Scots Klingons on Star Trek Fandom and OH!CON Isle of Lewis

Fandom in the Outer Hebrides: Gaelic, Klingon, and Star Trek

Host Robert welcomes Callum and Martin, two members of the Star Trek and sci-fi community in the Outer Hebrides and OH!CON Isle of Lewis. The episode begins with greetings in both Klingon and Gaelic. Callum and Martin then discuss their earliest memories of Star Trek. For Callum, the Motion Picture shuttlecraft was his first captivating view. Martin remembers watching the Original Series (TOS) on an old-style television. He notes that Star Trek was one of the first and best sci-fi shows. Martin especially praises the show’s futuristic concept of a diverse crew, featuring a black female and a Russian, all acting as equals.

Deep Space Nine: The Best TV Show Ever Made

The discussion moves through the decades of Star Trek. Callum watched reruns of TOS on BBC Two. He eventually watched The Next Generation (TNG) and Deep Space Nine (DS9). Callum states that DS9 is his favorite. He calls it one of the best TV shows ever made. Furthermore, he names Garak as his favorite character and “Far Beyond the Stars” as one of the most emotional episodes. Both Callum and Martin moved back to the island and found each other through the “Alba” Star Trek fan page. They agree on the importance of having a local group to talk about Star Trek and other sci-fi.

 

The Origins of OH!CON Isle of Lewis

The conversation pivots to the local convention, OH!CON. The organizers held the inaugural meetings to set up the Comic Con. The original plan was to hold the first event in May 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic stopped the world. The website went dark for two years. The first event was eventually held in October 2022 because organizers could not book a summer venue. They credit “The Admiral” Kathleen and John for masterminding the convention. Callum and Martin never doubted the crowd’s appetite for the OH!CON Isle of Lewis convention as you can hear in the lively nerd debates from OH!CON 2024

 

Comic Con Culture and Audience Appetite

The enthusiasm for OH!CON, especially after lockdown, was immense. Martin and Callum mention that the town of Stornoway set a world record for the most people per head of population turning out to watch Star Wars: The Force Awakens. This proved the island has always had an appetite for “geek stuff”. The Friday night geek quiz was a huge success. The first year, Callum had to type quiz questions as the first round was happening. He knew they had something special when he saw the tables filling up. Now in its third year, OH!CON has demonstrated it is a “proper thing” in the Outer Hebrides.

 

Cosplay and the Future of the Isle of Lewis Sci-Fi Community

The hosts discuss cosplay at the OH!CON Isle of Lewis event. Islanders are typically reserved. Organizers were stunned by the creativity and level of the costumes, including a Michelle Pfeiffer Catwoman. Anime is a popular choice for younger attendees. Cosplayers walking around Stornoway town center confused some of the older folk. The host expresses disappointment that he missed the 2023 convention due to a canceled ferry. He assures the guests he will clear his schedule and return next year to attend the OH!CON Isle of Lewis convention.

Full Transcript Outline (Quick Jumps)

00:00 Introduction to the Scots Klingon Podcast

02:07 Star Trek Fandom Origins

08:02 The Evolution of Star Trek Series

09:51 The Impact of COVID on Fandom

12:02 The Birth of Ocon

18:07 Cosplay Culture and Community Engagement

23:48 Experiences at the Comic Con

29:50 Future of the Scottish Klingon Group

31:45 Connecting with the Community

38:04 Expanding Gaming Horizons

44:14 Inclusivity in Nerd Culture

50:05 The Unique Charm of Local Conventions

56:20 Charity and Community Engagement

Full Transcript 

Rob (00:01.87)
Hookne and welcome along to what is now episode number 11 of the Scots Klingon podcast. The podcast where we travel around the UK and indeed Ireland. We’ve been to Aberdeen, we’ve been down to Ayrshire, we’ve been to Northamptonshire, Liverpool, across to Dublin and tonight we’re going even further because we are going to the beautiful Isle of Lewis. Now for listeners, if you haven’t had the pleasure

of visiting the Isle of Lewis yet. It’s about a two and half hour sailing as I know well, come to that later, from the town of Ullapool. But do take the chance if you’re up that way in the Highlands at any point to visit Lewis. And I’m absolutely delighted to be joining the studio by two august members of the Star Trek and sci-fi community of the Outer Hebrides and Isle of Lewis.

And we have Callum, good evening Callum.

Good evening, and let me say as we’re on the Klingon Post podcast, hala ma njut ison awasig. And that is Gaelic for today. It’s a good day today.

Yeah, it’s cool. We learn something new every day. Linguistic lessons, fantastic. Thought we were gonna get a bit of a cling on there, but something even better. Something even better, thanks, Cal. And good evening to Martin as well. Good evening, Martin.

Martin (01:31.662)
Yeah Robert, thanks for inviting us along and I’m just going to say Kapla!

so you’ve got a combination of Gallatin playing. I think that may be a first for any podcast anywhere in the internet. could be wrong, but I’m sure it probably is. Now, we normally start off in these episodes just finding out a bit about the Star Trek fandom of our guests, really, how they got into it, how they first watched it, some of their favorites in terms of series and characters.

And Callum, over to you.

well my first memory ever of star I was really young and the motion picture was on tv and it was that bit where kirk and scottie are in the shuttlecraft going around there and it was just that ship and just captivated me from that day And then I remember I watched reruns of t.os because that’s all that there was that i’m showing my age That’s all there was repeated on bbc2 And then I remember

The next thing was the first time I saw TNG was my dad’s old workmate from Aberdeen came up and he had a pirate copy of Encounter at Farpoint. And I was like, what’s this? This is a Star Trek. I know. But then, of course, as well, remember Tuesday, six o’clock on BBC, as I remember, wasn’t it? BBC Two. Yeah. And that’s when I properly got into TNG.

