>It is strange they can fail so bad, since Star Trek is essentially a setup to make any story at all each episode.
The early slash fiction writers (almost all women) in the 1970s more or less viewed the science fiction elements like the Enterpise and the Federation as distractions, and got Kirk/Spock away from them as soon as the could to focus on their relationship. In other words, they were inspired by the close, John Ford-like camaderie between the two characters (or, if you choose to believe so, saw the clear sexual subtext below their heterosexual veneers) and used it as a springboard to tell the stories they really wanted to tell.
The early slash fiction writers (almost all women) in the 1970s more or less viewed the science fiction elements like the Enterpise and the Federation as distractions, and got Kirk/Spock away from them as soon as the could to focus on their relationship. In other words, they were inspired by the close, John Ford-like camaderie between the two characters (or, if you choose to believe so, saw the clear sexual subtext below their heterosexual veneers) and used it as a springboard to tell the stories they really wanted to tell.