By Baz Greenland /
12. A Question of Cannibalism - The First Star Trek Series
Star Trek may have turned out very differently. Two years before Star Trek: The Original Series, Roddenberry pitched an idea for Star Trek Is, featuring Captain Robert April and the crew of the SS Yorktown. April was joined by his female first officer Number One, South American navigator José Ortegas, cynical doctor Phillip Boyce, Yeoman Colt and alien first lieutenant Mr Spock. Many of those characters were developed into The Cage, the first un-aired pilot, with the SS Yorktown now the USS Enterprise and April replaced by Christopher Pike - though April would appear in the animated Star Trek series. Majel Barrett, Roddenberry's wife, became Number One. A full season of episode ideas was pitched, with stories such as The Day Charlie Became God eventually becoming the Kirk-led pilot Where No One Has Gone Before. The Mirror featured the crew discovering an alternate version of the SS Yorktown and A Question Of Cannibalism saw colonists on the planet Regulus herding sentient beings like cattle. While many ideas would find their way into later stories, it is interesting to see the origins of Star Trek that did not feature Captain Kirk, but still had Spock on the ship from the very beginning. The plot of A Question Of Cannibalism also bizarrely became the premise for an abandoned Star Trek film Roddenberry began developing as early as 1973. It doesn't have quite have the same ring to it as The Wrath Of Khan.