Dublin Comic Con was a massive celebration of nerdiness. The National Show Centre in Swords was packed with fans hoping to show off their impressive costumes, check out props from famous shows and movies, or simply have a good time with like-minded nerds. However, there was also something undeniably commercial to the proceedings. For every display from a classic Sci-Fi film there was a stall selling comics or posters. The heavily advertised celebrity guests spent hours charging up to 20 euro for an autograph and a quick photo. While there is nothing inherently wrong with these more monetised aspects of nerd culture, their abundance seemed to mark a significant change. As nerd interests have grown more acceptable and more lucrative in Ireland, and events like Dublin Comic Con have grown larger, they have also grown more impersonal.
Amidst this slew of merchandise and self-promotion, a Klingon named Frank was standing beside a complex looking video game, in which multiple players worked to control the same spaceship. Frank explained that he was there to advertise the USS Cuchulain, the Irish branch of Star Fleet International, the world’s largest Star Trek fan club collective. Two weeks later, the club was to have a meeting in a privately booked room in the Teacher’s Club. 50 crew members of the USS Cuchulain, arrayed in Star Fleet uniforms and pointed ears, congregated in the cosy back room for a truly unique display of fan devotion and community.
It’s a superficial change that I’ve made, but the funny thing is that people just prefer to play with their favourite ships from the show. They like to see the Enterprise on the screen as they’re flying about. It’s kind of a role playing opportunity
“It’s nothing unique in one respect because there have always been social groups,” says Fleet Captain Alan O’Shea. “But the unique aspect for the Cuchulain is that we are a Cuchulain family, and we like to treat our club as a family.”O’Shea’s first Star Trek convention was Timewarp 2 in Malahide, 1995: “The impression I had of the people attending there left a lasting mark. It was fabulous.” His forming of the USS Cuchulain was an attempt to continue Star Trek convention culture in Ireland. “Before we started this, there was a gap of maybe 15 years before there was anything like this for fans of Star Trek, or even sci-fi, apart from the conventions. There were no actual groups coming together. I found that there was a gap for Star Trek in Ireland. Now that the reboot movies have come out I thought it was an opportune time to revitalise the love of the fandom.” In the one and a half years since the group has been set up, it has grown from its 5 initial members to 60 active members, across the country.
Perhaps as a result of this smaller scale, the event was a very different entity to the standard comic or sci-fi convention. Removed from the bustle and mass of the convention set-up, the Cuchulain meet-up had a more intimate and social atmosphere. For some of the members — many of whom had been fans of the show decades ago, some of whom were born years after The Next Generation first aired — it served as a way to meet up with friends that had been made through a love of the series. Vulcans and uniforms aside, there wasn’t much to distinguish the event from a standard night out. O’Shea describes his club as a “social extension of the convention. What this club has enabled us to do is create a mere snapshot in miniature of that world and bring it to a more regular basis while we wait for the bigger events to come along. It’s more social: you get to know people and have more interaction with people.”
But it can’t be denied that the show still pervaded every aspect of the gathering. Active members were denoted various Star Fleet ranks. The trivia competition was lengthy and intense. Time was dedicated to celebrating the group’s achievements, including a special video announcement of the USS Cuchulain’s upgrade from a Saber to a Nova class starship, with accompanying champagne. Taking up almost half of the area was Artemis: Spaceship Bridge Simulator, the game which had been advertised at Dublin Comic Con. Artemis simulates the experience of serving as a Star Trek crewmember. Five players on individual computers perform specific tasks on the same ship while a sixth player — without a computer — fulfils the role of the Captain, giving commands to the other five players while relying on them to relay vital information back. The result is a unique, daunting, and somewhat chaotic video game experience.
A mod of the game designed by club member Jon East was being played at the meet-up. “I’m not a game designer or anything like that,” East explains. “I have an interest in Star Trek and I play games.” The original game, designed by Thomas Robertson, was heavily inspired by Star Trek but includes no direct references to it, so that Robertson could sell the game commercially. East’s mod replaces the names, skins, and details of the in-game ships with those of the original show. “It’s a superficial change that I’ve made, but the funny thing is that people just prefer to play with their favourite ships from the show. They like to see the Enterprise on the screen as they’re flying about. It’s kind of a role playing opportunity; it’s just more fun that way.”
The specialised roles required of people playing Artemis and the limited information they are given would seem to be a deterrent, but East sees this as being central to the reason for the game’s existence. “The point of the game is that all of the stations have to gel together. We want to get people playing and interacting with each other. You need to tell things to the captain in an audible voice so that the rest of the bridge can hear you.” By making interaction a fundamental gameplay mechanic, the game breaks down barriers and encourages real socialisation. In this way, the game fulfils a similar role to the club itself.
“What we were trying to do was to get people out of the woodwork,” continues East, referring to both the meet-up and the game. “Star Trek used to be super popular. It still gets giant events in the UK and Germany and the US have the big Las Vegas and California shows, but here we just don’t have the population for that. Our costs are the same to organise an event, but with a tenth of the potential attendees. That’s a major problem if you’re trying to run an event.” Because of these obstacles, nights like these offer a way to provide for the Star Trek fanbase, but at the same time they appear to be more than just the convention experience in miniature. With their smaller scale, they offer something more authentically personal and involving. “You could get five laptops together to play Star Trek Online, for instance, and you could do that at home,” says East. “But the thing is you should be working together, getting to know your team. You want people to return and enjoy themselves together, and that’s what’s different about Artemis as a game.”
Captain O’Shea has high hopes for the club’s future. “As I see it the world is our oyster for the USS Cuchulain. We’ve been so lucky over the last year and a half; it’s just gone to prove that there is a need for that social gathering – that space to explore the fandom in this way. I see this as a vehicle to take us forward to where we need to be in the future.” May they live long and prosper.
