Star Trek/Trivia


 * Refuge in Audacity: The Star Trek novel Before Dishonor, by Peter David. Suffice it to say this book should not be read entirely sober, but for those who dare... We have sentient Borg cubes bigger than the planet Earth. That skip the assimilation middleman and just ram into starships and eat them. Along with Pluto. It's piloted by Captain Janeway, who becomes Borg Queen, eats Pluto, dies, and gets promoted to Q? Add 7 of 9 piloting the Doomsday Machine from The Original Series, and a pair of Starfleet Admirals who place bets on The End of the World as We Know It after the Borg eat Pluto, and you have a recipe for hilarity. Refuge in Audacity at its apotheosis.
 * In the same book, after the Borg eat Pluto, the planet / not planet debate gets mentioned by one of the Admirals: "They changed it back again? What's that, the tenth time in three centuries? Make up your minds." Then after the Borg eat Pluto, Admiral #2 casually drawls, "Well, that settles that debate." It's not a bad book, just completely insane.
 * Consider what else Peter David has put into Star Trek novels: a giant bird/energy being hatching out of a planet and impregnating a starship; a one-eyed, one-horned, giant purple people eater; a woman who looks like Lwaxana Troi and Christine Chapel, and is immortal...who he manages to kill...except that her consciousness is now in a starship; a helmsman who regularly sleeps at his post and is part Greek god; a hermaphrodite chief engineer (hir whole species is hermaphroditic) who impregnates a Vulcan, of all people; and an episode inside a pocket universe that is, for all intents and purposes, a jellyfish. And that's just Star Trek: New Frontier.
 * More Trek goodness. The TOS novel How Much For Just the Planet? by John M. Ford features, among other things, a Klingon who's a fan of Humphrey Bogart, a milkshake-obsessed computer, spontaneous musical numbers, inflatable starships, a planet whose hat is comedy routines, a Neil Gaiman cameo, a Paramount Shout-Out, and a truly epic Starfleet vs. Klingon... pie fight. And blue orange juice. And it is awesome.
 * Exceedingly.
 * There have been no less than three Star Trek/X-Men crossovers, all of which have been pretty decent.
 * During one of these, a comment about how much Picard and Professor X look alike was made...years prior to Patrick Stewart earning the role of Professor X.
 * Then there is Uhura's Song. A Federation planet of humanoid felines is having their worst known outbreak of a disease that periodically incapacitates most of their planet's population. Then Christine Chapel catches it -- and it affects humans more quickly than the feline race. The surest hope of finding the cure to this plague is to go to the planet the felines originally came from -- which they previously told outsiders doesn't exist despite biological evidence to the contrary; the medic who admits that planet's existence tries to commit suicide because he told them. The only clues for finding this planet are in the folk songs of the feline race, which the Federation only knows because Uhura befriended one of this race previously. This mission to find that planet and get the cure presumed to be on it, is deemed so important that the Enterprise crew is given permission to completely ignore the Prime Directive... And it only gets stranger. It's great fun, but if Star Trek's Expanded Universe was canon, this story would really wreak havoc with later continuity.
 * It probably doesn't help that the solution to the whole mystery lies in what key a song is sung in, either.
 * Another Star Trek novel, The Tears of the Singers, has the Enterprise drafting a great, arrogant, and mortally ill musician almost immediately after Uhura (on leave) had assured him that Starfleet was not a military organization. This musician is needed to help save the entire universe from a seal-people whose own efforts to save the entire universe are backfiring because they are getting killed for their dying tears, which become the most beautiful jewels in the universe.
 * Any Deep Space Nine novel edited by Marco Palmieri is likely to have some weirdness. To name a few: Kira gets excommunicated; the First Minister of Bajor is assassinated by having his head cut off, just as he's about to accept Federation membership, because he's been subverted by a parasitic race that appeared in a first season TNG episode and is out to exterminate the Trill symbionts; and a Jem'hadar stabs Kira because he's being controlled by Iliana Ghemor, who is genetically engineered to be Kira, and is being chased by a Ghemor from an Alternate Universe, and is trying to kill every Kira in every universe, as well as become the Emissary of the Mirror Universe before Mirror Sisko can.
 * Running Gag: It is commonly held that the odd-numbered films are bad, but the even ones are good. Nemesis (10, bad) and the Abrams film (11, Contested Sequel) are considered by some to have absolutely wrecked the system and by others to be the most clear example of "odd == bad" since Star Trek V (but still having broken "even == good"). But Sam Hughes has a solution, at least for those who liked XI.
 * Another solution is that since it's a continuity reboot, the Abrams film could be considered Star Trek Zero, and thus be an even-numbered film.
 * Alternatively, the numerals in the title are added together to decide a movie's quality. The first (01) is 0+1=1=odd, the second (02) 0+2=2=even, etc. After the ninth, it goes 10 (1+0=1=odd) then 11 (1+1=2=even).
 * Of course, people who liked the earlier series and movies don't need to go through complicated rationalisation processes because they tend to think XI was bad.
 * The Wiki Rule: The Memory Alpha
 * Trope Namers For:
 * Beam Me Up, Scotty
 * Boldly Coming
 * Captain's Log
 * Deflector Shields
 * Dropped a Bridge on Him: Referring to Kirk's much-maligned Heroic Sacrifice in Star Trek Generations.
 * The Federation
 * Growing the Beard: An In-Joke directed at Jonathan Frakes, whose character Cmd. Riker grew a beard at the same time TNG improved in overall quality.
 * He's Dead, Jim: McCoy's most frequent diagnosis. No wonder they call him Bones.
 * Holodeck Malfunction: "The Big Goodbye" (TNG)
 * I Am Not Spock: From Leonard Nimoy's autobiography.
 * I'm a Doctor, Not a Placeholder: McCoy's Catch Phrase, later to become a franchise Running Gag. Here's a full list.
 * In the Original Klingon: Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
 * Inertial Dampening
 * Insane Admiral
 * The Kirk
 * Kirk Summation
 * Shut Up, Kirk
 * Kirk's Rock: For the British equivalent, see BBC Quarry.
 * Klingon Promotion
 * Klingon Scientists Get No Respect
 * Klingons Love Shakespeare: Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
 * Lower Deck Episode: Coined by the TNG episode "Lower Decks"
 * Mary Sue: Via a 1973 Fanfic which parodied the trend of writing these.
 * The McCoy
 * Mirror Universe: "Mirror, Mirror" (TOS) and accompanying episodes.
 * The Neutral Zone: "The Balance of Terror" (TOS)
 * Nice Hat: Worf's introduction his new First Officer (DS9).
 * Pardon My Klingon
 * Patrick Stewart Speech
 * Red Shirt: Referring to Kirk's expendable Security staff. As the uniform colors switched around in the spin-offs, the term "Goldshirt" also applies.
 * Resistance Is Futile: The Borg opening hail, first heard in "Q Who" (TNG).
 * You Will Be Assimilated
 * The Roddenberry Line
 * Scotty Time
 * Slash Fic: From Kirk/Spock.
 * Space Whale Aesop: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
 * The Spock
 * Spock Speak
 * Straw Vulcan: The interstellar flavor of Screw You, Elves
 * Theiss Titillation Theory: Named for the costume designer on The Original Series.
 * Trekkie
 * Vulcan Has No Moon
 * Wagon Train to the Stars: Gene Roddenberry originally pitched his draft as Wagon Train In Space.
 * We Come in Peace, Shoot to Kill: From a famous parody.
 * Whoopi Epiphany Speech
 * The Worf Effect
 * The Worf Barrage
 * Worf Had the Flu
 * Trope Maker for:
 * Green-Skinned Space Babe: "The Cage" (TOS)
 * Planet of Hats: Popularized by "A Piece of the Action" (TOS)
 * Rubber Forehead Aliens

