Leimar Garcia-Siino, Sabrina Mittermeier, Stefan Rabitsch (Eds.) - The Routledge Handbook of Star Trek-Routledge (2022)

THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF STAR
TREK
The Routledge Handbook of Star Trek offers a synoptic overview of Star Trek, its history, its influence,
and the scholarly response to the franchise, as well as possibilities for further study. This volume aims
to bridge the fields of science fiction and (trans)media studies, bringing together the many ways in
which Star Trek franchising, fandom, storytelling, politics, history, and society have been represented.
Seeking to propel further scholarly engagement, this Handbook offers new critical insights into the
vast range of Star Trek texts, narrative strategies, audience responses, and theoretical themes and
issues. This compilation includes both established and emerging scholars to foster a spirit of com-
munal, trans-generational growth in the field and to present diversity to a traditional realm of science
fiction studies.
Leimar Garcia-Siino is an independent scholar. She is the media reviews editor of the SFRA
Review and has recently co-edited the special issue Global Utopian Film and TV in the Age of Dystopia
for SFFTV with Sean Guynes.
Sabrina Mittermeier is a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer in British and North American
History at the University of Kassel, Germany. She is the author of A Cultural History of the Disneyland
Theme Parks: Middle-Class Kingdoms (2021), the editor of Fan Phenomena: Disney (2023), and, with
Mareike Spychala, of Fighting for the Future: Essays on Star Trek: Discovery (2020).
Stefan Rabitsch is an Associate Professor in American Studies with the Department of Literature,
Area Studies and European Languages at the University of Oslo, Norway. A self-declared “Academic
Trekkie,” he is the author of Star Trek and the British Age of Sail (2019), co-editor of Set Phasers to Teach!
Star Trek in Research and Teaching (2018), and co-editor of Fantastic Cities (2022).
ROUTLEDGE LITERATURE HANDBOOKS
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The Routledge Handbook of Shakespeare and Animals

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The Routledge Handbook of Literary Translingualism

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The Routledge Handbook of Star Trek

Edited by Leimar Garcia-Siino, Sabrina Mittermeier, and Stefan Rabitsch
For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/Routledge-Literature-

Handbooks/book-series/RLHB
To all those who trek among the stars, past, present, and future.
THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK
OF STAR TREK
Edited by Leimar Garcia-Siino, Sabrina Mittermeier,

and Stefan Rabitsch
“Companion Piece” © John NA Brown, 2021

Cover image: “Boldly Going As” © John NA Brown, 2021
First published 2022
by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
and by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2022 selection and editorial matter, Leimar Garcia-Siino, Sabrina Mittermeier,
and Stefan Rabitsch; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Leimar Garcia-Siino, Sabrina Mittermeier, and Stefan Rabitsch to
be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their
individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this title has been requested
ISBN: 978-0-367-36667-4 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-24742-7 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-34791-7 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917
Typeset in Bembo
by Newgen Publishing UK
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations xii

Notes on Contributors xiii
Acknowledgments xx
List of Abbreviations xxii
Introduction: Open Hailing Frequencies 1

Leimar Garcia-Siino, Sabrina Mittermeier, and Stefan Rabitsch
PART I
Television Series 7
1 Star Trek: The Original Series 9

Ina Rae Hark
2 Star Trek: The Animated Series 18

John Andreas Fuchs
3 Star Trek: The Next Generation 28

A. Bowdoin Van Riper
4 Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 37

Lisa Doris Alexander
5 Star Trek:Voyager 46
Leimar Garcia-Siino
6 Star Trek: Enterprise 56
Zaki Hasan
vii
Contents
7 Star Trek: Discovery 65
Sabrina Mittermeier
8 Star Trek: Picard 74
Justice Hagan
9 Star Trek: Lower Decks 80

Ramón Valle-Jiménez
PART II
Movies 85
10 Star Trek: The Motion Picture 87

Kevin S. Decker
11 Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan 93

Stefan Rabitsch
12 Star Trek III: The Search for Spock 99

Janet McMullen
13 Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home 104

Una McCormack
14 Star Trek V: The Final Frontier 110

Agnieszka Urbańczyk
15 Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country 116

Torsten Kathke
16 Star Trek Generations 122

Murray Leeder
17 Star Trek: First Contact 127

Ina Batzke
18 Star Trek: Insurrection 133

Igor Carastan Noboa
19 Star Trek Nemesis 138

Katherine Bishop and Stefan Rabitsch
20 Star Trek (2009) 143

William Proctor
viii
Contents
21 Star Trek Into Darkness 148

Nathan Jones
22 Star Trek Beyond 154

Peter Goggin
PART III
Transmedia and Franchising 159
23 Star Trek as a Transmedia Storyworld 161

Dawn Stobbart
24 Star Trek as Franchise 168

Derek Johnson
25 Novels 176
Sean Guynes and Gerry Canavan
26 Comics 185
Gerry Canavan
27 Reference Works and Guides 192

Ria Narai
28 Board and Video Games 198

Stefan Hall
29 Music 204
Veronika Keller
30 Merchandise 213
Victoria L. Godwin
PART IV
Fandom and Paratexts 219
31 Fandom History 221

Karen L. Hellekson
32 Fandom Around the World 231

Larisa Mikhaylova
33 Fan Fiction 243

Kathryn Heffner
ix
Contents
34 Fanvids 251
E. Charlotte Stevens
35 Fan Tourism and Conventions 258

Lincoln Geraghty
36 Fandom and Intellectual Property Rights 264

Rebecca Tushnet
37 Documentaries 271
Allison Whitney
38 Parody and Homage 276

Michael Robinson
39 Pornography 281
Michael Fuchs
40 Star Trek in the Classroom, Science, and Professional Lives 286

Elizabeth Baird Hardy
PART V
Social Themes 293
41 History and Historiography 295

Martin Gabriel
42 Sex and Romance 304

Carey Millsap-Spears
43 Environment and Ecology 313

Alison Sperling
44 War and Conflict 322

Mareike Spychala
45 Colonialism and Imperialism 332

E. Leigh McKagen
46 Religion and Spirituality 340

Douglas E. Cowan
47 Science and Technology 348

Amy C. Chambers and R. Lyle Skains
x
Contents
48 Medicine and Care 357

Jason T. Eberl
49 Language and Communication 366

Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay
PART VI
Social History 375
50 Race 377
Harvey Cormier
51 Gender 386
Danielle Girard
52 Queerness I: Representations of Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual People 394

Bruce Drushel
53 Queerness II: Transgender and Nonbinary Representation 403

Si Sophie Pages Whybrew
54 Disability 412
Olivia Johnston Riley
55 Age and Aging 421

Sylvia Spruck Wrigley
56 Nonhumanoid Alien Life 430

Will Tattersdill
57 Posthuman Life 439

Lisa Meinecke
58 Economic Systems 449

Jonathan Thornton
59 Ethics 459
Adam Kotsko
60 Utopia 467
Simon Spiegel
Index 476
xi
ILLUSTRATIONS
Figures
Frontispiece: “Companion Piece”
32.1 Distribution of Spockanalia and T-Negative correspondents in the late 1960s/early 1970s 232
32.2 A call for blood donations on the Brazilian Trekkers’ website 235
32.3 Katakana font stylized for Star Trek 235
32.4 Bernd Schneider EAS site statistics 238
32.5 NetDragon Websoft HQ and Liu Dejian in front of his office 238
32.6 Trek Poker with five suits designed by Russian Trekker M’Ress 240
36.1 Cover of Boldly Go 267
36.2 Comparison of Sneetches page and Boldly Go page 269
Tables
29.1 The five structural parts of the opening themes in the Star Trek series 205
32.1 Major national fan organizations outside of the United States 237
xii
CONTRIBUTORS
Lisa Doris Alexander is a Professor of African American Studies at Wayne State University, USA.
She is the author of Expanding the Black Film Canon: Race and Genre Across Six Decades (University
Press of Kansas, 2019) and When Baseball Isn’t White, Straight, and Male:The Media and Difference in the
National Pastime (McFarland, 2012).
Elizabeth Baird Hardy is a Senior Instructor of English at Mayland Community College in North
Carolina. She has contributed to numerous works of literary and popular culture criticism, including
Star Trek and History, Set Phasers to Teach, Critical Insights:The Hunger Games, and Harry Potter for Nerds.
Ina Batzke is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Augsburg, Germany. She is the author of
Undocumented Migrants in the United States: Life Narratives and Self-representations (Routledge, 2019), and
co-editor of Exploring the Fantastic: Genre, Ideology, and Popular Culture (transcript, 2018).
Katherine Bishop is an independent scholar based in the United States. Her recent research has
centered on the transgressive possibilities of plants, from anti-imperialism to aesthetics as well as epis-
tolary literature. She recently co-edited Plants in Science Fiction: Speculative Vegetation (University of
Wales Press, 2020).
Gerry Canavan is Associate Professor in the English Department at Marquette University, USA. An
editor at Extrapolation and Science Fiction Film and Television, he has also co-edited Green Planets: Ecology
and Science Fiction (with Kim Stanley Robinson, Wesleyan University Press, 2014) and The Cambridge
Companion to American Science Fiction (Cambridge, 2015) and The Cambridge History of Science Fiction
(Cambridge, 2019). His first monograph, Octavia E. Butler, appeared in the Modern Masters of Science
Fiction series (University of Illinois Press, 2016).
Igor Carastan Noboa has a Master’s and a PhD in social history from the University of São Paulo,
Brazil. He is a history teacher in public and private schools in São Paulo, Brazil. He researches and
writes about American history and the relations between science fiction, history, and society.
Amy C. Chambers is a science communication and screen studies scholar at Manchester

Metropolitan University, UK. Her research examines the intersection of entertainment media and
the public understanding of science. Her recent publications explore: medical horror and religious
xiii
Notes on Contributors
ritual in The Exorcist; representations of women’s scientific expertise; sociology, technoscience, and
science fiction literature; and women-directed sf and horror.
Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay is Associate Professor in Global Culture Studies at the University of

Oslo, Norway. He is the project leader of CoFUTURES: Pathways to Possible Presents (European
Research Council) and Science Fictionality (Norwegian Research Council).
Harvey Cormier is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Stony Brook University, USA. He is the
author of a book on William James’s theory of truth called The Truth Is What Works (Rowman &
Littlefield, 2000) and a variety of articles on topics, including race, modern art, and the philosophy
of Nietzsche.
Douglas E. Cowan is Professor of Religious Studies at Renison University College, Canada.

Among many others, he is the author of Sacred Space:The Quest for Transcendence in Science Fiction Film
and Television (Baylor University Press, 2010), America’s Dark Theologian: The Religious Imagination of
Stephen King (New York University Press, 2018), and Magic, Monsters, and Make-Believe Heroes: How
Myth and Religion Shape Fantasy Culture (University of California Press, 2019).
Kevin S. Decker is Professor of Philosophy at Eastern Washington University, USA. He has edited
thirteen books on popular culture and philosophy, including Star Trek and Philosophy (Open Court,
2008) and The Ultimate Star Trek and Philosophy (Wiley-Blackwell, 2016), and is the author of Who Is
Who? The Philosophy of Doctor Who (I. B. Tauris, 2013).
Bruce Drushel is Professor and Chair of the Department of Media, Journalism & Film at Miami
University, USA. He is founding co-editor (with Kylo-Patrick Hart) of the journal Queer Studies in
Media & Popular Culture.
Jason T. Eberl is Professor and Director, Gnaegi Center for Health Care Ethics, Saint Louis
University, USA. He is co-editor of Star Trek and Philosophy:The Wrath of Kant (with Kevin S. Decker,
Open Court, 2008) and The Ultimate Star Trek and Philosophy: The Search for Socrates (with Kevin
S. Decker, Wiley-Blackwell, 2016).
John Andreas Fuchs teaches EFL and social studies at Oberschule im Park in Bremen, Germany,
and provides advanced teacher training courses at the Landesinstitut für Schule Bremen (LIS). He
has published articles and book chapters on American Catholicism, 20th century US history, Mark
Twain, Pedagogy, Education, and Star Trek. He holds an M.A. (Magister Artium) in contemporary
history, American literature, and didactics of history as well as both Erstes and Zweites Staatsexamen
(Lehramt Gymnasium).
Michael Fuchs has seen more Star Trek porn flicks and Star Trek films than episodes of the television
shows. Academically, he is a part-time postdoc at both the University of Oldenburg (Germany) and
the University of Innsbruck (Austria) who has co-edited seven essay collections and (co-)authored
sixty-plus journal articles and book chapters.
Martin Gabriel has been a lecturer in Modern History at the University of Klagenfurt, Austria,
since 2012. He received his Dr. phil. for a thesis on warfare in Bosnia and Hercegovina during the
Habsburg “occupation campaign” of 1878. His research focuses on imperialism, the history of the
great powers (Austria-Hungary, Spain, the United States), and global history.
xiv
Leimar Garcia-Siino is an independent scholar. She is the media reviews editor for the SFRA
Review and has recently co-edited the special issue Global Utopian Film and TV in the Age of Dystopia
for SFFTV with Sean Guynes.
Lincoln Geraghty is Professor of Media Cultures in the School of Film, Media and Communication
at the University of Portsmouth, UK. His major publications include Living with Star Trek: American
Culture and the Star Trek Universe (I. B. Tauris, 2007), American Science Fiction Film and Television (Berg,
2009), and Cult Collectors: Nostalgia, Fandom and Collecting Popular Culture (Routledge, 2014).
Danielle Girard received their PhD from Lancaster University. Their thesis mapped the evolution
of paratextual queer fiction (slash fan fiction) being produced in conjunction to the original series of
Star Trek. They are currently working on both an edited collection and special issue on new queer
television. Their research interests revolve around queerbaiting, queer(ed) and trans bodies in horror
TV and film, feminine expression and pop culture.
Victoria L. Godwin is Associate Professor of Languages & Communication at Prairie View A&M
University, USA, and Principal Editor of the Journal of Fandom Studies. Her publications explore
action figure customization, Hogwarts House merchandise, immersive theme parks, fan cookbooks,
anti-fans of Twilight, vampires and narcissism, and media witches.
Peter Goggin is Associate Professor in Rhetoric (English), and a Senior Global Futures Scholar
in the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Lab and affiliate with Arizona State University’s School
for Future Innovation in Society. His publications include books, edited collections, and articles on
such topics as literacy, environmental rhetoric, serendipity, feral animals, mermaids, Mars fiction, and
oceanic islands.
Sean Guynes is a cultural historian, critic, and writer who lives in Ann Arbor, MI, USA. He is the
co-editor of two journal special issues and several books—including Unstable Masks: Whiteness and
American Superhero Comics (Ohio State University Press, 2020). His shorter writing has appeared in
public and academic venues, including Los Angeles Review of Books, Strange Horizons, Tor.com, American
Quarterly, World Literature Today, Utopian Studies, American Book Review, and PopMatters.
Justice Hagan is a lecturer in the English Department at Marquette University, USA. His areas of
research and teaching are twentieth-and twenty-first-century literary and cultural studies, and his
current projects focus on Forced Migrant literature, Adoption studies, and science fiction.
Stefan Hall is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Game Design in the Nido
R. Qubein School of Communication at High Point University (High Point, NC), USA.
Ina Rae Hark is Distinguished Professor Emerita of English and Film and Media Studies at the
University of South Carolina, USA. In addition to many books, edited volumes, chapters, and articles
on other subjects, she is the author of one book and six essays on Star Trek.
Zaki Hasan has been a media scholar and critic for more than 25 years. His film reviews and ana-
lyses have appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle, Philadelphia Weekly, IGN, HuffPost, and more. He is
a member of the San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle and the Hollywood Critics Association.
Kathryn Heffner is a PhD student at the University of Kent, UK, studying the History of Science
and Technology. She holds a Master’s in Library and Information Science and a Bachelor’s in English
xv
Literature (Honors) from the University of Iowa. Her PhD dissertation is entitled “Femmes in
Fandom: Women’s Participation in 20th Century Science (Fiction) Clubs.”
Karen L. Hellekson is an independent scholar who has published on Doctor Who, fan studies, and
alternate history.
Derek Johnson is Professor of Media and Cultural Studies in the Communication Arts department
at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA. He is the author of the books Transgenerational Media
Industries: Adults, Children, and the Reproduction of Culture (University of Michigan Press, 2019) and
Media Franchising: Creative License and Collaboration in the Culture Industries (New York University
Press, 2013).
Nathan Jones is a curator at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City,
USA, where he shepherds the Western Performers collection and has a particular interest in Weird
Westerns. As a public historian, he looks at popular culture as a point of reference to help audiences
understand historical forces.
Torsten Kathke teaches history at Johannes Gutenberg- Universität, Mainz, Germany. He

received his doctorate from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich. He is the author of Wires
That Bind: Nation, Region and Technology in the American Southwest, 1854–1920 (transcript, 2017).
His current research deals with the intersection of intellectual history and popular culture in
the 1970s.
Veronika Keller holds a doctorate degree in musicology. She wrote her dissertation on the
nineteenth-century transatlantic migration of musical students. Her fields of study include trans-
atlantic cultural connections, music and emotions, and music in different media (video games, TV
series and movies) in the United States, European countries, and Korea.
Adam Kotsko teaches in the Shimer Great Books School at North Central College, USA. He is
the author, most recently, of Agamben’s Philosophical Trajectory (Edinburgh University Press, 2020) and
Neoliberalism’s Demons: On the Political Theology of Late Capital (Stanford University Press, 2018), and
the translator of many works by Giorgio Agamben.
Murray Leeder is a Research Affiliate at the University of Manitoba, Canada, and the author and
editor of several books about horror films and the supernatural. His prior writings about Star Trek
have appeared in the collections The Star Trek Universe: Franchising the Final Frontier (Rowman &
Littlefield, 2015) and Exploring Star Trek:Voyager: Critical Essays (McFarland, 2020).
Una McCormack is a New York Times bestselling novelist who has published more than a dozen
novels set in franchises such as Doctor Who, and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Discovery, and Picard. She
taught creative writing at university level for many years and continues to mentor writers.
E. Leigh McKagen has a PhD in cultural and political theory, and is an instructor with the
Department of History at Virginia Tech, USA. She examines imperial narratives in contemporary
fiction to advocate for storytelling that explores alternatives to human-centered ways of thinking and
living.
Janet McMullen is Professor Emerita of Communication at the University of North Alabama, USA.
She uses Star Trek in her media ethics, criticism, communication law, and media theory courses.
xvi
A Star Trek fan since 1966, she helped organize the “Teaching with Trek” program at STLV and has
contributed to StarTrek.com.
Lisa Meinecke is a PhD candidate and lecturer with the America Institute at LMU Munich,
Germany. Her thesis, “Degrees of Freedom: Becoming-Person and the Technicized Other in North
American Popular Fiction” (working title) analyzes the boundaries between personhood and tech-
nology as imagined in popular culture.
Larisa Mikhaylova is a science fiction and fandom researcher, and translator. She earned her PhD from
Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia, in 1982, and has been the secretary of the Russian Society
of American Culture Studies since 1989 and the Chief Editor of Supernova. F&SF since 1994. She held
a Fulbright professorship in 2005/2006 and lectured at Aalborg in Denmark, Northwestern and NDU
in the USA, and Gaja Mada University in Indonesia, among others. Her interests are:TV, science fiction,
gender. She is the country representative for Russia in the Science Fiction Research Association (SFRA).
Carey Millsap-Spears is Professor of Communications/Literature at Moraine Valley Community

College, USA. Her work has appeared in Set Phasers to Teach: Star Trek in Research and Teaching, Studies
in Popular Culture, Fantastika Journal, The Dark Arts Journal, Queer Studies in Media & Popular Culture,
and Aeternum: The Journal of Contemporary Gothic Studies. Carey is currently working on Star Trek
Discovery and the Female Gothic:Tell Fear No. The book is forthcoming with Lexington Books.
Sabrina Mittermeier is a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer in British and North American
History at the University of Kassel, Germany. She is the author of A Cultural History of the Disneyland
Theme Parks: Middle-Class Kingdoms (Intellect, 2021), the editor of Fan Phenomena: Disney (Intellect,
2023), and co-editor of Fighting for the Future: Essays on Star Trek: Discovery (with Mareike Spychala,
Liverpool University Press, 2020).
Ria Narai is an independent scholar based in Sydney, Australia whose . Her research interests include
fan studies, transmedial storytelling, and world-building.
William Proctor is Associate Professor in Popular Culture at Bournemouth University, UK. He has
published widely on various topics, including Star Wars, Star Trek, The Walking Dead, James Bond,
and many others. William is a leading expert on the history and theory of reboots, and is cur-
rently writing a single-authored monograph on the concept entitled Reboot Culture: Comics, Film,
Transmedia (Palgrave, forthcoming).
Stefan Rabitsch has recently accepted a position as Associate Professor in American Studies with
the Department of Literature, Area Studies and European Languages at the University of Oslo,
Norway. A self-declared “Academic Trekkie,” he is the author of Star Trek and the British Age of Sail
(McFarland, 2019), co-editor of Set Phasers to Teach! Star Trek in Research and Teaching (with Martin
Gabriel,Wilfried Elmenreich, and John N.A. Brown, Springer, 2018), and co-editor of Fantastic Cities
(with Michael Fuchs, University Press of Mississippi, 2022). At the behest of Paramount Global,
Rabitsch serves as the organizer and curator of the Teaching with Trek program at Destination Star Trek.
His second monograph—“A Cowboy Needs A Hat”: A Cultural History of Cowboy Hats—not only
received the 2019 Fulbright Austria Visiting Scholar Grant in American Studies, and the 2020/21
Henry Belin du Pont fellowship by the Hagley Museum and Library, but it has also been awarded a
book contract from the University of Oklahoma Press.
xvii
Olivia Johnston Riley is a graduate student in Media and Cultural Studies at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison, USA. She studies disability and queerness in SF and superhero media, as well as
how fans of these media take up, interpret, and transform these texts.
Michael Robinson is Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Lynchburg, USA.

His interests include science fiction, superheroes, genre, audience study, and criticism. He recently
published in Fighting for the Future: Essays on Star Trek: Discovery (Liverpool University Press, 2020). In
his spare time, he reads and watches many nerdy things.
R. Lyle Skains is currently Principal Academic in Health and Science Communication at

Bournemouth University, UK. She researches interactive digital narratives for health and science
communication, conducting practice-based research into writing, reading/playing, and publishing
digital and transmedia narratives. She moonlights with science fiction research.
Alison Sperling is an International Postdoctoral Initiative (IPODI) Fellow at Technische Universität

Berlin in Women’s and Gender Studies and is an affiliated fellow at the ICI Berlin Institute for
Cultural Inquiry. She works on the weird and science fictional, feminist and queer theory, and the
Anthropocene.
Simon Spiegel is a lecturer at the Department of Film Studies at the University of Zurich,
Switzerland, and Privatdozent at the University of Bayreuth Germany. He is the author of Utopias
in Nonfiction Film (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021) and editor-in-chief of the interdisciplinary journal
Zeitschrift für Fantastikforschung.
Mareike Spychala is a lecturer in American Studies at the University of Bamberg, Germany. Her
research focuses on autobiographies by female Iraq War veterans. She has co-edited the collection
Fighting for the Future: Essays on Star Trek: Discovery (with Sabrina Mittermeier, Liverpool University
Press, 2020).
E. Charlotte Stevens is Lecturer in Media and Communications, Birmingham City University, UK.
She has published on fanvids, videogame fan histories, screen vampires, and poetic television docu-
mentaries on the BBC. Her current project explores how videotape informed viewing practices and
discussions of television and film by fans in the 1980s.
Dawn Stobbart completed her doctorate at Lancaster University, UK. Her recent work is a mono-
graph looking at videogames and horror. Within videogames, she has researched a range of contem-
porary fiction, primarily focusing the interaction of fiction and videogames.
Will Tattersdill is a literary critic with a background in Victorian Studies, particularly interested in
the cultural relationship between literature and science. His book about 1890s magazines is Science,
Fiction, and the Fin-de-Siècle Periodical Press (Cambridge University Press, 2016), and his current work
is about dinosaurs and the popular imagination from 1850–present.
Jonathan Thornton is studying for a PhD in Science Fiction literature at the University of Liverpool,
UK. He has a Master’s in Medical Entomology, and works as a technician at the Liverpool School of
Tropical Medicine. He also writes reviews for websites such as Fantasy Faction, The Fantasy Hive, and
Gingernuts of Horror.
xviii
Rebecca Tushnet is the inaugural Frank Stanton Professor of First Amendment Law at Harvard Law
School, USA. Her work focuses on the intersection between intellectual property and advertising law
and freedom of speech.
Agnieszka Urbańczyk is an independent researcher and she teaches courses at the Polish Philology
Department of the Jagiellonian University, Poland. She has received her PhD in 2022, and her
monograph on the political tenor of Star Trek and its reception in fandom has been published in
2021 (Utopia jest sprzedawana oddzielnie, Księgarnia Akademicka 2021). She has published mostly in
Polish journals (Teksty Drugie, Praktyka Teoretyczna, Przestrzenie Teorii,Wielogłos among others), and her
research is focused on fan studies, science fiction studies, transmedia storytelling, Political Theology,
biopolitics, and Critical Theory.
Ramón Valle-Jiménez has a Master’s degree in English, with a specialization in linguistics, from
the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras campus, Puerto Rico. His research interests are prosody,
pragmatics, natural language processing, and linguistics in popular culture.
A. Bowdoin Van Riper is a historian who specializes in depictions of science and technology in
popular culture. His publications include Imagining Flight: Aviation and Popular Culture (Texas A&M
University Press, 1993), 1950s “Rocketman” TV Series and Their Fans: Cadets, Rangers, and Junior Space
Men (co-edited with Cynthia J. Miller, Palgrave, 2012), and Teaching History with Science Fiction Films
(Rowman & Littlefield, 2018).
Allison Whitney is Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies in the Department of English at
Texas Tech University, USA. Her research focuses on the history of film technology, genres including
science fiction, and the film cultures of Texas.
Si Sophie Pages Whybrew is a postdoctoral researcher and diversity coordinator at The University
of Music and Performing Arts Graz, Austria. They have completed a dissertation project entitled
“Transitioning into the Future? Trans Potentialities in North American Science Fiction from 1993
to 2018.” She is co-editor of Affective Worldmaking: Narrative Counterpublics of Gender and Sexuality
(with Silvia Schultermandl, Jana Aresin, and Dijana Simić, transcript Verlag 2022).
Sylvia Spruck Wrigley is Nebula-nominated speculative fiction author and independent researcher
exploring representations of old age in science fiction. Her work has been translated into over a
dozen languages. She has had a crush on James T. Kirk since age 11.
xix
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Leimar would like to thank her co-editors for the wonderful opportunity to participate in the editing
of this Handbook. She is deeply indebted, in particular, to Sean Guynes, who recommended her
for this project. She would also like to thank her close friends and family who have supported and
enabled her Trekkie ramblings and ceaseless Star Trek referencing; their endurance should not be
understated. Most significantly, she is forever grateful to her dad, who introduced her to TOS and
TNG through taped episodes on VHS, a handful of TOS photonovels, and a lot of bedtime stories
based on classic episodes. No one knows Star Trek like he does, and he still beats her at Star Trek
trivia. To him, peace and long life.
Sabrina would like to thank her co-editors, as well as all the authors and the team at Routledge
for bringing this massive project across the finish line, especially during the trying times of the
Covid-19 pandemic. Special thanks also go to Sean Guynes, who originally started the project
and without whom it would never have come to fruition. As a Trekkie whose passion (academic
or otherwise) for the franchise was reignited by her love for Star Trek: Discovery, she also needs to
extend her gratitude to the whole cast of this show, especially those who were keenly interested in
and supportive of the work she does, and of her as a person: Mary Chieffo, Ken Mitchell, Rekha
Sharma, Jason Isaacs, Anthony Rapp, Wilson Cruz, Shazad Latif and Ronnie Rowe, Jr. And to her
Dad, who let her watch Voyager with him when she was just 6 years old, and unwittingly, set her off
on this journey. LLAP.
In writing his acknowledgments, Steve, who is usually not at a loss for words, is confronting what
he believes might be the effects of some transphasic, temporal phenomenon (it’s not temporal aphasia,
though). If he could travel back in time and visit his younger self in kindergarten who re-enacted the
adventures of Kirk, Spock, Bones, and chiefly Scotty with his mates in some corner or another—one
of the earliest memories he can recall—that kid would probably curl up in disbelief learning about
the role that Star Trek would play in his life; or, alternatively, he might have the wacky sense of joining
his future self on some time travel romp (the inevitable debriefing by the Department of Temporal
Investigations included). Alas, since hindsight is 20/20, it is quite simple; Steve would not be who he
is and where he is as a fan, as an American Studies scholar, and as human being without Star Trek in
its many different permutations. Over the years, Star Trek has been a vehicle for meeting and making
friends with people from all walks of life and from all around this terraqueous globe our species
calls home. Star Trek continues to inform his research and teaching. Not only has it enabled him to
experience the best that academia has to offer such as genuine interdisciplinary work and presenting
his work at Star Trek Las Vegas, but it has also helped him confront and cope with the worst academia
xx
Acknowledgments
can throw your way, such as attempts at character assassination, bullying, and the rampant classism that
is visited upon a first-gen scholar from a working-class background.
There are certainly way too many people Steve would like to thank. First and foremost, Sean
Guynes deserves a great many thanks for getting the ball rolling at ICFA 39, where he approached
Steve, after having become aware of his work on Star Trek, suggesting, “we should do a companion.”
One thing led to another and Sabrina joined our nascent voyage. Sean was instrumental in landing
us a contract with Routledge. While he stepped down as an editor, he stayed on as a contributor and
recommended Leimar to join Sabrina and Steve. If this Handbook resembles a starship, then Steve
couldn’t wish for a better crew of co-editors and contributors; it is in the best Starfleet tradition that
we are the dreamers and the dream.
Last but not least, Steve’s eternal gratitude goes to his family, who have had to put up with a
lot, and to his partner, Bianca, who has likely had to put up with the most. In the vein of Captain
Picard, and in best maritime tradition, Steve would like to wish all Trekademics, past, present, and
future: “Clear horizons. Make it so.”
All three editors would like to express their ineffable gratitude to all the researchers, academics,
aca-fans, and scholars who have paved the way before them, as well as to the contributors and editors
of the fan-curated Star Trek wiki Memory Alpha—their Herculean labor and encyclopedic thorough-
ness shall stand the test of time. Last but certainly not least, the editors would like to present Dr. John
NA Brown with a Dyson sphere full of thanks for his original artwork that graces both the cover and
the opening pages of this Handbook.
xxi
newgenprepdf
ABBREVIATIONS
Star Trek:The Original Series (1966–69) TOS

Star Trek:The Animated Series (1973–74) TAS
Star Trek:The Next Generation (1987–94) TNG
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1992–99) DS9
Star Trek:Voyager (1995–2001) VOY
Star Trek: Enterprise (2001–2005) ENT
Star Trek: Discovery (2017–) DSC
Star Trek: Picard (2020–) PIC
Star Trek: Lower Decks (2020–) LWR
Star Trek: Prodigy (2021–) PRO
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (2022–) SNW
Star Trek: Short Treks (2018–) Short Treks
Star Trek:The Motion Picture (1979) TMP
Star Trek II:The Wrath of Khan (1982) WOK
Star Trek III:The Search for Spock (1984) SFS
Star Trek IV:The Voyage Home (1986) TVH
Star Trek V:The Final Frontier (1989) TFF
Star Trek VI:The Undiscovered Country (1991) TUC
Star Trek Generations (1994) GEN
Star Trek: First Contact (1996) FCT
Star Trek: Insurrection (1998) INS
Star Trek Nemesis (2002) NEM
Star Trek (2009) ST09
Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) STID
Star Trek Beyond (2016) STB
xxii
INTRODUCTION
Open Hailing Frequencies
Leimar Garcia-Siino, Sabrina Mittermeier, and Stefan Rabitsch
And you people, you’re all astronauts, … on some kind of star trek?
Zefram Cochrane, Star Trek: First Contact
Boldly go … wherever the answers are.

Aditya Sahil and Michael Burnham, Star Trek: Discovery, 3.1
Dear Trekademic, despite our best intentions and our better efforts, we have, at least in part, failed
you. Standing among few popular culture behemoths of comparable scope, Star Trek is a massive
mega-text, i.e., one of the largest continuously told stories and storyworlds that straddle the twen-
tieth and twenty-first centuries. While every single contributor committed to going boldly into
the Star Trek continuum with a view to producing accessible, comprehensive, and scholarly work,
this Handbook is, by definition, incomplete—it is a product limited by its static form, i.e., publishing
constraints, and Star Trek’s more than 50 years of ongoing production. In other words, the informa-
tion contained in the following pages is a far cry from being as complete as the knowledge V’Ger
had purportedly amassed in the first Star Trek motion picture; neither do any of us contributors and
editors feign the omniscience of Q in matters of Star Trek or otherwise; nor is this Handbook you hold
in your hands or have downloaded to your ebook reader as vast a repository of data as the sentient
Sphere had accumulated over hundreds of thousands of years before merging with the computer of
the starship Discovery.
However, this Handbook was never conceived as a one-stop-shop for all things Star Trek, or even
all things academic Star Trek, but rather as a first stop if you find yourself drawn to either scholarly
or casual, albeit critical, inquiry into this vast transmedia franchise. Also, there is never really a good
time for collating and publishing a comprehensive companion to a continuously evolving ecology of
popular, mass media texts. While the fact that the Star Trek continuum has more than 50 years on its
back makes a venture like ours long overdue, it is published in a period that sees the production and
dissemination of new Star Trek content at a rate which outpaces the franchise’s heyday in the 1990s.
With three live-action series (DSC, PIC, SNW), two animated shows (LWR, PRO), a new film
confirmed, and more transmedia content in the production pipeline, Star Trek gives the appearance
of being more vibrant and ubiquitous than ever before. Consequently, if TOS, TAS, and the first fea-
ture films constitute some sort of “first age” of Star Trek, and the content of the long 1990s (TNG,
DS9, VOY, ENT, and four movies) the “second age,” then our Handbook sets sail with the “third age”
of Star Trek being fully underway.
DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917-1 1
Leimar Garcia-Siino et al.
The textual fabric of our Handbook takes its cue from a deceivingly simple question: What is
Star Trek? There is no shortage of wholesale definitions and labels designed to capture both the scope
and essence of Star Trek. Daniel Bernardi has considered it “a mega-text” (1998, 7, original emphasis);
Matthew Kapell has mapped it as “a kind of contemporary Gesamtkunstwerk” (2010, 2), while Chris
Gregory has identified Star Trek as “one of the most valuable ‘cultural properties’ in the world” (2000,
2). First and foremost, Star Trek is a science-fictional vision of the distant future where humanity has
taken its place in a galaxy that teems with life, both sentient and otherwise. Taking place roughly
between the twenty-second and twenty-fourth century (and recently also the thirty-second cen-
tury), the Star Trek world has been built and sustained by a total of eight live-action television shows,
three animated series, and thirteen motion pictures to date. It has spawned a multi-million-dollar
transmedia ecology which encompasses everything and anything ranging from novelizations, comics,
and video games to themed cruises, toys, apparel, and starship-shaped pizza cutters. Certainly, it is
easy to see how Jeff Greenwald, writing in Future Perfect: How Star Trek Conquered the World, can pro-
claim that Star Trek “means something” (1998, 6). Crucially then, and speaking to the diversity of
voices contained in this Handbook, “[t]‌here is no single meaning in Star Trek,” as Darcee McLaren
has contended, “it will have multiple meanings, it will be interpreted differently by the same people
at different times and by different people at the same time” (1999, 233). Our collective efforts add
a sizable number of meanings that go toward answering the question of what Star Trek is, knowing
fully well that any answer must remain provisional and temporary—in constant spatio-temporal flux,
as it were. In other words, and borrowing from what the enigmatic trickster Q (John de Lancie)
tries to tell Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) in the series finale of TNG, “the trial never ends” (“All
Good Things” [TNG 7.25/26, 1994])—a cue he reiterates in season two of PIC; and a cue we have
embraced with this Handbook.
While perhaps not exactly putting the franchise on trial, Star Trek undoubtedly invites, indeed,
demands, academic attention and scrutiny because, from its inception, it has exhibited a purpose-
fully reflective stance not only on the socio-cultural contexts which informed its ongoing produc-
tion, but also on humanity’s potential as a species; both have then been projected forward into an
imagined science-fictional future. The brainchild of a former pilot-turned-television-writer, Gene
Roddenberry envisioned The Original Series in terms of
morality tales [that] could encourage viewers to think along the lines of such then-radical
liberal beliefs as ‘All men are equal, no matter what the color of their skin’ and ‘No good
comes of getting involved in other people’s internal wars’.
(Dillard 1994, 42)
He did so to avoid television censors. Even though his narrative “ruse” was a response to US-American
domestic and foreign politics in the mid-1960s, Star Trek’s fantastic world of future space explor-
ation is little more than a reimagined age of exploration at sea which is infused with a large dose of
an idealized and romanticized humanism, undergirded by an Anglo-centric, colonial/imperial logic.
Indeed, throughout, Star Trek captures, reflects, and refracts the zeitgeist of the moment and/or era it
was created in. It is inescapably American, undeniably imprinted with the United States’ own inter-
pretation and viewpoint of reality along with its self-proclaimed role in any given historical event or
period; these include but are not limited to the Cold War, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the culture wars
of the 1990s, the Balkan Wars, the turn of the millennium, the trauma of 9/11, the rise of extremist
politics, and the post-truth turn. At the same time, Star Trek stands in a perpetual, serial, and reflexive
dialogue with itself—with TNG responding to TOS, DS9 and VOY moving to push the boundaries
of TNG, ENT trying to maintain both ethos and form of its 1990s’ predecessors while television,
indeed, the world, had moved into the twenty-first century, DSC and PIC challenging both the core
tenets and form(at) of the preceding five live-action series, and LWR transtextually parodying and
pastiching the entire franchise.
2
Introduction: Open Hailing Frequencies
Star Trek can, then, also be understood as a media vehicle that speaks directly to the audience
as well as about the audience. Filtering, refracting, and repackaging changing ideologies and
sociocultural dynamics, Star Trek lends itself to being read through a synoptic kaleidoscope of
lenses. Depending on how we turn the kaleidoscope of our inquiry, Star Trek can offer a vision
of expansive, collective, inclusive hope and peace for the future while at the same time propa-
gate colonial/imperial fantasies; it can be both a progressive beacon of racial and gender equality,
and reflective of the racist, sexist, classist, ableist, and ageist norms that have undergirded twen-
tieth-and twenty-first-century lifeworlds. It comes as no surprise then that audiences, critics,
and scholars have been analyzing, deconstructing, and re-examining the Star Trek continuum for
the past 50 years, identifying both its varied successes at presenting progressive ideas and, ultim-
ately, its failings caused by toeing a commercially safe line. This holding up of a science-fictional
mirror to reflect, refract, and comment on humanity’s journey and travails accounts for the
Sisyphean task that is addressing the basic question of what Star Trek is. Be it inside or outside
the confines of academia, it is possible to encounter detractors and acolytes of every series, every
movie, and every extant transmedia content, from those who resist newer Star Trek’s more rep-
resentational impetus to those who denounce it for not going far enough. Like seeing through a
mirror darkly, the world and ideas that Star Trek reflects and refracts hardly ever hold still as they
shift according to who uses Star Trek to examine the world.
In a sense, our Handbook resembles the ancient Buddhist parable of the blind men and the
elephant—or, in our case, the elephant might be a Horta, a targ, or a gormagander—where any sort
of holistic understanding of the object of inquiry is contingent on fragmentary, albeit compatible and
thus interconnected, knowledge(s). In other words, like the blind people in the parable, audiences, and
by extension scholars can only attempt a fuzzy, partially incomplete approximation. Understanding
this, we have set out not only to produce as synoptic a scholarly mapping of Star Trek as was feasible,
but also to give voice and space to as many academic knowledge traditions as possible. In the process,
adhering to scholarly best practice, we have consciously tried to steer clear of producing “pre-critical”
work—after all, some classist gatekeepers keep deriding aca-fan inquiries as “trivial”—while also
avoiding the pitfalls as well as the vagaries of performative and hyper-ideologized trends which are
sweeping through certain quarters of the academe.
Consequently, the scholarship that guides our Handbook is interdisciplinary, indeed, intersectional,
in that it is not limited to the sociopolitical ideas raised by Star Trek, nor does it focus solely on the
subtextual implications inherent in its premise and depiction. After all, Star Trek not only holds up
a mirror to sociopolitical issues, but it has had a profound and tangible impact on twentieth-century
and twenty-first-century society. The popular culture phenomenon that is Star Trek—the introduc-
tion of a new lexicon, the explosion of fan conventions, the almost-weaponization of its viewers, the
ultra-commercialization, its influence on popular science and popular philosophy, to say nothing of
its entanglements with scientific and technological innovation—defines and encapsulates Star Trek as
much as Roddenberry’s vision does.
Divided into six main Parts, our Handbook then takes the shape of what might best be understood
as a (con)textual manual. Parts I and II provide an in-depth introduction to the main televisual and
filmic content that constitutes the Star Trek “canon.” Every series from TOS to LWR is covered
in Part I and every motion picture from TMP to STB is covered in Part II. Written by a range of
diverse voices, each chapter not only engages with the relevance of each principal permutation of
the Star Trek continuum, but also places and reads them within their respective production and cul-
tural/historic contexts. On the one hand, these two Parts serve to make the mega-text accessible to
newcomers to Star Trek and to those who would like to refamiliarize themselves with certain parts
or the entire universe through fresh scholarship, alike. On the other hand, the chapters are designed
to provide convenient inroads for scholars of any discipline looking to place the main components
of the Star Trek continuum in the larger landscape of the US-American entertainment industry and
the lifeworlds it catered to.
3
Leimar Garcia-Siino et al.
Part III is dedicated to the overarching idea of transmedia storytelling, world-building, and fran-
chising. Individual chapters tackle the slew of officially licensed material that is tied to the extant
Star Trek canon, such as novels, comics, reference guides, games and collectibles, as well as the role
music has played in the Star Trek continuum. The section features subject matter experts who put
the mega-text in conversation with a larger scholarship on these phenomena, and provide insights
into how changing corporate strategies as well as the capitalist marketplace in general have shaped
Star Trek as an intellectual property over more than half a century.
Despite having been pronounced dead more than once, Star Trek keeps reinventing and renewing
itself. Star Trek fans have played an indispensable role in the long history of the franchise. For instance,
take the early intervention by Bjo Trimble, who is commonly recognized as the key figure behind the
letter writing campaign to renew TOS for a third season. By now, a select group of fans have turned
into showrunners and writers themselves. Mike McMahan, creator of LWR and one-time executive
producer of the cult hit Rick and Morty (2013–), had run a fan Twitter account spinning a fictional
eighth season of TNG, something that eventually sold others on both his comedic writing chops and
understanding of the franchise. By contrast, J.J. Abrams, who had given life to the Kelvin timeline
and thus the 2009 reboot of Star Trek on the silver screen, had not been a fan himself—a fact often
criticized by those unhappy with his take on Star Trek. Perhaps unsurprisingly, all these reboots and
reimaginings have always irked some of the existing fans as much as they have found favor with new
audiences. In either case, it is more than clear that fans are central to Star Trek; in fact, so much so
that the fandom has been credited as the initial testbed for what has since evolved into fan studies.
Consequently, Star Trek fandom warrants an expanded look from a variety of perspectives—Part IV
of this Handbook—attending to its history, its transnational reach, fan fiction, vidding, fan tourism, and
conventions, as well as the difficult relationship between the transformative and thus democratizing
activities of fandom, and for-profit interests and policing power of the IP rights holders. This Part also
features chapters on fandom-adjacent paratexts, such as documentaries, parodies and homages, porn
adaptations, and, finally, the role of Star Trek in the classroom.
The fact that Star Trek has become the go-to popular culture example for a number of different
academic fields in both research and teaching has chiefly to do with its multi-layered engagement
with social themes and history. Part V of the Handbook thus addresses a broad range of social themes,
touching on issues of history and historiography, sex and romance, ecology, war and conflict, colo-
nialism and imperialism, religion and spirituality, science and technology, medicine and care, and
language and communication. Each chapter deals with how the franchise has both engaged with and
interrogated these—often conflictingly and inconsistently—as production contexts and authors have
changed while the fundamental tenets of Star Trek belie an ideological investedness in problem-laden
Eurocentric ideas and beliefs. The final section, Part VI, then expands on that and investigates the
role that race, gender, queerness (both queer sexualities and gender identities), disability, and age have
played in Star Trek, and also interrogates what the depiction of nonhumanoid alien life, posthuman
life, economic systems, ethics, and, finally, its oft-highlighted utopian aspirations reveal about the self-
proclaimed progressive and humanistic values espoused by the Star Trek continuum.
If we were to summarize scholarly criticism of Star Trek in the past, it would boil down to some-
thing like the following: while its science fictional world holds great potential and promise, it does
not do enough to follow through. While perhaps legitimate, leveling such charges against a for-
profit intellectual property of the mass media industry belies expectations that simply cannot be met.
In a sense, a mega-text like Star Trek will always be flawed. However, it is likely more productive
to acknowledge that Star Trek tried to do more than many other sf television series, movies, and
other popular culture texts. Despite its ethno-/Anglo-centrism, its gradual and partially lackluster
track record on social justice and inclusion, its scientific eschatology, and its colonial and imperial
power structures, Star Trek’s centrifugal outlook for a future which—despite the odds—would not
lead to humanity destroying itself is genuine and thus valuable. Standing at the beginning of the
4
Introduction: Open Hailing Frequencies
second decade of the twenty-first century, the future seems more uncertain and frightful than ever;
the pandemic = global Covid-19 pandemic has cost hundreds of thousands of lives, the necrotic
forces of neoliberal capitalism are running amok, and the effects of anthropogenic climate change
are all but irreversible. In light of such calamities and hardships, the value of, and, indeed, the need
for Star Trek’s centrifugal outlook and its attendant aspirations become apparent. Throughout his
life’s work, astronomer and public educator Carl Sagan spoke to a fundamental human spirit that
undergirds future-oriented projects and stories—a spirit that also brought together the scholars who
make up the intrepid crew of this Handbook—“Projects that are future-oriented, that, despite their
political difficulties, can be completed only in some distant decade are continuing reminders that
there will be a future” (1994, 227; added emphasis). In other words, perhaps, and paraphrasing the lyrics
to ENT’s opening theme, while it’s been a long road, getting from there to here, we still have a long
way to go. To the journey!
References
Bernardi, Daniel L. 1998. Star Trek and History: Race-ing Toward a White Future. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers
University Press.
Dillard, J. M. 1994. Where No One Has Gone Before: A History in Pictures. New York: Pocket Books.
Greenwald, Jeff. 1998. Future Perfect: How Star Trek Conquered the World. New York: Viking.
Gregory, Chris. 2000. Star Trek Parallel Narratives. London: Macmillan.
Kapell, Matthew W. 2010. “Introduction: The Significance of the Star Trek Mythos.” In Star Trek as Myth: Essays
on Symbol and Archetype at the Final Frontier, edited by Matthew W. Kapell, 1–16. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
McLaren, Darcee. 1999. “On the Edge of Forever: Understanding the Star Trek Phenomenon as Myth.” In
Star Trek and Sacred Ground: Explorations of Star Trek, Religion, and American Culture, edited by Jennifer E.
Porter and Darcee L. McLaren, 231–244. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Sagan, Carl. 1994. Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space. New York: Random House.
Star Trek Episodes
The Next Generation
7.25/26 “All Good Things…” 1994.
Discovery
3.1 “That Hope Is You, Part 1” 2020.
Star Trek Movies
Star Trek: First Contact. 1996. dir. Jonathan Frakes. Paramount Pictures.
5
PART I
Television Series
1
STAR TREK: THE ORIGINAL SERIES
Ina Rae Hark
TOS announced its premise in the narration William Shatner, as Captain James T. Kirk, spoke over
the opening credits. The series would depict the voyages of the Enterprise—a starship that is part
of Starfleet, the space navy of the Federation, a large alliance of different planetary governments,
including Earth. Her crew’s mission is to “explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new
civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.” The central characters consist of the
passionate, brilliant improviser Kirk, the logical First Officer Spock (Leonard Nimoy), and the cur-
mudgeonly Chief Medical Officer, Leonard McCoy (DeForest Kelley). Other featured crew members
include the Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott (James Doohan), the navigator Sulu (George Takei),
Communications Officer Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), and nurse Christine Chapel (Majel Barrett).
Yeoman Janice Rand (Grace Lee Whitney) was written out early in the first season and Ensign Pavel
Chekov (Walter Koenig) joined the ensemble at the beginning of season two. All the crew were
human except for Spock, whose father was an alien from the planet Vulcan. The series renders the
functions of background characters visually by their color-coded uniforms: gold for command, blue
for science, and red for operations. A subset of the latter category, security officers, have a high cas-
ualty rate, leading the term “redshirt” to enter the vernacular as a synonym for expendability.
Contrary to the opening narration, not all Enterprise missions involve first contact situations
or exploratory aims. Assigned tasks are eclectic: doing welfare checks on Federation colonies and
outposts; searching for Starfleet vessels and personnel who have gone missing; transporting Federation
VIPs from one planet to another; mediating disputes among alien populations; and negotiating the
purchase of valuable raw materials from other species. No matter how mundane the assignment, each
TOS episode eventually finds the ship or some of the crew in a situation fraught with conflict and
danger. Resolving these threats by episode’s end constitutes the standalone plot arc. Dangers that
recur include errant AIs, megalomaniac tyrants, mysterious illnesses or mental disorders, awe-inspiring
space phenomena, and hostile aliens. The bellicose Klingons, who prioritize natural resources and
annexation of others’ worlds, and the calculating Romulans, a Vulcan offshoot who prize techno-
logical superiority and defensible borders, serve as continuing interstellar political foes.
Threat resolution requires the crew to demonstrate a variety of skills. Sometimes they are detectives,
sometimes game players, sometimes wielders of persuasive rhetoric. They may employ misdirection,
bluff, and deception. Only as a last resort, however, do they use deadly force to defeat an adversary. This
is a distinction between TOS and many space-based programs, before and after. The series asserts that
humans, though not perfect, are perfectible and that an optimistic future is possible and worth fighting for.
DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917-3 9
Ina Rae Hark
Production History
Star Trek’s creator Gene Roddenberry struggled to get TOS on the air and keep it there, ultimately
a losing battle. Only after production wrapped up and the episodes moved into syndication did TOS
become the cult hit that launched what would grow into a transmedia franchise (see Chapter 24).
Roddenberry, a former military and commercial pilot and Los Angeles police officer, began writing
for television in 1954, penning episodes of many Western, crime, and military dramas. He pitched a
number of series to studios, none of which made it past the pilot stage until NBC put The Lieutenant
(1963–64), a show about life in the contemporary Marine Corps, on its 1963 fall schedule, canceling
it after one season (see Alexander 1994; Solow and Justman 1996).
In mid-1964, Roddenberry pitched a science fiction series that would become TOS to Desilu,
which then sold it to NBC, only after CBS had passed on it in favor of Lost in Space (1965–68).
The pitch sold the show as a space Western, a “Wagon Train to the stars,” with a touch of the naval
adventure sagas of Horatio Hornblower. Liking the concept but not the first pilot, Roddenberry’s
“The Cage” (unaired pilot, 1965/1988), NBC in an unusual move commissioned a second, written
by Samuel Peeples, “Where No Man Has Gone Before” (TOS 1.1, 1966). Although the second
pilot only carried over one character from the first, Nimoy’s half-Vulcan Spock, both made the
relationships between the captain, his unemotional first officer, and his off-duty confidant, the ship’s
surgeon, central. In the biggest change, the female Number One, played by Majel Barrett, merged
with the character of Spock. Roddenberry claimed that the network objected to a woman in the
part, but they may have merely objected to Barrett’s performance. NBC also found “The Cage” too
“cerebral,” so its meditation on illusion and reality gave way to a straightforward battle with a Starfleet
officer rendered super-powered megalomaniac by a spatial phenomenon. The network greenlit TOS
to series after seeing the second pilot and it premiered on September 8, 1966. Its first episode was
not, however, “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” but the third to be produced, “The Man Trap”
(TOS 1.5, 1966). Production order and broadcast order frequently diverged, often because of delays
in post-production.
In addition to Barrett and Nimoy, several actors Roddenberry had worked with previously came
aboard this second version of the Enterprise; DeForest Kelley had appeared in one of Roddenberry’s
unsuccessful projects, “Police Story” (1967) and Nichelle Nichols had guest-starred on The Lieutenant
(1963–64). Its lead, Gary Lockwood, played the antagonist in the second pilot. Others behind the
scenes gave TOS its signature look and sound: Desilu executive Herb Solow, Associate Producer
Robert H. Justman, composer Alexander Courage, set designer Walter M. “Matt” Jeffries, and cos-
tumer William Ware Theiss.
But the writing most distinguished the series. Roddenberry had promoted the series to fans of
literary science fiction and established relationships with sf icons such as Isaac Asimov and Theodore
Sturgeon (Hagerman 2016). He also sought out such authors to write as freelancers for TOS; scripts
from Sturgeon, Harlan Ellison, Norman Spinrad, Richard Matheson, and Jerome Bixby followed. But
the bulk of all episodes was written in-house. Roddenberry promoted himself as one of the early
showrunner auteurs, primarily rewriting others’ scripts rather than taking an idea through story devel-
opment and on to a finished teleplay. After the first part of the first season, Roddenberry still rewrote
and polished scripts but was no longer the head writer-producer. John D.F. Black, Gene L. Coon, and
John Meredyth Lucas served as writer-producers during the first two seasons. Coon presided over a
year of the best episodes in the series, and received screen credit on more of them—12—than any
other TOS writer. Another voice that contributed substantially to the Star Trek universe belonged to
story editor Dorothy “D.C.” Fontana, who has teleplay credits for six episodes.
TOS’ ratings were never robust, and the sale of Desilu to conglomerate Gulf+Western as
a part of the new Paramount television division in July 1967 added to the uncertainty of its
long-term survival. Roddenberry therefore cultivated fans to advocate for renewal every season.
The letter-writing campaign organized by Bjo Trimble during the second season produced so
10
Star Trek: The Original Series
many missives lobbying for a third season that when NBC decided to renew the show, they ran
an announcement of that fact over the end credits of the March 1, 1968 episode. But this was a
Pyrrhic victory. The network gave the show a reduced budget and a Friday 10 p.m. time slot
that conflicted with its young audience’s dating behavior. Both Roddenberry and Fontana ceased
active participation in the writing process; Coon had already departed some months before.
Although their names appear on some third season episodes, the result of stories or draft teleplays
previously purchased being dusted off and produced, none of them was guiding the direction of
the series any longer. That duty fell to new writer-producer Fred Freiberger and his story con-
sultant Arthur H. Singer. They adhered to the broad thematic parameters established in the first
two seasons, but episodes generally lacked the energy and narrative drive of the Roddenberry and
Coon days. The network advised Freiberger to increase viewership among women. He therefore
produced eight scripts with female writers credited and featured romance plots with prominent
female guest stars. He also favored allegories about current social issues. Nevertheless, these shifts
in emphasis did not radically alter the program’s template, and the distinction that most viewers
recognize in season three is a precipitous decline in overall quality.
NBC did not renew TOS for a fourth season. Its last episode, aired June 3, 1969, was one of its
worst, a misogynistic Roddenberry teleplay “Turnabout Intruder” (TOS 3.24, 1969) in which a
psychotic ex-lover of Kirk’s develops body-switching technology in a vain quest to take over his cap-
taincy (rather than be content with her place as a woman). Fortunately, this ignominious conclusion
was not the final word. The characters and more progressive themes of TOS would continue, with
original and recast actors, into the twenty-first century, and with no end in sight.
Cultural and Historical Contexts

TOS first aired in the middle of the space race between the US and the Soviet Union; other con-
temporary Cold War conflicts, such as the Vietnam War and the threat of nuclear annihilation, inform
the series’ mindset and also serve as allegories in individual episodes. Rick Worland’s foundational
journal article, “Captain Kirk, Cold Warrior,” (1988) establishes the centrality of 1960s’ geopolitics to
a narrative set in the twenty-third century, casting the Klingons and the Romulans in the roles then
played by the Soviet Union and Communist China, respectively. The Civil Rights Movement, over-
population, the counterculture, and concerns about the effects of technology also provided templates
for the series’ broader preoccupations with mind vs. body, peace vs. war, and personal fulfillment vs.
work and duty. Overall, TOS advocated for communicating and understanding enemies’ points of
view, guarding against surrendering sensual pleasures to technology and intellect, and striving for pro-
gress and freedom rather than taking refuge in comforting illusions.
TOS’ very premise envisions that humans would indeed go to other planets in the solar system
and then the galaxy and that they would devote a united Earth’s resources to this exploration. The
objections of the Soviets rightly shamed the producers into including a Russian regular, Chekov, in
the second season, although the writing unfortunately rendered him a buffoonish caricature far too
often. References to World War III and the Eugenics Wars, led by genetically enhanced superhumans,
indicated that global harmony would not be instantaneous but would come eventually. That Earth
would be a founding member of an intra-galactic alliance, the Federation, seemed to put conflicts
like the Cold War firmly in the past (see Chapter 41). Yet, in TOS, peoples with conflicting interests
always reappear; resolving these conflicts will be an ongoing mission for the Enterprise. Thus, when
episodes allegorize 1960s’ concerns, such as the Vietnam parallels in “A Private Little War” (TOS
2.16, 1968) or the re-enactment in “The Enterprise Incident” (TOS 3.4, 1968) of the North Korean
seizure of American spy ship, the USS Pueblo, they simultaneously predict the repeatability of such
crises. Indeed, with its concept of “parallel evolution” the show asserts that there are alternative
Earths where historical enmities come to different conclusions, as in “The Omega Glory” (TOS 2.25,
1968) and “Bread and Circuses” (TOS 2.14, 1968). Similarly, “A Piece of the Action” (TOS 2.20,
11
Ina Rae Hark
1968) and “Patterns of Force” (TOS 2.23, 1968) show humans introducing maligned political systems
from Earth to alien worlds with similarly disastrous results.
TOS depicts the Federation’s wider cold wars as still ongoing, leaving rapprochement with the
Klingons and Romulans for later films and spin-off series. The first appearance of the Klingons
in “Errand of Mercy” (TOS 1.27, 1967) betokens the eruption of a hot war, but the Organians,
incorporeal aliens, put a stop to it; Kirk is shame-faced at realizing how much he desired a fight,
which the Klingon commander says would have been “glorious.” Particularly in episodes written
by Gene L. Coon, like this one, peace comes from acknowledging inherent martial instincts but
working through them to decide, by force of will, to forestall conflict. As Coon wrote in “A Taste of
Armageddon” (TOS 1.23, 1967), all it takes is for potential combatants to decide not to kill today.
Often the Enterprise crew find themselves drawn into hostilities within or between non-Federation
species and have to play the part of moral superiors who mediate, much as do the Organians when
humans are poised on the brink of war (see Chapter 44).
The characteristic situations that require Federation interference, however, do not generally
involve de-escalating conflicts between equals but liberating beings in thrall to tyrants who compel
allegiance on pain of death. These oppressors reflect the contemporary perception of Communist
dictators and their ideologically enslaved puppet populations. The science fiction genre allows for
the controlling despots to have asymmetric advantages, as they are capable of influencing the minds
of others or using their own mental powers to do physical harm to persons and planets if their
subjects do not obey them. The series’ Prime Directive of Non-Interference supposedly prevents the
Federation from acting as one of these asymmetric powers—as so many Earth nations had done in
the colonialist past (see Chapter 45).
Some version of an AI often runs these societies. Fear of ceding authority to machines in a post-
human future permeates TOS (see Chapter 57). This fear arises in turn from the series’ obsession with
the split between logic and emotions in sentient, corporeal beings. In “The Enemy Within” (TOS 1.4,
1966), a transporter malfunction splits Kirk into a deliberative, rational, but indecisive version of him-
self and a brutal, driven, but fearful doppelganger. Unless reintegrated, neither Kirk can command the
ship. But as the series progresses, it emphasizes the danger of humans becoming dominated by their
violent ids far less than by their evolving mental powers, to the detriment of individuality, creativity,
hard work, and sexual potency (see Hark 2008). Spock, of all people, intimates to Yeoman Rand that
the imposter who tried to rape her is better boyfriend material than the duty-bound captain who
would consider a romantic relationship a breach of protocol.
AIs that turn humanoids into compliant followers become the perfect allegory for this potential
imbalance. Although “The Ultimate Computer” (TOS 2.24, 1968) addresses the predominant fears
of its era that computers might take jobs from humans, most TOS AIs brainwash them into becoming
part of a soulless collective. “The Return of the Archons” (TOS 1.22, 1967) establishes this trope. On
a planet that avoided nuclear Armageddon 6000 years in the past, a charismatic leader named Landru
came to power by establishing a quasi-religious cult that envisioned the population as harmonious
components of The Body, an all-embracing philosophy of peace, tranquility, joy, and contentment.
However beneficial Landru’s rule might have been in the beginning, after his death a computer he
programmed assumes his role, forcibly absorbing individuals into The Body and destroying any who
resist as if they were an infection. Kirk causes the computer to shut down because its repression of free
will, individuality, and creativity is destroying the health of The Body. He attributes the AI’s failure
to its inability to replicate its creator’s wisdom along with his knowledge. The Body lacks freedom
to express anger and conflict except in a severely restricted manner. Federation experts rejoice at the
many domestic disputes and “knockdown, drag out” fights that succeed Landru’s destruction.
Violent emotions as antidotes to mind control recur, as when they destroy the tranquilizing
effects of alien spores in “This Side of Paradise” (TOS 1.25, 1967), which portrays the same sort of
lobotomized mindset that Landru requires to create his own paradise; this one, however, stems not
from a dictatorial AI, but from exposure to a narcotizing alien life form. Although the results are
12
similar, this false utopia connects to the drug-consuming, peace-and-love-advocating, social dropouts
of the counterculture rather than the collectivist tyrannies of Communist states. “The Way to Eden”
(TOS 3.20, 1969) makes the counterculture/false paradise analogy directly. It is not that the series
equates hippies with Commies. Rather it sees both ideologies running counter to its own central
tenets. As Kirk often asserts in rousing monologues, humanoids are not made for paradise, a life of
ease and stasis. If they do not struggle and seek out the unknown, they will lose all those impulses that
make life meaningful. To TOS, the contemporary challenges that threaten some sort of apocalypse
can be overcome much more easily than the bloodless and bodiless evolution of corporeal beings that
might follow from that very success. No other Star Trek series makes computers inherent villains.
Pretty soon everyone on present-day Earth had one on their desk or in their hand. Yet, even if they
are not trying to neuter humans’ passions, AI algorithms surveil and manipulate now in ways Landru
would envy.
Legacy
TOS started it all. There would be no enormous transmedia Star Trek franchise if not for this
broadcast network flop turned syndication powerhouse. The elements that non-fans associate with
Star Trek originated here: phasers, transporters, Romulans, Klingons, and Vulcans, “To boldly go,”
“warp speed,” and the not entirely accurate “Beam me up, Scotty.” TOS also was the first television
show to mainstream the power of fandom (see Chapter 31). “Save our show” campaigns, conventions,
fan fiction (see Chapter 33), and fan art (see Chapter 34), and other behaviors familiar to science
fiction aficionados received wide attention outside core “geek” communities. A convention held at
the Statler Hilton in New York City in 1972 attracted three thousand people. This devotion, and
increasing attendance numbers at Star Trek cons subsequently, made the point that Star Trek had a
life beyond cancellation and possessed value for rights holder Paramount Television. As would prove
true for so many franchises afterward, TOS spawned live action and animated spin-off series, films,
licensed tie-in fiction (see Chapter 25), action figures and ship models (see Chapter 30), technical
specifications (see Chapter 27), memoirs by actors and behind-the-scenes personnel, and production
histories, with one of the first still one of the best, Stephen E. Whitfield’s in-the-room-where-it-
happened The Making of Star Trek (1968).
Scholarly writing on TOS was not so plentiful at first, as the turn to cultural studies that made
research on popular media respectable would trail the Star Trek phenomenon by more than a decade,
thus bringing TNG and other sequel series into the mix. The sparse pre-1990s’ scholarship tends to
import methods from literary studies, as in my “Star Trek and Television’s Moral Universe” (Hark
1979), Karin Blair’s Jungian analysis Meaning in Star Trek (Blair 1979) or April Selley’s “ ‘I Have Been,
and Ever Shall Be, Your Friend’: Star Trek, The Deerslayer and the American Romance” (Selley 1986).
Although the bulk of Star Trek research does not use this methodology, “literary” approaches have
never vanished, such as Michèle and Duncan Barrett’s excellent Star Trek:The Human Frontier (2016).
Nor have the many Star Trek texts foreclosed studies that focus solely on TOS. Two notable twenty-
first-century critical works include Douglas and Shea Brode’s essay collection, Gene Roddenberry’s
Star Trek: The Original Cast Adventures (2015) and Mervyn Nicholson’s wonderful essay on the TOS
style, “Minimalist Magic: The Star Trek Look” (2010).
Significant early cultural studies work focused on the fans rather than the texts. Henry Jenkins and
John Tulloch’s Science Fiction Audiences:Watching Star Trek and Doctor Who (Popular Fictions Series) (1995)
examines behaviors of fans of the two classic science fiction franchises. This book follows Jenkins’
landmark Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture (1992), which considers the ways
fans rework elements of the Star Trek shows through production of art, fiction, and other forms of
creative expression, making them dynamic and often subversive users of the texts rather than com-
pliant dupes of the corporations that produced them. Other researchers focus on the subset of fan
13
Ina Rae Hark
production represented by women-authored fan fiction, particularly that on TOS which posited a
same-sex “slash” relationship between Kirk and Spock (Bacon-Smith 1991; Penley 1997).
Many other scholars view the franchise as exemplary, that is, capable of illustrating concepts from
a wide range of intellectual disciplines. Academics from many fields are also Trekkers and naturally
analyze the franchise through a disciplinary lens. Thus, we have, among many others, The Physics of
Star Trek (Krauss 1996), The Politics of Star Trek (Gonzalez 2015), and two books called Star Trek and
History (Bernardi 1998; Reagin 2013). Such volumes align with the academic market where teaching
Star Trek in general education courses and in specific disciplines is widespread (Rabitsch et al. 2018;
and Chapter 40).Viewing TOS and its companion series as allegories for various aspects of American
culture has also been a consistent thread in the literature. Examples, once again not exhaustive, com-
prise Living with Star Trek: American Culture and the Star Trek Universe (Geraghty 2007), Star Trek and
American Television (Pearson and Davies 2014), and Star Trek: A Cultural History (Booker 2018).
Not as consistent are scholars’ assessments of the series’ merits, especially as regards the treatment
of race and gender. The assertion of TOS as a progressive depiction of inclusiveness in its casting and
storylines encounters much resistance; some scholars see its sexual and racial politics as retrograde.
There is not space to delineate all the nuances of this debate but a good starting point is to first con-
sider the negative readings by Bernardi, whose book’s subtitle is Race-ing toward a White Future (1998),
and in many of the essays in Enterprise Zones (Harrison, Projansky, Ono, and Helford 1996). Then one
should consider the more positive analyses in David Greven’s Gender and Sexuality in Star Trek (2009)
or the three books George Gonzalez wrote between 2015 and 2019 maintaining that Star Trek’s pol-
itics and philosophy chart the highest ethical trajectory a society might aspire to (2015; 2018; 2019).
Shifts in media studies methodologies during the twenty-first century have resulted in a move
away from these thematic concerns and toward issues of industrial histories; performance/design/
music and other stylistic concerns; and archival research into key players’ letters and papers. Young
scholars starting out on their careers promise many fascinating explorations of such sources.
TOS begins one of five transmedia mega-franchises that have flourished in the twentieth and
twenty-first centuries; the others are Star Wars, Harry Potter, and the Marvel and DC comic universes,
respectively. Unique among these, Star Trek heroes have no magical superpowers (Spock’s mind melds
notwithstanding). They do not operate in a post-apocalyptic hellscape nor are they rebels against world-
or galaxy-threatening overlords. They work for a multi-planet governmental agency that has its flaws
but is mostly effective and beneficent enough that noble Federation and Starfleet personnel follow its
orders and honor its flag. TOS itself occupies a middle ground of the Star Trek series, neither as utopian
and self-satisfied as TNG, nor as potentially dark as the rebooted television franchise prefigured by DS9.
TOS passed on to its successors an ability to see opponents’ perspectives and to regret being a
party to their destruction, no matter how necessary and/or unavoidable. This imaginative sym-
pathy encompasses the honorable but doomed Romulan commander (Mark Lenard) in “Balance
of Terror” (TOS 1.8, 1967) as well as the cold-blooded Kodos the Executioner (Arnold Moss) of
“The Conscience of the King” (TOS 1.12, 1966). In “Space Seed” (TOS 1.24, 1967), Kirk, Scott,
and McCoy explain to Spock, regarding genetically-enhanced Khan (Ricardo Montalban), that it is
possible to oppose someone yet at the same time admire them. Sometimes the franchise itself later
considers such relativism naïve; WOK (1982) demonstrates what a bad idea it was for Kirk to give
Khan and his super-human followers a second chance to rule a world (see Chapter 11). In general,
though, TOS’s resolve to resist demonizing most humanoids is a convincing and welcome stance.
Two episodes written by Gene Coon, “The Devil in the Dark” (TOS 1.26, 1967), and “A Taste of
Armageddon” (TOS 1.23, 1967), both airing in March 1967, ground TOS ethics in a foundational
principle: stop killing one another. In “A Taste of Armageddon,” to a culture that has been engaged
in an endless war it believes impossible to stop, Kirk says, “We’re human beings with the blood of a
million savage years on our hands. But we can stop it. We can admit that we’re killers but we’re not
going to kill today.” “The Devil in the Dark” reveals that the Horta, a silicon creature who has killed
14
several miners on an ore-r ich planet, is not a monster but a desperate mother protecting her offspring
(see Chapter 43). The truce begins when she writes “No Kill I” with her acid-secreting appendages.
This is an obvious yet radical suggestion by a 1960s’ space opera: perhaps we should not kill the Other
but instead set phasers on stun.
Key Episodes
“The Menagerie, Parts 1 and 2” (TOS 1.15/16, 1966)

Integrating scenes from the rejected first pilot, “The Cage,” the episode showcases TOS’s antipathy to false
paradises where illusions or other sorts of external control provide unearned happiness. Its conclusion,
however, injects some ambiguity into the dictum.
“The Devil in the Dark” (TOS 1.26, 1967)

The best example of TOS’s emphasis on seeing apparently monstrous alien behavior from the alien’s per-
spective. Here the murderous creature is merely a mother protecting her young.
“The City on the Edge of Forever” (TOS 1.28, 1967)

A consensus first in polls of best TOS episodes, this heart-breaking romance combines time travel and
moral paradoxes when Kirk must allow a visionary social activist, whom he loves, to perish rather than
cause a Nazi victory by being right, but at the wrong time.
“The Trouble with Tribbles” (TOS 2.13, 1967)

A tense standoff with the Klingons over colonization rights is resolved in a light-hearted manner through
the interference of voracious, perpetually reproducing, purring, Klingon-hating balls of fur. Tribbles
instantly became iconic and merchandisable—Star Trek aliens par excellence in TOS’ best comic turn.
“Journey to Babel” (TOS 2.15, 1967)

A murder of one among many contentious diplomats reveals a wider view of the Federation; introduces
the fraught relationship between Spock and his father Sarek (Mark Lenard), a franchise staple going
forward; meditates on the intersections of family, duty, and friendship; and gives McCoy the last word
for once.
References
Alexander, David. 1994. Star Trek Creator: The Authorized Biography of Gene Roddenberry. New York: Roc.
Bacon-Smith, Camille. 1991. Enterprising Women: Television Fandom and the Creation of Popular Myth. Philadelphia,
PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Barrett, Michèle, and Duncan Barrett. 2016. Star Trek: The Human Frontier, 2nd ed. London: Routledge.
University Press.
Blair, Karin. 1979. Meaning in Star Trek. New York: Warner Books.
Booker, M. Keith. 2018. Star Trek: A Cultural History. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
15
Ina Rae Hark
Brode, Douglas, and Shea Brode, eds. 2015. Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek: The Original Cast Adventures. Lanham,
MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Geraghty, Lincoln. 2007. Living with Star Trek: American Culture and the Star Trek Universe. London: I. B. Tauris.
Gonzalez, George. 2015. The Politics of Star Trek. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Gonzalez, George. 2018. Star Trek and the Politics of Globalism. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Gonzalez, George. 2019. Justice and Popular Culture: Star Trek as Philosophical Text. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Greven, David. 2009. Gender and Sexuality in Star Trek: Allegories of Desire in the Television Series and Films.
Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
Hagerman, Andrew. 2016. “A Generic Correspondence: Sturgeon–Roddenberry Letters on SF, Sex, Sales and
Star Trek.” Science Fiction Film & Television 9, no. 3 (Fall): 473–478.
Hark, Ina Rae. 1979. “Star Trek and Television’s Moral Universe.” Extrapolation 20, no. 1 (Spring): 20–37.
Hark, Ina Rae. 2008. Star Trek (BFI Television Classics). London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Harrison, Taylor, and Sarah Projansky, Kent A. Ono, and Elyce Rae Helford, eds. 1996. Enterprise Zones: Critical
Positions on Star Trek. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Jenkins, Henry. 1992. Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture. London: Routledge.
Krauss, Lawrence. 1996. The Physics of Star Trek. New York: Basic Books.
The Lieutenant. 1963–64. NBC.
Nicholson, Mervyn. 2010. “Minimalist Magic: The Star Trek Look.” Bright Lights Film Journal, April 30, 2010.
Available at: https://brightlightsfi lm.com/minimalist-magic-the-star-trek-look/#.Xi4Ry3dFxPY.
Pearson, Roberta, and Maire Davies. 2014. Star Trek and American Television. Berkeley, CA: University of
California Press.
Penley, Constance. 1997. NASA/TREK: Popular Science and Sex in America. New York: Verso.
Rabitsch, Stefan, Martin Gabriel, Wilfried Elmenreich, and John N.A. Brown, eds. 2018. Set Phasers to Teach!
Star Trek in Research and Teaching. Cham, Switzerland: Springer.
Reagin, Nancy, ed. 2013. Star Trek and History. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.
Selley, April. 1986. “‘I Have Been, and Ever Shall Be, Your Friend’: Star Trek, The Deerslayer and the American
Romance.” Journal of Popular Culture 20, no. 1 (Summer): 89–104.
Solow, Herbert F., and Robert H. Justman. 1996. Inside Star Trek: The Real Story. New York: Pocket.
Tulloch, John, and Henry Jenkins. 1995. Science Fiction Audiences: Watching Doctor Who and Star Trek.
New York: Routledge.
Whitfield, Stephen E. 1968. The Making of Star Trek. New York: Ballantine.
Worland, Rick. 1988. “Captain Kirk, Cold Warrior.” Journal of Popular Film and Television 16, no. 3 (Fall): 109–117.
Star Trek Episodes
The Original Series
unaired pilot “The Cage” 1965/1988.

1.1 “Where No Man Has Gone Before” 1966.
1.4 “The Enemy Within” 1966.
1.5 “The Man Trap” 1966.
1.8 “Balance of Terror” 1966.
1.12 “The Conscience of the King” 1966.
1.15 “The Menagerie, Part I” 1966.
1.16 “The Menagerie, Part II” 1966.
1.22 “The Return of the Archons” 1967.
1.23 “A Taste of Armageddon” 1967.
1.24 “Space Seed” 1967.
1.25 “This Side of Paradise” 1967.
1.26 “The Devil in the Dark” 1967.
1.27 “Errand of Mercy” 1967.
1.28 “The City on the Edge of Forever” 1967.
2.13 “The Trouble with Tribbles” 1967.
2.14 “Bread and Circuses” 1968.
2.15 “The Journey to Babel” 1967.
2.16 “A Private Little War.” 1968.
2.20 “A Piece of the Action” 1968.
2.23 “Patterns of Force” 1968.
16
2.24 “The Ultimate Computer” 1968.

2.25 “The Omega Glory” 1968.
3.4 “The Enterprise Incident” 1968.
3.6 “Spock’s Brain” 1968.
3.24 “Turnabout Intruder” 1969.
Star Trek Movies
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. 1982. dir. Nicholas Meyer. Paramount Pictures.
17
2
STAR TREK: THE
ANIMATED SERIES
John Andreas Fuchs
Star Trek’s Final Season Or the Best Star Trek Series

As of 2021, the least-known incarnation of Star Trek is still the only one to actually win a “best
series” Emmy Award. While The Animated Series had already been nominated for the Daytime Emmy
Award in the category “Outstanding Entertainment Children’s Series”—being animated and aired
on Saturday mornings, TAS was seen as a children’s series, which it actually was not—during its first
season in 1974, it ultimately lost to Zoom (1972–78), PBS’ half-hour educational television program,
created almost entirely by children. The following year, however, TAS won with “How Sharper Than
a Serpent’s Tooth” (2.5, 1974) against CBS’ Captain Kangaroo (1955–84) and NBC’s Pink Panther Show
(1969–80). While many Star Trek fans acknowledge that there is such a thing as TAS, they oscillate
between hardly noticing it at all and berating it as non-canonical. Thus, they neglect the fact that
according to the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, TAS is so far the only Star Trek
series rightfully calling itself the “best series.”
Produced by Filmation—founded and run by Lou Scheimer, Hal Sutherland, and Norm Prescott—
TAS ran for 22 episodes over two seasons and aired Saturday mornings on NBC from September 8,
1973 to October 12, 1974. The show reunited all the cast members of The Original Series’ first season
who provided voice-overs for their live action characters of Kirk (William Shatner), Spock (Leonard
Nimoy), “Bones” McCoy (DeForest Kelley), Scotty (James Doohan), Sulu (George Takei), and Uhura
(Nichelle Nichols). TAS also brought back Majel Barrett as Nurse Chapel, Mark Lenard as Sarek,
Roger C. Carmel as Harry Mudd, and Stanley Adams as Cyrano Jones. Animation technology made
it possible to create and add new aliens, whose depiction would have been impossible to realize on live
action TV in the 1960s and 1970s. Two of them joined the Enterprise crew: Lt. Arex, a three-armed,
three-legged Edosian voiced by James Doohan, and Lt. M’Ress a member of a humanoid feline species,
the Caitians, voiced (and purred) by Majel Barrett. Also, many authors, producers, and directors, who
had worked on TOS, returned to TAS. Chief among them were Star Trek’s creator, Gene Roddenberry,
and writer Dorothy “D.C.” Fontana, who became TAS’ associate producer. However, one crew member
was conspicuously missing: Pavel Chekov (Walter Koenig). Sporting a look that intentionally drew
on the American clone of the Beatles—The Monkees—the Enterprise’s Russian navigator had been
introduced in TOS’ second season in order to attract a younger audience (see Chapter 1). For budgetary
reasons, Walter Koenig was not invited to reprise his role on TAS (Harvey and Schepis 2019, 20).
Fontana considered TAS to be the rightful final season of TOS, as she states in the documentary
Drawn to the Final Frontier (2006). Hence, TAS was originally and officially simply called Star Trek.
Only later did it become The Animated Adventures of Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek when it was released
18 DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917-4
Star Trek: The Animated Series
on VHS during the late 1980s and early 1990s, and then Star Trek: The Animated Series when it was
distributed on DVD in 2006. TAS provided some kind of closure to TOS which, for Fontana, had
“felt unfinished” (Drawn to the Final Frontier, 2006) due to its sudden cancelation. It expanded the
Star Trek universe in ways TOS never could due to the limitations of live action series at the time.
In TAS, the galaxy feels bigger and more diverse than it had been in TOS. Bringing new aliens to
life and exploring strange new concepts, TAS provided a lore of ideas for Star Trek series to come.
(Re)Animating Star Trek
Filmation had shown interest in producing an animated TOS spin-off as early as 1969. Lou Scheimer
had already been in contact with Paramount and NBC during TOS’ third season. He remembers,
“[w]‌e saw the opportunity to do something cool with it. … It was quite different from the TV series
targeting a younger audience” (Scheimer and Mangels 2012, 72–73). Working together with Philip
Mayer, Paramount’s director of special programming, and the writer/animator Don Christensen,
Filmation proposed a series in which the Enterprise crew was shepherding a group of teenagers
onboard the training ship Excalibur. Characters included, as Scheimer recalls,
Spock and young Vulcan Steve, McCoy and a young African-American boy named Bob,
Sulu and his Chinese counterpart Stick, Chekov and Chris, … Kirk was in the series with a
young protégé, Scotty was to have a mustache, Uhura had a cute girl counterpart, and there
were characters named Tun-Tun, Stormy, and Ploof.
ibid., 73
Since the show was going to address mainly children and teenagers, Mayer demanded a stronger
focus on education in a three-page memo he wrote on October 15, 1969. He also suggested to drop
Chekov and his teenage-counterpart Chris (Mangels 2018, 26). At this stage this could not yet have
been due to budgetary reasons. It is likely that Mayer did not deem the young ensign as necessary
for TAS as he had been for TOS since there were already teenagers on board. Additionally, NBC had
wanted the show to be broken up into “specific teaching and story segments” (Scheimer and Mangels
2012, 73). However, when TOS was canceled in its third season due to poor ratings, the project was
shelved. Luckily, Scheimer did not give up the idea of doing an animated spin-off of TOS and stayed
in contact with Gene Roddenberry.
After TOS had been taken off the air, NBC changed its old ratings system to a new one based on
demographics. Instead of poor ratings, the new system indicated that TOS, in fact, had been one of
NBC’s most successful shows, reaching exactly the audience they were aiming for. Planning to bring
TOS back, NBC contacted Paramount only to find out that recreating the sets, props, and costumes,
many of which had been scrapped, would cost about $750,000 alone (Dillard 1994, 52). All of a
sudden, the idea of animating TOS became the idea of reanimating Star Trek. Having unknowingly
killed the proverbial goose that lays golden eggs, NBC desperately wanted to have it back on the air.
Lou Scheimer recollects:
The network had absolutely zero creative control for Star Trek [TAS]; they had to accept
the show or not accept the show, and I believe that was the first time that happened in the
history of Saturday morning animation. I actually don’t think it ever happened again either.
NBC wanted Star Trek [TAS] so desperately that they gave us that creative control.
(Schiemer and Mangels 2012 , 96)
NBC further guaranteed a minimum of two seasons with a limited budget of $75,000 per episode,
which was still about $5,000–$10,000 above the average costs for animated series (Mangels 2018,
26). The limited budget would prove to be a significant challenge since most of it went into the
19
John Andreas Fuchs
voice actors’ salaries. Knowing that the actors would be expensive, Filmation had intended to bring
back the original cast from the beginning. To cut costs, Nichelle Nichols and George Takei were not
asked to give their voices to their characters. Their parts were supposed to be spoken by the other
actors. Walter Koenig’s Chekov was not going to be on board at all.1 When the actors came together
for their first recording session on April 24, 1973, and learned that Takei and Nichols were not there,
Leonard Nimoy threatened to walk out if they were not invited to reprise their roles. On May 22,
NBC announced their return, and on June 4 the whole cast, except Koenig, was together again for
the first time since their last day on the set of TOS; they recorded the first three episodes of TAS
(Harvey and Schepis 2019, 20–21). At that time, the production was already on a tight schedule since
the show was supposed to air in September.
After the deal between Paramount, NBC, and Filmation had been struck sometime in early
February 19732 (Mangels 2018, 26; Harvey and Schepis 2019, 11), the production team got lucky.
Not only had Roddenberry been able to convince Fontana to join the show as its associate producer
and story editor, but Fontana could also persuade many of the former TOS writers to board the
Enterprise once more. Among the returning authors were David Gerrold, Samuel A. Peeples, Stephen
Kandel, Margaret Armen, Paul Schneider, and Fontana herself. Famed science fiction author Larry
Niven was also convinced to contribute an episode. Although Fontana could be rather persuasive,
her success was (partly) due to the Writers Guild of America being on strike at the time (Hervey and
Schepis 2019, 11). All the writers who could not work on live action shows due to the strike could
still write scripts for an animated show and many took the opportunity. With writers commissioned,
the show could go into production. It took approximately four and a half months to produce one epi-
sode. Hal Sutherland constantly had to remind Roddenberry of the fact that any more script changes
would endanger the premiere of TAS (Drawn to the Final Frontier, 2006).
Apart from the tight schedule—ultimately Filmation had to create the first season, totaling eight
hours of animation, in just five months—the budget presented the team with significant challenges.
They decided to opt for limited animation instead of full animation which reduced production time.
In full animation, usually more than 24 drawings per second were used, while limited animation
had to make do with an average of six drawings per second. The original shots of the Enterprise,
her bridge, and other sets could be turned into animation by rotoscoping—i.e., tracing over live
action footage to create realistic animations—in order to make TAS look like TOS, which saved
time and gave the show a professional look. But to cut both production time and costs “[a]‌bout
30% of a given episode utilized stock animation, which included character close-ups, medium shots,
and walking and running cycles” (Hervey and Schepis 2019, 23). Existing animation cels3 could be
photocopied, but the rest of each episode had to be hand-drawn and colored. To save more time
and money, dialogue and mouth movements would be added to the copied cels while often the
character’s head or body stayed stationary; thus, the body/head cels could be reused more often. To
reduce costs even further, characters often put their hands before their mouths while speaking or,
alternatively, they were just shown as silhouettes so that no animation was required at all. This pro-
cess naturally led to many mistakes when existing cels were used in new episodes. Examples include
Spock appearing on the bridge while being held captive on a planet (“The Infinite Vulcan,” TAS
1.7, 1973), Sulu manning the con while actually being on an away mission (“Once Upon a Planet,”
TAS 1.9, 1973), and McCoy calling Kirk via intercom from sickbay while standing next to him on
the bridge (“The Pirates of Orion,” TAS 2.1, 1974). Uniforms frequently changed color as was the
case with, for instance, Nurse Chapel’s; she suddenly wears red instead of blue, or blue with one
red sleeve (“The Lorelei Signal,” TAS 1.4, 1973). Filmation also used stock footage from its other
shows. When Spock melds with the cloud intelligence in “One of Our Planets Is Missing” (TAS
1.3, 1973), scenes from Lassie’s Rescue Rangers (ABC, 1972–73) are used to depict Earth. Filmation
also produced Mission: Magic! (ABC, 1973), My Favorite Martians (CBS, 1973–75), and The Archie
Show (CBS, 1973–74). Consequently, they had to produce two and a half hours of animation per
week on average (Scheimer and Mangels 2012). Unlike other companies, which had “shipped their
20
coloring and drawing work overseas” (Bates 1987), Filmation kept all its production in the US.
By 1987, Filmation was the largest and the last company “to do all of its television cartoon work
domestically” (ibid.).
Since all but one of the original actors reprised their roles, there could not be a big cast of
guest stars for each episode. This meant that the main cast—with some limited exceptions—also
had to provide voice-overs for the other characters in each episode. Even some of the writers and
members of the production staff joined in. Besides returning as Scotty, James Doohan voiced 54
other characters, Majel Barrett 14, including Nurse Chapel and the Enterprise computer, Nichelle
Nichols 13, including Uhura and the Enterprise computer as well, and George Takei lent his voice
to seven different characters. In “The Ambergris Element” (TAS 1.13, 1973), James Doohan alone
voiced eight characters; in “Yesteryear” (TAS 1.2, 1973), he voiced seven. The union rules—
which were obviously ignored—only permitted an actor to do three characters per episode
(Mangels 2018, 28).
Despite, or perhaps because of the stringent limitations of time and budget, TAS had everything
to be a worthy continuation of TOS. The first episode premiered on September 8, 1973, exactly
seven years to the day after TOS had premiered in 1966. It even shared the author of its first epi-
sode with TOS; Samuel A. Peeples had authored the second-pilot-turned-third episode “Where No
Man Has Gone Before” (TOS 1.1, 1966) as well as “Beyond the Farthest Star” (TAS 1.1, 1973). In
Los Angeles, “Beyond the Farthest Star” even shared its predecessor’s unfortunate fate of not being
the first episode on screen; in fact, the episode was not aired until December 22. Since George Takei
was running for city council—and it was argued that his 30-second dialogue presumably gave him
an unfair advantage in the elections—the L.A. audience saw “Yesteryear” (TAS 1.2, 1973) instead
(Mangels 2018, 31).
Star Trek—Or Not?
Animated spin-offs were rather common in the late 1960s and early 1970s. They were produced for
children and often ended with a public service announcement (PSA) teaching an educational lesson
to the young viewers.4 Filmation’s original concept for TAS followed these lines and would have
been quite similar to another show that premiered on the same day: Emergency +4 (NBC 1973–74).
Spun off from the live action series Emergency! (NBC 1972–77), it featured Randolph Mantooth
and Kevin Tighe who provided voice-overs for their characters John Gage and Roy DeSoto of
Rescue Squad 51. The “+4” refers to a four-kid ambulance crew aiding the paramedics in their
adventures. The plots revolved around rescues and concluded on an educational note, just like NBC
had intended for TAS. What this would have looked like can be seen in the only existing TAS public
service announcement; an ad for the “Keep America Beautiful” campaign, which features the voices
of Shatner, Nimoy, and Takei. The 30-second clip sees the Enterprise encounter the Rhombian
Pollution Belt, which had been floating in space for centuries, prompting Spock to point out
that “once enough people started pointing out pollution, the pollution stopped” (Star Trek Keep
America Beautiful PSA, n.d.).
Though the cancelation of TOS had changed NBC’s plans, fans still worried about Star Trek
being “dumbed down to be a ‘kiddie show’ ” (Mangels 2018, 30). The fans’ protests prompted David
Gerrold to write an open letter in the June–July 1973 Star Trek Action Group Newsletter stating: “The
storyboards for the first episodes are exciting, intelligent and adult—just like the Star Trek we used to
know. The animation of the Enterprise itself is fantastic. This is not a kiddy show” (cited in Mangels
2018, 30). However, the fans were not convinced and at a convention a young girl shouted at Lou
Scheimer: “I hope it [TAS] doesn’t turn out like all the rest of that Filmation sh*t!” (Scheimer and
Mangels 2012, 98). Roddenberry, who shared the same fears, had anticipated such fan reactions:
21
John Andreas Fuchs
That was one of the reasons I wanted creative control. There are enough limitations just
being on Saturday morning. We have to limit some of the violence we might have had on
the evening shows. There will probably be no sex element to talk of either. But it will be
Star Trek and not a stereotype kids cartoon show.
(Greenberger 2012, 59)
It is interesting to note that Roddenberry deemed sex and violence—two things DSC and PIC
are often criticized for by self-styled ‘true fans’ and ‘defenders of Star Trek canon’—necessary for
Star Trek and saw the limitations placed on them as problematic. TAS overcame these restrictions,
however, as sex and violence found their way into various episodes anyway. As a rule, neither people
nor animals were seriously harmed or even killed in Saturday morning shows, but TAS displays,
among other examples, the death of Spock’s beloved pet sehlat, I-Chaya (“Yesteryear,”TAS 1.2, 1973),
the death of four Kzinti in an explosion (“The Slaver Weapon,” TAS 1.14, 1973), and the attempted
suicide of an Orion Captain (“The Pirates of Orion,” TAS 2.1, 1974), which can hardly be called
suitable for children.
Some of the crews’ behavior was not appropriate for a cartoon show either; in “The Magicks of
Megas-Tu” (TAS 1.8, 1973), for example, Kirk and Spock share a toast with Lucien—who looks
very much like the devil—drinking beer from big tankards when alcohol was not supposed to be
even mentioned in children’s programming, the episode also references the Salem witch trials. In
another episode, a human huntress, Lara (Jane Webb), flirts quite explicitly with Kirk. When Kirk
tells her that their mission was no “pleasure trip” she answers, “[a]‌ll the more reason to take what
pleasure there might be in it.” She also suggests making some “green memories” to which Kirk
replies he already has a lot of green memories (“The Jihad,” TAS 1.16, 1974). But it is not only
the sex and violence that set TAS apart from the rest of the Saturday morning programming. In
an interview for the Portsmouth Times, Filmation officials make clear that the “New Animated TV
Show Is Aimed at Adults” as the article is headlined (Kleiner 1973, 21). Scheimer states, “We are
not aiming for kids,” adding that children between the ages of 3 and 6 would “watch anything that
moves. It doesn’t have to have quality or even a story.” Sutherland clarifies: “We’re going to find
out if they’ll go for more sophistication.” And Prescott confesses that it was a “bold experiment”
since never before had an adult audience “been challenged to watch a Saturday morning show.”
The challenge did not go unnoticed by reviewers. Los Angeles Times critic Cecil Smith wrote on
September 10, 1973:
NBC’s new animated Star Trek is as out of place in the Saturday morning kiddie ghetto as
a Mercedes in a soapbox derby.
Don’t be put off by the fact it’s now a cartoon … It is fascinating fare, written, produced
and executed with all the imaginative skill, the intellectual flare and the literary level that
made Gene Roddenberry’s famous old science fiction epic the most avidly followed
program in TV history, particularly in high I.Q. circles.
NBC might do well to consider moving it into prime time at mid-season …
(cited in Dillard 1994, 55 and Greenberger 2012, 65)
NBC did not move TAS to prime time which led to its cancelation after only 22 episodes. The
high production costs as well as the wrong audience for a Saturday morning show meant that the
Enterprise had to again leave the small screen in the fall of 1975, but not before TAS could expand
the Star Trek universe and go where Star Trek had not gone before. Showing that Star Trek was
alive more than ever, TAS pushed the doors into a bright future wide open. Animation showed
what science fiction could do without the limitations of a live action series and expensive special
effects. Many of its inventions and creations made it into other Star Trek series. Filling important
gaps, it provided more background information for some of Star Trek’s most beloved characters
22
than TOS during its three-season run. Although cut short, it provided some closure for the
Enterprise’s five-year mission. Writers David Gerrold and Stephen Kandel provided continuations
for their respective Tribbles (“More Tribbles, More Troubles,” TAS 1.5, 1973) and Harry Mudd
episodes (“Mudd’s Passion,” TAS 1.10, 1973), which had always been fan favorites; the crew visits
the “Shore Leave” planet again (TAS 1.9, 1973) as well as the Guardian of Forever (“Yesteryear,”
TAS 1.2, 1973). Kirk’s middle name is revealed to be Tiberius (“Bem,” TAS 2.2, 1974), Star Trek’s
first Native American crew member, Ensign Walking Bear (James Doohan), is introduced (“How
Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth,” TAS 2.5, 1974), and Uhura takes command of the Enterprise
(“The Lorelei Signal,” TAS 1.4, 1973). Just like TOS, TAS was at its best when it focused on the
characters, their relationships, backgrounds, and development. Uhura taking command of the ship
and rescuing Kirk, Spock, and McCoy with an all-female away team foreshadowed successful
female captains like VOY’s Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) and LWR’s Carol Freeman (Dawnn
Lewis).
Animation allowed writers and producers to visit planets and introduce new aliens that would have
been far too expensive or just impossible to realize in a live action show. Starting with the incredibly
huge and ancient alien ship in “Beyond the Farthest Star” (TAS 1.1, 1973), TAS continued in the vein
of TOS and showed never-seen wonders. Penned by Walter Koenig, the episode “The Infinite Vulcan”
(TAS 1.7, 1973) introduces living, intelligent plants; in his only contribution to TAS, he named one plant
after himself in a palindromic play—the Retlaw plant. TAS also shows Star Trek’s first non-humanoid
shapeshifter capable of rearranging his molecular structure into any shape or identity (“The Survivor,”
TAS 1.6, 1973), foreshadowing Odo (René Auberjonois) on DS9.5 TAS introduces the holodeck long
before TNG (“The Practical Joker,” TAS 2.3, 1974). While the Enterprise only had one type of shuttle
craft in TOS, she is shown to have many different auxiliary crafts in TAS—among them an aqua-shuttle
capable of both space and underwater operations (“The Ambergris Element,”TAS 1.13, 1973); a feature
that would resurface years later when Tom Paris (Robert Duncan McNeill) takes the Delta Flyer for a
dive on the ocean planet Moneas (“Thirty Days,” VOY 5.9, 1998). Incidentally, the aqua-shuttle is also
Star Trek’s first armed shuttle craft. Instead of cumbersome space suits, the Enterprise crew uses life support
belts, which—introduced to cut costs since no new space suits needed to be animated—seem far more
advanced than the space suits in later films and spin-offs.
Exploring new possibilities and introducing new species to the Star Trek universe also caused
conflict. The giant clone of Spock, the intelligent plants (both “The Infinite Vulcan,”TAS 1.7, 1973),
and the inflatable life-size Enterprise (“The Practical Joker,” TAS 2.3, 1974) pushed the limits of
what fans were willing to accept. One species in particular pushed canon too far: the Kzinti. The
brainchild of Larry Niven, the species originated in his Known Space (1964–75) short story series.
Niven adapted his 1967 short story “The Soft Weapon” for TAS where it became the episode “The
Slaver Weapon” (TAS 1.14, 1973). This crossover between the two different science fiction universes
was one of the many things that Roddenberry did not sanction as canon when TNG came into
existence. But the question of canonization and decanonization has always been rather ambivalent
for all of Star Trek, not only TAS, as Paula M. Block, former Senior Director of Licensing at CBS
points out:
Gene R. himself had a habit of decanonizing things. He didn’t like the way the animated
series turned out, so he proclaimed that it was not canon [emphasis in the original]. He also
didn’t like a lot of the movies. So he didn’t much consider them canon either. And … after
he got TNG going, he … sort of decided that some of the Original Series wasn’t canon
either.
(Block 2005)
After Roddenberry’s death in 1991, and especially after “Star Trek Archivist” Richard H. Arnold, who
vetted proposals and scripts on behalf of Gene Roddenberry and “reportedly hated” TAS (Mangels
23
John Andreas Fuchs
2018, 36)—though there is no explanation for this alleged hatred to be found—had left Paramount,
TAS found its way back into canon again. However, the discussion did not end there; in 1993,
Denise and Michael Okuda still decided that TAS was not canon with the exception of Fontana’s
“Yesteryear” (TAS 1.2, 1973). Their rationale was that “Yesteryear” is not only “reinforced by material
in ‘Unification, Part I’ [sic, TNG 5.7, 1991] and ‘The Journey to Babel’ [TOS 2.15, 1967], but also
because of Fontana’s pivotal role in developing the background for the Spock character in the original
Star Trek series” (Okuda and Okuda 1993, 30). TAS not being canonical, however, did not detain
Michael Okuda from including Kzin, the Kzinti home world, on a star chart displayed in Starfleet
headquarters and seen in TNG’s episode “Conspiracy” (TNG 1.25, 1988). Since “Yesteryear” was also
very popular with fans, it is no wonder that it is the most referenced TAS episode; allusions to it can
be found in TMP, TFF, TNG, ENT, DS9, ST09, and DSC. In the newest incarnations of Star Trek,
other TAS facts are also treated as canon; DSC confirms Robert April as the Enterprise’s first captain
(“Choose Your Pain,” DSC 1.5, 2018) and the Kzinti threaten Riker’s new home in PIC (“Nepenthe,”
1.7, 2020). Star Trek’s newest incarnation, Strange New Worlds, finally will see Robert April brought
to life by Adrian Holmes. Casting Holmes might cause another storm among sticklers for canon
rembering him as an old white man from TAS, rather than a person of color. However, Fred Bronson,
who wrote “The Counter-Clock Incident,” already endorsed Holmes on twitter (Bronson 2022).
More Animated Than Ever

While the Star Trek universe is expanding, TAS also keeps boldly going. A fan project has kept
TAS alive; between 2008 and 2020, Curt Danhauser produced three new episodes counting them
as episodes 23, 24, and 25. Danhauser published the episodes on his website dedicated to the “for-
gotten Star Trek” (Danhauser n.d.). He was also involved in Starship Farragut: The Animated Episodes
(2008–09), which is not only a TAS spin-off (in its animation style), but the animated version of the
Star Trek fan film series Starship Farragut.
The newest incarnations of Star Trek not only recanonized TAS, but also rereanimated
Star Trek following in TAS’ footsteps. While an animated Enterprise, Kirk, Sulu, and McCoy
are seen in “Ephraim and Dot” (Short Treks 2.4, 2019) for the first time in 45 years, LWR adds a
whole new animated series to the franchise. LWR is ripe with allusions to TAS, most importantly
Kirk and Spock appearing on a PADD as they had appeared in TAS (“No Small Parts,” LWR
1.10, 2020). LWR also sees the return of a Vendorian shapeshifter (“Envoys,” LWR 1.2, 2020),
the colony creatures like Ari bn Bem (TAS 2.2, 1974) called Pandorians (“I, Excretus,” LWR 2.8,
2021), the freighters first seen in TAS (“Terminal Provocations,” LWR 1.6, 2020), an Edosian like
Arex (“Veritas,” LWR 1.7, 2020), and Spock’s huge clone is mentioned by Boimler (“Much Ado
about Boimler,” LWR 1.8, 2020). And, last but not least, with Dr. T’Ana (voiced by Jack Quaid)
(voiced by Gillian Vigman, who has to hiss rather than purr) a Caitian once more joins the main
cast. Above all, LWR captures the mischievous atmosphere of the 1960s and 1970s. LWR sees the
return of overbearing, incompetent captains, pompous admirals, and ensigns causing trouble for
the crew; just as it had been the case in TOS and TAS.
With Prodigy, a third animated series was added to the franchise in 2021. Fifty-two years after
Scheimer had intended to make an animated Star Trek series focused on teenagers, Prodigy did just
that. The crew are not cadets, but rather lawless characters on a derelict ship, and they are joined
and shepherded by an “Emergency Training Hologram”—a holographic Captain Janeway, no less. It
remains to be seen whether there will be a Tun-Tun, Stormy, and Ploof. What TAS has ultimately
done for the franchise is summarized by Sarah April (Nichelle Nichols) in “The Counter-Clock
Incident”: “It gave all of us a second life” (TAS 2.6, 1974).
24
Key Episodes
“Yesteryear” (TAS 1.2, 1973)

Written by Dorothy Fontana, this episode sees the return of the Guardian of Forever and provides detailed
insights into Spock’s childhood on Vulcan. It is referenced in TMP, TFF, TNG, ENT, DS9, ST09, DSC,
and—quite fitting for a time travel episode—in the remastered version of TOS.
“The Lorelei Signal” (TAS 1.4, 1973)

An episode of firsts: Uhura takes command of the Enterprise, foreshadowing DS9’s Sisko, VOY’s Janeway,
and LWR’s Freeman. Kirk uses the phrase, “Beam us up, Scotty!” which comes close to the often cited,
but never used, “Beam me up, Scotty!”
“The Survivor” (TAS 1.6, 1973)

The most TOS-like episode of TAS. The story focuses on the characters and their relations instead of
action. The episode also marks the first appearance of a non-humanoid shapeshifter on Star Trek.
“The Slaver Weapon” (TAS 1.14, 1973)

This episode features the Kzinti, the only aliens from outside the franchise, originally belonging to
Larry Niven’s Known Space (1964–75) short story series. It is the first Star Trek episode not showing the
Enterprise apart from the credits sequence.
“The Counter-Clock Incident” (TAS 2.6, 1974)

The series’ final episode establishes Robert April as the first captain to command the Enterprise and
features the only kiss on TAS since anything sexual was not seen as appropriate for children.
Notes
1 Although this statement is supported by Harvey and Schepis (2019), Mangels (2018) as well as Scheimer
and Mangels (2012), Solow and Justman claimed that “Majel Barrett and James Doohan were to ‘double’
the voices of Nichelle Nichols, George Takei, and Walter Koenig” (1997, 422, emphasis added). Apparently,
Chekov had been part of TAS at one point during the production. The opening scene on the bridge in
“Beyond the Farthest Star” (TAS 1.1, 1973) supports this claim. The person sitting next to Sulu keeps
alternating between a human ensign who looks very much like Chekov despite wearing a red shirt, and
Arex. Arex seems to have been added later while the presumed Chekov accidently had not been cut from
the scene.
2 Lou Scheimer claims that it had been in February 1972, but this seems to be a typo in his book (Scheimer and
Mangels 2012, 96).
3 A cel, short for celluloid, is a transparent sheet on which the characters, or moving objects, were drawn in
order to create animation.
4 Lou Scheimer (Scheimer and Mangels 2012) provides detailed insight into his own company’s history while
Maltin and Beck (1987), and Lehman (2006) give a broader view of America’s animated cartoons.
25
John Andreas Fuchs
5 With Garth of Izar (Steve Ihnat), TOS had already shown a humanoid shapeshifter capable of transforming
himself into other humanoid individuals using the so-called cellular metamorphosis technique (“Whom Gods
Destroy,” TOS 3.14, 1969).
References
Bates, James. 1987. “Animation in Red Ink.” Los Angeles Times, August 25, 1987. Available at: www.latimes.
com/archives/la-xpm-1987-08-25-fi-3946-story.html (accessed August 7, 2020).
Block, Paula. 2005. “TrekBBS, November–December 2005.” Canon Wars—Star Trek—TrekBBS 2005, December
2005. Available at: www.st-v-sw.net/CanonWars/STCanonquotes-trekbbs1.html(accessed August 7, 2020).
Bronson, Fred. 2022. “Hi, Adrian.” Twitter. https://twitter.com/fredbronson/status/152105658813130752
1?s=11.
Danhauser, Curt. n.d. Animated Star Trek. Available at: www.danhausertrek.com/AnimatedSeries/NewEps.html.
Dillard, Jeanne M. 1994. Star Trek “Where No One Has Gone Before” A History in Pictures. New York: Pocket Books.
Drawn to the Final Frontier. 2006. prod. Tim King. CBS Paramount Domestic Television.
Greenberger, Robert. 2012. Star Trek: The Complete Unauthorized History. Beverly, MA: Voyageur Press.
Harvey, Aaron, and Rich Schepis. 2019. Star Trek: The Official Guide to the Animated Series. Richmond,
CA: Weldon Owen.
Kleiner, Dick. 1973. “New Animated TV Show Is Aimed at Adults.” The Portsmouth Times, June 14, p. 21.
Lehman, Christopher P. 2006. American Animated Cartoons of the Vietnam Era: A Study of Social Commentary in
Films and Television Programs, 1961–1973. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
Maltin, Leonard, and Jerry Beck. 1987. Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons.
New York: New American Library.
Mangels, Andy. 2018. “Star Trek—The Animated Series.” RetroFan 1 (Summer): 25–37.
Okuda, Michael, and Denise Okuda. 1993. Star Trek Chronology: The History of the Future. 1st edn.
New York: Pocket Books.
Scheimer, Lou, and Andy Mangels. 2012. Creating the Filmation Generation. Raleigh, NC: TwoMorrows
Publishing.
Solow, Herbert F., and Robert H. Justman. 1997. Inside Star Trek: The Real Story. New York: Pocket Books.
“Star Trek Keep America Beautiful PSA.” n.d. YouTube. Available at: www.youtube.com/ watch?v= Ttd0t1hyO5g
(accessed April 6, 2017).
Star Trek Episodes
The Original Series
2.15 “The Journey to Babel” 1967.
3.14 “Whom Gods Destroy” 1969.
The Animated Series

1.1 “Beyond the Farthest Star” 1973.
1.2 “Yesteryear” 1973.
1.3 “One of Our Planets Is Missing” 1973.
1.4 “The Lorelei Signal” 1973.
1.5 “More Tribbles, More Troubles” 1973.
1.6 “The Survivor” 1973.
1.7 “The Infinite Vulcan” 1973.
1.8 “The Magicks of Megas-Tu” 1973.
1.9 “Once Upon a Planet” 1973.
1.10 “Mudd’s Passion” 1973.
1.13 “The Ambergris Element” 1973.
1.14 “The Slaver Weapon” 1973.
1.16 “The Jihad” 1974.
2.1 “The Pirates of Orion” 1974.
2.2 “Bem” 1974.
26
2.3 “The Practical Joker” 1974.

2.5 “How Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth” 1974.
2.6 “The Counter-Clock Incident” 1974.
The Next Generation

1.25 “Conspiracy” 1988.
5.7 “Unification I” 1991.
Voyager
5.9 “Thirty Days” 1998.
Discovery
1.5 “Choose Your Pain” 2017.
Short Treks
2.4 “Ephraim and Dot” 2019.
Picard
1.7 “Nepenthe” 2020.
Lower Decks
1.2 “Envoys” 2020.
1.6 “Terminal Provocations” 2020.
1.7 “Much Ado About Boimler” 2020.
1.8 “Veritas” 2020.
1.10 “No Small Parts” 2020.
2.8 “I, Excretus” 2021.
27
3
STAR TREK: THE NEXT
GENERATION
The culmination of nearly 20 years of abortive efforts to produce a television sequel to TOS,
Paramount’s The Next Generation began pre-production in October 1986 and premiered in September
1987. Unique among Star Trek series, it was sold not to a network but directly into syndication. Gene
Roddenberry was credited as creator throughout TNG’s run, and as Executive Producer in seasons
1–5, although his actual involvement was limited after the first season. The first episodes achieved
critical as well as commercial success, and the series eventually ran for seven seasons and 178 episodes.
The two-part series finale, “All Good Things” (TNG 7.25/26, 1994), originally aired in May 1994.
Set a century after the events of TOS, the series took place aboard a new, larger version of the
Enterprise: a 2100-foot-long Galaxy-class vessel whose design suggested both continuity with and
advancement beyond the Enterprise of TOS. The series also featured a completely new crew led by
Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and first officer Commander William T. Riker (Jonathan
Frakes). Other principal characters continued the conspicuous diversity of gender, race, and species
that had been a hallmark of TOS. The bridge crew in the inaugural season included helmsman Geordi
La Forge (LeVar Burton), who used a prosthetic visor to overcome his congenital blindness; security
and tactical officer Tasha Yar (Denise Crosby), an orphan who had spent her childhood eluding
“rape gangs” on her war-ravaged home planet; android second officer Lieutenant Commander Data
(Brent Spiner); half-Betazoid ship’s counselor Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis); and relief helmsman Worf
(Michael Dorn), the first Klingon to serve in Starfleet. Chief medical officer Doctor Beverly Crusher
(Gates McFadden) and her teenage son Wesley (Wil Wheaton) rounded out the cast.
Broadly speaking, the dramatic structure of TNG mirrored that of TOS, with the Enterprise on
a mission to “boldly go where no one has gone before.” Each new episode brought the crew to a
different world and a fresh challenge—scientific, ethnographic, diplomatic, or military—that was typ-
ically resolved by the closing credits. The writers and producers of TNG experimented, however,
with recurring characters and plot threads that gave the series a degree of internal continuity absent
in TOS, and prefigured the season-and series-long plot arcs of DS9, VOY, and ENT. The TNG
characters visibly grew and changed over the course of the series: earning promotions, changing
assignments, falling in and out of love, and coming to terms with choices they had made.
Over the course of seven seasons, TNG added depth and complexity to Klingon culture, regularly
featured holodeck technology, and introduced species—among them the Bajorans, the Cardassians,
the Ferengi, and the Borg—that would become central to later series and films. It continued TOS’
use of science fiction allegory to comment on present-day concerns, adapting it for a post-Cold-War
world, and laid the groundwork for the darker worldview and more complex storytelling that would
define DS9 and later additions to the franchise.
28 DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917-5
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Production History
Star Trek: Phase II, a weekly series reuniting the original cast (except for Leonard Nimoy) and depicting
the second five-year mission of the Enterprise, was to have been the centerpiece of Paramount’s bid
to establish a fourth broadcast network in 1977. A projected lack of audience led the studio to
abandon the fourth-network concept, ending development work on the series after only six weeks
(Reeves-Stevens and Reeves-Stevens 1998, 2), but interest in Star Trek remained high. Nine years
later, the box-office success of TMP, WOK, and SFS, along with intense pre-release interest in TVH
and requests for more episodes from stations that ran TOS in syndication, led Paramount to try again.
The studio’s plans to revive Star Trek on television called for the as-yet-untitled series to feature
an entirely new cast aboard a new version of the Enterprise. Paramount offered it to the then-new
Fox network, on the condition that they commit to a full 26-episode season. When Fox declined,
Paramount elected to produce the series themselves, offering the stations that syndicated TOS the
right to air it in exchange for 7 minutes of commercial time that Paramount could then resell.
Revenue from the bartered commercial time was expected to cover half of the production cost for
the first season (projected to be $1.2 million per episode, and $31 million overall), with foreign and
home video rights covering another quarter. Paramount supplied the remaining quarter—nearly
$8 million—from its own cash reserves, reasoning that (even if the series itself failed) the episodes
could still be added to the TOS syndication package (ibid., 3–7).
Roddenberry, named executive producer for the first season of the new series, hired a number
of TOS veterans, including Robert H. Justman and Edward K. Milkis as producers and Dorothy
“D.C.” Fontana and David Gerrold as staff writers and story editors. He also requested that Rick
Berman, a documentary filmmaker turned Paramount executive, be assigned to the project (ibid.,
28–30, 55–56). The TOS veterans were responsible, during the preproduction phase, for shaping
the broad contours of the new series. Justman, for example, introduced the concept that evolved
into the holodeck, the presence of family members aboard the Enterprise, and—after overcoming
Roddenberry’s initial resistance to reusing elements from TOS—the idea of a “Klingon marine” as
a main character (ibid., 15–16). Other main characters reused concepts from earlier Roddenberry
projects, and from the contemporary science fiction films, including Blade Runner (1982) and Aliens
(1986), that the production staff watched together (ibid., 21–23).
The first season of TNG enjoyed solid ratings, despite sometimes lackluster reviews from critics
and fans, who noted that many first-season episodes were little more than remakes of TOS episodes
in TNG dress. “Encounter at Farpoint” (TNG 1.1/2, 1987) written by Fontana, became the first tele-
vision episode in 15 years nominated for a Hugo Award, six first-season episodes were nominated
for Emmy Awards, and “The Big Goodbye” (TNG 1.12, 1988) became the only Star Trek episode
to win a Peabody Award. Behind the scenes, however, tensions abounded. Roddenberry’s vision of
a non-violent, largely conflict-free future (and his willingness to aggressively rewrite others’ work
to enforce it), frustrated and alienated the writing staff, leading Fontana and Gerrold, among others,
to leave the series (Nemecek 2003, 28–30). Justman and Milkis also departed, leaving Berman and
Roddenberry as the guiding hands behind the series. Denise Crosby asked to be released from her
contract at the end of the season, and in “Skin of Evil” (TNG 1.23, 1988) Tasha Yar thus became the
first main character in a Star Trek series to die (permanently) on screen.
Season 2, shortened from 26 episodes to 22 by a Writers’ Guild of America strike, featured a sig-
nificantly reshuffled cast. Diana Muldaur, as Dr. Katherine Pulaski, replaced Dr. Crusher as chief med-
ical officer after Gates McFadden was fired at the insistence of head writer Maurice Hurley (Pascale
2009), and Whoopi Goldberg was added in a recurring role as Guinan, the enigmatic alien bartender-
sage who presided over the ship’s lounge, Ten Forward. Worf was “promoted” from generic bridge
officer to Chief of Security, and La Forge from helmsman to Chief Engineer. Both characters, along
with Data, received greater attention from writers over the course of the season, becoming deeper
and more complex in the process.
29
TNG fully hit its stride in Season 3. Roddenberry, debilitated by illness, had stepped away from
active involvement, and Maurice Hurley had left the series, to be replaced by Michael Piller. Berman
and Piller became the guiding force behind the series. With Hurley gone, Gates McFadden was
rehired, and remained part of the cast through the last five seasons and four feature films (Nemecek
2003, 97–99). Ronald D. Moore, from whom Piller bought the script that became “The Bonding”
(TNG 3.5, 1989), was invited to write another script, and then to join the production team as story
editor. The season ended with the opening installment of Star Trek’s first two-part cliffhanger epi-
sode: “The Best of Both Worlds” (TNG 3.26, 1990 and TNG 4.1, 1990), in which Captain Picard is
assimilated by the Borg and leads an attack on the Federation.
Seasons 4–7 saw TNG settle comfortably into the groove that it had found in Season 3, deepening
its explorations of the main characters and bringing back recurring guest stars like Whoopi Goldberg,
John de Lancie, and Majel Barrett-Roddenberry. The departure of Wil Wheaton at the end of Season
4 marked the last significant change in the main cast. Berman and Piller continued as co-executive
producers, and Moore—in addition to writing or co-writing 27 scripts—received a producer credit
for the last two seasons. Gene Roddenberry, by then only a spiritual presence on the set, died on
October 24, 1991, during the filming of “Hero Worship” (TNG 5.11, 1992). The actors’ contracts
were written for an eight-season run, but with DS9 solidly established and Generations slated for
release in November 1994, Paramount elected in the end to cap TNG at seven seasons in order to
build interest in the movie series. The two-part series finale “All Good Things” won the Hugo for
“Best Dramatic Presentation,” and Season 7 of TNG brought Star Trek its only Emmy nomination
for “Best Dramatic Series.”
Cultural and Historical Contexts

Every television series is shaped by the era in which it is produced, but few series are as strikingly
of their time as TNG is of the years around 1990. It was pitched, as TOS had been, at a time when
the Cold War was warming and once-marginalized groups were reaping the rewards of decades of
activism by taking a conspicuously larger role in American public life. TOS, which lasted only three
seasons, ended its run in a world broadly similar to the one in which it had been conceived. TNG,
which ran for seven seasons, lasted long enough for the world to be transformed around it.
The Federation, in TOS, was an idealized version of the United States in the mid-1960s, defined
by liberal internationalism and the apparent fulfillment of Great Society idealism (Gonzalez 2015,
16–27, 69–70). The first four Star Trek films (1979–86) extended the depiction without substantially
departing from it, and the sixth (TUC, released in 1991) functioned as a self-aware commentary on
(and valediction) for the entire enterprise (see Chapter 15). TNG took a similar approach—up to a
point. Much of its depiction of the Federation in general, and the Enterprise-D, captures an idealized,
neo-liberal vision of America in the late 1980s, but its vision of the Federation’s (and the Enterprise’s)
role in the wider galaxy is less a projection of the world as it was in the late 1980s, than an attempt
to imagine the world that might be emerging.
The 1960s-era push for the legal protection and cultural acceptance of traditionally marginalized
groups (responsible for TOS’ multi-ethnic bridge crew) had broadened and deepened over the next
two decades to include women, Latinx and other people of color, queer people, the elderly, and
the disabled. TNG premiered in, and reflected, an era in which a broader sense of diversity was—
haltingly but decisively—becoming normalized, and physical or psychological difference was now
treated as a form of individuality.
The diversity represented by TNG’s nine major characters was considerably greater than that
of their TOS counterparts. Three (Yar, Crusher, and Troi) were women, two (La Forge and Worf)
presented as Black, one (La Forge) was visibly disabled, one (Picard) was in his sixties, one (Wesley)
was a minor child. Only first officer Will Riker fit the traditional “TV hero” mold: white, male, under-
40, neurotypical and able-bodied. Striking as it was, however, the diversity of the TNG characters was
30
completely normalized. Riker’s authority to challenge Picard is established by dialogue in “Encounter

at Farpoint, Part 1,” but Doctor Crusher’s—perquisite of her job as chief medical officer, and position
to one side of the main chain-of-command—is simply assumed. TNG, particularly in its early seasons,
frequently trafficked in casual racism, sexism, or (as in “Code of Honor” [TNG 1.4, 1987]) both. Yet,
Yar’s gender and La Forge’s race are never mentioned, let alone used as plot points (Callahan 2018,
171–173). Data is a Starfleet officer with a diploma from the Academy and 20 years’ experience, and
those who treat him as Other are presented as misguided at best (Dr. Pulaski in “Elementary, Dear
Data” [TNG 2.3, 1988]) and despicable at worst (Bruce Maddox [Brian Brophy] in “The Measure of
a Man” [TNG 2.9, 1989]).
A similar, liberal, idea of normalization of diversity extended to recurring secondary characters
(Callahan 2018, 176–177). That warp-drive expert Dr. Leah Brahms (Susan Gibney) of “Booby
Trap” (TNG 3.5, 1989) and “Galaxy’s Child” (TNG 4.16, 1991) is a woman of color or that
Guinan presents as one are the least remarkable, and remarked-on, things about them. In Guinan’s
case, that remains true, somewhat anachronistically, even in 1893 San Francisco (“Time’s Arrow”
[TNG 5.26 and 6.1, 1992]). Keiko Ishikawa O’Brien (Rosalind Chao) is defined by the multiple
roles she fills on the ship (scientist, teacher, spouse, parent), but never by her gender and seldom
her ethnicity (the few mentions of it happen in “Data’s Day” [TNG 4.11, 1991] and “Violations”
[TNG 5.12, 1992], but they are not “defining” her character). There are blind spots in TNG’s
vision of a seamlessly diverse future that is uniformly accepting of difference—all desire is hetero-
sexual, and the psychological issues exhibited by Lieutenant Reginald Barclay (Dwight Schultz)
are used to elicit laughter rather than compassion—but they, too, are a mirror of its time. Taken
as a whole, it is as much a utopian projection of a 1980s’ vision of diversity as TOS is of a 1960s’
vision.
The Cold War was still underway when TNG was conceived, its end not foreseen or even
widely suspected as late as 1989. The opening scenes of “Encounter at Farpoint” (TNG 1.1/
2, 1987) established, almost casually, that the Star Trek equivalent of the Cold War was well and
truly over. Not only was there a Klingon on the bridge of the Enterprise, but he was a full-fledged
member of Starfleet with a uniform to prove it. That the uniform included a woven gold sash
identical to those worn by Klingons in TOS underscored the sea change implied to have taken
place, in-universe, between them—a visual reminder that former enemies had become not just
allies, but partners.
TNG—using Worf as a viewpoint character—revealed the inner workings of Klingon politics,
society, and culture in greater and greater depth over the course of Seasons 3 through 6. A handful
of episodes from earlier Star Trek series—“Amok Time” (TOS 2.5, 1967), “Journey to Babel” (TOS
2.15, 1967), and “Yesteryear” (TAS 1.2, 1973)—had offered viewers glimpses of Vulcan culture, but
TNG’s “Klingon episodes” offered viewers a far broader and deeper view of the Federation’s old
adversaries. Klingon culture in TOS had, like the Soviet Union of the mid-1960s, been an enigma to
outsiders: it could be understood only through its actions in the wider world, and a handful of public
statements, like Captain Kor’s (John Colicos) lament, in “Errand of Mercy” (TOS 1.27, 1967) for the
Klingon-Federation war averted by the Organians: “A pity, Captain; it would have been glorious.” The
creators of TNG, notably writer-producer Ronald D. Moore (who would transition to a similar role
on DS9), built the warrior ethos hinted at in that line into an elaborate culture based on honor, fer-
ocity in battle, and indifference to pain. The episodes did for the Klingons what the openness fostered
by Gorbachev’s reforms did for the Soviet Union: revealed the complex, multi-layered society (alien,
yet comprehensible) behind the old, one-dimensional façade.
One series of episodes—beginning with “Reunion” (TNG 4.7, 1990), and extending through
“Redemption” (TNG 4.26, 1991 and TNG 5.1, 1991), “Birthright” (TNG 6.16, 1993 and TNG
6.17, 1993), and “Rightful Heir” (TNG 6.23, 1993)—traced Worf ’s attempt to come to terms with
his dead and dishonored father’s legacy, and his own involvement in the Klingon Civil War. A second,
parallel series—including “New Ground” (TNG 5.10, 1990), “Ethics” (TNG 5.16, 1992), and “Cost
31
of Living” (TNG 5.20, 1992)—explored Worf ’s relationship with Alexander, the son he fathered with
a half-Klingon, half-human woman named K’Ehleyr (Suzie Plakson), and whom he raises aboard the
Enterprise after her death. Klingon culture was also revealed, however, in smaller touches: Worf ’s ever-
present Klingon sash (a marker of cultural identity as significant as a Sikh turban or Muslim hijab), his
belief that advancement in rank due to the death of a comrade (his promotion to Chief of Security
in “Skin of Evil”) was dishonorable, and his use of the holodeck to undergo a painful Klingon rite of
passage in “The Icarus Factor” (TNG 2.14, 1989). Klingon culture in TNG, like Soviet culture in the
era of glasnost, was revealed in bits and pieces, one story at a time.
Beginning with “Encounter at Farpoint,” TNG took a similar approach to other alien civilizations,
emphasizing plots built around understanding (rather than fighting or, as was often the case in TOS,
“fixing”) them. The premise for “Darmok” (TNG 5.2, 1991), for example, superficially resembled that
of “Arena” (TOS 1.19, 1967)—the captain of the Enterprise and the captain of an alien ship confront
one another on a desolate planet—but where the plot of “Arena” revolved around single combat, that
of “Darmok” involved the two captains learning to communicate despite apparent mutual incompre-
hensibility of their languages (see Chapter 49). “The Inner Light” (TNG 5.25, 1992) centers almost
entirely on the Enterprise’s encounter with Kataan, a planet whose civilization was extinguished when
its sun went nova a thousand years before. Under the influence of a beam emitted by a Kataanian
space probe, Picard “lives” for 40 years in the planet’s past while 25 minutes pass on the Enterprise. He
experiences the doomed civilization through the eyes of Kamin, a village artisan with a wife and family
who, in his dying moments, watches the launch of the probe that the Enterprise will find. Awake, he
realizes that he is now the last witness to a vanished civilization, its people, and its way of life.
TNG’s emphasis on understanding alien societies on their own terms was accompanied by a
sense that the world was complex, and a willingness to raise ethical and existential issues without
fully resolving them. “The Big Goodbye” (TNG 1.12, 1987), the first-season episode that introduced
the holodeck, was a light-hearted homage to 1940s detective films, but it ended on an unexpect-
edly deep and somber note. “I have a wife and kids at home,” one of the holographic characters says
to Picard in the final scene, following with the question, “What happens to me when you turn this
thing off?” Picard has no answer, and says as much. Two seasons later, “Hollow Pursuits” (TNG 3.21,
1990) raised (again without resolution) questions about the addictive potential of the holodeck, and
the ethics of a technology that allowed users to place virtual simulations of their shipmates wholly
under their control. “The Survivors” (TNG 3.3, 1989) ends with the revelation that Kevin Uxbridge
(John Anderson), seemingly an elderly human scientist, is in fact a millennia-old alien of immense
power who—in a moment of rage and grief—obliterated the alien civilization that killed his (human)
wife and 11,000 other Federation colonists. Faced with clear evidence that “Uxbridge” is responsible
for the death of 50 billion sentient beings, Picard takes no action other than to issue a warning to
avoid the now-lifeless former colony world. The magnitude of the crime, he concludes, is beyond
the scope of Federation law, and a being capable of committing (and feeling remorse for) it is best
left alone.
The series’ willingness to see the world (or galaxy) in shades other than pure black-and-white
extended even to episodes where its moral position was clear. The outcome of “courtroom” episodes
like “The Measure of a Man” (TNG 2.9, 1989), in which Data’s legal standing—or lack of it—raised
the specter of slavery, and “The Drumhead” (TNG 4.21, 1991), an indictment of ideological witch
hunts, was never in doubt; Data was not going to be declared a “mere” machine and disassembled
for study, and Picard was not going to be arrested for treason, but the cases for those outcomes were
still presented as at least partially grounded in reality. The fifth season episode “I, Borg” (TNG 5.23,
1992) raised the stakes by presenting the Enterprise crew with a crashed scout ship and an injured
pilot belonging to the hive-minded, biomechanical, seemingly unstoppable Borg. Data and La Forge
develop a plan to “infect” the alien with a computer virus that, when it is returned to its own
kind, will disrupt the collective Borg mind, potentially neutralizing the mortal threat the species
poses to the Federation. Crusher is aghast, regarding such an action as tantamount to genocide,
32
while Picard—who was, himself, captured by the Borg and co-opted into a weapon used against the
Federation—is understandably torn (see Chapter 48). The problem is, fittingly for the series, resolved
by a development that makes it more complex: The Borg pilot begins to exhibit signs of individual
consciousness, leading the crew to see him as an asylum-seeker rather than an enemy combatant.
Writing in 1992, as the dust from the end of the Cold War began to settle, political scientist Francis
Fukuyama observed that the rapidly concluding century, with its genocides and global wars had “made
all of us into deep historical pessimists” (Fukuyama 1992, 3), but that the worldwide triumph of neo-
liberal democracy (what he called “the end of history”) was nevertheless imminent (see Chapter 41).
A little over a year later, his former teacher Samuel Huntington laid out an opposing position. “The
fundamental source of conflict” in the new era, he wrote, “will not be primarily ideological or primarily
economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural”
(Huntington 1993, 22). TNG, then at its fifth and sixth-season peak, partook of both views (Burston-
Chorowicz 2018, 11–21; Gonzalez 2015, 73–84), but ultimately staked out and elaborated on a third
vision of the future. The new world then being born, it suggested, would indeed bring a multitude of
collisions between civilizations with far less in common than those on Earth; yet, they were nothing that
a united human species, having long ago healed its own cultural fault lines, could not resolve.
Legacy
TNG was a critical inflection point in the history of Star Trek. It not only (re-)established the viability
of the franchise on television, but confirmed that the popularity of Star Trek was independent of the
(amply demonstrated) popularity of the original cast. Without the unambiguous success of TNG,
there would have been no DS9, no VOY, and no ENT (let alone any of the subsequent series or the
Kelvin-timeline films). TNG also, however, transformed the series on a creative level: It reshaped both
the way Star Trek stories were told on the small screen, and the background against which they were
set.
Even as it took viewers deeper into Klingon and Romulan culture, TNG populated its fictional
galaxy with other alien civilizations that—even if not explored in the same depth—were sketched so
as to suggest the existence of such depth, hovering just beyond the edges of the story being told. The
introduction of the Ferengi, the Cardassians, the Bajorans, and the Borg in TNG laid the ground-
work for their development in later series. Ensign Ro Laren (Michelle Forbes), for example, is the
spiritual ancestor of DS9’s Major Kira Nerys (Nana Visitor), as Hugh the Borg (Jonathan Del Arco),
simultaneously one with the collective and separate from it, is for VOY’s Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan).
The use of multiple, recurring species with agendas that reached beyond the confines of a single
episode lent depth and complexity to TNG’s galaxy, highlighting the fact that Captain Picard—like
his eighteenth-century analog Captain James Cook—always filled a dual role: explorer-scientist and
agent of empire (Rabitsch 2019, 193–198).
Less tangibly, despite its reputation for relentless optimism and a lack of internal conflict, TNG
also—after Roddenberry’s involvement diminished—began to play with the idea that the Federation
was something less than perfect. “Measure of a Man” (TNG 2.9, 1989) and “The Drumhead” (TNG
4.21, 1991) introduce highly placed Starfleet officers driven by fanaticism, bigotry, and question-
able moral judgment. Dr. Pulaski, Ensign Ro, and Captain Edward Jellico (Ronny Cox) are cap-
able officers, but—something unprecedented in the Star Trek universe up to that point—recurring
characters who come across as abrasive and sometimes unpleasant. Mediocre job performance and
poor judgment on the part of Starfleet characters—also absent from earlier incarnations—enter the
Star Trek canon with TNG, too. Lieutenant Barclay (a lackluster engineer and socially awkward ship-
mate) is the most prominent example, but Wesley, Worf, Data, and even Picard all have episodes that
hinge on them not just having bad luck but making patently wrong choices. TNG is not a dark series,
particularly by the standards of the series that followed it, but it made Star Trek safe for the darker
elements that had been absent from TOS and TAS.
33
TNG’s most lasting legacy to Star Trek, however, was its move beyond purely episodic storytelling.
The idea of multi-episode (let alone season-or series-long) plot and character arcs was still new when
TNG premiered, and the majority of its episodes followed the established pattern: stand-alone stories
with no callbacks to previous events and no foreshadowing of future ones. Over the course of seven
seasons, however, TNG decisively pushed the limits of that format. “Encounter at Farpoint” (TNG
1.1/2, 1987) was an hour-long episode inflated to 90 minutes and shown in two parts for marketing
reasons, but subsequent two-part episodes were deliberately designed as two-act stories with a cliff-
hanger ending to the first part. Nearly all of the eight produced are well regarded, with “The Best
of Both Worlds” (TNG 3.26 and TNG 4.1, 1990), “Redemption” (TNG 4.26 and TNG 5.1, 1991),
and “Chain of Command” (TNG 6.10, 1992 and TNG 6.11, 1992) now ranked among the best of
the entire series. Other stories, including Picard’s capture by the Borg and Worf ’s struggle to clear his
family name, played out over a longer series of episodes.
Recurring characters outside the principal cast, of which there had been only two in TOS and a
half-dozen across TOS and TAS combined, also played a vastly expanded role in TNG. Troi’s mother
Lwaxana (Majel Barrett-Roddenberry), Data’s android “brother” Lore (Brent Spiner), Miles O’Brien’s
wife Keiko, and Worf ’s son Alexander Rozhenko (Brian Bonsall) functioned—as Spock’s parents had
in “Journey to Babel”—as foils for their “family members” in the main cast, creating opportun-
ities to add depth and shading to the characters. O’Brien (Colm Meaney) himself appeared in 52
episodes before graduating to the main cast of DS9 after the conclusion of TNG. Recurring Klingon
characters such as the Duras Sisters (Barbara March, Gwynyth Walsh) and Chancellor Gowron
(Robert O’Reilly) supported TNG’s attempts to give the Klingon Empire a coherent internal culture
and legible domestic politics. Q (John de Lancie) and Guinan, aliens whose backstories and motives
remained conspicuously mysterious, wove through the series like the gods of Greek mythology,
engaging with the main character in ways that suggested a plan known only to them.
All these storytelling devices would, over the course of the 1990s, become commonplace in
Star Trek series and in televised science fiction in general. Looking back, therefore, it is easy to mis-
take TNG for a holdover from an earlier time. It is, in fact, precisely the opposite: the workbench
where the components of the storytelling style used in DS9, VOY, and ENT were first hammered
out. It boldly went, for seven seasons, where no Trek had gone before.
Key Episodes
“Yesterday’s Enterprise” (TNG 3.15, 1990)

A temporal anomaly brings the Enterprise-D face-to-face with the long-lost Enterprise-C in an alternate
timeline where the Federation is at war with a Klingon-Romulan alliance and Tasha Yar is still alive. An
intricate blend of war story and time-travel puzzle, with a bittersweet second death for Yar.
“The Best of Both Worlds, Parts 1 and 2” (TNG 3.26, 1990 and TNG 4.1, 1990)
Assimilated by the Borg, a seemingly unstoppable, hive-minded cyborg species, Picard struggles to main-
tain (and, once freed, to regain) his humanity. A critical foundation for FCT, DS9, and VOY, “Best” is
superb drama, and TNG’s most consequential episode.
“Redemption, Parts 1 and 2” (TNG 4.26, 1991 and TNG 5.1, 1991)
Worf returns to his home world to redeem his family’s honor and is drawn, along with Picard, into an
emerging civil war. TNG’s deepest dive into Klingon society and culture, it places Picard and the viewer
in the “cultural outsider” role that Worf occupies on the Enterprise.
34
“Darmok” (TNG 5.2, 1991)

Picard and Dathon, a member of the Tamarian race, join forces in order to survive on a hostile planet.
Cooperation leads to understanding as Picard’s insight—that the Tamarians speak in culturally specific
metaphors—unlocks their previously unintelligible language, making the episode a striking embodiment
of the TNG ethos.
“The Inner Light” (TNG 5.25, 1992)

Picard, knocked unconscious by an alien artifact, becomes the vessel for the memories of its long-dead
creators. Deceptively simple and deeply moving, it reflects both on the need to be remembered, and on
Picard’s sacrifice of a settled life in order to travel among the stars.
References
Burston-Chorowicz, Alex. 2018. “Engage! Captain Picard, Federationism and U. S. Foreign Policy in an
Emerging Post-Cold War World.” In Exploring Picard’s Galaxy: Essays on Star Trek: The Next Generation, edited
by Peter W. Lee, 7–22. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
Callahan, Erin. 2018. “Going Where No Woman Had Gone Before.” In Exploring Picard’s Galaxy: Essays on
Star Trek: The Next Generation, edited by Peter W. Lee, 166–178. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
Fukuyama, Francis. 1992. The End of History and the Last Man. New York: Free Press.
Gonzalez, George. 2015. The Politics of Star Trek: Justice, War, and the Future. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Huntington, Samuel. 1993. “The Clash of Civilizations?” Foreign Affairs 72, no. 3: 22–49.
Nemecek, Larry. 2003. Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion, 2nd revised edition. New York: Pocket Books.
Pascale, Anthony. 2009. “Rick Berman Talks 18 Years of Trek in Extensive Oral History.” Trekmovie.com,
August 26, 2009. Available at: https://trekmovie.com/2009/08/26/r ick-berman-talks-18-years-of-trek-
in-extensive-oral-history/
Rabitsch, Stefan. 2019. Star Trek and the British Age of Sail: The Maritime Influence throughout the Series and Films.
Reeves-Stevens, Judith, and Garfield Reeves-Stevens. 1998. Star Trek: The Next Generation—The Continuing
Mission. New York: Pocket Books.
Star Trek Episodes
The Original Series
1.19 “Arena” 1967.
2.5 “Amok Time” 1967.
2.15 “Journey to Babel” 1967.
The Animated Series

1.2 “Yesteryear” 1973.
The Next Generation

1.1/2 “Encounter at Farpoint” 1987.
1.4 “Code of Honor” 1987.
1.12 “The Big Goodbye” 1987.
1.23 “Skin of Evil” 1988.
2.3 “Elementary, Dear Data” 1988.
2.9 “The Measure of a Man” 1989.
2.14 “The Icarus Factor” 1989.
35
3.3 “The Survivors” 1989.

3.5 “The Bonding” 1989.
3.6 “Booby Trap” 1989.
3.15 “Yesterday’s Enterprise” 1990.
3.21 “Hollow Pursuits” 1990.
3.26 “The Best of Both Worlds” 1990.
4.1 “The Best of Both Worlds, Part II” 1990.
4.7 “Reunion” 1990.
4.11 “Data’s Day” 1991.
4.16 “Galaxy’s Child” 1991.
4.21 “The Drumhead” 1991.
4.26 “Redemption” 1991.
5.1 “Redemption II” 1991.
5.2 “Darmok” 1991.
5.10 “New Ground” 1990.
5.11 “Hero Worship” 1992.
5.12 “Violations” 1992.
5.16 “Ethics” 1992.
5.20 “Cost of Living” 1992.
5.23 “I, Borg” 1992.
5.25 “The Inner Light” 1992.
5.26 “Time’s Arrow” 1992.
6.1 “Time’s Arrow, Part II” 1992.
6.10 “Chain of Command, Part I” 1992.
6.11 “Chain of Command, Part II” 1992.
6.16 “Birthright, Part I” 1993.
6.17 “Birthright, Part II” 1993.
6.23 “Rightful Heir” 1993.
36
4
STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE
Airing in syndication from 1993–99, Deep Space Nine is the third live action Star Trek series. DS9
follows the exploits of Commander/Captain Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) who is sent to help the
planet Bajor prepare for entry into the Federation. After decades of occupation by the Cardassians,
Bajorans have regained control of their planet. Originally from New Orleans with a strong interest
in archeology, cooking, and history, specifically African and African American history, Sisko is sent to
take command of the space station Terok Nor—now renamed Deep Space 9—in Bajor’s orbit. Since
losing his wife Jennifer at the battle of Wolf 359 three years before, Sisko is initially reluctant to
take the position as he is now a single parent of his young son, Jake (Cirroc Lofton). After arriving,
Sisko helps discover a stable wormhole to the Gamma Quadrant and later makes contact with an
alien species, which the Bajorans revere as their Prophets. The Prophets intimate that Sisko is their
Emissary, a prophesied religious leader who is destined to save and unite the planet.
DS9’s senior officers include first officer Major Kira Nerys (Nana Visitor), who was a member of
the Bajoran Militia during the occupation—though the Cardassians viewed her as a terrorist. Major
Kira trusts Sisko because he is the Emissary, though she opposes the Federation’s assistance. Science
Officer Lieutenant Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell) is a Trill whose symbiont has lived with and retains
the memories of seven prior hosts. Dax’s previous host, Curzon, was a Federation ambassador who
mentored Sisko and negotiated multiple agreements with the Klingon Empire. Chief of Operations
Miles O’Brien (Colm Meaney) was promoted to this position after serving under Captain Picard
(Patrick Stewart) as the transporter chief on the Enterprise. He also served during the Federation-
Cardassian War prior to that posting. Chief Medical Officer Julian Bashir (Siddig El Fadil, who later
took the stage name Alexander Siddig) graduated second in his class at Starfleet Medical and chose
this assignment so he could do “real frontier medicine” (“Emissary” [DS9 1.1, 1993]). Dr. Bashir was
later recruited by the covert intelligence organization Section 31 because he was illegally genetically
enhanced with increased IQ and reflexes. Chief of Security Odo (René Auberjonois) is a Changeling,
a shape-shifting entity who was found in Bajoran space during the occupation. At first, it was believed
that Odo was the only member of his species and his name is derived from the Cardassian word for
“nothing.” Odo served as the constable on Terok Nor during the occupation because he was seen as
a neutral arbiter and retained that position after the Bajorans and the Federation took control of the
station. After Gamma Quadrant residents began visiting DS9, it was discovered that his people were
called Founders, who ruled over the Dominion. Business owner Quark (Armin Shimerman) operated
his bar and holosuite arcade during the occupation which allowed him to sell food and weapons to
the Bajoran Militia. A Ferengi whose primary motivation is profit, Quark was blackmailed by Sisko
into staying aboard DS9 where he was involved in or had knowledge of most of the illicit dealings
aboard the station.
In season four, Worf (Michael Dorn) transferred from the Enterprise to help smooth relations
between the Federation and the Klingon Empire during the Dominion War. He served as the station’s
DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917-6 37
Chief Strategic Operations Officer and eventually married Jadzia Dax. When Jadzia was killed at the
end of season six, the symbiont had to be joined with the closest Trill: Ezri Dax (Nicole de Boer).
Ezri served as the station counselor while adjusting to being joined.
Unlike previous series, and because the series was based in a fixed location, DS9 boasts a large
number of recurring characters from a variety of species, including Cardassians Gul Dukat (Marc
Alaimo), the former prefect of Terok Nor; Elim Garak (Andrew Robinson) a former member of
Cardassian intelligence and the owner of a tailor shop on DS9; military leader Damar (Casey
Biggs); and Dukat’s half- Bajoran daughter Tora Ziyal (Cyia Batten, Tracy Middendorf, and
Melanie Smith). The Ferengi, who were initially created as villains for TNG, emerged on DS9
as a less threatening species and they were mainly represented by Quark’s brother Rom (Max
Grodénchik), his nephew Nog (Aron Eisenberg), who becomes the first Ferengi in Starfleet,
Quark and Rom’s mother Ishka (Cecily Adams and Andreas Martin), Liquidator Brunt (Jeffrey
Combs), and the Grand Nagus (Wallace Shawn). Chancellor Gowron (Robert O’Reilly) and
General Martok (J.G. Hertzler) were the primary Klingon characters, with the former having been
introduced in TNG. The Dominion consisted of the Female Changeling (Salome Jens) and the
Vorta Weyoun (Jeffrey Combs) while the recurring Bajorian characters included Kai Winn Adami
(Louise Fletcher), Vedek Bareil Antos (Philip Anglim), and Leeta (Chase Masterson). Recurring
human characters included Keiko O’Brien (Rosalind Chao), Joseph Sisko (Brock Peters), and
Kasidy Yates (Penny Johnson Jerald). Finally, the series included hologram Vic Fontane (James
Darren) and Morn (Mark Allen Shepherd), a character who never said a word on camera but who
apparently never shut up.
Production History
As TNG was gaining in popularity, the decision was made to create another Star Trek series. Rick
Berman and Michael Piller agreed on the idea that if TNG was Wagon Train in space, then DS9
would be The Rifleman in space or “Fort Laramie on the edge of the frontier” (Berman and Piller,
1992; Erdmann 2000, 3). To differentiate DS9 from TNG, the new series was to take place on a space
station. Piller explained that, “by focusing on a space station, you create a show about commitment
… On Deep Space Nine, whatever you decide has consequences the following week. So it’s about
taking responsibility for your decisions, the consequences of your acts” (Erdmann 2000, 4). The
writing and production staff included several TNG veterans, such as Ira Steven Behr, Hans Beimler,
René Echevarria, Ronald D. Moore, and Robert Hewitt Wolfe, as well as two newcomers: Bradley
Thompson and David Weddle.
Though Piller’s explanation of DS9’s origins makes perfect sense, there is latent controversy
regarding DS9’s origins. In 1989, J. Michael Straczynski began pitching a series called Babylon 5
(B5) to various networks, including Paramount. Paramount ultimately passed on the series; however,
Warner Bros. picked up the project which ran for five seasons concurrent with DS9. Both series take
place on space stations, feature captains with PTSD and messianic overtones, deal with intergalactic
war pitting good against evil, and tell stories using multi-season story arcs. To ease tensions between
the fan bases, Majel Barrett-Roddenberry appeared in an episode of B5 (“Point of No Return” [B5
3.9, 1996]; Joyrich 1996) and later, Bill Mumy, who played Lennier on B5, appeared in an episode of
DS9 (“The Siege of AR-558” [DS9 7.8, 1998]).
Initially, DS9’s creators planned for the series to take place on Bajor to capitalize on the backstory
of Ensign Ro Laren (Michelle Forbes) from TNG. By revolving the series around Ro, producers
could tightly connect TNG and DS9 and enlarge the franchise universe. Ro was brought aboard the
Enterprise to help locate a Bajoran terrorist and after completing that mission, Captain Picard asks
her to stay aboard the Enterprise (“Ensign Ro” [TNG 5.3, 1991]). Later, Picard sends Ro to infiltrate
the Maquis; however, during her mission, she changes sides (“Preemptive Strike” [TNG 7.24, 1994]).
The character was supposed to leave the Enterprise and become Sisko’s first officer; however, Forbes
38
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
declined to commit to a long-term contract and some of Ro’s character traits were transferred to
Kira (Nemecek 2003, 297).
For the most part, there were few major disruptions to DS9 from a production standpoint. The
starship Defiant was introduced in season three to give the characters more mobility and as an answer
to the growing conflict with the Dominion. Built to fight the Borg, the Defiant had something no
other Federation ship had: a cloaking device on loan from the Romulans. Season four saw the intro-
duction of Worf, which was the writing staff ’s answer to Paramount’s suggestion that the writers
“shake up the series” (Erdmann 2000, 255). Getting Worf acclimated to his new surroundings forced
the writers to push back the Dominion War to season five. Season four also caused the writers to get
creative when Nana Visitor became pregnant. Rather than have Major Kira become pregnant or hide
Visitor behind a desk, the writers made Keiko O’Brien pregnant and transferred the pregnancy to
Kira due to a medical emergency.
One of the biggest DS9 controversies has to do with the departure of Terry Farrell. The reasons
behind Farrell’s exit vary and a more complete discussion of the rift can be found on the Memory
Alpha website (Memory Alpha:The Free Star Trek Reference n.d.) and in the What We Left Behind (2018)
documentary; however, the largest fan blowback occurred because Jadzia Dax was not included in
any of the flashback montages in the series finale.
Over the course of seven seasons, DS9 won four Emmy Awards including “Outstanding Individual
Achievement in Main Title Theme” (1993), “Makeup” (1993 and 1995), and “Special Visual Effects”
(1993). The series was nominated for 29 additional Emmy Awards, seven Saturn Awards, two Hugo
Awards, and two NAACP Image Awards.
While TNG featured multiple two-part episodes starting in season three, DS9 embraced
serialized storytelling culminating in “a contiguous arc for a group of episodes” in seasons five
and six (Erdmann 2000, 475). The 1990s in general saw an increase in the number of series that
were partially or heavily serialized such as Babylon 5 (1993–98), Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–
2003, Twin Peaks (1990–91), and The X-Files (1993–2002). The groundwork DS9 created paved
the way for the serialized storylines in seasons three and four of Enterprise, the first four seasons of
Discovery and the first two seasons of Picard.
Cultural and Historical Context

Star Trek has always been known as a space for allegorical stories and morality tales where right versus
wrong was obvious and clear-cut. DS9 dealt primarily with post-colonial reconciliation and nation-
building. In some ways, DS9 presaged the wave of morally ambiguous storytelling and sympathetic anti-
heroes that would populate television from the late 1990s through the 2000s. Throughout DS9’s run
and beyond, there was a perception that the series rebuked Gene Roddenberry’s original vision or that
the show was darker in tone than previous incarnations. Roddenberry presented a utopian, post-scarcity
future where humanity evolved to the point of eradicating poverty, homelessness, racism, sexism, etc.
That vision never hypothesized that humanity had evolved beyond conflicts of any kind nor did it mean
that other civilizations had evolved or even aspired to the same utopian ideal. There were disagreements
and conflicts among both Enterprise crews (see any scene with Spock [Leonard Nimoy] and McCoy
[DeForest Kelley] or Worf ’s and Riker’s [Jonathan Frakes] behavior toward Ensign Ro) and the DS9
crew was no different. Auberjonois put the characters and the series into context when he reflected that:
Every single character on ‘Deep Space Nine’ had some deep psychic problem they had to
work out. It was being developed at the time of the riots in Los Angeles and the burning
of South Central. And also politically Bosnia and Yugoslavia. Everything was falling apart.
There was a real darkness, and I think that deeply influenced the style of the show.
(Holloway and Otterson 2018)
39
What each of the series illustrates is that people of good will can have differing opinions, but
everyone is usually operating from a good faith effort of trying to do the right thing. For example,
the episode “In the Pale Moonlight” (6.19, 1998), which is one of the “darker” episodes, follows
Sisko as he conspires with Garak to bring the Romulans into the Dominion War. Over the course
of the episode, Sisko bribes Quark, lies to multiple people, compromises ethics with Bashir, and in
the end, Garak eventually murders a Romulan envoy. The entire episode is told as Sisko records a
log confessing to his actions after the fact—actions which did bring the Romulans into the war (see
Chapter 44). As disappointed as he is with their actions, Sisko is forced to admit that what he and
Garak did resulted in saving the Federation and millions of lives.
TNG introduced the conflict between the Federation and the Cardassian empire. In the TNG
episode “Journey’s End” (7.29, 1994), the Federation agrees to return control of several Federation
planets to the Cardassians. The people living on those planets rejected this plan because it would
force them to abandon their homes or be subject to Cardassian rule. The colonists felt abandoned
by the Federation and the Cardassians made life difficult for the colonists, forcing them to resort
to armed resistance. The colonial resistance and their Federation allies were called the Maquis.
The conflict between the Maquis, the Federation, and the Cardassians allowed the series to tackle
questions of realpolitik and made the space station resemble “a colonial port of call in the Caribbean
much more closely than a military post on the Plains” as was originally intended (Rabitsch,
personal communication with the author, May 13, 2020). Given their proximity to Cardassian
space, Sisko was often tasked with confronting the Maquis and unfortunately, his security officer,
Michael Eddington (Kenneth Marshall), and his future wife, Kasidy Yates, were both members of
the Maquis. Once the Cardassians entered an alliance with the Dominion, all remaining Maquis
members were imprisoned or killed. The only pocket of Maquis members that survived were those
who disappeared aboard Voyager. The integration of the Federation and Maquis crew became the
impetus for VOY (see Chapter 5).
The darkness DS9 is perceived to have operated in comes down to a statement Sisko makes
in “The Maquis, Part II” (2.21, 1994): “it’s easy to be a saint in paradise.” Both TOS and TNG
took place during peacetime though the latter broached the topic of war with the introduction of
the Borg; however, the entire war was handled over the span of three episodes (“Q Who” [TNG
2.16, 1989] and “Best of Both Worlds Parts 1 and 2” [TNG 3.26, 1990; TNG 4.1, 1990]). Because
the Dominion War stretched over multiple seasons, it allowed the series to tackle the intricacies and
consequences of war (see Chapter 44). It dealt with wounded warriors and post-traumatic stress
(“It’s Only a Paper Moon” [DS9 7.10, 1998]) and the futility of war (“The Siege of AR-558” [DS9
7.8, 1998]). In true Star Trek fashion, the series did not focus solely on war; it also tackled home-
lessness (“Past Tense Parts 1 and 2” [DS9 3.11, 1995; DS9 3.12, 1995]), the legacy of war crimes
and genocide (“Duet” [DS9 1.19, 1993]), the perceived conflict between teaching science versus
teaching religion (“In the Hands of the Prophets” [DS9 1.20, 1993]), and immigration (“Sanctuary”
[DS9 2.10, 1993]).
Another trait that DS9 is known for is the fact that the main character was played by an African
American actor. The casting net for Sisko was quite wide and encompassed Richard Dean Anderson,
Eric Pierpoint, and even Alexander Siddig (Schuster 1997). The decision to cast an African American
actor as the lead of an hour-long drama was almost unheard of in the early 1990s. African American
actors were typically relegated to supporting roles in series that were not designated as “black shows”
(Bogle 2001, 367). On shows that had a “diverse” cast, the number of Black, Indigenous and People
of Color (BIPOC) actors were usually kept to a minimum and those characters’ racial identities were
not emphasized (ibid., 435). The lack of inclusion in television at the time was highlighted by the
fact that when DS9 went off the air in 1999, none of the network’s new shows featured an African
American actor as a lead character, prompting the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People (NAACP) to call for a nationwide boycott (Zurawik 1999). It is worth pointing
out that though Paramount executives did not allow Brooks to keep his head shaved until season
40
four because it was too reminiscent of his previous television character Hawk from Spencer For Hire
(1985–88) and A Man Called Hawk (1989), the writers did manage to incorporate aspects of African
American culture into Sisko’s characterization. Sisko’s birthplace of New Orleans is also the birth-
place of jazz and a central hub of African American history and culture. “The Search, Part I” (DS9
3.1, 1994) establishes that Sisko amassed one of the finest collections of African Art in the Alpha
Quadrant. His family’s connection to Black baseball was evident throughout the series. When Sisko
invites Kira to watch a baseball game, he throws her a Homestead Gray’s cap—a cap Sisko was
wearing in the pilot episode as well. The Grays were members of the “Negro National League” and
operated from 1912 through 1951 and were home to iconic Black baseball players and Hall of Famers
such as Josh Gibson, Oscar Charleston, Martín Dihigo, Buck Leonard, and James “Cool Papa” Bell
(Alexander 2016, 152). When Jake wants to cheer his father up in “In the Cards” (DS9 5.25, 1997),
he does so by trying to acquire a Willie Mays baseball card. Mays is one of the last African American
Major League Baseball players to begin their career in the “Negro Leagues.”
Having an African American actor as a lead character allowed DS9 to tackle racism in ways
that Star Trek had not done previously (see Chapter 50). The season six episode “Far Beyond
the Stars” (DS9 6.13, 1998) sees Sisko despondent about the fact that the Federation appears to
be losing the war with the Dominion. Because he contemplates resigning his commission, the
Prophets send him a vision where Sisko is Benny Russell, a science fiction author in the 1950s.
The episode showcases the overt racism that exists in American society (police brutality, housing
discrimination) and the more subtle expressions of racism as well (not publishing a photo of a
Black author or a story with a Black lead). This episode could not exist in this form without a
person of color in the role—using racism to teach a character about faith and perseverance would
not have the same resonance with a white actor. Calling out systemic racism continued in the
episode “Badda-Bing, Badda Bang” (DS9 7.15, 1999) where Sisko admits that the reason he does
not socialize at Vic’s holographic lounge with the rest of the crew is because he does not want
to pretend that African Americans were welcome in Las Vegas during the 1950s; Kasidy reminds
him that Vic’s represents how things were supposed to be. This is in stark contrast to the color
blindness in the TNG episode “Time’s Arrow, Part II” (TNG 6.1, 1992) when La Forge (LeVar
Burton) travels back to 1893 Earth, or in the ENT episode “Storm Front, Part I” (ENT 4.1,
2004) when Tucker (Connor Trinneer) takes Mayweather (Anthony Montgomery) to 1940s Earth
where the Nazis have a foothold in North America. Neither episode features any discussion as to
how race might impact the characters’ safety or the safety of the mission.
In the series finale, Sisko saves the Prophets from their evil counterparts the Pah-wraiths and
joins the former in the wormhole/Celestial Temple. The writers initially intended for Sisko’s
departure to be permanent; since Kasidy Yates was pregnant with Sisko’s child, however, Avery
Brooks requested a change to counter the persistent stereotype of absent Black fathers and that
change was more in line with the close-knit relationship between Sisko and Jake. The scene, as
filmed, has Sisko promising Kasidy that he will return. That slight change in dialogue left the door
open for stories to be told in non-canonical texts. S.D. Perry’s novel Unity (2003) features Sisko’s
return from the Celestial Temple for the birth of his daughter Rebecca Jae. In the crowd-funded
documentary What We Left Behind (2018), several DS9 writers outline and storyboard a hypothet-
ical eighth season. Their version has Sisko returning 20 years after the series finale after Captain
Nog’s murder; the writers also have Sisko and Kasidy’s son, Joseph, in Starfleet. Even though Sisko
failed in his goal to bring Bajor into the Federation, that goal was accomplished in the post-series
novels (see Chapter 25).
DS9 was also known for its well-rounded female characters. While previous incarnations of
Star Trek featured women in the main cast, they were relegated to supporting and/or nurturing roles
(Joyrich 1996). The women of DS9 were quite different. Major Kira was a soldier who was second-
in-command and Nana Visitor’s initial reaction to reading the pilot was to think “that’s a man’s role”
(Holloway and Otterson, 2018). Jadzia Dax was flirtatious which is a trait typically reserved for male
41
characters (such as Kirk in TOS or Riker in TNG). Kasidy Yates was a freighter captain who smuggled
munitions and supplies to the Maquis. A manipulative, power-hungry religious leader, Kai Winn
made a formidable antagonist. The only character that could be described as nurturing would be Ezri
Dax, due to her position as station psychologist. These characters paved the way for more nuanced
female characters in later series such as Captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew), Commander/
Captain Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green), Captain Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh),
and Raffaela “Raffi ” Musiker (Michelle Hurd).
However, while DS9 was groundbreaking in its representation of African Americans and women,
it was less groundbreaking when it came to LGBTQ+characters. Though the series produced the
first same-sex kiss in Star Trek history (“Rejoined” [DS9 4.6, 1995]), the story of the episode centers
on the taboo surrounding joined Trill reviving previous relationships rather than the fact that the two
people in the relationship shared the same gender (see Chapter 52). According to Ronald Moore, at
least one affiliate cut the kiss from the broadcast and the episode remains one of Star Trek’s most con-
troversial. While the episode could be framed as queerbaiting, that practice is usually done to either
appeal to LGBTQ+viewers or to tease the overall audience without any intent to move forward.
René Echevarria’s original script idea featured a heterosexual couple; however, it was changed to show
that in the twenty-fourth century, sexual orientation is not an issue (Erdmann 2000, 279). Though
Andrew Robinson played Elim Garak as sexually fluid, the character was only ever queer coded (see
Chapter 53); Ira Steven Behr later confirmed that the character was queer and expressed regret that
the series did not do more with that aspect of Garak’s life (What We Left Behind [2018]). Though the
characters in the mirror universe felt coded as sexually fluid, Star Trek would not feature canonical
LGBTQ+characters until the introduction of Paul Stamets (Anthony Rapp), Hugh Culber (Wilson
Cruz), Jett Reno (Tig Notaro), Adira Tal (Blu del Barrio), and Gray Tal (Ian Alexander) on DSC (see
Chapters 7, 55, and 56).
Legacy
DS9 expanded upon and/or created plot points that had implications for future Star Trek series.
DS9’s writers were interested in crafting a sequel to the TOS episode “Mirror, Mirror” (TOS 2.10,
1967) where mirror Spock successfully overturned the Terran Empire; however, that led to disastrous
consequences. These episodes allowed the actors to portray exaggerated elements of their existing
characters and explored even darker and more militaristic story arcs. Five episodes of DS9 dealt with
the mirror universe and in that time the prime universe crew helped instigate a rebellion against the
Alliance. By revisiting the mirror universe, DS9 opened the door to a two-part story in ENT (“In a
Mirror, Darkly” [ENT 4.18, 2005; ENT 4.19, 2005]) and a through-line that spanned the first season
of DSC.
One of the original ideas that began on DS9 and migrated to subsequent Star Trek series was
Section 31. A clandestine organization known only to a select few, Section 31 is responsible for
covert operations and comes from Ira Steven Behr asking the question “Why is Earth a paradise in
the twenty-fourth century? Well maybe it’s because there’s someone watching over it and doing the
nasty stuff that no one wants to think about” (Erdmann 2000, 551). An agent of Section 31, Luther
Sloan (William Sadler) attempts to recruit Doctor Bashir into the organization. Section 31 is an
example of a storyline that was deemed inconsistent with Star Trek’s vision; and, in many ways it was.
However, because Section 31 was a covert and unsanctioned organization, it allowed the writers to
dive into questions regarding whether the ends always justify the means without sullying Starfleet’s
reputation—though how unsanctioned the organization’s actions were varied from episode to epi-
sode. On the one hand, the creation and distribution of a biological weapon designed to destroy the
Founders were not sanctioned by Starfleet Command. On the other hand, the decision not to share
the cure for the weapon and the decision to place an undercover agent within the Romulan Empire
and frame a Romulan Senator for treason were done with the full knowledge of high-ranking
42
Starfleet officers. The creation of Section 31 opened the door for ENT and DSC to probe the
organization’s background; and, it served as a plot point in Into the Darkness (2013). In 2019, a DSC
spin-off series focusing on Section 31 was announced featuring mirror-universe Captain Georgiou.
Like previous Star Trek series, DS9 has attracted its share of scholarly attention. Texts examining
Star Trek in its entirety have incorporated DS9; however, works focusing solely on DS9 are arguably
not as numerous as works dedicated to TOS or TNG. The wide-ranging political nature of Star Trek
provides many avenues for research and it does seem as though interest in DS9 has increased in
recent years (likely due to its availability on streaming platforms such as Netflix and CBS All Access).
Representation in terms of race, gender, and sexuality are heavily trafficked areas (see Andres 2013;
Ferguson 2002; Geraghty 2003; Oglesbee 2004; Pounds 2009). The occupation’s analogous relation-
ship to the Holocaust, Bajor’s religious practices, as well as the planet’s construction as a post-colonial
space are analyzed by Kapell (2000), McGrath (2015), and Seitz (2017). DS9 has inspired research in
diverse fields, ranging from disability studies to the teaching of business practices (see Orlove 2019;
Lopez et al 2017).
Key Episodes
“The Visitor” (DS9 4.3, 1995)

The father-son relationship between Sisko and Jake was one of the most important relationships in the
series. This episode begins with Sisko “dying” during an engineering accident. Sisko’s essence appears to
his son over the course of several decades and Jake ultimately sacrifices himself to save his father.
“Homefront/Paradise Lost” (DS9 4.11, 1996; DS9 4.12, 1996)

This two-part story shows how terrified Starfleet was of the Founders and just how easy it is for a trusting,
democratic society to abandon its moral principles and descend into paranoia.
“Trials and Tribble-ations” (DS9 5.6, 1996)

Made for Star Trek’s 40th anniversary, this episode successfully integrates the DS9 cast into a beloved
TOS episode.
“Far Beyond the Stars” (DS9 6.13, 1998)

Star Trek’s strongest meditation on racism and the psychological effects it has on African Americans.
When Sisko contemplates resigning his commission, the Prophets send him a vision of his existence as a
Black science fiction writer in the 1950s to teach him the meaning of struggle and perseverance. The epi-
sode offers a chance to see the regular actors sans prosthetics and typical makeup. In addition to appearing
in almost every scene, Avery Brooks also directed the episode.
“In the Pale Moonlight” (DS9 6.19, 1998)

Told entirely in flashbacks, with Sisko doing a first-person narration/confession directly into the camera,
the episode recounts the decisions he made to bring the Romulans into the war. It is unclear whether
Sisko can live with his choices and the audience is left to ponder whether or not they would have made
the same decisions. Many television critics hail this as one of the top Star Trek episodes.
43
References
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Kapell, Matthew. 2000. “Speakers for the Dead: Star Trek, the Holocaust, and the Representation of Atrocity.”
Extrapolation 41, no. 2 (Summer): 104–114.
Lopez, Katherine J., Gary Pletcher, Craig L. Williams, and William Bradley Zehner, II. 2017. “Ferengi Business
Practices in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine—to Enhance Student Engagement and Teach a Wide Range of
Business Concepts.” The E-Journal of Business Education & Scholarship of Teaching 11, no. 1 (July): 19–56.
McGrath, James F. 2015 “Explicit and Implicit Religion in Doctor Who and Star Trek.” Implicit Religion 18, no. 4
(January): 471–484.
Memory Alpha: The Free Star Trek Reference. n.d. “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.” Available at: https://memory-
alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Star_Trek:_Deep_Space_Nine. Last modified July 30, 2021
Nemecek, Larry. 2003. Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion. New York: Pocket Books.
Oglesbee, Frank W. 2004 “Kira Nerys: A Good Woman Fighting Well.” Extrapolation 45, no 3. (Fall): 263–275.
Orlove, Hannah. 2019 “Fanwork: Made from Something Different.” Canadian Journal of Disability Studies 8, no. 2
(April): 157–162.
Perry, Stephani D. 2003. Unity. New York: Pocket Books.
Pounds, Michael Charles. 2009. “‘Explorers’— Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.” African Identities 7, no. 2
(May): 209–235.
Rhodes, Mark Allen II. 2017. “Alternative Pasts, Presents, and Futures in Star Trek: Historical Engagement and
Representation Through Popular Culture.” The Geographical Bulletin 58, no. 1 (May): 29–39.
Schuster, Hal. 1997. The Trekker’s Guide to Deep Space Nine: Complete, Unauthorized, and Uncensored. Rocklin,
CA: Prima.
Seitz, David K. 2017. “Second Skin, White Masks: Postcolonial Reparation in Star Trek Deep Space Nine.”
Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society 22, no. 4 (March): 401–419.
Zurawik, David. 1999. “Networks Give NAACP Threat Lip Service Only; Analysis: Big Four Talk a Good Game,
but Actions on Roc and Homicide Speak Loudly. Progress Remains to Be Seen.” Baltimore Sun. July 14, 1999.
Star Trek Episodes
The Original Series
2.10 “Mirror, Mirror” 1967.
The Next Generation

2.16 “Q Who” 1989.
3.26 “Best of Both Worlds” 1990.
4.1 “Best of Both Worlds, Part II” 1990.
5.3 “Ensign Ro” 1991.
7.24 “Preemptive Strike” 1994.
7.29 “Journey’s End” 1994.
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Deep Space Nine

1.1 “Emissary” 1993.
1.2 “Past Prologue” 1993.
1.19 “Duet” 1993.
1.20 “In the Hands of the Prophets” 1993.
2.10 “Sanctuary” 1993.
2.21 “The Maquis, Part II” 1994.
3.1 “The Search, Part I” 1994.
3.11 “Past Tense, Part 1” 1995.
3.12 “Past Tense, Part 2” 1995.
4.3 “The Visitor” 1995.
4.6 “Rejoined” 1995.
4.11 “Homefront” 1996.
4.12 “Paradise Lost” 1996.
5.6 “Trials and Tribble-ations” 1996.
5.25 “In the Cards” 1997.
6.13 “Far Beyond the Stars” 1998.
6.19 “In the Pale Moonlight” 1998.
7.8 “The Siege of AR-558” 1999.
7.10 “It’s Only a Paper Moon” 1998.
7.15 “Badda-Bing, Badda Bang” 1999.
Enterprise
4.1 “Storm Front, Part I” 2004.
4.18 “In a Mirror, Darkly” 2005.
4.19 “In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II” 2005.
Star Trek Documentaries

What We Left Behind: Looking Back at Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. 2018. dir. Ira Steven Behr and David Zappone.
455 Films.
45
5
STAR TREK: VOYAGER
Leimar Garcia-Siino
Airing January 1995 to May 2001, Voyager was the last Star Trek series until DSC and PIC to push
the franchise’s timeline forward and the first to feature a female captain in the lead. With a consistent
cast of nine characters ranging from Starfleet officers to former Maquis rebels and hitchhiking aliens,
the show is significant for being the first Star Trek series to have three female actors in the main
cast throughout the entire run of the show and four non-white characters—the most out of any
Star Trek show before DSC. Unlike its predecessors set in the Alpha Quadrant—the section of space
encompassing Earth—VOY takes place on the opposite side of the galaxy—the Delta Quadrant—far
from Federation Space.
VOY follows the crew of the starship Voyager, who, on their first mission to capture Maquis rebels,
are transported alongside the Maquis ship they pursued to the Delta Quadrant by a being known
as the Caretaker (Basil Langton). Stranded 75,000 light years from Earth, the two crews, under the
leadership of Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew), must learn to work together to survive. Though
conceived as a show that would resemble TNG more than DS9 (Greenberg 2012, 201), the two
joined crews are actually more similar to the diverse and somewhat ragtag denizens of the space
station rather than the polished and experienced officers aboard the Enterprise-D. Like DS9, VOY
introduces only four Starfleet officers in the main cast at the start of the pilot episode “Caretaker”
(1.1/2, 1995), but unlike the former where three are seasoned officers and only the young doctor
is inexperienced, in VOY only two of the Starfleet officers—one being Janeway—appear to fit the
expected Star Trek mold. Two of the other officers are Lt. Tom Paris (Robert Duncan McNeill), a
dishonorably discharged pilot-turned-Maquis serving a prison sentence whom Janeway convinces to
help her track down the rebels in the Badlands, and Harry Kim (Garrett Wang), a naïve, albeit eager,
ensign fresh out of the academy. The fourth, revealed later in the pilot episode, is Voyager’s tactical
officer—Lt. Tuvok (Tim Russ)—a Vulcan who had infiltrated the Maquis under Janeway’s orders.
The rest of the cast comprise the integrated crews of the Maquis and a scavenger cargo ship.
Maquis captain Chakotay (Robert Beltran) and his comrade B’Elanna Torres (Roxann Dawson)
agree to join the crew out of necessity and survival. Similarly, scavenger Neelix (Ethan Phillips) and
his romantic interest Kes (Jennifer Lien) ask to stay on the ship. Inhabiting a middle ground between
Starfleet-issue and non-human outsider is the Emergency Medical Hologram (EMH), aka the Doctor
(Robert Picardo), who becomes the de facto chief medical officer when the ship’s physician dies in
the pilot episode. Being, technically, part of the ship, the Doctor is neither fully Starfleet—lacking
the training and experience required—nor a rebel, and yet he, like the rest of the crew, must learn to
work alongside the others out of necessity and survival.
VOY’s premise effectively sets out to interrogate Gene Roddenberry’s utopian vision for
humanity’s future. Without the support of a powerful political, and in many ways imperialistic (see
Chapter 45), institution like the Federation and its ostensibly military branch—Starfleet—and faced
with unknown alien threats in an unknown region of space, would Starfleet officers and Federation
46 DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917-7
Star Trek: Voyager
citizens (in the case of the Maquis) adhere to their taught ethical standards, or would they give in to
the instinctual need to survive? The longevity of VOY lies in its approach to this question, as well as
its progressive take on gender roles and diversity issues. Its failings are found much in the same places.
Production History
VOY was an ambitious project. Having previously worked on both TNG and DS9, producers Rick
Berman, Michael Piller, and Jeri Taylor were conscious of the place VOY could occupy, not only
culturally, but also in relation to the rest of the franchise. It was developed and written while the last
season of TNG and the second season of DS9 were also being worked on (Poe 1998, 209). However,
VOY not only needed to be a new and fresh entry into the Star Trek universe—which was already
starting to see signs of franchise fatigue and declining ratings (Hark 2008, 45–46)—but also serve as
the flagship show of a new network, United Paramount Network (UPN). TNG and DS9 premiered
as first-run syndicated shows, and they, as well as TOS before, ran surrounded by other highly rated
programming. In contrast, VOY would be featured only on UPN and its smaller number of affiliates,
which at the time meant that “14 percent of viewers [didn’t] even get the show” (ibid., 45). To make
matters worse, VOY would be surrounded by programming that seldom lasted more than one season
(Pearson and Messenger Davies 2014, 52–53), within an evolving television landscape full of other sf
and genre shows available to viewers elsewhere (Hark 2008, 46–47).
Adding to these obstacles were production inconsistencies related to the main goals of the show
and how to set it apart from DS9.VOY was envisioned as a show that would challenge the precepts
of utopia and peace in Star Trek while simultaneously returning to a more traditional space explor-
ational structure. Perhaps because of the inherent contradiction of wanting to both expand on DS9
and return to TNG-style aesthetics and storytelling, VOY never quite achieved either.
In Captain’s Logs, Berman explains that the production team had three core goals, the first one
being to inject more conflict into the crew dynamics in order to generate drama, even though this
went against Roddenberry’s established rules for Star Trek (Gross and Altman 1995, 343). Even before
the first season premiered, however, it became evident that if the show was to appeal to and even
regain favor with the franchise’s core fan audience, it could not be more dramatic/conflict-heavy than
DS9. In The Complete Unauthorized History, Piller is quoted as saying that “it was decided early on
that it would be a ship-based show and there were to be no serious conflicts between the characters
because that’s what the fans wanted” (Greenberger 2012, 201). Barring one-episode conflicts, VOY
largely abandoned the premise of Starfleet vs. Maquis after the first three episodes.
The production team’s second goal, according to Berman, was to explore what it would be like for
a Federation ship to be disconnected from Starfleet “on [their] own” (Gross and Altman 1995, 343).
In theory, this would allow the franchise to continue challenging the Federation’s purported uto-
pian ideals that were first explored by DS9. However, according to Piller, backlash against DS9’s sta-
tionary setting resulted in VOY being modeled after TNG (Greenberger 2012, 201). It then became a
challenge, as Greenberger puts it, “to differentiate the series from TNG” (ibid., 201). The questioning
of the Federation’s lofty utopian ideals could not be successfully achieved when the very setting—
a Federation ship and very familiar alien scapes—negated the isolation and alienating premise of
the show.
The third and final way the production team wanted to set themselves apart from the rest of
the franchise was by placing a woman at the helm of the ship and crew, which was as much out of
a desire for something new as it was a result of the third wave of feminism sweeping the country
in the early 1990s (see Chapter 51). It is arguably the only main goal that survived despite signifi-
cant pressure of rejection from sections of the hard-core male fanbase (Booker 2018, 28). Indeed,
casting a female captain nearly did not happen. Paramount Pictures was pressuring the producers to
cast a male actor in the role of Janeway which, according to Berman, would not be in accordance
with Star Trek’s “forward-thinking ideals” (Gross and Altman 1995, 345). However, even in Star Trek
47
Leimar Garcia-Siino
“Where No One Has Gone Before”: A History in Pictures, published two months after filming began
in September—though mostly written in the summer of 1994—Piller is quoted saying that the
executive producers asked themselves “who our captain was going to be, and we decided it might
be interesting to make him a science officer” (Dillard 1994, 191). It is a testament to the producers’
convictions and faith in the character that, despite later negative fan responses to Janeway, she would
not be replaced, nor would her character be drastically changed; though Geneviève Bujold, who was
initially cast as Janeway, was replaced by Mulgrew within the first week of filming (Gross and Altman
1995, 345–346).
Nonetheless, the show’s main challenge continued being that of fan retention and new audience
acquisition (Greenberger 2012, 206). This resulted in the departure of Kes in season four and the
simultaneous introduction of Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan)—a disconnected Borg drone who needs
to relearn what it means to be human. The creation and development of Seven ultimately cap-
ture the duality within the production: on one hand, she embodies the three chief aims of instil-
ling conflict, exploring uncharted territories, and showcasing stronger female roles in Star Trek.
On the other hand, she is also inevitably, and underminingly, a product of an attempt to garner
viewership through, in this case, “a jolt of sex appeal” (ibid., 207). The history of VOY’s produc-
tion thus captures both the longing and ambivalence—if not outright reluctance—to embrace
something new; the need to challenge/question Roddenberry’s rules while also remaining in
comforting and familiar territory; the drive to go boldly, but not too boldly. All reflect the con-
temporary cultural contexts of its production.
Cultural and Historical Context

The prime directive of a good Star Trek show is to challenge the status quo: challenge the genre;
challenge the preceding shows; but most importantly, challenge the ideals, beliefs, and paradigms of
its time. VOY is no stranger to this imperative, one particularly fueled by sociopolitical and cultural
issues of the mid/late-1990s. In Captain’s Logs, Piller likens the journey of the Voyager to “the journey
that all of us in this country are embarking on today,” in that it will take more than one lifetime to
solve the problems faced. Piller uses the setting of what is potentially a generation ship as a metaphor
for the idea that it “may take more than one generation to see the final result” of whatever solutions
are begun in the 1990s (Gross and Altman 1995, 343).
Contemporary concerns can be identified across episodes that explore issues such as the effects of
war, propaganda, and ideological indoctrination of soldiers, as seen in “Initiations” (VOY 2.2, 1995),
“Nemesis” (VOY 4.4, 1997), and “Memorial” (VOY 6.14, 2000); the morality and responsibility of
sharing technology, especially weapons, with seemingly unprepared or unevolved people that can
result in them posing a danger to themselves and others, as seen with the Kazon and episodes like
“Friendship One” (VOY 7.21, 2001); teen pregnancy, as seen in “Elogium” (VOY 2.4, 1995) and
reproductive rights explored in “Lineage” (VOY 7.12, 2001); the ethics of benefitting from research
acquired through experimentation on other life forms, as in “Nothing Human” (VOY 5.8, 1998),
or from alliances with known criminals and oppressive forces, explored through the many ques-
tionable treaties and deals made with various species, including the Borg; questions of intellectual
property rights and censorship in art, particularly explored with the Doctor’s holonovel in “Author,
Author” (VOY 7.20, 2001); the erasure of atrocities like genocide from history and the mutability
of historiography in episodes like “Remember” (VOY 3.6, 1996) and “Living Witness” (VOY 4.23,
1998), respectively; and what the very meaning of life is in relation to artificial intelligence and
posthumanism, particularly addressed through episodes centered on the EMH program and Seven
of Nine (see Chapter 57). In addition, political and sociocultural issues like the 1990s’ refugee crises
can be seen through the allegorical lens of the alien in “Counterpoint” (VOY 5.10, 1998), originally
titled “Refugee” (McIntee 2000, 276). Similarly, the two-parter “Workforce” (VOY 7.16, 2001 and
VOY 7.17, 2001) reflects both expectations and anxieties related to the influx of a skilled immigrant
48
Star Trek: Voyager
workforce to California and Silicon Valley in the late 1990s. However, as a whole, VOY is particularly
influenced by the gender and faith conversations of the decade.
Representing Women
Reflecting the decade’s concerns over gender inequality and a push for more women in command
roles, Berman, Piller, and Taylor placed their female characters in, at the time, atypical leadership
positions—commanding officers, engineers, and astrophysicists. This is particularly evident when
contrasted against other genre films and television series before VOY as well as against Star Trek
itself—a franchise not known for women in positions of command, particularly command over male
characters. Apart from the, “The Cage” (TOS 1965/1988), which featured first officer, Number One
(Majel Barrett), TOS purposefully and infamously states that, even in progressive twenty-third-cen-
tury utopian dream society, women cannot be captains (“Turnabout Intruder” [TOS 3.24, 1969]).
While Crusher (Gates McFadden) is chief medical officer in TNG, she is seldom seen taking active
control of her own medical bay beyond issuing the occasional instruction to her nurses or gently
reminding Picard (Patrick Stewart) to look after his own health. Contrasted against the assertive
EMH or McCoy (DeForest Kelley), she is not exactly exerting the power her position and rank afford
her, and Counselor Troi (Marina Sirtis) is even less assertive and commanding.1
Though there is no shortage of strong female characters in popular culture outside of Star Trek,
they are also seldom in official command positions. Often cited feminist role model Ellen Ripley
(Sigourney Weaver), for example, begins as a warrant officer; iconic Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton)
is a waitress; even general Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher), leader of the rebel forces, was first and fore-
most framed as a princess and a damsel-in-distress—even though the trope was subverted throughout
that franchise. All of them prove to be capable leaders in the end, but none were presumed cap-
able initially. It is 1990s’ television that saw a rise in women not only taking command, but also
being entrusted with a leading role from the start.2 These characters, however, are still not their
shows’ respective leads. Besides VOY, it was not until Xena:Warrior Princess (1995–2001) and Buffy:The
Vampire Slayer (1997–2003) that female characters became not only leaders in their own right, but
also leads of their genre shows.
Notably, women in VOY are not in command positions in titles alone. As with Kira (Nana Visitor)
and Dax (Terry Farrell) in DS9, VOY sees women in active positions with actual significance; they
command other crew members, they issue orders instead of simply offering suggestions, and their
stories have a direct impact on the overall plot of the show. Janeway and B’Elanna, and later Seven
of Nine, are women of hard science with expertise in anything from theoretical physics to temporal
mechanics (“Parallax” [VOY 1.3, 1995]). These are a direct result of the historical and cultural land-
scape surrounding the show.
The 1980s had seen women become astronauts, but the 1990s saw women astronauts taking
charge in leadership positions; these included Eileen Collins becoming the first female shuttle pilot in
1995 and later the first female commander of a US spacecraft in 1999, and Shannon Lucid breaking
the record for most hours in orbit by a non-Russian and later serving as chief scientist for NASA.
Likewise, Janeway, Torres, and Seven are women who are in charge. Even Kes assumes leadership
responsibilities and self-actualizes by first proposing and then developing a hydroponics bay, learning
medicine in order to assist the Doctor, and developing impressive telekinetic powers. This is made all
the more impressive given that she was created to be Neelix’s romantic partner; essentially a “space
fairy,” Piller described her as “a gorgeous, ethereal creature” and Rick Kolbe dubbed her a beautiful
and “fragile” but steely-willed woman specifically written to not be a “ball-buster” or “tank-like”
(Gross and Altman 1995, 351).
Of course, where late-1990s’ progressive postfeminism positively influenced female representation
in VOY, the period’s reactionary anti-feminist and traditionally gendered views also influenced the
development of Kes, as well as the contradictory characterization of Seven of Nine as both a genderless
49
Leimar Garcia-Siino
Borg and a dazzlingly attractive woman (see Chapters 42 and 51). They are also evident in the clumsy
attempts to write romantic foils for Janeway, which took longer to be written into the show than for
Kirk (William Shatner), Picard, and Sisko (Avery Brooks), and also necessitated—with the notable
exception of Kashyk (Mark Harelik) in “Counterpoint” (VOY 5.10, 1998)—rendering Janeway doe-
eyed, forlorn, and, at one point, in love with a tailor-made hologram (“Fair Haven” [VOY 6.11, 2000]).
New Age, Spirituality, and Religion

The New Age movement dates to long before the 1990s, but while its precursors can be traced
as far back as nineteenth-century Spiritualism, the 1970s were the “period when the New Age
Movement as such began” (Lewis 2007, 4). By the 1990s, the movement—also known as a “millen-
nialist movement” for its focus on the approaching second millennium—started dissolving, or rather,
transitioning into a “post-millennialist phase” (ibid., 5).
New Age beliefs vacillated between non-traditional and traditional religiosity—a “decentralised
subculture lacking institutional structures, a shared set of agreed-upon doctrines, or even clear bound-
aries” (ibid., 207). This was often combined with a vague “interest in science,” including “aspects of
mainstream science such as modern physics, … quasi-mainstream practices like holistic health, … mar-
ginal fields of study like UFOlogy, and … occult ‘sciences’ like numerology” (ibid., 207–208). Most
of these patterns can be found deeply embedded at the core of VOY’s own regard for the science/
faith dichotomy that the writers sought to explore and exploit. More problematically, the movement’s
commercial appropriation of Native American spirituality is also woven into the fabric of the show.
Religion and spirituality have long been dicey subjects in Star Trek (see Chapter 46). Since the
perceived divide between faith and science is a tenuous gradient with individuals’ personal beliefs
being rich and diverse in real life, Star Trek’s incursions into the divine and meta-physical tend to
feel rather contrived. In a franchise that has literal omnipotent beings, the lack of definitive answers
regarding one deity’s proven existence over another or regarding the afterlife is a result of the writers’
and producers’ reticence, indeed fear, of offending world religions.VOY’s incursions into these topics
result in equivocation, empty spirituality, and an unfortunate (re)appropriation of less-prominent
beliefs as in the case of Native American shamanism. Indeed, this is emblematic of the 1990s’ New Age
movement that fetishized Native American imagery and culture into a kind of “plastic shamanism”
(Aldred 2000, 329). Katja Kanzler (2007) calls out VOY for its unwillingness to “complicate the
binary construction of the spiritual versus the rational” even when attempting to “draw a more
nuanced picture of Native American spirituality.”
Like the New Age movement’s commodification of Indigenous lifeways, VOY’s appropriation of
Native American spirituality is “a continuation of the Western colonization of indigenous ‘territories’,
including knowledge” (Owen 2008, 19). The attempt by the writers to be more representative was iron-
ically undermined not only by this commodification but by their having hired proven fraudster Jamake
Highwater as consultant (Poe 1998, 199); an American of European descent whose real name was Jack
Marks, he pretended to be Native American and who was ousted as such in the mid-1980s (Jacobs 2015).
The first-season episode “The Cloud” (VOY 1.6, 1995) introduces several of Chakotay’s pseudo-
shamanistic Native American practices and is an apt example of the problem. Worried about the
sense of unease and grief permeating the crew, Janeway bemoans the lack of a trained counselor
aboard. Chakotay—the only non-white character in the show defined primarily by his cultural
heritage—suggests that the crew could benefit from Native American practices, specifically the use of
an “animal guide.” He does not elaborate as to how and why an “animal guide”—itself a mishmash
of various Indigenous’ beliefs from totemism and spirit helpers to animal-shaped spirits involved in
shamanism—could be beneficial to the crew, nor does he position the practice in any specific Native
American context. Instead, he apologetically comments that it is “basically … what Carl Jung thought
he invented when he came up with his active imagination technique in 1932,” a direct reference to
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Star Trek: Voyager
New Age spiritualism. Later in the episode, Chakotay produces a “medicine bundle” and “teaches”
the captain to find her animal guide, which entails chanting and the use of a mind-altering device.
Reducing the entirety of Native American beliefs to a quick pseudoscientific explanation—
Chakotay asserts that scientists discovered how to recreate the psychotropic effects of herbs synthetic-
ally and safely—the show undermines the Indigenous knowledge and lifeways it tries to (re) present.
No true effects result from Janeway’s vision quest, nor from other incursions into similar bouts of
shamanism throughout the show (e.g., “Cathexis” [VOY 1.13, 1995], “Waking Moments” [VOY
4.13, 1998], “The Fight” [VOY 5.19, 1999]). Ironically, VOY’s inability to commit—through its
reluctance to disturb the faith conversation of its time—ultimately best captures the spiritualism
movement that influenced it.
However, the 1990s’ culture wars regarding religion and faith were not limited to pseudo-
spiritualism. Several episodes would also attempt to tackle the question being debated in America at
the time: what is the place of religion in the state and in science? In “Emanations” (VOY 1.9, 1995),
the crew encounters a race who believe they go to an afterlife when they die, but their physical bodies
are actually teleported to a nearby asteroid. This realization produces a crisis of faith that is resolved
by Janeway with a simplistic “just because I don’t have the answers to your questions doesn’t mean
there aren’t any.” A similar exchange occurs when Neelix dies during an away mission but is brought
back to life by Seven’s nanoprobes. His culture believes that when they die, their souls would travel to
the Great Forest but, not having experienced this, he doubts his faith. While Chakotay tries to help
Neelix, all he can offer is a vague “[d]‌eath is still the greatest mystery there is” (“Mortal Coil” [VOY
4.12, 1998]).VOY would go on and address the potential existence of an afterlife again in “Barge of
the Dead” when a near-death experience sees B’Elanna atoning for her mother’s dishonored soul so
that she may enter Sto’Vo’Kor, Klingon paradise (VOY 6.3, 1999). As with the other episodes, the
reality of the experience and its potential consequence are left uncertain. While one instance might
be explained as an attempt to portray agnosticism, several instances across multiple characters’ belief
systems reveal a deeper inability on the part of the show to explore harder questions.
The most obvious instance of an episode allegorically tackling the religion discussion taking
place in the US in the 1990s is “Distant Origin” (VOY 3.23, 1997) in which a pair of Voth scientists
attempt to prove to their ultra-religious government that they actually evolved on Earth instead of
being divinely created in the Delta Quadrant. The episode features a scene that recalls both Galileo’s
forced recantation before the Inquisition and the infamous 1925 Scopes Trial on the teaching of
evolution in Tennessee. By way of these explicitly marked allusions, the episodes speak to the growth
of the Religious Right in the US and, in particular, the rise of neo-creationism in the 1990s (Scott
2004, 113–133).
Ultimately, VOY is a product of the 1990s’ culture wars. As Andrew Hartman writes in A War for
the Soul of America:
a series of angry quarrels … dominated national headlines during the 1980s and 1990s
[w]‌hether over abortion, affirmative action, art, censorship, evolution, family values, fem-
inism, homosexuality, intelligence testing, media, multiculturalism, national history standards,
pornography, school prayer, sex education, [or] the Western canon.
(2015, 1)
The influence of these contexts abounds throughout the series.
Legacy
In 2020, VOY celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary, and though there are newer series that speak
more directly to contemporary viewers’ concerns, the story of one lost ship struggling to hold on to
51
Leimar Garcia-Siino
utopian ideals, led by tenacious women, and crewed by the most diverse cast the Star Trek franchise
had seen to date, continues to resonate with audiences more than it ever did. In 2017, Netflix released
a media report revealing that VOY was the most watched Star Trek series on their streaming platform
(Netflix Media Center 2017). In addition, VOY boasted the most rewatched episodes—taking six of
the top ten “Most Rewatched Episodes” spots (ibid.).
The longevity and rewatchability of VOY are due in no small part to its relationship to its his-
torical context, the nostalgia the 1990s holds in the cultural consciousness, and the latent effects
its sociopolitics are still having today. TOS engages with the civil rights movement and the tur-
bulent politics of the Cold War, looking toward the future with expectant hope. In contrast, VOY
is inescapably holding up a mirror to the late-1990s’ post-Cold-War, postmodern, postfeminist,
and posthuman present and finding hope therein. Unlike TOS and TNG, which defiantly look
forward to the twenty-third and twenty-fourth centuries while firmly rooted in the twentieth,
VOY is beholden to and oddly fascinated by twentieth-century culture and history—its in-text
“past.” Where TOS’s, TNG’s, and even DS9’s fictional pasts are rife with the failures of the human
race—the Eugenics Wars of the 1990s, the Sanctuary Districts of the early twenty-first century,
and the Third World War (see Chapter 41)—VOY’s past, and the viewers’ present and immediate
future, teem with human accomplishments: the completion of Earth’s first mega-tall biosphere, the
Millennium Gate (“11:59” [VOY 5.23, 1999]), the Ares IV manned mission to Mars (“One Small
Step” [VOY 6.8, 1999]), and the launch of the deep space probe Friendship 1 (“Friendship One”
[VOY 7.21, 2001]).
In describing the 1990s, Kurt Andersen writes that “[i]‌t was simply the happiest decade of our
American lifetimes” (2015). From income growth to national and international political stability, he
points out, “by the end of the decade, in fact, there was so much good news.” Even when disaster
struck, as with the World Trade Center bombings, “we were alarmed only briefly, figuring it for a
crazy one-off rather than a first strike in a long struggle” (ibid.). Optimistically if naïvely, VOY is
ultimately a series of one-off problems that can be overcome through the tenacity of the human
spirit—a spirit carried on from its own paratextual present.
Unlike its immediate predecessor DS9—where the actions of the characters have long-lasting
consequences that they must carry with them at all times—VOY was freer to explore moral
gray areas (see “Phage” [VOY 1.5, 1995], “Jetrel” [VOY 1.15, 1995], “Tuvix” [VOY 2.24, 1996],
“Real Life” [VOY 3.22, 1997], “The Killing Game” [VOY 4.18/19, 1998], or “Memorial” [VOY
6.14, 2000]) alongside very light-hearted episodes (“Bride of Chaotica!” [VOY 5.12, 1999], “Fair
Haven” [VOY 6.11, 2000], or “Someone to Watch Over Me” [VOY 5.22, 1999]) all without major
repercussions. The crew is taken to extreme lows whenever the captain decides it is in their best
interest to engage the self-destruct sequence or crash the ship (as in “Deadlock” [VOY 2.21, 1996]
or “Year of Hell” [VOY 4.8/9, 1997]), or when it seems they have completely failed their mission
to return to Earth (e.g., “Basics” [VOY 2.26/3.1, 1996] or “Timeless” [VOY 5.6, 1998]). Yet, they
are also shown to rise not only in triumph over their adversaries, but also in holding firm to their
belief and ethics (“Equinox, Parts I and II” [VOY 5.26,/6.1, 1999]). To generations that came of
age in a post-9/11, post-economic recession, pandemic-r iddled world, VOY offers an attractive
brand of positivism.
For all its failings—the obvious male-gaze demanded by Seven of Nine’s outfits, the misguided
belief that Western stereotypes of Indigenous culture are equivalent to actual Indigenous culture, the
lack of LGBTQ+representation (see Chapters 52 and 53), or, ultimately, the failure to address the
American imperialism and manifest destiny that suffuses the entire franchise despite its “uncharted
territories” premise making it ideal for this discussion (see Chapter 45)—VOY marked Star Trek’s
most progressive and diverse stance, arguably, until DSC. While this contributed, unfortunately, to
much of the show’s poor fan response at the time, it is a welcome and refreshing take on the future
from the vantage point of the 2020s. It is not surprising that several prominent scientists, celebrities,
52
Star Trek: Voyager
and politicians have cited VOY as an influence—including American politician Stacey Abrams,
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio- Cortez, and astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti. It is equally
unsurprising that its stories continue to resonate with viewers today, inspiring diverse audiences to
hold on to humanity’s best ideals, trusting that those ideals are the stars that will steer them home.
Key Episodes
“Scorpion, Parts I and II” (VOY 3.26/4.1, 1997)

In testing whether seemingly moral characters adhere to their ethics in the face of danger, “Scorpion”
goes one step further and explores choice versus nature. As Janeway and the Borg forge a questionable
alliance, both discover what they are willing to compromise and whether the fallen can find redemption
and humanity.
“Year of Hell, Parts I and II” (VOY 4.8/9, 1997)

While the franchise has placed crews in dire situations before, no other episode lingers and examines the
physical, mental, and emotional toil of loss and destruction as this one. Janeway’s final Hail Mary play is
unprecedented; it shows a captain past the edge of desperation, defiant to the end.
“Equinox, Parts I and II” (VOY 5.26/6.1, 1999)

The crew encounters another Federation crew who have renounced their ethics and principles and are
using an alien species as fuel. The Equinox and her crew serve as a mirror to the Voyager; the episode
exemplifies the premise of the show: to test out the Federation’s righteous utopian morality against
survival.
“Survival Instinct” (VOY 6.2, 1999)

A showcase of Seven of Nine’s growth throughout the series, she confronts the consequences of her
actions while a part of the Borg collective. The episode, crucially, reflects one of Star Trek’s most powerful
tenets: a good life is more important than a safe life; survival is insufficient.
“Blink of an Eye” (VOY 6.12, 1999)

The Prime Directive can be argued to be both at best wisely anti-colonialist and at worst paternalistic-
ally condescending. The effects of its violation are often negative for the supposedly primitive societies
encountered. Here, however, accidental exposure to Voyager leads a civilization to literally reach for the
stars and beyond.
Notes
1 For a thorough discussion of gender roles and feminism in Star Trek, see Susan A. Lentz’s (2004) essay “Where
No Woman Has Gone Before,” and see Chapter 51.
2 Examples of women in positions of leadership in the 1990s include Special Agent Dana Scully (Gillian
Anderson) from The X-Files (1993–2002); Lt. Commander Susan Ivanova (Claudia Christian) and Ambassador
Delenn (Mira Furlan) from Babylon 5 (1993–98); and, captain—later major and colonel—Samantha Carter
(Amanda Tapping) from Stargate SG-1 (1997–2007).
53
Leimar Garcia-Siino
References
Aldred, Lisa. 2000. “Plastic Shamans and Astroturf Sun Dances.” American Indian Quarterly 24, no. 3
(Summer): 329–352.
Andersen, Kurt. 2015. “The Best Decade Ever? The 1990s, Obviously.” New York Times. February 6, 2015.
Available at: www.nytimes.com/2015/02/08/opinion/sunday/the-best-decade-ever-the-1990s-obviously.
html.
Booker, Keith. 2018. Star Trek: A Cultural History. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Chaires, Robert H., and Bradley Stewart Chilton, Eds. 2004. Star Trek Visions of Law and Justice. Denton,
TX: University of North Texas Press.
Dillard, J. M. 1994. Star Trek “Where No One Has Gone Before”: A History in Pictures. New York: Pocket Books.
Greenberger, Robert. 2012. Star Trek: The Complete Unauthorized History. McGregor, MN: Voyageur Press.
Gross, Edward, and Mark A. Altman. 1995. Captain’s Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages. Toronto: Little,
Brown and Company.
Hark, Ina Rae. 2008. Star Trek. London: British Film Institute.
Hartman, Andrew. 2015. A War for the Soul of America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Jacobs, Alex. 2015. “Fool’s Gold: The Story of Jamake Highwater, the Fake Indian Who Won’t Die.” Indian
Country Today, June 19, 2015. Available at: https://indiancountrytoday.com/archive/fools-gold-the-story-of
-jamake-highwater-the-fake-indian-who-wont-die
Kanzler, Katja. 2007. “‘A Cuchi Moya!’—Star Trek’s Native Americans.” American Studies Journal 49. Available
at: www.asjournal.org/49-2007/star-treks-native-americans/.
Kemp, Daren, and James R. Lewis, Eds. 2007. Handbook of New Age. Boston: Brill.
Lentz, Susan A. 2003. “‘Where No Woman Has Gone Before’: Feminist Perspectives on Star Trek.” In Star Trek
Visions of Law and Justice, edited by Robert H. Chaires and Bradley Stewart Chilton, 136–159. Denton,
TX: University of North Texas Press.
Lewis, James R. 2007. “Science and the New Age.” In Handbook of New Age, edited by Daren Kemp and James
R. Lewis, 207–229. Boston: Brill.
McIntee, David A. 2000. Delta Quadrant: The Unofficial Guide to Voyager. London: Virgin Books.
Netflix Media Center. 2017. “Netflix Boldly Goes Where No Man Has Gone Before, Revealing Star Trek
Fans’ Favorite Episodes.” Available at: https://web.archive.org/web/20170917232739/https://media.netfl ix.
com/en/press-releases/netfl ix-boldly-goes-where-no-man-has-gone-before-revealing-star-trek-f ans-f avor
ite-episodes.
Owen, Suzanne. 2008. The Appropriation of Native American Spirituality. London: Continuum International
Publishing Group.
Pearson, Roberta, and Máire Messenger Davies. 2014. Star Trek and American Television. Berkeley, CA: University
of California Press.
Poe, Stephen Edward. 1998. Star Trek Voyager: A Vision of the Future. New York: Pocket Books.
Ruditis, Paul. 2003. Star Trek Voyager Companion. New York: Pocket Books.
Scott, Eugene C. 2004. Evolution vs Creationism: An Introduction. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Star Trek Episodes
The Original Series
Voyager
1.1/2 “Caretaker” 1995.
1.3 “Parallax” 1995.
1.5 “Phage” 1995.
1.6 “The Cloud” 1995.
1.9 “Emanations” 1995.
1.13 “Cathexis” 1995.
1.15 “Jetrel” 1995.
2.2 “Initiations” 1995.
2.4 “Elogium” 1995.
2.21 “Deadlock” 1996.
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Star Trek: Voyager
2.24 “Tuvix” 1996.

