Ex Astris Scientia

Forgotten Alien Emblems

by Jörg Hillebrand and Bernd Schneider

Klingon Romulan

star trek alien logos

A similar symbol can also be found on Kor's sash. Kang wears the same sash in "Day of the Dove", and finally it is part of Worf's uniform throughout the first season of TNG. The only difference to the TOS Klingons is that Worf wears his sash on his right shoulder.

star trek alien logos

One half of the emblem from "Errand of Mercy" appears in "The Devil in the Dark", here painted white and apparently in the role of some technical device. "The Devil in the Dark" was the first of the two episodes to be shot, so it looks like the original Klingon emblem is a recycled part, and was not completely custom-made.

star trek alien logos

Regarding the emblem from the TOS sash, we can also see it on Chorgan's uniform in TNG: "The Vengeance Factor".

The familiar Klingon emblem appears for the first time in "Elaan of Troyius". However, we can still see the old one from "Errand or Mercy" on one occasion in the episode. Kirk is holding up a Klingon silver-golden communicator whose lid is adorned by the symbol. Actually, Kor was using such a communicator already in "Errand of Mercy", we just couldn't recognize the emblem that was probably already there.

star trek alien logos

Colorful new emblems

star trek alien logos

Monochrome new emblems

star trek alien logos

Some colors are more common than others, especially on the central symbol, the trefoil. This element is customarily red whenever it appears as a floor or wall decoration, on flags or as an official seal on a viewscreen, usually on a solid white or gray circle that sometimes has a black outline. The black emblem on white, on the other hand, is comparably rare, although it has gained popularity in recent years, especially on red flags.

star trek alien logos

For a complete investigation of all variations of the Klingon emblem, please refer to our article The Evolution of the Klingon Emblem .

star trek alien logos

Although it may be just a decoration or a pictogram denoting a certain section of the ship, there is one reason why it was likely intended to be the Romulan emblem indeed. It looks remarkably similar to the Klingon symbol that had premiered just a few episodes earlier, in "Elaan of Troyius" (see above ). It is even composed of the same colors. So whoever created this supposed Romulan emblem had a good intention to give this race more distinctiveness, but should have come up with something much more original to that end. Yet, perhaps the set designers deliberately made it look like the Klingon trefoil. The latter can be found on the ship's hull and may have been recognizable in the episode (the Romulans are using Klingon D7 cruisers in this episode). So the Romulan logo may have been made to look similar. A possible retroactive in-universe explanation is that the logo symbolizes the supposed short-lived alliance of the Romulans with the Klingons in the 2260s. The colors and their arrangement were taken from the Klingon trefoil, while the unknown individual Romulan emblem may have contributed the hexagonal shapes.

star trek alien logos

Interestingly, a hexagon already appears on a Romulan helmet in TOS: "Balance of Terror". A variety of elongated coffin-shaped hexagons can be seen in form of the cross-section of th Romulan bridge in the same episode, on Vulcan in TOS: "Amok Time" and on the Romulan ship in "The Enterprise Incident". Although they are not uncommon as a decoration is TOS , the latter hexagons shapes may have been designed to be representative of the Romulans and to match with their logo, or vice versa.

star trek alien logos

In "The Neutral Zone", which marks the first appearance of the new emblem (see below), the Romulans don't yet have insignia based on this emblem. The two officers wear drapes, with hexagonal emblems that roughly resemble the old Romulan logo from "The Enterprise Incident" but probably not on purpose.

Mike Okuda: "I knew of the logo in 'The Enterprise Incident.' Although I often tried to preserve elements from the original series, in this particular case, I thought it was too similar to the Klingon logo. I had an artist named Monte Thrasher design the predatory bird for the TNG Romulan logo."

TNG-style emblems

star trek alien logos

The TNG-style emblem does not appear in "Star Trek Nemesis". Yet, it retroactively shows up in "Star Trek: The Final Frontier" and also on Star Trek Enterprise, and can even be seen in DIS: "Will You Take My Hand?".

star trek alien logos

Nemesis-style emblems

star trek alien logos

We can see the "Nemesis" style also in several Enterprise episodes that re-use uniforms and the CGI cityscape from "Nemesis".

star trek alien logos

A still different emblem created on this occasion, with its raised wings and overall round shape, never appeared on screen and was only used for promotional purposes, such as in the trailers or on the DVD. Strictly speaking, this second stylized variation is non-canon at this point but like Rick Sternbach's version later appeared on Star Trek Enterprise.

For a complete investigation of all variations of the Romulan emblem, please refer to our article The Evolution of the Romulan Emblem .

The Evolution of the Klingon Emblem - exhaustive survey of all variants

The Evolution of the Romulan Emblem - exhaustive survey of all variants

Alpha and Beta Quadrant Emblems A-K

Alpha and Beta Quadrant Emblems L-Z

Some screen caps from TrekCore . Thanks to Ambassador/Ensign Q and to E.W.G. for suggestions pertaining to the origin of the TOS Romulan emblem, to Nathan for the hint about the Romulan hexagon in "Balance of Terror" and to Randolph Guthrie for the hint about the emblem in "More Tribbles, More Troubles".

star trek alien logos

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Last modified: 14 Aug 2023

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Who Created The Star Trek Logo & What Do Its Variations Represent?

Captain Picard talking

"Star Trek" has some of the most recognizable iconography in all of sci-fi, from the hulking image of the Starship Enterprise to the pointy ears of the Vulcans. Even just one look at the "Star Trek" logo — that basic arrowhead-esque shape containing a star with one elongated point inside — is enough to conjure countless memories of the adventures seen throughout the franchise. In fact, it's such an iconic component that some fans may have never stopped to wonder where exactly it comes from and what it's supposed to represent.

The "Star Trek" logo that everyone knows and loves — also commonly referred to as the "Delta" — was created in 1964 by the costume designer for the original series, William Ware Theiss. Theiss contributed a lot to the look of early "Star Trek," and his development of the "Delta" insignia to denote members of Starfleet on their uniforms quickly became the franchise's most enduring symbol. In the years since, the insignia has evolved and shifted into several distinct variations, each of which carry their own in-universe meaning.

There are a couple major Starfleet insignia variations

While the exact look of the Starfleet insignia has changed with just about each new entry into the "Star Trek" canon, it has just about always retained its core arrowhead shape. However, even dating back as far as the original series from the 1960s, the symbol contained within each variation of the arrowhead has actually been used to denote the specific division of Starfleet that the corresponding individual is a part of.

Of course, the most popular variation and the one most commonly seen today is the logo with the star inside. This version is commonly used to denote a Starfleet employee who is a member of the command division. Most of the major characters who make up the crew of various starships, from Spock to Captain Picard, are part of the command division, hence why it's the most common variation.

"Star Trek: The Original Series" further introduces three other major variations. The one with two overlapping circles signifies a member of Starfleet's sciences division, the one with a spiral inside represents the operations division, and, finally, the one with a red cross contained inside belongs to medical personnel. Other "Star Trek" projects have introduced the occasional new variant, but these four comprise the most well-known versions in canon.

The Starfleet insignia takes inspiration from a surprising place

It's been established that William Ware Theiss developed the Starfleet logo for "Star Trek: The Original Series," but some fans may still be wondering about its canonical origin. Where did the arrowhead symbol come from in-universe and why does it represent Starfleet? As it happens, the in-universe history of the Starfleet symbol and some of the pieces of inspiration Theiss drew from in the real world are one and the same.

The bulk of the "Star Trek" timeline that fans see takes place far into the future beyond the real-world present day. As such, it's frequently suggested that Starfleet as an organization grew out of Earth's space-based initiatives and programs from our real-world history. Indeed, there's a clever link between NASA and Starfleet in terms of their logos. Simply take the NASA logo and focus solely on the diagonal-pointing red "V" shape. Adjust it slightly so that the "V" is pointing upwards, and the resulting shape resembles the basic outline of the Starfleet symbol. To make this connection stronger, the franchise's United Earth insignia hews even closer to the NASA design in terms of composition.

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Published Jan 28, 2020

Let's Revisit the History of the Starfleet Insignia

As America debuts its Space Force flag, we take an in-depth examination of the famous Starfleet symbol.

Star Trek

StarTrek.com

Last week, the official insignia for the United States Space Force debuted and Star Trek fans immediately thought it looked familiar:

Reactions to the logo for the newly formed Space Force included: "THIS IS THE STARFLEET LOGO!" "Is nothing sacred?" "Swell, now taxpayers get to pay for lawyers when you're sued by Paramount and the Roddenberry estate..." https://t.co/AJpqYd8Avb — NPR (@NPR) January 25, 2020

I can’t say how right or wrong they are, but it was a delicious irony that the real world decided to drop some new Trek content the same week we got the first episode of Star Trek: Picard . But they are also part of a back-and-forth between the design sensibilities of the United States military and space programs, and the Starfleet designs that are supposed to be a direct descendant of them.

