Blood and Fire (Star Trek)

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Blood and Fire was an episode written by David Gerrold for possible use on Star Trek: The Next Generation. The episode was written in script form, but never actually filmed (due to its controversial subject matter). It was eventually adapted by Gerrold into a standalone novel.

In the original script, the crew of the Enterprise-D came upon a derelict spaceship whose crew had all been killed off by Regulan bloodworms. Since these creatures are highly dangerous and can kill within hours, any ship or space station found to be infested with bloodworms must be sterilized and/or destroyed, as per Starfleet orders. The concept of Regulan bloodworms, mentioned in dialogue in the original Star Trek series (but never actually explained until this episode), was intended to be a metaphor for the AIDS crisis, as AIDS was a similarly lethal disease.

This episode was also noted for its inclusion of two openly gay crewmembers, which would have been a first in Star Trek history (to this day, the subject is rarely dealt with in any form of Trek). Years later, an AIDS allegory would finally be included in a Trek episode, namely the Star Trek: Enterprise episode "Stigma".

Herbert Wright rewrote the script under the name "Blood and Ice", which also was left unproduced.^[1]

David Gerrold has since rewritten Blood and Fire yet again, this time for the fan series Star Trek: New Voyages. [1]