These are the adventures...
Ian Lindsay made his first trip to the US in January of 1984, just after Star Trek 3 finished filming. In his pocket he carried the top-secret number for Gene Roddenberry’s personal secretary, Susan Sackett, given to him by a friend back in Sydney along with explicit instructions to "Eat it when you're done." Ian was hoping to get a tour of the sets.

After arriving in Los Angeles, Ian went to a payphone and dialled the number for Susan’s office at Paramount Studios. A man answered. "I asked for Susan and the man said, ‘I’m sorry but Susan is out for the day.’ I told him that I was hoping to meet up with her and get a studio tour and he said, ‘I wish I could help you but I’m just here doing a little paperwork and then I’m off to play golf.’ And he hung up." Ian grins mischievously and runs his thick hand back and forth over his greying crew cut.

"I started walking down the street when all of a sudden, Ding!" He shoots an index finger into the air and taps his temple to illustrate his brilliant idea. "I thought, who else besides Susan would be answering that phone? So I went back and called again."

This time, when the man answered, Ian said, "I’m sorry to bother you again, but I just have to ask. Are you Gene Roddenberry?" The man replied, "Son, of all the people in the world, if I could be someone, I would want to be Gene Roddenberry. But no, I’m not him." Satisfied that he had at least asked, Ian thanked him and hung up.

The next day he got his set tour through another contact. When he arrived, his tour guide said, "Oh, you’re the one Gene was messing with on the phone yesterday."

Ian says the story is even more special to him now. Roddenberry has been dead almost 15 years and the cancellation of Enterprise signals the end of an era for fans who have come to expect new Trek series and films every year. Veteran Trekkies like Ian worry that not enough young people are being appealed to in order to keep the audience growing, or that they are scared away by the kind of bizarre fanatics seen in Trekkies and Trekkies 2.

If more young sci-fi fans met warm and welcoming fans like Ian, you wouldn’t be able to fight them off with a phaser.

Keep on Trekkin’
Ian Lindsay has led the Trekkie dreamlife. For this reason, I have chosen him as my personal Star Trek guru. I've said it before, but I'll confess it again: I'm a closet Trekkie. I don't own any pointy ears, but I know a Ferengi from a Cardassian, and I once made a Borg joke.

It's taken a lot for me to admit this. But after living for years in denial, I decided the best way to deal with the issue was to enlist the help of a support group. I found Ian through Sydney’s meetup.com message board for Trekkies and agreed to attend their first get-together.

The evening of the gathering, I approached the outdoor cafe at Circular Quay slowly, scanning the crowd. About a dozen fans turned up, mostly older males but a few young men and women as well. Some already knew each other from online chats (and it seemed everyone knew Arthur, the Aussie drag queen featured in Trekkies 2), but others were learning faces and real names for the first time.

I caught snippets of conversation around me: "I can show you how to make a Klingon forehead out of liquid latex." "How can anybody like the Enterprise theme song? That’s what killed the show!" "I didn't recognise you without the antennas."

I'm not exactly sure how to get Trekkie street cred, but at that moment, I was sure I didn't have any. But even in this group of hardcore fans, Ian was clearly the master of the Trek universe.

Other conversations came to a halt as Ian, a primary school teacher, told story after story about his travels and meetings with fans and celebrities in Australia and abroad.

Besides being fun to listen to, Ian is fun to watch. He’s animated, not just telling the story but re-enacting his surprise and excitement at events that clearly still thrill him. It’s this ability to remain enchanted at things that happened years ago which I find endearing.

George Takei? Yeah, Ian’s met him. A few times. Actually, he went to George’s house for tea once. And yes, there was that other time, shortly after Gene died in 1991, when Ian made his second trip to LA and Susan Sackett (by now a good friend of his) arranged for Gene’s personal driver, Ernie, to take Ian to dinner.

"Stupid me, we were driving through the Hollywood Hills and I still didn’t know where we were going," Ian laughs at his younger, more naïve self. "I thought maybe there was some little restaurant in between all these huge homes."

It wasn’t until Ernie pulled the yellow limousine into a long driveway that Ian realised where he was. "The garage doors opened up and I saw a wheelchair sitting there and I just knew it must have been Gene’s chair."