This isn’t the first time the space program has taken inspiration from Trek , after all — the debut space shuttle was named the Enterprise after Trek fans waged a campaign for it, and decades later that shuttle became part of the opening credits to the show of the same name. But if you look at the fictional history of Starfleet and the real history of American military emblems, you can see that the new Space Force insignia mostly serves to fill in one more gap in the Starfleet emblem’s fictional history.

THE EARLY YEARS

US Marine Corps

Uniform patches have long been a tradition in the United States, and the general layout has been the same for decades, as seen with the United States Marine Corps insignia here — a circular layout, with the name of the organization around the outside, and the Corps’ “eagle, globe, and anchor” in the middle. This type of thing has informed public perceptions about what looks like an “official” organizational emblem for years.

NASA

The most obvious precursor to Starfleet in our modern world is NASA, where you can a lot of the same design elements that would later show up in Starfleet designs — the field of stars, the orbital path encircling the logo, and even a sort of oblong arrowhead shape that kind of looks like the Starfleet delta got stuck in a taffy-puller (or maybe an “automatic rice picker”). Patches like these show up, framed, in the “602 Club” frequented by Jonathan Archer and others of Starfleet’s earliest officers.

AIR FORCE SPACE COMMAND

Air Force Space Command

The clearest design inspiration for the new Space Force logo is the shield for the Air Force Space Command, which was designed in the early 80s. The Space Command oversaw space-based defense missions like missile warning systems, and existed right up until the the Space Force became the sixth branch of the US Armed Forces in 2019. If nothing else, this shield showcases that if the United States is taking their design inspirations from Star Trek , they’ve been doing so for decades.

THE BEGINNINGS OF STARFLEET

Star Trek: Enterprise

“Through hardships to the stars” proclaims the earliest example of the Starfleet logo, which is clearly intended to be a direct descendent of the NASA emblems that proceeded it. In the early days, Starfleet uniforms featured a lot of design elements later uniforms would drop: things like visible zippers, plenty of pockets, and designated ship patches for each vessel. The crews of ships like the Enterprise and Colombia proudly identified the ship to which they belonged — because when you serve aboard the Enterprise , no matter the era, you want people to know it.

INCORPORATING THE MACOs

Star Trek: Enterprise

Before the creation of the Federation, the Earth stood alone. With the creation of a united Earth government, there was no longer a need to maintain militaries for individual countries to fight one another. The soldiers didn’t go away, however: they became MACOs, the “Military Assault Command Ops,” the official military tasked with defending Earth against extraterrestrial threats. By comparison, Starfleet was a smaller pilot program that spent its nascent years in danger of being scrapped.

When Earth was attacked by the Xindi, Jonathan Archer was sent to find and stop them — and he was given a detachment of MACO troops to help bolster Starfleet’s firepower. The MACO insignia includes a five-pointed star with an elongated top, which would become incorporated into the Starfleet logo

THE U.S.S. FRANKLIN

Star Trek Beyond

The Franklin is a ship that vanished during the early days of Starfleet, and its captain, Balthazar Edison, served as a MACO before the formation of the Federation. This mission patch shows one of the earliest instances of the Starfleet “Delta” in more or less the right shape.

THE U.S.S. DISCOVERY

Star Trek: Discovery

By the time of the U.S.S. Discovery , the Starfleet insignia had evolved to a very recognizable form — with the addition of a vertical line that separated the insignia into two-toned sections. The MACO star, by this point, signified command-level crew, with different-model insignia for other departments.

KIRK'S ENTERPRISE

Star Trek: The Original Series

For a while during Kirk’s era, different divisions aboard the ship had different variants of the Starfleet insignia to denote the different departments, like Science and Engineering/Operations. Later generations (including The Next Generation ) would indicate departments through color-coded jumpsuits.

Star Trek

The Starfleet insignia later took on greater utility and importance as it came to house an officer’s communicator, scaled down from the bulky “flip-phone” design to a hands-free wearable device. The badge also tracks the wearer’s movements and activities everywhere they go, kind of like our smart phones do now (it’s best not to think about that too much).

Star Trek: The Next Generation -

Originally seen in the TNG series finale “All Good Things…” this future combadge popped up in multiple alternate futures: Captain Nog wears it in “The Visitor,” and a future version of Admiral Janeway dons one in Voyager ’s finale, “Endgame.” A slightly-sleeker version of this iteration of the combadge appears to be what Starfleet is wearing by the time of the new Star Trek: Picard .

THE FUTURE'S FUTURE

Star Trek: Voyager

Spotted on the lapel of time-traveling 29th-century Starfleet officer Captain Braxton in Voyager , this combadge shows that the Starfleet insignia truly has some staying power.

Of course, the 29th century was previously the farthest ahead we’ve ever gotten in the Trek timeline, but with the upcoming season of Discovery we’ll hopefully see our intrepid crew carrying the gospel of slightly-oblong triangles to a new generation of future humanoids.

Sean Kelly (he/him) is a freelance writer based in St. Louis. He occasionally gets depressed that he’ll never know what raktajino tastes like.

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Terran Empire

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The Terran Empire was a repressive interstellar government dominated by the Terrans from Earth , locally named Terra by the 23rd century, in the mirror universe . The Empire ruled by terror, its Imperial Starfleet acting as its iron fist. In the Imperial Starfleet, officers often promoted themselves by killing superiors that did not follow the rules of the Empire. Torture was a common form of interrogation and discipline. ( ENT : " In a Mirror, Darkly "; TOS : " Mirror, Mirror ")

  • 1.1 Religion
  • 2.1 Early history
  • 2.2 21st century
  • 2.3 22nd century
  • 2.4 23rd and 24th centuries
  • 3 Subjugated races
  • 4.1 Background information
  • 4.2 Apocrypha
  • 4.3 See also
  • 4.4 External link

Culture [ ]

Going by rebellion sources, the culture of the Empire was fascistic , described as oppressive, racist and xenophobic , predicated on an unconditional hatred and rejection of anything and everything "other". Michael Burnham summarized this information by identifying the Empire as the antithesis of the United Federation of Planets in every way. ( DIS : " Despite Yourself ")

Humans of the prime universe could be violent, but violence was so ingrained in Terran culture that it self-propagated as an evolutionary survival mechanism, resulting in a strength that Michael Burnham described as "painted rust" – a facade hiding mutual fear between target and potential killer. From what she had heard of the Terran Empire, Katrina Cornwell came to the conclusion that, on the basis that prime universe Humans would be unaccustomed to the barbarism commonplace on Terran starships, the prime universe's Gabriel Lorca could not have survived his trip to the mirror universe. ( DIS : " Despite Yourself ", " The War Without, The War Within ")

Philippa Georgiou claimed that the only motivation Terrans had for any given action was revenge . ( DIS : " Die Trying ")

Religion [ ]

During a debrief at Starfleet Headquarters in the 32nd century , the former Terran emperor , Philippa Georgiou , revealed that an alternate First Contact Day was celebrated in the Terran Empire as a Holy Day, commemorating Zefram Cochrane 's successful repulse of the first wave of a Vulcan invasion and the acquisition of Vulcan technology which was used to establish the Empire as a space-faring power. ( DIS : " Die Trying ") She also claimed that an emperor's victims became their servants in the afterlife. ( DIS : " Terra Firma, Part 1 ")

History [ ]

Early history [ ].

In 2155 , Commander Jonathan Archer stated that the Empire had existed for "centuries". ( ENT : " In a Mirror, Darkly ") One of the Empire's early outer space conquests was a landing on Terra's moon , Luna , where it planted its flag. ( ENT : " In a Mirror, Darkly ", " In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II " opening credits ) Millennia ago, Terrans abandoned ideals such as freedom, equality and co-operation as they found them to be, in Georgiou's words, "destructive ideals that fuel rebellions". ( DIS : " Vaulting Ambition ")

21st century [ ]

Humanity's first contact with an alien species in the mirror universe began exactly as it did in the traditional universe. Upon detecting Zefram Cochrane 's warp signature , the Vulcan scout ship T'Plana-Hath landed in Bozeman , Montana , to make first contact with Humanity. Instead of welcoming the Vulcans in a spirit of friendship and understanding, the mirror Cochrane killed the first Vulcan to set foot on Terran soil with a shotgun , as the he and his fellow Terrans boarded and ransacked the Vulcan ship after killing the first officer also. According to mirror Archer, the Vulcan first contact was considered a prelude to invasion.

