It finally happened, well 30 years ago.

Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Newsgroups: fa.sf-lovers
Path: utzoo!duke!cincy!chris
Date: Mon Jun 8 11:06:47 1981
Subject: Save Officer Spock
From: chris
X-OldUsenet-Modified: added From; converted from A-news; fixed Message-ID; added Xref
Xref: dummy dummy:1
Perhaps you are not yet aware of it, but a new Star Trek movie
is in the making this summer. While that is all well and good,
there is a problem with it. It seems that Leonard Nimoy will no
longer be available for the role of Spock after this movie;
thus they are killing him off. Loyal trekkies here have taken
great offense to this, as well they should. There are much better
ways to remove the necessity of having the character present.
A local radio station has begun a campaign the call SOS (see title).
They are encouraging letter writers, and wil forward the mail they
collect to the producers of the movie. If you would like to write,
or contact them and start your own movement, here is the address:
SOS
WVXU-FM
Xavier University
Cincinnati, OH 45207
Live Long and Prosper!

From what I recall the breaking story of how Spoke died in Star Trek II was one of the first ‘big’ nerd crisis on usenet. I’m sure it has more to do with the date of when usenet started to get popular vs other big ‘shocks’ of the time like Empire Strikes Back. The old usenet archives sure do provide an interesting ‘view’ into our past, of even 30 years ago. I’m out of town for the next few days so … no big stuff coming up but I thought this was worthy enough to post.