star trek fanfiction original series

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Here is the first part of a two part story I wrote about a young Dr. McCoy shortly after the death of his father, and before the break up of his marriage based upon the episode idea, Joanna by D.C. Fontana.

In the Mirror, Mirror universe, Saavik becomes a player in Spock’s plans to overthrow the Empire.

A lifeless planet around a star about to go nova is covered with mysterious structures that may have been made by sentient life long ago. And one strange energy signature…

Number One suspects her old Academy nemesis is allowing Federation governments to illegally dump their criminals on a notoriously vicious planet.

This is a classic Star Trek tale that pits Kirk against his own crew in a battle for his very survival.

Chief Engineer Scott, trapped in a damaged shuttlecraft in a decaying orbit around a black hole, is stymied by a simple, metal screw.

Chekov gets a special assignment, as Kirk tries to keep the Federation together, in this often humorous story.

Spock and Leila after Omicron Ceti, on the way to Starbase 27.

Kirk wakes up on the wrong side of the bed. What could go wrong?

Stranded on an alien planet, Spock and a female officer from his past fight to survive, while Captain Kirk races to uncover a plot that threatens interstellar war. Will he be able to avert the crisis and get back to the planet in time to save them?

A missing scene from “the Empath”, after the Vyanns disappear with Gem, but before we next see Kirk, Spock and McCoy on the bridge.

Once more Spock is ill (poor guy, someone should do something for him!). Doctor McCoy has to find out what it is. Captain Kirk has to worry.

A short story about Spock teaching at Starfleet Academy, a cat and a computer bug.

A very young Spock is lost in a Vulcan desert, along with his Human cousin. Both the boys will learn something from the adventure.

Dr McCoy learns to his own expense that it is dangerous to pick up and bring home unknown things.

A new arrival to the Enterprise discovers that she and Spock have a lot in common.

Mudd’s “testimony” to a Starfleet investigator on how he escaped from Mudd’s Planet of androids.

  STAR TREK A Second Home   by Cory Pelc   For my wife—and her acceptance of my quirks.    CHAPTER 1 Leonard McCoy was tired. Tired of dealing with the constant threats to the well-being of the crew, and tired of filling out the endless death certificates. The last such “adventure” had claimed a […]

Star Trek We Traverse Afar By Dirk Wickenden I wish to apologise if any of this appears blasphemous to believers, it is not intended as such, as I am Christian myself but just to present a literal Star Trek nativity story. It might bring people to God, who before have avoided the subject or not […]

Author’s Note – Fascinated by the strange goings on in the BBC’s CBeebies TV programme In The Night Garden (having a young son means one watches such kids’ programmes!),  I suddenly was struck by inspiration and penned the following story as a crossover between Kirk-era Trek and In The Night Garden – I believe this […]

[contact-form to=’[email protected]’ subject=’The Dosadi Suite’][contact-field label=’Name’ type=’name’ required=’1’/][contact-field label=’Email’ type=’email’ required=’1’/][contact-field label=’Website’ type=’url’/][contact-field label=’Comment’ type=’textarea’ required=’1’/][/contact-form] unt) FOREWORD For those of you not terribly familiar with the Star Trek universe (all rights owned by Paramoallow me to provide a brief background. “The United Federation of Planets (abbreviated as UFP and commonly referred to as the […]

“God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.” – William Shakespeare The little girl’s laughter was like the sound of a springtime brook, gurgling and chuckling over sun-dappled rocks. Her spun-gold hair twinkled in the floating lights as they thrummed back through the air into their charging cradles to shut down and be packed away […]

Forward Here Posted is the first TWO Chapters of a 25 Chapter Book. I wrote this 20 years ago, for fun, while trapped in the subway to and from work every day. Thought it might be intriguing to put it out there. I am just editing as I go along so the other chapters will […]

An attack on a Federation outpost with illegal weapons places the entire Federation on alert status. It is up to the former commander of the outpost, a young Federation officer, to team up with Captain Kirk and select members of the Enterprise crew on a covert mission into the Neutral Zone to discover those responsible for the attack, and prevent a devastating war.

  The Pax Void Incident By Amy Bisson   Captain James T. Kirk leaned forward in his chair, studying the viewscreen intently. He could see the pirate ship straight ahead, seeming to get smaller. “Increase speed to warp 8.1,” he ordered. “Warp 8.1, aye,” acknowledged Sulu. “He is approaching the Pax Void. He will enter […]

Prisoners Of Time by David Downey   Captain’s log, stardate 6011.5.  The Enterprise has been sent to Tau Delta, a previously unexplored system, to investigate the disappearance of scout ship USS Crockett.  We are beginning our search at Tau Delta II, which has an atmosphere that is curiously resistant to our sensors. “Achieved standard orbit,” […]

LATER IN THE EPISODE “Mr. Spock,” Palmer said, “We’ve managed to pierce the interference locally.” “Can you raise Star Fleet?” Spock asked. “No, sir,” she replied. “But I’ve got ship to ship back. Picking up Captain Kirk.” “On audio, Lt.” Kirk’s worried, frustrated voice came over the speaker. “Kirk to Enterprise….Enterprise, come in…” Spock moved to […]

********************************Foreword********************************** This is something I’ve been thinking of doing for a good portion of my life. “The Doomsday Machine” was the very first “Star Trek TOS” episode I ever saw 50 years ago. I was 8 years old. Being a “spaceship groupie” it’s always been my favorite episode; something I was proud to have in common […]

PROLOGUE Captain Ther’kev had little time to react. His ship was drained of seventy-five percent of its power. Weapons were offline and the strange six shuttles that appeared out of nowhere following the drain had commandeered six of his finest tactical officers. He never saw it coming. Ther’kev stood face-to-face with the large alien ship […]

Destination Star Trek

A malfunction transports Kirk and Spock to a high school of the 1970s.

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  Young Jack Gavrial, having been enslaved for three years by Orions after being captured from the freighter HALF TWAIN finds the courage and opportunity to escape bondage with the help of the brave and self sacrificing officers and crew of the Star Fleet transport PROUD MARY.

Classic Star Trek zines published for over twenty years. Now, some of the stories from these zines, stories that are long out of print, are being posted here.

This is a growing archive of Star Trek stories taken from the 233 zines we published through STAG, ScoTpress and IDIC between 1975 and 1996. STAG and IDIC were Star Trek fan clubs, whilst ScoTpress was our own independent press. The stories we are posting are all ones that fit the ScoTpress guidelines.

ScoTpress published gen fan fiction that followed the adventures of the Enterprise and her crew, a lot of which involve character interaction in an action-adventure format, leaning heavily on the relationship between Kirk, Spock and McCoy or their relationship with other members of the crew.

The vast majority of stories published by ScoTpress are TOS based - i.e. set during the five year mission of the original series, although we did publish a series of zines based on Star Trek the Next Generation.  Most stories fit into one or more of the following categories - action-adventure, alternate-universe, angst, episode-related, hurt-comfort, relationship.

We are only posting individual stories in HTML format where we have the permission of the writers. However as an experiment we have decided to produce archive copies of the original zines as PDF files and to make them available as downloads. Many of the zines were donated to the British, Scottish and one or two other libraries on legal deposit. As far as we know copies can be obtained on payment of a copyright fee.

If any contributors object to their stories, poetry, or artwork being made available in this way we will remove them from the zines on request.

The PDFs have been scanned from a printed copy and are best viewed on a 9"-10" tablet. They are also readable on a laptop or computer with a large screen.

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Fanfic Recs / Star Trek: The Original Series

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These are recommendations made by Tropers for Star Trek: The Original Series fanfics, all of which have to be signed to stay on the page. Feel free to add a fanfic of your own to the list, but remember to use the template found here .

You can also add to the current recommendations if you want. Refrain from posting Conversation in the Main Page though; that goes in the discussion page.

If you're looking for recommendations for the 2009 movie , please click here .

An index of all Star Trek Fanfiction Recommendations pages can be found here .

Authors and Websites

• Recommended by Ayries
• Pairing : Various (Slash, Het, Femslash)
• A Kink Meme for Star Trek XI . There are a good chunk of TOS related fics however. Not only has this somehow achieved upwards of five thousand comments in under two weeks, but it somehow has managed to have a very good excellent-to-poor fic ratio. Some of these authors are just amazing.
• It's currently on part fourteen and growing every day, and the excellent-to-poor ratio is, if not the same, better.
• Recommended by LeighSabio
• Pairing : Mostly Kirk/Spock/McCoy
• Recommended by dedicatedfollower467
• Seconded by scarletclarinet . Brilliant writing and characterization. Lots of short pieces, but author has an admitted habit of taking short pieces and expanding them far beyond the original scope (e.g. the Insontis series). Plots vary from original to filling in the gaps before, during or after canon episodes. Absolutely wonderful to read.
• Recommended by jinjoo88
• A collection of stories published in the fanzine the Orion Press, written from the 1980's to the 2010's and spanning the in-universe timeline from pre-TOS to early TNG. They have the advantage of being screened and edited and are generally polished and enjoyable works written by a pool of pretty consistent contributors. They definitely conform pretty strictly to canon, and occasionally fanon.