Instead of the Vulcans gradually releasing technology to Terra over time, the Terran Empire applied the stolen Vulcan technology to a policy of aggressive interstellar expansion. Because of this, the Empire was able to engage in technological research and development considerably earlier than its United Earth counterpart in the prime universe. ( ENT : " In a Mirror, Darkly ")

22nd century [ ]

By the 2150s , the Terran Empire had already conquered the Vulcans , Denobulans , Andorians , Aenar , Orions , and Tellarites and had launched attacks against the Klingons , Rigelians , and Xindi . The flagship of the Empire, the ISS Enterprise , under the command of Captain Maximilian Forrest , had a much more racially-diverse crew than its prime-universe counterpart, with numerous Vulcans and Tellarites serving as crew members.

Due to the rapid initial expansion made possible by the captured Vulcan technology, the Empire's hold on its territories was initially weak. By 2155 , some of the worlds conquered by the Terrans were beginning to rebel against Terran rule, leading to a long-running conflict , and after a disastrous defeat at Tau Ceti , the Empire came to the brink of collapse. Propaganda , however, conveyed the message that things were going in the Empire's favor and that the war would be over soon.

In that year, the USS Defiant , a Federation ship launched in the 23rd century of a parallel universe , was reported in Tholian space. The first officer of the ISS Enterprise , Commander Archer, reviewed this report and proposed a bold surgical strike at an asteroid base at which the Tholians were keeping the Defiant . Archer's proposal was quickly rejected by Forrest, causing Archer to mutiny against his captain and take control of Enterprise to retrieve the Defiant so its technology could be utilized against the rebellion. Enterprise traveled to the base and dispatched a boarding party to gain all information they could about the ship, and destroy it to prevent the Tholians from being able to use it. Unfortunately, during the retrieval operation, the Tholians attacked Enterprise and destroyed it, stranding the boarding party aboard the Defiant . ( ENT : " In a Mirror, Darkly ")

Emperors Eyes Only - Background on Mirror Universe PADD

The truth about interphasic space and the origin of the Defiant remained classified for "Emperor's Eyes Only" into the mid-23rd century.

Following the destruction of the ISS Enterprise and the death of Captain Forrest, Commander Archer and his away team commandeered the USS Defiant . They proceeded to destroy the Tholian hangar in which the ship was being held and rescued a number of former Enterprise crewmembers , including Hoshi Sato , after apparent consideration of leaving their comrades stranded. Archer made a rendezvous with the ISS Avenger , the flagship of Admiral Black . Archer vaporized the admiral and took command of both vessels.

However, this coincided with Commander T'Pol and Crewman Soval leading the other non-Human crewmembers on board the Avenger in a mutiny aboard the ship. They attacked the Defiant in hopes of destroying it but the mutiny itself was destroyed after Commander Charles Tucker III reinitialized power systems that Phlox had attempted to disable. Commander Archer, acting as captain, then set a direct course for Terra, where he intended to declare himself Emperor of the Terran Empire. However, Hoshi Sato poisoned him with the assistance of his bodyguard , Travis Mayweather . The two then took control of the Defiant , and upon arriving at Terra, Sato declared herself Empress . ( ENT : " In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II ")

At some point between 2155 and the 2250s, the symbol of the Empire appears to have been altered. The earlier symbol closely resembled that of the United Earth government, depicting all of Terra's continents, though replacing a laurel of peace with an aggressive sword. However, by the mid- 23rd century , the symbol, while remaining essentially the same, had a mirrored globe and what seemed to be an inverted delta in the background. ( ENT : " In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II "; DIS : " Despite Yourself ")

23rd and 24th centuries [ ]

Terran Empire insignia, 2250s

Terran emblem in 2256

By the mid- 23rd century , the Terran Empire had conquered much of known space. However, it continued to be resisted by an alliance of non-Human species, including Vulcans , Andorians , and Klingons . Furthermore Gabriel Lorca of the ISS Buran attempted a failed coup against Emperor Philippa Georgiou . By 2256 or 2257 Starfleet engaged a rebel fleet at Porathia . ( DIS : " Despite Yourself ")

The same year, the Imperial Intelligence located the headquarters of the resistance on Harlak , which was destroyed by the ISS Charon . ( DIS : " The Wolf Inside ")

In 2257, Lorca was able to resume his coup against Georgiou, having escaped the mirror universe and manipulated his way back with a Federation starship, the USS Discovery . For a while, the coup was successful, but Discovery had been informed that Lorca was Terran by the prime Michael Burnham , who Lorca had become obsessed with due to his relationship with the mirror Burnham , and Discovery defeated Lorca. However, although Lorca was killed, not only was Georgiou deposed, but the Charon had been destroyed, and she had been brought to the prime universe, resulting in a power vacuum. ( DIS : " Vaulting Ambition ", " What's Past Is Prologue ", " The War Without, The War Within ")

Not long after this, the symbol was changed yet again, returning to its delta-less version and, this time, depicting only the continents of Terra's western hemisphere.

Eventually, the power vacuum was filled. The Empire encountered a Gorlan uprising, to which the ISS Enterprise , captained by James T. Kirk , responded with the destruction of the rebels' home planet. Other feats of Captain Kirk by 2264 included the execution of five thousand colonists on Vega IX and the annihilation of all remaining inhabitants of Talos IV . In 2267, the Empire coveted the dilithium reserves of the Halkan homeworld and Kirk interceded to demand mining rights on behalf of the Empire.

Terran Empire insignia, 2370s

Emblem worn by a Terran slave

In that year, crewmembers of the ISS Enterprise , including Captain Kirk, accidentally switched places with their prime universe counterparts of the USS Enterprise , who in the same time were transported aboard the mirror version of the Enterprise . Kirk believed that the mirror Spock would one day become captain of the ISS Enterprise , and before returning to his own reality, he planted a seed of doubt about the inevitability of the Empire and whether violence was the only logical answer. Spock promised to consider Kirk's words, after realizing the Empire would only last about 240 years before being overthrown. ( TOS : " Mirror, Mirror ")

As Kirk predicted, the mirror Spock later eventually rose to become Commander-in-Chief of the Empire. He began instituting major reforms that were very popular, turning the Empire into a more peaceful and less aggressive power. However, Spock's reforms left the Empire unprepared to defend itself against the emerging threat of a united Klingon-Cardassian Alliance , which managed to conquer the entire Terran Empire, turning the Terrans themselves into a slave race. The Bajorans , a people conquered by the Empire, came to be a powerful voice in this Alliance. ( DS9 : " Crossover ")

Subjugated races [ ]

Appendices [ ], background information [ ].

Robert Hewitt Wolfe decided to give the Terran Empire some formidable enemies. " Empires aren't usually brutal unless there's a reason. There are usually external or internal pressures that cause them to be that way, " he commented. " So I just thought that if the parallel Earth was that brutal, there had to be a reason. And the reason was that the barbarians (the Klingons and the Cardassians ) were at the gate. " ( Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion  (p. ? ))

Wolfe based the Terran Empire's predicament on historical precedents. He further elaborated, " My analogy was to the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire was as brutal and as nasty as it was because all around it, it had very aggressive barbarians that it was afraid of. The Chinese had the same thing, the Mongols were always there. So if you suddenly make the Romans nice guys, or the Chinese nice guys, well that's great and everything, but then the Mongols come across and it's all over. So that was kind of the idea. " ( citation needed • edit )

In the first draft script of DS9 : " Through the Looking Glass ", Benjamin Sisko described the Terran Empire as "corrupt, brutal, and doomed to collapse in any case." Mirror O'Brien, however, longed for the days when the Empire still existed and, later in the same script, Rom suggested reestablishing the Empire once the Terran Rebellion succeeded, with Sisko as the head of the Empire. Sisko himself, though, was against that idea, commenting, " The Terran Empire was every bit as corrupt as the Alliance. " The Empire wasn't referenced at all in the final draft script of "Through the Looking Glass". ( Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion - A Series Guide and Script Library ; [3] )

After the premiere of DIS : " Vaulting Ambition ", screenwriter Jordon Nardino answered fan's questions through his Twitter feed. On the topic of the Terran Empire's relation to ancient Rome, Nardino stated that, " Lots of discussion in the room about the origins of the Terran Empire. In terms of canon, as always, it's what's on screen and nothing more. Unanswered questions leave avenues for future seasons / iterations of Trek to explore. I do not know if MU's "point of departure" is a specific incident, or the entire history of the MU somehow darkly mirrors ours. Canon locks us into an origin no later than the 20th century. Georgiou's "millenia" could be construed as hyperbole. But I firmly do not believe the Terrans are merely a continuation of the Roman Empire. MU earth history should roughly (but darkly) mirror our history as much as possible. I think Rome never falling would diverge too much. Leaders with imperial pretensions have adopted the styles and titles of the Romans since… well… the minute Rome "fell"! Napoleon took the title Augustus. So it's natural the Terrans looked back to Rome too. " ( 'After Trek' Gives Details On Georgiou's Meal, Mirror Stamets, Terran Empire History And More ; [4] )

