 Roddenberry took his Sergeant 's exam in early 1954 passing on the first attempt . At the same time , he wrote a second script for Mr. District Attorney titled " Wife Killer " , for which he was paid $ 700 . During his six @-@ month probation as Sergeant , he became friends with Wilbur Clingan , who would later have the Klingon race named after him . He sold another script entitled " Police Academy " in July . The sales of the three scripts amounted to the equivalent of nearly fifty @-@ percent of his Sergeant 's yearly salary of $ 5 @,@ 000 . The following December , he began to write the script for his first work of science fiction , which was eventually called The Secret Defense of 117 . With Ricardo Montalbán as lead , it was aired two years later as part of an anthology package , with the screenplay again credited to Robert Wesley . This was his first collaboration with Ziv Television Programs . He submitted a science fiction script " The Transporter " on January 4 , 1955 which was not purchased , but sold several scripts through the rest of the year : " Court Escape " , " Patrol Boat " , and " Police Brutality " for Mr. District Attorney , and " Reformed Criminal " , " Human Bomb " , and " Mental Patient " for Ziv 's Highway Patrol . In early 1956 , he sold two @-@ story ideas for I Led Three Lives , and he found that it was becoming increasingly difficult to be a writer as well as a policeman . 