Cal (03:07.616)
And then there was a friend of mine and he had Sky TV and this thing called Deep Space Nine was starting and he was taping it every night and giving it to me. And I was being very indifferent about it at the time. But as the years have gone by and this is very familiar, Deep Space Nine is my thing. It’s not only the best start, I think it’s one of the best TV shows ever made. And I can say that and.

I’m pretty much I’m into all this just in varying degrees. I don’t hate any of it really. There’s none I can say. It’s all good. It’s all but there’s something for everyone everywhere I think. And the new stuff as well. I know it’s divisive but I see some good stuff in there as well. And I keep on loving it. yeah, every year I rewatch Deep Space Nine and no surprise to the favorite character Garak. Probably one of the greatest characters in Star Trek.

ever and if I had to say favorite episodes far beyond the stars it’s that’s one of the most emotional and I break down in tears when Cisco breaks down and that is absolutely gut-wrenching and heartbreaking and sadly it’s still all too relevant today so and yeah and then I

I was away for a while. I moved back to the island in 2015 and I was looking for other Trek fans and I was in the Alba page and they put me in touch with Martin. And we’ve started growing a very small group still but we’re slowly trying to grow it up here aren’t we?

Yeah.

Cal (04:50.062)
So yeah, that’s my start to make experience. So I think over to you Martin.

Well, I’ve got a suspicion I’m a couple of years older than you, Callum. And I remember watching the original Star Trek on an original kind of telly, the kind of telly where you had to wait for your mum or dad to come in and whack it on the correct side of the telly.

Don’t get one of them

for the tube to work correctly. it’s about like, know, seeing that back at the start, you know, that was before Star Wars and before you anything really, was the first of it. Not only was it one of the best, but it was it was one of the first and one of the best. So there was a lack of anything decent. And then all of a sudden,

Star Trek came along and back then you still had to wait once a week for the thing to come on and you were waiting for the next episode and you didn’t have anything on your internet on your mobile phone, no spoilers of what the next episode was going to be because nobody knew until it actually came out and you know it was just stunning everything about it was so futuristic the fact that

Martin (06:17.934)
You know, it’s old hat now, but back then to have a black female, a Russian, you know, an alien with pointy ears, all acting as if they were equals in the exploration of space, which was the big thing then as well. It was great to be there at the start. It’s a bit like people who say they were at the original Woodstock or

the original concert of a band, know, that kind of thing. Being there to feel it at the time was pretty amazing. And then, of course, there was

decades then of wilderness, not getting star wars, decades of wilderness until TNG came along and I was at 87 or something like that. But TNG came along when people were just crying for something to follow up and you know, it didn’t disappoint. TNG did not disappoint. And if I had to score TNG,

I would give it 7 out of 9. Do you know what I’m saying?

Okay.

Cal (07:30.702)
you

Martin (07:35.509)
And then, of course, by then I’d moved away and was working and, you know, getting on with life and watching that in the background. And I didn’t know that my own my own brother was also a big Trek fan because, you know, our lives were opposite end of the countries with me being up here in the Outer Hebrides at that point. And it was only in about 2015, 2016 I discovered it.

He was a Trekkie when we went to, he agreed to go to a Comic Con, which was just for Star Trek, just a Star Trek Comic Con down in Birmingham, which is where I bumped into the Alba crowd and got their contact details, who then put me in touch with you subsequently.

Yeah, it’s been a long road for us.

That sounds like the start of a tune of some kind of Star Trek-y kind of adventure.

you

Cal (08:38.294)
I have a screen feed.

Yeah, Yeah, so we’re going back to start with the original series obviously as an entry point, which is good.

I was going to add was it was also a destination Star Trek. I found out about Alaba as well. Right. It was what’s his name? It was Sean. think we know Sean from Alaba. He approached me at DST and he’d seen me posting in the groups and said, oh the Alaba boys are here and they’d like to meet you. We heard about your journey down because in the DST there was people from Derby complaining about having to travel to Birmingham and there’s all these people.

The Midlands all whining. took us two hours to get here. And I said, well, I rented a car in Inverness and drove to Birmingham and they were all like, yeah, yeah, it’s not too bad after all.

Yeah.

Rob (09:26.263)
you

Rob (09:36.686)
No, absolutely.

Well when I met Sean he introduced me to the guys and then I joined the group and yeah it’s been good and got me in touch with Martin and we’ve found another few recruits in the meantime.

Absolutely, yeah, I it’s important as you kind of touch on there to get together I think with other people and certainly for our group as we’ve been talking about recently it’s great to meet up face to face of course, but it’s also great to do things like this and I think during the COVID period of course, which was in force, but you know, there was an awful lot more online gathering and

And you did get to meet people from different parts of the country that way, which you might not have otherwise. But it’s really good to have, as you’re talking about, a local group where you can get together with guys in the same sort of vicinity and talk about Star Trek and other types of sci-fi as well. Absolutely. And that really takes us nicely, I think, to your own convention of Oakland. So tell us a bit about that.

Oh the early days of Ocon. When did lockdown happen again? I always forget, was it 2019 or 2020?

Martin (11:00.174)

2020. It 2020, yeah, because they call it COVID-19, but it didn’t really hit here, the UK, until March 2020, and then it all went to…

All day long.

I think it was in January 2020, Martin, you’ll remember that bizarrely the only time this local news outfit has ever mentioned Ocon was when it was founded and started and they were asking for volunteers and that’s when I first met Ian Pershing, wasn’t it?

Yep.

Yeah, we went to this first meeting, we went along and it was February and we were going, all right, there’s a comic on, yeah, it’s going to be in May. I said, we’ve got six weeks to get all this together. we’re like, what? And then there was, and then they will say, we’ll have a meeting in two weeks and this is COVID thing, but it won’t affect us really. We’ll be OK. So I had one more meeting and then suddenly the world stopped.