On the topic of Terran history and the meaning behind mirror Philippa Georgiou 's elaborate title, Nardino stated:

" All Hail her most Imperial Majesty, Mother of the Fatherland, Overlord of Vulcan, Dominus of Kronos, Regina Andor, All Hail Philippa Georgiou Augustus Iaponius Centarius. " But what's it mean??!? When we began digging into the Terrans last year, I had just read a newer history of Rome and was excited to use it as inspiration. ( SPQR by Mary Beard, check it out.) Here's some of the titles Roman Emperors used: [LINK ] So into her titles: – Father of the Fatherland is easy, we turned that into Mother of the Fatherland (even tho we de-gendered Emperor, it felt right) – Overlord of Vulcan : an early conquest of the Terrans, they see themselves as their protectors. It's paternalistic / delusional. – Dominus of Kronos : Terrans are very proud of conquering Qo'noS. Dominus is a harsher title the Emperor at the time took as a result (and Georgiou kept for herself). "We OWN them." Qo'noS mispronounced out of cultural chauvinism. – Regina Andor : Andoria is a jewel in the Terran crowd. Subjugated warrior race. Early Terran conquest, pre-Sato. The title was created to celebrate this achievement. Now as for Georgiou's many names… "Philippa Georgiou Augustus Iaponius Centarius" Philipa Georgiou: her given name and her family name, just like Prime. Augustus: the Terrans see themselves as inheritors of the Roman Empire so their Emperors take the title of its first Emperor. ( 'After Trek' Gives Details On Georgiou's Meal, Mirror Stamets, Terran Empire History And More ; [5] )

Additionally, Nardino considered that Centaurius was the first system colonized by the Terrans owing to its proximity to Sol, thus resulting in the then-ruling Emperor taking its title in tribute. ( 'After Trek' Gives Details On Georgiou's Meal, Mirror Stamets, Terran Empire History And More ; [6] )

Apocrypha [ ]

In the game Star Trek: Voyager - Elite Force , part of the story involves going through a scavenger base composed of many species' ships. One of these ships is an Imperial Starfleet vessel, apparently dating back to the 23rd century. It is populated by Humans, who behave typically for the mirror universe. How it came to be in Voyager 's canon dimension is unknown.

The novel The Sorrows of Empire depicts Spock becoming Emperor of the Terran Empire in 2277 and reforming the Empire into a democratic society, only to be overthrown and killed by the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance in 2295. At the same time, he engineers events leading to the formation of the Alliance, believing that their conquest of the former Empire will ultimately lead to their downfall and the establishment of a Federation-style republic in the future (which occurs in the follow-up novel Rise Like Lions ).

In the Star Trek: The Next Generation novel Dark Mirror – written and published before DS9's televised visits to the Mirror Universe – the Terran Empire (called the United Empire of Planets) is depicted as still existing in the 24th century, with Spock's reforms having been cut short by his death , speculated by Captain Jean-Luc Picard to be the result of his assassination after he pushed the Empire too far, too quickly. The crew of the mirror Enterprise -D are assigned a new mission to devise a means of bringing a ship from the prime universe into the mirror universe and then return after replacing its crew, the Empire having run out of territory that it can easily conquer in its own universe, but the Enterprise crew of the prime universe manage to sabotage their efforts and devise a method of detecting future incursions.

In the computer game Star Trek Online , by 2409, the Terran Rebellion has succeeded in overthrowing the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance and restored the Terran Empire to its former status as a major power in the quadrant . The Terran Empire of the 25th century has also returned to the old ways, having engaged in a series of hostile incursions into the prime universe. The Empire attempts to invade that universe using a trans-dimensional portal in the Badlands , and later allies with the Temporal Liberation Front. Imperial ships have markings similar to those used in the 22nd century, albeit red instead of yellow. The Emperor in the 25th century is revealed in the episode "The Eye of the Storm" (released in September 2022) to be the mirror counterpart of Wesley Crusher , who seeks to combine his powers from the Traveler with those of "the Other" (the mirror counterpart of V'ger ) to become a god and destroy all of existence. After he is defeated, he is replaced by Leeta , who up to that point had commanded the ISS Enterprise -F.

The mirror universe novella Saturn's Children identifies Andorians, Bolians , Tellarites, and Denobulans as part of the rebellion. Whereas the success of the Terran Rebellion has led to the reinstatement of the Terran Empire in Star Trek Online , in the novels, the democratic Commonwealth is established.

See also [ ]

  • Mirror universe people
  • Mirror universe casualties
  • Mirror universe history
  • Starfleet ranks
  • Terran Rebellion
  • Starfleet uniform

External link [ ]

  • Terran Empire at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
  • 2 USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-G)
  • 3 Star Trek: The Next Generation

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10 star trek alien species' best character.

Star Trek features some of the most iconic alien species in all of science fiction, and those species are often defined by one particular character.

Star Trek features some of the most iconic alien species in all of science fiction, and those species are often defined by one particularly noteworthy character. Since the earliest days of Star Trek: The Original Series , part of Starfleet's mission has been to seek out new life in the galaxy in an attempt to learn and better understand both alien and human life. Whether it be sworn enemies like the Borg or more benevolent species like the Vulcans, gaining new knowledge about the denizens of the galaxy is baked into Star Trek 's DNA.

Star Trek tends to spend a great deal of time world building around their alien species. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine may be the best example, rapidly expanding the worlds and cultures of the Bajorans, Cardassians, Changelings, and Ferengi. But even in DS9 's broad world building, individual characters still stand out as important members of their respective species. These characters aren't always representative of their species at large, but they do often represent the best of what their people are capable of.

10 Klingons - Worf

Introduced in Star Trek: The Next Generation , no single character has appeared in more episodes of Star Trek than Lieutenant Worf (Michael Dorn) , the first Klingon to enter Starfleet. Raised by humans after the death of his Klingon parents, Worf was forever torn between his Klingon heritage and the humans that he interacted with for most of his life. After the destruction of the USS Enterprise-D in Star Trek Generations , Worf joined the cast of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , where he married Jadzia Dax (Terry Ferrell), helped install a new leader of the Klingon Empire, and played a crucial role in the Dominion War.

9 Vulcans - Spock

Arguably the most significant character in all of Star Trek, the half-human, half-Vulcan Spock (Leonard Nimoy) was the trusted First Officer of Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) for decades aboard the USS Enterprise. Spock's emotionless demeanor and dedication to logic played perfectly off Kirk's fiery passion. Spock made a conscious decision to reject his human heritage and live as a Vulcan, but that was often easier said than done, with Spock having more trouble than most Vulcans controlling his emotions. In his later years, he played a significant role in reunifying the people of Vulcan and Romulus, perhaps his greatest achievement.

8 Romulans - Laris

The Romulans have been one of Starfleet's most consistent antagonists since they debuted in the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Balance Of Terror," yet not many individual Romulans have made a deep impression on Star Trek canon. The most fully formed, authentic Romulan character so far has been Laris (Orla Brady), assistant and occasional love interest of Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) on Star Trek: Picard . Laris was a former Tal Shiar operative who became disillusioned with the Romulan way of life after a supernova wiped out Romulus. She would eventually become one of Picard's closest confidantes.

7 Ferengi - Quark

After a disastrous debut in Star Trek: The Next Generation season 1 as a new antagonistic species, the Ferengi were reimagined as ultra-capitalists for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine . No one embodied that ethos more fully than Quark (Armin Shimerman), the Ferengi who ran the bar on DS9. Ostensibly obsessed with profit above all else, Quark was also extremely loyal to his family, who helped him run the bar on the station. He also enjoyed a love/hate relationship with the station's security chief, the Changeling Odo (Rene Auberjonois), who was never quite sure if he detested or admired Quark's ability to bend the rules.

6 Cardassians - Elim Garak

There's an argument to be made that the most notable Cardassian is actually Gul Dukat (Marc Alaimo), a sneering opportunist who oversaw some of the worst atrocities of the Cardassian occupation of Bajor. But the more interesting, enduring character is Elim Garak (Andrew Robinson) , a former Cardassian spy who served as DS9's resident tailor. Garak had all the qualities of most Cardassians - the arrogance, the superiority complex - but he was also a man of deep convictions who often disagreed with the more egregious acts of his people. His friendship with Dr. Julian Bashir (Alexander Siddig) is one of Star Trek 's best.

5 Bajorans - Kira Nerys

A survivor of the Cardassian occupation, Major Kira Nerys (Nana Visitor) was initially presented as someone still deeply traumatized by war and reluctant to accept assistance from Starfleet. She would eventually blossom into one of Star Trek 's most complicated characters, a deeply spiritual woman haunted by her days as a freedom fighter on her home planet. Her bond with Odo would eventually evolve into a sweet but short-lived romance, as he was forced to return to the Great Link at the end of DS9. Her guest appearance on Star Trek: Lower Decks confirmed she remains in command of DS9 years after Captain Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) joined the Bajoran prophets.