2.26 “Basics, Part I” 1996.
3.1 “Basics, Part II” 1996.
3.6 “Remember” 1996.
3.22 “Real Life” 1997.
3.23 “Distant Origin” 1997.
3.26 “Scorpion” 1997.
4.1 “Scorpion, Part II” 1997.
4.4 “Nemesis” 1997.
4.8 “Year of Hell” 1997.
4.9 “Year of Hell, Part II” 1997.
4.12 “Mortal Coil” 1998.
4.13 “Waking Moments” 1998.
4.18 “The Killing Game” 1998.
4.19 “The Killing Game, Part II” 1998.
4.23 “Living Witness” 1998.
5.6 “Timeless” 1998.
5.8 “Nothing Human” 1998.
5.10 “Counterpoint” 1998.
5.12 “Bride of Chaotica!” 1999.
5.19 “The Fight” 1999.
5.22 “Someone to Watch Over Me” 1999.
5.23 “11:59” 1999.
5.26 “Equinox” 1999.
6.1 “Equinox, Part II” 1999.
6.2 “Survival Instinct” 1999.
6.3 “Barge of the Dead” 1999.
6.8 “One Small Step” 1999.
6.11 “Fair Haven” 2000.
6.12 “Blink of an Eye” 1999.
6.14 “Memorial” 2000.
7.12 “Lineage” 2001.
7.16 “Workforce” 2001.
7.17 “Workforce, Part II” 2001.
7.20 “Author, Author” 2001.
7.21 “Friendship One” 2001.
55
6
STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE
Zaki Hasan
Set more than a hundred years before the events of The Original Series, the fifth live action Star Trek
series, Enterprise, first aired on the now-defunct UPN Network in September of 2001. Coming mere
months after the finale of Voyager, the prequel skein was expressly created by executive producer
Rick Berman and veteran writer/producer Brannon Braga. The show was to keep the Star Trek fires
lit on television while also varying enough of the window dressing to make it feel like something
new and different for audiences who had perhaps begun to take the old “wagon train to the stars”
for granted after 14 years of continuous Star Trek on television. What followed was a tumultuous,
abbreviated run for the creative team shepherding the franchise, bookending a period of uninter-
rupted production that began with the debut of The Next Generation in 1987. Starring Scott Bakula
as Jonathan Archer, captain of the experimental Enterprise NX-01, the show attempted to recapture
the old-fashioned derring-do of TOS while laying the historiographic and narrative groundwork for
the Star Trek universe as audiences had come to know it.
While the series was met with considerable hype, interest, and acclaim upon launch, audience
interest soon dwindled. In contrast to the three series that had preceded it, each of which was on air
for seven seasons, ENT was canceled by the network at the close of its fourth season, just shy of one
hundred episodes. Despite its aborted run, however, ENT did accomplish a few “firsts” for Star Trek.
Technically, it was the first series to take advantage of evolving television technology and was shot
on a widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio. It was also the first production to go backwards in the Star Trek
timeline and thus closer to our contemporary era. This would be attempted again with J.J. Abrams’
feature reboot in 2009, with DSC in 2017, and again with the Strange New Worlds spin-off series in
2022. By the time of ENT’s conclusion, the 3.8 million viewers who tuned in for the 2005 series
finale “These Are the Voyages…” (ENT 4.22, 2005) were a far cry from the stellar premiere numbers
just four years earlier. As the NX-01 sailed into the permanent afterlife of syndicated reruns and
DVD/Blu-ray box sets, it marked the end of the version of Star Trek that had been in continuous
production for 18 years. While it was a virtual certainty that the property would return in some
form someday, the end of ENT was nonetheless a point of demarcation between the Star Trek that
was—fin de millennium television—and the Star Trek that has since taken flight on post-network-era
television.
Production History
With VOY winding down in 2001, programming heads at the United Paramount Network began
thinking about ways of keeping Star Trek on their air just a little bit longer. After all, in addition to
VOY being the show that launched the network, Star Trek was considered a “crown jewel” property,
and the legendary loyalty of its audience had done a good job keeping the coffers filled for years.
Even with dwindling interest by the end of VOY’s run, it was believed that there was sufficient fan
56 DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917-8
Star Trek: Enterprise
investment and market viability to keep the franchise afloat. To that end, it is not especially sur-
prising that Rick Berman, anointed overseer of all things Star Trek since the passing of creator Gene
Roddenberry in 1991, was once again approached by the studio for yet another permutation of
Star Trek. Berman, who had seen the franchise expand under him from TNG into DS9 and VOY as
well as the then-ongoing TNG feature films, had previously expressed his concerns over potentially
taking one trip too many to the well (Caron 2012), but he was also aware that the studio was going to
proceed whether he was involved or not. Told by then-Viacom executive Jonathan Dolgen to, “[d]‌o
something different, we need to shake things up” (Wright 2017), Berman once again tapped his talent
pool—as he had done previously with Michael Piller on DS9, and Piller and Jeri Taylor on VOY—to
once more boldly go; this time he teamed up with Brannon Braga, a Star Trek stalwart since TNG’s
fourth season who had successfully steered VOY for the tail end of its run. After some brainstorming,
the duo hatched the idea that this iteration was to follow in the footsteps of the Star Wars franchise,
which had embarked on its own prequel trilogy in 1999, and thus go back to before the beginning.
Given the ongoing concern that putting a brand-new crew on a brand-new ship and simply
moving the timeline forward a few years would not be distinctive enough from the collective 21
seasons of Star Trek on television that had preceded it, both Berman and Braga felt that going back-
wards in time would allow enough room to switch things up visually and thematically. The aim was
to capture those fans who may have felt like they had seen everything the franchise had to offer, while
also presenting human beings who were a little bit rougher around the edges, i.e., more like the audi-
ence, than the seemingly infallible people who populated the corridors of the Enterprise-D. Deciding
on a time period roughly a hundred years before the exploits of James T. Kirk (William Shatner), the
initial proposal from Berman and Braga would have had the entire inaugural season of ENT chron-
icle the construction of Earth’s first Warp 5 vessel. However, that idea was quickly abandoned by the
network executives, who felt that it strayed too far from the core building blocks of the franchise, i.e.,
space exploration on a starship and encounters with the strange and/or unknown, exploring strange
new worlds, seeking out new life, etc. Instead, it was decided that the pilot episode would begin with
the Enterprise’s launch in the wake of Earth’s first contact with the Klingons.
By the time VOY came to a close, the audience ratings—while still acceptable by UPN standards—
had fallen substantially since that show’s premiere, and even more so when compared to the heyday
of TNG. As such, the expectation by both producers and the network was that ENT—whose
eschewing of “Star Trek” in the title initially was a conscious effort to make the show feel “new” and
“fresh”—would reinvigorate the existing fanbase while also bringing in new, curious viewers who
might see it as a means of bypassing the reams of existing Star Trek canon.
To that end, a familiar and beloved television star was recruited to occupy the captain’s chair.
Having established his genre bona fides in NBC’s Quantum Leap (1988–93), Scott Bakula was a tele-
vision fixture throughout the 1990s, thanks to a recurring role in three seasons of Murphy Brown
(CBS, 1988–98) and the short-lived CBS series Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1996). Bakula was the producers’
and network’s first choice for the role of Captain Jackson Archer (later renamed Jonathan Archer),
and as it happens, the actor was himself a long-time Star Trek fan who was immediately intrigued by
the idea of playing the first captain of the storied starship Enterprise. With Bakula signed, the rest of
the cast—largely comprised of newcomers—signed on, including Connor Trinneer as Commander
Charles “Trip” Tucker III, Archer’s best friend and the ship’s chief engineer, and Jolene Blalock as
T’Pol, the catsuit-clad Vulcan science officer whose character was intended by the show’s creatives
to recapture the same sex appeal of fan-favorite Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) on VOY. The cast also
included John Billingsley as the ship’s Denobulan medical officer Phlox, Dominic Keating as armory
officer Malcolm Reed, Linda Park as communications officer and linguistic prodigy Hoshi Sato, and
Anthony Montgomery as helmsman Travis Mayweather.
With an appealing cast and solid reviews, ENT’s pilot episode, “Broken Bow” (ENT 1.1/
2, 2001) aired on UPN on September 26, 2001 and found a sizable audience ready to sample it,
garnering an impressive 12.54 million viewers (up substantially from the 8.8 million who tuned in to
57
Zaki Hasan
VOY’s finale just a few months earlier). That early success was enough to brand ENT an unqualified
success, leading to cover stories in both TV Guide and Entertainment Weekly. However, the same apathy
that had begun to spread among VOY’s audience reasserted itself again. Many of the new audiences
who jumped on with the pilot began to drift away, while existing fans found themselves not overly
passionate about the fifth Star Trek series either. A sizable portion of the fandom felt that it strayed
too far from the canon the various films and television shows had so painstakingly expanded over
35 years.
Following its second season premiere, ENT was faced with something Star Trek had not had
to worry about since TOS’ NBC run in the 1960s: cancelation. With ratings dropping to uncom-
fortable lows—and with Nemesis becoming the film franchise’s first outright bomb in 2002 (see
Chapter 19)—Star Trek as a whole was in real trouble, and some retooling was desperately needed if
ENT was to keep boldly going. As a result, Berman and Braga tapped into the post-9/11 angst that
had enveloped the national discourse since just before the series debuted, and came up with a pitch
for a serialized, season-long arc that would see the NX-01’s mission of exploration replaced by a des-
perate race to prevent Earth’s destruction. The “Xindi” storyline was mostly well received critically,
but it did not lift the show’s ratings substantially. However, knowing the magic syndication number
of one hundred episodes was nearly in sight, Enterprise was given one final reprieve, returning for
a fourth season built around smaller arcs, all of which were about leaning into the “prequel” hook
and fleshing out historical precursors of the world people had become familiar with in pre-ENT
Star Trek. Laying the groundwork for Star Trek tropes that were to come, the final season was over-
seen by Manny Coto, who joined the writing staff in year three and quickly demonstrated his affinity
both for these characters and the Star Trek universe.
ENT’s luck finally ran out at the close of its fourth season, and for the first time since 1969 a
Star Trek show ended its run against its will. With its series finale in May 2005, there were enough
episodes in the tank for reruns to be sold nationwide and they began airing almost immediately after-
wards. This ensured that even though Captain Archer would not be going on any new voyages, his
existing ones would never be too hard to find. In the 16 years since ENT’s finale, it has become avail-
able on DVD, Blu-ray, and various streaming platforms, allowing all the audiences who either ignored
it or drifted away during its initial run to discover the many ways in which it truly did go boldly go
in directions that were markedly different from previous Star Trek shows.
Context and Themes

As with all previous incarnations of Star Trek, ENT was a reflection of, and reaction to the times
that produced it. Given the cauldron of real-world conflict in which ENT emerged, i.e., 9/11 and
its immediate aftermath, it offered what was the clearest contrast between an uncertain present and
Star Trek’s utopian future since the heyday of TOS in the 1960s. While TNG, DS9, and VOY aired
during a period of relative peace on the global stage—the fall of the Iron Curtain, for example,
coinciding with the start of TNG’s third season—ENT arrived a mere two weeks after an event
that fundamentally reset the geopolitical landscape, bringing with it a march to war and renewed
uncertainty over the future. Given the way its prequel setting was expressly designed to reflect a more
imperfect model of humanity than had become commonplace in the preceding three shows, ENT
allowed for a greater opportunity to explore how Gene Roddenberry’s utopianism took root in the
twenty-second century.
Indeed, the pilot episode highlights the flawed, very human nature of the explorers tasked with
being the first to “boldly go.”The series’ entire raison d’être begins with a single Klingon crash-landing
in rural Oklahoma, and the botched first contact scenario that ensues in its wake. Set roughly a
hundred years after the events depicted in First Contact (1996), ENT shows that following Zefram
Cochrane’s first warp flight and humanity’s contact with the Vulcans, Earth’s foray into space has
58
not exactly gone smoothly. The imperative of addressing and overcoming prejudice is something
Star Trek has tackled many times in the past, but usually through the prism of the seemingly flawless
humans in Starfleet looking askance at other races who are not quite as evolved as they are; “Let That
Be Your Last Battlefield” (TOS 3.15, 1969) serves as a paradigmatic example. Whenever any of the
main characters evinced hints of racism or prejudice, it was framed as an aberration, or a temporary
departure from their fundamental beliefs (e.g., Captain Kirk in TUC or Captain Picard in FCT). But
the need for human beings to conquer their own inherent biases was written into the very premise
of ENT with its lead character, Jonathan Archer.
The son of the man who designed the Warp 5 engine, Jonathan Archer saw his father grow old
and die while the Vulcans nursemaided—though Archer might say “henpecked” is a better word—
humans, stifling their aspirations for taking their “rightful” place among the galaxy’s space-faring
races. Consequently, by the time the Enterprise is tasked with returning the Klingon Klaang (Tommy
“Tiny” Lister, Jr.) to his home world Qo’noS, Archer seizes the moment not least because he is intent
on proving the Vulcans wrong; “You have no idea how much I’m restraining myself from knocking
you on your ass,” he says to future first officer T’Pol, in the first of many bouts of Vulcan-induced
profanity that mark the first two seasons in particular. By the pilot’s end, Earth has become entangled
in a centuries-spanning Temporal Cold War, while beginning a power struggle with the Klingons,
recalling the Soviet-era balance of powers between the Federation and the Klingon Empire that
defined much of TOS.
While Archer’s own journey of establishing first a rapport, and then a deep friendship with
T’Pol—and, in the process, reconciling with Vulcans in general—would play out over the course of
the series, the human failings of the rest of the crew would also be repeatedly highlighted, most often
in stories centering on Commander Tucker. Embossed with a Southern folksiness meant to evoke
Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley), it is Tucker who—more so than even his friend Archer—tends to find
himself in situations that expose his anthropocentrism with a view to harnessing it as a narrative
vehicle for character growth.
From initially harboring suspicion and hostility toward Vulcans in the first season’s “Strange New
World” (ENT 1.4, 2001) to entering into a romantic relationship with T’Pol in “Harbinger” (ENT
3.15, 2004) to becoming a surrogate father to the first Human-Vulcan child toward the end of the
fourth season, “Terra Prime/Demons” (ENT 4. 20/21, 2005), Trip’s journey speaks to a profound
growth in character, recalling the likes of Tom Paris (Robert Duncan McNeill), B’Elanna Torres
(Roxann Dawson), or Nog (Aron Eisenberg). Culminating with his death in the series finale, Trip’s
character arc illustrates a hallmark of Star Trek, i.e., the capacity of all beings to change for the better.
As ENT’s first two seasons progressed, they pushed more purposefully into the allegorical terrain
where the franchise tends to excel. One such example is “Dear Doctor” (ENT 1.13, 2002), widely
regarded as one of the best ENT episodes and a personal favorite of star John Billingsley, who played
chief medical officer Phlox. Encountering a civilization headed toward extinction, Archer must
decide whether it is within his purview to potentially alter the course of an entire planet’s evolution.
While the beginnings of what will become Starfleet’s hallowed Star Trek Prime Directive are laid—
Archer remarks to Phlox, “Some day, my people are going to come up with some sort of a doctrine,
something that tells us what we can and can’t do out here, should and shouldn’t do”—a more general
commentary is also at play about the role of genetic engineering and whether the mere capability to
affect some kind of change supersedes the moral imperative underlying it.
ENT took some of its most topical deep dives in its second season, perhaps most prominently with
the episode “Stigma” (ENT 2.14, 2003). By that point, Star Trek had used science fiction allegory for
a variety of real-world concerns, but one topic it had always stepped gingerly around was queer sexu-
ality. Not only had TNG shied away from same-sex relationships, a first-season script—“Blood and
Fire”—which was penned by David Gerrold and would have featured fairly explicit references to AIDS,
was ultimately nixed for fear of spooking the family television market (see Chapter 55). While TNG
episodes such as “Violations” (TNG 5.12, 1992) and “Man of the People” (TNG 6.3, 1992) used rape
59
Zaki Hasan
metaphors for their narrative focus (to varying degrees of success), it would take 15 years for Star Trek
to once again try its hand at an AIDS allegory. According to Berman, the idea for “Stigma” emerged
after a push by the network to increase HIV awareness in its programming. In lieu of a sexually trans-
mitted disease, the episode uses the concept of Vulcan mind melds to tender a plausible allegory since
the Vulcan practice had, in the past, carried clear connotations of personal intimacy. T’Pol contracts a
Vulcan illness called “Pa’nar Syndrome,” which carries a severe stigma on her home world; it afflicts only
those who engage in what Vulcan society at the time considers an illicit practice. The allegory is just
this side of ham-handed, but the earnestness of the approach elevates the material. Even so, the episode
is unable to escape allusions to rape, and even homophobia, as it is brought to light that T’Pol contracted
the illness during a first-season encounter with a group of Vulcans who were ostracized because they
explored their otherwise suppressed emotions; one of those Vulcans forced a mind meld onto T’Pol
(“Fusion” [ENT 1.17, 2002]). Ultimately, the Pa’nar Syndrome is hand-waved away in a fourth season
episode as something that can easily be “corrected” by those who are more experienced in mind
melding (“Kir’Shara” [ENT 4.9, 2004]) which further undercuts the episode’s intentions and potential.
As the show reached the close of its second season, Archer’s character arc and real-world events
intersected in a way that would have been impossible to imagine during the show’s formative stages.
The show’s producers labeled the shapeshifting antagonists introduced in the pilot the Suliban, a
name that owed its etymology to the Taliban. Of course, at the time these ideas were sketched out,
the Taliban were known primarily as the oppressive regime that had taken control of Afghanistan in
the 1990s. Following the 9/11 attacks, that name would command entirely new connotations and
associations with the public at large as the US invaded Afghanistan a few weeks after ENT premiered.
However, even with the inspiration evident in their name, the Suliban were not meant to evoke
the Taliban, neither in depiction nor beliefs. They were a faction in the Temporal Cold War, which
was conceived more in the vein of the US-Soviet Cold War than the War on Terror. Nonetheless,
contemporary events would eventually catch up to the Star Trek franchise in the form of ENT’s
extended, season-long “Xindi” arc, which was itself an attempt to reframe the optimistic Star Trek
worldview in light of real-world events.
By this time, ratings were waning, and the network insisted that a narrative shake-up was neces-
sary if the show was to remain on the air. Thus, with post-9/11 anxieties firmly entrenched in the
US national consciousness and the US-led invasion of Iraq in search of weapons of mass destruction
under way in the spring of 2003, Star Trek took a leap of faith, allowing for an extended storyline
that remains fascinating, engrossing, and divisive more than 15 years later.
Beginning at the close of season two, in the episode “The Expanse” (ENT 2.26, 2003), the story-
line opens with a devastating surprise attack on Earth; a mysterious probe appears in orbit and blasts
a swath of destruction across much of Florida which leaves 7 million people dead, including Trip’s
sister. The NX-01 is recalled and given a new mission: to journey into an unexplored region of space
called “the Delphic Expanse” to seek out the Xindi, the alien race that orchestrated the attack and
prevent them from launching an even bigger one, which Archer had been warned about during the
Temporal Cold War storyline.
While DS9 had already taken things into much darker terrain, exploring the complexities, ambi-
guities, and moral challenges of preserving Starfleet’s vision while fighting a war, it was a show that
had trafficked in moral complexity right from its inception. ENT, on the other hand, began with a
much more optimistic approach reminiscent of both TOS and TNG. As a result, the transition the
characters themselves underwent was much more pronounced and noticeable, putting to the test
whether Star Trek’s spirit of optimism could withstand a punishing scenario where morality was
often subjugated to expediency. What ENT put forth was a far cry from the relatively safe confines
of the Enterprise-D in the twenty-fourth century, and it no doubt alienated many long-time fans for
whom such grimness of tone was simply a step too far. Nonetheless, the third season offered a real
opportunity to break free of some of the “safe” constraints of episodic storytelling that the series had
found itself mired in during the previous two years.
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Foremost among these is the episode “Similitude” (ENT 3.10, 2003), ostensibly a “bottle episode”
set off to the one side of the ongoing Xindi storyline, but still very much informed by the inherent
urgency therein. The episode sees Trip incapacitated following an incident in engineering at precisely
the moment when Enterprise is stranded in the middle of an anomalous region and his expertise is badly
needed to extricate the ship. In an act of desperation, Phlox rapidly grows a clone of Trip from whom
tissue can be harvested to save the original’s life. Not only does the clone possess all of Trip’s knowledge,
but he also develops an identity of his own. When he refuses to give up tissue that could end up costing
his own life, Archer is faced with a difficult decision that gets to the essence of Star Trek’s complicated
view of morality, where every life matters and is worth saving. In addition to boasting a showpiece per-
formance from Connor Trinneer as both Trip and his clone Sim (short for “Simulacrum”), the episode
also shows how much this mission has changed Archer, who finds himself increasingly jaded by the hard
decisions he has to make knowing that Earth’s very existence hangs in the balance.
Legacy
Despite the fact that it lasted four seasons and a total of 98 episodes, ENT still left the air with the
impression of failure around it—a noble failure, perhaps, but a failure all the same. With each of
the three preceding series lasting seven seasons, ENT came up short of what had previously been
considered standard operating procedure for Star Trek on television since TNG. As the closing shots
of the final episode, “These Are the Voyages…” (ENT 4.22, 2005) saw the NX-01 sail into the cosmic
sunset of cancelation, ENT felt less like a triumphant restatement of Star Trek’s perpetual place on
the television landscape than the labored last gasps of a once-beloved brand that had been allowed
to wither. The series felt increasingly out of step when weighted against other sf television content
such as Lost (2004–2010), which began its buzz-filled run on ABC just as ENT neared its conclusion.
When TNG debuted in fall of 1987, it was pretty much unmatched when it came to televised,
high concept sf. The subsequent success of Star Trek over the next 15 years proved a boon not merely
for Paramount, but for the genre as a whole, both on networks and in syndication. Along with shows
such as Babylon 5 (1993–98) and Farscape (1999–2003), space-based sf television shows of the 1990s
demonstrated “the narrative maturity and contemporary popularity of the form” (Telotte 2008, 24).
By the time ENT left the air in spring of 2005, MGM’s Stargate franchise had become a behemoth
in its own right, and Universal’s Battlestar Galactica reboot (spearheaded by Star Trek veteran Ronald
D. Moore) found considerable acclaim bucking the very tropes Star Trek had popularized.
For as much as ENT promised to be “new” and “different” while keeping the franchise machinery
chugging along, it simply seemed a little too “safe” and “familiar” for the entrenched audience. In
Star Trek parlance, it was a “no-win scenario” (WOK, ST09) as borne out by the dwindling ratings
over the course of four years. As Bakula told TV Guide in 2013 when taking stock of the polarizing
reaction the show garnered from the Star Trek fanbase:
[o]‌ur world had so radically dramatically changed since 1966 when the original show was
on. So we really couldn’t use that technology that was available then. We had to make art-
istic choices that would seem balanced and appropriate. Some people took issue with that.
When ENT’s final episode aired, it carried the weight not merely of ending this particular series, but
the entire run of shows that had been in continuous production since 1987. In wanting to compose
“a valentine” to the franchise, ENT’s final hour was devoted to a TNG framing device focused on
guest stars Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis, and what should have been a victory lap for the most
recent series ended up satisfying fans of neither; Braga has recalled that, “[i]‌t was the only time Scott
Bakula was ever mean to me.” It was an unfortunate, ignominious end to a series that began with
such promise only four years earlier, and whose initial success seemed to signal a brave new world for
the revered franchise.
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Zaki Hasan
The fans who stuck around for that final season, however, were happy to see Coto explicitly lay
the groundwork for Kirk and his crew with storylines like the “Augments” arc, tying in with the
fan-favorite WOK (see Chapter 11) while bringing in TNG’s Brent Spiner for good measure. The
three-part “Vulcan” storyline attempted to reconcile the show’s portrayal of Vulcans—tribalistic and
borderline xenophobic—with that of the wise and benevolent people that audiences had come to
appreciate in previous shows. The season even included a two-part episode set entirely in the Mirror
Universe, which included a painstaking recreation of the TOS-era starship Defiant, tying up a dan-
gling plot thread from the original episode “The Tholian Web” (TOS 3.9, 1968) in the process. In
short, it was an embarrassment of riches for the long-time faithful. Braga stated in 2017, “I think
Manny had finally found the voice of the show, and season 4 should’ve been season 1,” adding “I think
that the show should have continued.” Unfortunately, too few viewers had stuck around by this point
for it to matter, and while a fan-driven internet campaign sprang up attempting to save the show from
cancelation—as fans had done with TOS—it never gained much traction.
While the wisdom of mounting a prequel show to Star Trek was perhaps questionable, time has a
way of adding context, and two decades of change on the television market since ENT began has gone
a long way toward solidifying Captain Archer and his crew’s unique place in the canon. What ENT
then offers is an early attempt to peel Star Trek away from the suffocating confines of formula that
had become in many ways a straitjacket for the storytelling needs of the various creatives. They had
to adhere to Roddenberry’s utopian vision while also finding creative ways to work around it. To be
clear, ENT did not always succeed on that front, but what it did manage to do was flesh out a period
of Star Trek lore that had gone largely unexplored in all the reams of extant canon. ENT gave us a
cast of characters who were no less aspirational for all the ways they occasionally stumbled toward the
utopianism that lay in their future. With the added context of the J.J. Abrams’ Kelvin Timeline films
as well as Alex Kurtzman spearheading Star Trek’s return to television with DSC, PIC and LWR (and
more), ENT can be viewed not as the last gasp of a dying artifact, but as one that was trying a little too
hard to step away from its more-famous siblings. Instead, it can, and perhaps should be looked at as the
last standard-bearer for Star Trek’s middle period, coming at the tail end of a time of unprecedented
growth and sustained creativity which will likely remain unmatched for the foreseeable future. Enough
time has passed that ENT can be viewed not for what it failed to do, but for all that it excelled at.
Key Episodes
“Broken Bow” (ENT 1.1/2, 2001)

The pilot does a masterful job laying out the characters and the mission statement. Being fourth in line
after The Next Generation, it had the benefit of learning from its predecessors’ successes and missteps, and
as a result is the most well-rounded debut episode of Star Trek’s middle era.
“First Flight” (ENT 2.24, 2003)

Owing as much to Tom Wolfe as Gene Roddenberry, this episode embodies Rick Berman’s original
“Right Stuff in outer space” pitch for the overall series. In flashbacks, we see Archer and fellow test pilot
A.G. Robinson (Keith Carradine) compete to be captain of Earth’s first Warp 5 starship.
“The Expanse” (ENT 2.26, 2003)

The season two finale launched ENT into its controversial third season. Not only did the episode signal a
shift from what defined the show during its first two years, it also reflected the franchise’s acknowledgment
of the then-fresh trauma of 9/11, and America’s continued reckoning with the aftermath of those attacks.
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“Similitude” (ENT 3.10, 2003)

Probably the most “classic Trek” of the entire run, “Similitude” presents Archer with a moral dilemma
when the life of his chief engineer and best friend “Trip” Tucker is on the line. The final resolution is
both incredibly moving and entirely consistent with Star Trek’s ethos of treating complicated issues with
complexity.
“Terra Prime/Demons” (ENT 4.21/22, 2005)

This two-parter came just before the actual series finale, and if the producers had chosen to walk away
here it is a safe bet that the show’s ending would have been far better regarded. Tackling head-on issues of
racism and xenophobia on Earth, this story illustrates perfectly why Roddenberry’s optimistic Star Trek
vision is so timeless.
References
Caron, Nathalie. 2012. “Star Trek Producer Reveals the Reasons Enterprise Failed.” SyFy Wire, December 14,
2012. Available at: www.syfy.com/syfywire/star_trek_producer_reveal.
Porter, Jennifer. 2010. “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Surak: Star Trek: Enterprise, Anti-Catholicism
and the Vulcan Reformation.” In Star Trek as Myth: Essays on Symbol and Archetype at the Final Frontier, edited
by M.W. Kapell, 163–174. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
Rudolph, Ileane. 2013. “Scott Bakula Explores Star Trek: Enterprise’s Legacy with Blu-Ray Release.” TVGuide.
com, March 26, 2013. Available at: www.tvguide.com/news/scott-bakula-explores-1063174/.
Telotte, J.P. 2008. “Introduction: The Trajectory of Science Fiction Television.” In The Essential Science Fiction
Television Reader, edited by J.P. Telotte, 1–34. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky.
Wright, Matt. 2017. “STLV17: Brannon Braga on How Kirk Should Have Died, ‘Star Trek: Enterprise’ Regrets
and More.” TrekMovie.com, August 11, 2017. Available at: https://trekmovie.com/2017/08/11/sltv17-bran
non-braga-on-how-kirk-should-have-died-star-trek-enterprise-regrets-and-more/.
Star Trek Episodes
The Original Series
3.9 “The Tholian Web” 1968.
3.15 “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” 1969.
The Next Generation

6.3 “Man of the People” 1992.
Enterprise
1.1 “Broken Bow” 2001.
1.4 “Strange New World” 2001.
1.13 “Dear Doctor” 2002.
1.17 “Fusion” 2002.
2.14 “Stigma.” 2003.
2.24 “First Flight” 2003.
2.26 “The Expanse” 2003.
3.10 “Similitude” 2003.
3.15 “Harbinger” 2004.
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Zaki Hasan
4.9 “Kir’Shara” 2004.

4.20 “Demons” 2005.
4.21 “Terra Prime” 2005.
4.22 “These Are the Voyages…” 2005.
Star Trek Movies
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. 1991. dir. Nicholas Meyer. Paramount Pictures.
Star Trek. 2009. dir. J.J. Abrams. Paramount Pictures.
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7
STAR TREK: DISCOVERY
Sabrina Mittermeier
Discovery is set after ENT and right before TOS, and centers on Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-
Green), a lieutenant on the Shenzou who accidentally instigates the Federation-Klingon War and
mutinies against her captain, Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) in the process. When Georgiou is
killed as a result, Burnham is stripped of her rank and sent to prison, only to be conscripted by the
mysterious Captain Gabriel Lorca (Jason Isaacs) of the titular Discovery. Tapping into the mycelial
network, a discrete biological dimension in subspace that connects the universe, the ship’s experi-
mental spore drive allows it to instantaneously jump anywhere in the galaxy. However, the process
exacts a toll on the navigator’s health; at first, a macroscopic tardigrade involuntarily serves as the
ship’s navigator who is later replaced by Lt. Paul Stamets (Anthony Rapp), much to his life partner’s—
ship’s doctor, Hugh Culber (Wilson Cruz)—chagrin. As a plot device, the spore drive establishes
the Discovery as an important asset in the war effort, and pits the militaristic Lorca against the sci-
entist Stamets, and by extension, Cadet Silvia Tilly (Mary Wiseman), who also befriends Burnham.
Commander Saru (Doug Jones), a Kelpien (a newly introduced species), who served with Burnham
under Georgiou, constantly reminds her of her past conduct and clashes with her frequently, as does
the no-nonsense chief of security Commander Ellen Landry (Rekha Sharma), who soon, however,
dies a visceral death. Ash Tyler (Shazad Latif), who is introduced in the fifth episode, assumes her
position and becomes Burnham’s love interest, before he is revealed to be the Klingon Voq. He was
planted as a sleeper agent by L’Rell (Mary Chieffo), who vies for leadership in the traditionally pater-
nalistic Klingon society with General Kol (Kenneth Mitchell) being her principal rival; together, they
are the main visible opponents of the Federation protagonists.
In the second half of the first season, it is revealed that Lorca is an imposter from the long-
established fan favorite Mirror Universe to where he catapults his crew via the spore drive, seeking to
usurp the current Terran Emperor—none other than the Mirror counterpart of Captain Georgiou.
Returning to the Prime Universe at the end of the season, it looks as if the Klingons are winning
the war, and Burnham only barely stops Admiral Cornwell (Jayne Brook) from committing geno-
cide against the Klingons—in a pact with L’Rell, they can bring peace. It is in this finale where it
becomes clear that DSC takes critical aim at Federation politics and values. Consequently, the series
productively critiques the ideological tenets that have undergirded the whole franchise and how its
“embrace of mainstream liberalism allowed it to be complicit in white supremacist and imperialist
ideologies” (Vint 2020, 2).
Yet the cliffhanger ending of the first season—the Discovery’s rendezvous with the Enterprise—
seemingly clashes with this ideal: it sets up a season-spanning arc for Captain Christopher Pike
(Anson Mount), first introduced in the unaired pilot for TOS and reintroduced in the two-parter
“The Menagerie” (TOS 1.15/16, 1966), temporarily helming the ship. The second season also
elaborates on Burnham’s equally canon-relevant past as the adopted daughter of Vulcan Sarek (James
Frain) and Amanda Grayson (Mia Kirshner), which also makes her Spock’s (Ethan Peck) stepsister.
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Sabrina Mittermeier
Spock uncovers an enemy within the Federation, a synthetic entity named Control that is entangled
with the covert ops Section 31 helmed by Leland (Alan van Sprang), threatening to destroy all sen-
tient life at the end of the season. Meanwhile, a mysterious apparition called the “Red Angel” turns
out to be a future version of Burnham herself; using her birth mother Gabrielle’s (Sonja Sohn) time-
traveling device, she guides Discovery toward defeating Control. Ultimately, the Discovery is catapulted
almost a thousand years into the future.
The third season then picks up with Burnham stranded in this unfamiliar (and rather Star Wars-
esque) future, where she joins forces with courier Booker (David Ajala) to find what is left of the
Federation. A mysterious event called “the Burn,” had destroyed the majority of Dilithium-powered
ships in a single moment a century prior to Burnham’s arrival, leading to the almost complete
collapse of the Federation. After a year passing in her timeline, she is joined by the Discovery crew,
and they eventually begin to work with Fleet Admiral Charles Vance (Oded Fehr) who commands
what remains of Starfleet and the Federation. The crew, now commanded by Captain Saru, gets a
new member in Adira (Blu del Barrio), a young human who was joined with the Trill symbiont of
their lover, Gray (Ian Alexander), who, however, remains “alive” in non-corporeal form, only visible
to them. Notably, many characters of the Discovery’s bridge crew present since the first season receive
increasingly more screen time. The struggle to restore the Federation pits the Discovery crew against
a capitalist syndicate—the “Emerald Chain”—led by the Orion Osyraa (Janet Kidder). The season
ends in a reinstatement of the Federation, with Discovery now helmed, finally, by protagonist Michael
Burnham, thus making it the first Star Trek show with a Black woman in the captain’s chair.
Bracing for Impact: Discovery’s Rocky Production History

After a notable absence of Star Trek on television screens since 2005, and hence also during the
franchise’s 50th anniversary in 2016, DSC premiered in September 2017. The long hiatus can first
and foremost be explained by legal reasons: the original Viacom conglomerate split in 2006, which
meant that Star Trek film rights were left with Paramount Pictures (now part of the new Viacom),
while television rights were given to the CBS Corporation (see Chapter 24). While one result of this
deal was that no new television show was allowed to be produced until January of 2017 (Robinson
2020, 85), it was in this time frame that J.J. Abrams and his production company Bad Robot rebooted
the franchise on the big screen, starting with Star Trek (2009) (see Chapter 20). Alex Kurtzman, who
served as a producer for the reboot films, was ultimately made executive producer of DSC (and every
new series since), carrying over production ethos and style from the big to the small screen in this
new chapter in franchise history.
Early in the production process it became clear to CBS that a new Star Trek series would be what
could really put CBS All Access, the network’s streaming service, on the map, even though delays
in production eventually made The Good Fight (2017–) the first original production to premiere on
the platform (Robinson 2020, 85). This decision was the first, and as it turned out, one of many
to cause controversy with fans, who claimed that charging viewers for the show was against Gene
Roddenberry’s vision (ibid., 86). Further, as the show would air weekly, it actively prevented a binge-
watch on a free trial month; at least until the full first season had aired. This option was less attractive
for many due to the vagaries of online spoiler culture, where one risked knowing too much about the
plot a mere hour after every episode aired; this is particularly true in such a vast and active fandom that
often discusses episodes on social media virtually the second after they have aired. Not only was this
an issue for US-American viewers, who would not be able to watch the episode immediately when
it was uploaded, but also for viewers overseas who usually received it later (in Europe, for instance,
DSC aired a day later on Netflix—at least seasons 1–3). Notably, at the time of writing, CBS has
abandoned their All Access platform and is retooling it into the larger Paramount+streaming service
with a view to competing with streaming powerhouses such as Disney+and Netflix. Paramount+
is scheduled to expand to European markets, and beyond, in spring 2022. This came in the wake of
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Star Trek: Discovery
the global Covid-19 pandemic pushing content creators and distributors to prioritize streaming over
more traditional release strategies, and drew particular ire from overseas fans, who were briefly cut off
from access to the show’s fourth season.
Long before the dissemination of the show was discussed, however, the original creator of DSC
was Bryan Fuller, a veteran of “genre” television, having helmed such short-lived fantasy shows as
Wonderfalls (2004) and Pushing Daisies (2007–2008). He entered the world of Star Trek as a script
writer on DS9, advancing to executive story editor on VOY. Fuller promised to bring change to the
franchise—most notably in terms of casting—but was fired from the show before it ever even aired.
Co-producer and associate of J.J. Abrams, Akiva Goldsman stayed on after Fuller had left. Star Trek
veteran Nicholas Meyer (director of WOK and TUC) and Rod Roddenberry and Trevor Roth of
Roddenberry Entertainment were initially also involved in the development of DSC; but the rocky
production history of DSC only begins here. By the time the show premiered in September 2017,
Aaron Harberts and Gretchen J. Berg were the new showrunners. Having worked with Fuller on his
aforementioned productions, they seemed primed to carry out his vision. Yet, only a few episodes
into shooting the second season, Harberts and Berg were fired when allegations of their mistreatment
of writers were raised, leaving DSC yet again without anyone at the helm, ironically mirroring its
plot. Production halted for several weeks and eventually Michelle Paradise took over as showrunner.
Key writers who had shaped the first season, such as Ted Sullivan, also left. It is difficult to speculate
about how exactly this behind-the-scenes turmoil impacted the second season, yet there seems to
have been a visible narrative rift in the season’s arc coinciding with this change; the third season, then
fully run by Paradise, seemed much more thought-out.
Setting Course for the Post-Network Era

The most notable change to Star Trek that came with DSC, however, is that the show’s storytelling
is now completely serialized. Up until ENT, the large bulk of Star Trek episodes functioned as
self-contained stand-alones, with the exception of an occasional two-parter or season finale cliff-
hanger. This was in line with network television in the times before the invention of the VCR in the
1980s, when re-watching episodes was only possible if a show was put in syndication and thus plots
remained usually contained to one episode and character development was limited.
Only in the 1990s did network television also venture into semi-serialized arcs, such as with
Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s (1997–2003) season-spanning fights against “Big Bads” in addition to “mon-
ster of the week” episodic plots. Star Trek began to experiment with more serialized storytelling in
DS9’s Dominion War arc (see Chapter 4), continuing the format in VOY and ENT. The moment
of “quality television” heralded by cable networks such as HBO, in the late 1990s and early 2000s,
then also pushed network television to produce more serialized content; genre shows such as Lost
(2004–10), notably and perhaps not fully coincidentally, also an Abrams/Orci/Kurtzman production,
quickly became the benchmark for the new form. While earlier installments of Star Trek further
built popularity and revenue in syndication, benefitting from episodic structures, DSC is an entirely
different animal fit for the twenty-first-century television landscape. Since episodes often directly lead
into each other, the show is almost incomprehensible when watched out of order, offering complex
plot structure, and often surprising twists and turns.
Even so, the mode in which it is distributed was a foray into distributing television weekly even
on streaming services, where most shows are released in bulk, readily presented for binge-watching.
With DSC (and PIC), CBS has gone back to releasing episodes once a week, thus fostering the
old-fashioned tradition of “water cooler” discussions. While now mostly held virtually on social
media, podcasts, and media review sites (especially in times of Covid-19), these dialogic formats are
still key in building buzz for many cable and network television shows; the hype around another
genre powerhouse, Game of Thrones (2011–19), is an obvious example. This is also important, as
DSC’s continued availability online also invites rewatching and thus binging has become not only an
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Sabrina Mittermeier
alternative, but also an additional mode. “Its weekly release encourages active discussion and specula-
tion,” Will Tattersdill has argued, and “its serial format requires us to return from these discussions to
a unified, organized text, and then to learn to see it as such” (2020, 159).
DSC is also more action-heavy and often has stunning cinematography equally in line with
this age of so-called quality, or “peak” television. Visually and aesthetically, DSC aligns with the
Abramsverse (albeit using fewer lens flares). Since Alex Kurtzman was involved as a producer in the
reboot trilogy, this hardly comes as a surprise, and it further sets the course for where we can expect
newer Star Trek-branded productions to go.
Another often-discussed change arriving in the Star Trek universe with DSC is an overall different
tone—both in terms of being darker and grittier and in using explicit and also more “casual” lan-
guage. As John Andreas Fuchs (2020) has shown, however, this is not entirely accurate—controversial
discussions about violence, sexuality, as well as explicit language have always been part of the franchise’s
history. Yet, the shift from network television to streaming services certainly has left their mark.
While DSC does not, by any means, revel in explicit depictions of either sex or violence, it does make
use of them poignantly, especially through character deaths. While not all of them remained per-
manent, they were used as major plot devices and for shock value, particularly in the case of Landry’s
and Culber’s violent and surprising deaths. The use of “fuck” as well as other colorful language, how-
ever, remains limited, and—quite unconventionally for the age of cable and streaming TV—usually
does not occur in “gritty” contexts; for example, it is Tilly’s and Stamets’ excitement over science that
prompts the franchise’s first f-word. While this seems fitting for the explorers and scientists who have
always been at the heart of Star Trek, it undoubtedly breaks with the diction audiences have become
used to from particularly the 1980s–1990s-era Star Trek shows (TOS was markedly more “flippant”
in tone).
Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, not everyone found favor with this approach to Star Trek. For many,
DSC was not Star Trek as they had come to know it, or as a popular social media hashtag at the
time claimed, #notmyTrek. Ironically, a television show not officially associated with the franchise
became what filled many viewers’ nostalgic void. Seth McFarlane’s The Orville (2017–) premiered
at the same time as DSC, and ever so barely avoids copyright infringement of TNG-era Star Trek
with similar costuming, cinematography, largely episodic plot structure, and similar morality tales (see
Chapter 36). While at first glance, a parody, it is much more of a serious homage to the franchise,
with many Star Trek alumns producing, writing, directing, and occasionally acting on the show. This
has led to a perceived rivalry between both productions, at least one promulgated by social media that
generally played a large role in the reception of DSC (see Chapter 38). Social media have enabled the
unprecedented, direct, and immediate engagement of creators and fans on a weekly basis, which has
grown out of Star Trek’s long history of active fan engagement, be it the activism to revive TOS or
its long-standing zine and convention culture (see Chapter 31).
Encouraged and fostered by CBS, DSC’s cast and creators have been actively involved with fans
online ever since the show’s premiere; during the show’s first season finale, several actors took to
Twitter to live-tweet the episode as it premiered in the US. When Viacom announced only days
before the premiere of its first episode in fall 2021 that Season 4 of DSC would no longer be avail-
able to European audiences on Netflix, and would also be dropped from other markets until the
roll-out of Paramount+in these countries, several actors publicly shared fans’ outrage. The solidarity
following this “shit storm” quickly led to the distribution of the new episodes via a variety of other
platforms, showcasing once again the power of social media in fan participation. The After Trek
program (2017–18) also highlights this change. Another trend brought on by cable and streaming
television, every first season episode was accompanied by this recap show, which would feature
interviews with cast and crew, show behind-the-scenes clips, or showcase fan art. Downscaled to an
interview format starting with the second season, The Ready Room, helmed by Star Trek alumnus Wil
Wheaton, has since also accompanied PIC. With DSC, then, the Star Trek franchise, for better or for
worse, has officially entered the post-network era of television.
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Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations?

In addition to its serialized format, DSC is also breaking new ground for the franchise by featuring
a Black female lead in Michael Burnham. When this was first announced, long before the show’s
premiere in September 2017, it immediately led to a backlash, as did the casting announcements of
out gay actors Anthony Rapp and Wilson Cruz as explicitly gay characters (Andrews 2017). Such
controversies are nothing new for the franchise—one must only think about the initial negative
fan reaction to the announcement of a first female captain in the 1990s, despite Janeway’s (Kate
Mulgrew) now almost legendary role model status for women (see Chapter 5). It thus seems too easy
to pin this on ultra-conservative voices outside the fandom, despite similar reactions to the all-female
Ghostbusters reboot (2016), the MCU’s Black Panther (2018) or Captain Marvel (2019) around the same
time. It rather serves as a reminder that such voices are very much part of a Star Trek fanbase, speaking
to the fact that it is not always as progressive as many think—or want—it to be.
Yet, such reactions over a Black female protagonist also prove just how much representation still truly
matters. As Amy Chambers points out, “for a genre immersed in futurism, science fiction often fails
women and people of color” (2020, 280), something DSC has set out to correct. With Michael Burnham
as the first Black woman protagonist, the franchise has come a long way in terms of the presence of Black
women in Star Trek (Mafe 2020, 191); for instance, Uhura’s (Nichelle Nichols) frequent lack of speaking
lines, and still visible sexualization should be noted, despite her otherwise pioneering presence in a Civil
Rights-era United States (see Chapter 50). Yet not everything in Burnham’s characterization is without
issue, as DSC still is by no means a “perfect text.” Her relationship with Gabriel Lorca is especially troub-
ling; as Andrea Whitacre has argued, the show’s people of color, most prominently Burnham and Culber,
still have to fight for and actively earn “what is freely given to others” (2020, 35).
Particularly with its female characters, though, the show sets many new benchmarks for writing
in sf, or for that matter, any genre of television. The women introduced over the show’s two seasons
are manifold, often complex, and interact with each other in ways that far exceed the limits of the
Bechdel-Wallace test. The show allows them “to take center stage, especially in pivotal moments for
the show’s plot, moments that in the science fiction genre usually go to male leads” (Spychala 2020,
303). DSC, however, also features more nuanced portrayals of masculinity. With Ash Tyler, a straight
man of color, DSC discusses sexual violence against men as well as PTSD, and upends stereotypes of
action heroes on television and film. Actor Kenneth Mitchell, who played the Klingons Kol, Kol-Sha,
and Tenavik in the first two seasons, also makes a memorable appearance as a disabled character called
Aurellio in the third season (see Chapter 54), following the actor’s own diagnosis with amyotrophic
lateral sclerosis (ALS). Gabriel Lorca meanwhile is arguably used to further interrogate issues of white
masculinity, as DSC plays with people’s expectations of quality television’s popular anti-heroes to
dupe audiences into believing that he is a legitimate captain. He thus serves to interrogate, indeed
dismantle, the trope of the archetypal Starfleet captain—a trope that in broader popular conscious-
ness still seems to be embodied by the likes of James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and Jean-Luc Picard
(Patrick Stewart), i.e., white cis men just like Lorca. The character also echoes Kathryn Janeway’s
sentiments to go “home” and seems to especially criticize VOY’s problematic dealings with imperi-
alism (see Chapter 45), as well as the larger humanist project of Star Trek.
Following a rather brief moment of outing Sulu (John Cho) in STB (see Chapter 22), DSC also
introduces the first out gay main characters on any Star Trek television show with Lt. Stamets, Doctor
Culber, and Jett Reno (Tig Notaro), who joined as a recurring character in season 2. The obvious
lack of queer characters in the franchise had “long cast a shadow over the utopian, inclusive future it
claims to represent” (Mittermeier and Spychala 2020b, 331). DSC is further making up for this short-
coming by including a nonbinary actor, Blu del Barrio, playing a nonbinary character, Adira, and their
partner Gray (played by nonbinary actor Ian Alexander) in the third season. Together, they go on to
form a “found family” with Culber and Stamets, advancing both on-screen and behind the scenes
representation (see Chapters 52 and 53).
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Sabrina Mittermeier
While previous Star Trek projected queerness onto alien species and usually located them outside
of the Federation, their portrayal on DSC is a clear step forward, and yet, the show still does not fully
avoid harmful tropes: Mirror Georgiou still seems to tap into the old stereotype of the “depraved
bisexual,” echoing Mirror Kira (Nana Visitor) in DS9 (ibid., 343). Similarly, with the first season death
of Culber, the show also risked being read as yet another case of “bury your gays,” in which queer
characters, and particularly queer character of color, are eventually killed off. DSC ultimately avoided
this with the character’s resurrection, while also benefiting narratively from the shock value as well
as the exploration of Stamets’ trauma in the second season. In these cases, it seems like the series too
often uses minority characters’ pain to fuel the plot, while outwardly still scoring high marks for
representation, and thus risks being “self-congratulatory instead of self-critical” about its diversity
(Peterson 2020, 217).
Crucially, however, DSC is the first Star Trek show that is no longer produced (and often also
directed and written) only by cis white men; in addition to the aforementioned showrunners
Gretchen Harberts and Michelle Paradise, the staff writers now also include such voices as script-
writing team Bo Yeon Kim and Erika Lippoldt, recurring directors Olatunde Osunsanmi and Hanelle
M. Culpepper, and costume designer Gersha Phillips.
Fighting for the Future

Generally, one of the strongest points the show has made so far is that “the idealistic future so
central to Star Trek as a whole is not a foregone conclusion and that it takes individual action to
arrive at, and preserve a more hopeful future” (Mittermeier and Spychala 2020a, 9). The finales
of the first three seasons are especially invested in this idea. In the first, Burnham is reinstated
as a Starfleet officer after stopping Admiral Cornwell from committing genocide against the
Klingons to win the war. Her speech on the Federation’s principles not only echoes several others
throughout the franchise’s history, most notably Captain Picard’s in INS, but also seems almost
a meta comment. As Ina Batzke has argued, DSC’s serialized storytelling, and especially the
Mirror Universe episodes that also facilitate a more direct comparison to previous portrayals of
Star Trek’s central questions have allowed for more “complicated interrogations … of ethics and
morals” (2020, 123). While ENT was often accused of engaging too closely with, and struggling
to critically interrogate the sentiments of the 9/11 moment (see Chapter 6), DSC seems to
actively work against simply regurgitating tropes on terrorism. Brigitte Georgi-Findlay (2019)
also sees these parallels to the “War on Terror” in the conflict with the Klingons, and one that
comes to its climax in the finale of the first season which speaks to the possibility that Star Trek’s,
and thus by proxy the United States’ “utopian future might be lost due to complicity and a will-
ingness to sacrifice one’s values in the name of security” (Mittermeier and Spychala 2020a, 7).
DSC thus clearly benefits from more hindsight on these issues and a narrative framework that
better allows it to do so than ENT.
Yet, despite these crucial changes, DSC does not always get everything right. While the fact that
Lorca could pass for so long works well as a form of criticism, his reveal as a Terran (immediately
followed by his death), also undoes some of the work at chipping away at the archetypal Starfleet
captain and the Federation as the ultimate good. His replacement by Pike seems indeed, as Torsten
Kathke has argued, “to course-correct perhaps a bit too eagerly in order to dispel the notion that its
deconstruction of the figure of the Star Trek captain … was permanent” (2020, 54–55). The prom-
inence and unquestioned acceptance of Pike as the “best of Starfleet” in the second season vis-à-vis
Burnham’s seemingly constant struggle for and absence from the captain’s chair, leave a bitter taste
and run the risk of being a white male savior trope. The third season continues this portrayal of
Burnham constantly struggling, desperate to find her place, and equally desperately clinging to the
notion of there being a need for the Federation—something that seems to echo the show’s struggle
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with itself and its place in the franchise. Her taking the helm of the Discovery as part of a newly rebuilt
Federation in the season finale, then, finally fills the void of the empty captain’s chair, while simultan-
eously reinforcing the problematic ideologies underlying it.
Thus, not everything we have seen on DSC has really fared all that much better than previous
installments of the franchise. As Kathke has concluded, “Discovery argues that Star Trek has been
flawed all along. By aiming to fix these deficiencies, it presents an even stronger definition of what
Star Trek’s liberal foundations ultimately are” (ibid., 56). While DSC has certainly tried, and in many
cases, has actively done better than its predecessors, it still struggles with disentangling itself com-
pletely from the more problematic white liberal humanist core values of Star Trek.
Conclusion: Discovery’s Legacy?

It is difficult to discuss the legacy of this show as it is still ongoing. Despite various controversies,
its success has for now revived the franchise which, following the ViacomCBS merger in late 2019,
is also officially a franchise group. Picard premiered in January 2020, a new animated series—Lower
Decks—followed shortly afterwards, and a second animated show, Prodigy, premiered in October
2021. The Pike and Enterprise-centric spin-off, Strange New Worlds, was delayed by the Covid-19
pandemic, but has wrapped principal photography as of the same month. A Section 31 spin-off
centering on Michelle Yeoh’s Mirror Philippa Georgiou is also still in the works, and is likely to
build on her time-traveling departure in DSC’s third season. The choice to release the show weekly
has also paid off, as fan engagement is strong, despite, or especially because, of the rifts it has seem-
ingly caused in the fandom. It comes as no surprise, then, that this strategy seems to find more favor
again, as evidenced by the distribution of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s televisual outings on
Disney+in 2021.
Overall, however, DSC has brought much change to the franchise on such matters of distribution
and modes of storytelling, if not to its overall ideology. As Gerry Canavan noted in his review of
DSC’s first season:
It is the exemplary Star Trek series for our time, the latest in a series of prequels and reboots
that continually retell the beginning of the story and then peter out before they find their
own identity or a way to put a unique spin on the franchise.
(2018, n.p.)
DSC has rebooted itself over and over again, trying to find its place—at the time of writing, when
the fourth season has begun airing, yet again a mini-reboot of its own, completely with new uniforms
for Discovery’s crew, his assessment seems ever more pertinent. And yet, as Sherryl Vint has put it: “we
may not always feel at home when watching the series, but such discomfort may well be its most
important affect” (2020, 3). DSC tries to be different, while also similar, and often struggles to find the
right balance. For now, it remains torn between tried-and-true formulae of its decades-old franchise
and the post-network era of television it was born into.
Key Episodes
“Context is for Kings” (DSC 1.3, 2017)

An ersatz pilot, the third episode sets the show’s tone, shaped in many ways by the mysterious Captain
Gabriel Lorca who makes his first appearance. Through Michael’s eyes, audiences are introduced to him,
the titular ship, its crew and the spore drive, establishing key elements for this serialized narrative and new
forays into worldbuilding.
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“What’s Past is Prologue” (DSC 1.13, 2018)

Having been revealed as an imposter from the Mirror Universe at the end of the previous episode, Lorca
tries to “Make the Empire Glorious Again.” The episode showcases DSC’s strengths in acting, stunt work
and cinematography, and dispatches its first season villain who, in many ways, was also its key player.
“If Memory Serves” (DSC 2.8, 2019)

Featuring original archival footage during “previously on,” this episode directly connects to the famed
unaired TOS pilot “The Cage” and thus cements season 2’s apparent agenda of aligning with canon. In a
strong scene, Culber confronts Tyler/Voq for murdering him and thus also resolves some of DSC’s own
plot lines.
“Such Sweet Sorrow, Parts 1 and 2” (DSC 2.13/14, 2019)

In an effect-laden and narratively packed finale, plotlines from both seasons are wrapped up when the
Discovery jumps 950 years into the future and is seemingly expunged from Federation memory. Many
characters make their last appearance, either because they are killed (Admiral Cornwell) or did not make
the jump (Pike, Tyler, L’Rell).
“That Hope Is You, Part 1” (DSC 3.1, 2020) and “That Hope Is You, Part 2”
(DSC 3.13, 2021)
A two-parter bookending the third season, it establishes the previously unseen future of the year 3188
and beyond, one shaped by the consequences of the mysterious “Burn” that eradicated almost all of the
Federation. The finale solves this riddle, reinstates the Federation and finally places Burnham in the
captain’s chair, wrapping up a narrative arc begun with the show’s pilot.
References
Andrews, Travis M. 2017. “‘Star Trek’ Fans Anger at Remake’s Diversity Proves They Don’t Understand
‘Star Trek’.” Chicago Tribune. June 23, 2017. Available at: www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/tv/ct-
star-trek-discovery-diversity-20170623-story.html.
Batzke, Ina. 2020. “From Series to Seriality: Star Trek’s Mirror Universe in the Post-Network Era.” In Fighting
for the Future—Essays on Star Trek: Discovery, edited by Sabrina Mittermeier and Mareike Spychala, 105–125.
Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.
Canavan, Gerry. 2018. “No Follow-Through.” LA Review of Books. February 17, 2018. Available at: https://lare
viewofbooks.org/article/no-follow-through/.
Chambers, Amy. 2020. “Star Trek Discovers Women: Gender, Race, Science, and Michael Burnham.” In Fighting
for the Future—Essays on Star Trek: Discovery, edited by Sabrina Mittermeier and Mareike Spychala, 267–285.
Fuchs, John Andreas. 2020. “The Conscience of the King—Or: Is There in Truth No Sex and Violence?” In
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61–80. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.
Georgi-Findlay, Brigitte. 2019. “Amerikanische Befindlichkeiten in Star Trek: Discovery.” In Gesellschaftsvisionen
für die Gegenwart, edited by Katja Kanzler and Christian Schwarke, 9–26, Munich: Springer.
Kathke, Torsten. 2020. “A Star Trek About Being Star Trek: History, Liberalism, and Discovery’s Cold War Roots.”
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Mafe, Diana. 2020. “Interview, Normalizing Black Women as Heroes.” In Fighting for the Future—Essays on
Star Trek: Discovery, edited by Sabrina Mittermeier and Mareike Spychala, 191–199. Liverpool: Liverpool
University Press.
Mittermeier, Sabrina, and Mareike Spychala. 2020a. “Introduction: ‘We Get to Reach for the Stars’ Analyzing
Star Trek: Discovery.” In Fighting for the Future—Essays on Star Trek: Discovery, edited by Sabrina Mittermeier
and Mareike Spychala, 5–16. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.
Mittermeier, Sabrina, and Mareike Spychala. 2020b. “‘Never Hide Who You Are’: Queer Representation and
Actorvism in Star Trek: Discovery.” In Fighting for the Future—Essays on Star Trek: Discovery, edited by Sabrina
Mittermeier and Mareike Spychala, 307–326. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.
Mittermeier, Sabrina, and Jennifer Volkmer. 2020. “‘We Choose Our Own Pain. Mine Helps Me Remember.’
Gabriel Lorca, Ash Tyler, and the Question of Masculinity.” In Fighting for the Future— Essays on
University Press.
Peterson, Whit Frazier. 2020. “The Cotton-Gin Effect: An Afrofuturist Reading of Star Trek: Discovery.” In
Robinson, Michael. 2020. “These Are the Voyages?: The Post-Jubilee Trek Legacy on the Discovery, the Orville,
and the Callister.” In Fighting for the Future—Essays on Star Trek: Discovery, edited by Sabrina Mittermeier and
Mareike Spychala, 81–101. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.
Spychala, Mareike. 2020. “Not Your Daddy’s Star Trek: Exploring Female Characters in Star Trek: Discovery.” In
Tattersdill, Will. 2020. “Discovery and the Form of Victorian Periodicals.” In Fighting for the Future—Essays on
University Press.
Vint, Sherryl. 2020. “Unheimlich Star Trek.” In Fighting for the Future—Essays on Star Trek: Discovery, edited by
Sabrina Mittermeier and Mareike Spychala, 1–4. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.
Whitacre, Andrea. 2020. “Looking in the Mirror: The Negotiation of Franchise Identity in Star Trek: Discovery.”
In Fighting for the Future—Essays on Star Trek: Discovery, edited by Sabrina Mittermeier and Mareike Spychala,
Star Trek Episodes
The Original Series

Discovery
1.3 “Context Is for Kings” 2017.
1.13 “What’s Past Is Prologue” 2018.
2.13 “Such Sweet Sorrow” 2019.
2.14 “Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2” 2019.
2.8. “If Memory Serves” 2019.
Star Trek Movies
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8
STAR TREK: PICARD
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In 2019, more than 30 years after the premiere of TNG in 1987, CBS announced the production of
Star Trek: Picard. With Patrick Stewart returning to his iconic role of Captain Picard, fans around the
world rejoiced at news that would inevitably herald a reunion of other members of the TNG cast and
bring one of the most celebrated science fiction series back to life. Perhaps the most anticipated entry
in the franchise to date, PIC carried—and will carry for the duration of its run—an unprecedented
weight of responsibility for the Star Trek universe. The last time audiences saw Picard in 2002, the
captain was looking at the android B-4 with hope that Data (Brent Spiner)—Picard’s longtime com-
panion and student in all things human—might not be lost. While the film in which this moment
takes place, Nemesis (2002), was not intended to be the final film with the TNG cast (Ablair 2010),
its poor performance began Star Trek’s hiatus from the silver screen and the post-VOY direction
of the franchise (see Chapter 19). From TOS in the 1960s through to NEM in 2002, Star Trek had
continued to move into the future, with each new series taking place following—or alongside—the
previous, addressing events in different parts of the galaxy. The year before NEM premiered, a new
show, Enterprise, had its debut as the first prequel series of the franchise, set a hundred years before the
events of TOS (see Chapter 6). From there followed nearly two decades of looking backward, until
the premiere of PIC in 2020. In the accounts of the series’ early production, there was little discussion
of the franchise’s need to return to the pattern of moving forward chronologically, but a big focus
on characters (Reilly 2019). The producers and writers saw Stewart’s Picard as the main draw—and
essential factor for success—for the show. Originally, the creative team behind the series, Michael
Chabon, Alex Kurtzman, Akiva Goldsman, and Kirsten Beyer, had conceived of an episode of the
new Short Treks series to feature Picard, but Kurtzman pitched the idea of going further and creating
an entire series around the legendary figure (Moreland 2020).
Stewart was initially hesitant to sign on to the show and actually turned down the offer to play the
captain again, only agreeing after he saw an outline from the creative team pitching a show distinctly
different from TNG (Couch and Goldberg 2020). The other iconic members of the Enterprise crew
were long thought to eventually make their way into the first season as well, but only a few were
ultimately cast to reprise their roles, including Will Riker (Jonathan Frakes), Deanna Troi (Marina
Sirtis), and of course Data. Many were surprised to learn of Jeri Ryan’s involvement in the season,
returning to her breakout role of Seven of Nine, the former Borg drone, since she was from VOY
and unconnected to the events of TNG. Mitigating this surprise was the creative team’s decision to
include the Borg as part of the story for PIC, as Seven of Nine and Picard both shared an intimate
connection with them. Hugh (Jonathan Del Arco), the Borg whose individuality was reawakened
by the Enterprise crew before rejoining the Collective in “I, Borg”(TNG 5.23, 1992) also makes a
return to the franchise in PIC as the director of the mysterious Borg Reclamation Project. Helping
those Borg liberated from the Collective after its crippling defeat by Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) in
“Endgame” (VOY 7.25/26, 2001), Hugh’s new role in the series seemed quite fitting, especially
74 DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917-10
Star Trek: Picard
considering that he was last seen trying to help other Borg under the control of Data’s brother Lore
in “Descent” (TNG 7.1, 1993). Despite this promising return, Hugh dies at the hands of the Romulan
antagonist Narissa (Peyton List) after helping Picard to escape. That the writers decided to bring back
a TNG legacy character only to kill him to demonstrate the evil of a character whose maliciousness
was already confirmed was not well received by fans and ended the story of an important Borg figure
when the series was still in the process of demonstrating the state of the Borg in the new era.
Following the end of VOY in 2001 and NEM in 2002 and the franchise’s shift to prequels,
there were a series of scholarly and fan theories about why the creative teams of the franchise
did not want to explore the post-VOY Star Trek setting. While many of the creative directors of
new Star Trek series have claimed that conceiving of a new setting beyond VOY was too large a
task (Staff 2017), it was always something that they imagined centuries into the future, hundreds
of years after the end of VOY—as seen in the third and fourth seasons of Discovery—rather than
several years later or concurrently, as was the norm in the TNG era. Another theory that gained
significant attention is that the Federation, at that point in the timeline, no longer had the ideo-
logical enemies to pit their collective efforts against and was about to encounter conflict from
within, as it began to collide with its own philosophical contradictions. Nicole Berland writes
of this time in the franchise: “First, once the Federation defeats its ideological other, continued
external conflicts will resemble little more than an extended denouement. Second, it exposes
the barbarity concealed by the Federation’s purportedly peaceful imperial project” (2016). This
theory suggests that the creative teams behind the franchise had no intention of addressing the
inherent imperial violence of the Federation (see Chapter 45) in a way that would undo the per-
ception of the Federation as a benevolent, unifying force. It was not until after ENT had finished
its run that attempts were made to begin tackling this controversial frontier of content in the fran-
chise, with Brian Singer’s pitch to create “Star Trek: Federation”—which never materialized—
and J.J. Abrams’ film Into Darkness (2013). Singer’s series would have included critiques of the
Federation as an empire in decline, reflecting the decline of post-Cold War American triumph-
alism (Pascale 2011), and Into Darkness presented a scenario—in a different timeline—with Kirk
and crew confronting dimensions of the War on Terror (Kapell 2010, 206).
With the announcement of PIC, these narrative possibilities became a major focus of discourse
among fans and critics alike. While the trailers that followed the announcement provided hints
as to the state of things within the Federation, they mostly focused on those elements that would
stoke the nostalgia of the fan base. The characters were the principal features of these trailers, with
long shots centering on a contemplative Picard, glimpses of Data in his old uniform, and a scruffy
William Riker shouldering the immense burden of parenthood and, as revealed later, the loss of a
child in “Nepenthe” (PIC 1.7, 2020). With Seven of Nine’s appearance in one of the later trailers,
the questions became less about what is happening in the universe now, and more about who the
audience is going to see next. Whether or not this was meant to deflect the focus of audiences from
political questions to lower narrative expectations, PIC began to explore the political realities of the
Star Trek universe with the first episode of the series, and even before its premier. The Short Treks
episode “Children of Mars” (Short Treks 2.6, 2020) acts as a kind of prequel to PIC, with a scene at
a school depicting a Federation flag with fewer stars in it than the flag from the TNG era, suggesting
that the Federation has lost members—perhaps founding members—in recent years.
With this, the creative team behind PIC finally confronts the future of Star Trek, the Federation,
and the Roddenberry orthodoxy (Pascale 2008) through a depiction of the Federation’s—and our
own—late-state neoliberal existence. The audience quickly learns about the circumstances that
led to Picard’s retirement: the destruction of the planet Romulus in a supernova and the attack on
the Federation shipyards on Mars carried out by labor androids referred to as “synths.” DSC season
one effectively—and perhaps inadvertently—sets up the event of this shift in policy, with Michael
Burnham’s (Sonequa Martin-Green) bloated speech in the final episode extolling those Starfleet
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virtues personified in officers like Picard (“Will You Take My Hand?” [DSC 1.15, 2018]), only for
PIC to illustrate their absence in the new Federation, triggering his decision to resign. While there
have been episodes in every Star Trek series in which the administration of Starfleet has clashed
with the officers in the field (Rabitsch 2019, 120–123, 191–192), the core tenets claimed by the
Federation always seemed to win out in the end, with the admiral or diplomat ceding decisions
to Picard or Sisko (Avery Brooks) or whichever captain sat in the chair. Indeed, on more than
one occasion, Picard and other captains have been the fulcrum around which the entirety of the
Federation turned. And yet, in PIC, Starfleet “accepts” his resignation rather than fulfilling a clear
ethical commitment.
This choice was a major departure from the established visions of Federation purity from the
1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s Star Trek series, in which even the dissident Federation citizens
of the Maquis were able to assimilate back into—and in some cases advocate adherence to—
Federation culture. Earth also expresses different social and economic realities in the PIC era;
while First Contact gave audiences a concise definition for the portrayal of life in the Federation—
“the acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. We work to better ourselves
and the rest of humanity” (1998)—we see economic disparities among Federation citizens in
PIC with, for example, Picard living on a massive estate while his former officer Raffaela “Raffi ”
Musiker (Michelle Hurd) lives in a trailer in the desert. Though Star Trek has acknowledged the
existence of different economies among non-Federation cultures, Federation citizens had always
lived cornucopian lives before PIC (see Chapter 58). The admiralty of the Federation in PIC
remains an obstacle for the good work of Picard and crew, but it is also changed, with the writers
including profanity in the lines of Admiral Clancy (Ann Magnuson) that some audiences found
surprising and not in keeping with the dignified bearing of Starfleet officers to which they had
grown accustomed.
All of these changes that PIC brings to the franchise serve to increase the impact of the show in
the calamitous age in which it debuts by reflecting the circumstances of our own world, or as Roger
Cheng writes on CNET, “Star Trek: Picard is a mirror to our modern dystopia” (2020). Subverting
the orders of Starfleet in PIC does not end with the sanctioned resolutions as in past series. In the
first episode’s interview scene between Picard and a journalist, Picard, answering the question of why
he resigned, exclaims:
Because it was no longer Starfleet! The galaxy was mourning, burying its dead, and Starfleet
had shrunk from its duties. The decision to call off the rescue and to abandon those people
we had sworn to save was not just dishonorable. It was downright criminal! And I was not
prepared to stand by and be a spectator.
(PIC, 1.1., 2020)
Fans of the show saw this scene as a significant character evolution for the captain and a clear nod
to, again, the calamities in the world today, specifically the global refugee crisis. While he had many
times refused to follow unethical orders in TNG, Picard was also the same captain who was prepared
to fire on Federation citizens fighting for their homes against a violent aggressor just to protect
a treaty in “Preemptive Strike” (TNG 7.24, 1994). This evolution has a powerful impact on the
narrative of the first season. As Cheng writes, “Having Picard, the standard-bearer for the ideals of
the Federation, question the longstanding institution comes at a politically turbulent time when many
are rejecting the idea of blindly following authority” (2020). The introduction of Dahj (Isa Briones),
a descendant of Data through mysterious means, galvanizes the former admiral into action, beginning
the ten-episode story: finding the nascent android race that has emerged in Dahj and her sister Soji
(also Isa Briones). Anti-synthetic life perspectives permeate the entire season, with the Romulans
openly antagonistic against AI and the Federation apprehensive regarding AI because of the attack
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Star Trek: Picard
on Mars. Whether this is meant to contrast the enthusiastic embrace of AI in past series—especially
TNG’s many encounters with AI, and Data himself (see Chapter 57)—or reflect contemporary cul-
tural anxieties regarding AI, the turn in the franchise is unexpected and conflicts with canonical con-
tent from previous series (“The Defector” [TNG 3.10, 1990]).
While nostalgia is the means of attraction for audiences in PIC, closure is the motivating force of
the season. The plot of the secret Romulan society—the Zhat Vash—responsible for Dahj’s death
and the attack on Mars to prevent the AI apocalypse first alluded to in the second season of DSC
vanishes immediately following the violent climax on the android world. This sudden departure of
threat also removes Starfleet from the story and allows the season to end as it began, with a conversa-
tion between Data and Picard. A brain abnormality first discovered in Picard by Dr. Crusher (Gates
McFadden) in the TNG finale (“All Good Things…” [TNG 7.25/26, 1994]) is again found by his
new doctor, killing him at the end of PIC but not before the crew he has assembled ports him into
a new android body. As Picard’s consciousness is uploaded, he encounters the consciousness of Data.
While this scene did serve as a “permanent” death for the beloved sf icon, Data was finally able to
acknowledge Picard’s love for him and say goodbye before requesting that Picard erase his program,
ending his life. Stewart felt this scene to be so important and such a feat of closure for the history
of TNG that he said it was “one of the most important scenes that I’ve ever had to play on film or
television” (Blauvelt 2020). Though the cast and creative team hold this part of the story in high
regard—and the closure given through the scene is a powerful gesture for an audience long mourning
the loss of Data—one must question the decision to resurrect Data only to kill him again in a way
devoid of the heroic self-sacrifice of his first death.
With the second season premiering in March 2022 and the third—and final—season likely due
in the first half of 2023, we cannot know what the ultimate shape of PIC’s legacy will be. It is the
first series in the franchise to enter production with the number of seasons decided from the outset
and will be the shortest one to date. Especially with only ten episodes each season, the writers have
outlined a contained space for the series, and the presence of Q (John de Lancie) in at least the
second season suggests that PIC will continue to contend with the familiar as he defines his legacy
(Anon 2022). As it sits alongside the genre-defining Star Trek series that preceded it, it certainly has
a mighty standard to uphold. And while many audiences have been disappointed with some of the
creative choices that have been made by the production team in the first season, there is no doubting
the pop culture pull of Picard as a character, the possibility of revisiting old TNG events, and their
outcomes in future seasons. Indeed, that possibility could help the series to retain its audience no
matter the critical reception: characters like Geordi (LeVar Burton), Crusher, Worf (Michael Dorn),
or Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg)—who is in the second season—might yet appear at any point in the
final two seasons.
Its existence as an impossible dream made real might be the enduring legacy of PIC. Not only
has a revered cast returned to the screen after decades of audiences fantasizing about such an event,
but the new series also moves the franchise forward. The philosopher-king Captain Picard returns to
confront, in the words of one of his mentors, Professor Galen (Norman Lloyd), the “bloated empire”
of the Federation that he served (“The Chase” [TNG 6.20, 1993]), as it struggles with the neoliberal
realities of its self-proclaimed utopia.
Key Episodes
“Remembrance” (PIC 1.1, 2020)

Introduces not just the narrative stakes of PIC, but also brings much of the post-VOY Federation culture
into focus; Picard has resigned from a morally-compromised Starfleet, and the Federation has moved for-
ward into a new generation of policy without him.
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“Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2” (PIC 1.10, 2020)

Noteworthy as, against Star Trek custom, it does not end on a cliffhanger, but instead answers nearly every
question it posed. The newest conflict with the Romulans comes to a close, and the audience learns that
Data—or at least a version of Data close enough to the one we knew—still existed and was given another
chance to teach us about death alongside Picard.
References
Ablair. 2010. “Final TNG Movie Was Pulled Due to Franchise Fatigue.” Airlock Alpha. October 8, 2010.
Available at: http://airlockalpha.com/7889/final-tng-movie-was-pulled-due-to-franchise-fatigue-html.
Anon. 2022. “Picard Season 3 Confirmed as Last.” HeroCollector. January 27, 2022. Available at: www.
herocollector.com/Article/picard-season-3-confirmed-as-last.
Berland, Nicole. 2016. “‘Star Trek’ and the Problem with B-4 and After 2379.” PopMatters. October 30, 2016.
Available at: www.popmatters.com/star-trek-and-the-problem-with-b4-and-after-2379-2495409818.
html.
Blauvelt, Christian. 2020. “‘Star Trek: Picard’: It’s Harder than Ever to Separate Patrick Stewart from His
Beloved Captain.” IndieWire. June 24, 2020. Available at: www.indiewire.com/2020/06/star-trek-picard-
patrick-stewart-interview-1234568582/.
Cheng, Roger. 2020. “Star Trek: Picard Is a Mirror to Our Modern Dystopia.” cNet. January 23, 2020. Available
at: www.cnet.com/news/star-trek-picard-puts-up-a-mirror-to-modern-dystopia/.
Couch, Aaron, and Lesley Goldberg. “‘Star Trek’ Boss: Picard Leads “Radically Altered” Life in CBS All
Access Series.” Hollywood Reporter. January 8, 2019. Available at: www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/
star-trek-patrick-stewarts-picard-series-reveals-new-details-
Kapell, Matthew Wilhelm, Ed. 2010. Star Trek as Myth: Essays on Symbol and Archetype at the Final Frontier.
Moreland, Alex. 2020. “Exclusive Interview—Michael Chabon, Alex Kurtzman, Akiva Goldsman, and Kirsten
Beyer on Star Trek.” FlickeringMyth. January 23, 2020. Available at: www.flickeringmyth.com/2020/01/
exclusive-interview-michael-chabon-alex-kurtzman-akiva-goldsman-and-kirsten-beyer-on-star-trek-
picard-what-it-means-to-treat-star-trek-as-a-franchise-and-more/.
Pascale, Anthony. 2008. “Exclusive Interview: Ron Moore on Breaking Out of the Box.” TrekMovie. June 12,
2008. Available at: https://trekmovie.com/2008/06/12/exclusive-interview-ron-moore-on-breaking-out-
of-the-box/.
Pascale, Anthony. 2011. “Exclusive: The True Story Behind The Bryan Singer ‘Pitch’ of ‘Star Trek: Federation’.”
TrekMovie. April 14, 2011. Available at: https://trekmovie.com/2011/04/14/exclusive-the-true-story-beh
ind-the-bryan-singer-pitch-of-star-trek-federation/.
Rabitsch, Stefan. 2019. Star Trek and the British Age of Sail: The Maritime Influence Throughout the Series and Films.
Reilly, Ken. 2019. “Exclusive: Alex Kurtzman and Heather Kadin on the Nickelodeon STAR TREK Show.”
TrekCore. October 7, 2019. Available at: https://blog.trekcore.com/2019/10/exclusive-interview-star-trek-
producers-alex-kurtzman-heather-kadin-picard-discovery-nickelodeon/.
Staff. 2017. “‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Showrunner Dismisses Post-‘Voyager’ Setting.” TrekMovie. November 16,
2017. Available at: https://trekmovie.com/2017/11/16/star-trek-discovery-showrunner-dismisses-post-
voyager-setting-says-s2-will-reconcile-canon/.
Star Trek Episodes
The Next Generation
3.10 “The Defector” 1990.
5.23 “I, Borg” 1992.
6.20 “The Chase” 1993.
7.1 “Descent” 1993.
7.24 “Preemptive Strike” 1994.
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Star Trek: Picard
Voyager
7.25/26 “Endgame” 2001.
Discovery
1.15 “Will You Take My Hand?” 2018.
Picard
1.1 “Remembrance” 2020.
1.10 “Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2” 2020.
Short Treks
2.6 “Children of Mars” 2020.
Star Trek Movies
Star Trek Nemesis. 2002. dir. Stuart Baird. Paramount Pictures.
Star Trek Into Darkness. 2013. dir. J.J. Abrams. Paramount Pictures.
79
9
STAR TREK: LOWER DECKS
With a self-deprecating excoriation of overly ponderous Starfleet logs that results in a quick bat’leth
to the leg during the opening moments of its pilot episode, Lower Decks introduces two of its
main characters: Ensigns Beckett Mariner (Tawnie Newsome), a highly qualified albeit iconoclastic
troublemaker, who has been demoted several times for flouting rank and regulations, and Bradward
“Brad” Boimler (Jack Quaid), a neurotic perfectionist with limited experience who displays a
fanatical zeal for doing everything by the book. This initial presentation exemplifies the frenetic
intertextuality of the humor in LWR: Star Trek characters reacting to Star Trek. While previous
entries in the franchise centered on their respective captains and their senior crews, LWR focuses
on a starship’s rank and file, and how the decisions of the senior staff affect their everyday lives.
Joining Mariner and Boimler are Ensigns D’Vana Tendi (Noël Wells), an awestruck and overeager
Orion recruit, who joins the medical crew of the ship, and Samanthan “Sam” Rutherford (Eugene
Cordero), a well-meaning engineering enthusiast, who is adjusting to life with a new cybernetic
implant.
Set in 2380, a year after the events of Nemesis, LWR follows the crew of the Cerritos, a California-
class starship commanded by Captain Carol Freeman (Dawnn Lewis), whose primary task is to pro-
vide engineering and administrative support during Second Contact. As Boimler explains in the
series premiere, Second Contact is the process wherein “we get all the paperwork signed, make sure
we’re spelling the name of the planet right, [and] get to know all the good places to eat” (“Second
Contact” [LWR 1.1, 2020]). Unbeknownst to the crew, Mariner is Freeman’s daughter with an
as-of-yet unnamed Starfleet admiral (Phil LaMarr) who ordered her transfer to the ship. Mariner’s
rebellious inclinations directly conflict with Freeman’s exemplary leadership, fueling their conten-
tious relationship throughout the course of the show as they grow to tolerate, if not outright respect
one another. Much like Freeman embodies the adventurous spirit and leadership qualities of previous
Star Trek captains, the members of the senior crew also follow archetypal and thus familiar models,
though with decidedly parodic twists. Commander Jack Ransom (Jerry O’Connell), the ship’s first
officer, is a very dashing, if entirely shameless parody of Will Riker (Jonathan Frakes). Lieutenant
Shaxs (Fred Tatasciore), a Bajoran with an exceedingly short temper, serves as the Cerritos’ Chief
Security Officer; he reads like a blend of Kira Nerys (Nana Visitor) and Worf (Michael Dorn). Finally,
Dr. T’Ana (Gillian Vigman) as Chief Medical Officer rounds out the senior members of the crew;
she is a pragmatic and borderline laconic Caitian whose bedside manner and poor social skills might
have been inspired by Dr. Pulaski (Diana Muldaur).
As Star Trek’s first animated comedy series, LWR has been able to go where few in the franchise’s
history have gone before. Unlike the campy humor embraced by the pre-Star Trek (2009) TV series
and films, the vivacious humor of LWR is geared toward an adult audience, and even though it glee-
fully lampoons the Star Trek canon at every available opportunity, it does so without contempt. By
framing its central conceit through the lens of self-referential, and often reverential humor, without
80 DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917-11
Star Trek: Lower Decks
resorting to outright derision, LWR can freely criticize some of the most questionable moments
in Star Trek history in a tongue-in-cheek manner while still paying respect and homage to the
source material (see Chapter 28). In this regard, the humor in LWR conforms to Linda Hutcheon’s
definition of parody as “imitation characterized by ironic inversion, not always at the expense of
the parodied text” that manifests as “repetition with critical distance, which marks difference rather
than similarity” (2000, 6). As executive producer Alex Kurtzman explained during an appearance at
Variety’s CES Summit, “the key is to laugh with Star Trek and not at Star Trek” (Nickolai 2019). This
key tenet of the series’ mission statement is even present in its marketing. While responding to a fan
question on Twitter, Vice President of Star Trek Brand Development, John Van Citters, revealed that
the show’s official abbreviation would be LDS in reference to Kirk’s (William Shatner) metathet-
ical accusation of Spock’s (Leonard Nimoy) alleged consumption of hallucinogenic narcotics in The
Voyage Home (Van Citters 2020).
In mid-2018, Kurtzman signed a five-year deal with CBS Television Studios that sought to create
new Star Trek content across multiple platforms, which included a brand-new TNG sequel series led
by Patrick Stewart—later named Picard—and two new animated shows, one of which would later
become LWR (with Prodigy being the other). Officially announced on October 25, 2018, almost
exactly 44 years since The Animated Series went off the air, LWR was conceived as the franchise’s first
comedy series. The series was created by Emmy-winning writer and producer Mike McMahan, who
joined the production soon after the announcement of Kurtzman’s new development deal. With
more than a decade of experience working on numerous animated comedies (e.g., Drawn Together
[2014–17], South Park [1997–]), McMahan was best known for his role as executive producer of Rick
and Morty (2013–) during its fourth season. At their first meeting, McMahan quickly persuaded
Kurtzman and team to hire him by pitching “a show about the people who put the yellow cartridge
in the food replicator so a banana can come out the other end” (Goldberg 2018). This earned him a
two-season commitment from the studio and the show would be released on their streaming service,
then CBS All Access, later Paramount+.
A self-described “life-long Trekkie,” McMahan’s history with Star Trek dates back to 2011
when he launched the @TNG_S8 Twitter account, which gained popularity for posting satirical
episode synopses for a fictitious unproduced eighth season of TNG (2018). Publisher Simon &
Schuster subsequently made him an offer to turn his tweets into a comprehensive episode guide
with a humorous bent. Published in 2015, Star Trek: The Next Generation: Warped—An Engaging
Guide to the Never-Aired 8th Season features plots, script excerpts, and images to describe episodes
that never happened. One such episode, titled “The Lowest Decks,” was inspired by McMahan’s
favorite Star Trek episode, “Lower Decks” (TNG 7.15, 1994), and would lay the foundation upon
which LWR would later be built. As development of the series began, McMahan looked for
writers with “different comedic voices and people who just felt like they either loved Star Trek
or they wanted to watch it all the time and learn about it as we were writing it” (cited in Drew
2019). His aim was to create a series that is enjoyable for casual comedy fans as well as those who
are well versed in Star Trek lore.
The series’ pilot episode debuted on CBS All Access on August 6, 2020, with subsequent episodes
airing over the following ten weeks. According to reviews aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the
show was mostly well received with the critical consensus being that the show is “fun, but not very
bold” and that it “flips the script on Star Trek regulation just enough to stand out in the franchise, if
not the greater animation landscape” (Anon 2021). Many critics have emphasized that the show’s core
appeal lies in its ability to mine the nostalgia of Star Trek fans, while offering little reward to casual
viewers. As reviewer Roxana Hadadi explains:
[LWR] most often exudes the energy of adoring fan fiction, relying on a viewer’s awareness
of this interconnected universe for its plot details and its self-referential humor. The meta
81
quality is intermittently witty, but the show struggles to develop an identity of its own out-
side of those name drops.
(2020)
McMahan, however, argues that these more critical responses to the use of referential humor stem
from a misunderstanding about the show’s narrative and characterization philosophy:
We don’t think the references are funny. We feel like criminals that have gotten away with
doing a Star Trek show. And the lower deckers would be huge fans of all this stuff that
happens in Starfleet. They would be learning about it at the Academy. They would be
reading the logs. And this show is a celebration of all Star Trek stuff, for the characters in
it and the audience watching it, and the guys writing it … All these references for us, it’s
worldbuilding. These are animated, two-dimensional characters. How could they not be
excited about the Gorn? If they know everything about this ship, they know everything
about Starfleet.
(Anon 2020)
For McMahan, the humor in the series lies in the myriad ways in which the characters view the
world they inhabit, which can appear as overtly referential and metatextual. To that end, he asserts
that, for the writing team, references to Starfleet protocols, planets, alien species, technology, and
events were not seen as attempts at meta humor and fan service—they are merely aspects of the crew’s
everyday lives—whereas the occasional references to the franchise’s production history and the pecu-
liarities of Star Trek fandom were meant to be interpreted as such.
McMahan’s distinction of what constitutes meta humor in LWR bears some resemblance to the
five subcategories of transtextuality—most notably, metatextuality and hypertextuality—proposed
by Gérard Genette (1997) in response to what he perceived as Julia Kristeva’s (1986) less-inclusive
approach to intertextuality. According to Genette’s model, references such as the Janeway Maneuver
(“Envoys” [LWR 1.2, 2020]), Miles O’Brien (Colm Meaney) being the most important person in
Starfleet history (“Temporal Edict” [LWR 1.3, 2020]), and Q (John de Lancie) lamenting that Picard
is no fun because he is “always quoting Shakespeare, [and] always making wine” (“Veritas” [LWR
1.8, 2020]) relate to the history, or hypotext, of the world that the characters inhabit in LWR, i.e., the
hypertext. In contrast, Boimler humming Jerry Goldsmith’s theme for The Motion Picture (“Temporal
Edict” [LWR 1.3, 2020]), the entirety of “Crisis Point” (LWR 1.9, 2020) playing as an homage to
Star Trek film tropes, Ransom calling the TOS crew “those old scientists,” and Riker claiming that
the crew of the first Enterprise “had a long road getting from there to here” (“No Small Parts” [LWR
1.10, 2020]), all serve as winks and nods from the production team to the fans, and as such they serve a
metatextual purpose. Nevertheless, such clear-cut distinctions are not all-encompassing, as McMahan
defensively claims. Certain moments in the show present some obvious overlaps in categorical delin-
eation within this framework. One such moment is the Rogar Danar versus Khan Noonien Singh
debate from “Veritas” (LWR 1.8, 2020), which gleefully blurs the lines between metatextuality and
hypertextuality. Moreover, in admitting that the first season was structured “like [they] were playing
the hits” of TNG, McMahan betrays his own dictum. By centering its narrative around affectionately
embracing the canon with a humorous albeit critical eye, LWR surrenders itself to self-referential
humor, at times to excess.
Despite its middling critical reception, CBS considered the show’s inaugural season enough of
a success to grant it a third season several months ahead of its intended season two debut on their
rebranded streaming platform, Paramount+. With this early renewal, McMahan optimistically looks
forward to exploring the personal and professional development of the four lead characters as they
grow from being the lowest-ranking officers aboard the Cerritos into who they wish to become
(Zalben 2021). In the wake of its first season, the series has received multiple nominations, ranging
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Star Trek: Lower Decks
from the 1st Annual Critics’ Choice Super Awards in the categories of Best Animated Series, Best
Voice Actor in an Animated Series (Jack Quaid), and Best Voice Actress in an Animated Series (Tawny
Newsome) to the 52nd NAACP Image Awards in the categories of Outstanding Animated Series
and Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance (Dawnn Lewis). Be that as it may, it would be
a disservice to the show to measure it against other entries in the well-established Star Trek universe
given that LWR is still in its relative infancy. While the same could be said about PIC, its legacy is
inextricably linked to TNG by virtue of being a direct sequel. Aside from being a loving homage
to Star Trek and its history, it remains to be seen as to what the legacy of LWR will ultimately be.
Key Episodes
“Second Contact” (LWR 1.1, 2020)

The series pilot introduces the cast and their personal and professional dynamics set against the backdrop
of a viral outbreak that occurs during Second Contact proceedings, which sends those afflicted into a
violent frenzy that threatens everyone on the Cerritos.
“Crisis Point” (LWR 1.9, 2020)

This episode is an unadulterated homage to Star Trek films. Freeman orders Mariner to seek out a ther-
apist. Instead, she hijacks Boimler’s painstakingly accurate holodeck simulation of the Cerritos’s crew, and
reprograms it into an action movie, casts herself as the villain, and goes to war against her mother. In the
end, facts about Mariner’s filial relationship to Freeman come to light, which irrevocably affect all three
characters.
“No Small Parts” (LWR 1.10, 2020)

In the season finale, the Cerritos answers a distress signal that leads to a brutal ambush by the Pakleds.
After incurring significant losses, the crew is rescued at the eleventh hour by Will Riker on the Titan just
as more Pakled ships arrive. In the aftermath of the battle, and due to the events in the previous episode,
Mariner and Freeman mend their relationship, while Boimler accepts a promotion aboard the Titan.
References
Anon. 2020. “Mike McMahan Explains Why ‘Lower Decks’ Has So Many Star Trek References; Plans To
Go Beyond TNG in S2.” TrekMovie.com. October 20, 2020. Available at: https://trekmovie.com/2020/10/
20/mike-mcmahan-explains-why-lower-decks-has-so-many-star-trek-references-plans-to-go-beyond-tng-
in-s2/.
Anon. 2021. “Star Trek: Lower Decks: Season 1.” Rotten Tomatoes. Available at: www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/
star_trek_lower_decks/s01.
Drew, Brian. 2019. “STLV19: ‘Star Trek: Lower Decks’ Panel Talks Second Contacts, Cleaning Holodecks, and
Canon.” TrekMovie.com. August 6, 2019. Available at: https://trekmovie.com/2019/08/06/stlv19-star-trek-
lower-decks-panel-talks-second-contacts-cleaning-holodecks-and-canon/.
Genette, Gérard. 1997. Palimpsests. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.
Goldberg, Leslie. 2018. “‘Star Trek’ Animated Comedy a Go with 2-Season Order at CBS All Access.” The
Hollywood Reporter. October 25, 2018. Available at: www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/star-trek-
animated-comedy-a-go-2-season-order-at-cbs-all-access-1154934/.
Hadadi, Roxana. 2020. “Star Trek Universe Expands with the Slight Lower Decks.” RogerEbert.com. August 6,
2020. Available at: www.rogerebert.com/streaming/star-trek-universe-expands-with-the-slight-lower-decks.
Hutcheon, Linda. 2000. A Theory of Parody. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
83
Kristeva, Julia. 1986. “Word, Dialogue and Novel.” In The Kristeva Reader, edited by Toril Moi, 34–61.
New York: Columbia University Press.
Nickolai, Nate. 2019. “Everything We Learned About the Future of ‘Star Trek’ from Alex Kurtzman.” Variety.
January 9, 2019. Available at: https://variety.com/2019/tv/news/star-trek-alex-kurtzman-patrick-stewart-
1203103893.
Van Citters, John. 2020. “Per the Combined Powers of Myself, @MikeMcMahanTM and the Glory of Kirk
and Spock, It Is LDS.” Twitter, July 12, 2020. Available at: https://twitter.com/jvancitters/status/12824661
16996980736.
Zalben, Alex. 2021. “‘Star Trek: Lower Decks’ Creator Mike McMahan Is Making a Star Trek Show, First.”
Decider. May 14, 2021. Available at: https://decider.com/2021/05/14/star-trek-lower-decks-mike-mcma
han-easter-eggs-interview/.
Star Trek Episodes
The Next Generation
7.15 “Lower Decks” 1994.
Lower Decks
1.1 “Second Contact” 2020.
1.2 “Envoys” 2020.
1.3 “Temporal Edict” 2020
1.8 “Veritas” 2020.
1.9 “Crisis Point” 2020.
Star Trek Movies
Star Trek: The Motion Picture. 1979. dir. Robert Wise. Paramount Pictures.
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. 1986. dir. Leonard Nimoy. Paramount Pictures.
84
PART II
Movies
10
STAR TREK: THE MOTION
PICTURE
Kevin S. Decker
Star Trek: The Motion Picture’s rainbow-hued poster features the tag-line “The Human Adventure Is
Just Beginning,” marking the genesis of five more successful films featuring the TOS cast. It ended
a ten-year wait—after the last NBC reruns of TOS—for the live-action return of James T. Kirk
(William Shatner) and crew. TMP has a special relationship to TOS: it paints on a larger canvas with
the familiar brush of the series’ fascination with exploring the strange and unfamiliar; themes that will
be buried in the action-adventure mix of the later films. “The basic ‘Trek format’ is well represented,
thanks to the participation of Gene Roddenberry. We start with a menace, something different and
frightening, and end with something not so different from ourselves at all” (Asherman 1986, 158).
TMP begins on or around Stardate 7410.2 after the end of the Enterprise’s original five-year
mission in 2270. Michael and Denise Okuda (2016, vol. 1, 423) speculate that TMP takes place in
2271, while other sources place it in 2273. Kirk has been promoted to admiral in charge of Starfleet
operations. The ship has undergone an 18-month refit under the supervision of Chief Engineer Scott
(James Doohan) and Captain Will Decker (Stephen Collins), Kirk’s successor. The refit is incomplete
when the Enterprise is unexpectedly called into service, for a gargantuan electromagnetic cloud on a
direct course for Earth is leaving a path of devastation in its wake. Spock (Leonard Nimoy), training
on Vulcan in the Kolinahr ritual of emotional purgation, senses a consciousness calling from space.
On Earth, Kirk regains command of the refitted Enterprise, and quickly calls Dr. McCoy (DeForest
Kelley) out of retirement. Sulu (George Takei), Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), Chekov (Walter Koenig),
Rand (Grace Lee Whitney), and Chapel (Majel Barrett) return to familiar stations and the audience is
introduced to Lt. Ilia (Persis Khambatta), a Deltan navigator who shares a romantic past with Decker.
In confronting this “alien object of unbelievable destructive power” three days from Earth, Kirk must
both cope with the Enterprise’s improved warp and defensive systems and justify Will Decker’s demo-
tion to Executive Officer. When a failed test of warp speed throws the Enterprise into a wormhole,
the new, younger crew feel that Kirk has usurped the role of their captain. The unexpected arrival
of Mr. Spock inspires the crew, but the utterly stoic Vulcan has his own hidden agenda.
Working swiftly, Spock communicates with the intelligence at the heart of the cloud, which allows
the ship to proceed further in. At the nucleus of the cloud, they discover a wholly alien spacecraft that
sends a scintillating plasma-energy probe to the Enterprise bridge. Spock tries to prevent the probe
from taking records of Earth defenses, but as a petulant child would do, the probe strikes back and
Lt. Ilia disappears. A perfect android reproduction of Ilia, claiming to represent V’Ger, soon appears
on the ship. V’Ger has traveled to Earth in search of “the Creator.” The Ilia-duplicate observes and
records “the normal functioning of the carbon-based units,” while Decker tries to reawaken Ilia’s
original memories. Spock dons a thruster suit and secretly leaves the Enterprise to penetrate V’Ger’s
ship. There, he sees “dimensional images” of V’Ger’s planet, one “populated by living machines” and
DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917-13 87
Kevin S. Decker
all the worlds and galaxies that V’Ger has passed on its travels. When Spock tries to mind-meld with
V’Ger, he is overwhelmed by psychic feedback.
Rescued, Spock is fundamentally changed: he laughs, musing that despite the immense store of
V’Ger’s experience, the living machine has no sense of beauty or mystery. A standoff ensues in Earth
orbit: Kirk bluffs that he knows who the Creator is, and V’Ger sends weapons into orbit to remove
the “carbon-unit infestation of the planet.” Kirk insists on giving the information to V’Ger person-
ally. Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Decker, and the Ilia android leave the Enterprise and find a relatively simple,
antiquated machine; on it, a worn plaque reads “Voyager 6.” Designed to collect data and transmit
it to Earth, this probe had been launched by NASA more than three hundred years earlier. The
Enterprise officers conclude that V’Ger amassed enough knowledge to become conscious. Spock
declares, “V’Ger must evolve,” and Kirk suggests that V’Ger needs the “human quality to transcend
logic.” V’Ger agrees to “join with the Creator,” and Decker volunteers. He and the Ilia-duplicate
merge in a swirling cascade of light, V’Ger’s orbital weapons dissipate, and the massive ship itself
disappears in a nova of light. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are left to ponder, “Did we just see the begin-
ning of a new life form?”
Production History
The demand for the return of Star Trek since its cancellation in 1969 had not quite been satisfied
by the Emmy-winning 1973–1974 animated series (see Chapter 2). While Roddenberry unsuccess-
fully pursued other television projects (Genesis II and The Questor Tapes), negotiations for developing
a feature film with Paramount Pictures began in 1973; budgeted at $3 million, it was slated for
Christmas 1975. Roddenberry’s draft for Star Trek II, or “The God Thing,” was remarkably similar
to the plot of TMP in that Earth is visited by a living computer entity calling itself “God” that turns
out to be Lucifer, the “Deceiver.” Roddenberry worked with Jon Povill on a second script featuring
time-travel, only for the studio to “reject [it] as not having quite the scope of a motion picture”
(Sackett 1980, 25). In 1976, spirits were buoyed by a letter-writing campaign to change the name
of the NASA space shuttle from Constitution to Enterprise; Roddenberry and the TOS crew—sans
Shatner—attended the unveiling. The Star Trek II project bounced between Paramount’s film and
television divisions, with the latter aiming to make a new Star Trek series the flagship of a fourth
network.
The earliest television pre-production work—new Enterprise sets and models—was begun in July
1977 for a broadcast date of November 30. Although most of the TOS actors were tenuously holding
on to hope that they would again play their parts, Leonard Nimoy—pursuing opportunities on the
stage—did not bite. Recognizing the continuing importance of Vulcan logic in the workings of
bridge decision-making, Roddenberry created a younger and full-blooded Vulcan bridge officer, Lt.
Xon, to be played by David Gautreaux. Xon’s details were delineated in a rapidly-evolving Writer’s
Guide for the series, which also introduced a new executive officer, Commander Will Decker, and
navigator Lt. Ilia (Reeves-Stevens and Reeves-Stevens, 1997). The Guide’s development of a romantic
relationship between these two characters anticipated the characters Will Riker (Jonathan Frakes) and
Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis) in TNG.
After the success of blockbusters Star Wars (1977) and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), it
was all changed again. Paramount halted development of the TV show and committed a much heftier
budget to a film which would rely on advanced visual effects. It would be based on the planned two-
hour pilot episode for Star Trek II, called “In Thy Image.” Things were looking up with the hiring
of director Robert Wise, known for The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), West Side Story (1961), and
The Sound of Music (1965). It was Wise, who—after reading a film script minus Nimoy’s character and
in consultation with his family of “Trekkies”—told Paramount, “With no Spock, there can be no
Star Trek” (Gross and Altman 2016, 337). When the studio’s offer to Nimoy was raised considerably,
he agreed to reprise his role.
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Star Trek: The Motion Picture
In July 1978, Production Designer Harold Michelson inherited the sets that had been begun a
year earlier for the television series and re-thought the scale of settings like the recreation room and
the engineering deck. Innovations in set design were established by Michelson and graphic designer
Lee Cole, who created a “U.S.S. Enterprise Flight Manual” to indicate the function of every control
on heat-sensitive consoles that would react to the actors’ touch. For the many monitors on the ship’s
bridge, they created film loops (primarily using an out-of-phase oscilloscope) for back-projection.
Another area of production—costume design—was not replicated in further films. Costume Designer
Robert Fletcher wanted to move away from the bright TOS costume colors (deployed to maximize
the impact of new color broadcasting) and director Wise wanted uniforms to avoid extravagance and
“seem very real” (ibid., 347). In opting for variations on a “unitard” design, Fletcher followed not
only the advice of NASA consultant Jesco van Puttkamer as to what a space service uniform would
look like, but undoubtedly based his designs on the big-budget British-Italian import, Space: 1999
(1975–77).
In terms of visual effects decisions, the most dominant criticism of TMP was stated early on by
Allan Asherman:
Special effects are intended to be seen in short “takes,” intercut with reaction shots so that
the film’s characters are seen most of the time and the effects serve to enhance the story. In
this movie the opposite is true.
(1986, 157)
According to Nimoy, the six months of filming (June–November 1978) were “a trial” for the actors
because “[w]‌e were, much of the time, looking off camera at things that would later be done by Doug
Trumbull … and saying things like, ‘What do you think it is?’ ‘I don’t know.’ ” (Gross and Altman
2016, 372).
In 1979, Douglas Trumbull was enlisted by Paramount Pictures to come to the rescue of TMP.
The production lacked many necessary visual effects thanks to the inexperience of computer graphics
firm Robert Abel and Associates and was in very real danger of overshooting its December 1979
release. Trumbull was brought in seven months before release and employed fellow Industrial Light
and Magic pioneer John Dykstra and a crew of 60 to film visual effects, working around the clock
during these final months. They employed traditional methods of producing visual effects: studio
models or miniatures (including pioneering self-lighting for the Enterprise refit model and the
Klingon ships), manipulation of film elements in post-production, the use of motion control pho-
tography, and matte-painting. Intriguingly, they did not utilize computer-generated imagery for the
Enterprise fly-through of the V’Ger cloud; WOK would feature the first such sequence in a major
motion picture (see Chapter 11).
William Shatner has remarked that because of the tight deadline, Robert Wise inserted many
of Trumbull’s and Dykstra’s effects in the film unedited, including the long, loving fly-over of the
Enterprise in space dock (1994, 94). Trumbull reflected much later, “I would say in my experience,
the Star Trek movie was the most troubled production I had ever encountered” (Drew 2019, n.p.).
Context and Themes

Without Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, TMP as we know it would not have come
about. Even William Shatner, speaking about the feature films, acknowledged that “Star Wars created
Star Trek,” with TMP offered up as a potential competitor for George Lucas’ 1977 blockbuster
(Peters 2017). But Roddenberry was concerned that anything with his name on it should still carry
the Star Trek ethos. Fan interest was at an all-time high since the first Star Trek convention was held
in January 1972 in New York City (see Chapter 31). TMP satisfied expectations by finally visiting
Starfleet Headquarters in San Francisco, as well as delving more deeply into the Vulcan mystique.
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Fans found echoes of several TOS “bottle episodes” featuring massive, engulfing threats from space
in “The Doomsday Machine” (TOS 2.6, 1967) and “The Immunity Syndrome (TOS 2.19, 1968).
TMP also mirrors the plot of “The Changeling” (TOS 2.8, 1967)—a transformed space probe wants
to meet its creator.
The film is another installment in Star Trek’s fascination with Frankensteinian themes of what
creators owe to their creations and whether or not humans have the moral maturity to “play God.”
At the same time, TMP shows a significant philosophical change in attitude toward artificial intelli-
gence. TOS episodes like “The Changeling” (TOS 2.8, 1967),“The Ultimate Computer” (TOS 2.24,
1968), and “I, Mudd” (TOS 2.12, 1967) had portrayed computers and androids unsympathetically—
as fixed and rigid in their relationships with organic life-forms and as powerful, pitiless enemies when
their programming was corrupted. Alan Turing anticipated this antagonism, writing of artificially
intelligent machines: “There would be no question of the machines dying, and they would be able to
converse with each other to sharpen their wits. At some stage therefore we should have to expect the
machines to take control…” (Turing 1996, 259–260). His warning is fulfilled in the fate of all TOS
machine intelligences: they are destroyed because they negate freedom, individualism, and intuition.
Acting coldly toward his old friends and at the apex of his life of logical discipline, Spock realizes this
after his mind-meld with V’Ger. It asks the deepest questions about its origins, but finds “no meaning,
no hope, no answers.”
In the interim of the late 1960s and 1970s, however, research on artificial intelligence had
accelerated and its results entered into public consciousness. In particular, general science
magazines such as OMNI and Discover popularized the work of Hans Moravec in robotics and
Marvin Minsky in cognitive science. Minsky was even mentioned in Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A
Space Odyssey (1968): “In the 1980s, Minsky and Good had shown how artificial neural networks
… could be grown by a process strikingly analogous to the development of a human brain”
(1998, 98). By explaining how advanced computers might think analogously to human brains but
simply function on different substrates—i.e., metals and silicon—researchers in artificial intel-
ligence began to “humanize” machines. And although most popular films (e.g., Colossus: The
Forbin Project [1970], Westworld [1973], Demon Seed [1977]) still portrayed computers and robots as
inhuman threats, the popularity of comic-relief droids C3-PO and R2-D2 in Star Wars worked
in the opposite direction.
This, together with quantum leaps in diagnostic and life-improving medical technology like the
development of the MRI and computer tomography (1971), laser eye surgery (1973), the PET
scanner (1976), and even liposuction (1974), began to fundamentally change the dialogue about
what threat, if any, technology posed. Not long after TMP, Donna Haraway published “A Cyborg
Manifesto” (1985), in which she develops the concept of a “cyborg” as a creature that defies any
simple attempts at classifying it as “human,” “animal,” or “machine.” Haraway is considered today
as a founder of “cultural posthumanism,” and TMP’s optimistic view of human-machine synthesis
deserves to be treated as an early popular culture expression of that stance.
Legacy
TMP’s estimated budget was $46 million; its opening weekend gross was $11,926,421. Of the films
featuring the TOS crew, TMP was the most successful, with gross receipts of $138.8 million world-
wide. Rotten Tomatoes critics’ score for the film is 42 percent, which situates it halfway in the range
of scores for the TOS crew films (with WOK at 87 percent and TFF at 22 percent). “About the
only things people seem to agree on about Star Trek—The Motion Picture are that it was expensive
to produce, is visually attractive, and has a fine musical score” (Asherman 1986, 157). It is a slow-
to-develop film that owes much to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) for its lingering
shots of spacecraft cruising gracefully through the vastness of infinity set to soaring music. With its
booming “Main Title” (later used in TNG), and iconically martial “Klingon Battle,” Jerry Goldsmith’s
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Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Oscar-nominated score is a highlight of the film. He made inventive use of novel instrumentation
like “the blaster beam,” which emits the guttural electronic chords we hear coming from V’Ger.
Goldsmith’s achievement is much more impressive considering he had only three months to score
the film and completed it only five days before the film’s release.
Roddenberry’s novelization of TMP established important points of Star Trek continuity not
made explicit in the film: “Tiberius” is Kirk’s middle name, Will Decker is the son of Commodore
Matt Decker (from “The Doomsday Machine” [TOS 2.6, 1967]), and the Klingon craft seen at
the beginning of the film are named as K’t’inga class cruisers. Infamously, Roddenberry included a
“editor’s note” in the novelization that read, in part:
[t]‌he human concept of friend is most nearly duplicated in Vulcan thought by the term
t’hy’la, which can also mean brother and lover. Spock … did indeed consider Kirk to have
become his brother. However, because t’hy’la can be used to mean lover, and since Kirk’s
and Spock’s friendship was unusually close, this has led to some speculation over whether
they had actually indeed become lovers.
(Anon n.d.)
Admiral Kirk then “refutes” the speculation, which many fans have treated as an inept attempt by
Roddenberry to deal with “slash” interpretations of the Kirk/Spock relationship as “friends with
benefits” (see Chapter 33).
However, some of TMP’s legacy has been obscured by the passage of time. For example, costume
designer Bob Fletcher and makeup artist Fred Phillips, with the approval of Roddenberry, created
not only the looks, but also brief backgrounds for a dozen new humanoid species seen briefly in the
sequences set at Starfleet Headquarters and on the Enterprise’s recreation deck; none of them other
than the Deltans have been canonized in Okuda and Okuda (2016).
Re-edited under the supervision of Robert Wise, a second version of TMP—subtitled “The
Director’s Cut”—was released on DVD in 2001. It featured new and revised visual effects that “were
intended to complete work that could not be finished for the original theatrical release” (ibid., vol.
2, 314). Scenes notably improved by the changes include matte backgrounds for locations on Vulcan
and Earth, the “walkway” leading from the Enterprise hull to V’Ger’s ship, and V’Ger’s entering Earth
orbit. Several editing errors as well as the pacing of dialogue scenes aboard the Enterprise were cleaned
up and some shots of improvised lines by Shatner and Nimoy that had been left on the cutting room
floor were restored (Nimoy 1995, 170). La-La Land Records released a three-CD, limited collector’s
edition of the full score in 2019. In the same year, celebration of the fortieth anniversary of TMP’s
release led Fathom Events to sponsor a two-day re-release of the theatrical cut in selected theatres.
This was an occasion for a much-needed re-evaluation and new appreciation for TMP: as one jour-
nalist working near the “future site” of Starfleet Headquarters remarked: “The enduring legacy of
‘Star Trek’ is largely thanks to the success of ‘Star Trek:The Motion Picture,’ which breathed new life
into a series that had been canceled nearly a decade before” (Lim 2019, n.p.).
References
Anon. n.d. “The Roddenberry Footnote.” Fanlore. Available at: https://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Roddenberry_
Footnote.
Asherman, Allan. 1986. The Star Trek Compendium. New York: Pocket Books.
Brigden, Charlie. 2019. “Looking Back at the Music of ‘The Motion Picture’.” Star Trek.com, December 7,
2019. Available at: www.startrek.com/news/looking-back-at-the-music-of-the-motion-picture.
Clarke, Arthur C. 1998. 2001: A Space Odyssey. London: Orbit Books.
Decker, Kevin S. 2020. “Star Trek the Next Generation as Philosophy: Gene Roddenberry’s Argument for
Humanism.” In The Palgrave Handbook of Popular Culture as Philosophy, edited by David Kyle Johnson,
London: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97134-6_3-1.
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Drew, Bryan. 2019. “Interview: VFX Pioneer Douglas Trumbull on How It Took a Miracle to Complete
‘Star Trek: The Motion Picture’.” Trekmovie.com, December 21, 2019. Available at: https://trekmovie.com/
2019/07/26/interview-vfx-pioneer-douglas-trumbull-on-how-it-took-a-miracle-to-complete-star-trek-
the-motion-picture/.
Gross, Edward, and Mark A. Altman. 2016. The Fifty-Year Mission: The First 25 Years. New York: Thomas
Dunne Books.
Haraway, Donna. 1991. “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late
Twentieth Century.” In Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature, 149–181. New York:
Routledge.
Lim, Julie. 2019. “Exploring the History of ‘Star Trek: The Motion Picture’ on its 40th Anniversary.” The Daily
Californian, September 18, 2019. Available at: www.dailycal.org/2019/09/18/exploring-the-history-of-star-
trek-the-motion-picture-on-its-40th-anniversary/.
Nimoy, Leonard. 1995. I Am Spock. New York: Hyperion.
Okuda, Michael and Denise Okuda. 2016. The Star Trek Encyclopedia, 2 vols. New York: Harper Design.
Peters, Megan. 2017. “William Shatner Says Star Wars Created Star Trek.” Comicbook.com, September 6, 2017.
Available at: https://comicbook.com/news/william-shatner-says-star-wars-created-star-trek/.
Reeves-Stevens, Judith, and Garfield Reeves-Stevens. 1997. Star Trek, Phase II: The Lost Series. New York:
Pocket Books.
Sackett, Susan. 1980. The Making of Star Trek: The Motion Picture. New York: Pocket Books.
Shatner, William, with Chris Kreski. 1994. Star Trek Movie Memories. New York: HarperCollins.
Turing, Alan. 1996. “Intelligent Machinery, A Heretical Theory.” Reprint. Philosophia Mathematica 4, no. 3
(January): 256–260.
Star Trek Episodes
The Original Series
2.12 “I, Mudd” 1967.

2.8 “The Changeling” 1967.
2.6 “The Doomsday Machine” 1967.
2.19 “The Immunity Syndrome” 1968.
Star Trek Movies
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. 1989. dir. William Shatner. Paramount Pictures.
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11
STAR TREK II: THE WRATH
OF KHAN
Stefan Rabitsch
The Wrath of Khan is perhaps best understood as a pars pro toto for Star Trek in its entirety despite, or
perhaps because Gene Roddenberry was relegated to the position of “executive consultant” early in
its production process. It took a small group of creative minds who had been largely unfamiliar with
Roddenberry’s creation—chiefly Harve Bennett, Nicholas Meyer, Jack Sowards, and Robert Sallin—
to figure out the essential tenets of the Star Trek formula and its attendant future world in an effort
to make them work (again) on the silver screen. Being a part of the first wave of science fiction (sf)
movie blockbusters in the early 1980s, there is little doubt that they were successful; not only do fans
consistently rank WOK among the top three Star Trek movies (Giles 2016; Goldberg 2020), the film
also generated sufficient thrust to enter—as a rhizomatic cluster of readily recognized tropes, images,
and snippets of text—the repertoire of global popular culture at large.
Whether we measure its latent impact based on the frequency of how often its elements have been
parodied1—in skits on late night comedy shows (see Chapter 38), in adult formats (see Chapter 39),
or by J.J. Abrams in STID (see Chapter 21) among others—or by Captain Kirk’s (William Shatner)
rage-filled “Khaaaaaaan” having been elevated to internet meme status, WOK is significant precisely
because it is the second installment in the Star Trek movie series. Two of WOK’s central themes—
age/aging and death/rebirth—set into motion a process that yielded a trilogy centering on Kirk’s
midlife crisis and how it impacts both his blood and his ersatz family, i.e., his crew. Following WOK,
the TOS movie series then in turn coalesced into the six-part historiographic backbone that links
the twenty-third to the twenty-fourth century. By employing Promethean themes, i.e., playing god
and being god-like, WOK also addresses concerns that are of Frankensteinian scope. They have lent
themselves to being picked up again in later incarnations of Star Trek, e.g., the Augment arc in DS9
and ENT, respectively. On account of it being the first movie sequel, WOK offers us a protozoan
glimpse of the then vaguely discernible serial growth potential of Star Trek as an intellectual property
which has since spawned a transmedia franchise ecology (see Chapter 24). Not only did the movie
solidify Star Trek’s successful jump from the small to the silver screen, but it also showed the studio
that cinematic Star Trek was economically viable. Consequently, the aim of this chapter is to decode
WOK as a convenient shorthand conspectus of Star Trek, and we can do that by turning to one of
the principals: Nicholas Meyer, who essentially salvaged the movie. But before he could do that, he
first had to understand what Star Trek was all about.
Meyer has a point in comparing Star Trek to “Catholic mass,” since he realized that “there are
certain elements of Star Trek that are immutable, unchangeable” (2010, 85). When executive pro-
ducer Harve Bennett asked Meyer to direct the movie, he had yet to acquaint himself with TOS.
Watching the series and reviewing the different outlines, story treatments, and scripts for the movie,
Meyer at first “didn’t understand the world, the people, or the language.” At the same time, they
DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917-14 93
Stefan Rabitsch
“reminded [him] of something” (ibid., 77–79). When a twofold “epiphany” struck, he knew “what
Star Trek wanted to be,” (1) a “pop-allegory/pop metaphor, taking current events and issues … and
objectifying them for us to contemplate in a sci-fi setting,” and (2) “Hornblower in outer space”
(ibid., 80, 137). In other words, he had successfully decoded Star Trek’s “transatlantic double con-
sciousness” (Rabitsch 2019, 7), i.e., a narrative vehicle for telling stories about the human condition,
tackling universal questions as well as contemporary concerns in an estranged (read: science-fictional)
form which nevertheless stand in a discoverable relationship to the viewers’ primary reality. These
stories are then set in a distant future of space exploration which was modeled on the romantic naval
world of C.S. Forester’s Napoleonic sea fiction. Meyer later learned, first from Shatner, then from
Roddenberry himself, that these were indeed the central components of Star Trek. His epiphany and
subsequent collaborative, albeit frequently strained, work with Bennett, Sallin, and Sowards, yielded
a clear-cut action-adventure-revenge plot. Rich in thematic content and allegorical nuances, WOK
resonated well in the United States as the country was transitioning out of the malaise of the mid-/
late-1970s and into the Reagan era.
A Middle-Aged Admiral, Übermenschen from the Past,

and the Hubris of Mass Creation
WOK opens with a bang. The TOS crew, sans Kirk and Chekov (Walter Koenig), are at their stations
on the bridge of the Enterprise with a young Vulcan officer, Saavik (Kristie Alley), in the captain’s chair.
Disregarding interstellar treaties, Saavik orders the ship into the Klingon Neutral Zone in response
to a distress call from a transport ship, the Kobayashi Maru. The Enterprise crew immediately find
themselves under attack and all of the senior officers are killed in quick succession. Then, the lights
come on and Admiral Kirk steps onto the bridge as the receding view screen reveals that it has all
been a simulation at Starfleet Academy in which cadets are tested as to how they would handle a no-
win-scenario, i.e., how they would face death. It is also Kirk’s birthday; when Dr. McCoy (DeForest
Kelley) visits him later, the captain confides in him that commanding a console on Earth, training and
testing the next generation of gallivanting explorers instead of commanding a starship, makes him feel
unhappy, restless, and “old.”
The plot then shifts to the starship Reliant, which is on a survey mission to find a planet com-
pletely devoid of life in order to test a secret scientific experiment called Genesis. Believing to
have found a suitable site, the ship’s captain and his second-in-command, Pavel Chekov, beam to
the surface where they are ambushed and captured by Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalban)
and his surviving band of genetically engineered Übermenschen. After an unsuccessful attempt to
commandeer the Enterprise years earlier, Kirk had exiled them to this planet (“Space Seed” [TOS
1.24, 1967]). A natural cataclysm, however, had shifted the planet’s orbit, turning it into a death trap
that cost Khan’s wife her life. Holding Kirk responsible, he seizes control of the Reliant and sets out
to seek revenge.
In the meantime, Kirk monitors a cadet training cruise onboard the Enterprise when he receives
a communiqué from his one-time lover and lead scientist on the Genesis project, Dr. Carol Marcus
(Bibi Besch). We learn that Genesis is an experimental device capable of rapidly terraforming a
lifeless planet into a habitable environment; of course, if it were to be deployed on an inhabited planet,
it would, as Spock (Leonard Nimoy) asserts, “destroy such life in favor of its new matrix.” Marcus asks
Kirk for help since she has been ordered to transfer the device to the Reliant. Kirk assumes command
of the ship and is promptly intercepted by the Reliant while en route to Marcus’ research station.
Khan makes himself and his intentions known and the two ships engage in a skirmish which leaves
both heavily damaged, and Kirk wondering whether he has grown “senile.” What follows is a cat and
mouse game with Kirk trying to prevent Genesis from falling into Khan’s hands.
Even though Khan makes it to the research lab first, he fails to find the device because Marcus
and her son, David (Merritt Butrick), had relocated to the interior of a nearby planetoid. Kirk tracks
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Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
them down, is confronted by his estranged son, witnesses the transformative potential of Genesis but
loses the device to Khan who has been lying in wait on the far side of the planetoid. While Khan
believes that he has successfully marooned the admiral, Kirk escapes and successfully taunts Khan
into battle which all but destroys the Reliant and leaves the Enterprise without engine power. While
Kirk’s superior “spacemanship” saves the day, Spock sacrifices himself in the process so that the ship
can escape the Genesis shock wave that Khan triggered in a last attempt to exact his revenge. Spock
is laid to rest on the newly-created Genesis planet, leaving Kirk to ponder the implications of the
experiment, i.e., whether it truly means “life from lifelessness.” Despite the terrible loss of his friend,
he intimates that he feels “young” again in the final moments of the film.
Production History
“For everything there is a [second] time”—Given the difficulties the production team faced in
developing a screenplay that could be shot on a greatly reduced budget ($11m) compared to TMP
($46m), it was anything but certain that WOK would be a success despite, or perhaps even because of
the saturation of sf blockbusters in the early 1980s. Though the rapid growth of cable TV and home
video technology was still worrisome to studios at the beginning of the decade, they read blockbuster
hits such as Steven Spielberg’s Jaws (1975), George Lucas’s Star Wars (1977), and Ridley Scott’s Alien
(1979) as indicators of a generational sea change both in directors and audiences, which, according
to Noël Carroll, “sent Hollywood producers rushing back to genre films” (1986, 64). It was the era
of the “movie brats” (ibid., 65), directors who were raised on 1960s’ TV shows and late-night reruns
of movie classics, and who held film school degrees. One of the brats, Meyer had landed a hit with
the time travel romp Time After Time (1979). By 1982, Hollywood seemed to have left the malaise of
the previous decade and a half behind with “the highest annual attendance recorded by the industry
since 1961” (Beaupre and Thompson 1983, 62). Sf, adventure, and fantasy hybrid movies were selling
particularly well with Spielberg’s E.T., George Miller’s The Road Warrior, John Milius’s Conan the
Barbarian, and Scott’s Blade Runner being released in the US the same year as WOK.
In line with Hollywood’s return to genre films, movie brat directors ushered in an “Effects
Renaissance” (Solman 1992, 32). They wooed and wowed audiences with the latest SFX
extravaganzas, making the first forays into computer graphics technologies. Lucas’s Industrial Light
and Magic dominated the scene so much so that “its range of richness … rejuvenated popular cul-
ture” in the 1980s (ibid., 41). Next to sophisticated model work, image compositing techniques, and
cloud tank effects, their work on WOK is frequently cited as among the first—some say the very
first—example of a full-length sequence generated entirely with computer graphics. The Genesis
sequence showcased the computer-generated “animation of a theory of cellular life,” in that it made
use of L-systems and recursive subdivision to produce fractal patterns (Kelty and Landecker 2004, 32).
WOK stands as a landmark in digital SFX history.
While financially successful, Paramount considered TMP thematically unwieldy and philosoph-
ically too demanding (see Chapter 10). Consequently, when Roddenberry submitted a time travel
story that would have seen the TOS crew prevent the Klingons from interfering with the Kennedy
assassination,2 he was quickly sidelined and Bennett was tasked with developing a script. Impressed
by Montalban’s performance in “Space Seed” (TOS 1.24, 1967), he wrote a story outline surrounding
Khan. Sowards was then hired to develop a full script. He produced a treatment which included the
death of Spock in order to win over Nimoy, who was reluctant to reprise his role (Nimoy 1995, 181).
The first script he produced was titled Star Trek: The Omega System, which introduced the idea for a
terrible weapon developed by the Federation. After receiving input from art director Michael Minor,
the revised script turned the weapon into the Genesis device and added the Kobyashi Maru no-win
scenario.3 With pre-production underway, Bennett and line producer Robert Sallin were not satis-
fied with the working script. They commissioned Star Trek-veteran writer Samuel Peeples to write
a new one which significantly changed the plot, dropping Khan among other elements. Settling on
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Stefan Rabitsch
Meyer as director, Bennett and Sallin presented the different scripts to him. Together they selected
five items—Khan, Genesis, Kirk meeting his son, Spock’s protégé Saavik, and Spock’s death—they
wanted to salvage from the scripts and Meyer went ahead to produce a tour de force rewrite (Meyer
2010, 83).
Principal photography took from November 9, 1981 to January 29, 1982. Following marketing
tests with the movie bearing the title The Undiscovered Country, the studio, much to Meyer’s chagrin,
changed the title first to The Vengeance and ultimately to The Wrath of Khan. WOK was released
nationwide on June 4, 1982. Balancing “derring-do” with “a sentimental journey,” New York Times
critic Janet Maslin called it “everything the first one should have been and wasn’t” (1982, 12).
Generally, WOK was met with favorable reviews, generating a total of $14m on its opening weekend
and $78m nationwide.
Themes and Legacy

“Can I cook or can’t I?”—With WOK, Paramount arguably figured out the “secret recipe for making
a ‘Star Trek’ movie work,” which, according to J.M. McNab, entails “exploring mature themes with
older characters,” (2020) while simultaneously always “returning to itself, echoing the … ruminating
fantasies which inform its structure” (Bick 1996, 58). The foregrounded storyline—the revenge-
driven conflict between Khan and Kirk—and the background story—Kirk struggling with growing
old(er) and his closest friend’s death—are tightly intertwined with one of the implications—the
promise of rebirth/creation—that derives from the main ethical and philosophical conundrum in
the movie. Not only are characters positioned in relation to antiques (e.g., Spock gifts Kirk a copy
of Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities [1859], McCoy gives him a pair of reading glasses, Kirk’s
apartment contains a collection of predominantly naval artifacts, and vintage books are among the
few possessions Khan has in his shelter), the presence of and role played by young people (Saavik,
David, and the Starfleet cadets) are arranged in a sequence that sees Kirk undergo an emotional
rejuvenation vis-à-vis the creation of the Genesis planet. WOK initiates the continuation of Kirk’s
coming-of-age arc from TOS, setting in motion a sequence of events that encompasses the two
sequels: His promotion triggers a midlife crisis, he learns that he has a son, witnesses Spock’s death,
ultimately loses his son at the hands of the Klingons while regaining his dead friend in SFS (see
Chapter 12), and finally loses the rank of admiral for having defied one order too many in TVH (see
Chapter 13). His demotion to captain is then not so much a punishment as it is a means for him to
face his middle years with renewed vigor and wisdom.
WOK’s main allegorical thrust derives from the dramatic substance generated by human hubris.
Mary Shelley’s proto-sf work Frankenstein (1818) provided a figurative template for tackling humanity’s,
or, more precisely, western techno-science’s often sexualized fascination with its own genius, which
in turn gives rise to existential(ist) dread. Both Khan and his genetically engineered followers and
Genesis as a weapon of mass creation channel this Promethean dialectic. Airing his concern over the
possible implications of Genesis, McCoy’s “dear Lord, do you think we are intelligent enough?” is
both echoed and retorted by the hubris that Khan not only embodies physically, but also frequently
extolls, citing his “superior intellect.” Consequently, WOK reiterated deep-seated racial, gendered,
and nuclear fears of post-WWII America and adapted them for early 1980s’ sensibilities while also
echoing ecological concerns of the 1970s (e.g., overpopulation, resource shortages, energy crises).
Scientific ingenuity and prowess and racially charged ruminations on eugenics recall sf movies of
the 1950s, which tackled fears about the military-industrial complex co-opting scientists and their
work. Learning that Genesis should be transferred to the Reliant, David states that “[s]‌cientists have
always been pawns of the military.” These anxieties found new outlets in the 1980s such as President
Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) and breakthroughs in genetics which occurred vis-à-vis
the rise of cyber culture and the politicization of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Indeed, AIDS, as Graham
Thompson contends, “became an important dimension of life during the 1980s because it tested the
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Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
capacity of American society to cope with the unknown,” which ranged from “homophobic rhetoric
and unwillingness to react” to “the intervention of committed activists” (2007, 25).
WOK translated to the silver screen what Larry Kreitzer has identified as Star Trek’s “veneer
of cultural sophistication, helping to create the impression that its world is a well-read one” (1996,
1). The movie stands tall in what amounts to a signature routine of intertextual borrowing present
throughout the entire franchise, ranging from Shakespeare’s oeuvre in TOS and TNG to Miguel
de Unamuno’s The Tragic Sense of Life (1912) in PIC. For example, Khan’s gravitas and actions are
informed by him having read and re-read the works of Milton and Melville during his exile as
evidenced by the tomes on his bookshelf. Moby Dick (1851), in particular, occupies a prominent
intertextual presence. Not only does Khan quote from and/or slightly paraphrase the novel, WOK
is also an example for how Star Trek repeatedly remediates the tale of the white whale as “a foil for
exploring the characters’ guilt and trauma which fuels their illogical need for revenge” (Rabitsch
2020, 222). Those who assume the role of Ahab are incensed by having failed someone or at some-
thing. In Khan’s case, he failed to save his wife despite his “superior intellect.”
On a plot level, Meyer not only wrote a Hornblower script, but he also remediated significant
parts of the first Hornblower novel, The Happy Return (1937). The Reliant’s pursuit of and duels with
the Enterprise are modeled on the ship-to-ship actions in the novel; and, Khan, like the novel’s antag-
onist Crespo, makes “a vengeful show of defiance before perishing along with their ships” (Rabitsch
2019, 92). Consequently, WOK is a paradigmatic example of Star Trek’s affinity for the literary canon
and popular literature alike.
When William Shatner asserted that “[f]‌irst of all, Star Wars created Star Trek,” (Caron 2016) at the
2016 Star Trek convention in Las Vegas, he had a point; the blockbuster impact of Star Wars made
Paramount identify an intellectual property in their catalog that could be grown into a movie fran-
chise. While TMP was the first Star Trek movie, WOK validated and solidified the serial potential of
Star Trek on the silver screen; it became a rhizomatic node in the franchise that later incarnations of
Star Trek fell back to and, in the process, it achieved a status which has transcended Star Trek fandom.
Notes
1 Parody is perhaps best and most productively understood in the vein of Linda Hutcheon, who has defined
its principal components and workings as “repetition with critical distance,” marking “difference rather than
similarity” (1985, xii).
2 Incidentally, this premise became the basis for a 2010 adult film parody of Star Trek—This Ain’t Star Trek XXX
2:The Butterfly Effect (see Chapter 39).
3 Writing from across the void, eminent sf scholar Mark Bould considers “the best thing about” WOK is “the
way in which Kirk passes the real Kobayashi Maru test … with his reading glasses on” (2021, original emphasis).
References
Beaupre, Lee, and Anne Thompson. 1983. “Industry: Eighth Annual Gross Gloss.” Film Comment 19, no. 2
(Mar.–Apr.): 62–73.
Bick, Ilsa. 1996. “Boys in Space: Star Trek, Latency and the Neverending Story.” Cinema Journal 35, no. 2
(Winter): 43–60.
Bould, Mark. 2021. “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (Nicholas Meyer 1982).” MarkBould.com. Available
at: https://markbould.com/2021/08/23/star-trek-ii-the-wrath-of-khan-nicholas-meyer-1982/ Last modi-
fied August 23, 2021.
Caron, Nathalie. 2016. “William Shatner Says Star Wars ‘Created’ Star Trek.” Available at: www.syfy.com/
syfywire/william-shatner-says-star-wars-created-star-trek-heres-why. Last modified August 8, 2016.
Carroll, Noël. 1986. “Back to Basics.” The Wilson Quarterly 10, no. 3 (Summer): 58–69.
Giles, Jeff. 2016. “Every Star Trek Movie Ranked from Worst to Best.” Available at: https://editorial.rottent
omatoes.com/article/every-star-trek-movie-ranked-from-worst-to-best/. Last modified July 20, 2016.
Goldberg, Matt. 2020. “Every ‘Star Trek’ Movie Ranked from Worst to Best.” Available at: https://collider.
com/star-trek-movies-ranked/.
97
Stefan Rabitsch
Hutcheon, Linda. 1985. A Theory of Parody: The Teachings of Twentieth-Century Art Forms. London: Methuen.
Kelty, Christopher, and Hannah Landecker. 2004. “A Theory of Animation: Cells, L-Systems, and Film.” Grey
Room 17 (October): 30–63.
Kreitzer, Larry. 1996. “The Cultural Veneer of Star Trek.” Journal of Popular Culture 30, no. 2 (Fall): 1–28.
Maslin, Janet. 1982. “New ‘Star Trek’ Full of Gadgets and Fun.” New York Times, June 4, p. 12.
McNab, J. M. 2020. “The Secret Recipe for Making a ‘Star Trek’ Movie Work.” Available at: www.cracked.
com/article_26995_the-secret-recipe-making-star-trek-movie-work.html. Last modified January 15, 2020.
Meyer, Nicholas. 2010. The View from the Bridge. New York: Plume.
Nimoy, Leonard. 1995. I Am Spock. New York: Hyperion.
Rabitsch, Stefan. 2019. Star Trek and the British Age of Sail. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
Rabitsch, Stefan. 2020. “Guilty Ahabs, Starbuckian Reason, and White Cetacean Contours in Outer
Space: Remediating Moby Dick on the Final Frontier.” Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik 45, no. 2
(December): 217–238.
Solman, Gregory. 1992. “The Illusion of a Future.” Film Comment 28, no. 2 (Mar.–Apr.): 32–41.
Thompson, Graham. 2007. American Culture in the 1980s. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Star Trek Episodes
The Original Series
1.24 “Space Seed” 1967.
Star Trek Movies
98
12
STAR TREK III: THE SEARCH
FOR SPOCK
Janet McMullen
The Search for Spock answered The Wrath of Khan’s cliffhanger questions, revived Spock, and
demonstrated the feasibility of a profitable Star Trek film franchise. WOK left audiences wanting to
know whether Spock (Leonard Nimoy) was really dead and how much McCoy (DeForest Kelley)
could remember from their mind meld. Paramount was happy to provide those answers and asked
Nimoy to direct the film and work with Harve Bennett on the script. Nimoy was energized by the
decision to explore Spock’s death and reprised his role even though he had expressed concerns that
Spock had taken over his life and career (Nimoy 1995, 145–146).
SFS begins when Spock’s father, Sarek (Mark Lenard), demands to know why a grieving Kirk
(William Shatner) left Spock on the Genesis planet. Sarek explains that a Vulcan’s katra (soul) and
body could be separated, and they learn that Spock transferred his katra to McCoy. Now Kirk and his
crew must risk their lives and careers to retrieve Spock’s body from Genesis and take it and McCoy
to Vulcan where Spock’s body and soul can be rejoined. They are, however, unaware that Klingons,
led by Commander Kruge (Christopher Lloyd), seek to weaponize the Genesis project and have
attacked both a Federation science vessel and the Genesis research station. As a result, Kirk’s son
David (Merritt Butrick) and Spock’s protégé Saavik (Robin Curtis) are stranded on the planet sur-
face where they have discovered a child who is a genetic duplicate of Spock but has none of Spock’s
memories. The boy is in excruciating pain because he is linked to the rapidly evolving Genesis planet
and his body is maturing at an abnormally rapid rate. David and Saavik attempt to help him but they
are taken hostage by Klingons.
When the Enterprise arrives, Kruge immediately attacks, demands the Genesis device, and threatens
to kill David, Saavik, and the boy if Kirk does not comply. Kirk cannot give the Klingons such a
potentially deadly technology, and David is abruptly murdered while protecting Saavik and Spock.
Kirk has sacrificed his son to secure Genesis and prepares to sacrifice his ship as well. He lures the
Klingons on board the Enterprise which is set to self-destruct and the Enterprise crew beams to the
planet just in time to see their ship fall from the sky in a shower of flames. McCoy, Uhura (Nichelle
Nichols), Sulu (George Takei), Scotty (James Doohan), and Chekov (Walter Koenig) then beam to
the abandoned Klingon vessel while Kirk faces and defeats Kruge in hand-to-hand combat as the
life-g iving promise of Genesis violently crumbles around them. Kirk and newly adult Spock join
their friends on the Klingon vessel, and as the planet explodes behind them, they head to Vulcan
where Spock’s katra is rejoined with his body in an ancient ceremony. But the question remains: Is
Spock himself again? When Spock recognizes Kirk, saying, “Your name is Jim … I have and ever shall
be your friend,” the audience is finally assured that their friendship and its attendant Enterprise family,
which are foundational to Star Trek, have been restored.
DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917-15 99
Janet McMullen
Production History
WOK was an immediate critical and financial success. A day after it opened, Paramount told Harve
Bennett to begin work on the third film. Nimoy wrote in I Am Spock (1995) that he had mixed
feelings watching Spock’s death in WOK. Eager for new challenges, he did not want to be typecast,
but he knew WOK left opportunities for Spock to return (ibid., 148). When the call and subsequent
meeting happened, Paramount executive Gary Nardino asked if he would like to be involved in
making the third Star Trek movie. Neither he nor Shatner had been permitted to direct TOS, but
Nimoy had directed several other TV episodes after TOS had ended, so Nimoy saw this as an oppor-
tunity to bring something new to Star Trek and agreed to direct (ibid., 217–221). Paramount head
Michael Eisner thought it was a great marketing move and was so enthusiastic, he asked Nimoy to
write the script as well. Nimoy declined, and though he worked extensively with Bennett on the
script, he did not receive a screen credit (Nimoy 1995, 219; Gross and Altman 2016, 448). Nimoy’s
contract stalled temporarily due to studio concerns that Nimoy had rejected Spock in his book I Am
Not Spock (1975). Nimoy called Eisner, explained the misperceptions, and the deal was negotiated a
few days later (Nimoy 1995, 220–221) which also pleased Gene Roddenberry who served as execu-
tive consultant for the film (Gross and Altman 2016, 453).
Bennett was charged with creating a script that addressed Spock’s death, the nature of the Genesis
planet, and what McCoy would remember from his mind meld with Spock in WOK (ibid., 448).
There were no plans for a third film when WOK was in production, so Bennett started from scratch
with a first draft that featured Romulans mining the Genesis planet and a wild, uncivilized boy-Spock
who killed miners. That draft was leaked to the press, so Bennett had to begin again. Nimoy was on
board by then, and it was his suggestion to replace Romulan villains with Klingons. Other plot points
caused concern including whether Kirk would be perceived as weak when he physically reacts to his
son’s death and falls backward in despair and if audiences would understand the understated mate-
or-die pon farr scene. Roddenberry had problems with Spock’s rapid regrowth (ibid., 453). Bennett
was most concerned about how audiences would react to watching the Enterprise plummet through
the sky in flames (Gross 1995; Nimoy 1995; Shatner 1994). The script was refined over 12 drafts, and
Bennett lauded Nimoy’s “extraordinary” work as an editor, saying “[t]‌here are pounds of stuff in the
screenplay that are pure Leonard” (Gross and Altman 2016, 449).
Key cast members were all signed quickly except Kirstie Alley; she demanded more money than
William Shatner and DeForest Kelley and, as a result, the role of Saavik was instead given to Robin
Curtis. Edward James Olmos was considered for the Klingon commander, but Christopher Lloyd
showed interest, auditioned, and ultimately played Kruge to perfection. John Larroquette was cast as
the Klingon Maltz. For the role of T’Lar, the Vulcan matriarch, Nimoy approached classically trained
actress, 85-year-old Dame Judith Anderson who was not familiar with Star Trek; when her nephew,
who loved TOS, threatened to disown her if she did not say yes, she accepted the offer (Nimoy 1995,
67). Nimoy admitted that he was naïve about the worries of his former Star Trek cast, especially
about his directing ability. Shatner threatened to leave the film and Nimoy spent hours negotiating
his concerns with him. When production began in August 1983, his collaborative style eased those
tensions (ibid., 228; Shatner 1994) and Bennett later wrote that the cast had fun; there was more jovi-
ality on the set of SFS than he had seen during all of WOK (Gross and Altman 2016, 452). Nimoy
and Bennett had a cordial relationship, but it was tense at times because Paramount ordered Bennett
to monitor and report on Nimoy’s work (Nimoy 1995, 231).
SFS was completed a week ahead of schedule on October 15, 1983 and opened June 1, 1984,
grossing over $76,000,000 on a production budget of approximately $17,000,000 (IMDB n.d.). Not
wanting to telegraph Spock’s return, Nimoy allowed his name to appear only as director opening
credits. The studio was so pleased with the success of the film that Paramount production head
Jeffrey Katzenberg congratulated Nimoy and invited him to direct the sequel (Couch 2016; Nimoy
1995, 245).
100
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
Context and Themes

While SFS’s primary themes are friendship and sacrifice, it also reflects the socio-political context of
Ronald Reagan’s first term by exploring aging, technology, battling mortal enemies, and the nature
of life and death (Worland 1994) as it offers psychological, sociological, and metaphysical substance
to its audience (Gregory 2000, 40). In a culture which values the attributes of youth and innov-
ation, the aging Enterprise and its crew outperform a newer ship, younger Starfleet officers, and a
plodding Starfleet bureaucracy. Not only did Kirk and Reagan want to eliminate red tape and solve
the problems at hand in an expedited manner, but controversial technologies were also an issue for
both leaders. Human technology threatened the Earth’s ozone layer and Reagan’s Strategic Defense
Initiative was characterized as either a high-tech safeguard promoting international peace or an anti-
soviet Star Wars weapon (“Strategic Defense Initiative [SDI],” U.S. Department of State Archive 1983,
n.p.). The Genesis device was designed to be a tool to bring life to barren planets, but the Klingons
wanted to use it as a weapon to destroy life on a massive scale (Worland 1994, 29). Star Trek makes the
point that technology is a tool to be used for good or ill. Such ethical choices require sacrifice, and for
Kirk, even the sacrifice of the Enterprise is justified to prevent Genesis from becoming an instrument
of genocide. Bennett considered David’s death redemptive because David’s illegal use of protomatter
was necessary for Genesis’ development and an attempt to “play God.” Life and death in WOK and
SFS are inexorably linked to sacrifice: Spock’s sacrifice saves the Enterprise and crew; David’s death
saves Spock; and the destruction of the Enterprise saves the universe from a Klingon apocalypse. The
risks taken by Kirk and crew make Spock’s renewed life possible, and demonstrate that life has pur-
pose at any age and sacrifice is honorable and necessary to preserve friendship, integrity, and life itself.
SFS explores humanoid life differently than previous Star Trek texts. Gene Roddenberry’s
humanist worldview rejected the concept of a deity, and TOS focused on the importance of the mind
to balance the physical/emotional with scientific logic (cf. Gross and Altman 2016; Grudem 1994;
Porter and McLaren 1999). Such dualism is, for example, evident in the third season episode “Spock’s
Brain” (TOS 3.6, 1968) when Kirk communicates with Spock’s mind after his brain is removed from
his body. Dualism is assumed in WOK when Spock transfers his katra to McCoy and when Sarek
informs Kirk that Spock could be restored if his katra and body are reunited. SFS implies trichotomy
since the Vulcan ceremony required to restore body-and-soul unity appears to attach metaphysical
value to the katra. Roddenberry disliked that depiction but did not have the authority to change it
(Gross and Altman 2016, 454).
Humanity is defined by its most valued human characteristic: sacrificial love, as is the case, for
example, when Kirk allowed his beloved Edith Keeler (Joan Collins) to die in “The City on the Edge
of Forever” (TOS 1.28, 1967). The master narrative of TOS is about relationships, the discovery of
truth, and a longing for and return to the security of home and family which is embodied by the
Enterprise and its crew (Bick 1996). WOK and SFS change that at least temporarily when Spock’s
death breaks the Enterprise family and SFS destroys their home, i.e., the ship itself. In doing so, these
films demonstrate a friendship so valuable that it is worth the loss of career, freedom, ship, and even
loss of a child. While blood ties are strong in SFS, Kirk grieves his son, and Sarek instigates the
mission to save Spock, the bonds of the crew as a kind of naval ersatz family (Rabitsch 2019, 134–
136) are even stronger, especially between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy (ibid., 126). While Spock died
for the “good of the many,” his friends risk everything “for the good of the one” because commitment
to Spock is worth any sacrifice, as their joy at his return proves (Bick 1996).
Consequently, STS continues and expands on the themes introduced in WOK birth, death, and
renewal. While TOS was about a young crew, a new mission, and a powerful vessel, when SFS
opens their mission is over, the crew has aged, and the ship is antiquated and on the verge of being
mothballed. From Kirk’s loss of purpose, Spock’s death, and the destruction of Enterprise come not
only the restoration of Spock, but renewed motivation and zeal for Kirk and his crew, and even a new
Enterprise for new missions is handed over to them in TVH. This exploration of life’s transitions and
101
Janet McMullen
their attendant questions of loss and renewal has since become a throughline in Star Trek, ranging
from TNG to PIC.
Legacy
SFS was well received by fans and critics alike; while it was nominated for both a Hugo and sev-
eral Saturn awards, it did not succeed in winning any of them. It introduced redesigned Klingons,
demonstrated the influence of fans (Gross and Altman 2016), directly led to The Voyage Home (1986),
and solidified Nimoy’s role as director. Thanks to SFS, Star Trek was not just an old TV show in reruns
but a continuing narrative that resonated with a steadily growing audience and addressed important
contemporary questions with action, depth, and humor. A range of texts have examined WOK and
SFS vis-à-vis themes of self-sacrifice (Campbell 1968; Kapell 2010), the nature of the mind (Ananth
2008), pragmatism and duty (Baker 2016; Decker 2008), ethics (Barad and Robertson 2001), mythic
archetypes and structure (Kapell 2010; Terrell 1977), and metaphysics (Porter and McLaren 1999).
While TOS primarily emphasized the technological and scientific achievements that have enabled
space-born human lifeworlds in the twenty-third century, SFS goes further and affirms the import-
ance of the immaterial and unquantifiable. Not only thinking, feeling, and doing, but relationship,
sacrifice, and commitment to the highest values make us human and, ultimately, whole. The Kirk-
Spock-McCoy relationship represents the elements of the human soul. Spock is the mind, McCoy
the emotion, and Kirk is the will which draws on both. All three are necessary to make the sacrifice
to serve the needs of many, or the one.
Reflecting a composite view of humankind,WOK, SFS, and TVH form a trilogy that contributed
toward the rejuvenation of Star Trek as a popular culture megatext. Spock, McCoy, and Kirk are the
soul in the physical body of the Enterprise whose nervous system—the crew—carries out the will
of command, reflecting their joint dedication to purpose, friendship, love, and Federation values that
is the unifying spirit of Star Trek mythology (Gerrold 1984). These representations point to the
importance not only of dualism, but also of the body as a significant part of an integrated whole. Just
as Spock’s katra could function in some capacity in McCoy, it was not “home.” In the same way, the
Enterprise crew can function in the Klingon vessel they commandeer but they are not home until they
board a new Enterprise in TVH.
References
Ananth, Mahesh. 2008. “Spock’s Vulcan Mind Meld: A Primer for Philosophy of Mind.” In Star Trek and
Philosophy: The Wrath of Kant, edited by Jason T. Eberl and Kevin Decker, 231–243. Chicago: Open Court.
Baker, Tim. 2016. “From Kant to Kirk: Star Trek’s Philosophical Arguments.” Newsweek, September 7, 2016.
Available at: www.newsweek.com/star-trek-kirk-and-kant-478147.
Barad, Judith, and Ed Robertson. 2001. The Ethics of Star Trek. New York: Harper Perennial.
Bick, Ilsa J. 1996. “Boys in Space: ‘Star Trek,’ Latency, and the Neverending Story.” Cinema Journal 35, no. 2
(Winter): 43–60.
Campbell, Joseph. 1968. Hero With a Thousand Faces. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Couch, Aaron. 2016. “How Nearly Refusing ‘Star Trek III’ Reinvigorated Leonard Nimoy’s Career.” The
Hollywood Reporter, September 19, 2016. Available at: www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/
star-trek-leonard-nimoy-turning-927001/.
Cowan, Robert C. 1980. “The Ethical Challenge; The Challenge of the Science.” Christian Science Monitor,
February 12, 1980. Available at: www.csmonitor.com/1980/0212/021246.html.
Decker, Kevin, and Jason T. Eberl, Eds. 2008. Star Trek and Philosophy: The Wrath of Kant. Chicago: Open Court.
Gerrold, David. 1984. The World of Star Trek. Dallas, TX: BenBella Books.
Gregory, Chris. 2000. Star Trek: Parallel Narratives. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Gross, Edward. 1995. The Making of the Star Trek Films. London: Boxtree.
Gross, Edward, and Mark A. Altman. 2016. The Fifty-Year Mission: The First 25 Years. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Grudem, Wayne. 1994. Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervon
Academic.
102
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
IMDB.com. “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984).” IMDB.com. Available at: www.imdb.com/title/
tt0088170/?ref_=ttawd_awd_tt.
Kapell, Matthew Wilhelm, Ed. 2010. Star Trek as Myth: Essays on Symbol and Archetype at the Final Frontier.
Moreland, J.P., and Scott R. Rae. 2000. Body & Soul: Human Nature and the Crisis in Ethics. Downers Grove,
IL: IVP Academic.
Nimoy, Leonard. 1975. I Am Not Spock. Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press.
Nimoy, Leonard. 1995. I Am Spock. New York: Hachette Books.
Porter, Jennifer E., and Darcee L. McLaren, Eds. 1999. Star Trek and Sacred Ground: Explorations of Star Trek,
Religion, and American Culture. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Shatner, William, and Chris Kreski. 1994. Star Trek Movie Memories. New York: HarperCollins.
Terrell, Wm. Blake. 1977. “Star Trek as Myth and Television as Mythmaker.” Journal of Popular Culture 10, no.
4 (Spring): 711–719.
U.S. Department of State Archive. 1983. “Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), 1983.” Available at: https://2001-
2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/rd/104253.htm.
Worland, Rick. 1994. “From the New Frontier to the Final Frontier: Star Trek From Kennedy to Gorbachev.”
Film & History: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Film and Television Studies 24, no. 1/2 (Feb.–May): 19–35.
Star Trek Episodes
The Original Series
3.6 “Spock’s Brain” 1968.
Star Trek Movies
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. 1984. dir. Leonard Nimoy. Paramount Pictures.
103
13
STAR TREK IV: THE
VOYAGE HOME
Una McCormack
A combination of Paramount’s two hottest properties: Eddie Murphy, their biggest star; and Star Trek,
their latest film franchise, seemed a recipe for a major success. At the time, Murphy had a huge profile
with movies such as 48 Hrs. (1982) and Beverly Hills Cop (1984) under his belt. His part in the fourth
Star Trek film was to be a “nutty professor” role, a twentieth-century college teacher who believes he
has been visited by time-travelling aliens (Clark 2013, 37), while the crew of the Enterprise were sent
back in time to prevent a plague from wiping out humanity. The film should have been a runaway
success, but, sadly, the finished product did not deliver on the promise of the talent involved. Murphy’s
on-set battles with William Shatner became legendary, and Star Trek’s light-touch humor was too
sharp a contrast with Murphy’s anarchic style. The science fiction story concerning a grim pandemic
was tonally at odds with the comic sequences. Murphy’s career bounced back, but Star Trek (after one
further film made to fulfil a contractual obligation to Shatner to direct), stuttered to a conclusion. For
Paramount, it seemed the franchise had reached a natural end.
Of course, it is fortunate for (almost) everyone concerned that this was not the route taken by the
studio. The Voyage Home (1986) was a huge success on release, garnering very positive reviews, and
attracting a mainstream audience. Far from extinction, the Star Trek franchise was reenergized, and
the success of TVH was critical in persuading Paramount executives to take the risk on greenlighting
The Next Generation. This returned Star Trek to television, and moved the franchise into a new period
of creative expansion and commercial success (Clark 2013, 43). The only disappointed party was
Eddie Murphy, who instead made The Golden Child (1986), and later regretted passing on his chance
to appear in Star Trek (Clark 2013, 38).
TVH is a comedic time travel romp in which the Enterprise crew returns to twentieth-century
San Francisco on a quest to locate a pair of humpback whales. The film opens with an unidentified
alien probe approaching Earth. Its indecipherable signal causes climate effects that threaten human life
on the planet. Meanwhile, the disgraced crew of the Enterprise, having returned to Earth to face trial
following the events of the previous film, are caught up in the catastrophe. Spock (Leonard Nimoy)
identifies the probe’s signal as the song of humpback whales, now extinct. Kirk (William Shatner)
decides to travel back in time to retrieve a specimen or two of the cetacean species.
On twentieth-century Earth, the crew splits up: Kirk and Spock go in search of whales; they earn
the confidence of Dr. Gillian Taylor (Catherine Hicks), a marine biologist charged with the care
of two humpback whales. Montgomery “Scotty” Scott (James Doohan), Leonard “Bones” McCoy
(DeForest Kelley), and Sulu (George Takei) hunt for materials to build a tank large enough to hold
the whales; they end up trading knowledge of future technology for the materials they need; Uhura
(Nichelle Nichols) and Chekov (Walter Koenig) go looking for nuclear-powered naval “wessels” to
collect power to restore their depleted ship, but Chekov is injured and arrested in the process.
104 DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917-16

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
After learning that the whales have been released into the wild, where they are at risk of being
hunted, Taylor assists the time travelers. She, Kirk, and McCoy rescue Chekov from a military hos-
pital, save the whales from whalers, and the crew, plus Taylor, return to the twenty-third century. The
whales respond to the signal, the probe’s effects are reversed, and, in reward, the mutiny charges are
dropped against the crew. The film ends by making good on the promise of the title and bringing the
various characters home: Taylor joins a science vessel, and Kirk, demoted to captain, takes command
of a new ship—the Enterprise NCC-1701-A. Thematically, too, the story arc which began with The
Wrath of Khan (1982) is brought to a conclusion: Kirk, who started the trilogy as an admiral, displaced
from his captain’s chair, is brought home; the crew too return to (an) Enterprise, and the familiar setup
of TOS is restored for the silver screen.
Production History
Before the release of The Search for Spock (1984), its director, Leonard Nimoy, was asked by Paramount
to take on the next film. Working again with producer Harve Bennett, Nimoy determined that the
film should be lighter in tone than the previous movies (Clark 2013, 37). Both Nimoy and Bennett
were keen to do a time travel story (Nimoy 1995, 248), evoking favorite episodes of TOS such as
“The City on the Edge of Forever” (TOS 1.28, 1967), and, not coincidentally, reducing production
costs by bringing the crew ‘back’ to Earth in 1986 (Clark 2013, 37). Nimoy’s readings of Harvard
biologist and environmental advocate Edward O. Wilson brought him to the idea of the Enterprise
crew going back in time to prevent an environmental disaster. Deciding that ideas such as preventing
a plague were inappropriate for their lighter film, and aware of the unusual communicative nature of
whale songs, Nimoy settled on the idea of retrieving humpback whales (Nimoy 1995, 250).
Screenwriting duo Steve Meerson and Peter Krikes were instructed to write with Eddie Murphy
in mind. Murphy’s decision to pass on the part brought about a change in writing team, a source
of disruption and contention that eventually ended in arbitration at the Writers’ Guild of America
(Hughes 2008, 37; Gross and Altman 2016, 483). With Meerson and Krikes off the film, Nimoy and
Bennett approached Nicholas Meyer, writer and director of WOK, to assist. Bennett revised the first
and third act, which broadly took place in the twenty-third century, and Meyer took on the second
act in twentieth-century San Francisco. The Eddie Murphy part, which had by now gone through
numerous iterations, such as a con man and a psychic-investigator on late-night radio talk show
(Nimoy 1995, 252), was condensed at this point with two other characters into the part of cetacean
expert Dr. Gillian Taylor. Other key changes included removing lines establishing that Saavik was
pregnant with Spock’s child (Gross and Altman 2016, 483). Another lost scene involved Bones and
Scotty discussing mortality and aging (ibid., 486) that calls back to conversations between Bones and
Kirk in WOK.
Principal photography began on February 24, 1986 (Weyland n.d.). TVH continued various
production innovations for the franchise. This was the first time that extensive location work was
required, with shooting taking place in San Francisco, notably around the five corners area, at the
Monterey Bay Aquarium, and also at the Naval Base in San Diego. The film continued the ground-
breaking use of computer-generated effects begun with WOK, notably in the distinctive and surreal
time travel sequence. The whale special effects, upon which a great deal of the film’s visual impact
would rely, used a small amount of live footage, but were primarily life-size animatronics and small
motorized miniature “puppets” (Nimoy 1995, 257). Call sheets show that filming ended three days
early, bringing about cost savings which would please the studio (Weyland n.d.).
Unit publicist Eddie Egan recalled growing tension between Nimoy and Bennett during the last
month of production, with Nimoy banning Bennett from the set at one point (Gross and Altman 2016,
487). Nimoy and Bennett disagreed over whether communications between the probe and the whales
should be subtitled. Nimoy had been deeply influenced by his conversations with MIT physicist Philip
Morrison and believed that the probe and the whales should not be anthropomorphized or have the
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mystery of their communication resolved (Nimoy 1995, 264–266). Bennett, however, felt audiences
would require an explanation, sending a memo to the studio heads about potential dialog between
the whales and the probe. Ultimately, Paramount backed their director, and Nimoy kept the mystery.
TVH was released in North America over Thanksgiving weekend, November 26, 1986, becoming
the highest-g rossing opening film that weekend. Reaction to the film was overwhelmingly positive.
USA Today praised it as a film that “will satisfy the most devout Trekkie and still delight those who
don’t know a Romulan from a Tribble” (Dillard 1994, 87). Meanwhile, the New York Times considered
the film “demented,” noting that it had no doubt done a great deal to secure the series’ future
(Reeves-Stevens and Reeves-Stevens 1995, 233). Box office receipts were more than satisfactory:TVH
was the first Star Trek film to break the $100 million mark in the US (Hughes 2008, 38), and its
domestic earnings of $109 million were unmatched until Star Trek (2009). Worldwide, its earnings
of $133 million were surpassed, in the original film franchise, only by The Motion Picture (1979)
and First Contact (1996), and that being on a smaller budget (TVH: $24 million; TMP: $35 million;
FCT: $46 million). But the film’s chief success was to secure a general audience for the franchise.
Nimoy noted that by the time shooting had wrapped,
everyone involved in the production began to suspect that we had achieved something spe-
cial … In addition to the loyal Star Trek audience, it drew large numbers of people who had
not seen the three previous films featuring the Enterprise crew.
(Nimoy 1995, 268)
Paramount’s measured risks were reaping significant dividends.

TVH is above all a Star Trek movie: the story itself could be constrained within the duration of a
single episode; only the location shooting, special effects, and model work are filmic rather than tele-
visual. The film is also a markedly ensemble piece. On television, an ensemble show like Star Trek
can explore its multiple characters across many episodes; the shorter running time of films does not
permit many individual moments for a large cast. Nimoy intentionally worked to provide “special
moments for each member of the Enterprise bridge crew” (ibid., 224). This is particularly successful in
the film’s second act, when individual members of the ‘Enterprise Seven’ are split into three distinct
sub-plots. Walter Koenig noted his delight in the script (Dillard 1994, 85); “For the first time, I felt
my dialogue was indigenous to character and only Chekov could say those lines; they were written
for him” (Gross and Altman 2016, 492). A scene in which Sulu meets a little boy who turns out to be
his own ancestor was unfortunately cut when the child actor cast could not cope with the pressure
of filming (Nimoy 1995, 261–263). A great deal of the film’s success lies in placing the familiar
characters into the estranging world of the twentieth century, reversing the audience’s experience of
entering a science-fictional world, while allowing our identification character, Taylor, her own arc of
estrangement, and, ultimately, full engagement with that world.
The first and final acts, set in the twenty-third century, facilitate connection to the preceding films,
allowing slots for recurring characters such as Sarek (Mark Lenard), Amanda (Jane Wyatt), and Saavik
(Robin Curtis), picking up the story from the end of SFS and gesturing forward to The Final Frontier
(1989). In order to ensure further accessibility, the film was marketed abroad with an amended title which
cut the reference to Star Trek and added narration to explain the events of the previous films (TrekMovie.
com 2008). This was intended to make the film accessible to a general audience by toning down the
Star Trek brand and making the story comprehensible to people who had not seen WOK and SFS.
Production Context
TVH is a product of specific contemporary social and political concerns, not least in channeling late-
1970s and early-1980s anxieties about environmentalism and conservation. The publication of Rachel
Carson’s Silent Spring in 1962 began the process of bringing environmental issues to a general American
106
audience. In the wake of the Santa Barbara oil slick (1969), and hoping to mobilize the energy of the
peace and counterculture movements, US Senator Gaylord Nelson (D-WI) initiated the first Earth Day,
in which 20 million Americans took to the streets to protest environmental degradation (EarthDay.org
2020). This combination of grassroots support and top-down influence led, within the next few years,
to a swath of legislation in the United States: the creation of the United States Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA), and the passing of the National Environmental Education Act, the Occupational Safety
and Health Act, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act (ibid.). The
Gaia hypothesis, formulated by James Lovelock in the early 1970s in collaboration with Lyn Margulis,
which proposed a model of life on Earth as a complex, synergistic, and self-regulating system, was
published as a popular book, Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth, in 1975. Environmentalism had moved
steadily throughout the 1970s from fringe to mainstream issue. Leonard Nimoy, who had been reading
Harvard evolutionary biologist and environmental advocate Edward O. Wilson, took from Wilson’s
book Biophilia (1984) concepts such as a “keystone species,” i.e., a species whose significance to an eco-
system is such that if it becomes extinct, the effects are felt by many other organisms (Lee 1986, 43).
Nimoy noted how this brought him to the theme of the sins of the fathers—our contemporary sins (i.e.,
failure to prevent mass extinctions) being visited upon future generations (Nimoy 1995, 250).
Arguably, however, the film does not offer a robust political project to back up its environmental
stance. Nicholas Meyer, for example, has noted that the decision to take Taylor into the twenty-third
century was, to some extent, an abnegation of storytelling responsibilities, in that nobody returns to
the twentieth century to sound the alarm about imminent environmental disaster. In his original
version, Taylor returns to Earth in 1986:
I still think [this] is the ‘righter’ ending. The end in the movie detracts from the importance of
people in the present taking responsibility for the ecology and preventing problems of the future
by doing something about them today, rather than catering to the fantasy desire of the being able
to be transported ahead in time to the near-utopian future society of the Star Trek era.
(Gross and Altman 2016, 490)
Environmentalists themselves have been kinder. Greenpeace spokespersons Karen Sack and John
Frizell, reflecting upon the film’s impact more than 20 years on, note that TVH is one of the first
environmental films to influence public opinion and policy (and, directly, helped the recovery of
humpback whales). The movie, they suggest, was a pivotal moment in showing that conservation
was not a fringe issue, but of general and mainstream urgency (“Star Trek for a Cause” in Star Trek
IV:The Voyage Home 2009).
TVH also reflects increasing positivity surrounding American-Russian relations arising from
the mid-1980s. Cold War politics had always infused Star Trek storytelling (for example, in repli-
cating the conflicts between global powers in the intergalactic tensions between the Federation,
the Klingons, and the Romulans; see Hark 2008, 33). After his election in 1985 to the position of
General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (i.e., the leader of the Soviet Union),
Mikhail Gorbachev pursued a policy of glasnost (“openness”) toward the West. The paranoia of the
early 1980s, epitomized by Jimmy Carter’s modifications to the policy of “mutually assured destruc-
tion” in 1980, and the Reagan administration’s Strategic Defense Initiative (commonly known as
“Star Wars”), began to shift cautiously toward a more optimistic view of Soviet-American relations.
TVH gains much play from the comedy of an oblivious Chekov blithely asking for direction to
highly secret and secure naval bases in his signature Russian accent.
Legacy
Both the spirit of glasnost and Nimoy’s environmental concerns led to the film receiving a public
showing in Moscow on June 26, 1987 (Dillard 1994, 86), the first Star Trek film to be screened in the
107
Una McCormack
Soviet Union (see Chapter 32). This arose from an arrangement made between the World Wildlife
Fund and the Soviet government to halt commercial whale hunting. The WWF asked Paramount
for permission to screen TVH as part of the celebrations. Bennett, in his account of this screening,
emphasizes the universality of the comedy and the message: “[T]‌he reactions, the laughs, the sighs
came in exactly the same places as in Westwood [in the LA area]” (ibid., 86). He also, perhaps with
the benefit of hindsight, reads the screening as exemplifying glasnost:
Bones [said] the line, ‘We’ll get a freighter. The bureaucratic mentality is the only constant
in the universe.’ That line in Moscow got the biggest laugh I have ever heard! They roared,
they stood up, they applauded … It was absolutely a messenger—a messenger of what was
to come.
(ibid., 86)
It is this interplay between playfulness and realism upon which much of the success of TVH lies.
Avoiding the off-putting ponderous tone into which spectacular science fiction films can often fall
(e.g., 2001: A Space Odyssey and, indeed, TMP), TVH’s light touch, even tongue-in-cheek, comedy
neatly delivers a serious and accessible message about our environmental responsibilities. The awe
and wonder of our home, Earth, and this planet’s diversity of life are shown to be at least the equal of
our futuristic yearnings, the latter being entirely dependent on the care shown to the former. TVH,
after three serious-minded entries into the film franchise, restores energy and joyfulness to the series.
If the premise of Star Trek is to tell socially relevant stories while maintaining a delighted view of the
connectedness of all life (human and otherwise) and showing an optimistic vision of a future in which
differences can be resolved without loss of diversity, then TVH is surely among one of the Enterprise
crew’s most successful excursions. TVH may have ended the trilogy that began with WOK, but the
film established that the franchise was not only viable but had the potential to be one of the most
reliable and successful of Paramount’s properties. A film that can be watched by audience members
with no interest in Star Trek, it is also mindful of the fan base. The playfulness of tone, combined
with a heartfelt but not heavy-handed message, combines to create a particularly enjoyable and sat-
isfactory viewing experience.
References
Clark, Mark. 2013. Star Trek FAQ 2.0 (Unofficial and Unauthorized). Montclair: Applause Theatre and
Cinema Books.
Dillard, J. M. 1994. Star Trek: Where No Man Has Gone Before—A History in Pictures. New York: Pocket Books.
EarthDay.org 2020. “The History of Earth Day.” EarthDay.org. Available at: www.earthday.org/history/ (accessed
September 12, 2021).
Gross, Edward, and Mark A. Altman. 2016. The Fifty-Year Mission: The Complete, Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral
History of Star Trek: The First 25 Years. New York: Thomas Dunne Books.
Hark, Ina. 2008. Star Trek. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Hughes, David. 2008. The Greatest Science Fiction Movies Never Made. London: Titan Books.
Lee, Nora. 1986. “The Fourth Trek: Leonard Nimoy Recollects.” American Cinematographer 67, no. 12
Nimoy, Leonard. 1995. I Am Spock. London: Century.
Reeves-Stevens, Judith, and Garfield Reeves-Stevens. 1995. The Art of Star Trek. New York: Pocket Books.
“ST09 Trailer Countdown: Taking a Look at The Voyage Home’s Trailer.” TrekMovie.com, November 6, 2008.
Available at: https://trekmovie.com/2008/11/06/st09-trailer-countdown-taking-a-look-at-the-voyage-
homes-trailer/.
Weyland, Philip. n.d. Philip Weyland papers, private collection of Larry Nemecek.
Wilson, Edward O. 1984. Biophilia. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
108
Star Trek Episodes
The Original Series
Star Trek Movies
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. 2009. Special Features: “Star Trek for a Cause” (Blu-ray; Disc 2/2). Paramount
Pictures.
109
14
STAR TREK V: THE FINAL
FRONTIER
The Final Frontier was the first and last Star Trek movie to be directed by William Shatner. While the
two preceding installments portray the crew as a whole, TFF focuses on the main trio—and mostly
on Kirk (Shatner) himself. The story starts with the abduction of Klingon, Romulan, and Federation
envoys on Nimbus III by Spock’s (Leonard Nimoy) estranged brother Sybok (Laurence Luckinbill),
who is able to manipulate people by telepathically accessing the pain they harbor, and, supposedly,
releasing them from it. The Enterprise’s crew is called back from shore leave on Earth to save the
hostages, even though the ship is undergoing repairs and is barely functional. Sybok with a handful
of followers commandeers the ship, turns the crew against the captain, and embarks on a quest for
the mythical planet Sha-Ka-Ree said to be inhabited by God (George Murdock), whose call he
believes he has received. It falls to Kirk, Spock, and McCoy (DeForest Kelley) to stop Sybok and to
protect the ship while it is being followed by a hostile Klingon Bird of Prey. The Enterprise reaches
Sha-Ka-Ree and the entity they encounter there—fashioned to resemble representations of God
in Western Christian iconography—at first seems to be divine. It is only Kirk’s audacity that allows
the godly mask to fall in time for the characters to realize they are facing an alien impostor. Sybok
sacrifices his life to allow the trio to escape, though due to a transporter malfunction Kirk must face
the alien’s wrath by himself and is saved at the last moment as the entity is overpowered by a phaser
beam delivered from the Klingon ship.
Production History
It is a rare instance that fans and critics are in such agreement as in the case of TFF. Everything that
could go wrong during the process of production did. Not only did Shatner not get the writers he
requested, but the work on the script was also halted by the 1988 Writers Guild of America strike.
Industrial Light & Magic, responsible for visual effects in previous Star Trek movies, was replaced by
an inexperienced team from Associates & Ferren, and the required models offered to the studio by
Paramount turned out to be damaged and had to be re-created. The money ran out before the end of
the development phase. Shatner wanted a story about Kirk taking on Sybok and then God alone, but
the screenplay was changed due to Harve Bennett’s reluctance to produce a movie that would offer
a necessarily unsatisfactory answer to the question of God’s existence (Shatner 1989, 44–47; Shatner
and Kreski 1995, 225); while Kelley’s and Nimoy’s protest against the portrayal of their characters
caused further changes (Shatner and Kreski 1995, 229). In post-production, the film was cut and
shortened, at times against Shatner’s wishes (Shatner 1989, 210–212; Shatner and Kreski 1995, 265–
266). TFF was supposed to ride on the wave of popularity created by TVH but turned out to be the
lowest-g rossing of all the TOS movies. While Shatner’s goal was ambitious, Paramount pushed for
110 DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917-17

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
a light-hearted comedy; this resulted in comic relief, taking the form of puns and slapstick gags. As
the underdeveloped idea of Nimbus III and the technical state of the Enterprise attest to, however, the
movie was an attempt at a darker and grittier take on Star Trek than TVH had offered.
While, arguably, TMP did touch upon the search for the Sacred in a more abstract sense, Shatner
tried to make a movie about religion, or at least a particular brand of it. The preceding decade had
been marked not only by the emergence of neoliberalism as the dominant paradigm, but also by the
rise of the new Christian Right (most notably, the Moral Majority movement, already in decline
when TFF was being made) which proved instrumental in the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan.
One of the key factors contributing to the political prominence of religious leaders was the access to
the broader public through televangelism. Televangelists not only catered to an already conservative
audience. Part of their appeal was also based on their promises of miraculous recovery from sickness,
money, and general happiness achieved through unquestioning faith. Even after all the changes the
original script underwent, these traits are clearly present in Sybok, and Shatner points to televangelists
as his inspiration (Shatner and Kreski 1995, 278–279).
Ace G. Pilkington suggests that:
it is … as a text among other texts that Star Trek V must be ‘read.’ … Many of the signs
and signals in Star Trek V will be misread or simply missed without the intertextual, almost
interscriptural background from which they are built.
(1996, 170)
This notion is fundamentally right, though it needs additional clarification. The movie does not
work as another installment in the franchise in the sense the others do; TFF’s relationship with canon
is very loose. The journey from the Neutral Zone to the center of the galaxy lasts less than seven
hours—much shorter than it should according to canon—and it seems that the Enterprise has already
visited the same location in “The Magicks of Megas-Tu” (TAS 1.8, 1973) to find an entirely different
planet there. Kirk refers to losing his brother and he means the death of Spock, even though he did
lose his actual brother (“Operation—Annihilate!” [TOS 1.29, 1967]). Spock’s never-mentioned-
before sibling appears (a risky move later repeated by DSC) and is never referenced again; all the
events in TFF are later ignored. Roddenberry went as far as labeling the movie apocryphal and, inter-
estingly enough, such a status would prove quite helpful with the interpretation of depicted events
(Shatner and Kreski 1995, 283–284).
The better a viewer knows Star Trek lore, the more difficult it is for them to read TFF as a part of
the franchise since the inconsistencies become more apparent. However, the said inconsistencies are
limited to the literal level, while the overall tenor of the movie is not only not different, but intensi-
fied. I propose to treat TFF as the key paratext of the franchise—a commentary on Star Trek’s central
themes that distils the basic ideas at the expense of the lore. Though it fails to answer some of them,
TFF asks hard epistemological questions—essential to Star Trek—about the price of knowledge and
freedom, the meaning of struggle, God’s existence, the role of religion, and—finally—paradise. In one
of its reviews, TFF had been called “the Spock’s Brain of Star Trek movies” (Gross and Altman 2016,
515). I would argue that, despite its campiness, it should be considered “The Apple” of Star Trek
movies for its theme is the Tree of Knowledge.
TFF consists of juxtaposed tropes and motifs already known to the audience. The most apparent
one is the Divine presented as a result of a categorical mistake made by people confronted with
superior technology or a more advanced alien, already discussed at length in relation to TOS
(Pearson 1999; Kraemer 2003, 15–25). It can be found in “The Return of the Archons” (TOS 1.22,
1967), “Who Mourns for Adonais?” (TOS 2.4, 1967), “The Apple” (TOS 2.9, 1967), “The Paradise
Syndrome” (TOS 3.3, 1968), “And the Children Shall Lead” (TOS 3.5, 1968), and “For the World
Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky” (TOS 3.10, 1968). Faith in any form of a deity is con-
sistently shown as misplaced and dangerous for it leads people to be manipulated or makes their
111
further development impossible. Gregory Peterson, in his analysis of TNG, points out the scien-
tific (evolutionary) explanation of perceived omnipotence of some beings and the crucial idea of
their contingence (1999, 61–62). His observations in that respect hold true also for TOS and—by
extension—TFF. God needs a starship, apparently; God is yet another powerful alien who manipulates
the weak-minded for personal gain.
TFF, however, does not provide us with a definitive answer to the question of God’s existence.
Instead the audience is given a non-controversial cue in an exchange at the end of the movie:
McCoy: We were speculating. Is God really out there?