Film: Star Trek (2009)

 * Fake American: Kiwi Karl Urban as Dr. McCoy. And pulling it off so well that he is almost indistinguishable from the Atlanta-born DeForest Kelley.
 * To the point that Leonard Nimoy was moved to tears at how much Karl Urban reminded him of his departed friend.
 * Fake Nationality:
 * Englishman Simon Pegg as Scotty, who is, well, Scottish (though James Doohan was Canadian, so this might be closer).
 * Dominican/Puerto Rican-American Zoe Saldana as African-born Uhura (though Nichelle Nichols is straight-up African American so this isn't really any different)
 * Canadian Bruce Greenwood as American Christopher Pike.
 * Interestingly, the most blatant example from the original series is averted. Leningrad-born but American-raised Anton Yelchin plays Chekov, originally played by American Walter Koenig with a fairly ridiculous Fake Accent. (In homage, Yelchin kept the accent.)
 * Hey, It's That Guy!:
 * Tyler Perry as the commandant of Starfleet Academy;
 * Cameron is Kirk's mother;
 * Sylar is Spock;
 * Lydia Deetz as Amanda Grayson;
 * Harold Abrahams/Barnabas Collins as Sarek;
 * Eomer of the Riddermark is McCoy;
 * Harold is Sulu;
 * And Sulu is the MILF Guy. Or maybe he's just having an exceptionally long flash forward...
 * Hector is Nero;
 * Let's not forget it's not the only time he's been a time-traveler!
 * Kyle Reese from T4 is Chekov!
 * Shaun / Nicholas Angel as Scotty;
 * Nowhere Man as Captain Pike;
 * Raza is Captain Robau;
 * Anamaria Neytiri is Uhura;
 * Scarlett is Uhura's Green-Skinned Space Babe roommate;
 * James Cawley, who plays Kirk in the fan series Star Trek Phase II appears in a walk-on role.
 * Randy Pausch, the late professor from "The Last Lecture", has a brief walk on role aboard the USS Kelvin. Mostly done as a nod to one of his childhood dreams of "Being Captain Kirk."
 * Kirk's Dad is THOR, GOD OF THUNDER!
 * Paul McGillion was on screeen for 10 seconds -- enough to be noticed and Squee'd at.
 * Agent Kim cameos as a Starfleet instructor.
 * Chris Doohan, son of original Scotty actor James Doohan, plays Scotty's assistant in the Enterprise transporter room. He and his brother Montgomery had previously appeared as extras in Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
 * And the next evolutionary step for Oompa-loomps
 * The young Captain Kirk managed to survive a sinking ship in 2006.
 * Groves got demoted to Red Shirt.
 * and in the sequel, the villain is going to be Sherlock Holmes.
 * Hey, It's That Voice!: The late Majel Barrett Roddenberry reprises her role as the Computer Voice one last time.
 * * Minute's silence *
 * And Kirk's stepdad who's yelling at him on the car phone is Matt Parkman!
 * Wesley Crusher himself is the voice of all the male Romulans except Nero and Ayel.
 * And Victor Garber is a Klingon in a deleted scene (he never takes his helmet off, so it's this trope)!
 * Younger tropers will know Captain Pike as the Goddamn Batman.