4 Borg - Seven Of Nine

Seven Of Nine (Jeri Ryan) joined the cast of Star Trek: Voyager at the beginning of season 4. She was removed from the Borg Collective after a truce between Captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) and the Borg dissolved. Not quite Borg, but not quite human, Seven spent her years on Voyager attempting to reconcile the reality of who she was, often with the help of the ship's holographic Doctor (Robert Picardo). She would team up decades later with Jean-Luc Picard, another notable former Borg, in Star Trek: Picard , still struggling to find her place in the galaxy after Voyager eventually made it home to Earth.

3 Changelings - Odo

Odo served as the irascible security chief on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine . Highly suspicious and slow to trust, Odo was originally presented as something of a mystery before it was revealed in DS9 season 3 that he was a member of the Changelings, the Founders of the Dominion. Odo was torn between finally knowing his people and feeling horrified at the Dominion's actions. Odo harbored a secret love for Kira Nerys before they eventually became a couple in DS9 season 7, but when Section 31 infected the Great Link with a morphogenic virus, Odo finally returned to his home world for good to heal his people.

2 Trill - Jadzia Dax

The Trill are a symbiotic species, with a sort of giant slug creature living in their torsos, containing the memories and personalities of all of its former hosts. A young Benjamin Sisko was acquainted with Curzon Daz, an older man he saw as a mentor. By the time Sisko took command of DS9, the Dax symbiont had been transferred to a young woman known as Jadzia Dax (Terry Ferrell). Sisko and Dax maintained their previous relationship, with Sisko even called Jadzia "old man." Jadzia also notably fell in love with and married Worf, though their love would be short-lived, as Jadzia was murdered by Gul Dukat in DS9 season 6.

1 Kelpiens - Saru

Perhaps Star Trek: Discovery 's single greatest achievement has been the character of the Kelpien Saru (Doug Jones) . Beyond the remarkable makeup and prosthetics used to bring the character to life, Saru brought something new to Star Trek . Obviously brilliant but never arrogant, Saru was defined by his gentleness, which was often pushed to its breaking point by the adventurous Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green). Saru also stood as an evolutionary important figure in his species, ridding himself of the intense fear that often defined his species. It's a magnificent performance by Jones, who has made a career out of playing gentle monsters.

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List of Star Trek aliens

Extraterrestrials in the science fiction franchise / from wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, dear wikiwand ai, let's keep it short by simply answering these key questions:.

Can you list the top facts and stats about List of Star Trek aliens?

Summarize this article for a 10 year old

Star Trek is a science fiction media franchise that began with Gene Roddenberry 's launch of the original Star Trek television series in 1966. Its success led to numerous films, novels, comics, and spinoff series . A major motif of the franchise involves encounters with various alien races throughout the galaxy. These fictional alien races are listed here.

Notable Star Trek races include Vulcans , [1] Klingons , [1] and the Borg . [1] Some aspects of these fictional races became well known in American pop culture , such as the Vulcan salute and the Borg phrase, "Resistance is futile."

Star Trek aliens have been featured in Time magazine , which described how they are essential to the franchise's narrative. [1]

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Mego's "Star Trek" line was "officially" based on the live-action series in syndication in 1974, but the Mego designers appear to have referred repeatedly to The Animated Series for inspiration.  It's not difficult to imagine why frugal, economical Mego would choose a property like "Star Trek" to exploit as part of the company's eight-inch action figure line.   Since most of the crew wore the same basic uniform--and used the same weapons and equipment--Mego anticipated minimum design cost combined with maximum utilization potential--a win-win situation if ever one existed.   In fact, so high was Mego's confidence in the line that they took the unprecedented step of creating specific lower-leg tooling for the male crew members.   The Starfleet-issued boots were incorporated into the figure itself, saving countless lost pairs of Mego footwear at the hands of careless children--as well as eliminating one more step in the assembly process.            

Additionally, Mego had impeccable timing when it came to picking up the "Star Trek" license.   With a pittance of an investment, they bought into a virtually dead property that was in the throes of rebirth and rediscovery by a whole new legion of fans--fans clamoring for anything with the words "Star Trek" on it.

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   In spite of many glaring inaccuracies and inconsistencies with the established "Star Trek" canon, these four Aliens sold well-enough to warrant a third (and, as it would turn out, final) series of "Trek" figures, consisting of four more Aliens: a Romulan , a Talosian , an Andorian , and a Mugato .   These four figures are counted among the rarest of Mego's produced figures, due in no small part to a fire at a Mego facility which, as the legend maintains, consumed a large portion of the third series' stock.   The fact that the word "legend" is used in this instance is a testament to the stature of these four figures and the fascination that surrounds their manufacture and relative scarcity; when you talk about series three, you're not so much relating history as you are delving into action figure folklore.   These final Aliens rank up there with Alter Egos, Teen Titans, and Space: 1999, a fact borne out by the prices they consistently command.   Regardless of any warehouse disasters, this series of figures would still have been in high demand today if only for two reasons: the Romulan and the Andorian , two Aliens whose canonical accuracy and innate style almost make up for the glaring deficiencies present in the other six.          Mego, for reasons unknown, created new card art for these figures as well.   Actually, "recreated" is probably a more apt term, since they closely patterned the new design on the previous one, making only slight changes.   The new card art still depicted essentially the same planetary landscape, but it differed in several important respects: firstly, the "sky" was changed from black to blue; secondly, the stars were all-but-removed; thirdly, the card maintained the width of the previous card design, but was now noticeably taller; and fourthly, the card back now featured all fourteen of the "Star Trek" figures, while simultaneously eliminating half of the accessories advertised on the previous package to make room for the profile expansion.   In addition to releasing the final four Aliens on these new cards, Mego took the trouble to re-release the previous series of Aliens on the new card art as well.   This fact could be attributed to a desire for uniformity on Mego's part, if it were not so painfully obvious from almost all other evidence that uniformity was pretty low on Mego's list of priorities.          The eight-inch line of "Star Trek" figures effectively died with these last four Aliens; so, too, did every Trekkie's dreams of a Harry Mudd or a Khan, a Sulu or a Chekov, a Nurse Chapel or a Yeoman Rand.   It would be left to the Mego customizers , a generation later, to pick up the ball that Mego dropped in 1976.

star trek alien logos

The "Star Trek" Gallery would not have been possible without the contributions and assistance of Jeff Riemersma, Rob Chatlin, Mike "type1kirk" Farance, Kevin "MirrorSpock" Kaup, Jon and Phil.

Promotional art for Star Trek: Discovery season 5, featuring a cast lineup surrounded by alien runes. LtR: Blu Del Barrio as Adira, Mary Wiseman as Tilly, Wilson Cruz as Culber, Sonequa Martin-Green as Burnham, David Ajala as Book, Doug Jones as Saru and Anthony Rapp as Stamets.

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  • 2024 Spring Entertainment Preview

Star Trek: Discovery is finally free to do whatever it wants

Imagining the future of the future

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It’s a truth universally acknowledged that even among the greatest television shows in Star Trek history, most of them take two seasons to stop being kind of bad. Never has that been more true or more excruciating than in the case of Star Trek: Discovery .

star trek alien logos

Polygon is looking ahead to the movies, shows, and books coming soon in our Spring 2024 entertainment preview package, a weeklong special issue.

Often it felt like what Discovery was really doing in its early seasons was discovering what didn’t work. Strong performances from a great cast? That works. A Klingon design that absolutely nobody liked ? Definitely not. But despite the stumbles, Discovery season 1 had still averaged C’s and B’s with reviewers, and had built an audience and a subscriber base for Paramount Plus. On the strength of Disco ’s first season, Paramount greenlit Star Treks Picard , Lower Decks , and Prodigy , three new shows covering a huge range of ages and nostalgic tastes. And spinning out of Disco ’s second season, which introduced familiar , nostalgic characters and a brighter, more Star Trek-y tone, Paramount produced Star Trek: Strange New Worlds , inarguably the best new addition to the franchise since 1996.

Star Trek: Discovery crawled so that the rest of modern Trek could run... and then it started to walk. The show’s third season saw the USS Discovery and crew in the place that should have been their starting blocks: the bleeding future edge of Star Trek’s timeline. Thanks to season 3’s groundwork, season 4 became the first time that Discovery had a status quo worth returning to. In its fifth and final season, Star Trek: Discovery is finally free — free in a way that a Star Trek TV series hasn’t been in 23 years.