Kirk: Maybe he’s not out there, Bones. Maybe he’s right here… human heart.
(TFF 1989)
Ian Maher suggests a Christian interpretation of TFF according to which the powerful being
imprisoned on Sha-Ka-Ree cannot be a real deity since it is violent and vindictive (easily contrasted
with the figure of Lamb of God) and not because there are no gods in Star Trek. Sybok’s fallacy
would lie not in searching for God, but in not doing so internally (Maher 1999, 170–172). However,
there are way too many similarities between TFF and the aforementioned TOS episodes to treat the
movie as a shift in paradigm. Had TFF been created as Shatner envisioned it, the image of the entity
claiming to be God would have transformed into one of Satan (Gross and Altman 2016, 498–500;
Shatner 1989, 61). That never happened; so, in the context we were given, Kirk’s words are a tes-
timony to the Feuerbachian understanding of alienation—God is a result of projecting values pre-
sent in humans onto an abstract idea, and the only way to overcome this fallacy is to seek worth in
humanity. The fact that the entity transforms from a Judeo-Christian patriarch into Sybok’s own
image as the Vulcan realizes his error would support this hypothesis.
However, many of the TOS episodes the movie draws from do not focus on God but rather on
the phantasm of Paradise. Pilkington (1996, 170) points out a striking resemblance between TFF and
“The Way to Eden” (TOS 3.20, 1969); seeking paradise, a band of idealists, who follow their charis-
matic leader Sevrin (Skip Homeier), hijack the ship. Similarly to Sybok, Sevrin reaches his destination
only to discover the promised land is a façade, and willingly chooses death by eating a poisonous fruit
that has already killed one of his disciples—Adam (Charles Napier), whose name foreshadowed his
fate. Similar themes are present in almost all of the aforementioned episodes and also in “This Side
of Paradise” (TOS 1.25, 1967). There is a pattern these stories follow: people live in opulent and
mostly harmonious communities, sometimes free from disease and even death. The state of universal
happiness is achieved by depriving them of knowledge and/or free will. The Enterprise, despite the
Prime Directive, introduces change to these societies as they do not develop normally according
to the crew’s understanding of progress or are exposed to dangers they cannot fathom. With said
intervention comes the possibility of death, hunger, and sickness, yet Kirk’s iconoclastic decisions are
always framed as correct and morally right.
The episode crucial to understanding the condensed message of TFF is “The Apple” in which a
peaceful alien tribe lives in an Edenic environment created by Vaal—a machine worshipped as God
whom the community keeps providing with energy. The aliens’ lives are strictly controlled by their
caretaker, and they know neither death, nor pain, neither old age, nor reproduction. By defeating Vaal,
the crew introduces all these things to that world. Kirk explains: “[T]‌here’s no trick to putting fruit
on trees … You’ll learn to build for yourselves, think for yourselves, work for yourselves, and what
you create is yours. That’s what we call freedom” (TOS 2.9, 1967). As Spock points out at the end of
the episode, the Enterprise has played the role of Satan in that story. In yet another episode (“A Private
Little War” [TOS 2.16, 1968]), Kirk succumbs to Cold War logic and arms a tribe against another that
is supported by the Klingons; while he refers to the weapons given to the natives as “serpents for the
Garden of Eden,” his actions are not connoted as evil but necessary. In a much earlier episode (“This
Side of Paradise [TOS 1.25, 1967]), featuring a perfectly happy population controlled by alien spores
112
that has been restored to freedom by Kirk, the captain voices a sentiment very similar to the one
present in his speech in “The Apple.” When McCoy reflects upon man being thrown out of paradise
for the second time, Kirk claims: “This time we walked out on our own. Maybe we weren’t meant
for paradise. Maybe we were meant to fight our way through. Struggle, claw our way up, scratch for
every inch of the way” (TOS 1.24, 1967).
Such words are truly surprising in the context of a post-scarcity utopia. M. Keith Booker (2008,
205) suggests that this is evidence of a capitalist tenor undergirding Star Trek; however, I would
argue, it is a theological claim, not an economic one. It is not that men should never aspire to create a
socially just world; it is that even in such a world there will be hardships of a different nature. Star Trek
is in agreement with Christian theology on the consequences of the original sin: suffering, struggle,
and death. However, their framing is dramatically different. Kirk declares:
You know pain and guilt can’t be taken away with the wave of a magic wand. They’re
things we carry with us, the things that make us who we are. If we lose them, we lose our-
selves. … I need my pain.
(TFF, 1989)
Ross S. Kraemer suggests that in TOS “the transition from Paradise is viewed … positively and is
not the result of intentional action—let alone defiance” (2003, 22). I would say the opposite is the
case: the recurrent theme in TOS, summarized by TFF, speaks to the moral obligation of committing
the act of transgression against the sole idea of God. The cost of tasting the forbidden fruit is also the
ultimate expression of freedom for it is the only way to experience the truth. There are two Paradises
in TFF—Sha-Ka-Ree (referred to as “Heaven” and “Eden” by Sybok), and Paradise City on Nimbus
III, the broken shell of a promise whose citizens were conned into settling there; a place that stands
in stark contrast to propaganda messages broadcast in the background, a “paradise lost,” as the graffiti
on the city gates proclaims. Both of these Paradises have been founded on a lie and are effectively
prisons. The evil entity is able to transform the appearance of the planet but cannot leave it and does
not want to let the visitors go. Similarly, the inhabitants of Nimbus III have no means of escaping its
wastelands. Some of them follow Sybok and manage to leave—only to be coerced into looking for
yet another prison. In Star Trek there is no freedom as long as someone is bound by lies; facing the
truth and suffering the consequences are a moral duty. Prior to DS9, theist religions were consistently
equated with the promise of happiness, freedom from pain and death—and presented as an ultimate
fraud. Sybok’s act of freeing non-believers from pain and offering them an easy and false way out can
be contrasted with willingly taking on the struggle.
It is difficult to ‘read’TFF as anything else but pure camp. The movie is not only disliked by critics
and often ridiculed by fans, but also mostly ignored by scholars. The reason for the latter is, I believe,
that it cannot be analyzed as an individual text, and the only way to discuss it is by drawing parallels
with specific TOS episodes or the entirety of Star Trek. It is impossible for TFF to hold its ground by
itself since it could only be considered a poorly executed and inconsistent collection of scenes. It does
not work as a Star Trek movie—for it is not one. It is a movie about Star Trek.
Legacy
TNG—at the end of its second season at the time—was performing modestly, and TFF jeopardized
the creation of next installments to the point that Ralph Winter, looking back, proclaimed that it
“almost killed the franchise” (Pascale and Winter 2010). The studio learned from its mistakes: TUC’s
tone was more consistent and it offered insight into contemporary international politics instead of
not-fully-developed metaphysical speculations (see Chapter 15). However, Nicholas Meyer’s movie
was not the first one to question if the Federation is truly a utopia. While TUC presents racism,
internal struggles, and outright treason, it was TFF that first attempted to show the Federation’s decay,
113
mirroring the discrepancy between Reaganite triumphalism and the reality of the diminishing wel-
fare state, growing incarceration rate, and the deflation of counter-culture idealism. The Enterprise is
barely functional, its crew easily manipulated, and the Federation clearly failed to develop a Paradise,
while maintaining a lie about it. For the first time, Star Trek showed a Federation official who was
cynical and disillusioned without making him misguided or evil. In 1989, when TNG was offering
a much more anti-capitalist, sterile, and utopian version of the Federation than TOS, TFF tried to
deconstruct and question it. Perhaps it was too early for that, or perhaps, had it been done differ-
ently, it could have turned out to be a success. Less than four years later, DS9 came out, challenging
the utopia. It elaborated on all the same topics that were raised in TFF: divinity, rational knowledge,
the collapse of Federation idealism, however, in a much more nuanced way. TFF is a summary of
Star Trek’s past theology and moral philosophy; it is a peak of its, at times, reductionist rationalism—
and the harbinger of its burnout.
References
Booker, M. Keith. 2008. “The Politics of Star Trek.” In The Essential Science Fiction Television Reader, edited by J.
P. Telotte, 195–208. Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky.
Gross, Edward, and Mark A. Altman, Eds. 2016. The Fifty-Year Mission: The First 25 Years. New York: St.
Martin’s Press.
Kraemer, Ross S. 2003. “Is There God in the Universe?” In Religions of Star Trek, edited by Ross S. Kraemer
et al., 15–56. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Maher, Ian. 1999. “The Outward Voyage and the Inward Search: Star Trek Motion Pictures and the Spiritual
Quest.” In Star Trek and Sacred Ground: Explorations of Star Trek, Religion and American Culture, edited by
Jennifer E. Porter and Darcee L. McLaren, 165–192. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Pascale, Anthony, and Ralph Winter. 2010. “Producer Ralph Winter on How ‘Star Trek V’ Almost Killed the
Franchise.” TrekMovie.com, June 30, 2010. Available at: https://trekmovie.com/2010/06/30/producer-ralph-
winter-on-star-trek-v-we-almost-killed-the-franchise/.
Pearson, Anne Mackenzie. 1999. “From Thwarted Gods to Reclaimed Mystery? An Overview of the Depiction
of Religion in Star Trek.” In Star Trek and Sacred Ground: Explorations of Star Trek, Religion and American
Culture, edited by Jennifer E. Porter and Darcee L. McLaren, 13–32. Albany, NY: State University of
New York Press.
Peterson, Gregory. 1999. “Religion and Science in Star Trek: The Next Generation: God, Q, and Evolutionary
Eschatology on the Final Frontier.” In Star Trek and Sacred Ground: Explorations of Star Trek, Religion and
American Culture, edited by Jennifer E. Porter and Darcee L. McLaren, 61–76. Albany, NY: State University
of New York Press.
Pilkington, Ace G. 1996. “‘Star Trek V’: The Search for God.” Literature/Film Quarterly 24, no. 2: 169–176.
Shatner, Lisabeth. 1989. Captain’s Log: William Shatner’s Personal Account of the Making of Star Trek V: The Final
Frontier. New York: Pocket Books.
Shatner, William, and Chris Kreski. 1995. Star Trek Movie Memories. New York: HarperCollins.
Star Trek Episodes
The Original Series
1.29 “Operation–Annihilate!” 1967.
2.4 “Who Mourns for Adonais?” 1967.
2.9 “The Apple” 1967.
2.16 “A Private Little War” 1968.
3.3 “The Paradise Syndrome” 1968.
3.5 “And the Children Shall Lead” 1968.
3.10 “For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky” 1968.
3.20 “The Way to Eden” 1969.
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The Animated Series

1.8 “The Magicks of Megas-Tu” 1973.
Star Trek Movie
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15
STAR TREK VI: THE
UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY
Torsten Kathke
Released on December 6, 1991, The Undiscovered Country was both a timely entry into the fran-
chise in its anniversary year, and an even timelier commentary on world events. After its predecessor,
1989’s uneven The Final Frontier, had underperformed, Paramount tasked director Nicholas Meyer,
whose The Wrath of Khan had been both a critical and a box office success, with making a movie
for Star Trek’s 25-year celebration. Meyer and his writing partner, Denny Martin Flynn, wrote the
screenplay from an idea by Spock actor and director of two earlier Star Trek films, Leonard Nimoy.
Nimoy’s simple, but topical and effective conceit was to explore what would happen if the Berlin Wall
“comes down in outer space” (StarTrek.com 2014).
TUC begins with the explosion of the moon Praxis, the primary power supply of the Klingon
homeworld Qo’noS (spelled “Kronos” in the film’s script). The explosion is observed by the star-
ship Excelsior, commanded by former Enterprise helmsman Hikaru Sulu (George Takei). The obvious
real-world parallel was the Chernobyl nuclear plant explosion in Ukraine in 1986, which sped the
demise of the Soviet Union. Assembled at the behest of Spock (Leonard Nimoy), who has opened
diplomatic channels to the militaristic Klingon Empire, the Enterprise’s main bridge crew meets at
Starfleet Headquarters in San Francisco three months later. Suffering under atmospheric contamin-
ation because of the Praxis explosion, Qo’noS now has only approximately 50 years of oxygen supply
left. Under reformist Chancellor Gorkon (David Warner), the Empire has agreed to peace talks with a
view to ending the twenty-third century’s equivalent to the Cold War. Starfleet Command, following
Spock’s suggestion, orders high profile cold warrior Kirk (William Shatner), distrustful of all Klingons
since one killed his son, to escort a Klingon delegation headed by Gorkon to the peace talks on
Earth. Kirk is unhappy about this role and confronts Spock, who gives as his reasoning an old Vulcan
proverb: “Only Nixon could go to China.”
The crew assembles aboard the Enterprise, which is piloted out of space dock by a new crew
member, Vulcan lieutenant Valeris (Kim Cattrall). Spock has hand-picked her to succeed him as
second-in-command since he intends to retire once the mission has been accomplished. After a
tense dinner aboard the Enterprise, the Klingons return to their own ship, the Kronos One, which is
soon under photon torpedo fire, seemingly from the Enterprise. The shots knock out the Klingon
ship’s gravity generators. Two figures in Starfleet pressure suits, wearing magnetic boots, beam aboard
the Kronos One and shoot several Klingons, including the chancellor. With bubbles of pink Klingon
blood floating through the ship, the perpetrators beam out again.
On the Enterprise, the database readout shows that the ship fired on the Klingons. When the
Klingons regain power, they set about attacking the Enterprise. Recognizing this as the only way to
avoid a war, Kirk surrenders. He and Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley) transport to the Klingon ship,
where McCoy attempts to resuscitate Chancellor Gorkon. Gorkon dies anyway, but not without
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Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
whispering to Kirk: “Don’t let it end this way.” Kirk and McCoy are taken to Qo’noS to face trial
on charges of murdering the chancellor. Aboard the Enterprise, Spock, Uhura (Nichelle Nichols),
Chekov (Walter Koenig), Scott (James Doohan), and Valeris attempt to discover what happened.
A manual inspection of the torpedoes shows that none were fired. Spock speculates that this means a
cloaked Klingon Bird of Prey warship must have fired on the chancellor’s vessel instead. The search
is also on for the gravity boots, which the killers must have been wearing on their return to the
Enterprise. Meanwhile, Kirk and McCoy are found guilty in a show trial and sentenced to life impris-
onment on the icy Klingon gulag planet Rura Penthe.
On Rura Penthe, Kirk and Bones befriend Martia (Iman Mohamed Abdulmajid), a shapeshifting
alien, who helps them formulate an escape plan. They manage to emerge from the anti-transporter
shield that protects the colony, only to discover that Martia never meant to assist them in their
prison break, but to deliver them to their deaths under the pretense of an attempted escape. On the
Enterprise, the crew has meanwhile found the gravity boots and pressure suits, and is looking to match
them to their wearers. They discover the assassins have themselves been assassinated. The Enterprise
receives a signal from Kirk, since Spock had surreptitiously marked him with a patch of rare viridium
metal—traceable from light years away—before Kirk beamed aboard the chancellor’s ship. They set a
course for Rura Penthe. Kirk confronts Martia, and a fight ensues in which Martia takes Kirk’s shape.
The Klingon guards shoot Martia. As one of the guards is about to reveal the conspiracy that led to
the assassination of Gorkon, the captain and the doctor are beamed back aboard the Enterprise.
Kirk, Spock, and McCoy hatch a plan to entrap the murderer of the two assassins by pretending
the assassins are still alive and in urgent care in sickbay. The murderer soon shows her face; it is
Lieutenant Valeris. She admits to her crime, but refuses to name co-conspirators. Spock mind-melds
with her and discovers that along with the Klingon General Chang (Christopher Plummer)—one
of Gorkon’s delegation—high-ranking Starfleet personnel, as well as the Romulan ambassador to
the Federation are involved. He also learns that there will be a terrorist attack on the impending
peace conference, relocated for security reasons from Earth to Camp Khitomer, in the Neutral Zone
between Federation and Klingon space.
The Enterprise races to prevent the attack, and together with the Excelsior succeeds in tracking and
destroying the cloaked Bird of Prey, captained by Chang. Having saved the day, the Enterprise crew is
told to return to Starfleet Headquarters to be decommissioned. Ignoring those orders, they head out
for one more journey.
Production History
After the critical and financial failure of TFF, Paramount had initially planned to make a prequel of
sorts, tentatively set at Starfleet Academy, with the roles of the main protagonists recast and played
by younger actors. As generally reported, the negative reactions to this news from creator Gene
Roddenberry, the cast, and fans, however, convinced the studio to reconsider. Contrary to this wide-
spread narrative, Marcus Berkmann contends that what doomed the idea of having the movie set at
Starfleet Academy was Gulf & Western CEO Martin Davis objecting to this and calling for another
film with the original crew instead (Berkmann 2016, sec. 3072). A combination of all these factors
likely doomed such a reboot at the time.
The studio approached Leonard Nimoy, who pitched a story idea based on an analogy of then-
current world events to writer-director Nicholas Meyer, who would turn the story into a screenplay.
As a director, Meyer previously had made WOK a success, and arguably the best movie of the series
thus far, while as one of the writers of TVH he had already worked well with Nimoy. Meyer and his
writing partner, Broadway director and actor Denny Martin Flinn, took Nimoy’s concept and within
just five months turned out a taut script that mixed a heady message about the weight of world his-
torical turning points and contingencies with elements of courtroom drama, action thrillers, and
classic detective stories.
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Due to the tepid reception of TFF, TUC’s budget was a modest $27 million. Similar to WOK,
this necessitated the reuse of already existing sets, models, and some special effects shots. Among
the repurposed sets were the transporter room as well as the observation lounge from The Next
Generation, the latter redecorated to become the officers’ mess in TUC. The Federation president’s
office was a redressing of TNG’s Ten Forward bar, with the matte painting backdrop used for the
view out of its windows also cribbed from that series’ first season episode “We’ll Always Have Paris”
(TNG 1.24, 1988).
Photography was done on the Super 35 format that was gaining popularity at the time due to
improved film stocks, allowing cheaper production and more flexibility in lens choice than the then
more common anamorphic film format at the cost of a somewhat grainier image. Meyer and cine-
matographer Hiro Narita chose the format in part to set TUC apart from the look of the previous
Star Trek movies, which had been shot in anamorphic 35mm widescreen. This choice, allowing for
lenses which let in more light, also complemented the darker lighting used by Narita. Meyer opted
for a more somber lighting scheme not only for atmospheric reasons, but also to save money as
darkened parts of sets would not have to be built (Magid 2016).
Context and Themes

TUC was planned as an allegory on current world events. It was a way for Star Trek to move into
the future, ending the Cold War in space as it had ended on Earth. The destruction of the energy-
producing moon Praxis referenced the 1986 nuclear incident in Chernobyl which laid bare the
Soviet Union’s corruption and epitomized the decline of its technological and economic prowess.
Chancellor Gorkon is a former warrior who has seen that the time for reconciliation and peace has
come. His name—and some character traits—evoke not only Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, but
also American President Abraham Lincoln, whose style of beard David Warner sports in his portrayal
of Gorkon (Meyer 2009, 211; Dyson 2015, 65). A picture of Lincoln hangs next to one of Spock’s
father, Federation diplomat Sarek (Mark Lenard), in the background of the mess hall during the
state dinner. The evocation of Lincoln calls forth not only the historical figure, but also the myth-
ical Lincoln, foremost his portrayal in TOS’s “The Savage Curtain” where Lincoln is given the line
“[t]‌here’s nothing good in war except its ending” (TOS 3.22, 1969). It is, however, General Chang
rather than Gorkon who makes the most direct statement on the Cold War theme when he tells Kirk
over dinner that “in space, all warriors are cold warriors.”
Aside from these obvious parallels, other themes are more subtle while still central to the
movie’s plot. Parallels to everyday racism in the United States are seen in the racism of Kirk, Scott,
and others both among the Enterprise crew and at Starfleet Command. In late 1990 and early 1991,
when the movie was being written and shot, the term political correctness was just beginning to
gain wider currency after its high-profile use in Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind
(1987) and subsequent references in the New York Times and other prominent outlets. The issue of
racism is foregrounded in several places, and unlike in earlier iterations of Star Trek, the Enterprise
crew are not only guilty of it themselves, but the movie also comments on and condemns their
racism explicitly.
This emerges most starkly in the scenes surrounding the ill-fated gala dinner, at which Chancellor
Gorkon’s daughter Azetbur (Rosana DeSoto) accuses the Federation of being “a homo sapiens
only club” after Chekov contends that all planets have “inalienable human rights.” Valeris catches
two crewmen, who later turn out to be the assassins, making racist comments after the Klingons
leave (“They all look alike”). Both Chekov and Uhura disparage the Klingon delegation in rather
overt racist fashion after they depart, complaining of their table manners. Nicholas Meyer’s slightly
extended edit for the 2004 DVD version expands on this by having Scotty, too, make a comment
clearly designed not to endear him to audiences: “They don’t place the same value on life that we do,
Spock, you know that.”
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This depiction of Starfleet’s “best and brightest” as racist and closed-minded did not sit well with
either Roddenberry or some of the actors. Nichelle Nichols reports that she refused to say a line
originally intended for Uhura: “Guess who’s coming to dinner.”This was famously the title of a 1967
movie about a white woman bringing her Black fiancé home to her parents and their initially racist
reactions. Nichols wanted it struck from the script; instead it went to Chekov. It remains unclear from
Nichols’s telling what exactly disturbed her most about the line. Its direct connection with the very
real racism she experienced in the United States, referenced in TUC by proxy in this manner, was
likely at play. The movie’s contention that the Enterprise crew would not have overcome such bigotry
appears to have played a role as well (Nichols 1994, 293).
The theme of racism was not simply a marginal addition to TUC’s storyline. Contrariwise, the
film’s premise rests on Kirk’s dislike of all Klingons, arising from the fact that one killed his son, a
personal grudge Kirk universalizes to the whole species. The main conflict, too, is internal. This
is atypical, as conflict on both TOS and TNG was usually shown as coming at a heroic band of
explorers from the outside. Already in the beginning, the movie pits a cold warrior, Kirk, against
a peacemaker and diplomatic facilitator, Spock. External forces are no longer needed to foment
conflict among the crew. Later, in a grueling scene, Spock forces a mind meld on Valeris in order to
gain important information while the bridge crew looks on. Meyer himself found the scene “kind
of like waterboarding” during a rewatch (Duchak 2016). Given the age and gender differences
between Spock and Valeris, it also evokes uncomfortable parallels to sexual assault, and indeed, rape.
All the while, TUC manages to be both critical of racism and bigotry while perpetuating racist
and sexist tropes itself. General Chang, for example, is shades of racist Chinese caricature villain
Dr. Fu Manchu. The idea of the Klingons as stand-ins for not only Soviet Russia, but also Red
China, is also made plain.
TUC is rife with allusions to literature and drama. Notably, Shakespeare is quoted with abandon,
and not just by the movie’s main foil, the soliloquy-happy General Chang. The film also teems with
references to history, from the invocation of Lincoln to an almost verbatim quote of something said
by U.S. ambassador Adlai Stevenson to his Soviet counterpart Valerian Zorin during the Cuban
Missile Crisis: “Don’t wait for the translation,” uttered here by General Chang in his role as the
Klingon High Council’s prosecutor at Kirk and McCoy’s trial. Furthermore, uncertainty as to which
side characters are on, and the unreliability of established conventions and loyalties are thematically
present throughout.
The main theme of the movie, however, is one of transition and “history” as a concept. It lays
bare how those who have become accustomed to a world system can be left behind by sweeping
geopolitical changes. TUC filmed while the Eastern Bloc crumbled, and was released nationwide
in the United States on December 6, 1991, just 19 days before the end of the Soviet Union. Francis
Fukuyama’s article “The End of History?” which contended that liberal democracy was the last
evolution of government, the ultimate stage of human political development, had come out in The
National Interest in 1989, and went on to be cited widely. Both the movie itself, in a line given to Kirk
(“Some people think the future means the end of history. But we haven’t run out of history just yet”),
and the teaser trailer, tout the “end of history.”
Fukuyama’s model held that the end of the Cold War, which he accurately predicted months
before the Berlin Wall fell, meant that humanity had entered a state in which no further progress
was possible in terms of political systems. Taking hints from Hegel, Marx, and Kojève, Fukuyama
argued that history, seen as the dialectical process of progress resulting from political systems in contest
with each other, was essentially over with the end of communism as a serious alternative to capit-
alism. Fukuyama’s ideas had clearly permeated the zeitgeist when Meyer and Flinn wrote their script.
Political scientist James W. Ceaser even suggests that Fukuyama’s concept is likely known to “the typ-
ical American” because of TUC (Ceaser 1997, 214).
Meyer has admitted that he was somewhat “naïve” in putting together his movie. This is true
in terms of its in-universe politics as well as within the political context of early 1990s America
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Torsten Kathke
(Collura 2016). It cannot be overlooked, however, that TUC marks the beginning of a period in
which Star Trek as a franchise wholeheartedly embraced the idea of an end to history. For TNG, DS9,
and VOY, the threats faced by the protagonists hardly ever point to a serious competition between
political systems. The Klingon military-bound society is frequently depicted as of the past and on
the verge of implosion, with Arthurian crises of succession abounding. The Romulans, too, while
considered formidable adversaries, are not framed as an immediate threat to the Federation’s system of
government, and the Dominion War in DS9 actually unites the Alpha Quadrant under the leadership
of the Federation, leading to eventual reforms and a lessening of totalitarian forms of government.
Even the Borg represent an evolution in which history has ended in Fukuyama’s sense: they do not
innovate, they merely assimilate.
Star Trek, in ENT and DSC, would get around the end of history by literally setting its stories
before that end, as would the Star Trek movies of 2009 onward. Only after 2018 would Star Trek
firmly leave the end of history idea behind. Since then it again has moved into an uncertain future,
reflecting the current era’s own.
Legacy
TUC marked a drift further away from creator Gene Roddenberry’s vision of an enlightened civil-
ization on peaceful missions of exploration in general, and an important step toward complicating the
inherent liberal utopia of TOS and converting it into a universe where morality was no longer dark
or light, but always hunched in the shadows. The DS9 storyline involving the Dominion War gets its
permission slip from Nicholas Meyer’s uncomfortable militarism in WOK and TUC, and from the
partial deconstruction of Kirk and Spock’s heroisms in the latter.
Both the political intrigue of DS9 and its habitual smearing of the borders between good and evil,
presenting even the revered figure of the captain as a navigator immersed in gray zones of decision-
making, is prefigured in TUC’s storyline. The idea that the Federation is not a utopia, but is rather
home to and run by bigoted and morally complicated beings is picked up in DS9’s “Homefront”
(DS9 4.11, 1996) and “Paradise Lost” (DS9 4.12, 1996), and has become a connecting strand to
two of the franchise’s most recent entries, Discovery and Picard, which both feature depictions of the
Federation as fraught with problems of realpolitik.
References
Berkmann, Marcus. 2016. Set Phasers to Stun: 50 Years of Star Trek. Kindle Edition. London: Hachette.
Ceaser, James W. 1997. “America as the End of History.” In Reconstructing America: The Symbol of America in
Modern Thought, 214–231. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Collura, Scott. 2016. “Star Trek VI Director Nicholas Meyer on His Regrets About the Film.” IGN, November 30,
2016. Available at: www.ign.com/articles/2016/11/30/star-trek-vi-director-nicholas-meyer-on-his-regrets-
about-the-film.
Duchak, John. 2016. “Exclusive: TrekMovie Talks to Nicholas Meyer About ‘Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered
Country’.” Trekmovie.com, December 6, 2016. Available at: https://trekmovie.com/2016/12/06/exclusive-
trekmovie-talks-to-nicholas-meyer-about-star-trek-vi-the-undiscovered-country/.
Dyson, Stephen Benedict. 2015. Otherworldly Politics: The International Relations of Star Trek, Game of Thrones, and
Battlestar Galactica. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
“Exclusive Interview: Part II, Nicholas Meyer on Directing.” StarTrek.com, September 26, 2014. Available
at: https://intl.startrek.com/article/exclusive-interview-part-ii-nicholas-meyer-on-directing.
Fukuyama, Francis. “The End of History?” The National Interest 16 (Summer): 3–18.
Magid, Ron. 2016. “Star Trek 50 Part VIII—Undiscovered Cinematography—The American Society of
Cinematographers.” American Cinematographer, December 14, 2016. Available at: https://ascmag.com/artic
les/star-trek-50-part-viii-undiscovered-cinematography.
Meyer, Nicholas. 2009. The View from the Bridge: Memories of Star Trek and a Life in Hollywood. London: Penguin.
Nichols, Nichelle. 1994. Beyond Uhura: Star Trek and Other Memories. New York: Putnam.
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The Original Series
3.22 “The Savage Curtain” 1969.
The Next Generation

1.24 “We’ll Always Have Paris” 1987.
Deep Space Nine

Star Trek Movies
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16
STAR TREK GENERATIONS
Murray Leeder
In the closing weeks of TNG, TV Guide published a collectible edition called Farewell to Star Trek:
The Next Generation. It tempers its melancholy treatment of the series’ end by hyping the film set to
follow some six months later: “watch for the crew’s next mission, ‘Star Trek: Generations,’ coming in
November to a theatre near you” (Nicholson 1994, 118). The film’s tragic structure was no secret: the
text reports that Malcolm McDowell had “already been quoted in Daily Variety as saying, ‘I get to kill
Kirk’ ” (ibid., 64). A leaked script circulated online via the newsgroup rec.arts.startrek in the summer
before the film’s November release, so many of us had read it well before the film came out. Standing
in line for the Calgary premiere, I saw someone wearing an unlicensed T-shirt bearing James T. Kirk’s
(William Shatner) last words: “It was fun.”
1994 was a critical juncture where Paramount strove to parlay the critical and public goodwill
towards TNG into a thriving multiplatform franchise (see Chapter 24). GEN is arguably the clearest
example of a Star Trek “event film” between The Motion Picture (1979) and Star Trek (2009). Its
high-concept pitch—“Kirk meets Picard (Patrick Stewart)”—even made the cover of Time maga-
zine. Throughout its run, TNG, though inarguably more popular than The Original Series was in
its time, still somewhat lived in its predecessor’s shadow—hence the seemingly endless “Kirk vs.
Picard” squabble among fans. TNG had its share of TOS tie-ins, including appearances by characters
like McCoy (DeForest Kelley), Sarek (Mark Lenard), Scotty (James Doohan), and Spock (Leonard
Nimoy); in return, The Undiscovered Country (1991) nodded to TNG in its final moments: “where
no man—where no one—has gone before.” But one torch remained unpassed. His name spoken
only thrice in seven years, Kirk remained an elephant in TNG’s room. Sporting the tagline “Two
Captains, One Destiny,” GEN promised to clarify Kirk’s status, to finally put him and Picard together
on screen, and to do something even more drastic: draw a definitive curtain on the TOS era through
Kirk’s death.
GEN opens in the late twenty-third century, as the retired Kirk, Chekov (Walter Koenig), and
Scotty attend the launch of the third Enterprise. However, disaster occurs when a mysterious energy
ribbon threatens nearby transport ships; Kirk saves the mission but appears to die heroically. Seventy-
eight years later, the fifth Enterprise is drawn into attempts by the villainous Dr. Soran (McDowell), a
survivor of that earlier event, to return to the ribbon and enter a sort of Nirvana called “the Nexus.”
Soran is destroying entire stars along with the habited worlds orbiting them to bring the ribbon to
him. Picard is pulled into the Nexus after a failed attempt to stop Soran; reeling from the fiery death
of his brother and nephew, the captain finds himself in a domestic scene with a wife and children such
as his career did not allow. Guided by Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg), he rejects this scenario as false and
recruits Kirk—also now residing in the Nexus—to help him return and defeat Soran. They succeed
but Kirk dies in the attempt; meanwhile, the Enterprise is destroyed by Soran’s Klingon allies, its saucer
section crash-landing on an uninhabited planet. A comic subplot turns serious as Commander Data
(Brent Spiner) installs his emotion chip and has to learn courage in the face of fear.
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Production History
As the TOS franchise informally folded with TUC, Sherry Lansing, chair of Paramount Pictures’
Motion Picture Group, began discussions with TNG executive producer Rick Berman about how
to move the series to the big screen. Paramount set out some guidelines, including that Kirk should
be involved and die but that the plot should emphasize the TNG characters. Two scripts were
commissioned, one by the controversial former TNG producer Maurice Hurley and one by Ronald
D. Moore and Brannon Braga, a successful writing duo on TNG. Braga and Moore won out (Altman
and Gross 2016, 304–305). They would later blame their inexperience writing for cinema and the
difficulty of juggling numerous priorities for many of GEN’s script problems. Shatner came aboard
with prerogatives of his own; his equestrianism motivated the addition of a horseback riding sequence
(for which Shatner rented his own horses). The studio also requested a Khan-style central villain as
well as a comic relief subplot built around Data (Braga and Moore 2004). With this many cooks in
the proverbial kitchen, the screenplay strained to reconcile numerous, scarcely commensurable elem-
ents. Much was cut, including an opening with Kirk orbital skydiving, a Romulan attack, and a final
confrontation with the Klingons after the saucer crash.
GEN was key to a crucial moment of franchise expansion. Calculated to follow as close as possible
to TNG’s end, it was rushed into production immediately after the show wrapped, using many of the
same sets; resources were stretched further by Voyager, simultaneously early in the production of its first
season. Much did not go as planned. The initial conception was that most of the TOS cast would appear
in the opening, but several turned it down, feeling that cameos in GEN would undo the fond farewell of
TUC. Nimoy was asked to direct the film but insisted on a rewrite that the schedule could not accom-
modate; backing out even of appearing, he broke with the franchise acrimoniously, not returning for
another 15 years. Nimoy later denounced GEN as “a media event … Something to sell … The cam-
paign was a slogging campaign—get it out there, talk about it, sell it. But I don’t think the picture was
very good” (Altman and Gross 2016, 315). Directorial duties fell to TNG and Deep Space Nine stalwart
David Carson, who had no feature experience; the project quickly fell behind schedule (ibid., 325).
Veteran cinematographer John Alonzo, numbering Chinatown (1974), Norma Rae (1979), and
Scarface (1983) among his classics, would lend the film an impressively cinematic look, albeit one
that frequently contrasts with TNG’s established aesthetics. The budget was scrimped, costumes
were borrowed from DS9 despite clashing visually, and special effects, notably the destruction of a
Klingon Bird of Prey, were reused from TUC. The sailing ship Lady Washington was rented to play
the Holodeck sailing ship Enterprise, and Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada provided the surface
of Veridian III. After a disappointing test screening objected to Kirk being fatally shot in the back,
Lansing commissioned extensive location reshoots (ibid., 334–335). The aforementioned leaked
script thus had the “wrong” ending.
Context and Themes

Nimoy was not wrong in accusing GEN of being mostly driven by spectacle. Dazzling special effect
sequences like the initial appearance of the Ribbon, the destruction of the Amargosa Star, the Stellar
Cartography scene, and the saucer crash leave the movie’s themes rather obscured. Perhaps because
Braga and Moore were tasked with hoeing close to the familiar, GEN revisits many of the themes of
the most successful Star Trek films to date, including the temporariness of existence, the danger of
obsession, and the importance of self-sacrifice. It has a vaguely existential sensibility in its insistence
that time should be treated not as an enemy but, to quote Picard, as, “a companion who goes with
us on the journey, and reminds us to cherish every moment, because they’ll never come again.” The
scene where Data drinks a creamy concoction in Ten Forward, realizes that he hates it and asks for
more, is a comedic recital of the film’s major theme: the importance of accepting the unpleasant as
constitutive to living genuinely.
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Coupled with this embrace of mortality as “part of the truth of our existence” is a rejection of
the temptations of illusion, a venerable Star Trek theme tracing back to the very beginning of TOS
with “The Cage” (unaired pilot 1965/1988). Soran’s family were killed by the Borg, and he is willing
to commit genocide himself in his quest to reunify with them—or facsimiles of them—within the
Nexus’s immersive fantasy. As much as the Holodeck nautical scene occasions wistful nostalgia for
the “Age of Sail” (Rabitsch 2019, 156), it constitutes a “safe,” managed illusion in contrast with
Soran’s obsessive drive for the Nexus. Faced with the opportunity to save real lives, Picard and Kirk
reject the appealing fictions of the Nexus with relative ease; reality, we are told, is the only place
where “you can make a difference.”
Relatedly, the Nexus also suggests a commentary on drug addiction, a topic with much cultural
visibility during the early 1990s. Guinan says that, “I would have done anything, anything to get back
there. But once I realised that wasn’t possible, I learned to live without that.” She is thus constituted as
a kind of “good addict” who has accepted a life without “the high highs,” in contrast with Soran, who
chases the ultimate fix. McDowell reported that he understood the character as “like a drug addict”
(Altman and Gross 2016, 323). Nonetheless, Soran ultimately plays more as a broad villain with a
sympathetic backstory than a man in the throes of an uncontrollable addiction.
Many of the TOS films were themed around an aging captain confronting his mortality, and this
theme recurs in GEN. Kirk even tells Picard, “Let me tell you something. Don’t! Don’t let them
promote you. Don’t let them transfer you,” echoing his career crisis of prior films (see Chapter 11).
However, since Picard has not aged visibly and was never seen as a youthful man of action, what
worked naturally with Kirk/Shatner requires an artificial and arguably cruel trigger: the death of
his brother and nephew in a fire, leaving Jean-Luc as “the last of the Picards.” This sets up his Nexus
experience where he imagines himself as a paterfamilias to a brood of Picards.
Another thematic concern held over from the prior film is the status of Kirk after a Fukuyama-
esque “end of history.” Rather as James Bond would be called a year later in Goldeneye (1995), Kirk is
constructed as a “dinosaur, a relic of the Cold War,” unsuited to the multipolar TNG that is Picard’s nat-
ural terrain. GEN is concerned with regime change and the passing of torches, but this is difficult to sell
visually because Shatner is a mere nine years older than Stewart. Consequently, the differences between
Kirk and Picard are mapped onto different modes of masculinity, arraying Kirk’s rough and ready space
cowboy against Picard’s more pensive, thoughtful, and even tearful characterization. Though Picard and
Kirk’s Nexus fantasies share the common element of rejecting Starfleet in favor of a quiet civilian life,
they are visually and spatially very different. Picard’s vision of the family bosom unfolds indoors, in a
quasi-Victorian Christmas scene, while Kirk is found chopping wood outside a cabin set against rugged
mountain terrain, the spectacle of masculine self-sufficiency pitched to an almost parodic degree. While
some bemoan the lack of a fan favorite like Edith Keeler (Joan Collins) or Carol Marcus (Bibi Besch),
there is some appropriateness to Kirk’s Nexus ladylove Antonia being a generic, uncharacterized, and
unseen figure. Kirk, even in his own fantasies, is mostly defined by bachelordom.
Any consideration of masculinity in GEN must also take account of the film’s third captain: Captain
John Harriman (Alan Ruck) of the Enterprise-B. As Harriman, Ruck hits many of the same notes
as his most famous character, Cameron in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986), but is treated less emphat-
ically. Harriman represents an uncharitable view of Clinton-era masculinity; in fact, it is difficult to
believe that this milquetoast would be placed in charge of anything, much less a starship. After a
show of indecision before his crew and the media, Harriman defers to Kirk as soon as a crisis erupts.
Nonetheless, Kirk refuses to formally take command from him when offered the opportunity: “Your
place is on the bridge of your ship.”This gesture is echoed later in the film during the ultimate torch-
passing moment of Kirk telling Picard, “The least I could do for the captain of the Enterprise.” The
ridiculously ineffectual Harriman seems to exist to make the distinction between Picard and Kirk
seem less extreme.
Concerned with age, irrelevance, and mortality, and written with an explicit mandate to remove
Kirk, GEN’s project is to grant Kirk an existential “good death.” However, it also reinforces the
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perception of Kirk as a macho leftover, something that both the diegetic Federation and the extra-
diegetic Star Trek franchise have outgrown. It treats Kirk—and Kirk’s kind of hero—as a living fossil
who, at best, warrants a last hurrah and a decent burial.
Legacy
Despite its initial hype, GEN is not one of the Star Trek films that lingers strongly in the cultural
memory. While GEN does not inspire the same level of fan vitriol as The Final Frontier (1989) or
Nemesis (2002), and it is certainly less polarizing than the “Abramsverse” films, it has also not seen
the sort of concerted rehabilitation that TMP has received. It received middling reviews; a rep-
resentative example noted that, “[it] may seem to the Trekkor [sic]-only crowd, the movie has a
decent plot, above-par action, and the ‘gee-whiz’ factor of good special effects” (Kelly 1994, 23).
Nonetheless, GEN mildly improved on TUC’s box office, earning around $118,000,000 worldwide
from a $35,000,000 budget. GEN’s financial success demonstrated the viability of the TNG movies,
and the creative team of Moore and Braga remained for its most successful entry, First Contact (1996).
FCT learns from some of GEN’s mistakes; Picard and Data’s character arcs intersect much more
organically, and while it retains the obsession theme, FCT locates it in Picard himself to better effect.
Fans tend to regard GEN as disappointing at best, botching a set of unique opportunities, espe-
cially the meeting of the iconic captains and the death of Kirk. Further, Data’s acquisition of emotions,
which should be the culmination of a series-long character arc, is mostly used for comedy. The rest of
the TNG cast has little to do; most egregiously, Dr. Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden) has scarcely
any dialogue. GEN also discards the Duras sisters Lursa (Barbara March) and B’Etor (Gwyneth Walsh),
previously key players in the ongoing Klingon saga, in stock “villain henchmen” roles. Though it fits
with the accepting change theme, the fact that the destruction of the Enterprise-D is treated so non-
chalantly by the characters seems like a missed opportunity; it does not pack the emotional wallop
of the original Enterprise’s destruction in The Search for Spock (1984). While GEN defies expectation
in staging the long-awaited meeting between Kirk and Picard over cooking eggs, this proves that
subversion is not an end unto itself. The fact that Kirk dies crushed beneath a collapsed bridge, as
opposed to the bridge of a starship, is perfect fodder for jokes, parodies, and memes. And while no
Star Trek film is without plot holes, the fact that Picard never considers traveling back further in time,
safely apprehending Soran or even saving his family, seems a particularly egregious example of a char-
acter overlooking the obvious to serve the plot.
GEN also proves oddly inconsequential to the remainder of the franchise. Data’s emotion chip
figures in FCT but is subsequently all but forgotten. Even though the Enterprise-B and new characters
like Harriman and Demora Sulu (Jacqueline Kim) feature in some licensed novels (e.g. Peter David’s
The Captain’s Daughter [1995] and David R. George III’s Serpent Among the Ruins [2003]), writers have
clearly not felt a strong need to expand on GEN. Despite GEN’s best efforts, subsequent events would
prove that the franchise cannot easily be “de-Kirkified.” Certainly not for Shatner himself: within
two years he essentially undid GEN’s fateful conclusion by reviving Kirk in the novel, The Return
(Shatner et al. 1996). Co-authored by Judith Reeves-Stevens and Garfield Reeves-Stevens, it was the
first of the “Shatnerverse” novels, set aside in their own continuity. And once the TNG film franchise
ran dry, Star Trek’s revival meant returning to Kirk and his crew (see Chapter 20).
Yet GEN proved influential in less obvious ways. For one, it was apparently the first film with
a promotional website (Cuneo 2011, 144), taking advantage of a tech-savvy fanbase. But from its
beginning, the internet cut both ways, fostering fan negativity even as it helped generate hype; on its
release, the prolific Star Trek online reviewer Timothy W. Lynch remarked that GEN proved to be
“not the disaster a lot of fans were predicting (or prejudging) ahead of time” (Lynch 1994). The com-
plex interplay of fan anticipation and disdain that would infamously befall Star Wars: Episode I—The
Phantom Menace (1999) five years later was somewhat forecast by GEN. At the same time, in melding
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different facets of its franchise into a single event film, GEN was well ahead of the curve—Marvel’s
The Avengers (2012) was 18 years later. Paradoxically, one might plausibly view GEN as a pivotal film
in the history of film franchises in general, even as it seems to be a secondary entry within the canon
of Star Trek films.
References
Altman, Mark A., and Edward Gross. 2016. The Fifty- Year Mission: The Next 25 Years. New York: St.
Martin’s Press.
Braga, Brannon, and Ronald D. Moore. 2004. “Commentary Track.” Disc 1. Star Trek: Generations, Special
Collector’s Edition. DVD. Directed by David Carson. Los Angeles, CA: Paramount.
Cuneo, Joshua. 2011. “‘Hello, Computer’: The Interplay of Star Trek and Modern Computing.” In Science
Fiction and Computing: Essays on Interlinked Domains, edited by David L. Ferro and Eric G. Swedin, 131–147.
Jefferson, NC: McFarland Press.
David, Peter. 1995. The Captain’s Daughter. New York: Pocket Books.
George, David R. III. 2003. Serpents Among the Ruins. New York: Pocket Books.
Kelly, Shawn M. 1994. “Generations Meet in the New Star Trek Film.” The Hazleton Standard-Speaker, December
7, 1994, p. 23.
Lynch, Timothy W. 1994. “Star Trek: Generations.” Tim Lynch Star Trek Reviews Wiki. Available at: https://timl
ynchreviews.fandom.com/wiki/Star_Trek:_Generations (accessed September 12, 2021).
Nicholson, Lee Anne. 1994. Farewell to Star Trek: The Next Generation. Toronto: Telemedia Communication.
Shatner, William, Judith Reeves-Stevens, and Garfield Reeves-Stevens. 1996. The Return. New York: Pocket Books.
Star Trek Episode
The Original Series
Star Trek Movies
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17
STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT
Ina Batzke
“Captain’s Log, April 5, 2063. The voyage of the Phoenix was a success—again. The alien ship
detected the warp signature, and is on its way to rendezvous with history.” It is this concluding entry
by Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart), and particularly the addition of “again,” which neatly
summarizes First Contact. In short, the film entails the jump to an alternate timeline that reimagines
the pivotal first interaction between humans and Vulcans as being jeopardized by the Borg. To make
this threat credible, FCT is set roughly six years after the Borg captured and assimilated Picard for the
first time in “The Best of Both Worlds” (TNG 3.26, 1990). Now, in 2373, the Borg attempt to con-
quer the Federation for the second time; the film begins with the Enterprise crew learning that several
Starfleet vessels are battling a Borg Cube that has crossed into Federation space and is threatening
Earth. Starfleet, however, orders Picard to stay put as it is believed that the trauma he incurred at the
hands of the Borg makes the captain of the Enterprise an “unstable element [in] a critical situation.”
As the numbers of casualties increase rapidly and it seems Starfleet will lose the battle, Picard and his
crew decide to disobey orders and join the fight. Once close to the battlefield, Picard uses his latent
connection to the Borg hive mind to identify a weak link in their cube, and the Enterprise success-
fully destroys it. Seconds before the cube detonates, however, the Borg manage to launch a sphere
ship toward Earth and create a temporal vortex. As the Borg ship disappears into it and the Enterprise
is caught in its temporal wake, the crew discovers a horrendous change on Earth: it is populated not
by humans, but solely by Borg. The crew learns that the vortex is a corridor that allows the Borg to
travel to the past and change history, and they decide to follow the sphere through the vortex to stop
the assimilation of Earth. They arrive in the year 2063, the moment when in the regular timeline
Zefram Cochrane (James Cromwell) launched the first human-built, warp-capable ship—an event
that attracted the Vulcans to Earth and thus triggered first contact. Picard immediately realizes the sig-
nificance of the date they have jumped to and begins to grasp the Borg’s intentions; they aim to pre-
vent the meeting between humans and Vulcans and thus the beginning of all of Star Trek’s endeavors.
Throughout the remainder of the film, the crew has to fight on two fronts simultaneously: while
Riker (Jonathan Frakes) and an away team are sent to Earth to ensure the flight of the Phoenix
proceeds as planned, Picard and the remaining Enterprise crew must fight the Borg who have infiltrated
the ship. All attempts of Picard and his team to fight the Borg fail, and as a result, Worf (Michael
Dorn) eventually suggests the destruction of the Enterprise as the only effective solution. While the
crew prepares their escape from the Enterprise, Picard stays behind and offers himself to the Borg in
exchange for Data (Brent Spiner), who has been captured. Data, however, refuses to leave and instead
obeys the Borg Queen (Alice Krige), who orders him to deactivate the self-destruct sequence and
destroy the Phoenix before it can jump to warp. When moments later the torpedoes miss the Phoenix,
it becomes clear that Data only pretended to comply, and, using the element of surprise, he is able
to release a corrosive gas which destroys the organic components of the Borg and thus defeats them.
DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917-20 127

Ina Batzke
Meanwhile, on Earth, Riker and La Forge (LeVar Burton) manage to get both Cochrane—who
behaves nothing like the heroic trailblazer and visionary future historians have turned him into—and
his ship ready for its warp flight. Ultimately, Riker and La Forge join Cochrane in the cockpit, and
together they successfully complete the first warp flight. In the last minutes of the film, the viewer is
invited to observe first contact, as the Enterprise crew witnesses from a distance how the Vulcan ship,
attracted by the warp flight of the Phoenix, lands (as history recorded it) on Earth. Having ensured
the correct sequence of the timeline, FCT ends with the Enterprise crew recreating the vortex and
returning to the twenty-fourth century.
Production History
FCT not only presents the first imagination of First Contact Day—as April 5, 2063 is famously
called both in and outside the Star Trek universe—but it also elevates the Borg from being simply a
recurring antagonist to a significant, existential threat. This is accomplished by introducing the Borg
Queen as a central nexus, leader, and “mind” for what had previously been presented as the leader-
and faceless Borg Collective. As with most Star Trek films, this story element was not part of the
original concept, which differed greatly from the finished product.
In February 1995, only two months after the release of GEN, Rick Berman approached Ronald
D. Moore about the production of another Star Trek feature film. At the time, the franchise had
arguably already reached its zenith: on television, DS9 and VOY drove the Star Trek legacy efficiently,
while in theaters, TNG just rounded off its seven-season run with the release of GEN in 1994.
Nevertheless, Paramount wanted more, so they appointed Moore and Brannon Braga, who had also
written GEN together, to pen a screenplay for a film to be released during the winter holidays of
1996. Moore and Braga had not been completely satisfied with their last production, as it had been
“saddled with mandates that saw Picard share top billing … with Kirk (William Shatner)” (Couch
2016). Consequently, one of their main objectives was to create a film that exclusively features the
TNG cast. Moreover, Berman told Braga and Moore that they should consider a story about an alter-
native timeline (Nemeczek 2012, 322). Among other options, the writers considered taking Picard’s
crew back in time to the Roman Empire or to Renaissance Italy. As both writers were determined
to do right by Picard and the TNG crew, they eventually decided to combine time travel with Picard’s
greatest trauma: his assimilation by the Borg. It was this inspiration which, according to Moore, even-
tually yielded the movie’s plot: “Right on the spot, we said maybe we can do both, the Borg and time
travel” (ibid., 326).
Though seemingly unrelated at first, the writers came up with the idea that the Borg could attempt
to stop humans from ever reaching space in an alternate past. The question regarding the time period
that the Borg would alter was then, however, also heavily influenced by budget constraints. Berman
considered sticking with the Renaissance period where the Borg could “prevent the dawning of
modern European civilization” (ibid., 322). A first script version, titled Star Trek: Renaissance, had
the Enterprise crew track the Borg “to a castle basement and their colonizing hive” (ibid., 322).
According to Moore, Renaissance would have featured “sword fights and phaser fights mixed together,
in fifteenth-century Europe” (ibid., 322), and Data as an apprentice to Leonardo da Vinci. Next to
financial objections, Moore worried about the script being “really campy and over-the-top” (ibid.,
322). Braga relented and instead suggested that they could reimagine the “birth of Star Trek,” i.e., the
moment humans and an alien race first met after Cochrane had accomplished the first warp flight.
Drawing on knowledge gathered from previous TNG episodes, “it was decided to place Cochrane
in the mid-twenty-first century, in a non-urban site” (ibid., 322), where humans took shelter and
recovered after a devastating Third World War.
In the first script versions with this setting, Picard was meant to replace Cochrane as pilot of the
first warp flight after the Borg attacked Earth, while Riker and the remaining Enterprise crew were to
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stay on board the Enterprise. The plotline in those initial drafts was rather similar to the final script,
except the fact that Picard’s and Riker’s roles were switched. When re-evaluating this, Braga, Moore,
and Berman realized that serious revisions were needed; after all, Picard would never encounter
the Borg directly, which would prevent them from tapping into the trauma that his assimilation
had caused him. To solve this issue, Riker was sent to Earth instead and the story with Cochrane
was streamlined, making more room for Picard’s encounter with the Borg on the Enterprise. All
this was put down in a new draft, which, throughout its multiple script revisions, became known
under a number of titles: Star Trek: Borg, Star Trek: Destinies, Star Trek: Future Generations and
Star Trek: Generations II. Eventually, the writers came up with Star Trek: Resurrection as a final title,
which then had to be scrapped after Fox announced that they had chosen the same title for the
fourth entry in the Alien film franchise. Eventually, on May 4, 1996, the film was rebranded “First
Contact” (Nemeczek 2012, 325).
The film was budgeted at $45 million—a considerably larger budget than that for GEN (Werts
1996, F1). In what would become his directorial debut, Jonathan Frakes was appointed director.
Casting officially started in the spring of 1996, and at first, two-time Academy Award winner Tom
Hanks was chosen to play Cochrane; Hanks, however, declined, in favor of his own directorial debut.
The role went to James Cromwell instead, a veteran of TNG and DS9. Alfre Woodard was cast as
Lily Sloane, Cochrane’s partner in crime, and Alice Krige was cast as the Borg Queen. Production
officially commenced on April 8, 1996, and location shooting started with scenes set in Bozeman,
Montana, and the Titan Missile Museum outside Tucson, Arizona (both posing as the desolate Earth
region where Cochrane built his warp ship). After other location shootings around Los Angeles,
production eventually moved to Paramount Pictures studios in Hollywood for shooting on the
Enterprise-E engine room set. Likely the film’s most labor-intensive sequence was the zero gravity
battle on the Enterprise hull—the film’s largest set. Despite complications, FCT wrapped production
on July 2, 1996, only two days over schedule (Thompson 1996, 59).
Context and Themes

FCT largely focuses on two major storylines, one surrounding the launch of the first warp-capable
ship, the other focusing on the battle against the Borg on the Enterprise. On the most basic level, Frakes
wanted FCT to be about “loyalty, friendship, honesty, and mutual respect” (Rowan 2016, 124). Since
the crew is split in two for most of the movie, these themes are taken up in particular in the storylines
surrounding Picard and Data, who both stay on the Enterprise to fight the Borg. Even after several
attempts fail to destroy the Borg, Picard stubbornly refuses to self-destruct the Enterprise and with
it all of the Borg. It is Lily Sloane who argues that Picard’s hate for the Borg and refusal to destroy
Enterprise parallel the oft-cited revenge-driven quest of Moby Dick’s Captain Ahab: “Oh, excuse me! I
didn’t mean to interrupt your little quest! Captain Ahab has to go hunt his whale.” Moby Dick-inspired
dialogue is not new to Star Trek (e.g., in WOK or VOY’s “Bliss” [VOY 5.14, 1999]), however, in FCT,
the whole story of Moby Dick works as an analogy for Picard’s situation (Hinds 1997, 44–45). While
the giant white sperm whale parallels the faceless and individually inscrutable Borg, Picard is Ahab:
he has—once again—been hurt by his nemesis and now, fueled by “wild madness” (Melville [1851]
2014, 208), he seeks to exact revenge on them. Following this analogy, it only makes sense for Picard
to “opt for the perverse alternative of remaining on board ship to fight” (Hinds 1997, 46); he even
calls Worf a coward for suggesting that they had better abandon and self-destruct the ship in the first
place. By comparing him to Ahab—and thus making the analogy explicit—Lily explains to Picard that
his “quest” for revenge is wrong. Simultaneously, she casts serious doubt on the “evolved sensibility,”
which the captain ascribed to humans in his future, suggesting that humanity has potentially failed
to outgrow their primitive instincts and behavior. Lily’s words eventually cause Picard to reconsider.
Before finally ordering the self-destruct sequence, he himself also paraphrases Ahab’s words of retali-
ation: “And he piled upon the whale’s white hump the sum of all the rage and hate felt by his whole
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race. If his chest had been a cannon, he would have shot his heart upon it.” By citing this quote, which
illustrates Ahab’s desire for revenge as well as a death wish, Picard admits that his decision was driven
by a blind desire for revenge; moreover, as Stefan Rabitsch has pointed out regarding all intermedial
sightings of Moby Dick in Star Trek (2020, 217–238), the analogy between Picard and Ahab also allows
an exploration of Picard’s excruciating guilt toward his crew, which eventually informs his decision
to stay behind in order to rescue Data. Picard’s decision is thus not only yet another reiteration of the
naval “the captain goes down with ship” tradition, but also an affirmation of his honorable priorities
and responsibilities as well as his guilt toward his crew/Data, who helped save Picard when he was
assimilated by the Borg in “The Best of Both Worlds.” As such, FCT can be read as a modern take on
Moby Dick where humans are able to move beyond their primitive rage and instead put the aforemen-
tioned “loyalty, friendship, honesty, and mutual respect” at the center of their actions.
Other story aspects of FCT, such as the crew’s overall devotion to Starfleet and preserving the
timeline, or the fight between Worf and Picard that is resolved when the captain admits that the
Klingon is the bravest man he has ever known, cement the overarching themes that Moore and Braga
spelled out for FCT. Moreover, those themes are also at the core of the hopeful message of humanity’s
optimistic potential with which FCT concludes: when the Enterprise crew watches from space how
Cochrane successfully and peacefully welcomes the first aliens to Earth, Lily tells Picard how much
she envies him for living in such a utopian and peaceful future. Arguably only by preserving values
such as loyalty and mutual respect, especially when it would be easier to succumb to revenge and rage,
will such a future become attainable.
Legacy
Marking Star Trek’s thirtieth anniversary, FCT hit theaters on November 22, 1996. Moore’s and
Braga’s motivation to “redeem ourselves” (Couch 2016) proved successful, as the film earned $146
million worldwide—making it at the time the second-highest-g rossing Star Trek film. The eighth
feature film, however, also ended up being the most expensive; its $47 million price tag bests even the
budget of the first film in the series, The Motion Picture (Thompson 1996, 58–59).
Not only did FCT receive positive reviews upon release, it also gathered numerous nominations
and awards, particularly for make-up and visual effects. Indeed, the film was celebrated for advan-
cing computer-generated special effects and cinematography, even though it still employed physical
starship models. The film was nominated for at least 17 awards, including the 1997 Academy Award
in the category “Best Make-up.” It was also nominated for the Saturn Award in ten categories, and
eventually won “Best Supporting Actor” (Brent Spiner), “Best Supporting Actress” (Alice Krige), and
“Best Costume” (Deborah Everton). Moreover, the BMI Film & TV Award honored Jerry Goldsmith
as the best composer that year. Other nominations included the Best Dramatic Presentation category
for the renowned science fiction Hugo Award, and “Best Actor” for Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes,
and Alfre Woodard at the Blockbuster Entertainment and NAACP Image Awards, respectively.
In addition to its cinematographic legacy, in terms of content and worldbuilding, FCT is remembered
particularly for its revisioning of the Borg: While the majority of critics reacted favorably to the idea
of the Borg Queen, some fans reacted critically, as the character arguably opposed the original con-
ception of the Borg as a collective. Traditionally, humans and other species assimilated into the Borg
Collective are viewed as “polluted by technology” and certainly “less than human”—and thus do
not deserve to be met with empathy. On the one hand, FCT picks up this position when Picard, for
example, orders his crew to kill any Enterprise crew member who has been assimilated. On the other
hand, the individualization of the Borg Queen arguably enabled empathy and therefore was seen by
some as antithetical to the Borg hive mind. This contradiction was even addressed in the film, as Data
aggressively probes how the Borg Queen fits into the hierarchy of the Collective, eliciting only para-
doxical responses from her. All in all, the Borg Queen certainly helped to clarify Borg motives to a
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mainstream audience and give a face to Picard’s (and Data’s) antagonist, but it also invited criticism and
anger among more obdurate fans. Nevertheless, the idea of the Borg Queen inspired later productions,
as she appeared more frequently in VOY and played a significant role in the second season of PIC.
Several other novelties of FCT were accepted readily into the canon and have been featured in later
productions. Especially FCT’s imagination of First Contact Day inspired later plots, and, for example,
was referred to in “In Purgatory’s Shadows” (DS9 5.14, 1997), “Year of Hell, Part II” (VOY 4.9, 1997),
and “Relativity” (VOY 5.23, 1999). Moreover, the Borg sphere was recovered by Captain Archer’s (Scott
Bakula) crew in “Regeneration” (ENT 2.23, 2003), while a slightly different version of Earth’s first con-
tact with the Vulcans, using footage from FCT, can be seen in “In a Mirror, Darkly” (ENT 4.18, 2005).
In contrast to other productions, FCT made comparatively little noise in terms of political and
social activism. As Larry Nemeczek already pointed out, politics only “edged its way into background
names” (2012, 332). Initially, China was to be named as the principal enemy in Earth’s World War III;
“We just thought that’s a natural extrapolation from where we are now,” Moore explained, however,
“the studio flinched” (ibid., 332). Instead, they kept the identity of the enemy vague, referring to them
as the “Eastern Coalition.” While FCT did portray a somewhat culturally diverse cast, protagonists
still largely adhered to traditional male hero stereotypes. According to fan rumors, early drafts of the
screenplay for FCT made some mention of a minor character, Lieutenant Hawk (Neal McDonough),
having been scripted as gay. This was quickly denied by producer Rick Berman. Hawk’s homo-
sexuality was eventually explored in the non-canonical novel Section 31: Rogue (Mangels and Martin
2001), which depicts him as being romantically involved with other male Starfleet officers (Drushel
2013, 30). This possibility is, however, not even hinted at in the final version of FCT.
Ultimately, FCT indeed is remembered mostly not for implicit or explicit political analogies, but
rather for its crew chemistry and story; it is the first film that fully visualizes one of the founding
moments of Star Trek history, First Contact Day, features the TNG cast as standalone crew in a feature
film, and sets a cornerstone for what at some point would be the legacy of Picard and his crew.
References
Couch, Aaron. 2016. “Star Trek: The Story of the ‘Next Generation’ Crew’s Greatest Movie.” The Hollywood
Reporter, November 22, 2016. Available at: www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/star-trek-first-contact-
1996-movie-story-history-949885.
Drushel, Bruce E. 2013. “A Utopia Denied: Star Trek and its Queer Fans.” In Fan Phenomena: Star Trek, edited
by Bruce E. Drushel, 30–41. Bristol: Intellect.
Hinds, Elizabeth Jane Wall. 1997. “The Wrath of Ahab; or, Herman Melville Meets Gene Roddenberry.” Journal
of American Culture 20, no. 1: 45–46.
Mangels, Andy, and Michael A. Martin. 2001. Section 31: Rogue. New York: Pocket Books.
Melville, Herman. [1851] 2014. Moby Dick or, The Whale. Minneapolis, MN: First Avenue Editions.
Nemeczek, Larry. 2012. Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion. New York: Pocket Books.
Rabitsch, Stefan. 2020. “Guilty Ahabs, Starbuckian Reason, and White Cetacean Contours in Outer Space.”
Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik 45, no. 2: 217–238.
Rowan, Terry. 2016. Adventures in Outer Space. Self-published work. Lulu.com.
Strauss, Bob. 1996. “A New, Improved Star Trek Film—Flagging Franchise Gets Big Boost with Frakes-helmed
First Contact.” Daily News of Los Angeles, November 22, 1996, p. L3.
Thompson, Andrew O. 1996. “Battling the Borg.” American Cinematographer 77, no. 12: 58–66.
Werts, Diane. 1996. “A ‘First’ for Him: Jonathan Frakes Takes Directing Controls of the Latest Star Trek Film
Enterprise.” Los Angeles Times, November 29, 1996: F1.
Star Trek Episodes
The Next Generation
3.26 “The Best of Both Worlds, Part 1” 1990.
4.1 “The Best of Both Worlds, Part 2” 1990.
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Deep Space Nine

5.14 “In Purgatory’s Shadow” 1997.
Voyager
4.9 “Year of Hell, Part II” 1997.
5.14 “Bliss” 1999.
5.23 “Relativity” 1999.
Enterprise
2.23 “Regeneration” 2003.
Star Trek Movies
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18
STAR TREK: INSURRECTION
Igor Carastan Noboa
After the success of Star Trek: First Contact (1996) both with the public and the critics, and even before
any plot had been developed, Paramount went ahead and announced another film that would con-
tinue the adventures of the TNG crew in cinemas; they set its release for December 1998. Work on
the movie that would become Insurrection, the ninth in the Star Trek universe and the third with the
TNG cast, began in early 1997 with screenwriter Michael Piller, a veteran of TNG, DS9, and VOY, at
the helm. INS was Piller’s and executive producer Rick Berman’s attempt to come up with a light-
hearted movie in the vein of The Voyage Home (1986) while also staying true to Gene Roddenberry’s
vision (Piller 2010, 11, 112). The film starred the main TNG cast and was directed by Jonathan
Frakes, who had made his directorial debut with FCT (see Chapter 17).
The film is mostly set on Ba’ku, a planet of six hundred inhabitants, which is located in Federation
territory in a volatile region known as the “Briar Patch,” a curious reference to the Uncle Remus
stories of African American folklore. Spatial anomalies and radiation hide the planet and make it
almost unreachable. The Federation, allied with the Son’a, a dying alien race led by Ahdar Ru’afo (F.
Murray Abraham), seeks to exploit the rejuvenating properties of a mysterious “metaphasic” radiation
emitted by the rings of the planet—and to do that, they must force the Ba’ku out. The Ba’ku people
were unaware of the outsiders and their plan to relocate them to another planet. Also unaware of the
plan was Data (Brent Spiner), who was a member of the scientific team hidden on the planet to study
the Ba’ku. When he finds out about the plan, he is attacked by the Son’a and experiences a malfunc-
tion. Consequently, Data attacks and kidnaps the entire scientific team on the planet, revealing them
to the Ba’ku. Light years away on the Enterprise-E, Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) is contacted by
Admiral Matthew Dougherty (Anthony Zerbe), the Federation representative on Ba’ku, who asks the
captain for Data’s design schematics, looking for a way to disable him. Rather than leaving Data at
the hands of his superior, Picard decides to go after the android himself, and after a short high-speed
shuttle chase, Data is recovered and repaired. Now on the planet’s surface, Picard unveils the Son’a’s
and the Federation’s plan, which goes against all the values he has sworn to uphold. Meanwhile,
the planet’s metaphasic radiation is showing its first effects, as the Enterprise crew is getting younger.
Rejecting Ru’afo and Dougherty’s scheme, Picard rebels and organizes the Ba’ku resistance on the
planet. On the ship, Riker and La Forge (LeVar Burton) escape the Briar Patch to send a message
to the Federation Council, explaining what was happening on Ba’ku. Later, Doctor Crusher (Gates
McFadden) discovers that the Son’a and the Ba’ku are in fact of the same race: the Son’a were a
rebel group made up of young people who had been exiled from Ba’ku years before. Once Admiral
Dougherty realizes that he had been played and drawn into what is essentially a family dispute, he
is killed by Ru’afo. To stop the plan, Picard destroys the Son’a’s vessel tasked with harvesting the
radiation, a process that would have rendered the planet uninhabitable, and Ru’afo dies in the explo-
sion. In the end, the surviving Son’a are forgiven by the Ba’ku, and with the planet’s life saved, the
Enterprise crew prepares for their next adventure.
DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917-21 133

Igor Carastan Noboa
Production History
Throughout its production, INS attempted to recover some elements of the franchise that had been
considered lost and/or ignored by the preceding films, such as placing more emphasis on the Enterprise
crew as an extended family and returning to the exploration of the many wonders the universe holds.
With help from Rick Berman, Michael Piller developed several versions of the plot. He also received
suggestions from Paramount executives, such as chairman Jonathan Dolgen (a self-professed Star Trek
fan), the movie director, and the cast, especially Patrick Stewart, who also had the role of Associate
Producer. Actor Jonathan Frakes also played a key role, as he stepped in as director again after FCT.
Piller sought to incorporate themes that could potentially recapture the same positive atmosphere of
TVH and “make people leaving the theater feel better than they had going in” (Piller 2010, 11). The
writer said he had the first idea for the script while putting on a hair-loss treatment (ibid., 11), which
made him reflect on the obsession with staying young in contemporary Western culture and, more
generally, with the theme of aging.
Berman expressed the wish to use popular literature as the basis for the movie. While developing
the screenplay, Piller was inspired by Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1899), and began to toy
with the notion of a feel-good reimagining which he named “Heart of Lightness” (Piller 2010,
12). The story consisted of Picard being called by the Federation to go after a colleague, whom he
knew from his time at Starfleet Academy. Risking the precarious diplomatic relationship between
the Federation and the Romulans, Picard’s acquaintance was attacking the Romulans to protect a
peaceful race on a distant planet, where the fountain of youth was located. Throughout the plot,
which would show Picard’s life as a young man, the audience would see Picard and his crew’s
alliance against the Romulans and the Federation’s betrayal of their core values, especially the
Prime Directive. In later drafts, Picard’s colleague was replaced by Data, and the villains became
the Son’a, an alien race created exclusively for the movie. Initially called Son’i, the name was
changed to Son’a to avoid any confusion with the Sony brand (ibid., 50). At Dolgen’s suggestion,
Piller also created the Tarlac and the Ellora, races conquered by the Son’a that were part of their
crew (ibid., 84). More action scenes involving Picard, romance between characters, and emphasis
on Data’s childlike features were added. Besides that, the fountain of youth concept was replaced
by metaphasic radiation that would emanate from a star; however, shortly before shooting, Piller
changed the radiation source to the rings of Ba’ku. In addition to the influence of the fountain
of youth myth and Conrad’s novel, there are references to the movies Seven Samurai (1957) and
The Magnificent Seven (1960). The samurais who protect a peasant village in feudal Japan and the
cowboys in the American adaptation of Kurosawa’s film are purposefully alluded to by the TNG
crew (Geraghty 2007, 61).
Like many Hollywood productions, the marketing department got involved in title discussions
and proposed creating more action scenes in space. The original studio budget of $58 million was
insufficient (Clark 2013, 316), so Piller and Frakes removed scenes where the action took place on
the planet surface—for example, a chase with flying motorcycles was replaced by a stand-off with
drones. Furthermore, even though the production chose not to reference or use characters from DS9
and VOY—as they felt they might alienate audiences who did not follow the TV series but had liked
FCT—they had initially intended to include comic sequences related to DS9 characters and actors,
which Frakes later removed in the final cut.
Screenplay treatments started in April 1997, bearing the working title of Star Trek: Stardust. The
first version of the script was completed in September 1997, and revisions were done shortly before
production commenced in late March 1998. INS was filmed without an established title, which
would be later suggested by writer Alan Spencer (Piller 2010, 95). The movie was released in the US
on December 11, 1998, grossing more than $110 million worldwide, but failing to meet the studio’s
expectations.
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Star Trek: Insurrection
Context and Themes

Aging is one of the key themes in INS, emphasizing the connection between aging and obsolescence,
disease, decline, and death in contemporary Western societies (Kunow 2011, 28). The Son’a are an
example of that as they explicitly represent negative aging stereotypes—they are decadent, sick, and
dying. However, INS also shows that growing up and becoming an adult are part of the natural pro-
cess of being human. This idea is presented in the relationship between Data and a Ba’ku boy, Artim
(Michael Welch), who teaches the android what it is like to be a child, offering him an important
experience in his quest to become human. Nevertheless, by perpetuating common Western stereo-
types about aging, the movie displays the natural aging process as something undesirable. Additionally,
the plot shows reversing and stopping aging not necessarily as something bad—the main problem is
the immoral ways of achieving it.
Another plot point regarding aging are the effects of the mysterious metaphasic radiation. Not
only would the use of this radiation restore youth and give eternal life, but it could—if harvested on
an industrial scale—also save the lives of countless people, heralding a paradigmatic shift in medicine.
However, the only way of extracting this radiation would be by forming an alliance with the unscru-
pulous Son’a and by forcefully removing the Ba’ku, which would violate the Prime Directive. Picard
attempts to convince Dougherty that his plan is immoral by reminding him that the forced relocation
of cultural communities, regardless of their size, led to some of the most horrible events in Earth’s
history. In short, to forcibly uproot the Ba’ku would inevitably lead to destruction, as it is tantamount
to a wholesale betrayal of the Federation’s core values.
The main dilemma in the movie then boils down to how one is to maintain and stay true to the
moral values of powerful institutions like the Federation in morally complex situations in which
many would simply forgo adhering to those values. As conveyed by the Paramount executives after
reading the INS script, the situation presented by the creative team is similar to the Roman Empire
when it transitioned from being a republic to becoming a dictatorship. In addition to that, Dougherty
resembles CIA agents who illegally interfered in Central and South American politics in the 1980s
(Piller 2010, 57). Counteracting the machinations of Federation elites, who have fallen victim to an
ends-justify-the-means rationale, it then falls to the Enterprise crew to re-establish the Federation as
a benign entity.
In addition to the obvious allusions to imperial decadence and decline, the threat of a shift in the
Federation’s role as a presumably benign hegemon is heavily entangled with the American political
imaginary, in which the US sees itself as the natural leader of the free world. In line with the American
Puritan tradition, the Federation embodies the “City upon a Hill” concept which is a central com-
ponent in US national identity (Geraghty 2007, 69). Representing a quasi-utopian organization,
the Federation serves as an allegorical exemplar that can be used to comment on and criticize real
institutions and power structures in contemporary societies. Thus, if the Federation is an idealized
extrapolation of American institutions, i.e., Manifest Destiny carried to the stars in the future, seeing
it abandon one of its main principles—non-interference in other societies—makes it no better than
its openly imperialist adversaries like the Romulans or the Cardassians (see Chapter 45). Picard’s
dilemma in accepting or rejecting Ru’afo’s and Dougherty’s plan represents the American political
predicament of how to exert their role as the natural and essential leader in the New World order that
arose after the collapse of the Soviet Union (Calleo 2009, 8). The other nations had to be persuaded,
not forced to conform to American interests (Robin 2004, 282).
The main threat to the Federation is not that they have been weakened by prolonged conflicts
with the Borg, the Cardassians, and the Dominion—an argument made by Ru’afo—but rather the
risk of abandoning their core values. Thus, the plot is reminiscent of American foreign policy and its
attendant public discourse in the 1990s, which celebrated the US as fulfilling their destiny of being
responsible for a peaceful world system (ibid., 9). This idea was reinforced by a political rhetoric of
135
Igor Carastan Noboa
global cooperation (Harrison 2010, 11). Thus, the disobedience of Picard and his crew speaks to
the notion that core values are inviolable; if they are betrayed, however, the US, as the ideological
predecessor of the Federation, would jeopardize its self-proclaimed benign mission and would thus
fail to become the utopian society it is destined to be. Even gaining immortality is too high a price
for abandoning one’s principles, especially if it means that hallowed institutions are being corrupted.
Even though INS is quite explicit in criticizing any form of exploitation, the film still reinforces
and is thus part of the imaginary of how American power should extend around the world for the
sake of a greater good. At the same time, it tasks the audience with recognizing and thinking about
the workings of a political discourse that puts forth seeking a greater good at the expense of another
person, group, or country. As an allegorical thought experiment, INS is a film that speaks to both the
aspirations as well as the pitfalls of post-Cold War American power projection.
Legacy
After FTC’s success, Star Trek fans had high expectations for INS. However, the film was not received
with the same enthusiasm as its predecessor. Fans and critics, such as Stephen Holden from The
New York Times (Piller 2010, 108), claimed at the time that INS felt like a two-hour-long episode.
Compared to the previous movie, INS lacked a mature tone and the visual effects, CGI work, and
makeup exhibited more of a televisual quality—similar to what audiences saw in DS9 and VOY.
Besides that, the plot does not address any big events such as the death of a main character, a threat to
Earth, or any other important element from the Star Trek canon (Clark 2013, 317). Thus, although
receiving some moderately favorable reviews, INS was seen as the franchise taking a downturn. Still,
it fared better than Nemesis—the next and last movie to feature the TNG cast.
INS also had two book adaptations, both released by Simon & Schuster in December 1998 (Ayers
2006). Jeanne Kalogridis wrote the movie novelization released in hardcover under the Pocket Books
imprint, and John Vornholt authored the Young Adult adaptation for the Aladdin Paperbacks imprint.
The novel Section 31: Abyss (2001), written by David Weddle and Jeffrey Lang, is a DS9 novel that
explains the origins of the holoship—a prototype Federation starship. Screenwriter Michael Piller
wrote “FADE IN: From idea to final draft. The writing of Star Trek: Insurrection,” in which he details
not only the production phase, from the movie’s conceptualization to the post-release reactions, but
also includes documents such as letters, memos, and script drafts. Bearing a slightly different title, the
book was published posthumously in 2016 after fans had already shared an incomplete draft of the
manuscript on the internet in 2010.
The movie was expanded on the most in video games. Two PC games released by Activision
reference INS: Star Trek: Hidden Evil (1999), a third-person adventure game, and Star Trek: Armada
(2000), a real-time strategy game. Star Trek: Hidden Evil is an INS sequel, in which the player finds
the Progenitors, an ancient race from the TNG episode “The Chase” (TNG 6.20, 1993), in archeo-
logical excavations on Ba’ku. The player then has to fight Son’a rebels and Romulans who seek to
gain control over the Progenitors’ advanced knowledge and technology. The second mission of the
Federation campaign in Star Trek: Armada, called “Paradise Revisited,” has the player protect the Ba’ku
from an attack by the Son’a rebels.
Among the scholarly analysis that is available on INS, Lincoln Geraghty has applied John Shelton
Lawrence’s concept of American Monomyth to show how the movie’s themes reinforce and pre-
serve myths and symbols that are key components of American national identity (2007, 60–63).
George A. Gonzalez uses INS as an example of how the Star Trek universe addresses environmental
issues and the concept of an ethical and reliable political/military leader (2015, 124–129, 131–135).
Holly Blackford (2007) provides another perspective in her study on how science fiction connects
childhood, technology, and the relationship between children and adults. She discusses INS as an
example of a contemporary narrative about childhood development and the relation between chil-
dren and adults in technological societies (ibid., 86–90).
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Star Trek: Insurrection
Even though it is not considered a highlight of Star Trek on the silver screen, INS alludes to
the American political imaginary and tries to explore thought-provoking matters about how the
Federation exerts its power in the universe and how that could easily change, depending on the
benefits they could achieve. Although the movie tenders questionable stereotypes that end up
reinforcing a negative view of old age (see Chapter 55), it clearly criticizes the idealization of youth,
as the search for the mythical fountain of youth corrupts institutions and individuals alike. Lastly, the
dilemma of gaining eternal life at the expense of a minority group was well explored and posed mor-
ally complex questions to the audience.
References
Ayers, Jeff. 2006. Voyages of Imagination: The Star Trek Fiction Companion. New York: Pocket Books.
Blackford, Holly. 2007. “PC Pinocchios: Parents, Children, and the Metamorphosis Tradition in Science
Fiction.” In Folklore/Cinema: Popular Film as Vernacular Culture, edited by Sharon R. Sherman and Mikel J.
Koven, 74–92. Logan, CO: University Press of Colorado.
Calleo, David P. 2009. Follies of Power: America’s Unipolar Fantasy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Clark, Mark. 2013. Star Trek FAQ 2.0: Everything Left to Know about Next Generation, the Movies, and Beyond.
Milwaukee, WI: Applause Theatre & Cinema Books.
Geraghty, Lincoln. 2007. Living with Star Trek: American Culture and the Star Trek Universe. New York: I.B.
Tauris.
Gonzalez, George A. 2015. The Politics of Star Trek: Justice, War, and the Future. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Harrison, Colin. 2010. American Culture in the 1990s. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Kunow, Rüdiger. 2011. “Chronologically Gifted? ‘Old Age’ in American Culture.” Amerikastudien /American
Studies 56, no. 1: 23–44.
Lawrence, John S. 2010. “Star Trek as American Monomyth.” In Star Trek as Myth: Essays on Symbol and
Archetype at the Final Frontier, edited by Matthew W. Kapell, 93–109. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
Piller, Michael. 2010. “FADE IN: from idea to final draft. The writing of Star Trek: Insurrection.” TrekCore.com,
September 18, 2010. Available at: https://issuu.com/pineapples101/docs/fade_in.
Robin, Corey. 2004. “Remembrance of Empires Past: 9/11 and the End of the Cold War.” In Cold War
Triumphalism: The Misuse of History after the Fall of Communism, edited by Ellen Schrecker, 274– 297.
New York: The New Press.
Seven Samurai. 1954. dir. Akira Kurosawa. Toho.
The Magnificent Seven. 1960. dir. John Sturges. United Artists.
Weddle, David, and Jeffrey Lang. 2001. Section 31: Abyss. New York: Pocket Books.
Star Trek Episodes
The Next Generation
6.20 “The Chase” 1993.
Star Trek Movies
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19
STAR TREK NEMESIS
Nemesis opens with a bloodbath in the Romulan Senate. The Remans, a group historically oppressed
by the Romulans, are angered by the lack of support for their leader, Shinzon (Tom Hardy), who
stages a coup and ascends to the Romulan Praetorship. The film then quickly pivots to Counselor
Deanna Troi’s (Marina Sirtis) and Commander William T. Riker’s (Jonathan Frakes) wedding. It is a
light-hearted and jovial gathering where Data (Brent Spiner), for example, serenades the group with
Irving Berlin’s 1926 tune, “Blue Skies.”The crew of The Next Generation is set to continue their jollity
on Troi’s home planet of Betazed when sidetracked by a mysterious positronic energy reading near
the Romulan Neutral Zone. The energy reading turns out to be emanating from a neatly decapitated
and quartered android, who, it is revealed, is a precursor to Data and aptly named B-4 (Brent Spiner).
In an effort to bridge the large gulf between them and share his experiences, Data attempts to down-
load his memories to B-4.
Coinciding with their mysterious discovery, the Federation is contacted by the new Romulan
leadership who asks them to send a diplomatic envoy. Admiral Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew),
recently returned and promoted, orders the Enterprise to Romulus. On their ensuing diplomatic
mission, the Enterprise crew discovers that the controversial Reman leader is a clone of Captain
Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart), created to infiltrate the Federation; however, both the plan and
the man were abandoned by the Romulans. Now, Shinzon rules the Remans with the help of a tele-
pathic Viceroy father figure (Ron Perlman), who also helps him to violate Troi through her mind, a
foreshadowing of his violation of the Enterprise computers.
Shinzon is the embodiment of a time bomb: his ship, the Scimitar holds a mighty and unstable
thalaron-fueled biological weapon of mass destruction that threatens all life on Earth; likewise, Shinzon
himself begins to decay on a countdown, a failsafe meant to protect the clandestine Romulan project
that had led to his creation. As Picard’s blood is his only hope, Shinzon kidnaps the captain, taking
along his trusty, treasonous android, B-4—or so he thought. Data replaces B-4 during the kidnapping
and rescues the captain from exsanguination. The onboard gunfight then escalates and continues on
a larger scale.
In a rare moment of cross-Federation camaraderie, two Romulan warships aid the Enterprise
as they take on the Scimitar. Back on his own disabled ship, Picard orders the Enterprise to ram the
Scimitar, surprising Shinzon. This presages the clone’s death: Picard rams a metal pole through his
torso. Their transporters disabled, Data arrives via deus ex machina to rescue Picard, sending him back
to the Enterprise with their sole, wearable personal transporter. Data then appears to sacrifice himself
to destroy the thalaron generator and save humanity. However, while the Enterprise is being repaired,
Picard discovers that B-4 seems to be assimilating Data’s memories after all, if slowly. He witnesses
the android singing one of Data’s favorite tunes—Irving Berlin’s “Blue Skies” again—leaving doubt
as to Data’s, and B-4’s, ultimate fates.
138 DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917-22

Star Trek Nemesis
Production History
The film’s inception story begins straightforwardly enough: although contracts for the core cast had
been predominantly completed prior to NEM’s conception, writer John Logan, a self-described “wild
fan” (Altman and Gross 2016, 388), and cast member Spiner teamed up with producer Rick Berman
to write the script. Berman looked to refresh the struggling franchise with an action-oriented angle
and brought in Star Trek-neophyte director Stuart Baird.
Not only was Baird rather unaccustomed to being in the director’s chair, having worked pri-
marily in editing, he admittedly also had little familiarity with the Star Trek universe, a knowledge-
gap that led to a number of production and cast members and fans being frustrated with some
of his choices. Mark Clark finds this lack of familiarity to be at the heart of the issue causing
many of the franchise’s regular devotees to find NEM “un-Trek-like” (2013). For example, long-
time Star Trek production designer, Herman Zimmerman, recalled his frustrations of working
with Baird in a 2010 interview with Trekmovie.com; he is “a really good editor and as before we
started shooting he was charming … as soon as cameras started rolling he became impossible to
work with, nothing satisfied him.” Not only did Zimmerman’s set decorator, John Dwyer, quit
the movie over disagreements with Baird, the director also had a rocky rapport with the cast. For
one, LeVar Burton, whom Baird kept calling “Laverne” for weeks on set and whose character he
thought was an alien, vocally voiced frustrations: “The whole shebang was lacking in a vision that
was appreciative of the field of play. Mr. Baird didn’t get Star Trek and Mr. Baird didn’t appre-
ciate Star Trek”; Sirtis admitted wanting at times to “punch [Baird’s] lights out” for his outsider
takes (Altman and Gross 2016, 405–406). In a 2005 interview at DragonCon both actors made
clear that NEM’s numerous flaws were not owed to John Logan’s script, but rather to Stuart Baird
“[knowing] nothing about Star Trek.”
Despite the discontent and outright acrimony behind the scenes, the movie’s production did
not encounter any significant snags or delays. Principal shooting began in late November 2001 and
wrapped on March 9, 2002. INS had led the way of pushing Star Trek out of its long-standing reli-
ance on models in special effects sequences. NEM followed suit; however, with neither studio—Blue
Sky/VIFX and Santa Barbara Studios—that had worked on INS available, Paramount hired Digital
Domain to provide the visual effects and digital animation for the movie. NEM opened in theatres
on Friday, December 13, 2002, to a lukewarm, indeed disappointing performance. Not only was it
the first Star Trek movie not to top the box office on its opening weekend, as it was outperformed
by Jennifer Lopez-vehicle Maid in Manhattan (2002), it also went on to gross the least of all Star Trek
movies to date, earning a meager $43.25 million domestically. With international revenues reaching
only $24 million, NEM barely broke even, given its $60 million price tag. NEM’s disastrous financial
performance simply exacerbated what Ina Rae Hark, among others, has mapped as Star Trek’s steady
march toward “franchise fatigue” (2008, 41). When asked in 2005, LeVar Burton believed, and he was
joined by others, that the franchise needed “a good long rest.”
Context and Themes

It would be easy to focus on the literal weapons of mass destruction (WMD) hovering at the center
of the film as they speak to and refract modern military-industrial complexes, and post-9/11 anxieties
in particular. Those are key both to the film and to the historical context in which the film was made:
the world had seen a number of threats of mutually assured destruction and promises kept of mass
destruction; the elusive albeit omnipresent aura of WMDs had come to saturate global politics by the
time NEM went into development, as unsubstantiated claims over the threat of WMDs prompted
the US invasion of Iraq three months after the movie’s premiere in March of 2003. More interest-
ingly, however, are the metaphorical WMDs undergirding it all. No less cataclysmic than the literal
139
are other destructive forces that rarely incite so much hype. One such force is the notion of inherited
wealth as an inherent value that runs deep in one’s blood. Another is the violence against women
powering the film through what is arguably the biggest weapon of mass destruction of them all: toxic
masculinity. This spews from the erstwhile cloned Reman as well as from the more “cultivated” crew
of the Enterprise, running parallel to another central theme: genetic determinism.
Capturing the essence of inherited privilege and wealth that leads to multifarious advantages,
Picard sips wine from his family’s terran vineyard, a symbol of Old World culture and cultivated
roots, careful development and refinement, and financial benefits. The captain’s persona as well as his
family history exude western elitism, ranging from Picard’s penchant for Shakespeare and the long
line of Picards that extends all the way back to the Battle of Trafalgar (1805). Picard’s milieu contrasts
with the extreme experience of his clone, who was discarded in a Reman mine as a child due to a
bureaucratic shift in power and who later clawed his way to power. Without the privileges Picard
enjoyed and was buffered by growing up, Shinzon faced a harder passage, which shaped his path
into a violent adult. Shinzon’s violent nature, born of his violent beginnings, according to the logic
of the film, is overtly represented in his genetic decay, causing him to increasingly resemble Count
Orlok in Nosferatu (1922), thanks to the makeup magic of Michael Westmore (Nemecek 2003, 346–
347). Fitting his vampiric façade, Shinzon believes a full transfusion of Picard’s blood will cure him.
Hammering home his belief in the nature vs. nurture divide, Picard argues that not even that would
be enough as their differences extend beyond the genetic level.
Picard attempts to separate himself from Shinzon, trying to prove nurture is more powerful than
nature, but they share undeniable similarities, including their diction. Logan measured out their meter
and used mirrored language for the two as he was writing the script to emphasize their likeness
(Altman and Gross 2016, 398); they even finish one another’s sentences when discussing their pen-
chant for exploration. Picard’s own darker side peeks through more than once, particularly in relation
to his manhood, casting shade on the veracity of the absolute division between him and his clone. In
one notable example, Picard, dashing out to adventure, leaves Riker to guard the domestic front of the
bridge, quipping as he does so: “You have the bridge, Mr. Troi.” The suggestion, of course, is that his
second-in-command has taken his wife’s surname in marriage, and thus is suffering from matrimonial
emasculation. The jest evokes laughter from those present, completing Riker’s momentary castration.
This off-hand comment suggests that the naturalized balance of power between Troi and Riker has
been upset (or perhaps never was in his favor, coming from a planet with known matriarchal elem-
ents as she does). It also shows Picard sacrificing someone else to increase his own power, even if only
momentarily, which echoes Shinzon’s plan to sacrifice Picard for his own longevity.
Picard’s toxic-masculinity-driven line speaks to a supposed imbalance for which Troi is forced
to pay repeatedly throughout the remainder of the film, from all sides. The most extreme example
of this is Shinzon’s savage prima nocta assault upon Troi: he violates her mentally through a psychic
link his Viceroy father figure forges for him. For all his differences in terroir, Picard reveals himself
to be uncomfortably close to his clone in terror; he appeals to Troi to submit to future assaults by his
clone—“If you can endure more of these assaults, I need you at my side now, more than ever.”—in
order to facilitate a connection with him, using her as a reluctant Sedgwickian conduit, the bridge
in a homoerotic triangle between his selves. It is just after he asks her to withstand more assaults, if
possible, to bolster their advantage that Shinzon’s Trojan Horse code, snuck into the ship’s computers
by B-4, kicks in and Picard is whisked off to transfuse his clone aboard the Scimitar. Another violation
scene was sent to the cutting room floor, supposedly much to director Baird’s regret (Lough 2013).
As an aside, it is worth noting that Patrick Stewart, who himself grew up in a home with an abu-
sive father, is a long-time champion of women’s rights and an indefatigable force working to protect
women from violence.
While uncomfortably echoing the different violations visited upon her during the seven-season run
of TNG (e.g., “The Child” [TNG 2.1, 1988], “Violations” [TNG 5.12, 1992], “Man of the People”
[TNG 6.3, 1992]), Troi does not stand for being victimized in NEM. She metes out a taste of their
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Star Trek Nemesis
own medicine twice. First, she probes into the Viceroy’s consciousness, turning the tables to locate his
ship before launching a counterattack. As the shot cuts to a close-up on her illuminated eyes, she hisses,
“Remember me?” moments before guiding Worf ’s (Michael Dorn) hand to fire upon the Scimitar. Later,
at the film’s climax, Troi helms the Enterprise as it rams into the Scimitar at full speed.
Legacy
NEM is also a film about doubles and about authenticity. On a more metanarrative level, NEM asks
what it takes to be real from inception, such as having a director who knows the universe, to the
actualization, i.e., characters who remain true to their canonical selves. The film itself is of course
an offshoot of the television series, which in turn is an offshoot of the original 1966 series. Part pal-
impsest, part simulacrum, NEM is self-referentially entangled with the legacy of previous Star Trek
movies and series; this ranges from the specter of WMDs and the military industrial complex in WOK
to Spock’s resurrection vis-à-vis Data’s memory transfer to B-4, to Riker dispatching the Reman
Viceroy being reminiscent of Kirk’s (William Shatner) battle with Commander Kruge (Christopher
Lloyd) in SFS. Proffering a Baudrillardian critique, it asks at what point is it itself rather than a reflec-
tion of an original, or, as Roger Ebert puts it in his unfavorable review from 2002, “a copy of a copy
of a copy”? (Ebert 2002). Scholarship has been dedicated to exploring this notion, such as by David
Greven who finds the mirror productively askew: Picard’s “copy looks back at the original looking at
him, a defiance of the normative order of things, in which copies must accept that they are inferior to
their originals” (2009, 187). Greven argues that NEM is “an allegory of queer manhood and a critique
of institutionalized heteromasculinity” (ibid., 188), though he makes no mention of the collateral
damage (e.g., Troi) that is the fallout of this “war against male power” (ibid., 192).
The line between the copy and the original is further blurred in the film’s final shot, in which
Data’s memories seem to have sprouted in B-4 after all, suggesting the two have become one. This
is potentially further complicated by the idea that B-4 is eventually subsumed by Data’s memory, an
event confirmed by the events set nearly a decade later in the graphic novel Star Trek: Countdown
(Jones and Johnson 2009), which served as a canonical prologue to the first Abramsverse reboot
film. The heavy legacy of NEM’s ending, however, continues to linger, as Picard not only amended
the events of the graphic novel—Data’s memories ultimately did not successfully integrate with B-
4’s—but it also turned the mystery of the android’s survival into the principle through line of its first
season (see Chapter 8). Poetically redressing any doubts about Data’s death/survival and the trauma it
incurred for Picard as well as many fans, PIC sees the captain say goodbye to his friend properly and
at the latter’s behest terminates his consciousness which had been reconstructed as an incorporeal,
albeit fully sentient simulation (“Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2” [PIC 1.10, 2020]).
These issues of authenticity connect directly to discussions of the ethics of cloning and genetic
determinism in which critical references to NEM most frequently arise. Both, of course, tie to a prin-
cipal theme of Star Trek, i.e., the question of what it means to be human, which is also raised in the
specter of toxic masculinity that permeates the film. NEM was filmed during a time when cloning
was increasingly on the sociopolitical horizon. Kiernan Tranter and Bronwyn Statham find NEM a
useful platform for discussing the ongoing issue of what they call “clone hysteria,” arguing the film
illustrates anxieties littering attendant legal debates (2007, 361). A few of these anxieties, illuminated
in the person of Shinzon, pertain to the reality, rights, and ethics of clones, from plants and animals
to humans; Diana M. A. Relke has discussed NEM in her examination of “the infotechnologically
constructed android and the biotechnologically constructed clone—or, more accurately, the genet-
ically engineered human” (2006, 138). Relatedly, the question of clones as objects or subjects links
cloning to enslavement, shown directly in Shinzon’s experiences, as Michèle and Duncan Barrett
detail. They highlight the tandem question of inhumanity within a discussion of enslavement, which
seems particularly pertinent to twinned beings in the Star Trek universe: from humans and clones or
androids to Romulans and Remans (2016, 134–139, 171). Othering and its objectifying ramifications,
141
from toxic masculinity to class, nation, and gender, continues to be a key issue in Star Trek as well as
in social discourse, assuring NEM continues to be a relevant, if underappreciated, film.
Unlike the lucky few films that have achieved cult status despite having been critically eviscerated
when in theatres, NEM continues to be target practice for both critics and fans, who appear to love
to hate it. However, of course, every underdog has its defenders. Jacob Sperb, for example, bases his
discussion of a visceral ‘cinephiliac moment’ on NEM (2007). Many fans consider NEM aptly titled,
as it seemed to herald the end of the much beloved crew’s adventures rather than catalyzing further
storylines. After having the lowest opening weekend of any Star Trek film, it did so poorly at the
box office that a planned fifth and final film was jettisoned. NEM consistently scrapes the bottom of
fan-favorites, often vying with The Final Frontier for the dubious title of last place.
References
Altman, Mark A., and Edward Gross. 2016. The Fifty-Year Mission: The Complete, Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral
History of Star Trek: The Next 25 Years from The Next Generation to J. J. Abrams. New York: Thomas Dunne.
Barrett, Michèle, and Duncan Barrett. 2016. Star Trek: The Human Frontier. 2nd ed. London: Routledge.
Clark, Mark. 2013. Star Trek FAQ 2.0 (Unofficial and Unauthorized): Everything Left to Know About the Next
Generation, the Movies, and Beyond. Milwaukee, WI: Applause Theatre & Cinema.
Ebert, Roger. 2002. “Star Trek: Nemesis.” RogerEbert.com, December 13, 2002. Available at: www.rogerebert.
com/reviews/star-trek-nemesis-2002.
Hark, Ina Rae. 2008. “Franchise Fatigue? The Marginalization of the Television Series after The Next Generation.”
In The Influence of Star Trek on Television, Film and Culture, edited by Lincoln Geraghty, 41–59. Jefferson,
NC: McFarland.
Jones, Tim, and Mike Johnson. 2009. Star Trek: Countdown. San Diego, CA: IDW Publishing.
Lough, Chris. 2013. “A Generation’s Final Journey. Star Trek Nemesis.” Tor.com, April 19, 2013. Available
at: www.tor.com/2013/04/19/star-trek-nemesis/.
Nemecek, Larry. 2003. The Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion. Revised ed. New York: Pocket.
Pascale, Anthony. 2010. “Herman Zimmerman Talks Difficulties w/Nemesis Director Baird, ST09’s Big
Nacelles & More.” Trekmovie.com, September 3, 2010. Available at: https://trekmovie.com/2010/09/03/
video-herman-zimmerman-talks-difficulties-w-nemesis-director-baird-st09s-big-nacelles-more/.
Relke, Diana, M. A. 2006. Drones, Clones, and Alpha Babes: Retrofitting Star Trek’s Humanism, Post-9/11.
Calgary: University of Calgary Press.
Sperb, Jason. 2007. “Sensing an Intellectual Nemesis.” Film Criticism 32, no. 1 (Fall): 49–71.
Tranter, Kieran, and Bronwyn Statham. 2007. “Echo and Mirror: Clone Hysteria, Genetic Determinism and
Star Trek Nemesis.” Law, Culture and the Humanities 3, no. 3 (Oct): 361–380. doi:10.1177/1743872107081425.
Watts, Eric L. 2005. “Sirtis, Burton Reflect on Trek Experience.” Trektoday.com, September 27, 2005. Available
at: www.trektoday.com/news/270905_01.shtml.
Star Trek Episodes
The Next Generation
2.1 “The Child” 1988.
6.3 “Man of the People”1992.
Picard
Star Trek Movies
Star Trek: Insurrection. 1998. dir. Jonathan Frakes. Paramount Pictures.
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STAR TREK (2009)
William Proctor
The early years of the twenty-first century were not particularly kind to the Star Trek franchise. In
2002, the tenth film, Nemesis, ended up being less of a swan song than a death knell for the TNG
crew (see Chapter 19). In economic terms, the film’s box office performance was lackluster at best,
and in critical spheres, the film was largely considered a disaster, the worst reviewed Star Trek film
other than William Shatner’s poorly received The Final Frontier (1989). Adding insult to injury, the
TV series Enterprise was canceled by the UPN network after its fourth season in 2005 due to poor
ratings, failing to reach the seven-year milestone established by its predecessors TNG, DS9, and VOY,
thus ending “eighteen consecutive seasons of at least one first run Star Trek series being on the air”
(Hark 2007, 41). While it is true that neither NEM nor ENT were the first Star Trek texts to face
commercial failure or negative criticism—TOS was canceled after three seasons and TNG struggled
to survive initially, for example—fans may have been right to worry that this could spell “the end
for the world’s most famous, and once most popular, science fiction franchise” (Geraghty 2007, 1).
Whether in film or television, then, the good ship Star Trek, it seemed, would no longer be going
where no one had gone before, boldly or otherwise.
Although Star Trek would spend the next four years in cultural hibernation before re-emerging
once more on cinema screens in 2009 with J.J Abrams’ Star Trek, producers had in fact already been
thinking of new ways to reinvigorate the property prior to ENT’s cancellation. Fearing the creeping
death of “franchise fatigue,” producer Rick Berman hired Band of Brothers writer Erik Jendresen
to begin work on a new film script before the decision to cancel ENT was announced. Titled
Star Trek:The Beginning, the script focused on Captain Kirk’s ancestor, Tiberius Chase, and would be
set during the Earth-Romulan War (after ENT but before TOS). This idea was jettisoned following a
regime change at Paramount, which then began seriously pursuing an idea that had first been floated
by Gene Roddenberry in 1968, a film prequel that would tell the story of Kirk and Spock’s early days
as cadets at Starfleet Academy.
Over the decades since, the ‘Academy’ prequel concept kept returning as a potential direction
for the franchise, perhaps the most tantalizing being Star Trek: The Academy Years, a script written by
David Loughery based on a premise described by producer Ralph Winter as “Top Gun in Space.” At
the time, TFF had tanked badly and the future of the franchise was uncertain, yet the major problem
with the idea would almost certainly mean that TOS alumni William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, etc.,
could not return, but would need to be replaced by younger actors, a situation that fans at the time
would not accept. As Loughery explained: “We were really caught off guard and surprised by the fans
who reacted so negatively to the idea of this movie” (Hughes 2008, 37). It is worth noting that the
“Starfleet Academy” concept has been utilized in multiple spin-off texts, including the video-game,
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy (1997), and a series of young adult spin-off novels, “non-canonical” tales
that bear the TOS, TNG, and VOY brands (1993–98).
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William Proctor
Most striking of all, Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski and Dark Skies’ Bruce Zabel wrote
a 14-page treatment for Paramount in 2004 that proposed a radical approach to the franchise that
shared an astonishing abundance of commonalities with the direction eventually taken by Abrams
and company. In the document, “Star Trek: Re-Boot the Universe,” Straczynski and Zabel argued
that a certain degree of creative engineering was urgently needed in order to return the franchise to
the relatively high levels of audience approval it had enjoyed in the 1990s. Anchoring their proposal
on the creative challenges that writers face when attempting to come up with ideas that are imagina-
tive, while also fulfilling the strictures of continuity and canon, they argued that:
Ratings have declined, demographics have stagnated, and it seems as if every few weeks a
new article asks “What’s Wrong with Star Trek?” or “Can Star Trek be Saved?” Every writer
who’s been asked to pitch for one of the Star Trek series or features knows that so many
stories have been developed in the Star Trek universe that it has become increasingly dif-
ficult to move something through the system. The three most common responses are: it’s
been done, it’s being done, or it would never be done … Are the wheels falling off the fran-
chise? And if so, what can be done about it?
(2004, 2)
For Straczynski and Zabel, “the most elegant solution to continuity is to borrow from the experi-
ence of the comic book community” (ibid., 10), most notably through the way in which both
of the “big two” superhero publishers, DC and Marvel, have periodically refreshed, rebooted, and
reenergized their respective character pantheons for decades, either by beginning again from scratch,
or by “continually creating alternative versions for classic characters” (ibid., 10). “It’s time to re-boot
the Star Trek universe,” argued Straczynski and Zabel. “Re-set, re-imagined…re-invigorated” (ibid.,
3). The fact that they suggested that the Star Trek universe should be bifurcated into Universe A—
the home of the classic TV and film series—and Universe B—a new, rebooted timeline—would
certainly seem to lend weight to the notion that their treatment was mined by Paramount for ST09.
Star Trek Goes Quantum

In 2006, Paramount hired director J.J. Abrams to steer the film franchise into new territory. Alongside
writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, Abrams sketched out a daring approach that would take
account of pre-existing continuity by employing a reflexive, metafictional device that permitted the cre-
ation of a new timeline that would not interfere with the old. Unlike other reboots, such as Christopher
Nolan’s Batman Begins (2005) or Martin Campbell’s Bond reboot, Casino Royale (2006), both of which
wiped the slate clean to begin again with a new narrative sequence, ST09 tapped into the concept of
parallel worlds to service different interpretative communities through what I term a “reflexive reboot”
(Proctor forthcoming). In other words, establishing a new narrative universe seeks to placate seasoned
Trekkers’ concerns about the Star Trek canon, while also clearing a diegetic space for audiences who are
not versed in the back-story of the franchise. Written by Abrams, Kurtzman, and Orci, ST09 functions
in narrative terms as a prequel to TOS (at least, for the first minute or so of the film), a sequel to
ENT, a sequel to NEM, and a reflexive reboot of the original, “Prime” timeline—the diegetic universe
inhabited by TV series TOS through to VOY, and the canon films from TMP to NEM.
Like superhero “event” comics, the changes being wrought on the Star Trek universe would
involve some inventive narrative re-calibrations that incorporated the principle of rebooting as an
active part of the story itself. Borrowing a page from Hugh Everett’s many-worlds interpretation of
quantum physics (Proctor 2017), ST09 establishes a new parallel branch of Star Trek continuity, one
that creates a new diegetic plane where new stories can be told, some of which would not need to fit
in with pre-existing canonical histories and fictional fact.
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Star Trek (2009)
The film begins with the starship Kelvin investigating what appears to be a “lightning storm in
space,” before a strange ship suddenly emerges in Federation space. Drama and tragedy unfold as the
Kelvin is fired upon, and the ship’s captain, Richard Robau (Faran Tahir), is summoned to the alien
ship to broker a cease-fire with a Romulan aggressor named Nero (Eric Bana). Before transporting
to the alien ship, Robau hands over command to “Mr Kirk,” whose wife is pregnant and about to
give birth. Arriving on the alien ship, Robau is questioned about “the whereabouts of Ambassador
Spock,” and an image is shown depicting Leonard Nimoy. “I am unaware of an Ambassador Spock,”
responds Robau, before Nero murders him in cold blood. Meanwhile, panic ensues on the Kelvin
as the crew frantically scramble to abandon ship. George Kirk (Chris Hemsworth) sacrifices his
life to allow his wife and associated personnel to escape the calamity, but not before he names his
new-born child, Jim, after his wife’s father (he rejects christening the child after his own father,
Tiberius because “that’s the worst”). The film’s opening gambit concludes with George ramming
the Kelvin into the Romulan ship, the Narada, while some crew members manage to escape the
onslaught. As revealed later, the Narada has punctured the dimensional boundaries of time-and-
space because of an event that transpired in its own universe, effectively creating a new parallel
branch that is bracketed off from the franchise’s original timeline. Thus, ST09 exists in an alter-
native diegetic universe, one that ploughs its own historical trajectory without contaminating “the
franchise’s vacuum-sealed, force-field protected continuity” (Clark 2013, 395). As the new Kelvin-
/Abramsverse iteration of Spock (Zachary Quinto) summarizes through a metafictional gesture
mid-way through the film:
Nero’s very presence has altered the flow of history beginning with the attack on the USS
Kelvin culminating in the events of today, thereby creating an entire new chain of incidents
that cannot be anticipated by either party … Whatever our lives might have been, if the
time-continuum was not disrupted, our destinies have changed.
Ultimately, then, ST09 does not operate as the “Academy” prequel suggested by Roddenberry,
Loughery, and others. In other words, the Kelvinverse versions of Kirk, Spock, Bones, Uhura, Sulu,
Scotty, and so on, are not the same characters as their “Prime” counterparts (“whatever our lives
might have been … our destinies have changed”). Essentially, this means that there are now two
versions of Spock in the “Kelvin” universe: Nimoy’s original Spock—or “Spock-Prime,” as listed in
the film’s credits—and Quinto’s alternative Spock.
New events that the film is now free to explore include Spock’s home-world, Vulcan, being
destroyed by the avenging Nero, an act that causes the death of Spock’s mother, Amanda (Winona
Ryder), which did not happen in “Prime” continuity. Likewise, the death of Kirk’s father at the begin-
ning of ST09 stands in contrast with what occurred in canon, as explained in an exchange between
Spock Prime (Leonard Nimoy) and Kirk (Chris Pine) on Delta Vega. In the scene, Spock Prime
explains that in the Prime timeline, George Kirk was the principal reason why Kirk joined Starfleet,
and that he was proud when Kirk joined the Farragut. In ST09, Kirk does not join the Farragut, but
instead, he is drafted onto the Enterprise where he becomes Captain by default, rather than through
hard work and dedication. Like Spock (Kelvin timeline), then, Kirk’s biographical trajectory has been
revised to account for his father’s death, which leads to the character becoming more rebellious and
“more belligerent” (ibid., 395). What is intriguing about the distinctions between this new Kelvin
timeline and the Prime universe is that, unlike most Star Trek stories that involve time-travel and trips
to alternate universes, the temporal rift accidentally created by Nero and the Narada is not repaired
by the film’s end—as with First Contact and the “Mirror Universe” stories, for example—but remains
extant and “neo-canonical” (Hills 2015). The Romulans may be defeated by the end of the film, but
new horizons have been opened up that this “new” version of the Enterprise and her crew will con-
tinue to explore in (to date) two further instalments, STID and STB. With these factors in mind, it is
perhaps best to view the Star Trek imaginary world as an expansive “multiverse” rather than a singular
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William Proctor
“universe.” For many fans, however, the “Prime” universe remains the diegetic, canonical womb of
the franchise, the “mothership” from which all alternate realities are born.
Conclusion: “Trek in Name Only”?

Although ST09 was a critical and commercial success, amassing over $400 million in box office
receipts, and making the film the most lucrative of the series thus far (and embarrassing NEM’s paltry
$67 million in the process), there have been more than a few “classic” Star Trek fans who were not
wholly satisfied with Abrams’ alternate reality solution that allowed the Star Trek canon to survive
intact. Indeed, some accused the film-makers of soiling Gene Roddenberry’s legacy, with ST09
viewed as “Trek in name only … The shape of the new film is so ‘new’ that it no longer reflects
Star Trek for me, and the mythology hasn’t been bent, more like broken, smashed into a million
pieces” (Gross 2009, 35). As Megan Leigh argues in an article titled “Star Trek: How JJ Abrams
Ruined Everything”:
While I perfectly understand that Paramount, as a major motion picture studio, wants to
commercialise their product as much as possible … what I don’t understand is why they
have to gut the original concept to do so. They have moved the series completely away
from its original premise in order to mold it into a mainstream cash cow.
(2013; see also Pilkington 2019)
In interviews that preceded the film’s theatrical distribution, Abrams, Kurtzman, and Orci often
invoked Star Wars as their blueprint, suggesting that Abrams’ own fannish proclivities for the galaxy
far, far away, rather than Star Trek’s final frontier, dominated the creative process.“Star Wars was every-
thing to me as a kid [as it] was always full of action,” stated Abrams, whereas “Star Trek featured a lot
of discussion about things that were happening and not a lot of action depicting it [which] needed
to change” (Dyer 2008, 126–127). Abrams, of course, would go on to reboot Star Wars only a few
years later.
By using Star Wars to inform Star Trek’s next regeneration, however, the film-makers may have
alienated some fans, while appealing to a new generation of audiences that prefer the glimmer of
blockbuster spectacle over Star Trek’s more philosophical bent. As Clark argues: “To appeal to gen-
eral audiences, [Orci and Kurtzman] followed Abrams’ dictum that the story features the same sort of
frenetic pace and thrilling action sequences as George Lucas’ original Star Wars trilogy” (2013, 396).
Moreover, the insertion of droid R2-D2 from Star Wars into a scene in ST09 (and STID) suggests
that Abrams may have been mocking the Trekker community, “just more proof that J.J. Abrams won’t
rest satisfied until he’s completely turned Star Trek into Star Wars, and taken away everything that
makes it Trek” (Davis 2013). It is worth noting, however, that Star Trek films have often been more
action-oriented than the various television series, such as the highly acclaimed First Contact (1996).
Abrams’ decision to focus on attracting a broader coalition audience demographic than the
Star Trek faithful paid off, a calculated gamble that implies that tent-pole blockbusters would not be
economically viable assets if targeted wholly to fan-markets. For better or worse, Abrams’ ST09 suc-
cessfully cured the virulent strain of “franchise fatigue” that so worried Rick Berman after ENT’s
cancelation and injected new life into Star Trek for the new millennium. More than this, however,
is the way in which the Kelvin timeline has as more recently become canonically validated in both
TV streaming series, DSC and PIC. In the DSC episode, “Terra Firma Part 1” (DSC 3.9, 2020), for
instance, there is a brief intradiegetic nod to ST09 as Kovich (David Cronenberg) explains to Dr
Culber (Wilson Cruz) that the character Yor was a “time soldier” who had not only traveled for-
ward in time, but also came from an alternate dimension, “one created by the temporal incursion of
a Romulan mining ship.” And in PIC, viewers learn of the impact that the “temporal incursion” had
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Star Trek (2009)
in the Prime universe, with Jean-Luc Picard resigning from Starfleet as a consequence of Romulus’s
destruction instigated by events depicted in ST09.
With Star Trek returning to TV screens in 2017 with DSC and in 2020 with Picard and Lower
Decks, respectively, as well as a host of other new Star Trek texts to be released in 2022, including
another prequel series focused on Captain Christopher Pike’s (Anson Mount) Enterprise titled
Strange New Worlds, perhaps Abrams should be given credit for reversing the franchise’s ailing
fortunes, regardless of how much “Trekkers” themselves like or dislike his reinterpretation of
TOS’s narrative history.
References
Clark, Mark. 2013. Star Trek FAQ 2.0. Milwaukee, WI: Applause Theatre and Cinema Books.
Davis, Lauren. 2013. “R2D2 Spotted in Star Trek: Into Darkness.” Io9.com, August 9, 2013. Available at: http://
io9.com/r2-d2-spotted-in-star-trek-into-darkness-1273196593.
Dyer, James. 2008. “Back to the Future.” Empire 234 (December): 120–127.
Geraghty, Lincoln. 2007. Living with Star Trek: American Culture and the Star Trek Universe. London: I.B. Taurus.
Gross, Edward. 2009. “Live Long and Prosper.” SciFi Now 27 (May): 24–39.
Hark, Ina Rae. 2007. “Franchise Fatigue? The Marginalization of the Television Series after The Next Generation.”
In The Influence of Star Trek on Television, Film and Culture, edited by Lincoln Geraghty, 41–63. Jefferson,
NC: McFarland.
Hills, Matt. 2015. “From ‘Multiverse’ to ‘Abramsverse’: Blade Runner, Star Trek, Multiplicity, and the Authorizing
of Cult/SF Worlds.” In Science Fiction Double-Feature: The Science Fiction Film as Cult Texts, edited by J.P.
Telotte and Gerald Duchovnay, 21–37. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.
Hughes, David. 2008. The Greatest Science Fiction Movies Never Made. London: Titan Books.
Leigh, Megan. 2013. “Star Trek: How JJ Abrams Ruined Everything.” Pop-Verse.com, May 1, 2013. Available
at: http://pop-verse.com/2013/05/01/star-trek-how-jj-abrams-ruined-everything/.
Pilkington, Ace G. 2019. “Science Fiction and the New Trek Timeline.” In The Kelvin Timeline of Star Trek: Essays
on J.J. Abrams’ Final Frontier, edited by Matthew Wilhelm Kappell and Ace G. Pilkington, 115–135. Jefferson,
NC: McFarland.
Proctor, William. 2017. “Schrödinger’s Cape: The Quantum Seriality of the Marvel Multiverse.” In Make
Ours Marvel: Media Convergence and a Comics Universe, edited by Matt Yockey, 319–347. Austin, TX: Texas
University Press.
Proctor, William. forthcoming. Reboot Culture: Comics, Film, Transmedia. London: Palgrave.
Straczynski, J. Michael, and Zabel, Bruce. 2004. “Star Trek: Re-Boot the Universe.” MZP-TV.co.uk. Available
at: www.mzp-tv.co.uk/movie_scripts/Sci-fi%20and%20Fantasy/Star%20Trek/ST2004Reboot.pdf.
Star Trek Episodes
Discovery
3.9 “Terra Firma Part I” 2021.
Star Trek Movies
147
21
STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS
Nathan Jones
Star Trek Into Darkness is set in an alternate reality timeline, often referred to as either the Kelvin
Timeline or the Abramsverse (see Chapter 20), which was created after the destruction of Romulus
in Star Trek (2009). The second film in the trilogy, produced by J.J. Abrams, Bryan Burk, Damon
Lindelof, Alex Kurtzman, and Roberto Orci, owes much to previous canon and The Wrath of Khan
(1982) in particular (see Chapter 11). Prior to its release, Abrams insisted the story was wholly
original and that Khan Noonian Singh (Benedict Cumberbatch, originally played by Ricardo
Montalban) would not appear. Instead, marketing focused on hyping Abrams’ auteur brand and gen-
erating fan speculation through viral marketing. On viewing, however, STID walks an extremely
fine line between creative reinterpretation and regurgitation of moments from previous Star Treks
(Hadas 2017). While STID generated favorable reviews and moderate profits, in the years since its
release it has come to be remembered more for its acknowledged missteps than its contributions
to the franchise.1
Set roughly six months to a year after the events of ST09, STID opens with a colorful action
sequence set on the planet Nibiru where Kirk (Chris Pine) violates the Prime Directive to save
Spock (Zachary Quinto), exposing himself and the ship to a pre-warp civilization. A deliberate call-
back to the episodic television series, the opening sequence serves to remind viewers that the crew
has continued to work together in the time between films. The remainder of the film pits the crew
of the Enterprise against forces within Starfleet who are intent on instigating a war with the Klingons.
Kirk is removed from command due to Spock’s report of the Nibiru incident, creating continuing
tension between the characters. Simultaneously, Khan—operating as John Harrison—masterminds
two terror attacks on Earth, one of which kills a number of high-ranking Starfleet officers including
Christopher Pike (Bruce Greenwood), allowing Kirk to once again become captain of the Enterprise
and motivating his quest for vengeance.
Admiral Alexander Marcus (Peter Weller) is introduced as a second villain. He works to orchestrate
a war with the Klingons, ordering the Enterprise to Qo’noS to assassinate Khan via a drone strike. The
drones are “experimental photon torpedoes” loaded with Khan’s cryogenically frozen crew. When
Kirk takes Khan into custody instead of following orders, Khan reveals that he has been working for
Marcus to militarize Starfleet in preparation for war. Khan also reveals his true name at this point.
Khan and Kirk team up to defeat Marcus and his advanced starship, the Vengeance.
In the ensuing battle, Marcus is defeated and Khan takes control of the Vengeance. The Enterprise
is critically damaged in the encounter. Spock—in command of the Enterprise—returns the drone
torpedoes to Khan in exchange for the crew’s safety. However, he orders the torpedoes armed before
transport, and the resulting explosion leaves the Vengeance heavily damaged and crashing towards
Earth. On the crippled Enterprise, Kirk moves to contain an imminent warp core breach, sacrificing
his life in a sequence lifted from WOK. In a final act of terror/vengeance, Khan crashes the Vengeance
into Starfleet headquarters. Spock pursues and defeats him with the help of Uhura (Zoë Saldana).
148 DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917-24

Star Trek Into Darkness
Dr. McCoy (Karl Urban) then uses Khan’s genetically modified blood to resurrect Kirk. STID ends
with the commissioning of a new version of the Enterprise and the crew preparing to embark upon
its “famed” five-year mission.
Production History
Planning for STID began in 2008, prior to the release of ST09, when the producers and writers
working on ST09 were signed for its sequel. The Enterprise bridge crew from ST09 also were
contracted to return. The December 2009 script deadline passed, and though no progress had been
made, Paramount allowed the writing team to stay on the project, meaning the film would not be
released two years after ST09, as initially intended.
In 2010, the release was set for June 29, 2012, and Orci, Kurtzman, and Lindelof announced
they had begun the writing process. The early months were largely devoted to a discussion of
tone and antagonists. The Kelvin Timeline allowed existing canon to be mined for inspiration and
story beats: WOK especially served as a template for the ideal way to create a Star Trek sequel.
Orci stated:
We have the opportunity to do something that Star Trek II did, which is recognize [the
characters] more fully and have them be more in the places where you expect and hope if
you are a fan, and if you are not a fan … hopefully you get to enjoy that for the first time ….
(Pascale 2011)
The writers came to the decision that STID would be darker in tone than ST09 while retaining
the lighthearted summer-blockbuster feeling that made ST09’s success possible. The focus of the
Kelvin Timeline films on establishing Star Trek as a blockbuster franchise, like Star Wars or the
Marvel films, meant that the scale of the film needed to offer more than ST09. This is made espe-
cially apparent by the inclusion of three antagonists: Klingons, Admiral Marcus/Section 31, and Khan
(Stringer 2003).
With the basic outline in place in 2012, the writers and producers started a conversation around
the title. The Kelvin Timeline precluded a continuation of the numbering system that had been
applied to the films from The Motion Picture to Nemesis. The colon was even attacked as partially
responsible for the perceived failings of the ten films set in the Prime universe; “[t]‌here’s no word that
comes after the colon after ‘Star Trek’ that’s cool,” Lindelof opined,“everything that people are turned
off about when it comes to ‘Trek’ is represented by the colon” (Pascale 2012). Into Darkness was ultim-
ately chosen to reflect the ideas that the characters would be encountering greater challenges than
those presented in the first film as well as the notion that the Federation’s ideals were imperiled by
the machinations of the villains who operated on the “inside.”
Once principal photography began in 2012, the script was released to the cast. By all accounts the
set was harmonious, with Abrams working closely with the core ensemble to address concerns and
integrate their ideas, but keeping decision-making authority over all areas of the film. In addition
to the returning core cast, Alice Eve (Carol Marcus), Weller, and Cumberbatch accepted roles—in
Cumberbatch’s case, only two weeks prior to filming. Nimoy also confirmed that he would reprise
Spock Prime, after an initial denial.
Filming and production were based in Los Angeles at the insistence of Abrams. Locations were
primarily sound stages on the Paramount and Sony lots. Additional southern California locations
helped to add depth to the cinematography, including Christ Cathedral (formerly Crystal Cathedral),
Vasquez Rocks Natural Area, and Dodger Stadium. Additional visual effects shots were taken in
Iceland. The film was shot in IMAX and Panavision and converted to 3D during post produc-
tion, which made STID the first official 3D Star Trek production. Released on May 16, 2013 in
the United States, STID earned $228 million domestically and $231 million internationally. The
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generic marketing campaign around Khan—to prevent spoilers—is one explanation for what was
perceived as a poor domestic gross (Mendelson 2013). Critically the film was well received, but,
within the Star Trek fandom, there was negative backlash against several of Abrams’ choices, including
the homage/rehashing of WOK and the marginalization of female characters.
Context and Themes

At their core, ST09 and its sequels were intended to explore the potential of a franchise reboot after
the perceived failings of Nemesis and Enterprise. STID was written to more directly address Star Trek’s
premise of contemporary social commentary due in large part to Orci and Kurtzman’s attention to
fan requests through interactions on websites like Trekmovie.com.
The 9/11 terrorist attacks and resulting decades of warfare served as the inspiration for much of
the plot of STID. Notably, however, Khan does not initially commit acts of terror; instead, he carries
out asymmetrical warfare against Starfleet military targets, first, a covert Section 31 base—hidden by
Starfleet behind a civilian shield—and then a gathering of high-ranking officers. While Khan kills
Pike and incites Kirk’s quest for vengeance, viewers discover the Federation’s covert wing, Section 31,
is utilizing Khan—and later the opportunity provided by his attacks—as pretense to initiate a war
with the Klingons. By focusing on covert forces—Section 31 representing the present-day CIA—
STID offers an allegory relating to contemporary conspiracy theories claiming the 9/11 attacks were
carried out and/or assisted by the U.S. government and to the false claims about weapons of mass
destruction provided by the CIA that enabled the American invasion of Iraq. STID presents further
War on Terror parallels: Khan represents the armed fighter mobilized covertly to fight a war, i.e., the
Taliban in Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion (1979–1989), who eventually turns on the hand
that fed him. Scotty’s (Simon Pegg) “are you Starfleet or private security” exchange on the Vengeance
mirrors the real-world outsourcing of security duties in the Middle East. The planned use of a drone
strike to assassinate Khan on Qo’noS nods toward the Obama administration’s emphasis on similar
tactics. And, Khan’s use of a starship as a physical weapon crashing into an urban landscape is, of
course, an sf equivalent of the 9/11 attacks.
The sympathetic treatment of Khan by the producers, and the negative portrayal of Section 31
both seem to represent an attempt to hold a critical lens up to real-world American actions. Clearly
meant to represent an American everyman, Kirk is prepared to act outside of regulations and serve
extrajudicial justice to Khan in revenge for the death of Pike—his father figure. At the moment of
decision, Spock and other Enterprise crew members remind Kirk of the ideals of the Federation, and
he instead captures Khan to be tried in court. Khan, representing a generic twenty-first-century
terrorist, carries out a complicated single-person campaign against the military-industrial com-
plex of Starfleet in an effort to free his crew until Spock deceives him into thinking his “family” is
killed. In that moment, Khan becomes radicalized and carries out the attack on San Francisco in
revenge. Both characters are consumed by a need for vengeance—literally fighting for control of the
Vengeance. Kirk embodies the United States’ vacillation between corporate imperialism and liberal
democracy, while Khan represents the terrorist/freedom fighter dichotomy. On the one hand, Kirk
allegorically warns of the risk Western democracies take in compromising their ideals in aggressive
pursuit of security and “peacekeeping.” Khan, on the other hand, offers an indictment of the role
that America played in radicalizing terrorists (Kapell and Pilkington 2019, 166–176). However,
Abrams’ film dedication: “… to our post-9/11 veterans with gratitude for their inspired service
abroad and continued leadership at home,” helps to hedge against the film being read as overly crit-
ical of American foreign policy.
“The theme of the movie is, how far will we go to exact vengeance and justice on an enemy that
scares us?” (Karpel 2013). Who that “us” refers to deserves examination. STID privileges a white,
cisgender, male story and characters, possibly because the production team described themselves as
fans and understood the fandom to fit that description. Orci went to great lengths to answer fan
150
questions on Trekmovie.com (2013), including those that raised the issue of Cumberbatch’s casting
whitewashing the most important antagonist of color in Star Trek’s canon. Orci defended the deci-
sion by referencing the film’s terrorism allegory, saying,
It became uncomfortable for me to support demonizing anyone of color, particularly any

one of Middle Eastern descent … One of the points of the movie is that we must be careful
about the villain within US, not some other race.
(cited in Bishop 2019, 64; emphasis added)
Setting aside the issue of white producers racially conflating either a North Indian Sikh or a
Mexican actor with a Middle Easterner, early reports of the casting of Benicio del Toro and unsuc-
cessful auditions by other Hispanic actors like Demián Bichir, prove the producers initially planned
to cast Khan in the same way as every other character in the Abramsverse—according to the 1960s’
ethnic profile of the actor who had originated the role. After negotiations with del Toro fell through,
Abrams turned to Cumberbatch. Orci’s comments also reveal a shift in the thinking of STID’s creators;
they move from rehashing the social norms of 1960s’ America in ST09 to actively omitting people
of color from STID with the exception of non-speaking background roles and the two returning
members of the bridge crew, Sulu (John Cho) and Uhura (Kapell and Pilkington 2019, 25–38).
Equally at issue in the film is the sidelining of female characters. Uhura is simply an extra body
or an aide to her romantic partner when needed. Carol Marcus serves as the ship’s science officer
but does little beyond being ogled by Kirk—and the audience—in a fan service, male-gazey boudoir
scene (ibid., 99–114). Additionally, Marcus seems to have been inserted from canon mostly—in a nod
to fans—as a potential fertile womb for Kirk.
By defining the “us” of Starfleet and contemporary society as male and white, STID’s creators
failed to advance the franchise’s past themes and contexts explored in TOS. The twenty-first cen-
tury has seen increased mainstream inclusivity in “nerd” culture; unfortunately, the self-described
fanboys at Bad Robot failed to capitalize on that shift and created a film that sits comfortably within
Hollywood norms and Star Trek’s history of privileging white cisgender men, both in narrative and
fandom (Hadas 2017). Instead of boldly advancing Star Trek into a new age of infinite diversity in
infinite combinations, STID whitewashes characters of color (see Chapter 50) and continues the
franchise’s less than stellar history of diminishing the roles of women (see Chapter 51).
Legacy
Abrams used his Star Trek films to deliver a Star Wars-style space opera. Perhaps STID will be
remembered most as part of his bid to direct the hitherto final Star Wars trilogy. The high production
costs led directly to the slightly reduced budget for the thirteenth Star Trek film and the film’s contro-
versies may have sped the end of Kelvin Timeline film production. Instead of benevolent space explor-
ation and a hopeful vision of the future, which have been key to the franchise’s identity, STID delivered
a classic J.J. Abrams “mystery box” style plot that favors action and (lens) flare(s) over substance.
STID received numerous positive reviews in the months after its release, but those who enjoyed it
as an escapist film moved on and Star Trek fans issued steady waves of complaints. Since the release,
Abrams, Orci, and Lindelof have made a series of apologies, culminating in a 2015 interview where
Abrams said the film was
a little bit of a collection of scenes that were written by my friends … I would never say
that I don’t think that the movie ended up working. But I feel like it didn’t work as well as
it could have had I made some better decisions before we started shooting.
(Aurthur 2015)
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Nathan Jones
There have been few scholarly attempts to engage with the material, and generally authors engage
with the entire Abramsverse rather than single entries—notably Kapell and Pilkington’s The Kelvin
Timeline of Star Trek (2019). The Kelvin Timeline provides space for critical discourse around race,
gender, and the centrality of white men in Star Trek. STID often features prominently in these
discussions as the last piece of Star Trek created in a pre-Twitter #metoo and #blacklivesmatter
world.
As the second highest-grossing Star Trek film, STID’s mixed successes offer insight into what
the CBS All Access future (recently retooled into Paramount+) of the franchise is based on—note
Discovery’s gritty setting and epic narrative. However, newer entries in the Star Trek universe also
seem to be working to erase the mistakes of STID: the new hairless Klingon design was quickly
abandoned after the initial season of DSC and the launch of Strange New Worlds in 2022 seems to
herald a return to episodic content, perhaps in response to fan exhaustion with the ever-escalating
stakes introduced in STID and carried through DSC and Picard. STID’s failings can also be analyzed
for the lack of additional Star Trek films since Beyond (2016), though changes in content distribution
technology and the rise of CBS All Access/Paramount+are also certainly to blame.
STID is a film that is undeniably fun; while the quick pace and well-designed action sequences
helped to generate a positive buzz and favorable critical reviews, the movie did not stand up under
fan scrutiny. The film was the zenith of Paramount’s attempt at creating a Marvelesque Star Trek film
franchise, but as a piece of Star Trek canon, like the other Abramsverse films, it is simply a diversion
into a different reality’s version of Star Trek, left behind by CBS’s decision to return to the prime
timeline.
Note
1 STID was rated 13th of 13 in a 2013 fan-led Creation Star Trek Convention poll of all Star Trek films,
including Galaxy Quest (1999).
References
Aurthur, Kate. 2015. “The Triumphs and Mistakes That Got J.J. Abrams Ready for ‘Star Wars.’”Buzzfeed, December
16, 2015. Available at: www.buzzfeed.com/kateaurthur/jj-abrams-and-the-long-road-to-star-wars.
Bishop, Bart. 2019. “Star Trek into Colonialism.” In The Kelvin Timeline of Star Trek: Essays on J.J. Abrams’ Final
Frontier, edited by Matthew W. Kapell and Ace G. Pilkington, 58–71. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
Hadas, Leora. 2017 “From the Workshop of J. J. Abrams: Bad Robot, Networked Collaboration, and
Promotional Authorship.” In Collaborative Production in the Creative Industries, edited by James Graham and
Alessandro Gandini, 87–104. London: University of Westminster Press.
of Cult/SF Worlds.” In Science Fiction Double Feature, edited by J.P. Telotte and Gerald Duchovnay, 21–37.
Kapell, Matthew, and Ace G. Pilkington, Eds. 2019. The Kelvin Timeline of Star Trek: Essays on J.J. Abrams’ Final
Frontier. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
Karpel, Ari. 2013. “How to Write and Produce a Summer Movie Blockbuster.” Fastcocreate.com, July 13, 2013.
Available at: https://web.archive.org/web/20130713134412/http://www.fastcocreate.com/1683071/how-
to-write-and-produce-a-summer-movie-blockbuster.
Mendelson, Scott. 2013. “The Best-and Worst-Marketed Movies of Summer 2013.” Forbes.com, August 27, 2013.
Available at: www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2013/08/27/the-best-and-worst-marketed-movies-
of-summer-2013-were/.
Pascale, Anthony. 2011. “Exclusive Interview: Damon Lindelof, Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman Talk Star Trek
Sequel.” Trekmovie.com, June 15, 2011. Available at: https://trekmovie.com/2011/06/15/exclusive-interv
iew-damon-lindelof-roberto-orci-alex-kurtzman-on-star-trek-sequel/.
Pascale, Anthony. 2012. “Damon Lindelof Talks about Struggle to Find Title for Star Trek Sequel (Without a
Colon).” Trekmovie.com, July 15, 2012. Available at: https://trekmovie.com/2012/07/15/damon-lindelof-
talks-about-struggle-to-find-title-for-star-trek-sequel-without-acolon/.
Stringer, Julian, ed. 2003. Movie Blockbusters. New York: Routledge.
152
Trekmovie.com. (2013) “Into Darkness Open Week Thread +Polls.” May 5, 2020. Available at: https://trekmo
vie.com/2013/05/20/sticky-into-darkness-open-week-thread-polls/.
Star Trek Movies
Star Trek Beyond. 2016. dir. Justin Lin. Paramount Pictures.
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22
STAR TREK BEYOND
Peter Goggin
Star Trek Beyond is not only the third feature film in the franchise’s reboot series, but the third Star Trek
feature in which the Enterprise is destroyed (note that there are other episodes where the ship is blown
up, sometimes multiple times, in the various TV series). Although a new Enterprise-A under construc-
tion makes an appearance at the end of STB with the promise that it would continue to “boldly go,” the
future of the reboot series itself seemed in some doubt for a time. The film was fairly well received by
fans and critics, at least as well as the previous two reboot films, but it underperformed at the box office.
Then, for a while following its release in July 2016 there were reports and concerns on various online
entertainment industry sites and fan blogs that STB would be the last in the reboot universe as the script
for a fourth film had been scrapped. In November 2019, other reports confirmed that the next in the
series, referred to on Memory Alpha as Star Trek XIV (“Star Trek 4”), was in the process of being scripted
and was set to be directed by Noah Hawley with the return of most of the STB cast. Subsequent reports
noted a second separate script was in production with J.J. Abrams and Paramount, supposedly to be
directed by Quentin Tarantino. But in December 2019, Tarantino announced he would not be involved
in that project. By June of 2020, the Hawley script was delayed due to the knock-on effect of general
studio production delays caused by the Covid-19 pandemic but, according to the Trekmovie.com fan
site, was still in development, now seeking a new director (Pascale 2020). In early April 2021, Paramount
announced the release date of the next feature film in the series for June 9, 2023 without providing any
further details other than that J.J. Abrams will produce it (Pascale 2021). While the resurrection of the
Enterprise was uncertain following its demise in STB, the lasting success of the franchise suggests the
iconic starship will likely rise again.
STB continues three years after the beginning of the five-year mission where Into Darkness left off.
Life in deep space has become crushingly routine for the crew of the Enterprise. Kirk (Chris Pine) is
struggling with the meaning and purpose of it all and applies for a promotion to vice-admiral that
would effectively end his starship days. Upon answering a distress call from a stranded alien ship,
the crew navigates an unexplored nebula that blocks Starfleet communications and the Enterprise is
attacked by a swarm—literally—of dart-like alien ships piloted by drones, led by the film’s nemesis,
Krall (Idris Elba). The Enterprise is quickly disabled and sent crashing toward the planet. Most of the
crew, including Uhura (Zoë Saldana) and Sulu (John Cho), are taken prisoner by Krall who is seeking
an ancient bioweapon artefact stored on the Enterprise. It is later revealed that Krall, who has a scaly
alien appearance and the ability to drain lifeforce from Enterprise crewmembers, is actually a human
and a former Starfleet officer. He holds a deep resentment for the Federation which he sees as having
abandoned him and as becoming weak by virtue of its commitment to cooperation and peaceful
coexistence with other races. Kirk, Scotty (Simon Pegg), Spock (Zachary Quinto), Chekov (Anton
Yelchin), and McCoy (Karl Urban) escape to the planet and are aided by a stranded alien, Jaylah (Sofia
Boutella), who lives in the wreckage of an older starship, the Franklin. Krall obtains the bioweapon and
departs with his swarm to wreak devastation on the starbase Yorktown while Kirk et al. rescue their
154 DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917-25

Star Trek Beyond
fellow crew members, jury-rig the Franklin, and depart in pursuit of Krall. After the final conflict
during which Kirk destroys Krall and the bioweapon, Kirk declines his promotion to vice-admiral; and,
at a gathering to celebrate his birthday, the ending shots of the film reveal the new Enterprise in the final
stages of construction, accompanied by a dramatic recitation of the classic: “Space. The final frontier.”
Production History
Following the release of STID in April of 2013, rumors about the next film (then referred to as
Star Trek 3—ST3) in the Kelvin Timeline began appearing in popular entertainment news media
(Radish 2013). Since Abrams, who had produced and directed the two previous films in the series,
was slated to direct the upcoming Star Wars: Episode VII—The Force Awakens (2015), it was announced
that direction of ST3 would fall to writer/producer Roberto Orci who had worked with Abrams on
STID. By December of 2014, Paramount had announced that Orci would be replaced by Justin Lin,
known for his direction work with the Fast and Furious franchise. Orci remained nominally on board
as producer, along with Abrams, Justin Lin, and Lindsey Webber.
While the directorship shuffle was going on, the scripting for the new film was already underway
with Orci, and co-writers Patrick McKay and J. D. Payne at the helm. However, as reported in May
2015 by The Guardian, following Orci’s removal from directing the film, Pegg, in a critique of the
“dumbing down” of cinema generally, announced that he had been asked to rewrite the script for
ST3 together with screenwriter Doug Jung, to make it “more inclusive.” The studio had deemed the
original script as being “a little bit too Star Trek-y” (Press Association 2015).
Casting for ST3 began in early 2014 with some re-negotiation with the studio for salary raises by
primary actors in the series (notably Pine and Quinto). In addition to the main bridge crew, Deep
Roy reprised his role as Keenser. Joe Taslim was cast to play Krall’s second-in-command Manas, Lydia
Wilson as Kalara, another significant character and a member of Krall’s gang, and Sofia Boutella as
the feisty alien, Jaylah. Shohreh Aghdashloo joined the cast in March 2016 as Commodore Paris
following script revisions and reshoots. Initial filming and photography for the film began in June
2015 primarily in Vancouver, British Columbia. Other filming locations announced were Dubai
in the United Arab Emirates, and Seoul, South Korea. Shortly before this in April 2015, reports
surfaced that the official title of the film would likely be Star Trek Beyond, and that the film would
be released on July 8, 2016. The idea was to release the film to coordinate with the celebration of
the 50th anniversary of the launch of TOS in 1966. Pegg stated in a Los Angeles Daily News report:
The thing was to make sure that everybody who has been here for 50 years gets what they
deserve in terms of a good ‘Star Trek’ film, but the people who perhaps aren’t as familiar
with ‘Star Trek,’ they’re welcome too. This is an inclusive universe in every way, not just
fictionally but actually.
(Strauss 2016)
However, likely due to the shuffle of directors and script changes, the studio later announced the
release would be pushed back to July 22 instead.
Additionally, the tragic accidental death of Anton Yelchin a month earlier on June 19, had cast
a pall over the release of STB. His co-actors noted that it was very difficult coming to grips with
his death while celebrating and promoting the opening of the film. At the premiere, in a tribute to
Yelchin, Urban was quoted:
It’s bittersweet with the passing of Anton. It’s devastating losing someone in your family.
This feels like it should be a time for celebration not just of the film, but of him, his extra-
ordinary talent and the beautiful man he was.
(Anon 2016)
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Peter Goggin
Further, Yelchin’s death served to bookend the death of Leonard Nimoy (who was not cast in the film)
during the pre-production period for STB on February 27, 2015. Both actors were memorialized in
the closing credits of the film.
STB opened in the USA on July 22 and in global markets over the following few weeks. As
noted above, STB did not perform as well as expected at the box office. With a production budget
of $185 million, the film grossed a little over $158 million domestically, and $335 million total
worldwide—less than both previous films in the series (Anon n.d.a). Despite good ratings on major
review sites, fan forums, and entertainment media news outlet circled around the following causes
that explained the lower appeal of the film: that the emphasis on action sequences and introspection
lacked appeal for fan audiences; that it was not promoted soon enough or well enough; that it faced
fierce competition from the release of other films that summer; and that after 50 years, overreliance
on appeal to the traditional fanbase was insufficient for financial viability for a high-budget cinematic
production (Anon n.d.b).
The film went quickly to streaming digital HD on Amazon and iTunes on October 4, 2016 and
to DVD and Blu-ray release on November 1. Between 2016 and 2017, STB was nominated for
numerous awards, but the only major award nomination was for Best Achievement in Makeup and
Hairstyling at the 2017 Academy Awards.
Context and Themes

In the timeline of the Star Trek franchise, STB is noteworthy as it marks not only its 50th anniver-
sary, but also situates its journey at the start of the chronology of the franchise with the first episode
of the voyages of the Enterprise in TOS—partway into “its five-year mission.” When the original
five-year mission actually began is still a matter of some debate among fans. Thus, STB marks a space
for introspection and reflection for both the multiple visions and conceptions of Star Trek and for
audiences and fans as the franchise comes full circle over a 50-year span, albeit in an alternate uni-
verse. As stated above, STB continues three years after the beginning of the five-year mission where
STID left off. Following an opening action sequence, Kirk offers a personal log summation that seems
to echo anxieties of contemporary post-9/11, Great Recession, climate change, and global economic
and political uncertainties. As he faces his birthday (“another year older”) and drinks to his father
who died a year younger than him, Kirk is still struggling to find himself and live up to his father’s
expectations. He questions his motives (“I joined on a dare”) for pursuing a career in Starfleet. Other
members of the crew are also dealing with their own respective issues, such as missing their families
(Sulu, for instance, looks wistfully at a photo of his daughter on his console), dealing with the ups
and downs of shipboard romances (Spock and Uhura are going through a break-up), and emotionally
distancing themselves from their comrades as they contemplate their futures. As Kirk states, “It can be
a challenge to feel grounded when even the gravity is artificial.” After the Enterprise docks at Yorktown
station, Spock must further cope with the existential conundrum presented by the death of his future
self—the Spock portrayed by the late Nimoy. Simon Pegg says:
It just seemed like such an incredibly Trekkie idea, we had become very close to Leonard
and loved the idea of this becoming part of Zach’s Spock journey. It seemed cosmically
right, a fitting tribute to one of Star Trek’s iconic faces.
(Alexander 2016)
Kick-ass female lead characters (Jaylah, Kalara, Uhura) who do not wear revealing costumes, or
strip for the captain (see Carol Marcus in STID), a female Commodore, and a racially diverse crew are
clearly a sign of ideological difference from TOS and other series in the interim 50 years. An openly
gay Sulu who has a husband, Ben, is the first such character in the Star Trek franchise. Although the
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Star Trek Beyond
relationship is minimized on screen, it represents—perhaps—a changing attitude, even if only slightly,

in Hollywood representations of LGBTQ+characters (see Chapter 52). STB does recapture some of
the old school TOS banter, humor, and playful jesting between characters, but this is subsumed within
the themes of mortality, identity, angst about the future, the notion of unity, and the very future of
the Federation itself that run through the film. The following observation by noted science fiction
scholar, Gerry Canavan, is worth quoting at length here:
The rebooting of the entire Trek universe into the Abramsverse felt like a death on mul-
tiple levels: not simply the now-inescapable loss of the original actors portraying those roles
(most strongly tokened by the death of Leonard Nimoy early in Star Trek Beyond’s pre-
production, and then echoed by the death of the actor playing the new Chekhov (Anton
Yelchin) in a freak accident shortly before the film’s release), not simply the obsolescing of
the decades of characters and stories set during the original timeline, and not simply (let’s
just say it) by what Star Trek turning 50 says about how old some of us seem to be getting,
but also the death of the ethos of optimistic, utopian futurity that had driven creative works
set in the Star Trek universe since its inception in 1966.
(2016, 320–321)
The internal, philosophical, and physical conflicts between Kirk and Krall underscore Canavan’s
observations. While Kirk is searching for purpose and meaning, he still values the loyalty and colle-
giality of his crew and officers as they look to him for leadership, even convincing the independent
Jaylah to join with them. He re-bonds with Spock and McCoy in his commitment to them and to
the Federation. As the film concludes, Kirk raises a glass to the destroyed Enterprise and to fallen
companions and looks to the future. As yin to Kirk’s yang, Krall is in some ways even more com-
plex, providing an alternate view of the Federation in his own quest for meaning and purpose. As
discovered in files on the Franklin, Krall was a former human combat officer named Balthazar Edison
serving prior to the formation of the Federation, which he deeply resents not only for what he sees
as its betrayal of humanity’s fight against its former enemies, but also for having abandoned him and
his crew. “I will do whatever I can for me and my crew,” says Krall, “the Federation do not care about
us.” During the final one-on-one with Kirk he exclaims,
I have to say, Kirk, I’ve missed being me. We lost ourselves but gained a purpose! A means to
bring the galaxy back to the struggle that made Humanity strong!… I fought for Humanity!
Lost millions to the Xindi and Romulan wars. And for what? For the Federation? To sit me
in a captain’s chair and break bread with the enemy.
Krall’s words mark a foreshadowing of human isolationism and a less optimistic vision of the
Federation and Starfleet portrayed in Discovery and Picard.
Legacy
Krall’s deconstruction and indictment of the Federation and its Promethean vision of a lofty lib-
eral socio-techno utopia echo through the past 50 years of the franchise. It evokes parallels to the
Brexit referendum for the UK to leave the European Union in 2016 and the US withdrawal from
the UNFCCC Paris Agreement on climate change in 2017. Krall’s ideology and his rhetoric res-
onate with the growing uncertainty about the future of western democracies as popular sentiment
and political leadership shift further to the right, as traditional alliances are put in jeopardy, and
walls (materially and ideologically) are being built. But despite Canavan’s rather grim assessment
of the film, its legacy is perhaps a little brighter. Cait Coker states in her review of STB: “Indeed,
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Peter Goggin
in the post-Trump world, Star Trek Beyond is an incredible political parable that I do not think was
adequately appreciated when it came out during the summer of 2016” (2019, 165).
STB ultimately is about hope. While the Enterprise is destroyed, it is rebuilt, made anew, as are
its captain and crew. Krall’s declaration of the Federation’s weakness is ultimately proven wrong. As
Coker opines:
[Krall is] a reactionary, xenophobic old man who hates the new world he lives in and wants
to destroy it, and … he is opposed by a diverse group of young people whose lives were
forever changed because of terrorist acts—and who, rather than succumbing to fear, say
things like ‘Unity is our strength’ and ‘Better to die saving lives than live with taking them.’
(ibid., 165–166)
While the reboot series seemed destined to end with STB, the film’s message for change and a
better future would find new significance four years later in 2020 in a world rocked by a pandemic,
economic crisis, and widespread social activism against systemic racism in Kirk’s memorable rebuttal
to Krall: “We change. We have to. Or we spend the rest of our lives fighting the same battles. It is
change that this celebrates, and it is change that gives us hope for the future in the real world.”
References
Alexander, Bryan. 2016. “‘Star Trek Beyond’ Becomes Tragic Tribute for Two.” USA Today. Available at: www.
usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2016/07/20/star-trek-beyond-tributes-leonard-nimoy-anton-yelchin/
87271040/.
Anon. 2016. “Beyond Cast Attends Australia Premiere.” Star Trek.com. Available at: www.startrek.com/article/
beyond-cast-attends-australia-premiere.
Anon. n.d.a “Box Office History for Star Trek Movies.” The-Numbers.com. Available at: www.the-numbers.com/
movies/franchise/Star-Trek#tab=summary.
Anon. n.d.b “Star Trek Beyond.” Memory Alpha. Available at: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Star_
Trek_Beyond.
Canavan, Gerry. 2016. “Star Trek at 50, or, Star Trek beyond Star Trek.” Science Fiction Film and Television 9, no.
3 (Autumn): 319–324. https://doi.org/10.3828/sfftv.2016.9.8.
Coker, Cait. 2019. “Star Trek Beyond (Review).” Science Fiction Film and Television 12, no. 1 (Spring): 165–167.
Pascale, Anthony. 2020. “Jeff Russo Gives Update on Noah Hawley’s Star Trek Movie.” Trekmovie.com, April 6,
2020. Available at: https://trekmovie.com/2020/04/06/jeff-russo-gives-update-on-noah-hawleys-star-trek-
movie/.
Pascale, Anthony. 2021. “Paramount Sets Top Secret Star Trek Movie for Summer 2023.” Trekmovie.com, April
9, 2021. Available at: https://trekmovie.com/2021/04/09/breaking-paramount-schedules-star-trek-feature-
film-for-summer-2023/.
Press Association. 2015. “Simon Pegg Criticises ‘Dumbing Down’of Cinema.” The Guardian, May 19, 2015. Available
at: www.theguardian.com/culture/2015/may/19/simon-pegg-criticises-dumbing-down-of-cinema.
Radish, Christina. 2013. “J. J. Abrams and Simon Pegg Talk Star Trek Into Darkness on Blue-ray and Behind-
the-Scenes Footage, Plus Star Trek 3 and its New Director.” Collider.com, September 11, 2013. Available
at: https://collider.com/j-j-abrams-simon-pegg-star-trek-into-darkness-interview/.
Strauss, Bob. 2016. “Why ‘Star Trek Beyond’ Stars Say Film ‘a Big Celebration’ of 50th Anniversary.” Daily News,
August 28, 2017. Available at: www.dailynews.com/2016/07/20/why-star-trek-beyond-stars-say-film-a-
big-celebration-of-50th-anniversary/.
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PART III
Transmedia and Franchising

23
STAR TREK AS A TRANSMEDIA
STORYWORLD
Dawn Stobbart
From its beginnings, Star Trek has engaged with worldbuilding on a grand scale—and used many
different media to do so. This media ecology has enabled the creation of a vast and detailed universe
that has grown and evolved almost organically with each new glimpse into the lives of its inhabitants
across the franchise. Contrary to the metaphor’s popular use in current franchise production, the
organic nature of franchises like Star Trek and the worlds that have been created and sustained therein
have spent the early part of their existence growing more or less haphazardly at first (as a young plant
might). However, in the “post-reboot” era, there has been an effort on the part of ViacomCBS, the
owners of the intellectual property, to tend and nurture the many branches of the Star Trek uni-
verse as a connected body of work. This allows the consumer to feel a sense of familiarity with the
franchise, even when engaging with only a small part of it. This chapter, then, will consider how
the narrative structure of the Star Trek franchise not only utilizes different media, but also how it
uses these media to conduct worldbuilding, i.e., creating and maintaining a largely consistent and
overarching narrative for the franchise.
Transmedia uses a variety of media to construct different aspects of a story in new, and increas-
ingly interactive and participatory ways. Colin Harvey states that “[t]‌ransmedia storytelling refers to
the endeavour of conveying connected stories using a variety of media platforms” (2014, 290) within
a single world or universe. Even with this brief definition, it can be seen that Star Trek has always
been a transmedia construction. Dan Hassler-Forest writes that, in addition to the films and television
series, “the official franchise has included an animated series … dozens of video games, and many
hundreds of novels” (2016, 48). These transmedia artefacts “have also made the storyworld more
frivolous, and obviously more commercial than other science fiction,” according to Henry Jenkins,
who popularized the term (Jenkins and Hassler-Forest (2018, 17–18). Jeff Gomez contends that the
seeds of Star Trek’s transmedia structure were planted, or rather scattered haphazardly already at the
franchise’s origin in that “Star Trek survived as long as it did because the fan base was fed ancillary
content for years and years. They kept that torch burning when that property should have been
killed two or three times in its lifetime” (Red Deer Advocate 2009). Gomez emphasizes the import-
ance of the transmedia structure of Star Trek in its success with content such as graphic novels (see
Chapter 26) and radio performances being the very transmedia and worldbuilding elements of the
franchise that this chapter is concerned with.
Star Trek encompasses many different narratives that take place within a shared universe, making
it unambiguously a transmedia construction “with easily recognisable elements and designs, images
and sounds, and continuing stories that entice consumers to keep returning” (Wolf 2019, 141). For
example, Voyager, as a series, is a constituent part of the Star Trek universe, which takes place far from
the Alpha Quadrant that is home to the bulk of the United Federation of Planets. The ship setting,
DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917-27 161

Dawn Stobbart
uniforms, and references to major Star Trek lore place the show firmly within the Star Trek universe.
However, at the same time, VOY is a discrete narrative strand, separated from other principal media
nodes that constitute the Star Trek universe and thus functions as a narrative in its own right (see
Chapter 5). However, this distance is primarily spatial, since it takes place simultaneously with the
series and films set in the Alpha Quadrant whilst Voyager is returning home. Furthermore, VOY does
not rely on any knowledge of the rest of the franchise in order for audiences to enjoy it (although it
does help to have this familiarity in decoding some of the nuanced references to the rest of the fran-
chise). This series comprises a single overarching narrative, which includes graphic novels, written
novels, and even video games in its delivery, importing events, characters, and settings from one media
to another, while creating a narrative that stretches across different media to tell the single story of
Voyager’s homebound journey.
The Star Trek universe encompasses a vast timeline, whose core is primarily located in the twenty-
second, twenty-third, and twenty-fourth centuries, beginning with ENT and ending at the time of
writing with PIC. This fictional future history (see Chapter 41) includes excursions into the past
(including alternate pasts) and to the future, although the latter is not as common. There are more
than 50 television episodes and four of the films that feature time travel. These range from Voyager
traveling to the birth of the universe (“Death Wish” [VOY 2.18, 1996]) to DSC’s third and fourth
season, which are set in the thirty-second century (see Chapter 7). Spatially, however, the Star Trek
universe is more straightforward, being primarily set in the Milky Way galaxy. All of the branches are
sustained by a steadily growing transmedia ecology whose roots are firmly planted within television
and film, and with a clearly defined demarcation of what is and is not “canon” (see Chapter 24).
The scope of Star Trek not only spans different media, but some of the basic elements allow a con-
tinuity of the universe, creating a “canon” of Star Trek events and history. The official Star Trek web-
site considers that the films and television shows comprise the authoritative version of the Star Trek
universe (Hassler-Forest 2016, 48). Even the reboot of the film franchise, which is geared more
toward a new market demographic, and whose story differs from earlier entries in the franchise,
contains elements that signal the earlier incarnations of the Star Trek universe. An example of this can
be seen in Star Trek (2009), and Star Trek Into Darkness (2013). Both of these films subtly refer to the
TOS episode, “The Trouble with Tribbles” (TOS 2.13, 1967). The 2009 film shows Scotty (Simon
Pegg) keeping a Tribble in a cage, and STID features McCoy (Karl Urban) injecting a Tribble with
the blood of Khan (Benedict Cumberbatch), which is the key to saving Kirk’s (Chris Pine) life later
in the film. “The Trouble with Tribbles” is arguably one of the most well-known episodes of TOS,
being regularly included in “best of ” collections, and this reference serves as a reminder of the wider
Star Trek world for the viewer. Tribbles also occur in other parts of the franchise, with the creatures
featuring in the TAS episode “More Tribbles, More Troubles” (TAS 1.5, 1973) and the Short Treks
episode “The Trouble with Edward” (Short Treks 2.2, 2019). The DS9 episode “Trials and Tribble-
ations” (DS9 5.6, 1996) even went so far as to insert the characters from DS9 into the events of the
TOS episode. Here again, the connections between the different parts of the franchise are brought
together, across time and space.
The use of these elements of the Star Trek world across the franchise enables the consumer to
engage with the familiar aspects of Star Trek when engaging with other media. Derek Johnson
considers that “transmedia storytelling promises to bring greater institutional coordination, added
narrative integrity, and deeper engagement to the various pieces of contemporary media franchises,”
further noting that “comic books, video games, and other markets … now play increasingly signifi-
cant roles in the production and consumption of everyday film and television properties, such as …
Star Trek” (n.d.). This, however, can be difficult if the franchise is owned by several companies, as
happened with Star Trek in the early 2000s.
In 2005, the rights to the intellectual property of Star Trek were split between two different com-
panies, Viacom and CBS, with CBS holding the rights to all of the television series, as well as the
character likenesses, names, settings, stories, and merchandising rights (see Chapter 36). Viacom was
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Star Trek as a Transmedia Storyworld
given the film rights and the ability to make new films and control home video distribution. This
complicated ownership resulted in delays and cancelations of new Star Trek content, with the 2009
and 2016 films both being affected by CBS being resistant to these releases, and which affected tie-in
merchandise production. This made the 2019 re-merger of CBS and Viacom’s Paramount Pictures all
the more exciting, as it will allow the parts of the franchise that were owned by different companies
to become part of one corporate entity again, potentially enabling the whole franchise to once again
enjoy a symbiotic relationship. CBS’ chief creative officer David Nevins stated that the aim for the
future of the Star Trek franchise is to create a “virtuous eco-system,” where “if you’re smart about
it, you can create a lot of value” (Berlage 2019). Here, we can see the economic value of a franchise
such as Star Trek: in expanding the franchise to encompass different media platforms, the IP holders
can increase the profitability of any given text. This has been the case with the reboot versions of the
feature films, beginning with ST09. The main motivation of the reboot trilogy was to bring in new
viewers and new revenue streams, viewers who might not have been aware of earlier incarnations
of Star Trek—and to a greater extent, these were the primary target audience (see Chapter 20). The
goal is new revenue rather than supporting the franchise as a whole, but it also aims to open the
franchise to new audiences through transmedia content, which can then supply a further ongoing
revenue stream.
However, a more or less concerted transmedia strategy alone cannot account for the scope and
depth of the Star Trek universe. Building a complex world within a piece of fiction does not always
need a multimedia structure. Indeed, Henry Jenkins argues that worldbuilding “can occur in a single
medium, either in a short story or over 700+episodes of a TV show” (Jenkins 2014). Worldbuilding,
then, can be as simple as demonstrated by A. D. Jameson, who paraphrased a treatise-long thought
experiment by philosopher Immanuel Kant as follows: “[O]‌ne has a moral obligation to repay loans,
because if everyone chose not to repay, then the result would be a world where no one ever lent
anyone money” (2018, loc. 645). Creating an illusory world that supports Kant’s premise, or a series
of television shows that spans several parts of the same universe, helps to co-create and maintain the
fictional universe they constitute.
To create a convincing storyworld, narrative theory posits that a piece of fiction has to establish
its relationship to the world that it contains, whether that is what we experience as our ontological
reality or an entirely fictitious world. This relationship is contingent on the proximity to—or distance
from—the real world that the consumer inhabits, and this relationship must be credible and thus
believable. Regardless of how imaginary a fictional world may be, it still needs, as Darko Suvin (Suvin
1979, 7–8) and other critics have since have argued (Göcke 2014, 169–181), to stand in a discover-
able relationship to our empirical reality. In considering science fiction and/or fantasy this can be
more challenging than fiction based in the real world, as sf/f also needs to make clear the differences
between its world and the world that we, as the consumer, inhabit and these details need to make
sense within the fictional universe being created. In his essay “The Origin of the Work of Art,” Martin
Heidegger states that “to be a work of art means to set up a world” (2002, 22), and while this con-
cept predates the origin of Star Trek, the idea that fiction—especially science fiction—is concerned
more with creating a plausible world than telling convincing stories is significant. Other theorists
have reached similar conclusions; for example, Carl Malmgren suggests that “[s]‌cience fiction must
be defined by its unique fictional world or worlds” (1991, 1–2), and leaning heavily on the work of
neorealist theoretician Kenneth Waltz, Stephen Dyson considers that worldbuilding is at the core of
science fiction and fantasy (2015, 4). Entering a fictional universe, the audience, as they consume the
media content, is then expected to learn how to navigate that world, its ontological norms, its epis-
temological rules, and its political and social discourses, often through simple cues and/or minutiae
such as opening credits.
Star Trek began building its futuristic universe in the initially unaired pilot of TOS, “The Cage”
(unaired pilot TOS 1965/1988). In this episode, the viewer is shown several environments of the series
that will go on to become typical; there are exterior shots of the Enterprise, as well as interior views
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Dawn Stobbart
including the bridge, corridors, and a conference room, thereby establishing the world that the main
characters inhabit. We are shown several pieces of futuristic technology, including the ability to move
at faster-than-light speeds, the communicator, and a demonstration of the transporter as it transfers the
landing party to the planet, Talos IV. We are also introduced to the hierarchy that governs the Enterprise,
with Captain Pike (Jeffrey Hunter) discussing his own role on the ship with Dr. Philip Boyce (John
Hoyt) and establishing the role of the senior officers on the bridge. TOS allowed the construction of a
world that is credible within its futuristic timeframe. “The Man Trap” (TOS 1.5, 1966), the first episode
of the series that aired on TV, features another example of worldbuilding; establishing the world’s “fabric
of historicity” in the opening sequence, the audience sees the Enterprise going into orbit around a planet,
with Captain Kirk’s (William Shatner) voice-over establishing spatial and temporal anchoring in his log,
“conflat[ing] the processes of history-writing and storytelling” in the process (Rabitsch 2019, 146).
While the films and television series comprise the heart of the transmedia ecology of the Star Trek
universe, the franchise utilizes many media to expand its worldbuilding capabilities. Novels, comics,
radio performances, and video games comprise just a small number of the media that can be consumed
by fans to expand their understanding of this fictional universe. There have been approximately
860 novels based on all of the major series (see Chapter 25); graphic novels too are a major media
node of the Star Trek universe, with well over 500 of these released (see Chapter 26). A lot of these
graphic novels do not repeat narratives from the respective TV series and films, but instead continue
storylines. For example, this is the case with the first graphic novels, published by Gold Key comics,
between 1967 and 1978. They deviate from TOS, on which they are based, and include sequels to
episodes including “The City on the Edge of Forever” (TOS 1.28, 1967), and “Metamorphosis”
(TOS 2.2, 1967), all expanding the Star Trek universe beyond its core.
TNG includes several video games within its branch of the Star Trek world, with the 1996 PC
video game, A Final Unity (MicroProse 1996) being a prime example of this mode of storytelling.
This point-and-click adventure game features many of the characters from TNG, with the player
controlling Picard (Patrick Stewart) and the crew of the Enterprise as they complete missions and aid
an alien race to discover an ancient artefact. According to the chronology of TNG, the game takes
place between the first two episodes of the seventh season of the series, “Descent, Part II” (TNG 7.1,
1993) and “Liaisons” (TNG 7.2, 1993); it is structured as a TNG episode, with several away missions,
battles, and conversations before bringing it to a successful conclusion. This structure enables the
player to feel as if they were participating in, rather than watching an episode of TNG. As the game
progresses, the player is reminded of several events that took place in earlier seasons of the series. For
example, when Data (Brent Spiner) is confronted with the possibility of a creature that eats neural
energy on the planet Morassia, he refers to an encounter that took place in the two-parter “Time’s
Arrow” (TNG 5.26, 1992; TNG 6.1, 1992). Here, the game not only connects to a constituent part
of the Star Trek universe, with familiar characters and shipboard settings, but also links the television
series explicitly to the game and the action taking place within it through references to specific events
that have occurred in the series.
Worldbuilding such as this can be seen across Star Trek. DS9, for example, uses worldbuilding
to establish other species and their cultures in a coherent and detailed way. The Cardassians and
Bajorans are given extensive histories, as is the Dominion (see Chapter 4). DS9 repeatedly cites
earlier Star Trek series, referring to TOS several times, including the Tribbles, the planet Cestus III,
and the Tholians, and welcoming characters from other series such as Worf (Michael Dorn) and Miles
O’Brien (Colm Meaney). Here again, the worldbuilding elements of the Star Trek universe come to
the fore, establishing that distinct and separate elements are still connected through a shared history.
A key aspect of transmedia is its reliance on audience participation. In many ways, a storyworld is
an expansion of a piece of linear narrative media, used to create a fuller and richer world of stories.
With the technological possibilities of the digital era, audiences are able to enter into the storyworld
through a variety of entry points, rather than starting at the beginning of the franchise. They are
then placed in an active role, journeying through the different media and the stories found therein.
164
Traveling from media platform to media platform enables the audience to move across and through a
storyworld such as Star Trek, propelled by their own interests and preferences: they can engage with
only certain parts of the franchise and omit others as they see fit. So, a viewer who has a particular
affinity for TNG can choose to only watch the television and film versions of that; or they can widen
their scope to include seasons four to seven of DS9, which contain several of the characters from
TNG, including Worf and O’Brien. Similarly, if they are fans of Patrick Stewart, they may choose to
engage only with the television series TNG, a single episode of DS9, the feature films Generations,
First Contact, Insurrection, and Nemesis as well as the 2020 series Picard. As with VOY, these individual
segments can act as a self-contained narrative (chiefly shaped by the viewer’s inclinations), although
it is helpful to have knowledge of the wider Star Trek world to fully engage with, and understand,
some of the references. In this way, transmedia storytelling is able to include the interpretations and
experiences of the audience, as they then become part of the narrative experience itself.
Transmedia excels at allowing this sort of consumer engagement; Pamela Rutledge writes that
“different platforms can be used to construct or tell different aspects of a story in new and partici-
patory ways” (2015, 2), with media such as video games enabling the active participation of the
consumer as a member of the crew in the virtual reality game Bridge Commander (Totally Games,
2002). Individual elements of Star Trek, however, can be dependent on prior knowledge of the uni-
verse (e.g., the different species that live in the Alpha Quadrant, and even the characteristics of these
species). Fleet Command (Digit Game Studios, 2018), for instance, presupposes that the player has this
knowledge to fully understand the game’s strategic structure. In this game, the player must interact
with different species, conduct missions, and grow in power and prosperity. It features species such
as the Romulans and Klingons without providing the player with any history of these species, their
characteristics, or even their levels of aggression. As such, while it is possible to play the game without
any prior knowledge, it can be better understood with knowledge of these groups of people when it
comes to forging alliances. Here, then, the game relies on the wider transmedia world for knowledge
and assumes that the player will seek this out, if they do not have it already.
Henry Jenkins has claimed that transmedia storytelling has the potential to spawn “participatory
culture” (Jenkins 2006), where a reader/viewer/player can also create content, including adaptations,
parodies, and even slash fiction based on the franchise. In this volume, there are several chapters which
engage with these topics (see Chapters 33 and 34). However, within the context of transmedia, it
must be noted that modern technology has made it easier to create content, allowing consumers to
become constructors, or “prosumers” (Toffler 1980, 265) of the Star Trek universe, something that is
explored in the 2019 book Making Fake Star Trek, which explores the making of a “fan film” (Bray
and Lim 2019).
Transmedia and worldbuilding are mutually beneficial, although not dependent on each other.
Worldbuilding can take place in a short story, or moral tale without any need for multiple media.
However, leaning on transmedia scholar Geoffrey Long, Suzanne Scott has asserted that “transmedia
stories foundationally require a rich fictional world” (Wakeman n.d.). Transmedia ecologies such
as Star Trek expand beyond the boundaries of a single text through references to people and/or
places that audiences may never engage with, but that help to enrich the size of a fictional world,
just as with the example of Final Unity and the references to the creatures that Data had already
encountered earlier but in a different text. There might be large gaps between the different stories to
begin with, but these gaps can be filled by off-shoot stories that then add to the main narrative and
ultimately contribute to fleshing out the fictional world as a whole. The transmedia, cross-media,
and worldbuilding parts of the universe can therefore be used to construct such a large, overarching
franchise. “Most often, transmedia stories are based not on individual characters or specific plots but
rather complex fictional worlds which can sustain multiple interrelated characters and their stories,”
writes Jenkins on his website, continuing, “this process of world-building encourages an encyclo-
paedic impulse in both readers and writers. We are drawn to master what can be known about a
world which always expands beyond our grasp” (2007). However, therein is the crux of transmedia
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storytelling: transmedia consumers are active participants in the discovery of the world that has been
created over decades, and which exists outside each of the constituent parts of the Star Trek universe.
As an example of transmedia worldbuilding, Star Trek not only pioneered this method of story-
telling, spawning from a single medium to encompass films, comics, video games, action figures, and
even theme park experiences where the consumer can interact with costumed actors and props (see
Chapter 35); it has also pioneered fan-created fiction, such as slash, which has gone on to become a
successful form of fan labor in its own right (see Chapter 33). The Star Trek universe, as extensive as
it is, must be discovered, i.e., the reader/viewer/player is actively involved in exploring strange new
worlds, seeking out new civilizations, and boldly going where no one has gone before.
References
Berlage, E. 2019. “Star Trek Merger Will Create ‘Younger and More Relevant’ Revamp.” Metro, September 17,
2019. Available at: https://metro.co.uk/2019/09/17/star-trek-aims-younger-relevant-revamp-better-syne
rgy-films-tv-series-10755074/?ito=cbshare.
Bray, Andy, and Lim, John. 2019. Making Fake Star Trek: The True Story of a Star Trek Fan Film with the Real Walter
Koenig. Seattle, WA: Amazon Digital Services.
Digit Game Studios. 2018. Star Trek: Fleet Command. CBS Interactive/Scopely. iOS and Android.
Dyson, Stephen Benedict. 2015. Otherworldly Politics: The International Relations of Star Trek, Game of Thrones, and
Battlestar Galactica. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Göcke, Benedikt P. 2014. A Theory of the Absolute. London: Palgrave.
Harvey, Colin B. 2014. “A Taxonomy of Transmedia Storytelling.” In Storyworlds Across Media: Towards a Media-
Conscious Narratology, edited by Marie-Laure Ryan and Jan-Noel Thon. 278–294. Lincoln, NE: University
of Nebraska Press.
Hassler-Forest, Dan. 2016. Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Politics: Transmedia World-Building Beyond Capitalism.
London: Rowman & Littlefield.
Heidegger, Martin. 2002. “The Origin of the Work of Art.” In Heidegger: Off the Beaten Track, edited by Julian
Young and Kenneth Haynes, 1–52. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
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five.html.
Jenkins, Henry and Hassler-Forest, Dan. 2018. “I Have a Bad Feeling About This: A Conversation About
Star Wars and the History of Transmedia.” In Star Wars and the History of Transmedia Storytelling, edited by Sean
Guynes and Dan Hassler-Forest, 15–31. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Johnson, Derek. n.d. “A History of Transmedia Entertainment.” Available at: https://spreadablemedia.org/ess
ays/johnson/#.XjP6k2j7TIV.
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Star Trek Episodes
The Original Series
2.2 “Metamorphosis” 1967.
The Animated Series

1.5 “More Tribbles, More Troubles” 1973.
The Next Generation

7.1 “Descent, Part II” 1993.
7.2 “Liaisons” 1993.
Deep Space Nine

Voyager
2.18 “Death Wish” 1996.
Short Treks
2.2. “The Trouble with Edward” 2019.
Star Trek Movies
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24
STAR TREK AS FRANCHISE
Derek Johnson
After the release of Star Trek Beyond (2016), the third “Kelvin Timeline” film featuring the rebooted
version of Kirk (Chris Pine) and Spock (Zachary Quinto), production company Bad Robot and
rightsholder Paramount Pictures struggled to develop a follow-up. In 2018, S. J. Clarkson signed on
as director, while rumors swirled that Quentin Tarantino would take over or produce his own film
in parallel (Anon 2018). Meanwhile, Pine cast doubt on his return in the role of Captain Kirk (Kit
2018). This search for the franchise’s creative direction was further complicated by the franchise’s
return to television production with Discovery launching on CBS All Access in 2017. This series
offered its own take on the twenty-third-century setting familiar to fans of Kirk and his crew, and
by the second season had featured its own recast, reinterpretation of Spock (Ethan Peck). So, when
Paramount and Clarkson parted ways, newly appointed director Noah Hawley had to position him-
self in a crowded field of creative contenders. “I have my own take on ‘Star Trek’,” he explained.
Hawley dampened expectations that his film would extend the creative enterprise of the most recent
Star Trek films, noting his interest in a completely new cast of characters. “To call it ‘Star Trek IV’ is
kind of a misnomer.” (Couch 2020). However, by late 2020, his film too was “in stasis” (Holloway
2020).
Viewed across these competing projects, the Star Trek franchise encompasses the unique visions
of creative contributors and marked differences between individual entries in its ongoing production.
Bad Robot’s Kelvin Timeline films distinguished themselves by rebooting the narrative continuity of
the original television and film series. Filmmakers like Clarkson, Tarantino, and Hawley subsequently
promised to do something different with the franchise, staking out unexplored creative territories
to imprint with individual visions. New creative contributors entered the franchise promising to
diverge from what has come before, communicating creative vision and authority by opposition to
their predecessors.
While these dynamics manifested in Paramount’s struggle to develop a follow-up to STB, they
have defined the ongoing extension of the Star Trek franchise from its very beginnings. As Star Trek
grew from a 1966–69 television series to a veritable media franchise in the 1970s and 1980s, the con-
cept expanded to support film production. After the troubled production of The Motion Picture (1979),
series creator Gene Roddenberry took on an increasingly diminished creative role as Paramount
brought in new creative managers like Harve Bennett (see Chapter 11) to manage the five subsequent
film projects between 1982 to 1991. Creatively sidelined, Roddenberry considered much of what the
films offered to be “apocryphal” (Okuda and Okuda 1996). Even as Roddenberry developed his own
vision via the creation of the television spin-off The Next Generation (1987–94), there, too, franchising
unfolded as a process of creative differentiation. Paramount soon enlisted new creative managers like
Rick Berman and Michael Piller to steward the series (see Chapter 3). Even as these stewards sought
to uphold Roddenberry’s vision after his death in 1991, their management of a television franchise
continued to balance deference with difference. Subsequent spin-offs Deep Space Nine (1993–99),
168 DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917-28

Star Trek as Franchise
Voyager (1995–2001), and Enterprise (2001–05) were each developed to be as different from one
another in tone and appeal as they were part of the same futuristic universe (Johnson 2013, 133).
As Star Trek returned more recently to television production, new creative steward Alex Kurtzman
similarly managed multiple television productions that each served a specific and distinct role in the
overall franchise portfolio. When CBS launched its Star Trek “global franchise group” in 2019, it
sought to organize the brand around the “core values” of empowerment, inclusion, and imagination
(Thorne 2019). Yet each of the series in production expanded the franchise via different genres and
audience appeals; as Discovery pushed against the bounds of canon, Picard (2020–) offered a reunion
with legacy characters and storylines; while both Lower Decks (2020–) and Prodigy (2021–) embraced
animated formats, the former offered adults-only comedy and the latter promised adventure for
young Nickelodeon viewers.
Such creative dynamics challenge assumptions that the business of extending a franchise like
Star Trek emerges exclusively from a homogenized process of reproduction. Franchising supports
both creative divergence and relations between different producers staking out positions and
contested territories in relation to one another. Moreover, comparisons between the competing
visions of filmmakers or the creative identities of successive television spin-offs capture the fran-
chising of Star Trek along only a single dimension: within a single medium, its culture of production,
and the industry practices, priorities, and privileges that define it. The power to make a Star Trek
film or television series is different from the power that rights holders like Paramount and CBS grant
by way of licensing contracts to novelists, comic book writers, game developers, and more. Certainly,
filmmakers and television creators are closely supervised by studio management—perhaps even more
so, given the immense amount of money invested. However, with that heightened studio attention
comes a strategic priority, enabling filmmakers and television creators to establish narrative and visual
norms that producers in other media might be expected to follow.
By contrast, in arenas like comics (see Chapter 26) or video games (see Chapter 28) that have
been equally omnipresent in the decades-long expansion of the franchise, creators contributing to
Star Trek take subordinate positions, rather than engaging in this comparative play of difference among
equals and successors. This hierarchical relationship is codified not just by the smaller market size
for licensed works but also by the licensing agreements that structure these franchise contributions.
Book and game publishers pay a license fee for the right to make use of the Star Trek universe, and
the license holder maintains the right of review and approval over those uses. Studio executives have
veto power over the decisions that film directors or television producers make, to be sure, but licensed
producers have to go through a formal, advanced process of seeking permission and satisfying the
demands of licensing executives. In the case of Star Trek, such licensed producers have often worked
at considerable distance from creative figures in film and television, who claim not to be familiar
with licensed work and often disavow its status as part of “canon” (Johnson 2013, 144). The licensing
executive who grants approval stands between licensed creators and those working in the worlds of
film and television. Getting approval can mean positioning licensed work not as a new, distinct cre-
ative endeavor—as Hawley and others present their film concepts—but instead as a deferential one
that fits within visions set by others and policed by the license managers (Clarke 2009).
The creative dynamics of the Star Trek franchise—like so many others—has been defined by
this tension between difference and deference (Johnson 2013, 113), where some creators have the
industrial status necessary to diverge in their industrial contributions, while others must negotiate
their subordinate position by demonstrating creative compatibility with the vision of creators more
privileged in these industry hierarchies. These dynamics of difference and deference emerged in the
interactions of Gene Roddenberry and D.C. Fontana with licensed novelists in the 1960s, the com-
petitiveness between contemporaneous television productions in the 1990s, and the structural sep-
aration of television writing staffs and licensed creators at that same time (ibid., 142). To understand
these dynamics in a more recent context, however, we can consider the status of game development
in the franchise, focusing particularly on Star Trek Online (STO), a game whose ongoing production
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over more than a decade provides a longitudinal lens of analysis. This chapter is interested in STO
less as an example of how the franchise manifests in the particular medium of video games, and more
as an arena of licensed production in which these industrial dynamics play out. The game provides
more than a snapshot of what the deferential strategies of licensed producers might look like; played
over a decade of ongoing development, it reveals the shifting terrain in which deference unfolds as
the centers of power in the franchise transform over time. While game production remains on the
margins throughout, the power of filmmakers and television producers as well as the value of films
and television series at the center prove fluid; as those power dynamics shifted, so too did the creative
strategies that game producers use to navigate their subordinate positions.
Negotiations between licensed producers and rights holders are rarely if ever made public.
However, by reading the long arc of storytelling against broader industry shifts in the management of
the franchise, the game itself can evidence these unspoken power dynamics. Media franchising is, at
its most basic level, the continuous reproduction of culture from resources shared across multiple sites
of production as managed by the entertainment industries (ibid., 4). STO helps reveal how that pro-
cess is managed by the deferential strategies of licensed creators on the margins who must constantly
navigate the reorganization of power at the center.
STO was launched in February 2010 by Cryptic Studios, a developer previously known for
massively multiplayer online role-playing games City of Heroes and Champions Online. After rival
studio Perpetual Entertainment abandoned its own plans to create an online Star Trek game in
2008, Cryptic stepped in, licensing from CBS Consumer Products the right to produce a massively
multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) based on the franchise. For over a decade, STO
has generated a continual stream of gameplay and storytelling, allowing players to create their own
characters and explore the world of the franchise. Originally, players could create characters affiliated
with either Starfleet or the Klingon Empire. By 2013, the first major expansion of the game added a
Romulan option; in 2018, the “Victory is Life” expansion brought playable Jem’Hadar. In-between
expansions were replaced by more regular content updates, each characterized as a new “season” to
evoke the televisual presentation of the franchise. By 2022, 26 such seasons had offered new game
mechanics, playable levels, and narrative developments in an ongoing, serialized story woven through
the canon of television and film material.
This is not to say that STO’s storytelling practices were consistent or extended from a single strategy
throughout this decade of perpetual production. Instead, the orientation of the game to the rest of the
Star Trek universe transformed on several occasions, reshaped in response to shifting dynamics of cre-
ative and corporate power in the management of the franchise. As the centers of power in the franchise
changed, the creative resources available for a studio like Cryptic to draw on were continually revalued,
with some choices at some moments more or less likely to be contested in the complex negotiations of
licensing approval. As Trevor Elkington (2003) and M.J. Clarke (2009) explain, that approval process can
be challenging, and thus creators have developed storytelling strategies to respect licensor authority. In
Media Franchising (2013), I refer to this as a drive toward creative deference, where the power imbalances
in industrial licensing arrangements lead creators on the margins to cede territory to those in the center
and confine themselves to storytelling spaces deemed of marginal importance.
When STO first launched, it bore all the hallmarks of deferential production. Although the player
could visit many familiar worlds and locales, the characters one might hope to interact with were
conspicuously absent. Set in 2409, almost 30 years had passed in the game since the last entry in the
film and television storytelling continuity that included TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, the prequel ENT,
and the first ten feature films. Presumably, most of the familiar Starfleet characters would have retired
from active duty by that time. The iconic Enterprise was explained to be missing in action, taken off
the board entirely. Meanwhile, new characters replaced the old in the familiar settings that players
could visit, such as Deep Space Nine or the Klingon homeworld. Players did encounter characters
like Kirayoshi O’Brien and Naomi Wildman, last seen as children on DS9 and VOY, respectively, but
now grown up to represent the next generation of Starfleet. In an early 2010 update, actress Chase
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Masterson reprised the role of Leeta, the dabo girl who appeared in 16 episodes of DS9 and the first
legacy character to be voiced by the original actor in the game. However, even in this case, the game
did not allow interaction with the “real” Leeta; Masterson initially voiced a holographic simulation of
the character rather than continuing the story of the Leeta she played on the television series.
All these choices reflected a deferential logic: steer clear of anything that CBS might want to reserve
for use by more privileged creators in markets like film or television perceived to be more important
to the franchise. CBS would likely have been far more concerned about a game studio’s plans for using
Captain Picard, Data, or Kirk’s famed Enterprise; even if approval for those plans could be obtained, it
would come at the cost of more discussion, deliberation, and negotiation as they were squared against
CBS’s desire to protect the value of those intellectual property resources for future creative uses. Telling a
story about the descendants of these valuable characters was less likely to be contested; Kirayoshi O’Brien
almost certainly did not sit at the center of CBS’ plans for future spin-offs or franchise exploitation.
Notably, STO launched less than a year after the highly lucrative and critically successful Kelvin
Timeline films. Although the 2009 film had created an alternate universe to profitably retell stories
about Kirk, Spock, and the original Enterprise, STO remained firmly planted in the original timeline—
the value of which appeared significantly diminished by studio emphasis on this visible new film con-
tinuity. Cryptic did engage Zachary Quinto, the actor who played Spock in the film, to appear in the
game. Yet instead of reprising Spock, Quinto appeared as a nameless Emergency Medical Hologram
in the game’s tutorial. Cryptic actively restricted itself from the narrative territories of interest to the
franchise’s privileged filmmaking team.
This deference made even more sense in light of the exceedingly complex management structures
organizing the use of Star Trek across film, television, and consumer products. Before their 2019
merger, Viacom and CBS had divorced in 2006, and during that time, the film and television rights
to the franchise were split (Low 2019). As owner of Paramount Pictures, Viacom retained the film
rights and empowered J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot production company to develop this new narrative
universe. CBS held the television rights, but also managed consumer product licensing for the whole
franchise. This put the licensing of the film in a bizarre gray area: a licensee like Cryptic would have
to ask CBS for permission to make use of ideas and characters as they appeared in a Paramount film
(Lang 2013). Much simpler than negotiating over uses of the film universe would thus be proposals to
work with television material over which CBS had more direct authority. So, during the first several
years of the game’s operation, Cryptic worked on the fringes of a television-based continuity.
However, as time went on, the degree of deference that Cryptic’s game writers showed to the
fiefdom of film fluctuated. As the market value of the old television continuity and the new film uni-
verse shifted, so too did Cryptic’s use of those creative resources. Between the success of the 2009 film
and the release of its second sequel, STB, in 2016, film became the creative center of the franchise,
with television production moving closer to the margins in which licensed game production (and
comics and novels, etc.) operated. From the cancelation of ENT in 2005 until the launch of DSC in
2017, the television enterprise of Star Trek remained on an extended hiatus. During that time, CBS
did not just fail to bring any new television content into production; it also signaled an increasing
disinterest in policing uses of the franchise that might compete with television interests. During this
period, CBS adopted a fairly permissive attitude toward fan productions that used characters like Kirk
and Spock as well as former franchise talent. This is not to say that CBS granted a stamp of approval
to everything or would allow anything to carry the Star Trek name. However, it was willing to try
“looking the other way” (Verhoeven 2015) as fan series like Star Trek: New Voyages produced almost
a dozen full-length episodes of television in that time featuring a recast Kirk and Spock, while the
three-part Star Trek: Of Gods and Men drew upon the talent of over a dozen of the franchise’s most
recognizable actors. Disinvested in the production of Star Trek on television, CBS appeared—for a
time—willing to cede that creative territory to its fans (see Chapter 36).
As STO expanded in this time, it too appeared gradually less concerned with confining itself to
tertiary characters and less vital pockets of the television universe. Instead, as Star Trek’s television
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potential seemed on the decline, Cryptic took increasingly more license to make use of its tele-
vision resources. Starting with the “Legacy of Romulus” expansion in 2013, Cryptic turned to
former franchise stars (much as fan films were) to reprise legacy characters (rather than playing
new roles as in Quinto’s case). TNG regular Denise Crosby appeared in the game to voice
Natasha Yar (as well as that character’s Romulan daughter, Sela, who was already in the game).
Worf had been added to the game in Season 2, serving as a mission giver for Klingon characters.
However, that character did not bear a significant semblance to actor Michael Dorn or make use
of recorded dialogue until his participation in “Legacy of Romulus.” Even more significant efforts
to re-engage legacy characters came in the 2014 “Delta Rising” expansion, where a number of
VOY characters including Seven of Nine (voiced by Jeri Ryan) joined the game. In 2016, Walter
Koenig reprised his role of Chekov from TOS, and Matt Winston reappeared as Daniels from
ENT. By 2017, the game turned its attention significantly to DS9, demonstrating a willingness
to rewrite its own narrative history. Cryptic had previously excised the DS9 character Martok
from the game universe, explaining that he had died offscreen and been succeeded as head of the
Klingon Empire by a new character named J’mpok. Yet J.G. Hertzler, the actor who played the
character, was now one of many television actors willing to return for the game. Thus, Martok
was resurrected through a new game mission. Upon his return, the Klingon decides he prefers
the glory of combat to governance—a bit of storytelling gymnastics to keep previous game assets
involving J’mpok intact and position Martok for narrative uses more familiar to fans of the televi-
sion series. These shifts reflected a move away from deferential avoidance of television characters
to a more managed stewardship of them.
This is not to say that STO was recognized as “canon.” However, the game occupied a fairly
unique place in licensed production: allowed to employ legacy actors while also extending their
characters’ stories. The 30-year gap that had once insulated the game from use of legacy characters
now required Cryptic to fill in missing narrative information and explain absences as those characters
reappeared. Kira abandons the new role as a religious leader that once explained her absence from
Deep Space Nine. Quark similarly returns from a life of pursuing profits elsewhere to take up his
familiar spot on the Promenade. What these examples represent is not brilliant character growth but
instead a creative process of adapting storytelling strategies to suit the degrees of deference required
by the shifting management of the franchise. As the fortunes of the franchise turned to the Kelvin
Timeline, the game steered deeper to the narrative toy box of television continuity. Moreover, as
those fortunes later faltered, the game’s creative orientation to the franchise shifted once more. In
2016, STB disappointed at the box office, and the future of that film continuity appeared in doubt
as the follow-up film languished in development hell (see Chapter 22). Meanwhile, CBS renewed its
investment in Star Trek television production with DSC, released in 2017. The hierarchies of power
and value in the franchise were changing once more, and with those changes came reconfiguration
of the game’s orientation to the creative resources that came with the Star Trek license. In 2016, STO
offered a Kelvin Timeline Lockbox that made the newer film version of the Enterprise available for
players to use—at least, if those players were lucky, as the mystery box had a much higher chance of
containing less desirable items. The nature of these lockboxes limited the ability to play in this terri-
tory. But as the shine rubbed off the Kelvin Timeline, it gradually became fairer game for a licensed
game developer on the margins of the franchise.
By contrast, as television became a more significant priority for CBS, Cryptic faced new constraints
that pushed against the gradually increasing agency it had enjoyed. In 2018, the narrative of STO took
a hard turn into the world of DSC. While a winding, meandering tale, the STO narrative had woven
the mythologies of the many previous television series into some kind of serialized whole. Yet the
plots and characters left dangling at the end of the “Victory is Life” expansion were largely abandoned
by the “Age of Discovery” expansion in which characters from DSC took center-stage. On the one
hand, this shift represented a willingness of the licensor, CBS, to allow the licensee, Cryptic, the use
of resources in which TV producers were still invested. Instead of having to play with toys left on
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the shelf decades ago, Cryptic could use the same characters, ships, and locales prominent in a con-
temporaneous television series, with full participation from actors, including series lead Sonequa
Martin-Green. To ensure proper deference, these appearances in STO were all variously explained as
something other than the primary iterations of the characters seen on television; references to mirror
universe and mycelial duplicates ensured that the game would not supersede the storytelling primacy
of television. On the other hand, this sudden shift also made clear the dominant position that DSC
held over the eight years of game storytelling that had preceded it. Whether by CBS’ decree or pure
excitement to be able to play in the parts of the TV world currently most valued, Cryptic adapted its
complex storytelling project to the contours of this more powerful node in the franchise.
Notably, as DSC geared up for production, CBS and Paramount retreated from their more per-
missive stance regarding fan series. In 2016, these studios intervened when a fan production called
Prelude to Axanar generated over $1 million in crowdfunding support to make a Star Trek film starring
professional actors (including many Star Trek veterans). The 2017 settlement included a new set of
guidelines to regulate fan production and prohibit professional quality derivative works that could
compete with official productions (Gardner 2017). With more Star Trek television content on the
way, rightsholders had increased interest in managing derivative works than they did when profes-
sional production was on hiatus. While the management of fan work is not identical to licensing
practice (see Chapter 36), both regulate marginal forms of production; in both cases, the field of pos-
sibility narrowed (albeit in different ways) as new television production got underway.
Cryptic’s shifting but always subordinate position in the franchise was also well illustrated through
its relationship to Picard, the second CBS series in this resurgence of television production (see
Chapter 8). Like STO, PIC advanced the television continuity by decades (to 2399 instead of 2409) in
order to revisit the world of the franchise. Unlike the initial game, however, PIC embraced legacy
characters. While viewers learn that Picard (Patrick Stewart) has fallen on difficult times, they also
reconnect with former Borg drone Seven of Nine from VOY. She too has experienced heartbreak,
and in the process became more human, replacing her cold, robotic mannerisms with a sarcastic,
heavy-drinking, world-weary attitude. In other words, to revisit the character for 2399, the televi-
sion producers transformed her in significant ways. In her prior STO appearance, however, Seven of
Nine did not reflect any of these changes in characterization. She appears in her catsuit and speaks
in the same tone she did on VOY. Obviously, the game producers could not have foreseen this retro-
active continuity error; but the dynamics of deference also would not have allowed licensed game
developers to imagine that kind of change on their own initiative. Instead, once finally able to make
use of the character years into the development of the game, the developers had worked to represent
Seven in a familiar way. Having initially explained her absence in the game because of a decision to
sever ties with Starfleet, “Delta Rising” had reinstalled Seven in her science advisor role from VOY.
Just as with Martok, Quark, Kira, and many others, Cryptic deferred to prior uses of legacy characters
when it re-introduced Seven. The fact that the producers of PIC would ignore the game’s portrayal
of a future Seven of Nine to pursue their own reinterpretation only confirms the creative power
imbalance between these two nodes in the franchise.
The subsequent STO appearance of Seven in 2020 thus prioritized consistency with the future
continuity newly offered by PIC over its own internal game continuity. For the game’s tenth anni-
versary celebration content, she reappears. Suddenly, though, the game version of Seven has taken on
the countenance of the character as she appears in PIC—complete with jacket and quippy dialogue.
She is incongruous with the way that game had previously presented her; the game developers thus
show ultimate deference by reversing course on their own prior characterizations and aligning with
the new creative vision of television producers. Seven and other television resources once seemed
discarded, fair game for deferential licensed creators. With television producers reinvested in these
legacy characters, however, Cryptic altered its use of them to maintain a position of deference.
The case of STO reveals that, while deferential, licensed producers’ creative strategies are not
static. Instead, they shift dynamically over time in response to the reorganization of power in other
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franchise sectors. In the case of Star Trek, specifically, STO shows how creative power in the franchise
has bounced between film, television, and their managerial regimes in those industries. Comparable
power continues to be denied to licensed producers like Cryptic, but even so Cryptic exercises
power on the margins to develop dynamic strategies for using its license while maintaining a def-
erential position in the industry hierarchies of media franchising. This dynamism suggests that the
degree of power afforded producers in different industrial positions can change. It is not written in
stone that licensed producers must remain deferential, particularly if industry hierarchies transform
to allow other possibilities. In fact, the production of DSC and PIC demonstrate the potential for
licensed creators to occupy new positions in media franchise management. After establishing herself
as a licensed Star Trek novelist, Kirsten Beyer became a story editor on DSC and then co-created
PIC, using her experience to coordinate the work of licensed creators working in novels and comics
(Martinelli 2017)—a distinct shift from writers like Ronald D. Moore who in the 1990s claimed to
have no knowledge of what happened in licensing (Johnson 2013, 144). The gulf between licensed
creators and television producers can be crossed, and the structural need for deference can be lessened.
Still, it remains to be seen whether licensed PIC novels like The Last Best Hope (McCormack 2020)
will be treated as more “official” than any other licensed works have, when television and film produ-
cers pursue their apparent mandate to diverge and be different. Overall, what makes Star Trek a fran-
chise in the industrial sense—which is distinct from considering it a universe in the textual sense—is
this interplay between difference and deference as multiple creators make use of and contribute to it
from a number of distinct and unequal positions of authority and power.
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25
NOVELS
This chapter introduces Star Trek novels and argues that they constitute a vast archive that should
interest scholars of franchises, transmedia cultural production, and the two publishing genres most
commonly associated with those industrial forms, science fiction and fantasy. We take a histor-
ical approach that puts Star Trek novels in the context of the larger franchise and offers a simple
periodization, tracking changes in publishing companies and responses to new developments
in the series, films, and IP holders’ direction for the franchise. Since 1968, hundreds of authors
have written more than 800 novels set in the Star Trek storyworld. Most of these novels are ori-
ginal stories, rather than novelizations, meaning that Star Trek novels vastly outweigh all other
media—including television—in the number of stories told about and set in the franchise’s fic-
tional universe; yet novels have gone virtually unnoticed in studies of Star Trek except as a marker
of the franchise’s sprawling transmedia ecosystem (see Chapter 23). Among fans, too, the novels
are typically assigned a lesser status despite their longevity; with marked exceptions, an event
that happens only in the novels is treated by Star Trek fans and creators alike as if it had never
happened at all.
There are two kinds of Star Trek novels: (1) novelizations—adaptations of an episode or film
into a prose narrative, often with extensions to or deviations from the origin text; and (2) franchise
novels (sometimes called “spin-offs”), original prose narratives using licensed Star Trek IP. Both
are referred to in the publishing and visual media industries as “media tie-in” novels. We refer to
these types of non-televisual, non-film works—together with short stories, story collections, and
comics—as “franchise fiction” to describe a largely print-mediated ecosystem of licensed story-
telling that traverses the media industries and is often considered ancillary to the main driver of
capital for a given franchise (see Chapter 24). Despite their secondary status, however, franchise
fictions, and especially novels, have operated as an imaginative space for fans to collectively work
out the implications of concepts from televisual Star Trek, as well as to identify and attempt
to resolve apparent contradictions in the character portraits, fictional history, and philosophical
themes of the series. Franchise fiction also helps generate loyalty, popularity, and revenue. It is not
surprising, then, that franchise novels have played a key role in the media industries for a century
(Scolari et al. 2014).
The near-constant publication of Star Trek novels since 1968 has ensured that beloved characters
remained alive in-between episodes, seasons, and shows, keeping fans emotionally and monetarily
invested in the franchise. At the same time, Star Trek novels provided a (meager) living for writers
and expanded the franchise’s worth for its IP holders. While this situation is not unique—consider
the stacks of aging Star Wars, Doctor Who, or Warhammer mass-market paperbacks at most second-
hand shops, or, for a different scene, the New York Times’s profile of “peak TV” franchise novels (Alter
2015)—no franchise has produced more franchise fiction, nor produced it more consistently, than
Star Trek.
176 DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917-29

Novels
Prestige Economies
Franchise fiction exists within an economy of prestige. Many writers since the 1980s, especially in the
science fiction and fantasy genres, have seen franchise fiction as the lowest of the low: poorly written,
stock-plot, for-hire work done with (supposedly) little to no say in story, character, or world devel-
opment. Yet the early decades of Star Trek novels saw a number of well-known, award-winning, and
highly respected writers take the reins of Paramount’s leading sf license, including Mack Reynolds,
James Blish, Joe Haldeman, David Gerrold, Vonda McIntyre, and Greg Bear. But, by the 1990s, the
writing of Star Trek novels was done almost entirely by writers who only (or mostly) wrote fran-
chise fiction. While earlier decades made it possible for writers to take on occasional for-hire work
as comparatively lucrative side gigs to their “serious” writing, the expanding competitive field of
professional sf publishing from the 1970s onward shut out less well-known, less talented, and/or less
well-connected writers. At the same time, readers were hungrier than ever for new Star Trek novels.
This was driven by the simultaneous airing of three different Star Trek series during 1994/1995 and
two a year for the following half-decade. Thus, a stable of writers, many trained as scriptwriters and
familiar with the film and television industries, took on the brunt of franchise novel writing. Still,
contemporary writers like Steven Barnes, Kij Johnson, Dafydd ab Hugh, Greg Cox, David Mack, and
others have made successful careers across both traditional sf and franchise publishing.
Because Star Trek is well known among fans for its politics, it is worth noting that authors
often put their novels to political use. Of course, Star Trek novels are as versatile in their political
expressions as individual episodes of the series (and films). Thus, it cannot be said that they exhibit
any particular politics—and indeed in many cases their politics are at odds not only with each other,
but also with the series on which they were based. David Mack, for example, utilized his Destiny
trilogy (2008) to critique Bush-era wars in the Middle East; leaning in a different direction, Greg
Cox’s The Eugenics Wars:The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh (2001) presents a shockingly sympa-
thetic portrait of the TOS villain, recontextualizing him as the victim of a sinister global conspiracy
rather than a monstrous dictator.
Speaking generally, however, a core component of the novels is their complication of the rela-
tively flattened Roddenberryian utopian politics of the franchise, which generally insists on liberal
humanist optimism that imagines humanity having evolved ultimately beyond war, cruelty, and greed
(see Chapter 60). While a number of film and television productions, namely DS9 and ENT, also
put this ethos to severe test, the novels have always been a space where Roddenberry’s boundless
optimism could come under direct challenge. Consider as one example of this phenomenon the
treatment of Ralph Offenhouse (Peter Mark Richman), a twentieth- century human financier
rescued from cryostasis by Picard (Patrick Stewart) in “The Neutral Zone” (TNG 1.26, 1988), who is
appalled by the absence of capitalism in the future. In the episode, Offenhouse is the unenlightened
stooge who learns better by the closing credits; but in novels such as W.R. Thompson’s Debtors’ Planet
(1994), Mack’s Mere Mortals (2008), Keith R.A. DeCandido’s A Singular Destiny (2009), and Mack’s
Collateral Damage (2019), he returns repeatedly as Picard’s ally. He proves incredibly useful, despite
his retrograde ideas and his lack of social capital, ultimately becoming the Federation Secretary of
Commerce and retaining the post under multiple presidential administrations. This multi-author,
multi-decade reworking of what was originally intended as a one-off minor character suggests those
greedy twentieth-century humans may have been on to something after all—or, alternatively, that the
government of the Federation is deeply gullible.
Beyond consideration of the labor market and working conditions for franchise fiction authors
and the political malleability of storylines that such conditions allow, the quasi-theological question
of “canonicity” presents a considerable problem for Star Trek novels (Kotsko 2016). There is simply
too much material produced across too many decades by too many different production teams in
too many divergent media environments for it to be truly commensurate with each other in a single,
unitary whole. As with other transmedia franchise fictions, Star Trek fans have generally adopted a
177
hierarchy roughly commensurate with the profitability and public profile of different elements of the
Star Trek license, with film and television (“alpha canon”) retaining primacy over all other forms
of Star Trek production (“beta canon”) (Canavan 2017). This heuristic allows an immediate way to
resolve apparent contradictions in narrative continuity, with all alpha canon outranking all beta canon.
As Star Trek novels developed a mass beyond the ability of any but the most devoted fans
to consume it all, a sort of “core” of key influential works emerged. We identify some of those
major landmarks below, dividing our history into four distinct eras in the publishing of Star Trek
novels: the first, 1968–79, when Bantam was publisher; the second, 1979–2005, when Pocket
Books took over until the end of ENT; the third, 2005–17, between ENT and the start of DSC;
and the fourth, from 2017 to the present, beginning with the TV relaunch of Star Trek on CBS
All Access.
Bantam-Era Star Trek Novels, 1968–79

As with many other corporate-owned television properties in the 1960s, Star Trek was put to print
soon after its premiere. Paramount licensed one juvenile novel, several story-length adaptations
of TOS’s episodes, and an adult novel while TOS was airing—but it was not until the growth of
Star Trek fan culture, especially around conventions (see Chapter 35), that Star Trek novels were
published with any regularity.
Early Star Trek fiction was written by two well-known sf authors, Mack Reynolds and James
Blish, and were consequently also the beginning of the beta canon. Reynold’s juvenile novel Mission
to Horatius (1968) appeared at the end of TOS’s run with a typical plot about exploring an alien
planet—only its inhabitants are just like Native Americans. Blish wrote short-story adaptations of
aired episodes, typically based on script drafts rather than finished episodes, released in eleven volumes
(1967–75). He also authored the first original Star Trek novel for adults, Spock Must Die! (1970), a
thriller in which a “tachyon copy” of Spock is created and chaos ensues when the crew cannot tell
the Spocks apart.
These were the only officially licensed Star Trek prose narratives in the first decade following
TOS’s premiere, but with the explosion of fan fiction, fanzines, and conventions devoted to the show
(see Chapter 33), the late 1970s saw a surge in Star Trek novel publishing that never abated. Bantam
published the first line of Star Trek tie-in novels (edited by Frederik Pohl) from 1976–81, beginning
with Spock, Messiah! and including such well-known sf names as Haldeman, Gerrold, and Gordon
Eklund, before the license for Star Trek novels passed to Pocket Books in 1979.
Little effort was made by Bantam (and later Pocket Books) to ensure the novels were mutually
compatible with TOS, much less with each other. Indeed, the novels frequently contradict each other,
especially when separated by more than a few years; moreover, relatively little from the “beta canon”
novels has made it into “alpha canon.” The relative lack of oversight by Paramount allowed franchise
fiction writers to operate in the Star Trek sandbox with relative freedom, so that while some would
attempt to stick to the personality and inclinations of well-known characters, others utterly changed
the tone of the franchise. Haldeman’s Planet of Judgment (1977), for example, features an abusive Kirk,
an emotionally unstable Spock, a female crewmember haunted by an abortion, and casts Bones as a
recovering alcoholic. Much of this is antithetical to and tonally darker than TOS, but demonstrates
the capacity of franchise fiction, like fan fiction, to critique through reimagination.
In keeping with the episodic nature of TOS, the Bantam novels typically described self-contained
missions to particular planets: the crew visits, solves a problem, and leaves. Major changes to the
characters and settings were rare; events depicted in the novels would have few or no long-term
consequences. Even here, of course, one finds exceptions: at the end of Spock Must Die!, for instance,
the Klingons are confined to their homeworld without spaceflight for a thousand years by powerful
aliens as punishment for their imperial transgressions—a seismic development quite obviously not
178
Novels
honored in later works. Occasionally, a franchise novel would be followed up with a sequel, as with
Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath’s The Price of the Phoenix (1977) and The Fate of the Phoenix
(1979), creating small enclaves of writer-specific continuity within the larger confusion of storylines.
In the main, however, Bantam novels were produced so as to avoid significantly altering the terms
of the larger series, characteristically resetting back to the status quo ante at the conclusion of each
story as the Enterprise flew off toward its next adventure.
The Pocket Books Era, 1979–2005

This ethos shifted at Pocket Books, which began to develop a loose internal continuity independ-
ently of reference to the series in the 1980s and 1990s. By this point, Star Trek had been revived as a
media property, first in the TOS film series and then in TNG; the presence of ongoing alpha canon
stories required more attention to brand management. One solution pioneered by Pocket Books
was to create separate numbered series of novels based on which crew they were about, effectively
duplicating the TV series structures and cultivating series-level storylines and audiences. Pocket
Books published 97 TOS novels, 63 TNG novels, 27 DS9 novels, and 21 VOY novels between
1979 and 2005. Pocket Books interspersed the series novels with crossover book series featuring
multiple crews and several non-series-based books, the most popular and longest-running being
Peter David’s New Frontier (24 novels; 1997–2015) about the Federation’s mission to a politically
destabilized region, and Corps of Engineers (66 novellas; 2000–06) about the engineering crew of the
da Vinci.
A fan named Richard Arnold, who passed away in early 2021, was hired by Roddenberry
after TVH to serve as “archivist” for the franchise, a job which included vetting tie-in materials.
Arnold’s approach to this work proved extremely unpopular among fans, tie-in writers, and licensed
merchandisers alike; he was widely perceived as issuing arbitrary and contradictory decrees, and
was let go by Paramount very shortly after Roddenberry’s death in October 1991 (Lovett 2021).
Arnold’s power was by no means absolute; a number of novels including Q-in-Law (David 1991b)
and Vendetta (David 1991a), about the Borg, were published over his objections, the latter with a
disclaimer marking it as officially non-canon due to its depiction of a female Borg drone (a concept
Arnold deemed impossible, five years prior to FCT and six before the introduction of Seven of Nine
[Jeri Ryan]). Regardless, the presence of a “continuity cop” understood to have Roddenberry’s ear
did help create increased consistency across the line during the early Pocket Books period (for better
and for worse).
The first Pocket Books novel, The Entropy Effect (1981) by Vonda McIntyre, remains a fan favorite.
A time travel romp that (briefly) kills Kirk, the novel also sees Sulu receive both a promotion and
a first name (Hikaru, which became “alpha canon” in TUC). Fifteen years later, the story of Sulu’s
relationship with his daughter would be fleshed out in Peter David’s memorable but underselling
The Captain’s Daughter (David 1995), after her onscreen appearance in GEN. Uhura, too, received her
first name, Nyota (Kiswahili for “star”), introduced in William Rotsler’s Star Trek II Biographies (1982)
and reused in Uhura-focused novels like Janet Kagan’s Uhura’s Song (1985). The name was widely
adopted by fans, authors, and by Nichelle Nichols herself, but not canonized until ST09.
Other major decisions by Pocket Books authors strongly informed film and television produc-
tion, becoming at least partially canon. These include the chaotic, pre-logic ancient history of the
Vulcans—explored most notably in ENT—that was developed by Diane Duane in Spock’s World
(1989), the prototype for the Klingon language in John M. Ford’s The Final Reflection (1984) and
the famously comedic How Much for Just the Planet? (1987), and the Troi/Riker romance on Betazed
depicted in Peter David’s Imzadi (1992). Still others—like Spock’s discovery that he fathered a child
in TOS episode “All Our Yesterdays” (TOS 3.23, 1969), depicted in Ann C. Crispin’s Yesterday’s Son
(1983) and Time for Yesterday (1988), or the four-book Lost Years novels (Dillard 1989; Dillard 1995)
detailing the gap between TOS and TMP—inspired multiple novel sequels.
179
Particular authors became mainstays of the Pocket Books line, writing both official sequels to their
own work as well as including references to other novels as background detail. Diane Duane was an
especially prolific and popular Star Trek author in the 1980s and 1990s, perhaps best remembered
for Dark Mirror (1993), a TNG Mirror Universe novel. Duane’s My Enemy, My Ally (1984), a tale of
Romulan political intrigue, similarly remains quite popular. The well-regarded Federation by Judith
and Garfield Reeves-Stevens (1994), also remixes elements of TOS and TNG, telling one story of the
founding of the Federation (a popular subject for tie-in novels) by way of the Guardian of Forever
and Zefram Cochrane (both tantalizing elements of the television series that have likewise often been
followed up on in the novels, often in contradictory and/or apocryphal ways). Reeves-Stevens’s Prime
Directive (Reeves-Stevens and Reeve-Stevens 1990) even saw the TOS crew disgraced and disbanded
after breaking Starfleet’s top rule one too many times; by the end, of course, it all works out. Julia
Ecklar’s inventive The Kobayashi Maru (1989) takes the popular thought experiment from WOK and
imagines how Sulu, Chekhov, and Scotty might have each tackled the problem—a story premise
often revisited by later authors, e.g. and Michael A. Martin and Andy Mangels’ Kobayashi Maru (2008),
which uses the ENT crew.
By 1995, Pocket Books’s beta canon was sufficiently rigorous to incorporate non- series
novels and alternate histories; William Shatner’s “Shatnerverse” novels, for example, imagined a
Star Trek parallel universe in which Kirk is resurrected following his death in GEN. Series set in
marginal locations at the fringes of existing continuity proved popular following the launch of
Peter David’s 1997 New Frontier series. Among them were Stargazer (6 novels; 2002–2004), about
young Picard’s first captaincy; Vanguard (7 novels; 2005–2012), set on a space station during TOS;
Section 31 (6 novels; 2001–2017), about the Federation’s black-ops intelligence organization; New
Earth (6 novels; all 2000), about a massive Federation colonial expedition to a new planet; and per-
haps most notably Department of Temporal Investigations (5 novels; 2011–present), which attempts
the impossible task of rationalizing every Star Trek time travel story ever filmed into a single,
coherent system. TNG’s Q, too, proved rich fodder for novelistic attempts to make sense of the
various presentations of his powers and motivations, with frequent revisitations from the comedic
(David’s 1991b Q-in-Law) to the cosmically menacing (David’s 1994 Q-Squared) to the unexpect-
edly benign (Greg Cox’s 2003 Q Continuum novel) to the autobiographical (I, Q, co-authored by
Q actor John de Lancie and Peter David 1999) and even a cross-over with TOS (the Spock vs. Q
audioplay performed by John de Lancie and Leonard Nimoy; Fannon 1999). As the involvement
of John de Lancie demonstrates, actors were occasionally involved in franchise fiction production,
especially as narrators of audiobooks.
In addition to stories focused on one or more of the film and television crews, novels in the
Pocket Books canon frequently centered on a single character, fleshing out their backstory in detail
the episodic series never could. Novels in this mode include Jeri Taylor’s Mosaic (1996), about Captain
Janeway; The Lives of Dax (Palmieri 1999), a short story anthology about the previous incarnations
of the Dax symbiont; and Andrew Robinson’s A Stitch in Time (2000), a biographical story about
Garak, based on the acting diary Robinson used to develop the character on screen. Pocket con-
tinues to publish books in this mode to this day, now often in the form of a purported first-person
autobiography of a major character like Kirk (Goodman 2015), Picard (Goodman 2017), Janeway
(McCormack 2020), or Spock (McCormack 2021). As the television cycle of the 1980s and 1990s
came to an end in the early 2000s, however, the Pocket Books line more importantly became a place
where the adventures depicted in the series could continue.
Pocket Books and the Post-Series Continuity Era, 2005–17

Following the commercial failure of NEM and the cancelation of ENT in 2005, Pocket Books
became the centerpiece of new Star Trek production. Freed from the constraints of accommodating
ongoing stories in visual media whose twists and turns could not be anticipated by work-for-hire
180
Novels
authors divorced from the larger production apparatus (see Chapter 24), Star Trek novels were now
able to make radical changes to the storyworld status quo. Many of these changes were made by a
new stable of Star Trek authors brought to the franchise by editor Marco Palmieri in the late 2000s.
David Mack, for example, permanently eliminated the Borg in his Destiny trilogy (Mack 2008a) and,
in the multi-authored Typhon Pact series (8 novels; 2010–12), Mack, Michael A. Martin, David Ward,
Una McCormack, and others established a new galactic Cold War featuring an eponymous NATO-
like alliance between the Federation, Klingons, and Cardassians. Later Pocket Books novels treated the
Pact as the new status quo for the franchise.
The post-ENT “freedom” to explore characters’ stories led authors to grow and change characters
in ways that episodic television production did not allow. Characters that survive the tumultuous
galactic events of the late Pocket Books period are promoted or transferred, get married or divorced,
retire or die, or otherwise move to new places in life often quite different from the stability patterned
by the seven-year television seasons. To many fans, the novels of this era also had the opportunity
to correct perceived issues in the plotting of the series as aired; the multi-authored Titan series (10
novels; 2005–17), for example, redresses the oddity that Riker, one of Starfleet’s most talented officers,
never held a captaincy during the lengthy course of TNG, while Christie Golden’s Homecoming
(2003) gave the VOY crew the planetside denouement it never had on television.
A particularly telling example of this tendency in the novels is the ENT continuation novels
starting in 2006. While ENT had proved particularly unpopular among fans (see Chapter 6), setting
the series at the beginning of the Federation held promise. The final season of the series was building
up to the establishment of the Federation, but showrunners inexplicably turned the finale into a
holodeck story about Riker set during a TNG episode (“The Pegasus” [TNG 7.12, 1994]). Pocket
Books “relaunched” ENT in novel form with three novels that explored how increasing interplan-
etary conflict with the Romulans led to difficult moral decisions for Archer and crew. These were
followed with a Romulan War duology (2009, 2011) that resurrected Trip Tucker as a Section 31 spy
and the Rise of the Federation series (2013–17) that detailed the galactic politics of the early Federation
and the election of Archer as president. While serving a niche audience of ENT fans, these novels
successfully rejuvenated a TV series many felt was handled poorly.
Between 2005 and the launch of a new era with DSC, the retroactive building of a Pocket Books
canon—or perhaps more accurately a rebranding—gave the appearance of a unified Star Trek line,
though contradictions such as Star Trek Online, which imagines a competing post-NEM timeline (see
Chapter 24), still frequently appear. In any event, the dominant attitude in Star Trek fandom, however,
asserts that spin-off material never “counts” as canon.
Star Trek Novels after DSC, 2017–

The revival of Star Trek on CBS All Access has inaugurated an intriguing new era in the production
of Star Trek novels on at least two fronts. First, the DSC and PIC novels have been produced with
much more attention to canonicity than earlier Star Trek novels; authors have worked with series
showrunners to develop storylines and even been granted access to show bibles and scripts in advance
of series premieres. While this process has proved irregular in practice—DSC novels were still in
contradiction with the series by the time of their publication—it speaks to a new commitment to
brand consistency across the franchise. The first DSC novel, Desperate Hours (Mack 2017), set during
Lt. Burnham’s time on the Shenzhou, was available one week after the DSC premiere in September
2017; as of 2021, six more novels have since been published, each tackling some element of DSC’s
backstory, usually focused on a major character’s pre-show adventures. The first PIC novel, The Last
Best Hope (McCormack 2020), similarly appeared shortly after PIC’s premiere and focused on Picard’s
last mission as a Starfleet admiral 14 years prior to “Remembrance” (PIC 1.1, 2020).
Second, the DSC/PIC era has seen unusual movement in creative authority from the novels back
to the television production. Kirsten Beyer, author of multiple late-era Pocket Books VOY novels, was
181
hired as a staff writer on DSC before becoming co-creator of PIC; instrumental in persuading Patrick
Stewart to do the show, Beyer is also credited with major storyline decisions like bringing back Seven
of Nine (Honorof 2019; Britt 2020). Beyer’s movement from tie-in novelist to Star Trek showrunner
is unique, but it registers the increasing importance of ancillary and fan-consumed material in the
larger cultural landscape.
At the same time, the reinvigoration of Star Trek on television has rendered the Pocket Books
continuity entirely incompatible with the so-called “Prime Universe” in ways that have proved insur-
mountable. Rather than simply relegate the books to the status of Star Trek “Legends”—as happened
to the similarly long-running Star Wars Expanded Universe when the franchise was purchased and
rebooted by Disney in the 2010s—the Pocket Books timeline was instead given a formal heroic
sendoff in the form of the “Coda” trilogy (Dayton Ward’s Moments Asunder, James Swallow’s The Ashes
of Tomorrow, and David Mack’s Oblivion’s Gate, all published between September and November in
2021). In an epic story uniting all eras of Star Trek, with a particular focus on the TNG and DS9
characters, the novelverse characters discover that they inhabit a “splinter” timeline whose ongoing
existence now threatens the entire multiverse—and, in the end, they must choose to remove them-
selves from existence entirely, so that the rest of Star Trek might live. An epilogue depicts Benny
Russell at work on a new series of novels set in his Benjamin Sisko storyworld, crafting the first sen-
tence of The Last Best Hope—cementing the new book line as the core of Star Trek novels for the
foreseeable future.
With more than 800 novels published over half-a-century, and more always on the way, Star Trek
novels are an important and untapped resource for scholars of literature, (trans)media, science fiction,
and Star Trek itself. Any of the novels and authors mentioned here are as readily open to the sort
of in-depth, at-length critical writing regularly leveled at individual Star Trek episodes or films.
Moreover, there are a number of important franchise edge-cases that bear similarities to franchise
fictions and novelizations; these include non-fiction technical manuals, histories, and travel guides to
the Star Trek storyworld (see Chapter 27); fan-written short story collections, like The New Voyages (2
books; 1976, 1978) and Strange New Worlds (11 books; 1998–2016), that blur the boundary between
fan fiction and franchise fiction; and unlicensed, parodic pseudo-tie-ins, like John Scalzi’s Redshirts
(2012) or Kevin David Anderson and Sam Stall’s Night of the Living Trekkies (2010). Despite their sec-
ondary, “beta” reputation, such materials offer some of Star Trek’s most fascinating and generative
ruminations on the series’s longevity, its philosophical and political implications, and its future as a
transmedia franchise.
References
Alter, Alexandra. 2015. “Popular TV Series and Movies Retain Relevance as Novels.” The New York Times,
January 4, 2015. Available at: www.nytimes.com/2015/01/05/business/media/popular-tv-series-and-
movies-maintain-relevance-as-novels.html.
Britt, Ryan. 2020. “How Star Trek’s Canon Expert Helps Picard Revive Characters and Find the Future.”
SyFy Wire, January 22, 2020. Available at: www.syfy.com/syfywire/how-star-treks-canon-expert-helps-
picard-revive-characters-and-find-the-future.
Canavan, Gerry. 2017. “Hokey Religions: Star Wars and Star Trek in the Age of Reboots.” Extrapolation 58, no.
2–3: 153–180.
Honorof, Marshall. 2019. “Patrick Stewart Almost Turned Down ‘Star Trek: Picard’.” Space.com, October 7,
2019. Available at: www.space.com/star-trek-picard-patrick-stewart-nycc.html.
Kotsko, Adam. 2016. “The Inertia of Tradition in Star Trek: Case Studies in Neglected Corners of the ‘Canon’.”
Science Fiction Film and Television 6, no. 3 (Winter): 347–370.
Lovett, Jamie. 2021. “Star Trek Archivist Richard Arnold Dies at 66.” Comicbook.com, January 26, 2021. Available
at: https://comicbook.com/startrek/news/star-trek-archivist-r ichard-arnold-dead-66/.
Scolari, Carlos, Paolo Bertetti, and Matthew Freeman. 2014. Transmedia Archaeology: Storytelling in the Borderlines
of Science Fiction, Comics, and Pulp Magazines. New York: Palgrave.
182
Novels
Star Trek Episodes
The Original Series
3.23 “All Our Yesterdays” 1969.
The Next Generation
1.26 “The Neutral Zone” 1988.