General Fics Stories focused on the family and the friendly relationships of the cast. Plot-focused stories or light day-in-the-life stories. Pretty much anything that isn't focused on romance.

• Recommended by JBridge
• Status : Complete
• Synopsis : The perfect Parody Sue fanfic. Also coined the term.

• Recommended by sauronlulz
• Synopsis : "Reflecting on her ignorance helps to assuage the flicker of anger I feel toward her for her violation. She does not understand." Spock's thoughts during "This Side of Paradise."

• Recommended by Ainyre
• Synopsis : Kidnapped and then mysteriously released by the Romulans, Kirk is traveling back to Earth to stand trial. Can his friends, and the rest of the crew of the Enterprise do anything to help this self-confessed traitor?

• Synopsis : After the deaths of both Edith Keeler and Sam Kirk, an alien encounter whilst traveling in a shuttlecraft is the last straw for the distressed and exhausted Captain of the Enterprise.

• Synopsis : A chance meeting in a garden changes the shape of two lives forever.

• Synopsis : At the Academy, Kirk faces the Kobayashi Maru.
• Warning : Dead link

• Recommended by Andariel
• Synopsis: It's a trek through time as the officers of two Enterprises confront Gotor: The Most Powerful Being Who Ever Lived!
• Comments: Hilarious one-shot that takes place in both the Original Series and the Next Generation
• Recommended by Capt. Equinox
• Recommended by SuperTulle
• Synopsis: "This is In Their Own Words , and I'm Paul Barrows. Welcome back to our multi-part special about the facts behind the legend of the starship Enterprise."
• Comments: A Deconstruction Fic / Literary Agent Hypothesis view of what actually transpired on the Enterprise. As the captains of NCC-1701 are interviewed, it turns out that a lot of what we saw in the series never happened, or happened a lot less dramatic.
• Recommended by Nerdman 3000
• Status: Dead; last updated April 2018
• Synopsis: The premise of this massive alternate Star Trek timeline is based on what if Khan Noonien Singh and the Augument’s won the Eugenics Wars through one last ditch effort tactic: engineering a genetic virus, known as the Ascension Flu, which results in any future children born infected with the virus to be born as Auguments.
• Comments: This timeline is massive, spanning from the end of the alternate Eugenics Wars to, according to the author, the events of an alternate Star Trek Nemesis. Incredibly detailed, and long, this is probably one of the most impressive works I’ve ever read. I actually did a wordcount, and at the time of this writing, Marth 5th, 2018, this timeline is over 212,000, and has only now just gotten into the events of First Contact. A pretty impressive work.

• Synopsis : An adorable/terrifying recounting of our trio on a simple rescue mission gone wrong, told in the voice of a hilarious, sympathetic, and completely spot on Bones. The good doctor gets to be the hero of the hour for once.

• Synopsis : Kirk and Spock land on Veyga, a pre-warp, medieval-fantasy-style planet that has unfortunately been made aware of the wider universe by the Klingons. As they attempt to negotiate a successful trade agreement with the Veygans while navigating the cultural waters, our duo is attacked by the mysterious Shadowguard. They must follow the clues in an attempt to discover their assailant's motives, and in the process uncover the dark secret of Veyga. Don't let the "dragons" fool you- this is not crack. Kirk and Spock are IC and have some lovely understated moments of character interaction. The medieval styling is just a fun theme for what is a very Science Fiction story with an interesting ethical quandary worthy of Trek.

• Synopsis : Spock is giving a lecture and is away from the Enterprise for a week, so Kirk stays in touch over a text service.

• Synopsis : The Enterprise's five-year mission is coming to an end. The question is, what else is going to end with it? Absolutely brutal, even more so because it's totally believable as canon. It is gen, but just barely (technically pre-slash in context with the author's other works, but you don't have to read it that way).

• Synopsis : McCoy's transport is destroyed in what is thought to be an accidental containment field explosion. In truth, he has been abducted by a hostile alien race for a sinister purpose. Can Kirk and Spock rescue him when they don't even know he's still alive? A novel length work focusing on Bones with some great Vulcan Original Characters .

• Synopsis : 2242 - 2243 "Courage, struggling for oxygen." Full-length novel about Scotty's time in Engineering school during his senior year. Takes place after Distant Horizons. 1st Place ASC Award Winner, 2008. One of the only substantial fics I have seen focusing on Scotty. There are several more works in the Arc of the Wolf Series following Scotty's career.

• Synopsis : Leonard finds himself in a situation that quickly goes from bad to worse, and it turns out he is the only one who can fix it. Hostage situations sure tend to get more complicated with crazy telepaths involved.

• Synopsis : A routine mission goes bad when Kirk, Spock, and McCoy find themselves crashed on a remote planet, injured, and hidden from the Enterprise. To make matters worse, the planet's inhabitants appreciate neither Starfleet nor unexpected visitors.

• Status : Dormant
• Synopsis : Revenge blinds. Tempers simmer close to the surface when the Enterprise is interrupted from their much-needed break. Accusations are thrown about, misunderstandings are made, and mysteries are uncovered. Post "The Enterprise Incident." K,S,M friendship. A tense, painful character study.

• Synopsis : Jim and Spock need to talk to each other. McCoy decides some tactful manipulation is in order and arranges shore leave for him and his two COs. Friendship and character focus.

• Synopsis : Spock wonders, sometimes, if perhaps there is nothing at all he can do to fix time. If the loop will continue forever, or if perhaps in a million days the timeline will abruptly flow again, smooth and flawless, while he remains mad...

• Synopsis : "On his first shore leave as the new captain, Kirk overindulges with the help of his friend and first officer, Mitchell, who abandons him in a seedy port bar. It is the science officer, Spock, who is missing his previous captain and is having second thoughts about joining the mission, who comes to his rescue." This writer has a beautiful way with words and a slightly different style than a lot of fanfiction I've seen.

• Synopsis : "Bones tells me you have been naming constellations, Spock?" Jim asked with a grin. "I thought those were, let's see, 'illogical flights of fancy for the lazy mind'." "For the simplistic mind, Jim, the simplistic mind." Bones corrected. "Trust me, I've heard that lecture several times the last few years." A short, sweet, and poignant piece. All of this author's works are highly recommended.

• Synopsis : "Spock never liked taking his shore leave, and Jim and Bones aren't letting him talk his way out of it this time. Lucky for them, he's the only one capable of getting them back to the ship - alive." This piece has a fun, garish, nightmarish quality and an intriguing plot. Near novel length, trinity centric.

• Synopsis : After the kironide, before the evening's entertainment, Kirk and Spock get some hc away from those dastardly Platonians. A Plato's Stepchildren interlude.

Court-martialed for culpable negligence in the death of a heavily populated star system — he made a bad decision while seriously ill, but he never offers the illness as a defense — James Kirk is convicted, stripped of his honors, heavily fined and forbidden to ever set foot on a Starfleet installation again. Taking the name Thomas Baroner (from "Errand of Mercy"), he becomes Spaceman 3rd Class on an alien freighter and is soon recruited by a member of Lightfleet , a very idealistic but clandestine space service founded by an ancient alien race. Gary Seven was in Lightfleet, and while we never meet him, this is a detailed portrayal of the organization that trained and sent him.

• Synopsis : Stranded with a medical team in a war zone, with the captain incapacitated and no contact with the Enterprise, Spock, Dr McCoy, and Nurse Chapel must fight to survive with dwindling rations and an ever-increasing patient load.

• Recommended by Hwarin
• Synopsis : The events of the episode The Naked Time from the perspective of the one department guaranteed to have been the busiest during the chaos. When the entire ship is going mad around them, it is up to the Redshirts to keep their crewmates safe. POV of Security Chief Giotto. Some implied slash for Kirk and Spock.
• Reviews : The characters are very believable, the comedy is well written, and it could fit right in to an official novelisation. The original characters are also quite fun, especially Ensign Styles - Hwarin
• Recommended by kensu
• Synopsis : Charlie Evans returns to the Enterprise after three years of captivity. But he's changed, honest he has! Contains a sequel to another famous episode, and references abound on just about every page. It also contains an ending that just might be life-changing for the reader.
• Recommended by AcrossTheStars , LeighSabio
• Pairing : Kirk/Spock
• Synopsis : After being caught in "illicit activity" in a conference room during tedious diplomatic negotiations, Kirk must write up an incident report for Starfleet Command.
• Tags : Comedy

• Recommended by AcrossTheStars
• Synopsis : Post- The Search For Spock , Jim and Spock explore his returning memories... and discover what they should have been to each other all along.