Sonequa Martin-Green as Captain Michael Burnham in Star Trek: Discovery, season 5. Wearing a glowing uniformed spacesuit, she clings to the back of a spaceship speeding through hyperspace, colorful lights streaking the background.

Star Trek: The Next Generation is such an elder statesman of the television elite that it’s easy to forget that it was daring. The show’s triumph wasn’t just that it featured a new cast of characters, but also its audaciousness in imagining the future of the future — and making that future unmistakably different . The Original Series showed a racial and national cooperation that seemed fantastical in its time, with an alien crewmember to denote the next frontier of embracing the other . Next Generation saw that bet and raised it, installing a member of the Klingon species, the Federation’s once-feared imperialist rival state, as a respected officer on the bridge of Starfleet’s flagship.

Next Generation ’s time period — one century after Kirk’s Enterprise — wasn’t a nominal choice, but a commitment to moving the story of Star Trek forward. From the show’s foundations, Gene Roddenberry and his collaborators, new and old, set a precedent that the Federation would evolve. Therefore, in accordance with the utopian themes of the franchise, old enemies would in time become friends. Next Generation embraced The Original Series ’ nemeses and the rest of ’90s Trek saw that bet and raised it again, pulling many of Next Gen ’s villains into the heroic fold. Voyager welcomed a Borg crewmember and disincorporated the Borg empire; Deep Space Nine gave the franchise the first Ferengi Starfleet cadet, and brokered a Federation-Klingon-Romulan alliance in the face of an existential threat.

But Discovery — at least until it made its Olympic long-jump leap 900 years into the future — couldn’t move Star Trek forward. So long as it was set “immediately before Kirk’s Enterprise,” hemmed in by the constraints of a previously established era of Star Trek history, it could graft on new elements (like Spock’s secret human foster sister) but it couldn’t create from whole cloth (like a galaxy-wide shortage of starship fuel that nearly destroyed the Federation). Like its predecessor, the ill-fated Star Trek: Enterprise of the ’00s, it was doomed to hang like a remora on the side of the events of The Original Series , or, if you’ll pardon another fish metaphor, doomed like a goldfish that can only grow as large as its half-gallon fishbowl will allow.

Discovery ’s later, free seasons in the 32nd century have shown the Federation at its most vulnerable, a subtler echo of Picard ’s own season 1 swing at fallen institutions . (Fans of Voyager and Deep Space Nine know that this is an extremely rich vein of Trek storytelling.) In its third season, Discovery solved a galaxy-wide fuel crisis that had shattered the community of the Federation. In its fourth it fought for a fragile new Federation alliance and its millennia-old ideals.

And those seasons have also boldly committed to the idea of imagining the future’s future — 900 years of it. The centuries-old rift between Vulcans and Romulans is long healed, Ferengi serve as captains in Starfleet, the work of Doctor Noonien Soong has brought new medical technologies to the fore.

Even still, Discovery hasn’t been truly free in its third and fourth seasons. Star Trek: Picard was out there, forming new past elements of a post- Next Gen / Voy / DS9 era that Discovery had to abide by. And, after all, the show still had to make sure there was something for its own next season to come back to.

Blu del Barrio as Adira in Star Trek: Discovery. She kneels confused before a strange figure dressed in white with white hair, with red robed figures in the background.

But now — with Prodigy and Picard finished, and Strange New Worlds and Lower Decks locked into their settings of Star Trek’s established past, and Starfleet Academy and Section 31 not yet in production at the time that its final season would have been written — Discovery has reached the final final frontier for a Star Trek show. If you’re a Star Trek fan, that should excite you.

Not since Deep Space Nine in 1999 and Voyager in 2001 has a Star Trek series had the freedom to wrap up its run with the Federation in any state it wants to. With franchise flagship Next Generation at an end, and Voyager restricted to the Delta Quadrant only, Deep Space Nine used its last seasons to throw the Federation into all-out war, making sweeping changes to the established ficto-political norms of ’90s Trek. Voyager used its finale to do what Captain Picard never could: defang the Borg (mostly).

We don’t know exactly what Discovery will do with that freedom. Season 4 directors have talked about reaching “ into the past to get further into the future ,” and likened it to Indiana Jones. Official news releases have said the crew will “uncover a mystery that sends them on an epic adventure across the galaxy to find an ancient power whose very existence has been deliberately hidden for centuries.” But speculating on what that means would be beside the point.

Discovery , the show about an intergalactically teleporting starship, can finally, actually, go anywhere. It’s been almost a quarter of a century since a beloved Star Trek series was so free to boldly go. Let’s hope they’re very bold indeed.

Star Trek: Discovery season 5 premieres with two episodes on April 4 on Paramount Plus.

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The Future of ‘Star Trek’: From ‘Starfleet Academy’ to New Movies and Michelle Yeoh, How the 58-Year-Old Franchise Is Planning for the Next Generation of Fans

“I can’t believe I get to play the captain of the Enterprise.”

“Strange New Worlds” is the 12th “Star Trek” TV show since the original series debuted on NBC in 1966, introducing Gene Roddenberry’s vision of a hopeful future for humanity. In the 58 years since, the “Star Trek” galaxy has logged 900 television episodes and 13 feature films, amounting to 668 hours — nearly 28 days — of content to date. Even compared with “Star Wars” and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, “Star Trek” stands as the only storytelling venture to deliver a single narrative experience for this long across TV and film.

In other words, “Star Trek” is not just a franchise. As Alex Kurtzman , who oversees all “Star Trek” TV production, puts it, “‘Star Trek’ is an institution.”

Without a steady infusion of new blood, though, institutions have a way of fading into oblivion (see soap operas, MySpace, Blockbuster Video). To keep “Star Trek” thriving has meant charting a precarious course to satisfy the fans who have fueled it for decades while also discovering innovative ways to get new audiences on board.

“Doing ‘Star Trek’ means that you have to deliver something that’s entirely familiar and entirely fresh at the same time,” Kurtzman says.

The franchise has certainly weathered its share of fallow periods, most recently after “Nemesis” bombed in theaters in 2002 and UPN canceled “Enterprise” in 2005. It took 12 years for “Star Trek” to return to television with the premiere of “Discovery” in 2017; since then, however, there has been more “Star Trek” on TV than ever: The adventure series “Strange New Worlds,” the animated comedy “Lower Decks” and the kids series “Prodigy” are all in various stages of production, and the serialized thriller “Picard” concluded last year, when it ranked, along with “Strange New Worlds,” among Nielsen’s 10 most-watched streaming original series for multiple weeks. Nearly one in five Paramount+ subscribers in the U.S. is watching at least one “Star Trek” series, according to the company, and more than 50% of fans watching one of the new “Trek” shows also watch at least two others. The new shows air in 200 international markets and are dubbed into 35 languages. As “Discovery” launches its fifth and final season in April, “Star Trek” is in many ways stronger than it’s ever been.

“’Star Trek’s fans have kept it alive more times than seems possible,” says Eugene Roddenberry, Jr., who executive produces the TV series through Roddenberry Entertainment. “While many shows rightfully thank their fans for supporting them, we literally wouldn’t be here without them.”

But the depth of fan devotion to “Star Trek” also belies a curious paradox about its enduring success: “It’s not the largest fan base,” says Akiva Goldsman, “Strange New Worlds” executive producer and co-showrunner. “It’s not ‘Star Wars.’ It’s certainly not Marvel.”

When J.J. Abrams rebooted “Star Trek” in 2009 — with Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto and Zoe Saldaña playing Kirk, Spock and Uhura — the movie grossed more than any previous “Star Trek” film by a comfortable margin. But neither that film nor its two sequels broke $500 million in global grosses, a hurdle every other top-tier franchise can clear without breaking a sweat.

There’s also the fact that “Star Trek” fans are aging. I ask “The Next Generation” star Jonathan Frakes, who’s acted in or directed more versions of “Star Trek” than any other person alive, how often he meets fans for whom the new “Star Trek” shows are their first. “Of the fans who come to talk to me, I would say very, very few,” he says. “‘Star Trek’ fans, as we know, are very, very, very loyal — and not very young.”

As Stapf puts it: “There’s a tried and true ‘Trek’ fan that is probably going to come to every ‘Star Trek,’ no matter what it is — and we want to expand the universe.”

Every single person I spoke to for this story talked about “Star Trek” with a joyful earnestness as rare in the industry as (nerd alert) a Klingon pacifist.

“When I’m meeting fans, sometimes they’re coming to be confirmed, like I’m kind of a priest,” Ethan Peck says during a break in filming on the “Strange New Worlds” set. He’s in full Spock regalia — pointy ears, severe eyebrows, bowl haircut — and when asked about his earliest memories of “Star Trek,” he stares off into space in what looks like Vulcan contemplation. “I remember being on the playground in second or third grade and doing the Vulcan salute, not really knowing where it came from,” he says. “When I thought of ‘Star Trek,’ I thought of Spock. And now I’m him. It’s crazy.”

