Following Patrick Stewart's death, a retrospective has revisited a less familiar chapter of his career: his role as a guide and narrator for multimedia CD-ROM edutainment. In 1997, Stewart narrated Nine Worlds, an interactive expansion of a 1993 video cassette that let users travel the solar system from a home computer. The disc collected gift shop postcards and scientific and cultural history for each neighboring planet, set to renditions of Gustav Holst's celestial suites, with Stewart providing a guided audio tour. The original article recalls his impassioned chronology of Mars.
The piece places that work in the context of the 1990s educational software boom. After Myst demonstrated what CD-ROMs could do, classrooms and home computers saw a surge in educational titles. Publishers used compressed video and tinny audio to bring the classroom experience home. The Next Generation cast seemed especially willing to moonlight as teachers, the article notes, pointing to LeVar Burton's long tenure hosting Reading Rainbow before he played Geordi La Forge. Stewart, meanwhile, captained numerous multimedia CD-ROM suites.
Beyond Nine Worlds, Stewart was recruited to guide young users through Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia and to narrate a literary play-by-play of the Titanic's final hours, among other discs. The article argues that his voice—powerful but kind—made him an ideal messenger for worldly information at a time when people were still learning how to use the machines, let alone learn from them. It reflects on how these discs imparted information that lingered, and on an era of enthusiasm for reimagining games and education.
Sources: Kotaku.