• Recommended by AcrossTheStars , Killa
• Synopsis : The effects of the Kolinahr have left Spock divorced from his body, unable to fully express what he knows he and Kirk should be. But when V'Ger returns, demanding Spock, Kirk will fight very Hell itself to save him - and to keep him for eternity.

• Pairing : Pike/Chekov
• Synopsis : On a training voyage, Captain Pike meets Cadet Pavel Chekov.
• Comments : Not a pairing that would ever have crossed my mind, but dear God is it well-written!

• Recommended by {{ Across The Stars }
• Synopsis : A very, very drunk McCoy witnesses a private moment between his Captain and his First Officer.

• Synopsis : Not all is as it seems.

• Status : ? ( Dead link )
• Pairing : Kirk/McCoy /Spock
• Synopsis : The long and difficult road from their first meeting to long after their careers are over.

• Synopsis : During a war with the Tholians, Spock is given his own command. These are the letters sent between the two officers during the months they're kept apart.

• Status : Dead
• Synopsis : A collection of short stories that use canonical scenes as a jumping-off point, and suggest what may have happened before or after them. Some are lemon , some non- lemon .

• Synopsis : After Amok Time , Kirk and Spock head off to the Altair VI peace conference, and find a few surprises there

• Recommended by the GirlInGlasses
• Parings : Technically Kirk/Spock, but no sex, could be interpreted as seriously deep friendship.
• Synopsis : A story about regrets and second chances. Faced with the news of Kirk's death in Generations, Spock tells the story of a thirty-year friendship that defied all categorization. (Crossover with Star Trek: TNG) Originally posted in 1996.

• Recommended By: StudiousJones
• Synopsis : When Jim Kirk turns seventy, his life as starship captain seems farther away than ever before, but soon he is forced to realize that domestic life on Earth might lead to events which are more disastrous to him than most deep-space missions.
• Tags : AU ignoring Generations .

• Recommended By: Jesska
• Pairing : Spock/McCoy
• Synopsis : After everything they've ever known falls to pieces, McCoy and Spock attempt to find some meaning in what is left of their lives.

• Synopsis : A starship captain discovers that his subconscious mind has been busily courting while his conscious mind runs his ship.

• Synopsis : After retrieving Kirk from the interspatial rift of "The Tholian Web", Spock realizes his oath to Starfleet and his service aboard the Enterprise are in jeopardy because he has denied to himself–and withheld from Kirk–a certain truth about the nature of the Vulcan relationship called "t'hy'la."

• Synopsis : Kirk, Spock, Scotty and McCoy kill time in a bar.

• Recommended by Kittenmommy
• Pairing : Spock/Chapel
• Synopsis : This is not your normal Spock/Chapel. It's dark, it's twisted , it's...well, give it a try and find out exactly what it is .

• Recommended by RoseAndHeather
• Pairing: Kirk/Spock
• Synopsis : The King's Speech , Star Trek-style. In a world where the Vulcan Federation annexed the outnumbered and outgunned Earth to rescue the planet from its war with the Klingons, Spock is King George VI, Kirk is the Queen Mother, Saavik is Princess Elizabeth, Dr McCoy is Lionel Logue, Sybok is Edward VIII, Ty'Lena is Wallis Simpson, T'Pau is the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Sarek is King George V. The story echoes the film - and the history it was based on - without being a slavish copy.

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Since then, The Wand Company has also shared that the tricorder will include all of Captain Kirk’s recorded captain’s logs, and that the integrated display screen will feature animated 23rd century-style graphics in several different configurations.

Now, the replica inches closer and closer to the fanbase eagerly awaiting the chance to buy a tricorder of their own, in an update shared by the company last week:

Your patience continues to be appreciated as we complete the tricorder development. Right now we are putting the finishing touches to the software and getting all the regulatory approvals and type testing completed so that we can move into full production.    By now, of course, we have a handful of finished tricorders that we are using, playing with, and generally testing, pushing their functions to see if we can expose any software kinks that need smoothing out, or if there are any last minute improvements we think we can make to the tricorder and the way it feels.

And the TWC team aren’t the only ones playing with those first finish units — former Mythbuster and Tested host Adam Savage has now gotten his knowledgeable hands on the replica for a brand new Tested video released today, where he’s joined by TWC’s Chris Barnardo.​

  In addition to the  Tested feature, the tricorder was also showcased on YouTube channel Your Geek Fix this morning, which also illustrates many of the frankly  incredible functions of the replica:

  Preorders for The Wand Company’s  Star Trek: The Original Series tricorder replica are projected to begin later this summer and is expected to retail for between $300-$350. Fans are encouraged to sign up for The Wand Company’s tricorder mailing list ahead of this summer’s preorder window.

As soon as we have more information about when you can order your own Star Trek tricorder, we’ll be sure to let you all know!

Keep checking back to TrekCore for all the latest on the world of Star Trek merchandise!

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Why detmer & owosekun were missing from star trek: discovery season 5 explained by showrunner.

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Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 Returning Cast & New Character Guide

Star trek: discovery’s burnham and saru friendship is great, but i miss their old dynamic, discovery’s finale proves 5 star trek seasons is not the new 7.

Warning: This Article Contains SPOILERS for Star Trek: Discovery's Series Finale - "Life, Itself"

• The actors playing Lt. Commanders Detmer and Owosekun had scheduling conflicts, explaining their absence in Star Trek: Discovery season 5.
• Showrunner Michelle Paradise clarified that the beloved characters were not benched, but Emily Coutts and Oyin Oladejo had other projects.
• Detmer and Owo return in Star Trek: Discovery's series finale.

Star Trek: Discovery showrunner Michelle Paradise reveals why Lt. Commanders Keyla Detmer (Emily Coutts) and Joann Owosekun (Oyin Oladejo) missed most of season 5. Detmer and Owo were USS Discovery bridge crew members and familar faces since Star Trek: Discovery season 1. However, audiences couldn't help but notice that Detmer and Owosekun were absent for much of Star Trek: Discovery season 5 and replaced by Lt. Commander Asha (Christina Dixon) and Commander Lorna Jemison (Zahra Bentham).

Michelle Paradise responded to @RommelVFX on X and set the record straight that scheduling conflicts is the reason why Detmer and Owosekun didn't appear throughout most of Star Trek: Discovery season 5. Read Paradise's post below:

As Burnham seeks the universe's greatest treasure in Star Trek: Discovery season 5, she'll need help from a host of new and returning characters.

Why Detmer & Owosekun's Absence Mattered In Star Trek: Discovery Season 5

Discovery's final season wasn't the same without detmer and owo..

Star Trek: Discovery season 5 introduced a mostly new bridge crew, with Lt. Commander Asha taking over for Keyla Detmer at the helm of the USS Discovery and Commander Jemison subbing for Joann Owosekun at operations. In Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 5, "Mirrors" , Detmer and Owosekun were assigned to pilot the Mirror Universe's ISS Enterprise to Federation HQ by Captain Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green). This explained Detmer and Owo's absence for the rest of Discovery season 5.

Detmer and Owo do appear in Star Trek: Discovery's epilogue scene.

Detmer and Owosekun's absence was felt by longtime Star Trek: Discovery fans who wanted their characters' backstories and personalities fleshed out, especially since season 5 was Disco 's final season. However, scheduling conflicts prevented Emily Coutts and Oyin Oladejo from being in every episode of Star Trek: Discovery season 5, and the fact that there won't be a Star Trek: Discovery season 6 means it's now a lost opportunity. However, Detmer and Owo do appear in Star Trek: Discovery 's epilogue scene, and they were a sight for sore eyes.

Star Trek: Discovery season 5 is streaming on Paramount+

The One And Only Time Star Trek: The Original Series Showed The Federation Flag

B ecause "Star Trek" is set in a presumably idyllic future -- when war is at an end, money has been removed from the equation, and diplomatic togetherness rules the day -- one will see few open displays of tribalism or jingoism. No one in "Star Trek" can yell about how much they love their country because, functionally, there are no countries. At least not on Earth. Occasionally, Chekov (Walter Koenig) will express pride, or even smugness, about his Russian heritage , but his attitude couldn't be read as "patriotism." Instead, he has become a smaller part of a large human tapestry, now united and working together to explore the galaxy, expand knowledge, and share ideas. 

Perhaps ironically, the widespread multiculturalism of the United Federation of Planets is dressed in military uniforms and sails about the heavens in starships armed with phasers and photon torpedoes. "Star Trek" has all the visual trappings of tribalism while constantly preaching anti-colonialist philosophies. This may be why one doesn't see a lot of flags in "Star Trek." Characters don't pledge allegiance to a flag in "Star Trek," but make oaths to protect all life, keep fighting to a minimum, expand their knowledge, and uphold the open-minded progressive ideals of Starfleet. It's no mystery why the Starfleet "delta" symbol points upward. 

There is a flag for the United Federation of Planets, but it was only on-screen in one episode of the original series: "And the Children Shall Lead" (October 11, 1968). Weirdly, the episode has nothing to do with the workings of the Federation, nor intergalactic politics. One cannot say why the UFP flag was employed here. 

