anybody reason with people like this? 

They conclude their article by saying, "Because I still believe that the Star Trek fandom, of all fandoms, is a place where bigotry, outright or hidden, can be defeated because of the principles this franchise carries in its core." 

Yet, there is no bigotry issue here: It's just a tv show. I am a fan of the 1986 Howard the Duck movie. I first watched it when it came out. I was three and loved that film. But when I later learned that the film bombed and nobody liked it, I didn't accuse any of them of hating ducks or holding prejudices, I just watched a couple of videos where they explained their side and was like "alright, that's an opinion that's going around". Not "how can I shift this topic to race and bigotry?"

Also, nobody who is worth their salt has ever thought that Kirk could NEVER be bisexual, it's just that it's never been established in any sort of way, so the idea is a bit of a stretch. They go on to try and infer that Kirk's character would have been bi, but in a way that suggests that my straight ass could have also been bi. I honestly feel like quoting Captain Picard when he hears a bad argument: 

​Discovery has some legit firsts: First Woman/African American lead in Trek, First openly gay couple in Trek. Those are things nobody can take away. Why pretend to try and out-do yourselves? Congratulations: Your show is diverse. Now focus on good story-telling so that maybe you can justify the existence of these characters. Pretending things like Burnham being the first black female captain in Trek, when she clearly wasn't, isn't the way. Finding out how to make compelling stories about her captaincy could be though. There's nothing bigoted about this. Once CBSAllAccess/Paramount+ crossed the line and declared false-firsts, they disrespected Trek's history and should have expected the appropriate push back. 

"​When I was 7, my parents took me to the zoo. That's where I saw my first turtle (it was actually a tortoise, but I didn't know the difference back then). He was big and old, but I'll never forget how he was able to put his head in his shell. I wanted one... I wanted two! I begged my parents to buy me some turtles and they told me that if I saved up my allowance, I could go buy some turtles at the pet store. 

So I saved up my allowance for three months. I had to give up many ice cream truck visits, but soon I had enough money to buy a couple of turtles. I went to the pet store and made a bee-line to the turtle aisle. They had many types, but then I saw a small bowl that had four of the tiniest turtles I've ever seen floating inside. The pet store clerk told me that they were all newly born siblings. 

I didn't want to separate the brothers, but I only had enough money for two of them. This made me feel bad and the clerk noticed. He made a deal with me to take all four turtles if I paid him back later. Elated, I took the deal and I took the turtles. 

I was so excited walking home, I didn't even pay attention to my surroundings. New York streets are full of cracks and holes to trip on, but I was focused on my new pets. I was staring at the tiny turtles swimming in the bowl and thinking of what to name them. I thought of calling them Curly, Larry, Moe and Joe after the Stooges, but then thought no, that's stupid. 

That's when I tripped. Before I knew what was happening, the bowl flew out of my hands and shattered on a drainage grate. At first the little guys were still on the grate, but all four turtles fell into the sewer before I could reach them. I tried to look inside the grate, but only saw pitch black. As soon as I had bought them, I had lost my turtles. 

I cried the rest of the way home. My parents asked me what happened and I told them. Feeling bad, my father promised that he would pay back the pet store clerk and buy me a new turtle. A few days later, I got a new turtle - not a baby one, but a turtle none-the-less. I decided to name him Pisanello, after an old renaissance painter, after seeing one of his sketches of a turtle. 

I took care of that little guy until I was an adult. As a teenager, I took a job at the very zoo where I saw my first tortoise and really learned the job. I loved working there. I then went to college and studied zoology and marine biology. 

One night I was walking home from school when I thought I saw something in an alley way. I went in and a man with a knife came to me and demanded my wallet. Frightened for my safety, I reached into my pocket to grab my wallet when the street lamps gave a spark and went out. I could hear commotion, but I could only see shadows and silhouettes. For some reason, the silhouettes looked like people wearing turtle shells. 

My mind was playing tricks on me. Instead of reaching for my wallet, I reached for the tiny flashlight on my keychain. I turned it on to see my would-be mugger tied up and the turtle-like silhouettes gone. Seeing my opportunity to escape, I ran out of the alley and called the police when I got home. Strangest thing. I took a short break from school to get turtles out of my mind for a while. 

I now run a turtle conservancy, saving hundreds of threatened turtles and tortoises by creating safe habitats for them. I'm proud of what I do, though I can't help but to sometimes look back and wonder what became of those four baby turtles. Are they still together? Are they still wondering the sewer? Would they remember me? 

I guess I'll never know."