Editing David Gerrold (section)

=== ''Star Trek'' ===
==== ''Star Trek: The Original Series'' ====
{{main|Star Trek: The Original Series}}
Within days of seeing the ''Star Trek'' series premiere "[[The Man Trap]]" on September 8, 1966, 22-year-old Gerrold<ref>Hanley, Jr., John. [http://www.findingmywaymovie.com/davidgerrold.html "David Gerrold Interview"] {{webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20130110222744/http://www.findingmywaymovie.com/davidgerrold.html |date=January 10, 2013 }}. Finding My Way: Wisdom of the Ages for All Ages. Retrieved June 23, 2013.</ref> wrote a 60-page outline for a two-part episode called "Tomorrow Was Yesterday" about the ''Enterprise'' discovering a ship launched from Earth centuries earlier. Although ''Star Trek'' producer [[Gene L. Coon]] rejected the outline, he realized Gerrold was talented and expressed interest in his submitting some story premises. Bearing preliminary titles and, in some cases, preliminary character names, Gerrold submitted five premises.<ref>David Gerrold, ''The Trouble with Tribbles''</ref>

Two of the submissions of which he later had little recollection involved a spaceship-destroying machine, similar to Norman Spinrad's "[[The Doomsday Machine (Star Trek: The Original Series)|The Doomsday Machine]]", and a situation in which Kirk had to play a chess game with an advanced intelligence using his crew as chess pieces. A third premise, "Bandi", involved a small being running about the ''Enterprise'' as someone's pet, and which empathically sways the crew's feelings and emotions to comfort it, even at someone else's expense.

A fourth premise, "The Protracted Man", applied science fiction to an effect seen in ''[[West Side Story (1961 film)|West Side Story]]'', when Maria twirls in her dancing dress and the colours separate. Gerrold's story involved a man transported from a shuttlecraft trying out a new space warp technology. The man is no longer unified, separating into three visible forms when he moves, separated by a fraction of a second. As efforts are undertaken to correct the condition and move the ''Enterprise'' to where corrective action can be taken, the protraction worsens.

{{rquote|right|<poem>Since I first wrote that damn script for Gene
And the electrical picture machine
Tribbles have chased their creator
From here to [[Decatur, Georgia|Decatur]].
Nobody knows of the tribbles I've seen.</poem>|David Gerrold<ref name="bbcgerrold">{{cite web | url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/st/interviews/gerrold/printpage.html | title=David Gerrold – The Trouble with Tribbles writer | publisher=BBC | access-date=May 7, 2011}}</ref>}}

The fifth premise, "The Fuzzies", was also initially rejected by Coon, but a while later he changed his mind and called Gerrold's agent to accept it. Gerrold then expanded the story to a full television story outline entitled "A Fuzzy Thing Happened to Me...", and it eventually became "The Trouble with Tribbles". The name "Fuzzy" was changed because [[H. Beam Piper]] had written novels about a fictional alien species of the same name (see ''[[Little Fuzzy]]''). The script went through numerous rewrites, including, at the insistence of Gerrold's agent, being re-set in a stock frontier town instead of an "expensive" space station. Gerrold later wrote a book, ''The Trouble with Tribbles'', telling the story of producing the episode and his earlier premises.

"[[The Cloud Minders]]" from the third season has a story credited to Gerrold and [[Oliver Crawford]].

<blockquote>I came in with what I thought was a near-perfect Star Trek story, which is we find a culture that isn't working for everybody and fix it. But my original ending was that, as they're flying off, [[James T. Kirk|Kirk]] says, "Well, we solved another one." [[Spock]] says, "Well, actually, it'll take years and years and years for all of these changes to be put in place." And [[Leonard McCoy|McCoy]] says, "I wonder how many children are going to die in the meantime." So the idea was, "Let's get gritty. We're not going to change things overnight, but we can put changes in place that will have long-term effects." There was also more to the story that was about the social issue, and there was no magical zenite gas that was causing the problem. [[Fred Freiberger|Freddy Freiberger]] and [[Margaret Armen]] came in and changed it to a "Let's solve it all in the last five minutes with gas masks" (ending). And I thought, "That's really not a very good story. It doesn't do what [[Gene Roddenberry]] or [[Gene L. Coon]] would have been willing to do." So I was disappointed.<ref name=Gerrold>[http://www.startrek.com/article/trek-writer-david-gerrold-looks-back-part-1 Trek Writer David Gerrold Looks Back – Part 1]</ref></blockquote>

