Disclaimer: Paramount owns all the characters but Emily. I respect them, so I'm trying to be as true to them as possible. I just wanted to see what would happen if a youngster much like myself as a college freshman stumbled into their world.
The last scene of Star Trek: Voyager faded from the screen. Emily grabbed the remote control and quickly turned the TV off before that particularly offensive ad proclaiming how easy it was to increase one's bust size that always seemed to come on directly after her favorite show could take over from her vision of the ship in space. Then she sighed and stretched, reluctantly returning to the real world and the journal entry she had been writing during advertisements.
"So I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm homesick. I've pretty much been a basket case since I left home. And I'll tell myself I'm not going to cry, and to a certain point it works, but then when I'm alone in the evenings and it's dark outside and there's no one around who cares if I had a really bad day – or maybe something cool happened, or I learned something new but there's no one to share it with – and I just can't hold back tears. I guess I'm not very brave. I miss my sister especially. I wish I could make friends more easily. It's just – I don't fit in with this whole college "youth culture" thing. Drinking and partying frankly bores me to tears. I don't watch much TV. What my peers call music, I call noise, and what I call music is excruciatingly dull to them. After all, even my fellow music majors don't seem to listen to what they're being trained to play! I'm not disliked at all, so I try not to feel sorry for myself. I just feel like I'm invisible to them because we have no common ground.
"I just finished watching Star Trek: Voyager. Discovering the reruns on TV at ten every night has helped a lot. Which in itself speaks of my massive sense of dislocation. I almost feel like I'd be more at home on that imaginary starship than I am here at the University of Illinois! Pathetic isn't it? I do hope I'm not turning into a "Trekkie"! My family would never let me live that down! My parents, pacifist anarchists that they are, think the show is silly, and of course Trixie is studying dance so that she can create the great art she sees in her head, and she doesn't even know what Star Trek is and would be contemptuous if she did!
"It's just – I wish I could believe that we will turn into people like that. It would be nice to know it was at least possible for human beings to grow into such a kind, compassionate, honorable, courageous race. I wish – "
Suddenly the room was full of blindingly bright light. Emily reflexively leaped to her feet, clutching her journal to her chest. The light grew brighter and brighter until even with her eyes shut all she experienced was brilliant, blinding, white light.