To love “Star Trek” is to love abstruse science and cowboy diplomacy, complex moral dilemmas and questions about the meaning of existence. “It’s ultimately a show with the most amazing vision of optimism, I think, ever put on-screen in science fiction,” says Kurtzman, who is 50. “All you need is two minutes on the news to feel hopeless now. ‘Star Trek’ is honestly the best balm you could ever hope for.”

I’m getting a tour of the USS Enterprise from Scotty — or, rather, “Strange New World” production designer Jonathan Lee, who is gushing in his native Scottish burr as we step into the starship’s transporter room. “I got such a buzzer from doing this, I can’t tell you,” he says. “I actually designed four versions of it.”

Lee is especially proud of the walkway he created to run behind the transporter pads — an innovation that allows the production to shoot the characters from a brand-new set of angles as they beam up from a far-flung planet. It’s one of the countless ways that this show has been engineered to be as cinematic as possible, part of Kurtzman’s overall vision to make “Star Trek” on TV feel like “a movie every week.”

Kurtzman’s tenure with “Star Trek” began with co-writing the screenplay for Abrams’ 2009 movie, which was suffused with a fast-paced visual style that was new to the franchise. When CBS Studios approached Kurtzman in the mid-2010s about bringing “Star Trek” back to TV, he knew instinctively that it needed to be just as exciting as that film.

“The scope was so much different than anything we had ever done on ‘Next Gen,’” says Frakes, who’s helmed two feature films with the “Next Generation” cast and directed episodes of almost every live-action “Trek” TV series, including “Discovery” and “Strange New Worlds.” “Every department has the resources to create.”

A new science lab set for Season 3, for example, boasts a transparent floor atop a four-foot pool of water that swirls underneath the central workbench, and the surrounding walls sport a half dozen viewscreens with live schematics custom designed by a six-person team. “I like being able to paint on a really big canvas,” Kurtzman says. “The biggest challenge is always making sure that no matter how big something gets, you’re never losing focus on that tiny little emotional story.”

At this point, is there a genre that “Strange New Worlds” can’t do? “As long as we’re in storytelling that is cogent and sure handed, I’m not sure there is,” Goldsman says with an impish smile. “Could it do Muppets? Sure. Could it do black and white, silent, slapstick? Maybe!”

This approach is also meant to appeal to people who might want to watch “Star Trek” but regard those 668 hours of backstory as an insurmountable burden. “You shouldn’t have to watch a ‘previously on’ to follow our show,” Myers says.

To achieve so many hairpin shifts in tone and setting while maintaining Kurtzman’s cinematic mandate, “Strange New Worlds” has embraced one of the newest innovations in visual effects: virtual production. First popularized on the “Star Wars” series “The Mandalorian,” the technology — called the AR wall — involves a towering circular partition of LED screens projecting a highly detailed, computer-generated backdrop. Rather than act against a greenscreen, the actors can see whatever fantastical surroundings their characters are inhabiting, lending a richer level of verisimilitude to the show.

But there is a catch. While the technology is calibrated to maintain a proper sense of three-dimensional perspective through the camera lens, it can be a bit dizzying for anyone standing on the set. “The images on the walls start to move in a way that makes no sense,” says Mount. “You end up having to focus on something that’s right in front of you so you don’t fall down.”

And yet, even as he’s talking about it, Mount can’t help but break into a boyish grin. “Sometimes we call it the holodeck,” he says. In fact, the pathway to the AR wall on the set is dotted with posters of the virtual reality room from “The Next Generation” and the words “Enter Holodeck” in a classic “Trek” font.

“I want to take one of those home with me,” Peck says. Does the AR wall also affect him? “I don’t really get disoriented by it. Spock would not get ill, so I’m Method acting.”

I’m on the set of the “Star Trek” TV movie “Section 31,” seated in an opulent nightclub with a view of a brilliant, swirling nebula, watching Yeoh rehearse with director Olatunde Osunsanmi and her castmates. Originally, the project was announced as a TV series centered on Philippa Georgiou, the semi-reformed tyrant Yeoh originated on “Discovery.” But between COVID delays and the phenomenon of “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” there wasn’t room in the veteran actress’s schedule to fit a season of television. Yeoh was undaunted.

“We’d never let go of her,” she says of her character. “I was just blown away by all the different things I could do with her. Honestly, it was like, ‘Let’s just get it done, because I believe in this.’”

If that means nothing to you, don’t worry: The enormity of the revelation that Garrett is being brought back is meant only for fans. If you don’t know who the character is, you’re not missing anything.

“It was always my goal to deliver an entertaining experience that is true to the universe but appeals to newcomers,” says screenwriter Craig Sweeny. “I wanted a low barrier of entry so that anybody could enjoy it.”

Nevertheless, including Garrett on the show is exactly the kind of gasp-worthy detail meant to flood “Star Trek” fans with geeky good feeling.

“You cannot create new fans to the exclusion of old fans,” Kurtzman says. “You must serve your primary fan base first and you must keep them happy. That is one of the most important steps to building new fans.”

On its face, that maxim would make “Section 31” a genuine risk. The titular black-ops organization has been controversial with “Star Trek” fans since it was introduced in the 1990s. “The concept is almost antagonistic to some of the values of ‘Star Trek,’” Sweeny says. But he still saw “Section 31” as an opportunity to broaden what a “Star Trek” project could be while embracing the radical inclusivity at the heart of the franchise’s appeal.

“Famously, there’s a spot for everybody in Roddenberry’s utopia, so I was like, ‘Well, who would be the people who don’t quite fit in?’” he says. “I didn’t want to make the John le Carré version, where you’re in the headquarters and it’s backbiting and shades of gray. I wanted to do the people who were at the edges, out in the field. These are not people who necessarily work together the way you would see on a ‘Star Trek’ bridge.”

For Osunsanmi, who grew up watching “The Next Generation” with his father, it boils down to a simple question: “Is it putting good into the world?” he asks. “Are these characters ultimately putting good into the world? And, taking a step back, are we putting good into the world? Are we inspiring humans watching this to be good? That’s for me what I’ve always admired about ‘Star Trek.’”

Should “Section 31” prove successful, Yeoh says she’s game for a sequel. And Kurtzman is already eyeing more opportunities for TV movies, including a possible follow-up to “Picard.” The franchise’s gung-ho sojourn into streaming movies, however, stands in awkward contrast to the persistent difficulty Paramount Pictures and Abrams’ production company Bad Robot have had making a feature film following 2016’s “Star Trek Beyond” — the longest theaters have gone without a “Star Trek” movie since Paramount started making them.

First, a movie reuniting Pine’s Capt. Kirk with his late father — played in the 2009 “Star Trek” by Chris Hemsworth — fell apart in 2018. Around the same time, Quentin Tarantino publicly flirted with, then walked away from, directing a “Star Trek” movie with a 1930s gangster backdrop. Noah Hawley was well into preproduction on a “Star Trek” movie with a brand-new cast, until then-studio chief Emma Watts abruptly shelved it in 2020. And four months after Abrams announced at Paramount’s 2022 shareholders meeting that his 2009 cast would return for a movie directed by Matt Shakman (“WandaVision”), Shakman left the project to make “The Fantastic Four” for Marvel. (It probably didn’t help that none of the cast had been approached before Abrams made his announcement.)

The studio still intends to make what it’s dubbed the “final chapter” for the Pine-Quinto-Saldaña cast, and Steve Yockey (“The Flight Attendant”) is writing a new draft of the script. Even further along is another prospective “Star Trek” film written by Seth Grahame-Smith (“Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter”) and to be directed by Toby Haynes (“Andor,” “Black Mirror: USS Callister”) that studio insiders say is on track to start preproduction by the end of the year. That project will serve as an origin story of sorts for the main timeline of the entire franchise. In both cases, the studio is said to be focused on rightsizing the budgets to fit within the clear box office ceiling for “Star Trek” feature films.

Far from complaining, everyone seems to relish the challenge. Visual effects supervisor Jason Zimmerman says that “working with Alex, the references are always at least $100 million movies, if not more, so we just kind of reverse engineer how do we do that without having to spend the same amount of money and time.”

The workload doesn’t seem to faze him either. “Visual effects people are a big, big ‘Star Trek’ fandom,” he says. “You naturally just get all these people who go a little bit above and beyond, and you can’t trade that for anything.”

In one of Kurtzman’s several production offices in Toronto, he and production designer Matthew Davies are scrutinizing a series of concept drawings for the newest “Star Trek” show, “Starfleet Academy.” A bit earlier, they showed me their plans for the series’ central academic atrium, a sprawling, two-story structure that will include a mess hall, amphitheater, trees, catwalks, multiple classrooms and a striking view of the Golden Gate Bridge in a single, contiguous space. To fit it all, they plan to use every inch of Pinewood Toronto’s 45,900 square foot soundstage, the largest in Canada.