''The Trouble with Tribbles'' was one of two books Gerrold wrote about ''Star Trek'' in the early 1970s after the original series had been canceled. His other was an analysis of the series, entitled ''The World of Star Trek'', in which he criticized some of the elements of the show, particularly Kirk's habit of placing himself in dangerous situations and leading landing parties himself.

====''Star Trek: The Animated Series''====
{{main|Star Trek: The Animated Series}}
Gerrold contributed two stories for the [[Emmy Award]]-winning ''[[Star Trek: The Animated Series]]'' which ran from 1973 to 1974: "[[More Tribbles, More Troubles]]" and "[[Bem (Star Trek: The Animated Series)|Bem]]". "Bem" featured the first use of James T. Kirk's middle name, which was revealed to be Tiberius. This was later entered into live-action canon in the movie ''[[Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country]]'' when Captain Kirk and Doctor McCoy are on trial for the death of the Klingon Chancellor Gorkon.

====''Star Trek: The Next Generation''====
{{main|Star Trek: The Next Generation}}
Many of the changes Gerrold had advocated in ''The World of Star Trek'' were incorporated into ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'' when it debuted in 1987. He parted company with the producers at the beginning of the first season.

Gerrold wrote a script for ''Star Trek: The Next Generation'' entitled "[[Blood and Fire (Star Trek)|Blood and Fire]]", which included an AIDS metaphor and a gay couple in the ship's crew. Gerrold wrote this script in response to being with Roddenberry at a convention in 1987 where he had promised that the upcoming ''Next Generation'' series would deal with the issue of [[sexual orientation]] in the egalitarian future. The script was purchased by the TNG producers, but eventually shelved. He later reworked the story into the third book in the ''[[Star Wolf (David Gerrold)|Star Wolf]]'' series (see below) and again as a two-part episode of the fan-produced ''[[Star Trek: New Voyages]]'', which he also directed.<ref>[http://www.startreknewvoyages.com/?p=15 "June Shoot Features Return of David Gerrold"]. ''[[Star Trek: Phase II (fan series)|Star Trek: Phase II]]''. January 31, 2010.</ref>

====Other ''Trek'' involvement====
Gerrold had wanted to appear onscreen in an episode of ''Star Trek'', particularly "The Trouble with Tribbles". The character of Ensign Freeman, who appears in the bar scene with the Klingons, was originally intended by Gerrold to be a walk-on part for himself, however another actor took the role since Gerrold was deemed too thin at the time. He also had an [[in-joke]] cameo of sorts in ''[[Star Trek The Animated Series]]'': "More Tribbles, More Troubles" where a very thin Ensign is told to seal off the transporter room area by Kirk. Gerrold also provided the voice for alien Em/3/Green in "The Jihad". While Gerrold appeared as a crewman extra with other Trek fandom notables in ''[[Star Trek: The Motion Picture]]'', he did not appear in a Trek series until ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine]]'', when he played a security guard in "[[Trials and Tribble-ations (DS9 episode)|Trials and Tribble-ations]]", set during the timeframe of his original episode.

Gerrold wrote a novelization of the ''Star Trek: The Next Generation'' series premiere "[[Encounter at Farpoint]]", published in 1987, and an original ''Star Trek'' novel titled ''The Galactic Whirlpool'', published in 1980, which was based on his story outline "Tomorrow Was Yesterday". In 2006, for the 40th anniversary of ''Star Trek,'' he co-edited, with [[Robert J. Sawyer]], an essay collection titled ''Boarding the "Enterprise"''.

Gerrold acted as a series consultant for fan-produced series ''Star Trek: New Voyages'' and ''Star Trek: Phase II'' starting in 2006. In June 2013 he was named [[showrunner]] of the series.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.startreknewvoyages.com/?p=3443|title=Startreknewvoyages.com}}</ref>