Cal (12:02.542)
And that was it for two years, wasn’t it? And, you know, the website went dark. And then I think just as we came out, there was a notification on the website, we’ll be doing Ocon in some capacity soon. It was like, well, what does that mean? And then we had, it was 2022, wasn’t it? And I think it was in May the 4th, because I was hospitalized in April. And it was just when I came out of hospital that they started the meetings.

Yeah.

Cal (12:32.054)
And was just, the reason it ended up being October was we just couldn’t book a place in the summer, wasn’t it?

Yeah, was just too much short notice, you know. We wanted to all be together and the kind of inaugural meetings to set up the Comic Con. Really, it wasn’t a case of, know, here’s a Comic Con, here’s what’s happening, volunteers to help. was a case of let’s all get together. Do we want to do a Comic Con? What’s it going to be about? Everybody’s ideas.

are valid, you he wants to put forward suggestions and that was was great because the enthusiasm for it is possibly especially after a lockdown, the enthusiasm for it was was really awesome. But just to get anything done from in that short space of time, October was was our last ditch hope to get it done before that year was out. And we’re lucky to pull it off. I’m glad we did.

Yeah, and it’s we all we have to mention the two masterminds behind all kathleen and john

The Admiral herself, Kathleen, who’s just incredible what the amount of work she puts into this and being the kind of spark behind it. And I think it was it wasn’t herself and John that came up with the idea for the con in the first place. Yeah, I’m never too sure. Yeah. It was just like, could we have a con up here? Is it possible? Is there enough people? I never had any doubt there was the crowd for it.

Cal (14:11.282)
appetite for it in the aisles. was just growing up I was aware there was a lot of geeks but we were all kind of hiding and just thinking am I the only one but it was just before before all that what really like I thought was when I went back to the Star Wars Force Awakens which you can look up this but Stornoway set a world record for that film that we had the most per head of population in the town turn out to watch that film.

Which there was app. Yeah, they said we had more screenings for the size of the town and they reckon it was like one in 15 people on the island turned out for that film, which is crazy because you never got to see inside the Lanthor, which is cinema. It was sold out for like two weeks straight, wasn’t it, Martin? It was crazy when that film came out. Yeah, it was really not. had to. It was just, we’ve added another screening, another one, another one. It sold out and they just kept going.

Something like that.

Cal (15:10.158)
It was two weeks solid the force awakens was sold out and I was like two months after it had released on the mainland as well Which is just shows you there always has been an appetite for geek stuff on the island and So we go to the first one and this was And I was looking at the program said right we’ve got everything set in the Saturday night and I said we need something on the Friday night to think like a curtain raiser

And was just sitting in the meeting with John and says, and John was saying, yeah, we do need to say, can we do? And I just said, quiz. And John goes, all right, can you write that column? And I was like, well, and I just thought in my head, I’ve never written anything in my life. So I turned to John and said, yes, of course I can write it. No problem.

GPT to do for you

Well, chat tdpt wasn’t the thing it was now but You want to know we had that was in may and I was like writing this damn thing and On the night as contestants were silver. We still had a quarter of the quiz too. We were writing typing the quiz And as the first round was going on, I was still typing questions off to the side as the quiz master was away But it was was that

First quiz, that’s when I saw the tables filling up in the library that night, I thought we’ve got something here. We really do. But this is this is significant. Like, and then I think you’re on the first one. We were manning the Star Trek table all day, weren’t we, Marnes?

Martin (16:56.366)
Well, we were taking turns manning the Star Trek table and faffing around inside Daleks and other things.

That’s always essential.

Yeah.

It was great though because Kathleen and John, they’re just good. Kathleen’s a natural organizer. She just had the sense to put out the question out there. I’m sure anybody, if he’d said, do you want to attend a Comic Con? Loads of people would have said yes. He said, do you want to ask people if they want to a Comic Con? No, somebody else can ask. Kathleen is.

that kind of asker and John, the little quiet creative mastermind that he is, is the kind of guy who just goes and makes a Dalek, doesn’t tell anybody, then springs it on you. know, I mean, a quality product like you would think straight off the set kind of thing, you know. And don’t forget, up here we have, I know in the mainland a Sunday might be a bit quieter, but up here Sundays are a lot quieter.

Martin (18:07.576)
You’ve got the Saturday to do your thing and to make it a little bit more meaty than extending it into the Friday night to have a little kind of pre start with the quiz was a fantastic idea. And that’s also proved to be the case. The subsequent years as well, the quizzes are so well attended and yeah, it really is.

Yeah, well, I think this year, I don’t know who it was, but someone said, look, if this was any other pub having this quiz, they would be doing cartwheels at this turnout. I mean, you I don’t think Robert, went into the town hall to see the size of it. that was you saw. Did you see people milling about afterwards? was. It was around 10 table, 14 tables, five, four people to a table so you can see the 60 people.

Yeah, sure.

Cal (18:59.488)
in store to me turning out for a geek quiz. That’s that’s something like.

That’s incredible. No, did see the size of it. So it’s now been into three additions.

Yep. That’s the last thing. Like we said, the first year was just all about can we actually pull this off? And then the second year was well, can we show that the first year just wasn’t a one off and the third year is about can we show that we’re now a proper thing up here?

Yeah. And in terms of cross play, is there quite a range of, obviously you get Star Trek table as you say, but a of Doctor Who and Star Wars and is there much anime in there?

Yep, surprising. It’s That was the other thing like I think I mean even though like I said the first year the quiz night said right there’s something happening here I think even on the Saturday morning Martin we were just like who’s gonna turn up and is anyone gonna cosplay cuz um As I understand tend to be the most I don’t know gregarious of focus

Martin (20:11.352)
the most exhibitionist.

Yeah, we’re quite reserved in general. And then they just came and it’s just stunned at the level of costumes, kind of, the just how daring some of there was a there’s a Catwoman there, the Michelle Pfeiffer Catwoman as well, which is not something you’d expect to see in Stornoway ever.

Yeah.

First to mention it but I haven’t forgotten that.

