I’m a huge fan of Larry Niven. Star Trek? Not so much. I don’t hate it, I just don’t care about it, in much the same way that I neither hate nor care about The Wonder Pets. It just sort of *is* and it’s clearly not meant for me, so I just kind of ignore it.
As such I somehow managed to miss the fact that there was a Star Trek newspaper comics strip that ran from 1979 to 1983. I also managed to miss the fact that Larry Niven wrote a story called “The Wristwatch Plantation” during the run of this strip. Now, this isn’t the first association between Niven and Trek: He wrote The Animated Series episode, “The Slaver Weapon,” which was basically a re-treaded version of his Known Space story, “The Soft Weapon.” It has the distinction of being the only TAS episode not to have Captain Kirk in it at all. And if you ever wondered why the “Star Trek Maps” thing from 1980 had Ringworld in it, well, now you know. It was reputed by my very unreliable sources that this story was a sequel to “The Slaver Weapon.”
“Wristwatch Plantation” was a story I’d never heard of, obscure, unchronicled, uncollected, unremarked upon, but seeing as I’m an obsessive compulsive, I *had* to read it. But where would I find a copy? These things were not freely tradeable for all manner of legal and copyright reasons. It seemed a completely lost cause. I’d simply never find it, short of hitting a library and going through thousands of pages of old newspapers on equally old microfiche. (Most of that stuff still hasn’t been converted to digital)
As luck would have it, however, I bought a used couch from the Salvation Army, and when I got it home, I found a complete copy of “The Wristwatch Plantation” stuck beneath the cushions.
I was a little surprised by it. When I started looking, I had assumed it was from the early/mid seventies. I was surprised when it turned out to be in the TMP era, though I don’t know why. Also, despite my unreliable sources swearing all up and down that it was a Niven solo story, it was in fact co-authored by him and Sharman DiVono, who’s primarily a TV writer these days. I don't know much about her beyond that.
Given its obscurity and interest to both Niven fans and Trekies, I thought, “What the heck, I’ll review it.”
PLAY BY PLAY
The Enterprise is pulled from their standard patrol duty, and assigned to assist a delegation of Bebebebeque, small bug-like aliens about the size of your fist. Being somewhat afraid of getting stepped on by humans, they generally zip around on little anti-gravity sleds at about eye-level. They’re continually zipping by crewment, or accidentally banging into them when a person moves in an unpredictable way. They have other annoying traits as well.
Given their diminutive status, the Bebebebeque are a very important species in the Federation, who more-or-less control any aspects of machinery and electronics that need miniaturization. Anyone who crosses them gets embargoed, and the Federation doesn’t want that. The Enterprise is to take them to a planet they colonized some years before, and then lost contact with. Alas, en rout the Bebebebeque manage to make everyone nervous wrecks, and more and more people end up on sick leave. Bones labels it “Bebebebequephobia.” Even Spock has some ill effects from it: The Bebebebeque are swarm creatures, and are uncomfortable in groups of less than twenty. Spock finds that much chaotic mental energy disturbing to his telepathic senses.
The only section of the ship that *isn’t* affected is Engineering, mostly because the Bebebebeque are naturally disposed to machinery, and so they immediately get along with Scotty.
Starfleet has thoughtfully assigned an “Alienologist” to help avoid problems arising between the Bebebebeque and the Human crew of the Enterprise. Not so thoughtfully, however, it turns out that “Alienologist” is just a cover for an alien cop named Mernat to track down some drug smugglers suspected of being in the Enterprise crew. Kirk pooh-poohs this notion. Mernat’s people are very competitive with each other, and fight for reproductive rights. “Theep” is a drug that improves strength and reflexes, and hence one’s chances for nookie.
So basically Mernat is useless with regards to the Bebebebeque situation, but it turns out he’s right about the drugs. A guy named Mike and a girl have indeed
He never gave up his copyright, I think his point was more "Hey, this is a neat place to daydream about." I suspect - but do not know - that he was pretty much done with Known Space at the point that book came out, because he didn't revisit the playground for another 5 years. I think maybe he was saying "So this is all you're gonna' get." Whatever his purpose, I'm sure he's had cause to regret those exact words.
Certainly Fanfic wasn't as ubiquitous then as it is now, though it existed. But there's a difference between running your "Beowulf Schaefer Meets The Stainless Steel Rat in Mega City 1" story in your friend's fanzine for free with a circulation of 15 people, (Counting the guy who beat you up and stole your remaining copies) and actually trying to make money off of someone else's intellectual property.
If you want to sit in my garden and daydream, that's one thing. If you want to write down your daydreams, that's another, but, eh, whatever. If you want to charge admission to my garden, that's another thing entirely, and if you want to basically write stories that completely change the lay of the land in my garden, that's flat out bad. I can respect that.
Interestingly, the relationship between KS and fans has always been a little reciprocal. Some engineer fans contacting Niven and explaining to him the inherent structural instability of the Ringworld. The result was him writing "Ringworld Engineers." Some elements of the frame story in "Crashlander" arose the same way, and some of the stuff in the "Of Worlds" series, I'm sure, arose because we've been nagging the guy since 1965 to resolve some plot threads. (But now I kinda' wish he hadn't.)
As of now, about half the stuff in Known Space wasn't actually written by Niven. In 1988 he started inviting other authors to write stories set in the era of the Man/Kzin wars, which (to date) has resulted in thirteen anthologies and one (awful) novel by other people. He's also cranked out four co-written novels unrelated to the M/KW series.
Beyond the money, I think part of the issue is quality control. You really have no say over where your creation ends up. I mean, if you write the Great American Novel, and then some chump decides to horn in on your action by writing The Great American Prequel which retcons half of your book out of existence, that's kind of annoying, right? I have had several sequels to 1984. They all suck out loud, and most of 'em utterly miss the clear point of the book. And those are *PUBLISHED* books. Imagine what the ones passed around in back alleys must be like!
The Artist Formerly Known As Republibot 3.0