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The Star Trek Flag For The United Federation Of Planet

"And the Children Shall Lead" is actually about a group of kids, all under 12, who have been manipulated by a charismatic ghost alien (played by real-life lawyer Melvin Belli) into murdering their parents and, later, taking over the Enterprise. The episode's early scenes see the children obliviously playing tag among their parents' graves, and one of them knocks over a UFP pennant. Captain Kirk (William Shatner) hoists it up and replants it in the dirt.

The UFP pennant would be the only on-screen Federation flag in "Star Trek" until "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" in 1982 . Naturally, enterprising fans would make their own pennants, and expanded universe lore and nerdy sourcebooks would have plenty of diagrams explaining the pennant and its meaning. In Joseph Franz's 1975 book "Star Trek Star Fleet Technical Manual," the pennant was sketched out in detail, but in black and white, explaining that the lettering should be white and the stars should be silver. This color description, as one can see above, doesn't match the on-screen version from "Children." There is no explanation as to why there are 13 stars on the pennant, as the Federation was founded by four worlds: Earth, Vulcan, Andoria, and Tellar. 

In the episode "The Ultimate Computer" (March 8, 1968), an eagle-eyed Trekkie might notice the UFP pennant painted on the exterior of a Federation space station, but know that it was added digitally when the effects for the episode were remastered. "Children" came later in the series, but is still the first appearance of the UFP flag. 

The Flag On Spock's Coffin

The Federation flag from other episodes of "Star Trek" were, by the admission of the showrunners, merely the UN flag, usually filmed in such a way as to be obscure. In "Wrath of Khan," however, the crew of the Enterprise holds a full-blown funeral for Spock (Leonard Nimoy), and, in military fashion, they drape his coffin in a Federation flag. As one can see, the flag was now rectangular, blue, and emblazoned with a starfield and a laurel wreath, or olive branches. 

A similar version of that flag would appear a few years later on "Star Trek: The Next Generation," showing that the Federation logo was now a globe-like starfield with laurels on either side of it. That UFP symbol would appear frequently throughout '90s Trek as it would appear on screens after top-secret communiqués. The laurels/olive branches presumably stood for peace. 

Weirdly, in the 2013 film "Star Trek Into Darkness," the alternate universe UFP flag would still feature the starfield and the olive branches, but the starfield was superimposed over a "cogwheel"-shaped gear-like image. Around this time, the UFP flag started to be handled like an American flag at military functions, not only draped over officers' coffins, but meticulously folded and handed to others as a symbol of mourning and respect. The folding took place in the "Star Trek: Discovery" episode "All is Possible" (November 9, 2021).

Trekkies, meanwhile, are perfectly fine to spend their mid-capitalist dollars on "Star Trek" merch slathered with the UFP flag. My current mousepad sports the logo. "Star Trek" may be above jingoistic devotion to a flag, but we here back in the 21st century still love to let our fan flags fly. 

Read the original article on SlashFilm

‘Star Trek: Discovery’ is over. Now Alex Kurtzman readies for ‘Starfleet Academy’ and ‘Section 31’

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In “Star Trek” terms, and in the real world of “Star Trek” television, Alex Kurtzman, who oversees the 21st century franchise, might be described as the Federation president, from whose offices various series depart on their individual missions. Indeed, to hear him speak of it, the whole enterprise — honestly, no pun intended — seems to run very much on the series’ ethos of individual initiative and group consensus.

The first series to be launched, “ Star Trek: Discovery, ” has come to an end as of Thursday after five seasons on Paramount+. Others in the fleet include the concluded “ Picard, ” which brought “The Next Generation” into a new generation; the ongoing “ Strange New Worlds, ” which precedes the action of what’s now called “The Original Series,” from which it takes its spirit and several characters; “Lower Decks,” a comedy set among Starfleet service workers; and “Prodigy,” in which a collection of teenage aliens go joyriding in a starship. On the horizon are “Starfleet Academy,” with Holly Hunter set to star, and a TV feature, “ Section 31, ” with Michelle Yeoh back as Philippa Georgiou.

I spoke with Kurtzman, whose “Trek” trek began as a writer on the quantum-canonical reboot movies “ Star Trek ” (2009) and “ Star Trek: Into Darkness ” (2013), at Secret Hideout, his appropriately unmarked Santa Monica headquarters. Metro trains glide by his front door unaware. We began the conversation, edited for length and clarity here, with a discussion of his “Trek” universe.

Alex Kurtzman: I liken them to different colors in the rainbow. It makes no sense to me to make one show that’s for everybody; it makes a lot of sense to make a lot of shows individually tailored to a sect of the “Star Trek” audience. It’s a misnomer that there’s a one-size-fits-all Trekkie. And rather than make one show that’s going to please everybody — and will almost certainly please nobody — let’s make an adult drama, an animated comedy, a kids’ comedy, an adventure show and on and on. There’s something quite beautiful about that; it allows each of the stories to bloom in its own unique way.

Do you get pushback from the fans?

Absolutely. In some ways that’s the point. One of the things I learned early on is that to be in love with “Star Trek” is to engage in healthy debate. There is no more vocal fan base. Some people tell you that their favorite is “The Original Series,” some say their favorite is “Voyager” and some say their favorite is “Discovery.” Yet they all come together and talk about what makes something singularly “Trek” — [creator] Gene Roddenberry‘s extraordinarily optimistic vision of the future when all that divides us [gets placed] in the rearview mirror and we get to move on and discover things. Like all great science fiction, you get to pick your allegory to the real world and come up with the science fiction equivalent. And everybody who watches understands what we’re talking about — racism or the Middle East or whatever.

What specific objections did you find to “Discovery”?

I think people felt it was too dark. We really listen to our fans in the writers’ room — everybody will have read a different article or review over the weekend, and we talk about what feels relevant and what feels less relevant. And then we engage in a healthy democratic debate about why and begin to apply that; it seeps into the decisions we make. Season 1 of “Discovery” was always intended to be a journey from darkness into light, and ultimately reinforce Roddenberry’s vision. I think people were just stunned by something that felt darker than any “Trek” had before. But doing a dark “Star Trek” really wasn’t our goal. The show is a mirror that holds itself up to the times, and we were in 2017 — we saw the nation fracture hugely right after the election, and it’s only gotten worse since then. We were interpreting that through science fiction. There were people who appreciated that and others for whom it was just not “Star Trek.” And the result, in Season 2, Capt. [Christopher] Pike showed up, Number One showed up, Spock showed up, and we began to bring in what felt to people more like the “Star Trek” they understood.

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You’re ending the series after five seasons. Was that always a plan?

You know, we were surprised we didn’t continue, and yet it feels now that it was right. One of the things that happened very quickly as streaming took off was that it radically changed watch patterns for viewers. Shows that used to go 10, 12 seasons, people would tap out after two — like, “I got what I want” — so for any show to go five seasons, it’s a miracle. In ways I don’t think we could have predicted, the season from the beginning feels like it’s the last; it just has a sense of finality. The studio was wonderful in that they recognized we needed to put a button on it, we needed a period on the end of the sentence, and so they allowed us to go back, which we did right before the strike, and [film] the coda that wraps up the series.

“Discovery” is a riot of love stories, among both heroes and villains.

There’s certainly a history of that in “Star Trek.” Whether or not characters were engaged in direct relationships, there was always a subtext of the love between them. I believe that’s why we love the bridge crew, because it’s really a love story, everyone’s in a love story, and they all care for each other and fight like family members. But ultimately they’re there to help each other and explore the universe together. If there’s some weird problem, and the answer’s not immediately apparent, each of them brings a different skill set and therefore a different perspective; they clash in their debate on how to proceed and then find some miraculous solution that none of them would have thought of at the outset.

One of the beautiful things about the shows is that you get to spend a long time with them, as opposed to a two-hour movie where you have to get in and out quickly and then wait a couple of years before the next one comes along. To be able to be on their weekly adventures, it affords the storytelling level of depth and complexity a two-hour movie just can’t achieve in that way.

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It’s astonishing how much matter you got into these things. Some storylines that only lasted an episode I remembered as seasonal arcs.

The sheer tonnage of story and character we were able to pack into “Discovery” every episode was kind of incredible. The thing to keep in mind is that “Discovery” was made as streaming was exploding, so what I think you’re also seeing there is a lot of writers who were trained in the network world with an A, B and C story applying it suddenly to a very different kind of storytelling in a much more cinematic medium. And when you have that kind of scope it starts to become really, really big. Sometimes that works really, really well and sometimes it was too much. And we were figuring it out; it was a bunch of people with flashlights in the dark, looking for how to interpret “Star Trek” now, since it had been 12 years since it had been on a television screen.

Are you able to course-correct within a season?