Yes, for obvious reasons. I just more felt sorry for her because it looked bloody painful to be honest. But the sheer creativity in the costumes every year blows us away. Because again you think just a small population there won’t be that diverse. But there was a lot of anime, more anime this year I would say Martin. What’s in there? Big uptick in the anime.

Martin (21:07.566)
think the youngsters, as I’m going to call them, are very keen on the anime. I’d say 90 % of the anime was youngsters. they obviously take it very seriously. Their costumes were good.

Yeah, I know it seems to be younger girls and more definitely more linear enemy. Oh, yes.

Certainly when you’re looking at some of the cons in Glasgow and Edinburgh as well over the past two or three years since COVID again since they’ve got going I would say anime is definitely the biggest in terms of cosplay probably followed by Star Wars on the whole and superheroes quite big as you’d probably expect and Star Trek hmm I mean we talked about this before I think in a previous episode but

the 1990s as far as cosplay goes. you could go to a Comic Con somewhere in Scotland or England perhaps and you know, there’ll be a good number of people there. And Starfleet Uniform probably quite a good few Klingons as well. But I think, yeah, as time has gone on, yeah, we’ve become thinner on the ground, sadly. But we’re still here.

Yep, it’s still a dedicated fan-based Star Trek.

Martin (22:36.174)
Well, I think if it wasn’t for the Star Trek, I don’t think the Comic-Con culture would have started in the first place anyway.

Yeah, or even push pay itself.

No, no, it’s not that it’s over.

It’s funny when you say about the cosplay, on the first year of the Comic Con, when we were wondering if people would come in cosplay, a lot of people, especially the youngsters, were happy to turn up in the cosplay, but I did notice a good number had turned up with their big trench coats on, and when they saw that lots of other people were in cosplay, then the big coat came off and they revealed it.

couple of people came up to me at the Star Trek table on that first year and they were like this. They had their Star Trek stuff underneath and they’re like, yeah, then.

Rob (23:32.654)
You’re not going out and drinking like that, as they call it in the house. Yeah, yeah, that’s brilliant.

That’s fine, can’t be good at dressing.

Cal (23:48.184)
I was going to say this year it was good for the con to actually be back in the middle of Stornoway because last year we went to the college which was a great facility but a lot of people point out one of the good things was we seeing cosplayers just wandering around the town centre like you know where we make you just seeing people in costumes just milling about on a Saturday afternoon is kind of quite just

There’s a lot of people just looking very confused. Some of the older folk in Storrs were just utterly confused what’s going on.

Do you remember on the… was it last year or the first year? I think it was the first year. Or could it be last year? getting mixed up now. But coming up to the Comic Con in the few weeks coming up to it, Sean was dressed as this cult of the lamb box with the sheep thing, you know? And John had made this Dalek. So there was…

Take care, stay.

Martin (24:55.022)
Sean the lamb, the Dalek and Nick with his Sparks outfit was a bit, I don’t know, he’s about 72 foot tall and just as broad in the shoulder with this, you know, menacing set up and John Burroughs with his Sylvester Who doctor, Sylvester McCoy doctor who outfit and we’re hanging around the narrows of Stornoway where everyone mustn’t pass.

Thanks. Good warrior, Kenner, again.

Martin (25:23.854)
It’s like Stornoway’s version of Sucky Hall Street. What other of us would accost them with this, with their cosplays? That went down a treat for a couple of weekends coming up to the cosplay. It was good advertising, good fun.

and I

Rob (25:40.55)
Yeah, Pretty publicity, indeed. Well, I made my way up for the listeners as well from Edinburgh on the Friday, all intending to get there. I had a suitcase full of full Klingon gear, including the weapons. All good to go. And after a two and a half hour sail, ferry was Caledonia McBrain ferry, was just pulling in.

the Stornoway Harbour on the Friday night and I thought, this is great, it’s all gone smoothly. And a text message came through from Caledonia McBrain. I wasn’t even going to read it because I thought it would just be one of those, oh, thanks for sailing with us, you know? But I opened it up and it said, the sailing the following afternoon was likely to be canceled due to bad weather. And I thought, what, what? the problem was, folks, I had…

I had to get back to Edinburgh with a big family commitment, which I just could not miss. And obviously I was pretty devastated at this, but the great thing was I met up with the guys at the town hall. I was so pleased to get a chance to do that. Big shout out as well, by the way, to the Hebb Hostel, which is so conveniently located. didn’t get, sadly, didn’t get too much time to spend in it, but I just thought it was fantastic facilities.

and really you know peaceful in there in the friday night it was right across the road from the venue and round from the town hall and i would definitely like to stay there next year again but i had a chance to go around meet the guys at the town hall and that was was great and a chance to present Callum with a Cromlech Ailes Fleet mug and racti

I really should have it to hand here for the camera, but it’s…

Rob (27:35.118)
It’s a little bloodbite. It was keen to do that and obviously to meet up again with everyone on the Saturday was the plan and to get a good few photos taken and to see a bit of Stornoway. But the guys did assure me on the Friday night, they oh, they send these messages out all the time, you know. And I went to bed quite reassured, but I thought I better just go down and check.

saying in the morning what they’re saying so I get down to the port and the lady there said yeah I think it’s not looking good for the afternoon and if I were you I would get on this one if you really have to get back and that’s it.

So back we came. But it was great, as I say, to meet up with everyone. It was so disappointing for me to miss out on it. It just looked fantastic. It sounded fantastic from everything you’re saying there as well. I was really humbled, to be honest, to have an invite in the first place to go up to this. I know that you were keen to have us as a group of Pling-Ons.

Honoured by that. And there was a guy, I think I said to you, there one of our guys who’s really keen to come up from Newcastle. Not even Edinburgh, he was really keen and he’s keen to come next year. So hopefully, I mean, we will get there next year. There’s absolutely no question. And I’m going to clear my other schedule and I’m going to stay for two or three days and definitely see a bit of the island as well.

and take full partner and go out on a Saturday night and all the rest of it.

