July 14 - 16, 2000 : Toronto, Ontario

Toronto Trek is Canada's largest volunteer-run sci-fi convention. It concentrates mainly on television sci-fi, and this year the convention seemed to focus on Star Trek and Babylon 5.

Five Canadian Garrison members: Darth "Robin" Vader, TR1125, TB878 (in TIE pilot gear), TD741 and our adopted Rebel Pilot: "Scrounge"/"Mookie" attended this year's convention. We paraded around the grounds, posing for pictures, and then participated in the costume contest and the following dance.

The costume contest simply put, blew me away. The general quality of all of the costumes was spectacular. The organization of the whole event was great and to top it all off, the audience participated (positively) as much as the contestants.

First off, our skit:

The Imperials march "Mookie" on the stage (the audience starts clapping). "Mookie" walks over to the announcer's podium and points to the sky saying: "Look, it's the Emperor!". The trooper, TIE Pilot and Guard all look up at the lights and are blinded. "Mookie" grabs the weapons and prances around in victory to the audience's cheers. Vader walks up to him, lifts his hand to silence the crowd and turns on his (plasma) lightsaber. "Mookie" looks at the saber, then the weapons, and hands them back to the troopers and gets marched off the stage. The audience claps.

Some of the other entries:

• some Amidalas (nicely done). One of them, the black travel gown Amidala, even had a pair of matching shopping bags. ;P
• a "gargoyle"-like creature. The mouth and wings moved (independently of the arms)
• an Archangel with expanding wings
• Galaxy Quest girls with beryllium sphere and a puppeteer with those rabid little creatures
• remember the old Trek episode where Kirk and a Lizard man are placed on a planet and they have to each build a weapon to defeat the other and Kirk ends up making a primitive canon? Well, they re-enacted that scene, except that Lizard man was replaced by the (old-style) Godzilla. Essentially Kirk runs on stage preparing to shoot the canon. You hear Godzilla's roar and the Godzilla stomps on stage walking towards Kirk. As soon as Kirk spots Godzilla, he drops the canon and runs away.
• a drunk ET
• a female predator
• a good cat woman
• a female psy-cop who was looking for "rogue telepaths". As she was leaving the stage, Patricia Tallman (who played Lyta Alexander, a rogue telepath, in B5) gets on the stage and puts her hands on her hips. The psi-cop turns around with a look of shock and amazement and rushes to her and gives her a hug. On the way out, the two get intercepted by Robin Atkin Downes (he played Byron, the head of a gang of rogue telepaths).

My only complaint with the contest was that it only had 34 entries and ended too quickly. And in case you're wondering, we won "Best Ensemble".

I had opted to stay in costume for the dance causing quite a few people to stare, especially during the slow dances. One person commented that it was surreal. I believe that quite a few people's impressions of stormtroopers have been changed after that night.

Darth Robin's pictures (apologies for the quality of the pictures, it was rather dark):

Costumes
Valérie and Mookie	Shania Troy (don't ask).	Janeway, the Stick and Darth Vader Guess what happened to the neon blade moments after.	Darth and Cat-Woman
Godzilla and Darth	Tigger the Vampire Slayer and Darth	Darth and Tour Guide Barbie	Darth, Gargoyle [Background: TB878 and TD741]
A female pred finishes off Mookie as Darth, TD741, TB878, TR1125 watch.	Archangel and Gargoyle	Archangel	"Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi... you're my only hope... err... wait a minute..."

At the dance
Caroline, Valérie and Mookie head off to the dance.	Valérie, Kyana and Mookie.		Steph: "Oh, please, please take me out of my misery."
Mookie and Mary.		TD741, Kyana and Darth Vader after a gruelling dance session/interogation.

Here are Caroline's pictures:

The Canadian Garrison in attendance: caro-01.jpg
K'hro, Kyana, Valérie, TR1125 and "Mookie": caro-02.jpg

Thank you Caroline and Valérie for your company at the convention and for the pictures.

A brief video taken from the dance can be found here: http://www.geocities.com/brainsontoast/CustomWork.htm.
Yes, you can see a dancing stormtrooper.

You may also see a video of our masquerade skit here in real video format.

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