On 9 February2001, Decipher purchased the assets of FANtastic Media, including the fan club, and continued publication of Communicator. In 2005, the company announced the cancellation of the magazine after issue 155, citing complaints about subscription mailing delays as well as threats of lawsuits; the underlying cause was financial, due to the collapse of the card gaming industry that was Decipher's mainstay. [1] Attempts to revive the publication by creator/club founder Dan Madsen and managing editor Larry Nemecek have, to date, been unsuccessful.
Recurrent sections
Note: a concerted effort was made to group articles and interviews that shared similarities into sections, though both section contents as well as section headings changed several times during the publication run. A typical subdivision was:
Dossier
Readers' letters
Briefing
News on upcoming episodes, information on Trek actors, sets, behind-the-scenes, etc.
Profile
Information and interviews with actors and actresses in Trek
Tech
Specifications of ships and stations, "Treknology"
A number of limited edition cold-cast resin Star Trek starship miniatures were created for the fan club, measured from eight to twelve inches in length, and were sold through mail order in Star Trek Communicator magazines. These replicas were also sold at retail inside Las Vegas' Star Trek: The Experience. Editions were limited to 2500 models of each ship.