7.12 “The Pegasus” 1994.
Picard
Star Trek Novels
Blish, James. 1970. Spock Must Die! New York: Bantam Books.
Cox, Greg. 2001. The Eugenics Wars: The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh. New York: Pocket Books.
Cox, Greg. 2003. The Q Continuum. New York: Pocket Books.
Crispin. Ann C. 1983. Yesterday’s Son. New York: Pocket Books.
Crispin, Ann C. 1988. Time for Yesterday. New York: Pocket Books
David, Peter. 1991a. Vendetta. New York: Pocket Books.
David, Peter. 1991b. Q-in-Law. New York: Pocket Books.
David, Peter. 1992. Imzadi. New York: Pocket Books.
David, Peter. 1994. Q-Squared. New York: Pocket Books.
David, Peter. 1995. The Captain’s Daughter. New York: Pocket Books.
de Lancie, John, and Peter David. 1999. I, Q. New York: Pocket Books.
DeCandido, Keith R.A. 2009. A Singular Destiny. New York: Pocket Books.
Dillard, J.M. 1989. The Lost Years. New York: Pocket Books.
Dillard, J.M. 1995. Recovery. New York: Pocket Books.
Duane, Diane. 1984. My Enemy, My Ally. New York: Pocket Books.
Duane, Diane. 1989. Spock’s World. New York: Pocket Books.
Duane, Diane. 1993. Dark Mirror. New York: Pocket Books
Ecklar, Julia. 1989. The Kobayashi Maru. New York: Pocket Books.
Fannon, Cecelia. 1999. Spock vs. Q. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Ford, John M. 1984. The Final Reflection. New York: Pocket Books.
Ford, John M. 1987. How Much for Just the Planet? New York: Pocket Books.
Golden, Christie. 2003. Homecoming. New York: Pocket Books.
Goodman, David A. 2015. The Autobiography of James T. Kirk. New York: Pocket Books.
Goodman, David A. 2017. The Autobiography of Jean-Luc Picard. New York: Pocket Books.
Haldeman, Joe. 1977. Planet of Judgment. New York: Bantam Books.
Kagan, Janet. 1985. Uhura’s Song. New York: Pocket Books.
Mack, David. 2008a. Star Trek: Destiny. New York: Pocket Books.
Mack, David. 2008b. Mere Mortals. New York: Pocket Books.
Mack, David. 2017. Desperate Hours. New York: Gallery Books.
Mack, David. 2019. Collateral Damage. New York: Gallery Books.
Mack, David. 2021. Oblivion’s Gate. New York: Gallery Books.
Marshak, Sondra and Myrna Culbreath. 1977. The Price of the Phoenix. New York: Bantam Books.
Marshak, Sondra and Myrna Culbreath. 1979. The Fate of the Phoenix. New York: Bantam Books.
Martin, Michael A., and Andy Mangels. 2008. Kobayashi Maru. New York: Pocket Books.
McCormack, Una. 2020. The Last Best Hope. New York: Gallery Books.
McCormack, Una. 2020. The Autobiography of Kathryn Janeway. New York: Pocket Books.
McCormack, Una. 2021. The Autobiography of Mr. Spock. New York: Pocket Books.
McIntyre, Vonda. 1981. The Entropy Effect. New York: Pocket Books.
Palmieri, Marco. Ed. 1999. The Lives of Dax. New York: Pocket Books.
Reeves-Stevens, Judith, and Garfield Reeves-Stevens. 1990. Prime Directive. New York: Pocket Books.
183
Reeves-Stevens, Judith, and Garfield Reeves-Stevens. 1994. Federation. New York: Pocket Books.
Reynolds, Mack. 1968. Mission to Horatius. Atlanta: Whitman Publishing.
Robinson, Andrew J. 2000. A Stitch in Time. New York: Pocket Books.
Rotsler, William. 1982. Star Trek II Biographies. New York: Pocket Books.
Scalzi, John. 2012. Redshirts. New York: Tor Books.
Stall, Sam. 2010. Night of the Living Trekkies. Philadelphia: Quirk Books.
Swallow, James. 2021. The Ashes of Tomorrow. New York: Gallery Books.
Taylor, Jeri. 1996. Mosaic. New York: Pocket Books.
Thompson, W.R. 1994. Debtors’ Planet. New York: Pocket Books.
Ward, Dayton. 2021. Moments Asunder. New York: Gallery Books.
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26
COMICS
Gerry Canavan
In a franchise that can be obsessed with “canon” almost to the point of pathology, Star Trek comics
occupy a position close to the very bottom of the authority barrel. The novels eventually developed
their own internal, largely mutually consistent continuity, with the Discovery novels actually being
developed in direct concert with the showrunners (see Chapter 25); the Star Trek Online video game
was (briefly) considered the “official” future history of the post-Voyager storyworld before being
relegated to quasi-canonical status again after the premiere of Picard (see Chapter 24). Even certain
ideas originating in fandom, many of them involving Spock’s heritage and his (apocryphal) status as
the first Vulcan in Starfleet, eventually ascended from “fanon” to quasi-canon or official canon—but
almost nothing from the comics has had a lasting influence on Star Trek. Indeed, the comics them-
selves have tended to reflect this denigrated status. They have made little effort to be mutually con-
sistent with each other, and rarely attempt any significant deviations from the established status quo
of the films and television narrative; instead, the comics have tended to focus on marginal moments
in the larger Star Trek chronology, as well as frequently crafting deliberately non-canonical “what if ”
stories that do not intersect with the main narrative by design. In the contemporary era, this “fill in
the gaps” approach has led the comics to focus largely on posing potential solutions to story problems
suggested elsewhere in the canon, with particular attention to “prelude” and “aftermath” stories that
fill in exposition and resolution left out of the televisual texts. Sequels to famous episodes have proven
especially popular, with certain major concepts (like Q, the Mirror Universe, and the Borg, and the
missing fourth and fifth years of the original five-year mission) recurring in the comics again and
again; as will be discussed ahead, such stories often anticipate plot turns eventually used in the tele-
visual canon.
This chapter will trace the history of Star Trek comics by focusing on landmark issues and story
arcs that have appeared in the medium, beginning with the Gold Key comics in the US and the
newspaper imprint in the United Kingdom (before the series had even aired in that country). The
approach will be a periodization organized primarily on the basis of which comics publisher held
the license for the Star Trek intellectual property at a given time, as the licensing relationship largely
determined what types of stories were produced and sold. This has continued to the present day
with the franchise’s current home at IDW Publishing, which has held the rights to Star Trek comics
since 2006—essentially providing a consistent home for visual Star Trek through the fallow period
that began with the end of ENT through the J.J. Abrams-directed reboot movies to the present
“rebirth” period with DSC, PIC, LWR, and PRO on CBS All Access/Paramount+. It is in this most
recent period that at least some comics have gained a modicum of canonical authority after all,
becoming a more central part of the way Star Trek builds its narrative. While any history necessarily
has its focalization points and its unforgiveable omissions, I strive here to give as complete a picture
as possible of Star Trek comics and their relationship to the larger world of Star Trek production
and reception.
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Before The Wrath of Khan (1967–82)

Star Trek’s first comics incarnation was published by Gold Key Comics beginning in 1967, overlap-
ping with the end of the first season of TOS. The disjuncture between the visuals of the television
series and the visuals of the comics are probably at an all-time high with the Gold Key comics. As
Tony Isabella’s introduction to the IDW reprint edition notes, neither of the principal artists of the
series (Nevio Zeccara and Alberto Giolitti) had seen an episode of the series before beginning their
work on the comic, and drew primarily from production stills (2014, 5); famously, Scotty looks
nothing like James Doohan in the early issues of the comic, as they had no photo of that character,
and Lt. Uhura (played by Nichelle Nichols on television) is frequently depicted as a white woman
well into the 1970s. Other elements of the Gold Key Comics fare little better with regard to visual
consistency; nearly the entire crew is depicted as wearing green uniforms, with only Spock consist-
ently depicted in the blue he actually wore on the series. Nor does the comic quite match the series
thematically; the first issue, for instance, sees the Enterprise completely defoliate a planet from the air,
burning its spores to prevent contamination of other worlds, while the second sees the crew abandon
a colony of prisoners condemned to explosive execution on a doomed asteroid, as it is simply that
culture’s way.
The UK comics, also recently reprinted in an archival edition by IDW, fare little better with
respect to canonical Star Trek. Depicting the untold adventures of the “Universe Star Ship” Enterprise,
the first issue calls Kirk “Captain Kurt.” Within a few weeks the series delivers stories about Kirk
“cast adrift by insane mutineers” while Spock goes “berserk” seeking to avenge his apparent death
(Mullaney 2016, 30–31). Printed before the series had aired in the UK, the comics departed wildly
from the series in plot and tone, as Rich Handley lovingly recounts in his introduction to the
reprint, adding characters (like “helmsman David Bailey”) and scrambling others (“armaments officer
Sulu, and physician ‘Mac’ McCoy”), and generally focusing on screwball plots befitting its intended
juvenile readers (Handley 2016, 5).
This period also saw a number of other attempts to sell Star Trek in the comics: a Los Angeles Times
newspaper strip (1979–83); a photo comics adaptations of TOS episodes with photo stills and word
balloons published by Bantam Books beginning in 1977; and even a brief, low-selling run at Marvel
Comics (1979–1982), intended to promote the never-produced Star Trek: Phase II, which focused
primarily on concepts from The Motion Picture (1979) due to the requirements of their license from
Paramount (see Chapter 10), which did not include TOS (though, in practice, the license was habit-
ually violated). Taken together, these attempts represent something like the prehistory of Star Trek
comics; the best-known, best-remembered, and most influential examples from the medium all post-
date this period.
DC, Malibu, Marvel, and Tokyopop (1983–2002)

Star Trek comics developed the more regularized form they retain today beginning with the DC
license following WOK. A famous early story, the first in the DC run, picks up immediately after
WOK but soon moves the franchise in a very different direction; after Spock is resurrected in The
Search for Spock (1984), the comics version of the crew has another encounter with the Terran
Empire of the Mirror Universe, after which Kirk returns to Earth and is given command of the
Excelsior. When The Voyage Home (1986) followed up SFS with a different story, the comics retro-
fitted themselves to stay consistent, finding an excuse to take away Kirk’s command and return
Spock to the confused post-resurrection state he is in at the end of SFS; the result is a narrative that
has formal continuity with the films at the cost of being essentially bracketed off from permanent
consequences or deviations from the status quo—a pattern that the comics would continue to
follow in subsequent years.
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The DC comics featuring the original crew are also noteworthy for their decision to bring in Arex
and M’Ress from The Animated Series, a relatively rare instance of concepts from that series being
explicitly redeployed by later productions (see Chapter 2). The first volume went to 88 issues; DC’s
run of TOS comics continued in a second volume set after TFF for another 80 issues, ending in 1996.
Some of the best-regarded stories of the era were by Peter David, also well known as a Star Trek nov-
elist (see Chapter 25) alongside his other work for DC and Marvel in the superhero genre. His last
story for DC, “Once a Hero…” (1989) may be his most famous, depicting Captain Kirk’s struggle to
compose a fitting eulogy for a redshirt killed on a recent mission; another famous, similarly somber
turn is “Retrospect” (1987), which, inspired by the Harold Pinter play Betrayal (1978), uses chrono-
logically reversed narration to tell the story of Scotty’s lifelong love affair with his wife, Glynnis, a
character never depicted or even mentioned on-screen. “The Trial of James T. Kirk,” also from 1989,
is another popular standout, anticipating The Undiscovered Country (1991) by putting Kirk on trial in
a Klingon court. Diane Duane also wrote for DC during this period; a popular story arc of hers is
“Double Blind” (1984), a comedic story in which the Enterprise is caught in a war between alien races
that are essentially space grasshoppers and space kittens. Chris Claremont’s “Debt of Honor” (1992)
is also frequently referenced by contemporary fans, in no small part for its complex depiction of the
half-Vulcan, half-Romulan captain T’Cel.
Once TNG premiered, DC also published comics devoted to that crew, though few of those
stories have had the staying power of the TOS Mirror Universe saga; perhaps the most famous is “The
Worst of Both Worlds” (1993), which sees the Enterprise-D visit a parallel timeline in which the Borg
assimilated Earth during “The Best of Both Worlds” two-parter (anticipating the episode “Parallels”
[TNG 7.11, 1993]). During this same period, Malibu Comics held a license to publish Deep Space
Nine comics, which it published from 1993 to 1995, with stories set during the series; a planned VOY
series was scuttled when Marvel regained the license in 1996.
Marvel’s return to the license was once again short-lived; all their Star Trek titles were suddenly
canceled within 18 months due to licensing costs, many of them in the middle of story arcs. The
most famous story of this period is almost certainly the first, a cross-over between TOS and Marvel’s
extremely popular mutant superhero franchise the X-Men; a follow-up with the TNG crew followed
the next year. Another popular series frequently appearing on contemporary best-of lists was Early
Voyages, set before Kirk’s captaincy of the Enterprise and focusing instead on Captain Pike, Spock, and
Number One (a pairing that would prove quite popular on DSC decades later and ultimately lead to
a spinoff starring the trio, Strange New Worlds). The license then returned to DC Comics, this time in
their Wildstorm division, which published miniseries and graphic novels rather than ongoing series;
Wildstorm published with all three TNG-era crews, albeit at different moments in the storyworld,
with the TNG stories taking place between Insurrection and Nemesis, the VOY stories taking place
during the television series itself, and the DS9 stories taking place in the post-series continuity
popularized by the Pocket Books novels. When this license expired in 2002, a long run of continuous
Star Trek comics production ended, with only a brief run by the manga publisher Tokyopop, telling
English-language Star Trek stories in the Japanese manga format, keeping Star Trek comics alive.
IDW (2006–the Present)

Star Trek comics’ next high period began with the acquisition of the license by IDW Publishing
in 2006. Prolific from the beginning, IDW published expansions of TOS (like its Year Four series
depicting the adventures of Kirk’s Enterprise after season three of the series, and an “Assignment: Earth”
[TOS 2.26, 1968] spinoff depicting the continuing adventures of Gary Seven), TNG-era adventures,
and even expanding Peter David’s popular “New Frontier” Pocket Books series (1997–2015) to the
comics format. Andrew Steven Harris and Gordon Purcell’s The Last Generation (2008) was a similar
transmedia project, tying into the “Myriad Universe” series of alternate-universe Star Trek narratives
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published in the Pocket Books novels, this one with Picard leading a pro-human resistance in a time-
line in which Klingons conquered Earth.
2009, however, marks the most important dividing line not simply in IDW’s use of the
Star Trek license, but also in the relationship of the comics to the larger franchise. Beginning with
the four issues of Star Trek: Countdown that served as promotion and backstory for the J.J. Abrams’
reboot of the movie franchise, the comics have been much more frequently called into service as
“official” and authoritative transmedia extensions of live action Star Trek (even if their status has
remained only quasi-canonical in practice). The Countdown comics provide a nice illustration of
this tendency; they depict the post-TNG, twenty-fourth-century backstory for Star Trek (2009),
beginning with the catastrophic Hobus supernova that threatens first the Romulan Star Empire
and later the whole of the galaxy, and proceeding through the development by Spock Prime
(Leonard Nimoy) of the Red Matter device and his disappearance into the past. In the process,
the comic follows up on NEM, briefly checking in with Picard (now the Federation’s ambassador
to Vulcan), La Forge (who has quit Starfleet to develop experimental starships like the one Spock
ultimately takes to the past), Worf (now a general in the Klingon Empire), and even, most surpris-
ingly, Data (who has been fully resurrected through his memory imprint in B4 and is now serving
as the captain of the Enterprise-E).
In a sea change for the comics, the story was marketed as a fully canonical part of the film; indeed,
with the premiere of PIC on CBS All Access in 2020, the comic’s story of the Federation’s failed
attempt to evacuate Romulus before its destruction has quite unexpectedly become the foundation
stone for all of PIC-era Star Trek. Still, PIC’s use of the comic backstory also shows how quickly
elements of comic continuity (however official or ostensibly canonical they are marketed) can still
be discarded when they no longer serve the purpose of live action Star Trek; not only does PIC
take the death and non-resurrection of Data as a necessary precursor to the series (literally burying
poor B4 in a drawer), it also depicts the failure of the rescue convoy in stark and discouraging new
terms (originating now in the Federation’s retreat from the mission after a terrorist attack on Mars
by “rogue synths”).
Following ST09, in 2011, the IDW line began publishing an ongoing, again ostensibly canon-
ical series focusing on the exploits of the Abramsverse crew, often bouncing off familiar locations
from TOS; the first story arc, for instance, is a darker and grimmer retelling of the second TOS pilot,
“Where No Man Has Gone Before” (TOS 1.1, 1966), which again results in the death of Ensign
Lee Kelso, while the second story arc retells “The Galileo Seven” (TOS 1.13, 1967). Since there were
no Pocket Books novels for the Kelvin timeline, the comics mark the primary site of transmedia
extension for that part of the franchise. The series went on to adapt “Operation—Annihilate!” (TOS
1.29, 1967), “The Return of the Archons” (TOS 1.22, 1967), “The Trouble with Tribbles” (TOS
2.13, 1967), and “Mirror, Mirror” (TOS 2.10, 1967) for the Abramsverse alongside original stories.
This series continued through another Countdown miniseries and a Khan miniseries serving as back-
story for the second Kelvin timeline movie, Star Trek Into Darkness (2013), and continued through
issue 60 in 2016. The series leaned into its secondary status with more ambitious storytelling in
the later portion of its run, adding an avatar of the Enterprise mainframe to the permanent crew as
Science Officer 0718 and telling multiple parallel universe stories that put the crew in contact in
different ways with the Prime Universe, including a six-part cross-over with Q, set on DS9, that
shows a possible dark future for the Abramsverse Federation. The issue also devoted four issues to
the story of the death of the Prime Universe’s version of Spock within the Abramsverse following
the real-world death of Leonard Nimoy in 2015. After Star Trek Beyond, the series was relaunched as
“Star Trek: Boldly Go,” adding Jaylah to the cast, and ultimately spun her off with her own series in
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy.
With the premiere of DSC, IDW has similarly focused on tie-in comics that expand DSC stories,
as with “The Light of Kahless” (a Klingon-centered narrative giving the backstory of T’Kuvma) and
its Succession and Aftermath series following up on the season one and season two finales (including, in
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the first case, Lt. Airiam improbably ascending to control of the Terran Empire following the escape
of Discovery from the Mirror Universe). It is worth noting here that the DSC comics have remained in
continuity with the series much more closely than the DSC books, despite the initial promise that the
novel line would be written in close consultation with the writers and producers (see Chapter 25).
The use of the comics to resolve plotlines left lingering from the various series, as well as to return
to beloved moments of the franchise, was also on display in Star Trek: Waypoint (2016), an anthology
series telling stories from all moments in Star Trek history. The first issue again resurrects Data, this
time on an Enterprise-E captained by La Forge. The resurrection carries with it an unexpected air
of menace, presaging the PIC-era of Star Trek in a different way—as Data is now able to occupy
multiple bodies simultaneously, there is essentially nothing for the human crew of the ship to do but
watch him work.
While IDW still published fully original stories in this era, like Ghosts (TNG, 2009–10), Fool’s Gold
(DS9, 2009–10), Burden of Knowledge (TOS, 2010), and Captain’s Log (following minor captains like
Sulu, Harriman, Pike, and Jellico, 2010), the comics of this period are increasingly focused on depicting
events often speculated about but never seen on film or TV—like the story of the collapse of Khan’s
colony on Ceti Alpha Five prior to WOK in Khan: Ruling in Hell (2010–11). John Byrne’s madcap
Leonard McCoy, Frontier Doctor (2010–11) fills in yet another gap in series continuity, explaining what
McCoy was doing between the end of the Enterprise’s five-year mission and TMP, following up on
some classic TOS episodes and even Byrne’s own unfinished Gary Seven storylines in the bargain;
Year Five strikes a much more somber tone, somewhat uncharacteristic of the typical Star Trek ethos,
telling the story of the last year of the Enterprise’s original five-year mission, narrated by a mournful
Admiral Kirk who “doesn’t sleep much anymore,” consumed as he is by thoughts of his “arrogance.
My mistakes. Four years of our mission, but it was the fifth that would take everything from us. So
much pain could have been avoided. So many lives…” (Year Five #1, Lanzing et al. 2019, 19). An
encounter between the Enterprise-D crew and the nefarious inhabitants of the Mirror Universe,
a staple of both fan fiction and the tie-in novels, is shown in Mirror Broken (2017) and Through
the Mirror (2018), a story which continues in Terra Incognita (2019) (depicting the Mirror Barclay
replacing his Prime Universe counterpart) and Star Trek Voyager: Mirrors and Smoke (2020), allowing
fans to see a Terran version of Janeway who has declared herself Pirate Queen of the Delta Quadrant.
At the same time, IDW was able to market Star Trek stories that for both copyright and logistical
reasons would have been impossible to air on either television or film, including cross-overs with
Doctor Who and the Cybermen (Assimilation2, 2012), the Legion of Superheroes (2012), the Green
Lantern Corps (2015), the Planet of the Apes (2014–15, titled The Primate Directive, of course), and
Transformers (“[Optimus] Prime’s Directive,” 2018–19). Hive (2013), co-authored by Brannon Braga
to commemorate the 25th anniversary of TNG, is a time-travel story that once again anticipates
PIC by 15 years; it lets Picard share the stage with Seven of Nine in a story focused on the Borg—a
cross-over that would have seemed as impossible to ever film as a Transformers cross-over, until it
actually happened. The Q Conflict (2019) does Hive one better by scrambling the full crews of TOS,
TNG, DS9, and VOY into four teams, pitting them against each other in a competition organized
by superbeings from across the franchise, not only Q, but also the Metrons from “Arena” (TOS 1.19,
1967), Trelane from “The Squire of Gothos” (TOS 1.18, 1967), and the Organian Ayelborne from
“Errand of Mercy” (TOS 1.27, 1967).
The late IDW era explored other new formats for Star Trek comics, including Strange New Worlds
(2013) and Star Trek: New Visions (2013–19), which uses manipulation of photographic stills from
the televised series to tell totally new TOS-era stories written by John Byrne. The most significant
comics publication of the IDW era, though, may well be the 2014 publication of a comics adaptation
of Harlan Ellison’s original script for “The City on the Edge of Forever” (TOS 1.28, 1967), which
gave fans access to the alternative version of the episode for the first time, and in the process shines
new critical light on what may be the most famous episode of Star Trek of all time. In the graphic
novel adaptation, we see a humanity that once enslaved Vulcans, rather than being saved by Vulcans,
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as well as drug addicts and dealers on the Enterprise—but we also see extended consideration and full
characterization given to the homeless man who is killed off by McCoy’s phaser almost as a gag in
the televised episode. Given the importance of “The City on the Edge of Forever” to the franchise,
and to its place in the culture at large—and the opportunity to finally evaluate Ellison’s notoriously
cantankerous complaints about the beloved finished episode—this is one Star Trek comic at least that
is certain to be discussed for many decades to come.
Conclusion: Countdown to PIC

The premiere of Picard in January 2020 coincided with another Countdown miniseries from IDW, this
one fleshing out backstory material prior to the show’s premiere, again with the idea that this infor-
mation is accurate, showrunner-approved, and canonical; the series was co-written by PIC co-creator
Kirsten Beyer (Beyer et al. 2019). The focus is on a mission that is part of Admiral Picard’s work on
the Romulan rescue convoy; along the way, characters are introduced who will star in PIC, including
his former first officer on the Verity, Raffi Musiker (played by Michelle Hurd in the series), as well
as Laris (Orla Brady) and Zhaban (Jamie McShane), the two Romulans working in Picard’s home
at his vineyard in the series. Comics readers are thus rather better equipped to understand elements
of PIC than casual viewers. At the same time, the comics establish narrative and thematic concerns
that may preoccupy comics readers without ever even occurring to the television-only audience;
the comic has several scenes that reveal Geordi La Forge is now heading the shipyards at Utopia
Planitia, for instance, and ends with him still on-site just prior to a surprise attack that killed over
90,000 people—a very precarious position for a fan-favorite character that PIC does not reference or
acknowledge. Indeed, Star Trek: Picard—Countdown #3, released on January 29, 2020, one week after
the PIC premiere, ends with a jubilant Picard telling Geordi “The future is bright, Mr. La Forge.Very
bright indeed” (p. 26)—a comic-book happy ending so wildly at odds with the sourly melancholic
mood of the actual series as to necessarily seem like the result of either miscommunication between
creative teams, significant shifts in the series plan since the comic was first solicited, or a cruel pro-
ducer prank on one of the most dedicated segments of its audience.
This is the paradox of any tie-in material for a long-running televisual franchise, be it in the
comics format or in some other medium; as I have noted elsewhere of the Star Wars and Star Trek
franchises,
The more invested fans became in … fandom, the more secondary and spinoff material they
consumed, the less certain they could be that the knowledge they had about the series was
actually true. Indeed, the most devoted fans, consuming the most obscure and hard-to-find
material, would necessarily encounter less and less authoritative material the deeper into
fandom they went.
(Canavan, 2017, 160)
As with the novels, toys, video games, technical manuals, and fan fiction, Star Trek comics can
serve as a terrific opportunity for readers to imbibe new Star Trek content in a way that can be both
incredibly aesthetically pleasing and unexpectedly quite transformative of a reader’s understanding
of a particular moment in series history or of the franchise as a whole—but that appreciation always
occurs in a deeply provisional way, subject to the later whims of the showrunners and the bound-
aries of established televisual canon, and inevitably quite marginal to the experience of the main-
line fandom (see Chapter 24). Even in an industry that is becoming more and more dedicated to
transmedia extensions by the year, the comics remain an engaging but perpetually demoted form—a
structural limitation that can produce in the comics a sense of unimportance and futility, even ridicu-
lousness, but also at the same time creates the possibility for bold experiments in Star Trek narrative
of a kind that one can find nowhere else in the franchise.
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References
Beyer, Kirsten, Mike Johnson, Angel Hernadez, Joana Lafuente, and Neil Ugetake. 2019. Star Trek: Picard—
Countdown #3. San Diego, CA: IDW Publishing.
Canavan, Gerry. 2017. “Hokey Religions: Star Wars and Star Trek in the Age of Reboots.” Extrapolation
58(2–3): 153–180.
Handley, Rich. 2016. “Wonky, Smashing, and Brilliantly Blighty: When Star Trek Voyaged Across the Pond.” In
Star Trek: The Classic U.K. Comics. The Complete Series: Volume One: 1969–1970. 5–9. San Diego, CA: IDW
Publishing.
Isabella, Tony. 2014. “These Are the Voyages…” Gold Key Archives: Star Trek 1: 5–6. San Diego, CA: IDW
Publishing.
Lanzing, Jackson, Collin Kelly, and Stephen Thompson. 2019. Star Trek: Year Five #1. San Diego: IDW
Publishing.
Mullaney, Dean. 2016. Star Trek: The Classic U.K. Comics. The Complete Series: Volume One: 1969–1970. San
Diego, CA: IDW Publishing.
Star Trek Episodes
The Original Series
1.13. “The Galileo Seven” 1967.
1.18 “The Squire of Gothos” 1967.
1.19 “Arena” 1967.
1.29 “Operation—Annihilate!” 1967.
2.26 “Assignment: Earth” 1968.
The Next Generation

7.11 “Parallels” 1993.
Star Trek Movies
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. 1984. dir. Harve Bennett. Paramount Pictures.
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. 1986. dir Leonard Nimoy. Paramount Pictures.
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27
REFERENCE WORKS AND GUIDES
Ria Narai
A reference work or guide is a text to which people can refer for factual information about a par-
ticular subject, for example, an atlas or encyclopedia. The Star Trek reference works and guides,
therefore, are texts which provide factual information about the Star Trek universe. This is more
complex than it sounds, as Star Trek reference works not only include texts about the produc-
tion of the franchise, but also texts containing “factual information” about the fictional universe.
Consequently, they occupy a liminal space between fiction and non-fiction and raise interesting
questions about how fans engage with Star Trek as both a transmedia storyworld (see Chapter 23)
and a media franchise (see Chapter 24).
These opposing poles provide two broad categories into which these reference texts can be
divided. In-universe texts are those which present “factual information” about the fictional universe
by positioning themselves as reference works which exist as textual objects within the Star Trek
universe. Meanwhile, out-of-universe texts present their reference information in the context of the
real world, treating Star Trek as a media franchise. In practice, there is a blurring of the boundaries
between these categories in many reference texts, reinforced by the awareness of the reader that they
are reading a Star Trek text.
Star Trek’s reference works and guides serve many functions. They fill in the gaps of the narrative
texts, treating everything mentioned on the screen as “trailheads to a larger universe” (Rehak 2016,
330); serve as contextualizing devices which help the viewer orient themselves in the fictional uni-
verse (Jenkins 2006, 116); create a “more complete mental [image]” of the Star Trek storyworld (Wolf
2017, 211) as a world with “a coherent and unerringly comprehensible ‘history’ ” (Geraghty 2007,
35); and keep the world alive in the audience’s imagination (Wolf 2017, 208). As the Star Trek fran-
chise developed over the decades, its reference works and guides also developed into a distinct genre.
Charting this genre’s development provides insight into the ways fans and creators alike engage with
and create the Star Trek universe as both a media franchise and transmedia storyworld.
The Origins of Star Trek Reference Works (1960s–1980s)

While contemporary fans might assume that corporate profits were the motivation for the creation of
the earliest examples of Star Trek reference texts, it was actually the fans themselves who created these
peripheral materials, for their own enjoyment. As Bob Rehak explains, “a crucial role was played by
fans in the 1970s who took it upon themselves to codify and elaborate Star Trek’s world through ref-
erence materials” (2016, 328). The first reference work, The Making of Star Trek (1968) was written
by fan Stephen E. Whitfield after negotiating a deal with Desilu Studios and Roddenberry (Thomas
2013, 12); and the popular Star Trek Concordance (Trimble 1969), an episode guide and encyclopedia
for TOS, was written by fans Dorothy Ann Heydt and Bjo Trimble who first published it on an offset
press in the Trimbles’ basement (Trimble 2011).
192 DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917-31

Reference Works and Guides
The reference works in the years following the cancellation of TOS were also created by fans—
although in the case of Franz Joseph, it was his daughter and her friends who were the fans that
drove his creation of the Star Trek Blueprints and Star Fleet Technical Manual in the early 1970s (Joseph
1975a; 1975b). An aerospace design engineer by training, Joseph’s blueprints were so popular with
fans that he was contacted by Paramount in 1975 so that a deal could be made with Ballantine Books
to publish them. They were so well received that the initial 50,000 copy print run sold out in two
hours (Joseph and Newitt 1982). Joseph’s reference works were not only enjoyed by countless fans,
but also inspired the creation of further reference texts. Lora Johnson, author of Mr. Scott’s Guide to
the Enterprise (Johnson 1986) specifically cites Joseph as an inspiration: “He gave the Trek universe
an underlying technical reality it had never had before, and made it seem REAL” (Johnson and Tyler
2001). The creation of the illusion of reality is one of the fundamental functions of the reference
text genre and is cited by fans and academics alike as an essential part of Star Trek’s appeal (Geraghty
2007, 37; Robinson 2010; Wolf 2017, 211). And the reference texts of this era are where this illusion
was first created. In an interview with Subspace Chatter, Franz Joseph went on record, saying that “I
try to maintain the fiction. I know it’s make-believe, but they want to believe and I’m not going to
be the one to destroy it for them” (1976). His daughter, Karen Dick, states that Star Trek’s production
staff “now put far more thought into Treknology than they ever did for the original series” (Dick and
Tyler 1999) which she attributes to the influence of Joseph’s reference texts.
Although the increased adherence to “Treknology” and the illusion of reality in the Star Trek
storyworld became an important aspect of the franchise going forward, this did not reflect the influ-
ence of the reference works. Instead, it was a result of the same force which drove the creation of the
reference works in the first place: the fans, a group which included many members of the production
staff of the television series and films from TNG onward. This blurring of the boundaries between
fans and creators influenced both the media franchise and the development of the reference work
genre going forward.
“Official” Guides and Canonicity (Late 1980s–1990s)

With the production of a new Star Trek television series—TNG—a shift occurred in the creation
of reference works and guides. Although there are still a plethora of fan productions from this era,
production staff who were directly involved in the creation of the television series and films began
to develop “official” reference texts for commercial publication which used and expanded upon the
material they had created as internal reference documents for writers and production staff.
Members of TNG’s art department, including Michael and Denise Okuda, Rick Sternbach, and
Doug Drexler, published three definitive reference texts in the early 1990s: the Star Trek: The Next
Generation Technical Manual (Sternbach and Okuda 1991), the Star Trek Chronology (Okuda and Okuda
1993), and the Star Trek Encyclopedia (first ed., Okuda and Okuda 1994). Since they were created by
production staff, these reference texts were considered “official” and all previously licensed reference
works and guides were demoted to being apocryphal. The authors themselves state in their introduc-
tion to the TNG Technical Manual:“this is the first technical manual done by folks who actually work on
Star Trek. It’s closely based on source material we’ve developed … with our writers and producers …
In that sense it can be considered pretty ‘official’ ” (Sternbach and Okuda 1991, vii).
However, just because a text is granted “official” status does not make it part of Star Trek “canon”—
“the body of work that fandom socially constructs and collectively agrees to consider the legitimate
narrative of the culture of consumption” (Kozinets 2011, 202). In 1986, when working on Mr. Scott’s
Guide, Lora Johnson was told by the studio that “ ‘if it’s on-screen or licensed, it’s official. If it’s fan-
produced or unlicensed, it is unofficial and not to be used as reference” (Johnson and Tyler 2001).
In the decades that followed, however, the studio’s position changed. By 2003, the official StarTrek.
com website stated that only the live-action television episodes and films could be considered canon,
explaining that “ultimately, the fans, the writers and the producers may all differ on what is considered
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canon.” And in a 2007 interview, Paula Block, who was then in charge of all Star Trek-licensed
products, reinforced this, stating that “canon is Star Trek continuity as presented on TV and Movie
screens. Licensed products like books and comics aren’t part of that continuity, so they aren’t canon.”
This adherence to canon is an integral part of Star Trek fandom and has had a significant impact
on the Star Trek franchise; Lincoln Geraghty has observed a “growing tension between fans and pro-
ducers over what is considered important in the Star Trek canon” (2007, 36), which, for example,
was demonstrated in the way fans “turned their backs” on the television series Enterprise “in favor of
the [transmedia] universe they were attached to, and which paratexts … have worked to unify” (Hills
2015, 30–31). Indeed, it is interesting to consider the opposing approaches that the studio and the fans
have taken toward Star Trek canon, with the creators of the television series and films finding creative
ways to escape from what they perceived as the limitations of adhering to Star Trek’s increasingly
complex canon (for example, through the reboot films), even while fans continued in their efforts,
through the reference texts in particular, to unify everything seen on screen into a cohesive whole.
The Guide to the Star Trek Galaxy (1990s–2000s)

Concurrent with the creation of the “official” reference texts in the 1990s, both production staff and
fans worked to create encyclopedic reference works and guides that catalogued everything there was
to know about both the Star Trek storyworld and the Star Trek media franchise.
Beginning with the Star Trek Chronology (Okuda and Okuda 1993), created by art department
staffers Michael and Denise Okuda, this reference work—which organized the entire storyworld into
a chronological history—was soon rendered obsolete as the Star Trek universe continued to grow.
The Okudas published the first edition of the Star Trek Encyclopedia the following year (Okuda and
Okuda 1994), with two subsequent editions in 1997 and 1999, respectively. Despite the third edition
being incomplete, a fourth edition of the Encyclopedia was not published until 2016 for the 50th
anniversary. Continuing in this vein, the partwork magazine series The Official Star Trek Fact Files was
released from 1997 until 2002, providing extensive information about the storyworld, mostly from an
in-universe point of view, that extended even beyond the Encyclopedia’s scope. As Sue Short explains,
these Fact Files present Star Trek’s complex universe “in a ready-made scrapbook of glossily printed
sheets filled with episode guides, technical specs and cosmological details which eventually fit into a
handsome collection of lever-arch files,” a product which “seems designed for the stereotypical Trek-
nerd” (2007, 178)—and a product which serves as a perfect example of “world-building for profit,”
as Sara Gwenllian-Jones states:
The merchandising industry that surrounds cult television series imitates the text-producing
practices of fans. Instead of fan-authored trivia files and cultural criticism, commercial cul-
ture produces episode guides and glossy magazines … It sells fans shinier versions of their
own texts, all stamped with an official seal of approval.
(2003, 167–168)
It is significant, then, that these Fact Files were supplanted in 2003 by the creation of the wiki-based
Star Trek encyclopedia Memory Alpha—the second largest fiction fandom wiki after the Star Wars-
focused Wookieepedia.
This online encyclopedia, covering every single aspect of the franchise and storyworld from both
in-and out-of-universe perspectives, had the advantage of being digital and therefore unlimited by
the size restrictions of the physical Encyclopedia, as well as being instantly updatable. It also marked
a return to the fan-created, fan-curated, and fan-maintained origins of Star Trek reference texts,
reclaiming those text-producing practices for fans. Many creators of contemporary Star Trek series,
including writer of Star Trek Beyond Simon Pegg, have spoken of referring to Memory Alpha for
“accurate” information about the Star Trek storyworld, which raises important questions about the
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use of fan labor—and its acknowledgment or rather lack thereof—in media production, as the line
between fan and creator, official and unofficial, becomes increasingly blurred.
Contemporary Reference Works and Guides (2000s–2010s)

Perhaps due to the availability of this free, online repository of information about the Star Trek
storyworld, the reference works and guides of the past two decades have continued to shift the refer-
ence work genre. With Memory Alpha satisfying the desire for an all-encompassing encyclopedia, con-
temporary reference texts have branched out into more creative areas, borrowing from a wider variety
of non-fiction forms for their inspiration. These contemporary reference texts go beyond encyclo-
pedia-style information, presenting a more immersive reading experience that fleshes out a niche in
the storyworld, whether that is an attempt to map the entire Star Trek galaxy as in Geoffrey Mandel’s
Star Trek: Star Charts (2002), or ENT writer David A. Goodman’s “history book” Federation: The First
150 Years (2016), these texts provide an opportunity for more complex engagement with the reader.
As Ben Robinson, co-author of the Haynes Enterprise Manual (2010)—a more casual technical
manual which documents the technical specifications and history of the many starships named
Enterprise—states in an interview, texts like these are something “people have wanted for a long
time, a proper history that puts the Enterprises into context with one another and gives you the
story of how they evolved” (ibid.). This fannish desire to organize the storyworld into a coherent,
unified whole is explored by Mark J.P. Wolf. He suggests that “when world data continues to be
added [to an imaginary world] after the point of saturation” has been reached, “overflow” occurs
(2017, 207–208). This overflow is “necessary if the world is to be kept alive in the audience’s
imagination,” because “a world with an overflow … can never be held in the mind in its entirety”
(ibid., 208). Once this overflow occurs in a storyworld, the audience “chunks” the elements of that
world to more easily hold it in their minds, which in turn makes the world seem richer (ibid., 209).
This process goes a long way to explaining the appeal of reference works and guides. While
non-fans might see these reference texts as “tedious at best,” or “heaps of made-up data and
details,” Wolf explains, “to the person saturated with an imaginary world, they can be seen as
answers to questions and verifications to speculations … as well as … glimpses of a world not
provided in any previous works” (2017, 211). Dayton Ward’s Star Trek: Vulcan (Ward 2016) and
Star Trek The Klingon Empire (Ward 2017) Hidden Universe Travel Guides, for example, not only
answer questions and verify speculations about these prominent storyworld locations, but also
create an immersive text that allows the reader to explore and “travel” to places in the storyworld
in a way that narrative texts simply do not allow.
The non-fiction format of the reference texts changes the meaning of the information presented
in the television series and films. An offhand reference to a feature of an alien culture in one televi-
sion episode becomes an element of the storyworld that is then chunked by the audience into a larger
mental construct of that alien culture. To then have that information collated and expanded upon in
a recognizable non-fiction form such as a travel guide or history book reinforces the illusion of the
reality of that storyworld for the audience.
Most of these contemporary reference works were published in the gap between the television
series Enterprise (2001–2005) and Discovery (2017–), when the only new Star Trek content being
added to the canon was the Kelvin Timeline films. This may explain why these reference works
explored new formats that sought to present the existing storyworld in new and unfamiliar ways to
an audience that had already been saturated with information about it.
Conclusion
Over the last 50 years, Star Trek’s reference works and guides have provided insight into the way
fans, creators, and IP owners have engaged with and made sense of the Star Trek universe. From
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the earliest fan-made works and the official guides to the contemporary texts and wikis which
blur the boundaries between fan and official creator, these reference texts provide an expansive
and rich archive of evidence which can tell us a great deal about the ways fans construct, become
invested in, and inhabit fictional universes; the ways they negotiate continuity and canonicity; and
the complex relationships between fans, creators, and studios in regard to both commercial and
interpretative factors.
It goes without saying that Star Trek’s reference works and guides will continue to develop
with the debut of Discovery, Picard, Lower Decks, Prodigy, and the other forthcoming television
series. It will be interesting to see how the form and content of future reference texts respond to
these new entries in the franchise and how new reference texts will continue to participate in the
construction and perception of the Star Trek storyworld and canon by both fans and franchise
going forward.
References
Block, Paula. 2007. “D.C. Fontana on TAS Canon (and Sybok).” trekmovie.com, July 22, 2007. Available
at: https://trekmovie.com/2007/07/22/dc-fontana-on-tas-canon-and-sybok/.
Dick, Karen, and Greg Tyler. 1999. “Exclusive 1999 Interview with Karen Dick, Franz Joseph’s Daughter.”
Trekplace. Available at: www.trekplace.com/fj-kdint01.html.
Geraghty, Lincoln. 2007. Living with Star Trek: American Culture and the Star Trek Universe. London: Bloomsbury
Academic.
Goodman, David A. 2012. Federation: The First 150 Years. Seattle: 47North.
Gwenllian-Jones, Sara. 2003. “Web Wars: Resistance, Online Fandom and Studio Censorship.” In Quality Popular
Television: Cult TV, the Industry and Fans, edited by Mark Jancovich and James Lyons, 163–177. London: BFI.
of Cult/SF Worlds.” In Science Fiction Double Feature: The Science Fiction Film as Cult Text, edited by J. P.
Telotte and Gerald Duchovnay, 21–37. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.
Jenkins, Henry. 2006. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York: New York
University Press.
Johnson, Lora (credited as Shane Johnson). 1987. Mr. Scott’s Guide to the Enterprise. New York: Pocket Books.
Johnson, Lora, and Greg Tyler. 2001. “Interview with Shane Johnson.” Trekplace. Available at: www.trekplace.
com/shanejohnson.html.
Joseph, Franz. 1975a. Star Trek Blueprints. New York: Ballantine Books.
Joseph, Franz. 1975b. Star Trek Star Fleet Technical Manual. New York: Ballantine Books.
Joseph, Franz, and Paul Newitt. 1982. “An Interview with Franz Joseph.” Trekplace. Available at: www.trekplace.
com/fj-fjnewittint01.html.
Joseph, Franz, Gerry Williams, and Penny Durrans. 1976. “These Will Be a Reality Sooner Than You Think.”
Trekplace. Available at: www.trekplace.com/fj-fjwilliamsint01.html (accessed August 18, 2021).
Kozinets, Robert. 2011. “Inno-Tribes Star Trek as Wikimedia.” In Consumer Tribes, edited by Bernard Cova,
Robert Kozinets, and Avi Shankar, 194–211. New York: Routledge.
Mandel, Geoffrey. 2002. Star Trek: Star Charts. New York: Pocket Books.
Okuda, Michael, and Denise Okuda. 1993. Star Trek Chronology. New York: Pocket Books.
Okuda, Michael, and Denise Okuda. 1994. The Star Trek Encyclopedia, 1st ed. New York: Pocket Books.
Rehak, Bob. 2016. “Transmedia Space Battles: Reference Materials and Miniatures Wargames in 1970s Star Trek
Fandom.” Science Fiction Film & Television 9, no. 3: 325–45. https://doi.org/10.3828/sfftv.2016.9.9.
Robinson, Ben, and StarTrek.com Staff. 2010. “Haynes Enterprise Manual Co- Author Ben Robinson
Interview.” StarTrek.com, October 26, 2010. Available at: https://intl.startrek.com/article/haynes-enterprise-
manual-co-author-ben-robinson-interview.
Short, Sue. 2007. “Star Trek: The Franchise! Poachers, Pirates, and Paramount.” In The Influence of Star Trek on
Television, Film and Culture, edited by Lincoln Geraghty, 173–185. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
Sternbach, Rick, and Michael Okuda. 1991. Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual. New York: Simon
& Schuster.
Thomas, Elizabeth. 2013. “Live Long and Prosper: How Fans Made Star Trek a Cultural Phenomenon.” In Fan
Phenomena: Star Trek, edited by Bruce Drushel, 10–19. Bristol: Intellect.
Trimble, Bjo. 1969. Star Trek Concordance. New York: Ballantine Books.
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Trimble, Bjo, and StarTrek.com Staff. 2011. “Bjo Trimble: The Woman Who Saved Star Trek—Part 1.” StarTrek.
com, August 31, 2011. Available at: https://intl.startrek.com/article/bjo-trimble-the-woman-who-saved-
star-trek-part-1.
Ward, Dayton. 2016. Hidden Universe Travel Guide: Star Trek: Vulcan. San Rafael, CA: Insight Editions.
Ward, Dayton. 2017. Hidden Universe Travel Guide: Star Trek: The Klingon Empire. San Rafael, CA: Insight
Editions.
Whitfield, Stephen E. 1968. The Making of Star Trek. New York: Ballantine Books.
Wolf, Mark J. P. 2017. “Absorption, Saturation, and Overflow in the Building of Imaginary Worlds.” In
World Building: Transmedia, Fans, Industries, edited by Marta Boni, 204– 214. Amsterdam: Amsterdam
University Press.
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28
BOARD AND VIDEO GAMES
Stefan Hall
As we moved out into the stars, we took our games along. Games are a notable part of the Star Trek
universe. Putting aside games of interstellar diplomacy and conflict that the intrepid Starfleet crews
constantly find themselves in and those played by aliens, from the Squire of Gothos (William
Campbell) and the Gamesters of Triskelion to Q (John de Lancie) and the Tsunkatse “fight club,”
games have made many appearances throughout the television shows and films. From Mister Spock’s
(Leonard Nimoy) logical three-dimensional chess to the games of Terrace and Bandai’s Pair Match
found in the Ten Forward lounge on the Enterprise-D, the presence of games in the mise-en-scène adds
to the verisimilitude of Star Trek’s imagined future.1 Games contribute in major ways to some of
the plots of several episodes, including fizzbin (“A Piece of the Action” [TOS 2.20, 1968]), strategema
(“Peak Performance” [TNG 2.21, 1989]), the highly addictive Ktarian game (“The Game” [TNG
5.6, 1991]), and chula (“Move Along Home” [DS9 1.10, 1993]). It is hard to imagine the Ferengi
without their games of dabo and tongo, or the Holodeck without a great poker match or a round of
pool. Other original games seen, even if mentioned only once, in various Star Trek episodes include
dom-jot, kadis-kot, kal-toh, kotra, and durotta. Even John M. Ford’s novel The Final Reflection (1984) fur-
ther expanded on the rules of klin zha (Klingon chess). As Rebecca Janicker and Lincoln Geraghty
have noted, Star Trek often uses games (and simulations) as simplified metaphors for more complex
moral themes or situations (2007, 113–126).
Compared to the games in Star Trek, the games based on Star Trek—specifically board and
video games—have often found challenges in adapting the intellectual property, being commercially
successful, and finding appeal as games that are actually fun to play. Looking back over the history of
Star Trek board and video games, the influence of many of the television series and theatrical films
can easily be seen to varying degrees. Yet many fans and critics often wonder why there is a dearth
of interesting and fun Star Trek games. Part of the issue here must lie with the licensing issues related
to Star Trek as a property.
Star Trek has had a complicated evolution as a corporate property right from its start. Between issues
among the various rights holders—including Gene Roddenberry’s company, Norway Productions;
Desilu Productions; Gulf and Western Industries; Paramount Pictures; NBC; Viacom; the CBS
Corporation; and even William Shatner—ultimately CBS Television Studios retains the overall Star Trek
brand, and Viacom, whose Paramount Pictures subsidiary retained the Star Trek film library, has rights
to make additional films and controls video distribution rights to the television series on behalf of CBS.
Recent changes from 2018–20 had Viacom/CBS split, reform into ViacomCBS, and then consolidate
its identity as CBS Studios, and at that point all Star Trek television and film production were once
again under the aegis of a single corporate owner, rebranded in 2022 as Paramount Global, or simply
Paramount. It is into this complicated history of corporate ownership that the Star Trek properties are
placed into a sort of licensing hierarchy (see Chapter 24). The television shows are the primary source
for all Star Trek plots and lore. While the theatrical films rank just below the shows in terms of textual
198 DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917-32

Board and Video Games
legitimacy, the rest of the franchise products are as a group considered (mostly) non-canonical. As
Mathias Lux and John N.A. Brown have noted, one of the primary obstacles with Star Trek games is
the license itself, from its initial cost to navigating between engaging game play and immersive storyline
(2018, 134). Even within that grouping, however, one might find some knowledgeable borrowing from
visual motifs, established storylines, a great sense of referentiality among the properties, and a bit of con-
jecture with some narrative legitimacy. Although alternate universes are nothing new to Star Trek, the
split between the Prime Universe and the Kelvin Timeline has resulted in some careful negotiations to
keep both properties separate but relatively equal. For what remains of the Star Trek spin-offs, the novels
tend to be the most frequently cited sources of narrative expansion (see Chapter 25), followed by the
comic books (see Chapter 26), then the video games, and finally, the board games.
The collusion between television/film and game adaptation is especially strong in the area of
games based on major franchises. From the early console releases of Star Wars: Episode V—The Empire
Strikes Back (1982) and Raiders of the Lost Ark (1982) to arcade games such as Tron (1982), the then
newly established video game industry added games licensed from many sources to its rich slate of
original titles. In Show Sold Separately: Promos, Spoilers, and Other Media Paratexts, Jonathan Gray notes
the ways that many instances of licensing from one medium to another create an extended presence
of the originary text. The ability for “videogames, comics, and other narrative extensions [to] render
the storyworld a more immersive environment” (2010, 2) gives fans another point of engagement as
“licensed videogames allow audiences to set foot in their various storyworlds’ diegetic spaces” (ibid.,
177). Right now, it seems like the spectacle (or fantastic) aspect of game design is pushing the game
industry toward certain franchises over others; that is, certain types (or genres) of narratives lend
themselves to game adaptation more readily than others. Science fiction and fantasy tend to dominate
the properties chosen for game adaptation.
This overview of Star Trek board and video games maps general trends in game design when
it comes to adapting the various Star Trek properties into playable experiences. Certain genres of
game design tend to be selected over others as well as certain content that is chosen from out of
all the properties. Given that there are decades’ worth of material across multiple media to choose
from, it may or may not come as a surprise that certain properties (in particular, TOS and TNG),
certain adversaries (Klingons), and certain scenarios (space battles) form the key components of
these games. Unauthorized or parody games are generally not included in this analysis, although
it should be noted that Star Trek has influenced the design of many games, both those that are
officially licensed and those that are clearly inspired by the fantastic possibilities of interstellar
exploration.
Board Games
A survey of 42 board games—which also includes games that do not necessarily have physical
boards, such as card and dice games—licensed from Star Trek between 1967 and 2018 finds that
they group according to overall design into 22 standard board games, 8 miniature wargames, 5 card
games, 4 trivia games, 2 dice games, and 1 that falls into a category in its own right (How to Host a
Mystery: Star Trek—The Next Generation [1992]). Of these different designs, 12 are licensed variations
of other games, for example, Monopoly: Star Trek: The Next Generation (1998), or UNO: Star Trek
(1999).2 Star Trek Game (1967), the only game based on TOS to be released during the show’s first
run, was produced by Ideal Toys. Essentially a race to the finish game, it featured a simple objective
of leaving Earth and being the first player to visit three planets (out of six) and return to Earth all
while managing a fuel supply. After cancelation, the show found a growing audience through syndi-
cation from 1969–1972, leading to the production of TAS and the release of another Star Trek Game
(1974), produced this time by Hasbro. A very simple game, players choose one of four pathways
through the game, themed according to four Star Trek characters (Kirk, Spock, Uhura, McCoy), and
compete to reach the end.3
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One of the more important, and longest-running Star Trek board games is Star Fleet Battles (1979),
which has been consistently expanded and revised for over 30 years. Created by the Amarillo Design
Bureau, this tactical ship-to-ship combat game has an interesting license agreement with Paramount
Pictures. A partial license was granted which includes some elements from TOS, TAS, and Franz
Joseph’s 1975 Star Fleet Technical Manual (e.g., the Federation-class dreadnought and Ptolemy-class tug),
but does not allow any use of property from the theatrical films or later television shows and, per-
haps most intriguingly, the Star Trek moniker itself. As the game has continued to add new features
in line with technology and other components of Star Trek, it has essentially created its own con-
tinuity known as the “Star Fleet Universe.” This universe would in turn be adapted into a trilogy of
tactical, ship-to-ship combat video games—Star Trek: Starfleet Command (1999; 2001; 2002), this time
branding itself as a Star Trek property. Star Fleet Battles has also spun off a companion strategy game
series, Federation and Empire (1986), and a role-playing game, Prime Directive (1993).
A common element shared by the conventional board games and the miniature-based wargames is the
conquest (or defense) of space. Negotiations and representations of space are often literally or abstractly
represented in games—from the battlefield board of chess to the galaxy map of Mass Effect (2007–
2021)—so games that directly reference outer space are predisposed to this feature. In terms of player
engagement, conflict over contested space is a standard game mechanic. When it comes to the Star Trek
universe, reducing the ideological complexities of its stories to mere space battles might seem contrary
to what Star Trek aims to be in terms of thoughtful science fiction. Still, even though space battles do
appear throughout the many Star Trek properties, the predominance of this particular focus being a pri-
mary component of game development speaks partially to the spectacle of Star Trek’s adventure as well
as the tactical roots of miniature wargaming that undergird the history of board game design. Many of
the games feature representations of the ships, and occasionally the characters, that form a key part of the
visual signature of Star Trek from the iconic Constitution-class Enterprise to the rather obscure Nebula-class
Sutherland as well as those of alien races including Klingon, Romulan, Borg, Ferengi, and Cardassian.
Most of the board games tend to either favor TOS or TNG as source material with the other tele-
vision shows rarely used. A few were timed in conjunction with theatrical films—such as The Search
for Spock (1984)—or franchise anniversaries like Risk and Trivial Pursuit, both of which released 50th
Anniversary Star Trek editions. Several board games feature solo modes—not unheard of for board
games, but still a rather uncommon play scheme—which might speak to the desire for players who
want to play in the Star Trek universe singularly. This mode of solo play, but also cooperative play
with other human competitors or cooperators, is perhaps better illustrated in Star Trek video games.
Video Games
Given that there have been close to 75 licensed titles based on Star Trek—including arcade, computer,
console, handheld, and mobile—it is of particular interest how these games function to enhance the
franchise experience.4 Licensing issues are perhaps even more important with video games than with
board games because of the relative ease of making and distributing digital games over their analog
counterparts. Home enthusiasts were already sharing their unofficial Star Trek games several years
before officially licensed titles were released onto the market. Consequently, the history of adaptation
in this medium begins with unlicensed games bearing the franchise name.
Enthusiasm for science fiction among early computer users and game designers meant that they
would often lean on movies, novels, short stories, pulp fiction, and even comic books for inspiration.
One of the very first video games, Spacewar! (1962), a game of starship combat, was influenced in
part by E. E. “Doc” Smith’s Lensman series. As early games were spread across the United States by
computer enthusiasts sharing public domain code, particularly among universities, the rudimen-
tary graphics of early video games—typified by the Magnavox Odyssey console and Pong (1972) in
arcades—gave rise to ASCII graphics and text-based games becoming significant design choices. Into
this early cottage industry came Mike Mayfield’s Star Trek (1971), a text-based strategy video game
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where a player commands the Enterprise on a mission to destroy an invading fleet of Klingon warships.
By showing text-based figures in a square grid, Mayfield gave players a visual representation of space
not unlike a simplified board game. This turn-based adventure utilized short-and long-range scans,
warping between quadrants, docking with starbases, and most importantly, using phasers and photon
torpedoes to destroy the Klingons. It quickly became one of the most copied and imitated computer
games for a decade.
So, the idea of space combat, an important part of Star Trek board game design, also influenced Star Trek
video games. The first official use of the Star Trek license would not happen until 1979 when board
game manufacturer Milton Bradley was pivoting into the then nascent video game industry with their
Microvision system, the first handheld system to use interchangeable ROM cartridges. Star Trek: Phaser
Strike was really a Star Trek game in name only, as the rudimentary graphics on the tiny LCD screen
would only display a very simple inverted “T” ship shooting a block at another ship that looked like a line
(these would be remarkably similar to later Tetris shapes). Phaser Strike came out the same year that The
Motion Picture was released, so Paramount took its first foray into video games with this title.
It would take a few more years for another official game to make an appearance. In the midst
of the heady days of the video game industry, 1982 saw two Star Trek titles released: in the arcade,
Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator (SOS) by Sega, and at home with Star Trek: The Motion Picture
for the Vectrex console. The latter was a first-person shooter (FPS) with the player taking the role
of Kirk and going into combat against Klingons and Romulans while managing photon torpedoes
and shield reserves by docking with starbases. SOS was yet another space combat simulation utilizing
vector graphics and featuring synthesized speech. The game was released in a regular upright model
and an environmental cabinet with the player’s chair modeled after those seen on the bridge in TMP.
Game controls were integrated into the chair’s arms. The screen was divided into multiple playfields
representing a supplies readout (shields, photon torpedoes, warp power), a top-down strategic view, and
a first-person view for combat against Klingons and occasionally the Nomad probe. SOS was a hit in
arcades and would be ported the following year to major consoles and computers of the era, including
the Atari 2600 and 5200, Colecovision, and the Commodore 64. It might seem curious that both
games would be released the same year as The Wrath of Khan but ostensibly be based on the 1979 film.
In all likelihood, the length of development probably meant that Paramount had made the developers
aware of the upcoming film, but there was not enough time to adapt it. According to some former
programmers at Sega, ideas for WOK and SFS games never made it past the pitch stage (AtariAge 2019).
The various Star Trek video games made over the years have often been lauded for their fidelity
to the property but criticized for their unimaginative game play. As Douglas Brown has noted,
the market dynamics of the game industry, particularly in the late 1990s “when most licensed Trek
games were released, publishers tended to hedge their bets by attempting adaptations of the show
to fit popular genres rather than seeking to adapt what the creators of the show would consider its
essence” (2015, 135). Without the license, these games would either not have been made or have
been rather generic examples of space battles, starship simulators, and the occasional FPS release.
Star Trek:Voyager—Elite Force (2000) and Elite Force II (2003) are rare examples of engaging Star Trek
games using this genre. Indeed, as Lux and Brown have noted in their review of Metacritic scores for
Star Trek games (2018), Elite Force has the highest score out of all, including the most recent releases.
So why is a Star Trek game over 20 years old still regarded as the best? As Brian Pelletier, director of
the game, has noted in his own analysis of its production, a couple of factors probably contributed to
its success. The first was to move the plot of the game from TNG, where it was originally pitched
and planned, to VOY. Specifically, “Voyager’s unique plot would allow us to design our game with
more creative freedom, proceeding from a less well-known setting” (2015, 146). The second was
the close working relationship between Raven Software, the developer, and Paramount, particularly
allowing Pelletier access to its reference library and his good working relationship with Harry Lang,
Paramount’s director of interactive development, who Pelletier describes as “a gamer himself [who]
understood what made games fun” (ibid., 147–149). Lang was important in helping to negotiate
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approval for unconventional ideas in the game, including the use of ships and alien races not seen in
VOY and changing the standard multiplayer deathmatch mode to a “holomatch” mode and allowing
for the players to use any characters in the game against any others in combat. “That meant Janeway
could disintegrate Tuvok with a phaser rifle” and it proved a hit among fans (ibid., 149).
A few of the more notable releases have included Star Trek: The Next Generation—A Final Unity
(1995)—a point-and-click game praised for its free-form space exploration and diplomatic encounters
(while still including tactical ship-to-ship combat)—and Star Trek Timelines (2016), a multiplayer
mobile game with strategy and RPG elements set after the events of Nemesis (and the finale of VOY);
the game invokes the conceit of a temporal anomaly to allow players to assemble crews from all eras
of television shows (including Short Treks and PIC) as well as the films, comics, and novels (and even
the Mirror Universe).
It is perhaps the multiplayer element of Timelines that harkens back to the group dynamic of board
games and playing with other people that is the strength of what might be considered the best of the
licensed games: Star Trek Online (2010). As the first massively multiplayer online role-playing game
(MMORPG) for Star Trek, more than a decade since its release, the game is continually updated with
new content. Recent expansions included Awakening in 2019 and Legacy in 2020, featuring Michael
Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan). Set in 2409/10, STO references
events from both NEM and Star Trek (2009). As captains of their own starships, players alternate
between tactical starship management and controlling individual characters during away missions.
Players can choose to ally with Starfleet, the Klingons, or the Romulans as well as play with factions
made up from TOS-era (again using the convention of a temporal anomaly) or DSC-era captains in
addition to the Dominion from DS9. Non-combat missions and a diplomatic path are also available
for players who want to engage with that aspect of the Star Trek universe.
Conclusion
Some people might be tempted to ask why there are no (or relatively few) “good” Star Trek games.
Lux and Brown note that “Star Trek seems to lack notable success in the video game business” (2018,
125, 208). Their analysis of 20 Star Trek games indicates that some of this problem lies with many of
the ideologies, and indeed the overall culture, of the franchise being absent and many of the games,
with their focus on battles, seemingly at odds with the Prime Directive’s policy of non-interfer-
ence (ibid., 128–130). The designs of the various board and video games tend to either be clones of
existing games or too narrow in focus by appropriating mechanics from FPS, or strategy games to
basically make action titles and not incorporating the political, social, or ideological subtext found in
many Star Trek narratives. Douglas Brown sees this as a result of franchise game adaptations for being
“notorious for their generally low quality and short-term content-driven marketing” (2015, 134). As
an extension of the visual representation and narrative universe of the television shows and movies
(and obliquely the print world of Star Trek), the various games have an interesting narrative nexus
through incorporating signature Star Trek design (as well as some notable deviations from them) and
plot elements. Yet for all this pedigree, and the stamp of official licensing of the Star Trek property for
these games, their material remains almost decidedly non-canonical. Ultimately, the power to grant
game licenses lies with CBS Studios and so they have the power to endorse franchise expansion while
maintaining a sort of divisional purity between the official and unofficial narrative universes while all
the properties are still legitimately Star Trek.
For the fans, with DSC and PIC critical and commercial successes, when will Paramount look
to license Star Trek again for more game development? The same year that Star Trek: Fleet Command
(2018) was released for mobile platforms, Star Trek: Adversaries (a free-to-play online collectible card
game) was discontinued by CBS.With a release date in 2022, Dramatic Labs’ Star Trek: Resurgence is the
latest entry in the Star Trek video game catalogue to date. The ongoing mission of Star Trek games
both supplements the television series and films and perturbs the notion of a dominant narrative by
existing in a licensed but corporate-decreed non-canonical status, particularly with a franchise that
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has such an invested fan base. The very best of the Star Trek games—Star Fleet Battles or Star Trek
Online—invite players not to become Kirk or Picard but be their own captains of destiny and live the
adventure in the ever-compelling Star Trek universe.
Notes
1 Terrace (originally designed in 1950, reworked from 1988–91) is an abstract strategy board game, and Pair
Match (1984)—an audio version of Concentration—was made by Bandai.
2 Other licensed game systems include Risk, Diskwars, Scrabble, Catan, Scene It?, HeroClix, Flight Path, Trivial
Pursuit, and Fluxx. By comparison, of the 63 board games released based on Star Wars, still only a dozen
utilized other game systems.
3 Star Trek Game would also be used for two other board games—a 1975 UK release by Palitoy and visually
influenced by the Gold Key Star Trek comic (see Chapter 26) and a 1979 Milton Bradley release directly tied
to the release of TMP—meaning that four out of five of the first Star Trek board games all had the same title.
4 Not discussed in this section are dedicated handhelds (Mego’s Star Trek Phaser Battle [1976] or Coleco’s
Star Trek:The Electronic Game [1980] based on TMP) or casino games (usually digital slots like Star Trek:Wrath
of Khan [2016] or the hybrid Star Trek: Deep Space Nine—Red Alert [2019]).
References
AtariAge. 2019. “Star Trek III Atari Game.” Available at: https://atariage.com/forums/topic/190866-star-trek-
iii-atari-game/.
Brown, Douglas. 2015. “Adaptive Harmonics: Star Trek’s Universe and Galaxy of Games.” In The Star Trek
Universe: Franchising the Final Frontier, edited by Douglas Brode and Shea T. Brode, 133–144. Lanham,
Ford, John M. 1984. The Final Reflection. New York: Pocket Books.
Gray, Jonathan. 2010. Show Sold Separately: Promos, Spoilers, and Other Media Paratexts. New York: New York
University Press.
Janicker, Rebecca, and Lincoln Geraghty. 2007. “Playing Hard to Get: Game-Playing and the Search for
Humanity in Star Trek and Red Dwarf.” In Playing the Universe: Games and Gaming in Science Fiction, edited by
Pawel Frelik and David Mead, 113–126. Lublin, Poland: Maria Curie-Sklodowska University Press.
Lux, Mathias, and John N.A. Brown. 2018. “Playing Captain Kirk: Designing a Video Game Based on Star Trek.”
In Set Phasers to Teach! Star Trek in Research and Teaching, edited by Stefan Rabitsch, Martin Gabriel, Wilfried
Elmenreich, and John N.A. Brown, 125–135. Cham, Switzerland: Springer.
Pelletier, Brian. 2015. “The Making of a Star Trek Video Game: Voyager—Elite Force and Creative Collaboration.”
In The Star Trek Universe: Franchising the Final Frontier, edited by Douglas Brode and Shea T. Brode, 145–154.
Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Star Trek Episodes
The Original Series
The Next Generation

2.21 “Peak Performance” 1989.
5.6 “The Game” 1991.
Deep Space Nine

1.10 “Move Along Home” 1993.
Star Trek Movies
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29
MUSIC
Veronika Keller
Published in 1999, Jeff Bond’s groundbreaking book about music in Star Trek advances a bold
claim: “Star Trek has arguably produced more music than any single motion picture or television
franchise in history” (1999, 11). Four additional TV series and four movies later, his statement is
truer than ever and makes the attempt to write a comprehensive chapter about music in Star Trek
a daunting endeavor. And while the past two decades have seen the publication of numerous art-
icles, essay collections, and dissertations about different aspects of the franchise, music is still rarely
discussed. Thus, building on Bond’s book, this chapter seeks to furnish a short overview of music in
the franchise along two lines: First, general musical ideas and production processes of Star Trek will
be discussed, with a special focus on the title themes and their connections with each other, both in
structure as well as motifs. Second, the chapter will then probe two questions in more detail taking
the entire franchise into account: What role does diegetic music1 specifically have in Star Trek’s
world-building? And how is music a (problematic) part of cultural representation in the franchise?
Title Themes
One of the most recognizable musical pieces of Star Trek is the title theme of TOS, composed by
Alexander Courage. Its opening vibraphone-woodwind motif and the following French horn fan-
fare of rising perfect fourths became iconic for the whole franchise, for multiple reasons: First, it was
composed to be easily recognizable, as it was the main purpose of opening titles in linear television
to alert potential viewers that a new program is starting. Second, the theme became part of the series’
music and therefore was not only repeated week after week, but also multiple times in an episode,
most of the time scoring the transitions before and after the commercials (Rodman 2010, 125–126).
By relying on easily recognizable musical tropes, which were established both in nineteenth-
century European music, as well as in movie scores since the silent era, the opening theme is also a
musical representation of the overall style, character, and mood of a series. In TOS, the opening motif,
as Paul Sommerfeld writes, “conjures images of wide-open, uncharted territory through a series
of descending bell tones in static but expansive multi-octave ninth chords” (2017, 10). It therefore
underscores Star Trek’s main theme of a limitless (and hopeful) “new frontier.” The second motif
stands for the adventure character of the series; being played by a French horn, it connotes ideas of
nobility, heroism, and militarism (Lerner 2012, 53; Sommerfeld 2017, 12).
Though TAS continues the stories around TOS’ original crew, Yvette Blais (Pseudonym of Ray
Ellis) and Jeff Michaels (Norman Prescott) composed a new title theme, using a similar musical form
but a different sound sequence (Lerner 2012, 60). Courage’s original motifs returned in the scores
of The Motion Picture (1979) (written by Jerry Goldsmith) and The Wrath of Khan (1982) (written by
James Horner). This established a nostalgic link to TOS, which, at the time of the movies’ release, was
again very present with viewers thanks to the popularization of the series in syndication (Bond 1999,
204 DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917-33

Music
105). The technique of establishing nostalgia and building brand recognition via the two motifs was
subsequently also used in the following movies, though in “increasing scarcity” (Sommerfeld 2017,
119), and in TNG’s own title theme.
TNG’s title theme is, in a way, an amalgam of the franchise’s music up to that point by combining
Courage’s TOS-fanfare and Goldsmith’s new theme for TMP (Lerner 2012, 61–62). It also repeated
the overall auditive structure of the title sequence established in TOS, which all later series followed
to a certain degree even when they did not include any older musical motifs: (1) The opening
celestial-sounding fanfare is followed by (2) a voice-over with the famous narration of “space, the
final frontier,” and (3) the second brass fanfare. This first musical segment of the opening theme is
then followed by the on-screen emergence of the title “Star Trek” before leading on to (4) the actual
main theme. In addition, (5) sounds of starships and other space phenomena (like the wormhole in
DS9) are integrated, introducing the viewer to the soundscape of the series.
As seen in Table 29.1, beginning with DS9, more and more aspects of the original title theme were
dropped, though especially DS9 still drew heavily from the musical material of its predecessors: “The
final phrase of the fanfare [of Dennis McCarthy’s DS9 opening title] makes a … direct allusion
back to the previous series, actually restating the same pitches from the final phrase of The Next
Generation theme” (ibid., 62). Other parallels are found in the instrumentation (brass instruments)
and an arpeggio motif that is reminiscent of the TNG title theme. While VOY’s opening title then
continued the visual tradition of open space and the titular spaceship, it departs the most from its
predecessors in musical terms. It still has its own version of the brass fanfare, but no other musical
material was reused. Instead, Jerry Goldsmith composed a full orchestral theme seeking to evoke a
less-martial orientation of the series (ibid., 62–66).
The franchise’s continuity in musical material, instrumentation, and overall opening title struc-
ture ended with ENT, which retained only the sound of a flying starship (see Table 29.1). All other
elements were dropped in favor of the song “Where My Heart Will Take Me,” a rework of the ballad
“Faith of the Heart” (1999), originally written by Diane Warren. This departure from the established
musical themes of the franchise confused and enraged many viewers. Since the similarities in the
opening title themes of the previous series invited the viewers into this established cosmos and
evoked feelings of familiarity and nostalgia, many had the feeling that ENT deviated too far from the
established formula of the Star Trek franchise (see Chapter 6). Possibly exacerbating the audience’s
dissonance, the song, performed by tenor Russell Watson, has a quality of optimistic contemporary
Christian songs, breaking with, as Lerner points out, “the franchise’s usually careful distancing from
topics of religion and dogma” (ibid., 66–68).
Maybe because of this controversy, DSC’s title theme (composed by Jeff Russo) re-implemented
multiple nostalgic elements. Echoing Courage’s celestial motif, it starts with a descending perfect
fourth (A to E), and the opening credits end with the original brass fanfare. In a similar vein, Russo
connected PIC’s opening titles to TNG; but rather than referencing its title theme, he crafted a more
Table 29.1 The five structural parts of the opening themes in the Star Trek series
Series 1 2 3 4 5
TOS X X X X X
TAS X X X X X*
TNG X X X X X
DS9 X X X
VOY X X X
ENT X
DSC X X X
LWR X X X X
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Veronika Keller
intimate link to the character of Picard. Both in its musical material as well as in the choice of instru-
mentation, it draws on Captain Picard’s (Patrick Stewart) encounter with an alien probe in “The
Inner Light” (TNG 5.25, 1992) during which he learns to play the Ressikan flute. The title theme
also ends with a short echo of TNG’s fanfare to once again evoke a feeling of nostalgia, belonging,
and familiarity in viewers.
The Musical Scores of Star Trek (A Short Overview)

Listening to TOS’s score, it often sounds melodramatic, sentimental, over-the-top, but seldom futur-
istic which, for a science fiction series, is somewhat surprising. The groundwork for the expectations
of futuristic music was laid by other movies and television series of the genre, and especially electronic
instruments like the Theremin became staples in scores of the 1940s. When Gene Roddenberry
asked Alexander Courage to write the music for his two pilots (“The Cage” [TOS unaired pilot,
1965/1988]; “Where No Man Has Gone Before” [TOS 1.1, 1966]), he wanted him to break with
these established genre-norms; the score was to give the viewers some familiar ground in a series
with unusual visuals, aliens, and starships (Bond 1999, 13–19). As a result, Courage based his score on
Aaron Copland’s music. With its slowly changing harmonies, Copland’s style had established a coding
system in many Hollywood scores since the 1940s, expressing nostalgia, longing and, in some cases,
even utopian desire (Lerner 2001, 483). All these qualities fit perfectly into Roddenberry’s vision for
TOS. Copland’s composition style also offered an alternative to cinema’s symphonic style, which just
did not fit the demands of television.
As in most series of the 1960s, TOS’s score generally consisted of short cues, highlighting emotions,
immediate events, and sometimes characters seen on screen (called “tracking”). It was also used to
very blatantly foreshadow the story and prepare the audience for upcoming events. For example,
when the titular character in “Charlie X” (TOS 1.7, 1966) arrives on board the Enterprise, he seems to
be a lost and helpless boy. However, the musical cue, an ominous glissando, hints at him becoming the
antagonist of the episode. These kinds of cues were mostly re-used from other series, both as an eco-
nomic as well as a time-saving practice; 34 episodes had newly written music by the main composers
of the series: Alexander Courage, Wilbur Hatch, Sol Kaplan, Fred Steiner, Joseph Mullendore, Gerald
Fried, George Duning, and Jerry Fielding (Rodman 2010, 122). Though the new material for an epi-
sode only came from one of the eight, each employed already established cues of the series, therefore
building TOS’s own cue library (Bond 1999, 16). This made it possible to create a cohesive score for
the series, despite the different styles of the series’ composers.
This practice of tracking was banned in the early 1980s, following a significant legal victory won
by the American Federation of Musicians. Consequently, starting with TNG, all series had to have
newly composed scores for every episode. Around the same time, the first four Star Trek movies with
their more epic and symphonic score (composed by Jerry Goldsmith, James Horner, and Leonard
Rosenman) also influenced the music now associated with the franchise. Especially the score of
TNG’s first season, which was in parts produced by Robert Justman who had also been responsible
for the music in TOS, was inspired by the grander scores of the movies. This, however, changed
when producer Rick Berman became more involved in the decisions of the music department and
demanded a more understated background score (Bond 1999, 34, 87–90, 151). Dennis McCarthy,
TNG’s main composer in all seven seasons, was chiefly responsible for the following transformation
from the more melodramatic style. Common features of this new musical style were the franchise’s
typical brass instruments over a full string orchestra and frequent usage of perfect fourths and fifths
in multiple motifs, mirroring the brass fanfare (Sommerfeld 2017, 148). This resulted in a coherent
score even without employing signature themes and motifs which, according to Bond, the composers
were not allowed to use as per the series’ guidelines (1999, 168). Consequently, TNG has no dis-
tinct musical themes for the different alien races or characters, making the score somewhat arbitrary
(Sommerfeld 2017, 152–153).
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Music
While TNG tried to find its own musical direction, the franchise was extended by two cinematic
movies. The Final Frontier and The Undiscovered Country (TUC was scored by Cliff Eidelman) had
little to do with the series, as they still featured the old crew from TOS and the scores also stood on
their own, with one exception—Jerry Goldsmith, who returned to the franchise for TFF, used his
title theme from TMP in the score, much to the confusion of some fans because they only knew
it as the title theme of TNG (Bond 1999, 133). With Generations, TNG’s producer Rick Berman
and composer Dennis McCarthy became involved in the movies, though McCarthy’s style from
the series did not translate well onto the silver screen. The lack of repeated motifs made the score
“somewhat disconnected” (ibid., 153). Consequently, Jerry Goldsmith, assisted by his son Joel, was
hired for First Contact. He then went on to compose the scores for Insurrection and Nemesis, making
the musical sound of these three movies more coherent by reusing his own established themes and
motifs (Sommerfeld 2017, 161, 170–172).
DS9 and VOY fit into the established scoring practices of TNG, mainly because McCarthy and
Chattaway contributed the music to 385 episodes out of the 519 of all three series. Their indi-
vidual fanfare motifs as well as musical themes based on perfect fourths and fifths are still dom-
inant throughout DS9 and VOY (Sommerfeld 2017, 197–238). At the same time, the composers
tried to move away from some of the stricter production guidelines (Bond 1999, 173). In TNG,
for example, diegetic music was rarely used; even Ten Forward deliberately had no background
music. With the addition of holodeck singer Vic Fontaine (James Darren) in DS9’s sixth season,
the crew received its own source of (diegetic) musical enjoyment (Drees 2019, 144, 148; Heuger
and Reuter 2000, 219).
McCarthy’s and Chattaway’s musical dominance in Star Trek continued with ENT, the other
composers being Paul Baillargeon, Velton Ray Bunch, and Kevin Kinder. Contrary to the previous
four series, musical material from its theme music was rarely used in the score. Instead, the orchestral
and once again brass-dominated outro, written by McCarthy, supplied the series with coherent and
recognizable musical material, including a musical nod to the fanfare motif of TOS (Sommerfeld 2017,
250–251).
After the commercial failure of NEM and ENT, J.J. Abrams was tasked with bringing Star Trek
into the new millennium. In regards to music that meant two things:To have a coherent composing
style in the hand of just one person, in this case Michael Giacchino, who wrote the music for all three
of the Kelvin Timeline movies, and to work with recognizable and repeated leitmotifs. In line with
the overall goals of the reboot (see Chapter 20), the music had to appeal to both long-time fans and
the broader audience. This meant that the score drew from already established auditive markers like
a brass fanfare (though the TOS fanfare is directly quoted only at the end of the first movie), while
also building its own recognizable sound. Spock’s theme in Star Trek (2009), for example, which
plays in scenes with both the new Spock (Zachary Quinto) and Spock Prime (Leonard Nimoy),
does not resemble other motifs and themes used for that character before. But its melody is once
again based on fourths and fifths, and the decision to play the theme on an erhu, a Chinese two-
stringed bowed instrument, draws from the tradition of othering Spock and the Vulcans via sound
since TOS. It is therefore one of multiple examples in the score where Giacchino accomplished to
loosely tie his music into Star Trek’s musical history by using similar instrumentations or melodic
gestures without reusing already known themes and motifs (Sommerfeld 2017, 298–300).
DSC also followed contemporary trends of scoring by having only one composer and using
an elaborate system of character themes and Wagnerian leitmotifs. This became necessary when
multi-episode and seasonal arcs in TV series of the 2010s had to be reflected in the scores, too (see
Chapter 7). At the same time, the use of leitmotifs is a result of the production process: DSC’s com-
poser Jeff Russo has to write between 31 and 38 minutes of music per episode in approximately six
days. Relying on repeated themes and motifs for Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green), the
Klingons, or the Spore Drive, simply shortens the time needed to compose new material.
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Worldbuilding
Music contributes to the narrative of both episodes as well as the movies by giving (often implied)
information about the story, the characters, and, significantly for Star Trek, (alien) cultures. One
example is Klingon music, in both score as well as diegetic songs, representing the change of the race
and individual characters since TOS. Since Star Trek rarely used overarching themes prior to the
2010s, there are no specific Klingon motifs. In TOS, some cues were composed for Klingon episodes,
especially “Friday’s Child” (TOS 2.11, 1967). They were reused in following episodes and followed
common strategies in scoring aliens, like using all 12 chromatic pitches to create harmonic disruption,
making them sound exotic to North American and European viewers. They were also played on
brass instruments to emphasize the Klingon’s militaristic society (Summers 2013, 34–35). Both elem-
ents, the exotic and the militaristic, were also combined in Jerry Goldsmith’s Klingon theme for TMP
by; using anklungs (Javanese percussion instruments) and the musical form of a march. Some of these
musical features changed in TFF when the Klingons became reluctant allies against a bigger threat:
“[the melody] becomes harmonically secure; unusual or harsh timbres are eliminated; and strident
orchestration is softened” (ibid., 37). This change in the depiction of the Klingons continued in TUC,
culminating in a peace treaty with the Federation (see Chapter 15). Composer Cliff Eidelman did not
consider Goldsmith’s theme a fit anymore and instead wrote a piece reflecting these developments,
which, among other things, included a choir chanting Shakespeare in Klingon (ibid., 36–39).
TNG and DS9 also had no recognizable “Klingon theme” (see Bond 1999, 169–170, 190; Summers
2013, 40–41), instead diegetic music and sound became an important part of creating a coherent
Klingon culture throughout both series. The most prominent auditive signal is, of course, the Klingon
language (created by Marc Orkrand) with its multiple guttural and harsh sounds, reflecting their strict
and oftentimes violent culture. Klingons are also shown to have a rich culture of song, with drinking,
battle and story songs and, of course, opera (Summers 2013, 44–46). This vocal music is mainly
connected to Worf (Michael Dorn) who, by either singing alone or with Klingon companions, is able
to connect to his oftentimes suppressed heritage in TNG and DS9.2
Aside from its function as a cultural marker, music, especially when used diegetically, connects the
audience with Star Trek’s strange-looking humanoids, creatures, and worlds by putting familiar sounds
and recognizable patterns of Western music into futuristic and alien surroundings. Gene Roddenberry
himself stated this as a key purpose of music in his series (Heuger and Reuter 2000, 210). This is
still true for more recent Star Trek series; for example, Kasseelian Opera, which features repeatedly
in DSC, sounds like nineteenth-century opera mixed with contemporary scoring techniques. Since
TOS, both diegetic music as well as the score have also been used to ascribe “otherness” to alien
cultures and characters; this “othering” is deeply indebted to Western ideas about music from other
cultures which were developed especially in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Vulcans, for
example, were created with oriental stereotypes in mind, which is reflected in the use of bells and
gongs in their music, instruments connected to religious rituals in both Hinduism and Buddhism
(Summers 2013, 31). To avoid making these connections too obvious, the instruments are altered
both visually and auditorily. The Betazoid gong, for example, used to “[give] thanks for the food we
eat,” as Lwaxana Troi (Majel Barrett) explains, seems to be made out of thick glass (“Haven” [TNG
1.11, 1987]). Consequently, the standard metal sound associated with Earth’s gongs is mixed with the
sound of vibrating glass (Heuger and Reuter 2000, 218).
Sounds in general are a significant part of the sonic world-building in Star Trek. Many future
technologies such as the transporter, the warp engines or the communicator all have their signature
sounds (Heuer and Reuter 2000, 212–219). In addition, there are also place-specific sound mixes
used for ambience. The environment of the vacation planet Risa, for example, is defined by tropical
jungle sounds (a mixture of singing birds, monkey screams, and cicadas) whenever the planet is visited
(“Captain’s Holiday” [TNG 3.19, 1990]; “The Game” [TNG 5.16, 1992]; “Let He Who Is Without
Sin…” [DS9 5.7, 1996]; “Two Days and Two Nights” [ENT 1.24, 2002]). By evoking environments
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Music
on Earth which are seen as “exotic” by the predominantly Euro-American audience, the specific
sound mix establishes the planet as a place for relaxation; it also connects the different installations of
the holiday planet throughout the franchise.
Aside from rituals, alien music, which is actually played and not just mentioned in conversation, is
quite rare in Star Trek. Apart from Klingon vocal music and Kasseelian opera, contemporary music
of the twenty-second and twenty-fourth centuries in general, be it from Earth or other planets, is
hardly ever heard in the franchise (Drees 2019, 145; Heuger and Reuter 2000, 220–221). In the few
cases where contemporary music is featured, it reflects the music style at the time of production. For
example, the nightclub music heard in the ENT episode “Two Days and Two Nights” (ENT 1.25,
2002) resembles electronic dance from the early 2000s.
Instead of contemporary music written for the series, pre-composed folk and pop songs, classical
music, and jazz from nineteenth-and twentieth-century Earth are used (Drees 2019, 151–152). This
is likely due to budget constraints, as this kind of music is oftentimes free or at least cheap to license
for television, and it once again serves to connect familiar sounds with unfamiliar stories. In “Magic
to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad” (DSC 1.7, 2017), We Trying to Stay Alive” (1997) by Wyclef Jean,
for example, is used to underscore a boisterous party. By choosing such a familiar tune, the music
can evoke specific emotions of “fun at a party” in the viewer, building on their own familiarity with
similar occasions. The song also plays into the narrative of the episode itself, as it introduces every
new beginning of the time loop in the episode; it therefore comments on what the characters are
trying to accomplish over its course, literally “We Trying to Stay Alive” before villain Harry Mudd
(Rainn Wilson) destroys Discovery.
Classical Music, Humanity, and Cultural Colonization

Apart from these examples, most of the diegetic music used in all series dates from the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries. Classical music (in the colloquial sense) even becomes a representation of
humanity itself. Star Trek has always engaged with the questions of what it means to be human, and,
as Stefan Drees points out, referencing cultural products, including music, is one way the franchise
tries to provide an answer. When used diegetically, classical music, literature, and art become
“[a representation of] the quintessence of culture as a repository of [human] society’s most
valuable and priceless treasures … [They are also] an important part of human education,
necessary for the refinement of one’s character as well as a condition for the evolved state of
humanity as [a]‌primarily peaceful race in a [mostly] non-dystopian future.
(2019, 141–143)
In the various series, this is not only true for people from Earth, but also alien races. There are mul-
tiple instances that show that classical music from Earth is held in high regard; a piece by Brahms
even provokes emotional tears from infirm Vulcan ambassador Sarek (Mark Lenard) (“Sarek” [TNG
3.23, 1990]; Sheridan 2015, 175). This notion of (Western classical) music being understood even by
humanoids who did not grow up in the cultural surrounding that (re-)produces it, draws heavily from
the nineteenth-century idea of “Universalmusik.” This now widely discredited concept3 sees (again,
mostly Western classical) music as a universal language, which can be understood by everyone on an
emotional and subconscious level. And similar to the role music played on Earth, classical music in
Star Trek basically “ ‘colonizes’ the galaxy with Western cultural practices” (Sheridan 2015, 176). This
connection to the concept of “Universalmusik” becomes even clearer through the musical reper-
toire in Star Trek. There are no examples of avant-garde or more “modern” compositions from the
twentieth century.4 Instead, the series propagates white, Western, and bourgeois “high” music, which
oftentimes should also represent a character’s refined taste. Picard, for example, the epitome of TNG’s
humanism shows little appreciation for jazz or any alien music (“The Best of Both Worlds, Part II”
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[TNG 4.1, 1990]), and instead prefers to listen only to “classical” music. Thus, diegetically employed
“classical” music in Star Trek reflects twentieth-and twenty-first-century Eurocentric notions of
high culture and ideas of humanity, resulting in the twenty-fourth century becoming a “primarily
conservative time” (Drees 2019, 150–152; Sheridan 2015, 176–184).
Conclusion
As would be expected of a transmedia franchise of more than 50 years in the making, Star Trek does
not really have a coherent musical tradition. However, there are certain elements which make its scores
and sounds recognizable, like the usage of brass instruments, references to Coplandian musical tropes
and, of course, TOS’ iconic brass fanfare which is still widely used in contemporary additions to the
franchise. It therefore connects the whole franchise and is so widely recognized that it can be used as
a part of the narrative itself. In DSC’s second season episode “Such Sweet Sorrow” (DSC 2.13, 2019),
for example, the fanfare is part of the score in three scenes, all connected with either the Enterprise or
its captain, Christopher Pike (Anson Mount). It is also interwoven with DSC’s own main theme, thus
connecting the first and seventh series not only through characters and plots, but also through music.
Yet, Star Trek’s musical traditions cannot be reduced solely to its televisual or filmic canon. Scores
from the series are also used in multiple video games to increase the immersion of players (see
Chapter 28). And games also influenced the series, as the song “The Klingon Warrior’s Anthem” (first
sung in “Soldiers of the Empire” [DS9 5.21, 1997]) originates from the videogame Star Trek: Klingon
(1996) (Summers 2013, 44). And, finally, the importance of Star Trek’s music can also be seen in the
role it plays in fandom, from fans playing their own version of title themes on YouTube to the per-
formance of the Klingon opera “u,” composed by Eef van Breen in 2010. This goes to show how
important Star Trek’s music is not only for recognizing the franchise, but also for its fans’ emotional
connection to it. DaH QoQ yIchu’!
Notes
1 The term diegetic music, or source music, is used to describe musical pieces which are “produced within
films as a natural part of the narrative action denoted on-screen” in contrast to non-diegetic music, which is
“produced externally,” most of the time the score (Holbrook 2005, 48).
2 There are multiple examples of the connection between a character and music; for example, Data’s (Brent
Spiner) and the Doctor’s (Robert Picardo) search for their human side (for Data, see Zlabinger 2018, 228–231;
for the Doctor, see Drees 2019, 151–153);William Riker’s (Jonathan Frakes) character and his connections to
jazz (see Jones 2016; Zlabinger 2018, 225); Spock playing the Vulcan harp (see Getman 2015, 250; Holtsträter
2019, 125).
3 The consensus nowadays is that there are in fact few elements in music which could actually be understood
without having been extensively exposed to similar music before.
4 The most “modern” composition is the neo-baroque “Passacaglia in G minor” by Johann Halvorsen (1893)
(Drees 2019, 149).
References
Bond, Jeff. 1999. The Music of Star Trek. Los Angeles, CA: Lone Eagle.
Drees, Stefan. 2019. “What Remains of the Past…: Diegetic Music in the Star Trek Series as References to the
Cultural Heritage of Humanity.” In Song and Popular Culture: Music in Science Fiction, vol. 64, edited by Knut
Holtsträter, Tarek Krohn, Nina Noeske, and Willem Strank, 141–154. Münster: Waxmann.
Getman, Jessica Leah. 2015. “Music, Race, and Gender in the Original Series of Star Trek (1966–1969).” PhD
diss., University of Michigan.
Heuger, Marcus, and Christoph Reuter. 2000. “Zukunftsmusik? Science Fiction und die Vorstellungen vom
zukünftigen Musikleben: Das Beispiel Star Trek.” In Musik im virtuellen Raum, edited by Bernd Enders and
Joachim Stange-Elbe, 207–225. Osnabrück: Rasch.
210
Music
Holbrook, Morris B. 2005. “The Ambi-Diegesis of ‘My Funny Valentine’.” In Pop Fiction: The Song in Cinema,
edited by Steve Lannin and Matthew Caley, 47–62. Bristol: Intellect.
Holtsträter, Knut. 2019 “Spock und seine Zeit: Leonard Nimoys musikalisches Handeln in und außerhalb
Star Trek.” In Song and Popular Culture: Music in Science Fiction, vol. 64, edited by Knut Holtsträter, Tarek
Krohn, Nina Noeske and Willem Strank, 121–140. Münster: Waxmann.
Jones, Craig Owen. 2016. “‘Acolytes of History’?: Jazz Music and Nostalgia in Star Trek: The Next Generation.”
Science Fiction Film and Television 9, no. 1 (Spring): 25–53.
Lerner, Neil. 2001. “Copland’s Music of Wide Open Spaces: Surveying the Pastoral Trope in Hollywood.” The
Musical Quarterly 85, no. 3 (Autumn): 477–515.
Lerner, Neil. 2012. “Hearing the Boldly Goings. Tracking the Title Themes of the Star Trek Television
Franchise, 1966–2005.” In Music in Science Fiction Television. Tuned to the Future, edited by K. J. Donnelly and
Philip Hayward, 52–71. London: Routledge.
Rodman, Ron. 2010. Tuning In: American Narrative Television Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sheridan, Daniel. 2015. “Sarek’s Tears: Classical Music, Star Trek, and the Exportation of Music.” In Gene
Roddenberry’s Star Trek: The Original Cast Adventures, edited by Douglas Brode and Shea T. Brode, 175–188.
Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
Simon and Schuster Interactive. 1996. Star Trek: Klingon. PC/Mac.
Sommerfeld, Paul Allen. 2017. “Scoring Star Trek’s Utopia: Musical Iconicity in the Star Trek Franchise, 1966–
2016.” PhD Diss., Duke University.
Summers, Tim. 2013. “Star Trek and the Musical Depiction of the Alien Other.” Music, Sound, and the Moving
Images 7, no. 1 (Spring): 19–52.
Zlabinger, Tom. 2018. “Listening to the 24th Century: Music and Musicians Heard Throughout the Voyages
of the Enterprise-D (and Some of Enterprise-E).” In Exploring Picard’s Galaxy. Essays on Star Trek: The Next
Generation, edited by Peter W. Lee, 223–236. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
Star Trek Episodes
The Original Series
1.7 “Charlie X” 1966.
2.11 “Friday’s Child” 1967.
The Next Generation

1.11 “Haven” 1987.
3.19 “Captain’s Holiday” 1990.
3.23 “Sarek” 1990.
4.1 “The Best of Both Worlds, Part II”1990.
5.16 “The Game” 1992.
Deep Space Nine

5.7 “Let He Who Is Without Sin…” 1996.
5.21 “Soldiers of the Empire” 1997.
Enterprise
1.24 “Two Days and Two Nights” 2002.
Discovery
1.7 “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad” 2017.
2.13 “Such Sweet Sorrow” 2019.
211
Veronika Keller
Star Trek Movies
Star Trek Generations. 1994. dir. David Carson. Paramount Pictures.
212
30
MERCHANDISE
Victoria L. Godwin
The episode of The Toys That Made Us on Star Trek products (“Star Trek” 2018) offers merely a
glimpse of the variety and types of official merchandise and does not even address the existence or
appeal of fan-produced and unlicensed items. Oddly, for a celebration of Star Trek toys, this install-
ment unfavorably compares Star Trek to Star Wars and repeatedly disparages early Star Trek merchan-
dise. Contributors single out a battle tank and the by now infamous Spock helmet with a flashing
light on top as particularly egregious examples of low-quality, non-canonical merchandise. More
recently, Ethan Peck, who portrays Spock in Discovery and Strange New Worlds, also mocked the helmet
during an unpacking video (Whitbrook 2020). Like other early Star Trek toys, these ridiculed items
re-branded unrelated already-existing products by adding franchise names and logos—a common
practice at the time. A mere lack of on-screen presence does not warrant or explain such derision. In
contrast, early non-canonical Star Wars merchandise garners praise and nostalgia. For example, press
releases celebrated the appearance of the Troop Transporter, originally a 1978 toy, in The Mandalorian
(2019–). Apparently, being featured in live-action content makes it more “official” than its many pre-
vious appearances in animated Star Wars Rebels (2014–2018), comic books, or novels (Venable 2020).
The difference is that the Troop Transporter looks and feels like it belongs in the Star Wars universe.
Since neither the helmet nor the battle tank fit Star Trek’s in-universe aesthetic or ethos, fans are not
likely to demand or celebrate their inclusion in future projects.
Over the decades Star Trek has inspired commemorative stamps and coins, jewelry, hoodies, t-
shirts, hats, coasters, doormats, mugs, water bottles, wine glasses, lunchboxes, standees, chess sets, model
starships, prop replicas, pet supplies, and many more types of merchandise, including figurines and
action figures in differing scales from Mego, Playmates, McFarlane, Mezco Toyz, Quantum Mechanix,
Funko, and other companies. This chapter explores how fans use liminal merchandise and charit-
able works to construct both identity and material goods as consistent with the franchise’s perceived
values. A brief chronological overview of the main trends of Star Trek merchandising practices
facilitates a discussion of merchandise and collecting in theoretical terms, focusing on IDIC—Infinite
Diversity in Infinite Combinations, a key tenet of Vulcan philosophy—as an illustration of the origins
and inherent capitalist irony of Star Trek’s purported philosophy. It is impossible to itemize or dis-
cuss every merchandise product. Memory Alpha identifies over 150 “[c]‌ollectible companies,” with
extensive lists of merchandise for each entry (2020). Far more detailed and specific inventories and
taxonomies of which licensees manufactured what merchandise and when, and the various licensing
mechanisms and structures governing Star Trek merchandise over the decades are already available
via numerous printed and online collectors’ and price guides (Augustin 1997; Hoffman 2000; Kelley
2008; Snyder 1996). Thus, the examples discussed here serve predominantly illustrative purposes.
Much like TV series and films, merchandise items ultimately are products of their time. In earlier
decades, large companies sought mass-appeal sales. Merchandise was cheap, mass-produced, and pre-
dominantly targeted at children. With no new episodes, casual viewers and larger companies lost
DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917-34 213

Victoria L. Godwin
interest and motivation to purchase merchandise. However, during the decades after TOS’s cancel-
ation, syndicated reruns and eventually recordings enabled repeat viewings, which fueled fan passions
and loyalties (see Chapter 1). While the pool of potential customers might be smaller, it was more
emotionally invested. Smaller companies had smaller outputs, which required higher price points
that appealed only to dedicated fans. That led to a change in the type of merchandise offered.
Thus, modern producers positioned much fan merchandise as expensive high-end, limited-edition
collectibles for adults. Notably, Playmates was perhaps one of the few companies to target both
collectors and mass audiences successfully, although a poorly-judged shift to “Limited Edition” and
“Retail Exclusive” releases alienated fans and generated losses in both markets (Memory Alpha 2020).
Generally, manufacturers emphasize accuracy and attention to detail to market high- priced
collectibles to a much smaller, more loyal group. For example, fans can buy jewelry produced from
“the same sculpts as the pendant worn by” characters in Picard, enabling them “to bring home” a
“necklace directly from the Trek universe” (Knox 2020). Multiple combadges (Command, Science,
Medical, Operations) are described as “[s]‌creen accurate and created using laser-cut molds, they boast
a higher fidelity and more intricate details than ever before … these exact replicas are taken directly
from the screen-used hero prop” (Quantum Mechanix 2019a). The same company promotes their
1:6 scale articulated figures with a similar emphasis. For their Scotty figure, accessories include an
“accurately styled communicator” with “a real metal flip-up antenna” and a “replica” tricorder, while
a “[m]eticulously researched … duty uniform tunic matches the pattern, fabric and color of the
original costume down to the last stitch. The sleeves are trimmed with accurate and detailed braid
insignia.” Since actor James Doohan “during WWII … lost a finger off his right hand,” the manufac-
turer further caters to fans’ encyclopedic knowledge and “honor[s] the actor” by making sure that one
hand “shows the loss of a digit” (2019b). A fan review of the figure posted on the company website
praises this attention to detail.
Not every modern collectible, however, emphasizes accuracy and quality or corresponds with the
franchise’s design and perceived ethos. Amazon, ThinkGeek, and other online stores offer a wealth of
merchandise marketed for fans, with reviews indicating many are bought or received as gifts. Reviews
also warn that many items (e.g., pizza cutters, bottle openers, etc.) are too awkward, fragile, or out-
right dangerous for everyday use. They are better suited to be displayed as collectibles, or as ways to
mark intersecting interests: Star Trek plus cooking, or colorful socks, or garden gnomes, or many other
hobbies people enjoy and things people collect. Why simply bake when you can do so using (or being
surrounded by displays of) utensils and other kitchen equipment shaped like your favorite starship?
Merchandise might not be screen-accurate, or ever appear on screen, but it still brings a sliver of a fic-
tional universe into everyday life, if only as a tchotchke reminder of a favorite franchise and its ideals.
It is easy to mock the Spock helmets of the past, or today’s Spock socks with pointed ears sticking out
like the wings on Mercury’s sandals, but ultimately those are cheap laughs that miss the point.
Commercialism and its attendant capitalist logic drive the mass production of merchandise
designed for mass consumption and undergird both the franchise and its fan communities. However,
merchandise and the practice of collecting it cannot be dismissed as mere consumerism. They also
build and express identity and meaning (Belk 1995, 89; Geraghty 2006, 210; 2014, 59, 134; Santo
2019, 121). A Star Trek collection symbolizes and embodies a fan’s belief in and aspiration to IDIC
and Roddenberry’s vision of a better world and a better future. The prevalence of fan references to
both indicates their status as what Stuart Hall identified as preferred readings (1980). For fans, these
preferred readings intersect with material goods in many ways.
Despite certificates of authenticity and other markers of official status, object practices including
but not limited to model building, collecting, and customizing “blur dividing lines between amateurs
and professionals” (Rehak 2013, 29). Categories blur further when fans create and sell “items not
offered by any company,” or “affordable alternatives to expensive official merchandise,” or when
fans alter “inferior aspects of officially licensed merchandise” (Godwin 2016, 40) that “fails to meet
this fandom’s exacting standards for accuracy” (ibid., 50). Praise for unlicensed fan-produced items
214
Merchandise
emphasizes how love for the subject matter leads to more accuracy and detail than official merchan-
dise (ibid., 49), as with Trevor Grove’s highly-praised sculpts of Star Trek and other characters. They
transitioned from unofficial fan-produced merchandise to official mass-produced merchandise when
Quantum Mechanix hired him to make licensed versions of those sculpts for their company (ibid.,
42–43). Consequently, the term “merchandise” is not limited to licensed material. Individual fans and
fan clubs create and sell their own badges, weapons, ship models, and more, whether or not licensed
objects are available. Notions of authenticity, like supposed dividing lines between producers and con-
sumers, official and unofficial, and mass-produced and fan-produced, all are highly blurred.
Star Trek fan clubs frequently position themselves and their activities as idealistic, highlighting
“the spark of Roddenberry’s vision for a better world today and a better future tomorrow driving us
on” (STARFLEET International n.d.), and a desire “[t]‌o establish the concept of Infinite Diversity in
Infinite Combinations (IDIC)” (STARFLEET COMMAND 2017). Membership benefits include
opportunities to “[g]ive back to the community as part of an organization that supports local and
national charities,” and also to buy “swag to show pride in your membership, promote the club and
attract other club members at conventions” (STARFLEET COMMAND 2018). Framing club mer-
chandise as a means to recruit others diverts attention from its potential commercialism. Clubs often
highlight charitable donations and scholarships funded by sales, auctions, and raffles of Star Trek mer-
chandise. Fan clubs note the charity auction is one of “the traditional activities” at annual international
conferences and list multiple other philanthropic actions (STARFLEET Region 3 2016). Thus, fans
ironically use material goods to position themselves as altruistic while simultaneously distancing them-
selves from negative stereotypes of consumerism and its attendant capitalist logic. Accusations of
spending too much money on too many collectibles are reframed as serving a good cause. The buying
and selling of merchandise by fans pay for charitable works to improve lives and make the world a
better place. Merchandise makes manifest, in material form, Star Trek’s purported values and helps fans
and fan clubs to fulfill those ideals.
Liminal merchandise is a tangible reminder “of traits fans want to emphasize in their own
personalities” (Godwin 2018), and of elements fans wish to incorporate into their own lives and
into the world around them (Godwin 2017, 3.4). It physically represents Star Trek’s idealized
future and expresses identification with the franchise’s vision. The term liminal merchandise also
differentiates items that could exist in a fictional universe and be used by its inhabitants from
branded merchandise that promotes a franchise or character (Godwin 2018): a Starfleet Academy
t-shirt that could be worn by a cadet instead of a Star Trek or “I Grok Spock” t-shirt. Liminal
merchandise can be licensed, official, mass-produced, unofficial, fan-produced, customized, role-
play, or any other type. What matters is how fans use an item, not who produced it. A non-fan
or casual fan could wear that Starfleet Academy t-shirt. However, liminal status comes not only
from “blurring the threshold between worlds,” but also from deliberate identity construction
(ibid.). Liminal merchandise is an object-based practice determined by fans’ interpellated agency
and affect. Wearing, displaying, and using such objects construct a narrative about who fans are
or who they want to be.
Although liminal merchandise involves consumer goods, it counters simplistic stereotypes of
excessive and mindless fan consumption. Fans consciously choose items that represent ideas they
identify with and aspire to, such as diversity and a better future. Perhaps the most famous example is
Barbara Adams. For Adams, wearing her Starfleet uniform, phaser, and tricorder while serving as an
alternate juror for the 1996 Whitewater trial was a way to promote the “ideas, messages and good
solid values” of Star Trek (cited in Penley 1997, 18), since “the ideals of Trek are ideals that I live by
and so I’ll stand up for those every day, twenty-four hours a day” (The Star Trek Story 1996). Likewise,
“the Starfleet Discovery badge I often carried with me as a reminder of the type of person I aspire
to be” (Riddle 2019) functions as liminal merchandise due to the narrative about identity this fan
constructs. Action figures in offices and other spaces remind fans to stay calm and logical like Spock
or to fight like Worf for what is important. Enterprise ship toys and models stand for the franchise, its
215
Victoria L. Godwin
principles, and its sense of wonder. On desks, they resemble the decorations in televised ready rooms,
blurring the threshold between our empirical reality and Star Trek’s fictional universe.
Fans use liminal merchandise to signal to others that they identify as a certain sort of person, one
who would fit into (or rebel against) particular aspects of a story world. Thus, some fans select mer-
chandise to signal identifications with Command, Science, Security, Engineering, or other divisions.
Whether dressed as Starfleet officers, Klingons, Romulans, or Borg, respondents consistently indicate
that “fans who wear Star Trek apparel to public events attempt to actualize the ideals of the show’s
creator, Gene Roddenberry, and the Star Trek universe” (Joseph-Witham 1996, 14). Like many other
popular culture franchises (Godwin 2017, 3.4; 2018), Star Trek offers multiple points of identifica-
tion to appeal to diverse fan needs and interests, and multiple types of liminal merchandise to express
these identities.
Although fans use merchandise to construct identity, ultimately merchandise exists for profit.
Multiple accounts have revealed IDIC’s ironic origin as a means to make money. Roddenberry
forced a rewrite onto an episode to include a “pointless” speech. This “rather thinly veiled com-
mercial” or “marketing ploy” was meant to introduce IDIC to sell versions of the amulet seen on
screen via Roddenberry’s then newly-opened mail-order business, Lincoln Enterprises (Shatner
1993, 286–289). The company monetized a key principle of Roddenberry’s future society where
money is a relic of the past (see Chapter 58). However, despite its profit-driven genesis, fans still
embrace IDIC and its associated merchandise, as it is consistent with their perceptions of the
franchise’s principles. Fans often emphasize Star Trek’s ideal over its actuality.
IDIC is not the only ironic aspect of Star Trek merchandising. Early mass-marketed toys emphasized
action and combat, as there is no shortage of either in episodes, despite Starfleet’s stated mission
of peaceful exploration and diplomacy (see Chapter 44). Even character-driven narratives in later
decades frequently include phaser fights and ship-to-ship battles, which, naturally, also inspired toys
and collectibles. Past and present, fans use mass-produced items to make individualized statements
about their own identity: fan clubs make and sell items, repurposing commercialism to raise funds
for charitable causes. Liminal merchandise indicates how fans wear, display, and use material goods to
make elements of Star Trek’s idealized future tangible and to express their own identities. IDIC and
other values fans ascribe to these items and the franchise seem more real, and thus more achievable.
Fans’ reactions to and uses of Star Trek merchandise illustrate the need for more historical fandom
research. Changing perceptions of what is “good” merchandise and “good” fan behaviors impact mul-
tiple evolving fan practices: collecting, customizing, cosplay, convention auctions, and so forth. Like
the liminal merchandise they often incorporate, they can also center on transformative co-ownership
of material objects ancillary to the “main text.” Fans mock artifacts that are never seen or mentioned
on screen as obvious cash-grabs, crass examples of commercialism and consumerism. Merely adding
franchise names, logos, or taglines like “to boldly go” or “strange new worlds” to existing toys is not
a sufficient connection to fans’ idealized versions of Star Trek, IDIC, and Roddenberry’s vision. Re-
branded items highlight the profit motives and ironies of Star Trek’s origins and by extension its phil-
osophies. Ultimately, however, a mere lack of on-screen appearances is not the problem; such products
are troublesome because they do not seem like something that could or even should be a part of
that fictional universe. Their inconsistency with the franchise’s aesthetics and perceived ideologies
disrupts fans’ construction of identity. They are the antithesis of liminal merchandise.
References
Augustin, Ursula. 1997. Star Trek Collectibles: Classic Series, Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager Value Guide.
Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing Ltd.
Belk, Russell W. 1995. Collecting in a Consumer Society. London: Routledge.
Geraghty, Lincoln. 2006. “Aging Toys and Players: Fan Identity and Cultural Capital.” In Finding the Force of the
Star Wars Franchise: Fans, Merchandise, and Critics, edited by Matthew Wilhelm Kapell and John Shelton
Lawrence, 209–223. New York: Peter Lang Publishing.
216
Merchandise
Geraghty, Lincoln. 2014. Cult Collectors: Nostalgia, Fandom and Collecting Popular Culture. London: Routledge.
Godwin, Victoria L. 2016. “Fan Pleasure and Profit: Use-Value, Exchange-Value, and One-Sixth Scale Action
Figure Customization.” Journal of Fandom Studies 4, no. 1 (Spring): 37–54.
Godwin, Victoria L. 2017. “Theme Park as Interface to the Wizarding (Story) World of Harry Potter.”
Transformative Works and Cultures 25, September 15, 2017. https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2017.01078.
Godwin, Victoria L. 2018. “Hogwarts House Merchandise, Liminal Play, and Fan Identities.” Film Criticism 42,
no. 2 (November). http://dx.doi.org/10.3998/fc.13761232.0042.206.
Hall, Stuart. 1980. “Encoding/Decoding.” In Culture, Media, Language, edited by Stuart Hall et al., 128–140.
London: Hutchinson.
Hoffman, Kelly. 2000. The Unauthorized Handbook and Price Guide to Star Trek Toys by Playmates. Atglen,
PA: Schiffer Publishing Ltd.
Joseph-Witham, Heather R. 1996. Star Trek Fans and Costume Art. Jackson, MI: University Press of Mississippi.
Kelley, Steve. 2008. Star Trek: The Collectibles. Iola, WI: Krause Publications.
Knox, Kelly. 2020. “RockLove Jewelry Launches New Collection Seen in Star Trek: Picard.” Star Trek.com,
January 30, 2020. Available at: www.startrek.com/news/rocklove-jewelry-launches-new-collection-seen-
in-star-trek-picard.
Memory Alpha. 2020. “Playmates Toys.” Available at: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Playmates_T
oys (accessed August 7, 2021).
Penley, Constance. 1997. NASA/Trek: Popular Science and Sex in America. London: Verso.
Quantum Mechanix. 2019a. “Star Trek Discovery Enterprise Badge.” Available at: https://qmxonline.com/
products/star-trek-discovery-enterprise-magnetic-badge-set-command.
Quantum Mechanix. 2019b. “Star Trek: TOS Scotty 1:6 Scale Articulated Figure.” Available at: https://qmxonl
ine.com/products/star-trek-tos-scotty-1-6-scale-articulated-figure.
Rehak, Bob. 2013. “Materializing Monsters: Aurora Models, Garage Kits and the Object Practices of Horror
Fandom.” Journal of Fandom Studies 1, no. 1 (Spring): 27–45.
Riddle, Ryan Thomas. 2019. “Star Trek Saved My Life, Literally.” Star Trek.com, October 16, 2019. Available
at: www.startrek.com/news/star-trek-saved-my-life-literally.
Santo, Avi. 2019. “Retail Tales and Tribulations: Transmedia Brands, Consumer Products, and the Significance
of Shop Talk.” Journal of Cinema and Media Studies 58, no. 2 (Winter): 115–141.
Shatner, William. 1993. Star Trek Memories. New York: HarperCollins.
Snyder, Jeffrey. 1996. A Trekker’s Guide to Collectibles. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing Ltd.
STARFLEET Command. 2017. “Benefits of Joining Starfleet Command.” Available at: https://web.archive.
org/web/20170430075250/http:/starfleet-command.com/wp-content/uploads/SFC-AFED.pdf.
STARFLEET Command. 2018. “The Official Newsletter of Starfleet Command Quadrant One Issue #89.”
Available at: https://zdoc.pub/new-admiralty-board-is-all-about-change.html.
STARFLEET Command. n.d. “Home.” Available at: https://starfleet-command.com.
STARFLEET International. n.d. “A Brief History of STARFLEET International.” Available at: https://sfi.org/
history-of-starfleet/.
STARFLEET Region 3. 2016. “Fleet Channels Newsletter.” Available at: http://region3.org/Fleet_Channels/
Spring%202016%20FC.pdf.
“Star Trek.” 2018. The Toys That Made Us, 2.1. dir. Tom Stern. Netflix.
The Star Trek Story. 1996. dir. Richard Curson Smith. BBC2.
Venable, Nick. 2020. “The Mandalorian Featured a Star Wars Toy That Never Made It into the Movies.”
Cinema Blend, January 1, 2020. Available at: www.cinemablend.com/television/2487595/the-mandalorian-
featured-a-star-wars-toy-that-never-made-it-into-the-movies.
Whitbrook, James. 2020. “Please Enjoy Discovery’s Spock Wearing the Silliest Star Trek Merchandise Ever
Made.” io9, April 9, 2020. Available at: https://io9.gizmodo.com/please-enjoy-discoverys-spock-wearing-
the-silliest-star-1842775300.
217
PART IV
Fandom and Paratexts

31
FANDOM HISTORY
Karen L. Hellekson
Although the rise of the internet since the late 1990s has led to more people than ever defining
themselves as fans, resulting in an easing of the understanding of fans as fanatically, pathologically
extreme (Jenson 1992), historically, fans and fandom are inextricably linked with the genre of science
fiction (sf). Fans are people who actively engage with something, such as a television show or a sports
team; they then self-arrange themselves into a fandom, the community formed around a specific text,
object, and/or activity. Fans’ work revolves around constituting the fandom, which, in the context
of sf and Star Trek fandom, and depending on the group and its unique practices, might encompass
writing fan fiction, creating fan art or GIF sets, (re)creating props, costuming, or curating a wiki at
Fandom.com with facts drawn from the canonical source text. These fans are active, not mere lurkers
who consume without engaging; their activities permit them to share affective responses in a mode
they find meaningful.
While this mode of participatory, often transformational, fandom, which has come to be the
dominant strain in the United States in particular, was not created by Star Trek fans, it has come to
be associated with them, and Star Trek fans’ practices continue to inform general understandings of
fans and fandoms. William Shatner, in 1986 on Saturday Night Live, exhorted fans to “Get a life!”
in a skit that went so viral that Shatner used the phrase as the title of his 1999 autobiography.1 The
dismissive view of the fan here reflects the era’s popular imagination of what fans must be like. One
fan remembers:
Star Trek fans had been used as shorthand for “stupid smelly loser” for a generation. … Any
convention ever mentioned in any form on the news was mocked, and the costumed fans
trotted out as a sort of carny-style freak show.
(Hill 2016)
Later, the makers of Galaxy Quest (1999), now a cult film, affectionately paid homage to Star Trek
fandom (Motamayor 2019; Sandwell 2020; Memory Alpha n.d.c; and see Chapter 38). Galaxy Quest
was a valentine to fans, with a story that rewarded fannish behavior. It also indicated a lessening of
popular cultural antipathy toward fans, resulting in more people self-identifying as fans or being
amenable to being identified as such.
Origins of Sf Fandom and Conventions: A Primer

The importance of Star Trek in shaping modern fandom cannot be overstated; the franchise remains
an ur-text. Yet Star Trek fandom was an offshoot of sf fandom more generally (Hellekson 2015).
In 1926, during the pulp era of the 1920s and 1930s—so called because the cheap magazines were
DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917-36 221

Karen L. Hellekson
printed on low-quality pulp paper—famed editor Hugo Gernsback, in an editorial that appeared in
the first issue of Amazing Stories, encouraged readers to write in:
How good this magazine will be in the future is up to you. Read Amazing Stories—get your
friends to read it and then write us what you think of it. We will welcome constructive
criticism—for only in this way will we know how to satisfy you.
(Gernsback 1926)
They did write in, and in a stroke of genius, Gernsback published not only their letters, but also their
addresses, thus permitting fans to reach out to one another, either in person or as pen pals. Later, in
February 1934, in the pages of Wonder Stories, fans were encouraged to join an area chapter of the
national Science Fiction League, which offered swag such as membership certificates, lapel pins, and
stationery. The result was a loose association of local fan clubs in cities like Philadelphia, New York
City, Los Angeles, and even Leeds in the United Kingdom, several of which remain in existence today
under different names (Kyle 1993). “Looking back from the vantage of a decade’s perspective,” Sam
Moskowitz notes in his history, of fandom:
We are forced in fact to admit that the Science Fiction League was more beneficial and
important to fandom than any organization which preceded or followed it. Not only did it
actually create the fan field as we know the latter today, but it gave the field something that
it had never possessed before: realization of its own existence.
(1945–46, 230)
Early fandom consisted of fans’ writing into letter columns, meeting up with each other, creating
new words in a fan-specific vocabulary that also served to exclude outsiders (Fancyclopedia 3 n.d.b),
and writing and exchanging fan magazines, or fanmags, a word that Louis Russell Chauvenet in 1940
characterized as “un-euphonious,” preferring instead the term “fanzine,” which stuck (Fancyclopedia
3 n.d.c). These small-print-run efforts, which began in 1930 with The Comet, had varying content,
depending on the editor and the audience.2 Fanzines of this era, including US and English fanzines,
were densely intertextual—a form of asynchronous communication as they reacted to current events
and to each other.
In 1937 or 1938, the Futurians, sf ’s best-known fan club, was formed in New York by young,
mostly male fans in their teens and twenties, many of whom aspired to be writers or editors
themselves—and succeeded. Futurians who have written firsthand accounts of their fan engagement
in that era include boldface names like Isaac Asimov (1980), Damon Knight (1977), Sam Moskowitz
(1954), and Frederik Pohl (1978) (see also Fancyclopedia 3 n.d.e). Included in these memoirs are
accounts of love of sf, firm friendships, internecine fighting, fan club dissolutions followed by strategic
recreations, romance, and in-person meetups, including what is now known as the first Worldcon, or
World Science Fiction Convention (aka Nycon 1). This event was held in Caravan Hall in New York
City over the Fourth of July weekend in 1939. About 200 people attended (“Long List” n.d.). Two
Los Angeles Science Fiction League attendees at this convention, superfans and fanzine co-editors
Forrest “Forry” J Ackerman and Myrtle “Morojo” Douglas, arrived sporting futuristic outfits from
the 1936 film Things to Come, designed and created by Douglas—the beginning of what is now called
cosplay (Fiawol n.d.; Culp 2016). Not coincidentally, the con’s date fell during the 1939–40 World’s
Fair, the theme of which was “The World of Tomorrow”—an appropriate sf topic, given that the
fair’s theme meant to explore what the future would look like.3 Although the con’s organizers had
not planned on it being an annual event, and certainly local events were arranged on a fan-club basis,
fans decided to hold a second Worldcon in Chicago in 1940, after which time the term “Worldcon”
was generally adopted (Fancyclopedia 3 n.d.g). This event, in addition to the usual programming such
as guest of honor talks and meet-and-greets, included a formal masquerade, with fans showing off
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costumes and performing skits (Culp 2016; Fiawol n.d.), thus enshrining costuming as a staple of
sf cons.
These early days of sf fandom created a basic convention template that has held in the
United States and has been adopted elsewhere: a multiday destination convention hosted by a
fan club—or, these days, a corporation or other entity—with programming that included famous
guests and fannish artistic endeavors like a judged costume masquerade. The first Worldcon’s
programming did not include panel discussions (nobody had thought of it; see Fancyclopedia
3 n.d.f), but the guests of honor included professionals in the field, and “artifacts of artwork
and manuscripts” were in evidence (Fancyclopedia 3 n.d.a). Typical con programming grew to
include singing sf-or fantasy-themed “folk” songs—aka filking—which particularly took off
in the 1950s (Fancyclopdia 3 n.d.d); practical workshops, such as how to create fanzines; panel
discussions; awards; art shows; a dealers’ room to buy merchandise; meet-and-g reets, perhaps
including photos or autographs with guests of honor; and maybe a big dance—although there
were, and remain, many local variations on topic, theme, or activities according to whim, interest,
or tradition (Culture Wikia n.d.). The US con scene has spawned several important conventions
that have attracted fans, often for decades. MediaWest*Con grew out of a Star Trek con, T’Con,
in 1978, run by two zine publishers. The convention was rebranded as MediaWest*Con in 1981,
with a big Star Trek presence to complement its broader stated focus on sf media like TV and
film (Fanlore n.d.o). Shore Leave, held annually in Baltimore since 1979 and still ongoing, began
as a Star Trek-specific con that has since morphed into a media con (Fanlore n.d.k). Star Trek
also often has a presence at the San Diego Comic-Con, which has turned into a site for industry
insiders to mingle with fans and which is a must-book con to advertise new properties in the
Star Trek franchise. Star Trek conventions are held all over the world (see Chapters 32 and 35).
Star Trek fandom grew out of this active fan culture, with creative outlets including filking,
costuming, writing/editing, vidding, and artwork, although the sex breakdown was almost com-
pletely opposite, with most fans in the sf scene being male and most in the Star Trek/media
scene being female.
Formative Decades: Star Trek at Cons and in Zines

We can trace the origins of Star Trek fandom to the 24th Worldcon, aka Tricon, held in Cleveland,
Ohio, in September 1966. Gene Roddenberry was in attendance to drum up enthusiasm for his new
show and screened the pilot of TOS (Towsley 2007; Booker 2018). Superfan Bjo Trimble, who pro-
grammed the fashion show, was not happy when, on site, Roddenberry asked her if costumes from
his new TV program could be added to her show’s lineup at the last minute, but she relented (Trimble
1983; Letizia 2014). This put her and her husband, John Trimble, in touch with Roddenberry, whom
she later visited on set in California at his invitation and befriended, heralding the unprecedented
access that Star Trek fans had to the show’s producers, actors, and writers. Roddenberry worked
with the Trimbles as they marshaled fans to engage in a successful write-in campaign to save the
show when NBC canceled it (see Chapter 1); indeed, their efforts generated so many letters mailed
to NBC headquarters that NBC pleaded with fans to stop. This fan-driven work was instrumental
in the show’s reaching a critical number of episodes for syndication, which in turn kept the fan base
alive and permitted the franchise to be resurrected later (Trimble 2003, 2011;Woerner 2012). It is not
hyperbole to suggest that fans ensured the longevity of the franchise (Fanlore n.d.e; Woerner 2012;
McNally 2016). The various “save our show” efforts also brought fans together, working in common
cause, creating fan solidarity. It also presaged other fan-driven campaigns in other fandoms, some
successful, some not (Woerner 2012).
TOS did not make a splash at the 1966 Worldcon. Steven Towsley’s (2007) con writeup notes that
“the most memorable thing, in retrospect, is that the STAR TREK TV pilot was previewed at this
Con with Gene Roddenberry speaking and taking questions.” Another fan account remarks, “Based
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Karen L. Hellekson
on its scanty mention in con reports, the screening didn’t have a big impact on attendees, but it didn’t
occur till 7 p.m. on Monday” (Fancyclopedia 3 n.d.h). However, fannish passions were clearly stirred,
and even if they did not actually see the screening at Worldcon, fans saw it on NBC and were hooked.
Joan Marie Verba notes in her history of Star Trek zines,
It was natural for the science fiction fans who went to the World Science Fiction Convention
in Cleveland in 1966 and who saw the pilot of Star Trek, … to put out a fanzine devoted to
that program. And so they did.
(2003, 1)
TOS was still airing its first season in 1967 when Devra Michele Langsam and Sherna Comerford
edited Spockanalia, the first fanzine dedicated to Star Trek (Langsam and Comerford 1967). The
fanzine opened with a letter penned by Leonard Nimoy, the show’s breakout star, and included in-
world fiction and poems, as well as classic fanzine fare like letters, artwork, and articles (Verba 2003).
Langsam collated, stapled, and sold copies for 50 cents at the 1967 Worldcon (Fanlore n.d.l; Langsam
and Comerford 1967). Fans quickly followed this up with other zines, some featuring in-world
fiction, some not (see Chapter 33).4
Star Trek media zines, which quickly began to feature all-fiction issues, were responsible for
naming and mainstreaming two genres of fan fiction: Mary Sue and slash. Mary Sue stories, which
are not beloved but remain a contested site of affect, feature an original-character protagonist, usu-
ally a female idealized author avatar, who saves the day while winning hearts and minds, then dies
nobly. The genre is named after the protagonist of zine writer/editor Paula Smith’s (1973) parody, “A
Trekkie’s Tale,” written in response to the awful stories she received as submissions to zines she was
editing. The term received further currency when “Lt. Mary Sue” was used in print in correspond-
ence and editorials as shorthand for this kind of protagonist or story.5 “A Fragment Out of Time”,
by Australian writer Diane Marchant (1974), was published in an adults-only zine. It “may have been
the first story of an entire genre that became known as Kirk/Spock, or ‘K/S’ or even just ‘slash,’ for
short” (Verba 2003, 19), although the story was so vaguely written that its same-sex nature was not
appreciated until later. Marchant herself noted with regret the “huge snowball that became K/S” (qtd.
in Fanlore n.d.d), which quickly became an important subgenre of Star Trek fan fiction. Indeed, the
very idea of a romantic “pairing” in fan fiction began with Star Trek and K/S (Fanlore n.d.m). Both
slash and the Mary Sue have exploded beyond Star Trek to other fandoms, but more importantly, they
have since mainstreamed into popular culture.
By the mid-1970s, Star Trek was well on its way to becoming. Camille Bacon-Smith’s (1992)
ethnographic report documents how the fanzines of this era were reproduced using spirit duplicators
and mimeograph machines, advancing to photocopying when that technology became afford-
able. These booklets were then disseminated via their mailing list by hand or via postal mail. Fans
exchanged zines by subscribing, trading, donating in kind, or selling them at cons, or via an apa, a
mode borrowed from sf fandom. “Apa” is short for amateur press association and is a modality that
dates from the 1870s. Apas were created by fans who mailed their new zine to a single person, who
collected them all and then mailed copies of everything to each contributor (Hayden 2009).
Just as Star Trek fans co-opted fanzines to create media zines, they also co-opted conventions,
although Star Trek appeared as a topic in regular sf con programming. The first fan-run convention
dedicated entirely to Star Trek, known simply as the Star Trek Con, was held in the public library
of Newark, New Jersey, with free admission, in 1969; Langsam and Comerford were in attendance.
However, there were no guests, so it might better be categorized as a fan get-together (Fanlore n.d.n;
Inglish 2016; see Chapter 35). The first proper Star Trek convention, with guests, retrospectively
known as Star Trek Lives!, was held in New York City in January 1972 (Booker 2018; Memory Alpha
n.d.b.). The con was
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spearheaded by a core group of devoted and ambitious fans dubbed The Committee,
and far more people than anyone ever imagined turned out for the event. The legend
goes that 500 people were expected to attend and more than 3,000 arrived to share in
the fun, which included a dealers’ room and appearances by Gene Roddenberry and
Isaac Asimov.
(StarTrek.com. Staff 2012)
Asimov’s presence was clearly a nod to Star Trek’s roots in the sf con world. Although cast members
were not present, they attended later annual conventions, including a drop-in by the show’s most
popular cast member, Nimoy, in 1973—his first con appearance.
The Committee, which included Langsam, ran Star Trek conventions through 1976. One member
of The Committee, Al Schuster, broke away to run his own cons (Fanlore n.d.j; n.d.p). As fan Nancy
Kippax noted in a 2008 memoir:
Al Schuster was a promoter, an entrepreneur who staged “shows” much like today’s Creation
Cons. There was no “programming” to speak of, nothing past 5 p.m. except Costume Call,
no panels, no use of fannish talent. There were only the actor guests, but for those of us
who had never had an opportunity to get up close and personal with any of our beloved
Trek idols, that was enough.
(qtd. in Fanlore n.d.i)
A split was forming in fandom between true fans selflessly and freely devoting their time, and
hucksters out for a buck. As Kippax indicates, Schuster presaged the later for-profit, non-fan-
run Creation Cons, which began covering media sf in 1984, often using volunteer fan labor;
later, in 1991, Creation obtained a license from Paramount, giving them an official imprimatur
(Wikipedia n.d.). More experienced fans considered these cons to be opportunities for fans to
pay a lot of money to see a marquee guest and maybe get an autograph or photo; the only nod
to fannish sensibilities was the dealers’ room (Fanlore n.d.b). However, Creation Cons were big
draws and put the con scene on the future fans’ radar. Creation Con continues to host Star Trek
(and other) conventions worldwide.
Contemporaneous accounts of early Star Trek fandom include David Gerrold’s The World of
Star Trek (1973), with one section addressing “the Star Trek phenomenon,” including fans, conventions,
and fanzines; and Committee member Joan Winston (1977) described what planning a Star Trek con
was like. However, the account that changed Star Trek fandom was Jacqueline Lichtenberg, Sondra
Marshak, and Joan Winston’s (1975) Star Trek Lives!, in which they explored the relationship between
TOS and the fandom that emerged after the show was canceled. As Verba notes,
For thousands upon thousands of fans, this was when they became aware that such activity
existed, and that they could join in. Almost overnight, Star Trek fanzine readers grew from a
small intimate group of individuals who knew each other by reputation, at least, into a large,
diversified network of enthusiasts.
(2003, viii)
The book’s importance thus transcends its first-person documentary account of fannish activity up
until 1975. In the long run, the book’s importance lies in the fact that until it came out, people who
liked the show were unaware of things like fanzines and fan fiction. Learning about these activities
and the local fandoms that supported them changed many people’s lives.
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Karen L. Hellekson
The result: Star Trek fandom exploded. It was no longer possible for fans to stay abreast of
everything going on.
Lichtenberg, who at the time of the 1972 convention already could not keep up with Star Trek-
related correspondence, quickly realized that the publication of the forthcoming Star Trek Lives!
volume meant that she would be inundated with further queries. Therefore, that year, she joined
with several other fans to found the Star Trek Welcommittee (STW), which she modeled on a
similar committee for fantasy fans. The STW had 130 volunteers in 1976. Its goal was to help new
fans connect with local resources, like fan clubs, conventions, and fanzines, which they did via mail,
although apparently not always very promptly. STW contact information was published in tie-in
novels, which could generate thousands of queries. In addition to releasing a newsletter with content
informed by cutting-edge information gleaned from Roddenberry, the STW also published booklets,
including directories and how-to guides for putting together conventions, as well as, in 1989, “The
Neofan’s Guide to Star Trek Fandom” (Fanlore n.d.h), which attempted in part to guide new fans in
the ways of appropriate interaction and behavior, as fan culture was mostly transmitted face to face,
and it was hard to onboard the deluge of new fans. The STW closed up shop in 1997, after the rise
of the internet meant that the STW was no longer the go-to place for information. However, the
STW’s publications remain important from a historical perspective because of the lists they published
of things like numbers of Star Trek fan clubs, fanzines, and professionally written tie-in novels, which
may be mined for insights into interests and trends (Fanlore n.d.h; n.d.q).
Sustained Growth and Fandom Goes Digital

The late 1970s were full of fan fears that Star Trek fandom was dying. The release of the first Star Wars
film in 1977 gave sf media fans something new to love, and Star Trek zines began including Star Wars
fiction. Cross-over fiction combining the two properties inevitably followed. Yet predictions of
doom were tempered by fan celebration of the resulting uptick in fannish engagement. The year
1982 saw two important milestones: the release of WOK (see Chapter 11) and the creation of the
Star Trek newsgroup net.startrek. WOK meant new canonical material was available for fans to work
with. The film’s success resulted in other films and then TNG (see Chapter 3), thereby generating
neofan interest and reigniting the interest of long-time Star Trek fans. The newsgroup scene was
created by a tech-happy group of early adopters; fans did not move wholesale online at this time. Net.
startrek turned into rec.arts.startrek in 1986 when the naming rules changed, and 1990 saw the creation
of alt.startrek.creative (ASC), an important innovator in the fan fiction scene (Fanlore n.d.q). Fans with
internet access—not a given at the time; the general public gained access to the internet only in the
early 1990s—could post correspondence seen by an entire mailing list that focused on a particular
topic (Hill 2016). Fiction posted to Usenet newsgroups (a dial-up service established in 1980) was
so plentiful that moderators had to develop highly structured header and subject-line protocols that
would permit easy access to the contents, including ratings, warnings, pairings, characters featured,
and the like while also permitting automatic machine filing. Trekiverse, a fic archive, debuted in
1991 and posted fiction submitted directly or posted to the three ASC newsgroups. Star Trek Usenet
newsgroups, which also appeared in languages other than English, included topics such as “alt.tv.star-
trek.voyager” and “alt.french.captain.borg.borg.borg” (Anon. n.d.).
With the rise of the internet through the 1990s, Star Trek fans were able to find one another
without meeting face-to-face, and geographic distinctions ceased to matter; fans in New York
City could interact with fans in Helsinki. The header and subject-line protocols used by the ASC
newsgroups were widely adopted by other fandoms. The rise of blogging platform LiveJournal in
2000 departed from the topic-targeted mailing lists popularized by Usenet and Yahoo! Groups,
leading fans to follow one another as individuals—a return of sorts to the era of letters. Comments to
posts or stories acted as letters of comment that permitted fan/reader engagement, just like in 1930s-
era sf fandom and fanzines. Fanzines were reconstituted as online fiction archives, with fic-archiving
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software like Automated Archive and eFiction created and disseminated by fans. Detailed tagging
and category systems were used on blogging platforms like LiveJournal to repurpose them as fic
archives; likewise, the now-defunct bookmarking tool Delicious was used to organize and recom-
mend fic. FanFiction.net, an important multifandom archive site, was founded in 1998, and 2008
saw the founding of the Archive of Our Own by a fan advocacy nonprofit, the Organization for
Transformative Works (OTW).6
Although the transmission of fan culture was still conducted face to face at local fan club get-
togethers and conventions, fans would increasingly stumble onto online forums and join in immedi-
ately, or they would form wildcat fan groups with no understanding that fan cultures already existed
and they were stepping on toes. Fans who had painstakingly gained their knowledge in face-to-face
contexts were none too pleased with the clueless newbies, forgetting that once upon a time, their new
media fandom had been in conflict with the sf fandom from which it had sprung:
The huge influx of Star Trek fans in the late 1960s and the 1970s were an example of some
of “free range” fannishness. There were many, many instances of the old school, general
science fiction fans being very unhappy with the influx of Star Trek fans who they felt to be
huge mobs who were uneducated in the ways of fandom.
(Fanlore n.d.m)
The tables had been turned.

The 1990s also saw academic work being performed on Star Trek fans in particular. In addition
to Bacon-Smith’s (1992) study of Star Trek fanzines, Henry Jenkins’s Textual Poachers (1992) stands as
a groundbreaking analysis of fandom as a mode of cultural appropriation, with fieldwork performed
in Star Trek fan communities. Jenkins’s work addresses questions of race and sexuality that are all too
often elided in studies of fan cultures (see Chapters 50–53). Constance Penley addresses fan culture
and Star Trek erotica in her short 1997 book NASA/Trek (Reser 2018). Award-winning feminist sf
writer Joanna Russ’s (1985) essay about K/S slash fan fiction weaves analysis with unbridled, affective
joy. These texts all turn to Star Trek fans and fandom to draw conclusions about fandom more gen-
erally, further cementing Star Trek as the primary text when considering media fandom—and central
to creating the field now known as fan studies.
Star Trek fans’ current attempts to preserve a history of their culture and artifacts seek to
ensure that the unique story of this woman-dominated endeavor is not elided, dismissed, or told
by outsiders. The ongoing Foresmutters Project (n.d.), “an anarchic effort to put material from
the earliest days of slash online”, was spearheaded by a K/S slash community and is an important
fan-led attempt to document and claim fan history as well as preserve deteriorating fanzines by
digitizing them. Several fans have seeded library holdings of fanzines by donating their extensive
personal collections, including Star Trek and other media zines in addition to older sf and weird
tales zines, dating from the 1930s. Important collections are held at the University of California-
Riverside, the University of Iowa, and the University of Liverpool. Further, several projects are
scanning or transcribing fanzines to make them more generally available, including the Sandy
Hereld Memorial Digitized Media Fanzine Collection at Texas A&M University. Several oral
history projects include Star Trek fans, including the “Media Fandom Oral History Project” and
the “Fan Fiction Oral History Project” (Fanlore n.d.c) with fans recorded speaking in their own
words. Indeed, Fanlore itself—a wiki about fan cultures, written by and for fans, a project of the
OTW—is a mode of historical self-reflection. Its aims are “to preserve our rich fannish heritage
and recognise the milestones achieved by those fans who came before” and “to document our
fan communities as they are in the present, in order to record and better understand the scope
& diversity of these spaces, and provide a record for future fans” (Fanlore n.d.a). Its pages con-
tain overviews as well as excerpts of first-person accounts; it is important because fans speak in
their own voices.
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Karen L. Hellekson
As fandom moves into the 2020s, a diffuse mediascape shadows the importance of its foun-
dation in both sf and Star Trek fandom. These days, when hard-copy fanzines are circulated, or
when fans print and bind their favorite fan fiction into gorgeously made handmade books, it is the
result of delight in retro throwback. Today’s fans use Tumblr, Twitter, TikTok, Discord, wikis, and
other online tools to share content, post stories, document, role-play, and stay in touch. No central
Welcommittee will greet neofans, but beneath the waters that bear the boat of fandom courses the
mother fandom: Star Trek.
Notes
1 See also Shatner (2009) and SpeakerForBoskone (2012).
2 See also N3F Editorial Cabal (2003); and ZineWiki (n.d.).
3 See Culture Wikia (n.d.); “Lloyd Eshbach’s Nycon 1 Reminiscence” (Fancyclopedia 3 n.d.f), and “Nycon 1”
(Fancyclopedia 3 n.d.g); Cosgrove (n.d.); and Fanac (2022).
4 See Fanlore (n.d.f);Verba (2003); and Chapter 33.
5 For “Mary Sue,” see Fanlore (n.d.g): Urban Dictionary (n.d.); Memory Alpha (n.d.a); Bacon-Smith (1992); and
Mansky (2019).
6 Fanlore provides more detailed descriptions of all these tools and platforms; see also Hellekson and Busse
(1996).
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32
FANDOM AROUND THE WORLD
Larisa Mikhaylova
The magic ingredient is really not in Star Trek, it is in its audience.

Gene Roddenberry (“Inside Star Trek” 1976)
According to the classification developed in scholarly work on science fiction fandom between the
1930s and the 1950s, the majority of fandom researchers of Star Trek are aca-fans, i.e., fans who
turned into academics. In the decade preceding and following the turn of the twenty-first century, a
core of studies on English-speaking fandoms accumulated, drawing on conceptual approaches such
as “textual poaching” (Jenkins 1992) and “participatory community” (Bacon-Smith 1992). However,
there are several unexplored affective approaches, as suggested by Geraghty (2018), including
influences of race (Jamison 2018) and technological changes in fandom (Lamerichs 2018). While
studies taking into consideration international fandom on a more substantial level also started to
appear during this time (Frazetti 2016), there are many aspects of fandom’s existence and activ-
ities which present challenges to doing comparative research. In the present chapter, the evolution
of international Star Trek fandom will be mapped from a historical perspective, paying particular
attention to technological changes and the gradual strengthening of cultural exchange in the world.
International Star Trek fandom has developed by essentially turning a key tenet of the franchise—
infinite diversity in infinite combinations (IDIC)—into a “glocal” practice, i.e., fusing transnational
aspirations and intercultural exchange with locally rooted praxis.
International Appeal and IDIC in Action

The international fandom of the Star Trek franchise took some time to develop since TOS was
initially broadcast only on North American and Australian TV channels. However, by the end of
the 1970s, Star Trek was being shown in syndication in more than 48 countries (Roddenberry,
cited in Trek Nation 2013). The release of TMP in 1979 boosted the viewership in Germany, for
example, and Star Trek fandom began to spread worldwide more quickly afterwards (Cuntz-Leng
and Metzinger 2015). Certainly, the interracial crew of the Enterprise and the internationalism-in-
space its mission espoused contributed to its appeal across borders. Other major factors that have
stimulated fan involvement in various regions of our globe were the scope of the problems, which
could be addressed only from a perspective wider than a national one, and the aspirational values of
inclusion its trademark motto—IDIC.
While the emergence of Star Trek fandom in the United States and its history is covered in
Chapter 31, here it is especially important to remember the activities of the Star Trek Welcommittee,
which existed from 1972 until 1998. It was instrumental in fostering new clubs, lending support for
such activities internationally from the very start, thanks in part to one of its founders, Diane Marchant,
DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917-37 231

Larisa Mikhaylova
an Australian from Melbourne, who organized the first Star Trek program at Aussiecon in 1975
(National Library of Australia n.d.). According to Shirley Majewski, who was the Welcommittee’s
chairperson between 1977 and 1998,
[i]‌t should be remembered that the Welcommittee was not a fan club but more specifically
an information and referral service. In fact, the organization was an actual licensee, having
been granted a license by Paramount to serve as Star Trek’s official liaison to fandom, and
sell several cloth patches as a fundraiser.
(Handley 2003)
The club ceased to exist only with the advent of the internet era due to email’s effectiveness over
the hand-or typewritten mail dispatches through which early Star Trek fandom had its own “world-
wide web” manually spun by hundreds of volunteers in the Star Trek Welcommittee.
Along the way, the Star Trek Welcommittee published a constantly updated directory of Star Trek
Organizations (35 annual issues). The directory included the contact information of anywhere
between two and almost five hundred clubs, the listings of up to five hundred fanzines as well as
practical suggestions for club organizers which helped the network to grow and flourish. Fanzines,
the tried-and-tested means in science fiction fandom to share findings, opinions, and art, served as
a way to materialize and consolidate these ties (see Chapter 33). A study of two early fanzines—
Spockanalia and T-Negative—conducted by Jacqueline Guerrier (2018) has shown, by way of mapping
the correspondents’ location (Figure 32.1), that the zines’ appeal and reach were international from
the very beginning, and they only grew afterwards.
Local distribution methods influenced fans’ perception to a certain extent. In some countries,
TOS and TNG were not only dubbed in the local languages, but the series titles were also translated.
Figure 32.1 Distribution of Spockanalia and T-Negative correspondents in the late 1960s/early 1970s
Source: Guerrier (2018).
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Fandom Around the World
Some examples are included below with the modified meaning in brackets if the translation was
semantically different:
German: TOS =Raumschiff Enterprise (“Spacecraft Enterprise”); TNG =Raumschiff Enterprise:

Das nächste Jahrhundert (“Spacecraft Enterprise: The Next Century”)
Hebrew: ‫“( םיבכוכ ןיב עסמ‬Journey Between the Stars”)
Japanese: Uchuu Daisakusen (“Space Strategy” or “Big Operation in Space,” and “Space Patrol” from
the second TOS season onward)
Polish: Gwiezdna wędrówka
Brazilian Portuguese: Jornada nas Estrelas (“Journey to the Stars”)
Russian: Звёздный путь
Spanish: “Viaje a las Estrellas” (“Voyage to the Stars”)
Ukrainian: Зоряний шлях
For Trekkies 2 (2004), a documentary on Star Trek fandom outside the United States, Denise Crosby,
who played Tasha Yar in TNG, spoke with fans from Germany, France, England, Italy, Serbia, Australia,
and Brazil. The film documents the activities of German fans organizing huge conventions such
as FedCon, which, in the beginning, was a small fan gathering in Augsburg, Bavaria, and which
over 20 years later moved to Bonn and evolved into one of the biggest European conventions (see
Chapter 35). Growing beyond its early days of a Star Trek-only convention, it now encompasses
multiple sf fandoms, ranging from Stargate to Battlestar Galactica and more. The documentary film
also covered French fan artists, the feat of an English fan who designed his home’s interior in TNG
fashion, and cosplayers in Italy and Brazil.
Even though each individual came to like Star Trek from his or her own perspective, it is still possible
to identify a common combination of rational and emotional magnetism, which a Japanese fan (tkond2)
has described in response to a Japan Today article on the appeal of the franchise in the land of the rising sun:
The characters represented diverse individuals working together, caring for each other
and making hard sacrifices for each other. The friendship and connections between these
characters was [sic] very inspiring because I think it was the kind of positive connections we
all hoped for in our own lives.
The idea of exploration and adventure is also very compelling. I think this sense is a
large part of both American and European culture and something I think Japan has grown
to share. Seeing new things, meeting new challenges and proving yourself in hard times was
very appealing.
The technology has clearly inspired everything from PC screens to flip phones. You can
see it all around you.
…
Finally, the idea of a nation, in this case, a federation, where people are truly equal was
very inspired for that time and still resonates with us. Race, religion and even economic
level were not issues in the Star Trek world. Everyone could be what he or she worked to
become through talent, intellect and will. This represents a world that I think many Trekkies
would love to see replace our current one where little more than money really matters.
Am I a Trekkie? Maybe not really. But I am a fan, even more so of the ideas the series
suggested were possible. For that quality alone it outshines nearly every other series
ever made.
(Lano 2010)
This extended quote efficiently combines the ideological, psychological, political, and futurological
aspects that are often taken into consideration separately, but which led to specific attitudes to Star Trek
233
Larisa Mikhaylova
as a whole. A lot depends on the cultural and political history of the country in question, sometimes
even precluding the following of the ideological undertones of the series. For example, according to
Polish fandom scholar Agnieszka Urbańczyk, the rejection of Star Trek’s utopian ideology in Polish
fandom can be attributed to the influence of Stanisław Lem and his harsh criticism of it. In fact, Polish
fandom even split into two distinct camps—a smaller cohort developed along the lines of a more
Western understanding of Star Trek, and the second, somewhat larger, male-dominated and con-
servative fan community refuses to relate Star Trek lore to any real-life developments in the society
(Urbańczyk, 2021).
One of the peculiar features of Star Trek’s worldbuilding is the absence of national borders
and nation states on twenty-fourth-century Earth. Consequently, there is a tendency in Star Trek
fandom to form fan organizations with the expressed goal to reflect this denationalized glo-
balism and work toward reaching international cooperation. STARFLEET: The International
Star Trek Fan Association, Inc. (SFI) is arguably the longest-existing international fan organ-
ization (since 1974). As its name suggests, it is organized along the lines of Starfleet, i.e., div-
iding the globe into 20 different fleets, each corresponding to a particular geographic region,
accommodating different fan chapters. In total, SFI boasts 5,300 members and over 230 chapters
around the world. Of those, approximately 900 members and over 20 chapters are not based in
the Americas. Each chapter is set up along the lines of a starship or station. In order to become
a chapter, ten SFI dues-paying members need to assemble. Individual members have a rank and
can advance by way of obtaining points which reflect the scope of their activities and participa-
tion as well as their active service years. A “ship” (chapter) can do community service projects
(e.g., pick up trash, donate blood, charity drives, etc.) or go to conventions, have V.I.P. nights
(Videos Including Pizza), play games, go bowling, go to Renaissance Fairs, or join another
ship’s meetings. Dues are affordable (five US dollars per year) and go toward supporting com-
munity activities, one of them being the promotion of the major goals of Star Trek through
scholarships; these include but are not limited to the Space Explorers’ Memorial Scholarship
that honors astronauts and cosmonauts who have died to further efforts in space exploration,
the James Doohan/ Montgomery Scott Engineering & Technology Scholarship, DeForest
Kelley/Dr. Leonard McCoy Memorial Medical & Veterinarian Scholarship, Gene Roddenberry
Memorial/Sir Patrick Stewart Scholarship for Aspiring Writers & Artists and Armin Shimerman/
George Takei/LeVar Burton Scholarship for Business, Language Studies & Education; the latter
four are named after actors and/or characters who embody the Star Trek spirit. Documenting
their activities and cooperation across borders, SFI has published more than two hundred issues
of its newsletter/magazine “STARFLEET Communique CQ” to date.
Without a doubt, cultural differences color the ways fans transfer the values from Star Trek into
their daily lives (Figure 32.2). For instance, charity work is a key component for Brazilian Contrekkers,
who declared in the announcement for their 2019 convention the following:
The event is FREE but if you want to help, we will be collecting 1kg of non-perish-
able food or a sweater in good condition, which will be donated to needy institutions.
We aim to disseminate Star Trek, Science and Science Fiction in different cultural settings,
and take the opportunity to help others.
(Cezaroni 2019, original emphasis, trans. by author)
In Japan, meanwhile, where the so-called ‘toy craze’ is a pronounced feature of material fandom
and daily life, Star Trek influenced the way of life of fans through technodesign. KSN Midori, a
Japanese manufacturer of injection-molded plastic model kits, produced some of the earliest model
kits of the Enterprise in the country in 1969 (Lano 2010). In this way, Star Trek was simply folded
into the existing line of production and distribution of images in Japan. The same could be said
about book illustrations, but the signature Star Trek font could not be copied exactly for Japanese
234
Figure 32.2 A call for blood donations on the Brazilian Trekkers’ website
Source: www.startrekkers.com.br
Figure 32.3 Katakana font stylized for Star Trek

Source: www.jref.com
syllabic and hieroglyphic scripts, which pushed fans to modify the fonts as one of their fan activities
(Figure 32.3).
TMP served as an important link to the Star Trek universe for the viewers in India with the
help of a high-profile international Canadian Star Trek fan, Sanjeev Chowdhury, who served
as Vice-Consul of Canada in Mumbai. In 1999, he designed and funded the Persis Khambatta
Memorial Award to honor the memory of his best friend—the Indian actress Persis Khambatta
who played Ilia in TMP (Aranha 2019). Including a scholarship and trophy, it is awarded annu-
ally to the top graduating student of the National Institute of Fashion Technology. To date, 19
awards have been presented. As is the case with SFI, intertwining the legacy of Star Trek with
the education of younger generations is a way for fans to combine ideals and reality in India
where Trekkers are not yet very organized.
235
Larisa Mikhaylova
Ways to Organize Online

In many countries, groups of fans coalesced around people who demonstrated good organizing
skills, sometimes published fanzines, pioneered using online resources, and by the end of the 1990s
established an online Star Trek presence hailing from all continents. Due to generational changes and
social dynamics, fan groups rarely maintain stability for more than 20–25 years. Some nodes of sig-
nificant and creative activity present today are listed in Table 32.1.
The second major boost of interest in Star Trek in the twenty-first century was brought by ST09.
Its effects can be seen clearly in this German fandom site’s statistics (Figure 32.4).
At present, Star Trek fans actively use social media— Facebook, Instagram, Telegram,
Twitter, Tumblr, and many other platforms—capitalizing on the advantages of these platforms—
instantaneousness and mobility— when compared to their immediate predecessors, such as, for
example, LiveJournal blogs and website forums, which had replaced the discussion boards of the early
years of the internet. While this shift happened all over the world, it is perhaps most pronounced in
China and South-East Asia.
In 2015, Liu Dejian designed and built the headquarters of NetDragon Websoft, a Chinese gaming
company, in the form of the Enterprise (Figure 32.5). A self-confessed “uber-Trekkie,” Liu became a
fan of the show while studying at the University of Kansas. Since then, his involvement has turned
into a “way of understanding life” (Tang 2015). His company has invested heavily in developing
immersive virtual-reality gaming and entertainment technologies (Zatt 2016). Maybe even more
important, Liu Dejian sold his company to and now sits on the board of directors of Baidu, a high-
powered internet service provider comparable to Google. It goes without saying that the future of
fandom development is definitely connected with social media.
In Asian countries, such as China, Singapore, and Japan, social media has already become the pre-
dominant way of sharing appreciation for Star Trek online. From updating their information on pro-
duction news to interviews with the creative crews of Star Trek past, present, and future, fans rely on
the meticulously maintained websites of older clubs—such as the Australian Trek Zone (trekzone.org).
But discussions moved to social media. In China, the microblog account “Star Trek China” (weibo.
com/startrekchina) has over twenty million views and more than 2,500 followers. In Japan, Mixi.
jp became a socializing space for the local Star Trek Friends Association and many more assorted
groups, which helped to give voice to over 5,000 fans who came together from Kyoto, Yokohama,
Fukuoka, and other parts of Japan and indeed the world (Mixi n.d.). ST09, STID, and STB brought
a new generation of millennials to Indonesian fandom both in Bahasi and English, too. International
activity also exists between nationally-based clubs. The Polish wiki Memory Theta, for instance, posted
a recording of the Skype meeting between WOGF (Wielkopolski Oddział Gwiezdnej Floty—“The
Bigger Poland Starfleet Division”) (Memory Theta n.d.) and the Indonesian Star Trek Community,
who observed a “Star Trek Day” on November 23, 2013. On the fan-maintained wiki Memory Alpha,
one can also find several other international clubs.
Online tools and services render the interaction between fans immediate and instantaneous.
However, as the Covid-19 pandemic showed, there was an increased need for direct interaction. The
Russian Federation Trekkers are a particularly clear example, as they showcase special activities that
speak to the conceptual ties with Star Trek ideas and lore in local circles.
Russian Fan Activities

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Russian Star Trek fandom activities, out of necessity, moved entirely
online (mostly to chats on Telegram), begrudgingly pausing a 20-year tradition of predominantly in-
person interaction. As an organized community, Trekkers (a preferred self-designation) have come
together in Russia since 2000. While portions from Star Trek shows had previously been brought
from the United States or elsewhere on VHS cassettes, and a series of books had been translated and
published in Russia in the 1990s, the franchise was still not well known in the country. During the
236
newgenrtpdf
Table 32.1 Major national fan organizations outside of the United States (in order of their formation) according to their currently updated websites
Country Club/website Website address Date est. No. of Notes

registered
members
(approx.)
Australia Aggregated, clubs exist since 1968 www.trekzone.org 2003 40,000 Across all media; club website,
Facebook, Youtube, Twitter
Major source of Star Trek news, regular
science commentary, podcasts

Austria trekdinner Graz www.trekdinner-graz.org 1994 100 Well-kept home for a stable Star Trek
club with mailing lists
Czech Republic Kontinuum.cz www.kontinuum.cz; 1995 700 Two annual conventions, regular
www.trekkies.cz 2011 updates on fanfiction and especially
237
fan films
Germany Ex Astris Sciencia (EAS) www.ex-astris-scientia.org/about.htm 1998 10,000 Major source of Star Trek news,
Created by Bernd Schneider well-kept database, regular polling
Russia Треккеры: www.trekker.ru 1998 4,500 Not regularly updated, but a live
Starbases Moscow, St. Petersburg, Samara place for discussions, translation of
subtitles
Sweden Star Trek Databas www.startrekdb.se 2003 1,000 Database and forum
Indonesia Indonesia Star Trek Community www.indo-startrek.org 2003 800 Portal for many groups of Indonesian
Trekkers
Spain Club Star Trek de España www.facebook.com/clubstartrek/ 2004 3,000 Video and photo archives of Spanish
conventions
Brazil Star Trekkers www.startrekkers.com.br 2014 5,000 Video comments on all Star Trek and
Orville episodes, charity activities
Source: Compiled by Larisa Mikhaylova.

Larisa Mikhaylova
Figure 32.4 Bernd Schneider EAS site statistics

Source: www.ex-astris-scientia.org
Figure 32.5 NetDragon Websoft HQ and Liu Dejian in front of his office
Source: Open access photos.
New Year holidays in 2001, TNG was shown on the all-Russian TV channel STS for the first time,
and that was when fans started to gravitate together on internet discussion boards and pretty quickly
decided to gather for their first convention near Moscow.1
Probably the first noteworthy feature for the Russian Trekkers is a week-long, camping-style
convention in the forest in July, called RusCon. Over one hundred people come not only from
Moscow and St. Petersburg, but also from Novgorod, Vladimir, the Urals, Rostov-on-Don, Samara,
238
Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, and Siberia, and other countries (e.g., Ukraine), too. They specifically
arrange their vacations in order to meet old and new friends at the convention, and to spend the
week watching Star Trek, debating philosophical and ethical principles drawn from all the series of
the franchise, taking part in competitions and games arranged throughout the week, as well as par-
ticipating in creative sessions, seminars, and excursions. People also come to RusCon with their fam-
ilies; small children then become a new generation who admire Star Trek. For several years, the five
days were thematically organized around five series—TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, and ENT. At the end
of the sixth day, there is a banquet night featuring sketches and an emotional ritual in which people
join the flames of their candles, sharing what being together has brought them. Though the conven-
tion takes place in a forest, Trekkers still enjoy a lot of modern technology: once a generator and a
large screen were brought to the convention, it became possible to screen Star Trek episodes of good
quality from licensed DVDs enhanced by a Trekker who is a sound operator by profession. Among
other professions, the most common are IT specialists, journalists, biologists, lawyers, engineers, and,
quite naturally, space scientists. While the age of attendees ranges from newborns to 60+, the average
age lies between 20 and 40.
Most important to RusCon’s campers are the principles of community living: they depend on
each other to perform their voluntary duties of preparing food, transporting food and water in a
specially rented minivan, establishing the camp, maintaining ecological balance through the sorting
of waste, and keeping watch. Meals are eaten collectively, with vegetarian choices, and lovers of
mushrooms can gather and cook them as well. Medical first aid is provided by a hired specialist,
who—“infected” by the Trekkers’ enthusiasm—also takes part in common activities.
Usually, one of the central events is a themed game developed by the conference organizers.
In 2016, the participants slipped into the roles of colonists going to New Vega, but their ship was
grounded by an anomaly along the way, and so they had to explore an alien planet with limited
resources. After encountering a tribe of amphibious indigenous people, they established contact
with them. What followed were elaborate interactions with other extraterrestrials who had been
stranded, forming working relations with them—even with a haughty Cardassian—in order to get a
transmitter working, and resume their journey. The underlying theme of the game was celebrating
diversity. In that way, the Trekkers’ ideology follows the legacy of Roddenberry and the internation-
alism proclaimed and, to some extent, developed in Soviet times.
In 2019, I conducted a survey of Russian Trekkers, who answered questions about what the ‘Trek
spirit’ means for them—that elusive quality which causes such heated controversy around the more
recent Star Trek series (DSC and PIC) and the Star Trek homage The Orville (see Chapter 38). The
three first most popular qualities respondents identified were “striving to go into the unknown in
order to research, observe, and understand Universe” (27 percent), “mutual support, camaraderie,
team work” (21 percent), and a “belief in a possibility to solve the conflicts and build the better world
together, IDIC, humanism” (21 percent).
The fabric of Russian Star Trek fandom accommodates a diverse range of communities. For
example, in the “first a-social network,” as they call themselves, there is an active Russian K/S slasher
creative community with 2,000 registered users who regularly have participated in fandom battles
since 2011. These are competitions where fan-created texts and videos are posted anonymously
and subsequently rated. While there is generally little overlap between the Russian slasher commu-
nity and the activities of other non-slasher Trekkers, one of the battle judges also takes active part
in RusCon as the organizer of quests. Another group, the Moscow Trekkers, start their year with
“TNG”—“Trekkerskii Novyi God” [“Trekkers’ New Year”], an annual non-alcoholic celebration
in an anti-café which attracts 30–40 people. In best Secret Santa tradition, the Starbase Moscow cap-
tain distributes presents from under a fir tree to everyone in attendance. Attendees have the option
of voting on episodes which are then screened, while in another room, people play board and card
games. For example, there is a unique Trekkers’ Poker—developed by Moscow fan M’Ress—with
five suits (based on TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, and ENT). The game consists of Trek Pairs of characters
239
Larisa Mikhaylova
Figure 32.6 Trek Poker with five suits designed by Russian Trekker M’Ress
Source: Photo by author.
married in the series, and Joker cards, including Q (which can become any card), the Borg Queen
(which assimilates cards into your suit), a Tribble (which doubles your card), and Harry Mudd (who
marries Trek Pairs) along with special features (certain counter-Joker cards, for example). Played
entirely for the fun of companionship, this game makes a night at the poker table into a story of prob-
abilities and amazement (Figure 32.6).
Fannish materials have been published in St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg-based fanzines and
regularly appear in a special section of a Russian SF magazine called Supernova [Sverkhnovaya F&SF],
which is published in Moscow.
Conclusion
This chapter outlined the development of the international Star Trek fandom up to 2020 and
touched upon special activities of some national fan clubs and their ways to interact with each other.
There are exciting perspectives for research in the field of international comparative fandom studies,
for example, on the basis of a questionnaire developed by joint efforts from scholars from different
countries. As with the case of fandoms swerving to social media, it is practically impossible to make a
correct estimate of participant numbers. Further research should also be geared toward exploring the
interest in Star Trek found in some Asian countries where the most common way for young people
to participate in the fandom during their college years is the so-called “bus fandom”—analogous to
passengers on a short bus trip (Wang 2019). It would be interesting to know if they carry any legacy
of Star Trek into their post-graduation lives. A broader focus on disparities could also serve as an
impetus for applying a combined sociological and cultural studies approach, helping to connect data
on generational differences (Wilson and Wilson 2020) and the ways fans combine their viewing
experience with the core values of their culture (Mikhaylova 2012). Existing websites, such as the
German Ex Astris Scientia, with decades-worth of polling data, are practically untapped by researchers
(Ex Astris Scientia n.d.). Along with older printed fanzines, these data sets may disappear and/or
become inaccessible as technology changes. Consequently, there is a need to preserve and archive
these digital resources for future research.
As actor John de Lancie, who plays fan favorite Q, admitted, the most endearing quality in
Star Trek fans for him is the inclusivity of their fan clubs, which stands in stark contrast to the exclu-
sivity promoted by many other clubs or club-like entities (Mautner 2013). Indeed, fans who gravitate
240
together based on their shared interest in and appreciation for Star Trek, are usually eager to pros-
elytize about them to the uninitiated; among themselves, however, they engage in all sorts of activities,
not necessarily connected to Star Trek, because it becomes important to spend more time with the
people who are on a similar, or even the same wavelength. Families are formed within the commu-
nities and babies are swaddled in Starfleet delta-studded cloth, symbolizing the hope that they enter
a world that is being built closer to the ethos embodied by Star Trek.
Acknowledgements
Agniezka Urbanczyk for Polish fandom insight.
Stefan Rabisch for German and Austrian clubs information.
Marc Seven for Brazilian experience.
Lisianna Wilson for raw data on generational research.
Dar Gerasimenko for the help with Chinese fandom data
Russian trekkers who filled in the questionnaire in 2019
James Herring and Thomas Sigmundsson who welcomed me to STARFLEET International Fan
Association.
Note
1 I joined the group in 2002, and all the figures and facts on Russian Trekkers that follow come from my
personal observations and research.
References
Aranha, Jovita. 2019. “Star Trek to Success: Persis Khambatta, the First Indian Woman to Stamp a Mark in
Hollywood.” The Better India, August 26, 2019. Available at: www.thebetterindia.com/192980/persis-
khambatta-star-trek-first-indian-woman-hollywood-movie-cinema-india/.
Bennet, Christopher. 2010. “Star Trek in Japanese.” Written Worlds. An Author’s Journal. March 30, 2010.
Available at: https://christopherlbennett.wordpress.com/2010/03/30/star-trek-in-japanese/.
Cezaroni, César. 2019. “Contrekkers 2019.” Star Trekkers: Fã-Clube Brasileiro de Jornada nas Estrelas, June 20,
2019. Available at: www.startrekkers.com.br/contrekkers-2019/.
Cuntz-Leng, Vera, and Jacqueline Meintzinger. 2015. “A Brief History of Fan Fiction in Germany.” Transformative
Works and Cultures 19 (June). Available at: https://journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc/article/
view/630/519.
Ex Astris Scientia. n.d. “Poll.” Available at: www.ex-astris-scientia.org/poll/poll.php?mode=previous. (accessed
January 15, 2020).
Frazetti, Daryl G. 2016. Anthropology of Star Trek: Exploring Core Cultural Concepts. CreateSpace Independent
Publishing Platform.
Geraghty, Lincoln, and Nicholle Lamerichs. 2018. “The State of Fandom Studies 2018: Lincoln Geraghty
& Nicholle Lamerichs (Pt. 2).” Confessions of an Aca-Fan: Official Weblog of Henry Jenkins, April 18, 2018.
Available at: http://henryjenkins.org/blog/2018/4/16/the-state-of-fandom-studies-2018-lincoln-geraghty-
nicholle-lamerichs-pt-2.
Guerrier, Jacqueline. 2018. “Where No Fandom Has Gone Before: Exploring the Development of Fandom
Through Star Trek Fanzines.” Master’s thesis, James Madison University, USA. Available at: https://comm
ons.lib.jmu.edu/master201019/580.
Handley, Rich. 2003. “Interview with Shirley Majewski.” Star Trek Communicator 143 (April/May). Available
at: https://archive.org/stream/star-trek-communicator-issue-143/star-trek-communicator-issue-143_d
jvu.txt.
Lano, J. 2010. “Japanese Trekkie Community Expanding at Warp Speed.” Japan Today, May 8, 2010. Available
at: https://japantoday.com/category/features/japanese-trekkie-community-expanding-at-warp-speed.
Mautner, Chris. 2013. “‘Star Trek’ Actor John de Lancie to Visit Lancaster Convention.” PennLive, March 21,
2013. Available at: www.pennlive.com/go/2013/03/post_80.html.
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Memory Theta. n.d. “Strona główna.” Available at: https://memory-theta.fandom.com/pl/wiki/Memory_The

ta_Wiki. (accessed January 15, 2020).
Mikhaylova, Larisa. 2012. “Star Trek Film (2009) and Russian SF Fandom: Too Many Batteries Included.” in
Fan Culture: Theory and Practice, edited by Kathryn Larsen and Lynn Zubernis, 148–161. Newcastle upon
Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Mixi. n.d. “Star Trek Friends Association.” Available at: https://mixi.jp/view_bbs.pl?comm_id=454&id=4226
159 (accessed September 10, 2021).
National Library of Australia. n.d. “Star Trek Fandom in Australia.” Available at: www.nla.gov.au/collect/
startrek.html (accessed January 15, 2020).
Urbańczyk, Agnieszka. 2021. Utopia jest sprzedawana oddzielnie. Polityczność science fiction w recepcji fanowskiej na
przykładzie Star Treka. Kraków, Księgarnia Akademicka.
Roddenberry, Gene. 1976. “Inside Star Trek.” Recorded July 1976. Track 1 on Inside Star Trek. Columbia
Records, vinyl LP.
Stanfill, Mel, and Anne Jamison. 2018. “The State of Fandom Studies 2018: Mel Stanfill & Anne Jamison (Pt.
1).” Confessions of an Aca-Fan: Official Weblog of Henry Jenkins, April 18, 2018. Available at: http://henryjenk
ins.org/blog/2018/4/18/the-state-of-fandom-studies-2018-mel-stanfi ll-anne-jamison-pt-1?rq=stanfi ll.
Tang, See Kit. 2015. “Chinese Tycoon Reveals Plan Behind ‘Star Trek HQ’.” CNBC.com, June 15, 2015.
Available at: www.cnbc.com/2015/06/15/chinese-tycoon-reveals-plan-behind-star-trek-hq.html.
Wang, Regina Kanyu. 2019. “A Brief Introduction into Chinese Science Fiction and Fandom.” In Broken
Stars: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation, edited by Ken Liu, 457–463. New York: Tor Books.
Wilson, Keith, and Lisianna Wilson. 2020. “Is Star Trek Fandom Really Divided Across Generational Lines?”
Medium, February 9, 2020. Available at: https://medium.com/@kdwilson/is-star-trek-fandom-really-divi
ded-across-generational-lines-10868dc7fa61.
Zatt, Brandon. 2016. “Chinese Online Gaming Tycoon Eyes Education Revolution.” Post Magazine,
April 28, 2016. Available at: www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/1939069/
chinese-online-gaming-tycoon-eyes-education.
Documentaries
Trek Nation. 2013. dir. Scott Colthorp. Roddenberry Entertainment.
Trekkies 2. 2004. dir. Roger Nygard. Neo Art & Logic, Paramount Pictures.
Acknowledgements
Agniezka Urbanczyk for Polish fandom insight.
Stefan Rabisch for German and Austrian clubs information.
Marc Seven for Brazilian experience.
Lisianna Wilson for raw data on generational research.
Dar Gerasimenko for the help with Chinese fandom data
Russian trekkers who filled in the questionnaire in 2019
James Herring and Thomas Sigmundsson who welcomed me to STARFLEET International Fan Association
242
33
FAN FICTION
Kathryn Heffner
In 1967, the self-produced fan magazine Spockanalia launched, creating a distinct cultural heri-
tage practice: fan fiction. This form of amateur text creation initiated an enduring legacy of
communities of writers engaging with major media texts, and revisioning narratives for their
speculative potential. These text-making practices have been categorized and defined under
numerous colloquial terms (such as “fics,” “fan fiction,” and “fanfiction”), which is dependent
on community critiques and trends within amateur writing communities.1 Star Trek fanfiction
has been one of the longest-r unning fan writing communities not only to initiate this practice,
but also to continue textual engagement within the multi-series franchise. Especially evident
in TOS fandom, fanfiction writers used prior amateur publishing practices to document and
expand and revise major media texts. In doing so, fanfiction writers also negotiated their own
distinct literary text-making practices, articulating and visualizing narratives beyond the confines
of the franchises they drew on. As a form of textual advocacy, fans produce works seeking to
explore social and political configurations of equity, desire, and empowerment. From envisioning
a homoerotic pairing between Kirk (William Shatner) and Spock (Leonard Nimoy) to centering
a narrative of galactic proportions on Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), fanfiction has worked as a
textual tool of liberation. By mapping major fanfiction works in Star Trek fandom, this chapter
surveys textual transformative works within their social, cultural, and historical contexts. In the
survey of key materials, this chapter argues that fanfiction was used as a tool for both critique
and pleasure-making. While Star Trek fanfiction varies in composition, quality, and context, it
initiated an enduring cultural practice that fans continue to engage in.
By providing an overview of distinct fan textual performances, this chapter interrogates
current histories of Star Trek fanfiction, examining some of their many social and cultural
functions. Each selected work surveyed here not only locates their social and cultural impact
on Star Trek fanfiction, but also speaks to broader trends in transformative text-based fan labor
in general. Contemporary text-makers of fanfiction sometimes draw on the historical legacies
of earlier fan communities and text productions. Consequently, the material surveyed in this
chapter straddles both the material production of fanzines and their digital brethren, such as
fanfiction online platforms. It is important to note that the works discussed here are not rep-
resentative of all the diverse and divergent textual practices of transformative works. However,
the selected physical and digital materials provide a concise overview of the types of textual
endeavors Star Trek fans labored to produce. Although a comprehensive list of fans’ textual
engagement could never fully be documented within a single chapter due to the millions of
transformative works produced, this chapter will attempt to outline unique work produced by
Star Trek fandom that had a lasting impact on creative writing practices.
DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917-38 243

Kathryn Heffner
Defining and Historicizing Star Trek Fanfiction

The earliest forms of fanfiction were generated by TOS fandom, providing both a legacy of textual
practices that fan writers engage in today, as well as being a site for scholarly innovation. Whereas fan
studies scholars have sought to enroll earlier fanfictive performances into the fold of media studies,
TOS fandom has undoubtedly provided the longest-lasting and most recognizable forms of textual
engagement. Thus, this section provides the reader with a fluid definition of fanfiction, while placing
it within the historical and cultural context of Star Trek fandom and scholarship.
The term “fanfiction” has historically held a fluid definition, defining a practice where amateurs
create derivative and speculative texts from a major media text. More succinctly, fanfiction is a written
practice which uses themes, characters, story arcs, and settings from major media texts (de Kosnik
2016, 36). Karen Hellekson and Kristina Busse classify fanfiction as a form of “amateur writing,”
emphasizing that the production occurs beyond professional and compensated publication markets
(2014, 6). Fanfiction productions are firmly located beyond the margins of for-profit mass media
labor and their attendant structures (and strictures) of intellectual property rights (ibid., 5). These
productions have primarily relied on the gift-economy, where text-makers have looked to mutually
beneficial trading practices dependent on distinct thematic elements. These trading practices and the
dissemination of fan texts have dramatically changed over the past 50 years as writers adopted con-
temporary technologies and platforms—from the mimeographed fanzine to social media platforms.
As digital infrastructures were created to knit together vast networks, Star Trek text creators used
digital platforms to extend and enrich their writing practices. Through site-specific platforms, the
creation of “taggable content,” and other tools of cybercultures, Star Trek fan writing has proven to
be a fluid and adaptable cultural heritage practice that continues to the present day.
In addition to broadening access and participation through digital means, the classification of
fanfiction has also expanded to include subgenres based on ever-evolving contexts. Along with iden-
tifying appropriate nomenclature of the practice, definitions of fanfiction are constantly expanding
to include an ecology of subgenres. Broadly, fanfiction encompasses numerous subgenres or taggable
categories which are distinguished along procedurally defined thematic elements. For instance, erotic
fanfiction is often labeled as “slash” fanfiction; it orginates in the practice of representing telepathy by
way of a double slash in a short story published in Spockanalia 4 (Verba and D’Airo 2003). This prac-
tice was later used to signify an erotic and romantic relationship between Kirk and Spock, categorized
as “K/S.” This form of mind-melding relayed an embodied intimacy between two characters, as their
innermost thoughts and desires were shared within the chosen pair. Slash was expanding beyond the
framing of these two iconic characters, creating subgenres such as “femslash” and other sub-fronds of
slash fanfiction. Amateur text-creators worked beyond the borders of media franchises, remixing and
envisioning sexual and romantic relationships with characters from different major narratives. Such
erotic pairings have been documented between Sherlock Holmes and TOS, another large fanfiction
fandom, and TOS pairings. While TOS was the first fandom to truly initiate this practice, slash
fanfiction continues to be one of the most enduring critical literacy practices fans adopt across media
franchises.
The cultural heritage practices that Star Trek fandom is said to have initiated were, however,
born out of earlier fan cultures and their attendant transformative labor. In the early twentieth cen-
tury, science fiction clubs self-published fan magazines (colloquially referred to as fanzines) as direct
responses to pulp magazines (Landon 1995, 14). Fanzines initially began as club organs for amateur
science-based collectives vis-à-vis hobbyist pulp magazines in the 1930s. The earliest of these fan
productions was The Comet, a fanzine published by the Science Correspondence Club in Chicago.
Through these amateur productions, fans were able to build and enlarge their literary social networks
through mail circulation. Employing a gift-economy logic, fanzines were either traded for similar
text-based materials using, or paid for through subscriptions and organization dues. These documents
served as the primary material conduit through which information was shared among fan groups,
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continuing well into the present day. Stimulating the growth of digital fan communities, electronic
fanzines or “e-Fanzines” have since partially replaced and/or supplemented existing zines. Late twen-
tieth-and early twenty-first-century online discussion boards and platforms like the 1982 Usenet
group, Yahoo! Groups and Livejournal provided the digital infrastructure for fans to connect and share
criticism and fanfiction with one another. These digital communities continued to adapt new and
novel online platforms and digital archives such as Archive of Our Own (AO3) and the Organization
of Transformative Works (OTW), which have sought to preserve the text-making labor of fan com-
munities. With the creation of digital networks and specific platforms of information sharing, fans
continue to use digital ecologies to share their texts within distinctive fan communities.
The academic study of Star Trek fanfiction continues to be a fecund site for research on the
critical reception of major media franchises and text-making practices. Much of this scholarship has
sought to investigate the diverse textual practices of fans within their respective historic and contem-
porary interpretive communities. Influential texts, such as Textual Poachers (Jenkins 1992), Enterprising
Women (Bacon-Smith 1992) and Adoring Audiences (Lewis 1992), all of which were published in 1992,
examined specific communities and their relationship with media. Concomitant with the rise of the
discipline of media studies, scholarship has striven to reclaim the history between text-based canonical
works and fanfiction as forms of critical literacy and reader-response labor. Cultural historiographies
on early fanfiction have broadly investigated communities and their texts, which range from Sherlock
Holmes pastiches to community storytelling practices around Homer’s Odyssey and the Iliad, and
other engagements associated with the literary canon. Anne Jamison argues that the history of fans’
transformative textual labor emerged from pastiches circulating around the Sherlock Holmes uni-
verse (2013, 12). Whereas early forms of communal text-creation have been integral to fan studies,
Star Trek fanfiction has been one of the purveyor and most readily identifiable form of text-creation
for fans and academics alike. From fanfiction’s inception in fanzines and other self-published media,
the sheer breadth and creativity of fanfiction productions across Star Trek franchises continue to draw
the attention of fan studies scholars and aca fans.
Gen Fic and Equitable Futures

“Gen fic” is a category of fanfiction that does not have any erotic elements within the storyline,
which makes these textual works suitable for any age. This term emerged as a way to distin-
guish texts from the erotic storylines in slash fanfiction (“Gen” 2021). Early fanfiction published
in TOS fanzines was usually dedicated to and focused on a single character from the television
series. Whereas fan club bulletins and newsletters were primarily categorized as works of non-
fiction, the format of these “dedication” fanzines provided early TOS fan clubs with a material
platform to experiment with fiction. Fans helped to usher in “media fandom” through their
unique transformative engagements critiquing moving image materials and texts. As the subgenre
encompasses a large spectrum of themes and franchises, gen fanfiction often weaves contemporary
socio-political themes into its substrate. These works attend to numerous socio-cultural problems,
exploring and expanding upon diversity, gender, sexuality, and ability. Star Trek fanfiction writers
used the rich scientific and literary landscape of the canon to build emblematic textual practices
that excavate these issues.
Edited by Devra Langsam and Sherna Comerford, the earliest fanzine to publish Star Trek fanfiction
was Spockanalia (OAK Trust 1967). Spockanalia was initially published as a “one-shot” (or single-
volume fanzine) in dedication to Leonard Nimoy and the character of Spock (Verba and D’Airo
2003). Contributions to the 90-page fanzine straddled different literary genres, ranging from poetry
and song lyrics to short stories. The zine opens with the poem “The Territory of Rigel,” which is fre-
quently identified as the earliest form of Star Trek fanfiction. Written by Dorothy Jones, the poem is
intended to be authored from Spock’s perspective, and it introduced the fan textual practice of using
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Kathryn Heffner
two complementary voices within the poetic form, commonly referred to as “Ni’var.” The poetics
serve as a textual representation of performance, as the stanzas emerge from two separate perspectives
and are intended to be played on a harp. Jones synthesizes her work in the following paragraph, pro-
viding contextual details as to how this poem could have been authored by Spock. In her reflection,
she argues the plausibility of Spock authoring such an affective and emotional text. As the earliest
form of fanfiction in TOS fandom, fans created text to diversify and push beyond the boundaries of
the Star Trek canon while representing the interests within their fan community. As these writers
worked to reimagine character arcs, settings, and themes, they also critically engaged with the literary
tastes and prior works of fans.
In addition to genre-blurring, TOS fans synthesized scientific literacies in their creative writing,
which was an important way of working toward gender parity in literature and science. Spockanalia
published fanfiction that was stylized like scientific reports: skillfully fusing scientific and literary
themes, there are texts about Vulcan physiology and accounts of Vulcan’s atmosphere. Text-makers
who contributed to the fanzine often wrote themselves as members of the Federation, adopting per-
sonas and blurring the boundaries between the categories of pastiche and fanfiction. The textual
practices that are found in Spockanalia engage with a literary/scientific imaginary framed by TOS.
Many of the contributors were women, who incorporated frameworks from psychology, medicine,
and anthropology into their literary interventions. Fanfiction published in this communal docu-
ment closely aligns with speculative science. Most notable is Registered Nurse Sandy Deckinger’s
detailed medical treatise in which she illustrates and argues in defense of the Vulcan heart being a six-
chambered organ (OAK Trust 1969, 21–22). In her delineation, Deckinger adopts forms of science
communication to provide an understanding of the physiology of Vulcans. Such imaginative works
demonstrate how fanfiction incorporated both a scientific and literary framework in interpreting
characters beyond the canon.
Working in tandem with the civil rights movements of the 1960s, narratives of diversity in TOS
were fashioned around the socio-cultural influences of liberation and equal rights (see Chapter 1).
Gen-fic then stepped in to expand on the promise and potential of social justice and equity shown
within the confines of the canon. André Carrington’s Speculative Blackness (2016), provides exemplary
research of Black fandom cultures and the importance of representation of Uhura (Nichelle Nichols).
Adding to this body of scholarship on participatory text-making are the fan works from the influen-
tial Black fan editor Winston A. Howlett, who prolifically published fanzines reappraising Lt. Uhura’s
role on the Enterprise. Howlett’s expansive fanzine, The Goddess Uhura (1976) richly details an inde-
pendent and adventuring Uhura beyond her duty station on the Enterprise. Detailed images of her are
interspersed throughout the work, providing a visualization of the emancipatory settings approached
and visited within the text. From this vantage point, Uhura is written and illustrated as a main char-
acter and protagonist, whose visibility as a Black woman of science is at the forefront.
The Goddess Uhura includes the novelette “Last Skimmer to Jericho,” which was also penned by
Howlett. The story tells of how Uhura must leave the Enterprise and conduct her own mission on
the planet Jericho. This reframing of Uhura depicts the lieutenant as her own liberator in which she
leaves Starfleet to explore her heritage on another planet, while centering her as a scientific adven-
turer in her own right. This dedication zine worked in close relation with the Nichelle Nichols
fan club, and the story was anthologized in other fanzines for its literary qualities. Whereas TOS
placed Lt. Uhura squarely within the confines of the bridge, fanfiction creators worked beyond
the narrative boundaries of the major text providing the character her own distinct and focused
storyline. It is important to note that these fanfiction narratives of revisioning societal and cultural
restraints preceded the more liberatory narratives that the franchise would adopt decades later. Amy
Chambers (2020), as well as Diana A. Mafe (2020), have both argued that the radical creation of
characters such as science specialist Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) is a revolutionary
act within major media productions. Thus, fanfiction often affords fans an opportunity to work with
textual material beyond prescriptive boundaries and create speculative spaces of justice. The format
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of tribute/appreciation fanzines, which were written about a singular character, provided fans with a
creative space for engaging in a form of (radical) textual activism.
These practices of textual activism continued beyond the margins of major media productions,
finding their home in the form of appreciative fanfiction in online and print communities.
VOY gave fans a central woman character with a science background who commanded the
titular ship. Jane Donawerth has explored the sociopolitical discourses found in the 1990s fan-
zine Now Voyager and the feminist sentiments that emerged around the Kate Mulgrew/Kathryn
Janeway fandom. Donawerth argues that the decision to make Voyager’s captain a woman provided
a character for fan-based discussions about equal-r ights feminism (2018, 163). In addition to cri-
tiquing women heroines in science fiction, the fanzine also includes texts which explore how
Captain Janeway confronts conflict and negotiates the power she holds. In issue #2, for example,
the short story “Chess” explores Janeway’s power as a ‘mediator’ in providing assistance to two
feuding planets. Discovering that Chakotay is personally invested in a certain outcome of the
negotiations, Janeway confronts the commander and asks him to set aside his feelings. Janeway’s
characterization in this fanfiction explores and builds on her being shown as an apt and hardy
interstellar diplomat in the series (see Chapter 5).
Continuing generations of Star Trek fanfiction writers have carried on the legacy of exploring
socio-political themes. Kerstin-Anja Münderlein has investigated socio-political themes in DSC
through fanfiction that was shared on websites and digital platforms. Her work has revealed
that contemporary issues of race, gender, and sexuality continue to be explored within trans-
formative texts (Münderlein 2020). According to Münderlein, fans of DSC not only critique
representations of gender and sexuality, but also confront trauma and ability through textually
extrapolative processes. In examining fanfiction by Ailendolin and BlackQat on Archive of Our
Own, Münderlein brings into focus two contrasting perspectives on war and racialized vio-
lence, arguing that the majority of these stories approach issues of “important discourses such as
ethical behavior in science and war, trauma, racial purity, or, specifically in Star Trek, same-sex
relationships” (ibid., 175).
Slash Fic: Performing Pleasure through Imagined Equity

The sexually speculative works of slash fic, a form of erotic and romantic fanfiction, also emerged from
TOS fandom. The majority of these productions explore sexual liaisons between an erotic pairing
of Kirk and Spock, which is commonly referred to as “K/S fic.” These performances of pleasure
often envisioned an imagined equity within the pairing of two main characters by seeking mutable
differences within an erotic landscape. Beyond the more popularized pairing of Kirk and Spock, there
exist other narratives which use characters with racial, sexual, and gender differences to reimagine
equitable sexual and romantic partnerships within the Star Trek franchise. These performances of
pleasure between characters provided a speculative landscape to explore equity and diversity between
characters. Although the production and distribution of slash fanfiction provide an erotic and intel-
lectual landscape to examine, these forays have not been entirely unproblematic. As newer series are
increasingly including queer characters and representation of queerness, there continue to be ethical
issues of power within racialized and intersectional representations (see Chapter 53).
From its earliest inception in fanzines, slash fanfiction has functioned as a critical discourse for
examining power relations within an erotic framework. These explorations have sought to re-envision
erotic parity and equality among main characters who wield a tremendous form of agency and power.
While the readerly Star Trek communities that traditionally comprised slash fandoms have consistently
been documented as being mostly women, their K/S work is not immediately coded as being “homo-
erotic.” Critical examinations of women’s slash productions have argued that they are representative
of desires that emphasize the mutuality and equality which undergird these erotic pairings (Hellekson
and Busse 2006; Lamb and Frazer 2014). Patricia Frazer and Diana Lamb have shifted the focus from
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untangling pornographic characteristics of slash to critically examining the deep partnership begotten
by Kirk and Spock’s life-long telepathic bonding (2014, 101). They assert that the K/S bonding is
founded on the pair being deeply vulnerable and interconnected to one another. Lamb and Frazer
have also noted that the envisioning and writing of this coupling are based on “their unquestioning
reliance on one another’s courage, strength, and wits” (ibid., 101). Underscoring this shared power
of the couple, Joanna Russ points to the multiplicities in which Spock is coded as “female” in slash
productions. In her influential essay “Pornography by Women for Women,” she argues that K/S fiction
is a form of female-created pornography that centers the narrative on nurturance and equity beyond
gender and sex roles. Russ calls attention to the fact that Spock is half-Vulcan and therefore can be
coded as the “other” to Kirk’s overtly masculinized role (2014, 85).
Slash writers engage with media subtexts and become textual interlocutors who excavate fem-
inist and queer themes, often expanding on narrative gaps to create these narratives. From the earliest
slash fanfiction production, Joan Marie Verba has argued that the narrative was written, “so vague
in the essentials that a reader might assume that it was a man and a woman making love” (Verba and
D’Airo 2003, 19). These critical literacy practices have been identified as a form of feminist textual
engagement, as argued by influential fan studies scholar Karen Hellekson. She argues that the trans-
formative work of fans within slash fiction are “teasing out the subtext,” and employing the lack of
romance as a fecund tool for exploring desire and sexuality (Hellekson and Busse 2014, 76). Thus,
producers of slash fiction explore erotic literacies by critically disentangling and forming embodied
narratives from a PG-subtext. To those who write and read K/S slash, the canonical relationship of
Kirk and Spock serves as a foundation for exploring queer and feminist sexual frontiers between two
characters who are registered as white, heterosexual, cisgender men. While there are no openly queer
characters in TOS, the act of K/S writing explores sexual parity through the power dynamics of two
main characters with considerable agency and power. This pairing often seeks to identify romance
and sexual bonding between two equal yet subtly dissimilar liberated agents in order to explore
erotic equities within a feminist framework which recontextualizes the frontiers of the canon. Thus,
slash fanfiction often provides a platform where seemingly democratized communities can engage in
textual co-construction which influences pleasure-making performances.
Whereas these erotic fictive texts have sought to explore power and desire within a framed
narrative, other erotic fanworks (such as illustrations) have been used to engage slash communities.
Illustrations accompanied fanfiction as early as 1972 in the multimodal fanzine Grup (the fanzine
for “grown-ups”). These fanworks have provided overt visualizations of erotic entanglements, dem-
onstrating an illustrative correlation to the fiction that slash writers produce. Women illustrating
these narratives have envisaged situational romances in order to extrapolate constructs of power
within equitable erotic landscapes, providing a corollary to slash short stories, serializations, novellas,
and other text-based forms. These visually-based forms of erotic slash fanfiction encompassed, for
example, coloring books. Of particular note is the 1976 K/S coloring book whose aesthetic qualities
are noteworthy vis-à-vis their socio-cultural meaning (Feyrer 1969). Published eight years after the
completion of TOS, the erotic slash fiction coloring book “K/S” does not include a colophon or
any readily identifiable bibliographic data such as illustrator, press, volume number, etc. It was made
available through access to the Sandy Hereld Memorial Digitized Media Fanzine Collection of Slash
Fiction, and for privacy purposes, bibliographic data cannot be documented beyond the fan com-
munity.2 The coloring book opens with a psychedelic image of Kirk and Spock passionately kissing,
which continues to become more explicit throughout the publication. These images drew on prior
fanfictive illustrations, such as a diagram of the Vulcan penis gyrating during pon farr in the fanzine
Grup, while also providing a landscape for users to color in images of Spock’s double-r idged penis.
As the illustrated content becomes more graphic, the sexual positioning of Kirk and Spock shift,
with each partner adapting to bottom and top positions. These bodily representations of switching
positions suggest that there is a shared power dynamic in this homoerotic coupling. Furthermore, the
shared sexual positioning of these two characters demonstrates to the reader the negotiated role of
248
Fan fiction
sexual equality and multifaceted desire of these “space husbands.” As readers can engage with these
coloring books either by coloring the images or simply perusing them, they perform a form of queer
erotic engagement and become enmeshed with fanfiction. Those who used this coloring book did so
not merely as a consumer or passive recipient of a text, but rather as a reader subjectively embedded
within the process of coloring beyond the margins.
Contemporary slash fanfiction has also sought to explore relations between woman/woman
pairing, a category of fanfiction known as “femslash.” Investigations of such erotic pairings have
explored the power dynamics between two women characters in VOY, in particular the pairing of
Janeway and Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan). As Abigail de Kosnik argues in Rogue Archives, these pairings
often represent desire and attraction beyond generational boundaries, and the popular technologies
that sustained different generations of fandom (2018, 222). Within this context, femslash not only
explores the power dynamics between a powerful middle-aged woman captain and a cyborg, but
also the ways in which fandom can be embodied in these two characters. De Kosnik reads the gen-
erational positionality between these two characters as being representative of the fandoms which
they signify, i.e., print and digital fandom. As slash fanfiction expanded from print fanzines to digital
outlets, the writing and reading of slash fanfiction also changed to represent a fan’s meaning-making.
Whereas K/S fanfiction narratives have explored equitable pleasures through erotic power
dynamics, there is a considerable gap in both fanfiction and scholarship on racialized bodies
and characters in Star Trek fanfiction. As slash fanfiction functions to represent pleasure within
speculative framings of power, it does not come without problematic issues concerning race and
intersectionality. As Rukmini Pande and Swati Moitra argue, “our understanding of what makes
up subversion, resistance, and co-option in fan practices therefore needs further interrogation,
especially from an intersectional standpoint” (2017). While the slash fanfiction centering Spock
has explored asexuality, homoeroticism, and pairings with Uhura, less slash fanfiction has been
dedicated to other actors and characters of color. This is especially true with regards to inter-
racial and/or interspecies pairings. For example, fan writings that include erotic representations
of Geordi (LeVar Burton) and Data (Brent Spiner) have a total of only 415 works listed on
Archive of Our Own. This significantly lower number of interracialized and pairings within a
franchise that has always had people of color, demonstrates a gap not only in the scholarship
of fan texts, but also in the fan community’s vested interest in subverting queer racial inequity.
Rukmini Pande has also more recently pointed to the racism inherent in fan practices (2018).
Whereas speculative queer futures were made possible in TOS slash fanfiction, and gen fanfiction
provided appreciative PG-rated narratives of people of color, interracial slash fanfiction within
earlier franchise productions have been less popularly published texts.
Fanfiction and the Future

The breadth and complexity of Star Trek fanfiction cannot be understated. Star Trek fanfiction
has been prolific for more than half a century, dramatically changing in its distribution from
mimeographed fanzines to digital networks. It serves as a productive node to investigate the ways
how transformative texts were used to shape and change fan cultures. Star Trek fandom has initiated
and carried on long standing text-based practices that continue today. From its earliest forms emer-
ging from amateur publishing networks in 1967, fanfiction writers have creatively negotiated socio-
political and erotic discourses, and continue to do so more than five decades later. Similarly, fanfiction
that draws on later television series (e.g., VOY and DSC) has carried on this legacy while exploring
other forms of power and liberation. As the dissemination of fanfiction through fanzines transitioned
into web forums, chat rooms, and archived platforms such as Archive of Our Own, fan text-creators
have sought to make meaning of contemporary issues of social justice. As the franchise continues to
create storylines working to mirror contemporary speculations of liberation, fanfiction will continue
to serve as a practice that interrogates the margins and boundaries of the megatext.
249
Kathryn Heffner
Note
1 Colloquial terms signifying the work of fanfiction have included variants such as “fics,” “fan fic,” and other
genre-specific terms used within distinct fan communities (de Kosnik 2016, 36). To the chagrin of fan text-
makers, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary identifies ‘fanfiction’ as two words, when there has been a demonstrated
preference of fanfiction being one singular word within the community (Klink 2017). Consequently, the
remainder of this chapter will be in line with the preferences espoused by the text-maker community.
2 The author of this chapter would like to thank Jeremy Brett of the Cushing Memorial Library and Archives
at Texas A&M University for access to the Sandy Hereld Collection.
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Chambers, Amy C. 2020. “Star Trek Discovers Women: Gender, Race, Science and Michael Burnham.” In
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De Kosnik, Abigail. 2016. Rogue Archives: Digital Cultural Memory and Media Users. Cambridge, MA: The
MIT Press.
Donawerth, Jane. 2018. “Now Voyager, the 1990s Fanzine for a Female Starfleet Captain.” Science Fiction Film and
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34
FANVIDS
This chapter focuses on Star Trek fanvids, a form of fanwork that originated from a 1975 slide-tape
performed at a fan convention by Kandy Fong. The soundtrack was reportedly the filksong “What
Do You Do with a Drunken Vulcan?” (Coppa 2008; 2016); the slides were made using film stills
taken from TOS outtakes, placed in a sequence that would resonate with key points of the song,
and manually advanced as the music played. Coming before the release of TMP, these performances
offered new content for convention audiences, as well as a playful take on a beloved set of characters
(Coppa 2016). While the practice quickly migrated to videotape (producing what were sometimes
called “songtapes”) and was picked up by other fandoms, Star Trek vidding still has a presence today
amongst digital vidding and online distribution.
Today, fanvids (often ‘vids’) are short works that resemble music videos, with clips from a TV
series or film quickly cut and restructured, typically limited to the length of the song used for its
soundtrack—the song’s title will normally become the fanvid’s title as well.1 As with other kinds of
media fandom, vidding is dominated by female and non-binary fans (Coppa 2006; 2008; Lothian 2009;
Stein 2014). With meaning made through editing and song choice, vidding is about sharing collective
interpretations of characters, relationships, and the franchise as a whole (Turk 2010; Svegaard 2019;
Stevens 2020). This chapter discusses three aspects of Star Trek vidding: (1) TOS slash vids; (2) char-
acter studies from ST09 and DSC that explore an unarticulated interiority, and, finally, (3) fanvids
which look across the films and series of the franchise to account for its pleasures as a transmedia text.
Ultimately, fanvids offer a view into the ways Star Trek has been watched and understood by its fans.
What (and Why) Are Fanvids?

