Though the Grand Slam weekend brought less official news than originally hoped for, some news on the next series did surface, with two sites reporting the Series V pilot will show the First Contact between humans and Klingons.

According to two sources at Ain't It Cool News as well as a source at TrekWeb, the two-hour Series V pilot will show us the first meeting with the Klingons. One source at AICN that the Klingons shown would be the TNG-version, including forehead ridges and presumably the Klingon culture that has been developed on modern Trek.

As usual, please do keep in mind that the above has not been officially confirmed by Paramount yet, and until then any Series V news from unofficial sources should be treated as you would any rumour.

Few firm details exist on the early contacts between the Federation and the Klingon. The Original Series episode 'Day of the Dove' established that First Contact took place in 2218, while according to the TNG episode 'First Contact', the initial meeting was a disastrous event that led to nearly a century of hostilities. However, according to the TOS episode 'Errand of Mercy', hostilities actually ended less than half a century later, when the Organian Peace Treaty was established in 2267. Little else is known about early Federation-Klingon history, so if this news is true, producers will be free to develop the Klingon backstory without violating much of established Star Trek continuity.

Someone who is less certain the producers will be able to create a prequel series without violating continuity is Majel Barrett-Roddenberry. 'Excalibur' sends along word that during her appearance on Sunday, the widow of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry also said that the next series would be set before the Original Series, aboard a ship called the Enterprise.

Barrett said she did not like "the re-writing of Gene's story." In addition, she wondered how there could be a ship called Enterprise before the Original Series, and mentioned to the audience that Gene had said Spock was the first Vulcan in Starfleet. Still, she ended by saying she hoped Rick Berman would be able to do Gene justice.

Later that day, Rick Berman's Series V co-creator, Brannon Braga, also appeared on stage, and Fandom.com's Smiling Jack Ruby posted some more quotes from him. As mentioned before, he was unable to comment at all about the next series.

"Anyway, I was hoping to come out here and tell you everything," he said. "Again, the most I can tell you is that it`s being worked on and hopefully, Paramount will make an official announcement in the next few weeks. So, I would keep an eye out for that, but until that happens, I can`t be the one to do it, right here, right now. So, I'm really just here to thank everyone for watching Voyager."

Finally, Braga did confirm that Michael Piller would not be involved in the next series. "Michael Piller, who created Voyager and Deep Space Nine, and is one of the best Star Trek writers is not involved with the new show, but that doesn't preclude him being involved at some point," he said. "Certainly, we would welcome Mike Piller to come back, but I think Mike Piller is off doing other things now. He's creating [the UPN show 'Dead Zone'], like you mentioned."

The rest of Jack Ruby's con report on the final day of the Grand Slam convention can be found here. Meanwhile, if you're looking for the original Series V casting sheet story, please follow this link.

Discuss this news item at Trek BBS!
 Add TrekToday RSS feed to your news reader or My Yahoo!
Also a CSI: Crime Scene Investigation fan? Then visit CSIFiles.com!