Star Trek Fans: what if I were to tell you that the USS Skipjack novels above are all that remain of the first proposed Star Trek spin off show ever, pitched all the way back in 1967?

“Simon Lang” is actually the pen-name of Darlene Hartman, who, in 1967, wrote several scripts for the original series, including one entitled “Shol,” which Gene Coon and Roddenberry both liked but eventually scrapped because it was too similar to the TOS episode “The Apple.” Gene Coon in particular liked Hartman, who he saw as having great potential as a writer, and one of the characters introduced in Hartman’s script, Dr. M’Benga, was introduced in an episode of the second season.

At this time during Trek’s second season, Roddenberry and Hartman started to develop ideas for a spin off of Trek called Hopeship, which would have been set around a medical and relief ship (in naval parlance, hope ships are naval vessels that work as floating hospitals in areas that medical facilities may be nonexistent). The premise would have combined a medical drama with science fiction. Details on the hopeship spin-off are incredibly nonexistent (never in my life has my Google Fu failed me so totally), but one account says that Dr. M’Benga was going to be a major character.

Either way, Hopeship obviously didn’t materialize, but Darlene Hartman introduced many plot points from the spin-off into the USS Skipjack novels she wrote, which absolutely do feel like the original series cast, down to the dashing captain and half-alien, half-human first officer with mental powers.