Each fanvid is made to provoke an emotional response (laughter, sorrow, desire), demonstrating an
“affective invocation of our collective engagement with media culture” (Stein 2014, para. 25), even
as that work responds to (and adds to) fannish discourse around its subject matter. For example, Llin’s
fanvid Harbor (2018), discussed below, offers a view of Star Trek that foregrounds women’s friendship,
all the while presenting an implicit critique of the relative scarcity of female characters across the
franchise. Vidding relies on its audiences’ ability to decode the associations created between shots and
song lyrics, and to read “the critical analysis of pleasure in a fan text and the simultaneous reinscription
of that pleasure” common in fanvids (Winters 2012, para. 1.1). Indeed, it is acknowledged in fandom
and scholarship alike that it can take some time to learn how to watch vids.
Fanvids function through editing choices and careful selection of soundtrack. A fanvid’s song
(sometimes referred to as a vidsong) constructs an affective frame for the interplay of image and
lyrics that is typically given as the core functioning of fanvids (Svegaard 2019). The majority
of fanvids focus on characters and relationships, but as the clips used are silenced, the vidsongs
give, or perhaps return, a voice to characters (Stevens 2020). As Tisha Turk argues, song choice
DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917-39 251

attends to “the emotions of fictional characters; we make those characters say what we assume or
believe they are thinking” (2015, 171). For example, Dedicated Follower of Fashion (purplefringe
2017) playfully presents evidence regarding Garak’s (Andrew Robinson) claim to be “just a
simple tailor.” Character study fanvids adapt the fannish way of speaking with/for characters that
Cassandra Amesley noted was performed by fans who watched TOS reruns together, where the
interjected comments made to flesh out a character’s “projected inner state … underlining a par-
ticular interpretation of a character perception” (1989, 335). In fanvids, the lyrics and instrumen-
tation, along with the sequencing and selection of clips, take on a similar function of speaking
unspoken thoughts on behalf of these characters.
Beyond an immediate response to a current media property, fanvids can preserve (and archive)
a representation of how television, films, and other media have been interpreted by an engaged
audience. Fanvids cover a range of subjects, and have been used to address individual characters,
pairings and other relationships, areas of concern around a given series or film, or to make a
broader comment about a set of tropes or genre as a whole. As Francesca Coppa points out
(2008), the original slide-tapes and surviving early videotape fanvids show that early Star Trek
vidding was particularly interested in Spock (Leonard Nimoy), exploring his motivation through
character studies and his relationship with Kirk (William Shatner) through slash vids such as
Wind Beneath My Wings (3 sisters, c. 1983–1985), discussed further below. These early works
gathered together significant moments in Spock’s journey and presented them in an intensified
sequence of meaningful moments (Stevens 2020), arguably amplifying their emotional content
(Burwell 2015).
As records of interpretation, fanvids capture and communicate a vidder’s perspective on a char-
acter or relationship. However, as Turk recognizes (2010), this is an act of collaborative interpret-
ation; vids respond to and are made for a community’s shared understanding of characters and their
motivations. Unlike the potential for fan fiction to move a reader beyond the Star Trek canon (see
Chapter 33), fanvids do not as a rule invent new scenarios or characters. Instead, they work with
the clips that are available to reveal the meanings that a vidder chooses to locate in their edits. This
fannish way of watching television locates individual moments of significance based on their import-
ance to a narrative, their aesthetic appeal, and the potential subtext (or overt meaning) in actors’
gestures and body language. The selective close reading at play in fanvids literally uses clips from a
fan’s own archive of Star Trek films and episodes to construct these interpretations and arguments,
leaving a catalogue of significant moments that we can interpret in turn.
Where Does Vidding Come From?

While fanvids emerged from convention culture (see Chapter 35), they now flourish online.
Significantly, fanvids were and are made for an audience of fellow fans, and folded neatly into media
fan conventions that provided space to screen episodes, films, interview clips, trailers, bloopers, and
other material to groups of engaged and interested attendees (Bacon-Smith 1992; Jenkins 1992;
Coppa 2006; Stevens 2021). Soon enough, there were single programming tracks focused on fanvids
which in turn led to conventions devoted to screening, discussing, and making fanvids. Ultimately,
even though fanvids are now more regularly watched alone, the sense that they are made as part of a
collective conversation about a media property prevails (Turk 2010).
It is important to note that vids could only happen with syndication and home video technology,
affording fans the opportunity to rewatch episodes and to create an archive of material out of which
vids could be made (Stevens 2017; 2020). As Constance Penley (1991) points out, this opportunity
to perform careful and close readings of episodes helped fans to note and sometimes to construct
homoerotic subtext between characters, making both slash fiction and also slash vidding possible.
Today, digital transfers of some of these oldest vids are archived in collections such as the Morgan
Dawn Fanzine and Fanvid Collection at the University of Iowa Libraries. In recent years, Archive of
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Fanvids
Our Own replaced LiveJournal as a platform for individual vidders to share the links to download and
stream their vids, along with commentary; it also provides a space for comments and discussion about
the vids, characters, and fandom in general.
In practical terms, today’s fanvids are edited digitally, using ripped and captured clips from a range
of sources with some fair use protection (Tushnet 2007). Vidders use a range of free and licensed
video editing software, and careful viewing and discussion of each other’s fanvids provide a com-
munal training network both for technical and aesthetic aspects of the practice. Fanvid produc-
tion is organized around key events in the fannish calendar: for example, the Equinox and Festivids
exchanges, where vidders make and receive new works based on prompts; and conventions which
solicit and premiere fanvids. New individual fanvids released online outside of a convention or event
contribute to a broader ongoing conversation in fandom. Star Trek has remained a regular presence
at these events, partly due to vidders’ persistent affection for science fiction, and partly thanks to new
material offered by ST09 and its sequels, and the new characters and settings in DSC, PIC, LWR,
PRO, and SNW.
Looking at Star Trek Through Vids

As with other underground arts practices, particularly those using media that are now obsolete,
some records of fanvids no longer survive. There have been thousands of fanvids made over the
decades, and these are an illustrative sample of the places vidders have taken Star Trek. To borrow
from Michel Chion’s work on music videos, each individual fanvid “turns the prism” of its source
material “to show its facets” (1994, 166). Taken together, and as shown here through a handful
of examples, fanvids turn Star Trek in many ways, revealing the range of facets fans have found
in the franchise.
Showing the Facets of TOS

Both Sides Now (Kandy Fong 1980), a videotaped slide-tape performance, is held to be the earliest
fanvid which survives (Kustritz 2014; Coppa 2016). In it, Leonard Nimoy’s cover of “Both Sides
Now” becomes “an emotional inner voice for Star Trek’s most notorious unemotional character”
(Coppa 2008, para. 3.7) when paired with frames lifted from TOS. It suggests—or constructs—a
Spock who is willing to take time to contemplate clouds, love, and life, and turns TOS away from
Kirk to focus on this other facet of the series. It argues for a Spock whose dispassionate and scientific
evaluation of his world is balanced by rich reflection.
Unsurprisingly, another facet of TOS that fanvids preserve is a slash reading of Kirk and Spock’s
relationship. One side-effect of vidders’ choosing clips with significant looks between the characters—
adding weight and intensity to each so that Kirk appears to gaze longingly at Spock, for example—is
that those moments are marked in the quality of the image itself. For example, the clips used to make
Wind Beneath My Wings (mentioned above; the soundtrack is Gary Morris’s recording) vary dramat-
ically in quality, with clarity of image and discoloration betraying the many different generations of
tape used in its construction. The clips that bear the most damage are those with the gestures and
glances that are evidence for the slash pairing; these are used to build meaning for the audience as well
as to build the vid itself. We might say audiences “consume” television, and the wear that remains in
videotape-era fanvids reveals how a series was watched, particularly as repeat, rewind, and replay of
significant moments break down the videotape: the video is literally consumed by the fan-viewer’s
attention to those key glances and gestures (Stevens 2020). The digital transfer fixes in place the
significance of the moments preserved by the fanvid, leaving a lasting record of how this group of
vidders both watched and understood Kirk’s feelings for and about Spock.
Fanvids have also turned TOS to show facets that propose varying perspectives and moods.
Tik Tok (MissSheenie 2010) is one of many lighter (sillier) takes on TOS that are almost a parody
253
of its more earnest reputation. Set to Kesha’s 2009 single, Tik Tok takes broad gestures over subtle
glances to highlight the series’ flamboyant visual moments of drinking, dancing, and brawling. Its
adaptation of TOS makes us look at the series rather than read (interpret) any of its arguments
for compassion and tolerance. Rather than finding depth of meaning and purpose, Tik Tok
revels in TOS’s camp and colorful visual style. In contrast, one of the best-known TOS fanvids
may well be the dark Closer (T. Jonesy and Killa 2003), which suggests an alternate outcome for
“Amok Time” (TOS 2.5, 1967), and which went viral in 2006 after being uploaded to YouTube
by a third party (Coppa and Tushnet 2011). This fanvid speculates about what would happen if
the Enterprise did not reach Vulcan in time, and turns the episode’s plot into “a disturbing story
about rape” wherein Spock violates Kirk (Russo 2009, 126). The menace is heightened by the
faux film decay effect used throughout, giving it the air of a shameful yet compelling piece of
history that has been buried in an archive. Bolstered by the explicit Nine Inch Nails song used
as its soundtrack, its articulation of a Spock who has lost control due to pon farr and yet acts on
his passions has been read as a metaphor for the “fannish experience of taking control of the text
while simultaneously feeling in thrall to that text” (Winters 2012, para. 2.4).
Character Study Vidding

As mentioned earlier, a character study fanvid “offers a focused and sustained reading of a character’s
motivations and interiority” (Stevens 2020, 203). One example of this is It’s All Coming Back to Me
Now (Kandy Fong 1997), which uses Celine Dion’s song to articulate the emotional work that Spock
performs in TVH following his resurrection amnesia. Using clip/lyric matches, the fanvid argues that
the only way his memory (“it”) can “all come back” is through touch (“like this”) seen at the end
of SFS, but the fanvid suggests that further touch—specifically, from Kirk—is needed to help him
come fully back to himself. All Coming Back uses clips from TOS and the earlier films to fill in exactly
which memories Spock recovers, and articulates Kirk’s importance in his life.
With the release of ST09, vidders had a new Kirk (Chris Pine) to explore with both an origin
story for the character and an alternate universe needing reconciliation. Some fanvid responses were
lighter takes, such as I’m On a Boat (kiki_miserychic 2009), but others worked to understand what
this new Kirk was experiencing. Similar to All Coming Back, The Test (here’s luck 2010) grabs key
moments from TOS to illustrate a character’s past via constructed flashbacks. In this way, a vid-
watcher’s memory aligns with the character’s memory. Coppa notes the technical achievement of this
piece, pointing out that while the films and series used to construct the fanvid “are in different aspect
ratios; have different colour palates; are framed, lit, and paced differently” (2016, 153), they are still
made to fit together in a unified whole. One might even argue that The Test more fully accomplishes
what ST09 attempted, that is, to integrate an alternate reality with the established TOS universe.
Where All Coming Back performs a fan’s memory of Star Trek itself by using notable clips to ‘rebuild’
Spock’s own memory, The Test argues that this new Kirk has gained access to that same information
through the original Spock.
Finally, character study vidding has been used to amplify and center DSC’s canonical queer
characters, namely the couple Stamets (Anthony Rapp) and Culber (Wilson Cruz). Secondary
characters are a common subject for character studies, being elevated to a starring role in the
fanvid’s version of its source material. Across the Universe (isagel 2018) and Dark Matter (isagel
2020) take a closer look at Stamets and Culber, respectively. These two fanvids follow them in
DSC’s first and second seasons, with Across the Universe recounting Stamets’s fascinated explor-
ation of the mycelial network and Dark Matter following Culber’s difficult recovery from his
time inside the mycelium. In both cases the fanvid form constructs a space that is a rarity for
Star Trek: rather than queering characters through a play with subtext, DSC vidding offers a
potential to explicitly center an LBGTQ+experience of the future, one that is wondering,
messy, and relatable2.
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Fanvids
Reflecting on the Franchise

Finally, fanvids can recount a fannish perspective on Star Trek as a whole and its transmedia
storytelling. Long Live (Llin 2014) uses Taylor Swift’s 2010 song to construct a space where
Star Trek is about finding support and friendship between colleagues as you journey through
the farthest reaches of the universe. Its initial montage focuses on Yeoman Rand (Grace Lee
Whitney), seemingly aligning the song’s lyrics (“I remember this moment”) with her until a
tracking shot ends with Rand bringing food to Sulu (George Takei). The vid then cuts to a shot
of Sulu and Chekov (Walter Koenig) together, then to Chekov with Uhura (Nichelle Nichols),
with each cut introducing a new two-shot containing one character from the previous clip
with a new companion, moving us from TOS to TNG and then from DS9 to VOY with each
connection point transforming the franchise’s transmedia strategies into moments of affective
resonance. The sequence uses clips of conversation, hugs, and other convivial gestures before
the cycle ends—three minutes later—with Rand’s appearance in VOY. The final section of the
vid focuses on moments of togetherness and celebration across the original cast films, ENT, and
ST09 and its sequels that reinforce the relay-style continuities established in the vid’s first half.
The song’s ending—“One day, we will be remembered”—understates the wealth of possible
moments for a Star Trek fan to remember. Long Live argues that Star Trek has always been a fran-
chise interested in exploring enduring friendships and cross-cultural understandings as much as
it is about exploring the unknown. It models an affective engagement with transmedia aspects
of Star Trek, reinforcing that it is a single story told across different media and many decades.
At first, Harbor (Llin 2018) may seem similar to Long Live, not only because both are made by
the same vidder, but because both reach across the broad scope of Star Trek history to condense
and intensify something about the franchise. However, where Long Live constructs a fantasy of
fellowship, Harbor (with song by Vienna Teng) constructs a version of Star Trek that highlights, as
the vidder’s note states, “the women of Star Trek and their friendships” by cutting around male
characters, effectively excising them from this world. This fanvid revels in constructing a poten-
tial for comradeship, be it platonic or be it the romantic/sexual undercurrents that slash fans
have exploited when they are presented with a homosocial space. It implicitly shows the limits
for female characters in Star Trek as there are few moments that the vidder can leave out. Harbor
argues that there is an irony in a franchise with such a prominent female fanbase nevertheless for-
cing fans to perform a painstaking hunt for these fragments and clips. However, this criticism stays
implicit, and the overt pleasures of the fanvid exist in offering a space away from male-dominated
narratives where women of all definitions could potentially see themselves in this vision of
the future.
The long history of Star Trek offers many possible directions for a vidder to rotate and pivot the
hundreds of hours of video at their disposal, and to expose many unique facets of the franchise for
their fellow fans. Fanvids show Star Trek as a franchise that rewards sustained engagement, where each
installment presents new stories, offering new facets to explore.
Conclusion
As of the time of writing, fans have been re-using clips of Star Trek to make fanvids for more than
40 years, and the practice has been noted in scholarship for nearly 30. A tradition of moving image
re-use, vidding arguably began with TOS fandom, and has branched out to cover all manner of
media in the years since, with early vidders such as Kandy Fong still attending conventions. Due
to the availability of video editing options, fans who are not part of media fandom’s vidding com-
munity also create short videos that set music to clips, though these tend to place greater emphasis
on manipulation of image and sound than interpretation or critique. Turning to other media,
anime fans have also been creating AMVs (anime music videos) for decades as well (Roberts
255
2012), and digital gaming has enabled machinima (Ito 2011). However, it is worth celebrating
that a practice that started with TOS is still going strong today, practiced by a relatively small but
dedicated global community.
In sum, fanvids are a form of experimental video art; they serve as responses to and interpret-
ations of television and film, and—given the overwhelming lack of cisgendered men in vidding
fandom—fanvids are potentially gendered interventions into media produced for a presumed male
default spectator. At their core, fanvids are about pleasure and desire and offer a view into how fans
have sought to capture, critique, and communicate their takes on the characters, settings, and broader
potentials of Star Trek.
Note
1 Should a reader wish to view these fanvids, I have provided identifying information to guide a search.
Fanworks are often posted in “intimate yet public” fannish spaces (Stein 2015, 178), and emerging best prac-
tice in fandom studies respects these boundaries and does not supply a direct URL.
2 Crowded Table (isagel 2021) continues this project, celebrating the LBGQT+ found family and queer joy in
DSC’s third season as Stamets and Culber were joined by Adira (Blu del Barrio), Gray (Ian Alexander), and
Reno (Tig Notaro).
References
Amesley, Cassandra. 1989. “How to Watch Star Trek.” Cultural Studies 3, no. 3: 323–339. https://doi.org/
10.1080/09502388900490221.
Burwell, Catherine. 2015. “You Know You Love Me: Gossip Girl Fanvids and the Amplification of Emotion.”
Feminist Media Studies 15, no. 2: 306–323. https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2014.919335.
Chion, Michel. 1994. Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen. New York: Columbia University Press.
Coppa, Francesca. 2006. “A Brief History of Media Fandom.” In Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of
the Internet: New Essays, edited by Karen Hellekson and Kristina Busse, 41–59. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
Coppa, Francesca. 2008. “Women, Star Trek, and the Early Development of Fannish Vidding.” Transformative
Works and Cultures 1 (September): n.p. https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2008.044.
Coppa, Francesca. 2016. “Vidding: The Art of Flow.” In MashUp: The Birth of Modern Culture, edited by Daina
Augaitis, Bruce Grenville, and Stephanie Rebick, 150–153. London: Black Dog Publishing/Vancouver Art
Gallery.
Coppa, Francesca, and Rebecca Tushnet. 2011. “How to Suppress Women’s Remix.” Camera Obscura: Feminism,
Culture, and Media Studies 26, no. 2 (September): 131–138. https://doi.org/10.1215/02705346-1301566.
Ito, Mizuko. 2011. “Machinima in a Fanvid Ecology.” Journal of Visual Culture 10, no. 1 (April): 51–54. https://
doi.org/10.1177/1470412910391557.
Jenkins, Henry. 1992. Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture: Studies in Culture and Communication.
Kustritz, Anne. 2014. “Seriality and Transmediality in the Fan Multiverse: Flexible and Multiple Narrative
Structures in Fan Fiction, Art, and Vids.” TV/Series 6 (December): n.p. https://doi.org/10.4000/tvser
ies.331.
Lothian, Alexis. 2009. “Living in a Den of Thieves: Fan Video and Digital Challenges to Ownership.” Cinema
Journal 48, no. 4 (Summer): 130–136. https://doi.org/10.1353/cj.0.0152.
Penley, Constance. 1991. “Brownian Motion: Women, Tactics, and Technology.” In Technoculture, edited by
Constance Penley and Andrew Ross, 135–161. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Roberts, Ian. 2012. “Genesis of the Digital Anime Music Video Scene, 1990–2001 [Multimedia].” Transformative
Works and Cultures 9 (March): n.p. https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2012.0365.
Russo, Julie Levin. 2009. “User-Penetrated Content: Fan Video in the Age of Convergence.” Cinema Journal 48,
no. 4 (Summer): 125–130.
Stein, Louisa Ellen. 2014. “Vidding: Remix as Affective Media Literacy.” Intermédialités: Histoire et Théorie des
Arts, des Lettres et des Techniques 23 (Spring): n.p. https://doi.org/10.7202/1033338ar.
Stein, Louisa Ellen. 2015. Millennial Fandom: Television Audiences in the Transmedia Age. Iowa City, IA: University
of Iowa Press.
256
Fanvids
Stevens, E. Charlotte. 2021. “On Vidding: The Home Media Archive and Vernacular Historiography.” In
Cult Media: Re-Packaged, Re-Released and Restored, edited by Jonathan Wroot and Andy Willis, 143–159.
London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Stevens, E. Charlotte. 2020. Fanvids: Television, Women, and Home Media Re-Use. Amsterdam: Amsterdam
University Press.
Stevens, E. Charlotte. 2021. “Historical Binge-Watching: Marathon Viewing on Videotape.” In Binge-Watching
and Contemporary Television Research, edited by Mareike Jenner, 23–39. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Svegaard, Sebastian F. K. 2019. “Toward an Integration of Musicological Methods into Fan Video Studies.”
Transformative Works and Cultures 30 (September): n.p. https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2019.1753.
Turk, Tisha. 2010. “‘Your Own Imagination’: Vidding and Vidwatching as Collaborative Interpretation.” Film
& Film Culture 5: 88–110.
Turk, Tisha. 2015. “Transformation in a New Key: Music in Vids and Vidding.” Music, Sound, and the Moving
Image 9, no. 2: 163–176.
Tushnet, Rebecca. 2007. “Creating in the Shadow of the Law: Media Fans and Intellectual Property.” In
Intellectual Property and Information Wealth: Issues and Practices in the Digital Age, vol. 1, edited by Peter K. Yu,
251–268. Westport, CT: Praeger.
Winters, Sarah Fiona. 2012. “Vidding and the Perversity of Critical Pleasure: Sex, Violence, and Voyeurism
in ‘Closer’ and ‘On the Prowl’.” Transformative Works and Cultures 9 (March): n.p. https://doi.org/10.3983/
twc.2012.0292.
Star Trek Episodes
The Original Series
2.5 “Amok Time” 1967.
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35
FAN TOURISM AND
CONVENTIONS
Lincoln Geraghty
For a mega franchise like Star Trek, largely set in space and a fictional future, the opportunities for
fans to get close to the text, locations, and characters remain firmly grounded in the realities of a
fan convention. Conventions offer multiple communal experiences, ranging from meeting other
fans to buying merchandise to seeing cast members in the flesh. While community-orientated and
organized according to economies of scale, conventions can also serve various personal and individual
purposes. Depending on specific fan memories, conventions help to blur the line between fiction
and reality, bringing the text to life through immersive fan practices, such as fan fiction, cosplay, and
gaming that can take place at the same time and all under one roof. Fan conventions are spaces where
John Fiske says “cultural and economic capital come together” (1992, 43). Companies who hold the
license to promote and host a convention stand to make a lot of money. The city, convention center,
and local businesses also benefit from the influx of Star Trek fans during an event. A convention is
an economic enterprise that positions fans as consumers. However, at the same time, attending a con-
vention is a form of popular culture tourism that gives those who travel a new perspective on the
Star Trek text. Not just a target market for businesses, fans are also cultural tourists that shape and
appropriate physical spaces and real places outside the convention center. As a result, for many fans,
Star Trek can be located and found anywhere they may travel and often in some quite mundane and
everyday sites. They are imagined and realized by the fans who seek them out with a view to occu-
pying them (at least temporarily). In this way, conventions and tourist sites are heterotopic in that they
are “real places … counter-sites … simultaneously represented, contested, and inverted” (Foucault
1986, 24). The following historical overview of Star Trek conventions, exhibitions, experiences, and
filming locations offers a useful cultural map of how fans have continued to physically and emotion-
ally engage with the franchise through spaces and places.
Conventions and Exhibitions

The convention has been the primary location for mass fan gatherings for decades. From the first
World Science Fiction Convention (WorldCon) held at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York to the
more mainstream San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC), fans from all demographics have enjoyed the unity
of coming together and celebrating their favorite media or popular culture texts. The convention
has provided a familiar and safe place for fans to meet, exchange, and communicate. As a communal
event, it also allows for the sharing of oral histories that inspire fans to express their close connection
with fictional texts and the actors who appear in person. For example, during the 2003 Grand Slam
Star Trek Convention in Pasadena, several big-name stars, including William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy,
and Nichelle Nichols, attended to talk about their experiences; in hearing production details, fans
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Fan Tourism and Conventions
were able to gain deeper insight into how the franchise went from canceled series to worldwide phe-
nomenon. At the same time, “memory played an important part in the fans’ sharing of oral history”
(Geraghty 2007, 171), with Nichols’ story about Martin Luther King Jr. telling her to stick with The
Original Series—so she could continue to act as inspiration for African Americans—serving as catalyst
for fans to stand up and publicly recount moments in their own lives when Star Trek’s message of
hope struck a similar chord. This is a familiar story and many fans would have heard it before, but that
she tells it again in the shared space of the convention turns that place into something more affective
and personal, familiar and communal.
Similarly, for Michael Jindra, fan communities like that of Star Trek represent “symbolic com-
munities” (2005, 166) that take on “serious, religious functions” (ibid., 171). Conventions, therefore,
become sacred sites where fans can immerse themselves in the text through rituals of performance,
consumption, and worship; making the text all the more real and creating a mythology (ibid., 169).
By extension, Jennifer E. Porter (1999) sees convention attendance as a form of physical pilgrimage
in a secular context. Using the work of anthropologist Victor Turner, she argues that the pilgrimage
to a shared convention site is a liminal journey of transformation to find communitas, “communal
fellowship,” with other fans (ibid., 252). In so doing, the site, whether it be specifically tied to the
fictional text like a real filming location and theme park or neutral and generic sites like hotel
ballrooms and convention centers, provides “a time and space for fans to be free to explore their love
of something deep and meaningful in their lives” (ibid., 267). As a consequence, these atypical fan
sites become important places for popular veneration. Over the years, Star Trek fan conventions and
the traveling exhibitions that take props, costumes, and physical sets to art galleries and museums have
stood in for, and offered fans the chance to immerse themselves in the utopian future imagined by
Gene Roddenberry.
The first large-scale Star Trek convention was held in New York in 1972, but smaller
science fiction conventions had a Star Trek presence a few years earlier as Roddenberry
attempted to advertise his new series to television audiences. Lincoln Enterprises, a fan-
created company used by Roddenberry to market and sell merchandise to fans, dominated
early fan conventions, signaling that commerce was central to the convention experience
(Hipple 2008). However, schedules also featured other activities, such as art shows, costume
contests, displays, guest speakers and themed panels, fanfic readings, and screenings. This
mixed model for most Star Trek conventions persists today and has been copied by other big
entertainment franchises like Star Wars and comic-c ons such as San Diego and MCM ever
since. FedCon, short for Federation Convention, started in Germany in 1992 and became the
largest European convention dedicated to Star Trek. Destination Star Trek is the current offi-
cial convention organizer in Europe and hosts large-scale events in Germany and regularly
at London’s ExCeL and Birmingham’s NEC. Their continued popularity highlights the fact
that Star Trek is still global and very much part of current popular culture. While conventions
had to go online during the Covid-1 9 pandemic, their structure remained the same: panels
of actors appearing live and taking questions from fans through platforms such as Zoom. As
already mentioned, Pasadena was the main location for the Grand Slam Star Trek Convention
held between 1993 and 2008. During this time, events company Creation established the
official Las Vegas Star Trek convention, first held at the Hilton Hotel from 2002 and then
the Rio Suites Hotel from 2011. In addition to the convention, the Hilton was also home to
Star Trek:The Experience—a n immersive attraction that included Star Trek-t hemed exhibitions,
rides, shops, and restaurants—w hich initially proved popular but ultimately too costly for
investors to maintain. While immersive Star Trek experiences are discussed more closely in
the next section, it should be noted that conventions are also immersive. As physical locations
for fan interaction and consumption, they perform a dual role: providing extra incentive to
travel to new sites and locations while at the same time offering an experience that bridges
the gap between fiction and reality—literally bringing fandom to life.
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Lincoln Geraghty
Real-world locations, such as Riverside, Iowa, and Vulcan, Alberta, do the same in that fans are
drawn to them in real life because of their association with Star Trek—the former is the canon-
ical birthplace of Captain Kirk (William Shatner) and the latter has assumed the mantle of being
Spock’s (Leonard Nimoy) home away from home on Earth. Conventions held in these real towns
take on added significance since they are not just one-off events designed to make money but
habitual gatherings that create a more authentic fan experience tied to a physical place. The same
can be said of the touring exhibitions curated and hosted by several world-leading museums. The
Star Trek Smithsonian Exhibit, 1992–94, brought models, costumes, sets, and props from the series to
the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. As a result, the fictional history of Star Trek
became entwined with the real history of aviation and space exploration. A certain cultural cachet
and authenticity are bestowed upon Star Trek through its presence in a museum; also visiting such
places helps fans gain a closer, more exclusive, relationship with the text. Star Trek: The Tour, later
renamed The Exhibition, was another collection of artifacts that visited museums and exhibition sites
around the world between 1998 and 2020. Similarly, The Adventure, located in London’s Hyde Park
during 2002, turned a traditional tourist site and public space into a small corner of the Federation
for a limited period. Blurring the line between convention, museum, and immersive experience,
The First Duty Exhibit hosted at SDCC in 2019 contained numerous props and costumes related to
Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart). Set up to survey the life and career of the character, it also served
to cross-promote the new series Picard (see Chapter 8). Some of the same props appeared in the
first episode when Picard himself wistfully looks through his possessions in the Starfleet Museum
archives. These examples of exhibitions further demonstrate the significance of space and place for
fans: conventions mix commerce and community while exhibits, museums, and galleries offer a closer
look at Star Trek’s real-life production history and fictional future history, bringing the worlds of fan-
tasy, art, and entertainment together.
Experiences and Locations

If conventions and exhibitions represent opportunities for fans to engage with Star Trek in the present
and real world, then more immersive experiences based on a theme park model or location tourism
offer fans a much more engaging and interactive version of the Star Trek future we see on screen.
Reality and fiction blur together as physical boundaries between the text and fan disappear. While
not at the level of media franchises like Star Wars, which had a presence in Disney theme parks well
before the Disney takeover of Lucasfilm, Star Trek has had a number of dedicated rides and successful
immersive experiences over the years. Tapping into the popular appeal of visiting the studio backlot
and doing a movie tour, Paramount worked in partnership with Universal Studios to create a themed
experience they called the Star Trek Adventure. Running between 1988 and 1994 in Hollywood and
1991 and 1996 in Orlando, visitors to the Universal Studio Tour could actually participate in a daily
costumed performance live on stage. Volunteers were coached to play parts in unison with recorded
dialogue and scenes filmed of original Star Trek actors; the scenario was based on a Klingon storyline
that used actual footage and special effects from the first three movies. The audience was then able
to see the final performance and the volunteers received a video copy of their acting debut to keep
as a memento. The souvenir recording is an interesting material addition to the ephemeral experi-
ence some fans had at Star Trek Adventure. The mediation of the fan performance, their scripted story
now inserted into the canonical narrative, serves to underscore the immersive reality of the fictional
Star Trek universe. As can be seen in examples of fan tourism to filming locations discussed below,
the recording of such experiences—being able to rewatch it after the fact—is symptomatic of a fas-
cination with images. However, in the case of the souvenir recording of the fan performance, it is not
merely about preserving the memory of being on stage; it is about the recreation of the Star Trek
universe with the fan as central protagonist: “The cult image is re-‘played’ not as repetition but as
extension of the [fan’s] attachment to the original text” (Hills 2002, 150).
260
As Rebecca Williams argues, fan tourism is “a practice riven with conflicts and contradictions as
fans negotiate both highly commercialized and non-commodified spaces, and form their own views
on the apparent ‘authenticity’ of these various experiences” (2018, 100). Star Trek: The Experience,
located in the Hilton Casino and Hotel just off the Las Vegas Strip, was paradigmatic of the tension
described by Williams. Open from 1998 to 2008, the themed attraction offered fans the opportunity
to physically interact with cast members performing various roles in full costume around the site, as
well as visit themed shops, bars, and rides. Fans could arrange private functions and themed weddings
(in full Star Trek cosplay, of course) as well as purchase special access packages for the annual Creation
convention also held at the Hilton. The Experience offered a branded and highly commodified version
of the Star Trek universe. However, like the Smithsonian exhibit, The Experience also offered visitors
a more authentic engagement with the fictional narrative, bringing it to life for fans. “The History of
the Future Museum” was a permanent feature and the first thing people encountered after entering.
It contained props and artifacts from the franchise and recounted both the history of its production
and the history of American space exploration, combining it all to tell the history of Star Trek’s fic-
tional future. The parallels made between fact and fiction again served to bridge the gap between
story and real life, thus affirming to fans that the history of Star Trek is also potentially a history of
what is still to come. For Angelina Karpovich,
an installation dedicated to a fictional story-world reproduces the form and structure of a

science museum in order to verify the central premise of the story-world: that the kind of
space exploration portrayed in Star Trek is almost within humanity’s grasp.
(2008, 205)
The Klingon Encounter and the Borg Invasion 4D rides further merged reality and fiction
together as visitors were enmeshed in original storylines that saw them fighting off an attack from
the Klingons on board the Enterprise-D from TNG and halting a Borg invasion of a Federation space
station; the former had pre-recorded footage of known characters interacting with people as they
explored the bridge set and the latter had visitors scurrying to escape from cast members playing real
Borg drones. Alongside the central promenade, arranged like DS9 and Quark’s Bar where you could
order drinks from the franchise, these immersive rides created a shared encounter with the future
that enhanced the sense of verisimilitude required for The Experience to really convince as a theme
park experience.
While the commercial experience based on immersive characteristics of rides, costumed actors,
and interactive displays serve to bring the fictional narrative of Star Trek to life, many fans travel to
more typical and mundane places to get closer to the text. An extension of the convention space,
Star Trek: The Cruise offers the combination of personal holiday and mass fan gathering. Starting up
Star Trek cruises again in 2017, Entertainment Cruise Productions hosts annual sailings—originally
from Miami around the Caribbean, now also on other itineraries—offering a convention on water
that allows fans up close and personal interactions with the cast from the franchise, themed entertain-
ment, and the sharing of traditional fan practices. The ship itself becomes the real attraction, bringing
fans and actors together as well as recreating the structured experience of a typical fan convention.
The tourist ports the ship visits, San Juan, for example, are of less importance compared to what fans
get and have access to onboard. Sabrina Mittermeier has discussed the growing popularity of the
themed cruise in terms of tourism and Star Trek fandom, arguing that it represents “another instance
of secular pilgrimage” where “immersivity largely stems from a sense of community among fans, as
well as among fans and the celebrities of a fandom” (2019, 1383–1384). In this way, Star Trek: The
Cruise creates a unique space—a floating convention—where access is limited and determined by
the traditional boundaries and economics of cruise tourism. For fans who travel on more personal
journeys to filming locations, immersion does not necessarily rely on what owners and businesses
261
Lincoln Geraghty
have to offer. Both the Hilton and Entertainment Cruise Productions as licensed owners of the spaces
fans could visit offered a highly commodified tourist experience for fans. But those who visit more
everyday places like filming locations get something slightly different; they have to work harder to
recreate the fictional text in that space. For example, San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, El Capitan
in Yosemite National Park, or Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada are real places where some of the
Star Trek films were shot. Tourists in those places might not know they were used in the films as
there are no information boards or signs on site. According to Will Brooker, fan pilgrimage is about
pretending, performance, and making the new from “the familiar and quotidian,” and so fans traveling
to a filming location are “approaching the location with their own agenda,” and “are able to trans-
form ‘flatscape’ into a place of wonder” (2007, 443). Thus, fans who approach those sites especially
because they know them from Star Trek add another layer of cultural significance to what are already
important natural and lived spaces.
Riverside, Iowa
In the above examples, Star Trek becomes the lens through which fans can view the tourist locale. For
the convention and theme park experience, it is the basis on which economic and cultural capital merge
to create fan identities. However, there are specific places that are only brought into being as fan pil-
grimage sites because of their self-created association with Star Trek, such as, for example, the city of
Riverside, Iowa. Looking for a theme for its annual festival in 1985, the local council decided to proclaim
that Riverside was the future birthplace of Captain Kirk—based on the fact that TVH established he was
born in Iowa. Following a successful request to Gene Roddenberry to make this a Star Trek fact, the city
has held annual conventions aimed at bringing in fans and tourist dollars. There is a “Star Trek museum”
in the Voyage Home Riverside History Center, which houses fan-made art, models, and various media
clippings affirming the city to be the home of Captain Kirk. A roadside sculpture in the form of the ori-
ginal Enterprise attracts drivers to stop and discover local history, while the local Murphy’s Bar calls itself the
“Future Home of Shipyard Bar in 2258.” Behind the hair salon, Kirk’s birthstone marks the spot where he
will be born on March 22, 2228. Despite not having any official connection to the franchise to begin with,
the city has since been retroactively added into the fictional narrative, referenced in the opening scenes
of ST09 and several Star Trek novels. Now the city is a bona fide location in the fictional universe. It has
become another space that gives fans the opportunity to get closer to the text; a site where fiction and
reality merge. The nature of the city has been literally transformed because of the community’s decision
to tie its history to the fictional one of Star Trek’s future.
In a similar fashion, local residents and members of the Captain Janeway Bloomington Collective
have recently successfully lobbied for and accrued funds to build a monument in the city dedicated to
the captain—again following the on-screen declaration that Voyager’s captain was born in Bloomington,
Indiana. Then, during the Covid-19 pandemic, a petition was launched to convince the city of New
Orleans to erect a monument in honor of Captain Sisko (Avery Brooks) (Change.org 2021).
Conclusion
Fans who visit towns and cities like Riverside and Bloomington are also helping to transform the
urban and reaffirming the importance of place and space in fandom. Cities, therefore, are part of the
heterotopic fan experience, both real-life and mundane places but also fantastical and special spaces for
fans. Stijn Reijnders has developed this idea of fans transforming real places through their imaginative
engagement with space and text by applying Pierre Nora’s concept of “lieux d’imagination” (places
of the imagination). He argues that places of the imagination, are not so much concerned with col-
lective memory, as collective imagination. Lieux d’imagination are physical locations, which serve as a
symbolic anchor for the collective imagination of society. By visiting these locations, tourists are able
to construct and ‘validate’ a symbolic distinction between imagination and reality (Reijnders 2011, 8).
262
Most sites related to Star Trek— from conventions to exhibitions, cruises to theme park
experiences—are brought to life by what occurs in those spaces, and thus fandom connected to place
differs for each fan. Locations that inspire fan pilgrimage have real-world uses, for example, Riverside
and Bloomington are places where people live and work, and they are not just used or visited by fans.
Because of this, fans have to actively make these places special—either through erecting monuments,
physical transformations of the space, performance in it or the recording and photographing of time
spent there. Such activity helps to make the experience more real and closes the gap between fact and
fiction, the present and the future.
References
Brooker, Will. 2007. “Everywhere and Nowhere: Vancouver, Fan Pilgrimage and the Urban Imaginary.”
International Journal of Cultural Studies 10, no. 4 (December): 423–444.
Change.org. 2021. “Monument of CAPT Benjamin Sisko in New Orleans.” Available at: https://chng.it/8jv
GmfWqSM.
Fiske, John. 1992. “The Cultural Economy of Fandom.” In The Adoring Audience: Fan Culture and Popular Media,
edited by Lisa A. Lewis, 30–49. London: Routledge.
Foucault, Michel. 1986. “Of Other Spaces.” Diacritics 16, no. 1 (Spring): 22–27.
Geraghty, Lincoln. 2007. Living with Star Trek: American Culture and the Star Trek Universe. London: I.B. Tauris.
Hills, Matt. 2002. Fan Cultures. London: Routledge.
Hipple, Dave. 2008. “The Accidental Apotheosis of Gene Roddenberry, or, ‘I Had to Get Some Money from
Somewhere’.” In The Influence of Star Trek on Television, Film and Culture, edited by Lincoln Geraghty, 22–40.
Jindra, Michael. 2005. “It’s about Faith in Our Future: Star Trek Fandom as Cultural Religion.” In Religion and
Popular Culture in America, Revised Edition, edited by Bruce David Forbes and Jeffrey H. Mahan, 159–173.
Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Karpovich, Angelina I. 2008. “Locating the ‘Star Trek Experience’.” In The Influence of Star Trek on Television, Film
and Culture, edited by Lincoln Geraghty, 199–217. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
Mittermeier, Sabrina. 2019. “(Un)Conventional Voyages?—Star Trek: The Cruise and the Themed Cruise
Experience.” The Journal of Popular Culture 52, no. 6 (December): 1372–1386.
Porter, Jennifer E. 1999. “To Boldly Go: Star Trek Convention Attendance as Pilgrimage.” In Star Trek and Sacred
Ground: Explorations of Star Trek, Religion, and American Culture, edited by Jennifer E. Porter and Darcee L.
McLaren, 245–270. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
Reijnders, Stijn. 2011. Places of the Imagination: Media, Tourism, Culture. Farnham: Ashgate.
Williams, Rebecca. 2018. “Fan Tourism and Pilgrimage.” In The Routledge Companion to Media Fandom, edited
by M. A. Click and S. Scott, 98–106. New York: Routledge.
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36
FANDOM AND INTELLECTUAL
PROPERTY RIGHTS
Rebecca Tushnet
Star Trek fandom has regularly engaged with issues of intellectual property. Gene Rodenberry, like
many creators working in collaborative industries, supported some kinds of fan creativity:
I have no objection to plays similar to Star Trek or even identical to Star Trek if done by

students or community groups on a nonprofit basis as long as appropriate credit is given
to the source material and individuals … I have no objection to it involving some profit as
long as that profit is used in the interest of that community theatre program.
(Verba 1996, 7)
Rodenberry also supported Kandy Fong’s use of slideshows set to music when Fong pioneered
the practice by showing them at Star Trek conventions—what Francesca Coppa has identified as the
genesis of modern vidding (2008) (see Chapter 34). He even provided her with Star Trek outtakes
for her use (Decherney 2013, 192–193). Despite his support, Rodenberry did not own the copyright
to the work bearing his name. But Paramount, which did own the copyrights, concurred, writing to
a fan that it was “familiar with several fanzines, and as such find them to be a ‘fair use’ of Star Trek,
which we can only hope to encourage” (Verba 1996, 44).
Paramount purported to distinguish between commercial and noncommercial fan activity,
suppressing only the former (Frischling 1996, B7;Verba 1996, 44; 62). However, this distinction skips
too quickly over the ways in which many fan productions were involved in the money economy—
fanzines, for example, usually charged a price to cover costs of production (e.g., printing, over-
head, travel to conventions). To its credit, Paramount did not object to that low-level commerciality,
while enforcing its rights against sellers of unauthorized copies of videotapes or scripts, which do
not involve the creation of new works. Paramount also took a relatively broad view of commercial
parody—not every copyright owner would have tolerated the TNG “homage” The Orville (Hibberd
2017; Miller 2017; Pierce 2017), John Scalzi’s Redshirts (2012), and the TOS/Dr. Seuss mashup Oh, the
Places You’ll Boldly Go—indeed, Dr. Seuss Enterprises successfully sued Boldly Go, as discussed below
(Dr. Seuss Enterprises, L.P. v. ComicMix LLC 2020).
Pragmatism surely guides this behavior: suing fans is expensive and unpopular. In addition, the law
imposes limits on copyright owners’ rights. In the US, “fair use” allows people to reuse copyrighted
works without permission under appropriate circumstances. Many other countries use a related,
narrower concept of “fair dealing,” which protects parodies but is less flexible overall. Many works
inspired by Star Trek are almost certainly fair use: Redshirts is a classic parody; The Orville is part parody
and part homage; and Boldly Go also has a strong parody claim in its juxtaposition of Dr. Seuss’s paean
to individual initiative with Star Trek’s communal spirit (see Chapter 38).
264 DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917-41

Fandom and Intellectual Property Rights
A fair use determination considers the purpose and character of the defendant’s use, including
whether it is commercial and whether it is transformative—adding new meaning, message, or pur-
pose. Noncommercial uses are favored, but very few uses count as noncommercial since courts often
find that almost any benefit to the user counts as “commercial.” Transformativeness is a surer path to
fair use. When a court finds that a new use is transformative, that often influences its reasoning on
the other relevant factors: the nature of the original work (factual works provide more scope for fair
use than fictional; so too for published versus unpublished works), the amount of the original used,
and the effect of the defendant’s use on the market for the original work, including whether the use
substitutes for “derivative works” that the copyright owner likely would have licensed. Transformative
uses are less likely to harm legitimate markets, as long as they do not take too much of the original
(17 U.S.C. § 107; Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. 1994).
Because it is relatively hard to derive legal principles from cases that have not been brought, I will
not focus here on the kinds of fan creativity that Star Trek’s owners have tolerated—US law, at least,
requires them to tolerate most of it. Instead, I will discuss the fandom-adjacent cases that Star Trek’s
owners have brought, and won. Despite the cultural effects of Star Trek fandom, which helped fan
creativity go mainstream (see Chapter 31), Star Trek’s legal legacy is one of expanding copyright
rights, particularly in conceptions of “derivative works” over which copyright owners have dominion
and in strengthening protection for elements of fictional worlds such as invented languages. Star Trek
has not contributed to robust fair use rights, although cases involving other works including the one
involving Boldly Go may continue to do so.
The Joy of Trek

In Paramount Pictures Corp. v. Carol Publishing Group (1998), Paramount told the court that, between
1994 and 1998, it brought over one hundred court cases related to Star Trek and spent one million
dollars per year to enforce its intellectual property rights (which could include trademarks as well
as copyrights). Paramount successfully sought an injunction against the publication of The Joy of
Trek: How to Enhance Your Relations with a Star Trek Fan, which purported to “explain the Star Trek
phenomenon to the non-Trekker, particularly someone who finds him or herself involved in a rela-
tionship with a Trekker” (Paramount Pictures v. Carol Publishing Group 1998, 332).
The court found that the middle part of the book, over 150 pages and more than half of the total,
infringed Paramount’s rights by providing
brief synopses of the major plots and [storylines] of many of the Star Trek Properties;
descriptions of the history and personalities of the major Star Trek characters; and,
descriptions of the fictional alien species and fictional technologies that appear in the
Star Trek Properties.
This was just too much copying, even though most of the individual summaries were short and
seemingly much like the kind of plot summaries one would expect in a standard review, and even
though the direct quotes of iconic lines such as “live long and prosper” and “make it so” were very
short. Worryingly, the court indicated that “a book which tells the story of a copyrighted televi-
sion series infringes on its copyright,” even if the story was retold in highly abbreviated fashion
(ibid., 332–334).
The main defense was fair use, and the court rejected it: even though the author was motivated by
“a genuine desire to help others to understand the [idiosyncrasies] of the typical Trekker,” the court
found that The Joy of Trek was not sufficiently transformative. Retelling the story of Star Trek in a
condensed fashion did not provide a new meaning, purpose, or message, and even though the other
parts of the book—about the show and its fans—were noninfringing, the middle portion was not
necessary to that project. Brief comments such as “the crew received new uniforms that looked like
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pajamas but were not as stylish” were not enough to make the work parodic or otherwise transforma-
tive given that this mild snark was interspersed with summaries providing, in the book’s own words,
“everything a Star Trek novice needs to know” (ibid., 335).
Once the court had determined that the book was not transformative, the other fair use factors
also disfavored The Joy of Trek. Importantly, Paramount was entitled to the market for “derivative
works” of Star Trek, not just movies and TV shows but also authorized guidebooks and encyclopedias
(see Chapter 27), for which The Joy of Trek advertised itself as a substitute (ibid., 336). It did not matter
that Paramount was not currently producing a guide for people trying to learn why their loved ones
loved Star Trek. Paramount had the right to decide whether or not to exploit the market for par-
ticular kinds of derivative works.
The court also rejected another argument often heard in fandom: Paramount’s long-term failure
to sue other, allegedly similar works of summary and commentary did not constrain its ability to
sue this particular publisher. Paramount could have thought that other publishers’ works were fair
use or that a lawsuit was not worth the expense and effort. Paramount is, in general, allowed to pick
and choose in enforcing its copyrights (ibid., 337). This decision is less generous than some, but not
particularly out of line with other fair use precedents in the US. Its most worrisome aspect is that it
finds copyright infringement based on paragraph-length or shorter descriptions of the plots of indi-
vidual Star Trek episodes—a practice that is quite common in many situations, including many other
contributions to this volume. It would be better to hold that short summaries simply do not rise to
the necessary level of “substantial similarity” to the original. Instead, the trend in the US is to let fair
use excuse most such small uses, where they seem harmless—raising the level of uncertainty and also
expanding the scope of copyright in creative works by default.
Axanar
Another, more recent Star Trek copyright case also fits into the trend of expanding copyright owners’
rights. Paramount Pictures Corp. v. Axanar Productions, Inc. (2017) involved a fan film—but the makers
sought a substantial amount in crowdfunding to offset the production costs for a live-action fan film.
They raised over a million dollars, allocated for building a studio and hiring actors, set designers, and
costume designers. This level of commercialization proved too much for Paramount, which sued
again and won a decision that confirmed broad rights in elements of Star Trek—including rights in
the Klingon language—and rejected a fair use defense because the proposed film was homage and
not critique.
In “Whom Gods Destroy” (TOS 3.14, 1969), Captain Kirk (William Shatner) meets his hero,
Garth of Izar (Steve Ihnat), and they discuss Garth’s victory in the Battle of Axanar. Axanar, the pro-
duction company, made Prelude to Axanar (2014), a short film telling the story of Garth of Izar during
the war between the Federation and the Klingon Empire, and proposed to make a feature-length
film, also called Axanar, telling a more elaborate version of the story. In an opinion full of recogniz-
able quotes—“where no man has gone before” and “live long and prosper” prominent among them
(and thus arguably itself infringing, according to the logic of the earlier The Joy of Trek case), the
court rejected Axanar’s fair use defense and denied summary judgment on Paramount’s infringement
claims, which would have let a jury decide the ultimate question of infringement.
The court identified a number of Star Trek elements copied by the fan film that could be protected
by copyright, including the character of Garth of Izar; the “races” of Vulcans and Klingons; plot points
such as the Battle of Axanar; the use of the Federation logo, “stardate,” transporters, phasers, photon
torpedoes, and warp drive; and the Klingon language. This last is particularly notable because there are
strong arguments that constructed languages, like naturally evolving languages, should be considered
building blocks for copyrightable works rather than copyrightable in themselves (Adelman 2014).
Although it might be that not all of these elements could be individually protected, in combination,
they were original enough to say that Axanar copied protectable elements of Star Trek.
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While the court left it for a jury to decide whether Axanar had taken so much that it infringed, the
fair use defense failed outright. A jury would not be allowed to balance the factors because they all
weighed against Axanar. Axanar tried to write a “prequel” that would fit seamlessly into the Star Trek
universe, not a work with a different meaning or message. A non-transformative use was particularly
likely to substitute for Paramount’s own Star Trek offerings, harming the market for Paramount’s
works. Moreover, even though the film would have been distributed for free online, it was “commer-
cial” because the producers would have received benefits—such as exposure—from making it, and
they had a successful Kickstarter to fund it. Since the film was not transformative, the fictional nature
of Star Trek weighed against fair use, and the film’s extensive use of Star Trek elements also weighed
against fair use.
Given jurors’ usual hostility to admitted copiers and without a fair use defense, the court’s holding
created a substantial risk of a verdict of infringement. Axanar could have been liable for up to $150,000
per copyrighted work infringed. Each TV episode is a “work” for copyright damages purposes, as are
the other Star Trek works in which Klingons, Vulcans, and the Federation have appeared; as a result,
a damages award could theoretically have been up to $100 million (Gardner 2017). Although such a
number is practically unlikely, the fact that it could be calculated indicates the severity of copyright
claims involving well-established fictional universes.
Ultimately, the parties settled on terms requiring Axanar to acknowledge that its original plans
infringed Paramount’s copyright and to make substantial changes to the planned film. Paramount
also announced new fan film guidelines—not legally binding on Paramount or on individual fans,
but indicative of what kinds of fan films Paramount would not presently object to (though it could
change its policy at any time). Among other things, to comply with those guidelines, fan films have
to be less than 15 minutes long. They cannot use “Star Trek” in the main title but must indicate “fan
production” status in a subtitle. Purchased costumes and props have to be official merchandise and
not, for example, cosplay costumes sold on Etsy. Creators, actors, and all other participants cannot be
compensated for their services. Notably, the guidelines state that participants cannot be “currently or
Figure 36.1 Cover of Boldly Go
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Rebecca Tushnet
previously employed” on Star Trek, which would exclude practices such as Jonathan Frakes’ directing
stint on The Orville and George Takei’s longstanding interest in fan films. Fundraising is capped at
$50,000, and the fan production cannot profit from advertising, produce physical media, or sell mer-
chandise. Unlike DSC, there can be no profanity (or nudity); unlike many Star Trek plots, there can
be no “depictions of drugs, alcohol, tobacco, or any harmful or illegal activity,” or “any other inappro-
priate content” (StarTrek.com n.d.). The guidelines are not a substitute for fair use. In fact, they
exclude precisely the kinds of content most likely to be found transformative. Nonetheless, many fan
film producers are likely to constrain themselves in order not to run the risk of a lawsuit.
Boldly Go
Finally, Paramount was noticeably not involved in litigation against Boldly Go (see Figure 36.1), which
was created by noted TOS author/fan David Gerrold and others. Instead, the plaintiff is Dr. Seuss
Enterprises, which asserted that the planned book—showing Kirk, Spock (Leonard Nimoy), McCoy
(DeForest Kelley), and the usual spate of redshirts—infringed its copyrights and trademarks in
Dr. Seuss’s works.
As of this writing, Boldly Go has been held not to be a fair use of the Dr. Seuss copyrights, although
the case is still being litigated and the court rejected trademark claims. Many of the pages in Boldly Go
took direct inspiration from specific images from Dr. Seuss’s works, though always with a very clear
Star Trek twist. For example, an image from The Sneetches (1953) showing plain-bellied Sneetches
being turned into star-bellied Sneetches, for a price, became an image of Scotty rescuing imperiled
crewmates (see Figure 36.2).
While a district court found that Boldly Go was transformative, the court of appeals saw nothing
meaningful in what it deemed to be a mere mash-up of two 1960s icons, despite the significant
contrast between Seuss’s paean to individualism and TOS’s celebration of teamwork. The Boldly Go
ruling represents another blow to transformative fair use, but Paramount was not responsible for it.
Conclusion
Paramount’s litigation helped confirm copyright’s expansion, although that expansion would surely
have taken place if Paramount had never sued at all—many other copyright owners made similar
claims. Despite the fact that Paramount has not sued noncommercial or low-level, nonprofessional
fanworks, the lawsuits it has brought have created precedent, making it harder to characterize many
fanworks as transformative. If a court deemed a fanwork to be more homage than critique, it could
be subject to the same analysis as The Joy of Trek or Axanar, even though noncommerciality might
still be sufficient to save the day.
Given that Paramount has behaved like a typical corporate owner, its merger and consolidation
with ViacomCBS are unlikely to substantially change its policies; Star Trek’s copyright owners were
never as open to possibility and sharing as the text itself was. As a matter of popular culture, Star Trek
popularized and even normalized fan creativity. As a matter of formal law, however, the situation is,
if not quite mirror universe-level in its reversals, darker and less free.
268
Figure 36.2 Comparison of Sneetches page and Boldly Go page
269
Rebecca Tushnet
References
Adelman, Michael. 2014. “Constructed Languages and Copyright: A Brief History and Proposal for Divorce.”
Harvard Journal of Law & Technology 27, no. 2 (Spring): 543.
Coppa, Francesca. 2008. “Women, Star Trek, and the Early Development of Fannish Vidding.” Transformative
Works and Cultures 1 (September): n.p. https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2008.044.
Decherney, Peter. 2013. Hollywood’s Copyright Wars: From Edison to the Internet. New York: Columbia
University Press.
Frischling, Bill. 1996. “No Free Enterprise.” Washington Post, November 28, 1996: B7.
Gardner, Eriq. 2017. “CBS, Paramount Settle Lawsuit Over ‘Star Trek’Fan Film.”Hollywood Reporter, January 20, 2017.
Available at: www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/cbs-paramount-settle-lawsuit-star-trek-fan-film-966433.
Hibberd, James. 2017. “Fox: We’re Not Worried Star Trek Will Sue Us for Orville.” Entertainment Weekly, August
8, 2017. Available at: https://ew.com/tv/2017/08/08/star-trek-orville/.
Miller, Liz Shannon. 2017. “From ‘The Orville’ to ‘Star Trek: Discovery,’ ‘Librarians’ Director Jonathan Frakes
Has Found Massive Range Within the Realm of Sci-Fi.” IndieWire, December 21, 2017. Available at: www.
indiewire.com/2017/12/jonathan-frakes-director-interview-star-trek-orville-librarians-1201910085/.
Pierce, Scott D. 2017. “ ‘The Orville’ Should Be Retitled ‘Star Trek: Rip-off’.” Salt Lake Tribune, September 6,
2017. Available at: www.sltrib.com/artsliving/tv/2017/09/06/the-orville-should-be-retitled-star-trek-r ip-
off/.
Scalzi, John. 2012. Redshirts. Farmington Hills, MI: Thorndike Press.
StarTrek.com. n.d. “Fan Films.” Available at: www.startrek.com/fan-films (accessed September 5, 2021).
Verba, Joan Marie. 1996. Boldly Writing: A Trekker Fan and Zine History, 1967–1987. Minneapolis, MN: FTL
Publications.
Star Trek Episodes
The Original Series
3.14 “Whom Gods Destroy” 1969.
Movie
Prelude to Axanar. 2016. dir. Christian Gossett. Axanar Productions.
Cases Cited
17 U.S.C. §107.
Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc., 510 U.S. 569, 579 (1994).
Dr. Seuss Enterprises, L.P. v. ComicMix LLC, 983 F.3d 443 (9th Cir. 2020).
Paramount Pictures Corp. v. Axanar Productions, Inc., 121 U.S.P.Q.2d 1699, 2017 WL 83506 (C.D. Cal. 2017).
Paramount Pictures Corp. v. Carol Publishing Group (1998), 11 F.Supp.2d 329 (S.D.N.Y. 1998), aff’d, 181 F.3d 83
(2d Cir. 1999).
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37
DOCUMENTARIES
Allison Whitney
In What We Left Behind: Star Trek Deep Space Nine (2018), the creators of DS9 reunite nearly two
decades after the series’ conclusion to reflect on the show’s legacy. Such reunion-based premises are
relatively common in entertainment documentaries, but here, the participants not only reminisce
about the past, but also engage in a creative enterprise inherited from the transformative art practices
of fan communities; they imagine, write, and storyboard a new episode, using that hypothetical
production to further consider the cultural impact of DS9 specifically, and Star Trek more broadly.
While Star Trek documentaries tend to combine production narratives, biographical accounts of
creatives, arguments for Star Trek’s historical significance, and acknowledgments of fan culture, What
We Left Behind uses a self-aware mode of narration to affirm the series’ prescience while also cri-
tiquing Star Trek’s tendency toward self-congratulation. For example, in discussing “Rejoined” (DS9
4.6, 1995) the episode where Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell), whose host/symbiont Trill species already
challenges gender essentialism, kisses another female Trill, Ira Steven Behr explains that while the epi-
sode was groundbreaking in 1995, it also engages in tokenism. He acknowledges his failure to pursue
other storylines that would have allowed for more consistent and complex LGBTQ+representation
in the series (see Chapter 52), while also commenting on how many of DS9’s more consistent gains
in diversity have been forgotten by popular history, citing a CNN special on “The 90’s” that fails to
mention DS9’s extensive interactions among its black characters (see Chapter 4). Through its com-
bination of reminiscence and critique, What We Left Behind performs as a paratext, filling in con-
textual and interpretive gaps in DS9, while also inviting viewers to reconsider their own reception of
the series, and observe how the mythologizing of Star Trek might distort its actual history.
This chapter examines Star Trek documentaries as a form of paratext, framing the series and movies
in historical as well as ideological terms, while generating, circulating, and maintaining a public archive
of their creation and reception, offering a record of the evolving discourses surrounding the franchise.
Gérard Genette’s concept of the “epitext” corresponds to much of these documentaries’ content, such
as interviews with Star Trek’s producers, writers, and actors (1997, 3). However, as media scholars have
expanded the concept of the paratext to encompass transmedia systems, we might also regard these
documentaries within Jonathan Gray’s framework of “in medias res” paratexts that work to police,
or at least inform viewer reading strategies. These include paratextual frames that ascribe artistic or
other value to a text, and fan-created paratexts, especially those that offer critique and inspire new
readings of the source material (2010, 23, 81, 143). Star Trek fans are a consistent presence in these
documentaries, with characterizations ranging from marginalized curiosities to primary subjects, but
as this chapter will demonstrate, the impulse in fan culture to reinterpret, revise, and memorialize
becomes both a motivator and a method in documentary production (see Chapter 34). While this
chapter is by no means comprehensive, excluding, for example, extra feature material on home video
editions of Star Trek, to say nothing of brief Star Trek references in documentaries on other topics,
it will address some common themes in films produced from the 1990s to the present, and examine
DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917-42 271

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how they both reinforce and challenge discourses on Star Trek’s significance as a cultural phenom-
enon, particularly its reputation for modeling an idealized future of social equality (see Chapter 60).
Star Trek’s Social Future

In a 2010 oral history interview with the Archive of American Television, Nichelle Nichols recounts
an experience that has become a cornerstone of Star Trek’s lore as a progressive vision of an equit-
able future society (Nichols 2010). Nichols explains how she had planned to quit her job portraying
Uhura on TOS, only to be dissuaded by Martin Luther King Jr.; he told her that not only was it
the only program he would permit his children to watch, but also that her visibility as the singular
Black television character in a non-stereotypical role was invaluable to the Civil Rights Movement.
Star Trek documentaries very often repeat this and related anecdotes, emphasizing Nichols’ roles as
a pioneer in anti-racist representation and a campaigner for diversity in scientific institutions, and
thereby encouraging viewers to perceive the franchise in a progressive framework (see Chapter 50).
For example, The Real Story: Star Trek (2013) and Building Star Trek (2016) emphasize the transgres-
sive implications of Nichols and Shatner performing the first interracial kiss on American television.
Meanwhile, Trekkies (1997) and How William Shatner Changed the World (2005) reference Nichols’
work in recruiting women and people of color to join the NASA astronaut program (see Chapter 40);
they showcase figures like Sally Ride, Guion Buford, and especially Mae Jemison, who not only
became the first African American in space, but whose own significance as a cultural figure is marked
by her cameo appearance on TNG (Weitekamp 2013, 31).
Star Trek’s multi-racial cast was indeed novel in the 1960s, and the creators of subsequent
series consistently frame their casting of women and people of color as a means of challenging
stereotypes and as a source of appeal to audiences who are mis-and/or underrepresented in
popular culture. For example, in What We Left Behind, they offer an account of how Avery Brooks
and Cirroc Lofton endeavored to portray a nuanced relationship between a Black father and
son. Documentaries on fan culture also highlight Star Trek’s inclusiveness, where fans praise the
diversity of the franchise, and by extension their fan communities (see Chapter 31). Trekkies 2
(2004) not only emphasizes the international scope of Star Trek fandom (see Chapter 32),
but also asserts its cultural weight by connecting it to contemporary politics, such as when
Serbian fans describe how Star Trek helped them to imagine a peaceful future in the aftermath
of civil war. While there is no doubt that Star Trek’s evolving discourses on race and gender
have been important to audiences, it is worth considering how the repetition of the Nichols/
Uhura narratives might present a reductive model of how and why representation matters. For
all of Gene Roddenberry’s liberal-humanist intentions, Daniel Bernardi explains, TOS still
relegated non-white characters to “the margins of most stories” and “the background of most
shots” (1998, 39). The imprimatur of Martin Luther King Jr.’s endorsement, the focus on the
most explicit of segregationist norms with the interracial kiss, and the causal chain of “inspir-
ation” leading primarily to diversity among real-life space explorers, while important, can easily
oversimplify Star Trek’s more complex ideological implications and overlook valid critiques of
the franchise’s mythos. It is important to consider how documentaries employ this formula in
portraying creatives’ vision and motivation, while also complicating narratives of representation
and reception.
Star Trek/Star Text
A significant number of documentaries focus on Star Trek actors as biographical subjects. These
include interview-based films like The Captain’s Summit (2009), an extended interview with William
Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Patrick Stewart, and Jonathan Frakes, hosted by Whoopi Goldberg, and The
Captains (2011), directed by Shatner, where he meets with each of the actors who portrayed Star Trek
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captains. Others are biographical sketches of individual subjects, like To Be Takei (2014) and For the
Love of Spock (2016), the latter intended as a project to mark the 50th anniversary of Star Trek, but
completed only posthumously by Nimoy’s son. While these films vary in style, they share the familiar
thematic concerns of social justice, scientific inspiration, and relationship to fan culture. However,
they also address how Star Trek has defined the actors’ respective star personae, offering a paratextual
framing that encourages viewers to revisit their performances.
For the Love of Spock proceeds from a premise that Nimoy explored in his autobiographical
writing: the conflation of his public persona with his most famous character. Early in the film, there
is a shot of a billboard erected after his death, with an image of Spock making the Vulcan hand ges-
ture and the caption “He Did”—referring to the actor’s long and prosperous life. Since Nimoy died
during the documentary’s production, the film offers a dynamic where the cast and crew of TOS
and ST09 both contemplate and re-create his legacy, while his children describe their more intimate
struggles with Nimoy as a star and a father. The documentary thereby maps ST09’s themes of loss,
grief, and familial legacy onto its own project of intergenerational reconciliation (see Chapter 20).
While For the Love of Spock is particularly poignant, other films present the relationships among ori-
ginal cast members and the actors who take up their roles in ST09 in more playful terms, such as
Shatner’s interview with Chris Pine in The Captains, which he begins with a bout of arm-wrestling.
Intergenerational dynamics are a common theme in biography, but in addition to the
expected accounts of childhood experience, role models, and early discoveries of artistic talent,
Star Trek documentaries will often emphasize experiences of trauma, racism, and antisemitism
as instrumental to the actors’ evolution as artists. In the first conversation between Shatner and
Stewart in The Captains, Stewart locates his early experiences in the deprivation and after-
math of World War II. Shatner then offers an anecdote about his childhood experiences at a
Jewish summer camp, where his performance in a play about the Holocaust garnered a powerful
response from the audience. He goes on to describe the mentorship of his elementary school
English teacher who introduced him to Shakespeare, and particularly the character of Shylock.
Meanwhile, For the Love of Spock connects fans’ identification with Spock as an “outsider” to
Nimoy’s immigrant community and the manifestations of Jewish identity in his star persona
(Horáková 2018, 13–27). It further explicates his coding of Vulcan identity with Jewish points
of reference, such as the religious roots of the Vulcan salute, as well as his stage performances in
archetypal roles such as in Fiddler on the Roof, alongside his portrayal of a Nazi in a 1971 produc-
tion of The Man in the Glass Booth—each of these supporting a narrative of artistic expression as
a means of grappling with personal and historical trauma.
World War II also figures in George Takei’s development as an actor and activist, stemming from
his family’s persecution and internment as Japanese Americans. In To Be Takei, he explicates the racism
and homophobia he encountered in the entertainment industry, and offers important complications
to the equation of representation and inspiration that is so important to the Star Trek mythos. He
describes how as a young actor he accepted roles portraying racist stereotypes; even though he regrets
perpetuating destructive tropes, he also acknowledges the struggle to balance his principles while
remaining visible and employable. Several voices in the documentary, including husband Brad Takei
and LGBTQ+advocate Dan Savage, suggest that his coming out earlier in his career could have been
a vital progressive step, but Takei counters that such a move would have simply ended his career, and
thereby eliminated his opportunity to be an effective advocate in the future. To Be Takei is particularly
interesting in its acknowledgment of intersectionality and the pressures on marginalized performers,
while also complicating successive readings of Takei’s performances.
While the subjects of these biographical documentaries are compelling in themselves, if we regard
them as Star Trek paratexts, they both invite the viewer to revisit the actors’ characterizations within
frameworks that, not unlike the Nichols anecdotes, tie personal experience to major historical events
and social movements, and then encourage the viewer to map those dynamics onto Star Trek narratives.
On the one hand, this formula asserts the importance of Star Trek as a cultural phenomenon, while on
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the other, it can also lend some nuance to reductive understandings of progress, particularly when they
acknowledge the conflicting ideologies of Star Trek’s production and reception.
Fandom as Method
Star Trek’s enduring cultural presence is inextricable from its expansive fan communities. One of
the fabled stories about the original “Trekkies” is that they secured TOS’s reprieve from cancelation
thanks to a grassroots letter writing campaign, which in turn contributed to Paramount’s open script
policy and a generally welcoming attitude toward fan culture. The Real Story: Star Trek, a documen-
tary combining interviews with reenactments of critical moments in TOS production history, offers
more context for this narrative, presenting it less as a spontaneous realization of collective fan power,
and more as an orchestrated campaign initiated by Roddenberry and coordinated by Bjo Trimble,
a leader in the early fan community, who details her organizing strategies (see Chapter 1). At first
glance, this narrative of top-down strategizing might seem less inspiring than one of unprompted
collective action, but it provides good insight into Roddenberry’s understanding of fan culture and
the power of its methods. Decades later, the longevity of the franchise has allowed for a trajectory
from fans’ sense of ownership or stewardship of Star Trek, to the creative interventions of fan culture
and community-building (see Chapter 35), to the phenomenon of fans themselves becoming the
creators of official Star Trek productions. Further, many Star Trek documentarians derive practices
from fandom, paratextually filling in the gaps of both production narratives and elements of the fic-
tional world, thereby inviting new interpretations of the franchise, and offering commentary about
and through Star Trek’s transmedia manifestations.
In The Captain’s Summit, host Whoopi Goldberg positions herself as a fan, a cast member, and
now an interviewer whose method stems from these interconnected roles. She offers an anecdote,
familiar to many viewers from Nichelle Nichols’ recounting it in Trekkies, about her transformative
childhood experience of watching television and seeing Uhura, a Black woman in a position of status
and authority, and how this set her on a trajectory to stardom. Goldberg explains how once she had
gained fame as a comedian and actor, she leveraged her status to convince the producers of TNG to
not only create the character of Guinan, but also to invent the concept of Ten Forward as a space
for her to occupy. Goldberg offers her personal Star Trek story as a manifestation of the interplay of
fandom and canonical production. Much in the spirit of fan fiction, which allows fans to reimagine
the stories and spaces of Star Trek (see Chapter 33), Goldberg’s fan journey culminates in her not only
transforming the physical layout of the Enterprise, but also creating a new discursive space that would
accommodate both playful and intimate interactions among the characters, a role that segues into her
function as a moderator for her fellow actors’ reminiscences. Notably, the way Goldberg’s narrative
sets the stage for the ensuing interviews prompts her subjects to offer more nuanced accounts of
their own creative processes and their relationships with fandom. For example, Shatner tells a story
about visiting NASA, and while sitting in a real spacecraft, looking out the window to see that the
engineers had photographed a model Enterprise so it would appear to fly by the window—in effect,
demonstrating their regard for Star Trek, and for him, by creating a fan film.
Conclusion
Trekkies director Roger Nygard, in an interview on the evolving relationship between Star Trek’s
creators and the fan community, mentions how actors from Enterprise, upon learning that they had
been cast in the series, immediately “watched Trekkies to see just what they had gotten themselves
into” (2005, 48). While this anecdote speaks to the powerful presence of fan culture, and the need for
creatives to understand it, it also demonstrates how documentaries circulate alongside and among pri-
mary texts, both recording and shaping interpretations of Star Trek, and in this case, influencing how
actors envision their place in both the fictional world and in Star Trek as a popular phenomenon.
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Star Trek’s richness as a documentary subject both speaks to and perpetuates its cultural relevance,
drawing upon the imaginative and critical frameworks built through decades of fan labor, and locating
the series at the convergence of both social and scientific futurism.
References
Bernardi, Daniel Leonard. 1998. Star Trek and History: Race- ing toward a White Future. New Brunswick,
NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Genette, Gérard. 1997. Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation. Translated by Jane E. Lewin. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Gray, Jonathan. 2010. Show Sold Separately: Promos, Spoilers, and Other Media Paratexts. New York: New York
University Press.
Horáková, Erin. 2018. “From ‘Shalom Aleichem’ to ‘Live Long and Prosper’: Engaging with Post-war American
Jewish Identity via Star Trek: The Original Series.” In Set Phasers to Teach!: Star Trek in Research and Teaching,
edited by Stefan Rabitsch, Martin Gabriel, Wilfried Elemenreich, and John N. A. Brown, 13–27. Cham,
Switzerland: Springer.
Nichols, Nichelle. 2010. “Nichelle Nichols Interview: Interview by Stephen J Abramson.” Television Academy
Foundation: The Interviews, October 13, 2010. Available at: https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/intervi
ews/nichelle-nichols.
Nygard, Roger. 2015. “Interview with Roger Nygard, Director of Trekkies (1997): Interview by Lucy Bennett
and Paul Booth.” In Seeing Fans: Representations of Fandom in Media and Popular Culture, edited by Lucy
Bennett and Paul Booth, 45–49. London: Bloomsbury.
Weitekamp, Margaret A. 2013. “More Than ‘Just Uhura’: Understanding Star Trek’s Lt. Uhura, Civil Rights,
and Space History.” In Star Trek and History, edited by Nancy R. Reagin, 22–38. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley
& Sons.
Star Trek Episodes
Deep Space Nine
Star Trek Documentaries
Trekkies. 1997. dir. Roger Nygard. NEO Motion Pictures.
Trekkies 2. 2004. dir. Roger Nygard. Neo Art & Logic, Paramount Pictures.
How William Shatner Changed the World. 2005. dir. Julian Jones. Handel Productions.
The Captain’s Summit. 2009. dir. Tim King. King Media Services.
The Captains. 2011. dir. William Shatner. Le Big Boss Productions.
The Real Story: Star Trek. 2013. dir. Phil Stebbing. Smithsonian Channel.
To Be Takei. 2014. dir. Jennifer M. Kroot. Dodgeville Films.
Building Star Trek. 2016. dir. Mick Grogan. Yap Films & Discovery Channel Canada.
For the Love of Spock. 2016. dir. Adam Nimoy. 455 Films.
What We Left Behind: Star Trek Deep Space Nine. 2018. dir. Ira Steven Behr and David Zappone. Le Big Boss
Productions.
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38
PARODY AND HOMAGE
Michael Robinson
Pursued through space by a red, 1968 Chrysler Imperial registered to the National Broadcasting
Company, the Enterprise crew embarks on a final voyage. By the end of the story, Dr. McCoy (Dan
Ackroyd) has abandoned ship to go get drunk, Mr. Spock (Chevy Chase) has lost his ears to Herb
Goodman (Elliott Gould), an NBC network executive who is somehow immune to Spock’s “famous
Vulcan nerve pinch,” and Captain Kirk (John Belushi) has found himself alone on a disassembled
bridge set contemplating this last adventure and his ultimate fate. As a parody skit, Saturday Night
Live’s “The Last Voyage of the Starship Enterprise” (1976) featured many of the elements audiences
have come to expect of a Star Trek parody. There was a replication of a TOS episode opening format,
some humorous mockery of the series’ low budget special effects, and a spot-on imitation of William
Shatner’s idiosyncratic speech by Belushi. While some of the humor came at the expense of the show,
there was also a theme of frustration and wistfulness about the cancelation of a quality program by
an unsympathetic network.
Although this skit pokes fun at Star Trek, it also evidences a deep familiarity with and affection for
Star Trek on the part of both the creators of this skit and its audience. In this way, parody and homage
are not so much binary opposites as they are permutations of a similar impulse. Linda Hutcheon
defines parody as “repetition with difference” (2000, 32). For Hutcheon, parody is a compellingly
complex phenomenon. She argues that an understanding of parody must include the formal features
of that parody in relationship to the textual elements from the original text that a parody repeats or
alters as well as an awareness of both the role of the creator and the audience in understanding the
parody’s intent. Simon Dentith also offers a broad definition of parody as “any cultural practice which
provides a relatively polemical allusive imitation of another cultural production or practice” (2000,
9). Dentith and Hutcheon both maintain that parody cannot be limited exclusively to a single mode.
While humor is technically not mandatory, Dentith states that amusement aids parody “because
laughter, even of derision, helps it secure its point” (ibid., 37). Arthur Asa Berger (1995) also iden-
tifies parody as a form of intertextuality, i.e., the constant referencing that occurs between items of
popular culture. As such, parody cannot exist in isolation: “Parody represents a conscious ‘quotation’
(and manipulation) of a text, genre, or literary or creative style—that is of someone else’s work” (ibid.,
92). While Berger does not specifically mention homage, it is not hard to see the similarities here.
Homage is simply more of a love letter to the parodied text. Both parody and homage allow a new
text to build from an older one.
Not only does this process obviously imply a familiarity on the part of textual creators, but
Berger also highlights the importance of the audience. While Berger admits that familiarity is not a
prerequisite for enjoying a parodic text, he notes that “[p]‌arodies are best appreciated when we are
familiar with what is being parodied” (ibid., 91). Saturday Night Live had a studio audience present for
its broadcast and judging by their laughter, the people there were clearly having fun with Star Trek
on that late night in 1976. While it may not be possible to know with any certainty as to what an
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Parody and Homage
audience member was laughing at specifically, it is clear that the audience knew something about
Star Trek.
While TOS might have been more of a cult show in 1976, today Star Trek enjoys broad recog-
nition as a behemoth of global popular culture. Djoymi Baker sees Star Trek as a complex system of
meanings: “A mythological array … Star Trek intersects with its own accumulated textual past, older
mythological stories that it adapts, and the cultural associations with the word ‘myth’ that it inten-
tionally harnesses through marketing” (2018, 14). Over more than a half-century and across multiple
media, Star Trek generated an astonishing amount of iconography and character, style and substance,
text and context; it is an immense warehouse of components ready to be assembled and reassembled
by those who wish to engage in parodic play. Exploring key examples from film and television
demonstrates the role of iconography, formula, performance, and fandom in this phenomenon.
Other parodies of Star Trek take a similar direction to the Saturday Night Live skit. A simu-
lation of the Enterprise bridge and a play on the Captain’s Log voiceover open both In Living
Color’s “The Wrath of Farrakhan” (1990) sketch and The Carol Burnett Show’s untitled Star Trek
parody (1991). From there, though, the skits move off in different comedic directions. In “Wrath,”
Kirk’s (Jim Carrey) authority on the bridge is challenged by the improbable arrival of Nation of
Islam leader Louis Farrakhan (Daymon Wayans). When Farrakhan’s appeals lead Spock (David
Alan Grier) to take over command and Uhura (Kim Wayans) to refuse to work for a system that
exploits her, Kirk is left to scamper off the bridge in an exaggerated fashion. In the Burnett
sketch, the Enterprise’s passage through the Estrogena-7 space anomaly turns Kirk (Carol Burnett),
Spock (Andrea Martin), and others into the opposite sex as they must deal with an attack by the
Klingon Koloth (Richard Kind). While the skits demonstrate similar comedic attention to sets,
iconography, and performance style, the results are markedly different. “Wrath of Farrakhan” flips
the racial dynamics of the show and exposes a frustrating schism between TOS’ commitment to
multiculturalism and the systemic inequalities of casting practices (see Chapter 50). As Daniel
Bernardi (1998) observes, both In Living Color and Star Trek share a mission to explore race.
However, In Living Color makes its edgier and more critical take clear only in its second episode.
Conversely, Burnett’s troop tends to traffic in familiar, broad gender stereotypes rather than cri-
tique them.
Parody may also rely upon a particular performer’s attachment to Star Trek. Star persona and
typecasting limit a performer’s ability to work, but they also provide opportunities to play with that
image as well. For decades,William Shatner has functioned as a signifier for Star Trek. Airplane II:The
Sequel (1982) makes great use of Shatner’s iconic status. In his role as Commander Buck Murdock of
the lunar Alpha Beta Base, Shatner leads in an overly dramatic way from a set very similar to a starship
bridge. There he makes the “shhh” sound for the automatic doors, contends with pointless blinking
lights on his bridge, and in one scene draws back in surprise when his periscope spots the Enterprise.
However, the most infamous example of this is the 1986 “Get a Life!” skit on Saturday Night Live.
Attending a Star Trek convention, Shatner, playing himself, is beset by a group of hyper-stereotypical
fans (Dana Carvey, Jon Lovitz, and Kevin Nealon) who have far more knowledge about Star Trek and
Shatner’s own personal life than Shatner himself. Finally, Shatner snaps:
Having received all your letters over the years, and I’ve spoken to many of you, and some
of you have traveled … y’know… hundreds of miles to be here, I’d just like to say … get a
life, will you, people? I mean, for crying out loud, it’s just a TV show! … You’ve turned an
enjoyable little job that I did as a lark for a few years into a colossal waste of time!
What might have been a cathartic moment for the actor became a shot through the heart of fandom.
“Get a life!” became the code phrase for using the worst stereotypes against Trekkers. Years later in
the book Get a Life! (1999), Shatner recounts the time on Saturday Night Live as a hectic whirlwind of
production: “It never occurs to me that people might be offended. It never occurs to me that Trekkers
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might believe I was making fun of them” (ibid., 111). Whether this is avoidance or apologia is left to
the reader to decide, but the book is clearly an attempt by Shatner to process the impact his skit had.
Shatner is not the only franchise actor to spin cameos and guest appearances. Leonard Nimoy,
George Takei, Patrick Stewart, and Wil Wheaton are notable examples of performers who have woven
parody and homage into their star personae. A blurring of the line between Star Trek and reality
exists in these appearances. For example, in The Simpsons’ “Marge vs. the Monorail” (4.12, 1993) at
the dedication of the monorail system, Nimoy is insulted when Mayor Quimby (Dan Castellaneta)
makes a Star Wars reference and thinks Nimoy was in The Little Rascals. After the out-of-control
monorail is stopped, Nimoy claims credit for saving the day and beams away.
A few parodies reunite casts. In Family Guy’s “Not All Dogs Go to Heaven” (7.11, 2009), Stewie
(Seth MacFarlane) spends the day with the TNG cast and finds them to be a self-absorbed and
somewhat helpless bunch. Perhaps the most complex play on cast reunions though is Futurama’s
“Where No Fan Has Gone Before” (4.11, 2002). Set in the thirty-first century, this animated series
had a recurring gag in which contemporary celebrities survived as heads in jars. In this story, the
Planet Express team helps Nimoy’s head find the rest of the cast, who were lost during the religious
Star Trek Wars of the 2200s. On the planet Omega 3, the majority of the TOS cast (voiced by the ori-
ginal actors) are reliving TOS episodes under the oppressive fandom of the formless entity, Melllvar
(Maurice LaMarche). The episode lovingly skewers Star Trek tropes while invoking elements from
several TOS episodes. In the end, Melllvar learns that he cannot base his entire life around Star Trek
and lets the cast go.
The nature of fandom is also central to the most commercially successful Star Trek parody of all
time. Galaxy Quest (1999) centers on the cast of a Star Trek-like show on the convention circuit who
are contacted by aliens. These Thermians mistakenly believe that Galaxy Quest was a nonfiction show
and that the series stars can assist them in defeating the alien menace Sarris (Robin Sachs) aboard
an actually working-version of their television starship, the Protector. Both Kim Edwards (2007) and
Paul Booth (2013) have noted that while the Thermians function as exaggerated fans in the film,
reinforcing negative stereotypes of obsession, they also provide the key to victory by embodying the
optimistic message of the series.
The film is also a clever play on Star Trek and the lives of the performers who worked
on it. Jason Nesmith (Tim Allen) is a swaggering macho-type who played the Kirk-analogue
Commander Taggert while invoking Shatner’s star persona. Alexander Dane (Alan Rickman)
finds his acting career and life subsumed by his role as the alien science officer Dr. Lazarus in
a fashion similar to Nimoy in real life. In this way, the film can also play with tropes, such as
Guy Fleegman (Sam Rockwell) who fears the imminent death faced by all ordinary crewmen
(read: red shirts). Sigourney Weaver’s Gwen DeMarco gives voice to complaints about the
sexism in Star Trek when she criticizes her own role in the fictional series. Galaxy Quest clearly
demonstrates an interesting quality of parodies. As Dentith noted, “parody has the paradoxical
effect of preserving the very text that it seeks to destroy” (2000, 36). Booth maintains that the
Thermians’ belief in this crew, even after the fictional nature of the show is revealed, validates
their commitment to the series because the heroes win. By association, this carries forward
support for Star Trek fandom in particular (see Chapters 31 and 32).
Other recent television shows produced by companies without official rights have also approached
Star Trek. Although The Orville (2017–) initially seemed to be the kind of parody its creator Seth
MacFarlane was known for before its release, the series actually turned out to be an ardent homage
to 1990s-era Star Trek. What Erik Kain aptly called the show’s “unexpected sincerity” (2017, 2) was
due to MacFarlane’s own fandom. After failing to develop a Star Trek series with Paramount,
MacFarlane developed his own series where the spaceship interiors evoke TNG’s Enterprise and the
crew wears color-coded uniforms, even if the colors are keyed differently. While Captain Ed Mercer
(MacFarlane) is not quite as good a leader as Picard (Patrick Stewart), alien Bortus (Peter Macon)
is even more macho than Worf (Michael Dorn), and the artificial lifeform Isaac (Mark Jackson) is
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uncannily similar to Data (Brent Spiner). While the series demonstrates MacFarlane’s snarky, popular
culture-obsessed brand of humor, it often delivers stories that really feel like unused TNG scripts.
By contrast, Black Mirror’s “USS Callister” episode (4.1, 2017) uses the familiar feel of a Star Trek
parody to make a far darker point. A virtual reality simulation of a fictional show called Space Fleet
initially appears to be a playful way for Robert Daly (Jesse Plemons) to live out the heroic drama his
life is missing. Although the fiction mimics TOS, the episode is initially reminiscent of Lt. Barclay’s
(Dwight Shultz) holodeck addiction in TNG’s “Hollow Pursuits” (TNG 3.21, 1990). However, the
viewer learns that Daly is a sadistic control freak when it is revealed that the characters in the simula-
tion are virtual clones that have the memories of their real-world counterparts. Daly’s latest target is
Nanette Cole (Cristin Miliotti), whom he recreates as a short-skirted sex object when the real-world
version resists his sexual advances. Absolute power over the simulated world allows Daly to horrif-
ically manipulate the bodies of his captives and exploit them. However, Nanette leads the crew in a
complex scheme of revenge that leaves Daly to die both virtually and in the real world as she and her
fellow simulations escape to explore the internet. Diversity triumphs over toxic masculinity.
“USS Callister” might seem like a rebuke of Star Trek and it certainly scores some points against
the problems older Star Trek had realizing its stated mission of embracing diversity and inclusion.
However, as reviewer Zack Handlen noted of the episode, “you could say it goes from being a bog-
standard Black Mirror and becomes more like classic Trek: a crew of good people facing a sci-fi threat
with only their wits and a grasp of technobabble to sustain them” (2017, 3). As I have discussed
elsewhere (Robinson 2020), despite their varying uses of the source text and departures from its
themes, the production teams of both The Orville and “USS Callister” demonstrate a careful respect
for Star Trek. Gene Rodenberry’s vision is central to the way that these creators validated their own
departures from and challenges to the Star Trek series before them.
While the complexities of copyright law that allow parodies and homages produced by unlicensed
entities cannot be explored here (see Chapters 36 and 39), they point to another aspect of this phe-
nomenon. The holders of the intellectual property rights have no problem engaging playful or
critical impulses. DS9’s “Trials and Tribble-ations” (DS9 5.6, 1996) can joyfully romp within TOS’
“The Trouble with Tribbles” (TOS 2.13, 1967) by inserting its later cast into the earlier story in a
visual effects and editing extravaganza. The Short Treks episode “Ephraim and Dot” (Short Treks 2.4,
2019) can nostalgically tease many TOS episodes as the animated tardigrade works to save its eggs on
the original Enterprise. Large studios who are not license holders have the muscle to fend off potential
legal issues. When pressed about The Orville’s similarities to Star Trek, FOX executive Dana Walden
replied, “We obviously have a big legal team” (reported in Hale 2017). Other entities, however, may
be confronted with legal challenges, particularly when high-profile, big-budget projects are involved.
Such is the case with the Axanar project, which resulted in a lawsuit and the issuing of guidelines by
CBS and Paramount for future fan productions (see Chapter 36).
As Hutcheon observed, “it is very successful works that inspire parodies” (2000, 76). No matter
their source or their sting, parody and homage reaffirm the place and power of Star Trek in popular
culture. At the very least, even the most critical of takes reifies the importance of the franchise by
using it as an axiomatic foundation. Ultimately, though, the vast majority of approaches play with
Star Trek while fondly acknowledging its faults and unequivocally (re)affirming that Star Trek still
matters.
References
Baker, Djoymi. 2018. To Boldly Go: Marketing the Myth of Star Trek. New York: I. B. Tauris.
Berger, Arthur Asa. 1995. Cultural Criticism: A Primer of Key Concepts. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
University Press.
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Booth, Paul. 2013. “Star Trek Fans as Parody: Fans Mocking Other Fans.” In Fan Phenomena: Star Trek, edited
by Bruce E. Drushel, 72–80. Chicago: Intellect Books.
Dentith, Simon. 2000. Parody. New York: Routledge.
Edwards, Kim. 2007. “Why There Are Always Ducts: Parody and Fandom in Galaxy Quest.” Screen Education
48: 109–115.
Hale, Mike. 2017. “Review: Fox’s ‘The Orville’ Is Star Trek: The Next Regurgitation.” New York Times,
September 8, 2017. Available at: www.nytimes.com/2017/09/08/arts/television/the-orville-tv-review.html.
Handlen, Zack. 2017. “Black Mirror Beams into a Familiar Nightmare as Season 4 Begins.” AV Club, December 29,
2017. Available at: www.avclub.com/black-mirror-beams-into-a-familiar-nightmare-as-season-1821633354.
Hutcheon, Linda. 2000. A Theory of Parody. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.
Kain, Erik. 2017. “Interview: Seth MacFarlane on The Orville’s Unique Tone, ‘Star Trek’ Roots.” Forbes,
September 16, 2017. Available at: www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2017/09/16/seth-macfarlane-on-the-
orville-going-boldly-where-no-tv-show-has-gone-before.
Robinson, Michael G. 2020. “These Are the Voyages?: The Post-Jubilee Trek Legacy on the Discovery, the
Orville and the Callister.” In Fighting for the Future: Essays on Star Trek: Discovery, edited by Sabrina Mittermeier
and Mareike Spychala, 81–101. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.
Shatner, William with Chris Kreski. 1999. Get a Life! New York: Pocket Books.
Star Trek.com. n.d. “Fan Films.” Available at: https://intl.startrek.com/fan-films.
Skits and Movies

Airplane II: The Sequel. 1982. dir. Ken Finkleman. Paramount Studios.
Galaxy Quest. 1999. dir. Dean Parisot. DreamWorks.
“Get a Life!” 1986. Saturday Night Live, 12.8.
“Marge vs. the Monorail.” 1993. The Simpsons, 4.12.
“Not All Dogs Go to Heaven.” 2009. Family Guy, 7.11.
“The Last Voyage of the Starship Enterprise.” 1976. Saturday Night Live, 1.22.
“The Wrath of Farrakhan.” 1990. In Living Color, 1.2.
“Untitled Star Trek Skit.” 1991. The Carol Burnett Show. 1.
“USS Callister.” 2017. Black Mirror. 4.1.
“Where No Fan Has Gone Before.” 2002. Futurama, 4.11.
Star Trek Episodes
The Original Series
The Next Generation

Deep Space Nine

5.6 “Tribbles and Tribble-ations” 1996.
Short Treks
2.4 “Ephraim and Dot” 2019.
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39
PORNOGRAPHY
Michael Fuchs
In October 2001, Lucasfilm filed a federal lawsuit against Media Market Group, the producers of the
animated porn film Star Ballz (2001), claiming that consumers might be tricked into thinking that the
animated movie was a licensed production. A federal judge rejected Lucasfilm’s motion, explaining that
“the Star Wars films are so famous that it is extremely unlikely that consumers would believe that Star Ballz
is associated with Star Wars or Lucasfilm” (Lucasfilm, Ltd. v. Media Market Group, Ltd. 2002). Of course,
Star Ballz was neither the first nor the last porn film inspired by Star Wars; however, Lucasfilm’s unsuc-
cessful legal charge is significant because the ruling made explicit the legal status of porn adaptations: they
have to parody their source texts or dissociate themselves from the original texts.
In order to counteract any potential charges of infringing upon IP holders’ property rights (see
Chapter 36), many recent porn adaptations of blockbusters and hit television series have thus added
“parody,” “a XXX parody,” or “this ain’t” to their titles, along with opening disclaimers that stress that
they are not affiliated with their source material. In recent years, these porn adaptations have become
“one of the most high-profile subgenres of an industry struggling to … compete with free Internet
pornography” (Hunter 2017, 424). The porn industry’s equivalent to the Academy Awards, the Adult
Video News Awards, acknowledged the relevance of porn parodies by introducing a separate cat-
egory for Best Parody in 2009, partly in response to the mushrooming of porn tube sites such as
YouPorn, PornHub, and xHamster. Between 2015 and 2019, adaptations won AVN Best Picture five
times, with four of the films featuring “parody” in their titles.
Due to the recent proliferation of porn adaptations, Olga Tchepikova-Treon has suggested that “a
film’s cultural relevance has come to be measured by its potential to facilitate a pornographic spoof ”
(2019, 173). Since Star Trek has been a mainstay in popular culture for 50-plus years, Memory Alpha’s
list of a little over a dozen Star Trek porn adaptations accordingly seems rather short (Memory Alpha
2020). While the relatively small number of Star Trek-inspired porn films may be the result of fans’
preference for transformative works (see Chapters 33 and 34), such as slash fiction rather than com-
mercial porn, the fan encyclopedia does, in fact, present a rather selective listing—for example, it fails
to include gay porn such as Star Trek: A Gay XXX Parody (2016). While Memory Alpha’s record starts
with Star Ship Intercourse (1987) as the first Star Trek-themed porn adaptation, Starship Eros (1979)
should rightfully bear the title since it drew inspiration from TOS—despite referencing Star Wars
more explicitly.
In this chapter, I will briefly discuss what was probably the first commercial porn film to flaunt
its links to Star Trek, Sex Trek (1990), and the two sequels it spawned, which combine to make up
the Original Sex Trek Trilogy. Structurally, the Sex Trek films are relatively typical feature-length het-
erosexual porn films of the late 1980s/early 1990s, with runtimes of 60–80 minutes and sex scenes
that are between 6 and 14 minutes long (a sequence of two parallel, intercut scenes in Sex Trek II is a
little over 18 minutes). Despite their formulaic structure, the films are noteworthy because they both
reflect on their status as porn films and spoof their source text.
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Michael Fuchs
Before turning my attention to the Sex Trek series, working definitions of “pornography,”
“adaptation,” and “parody” may be useful. In an oft-quoted 1964 U.S. Supreme Court case, Justice
Potter Stewart said, “I know [pornography] when I see it” (Jacobellis v. Ohio 1964). Although
this sentence might suggest that defining pornography was easy, Stewart rather sidestepped this
complex task. After all, “pornography” subsumes a wide variety of cultural artifacts and practices.
Indeed, as Sarah Ashton, Karalyn McDonald, and Maggie Kirkman have pointed out, in the early
1950s, “ ‘pornography’ … evoked images of semi-nude women in the newly published magazine
Playboy” (2019, 145). However, today, few people would associate Playboy with porn. At the same
time, in recent years, “pornography” has “been used to describe … a music video clip of a naked
Miley Cyrus straddling a wrecking ball …; Bill Henson’s photographs of naked children, hung
in art galleries …; and videos of multiple penetration and forced sexual acts” (ibid., 145). Porn,
as Susanna Paasonen has observed, is a “plural category” that is “both contingent as a point of
reference and internally split” (2010, loc. 3415).
In order to narrow down its scope, this chapter centers on commercial porn films. For the present
purposes, “pornography” denotes filmic depictions of sexual intercourse in explicit ways that seek to
generate corporeal responses in viewers (Williams 1999; Paasonen 2011). Note that this rather sim-
plistic definition (1) does not cover all subgenres of pornography (for example, BDSM pornography
often lacks actual intercourse), and (2) does not mention narrative at all—a point I will return to
toward the end of this chapter.
I use the terms “adaptation” and “parody” somewhat loosely in this chapter. On the one
hand, Michael G. Robinson addresses this topic in depth in his contribution to this volume (see
Chapter 38); on the other hand, the two terms are often used in strikingly similar ways. For example,
Dennis Cutchins’s definition of adaptation (2017, 81) and Linda Hutcheon’s definition of parody
(2000, 6) share several features: both adaptation and parody emerge from the interplay between texts;
recipients need to recognize and activate the intertextual links; and the connections between texts
may generate a variety of meanings. Notably, fan fiction may adapt and parody in ways similar to
porn, yet they differ in two important ways. For one, porn adaptations are part of commercial culture,
while fan fiction (generally) emerges from a gift economy. Second, fan fiction has “been associated
with the kinds of productivity that critically address what [primarily female fans] perceive to be the
shortcomings of the franchises they are so invested in, creatively reshaping them to fit their own
interests and desires,” whereas porn adaptations are usually targeted at fanboys who are “less interested
in transforming the text” (Jeffries 2016, 277).
Sex Trek focuses on Captain James T. Quirk (Randy Spears) and his adventures on the starship
Plunderer. In the first film, the Plunderer approaches Uranus, where the crew encounters shapeshifting
aliens who (unsurprisingly) appear in female humanoid form. The fragmented plot suggests that
the inhabitants of Uranus are looking for political allies and sex partners, which is where Quirk and
his long-time rival Commander Cur Raff (Peter North), the Dingon leader, come into play. Quirk
and Cur Raff seek to incorporate Uranus into the empires they represent, but Quirk and his crew
come to understand that the planet’s atmosphere is toxic to them. The film ends rather abruptly
when Quirk succeeds in beaming his team back to the ship. Seemingly victorious at first, Cur Raff
quickly flees from Uranus after the planet’s inhabitants have shown him their true visages. Sex Trek
II: The Search for Sperm (1992) focuses on Quirk’s attempts to retrieve First Officer Mr. Sperm’s
(Mike Horner) kidnapped genitals. In Sex Trek III: The Wrath of Bob (1993), Uranus (which can be
maneuvered through the galaxy) has caught up to the Plunderer. As the film’s subtitle suggests, the
film features the return of Bob (J.B.), a redshirt who was left for dead in Sex Trek. Bob is the only man
on a planet inhabited by “hundreds of thousands of beautiful women.” Quirk believes that makes it
the “perfect place to be stranded on,” but Bob disagrees, for the planet’s “highly fertilized soil” has
increased the size of his penis to a point that no woman wants to have sex with him anymore. He
seeks revenge and holds Quirk, Doctor “Boner” McJoy (Joey Silvera), and Sperm captive, but Sperm’s
knowledge of the female body allows him to put a spell on one of the women, who releases the men
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and beams them back to their ship. Angered, Bob goes after the Plunderer, but destroys Uranus when
he orgasms. Luckily, Jackoff (who is never on camera) has beamed the women off the planet at the last
moment. Since Quirk, Sperm, Mister Squatty (Randy West), and McJoy go to the “sexually frustrated
women” in the transporter room, Uwhora (Domonique Simone) is left in charge of the ship: “A
woman in charge is about goddamn time!”
As a TOS parody, the Sex Trek trilogy emphasizes certain formulas, riffs on quirks, and exposes
subtexts of the source text. Sex Trek’s humor is primarily based on bad as well as forced puns and
exaggerating various aspects characteristic of TOS. The most in-your-face lampooning of TOS is
Randy Spears’s Shatnerian line delivery. Concerning formulas, Sperm, for example, remarks in the
first film,“Each time we beam down to a new planet, Doctor McJoy pronounces another nondescript
crewmember dead.”
However, the parody goes deeper, as it also targets subtexts of TOS. This critical engagement with
the source text comes to the fore in the opening moments of The Wrath of Bob, when Quirk outlines
the Plunderer’s mission:
To seek out and exploit new civilizations, to build factories on distant worlds, and to boldly
make out with alien chicks in ways that no man has made out with them before … We’re
probing into uncharted space in search of planets rich in minerals, which can be strip-mined.
In combination with the ship’s telling name, Sex Trek III highlights the imperialist impetus which
drives space exploration and interconnects the colonization of outer space and faraway planets (see
Chapter 45) with the colonization of female bodies (see Chapter 51). As Ania Loomba has explained,
“from the beginning of the colonial period till its end (and beyond), female bodies symbolise the
conquered land” (2015, 154). Indeed, she diagnoses a recurrent double logic that Sex Trek also
foregrounds: “t‌he sexual promise of the woman’s body indicates the wealth promised by the col-
onies,” while “the riches promised by the colonies signify both the joys of the female body as well as
its status as a legitimate object for male possession” (ibid., 84).
With respect to the films’ self-reflexivity, The Wrath of Bob’s narrative focus on a super-sized penis
lampoons pornography’s obsession with this male organ and its size, in particular. More overtly, when
a girl-on-g irl scene in the first film starts to unfold, Quirk tells McJoy,“You can watch, but you cannot
touch.” Within the storyworld, Quirk tries to stop McJoy from joining the two female crewmembers
because they might suffer from a disease, but the utterance also breaks the fourth wall and addresses
what Slavoj Žižek, drawing on Robert Pfaller, called the “interpassivity” of porn viewers: deriving
pleasure from observing others have sex, without—and this is Žižek’s twist—masturbating while
staring at the screen (2008, 144–145). Even more explicitly, in The Wrath of Bob, McJoy and Sperm
try to keep Quirk from having sex with Latrinia (Shayla LaVeaux), the High Priestess of Uranus.
However, she remarks, “Fellows, you can’t keep him from me. … It is in my contract that I get to have
sex with him and another woman later on,” making the distinctions between the character Latrinia
and performer Shayla LaVeaux disappear. The films thus repeatedly emphasize their entrapment in
both a genre that relies on a formulaic structure and a social system that “charts a domain of unreal-
izable positions that hold sway over the social reality of gender [and other subject] positions” (Butler
1997, 68) and presents a “limited vision of what constitutes the erotic” (Fung 2005, 245).
These dimensions become particularly charged in relation to the depiction of the Uhura char-
acter. In the first film, Caucasian performer Patricia Kennedy plays Uwhora. The whitewashing of
an iconic African American character is exacerbated by Kennedy’s performance, which tries to evoke
“African American ghetto” in an extremely stereotypical and racist (but seemingly supposedly funny)
fashion. The character does not appear in Sex Trek II. In the third film, African American performer
Domonique Simone not only plays the character, but also receives top billing in the credits and—as
indicated above—takes over command of the ship as the trilogy concludes.
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Michael Fuchs
To be sure, “black women in the adult film industry are devalued workers who confront systemic
marginalization and discrimination” (Miller-Young 2014, loc. 474). Accordingly, Simone’s top billing
and her role make visible the African American performer. In addition, Simone’s sex scenes with
Randy Spears and Randy West break down racial barriers—years before interracial scenes became
standard fare in porn (the iconic porn star of the 1990s, Jenna Jameson, never performed in an inter-
racial scene). At the same time, Uwhora is not only never truly herself during the sex scenes (her
body is twice occupied by men) but the distinguishing features of her black pleasure are erased by
the film’s logic. As such, she can never harness her “black pussy power” (Roach 2018) and her even-
tual taking-control of the bridge remains little more than a knowing wink at the racial and gender
politics at play.
Surprisingly for heterosexual porn, Sex Trek even ventures into the territory of male homo-
eroticism. Toward the end of The Search for Sperm (a title that suggests at homoerotic desire), Quirk
and McJoy find a “phallic-shaped probe” that “contains Mr. Sperm’s genitals.” Although Quirk’s and
McJoy’s performances reveal homophobia, as neither wants to touch Sperm’s genitals, Quirk is never-
theless driven by the desire to restore Sperm’s sexual potency. In The Wrath of Bob, Bob shape-shifts
into Uwhora for a threesome with Quirk and Latrinia. When Bob reveals his true form after the
sexual encounter, he says,“You should be more careful who you sleep with on this planet, Quirk.” The
scene implies a queer subtext, but simultaneously celebrates heteronormativity, as Quirk is disgusted
by the idea of having had sex with Bob. Later in the film, Sperm performs a mind-meld of sorts with
Uwhora, who then proceeds to have sex with Mr. Squatty. Sperm clearly enjoys having sex (by proxy)
with a man. To be sure, Sperm’s hybrid role as half-human and half-horny (as his kind is referred to
in the series) and his machinic sexuality (he becomes hard every 7.5 years) render him queer in the
sense that his sexuality challenges heteronormativity (see Chapter 52); nevertheless, being on Uranus
unshackles Sperm’s queerness. However, similar to Quirk’s disgust about having had sex with Bob,
Squatty is consternated when he hears that Sperm was inside Uwhura when Squatty penetrated their
body. In short, the logic of straight porn does not allow the film to undermine heteronormativity.
Several scholars have suggested that the “pornification” of mainstream media texts exposes “an
undercurrent of sexuality within all mainstream texts” (Booth 2015, 128). In this respect, porn par-
odies may be likened to fan productions, which often bring sexually loaded subtexts to the surface
(on Star Trek, see Gorissen 2016; Meikle 2019, 77–79; on other porn parodies, see, for example, Jones
2013; Jeffries 2016). However, Paul Booth has rightly pointed out that there are major differences
between the two: “p‌orn parody is overtly commercial and emphasizes a producer-led creation, while
slash fandom is overtly non-commercial and has the potential to overturn the producer/consumer
dialectic” (2014, 406). Porn parodies thus remain trapped in the system whose operating principles
they expose.
Indeed, since porn parodies need to follow a script that relies on a series of sexual encounters,
critique is usually relegated to the narrative scenes. This dependence on the narrative layer poses a
problem, for pornography stimulates a very particular kind of recipient engagement. The recipient
of porn (irrespective of its medium), “does not have as a goal establishing the text’s meaning through
… contemplation, but rather reducing the text’s significatory potential to the pleasure of his or her
own body” (Ullén 2009). People do not watch porn for a complex story or in search of “meaning.”
Indeed, if viewers watch a porn parody for the parody bits, they do not really watch porn. After all,
“p‌ornography,” to quote Linda Williams, “fails … if it does not arouse the body” (2004, 165).
References
Ashton, Sarah, Karalyn McDonald, and Maggie Kirkman. 2019. “What Does ‘Pornography’ Mean in the Digital
Age? Revisiting a Definition for Social Science Researchers.” Porn Studies 6, no. 2: 144–168.
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Pornography
Booth, Paul. 2014. “Slash and Porn: Media Subversion, Hyper-Articulation, and Parody.” Continuum: Journal of
Media & Cultural Studies 28, no. 3: 396–409.
Booth, Paul. 2015. Playing Fans: Negotiating Fandom and Media in the Digital Age. Iowa City, IA: University of
Iowa Press.
Butler, Judith. 1997. Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative. New York: Routledge.
Cutchins, Dennis. 2017. “Bakhtin, Intertextuality, and Adaptation.” In The Oxford Handbook of Adaptation
Studies, edited by Thomas M. Leitch, 71–86. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Fung, Richard. 2005. “Looking for My Penis: The Eroticized Asian in Gay Porn Video.” In A Companion to
Asian American Studies, edited by Kent A. Ono, 235–253. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
Gorissen, Sebastiaan. 2016. “To Explore Strange New Worlds: ‘Star Trek’ and Its Pornographic Parodies.”
PopMatters, September 18, 2016. Available at: www.popmatters.com/star-trek-to-explore-strange-new-
worlds-star-trek-and-its-pornographic-paro-2495416154.html.
Hunter, I. Q. 2017. “Adaptation XXX.” In The Oxford Handbook of Adaptation Studies, edited by Thomas M.
Leitch, 424–440. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hutcheon, Linda. 2000. A Theory of Parody: The Teachings of Twentieth-Century Art Forms. Urbana, IL: University
of Illinois Press.
Jeffries, Dru. 2016. “This Looks Like a Blowjob for Superman: Servicing Fanboys with Superhero Porn
Parodies.” Porn Studies 3, no. 3: 276–294.
Jones, Bethan. 2013. “Slow Evolution: ‘First Time Fics’ and The X-Files Porn Parody.” Journal of Adaptation in
Film & Performance 6, no. 3: 369–385.
Loomba, Ania. 2015. Colonialism/Postcolonialism. 3rd ed. London: Routledge.
Meikle, Kyle. 2019. Adaptations in the Franchise Era, 2001–16. New York: Bloomsbury Academic.
Memory Alpha. n.d. “Star Trek Parodies and Pop Culture References (Film).” Available at: https://memory-alpha.
fandom.com/wiki/Star_Trek_parodies_and_pop_culture_references_(film) (accessed August 20, 2021).
Miller-Young, Mireille. 2014. A Taste for Brown Sugar: Black Women in Pornography. Durham, NC: Duke
University Press.
Paasonen, Susanna. 2010. “Repetition and Hyperbole: The Gendered Choreographies of Heteroporn.” In
Everyday Pornography, edited by Karen Boyle. Abingdon: Routledge. Kindle edition.
Paasonen, Susanna. 2011. Carnal Resonance: Affect and Online Pornography. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Roach, Shoniqua. 2018. “Black Pussy Power: Performing Acts of Black Eroticism in Pam Grier’s Blaxploitation
Films.” Feminist Theory 19, no. 1: 7–22.
Tchepikova-Treon, Olga. 2019. “Deadite Porn.” In The Many Lives of The Evil Dead: Essays on the Cult Film
Franchise, edited by Ron Riekki and Jeffrey A. Sartain, 172–181. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
Ullén, Magnus. 2009. “Pornography and Its Critical Reception: Toward a Theory of Masturbation.” Jump
Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media 51. Available at: www.ejumpcut.org/archive/jc51.2009/UllenPorn/
index.html.
Williams, Linda. 1999. Hard Core: Power, Pleasure, and the “Frenzy of the Visible.” Expanded edn. Berkeley,
CA: University of California Press.
Williams, Linda. 2004. “Second Thoughts on Hard Core: American Obscenity Law and the Scapegoating of
Deviance.” In More Dirty Looks: Gender, Pornography and Power, edited by Pamela Church Gibson, 165–175.
London: British Film Institute.
Žižek, Slavoj. 2008. The Plague of Fantasies. 2nd ed. London: Verso.
Movies
Starship Eros. 1979. dir. Scott McHaley. Capa Productions.
Sex Trek. 1990. dir. Scotty Fox. Moonlight Entertainment.
Sex Trek II: The Search for Sperm. 1991. dir. Scotty Fox. Moonlight Entertainment.
Sex Trek III: The Wrath of Bob. 1992. dir. Scotty Fox. Moonlight Entertainment.
Cases Cited
Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184 (1964).
Lucasfilm, Ltd. v. Media Market Group, Ltd., C 01-04041 CW (N.D. Cal. 2002).
285
40
STAR TREK IN THE
CLASSROOM, SCIENCE, AND
PROFESSIONAL LIVES
While many teachers have challenging classes, the Starfleet cadets of Captain Spock (Leonard Nimoy)
in The Wrath of Khan demolish the Enterprise bridge and get most of the crew killed in their exam,
the ill-fated attempt to rescue the Kobayashi Maru. The students, especially Lieutenant Saavik (Kirstie
Alley), are not actually expected to pass. Rather, as Admiral Kirk (William Shatner) states, it is “a test
of character,” a test he admits he only passed by cheating, but one he sees overcome with incredible
elegance by his friend Spock, the erstwhile teacher, by the end of the film (see Chapter 11).
With such rich commentary on learning, it is unsurprising that Star Trek has powerfully influenced
education, in the classroom and far beyond. The many incarnations of Star Trek provide tools for
teaching a wide array of subjects. At the 2019 Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas, for example, the
“Teaching with Trek” program featured respected educators from diverse disciplines lecturing on
subjects as varied as media studies, political science, mythology, law, philosophy, and STEM fields
(Official Star Trek Convention 2019). Star Trek influences how we educate, providing inspiring dia-
logue and professional exchanges that continue to advance our species and promote the continuing
journey of lifelong learning on which we are all traveling.
Using Star Trek to Teach the Sciences

As science fiction, Star Trek has long offered tools for teaching science fact and theory, while also
relying upon scientists and teachers as official consultants (see Chapter 47). Since Star Trek has strong
character voices in the sciences, it is unsurprising that science educators from primary school to
graduate school find useful teaching material in Starfleet’s archives.
Physics lesson plans frequently benefit from Star Trek. Lawrence M. Krauss’s The Physics of Star Trek
(1995) has aided educators at all levels; other physics teachers have created their own Star Trek course
content: teaching elementary and middle school students basic concepts like gravity and inspiring
engineering students in college courses. For younger students, educators Sue Radhe and Lynn Cole
offer a simple three-step process for using Star Trek to introduce physics concepts because “teachers
have an obligation to expand student minds to consider ideas that reach beyond the curriculum.
[Star Trek is] a resource to every science teacher” (2002, 53). Since physics majors are often influenced
by Star Trek, it is only logical that university-level courses also use the series and films. University
seminars in both physics and math, sometimes building on Krauss’s work, have drawn on the interest
and appeal of the fictional universe while teaching relevant concepts. Star Trek also offers a hand-
hold to the understanding of complex subjects while instructors find “a means to teach a variety of
286 DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917-45

Star Trek in the Classroom
advanced mathematical and physics topics to non-specialists in a fun setting” (Karls 2011, 42–43).
While all these courses sometimes explore how the Star Trek universe defies or subverts the laws of
science and math, their purpose is not to rationalize or denigrate the fictional science, but rather to
inspire students to explore factual science, whether it supports or refutes Star Trek’s world.
Engineering students also find both inspiration and challenge in a universe with engineers as
heroic problem solvers, or, as Montgomery “Scotty” Scott (James Doohan/Simon Pegg) would like
to be called, “miracle workers.” Jaimie Schock has opined that “Star Trek seems especially suited for
aspiring engineers, proving grist for in-depth explanations of technological advances and the future
of society” (2012, 52). Despite fictional conceits like dilithium crystals and the transwarp drive, the
engineers of Star Trek inspire not only college and university students to learn underlying engin-
eering concepts, including design and innovation, but also encourage elementary school students
who can learn from their creative problem-solving techniques.
In addition to obvious subject areas such as astronomy, other physical sciences tie into Star Trek
as well. For example, the TOS episode “Arena” (1.19, 1967) reinforces the usefulness of chemistry in
a survival situation; recognizing the geological properties of the planet on which he is stranded with
the malevolent Gorn (Ted Cassidy et al.), Kirk discovers elements necessary for crafting gunpowder
scattered around him. Mathematics students can explore the connections with Star Trek via science,
but, as Katherine J. Lopez and her colleagues (2017) point out, DS9 also presents copious examples
that are useful for teaching concepts in business courses, from marketing to statistics, via the Ferengi
(see Chapter 58).
Star Trek also offers educational entry points into life sciences (see Chapter 43). Biology
students can compare human physiology with fictional Star Trek species, ranging from the basics,
like the copper-based green blood of Vulcans, to more advanced topics like the viability of a sym-
biotic species like the Trill, including DS9’s Dax and hosts Jadzia (Terry Farrell) and Ezri (Nicole
de Boer). Dr. Mohamed Noor, dean of the Natural Sciences Department at Duke University,
North Carolina, is the author of Live Long and Evolve: What Star Trek Can Teach Us about Evolution,
Genetics and Life on Other Worlds (2018), and a technical science consultant for the franchise since
2020. Employing Star Trek, he teaches biology and genetics to students who are often unfamiliar
with the franchise.
What I love about Star Trek is … [i]‌t’s very much advocating ‘we don’t know something,
we want to go explore, we want to go understand it.’ … we just want to go discover because
it’s cool, it’s really cool to discover things.
(Lee 2019, 1)
Countless medical students have been inspired by the positive portrayal of Star Trek medical per-
sonnel: humans like Leonard “Bones” McCoy (DeForest Kelley/Karl Urban), Beverly Crusher (Gates
McFadden), and Julian Bashir (Alexander Siddig); alien Dr. Phlox (John Billingsley); and the holo-
graphic Doctor (Robert Picardo). For example, the first African American woman in space, actual
physician, engineer, and astronaut Dr. Mae Jemison, played a small role in TNG episode “Second
Chances” (TNG 6.24, 1996). She was the first real-world astronaut to appear in Star Trek. Influenced
by seeing a person of color, Lt. Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), serving as an officer on the bridge of the
Enterprise, Dr. Jemison was brought full circle by her success as a scientist and her guest appearance.
Teaching Beyond the Sciences

Medical education includes training in both ethics and science, and Star Trek provides ample material
on the moral decision-making (and its attendant vagaries) inherent in medicine (see Chapter 48).
James J. Hughes and John Lantos describe using TNG’s episode “Ethics” (TNG 5.16, 1992) to great
success in their medical ethics courses, while also outlining the potential for teaching bioethics with
287
other episodes: “The ‘texts’ of Star Trek often take the form of philosophic dialogues, in which the
freedom offered by the science-fiction genre allows the authors to pose pointed moral questions in
succinctly dramatic ways” (2001, 26). Star Trek provides excellent examples that speak to the inter-
section of ethics and philosophy, illustrated by studies like “Doctors in Star Trek: Compassionate
Kantians” (Grech, Grech, and Eberl 2017). Teaching these social sciences has been profoundly
influenced by Star Trek’s inherent themes, providing examples from the Federation for teaching a
host of issues, sometimes all in a single episode. For example, the dangers of sanitizing warfare, of
blindly accepting tradition, and of tolerating injustice and violence, are all illustrated in the TOS epi-
sode “A Taste of Armageddon” (1.23, 1967); it posits a thought experiment in which an interplan-
etary war has been fought for centuries by combatants using computers and forcing “casualties” to
be summarily disintegrated while avoiding any damage to their worlds’ infrastructures and cultures.
Star Trek presents relevant social and ethical topics accessible to younger students while encour-
aging higher-level students to explore these topics outside the fictional world (see Chapter 59).
Whether pondering the bioethics of a starship doctor’s decisions or considering the challenges faced
by Star Trek’s many single-parent, blended and/or racially diverse families, students learn about these
issues in a fictional environment and consider how those same issues affect everyday humans.
Fundamental questions about humanity—who we are, how we became this way, and what makes
us human—are all asked by most students at some point, and they are all questions Star Trek, in a
variety of ways, has sought to address over the past decades, providing ample connections to his-
tory, anthropology, and philosophy. Students can learn about both their own era and those that pre-
cede it. Instructors may not find historical accuracy in TOS representations of historical figures like
Abraham Lincoln or Wyatt Earp (“The Savage Curtain” [TOS 3.22, 1969], “Spectre of the Gun”
[TOS 3.1, 1968]), but they can certainly use these fanciful representations to transition into studies of
actual people or to discuss the power of historiography, i.e., the writing of history (see Chapter 41).
Likewise, the many time-travel plots promote curiosity of the periods portrayed. In addition, the
value Star Trek places upon the study of the mythologies of Earth and of other planets serves to teach
about specific myths and about the cultural and academic importance of mythic literacy.
History can also be taught through its metaphorical treatment on Star Trek, like the recurring TOS
representation of the Cold War, or Q’s (John de Lancie) use of the American Civil War to demon-
strate to Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) the chaos threatening the Continuum in “The Q and the
Grey” (VOY 3.11, 1996). The fact that so many of the characters find history to be both worthwhile
and interesting also makes Star Trek a valuable teaching tool. Picard (Patrick Stewart) is a respected
amateur archaeologist and history author (“Remembrance” [PIC 1.1, 2020]), Kirk collects antiques,
and Worf ’s (Michael Dorn) son Alexander (Brian Bonsall) develops a fascination with the “Ancient”
West in “A Fistful of Datas” (TNG 6.8, 1992). All these elements make Star Trek useful for introdu-
cing historical topics and for more in-depth study. Star Trek and History (Reagin 2013) is just one of
the academic studies of Star Trek’s potential as a resource for history teachers and students. Also, as a
groundbreaking series well known for its historic cultural and television milestones, Star Trek is, itself,
part of social and media history and thus worthy of study.
Philosophy and ethics are naturally complemented by Star Trek’s history of tackling tough
questions. Despite its world teeming with alien life, sentient and otherwise, one of the questions
Star Trek frequently explores is, “What does it mean to be human?” At Spock’s funeral, Kirk declares
his departed Vulcan friend, who has given his life to save his ship and crew, to be “the most human”
of individuals. Commander Data’s (Brent Spiner) on-going quest to become human offers numerous
educational entry points to philosophical discussions (see Chapter 57). For example, the University of
Texas at El Paso offers a class entitled “Thinking Boldly with Star Trek,” just one of the many colleges
and universities with courses using Star Trek to teach philosophical subject matter (Tilsley 2010).
While Star Trek films and series themselves often serve as texts in humanities courses like film and
media studies, the academic discipline with perhaps the most wide-ranging links is literature, as both
the films and series can facilitate teaching many of the respected texts of human history. By using the
288
ancient Epic of Gilgamesh, Captain Picard succeeds in communicating with the cryptic Tamarian
captain Dathon (Paul Winfield) via allusions to literature and myth in “Darmok” (TNG 5.2, 1991).
Star Trek itself helps students access texts that may initially seem as incomprehensible as Tamarian, but
which can be understood with patience and study (see Chapter 49). Literature is not an alien concept
for Picard, who owns a beautiful edition of Shakespeare and whose knowledge of Moby Dick (1851)
allows him to quote it extemporaneously to Lily Sloane (Alfre Woodard) in FCT, recognizing her
allusion in calling him “Ahab”; his realization that he, like Captain Ahab, risks destroying himself and
his crew in his quest for revenge allows him to save the ship and Data. The obsession of the Ahab-
quoting Khan (Ricardo Montalban) shows the power of literature and illustrates Melville’s message
in WOK (see Chapter 11). From Charles Dickens to Arthur Conan Doyle, foundational authors of
Western literature provide themes and plot elements throughout Star Trek. These may not inspire
students to read A Tale of Two Cities (1859) simply because it was Kirk’s birthday gift from Spock,
or to read all of the adventures of Sherlock Holmes, whom Data admires, but it will give them a
working familiarity. They may only initially connect to Mark Twain through “Time’s Arrow” (TNG
5.26/6.1, 1992), or investigate Shakespeare or Keats as sources for TOS titles “The Conscience of the
King” (TOS 1.12, 1966) or “Is There in Truth No Beauty?” (TOS 3.7, 1968), respectively. Yet those
connections can create deeper understanding, just as the host of Shakespeare references in a film
like The Undiscovered Country or an episode like TNG “The Defector” (TNG 3.10, 1990) can lead
students to appreciate and even enjoy Julius Caesar, Hamlet, or Henry V. Most importantly, Star Trek
teaches that all the humanities—literature, art, theater, music, and dance—are subjects that matter, and
are not merely foisted upon unhappy students forced to learn irrelevant material. While Star Trek’s
references are most frequently from Western culture, which is in line with the Eurocentric humanism
the franchise espouses, the value placed on them can be applied to the literature of any culture on any
planet. The protagonists of Star Trek are well versed in the humanities both because they help them
do their jobs and because they find the material interesting and thought-provoking. Students in any
discipline can be encouraged to do the same, and to broaden their own humanities studies beyond
Western culture, thus improving upon and growing beyond the limited examples of Star Trek’s
characters.
Teachers use Star Trek to engage their students with specific topics and skills necessary for learning.
Star Trek, Michael Blair and Randi Montag Peterson have argued, “offers educators an opportunity
to grasp students’ attention and have them ponder solutions for the twenty-third century using
today’s knowledge, imagination, and belief in the wonders yet to be discovered” (1999, 43). Across
disciplines, Star Trek provides keys to researching and teaching subjects from computer systems to
cognitive science (Rabitsch et al. 2018).
Lifelong Learning and Collaboration

Star Trek provides tools to teach skills needed for any field. The “soft skills” employers seek are some
of Star Trek’s most frequent lessons. From character traits like integrity, dedication, and personal
responsibility to practices like good leadership, teamwork, and collaboration, students find ample
examples as applicable in their own lives as they are in space. Star Trek frequently extolls the value
of practical skills like critical thinking and problem-solving, strategies epitomized by characters who
employ them to overcome the many crises they are facing.
Most professionals today have grown up in a world with some form of Star Trek, so it is fitting
that a reciprocal dialogue exists between the fictional world and the real one of professionals
who both draw upon and contribute to it. Any new and exciting innovation is often labeled
a “Star Trek” device. A new computer algorithm capable of rapidly diagnosing skin lesions is
compared to Dr. McCoy’s tricorder (Leachman and Merlino 2017); the same description is
applied to a portable mass spectrometer (Hamalainen 2009). When tasers first came into use in
2005, American Scientist noted the similarity to the phaser (Schneider 2005). This terminology
289
shows how Star Trek helps the public understand new and complex technologies whose inventors
were probably influenced by Star Trek.
In the fields of aeronautics and telecommunications, breakthroughs and designs often use
Star Trek vocabulary. As SpaceX prepares to launch its “Starship” vehicles, at least one of them may
be named Enterprise, following the tradition of NASA; the first (non-launched) shuttle orbiter, ori-
ginally Constitution, was re-named Enterprise (NASA History n.d.). With projects and missions that
both inspire and are inspired by Star Trek, NASA is likely the best illustration of the symbiotic rela-
tionship between real professional organizations and Star Trek. These include but are not limited
to Federation starships named after real astronauts and the recruitment of women and minorities
by Nichelle Nichols. Even Space Center Houston and Kennedy Space Center use cinematic and
poignant exhibits, presentations, and displays reflecting this relationship. When Into Darkness was
released in 2013, its first audience was the crew of the International Space Station (Kramer 2013).
It may seem ironic that a fictional universe, populated by fictional space travelers, has served to edu-
cate and inspire countless actual humans whose careers revolve around exploring and, in some cases,
visiting the outer space of our actual universe.
Perhaps one reason Star Trek continues to resonate is its most important contribution to
education—an emphasis on lifelong learning. Students in classrooms benefit from the knowledge
and tools delivered via Starfleet, but the educational mission of Star Trek is a continuing one, allowing
intellectual growth for every age, even under adverse conditions. When the Covid-19 pandemic
confined millions to their homes, many were entertained not only by watching the series and films,
but also by learning via social media. LeVar Burton merged his roles of beloved Reading Rainbow
bookworm and problem-solving genius Geordi La Forge to bring story time to children. Sir Patrick
Stewart shared a sonnet each day, educating housebound fans and introducing them to Shakespeare.
No matter what journeys await in the fictional Star Trek universe, the journeys to knowledge,
to academic success and personal growth, and to more sustainable collaborations and greater, equal
opportunities are quite real. Whether in K-12 schools, colleges and universities, labs and workshops,
or anywhere curious people learn, Star Trek continues as a powerful force for education and innov-
ation, a legacy of edification that may well continue into the actual twenty-fourth century and
beyond.
References
Alexander, Kerri Lee. 2019. “Mae Jemison.” National Women’s History Museum. Available at: www.womenshistory.
org/education-resources/biographies/mae-jemison.
Blair, Michael, and Randi Montag Peterson. 1999. “Physics: The Final Frontier.” The Science Teacher 66, no. 9
Grech, Victor, Elizabeth Grech, and Jason T. Eberl. 2017. “Doctors in Star Trek: Compassionate Kantians.”
Foundation 46, no. 126 (Spring): 35–46.
Hamalainen, Karina. 2009. “Star Trek Tech.” Science World 65, no. 14: 8–11.
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20, no. 1 (Spring): 26–38.
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and Issues in Mathematics Undergraduate Studies 21, no. 1 (January): 26–46. https://doi.org/10.1080/105119
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Krauss, Lawrence M. 1995. The Physics of Star Trek. New York: Basic Books.
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(February): 36–38. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature21492.
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Evolutionary Biology.” University Wire, (September 27): 1.
Lopez, Katherine J., et al. 2017. “Ferengi Business Practices in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine—to Enhance
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Rabitsch, Stefan, Martin Gabriel, Wilfried Elmenreich, and John N.A. Brown, Eds. 2018. Set Phasers to Teach!
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at: www.chronicle.com/article/beam-us-up-professor/.
Star Trek Episodes
The Original Series
1.9 “Arena” 1967.
1.23 “A Taste of Armageddon” 1967.
3.1 “Spectre of the Gun” 1968.
3.7 “Is There in Truth No Beauty?” 1968.
The Next Generation

3.10 “The Defector” 1990.
5.2 “Darmok” 1991.
5.16 “Ethics” 1992.
6.8 “A Fistful of Datas” 1992.
6.24 “Second Chances” 1993.
Voyager
3.11 “The Q and the Grey” 1996.
Picard
Star Trek Movies
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PART V
Social Themes
41
HISTORY AND HISTORIOGRAPHY
Martin Gabriel
Even though the stories of Star Trek are set in a distant future, the franchise’s contents have been
shaped by the producers’ perspectives on history and are thus undergirded by selective historical
knowledge. Whether we now conceive of characters like James T. Kirk (William Shatner) as a “Hero
of the Old West” (George 2013) or as space-faring Horatio Hornblower (Rabitsch 2019), or whether
the Romulans remind us more of Earth’s ancient Roman Empire because of their political structure,
or of East Asian peoples due to their looks (Gonzalez 2014, 27), it is obvious that the characters, races,
and political entities in Star Trek were not developed in a historical vacuum. During its more than
five decades of existence, Star Trek has dealt with an enormous number of historical, quasi-historical,
or pseudohistorical topics.
Gene Roddenberry created Star Trek in the heyday of the Cold War, a fact that is mirrored in a
number of The Original Series episodes (“Errand of Mercy” [TOS 1.27, 1967]; “A Private Little War”
[TOS 2.16, 1968]; O’Connor 2012, 197–199). TOS also dealt with other issues historians now see
as integral to understanding US culture and society of the 1960s, especially questions of civil rights,
ethnicity, and social justice (Bernardi 1997; 1998; Weitekamp 2013). Looking at the opening titles
of Enterprise, it also becomes quite clear that Star Trek builds on specific American perceptions of
history since almost all scenes dealing with human exploration and spaceflight signpost events in US
history (Geraghty 2008, 17–18). Contrary to the franchise’s supposedly all-encompassing humanism,
starship names throughout the series and movies are, for example, mainly based on Anglo-American
traditions, almost completely eschewing historical characters and/or events from Africa, South-east
Asia and other parts of the world (Gabriel 2018). In short, Star Trek is a “reference to what makes
America American” (Geraghty 2007, 18). Consequently, if the franchise is, in fact, history and utopia
at the same time, it is a North American version of history that offers a utopian vision of a society
built on Anglo-American foundations.
Star Trek (like all successful franchises in popular culture) functions primarily as a form of enter-
tainment, which often results in depictions of history that can and should be criticized from a schol-
arly point of view. For example, the Voyager episode “Death Wish” (VOY 2.18, 1996) introduces a
member of the godlike Q—known as Quinn (Gerrit Graham)—who was allegedly responsible for
dropping an apple on Sir Isaac Newton’s head in 1666, an event for which there is no historical docu-
mentation (Domenig and Rabitsch 2018, 74), thus reinforcing common misconceptions. At the same
time, the simple fact that Star Trek has influenced millions of people over decades merits the attention
of historians (Putman 2013). Indeed, the franchise used certain perspectives on history simply because
they could be seen as mainstream at the time of production (even if they were not depicted according
to academic standards). Similarly, the use of holodeck simulations—in a way that is comparable
to present-day TV shows or video games—from The Next Generation onwards seems to privilege
a pseudohistorical experience of the past over the importance of historical facts (Schulzke 2013,
213). Their use and in-universe appeal are reminiscent of Commander Spock’s (Leonard Nimoy)
DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917-47 295

Martin Gabriel
admiration for the fictional historian John Gill (David Brian) in “Patterns of Force” (TOS 2.23, 1968),
an episode that was later criticized harshly for its representation of Nazi ideology (Hillenbrand and
Höhl 2008, 189). Finally, the TNG episode “Violations” (TNG 5.12, 1992) introduces aliens working
on the restoration of “lost” memories; these “telepathic historians” employ a modus operandi that has
little to do with historical methods, as their activities resemble more closely those of psychotherapists.
Generally speaking, Star Trek conceptualizes the past, the present, and the future in a way that
clearly resembles ideas proposed by intellectuals during the so-called “Age of Enlightenment”.
According to their worldviews, history was linear and characterized by human improvement, i.e., a
progressivist understanding of history (Wagner and Lundeen 1998, 142–143). Captain Picard (Patrick
Stewart) clearly points toward this way of thinking in First Contact, when he tells a woman from the
twenty-first century that “[t]‌he acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. We
work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity” (1996). Throughout the franchise, humanity’s
past, i.e., pre-twenty-second-century Earth, is often presented as some kind of necessary evil on the
way to a bright future; the main characters regularly try to distance themselves from the politics,
morals, mores, and lifestyles of earlier generations (e.g., “Encounter at Farpoint” [TNG 1.1/2, 1987];
“Future’s End” [VOY 3.9, 1996]). At the same time, Star Trek series and movies, by and large,
continued to present white, straight cis males as culturally normative (Kwan 2007), while marginal-
izing large segments of Earth’s population in relation to their quantitative or historical importance.
Star Trek’s views on human history often lack the substantial amount of ambivalence modern
historians have to regularly deal with as part of their scholarly work. There are some plotlines dealing
with complex, albeit fictional, historical issues on a personal and family level of history—for example,
in the episodes “Journey’s End” (TNG 7.20, 1994) or “Tattoo” (VOY 2.9, 1995)—while, from a
structural point of view, the historical process is rarely deconstructed according to modern academic
standards. By often including topics and/or events from North American history, Star Trek usually
follows a more or less positivistic master narrative. Dystopian scenarios are regularly set in the produ-
cers’ and audience’s future, but the show’s or movie’s fictional past (“Past Tense, Parts I and II” [DS9
3.11/12, 1995]; FCT 1996), thus remaining in a state of flux between vision and memory. In the
episode “Space Seed” (TOS 1.24, 1967), the Enterprise encounters the fictional twentieth-century
sleeper ship Botany Bay, with Captain Kirk mentioning an opportunity for the ship’s historian, Marla
McGivers (Madlyn Rhue), “to do something for a change.”
The franchise’s most obvious dealings with history are often connected to time travel incidents (e.g.,
“Time’s Arrow, Parts I and II” [TNG 5.26/6.1, 1992]), contact with planets that seem to have evolved
in a similar manner as Earth or are, in fact, populated by humans (e.g., “North Star” [ENT 3.9, 2003]),
or by using fictional alien races as embodiments of historical societies (the Klingons being the most
important example). Many of the time travel stories simply use a North American past as backdrop
and do little to promote a deeper understanding of global or entangled histories. For example, in
the episode “Carpenter Street” (ENT 3.11, 2003), reptilian Xindi conduct experiments on humans
in Detroit, Michigan, in the twenty-first century. The petty criminal Berlinghoff Rasmussen (Matt
Frewer)—who stole a time machine and impersonates a historian in his dealings with Picard and
his crew—hopes to return to “a place called New Jersey” (“A Matter of Time” [TNG 5.9, 1991]).
While en route to Starfleet Academy in San Francisco, a shuttle carrying three Ferengi crashes in
New Mexico in 1947, leading to the events that later become known as the “Roswell Incident”; in
this case, the non-human characters clearly state their inability to comprehend why a species would
endanger itself by using nuclear technology or addictive substances like nicotine (“Little Green Men”
[DS9 4.8, 1995]).
Another approach that features quite prominently throughout the long history of the franchise
deals with topics related to National Socialist ideology. Even though Star Trek is set in a distant future
and thus could have explored fictional “historical” events such as the “Eugenics Wars” more com-
prehensively, for decades, producers continued to rely on a well-known totalitarian regime in their
representations of humanity’s “evil” past. In the episodes “The City on the Edge of Forever” (TOS
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History and Historiography
1.28, 1967) and “Storm Front” (ENT 4.1/4.2, 2004), viewers are confronted with alternate timelines
in which Nazi Germany has won World War II and become Earth’s dominant power, preventing the
formation of the United Federation of Planets. “Penance” (PIC 2.2, 2022) introduces an alternative
twenty-fifth-century Earth ruled by a fascist and murderous regime that draws heavily on Nazi-
like stereotypes like black uniforms or the physical extermination of other “races” (species); there is
another time travel plot (again set in 2024) featuring North American cities—San Francisco and Los
Angeles. These alternate pasts and their attendant futures stand in stark contrast to the quasi-utopian
settings that characterize much of the regular timelines of Star Trek (Ott and Aoki 2001; Spalding
Andréolle 2012). In neither case, however, is there a critical discourse on National Socialism per se;
instead, “The City on the Edge of Forever” by and large deals with the problem of making tough
decisions—resulting in a woman’s death and the restoration of the “correct” timeline—while the
Germans in “Storm Front” are only pawns in an alien race’s quest for power.
In a different way, Germany’s role during World War II also provides a large part of the
setting for the two-p arter “The Killing Game” (VOY 4.18/1 9, 1998). A party of aliens,
known as Hirogen, takes over the ship and begins to hunt the crew for sport in holodeck
simulations. In one of the programs, Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) and other Voyager
personnel act as French resistance fighters. Once again, the aliens identify themselves with
Nazi Germany and Earth history mainly serves as blueprint for topics like oppression and
violence, with most of the simulated or alien “Nazis” remaining mere stereotypes and the
US Army coming to the rescue (Suppanz 2011, 88–8 9). In these VOY and ENT episodes,
as well as in the aforementioned episode “Patterns of Force”, German power, brutality, and
aggression are represented primarily by the SS, not the Wehrmacht or the National Socialist
Party. For example, the Hirogen leader in “The Killing Game” dresses as SS Standartenführer
(Colonel), while McCoy (DeForest Kelley) disguises himself as an equally high-ranked SS
officer in “Patterns of Force”. Unsurprisingly, there are also references to Nazi-e ra Germany
in the franchise’s mirror universe. In “Mirror, Mirror” (TOS 2.10, 1967), the Terran Empire
is symbolically represented by a globe pierced vertically by a dagger, a weapon central to SS
symbolism in the form of the Ehrendolch (“honor dagger”). Additional National Socialist
symbolism is “added with the crew’s greeting—a raised arm similar to the Roman greeting
adopted by Nazi Germany as the Hitler salute—a nd the presence of a Gestapo-like security
police spying on everyone on board” (Hantke 2014, 566–5 67). Adolf Hitler is mentioned a
number of times in the franchise as an example of a great, absolute, and/o r brutal leader (e.g.,
“What Are Little Girls Made Of?” [TOS 1.9, 1966]; “A Matter of Time” [TNG 5.9, 1991])
and is even paraphrased by a high-r anking Klingon general (TUC, 1991). We can conclude
that during the 1960s as well as in the 2000s, Nazi Germany could successfully function as
the embodiment of evil, brutality, and aggression in Earth’s history—it is a role easily com-
prehensible for a North American audience who is able to identify with the “good” side of
the story arcs. However, negative traits of Nazi Germany are represented primarily by the
notorious SS, not so much by the Wehrmacht or NSDAP personnel, and even less through
average civilians, who made the National Socialist mass movement possible in the first place.
This approach can be criticized in so far as it perpetuates outdated views of German National
Socialism being based on the activities of one “evil genius” or a small politico-m ilitary elite
rather than a broad movement that was supported by large segments of society (Mason 1993;
Evans 2004; Suppanz 2011).
While a number of fictional “historical” events are mentioned in Star Trek, their depiction usually
lacks structural coherence. Most of the time, these events are only used as a basis for another story arc
(one that often deals with character arcs or sf tropes like time traveling and the integrity of timelines).
While the “Eugenics Wars” of the 1990s form the background for episodes like “Space Seed” (TOS
1.24, 1967) and “Borderland” (ENT 4.4, 2004) as well as two movies (WOK, 1982; STID, 2013), they
provide surprisingly little information about the political, military, or social history of these conflict(s).
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Martin Gabriel
Rather, the discourse centers on questions of ethics and individual power. A VOY double episode
set in 1996, the same year the wars supposedly ended, ignores the conflict altogether (“Future’s End,
Parts 1 and 2” [3.9/3.10, 1996]), which could lead to the conclusion that the “Eugenics Wars” were
important not so much because of the scale of destruction they caused, but because of their moral
implications. The so-called “Bell Riots” (set in 2024) are another fictional watershed. In “Past Tense,
Parts I and II” (DS9 3.11/12, 1995), Sisko (Avery Brooks) and two of his officers are trapped more
than 300 years in the past, only days before “one of the most violent disturbances in American his-
tory” is to occur. While there is strong social criticism in the plot—such as the question of poor
people being “imprisoned” in “sanctuary districts” of North American cities—there is once again
no overarching discourse regarding (fictional) history, and viewers are not informed about political
structures, the economic background or other socio-cultural aspects of the time. Instead, the episode
deals primarily with the problem of a potentially altered timeline, which again jeopardizes the exist-
ence of the Federation, and the quest of the Starfleet officers to return home safely. “One Small Step”
(VOY 6.8, 1999) centers on the fictional Ares IV mission to Mars in 2032. The pilot’s logs form an
important part of the story arc; however, “historical” events also serve as backdrop for Seven of Nine’s
(Jeri Ryan) attitudes toward humanity. While initially stating that “history is irrelevant,” in the end,
she appreciates the curiosity and courage of past generations.
Finally, the most devastating (fictional) war in Earth history, World War III, features quite prom-
inently in FCT, “Encounter at Farpoint” (TNG 1.1/2, 1987), and “New Eden” (DSC 2.2, 2019),
respectively. While some details of the conflict have been established—such as the approximate
number of deaths, nuclear attacks on the United States, genocidal eco-terrorism, or the use of
narcotics to control soldiers—many aspects of the war remain unknown, most importantly, its dur-
ation. In FCT,World War III provides the frame for a storyline centering on humanity achieving warp
capability and consequently making first contact with the Vulcans, while in “New Eden”, a group of
humans that was transported to a faraway planet during the war serves as background for discussing
an ethical dilemma in connection with Starfleet’s Prime Directive. A lack of details is understand-
able in a way, for it supports Star Trek’s positivistic narratives. Since many utopian plans in history
ended in totalitarianism that tried to prescribe and control every aspect of society (Seyferth 2018), it
makes sense that Star Trek does not even try to fully explain how, for example, the existence of the
Federation could be established (see Chapter 60). Viewers are offered glimpses (e.g., “United” [ENT
4.13, 2005]; “These Are the Voyages …” [ENT 4.22, 2005]) of how this kind of society came into
being, but there is no coherent historical narrative encompassing our own past and present as well as
the show’s (fictional) past. History is effectively not analyzed in Star Trek; instead it is used throughout
the franchise “as a means of broadcasting its messages” (Geraghty 2005, 193), supporting not so much
a scholarly, but rather a mythical approach to the past (Sobchack 1998, 19). Unsurprisingly, the utopia
in Star Trek is not imagined in the past, which would have to be seen as a conservative position
centering on earlier golden ages (Portolano 2012, 118); rather, Star Trek offers a utopian and equally
mythical future that could be used to build a specific (and real) future.
The franchise’s skeptical view of the past becomes quite obvious whenever episodes and movies
deal with the complex issues of race, racism, and ethnicity. At the same time, Star Trek always
functioned within a specific, and thus relatively narrow cultural frame. TOS aired during the 1960s,
when the Civil Rights movement changed the United States (Bernardi 1997, 212–219; Weitekamp
2013). Centering on the bizarre conflict between two literally half-black and half-white aliens, the
episode “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” (TOS 3.15, 1969) may be the best-known example of
Star Trek dealing with the topics of race and skin color (Johnson-Smith 2005, 82). With its more
realistic, albeit nonetheless liberal, approach (Campbell and Gokcek 2019, 68–73), TNG features two
African Americans in central roles—while, in the 1990s, many people in the United States might have
had the impression that civil rights issues and the worst excesses of systemic racism had either been
solved or, more to the point, had lost momentum in the face of other national (e.g., “The economy,
stupid”) and global challenges (e.g., a more fragmented post-Cold War world). Ironically, a TNG
298
episode—“Code of Honor” (TNG 1.4, 1987)—became one of the most heavily criticized because
of its attitudes toward race. Its “tribal representation” of an all-Black society was seen as nothing less
than offensive and outright racist (Johnson-Smith 2005, 82; Gross and Altman 2016, 81). Some of
the best episodes focusing on race issues were produced as part of DS9, the first Star Trek series to
feature an African American commanding officer (see Chapter 4). Sisko is not only interested in base-
ball, but also collects ancient African art and regularly cooks Creole food (“The Jem’Hadar” [DS9
2.26, 1994]). Beyond that, however, he is shown to be aware of Earth’s past shortcomings in dealing
with race relations. In “Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang” (DS9 7.15, 1999), Sisko refuses to enter a holodeck
simulation of 1962 Las Vegas, a turn that, as producer Ira Behr explained, aimed at reminding viewers
that in this time period, “Las Vegas was very, very, very white” (Erdmann 2000, 664). Blackness and
everyday racism are even more overtly discussed in “Far Beyond the Stars” (DS9 6.13, 1998), when
Sisko, in a vision, finds himself in the 1950s, embodying African American author Benny Russell.
In a quite authentic way, the audience is confronted with “systemic expressions of white supremacy
and the more subtle forms of racism” (Alexander 2016, 156). In VOY, the race issue is handled less
explicitly with its diverse crew reflecting “the rejection of race as a biological category” and a new
“emphasis on biracial identity” (Roberts 2000, 205). Finally, both ENT and DSC pay relatively little
attention to race issues (see Chapter 50), which seems illogical from a chronological standpoint since
both shows are set before the era of TOS. Consequently, one could argue that humanity’s complex
race relations should have played a larger role.
Another topic that cannot be separated from historical developments is that of gender. While
this topic is discussed in more detail in other chapters, some points merit a historian’s attention.
Throughout the franchise, historical female characters tended to be marginalized when it came to
time travel and holodeck adventures or recognizing them as part of Starfleet ship naming traditions.
In a survey of 161 Starfleet ships from TOS to ENT, the author found that—besides the fact that the
majority of ship names were based on North American or Western European traditions—only four
were named for female characters (Gabriel 2018): Hathaway, likely named for William Shakespeare’s
wife, Anne (“Peak Performance” [TNG 2.21, 1989]); Hera, honoring one of the Olympian deities
of ancient Greece (“Interface” [TNG 7.3, 1993]); Malinche, bearing the name of a Mexica (Aztec)
noblewoman serving as interpreter for Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés who also had a star-
ship named after him (“For the Uniform” [DS9 5.13, 1997]; “Favor the Bold” [DS9 6.5, 1997]);
and, finally, the T’Kumbra with its fictional Vulcan namesake (“Take Me Out to the Holosuite”
[DS9 7.4, 1998]). In Discovery and Picard, additional vessels, e.g., Ride or Nightingale, are named for
women (US astronaut Sally Ride and British nurse Florence Nightingale, respectively); however,
these ships do not feature prominently on screen. Bearing the contemporary imprint of the 9/11
terrorist attacks, all female crew members in ENT, except for the Vulcan T’Pol (Jolene Blalock), are
dressed in functional uniforms resembling a twenty-first-century US Navy working coverall. By
2365, the participation of women in the preparation of meals, according to Worf (Michael Dorn),
was still seen as standard in most human families (“Time Squared” [TNG 2.13, 1989]). At the same
time, women from “pre-modern” or “traditional” societies were often explicitly depicted as very
intelligent and self-determined (e.g., “Who Watches the Watchers” [TNG 3.4, 1989]; “Civilization”
[ENT 1.9, 2001]). DS9 also featured a gender-neutral religious leadership position—the Bajoran kai.
Reminiscent of the Catholic pope, it was held by two women in the course of the series (e.g., “The
Collaborator” [DS9 2.24, 1994]).
Besides issues like war, genocide, or race relations in Earth history, the franchise regularly hinted
at not only the American West (“Spectre of the Gun” [TOS 3.1, 1968]; “A Fistful of Datas” [TNG
6.8, 1992])—which, of course, was one of the inspirations for Gene Roddenberry in the first place—
but also literary history (see Chapter 40) in the form of references to William Shakespeare, who is
mentioned more than a dozen times in different series. Other literary references include but are
not limited to the “Beowulf ” story, a poem from the early European Middle Ages dealing with a
monster terrorizing the Danish court and a hero slaying the creature (“Heroes and Demons” [VOY
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Martin Gabriel
1.12, 1995]), and the epic of Gilgamesh, an ancient Mesopotamian text centering on the topics of
friendship, immortality, and death (“Darmok” [TNG 5.2, 1991]). Star Trek’s approaches to “Beowulf ”
and Gilgamesh differ starkly; “Beowulf ” is used in a holodeck adventure gone wrong, resulting in
a rescue mission, while the Babylonian epos serves as a means of communication between species
employing two linguistic strategies that, up to that point, seemed irreconcilable (see Chapter 49).
A Starfleet captain being able to communicate using a story that was written thousands of years ago
in Mesopotamia clearly hints at the importance of humanist knowledge. The franchise also addressed
the issue of forced relocations (INS, 1998) and mafia-style organized crime in an episode that also
included Jewish slapstick traditions (“A Piece of the Action” [TOS 2.20, 1968]; Horáková 2018, 21),
featured simulated Renaissance Florence (“Concerning Flight” [VOY 4.11, 1997]) as well as a variety
of archeological topics (e.g., “The Chase” [TNG 6.20, 1993]). While Picard’s interest in archeology
comes to the fore in a number of episodes, little information is given on how twenty-fourth-cen-
tury archeologists work. Historical characters were included in a number of stories, ranging from
Genghis Khan and Abraham Lincoln (“The Savage Curtain” [TOS 3.22, 1969]) to Albert Einstein
(“The Nth Degree” [TNG 4.19, 1991]) and Amelia Earhart (“The 37’s” [VOY 2.1, 1995]). While it
is well known that the rapprochement of the Federation and the Klingon Empire in The Undiscovered
Country was based on the final years of the Cold War (TUC, 1991; Konitzer 2016, 31; see Chapter 15),
important elements of Klingon culture, like the central role of a warrior caste, the clan or “house”
structure, and the importance of rituals, show parallels to Europe’s Middle Ages (Domenig 2013).
However, relatively little attention is paid to the history of human religions, with a few exceptions
like the aforementioned DSC episode “New Eden”. Contrary to the obvious dominance of “secular
humanism” in TOS and TNG (Mulvey 2004, 128), fictional Bajoran religious history is of the utmost
importance for the understanding of DS9 (see Chapter 46).
The long existence of Star Trek makes it hard to find a cohesive point of view in regards to
its dealings with history. Generally speaking, most references to historical events can be explained
by their function as allegory for ethical, political, or other problems. Also, when it comes to spe-
cific events or characters encountered in time travels, visions or simulations, personal experience of
(alleged) history is usually more important than a structured, scientific discourse. Many of the story
arcs dealing with historical tropes equate the history of Earth with the history of the United States;
cultures and regions that were marginalized by colonial or imperial strategies are rarely promoted
as important and integral parts of humanity’s past. From the beginning, Star Trek was “complicit in
American ideology” (Rabitsch 2018, 32) and most perspectives on history feature a point of view that
an Anglophone and/or North American audience can easily relate to. For decades, Star Trek, while
often introducing a progressive agenda, used historical tropes furthering visions of the future that
were clearly based on US traditions.
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Star Trek Episodes
The Original Series
1.9 “What Are Little Girls Made of?” 1966.
1.24 “Space Seed” 1967.
3.1 “Spectre of the Gun” 1968.
The Next Generation

2.13 “Time Squared” 1989.
2.21 “Peak Performance” 1989.
3.4 “Who Watches the Watchers” 1989.
4.19 “The Nth Degree” 1991.
5.2 “Darmok” 1991.
5.9 “A Matter of Time” 1991.
6.8 “A Fistful of Datas” 1992.
6.20 “The Chase” 1993.
7.3 “Interface” 1993.
7.20 “Journey’s End” 1994.
Deep Space Nine

2.24 “The Collaborator” 1994.
2.26 “The Jem’Hadar” 1994.
3.11 “Past Tense, Part I” 1995.
3.12 “Past Tense, Part II” 1995.
4.8 “Little Green Men” 1995.
5.13 “For the Uniform” 1997.
6.5 “Favor the Bold” 1997.
6.13 “Far Beyond the Stars” 1998.
7.4 “Take Me Out to the Holosuite” 1998.
7.15 “Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang” 1999.
Voyager
1.12 “Heroes and Demons” 1995.
2.1 “The 37’s” 1995.
2.9 “Tattoo” 1995.
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2.18 “Death Wish” 1996.

3.9 “Future’s End” 1996.
3.10 “Future’s End, Part II” 1996.
4.11 “Concerning Flight” 1997.
6.8 “One Small Step” 1999.
Enterprise
1.9 “Civilization” 2001.
3.9 “North Star” 2003.
3.11 “Carpenter Street” 2003.
4.1 “Storm Front” 2004.
4.2 “Storm Front, Part II” 2004.
4.4 “Borderland” 2004.
4.13 “United” 2005.
4.22 “These Are the Voyages …” 2005.
Discovery
2.2 “New Eden” 2019.
Picard
2.2 “Penance” 2022.
Star Trek Movies
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42
SEX AND ROMANCE
When one of the most oversexed female characters in the Star Trek franchise—Lwaxana Troi—is
creator Gene Roddenberry’s wife Majel Barrett Roddenberry, it is clear that there is something
interesting about sex in space in the twenty-fourth century. To be sure, the overt sexuality of characters
like Lwaxana Troi did not begin with the more modern versions of the franchise created after TOS.
Vibrant sexuality is embedded into the fabric of Star Trek, albeit with varying results. In Star Trek,
as is often true for science fiction in general, the more memorable pairings are human/alien couples.
What is more, while there is little shame when it comes to sex, the power dynamics in these sexual
relationships tend to favor the heteronormative, male characters and this is by Roddenberry’s design.
Casual relationships between powerful male characters and disposable female characters in episodic
flings are not frowned upon and appear as part of the natural order of a character’s life in much of
Star Trek. For James Kirk (William Shatner) and Tom Paris (Robert Duncan McNeill) fleeting sexual
encounters are part of their core character arcs. However, many female characters in the Star Trek
universe—except for Lwaxana Troi—are often denied this sort of sexual power and freedom. In this
chapter, I put forth that the Star Trek franchise maintains a deep relationship with Roddenberry’s
initial vision of a non-normative, non-nuclear family as the franchise continues without its creator’s
oversight. However, these relationships have changed with the times. The more memorable couples
in the franchise are frequently human/alien pairings in sexual relationships, thus continuing a not-
quite-normative version of sexual and romantic relationships. Despite these sexually striking images,
the overall presentation of sex in Star Trek is not always in line with feminist aspirations and ideals.
Roddenberry’s view on sex and romance coupled with the 1960s’ counter-culture’s demonstrations
of free love and vocal challenges to conventional relationships can be seen throughout TOS. Even after
his death, Roddenberry’s powerful influence still resonates through every incarnation of Star Trek.
“Roddenberry’s name has been practically inseparable from the franchise, … and all subsequent
Star Trek series and films were created either with his involvement or by people who have known
him and professed commitment to his authorship” (Hadas 2017, 49). This latent resonance is rooted
in the somewhat unconventional version of sex and romance present on the original Enterprise,
employing “powerful and healthy sexual aspects of ourselves to tell some of the most wondrous
stories in the history of television” (Stape 2015, 3). Short-lived sexual and romantic relationships are
due in part to the episodic nature of Star Trek, as well as Roddenberry’s early vision of the series and,
arguably, his own views on sex.
Roddenberry’s personal beliefs and his vision for the future became intrinsically intertwined.
Herbert Solow says of Roddenberry’s casting for TOS, “[w]‌hen casting was discussed with Gene, the
only performers he would stand up for were the actresses with whom he’d had a previous personal
relationship: Majel Barrett, Nichelle Nichols, and Grace Lee Whitney” (Solow and Justman 1997,
75). Roddenberry’s sexual affairs are briefly mentioned in his authorized biography: “Gene had
always lived by his own code of marriage ethics, a set of standards that did not have sexual fidelity
304 DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917-48

Sex and Romance
near the top of the list” (Alexander 1994, 123). It is also reported that Roddenberry wanted to have
an open relationship with both Majel Barrett and Nichelle Nichols before eventually marrying the
former (Nichols 1994, 131). In essence, TOS’ Enterprise was filled with Roddenberry’s “retinue of
girlfriends” and at the same time, NBC executives were concerned about “how the pilot’s ‘eroticism’
would play out in an ensuing series … A least objectionable program could not feature a demonic
Spock or scantily clad slave girls” (Pearson and Messenger Davies 2014, 26). The interlacing between
creator and his creation still reverberates in Star Trek to varying degrees.
The mundane, yet sexually liberating acts of falling in love (or lust) happen quite frequently
in Star Trek. “[S]‌o in every scene of our Star Trek story, [sic] translate it into a real life situation”
(Roddenberry 1967, 3). This is the first rule in The Star Trek Writers/Directors Guide1 written by
Roddenberry in 1967. The main purpose of the original five-year mission is space travel and explor-
ation, but it is clear from the conception of TOS that the characters should first and foremost behave
like contemporary human beings. “Your story is about people, not about science fiction,” The Guide
continues (ibid., 5, emphasis in original). Interpersonal relationships and romantic love are a part of
“believable” human everyday life on the Enterprise and in the larger Star Trek universe. Building on
the real-life perspective outlined in Roddenberry’s initial vision for TOS, the (human) need to ini-
tiate and maintain romantic relationships is just as important as warp-speed travel. Roddenberry’s
non-normative relationships in TOS do not fit the nuclear family motif of mid-century America and
often are little more than dalliances, and that was novel for television at the time and reflected chan-
ging social attitudes about sex and romance.
Even though the society at large was experiencing a sexual revolution during the original run of
TOS, television censors still upheld conservative social mores. Since Star Trek is set in another time
and place, employing the distorting/estranging mode of science fiction as a thin veil, NBC eventu-
ally greenlit open discussions of sex slavery, gender swapping, animalistic sex drives, and mail-order
brides. In the foreword to Star Trek Sex: Analyzing the Most Sexually Charged Episodes of the Original
Series, Will Stape writes:
[F]‌or years, shows like The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits could use the vehicle of science
fiction to weave a tapestry of entertainment and manage to get more adult themes by the
dreaded censors. Writer and producer Gene Roddenberry wanted to do the same with his
science fiction program.
(2015, loc. 39)
TOS episodes such as “The Cage” (unaired pilot TOS, 1956/1988), “Mudd’s Women” (TOS 1.3,
1966), “The Menagerie” (TOS 1.15/16, 1966), “Amok Time” (TOS 2.5, 1967), and “Turnabout
Intruder” (TOS 3.24, 1969) all present boundary-defying portraits of sexuality produced for early
network television.
Often, however, Star Trek reverts to the easy sexual tropes first committed to film in TOS through
Roddenberry’s views on romantic relationships with the coupling of Captain Kirk and his inter-
changeable alien women of the week. The motif continues into other incarnations of Star Trek
with various levels of success. Arguably, Kirk’s use of women in TOS is based on Roddenberry’s
own “sexual desires” (Solow and Justman 1997, 243). Kirk is known as a philanderer, but, according
to Solow and Justman, the character of Yeoman Janice Rand (Grace Lee Whitney) was created for
him to have a more normative, albeit unrequited love interest on the Enterprise (ibid., 243). Both
her character and a more sexually-restrained Kirk, however, were short-lived. Due to a “personal
rift” with Roddenberry, Whitney only appeared in seven TOS episodes in the end (ibid., 243–244).2
“The ‘official’ reason for Whitney’s sudden departure was that the role of the yeoman limited the
possibility of other romantic involvements for the energetic Captain Kirk” (ibid., 243). Stape calls
women Kirk’s “chronic hobby,” as the captain famously woos female aliens (and some humans) as he
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seeks out new life (2015, 95). Kirk has few repercussions from his trysts and is shown as the ultimate
gigolo. “He has made no time for either a wife nor children,” Stape continues, since “[h]‌e lives as if
he wants as much physical love and sexual gratification as he can find, but not to cultivate the mature
commitment nor responsibility when it comes to adult romance” (ibid., 24). In Wrath of Khan, Carol
Marcus (Bibi Besch) admits that Kirk would not have been a good father because he did not have
room for a child in his life (see Chapter 11). “Sexual relationships tend to be adolescent, with Captain
Kirk,” Karin Blair argues, since he is “the archetypal wanderer, lovin’ ‘em and leavin’ ‘em from one
end of the Milky Way to the other” (1983, 293). The irony of this is that Kirk actually seems to regret
his choices when he meets his son David (Merritt Butrick) for the first time. He says, “My son. My
life that could have been.” Thomas Richards notes that, “[t]he series … leaves a trail of unsuccessful
relationships … [Because] Star Trek values the individual at the expense of all groups, even the small
group constituted by the couple or the family” (1997, 71–72). To make Kirk’s sexuality even more
clear to a new generation of fans, Kirk (Chris Pine) in ST09 wakes up in bed with two alien women,
essentially fetishizing his inability to settle down (see Chapter 20).
When important (and often heterosexual) episodic romances do occur, the couplings serve to
humanize the characters briefly, as they are often short-term and deal with non-committed, i.e., non-
matrimonial, relationships much like Roddenberry’s early vision for the series. In the TOS episode
“The City on the Edge of Forever” (1.28, 1967), Kirk and Edith Keeler (Joan Collins) experience
a true but ill-fated romance. When Kirk allows her to die to fix the timeline (see Chapter 41), his
heart is broken, and viewers see the captain in a new light. Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) goes
through a similar humanization process in the TNG episode “The Inner Light” (5.25, 1992) where
he experiences a whole lifetime in little under an hour courtesy of a space probe that carries the
collective memories of a long-extinct civilization. This life is not his own, however; Picard as Kamin
learns to accept a life with a wife and children, and he mourns their loss when he wakes from the
probe’s link. While under the influence of the powerful spores that inhabit the planet Omicron
Ceti III, an otherwise often non-emotional and half-human Spock (Leonard Nimoy) becomes more
human, openly displaying emotions and a desire for Leila Kalomi (Jill Ireland) in the TOS episode
“This Side of Paradise” (TOS 1.25, 1967). These three scenarios make it clear that a committed
romantic life is only available in alternative settings, not on the characters’ respective ships.
In the ENT episode “Similitude” (ENT 3.10, 2003), Vulcan Subcommander T’Pol (Jolene
Blalock) succumbs to her buried emotions for Trip Tucker (Connor Trinneer) through his clone
Sim (also played by Trinneer). Although T’Pol and Tucker continue their relationship in subsequent
episodes, T’Pol only allows the romance to begin through Tucker’s doomed clone while the engineer
lies in a coma. On VOY, Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) says goodbye to her long-term romantic
partner Mark Johnson (Stan Ivar) before she and her crew are flung to the farthest reaches of the
galaxy in “The Caretaker” (VOY, 1.1/2, 1995). In the episode “Tuvix,” Janeway confides to Kes
(Jennifer Lien) that she is lonely:
Sometimes, I’m full of hope and optimism. Other times I dream about being with Mark and
it’s so real. Then, when I wake up and realize it’s just a dream … And, I know that, someday,
I may have to accept that he’s not part of my life anymore.
(VOY 2.24, 1996)
These examples illustrate the need to portray the characters as realistic and relatable, per Roddenberry’s
guidelines, and at the same time show that these characters have deep emotional attachments even if
they are unable to maintain committed, normative relationships due to their Starfleet duties.
Even with the uneven progress on some issues, Star Trek occasionally pushes the limits and
produces episodes and characters that explore topics like plural marriages and gay relationships. On
ENT, the concepts of open marriages, polyamory, and polygamous marriages are thematized, but
even as they are explained from the point of view of the people involved, the relationship status is
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Sex and Romance
viewed as alien or different. For example, Dr. Phlox’s (John Billingsley) second wife, Feezal (Melinda
Page Hamilton), makes overt sexual advances to Trip Tucker. Throughout the episode “Stigma”
(ENT 2.14, 2003), however, any consummation of an open relationship is not connoted in favorable
or desirable terms. The presentation of polyamory is important, yet Feezal comes across as a predator,
and Tucker is uncomfortable and upset while Phlox is amused by the whole situation. Archer’s crew
sees the concept of polyamory as problematic, and the dialogue between Phlox and Trip in the scene
is comical. In Discovery, the openly gay couple of Paul Stamets (Anthony Rapp) and Hugh Culber
(Wilson Cruz) push the boundaries of sex and romance in Star Trek through their same-sex rela-
tionship. Still, it can be seen as homonormative in some ways because both are cisgendered, human
males. While power dynamics and Starfleet duties often keep couples from experiencing equitable
romantic relationships in Star Trek, Culber and Stamets are a notable exception. More recently, the
relationship between Adira Tal (Blu del Barrio) and Gray (Ian Alexander) has added a less normative
queer relationship to the roster (see Chapter 52).
Even with the gender imbalances present, sexual pairings in Star Trek are most striking when
unconventional. Often, this unconventionality is presented through a human/alien pairing, and these
constructions have continued after the initial run of TOS. Written by Roddenberry, the first unaired
pilot episode, “The Cage,” shows the character of Vina (Susan Oliver) as Captain Pike’s (Jeffrey
Hunter) Orion Slave Girl fantasy. Vina’s seduction of Pike, a highly erotic and memorable scene, is
the most sexually significant image in TOS, according to Stape:
The centerpiece of it all is Vina’s extraordinary dance for Pike and the horny men
assembled. They encourage him … It’s a heady mixture of erotic imagery, voyeurism and
Pike’s numbing fear that he may finally be succumbing to the alien’s sexual seduction. The
pilot still stands up as one of the most exotic displays of sexuality and sexual implications
ever broadcast on TV.
(cited in Saadia 2015)
The Orion Slave Girl has been a callback image in a number of later incarnations of Star Trek, ran-
ging from DS9, ENT, DSC, and LWR to the Kelvin timeline in ST09. While the Orion Slave Girl
can be read as a sexist characterization of women as both alien and othered, at the same time, it can
also be seen as kink—Roddenberry’s kink.
After Roddenberry’s passing, and in line with the changing cultural norms, stemming from the
AIDS crisis in the 1980s and 1990s, other long-term romances in Star Trek eventually became
more conventional in appearance, but most couples retained non-normative inflections in that they
are human/alien pairings. In ENT, T’Pol and Tucker become an unlikely couple and even parents
(“Similitude” [ENT 3.10, 2003] and “Terra Prime” [ENT 4.21, 2005]). Because of the political cli-
mate between humans and Vulcans in the series, the romance seems more poignant overall. During
this time in Star Trek history, humans and Vulcans lack a sense of mutual trust and affection for one
another, but this pairing shows that in the future the two planets will become intertwined in more
ways than one. Tucker and T’Pol’s relationship ultimately illustrates that human/Vulcan hybrids, like
Spock, will be a reality. In ST09, Sarek (Ben Cross) describes his young son, Spock (Jacob Kogan),
as a child of “two worlds”—Vulcan and Earth. This hybridity continues with the famous coupling
of Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis) and William Riker (Jonathan Frakes); Riker is human and Troi is a
Betazoid/human hybrid. The couple ultimately chooses to postpone a full commitment to each other
because of their careers, but they have an ongoing, if sporadic, sexual relationship throughout TNG.
Troi and Riker both have other relationships even though “[t]‌he pilot episode explains that the two
were romantically involved and parted before being unexpectedly assigned to the Enterprise together.
Though they sometimes refer to each other using the Betazed word ‘Imzadhi,’ [sic] or Beloved”
(Wilcox 1991, 57). They often meet and freely discuss the reasons they will always be connected; see,
for example, “Encounter at Farpoint” (TNG 1.1/2, 1987), “Haven” (TNG 1.11, 1987), “The Loss”
307
(TNG 4.10, 1990), “Man of the People” (TNG 6.3, 1992), and “Second Chances” (TNG 6.24, 1993).
But they are not conventionally a sanctioned couple until they get married in Nemesis. In the Picard
episode “Nepenthe,” the couple is shown living in a family home with their daughter (PIC 1.7, 2020).
Another important romantic example appears in the character of Worf (Michael Dorn) who
is the best-known Klingon in Star Trek. Raised by humans, he spends much of his character arc
discovering what that dual heritage means for him: is he more Klingon or human? Worf has a long
romantic history encompassing TNG and DS9. Worf is shown to have had a relationship with the
half-Klingon, half-human woman K’Ehleyr (Suzie Plakson), the mother of his son Alexander (Brian
Bonsall), and in the later seasons of TNG, he and Troi have a brief physical relationship. Once Worf
transfers to DS9, he finds love with a Trill, Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell). He and Jadzia get married in
“You Are Cordially Invited” (DS9 6.7, 1997). After her death, he has a brief fling with Ezri Dax
(Nicole de Boer), the new host of the Dax symbiont, in “Penumbra” (DS9 7.17, 1999). Worf is an
archetypal, hyper-masculine warrior and his sexual prowess is often discussed. He and Jadzia often are
treated for injuries sustained during their rough love-making. Here again, Star Trek presents a nor-
mative relationship, of sorts, between a male and female character in a committed relationship, but the
alien/hybrid nature of the characters creates a distance and almost an othering of their sexual desires
particularly given Dax’s age and longevity over multiple lifetimes (and genders).
The relationship between Ash Tyler (Shazad Latif) and L’Rell (Mary Chieffo) in DSC also resonates
not only because of the long-reaching arc of the Klingons in Star Trek, but also because the pairing
touches on a subject not often discussed—the sexual abuse of men by women. Tyler as a Klingon/
human hybrid is a divided and haunted character. As Tyler, he loves Michael Burnham (Sonequa
Martin-Green), but he is not fully human after his melding with Voq. In “Into the Forest I Go,” he
discusses his abuse by L’Rell with Burnham:
That Klingon was more than just my captor. She was my torturer. One who took a par-
ticular interest in me … I encouraged it. Her sick affections … Because if I hadn’t, I’d be
dead, like all the others.
(DSC 1.9, 2017)
As Voq, the relationship with L’Rell is consensual, and Tyler eventually understands this. While
human/Klingon pairings are found throughout Star Trek, no other pair offers the somewhat unset-
tling situation created by L’Rell’s relationship with Voq and Ash Tyler.
The vivid impact of a human/alien pairing can also be seen through the Borg Queen and Picard
both as Locutus and his unassimilated self. In First Contact, the film shows flashbacks to Picard’s
assimilation, through splicing images from TNG episodes “The Best of Both Worlds Parts I and II”
along with the film footage (TNG 3.26, 1990; TNG 4.1, 1990). In the film’s flashback scenes, the
Borg Queen (Alice Krige) holds Locutus in a sexual embrace. Many promotional materials for the
film capitalized on this seductive pose even though it appears only for a few seconds in the theat-
rical cut. While the Borg Queen does not appear in TNG, she is an important character in VOY and
PIC. “The demonization of the Borg Queen relies on older tropes of cultural memory and legend
disseminated in popular culture,” Tudor Balinisteanu argues. The Borg Queen “is presented as the
devilish enchanter, a woman who tempts her prey with sensual charms of the flesh” (2012, 15). She
uses her previous relationship with Locutus to lure Picard back into the hive as he tries to stop the
Borg from assimilating the Earth of the past. While Picard succeeds in defeating her, it is made clear
that once a person is part of the Borg Collective, the trauma of assimilation translates into long-term,
irreversible effects, much like the memory of a past relationship; the second season of PIC revisits and
capitalizes on Picard’s trauma. Relationships in Star Trek come in different shapes and forms and may
be in place for an episode or for a full character’s arc; while some even appear as a traditional romance
in some ways with unrequited love turned inseparable couple and, of course, the enduring, inevit-
able heartbreak, they are often undergirded by unequal power structures and coded with difference.
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Sex and Romance
The problematic power structure is a core feminist issue in Star Trek’s romances. In the post-
Roddenberry era, the free-love motif takes a new direction by design to meet the needs of a contem-
porary audience, and as the female characters appear in more robust roles than in TOS, they become
sexually more constrained. While Kirk or Riker can participate in multiple, episodic relationships,
the female crew members of the later shows must be more careful. This is in part due to the social
mores of the time, the move from second-to third-wave feminism, and the AIDS epidemic. During
the first run of TNG, executive producer Rick Berman was quoted as saying that since “this show
has existed within the confines of the AIDs [sic] era, promiscuity is not a good thing to promote. Kirk
seemed to sleep with someone in every episode, but that is more ‘60s than ‘90s” (cited in Teitelbaum
1991). E. Ann Kaplan suggests that “[i]‌f the AIDS crisis has only had a minimal effect on feminists’
sexual behavior, it has had the psychological, imaginary effect on reinforcing links between sex and
danger” (1990, 419). Sex is physically/emotionally dangerous to Troi in TNG on a few occasions—for
example in “The Price” (TNG 3.8, 1989) and “Violations” (TNG 5.12, 1992). And a link between
the idea of sex and danger can be made in VOY as Janeway resorts to pursuing a holographic rela-
tionship in “Fair Haven” because she feels that the captain should not fraternize with the crew lest she
undermine her authority and her plans to return her crew safely to Earth (VOY 6.11, 2000).
With ofttimes revealing catsuits and limited professions, simulated holographic sex, and few female
characters in powerful roles, some feminist readings of Star Trek (Blair 1983; Joyrich 1996; Lee 1997)
discuss the problematic images of women and sexual relationships. Justine Larbalestier observes that
“[t]‌he genre of science fiction has always contained some kind of engagement with the terrain of sex
and sexual difference. Science fiction engaging with feminism, and feminist science fiction, however,
are not necessarily the same thing” (2002, 2). In Star Trek, the lack of agency of female characters in
TNG is clear in that they are all in professions of care and/or protection: medical, counseling, and
security staff. In VOY, the othering of female characters is shown through the partially rehabilitated
Borg drone Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan); for example, she takes holographic courtship training sessions
with the Doctor (Robert Picardo) which lead to her pursuing an awkward relationship with First
Officer Chakotay (Robert Beltran) (“Human Error” [VOY 7.18, 2001]; “Endgame, Part I and II”
[VOY 7.25/26, 2001]. While VOY features the first female captain in a Star Trek series, she still has
to share that authority to a certain degree. The twin captains’ chairs on Voyager’s bridge create an
equitable situation for the crew between Janeway and Chakotay, but no other captain has to share
power in such a symbolically obvious way. TNG and VOY are indeed representative of their times,
and the storylines reflect those larger societal changes, but the presentation is not always positive.
A case in point is VOY’s chief engineer B’Elanna Torres (Roxann Dawson). Her career and defiant
nature render her an important and groundbreaking character, but when she is paired with Tom
Paris, she becomes domesticated. It is true that the couple is among the longer-running romantic
pairs in Star Trek, but the coupling is deeply problematic. The pair begins as they wrestle and
growl during a Klingon mating ritual, but end up as normative romantic partners and parents. As a
Klingon-human hybrid, Torres codes more human when she is with Paris, and the two settle down
to raise their daughter (“Blood Fever” [VOY 3.16, 1997]; “Endgame” [VOY 7.25/26, 2001]). Despite
the human/alien pairing, the couple is surprisingly conventional. They are shown eating breakfast
together and going to see 3-D monster movies on the holodeck. The relationship’s problematic
aspects become evident when Paris patronizes Torres and keeps her from away missions during the
later part of her pregnancy. He also dismisses her fears about mothering a hybrid child, while also
talking about his desire for many more children with her (“Lineage” [VOY 7.12, 2001]; “Friendship
One” [VOY 7.21, 2001]). The early courtship fire between them becomes a stable, monogamous
marriage, but the power balance is in favor of Paris—a classic patriarchal relationship—which is a
surprising choice given the twenty-fourth-century setting.
One female character, however, dominates Star Trek. Lwaxana Troi is a force of sexual power, and
she wields it without shame or remorse. Lwaxana romances Picard in TNG like Kirk might an Orion
slave girl in TOS. And in an almost visually explicit DS9 scene, Odo (René Auberjonois) initially
309
spurns her advances, but eventually turns into his liquid form and settles on her dress. Lwaxana
tells Odo that his true form makes no difference because as she playfully says, “I can swim” (“The
Forsaken” [DS9 1.17, 1993]). Justman says of the character of Lwaxana, “Majel created the role … a
bold and lusty, irreverent and energetic female alien, and she played the part to the hilt” (Solow and
Justman 1997, 225). Lwaxana Troi is a brazen middle-aged woman who unabashedly woos eligible
bachelors. She has multiple sexual relationships, marriages, and children.
With this character, the life-partner of Roddenberry created a TNG and DS9 embodiment of
the early sexuality present on TOS. While the presentation is more comical than dramatic, it is clear
that Majel Barrett Roddenberry understands the non-normative sexual relationships at the core of
Star Trek. And although the Great Bird of the Galaxy, Gene Roddenberry, is gone, the footing of
the original, open sexuality of the first series remains in the character of Lwaxana Troi. While the
different incarnations of Star Trek exist in different epochs, the characters and the stories are painfully
Earth-bound and products of their respective times. As the franchise moves forward with reintrodu-
cing Seven of Nine as bisexual and including a sex-positive, female android in Soji (Isabella Camille
Briones) in Picard, Star Trek has the potential for more forward-looking female characters.
Notes
1 Review of primary source documents used for this chapter courtesy of the Ray & Pat Browne Library for Popular
Culture Studies, Bowling Green State University, OH, and the Popular Culture Summer Research Institute.
2 Even though no evidence nor criminal charges have been brought to light, sexual harassment allegations have
been leveled against Roddenberry (Whitney and Denney 1998, 35–36; 39; 51).
References
Alexander, David. 1994. Star Trek Creator. New York: Roc.
Balinisteanu, Tudor. 2012. “Goddess Cults in Techno-Worlds: Tank Girl and the Borg Queen.” Journal of Feminist
Studies in Religion 28, no. 1 (Spring): 5–24. https://doi.org/10.2979/jfemistudreli.28.1.5.
Blair, Karin. 1983. “Sex and Star Trek (Le Sexe dans ‘Star Trek’).” Science Fiction Studies 10, no. 3 (1983): 292–
297. Available at: www.jstor.org/stable/4239567.
Hadas, Leora. 2017. “A New Vision: J. J. Abrams, Star Trek, and Promotional Authorship.” Cinema Journal 56,
no. 2 (Winter): 46–66. https://doi:10.1353/cj.2017.0002.
Heller, Lee E. 1997. “The Persistence of Difference: Postfeminism, Popular Discourse, and Heterosexuality in
Star Trek: The Next Generation.” Science Fiction Studies 24, no. 2 (July): 226–244. Available at: www.jstor.org/
stable/4240605.
Joyrich, Lynne. 1996. “Feminist Enterprise? Star Trek: The Next Generation and the Occupation of Femininity.”
Cinema Journal 35, no. 2 (Winter): 61–84. Available at: www.jstor.org/stable/1225756.
Kaplan, E. Ann. 1990. “Sex, Work and Motherhood: The Impossible Triangle.” The Journal of Sex Research 27,
no. 3 (August): 409–425. Available at: www.jstor.org/stable/3812811.
Larbalestier, Justine. 2002. The Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.
Nichols, Nichelle. 1994. Beyond Uhura: Star Trek and Other Memories. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons.
Pearson, Roberta, and Maire Messenger Davies. 2014. Star Trek and American Television. Berkeley, CA: University
of California Press.
Richards, Thomas. 1997. The Meaning of Star Trek. New York: Doubleday.
Roddenberry, Gene. 1967. “The Star Trek Writers/Directors Guide.” Unpublished manuscript.
Saddia, Manu. 2015. “Sex in 60s Star Trek Was Even More Far Out than the Technology.” Splinter, December
18, 2015. Available at: https://splinternews.com/sex-in-60s-star-trek-was-even-more-far-out-than-the-tec-
1793853635.
Solow, Herbert, and Robert Justman. 1997. Inside Star Trek: The Real Story. New York: Pocket Books.
Stape, Will. 2015. Star Trek Sex: Analyzing the Most Sexually Charged Episodes of the Original Series. Albany,
GA: BearManor Media. Kindle Edition.
Teitelbaum, Sheldon. 1991. “How Gene Roddenberry and His Brain Trust Have Boldly Taken ‘Star Trek’
Where No TV Series Has Gone Before Trekking to the Top.” Los Angeles Times, May 5, 1991.
Whitney, Grace Lee, and Jim Denney. 1998. The Longest Trek: My Tour of the Galaxy. Fresno, CA: Linden
Publishing.
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Wilcox, Rhonda V. 1991. “Shifting Roles and Synthetic Women in Star Trek: The Next Generation.” Studies in
Popular Culture 13, no. 2 (1991): 53–65. Available at: www.jstor.org/stable/23414499.
Star Trek Episodes
The Original Series
1.3 “Mudd’s Women” 1966.
2.5 “Amok Time” 1967.
3.24 “Turnabout, Intruder” 1969.
The Next Generation

1.11 “Haven” 1986.
3.8 “The Price” 1989.
4.10 “The Loss” 1990.
Deep Space Nine

1.1 “The Forsaken” 1993.
6.7 “You Are Cordially Invited” 1997.
7.17 “Penumbra” 1999.
Voyager
1.1/2 “Caretaker” 1995.
2.24 “Tuvix” 1996.
3.16 “Blood Fever” 1997.
6.11 “Fair Haven” 2000.
7.12 “Lineage” 2001.
7.18 “Human Error” 2001.
7.21 “Friendship One” 2001.
7.25/26 “Endgame” 2001.
Enterprise
2.14 “Stigma” 2003.
4.21 “Terra Prime” 2005.
Discovery
1.9 “Into the Forest I Go” 2017.
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Picard
Star Trek Movies
Star Trek. 2009. dir. J.J. Abrams. Paramount Pictures
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43
ENVIRONMENT AND ECOLOGY
Alison Sperling
Star Trek addresses a host of ecological problems and their attendant social, ethical, and political
dimensions, many of which were just beginning to enter the popular imagination in the 1960s with
the birth of environmentalism, and more so by the 1980s with new knowledge of climate science
and thus an increasing awareness of the effects of climate change. Though ecological themes present
themselves in The Original Series, the intensification of ecological consciousness by the time The Next
Generation first aired in 1987 can be felt in the ways TNG and the later series imagine anthropogenic
changes to planets and their ecosystems, as well as a changing psychological relationship between
different species and their environments (Science Fiction Encyclopedia 2021). I rely on the fundamental
definition of ecology as the study of organisms in relation to their environment, though as much
work across disciplines and fields outside of the sciences have recently demonstrated, ecology has itself
become a widely used term with many different uses and applications. On this point, Erich Hörl
has noted that there has been a “general ecological transformation” in the contemporary cultural
imaginary. He writes:
‘Ecology’ has started to designate the collaboration of a multiplicity of human and non-
human agents: it is something like the cipher of a new thinking of togetherness and of a
great cooperation of entities and forces, which has begun to be significant for contemporary
thought.
(Hörl 2017, 3)
Contemporary ecological thought in the humanities has for some time now debated the ways in
which “ecology” is already divorced from, or after nature and after life itself (Strathern 1992; Morton
2009; McKibben 2014; Braidotti and Dolphijn, 2017).
Stefan Helmreich writes of extreme forms of nature, like those explored in Star Trek, that they
demonstrate
[t]‌he limits of life, the boundaries of vitality, may yet be unknown. Scientists are still chasing
‘after nature,’ but are now doing so by looking to the stars, for yet-to-be-characterized
conditions, yet-to-be-known ‘extremes’ relative to which life might be able to survive.
(2012, 1128)
This is an especially pertinent discussion for science fictional ecologies like those found in Star Trek,
which consistently probe the foundations of ecological thought by positing extreme alien ecologies
which muddy the division between the natural and unnatural, organic and inorganic. The shows
and movies repeatedly speculate on the role of pollution, extractivism, and various conservation
efforts (often gone wrong) in outer space. A chapter on ecology in the Star Trek franchise might
DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917-49 313

Alison Sperling
therefore be understood itself as a speculative one. Star Trek ecologies not only allegorize twentieth-
and twenty-first-century environmental crises on Earth, but they also push viewers to re-think the
boundaries of ecological thought itself through speculation on milieus and ecosystems imaginative
or thus-far undiscovered. I am interested here in a number of these speculative ecologies as well as
non-carbon and non-humanoid relations beyond those we know on Earth (see Chapter 56). As
Spock (Leonard Nimoy) says, “Life as we know it is universally based on some combination of carbon
compounds. But what if life exists based on another element?” (TOS 1.26, 1967).
Star Trek contributes to ecological thought in the humanities through these modes of science-
fictional outer space environments that help us to reflect back on our own earthly ecological stakes of
the present moment. In the Introduction to Green Planets: Science Fiction and Ecology, Gerry Canavan
writes:
Indeed, such a notion suggests both politics and ‘realism’ and now always inside science
fiction, insofar as the world, as we experience its vertiginous technological and ecological
flux, now more closely resembles SF than it does any historical realism. In this sense per-
haps even ecological critique as such can provocatively be thought of as a kind of science
fiction, as it uses the same tools of cognition and extrapolation to project the conditions of a
possible future—whether good or bad, ecotopian or apocalyptic—in hopes of transforming
politics in the present.
(Canavan and Robinson 2014, 17)
Canavan’s claim that ecological critique might itself be considered in the sf mode is especially useful
for this chapter, as it imagines Star Trek ecologies as speculative both in how they imagine eco-
logical futures, but also in how they seem to hope to transform environmental politics in the present.
Anthony Lioi asks in Nerd Ecology: “Can nerd culture spawn environmental culture?” (2016, 23). The
large body of scholarship that brings together the fields of ecology and sf studies attests to the fact
that both have much to offer the other. And many of the ecological themes explored in Star Trek
remain especially relevant in light of twenty-first-century dire ecological crises. This chapter will
explore related themes of outer-space environments, alien ecologies, biology and the boundaries of
life, modes of terraforming and other direct interventions into ecological relations in space, and bio-
technologies in Star Trek that point to speculative ecology as something both cultivated and shared
between species, spaces, and temporalities.
Outer Spatial Environments

Outer space environments are of course “extreme” in relation to habitable environments for organic
and carbon-based life as we know it on Earth. The spaces and regions of Star Trek include wormholes,
black holes, subspace rifts, nebulas, fluidic space, supernovae, and countless different planetary systems
and toxic biospheres. Thinking about some of these phenomena in relation to the nearest planetary
system or to the forms of life that pass through them on starships starts to give shape to the spacescapes
of Star Trek, and sheds light on certain developing cultural attitudes toward environmentalism and the
ecological problems facing the planet. Two episodes in particular serve to demonstrate the failures to
properly assess these foreign environments, and the subsequent harm that their actions have on the
environment.
In “The Cloud” (VOY 1.5, 1995), just weeks into their long journey home, Voyager encounters
what they believe to be a nebula rich in omicron particles. Thinking that they will be able to
collect these particles to provide additional antimatter reserves, they enter the nebula to harvest
them. Though they immediately encounter an inexplicable increase in density, they decide to break
through an energy barrier inside the nebula that stands between them and the particle field. Once
inside, their problems are not over but multiply—bits of non-reactive matter, unrecognizable by their
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Environment and Ecology
sensors, attach themselves to the hull, draining the ship’s energy reserves. As their entrance into the
nebula begins to close behind them, Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) orders Tom Paris (Robert
Duncan McNeill) to retreat and reestablish a safe distance from the entity. It turns out that the nebula
is not a nebula at all, but an organic lifeform, parts of which are now all over the hull, and severely
injured, leaking omicron particles through the hole caused by Voyager’s breach.
The episode exemplifies the ways in which ecological relations in Star Trek are often difficult or
impossible to parse, precisely because alien forms of life do not register as such with Voyager’s tech-
nologies or with the crew’s previous experience. What constitutes “life” and how its boundaries are
determined in Star Trek are key questions to the discussion of ecological relations in the franchise
(see Chapter 57). In “The Cloud,” Harry Kim’s (Garrett Wang) exclamation upon first seeing the
entity “I’ve never seen anything like it” paired with Tuvok’s (Tim Russ) inability to offer informed
advice upon encountering the lifeform, signals a general unfamiliarity with its contours. It perhaps
cues a moment where things might have gone in a different direction, if Janeway had decided to
conduct further research before barreling forth. Instead, what was thought to be an inorganic spatial
phenomenon turns out to be an organic being, which Voyager must spend the rest of the episode
trying to heal from the damage they caused. Mistaken as a spatial phenomenon, this lifeform is nearly
destroyed because of Voyager’s need for additional energy reserves (and by Janeway’s repeated desire
for coffee, which the additional reserves would allow her to replicate). It is one of many examples
in Star Trek where humanity’s presence in space is represented as complicated and even harmful to
various environments.
Star Trek has explored the idea of catastrophic misunderstandings of environments in other
episodes as well. In “Force of Nature” (TNG 7.9, 1993), for example, the Enterprise encounters
a region of space with unusually intense tetryon fields. Here the very fabric of space is uniquely
affected by warp fields, which cause dangerous subspace instabilities, and scientists on the nearest
planet, Hekaras II, spend the first part of the episode trying to convince the Enterprise crew of
this fact. The episode (quite obviously) allegorizes the effects of carbon and other greenhouse gas
emissions on twentieth-century Earth, some of which contribute to the destruction of the ozone
layer. Using the warp drive in this region destroys this part of space which will eventually make
Hekaras II uninhabitable. As one of the Hekaran scientists says of their planet in danger: “our
climate is changing.” Human-invented warp drive has contributed to the slow destruction of the
ecological stability of the Hekaras Corridor, and has in turn placed the planet and its inhabitants
in grave danger. As an allegory for human-induced climate change on Earth, which was already
entering the popular imagination by the time this episode aired, “Force of Nature” challenges the
ways of the Federation. It warns against ignoring the ecological and scientific knowledge of local
populations and even perhaps bemoans the slow bureaucratic processes that real systemic changes
for the conservation of the environment often require. Although there are more examples in
which Star Trek explores positive interventions into environmental hazards—take the Malon
arc in Voyager and its thinking through problems of pollution in space, for example, (“Night”
[VOY 5.1, 1998]; “Juggernaut” [VOY 5.21, 1999])—it is often the case that in encounters with
extreme environments, the Federation, which touts environmentalism and conservation as pri-
mary initiatives of their aims of discovery and exploration, gets things wrong. As Captain Picard
(Patrick Stewart) says in “Force of Nature”: “all this while, I was damaging the thing that I hold
most dear” (TNG 7.9, 1993).
Alien Ecologies
If ecology is the study of the milieus, environments, and relations between living and nonliving
elements in and of those environments, what is an ecological reading of Star Trek’s journeys into
outer space where the boundaries between life and nonlife are not always so easy to parse? As the
previous section began to show, the franchise repeatedly poses this question through the exploration
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Alison Sperling
of extreme environments and the crews’ discoveries of the (often harmful) consequences of their
presence in space. In a way, it only becomes possible to think ecologically about a region of space
once a starship enters that region. As other chapters in this volume attend to in detail, the crews of
each of the Star Trek television series regularly encounter unknown forms of life (see Chapter 56)
that challenge what we think we know about biological and other scientific processes and therefore
about ecology as well (see Chapter 57).
TOS interrogates these boundaries most notably in the episode “The Devil in the Dark” (TOS
1.26, 1967), which introduces viewers to the Horta, a silicon-based species whose existence is
threatened by miners on Janus VI. In a way that the later episode “Home Soil” (TNG 1.18, 1988) will
also attempt with nonhumanoid life, Kirk (William Shatner) and Spock are able to establish commu-
nication and come to an agreement with the Horta. Anthony Lioi writes that “[s]‌ilicon-based life
raises the basic problem of stellar cosmopolitanism: at what point does life become alien enough to
prevent communication and, therefore, politics itself?” (2016, 77). In other words, how can we fathom
an ecological or environmental politics in science fiction and in Star Trek without renegotiating the
bounds of what constitutes life itself? Encounters with extreme lifeforms in Star Trek (like the nebula
in “The Cloud”) demand that viewers reframe their own milieu, their own relations to forms of life
and non-life on Earth. Just because something does not register as alive, or as sentient with the avail-
able technologies or senses available, does not necessarily mean that life or sentience is non-existent,
nor that what is considered inert is not in need of protection or sovereignty.
We must also consider, following Melinda Cooper, how forms of extreme life that are popularized
in media like Star Trek might not be signs of “biology unbound, but of its bending towards a pol-
itical economic purpose” (cited in Helmreich 2012, 1135). In other words, while the economics of
Star Trek are beyond the scope of this short chapter (see Chapter 58), it is important to note the
ways in which conceptions of life itself and the imaginative stretching of its limits are not inherently
anti-capitalist or anti-colonialist, as the show purports to be (see Chapter 45), but in fact may serve
to actually generate new fantasies “of endless frontiers of surplus” (ibid., 1135) through radical gen-
erativity and imagining of new and extreme forms of life.
The list of episodes in which extreme lifeforms are encountered in Star Trek television series
would be too long to recount here (see Chapter 56). The Crystalline Entity and the Horta are just
two of many non-humanoid species. Voyager also regularly encounters non-corporeal species whose
ecological relations are recognizable primarily in the ways they respond to the ship, its materials, and
technologies (e.g., “The Haunting of Deck Twelve” [VOY 6.25, 2000]). In addition to the many
species encountered, Star Trek often contemplates the limits of carbon-based life in relation to syn-
thetic life. In “The Measure of a Man” (TNG 2.9, 1989), Picard and Riker (Jonathan Frakes) must
come to the defense of Data’s (Brent Spiner) personhood, which is threatened by Starfleet’s attempt
to seize him against his will for research purposes. Episodes that feature holodeck characters like
James Moriarty (Daniel Davis) (“Elementary, Dear Data” [TNG 2.3, 1988]), Vic Fontaine (James
Darren) (“His Way” [DS9 6.20, 1998]), or the ongoing development of the holographic Doctor
(Robert Picardo) in VOY are similar in that they may not be explicitly ecological; they crucially
inform the broader Star Trek approach to the crews’ encounters with new forms of non-humanoid,
non-carbon, or non-corporeal lifeforms in the universe.
In addition to the basic questions undergirding the qualities of life itself, Star Trek often reflects on
evolutionary processes. But a number of episodes falsely represent evolutionary science and so cannot
be considered sophisticated reflections on ecological or evolutionary biology. Indeed, critics of Star Trek
writer/producer/ creator Brannon Braga’s “perpetual misunderstanding of evolutionary biology”
(DeCandido 2020) point to a number of episodes where evolutionary processes are blatantly ignored or
radically misinformed. In “Threshold” (VOY 2.15, 1996), for example, after achieving a record-breaking
speed of Warp 10, Tom Paris somehow undergoes a radical evolutionary process that the Doctor believes
could be the future of the human race. “Threshold” is generally understood by fans as a failed episode
for a number of reasons,1 not least among which is the misconception that evolution itself could exist
316
in isolation rather than in ecological relation with the greater environment or milieu. In “Dear Doctor”
(ENT 1.13, 2002), Captain Archer (Scott Bakula) is confronted with the difficult decision whether to
allow evolution to happen “naturally” and let a species die out in favor of a better adapted species, or to
offer them help by giving them advanced technology (see Chapter 48). Archer and Doctor Phlox (John
Billingsley) disagree on the correct course of action and thus trouble what the role of advancing tech-
nology is when it supposedly interferes with the so-called “natural” course of Nature:
Archer: What do you suggest? We choose? One species over the other?