Cal (29:25.036)
yeah, more than welcome to and it’s I just have to say what? As myself and the rest of the Oakland team, we just loved you guys enthusiasm for it. Because so often we send out invites and it’s too far to travel and you guys just jumped on it. Just no hesitation. Yeah, we would love to do this really.

We’re kind of, we’re a wee bit jaded when you’re involved in organizing guests for the, because maybe if we get more established and then it becomes more attractive thing for other folk, but you guys are just, your enthusiasm was, and we were all like, when I showed them the message the day you accepted, like they were just smiling, just the enthusiasm just came across and we were so looking forward to have, and we are looking forward to having you next year. Definitely can’t wait to have you.

You know, yeah, no. No, thank you. As I say, I was humbled to get an invite. That meant a lot to me. I know it meant a lot to the group. And even, you know, we have a busy chat room in Facebook. And I know that people said, yeah, I’d love to go. wasn’t even, you know, the distance, was other plans maybe they had on as well. But they were so enthused, you know, about the whole, they said, this is brilliant.

on, know, these guys must be putting a lot of effort into this. It’s great that I was going to be able to go in and represent us. And I was like, hesitation, you know, because for our group, it’s really, you know, because it was after COVID that we kind of got going. It was in summer of 2021 that we set up the Scottish Klingon Group. you know, I’ll never forget our first meeting. It was online, you know, similar to this. And I think there were four of us.

And I thought, I’ll be quite happy with this. There’s only four cling-ons out there. But it kind of grew and grew. And I thought, what’s really important is to travel the country of Scotland and really to meet people where they are. Because so often you say, I’ve got a guys up in Aberdeen. Or we’ve got one guy up in Wick who’s tremendously enthusiastic. And I’m really planning up and see him as well.

Rob (31:45.678)
and we’ve got folk down in Ayrshire, as I say, and across the country, and I think I’m going to go and meet people, you know, because there’s nothing like, as I said at the start, getting sitting down face to face, you know, having a good chat, and you pick up so much more doing that, of course. But it’s also, I think it makes people feel part of it, if you go out to visit them. And I think that you can see that that means a lot to people.

Yeah.

Martin (32:15.694)
It certainly does. think when Callum was saying it, it’s quite, it can be disappointing when people say that, oh yeah, you invite people and then they’re enthusiastic and then they discover where we are. It’s a bit like saying, can you pop round to the Delta Quadrant? It’ll only take you 10 years to get there and a significant portion of your life.

think it’s.

You

understand it is difficult and we face the same difficulty the other way because most of our USS Alba is based in Edinburgh and they have regular things on you know at least once a month maybe slightly more often than that and we look at it and you think I’d love to go to that I’d love to go to that and you’re like by the time you include travel from here you’re like I just can’t do it you know so yeah it’s great to have you coming up here and I can imagine

the photograph that it would have been of two or three Klingons on a misty foggy day in front of the standing stones or the broth.

Rob (33:26.21)
Yeah. standing stones are the most… Yeah.

I know it’s

Cal (33:31.094)
It’s more the idea of taking three or four Klingons into the crit bar, I think, Martin. That’s the one I want to It’s the oldest of old man pubs you can imagine. And we just want to do a hidden camera of you guys walking in looking for your blood wine. to see the reaction.

Robert, do know what we’re going to do when the two or three of you’s come up? And I’m glad you said you’re going to clear your schedule for two or three days because even though I know what’s happening, I always forget about the Friday night quiz. And this year was the first year I remembered to make sure I was free on the Friday night for the quiz night and not just setting up beforehand for the following day. But when you’s come up,

I don’t want to encourage a drinking culture for anyone who’s not into that. But if you’re willing to have some blood wine, the three Klingons, two or three Klingons go into the crit, sit down at a table. Five minutes later, we can come in in our Star Trek uniforms, sit down at an opposite table and sit staring at each other. See what the local reaction is.

Well, weapons are there. Yeah, weapons are good to go. All the props. that’s superb. Yeah, that’s fantastic. And that’s what it’s all about, you know? And that’s one of the reasons why it’s great to get to different parts of the country as well, you know, just to have different experiences.

Yeah. I’ll just be a story from last year. Go and look at the photographs from Ocon 2020. Look for Martin. And you can see Spock sort of, he starts the day off looking very sheepish, doesn’t he? Because Martin was raging hungover. If you’ve ever seen a hungover Vulcan, is…

Cal (35:31.71)
you do actually see in the photographs through the day he’s brightening up he’s coming back to life for him because you over indulged on the Friday night last year didn’t you?

do have a good excuse for that. The thing is with the the with the being in its fledgling years, the final date wasn’t confirmed with the college last year. The college was in some industrial disputes and things and we had the kind of the date in mind set but it wasn’t verified. know, it was quite a long time until it was verified for the date and in the meantime, I had booked some

a guy at my work’s leaving due on the Friday night. Because it wasn’t pencil dinner, my daddy, that, you know, this was definitely an Okon quiz night. So I was, this guy’s leaving due on the Friday night. So yes, on the Saturday, I was definitely a little bit, know, phasers to stun kind of look. Yeah.

You were, I remember you sipping… You had a big carton of orange juice you were sipping out of in the morning. I remember.

Thanks.

Martin (36:38.806)
Thank you.

A can of iron brew or a big bottle of iron brew sometimes, yeah. Sometimes works as a placebo effect for the next day. But yeah, yeah, looking forward to it. Again, I was going to partake of what looked like a very busy pub, actually. I a wee wander around on the Friday night as well after I’d met you. And it looked like a good going busy pub, I think it’s the one you’re talking about. And I was going to go in, but I thought, oh dear.

the time I’ll never get up at 6 in the morning.

We see the pub you’re of. What would you say the average age of the patrons was?

yeah, was a good age, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I was like the Klacken in a stealth game.

