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Introduction
It seems a little strange to be writing this page in May 2002, some 3 years since originally setting out to find out if anyone else remembered Star Fleet. The site recently vanished due to an administrative error, and its absence made me think a little. I just came to the realisation that visitors to this site who don't know the first thing about Star Fleet might wonder why all this was here. Because as single-handed, (largely) hand coded web sites go this one's pretty big. So what's the story?Well, it's two-fold. I've always been a writer, and I've always been interested in computers. So when I discovered the Internet at university, all of a sudden there was an opportunity to write and get an audience while exercising my IT skills at the same time. So as many, many others have done, I put a homepage together. But being me, it wasn't just a page. It was a whole pile of pages. Carefully thought out, structured pages. However, I'm not an IT professional and so although I'm experienced with certain packages I know where my knowledge stops and so there were limits on how far I could take those pages.
The second part of SFXB's story lies in Star Fleet itself. I tend to remember what I watch on TV - I have a sort of motion picture memory, in a sense. I remember re-enacting Star Fleet at school, even writing new stories. However, it wasn't until the late 1990s in a quiet moment that I was reminded of the show and decided to go looking for information on it. There wasn't a lot immediately available as the Web was still developing, but I put together a page based on what there was, just to capture my memories of the show and perhaps remind others of it.
From that point on things went suprisingly quickly, as other fans of the show emerged. I was given new material to look at, even given new sections to add to the site. I realised that far from being the only one who remembered the show, there were others who had been older when they saw it that remembered it just as well if not better, and that it had had far more of an international impact than I had even guessed at when I was writing my first (and actually quite inaccurate in some respects) pages about the show.
So three plus years down the line what you have is SFXB, basically doing what it's always intended to do - capture my thoughts about the show, share those with others and in so doing remind them of the show. Encouraged by others, SFXB's also gone a little further with Star Fleet Genesis - that's my writing side mentioned above coming through. SFXB's also a smidgen more technically advanced than my other pages, and in an ideal world I'd get it all onto a database driven site.
80SFXB has come about as part of the general feeling of nostalgia which Star Fleet has promoted for me; again, it's a bit of an archive of times gone by, and it gives a bit of variety to the site which I think is important. To a certain extent I've achieved what I set out to achieve with Star Fleet, so it also gives me something else to look into and will hopefully stop me going stale. Researching this sort of thing is always an interesting journey in and of itself.
Returning to Star Fleet, the basic hope is that it will see a DVD release at some point in the future. Given the shows reappearing on the market place today, the fans are keeping their fingers crossed. Meanwhile, others besides myself are lending their own talents to keeping the show alive and taking it further still. Their sites can be found in the Links section. Some I've tried to help along the way, others haven't needed my help (and indeed have helped me). It's been fascinating watching them develop because they all have characters of their own and focus on different aspects of the show. You need only read some of the posts on the forum to realise that there's a hidden richness to the background of Star Fleet.
So SFXB seeks to give you a broad reminder of the show as it aired on British TV, because that was my original driver for writing the earlier versions. It goes a little further than that in some respects, but basically, it's for the nostalgia hit first and foremost and if you want to look into the show further - it gives you links to the resources to do that. If you're still reading all this self-satisfied guff, well, thanks for putting up with it - I suppose I'm getting nostalgic about my own site; ah, the irony! Please feel free to contribute to the site via the guestbook (Guests button above) or the forum, or even via email if you're feeling particularly brave! Here's hoping that, like others before you, showing you that Star Fleet does actually exist has helped your peace of mind and demonstrated to your mates down the pub that you're not quite as mad as they thought you were!
All the best
Andy Thomas, Webmaster, SFXB.co.uk
Last updated 14 December 2013