Phlox: All I’m saying is we let nature make the choice.
Archer: To hell with nature. You’re a doctor, you have a moral obligation to help people who are
suffering.
(ENT 1.13, 2002)
By asking what the role of technology is, the dilemma they face directly challenges what are
considered natural processes and what responsibilities one might have to interfere with these processes.
“Evolution” (TNG 3.1, 1989) imagines the evolution of nanites, tiny technological devices, which
reproduce and infest the ship’s systems. They eventually gain sentience, which is relayed through a
communication link Data is able to secure with the ship. Here, evolution as an organic or so-called
natural process is denaturalized to include the evolution of a non-organic starship techno-ecology that
Picard becomes set on preserving. “Evolution” tackles the natural/unnatural dualism by suggesting
evolutionary processes as non-organic processes, and therefore opening up conversations about ecol-
ogies outside of the known-biological discourse and thus contributing to expanding notions of what
defines ecological relations.
Terraforming and Extractivism

One of the most interesting and visionary ecological themes in Star Trek is that of terraforming.
“Terraforming” as a term was coined by Jack Williamson in his 1942 short story “Collision Orbit,”
even though it had already been a theme in science fiction prior to the term’s coinage. In terraforming
narratives, ecological and environmental planning are central processes, and thus episodes of Star Trek
where planets are being terraformed are some of the most ecologically-themed episodes. Through
terraforming, Star Trek confronts the ethical dilemmas and dangers of ecological devastation, the cre-
ation of life, and what constitutes life itself, as well as the possible ways of responding to the effects of
planetary climate change. As a process of rendering a planet and its ecosystem live-able2 (in real life
most often for humans, in Star Trek with more variation), speculative terraforming in the cultural
imaginary is, in large part, a reflection of how humans have been altering Earth itself in the name of
human life and progress.
Sf scholars of terraforming often turn to Martyn Fogg’s work to define the process as one of
“planetary engineering, specifically directed at enhancing the capacity of an extra-terrestrial planetary
environment to support life” (Fogg 2011).3 Terraforming a planet to support life theoretically requires
an incredible amount of detailed attention to the working of complex ecosystems and the movements
of all of its energies and materials in order to create a sustainable system. As Chris Pak has traced in
his work (Pak 2012), terraforming in sf is a long imaginative tradition that reflects various apocalyptic
fears as well as colonial fantasies of escapism and limitless economic growth.
In TNG, terraforming is supposedly only to take place on planets where no life currently exists,
and where there is no prospect for life to exist. TNG’s most focused exploration of terraforming
confronts the core of these basic conditions in “Home Soil” (TNG 1.18, 1988), where the crew of the
Enterprise-D have been instructed to look in on the progress of a terraforming colony on Velara III.
The excitement with which the Enterprise crew anticipates their visit and the romanticized idealiza-
tion of the terraformers is clear from the start of the episode:
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Alison Sperling
Picard: It takes very special people to live in such desolation.

Troi: Visionaries who don’t see this planet as it is, but as it will be.
Riker: I’ve always wanted to see terraforming in operation.
(TNG 1.17, 1988)
In 2364, the experience of seeing terraforming happen first-hand is apparently a rare opportunity and
thrilling scientific inquiry for all members of the away team. Luisa Kim (Elizabeth Lindsey), biosphere
designer and one of three terraformers at the base, meets the crew with kindness and excitement:“We
take a lifeless planet, and little by little, transform it to an M-class environment, capable of supporting
life. Terraforming makes you feel a little god-like” (TNG 1.18, 1988). In Deep Space Nine (at a
similar point in the timeline), Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell) echoes the sentiment: “It’s an amazing talent,
bringing dead worlds to life, but humility and common sense aren’t exactly part of the job descrip-
tion” (“Second Sight” [DS9 2.9, 1993]). It is in part the dangers present in the scientific project of
an ecological colonization, the “playing god” role of introducing life to a planet, which terraforming
episodes often jointly interrogate. Both Kim and Dax, though in different ways, point to the ways in
which Star Trek recognizes the tension between romanticizing terraforming and the ways in which
ego often accompanies its projects.
In “Home Soil,” after a rogue laser kills one of the terraformers, Doctor Crusher (Gates McFadden)
analyzes a sample of inorganic matter taken from the laser residue and determines that the matter,
primarily silicon-based, is able to organize, communicate, and reproduce, and is therefore a form
of inorganic albeit sentient life. The life form demands its freedom from the human terraformers
and Picard and the Enterprise crew transport the terraforming team to the nearest starbase, leaving
Velara III quarantined and, therefore, its microscopic inhabitants alone. Thus, the episode revisits a
theme that is explored often throughout Star Trek, i.e., the interrogation of the category of life. The
episode challenges the distinction between organic and inorganic life and the paucity of available
tools with which to explore them. In effect, the notion that one can explore or exploit anything non-
carbon-based simply because an environment does not support life-as-one-knows-it, is challenged
and upended.
Numerous examples of geo-engineering occur throughout the Star Trek series though, again,
perhaps most often in TNG, where Starfleet vessels are called on to intervene in (often natural) geo-
physical processes and structures that threaten entire living species on various planets. In “A Matter
of Time” (TNG 5.9, 1991), Penthara IV is struck by an asteroid which will soon have grave effects
on the planet that Picard likens to the nuclear winter on twenty-first-century Earth, including a
dust cloud that would lower the planet’s temperature by 10–12 degrees in less than two weeks and
condemn its inhabitants to extinction. At great risk (should their calculations be off, the entire
population would be wiped out), Picard decides to go ahead with a plan to set off a chain reaction
of ionization in the atmosphere which, after failed attempts that have rendered the final attempt
extremely risky, does in fact successfully restore the ecosystem to balance and saves life on the planet.
In “Inheritance” (TNG 7.2, 1993), the core of Atrea IV is cooling which causes major planetary
disturbances that will soon make the planet inhospitable to the Atrean population living there. The
Enterprise uses its phasers to drill holes and inject plasma directly into the core to counteract the
effects. Not coincidentally, this episode is also about the distinctions between organic and artificial life
(see Chapter 57), where Data’s “mother,” Dr. Juliana Tainer (Fionnula Flanagan), is revealed to be an
android. In the future imagined in Star Trek, often a single starship alone has the ability to alter geo-
physical planetary processes, as well as to course-correct their planetary fate. Both creating ecosystems
through terraforming as well as effectively balancing damaged ecosystems are within the power of
Starfleet. Geo-engineering research here on twenty-first-century Earth has both contributed to the
speculative projects of Star Trek as well as been influenced by the franchise (see Chapter 47), as the
effects of climate change, including rising temperatures, acidifying oceans, and biodiversity loss on an
unprecedented scale continue to present new and urgent problems.
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Technology, Queer Affect, Ecology

As with any technology, speculative or not, certain natural resources are required to produce and
power them. Whereas most of the ships in Star Trek rely on dilithium mining to power their
warp drives, Discovery is set a decade before TOS, and features a ship powered by a biological
organism engaged in complex ecological relations. Central to the series is the “organic propul-
sion system” or the “spore-drive,” a technology which powers intergalactic space and time jumps
(see Chapter 7). The system relies on an interconnected mycelial network of the mushrooms
Prototaxites stellaviatori, which are cultivated aboard the ship; later, when required for spore replen-
ishment, they are harvested on a terraformed moon, Delta 2. The network is described by Lt.
Stamets (Anthony Rapp) as “the veins and muscles that hold our galaxies together” (“Context Is
for Kings” [DSC 1.3, 2017]). It is a discrete subspace domain that “could be conceptualized as a vast
microscopic web, an intergalactic ecosystem, or an infinite number of roads leading everywhere”
(Memory Alpha n.d.). In short, this multi-species interconnectedness (it also involves a macroscopic
tardigrade as well as Stamets himself) is somehow able to power technologies that exceed human
limits of space and time travel, though it is clear that both the mycelial network and the tardigrade
suffer from over-exploitation; both either die or near death in the process (“Choose Your Pain”
[DSC 1.5, 2017]).
Paul Stamets’ relationship with Hugh Culber (Wilson Cruz) is not merely a way of checking an
identity politics box (see Chapter 52) but is in fact central to the series and especially to the eco-
entangled technology on which the series relies. Stamets is neurally connected to the ship, driving
its jumps through a connection to his physical body as well as with his mind, with intellect as well
as with emotion. At a crucial moment, his partner Hugh helps guide him and Discovery out of the
mycelial network to safety:
Stamets: I don’t know where to go.

Culber: The network is a gift. It’s the thread that weaves life through space.
Stamets: I can’t even find my way out.
Culber: Follow the music, Paul. Open your eyes.
(DSC 1.13, 2017)
Expanding notions of ecological entanglements between humans, fungi, micro-and macro-organisms,

and the cosmos, which all rely on one another in some way to survive, the spore drive as a central new
technology in the Star Trek television franchise also provocatively suggests we consider the affective
bonds of ecological relations.
It is not the last time that the connection between these two will help to pull the one out of
the network and back into the human world. In “Saints of Imperfection” (DSC 2.5, 2018), Stamets
finds Hugh, thought to be dead, and is only able to coax him back by recounting memories of their
third date together. As the first intimate relationship between men in Star Trek television, there
remains much to be said for the ways in which LGBTQ+attachments inform the show and the
very energies driving the miraculous Discovery, including bringing ample scholarship on queer ecol-
ogies (Sandilands and Erikson 2010) together with the series (see Chapter 53). Stamets’ love for and
fascination with the mycelial network also recall contemporary eco-theoretical pursuits which turn
to mushrooms, slime molds, and other fungal bodies to attempt to formulate radically different sys-
temic imaginaries of politics and kinship (Tsing 2015; Haraway 2016). It is no coincidence that these
ecological thinkers are also often writing alongside queer and feminist theory, all of which can be
brought usefully to bear on the ecological relations at work in DSC. The ways in which a fungus—
a decompositional, often asexual and sex and gender-less, underground-communicative, sporously
mobile lifeform—powers intergalactic travel is itself worthy of further inquiry, and suggests a non-
teleological, queer ecological spatiality and temporality.
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Alison Sperling
Conclusion
This chapter is by no means a comprehensive ecological reading of Star Trek. But it does attempt
to point to key interventions made by Star Trek into ecological thought as well as the ways in
which growing environmentalist attitudes and a changing climate might have influenced the themes
developed by the television franchise. Indeed, Star Trek has consistently explored the planetary and
possible outer spatial, cosmological effects of human actions such as over-consumption, resource
extraction, carbon emissions, and other forms of pollution. Most importantly for my exploration here
are the ways in which Star Trek actually reimagines ecological thinking by pushing at the limits of
what we consider ecological systems and relations. In its speculation about how humans and other
species would interact with foreign outer space phenomena, Star Trek often posits ecologies without
life as we know it. Viewers are challenged to rethink life’s relationship to environmental sover-
eignty. In the last decade, as bodies of water in India and New Zealand are gaining the same rights
as (most) human bodies (Tanasescu 2017), these questions of the liveliness of ecological networks
are of crucial legal and political importance. In Star Trek’s development of terraforming narratives,
the franchise explores fantasies of escapism, and the dangers of repeating elsewhere the damaging
colonial extractivist practices that have been long underway on Earth. And in the many biotech-
nologies throughout the more than five decades of Star Trek, there is no doubt a growing queer
eco-consciousness in Star Trek that powerfully suggests that even the most advanced technological
developments are situated and infused with affect. Together these various themes and numerous
episodes examined briefly here demonstrate a bold ecological consciousness in Star Trek that is not
merely self-congratulatory in its environmentalist leanings, but one that is willing to challenge even
its own underlying and foundational ecological assumptions.
Notes
1 See Keith R.A. DeCandido, who writes: “This episode is pretty universally despised, and routinely makes
‘worst-of ’ lists for both Voyager in particular and Trek in general” (2020).
2 See “Terraforming,” (Pinkus and Woods 2019).
3 Terraforming and sf scholar Chris Pak has described the ways in which, for Fogg, terraforming is distinct from
geo-engineering astrophysical engineering, but like Pak, this short section will consider the physical planetary
adaptation as relevant to terraforming discussions (see Pak 2012).
References
Anker, Peder. 2005. “The Ecological Colonization of Space.” Environmental History 10, no. 2 (April):
239–268.
Braidotti, Rosi, and Rick Dolphijn, Eds. 2017. Philosophy After Nature. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
Canavan, Gerry, and Kim Stanley Robinson. 2014. Green Planets: Ecology and Science Fiction. Middletown,
CT: Wesleyan University Press.
Cooper, Melinda. 2007. “Life, Autopoiesis, Debt: Inventing the Bioeconomy.” Distinktion 8, no. 1 (Spring): 25–43.
DeCandido, Keith R.A. 2020. “Star Trek: Voyager Rewatch: ‘Threshold’.” Tor.com, May 7, 2020. Available
at: www.tor.com/2020/05/07/star-trek-voyager-rewatch-threshold/.
Fogg, Martyn J. 2011. “Planetary Engineering Bibliography.” Available at: www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~mfogg/
biblio.htm.
Haraway, Donna J. 2016. Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Durham, NC: Duke
University Press.
Helmreich, Stefan. 2012. “Extraterrestrial Relativism.” Anthropological Quarterly 85, no. 4: 1125–1140.
Hörl, Erich. 2017. “Introduction to General Ecology: The Ecologization of Thinking.” In General Ecology: The
New Ecological Paradigm, edited by Erich Hörl and James Burton, 1–74. London: Bloomsbury.
Lioi, Anthony. 2016. Nerd Ecology: Defending the Earth with Unpopular Culture. London: Bloomsbury.
McKibben, Bill. 2014. The End of Nature. New York: Random House.
Morton, Timothy. 2009. Ecology Without Nature: Rethinking Environmental Aesthetics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
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Memory Alpha. n.d. “Mycelial Network.” Available at: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Mycelial_netw

ork. Last modified November 28, 2020.
Pak, Chris. 2012. “Terraforming 101.” SFRA Review 302 (Fall): 6–15.
Pinkus, Karen and Derek Woods, Eds. 2019. “Terraforming.” Diacritics: A Review of Contemporary Criticism 47,
no. 3.3.
Sandilands, Catriona-Mortimer, and Bruce Erikson, eds. 2010. Queer Ecologies: Sex, Nature, Politics, Desire.
Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Science Fiction Encyclopedia. 2021. “Ecology.” September 13, 2021. Available at: https://sf-encyclopedia.com/
entry/ecology.
Strathern, Marilyn. 1992. After Nature: English Kinship in the Late Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Tanasescu, Mihnea. 2017. “Rivers Get Human Rights: They Can Sue to Protect Themselves.” Scientific American,
June 19, 2017. Available at: www.scientificamerican.com/article/r ivers-get-human-r ights-they-can-sue-to-
protect-themselves/.
Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt. 2015. The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Star Trek Episodes
The Original Series
The Next Generation

1.17 “Home Soil” 1988.
3.1 “Evolution” 1989.
5.9 “A Matter of Time” 1991.
7.2 “Inheritance” 1993.
7.9 “Force of Nature” 1993.
Deep Space Nine

2.9 “Second Sight” 1993.
6.20 “His Way” 1998.
Voyager
1.5 “The Cloud” 1995.
2.15 “Threshold” 1996.
5.1 “Night” 1998.
5.21 “Juggernaut” 1999.
6.25 “The Haunting of Deck Twelve” 2000.
Enterprise
Discovery
1.3 “Context is for Kings” 2017.
1.13 “What’s Past Is Prologue” 2017.
2.5 “Saints of Imperfection” 2018.
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44
WAR AND CONFLICT
Mareike Spychala
Introduction: No Conflict Among Starfleet Officers

When Gene Roddenberry was helming the Star Trek franchise, he famously stipulated that there
should not be any conflict between Starfleet officers on the show as a way to highlight how far
humanity had come since the twentieth century (Altman and Gross 2016, 417). However, this
rule was never universally applied even when Roddenberry was still in charge. This was in part
because the rule proved challenging for writers, who found ways to work around it, for example, by
having characters fall under the influence of an alien virus as in TOS’s “The Naked Time” (TOS 1.6,
1966) and “This Side of Paradise” (TOS 1.25, 1967), or depicting conflicts between crew members
like Gary Mitchell (Gary Lockwood) and Dr. Elizabeth Dehner (Sally Kellerman) after their exposure
to the Galactic Barrier (TOS 1.1, 1966). Moreover, conflicts with other captains and Starfleet brass
became mainstays of the franchise. In the later series, the writers, as Rick Berman notes, “didn’t want
to break Gene’s rules … that’s why we … put our people into an environment where there are a
lot of characters who are not Starfleet officers, and that enabled us to develop that conflict” (Altman
and Gross 2016, 417). Examples include the Ferengi Quark (Armin Shimerman) in DS9, VOY’s
Neelix (Ethan Philips), or the former members of the Maquis, a rebel group made up of colonists
and disillusioned Starfleet officers, who become part of Voyager’s crew. Newer shows like Discovery and
films like Insurrection broke this rule even more deliberately not only to create narrative suspense, but
also to interrogate the franchise’s purported utopian future (see Chapter 60).
Despite Rodenberry’s intentions, there are narratological and worldbuilding reasons that explain
the frequent use of conflicts and war. For one, they serve to introduce a form of narrative sus-
pense. While all shows feature episodes in which a threat and/or a conflict are resolved (mostly)
peacefully—examples include TOS’s “Balance of Terror” (TOS 1.8, 1966), TNG’s “Darmok” (TNG
5.2, 1991), DS9’s“Civil Defense” (DS9 3.7, 1994), VOY’s “Worst Case Scenario” (VOY 3.25, 1997),
or DSC’s “An Obol for Charon” (DSC 2.4, 2019)—there are also many instances across the franchise
where encounters escalate violently. Even full-scale war breaks out, usually with non-Federation
species or alliances, for example, the Cardassians in TNG or the Dominion in DS9. The role that
conflict and war play in Star Trek’s storytelling and worldbuilding is closely connected to the genres
and ideological underpinnings Star Trek draws from. As Stefan Rabitsch shows, “the Star Trek con-
tinuum is governed by two distinct yet interrelated and compatible themes—the frontier and Rule
Britannia. Together, they form a transatlantic double consciousness at the heart of Star Trek” (2019,
7). Conflict or open warfare, usually in an imperial or colonial setting, are an important aspect of
both the American Western and the British naval narrative. Consequently, the encounter and pos-
sible conflict with new alien species are presented as inevitable and one of the central building blocks
of Star Trek’s imperial worlds.1 They also, as E. Leigh McKagen points out in her chapter in this
322 DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917-50

War and Conflict
Handbook, “position the Federation as morally superior to the antagonistic Empires, which deflects
the imperial tendencies of the Federation” (see Chapter 45).
Anglo-American Wars in Space

Historical as well as future history wars, that is wars that are part of the show’s history of the future,
have important storytelling and worldbuilding functions in common. They are often used to estab-
lish a connection between the future presented in the show and the viewers’ contemporary reality,
their history, and identity; or, as Martin Gabriel puts it in his chapter in this book, “if the franchise is
in fact history and utopia at the same time, it is a North American version of history and the utopian
vision of a society build on Anglo-American foundations” (see Chapter 41). Very often, these wars
add to the Eurocentric cultural baggage the Federation—and the franchise as a whole—carry, due
to their liberal humanist foundations. In my use of the term “Eurocentric” here, I follow Ella Shohat
and Robert Stam’s arguments in Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media (2014); they
postulate that in a Eurocentric discourse “history is assumed to be European history” (ibid., 1). They
further make clear that, when using this term or writing about Europeans, they “refer not only to
Europeans per se but also to the ‘neo-Europeans’ of the Americas, Australia, and elsewhere” (ibid.,
1). Seen through this lens, it becomes even clearer that these wars are crucial for confirming the
Federation as the successor of the United States. They thus create a sense of historical connection
and inevitability: “[e]‌xtrapolated from the Anglocentric telos of western modernity, the Federation
represents a nostalgic ideal of the shared, transatlantic Anglophone experience” (Rabitsch 2019, 216).
In addition to furnishing the Star Trek universe with a vague historical timeline that provides suf-
ficient distance between the contemporary audience and the depicted future, future history wars, and
the way in which they draw on historical wars for inspiration, serve to frame and make understand-
able alien wars—for example, VOY’s “The Q and the Grey” (VOY 3.11, 1996) uses the American
Civil War to make a conflict between the Q intelligible to viewers—or to establish a contrast between
the Federation as a Neo-Enlightenment utopia and its alien Others. In addition, historical wars like
World War II (hereafter WWII) and future history wars like World War III and the Eugenics Wars,
first introduced in TOS’s “Space Seed” (TOS 1.24, 1967), are presented as key decision points that
humanity needed to weather in its progress toward the utopian future depicted in Star Trek.
That future history wars are mainly used to create a contrast between a violent past and the utopian
Federation is highlighted by Spock’s (Leonard Nimoy) description of humanity’s “attempt to improve
the race through selective breeding” resulting in the Eugenics Wars (“Space Seed” [TOS 1.24, 1967]).2
He is challenged by McCoy (DeForest Kelley) who makes an explicit distinction between humans
of the past and the show’s present. Later in the same episode, conversations between Khan Noonien
Singh (Ricardo Montalban) and Spock, and the discussions between the senior officers about Khan’s
role during the Eugenics Wars, serve to highlight the difference between this past era, its unethical sci-
entific experiments and violent conflicts, and the democratic and egalitarian present the characters of
TOS inhabit. In addition, because Khan is identified as Indian, his Eugenic experiments and plans for
world leadership were not only presented at a temporal remove from audiences in the 1960s, but also
located firmly outside of the US. Not only does this evoke an orientalist narrative but by contrasting
Khan with Kirk (William Shatner), McCoy, and Scotty (James Doohan) it also obscures the impact
that Eugenics and expansionism had in US history. Consequently, the episode implicitly confirms the
connection between the US, audiences of the present, and the utopian Federation.
Historical and Future History Wars

While numerous historical wars are featured across the Star Trek franchise, and TOS is famously
associated with allegorical depictions of the Cold War, I will take WWII as my key example for
the depictions of historical wars because it is used repeatedly in different shows.3 TOS most openly
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Mareike Spychala
engages with WWII in “The City on the Edge of Forever” (TOS 1.28, 1967) and “Patterns of Force”
(TOS 2.23, 1968), albeit with slightly different approaches to the war and its lessons.4 However, in
both episodes, “the remembrance of the war was mostly about what [Americans] had done and what
type of people they were” (Bodnar 2010, 165). In the former, Kirk—often read as standing in for
the quintessential American—has to act against his instincts and sacrifice Edith Keeler (Joan Collins),
a woman he has fallen in love with, in order to allow history to proceed in the right way, namely
the story implies, in a way that allows the US to emerge as one of the world’s superpowers in the
aftermath of WWII, a development that will subsequently lead to the future posited in Star Trek. In
“Patterns of Force” (TOS 2.23, 1968), a Federation scientist’s intervention in a planet’s affairs led to
the establishment of a Nazi Germany-like state based on his wrong interpretation of history, which
Kirk and Spock need to correct to put the planets’ inhabitants back onto what TOS presents as the
right path of history. This highlights that while WWII is seen as necessary for human development
toward a utopian future, alien races are usually judged more harshly on their acts of violence and need
to be actively prevented from descending into savagery.
In both episodes, American audiences saw themselves as the “type of people” who would
do everything necessary to prevent the victory of fascism and secure the utopia presented by
Star Trek. This basic assumption holds even for newer shows, with the difference that WWII is
more often used as an inspiration when creating alien races that are specifically presented as a hos-
tile Other and not as much as a way to interrogate human history. In VOY’s “The Killing Game”
(VOY 4.18, 1998), for example, the ship’s crew is caught in several holodeck simulations, one of
which reproduces Nazi-occupied France, positioning Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew), Seven of
Nine (Jeri Ryan), and Tuvok (Tim Russ) as members of the Resistance. That these circumstances
are part of a game played by the Hirogen, a species Voyager had had antagonistic dealings with pre-
viously, squarely positions them as fascists, while emphasizing how much further the Federation
and its varied citizens have progressed.
ENT’s two-parter “Stormfront” (ENT 4.1/2, 2004) also features Starfleet officers as Resistance
fighters when Archer (Scott Bakula) joins the “anachronistically racially integrated” (Sharp 2011,
37) American Resistance against a joint alien and Nazi invasion in an altered 1940s United States.
This counterfactual presentation of US-American society in the early twentieth century is a common
feature in post-9/11 representations of WWII. ENT’s representation of this particular war joins the
ranks of other contemporary US-American media products (e.g., The Man in the High Castle [2015–
19]) and thus has to be seen as being about both WWII and the “War on Terror.” As Lynn Spigel
has argued, the references to WWII in news media, TV series, and films “offered people a sense of
historical continuity with a shared, and above all moral, past” (2004, 245). ENT does the same thing
and connects this imagined past to the imagined, utopian future of the Star Trek franchise in a cause-
and-effect sequence that affirms the essential goodness of the United States (and “the West” more
generally) and eschews any critical engagement with the escalating “War on Terror.” In addition,
this speaks to the difficulties of presenting the irrationality of terrorism and of the “War on Terror”
in an allegorical manner, especially because terrorism mostly does not fit into the liberal-humanist
conceptions of humanity and progress Star Trek is founded on.
A notable exception is DS9’s Kira Nerys (Nana Visitor), who used to be an operative carrying out
attacks against the Cardassians occupying Bajor. Her history as freedom fighter/terrorist worked in the
context of the Star Trek universe not only because it once again drew on familiar WWII allegories that
pit the Bajorans against the fascist Cardassians, but also because DS9 was written before 9/11 and the
shifts in the perception of terrorism in US-American culture it led to. Actress Nana Visitor and some
of the writers reflect on the changed circumstances and how Kira’s character may have been written
differently in the documentary What We Left Behind (2019), highlighting the ways in which changes in
international politics are reflected in the representation of war and conflict in Star Trek.
The crucial difference, then, between TOS’s depiction of WWII and those in later series is that
in TOS, Kirk, Spock, and McCoy must not interfere so that history can run its course, while VOY
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War and Conflict
features a virtual struggle against aliens-as-Nazis, and in ENT, a multiracial coalition, in Archer, needs
a white man’s help to turn back the alien and Nazi invasion of the US and end the Temporal Cold
War that has haunted the Enterprise since the show’s first season. This is part of what David Greven
has called this series’ “broad reactionary agenda” (2008), but it also highlights once again the diffe-
rence in the presentation of WWII as a stepping-stone in human history in “The City on the
Edge of Forever,” to something that needs to actively be interfered in when aliens are involved in
“Stormfront.” While ENT is similar to VOY and other shows in that regard, the fact that the episodes
involve actual time travel into Earth’s twentieth century is undoubtedly influenced by the social and
political climate of the post-9/11 years. At the same time, however, these comparisons highlight
that WWII, when presented as part of humanity’s development and to establish the Federation as a
successor to a decidedly Anglo-or Eurocentric tradition, is portrayed as a “necessary evil,” as Gabriel
puts it (see Chapter 41) on the way to Star Trek’s future. Moreover, Earth history is a source that
allows for the use of “past peoples … as templates for Star Trek villains” (Carney 2013, 308).
I would like to briefly return to the way in which WWII is used to create alien others, serving
as a template for future history wars, such as the Cardassian Occupation of Bajor. While it can also
be read as an allegory of the Balkan Wars, Matthew Kapell sees it as “an Americanized Holocaust”
(2000, 109). He makes a convincing argument for the ways in which DS9 fails to represent the
horror of the Holocaust because it “falls back on kitsch and happy endings,” and argues that the
possibility of a Holocaust in Star Trek’s utopian, technology-driven future “is the direct refutation
of all Star Trek seems to argue for. Where Trek suggests that increased technological know-how
will improve lives, in the Holocaust it only made the killing easier, swifter, and surer” (ibid., 107).
This reading, however, disregards the fact that conflict and war are usually temporally or spatially
removed from the Federation or occur between the Federation and an outside power. The fact that
the Cardassians are not part of the Federation is precisely what makes the Occupation of Bajor pos-
sible. Or, to put it differently, the Occupation of Bajor—as an allegory of the Holocaust—is used
to highlight the differences between the utopian Federation and the Cardassians and how the latter
misuse technology.
As such, references to future history wars and the construction of an imagined, dark past leading
up to Star Trek’s golden future hide the expansionism and imperialism of the Federation itself and
help to favorably contrast it against non-Federation regimes, past and present, and imperialist alien
Others (see Chapter 45). This clear-cut differentiation between the Federation and its Others is
sometimes undercut, however, for example, in VOY’s “Nothing Human” (VOY 5.8, 1998). In this
episode, B’Elanna Torres (Roxanen Dawson) can only be saved with the help of the holographic
reproduction of a Cardassian war criminal who is quite explicitly modeled on Nazi doctors like Josef
Mengele, opening up spaces to question whether the Federation and Starfleet are as morally superior
and enlightened as they are usually portrayed.
On-Screen Wars
Not only has the portrayal of historical and future history wars been amended over time, the wars
depicted on screen have also changed. This is especially noticeable in DS9, which in its “war story-
line had seen a substantial shift away from the high-minded modernist assumptions of TNG” (Barrett
and Barrett 2017, 59). Something similar can be said for the Federation-Klingon War depicted in the
first season of DSC. Both of these storylines show the Federation locked in drawn-out wars against
an outside enemy and interrogate the effects such conflicts have on the utopian future the Star Trek
franchise is famous for. While the Federation and Starfleet are mostly portrayed as the “good guys”
in conflicts with the Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians, and the Borg in TOS and TNG, both DS9
and DSC take steps to complicate such an easy dichotomy and ask fundamental questions about the
ways in which a supposedly utopian society might betray its values if under threat. And while ENT
also features a longer war arc against the Xindi, this one is more in line with post-9/11 pro-war
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Mareike Spychala
thinking and “topically reflects national terrors over terrorism” (Greven 2008), rather than presenting
a sustained criticism of the Federation and its shortcomings (see Chapter 6).
DS9’s Dominion War evolves from a détente between the Federation and the Dominion into an
all-out war over the course of several seasons, highlighting a shift from more episodic storytelling and
conflict resolution to more serialized forms of TV (see Chapter 4). The Founders, the shapeshifting
leaders of the Dominion, are, in the tradition of Star Trek antagonists, positioned as antithetical to the
Federation, declaring: “what you can control can’t hurt you” (“The Search, Part II” [DS9 3.2, 1994]).
They also engage in genetic engineering to create subservient races like the Vorta and the Jem’Hadar
(“The Jem’Hadar” [DS9 2.26, 1994]). It is for these reasons that the Dominion War has sometimes
been read as another allegory of WWII, with the Dominion standing in for the Axis powers (Kapell
2000, 111) and thus functioning in a similar way as the future history wars discussed above. There
is an added dimension to this storyline, however. During the war’s multi-season arc, the show’s cen-
tral characters, especially Captain Sisko (Avery Brooks), struggle with the war’s fallout and their own
decisions and actions as they try to defeat the Dominion.
The two episodes that best exemplify this are “Inquisition” (DS9 6.18, 1998) and “In the Pale
Moonlight” (DS9 6.19, 1998). The former deals with lingering prejudices encountered by genet-
ically engineered humans like Dr. Bashir (Alexander Siddig), who is suspected of treason, and also
introduces Starfleet’s black-ops branch Section 31. It presents an indictment of war-fueled para-
noia, excessive interrogation techniques, and a “the end justifies the means” approach. While TNG’s
“The Drumhead” (TNG 4.21, 1991) locates the source of the McCarthy-style witch-hunt with
one overzealous Admiral (Jean Simmons), “Inquisition” (DS9 6.18, 1998) points at more systemic,
but hidden, unsavory structures within Starfleet itself. As Security Chief Odo (René Auberjonois)
remarks, “[e]‌very other great power has a unit like Section 31. The Romulans have the Tal Shiar, the
Cardassians had the Obsidian Order.” It is telling that it is one of the non-Starfleet characters who
points out this parallel and counteracts the usual contrast between the Federation and its adversaries
which reaffirms the Federation as the shining, Neo-Enlightenment example that has moved beyond
such tactics.
“In the Pale Moonlight” focuses even more on the way a drawn-out war compromises Starfleet
officers’ commitment to their ideals. It opens with Captain Sisko detailing in a private log his involve-
ment in a chain of events that lead to the covert assassination of the Romulan Senator Vreenak
(Stephen McHattie) and the Romulans’ subsequent entry into the war. While Sisko, like other
captains before him, had been positioned as a morally righteous bulwark in previous episodes like
“Paradise Lost” (DS9 4.12, 1996), where he prevented a military coup by high-ranking Starfleet
officers, here he grapples with decisions that are a far cry from any moral certainty. However, in the
episode’s closing monologue Sisko justifies his actions:
So … I lied. I cheated. I bribed men to cover the crimes of other men. I am an accessory
to murder. But the most damning thing of all … I think I can live with it. And if I had to
do it all over again, I would. … a guilty conscience is a small price to pay for the safety of
the Alpha Quadrant.
(DS9 6.19, 1998)
The question the episode seems to be asking is whether or not the moral center of the show can
hold. And while Sisko offers a rationalization for his actions, his personal log—and especially the fact
that he deletes it—make the audience complicit and leave them questioning Sisko’s actions and, if
one extrapolates, their wider implications for the Federation, its values, and how those values come
under pressure and are maybe even sacrificed in a time of war.
These two episodes are not the only ones that show the effects of war and raise questions about the
Federation. DS9’s last two seasons also feature an episode that is critical of military leaders who put
glory and their own ambition before the survival of their crew (“Valiant” [DS9 6.22, 1998]), covert
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War and Conflict
operations (“Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges” [DS9 7.16, 1999]), the use of space landmines (“The
Siege of AR-558” [DS9 7.8, 1998]), and what amounts to biological warfare against the Dominion
(“Extreme Measures” [DS9 7.23, 1999]). While the genocide of the Founders is ultimately averted
(“What We Leave Behind” [DS9 7.25/26, 1999]), the Federation Council at first decided to withhold
the cure from them to force them to surrender (“The Dogs of War” [DS9 7.24, 1999]), thereby
once again confronting viewers with a less-than-utopian vision of the Federation and, ultimately,
highlighting how the ideals professed in other instances of the franchise too easily become optional
under the pressure of war.
DSC explores similar themes, though, admittedly, in a more condensed format as the war it
depicts is resolved at the end of its first season. In its approach to telling this war story and espe-
cially in including the alternate, dystopian Mirror Universe, DSC upholds some of the franchise’s
earlier traditions in dealing with war, while also expanding some of the ways in which Star Trek
has previously used this alternative universe and criticized American militarism. Steffen Hantke
argues that,
the alternate universe serves merely as an instrument for ‘defining what constitutes a utopia
through its absence’ (Jenkins 190). The incongruity between ideal and reality tends to come
across as hypocrisy, in STAR TREK as much as in American politics.
(2014, 571)
What is more, while episodes set in the Mirror Universe have subversive potential, they “re-
contextualize that moment of release in a manner that immediately reabsorbs it into the larger mech-
anism of repression that has structured, invisibly, its appearance all along” (ibid., 575). DSC, at least
in its first season, takes a slightly different route of engagement as far as militarism and the Mirror
Universe are concerned. While it still serves as a sharp contrast to the usual utopia of Starfleet and
the Federation, viewers are confronted with the alternate universe after this utopia has already been
destabilized by months of a brutal war.
What is more, once the Discovery returns to the Prime Universe where the Federation teeters on
the brink of defeat, the remnants of Starfleet Command and the civilian leadership decide to com-
pletely destroy the Klingon homeworld, a plan that is only foiled by the crew of the Discovery, led by
Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green), threatening a mutiny (“Will You Take My Hand?” [DSC
1.15, 2018]). While the preceding episode (“The War Without, the War Within”[DSC 1.14, 2018])
makes it clear that the plan was arrived at with the input of the Mirror Universe’s emperor Georgiou
(Michelle Yeoh), and thus lays some of the blame at her feet, it is still high-ranking members of the
Federation, most notably Admiral Katrina Cornwell (Jayne Brook) and Sarek (James Frain) who
approve it, highlighting the “undemocratic structures” of Starfleet and the Federation which Rabitsch
has also noted for the franchise as a whole (2019, 212, 219). These decisions, and the near loss of the
utopia that Star Trek has long been famous for, thus, cannot solely be blamed on the intrusion from
a darker alternative universe. As Judith Rauscher argues,
DSC suggests that Terran ideologies can easily remain undetected … or unopposed …,
if those in power and those following orders unquestioningly fail to speak up, because a
temporary alliance with the enemy ‘within’ seems justified in order to defeat the enemy
‘without.’
(2020, 209)
In a crucial difference to episodes like “In the Pale Moonlight,” we see Burnham make the
journey from taking a “the ends justify the means” stance in the first episode (“The Vulcan Hello”
[DSC 1.1, 2017]) to proclaiming that the Federation’s principles “are all we have” (“Will You Take
My Hand?” [DSC 1.15, 2018]), thus reaffirming a commitment to the utopian ideals that have been
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central to the franchise. Here, then, DSC not only examines how the utopia of TOS was preceded by
struggles about the direction of the Federation, it also reaffirms the need for individual and collective
vigilance against regressive ideologies and tactics, even in a Neo-Enlightenment future. In a marked
contrast to historical and future history wars, on-screen wars, then, have more often been used to
interrogate and criticize the Star Trek franchise’s purported utopianism.
The Effect of War and Conflict on Individuals

In addition to violent conflicts and all-out wars, different Star Trek shows have, over the years, started
to include subplots, and sometimes even entire episodes that deal with the toll that conflicts and war
can take on individuals. Some episodes, like DS9’s “The Siege of AR-558” (DS9 7.8, 1998), VOY’s
“The Raven” (VOY 4.6, 1997), “Equinox” (VOY 5.26, 1999), and “Memorial” (VOY 6.14, 2000),
DSC’s “Into the Forest I Go” (DSC 1.9, 2017), and “Forget Me Not” (DSC 3.4, 2020), and PIC’s
“The Impossible Box” (PIC 1.6, 2020) feature scenes that show characters who suffer from post-
traumatic stress. The most thorough investigation of war trauma and its effects, however, are presented
in TNG’s “The Hunted” (TNG 3.11, 1990), “The Wounded” (TNG 4.12, 1991), and “Family” (TNG
4.2, 1990) and DS9’s “It’s Only a Paper Moon” (DS9 7.10, 1998). While the first two of these
episodes seem to be clearly inspired by changing discourses about veterans of the Vietnam War,
“Family” deals with the trauma Picard (Patrick Stewart) sustained after his assimilation by the Borg
(“The Best of Both Worlds” [TNG 3.26, 1990]), and “It’s Only a Paper Moon” depicts Nog’s (Aron
Eisenberg) struggle to readjust to station life after he lost one of his legs during the Dominion War
(DS9 7.8, 1998).
The gradual inclusion of storylines about war trauma and PTSD mirrors the creation of the
diagnostic category of PTSD in the aftermath of the Vietnam War as well as society’s changing
attitudes toward veterans. While veterans were often depicted as “crazy, prone to violence, and
otherwise disabled by the war” (Lembcke 1998, 4), a depiction echoed by Commodore Decker
(William Windom) in TOS’s “The Doomsday Machine” (TOS 2.6, 1967), this portrayal was re-
framed throughout the 1980s, with veterans increasingly shown as avenging their fallen or abandoned
comrades and protecting society (Jeffords 1989). Star Trek includes stories that fall on either side of
this divide, with “The Wounded” showing a Starfleet captain who attacks Cardassian ships, threatening
a newly established peace treaty because he cannot overcome his trauma and desire for revenge.
While this episode is sympathetic to his struggles, it also highlights, via a subplot focusing on Miles
O’Brien (Colm Meaney) and his own post-war difficulties, that Captain Maxwell’s (Bob Gunton)
actions are clearly wrong. “The Hunted,” on the other hand, is more critical of society’s treatment of
veterans, falling in line with the Nixon era’s recasting of the loss of the Vietnam War being due to a
lack of commitment on the part of politicians and wider civil society.5 The portrayal of specifically
war-related PTSD in DSC’s first season seems to fall back into older patterns because both characters
portrayed as potentially suffering from war-related PTSD, Gabriel Lorca (Jason Isaacs) and Ash Tyler
(Shazad Latif), are revealed to be an imposter from the Mirror Universe and a Klingon double-agent,
respectively. As Ina Batzke (2020, 114–116) has argued, this plays into entrenched media portrayals
of PTSD. In a step away from these portrayals, DSC’s third season has included a more nuanced focus
on healing from trauma, though not specifically war trauma. This reflection of changing societal
ideas surrounding trauma in Star Trek highlights the influence historical context has on popular
storytelling.
Conclusion
As this chapter has shown, war and conflict—especially with species and alien races who are not
members of the Federation—are recurring themes in the Star Trek franchise. Across the different TV
shows, war has been used in any one of three ways. First, episodes evoke historical wars and future
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history wars to establish a timeline that connects (American) viewers and their past to the future
depicted in the show and highlights the enlightened values of the world presented in Star Trek.
Second, these wars emphasize the Federation as a utopia and locate injustices and atrocities firmly
outside its boundaries, obscuring, in the process, the existence of the same in US history and in
the Federation itself. Third, when Star Trek shows tell extended, on-screen war narratives, they use
them to interrogate precisely the utopian worldbuilding the other two uses of war contribute to.
Consequently, war serves crucial worldbuilding and storytelling functions throughout the different
Star Trek shows—not to mention the extended universe of novels and video games—that are ripe
for further scholarly examinations.
Notes
1 Immanuel Wallerstein’s “World-Systems Analysis” (2009, 13–26) expands on the concept of imperial
worlds.
2 While TOS implies that World War III and the Eugenics Wars were the same event (or series of events) taking
place in the 1990s, they are situated at different points in time in later series and films (see Chapter 41). Direct
references in TNG’s “Encounter at Farpoint” (TNG 1.1/2, 1987) and First Contact (1996), suggest that WWIII
takes place at some point in the twenty-first century. However, various events leading up to them are also
situated in the twenty-first century, for example, the mid-twenty-first-century Bell Riots in DS9’s “Past Tense”
(DS9 3.11/12, 1995) or the Millennium Gate in VOY’s “11:59” (VOY 5.23, 1999). This vague trajectory is
typical of utopias, (Rabitsch 2019, 210), and makes it possible for WWIII and the Eugenics Wars to function as
a mid-point in the history of the larger Star Trek universe, between referenced historical wars and the future
represented across the franchise.
3 Rabitsch points to the Napoleonic Wars as another example (2019, 211).
4 “The City on the Edge of Forever” has also been read as commenting on the Vietnam War (Franklin 1994,
37–39).
5 For more on this shift, readers are directed to Chapter 6 of Jerry Lembcke’s The Spitting Image (1998).
References
Barrett, Duncan, and Michèle Barrett. 2017. Star Trek: The Human Frontier, 2nd ed. London: Routledge.
Batzke, Ina. 2020. “From Series to Seriality: Star Trek’s Mirror Universe in the Post-Network Era.” In Fighting
for the Future: Essays on Star Trek: Discovery, edited by Sabrina Mittermeier and Mareike Spychala, 105–125.
Bodnar, John. 2010. The “Good War” in Modern Memory. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Carney, Amy. 2013. “Nazis, Cardassians, and Other Villains in the Final Frontier.” In Star Trek and History, edited
by Nancy R. Reagin, 307–322. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Franklin, H. Bruce. 1994 “Star Trek in the Vietnam Era.” Film and History 24, no. 1–2 (March): 36–46.
Greven, David. 2008 “The Twilight of Identity: Enterprise, Neoconservatism, and the Death of Star Trek.” Jump
Cut 50 (Spring). Available at: www.ejumpcut.org/archive/jc50.2008/StarTrekEnt/index.html.
Gross, Edward, and Mark A. Altman. 2016. The Fifty Year Mission: The Next 25 Years—From The Next
Generation to J.J. Abrams. New York: Thomas Dunne Books/St Martin’s Press.
Hantke, Steffen. 2014. “Star Trek’s Mirror Universe Episodes and US Military Culture through the Eyes of the
Other.” Science Fiction Studies 41, no. 3 (November): 562–578.
Jeffords, Susan. 1989. The Remasculinization of America. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Johnson-Smith, Jan. 2005. American Science Fiction TV: STAR TREK, STARGATE and Beyond. Middletown,
CT: Wesleyan University Press.
Kapell, Matthew Wilhelm. 2000. “Speakers for the Dead: Star Trek, the Holocaust, and the Representation of
Atrocity.” Extrapolation 4, no. 2 (Summer): 104–114.
Lembcke, Jerry. 1998. The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam. New York: New York
University Press.
Lewis, Sinclair. 1936. It Can’t Happen Here. New York: Doubleday, Doran.
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Rauscher, Judith. 2020. “‘Into a Mirror Darkly’: Border Crossing and Imperial(ist) Feminism in Star Trek: Discovery.”
In Fighting for the Future: Essays on Star Trek: Discovery, edited by Sabrina Mittermeier and Mareike Spychala,
Sharp, Sharon. 2011. “Nostalgia for the Future: Retrofuturism in Enterprise.” Science Fiction Film & Television 4,
no. 1 (Spring): 25–40.
Shohat, Ella, and Robert Stam. 2014. Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media. New York: Routledge.
Spigel, Lynn. 2004. “Entertainment Wars: Television Culture After 9/ 11.” American Quarterly 56, no. 2
(June): 235–270.
The Man in the High Castle. 2015–19. Amazon Prime Video.
Wallerstein, Immanuel. 2009. “World-Systems Analysis.” In World System History, Vol. I, edited by George
Modelski and Robert A. Denemark, 13–26. Oxford: EOLSS Publishers.
Star Trek Episodes
The Original Series
1.6 “The Naked Time” 1966.
1.24 “Space Seed” 1967.
2.6 “The Doomsday Machine” 1967.
The Next Generation

3.11 “The Hunted” 1990.
4.2 “Family” 1990.
4.12 “The Wounded” 1991.
4.21 “The Drumhead” 1991.
5.2 “Darmok” 1991.
Deep Space Nine

3.2 “The Search, Part II” 1994.
3.7 “Civil Defense” 1994.
3.11 “Past Tense, Part I” 1995.
3.12 “Past Tense, Part II” 1995.
6.6 “Sacrifice of Angels” 1997.
6.18 “Inquisition” 1998.
6.22 “Valiant” 1998.
7.7 “Once More Unto the Breach” 1998.
7.8 “The Siege of AR-558” 1998.
7.16 “Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges” 1999.
7.23 “Extreme Measures” 1999.
7.24 “The Dogs of War” 1999.
7.25/26 “What We Leave Behind” 1999.
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Voyager
3.11“The Q and the Grey” 1996.
3.25 “Worst Case Scenario” 1997.
4.6 “The Raven” 1997.
5.23 “11:59” 1999.
5.26 “Equinox” 1999.
6.1 “Equinox, Part II” 1999.
6.14 “Memorial” 2000.
Enterprise
4.1 “Stormfront” 2004.
4.2 “Stormfront, Part II” 2004.
Discovery
1.1 “The Vulcan Hello” 2017.
1.9 “Into the Forest I Go” 2017.
1.14 “The War Without, the War Within” 2018.
2.4 “An Obol for Charon” 2019.
3.4 “Forget Me Not” 2020.
Picard
1.6 “The Impossible Box” 2020.
Star Trek Movies
What We Left Behind: Looking Back at Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. 2019. dir. Ira Steven Behr and David
Zappone, 455 Films, Tuxedo Productions, and Le Big Boss Productions.
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45
COLONIALISM AND IMPERIALISM
E. Leigh McKagen
Gene Roddenberry wrote the final draft of James T. Kirk’s (William Shatner) opening TOS mono-
logue in August 1966, less than one month before the first episode aired (Solow and Justman 1996,
149). These frequently quoted words, wherein Kirk outlines the five-year mission of the Enterprise
to “explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations,” have informed each iter-
ation of Star Trek. Although presented as the benevolent pursuit of knowledge for the betterment of
humankind, this directive toward exploring the unknown underwrites the franchise with discourses
and practices of Euro-American imperialism and colonialism. The imperial mandate for explor-
ation enables the categorization and classification of all lifeforms into binaries where the Federation
is presented as a superior civilization through oppositions based on Western beliefs of progress and
liberal humanism. Through the constant repetition of exploration and the resulting hierarchical
classification of others, Star Trek perpetuates Euro-American imperial and colonial frameworks as
normalized ways of seeing the world in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries—and the
imagined twenty-second-and twenty-fourth-century future. As Edward Said argued, it is impera-
tive to explore imperial thinking woven throughout popular narratives in order to fully under-
stand the pervasive presence of imperial frameworks in the narratives themselves and, more broadly,
Western culture writ large (1994, 62–80). If, as George Gonzalez proposes, Star Trek “is indispensable
to comprehending the twentieth and twenty-first centuries” (2015, 1), then close examination of
imperial and colonial threads are necessary to diagnose imperial ideologies and practices that con-
tinue to govern daily life and the presentation of possible futures.
Throughout the Star Trek franchise, the Federation is presented as the penultimate civilization
espousing Enlightenment ideals of universal rights, justice, progress, moral rectitude, and liberal
humanism. In contrast, numerous antagonistic empires in the franchise use violence, oppression, and
deception to expand their power and reach—tactics of conquest that mirror those used by Euro-
American empires during the classic “Age of Imperialism.” Despite the overt criticism of violent
practices of conquest undergirding these contrasts, the Federation nonetheless reinforces imperial
tendencies through the superiority of Western humanistic ideals and practices. Garak (Andrew
Robinson) reflects on these practices to Quark (Armin Shimerman) in “The Way of the Warrior”
(DS9, 4.1, 1995), explaining that the Federation is “insidious.” Starfleet officer- turned-Maquis
rebel Michael Eddington (Kenneth Marshall) echoes this statement in “For the Cause” (DS9, 4.22,
1996) when he explains to Captain Sisko (Avery Brooks) that “you assimilate people, and they don’t
even know it.” This chapter explores the imperial and colonial undercurrents of Star Trek’s pres-
entation of exploration as an unquestioned right, following key Euro-American imperial practices,
including directives of uninhibited exploration, the classification of alien races as “Other” than the
Federation, and the overall anthropocentric focus of Star Trek storylines. Federation imperial assimi-
lation is made possible by the presentation of imperial exploration and the anthropocentrism of the
franchise, retained throughout each series.
332 DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917-51

Colonialism and Imperialism
Exploration of the unknown rests at the heart of Star Trek. The focus on exploration recreates
the American imperial practice of “manifest destiny” and British attitudes toward discovery during
the “Age of Sail,” including terra nullius. Anders Stephanson defines manifest destiny as “a catchword
for the idea of a providentially or historically sanctioned right to continental expansion” (1996, xii).
The concept of manifest destiny and ‘sea to sea’ expansion (read: conquest) has been a driving force
of US domestic and foreign policy from the earliest days of settlement, and “is of signal importance
in the way the United States came to understand itself in the world and still does” (ibid., xiv). The
practice was influenced by, and in turn inspired, European imperial and colonial expansion from the
sixteenth to the twentieth century (Dahl 2018, 15). Manifest destiny is often linked with exploration
to gain knowledge: take, for example, the Lewis and Clark expedition of 1803–1806. Tasked with
surveying land acquired by President Jefferson’s 1803 Louisiana Purchase, the two military officers
and their Corps of Discovery set off to explore land already inhabited by native populations. James
Ronda categorizes this exploration as a “cooperative endeavor” to gather material for Jefferson’s ideal
“empire of the mind, the kingdom of knowledge” (2002, 252 and 4). Such lofty goals nonetheless
encompassed imperial attitudes and actions on the part of the expedition, not least of which was
constant reference to native peoples as “children” throughout their journals and speeches. The child/
parent binary of colonial encounters references the “civilizing mission” of much Euro-American
imperial exploration and domination. Lori Dagger highlights “civilizing plans and mission work”
as “two central facets of U.S. colonialism,” reflected in the need to “civilize” the “savage children”
“discovered” during imperial exploration like that of Lewis and Clark (2016, 469). Discovery is
inherently tied to the (presumed) superiority of the discoverer, and the ways Star Trek recreates and
perpetuates principles of manifest destiny include those imperial concepts.
The presentation of exploration as a natural right establishes the Federation as the center of know-
ledge and the purveyor of all that is known. This position of superiority was the basis for the concept
of terra nullius, a belief that land not under direct European (Christian) control was “no man’s land”
and thus available for colonization. Andrew Fitzmaurice demonstrates that, while the legal frame-
work was not actually used in British colonization of Australia, the philosophy of terra nullius was
the dominant “justification of colonial dispossession from the sixteenth to the twentieth century” on
the part of all Western powers (2007, 14). Terra nullius has connections to some of the earliest legal
doctrines and practices regarding European colonial expansion, including the 1608 directive issued
by Chief Justice Edward Coke (Borch 2001, 225). The principle was inscribed into US law by the
Supreme Court case Johnson v McIntosh (1823). In this decision, Chief Justice Marshall declared that
the initial white discoverer of land not currently claimed by Euro-American governments or citizens
had legal right to the land. Drawing on the ‘doctrine of discovery’ that guided maritime European
explorers, including Christopher Columbus and James Cook, Marshall normalized the belief that
exploration and settlement by white colonists were necessary for land to have any value. Stefan
Rabitsch notes that the doctrine of discovery practiced by British maritime explorers “tempered” the
expansion projects of the British Royal Navy through their “seemingly benign ventures of explor-
ation”—a practice continued through the Star Trek narrative of exploration and discovery (2019, 56).
According to the doctrine of discovery, all land (or space) is available to be discovered by Western
explorers. Star Trek displays this same practice. In DS9, after Starfleet learns that the Dominion claims
significant territory in the Gamma Quadrant, Lieutenant Dax (Terry Farrell) observes that nothing
will prevent the Federation from continuing to explore (“The Jem’Hadar” [2.26, 1994]). Dax implies
that the Federation will continue to explore because they are naturally curious—exploration is their
right, regardless of who populates or lays claim to the territory. Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew)
embraces this ideology in the VOY pilot “Caretaker” (VOY 1.1, 1995); she establishes the directive
for her crew of castaways to map the Delta Quadrant for the Federation as they journey home, a mission
she reinforces throughout their voyage. This directive does not take into account that the Delta
Quadrant has already been explored and discovered by the numerous spacefaring peoples who inhabit
it. Further, large portions of the quadrant are presented as still unexplored and unknown—“The
333
E. Leigh McKagen
Nekrit Expanse,” for example (“Fair Trade” [VOY, 3.13, 1997]). As a result, Voyager “goes where no
one has gone before” and the crew gains the presumed best knowledge of the quadrant for the benefit
of the Federation.
Building Star Trek around the concept of exploration creates opportunities for the Federation
to map, name, and classify the galaxy’s inhabitants. Patricia Seed identifies mapping as one of the
“rituals of possession” practiced by Euro-American empires (1995). Star Trek perpetuates these
practices through extensive mapping of explored/discovered territory in all quadrants of the galaxy.
Episodes like VOY’s “Eye of the Needle” (VOY 1.6, 1995) demonstrate naming practices that echo
those of Euro-American explorers, when Tom Paris (Robert Duncan McNeill) proposes to name a
wormhole “the Harry Kim Wormhole” if it takes them home. “Scorpion” sees the same practice, as
the crew labels a seemingly safe passage through Borg space the “Northwest Passage” (“Scorpion,
Parts 1 and 2” [VOY 3.26/4.1, 1997]). These practices imply that Voyager has the right to name
whatever they discover, reflecting the “monarch-of-all-I-survey” syndrome popular in castaway
novels (Weaver-Hightower 2007). Naming serves as a physical practice of the “rituals of possession”
wherein the explorer takes both symbolic and literal possession of newly discovered territory, as, for
example, in Jamestown, Virginia (1609) and Botany Bay, Australia (1770). While mapping serves
a practical purpose, especially in TOS and VOY, the process enables the Federation to lay claim to
extensive knowledge of vast regions of space. In this way, it functions much like Lewis and Clark’s
expedition, and those of James Cook. These endeavors were not expeditions of overt military
control, but through the imperial principles of the doctrine of discovery, these explorations would
eventually enable colonial domination, both overt and “insidious” assimilation into Western beliefs
and practices.
Following imperial practices enshrined in exploration, gaining knowledge leads to direct use
of “discovered” areas, which were/are often already in use by others. History speaks to the prac-
tice: exploration and discovery of territory led to settlement and conquest of the entire present-day
United States and Australia, despite preexisting inhabitants. VOY models this practice extensively, as
the series takes place exclusively in an “unknown” region of space (unknown only from the perspec-
tive of the Federation, of course). Take “Hunters” (VOY, 4.15, 1998), for example, which introduces
the Hirogen: Janeway and crew discover an ancient relay network—belonging to the Hirogen—and
use it to exchange messages with the Federation. Janeway disregards a cease-and-desist request, which
provokes conflict with the Hirogen. The Voyager crew understandably desires to use the array to
receive information from home after four years “lost” in the Delta Quadrant, but they operate from
the imperial mindset of the discoverer that their “need” equates to “right of use.” This presentation
reflects the “need” for Euro-American expansionism to take possession of lands to expand their
“living space,” wherein the needs of the colonizer superseded the needs and rights of indigenous
owner/stewardship. This episode normalizes the Federation’s habit of taking objects for their own
use after discovery—a fundamentally imperial move.
Practices of exploration enabled systematic classification based on imperial hierarchies, which
in turn provided justification for continued imperial action. As Roxanne Doty demonstrates, in
the eighteenth through twentieth centuries, Western imperial powers used tools of naturalization,
classification, surveillance, and negation to justify and perpetuate imperial expansion (1996, 10–11).
These practices could be militaristic in nature, but were often the product of explorers, cartographers,
scientists, and others crafting narratives of difference that prioritized the imperial center in contrast to
those “being discovered” and colonized. Classification practices involved the construction of artifi-
cial hierarchies that naturalize ideas that humans belong in one group or another through binaries
like civilized/uncivilized, traditional/modern, and even good/evil. In the Philippines, for example,
hierarchies were crafted through the work of travel writers, scholarly advisors, Congressional officials,
and military personnel to validate American imperial endeavors (ibid., 27–51). Ultimately, cultivated
narratives of difference that reinforce the need for imperial action to “save” (read: educate, uplift,
civilize, aid, develop) the “other” are not natural, yet “they remain widely circulated and accepted
334
as legitimate ways to categorize regions and peoples of the world” (ibid., 3). As Chandra Mohanty
demonstrates, the obligation to “save third world” subjects (especially women) continues in (post)
colonial narratives and practices (1988), a project that Amy Kaplan traces to narratives of “manifest
domesticity” that went hand-in-hand with the ideology of manifest destiny to naturalize imperial and
colonial practices (1998). Narratives of manifest domesticity solidified ideas of “savage” foreign spaces
that must be kept separate from “safe” domestic spaces, and additionally cultivated aims to “save” the
“savage.” Practices of imperial “salvation” were part justification, part defense, and all stemmed from
classification of “othered” populations into imperial binaries that prioritized the West as the epitome
of Enlightened civilization.
Star Trek continues the circulation of these naturalized beliefs as it builds on centuries of adven-
ture and science fiction narratives that have done the same. John Rieder explores the practices of
classification perpetuated in the science fiction sub-genre of “lost-race” stories (2012). Much like the
presentation of white Europeans “saving” the “savages” in Africa and elsewhere, lost-race narratives
painted the explorer as the superior, civilized foil to the previously undiscovered and uncivilized
natives. Such contrast is not always overt, as Laura Benton observes—imperial encounters were not
simply clear- cut domination and subjugation (2002). Cross- cultural exchange and involvement
were part of the imperial project, but the superiority of the colonizing/imperial power was always
reinforced through (in part) practices of classification. Even when the “less developed” civilization on
Star Trek is shown in a favorable light, the imperial gaze is retained through classifying aliens from the
perspective of the Federation. Such practices reinforce idealized Enlightened ways of thinking, and
reinforce imperial hierarchies of civilized/uncivilized, traditional/modern, and less/more developed.
The Prime Directive stands as one example of binary classification between the Federation and
“everyone else” in the Star Trek universe. Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) explains in “Symbiosis”
(TNG 1.21, 1988) that the Directive allows the Federation to avoid the “disastrous” historical “inter-
ference” between mankind and “less developed civilizations”—an extremely oblique reference to
centuries of Euro-American imperial and colonial domination. In reality, the Federation makes a uni-
lateral decision about who is “developed” and who is not in each encounter—g iving themselves all
the power in this determination of difference. Further, given the frequency with which the Directive
is bent, modified, creatively interpreted, and outright broken in each Star Trek series at the whims of
Federation personnel, the Prime Directive only exists to suit the needs of the Federation. Essentially
a legal fiction that is central to most imperial encounters, the Prime Directive establishes Federation
superiority and the exceptionalism they gave to themselves when exploring the galaxy.
The TNG episode “Who Watches the Watchers” (TNG 3.4, 1989) exemplifies the imperial ten-
dencies in Star Trek. In this episode, the crew of the Enterprise travels to Mintaka III to provide tech-
nical assistance to an anthropological team studying the local population, described by Counselor
Troi (Marina Sirtis) as “Proto-Vulcan humanoids at the Bronze-Age level, quite peaceful and highly
rational.” Things go wrong, the Prime Directive is broken, and the Mintakans come to mistakenly
assume Picard is a god—reprising the historical encounter between James Cook and indigenous
Hawaiians (Rabitsch 2019, 200). Unlike Cook, Picard declares that this devolution would “send them
back into the dark ages of superstition, ignorance, and fear,” and works diligently to convince the
Mintakans he is no god. Doing so reinforces an imperial binary between “developed and civilized
peoples” and a native population as yet unschooled in Western principles of science and education. In
Picard’s opinion, there is no room for “rational beliefs” in “native supernatural traditions”; he ultim-
ately undertakes a white-savior role by offering to let the Mintakans kill him to prove his mortality.
Coupled with evidence of Mintakan “primitive” daily life that contrasts with the advanced techno-
logical life aboard the Enterprise, this episode reinforces a binary between “more” and “less” developed
civilizations.
In a 1991 interview with Gene Roddenberry, David Alexander applauds this episode for articu-
lating “one of the underlying messages of both series … that human beings can, with critical thinking,
solve the problems that are facing them without any outside or supernatural help” (1991). He
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praises Enlightenment ideals, including the shift from religious-centered thinking to a science-based
worldview. Such a claim ignores the fact that Picard had to force the Mintakans to accept his status as
human, including kidnapping Mintakan leader Nuria—a practice reminiscent of seaborne explorers
in bids for goods or information. “Outside help” from the superior and benevolent civilization was
therefore fundamental in the victory of Enlightenment thinking, and this episode reinforces the
expectation that civilizations will endeavor to develop along a Western model.
VOY’s “Distant Origins” (VOY 3.23, 1997) appears to flip this model, offering a unique look
at an alien species discovering the Federation (specifically humanity). The episode is told from the
perspective of a Voth scientist named Gegen (Henry Woronicz) who pursues Voyager to prove his the-
ories that the Voth were not the first sentient species to evolve in the Delta Quadrant. Instead, Gegen
believes the Voth descended from dinosaurs who fled Earth and therefore share some DNA with
humans. Gegen’s contact with the Voyager crew presents “First Contact” taking place in reverse of the
usual order, and therefore “others” the Federation. Still, Voth society, rooted in religious teachings,
stands in marked contrast to the Enlightened secular Federation. Intended as an allegory of the travails
of Italian scientist Galileo (Kaplan, 1997), the episode details the struggles inherent in an ideological
shift from religious thinking to Enlightened science. The resolution is unsettling: Gegen must recant
his claims or see the Voyager crew destroyed for their aid of his “heretic” studies. The Galileo parallel
gives audiences hope, however, that one day, like Europeans before them, the Voth will overcome
their doctrine of myth and superstition and believe in science and critical inquiry.
DS9 episode “In the Hands of the Prophets” (DS9 1.20, 1993) offers a small counterpoint to the Euro-
American/Federation superiority presented in “Who Watches the Watchers” and “Distant Origins.” Jake
Sisko (Cirroc Lofton) explains to his father that Keiko O’Brien (Rosalind Chao) taught them about
Galileo in school, and questions how “anyone could be so stupid” to not believe Galileo’s discoveries (see
Chapter 46). When Jake compares his history lesson to the Bajorans and their spiritual relationship with
the aliens residing in the wormhole, Sisko counters by explaining “it’s a matter of interpretation. It may
not be what you believe, but that doesn’t make it wrong.” Sisko’s remarks embrace difference without
attendant claims to superiority, although the overall plot positions the orthodox Bajoran spiritual faction
as radical and ruthless through an assassination attempt linked to conservative faction leader Vedek Winn
(Louise Fletcher). Combined with quips like Quark’s comment that “these spiritual types love those dabo
girls,” the episode makes overtures to equity in Western and non-Western belief systems, but largely
undermines Sisko’s statements with the “truth” of Galileo: Earth is not the center of the universe, and
the conservative Bajoran faction will continue to antagonize the Federation. The binary presentation of
aliens in these episodes settles the Federation into imperial practices where alternative ways of thinking
are seen as “less” valid in contrast to Enlightened practices and beliefs of the Federation.
Binary contrasts between the Enlightened Federation and other technologically developed
civilizations occur throughout Star Trek narratives in addition to frequent contact with “less developed”
aliens, as each series features conflicts with violent and well-established imperial powers. These
encounters position the Federation as morally superior to the antagonistic empires, which deflects the
imperial tendencies of the Federation. While the benign form of Federation exploration, as typified in
episodes like “Who Watches the Watchers,” shines in contrast to the violent assimilation of the Borg,
imperial binaries like good/evil reinforce continued imperial classification and Federation superiority.
TOS introduced the Klingons, who remain an empire rooted in “traditional” ways of life throughout
the Star Trek canon, although they are partially redeemed in later series. Rick Worland identified the
TOS Federation-Klingon conflict as a recreation of the Cold War in space, with the Klingons standing
in for the vilified Soviet Union (1988). The Cardassians of DS9 provide a World War II parallel
that also deflects Federation imperial actions through recreated binary opposition (see Chapter 44).
Cardassian oppression and persecution of the Bajoran people, including the denigrating rhetoric used
by the Cardassians and the internment of Bajorans in work camps, reflect Nazi attitudes and practices.
Nazi and Cardassian imperial attitudes are often contrasted with the “Enlightened” superiority of the
Allied (and Federation) powers (see Chapter 41). As Anna Tsing observes, however, the US bombing
336
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a destructive ode to the Western belief in endless linear progress and
“Enlightened” scientific thinking (2015, 25). While Gonzalez observes that weapons of mass destruc-
tion “would not ostensibly exist in [the] Federation” (2015, 108), the World War II and Cold War
parallels indicate that the Federation is not above such actions when it suits their needs. Much like
the oft-repeated explanation that bombing civilian targets saved American lives in 1945—and that it
would have been “much worse” if the Axis powers had used such firepower first—the Federation con-
tinually recreates actions of imperial superiority through presumably “necessary” action to defeat the
imperial enemy. The Wrath of Kahn and The Search for Spock, for example, feature the Genesis project, a
thinly veiled allusion to the atomic bomb. Attempts to eradicate the Founders in DS9—while passed
off as work of the rogue faction Section 31—turns scientific advancement into military destruction to
benefit the Federation, much like the famous Manhattan Project that yielded the atomic bomb.
The Xindi assume a binary position opposite pre-Federation humanity through their unpro-
voked attack on Earth in “The Expanse” (ENT 2.26, 2003). Conceived as a blunt allegory of 9/11,
Captain Archer’s (Scott Bakula) single-minded quest for revenge is cast in contrast to the ruthless act
of destruction (see Chapter 6). While painting him as a hero in this binary conflict, the xenophobia
underlying his quest has troubling imperial connotations. World War II is evoked in this series, again
with the human characters playing the part of American humanists: in an alternate timeline, time-
traveling aliens helped Nazi Germany invade the United States (“Storm Front” [ENT, 4.1/4.2, 2004]).
Much like “The Killing Game” two-parter in VOY (4.18/4.19, 1998) when Hirogens capture the
ship, run holodeck simulations, and role-play as Nazi officers in an occupied French village opposite
Federation resistance fighters, these repeated binary contrasts present the Federation (and the US) as
a benevolent force in the face of evil (see Chapter 41). Such an overt contrast does little to question
the Federation’s more “insidious” imperial action through discovery and classification, as all of these
contrasts place superior importance on the Federation and Western ways of thinking.
Like the Cardassians and the Xindi, the Borg illuminate the binary representation of “us/them” and
“good/evil” in ways that continually favor the Federation through imperial classification. First introduced
in TNG, the Borg are the “most extreme foe the Federation has yet encountered” due to their lack of a
value system—they do not value individuality, life, or even death (Roberts 2006, 120, 122–123). VOY
features the Borg extensively as the main enemy from seasons four through seven, and Janeway con-
sistently positions herself and her crew as morally superior to the Borg due to their “evil” assimilation
practices. Even in “Scorpion” (VOY, 3.26/4.1, 1997) when Janeway forms a temporary alliance with the
Borg against Species 8472, the Federation is continually positioned as the ideologically superior civil-
ization. Janeway designs and uses a weapon of mass destruction against Species 8472 in order to achieve
passage through Borg territory, but in the end, the Borg fail to uphold their end of the bargain. They
attempt to assimilate the Voyager crew, revealing that it is “their nature’ to pursue such a horrific act. The
Federation crew, on the other hand, was simply “doing what had be done” to save themselves and their
way of life. This storyline once again settles the Federation on the Western side of imperial hierarchies in
contrast to the “evil” antagonistic—and equally or more advanced—empires.
The anthropocentric nature of Star Trek storylines further deepens imperial binaries that reinforce
Western Enlightenment ideals of humanity and individuality. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) began this
tradition in TOS. Even though Spock is half-Vulcan, and therefore not entirely human, his Vulcan
and human heritages reinforce Enlightenment ideals of critical thinking, science, and logic. While
presented as a tension between his human emotion-driven heritage, his inability to overcome the
“human” elements of his nature force a reconciliation of the two influences. TNG shows the android
Data (Brent Spiner) undertaking the quest to become human, and in Nemesis, Picard explains that
Data’s “curiosity, his wonder, allowed us to see the best parts of ourselves” (2002). In “The Measure
of a Man” (TNG 2.9, 1989), Picard defends Data’s right to self-determination in a passionate speech
where he links the impending legal ruling to the practice of exploration and the Enlightenment values
preserved at the heart of Star Trek. This speech ultimately replays the trope of “white legal hero” that,
while attempting to fight racism, simultaneously reinforces and recreates elements of systemic racism
337
E. Leigh McKagen
(Pyral 2012). Much like Atticus Finch in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird (1960), Picard serves as a
white savior as he works “against the racist legal system in order to win,” rather than confronting the
inequalities of the legal system writ large (Pyral 2012, 151, emphasis in original). By establishing that
Data is one of us, he serves as a marker for what “humanity” entails: humanity as defined by Western
expectations for personal liberty, freedom, individuality, and curiosity. Each series reinforces this clas-
sification through the quest of Odo (René Auberjonois) in DS9, Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) and the
Doctor (Robert Picardo) in VOY, T’Pol (Jolene Blalock) in ENT, and Michael Burnham (Sonequa
Martin-Green) in DSC to “become human” in various ways. All of these characters seek ways to
find themselves on the “human” side of the Federation/Other imperial divide, embodying curiosity,
initiative, moral rectitude, and individuality. Through the constant presentation of these values in
contrast to all non-Federation (non-human, non-Western, non-Enlightened) others, Star Trek con-
sistently recreates imperial expectations and ways of seeing the world.
Star Trek offers a fascinating look at a human future that values Enlightenment ideals over violent con-
quest of others, yet nonetheless retains imperial ways of seeing, thinking, speaking, and interacting with
both space and other lifeforms, including the right to explore and associated practices of classification
along imperial lines. Drawing from centuries of imperial and colonial histories and narratives, including
castaway, adventure, and lost-race novels (Green 1980; Rieder 2012; Said 1994; Weaver-Hightower
2007), Star Trek perpetuates imperial ways of seeing and living in the world (and outer space). As Keith
Booker (2008) articulates with regard to TOS, persistent imperial and Oriental stereotypes are reflected
in Roddenberry’s creation—a claim supported by further study of the expanded Star Trek universe.
More insidiously, perhaps, is the lack of awareness of how pervasive these imperial forms are: Star Trek
archivist Richard Arnold, for example, notes that “Gene gave us a future where we survived our current
immaturity and did so with dignity. We’re not out there empire-building, we’re out there exploring and
learning” (Altman and Gross 2016, 51). The Federation is, in fact, out there empire-building through
the focus on exploration, the classification of alien lifeforms through imperial binaries, and the overall
anthropocentric emphasis that signifies the Federation—humanity at its best—as the ideal civilization.
References
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web.archive.org/web/20060702000506/http:/www.philosophysphere.com/humanist.html.
Altman, Mark A., and Edward Gross. 2016. The Fifty-Year Mission: Volume One. New York: St. Martin’s.
Benton, Lauren. 2002. Law and Colonial Cultures: Legal Regimes in World History, 1400–1900. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Booker, M. Keith. 2008. “The Politics of Star Trek.” In The Essential Science Fiction Television Reader, edited by J.
P. Telotte, 195–208. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky.
Borch, Merete. 2001. “Rethinking the Origins of Terra Nullius.” Australian Historical Studies 32, no. 117
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Daggar, Lori J. 2016. “The Mission Complex: Economic Development, ‘Civilization,’ and Empire in the Early
Republic.” Journal of the Early Republic 36, no. 3 (Fall): 467–491.
Dahl, Adam. 2018. Empire of the People: Settler Colonialism and the Foundations of Modern Democratic Thought.
Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas.
Doty, Roxanne Lynn. 1996. Imperial Encounters: The Politics of Representation in North-South Relations. Minneapolis,
MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Fitzmaurice, Andrew. 2007. “The Genealogy of Terra Nullius.” Australian Historical Studies 38, no. 129
(April): 1–15.
Gonzalez, George A. 2015. The Politics of Star Trek: Justice, War, and the Future. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Green, Martin. 1980. Dreams of Adventure, Deeds of Empire. New York: Basic Books.
Kaplan, Anna L. 1997. “Voyager Episode Guide.” Cinefantastique 29, no. 6/7. (November): 87–90.
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Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. 1988. “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses.”
Feminist Review 30 (Autumn): 61–88.
Pyral, Katie Rose Guest. 2012. “Hollywood’s White Legal Heroes and the Legacy of Slave Codes.” In Afterimages
of Slavery: Essays on Appearances in Recent American Films, Literature, Television and Other Media, edited by
Marlene D. Allen and Seretha D. Williams, 145–163. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
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Rieder, John. 2012. Colonialism and the Emergence of Science Fiction. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.
Roberts, Adam. 2006. Science Fiction. New York: Routledge.
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Solow, Herbert F., and Robert H. Justman. 1996. Inside Star Trek: The Real Story. New York: Pocket Books.
Stephanson, Anders. 1996. Manifest Destiny: American Expansion and the Empire of Right. New York: Hill
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Tsing, Anna. 2015. The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins. Princeton,
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Weaver-Hightower, Rebecca. 2007. Empire Islands: Castaways, Cannibals, and Fantasies of Conquest. Minneapolis,
MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Worland, Rick. 1988. “Captain Kirk: Cold Warrior.” Journal of Popular Film and Television 16, no. 3 (Fall): 109–117.
Star Trek Episodes
The Next Generation
1.21 “Symbiosis” 1988.
Deep Space Nine

1.20 “In the Hands of the Prophet” 1993.
4.1/2 “The Way of the Warrior” 1995.
4.22 “For the Cause” 1996.
Voyager
1.1 “Caretaker” 1995.
1.6 “Eye of the Needle” 1995.
3.13 “Fair Trade” 1997.
3.23 “Distant Origins” 1997.
3.26 “Scorpion” 1997.
4.1 “Scorpion, Part II” 1997.
4.15 “Hunters” 1998.
Enterprise
2.26 “The Expanse” 2003.
4.1 “Storm Front” 2004.
4.2 “Storm Front, Part II” 2004.
Star Trek Movies
Star Trek: The Wrath of Kahn. 1982. dir. Nicholas Meyer. Paramount Pictures.
Star Trek: The Search for Spock. 1984. dir. Leonard Nimoy. Paramount Pictures.
339
46
RELIGION AND SPIRITUALITY
Douglas E. Cowan
In DS9’s first-season cliffhanger, “In the Hands of the Prophets” (DS9 1.19, 1993), Vedek Winn
(Louise Fletcher), a Bajoran spiritual leader and the very epitome of passive aggression throughout
the series, has withdrawn all Bajoran children from the station’s nascent school. Citing teachings
that she believes contradict those of the Prophets, Winn accuses Keiko O’Brien (Rosalind Chao)
of “opening the children’s minds to blasphemy” and warns her that she “cannot permit it to con-
tinue” (DS9 1.19, 1993). Describing the incident to his father and recounting Keiko’s substitute
lesson for the day, young Jake Sisko (Cirroc Lofton) asks, “Did you know that [Galileo] was tried
by the Inquisition for teaching that the earth moved around the sun?” “Tried and convicted,” Ben
Sisko (Avery Brooks) replies. “His books were burned.” Jake fairly explodes, “How could anyone
be so stupid?” subtly echoing Gene Roddenberry’s own childhood doubts about the conservative
Christianity in which he was raised, and pointing out that “the same thing’s happening now, with
all that stuff about the ‘Celestial Temple’ and the wormhole … it’s dumb!” (DS9 1.19, 1993; Foote
1992). When Sisko tries to explain the importance of the Bajorans’ faith, especially in the face of
the Cardassian occupation, Jake retorts, “But there were no ‘Prophets’! They were just aliens that you
found in the wormhole.” “To those ‘aliens’,” Ben replies calmly, “the future is no more difficult to see
than the past. Why shouldn’t they be considered Prophets?” “Are you serious?” Jake asks, incredulous
(DS9 1.19, 1993).
In an early academic consideration of religion and Star Trek, Peter Linford sounds not unlike Jake
Sisko, warning us against “the trap of discussing [the Bajoran religion] as though it were real”—a
caution we can assume he intends for all varieties of nonhuman religious experience found aboard
the station, and, by extension, elsewhere in the Star Trek multiverse (1999, 77). For one thing, he
claims, Bajoran religion “shows little evidence of being a personal one,” while “facets that we might
expect to see in a religion are more clearly absent” (ibid., 78). The Prophets themselves exhibit nei-
ther “creativity” nor “soteriology,” nor does there seem much “reason given for the Prophets to be
worshipped” (ibid., 78). Even the prophecies, in terms both of the Orbs and of Bajoran sacred texts,
“do not seem to offer moral teachings, myths, or eschatology” (ibid., 78). Because Linford and critics
like him do not see in Bajoran faith sufficient echoes of what they think that religion “should” be,
therefore it cannot be considered a “real” religion.
Positions such as these, however, miss the point of discussing the religious imagination in Star Trek
by, arguably, the widest possible margin. Indeed, precisely where Linford says we should not talk
about Bajoran religion “as though it were real,” he criticizes it for not fulfilling what he believes are
the necessary and sufficient conditions of a “real” religion. It does not matter that Kira Nerys (Nana
Visitor) tells Sisko in the pilot episode that “our religion is the only thing that holds my people
together” and allowed them to survive the Cardassian occupation (DS9 1.1, 1993), or that when a
Bajoran from the Mirror Universe joins her for worship at a temple service, she explains that the
Prophets “are our gods” (“Resurrection” [DS9 6.8, 1997]), or even that, however odious, Vedek
340 DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917-52

Religion and Spirituality
Winn’s actions do reflect the kind of questions that regularly orbit around the correct interpretation
of sacred texts (“In the Hands of the Prophets” [DS9 1.19, 1993]). Rather, Linford’s comments dem-
onstrate more than anything a number of assumptions that we need to reject if we want to take reli-
gion and spirituality seriously, whether in the context of popular science fiction in general, or across
the spectrum of series, feature films, genre fiction, graphic novels, and comic books in the Star Trek
canon. That is, we cannot ignore aspects of religious belief simply because they do not reflect our
own theological commitments or those we recognize readily. Nor should we dismiss the appearance
or use of religion as little more than snide attempts at discrediting the faithful or deriding the gul-
lible. Finally, we must beware of explaining away the religions we encounter on these “strange new
worlds” as little more than a metaphor for something else, something more down to earth, as it were
(see, for example, Porter 2010). Each of these in its own way treats the text as a puzzle to be solved,
rather than as an enigma to be explored, and each actually forecloses on the richness that Star Trek
offers the religious studies scholar.
Indeed, this single vignette from DS9 tugs at just a few of the religious threads which the
various Star Trek iterations explore, often with surprising degrees of subtlety and sophistication.
Just within the various television series, we find questions about: the existence of the soul (e.g.,
“The Forge” [ENT 4.7, 2004]; “Awakening” [ENT 4.8, 2004]; “Kir’Shara” [ENT 4.9, 2004]);
the nature of religious belief and the coercive power of orthodoxy (e.g., “Chosen Realm” [ENT
3.12, 2004]; “The Jihad” [TAS 1.16, 1973]); the function of ritual and devotional practice (e.g.,
“Sacred Ground” [VOY 3.7, 1996]; “Tattoo” [VOY 2.9, 1995]); the difficulty of religious belief
and the question of an afterlife (e.g., “Barge of the Dead” [VOY 6.3, 1999]; “Body Parts” [DS9
4.24, 1996]; “Coda” [VOY 3.15, 1997]; “Emanations” [VOY 1.9, 1995]); politics and the inter-
pretation of sacred texts (e.g., “The Changing Face of Evil” [DS9 7.20, 1999]; “Kir’Shara”); as well
as the social problem of new religious movements, which are colloquially known as “cults” (e.g.,
“Chosen Realm” [ENT 3.12, 2004]; “Covenant” [DS9 7.9, 1998]). Unfortunately, space prevents
us from considering more than just two of these many questions, in this case: perspective and the
nature of the Divine, and commitment and the nature of faith. Readers are encouraged, however,
to explore others, to seek out among Star Trek’s many “strange new worlds” new understandings
of religion and the religious imagination.
Perspective and the Ambivalent Nature of the Divine

As other authors in this volume note, Gene Roddenberry’s humanist credentials are hardly in doubt.
As an analytic lens, the “hodge-podge humanist endeavor” (Foote 1992, 21) underpinning both the
creation of Star Trek and his tenure as showrunner has become something of a “standard model” for
the interpretation of the franchise. That is, whatever passes for religion in the continuing voyages
of the Enterprise (and her franchise sister ships) will ultimately flounder as the Star Trek equiva-
lent of Frank Baum’s famous “man-behind-the-curtain.” Kenneth Marsalek’s (1992) retrospective
on the relationship between religion, humanism, and all things Star Trek constitutes one of this
standard model’s least ambiguous formulations. Roddenberry’s humanist vision, he asserts, generally
criticizes the fact that religion has “long elevated faith over reason and superstition over science,”
that it “demeans humanity by prescribing what one is to do, to believe, to read, and to think,” and
ultimately that it “condemns humanity to eternal childhood, restricted in knowledge and always
dependent” on some power other than their own grit and ingenuity (ibid., 54; see also Wagner and
Lundeen 1998; Jindra 1999). “Gene’s position,” Marsalek concludes, citing The Final Frontier producer
Harve Bennett, “was that, in the twenty-third century, the concept of God is ridiculous” (1992, 55).
Indeed, as Kirk (William Shatner) pronounces in “Who Mourns for Adonais?” (TOS 2.2,
1967), which Robert Asa considers “paradigmatic of Star Trek’s cosmology” (1999, 47): “Mankind
has no need for gods,” though Kirk’s next remark, “We find the one quite adequate,” leaves the
matter more than a little open to interpretation (TOS 2.2, 1967). In this episode, the Enterprise
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Douglas E. Cowan
landing party has encountered a being who claims to be the Greek god, Apollo (Michael Forest).
When Chekov (Walter Koenig) sneers that he has “never met a god before,” Kirk replies that
“you haven’t yet”—articulating the basic conceit underpinning not only the episode but what
Asa considers the series’ “recurring theme: a God-hypothesis stands in the way of the maturation
of humanity” (Asa 1999, 47).
Unlike other episodes which feature characters who assert divinity, imitate deities, or are mis-
taken for this god or that (e.g., “Devil’s Due” [TNG 4.13, 1991], “False Profits” [VOY 3.5, 1996],
or “Rightful Heir” [TNG 6.23, 1993]), Apollo’s claims are sincere. A member of an extraterrestrial
species which is for all practical purposes immortal, his race visited Earth in antiquity, offering
its people the benefit of their knowledge and wisdom. In return, they were worshipped as gods,
something the eminently rational Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) considers not unreasonable. In the
end, though, his eyes brimming with tears, Apollo struggles to understand what has happened in
the many millennia since. “We’ve outgrown you,” Kirk tells him. Calling out to Zeus, Hera, and
Aphrodite—his long-vanished “old friends”—Apollo accepts the truth, that their “time is past.
There is no room for gods” (“Who Mourns for Adonais?” [TOS, 2.2, 1967]). And he vanishes
from their sight. Asa offers one of the most detailed analyses of this episode, ranging from secu-
larization theory to “death of god” theology, from Apollo in Greek mythology to “Who Mourns
for Adonais?” as both tragedy and theology, and from the so-called scientism of Star Trek to depth
psychology—as well as the possibility that Roddenberry’s humanism might actually have gotten it
all wrong. Although he points out that the Enterprise crew are “non-theists” and “simple humanists,”
Asa wonders in the end whether the gods can ever be truly dispatched, and whether they should
(1999, 47). Put differently, in the rush to present this episode as the sine qua non of Roddenberry’s
anti-religious humanism, Asa’s analysis implies that it is easy to overlook the implications of Kirk’s
words in the wake of the erstwhile god’s apotheosis. That is, we should be more interested in the
questions it raises than the answers we might think it provides. “They gave us so much,” Kirk says
wistfully, staring into the void where Apollo once stood, “the Greek civilization, much of our cul-
ture and philosophy came from the worship of those beings. In a way, they began the Golden Age.
Would it have hurt us, I wonder, just to have gathered a few laurel leaves?” (“Who Mourns for
Adonais?” [TOS 2.2, 1967]).
The animated episode, “Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth,” tells an almost identical story, though
from a Mesoamerican perspective. Here, the crew meets an extraterrestrial who visited Earth as the
rainbow serpent, Kukulkan. “Interesting, Captain,” says Spock, “the creature was the Mayan god from
the ancient legends.” “It’s sad,” Kirk replies, echoing his closing comments from “Who Mourns for
Adonais?” “think what we could have done with his knowledge. But the price was just too high”
(TAS 2.5, 1974). Which is to say, while religion may have done humanity a disservice in the past,
and we have rightfully outgrown the worst of its predations, the question remains whether humans
have really been so ill-served by the religious imagination. ST almost seems to suggest that there is
something to be learned from attempts to probe the depths of what William James called the “unseen
order” ([1902] 1999, 61), and look beyond the provincial confines of what we take for granted as
consensus reality.
With both these episodes, however, we must be wary of retrojecting onto TOS and TAS harmon-
izing interpretations of Roddenberry’s humanism that are informed by two generations of a shared
Star Trek multiverse, as well as all the attendant commentary, scholarship, and pop cultural cachet. In
terms of the standard model, that is, we must be careful not to mistake process for pronouncement. It
is a fact, for example, that audiences will map their own ideological commitments onto pop cultural
products such as Star Trek (see Cowan 2010, 261–269; 2019, 68–71; Neece 2016). While Marsalek
sees in Star Trek nothing more than the satisfying denunciation of religion (1992), more than four
decades after its original air date, for instance, convicted Watergate felon turned evangelical Christian
Charles Colson insists that “Bread and Circuses” (TOS 2.14, 1968) constitutes de facto evidence for
the cultural power (read: the truth) of Christianity (2010).
342
Contrary to these early commentaries, Star Trek has evolved less as Roddenberry’s summa on
humanism than as his vehicle for exploring its facets, promises, and pitfalls, many of which cannot but
implicate various intersections of religious faith—what we might call “the varieties of alien religious
experience” (Alexander 1991; Cowan 2010). That is, things are far more complicated than any one
episode or film might suggest, and, in terms of religious studies, the extraordinary richness of the
franchise often lies precisely in its ambiguity, in the fact that it refuses to settle on a single explanation,
and in the opportunities it presents for an exploration of faith rather than its embargo.
From pilot to finale, for example, DS9 is concerned with questions of religion, faith, ritual, and
spirituality, treating them in complex and nuanced ways that often carried over into other series. In
the rush to find out what happens in each episode and story arc, though, it is easy to miss what is
happening, as did one New York Times critic who reduced DS9’s various nonhuman species to cul-
tural stereotypes and social caricatures. For him, the Ferengi became simply “the Shylocks of space,”
while the Jem’Hadar were “crackheads in uniform,” and “the Bajorans, with their religious rituals,
caste systems, pierced ears and newly won freedom from the Cardassian Empire, might be Indians
or Palestinians” (Pareles, 1996, H26). As I have pointed out elsewhere, though, these kinds of preju-
dicial and often overtly racist descriptions relieve both readers and viewers “of any responsibility to
ask deeper questions, to understand the series in anything but the most banal terms” (Cowan 2010,
144; see ibid., 141–169). Indeed, such glib commentary exemplifies the problem of the “availability
heuristic” in Star Trek interpretation and scholarship. That is, if we do not recognize something as
religion, it cannot be religion. If we can identify the supposed metaphor (“Shylock,” “crackhead,”
“Palestinian”), we need pay no more attention to the story than that. Nothing could be further from
the truth.
In point of fact, DS9’s largely stationary location allows for a much different form of storytelling
than its spacefaring franchise-mates, offering viewers a rich series of texts for probing the confusing,
inconsistent, and often contradictory relationships between different peoples and their gods. Consider
as just two examples the Klingons and the Vorta.
In “Homefront,” Worf (Michael Dorn) answers the question of divine ambiguity simply and
directly: “Our gods are dead,” he tells the ops crew. “Ancient Klingon warriors slew them a mil-
lennium ago. They were more trouble than they were worth” (DS9 4.11, 1996; see “Barge of the
Dead” [VOY 6.3, 1999]; “You Are Cordially Invited” [DS9 6.7, 1997]). If we invoke Asa’s “death of
god” perspective, this brief bit of dialogue could easily be interpreted as a rejection of the religious
imagination among the Klingons. But this would be a superficial misreading. Star Trek’s mightiest
warriors may have rid themselves of troublesome gods, but a number of story arcs demonstrate the
depth of Klingon spirituality, centered principally around the mytho-historical figure of Kahless the
Unforgettable, the “once and future king” of the Empire.
From the mystical Followers of Kahless, who await his return at a remote monastery on the
planet Boreth (“Through the Valley of Shadows” [DSC 2.12, 2019]) to a grail quest for the bat’leth
carried by the legendary warrior (“The Sword of Kahless” [DS9 4.9, 1995]) to the prophesied return
of Kahless himself (“Prophecy” [VOY 7.13, 2001; “Rightful Heir” [TNG 6.23, 1993]), the various
Kahless myths underpin all that it means to be Klingon. It is Kahless who welcomes Klingons who
die with honor into the halls of Sto-vo-kor (“The Ship” [DS9 5.2, 1996]), while the dishonored dead
languish in Gre’thor, ferried there aboard the Barge of the Dead and separated from Kahless forever
(“Barge of the Dead” [ VOY 6.3, 1999]). We may not necessarily find the gods here, but in Klingon
commitment to Kahless lives the quintessence of the religious imagination.
DS9 goes further still by posing the question of what happens when the gods literally create you
for their service. For most of his life, Odo (René Auberjonois), changeling and DS9’s resident law
enforcement officer, imagined himself alone, unique in the loneliest way possible. When he learns
that others of his kind exist, he is quite naturally elated. This initial excitement, however, quickly
turns to acute ambivalence when he realizes that his people, the Founders, have established themselves
as the Dominion’s de facto god-emperors. Nowhere is Odo’s uncertainty more clearly demonstrated
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than in his relationship to the Founders’ genetically programmed military, the Jem’Hadar, and the
Vorta, the artificially evolved clones who serve as the Dominion’s civil servants and administrators of
their interstellar empire.
Since they first encounter Odo, both of these subservient species treat him as the god they
regard all Founders to be. Odo, however, steadfastly refuses both the worship of the Vorta and the
offer of presumed divinity from his own people. During the Dominion War that dominates DS9’s
final three seasons, Odo escapes the Cardassian-Dominion alliance with a defecting Vorta, Weyoun
6 (Jeffrey Combs). Yet, once again, he rejects any intimation of his presumed divinity. “Has it ever
occurred to you,” he asks archly, “that the reason you believe the Founders are gods is because that’s
what they want you to believe, that they built it into your genetic code?” “Of course, they did,”
Weyoun 6 replies, puzzled that Odo should even question such an elementary fact of life. “That’s
what gods do. After all,” he continues, subtly echoing episodes broadcast more than a generation
prior, “why be a god if there’s no one to worship you?” (“Treachery, Faith, and the Great River”
[DS9 7.6, 1998]).
In terms of the power of the religious imagination, two things are important to note here. First,
Weyoun 6’s awareness of his created nature—and his genetically engineered piety—do nothing to
blunt his devotion to the Founders. For as long as he has known, the gods have been the gods, and they
could not be otherwise. He could no more imagine abandoning the Founders than he could taking up
arms in a Jem’Hadar regiment. It is simply beyond his comprehension. Second, his defection is not a
renunciation of the Founders, but a recognition that their war for control of the Alpha Quadrant is not
worthy of the gods he believes them to be. Thus, in a more daring act of religious devotion than he
has ever attempted before, he shifts his allegiance to the one Founder in whom he believes their true
ideals reside: Odo.
When it becomes clear that the Founders will not permit his defection, Weyoun 6 commits sui-
cide. In one of the most poignant and complex scenes of the entire series, he sacrifices himself to
ensure the survival of his god. Odo cradles the Vorta as he writhes on the deck of the runabout,
waiting anxiously for death. “Give me your blessing,” Weyoun 6 asks simply. But still Odo falters.
“I- - I- - I can’t…,” he replies eventually. The Vorta’s eyes brim with tears as he stares up into what
he believes is the face of divinity. “Please, Odo,” he begs, “tell me I haven’t failed, that I’ve served you
well.” “You have,” Odo assures him, “and for that you have my gratitude …” Not insignificantly, five
full seconds pass onscreen before Odo says gently, “… and my blessing” (“Treachery, Faith, and the
Great River” [DS9 7.6, 1998]). This scene is emotionally compelling, and says as much as any other
in the entire franchise about the nature of the religious imagination. Indeed, as I wrote in Sacred Space:
to the changeling security officer, the Vorta was nothing more than a prisoner; to Weyoun,
Odo was never anything but a god … To Odo, that one small act is an unsavory admission
of the engineered devotion of the Vorta; to Weyoun, it is a miracle.
(Cowan 2010, 168–169)
And, after all, isn’t that what gods do?
Commitment and the Shifting Nature of Faith

Given the difficulty of the path they are often called to walk, very few people set out to become
prophets—or, in Ben Sisko’s case, the divinely appointed messenger of the Prophets. When Kai
Opaka (Camille Saviola) tests his pah (his “spirit” or “soul”) in DS9’s pilot, she also notes tellingly
that “one who does not wish to be among us is to be the Emissary” (1.1, 1993). That is, not only
does Sisko not want to be on Deep Space Nine, as a Starfleet officer he is appalled at the thought that
he might be considered, as Kira puts it later, “a religious icon” (“Destiny” [DS9 3.15, 1995])—if for
no other reason than that seems precisely the kind of cultural transgression the Prime Directive is
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meant to preclude. From his initial rejection of Kai Opaka’s words to his grudging acceptance (then
embrace) of the role of Emissary, to the revelation that he is, quite literally, a child of the Prophets,
Sisko’s path through the series is marked by what anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann calls “interpretive
drift”: “the slow, often unacknowledged shift in someone’s manner of interpreting events as they
become involved with a particular activity” (1989, 340).
Concurrent with this, and drifting in the same waters, as it were, is the series’ secondary arc
of relationship—that is, the Bajorans’ regard towards an alien—Sisko—being their central religious
figure. Ordinary Bajorans’ reactions to Sisko are often contrasted against that of the Bajoran clergy.
Key religious figures are introduced as trustworthy—the Bajorans are content to trust Opaka’s
wisdom—neutral Vedek Bareil (Philip Anglim) seems sanguine about events—or questionable—
Vedek Winn makes no secret of her opposition both to Starfleet’s presence in general and Sisko’s
position as Emissary in particular.
The central character in this relationship, though, is Kira Nerys, the Bajoran resistance fighter
turned Starfleet liaison and Sisko’s second-in-command. More than any other, she is the lens through
which we watch the struggle of faith exemplified in Opaka’s pronouncement. Her faith kept her
alive under the Cardassians, first in the labor camps, then in the resistance; it was vindicated when
the Bajorans gained their independence, and even more so with the discovery of the “Celestial
Temple.” But, her acceptance of Sisko as the Emissary is, to say the least, conflicted—both with him
and within herself. Both Sisko and Kira experience Luhrmann’s “interpretive drift.” And, while for
Jake Sisko (and all those for whom he stands as narrative exemplar) the “wormhole aliens” will never
be the Prophets, for Kira and all devout Bajorans they will never be anything else. As Kira tells Odo
in the seventh-season episode, “Treachery, Faith, and the Great River”—“I know to Starfleet the
Prophets are nothing more than wormhole aliens, but to me they’re gods. I can’t prove it, but then
again, I don’t have to because my faith in them is enough” (“Treachery, Faith, and the Great River”
[DS9 7.6, 1998]). The important point here is that the “sacred” is not a description of ontology, but
is always and everywhere a function of faithful agreement, and she gradually comes to agree with the
Prophets’ choice of Sisko as the Emissary.
The fourth-season ENT triptych, “The Forge,” “Awakening,” and “Kir’Shara,” explores a not-
dissimilar arc, though, rather than the Bajoran pah, this one is complicated by the Vulcan concept of
the katra. Translated in various ways, and the subject of significant debate in Vulcan society, the katra
is the essence of a Vulcan that transcends bodily death. While some, such as T’Pol (Jolene Blalok)
believe the katra simply a myth, a vestige of their less-enlightened path, others consider it the core
of what it means to be Vulcan. With proper preparation, this essence can be stored in “katric arks,”
“polycrystalline vessels,” T’Pol tells Archer (Scott Bakula) dismissively, “allegedly used by the ancient
Vulcans to preserve katras”—a kind of reliquary for the Vulcan soul (“Awakening” [ENT 4.8, 2004]).
In the moments just prior to death, however, one’s katra can also be transferred to another Vulcan—or,
as it happens on more than one occasion, a human.
While crossing a desert Vulcans call “the Forge,” Archer and T’Pol encounter a member of the
Syrrannites, a reclusive sect dedicated to restoring the teachings of Surak, revered as the one who lifted
Vulcan from savagery and violence to reason and enlightenment. Others, however, particularly the
Vulcan High Command, consider them heretics who “follow a corrupted form of Surak’s teachings”
(“The Forge” [ENT 4.7, 2004]). Mortally wounded during an electrical storm, Arev (Michael Nouri)
uses a mind-meld, which at this point in the Star Trek timeline is considered a degenerate and dis-
tasteful practice among Vulcans, to transfer not only his katra, but also that of Surak himself, which he
gained from a katric ark. In a series of visions, which could be profitably explored using William James’s
famous hallmarks of mystical experience ([1902] 1999, 413–469), Archer encounters Surak (Bruce
Gray) himself and, through him, leads the Syrrannites to a long-lost relic known as the Kir’Shara. This
artifact, which, again, some consider mythological, “contains Surak’s original writings,” “the only sur-
viving record of his true teachings” (“Kir’Shara” [ENT 4.9, 2004]). Like so many other episodes, the
Kir’Shara triptych opens up a number of questions: the existence and nature of the soul; the politics
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of orthodoxy versus heterodoxy; the vexing problem of science versus mysticism; the contested power
of sacred texts; and the journey we take to discover and explore any of these.
Where We Go from Here—Boldly or Otherwise

Although, obviously, there are anomalies throughout the canon, inconsistencies and contradictions, as
well as a multitude of storylines that are not explicitly religious, the more than 50 years of Star Trek
in all its forms explore questions of religious belief and devotion that encourage us to look past such
unhelpful dichotomies as “real” versus “false” religion, but to ask deeper questions about the nature
of these labels. If we pay attention, they can push us to reexamine our prejudices, especially those
that dismiss religious Others by reducing them to simplistic analogies. Science fiction, after all, is the
great literature of exploration, of thinking the unthinkable, of imagining “what if?” What if we could
travel faster than light? What if we could meet the myriad other species populating the galaxy? What
if they have religious traditions different from our own? What could their gods teach us about ours?
“Each answer remains in force as an answer,” wrote Martin Heidegger, “only as long as it is rooted
in questioning” (1993, 195). That is, an answer is only an answer so long as we continue to ask more
questions. The moment we proclaim an answer, we are dead in space, as it were, especially if we
declare it the answer for everyone. Indeed, as Sisko explains to the Prophets in DS9’s pilot episode,
the unknown “defines our existence” as humans. “We are constantly searching, not just for answers to
our questions, but for new questions. We are explorers” (1.1, 1993).
References
Alexander, David. 1991. “Gene Roddenberry: Writer, Producer, Philosopher, Humanist.” The Humanist 51,
no. 2 (March/April): 5–30.
Asa, Robert. 1999. “Classic Star Trek and the Death of God: A Case Study in ‘Who Mourns for Adonais?’” In
Star Trek and Sacred Ground: Explorations of Star Trek, Religion, and American Culture, edited by Jennifer E..
Porter and Darcee L. McLaren, 33–59. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Colson, Charles. 2010. “Star Trek’s Classic, ‘Bread and Circuses,’ Testifies to Power of Christianity.” YouTube,
July 27. Available at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxSc3kx2wp8.
Cowan, Douglas E. 2010. Sacred Space: The Quest for Transcendence in Science Fiction Film and Television. Waco,
TX: Baylor University Press.
Cowan, Douglas E. 2019. Magic, Monsters, and Make-Believe Heroes: How Myth and Religion Shape Fantasy Culture.
Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Foote, Stephanie. 1992. “We Have Met the Alien and It Is Us.” The Humanist 52, no. 2 (March/April): 21–
24, 33.
Heidegger, Martin. 1993. Heidegger: Basic Writings from “Being and Time” (1927) to “The Task of Thinking” (1964),
Rev. ed. edited by David Farrell Krell. New York: Harper.
James, William. [1902] 1999. The Varieties of Religious Experience. New York: Modern Library.
Jindra, Michael. 1999. “‘Star Trek to Me Is a Way of Life’: Fan Expressions of Star Trek Philosophy.” In Star Trek
and Sacred Ground: Explorations of Star Trek, Religion, and American Culture, edited by Jennifer E. Porter and
Darcee L. McLaren, 217–230. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Linford, Peter. 1999. “Deeds of Power: Respect for Religion in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.” In Star Trek and
Sacred Ground: Explorations of Star Trek, Religion, and American Culture, edited by Jennifer E. Porter and
Darcee L. McLaren, 77–100. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Luhrmann, Tanya. 1989. Persuasions of the Witch’s Craft: Ritual Magic in Contemporary England. London: Picador.
Marsalek, Kenneth. 1992. “‘Star Trek’: Humanism of the Future.” Free Inquiry 12, no. 4 (Fall): 53–56.
Neece, Kevin C. 2016. The Gospel According to Star Trek: The Original Crew. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books.
Pareles, Dean. 1996. “When Aliens Start to Look a Lot Like Us.” New York Times, May 29, 1996: H26.
Porter, Jennifer E. 2010. “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Surak: Star Trek: Enterprise, Anti-Catholicism,
and the Vulcan Reformation.” In Star Trek as Myth: Essays on Symbol and Archetype at the Final Frontier, edited
by Matthew Wilhelm Kapell, 163–181. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company.
Wagner, Jon, and Jan Lundeen. 1998. Deep Space and Sacred Time: Star Trek in the American Mythos. Westport,
CT: Praeger.
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Star Trek Episodes
The Original Series
2.2 “Who Mourns for Adonais?” 1967.
2.14 “Bread and Circuses” 1968.
The Animated Series

1.16 “The Jihad” 1973.
2.5 “Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth” 1974.
The Next Generation

4.13 “Devil’s Due” 1991.
6.23 “Rightful Heir” 1993.
Deep Space Nine

1.1 “Emissary” 1993.
1.19 “In the Hands of the Prophets” 1993.
3.15 “Destiny” 1995.
4.9 “The Sword of Kahless” 1995.
4.24 “Body Parts” 1996.
5.2 “The Ship” 1996.
6.7 “You Are Cordially Invited” 1997.
6.8 “Resurrection” 1997.
7.6 “Treachery, Faith, and the Great River” 1998.
7.9 “Covenant” 1998.
7.20 “The Changing Face of Evil” 1999.
Voyager
1.9 “Emanations” 1995.
2.9 “Tattoo” 1995.
3.5 “False Profits” 1996.
3.7 “Sacred Ground” 1996.
3.15 “Coda” 1997.
6.3 “Barge of the Dead” 1999.
7.13 “Prophecy” 2001.
Enterprise
3.12 “Chosen Realm” 2004.
4.7 “The Forge” 2004.
4.8 “Awakening” 2004.
4.9 “Kir’Shara” 2004.
Discovery
2.12 “Through the Valley of Shadows” 2019.
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47
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
On June 5, 2021, tardigrades arrived at the International Space Station as part of NASA’s ‘Cell
Science-04’ experiment studying how tardigrades adapt and survive in high-stress environments
(NASA Science 2021). Researchers hope the results will offer methods for protecting humans on
long-duration space missions. In 2007, the European Space Agency’s ‘Tardigrades in space’ (TARDIS)
experiment tested their capacity to survive in space; these new experiments directly and curiously
connect to the fictional science cultures of Star Trek, particularly DSC. DSC’s first season incorporates
Ripper, a ‘giant space tardigrade’; as Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) explains, Ripper
can “incorporate foreign DNA into its own genome via horizontal gene transfer. When Ripper
borrows DNA from the mycelium, he’s granted an all-access travel pass” (“Choose Your Pain”
[DSC 1.5, 2017]). Although this process is scientifically inaccurate, it still helped to elevate common
knowledge of the tardigrade from Internet meme and Neil deGrasse Tyson’s pet topic in Cosmos: A
Spacetime Odyssey (2014) to a more generally recognizable non-human animal (see Chapter 56).1 The
tardigrade became the subject of various explanatory articles thanks to DSC’s fictional interpretation
of its unique real-world genetic properties in propelling both the show’s narrative and the titular
ship’s spore drive (Blaxter and Arakawa 2017).
This chapter presents the science and technology of Star Trek “within a cultural framework” that
considers science as “a genre, theme, or conventional representation in fiction” (Kirby 2003, 263), rather
than a reductive focus on scientific accuracy and the transition of technology from fiction to fact.
Star Trek has offered one of the most consistently positive images of science and scientists since its
inception. Star Trek’s science is a formative cultural structure inspiring not only how the stories progress,
but also how the storyworld has been re-/imagined in response to changes in scientific knowledge,
as well as public understanding of and attitudes to science. Star Trek’s imagined future is one where
advances in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) have led to a post-scarcity
utopia (see Chapter 58). This environment, however, is still framed as a technological future that must
be earned; “primitive” societies must develop and discover their own innovations without interference
from Starfleet and the United Federation of Planets. This reflects an understanding on the creators’
part—and an attempt to instill that understanding in their audience—that science and culture are inex-
tricably linked. The central discourse of Star Trek is how a society achieves its scientific breakthroughs
and uses the resulting technology, for good or for ill, for the one or the many. The following sections
explore this discourse, the arguments it makes about Star Trek’s role in modern cultures of science and
technology, as well as how the fictional world mirrors and interacts with those cultures.
Public Understanding of Science and Star Trek

C.P. Snow (1998 [1959]) has argued that there is a fundamental gap between the spheres of know-
ledge of the humanities and the sciences, positioning them as separate and even opposed cultures. The
348 DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917-53

Science and Technology
space of sf integrates science and culture/society into mutual interaction and inspiration, a “mode of
perception that holds open to question new technological things and scientific ideas” (Chambers and
Garforth 2020, 247), and which thus “attend[s]‌the application of scientific and technical knowledge
to social life” (Csicsery-Ronay 2008, 1). Science on the screen, the radio, the page, and the stage can
have a direct influence on how people understand scientific ideas, practices, and ethics, which can in
turn affect policy decisions, attitudes to real-world science, and future scientists who have consumed
and been inspired by scientific fictions. As Gene Roddenberry explains, “Star Trek started with
the premise that the American television audience is a lot more intelligent and perceptive than the
so-called ‘experts’ insist” (1966). In sf we can locate a “mix [of] scientific knowledge with fictional
techniques … where the construction and constitution of science [are] negotiated” (van Dijick 2003,
183). Science and entertainment are two of the major ways through which humans understand their
world, and sf scenarios and consequences place science within recognizable and projected ethical-
moral frameworks (see Chapter 59).
From communicators and smartphones to replicators and 3D printing, Star Trek has imagined
science futures as part of a complex narrative world that not only presents new technologies,
but also “calls up altered worlds and futures as creative spaces of exploration, speculation, and
negotiation about and with science” (Chambers and Garforth 2020, 248). It provides a narrative
space for considering the impact of STEM advances on human action and social structures.
Ripper is the Discovery’s navigation mechanism; the narrative arc, however, also considers him as
an embodied subject. Burnham petitions for his release, noting his exploitation as “unsustainable
for the creature and your invention” (DSC 1.5, 2017). Science is not outside of our culture but
part of it. Throughout its history and various installments, Star Trek acts as a historical record of
public understanding of science and cultural responses moving us closer to the very future the
series imagines.
Sf and especially mass media franchises like Star Trek perform an important function, reflecting
on the consequences of emergent science and technology. Scientific progress “is produced by, and
in turn shapes, a contingent malleable, complex social world” and thus is inextricably linked to the
culture that developed it (Vint 2014, 314). But where many other sf texts imagine the worst-case
scenario—e.g., the experimental Alzheimer’s treatment in Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) that
decimates the human race—since 1966, Star Trek has offered broadly positive visions of the future,
showcasing crews of explorers and scientists benefitting from and promoting the utopian possibilities
of science. And unlike much of the speculative science in Star Trek, technological utopia has not
been transported from fiction to fact. The series itself recognizes that technology alone neither causes
utopia nor apocalypse, arguing that science and technology are knowledge and tools; it is the people
and culture in which they are embedded that shape how they are used in reality.
Framing and Accepting the Other: Scientific Utopia

Thanks to its post-scarcity utopia (see Chapters 58 and 60), monetary wealth in the Star Trek
storyworld is no longer necessary or valued, and necessities including food and healthcare are uni-
versal. However, the Federation’s post-scarcity utopia remains contingent on its power (including
military technologies, see Chapters 44 and 45) to maintain its ideological structure despite the
influences and threats of other violent, misogynistic, racist/speciesist, and capitalist societies.
Per First Contact (1996), Earth’s World War III incited a global nuclear holocaust, destroying world
governments and offering an opportunity to reimagine the world’s socio-economic structures and
systemic failures (see Chapter 41). In this freewheeling post-bellum era, Dr. Zefram Cochrane (James
Cromwell) and his engineering team developed the warp drive, introducing faster-than-light propul-
sion. This attracts the attention of the more technologically advanced Vulcans, who recognize that
humans have effectively entered the interstellar neighborhood, and present a possible threat to the
rest of the known universe.
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Two significant technologies serve Starfleet’s mission to exchange knowledge and peace with other
sentient species: the warp drive and the universal translator (UT). The warp drive, as noted, was the
instigating factor bringing humans into contact with other races. The UT enabled the ships’ crews to
speak to these civilizations (see Chapter 49); this often-overlooked technology is a staple in sf, from
Douglas Adams’ babelfish to the translator microbes in Farscape (1999–2003).2 ENT, DSC, and TOS
depict the UT in a very familiar manner to contemporary smartphone users: communicators serve as
a basic Google-Translate-like interpreter. While the devices get the essential job done, xenolinguistic
specialists like Hoshi Sato (Linda Park) and Nyota Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), and xenoanthropologist
Michael Burnham—notably all women of color working in STEM—are still required for nuance and
diplomacy (Chambers 2020). By the time of TNG and VOY, the UT had been embedded into the
crew’s combadges, and linguistic specialists were largely superfluous. The ability to travel to meet new
species and to communicate with them for trade, resource and knowledge exchange is primarily used
for the purposes of diplomacy in the idealized world of the United Federation of Planets.
These technologies, and indeed the Prime Directive, also demonstrate a key tenet underlying
the Star Trek universe: acceptance of the Other. Technology in Star Trek operates “as a signifier
of difference—of the possibility of new perspectives and new ways of thought” (Cranny-Francis
1998, 70). That difference, historically framed through fear in many alien- based narratives, is
approached more optimistically in the Star Trek universe (see Chapter 56). Though many storylines
are constructed around humans’ initial failures to accept the beings they encounter, most are resolved
with a burgeoning understanding and acceptance of difference. Every effort is made to reduce the
distance between the known and the unknown, from the warp drive (and spore drive and wormholes)
that enable star systems to become neighborhoods, to the translators that permit interspecies com-
munication, trade, and diplomacy, to the entertainment technology. The emergence of replicator,
holodeck, and android technology in TNG reflects a late twentieth-century optimism about civil and
women’s rights TOS had so often reflected, in that they move the unknown Other from a difference
in skin or gender to one of mechanical (or cyborg) origin (see Chapter 57). In a post-Cold War age,
social fears become wrapped in questions of resources and machines, food and artificial intelligence,
stagnant birth-rates and overpopulation. These technologies help audiences to imagine the societal
and interpersonal effects of daily interactions and immersion in the mechanical and the virtual.
The most representative technology of this post-scarcity utopia is the replicator, which appears in
TOS as a food synthesizer that can convert proteins into edible cubes; it is in TNG that the replicator
earns its name, however, and demonstrates its power. The replicator converts energy into matter,
whether the matter required is air, a new uniform, or tea (Earl Grey, hot). With this technology,
resources are no longer subject to disruption, and the Federation not only can trek to the far reaches
of space, but also can break free of resource-driven economies and conflict (see Chapter 58). This
underlying scientific principle of mass-energy equivalence (i.e., Einstein’s E =mc2) provides the
foundation for the replicators, as well as holographic technologies such as the holodeck and emer-
gency hologram (EH) crew members. Not only is Star Trek’s society free from resource scarcity with
these technologies, it can also be free from human resource and knowledge scarcity.
The holodeck creates simulated experiences of worlds, and even characters, beyond the confines
of starships on ongoing missions. In Picard, the technology is used to create interactive EHs aboard the
ship La Sirena: Ian, a Scottish engineering EH; Emmet, a Spanish tactical EH; and Mister Hospitality,
a North American hospitality EH, among others. These EHs are all played by Santiago Cabrera, who
also plays the ship’s human captain, Cristóbal Ríos. These EHs aid Ríos in running his ship in lieu
of a physical crew. The EHs are not new: an Emergency Medical Hologram (EMH) clinically named
The Doctor (Robert Picardo) appears most memorably in Voyager (Grech 2020), where his char-
acter arc expands from a medical program to a fully realized sentient intelligence (see Chapter 57).
Picard’s EHs are a logical culmination of similar character journeys, having developed distinct per-
sonalities and accents, and (often over-)anticipating needs: raised blood pressure summons the EMH
that can replicate supplies on the spot, and a homesick guest instantiates Mister Hospitality and
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holographic replicas including Picard’s home office. These EHs reflect changing public responses to
virtual assistants and their increasing presence in our lives. Just as we can see the changing faces and
forms of medics in the Star Trek universe as a response to shifting expectations about the futures of
medical care (see Chapter 48), we can see in Star Trek the notion that having worth is more about
knowledge, skills, and contribution, than it is about having a specific shape, color, type (or even
any) of body: humanity can be enhanced by technology, but not erased. This cyborgian philosophy
establishes the essential worth of every sentient life, whether biological, mechanical, or somewhere in
between, and creates a template for peace in its aggressive acceptance of the Other.
Data (Brent Spiner) provides an embodied representation of this philosophy, though he is an
android, and cyborg only in the sense that his sentience, his sense of self, and his desires express
an intangible humanity amidst his artificial circuitry. His purpose in the storyworld is abundantly
clear in every action he takes, every arc centered on his character: to question what it means to
be human—to be generous, inventive, loyal, moral, and even heroic and self-sacrificing. In Data,
emotions, whether logical or not, boil down to conditionals in an algorithm in his memory chip,
rather than biology. Picard’s (both the show and character [Patrick Stewart]) stance against the ban
on androids reinforces the Star Trek universe’s position that STEM has no inherent morality; it
is through their use and incorporation into lives and bodies that they gain an ethical or political
reading (see Chapter 59).
Cautionary Tales
Though Star Trek is certainly held up by some as a utopian ideal achieved through advances in
STEM, it also explores narrative arcs involving clashing ideals, battles, and war (see Chapter 57).
Klingon society provides a strong foil to that of the Federation, as their primary purpose for STEM
is not knowledge and exploration but conquest and war. The Mirror Universe, introduced through
a glitch in the fantastical transporter technology, is a direct reflection of the Star Trek universe where
humans embraced a warlike society rather than a peaceful one. As a sf trope, it invites “audiences
to interrogate the social orders presented as normative in the previously established fictional prime
[universe]” that offers an image of unregulated science and questions the true intentions of the
Federation beneath its utopian veneer (Byrne and Jones 2018, 257). Starfleet is not only a science dip-
lomacy group—it is also a military organization, with all the trappings of such: ranks, orders, training,
weapons (Rabitsch 2019, 69–80). Finally, the Borg represent the extreme of technology, when what is
human is lost; as the Collective is introduced in the same series as Data on the bridge of the Enterprise,
it and other AI-related disasters provide a cautionary foil to the utopian notion of mechanical ben-
evolence (see Chapter 60).
Belying their message of exploration and diplomacy, all ships in Starfleet are armed with weapons
and shields. In actual-world equivalencies, scientific missions are not typically conducted on naval
gunships, though they may include weapons for procuring food or defending against wild animals.
Starfleet Academy as shown, likewise, places far more emphasis on its lessons as a military training
base than as a scientific university. Part of their mission is to discover new civilizations, ostensibly
to monitor them and bring them into the Federation fold when ready. It offers a benevolent sort
of cultural imperialism, and human history has shown these interactions are fraught with vio-
lence (Rabitsch 2019, 177–220). The Federation is frequently at war—with Klingons, Cardassians,
Romulans, the Dominion—and despite its stated scientific mission, the Enterprise is also the flagship
of the Starfleet military (see Chapter 45). Given human history, perhaps imagining or relating to
a world in which meeting new civilizations or trading for newly discovered resources is peaceful
was not considered interesting television, thus necessitating the convergence of science exploration
with war. Star Trek presents a “complex constitutive tension between scientific exploration and
defence” (Weldes 1999, 132), but often skirts this problematic depiction of Starfleet, positioning the
weapons as defensive (and at times, used for alternative methods, such as mining), implementing
351
a “talk first, shoot second” philosophy, and banning the more offense-oriented technologies such
as cloaking devices used by warmongering civilizations like the Klingons and Romulans. These
narrative loopholes attempt to place the Federation and Starfleet in a morally superior position,
valuing diplomacy and communication over violence, and openness over stealth. Yet the blue-sky
thinking in terms of this technological utopia did not go so far as to imagine a universe in which
humans are not the morally superior species, and in which weapons and military tactics are symbols
of immaturity rather than power.
Digging more deeply into this question of humans as harbingers of peace or war is the recurring
theme of the Mirror Universe. The Mirror Universe is initially entered in TOS as a result of a glitch
in transporter technology, a fictional representation of the scientific theory of a quantum universe,
which posits parallel universes as an explanation for anomalous behavior of electrons under observa-
tion. With each manifestation of the Mirror Universe (TOS, DS9, ENT, DSC), the storyworld and its
characters are antithetical to those of the Prime Universe: Kirk (William Shatner) is cruel and selfish,
Bashir (Alexander Siddig) is irritable and tempestuous, Kira (Nana Visitor) is a ruthless hedonist,
Burnham is bitter and violent, and Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) is a power-hungry empress holding
her throne (against surrogate daughter Burnham) through fear, aggression, and manipulation. Instead
of the tenuous peace engendered by the Federation in the Prime Universe, the Mirror Universe
is dominated by the Terran Empire borne of fascism, fear, aggression, and violence. Major histor-
ical events, such as First Contact with Vulcans, are intact, yet because Terrans are so deeply wedded
to empirical ideals of force, familiar technology is used for domination and aggression rather than
exploration and knowledge (Buzan 2010). The Mirror Universe is perhaps a more accurate specula-
tive extrapolation of the actual world than the Prime Universe, providing a foil for which the Prime
Universe offers hope of avoidance.
If the Mirror Universe presents a dystopian alternative to our technological future, the Borg
present the ultimate expression of our (perhaps legitimate) fear of technology. In the wake of
World War II and the Cold War, surveillance culture, AI, and our increasing dependence on tech-
nology, we question what it is that makes us human. As neoliberalism metastasizes throughout Western
culture, the notion of individual freedom reigns supreme: free enterprise, free choice, free movement,
free speech, free will. Moral panic over technology, from robot workers to drone weapons, as well
as the oft-exaggerated parallels between hard drives and the human mind, result in the ultimate
‘baddie’: the Borg (see Chapters 57 and 60). As Juli L. Gittinger notes “the Borg may have preceded
Web 1.0 … but their posthumanism has certainly realized these anxieties and critiques of our techno-
logical selves” (2019, 66). The Borg are referenced when new implanted technologies are discussed—
e.g., brain-machine interface (BMI) research conducted by Elon Musk’s company Neuralink—as we
consider whether implanting biotechnology is the first step toward assimilating into the billionaire’s
Collective. Data, though entirely synthetic, actively pursues the question of humanity throughout
TNG and related films, seeking to enhance his mechanoid nature by immersing it in the intangible
qualities of humanity: emotions, friendship, caring, humor. The Borg, in contrast, seek to overcome
the perceived weaknesses of humanity by converting flesh to machine, and removing all individuality.
In a Star Trek society that embraces essentially socialist practices while retaining value in personal
achievement, the Borg represent the ultimate in corporate technocracy: complete loss of individuality
to serve a single monarch, for no other purpose than relentless acquisition. Comparisons can also be
drawn to the ever-expanding wealth gap and to the billionaires and people of power who exploit the
masses as drones even as they exponentially assimilate more wealth and power through technology.
Technology, after all, does not create itself, even in Borg cubes: at the core of each is a Zuckerberg,
a Musk, a Bezos, Kings and Queens of their own capitalist Collectives. As freed Borg drones Seven
of Nine (Jeri Ryan) and Icheb (Manu Intiraymi) demonstrate, technology itself does not make one
a monster; it is how it is used that renders it either benevolent or malevolent, value positions that are
of course contingent on whatever the power hierarchies undergirding any given cultural community
deem as such.
352
The Body as Host

The Borg’s extension of technology as something that can not only enable human activities but
enhance and even rule over the body introduces an important aspect of Star Trek science and tech-
nology that is often overlooked in favor of whizzy gadgets and engineering: body modification (see
Chapter 54). The Star Trek universe “interrogates the politics in envisioning, and potentially cre-
ating, an alternative future, especially for those who have traditionally been left out from dominant
imaginaries” (Song and Tan 2020, 579). The franchise’s incorporation of diverse crews and alien
lifeforms allows for discussion of identity and the changing techno-futures of what it means to be
human. Historically, racist narratives have presented the “one-drop” definition, wherein one meta-
phorical drop of the Other renders one’s humanity null and void (Nama 2008, 42–69). But in the
TNG episode “The Chase” (TNG 6.20, 1993), the humanoid races in the galaxy are established as
genetic cousins, seeded by ancient sentient and shared ancestors called the Preservers. Building upon
the panspermia concept (transferral of viable organisms between planets seeding similar species),
Star Trek imagines a universe where similar plants, animals, and humanoids developed on a variety
of worlds across billions of years of evolution. These bipedal humanoids are not simply alien-others,
but rather evolved from the same genetic starting points. This is utilized narratively, albeit clumsily,
to explore the different facets of humanity and evolving attitudes to the complexity of human iden-
tity: the Vulcans’ intelligence, Klingons’ aggression, Betazoids’ empathy, Trills’ adaptability.
The Trill most explicitly express the queer nature of science as a potential process of deconstruc-
tion and denaturalizing, as emerging discussions of STEM consider “the multiple bifurcations of self,
time, and space required to simultaneously navigate queerness and STEM” (Friedensen et al. 2021,
341; see Chapter 53). Seven of Nine represents another merged body, as one of three major women
scientist characters on Voyager, and her position as Borg is considered one of her strengths. The nega-
tivity of the Borg experience on the individual and in the franchise as a whole is mitigated by this
character. Three of Voyager’s major women characters work in STEM: Captain Kathryn Janeway
(Kate Mulgrew), engineer B’Elanna Torres (Roxann Dawson), and science officer Seven of Nine
(see Chapter 5). Their perspectives are integral to the work they do and align with feminist science
critiques which argue that an individual’s social position and identity (race, gender, sexuality, ability,
etc.) can provide insights and methods that those of other social positions might not consider (Naples
and Gurr 2013). Both Torres and Seven are marked as doubly othered as women in traditionally (and
historically in Star Trek) male roles and also as aliens: Torres is human-Klingon and Seven retains
Borg biotech. By representing science and its advances through characters who are women and alien,
the series highlights the importance of diversity in STEM and how this can positively affect pro-
gress. Seven regularly uses her Borg experiences and technology to develop and support the crew; for
example, the astrometrics lab uses Borg technology to plot shorter and/or more efficient routes back
to Earth. Her non-human/beyond-human perspective makes her valuable rather than presenting a
barrier to participation. VOY “resists and revises” stereotypes around what women can achieve as
scientists and in their personal lives as they do not “renounce” their femininity following misogyn-
istic ideas about successful women that are often found in male-written scientific fictions (Roberts
2000, 280).
The more horrifying side of merged embodiment is explored through the Borg, and the characters
who are able to regain their humanity after leaving the Borg hive: Jean-Luc Picard (TNG, PIC),
Seven of Nine (VOY, PIC), Icheb (VOY, PIC) and Hugh (Jonathan Del Arco, TNG, PIC). Unlike
the Trill, no one joins the Borg by choice; it is a process that suppresses the individual mind/persona,
as the body is assimilated into a groupthink neural network. The Borg reflect fears about the literal
and virtual integration of technology with the self. However, Star Trek is also filled with wearable
technologies that reflect changes in real-world innovations and public expectations, such as commu-
nicator evolution from intercom in TOS to an integrated transporter, communicator, and hologram
computer access point in DSC. As Nicola Liberati (2020, 45) notes in her analysis of wearable tech
353
through the eye of Borg futures: where is the point where the individual “I” becomes part of a plural
“We-I” when it comes to reliance and inseparability from technology? Separation from technology
in the Borg is often tantamount to or literally the cause of death, and our current use of wearable
technology does not force us into the Collective, as yet. But as Liberati surmises: “The collective
body generated by wearable computers will start to act in the world producing their own collective
perceptions, their own collective actions, and their own collective needs just like the Borg Collective”
(ibid., 46). The advances in wearables and implantable bio-modifying technology have potential
to create the hierarchical inequality, which is where sf plays a vital role in imagining the future
applications and ethics of these increasingly possible STEM innovations.
Conclusion
Gene Roddenberry argued that “science fiction [was a] thing of the past” because Star Trek was
“real adventure in tomorrow’s space” (1966, n.p.). TOS was supported by technical advisors, thus
extending it beyond the sf of the 1950s and 1960s as it attempted to provide “scientifically plaus-
ible speculation” rather than monsters and mad scientists (Allgaier 2018, 85). Although the series
was created at the cusp of and extended into a dystopian sf cycle—e.g., Planet of the Apes (1968),
Silent Running (1972), and Logan’s Run (1976)—it maintained a utopian perspective while integrating
many of the same issues, including civil rights, second-wave feminism, and nuclear disarmament.
The engagement with science advisors drawn from major science organizations, such as RAND and
NASA (Bormanis 2014), gave the show a legitimacy and also a reciprocal relationship with those key
institutions that recognized the power of popular science communicated and diversified through fic-
tional but widely accessible media (see Chapter 40).
Star Trek not only imagines future technologies, but also their cultural and social impact in
a world that is not dystopian by default. The technological imaginary is the basis for the social
imaginary; they coexist, and advances in either are entwined with or caused by the other. Imagining
radical, innovative, and potentially post-capitalist science and technology should come with a con-
sideration of how it will coexist and cooperate with humans and our environments. Star Trek
engages with the “utopian method” that “aims to change and not simply know the world” (Moylan
2007, 204). It offers potential solutions and an imagined space where advances in STEM are not
automatically used to create further divisions between the haves and have-nots. Although the
Star Trek universe in its development over nearly 60 years has seen the inclusion of black ops and
the dystopian Mirror Universe, it does so to encourage audiences to imagine STEM’s viable “trans-
formative possibilities” (ibid., 213). Science is power, science is political, but it does not always have
to be imagined as inevitably apocalyptic.
Notes
1 Several scientists have criticized DSC’s “nutty” use of the tardigrade and horizontally transferred DNA for
interstellar transport (Saltzberg 2017).
2 Despite ancient languages being key to the storyworld of the Stargate franchise, its permutations are among
the few that simply shrug off the notion of incompatible linguistics.
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Star Trek Episodes
The Next Generation
6.20 “The Chase” 1993.
Discovery
Star Trek Movies
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48
MEDICINE AND CARE
Jason T. Eberl
Throughout all of Star Trek’s incarnations, a vital member of the crew of any starship or deep space
station is the Chief Medical Officer. Just as Star Trek fans vociferously debate who is their favorite
captain due to the various personal and leadership qualities each embodies, they may also disagree
about which doctor best exemplifies the traits they would like to see in their own physician. Yet,
while Star Trek’s medical personnel might differ in their bedside manner or how ready they are to
prescribe a Finagle’s Folly or Saurian brandy as “medicinal,” there are certain essential characteristics
that not only the doctors on board the Enterprise, Voyager, Deep Space Nine, and Discovery share, but
which arguably all healthcare professionals should cultivate and live out in their practice of medicine,
including compassion, beneficence, fidelity, and self-effacement, to name but a few (Pellegrino and
Thomasma 1993).
As James Hughes and John Lantos (2001) point out, medical educators and the students they
are forming into physicians can benefit from careful examination of several well-written Star Trek
episodes that highlight desirable moral traits of healthcare providers and also depict various sides of
moral dilemmas that may be encountered in clinical practice, biomedical research, or health policy
development and implementation. Key virtuous qualities collectively embodied and expressed by
Star Trek’s physicians in how they care for their patients, whether it is one of their fellow crewmembers
or an enemy alien, can be identified. The first is their adherence to the “deontological imperative,”
which refers to the fundamental obligation of duty each of them understands to provide a limit on
what sorts of actions they may take for the sake of promoting the greater good (Grech et al. 2017).
Fulfilling their medical duty also entails their willingness to self-sacrifice if need be for the benefit
of their patients. Such overarching concern first and foremost for their patients’ well-being emanates
from their compassionate spirit that allows them to be morally blind to whether the injured, suffering,
or dying patient in front of them is a Klingon abductor, a Romulan spy, a Jem’Hadar soldier, or a Borg
drone. The final character trait involves acknowledging that, while technology provides multitudi-
nous means of healing, one should not fall into the trap of the “technocratic paradigm,” an intellectual
mindset and moral value system that could cloud one’s vision of themselves as a “healer” and thereby
blind one to viewing their patients as persons (Ramsey 2002).1
Fulfilling the Deontological Imperative

The Greek word deon is often translated as “duty” and thus deontological ethics is framed around the
concept that there is a set of moral obligations one ought to abide by—whether positive prescriptions
to perform particular types of actions (“Respond to distress calls from alien ships”), or negative
proscriptions forbidding the performance of certain types of actions (“Do not interfere with the
natural development of pre-warp civilizations”). Among the strictest of deontological imperatives
comes from Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) and is often referred to as his “principle of respect for
DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917-54 357

Jason T. Eberl
persons”: “So act that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other,
always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means” (Kant 1997, 38). Of course, if Kant had
had more of a science-fictional imagination or lived a couple centuries later such that he could have
watched Star Trek, he probably would not have limited his principle to just “humanity” but expanded
the category of “person” to include any intelligent, self-aware lifeform capable of moral agency.
While there are numerous examples of Starfleet officers fulfilling this deontological imperative, a
couple involving Star Trek’s physicians stand out. The first occurs in “Return to Tomorrow” (TOS
2.22, 1968), in which incorporeal alien consciousnesses occupy the bodies of Captain Kirk (William
Shatner), Commander Spock (Leonard Nimoy), and Dr. Ann Mulhall (Diana Muldaur). These three
officers had willingly albeit temporarily offered their bodies so that the aliens could construct android
bodies into which they could then permanently download their minds. Regretting the loss of phys-
ical sensation afforded by biological flesh, the alien Thalassa is tempted to remain in Dr. Mulhall’s
body and offers to share her civilization’s advanced knowledge if only Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley)
will permit her to do so. Even after threatening to torture him to death “with a single thought,”
McCoy is adamant: “I will not peddle flesh! I’m a physician.” His stalwart defense of Mulhall’s right
not to have her body used merely as an instrument for someone else’s benefit prompts Thalassa to
regret her momentary moral lapse. McCoy’s strict stance against “flesh-peddling” echoes current
ethical attitudes concerning organ donation, the predominant view of which is that one’s organs—
let alone one’s entire body—should be freely given, with the donor’s or an appropriate surrogate’s
consent, for transplant to others in need (Veatch and Ross 2015); although some bioethicists argue in
favor of being able to sell one’s organs (Cherry 2005;Veatch and Ross, 2015) or conscripting organs
from a person after they have died (Delaney and Hershenov 2009).
The other stark example does not involve the ship’s CMO standing up to an alien who’s trying
to rob someone of their life, but to their own captain. In “Tuvix” (VOY 2.24, 1996), Tuvok (Tim
Russ) and Neelix (Ethan Phillips) suffer one of Star Trek’s all-too-frequent transporter mishaps
and become fused into a new person, Tuvix (Tom Wright), who carries each of his progenitor’s
memories and personality traits. Tuvix considers Tuvok and Neelix to be his “parents,” but, like any
offspring, he clearly has his own unique personality and self-identity. As months go by, the Voyager
crew become accustomed to this new person in their lives; yet, the Doctor (Robert Picardo) and
Ensign Kim (Garrett Wang) continue to search for a way to bring Tuvok and Neelix back and one
day they succeed. If the Doctor injects Tuvix with a radioisotope the transporter should be able to
lock onto the separate DNA of Tuvok and Neelix and reverse the accident that combined them.
The only variable they did not account for is that Tuvix does not want to die. When Captain
Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) forces Tuvix under armed guards to be marched down to sickbay for
the procedure, the Doctor realizes he cannot participate in the procedure: “I’m sorry, Captain, but
I cannot perform the surgical separation. I am a physician, and a physician must do no harm. I will
not take Mr. Tuvix’s life against his will.” Stepping aside, Janeway administers the injection herself
and operates the transporter, effectively killing Tuvix and restoring Tuvok and Neelix—starship
captains are not bound by the same oath as physicians. Referring again to organ transplantation, it
is universally accepted that a physician cannot kill or seriously harm one person—say, a homeless
patient—in order to benefit others—say, upwards of five other patients who could benefit from
the homeless patient’s organs.2
While Kant’s principle of respect for persons has been strongly influential in bioethical reasoning,
there are several fundamental duties healthcare professionals ought to follow in providing clinical
care, engaging in biomedical research, or devising healthcare policies. Sometimes these duties come
into conflict with each other, such that one cannot fulfill two duties at the same time in a particular
situation. Hence, these duties are referred to as prima facie, meaning that one ought to abide by
them unless doing so violates another, more important, duty (Ross 1930). The four standard prima
facie duties stipulated in bioethics are respect for autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice
(Beauchamp and Childress 2009).
358
Medicine and Care
This principle-based method of moral reasoning contrasts with the more calculative method
espoused by utilitarians (Mill 2001; Bentham 2007; Singer 2011), who adhere to the Vulcan tenet
that “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one” (WOK).3 The most severe
outcome of this line of moral reasoning is witnessed in VOY’s “Critical Care” (7.5, 2000), when the
Doctor encounters a society in which medical care is doled out based on a “Treatment Coefficient”
determined by a computerized “Allocator” that determines who merits optimal care based on their
instrumental social value. In addition to the Doctor’s moral abhorrence to this society’s medical
rationing system, there are examples involving Star Trek’s other physicians resisting the utilitarian pull
toward maximizing the greatest good for the greatest number of persons, even if doing so requires
setting aside the well-being of one or a few individuals.
The first is Dr. Crusher’s (Gates McFadden) battle of wills against another physician, Dr. Russell
(Caroline Kava), in determining whether Lt. Worf (Michael Dorn), whose vertebrae have been
shattered in an accident rendering him quadriplegic, should be offered an experimental treatment
to regenerate his spinal cord. In the aptly entitled episode “Ethics” (TNG 5.16, 1992), the tension
between the two physicians involves not merely a disagreement about what would be the optimal
treatment path for Worf—the standard therapy Crusher offers only promises upwards of 60 per-
cent mobility, which is unacceptable to the Klingon warrior who would rather commit suicide—
but also the fact that Dr. Russell is a researcher who hopes that success with Worf could yield
further benefits for an uncountable number of patients with similar injuries. The question at hand
is whether the risk to Worf—death, if the regenerative surgery is not successful—is justifiable for
the benefits that may accrue to him and potentially many others. As Crusher tells Captain Picard
(Patrick Stewart), “[t]‌he first tenet of good medicine is, never make the patient any worse. Right
now, Worf is alive and functioning. If he goes into that operation, he could come out a corpse.”
Thankfully, after some initial distress, all turns out well and Crusher delivers a Picard-worthy
speech to Russell:
You scare me, Doctor. You risk your patients’ lives and justify it in the name of research.
Genuine research takes time—sometimes a lifetime of painstaking, detailed work in order to
get any results. Not for you. You take shortcuts—r ight through living tissue! You put your
research ahead of your patients’ lives.
This utilitarian motivation to push forward biomedical research at the potential cost of lives has
occurred several times throughout human history, not only in the context of horrendous experiments
conducted by Nazi physicians—allegorized in the episode “Nothing Human” (VOY 5.8, 1998)—
but also egregious experiments involving individuals whose ability to consent was significantly
compromised or non-existent (Beecher 1966).
The second case, from DS9’s “Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges” (7.16, 1999), involves much higher
stakes than just one patient when Dr. Bashir (Alexander Siddig) is recruited by the shadowy Section 31
to infiltrate the Romulan Empire during the Dominion War to determine whether the head of the
Tal Shiar—Romulan intelligence—is suffering from a degenerative illness. Little does Bashir know
that Section 31 has ulterior motives during this mission that involve betraying a Romulan Senator
who has been an ally. When Bashir confronts Agent Sloan (William Sadler) from Section 31, the
latter attempts to justify the utilitarian need his organization fulfills:
The Federation needs men like you, Doctor—men of conscience, men of principle, men
who can sleep at night. You’re also the reason Section 31 exists. Someone has to protect
men like you from a universe that doesn’t share your sense of right and wrong.
Later, in “Extreme Measures” (DS9 7.23, 1999), having learned that Section 31 infected Odo (René
Auberjonois) with an illness he later passed on to the Founders of the Dominion, Bashir and Chief
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Jason T. Eberl
O’Brien (Colm Meaney) enter Sloan’s dying brain—at great risk to themselves—to extract the anti-
dote formula and save the Federation’s most dangerous enemy, and the Federation’s soul. Bashir’s exer-
cise of conscience against Section 31’s aims parallels contemporary arguments to safeguard physicians’
right to “conscientious objection” against a growing societal orientation toward viewing physicians
as mere providers of services at the behest of patients or the state (Wicclair 2012).
Yet, Starfleet’s physicians are not monolithic in their moral perspective, and sometimes consider-
ations of the greater good do come into play. This is most evident in two instances involving Dr. Phlox
(John Billingsley). In “Dear Doctor” (ENT 1.13, 2002), Phlox and the rest of the Enterprise crew
encounter a planet with two intelligent species—both of which would qualify for moral consideration
under Kant’s principle of respect for persons—but with one having culturally dominated the other,
who exhibit less intellectual capacity. The dominant species, the Valakians, are suffering from a devas-
tating viral pandemic; the subservient species, the Menk, are immune to the virus. While studying the
Menk to determine what makes them immune and whether a treatment could be developed to save
the Valakians, Phlox discovers that the Menk are in the process of evolving a higher intellectual cap-
acity and may become the dominant species on the planet, if it were not for the Valakians—perhaps
it is evolutionary fate that the Valakians die out so that the Menk may supersede them. Phlox’s moral
instincts lead him to side with non-interference for the sake of what may be that planet’s greater good.
Captain Archer (Scott Bakula) disagrees and believes Phlox should treat those suffering now.
In “Similitude” (ENT 3.10, 2003), Phlox creates a clone of Chief Engineer Tucker (Connor
Trinneer), who is mortally injured while the Enterprise is on a critical mission to find and eliminate
a Xindi weapon intended to destroy Earth. Similar to the situation that emerges in “Tuvix,” Trip’s
clone, Sim, develops his own unique personality built upon Trip’s own memories and character traits.
From the beginning, however, it is known that Sim will have a limited lifespan of only 15 days and
the primary purpose in creating him was so that neural tissue could be excised when he reaches
maturity to save Trip—a procedure that will kill Sim. Once again, Phlox yields to the utilitarian
impulse to serve the greater good—in this case, saving Earth from the Xindi—by first creating Sim
and then later surgically killing him. He nevertheless also fulfills the deontological principle of respect
for autonomy: he only performs the lethal operation after Sim volunteers to submit to the procedure.
Phlox also exhibits great compassion toward Sim, having raised him as a “father” during his brief
childhood. Phlox’s struggle in both of these instances to balance the needs of certain individuals or
groups of people against those of others mirrors that of physicians and healthcare institutions when
faced with an overwhelming number of patients with limited resources available. During the Covid-
19 pandemic, for example, hospitals have had to develop “crisis standards of care” that include criteria
for triaging patients such that scarce medical resources are devoted to those who are both most in
need and most likely to benefit from treatment, as opposed to those who are not in dire need or for
whom expending medical resources would not likely result in immediate recovery or long-term sur-
vival (Emanuel et al. 2020).
Willingness to Sacrifice Oneself

Among their list of essential virtues that physicians ought to cultivate, Edmund Pellegrino and David
Thomasma (1993) include “courage” and “self-effacement.” The former refers to both the moral
courage to fulfill one’s duties even when encountering resistance from others, as well as the phys-
ical courage to risk one’s own health or life to serve their patients. The latter virtue involves placing
the needs and interests of one’s patients ahead of their own. Time and again we witness Star Trek’s
physicians risking life and limb to tend to those in need, from McCoy’s handing himself over to
the Vians and being brought to the brink of death in “The Empath” (TOS 3.8, 1968), to Crusher
running headlong into the site of a bombing only to be abducted in “The High Ground” (TNG 3.12,
1990), to Bashir dodging Klingon shells to reach vital medical supplies in “…Nor the Battle to the
Strong” (DS9 5.4, 1996), the list goes on.
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Another poignant example involves a physician failing to exemplify self-effacement and suffering
existential distress afterward. In “Latent Image” (VOY 5.11, 1999), Voyager’s EMH is faced with a
triage dilemma: two severely injured crew members—Ensigns Kim and Jetal (Nancy Bell)—who
each need immediate treatment or they will die. Of course, the EMH is the only doctor available
and so must choose which patient to treat first, knowing that this choice will result in the other’s
death. Typically, such choices are covered by the “principle of double-effect,” which states that an
action may be morally permissible even if it involves a foreseen but unintended negative side-effect
(Woodward 2001; Cavanaugh 2006). In choosing to treat Harry and not Ensign Jetal, the Doctor
does not intend that Jetal die; it is not as if he is aiming at her death or is choosing to treat Harry so
that she will die. Yet, the Doctor finds it extremely difficult to reconcile himself with the fact that
someone died because of a choice that he made. He is haunted by the thought that he may have made
the choice for the wrong reasons—namely, he chose to treat Harry because he considers him a close
friend. The Doctor is concerned that he made a triage choice based on his own self-interest and not
in a way that was fair to Ensign Jetal:
EMH: “Two patients, which do I kill?”

Janeway: “Doctor…”
EMH: “Doctor? Hardly! A doctor retains his objectivity. I didn’t do that, did I? Two patients, equal
chances of survival, and I chose the one I was closer to, I chose my friend?! That’s not in my pro-
gramming! That’s not what I was designed to do!”
Physicians must maintain a certain level of detachment from their patients, not allowing their
personal connection to a patient or other self-interests to determine the treatment choices they
make. Yet, physicians are all-too-human and even the Doctor, like other physicians forced to make
triage decisions and suffer the resulting distress, must come to terms with La vita nuova he is living.
Compassionate Regard for the Other

Compassion seems like the most obvious quality that all physicians should possess. It is important to
emphasize, though, that the compassionate concern physicians should have for their patients extends
to anyone in need whom they can help. It does not matter if it is a Federation foe—such as the
Romulan spy Crusher treats in “The Enemy” (TNG 3.7, 1989)—someone who has abducted the
physician to provide care for their people—as happens to Crusher in “The High Ground” or Phlox in
“Affliction” (ENT 4.15, 2005) and “Divergence” (4.16, 2005)—or even someone who is threatening
the physician themselves.
An exemplar of the fiercely compassionate physician is Beverly Crusher, particularly in “I, Borg”
(TNG 5.23, 1992). Encountering a crashed Borg scout ship, an away team discovers an injured ado-
lescent drone. Crusher immediately begins to tend to his wounds, while Worf advises killing the
drone and making it appear he died in the crash. Picard, who is understandably wary of having a Borg
drone on his ship, eventually agrees to allow Crusher to bring him aboard so she can further attend to
his injuries. In the process of studying him, Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton) and Data (Brent Spiner)
devise a means of transmitting a computational virus through the drone that will infect and destroy
the entire Borg Collective. While annihilating an entire race of beings would normally be uncon-
scionable to Picard and rest of the Enterprise’s officers, he and Commander Riker (Jonathan Frakes)
point out that there are no “civilians” among the Borg; each individual is a part of the hive mind that
has targeted humanity for assimilation. Crusher remains unconvinced:
When I look at my patient, I don’t see a collective consciousness, I don’t see a hive. I see a
living, breathing boy who has been hurt and who needs our help. And we’re talking about
sending him back to his people as an instrument of destruction.
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Jason T. Eberl
Eventually, after conversing with the drone and witnessing his assertion of his own identity now that
he is cut off from the Collective, Picard abandons the genocidal plan.
Compassion, however, can also be ambiguous, as it may not always be clear what is the appropriate
form of care one should provide to their patients, especially when one is no longer able to cure them.
This is the situation Bashir encounters in “The Quickening” (DS9 4.24, 1996) when he and Jadzia
Dax (Terry Farrell) beam down to a planet that has been ravaged by a blight imposed as punish-
ment by the Dominion. With no cure available, the local physician, Dr. Trevean (Michael Sarrazin),
has converted his hospital into a care facility for the dying—but with an added dimension. When
a patient’s blight has “quickened” and they are nearing a death that will be marked by increasingly
intolerable suffering, Trevean supplies them with a fatal poison they may self-administer and die in
peace surrounded by family and friends. Bashir is appalled by this practice, which is also quite contro-
versial in our own day with physician-assisted suicide/aid-in-dying having become more extensively
legalized in various countries and U.S. states.4 Setting aside the overarching moral question of self-
termination, a key point of controversy is whether physicians should be involved in helping patients
end their lives by providing a fatal dose of medication. The original formulation of the Hippocratic
Oath is quite explicit in this regard: “I will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor will
I advise such a plan.”5 Despite this historically absolutist proscription, physicians and ethicists con-
tinue to debate whether the prima facie deontological principles of respect for patients’ autonomy or
nonmaleficence override the other when a patient experiencing intractable and intolerable suffering
requests assistance in ending their life (Callahan 1992; Quill 2012).
Eschewing the Technocratic Paradigm

This quality may be the most difficult to see among Star Trek’s physicians as they all rely extensively
on various technologies to engage in their healing art. Indeed, Stephen Petrany notes that Star Trek’s
doctors themselves become decreasingly “human” in each incarnation:
These physicians illustrate a rapidly morphing image of doctors who are becoming less
human and more technological and infallible. They evolve from the old country doc,
McCoy, to the extraordinarily proficient Dr. Crusher, through the genetically enhanced
Julian Bashir, and ultimately to the sophisticated computer program with no name. The
perception conveyed here is that the medical profession will reach its zenith as unpredictable
human emotions and imperfections are eradicated. Technological advancement offers the
best future hope for successfully healing disease.
(2008, 133)
Petrany observes that this trend is reversed in the prequel series ENT, which employs an alien
physician, Phlox, who “is the prototype of the multicultural homeopathic physician of the future,
comfortable with technology but knowledgeable regarding the more natural means of healing.” Yet,
he misses a couple examples that belie the thesis that Star Trek’s physicians have become increasingly
technocratic throughout its in-universe history. Consider Crusher’s knowledge of the healing proper-
ties of various types of herbs in “The Arsenal of Freedom” (TNG 1.20, 1988) or, when the Enterprise’s
computer is malfunctioning in “Contagion” (TNG 2.11, 1989), Dr. Pulaski (Diana Muldaur) advises
a younger professional to set a broken leg with a splint:
Pulaski: “Splint—it’s a very ancient concept. You take two flat pieces of wood or plastic, a bandage.
The broken limb is kept immobile.”
Doctor: “That’s crazy, that’s not practicing medicine.”
Pulaski: “Oh, yes, it is. It’s a time-honored way to practice medicine, with your head and your heart
and your hands, so—jump to it.”
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While Petrany may be correct that the dominant medical model of the twenty-third and twenty-
fourth centuries is an ever-more extreme technocracy, Star Trek’s physicians stand out precisely by their
refusal to acquiesce to practicing medicine solely within the dominating mindset. Even Voyager’s EMH,
possessing all of the knowledge and skills of the best physicians the Federation has ever produced—and
thus starts out with an appropriately haughty demeanor and cold bedside manner—strives to prac-
tice medicine in an increasingly humane and caring manner, culminating in his distress in coming to
terms with an apparently problematic triage decision. Traditionally, medicine has been construed as
the “art of healing,” with a focus on treating bodily (and later mental) afflictions, while recognizing, as
Hippocrates did, that there are times when a patient may become “overmastered” by their afflictions
and all the physician can do is accompany the patient and do their best to ameliorate the patient’s
pain and suffering. Out of this understanding has grown the practices of palliative medicine and hos-
pice, which embody the ars moriendi (“art of dying”) (Gawande 2014; Quill and Miller 2014; Dugdale
2020). A more recent trend in medicine, however, has been to view it as a means of conquering and
transcending human vulnerability, bodily limitations, and even death. At the extreme end of this trend
is the “transhumanist” movement, which calls for the development and use of biotechnologies to create
a “posthuman future” (see Chapter 57) in which disease, disability, and perhaps death may become
remnants of a forlorn past (More and Vita-More 2013). While transhumanist enticements are intri-
guing, the dangers of re-engineering human nature have been aptly raised by both bioethicists (e.g.,
Fukuyama 2002; Sandel 2007) and Star Trek’s writers (Eberl 2008). Among Star Trek’s worrisome
examples are the aliens in “Return to Tomorrow” (TOS 2.22, 1968), who have achieved non-physical
immortality at the cost of the pleasures of embodiment, as well as a Q who wants to commit suicide
rather than endure the “tedium of immortality” (Williams 1973) in “Death Wish” (VOY 2.18, 1996).
Where Is Medicine Boldly Going?