Cal (37:33.005)
Yes.

Yeah

That’s good.

It was a mixture of ages to be fair. But yeah, it looked good. Definitely looking forward to the time visit there. But thinking about, mean, obviously Ocon’s the sort of jewel in the crown of your activities, but I know that you do quite a bit gaming as well, as well as your Twitch channel, if you’ll tell us a bit about that.

Yeah, well i’ve got my twitch channel well i’ll go on about okons kind of branching out into other things kind of just To keep the interest going and also because we do we have tapped into this nerd community and they all say the same thing Where do I go to do this? I’m interested in this And so one of the first things obviously recognized lock kids all into pokemon and so we came up with the Card games have you ever been to that martin? I don’t think i’ve ever seen yet

Cal (38:33.934)
cards no, but once uh last Saturday of every month when we meet up and it’s swapping your Pokemon cards and if you want to learn how to play Magic the Gathering, Yugi-Oh, Ennig-Lagat, there’s people on hand to help and that’s been really successful. think highest we’ve had a 500 pound card turn up once

Right?

That kid became very popular at school the next week. And then it was after last year, the next thing, I was just, I’m just going around listening to people and we had taster sessions. You’ll know about this Martin Cairn. There’s this little tabletop role playing game based in the Highlands of Scotland, I think. And it’s also been translated into Gaelic as well.

Sounds good.

Cal (39:23.63)
But there was people who did these we Taster sessions at all. You know that in the DND craze that’s kicked off. And it was just people so weird. But where can I go to learn it or get a Taster for it? And so we’ve come up with the idea we now do. And it was also just cause when I figured out the acronym for this and we have to do this OTT. Or table tops and so that’s the first Saturday of every month in.

the Cala Hotel in Stornoway and its people can come along and can get taster sessions of Dungeons and Dragons or whatever game, tabletop role-playing game you want to try. So we’re expanding all the time and of course, Ohcast has launched because we thought, keep people in the mood, give them their little Ohcon fix and it’s mixtures of reviews, interviews, whatever we can come up with. right now, if you go over there, I’m plugging myself on your own show right now.

Well.

Cal (40:20.674)
But we’ve got all the interviews from O’Connor, which are hilarious to listen to. There’s some really funny stuff in there. We went out to settle the great nerd debates of all time. It’s well worth a listen to that one.

It was brilliant, no, that’s over on Spotify as well. Folks, do give that a listen. had a listen to it earlier on and it was really, really good. So, and we’re looking forward to hearing more of that. No plug away. Absolutely. No, that’s fantastic. mean, what that kind of puts my mind off there is what you’re talking about. You’re really sort of branching out. You’re starting from, it’s as if Star Trek brings you together and you meet like,

people and I think it from what you were saying earlier that has which is great, but then you discover other interests maybe in sci-fi or gaming and you know it kind of rolls from there and then you bring in other people and I think what we also touched on where you know anime, Star Wars, even Doctor Who has become much bigger in the last few years and Star Trek’s been kind of sidelined that wee bit

So I think for our group as well, I thought it was quite important to recognize that and say, yeah, of course, our first love is Star Trek and Klingons, of course it is. But we want to encourage people to come along and say, right, I’m a big Battlestar Galactica fan, that I love Star Wars, or whatever that fits in within it. And it’s just about getting people with those similar interests together.

Yeah and yeah there is some another thing that’s in the making right now and I can’t say much yet because we’ve not got concrete plans but it’s still probably the quite I don’t know it’s quite unique too because we cover this island and it’s like quite a distance even on the island to get to Stornoway and we’ve realized there’s people in these villages that can’t get a lot of these activities so we’ve got so we’re coming up with ways of we take a bit of ocon out of them.

Cal (42:28.462)
because I think there’s some people who just miss out because the buses here, if you don’t have a car, it’s very difficult to get around the islands. Basically, if you don’t have a car, some folk are stuck. They have to leave town at like seven o’clock. And so they can’t go to, you know, watch the big film that we’ve organized a meeting for because they don’t have a way to get home. And it’s like 30, 45 minutes to get up to Nessus in the north of the island.

It’s quite a drive to get home. So we’re looking into ways of taking things out to the villages, which we think is something we’ve kind of neglected a wee bit so far. It’s been very stormy since.

That’s partly where it came from because on year one when we were organising the Ocon there was a definite group, a sub-group of volunteers for the organising which was the gaming community, know, the Gateway Nerds. They already discovered, they were already in existence. You know, the Gateway Nerds here were doing their own

Yeah, get with it.

Martin (43:40.334)
tabletop games and online games and things. And they were having meetings sometimes in the town, sometimes in one of their barns in the country where had those miniatures, et cetera. So they were quite a major force in the setting up of the the Ocon. they’re the kind of major drive behind all the gaming stuff and the town hall set up. So but yeah, they were doing a lot of the stuff.

their houses and barns so it’s quite fitting.

Yeah, there’s a lot going on, clearly. And for people who aren’t familiar with the geography of the Haeta Hebrides, are there many people like Harris in the group?

Rob (44:31.79)
That’s the whole population.

the

I thought I go inside of you.

I turn around, did we do, we were planning an outreach day there, weren’t we? I do remember that being discussed, but I don’t know what came off. We’re definitely going to the Southern Isles at some point to use and then Bacchala to do stuff there. Because this is unreal. Like when you talk about this stuff reaching out for old tabletops, there is a guy and his daughter.

who travel up from South Uist all the way to Stornoway. That’s some island hopping. They leave at like, they get up at like at 4 a.m. and they’re on the roads to get the first ferry over to Harrahs and then drive all the way from the south of Harrahs all the way to Stornoway for just so they can sit for five hours to play some tabletop games and then they’re just straight back down the roads once a month they do this. It’s incredible like what this is like that.