Sure. You get people you really trust in the room. Aaron Baiers, who runs Secret Hideout, is one of my most important early-warning systems; he isn’t necessarily in the room when we’re breaking stories, but he’s the first person who’ll read an outline and he’s the first person who’ll read a script. What I value so much about his perspective is that he’s coming in cold, he’s just like, “I’m the viewer, and I understand this or I don’t understand it, I feel this or I don’t feel it.” The studio executives are very similar. They love “Star Trek,” they’re all die-hard fans and have very strong feelings about what is appropriate. It then goes through a series of artists in every facet, from props to visual effects to production design, and they’re bringing their interpretations and opinions to the story.

Did “Strange New Worlds” come out of the fact that everybody loved seeing Christopher Pike in “Discovery?”

I really have to credit Akiva Goldsman with this. He knew that I was going to bring Pike into the premiere of the second season of “Discovery,” and said, “You know, there’s an incredible show about Capt. Pike and the Enterprise before Kirk takes over; there’s seven years of great storytelling there” — or five years, depending on when you come into the storyline. I said, “We have to cast a successful Pike first, so let’s see if that works. Let’s figure out who’s Number One, and who Spock is,” which are wildly tall orders. I hadn’t seen Anson Mount in other things before [he was cast as Pike], and when he sent in his taped audition it was that wonderful moment where you go, “That’s exactly the person we’re looking for.” Everybody loves Pike because he’s the kind of leader you want, definitive and clear but open to everyone’s perspective and humanistic in his response. And then we had the incredibly tall order of having Ethan [Peck] step into Leonard [Nimoy’s] and [Zachary Quinto’s] shoes.

He’s great.

He’s amazing, just a delight of a human being. And Rebecca Romijn‘s energy, what she brings to Number One is such a contemporary take on a character that was kind of a cipher in “The Original Series.” But she brings a kind of joy, a comedy, a bearing, a gravitas to the character that feels very modern. Thank God the fans responded the way they did and sent that petition [calling for a “Legacy” series], because everybody at CBS got the message very quickly. Jenny Lumet and Akiva and I wrote a pilot, and we were off to the races. Typically it takes fans a minute to adjust to what you’re doing, especially with beloved legacy characters, but the response to “Strange New World” from a critical perspective and fan perspective and just a viewership perspective was so immediate, it really did help us understand what was satisfying fans.

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What can you tell me about “Starfleet Academy?” Is it going to be Earth-based or space-based?

I’m going to say, without giving anything away, both. Right now we’re in the middle of answering the question what does San Francisco, where the academy is, look like in the 32nd century. Our primary set is the biggest we’ve ever built.

So you’re setting this —

In the “Discovery” era. There’s a specific reason for that. As the father of a 17-year-old boy, I see what my son is feeling as he looks at the world and to his future. I see the uncertainty; I see all the things we took for granted as given are not certainties for him. I see him recognizing he’s inheriting an enormous mess to clean up and it’s going to be on his generation to figure out how to do that, and that’s a lot to ask of a kid. My thinking was, if we set “Starfleet Academy” in the halcyon days of the Federation where everything was fine, it’s not going to speak to what kids are going through right now.

It’ll be a nice fantasy, but it’s not really going to be authentic. What’ll be authentic is to set it in the timeline where this is the first class back after over 100 years, and they are coming into a world that is only beginning to recover from a cataclysm — which was the Burn, as established on “Star Trek: Discovery,” where the Federation was greatly diminished. So they’re the first who’ll inherit, who’ll re-inherit, the task of exploration as a primary goal, because there just wasn’t room for that during the Burn — everybody was playing defense. It’s an incredibly optimistic show, an incredibly fun show; it’s a very funny show, and it’s a very emotional show. I think these kids, in different ways, are going to represent what a lot of kids are feeling now.

And I’m very, very , very excited that Holly Hunter is the lead of the show. Honestly, when we were working on the scripts, we wrote it for Holly thinking she’d never do it. And we sent them to her, and to our absolute delight and shock she loved them and signed on right away.

And then you’ve got the “Section 31” movie.

“Section 31” is Michelle Yeoh’s return as Georgiou. A very, very different feeling for “Star Trek.” I will always be so grateful to her, because on the heels of her nomination and then her Oscar win , she just doubled down on coming back to “Star Trek.” She could have easily walked away from it; she had a lot of other opportunities. But she remained steadfast and totally committed. We just wrapped that up and are starting to edit now.

Are you looking past “Starfleet” and “Section 31” to future projects?

There’s always notions and there are a couple of surprises coming up, but I really try to live in the shows that are in front of me in the moment because they’re so all-consuming. I’m directing the first two episodes of “Starfleet Academy,” so right now my brain is just wholly inside that world. But you can tell “Star Trek” stories forever; there’s always more. There’s something in the DNA of its construction that allows you to keep opening different doors. Some of that is science fiction, some of it has to do with the combination of science fiction and the organic embracing of all these other genres that lets you explore new territories. I don’t think it’s ever going to end. I think it’s going to go on for a long, long time. The real question for “Star Trek” is how do you keep innovating, how do you deliver both what people expect and something totally fresh at the same time. Because I think that is actually what people want from “Star Trek.” They want what’s familiar delivered in a way that doesn’t feel familiar.

With all our showrunners — Terry Matalas on “Picard,” the Hagemans on “Prodigy,” Mike McMahan on “Lower Decks,” Michelle Paradise, who has been singlehandedly running “Discovery” for the last two years, and then Akiva and Henry Alonso Myers on “Strange New Worlds” — my feeling is that the best way to protect and preserve “Star Trek” is not to impose my own vision on it but [find people] who meet the criteria of loving “Star Trek,” wanting to do new things with it, understanding how incredibly hard it is to do. And then I’m going to let you do your job. I’ll come in and tell you what I think every once in a while, and I’ll help get the boat off the dock, but once I hand the show over to a creative it has to be their show. And that means you’re going to get a different take every time, and as long as those takes all feel like they can marry into the same rainbow, to get back to the metaphor, that’s the way to keep “Star Trek” fresh.

I take great comfort because “Star Trek” really only belongs to Gene Roddenberry and the fans. We don’t own it. We carry it, we try to evolve it and then we hand it off to the next people. And hopefully they will love it as much as we do.

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Inside the ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Series Finale: The Last-Minute Coda, the Surprise Easter Eggs, and What Season 6 Would Have Been About (EXCLUSIVE)

SPOILER WARNING: This story includes descriptions of major plot developments on the series finale of “ Star Trek : Discovery,” currently streaming on Paramount+ .

Watching the fifth and final season of “ Star Trek: Discovery ” has been an exercise in the uncanny. Paramount+ didn’t announce that the show was ending until after the Season 5 finale had wrapped filming — no one involved with the show knew it would be its concluding voyage when they were making it. And yet, the season has unfolded with a pervasive feeling of culmination. 

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“I think there’s more to it than just, ‘Oh, it was a coinkydink!’” the actor says with a laugh, before explaining that she’s thinking more about subtext than direct intent. “I’ve gotta give Michelle her flowers. She has always asked the deeper questions of this story and these characters. Those questions of meaning and purpose led to questions of origin and legacy, and, yes, that is quite culminating.”

Martin-Green and Paradise spoke exclusively with Variety about filming the finale and the coda, including the surprising revelation about the origins of one of “Discovery’s” most memorable characters and what Paradise’s plans for Season 6 would have been.

“It’s the Most Complicated Thing I’ve Ever Seen”

Once the “Discovery” writers’ room decided the season would be organized around a search for the Progenitor’s technology, they also knew that, eventually, Burnham would find it. So then they had to figure out what it would be.

“That was a discussion that evolved over the course of weeks and months,” Paradise says. Rather than focus on communicating the intricate details of how the technology works, they turned their attention to delivering a visual experience commensurate with the enormity and complexity of something that could seed life across the entire galaxy.

“We wanted a sense of a smaller exterior and an infinite interior to help with that sense of power greater than us,” Paradise says. Inspired in part by a drawing by MC Escher, the production created an environment surrounded by towering windows into a seemingly endless procession of alien planets, in which it’s just as easy to walk on the walls as on the floor. That made for a daunting challenge for the show’s producing director, Olatunde “Tunde” Osunsanmi: As Burnham battles with the season’s main antagonist, Mol (Eve Harlow), inside this volume, they fall through different windows into another world, and the laws of gravity keep shifting between their feet.

“It’s the most complicated thing I’ve ever seen, directorially,” Paradise says. “Tunde had a map, in terms of: What did the background look like? And when the cameras this way, what’s over there? It was it was incredibly complex to design and shoot.”

Two of those planets — one in perpetual darkness and rainstorms, another consumed by constant fire — were shot on different parking areas on the Pinewood Toronto studio lot.

“The fire planet was so bright that the fire department got called from someone who had seen the fire,” Paradise says. “It should not be possible to pull those kinds of things off in a television show, even on a bigger budget show, with the time limitations that you have. And yet, every episode of every season, we’re still coming in on time and on budget. The rain planet and the fire planet we shot, I believe, one day after the other.”

