Farewell to the Lower Decks Message Boards

I guess it’s official, the Lower Decks message boards are gone.

It’s funny, because now if you mention “Lower Decks” to a Star Trek fan, they’ll of course automatically think of the animated series. Twenty years ago it wasn’t even a question. It wasn’t even the Next Generation episode but an online community that at that time was fiercely loyal, a family, really.

My firmest memory of becoming a part of it was in the summer of 2000, when the forums were a part of the old Section 31 website (itself well before anyone outside of Deep Space Nine had heard of the controversial Starfleet black ops group). I assume I must have been visiting earlier than that, because even at that point the legendary banter between “Q” and “Shadow” was very familiar to me. 

When the owner of the Section 31 incarnation cashed out, the forums community created Lower Decks as its replacement in 2002. As a longtime Star Trek fan, this was my experience of the larger fan base. This was also where I wrote most of my formative fiction, found my voice. When the main page relaunched, I was also a regular contributor, writing reviews and columns, of the wider sci-fi experience and the franchise itself. 

2002 was when I began blogging, too, well before anyone who knows my blog material now had any clue I existed. I guess, twenty years on, it’s appropriate to have attempted visiting the mostly ghost forums that had lingered in recent years and finally finding the domain open.

So long, and thanks for all the fish.