Thailand: Star Trek boldly took its cast where no man had gone before, but one member of the original television series found the Thai-Myanmar border region as troubling as anywhere the show took him.

Walter Koenig, who played Pavel Chekov, the cheeky Russian ensign aboard the Starship Enterprise, put his science fiction aside and visited the border region this week to meet refugees from Myanmar who fled the country’s oppressive military regime, he said.

Koenig visited a medical clinic that treats refugees in an effort to garner world attention to the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Myanmar, also known as Burma, he said.

“I was shocked at how little I knew,” Koenig, 70, said, referring to the hundreds of thousands of refugees living along the border in Thailand. “The time was right in my life to be a part of something that is worthwhile. It’s one thing to espouse a liberal and political attitude - and quite another to act on it.”

The United States Campaign for Burma, an activist group based in Washington, D.C., organized the trip to northwest Thailand where he met civilians suffering from battle injuries and disease.

Star Trek fans share a value system that will help connect them to the refugees and help shine a spotlight on their plight, Koenig said.

“In the original series, we were an international, interethnic, interracial community,” Koenig said. “People have responded to that for 40 years and I think there’s a sense of benevolence and humanity in the fans. Their nerdiness not withstanding makes them good company to get the word out.”

He is recruiting celebrity friends to join the effort, potentially including his Star Trek castmate, George Takei - known as Mr. Sulu in the series. Some 3,000 Karen villages in Myanmar’s eastern region have been destroyed by the country’s military, said Jeremy Woodrum, USCB campaigns director. “People don’t know twice as many villages have been destroyed in Eastern Burma than in Darfur,” Woodrum said. “It’s totally lost on the United States and the world.”

Myanmar has been under military rule since 1962, the latest junta emerging after a brutal 1988 crackdown on pro-democracy protests. The military has been widely accused of atrocities against ethnic minorities and of suppressing the democracy movement led by detained Nobel Peace prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi.

Koenig’s son, Andrew, 38, filmed his week-long trip. Footage, as well as Koenig’s personal written accounts during his trip, will be available on his Web site.