Martin-Green jumps in: “Michelle, I think that was actually the same day!”

“It Felt Lifted”

The last time a “Star Trek” captain talked to a being that could be (erroneously) considered God, it was William Shatner’s James T. Kirk in 1989’s “Star Trek: The Final Frontier.” The encounter did not go well.

“I had my own journey with the central storyline of Season 5, just as a believer,” Martin-Green says. “I felt a similar way that Burnham did. They’re in this sort of liminal mind space, and it almost felt that way to me. It felt lifted. It really did feel like she and I were the only two people in this moment.”

It’s in this conversation that Burnham learns that while the Progenitors did create all “humanoid” alien species in the galaxy in their image, they did not create the technology that allowed them to do so. They found it, fully formed, created by beings utterly unknown to them. The revelation was something that Martin-Green discussed with Paradise early on in the planning of Season 5, allowing “Discovery” to leave perhaps the most profound question one could ask — what, or who, came first in the cosmos? — unanswered.

“The progenitor is not be the be all end all of it,” Paradise says. “We’re not saying this is God with a capital ‘G.’”

“There’s Just This Air of Mystery About Him”

Starting on Season 3 of “Discovery,” renowned filmmaker David Cronenberg began moonlighting in a recurring role as Dr. Kovich, a shadowy Federation operative whose backstory has been heretofore undisclosed on the show.

“I love the way he plays Kovich,” Paradise says of Cronenberg. “There’s just this air of mystery about him. We’ve always wanted to know more.” When planning Season 5, one of the writers pitched revealing Kovich’s true identity in the (then-season) finale by harkening back to the “Star Trek” show that preceded “Discovery”: “Enterprise,” which ran on UPN from 2001 to 2005.

In the final episode, when Burnham debriefs her experiences with Kovich, she presses him to tell her who he really is. He reintroduces himself as Agent Daniels, a character first introduced on “Enterprise” as a young man (played by Matt Winston) and a Federation operative in the temporal cold war. 

This is, to be sure, a deep cut even for “Star Trek” fans. (Neither Cronenberg nor Martin-Green, for example, understood the reference.) But Paradise says they were laying the groundwork for the reveal from the beginning of the season. “If you watch Season 5 with that in mind, you can see the a little things that we’ve played with along the way,” she says, including Kovich/Daniels’ penchant for anachonistic throwbacks like real paper and neckties.

“I didn’t know that that was going be there,” Martin-Green says. “My whole childhood came back to me.”

“We Always Knew That We Wanted to Somehow Tie That Back Up”

Originally, Season 5 of “Discovery” ends with Burnham and Book talking on the beach outside the wedding of Saru (Doug Jones) and T’Rina (Tara Rosling) before transporting away to their next adventure. But Paradise understood that the episode needed something more conclusive once it became the series finale. The question was what.

There were some significant guardrails around what they could accomplish. The production team had only eight weeks from when Paramout+ and CBS Studios signed off on the epilogue to when they had to shoot it. Fortunately, the bridge set hadn’t been struck yet (though several standing sets already had been). And the budget allowed only for three days of production.

Then there was “Calypso.” 

To fill up the long stretches between the first three seasons of “Discovery,” CBS Studios and Paramount+ greenlit a series of 10 stand-alone episodes, dubbed “Short Treks,” that covered a wide variety of storylines and topics. The second “Short Trek” — titled “Calypso” and co-written by novelist Michael Chabon — first streamed between Season 1 and 2 in November 2018. It focuses on a single character named Craft (Aldis Hodge), who is rescued by the USS Discovery after the starship — and its now-sentient computer system, Zora (Annabelle Wallis) — has sat totally vacant for 1,000 years in the same fixed point in space. How the Discovery got there, and why it was empty for so long, were left to the viewer’s imagination. 

Still, for a show that had only just started its run, “Calypso” had already made a bold promise for “Discovery’s” endgame — one the producers had every intention of keeping.

“We always knew that we wanted to somehow tie that back up,” says Paradise, who joined the writers’ room in Season 2, and became showrunner starting with Season 3. “We never wanted ‘Calypso’ to be the dangling Chad.”

So much so, in fact, that, as the show began winding down production on Season 5, Paradise had started planning to make “Calypso” the central narrative engine for Season 6. 

“The story, nascent as it was, was eventually going to be tying that thread up and connecting ‘Discovery’ back with ‘Calypso,’” she says.

Once having a sixth season was no longer an option, Paradise knew that resolving the “Calypso” question was non-negotiable. “OK, well, we’re not going to have a season to do that,” she says. “So how do we do that elegantly in this very short period of time?”

“I Feel Like It Ends the Way It Needed to End”

Resolving “Calypso” provided the storytelling foundation for the epilogue, but everything else was about giving its characters one final goodbye.

“We want to know what’s happening to Burnham, first and foremost,” Paradise says. “And we knew we wanted to see the cast again.”

For the latter, Paradise and Jarrow devised a conceit that an older Burnham, seated in the captain’s chair on Discovery, imagines herself surrounded by her crew 30 years prior, so she (and the audience) could connect with them one final time. For the former, the makeup team designed prosthetics to age up Martin-Green and Ajala by 30 years — “I think they were tested as they were running on to the set,” Paradise says with a laugh — to illustrate Burnham and Book’s long and happy marriage together.

Most crucially, Paradise cut a few lines of Burnham’s dialogue with Book from the original Season 5 finale and moved it to a conversation she has with her son in the coda. The scene — which evokes the episode’s title, “Life Itself” — serves as both a culminating statement of purpose for “Discovery” and the overarching compassion and humanity of “Star Trek” as a whole.

To reassure her son about his first command of a starship, Burnham recalls when the ancient Progenitor asked what was most meaningful to her. “Do you know how you would answer that question now?” he asks.

“Yeah, just being here,” Burnham replies. “You know, sometimes life itself is meaning enough, how we choose to spend the time that we have, who we spend it with: You, Book, and the family I found in Starfleet, on Discovery.”

Martin-Green relished the opportunity to revisit the character she’s played for seven years when she’s reached the pinnacle of her life and career. “You just get to see this manifestation of legacy in this beautiful way,” she says. “I will also say that I look a lot like my mom, and that was that was also a gift, to be able to see her.”

Shooting the goodbye with the rest of her cast was emotional, unsurprisingly, but it led Martin-Green to an unexpected understanding. “It actually was so charged that it was probably easier that it was only those three days that we knew it was the end, and not the entirety of season,” she says.

Similarly, Paradise says she’s “not sure” what more she would’ve done had there been more time to shoot the coda. “I truly don’t feel like we missed out on something by not having one more day,” she says. “I feel like it ends the way it needed to end.”

Still, getting everything done in just three days was no small feat, either. “I mean, we worked ’round the clock,” Martin-Green says with a deep laugh. “We were delirious by the end — but man, what a way to end it.”

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55 Years Ago: Star Trek Final Episode Airs, Relationship with NASA Endures

Johnson space center.

The voyages of the Starship Enterprise came to a sudden and premature end on June 3, 1969, with the airing of the final episode of the Star Trek original television series. Ironically, the show’s cancellation came just six weeks before humanity embarked on its first voyage to land on another celestial body. Although the show ran for only three seasons, it generated a devoted fan base disappointed by the cancellation despite their write-in campaign to keep it on the air. But as things turned out, over the decades Star Trek evolved into a global phenomenon, first with the original episodes replayed in syndication, followed by a series of full-length motion pictures, and eventually a multitude of spin-off series. With its primary focus on space exploration, along with themes of diversity, inclusion, and innovation, the Star Trek fictional universe formed a natural association with NASA’s real life activities.

Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry first had the idea for a science fiction television series in 1964. He presented his idea, a show set in the 23 rd century aboard a starship with a crew dedicated to exploring the galaxy, to Desilu Productions, an independent television production company headed by Lucille Ball. They produced a pilot titled “The Cage,” selling it to the National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) network that then bought a second pilot titled “Where No Man Has Gone Before.” NBC introduced the show to its fall 1966 lineup, with the first episode “The Man Trap” airing on Sep. 8. To put that date in perspective, NASA launched Gemini XI four days later, one of the missions that helped the agency achieve the Moon landing nearly three years later. Meanwhile, Star Trek’s Starship Enterprise continued its fictional five-year mission through the galaxy to “seek out new life and new civilizations.” The makeup of the Enterprise’s crew made the show particularly attractive to late 1960s television audiences. The major characters included an African American woman communications officer, an Asian American helmsman, and a half-human half-Vulcan science officer, later joined by a Russian-born ensign. While the show enjoyed good ratings during its first two seasons, cuts to its production budget resulted in lower quality episodes during its third season leading to lower ratings and, despite a concerted letter-writing campaign from its dedicated fans, eventual cancellation.