But this is a “Star Trek” show, so there do need to be starships, and Kurtzman is discussing with Davies about how one of them should look. The issue is that “Starfleet Academy” is set in the 32nd century, an era so far into the future Kurtzman and his team need to invent much of its design language.

“For me, this design is almost too Klingon,” Kurtzman says. “I want to see the outline and instinctively, on a blink, recognize it as a Federation ship.”

The time period was first introduced on Season 3 of “Discovery,” when the lead character, Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green), transported the namesake starship and its crew there from the 23rd century. “It was exciting, because every time we would make a decision, we would say, ‘And now that’s canon,’” says Martin-Green.

“We listened to a lot of it,” Kurtzman says. “I think I’ve been able to separate the toxic fandom from really true fans who love ‘Star Trek’ and want you to hear what they have to say about what they would like to see.”

By Season 2, the “Discovery” writers pivoted from its dour, war-torn first season and sent the show on its trajectory 900-plus years into the future. “We had to be very aware of making sure that Spock was in the right place and that Burnham’s existence was explained properly, because she was never mentioned in the original series,” says executive producer and showrunner Michelle Paradise. “What was fun about jumping into the future is that it was very much fresh snow.”

That freedom affords “Starfleet Academy” far more creative latitude while also dramatically reducing how much the show’s target audience of tweens and teens needs to know about “Star Trek” before watching — which puts them on the same footing as the students depicted in the show. “These are kids who’ve never had a red alert before,” Noga Landau, executive producer and co-showrunner, says. “They never had to operate a transporter or be in a phaser fight.”

In the “Starfleet Academy” writers’ room in Secret Hideout’s Santa Monica offices, Kurtzman tells the staff — a mix of “Star Trek” die-hards, part-time fans and total newbies — that he wants to take a 30,000-foot view for a moment. “I think we need to ground in science more throughout the show,” he says, a giant framed photograph of Spock ears just over his shoulder. “The kids need to use science more to solve problems.”

Immediately, one of the writers brightens. “Are you saying we can amp up the techno-babble?” she says. “I’m just excited I get to use my computer science degree.”

After they break for lunch, Kurtzman is asked how much longer he plans to keep making “Star Trek.” 

“The minute I fall out of love with it is the minute that it’s not for me anymore. I’m not there yet,” he says. “To be able to build in this universe to tell stories that are fundamentally about optimism and a better future at a time when the world seems to be falling apart — it’s a really powerful place to live every day.”

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Artwork by Kris Trigwell

Here's the science refresher you need before diving into Netflix's '3 Body Problem'

  • Netflix's " 3 Body Problem " is based on a science-fiction trilogy and follows a group of physicists.
  • We asked an astronomer and an aerospace engineer to explain some of the show's scientific concepts.
  • It might help to have a bit of background on the Fermi paradox and the Wow! signal before you watch.

Insider Today

The upcoming Netflix show "3 Body Problem" is a sci-fi story about a group of physicists grappling with the discovery of an alien civilization .

Taking its name from a tricky bit of orbital mechanics — three celestial bodies moving around each other — the show is based on the science-fiction trilogy " Remembrance of Earth's Past " by Liu Cixin.

In the show, several of the main characters studied physics at Oxford University . Luckily, you don't need to have the same background to enjoy the show.

However, there are a few scientific concepts that might be helpful to know before you tune in on March 21.

The three-body problem is unsolvable and chaotic

Some of the show's action takes place in a virtual world that's orbited by three suns. The celestial mechanics of such a planet have long perplexed scientists in the real world.

"This is a centuries-old problem," Shane Ross, an aerospace and ocean engineering professor at Virginia Tech, told Business Insider.

Isaac Newton was able to figure out the two-body problem, how a pair of massive objects like stars or planets move when affected by each other's gravity.

"The two-body problem is sort of the paradigm of stability," Ross said. Adding in a third body, though, makes everything topsy-turvy.

From a mathematical perspective , "it's unsolvable," Ross said of the three-body problem. "You can't write out the solution for all time as some algebraic formula."

It's a bit like the butterfly effect: a small change can vastly alter the outcome. "Any uncertainty we have in the initial conditions grows exponentially, to the point where the future state of the system is essentially unpredictable."

Alpha Centauri is the closest star system to Earth

The three-body system in the story is based on a real neighboring star system called Alpha Centauri.

At about 4 light-years from Earth, it's the closest star system to our own and contains three stars: Alpha Centauri A, Alpha Centauri B, and Proxima Centauri, which has two planets orbiting around it.

"We're talking about something super close to us," Franck Marchis, a senior planetary astronomer with the SETI Institute, said. "It's like looking at the backyard of neighbors, basically."

However, it would take special conditions for life, at least as we know it, to survive, on either planet around Proxima Centauri. "The conditions for life are extremely rare," Ross said. "I think the Earth is a very special planet," adding that "there could be life that takes some other form that we don't know about."

If a civilization from Alpha Centauri evolved at a similar pace to our own, then "they're probably more advanced than us," Marchis said because the system is estimated to be between 5 and 7 billion years old whereas Earth's solar system formed 4.5 billion years ago.

The Fermi paradox poses the question, where are all the aliens?

If there are highly evolved beings on other planets, why haven't they gotten in touch? That's the question astrophysicist Ye Wenjie is asking when she brings up the Fermi paradox in the show.

In 1950, Nobel prize-winning physicist Enrico Fermi wondered where all the extraterrestrials were. Decades later, other scientists picked up the question. If other civilizations existed, they must have left some evidence.

To Marchis, what became known as the Fermi paradox is an outdated way of thinking. "The idea is that because we are a civilization that's become technologically advanced, the first thing that we do is to travel through the galaxy, 'Star Trek'-like," he said.

Instead, he prefers the "zoo hypothesis."

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If they are truly advanced, he said, "they probably reached a certain level of sentientness or consciousness that makes them more respectful of other civilizations which are progressing."

In short, they're purposefully avoiding contact with our planet .

Aliens could have communicated through the Wow! signal

One of the most mysterious potential alien communications is known as the Wow! signal. In the show, Clarence (Benedict Wong) describes how the strange signal was picked up in Ohio and China.

During the 1970s, researchers at Ohio State University really were involved in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, or SETI . They used a radio observatory nicknamed "Big Ear" to try and pick up extraterrestrial communications.

In 1977, volunteer Jerry Ehman was looking at a computer printout of a signal Big Ear had picked up three days earlier. He circled the numbers and wrote "Wow!" alongside them. The 72-second signal was strong and located at a frequency known as the hydrogen line.

At the time, researchers thought aliens would communicate via that frequency "because it's the easiest way to send signals through the galaxy," Marchis said.

The signal has never repeated or been detected again Marchis said. (And no other observatories reported picking up the signal, in China or anywhere else.)

Since the signal itself wasn't saved, there's no way of knowing if it contained a message, Marchis said. Some more mundane explanations for the signal have been suggested, like the radio transmission reflecting off a passing comet.

SETI has come a long way since the '70s, with many researchers using newer technology and a broader range of signals, Marchis said. "We assume that if aliens will communicate with us," he said, "they're slightly more advanced than the people from the 1970s."

Occam's razor suggests simple explanations are often better

Like many other sci-fi movies and shows before it, including "Contact" and "Fringe," "3 Body Problem" makes a reference to Occam's razor.

In 1852, philosopher Sir William Hamilton coined the term "Occam's razor," attributing the idea to 14th-century theologian William of Ockham.

William of Ockham had written, "Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate," or "Plurality must never be posited without necessity." It's an idea that Aristotle and Ptolemy also stated.

Today, the well-known concept is usually stated as "the simplest solution is usually correct." The often-cited example is, if you hear the sound of hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras (provided you're not on the savanna).

Neutrino detectors are built deep underground

The trailer for the show includes a dramatic shot of one of the characters stepping into what looks like a neutrino detector and falling, presumably to her death.

Neutrinos, also known as ghost particles, are subatomic particles that the sun and  supernovae  create. Billions pass through your body at any given time.

Much like particle accelerators, the devices may help unlock some of the universe's secrets. They're often built underground to shield them from cosmic rays that can interfere with the data.

Three celestial bodies lined up is known as syzygy

During the show's third episode, the three suns in the virtual world all line up in a triple eclipse.

Ross pointed out that the show debuts around a "cosmically significant day," the vernal equinox . "That's the day when all across the world it's equal daylight and nighttime," he said.

It's also close to the upcoming solar eclipse that has a path of totality through a large portion of North America.

"That's the sun, moon, and Earth all in a line," Ross said. "It's called syzygy, when three celestial bodies are exactly in a line."

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