Star Trek’s hero physicians exemplify part of Gene Roddenberry’s vision of a more positive future
for humanity—with enhanced intellectual, sociopolitical, and moral evolution alongside our greater
technological sophistication. In various ways described above, today’s healthcare professionals have much
to be inspired by these fictional future physicians’ examples, from McCoy’s tireless compassion, to
Crusher’s standing her ground on moral principles, to Bashir’s maturation and cultivation of the virtue
of humility—which he severely lacked at the outset—to the EMH’s and Phlox’s every-present curiosity
and lack of judgment for what’s “alien.” A final virtue highlighted above is fortitude (Pellegrino and
Thomasma 1993), which is strongly exemplified by Discovery’s Dr. Hugh Culber (Wilson Cruz). While
Dr. Culber has not been featured to the extent of his predecessors and so, after only four seasons to
date, we do not have quite as strong a sense of what particular virtues he displays as a physician. We do
witness him undergoing an existential crisis when he is killed by Ash Tyler/Voq (Shazad Latif), and then
finding himself trapped in the mycelial network, only to be reborn thanks to an alien pod that connects
the mycelial universe with our own. While it takes time and his psychological healing is not perfect,
Culber’s courage manifests itself in his ability eventually to return to duty and care for his crewmates
after having undergone what is undoubtedly the most traumatic experience any of Star Trek’s other
physicians—or any physician, period—have had to endure. As today’s healthcare professionals must
confront the physical, emotional, and existential toll of their vocation, watching Culber and other
Star Trek physicians contend with their own existential and moral crises may provide a glimmer of hope
in humanity’s bright future as envisioned by the Great Bird of the Galaxy.
Notes
1 This chapter will focus on ethical issues that specifically arise within the context of the physician-patient
relationship in Star Trek; for a discussion of Star Trek’s treatment of broader bioethical issues, such as human
enhancement and cloning, see Eberl (2008).
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Jason T. Eberl
2 For a discussion of a different hypothetical example of using homeless individuals to benefit others through
biomedical experimentation, see Eberl (2009).
3 For a comparison of the logic of the principle of utility with other moral perspectives represented in Star Trek,
see Eberl (2014).
4 Whichever term one uses to describe this practice reveals one’s view of its ethical legitimacy; the former term
signaling opposition, the latter support.
5 See www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/greek/greek_oath.html. For further discussion of the Hippocratic Oath and
whether it remains relevant to contemporary medical practice, see Cavanaugh (2017) and Veatch (2012).
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Star Trek Episodes
The Original Series
2.22 “Return to Tomorrow” 1968.
3.8 “The Empath” 1968.
The Next Generation

1.20 “The Arsenal of Freedom” 1988.
2.11 “Contagion” 1989.
3.7 “The Enemy” 1989.
3.12 “The High Ground” 1990.
5.23 “I, Borg” 1992.
Deep Space Nine

4.24 “The Quickening” 1996.
5.4 “…Nor the Battle to the Strong” 1996.
7.16 “Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges” 1999.
7.23 “Extreme Measures” 1999.
Voyager
2.18 “Death Wish” 1996.
5.11 “Latent Image” 1999.
Enterprise
4.15 “Affliction” 2005.
4.16 “Divergence” 2005.
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49
LANGUAGE AND
COMMUNICATION
Language and communication are central to the Star Trek universe; indeed, resolving the Babelesque
cacophony of a universe that teems with sentient life is necessary to maintain the coherence of
Star Trek. The Anglocentric model of the Federation ensures that the language of all its members
is as uniform as indeed the uniforms worn by Starfleet officers. There is no peace until universal
translators are widely used in the Star Trek universe. Constructed languages (conlangs) such as Klingon
or Vulcan, which inform fannish communities of practice, bond only partially and, for the most part,
unsuccessfully mask the elaborate Anglophonism of the Star Trek universe (see Chapter 41). While
most people will likely think of the UT and conlangs when they consider issues of language and
communication in Star Trek, this chapter will not belabor these staples of the franchise. Instead, the
chapter’s focus lies on the structures that undergird the language and communication worlds of
Star Trek with a view to bringing conceptual clarity to issues of communication and their impact
on the sociopolitical setup of the Star Trek. Ultimately, what makes peace in the Star Trek universe
possible is thus also central to what often jeopardizes the peace: all hell breaks loose when commu-
nication breaks down.
The chapter is divided into five sections. In the first, I describe the fundamental principles of
language and communication in Star Trek and how they form the basis for Star Trek’s sociopolitical
systems. In the next three sections, I discuss three aspects of language and communication that struc-
ture the mechanics of the Star Trek universe: (1) when communication breaks down due to the
failures of universal translators; (2) when communication occurs but is misunderstood; and, (3) when
communication fails because of different moral codes or values. These three aspects illuminate the
wider narrative of Star Trek’s engagement with the politics of diplomacy as well as the principles of its
narrative of progress. In the concluding section, I explore questions raised by xenolinguistics vis-à-vis
Star Trek’s attempt to traffic in cosmopolitanism.
Culture and the Politics of Communication

One of the principal novums of the Star Trek universe is the universal translator (UT); a techno-
logical conceit that enables communication between different species, all of whom speak distinct
languages, which are then mostly rendered in English—or at least that is what we, the audience, hear.
From a linguistic point of view, pursuing and establishing communication with non-human aliens is
a fundamental problem in science fiction (Myers 1980; Oberhaus 2019), but circumventing multilin-
gualism is a conceptual necessity in the Star Trek universe. Star Trek’s central drive entails a positive
and progressive humanism—an inevitable human-centered utopia where language itself is no longer
a barrier to any kind of communication, regardless of nation state, or interstellar origin. Rather, what
366 DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917-55

Language and Communication
acts as barriers to communication are traits that are inserted into the Star Trek universe as cultural
characteristics. Non-human characters, who are not tied to any specific area formerly constituted in
nation-states on Earth, are often reduced to stereotypes: the Vulcans are logical, the Klingons are mar-
tial, the Ferengi are capitalist, and so on (see Chapter 50). Their invented languages, howsoever elab-
orate, reflect the values of these cultures, and their development in fandom communities or the tie-in
novels. For instance, Klingon or Vulcan are meant to bolster their cultural alien-ness in an implicitly
weak form of the Sapir-Worf hypothesis (Koerner 1992), i.e., how language shapes, mirrors, and
limits our reality. Hence, the fact that Klingon appears much more difficult to pronounce serves to
reinforce the alien-ness and supposed harshness of Klingon martial culture and pugnacious customs.
Communication between different species—just as much as communication between humans—
amounts to elaborate narrative dances around customs, where the values of the Federation are
shown in a more favorable light. Communication is framed as a question of values, and much
of the conflict in Star Trek derives from defending those values. Usually, it is only the best
captains and leaders, like Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart), who are able to embody these values,
or return the Federation to those foundational values after the latter has temporarily strayed from
its self-proclaimed position of moral superiority. For instance, the post-currency lifeworld of the
Federation is deliberately set against the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition, with the former promoted
as the ideal to which the Ferengi perhaps should aspire (see Chapter 58). This placement of
values, whether they lie in gold-pressed latinum, the barrel of a gun, or in an enlightened future
of diplomacy, relies on a linear narrative of progress. Some values are presented as inherently
better than others, and it is those values that are then used to measure progress. This allows a con-
sistent model of comparison which is modeled on a Eurocentric teleology of progress, especially
the colonial grammar of difference that Star Trek maintains between advanced (Federation) and
other, usually “less advanced” civilizations (see Chapter 45). Hence, even in the best of diplomatic
negotiations which are supposed to happen at a level of equality, it is the language of comparison
and attendant difference that sustains the superiority of the Federation’s values over the values
of others. Language even allows for outmoded customs and values from humanity’s past to be
challenged; for instance, this is the case with outdated gender norms, such as calling a woman
captain “Ma’am” rather than “Captain” (VOY 1.1, 1995). However, there is no challenge to the
military structure that undergirds most of the Star Trek universe (Rabitsch 2019, 71–77); none
of the series or movies really question why titles, especially military titles, are needed at all in a
supposedly peaceful society that places a premium on diplomacy and communication in pursuing
its self-professed goal of avoiding conflict with other species.
If language is the currency of diplomacy, then the UT as a science-fictional novum is its principal
tool. Although it is possible to study it in terms of technology (Gresh and Weinberg 1999; Lasbury
2017), the UT is not merely a technological tool. Similarly, language in Star Trek is not merely a
matter of linguistics (Jones 2010; Parham 2019). Not only is it the UT’s role to furnish a translation
of any given language, but it is also to enable the translating of those values that undergird commu-
nication. The UT’s real purpose is then to allow the audience to understand other species; how-
ever, their understanding is not predicated on the processing of raw information alone but rather
on the differences in values between species being rendered in uniquely human, and specifically
Anglophone, terms. There is no way within the Star Trek universe to escape this particular Euro-/
Anglocentric value system. Consequently, the UT allows the Federation to expand and enforce
cultural and moral hegemony in its negotiation with other species. While communication relies
on mutual understanding, the UT can be considered a colonizing tool which hides its colonial
nature: it is essential to the imperial nature of the Federation’s mission. Star Trek’s contact with the
(alien) Other is modeled on historical settings of colonial contact and their attendant Eurocentric
imaginaries; the Federation’s mission is a colonizing mission which includes settlement, trade, and
other baggage of the colonial process. But since it seeks to avoid the violent actions of settler coloni-
alism (e.g., violence, enslavement, dispossession, and resource theft), most, if not all emphasis is placed
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on the Federation’s values and—crucially—on the language in which those values are encoded, i.e.,
its “largely unexamined logocentrism” (Rabitsch 2019, 209). It is due to the acceptance of those
values that makes other cultures, such as the Vulcans, a part of the Federation. When Vulcans make
first contact with Earth (FCT), their customary “live long and prosper” salute is transformed into the
gesture of the handshake of and with the American scientist whose first FTL-flight attracted their
attention. Conversely, those who do not accept those values retain their status as outsiders to the
Federation. While diplomatic negotiation is still possible with non-Federation entities, they usually
serve to render the Federation in a better light.
Indeed, at a fundamental level, most conflict in the Star Trek universe amounts to a failure of trans-
latability, which is not simply a question of semantics but pragmatics as well. In some cases, the actual
intelligibility of a language is due to the failures of the UT. In others, the difference in moral codes or
values is so extreme that even language comprehension does not translate into communication, let alone
understanding. In yet again other situations, translation is misunderstood due to contextual differences. It
is in these failures that we get a clearer picture of the limitations of communication in Star Trek.
Untranslatables
While many of the species in Star Trek are humanoid, there are species who are not reliant on lan-
guage at all in an anthropocentric sense (see Chapter 56), or whose languages are simply not translat-
able. Such ways of communication are often externalized on the level of scale, with such species being
either too large as individual (the creatures are bigger than spaceships), too vast as aggregate (they are
a hive or group mind), or too small (microscopic).
A key example of such a species is the Crystalline Entity, a space-dwelling alien that appears in
two key episodes of TNG (“Datalore” [TNG 1.13, 1988]; “Silicon Avatar” [TNG 5.4, 1991]). Shaped
like a crystal tree, it is powerful enough to consume all organic life on a planet all by itself. In its
second appearance in the episode “Silicon Avatar,” we see the entity consume all organic life on a
planet which was slated to be colonized by “pioneer” settlers. Humans are ridiculously small in scale
compared to the entity, and their human pursuits—colonizing a planet—are of little concern to an
entity that is only trying to sustain its own life. While humans are seen as trying to support and
help each other as a collective, the entity is singular both in its quest to sustain itself and in its modus
operandi for meeting its needs. The tension in the episode comes from the xenologist Dr. Kila Marr
(Ellen Geer), a leading expert on the entity, who is sent aboard the Enterprise to study the creature
although her real motivations are to destroy it since it had razed a colony that included her son. Marr’s
guilt-driven rationale is pitted against the ethical values of Picard who believes that they must try to
communicate with the entity first since the Crystalline Entity has as much right to exist as humans.
At the climax, when the Enterprise finally begins to communicate with the entity via graviton pulses,
Dr. Marr uses those same pulses to destroy the creature.
One of Star Trek’s signature remediations of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick (Rabitsch 2020, 228–
230), this TNG episode foregrounds many of the central concerns in Star Trek’s ethical positions
vis-à-vis other species. Here, in spite of the fact that the entity ends up being destroyed by human
hands, the values of the Federation are carefully maintained via the ethical standpoint of the Enterprise
crew, especially Picard’s. This arrangement is key to Star Trek’s politics of communication since it
maintains the possibility of communication without the necessity of communication. Even more
importantly, it does not require a critical examination of Federation values. In other episodes of TNG,
when the crew of the Enterprise meets similarly large creatures (for instance, the jellyfish-like entity in
“Encounter at Farpoint” [TNG 1.1, 1988]), the Federation is most certainly seen to be on the right
side of history, ethically and morally.
In many ways, the narratives of TNG directly hark back to the questions raised by TOS. The
Crystalline Entity, for instance, is reminiscent of the Horta, a silicon-based life form in “The Devil
in the Dark” (TOS 1.26, 1967). The Horta is killing miners, but Spock (Leonard Nimoy) is able to
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mind meld with the creature and feels its pain, which acts as a form of communication. A similar
silicon-based entity—but on a microscopic scale—appears in the TNG episode “Home Soil” (TNG
1.18, 1988). In order to preserve itself from the terraforming process initiated by the Federation on
an ostensibly empty world, an inorganic microscopic species seeks to communicate via geometric
shapes, only for their attempts to be ignored by the Federation terraformers, who deem them to be
signs of non-sentient life. As in the other episodes, human concerns of colonization, mining, and
terraforming are in conflict with the existence of other creatures, especially inorganic life. Tackling
discourses that are central to Star Trek (e.g., the frontier) head on, this episode puts forth a critique
of the tabula rasa logic of European colonization and its attendant legal fictions such as terra nullius
which, in turn, are entangled with the genocidal activities against indigenous people as well as the
transatlantic slave trade (see Chapter 45). It is their inability to communicate in the language of the
colonizer that renders these silicon-based lives invisible, and thus, initially at least, not as valuable as
the lives of the colonizers. Once they are able to communicate via the UT, the crew and the creatures
are able to come to an agreement and leave each other in peace. While the Federation’s hallowed
Prime Directive was inspired by the United States’ self-proclaimed policy of non-interventionism
during the Cold War and its utter failure in the case of Vietnam (Franklin 1994; Kapell 2016), it is
in TNG that the Prime Directive becomes an even more dominant axiom in Star Trek. The Prime
Directive allows the Federation to maintain an ethical and moral superiority via distance from actual
politics. “Home Soil” unambiguously speaks to the moral conflict at the heart of the Federation; the
Federation is even open to torturing other beings in order to preserve itself, just like any other crea-
ture. Still, the Federation manages to retain its own sense of superiority since the genocidal activities
of its people are presented as the result of miscommunication and lack of understanding, rather than
the product of colonial avarice.
In much of Star Trek, it is empathy that allows the narrative to bypass the problems of com-
munication with species that are truly alien. Their telepathic and empathic abilities allow Spock
and Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis) to access levels of communication that are simply inaccessible by
way of technological means. Empathy may be deemed as its own level of communication, one
that allows access to structures of feeling that guide authentic Federation principles, rather than
being a mechanistic response to the challenges posed by language translation. Such empathy is
displayed by many different characters, even those who are not gifted with Vulcan or Betazoid
traits, such as Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg) or Phlox (John Billingsley). Empathy also defines
characters who balance their non-humanity with human aspirations, such as the android Data
(Brent Spiner); something similar then also applies to Odo (René Auberjonois) and is explored,
for example, at length in “The Begotten” (DS9 5.12, 1997). In both cases, principles of logic and
justice are tempered with a context-sensitivity that gradually expands toward empathy through
their lifetimes.
Metaphors
Communication is also often jeopardized in cases where different species, or the Federation and a
contact species, are unable to accurately understand each other even though they are able to make
use of the UT. In these cases, the syntax and often even the words used by the contact species are
recognizable but their overall meaning within the sentence or the context remains unintelligible. In
these instances, communication happens by other means like a rudimentary exchange of cultural
information or paralinguistic features. Indeed, new forms of communication are seen to evolve in
such contact situations, expanding the general scope of the Federation’s cultural knowledge. In some
of these cases, the alien species is able to serve as principal communicator, transforming their own
communicative channels to try and match human communication. For example, this is the central
conceit in the much-celebrated episode “Darmok” (TNG 5.2, 1991). Here, Picard and his crew meet
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an alien species, the Tamarians, in what is a linguistically challenging situation. Viewers are informed
that the Federation has been unable to establish diplomatic relations with the Tamarians during pre-
vious contacts because they were unable to communicate with them. The Tamarians use a form of
language which emphasizes proper nouns and allegories, which, while literally translatable, are unin-
telligible without knowledge of the allegories’ context.
In this episode, the Tamarian captain, Dathon (Paul Winfield), “kidnaps” Picard in order to force a
dialogue. He transports himself and the captain to the surface of a planet where all communications
with their ships are blocked. There, the captain throws a knife at Picard while holding up his knife,
and says apparently vague things such as “Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra.” Initially misreading the
situation and Dathon’s intentions, Picard, like most of his crew, assumes this to be an invitation
to a combat, and refuses. The only exception to this is again the empath, Deanna Troi, who does
not sense any ill intentions on the part of the Tamarians. The storyline is driven by two distinct
realizations. First, Picard and Dathon figure out a way to communicate with each other once Picard
understands that Tamarian language is allegorical. Having ascertained its basic building blocks, which
are supported by pronounced gesticulation (e.g., open arms), Picard learns that the knives are to
fight a kind of electromagnetic beast on the planet’s surface. Dathon’s goals are thus to bond over the
threat of a shared enemy. Meanwhile on the Enterprise, Troi and Data decode some of the Tamarian
stories, along with their likely intentions, by using the cultural history of the region as a reference
point. Upon returning to the ship, Picard is able to communicate briefly with the Tamarians, drawing
on his newly found knowledge. The Enterprise and the Tamarians part company without any further
incidents. In the final scene, Commander Riker (Jonathan Frakes) walks in on his captain reading the
Homeric hymns, who then argues that more familiarity with Earth mythology might help them in
their next encounter with Tamarians. By the second season of Lower Decks, it would appear that more
elaborate communication had been established since Lt. Kayshon (Carl Tart), the first Tamarian in
Starfleet, joins the Cerritos crew (LWR 2.2, 2021).
Throughout the different series, other species take on the forms and mannerisms of humans in
order to communicate with them. This includes some of the most powerful species in Star Trek
like the Q, the Founders, and Species 8472. The Q’s penchant (especially John de Lancie’s version)
for elaborate Earth-based metaphors, human appearance, and behavior is as much a nuisance as it is
an indication of his species’ main problem: their own survival ultimately depends on learning from
humanity’s ability to grow and show compassion, a solution that implicitly casts humans in a better
light. Similarly, Species 8472 constructs elaborate simulations of human life, activity, history, and
behavior, which they use to understand the Federation (e.g., “In the Flesh” [VOY 5.4, 1998]). This
literal embodiment opens the possibility of communication in anthropocentric terms, allowing for
diplomatic negotiations, peace talks, and/or the sharing of military knowledge to take place. All of
these attempts to communicate ultimately humanize the alien by making sure that even though the
Federation is ready to defend itself, it is portrayed as a peaceful and diplomatic entity.
Yet it is not only the non-Federation aliens who are used as a means to reflect on communication
beyond language, but also the different species of the Federation serve to expose the limitations of
language and how communication is affected by way of customs. The alien-ness of different crew
members is a constant source of jokes. For example, the Klingon instinct to fight is constantly set in
contrast to the Federation’s values of peace; not only is the entire first season of DSC dedicated to this,
but it is also the bane of Worf ’s life (Michael Dorn). Vulcan crew members T’Pol (Jolene Blalock),
Spock, and Tuvok (Tim Russ) represent the inflexibility of hyper-rational behavior compared to
the Federation’s more flexible/emotional diplomatic approach. The Ferengi values of capitalistic
individualism and unadulterated avarice, chiefly represented by Quark (Armin Shimerman), are set
against the Federation’s communitarian values. All these differences are captured in terms of language
and communication: the Ferengi quote the “Rules of Acquisition” and use ultra-capitalist vocabu-
lary; the Klingons repeatedly call to honor and the glory of the Empire, while the Vulcans’ employ
measured logical speech patterns and consistently use the word “logic” and “logical” to evaluate
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“fascinating” situations. These language and communication choices communicate Federation values
to the audience. Yet they also serve as a means to remind the Federation of its own values in situations
where they seem to be in jeopardy, especially by raising uncomfortable questions. This is especially
true for liminal figures such as Spock, Data, and Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan), who are given almost
the same roles in TOS, TNG, and VOY: they serve to question Federation principles whenever the
Federation seems to depart from them—if only to show the logicality or illogicality of Federation
values, or the need to return to those values. These characters represent different facets of rationality
embedded in the Federation’s value structure, which, despite being open to diversity, nonetheless
promotes the primacy of purely organic life (see Chapter 57).
Furthermore, the general lack of empathy that most synthetics “suffer” from throughout
Star Trek is marked as a significant obstacle to communication. For example, the TOS episode
“The Ultimate Computer” (TOS 2.24, 1968) features a quasi-AI, the computer M-5, and its cre-
ator, Richard Daystrom (William Marshall), who designed the machine to take over most of the
command functions of a starship. However, M-5 goes rogue and begins to wage war against other
Federation ships as well as the Enterprise crew, murdering many people in the process. Daystrom
is devoted to the machine much as a father to a child, and refuses to take any action to stop his
machine, all of which leads to a nervous breakdown when he realizes what his machine has done.
Kirk (William Shatner) and crew use a similar strategy to disable the machine, making it recog-
nize the divergence between its mission (to protect life) and its actions (murder). However, much
of the tension in the episode comes from the perceptions of Daystrom, Spock, and the rest of
the Enterprise crew. Daystrom serves as the representative of machine-AI superiority, which also
translates information much as the UT does, and he is unable to see that it lacks the ability to
communicate beyond language. In other words, M-5 is unable to see its own flaws and requires
human mediation to recognize them. The representative of cold logic, and commonly decried as
a machine by others, Spock is able to nonetheless balance the legitimacy of Daystrom’s machine
without subverting the presumed superiority of organic life. Captain Kirk’s ability to communi-
cate with Commodore Wesley (Barry Russo) even without a formal language by letting down the
Enterprise’s shields and gambling on the latter’s humanity is one instance where human values are
given primacy. Simultaneously, Kirk’s ability to manipulate machine logic shows the limitations of
a purely mechanistic view of language and communication that is enabled by the UT. Not only
is this emphasis on communication that goes beyond the purely literal interpretation of language
a frequent source of humor when it comes to characters like Spock or Data, but it also speaks
to the Federation’s flexibility when it comes to decisions and judgment, including the ability to
selectively break with its own moral values and principles.
Morals
One of the central concerns of the Federation is that its value systems are seen and recognized by
others, including its enemies, as superior. Rather than the strength of its military or the advanced
nature of its technology, it is their superior value system that serves as the principal means to con-
vince other species to join the Federation. This is particularly evident in the way Star Trek presents
the Federation’s principal enemies, such as the Borg. The Borg represent the franchise’s tension
with machines and non-human intelligence (see Chapter 57). Their assimilative-militaristic nature
is proposed as something that stands in stark contrast to Federation values (see Chapter 60). The
Borg were a sign of the times when they first appeared in Star Trek (“Q Who” [TNG 2.16, 1989]).
First, they represent the transformation of humans into machines within a system that drains them
of their humanity, which is a staple of the cyberpunk era. Second, their hive nature is a comment on
socialism and its supposed intolerance of individuality—American-style individualism being a hall-
mark of life in the Federation at a time that saw the impending collapse of the USSR. The Borg have
one goal, which is to turn other species into Borg. Their communication is direct, and their message
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unambiguous: other species will be assimilated and their technologies and biological distinctiveness
will be added to the Borg collective. While individual Borg might be seen as mindless drones, they
follow a sophisticated system of command and control which was modeled on the hive structures of
insects. While they do not shy away from employing destructive force, their main goal is not destruc-
tion but perfection. Driven by a belief in perfectibility, they add features from other species to their
own. Neither are they inherently violent; they ignore those they consider useless and do not attack
unless threatened. However, the directness of their purpose is quite different from the Federation
which sees the Borg not only as a threat, but also as its antithesis. The Federation considers its own
values as superior to and completely different from that of the Borg, especially as far as the rights of
the individual and the embrace of individualistic diversity are concerned. Despite clear and unam-
biguous communication being established between the Borg and the Federation, or perhaps because
of it, communication alone is insufficient to reconcile such diametrically opposed lifeworlds and their
attendant ideologies. Hence, most of their exchanges often end in uneasy stalemates. This makes
the Borg-Federation exchange an analogue of Cold War politics, i.e., the individualist values of the
Federation is opposed to the expansive (read: oppressive) hive values of the Borg. For example, while
the Ferengi could theoretically be brought into the Federation’s fold since they share a minimum
level of understanding—monopoly capitalism in the human past (“The Sword of Kahless” [DS9
4.8, 1995])—life as a Borg drone is anathema to a Federation citizen, as it negates the hallmark of
anthropocentric existence: individuality.
Indeed, the Federation is open to suspending its own values when it comes to the Borg. This
fact is raised quite openly by Seven when her rehabilitation as a human begins in “The Gift” (VOY
4.2, 1997); she is not given a choice as to whether or not she wants to be re-indoctrinated in human
values. At some basic level, she understands that the Federation and the Borg have at least somewhat
similar principles: the Federation seeks to achieve their unity through communication, while the
Borg achieve it through technicity. While the Borg’s methods are coded as a threat, the Federation’s
principles are no less insidious. This trait is also hinted at throughout DS9 in particular by characters
such as Michael Eddington (Kenneth Marshall) in “For the Cause” (DS9 4.21, 1996), or Quark and
Garak (Andrew Robinson), who compare the insidiousness of the Federation to root beer in “The
Way of the Warrior” (DS9 4.1/2, 1995). These are all instances where the benevolence and disin-
terestedness of the Federation are exposed for what they truly are, i.e., a colonial force that aims to
establish imperial hegemony (Rabitsch 2019, 193–208).
But where the Federation is at least shown to be better is that it consistently questions everything—
even itself—which is why Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) does not answer but sidesteps Seven’s
question. One consistent feature of Star Trek is the Federation’s critical self-evaluation when it comes
to the treatment and (potential) exploitation of other species, be it androids (“The Measure of a
Man” [TNG 2.9, 1989]), or tardigrades (“Choose Your Pain” [DSC 1.5, 2017]), and even its peaceful
and supposedly “disinterested” mandate of exploration (INS). This self-reflexivity is key to a com-
municative flexibility that allows Star Trek to retain its utopianism and superiority of values, and
also to consistently anthropomorphize species for better understanding wherever communication is
hindered. This is also what makes it possible to argue for the continued evolution and betterment of
Federation values and its legal system, even in situations where they are not perfect. The Federation
is open to learning, to adapting, not always perfectly, but their default approach is to resolve issues
through communication instead of assimilation.
Xenolinguistics and Cosmopolitanism: Our Future and the Star Trek Future

The central load of communication in Star Trek is borne by women, be it in their roles as
communications officers, counsellors, or even as the computer voice of Starfleet ships. This gendered
casting places women in a position to support, extend, amplify, or bolster the Federation’s mission of
peaceful contact. At least two of the iconic communications officers are also women of color, Nyota
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Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) in TOS and Hoshi Sato (Linda Park) in ENT, respectively. The voice of
Starfleet shipboard computers was Majel Barrett, the wife of Star Trek’s creator. This is crucial to the
way Star Trek signals three different channels of communication: communication between genders,
communication between cultures, and communication between humans and alien others (including
machines). Unsurprisingly, given the utopianism of Star Trek, both race (see Chapter 50) and gender
(see Chapters 51 and 52) have had somewhat similar trajectories within the main timeline of the
series, becoming increasingly progressive. Xenolinguistics acts as the bridge between the present and
the future, and it serves as the signifier of cosmopolitanism in Star Trek. However, at least in TOS,
cosmopolitanism is little more than decoration, a means to show awareness of an aspect to the future
without actually engaging with it—operating in a manner similar to the UT. While TOS fares poorly
in any kind of gender metric and its depiction of women or females of any species generally ranged
from offensive to ludicrous, making a Black woman the communications officer on the bridge, even
if it is merely a supporting role, was arguably ahead of its time. In a similar way, making Sato critical
to the development of the UT is also a means to blend xenolinguistics with cosmopolitanism, making
the former a consequence of the latter. As a machine, the ship’s computer itself is a kind of alien
Other. Yet, it is also a machine that preserves, nurtures, and maintains the fragility of life on board
the ship, embodying something similar to the Federation itself, i.e., a fragile union born of differences
between humans and their many alien others. Without delving into race, gender, and issues of fem-
inism in Star Trek, it is important to note that if language and communication are central themes in
Star Trek, then the real voice of diplomacy is undoubtedly raised as a “feminine” principle. However,
doing that forces Star Trek into an extremely narrow and sexist understanding of women’s roles as
caregivers and nurturers (see Chapter 51).
What then is the real utopianism of Star Trek, and how do language and communication come
into play in its vision of the future? This chapter suggests that conflicts in the Star Trek universe
are about differences in values that are located in the communication protocols employed by the
Federation and the many species that populate the Star Trek universe. It is in recognition of these
values, especially democracy, individualism, diversity, and difference that Star Trek continually seeks
to develop a model of politics based on communication protocols rather than straightforward coloni-
alism or assimilation, even if it consistently falters and fails in doing so. Perhaps the real utopianism of
Star Trek lies in its ability to try to adapt to changing values of society and fandom. Its anxieties and
mores are both a reflection of their time, but the solutions to these are embedded in the continually
evolving understanding of difference. And that understanding of difference—or Kol-Ut-Shan, i.e.,
infinite diversity in infinite combinations—might also be considered a core Federation value, one that
Earthlings adopted from their first alien contact.
References
Frankin, H. Bruce. 1994. “‘Star Trek’ in the Vietnam Era.” Science Fiction Studies 21, no. 1 (March): 24–34.
Gresh, Lois, and Robert Weinberg. 1999. The Computers of Star Trek. New York: Basic Books.
Jones, Richard R. 2010. “Course in Federation Linguistics.” In Star Trek as Myth: Essays on Symbol and Archetype
at the Final Frontier, edited by Matthew Wilhelm Kapell, 129–143. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
Kapell, Matthew Wilhelm. 2016. Exploring the Next Frontier: Vietnam, NASA, Star Trek and Utopia in 1960s and
1970s American Myth and History. London: Routledge.
Koerner, E. F. Konrad. 1992. “The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis: A Preliminary History and a Bibliographical Essay.”
Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 2, no. 2 (December): 173–198.
Lasbury, Mark E. 2017. The Realisation of Star Trek Technologies. Cham, Switzerland: Springer.
Meyers, Walter E. 1980. Aliens and Linguists. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.
Oberhaus, Daniel. 2019. Extraterrestrial Languages. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Parham, Thomas D. III. 2019. “Hailing Frequencies Open”: Communication in Star Trek: The Next Generation.
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Rabitsch, Stefan. 2020. “Guilty Ahabs, Starbuckian Reason, and White Cetacean Contours in Outer
Space: Remediating Moby Dick on the Final Frontier.” AAA—Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik 45,
no. 2 (Fall): 217–238.
Star Trek Episodes
The Original Series
The Next Generation

1.1 “Encounter at Farpoint” 1988.
1.13 “Datalore” 1988.
1.18 “Home Soil” 1988.
2.16 “Q Who” 1989.
5.2 “Darmok” 1991.
5.4 “Silicon Avatar” 1991.
Voyager
1.1 “Caretaker” 1995.
4.2 “The Gift” 1997.
5.4 “In the Flesh” 1998.
Deep Space Nine

4.1/2 “The Way of the Warrior” 1995.
4.8 “The Sword of Kahless” 1995.
4.21 “For the Cause” 1996.
5.12 “The Begotten” 1997.
Discovery
Lower Decks
2.2 “Kayshon, His Eyes Open” 2021.
Star Trek Movies
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PART VI
Social History
50
RACE
Harvey Cormier
In TOS, Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner), whose looks and name might have reminded
viewers quite a lot of President John F. Kennedy, took the starship Enterprise out on a bold mission to
explore strange new worlds and keep the peace in the galaxy. Space, the final frontier, was also part
of Kennedy’s “New Frontier,” a new American West waiting to be settled by new pioneers (Brooks
2001). However, in the sequels and prequels that have appeared over the ensuing decades, Starfleet has
displayed much less of TOS’ signature good-natured cowboy neocolonialism. Real-life Americans
learned hard geopolitical and domestic lessons in the 1970s and 1980s, and, as the postwar triumph-
alism of Camelot faded, the allegories of the later Star Trek series evolved. They tended to feature
less heavily-armed dissemination of the American Way through the Milky Way and more respect for
diverse ways of life.
While this sounds like a change for the better, stories in the later series sometimes overshot the
mark. They suggested that different cultures are rooted in the innate and thus immutable biological
determinants of spacegoing species, and they have even toyed with the dark idea that “natural” differences
will make reasoning and peacemaking impossible among some of those races. From the beginning,
Star Trek has been something more than mindless entertainment because of the hopeful, progressive
picture it has painted of both the present and the future; however, with regard to racial differences and
racial conflicts, that message has become less hopeful over the years. This chapter considers examples of
the changing role of race in Star Trek, concluding with very brief reflections on whether and how the
latest additions to the franchise might go on to produce better treatments of race.
Turn On, Tune In, Warp Out

The TOS Enterprise was an extremely mobile United Nations, with men and women of every color
in the spectrum working together in bantering harmony. Occasionally, they acknowledged their
racial and cultural differences, but those differences were deemed unimportant by the characters since
interracial peace had been achieved within the United Federation of Planets. For example, in “The
Savage Curtain” (TOS 3.22, 1969), a recreation of Abraham Lincoln (Lee Bergere) appears on the
bridge and notices Lieutenant Uhura (Nichelle Nichols):
Lincoln: What a charming negress. Oh, forgive me, my dear. I know in my time some used that term
as a description of property.
Uhura: But why should I object to that term, sir? You see, in our century we’ve learned not to fear
words.
…
Kirk: We’ve each learned to be delighted with what we are.
…
DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917-57 377

Harvey Cormier
Spock: It is basic to the Vulcan philosophy, sir. The combination of a number of things to make
existence worthwhile.
Evidently, in the Star Trek universe, racial labels do mark real differences that make different kinds
of people “what [they] are.” But even though many ancient users of Uhura’s label thought that her
difference made her “property”—or, less euphemistically, a natural slave—Uhura and Kirk are both
“delighted” by the differences their labels represent.
TOS sometimes devoted not only isolated exchanges but entire episodes to similarly awkward
anti-racism. In “Plato’s Stepchildren” (TOS 3.12, 1968), for example, the Enterprise crew took on
Parmen (Liam Sullivan) and the Platonians, aliens with telekinetic powers who based their society on
a misguided interpretation of Plato’s Republic. After encountering that text millennia earlier on a visit
to Earth, the Platonians had decided that the best people—they themselves, of course—should be the
absolute rulers of all lesser beings. They therefore enslaved Alexander (Michael Dunn), the lone non-
psychic-powered Platonian, and, when Kirk and crew arrive on Platonius in response to their distress
call, the ingrate aristocrats cruelly humiliate and torture them, too, forcing on them such indignities
as the famous interracial kiss between Kirk and Uhura.
In the Republic, Plato, of course, had divided his ideal society by genos, usually translated as “kind”
or “race.” He had argued that the best kind of society would result when the best race, or the one
featuring the most powerful minds, ruled (Plato 1935). And when Alexander bemoans his life under
Parmen’s thumb, Kirk, thinking at least partly in racial terms, responds that in the Federation, “size,
shape, or color makes no difference, and nobody has the [higher psychic] power.” That is, “lower”
human beings always can and do figure out the trick and make themselves “better” people, and thus
there is no permanently higher race or kind of intelligent life. Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley) proves this
in short order when he figures out the source of the Platonians’ telekinetic powers and—seemingly
in violation of the Prime Directive, which apparently has no self-defense clause—he gives greater
though temporary powers to Kirk. The moral of this story: The true aristocracy or meritocracy is an
unstratified democracy; racial and other kinds of oppression will disappear when we start adhering to
scientific principles while learning to ignore irrelevant, mutable distinctions among kinds of people.
Other episodes of TOS attacked racism more explicitly. In the episode “Balance of Terror” (TOS
1.8, 1966), Lt. Stiles (Paul Comi), a member of the Enterprise bridge crew, comes to display blatant
prejudice against his Vulcan superior officer Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy). Regarded by Earth and
its allies as “warlike, cruel, treacherous,” the shadowy Romulans make their first appearance in the
episode. Stiles is consumed with hatred for them because they killed some of his ancestors in an
interstellar war a century earlier. Now they have apparently just launched an unprovoked, preemptive
attack on peaceful Federation outposts—an obvious reference to Pearl Harbor—using an invisible
warship. No one on the Enterprise actually knows what Romulans look like, but Spock manages to
tap into a visual feed from the bridge on their cloaked ship. They turn out to look like Vulcans,
possibly because of shared ancestry. Glaring at Spock, Stiles makes the sinister argument that there
may be Romulan spies aboard the Enterprise. Of course, similar racist, paranoid arguments were heard
after Pearl Harbor in the US, which led President Franklin D. Roosevelt to authorize the internment
of approximately 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry—American citizens and resident aliens alike.
Disturbingly, the only recurring Asian character, Lt. Sulu—portrayed by George Takei, who, along
with his family, had been among the internees—pipes up to agree with Stiles in his fears, which are
not justified by anything heard in the story previously.
Spock, however, makes his own loyalty clear when he counsels the captain to destroy rather than
simply study the intruder ship. He offers the following rationale:
Spock: I‌f Romulans are an offshoot of my Vulcan blood, and I think this likely, then attack becomes
even more imperative.
McCoy: War is never imperative, Mister Spock.
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Spock: It is for them, Doctor. Vulcan, like Earth, had its aggressive colonising period. Savage, even
by Earth standards. And if Romulans retain this martial philosophy, then weakness is something
we dare not show.
If Romulans and Vulcans are branches of the same race, then they will share an innate predisposition
to aggression. The Vulcans have shown that this shared savage nature can be overcome and, over
generations, have embraced a non-violent doctrine of logic and emotional control instead; in fact, in
“Plato’s Stepchildren,” McCoy points out that contemporary Vulcans can die if they get too emotional
(outside the pon farr, anyway). But it looks as if the Romulans have not reinvented themselves with arti-
ficial evolution and, consequently, they remain violent and emotional. In the course of the final naval
showdown, Spock demonstrates further that Stiles has judged him unjustly. He manages both to rescue
Stiles from a toxic gas leak and to fire the final shot disabling the Romulans. In the end, an interplan-
etary racist learns his lesson—which is not that race is only skin-deep. Instead, the episode suggests that
within a race, individuals, or even whole offshoot sub-races, may, somehow, remake themselves and cease
to behave as their “blood” bids them. It is therefore irrational to be too hasty with race-based judgments.
“The Cloud Minders” (TOS 3.19, 1969) puts this don’t-judge-too-hastily point in another way. On
the planet Ardana, members of the dull-witted and violent “Troglyte” caste rebel against their masters,
who look down on them both figuratively and literally from the floating cloud city of Stratos. The
“Disruptors” among the Troglytes display criminal tendencies and a disdain for beautiful things, but this
turns out not to be because they are an inferior race of beings. Instead, noxious gas below the surface
has been clouding their intellects as they work in “zenite” mines. This has affected their behavior and
given them just cause for violent resentment. In yet another mild violation of the Prime Directive, Kirk
has the leader of the cloud-dwellers beamed down against his will into a mine to experience some
mind-poisoning first-hand. This convinces the Disruptors to pause their rebellion, and they promise to
pursue reforms peacefully with their henceforth-unimpaired minds. Kirk has brought ethnic peace by
using science and only small amounts of phaser-stunning, kidnapping, and fisticuffs.
But the clearest engagement of TOS with race and racial conflict was the episode “Let That Be
Your Last Battlefield” (TOS 3.15, 1969). The Enterprise encounters two super-powerful aliens—Lokai
(Lou Antonio) and Bele (Frank Gorshin)—who are black on one side of their bodies and white on the
other. Each demands Kirk’s assistance in subduing the other. Lokai, a magistrate, wants to bring Bele to
justice for terrorist crimes after a 50,000-year-long chase, while Bele seeks asylum and help from Kirk.
The two aliens are like a pair of human-sized electric eels, able to zap things they come near. Each is
racially prejudiced against the other, though the Enterprise crew cannot see why. It turns out that one
is black on the left side, the other black on the right. Moreover, Bele eventually announces that “y‌ou
monotone humans are all alike,” and Lokai refers to humans as “monocolored trash.” Kirk refuses
to help either of these characters win this war over a comically trivial physical difference, but Lokai
manages to hijack the ship anyway. When they arrive at their homeworld, Cheron, which is located
in “the southernmost part of the galaxy,” they learn that the inhabitants have long since exterminated
one another. As Lokai and Bele head for the transporter to beam down to the surface, Kirk implores
them to see reason—“Listen to me! You both must end up dead if you don’t stop hating!”—but to
no avail. As the episode ends, Lokai and Bele are chasing each other endlessly in the ruins. “It makes
no sense,” Lt. Uhura says mournfully as the Enterprise leaves them behind. Her remark sums up the
Federation attitude toward race: Racial differences are meaningless except as sources of adventures,
cultural exchange, and like delights. Kirk and crew will do what they can to help the peoples of the
galaxy learn this lesson, though in this particular case they were too late to help.
1990s’ Star Trek
America’s political self-understanding changed over the years between the end of TOS and the
debut of TNG. Kennedy and Johnson’s post-WWII euphoria had long faded by the middle of
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Reagan’s second term. The Vietnam War, which TOS had endorsed with Gene Roddenberry’s alle-
gorical fable “A Private Little War” (2.16, 1968) had ended badly for the American-backed proxy (see
Chapter 44). However, the Cold War, in which Vietnam had been but one theater, was still dragging
on. And, back at home, NASA’s manned space program, part of the inspiration for TOS, had been
badly damaged live on television as the Challenger exploded upon launch in 1986; Johnson’s “War on
Poverty” had been declared unwinnable and had since devolved into a war on the poor and the War
on Drugs; and, as Louis Farrakhan began thrilling stadiums full of black Americans with hot racial
rhetoric, America seemed to be waking from Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1960s’ peace-and-love dream
of racial reconciliation and coexistence. In short, American ethnocentric confidence had, for good
reasons, waned. A new skepticism was developing. Perhaps the New Frontier could not be tamed the
way the Old West was. Maybe the different peoples of the world could not, in the end, be taught, with
only a little coercion, to live together in happy harmony. And maybe this included even the different
peoples or “races” who made up the American people.
The Star Trek of the 1980s and 1990s reflected this new skepticism regarding the prospects for
racial peace and coexistence. Consider the two-part TNG episode “Birthright” (6.16/17, 1993),
whose script was drafted while Spike Lee’s Malcolm X was in theaters. Lt. Worf (Michael Dorn) is
appalled by his discovery of Klingon survivors of the battle of Khitomer. Not only are they living
in peace with their former Romulan captors, but they have also intermarried and brought forth
children who are of two worlds. While TOS would likely have treated this case of racial integra-
tion as a hopeful outbreak of rationality, in the Star Trek of the 1990s, it seems quite regrettable
that the Klingons have learned to live in peace by forgetting “who they are.” Worf is attracted
to Ba’el (Jennifer Gatti), a young half-Klingon, half-Romulan woman who is a product of this
intermixing. However, Worf is enraged and disgusted by the ways in which the Klingon captives
have forgotten their cultural identity. Tokath (Alan Scarfe), Ba’el’s Romulan father, tells Worf that
he will not be allowed to disrupt their way of life by reintroducing Klingon tribalism. Instead of
obeying, of course, Worf begins teaching the youngest Klingons about “their” way of life. When
Tokath decides to execute Worf, Ba’el, Toq (Sterling Macer, Jr.), and the remaining Klingons form
a human(oid) shield against a firing squad. Worf is released, and he, Toq, and two other young,
full-blooded Klingons return to the Enterprise, where Worf informs Picard that the whole matter
is to be dropped. Poor Ba’el has been left behind because, of course, there is no place for her in a
racially divided world.
This particular racial divide is marked, like some racial divides on Earth, by a difference in skin
color. In a post-TOS development Klingons are dark-skinned while Romulans are much lighter-
skinned. In TOS, the Klingons seemed to come in a variety of skin tones. Sometimes, as was the
case in “Day of the Dove” (TOS 3.11, 1968), they were dark brown, but then the white actor Tige
Andrews played Kras the Klingon in the episode “Friday’s Child” (TOS 2.3, 1967) without dark
makeup. In TNG, the Klingons are always portrayed either by black actors like Michael Dorn or
white actors in brownface. This might seem trivial in view of the big post-TOS Klingon develop-
ment; in the TNG-era, the space buccaneers are no longer undifferentiated, unregenerate villains.
There are even heroic figures among them like Worf. But Klingon heroism fits invidious stereotypes
of dark-skinned tribal warriors on Earth. Worf is a good man to have on your side because he is
unafraid of death and will never back down from a fight. However, the Klingons remain irration-
ally obsessed with domination, honor, and killing. They also have bad teeth, spaceships that are dirty
and rusty on the inside, and gross food including “blood wine” and live worms. Moreover, and most
puzzling, we rarely see or hear anything about Klingon scientists and other intellectuals who must
have played a role in making their interstellar empire possible in the first place. It seems clear that the
Klingons are an empire of ritualistic fighters, not thinkers or builders.
When we match these combative psychological tendencies with not only dark skin but also
the raised-consciousness, anti-melting-pot rhetoric often heard in black America around the pro-
duction and airing dates of this program, the result is a little chilling. Of course, there is nothing
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Race
wrong with anti-assimilation allegories per se, but when weapons, battle songs, and relishing vio-
lent killings are what makes “us” “who we are,” the real-life subjects of the allegory have every
reason not to feel flattered. Moreover, maybe even an earthling could have sniffed out that boar
in the brush, but human beings tend not to hunt by smell. Thus, the insult is exacerbated by the
indication that Klingons and humans are not only culturally but also biologically inclined toward
different behaviors.
Nobody ever says as much out loud on the air, but if we go to the official Star Trek website, we
learn in an article on the Klingons that “t‌he well-statured warrior race has a genetic predisposition to
hostility” (Star.Trek.com n.d.). Thus, as Ba’el and her people live in their outdated Summer of Love
commune, the young full-blooded Klingons are evidently being denied the heritage that fits their
biological nature—a nature more animalistic and predatory than that of the light-skinned Romulans.
Hence, if an episode like “Birthright” is supposed to symbolize the real-world prospects for peace
among the races, it should give all of us earthlings some pause.
Stay Black
The 1980 arrival of Reaganite “small government” ushered in a retreat from postwar idealism.
Optimistic leaders like John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Lyndon Johnson had tried to
go—to boldly go, as it were—out into the world to make progress. The Reaganites thought such
efforts had, inevitably, proven fruitless. Both Communists and Western “progressives” had tried to pick
winners of competitions and plan economies in order to make the world more “just”; but, in the long
run, the fittest people and peoples were going to succeed while the less fit would fail. Laissez-faire
capitalism, which supposedly minimized the size of the government and thus minimalized its inter-
ference with nature’s way, was believed to be the best kind of politico-economic system. Reagan, his
immediate followers, and his successors in both major political parties have been governing accord-
ingly ever since.
Discovery premiered in 2017, which was perhaps the final stretch of the “long” Reagan era. In
2021, Joe Biden was hailed as the first post-Reagan president because he seemed willing to try
to shape the future of the world using governmental money and power (Goldberg 2021). Going
forward, as he listens to the advice of scientists, historians, and economists rather than fossil-fuel-
industry lobbyists exclusively, and as he tries to take action to resolve crises like the Covid-19 pan-
demic, climate change, racial inequity, and collapsing infrastructure, Biden seems as if he will seek to
bring back into American life some of the spirit that informed the origin of Star Trek.
TOS was an allegory of the United States as it deployed technology to reshape itself and the
world for the better—and, sometimes, for the worse. America helped rebuild Europe and Japan after
World War II; it offered financial aid, health programs, and disaster relief to “developing” countries;
and it tried to make internal peace among its own bitterly clashing ethno-racial groups. Analogously,
formed after Earth’s World War III, the Federation sent Starfleet out not only for reasons of defense
but also to end agricultural blights, deliver vaccines to end plagues, shuttle diplomats among its own
quarreling member planets, and the like. Of course, postwar America also militarily defended corrupt
regimes like that of South Vietnam, just as Kirk and crew waged “A Private Little War” against
the Klingons. Thus, neither the real-life Federation nor the imaginary one was perfect, to say the
least. Nevertheless, Star Trek started as an allegory of an America that made scientifically informed,
forward-looking, and vigorous efforts to improve the world, even if those efforts were sometimes
misguided or worse. That kind of enthusiastic, optimistic American effort seemed to peter out in the
1980s, but maybe it has now begun spluttering back to life again 40 years later.
A Reagan-era product, TNG tended to express less optimism than TOS about America’s ability
to fix the dysfunctions around and within it. Thus, we saw an episode like “Birthright,” in which
Klingon and Romulan racial nature foredoomed any peacemaking effort. We may wonder, now,
though: If the era of dispirited Reaganism is winding down in real-life America, is this reflected in
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Harvey Cormier
the latest additions to the Star Trek universe? In particular, is the issue of racial conflict beginning to
seem tractable again? Or does a future of delight in ethno-racial differences, as opposed to conflict
over them, still seem hard to imagine? Unfortunately, a look at the first few episodes of DSC shows
a treatment of racial nature that is troublingly ambivalent.
DSC’s pilot episode, “The Vulcan Hello” (1.1, 2019), opens with a literally black-skinned Klingon
orator named T’Kuvma, portrayed under several pounds of prosthetics by the Afro-British actor
Chris Obi, admonishing a crowd of his fellow demonic-looking Klingons to stop quarreling among
themselves and go forward “together under one creed[:] Remain Klingon.” The various houses must
“lock arms against those whose fatal greeting is: We come in peace.” The Klingons’ self-preservation
depends on their uniting to fight a war with outsiders.
“Remain Klingon” is reminiscent of the vernacular expression “Stay black,” which black Americans
have long fired back in response to commands and statements of necessity. As a matter of fact, we can
find it in Langston Hughes’s 1951 poem “Necessity”:
Work?
I don’t have to work.
I don’t have to do nothing
but eat, drink, stay black, and die.
(1995, 392)
Here the speaker shows freedom and defiance by pointing to the “natural” things he really has no
choice about. However, in the post-civil-r ights era, African Americans do indeed have a choice about
staying black, if that means remaining committed to the black community and cooperating to achieve
political, social, and economic justice. “Stay black!” has thus evolved into an admonition to choose
solidarity. For example, in Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing (1989), Buggin’ Out (Giancarlo Esposito),
the comical “self-appointed arbiter of ‘blackness’,” makes just that admonition to his friend Mookie
(Spike Lee), who is working for a white man’s business in their black neighborhood (McKelly 1994,
224). The makers of DSC, who include an African American executive producer and sometime dir-
ector, are surely familiar with this expression. Hence, when they adapted “Stay black!” and gave both
it and coal-black skin to the first principal antagonist of the show, they were knowingly drawing some
kind of analogy to real-life black people. But what kind of analogy? What qualities in real people is
this metaphor supposed to illuminate? Are they virtues, vices, or a mixed bag? And are those qualities
“natural,” i.e., innate, and thus immutable, or are they “cultural,” that is, socially constructed, change-
able, and freely chosen?
The audience gains a little insight into this in the next episode. In an exchange between Michael
Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green), the first black woman principal protagonist of the Star Trek fran-
chise, and Admiral Anderson (Terry Serpico), Burnham tries to warn her military superiors about the
coming conflict with what the Admiral calls this “warrior race.” She shockingly advocates greeting
the next Klingons they see by doing something that is antithetical to Starfleet, namely shooting first:
Burnham: Admiral, if I may. The ideal outcome for any Klingon interaction is battle … It’s in their
nature.
Anderson: Considering your background, I would think you’re the last person to make assumptions
based on race.
Burnham: With respect, it would be unwise to confuse race and culture.
Burnham, it turns out, grew up on Vulcan as the adopted child of the same mixed-species family
that produced the human-Vulcan hybrid Spock (who appears later in the series played by Ethan
Peck). In her childhood, Burnham was scarringly belittled for her human emotionality by Vulcans
outside her family, and so Anderson is surprised to find her displaying the same kind of prejudice she
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has had to face. However, shooting first at the Klingons is not just Burnham’s bigoted idea. It is the
Vulcan “Hello,” devised long ago when the Vulcans first encountered the Klingons and learned what
they had “in their nature.” The Vulcans concluded logically—that is, according to their (self-shaped)
nature—that opening a channel before opening fire on Klingons would never do more than earn the
Klingons’ contempt and cause more trouble.
Difficulty, however, looms as we try to understand Burnham’s Vulcan judgment of the Klingons.
Notice that, in the above exchange, both Admiral Anderson and Burnham actually argue both sides
of the question they are debating. Anderson deplores disturbing a “warrior race” while, at the same
time, he accuses Burnham of racial prejudice; and Burnham deprecates the way Anderson confuses
race and culture even as she insists that war is in the Klingons’ “nature.” These intersecting, recip-
rocal contradictions are significant in that they make it clear that this spectacular opening of a
season-long story arc has, in the end, nothing coherent to tell its audience. It deploys several million
dollars’ worth of latex makeup and outer-space CGI in order to say something allegorical about the
origin of a racial conflict, while it ends up saying nothing that makes any sense.
Or, rather, nearly nothing. The audience does learn that T’Kuvma and his followers are, for what-
ever reason, a menace. Klingons are best left isolated in their corner of the galaxy, where, without
anyone else to bully, they will prey on each other. Here, as in “Birthright,” the single most defining
characteristic that makes these dark-skinned people “who they are,” and thus the only thing that
can save them from destruction as a people, is, evidently, aggression directed at others. Once again,
if Klingons are symbols of real-life black people, this is, to say the least, not a compliment. And it is
a worse traducement if the cause of the Klingons’ brutality is supposed to be their “nature.” In that
case, it will definitely be a waste of time to talk to members of this race before shooting at them, since
genes, hormones, or neural programming—and not words or thoughts—will drive their behavior.
It goes without saying that an allegory indicating this about real black people would be outrageous—
especially if this analogy happened to appear, as the first seasons of DSC did, at the height of the Black
Lives Matter movement. At that moment, outrage and street demonstrations were spreading around
the world as black Americans were, in real life, being treated like animals and greeted with gunshots
and chokeholds rather than talk. It was a very bad time to suggest, even equivocally, that this kind of
shoot-first “hello” was the only rational option.
Race across the Galaxy

Of course, it also goes without saying that these science fiction TV writers no more consciously
intended this particular allegorical outrage than they intended to indicate that real black people are
ugly or eat disgusting food. In both “Birthright” and the opening of DSC, writers undoubtedly meant
to suggest only that the Klingons, like black Americans, have had to tamp down intramural conflict
as they struggled to survive conflict with extramural groups. Just about any other analogy would
amount to flagrant racism, and there is no history of that in Star Trek. The problem is instead that
some post-TOS Star Trek metaphors of racial conflict have been, while well-intentioned, awkward
and artless.
The different Star Trek races or species, on their different planets, were nearly all introduced as
emblems of one or two personal or social characteristics. The bloodthirsty Klingons, the authori-
tarian Cardassians, the logical Vulcans, the sleazy Orions, the avaricious Ferengi (except for Nog [Aron
Eisenberg]), and the treacherous Romulans all amount to what are, basically, interstellar stereotypes (the
multifaceted Bajorans of DS9 are a notable exception). They have been, to borrow terms from profes-
sional wrestling, either “heels” or “faces,” existing to be booed, cheered, or booed and then cheered after
they reformed. Because of this, identifying any of these cardboard-character racial types closely with any
real race or kind of human beings amounts to no more than an insult of one kind or another.
Real-life human ethno-racial groups are, of course, more complicated. This is because they are
made of intelligent individuals, particular beings whose behavior is influenced, albeit not determined,
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Harvey Cormier
by their racial “nature.” Getting their genetic makeup from their biological parents, those individ-
uals receive physical care, language, and ideas about how to live from their community; then they
go out into the world and have, thanks to their distinctive mental and physical capabilities, new life-
experiences and ideas; and then they report back to the group. Either the group ignores the new ideas,
notes them and rejects them, or incorporates them and consequently changes itself in the process.
Because of this third possibility, human ethnoi are not shallow, static types. Part of human “nature”
involves this capacity of human groups and their individual offspring to make and remake each other
over time—often a very short time, since this remaking can be due to “memes” or symbolically
expressed ideas. Unlike genes, memes can be selected in days or even hours rather than over
generations.1 This means, among other things, that if one has not encountered a “race” of human
beings for a hundred years, one cannot know what its members will be inclined to do if one starts
out talking to them rather than shooting at them.2
This understanding of how human groups become differentiated is valuable not only to science
but also to TV dramaturgy. As the drug gangs, mob families, and houses fought and made alliances in
The Wire (2002–08), The Sopranos (1999–07), and Game of Thrones (2011–19), their creators followed
the above template. It was key to making their addictive stories of intra-and intergroup interaction
unpredictable. Individual main characters keep responding to events by showing believable but unex-
pected sides of themselves, and these developments in the individuals’ stories take their gangs and
families in directions the audience had not expected. Viewers had to wait in hard-to-bear suspense
for the next episode. We earthlings are comfortable assuming that any sentient peoples in the galaxy
will form behavioral characteristics by the same process, and so writers of science fiction TV tend
to show aliens—individuals and communities—mimicking our human kind of reciprocal remaking.
Indeed, those imagined groups will be of real dramatic interest to us only to the extent that we can
see ourselves in them (see Chapters 56 and 57).
DSC writers have not diverged from this pattern. After an incoherent beginning, the remainder of
the first season featured multi-dimensional, evolving characters who were part of multi-dimensional
and evolving groups (see Chapter 7). The story of the Klingon-Federation war took turn after unex-
pected turn as L’Rell (Mary Chieffo), Voq (Shazad Latif), Burnham, Gabriel Lorca (Jason Isaacs),
Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh), Paul Stamets (Anthony Rapp), and some of their evil Mirror
Universe counterparts developed complex relationships with one another and with their different
sides in the conflict Ultimately, L’Rell, far from being steered by her warlike nature, brought the war
and the first season to an end when she took control of the empire.
Race in the Future

As new Star Trek series carry on telling complex stories, someday one of them may develop a believ-
able and even enlightening allegory of real human racial groups and their conflicts. Or this may not
happen; the writers may end up overcomplicating the plots, producing so many wacky twists and
come-and-go characters that viewers cannot suspend their disbelief or invest emotions in those
stories. Perhaps this kind of overdoing it has indeed characterized the first seasons of DSC, which
have not been nearly as compelling as Game of Thrones or the other serial dramas that seem to have
influenced it. Moreover, it is rumored that Strange New Worlds, one of the upcoming series at the
time of writing, will return to a partially episodic storytelling format. While each season-long arc
in DSC has seemed like one long, dark apocalypse, more TOS-like adventure-of-the-week episodes
will likely vary widely in comic and dramatic tone (Towers 2021). That may make complex char-
acter development, and complex group character development, more difficult. Or it may not, since
“character arcs” are possible without story arcs, and maybe ethno-racial groups can be developed like
individual characters over the course of the new series.
Consequently, it is too early to tell whether any of the new additions to the Star Trek uni-
verse will succeed in creating good, believable allegories of race. A realistic understanding of racial
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differences and development does not warrant the kind of pessimism about racial conflict that post-
TOS Star Trek has sometimes seemed to slip into, but we can no more say that Star Trek is done with
racial pessimism than we can say that America is done, once and for all, with Reaganite despair of
changing the world for the better. Appropriately enough, we can only look hopefully to the future,
the undiscovered country, to find out both things.3
Notes
1 See Dawkins (1989) for the power of memes to transform both individuals and human groups very quickly.
2 At the end of the nineteenth century, William James, one of the first evolutionary psychologists, offered
this story of racial development as a more authentically Darwinian response to the deterministic “social
Darwinism” of his day (see James 1956).
3 This is a much-revised version of a chapter “Race Through the Alpha Quadrant: Species and Destiny on Star
Trek,” first published in SciFi in the Mind’s Eye: Reading Science through Science Fiction (New York: Open Court,
2007). Previously published parts are reprinted by permission.
References
Brooks, David. 2001. “Farewell to Greatness: America from Gilligan’s Island to The X-Files. Review of Gilligan
Unbound: Pop Culture in the Age of Globalization, by Paul Cantor.” The Weekly Standard 7, no. 1: 31.
Dawkins, Richard. 1989. The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Do the Right Thing. 1989. dir. Spike Lee. 40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks.
Goldberg, Michelle. 2021. “The First Post-Reagan Presidency.” The New York Times, January 1, 2021. Available
at: www.nytimes.com/2021/01/28/opinion/biden-president-progressive.html.
Hughes, Langston. 1995. The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes. New York: Vintage.
James, William. 1956. “Great Men and the Environment.” In The Will to Believe, 216–254. New York: Dover.
McKelly, James. 1994. “The Double Truth, Ruth: Do the Right Thing and the Culture of Ambiguity.” African
American Review 32, no. 2 (Summer): 215–227.
Plato. 1935. The Republic: Books VI–X. Trans. by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
StarTrek.com. n.d. “Klingons.” Available at: www.startrek.com/database_article/klingons.
Towers, Andrea. 2021. “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Showrunner Says It Will Mimic the Original Series’
Episodic Format.” Collider, April 13, 2021. Available at: https://collider.com/star-trek-strange-new-worlds-
episodic-format-original-series.
Star Trek Episodes
The Original Series
2.3 “Friday’s Child” 1967.
3.11 “Day of the Dove” 1968.
3.12 “Plato’s Stepchildren” 1968.
3.19 “The Cloud Minders” 1969.
The Next Generation

6.17 “Birthright, Part II” 1993.
Discovery
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51
GENDER
Danielle Girard
Gender is a complex concept that has evolved drastically within the realms of cultural knowledge and
acceptability since Star Trek’s unaired pilot episode was produced in 1964. Notable for its conten-
tious view of gender and sexuality, the TOS episode “Metamorphosis” (TOS 2.2, 1967) sees Captain
Kirk (William Shatner) exclaim: “[t]‌he idea of male and female are universal constants.” The episode
finds the crew of the Enterprise on a shuttle mission to an alien planet where they encounter Zefram
Cochrane (Glenn Corbett), “the discoverer of the space warp,” and an alien Companion (Elinor
Donahue/Elizabeth Rogers), who takes the form of a gaseous cloud. The episode’s conclusion finds
that the Companion has grown to love Cochrane and, despite being a gaseous cloud, experiences
the human concept of gender identity and is female, leading to Kirk’s claim of a constant, universal
gender binary. This scene thus becomes an important anchor point for putting the actual text of
Star Trek in contrast with the culturally crafted (and falsely remembered) account of the show.
“Metamorphosis” reflects the ignorance of wider gender discourses of the time, but it does not
reflect the misogynistic rebranding that the franchise has undergone in the popular imagination and
its persisting cultural memory. My use of the concept of cultural memory here draws heavily on Erin
Horáková’s (2017) article, “Freshly Remember’d: Kirk Drift,” where she discusses mismemory on a
wider cultural scale as something that mimics “a mass hallucination.” Horáková’s central framework
contrasts slightly with my reading of “Metamorphosis” in that it is necessarily less individualized and
relies more heavily on paratextual narratives. To discuss an individual episode for Horáková is to draw
on paratextual elements of mismemory; she offers “City on the Edge of Forever” (TOS 1.28, 1967) as
an example where the phrase “let me help” has been misremembered due to the “wide-reaching”
influence of Stephen Fry as “please, help me” (ibid.). As Horáková explains, this shifts the textual
meaning from “a personal offer to serve” to an “opportunity to exercise his [Kirk’s] own benevolent
power over someone in peril” (ibid.).
The choice, then, to reflect first on Kirk’s claim of a gender binary is not to aggravate reductive
readings of the character, but to highlight the nuance of contrast between what is believed of gender
in Star Trek and what fan scholars (myself included) are constantly fighting to save. This contrast is of
key importance as we return to TOS and consider our own imaginings of it, cultural imaginings of it,
and more objective renderings of textual choices. This chapter, then, will explore the original con-
struction of gender in Star Trek through a sartorial lens. It will scrutinize how subsequent iterations
of the show both responded to and corrected those narratives. I will show that the nuances of gender
and expression within Star Trek are best viewed through its use of costumes and masculinized bodies.
Gender identity in TOS remained relatively stagnant (the closest TOS ever comes to representing
trans-ness can be located in its final episode, “Turnabout Intruder” (TOS 3.24, 1969), in which Kirk’s
ex-g irlfriend builds a device that allows the pair to switch bodies. However, gender performativity
within the series is distinctly fluid (see also Chapter 53). Despite its reductive view of gender as a
binary constant, TOS portrays a certain level of androgyny regarding its leading men that creates a
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Gender
space for the text to be expanded upon in later iterations. It complicates ideas of gender and feminine
and masculine performances. In Female Masculinity, Jack Halberstam writes:
although we seem to have a difficult time in defining masculinity, as a society we have little
trouble in recognizing it, and indeed we spend massive amounts of time and money rati-
fying and supporting the versions of masculinity that we enjoy and trust.
(1998, 1)
This concept of recognition is key to understanding how Star Trek’s core values are often antithetical
to its dialogic choices as, again, the show paints its two leading men—Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock
(Leonard Nimoy)—with broad strokes of both masculinity and femininity. Patricia Frazer Lamb and
Diana L. Veith offer that this androgyny of performance is what inspired the first wave of K/S fan
fiction and fanzines (2014). They provide a detailed list of the masculine and feminine traits each
possess to demonstrate the androgyny of these two characters, and Andrew Butler takes it one step
further, claiming that Kirk and Spock “become female men” (2012, 167).
While Butler’s statement is speaking directly to fan treatment of these characters (see
Chapter 33), the underlying importance of their textual androgyny cannot be overstated. To
draw again on Horáková and the discourse surrounding cultural memory, she contends that these
perceived differences are due to contemporary understandings of gendered behavior, writing: “we
have, in some ways, become more wedded to forms of masculinity in entertainment that are vio-
lent, in opposition to cooperation and professionalism, and sexist” (2017). She goes on to assert that
“this is in part a way of enforcing a masculinity currently perceived as imperiled due to unstable and
disempowering relations of capital, and as a backlash against the increasing visibility of women and
queer people” (ibid.). The theory here is that male characters in TOS potentially received nuanced
characterizations because there was no threat to maleness and masculinity on screen in the 1960s.
While this opens more nuanced readings of masculinity and queerness, there is an unavoidable
problem in relation to the representation of women. A fascinating insight into the gender dis-
course in TOS comes from Spock himself; in his second autobiography, Nimoy outlines the studio
parameters that ultimately shaped the central political message of the series around racial tensions
rather than crafting a feminist narrative. Nimoy writes: “the network execs were especially vocal
about getting rid of two roles—the female second-in-command and the devilish-looking alien,
Spock” (1995, 32). Indeed, studio interference can be seen through a sartorial examination of both
of the show’s pilot episodes: “The Cage” TOS’s failed pilot, and “Where No Man Has Gone Before”
(TOS 1.1, 1966).
“The Cage” depicts Number One (Majel Barrett), the female second-in-command, on equal
ground to her male colleagues. She wears the same uniform as the men, and it is this sameness of
dress that allots her the power and authority that her position commands. Joanne Finkelstein states
that how “we dress and expect others to do so are defining limits on what we perceive as normal
and orderly” (1991, 107). This has been expanded upon by Joanne Entwistle, who tells us that “the
body is not merely a textual entity produced by discursive practices but it is the active and perceptive
vehicle of being” (2000, 29). By allowing men and women to occupy the same uniforms, the episode
is then actively crafting a space for the perceived normality to be that of gender equality. During
the episode, Number One and Yeoman J. M. Colt (Laurel Goodwin) embark on an away mission in
which their uniforms are keenly on display. While Number One’s uniform is made moderately more
feminine by the belt that accentuates her curves, Colt’s uniform remains boxy in the torso, not quite
hiding her femininity, but equally not allowing her to be sexualized or objectified. Even apart from
Number One’s position aboard the ship, these costumes permit her and Colt a base foundation of
equality by acting as visual symbols that force the audience to view them through the same lens as
the men in the episode. What is more is that while the uniforms are visually masculine, they do not
detract from these characters’ femininity, blurring the line between these two concepts in order to
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code a uniform that is practical for the job rather than gendered. This serves to challenge a contem-
porary audience’s expectations of how bodies should be coded.
An examination of the two women in close-up further demonstrates the nuance of costuming
and makeup in “The Cage.” Here, Colt’s costume mixes both a feminine and masculine illusion. The
fabric pulls in at her stomach and under her breasts, reminiscent of an empire waist line, drawing up
her waist and keeping the bodice form-fitted and tight before flaring out at her hips to create a more
feminine shape. From the chest up, however, the costume’s high neck is coded as masculine, as are
Colt’s face and hair.
In contrast to Number One, Colt’s hair is pulled back and her face is free from harsh makeup.
Colt’s femininity is defined by her costume, not her face, while Number One is styled to reflect
bold femininity and beauty—dark, flowing hair, bright red lips, even the positioning of her hands
beneath her chin revealing a shiny manicure is noticeably feminine. Given the positions of both
women aboard the Enterprise, this distinction is nuanced as it actively suggests that heightened
femininity is equated with professional standing and authority. As Halberstam points out, “mascu-
linity in this society inevitably conjures up notions of power and legitimacy and privilege” (1998,
2). What is interesting about “The Cage,” then, is how it deploys Number One’s femininity to
speak to these ideas of power. Tying this into the costuming choices then becomes a matter of
simplicity as Entwistle affirms that “women are more likely to be identified with the body than
men” (2000, 30). While this implies a level of reductive femininity that is always-already obsessed
with surface objects and images, it also offers forward opportunity in regards to costuming as
each individual choice is speaking to wider understandings of femininity and masculinity. What
makes “The Cage” such a fascinating case study in its wider contribution to the understandings of
Star Trek in both fandom and cultural memory is that it was not accessible for consumption until
1986, when it was released on VHS, and did not air on television until 1988, despite being the first
piece of live-action Star Trek ever made. The effect of this delay means that the episode exists
in a state of cultural liminality in that it is neither a continuation of Star Trek nor a blueprint
upon which cultural memory has formed. While portions of the episode were used in the two-
parter “The Menagerie” (TOS 1.15, 1966; TOS 1.16, 1966), they were heavily influenced by the
studio producing TOS. In essence, “The Cage” is the unsung hero of what Roddenberry wanted
Star Trek to be in terms of gender ideologies prior to the harsh studio regulations of the 1960s
interfering with it. However, its positioning in the cultural canon means that these ideologies are
often overlooked while subsequent iterations of the show are cited specifically for breaking the
“sexist” mold of TOS.
The pilot that TOS arose from—“Where No Man Has Gone Before”—is the only episode of
TOS’s original 79-episode run that depicts the female officers of the crew wearing the same uniforms
as the men. While Sally Kellerman’s Dr. Elizabeth Dehner does not occupy the same position of pro-
fessional authority as Number One, Dehner’s uniform is noticeably less feminized than both Number
One and Colt’s. In a full body side shot of Dehner it is clear that the uniform top sits loosely on her
body. Dehner’s body in profile is neither sexualized nor objectified and the only noticeable difference
is that her pants sit a bit tighter on her thighs than those of the men. In a close-up of Dehner’s uni-
form the audience is presented with a complete departure from the uniform worn by Colt. Rather
than accentuating her curves and body, Dehner’s uniform is loose and drapes in a fashion that does
not distinguish her in any way from her male counterparts. This suggests neither femininity nor mas-
culinity but rather an androgyny of the costuming choices in “Where No Man Has Gone Before,”
offering a second and aired pilot episode that crafts a space of visual equality for women. However,
this did not last. Following these two pilots, TOS women were reduced to short skirts and lower
necklines, placing value on their bodies over their practical contributions to the running of the
Enterprise. This can be seen best through Majel Barrett’s recasting as Nurse Chapel, a demotion that
removes her authority and rewrites her visual narrative. In “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” (TOS
1.9, 1966), Barrett’s Chapel has big blonde hair and an excessively made-up face: blue eyeshadow,
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a bright red lip, rouged cheeks. Even her body language has changed, her shoulders hunch forward
slightly presenting the image of a vulnerable woman.
These three distinct costumes define the trajectory of female representation in Star Trek as
TOS’s status as the original crafts a frame of citationality for all iterations of Star Trek that followed.
What is more is that while “Where No Man Has Gone Before” was the pilot that catapulted the
show into serialized production, it was only the third episode that aired to general audiences,
minimizing the effect of Dehner’s wardrobe as the classic miniskirt was what audiences had been
introduced to first. This history of costuming in the show and its relationship to studio interference
speak to a larger discourse of gender and how visual depictions of women potentially speak more
to citationality than actual characterizations. Star Trek is far from invisible in cultural histories; even
people who have not watched any iteration of the show could potentially point to the short skirt as
the uniform traditionally worn by women in the franchise. Without access to the wider history of
why these fashion choices were made, it becomes only too easy to view Star Trek through this lens
of cultural memory that distorts its original and continued attempts—and failures—of advancing
gender narratives rather than allowing them to stagnate into predetermined functions of femininity
and masculinity.
What citationality of costuming then allows us to see is the little reparations that each iter-
ation of Star Trek has made along the way. Elizabeth Wilson writes that men “use dress as a way of
imprisoning women within the passive feminine, thus locating passivity in ‘the Other’ and keeping
it at a safe distance” (1985, 121). To consider this in contrast to the costuming choices that TOS
made, it is easy to read the demotion from matching uniforms to sexualized uniforms as a form of
visual imprisonment. While the female characters in TOS were confined to passivity through their
costumes, TNG approached this ideology of dress by recrafting the visual narratives to allow women
to choose which uniform best suits them in their role—be they pants or dresses. From the first epi-
sode of TNG, “Encounter at Farpoint” (1.1/2, 1987), this change is noticeable. The variation in
women’s costumes can be best viewed via Tasha Yar (Denise Crosby) and Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis).
Yar is the more visibly masculine of the two with her short haircut and neutral makeup; she is allowed
to express her masculinity through her uniform while Troi is allowed to retain her femininity. What
is most interesting about these costuming choices is how they actively resist the passive branding
that Wilson discusses. TNG stands out in this regard because it is not diminishing the expression
of femininity in that it allows characters to choose their own visual narratives rather than enforcing
strictly masculine uniforms. This in and of itself allots these TNG characters a level of control over
their bodies and gives them agency in their interactions with other characters. It also allows them to
determine how we as the audience are permitted to view them. TNG succeeds in allowing feminine
costumes to be repurposed for expression rather than objectification.
TNG plays with gender and gender expression more openly than TOS, introducing the Trill
in season four’s “The Host” (4.23, 1991) and the J’naii in season five’s “The Outcast” (5.17, 1992).
The Trill are an alien race of symbionts who merge with a large number of host bodies throughout
their lifetimes, meaning that they can change gender and gender expressions. The J’naii have less of
a legacy within the franchise, instead functioning as a one-off genderqueer race of aliens. In Gender
Trouble, Judith Butler writes that, “indeed, precisely because certain kinds of ‘gender identities’ fail to
conform to those norms of cultural intelligibility, they appear only as developmental failures or logical
impossibilities from within that domain” (1990, 24). This theory is applicable to “The Outcast”—
which follows J’naii Soren’s (Melinda Culea) journey of feeling female rather than genderqueer—in
two key aspects. First, Soren’s failure to conform to J’naii norms and cultural intelligibilities means
that she represents their cultural idea of failure; and, second, the textual producers’ failure to view
genderqueer identity in conjunction with their own cultural intelligibility of gender constructions
results in conflating the removal of gender with the removal of individuality. The J’naii costumes
do not reflect genderqueer fashion but are instead situated in stark contrast to human imaginings of
gender. The color scheme is neutral and earthy, suggesting that color itself is a gendered entity. Their
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use of pants also suggests that masculinity alone can be neutralized while femininity is always already
responding to gendered imaginings.
It is not until DS9 that the franchise significantly explores gender fluidity through the characters
of Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell) and, to a lesser degree, Ezri Dax (Nicole de Boer). DS9’s sartorial choices
engage more with the multiplicities of gender expression, allowing femininities and masculinities to
blend in new capacities. Jadzia Dax, for example, is split into two separate parts: Jadzia, the female host,
and Dax, the Trill symbiont. Already there is gender complexity since Jadzia as the host represents a
singularity of gender while Dax’s gender fluidity and memories of past host lives complicate Jadzia’s
womanhood. This is presented through verbal cues alluding to Dax’s masculinity and previous male
host, Curzon (“Dax” [DS9 1.7, 1993]) as well as Farrell’s makeup and costuming. Farrell’s costume is
practical and boxy, a style worn primarily by her male peers, and does not draw particular attention
to any specific part of her body. Her face is made up to be soft and neutral, her eyes lightly lined and
her lips painted nude. The final touch is her hair, which is long and thus ‘traditionally’ feminine, but
which is tied in a nondescript ponytail behind her head that reads on screen as more masculine. This
gives her appearance the same thread of gender ambiguity that follows her characterization as a Trill
with a long history of male host bodies and the memories that accompany them.
These distinctions in styling are best observed in conjunction with DS9’s other prominent female
character, Kira Nerys (Nana Visitor). Erica Leigh writes about Kira that “with her short hair, no-
nonsense demeanor, and unique combination of toughness and emotional depth, Kira wasn’t trad-
itionally feminine” (2021). While this is undoubtedly true, Visitor’s styling (compared to Farrell’s) is
visually cued to read as feminine. Her costume is much tighter, accentuating her breasts and shoulders,
and while her hair is short (traditionally butch), its stylization is far more pronounced, suggesting
Kira spends a not insignificant portion of her time on her appearance (traditionally feminine). What
becomes of bigger consequence here is how Visitor responded to her own character’s costuming.
At Virtual Trek Con in 2020, she spoke about her character on the panel “The Influence of Strong
Women in Star Trek,” stating:
My body was enraged and hot with the idea that I would have to wear heels. That I would
have to conform with some kind of sexualized version of myself. The way I talked myself
through it was to go, “If I can do it in flat boots, I can do the same thing in heels.” It’s not
about the clothes.
(The 7th Rule 2020, 8:49–9:11)
Visitor’s claim here that her characterization is not about the clothes opens up numerous pos-
sibilities for how we as the audience then view her character and those that followed. It creates
new opportunities for viewing costumes as feminine visions of strength rather than means of
objectifications. While Visitor’s character is not to be equated with her clothing, her clothing does
contribute to the creation of her character’s visual narrative. Eleanor Tremeer makes a common
misstep regarding clothing and objectification when she writes of Seven of Nine’s (Jeri Ryan)
portrayal in PIC as “a clear invitation to see Seven as a person first, and a woman second,” further
admonishing “that rib-crushing corset” from VOY (2020). The misstep here is in the assumption
that Seven’s character is a predominantly visual one. In effect, this reduces the roles of women
to their outward appearance in an attempt to denounce sexualized objectification. Instead, it
becomes a self-sabotaging argument, embracing failure rather than searching out other sartorial
potential in relation to other facets of televisual creation—fans reading Visitor’s Kira Nerys as a
feminist/queer icon, for example. This calls back to Entwistle’s claim that women are more likely
to be identified by the body.
Finkelstein discusses the varying fears associated with types of clothing and identity, writing: “under-
scoring this association of identity with appearance is a cultural anxiety about knowing who it is
we are encountering. Using coded items of clothing to make such categorizations more visible
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also makes them a site for playful resistance” (2007, 128). An excellent example of Star Trek using
costuming to resist pre-existing ideas of femininity and masculinity can be found in the VOY epi-
sode “Counterpoint” (5.10, 1998). Michèle A. Bowring writes about VOY’s Captain Janeway (Kate
Mulgrew) and gender, saying:
intertwined with feminine codings of Janeway, we also find many instances in which she
is coded as stereotypically masculine. In every battle scene, for example, Janeway is inde-
pendent, forceful and dominant … she is rational, calm, and ruthless … all these stereotyp-
ically masculine traits are at the root of her success in battle.
(2004, 393)
Bowring’s tie of femininity and masculinity within Janeway—the only Star Trek captain who
both carried the weight of the show and is a woman, prior to Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-
Green) assuming command of Discovery at the end of the show’s third season—speaks to tropes of
gender performance that are somewhat outdated as they suggest that what makes her a good captain
are her inherently masculine traits. “Counterpoint,” as Bowring also notes, acts as “an example of a
hyperfeminine Janeway,” one who is “trying to deliver a group of refugees safely out of the clutches
of a repressive government” (ibid., 392). Again, this play on femininity is not ideal as it suggests that
the facets of Janeway that are inherently feminine speak to a protective nature. Bowring goes on
to discuss her hair and makeup in the episode, noting that they are “more vibrant than previously”
(ibid., 392). This is where I fundamentally disagree with Bowring as Janeway’s makeup is no different
in “Counterpoint” than it is in other episodes in the same season—see, for example, “Thirty Days”
(VOY 5.9, 1998).
There is an imperceptible difference in the styling of Janeway in these two episodes that sit back
to back within the fifth season of VOY. As Bowring’s argument about the episode hinges on the
idea that Janeway is “putting on a performance,” with the use of her makeup as an indicator of such,
it begins to read more as an attempt to remove her femininity from her ability to strategize and
overpower her male counterpart within the episode. I argue that instead of putting on a perform-
ance, in “Counterpoint,” Janeway is making an active choice to use her femininity to her advantage.
Halberstam discusses at length the “sustained social structures that wed masculinity to maleness and
to power and domination,” yet Janeway’s very existence in the show allows these structures to be
questioned and challenged (1998, 2). Therefore, painting Janeway’s textual power with broad strokes
of masculinity becomes reductive. She is not putting on a feminine front, but using her inherent fem-
ininity to play on contemporary ideas of power. This, again, can be seen through her costuming in
the same episode, particularly in a private encounter between Janeway and her counterpoint within
the episode, the antagonistic Kashyk (Mark Harelik). Here, she has removed her uniform jacket,
already making the scene more intimate, and without the bulky outwear of her uniform, her fem-
inine curves are on display, making her body more visibly sexual. As Stella Bruzzi writes in Undressing
Cinema, “women, both on and off screen, have been over-identified with their image, and the self-
conscious irony … begins to suggest that women are capable of using this enforced identification for
their own ends” (1997, 121). We can see this irony in the episode, as Janeway uses the removal of her
more masculine uniform jacket to build on her femininity despite never sacrificing the power she
wields over Kashyk in the scene. Bruzzi also writes that “costumes … are spectacular interventions
that interfere with the scenes in which they appear and impose themselves onto the character they
adorn,” suggesting that the femininity of a costume must be read as the femininity of the character
who has actively made a choice regarding the visual consumption of their body (ibid., xv). Janeway
then becomes the pinnacle of feminizing power through costume.
Returning to the concept of cultural memory and citationality. Despite each iteration of the fran-
chise building toward a more cohesive and nuanced depiction of femininity and masculinity within
the franchise, it would be remiss not to discuss Star Trek’s biggest failure of gender representation to
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date, ST09 and STID, the films set in the Kelvin timeline (see Chapters 20 and 21). The most notable
aspect of costuming with ST09 and STID is the removal of rank insignias from the female uniforms,
most easily viewed through a comparison of TOS’ Lt. Uhura (Nichelle Nicols) and her reboot coun-
terpart, played by Zoë Saldana.
The lack of distinguishing markings on Saldana’s Uhura in contrast to the gold embroidered
rings around Nichols’ wrists is a noteworthy removal. As Saldana’s male counterparts have retained
the uniform rankings, what this removal suggests is that women do not play a functional role on the
Enterprise in Abrams’ rebooted films. Considering that personnel on a working spacecraft would not
have military ranks, this removal reduces all women aboard the ship to non-commissioned hands at
best, and civilians at worst. It does not only sexualize their bodies, but also removes all sense of agency
from female officers. By denying female characters their ranks in a system that relies on the chain of
command, the rebooted films are essentially saying that the women are not there to perform func-
tional duties.
Matt Hills writes:
Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness adopt a multivocal, dialogic relationship to the franchise’s
established story-world. Reduced to a matter of intertextual referencing or remixing,
Star Trek:The Original Series is not so much adapted as transformatively and selectively cited.
(2015, 31)
In this case, citationality becomes a weapon actively used in the text of Star Trek. While demeaning
and sexualized uniforms are not uncommon in TOS, the cultural memory that dictates they be the
most remembered and exploited seeks to diminish the franchise’s contribution to larger gender
discourses. As David Greven writes: “if gender exposes and reveals power relationships, what is
striking about Original Trek’s representation of gender is how perilously close it often comes to
suggesting that the condition of masculinity is one of vulnerability to all manner of assault” (2009,
loc. 156). This, then, is the citation that must be profoundly connected to Star Trek’s longevity, and
it is the citation that threads through Star Trek’s many television series and movies. It is the citation
that must be made to advance the study of gender and Star Trek in a proactive direction rather than
expanding upon the reduction ideology of cultural memory.
References
Bowring, Michèle A. 2004. “Resistance Is Not Futile: Liberating Captain Janeway from the Masculine-Feminine
Dualism of Leadership.” Gender, Work and Organization 11, no. 4 (July): 381–405.
Bruzzi, Stella. 1997. Undressing Cinema: Clothing and Identity in the Movies. London: Routledge.
Butler, Andrew. 2012. Solar Flares: Science Fiction in the 1970s. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.
Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender Trouble. New York: Routledge.
Entwistle, Joanne. 2000. The Fashioned Body: Fashion, Dress and Modern Social Theory. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Finkelstein, Joanne. 1991. The Fashioned Self. Oxford: Polity Press.
Finkelstein, Joanne. 2007. The Art of Self Invention: Image and Identity in Popular Visual Culture. London: I.
B. Tauris.
Greven, David. 2009. Gender and Sexuality in Star Trek. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
Halberstam, Jack. 1998. Female Masculinity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
of Cult/SF Worlds.” In Science Fiction Double Feature, edited by J. P. Telotte and Gerald Duchovnav, 21–37.
Horáková, Erin. 2017. “Freshly Remember’d: Kirk Drift.” Strange Horizons, April 10, 2017. Available at: http://
strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/columns/freshly-rememberd-kirk-drift/.
Lamb, Patricia Frazer, and Diana L. Veith. 2014. “Romantic Myth, Transcendence, and Star Trek Zines.” In The
Fan Fictions Studies Reader, edited by Karen Hellekson and Kristina Busse, 97–115. Iowa City, IA: University
of Iowa Press.
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Leigh, Erica. 2021. “Bajoran Culture Is My Feminist and Queer Inspiration.” Star.Trek.com, July 26, 2021.
Available at: https://intl.startrek.com/news/bajoran-culture-is-my-feminist-and-queer-inspiration.
Nimoy, Leonard. 1995. I Am Spock. New York: Hachette Books.
The 7th Rule. “The Influence of Strong Women in Star Trek.” YouTube. July 17, 2020. Available at: www.
youtube.com/watch?v=pA0Cu8Krxf4.
Tremeer, Eleanor. 2020. “The Sexist Legacy in Star Trek’s Progressive Universe.” Gizmodo, July 14, 2020.
Available at: https://gizmodo.com/the-sexist-legacy-in-star-trek-s-progressive-universe-1844147116.
Wilson, Elizabeth. 1985. Adorned in Dreams: Fashion and Modernity. London: I. B. Tauris.
Star Trek Episodes
The Original Series
unaired pilot “The Cage.” 1964/1988.
1.1 “ Where No Man Has Gone Before” 1966.
1.9 “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” 1966.
1.28 “City on the Edge of Forever” 1967.
2.9 “Metamorphosis” 1967.
The Next Generation

4.23 “The Host” 1991.
5.17 “The Outcast” 1992.
Deep Space Nine

1.7 “Dax” 1993.
Voyager
5.9 “Thirty Days” 1998.
5.10 “Counterpoint” 1998.
Star Trek Movies
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52
QUEERNESS I
Representations of Gay, Lesbian,
and Bisexual People
Bruce Drushel
According to popular culture lore, when veteran television writer Gene Roddenberry set about
attempting to interest US broadcast networks in his concept for a weekly science fiction series about
space exploration in the twenty-third century, he pitched what would eventually be titled Star Trek
as “a Wagon Train to the Stars” (Newsweek Special Edition 2016), a reference both to a successful
Western television series but perhaps also to the context for the new series’ episodes—adventurers
in a new territory who must make their way with little outside help. A closer look reveals the
characters themselves actually may owe a lot to models from Britain’s Golden Age of Sail (Rabitsch
2019). Either way, the roles model very traditional sexualities and gender performances: all straight,
all aggressively masculine males who see weapons and battles as panacea, and all submissive (and rare)
women in short skirts and subordinate roles. Despite the series’ reputation for racial inclusion and
utopian visions of technological determinism, freedom from want, and embrace of new cultures, its
three original seasons (1966–69) aired in an era of heteronormativity in entertainment media that it
was not about to challenge.
Curiously, even when the studio that owned the franchise, Paramount, began producing film
sequels in 1979 and additional series in the more queer-friendly 1980s and 1990s, identifiably lesbian
and gay characters remained absent, aside from the hopeful and oppositional readings of LGBTQ+
fans and their allies (see Chapter 33). When the franchise was rebooted in 2009, there finally were
signs of overdue change: one iconic character was reimagined as queer and a new prequel series made
room for a gay couple. But those moves were themselves not free of controversy (see Chapter 22).
This chapter explores these new representations as well as Star Trek’s relentlessly heteronormative
past, ultimately addressing the question of why, when much of Hollywood was making steady progress
with both the number and quality of LGBTQ+characters, Star Trek remained a straight universe for
the better part of five decades before becoming more inclusive. It concludes with speculation over
whether these advances are truly as revolutionary as they appear.
Star Trek: A Very Straight History

TOS has an outsized reputation in popular culture for progressivism, stemming legitimately from its
vision of cooperation in space exploration that was international, with a cast that included characters
of North American, Scottish, African, Asian, and Russian descent, as well as a first officer from
another planet, Vulcan. Donna Minkowitz has argued its legacy might better be described as “an odd
amalgam of manly Buck Rogers adventure, cold war [sic] pro-Americanism and Utopian social drama
394 DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917-59

Queerness I: Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual People
influenced by the civil rights movement” (2002, 36). And, indeed, while it did foresee a world in
which racism and nationalism had receded, it could not escape the highly-gendered, heteronormative
human relations of the period, nor completely embrace a non-Anglocentric political stance (see
Chapter 41).
Nor, apparently, could it reflect the human rights struggles of LGBTQ+people, even though
its original network run coincided with the build-up of frustrations in the queer communities that
would lead to the Stonewall uprising in Greenwich Village just weeks after its cancelation in 1969.
Actor George Takei, the then-closeted gay actor who played Lt. Sulu in the series, revealed that in
1968 he had suggested to Gene Roddenberry that TOS should address LGBTQ+equality. According
to Takei, Roddenberry was sympathetic but also gun-shy following the low ratings that followed an
episode in which Captain Kirk (William Shatner) and Lt. Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) had kissed and
did not want to risk cancelation by the network (Abramovitch 2016).
When the success of the first four Star Trek films led to talk of a new television series in 1986,
LGBTQ+fans began assembling the Gaylactic Network, an activist group that eventually would
swell to eight chapters and a membership in the hundreds. They then confronted Roddenberry
and writer David Gerrold at a fan convention and pressed them for identifiably queer characters in
The Next Generation (Altman 1992; Aul and Frank 2002). Roddenberry indicated an openness to the
proposal and, according to Altman, did raise it at a staff meeting, to mixed reactions. One producer,
Robert Justman, reportedly responded with a homophobic slur but another, Herbert Wright, offered
to collaborate with Gerrold, who was gay, on a script intended as both an HIV/AIDS allegory and
a tribute to a member of The Wrath of Kahn’s production staff who eventually would die from AIDS
complications (Altman 1992).
A draft of the script once again elicited mixed reactions from the TNG production staff, with
some criticizing the characters’ sexuality and some praising it as a strong script. It has been alleged that
Roddenberry specifically lobbied against it, either because he did not like it or because of a falling
out with Gerrold (Altman 1992; Clark 1991). Producer Rick Berman reportedly opposed it because
he believed its sensitive content meant it could not air on channels running it in the afternoon.
That accusation seems to be supported by one writer’s speculation that Paramount feared LGBTQ+
characters would damage overseas marketing of Star Trek in countries that were less socially liberal
than the US (Walker 1995). Gerrold said he was told the gay crewmen would have to be removed
entirely (Clark 1991; Coffren 2003). The script went through several re-writes before he finally
abandoned it. “Blood & Fire” was never produced as a TNG episode, though a fan-produced version
was released as part of the “Phase II” project on YouTube (ST Expanded Universe 2008/10). In an
attempt to refute rumors that the script was of poor quality and that he had been fired from the series,
Gerrold would auction copies on eBay (Coffren 2003). Eventually, the script also was re-worked by
Gerrold into a novel by the same title.
The main plot of “Blood & Fire” had the Enterprise under the command of Captain Jean-Luc
Picard (Patrick Stewart) responding to a distress call from a vessel that had been infested with
Regulian Bloodworms which carried a deadly plague (Toth 1992). Though Starfleet had issued
orders for the ship to be destroyed, Picard disobeyed and attempted a rescue. A subplot concerned a
gay male couple, a security officer and a medic, who had been together two years and planned to get
married. The medic eventually would sacrifice himself to save an away team. Not surprisingly, when
word of the abandoned episode reached LGBTQ+fans several years later, they berated Roddenberry
at conventions for what they assumed was homophobia among the staff (Clark 1991). With the
series then wrapping its fourth season and fears among queer fans that it would last no more than
two additional seasons, The Gaylactic Network went further, initiating a letter-writing campaign in
May 1991 calling for the inclusion of LGBTQ+characters in TNG. The campaign yielded a greater
volume of letters than had any other topic in franchise history (ibid.; Aul and Frank 2002).
Initially, Roddenberry’s response held to his previous line that, in the twenty-fourth century, people
would not be labeled according to their sexuality, so a gay-specific episode would be unnecessary,
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though he remained open to queer characters if they were necessitated by a particularly good script.
But when, two months into the campaign, it became clear the issue was not going to fade away, he
returned to the more accommodating tone he had struck when he and Gerrold were confronted
by the Gaylaxians years before: “In the fifth season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, viewers will see
more of shipboard life in some episodes which will, among other things, include gay crew members
in day-to-day circumstances” (Clark 1991; see also Aul and Frank 2002, 53; Davidson 1991; Rosen
1991, B-7). Roddenberry died in November 1991, leaving fulfillment of the promise to his hand-
picked successor, Berman.
Promise Unfulfilled
If gay crew were part of day-to-day shipboard life in TNG’s fifth season, they were well-hidden. The
closest the series would come that year was near the end of the season, in an episode entitled “The
Outcast” (5.17, 1992). The Enterprise responds to a distress call from the J’naii, a genderless race who
consider the expression of gender and sexual attraction primitive, perverse, and worthy of sanction.
Commander Riker (Jonathan Frakes) volunteers to lead a rescue mission and is joined by a J’naii
co-pilot, Soren (Melinda Culea). Soren secretly considers herself female and feels attracted to Riker.
When their affair becomes known, Soren attempts a passionate defense of her difference, echoing
themes of gay rights advocacy. Her arguments are unsuccessful and she is subjected to a psychological
treatment designed to render her “normal.”
While some critics hailed the episode for its attempt to address homophobia, queer fans par-
ticularly panned it as a weak-kneed effort, for seeming to accept “treatment”—read: gay conversion
therapy—as a social solution to sexual difference, and for casting a woman for what was supposed
to be an androgynous race (see Chapter 53). Even Jonathan Frakes believed Soren should have been
more masculine in appearance (Kay 2001) and has gone so far as to say it was “bizarre” not to have
cast a male in the role (Tremeer 2019).
Changelings, the Trill, and alternative universes offered DS9 writers opportunities to experiment
with queerness, while still affording producers justifications to socially conservative critics that the
“aberrations” were never meant to be part of the regular contexts for the series. Changelings, such as
the station’s security chief, Odo (René Auberjonois), lacked an innate gender, though they could take
on whatever form they chose. They experienced pleasure when joined with each other, whether in
pairs or with many of their kind. Even though those changeling characters who featured prominently
in DS9 scripts appeared to exhibit a binary gender performance, alert fans could still read them as
evidence of bisexuality.
The Trill were a species suited and trained to host symbionts, wise and long-lived beings who
had evolved in such a way that they were incapable of survival by themselves, and whose personal-
ities became part of the host’s own. While Trill hosts were gendered, symbionts appeared capable of
intimate attachments regardless of gender. Thus, in the DS9 episode “Rejoined” (4.6, 1995), Jadzia
Dax (Terry Farrell), a Trill, is faced with the dilemma of whether to resume a romantic relation-
ship with the widow of one of her symbiont’s former hosts, who was male. While the romantic
(and perhaps sexual) attraction between the two characters was evident, a convenient Trill code
prohibiting resumption of relationships between new hosts and partners of deceased hosts prevented
it from going beyond hugs and a kiss. Because the attraction was attributed to the gender of the Dax
symbiont’s former host, the series steered cautiously away from the possibility of twenty-third-cen-
tury bisexuality and Jadzia’s heterosexual bona fides remained intact.
The existence of alternative universes, in which familiar characters from the franchise have a
similar or identical appearance but vastly different personalities, motivations, and roles has been a
trope of Star Trek since TOS (“Mirror, Mirror” [TOS 2.10, 1967]). Five episodes of DS9 focused
upon intersections between the prime and mirror universes, including a mirror Major Kira (Nana
Visitor) who was played as a “vamp” with omnivorous sexual appetites, directly playing into the
396
stereotype of bisexuals as manipulative and predatory. The trope has continued in DSC, in which the
alternative universe is inhabited by a mirror version of Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh), captain of
the Shenzhou, who was killed in the more familiar “prime” universe but who, in the mirror reality, is
empress of the Terran empire and whose sexual tastes include both males and females—sometimes at
the same time (DSC 1.15, 2018). Teresa Cutler-Broyles (2017) has observed that the writers and pro-
ducers of the franchise have used the mirror universe to contrast the morally good prime characters
with their morally dubious mirrors. The mirror characters may have traits that are reverses of their
prime counterparts, or perhaps even buried inclinations. Either way, such episodes always end with
the clear understanding that, while the mirror reality is ongoing, it is distinct from what viewers could
expect in future episodes involving their beloved prime characters. Thus, prime Kira would remain
unattached and heterosexual (Aul and Frank 2002).
The two television series that would follow TNG and DS9 in the 1990s and early-2000s appeared
even less willing to explore same-sex attraction, regardless of context. Voyager, which debuted in 1995
with strong female characters in leadership positions, nevertheless emphasized heterosexuality among
both the men and women in its crew (see Chapter 5). A prequel, Enterprise, which began in 2001,
represented a return to a male-dominated crew, hyper-masculine behavior, and no signs of queerness
anywhere (see Chapter 6).
Queerness, Yes; Queers, No

Textually, LGBTQ+characters may not have been part of the Star Trek canon; however, that is not
to say queerness has been absent. As Alex Doty (1993) has argued, texts themselves are not the only
source of queerness in popular culture forms, and perhaps not even the most significant source.
According to Doty, one must consider influences during the production of the texts, how those texts
are read by audiences, and specific uses made of the texts by self-identified LGBTQ+individuals.
For example, even TOS had influences during its production, in the form of at least one cast
regular, George Takei, and one of its celebrated writers, David Gerrold, whose “The Troubles with
Tribbles” (TOS 2.13, 1967) is a fan favorite. Later, Merritt Butrick, who played Kirk’s son David
Marcus in WOK and SFS, as well as the captain of a cargo vessel in the TNG episode “Symbiosis”
(TNG 1.22, 1988) was, depending upon the source consulted, either gay (Greven 2009) or bisexual
(Alley 2012). More recently, Zachary Quinto, who played Spock in the three feature film reboots,
self-identifies as gay, as do Discovery co-creator Bryan Fuller, showrunner Aaron Harberts, and cast
members Anthony Rapp and Wilson Cruz.
To Doty’s second point, recurring characters in a number of TNG and DS9 episodes, particularly
TNG’s entity Q (John de Lancie) and DS9’s exiled Cardassian tailor Garak (Andrew Robinson), lent
themselves to queer readings by fans and critics (Drushel 2018). Q, who figured in the plots of TNG’s
debut, finale, and periodic episodes in between, was a non-corporeal (and therefore, one would
assume, non-gendered) being who took the form of a human male. His encounters with the crew
and obsessive interest in Picard and Riker, in which he would first imperil and then rescue them,
resembled in many respects a courtship ritual. That resemblance was abetted by the image of Q and
Picard in the same bed in one of Q’s later appearances (“Tapestry” [TNG 6.15, 1993]). In fact, Patrick
Stewart once indicated in an interview he regarded Q as gay (Minkowitz 1995). With Q’s return in
the second season of PIC, it remains to be seen as to whether the character’s queering potential will
be explored. As for Garak, actor Andrew Robinson played him as campy, with broad gestures, witty
remarks, double-entendres, and the desire to measure the handsome Dr. Bashir (Alexander Siddig)
for a suit. As Aul and Frank observed, “[h]‌e was, in fact, acting like a gay man –a stereotypical, pre-
Stonewall, closeted gay man, but a gay man nonetheless” (2002, 55). For his part, Robinson said it was
“absolutely clear” Garak was gay and attracted to Bashir (What We Left Behind 2018).
Finally, in addition to the formation of queer fan groups like the Gaylaxians, the interest in the
franchise from scholars (see Tulloch and Jenkins 1995; Greven 2009; Kerry 2009) and the popular
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LGBTQ+press (Reynolds 2018; Hotspots Magazine 2019), producers and consumers of online
fan fiction both gay and straight have appropriated characters from Star Trek in queer storylines,
including so-called “slash fiction” that imagines sexual relationships between canonically straight
characters such as Kirk and Spock (see Chapter 33).
Sulu 1.0, Revised

While little was known about the backgrounds of most of TOS’s main characters in general when the
series first aired, in some ways Lt. Sulu was the most mysterious and evolving. The character appeared
in the series pilot as an astrophysicist and was meant to be pan-Asian. His surname, Sulu, came from
the Sulu Sea, which borders the Philippines and Malaysia. He later became the helmsman of the
Enterprise with dialogue that establishes him as task-oriented and reveals little of his background or
personality. Only in a handful of episodes in which he either is under the influence of mind-control
(“And the Children Shall Lead” [TOS 3.5, 1968]) or an alien virus (“The Naked Time” [TOS
1.6, 1966]), do audiences sense an obsession with swords and swashbuckling. Likewise, the actor cast
to play him, George Takei, was largely unknown to most viewers, and would remain so throughout
the run of the series and its first six films.
Then, in a 2005 interview in Frontiers, a periodical targeting the LGBTQ+communities
in Los Angeles, Takei came out as gay, in part as a response to then California Governor Arnold
Schwarzenegger’s veto of a marriage equality bill. He claimed his failure to self-disclose his sexu-
ality owed to his background as a Japanese-American who had grown up in two internment camps
during World War II and his subsequent belief that aspects of his identity that made him different
were shameful and should be hidden (Cho 2005). Reactions to his disclosure were largely positive,
albeit muted. Most Star Trek fans apparently accepted it with respect for the diversity for which the
franchise was known. Messages in the online world reflected shock and homophobia, on the one
hand, and praise and good wishes, on the other (Smith 2005). The revelation likely was responsible
for a revival in Takei’s career, which included online activism and a crowded schedule of public
appearances and speaking engagements, as well as involvement with the stage musical Allegiance
(2012) and the graphic novel They Called Us Enemy (2019).
Sulu 2.0
Ironically, given George Takei’s late-life disclosure, it was the Hikaru Sulu character a new group
of producers chose to be the first franchise regular to be identifiably LGBTQ+. In effect, they
accomplished this by giving the character a backstory in the form of an almost voyeuristic scene in
Star Trek Beyond (2016), in which he is seen by fellow crew members with his young daughter and
his husband (see Chapter 22).
Published interviews with the cast of STB indicated widespread support for the reimagining of
Sulu. Chris Pine (Kirk) viewed it as an extension of the “family” vision of the Federation, Zachary
Quinto (Spock) indicated a pride in this “version” of Star Trek (apparently distinguishing it from its
less-inclusive past), and Karl Urban (McCoy) felt it was consistent with Gene Roddenberry’s original
aims (Withey 2016, 24). For his part, John Cho, who played the role of Sulu in the film, was most
pleased by the way the revelation was handled: “That it’s very matter of fact, it presumes that he was
never in the closet, it presumes that it’s in public. We live in the future where it isn’t an issue” (ibid.,
24). Cho also revealed that the film originally included a scene in which Sulu and his husband kissed
(Stolworthy 2016).
The reimagining of Sulu followed evidence of waning popularity of the franchise on screens large
and small: ENT had been canceled early in 2005 when production wrapped on its fourth season,
making it the first franchise series since TOS to run fewer than seven seasons and marking the first
time in 18 years there would be no new episodes of a Star Trek series produced (see Chapter 6).
398
Feature films prior to the 2009 reboot, similarly, had been drawing fewer ticket sales, with Nemesis
bringing in just $67,336,470, roughly equal to its estimated production costs, and the lowest of any of
the ten films produced to that point (see Chapter 19). Shortly after, Rick Berman, considered a key
opponent to LGBTQ+characters, announced he would be departing his role as executive producer
of the franchise.
The idea to queer Sulu apparently came from the film’s director, Justin Lin, and Cho’s fellow
actor and screenwriter Simon Pegg (Scotty). It was intended as an homage both to the character
Takei had created and his LGBTQ+activism (Abramovitch 2016). Takei himself was not happy,
calling the planned reimagining “unfortunate” and “a twisting of Gene’s [Roddenberry] creation, to
which he put in so much thought.” Takei later clarified that, while he disagreed with the move, he
was flattered by its intention as tribute (Gettell 2016). After screening the film, his criticism again
became more pointed, reflecting his disappointment that the scene was too brief and its message not
more profound.
Effectively, then, the Star Trek production history includes Sulu as both a straight character played
by a gay man and a gay character played by a straight man. It would take a seventh television series in
the franchise to present gay actors—male and female—playing gay characters.
Discovery of Gay Men…and a Lesbian

At its debut in 2017, DSC represented a number of firsts for the franchise: the first series in which
the lead character was a woman of color, the first in which the lead character was not the captain
of the titular ship, and the first not to air on commercial terrestrial television but rather on the CBS
All Access streaming service (see Chapter 7). And, significantly for this analysis, it was the first to
include: (1) self-identified LGBTQ+actors, (2) playing identifiable LGBTQ+characters, and (3) two
of them in a long-term intimate relationship.
Lt. Paul Stamets, as played by out gay actor Anthony Rapp, is both brilliant and interpersonally
difficult, but demonstrates both his heroism and compassion in the series’ fifth episode when he
takes the place of a sentient fungal life form that is threatened by its use as a control mechanism
for the ship’s unique propulsion system, saving both the entity and the crew. Shortly after, he is
shown with his husband, medical doctor Hugh Culber, played by out gay actor Wilson Cruz,
“side by side at a sink, brushing their teeth in matching red Star Fleet [sic] pajamas” (Reynolds
2018, 44).
By his own account, Rapp was offered the role of Stamets in an email from the series co-creator,
Bryan Fuller. Fuller self-identifies as gay, as does the series’ co-executive producer Aaron Harberts,
who succeeded Fuller when he left the show and remained its co-showrunner until early in the
second season. Cruz, conversely, was offered the role of Dr. Culber after he wrote Fuller and called
Harberts and co-executive producer Gretchen Berg with an offer to join the cast (Reynolds 2018). In
sharp contrast to previous gay couples in film and television, Harberts indicated that the DSC writers
intended a gradual unfolding of the relationship between Stamets and Culber, rather than one that
was immediately sexualized.
Queer DSC fans might have been forgiven for their initial negative reactions to one plot
point that did appear reminiscent of previous LGBTQ+television and film characters, particu-
larly those pursuing relationships: the so-called “bury your gays” trope. In the series’ tenth episode,
Culber is killed by fellow crewman Ash Tyler (Shazad Latif) after Culber discovers that Tyler is in
fact the Klingon sleeper agent Voq, who had undergone major genetic modifications along with
memory transplants from the original Tyler in order to infiltrate the ship (“Despite Yourself ” [DSC
1.10, 2018]). But viewers of the series had to wait over 13 months for the revelation that Culber
indeed was alive, but lost in the mycelial network. Interestingly, that twist was revealed to followers
of the series on social media, perhaps to quash negative reaction from queer viewers. When he
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was returned to normal space, the experience appears to lead him to question his relationship to
Stamets. Fortunately, they had overcome their estrangement by the close of DSC’s second season,
aided in part by tough-love counseling of each from engineer Jett Reno (played by lesbian actress-
comedian Tig Notaro) and by Stamets’s own near-death experience. Reno, who was introduced in
the first episode of the second season (“Brother” [DSC 2.1, 2019]) as a survivor of a wrecked vessel
and who soon becomes Stamets’s cantankerous yet playful nemesis, is revealed near the end of the
season to be a lesbian whose wife was killed during the war between the Klingon empire and the
Federation (“Through the Valley of Shadows” [DSC 2.12, 2019]). Not surprisingly, Reno joined
the cast in an episode written by Harberts and Berg.
Conclusion
The role of Harberts and Berg, as well as Fuller, in the introduction of the characters of Reno,
Stamets, and Culber points to a greater reality about queerness in Star Trek: it happens primarily
when queers and their allies with influence over the production process act as instruments for its
occurrence. Takei in the late-1960s and Gerrold in the late-1980s were in positions to advocate
but not realize inclusion—certainly not in the face of opposition from those like Roddenberry
and Berman who did have such power. The two would have to wait until they were no longer
beholden to producers for their status for their influence to be felt. Fuller and Harberts, as DSC
showrunners, could introduce credible lesbian and gay characters and cast uncloseted queer actors
to play them.
There have been a number of suggestions that past failures of the franchise to include LGBTQ+
characters lay with its top executives. Former DS9 producer Ron Moore has said there was no good
reason for there being no gay characters in that series, “other than people in charge don’t want gay
characters in Star Trek, period” (Aul and Frank 2002, 51). As I have argued, a convergence of events
arguably was responsible in part for the major shift in attitudes toward queer representation at the
studio. Certainly, the generally positive response among fans to Takei’s coming-out should have been
a sign that the audience was ready for sexual diversity among the crew (and perhaps had been for a
while). The diminished viewership and financial returns demonstrated that Star Trek perhaps was not
connecting with audiences as it once had and new ideas were needed; the turnover in showrunners
and creative leadership provided the opportunity to introduce those fresh perspectives.
The replacement of Berman and Roddenberry’s other protégés with J.J. Abrams in feature films
and Fuller, Berg, and Harbets in television freed the franchise to reconsider its heteronormative
traditions and therefore dramatically expand the range of stories it could tell, including those with
identifiably queer characters. As has been noted, Star Trek already was queer, given its production
influences, audience readings, and iconic value to lesbian and gay fans. To make that queerness textual
merely required the will to make it happen or at least the will to no longer prevent it from happening.
But because LGBTQ+persons are distinct in a multitude of ways, crafting them well requires famil-
iarity and insight—not merely changing to whom they are sexually attracted. As with the writing
of characters from other marginalized groups, authorship is important. Thus, when we first see Paul
Stamets and Hugh Culber together in their quarters brushing their teeth together, it comes as no sur-
prise when producer Aaron Harberts says that his favorite part of the day with his partner of 22 years
is brushing their teeth together (Reynolds 2018).
The path to greater inclusion and social justice in any domain seldom is either steady or linear,
and the progress made in the Star Trek franchise in representing LGBTQ+characters in its storylines
is no different. DSC gave us Reno, Stamets, Culber, and starting in the third season, the non-binary
character Adira played by non-binary actor Blu del Barrio and the trans character Gray, played
by non-binary actor Ian Alexander (Vary 2020) (see Chapter 53). It, however, also gave us Mirror
Georgiou, an apparently bisexual character who could exist only because it was understood she
400
inhabited a universe that was not sustainable in the narrative of an ongoing series whose viewers had
come to expect its temporality. If the empress who lost her empire when she joined the prime reality
can retain her sexuality, the planned Section 31 spin-off series around her character will succeed
where the Star Trek franchise otherwise has failed in that it will give permanence to a legibly bisexual
character.
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Star Trek Episodes
The Original Series
1.6 “The Naked Time” 1966.
2.13 “The Troubles with Tribbles” 1967.
The Next Generation

1.22 “Symbiosis” 1988.
Deep Space Nine

Discovery
1.10 “Despite Yourself ” 2018.
1.11 “The Wolf Inside” 2018.
2.1 “Brother” 2019.
2.12 “Through the Valley of Shadows” 2019.
Star Trek Movies
Star Trek Documentaries What We Left Behind: Looking Back at Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. 2018. dirs. Ira Steve Behr
and David Zappone. 455 Films/Tuxedo Productions/Le Big Boss Productions.
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53
QUEERNESS II
Transgender and Nonbinary Representation
Despite the proliferation of increasingly diverse and nuanced portrayals of trans characters and
experiences on television since 2010, Star Trek shied away from including overt trans characters
until 2020. That assessment is accurate if we abide by the definition of trans identification used in
trans(gender) studies and most (Anglophone, North American) trans communities as “refer[ring] to
people who move away from the gender they were assigned at birth, people who cross over (trans-)
the boundaries constructed by their culture to define and contain that gender” (Stryker 2008, 1).
Indeed, the franchise was based on the conviction that everyone is cisgender. In other words, it was
the assumed norm that everyone will identify with the gender they were assigned at birth (Bauer et al.
2009, 356). However, earlier iterations of Star Trek did include a few minor characters and plotlines
that have been read by critics as trans narratives, even if none of them actually included trans characters.
Most prominent among them androgyny, gender nonconformity, or changes in a character’s gender
embodiment. Sadly, the same narratives sometimes reiterated transphobic stereotypes.
Nonetheless, some of these narratives have served as points of identification for trans viewers.
Indeed, the identification with particular narratives by trans fans of Star Trek has not been limited
to episodes that overtly discuss the trans adjacent motifs mentioned above. Rather trans viewers have
reclaimed episodes that on the surface seem to lack any trans or gender-related themes. Instead of
speaking to the franchise’s purportedly progressive tenets, this can mostly be attributed to the resilient
potential of trans viewers to read themselves into narratives that were not intended to include them
or indeed narratives that failed to successfully obscure the traces of their existence. Lucas Cassidy
Crawford has conceived of this potential as “aesthetic transgendering” in his discussions on how
trans folks reclaim built environments that were not meant to include them (2014, 483). Cael
M. Keegan proposes that this might also occur in trans people’s interactions with visual media and
that it ultimately “reveals how trans phenomenology lies, embedded and unacknowledged, in the
architecture of culture itself ” (2016, 30). Thus, both highlight how trans people can uncover trans
“forms of meaning that allow transgender phenomena to extend into the world” that ultimately
may contribute to “extend[ing]” and “sustain[ing]” trajectories of “transgender becoming” (ibid.,
30). This explains how Star Trek could act as grounds for identification for trans folks despite the
overt absence of trans representation in its fictional world. In what follows, I will discuss Star Trek’s
tenuous explorations of trans adjacent motifs and their reception by critics and trans fans of the
franchise. Additionally, I will also discuss how trans folks have found themselves reflected in par-
ticular episodes that on the surface might not offer any clear connection to trans identification and
experiences. Finally, I will briefly address the recent inclusion of two trans and nonbinary characters
in Discovery.
DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917-60 403

The J’naii: TNG’s Accidental Trans Alien Allegory

The most common way in which Star Trek has explored alternative gender practices is through the
allegory of alien species. Although the writers of the respective episodes may have tried to explore
the potential for variant gender identities within the franchise in this way, this move ultimately exem-
plifies and cements its cisnormative underpinnings by juxtaposing an exclusively cisgender crew with
alien societies that diverge from this norm. Whether done intentionally or not, this suggests that
being trans is limited to alien worlds in the future of Star Trek and that being human equals being
cisgender. In fact, the Star Trek episode most frequently cited in connection with trans identification,
“The Outcast” (TNG 5.17, 1992), takes this theme even further by contrasting the cisgender world of
the Enterprise in which everyone seemingly gets to freely live their gender identity with the agender
world of the J’naii who punish any divergence from their agender and asexual norms. It turns cis/
heteronormativity on its head.
In this episode, the crew of the Enterprise encounters an androgynous species called the
J’naii. The episode was originally intended to function as a gay rights argument by focusing
on a forbidden romantic encounter between Commander Riker (Jonathan Frakes) and a J’naii
named Soren (Melinda Culea). However, as Stephen Kerry argues, the notion of the relation-
ship between Soren and Riker as gay is undermined by the fact that Soren is portrayed by a
woman and identifies as a woman (2009, 703–705). Instead, the episode accidentally raises
questions of gender identity and normativity in that Soren, who initially is presented as an
agender character, comes out to Riker as a woman only to be discovered, tried, and forced
to undergo conversion therapy. As a result, the episode has been described by trans culture
critic Jessie Earl as “Star Trek’s Accidental Transgender Episode” since it addresses the issues
of “gender identity, the distinction between gender and sex, gender roles, pronouns, and so
many other trans and gender-related issues” (2018). Indeed, Soren’s experience is similar to
that of trans people in that Soren identifies with a gender other than the one to which she was
assigned at birth (ibid.). This, however, comes with a significant caveat as the episode constructs
a fictitious world in which an agender society oppresses those among them who identify with
a binary gender (cf. Fennell 2017, 86). As a result, the episode seems to suggest that agender
individuals are a threat to binary people in that they aim to erase them. Hence, although Soren
can be construed to reflect trans experiences as defined above, the episode is also reflective of
the franchise’s uneasy relationship with trans identification (Whybrew 2020, 357). Nonetheless,
Earl remarks that “[w]‌hen I watched this episode as a kid, it helped give me the representation,
words, and thoughts to help me begin to understand who I was as a trans person. It helped me
feel a little bit less like an outcast” (2018).
The Trill: Star Trek’s Symbiotic Trans Species?

The Trill are another frequently cited example of the alien transgender allegory. According to Susan
J. Wolfe, the Trill are “an alien race in which humanoids ‘join with’ symbionts, … with whom it then
shares a single fused consciousness” (2005). Jack Fennell argues that the Trill are one of the “three broad
tropes” through which Star Trek explores the concept of a change in “gender presentation or bio-
logical sex” (2017, 77). However, as Wolfe makes clear, although “a symbiont dwells alternatively inside
males and females,” this is not a choice based on identity, but rather the hosts are selected based on their
“suitability for joining, not his/her gender” (2005). This means that while the Trill symbiont—and
with it, the memories of past hosts—might be said to transition from one host to another, the poten-
tially resulting change in identity is an incidental outcome. This differentiates the experience of the
Trill from those of trans individuals who transition because of an incongruity between their assigned
gender and their gender identity and for whom this transition is anything but incidental.
404
Queerness II: Transgender and Nonbinary People
The Trill make their first appearance in the TNG episode “The Host” (4.23, 1991) in which
Dr. Crusher (Gates McFadden) has a love affair with a Trill ambassador named Odan (Franc Luz),
but their romance ends when the male host of Odan is killed, and the symbiont is transferred to a
female host. However, while Dr. Crusher ends the relationship at this point, she does not seem to
have any compunction about continuing the affair when Odan temporarily resides in the body of
her friend Commander Riker. Strikingly, she informs Kareel Odan (Nicole Orth-Pallavicini), Odan’s
female host:
Perhaps it is a human failing, but we are not accustomed to these kinds of changes. I can’t
keep up. How long will you have this host? What would the next one be? I can’t live with
that kind of uncertainty. Perhaps, someday, our ability to love won’t be so limited.
(TNG 4.23, 1991)
Ultimately, this reveals both the show’s reluctance to explore queer desire and love (Bernardi 1998,
116–117;Wolfe 2005) and Dr. Crusher’s and the show’s discomfort at the idea of “gender fluidity and
transition” (Whybrew 2020, 355).
The franchise explores the Trill in much more detail on DS9, through one of the show’s central
characters, Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell)—later Ezri Dax (Nicole de Boer). Both have frequently been
associated with trans identification and experiences. As Lauren Coates writes on the website Mary
Sue: “Though it may not have been intentional, many fans of Deep Space Nine have come to view the
Trill as coded representation for the transgender community” (2019). This was a development that
was probably aided by the show’s exploration of the Dax symbiont’s nine differently gendered hosts
(Whybrew 2020, 355). As Ferguson points out, “[e]‌ach of the hosts, and sometimes their friends as
well plays with the gender slippage of their embodied situation” (2002, 185). Moreover, according
to Coates, Dax’s position as one of the main characters of the show allowed DS9 to explore her
interactions with other characters, which enabled trans fans of the show to see themselves reflected
in these encounters (2019). For example, Elissa Harris remarks: “When I saw Dax as a kid, I saw
someone who had done what I wished I could do” (2017).
Interestingly, critics have associated the Trill both with binary and nonbinary trans identities.
Whereas Svenja Derichs cites fan discussions that reached “the conclusion that Dax is a woman who
used to be a man—e.g. a postoperative transsexual” (2005, 290), Kathy E. Ferguson claims that “while
each host is categorizable within the gender binary, the overall subject position proliferates outside of
those terms” (2002, 186). Ferguson bases this last supposition on the fact that the symbionts’ “repro-
ductive processes [are] unspecified” (ibid., 183). However, I would argue that both describing Dax
as a “postoperative transsexual” or claiming that Dax’s overall subject position falls “outside” of the
gender binary are tenuous claims at best. The fact that the Trill hosts are chosen regardless of gender
sets their experience apart from trans folks. Also, the gender identity of the host does not change.
Rather, the symbiont just seems to adopt the respective host’s gender (“Facets” [DS9 3.25, 1995]).
Additionally, while Ezri’s experience of having to negotiate both her former and new identity with
Jadzia’s friends may be relatable for trans viewers, very few trans women would share their appre-
ciation for being called “Old Man” by Sisko (Avery Brooks). Hence, while there might be some
overlap between Dax’s experience and that of trans viewers, they ultimately have little in common.
Likewise, even if the symbiont does not have its own gender identity, the fact that it seamlessly adapts
to every host’s new gender places it clearly within the gender binary with the possible exception of
the time when it is removed from the host. Therefore, the only way in which “the overall subject
position proliferates outside of those terms” is in its malleability to the gender of whomever it resides
in (Ferguson 2002, 186).
405
Quark and the Trope of the Deceptive Trans Woman

However, this does not mean that DS9’s portrayal of variant gender identities is without problems.
Indeed, the show repeatedly deals in transphobic tropes, the most glaring of which revolves around
the Ferengi Quark (Armin Shimerman). In “Profit and Lace” (DS9 6.23, 1998), Quark, who iden-
tifies as a man throughout the entire show (i.e., is not trans), medically transitions to convince a
Commissioner of the Ferengi Commerce Authority of the financial benefits of allowing Ferengi
women to participate in the economy. Although the episode was seemingly trying to make an argu-
ment about sexism by forcing the chauvinist Quark to experience life as a woman, it also reiterated
a plethora of transphobic tropes. As Jessie Earl points out, Quark’s experience is “mainly played for
laughs,” and the episode has been “widely criticized for being transphobic” (2019). As such, the
episode plays into the ‘man in a dress’ trope that Julia Serano has characterized as “the pathetic trans-
sexual” who, despite her best attempts, fails to convince the audience that she is a woman (2007,
36–38). However, although the episode makes it clear to the audience that Quark’s attempts at fem-
ininity are supposed to be a laughable failure, he is successful in fooling the Commissioner who even
falls in love with Quark’s alter ego, Lumba. Thus, the episode uses another transphobic stereotype
that Julia Serano and Talia Mae Bettcher have discussed under the headings of the “deceptive trans-
sexual” (Serano 2007, 36) and “transpeople as deceivers,” respectively (Bettcher 2007, 47). As Serano
makes clear, unlike the ‘pathetic transsexual,’ “deceivers successfully pass as women” and are thus able
to fulfill “the role of sexual predators who fool innocent straight guys into falling for other ‘men’ ”
(2007, 36). Although Quark forgoes the punishment traditionally reserved for other deceptive trans
characters (ibid., 40–41), the fact that DS9 plays the failed “forced genital exposure” (Bettcher 2007,
45) of Lumba for laughs is troubling. In doing so, the episode makes light of the inherently violent
nature of this act and the deadly violence that often follows it. Additionally, it underlines Quark’s
role as a deceiver as, unlike the Commissioner, the audience is fully aware of the underlying decep-
tion of Lumba’s identity and embodiment. Thus, through its reiteration of the tropes of the ‘pathetic’
and ‘deceptive’ trans character, DS9 reinforces “the popular assumption that trans women are truly
men” (Serano 2007, 40). Moreover, as Bettcher makes clear, the stereotype of the deceiver not only
“contribut[es] to transphobic hostility,” but also “plays a significant role in blame-shifting discourse
that can be deployed to justify or excuse violence against transpeople” (2007, 47).
Data’s Offspring: Self-Determined Gender Assignment

Another interesting example is the TNG episode “The Offspring” (TNG 3.16, 1990), in which
Commander Data (Brent Spiner) creates an android similar to himself whom he names Lal (Hallie
Todd) and views as his child. Interestingly, Data leaves it up to Lal to decide her gender identity
telling Lal, “you must choose a gender … to complete your appearance” after the latter remarks, “I
am gender neuter—inadequate.” It is also noteworthy that while Lal’s choices are not limited with
regards to species, her choice of gender is limited to male/man and female/woman and understood
to be final. Thus, even if the suggestion that a child is free to determine their own gender iden-
tity is interesting (and unique in all of Star Trek), the episode leaves no room for the possibility of
trans identification. While David Greven asserts that the episode “suggests an allegory of gender-
reassignment surgery,” this is not based on anything in the episode. Instead, it appears to be the result
of his assessment of “Lal’s suggested masculinity before his [sic] transformation” (2009, 114). Indeed,
Lal’s statement of having been “gender neuter” before, contradicts Greven’s assertion. I would argue
that Lal’s decision might best be understood as a self-determined gender assignment, even if it is
brought about by outside expectations.
406
From Multigendered Species to Pregnant Men:

Trans Identities as Alien to Humanity
There are also some alien species whose sex/gender systems are said to diverge from cisnormative
notions of sex and gender, but which are not explored in more detail. Among them: Tribbles who,
according to Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley), are “bisexual” (“The Trouble with Tribbles” [TOS 2.13,
1967); the Bynar, who as Commander Quinteros (Gene Dynarski) corrects Riker, are “not the
gentlemen—or ladies … They’re a unified pair” (“11001001” [TNG 1.15, 1988]); Species 8472,
who, according to the Doctor (Robert Picardo), “appears to have as many as five sexes” (“Someone
to Watch Over Me” [VOY 5.22, 1999]); the Axanar, who are classified by Captain Archer (Scott
Bakula) as “androgynous” (“Fight or Flight” [ENT 1.3, 2001]); the Rigelians, who have between
four and five genders (“Cogenitor” [ENT 2.22, 2003]); the Xindi-Insectoids, who Dr. Phlox (John
Billingsley) classifies as “genderless” (“Hatchery” [ENT 3.17, 2004]); and the Tholians, who are said
to “possess both male and female characteristics” and are referred to by Mirror Dr. Phlox as “it” (“In a
Mirror, Darkly” [ENT 4.18, 2005]). Moreover, Kerry argues that Odo (René Auberjonois) and other
Changelings hold the potential to change their gender embodiment (2009, 706). However, although
it is certainly true that Changelings can adopt any gender embodiment they choose, DS9 presents
them as having one clearly defined binary gender. Odo adopts the shape of the Female Changeling
(Salome Jens), but only to fool Dominion soldiers (“Tacking into the Wind” [DS9 7.22, 1999]).
Overall, none of these species include trans individuals or meet the above definition of transgender
identification.
Additionally, Kerry highlights the existence of two instances of pregnant men on Star Trek (2009,
706–707). One is only mentioned in a brief exchange between Commander Sisko and Dr. Bashir
(Alexander Siddig) about an alien ensign named Vilix’pran, during which Sisko asks, “You mean he’s
pregnant?” (“Heart of Stone” [DS9 3.14, 1995]). From this, we can infer little about Ensign Vilix’pran,
except that he identifies as a man, and that he is pregnant. None of this would indicate that he is
trans. The second example, “Unexpected” (ENT 1.5, 2001), slightly diverges from this theme in
that Commander Tucker (Connor Trinneer), a human member of the Enterprise’s crew, is unwit-
tingly impregnated by a female Xyrillian named Ah’len (Julianne Christie). However, his pregnancy
is still placed outside of the realm of (cis)normative humanity as it is the result of an alien encounter.
Moreover, it is presented as a threat to his masculine identity. Indeed, as Kerry points out, Tucker’s
experience is one of horror, which is “displaced through laughter” (2009, 708). Thus, the idea of a
pregnant man is both framed in terms of a sensationalist “freak show” and grotesque “comedy” by
emphasizing the supposedly unprecedented and unnaturalness of a pregnant man and turning the
assumed disjunction between pregnancy and masculinity into a laughing stock (Verlinden 2012,
107). In the process, the episode erases the existence and experience of pregnant trans men (Hodge
2013). Indeed, by reproducing the idea that pregnancy invalidates the father’s masculinity, Enterprise
reinforces a narrative that is often used to question the identities of pregnant trans men (Verlinden
2012, 114–115; Raun 2014, 23; Toze 2018, 203–204). This is particularly troubling considering the
lack of recognition (legal or otherwise) many trans fathers still face given “medical legal and social
discourses” that continue to frame “trans masculine fertility as risky, undesirable, and unrecognis[able]”
(Toze 2018, 205). As such, the episode represents a missed opportunity as it could have been used to
explore and extend the parameters of fatherhood (Raun 2014, 21).
Only one multiple sex/gender species is explored in more detail in Star Trek’s history—the
Vissians. They have a three-gender system consisting of male/men, female/women, and cogenitor/
third gender. Although the latter serve an essential reproductive function, they are otherwise
marginalized and without rights. Thus, the episode reversed the gender hierarchies of “Outcast” into
something resembling cisnormativity, but this does not mean that the episode is without problems.
For one, it reiterates the TNG crew’s complete bewilderment at the concept of variant gender
identities. This is personified in the character of Commander Tucker, who expresses his confusion
407
throughout the episode; he cannot help, but inform the Vissian engineer (F.J. Rio): “Where we come
from, Earth, there are only two genders,” to which the latter replies: “That’s true of most worlds”
(“Cogenitor” [ENT 2.22, 2003]). Thus, ENT further enshrines Star Trek’s legacy of trans erasure in
its insistence on the binary nature of humanity and the near universality of this arrangement among
other species. Moreover, even though Tucker takes it upon himself to advocate for the downtrodden
cogenitor (Becky Wahlstrom), he never asks the cogenitor whether ‘it’ wants his help or even for ‘its’
pronouns, but instead decides for the cogenitor. When T’Pol (Jolene Blalock) confronts him about
referring to the cogenitor as “her,” he replies: “Well, she looks more like a ‘her’ than a ‘him’ ” only to
insist in the next sentence that the Vissians “treat her like a pet” (“Cogenitor” [ENT 2.22, 2003]).
Ultimately, the episode is not concerned with questions about gender identity but rather with the
potential perils of interfering in another species’ culture. Indeed, to demonstrate the folly of Tucker’s
actions, the episode concludes with the cogenitor committing suicide after ‘its’ request for asylum
aboard the Enterprise has been denied.
Discovery: A Surprising Name and the “Species Reassignment Protocol”

Although Discovery did not include any trans characters until its third season, the show managed
to generate considerable excitement, speculation, and even worry before its launch for naming its
woman protagonist Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green). This raised the specter of the show
potentially featuring Star Trek’s first trans character. While the show did not fulfill this expect-
ation, the fact that the name of its protagonist was able to cause such a reaction, highlights both the
heightened desire for trans representation among some fans and the worry about this possibility
among others (Whybrew 2020, 358). The show itself only addressed Michael’s name in its third epi-
sode when Cadet Sylvia Tilly (Mary Wiseman) remarks that she “never met a female Michael before”
(“Context Is for Kings” [DSC 1.3, 2017]).
Another story arc that has received considerable attention revolves around the unmasking of
Lieutenant Ash Tyler (Shazad Latif) as an unwitting Klingon infiltrator named Voq aboard the
Discovery (“The Wolf Inside” [DSC 1.11, 2017]). On the surface, this offers little to no connection
to trans identification. However, Voq is said to have undergone a “species reassignment protocol,”
which as Benny Vimes remarks, offers a striking resemblance to the outdated medical term “sexual
reassignment surgery” (2018). Thus, establishing a conceptual link between Voq’s invasion of Discovery
and trans identity. This is especially troubling as it is apparent that Voq “only underwent this process
in order to trick Starfleet into thinking of him as one of them” and do them harm (ibid.). As Vimes
observes, “Voq’s behavior is exactly what those who oppose transgender people believe we do. They
believe that trans women are men pretending to be women in order to infiltrate cis women’s spaces
and do them harm” (ibid.). Hence, while the Tyler/Voq story might be said to reflect “the general
science fiction trope of alien invasion or infiltration, it … also … brings to mind the transphobic
fantasies about trans women invading cis women’s bodies and spaces by trans exclusionary radical
feminists” (Whybrew 2020, 364–365).
Moving Away from Troubling Allegories? Star Trek’s Ambivalent Trans Legacy

Star Trek’s attitude toward trans identities is most succinctly expressed in Commander Data’s wedding
toast in Nemesis (2002): “Ladies, gentlemen, and invited transgendered species.” Not only is “trans-
gender” used in a grammatically incorrect and politically questionable variant, but it also reflects
Star Trek’s aversion to considering trans existence as anything other than alien to humanity; and
even then, it is only a curious aberration from the norm of “ladies, gentlemen,” which is seemingly
universal enough that it does not need to be further differentiated (ibid., 357). Ultimately, Data’s
words served to highlight the fact that trans identification in Star Trek has until recently only been
408
allowed to exist as a marginal, often sensationalized, alien allegory in need of being quarantined from
humanity. Despite this, trans people have embraced the little representation we have been given with
open arms and have reclaimed it “to extend [ourselves] into the world” and sustain our “transgender
becoming[s]‌” (Keegan 2016, 30).
It took Star Trek until 2020 to actually include trans and nonbinary characters in Discovery’s
third season. The announcement of the inclusion of the nonbinary character Adira (portrayed by
nonbinary actor Blu del Barrio) and the trans man Gray (Ian Alexander; also nonbinary) in the show’s
cast was initially met with excitement by trans fans. However, this elation was dampened when it
became apparent that both characters would have a connection to the Trill, as this fueled the con-
cern that the franchise would continue to frame trans identity through alien allegory. Also, many
trans viewers were horrified when Gray was killed off shortly after his introduction (Earl 2020). This
horror was only marginally mitigated when he returned as a disembodied spirit that is only visible
to Adira (“Forget Me Not” [DSC 3.4, 2020]). Indeed, although Gray briefly became visible to other
characters in the final episode of the season, executive producer Michelle Paradise still had to reassure
fans that the show would expand on his story in the next season (Jacobs 2021)—a promise that was
kept. Likewise, the fact that Adira was initially addressed with she/her pronouns by Discovery’s crew
caused some confusion and irritation,1 until they came out to Stamets (Anthony Rapp) later in the
season (“The Sanctuary” [DSC 3.8, 2020]), in accordance with actor Blu del Barrio’s wishes (Vary
2020). Overall, despite its shortcomings and missteps, the fact that Star Trek finally included trans
and nonbinary characters and the ways in which the show addressed trans issues in a season focused
on the themes of connection and belonging has been positively received by many trans fans. Still, it
remains to be seen if and how the show and the franchise will live up to their boisterous claims of
trans inclusion and diversity in the future.
Note
1 In an interview, Blu del Barrio explained that they did not want their character to use they/them pronouns
before they had come out to their family (Vary 2020).
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Verlinden, Jasper. 2012. “Transgender Bodies and Male Pregnancy: The Ethics of Radical Self-Refashioning.”
In Machine: Bodies, Genders, Technologies, edited by Michaela Hampf and MaryAnn Snyder-Körber, 107–136.
Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter.
Vimes, Benny. 2018. “Trans Antagonism in Star Trek: Discovery.” The Orbit. February 8, 2018. Available
at: https://the-orbit.net/scrappy/2018/02/08/trans-antagonism-star-trek-discovery/.
Whybrew, Si Sophie Pages. 2020. “‘I Never Met a Female Michael before.’ Star Trek: Discovery between Trans
Potentiality and Cis Anxiety’.” In Fighting for the Future: Essays on Star Trek: Discovery, edited by Mareike
Spychala and Sabrina Mittermeier, 351–371. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.
Wolfe, Susan J. 2005. “The Trouble with Trills: Gender and Consciousness in Star Trek.” Reconstruction 5, no. 4.
Available at: https://web.archive.org/web/20080614074221/https://reconstruction.eserver.org/054/wolfe.
shtml.
Star Trek Episodes
The Original Series
The Next Generation

1.15 “11001001” 1988.
3.16 “The Offspring” 1990.
4.23 “The Host” 1991.
410
Deep Space Nine

3.14 “Heart of Stone” 1995.
3.25 “Facets” 1995.
6.23 “Profit and Lace” 1998.
7.22 “Tacking into the Wind” 1999.
Voyager
5.22 “Someone to Watch Over Me” 1999.
Enterprise
1.3 “Fight or Flight” 2001.
1.5 “Unexpected” 2001.
2.22 “Cogenitor” 2003.
3.17 “Hatchery” 2004.
Discovery
1.3 “Context Is for Kings” 2017.
1.11 “The Wolf Inside” 2018.
1.14 “The War Without, The War Within” 2018.
3.4 “Forget Me Not” 2020.
3.8 “The Sanctuary” 2020.
3.13 “That Hope is You, Part 2” 2021.
411
54
DISABILITY
In the TNG episode “11001001” (1.15, 1988), Riker (Jonathan Frakes) remarks to Data (Brent Spiner)
and Geordi (LeVar Burton): “A blind man teaching an android how to paint? That’s gotta be worth a
few pages in somebody’s book.” Star Trek allows us to imagine a future that values disability and diffe-
rence, where a blind man serves as chief engineer of the Federation’s flagship, working in solidarity
with a sentient synthetic being. At the same time, Riker’s unsolicited commentary on his crewmates’
hobby in the above quote informs viewers that those with non-normative embodiments still face
scrutiny and Othering. Fundamentally, this quote emphasizes how limiting and limited Star Trek’s
understanding of disability is, urging us to take Riker’s remark seriously and explore the theoretical
and real-life implications of disability in Star Trek’s imagined future.
This chapter will investigate the intersection of disability and Star Trek, beginning with
defamiliarization. Defamiliarization is a common device in sf narratives that takes the familiar (for
example, blindness) and renders it unfamiliar (for example, the loss of telepathy in an alien character).
Defamiliarization in Star Trek at times results in problematic reifications of stereotypes, but occasion-
ally opens new ways of conceptualizing ossified and oppressive notions of identity through displacing
them onto the bodies of androids and aliens. This chapter will then analyze how technology operates
as cure in Star Trek, producing a super-powered disabled cyborg, a stereotype known in disability
studies as the “super-crip.” Through this, Star Trek repeatedly demonstrates that disabled bodies
not rendered normatively productive and capable of labor through technology are not permitted
to exist in the franchise’s narrative space. The chapter will conclude with a discussion of how dis-
ability, gender, sexuality, and race combine to determine the definition of humanity and personhood
in Star Trek. The exclusion of these disabled cyborgs, androids, and aliens from understandings of
personhood can impact how contemporary viewers imagine futures for disabled and non-normative
humans. Consequently, it is essential to untangle these common threads of disability depictions in
Star Trek, so as to understand and attempt to excavate the potential spaces disabled people have in
our imagined futures.
In the context of this chapter, “disability” is a system, a structure, and a normalizing intent, as well
as an identity, a material experience, and a place of transgressive potential. Building on the concept of
disability as produced by the interaction of bodies and social/legal/physical contexts, this particular
use of the term is rooted in Alison Kafer’s “political/relational” model (2013, 4). This model preserves
the advocacy made possible by locating the onus for change on systems and structures rather than
individual bodies, while also recognizing bodily realities like pain and fatigue, which are neglected
by the social model of disability (ibid., 7). As scholars invested in anti-ableist futures, it keeps us
from erasing the significance of material experiences in disabled bodyminds and allows us to see
how disability operates more widely than just among those people who identify or whom society
labels as “disabled.” Therefore, in this chapter, the term “disability” will refer both to larger, nor-
malizing power structures as well as individual identities and experiences of difference and ableism.
412 DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917-61

Disability
Additionally, the term “bodymind” productively imbricates the concepts of “body” and “mind,” the
material and mental connotations of which are fundamentally inextricable when discussing disability,
especially disability in sf (Price 2015). As this chapter explores the disability potential invoked in
characters like Data (who has extra-human abilities but lacks emotions, which manifests as an impair-
ment in his social context), the breadth of this understanding of disability is essential in allowing us
to discover and critique “the ideology of ability in situations that do not appear immediately to be
about disability” (Minich 2014, 98; cited in Schalk 2018, 26).
Defamiliarization
Star Trek frequently employs defamiliarization in its explorations of political issues, particularly
those regarding identity. Defamiliarization renders a recognizable concept, such as race or disability,
unfamiliar, with the aim of jostling loose comfortable assumptions and spurring reconsideration of
that concept (Schalk 2018, 114). The alien context involved in sf defamiliarization lowers viewers’
social and psychological inhibitions and encourages them to engage with the concept openly and
creatively. Ideally, defamiliarization eschews the ableist narrative impulse to metaphorize disability
which often decontextualizes disability and renders it morally negative. Gul Dukat’s (Marc Alaimo)
temporary blindness as punishment for viewing texts he did not have permission to see (“When
It Rains…” [DS9 7.21, 1999]) serves as an illustrative example. Defamiliarization can also avoid
cementing disability as an immutable, impersonal, medicalized diagnosis, allowing disability its com-
plete cultural and material dimensions (Schalk 2018, 115). For example, this comes to the fore in
the way Geordi’s disability is often treated as a medical condition isolated from social and structural
factors. Defamiliarization in Star Trek has the potential to expose the constructed-ness of the human
categories of race, gender, sexuality, and disability when applied to the bodyminds of androids and
aliens, encouraging viewers to see how unstable these categories can be in their own reality.
The defamiliarization of disability through, for example, understanding Deanna Troi’s (Marina
Sirtis) temporary loss of her empathic abilities as a disability (“The Loss” [TNG 4.10, 1990]), pushes
viewers to recognize a number of issues. Usefully, it shows that disability can be mental as well as
physical, questioning the limitations of disability as only applying to what is commonly perceived as
“the body” rather than “the mind.” Additionally, it exposes how disability is socially contextual. Troi’s
human colleagues have no empathic powers to begin with, and so cannot share in or understand her
loss of ability, which is unique to her species. Further, her disability is highlighted by its link to her
profession: she feels particularly “disabled” because her new condition impacts the way she typically
conducted her work as ship’s counselor.
The defamiliarization of this experience of sudden disablement sidesteps simply playing out
stereotypes. Unlike sudden blindness or deafness, which is a fairly common trope in television (from
Quantum Leap and Walker, Texas Ranger to Charmed and Monk, TV Tropes’ “Temporary Blindness”
page lists over 50 examples of this and related temporary-disability incidents in television alone),
Troi’s disability forces us to pay attention to the specifics of her unique experience because it is
unfamiliar to us. At the same time, it retains the ability to gesture to disability stereotypes, re-casting
them in a sf context and encouraging viewers to re-examine them. Deanna rejects pity, inspirational
anecdotes, attempts to soothe her by those who do not share a disabled experience, and the impos-
ition of ableist narratives of “overcoming” disability. Overcoming narratives locate the “problem” of
disability solely in the body of the individual rather than in restrictive physical and social structures,
and demand disabled people do everything in their power to hew to able-bodied norms, no matter
the mental or physical toll (see Linton 1998 for further analysis of the problematic “overcoming”
concept). The episode confronts viewers with the mutable nature of embodiment and consequent
incompatibility with rigid definitions of normality. However, Troi is returned to her “normal” state
by the end of the episode, with no obvious change in her perspective or that of the characters around
her, seriously diminishing the story’s capacity to encourage viewers to question how we think about
413
disability. Generally, Star Trek’s failure to maintain these conscious attempts to deal with disability
beyond an episode or short character arc undercuts the potential power of defamiliarization.
Disability in sf cannot be productively defamiliarized if the creators fail to imagine futures
outside of ableist systems. For example, the episode “Melora” (DS9 2.6, 1993), perhaps Star Trek’s
most sustained engagement with disability apart from Geordi’s character arc, is fairly limited in its
critique. The episode centers on a fictional disability created by the intersection of DS9’s nor-
mative gravity level, i.e., Earth standard gravity, with Ensign Melora Pazlar’s (Daphne Ashbrook)
alien biology to explore, with metaphorical distance, issues of bodily difference and accessibility.
However, despite employing defamiliarization to productively highlight the social and struc-
tural elements of disability, it ultimately relies on and reifies ableist stereotypes. It medicalizes and
infantilizes Melora by asserting that men and medical staff know her body and needs better than
she does, painting disability and accessibility as a burden on able-bodied people rather than a basic
requirement of equality (see Kanar 2000 for a lengthier discussion of this episode). Other attempts
at depicting non-human disability, such as ENT’s story about a blind Andorian subspecies in “The
Aenar” (4.14, 2005), similarly fall back on stereotypes and illuminate the franchise’s refusal to cre-
atively conceive of diverse embodiments outside of an ableist framework. Thus, defamiliarization
cannot produce meaningful disability critique if used only as a short-term “narrative prosthesis”
(Mitchell and Snyder 2016), i.e., a “crutch” to carry the plot without persistent attention to ableist
structures.
Technology and Cure

Technology features prominently in Star Trek’s engagement with disability. Specifically, technology
acts as “cure.” The term “cure” is used here to reference systems of medicalization and normaliza-
tion, not to demonize individual disabled people’s desires for bodily change or professional assistance
(Wendell 2013). Disabled people certainly may desire ways to reduce pain in their bodyminds and
increase their access: medication, therapy, assistive devices, protheses, etc. that can help deal with
the material realities of disability. Cure, however, as an overriding, over- determining narrative
that devalues disabled life remains both dangerous and salient in disability stories. Cure narratives
solidify the boundaries of the normative bodymind and medicalize disability to the detriment of
understanding how it intersects with social and cultural institutions and experiences. Cure reigns
supreme in a capitalist structure that demands regimented forms of productivity from all bodies,
regardless of their comfort, safety, or ability. Fundamentally, the concept of cure as a predetermined,
universally preferred, necessary destination for disabled lives reifies disability as undesirable and unliv-
able, thereby marginalizing and endangering the lives and rights of disabled people (McRuer 2006).
Star Trek frequently trades in cure narratives, evacuating disabled characters from the narrative
space within an episode’s time if their disabilities remain after techno-medical intervention (Kanar
2000, 260). For example, Melora chooses not to complete the medical process that would let her
function without assistance in Starfleet and pursue a romance with Dr. Bashir (Alexander Siddig),
but which would prevent her from ever returning to her low-g ravity home planet. After refusing
“cure,” and with it, able-bodied hetero-norms, she never appears on screen again. Bashir himself
exemplifies this trend: he was intellectually disabled as a child, and so his parents chose to undertake
a dangerous and illegal genetic experimentation to “improve” him. The procedure ultimately gave
Bashir extra-human abilities, but we later learn that many others who experienced similar med-
ical “enhancements” now live with a variety of physical, mental, and social disabilities as a result
(“Statistical Probabilities” [DS9 6.9, 1997]). A successfully “cured” adult, Bashir is a regular for all
seven seasons of DS9, while his still-disabled genetically engineered fellows appear in only a handful
of episodes, primarily as eccentric oddities to be studied, used, or—of course—cured. When not
on screen, these disabled characters are incarcerated in the Federation “Institute” for people with
special needs; this futuristic asylum reflects a long and disturbing history of isolating and containing
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Disability
disabled bodyminds (Chapman et al. 2014). Meanwhile, typically able-bodied characters can experi-
ence temporary disabilities—Troi loses her empathic ability, Spock (Leonard Nimoy) and Tuvok
(Tim Russ) experience brief episodes of blindness (“Operation --Annihilate!” [TOS 1.29, 1967];
“Year of Hell” [VOY 4.8, 1997]), Worf (Michael Dorn) has serious spinal damage (“Ethics” [TNG
5.16, 1992])—and avoid incarceration or narrative rejection as long as they are cured before the end
of the episode—whether by cutting-edge and often dangerous medical procedures (see Chapter 48),
time travel, or alien intervention.
Permanently disabled characters like Geordi face the intercession of technology to transform “the
disabled body into a figure of prosthetic awe and medicalized prowess” (Allan 2013, 8), and thus
appear most frequently on screen as cyborgs. Donna Haraway’s foundational work on cyborgs defines
them as “a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well
as a creature of fiction” (2000, 50). Disability scholars’ engagement with the concept of cyborgs is
ambivalent, as the automatic, uncritical association of disabled people with cyborgs can dehumanize
disabled people by implying that disabled people are always-already not-quite-human (Reeve 2012).
However, in an ableist society, disabled people’s status in humanity is contingent, as the sf cyborg’s
always is, and it is precisely ableism that puts cyborgs’ humanity in peril. The ableist logic of cure
as endpoint forces cyborgs on a continual journey toward normative, fully biological embodiment
that is largely impossible to achieve, thus keeping humanity forever out of reach (see Chapter 57).
As such, Star Trek cyborgs—VOY’s Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) and DSC’s Airiam (Sara Mitich/
Hannah Cheesman) being the most recognizable examples, though TNG’s Geordi, LWR’s Samanthan
Rutherford (Eugene Cordero) and even Data are also legible in this category—strive for normativity
in order to assure their humanity: they remove mechanical parts in favor of biological ones wherever
possible, attempt performances of normative human emotion, and try to hew closely to or mimic
normative human social standards. They must try to fit themselves into pre-existing definitions of
humanity, rather than have the definition of humanity or personhood expanded to accept and protect
them as they are. This shared source of discrimination on the basis of non-normative embodiment
along with the co-terminality of disability and cyborgism in Star Trek’s cure narratives (i.e., a char-
acter becomes disabled and consequently becomes a cyborg via technology intended to repair or
augment the injured area) means cyborg and disabled figures are inextricable.
These disabled cyborgs often fall under the stereotype of the “super-crip.” The super-crip is a
disabled person who “overcomes” their disability to do great things—a paradox, as disabled people
do not achieve despite their disabilities but with their disabilities. Events like the Paralympic Games
and Special Olympics, documentaries like Murderball (2005) depicting these disabled athletes, and
general journalistic coverage of disabled people’s achievements as “inspiring” and “heroic” reinforce
ableist narratives and the very low standard of achievement expected of or allowed to disabled people
in an ableist society (Schalk 2016, 73). These portrayals hyper-focus on disabled people’s bodies,
demanding disabled people succeed via sheer willpower rather than addressing social barriers to
their access. Further, the technological “cures” for disability that produce super-crips often come
with pain and disabilities of their own as a result of imperfect interactions between technology and
biology (Reeve 2012, 97). For example, Seven experiences routine pain and undergoes continual
medical surveillance because of the clash between her technological elements and human biology.
Sam Rutherford’s cranial implant experiences a series of malfunctions which routinely cause him
bodily and social discomfort. Geordi is expected to modify his body and endure the pain caused by
interfacing with his techno-cure, his VISOR, rather than ask the environment around him be access-
ibly adapted, for example, through the use of tactile interfaces instead of visual ones (as known to exist
via reference in “Year of Hell” [VOY 4.8, 1997]). The demands of the super-crip stereotype actively
harm disabled characters.
Further, super-crips’ extranormal abilities are routinely exploited even as their pursuant disabilities
are discriminated against. Bashir’s genetically enhanced strength and intelligence assist the Federation
in their war effort, even as his very existence is branded dangerous and illegal (“Doctor Bashir,
415
I Presume” [DS9 5.16, 1997]); Data’s android abilities have rescued the Enterprise on innumerable
occasions, and yet his synthetic embodiment is precisely what threatened to render him “a toaster”
in the eyes of Federation law (“The Measure of a Man” [TNG 2.9, 1989]). Indeed, these characters
may not perceive their more-than-human abilities as “enhancements” at all, but as legal and social
detriments to their human status (Binns 2013). Disabled cyborgs like Geordi, Seven, and Data all
admit that they would happily give up their techno-super-abilities in order to be fully biological, and
so in the view of their society, fully human (“The Naked Now” [TNG 1.3, 1987]; “Human Error”
[VOY 7.18, 2001]; “Hero Worship” [TNG 5.11, 1992]).
Productivity and Precarity

As argued above, most disabled characters in Star Trek fall under the umbrella of the cyborg super-
crip. The super-crip stereotype reinforces the assertion that disabled people must be “productive”
if they are to earn their place in the narrative; they cannot simply exist, unremarked upon, as part
of the diversity that is nature. It demands disabled characters have plot-enhancing super-abilities as
well as narratively-convenient bouts of dramatic techno-failure and recurrent disability. The super-
crip stereotype asks, “Why can’t you turn your disadvantage into an advantage?” (Troi to disabled
character Riva in “Loud as a Whisper” [TNG 2.5, 1989]) rather than question the social and phys-
ical barriers to the levels of access and degrees of inclusion afforded to them. For example, DSC
revealed in “Perpetual Infinity” (2.11, 2019) that Spock (Ethan Peck) experiences dyslexia, however,
this “human failing” allowed Spock to weather the effects of “atemporal dysphasia” in a manner no
one else could, thus rendering his disability productive as soon as it was introduced. Although the
episode’s positive reading of disability as a meaningful way of experiencing the world is laudable,
DSC’s insistence that disability must be useful reinforces Star Trek’s narrative of disability as only
acceptable when it can be cured or put to work.
The concept of disability and normative bodily expectations are largely defined by the body’s
ability to work/labor/produce in modern capitalist systems (McRuer 2006, 8). Thus, the demand for
productivity is always inextricable from disability as well as race, as these intersecting identities have
continuing histories of exploited labor through slavery, incarceration, institutionalization, and legal
loopholes allowing employers to pay less than minimum wage for their work. The labor expected
from people of varying genders also shapes what constitutes a disability—this plays out in the previ-
ously analyzed example of Troi’s loss of her empathic ability, which was a significant disability in light
of the highly gendered labor of care expected of her, while Data’s lack of emotion rarely impacts his
also very gendered technical, intellectual, and manual labor.
Geordi, as the most legible disabled main character in Star Trek and one of only a few central
Black characters, lies at precisely this worrying juncture of ableism and racism. He is tied to histories
of slavery and “translating” Black bodies into technology for production since it is precisely Geordi’s
techno-cure that transforms his disabled body and grants him access to normative society through
his ability to work (Lavender 2007, 187). The dehumanizing effects of this process of cyborgization
to increase productivity are clearly outlined by Data when he confronts Picard (Patrick Stewart)
about why he is being denied human rights. Data uses Geordi’s cyborg nature as an example, asking
why all officers are not required to replace their biological eyes with more technically effective
cybernetic ones (“The Measure of a Man” [TNG 2.9, 1989]). When Picard can offer no reply, Data
concludes that normative human biological embodiment is valued above the proficiency of tech-
nology in the system of rights upheld by the Federation, and that is fundamentally why he faces
discrimination and injustice. This gestures to the consequent precarity of Geordi’s humanity, as he
stands on the cyborg limit between the (non-disabled) human and Data’s (both disabled and super-
abled) synthetic existence.
Star Trek consistently depicts the prospect of disablement as terrifying and dehumanizing. For
example, Captain Pike’s paralysis and scarring, as seen both in TOS and in a nightmarish vision in DSC,
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Disability
frames disability as a threat, complete with a horror-movie-style soundtrack. The ableism of this goes
unremarked, as does the oddity that for all the Federation’s supposed scientific and social progress,
their assistive technology for quadriplegics appears less sophisticated than its twenty-first-century
equivalent. In general, physical non-normativity—even when it does not impair function—is framed
as undesirable and in need of a cure, such as in the case of shapeshifter Odo (René Auberjonois) and
his inability to mold his fluid features to appear entirely humanoid. These moments emphasize how
the Federation centers the fully biological and normative human as the true person/citizen.
Nowhere is this threat to disabled life clearer than in TNG’s engagement with eugenics. In the
chillingly titled episode, “The Masterpiece Society” (TNG 5.13, 1992), the Enterprise encounters a
colony of humans whose forebears believed that “through controlled procreation, they could create
people without flaws and those people would build a paradise.” In congruence with Star Trek’s post-
race mentality (see Chapter 50), diversity of race is pointedly not one of those “flaws,” as evidenced
by various colonists of color and a black man as one of the colony’s central spokespeople. Disability is
the explicit target of this genetic control. However, despite the genocidal implications of this eugenic
lifestyle, most of the Enterprise crew are not particularly troubled by the colony’s system, except
Geordi. From the outset, Geordi’s visible disability draws the colonists’ discomfort and forces Geordi
into a combative position, defending the validity of his existence as he says: “Who gave them [the
colony’s geneticists] the right to decide whether or not I should be here? Whether or not I might
have something to contribute.”
Although this is clearly intended as a pro-disability moment, supporting Geordi’s human rights,
it is based fundamentally on his ability to “contribute.” Thus, Geordi’s rebuttal raises the question: if
he did not have something to contribute, in the capitalist sense and/or in terms of working aboard
a starship as he does, then would the colonist’s choice to preempt disabled life be the correct one?
Consequently, the “common-sense” desire to erase disability as an inherently negative embodiment
remains insufficiently troubled, despite Geordi’s vibrant proclamations of his own human worth. The
ableist logic of this episode provides a disturbing conclusion to the earlier analysis regarding cyborgs
and techno-cures: if disability cannot be rendered productive through technological intervention,
then disabled people have no place in the narrative and no protection around their right to exist.
Identity and Humanity

In Star Trek, the terms “humanity” and “personhood” are often used interchangeably, a problem-
atic choice considering how many people in that universe are not human, but still sentient beings
deserving of equal rights (see Chapter 56). Nonetheless, humanity generally stands as the example
for which beings striving for legal and social personhood must model themselves (see Chapter 57), as
demonstrated by the experiences of cyborgs like Seven as well as androids like Data and holograms
like VOY’s Doctor (Robert Picardo). Specifically, these characters must attempt to achieve a version
of humanity as delineated by the disability system and its intersections with gender, race, and sexuality.
Sexism frames Star Trek’s first, in-depth depiction of disability in blind character Dr. Miranda
Jones (Diana Muldaur). Jones faces constant sexual objectification due to men’s perception of her
“beauty,” combined with medicalized objectification in response to her disability (“Is There in Truth
No Beauty?” [TOS 3.7, 1968]). Kirk (William Shatner), Spock, and McCoy (DeForest Kelley) touch
her and her dress, which is actually a complex net of sensors acting as an accessibility aid, without her
consent, while simultaneously claiming she needs protection. Thus, Dr. Jones is the first in Star Trek’s
long history of white disabled women deemed in need of protection by the men around them,
followed by Melora and Troi, who experience a similar combination of unwanted sexual attention,
medicalized surveillance, and infantilization.
Masculinity further defines the disability system in Star Trek. For example, Picard in “Samaritan
Snare” (TNG 2.17, 1989) believes his artificial heart replacement and its attendant need for medical
attention will make him appear weak to his crew and potentially harm his masculine-coded position
417
as captain. Worf ’s attempt to commit suicide in order to preserve his honor following a severe spinal
injury and ensuring paralysis (“Ethics” [TNG 5.16, 1992]) is indelibly tied to his gender and racial
identity. He asserts, “I will not be seen lurching through corridors like some half-Klingon machine,
the object of ridicule and disgust.” He rejects cyborgism and believes that his decreased physical
prowess would make him “half ” a Klingon (a species heavily coded with stereotypes of blackness and
masculinity), and thereby lacking in place or respect on the Enterprise. The concept of burden these
examples invoke traces the limits of who is allowed, supported, and encouraged to live in a world
where productivity is defined by ability vis-à-vis gender and race regiments access to humanity and
personhood.
Expectations regarding gender and heterosexuality intersect with disability to demand a com-
plex performance of normative behaviors and bodily presentations which various disabled Star Trek
characters struggle to achieve, revealing this normative performance “not only as a compulsory law,
but as an inevitable comedy” (McRuer 2006, 9). Geordi falls in love with a hologram (“Booby Trap”
[TNG 3.6, 1989]), Seven flounders in the “social lessons” she receives—from the holographic Doctor
no less—to try and better interact with her fully organic crewmates (“One” [VOY 4.25, 1998]), and
Data struggles to maintain a romance with a human crewmate (“In Theory” [TNG 4.25, 1991]).
These heterosexual hijinks are consistently read in a disability register, i.e., Data is not able to perform
the role of straight male romance despite being “fully functional” (FCT 1996). Conversely, Geordi’s
continued attempts and apparent desire to achieve heterosexual success, despite repeated failures, keep
him safely tethered to normality and humanity. Similarly, Seven’s conventional attractiveness and the
continual masculine attention she receives reinforce her humanity through desirability, while her diffi-
culties assimilating to Voyager’s human-centric standards of romance, sex, and relationships endanger it.
Data’s comic exploits as he attempts to date a human woman in “In Theory” (TNG 4.25,
1991) highlight the way that all heterosexual performance is based on cultural norms and assumptions;
Data’s inability to follow the script of heteronormativity highlights the existence of that script in
the first place (Porter 2013). However, Data’s romantic failure does not just queerly highlight the
constructed-ness of heterosexuality, but also endangers his pursuit of humanity. Regarding his failed
relationship, Data ultimately concludes: “It is apparent that my reach has exceeded my grasp in this
particular area. I am perhaps not nearly so human as I aspire to become.” Thus, Data’s inability to
successfully assimilate to a heterosexual matrix of behaviors and performance reifies his outsider pos-
ition, bluntly cementing how sexuality and ability intertwine to mutually constitute and delineate
the boundaries of humanity.
Conclusion
In Star Trek, disabled characters must be technologically “cured” in order to perform the norma-
tively gendered and raced labor that earns them their place aboard starships and space stations. Thus,
the disability system delineates who is allowed in the narrative space. Despite the supposed import-
ance of “Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations” (Spock in “Is There in Truth No Beauty?”
[TOS 3.7, 1968]), a “preference for able-bodiedness” (Siebers 2008, 8) remains firmly entrenched,
restricting the definition of humanity and personhood. Attempts at disability inclusion in Star Trek,
from Geordi to the nameless wheelchair-using Starfleet officer spotted in background shots of DSC,
are inevitably multivalent. They are frequently ableist in their tokenism or reliance on tropes, but sim-
ultaneously contain the seeds for subversion in these disabled characters’ demand to exist onscreen.
For example, Keyla Detmer (Emily Coutts), a character disabled in the opening battle of DSC’s pilot
and consequently melded with assistive technology, says at the funeral of a friend and fellow cyborg:“I
just felt the weight of what I’d lost, but she showed me that my augmentation didn’t make me an
imitation of myself, it made both of us new, and that there could be a future. She was right” (“The
Red Angel” [DSC 2.10, 2019]). That this potentially pro-disability line does not arrive until after the
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brutal death of disabled cyborg woman Airiam, that Federation society is apparently still so ableist
that Detmer initially assumed her disability would make her an “imitation” and foreclose her future,
would suggest that Star Trek has made little progress. However, a reparative reading allows viewers to
find potential in this moment: coalition among disabled characters, the appreciation of bodily non-
normativity as valuable and even desirable, and most importantly, the assertion that disabled people
have and will always exist in the future that Star Trek offers us.
References
Allan, Kathryn. 2013. “Introduction.” In Disability in Science Fiction: Representations of Technology as Cure, edited
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Star Trek Episodes
The Original Series
1.29 “Operation --Annihilate!” 1967.
3.7 “Is There in Truth No Beauty?” 1968.
The Next Generation

1.3 “The Naked Now” 1987.
1.15 “11001001” 1988.
2.5 “Loud as a Whisper” 1989.
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2.17 “Samaritan Snare” 1989.
3.6 “Booby Trap” 1989.
4.10 “The Loss” 1990.
4.25 “In Theory” 1991.
5.11 “Hero Worship” 1992.
5.13 “The Masterpiece Society” 1992.
5.16 “Ethics” 1992.
Deep Space Nine

2.6 “Melora” 1993.
5.16 “Doctor Bashir, I Presume” 1997.
6.9 “Statistical Probabilities” 1997.
7.21 “When It Rains…” 1999.
Voyager
4.8 “Year of Hell” 1997.
4.25 “One” 1998.
7.18 “Human Error” 2001.
Enterprise
4.14 “The Aenar” 2005.
Discovery
2.10 “The Red Angel” 2019.
2.11 “Perpetual Infinity” 2019.
Star Trek Movie
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55
AGE AND AGING
To explore the ageist stereotypes on display in the futuristic utopia of Star Trek, one need only watch
the original, unaired pilot of The Original Series. In “The Cage” (unaired pilot, 1965/1988) Captain
Pike (Jeffrey Hunter) and an away team visit Talos IV, where they discover the survivors of the starship
Columbia, which had disappeared 18 years earlier. A group of old men, led by 81-year-old actor Leonard
Mudie, are excited that the youngest member of their crew will be rescued:Vina (Susan Oliver), a beau-
tiful, blonde 18-year-old who was born shortly before the crash. However, the entire scene turns out
to be an elaborate illusion created by an ancient race, the Talosians. Only Vina is real, and she is not 18;
Number One (Majel Barrett) identifies her as an adult at the time of the crash, but she is cut off before
she can reveal Vina’s true age. Once the Talosians accept that Captain Pike will not remain to mate
with Vina, they remove the illusion. She grows steadily older until we see her true appearance: “Vina
old, shockingly twisted, and ugly” (Roddenberry 1964, 69). Vina explains that although “everything
works,” she could not possibly live life in her true form as an old woman. Captain Pike agrees, asking
the Talosians to reinstate the illusion so that she can continue her lonely but sexually attractive existence.
The footage of “The Cage” was later reused to create “The Menagerie, Parts I and II” (TOS
1.15 and 1.16, 1966) in which Spock (Leonard Nimoy) risks his career to take the now disabled
Captain Pike back to Talos IV. Pike seems resistant, although his communication is limited to flashing
a blinking light once for yes and twice for no. The happy ending shows an abled-bodied version of
Pike reunited with the beautiful young Vina, to remain as a mated pair for the Talosian Zoo; a better
life than wheelchair-bound in Starfleet, where apparently not a soul has the wherewithal to teach the
captain Morse code (Liffick 2003, 46); an ableist stance to be sure (see Chapter 54). The underlying
message is harsh: Life is not worth living when you are old or infirm or losing mobility. Better to
become a zoo exhibit so that you can spend your days with a phantasmagoric 18-year-old blonde.
These portrayals highlight a general lack of imagination within the Star Trek universe when it
comes to the position of the elderly in the future. Roddenberry’s Federation is described as a human
utopia: Pollution and poverty have been eliminated, the human lifespan has been extended and many
of the primary causes of disability and decline have been eradicated. One might expect the Star Trek
franchise to be excited about exploring the natural effects of human aging without the bowed backs,
arthritis, and weak lungs caused by socially produced diseases. To be fair, age and experience as assets
are at least referenced in every series in the franchise, if they are Vulcan, for example, or a host for a
Trill symbiont or even a Klingon. In the Star Trek universe, surviving to a respectable age is generally
shown as “other,” represented by aliens as a contrast to the human ideals of youth and virility.
Old Age as a Social Construct

Old age as a social construct can easily be demonstrated by simply initiating a discussion as to when
one becomes old: the answer will vary greatly based on the age and background of the person
DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917-62 421

being asked. The term aging in English carries a largely pejorative connotation, especially when used
to describe women (Gullette 2018). Anti-aging guidance (more recently referred to as “successful
aging”) is also gender-specific: women are advised to protect their face and good looks, while men
are advised on how to maintain their sexual potency and performance (Calasanti 2007).
Star Trek’s struggle to define “old” is demonstrated in the confusion over the character of Lwaxana
Troi (Majel Barrett). The flamboyant Betazoid ambassador and embarrassing mother of Deanna
Troi (Marina Sirtis) is frequently referenced in TNG and DS9 as an example of an old woman on
Star Trek (see Chapter 42). Lwaxana often chastises others for implying that she might appear old.
When she goes through “the Phase,” it is described as a phenomenon similar to menopause; how-
ever, the primary effect is an increased sexual drive and the desire for a mate (“Manhunt” [TNG
2.19, 1989]) rather than the described transition to old age. Lwaxana becomes pregnant eight years
later in “The Muse” (DS9 4.21, 1996). One of her strongest performances engaged directly with
aging tropes in “Half a Life” (TNG 4.22, 1991), in which her latest paramour—a Kaelon scientist—is
expected to commit ritual suicide upon reaching the age of 60. Despite this, her character seems to
be firmly affixed to the default representation of old women in mass media.
This confusion seems almost simple compared to Kes (Jennifer Lien). Shortly after joining Voyager,
Kes tells the captain that she is much too young to be going through the Elogium, an Ocampan
version of puberty, because she is not yet two and it usually happens between the ages of four and
five (“Elogium” [VOY 2.4, 1995]). The episode has a happy ending and Kes is told she will still be
able to take a mate at the correct age; however, it is probably better not to think about the relationship
Neelix (Ethan Phillips) is having with a prepubescent 2-year-old, having fallen in love with her when
she was an Ocampan baby. The question remains: With two fertile aliens, one in her sixties and one
who is four, how can we deal with the subjective labels of old and young?
The Miniskirt as a Promise

One means of signaling the youth and sexual availability of Star Trek women is the Starfleet
uniforms. After the failed pilot, Roddenberry reimagined the crew of the Enterprise as younger
and sexier. Captain Pike was replaced by James T. Kirk (William Shatner), the youngest cap-
tain in Starfleet. Dr. Boyce, played by 61-year-old John Hoyt, was replaced by the 39-year-old
Leonard “Bones” McCoy (DeForest Kelley). Spock replaced the competent-but-cold female first
officer and, in one of the most striking changes, all of the women exchanged their functional
Starfleet uniforms for barely-there miniskirts with black stockings and go-go boots. Whether you
believe that the outfits were a sexist objectifying or a feminist reclaiming of women’s bodies (see
Chapter 51), there is no question that miniskirts are associated with youth. That is not to say that
older women should not be allowed to wear miniskirts; it simply means that the look was and is
associated with desirable young women, rather than with our grandmothers. There is an implicit
promise in insisting that all female crew must wear a skimpy outfit as a regulation uniform: There
will be no old women in Starfleet.
Bill Theiss, who designed the costumes for TOS and TNG, famously employed what he called the
Theiss Titillation Theory: “The sexiness of an outfit is directly proportional to the perceived possi-
bility that a vital piece of it might fall off ” (Reeves-Stevens 1995, 28). Drawing on his experiences
as a Pan Am pilot, his costumes for female crew members mimic the uniforms worn by stewardesses
at the time (Vettel-Becker 2014). Airlines promoted their cabin crew as glamorous and single and,
above all, young. This was achieved by only accepting applications from women 20 to 26 years of
age (NANA, Inc. 1936, N1). The airlines expected women to quit when they got married or, at the
very least, before they grew unfashionably old. When this did not happen, many airlines amended
their employment contracts to include enforced retirement for women at 32 (U.S. Congress. House
of Representatives. General Subcommittee on Labor of the Committee on Education and Labor
1967). When Star Trek was being developed, US airlines were being called out for discriminatory
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employment practices in Congressional hearings which proved that their policies were both sexist
and ageist. It is hard to believe that Theiss was unaware of this wave of change in the industry where
he had worked; his design of the regulation Starfleet uniform mimicking the industry currently being
taken to task for prioritizing youthful sex appeal over skills and experience is unlikely to have been
a coincidence.
The effect of this choice rippled throughout the Star Trek franchise. Over time, most of the
uniforms became less provocative and more professional, yet intelligent and highly competent women
were repeatedly dressed in skin-tight outfits with plunging necklines to underscore that their youth
and feminine features were their most prized attributes.
Sudden Aging
Star Trek’s frequent depictions of rapid aging demonstrate the ageist stereotypes in American culture;
getting old is consistently presented by the sudden appearance of white hair, wrinkles, and cognitive
deterioration. In “The Deadly Years” (TOS 2.11, 1967), the crew meet Mr. and Mrs. Johnson who
claim to be in their late twenties but appear much older (played by Felix Locher, 85, and Laura Wood,
66). The crew of the Enterprise start aging at a rate of 30 years a day and begin to show symptoms
of hearing loss, advanced arthritis, dementia, and general disorientation within the hour. Kirk loses
the ability to command, becoming confused and emotionally incontinent as he reaches his mid-60s.
Spock warns that they will soon become “little better than mental vegetables.” Mr. and Mrs. Johnson
die of “old age” shortly thereafter.
This is one of many examples where the sudden onset of old age includes a list of stereotypical
complaints known to be caused by outside factors. When Chakotay (Robert Beltran) suffers from
hyper-stimulation of his metabolism as a side-effect of alien experiments in “Scientific Method” (VOY
4.7, 1997), he becomes palsied and loses his hair before becoming gaunt and wrinkled, complaining
to Neelix that he is losing his eyesight, has chronic arthritis in his fingers, and can barely walk.
Sudden or rapid aging appears in over a dozen episodes, often as a punishment. In “Q-Less” (DS9
1.7, 1993), the ageless and seemingly omnipotent Q (John de Lancie) is incensed when Vash (Jennifer
Hetrick) declares she no longer wishes to continue their relationship. He punishes Vash by covering
her with boils and then afflicting her with old age; she develops gray hair, wizened hands, and is
unable to stand upright.
When used in anger, the target is almost always female. The only clear example of a man being
punished with old age is Voyager’s Harry Kim (Garrett Wang) who is turned into an old man by the
Clown (Michael McKean) for even thinking about escaping a grueling simulation (“The Thaw” [VOY
2.23, 1996]). It can be seen as a comeuppance when chief medical officer Julian Bashir (Alexander
Siddig) complains about turning 30 in “Distant Voices” and then rapidly ages to a hundred before
being returned to his natural age (DS9 3.18, 1995). This episode at least shows an awareness of the
cultural relativistic ageism inherent in all of these storylines, with Elim Garak (Andrew Robinson)
expressing surprise that humans treat growing old as a negative experience: “On Cardassia, advanced
age is seen as a sign of power and dignity.”
Not so in the Federation. For example, we are told that the children of Star Trek have good
relationships with their grandparents, but they never seem to actually interact with them on screen.
In the few episodes where both appear, the result shows no signs of dignity or respect. In TNG and
DS9, Alexander Rozhenko (James Sloyal, Marc Worden, Brian Bonsall and Jon Steuer) is sent to live
with his grandparents but the only interaction shown is when his grandmother (Georgia Brown)
returns him to his father for being too much trouble for her to raise. Even then, she does not bother
to say goodbye (“New Ground” [TNG 5.10, 1992]), although her affection for her foster son is
clearly demonstrated with hugs and kind words. In “The Magnificent Ferengi” (DS9 6.10, 1997),
Nog (Aron Eisenberg) has only one on-screen interaction with his grandmother Ishka (Cecily Adams
and Andrea Martin), in which he violently cuts her hand. She hits him over the head before telling
423
her sons that she is counting on them and loves them. Nog’s part in this mission to save her is clearly
not important to her. Jake Sisko (Cirroc Lofton) and his grandfather Joseph (Brock Peters) are both
regulars on DS9 but also are only once shown to interact directly (“Paradise Lost” [DS9 4.12, 1996])
where Jake complains with some contempt that Joseph is foolish to re-open his restaurant.
Children are also directly associated with causing old age. In “Unnatural Selection” (TNG 2.7,
1989), adults at the portentously named Darwin Genetic Research Station are subjected to rapid
aging and “death by old age” after contact with genetically modified children. In “Charlie X” (TOS
1.7, 1966), a rage-filled adolescent with superpowers inflicts rapid aging on a screaming female crew
member. A similar depiction of old age as a punishment is seen in “And the Children Shall Lead”
(TOS 3.5, 1968), where terrifying children cause Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) to cry out in horror
when she sees herself with wrinkled skin and bushy eyebrows, which she describes as seeing her own
death. In “Miri” (TOS 1.11, 1966), aging literally kills the inhabitants of the colony when they reach
puberty, leaving the adult rescuers at immediate risk of rapid aging and death when they attempt to
save the remaining children.
Space Is for the Young

These episodes target the outsized fear of aging in western culture (Cuddy and Fiske 2002; Cruikshank
2013) with an emphasis on women losing their looks and men losing the ability to command. Linn
Sandberg posits that men become “other” through retirement; their connection to work being essen-
tial for masculinity and male identity (2007, 87) although Anna Tarrant argues that it was not until
recently that older men were even recognized as gendered (2014, 2–3). Star Trek repeatedly explores
that fear of loss of self, focusing on it through the movies in a sequence initiated with The Motion
Picture (1979) where Kirk is worried that, at 39, he may be considered too old for active duty (see
Chapters 10 and 11). This is bizarrely young considering the extended lifespans of humans in the
twenty-third century. After all, McCoy was still in service aged 137 (“Encounter at Farpoint” [TNG
1.1/2, 1987]). However, this mindset appears to undergird Federation society—young people remain
in command even after generations have passed. In both “Children of Time” (DS9 5.22, 1997) and
“E²” (ENT 3.21, 2004), the young adults are in charge with the elderly and middle-aged members
visible in the background intermittently and then only briefly. In both cases, no one from the earlier
generations is in a position of power.
This is also demonstrated in the way that ancient beings, when manifesting as human, generally
show themselves as younger, ranging from Balok (Clint Howard) as a small child (“The Corbomite
Maneuver” [TOS 1.2, 1966]) to Q and Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg), who both choose to appear as
young adults, although they have lived through centuries; it is only in the second season of PIC that
we see them visually “adapt” to the age bracket of the titular protagonist, accounting for the two
actors having aged themselves (“The Star Gazer” [PIC 2.1, 2022]). In two of the rare cases where
ancient aliens appear with stereotypical visual indicators of old humans known only as “the caretaker”
in “Shore Leave” (TOS 1.17, 1966) and “Caretaker” (VOY 1.1/2, 1995), both die of old age after only
appearing in a single episode.
Old People Must Die

In the real world, we interact with old people on a regular basis without expecting them to fall over
dead. However, in Star Trek, old people dying is as prevalent as the Red Shirt syndrome (Axe 2008).
Over and over again, an older character is introduced, just to die before the episode is over. In the
rapid aging sequence of “The Deadly Years” (TOS 2.11, 1967), Mr. and Mrs. Johnson die of old age
shortly after their introduction. In the same episode, Lt. Galway (Beverly Washburn) dies in Kirk’s
arms, even though at 24 she is the youngest of the crew affected. Simply looking old appears to have
sealed their fates. Similarly, Jora Morell (Eve H. Brenner), a telepathic Enaran, dies as soon as she is
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finished transferring her history to B’Elanna Torres (Roxann Dawson) in “Remember” (VOY 3.6,
1996). In TNG, three episodes tackle the question of illicit rejuvenation (“Too Short a Season” [TNG
1.16, 1988]; “The Schizoid Man” [TNG 2.6, 1989]; “Man of the People” [TNG 6.3, 1992]); in all
three, the character is dead at the episode’s end, although admittedly one died of young age, rather
than old.
Thus we can see that old people die but not always of old age; much like red shirts, they are
also killed, usually in brutal fashion. Shakespearean actor Anton Karidian (Arnold Moss) in “The
Conscience of the King” (TOS 1.12, 1966), Professor John Gill (David Brian) in “Patterns of Force”
(TOS 2.23, 1968), and Professor Tolen Ren in “Ex Post Facto” (VOY 1.8, 1995) are the only old
characters in their episodes and all three are murdered before the show is over. K’mpec (Charles
Cooper), the longest-serving Chancellor of the Klingon High Council, also dies when he visits the
Enterprise, although to be fair, he had already been poisoned when he arrived (“Reunion” [TNG
4.7, 1990]).
Then there’s Captain Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh), an over-50 Starfleet captain; she marked the first
time that the captain of the ship at the center of the show was played by an over-50 actor—Patrick
Stewart was only 46 when he first appeared as Picard. True to the trope of Old People Must Die,
Captain Georgiou was killed in the pilot (“The Vulcan Hello” [DSC 1.1, 2017]; “Battle at the Binary
Stars” [DSC 1.2, 2017]), just to reappear as a mirror-universe character, Emperor Georgiou. The
experienced, over-50 character was resurrected in such a way to remove her not only from Starfleet,
but also from the human race. Emperor Georgiou is Terran, from another universe where everything,
including getting old, is done just a little bit differently. Her refusal to adhere to the human stereo-
types of old age leads viewers to describe her as not actually old, although Michelle Yeoh is 55, the
same age as Majel Barrett was when she introduced the character of Lwaxana Troi. Starfleet’s Captain
Georgiou is replaced by another captain over 50, Gabriel Lorca (Jason Isaacs, 54) who also turns out
to be from the Mirror Universe. Once again, it is left to aliens and the young to save the world.
Similarly, PIC is fascinating for its treatment of Picard at 94 (played by Patrick Stewart at 79).
Picard is not that old by future standards: McCoy was still in service at 137, 45 years older than Picard;
nevertheless, Picard is depicted as an old man striving to prove his relevance (“Maps and Legends”
[PIC 1.2, 2020]). In terms of representation, it is refreshing to see Picard as at the start of something
new rather than the end. He also contends with having a specific, medically diagnosed terminal
neurological disorder (“All Good Things…” [TNG 7.25/26, 1994]) which puts him at risk of severe
mental decline (PIC 1.2, 2020); at least he is not declared a “mental vegetable” as a direct result of old
age. Nevertheless, the old tropes are still in force. Picard almost lives through the first season but then
dies in the final episode only to be resurrected in an android body with all of the same characteristics,
rather than being allowed to continue his adventure in spite of his advancing age. Picard is told that
the “new” android body does not give him any additional strength or vitality and has a best-before
date—his death remains inevitable. The only difference, then, is that he is no longer human (see
Chapter 57).
The Elderly Are the Other

Star Trek is well known for its use of alien stand-ins allowing us to safely consider complicated topics,
such as racism, religion, incarceration, and mental illness (Lichfield et al. 2015). The resurrections of
Georgiou and Picard demonstrate that old age continues to be considered “other”: to become old
is to lose the youth and vitality of the human-led utopia. Space is for the young and old people die;
however, if you are no longer human, you can come back for the next series.
This is part of a greater pattern. Star Trek crews over the decades show a great increase in diver-
sity, including an acceptance of a much broader range of races in Starfleet, rather than relying on
half-humans and adoption to justify aliens holding a position. However, this same diversity is used
to justify relying on aliens to represent old age and experience. Characters over 50 can be cast in
425
young bodies, with no pesky old people marring the mise-en-scène of a starship’s bridge, corridors,
and laboratories.
In ENT, we also see older aliens combined with a young human crew (“Broken Bow” [ENT 1.1/
2, 2001]). T’Pol is the oldest crew member at 63; young by Vulcan standards and played by Jolene
Blalock who was 26 when the series started. Phlox is said to be 52, however, Denobulans also have
long life spans and the character is played by 41-year-old John Billingsley, the oldest of the regular
cast. The over-fifties are limited to outsiders who are not central to the show.
Although it could be argued that spaceships should be biased to youthful and stronger bodies,
the same issue occurs on space stations. Superficially, the core cast of DS9 shows a much greater
age range, with Jake Sisko (Cirroc Lofton) at 14 and Dax who is over three hundred years old.
However, the symbiont is hosted in the 28-year-old body of Jadzia (Terry Farrell), and thus is
represented by a young and beautiful woman. Odo is played by René Auberjonois, who was 52
at the start of the series. However, all of Auberjonois’ facial features have been wiped away to
portray the changeling, whose struggles to impersonate humans leave him with a face as smooth
as a baby’s. Thirty-seven-year old Commander Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) repeatedly asks
his aging father (Brock Peters) to join him on the station (“Homefront” [DS9 4.11, 1996]), so
the lack of older residents on the station does not appear to be a matter of protocol. While the
space station offers shopping venues, leisure centers, and a casino, there is a perceptible lack of any
human or even Bajoran residents nearing retirement age. It is rare to see a wrinkled face or even
flash of gray among the inhabitants of the space station. Instead, DS9 features a recurring cast of
visiting aliens who are visibly mature.
Not until VOY do we start to see a more mature and experienced crew, with Captain Janeway
(Kate Mulgrew) and Commander Chakotay (Robert Beltran) both in their forties. The oldest crew
member is Tuvok (Tim Russ) at 107, which is barely middle-aged for a Vulcan and played by a 39-
year-old actor. The Doctor, a hologram, is the only crew member represented by a more mature face
(42-year-old actor Robert Picardo). Once again, there is no visible sign of humans over the age of 50.
The Media’s Effect on Ageism

2020 saw the world gripped by a frightening pandemic that was particularly lethal to the elderly. A US
study (Jimenez-Sotomayor et al. 2020) showed that most of the English-language tweets relating to
Covid-19 and older adults were personal opinions and ageist jokes, including blaming the elderly for
their own deaths and the vile hashtag “#BoomerRemover.” A follow-up study on the Chinese social
media platform Weibo (Xi et al. 2020) found that the most prominent theme was the contribution of
older people to the community, followed by concern for older patients in hospitals. The perspective
of the elderly as “warm, competent, and actively exercising their agency” on Weibo is in stark contrast
to the complaints and ridicule displayed on Twitter, where 21 percent of the tweets implied that the
life of older adults was less valuable (Soto-Perez-de-Celis 2020).
Respectful representation of old age in the media is critical as those representations have been
shown to have a direct bearing on how we view the elderly and how we feel about getting old our-
selves. In That Age Old Question, a quarter of millennials surveyed believed it was normal for older
people to be unhappy and depressed, a third agreed that being lonely is just something that happens
when people get old, and 40 percent believed that there was no escaping dementia as you grow
older (Royal Society for Public Health 2018, 5). The same study found that older respondents with
a positive view of old age were less likely to suffer from depression, less likely to suffer from memory
loss—on average, they lived seven years longer. The report concludes that television holds a primary
role in contributing to harmful stereotypes.
To better understand the insidious representations of the elderly in Star Trek, consider again the
portrayal of Captain Kirk in his sixties in “The Deadly Years”—feeble, absent-minded, and emotionally
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incontinent. In contrast, the actor William Shatner, born in 1931, is still biking, swimming, and horse-
riding (winning a world championship in 2018), and considers himself to be at his creative peak. In
October 2021, at age 90, he became the oldest person to travel into low Earth orbit on board Jeff
Bezos’s Blue Origin capsule (Luscombe 2021). So, more than 40 years after that particular TOS epi-
sode, there is no sign of the ageist stereotypes shown by the character he portrayed. Similarly, in The
Final Frontier (1989), we can see just how wrong Uhura’s vision of getting old in “And the Children
Shall Lead” (TOS 3.5, 1968) turned out to be. Nichelle Nichols’ hair is graying, and her uniform is
no longer skin-tight; however, her manner is still confident and indeed sexy. As the franchise has been
forced to deal with the issues of aging actors, we have experienced the positive side effect that the
ageism of the earlier episodes becomes impossible to ignore. There has been at least some attempt to
stop perpetuating these myths of old age.
The characters and plot lines of the two most recent Star Trek series show a willingness to con-
sider vibrant and active lives after 40, rather than simply remaining entrenched in ageist attitudes.
DSC gives us solid evidence that middle-aged men and women are not just unhappy, deskbound staff
unsuited to space life but in fact are a useful and important facet of Starfleet: the actors playing Paul
Stamets (Anthony Rapp), Hugh Culber (Wilson Cruz), and Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) were
all in their mid-forties for their first episodes on the show and regular guest Katrina Cornwell (Jayne
Brook) was visibly in her fifties.
In PIC, the latest representation of Jean- Luc Picard after retirement is a much more real-
istic representation of aging; Picard is not doddering or incompetent but drives the plot with his
convictions and a sense of agency. His former crew show a wide variety of activities and interests
in their post-Enterprise lives. This makes it particularly frustrating that in both cases, the central
characters over 50 have been resurrected as something new. This decision in both series implies a
belief that old humans do not belong at the center of a space adventure. Modern Star Trek remains
bogged down by the ageist message that in order to defeat the stereotypes of old age, you must give
up your humanity.
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Cruikshank, Margaret. 2013. Learning to Be Old: Gender, Culture, and Aging Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Cuddy, Amy J.C., and Susan T. Fiske. 2002. “Doddering But Dear: Process, Content, and Function in
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Star Trek Episodes
The Original Series
1.2 “The Corbomite Maneuver” 1966.
1.7 “Charlie X” 1966.
1.11 “Miri” 1966.
1.17 “Shore Leave” 1966.
1.19 “Arena” 1967.
2.11 “The Deadly Years” 1967.
The Next Generation

1.16 “Too Short a Season” 1988.
2.6 “The Schizoid Man” 1989.
2.7 “Unnatural Selection” 1989.
2.19 “Manhunt” 1989.
4.7 “Reunion” 1990.
4.22 “Half a Life” 1991.
5.10 “New Ground” 1992.
Deep Space Nine

1.7 “Q-Less” 1993.
3.18 “Distant Voices” 1995.
4.21 “The Muse” 1996.
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Age and Aging
5.22 “Children of Time” 1997.

6.10 “The Magnificent Ferengi” 1997.
Voyager
1.1/2 “The Caretaker” 1995.
1.8 “Ex Post Facto” 1995.
2.4 “Elogium” 1995.
2.23 “The Thaw” 1996.
3.6 “Remember” 1996.
4.7 “Scientific Method” 1997.
Enterprise
1.1/2 “Broken Bow” 2001.
3.21 “E²” 2004.
Discovery
1.2 “Battle at the Binary Stars” 2017.
Picard
1.2 “Maps and Legends” 2020.
2.1 “The Star Gazer” 2022.
Star Trek Movies
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56
NONHUMANOID ALIEN LIFE
Will Tattersdill
Lifeforms
You tiny little lifeforms
You precious little lifeforms
Where are you?
Data (Star Trek Generations)
If there is a bias in Star Trek’s famous adage “to seek out new life and new civilizations,” it is firmly
in the direction of the civilizations: the majority of the aliens in the show look similar enough to
humans to be played by human actors (for reasons superficially explained in “The Chase” [TNG
6.20, 1993]). Interchanges with these “new civilizations” inform a sizable portion of this handbook.
What about the other half of the equation?
This chapter begins and ends with the difficult proliferation of lifeforms in Star Trek—“difficult”
because it is a proliferation not just of beings but of kinds of being. There is no Fermi paradox in the
Star Trek galaxy, which teems with both life and civilizations, but the nonhumanoids, the animals,
implicitly ubiquitous but seldom in the foreground, are surprisingly difficult to discuss collectively
(plants are an even more neglected category, and due to space constraints, this chapter will neglect
them still further).
“Lifeforms,” “nonhumanoids,” “animals,” “aliens,” “beings”: the terms in play in my two short
opening paragraphs nicely demonstrate the conceptual barriers to understanding Star Trek’s
fauna. Anyone sitting down to think about them is confronted with the sheer number of ways
there are to be alive in this universe. Over the course of the franchise we see—to take an almost
random set of examples—living spacecraft (“Tin Man” [TNG 3.20, 1990]), macroscopic viruses
(“Macrocosm” [VOY 3.12, 1996]), sentient rocks (“The Savage Curtain” [TOS 3.22, 1969]), crys-
talline entities (“Datalore” [TNG 1.13, 1988]), multidimensional fungi (“Saints of Imperfection”
[DSC 2.5, 2019]), and embittered clouds of ionized gas (“Déjà Q” [TNG 3.13, 1990]), to say
nothing of the dogs (GEN 1994; “Broken Bow” [ENT 1.1, 2001]; “Dark Page” [TNG 7.7, 1993];
“Remembrance” [PIC 1.1, 2020]). Are these all different things, or different parts of the same
thing, the great otherness reconciled under the word “nonhuman”? What does it mean to speak
of a “Star Trek animal”?
In an essay pivotal to Animal Studies, Jacques Derrida chides humanity for using the word to
erase a vast wealth of species difference; humans, he writes, “have given themselves the word in order
to corral a large number of living beings within a single concept” (2002, 400). That single concept,
even when used in an attempt to displace our anthropocentric tendencies (Animal Studies, animal
rights), tacitly reinforces them. “It is hard to deny,” writes Erica Fudge, “that ‘the animal’, the general
singular with its definite article, wipes out all difference apart from the difference of the named from
430 DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917-63

Nonhumanoid Alien Life
the namers” (2002, 162). This problem is exacerbated in the Star Trek universe, where the numbers
and kinds of both named and namers have been exorbitantly increased.
I began writing this chapter in the belief that it could be neatly subdivided by the kinds of
nonhumanoid alien life which the franchise offers us: sentient vs nonsentient, terran vs extraterres-
trial, artificial vs natural, spacefaring vs planetbound, and so on (my editors, for whose patience I am
grateful, would quite have liked this as well). In reality, Star Trek simply does not accommodate typ-
ologies like these, and every attempt to create one is quickly inundated with counterexamples. To
help illustrate this, consider what you would have named this chapter had you been asked to write
it. In our original discussions, it was to be called simply “Alien Life,” but this category is confusing
as it potentially includes Bolians and the Kazon alongside targs and the space-dwelling jellyfish seen
in “Encounter at Farpoint” (TNG 1.1/2, 1987). “Animals,” as well as being too broad (per Derrida),
is also suddenly too narrow, potentially suggesting only terran creatures: in this sense, the word
might refer to cats (like Data’s pet, Spot) but not, say, the two-dimensional lifeforms encountered
in “The Loss” (TNG 4.10, 1990). We must also consider that properly, the term “animal” includes
humanity—this, of course, is Derrida’s point, and the reason that many in Animal Studies prefer the
term “nonhuman.” But “Nonhumans,” too, would have been an awkward title: not only does it hom-
ogenize virtually all life as humanity’s Other (like “Animal”), but in the Star Trek universe it refers
to the boundary between O’Brien and Kira (like “Alien”) as well as the boundary between Kirk and
his dog Butler, creating confusion between this issue and the separate (but intertwined) issue of race
(see Chapter 50). Dolly Jørgensen circumvents this discussion with the intriguing formulation of
“creatures equivalent to animals rather than civilizations that are considered equivalent to humans”
(2013, 254). Though pragmatic, this definition elides a great deal of conceptual labor—“considered
equivalent” by whom?—as well as leaving a worrying gap in the middle (where dwell the civilizations
which are not equivalent to humans, such as the Prophets or the Organians).
Ultimately, this category frustration is itself one of the most crucial insights Star Trek and Animal
Studies can offer each other. Sherryl Vint points out that facing the otherness of the world is the
end goal of both Animal Studies and science fiction (sf): “Both take seriously the question of what it
means to communicate with a being whose embodied, communicative, emotional, and cultural life—
perhaps even physical environment—is radically different from our own” (2010, 1). Though Vint is
not discussing Star Trek specifically here, this seems very much in line with the Federation’s declared
interests in peace, mutual respect, and understanding. Manuela Neuwirth has pointed out, though,
that animal encounters in Star Trek “ultimately fall short of the posthuman promise of egalitarian
community and mutual transformation” (2018, 3). For Neuwirth, who focuses on the franchise’s use
of pets, in particular, Spot, attending to animals “unmasks ‘Star Trek’ as a distinctly humanist utopia”
(ibid., 3). Spot is “objectified as a plot device” (ibid., 9), and facilitates Data’s character growth but
is permitted no perspective of their own. “[E]‌very alien in ‘Star Trek’ gets to be human,” Neuwirth
writes, “but no animal does” (ibid., 10).
Neuwirth’s reading is both persuasive and, of course, in line with the anthropocentrism of the
show’s presentation of human-humanoid relations (see Chapter 57). It must also be recognized,
though, that there are rare moments in which the otherness of nonhumanoid alien life takes center-
stage: those moments, a few of which form the substance of this chapter, tend to highlight rather
than resolve the category anxiety discussed in these opening pages. By deliberately lingering on
these, I intend to draw attention to the ways in which Star Trek both proposes and complicates its
understanding of the human-animal divide.
Picard Can’t Ever Quite Ride a Horse

Towards the beginning of “Pen Pals” (TNG 2.15, 1989), Counsellor Troi (Marina Sirtis) accompanies
her captain as he prepares to go riding. “I never particularly thought of you as an animal person,” she
says. “Small animals, no,” Picard (Patrick Stewart) replies. “But horses …” When Troi sees him with a
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Will Tattersdill
horse, hears him rhapsodize about how integrated horses were into Arabian culture (“There’s a bond
which is created by mutual need”), she thinks she understands: “You don’t want the comfort of a pet,
you want a companion.” This distinction, though, is too narrow for Picard, and he implicitly rejects
both terms: “I don’t want to anthropomorphize anything. It seems that some creatures have the cap-
acity to fill spaces you never knew were empty.”
Picard’s refusal to anthropomorphize his steed, his preference for “creature” over “companion,” is
superficially consistent with the Federation’s principle (in the twenty-fourth century) of valuing alien
life on its own terms. The immediate context, though, adds another layer to his comments: they are
spoken in the holodeck, and the horse to which he refers, though played by a real animal, is, in the
world of the show, merely a very convincing simulation. Offered the choice of an “Andorian Zabathu”
or “Klingon Sark” by the ship’s computer, Picard has (with some irritation) specified “Horse, Earth
horse” (note that he avoids the computer’s invitation to say “human horse” with all that the construc-
tion “Klingon Sark” implies for animals living on alien worlds). What he is interacting with, then,
is neither companion, pet, creature, or animal—it is a computer program, a simulacrum of an Earth
animal extemporized for the sole purpose of human recreation and entertainment. “I will control the
animal myself,” Picard instructs the computer, tellingly ordering an animal which is neither purely
instrumental nor properly wild. An authentic horse-ride, unlike an authentic interaction with the
computer, requires a demonstration of human mastery.
Picard’s horse-r iding is repeatedly interrupted in “Pen Pals,” but his hobby is mentioned again
in “The Loss” (TNG 4.10, 1990) and “Starship Mine” (TNG 6.18, 1993), and seen in Generations
(1994). In the first and last of these examples the horse is once again simulated (by the holodeck
in “The Loss” and by the Nexus in Generations); in “Starship Mine,” the captain is promised a real
horse ride, but is waylaid when collecting his saddle and never gets to see the animal. For Picard,
then, the “real horse” remains tantalizingly out of reach, despite his ability to summon one from
his holodeck at will. He is far from the only one: at the time of writing, Memory Alpha’s “Horse”
entry has a subsection on “Illusory Horses” almost as long as the preceding discussion of the actual
animals.
This is not to suggest, of course, that illusory horses are less important than real ones, either for
Animal Studies or for the crew of the Enterprise. Already, devoted first-time viewers of “Pen Pals”
would have seen “Elementary, My Dear Data” (TNG 2.3, 1988), the first in a series of episodes
(arguably culminating in “Author, Author” [VOY 7.20, 2001]) to take on the rising challenge of
holographic personhood. After the emergent intelligence of Professor Moriarty (Daniel Davis), the
possibility of Picard’s mount gaining independent intelligence is at least available, even if “Pen Pals”
does nothing seriously to suggest it. Imagine if it did, though. If an episode existed where a holo-
graphic horse was imbued with consciousness, would it be accurate to call it a real horse? Voyager’s
Doctor (Robert Picardo) is a person but not a human; what is his horse equivalent, and who gets to
decide? We might reframe this question by asking ourselves what the horse version of the Turing Test
would be: if Picard’s mount suddenly developed a species-appropriate consciousness, as Moriarty did,
how would any human observer be able to tell?
No Life As We Know It
Picard’s horses—on the surface, a simple and familiar reminder of the aristocratic trappings of TNG’s
liberal humanism—teem with complexity if we consider them as part of a galaxy-wide problem-
atization of species difference, sentience, and artificial intelligence. It may be objected that the episode
asks for no such consideration, that the purpose of the scene is that we understand the humanoid
characters better; the purpose of the horse is to teach us about Picard, not about the horse. This,
though, is precisely Neuwirth’s point: animals in Star Trek, as elsewhere, always ultimately serve the
function of humanoid character development. When we attempt to see them on their own terms,
we are almost always reading the show against the grain.
432
If this is the case even in the “straightforward” example of Picard’s horses, it is worth scrutinizing
a moment in which the alterity of a completely alien nonhumanoid is indeed at the very center of
an episode’s attention, and one of the best-known examples of this is “The Devil in the Dark” (TOS
1.26, 1967). Kirk (William Shatner) and his team are called to Janus VI, where the Pergium miners
are being terrorized by a “monster” which lives in the tunnels. Kirk discovers that the monster—a
Horta—is actually an intelligent being with what Spock (Leonard Nimoy) calls “a very logical mind”;
this discovery, the episode’s twist, is a defining moment in early Star Trek precisely because of the
empathy it makes us feel for the strange blob thing. Throughout the episode, though, the language
used to describe the Horta is inconsistent. To the miners, it is a “monster” (a term it bitterly refers
back at them when speaking through a mind meld with Spock). When Kirk succeeds in wounding
the Horta with his phaser and examines the piece of its body thus amputated, he declares: “it’s not
animal tissue”; seconds later, reflecting on the damage he has caused the Horta, he remarks that
“there’s nothing more dangerous than a wounded animal.”
Is this a lapse into metaphor (a human might also be a “wounded animal” in this situation), or
evidence of the Horta’s conceptual instability in Kirk’s mind? Spock’s observations make it clear
that the Horta, a silicon-based lifeform, cannot logically be included in the category “animal,”
which, after all, really refers only to one of the several kingdoms of carbon-based life from a solitary
planet, Earth (the others include plants, fungi, and bacteria). Curiously, though, Spock’s description
of his mind meld deploys the term, apparently in praise: “In my brief contact with the creature’s
mind, I discovered it is a highly intelligent, extremely sophisticated animal. In great pain, of course,
because of its wound, but not reacting at all like a wounded creature” (“The Devil in the Dark”
[TOS 1.26, 1967]).
At the start of this speech, “creature” is a relatively neutral term; by the end of it “sophisticated
animal” is conceptually superior to “wounded creature.” This implies not only that an “animal” is a
more desirable thing to be but that achieving that status is more to do with mental capabilities—in
this case, a complex response to pain—than physical characteristics. What it really tells us, though,
is that Star Trek simply does not have a vocabulary for finessing these distinctions. At the very end
of the episode, Spock reverts to calling the Horta a “remarkably intelligent and sensitive creature”
in a discussion which leads, as such discussions often do in TOS, directly to a lighthearted exchange
about the species barrier which separates Spock from the rest of the crew. This, again, speaks to
Neuwirth’s point: the Horta’s uniqueness has been sublimated to a lesson about Spock’s social foibles.
For Jørgensen, meanwhile, the episode is a case study in the anthropocentrism of the TOS crew’s
response to the idea of species extinction. To these excellent viewpoints, I would add that “The Devil
in the Dark” depicts another ubiquitous Star Trek impulse—the urge to classify—which the Horta
resists and, in resisting, foregrounds.
The encounter with the Horta has indirectly yielded one of the most famous lines which Spock
never said: “It’s life, Jim, but not as we know it,” actually from The Firm’s (1987) number one single
“Star Trekkin’ ” (the real line in the episode is: “Within range of our sensors, there is no life … At
least, no life as we know it” [TOS 1.26 1967]). It is significant for our purposes here that a parody
pop song locates uncertainty about the definition of life as a central element of Star Trek, but it is also
striking, in the episode itself, how quickly and efficiently the Horta is brought within the Federation’s
schema of understanding: Spock’s almost-iconic line is uttered when the Horta is still hypothetical,
but by the time he finally stands in its presence, he knows quite a lot about what it is, having made
careful inferences from available evidence. As the crew of the Enterprise learns more about the Horta,
they shift it from monster to sentient being, but also from an irrational force of nature into an actor
with which the Federation can negotiate for resources. The varying treatment of “new life,” then, is
also a result of the franchise’s colonial baggage, one of the many suggestions that while “exploration”
usefully vindicates of a lot of the Federation’s activity (see Chapter 45; Rabitsch 2019, 193–209), it is
not an ideal often evinced by its crews in practice (for animals and empire, see Miller 2012; for empire
and sf, see Rieder 2008).
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Will Tattersdill
Medicine or Exobiology?
To pursue the question of humanoid supremacy, consider the VOY episode “Nothing Human” (5.8,
1998). In this episode, the crew of Voyager are trying to help a wounded nonhumanoid alien when it
attacks B’Elanna Torres (Roxann Dawson) and attaches itself parasitically to her, slowly drawing on her
strength to help it recover. The Doctor, unable to devise a treatment singlehandedly, collaborates with
a holographic recreation of Crell Moset (David Clennon)—a controversial decision because the real
Moset is a Cardassian, a race Torres despises. To make matters worse, Moset turns out to have carried
out deeply unethical research conducted in labor camps during the Cardassian occupation of Bajor.
The episode’s spiritual heart is the discussion it stages about medical ethics (see Chapter 48)—
B’Elanna refuses to profit from Moset’s ill-gotten expertise, and in the end Janeway (Kate Mulgrew)
has to order the doctor to operate against his patient’s wishes. This decision and the question of
Janeway’s right to make it (see Chapter 59) push the nonhumanoid alien itself into the background: to
most of the characters (the Doctor is an intermittent exception), it is simply the problem to be over-
come. This is all the more surprising because the episode’s plot so closely follows that of the TNG
episode “Ethics” (5.16, 1992), with the addition of the nonhumanoid being the one major alteration
in the setup (Worf is injured by a falling container). Neither B’Elanna’s lifeform nor its species are
ever named—a point made stranger by the fact that it represents one of only a very few spacefaring,
intelligent nonhumanoids in the Star Trek canon. It cannot communicate with the crew of Voyager—
it makes screeching sounds indecipherable to the universal translator—and this further distinguishes
it from, for example, the crystalline Sheliak in “The Ensigns of Command” (TNG 3.2, 1989), who
are able to bandy diplomatic ultimatums with Picard. In every logical sense, the “Nothing Human”
alien represents a civilization equivalent to the Sheliak—or the Ferengi, Romulans, or Klingons. Yet
the Doctor’s initial reaction to the prospect of treating it reveals that he considers such work outside
the purview of a medic: “If I’m to have any hope of devising a treatment I’ll need to brush up on my
exobiology” (“Nothing Human” [VOY 5.8, 1998]).
The Doctor’s implicit distinction between “medicine” and “exobiology” represents one of the
few points at which Star Trek attempts to codify its humanoid-animal boundary. During his time
in the Delta Quadrant, the Doctor unhesitatingly diagnoses and treats humanoids of races previ-
ously unknown to Starfleet (for example, the Lokirrim in “Body and Soul” [VOY 7.7, 2000]), and
we routinely see him devise and implement impossibly elaborate experimental procedures, often
in mere moments, without raising these sorts of complaints (for example, he crafts Neelix a pair of
holographic lungs in “Phage” [VOY 1.5, 1995]). Faced with the “Nothing Human” alien, though,
he accedes to the decision to bring in a consultant almost instantly: “I may be a walking medical
encyclopedia, but even I don’t know everything. My matrix simply isn’t large enough” (VOY 5.8,
1998). We know that exobiology is taught at Starfleet Academy (Wesley Crusher “topped the class,”
his mother mentions in “The Host” [TNG 4.23, 1991]) and that it is a separate discipline from both
zoology (Jadzia Dax holds degrees in both, we learn in “Dax” [DS9 1.8, 1993]) and interspecies veter-
inary medicine (Phlox holds six degrees in this, according to “A Night in Sickbay” [ENT 2.5, 2002]).
But what actually is the difference between these various academic fields? To what might the exo-in
“exobiology” refer in an episode which, appropriately given its title, features only one fully human
character (Janeway) among its many stakeholders (Torres, the Doctor, Moset, and the nonhumanoid)?
To what might the exo-in “exobiology” refer in a society made up of many species, compassing many
planets beyond Earth? To a Betazoid, surely a turtle would be exobiology—to their human colleague,
though, it is biology, and it is no surprise whose side the franchise always takes. Like its politics, mili-
tary, culture, and ship design, the Federation’s animal sciences reveal the inherent anthropocentrism in
its supposedly interspecies cooperation.
The closest the nonhumanoid alien in “Nothing Human” comes to being named is when Moset—
the character with the least respect for its autonomy—calls it a “Cytoplasmic Pseudoparasite” when
extemporizing the title of a paper he will write about the treatment. This description captures the
434
animal almost entirely in the terms of its relationship with a humanoid (B’Elanna) as well as binding it
within the knowledge systems of Alpha Quadrant medical science (in contrast, the Horta suggests its
own name). Without context, “Cytoplasmic Pseudoparasite” is more evocative of a small-scale inverte-
brate than it is of a complex civilization far more technologically advanced than not only the Horta but
also many of the humanoids encountered in Star Trek (e.g., the Malkorians in “First Contact” [TNG
4.15, 1991]). True, this language could be read as an example of Moset’s prejudice, but no other member
of the Voyager crew does better. None of them attempts to learn about the alien on its own terms. No
examination of the alien’s ship, or attempt to find others of its species—standard practices in other
episodes—takes place. Tuvok attempts no mind meld. Meanwhile, despite the fact that he is summoned
for his exobiological expertise, Moset’s crimes are horrific because his Bajoran victims are humanoids.
Perhaps, even, the fact that these crimes were committed by an “exobiologist” rather than by a doctor
(the reference is clearly to the Nazi physician Josef Mengele) is another clue as to the disturbing attitude
taken by the Cardassians toward other humanoids—and therefore, another clue as to the hierarchy of
species in Federation ethics. If Moset had killed only creatures which the Federation and Cardassians
agreed were animals, would the episode’s moral dilemma stand unaltered? As it is, we are never told how
many nonhumanoids he experimented upon in the pursuit of his knowledge. Nobody asks.
Non-interference
It is often remarked that the Prime Directive is applied inconsistently by Federation captains (see,
for instance, Kaye 2016), but discussion of these violations tends to focus on the consequences for
individuals, societies, and timelines rather than animals and ecosystems. Many violations of the Prime
Directive are taken deliberately after (or, sometimes, before) much soul-searching on screen (for
example, “Who Watches the Watchers” [TNG 3.4, 1989]). For me, though, one of the most egregious
examples is shocking precisely for its thoughtlessness. In “Threshold” (VOY 2.15, 1996), Janeway
and Paris (Robert Duncan McNeill) travel so fast that they hyper-evolve into what the doctor calls
“a future stage in human development”—they are eventually found in a jungle in an “uninhab-
ited star system,” transformed into something resembling giant salamanders. In sharp contrast with
“Nothing Human,” the Doctor has no hesitation about working with these creatures, and in record
time Janeway and Paris have been restored to their old selves. There is a complication, though: while
in their altered state, the two have had (at least) three children, who are seen vanishing into the swamp
after their parents are incapacitated by the away team.
Chakotay (Robert Beltran) records the incident in his log as follows: “We’ve transported the
Captain and Mr. Paris back to Sickbay. As for their… offspring, I’ve decided to leave them in their
new habitat.” This is an outrageous decision, completely unexplained and immediately forgotten,
which at best condemns three technically human children to a parentless attempt to survive on a
hostile alien world. Chakotay’s pause before substituting “offspring” for “children” shows him placing
conceptual distance between himself and the hyper-evolved humans, othering them into animals to
make his decision easier. Based on other Star Trek episodes, it seems to me unlikely that he would
have done so had the “offspring” retained a humanoid bauplan or the ability to speak.
The true enormity of Chakotay’s decision, though, lies not with the “offspring” but with the
“new habitat.” While the planet in question is described as “uninhabited,” we see that it has a verdant
jungle and hear insects (or something like them) chirping in the background. Even if we, like virtually
every character in Star Trek, take “uninhabited” to mean “uninhabited by humanoids,” we cannot be
sure this planet will remain so. Into what complex evolutionary processes has Voyager dumped three
hyper-evolved humans and how disruptive does this action have the potential to be? Chakotay’s
choice represents a potentially massive intervention into the development of an entire biosphere
(see Chapter 43), one on which the show fails to reflect at all (by contrast, the real-life NASA has
implemented a Planetary Protection policy precisely to guard against this kind of situation).
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Purist readers may object that the Prime Directive applies to civilizations rather than ecosystems.
This, of course, is precisely my point: the Federation’s principle of non-interference, in Kirk’s words,
“refers to a living, growing culture” (“Space Seed” [TOS 1.22, 1967]); though no episode gives us
the directive’s full text, we see time and again that it is implicitly predicated on the idea that a smooth
line can be drawn between humanoid civilizations and mere communities of nonhumanoid alien
life. As Janeway and Paris’s salamander-children demonstrate, though, this line blurs easily in the
strangeness of space. It can also be blurred in the relative comfort of our present surroundings: the old
assumptions of humanity at the top of the Great Chain of Being, while persistent, are slowly being
eroded by the growing body of work suggesting that animals “have species-specific minds of their
own” (Andrews 2015, 4), that our measures of what constitutes intelligence, society, or technology—
even on Earth—are woefully biased. This bias is visible not just in the exceptional circumstances
of “Threshold,” but in routine Federation practice: when the Vaadwaur need to escape the nuclear
winter on their home planet in “Dragon’s Teeth,” Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) scans the sector for a
world “with edible vegetation and an underground water supply”—in other words, pre-existing life
of its own—unconcerned by the effect introducing an off-world civilization to this planet might have
(VOY 6.7, 1999). The many examples of other such behavior include every Federation ‘colony’: once
again, the franchise’s attitude to animals is indivisible from its latent colonial mindset.
As Jørgensen notes (2013, 265–264), the Federation does engage in conservation efforts, especially
when the extinction of an individual species seems likely. We also glimpse moments of considered
planetary biology in Keiko O’Brien’s (Rosalind Chao) work (for example, in “Fascination” [DS9
3.10, 1994]). More recently, the Tardigrade in DSC’s first season advances on the Horta concept—
mistaken for a monster at first, it is not only an animal exploited by the Federation but a representative
of a complex ecosystem (the mycelial network) which is threatened by the crew’s continued action.
Although this gesture is somewhat undermined by the second season’s introduction of humanoid per-
sonas in the network (the jahSepp), there is still more thought of systemic ecological interference here
than in most previous Star Trek. Even this, though, cannot match recent sf from beyond the franchise
in thinking through the potential impact of human-nonhuman interactions beyond our own bio-
sphere (for instance, see Chambers 2019). Evolutionary ecologists (such as Brown 1994) have found
the Prime Directive a useful thought experiment for the furthering of their own ideas about human
interactions with the environment; Star Trek itself, however, has tended to miss that opportunity.
The Thoughts and Shifting Passions of the Beast

In dwelling on the above examples, I have sought to highlight the fact that the Federation’s engagements
with nonhumanoid aliens invariably, and often inadvertently, serve to frustrate the human urge to
taxonomize. This is true whether we are dealing offhandedly with “simple” terran creatures (like
horses), or at episode length with genuinely “new life” (like the Horta). Since the taxonomic urge is an
imperial urge, this frustration points to the colonial ideology which undergirds the Federation: space-
faring nonhumanoids (in “Nothing Human”) are overlooked if they cannot speak decipherably,
ecosystems (like the one in “Threshold”) are not protected by the vaunted law of non-interference.
This approach, the only one I have had room to develop here, is not, of course, the only possible
way into discussing nonhumanoid aliens in the Star Trek galaxy. I have not mentioned their most
famous ambassadors, the tribbles (which Odo can buy as a pet, but which Worf can consider col-
lectively as “mortal enemies of the Klingon Empire” in “Trials and Tribble-ations” [DS9 5.6, 1996]).
Perhaps unforgivably, I have also omitted the humpback whales of TVH (1986) (which argues for
increased engagement with Earth ecology through the expedient of rendering it literally alien; see
Chapter 13)—there is much to say about why these two species have such flagship status for the fran-
chise. A curious student might also consider nonhumanoids in terms of their use-value, especially
as food: is replicated gagh alive? Is replicated meat vegetarian? What does it mean to eat animals, or
to pretend to eat animals, in a putatively enlightened techno-utopia such as the Federation? When
436
castaway Janeway tells her crew to eat grubs on a planet she has been unable to scan (“Basics, Part II”
[VOY 3.1, 1996]), is that really wise, or justifiable, even in her strained circumstances?
In “Pen Pals,” where my discussion began, Troi declines Picard’s invitation to join him in a
ride, surprising him by telling him that Betazoids do not work well with animals: “we become
too involved,” she tells him, “in the thoughts and shifting passions of the beast.” The objection is a
strange one given that the holographic horse presumably has no such passions; Star Trek is not thor-
oughly consistent regarding Troi’s ability to sense holographic emotions, but even if it is a problem,
presumably the computer could simply create a less sophisticated horse for Troi to ride. That is not
the point, of course: Troi’s comment reveals that a conceptual division between people and beasts
exists and is powerful in the twenty-fourth century. For the Betazoids, this division is a biologically
essential one, and for Troi, crossing it is undesirable. Picard’s gentle reminder that people are also
animals—“I would have thought the shifting passions of this beast would be far more terrifying”—
elicits only a smile from Troi and the standard offstage interruption from the bridge, recalling Picard
to the reality of the Enterprise. This failure to directly engage is the same one which takes places
whenever Star Trek (subconsciously) attempts to replicate the human-animal divide in space.
As in space, so on Earth. In our own twenty-first century, the taxonomic fantasy of the human-
animal boundary seldom holds up under scrutiny. It is no surprise that it fails in space as well, and not
remotely surprising—considering the Federation’s anthropocentric, colonial underpinnings—that
we see it trying.
References
Andrews, Kristin. 2015. The Animal Mind: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Animal Cognition. London:
Routledge.
Brown, Joel S. 1994. “Restoration Ecology: Living with the Prime Directive.” In Restoration of Endangered
Species: Conceptual Issues, Planning and Implementation, edited by Marlin L. Bowles, 355–380. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Chambers, Becky. 2019. To Be Taught, If Fortunate. London: Hodder & Stoughton.
Derrida, Jacques. 2002. “The Animal That Therefore I Am (More to Follow).” Translated by David Wills.
Critical Inquiry, no. 28: 369–418.
The Firm. 1987. “Star Trekkin’.” Track 1 on Serious Fun. K-Tel, vinyl.
Fudge, Erica. 2002. Animal. London: Reaktion.
Jørgensen, Dolly. 2013. “Who’s the Devil? Species Extinction and Environmentalist Thought in Star Trek.” In
Star Trek and History, edited by Nancy R. Reagin, 253–268. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Kaye, Don. 2016. “The 11 Times that Captain Kirk Violated Star Trek’s Prime Directive (and
One Time He Didn’t).” SyFy.com, September 28, 2016. Available at: www.syfy.com/syfywire/
11-times-captain-kirk-violated-star-treks-prime-directive-and-one-time-he-didnt.
Miller, John. 2012. Empire and the Animal Body: Violence, Identity and Ecology in Victorian Adventure Fiction.
London: Anthem Press.
Neuwirth, Manuela. 2018. “ ‘Absolute Alterity’? The Alien Animal, the Human Alien, and the Limits
of Posthumanism in Star Trek.” European Journal of American Studies 13, no. 1. https://doi.org/10.4000/
ejas.12464.
Rieder, John. 2008. Colonialism and the Emergence of Science Fiction. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.
Vint, Sherryl. 2010. Animal Alterity: Science Fiction and the Question of the Animal. Liverpool: Liverpool
University Press.
Star Trek Episodes
The Original Series
1.22 “Space Seed” 1967.
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The Next Generation

1.13 “Datalore” 1988.
2.3 “Elementary, My Dear Data” 1988.
2.15 “Pen Pals” 1989.
3.2 “The Ensigns of Command” 1989.
3.13 “Déjà Q” 1990.
3.20 “Tin Man” 1990.
4.10 “The Loss” 1990.
4.15 “First Contact” 1991.
4.23 “The Host” 1991.
5.16 “Ethics” 1992.
6.18 “Starship Mine” 1993.
6.20 “The Chase” 1993.
7.7 “Dark Page” 1993.
Deep Space Nine

1.8 “Dax” 1993.
3.10 “Fascination” 1994.
Voyager
1.5 “Phage” 1995.
2.15 “Threshold” 1996.
3.1 “Basics, Part II” 1996.
3.12 “Macrocosm” 1996.
6.7 “Dragon’s Teeth” 1999.
7.7 “Body and Soul” 2000.
Enterprise
1.1 “Broken Bow” 2001.
2.5 “A Night in Sickbay” 2002.
Discovery
Picard
Star Trek Movies
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57
POSTHUMAN LIFE
Lisa Meinecke
The Star Trek universe is bustling with life in all kinds of forms, shapes, and consistencies, ranging
from sentient gaseous entities to omnipotent transdimensional beings. This chapter is concerned
with posthuman life. Posthuman is a term with many meanings, particularly since it often straddles
the larger frameworks of posthumanism and the related field of transhumanism. While other scholars
(e.g., Hayles 1999; Wolfe 2009; Braidotti 2013) have written extensively about technological bound-
aries, it seems appropriate to start this chapter with a few notes on what exactly the connected terms
of (the) posthuman and posthumanism mean in the context of Star Trek.
The idea of the posthuman postulates that homo sapiens is not the pinnacle of evolution, but will be
superseded by physically and cognitively superior non-human beings. In mass-mediated popular cul-
ture, these beings usually take the form of sentient technology: robots, androids, artificial intelligence,
and similar entities. Elaine Graham explains that “fictional robots, androids and smart computers offer
us intriguing glimpses of machines transforming themselves from tools into sentient beings, with
attendant questions about ‘their’ status in relation to ‘us’ ” (2002, 12).
The narrative of the posthuman centers on being embedded in a connected, technicized world.
The sentient robot characters of the sf imaginary draw from technological practices and know-
ledge of the present; they are both extrapolations and explorations of the entanglements of humans
with technology, their hopes, anxieties, and grievances. However, the posthuman also allows for
explorations of what it means to be human, which is a question of fundamental importance to
Star Trek. Graham argues that “[t]‌echnologies call into question the ontological purity according
to which Western society has defined what is normatively human” (ibid., 5). A number of different
sf tropes are able to enact this narrative function of shedding light on the normative boundaries of
being human—the alien Other or the non-human animal come to mind (see Chapter 56)—but the
technological posthuman Other allows for an additional dimension of highlighting humans as beings
who use technology and whose lives are shaped by a technicized world.
The posthuman, however, is not to be confused with posthumanism, i.e., a mode of thinking that
endeavors to go beyond the constraints of liberal humanism. The Palgrave Handbook to Posthumanism
in Film and Television defines posthumanism as:
[A]‌ny critical engagement with the possibility that what we have always considered to be
the human condition (which is both a particular way of being in the world and a particular
way of positioning ourselves in this world) is no longer a given, that it is more fluid than we
once thought, and that we are free (or will soon be free, or will become increasingly freer)
to remould our identities.
(Hauskeller et al., 2015, 6; emphasis in the original)
DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917-64 439