Despite the show’s cancellation, Star Trek lived on and prospered in syndication and attracted an ever-growing fan base, turning into a worldwide sensation. Often dubbed “trekkies,” these fans held the first of many Star Trek conventions in 1972. When in 1976 NASA announced that it would name its first space shuttle orbiter Constitution, in honor of its unveiling on the anniversary of the U. S. Constitution’s ratification, trekkies engaged in a dedicated letter writing campaign to have the orbiter named Enterprise, after the starship in the television series. This time the fans’ letter writing campaign succeeded. President Gerald R. Ford agreed with the trekkies and directed NASA to rechristen the first space shuttle. When on Sept. 17, 1976 , it rolled out of its manufacturing plant in Palmdale, California, appropriately accompanied by a band playing the show’s theme song, it bore the name Enterprise. Many of the original cast members of the show as well as its creator Rodenberry participated in the rollout ceremony, hosted by NASA Administrator James C. Fletcher . Thus began a lengthy relationship between the space agency and the Star Trek brand.

During the development of the space shuttle in the 1970s, the need arose to recruit a new group of astronauts to fly the vehicle, deploy the satellites, and perform the science experiments. When NASA released the call for the new astronaut selection on July 8, 1976, it specifically encouraged women and minorities to apply. To encourage those applicants, NASA chose Nichelle Nichols, who played communications officer Lt. Uhura on the Starship Enterprise, to record a recruiting video and speak to audiences nationwide. She came to NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston in March 1977, and accompanied by Apollo 12 and Skylab 3 astronaut Alan L. Bean , toured the center and filmed scenes for the video in Mission Control and other facilities. NASA hoped that her stature and popularity would encourage women and minorities to apply, and indeed they did. In January 1978, when NASA announced the selection of 35 new astronauts from more than 8,000 applicants, for the first time the astronaut class included women and minorities. All distinguished themselves as NASA astronauts and paved the way for others in subsequent astronaut selections. Nichols returned to JSC in September 2010 with the Traveling Space Museum, an organization that partners with schools to promote space studies. She toured Mission Control and the International Space Station trainer accompanied by NASA astronaut B. Alvin Drew . She also flew aboard NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) airborne telescope aircraft managed by NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California, in September 2015.

Meanwhile, the Star Trek brand renewed itself in 1979 as a full-length motion picture with the original TV series cast members reprising their roles. Over the years, several sequels followed this first film. And on the small screen, a reboot of sorts occurred in 1987 with the premiere of Star Trek: The Next Generation, a new series set in the 24 th century aboard the Enterprise-D, a next generation starship with a new crew. That series lasted seven seasons, followed by a near-bewildering array of spin-off series, all built on the Star Trek brand, that continue to this day.

James Doohan, the actor who played Lt. Cmdr. Montgomery “Scotty” Scott, the Starship Enterprise’s chief engineer, had early associations with NASA. In April 1967, Doohan visited NASA’s Dryden (now Armstrong) Flight Research Center in California, spending time with NASA test pilot Bruce A. Peterson. A month later, Peterson barely survived a horrific crash of the experimental M2-F2 lifting body aircraft. He inspired the 1970s TV series The Six-Million Dollar Man, and the show’s opening credits include film of the crash. Doohan narrated a documentary film about the space shuttle released shortly before Columbia made its first flight in April 1981. In January 1991, Doohan visited JSC and with NASA astronaut Mario Runco (who sometimes went by the nickname “Spock”) toured the shuttle trainers, Mission Control, and tried his hand at operating the shuttle’s robotic arm in the Manipulator Development Facility. In a unique tribute, astronaut Neil A. Armstrong , the first person to step on the lunar surface , spoke at Doohan’s retirement in 2004, addressing him as “one old engineer to another.”

George Takei, who played Enterprise helmsman Lt. Hikaru Sulu, and his husband Brad, visited JSC in May 2012. Invited by both Asian American and LGBTQ+ Employee Resource Groups, Takei spoke of leadership and inclusiveness, including overcoming challenges while in Japanese American internment camps during World War II and as a member of the LGBTQ+ community. He noted that Star Trek remained ahead of its time in creating a future when all members of society could equally participate in great undertakings, at a time when the country struggled through the Civil Rights movement and the conflict in Southeast Asia. The inclusiveness that is part of NASA’s culture greatly inspired him. JSC Director Michael L. Coats presented Takei with a plaque including a U.S. flag flown aboard space shuttle Atlantis’ STS-135 mission. He also visited Mission Control and spent some time with Robonaut.

Leonard Nimoy played the science officer aboard the Starship Enterprise, the half-human, half-Vulcan Mr. Spock. The actor watched in September 2012 when space shuttle Enterprise arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, on the last leg of its journey to the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, where it currently resides. “This is a reunion for me,” observed Nimoy. “Thirty-five years ago, I met the Enterprise for the first time.” As noted earlier, the Star Trek cast attended the first space shuttle’s rollout in 1976. Following his death in 2015, European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti paid tribute to Nimoy aboard the International Space Station by wearing a Star Trek science officer uniform, giving the Vulcan greeting, and proclaiming, “Of all the souls I have encountered … his was the most human.”

Captain James T. Kirk, played by actor William Shatner, a life-long advocate of science and space exploration, served at the helm of the Starship Enterprise. His relationship with NASA began during the original series, with references to the space agency incorporated into several story lines. In 2011, Shatner hosted and narrated a NASA documentary celebrating the 30 th anniversary of the Space Shuttle program , and gave his time and voice to other NASA documentaries. NASA recognized Shatner’s contributions in 2014 with a Distinguished Public Service Medal , the highest award NASA bestows on non-government individuals. NASA Deputy Associate Administrator for Communications Robert “Bob” N. Jacobs presented the medal to Shatner. The award’s citation read, “For outstanding generosity and dedication to inspiring new generations of explorers around the world, and for unwavering support for NASA and its missions of discovery.” In 2019, Shatner narrated the NASA video We Are Going , about NASA’s plans to return astronauts to the Moon. He has spoken at numerous NASA-themed events and moderated panels about NASA’s future plans. On Oct. 13, 2021, at the age of 90, Shatner reached the edge of space during the NS-18 suborbital flight of Blue Origin’s New Shepard vehicle, experiencing three minutes of weightlessness.

Elements of the Star Trek universe have made their way not only into popular culture but also into NASA culture. As noted above, Star Trek fans had a hand in naming the first space shuttle Enterprise. NASA’s Earth observation facility aboard the space station that makes use of its optical quality window bears the name the Window Observational Research Facility (WORF). The connection between that acronym and the name of a Klingon officer aboard the Enterprise in the Star Trek: The Next Generation TV series seemed like an opportunity not to be missed – the facility’s official patch bears its name in English and in Klingon. Several astronaut crews have embraced Star Trek themes for their unofficial photographs. The STS-54 crew dressed in the uniforms of Starship Enterprise officers from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn, the second full-length feature motion picture of the series. Space shuttle and space station crews created Space Flight Awareness (SFA) posters for their missions, and more than one embraced Star Trek themes. The Expedition 21 crew dressed in uniforms from the original series, while the STS-134 crew chose as their motif the 2009 reboot motion picture Star Trek.

As much as Star Trek has influenced NASA, in turn the agency has left its mark on the franchise, from episodes referencing actual and future spaceflight events to NASA astronauts making cameo appearances on the show. The first-season episode “Court Martial” that aired in February 1967 featured a photograph of the December 1965 Gemini VI launch adorning a wall aboard a star base. In the second-season episode “Return to Tomorrow,” airing in February 1968, Captain Kirk in a dialogue about risk-taking remarks, “Do you wish that the first Apollo mission hadn’t reached the Moon?” a prescient reference to the first Apollo mission to reach the Moon more than 10 months after the episode aired. Astronaut Mae C. Jemison , who credits Nichelle Nichols as her inspiration to become an astronaut, appeared in the 1993 episode “Second Chances” of Star Trek: The Next Generation , eight months after her actual spaceflight aboard space shuttle Endeavour. In May 2005, two other NASA astronauts, Terry W. Virts and E. Michael Fincke , appeared in “These are the Voyages…,” the final episode of the series Star Trek: Enterprise.

In the 2016 documentary “ NASA on the Edge of Forever: Science in Space ,” host NASA astronaut Victor J. Glover states, “Science and Star Trek go hand-in-hand.” The film explores how for 50 years, Star Trek influenced scientists, engineers, and even astronauts to reach beyond their potential. While the space station doesn’t speed through the galaxy like the Starship Enterprise, much of the research conducted aboard the orbiting facility can make the fiction of Star Trek come a little closer to reality. Several of the cast members from the original TV series share their viewpoints in the documentary, along with those of NASA managers and scientists. Over the years, NASA has created several videos highlighting the relationship between the agency and the Star Trek franchise. In 2016, NASA Administrator Charles F. Bolden led a video tribute to celebrate the 50 th anniversary of the first Star Trek episode.

