Carol Lynn/Kraith Collection, 1971-2001 | Cushing Library

Materials are arranged into the following series:

Correspondence; Fanzines; Convention Materials; Miscellaneous; and Printing Masters.

Carol Lynn has been involved in fandom for a number of years.  She religiously watched Star Trek during the original run, and carried a petition aroundher high school to save Star Trek from cancellation after its second season (not yet having heard of Bjo Trimble’s guidelines for sending in letters to NBC).  When she was headed off to university in the fall of 1969, the year after the series went off the air, her mother told her that even though she had spent a lot of time on watching Star Trek and reading science fiction in high school, once she got to college ‘things would be different.”   It was different: Star Trek was on TV seven days a week and Carol found science fiction fandom. After Carol made a comment on Star Trek during class, a person shoved her up against a wall after class and demanded, “Have you read Spockanalia?”  That was Margaret Basta, and that question changed everything.

Carol became a member of her university SF club, the Wayne Third Foundation, started attending SF conventions and helping with fanzine production, and was one of the founding members of S.T.A.R. (The StarTrek Association for Revival). She was at the Star Trek con in New York in the winter of 1971 where Star Trek went ballistic on a national scale.  Carol was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time to be in on the ground swell of support for Star Trek in the early 1970s. The Kraith stories were being published in several different fanzines and Carol thought, even though she didn’t write fan fiction at the time, that she could be the person who collected them into one place. She contacted Kraith creator Jacqueline Lichtenberg and got permission to print the volumes.

Carol published Kraith Collected as one of the first professionally offset printed zines in 1973, even though that raised the price to a nearly unheard of $3 per copy.   Fortunately she had a lot of friends because, while the Kraith zines were offset printed, they were collated by hand unit the print runs reached 1000 copies.

Other than publishing, her main claim to fame in fandom circles was being present at the party in Kalamazoo where Paula Smith named "Mary Sue”, after a hilarious round-robin dramatic reading of a particularly iconic example of an as yet generically-unnamed, self-insert, perfect protagonist. Asshe recalls the story, the amazing Russian 15 year old girl who had been appointed premier captain, premier medical officer and premier science officer of the USS Enterprise after being zapped by some Klingon mind ray enhanced her intelligence, did something heroically stupid, died, and, while everyone, and I mean everyone, on the Enterprise who loved her stood around mourning the passing of such a wonderful young woman, she willed herself back to life.  They don’t get more 'Mary Sue' than that.

That gave rise to one of Carol's favorite sig lines - "I've been around awhile.  I remember fan fiction before slash and when MarySue had no name."

Kraith

The Kraith Universe is an elaborate shared (that is, chronicled by multiple authors) fictional universe, and is structured as an alternate universe to that established in Star Trek: The Original Series (1966-1969). The Kraith world is centered around an exploration of Vulcan culture and the character of Mr. Spock.

As the entry on Kraith at fanlore.org has it, "in the episode Amok Time, Kirk and McCoy remarked on T'Pau's officiating at Spock's wedding as indicating that Spock's family was extremely important. In Kraith, the family is part of the First Realm, a dynasty that has existed from the time of Surak.. The Realm is not a place but a state of being; it passes on Vulcan traditions in an unbroken line from Surak, with youngest sons being trained by their grandfathers. There are only three First Realm families left; Spock's, T'Pau's, and Soled's. The Second Realm involves men who received their training from people other than their own grandfathers, and so on.

Before Surak, leaders were men who could draw lots of people together telepathically to unite them as a group mind. Called kataytikh (pl. kataytikhe), this ability turned out to be genetic and they started breeding for it with arranged marriages. By Spock's time the kataytikhe's task is to perform the "Affirmation of the Continuity" in which every 51.237 standard years, a group of no fewer than 57 people are telepathically drawn together by a kataytikh in order to pass on Vulcan cultural and social values. The Kraith is the chalice from which participants drink water during the ceremony. A woman with the kataytikh gene is a sterile Daughter of Tradition (T'Pau is one of these) and her life is devoted to public service. A Vulcan who misses the Affirmation is effectively outcast.

Spock conducts his first Affirmation in the first Kraith story. Sarek, captured by Romulans, misses the Affirmation but is able to "trans-affirm" in a unique situation during his rescue. In "The Disaffirmed" a young Vulcan scout who missed the Affirmation prepares for a unique life outside Vulcan tradition, and asks Uhura to be his wife; Spock explains exactly why the boy is now considered a non-person in Vulcan society. An alternate universe Kraith story, "Equity" by Joyce Yasner, describes three explorers who miss the ceremony and subsequently seek asylum on Earth after being told they will have to be sterilized.

Kraith also provides details as to just why Spock's father Sarek was opposed to his entering Starfleet rather than the Vulcan Science Academy. Spock was one of the last male heirs of the First Realm. He would have duties which required his presence at home. He might not be able to get back in time for the Affirmation. Also, his half-sister T'Uriamne possessed the kataytikh gene and was therefore sterile, a Daughter of Tradition. It was therefore extremely important that Spock marry and have children -- hopefully a son whom Sarek could train as a kataytikh -- so that the First Realm would continue. This is why Spock's betrothal to T'Pring took place at such an early age. If Spock were to go into Starfleet, he might be serving on a ship when he went into pon farr and unable to get back to Vulcan in time.Naturally, Sarek and Amanda didn't mention any of this in "Journey to Babel" because (as Spock revealed in "Amok Time") the pon farr is a deeply personal thing and Vulcans do not speak of it."

Another relationship crucial to the universe include the deep friendship of Spock and Captain James T. Kirk. "Due to contact with telepathic aliens Kirk begins to develop telepath<span style="font-size: 10px;">y</span> and subsequently must study on Vulcan to learn to control it. For personal as well as political reasons Spock and his father Sarek take this opportunity to adopt Kirk and welcome him into Tsaichrani, Vulcan society and culture. During Kirk's period of study he enters a hierarchical "Warder-Liege compact" in which he has to obey Spock without question." And an ongoing theme throughout the series concerns Spock's search for a permanent mate.

The Kraith series was originally created by Jacqueline Lichtenberg in 1970 in the story "Spock's Affirmation". A number of noted fanfic writers have joined Lichtenberg in Kraith since then, including Ruth Berman, Anna Mary Hall, Debbie Goldstein, and Carol Lynn. Lynn and Goldstein published six volumes of collected Kraith stories between 1972-1980, as well as two supplementary fanzines: Kraith Creator's Manual and Understanding Kraith.