Cal (45:37.294)
You think, wow, this is doing something. And not only that, it’s just the diversity now in these communities is unreal. So I don’t think it’s a pattern like see just the tabletops. I’ll take that. Like probably when all of us were younger, it was the boys club, D &D. You would see the role players. Well, I think it was the second last OTT session, like myself and Heddaward.

might hear that name quite often. We’re sitting there and say, well, we are outnumbered four to one here by the girls. And not just only that, it’s younger teenage girls as well. Demographic, you don’t associate with tabletopping. And that was so good to see stuff like that. you see these things. Yeah.

Static.

It really is because you’re talking about Star Trek kind of know, it peaked and it was the instigator and the original and best and all that kind of stuff. Star Trek introduced having women as equals in the franchise. then Doctor Who obviously went a long way in that over the years with you had that

the very traditional male doctor and he always had a sidekick, which was quite often a woman. But then as the years went by, you started to get more sophisticated female sidekicks and then female doctors, you know, so that’s really pushed the equality things in those shows, which is a great thing about those shows to start with. And we see that reflected in the OHCon.

Martin (47:26.35)
I’d say at least half the people coming, if not more, are females, which is fantastic.

Alright, yes, it’s like I say it is the big thing since I was into geeked when I was a teenage boy is just how open it’s become now and it was very and sadly back then there was a lot of geek keeping going on

like my ex my ex-girlfriend said like she’s originally from Glasgow but she remembers when she was think 15 or 16 growing up in Glasgow and she’s into she’s into Lord of the Rings big fantasy not she remembers walking past the Warhammer shop and just seeing oh that looks great I want to get into that and then it was like walked in the door and just said it was that move everything stopped and they turned round and stared at her and it was like she could almost hear them

Bye.

She could almost hear that begone foul wench from some of the patrons there. But I would say now probably if that was her taking her daughter there when she reaches 15, they’d probably go, come in, have a look here, paint some figures, here shall you play.

Rob (48:40.054)
Yeah, yeah, definitely a big and a positive clearly change. Yeah. And you see that. Yeah, you definitely see that conventions say around Glasgow, Edinburgh as well. But you did come down. Some folk came down, didn’t they, to ACME in Glasgow.

Rob (49:04.11)
I’m going to start with my first.

Yeah, it was great to go to the Acme. It was just nice to go and be there. know, people who make basket weaving in their barn, they like to go to a big event where lots of people are doing lots of different basket weaving and people who do comic con things or sci-fi things. It’s great to go to a big sci-fi event and I can’t even just call it sci-fi anymore because of all the anime and the fantasy stuff, you know, a big comic con event.

people are just having a good fun day, enjoying all that sort of stuff, you know. I’m glad that the days are gone where people think Dungeons and Dragons is some kind of cult thing. I got that wrong. that, know, anime is just for people to fantasize, you know. They have drawing skills, they have skills of reading and following these programs. So it was great fun to go to the

the ACME con and huge, my goodness, the size of that hall and the SEC is so huge. However, it’s a bit like just the difference between here and Glasgow. Everywhere’s got some good points and some bad points. The ACME, there was everything you could, if you wanted to buy a prop or some kind of anime t-shirt or something, you could probably have found it there. You won’t find that in Stornoway’s O8.

Ocon, you know, but at same time, if you go to the Glasgow thing, it’s kind of over, it’s nine to five and that’s it, whereas in Stornoway, it starts the night before and it kind of lingers on for a few hours afterwards in the pub, know, different things.

Cal (50:48.59)
So yeah. And this will sound very cheesy in this, but what you will find a hook on is it’s done by volunteers who are just genuinely doing this for the love of it. We’re not in it to make money. It’s not subcues for autographs. The guests we have are artists and they’ve said that like they love that. It’s so, you know, like it’s just you’re celebrating the art and all that and you you’re happy to have us and all that. There’s genuine.

enthusiasm for us. It’s not just the big actors over there signing on, which is nice. Don’t get me wrong, that stuff is good, they feel like a lot of the cons have just gone more to that direction. Like here’s the big star for the day and you can queue up for an hour and spend five seconds to have your photo taken. Again, it’s nice, but when it becomes the sole focus, it kind of takes away from that community aspect of it.

I think so. Yeah, I mean, I’ve been to them, probably them all now really. Oh, and being the last one, obviously, in the listing across Scotland. I would agree that the Ingolstein Comic Con is really, you know, it’s the one with the biggest guest list each year. But if you’re not going to say, you know, if that’s your thing, if you know, if.

actors autographs and photos are your thing. Absolutely, of course. I’m not knocking that and I know a lot of people that you know that is the thing but that really is what you go to it for and obviously you’ve also got to spend an awful lot of money for these things. You get some you know charging between 60 or 100 pounds for some of these photos. Whereas the likes of

you what you’re talking about where it’s run by volunteers. I think that’s to me, that’s better as well. And I do like ACME because it has a low, as you said earlier, Martin, it’s got a massive hall and the SEC, but there’s an awful lot of cosplay, but it’s not just about the photos and the autographs, you know.

Rob (53:06.082)
There’s like the rest line going on in one corner. There’s lots of props that you can have your photo taken for free with. There’s lots of artists go to that as well. So yeah, my favorite sort of meeting was probably with John Wagner, who was the creator of Judge Dredd. And that was at ACME last year. And it was free. You know, I couldn’t believe he was there. This is a guy whose work I’ve read for, you know,

years and I just went over started chatting away to him and I said oh I you know almost apologizing to ask but at any chance you’d sign a copy of 2000 AD oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah just sign you know it’s free you think that’s brilliant um so Tablet I was really yeah was starstruck by him um but yeah there’s something for everyone but but I think that the ones like Okon

And I know the BGCP ones are actually really good because they go right around the country. So you get them in the places like Dumfries and in East Kilbride. And Inverness has one as well, in fact, in Dundee. And Ayer. So they’re much more, they’re kind of much smaller again. And it’s got that real kind of more community feel. And it’s just maybe get some of the artists. So that’s really, yeah.

