Samuel Cockings has been quietly building one of the most impressive bodies of work in the Star Trek fan film community. Over 38 short films have been released since 2021. A full YouTube channel packed with shorts, longer-form productions, and other franchise films such as Stargate, Doctor Who, and Star Wars.
And now, a Kickstarter campaign with the biggest one yet is here to fund what comes next.
Fandom Pulse received an advance screener of Legacy Returns, Trek Shorts’ latest production and their most ambitious film since 2019's viral success “Temporal Anomaly,” which has over 850k views in its 2 parts.
We’re keeping the details close to the chest for now; there are no reveals in this one that deserve to land fresh, but we can say this: the scope of what Cockings and his team pulled off will surprise you. The production bridges eras of Trek history in a way that feels earned rather than fan-servicey, and it features characters and ship designs that will hit hard for anyone who grew up with the original cast and The Next Generation. The temporal mechanics at the heart of the story are handled with the same care that made Star Trek: Prodigy: Reckoning, another Trek Shorts production and one of the best time travel stories the fan film community has produced, such a standout on the channel, with its next 5 episodes set to release later this year.
Here’s how it all comes together for a Trek fan production.
The Labor of Love Has a Price Tag
Cockings was direct when we asked about the economics of running a fan film operation at this level. He cleaned it up from a longer conversation, but the core of what he said is this:
“We all put in so much time and energy, but there are always hard costs…we can’t negotiate with hotel chains or places to eat, so…there are always costs to every shoot, and the more actors, the more days, the costs escalate… It's worth it, but…it adds up fast! Fans also ask for more, and we want to make more, so...bigger films, more shoot days...more costs BUT...we love it, and I think the body of work released shows we can do a LOT with a very small relative budget.”
That’s the honest version of what fan filmmaking looks like at the level Trek Shorts operates. The hundreds of hours Cockings puts in personally are uncompensated. It means Trek Shorts operates within the fan film guidelines: no profit, web-based distribution, funded by community support. The Kickstarter isn’t paying for Cockings’ time. It’s paying for everything he can’t absorb himself.
What the Campaign Is
The Trek Shorts 2026 Kickstarter has a MIN goal of £12,500 (roughly $16,755) and a MAX stretch goal of £25,000 (roughly $33,700) with a deadline of May 20, 2026. At the time of writing, they’re past the halfway mark with 56 backers and 37 days remaining. This is an all-or-nothing campaign: if it doesn’t hit the goal, no money changes hands, no new projects get filmed, and the current in-production projects may still come out, but it won’t be anywhere near as fast and not pushed to the same level of quality. Trek Shorts tells us, “These effects take a lot of time to create!”
The reward tiers are structured to give something at every level of support:
£5 (~$7) — Ensign: Your name in the credits and early access to every release in 2026
£10 (~$14) — Lieutenant Jr.: Credits, early access, plus digital HQ poster and original soundtrack download
£15 (~$21) — Video Message (In Character): A fully finished, in-uniform, green-screened video message from a cast member — essentially a Cameo, but fan Trek
£20 (~$27) — Lieutenant: Credits, early access, three digital posters, two soundtracks
£40 (~$54) — Name a Character: Your chosen name goes into the planned Dominion War fleet film
£50 (~$68) — Name a Starship or Captain: Your ship flies in the Dominion War short, complete with HD render
£150 (~$202) — Two Star Admiral: Physical signed posters, HQ video downloads, signed script pages, character cards, and a personal in-character video message
£600 (~$805) — Associate Producer: Full producer credit on every 2026 film, signed cast print, and two in-character video messages from different cast members
£1,000 (~$1,341) — Section 31 Agent: A secret perk, all Admiral-level rewards, and a Section 31 consultant credit on every film. Only two of three slots remain.
The higher tiers escalate the physical rewards and, at the top tier, include direct video calls with Cockings and creative input on future productions. He wants to make more, and this is the time to help him.
There’s also a planned Dominion War short in the DS9 era, a full-on fleet battle film with named ships, characters, and captains, that several of these tiers feed directly into. That alone is enough to get anyone who cares about the Dominion War arc excited, as there’s so much untapped potential for that era of storytelling.
The mainstream Trek landscape right now is streaming-first and algorithm-dependent. Fan productions like Trek Shorts operate without any of that infrastructure. They’re completely for the fans by the fans, and this is something that’s been big in the Trek community of fan film makers for a long time, something Trek Shorts exemplifies at its finest.
The Kickstarter closes May 20. If the fan film community shows up for this one, there’s a Dominion War fleet battle, continued adventures for Horizon crew, Prodigy: Reckonings long-form story, and whatever comes after Legacy Returns waiting on the other side...
Back the campaign. Watch the back catalog on YouTube. And keep an eye out for Legacy Returns releasing very soon.
What tier are you backing at? Drop a comment below.