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Posthuman narratives make us think about humankind from an estranged vantage point, while
also enabling us to imagine futuristic worlds. Such narratives are particularly important for Star Trek
because they interrogate the central ideological tenets of the franchise and open spaces for tentatively
posthumanist critiques. N. Katherine Hayles points out:
Yet the posthuman need not be recuperated back into liberal humanism, nor need it be
construed as anti-human. Located within the dialectic of pattern/randomness and grounded
in embodied actuality rather than disembodied information, the posthuman offers resources
for rethinking the articulation of humans with intelligent machines.
(1999, 287)
That franchise creator Gene Roddenberry was staunchly committed to liberal humanism and that
Star Trek is infused with his core values have become common knowledge to the point of being a
bit of a truism (see Chapter 59). As Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) explains: “A lot has changed
in the past three hundred years. People are no longer obsessed with the accumulation of things.
We’ve eliminated hunger, want, the need for possessions. We’ve grown out of our infancy” (“The
Neutral Zone” [TNG 1.26, 1988]). The basic axiom at the ideological heart of the franchise is thus
the following: humanity is inherently good and capable of creating as well as enacting a vision of a
bright future. “Human” in Star Trek is therefore not only a biologically determined trait of character,
but also an intentional and performative act of becoming, an ongoing process of the renegotiation of
identity (Cover 2011, 209).
Star Trek introduces non-human characters to highlight this ideology of becoming, not only to
show the relative value of human ideas, but also to make visible the active character of what Picard’s
quote above tells us about “being human” in a post-scarcity future (see Chapter 58). There is also a
mirroring function: that which is alien about the Other (re)affirms what we consider distinctive about
ourselves. The inclusion of the posthuman Other then touches upon an uncomfortable suspicion
about the relationship between us and our technology that Donna Haraway diagnoses in her Cyborg
Manifesto: “Our machines are disturbingly lively, and we ourselves frighteningly inert” (1991, 152).
The aim of this chapter is to give a basic overview of the posthuman Other in Star Trek. The
structure will be roughly typological in order to highlight similar narratives across the franchise. Due
to limitations in scope, the chapter will by definition be less than comprehensive, nevertheless it still
aims to introduce a nuanced view of the discussion of posthuman life in the Star Trek universe.
Androids
An android is a humanoid robot whose physical body not only resembles the shape of a biological
human body, but also mimics it as closely as possible. Designed to imitate humans, androids are usually
used for villainous purposes in TOS, and are thus typically barely sentient, lacking real consciousness,
emotion, and free will. These androids are commonly gynoids—robots resembling human women—
who are programmed to seduce men, but lack agency and true consciousness. Strong and durable,
android bodies are rendered dangerously superior to the more fragile human bodies and at the same
time seductive for their promise of immortality; if a character’s consciousness was to be transferred to
such an android body, they could (at least in theory) live forever (“What Are Little Girls Made Of?”
[TOS 1.9, 1966]; “I, Mudd” [TOS 2.12, 1967]). However, leaving the human body bears risks: the
androids are “only machines” (TOS 1.9, 1966) which can easily be controlled by others, and lack
authentic human emotions.
TNG explores these ideas and narratives in much greater depth: Data (Brent Spiner) is the
only android in Starfleet and, when he is first introduced (“Encounter at Farpoint” [TNG 1.1/2,
1987]), there are no others like him. Data was invented by cyberneticist Dr. Noonien Soong (Brent
Spiner), who went missing before disseminating his research. There are significant similarities to
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TOS’ androids; like them, Data was built in the likeness of a person (specifically that of his cre-
ator), he tries to imitate humans, and he lacks human emotions which he later receives by way of
a computer chip (“Descent, Part II” [TNG 7.1, 1993]) whose activation presents him with new
challenges and opportunities (GEN, 1994; FCT, 1996). Despite these parallels, his story is not limited
to that of a lifeless automaton built to trick people into thinking he is human. His body is obvi-
ously non-human; his light yellow-silver skin, his bright greenish-yellow eyes, and a lack of fluidity
in movement define him clearly as an android. Data is fundamentally strange. Data’s story arc goes
beyond the question of authenticity, yielding more subtle explorations of the opportunities and
tensions created by humanism and posthumanism. This is most notably explored in the episode
“The Measure of a Man” (TNG 2.9, 1989), in which the Starfleet-employed cyberneticist Bruce
Maddox (Brian Brophy) asks for an in-depth study of Data’s brain in order to gain insight into
Soong’s work with a view to building more sentient androids. Data, however, objects to Maddox’
order, as he fears that the procedure would endanger his memories and subjective experiences.
Whether Data has the right to self-determination or is in fact the property of Starfleet is decided
in a legal trial. The outcome would set a precedence, defining the legal status of not only Data, but
of other synthetic lifeforms encountered in the future. At the climax of the episode, the trial aims
to determine whether Data is sentient. In this context, the term “sentience” means more than an
entity being capable of “conscious sensory processing.”1 Data is indubitably sentient, according to
this basic definition. Mariella Scerri and Victor Grech point out that “sentience” is often deployed
in the sf imaginary to carry an additional set of meanings:
In science fiction, an alien, android, robot, hologram or computer described as ‘sentient’

is usually treated in the same way as a human being. Foremost among these properties is
human level intelligence (sapience) but sentient characters also typically display desire, will,
consciousness, ethic, personality, insight and humour. Sentience is used in this context to
describe an essential human property that unites all of these other qualities.
(2016, 14)
Sentience is an important quality for Data. The official recognition as a sentient being takes him
one step further in his quest to become more human since he is judged to be (at least in principle)
capable of those qualities that define humanity. However, there is a wider political dimension to this
judgment that is merely alluded to in Scerri and Grech’s definition. Sentient beings are able to par-
ticipate in society and deserve to be treated accordingly.
Data’s quest to become more human corresponds to the basic ideology of the franchise. The
ontology of the human in Star Trek is fluid and depends on an individual’s intentional actions. While
Data is not human at all, his wish to transcend his limitations arguably makes him the very embodi-
ment of what Star Trek imagines to be what it means to be human: he strives to be more than he is. As
he reports to Maddox: “If being human is not simply a matter of being born flesh and blood, if it is
instead a way of thinking, acting and feeling, then I am hopeful that one day I will discover my own
humanity” (“Data’s Day” [TNG 4.11, 1991]).
The appearance of other androids, Data’s “brothers” Lore and B-4 (both Brent Spiner), com-
plicate this narrative. Both are physically identical to Data, but their minds work differently: B-4
shows only rudimentary cognitive ability (NEM, 2002), while Lore is capable of extreme and
volatile emotions. Soong deactivated Lore because his emotional instability turned into malevo-
lence which eventually led to the destruction of the robotics lab and the planet’s entire colony
(“Datalore” [TNG 1.13, 1988]). Despite having all the prerequisites for experiencing life in a
human way, Lore is not only erratic, but also does not share Data’s attachment to humankind.
Instead, he has nothing but contempt for humanity, considering society and human companion-
ship as a set of arbitrary structures holding him back from developing his full posthuman poten-
tial (“Datalore” [TNG 1.13, 1988]; “Descent, Part I” [TNG 6.26, 1993]; “Descent, Part II” [TNG
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7.1, 1993]). His disdain for humanity and his relationship with Data create a site of conflict for
the basic humanist assumptions of the show: If the androids are physically stronger and cognitively
more capable than humans, why should they even want to be like us? Why should they participate
in a society built for the needs of biological life?
For both androids, it is a matter of social acceptance where they situate themselves in this field
of tension. Lore experienced nothing but fear and hatred from humans before his deactivation
and his disdain for humanity is exacerbated by being an outcast (“Datalore” [TNG 1.13, 1988]).
Conversely, Data joined Federation society. Even as he, too, is socially marginalized for his diffe-
rence, he was able to gain an education and a full career, leading him to be an officer on Starfleet’s
flagship. His quest to be more human is certainly driven by the humanist ideology of the show, but
it is also a project of belonging and thus inherently political (Yuval-Davis 2011, 10). By trying to
become more human, Data seeks to participate in Federation society with a view to mitigating his
marginalization by constructing a sense of belonging and inclusiveness with the Enterprise’s crew.
Both Data’s trial in “The Measure of a Man” and his conflict with Lore serve as crucial moments
for the formation of Star Trek’s contested politics of belonging, constructing not only the bound-
aries of the social category “human,” but also the requisites for (dis-)identification and social cohe-
sion. Over the course of the series, Data learns more and more what it is like to be human and his
own place as an android and a person, before he sacrifices his life to save Picard and the Enterprise
in NEM (2002).
PIC introduces new perspectives on android characters as Maddox (played by John Ales in PIC)
continues his research and realizes his original plans to build an android workforce for the Federation,
which is subsequently banned after a synth rebellion. He also secretly creates synthetically human
gynoids—a pair of twin sisters—with an artificial consciousness based on programming and memories
scavenged from B-4 after Data’s death (“Remembrance” [PIC 1.1, 2020]). Data’s “daughters,” Dahj
and Soji (both played by Isa Briones), are themselves unaware of being androids (“Remembrance”
[PIC 1.1, 2020]; “Nepenthe” [PIC 1.7, 2020]). While their more-or-less human bodies have bodily
functions—they are able to produce “mucus and saliva”—and they are able to display emotions and
social skills, they are also augmented with superhuman strength, speed, and cognitive processing
power. Here PIC cites TNG, recalling Data’s desire to be more human, but also echoes TOS: when
Soji has to cope with the revelation that she is an android, her concerns revolve around authenticity,
and whether her android life has value, instead of questioning her ontological status (“Nepenthe”
[PIC 1.7, 2020]). PIC designates friendship and social connection as the narrative frame for an
actualized posthuman life. In meeting the other androids, Soji gets to explore her posthuman life as
an alternative to being human. Her quest is to find an independent posthuman identity stabilized
by secure affective attachments, both with humans (and specifically with Picard), but also with her
android sisters. PIC’s representation of posthuman life as a fledgling social group harbors the potential
to open a space for changing perspectives on encountering the technological Other. Nevertheless,
the series remains tethered to the liberal humanist tradition and has yet to level a comprehensive
posthumanist critique of the status quo.
Holograms
If androids are a rare sight in Starfleet, artificial intelligence in the form of holograms is rather
common. Holographic technology is extremely sophisticated and, by the time of TNG, widely used
for various purposes, chief among them recreation and entertainment. The holodeck’s story-worlds
are populated by holograms, i.e., algorithmic computer programs designed as fictional characters,
who are usually scripted and generally unaware of being “a collection of photons and forcefields”
(“His Way” [DS9 6.20, 1998]). However, particularly sophisticated holograms, such as DS9’s Vic
Fontaine (James Darren), may individually be aware of their ontological status. Other holograms
may accidentally gain knowledge about what they are or their place in the world due to the rather
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frequent malfunctions of holographic technology. The character of Professor James Moriarty (Daniel
Davis), the main antagonist in Data’s Sherlock Holmes Program 3A, is a prime example; he gains
self-awareness and wishes to leave the confinement of the holodeck (“Elementary, Dear Data” [TNG
2.3, 1988]; “Ship in a Bottle” [TNG 6.12, 1993]).
Moriarty aside, the holograms in TNG, DS9, and even DSC are comparatively simple programs,
which may occasionally cause trouble by malfunctioning, but are generally considered little more than
fiction and illusions. VOY markedly deviates from the rest of the franchise here, both in including
the Emergency Medical Hologram (Robert Picardo) as a main character and in imagining the
meanings of holographic technology in society. While VOY’s re-interpretation of the Borg verges
on the familiar, it is the holograms that become an uncanny and often monstrous Other. Voyager
encounters holograms and other photonic entities as ignorant trans-dimensional travelers (“Bride
of Chaotica!” [VOY 5.12, 1999]), unstable murderers (“Revulsion” [VOY 4.5, 1997]), overzealous
cult leaders (“Flesh and Blood” [VOY 7.9/10, 2000]), and simple country folk who turn into a para-
noid mob (“Spirit Folk” [VOY 6.17, 2000]). All are met with varying degrees of suspicion or even
outright disdain by Voyager’s crew as well as the local alien species. Several Delta Quadrant species
(“Revulsion” [VOY 4.5, 1997]; “Body and Soul” [VOY 7.7, 2000]) use hologram workforces in their
industries, generally considering them as equipment, not sentient entities. This leads to holographic
uprisings against carbon-based life-forms (“Body and Soul” [VOY 7.7, 2000]). The coda to the epi-
sode “Author, Author” shows decommissioned EMH Mark 1s working in a mine and thus heavily
implies that the Federation, too, uses holograms in its industries (“Author, Author” [VOY 7.20, 2001];
see Chapter 58).
Since Voyager’s medical personnel did not survive the displacement to the Delta Quadrant, the
EMH is the only physician on board (“Caretaker” VOY 1.1/2, 1995). Simply called “the Doctor,” he
is self-aware and capable of learning. His story centers on his struggles navigating Voyager’s politics of
belonging and finding his identity in difference. At first, he is considered little more than a temporary
technological fix, but he quickly becomes a crew member in his own right. Since the Doctor was
designed as a representation of his creator, he is comparatively similar to humans in terms of his—at
first limited—social skills, and he is able to express a full range of human emotions. In filling the
vacant position of the chief medical officer, the Doctor is privileged over other holograms because
he is accepted as a functional part of Voyager’s crew and thus granted the right to exist outside of the
regulated and scripted environment of the holodeck. The most sensitive part of the Doctor’s project
of belonging is thus not necessarily a quest to become human, but instead claiming and asserting his
right to be acknowledged as a posthuman lifeform.
The Doctor’s personal rights remain a source of ongoing debate throughout the series.
Echoing “The Measure of a Man,” the question of the EMH’s legal status eventually lands in
court. Just as Picard argued Data’s case, Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) represents the Doctor,
highlighting the Doctor’s personal development, his capacity for change, and his ability to make
and learn from mistakes; she paints a picture of progress and individuality that corresponds to
what Star Trek considers most important about being human. Eventually, the Doctor is not
recognized as a person, but granted an artist’s rights to own and control his creative and intellec-
tual labor (“Author, Author” [VOY 7.20, 2001]). VOY clearly aims to reiterate and expand on
TNG’s humanist message, but perhaps unintentionally highlights the exclusive aspects of such lib-
eral politics of belonging. The Doctor is accepted and validated as an individual, but his activism
for holographic personal rights is played for laughs (“Flesh and Blood [VOY 7.9/10, 2000]).
His attempts to build kinship with other holograms are depicted as misguided and even dan-
gerous (“Revulsion” [VOY 4.5, 1997]; “Flesh and Blood” [VOY 7.9/10, 2000]). For Janeway and
Voyager’s crew, it is obvious that holograms are just not sufficiently alive to be considered worthy
of independent political agency. As far as VOY is concerned, the holograms remain a ghost-like,
monstrous, subaltern specter of posthumanism.
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Cyborgs
After the Eugenics Wars in the narrative past of Star Trek (see Chapter 41), technological enhancements
and genetic augmentation have been banned in the Federation, with the exception of some medical
prosthetics, such as Geordi La Forge’s (LeVar Burton) visor, Nhan’s (Rachael Ancheril) respiratory
aids, or Picard’s artificial heart. Considering the limited scope of this chapter, this section will focus
on the Borg rather than these prosthetics and their implications (see Chapter 54).
The Borg are a collective of cyborgs—i.e., “hybrids between machine and organism” (Haraway
1991, 150)—of unknown origins in the Delta Quadrant. They are a hive of humanoid drones
who have been technologically augmented and integrated into a singular swarm mind, personi-
fied by the Borg Queen. As popular antagonists, their story is told in multiple series across the
franchise. The Borg collective is diametrically opposed to the Federation’s values. There is no
autonomous subjectivity, no individuality, no choice, no plurality, and no potential for growth
for the Borg. They are thus utterly inhuman, not only because they are alien, but also because
in their very existence the Borg are the antithesis of Star Trek’s fundamental assumptions about
humanity. This is why they appear surprisingly static in a galaxy teeming with organic evolution
and diversity. Picard summarizes: “The Borg don’t change, they metastasize” (“The Impossible
Box” [PIC 1.6, 2020]).
Nevertheless, the Borg are inherently progressive: they strive for order, control, and perfection
in unity. Since they do not evolve, and thus lack the individual subjectivity necessary for personal
development, the collective assimilates other species, turning them into Borg, and adding their “dis-
tinctiveness” (FCT, 1996)—their knowledge, technology, and at least to some extent their biological
traits—to the collective hive mind. Assimilation is an act of mental and physical violence; entire
planet systems can be conquered and integrated into the collective by infecting the population with
nanoprobes and then augmenting their bodies with cybernetic Borg implants.
The Borg’s posthuman collective is even more threatening than Lore’s rejection of human
society since it not only contests, indeed negates individuality and autonomy, but also offers an
alternative society that is not devoid of appeal (see Bernardi 1998, and Consalvo 2004). Being
Borg means never being lonely and the multiplicity of the collective means being part of some-
thing stronger than individual subjectivity (see Chapter 60). “Resistance is futile” is in some
respects a promise of relief from the continuous labor of being human. Still, the Borg are unfath-
omably horrific to Starfleet and particularly to Picard, who experiences the “alternative” they
offer when he is assimilated to become Locutus of Borg in “The Best of Both Worlds” (TNG
3.26, 1990 and TNG 4.1, 1990). The Borg are fundamentally incompatible with humanist values,
but their collectivity also embodies a mirroring function, exposing darker sides of the Federation’s
own ideology.
Although involving far less body horror and significantly more diplomacy, the political project of
the Federation, too, is progressive and unifying with latent imperialist tendencies (see Chapter 45).
Despite ostensibly pluralist values of individualism, the Federation’s universalist culture is homoge-
neously shaped by Vulcan and Human values with little space for any species that might be truly alien
or the posthuman Other. Locutus, correspondingly, is arrogant, cold, robotic, and the puppet of the
collective’s authority; he becomes emblematic of Picard’s trauma and his fears about the darkest parts
of himself.
AI Apocalypses in Contemporary Star Trek

Posthuman life in Star Trek is diverse, encompassing Data and his family of Soong-type androids,
the various holograms, and the Borg collective. In the end, humanism prevails; Data learns to dance
(“Data’s Day” [TNG 4.11, 1991]), Hugh (Jonathan Del Arco) brings a touch of humanity to the
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Borg (“I, Borg” [TNG 5.23, 1992]), and Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) rejects the collective in favor of
her chosen family—and heteronormativity (Consalvo 2004, 186)—on Voyager. Despite Star Trek’s
anthropocentrism, posthuman characters also renegotiate the relationships between humanism and
posthumanism, and thus allow us to ask important questions about what being human means.
Both DSC and PIC challenge these established conventions of the franchise by taking a different
spin on the idea of the posthuman Other, playing with contemporary imaginations of what artifi-
cial intelligence or “synthetic life” could mean for organic life. Both series share a similar theme of
a powerful AI threatening to eradicate all sentient organic life. The scale of the underlying narrative
has shifted: the technological Other is no longer a mirror showing us what it means to be human
in stories about individuality and personal growth. The fragile affective tethers to humanism are
dissolving. The dangers the posthuman poses are not new to Star Trek; the Borg, Lore, and even
VOY’s holograms touch upon similar stories of posthuman superiority. These narratives are explored
in DSC via the AI Control and in PIC via the Admonition. The ideological response to encounters
with the posthuman has shifted from humanism to transhumanism: If the AI created out of over-
reliance on computer technology—DSC—or hubris—Bruce Maddox in PIC—becomes conscious
and self-actualized, how will we make sure that it does not turn against us? And how can humankind
keep up with a hostile entity so vastly superior that we cannot even comprehend its powers? These
are the principal questions DSC and PIC ask viewers.
Both series call back to the Borg in an attempt to connect their transhumanist plots to the
older narrative conventions of the franchise. While not related to the Borg, Control’s method of
taking human hosts by injection of green nanobots closely resembles the former’s assimilation process
(“Perpetual Infinity” [DSC 2.11, 2019]). This serves a dual purpose: to maintain the franchise-savvy
viewer’s suspense, but also as a visual cue signaling the danger posed by technology. In PIC, a defunct
Borg cube is juxtaposed with the Picard family’s vineyard, the Riker-Troi’s Jeffersonian retirement
homestead, and Maddox’s idyllic laboratory at Coppelius Station. What makes the Borg dangerous
is no longer their totalitarianism or their imperial control, but their technological connectivity. The
research conducted in Hugh’s Borg Reclamation Project aims to disentangle the Borg drones from
the cube and help them to become xBs, i.e., former Borg; while these liminal creatures may have
successfully “escaped” from the collective, they are still marginalized and lack any legal status (“Maps
and Legends” [PIC 1.2, 2020]). At the same time, Borg technology is exploited and sold. While the
remaining drones lie dormant, they are still a very real threat, as shown in a brief moment when Seven
of Nine takes on the mantle of the Borg Queen, weaponizing the cube.
Similar to how the rise of Control is visually coded through Borg imagery, the Artifact and the
xBs in PIC signpost a larger, more pervasive danger to humankind: technology and the technicized
Other. The Admonition warns of the advent of vastly superior synthetic beings who will destroy all
organic life in order to ensure the survival and hegemony of Maddox’s fledgling synthetic species (“Et
in Arcadia Ego, Part 1” [PIC 1.9, 2020]). DSC and PIC shift the focus away from questions about the
legitimacy of the human way of life and toward a problematization of technological progress. The
values of humanism in themselves are no longer enough in the face of an impending AI apocalypse
because progress, curiosity, and humanity’s faith in technology caused the problem in the first place.
Avoiding the end of everything and prevailing against its harbingers therefore requires different—and
low tech—strategies. Control is destroyed by a simple magnetic field before becoming fully conscious
(“Such Sweet Sorrow, Part II” [DSC 2.14, 2019]). PIC’s AI apocalypse, too, is averted. Soji powers
down the beacon calling to the destructive synthetic beings because Picard, backed by Starfleet’s
armada arriving just in time, appeals to her friendship and trust. He acknowledges the androids as a
species in their own right, capable of reason and ethical integrity, giving them the choice between the
destruction of organic life and the chance to be a part of the Federation (“Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1
and Part 2” [PIC 1.9 and 1.10, 2020]).
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PIC favors narratives of affect— friendship, loss, and hatred— over humanism as its driving
force, but refuses to engage with posthumanist modes of critique and thus imagine the potential
of fully actualized posthuman life. With their distorted technological connectivity rendering them
always already monstrous, the series has missed (at least to date) the opportunity to grant the xBs a
journey toward autonomy and independence. While Soji’s actions are motivated by her wish for the
emancipation of the synths, she ends up having to make a choice between two similarly paternalistic
politics of belonging. Her choice comes down to a victory not so much for the synths, but before
all else for Picard, whose tarnished legacy of “saving the Galaxy” (“Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1” [PIC
1.9, 2020]) is rehabilitated. The first season ends in a chance for closure for Picard. The mind of the
dying Admiral meets Data’s preserved consciousness in a “massively complex quantum simulation”
(“Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2” [PIC 1.10, 2020]). This reunion is a moment of liminality for both
characters. Picard’s mind is transferred into a new, healthy synthetic body (a “golem” functionally
identical to his old one) enabling him to rejoin his crew. As he leaves, Data asks him to terminate
the simulation because he wants to experience death as the final part of his living existence. Picard
delivers a eulogy to his android friend:
It says a great deal about the mind of Commander Data that looking at the human race
with all its violence and corruption and willful ignorance, he could still see kindness, the
immense curiosity and greatness of spirit. And he wanted, more than anything else, to be
part of that. To be a part of the human family.
(“Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2” [PIC 1.10, 2020])
Data’s story is rooted in his sense of belonging with humankind and specifically in his friendship with
Picard. Echoing other narratives of the franchise, PIC reiterates that the essence of being human is a
dynamic process of becoming which always already involves the posthuman Other. Those aligning
themselves with humankind are potentially included, while those rejecting human values are rendered
monstrous. This is embodied by Picard himself, a character who has come to represent both the core
values of liberal humanism and the calcification of refusing to change, and who has become a syn-
thetic entity, a liminal creature situated at the contested affective boundaries of the human and the
posthuman in a highly technicized future.
Note
1 See Austen Clark’s A Theory of Sentience (2000) for a detailed study of sentience.
References
Bernardi, Daniel. 1998. Star Trek and History: Race-ing Toward a White Future. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers
University Press.
Braidotti, Rosi. 2013. The Posthuman. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Clark, Austen. 2000. A Theory of Sentience. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Consalvo, Mia. 2004. “Borg Babes, Drones, and The Collective: Reading Gender and the Body in Star Trek.”
Women’s Studies in Communication 27, no. 2 (July): 177–203.
Cover, Rob. 2011. “Generating the Self: The Biopolitics of Security and Selfhood in Star Trek: The Next
Generation.” Science Fiction Film & Television 4, no. 2 (January): 205–224.
Farinas, Mark. 2016. “Gene Roddenberry’s 1991 Humanist Interview.” Star Trek—The Webcomic. November
24, 2016. Available at: http://trekcomic.com/2016/11/24/gene-roddenberrys-1991-humanist-interview/.
Graham, Elaine L. 2002. Representations of the Post/Human: Monsters, Aliens, and Others in Popular Culture. New
Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Grech, Victor, and Mariella Scerri. 2016. “Sentience in Science Fiction 101.” SFRA Review 315: 14–18.
Haraway, Donna J. 1991. “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth
Century.” In Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature, 149–181. New York: Routledge.
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Hauskeller, Michael, Thomas D. Philbeck, and Curtis D. Carbonell. 2015. “Posthumanism in Film and
Television.” In The Palgrave Handbook of Posthumanism in Film and Television, edited by Michael Hauskeller,
Thomas D. Philbeck, and Curtis D. Carbonell, 1–10. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Hayles, Nancy Katherine. 1999. How We Became Posthuman. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Wolfe, Carey. 2009. What Is Posthumanism? Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Yuval-Davis, Nira. 2011. The Politics of Belonging: Intersectional Contestations. London: SAGE.
Star Trek Episodes
The Original Series
1.9 “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” 1966.
2.12 “I, Mudd” 1967.
The Next Generation

1.13 “Datalore” 1988.
4.11 “Data’s Day” 1991.
5.23 “I, Borg” 1992.
6.12 “Ship in a Bottle” 1993.
6.26 “Descent, Part I” 1993.
7.1 “Descent, Part II” 1993.
Deep Space Nine

6.20 “His Way” 1998.
Voyager
1.1/2 “Caretaker” 1995.
2.9 “Tattoo” 1995.
3.9 “Future’s End, Part II” 1996.
4.5 “Revulsion” 1997.
5.12 “Bride of Chaotica!” 1999.
6.12 “Blink of an Eye” 2000.
6.17 “Spirit Folk” 2000.
7.7 “Body and Soul” 2000.
7.9/10 “Flesh and Blood” 2000.
Discovery
2.11 “Perpetual Infinity” 2019.
2.14 “Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2” 2019.
Picard
1.6 “The Impossible Box” 2020.
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Star Trek Movies
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58
ECONOMIC SYSTEMS
Jonathan Thornton
The Federation in Star Trek famously does not use money. As Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart)
explains to Ralph Offenhouse (Peter Mark Richman), a twenty-first-century billionaire frozen in
cryostasis and revived in “The Neutral Zone” (TNG 1.26, 1988): “A lot has changed in the past three
hundred years. People are no longer obsessed with the accumulation of things. We’ve eliminated
hunger, want, the need for possessions. We’ve grown out of our infancy.”
Although the show does not explicitly go into the details of how Earth transitioned to a money-
free society (see Chapter 60), Star Trek does offer the viewer tantalizing glimpses into how its post-
scarcity economy works. This chapter examines how the Federation can be conceptualized as a
system of post-scarcity Keynesian economics and how this state of post-scarcity is brought about
by the replicators, a key piece of Star Trek fictional technology with wide-ranging implications.
However, we can complicate the Federation’s utopianism by way of conceptualizing it according to
Immanuel Wallerstein’s world-system theory—the Federation’s core acts as a hub of colonial power
compared to the colonies and alien races not deemed capable of handling the technology on the per-
ipheries (see Chapter 44). Next, I look at what this means for the nature of labor in the Federation,
where everyone has their basic needs provided for and is no longer under the economic compulsion
to work to provide for themselves. Finally, I explore how the bulk of Star Trek’s reflections on eco-
nomics is carried out through its portrayal of the Ferengi and their hypercapitalist culture. By standing
in for the worst excesses of present-day capitalism, Ferengi culture’s drive away from unfettered cap-
italism to social democracy over the course of DS9 provides insight into how Star Trek imagines us
transitioning from a capitalist society to a post-scarcity society.
The first mention of the Federation as a post-currency economy comes in The Voyage Home
(1986). Kirk (William Shatner), Spock (Leonard Nimoy), and the rest of the TOS crew are sent back
in time to 1986 San Francisco (see Chapter 13). Much fish-out-of-water comedy ensues; one of the
recurring gags revolves around the protagonists being unfamiliar with the local currency, as appar-
ently in the twenty-third century they no longer have such a system. As Kirk explains to Spock,
“They’re still using money. We need to get some.” What starts out as a gag about how different life
is in the future was taken up as an integral through line of Star Trek’s worldbuilding in TNG, the first
season of which debuted a year later in 1987. By the time Offenhouse wakes up in the twenty-fourth
century, his career as a financier, and all his investments he had left to accrue interest, have become
obsolete. Just as in “The Neutral Zone,” Picard’s high-minded Federation ideals are contrasted with
Offenhouse’s selfish greed, in FCT, Picard’s ideals are contrasted with Zefram Cochrane’s (James
Cromwell) aspirations. As inventor of the warp drive, Cochrane has since become an icon to the
Federation, but his motivations for building the warp drive are much more prosaic:
You wanna know what my vision is? Dollar signs, money! I didn’t build this ship to usher in
a new era for Humanity. You think I wanna go to the stars? I don’t even like to fly! I take
DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917-65 449

Jonathan Thornton
trains! I built this ship so I could retire to some tropical island … filled with naked women.
That’s Zefram Cochrane. That’s his vision.
Obsessed with the accumulation of wealth and instant gratification, Offenhouse’s and Cochrane’s
worldview serves as a parody of our own and highlights just how different the values and ideals of the
Federation are from ours in the present day. It contributes a large part to the portrayal of Star Trek’s
future as seemingly utopian (see Chapter 60).
Economist John Maynard Keynes wrote his essay “Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren”
(1930) at the height of the Great Depression. He speculated that in a hundred years, due to the
increased standards of living arising from technological change and accruement of capital, the basic
standard of living could rise so high that all of people’s economic needs would be met. People would
no longer have to work to earn money but could devote their lives to other intellectual or artistic
pursuits:
I draw the conclusion that, assuming no important wars and no important increase in
population, the economic problem may be solved, or be at least within sight of solution,
within a hundred years. This means that the economic problem is not—if we look into the
future—the permanent problem of the human race.
(1930, 365–366)
Victor and Peter Grech (2015) compare Keynes’s predictions about economic growth to Gene
Rodenberry’s vision of a future utopian society in Star Trek, where, as Rodenberry says in the
Star Trek: The Next Generation Writers/Directors Guide:
[M]‌ost (if not all) of the major problems facing the human species have been resolved and
the Earth has since been transformed into a human paradise, with … a literate and compas-
sionate population that has learned to appreciate life as a grand adventure.
(1987, 37)
They convincingly read the Federation as a Keynesian post-scarcity economy, one in which
everyone’s economic needs are provided for, allowing them to devote their lives to scientific and
artistic pursuits. Both Star Trek and Keynes imagine a future where linear technological and social
progress has allowed everyone to “transcend levels of physiological, psychological, and social needs in
order to obtain fulfilment of personal needs in terms of life’s meaning” (Grech and Grech 2015, 44).
As everyone’s needs are met and no one is under the economic obligation to work in order to provide
for themselves or their family, the economic surplus of all this progress can “be channelled into the
arts and the sciences, including the exploration of space and time” (ibid., 44). With humanity free to
follow whatever path they wish, both Keynes and Star Trek envision our current fixation on money
and wealth becoming “consigned to a somewhat distasteful past history, an almost bizarre anthropo-
logical aberrancy” (ibid., 38).
The Federation can also be conceptualized in terms of Immanuel Wallerstein’s world-systems
theory, in which the economy of the world is understood in terms of core regions, which are capital-
intensive, and the peripheries, which are labor-intensive. Cosma Sorinel summarizes the relationship
between the core and the periphery in this way:
Technology is a central factor in the positioning of a region in the core or the periphery.
Advanced or developed countries are the core, and the less developed are in the periphery.
Peripheral countries are structurally constrained to experience a kind of development that
reproduces their subordinate status. The differential strength of the multiple states within
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the system is crucial to maintain the system as a whole, because strong states reinforce and
increase the differential flow of surplus to the core zone.
(2010, 223)
Consequently, the distribution of technology begets and ensures an asymmetrical relationship of

power between the imperial center and the colonial margins. With the Federation, we see this in
terms of planets like Earth, where poverty and want have been eliminated, contrasted with distant
colony planets that do not have access to this technology. As Sisko (Avery Brooks) points out in
“The Maquis, Part II” (DS9 2.21, 1994), when defending the Maquis, an organization of colonists
who resist Cardassian rule on ex-Federation colonies and thus threaten the fragile peace between the
Cardassians and the Federation:
Do you know what the trouble is? The trouble is Earth. On Earth there is no poverty, no
crime, no war. You look out the window of Starfleet Headquarters and you see paradise.
It’s easy to be a saint in paradise, but the Maquis do not live in paradise. Out there in the
demilitarized zone all the problems haven’t been solved yet. Out there, there are no saints,
just people-angry, scared, determined people who are going to do whatever it takes to sur-
vive, whether it meets with Federation approval or not.
This implies that the technologies that have eliminated scarcity are not (fully) available in the col-
onies, and, as a result, society at the far edges of the Federation is much harsher and more difficult than
life in its more developed core regions. It also implies a colonial hierarchy in which the core regions
benefit from this technology and the peripheral colonies do not.
While we get glimpses of the period of time in between the present day and the establishment of
the Federation over the course of TNG, DS9, and VOY, none of the shows ever explicitly describe
how Earth transformed into a post-scarcity, money-free utopia. As viewers, we are left to fill in the
gaps and draw our own conclusions. Manu Saadia argues convincingly that at the center of Star Trek’s
post-scarcity utopia is one machine: the replicator. First appearing in the TNG’s episode “Code of
Honor” (1.4, 1987), the replicator is capable of transforming energy into matter, producing not just
food for the crew of the Enterprise-D but almost any other material good they could desire. Saadia says
of the replicators, “They are the ultimate economic machines, a metaphor for robots and automation”
(2016, 8). He sees the replicators as the teleological terminus of automation, where machine labor
has replaced human labor, freeing up humanity to follow the goals of self-improvement espoused by
Picard. Rather than being hoarded by a select few who can then charge what they like for access to
the replicator economy and thus would have a monopoly on everything, the Federation, in theory,
supplies replicators to all of its citizens as a public good. However, in practice—as we have seen with
the Maquis colonists and those the Federation does not consider citizens—replicator technology
seems to be unevenly distributed, which allows the Federation to become a center for colonial power.
It is clear that the Federation’s utopian aspiration is to create a system by which all the basic needs of
all their citizens—food, water, and shelter—are met rather than lord over a monopoly. The important
thing here is the social organization: the utopia of the Federation had already come into being before
the invention of the replicators. The technology is not featured in TOS or the original six films, nor
in the prequel series ENT and DSC. Money had been abolished long before this: in the VOY episode
“Dark Frontier” (5.15/16, 1999), the ship’s pilot and resident history enthusiast Tom Paris (Robert
Duncan McNeill) tells us that money was phased out on Earth in the twenty-second century: “When
the New World Economy took shape in the late twenty-second century, and money went the way of
the dinosaur, Fort Knox was turned into a museum.”
It is only once humanity has achieved the maturity to abolish poverty, war, and hunger that they are
supposedly capable of handling the replicator without disastrous consequences. It is fitting that we are
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Jonathan Thornton
given this piece of information in an episode of VOY, a show that deals more directly with the idea of
scarcity than TNG. Catapulted to the other side of the galaxy—the Delta Quadrant—by a powerful
entity known as the Caretaker and with a 70-year-long journey home ahead of them, the crew of
Voyager is faced with scarcity more than the characters in the other shows, even if the show remains
unwilling to fully embrace this (see Chapter 5). Michèle and Duncan Barrett describe Voyager as,
very much a sailor’s ship. The concept underlying the Voyager series is epic, and there are,
indeed, parallels between the story of Captain Janeway’s crew, facing a journey of seventy
years to get back to earth from the position in the Delta Quadrant to which they are
catapulted at the opening of the series, and the decades-long journey of Odysseus and his
men to Ithaca.
(2017, 40)
Unlike in the Alpha Quadrant where starships enjoy unlimited supplies of raw material, the crew
of Voyager frequently have to do without, eating alien guide Neelix’s (Ethan Phillips) dubious meals
prepared out of whatever local supplies they are able to source and having an internal currency of
replicator rations, which are traded and bartered among the crew. In the backwaters of the Delta
Quadrant, replicator technology is unknown. The Kazon, the antagonistic alien species for the show’s
first two seasons, live in desert environments and use water, their most valuable resource, to trade and
barter. Many of the early episodes involve the crew making sure the Federation’s superior technology,
and particularly the replicators, do not fall into the wrong hands lest they alter the balance of power
in the quadrant. In the episode “State of Flux” (VOY 1.11, 1995), Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) says on
discovering that aliens have stolen Voyager’s replication technology: “We may take replicators for
granted, but imagine what it would mean to a culture that doesn’t have this technology?” Here the
show explicitly acknowledges what a disruptive paradigm shift the advent of replicator technology
could be, in hands supposedly less enlightened than the Federation’s. Janeway’s observation also hints
at the colonialist underpinnings of the show’s philosophy, with the Federation claiming higher devel-
opment and moral superiority over the civilizations they encounter in the Delta Quadrant (see
Chapter 45).
While the replicator can be read as a metaphor for automation, Star Trek’s attitude to robotics
and automated labor as portrayed within the series is decidedly ambiguous. In the TNG episode
“The Measure of a Man” (2.9, 1989), Picard must defend Data’s (Brent Spiner) rights to personal
autonomy as Starfleet engineer Commander Bruce Maddox (Brian Brophy) wants to disassemble
Data so he can learn how to create his own Soong-type androids. Following Riker’s (Jonathan Frakes)
unwilling but devastating case for the prosecution, Picard seeks the advice of the Enterprise- D’s El-
Aurian bartender Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg), and they discuss the implications of Data being
denied personhood:
Guinan: Consider that in the history of many worlds there have always been disposable creatures.
They do the dirty work. They do the work that no one else wants to do, because it’s too difficult or
too hazardous. And an army of Datas, all disposable? You don’t have to think about their welfare;
you don’t think about how they feel. Whole generations of disposable people.
Picard: You’re talking about slavery.
Guinan: I think that’s a little harsh.
Picard: I don’t think that’s a little harsh, I think that’s the truth. But that’s a truth that we have
obscured behind a … comfortable, easy euphemism. ‘Property’. But that’s not the issue at all, is it?
(TNG 2.9, 1989)
First, this exchange demonstrates that, to the Federation at least, the sentience of Data and other arti-
ficial lifeforms like him is up for debate (see Chapter 57); here is a member of the Federation who
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will not have the full rights and protections extended to him, unless Picard wins this legal case. But
additionally, it implies that there is a need in the Federation for this kind of labor, that it would be
economically advantageous to have a workforce whose rights could be safely ignored. In the absence
of an army of expendable Datas, it is not clear who is doing this work in the meantime.“The Measure
of a Man” is directly referenced in a later episode—“The Quality of Life” (TNG 6.8, 1992)—in
which Data refuses to order non-humanoid robots—so-called “exocomps”—to destroy themselves
to save Picard and La Forge (LeVar Burton) because he believes they have developed sentience. The
exocomps are viewed by their creator Dr. Farallon (Ellen Bry) as mere maintenance tools, but Data
sees the connection between their status as artificial lifeforms programmed to do menial labor with
no regard for their self-preservation and his own as an android, as he says to Picard:
When my own status as a living being was in question, you fought to protect my rights.
And for that I will always be grateful. The exocomps had no such advocate. If I had not
acted on their behalf, they would have been destroyed. I could not allow that to happen, sir.
(TNG 6.8, 1992)
By the time of the LWR episode “No Small Parts” (1.10, 2020), the exocomps have gained the
ability to communicate verbally, and their status as individuals with rights has increased to the point
where one of them, Peanut Hamper (Kether Donohue), has joined Starfleet as an ensign. In an
amusing inversion of the TNG episode, she is asked to endanger herself to save the Cerritos but this
time is able to refuse for herself.
The VOY episode “Author, Author” (7.20, 2001) engages with a similar issue when the
Emergency Medical Hologram (Robert Picardo) writes a popular holonovel, and a court is
convened to determine whether or not he is a person and therefore has the copyright to his
own creation. In contrast with the TNG episode, the EMH is not granted legal status as a person,
although he is given intellectual property rights. However, we learn in the same episode that the
other 675 EMH Mark I holograms, having been declared obsolete, have been put to work in the
dilithium mines. While it is implied the EMH’s holonovel will eventually lead to the recognition
of their sentience and their demanding of equal rights, they are put to work as an expendable
labor force in the meantime; crucially, it is not immediately clear who is doing this work when
the EMHs are not. At the time of writing, Picard appears to be approaching similar philosophical
issues with the synths. “Maps and Legends” (PIC 1.2, 2020) shows us the synth rebellion at Utopia
Planitia on Mars, before which the synths appear to be being used for manual labor and are treated
as less than human. Whether or not the show will engage more fully with these ideas in upcoming
seasons remains to be seen.
Although no one in the Federation needs to work to financially support themselves, every
Star Trek show to date focuses on people working in Starfleet. These are the people “work[ing] to
better [them]selves and the rest of humanity,” as Captain Picard would have it. Saadia argues for the
fundamental role of work in the Federation:
Why work at all if it’s not necessary? Because learning, making, and sharing is what makes
life in the Federation worth living. Work, no longer a necessary burden, is the glue that
holds the Federation together. It is the social bond and the social contract that impart sub-
stance and significance to life.
(2016, 45)
Work in the Federation is then done primarily out of passion. Instead of a currency economy,
there is a reputational economy, where the fruits of one’s labor is one’s reputation in the field of one’s
choice. We can see this not only in Starfleet, where anyone given the right combination of talent and
hard work can rise to any rank, but also in the passionate and driven scientists the crews of the various
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starships on the shows encounter—from the terraformers blinded by their passion in TNG’s “Home
Soil” (1.18, 1988) to Doctor Noonian Soong (Brent Spiner), brilliant cyberneticist and creator of
TNG’s android Data (“Datalore” [1.13, 1988]; “Brothers” [4.3, 1990]; “Birthright, Part I” [6.16, 1993];
“Inheritance” [7.10, 1993]), to Professor Gideon Seyetik’s (Richard Kiley) ambitious plan to reignite
a dead star in DS9’s “Second Sight” (2.9, 1993). These characters are brilliant and driven, but almost
to the point of psychosis.
For all its utopianism, Star Trek is not afraid to portray the difficulties of working in a reputational
economy. The competition is fierce and not everyone will thrive. Caused by the pressure of being
expected to excel as a crewman on Starfleet’s flagship, Lieutenant Barclay (Dwight Schulz) suffers
from acute social anxiety which manifests in his unhealthy addiction to holodeck fantasies of his
fellow crew in “Hollow Pursuits” (TNG 3.12, 1990). Before becoming Voyager’s helmsman, Tom
Paris struggles to live up to his father’s expectations which yields an uneasy career at Starfleet Academy
and his ultimate decision to leave Starfleet and join the Maquis (“Caretaker” [VOY 1.1/2, 1995]).
Tom is left with a desire to fit in and an inferiority complex that he struggles with throughout his
time on the show (as seen, for example, in “Investigations” [VOY 2.20, 1996] and “The Chute” [VOY
3.3, 1996]). Another example of a person who is simply unable to make a success of his life in the
Federation is Richard Bashir (Brian George), father to Dr. Julian Bashir (Alexander Siddig) of Deep
Space Nine. When Julian’s parents visit the station for interviews so that Julian can be the model for
the next Emergency Medical Hologram (“Doctor Bashir, I Presume” [DS9 5.16, 1997]), we find out
that Bashir’s father does not have a highly respected career like his son through this terse exchange
between Julian and his parents:
Richard: I tell you, when I used to run shuttles, I never would have tolerated that kind of behavior
toward my passengers.
Bashir: Dad, you’re talking to me now. You were a third class steward for all of six months.
Richard: That’s right, and I was required to have daily contact with the passengers. And you can bet
that if I even looked at them the wrong way, I would’ve been discharged on the spot.
Bashir: I thought you were.
Richard: No. I resigned.
(DS9, 5.16, 1997)
When Richard tells his son about his new project in landscape gardening, Bashir acerbically
replies, “You always had good prospects, and they were always just over that horizon.” While Julian
is a classic Federation overachiever—he graduated salutatorian and was given the choice of any post
in Starfleet (“Emissary” [DS9 1.1/2, 1993]), and became the youngest nominee in the history of the
Carrington Award for his research (“Prophet Motive” [DS9 3.16, 1995])—Richard Bashir has gone
from job to job, never finding the field in which he can excel. This is part of what motivates him to
genetically enhance his struggling son despite the Federation’s ban on genetic engineering. It is clear
that the psychological toll of not measuring up to the Federation’s high standards can lead to mental
health issues and desperation.
Outside of the Federation, the majority of the major recurring alien races on the show, be
they Borg, the Dominion, the Romulans, the Cardassians or the Klingons, seem largely motivated
by factors other than monetary gain, and not much time is spent on imagining their economic
systems. The major exception, and the place where we find the bulk of Star Trek’s speculation about
economy, is the Ferengi. Originally conceived as the major antagonists for TNG, the Ferengi are
interstellar ultra-capitalists, designed to contrast with the enlightened liberal ideas of the Federation.
When they first appear in “The Last Outpost” (TNG 1.5, 1987), Data describes them as follows: “A
comparison modern scholars have drawn from Earth history likens the Ferengi to the ocean-going
Yankee traders of eighteenth-and nineteenth-century America, sir.” Their grotesque appearance
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and woeful early episodes, plus justified criticisms that the Ferengi were simply a collection of
offensive anti-Semitic stereotypes, meant that they were largely discarded in favor of more impres-
sive adversaries like the Borg. However, the Ferengi became an integral part of DS9, thanks to main
character Quark (Armin Shimerman), the station’s bartender, and a strong cast of recurring Ferengi
characters. While they largely provided comic relief to contrast the dark story arc of the Dominion
War, DS9 makes the effort to treat Ferengi culture with respect while remaining critical of their
worldview; and, the efforts of the excellent actors in the roles serve to bring a warmth and humanity
to them previously lacking. Although unscrupulously mercenary, the Ferengi’s arc over DS9 sees
their society move from a state that is ruled by the personal gain of capital to a more tolerant, lib-
eral society. As the Ferengi’s avarice and love of money are designed to parody the worst aspects
of present-day capitalism, we can see in the growth and progression of Ferengi culture over DS9 a
hint of how the writers of Star Trek imagine us moving from our current economic system to the
post-scarcity utopia of the Federation.
The Ferengi’s outlook is best typified by the 285 Rules of Acquisition (of course, “[u]‌nabridged
and fully annotated, with all 47 commentaries, all 900 major and minor judgments, all 10,000
considered opinions” ([“False Profits” VOY 3.5, 1996]), which must be followed in every business
transaction. Part business guide and part religious text, the Rules of Acquisition serve as a witty
summation of Ferengi culture and values, humorously highlighting how materialistic Ferengi cul-
ture differs from the Federation’s. The rules enshrine greed, avarice, and a love of money as core
values. The parodic extremes of the Rules of Acquisition serve to underscore the ridiculousness
of capitalism’s excesses, its needless cruelty, its inherent unfairness, and its necrotic logic (Moore
2017), as demonstrated by Quark’s ongoing attempts to live up to them by forever running scams
of dubious legality, from small-time gambling fraud to arms dealing. This is further highlighted
through the character of Ishka (Andrea Martin in her original appearance in “Family Business”
[DS9 3.23, 1995], Cecily Adams for the remainder of the show), who is ironically a far more astute
business person than Quark will ever be. Her gender, however, means she is forced to operate in the
shadows, becoming the Grand Nagus Zek’s (Wallace Shawn) secret advisor and saving the Ferengi
economy when Zek’s memory loss threatens to undermine his business acumen (“Ferengi Love
Songs” [DS9 5.20, 1997]). Capitalism’s inherent wastefulness and inability to recognize people’s true
talents are demonstrated through the character of Rom (Max Grodénchik); a brilliant mechanical
engineer but a terrible businessman, he is relegated to working for Quark in the hope that one
day he will inherit his bar. Rom eventually grows sick and tired of his lot being exploited by his
brother, and unionizes Quark’s bar staff (“Bar Association” [DS9 4.16, 1996]). He then goes on to
work for the station’s Chief Engineer O’Brien (Colm Meaney) as a technician where, freed from
the rigid strictures of Ferengi society and under the benevolent guidance of the Federation, his skills
are valued and appreciated, leading to him being eventually promoted to Maintenance Engineer,
First Class (“It’s Only a Paper Moon” [DS9 7.10, 1998]). This shift away from Ferengi capitalism
toward social democracy is reflected in Ferengi society itself, where Ishka’s influence over the Grand
Nagus leads to the beginnings of liberation for female Ferengis and an appreciation of them as an
untapped resource of economic intelligence, expertise, and acumen. By the time the Grand Nagus
retires toward the end of DS9, he realizes that in order to be a part of the modern galaxy Ferenginar
must change its ways, and appoints the liberal, gentle Rom as his successor rather than Quark, who
represents more traditional Ferengi values:
A new Ferenginar needs a new kind of Nagus. A kinder, gentler Nagus. And that’s you, my
boy. It’s a great responsibility to stand at the bow of the Ferengi ship of state. A Nagus has to
navigate the waters of the Great Material Continuum, avoid the shoals of bankruptcy and
seek the strong winds of prosperity.
(“The Dogs of War” [DS9 7.24, 1999])
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Jonathan Thornton
Social democracy is brought to Ferenginar not by revolution from inside or being imposed by
the Federation from outside, but from people engaging in dialogue and negotiation, acting in their
rational interests, and coming to the understanding that social democracy is the superior system. This
is what Star Trek ultimately shares with Keynes, the idea that progress is a linear result of prosperity
and rational action, and it is here where we find the core values of the Federation and judge them
either optimistic or smugly naïve. Keynes asserts that we can reach a post-scarcity utopia provided we
account for these four aspects:
[O]‌ur power to control population, our determination to avoid wars and civil dissensions,
our willingness to entrust to science the direction of those matters which are properly the
concern of science, and the rate of accumulation as fixed by the margin between our pro-
duction and our consumption; of which the last will easily look after itself, given the first
three.
(1930, 373)
This certainly underestimates the worst excesses of late-stage capitalism, which have led to an
increased disparity between the rich and the poor, and imagines that the billionaires and oligarchs of
today act rationally and in accordance with science, which, of course, they do not. Victor and Peter
Grech come to the conclusion that, “[a]‌Federation type utopia can only be achieved by a concerted
global effort that is glaring in its absence” (2015, 44). Similarly, while Star Trek may portray the
violence and social disruption in the time before the Federation to contrast with the peace and
prosperity afterwards, it shies away from explicitly interrogating the need for mass revolution and
social reorganization that may be required to bring about this exchange. The smug assertion that
the Federation’s way of doing things is the best, that simply by interacting with other cultures, these
other cultures will notice that the Federation’s way of life is superior and inevitably move to adopt
it, belies the cultural imperialism at play. It is telling that the dawning of a new age of social democ-
racy on Ferenginar coincides with DS9’s serialized arc about Section 31, the Federation’s black ops
division, and the moral implications of their interference in the Dominion War. Yet, Section 31’s
hand is conspicuously absent from the social changes on Ferenginar. Ultimately, Star Trek foregoes
interrogating fully its attitude toward economics, even as it posits fascinating economic possibilities
for the future. Interestingly, there are hints in the first season of PIC that the show may explore
the economic set-up of Star Trek from an interesting perspective. In the episode “The End Is the
Beginning” (PIC 1.3, 2020), Raffi (Michelle Hurd) displays resentment toward Picard because,
following Picard’s resignation from Starfleet and her dismissal, Picard has been living in luxury
on his family’s vineyard while she lives in a hovel. This certainly paints a different picture of life
on Earth from the one Picard gives us in TNG, where the Federation is a society of plenty where
everyone has all their material needs met, but it remains to be seen how deeply the show will inves-
tigate this aspect of its worldbuilding.
References
Barrett, Michèle, and Duncan Barrett. 2017. Star Trek: The Human Frontier. New York: Routledge.
Grech, Victor, and Peter Grech. 2015. “Star Trek’s Federation: A Keynesian Post-Scarcity Utopia.” SFRA Review
313: 35–45.
Keynes, John Maynard. [1930] 1963. “Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren.” In Essays in Persuasion,
358–373. New York: W.W. Norton.
Moore, Jason W. 2017. “The Capitalocene, Part I: On the Nature and Origins of Our Ecological Crisis.” The
Journal of Peasant Studies 44, no. 3 (Fall): 594–630.
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Roddenberry, Gene. 1987. “Star Trek: The Next Generation— Writers/Directors Guide.” Unpublished
manuscript.
Saadia, Manu. 2016. Trekonomics: The Economics of Star Trek. San Francisco: Pipertext.
Sorinel, Cosma. 2010. “Immanuel Wallerstein’s World Systems Theory.” Annals of the University of Oradea: Economic
Science 1, no. 2 (Summer): 220–224.
Star Trek Episodes
The Next Generation
1.5 “The Last Outpost” 1987.
1.13 “Datalore” 1988.
1.18 “Home Soil” 1988.
4.3 “Brothers” 1990.
6.8 “The Quality of Life” 1992.
7.10 “Inheritance” 1993.
Deep Space Nine

1.1/2 “Emissary” 1993.
1.11 “The Nagus” 1993.
2.8 “Necessary Evil” 1993.
2.9 “Second Sight” 1993.
2.21 “The Maquis, Part II” 1994.
3.16 “Prophet Motive” 1995.
3.23 “Family Business” 1995.
4.16 “Bar Association” 1996.
4.25 “Body Parts” 1996.
5.16 “Doctor Bashir, I Presume” 1997.
5.20 “Ferengi Love Songs” 1997.
7.24 “The Dogs of War” 1999.
Voyager
1.1/2 “Caretaker” 1995.
1.11 “State of Flux” 1995.
2.20 “Investigations” 1996.
3.3 “The Chute” 1996.
3.5 “False Profits” 1996.
5.15/16 “Dark Frontier” 1999.
Picard
1.3 “The End Is the Beginning” 2020.
Lower Decks
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Star Trek Movies
458
59
ETHICS
Adam Kotsko
Whatever we may say about its function from the perspective of its intellectual property holders,
from the perspective of its writers and fans, the Star Trek universe is a machine for the making of
ethical dilemmas. This focus informs its unique approach to world-building, above all on the level
of technology. In contrast to a series like The Expanse (2015–2022), in which space-travel tech-
nology operates according to a more or less consistent and plausible set of rules, in the Star Trek
universe, the speed of the warp drive often varies in direct proportion to the need to set up an
ethical conundrum. The same might be said of the transporter, which has on different occasions
split Kirk (William Shatner) into morally polarized twins (“The Enemy Within” [TOS 1.4, 1966]),
cloned Riker (Jonathan Frakes) (“Second Chances” [TNG 6.24, 1993]), and joined Neelix (Ethan
Phillips) and Tuvok (Tim Russ) into a single individual (“Tuvix” [VOY 2.24, 1996])—events that
play havoc with the fictional logic of the transporter device but present our characters with mem-
orable ethical problems. On a political level, too, the milieu in which the characters operate serves
primarily to give rise to clashes between different ethical priorities. The various galactic powers are
defined less by their political and economic interests than by their signature values (Vulcan logic,
Klingon bellicosity, Ferengi acquisitiveness, etc.). Meanwhile, the legal and institutional structure of
the Federation is left largely unspecified, in favor of a focus on its stated values—namely, diversity,
inclusion, open-ended inquiry, and self-improvement—and, of course, on the ways that it falls short
of those values in practice.
Scholars have devoted considerable attention to the ethical dimensions of Star Trek. Even when
ethics is not the explicit focus, it tends to assert itself. For instance, perhaps the best-known strain
of scholarship is the critical work that probes the political implications of the franchise (e.g., Bruce
Franklin’s (1994) work on TOS’s allegorical responses to the Vietnam War or Naeem Inayatullah’s
(2003) characterization of the Federation as an imperialist power). Yet they are driven by the very
nature of the show itself to focus primarily on the ethical decision-making of individual characters in
the context of the Federation’s stated values. Whether they regard those principles as false and hypo-
critical or, like George A. Gonzalez, embrace them as a political program (2017), scholars have often
taken Federation principles as a proxy for the franchise’s own ethical commitments, and indeed many
scholars have compared Star Trek’s supposed ethics (or that of a particular character) to established
schools of ethical reflection, ranging from the standard trio of Kantian deontology, Aristotelian virtue
ethics, and utilitarianism to more wide-ranging points of reference like Confucius (Bárcenas and Bein
2016), Nietzsche (Biderman and Devlin 2008), Heidegger (Hurst 2016), Mead (Boyer 2016), and
Haraway (Cassidy 2016). Few go as far as Judith Barad and Ed Robertson’s Ethics of Star Trek, which
makes the hyperbolic claim that the franchise presents us with “a unified theory that accounts for the
action or choices taken or made by every character, in every segment, in every series or film in the
Star Trek universe” (2000, 356), but all seem to presuppose that Star Trek in some sense exemplifies
or advocates a particular set of ethical values.
DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917-66 459

Adam Kotsko
In my view, such approaches are wrong-headed. Leaving aside the unlikelihood that the assorted
writers of a long-running TV franchise could achieve such rigor and coherence, the very diversity of
approaches in the literature shows that Star Trek does not in fact set forth a consistent body of eth-
ical teachings. Star Trek does, however, have a consistent style of setting up ethical dilemmas. These
dilemmas do not usually depend on reasoning out the appropriate course of action in terms of a given
set of ethical principles. Instead, Star Trek returns again and again to scenarios that stage a conflict
between two competing sets of ethical values, each of which is recognized as valid. This type of con-
flict does not arise primarily from the kind of cross-cultural encounter that Star Trek is most famous
for, but from built-in tensions at the core of Star Trek’s story world: namely, Starfleet’s dual mandate as
a military and scientific organization and the Federation’s ambiguous status as a voluntary fellowship
of diverse worlds and a powerful empire seeking its own interests in a hostile galaxy (see Chapter 45).
Both tensions come to a head in the case of the Prime Directive, whose stated in-universe purpose
is to safeguard the integrity and self-determination of pre-warp cultures but whose clear out-of-uni-
verse function is to generate conflict as the characters again and again face scenarios where following
General Order One would lead to ethically unpalatable consequences.
In what follows, I will be exploring representative ethical dilemmas in Star Trek under the two
basic headings of war and peace. Though I will mention existing philosophical schools of ethics as
appropriate, I will largely follow the episodes by holding them at a distance. To the extent that the
writers presuppose some kind of pre-existing ethical commitments on the part of the average viewer
or the average character, they are not those of Kant or Aristotle, but instead—as one would expect
from a commercial product that aims to appeal to the widest possible audience—widely accepted
virtues like truthfulness, loyalty to friends, or the avoidance of unnecessary harm. When I refer to
ethics in a general or everyday sense below, those are the virtues I have in mind. But, as I will show,
even these commonsensical ethical values are, like all values in Star Trek, introduced only to be called
into question in a scenario that pits them against other, equally valid priorities. The true Prime
Directive of Star Trek is staging ethical dilemmas.
Command over Life and Death

I will begin with a discussion of the most consequential ethical decisions in most episodes—namely,
those of the various captains. These are decisions in which one often needs to suspend everyday
ethical intuitions in favor of military necessity. This means that captains need to be able to make
decisions in which all options appear to be wrong from some perspective—in other words, to face
the no-win scenario of the famous Kobayashi Maru test. On a world-building level, such a test raises
any number of practical questions (such as how it can be so well-known among the cadets while still
taking them by surprise). But its plausibility from a pedagogical perspective is less important than its
utility in setting up certain characteristic dilemmas. Hence, later series build on the same concept,
even if not under the same name. In “To Thine Own Self ” (TNG 7.16, 1994), Troi (Marina Sirtis)
decides to seek command status. Her ultimate test is a Kobayashi Maru-like holodeck simulation in
which she must take responsibility for ordering a beloved officer, namely Geordi (LeVar Burton), to
sacrifice himself to save the ship. Only when she has demonstrated her willingness to condemn a
close colleague to death is she deemed worthy of command. Another late TNG episode, “Lessons”
(TNG 6.19, 1993), explores the same issue from a different angle when Picard (Patrick Stewart) starts
a romantic relationship and not only ultimately breaks it off but demands his lover’s transfer when he
realizes that his attachment to her is clouding his command judgment.
Clearly, then, Starfleet places a premium on commanding officers’ ability to carry out the kinds
of moral calculations that Spock (Leonard Nimoy) advocates with his dictum that “the needs of the
many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.” To that extent, it expects captains to be able to sus-
pend their everyday ethical intuitions—including their personal attachment to close colleagues and
friends—in the service of a more urgent utilitarian ethics. At the same time, it is clear that a good
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captain must always keep their normal ethical commitments in view, so as not to be over-hasty in their
judgment that they have entered a situation where sheer necessity reigns. An early TOS episode shows
us one of Spock’s first attempts to strike the appropriate balance between the two competing demands.
“The Galileo Seven” (TOS 1.13, 1967) sees Spock struggle to maintain control over a group of restive
officers, including the ever-critical McCoy (DeForest Kelley), after a shuttle craft strands them on a
hostile planet without communications. Spock’s cold demeanor proves to be a major liability after an
officer is killed by the locals and Spock does not appear to care. Without the belief that Spock values
their lives, the officers increasingly question Spock’s authority. Meanwhile back on the Enterprise, Kirk
faces pressure from Commissioner Ferris (John Crawford), a short-sighted, high-ranking adminis-
trator, to abandon the shuttle, but resists as long as possible to allow Spock time to escape—which he
of course does, but only after building trust with his fellow officers by indulging their sentiment and
allowing them to bury their dead comrades even as they fight against the clock.
The lesson of the episode is clear: a good leader feels every death that happens under his command
and never makes the decision to sacrifice a life until all other options have been exhausted. To an
extent, then, the conflict between a loosely deontological everyday ethics and the utilitarian ethics of
military necessity seems to settle into a virtue ethics approach. From that perspective, the key to being
a good captain is not following a certain set of rules but being a certain type of person—namely, the
type of person that Kirk already is and that Spock is hopefully becoming. Yet in this episode, as in
many others, the virtue ethics of the captain is placed in conflict with an ethical value that the practice
of captaincy actually presupposes: the military’s chain of command. This scenario plays out again and
again in the perpetual conflict between the admirals of Starfleet Command and the captains in the
field, who must constantly defy their superiors in the pursuit of some higher ethical goal (Rabitsch
2019, 120–121, 191–192). As with the practicalities of administering the Kobayashi Maru test, this
constant friction between captains and admirals raises serious questions about the structure and via-
bility of Starfleet as an organization, but those world-building questions are less important than the
need to generate conflicts between the various captains’ military duty and their ethics of leadership.
All the examples I have discussed up to this point involved Starfleet personnel, who have all, in
a sense, signed up to put their lives at risk. Fresh complexities arise when there is an apparent need
to sacrifice not oneself or one’s own crew members, but outsiders. In most of these situations, the
characters refuse to sacrifice innocents, even in defiance of a higher authority (the Prime Directive,
an order from Starfleet, etc.) or at the cost of their own life. In the film Insurrection (1998), this refusal
leads the crew to mutiny against an admiral—putting their careers and personal freedom at risk (see
Chapter 18). In many cases, the episodic format, with its mandatory return to the status quo, renders the
characters’ willing self-sacrifice somewhat hollow for the viewer. But there are times when the sacrifice
is real and irrevocable—most dramatically in “Caretaker” (VOY 1.1/2, 1995). After being abducted
and transported to the distant Delta Quadrant by the titular alien, Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) refuses to
endanger the vulnerable Ocampa species in order to guarantee Voyager’s return to the Alpha Quadrant.
In this case, there is not even an immediate threat to her crew’s life, only the prospect of a lifetime
stranded far from home. Even if Janeway’s stated rationale involves the Prime Directive, then, the more
fundamental logic seems to be that her crew’s own personal satisfaction is not worth more than the
survival of an entire species.
More fraught are those episodes where the sacrifice of an unrelated outsider proves sadly necessary.
We can see the problems that arise here if we examine the Enterprise episode “Damage” (ENT 3.19,
2004), which more or less inverts the dilemma Janeway faces in “Caretaker.” Part of a long-running
arc in which the Enterprise is racing against time to prevent the Xindi from destroying Earth with
their superweapon, the episode finds the ship essentially adrift in space without a functioning warp
engine. With the fate of billions in the balance, Archer (Scott Bakula) decides to take a replacement
part from a passing ship by force, consigning them to a lifetime stranded far from home. The decision
to seriously disrupt the lives of a few people to save an entire species seems defensible enough, even if
T’Pol (Jolene Blalock) continually protests that Archer must find another solution. Taking a step back,
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Adam Kotsko
though, I believe the writers could have worked harder to make Archer’s decision a genuine dilemma.
The “ticking time-bomb” scenario already tilts the scales considerably, and the use of a previously
unseen alien race seems to reassure the viewer that there will be no long-term repercussions of Archer’s
actions, either for himself or (given the show’s status as a prequel) for the story world more broadly.
We could say the same of the fan-favorite episode “In the Pale Moonlight” (DS9 6.19, 1998), in
which Sisko (Avery Brooks) teams up with Garak (Andrew Robinson) to bring the Romulans into
the Dominion War. With Sisko’s assistance, albeit not his awareness or consent, Garak contrives to
assassinate a Romulan senator and frame the Dominion for the crime. Viewers have praised the moral
complexity of the episode, but we are once again in a situation where neither the audience nor the
characters have much attachment to the innocent victim of their plan’s collateral damage. In fact,
the viewer may actually harbor hostility toward him, since Romulans have always been portrayed as
the Federation’s enemies and no recurring main character had been Romulan prior to Picard. This
particular Romulan, Senator Vreenak (Stephen McHattie), is presented as being honorable and even
favorable to the Federation, but he appears only in this single episode, always already within the
framework of a plot that demands he must die for the greater good. Such a problem might have been
less avoidable in TNG or VOY, but DS9’s more serialized format would have allowed the opportunity
to introduce him as a recurring character, particularly given the series’ success in crafting nuanced
portrayals of characters from species hostile to the Federation (such as the Cardassians and Ferengi).
Sisko appears tormented when he declares, after relating his story of moral torment to the viewer—“I
can live with it”—but the writers arguably made it too easy for him, and for the viewer.
The case appears more clear-cut in another fan-favorite, “The City on the Edge of Forever” (TOS
1.28, 1967), where one woman must die to prevent the unthinkable outcome of Hitler’s victory—an
outcome that, far from being a mere hypothetical, has actually occurred in the alternate timeline
McCoy inadvertently sets off by saving her life in the first place (see Chapter 41). The prospect of war
with the Klingons motivates more questionable choices, however, as in “A Private Little War” (TOS
2.16, 1968), where Kirk reluctantly decides to arm a faction on a primitive planet in order to coun-
teract the Klingon’s previous meddling. Like Sisko, Kirk experiences great torment over his actions,
particularly since he had spent time on the planet previously and befriended one of the natives. In
both cases, we reach a perverse kind of ethics where the most ethical action is to nobly “sacrifice”
one’s own ethical sensibilities themselves—as though the audience is meant to believe that an extra-
legal assassination or participation in a destructive arms race “hurts me more than it hurts you.”
This strange anti-ethical ethics comes to a head in one of the most controversial Star Trek episodes
of all time: “Tuvix” (VOY 2.24, 1996) in which, as mentioned earlier, a transporter accident unites
the odd couple of Tuvok and Neelix into the single individual for whom the episode is named (Tom
Wright). By the time a method to disentangle Tuvok and Neelix is discovered, Tuvix has become a
valued member of the crew, using his forebears’ memories to carry out a combination of their duties.
Most of the senior staff—and a great many fans—express the view that Tuvix is obviously a unique,
self-aware individual and that dissolving him into his constituent parts is tantamount to murder. Janeway
maintains, however, that Tuvok and Neelix also have a right to life and that the full functioning of
the Voyager crew under their desperate circumstances demands the return of both crew members to
full capacity—and after The Doctor (Robert Picardo) refuses to perform the separation procedure on
Hippocratic grounds, she does the deed herself (see Chapter 48). Where some of the previous examples
tipped the scales too readily toward utilitarianism over everyday ethical intuition, “Tuvix” arguably does
the opposite. Presumably relying on the viewer to prefer established characters over this new interloper,
the writers sacrifice Tuvix to the out-of-universe demand to return to the status quo.
Society and Self-Determination

Moving on to the peaceful side of Starfleet’s mission, one would initially expect a very different logic
to govern the stories. Yet the same basic types of dilemmas recur here, particularly in stories involving
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Ethics
the Prime Directive and related concepts, which tend to stage conflicts between formal duty and
everyday ethical intuitions. In TOS, the Prime Directive appears almost as a foil, as Kirk regularly
decides to disrupt the workings of pre-warp societies that he finds to be repressive or otherwise retro-
grade (see Chapter 60)—most notably societies that are regulated by a computer, which he finds to be
completely incompatible with human dignity (e.g., “Return of the Archons” [TOS 1.21, 1967], “The
Apple” [TOS 2.5, 1967], or “For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky” [TOS 3.8, 1968]).
In TNG-era shows, by contrast, the characters generally make more of an effort to square their ethical
intuitions with the demands of the Prime Directive. We can see this, for example, in “Pen Pals” (TNG
2.15, 1989), where Data (Brent Spiner) makes friends with a young girl from a pre-warp civilization
via radio and gradually comes to realize that her planet is in terrible danger. The Enterprise saves the
planet, but also takes time to erase the girl’s memory to avoid cultural contamination.
Despite the difference in approach between the two eras, then, the Prime Directive functions as
one side of an ethical dilemma. Hence, perhaps, the difficulty that ENT faces in devising a dilemma
to which the Prime Directive is the solution. The most thorough-going attempt is “Dear Doctor”
(ENT 1.13, 2002), which stages a classic Prime Directive-style dilemma: the Enterprise crew discovers
the cure for a deadly disease that afflicts the dominant race on a planet, but curing them would
consign a more primitive species, whom Phlox (John Billingsley) believes to be on the verge of a
major evolutionary breakthrough, to perpetual servitude. Archer initially argues that they have an
obligation to help despite Phlox’s concern, but for reasons that are never made clear in the episode
itself, Archer ultimately agrees to leave the advanced species to die. The episode is obviously meant
to demonstrate the necessity of a non-interference principle, but it winds up presupposing it in its
somewhat contrived interference versus non-interference frame.
From an ethical perspective, though, the really interesting dilemmas arise, not at the level of entire
societies (e.g., whether there is a natural path of social evolution, whether alien contact somehow
contaminates that development, etc.), but at the level of the individual. Rules like the Prime
Directive tend to treat societies as monolithic, but every society includes misfits and dissidents.
This point is regularly brought home to the main characters, who rely on the greater openness of
such misfits and dissidents to contact with outsiders. This is true whether we think of missions to
pre-warp planets or journeys back to Earth’s own past (where a similar non-interference principle,
sometimes designated explicitly as the Temporal Prime Directive, applies). In the episode “First
Contact” (TNG 4.15, 1991), which remains Star Trek’s most thorough exploration of the process
of deciding when and how to open up dialogue with a species that is currently unaware of alien
life, their initial point of contact is not the repressive and backward government authorities, but
a scientist who is out of step with the values of her wider culture—a scenario that the film First
Contact will echo by making warp engineer Zefram Cochrane (James Cromwell) the representa-
tive of an otherwise warlike and divided human race in their initial encounter with the Vulcans.
Sometimes those exceptional individuals open up a new phase in their species’ history, assuming
it is “ready.” Sometimes they are provided with the option of leaving their planet behind, as (non-
Mirror) Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) does for Saru (Doug Jones) in “The Brightest Star” (Short Treks
1.3, 2018). In other cases, if the time for social transformation is for whatever reason not yet ripe,
the main characters’ misfit helpers must simply content themselves with the knowledge that there
is a greater galactic community out there. One of the earliest portrayals of the latter scenario in the
Star Trek story world is “Civilization” (ENT 1.9, 2001), where Archer, in his quest to stop a more
advanced species from exploiting and polluting a more primitive planet, befriends a local scientist,
Riaan (Diane DiLascio). In this case, Phlox’s scruples allow him to provide a cure to the disease the
extractive technology was causing, and Archer leaves Riaan to administer the cure. This solution
apparently satisfies everyone—the crew’s “interference” only offsets an earlier intrusion, and Riaan
has no apparent complaints about her life on the planet aside from the existence of the disease.
Most cases present greater problems. One of the better-known is “The Outcast” (TNG 5.17,
1992), in which the Enterprise encounters an androgynous species with no concept of gender. Over
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Adam Kotsko
the course of the episode, it becomes clear that this was not always the case, as the species had report-
edly evolved beyond binary gender. And for some individuals within their society—most notably
Soren (Melinda Culea), with whom Riker develops an intense romantic connection—that “evolu-
tion” had not quite stuck, leading them to adopt gendered identities in secret. Riker is willing to
resign his Starfleet commission to be with Soren, but in the end, she undergoes a form of brainwashing
that leads her to reject her gendered identity and return to her people. Leaving aside the somewhat
garbled political message—in which Soren’s situation is an obvious allegory for homosexuality and
yet the literal text of the message portrays heterosexuals as oppressed by those who wish to subvert
the gender binary (see Chapter 52)—this episode reflects a real dilemma faced by any society’s misfits.
On the one hand, they cannot fully express themselves in their own cultural setting (see Chapter 53),
but, on the other hand, the prospect of completely abandoning it for an entirely new culture (often
one in which they have only a small number of contacts) is intimidating.
The viewer naturally assumes that Soren’s brainwashing was coerced, but similar real-life situations
rarely display such a clear dilemma between escape and submission. A thematically related episode,
“The Cogenitor” (ENT 2.22, 2003), presents a darker variation on the theme of trying to “rescue”
a member of another culture. Here the Enterprise encounters a species with a third gender, known as
cogenitors, who are very rare but required for reproduction. As a result, they are kept in a state of
slavery—deprived of autonomy, education, or even a name—and swapped among eligible couples
attempting to have a baby. When Tucker (Connor Trinneer) learns of this, he begins providing a
cogenitor (Becky Wahlstrom) accompanying one of the couples on the ship with education and pol-
itical consciousness-raising, leading the cogenitor to request political asylum rather than return to
their previous condition of slavery. Unwilling to jeopardize humanity’s relations with one of the first
friendly species they have encountered, Archer refuses the asylum request—leading to the cogenitor’s
suicide. Here the dilemma is one between Tucker’s ethical intuitions about human autonomy and
Archer’s sense of political necessity. From the perspective of everyday moral intuitions, Archer’s deci-
sion to ignore the apparent mistreatment of a minority group for the sake of better relations with the
society as a whole certainly appears unsavory. At the same time, Tucker is hardly blameless. Knowing
that Archer would not agree to asylum, he created expectations that he knew could not be fulfilled,
thereby contributing to the suicide of the person he was trying to help. Where most Star Trek episodes
resolve their ethical dilemma, in this case, as William A. Lindenmuth points out, “it’s not resolved.
Rather, it ends with Archer indignant, Trip aghast, and the audience—us—haunted” (2016, 263).
Questions of slavery and liberation also arise in the exploration of artificial sentience. Here again,
it is worth pointing out the ethical focus of Star Trek’s world-building. No episode involving an arti-
ficial life form ever centers on the question of whether they are really sentient, at least not from the
viewer’s perspective (see Chapter 57). This is true even in cases like the exocomps from “Quality
of Life” (TNG 6.9, 1992), which share no human characteristics but in which Data discerns self-
awareness and intelligence. Most famously, by the time Data’s personhood is on trial in “The Measure
of a Man” (TNG 2.9, 1989), the viewer is already thoroughly convinced of his sentience, and the
attempt to demonstrate that fact to other characters is a way of navigating the ethical dilemma between
the duty to obey the military hierarchy of Starfleet and the main characters’ conviction of Data’s right
to autonomy and self-determination. Picard’s argumentation as defense counsel presupposes that Data
is fully sentient and focuses on the ethical consequences for the Federation if they rule otherwise, as
when he evokes the prospect of a race of Data-like slaves, which Starfleet later brings about in the
Picard series (after having enslaved the repurposed Emergency Medical Holograms (Robert Picardo)
as miners in “Author, Author,” [VOY 7.20, 2001]). Even here, though, there is an implicit dilemma
between two positive values, namely the Federation’s respect for personal dignity and its emphasis on
scientific inquiry—and in Picard, Bruce Maddox, the scientist who proposed disassembling Data for
study, returns as a broadly sympathetic character.
In the event, Data is of course granted his personhood and allowed to continue to serve in Starfleet
despite his unique vulnerability to repeated hacks that lead him to hijack the ship. But he once again
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Ethics
stares down the barrel of slavery in “The Most Toys” (TNG 3.22, 1990), in which a criminal collector
of the galaxy’s irreplaceable treasures kidnaps Data. At one point, Data gets hold of a phaser, but his
captor, knowing that Data’s ethical subroutines will not permit him to kill except in immediate self-
defense or defense of others, taunts him, threatening to keep him in captivity forever and threatening
the fellow captives Data has befriended. He ultimately determines that he cannot allow the situation
to continue and pulls the trigger—just as the Enterprise beams him up. Here we have a particularly
vivid instance of the trope of suspending one’s own personal ethical intuitions in a situation of dire
necessity, as Data’s ethics are quite literally hard-wired into his programming. I would argue, though,
that it is less a suspension of his ethical subroutines than an extrapolation, insofar as enslavement is a
perpetual threat of death.
More interesting, perhaps, than this standard dilemma between everyday ethics and the logic of
necessity are the implications of the episode’s final scene. When Data materializes on the Enterprise,
the transporter chief notes that he had to prevent the phaser from firing, and rather than explain what
happened, Data chooses to evade the question. Here it is worth noting that it is precisely Riker—who
took the other side in his trial, even if under duress, and went so far as to involuntarily turn him
off—who greets Data on the transporter pad. Perhaps his experience of captivity highlights to Data
how fragile his freedom is, even among ostensible friends, and so he opts not to alert them to the
newly-discovered implications of his ethical subroutines.
Conclusion
In this chapter I have tried to demonstrate that, far from a coherent system of ethical norms, Star Trek
represents a vehicle for staging ethical dilemmas in which two different, but equally valid sets of
values come into conflict. I have gathered my examples under two headings, corresponding broadly
to Starfleet’s dual military and exploratory mission, but in both cases, our characters repeatedly face
dilemmas in which their common-sense ethical intuitions—which the viewer is expected to share,
broadly speaking—come into conflict with either higher authorities (military hierarchy, the Prime
Directive) or with the demands of a life-or-death situation that requires a more utilitarian response. In
both cases, I have tried to suggest that Star Trek is at its best not when it provides the most edifying
moral guidance, but when it presents us with genuinely open-ended ethical problems.
References
Barad, Judith, and Ed Robertson. 2000. The Ethics of Star Trek. New York: Harper.
Bárcenas, Alejandro, and Steve Bein. 2016. “‘Make It So’: Kant, Confucius, and the Prime Directive.” In The
Ultimate Star Trek and Philosophy, edited by Kevin S, Decker and Jason T. Eberl, 236–246. New York: Wiley
Blackwell.
Biderman, Shai, and William J. Devlin. 2008. “The Wrath of Nietzsche.” In Star Trek and Philosophy, edited by
Jason Eberl and Kevin Decker, 47–56. Chicago: Open Court.
Boyer, Pamela J.G. 2016. “‘Who I Really Am’: Odo, Mead, and the Self.” In The Ultimate Star Trek and Philosophy,
edited by Kevin S. Decker and Jason T. Eberl, 243–251. New York: Wiley Blackwell.
Cassidy, Lisa. 2016. “Resistance Is Negligible: In Praise of Cyborgs.” In The Ultimate Star Trek and Philosophy,
edited by Kevin S. Decker and Jason T. Eberl, 232–241. New York: Wiley Blackwell.
Decker, Kevin S., and Jason T. Eberl, Eds. 2016. The Ultimate Stark Trek and Philosophy: The Search for Socrates.
New York: Wiley Blackwell.
Eberl, Jason T., and Kevin S. Decker, Eds. 2008. Star Trek and Philosophy: The Wrath of Kant. Chicago: Open Court.
Franklin, H. Bruce. 1994. “Star Trek in the Vietnam Era.” Science Fiction Studies 21, no. 1 (Spring): 24–34.
Gonzalez, George A. 2017. The Absolute and Star Trek. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Hurst, Dena. 2016. “Resistance Really Is Futile: On Being Assimilated by Our Own Technology.” In The
Ultimate Star Trek and Philosophy, edited by Kevin S. Decker and Jason T. Eberl, 264–271. New York: Wiley
Blackwell.
Inayatullah, Naeem. 2003. “Bumpy Space: Imperialism and Resistance in Star Trek: The Next Generation.” In To
Seek Out New Worlds: Science Fiction and World Politics, edited by Jutta Weldes, 53–77. New York: Palgrave
Macmillan.
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Lindenmuth, William A. 2016. “Is Liberation Ever a Bad Thing? Enterprise’s ‘Cogenitor’ and Moral Relativism.”
In The Ultimate Star Trek and Philosophy, edited by Kevin S. Decker and Jason T. Eberl, 253– 263.
New York: Wiley Blackwell.
Star Trek Episodes
The Original Series
1.4 “The Enemy Within” 1966.
1.13 “The Galileo Seven” 1967.
1.22 “Return of the Archons” 1967.
2.9 “The Apple” 1967.
3.10 “For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky” 1968.
The Next Generation

2.15 “Pen Pals” 1989.
3.22 “The Most Toys” 1990.
4.15 “First Contact” 1991.
6.9 “Quality of Life” 1992.
6.19 “Lessons” 1993.
7.16 “To Thine Own Self ” 1994.
Deep Space Nine

Voyager
1.1/2 “Caretaker” 1995.
2.24 “Tuvix” 1996.
Enterprise
1.9 “Civilization” 2001.
2.22 “The Cogenitor” 2003.
3.19 “Damage” 2004.
Short Treks
1.3 “The Brightest Star” 2018.
Star Trek Movie
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60
UTOPIA
Simon Spiegel
Few terms are used as often in the literature on Star Trek as “utopian.” Be it fans or scholars discussing
the franchise’s attraction, or Gene Roddenberry explaining his original vision for the series, the
references to utopia abound. In the introduction to his Cultural History of Star Trek, M. Keith Booker is
quite paradigmatic in claiming that TOS’s main appeal lies “in the characters and their relationships—
and especially in the way these relationships modeled a utopian twenty-third century in which the
social problems of the twentieth century had been solved” (2018, xiv). But although—or maybe
because—Star Trek is routinely referred to as utopian, few authors care to explain what they actually
mean by this. Most of the time,“utopia” is used as a catch-all phrase for any kind of future that appears
to be better than the world we currently inhabit. This is problematic since “utopia” is by no means a
clearly defined term. In colloquial language, it is often used to designate illusory or unattainable ideas.
In academic discourse, however, different traditions exist, which, while sometimes overlapping, can
differ fundamentally in their understanding of utopia. There is even disagreement about what kind of
object we mean when we talk about utopia. Is it a genre, a political or sociological concept, a philo-
sophical stance, or an anthropological constant? In this chapter, utopia is conceptualized in a narrow
sense, drawing on the characteristics and tradition of the literary genre inaugurated by Thomas More
in his 1516 text, Utopia. Although almost every aspect of the genre has undergone changes in its long
history, Utopia still represents the genre prototype and is therefore often used as a benchmark against
which all later incarnations can be measured.1
Utopian Essentials
Literary utopias feature specific narrative and formal tropes; they typically portray a commonwealth
which is better organized, more just and, altogether, a better place to live in than the readers’ con-
temporary society. In his treatise, More describes the island of Utopia, where the state makes sure
that everyone gets everything they need—and only what they need. Since all their wants are met, the
Utopians know neither greed, envy nor hate, which means that many common crimes simply do not
exist on the island. Although More’s successors differ greatly in what they consider to be essential
human needs, the basic idea that the state ensures that all its inhabitants are provided for is one which
has been taken up by the majority of utopias published in the last 500 years. There is often a system
of common property which renders money obsolete. This does not mean that capitalist or libertarian
utopias do not exist; they are just considerably less common.
In many ways, the world of Star Trek is undoubtedly better than the one we live in. Not only
is it technologically far advanced, it is also much more peaceful. While the Federation has to fight
wars against outside enemies, the people and species who constitute this interstellar commonwealth
enjoy more or less permanent peace among themselves. Despite significant biological and cultural
differences, there is little overt prejudice or racial hatred. This world is certainly not without conflicts,
DOI: 10.4324/9780429347917-67 467

Simon Spiegel
but compared to our present, the members of the Federation live in an era where war and violence in
general are ostensibly absent. More importantly even, the era in which most of Star Trek is set is also
one of post-scarcity (see Chapter 58). Thanks to replicator technology, everything anyone could ever
desire can be synthesized and no one has to suffer any kind of shortages. The result is a world where
money has been abandoned and trade in the traditional sense, i.e., a means to accumulate wealth, is
no longer necessary, or even desirable. As Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) explains to a surprised
inhabitant of the late twenty-first century in First Contact (1996):
The economics of the future are somewhat different. You see, money doesn’t exist in the
twenty-fourth century … The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force of our
lives. We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity.
At least until the end of the eighteenth century, common property, communal meals, and
centralized distribution of goods are a prominent feature of utopias. While the Federation does not
tend to its citizens in such an all-encompassing way, it does possess one of the most common tropes
of utopian literature: the abolition of money and of profit-oriented trade. When the utopian qualities
of Star Trek are discussed, the absence of war and want are the two preeminent aspects. For many
scholars and fans alike, Star Trek’s world represents a utopian ideal which everyone should aspire to.
These two qualities do indeed make the world of Star Trek appear far superior to the one we live in,
and in this sense the franchise can surely be called utopian. But compared to a classic utopia, there are
also important elements missing.
Although the label “utopian novel” is commonly used in connection with texts in the Morean
tradition, these texts do not constitute novels in the modern sense. While many classic utopias
feature a narrative frame—most commonly a travel narrative—their main aim is not to tell a sus-
penseful story, but rather provide a description of the utopian society. Be it immediate successors of
More’s such as Tommaso Campanella’s City of the Sun ([1623] 1981) or Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis
([1627] 1999), or more recent texts, such as Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward ([1888] 2009) or
even B. F. Skinner’s Walden Two ([1948] 1976)—they all put a distinct emphasis on the description
of the respective society. Compared to the early examples, which have no story beyond the fact that
someone from outside is paying a visit to the utopian place and which are populated with faceless
entities without any salient features, Bellamy and Skinner offer more elaborate narrative arcs and
fleshed-out characters. Still, their books can hardly be called plot-driven. Their main intent is to
describe “a non-existent society … in considerable detail” (Sargent 1994, 9). In short, typical utopias
lack both a proper plot and active characters. This structure is antithetical to a typical Hollywood
movie or television show where protagonists with individual traits try to achieve a clearly defined
goal. Given these properties, it is not surprising that classic utopias essentially do not exist in fiction
films. Dystopias, on the other hand, abound, since they usually center around one or more characters
who rebel against an oppressive regime and therefore feature both an exciting plot and characters
who follow a clear aim.2
Politics and Economy

Classic utopias are, essentially, a long series of infodumps. As a commercial TV show, Star Trek, of
course, follows the established Hollywood model. Memorable characters who have to overcome
all kinds of odds are front and center. While the society these characters live in is of some import-
ance, we never get the kind of comprehensive lectures which account for the bulk of classic utopias.
For example, we learn little about how politics and the economy are organized in the Federation
(see Chapter 58). Typical utopias go to great lengths to describe their various political institutions,
how officials are elected, how the distribution of goods is organized and how justice is carried out.
Although Star Trek is, when it comes to the sheer amount of text, much larger than any utopian novel,
468
Utopia
we learn almost nothing about how the Federation is organized. While there are institutions like the
Council of the United Federation of Planets, the Federation Supreme Court, Starfleet Command,
and even a Federation President, who seems to be democratically elected, the way these different
bodies interact, for example, when and how they are elected, are never spelled out. As stated in the
entry on Memory Alpha for the United Federation of Planets: “The exact nature of the government
of the Federation has never been made clear on screen … The exact division of powers between the
Federation government and the governments of its member worlds is unknown” (Memory Alpha n.d.).
Sebastian Stoppe, who devoted a book-length study to Star Trek’s entanglements with the utopian
genre, undertook a thorough analysis of the franchise’s political system. He also states that we are
given scant information on the various government bodies (2014, 170).3
A similar picture emerges when we try to understand the Federation’s economy; for Stoppe, the
fact that money does not exist anymore is an important argument for calling Star Trek utopian. Even
though the abolition of money is a staple of the utopian tradition, it is rarely an end in itself but rather
the most striking sign of an economy that is not organized according to capitalist principles. And
while Picard’s shorthand account of the economics of the future indicates that the world of Star Trek
is post-capitalist, there is little explanation as to how this money-less economy supposedly works.
As a matter of fact, the Federation does not completely do without money or at least trade. One of
the reasons for this is that some things cannot be replicated; the prime example is the liquid metal
Latinum, which is why the Ferengi Alliance uses it as currency. The fact that the Ferengi, whose
culture is founded on the very principles of acquisition and profit, can maintain their hypercapitalist
customs despite the existence of replicator technology, indicates that the Federation’s economy still
relies on trade, if only partially. It seems like capitalism cannot be easily done away with after all (see
Chapter 58).
Another common utopian trope relates to the allocation or rather the reduction of labor. How
many hours per day does one have to work, what is the age of retirement, what kind of leisure activ-
ities are offered? In the history of utopian literature, there is almost a kind of race among the various
authors with each subsequent work undercutting its predecessors, postulating even fewer working
hours. This is often combined with detailed descriptions of the leisure activities the utopian state has
in store for its citizens. In Star Trek, we get very few clues as to what the billions of people who do
not hold some kind of government or military job actually do the whole day. Since most plots take
place on board military vessels or on planets which suffer some kind of crisis, we learn very little about
“ordinary life” in the Federation. There are exceptions like Picard’s father Maurice (Clive Church)
and his brother Robert (Jeremy Kemp), who own a vineyard, or Sisko’s (Avery Brooks) father Joseph
(Brock Peters), who runs a Creole restaurant; it is rather telling, however, that these trades are prime
examples of non-alienated work, in the Marxist sense, which in many ways feel more like a craft or
a hobby. But what about less fancy lines of work? Are there factories, cleaning staff or construction
workers in the Federation? We see citizens of the Federation working in mines in “The Devil in the
Dark” (TOS 1.26, 1967), and in VOY’s “Author, Author” (VOY 7.20, 2001) outmoded EMHs have
been repurposed to perform menial labor on an asteroid, but these instances remain exceptions. This
begs the question as to whether or not these tasks are normally taken care of by machines. If so, why
are miners even necessary in “The Devil in the Dark”? And if not, why should anyone accept dan-
gerous or numbing work when the replicator can satisfy all needs? While the society of Star Trek can
be considered superior to the one we are living in, it lacks the level of detail typical of literary utopias.
Consequently, one paradigmatic aspect of the classic model is therefore missing.
Star Trek as a Weak Utopia

One of the fundamental questions of utopian studies is how “serious” the respective author is in
his utopian undertaking. Is the description of the utopian state meant as a blueprint, or a political
program which should be put into reality, or is its main function to show that things do not have
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Simon Spiegel
to be the way they are, that we can always think of alternatives? Of course, this question has to
be answered individually for each text, but in the case of More, there is a general consensus that
his goal was not to write a revolutionary tract. More was a great admirer of classical satires and
Utopia is riddled with contradictions and ironic twists which undercut any unambiguous reading.
Despite all these uncertainties, there is a general consensus that Utopia was not meant as a political
program, nor as a plan which should be put in practice, but rather as a critique of the political and
social situation in More’s England. This is made explicit in the first book—the description of the
island of Utopia is restricted to the second book—in which he addresses specific social problems.
For example, in one passage, sheep-owning landlords are chastised for enclosing land that for-
merly belonged to the commons, thereby pushing farmers, who no longer have access to grazing
pastures, into a life of crime. More’s criticism, which can be very specific as in the example of the
greedy landlords, functions in tandem with the alternative society described in the second book.
Taken together, the two parts constitute a kind of wake-up call, a reminder that the status quo is
not immutable, that things could—and should—be different. This understanding of the genre is
widely accepted, though depending on the author, different aspects are emphasized. But whether
utopia is understood as “carnival/funfair mirror in reverse” (Sargent 2006, 12), as “fundamen-
tally a satiric mode” (Roberts 2006, viii), as “thought experiment” (Werder 2009, 16), or as “the
Imaginary Reconstitution of Society” (Levitas 2013, xi), the common thread is that the main point
of any utopia is not the depiction of the utopian state, but rather how it reflects on the present.
And while the majority of utopias are not intended as a political program, they are still meant to
have an impact on the actual world.
The combination of “realistic front side” and “utopian flip side” (Voßkamp 2016, 77) is the funda-
mental characteristic of any utopia. The alternative society is, in other words, not an end in itself but
rather closely linked to the criticism of the status quo. The starting point of any utopia is the real-
ization that the current situation leaves much to be desired and thus should be improved. One could
even argue that a utopia’s central task is not to speak of a better world, but to point out the deficits of
the present. Given this understanding of utopia, is Star Trek then really part of the genre’s tradition?
While the franchise undoubtedly presents a better alternative—though not in great detail—the same
cannot necessarily be said about it challenging the status quo.
The supposed utopianism of Star Trek is often traced back to Gene Roddenberry’s original vision
for his series, which was based on his liberal world view and fueled by the progressive movements of
the 1960s. Ina Rae Hark takes exception to this characterization and notes that Roddenberry’s ori-
ginal concept was not as utopian or radical as he later recounted it to be (2008, 33); Stefan Rabitsch
even calls it “reactionary” (2019, 64). Whether these objections are valid or not, it is fair to say that
the “realistic front side” is much less pronounced than in an average utopia.
Star Trek is often lauded for the way it addressed social and political issues early on. For example,
elements like the racially mixed crew of TOS were highly unusual at the time the show premiered and
were obviously meant as criticism of segregation and racism in the United States (see Chapter 50).
As H. Bruce Franklin (2013) has shown, TOS also commented on the ongoing war in Vietnam in
several episodes. However, not only did the position of the show vis-à-vis the war shift from support
to outright condemnation, its criticism was rarely expressed explicitly. Similarly, the conflict between
the Yangs and the Kohms in “The Omega Glory” (TOS 2.25, 1968) is generally understood as a
Cold War allegory (see Chapter 44). This reading is certainly valid, but the very fact that the epi-
sode proceeds metaphorically already indicates the main difference to the utopian mode. There is
nothing metaphorical in More’s criticism of landlords who push small farmers aside, neither is there
in Bellamy’s charges against the working conditions in late nineteenth-century Boston. Most utopias
are a reaction to a very specific historical/political situation. It could even be argued that their success
does not so much depend on the alternative offered but rather on how accurately they portray the
deficits of their respective times.
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Utopia
Over the years, Star Trek has tackled many issues—from racism and genetic engineering to
nuclear weapons and environmentalism. But its criticism mostly remains unspecific insofar as it rarely
addresses structural or systemic causes. For example, when the Enterprise crew travels back in time in
The Voyage Home to find humpback whales that can then communicate with the mysterious alien
probe threatening Earth, Spock (Leonard Nimoy) states that “to hunt a species to extinction is not
logical,” whereupon Gillian Taylor (Catherine Hicks) answers “Whoever said the human race was
logical?” (see Chapter 13). While this exchange is probably meant as a critical jab at human near-
sightedness and inconsistent behavior, it does not address any deeper questions. Despite Spock’s
alleged detached objectivity, the question whether something is considered logical or not greatly
depends on one’s point of view. If the overarching logic is one of profit, the extinction of whales
obviously does not pose a fundamental problem.
While Star Trek points at problems, it fails—in contrast to literary utopias—to analyze their actual
roots most of the time. This is also true for its treatment of race. By featuring racially mixed crews,
it makes clear that racism should and can be overcome, but it never deals with racism as a systemic
phenomenon. Indeed, racism is despicable, as is war and ecological destruction, but proper utopian
criticism goes beyond such allegorical platitudes. This in itself is, however, not really surprising. Not
only was (and is) Star Trek a commercial show produced for a mass audience, but since it unfolds
centuries in the future, it would also have a hard time addressing contemporary issues in any greater
detail (except, perhaps, in a time travel scenario where a character from the audience’s contemporary
present is catapulted into Star Trek’s world). In a classic utopia, someone from outside, who stands
in for the contemporary reader, is introduced to the new order. This arrangement allows for direct
comparison between the current system and the utopia. In Star Trek, this can only be achieved by
time travel, as is the case in the aforementioned examples; Spock’s and Picard’s comments are directly
contrasted with the reactions of denizens of the twentieth and twenty-first century, respectively (see
Chapter 41). However, the encounters in these situations are not the norm—throughout Star Trek
criticism of capitalism remains very general and rather abstract.
Again, the main goal of a literary utopia is not to tell gripping yarn, but to call the present into
question. A franchise like Star Trek, on the other hand, is first and foremost about telling a story.
Therefore, it is not surprising that Star Trek does not engage in elaborate political and social com-
mentary. But this also means that compared to the average utopian novel, its utopian core function
is severely reduced. Michèle Barrett and Duncan Barrett write that Star Trek is “unusual in science
fiction for presenting a future that we might actually want to live in” (2001, xxi). This is true insofar
as the majority of science fiction—at least when it comes to movies—indeed presents dystopian
visions of the future.4 Star Trek can be called utopian in the sense that it presents a future we can
aspire to. Yet, it offers us weak utopianism which lacks both direct criticism of the status quo and
a detailed description of the utopian state. Crucially, not all Star Trek series are equally utopian.
Produced at the end of the Cold War, TNG is generally considered to be the most utopian incarna-
tion of the franchise not least because Roddenberry established the rule that all conflicts should come
from outside the ship and/or the Federation (ibid., 53). Already in DS9, the future feels like a much
less peaceful place, and none of the later series really returns to TNG’s optimism.
Utopias in Star Trek
Not only is the relationship between Star Trek and utopianism relevant for the franchise as a whole,
but there are also a number of episodes which deal with various utopian communities and directly
address the question of how a state should ideally be governed. Interestingly enough, these episodes
often prove to be critical if not outright hostile toward utopias. A typical example is TOS’s “The
Cloud Minders” (3.19, 1969) where the Enterprise crew visits the planet Ardana which turns out to be
a flawed utopia (Sargent 2003). The Ardanians are a highly evolved culture that lives in the floating
city of Stratos. Soon it becomes apparent though that their sophisticated way of life depends on
471
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the suppression of the Troglytes who live on the surface and perform all physical labor. When Kirk
(William Shatner) questions this arrangement, he is told that the Troglytes are mentally inferior and
simply unsuited for the advanced culture of the Ardanians. This proves to be false; while the cognitive
deficits of the Troglytes are real, they are not innate but rather the result of them being exposed to a
poisonous gas in the mines. Since racism directed at the Troglytes is an integral part of their culture,
the Ardanians have a hard time accepting this revelation.
Most viewers will probably agree that the utopia of Ardana, which is in fact dystopian for half of
the planet’s population, is significantly flawed. However, there are other examples, which are more
ambiguous. In “This Side of Paradise” (TOS 1.25, 1967), the Enterprise crew lands on Omicron Ceti
III in search of a group of colonists. Since the planet is exposed to lethal rays, the settlers are presumed
dead. But to the great surprise of Kirk and his crew, they turn out to be perfectly healthy. Not only
that, they live in perfect harmony. Both their exceptional health and their complete happiness are
caused by the spores of a mysterious plant. After being exposed to the spores, the Enterprise crew joins
the settlers, and everybody enjoys complete happiness. Even Spock learns to appreciate beauty and
love. Only Kirk—for reasons that are not entirely clear—succeeds in fighting the spores’ effect and
ultimately “freeing” his crew and the colonists. One could argue that the Omicron colony is a flawed
utopia because its inhabitants did not choose to be changed by the spores. Interestingly enough
though, Kirk’s rejection of the happy life has nothing to do with free will. His main issue seems to
be that the settlers have contented themselves with a pre-industrial rural life, seeing no need for
improvement and progress. Kirk tells Elias Sandoval (Frank Overton), the leader of the colonists: “We
weren’t meant for that, none of us. Man stagnates if he has no ambition, no desire to be more than
he is.” Kirk’s line of argument is not very convincing. Why is lack of ambition a problem if everyone
is truly happy? Kirk’s main objection is that stagnation is inherently bad and progress is always good.
As David Kyle Johnson explains: “The lesson is simple: living on a world lacking hardships isn’t an
option, because only by struggling can we progress and live up to our potential” (2016, 48). The
same argument is repeated in “I, Mudd” (TOS 2.12, 1967) when highly developed service androids
“threaten” to swarm the galaxy with a view to domesticating the aggressive human race. McCoy
(DeForest Kelley) and Scotty (James Doohan) both agree that a world where androids take care of
everything would be a nightmare since human beings cannot be truly happy without suffering and
hardship.
As these examples show, Star Trek is undergirded by a deep mistrust of certain kinds of utopias.
Wantonly violating the Prime Directive, Kirk even goes so far as to “liberate” people, who consider
themselves perfectly happy, from the utopian yoke imposed on them by sophisticated machines—for
example, this happens in “The Return of the Archons” (TOS 1.22, 1967) and “The Apple” (TOS 2.9,
1967). Star Trek is not only hostile to the classic utopia’s stasis, but generally suspicious of any kind of
society which exceeds a certain level of happiness. David Kyle Johnson argues that this attitude, which
is especially prevalent in TOS, seems “to be an expression of conservative elements of 1960s culture.
In that context, the Omicron Ceti colonists seem to represent the establishment’s view of ‘dirty
hippies,’ who just lay around, make love, and don’t accomplish anything” (ibid., 57). Star Trek’s idea
of a better future is inextricably linked to the concept of technological and social progress (Brereton
2005, 157–161) and any societal arrangement which is opposed to this ideology must be rejected.
The Borg
Until the end of the nineteenth century, the Morean model remained more or less stable. While
many details evolved over time—the most important development being the shift from local utopias
in faraway places to temporal utopias situated in the future—the basic elements did not change sig-
nificantly. One of the basic assumptions of More’s model is that the individual must integrate seam-
lessly into the state machinery; the quality of a commonwealth is judged by the smoothness of its
operation. As a result, utopian citizens are mere ciphers who obediently do what they are told. As
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part of a process that Hans Ulrich Seeber calls the “self-criticism of the utopian genre” (2003), basic
tenets of the utopian tradition itself came under scrutiny, among them most prominently the relation-
ship between the state and the individual. This development culminated in dystopias like Yevgeny
Zamyatin’s We ([1924] 1993), Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World ([1932] 1955), or George Orwell’s
Nineteen Eighty-Four ([1949] 1997), which focus on the quasi-totalitarian top-down approach of the
classic utopia, where individuals are mere cogs in the big machinery of the state. Although the two
genres feel different, the dystopias of the twentieth century are a direct reaction to earlier utopian
concepts, and their structural relationship is closer than it might appear. In essence, any classic utopia
can be turned into a dystopia by simply inserting a protagonist who does not conform to the utopian
society. This dialectic is also visible in how alternative societies are treated in Star Trek with the Borg
serving as a paradigmatic example.
The Borg are one of the franchise’s best-known antagonists. They are a collective of trillions of
cybernetic organisms which assimilate most other species they encounter. Once assimilated, one
loses any kind of individuality and becomes part of the Borg hive mind. This arrangement, which, of
course, is portrayed as deeply uncanny, is in several ways very reminiscent of a Morean utopia. As in
the classic model, individuality is erased—or rather suppressed—and every member of the collective
is but a functional unit of the bigger whole. Classic utopias are isolated since they cannot properly
handle individuals who do not follow the utopian rules; similarly, any dissent or individual thought in
the collective is considered an anomaly or a threat that must be rectified. But once this has happened,
the collective proves to be radically egalitarian; there are no prejudices, species, race, and gender do
not matter anymore, all drones are equal. Even the Borg Queen, who is first seen in FCT (Alice
Krige) and then reappears in VOY (Susanna Thompson) and PIC (Annie Wersching), is not a proper
individual but rather the embodied mouthpiece of the cacophony that is the Borg collective.
Unlike in the classic utopia, however, the Borg are not static. Their declared goal is to reach
perfection by assimilating every species and technology in the universe. In this sense, they are not
an example of a stagnant society which Kirk so vehemently opposes. Of course, the Borg are never
considered to be a viable option of how to organize a society; they are, in fact, presented as a threat
to everything the Federation and most species across the galaxy stand for. But they also demonstrate
to what degree utopia and dystopia are largely a question of the point of view. A Borg drone has
nothing to worry about, the hive mind will take care of everything. It is only from the outside that
the monstrous quality of the Borg becomes apparent. The Borg can therefore be understood as an
extreme expression of the utopian/dystopian dialectic and as an illustration of how off-putting some
of the basic tenets of the classic utopia feel today.
Conclusion
Among the scholars who have discussed the utopian qualities of Star Trek, the final verdict varies
greatly. For example, Stoppe comes to the conclusion that Star Trek is not “a classic science fiction
narration anymore,” but rather a “technological or social … and political utopia” (2014, 290). At the
other end of the spectrum is Knuth Hickethier, who contemptuously speaks of a “pseudo-utopia”
(1997, 128). Of course, the final verdict depends on the definition that is applied to Star Trek. If
the classic model established by More serves as a guideline, the franchise does not really qualify
as a utopia. There are individual utopian elements, but overall Star Trek lacks the critical impetus
which is at the heart of the utopian tradition. Furthermore, the way various more or less utopian
communities are portrayed reveals a real distrust of utopias in general. The Borg, who in some way
are a paradigmatic example of a classic utopia, pose a threat to individuality and must therefore be
opposed and fought relentlessly. Societies like the one on Omicron Ceti III, on the other hand, are
equally problematic since they are static. The ideal of Star Trek is the Federation; a society where
rugged individualism and scientific progress are possible without threatening society’s overall stability.
It basically extrapolates the post-WWII United States sans its drastic economic inequalities. Rarely
473
Simon Spiegel
are the causes of these inequalities satisfactorily analyzed though; nor does the show present a viable
solution to overcome them. Rather than any specific political, civic, and/or social measures, it is the
marvel of replicator technology that enables the Federation’s brand of utopia. In other words, it is a
utopia which depends on typical sf handwaving and is in this sense is fundamentally apolitical.
Notes
1 This chapter follows political scientist Thomas Schölderle, who in his study Utopia und Utopie (2011), develops
a useful framework to describe literary utopias.
2 While there are no fiction films which fit the classic utopian model, there are nonfiction films—especially
propaganda—which in many ways are much closer to the Morean model. See Spiegel (2017; 2019; 2021), and
the contributions in Spiegel, Reiter and Goldberg (2020).
3 Although Stoppe repeatedly states how little we learn about how the Federation is organized and although
his understanding of utopia is based on the Morean model, the ultimate conclusion of his study is nevertheless
that Star Trek should be considered as a utopia (2014, 292). It remains unclear though how he reaches this
verdict. See also my review of his book (Spiegel 2015).
4 While there is considerable overlap between utopia and science fiction, the two genres are by no means iden-
tical and ultimately stem from different literary traditions. Thomas More and his immediate successors did
not know the concept of scientific-technological progress and therefore technical innovations, what sf scholar
Darko Suvin calls a “novum” (2016), were not important to them. With the onset of the industrial revolution
in the late eighteenth century, however, a process began that Reinhart Koselleck calls the “temporalization of
utopia” (1985). Consequently, more and more utopias moved into the future and sf nova became the norm.
Since the late nineteenth century, utopias have therefore mostly existed in the sf mode, though exceptions
are still possible and continue to be written to this day. In other words, most modern utopias are sf, but the
majority of sf is not an offspring of the utopian tradition.
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Star Trek Episodes
The Original Series
1.22 “Return of the Archons” 1967.

2.9 “The Apple” 1967.
2.12 “I, Mudd” 1967.
2.25 “The Omega Glory” 1968.
3.19 “The Cloud Minders” 1969.
Voyager
Star Trek Movies
475
INDEX
50th anniversary (of Star Trek) 155, 156 425, 426, 439, 440, 449, 452, 454; attack/invasion
9/11 2, 52, 70, 139, 156, 164–165, 299, 324, 325, 337 60, 297, 324–325, 408; conceptual difficulties of
431; cultures/societies 31, 33, 195, 200, 208, 209,
ableism 3, 412–418, 421; see also disability 404; ecologies 315–316; encounter 32, 128, 130,
Abraham, F. Murray (actor) 133; see also Ru’afo, Ahdar 206, 407, 463; non-humanoid 15, 37, 87, 104, 315,
(character) 336, 340, 345, 358, 363, 366, 368, 389, 424,
Abrams, J.J. (director) 4, 56, 62, 66, 67, 73, 75, 79, 93, 430–437; pairing with human 304, 307–309;
143, 144, 146–151, 154–155, 185, 188, 207, 392, time-traveling 104, 337; see also Othering; first
400 contact (event)
Abramsverse see Kelvin Timeline alienation see Othering
accessibility 414, 415, 417; see also disability Alley, Kristie (actor) 94, 100, 268, 397; see also Saavik
Adams, Barbara (fan) 215 (character)
adaptation 4, 136, 165, 176, 178, 186, 189, 199, Alpha Quadrant 41, 46, 120, 161–162, 165, 326, 344,
201–202, 282–284 435, 452, 461
Adira (character) 42, 66, 69, 256, 307, 400, 409; Amazing Stories (magazine) 222
see also Barrio, Blu del (actor) American Civil War 288, 323
affect 251, 255, 319–320 American West 299, 377
African American 37, 40–41, 133, 259, 272, 283–284, androgyny 386–388, 396, 403–404, 407, 463–464
287, 298–299, 382; see also Blackness; race; racism android 75, 77, 138, 350–351, 412–413, 425, 439,
afterlife 50–51, 341 440–442, 444–446; see also Data (character)
Age of Enlightenment 296, 323, 326, 328, 335, Anglocentrism 4, 295, 323, 325, 366–367
336–337 animals 22, 348, 430–437; holographic recreations of
age/aging 93, 101, 105, 124, 135, 423, 426, 427 432; studies 431–432
ageism see age/aging anti-racism 272, 378; see also race; racism
agender 404 antisemitism 273
Ahab (character) 97, 129–130, 289; see also Moby Dick Apollo (character) 343
(1851 novel) April, Robert (character) 24, 25
AI (artificial intelligence) 9, 12, 76–77, 90, 350–352, Archer, Jonathan (character) 57, 59, 131, 181, 317,
371, 439, 442, 444–446 324, 337, 345, 360, 408, 461–464; see also Bakula,
Airiam (character) 189, 415, 418 Scott (actor)
Alaimo, Marc (actor) 38, 413; see also Dukat Archive of Our Own (AO3) 227; see also fan fiction
(character) Arnold, Richard (research consultant) 23, 179, 338
Alexander, Ian (actor) 42, 66, 69, 256, 307, 400, 409; artificial intelligence see AI
see also Gray (character) Asimov, Isaac 10, 222, 225
Alien (1979 film) 95 Atari 201
alien (lifeform) 9, 12, 18, 19, 23, 34, 47, 70, 110–112, atomic bomb 337; see also nuclear; weapons of mass
117, 133–134, 154, 155, 164, 178, 187, 202, 265, destruction
278, 282, 288, 296, 332, 338, 353, 357, 367, 369, Auberjonois, Réne (actor) 23, 37, 39, 326, 338, 343,
370, 373, 379, 384, 404, 406, 408, 409, 412, 414, 359, 369, 407, 417, 426; see also Odo (character)
476
Index
Augments 62, 93; see also Singh, Khan Noonian Billingsley, John (actor) 57, 59, 287, 307, 360, 369,
(character); Eugenics Wars 405, 407, 426; see also Phlox (character)
Aurellio (character) 69; see also Mitchell, Kenneth biological determinism 140–141, 377, 381, 383
(actor) Blade Runner (1982 film) 29, 95
autonomy 358, 360, 362 Blackness 299, 382, 418; see also African American;
Axanar see Prelude to Axanar (2014 fan film) race
Blalock, Jolene (actor) 57, 299, 338, 345, 370, 408,
B–4 (character) 74, 138, 140, 188, 441–442; see also 426; see also T’Pol (character)
android Blish, James (author) 177, 178
Ba’ku (species/planet) 133–136 Boimler, Bradward “Brad” (character) 24, 80, 82, 83;
Babylon 5 (1993–98 television show) 38–39, 61 see also Quaid, Jack (actor)
Bacon, Francis 468 Bones see McCoy, Leonard (character)
Bad Robot (production company) 66, 151, 168, 171; Bonsall, Brian (actor) 34, 288, 308, 423; see also
see also Abrams, J.J. (director) Rozhenko, Alexander (character)
Baird, Stuart (director) 139 Borg, the (species) 28, 30, 32–33, 53, 127–131, 179,
Bajor (planet) 37, 324, 340, 343, 345, 434; and 181, 185, 187, 189, 200, 261, 325, 337, 351–354,
religion 300, 336, 340, 343, 345; Cardassian 357, 361, 371–372, 443–445, 454–455, 472–473;
occupation of 43, 324–325, 340, 343, 345, 434, Queen 127, 129–131, 239, 308, 444, 445, 473;
435 Reclamation Project 74–75, 445
Bajoran (species) 28, 37, 38, 80, 164, 299–300, 336, Boutella, Sophia (actor) 154, 155; see also Jaylah
383 (character)
Bakula, Scott (actor) 56, 57, 61, 337, 345, 360, 407; Braga, Braga (writer/producer) 56–58, 61–63, 123,
see also Archer, Jonathan (character) 125, 128–130, 189, 316
Balkan Wars 2, 325 Brave New World (1932 novel) 473
Ballantine Books 193 Briones, Isa (actor) 76, 310, 442; see also Dahj
Bantam Books 178–179, 186 (character); Soji (character)
Barclay, Reginald (character) 31, 33, 189, 279, 454; Brook, Jayne (actor), 65, 327, 427; see also Cornwell,
see also Schultz, Dwight (actor) Katrina (character)
Bareil, Antos (character) 38, 345 Brooks, Avery (actor) 76, 272, 298, 326, 332, 336,
Barrett-Roddenberry, Majel 9–10, 18, 21, 25n1, 87, 340, 405, 426, 451, 469; see also Sisko, Benjamin
208, 304–305, 310, 383, 387–388, 421, 424, 425; (character)
see also Troi, Lwaxana (character); Chapel, Christine Brunt (character) 38; see also Combs, Jeffrey (actor);
(character) Ferengi (species)
Bashir, Julian (character) 37, 42, 287, 326, 352, Burnham, Michael (character) 1, 42, 65–72, 75,
359–360, 362–363, 397, 407, 414, 415, 423, 454; 181, 202, 207, 246, 308, 327, 338, 348–350, 352,
see also Siddig, Alexander (actor); Section 31; Garak 382–384, 391, 408; see also Martin-Green, Sonequa
(character) (actor)
Barrio, Blu del (actor) 42, 66, 69, 256, 307, 400, 409; Burton, LeVar (actor) 28, 41, 77, 128, 133, 139, 235,
see also Adira (character) 249, 290, 361, 412, 453; see also La Forge, Geordi
bat’leth 80, 343; see also Klingon culture/values (character)
Battlestar Galactica (2004–09 television show) 61, Bush, George W. 177; see also 9/11
233 Butrick, Merritt (actor) 94, 99, 306, 397; see also
Behr, Ira Steven (writer/producer) 38, 42, 271, 299 Marcus, David (character)
Bellamy, Edward 468, 470
Beltran, Robert (actor) 46, 423, 426; see also Chakotay Cabrera, Santiago (actor) 350; see also Ríos, Cristóbal
(character) (character)
Bennett, Harve (producer) 93–94, 99–101, 108, 110, canon 3, 4, 22, 23, 33, 57, 58, 62, 65, 77, 80, 82, 91,
168 111, 126, 131, 136, 141, 144–146, 148, 151, 162,
Berg, Gretchen J. (writer/producer) 67, 399, 400 169, 172, 177, 179, 181, 185, 188, 190, 193–194,
Berlin Wall 2, 116, 119; see also Cold War 226, 246, 248, 346
Berlin, Irving 138 capitalism 113, 177, 370, 372, 381, 449, 455–456, 469,
Berman, Rick (producer) 29, 30, 38, 47, 49, 56–58, 471; see also Ferengi (species)
60, 61, 123, 128, 133–134, 139, 143, 146, 168, Captain’s Summit, The (2009 film) 272, 274
206–207, 309, 322, 395, 399, 400 Captains, The (2011 film) 272–273
Besch, Bibi (actor) 94, 124, 306; see also Marcus, Carol Cardassians (species) 28, 33, 37, 38, 40, 135, 164, 181,
(character) 200, 322, 324, 336, 340, 343, 344–345, 351, 383,
Betazoid (species) 28, 138, 179, 208, 307, 353, 369, 451, 454, 462; culture 423; Dominion War and 40,
422, 434, 437; see also Troi, Deanna (character); 325, 326, 344; and occupation of Bajor 324, 340,
Troi, Lwaxana (character) 343, 345, 434; see also Dukat (character); Garak
Beyer, Kirsten (writer) 74, 78, 174, 181–182, 190 (character)
477
Index
care 357–363; see also medicine conventions 3, 13, 21, 68, 89, 97, 152n1, 178, 216,
CBS 10, 18, 20, 23, 66–68, 74, 78, 162–163, 169, 221–223, 233, 235, 238–239, 251–254, 258–260,
171–173, 202, 279; Television Studios 81, 198; 262, 264, 277, 278, 286, 395; see also FedCon;
see also Viacom; Paramount WorldCon; fandom
CBS All Access 43, 66, 80, 81, 152, 168, 178, 181, 185, copyright 68, 189, 264–268, 279, 281, 453
188, 399; see also Paramount+ Cook, James 33, 333–335
Cerritos (ship) 80, 82, 83, 370, 453 Coon, Gene L. (producer/writer) 10–12, 14
Chabon, Michael (writer) 74, 78 Cordero, Eugene (actor) 80, 415; see also Rutherford,
Chakotay (character) 51, 247, 309, 423, 426, 435; Samanthan “Sam” (character)
see also Beltran, Robert (actor) Cornwell, Katrina (character) 65, 70, 327, 427; see also
Chang (character) 117, 118, 119; see also Plummer, Brook, Jayne (actor)
Christopher (actor) corporeality 12–13, 282; non- 12, 66, 316, 397
Changelings 37, 38, 343, 344, 396, 407, 426; see also cosplay 216, 222, 233, 258, 261, 267
Founders, the (species); Dominion, the Coto, Manny (producer) 58, 62
Chao, Rosalind (actor) 31, 38, 336, 340, 436; see also counterculture 11, 13, 107, 304; see also sexual
O’Brien, Keiko (character) revolution
Chapel, Christine (character) 9, 18, 20–21, 87, 388; Courage, Alexander (composer) 10, 204–206
see also Barrett-Roddenberry, Majel (actor) Coutts, Emily (actor) 418; see also Detmer, Kayla
Chattaway, Jay (composer) 207 (character)
Cheesman, Hannah (actor) 415; see also Airiam Covid-19 pandemic 5, 67, 71, 154, 158, 236, 259, 262,
(character) 290, 360, 381, 426
Chekov, Pavel (character) 9, 11, 18–20, 25n1, 87, 94, Creation Con 225; see also conventions
99, 104, 106, 107, 117, 118, 119, 122, 154, 172, 255, Creation Entertainment 259; see also conventions
342; see also Koenig, Walter (actor);Yelchin, Anton Crystalline Entity, the (species) 316, 368
(actor) Cromwell, James (actor) 127, 129, 349, 449, 463;
Chernobyl 116, 118; see also nuclear see also Cochrane, Zefram (character)
chess 198, 200, 213 Crosby, Denise (actor) 28, 29, 172, 233, 389; see also
Chieffo, Mary (actor) 65, 384; see also L’Rell Yar, Tasha (character)
(character) Crusher, Beverly (character) 28, 29, 32, 49, 77,
China 11, 116, 119, 131; fandom in 236 125, 133, 287, 318, 359–363, 404–405; see also
Chin-Riley, Una (character) 10, 187, 387–389, 421; McFadden, Gates (actor)
see also Barrett-Roddenberry, Majel (actor); Star Crusher, Wesley (character) 28, 30, 33, 434; see also
Trek: Strange New Worlds (2022–television show) Wheaton, Wil (actor)
Cho, John (actor) 69, 151, 154, 398; see also Sulu, Cruz, Wilson (actor) 65, 146, 254, 363, 397, 399, 427;
Hikaru (character) see also Culber, Hugh (character)
Christianity 110–113, 205, 333, 340, 342; see also Culber, Hugh (character) 42, 65, 68–70, 72, 146, 254,
religion 307, 319, 363, 399, 400, 427; see also Cruz, Wilson
cisnormativity 150–151, 404–407 (actor)
civil rights 52, 69, 246, 295, 332, 350, 354, 382, 395; culture wars 2, 51
movement 11, 52, 246, 272, 298, 395; see also race Cumberbatch, Benedict (actor) 148–149, 151, 162;
Cochrane, Zefram (character) 1, 58, 127–130, 180, see also Singh, Khan Noonian (character)
349, 386, 449–450, 463; see also Cromwell, James Curtis, Robin (actor) 99–100, 106; see also Saavik
(actor) (character)
Cold War 2, 11–12, 28, 30–31, 33, 52, 75, 107, 112, cybernetics 80, 416, 440–441, 444, 453; organism 415,
116, 118–119, 124, 136, 181, 288, 295, 298, 300, 473
323, 325, 336–337, 350, 352, 369, 372, 380, 394, cyborg 34, 90, 249, 350–351, 412, 415–416, 418, 440,
470, 471 444; see also Borg, the (species)
collectibles 4, 122, 202, 214–216, 235
Collins, Eileen (astronaut) 49 Dahj (character) 76, 442; see also Soji (character);
Collins, Joan (actor) 101, 124, 306, 324; see also Keeler, Briones, Isa (actor)
Edith (character) Darren, James (actor) 38, 207, 316, 442; see also
colonialism 4, 12, 40, 180, 283, 300, 317, 320, 322, Fontaine,Vic (character)
332–339, 367, 372, 433, 436 Data (character) 28–29, 31–33, 74–78, 122–123, 125,
Combs, Jeffrey (actor) 38, 344; see also Shran 127–130, 133–135, 138, 164–165, 171, 188–189,
(character); Weyoun (character); Brunt 210n2, 249, 279, 288, 289, 316–317, 337–338,
(character) 351–352, 361, 369, 370–371, 406, 408, 412–413,
computer-generated imagery (CGI) 89, 95, 105, 130, 415–418, 440–444, 446, 452–454, 463–465; singing
136, 383 to lifeforms 430; see also android; Spiner, Brent
Control (AI) 66, 445; see also AI (actor)
478
Index
Dathon (character) 34, 289, 370; see also Tamarians DS9 see Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1992–99 television
(species) show)
David, Peter (novelist) 125, 179, 180, 187 DSC see Star Trek: Discovery (2017–television show)
Dawson, Roxann (actor) 46, 59, 309, 325, 353, 425; Duane, Diane (novelist) 179, 180, 187
see also Torres, B’Elanna (character) Dukat (character) 38, 413; see also Alaimo, Marc
Dax (symbiont) 37, 180, 271, 287, 308, 389–390, 396, (actor); Cardassians (species)
426; see also Trill (species)
Dax, Ezri (character) 38, 42, 287, 308, 390, 405; Earth (planet) 9, 11, 20, 33, 42, 46, 51, 52, 58, 59, 60,
see also de Boer, Nicole (actor) 76, 87, 88, 94, 101, 104, 105, 116, 117, 127–128,
Dax, Jadzia (character) 37, 38, 39, 41, 271, 287, 308, 148, 209, 296, 297, 298, 307, 314, 315, 318, 337,
318, 333, 362, 390, 396, 405, 426, 434; see also 360, 367, 379, 433, 461, 450, 451; see also United
Farrell, Terry (actor) Federation of Planets; Starfleet
Daystrom, Richard (character) 371 economics 316, 317, 449–458, 469
de Boer, Nicole (actor) 38, 287, 308, 390, 405; see also economy 469; distribution of goods 468; post-scarcity
Dax, Ezri (character) 468; profit-oriented 468; reduction of labor 469;
de Lancie, John (actor) 2, 30, 34, 77, 82, 180, 198, 240, see also capitalism
288, 370, 397, 423; see also Q (character) ecosystem 314, 317–318, 435–436
Decker, Matt (character) 91, 328 Eddington, Michael (character) 40, 332, 372
Decker, Will (character) 87–88 Eden see Paradise (biblical)
Deep Space Nine (station) 37, 40, 46, 343, 426 Eidelman, Cliff (composer) 207–208
Deep Space Nine see Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Eisenberg, Aron (actor) 38, 59, 328, 383, 423; see also
(1992–99 television show) Nog (character)
Defiant (ship) 39 embodiment 363, 403, 406, 407
Del Arco, Jonathan (actor) 33, 74, 353, 444; see also EMH (character) 350–351, 358–359, 361, 363, 443,
Hugh (character) 453, 454; see also Doctor, the (character); Picardo,
del Barrio, Blu (actor) 256, 400; see also Adira Robert (actor)
(character) Emissary, the (character) 37, 344–345; see also Sisko,
Delta (planet) 87, 91 Benjamin (character); Bajoran religion
Delta Flyer (shuttlecraft) 23 Enlightenment values/ideals 332–338; see also Age of
Delta Quadrant 46, 51, 189, 333–334, 336, 434, Enlightenment
443–444, 452, 461 ENT see Star Trek: Enterprise (2001–05 television
Desilu Productions 10, 192, 198 show)
Destination Star Trek see conventions Enterprise (Kelvin Timeline) 145, 148, 172; refit 149,
Detmer, Keyla (character) 418; see also Coutts, Emily 156, 188; destruction of 154, 157, 158
(actor) Enterprise (ship/unspecified) 19, 20, 29, 57, 170, 179,
dilithium crystals 66, 287, 319; mines 453 186, 195, 201, 216, 235, 236, 277, 290, 351, 357,
disability 43, 69, 363, 421; medicalization of 413–415, 392; as in “no bloody A, B, C or D” (NCC–1701)
417; political-relational model of 412; stereotypes 9, 11, 12, 18, 21–24, 25, 65, 71, 94, 112, 125, 147,
413–414; temporary 413, 415 163–164, 171, 187, 189, 200, 206, 210, 246, 254,
Discovery (series) see Star Trek: Discovery (2017– 274, 279, 287, 296, 304, 305, 332, 371, 341–342,
television show) 377–379, 388, 398, 461, 471, 472; refit 87, 88, 89,
Discovery (ship) 1, 65–72, 189, 209, 215, 319–320, 327, 91, 94–95, 97, 99, 286; destruction of 100–101
391, 408–409 Enterprise (NX–01) 56, 59, 61, 82, 360, 407, 408, 461,
Disney 66, 71, 182, 260–262 464
Doctor Who (franchise) 13, 176, 189 Enterprise (sailing ship) 123
Doctor, the (character) 46, 49, 309, 338, 350, 358, Enterprise (series) see Star Trek: Enterprise (2001–05
359, 361, 363, 417, 418, 432, 434, 435, 443, 453, television show)
462, 469; see also Picardo, Robert (actor); EMH Enterprise (Space Shuttle) 88, 290, 291
(character) Enterprise–A 102, 105, 110, 111, 114, 116–117; Kelvin
Dominion, the 37, 38, 164, 202, 333, 343, 362, 454; Timeline 154, 155, 433
War 39, 40, 41, 67, 120, 135, 322, 326–327, 344, Enterprise–B 122, 124, 125
351, 359, 455–456, 462; see also Founders, the Enterprise–D 28, 30, 31, 32, 35, 37, 38, 46, 57, 60, 74,
(species);Vorta (species); Jem’Hadar (species) 124, 187, 189, 198, 261, 262, 274, 278, 307, 315,
Doohan, James (actor) 9, 18, 21, 23, 25n1, 87, 99, 317–318, 335, 351, 362, 368, 370, 380, 395, 396,
104, 117, 122, 186, 214, 234, 287, 323, 472; see also 404, 407, 415, 417–418, 425, 437, 451, 452, 454,
Scott, Montgomery “Scotty” (character) 463, 465; destruction of 122, 125
Dorn, Michael (actor) 28, 37, 77, 80, 127, 141, 164, Enterprise–E 127–129, 133, 138, 141, 170, 188, 189,
172, 208, 278, 288, 299, 308, 343, 359, 370, 380, 442
415; see also Worf (character) environmentalism 106–107, 313, 315, 471
479
Index
Epic of Gilgamesh, The 289, 300 Fletcher, Louise (actor) 38, 336, 340–341, 345; see also
ethnicity 31, 295, 298; see also race Winn, Adami (character)
eugenics 96, 417 Fletcher, Robert (costume designer) 89, 91
Eugenics Wars 11, 52, 177, 296–298, 323, 323n2, 444; Fontaine,Vic (character) 38, 207, 316, 442; see also
see also Singh, Khan Noonien (character) Darren, James (actor); hologram
Eurocentrism 323; see also Anglocentrism Fontana, Dorothy “D.C.” (writer) 10–11, 18–20, 24,
evolution 11, 13, 51, 59, 107, 112, 287, 316–317, 353, 29, 169
435, 439, 444, 463 Forester, C.S. (author) 94
Ex Astris Scientia (EAS) 237–238, 240, 241; see also Founders, the (species) 37, 43, 326, 343–344, 359,
Memory Alpha; fan labor 370; attempted genocide of 42, 327, 337; see also
Excelsior (ship) 116, 117, 186 Dominion, the
Exocomps 453, 464; see also AI Frain, James (actor) 65, 327; see also Sarek (character)
exploration 2, 11, 57, 58, 94, 120, 151, 202, 216, 234, Frakes, James (actor) 28, 39, 61, 74, 80, 88, 130, 138,
260, 261, 283, 295, 315, 332–333, 372; as colonial 210n2, 272, 307, 316, 361, 370, 396, 404, 412,
tool 336, 338, 433; see also Age of Enlightenment; 452; as director 129, 133–134, 268; see also Riker,
Starfleet William T. (character)
franchise 1, 10, 13, 14, 33, 57, 65, 71, 93, 122,
fair use 253, 264–268; see also copyright 125–126, 154, 155, 156–157, 161–163, 168–169,
faith 50, 51, 111, 340, 341, 343, 345; see also religion 171, 190, 202, 216; fatigue 136, 139, 143; franchise
“faith of the heart” xi–xvii novels and the Star Trek canon 176, 177–178
family 32, 41, 273, 304, 305, 328, 378, 382, 398; Freeman, Carol (character) 23, 80; see also Lewis,
members on starships 29; the crew as 34, 69, 93, 99, Dawnn (actor)
101, 134; values 51, 59 Fukuyama, Francis 33, 119, 124, 363
fan clubs 215, 221–223, 226, 227, 232, 236, 240, Fuller, Brian (writer/producer) 67, 397, 399, 400
244–246 fungi 319–320, 430, 433
fan culture 178, 226, 227, 271–275
fan fiction 178, 224, 226–227, 243, 244–245, 252, Galaxy Quest (1999 film) 152n1, 221, 278
259; cross-overs 226 Garak, Elim (character) 38, 40, 42, 180, 252, 332, 372,
fan films 165, 266–268; see also Prelude to Axanar 397, 423, 462; see also Robinson, Andrew (actor);
(2014 fan film) Bashir, Julian (character); Cardassians (species)
fan labor xix, 166, 195, 221, 225, 243, 245 Gaylactic Network 395
fan studies 4, 227, 244, 245 Gaylaxians 396, 397
fandom 4, 13, 58, 66, 69, 150, 181, 185, 190, 194, gender 11, 14, 31, 247, 271–272, 299, 353, 372–373,
210, 231–242, 249, 253, 264, 272, 274, 278, 388; 392, 403–408, 416, 418, 422; binary 396, 405, 464;
as transformational practice 4, 216, 221, 243–244, complexity 390; fluidity 405; identity 404–406,
265, 268, 271 408; inequality 49; nonbinary 403, 405, 409
fanon (fan canon) 185 genderqueer 389
fan-produced merchandise 214, 215 Genesis (device/project) 94, 96, 99, 101, 337
fanvids 223, 251–257, 264 Genesis (planet) 99–100
fanzines 178, 222–228, 232, 236, 245–247, 264, 387 genetic(s) 96, 287, 348, 353, 354; determinism 140,
Farrell, Terry (actor) 39, 49, 271, 287, 308, 318, 141, 344, 381; engineering 14, 59, 326, 417, 454,
333, 362, 390, 396, 405, 426; see also Dax, Jadzia 471; see also eugenics
(character) Georgiou, Philippa (character) 42, 65, 70, 327, 352,
Farscape (1999–2003 television show) 61, 350 384, 397, 400, 425; Prime 463; see also Yeoh,
fascism 297, 324, 352; see also National Socialism Michelle (actor)
faster-than-light travel see warp technology Gernsback, Hugo 222
FedCon 233, 259; see also conventions Gerrold, David (writer) 20–22, 29, 59, 177, 178, 225,
Federation see United Federation of Planets 268, 395–397, 400
femininity 283, 353, 373, 387–392, 406, 423 Giacchino, Michael (composer) 207
feminism 304, 309, 422; second-wave 350, 354; Gilgamesh see Epic of Gilgamesh, The
see also women’s rights God 88, 93, 110, 111–112, 113; gods and deities 295,
Ferengi (species) 28, 33, 38, 198, 200, 287, 296, 340, 342–344, 345, 346; see also religion; faith
343, 367, 372, 383, 449, 454–456, 469; Rules of Gold Key (comics) 164, 185, 186, 203
Acquisition 367, 370 Goldberg, Whoopi (actor) 29, 30, 77, 122, 272, 274,
Ferenginar (planet) 454, 455, 456 369, 424, 452; see also Guinan (character)
filking 223; see also fan labor Goldsman, Akiva (writer/producer) 67, 74, 78
first contact (event) 127–132, 165, 298, 336, 349, 352, Goldsmith, Jerry (composer) 82, 90–91, 130, 204–207
435; First Contact Day 128, 131, 165; see also Star Gorkon (character) 116, 117, 118; see also Warner,
Trek: First Contact (1995 film) David (actor)
480
Index
Gorn (species) 82, 287 humanity 2, 3, 4, 39, 46, 58, 101, 157, 209, 358, 361,
grandparents 423–424 363, 406, 407, 408, 412, 417–418; see also Earth
graphic novels 141, 161–162, 164, 187, 189, 341, 398 (planet)
Gray (character) 307, 400; see also Alexander, Ian Hunter, Jeffrey (actor) 164, 307, 421; see also Pike,
(actor) Chrisopher (character)
Grodénchik, Max (actor) 38, 455; see also Rom Hurd, Michelle (actor) 42, 76, 190, 456; see also
(character) Musiker, Raffaela “Raffi ” (character)
Guardian of Forever (character) 23, 24, 180; see also hybrids/hybridity 307, 308, 309, 382, 415, 444
time travel hypertextuality 82
Guinan (character) 77, 122, 124, 274, 369, 452; see also
Goldberg, Whoopi (actor) Icheb (character) 352–353; see also Intiraymi, Manu
(actor)
Haldeman, Joe (writer) 177, 178 IDIC see Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations
Hamlet (1603 play) 289; see also Shakespeare, William IDW Publishing 185, 186, 187–190
Harberts, Aaron (writer/producer) 67, 70, 397, 399, Ilia (character) 87–88, 235
400 illusion 11, 15, 124, 193, 421, 443
Hardy, Tom (actor) 138; see also Shinzon (character) immortality 136, 342, 363, 440
Harriman, John (character) 124–125, 189; see also imperialism 2, 3, 4, 46, 52, 75, 135, 150, 300, 283, 322,
Ruck, Alan (actor) 325, 329n1, 332–338, 351, 367, 372, 436, 444, 451,
Harry Potter (franchise) 14 459; see also colonialism
Hasbro 199 Industrial Light & Magic 89, 95, 110
heaven 113; see also religion; faith Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations (IDIC)
Heidegger, Martin 163, 346, 459 69, 151, 213–216, 231, 239, 418
Hertzler, J.G. (actor) 38, 172; see also Martok intellectual property see copyright
(character) International Space Station (ISS) 290, 348
heteronormativity 284, 304, 394–395, 400, 404, 418, interracial kiss 272, 378
445 Intiraymi, Manu (actor) 352–353; see also Icheb
Hicks, Catherine (actor) 104, 471; see also Taylor, (character)
Gillian (character) Isaacs, Jason (actor) 65, 328, 384, 425; see also Lorca,
Hirogen (species) 297, 324, 334, 337 Gabriel (character)
historian 295–296, 299 Ishka (character) 38, 423, 455; see also Ferengi
historiography 48, 56, 93, 245, 288 (species)
Hitler, Adolf 297, 462; see also National Socialism; “It’s been a long road” 1–475
fascism
HIV/AIDS 59–60, 96, 307, 309, 395 J’naii (species) 389, 396, 404
Holocaust 273, 325; allegory of 43, 325 jahSepp (species) 430, 436
holodeck 23, 28, 29, 32, 123, 124, 181, 207, 198, 295, Janeway, Kathryn (character) 23–25, 42, 46, 48, 49, 51,
297, 299–300, 309, 350, 432, 442–443 69, 74, 138, 180, 189, 202, 247, 262, 288, 297, 306,
hologram 50, 417, 418, 442–443, 444, 445, 453 309, 315, 324, 333, 353, 358, 361, 372, 391–392,
holographic technologies 350–351, 353; see also EMH 426, 434, 435–436, 437, 452, 461; maneuver 82;
(character) salamander children of 435–436; see also Mulgrew,
holonovel 48, 453 Kate (actor)
holoship 136 Japanese-American internment 273, 378, 398
homoeroticism 140, 243, 247–249, 252, 284 Jaws (1975 film) 95
homophobia 60, 97, 273, 284, 395–96, 398 Jaylah (character) 154–157, 188
homosexuality 51, 131, 255–256, 464; as gay 69, Jellico, Edward (character) 33, 189
131, 156, 281, 306–307, 394–403, 404; as lesbian Jem’Hadar (species) 170, 343–344, 357; see also
394–403 Dominion, the
horizontal gene transfer 348; see also mycelial Jemison, Mae (astronaut) 272, 287
network; tardigrades Jewish identity 273, 300
Hornblower, Horatio (character) 10, 94, 97, 295 Jones, Doug (actor) 65, 463; see also Saru (character)
Horner, James (composer) 204, 206 Justman, Robert “Bob” (producer) 10, 22n1, 29, 206,
Horta (species) 3, 14–15, 316, 368, 433, 435 310, 395
Howard, Clint (actor) 424
Hugh (character) 33, 74–75, 353, 444–445; see also K/S slash fic see Kirk/Spock (K/S)
Del Arco, Jonathan (actor); Borg, the (species) Kahless the Unforgettable 188, 343; see also Klingon
Hugo Awards 29, 30, 39, 102, 130 religion
humanism 2, 101, 210, 239, 272, 289, 295, 300, 332, kai 299; see also Bajoran religion; Winn, Adami
342, 366, 432, 439–440, 441, 444–446 (character); Opaka (character)
481
Index
Kant, Immanuel 163, 357–358, 360, 459–460 L’Rell (character) 65, 72, 308, 384; see also Chieffo,
Kasseelian Opera 208–209 Mary (actor)
katra 99, 101, 102, 345; see also Vulcan religion La Forge, Geordi (character) 28, 77, 128, 133, 188,
Keating, Dominic (actor) 57; see also Reed, Malcolm 189, 190, 249, 290, 361, 412, 416–417, 444, 453,
(character) 460; see also Burton, LeVar (actor); disability
Keeler, Edith (character) 101, 125, 306, 324; see also labor 75, 416, 418, 443, 449, 452–453, 469, 472;
Collins, Joan (actor) camps 345, 434; see also economics
Kelley, DeForest (actor) 9–10, 18, 39, 49, 59, Lal (character) 406; see also android
87, 94, 99–102, 104, 110, 116, 122, 234, Laris (character) 190; see also Star Trek: Picard (2020–
287, 297, 323, 358, 378, 407, 417, 422, 461, television show)
472; see also McCoy, Leonard “Bones” Latif, Shazad (actor) 65, 308, 328, 363, 384, 399, 408;
(character) see also Tyler, Ash (character)
Kelvin Timeline 4, 56, 62, 64, 144–145, 148–149, latinum (liquid metal) 367, 469
151–152, 155, 157, 168, 171, 188, 195, 199, 207, LDS see Star Trek: Lower Decks (2020– television
306–307, 392 show)
Kelvinverse see Kelvin Timeline Lee, Spike (director) 380, 382
Kennedy Space Center 290 Leeta (character) 38, 171; see also Masterson, Chase
Kennedy, John F. 95, 377, 381 (actor)
Kes (character) 46, 48–50, 306, 422; see also Lien, Lenard, Mark (actor) 14–15, 18, 99, 106, 118, 122,
Jennifer (actor) 209; see also Sarek (character); Spock (character);
Keynesian economics 449, 450, 456 Vulcan (species)
Khan see Singh, Khan Noonien (character) Lewis and Clark expedition 333
Kim, Harry (character) 46, 315, 334, 358, 361, 423; Lewis, Dawnn (actor) 23, 80, 83; see also Freeman,
see also Wang, Garrett (actor) Carol (character)
King, Martin Luther Jr. 259, 272, 380, 381 LGBTQ+ representation 42, 52, 156–157, 271, 273,
Kira, Nerys (character) 33, 37, 39, 41, 49, 70, 80, 319, 394–395, 397–401; see also queerness; trans
172–173, 324, 340, 344–345, 352, 390, 396–397, (as in transgender)
431; see also Visitor, Nana (actor) liberal humanism 65, 71, 432; see also humanism
Kirk, James T. (character) 9, 12–15, 18–20, 22–25, 69, licensing 169–171, 186, 198–200; see also copyright
81, 87–88, 91, 94, 96, 99, 101, 112–113, 117–119, Lien, Jennifer (actor) 46, 306, 422; see also Kes
122, 124–125, 148, 150–151, 154, 156, 157, 168, (character)
180, 186, 187, 189, 254, 262, 286, 287, 288, 289, Lin, Justin (director) 155, 399
295, 296, 305–306, 309, 323, 324, 332, 341–342, Lincoln, Abraham 118, 288, 300, 377
352, 358, 371, 378–379, 386, 417, 422, 423, 426, Lindelof, Damon (writer/producer) 148–149, 151
433, 449, 459, 472, 473; see also Shatner, William LiveJournal 226, 227, 236, 245, 253; see also Archive of
(actor); Pine, Chris (actor); Kirk/Spock (K/S) 224, Our Own (AO3)
227, 239, 244, 247–248, 253, 387, 398; see also fan Lloyd, Christopher (actor) 100, 141; see also Kruge
fiction; slash fiction (character); Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984
Klingon (species) 9, 37, 65, 69–70, 99, 102, 125, 148, film)
150, 152, 172, 181, 195, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, Locutus of Borg (character) 308, 444; see also Borg
260, 261, 296–297, 308, 325, 352, 353, 359, (species); Picard, Jean-Luc (character)
380–382, 425, 436, 454, 462; as Cold War allegory Lofton, Cirroc (actor) 37, 272, 336, 340, 424, 426;
11–12, 59, 107, 112, 116, 119; culture/values see also Sisko, Jake (character)
31–32, 34, 300, 336, 351, 370, 383, 418, 459; Logan, John (writer) 139, 140
language 179, 208, 266, 366–367; music 90, Lorca, Gabriel (character) 65, 69–71, 328, 384, 425;
207–208, 210; Neutral Zone 94, 117; religion 51, see also Isaacs, Jason (actor)
343; see also Worf (character) Lore (character) 34, 75, 441–442, 444–445; see also
Kobayashi Maru (test) 94, 97n3, 180, 286, android; Data (character); Soong, Noonian
460–461 (character)
Koenig, Walter (actor) 9, 18, 20, 23, 25n1, 87, 94, 99, Los Angeles, CA 10, 39, 129, 149, 222, 297, 398
106, 117, 122, 172, 255, 342; see also Chekov, Pavel Lower Decks see Star Trek: Lower Decks (2020–
(character) television show)
Krall (character) 154–155, 157–158 Lucas, George (director) 89, 95, 146
Krige, Alice (actor) 127, 129, 130, 308, 473; see also Lucasfilm 260, 281
Borg Queen LWR see Star Trek: Lower Decks (2020– television
Kronos see Qo’nos show)
Kruge (character) 99, 100, 141
Kurtzman, Alex (producer) 62, 66–68, 74, 78, 81, 144, M’Ress (character) 18, 187
146, 148–151, 169 M’Ress (fan) 239–240
482
Index
Mack, David (author) 177, 181, 182 miniskirt see Starfleet uniforms
Maddox, Bruce (character) 31, 441–442, 445, 452 Minor, Mike (art director) 95
manifest destiny 52, 135, 333, 335 Mirror Universe 42, 43, 70–71, 173, 180, 185, 186,
Maquis, the 40, 42, 46, 47, 76, 322, 451, 454 187, 188, 189, 202, 297, 327, 328, 340, 351–352,
Marcus, Carol (character) 94, 125, 149, 151, 156, 306; 354, 384, 396–397, 407, 425
see also Besch, Bibi (actor); Star Trek II: The Wrath Mitchell, Kenneth (actor) 65, 69; see also Aurellio
of Khan (1982 film); Star Trek Into Darkness (2013 (character)
film) Moby Dick (1851 novel) 97, 129–130, 289, 368
Marcus, David (character) 94, 96, 101, 306, 397; money 449, 451, 455, 467–469
see also Butrick, Merritt (actor) Montalban, Ricardo (actor) 14, 94–95, 148, 289, 323;
Mariner, Beckett (character) 80, 83; see also Newsome, see also Singh, Khan Noonien (character); Star Trek
Tawnie (actor) II: The Wrath of Khan (1982 film)
marriage 138, 140; equality 398; open 304, 307, 309; Montgomery, Anthony (actor) 41, 57; see also
plural 306 Mayweather, Travis (character)
Mars (planet) 52, 75–77, 188, 298, 453 Moore, Ronald D. (producer) 30, 31, 38, 42, 61, 123,
Martin-Green, Sonequa (actor) 42, 65, 75, 173, 202, 125, 128, 130, 174, 400
207, 246, 308, 327, 338, 348, 382, 391, 408; see also More, Thomas (philosopher) 467–468, 470, 472, 473,
Burnham, Michael (character) 474n4; see also utopia
Martok (character) 38, 172, 173; see also Hertzler, J.G. Moriarty, James (character) 316, 432, 443; see also
(actor) holodeck
Marvel 144, 152; Comics 14, 186, 187; franchise 14, mortality 105, 123–124, 157, 335
71, 126, 149 Moset, Crell (character) 434–435; see also Cardassians
Marxism 119, 469 (species)
Mary Sue 224, 228, 405; see also fan fiction Mount, Anson (actor) 65, 147, 210, 427; see also Pike,
masculinity 69, 124, 248, 308, 387–392, 394, 396, 406, Christopher (character); Star Trek: Strange New
407, 417–418, 424; toxic 140–142, 279 Worlds (2022–television show)
masquerade 222, 223; see also conventions; fan culture Mudd, Harcourt “Harry” Fenton (character) 18, 23,
Masterson, Chase (actor) 38, 171; see also Leeta 209, 239
(character) Muldaur, Diane (actor) 29, 80, 358, 362, 417; see also
McCoy, Leonard (character) 9, 14–15, 18–20, 23–24, Pulaski, Katherine (character)
39, 59, 87–88, 94, 96, 99–102, 104, 105, 110, 112, Mulgrew, Kate (actor) 23, 42, 46, 48, 69, 138, 247,
113, 116, 117, 122, 149, 154, 157, 162, 186, 189, 288, 297, 306, 315, 324, 333, 353, 358, 372, 391,
190, 199, 234, 268, 287, 289, 297, 323, 358, 360, 426, 434, 443, 452, 461; see also Janeway, Kathryn
362–363, 378, 398, 407, 417, 421, 424–425, 461, (character)
472; see also Kelley, DeForest (actor); Urban, Karl music: classical 209–210; diegetic 207–209, 210n1; in
(actor) fan vids 253, 255; soundtrack 90
McDowell, Malcolm (actor) 122, 124; see also Soran, Musiker, Raffaela “Raffi ” (character) 42, 76, 190, 456;
Tolian (character) see also Hurd, Michelle (actor)
McFadden, Gates (actor) 28, 29, 30, 49, 77, 125, mycelial network 65, 173, 254, 319, 348, 354, 363,
133, 287, 318, 359, 404; see also Crusher, Beverly 399, 436; see also horizontal gene transfer
(character) mythology 34, 259, 286, 342, 370
McNeil, Robert Duncan (actor) 23, 46, 59, 304, 315,
334, 435, 451; see also Paris, Tom (character) NASA 49, 89, 272, 274, 290, 291, 348, 354, 355, 380;
Meaney, Colm (actor) 34, 37, 82, 164, 328, 360, 455; planetary protection policy of 435
see also O’Brien, Miles (character) National Socialism 296–297, 324, 325, 336, 337;
media franchising 169–170, 174, 192–194, 196; see see also Hitler, Adolf; fascism
also franchise NBC 10, 18–22, 198, 223, 224, 276, 305
medical care 351, 357, 359, 362–363, 435; cure Neelix (character) 46, 51, 49, 322, 358, 422, 423, 434,
414–416; equity 407; ethics 287, 434; prosthetics 452, 459; see also Phillips, Ethan (actor)
415, 444; technology 90, 135, 350–351 neoliberalism 5, 75, 111, 352
Memory Alpha xix, 39, 154, 194–195, 213, 214, 221, neural network 352–353; see also artificial intelligence;
224, 228, 236, 281, 319, 432, 469, 474; see also fan Borg, the (species)
labor Newsome, Tawnie (actor) 80, 83; see also Mariner,
metatextuality 82 Beckett (character)
Meyer, Nicholas (director) 67, 93–96, 105, 107, 113, Nichols, Nichelle (actor) 9–10, 18, 20–21, 24, 25n1,
116–119 69, 87, 99, 100, 104, 117, 179, 186, 245, 246, 255,
military-industrial complex, the 96, 139, 141, 150 258–259, 272–274, 287, 290, 304–305, 350, 373,
mind meld 14, 20, 60, 88, 90, 99, 100, 117, 119, 244, 377, 390, 392, 395, 424; see also Uhura, Nytoa
345, 369, 433, 435; see also Vulcan (species) (character)
483
Index
Nimoy, Adam 273 Park, Linda (actor) 57, 350, 373; see also Sato, Hoshi
Nimoy, Leonard (actor) 9–10, 20–21, 29, 81, 87, 89, (character)
91, 94–95, 99–102, 105–106, 110, 116–117, 123, parody 68, 80, 81, 97n1, 253, 264, 276, 281–282, 284,
145, 149, 156–157, 180, 188, 198, 207, 224–225, 433, 450, 455
243, 245, 252–253, 258, 260, 272–273, 278, 286, Peck, Ethan (actor) 65, 168, 213, 382, 416; see also
295, 306, 314, 337, 342, 358, 368, 378, 415, Spock (character)
421–422, 433, 449, 460, 471; see also Spock Peeples, Samuel (writer) 10, 20–21, 95
(character) Pegg, Simon (actor) 154, 155, 156, 162, 194, 287, 399;
Nog (character) 38, 41, 59, 328, 383, 424; see also see also Montgomery, Scott “Scotty” (character);
Eisenberg, Aron (actor) Kelvin Timeline
Notaro, Tig (actor) 42, 69, 256, 400; see also Reno, Jett Peters, Brock (actor) 38, 424, 469; see also Sisko,
(character) Joseph (character)
nuclear: annihilation 11, 12, 298, 318, 349, 436; Phillips, Ethan (actor) 46, 322, 358, 422, 452, 459;
disarmament 353–354; fears and metaphors 96, see also Neelix (character)
116, 471; technology 296; “wessels” 104; see also Phlox (character) 57, 59, 61, 287, 307, 317, 360–363,
Chernobyl; Cold War; World War III; weapons of 369, 407, 426, 434, 463; see also Billingsley, John
mass destruction (actor)
Number One (character) see Chin-Riley, Una PIC see Star Trek: Picard (2020–television show)
(character) Picard, Jean-Luc (character) 28, 32, 33, 37, 38, 69, 70,
74–78, 82, 122–125, 127–131, 133–136, 138, 140,
O’Brien, Keiko (character) 31, 34, 38, 39, 336, 340, 147, 164, 173, 177, 180, 189–190, 206, 209, 260,
436; see also Chao, Rosalind (actor) 288, 289, 296, 300, 306, 315, 317, 318, 328, 335,
O’Brien, Kirayoshi (character) 170, 171 336, 337, 350–351, 359, 361–362, 367, 369, 370,
O’Brien, Miles (character) 34, 37, 82, 164, 165, 328, 416, 417, 425, 427, 431–432, 437, 440, 443,
360, 431, 455; see also Meaney, Colm (actor) 444–446, 449, 452, 453, 456, 460, 464, 468–469,
Obi, Chris (actor) 382; see also T’Kuvma (character) 471; see also Stewart, Patrick (actor)
Obsidian Order 326; see also Cardassians (species) Picardo, Robert (actor) 46, 210n2, 287, 309, 316, 338,
Odan, Kareel (character) 405; see also Trill (species) 350, 358, 407, 417, 426, 432, 443, 453, 462, 464;
Odo (character) 23, 37, 310, 326, 338, 343–345, 359, see also Doctor, the (character)
369, 396, 407, 417, 426, 436; see also Auberjonois, Pike, Christopher (character) 65, 70–71, 147, 148,
René (actor) 150, 164, 187, 189, 210, 307, 416, 421, 427;
Okuda, Denise and Michael (artists) 24, 87, 91, see also Hunter, Jeffrey (actor); Mount,
193–194 Anson (actor)
Oliver, Susan (actor) 307, 421; see also Vina (character) Piller, Michael (producer) 30, 38, 47, 48, 49, 57,
Opaka (character) 344–345; see also Bajoran religion; 133–134, 136, 168
kai Pine, Chris (actor) 145, 148, 154, 155, 162, 168, 254,
Orci, Robert (writer) 67, 144, 146, 148–151, 155 273, 306, 398; see also Kirk, James T. (character);
Organians (species) 12, 31, 189, 431 Kelvin Timeline
Organization for Transformative Work (OTW) 227, Planet of the Apes (1968 film) 189, 354
245; see also fan fiction Plummer, Christopher (actor) 117; see also Chang
Orientalism 208, 323, 338; see also Othering (character); Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
Orions (species) 22, 66, 80, 307, 383 (1991 film)
Okrand, Marc (linguist) 208; see also Klingon Pocket Books 136, 178, 179–182, 187
language;Vulcan language pollution 21, 313, 315, 320, 421, 463
Orville, The (2017–television show) 68, 237, 239, 264, polyamory 306–307
268, 278–279 pon farr 100, 248, 254, 379; see also sex;Vulcan
Orwell, George (author) 473 (species)
Othering 141, 207–208, 308–309, 412 pornography 93, 281–285
posthumanism 48, 90, 352, 363, 431, 439, 441, 442,
Paradise (biblical) 12, 13, 112–113, 114 445; see also cyborg
Paradise, Michelle (writer/producer) 67, 70, 409 post-scarcity society 39, 113, 348–350, 354, 440,
Paramount (production company) 10, 13, 19–20, 23, 66, 449–451, 455; see also utopia
88–89, 100, 110, 110–111, 122–123, 149, 154–155, pregnancy 39, 41, 48, 105, 309, 422; pregnant men
177–182, 186, 193, 198, 225, 232, 260, 264, 268, 274, 406–407
394; as Paramount+66, 68, 81–82, 152, 185 Prelude to Axanar (2014 fan film) 173, 266–267, 268,
paratext 52, 111, 194, 271, 273, 386 279
Paris, Tom (character) 23, 46, 59, 304, 309, 334, 451, Prime Directive 12, 59, 112, 134–135, 202, 298, 335,
454; salamander children of 315, 316, 435–436; 344–345, 350, 369, 436, 460–463; violations of 148,
see also McNeil, Robert Duncan (actor) 378, 379, 435, 472
484
Index
Prime Universe 42, 65, 145, 149, 182, 188, 189, 199, revenge (as theme) 94–97, 129–130, 150, 279, 282,
327, 351–352, 396, 400; see also Mirror Universe; 289, 328, 337
Kelvin Timeline Riker, William T. (character) 24, 28, 30, 31, 39, 42, 74,
PRO see Star Trek: Prodigy (2021–television show) 75, 80, 82, 83, 88, 127, 128, 129, 133, 138, 140, 141,
propaganda 48, 113, 474n2 179, 181, 210n2, 307–308, 309, 316, 318, 361, 370,
Prophets, the (entities) 37, 41, 340, 344–345, 346, 431; 396, 397, 404, 405, 407, 412, 445, 452, 459, 464,
see also Bajoran religion 465; see also Frakes, Jonathan (actor)
PTSD 38, 69, 328 Ríos, Cristóbal (character) 350; see also Cabrera,
puberty 422, 424 Santiago (actor)
Pulaski, Katherine (character) 29, 31, 33, 80, 362; Ripper (entity) 348–349; see also tardigrade
see also Muldaur, Diana (actor) Ro, Laren (character) 33, 38, 39
Robinson, Andrew (actor) 38, 42, 180, 252, 332, 372,
Q (character) 1–2, 34, 77, 82, 179–180, 185, 188–189, 397, 423, 462; see also Garak, Elim (character)
198, 239, 240, 288, 323, 363, 370, 397, 423, 424; robot 352, 439–441, 444, 451, 453; robotics 90, 452;
see also de Lancie, John (actor) see also AI
Q continuum 288, 295, 323 Roddenberry Entertainment 67
Qo’noS (planet) 59, 116–117, 148, 150; see also Roddenberry, Eugene “Rod” Jr. 67, 231
Klingon (species) Roddenberry, Gene (producer) 2, 3, 10–11, 18, 19,
Quaid, Jack (actor) 80, 83; see also Boimler, Bradward 20, 21, 22, 23, 28, 29–30, 33, 39, 57, 87, 88, 89, 91,
“Brad” (character) 93, 94, 95, 100, 111, 117, 119, 143, 145, 146,
Quantum Leap (1989–93 TV show) 57, 413 168–169, 179, 192, 198, 206, 208, 216, 223, 225,
Quark (character) 37–38, 40, 172, 173, 261, 322, 332, 226, 231, 234, 239, 259, 262, 264, 274, 295, 299,
336, 370, 372, 405–406, 455; see also Shimerman, 304–307, 309–310, 322, 332, 338, 340, 349, 354,
Armin (actor); Ferengi (species) 380, 388, 394–401, 421–422, 450, 471; humanism
queerness 4, 69–70, 247–248, 284, 353, 387, of 101, 272, 335, 341–343, 440; vision of 46–48,
389–390, 394–411; see also LGBTQ+; trans 58, 62, 66, 75, 120, 133, 177, 214, 215, 363,
(as in transgender) 467, 470
queer ecology 319–320 Rom (character) 38, 455; see also Grodénchik, Max
queer sexuality 59, 284, 405 (actor)
queer representation 30, 42, 69–70, 141, 247–249, Roman Empire 128, 135, 295, 297
254, 256, 284, 307, 387, 389–390, 394–411 Romulan (species) 9, 11, 12, 13, 33, 35, 39, 40, 42, 43,
Quinto, Zachary (actor) 145, 148, 154, 155, 168, 171, 75, 76, 77, 100, 106, 107, 110, 117, 120, 123, 134,
172, 207, 397, 398; see also Spock (character); Kelvin 135, 136, 138, 141, 145, 157, 165, 170, 180, 181,
Timeline 187, 188, 190, 200, 201, 202, 216, 295, 325, 326,
351–352, 357, 359, 361, 378–379, 380–381, 383,
race 4, 14, 28, 31, 41, 43, 59, 151–152, 227, 234, 434, 454, 462; Neutral Zone 138, 177; and Reman
247, 249, 272, 298–299, 323, 332, 373, 377–385, (species) 138, 140, 141
412–413, 417, 431, 464; see also African American; Romulus (planet) 75, 138, 147, 148, 172, 188
Blackness Rozhenko, Alexander (character) 34, 288, 308, 423;
racism 3, 31, 39, 41, 43, 59, 63, 113, 118–119, 158, see also Bonsall, Brian (actor)
249, 273, 283, 298–299, 337, 343, 349, 353, Ru’afo, Ahdar (character) 133, 135; see also Abraham,
378–379, 383, 395, 416, 425, 470–472 F. Murray (actor)
Rand, Janice (character) 9, 87, 305; see also Whitney, RusCon 238–239; see also conventions
Grace Lee (actor) Russ, Tim (actor) 46, 315, 324, 358, 370, 415, 426,
rape 12, 28, 59–60, 119, 138, 140–141, 254 459; see also Tuvok (character)
Rapp, Anthony (actor) 42, 65, 69, 254, 307, 319, 384, Russo, Jeff (composer) 205, 207
397, 399, 409, 427; see also Stamets, Paul (character) Rutherford, Samanthan “Sam” (character) 80, 415;
Reagan, Ronald 94, 96, 101, 107, 111, 379; as see also Cordero, Eugene (actor)
Reaganism 114, 381–382, 385 Ryan, Jeri (actor) 33, 48, 57, 74, 172, 179, 202, 249,
redshirt (concept) 9, 187, 268, 282 298, 309, 324, 338, 352, 371, 390, 415, 436, 445;
Redshirts (2012 novel) 182, 264 see also Seven of Nine (character)
Reliant (ship) 94–95, 97
religion 4, 40–41, 50–51, 111–114, 205, 234, 300, Saavik (character) 94, 96, 99, 100, 105, 106, 286;
340–347, 425; see also faith; God; Bajoran religion; see also Alley, Kristie (actor); Curtis, Robin
Klingon religion;Vulcan religion (actor)
Reno, Jett (character) 42, 69, 400; see also Notaro, Tig Saldana, Zoë (actor) 148, 151, 392; see also Uhura,
(actor) Nyota (character); Kelvin Timeline
replicator 81, 349–350, 449, 451–452, 468–469, 474; San Diego Comic-Con 223, 258, 259; see also
see also technology conventions
485
Index
San Francisco 31, 89, 104, 105, 116, 150, 262, 296, Sirtis, Marina (actor) 28, 49, 61, 74, 88, 138, 139,
297, 449 307, 335, 369, 389, 413, 422, 431, 460; see also Troi,
Sarek (character) 15, 18, 65, 99, 101, 106, 118, 122, Deanna (character)
209, 307, 327; see also Lenard, Mark (actor); Sisko, Benjamin (character) 25, 37, 40, 41, 43, 50, 76,
Frain, James (actor) 182, 262, 298, 299, 326, 332, 336, 340, 344–345,
Saru (character) 65, 66, 463; see also Jones, Doug 346, 405, 407, 426, 451, 462, 469; see also Brooks,
(actor) Avery (actor)
Sato, Hoshi (character) 57, 350, 373; see also Park, Sisko, Jake (character) 37, 41, 43, 336, 340, 345, 424,
Linda (character) 426; see also Lofton, Cirroc (actor)
Saviola, Camille (actor) 344; see also Kai Opaka Sisko, Joseph (character) 38, 41, 424, 469; see also
(character) Peters, Brock (actor)
Scheimer, Lou (producer) 18–25 slash fiction 14, 91, 165, 166, 224, 227, 239,
Schultz, Dwight (actor) 31, 279, 454; see also Barclay, 244–249, 281, 284, 398; vids 251, 252–253; see also
Reginald (character) fan fiction; Kirk/Spock; fandom
Scott, Montgomery “Scotty” (character) 9, 13, 14, 18, slavery 32, 305, 416, 452, 464
19, 21, 25, 87, 99, 104, 105, 117, 118, 122, 145, 150, Sloan (character) 42, 359, 360; see also Section 31
154, 162, 165, 180, 186, 187, 193, 214, 234, 268, Sloane, Lily (character) 129, 289
287, 323, 399, 472; see also Doohan, James (actor); SNW see Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (2022–
Pegg, Simon (actor) television show)
Section 31, 37, 42–43, 66, 71, 131, 136, 149, 150, 180, social media 4, 66–68, 81, 152, 228, 236–237, 244,
181, 326, 337, 359–360, 401, 456; see also United 290, 399, 426
Federation of Planets; Starfleet Soji (character) 76, 310, 442, 445–446; see also Dahj
sentience 316–317, 351, 432, 441, 446n1, 452–453, (character); Briones, Isa (actor)
464; see also AI; android Solow, Herbert F. (studio executive) 10, 25n1, 304,
Seven of Nine (character) 33, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 305
57, 74, 75, 172, 173, 179, 182, 189, 202, 249, 298, Son’a (species) 133, 134, 135
309, 310, 324, 338, 352–353, 371, 372, 390, 415, Soong, Noonian (character) 440–441, 444, 452, 454;
416, 417, 418, 436, 445; see also Ryan, Jeri (actor) see also Data (character); Lore (character); Spiner,
sex(uality) 12, 14, 22, 25, 42, 48, 59, 60, 68–69, 227, Brent (actor)
247, 249, 282, 284, 304–310, 386, 390, 392, 395, Soran, Tolian (character) 122, 123, 125; see also
396, 404, 406, 407, 417, 418, 422; see also queer McDowell, Malcolm (actor)
sexuality Soviet Union 11, 31, 59, 107–108, 116, 118–119, 135,
sexism 3, 31, 39, 119, 278, 307, 373, 387–388, 406, 336; see also Cold War
417, 422–423 Species 8472 (species) 337, 370, 407
Shakespeare, William 82, 97, 119, 140, 208, 273, 288, Spiner, Brent (actor) 28, 34, 62, 74, 122, 127, 130,
289, 290, 299, 425 133, 138, 139, 164, 210n2, 249, 279, 288, 316, 337,
Shatner, William (actor) 9, 18, 21, 50, 57, 69, 81, 87, 351, 361, 369, 406, 412, 440, 441, 452, 454, 463;
89, 91, 93, 94, 97, 99, 100, 104, 110–111, 112, 116, see also Data (character); Lore (character); B–4
122, 123, 124, 125, 128, 141, 143, 147, 164, 180, (character); Soong, Noonian (character)
198, 216, 221, 243, 252, 258, 260, 266, 272, 273, spirituality see religion
274, 277–278, 283, 286, 295, 304, 316, 323, 332, Spock (character) 9, 10, 12, 14, 15, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22,
341, 352, 358, 371, 377, 386, 395, 417, 422, 427, 23, 24, 34, 39, 42, 65, 81, 87–88, 90, 91, 92, 94, 95,
433, 449, 459, 472; see also Kirk, James T. (character) 96, 99–102, 104, 105, 110, 111, 112, 116–117, 118,
Shawn, Wallace (actor) 38, 455; see also Zek, Grand 119, 120, 122, 141, 143, 145, 148, 149, 150, 154,
Nagus (character) 156, 157, 168, 171, 178, 179, 180, 185, 186, 187,
Shimerman, Armin (actor) 37, 235, 322, 332, 370, 188, 198, 199, 207, 210n2, 215, 243, 245–246, 247,
406, 455; see also Quark (character) 248, 252, 253–254, 260, 268, 273, 276, 277, 286,
Shinzon (character) 138, 140, 141; see also Hardy, Tom 288, 289, 295, 305, 306, 307, 314, 316, 323, 324,
(actor) 337, 342, 358, 368, 369, 370, 371, 378–379, 382,
Short Treks 24, 74, 75, 162, 202, 279, 463 387, 397–398, 415, 416, 417, 418, 421, 422, 423,
Siddig, Alexander (aka Siddig El Fatil) (actor) 37, 40, 433, 449, 460–461, 471, 472; helmet 213–214;
287, 326, 352, 359, 397, 407, 414, 423, 454; see also see also Nimoy, Leonard (actor); Peck, Ethan (actor);
Bashir, Julian (character) Quinto, Zachary (actor); Kirk/Spock
Simon & Schuster (publisher) 81, 136 Spockanalia (zine) 224, 232, 243, 245–246
Singh, Khan Noonian (character) 14, 82, 94–95, 123, Spore drive 65, 71, 207, 319, 348, 350; see also fungi
148–149, 150, 151, 162, 177, 188–189, 289, 323; Spot (cat) 431
see also Montalban, Ricardo (actor); Cumberbatch, Stamets, Paul (character) 42, 65, 68, 69–70, 254,
Benedict (actor); Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan 307, 319, 384, 399, 400, 409, 427; see also Rapp,
(1982 film); Star Trek Into Darkness (2013 film) Anthony (actor)
486
Index
Star Fleet Technical Manual (1975 book) 193, 200 Star Trek: First Contact (1995 film) 1, 34, 59, 76, 79,
Star Trek (2009 film) 4, 24, 56, 61, 66, 80, 106, 120, 106, 125, 127–132, 133, 134, 145, 146, 165, 179,
122, 143–147, 148–151, 162–163, 171, 179, 188, 207, 289, 291, 296, 308, 329n2, 349, 418, 441, 444,
202, 207, 236, 251, 253–255, 262, 273, 306–307, 449, 468, 473; see also first contact (event)
392, 394, 399 Star Trek: Insurrection (1998 film) 70, 133–137, 139,
Star Trek Adventure (theme park attraction) 260 165, 187, 207, 300, 322, 372, 461
Star Trek Beyond (2016 film) 3, 69, 145, 152, 154–158, Star Trek: Lower Decks (2020–television show) 24, 62,
168, 171–172, 188, 194, 236, 398 71, 80–84, 147, 169, 185, 205, 253, 307, 370, 415,
Star Trek Generations (1994 film) 30, 122–126, 129, 453
165, 207, 430, 432, 441 Star Trek: New Voyages (2008–15 fan series) 171
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982 film) 14, 29, 61, Star Trek: Picard (2020–television show) 1–2, 22, 24,
62, 67, 89, 90, 93–98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 105, 106, 39, 42, 46, 62, 67–68, 74–79, 83, 97, 102, 131, 141,
108, 116, 117, 118, 120, 129, 141, 148–150, 180, 146–147, 157, 162, 173–174, 181–182, 185,
186, 189, 201, 204, 226, 286, 288, 289, 297, 306, 188–189, 190, 202, 214, 239, 253, 288, 297, 308,
337, 359, 395, 397 328, 350–351, 353, 390, 397, 424–425, 427, 430,
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984 film) 29, 96, 442, 444–446, 453, 456, 473
99–103, 105, 106, 125, 141, 186, 200, 201, 254, Star Trek: Prodigy (2021–television show) 1, 24, 71, 81,
337, 397 169, 185, 196, 253
Star Trek Into Darkness (2013 film) 43, 75, 79, 93, 145, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy: video game 143; young
146, 148–153, 154, 155, 156, 162, 188, 236, 290, adult spin-off novels 143
291, 297, 392 Star Trek: Starfleet Command 200
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986 film) 81, 102, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (2022–television show)
104–109, 110–111, 117, 133, 179, 186, 254, 262, 1, 56, 71, 147, 152, 182, 187, 189, 213, 253, 384
436, 449, 471 Star Trek: The Animated Series (1973–74 television
Star Trek Nemesis (2002 film) 58, 74, 80, 125, 136, show) 1, 18–27, 31, 33, 34, 81, 88, 111, 162, 187,
138–142, 143, 149, 150, 165, 187, 202, 207, 308, 199–200, 204, 205, 342
338, 399, 408, 441, 442 Star Trek: The Cruise 261–262
Star Trek Online (2010–video game) 169–173, 181, Star Trek: The Experience 259, 261
185, 202–203 Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979 film) 24, 29, 82,
Star Trek: The Exhibit (Smithsonian) 260–261 87–91, 95, 97, 106, 111, 122, 125, 130, 144, 149,
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989 film) 24, 90, 106, 179, 186, 205, 207, 208, 231, 235, 251, 424; game
110–115, 116–118, 125, 142, 143, 187, 207–208, 201, 203n3
341, 427 Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987–94 television
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991 film) 30, show) 1–2, 4, 13, 14, 23–24, 28–36, 38–40, 46–47,
59, 67, 96, 113, 116–121, 122–123, 125, 179, 187, 49, 52, 57, 58, 59, 60, 68, 74–77, 81, 83, 90, 97, 102,
207, 208, 289, 291, 297, 300 104, 112, 113, 114, 118–119, 120, 122–125,
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1992–99 television show) 127–129, 133–134, 138, 140, 143, 164–165, 168,
1, 2, 14, 23, 24, 25, 28, 30–31, 33–34, 37–45, 46–47, 170, 179, 180–182, 187, 189, 193, 199, 200, 201,
49, 52, 57, 58, 60, 67, 70, 93, 113, 114, 120, 123, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 226, 232–233, 238–239,
128, 129, 133–134, 136, 143, 162, 164–165, 168, 255, 261, 264, 274, 278, 279, 287, 288, 289, 298,
170–171, 172, 177, 179, 182, 187–189, 202, 205, 300, 307–310, 313, 316–318, 322, 325, 329n2, 335,
207, 208, 239, 255, 271, 287, 296, 299, 300, 308, 337, 350, 352, 368–369, 371, 380–381, 389,
310, 322, 324–329, 333, 336–338, 340–341, 395–397, 404–405, 406, 412, 416–418, 422–423,
343–345, 352, 357, 359–360, 372, 383, 390, 430–432, 440–444, 449, 451–454, 456, 462, 463,
396–397, 400, 405–407, 414, 415, 422–424, 426, 464, 471; Star Trek II series proposal 88–89;
442–443, 449, 451, 454–456, 462, 471; comics 187 Technical Manual 193; Writers/Directors
Star Trek: Discovery (2017–television show) 1, 2, 22, Guide 450
24, 39, 42, 43, 46, 52, 56, 62, 65–73, 75, 77, 111, Star Trek: The Original Series (1966–69 television
120, 146–147, 152, 157, 162, 168, 169, 171–174, show) 1–4, 9–17, 18–19, 23, 28, 29, 30–31, 40, 56,
178, 181, 185, 187, 188–189, 195, 196, 202, 205, 59, 68, 90, 96, 100, 111–113, 119, 122, 123, 143,
207, 208, 210, 213, 215, 239, 247, 249, 254, 298, 144, 151, 157, 162, 164, 170, 178–179, 180, 186,
299, 308, 319, 325, 327–328, 348–349, 350, 354n1, 187, 188, 189, 192, 200, 202, 204–205, 206, 207,
357, 363, 370, 382–384, 397, 399–400, 403, 223–225, 231, 232–233, 239, 244, 246, 253–254,
408–409, 415–416, 418, 427, 436, 443, 445, 451 259, 274, 295, 305, 313, 350, 352–356, 259, 264,
Star Trek: Enterprise (2001–05 television show) 1, 2, 266, 268, 272–274, 276–279, 281, 283, 288, 295,
24, 34, 39, 43, 56–64, 70, 75, 93, 120, 177, 179, 181, 299, 300, 304, 307, 310, 313, 314, 316, 322,
205, 239, 255, 298, 299, 306–307, 324–325, 341, 323–324, 332, 334, 336, 337, 341–342, 350, 354,
345, 350, 360, 362, 407–408, 426, 451, 461, 463; 368, 371, 373, 377–378, 381, 386–389, 392, 394,
cancellation of 143, 171, 180, 185, 398 397, 416, 422, 424, 433, 440, 451, 459, 461, 462,
487
Index
463, 467, 470–471, 472; as parody/adaptation of T’Pol (character) 57, 59, 60, 299, 306–307, 338, 345,
276, 278, 283 370, 408, 426, 461; see also Blalock, Jolene (actor)
Star Trek: Voyager (1995–2001 television show) 2, 33, Tal Shiar 326, 359; see also Romulan (species)
34, 40, 46–55, 56, 57, 69, 74, 75, 120, 123, 131, TAS see Star Trek: The Animated Series (1973–74
161–162, 168, 172, 173, 179, 181, 187, 189, 201, television show)
205, 207, 239, 247, 297, 299, 309, 314–315, 316, Takei, George (actor) 9, 18, 20–21, 25n1, 87, 99, 104,
322, 324–325, 328, 334, 336, 337, 341, 343, 350, 116, 234, 255, 268, 273, 278, 378, 395, 397–400;
353, 357, 363, 391, 397, 426, 434, 443, 451, 452 see also Sulu, Hikaru (character); queer
Star Wars (franchise) 14, 57, 66, 97, 146, 149, 151, 176, representation
182, 190, 203n2, 213, 259, 260, 278, 281 Talos IV (planet) 164, 421
Star Wars (1977 film) 88, 89, 90, 95, 226 Tamarians (species) 34, 289, 370
Star Wars: Rebels (2014–18 television show) 213 Tarantino, Quentin (director) 154, 168
Star Wars: Episode I –The Phantom Menace (1999 film) tardigrade 65, 279, 319, 348, 354, 372, 436; see also
125 Ripper (entity)
Star Wars: Episode V –The Empire Strikes Back (1980 Taylor, Gillian (character) 105–107, 471; see also
film) 199 Hicks, Catherine (actor)
Star Wars: Episode VII –The Force Awakens 155 Taylor, Jeri (writer/producer) 47, 49, 57, 180
Starfleet 9, 14, 28, 31, 33, 38, 42, 46–47, 59, 60, 66, technology: as theme 11, 32, 48, 90, 99, 319, 325, 348,
70, 75, 82, 89, 91, 101, 119, 124, 127, 130, 134, 349, 350, 352, 357, 362–363, 439, 445, 451, 452;
145, 148, 150, 157, 170, 173, 185, 188, 198, 202, as cure 414–415
234, 216, 260, 286, 290, 306, 307, 316, 318, 325, Temporal Cold War 59–60, 325; see also time travel
326, 333, 345, 348, 350, 351–352, 377, 381, 441, Temporal Prime Directive 463; see also time travel
445, 460, 462, 465; Academy 94, 117, 143, 215, Ten Forward 29, 118, 123, 198, 207, 274
296, 351, 434, 454; captain archetype 69, 94; Tendi (character) 80; see also Wells, Noël (actor)
Command/Headquarters 24, 42, 89, 91, 116, 117, terra nullius 333, 369
118, 134, 327, 451, 461, 469; Medical 37; ship terraforming 94, 317–318, 369, 454
naming traditions 295–297, 299–300; uniforms 9, Terran Empire 42, 65, 70, 186, 189, 297, 327, 352,
20, 31, 71, 75, 89, 162, 186, 214, 215, 278, 299, 366, 397, 425; see also Mirror Universe
387–389, 391–392, 422–423, 427; see also United terrorism 60, 70, 75, 150–151, 298, 324; see also 9/11
Federation of Planets; Section 31 Tilly, Sylvia (character) 65, 68, 408; see also Wiseman,
Starship Farragut (2007–fan series) 24 Mary (actor)
Starship Farragut: The Animated Episodes (2008–09 time travel 15, 24, 95, 104, 105, 128, 162, 179, 180,
fan series) 24 296–297, 299–300, 325, 415, 471
Stewart, Patrick (actor) 2, 28, 37, 49, 69, 74, 77, 81, Titan (ship) 83
122, 124, 127, 130, 133, 134, 138, 140, 164, 165, TNG see Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987–94
173, 177, 182, 206, 234, 260, 272, 273, 278, 290, television show)
296, 306, 315, 328, 335, 351, 359, 367, 395, 397, tokenism 271, 418
416, 425, 431, 440, 449, 460, 468; see also Picard, Torres, B’Elanna (character) 46, 49, 59, 309, 325, 353,
Jean-Luc (character) 425, 434; see also Dawson, Roxann (actor)
Sto-vo-kor 51, 343; see also Klingon religion TOS see Star Trek: The Original Series (1966–69
Straczynski, J. Michael (producer) 38, 144 television show)
Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) 96, 101, 107; toys see collectibles
see also nuclear; Reagan, Ronald trans (as in transgender) 386, 403–409; men 407;
suicide 22, 344, 359, 362, 363, 408, 417, 422, 464 women 405, 406, 408; phobia 403, 405–406, 408
Suliban (species) 60 transhumanism 363, 439, 445
Sulu, Hikaru (character) 9, 18, 19, 20, 24, 25n1, 69, transmedia 1, 2, 10, 13–14, 93, 161–162, 165, 176,
87, 99, 104, 106, 116, 145, 151, 154, 156, 179, 180, 187, 188, 192, 255, 271
186, 189, 255, 378, 395, 398, 399; see also Takei, transporter 12, 13, 208, 266, 351, 352, 358, 459;
George (actor); Cho, John (actor) see also technology
super-crip 412, 415–416; see also disability; ableism Trekkies (1997 movie) 274
Sybok (character) 110–113 Trekkies 2 (2004 movie) 233, 242, 272
synthetic life 66, 371, 412, 441, 442, 445–446; Treknology 193; see also technology
see also AI tribbles (species) 15, 23, 43, 162, 164, 188, 240, 279,
synths 75, 188, 446, 453; see also android 406, 436
Trill (species) 42, 271, 287, 353, 389–390, 396,
T’Ana (character) 24, 80; see also Vigman, Gillian 404–405, 409, 421; see also Dax (symbiont); Dax,
(actor) Jadzia (character); Dax, Ezri (character)
T’Kuvma (character) 188, 382, 383; see also Obi, Trimble, Bjo (superfan) 4, 10, 192, 223, 274
Chris (actor) Trimble, John (superfan) 223
488
Index
Trinneer, Connor (actor) 41, 57, 61, 306, 360, 407, virtual assistants 350–351; see also hologram; EMH
464; see also Tucker, Charles “Trip” III (character) (character)
Troi, Deanna (character) 28, 30, 49, 74, 88, 138, 179, Visitor, Nana (actor) 33, 37, 39, 41, 49, 70, 80, 324,
307–308, 318, 335, 369, 370, 389, 413, 415, 416, 340, 352, 390, 396; see also Kira, Nerys (character)
417, 422, 431–432, 437, 460; see also Sirtis, Marina Vissians (species) 407–408
(actor) Voq (character) 65, 308, 363, 384, 399, 408; see also
Troi, Lwaxana (character) 34, 208, 304, 309–310, 422, Tyler, Ash (character); Latif, Shazad (actor)
425; see also Barrett-Roddenberry, Majel (actor) Vorta (species) 326, 343–344; see also Dominion, the
Trumbull, Douglas (visual effects designer) 89 Voth (species) 51, 336
Tucker, Charles “Trip” III (actor) 41, 57, 59, 63, 181, VOY see also Star Trek: Voyager (1995–2001 television
306–307, 360, 407–408, 464; see also Trinneer, show)
Connor (actor) Voyager (ship) 40, 46, 48, 162, 247, 262, 297, 309,
Tuvix (character) 358, 459 314–316, 322, 324, 334–337, 353, 358, 361, 363,
Tuvok (character) 46, 202, 315, 324, 358, 370, 415, 422, 432, 434–435, 443, 445, 452, 454, 461, 462
426, 435, 459; see also Russ, Tim (actor) Vulcan (species) 9, 13, 31, 46, 59, 60, 112, 116, 127,
Twain, Mark 289 179, 185, 187, 189, 247, 251, 266, 267, 276, 287,
Tyler, Ash (character) 65, 69, 72, 308, 328, 363, 399, 298, 299, 307, 349, 352–353, 367, 369, 370, 379,
408; see also Voq (character); Latif, Shazad (actor) 383, 426, 444, 459; language 366; music
Tyson, Neil deGrasse 354 (non-diegetic) 207, 208; philosophy 88, 213, 359,
378; planet 9, 87, 99, 145, 188, 195, 254, 382, 394;
Uhura, Nyota (character) 9, 18–19, 21–25, 69, 87, 99, religion 62, 99, 101, 345; salute 273; see also Infinite
104, 117, 118, 119, 145, 148, 151, 154, 156, 179, Diversity in Infinite Combinations (IDIC); Spock
186, 199, 245–246, 255, 272, 274, 287, 350, (character); first contact (event)
372–373, 377–379, 392, 395, 424, 427; see also
Nichols, Nichelle (actor); Saldana, Zoë (actor) Wagon Train to the Stars 10, 38, 56, 394
United Federation of Planets 9, 37, 40, 157, 180, 181, Wang, Garrett (actor) 46, 315, 358, 423; see also Kim,
188, 195, 297–298, 332–333, 352, 421, 467–468, Harry (character)
473; anthropocentrism of 324, 325, 338, 366, 368, war 11–12, 33, 40, 52, 60, 65, 70, 75, 112, 118, 150,
434–435; as empire 75, 77, 325, 337, 367, 369, 444, 190, 247, 266, 288, 322, 344, 371, 378, 380, 468;
450–451, 459; as successor to the United States and worldbuilding 296, 322–323, 336, 351; effects
30, 136, 323, 381; governing bodies 118, 133, 177, of 48, 326–328; future history wars 298, 323–325;
181, 327, 469; Klingon War 65, 266, 325, 327, 336, historical wars 297, 323–325, 337; on-screen wars
384, 400; values and questioning thereof 12, 33, 47, 325–328; post-9/11 depictions of 324, 325–326; on
65, 76, 113–114, 135, 149, 315, 326–327, 359–360, terror 150, 324; war trauma 328; see also American
370–372, 418–419; see also Starfleet; Section 31 Civil War; Cold War; culture wars; Dominion War;
United Nations 377 Temporal Cold War;Vietnam War; World War II;
universal translator (UT) 350, 366–373, 434 World War III
Urban, Karl (actor) 149, 154, 155, 162, 287, 398; Ward, Dayton (writer) 182, 195
see also McCoy, Leonard “Bones” (character) Warner, David (actor) 116, 119; see also Gorkon
utilitarianism 359–360, 364n3, 459, 461, 462 (character)
utopia 13, 49, 70, 77, 113, 114, 135, 295, 298, 323, warp technology 13, 31, 57, 58, 87, 127, 128, 201,
324–325, 327, 366, 372, 451, 467–475; and Gene 208, 266, 298, 315, 319, 349–350, 449, 459, 463
Roddenberry’s vision 39, 46, 58, 62, 120, 177, 259, weapons of mass destruction 60, 94, 138, 139, 150,
450; capitalist 467; classic 468; in nonfiction film 337; see also nuclear
474n2; libertarian 467; scientific 348–352, 354; Welcommittee see Star Trek Welcommittee (STW)
see also post-scarcity society Wells, Noël (actor) 80; see also Tendi (character)
Utopia Planitia (shipyards) 190, 453 Westmore, Michael (makeup artist) 140
Weyoun (character) 38, 344; see also Combs, Jeffrey
vegetarianism 436 (actor);Vorta (species)
V’Ger (entity) 1, 87–88, 89, 90, 91; see also AI What We Left Behind: Star Trek Deep Space Nine (2018
Viacom 66, 161, 162–163, 171, 198; see also film) 39, 271–272, 324, 397
Paramount Wheaton, Wil (actor) 28, 30, 68, 278; see also Crusher,
ViacomCBS 71, 268 Wesley (character)
video games 136, 164, 165, 170, 200–202 wheelchair 418, 421
Vietnam War 11, 328, 329n4, 369, 380, 381, 459, 470 white savior 335, 337, 338
Vigman, Gillian (actor) 24, 80; see also T’Ana whitewashing 151, 283
(character) Whitney, Grace Lee (actor) 9, 87, 255, 304–305;
Vina (character) 307, 421; see also Oliver, Susan see also Rand, Janice (character)
(actor) Wildman, Naomi (character) 170
489
Index
Winn, Adami (character) 38, 42, 336, 340–341, 345; wormhole 37, 41, 205, 314, 334, 336, 340, 345, 350
see also Fletcher, Louise (actor) Writers Guild of America 20, 29, 105, 110
Winter, Ralph (producer) 113, 143
Wiseman, Mary (actor) 65, 408; see also Tilly, Sylvia xenoliguistics 350, 366, 368, 372–373
(character) xenophobia 62, 63, 158, 337
women 282, 283, 290, 299, 335, 404, 405, 406, 408, Xindi (species) 58–61, 157, 296, 325, 337, 360, 407,
417, 422; and fan fiction 246–248; in Star Trek 30, 461
41, 42, 49, 52, 151, 251, 255, 305, 372–373,
388–389, 390; of color 69, 272, 284, 350; scientists Yar, Tasha (character) 28, 29, 30, 31, 172, 233, 389;
350, 353; rights 140, 350, 354; see also feminism see also Crosby, Denise (actor)
Worf (character) 28, 29, 32, 33, 34, 37, 39, 77, 80, 127, Yelchin, Anton (actor) 154; death of 155–156, 157;
129, 130, 141, 164–165, 172, 188, 208, 215, 278, see also Pavel, Chekov (character); Kelvin Timeline
288, 299, 308, 343, 359, 361, 370, 380, 415, 417, Yeoh, Michelle 42, 65, 71, 327, 352, 397, 384, 397,
434, 436; see also Dorn, Michael (actor) 425, 463; see also Georgiou, Philippa (character);
World War II 273, 297, 323–325, 336–337, Mirror Universe; Section 31
352, 381, 398; counterfactual representation of
324; post-9/11 representations of 324; zeitgeist 2, 119
see also war Zek, Grand Nagus (character) 38, 455; see also Wallace,
World War III 11, 52, 128, 131, 298, 323, 323n2, 349, Shawn (actor); Ferengi (species)
381; see also Eugenics Wars Zhaban (character) 190; see also Star Trek: Picard
world-building 82, 130, 161–165, 194, 208–209, 234, (2020–television show)
322–323, 329, 449 Zhat Vash 77; see also Romulan (species)
WorldCon 222–224, 258 zine see fanzines
490

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THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF STAR

Also available in this series:

The Routledge Handbook of Literature and Space

The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Jewish Cultures

The Routledge Handbook of Shakespeare and Memory

The Routledge Handbook to the Ghost Story

The Routledge Handbook of International Beat Literature

The Routledge Handbook of Shakespeare and Global Appropriation

The Routledge Handbook of Shakespeare and Animals

The Routledge Handbook of Literary Translingualism

The Routledge Handbook of Star Trek

For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/​Routledge-​Literature-​

Edited by Leimar Garcia-​Siino, Sabrina Mittermeier,

“Companion Piece” © John NA Brown, 2021

List of Illustrations xii

Introduction: Open Hailing Frequencies 1

1 Star Trek: The Original Series 9

2 Star Trek: The Animated Series 18

3 Star Trek: The Next Generation 28

4 Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 37

9 Star Trek: Lower Decks 80

10 Star Trek: The Motion Picture 87

11 Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan 93

12 Star Trek III: The Search for Spock 99

13 Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home 104

14 Star Trek V: The Final Frontier 110

15 Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country 116

16 Star Trek Generations 122

17 Star Trek: First Contact 127

18 Star Trek: Insurrection 133

19 Star Trek Nemesis 138

20 Star Trek (2009) 143

21 Star Trek Into Darkness 148

22 Star Trek Beyond 154

23 Star Trek as a Transmedia Storyworld 161

24 Star Trek as Franchise 168

27 Reference Works and Guides 192

28 Board and Video Games 198

31 Fandom History 221

32 Fandom Around the World 231

33 Fan Fiction 243

35 Fan Tourism and Conventions 258

36 Fandom and Intellectual Property Rights 264

38 Parody and Homage 276

40 Star Trek in the Classroom, Science, and Professional Lives 286

41 History and Historiography 295

42 Sex and Romance 304

43 Environment and Ecology 313

44 War and Conflict 322

45 Colonialism and Imperialism 332

46 Religion and Spirituality 340

47 Science and Technology 348

48 Medicine and Care 357

49 Language and Communication 366

52 Queerness I: Representations of Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual People 394

53 Queerness II: Transgender and Nonbinary Representation 403

55 Age and Aging 421

56 Nonhumanoid Alien Life 430

57 Posthuman Life 439

For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/Routledge-Literature-

Edited by Leimar Garcia-Siino, Sabrina Mittermeier,

Torsten Kathke teaches history at Johannes Gutenberg- Universität, Mainz, Germany. He

Carey Millsap-Spears is Professor of Communications/Literature at Moraine Valley Community

Star Trek:The Original Series (1966–69) TOS

Leimar Garcia-Siino, Sabrina Mittermeier, and Stefan Rabitsch

“The Menagerie, Parts 1 and 2” (TOS 1.15/16, 1966)

unaired pilot “The Cage” 1965/1988.

“The Counter-Clock Incident” (TAS 2.6, 1974)

“Homefront/Paradise Lost” (DS9 4.11, 1996; DS9 4.12, 1996)

“Trials and Tribble-ations” (DS9 5.6, 1996)

“Scorpion, Parts I and II” (VOY 3.26/4.1, 1997)

“Year of Hell, Parts I and II” (VOY 4.8/9, 1997)

“Equinox, Parts I and II” (VOY 5.26/6.1, 1999)

“Broken Bow” (ENT 1.1/2, 2001)

“Terra Prime/Demons” (ENT 4.21/22, 2005)

Setting Course for the Post-Network Era