It’s good to have a greater…

Because the one guest we’ve got like that is Ben Aranovic. He is fantastic and he loves coming up here. So he couldn’t come up this year. I think there’s things going on. I don’t know if we can see or not.

Martin (54:51.71)
I had engagements.

I’ll see you back then

He has a baby.

Our guests normally have to arrive on the Friday night, or the Friday daytime to be there for the Saturday. So they normally attend the quiz in a table amongst themselves or amongst other people. So they mingle in there and they think that’s just as great as the other quiz contestants think it’s great that they’re mingling in. But the artists love that themselves, the guests.

Yeah, no, mean, that’s actually fine. I artists are, of course, fans themselves, aren’t they? Yeah. You know, that’s how they start off. So and I don’t think they ever lose that. Whereas, you know, you get a feeling for some actors, maybe it’s just a part that they’re playing. know, it so happens they’ve landed a role in a sci-fi piece or a fantasy film or whatever. That’s not maybe their thing, as an individual. Yeah.

Rob (55:57.306)
But for the artists, it very much is that they are fans, they start off like us really. They have a talent for the drumming or the writing or whatever. yeah, definitely. But that is absolutely, another thing I was meaning to mention, Callum, was I know you do a bit of charity fundraising as well.

Yes, I do. I have not got any kind of set pattern. I do live stream on Twitch once a year. And it’s always just the month after Ocon when everyone’s recovered and when I finally decide what weekend to do it. I do a 24 hour charity stream so you can come along and see me gradually lose my mind to sleep deprivation. It’s quite amusing.

for the local food bank. And that has blown my expectations out of the water, because I did it the first year of Ocon, surprisingly. And it was, I did it as a sheer act of petulance. And I might get a tiny little bit political here, but it was related to the death of the queen. And I find out they shut some food banks. And I said, to hell with that. I’m going to raise money for them just out of sheer petty mess here. So.

And that’s why I decided to do 24 hours for it. And the first year I got 700 pounds, which I didn’t know if anyone would give me any money. And then last year I got 1200 pounds. So it’s like, again, just when nerds pull together, we can do incredible things like this. I think there’s a lot of generosity in the nerd community as well.

is and very much so. I I looked it up because as I said to you, as a group it’s important to us that wherever we go that we help a local charity. I think in fairness I got this idea from

Cal (58:00.462)
Closer host.

He did the same thing as me. He tried to change his background and he pressed the back of the way button. I’m about to go as well because I didn’t realize this would be so draining on my battery.

But anyway, Klingons have lost Starfleet has taken over your show now. This is Fede.

The Kregons have got their cloaking device on, that’s what’s happened.

Well, they’ve chickened and they’ve run away. no, they’re back.

Martin (58:31.925)
I know, was thinking about it.

Martin (58:36.883)
donated themselves some dilatium crustus

Cal (58:43.855)
Yeah, we’re just telling all your listeners that the federation’s taken over the Klingon Empire there.

They’ve stormed the studio. stormed the studio. No, it’s very slight actually. I I got this idea from the Scotland Football fans and the Tartn Army Trust. Whichever country they go and visit, they find a local charity and they make a donation of some kind, whatever’s needed. I thought, that’s a great thing to do. So if we’re up in Aberdeen,

or down in Ayrshire or in Glasgow or wherever it is in Stirling. And in this case in Stornoway I thought, yeah, we want to make a donation as well. And so I looked it up and found the food bank. And so we sent them a wee donation. And that’s something I would hope to do again in Stornoway. And so it’s kind of from the Klingons to the federation.

We are allies in deep space now of course, eventually.

Well, yeah, we do. We’re not meant to believe in money, but that doesn’t stop me accepting it.

Rob (01:00:01.086)
It’s great to do these, just to get something back and to help out. As you said, Calum, think people are very generous.

Yeah, and just so everyone, it’s Deep Space Hebrides. That’s my Twitch username. It’ll be sometime in November. I’ll be informing folk and you can spread the word around the groups just to come along on the night and please just give away, give generously again and hopefully smash the total this year. would love to. And we’ve got some, yeah, there’s some things in the, there’s some things in the planning room there. We’ve got, could have a very special tabletop session and I won’t give it.

any more than that but a really special one if Hedoward can pull off a special guest for one of these.

Well guys that has been absolutely superb and it’s just great to see you again obviously. A short time after my brief flying visit to the old bird of prey. But really just to hear about everything that’s going on there. Just kind of blown away by the activities that you’ve got on the go. It’s obviously as you say Ocon’s the big event but there’s so much else happening there as well.

and to hear about obviously how you came in to find them really through Star Trek as well. It’s just kind of grown and you’ve diversified out a bit as well. And it’s just great to have you in touch with us and us in touch with you. I know we do in the Klingon group, we do really appreciate you.

Cal (01:01:24.056)
Yeah.

Rob (01:01:42.798)
your likes and your comments on, you know, supportive comments on our Facebook page as well. So do keep that going and do keep in touch. We do consider you to be honorary Klingons now. Absolutely, with very much with honor. So thank you. And we hope to speak to you again before next October.

Thank you very much.

Cal (01:02:09.038)
Yes, I was going to say, probably, like I mentioned, OKCAST, we do do what we call our deep dives on a franchise. We’ve got to get right to a Star Trek one. So you’re very much welcome to that session. It could be a long, long show that. But I think we’re going to do one maybe on each series, like a different show and then like one for all the movies, something like that. I’ll be in touch about it, but we definitely want have you on for that.

Superb, superb, no thank you. So in the meantime, folks, glad I was back after that very short technical hitch by getting bolted by a Ryan’s or whatever it was. But it’s a good night and ka-plap from me, Robert, and good night from Cal.

and should live.

Live long and prosper.

Special offer of Federation Feet. Thank you. And kids, mate.