That night, with the Super Bowl playing on a tv in the dining room, he had dinner at the Roddenberry mansion with Majel, her mother and her son. The only rule was that he wasn’t to utter the words "Star Trek" at all.

"Once you have seen Lwaxana Troi, that is Majel Barrett," he reveals. "There’s no acting required. She was pounding her fists and yelling for her team." He laughs. "It was incredible!"

The rest of the meetup group sits grinning, a happy, dazed look about them as they picture the scene. He goes on to describe the treasure chest full of huge chocolate truffles ("I was allowed to take one home for dessert. It was a chocolate you could spend a meal on."), the nine Christmas trees in the Roddenberry foyer, and his peek into Gene’s personal office, left exactly as it was before he died.

"I felt like I was someone else there," he remembers. "I wasn't me. It was a real out-of-body experience."

Is everyone else jealous? A little, but not too much. You can’t help but feel that if good things should happen to someone, it should be Ian. He’s had some unique experiences, but still insists, "I'm sure every Trekkie has stories like that."

Well, not quite.

Out With Little Blue Men
A few days later, Ian agrees to meet up and tell me more about his life as a Trekker. To prepare I have a look at his website which includes photos of him painted blue and dressed as his alter-ego, Therin of Andor. He also has information on, or links to, just about any question you could have about Andorians.

I shouldn’t be surprised. In discussing any Trek series or actor, Ian punctuates his arguments and critiques with exact dates, episodes a character appeared in and the alien race or fictional event involved. He knows more about the history of Starfleet than most Australians know about Gallipolli and it all flows effortlessly from him.

Besides owning every Star Trek fiction book published, he says he owns just about all of the non-fiction as well: biographies, encyclopedias, memoirs and dictionaries.

"Whenever I have a question about an episode or a ship or the history of an alien race, I know that if I post it on the board, Ian will respond within a day with a full answer," says Nathan Cook, another meetup.com member.

The highlight of the cybertour is a set of action figures he affectionately calls his children, because he’s created them all himself. He takes body parts from several character models and mixes them up to invent new characters.

If you’re only as old as you feel, then judging by his love for toys it’s not surprising than Ian looks younger than his 55 years. "Star Trek fans are all big kids," he says, talking about his favourite Billy Van Zandt figure. Van Zandt’s wife, actress Adrienne Barbeau, once emailed with a request to buy it from him. What she didn’t know was that Ian had interviewed Van Zandt years earlier about his role in Star Trek the Motion Picture and had already given him a figure then.

"I told her Billy already had one from me and there was no way I’d part with another. It was flattering that she asked though."

In fact, despite the fact that Ian has spent countless hours, and a good deal of money, putting his Trek collection together, the things themselves don’t seem that important to him. He’s happy just to sit over coffee and talk about the early days. He remembers when costumes had to be homemade because you couldn’t buy them anywhere, and celebrities were willing to fly to Australia without asking for an appearance fee, just to see the sights.

Finding New Recruits
That first fan club Ian joined back in 1980 went from 200 to more than 1200 members in a decade, but grew too large to offer the cosy, personal touch that it once had.

"You walk into a group like that and instantly feel they are all friends,’ Ian says. "But once you get to know them, you don't want to be friends with some of them. But the Star Trek philosophy, ‘infinite diversity, infinite combinations,’ helped us to all get along."

The growth of the Internet changed things. Many fans found they preferred the personality of online communities. Even Ian, once involved with every aspect of the club, says he does all his Star Trek activities online now; he posts to message boards and chats and hits ebay for any items he can’t find locally. But the Internet has come full circle and a new wave of sites is aimed at fostering community groups.

Meetup.com not only allows members to chat, but is based on the idea of a monthly group gathering. Members "meet up" face-to-face, perhaps proving that even with all the technology available, real life human contact is still valued and desired.

Ian says the first meetup reminded him of his early days, just a handful of people hanging out over drinks and talking about their favourite characters and episodes, comparing collections and telling stories.

During the next meeting, Ian says he’ll try to remind himself not to do all the talking.

"Other people have things they want to talk about, so I shouldn’t always make it about me. They have interesting things to say too," he says.

I disagree with him. His stories are still the best.