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## The Science Fiction Community
One element of *Star Trek*’s production history that is often underappreciated is the role of the organized science fiction community — the writers, editors, fans, and convention-goers who formed the core audience for science fiction in the mid-1960s.
Roddenberry was not, primarily, a science fiction writer before *Star Trek*. His background was in television drama and Westerns; his reading of science fiction was enthusiastic rather than professional. When he began developing *Star Trek*, he sought input from people who knew the genre better than he did. Samuel D. “Chip” Delany and other science fiction writers were not involved, but Roddenberry did connect with people in the science fiction publishing community.
More significantly, *Star Trek* from its first season attracted attention from the science fiction fan community in ways that most television science fiction had not. The show was reviewed in science fiction fanzines, discussed at science fiction conventions, and treated as a serious artistic effort rather than simply as a television product. This community recognition — the fact that people who cared about science fiction as a literary and intellectual form took the show seriously — was part of what made the fan base unusual.
The Hugo Award for “The Menagerie” in 1967 was recognition from this community. The Science Fiction Writers of America, whose Hugo Awards represent the judgment of the people most invested in the genre’s quality and integrity, was saying that *Star Trek* was doing something worth recognizing. This was different from the recognition of mass audience ratings, and it was the kind of cultural validation that persisted longer.