INTRODUCTION ------------ Welcome to the first issue of the new Amiga disk-mag all about that wonderful sci-fi series, STAR TREK. The idea came to me after being rather sick of all the usual boring disk mags that were just about the Amiga. Hey, I thought, Amiga owners have got to have more interests than just the Amiga, so here it is! This isn't the first fanzine I have produced. The first was a general sci-fi zine on paper called TEMPORAL PHYSICS (I still have a few copies left if anyone is interested - for full details, see the Reader's Adverts) which catered for DOCTOR WHO, STAR TREK, THE NEXT GENERATION, RED DWARF, QUANTUM LEAP, TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES and anything else. As well as that I have also written for four other fanzines, I ran a sci-fi fan club for 12 months, the club produced a regular fanzine (TEMPORAL PHYSICS) plus a one-off DOCTOR WHO Interview Book, I wrote a regular demo review section for a disk magazine (the catalogue disk/disk mag from Lorenzo's Domain) and I'm also doing a similar regular column for the cat-disk from GROUND ZERO P.D. so I've got a bit of experience in writing/fandom in general. This mag will try to cater for all Amiga owning STAR TREK fans with articles, interviews, reader's and video charts, art, episode guides, music, animations, TREK-related games and utilities and more!! The main idea however, is that this is mag for STAR TREK fans who just happen to own Amigas, not the other way around. This means that we can give the best TREK coverage we possibly can. All contributions will be welcome to the address at the end of this file and all those whose stuff we use will get a free copy of the current issue! For more details read the CONTRIBUTIONS info. This magazine has been created with European Trekkers fans in mind. All the software etc. will only run on PAL systems. The disk will not be converted to run on NTSC systems as it would be too time consuming. It is going to be a TREK zine with a British/European outlook. However, it can be distributed in America as long as it is left in this PAL format. Americans can still read the articles and listen to the music. Although this mag is freely distributable and is not shareware, any cash donations would be greatly accepted (cheques/PO's payable to "Simon Plumbe") as we have no income for the mag (apart from adverts) and we do have expenses such as competition prizes, free copies to authors, mag adverts for new writers etc. Many thanks. I won't try and make any excuses for the presentation. I know it is no where near as good as other disk magazines, but they are mostly polish and presentation with little thought on the content. It is their presentation that makes one different to the other. As THE FINAL FRONTIER is the only Star Trek disk mag around we have no competition. We will improve the presentation over a period of time, but I believe that it is the articles and content that are more important. On top of that, how many menu systems are there that allow you to load art (in ALL graphic formats including HAM), play a choice of music, run demos, play animations synchronised with sound and display large quantities of compressed text files? The answer - none! If a suitable system comes along, or if someone is willing to write one for us then, of course, we'll use it. Also, I'm sorry that most of the written content is reviews, but that's all I was sent and I simply wasn't able to write more articles in time (with saying that, I've written most of this issue anyway!). The Richard Arnold article alone took me three weeks SOLID to get it ready! All I can say is bear with us and send your material in. Give us TIME, the same way Paramount did with THE NEXT GENERATION. This mag was produced and edited by Simon Plumbe (that's me!) and Andrew Wilk. Additional help from Mark Haggett, Vince Hirst, Tobias Richter, Colin Gunn and Laurie McCullogh. To kick off with issue 1 we have two EXCLUSIVE pieces of ray-traced art from none other than the incredible TOBIAS RICHTER!! On top of that we have a Next Generation animation, music, articles, book and video reviews, a competition and much more. Originally, the music was going to be conversions of a few tunes from the movies and The Next Generation, but both of our musicians found it almost impossible to convert them, so we have a few original pieces instead - hope you enjoy them! Although normally we want music etc. to be EXCLUSIVE to THE FINAL FRONTIER, the music this time will be used on a few demos/music disks by LSD. We couldn't avoid this as we had to have some music! I had planned to try and get an interview for the first two issues while I was at a convention recently in Scotland. However, I wasn't able to, but I can bring you the next best thing and this issue sees a special article based on the talks given by Paramount's Trek Research Consultant, Richard Arnold. Thanks go to Richard Arnold for this. This is effectively an interview, but it was conducted by hundreds of Trekkers instead of just one or two! Issue two will see two more in this series, with John de Lancie (Q from The Next Generation)!! Again, this was based on his talks during the convention. The other features Paramount's Co-Research Consultant for TREK and regular extra and stand-in on THE NEXT GENERATION, Guy Vardaman. Note that the guests AGREED to these articles - I did get their permission! I don't know what you think of these articles, but I'd love to hear your comments. Personally, I'd rather see these than interviews as they can be MUCH bigger, and you never get short of questions to ask! With a one-on-one interview, you will probably get no more than 45 minutes, where as the Richard Arnold article was based on talks lasting for over 4 hours! Editorial Address ----------------- To contact THE FINAL FRONTIER either with contributions (all text to be sent on paper or Amiga/Atari ST/PC-formatted 3.5 inch disks as 74-column ASCII files or on audio cassette as dictated articles!), donations or just comments or if you are a software house or magazine interested in contacting one of our contributors then write to:- THE FINAL FRONTIER c/o Simon Plumbe 14 Rousdon Grove Great Barr Birmingham B43 5HN ENGLAND Or you can call me on +44 (0)21 358 1213 after 7:00 pm, Mondays - Fridays, or at anytime on weekends. Live Long and Prosper....