Paramount permits Star Trek-related fan projects as long as the creators don’t profit from them. And so, for the last five and a half years, an independent online project now called Star Trek: Phase II has been churning out episodes at the rate of about one a year.

The series is intended as a continuation of the original Star Trek set in the fourth year of the starship Enterprise’s five year mission. This latest episode, “Blood and Fire,” is noteworthy for the presence of Captain Kirk’s gay nephew. After Elton got an exclusive preview:

The episode…is professional in its execution — not surprising given that the project uses some of the original Star Trek sets and that many veterans from the actual movies and series have donated their talents to the project.

Indeed, “Blood and Fire” was co-written and directed by David Gerrold, the out gay writer of the classic “The Trouble with Tribbles” Star Trek episode and a writer and associate producer on the first Star Trek spin-off, Star Trek: The Next Generation. “Blood and Fire” was originally written for that series, with the strong support of series creator Gene Roddenberry, and it was intended as a metaphor for AIDS.

But at the time, television executives and the show’s producers balked at the inclusion of two minor gay characters.

In the webisode, Kirk’s nephew, Peter, has requested a stint aboard the Enterprise to be near his boyfriend. The two plan to marry and Kirk agrees to officiate “after the away mission.” It will be released in two parts; Part 2 won’t be available until February.

Via Paul Constant at Slog, “It’s sad that the successor to the series that featured American television’s first interracial kiss didn’t have the cojones to run an episode dealing with homosexuality—or even (gasp!) maybe include a gay character—but it’s good to know that Gene Roddenberry okayed the script way back in the day.”

RELATED: Wired did a story about the project in December 2005.