In 2021, on the 100 th anniversary of Gene Roddenberry’s birth, his son Rod hosted a virtual panel discussion , introduced by NASA Administrator C. William “Bill” Nelson , about diversity and inspiration, two ideals the Star Trek creator infused into the series. Panelists included Star Trek actor Takei, Tracy D. Drain, flight systems engineer for the Europa Clipper spacecraft at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, NASA astronaut Jonny Kim , Swati Mohan, guidance and operations lead for the Mars 2020 rover at JPL, and Hortense B. Diggs, Director of the Office of Communication and Public Engagement at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The mutual attraction between NASA and Star Trek stems from, to paraphrase the opening voiceover from the TV series, that both seek to explore and discover new worlds, and to boldly go where no one has gone before. The diversity, inclusion, and inspiration involved in these endeavors ensure that they will live long and prosper.

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Discovery Showrunner Explains How the Finale's Surprising Twists Fit Trek Canon

Back to the future.

The age of Discovery has come to an end. With “Life, Itself,” the first Star Trek show of the streaming era has concluded its Season 5 storyline and wrapped up two major mysteries, one of which has been floating around since 2018. Discovery’s emotional ending likely wasn’t what fans expected, and the final coda features a leap that reveals not just the end of the starship’s voyages, but that teases a legacy for Burnham and Book that could have big implications for the Trek timeline.

To sort it all out, Inverse caught up with Discovery showrunner Michelle Paradise to figure out what went into devising the series’ final moments, and how it all ties into a specific Trek mystery while also connecting to a different prequel show from almost two decades ago. Spoilers ahead.

Discovery’s original ending

Discovery Season 5 originally ended with T’Rina and Saru’s wedding before it had to jump 30 years forward.

Discovery’s final episode seems to have two endings. After the entire Breen conflict is resolved and Burnham confers with Kovich (David Cronenberg), the episode seems to come to a serene end with Saru (Doug Jones) and T’Rina’s (Tara Rosling) beachy wedding. As guests mingle, Book (David Ajala ) shows up late and reconciles with Michael.

“That was it. It was the scene on the beach where Burnham and Book walk off and the camera sort of pans up,” Michelle Paradise tells Inverse. “That was the original ending.”

Had Season 6 been in the works, Discovery Season 5 would have ended in the present tense of the show (3191) with Saru and T’rina’s wedding. Although Discovery Season 5 wrapped production in November 2022, it wasn’t until April 2023 that a coda was developed to conclude the entire series. “We were editing episodes 8 and 9, I think, when we found out that this would be our last season,” Paradise says. “Everything starting from the pan up, that’s the new stuff.”

The flash-forward timeline

Leto, Burnham, and Book, 30 years in the future.

Discovery’s real ending jumps forward several decades. Burnham and Book have distinguished streaks of gray hair, Burnham is referred to as Admiral, and they have a grown son named Leto, named after Book’s deceased brother.

“It’s 30 years later,” Michelle Paradise confirms, which means the Discovery coda takes place around 3221. This also means Discovery’s final moments are set in yet another new century. The crew initially jumped from the 23rd century to the 32nd, and now Burnham takes the USS Discovery on one last mission early in the 33rd century. In doing so, Discovery creates more future-tense Trek canon that other new Trek shows may have to deal with.

“We were nervous, but not because of [creating new canon],” Paradise says. “It was really about how we wrap up a series when we have essentially 10 to 12 pages and three days to shoot it. It was about making sure we did justice to the characters and bring emotional closure for the audience.”

The Enterprise connection

David Cronenberg as Kovich, who’s revealed to be someone else entirely.

Just before the new material, Michael Burnham unravels a secret that Discovery has been keeping since Season 3. Just who is David Cronenberg’s cryptic character, Kovich ? Burnham learns that Kovich is a codename and that his real identity is Agent Daniels. Daniels mentions he served on the USS Enterprise ; for those who don’t remember, Daniels was a temporal agent from the 31st century who, in the prequel series Enterprise , often traveled back to the 22nd century to assist the crew. At the time, Daniels was trying to stop other factions from rewriting history. In the 32nd-century context of Discovery, we’ve been told that temporal accords made time travel illegal.

Paradise explains that the writers’ room had planned to reveal that Kovich was Daniels for a while. “I think it was back in Season 4 we kind of decided that was where we were going with him,” she says. “If you rewatch season five, you'll see there are tiny little Easter eggs. He's writing with a pen and paper, which is very weird for the future when they’ve all got holograms. He’s a bit out of time.”

Discovery’s final destination explained

Admiral Burnham takes the USS Discovery — and its benevolent AI, Zora — on one last ride.

Discovery’s last bit of housekeeping was reconciling a strange bit of canon introduced in the 2018 Short Treks episode “Calypso.” That short depicted the USS Discovery adrift and empty, with only a friendly, sentient AI named Zora (Annabelle Wallis) aboard. In this distant future, a human named Craft (Aldis Hodge) boards the ship and has a romance with Zora, who projects herself as a hologram.

Ever since “Calypso” aired, fans have wondered whether it took place in an alternate future, or if it would ever fit with the 32nd-century timeframe Discovery eventually arrived in. While we saw Zora’s sentience emerge after “Calypso,” the episode’s questions remained unanswered .

“I dodged those questions for years!” Paradise says. “But it felt like we needed to tie it back to ‘Calypso’ for people who had seen the short. But we also wanted to do it in such a way that if people hadn’t seen the short, they wouldn’t be like, ‘What are they talking about?’”

In the end, Discovery is sent on a top-secret “Red Directive” mission, which requires Zora to have her fateful meeting with Craft at some point in the future. Even Burnham doesn’t know why, but if Discovery doesn’t meet Craft, then something about the timeline won’t be quite right. Paradise says these scenes were created to emphasize character, rather than connecting dots for the sake of it. We see Discovery end up where it's supposed to end up, but the why had to remain a secret to preserve the moment’s emotional integrity.

“We felt it was important to answer the question — what happened to one of the main characters, the ship itself,” Paradise says. “Ultimately, any version of that where we went into plot started to take away from the emotional experience. And ultimately why they had to go out there didn't feel as important as the fact that Burnham’s going to be the one to take the ship out. One last time.”

Star Trek: Discovery streams on Paramount+.

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'Star Trek: Prodigy' Season 2 Will Be Released Like No Other Trek Series

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The Big Picture

• Star Trek: Prodigy's second season hits Netflix on July 1, giving fans a binge-worthy experience with all twenty episodes at once.
• This marks a departure from the usual weekly release strategy, making Prodigy stand out in the galaxy of Star Trek series.
• The show follows a young alien crew escaping tyranny aboard a Federation starship, guided by holographic Captain Janeway.

Star Trek: Prodigy 's second season is coming to Netflix on July 1 - but don't expect a weekly release like Paramount+'s galaxy of Star Trek series. In accordance with Netflix' typical release strategy, all twenty episodes of the season will be released on the same day. TrekCore.com has a confirmation of the show's release schedule.

It will be a new experience for Star Trek fans, as all previous Trek series to debut in the streaming era, starting with Star Trek: Discovery in 2017, have released one episode a week for the duration of their seasons - typically premiering a season with two episodes at once. Netflix and Amazon Prime Video remain the only two major streamers to stick with the binge-watching model , as streamers Max, Apple TV+, Paramount+, and Disney+ have largely used a weekly release schedule for their series. There have been exceptions, however; the Marvel Spotlight series Echo had all five of its episodes released on Netflix on January 9, 2024.

What is 'Star Trek: Prodigy' About?

Star Trek: Prodigy follows a team of young aliens - Dal ( Brett Gray ), Gwyn ( Ella Purnell ), Jankom Pog ( Jason Mantzoukas ), Zero ( Angus Imrie ), Rok-Tahk ( Rylee Alazraqui ), and Murf ( Dee Bradley Baker ) - who escape from the tyrannical Diviner ( John Noble ) aboard a lost Federation starship, the experimental USS Protostar . Guided and mentored by a holographic avatar of legendary Starfleet captain Kathryn Janeway ( Kate Mulgrew ), the ragtag group races towards Federation space over the course of the first season. In the first-season finale, the Protostar, and the holographic Janeway, were destroyed, but the crew found themselves taken under the wing of the real Janeway. The second season will see the team take off on another adventure - minus Gwyn, who departed to help her people, the Vau N'Akat, seek peace.

Star Trek: Prodigy almost never made it to Netflix at all. The series premiered on Paramount+ in 2021, and was well-received by Star Trek fans young and old, but it was unexpectedly canceled and taken off the streamer in 2023 - even though the show had already been renewed for a second season, which had nearly been completed. After fan outcry , the second season was completed and licensed to Netflix.

Watch on Netflix

All twenty episodes of Star Trek: Prodigy 's second season will be released on Netflix on July 1, 2024 . Stay tuned to Collider for future updates.

Star Trek: Prodigy

A group of enslaved teenagers steal a derelict Starfleet vessel to escape and explore the galaxy.