During the writing process of Star Trek V, William Shatner envisioned that God was to have resided at the center of the universe. Gene Roddenberry disagreed, stating that there was no center of the universe, and even if there were, there was no way that the center of the universe would have been discovered within the eleven percent of the galaxy had that been explored by the 23rd century. As a result, Beichman was sent to Paramount in response to Harve Bennett's request for someone to explain that there was no center of the universe.