So, after my first and kind of overwhelming FedCon XVI last year, I tried out FedCon XVII two weeks ago. Well, maybe I was a bit more down-to-earth, maybe I didn’t see the thing through rose-colored glasses, but this FedCon wasn’t nearly like my first. It may also have been the fact, that “Jägermeister” – the big sponsor this year – was everywhere! (Well not inside the restrooms. At least I haven’t seen them there.) Even Marc B. Lee called it the “JägerCon”. There were other things I very much disliked, but I spare you the details. As you may have experienced yourself: The good things stay in memory and the bad things (were there any?) will pass away.

“Stop whining and bring up some of the good stuff!” you say. Well, here it comes…

Mary McDonnell alias Laura Roslin from Battlestar Galactica was very much a pleasant surprise. She was moved to tears at the closing ceremony and she didn’t play her role there. Throughout the panels, she formed one of the running gags at FedCon. Wanting to say a few words in German, she said: “Es ist so geil hier zu sein!” She thought that “geil” means awesome, but in German it’s more “horny” than “awesome” 😉 Another quote when answering a question: “I ordered someone out of an airlock. I don’t know whom, there were so many.”
	I still don’t know, where that question came from, but another running gag was: “Have you ever seen Jamie Bamber naked?” Even people from the audience, even Marc B. Lee himself inside the audience asked the different actors/actresses on stage this question more than once.
Brent Spiner alias Data in TNG – he would make a great stand-up comedian – was hilarious on stage. He came up with the theory, that you tell a bad joke, no matter how bad, and repeat it 10 times, the audience will die of laughter. So he told us: “How proud he was playing on Battlestar Galactica.”. You may know, or may have guessed, Brent never played on BSG. But after the 10th time telling this in the strangest situations, the audience was rolling on the floor laughing.
	Did you know, that Rene Auberjonois alias Odo in DS9 actually played with the great Audrey Hepburn on Broadway? And that he and his wife are calling their house in LA “the house that Star Trek built”?
Bruce Boxleitner (left) alias John Sheridan in Babylon 5 had a panel together with Peter Jurasic alias Londo Mollari in Babylon 5. Those two also did Tron together by the way. This panel was clearly the highlight of the whole weekend! You really had to see those guys to believe it.Some quotes: Bruce: (responding to a question about the making-of of a movie) “I don’t know, if they put it on tape”. Peter: “It’s called DVDs now!”Bruce: (responding to a question concerning what happened to the planet next to Babylon 5 after its destruction) [serious facial expression] “Well, I guess it’s still there.”
	LeVar Burton (Geordy La Forge), Marina Sirtis (Deanna Troi) and Brent Spiner were great together. Shame on LeVar and Brent, leaving the panel after 20min, to catch their plane. But afterwards Marina told us much funstuff from the set at TNG. Her standard quote as the ship’s counsellor was “Captain, he’s hiding something”. One day after that quote saying it to Patrick Steward (alias Jean-Luc Picard), he answered (in a funny way): “Yeah, I know that you stupid cow! You waste of space!”
This year’s costume contest was great as always, but the about 3 meters high an 4-5 meters long At-At was amazing!
	You are dooooomed!!
What a nice couple!
	Even Stormtroopers have to go shopping from time to time.
Last, but definitely not least Giles Aston in his fabulous Nemesis costume taking a picture with me at the end of FedCon.

I’d like to close now with words from Londo Mollari: “That wasn’t so bad after all, yes?”

Like last year, you will find a selection of the photos I took on google photos.