Trekkies boldly go . . . to Cherry Hill for 'Star Trek' gathering

CHERRY HILL An unsuspecting visitor to the Crowne Plaza Hotel did not have to spend much time looking around before realizing that these friendly, if oddly dressed, people were not the ordinary Cherry Hill crowd.

The place was abuzz Saturday with Trekkies, more than 1,200, who gathered for Creation Entertainment's Official Star Trek Convention, a three-day event that ends Sunday.

They weren't just playing the part of the Starship U.S.S. Enterprise enthusiasts. They were wearing it, reveling in it, encouraging it to course through their veins as though the sci-fi series were a life force all its own.

For these fans, it is.

The first clue was a man wearing a T-shirt with the message "U looking for Tribble?" That's a reference to Tribbles, the soft, furry, creatures that starred in one of the most beloved Star Trek episodes, "The Trouble With Tribbles."

The next clue was nearby in the hotel lobby, where there was a gathering, in full regalia, of members of the Imperial Klingon Forces, an international nonprofit that has, according to its business card, "proudly served the Empire and local Communities with honor and glory since 1994."

Sitting with them was Jim Macintyre, 64, of Butler, N.J. At least, that's what the muffled voice said from within the full-body costume, which included a rocky, silicone face and a large, silver interstellar weapon.

Macintyre said he was "a member of a species with the misfortune of evolving on the Klingon-Gorn border. We're the people who talked the Klingons and Gorns into a nonaggression pact so they could cross borders" to visit their loved ones.

See the original post here:
Trekkies boldly go . . . to Cherry Hill for 'Star Trek' gathering