There’s no escaping Star Trek this year. Listen to The Borg: Resistance is futile.
The latest Trek movie, “Star Trek Beyond,” opens nationwide July 22. Fans are salivating over a mysterious new TV series scheduled to appear on CBS in January 2017. And the beloved franchise has been celebrating its 50th anniversary all year long, starting with a national concert tour that visited Fort Myers in January.
Five decades after its first TV episode, Star Trek is still traveling at warp speed into the hearts and minds of science-fiction fans.
“It’s phenomenal!” actor William Shatner (aka Captain Kirk) told The News-Press in January while promoting the “Star Trek: The Ultimate Voyage” concert tour. “It’s unique… And being part of it is an honor. I cherish it.”
Captain Kirk and Mr. Sulu talk Star Trek
To help celebrate the series’ major milestone, we’ve created this quiz to test your Trek knowledge.
Sure, everybody knows the name of the USS Enterprise. You might even know Captain Kirk’s middle name. But do you know who invented the Klingon weapon known as the bat’leth? Or the name of the lizard dude who fights Kirk in The Original Series episode “Arena”?
Now’s your chance to prove your worthiness and find out the truth: Are you a Starfleet cadet or are you a captain?
1. When did Star Trek first go on the air?
2. What rare mineral helps regulate the faster-than-light warp drive on most Star Trek starships?
3. Name the not-so-secret villain played by Benedict Cumberbatch in the movie “Star Trek Into Darkness.”
4. What was Picard’s name when he was assimilated into The Borg?
5. What’s the registration number for the original starship USS Enterprise?
6. What was the final line spoken in “Star Trek: Voyager”?
7. Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry wrote lyrics to accompany Alexander Courage’s theme song for The Original Series, but they were never used. How did those lyrics begin?
8. For which character did visual effects producer/martial artist Dan Curry design the famous, crescent-shaped Klingon weapon, the bat’leth?
9. What’s the name of the sexy former Borg played by Jeri Ryan on “Star Trek: Voyager”?
10. Why is Dr. Beverly Crusher’s son named Wesley?
11. What is The Borgs’ numerical designation for humans?
12. What song is Data trying to whistle when Riker first meets him on the holodeck of the Enterprise-D?
13. What is the United Federation of Planets’ designation for an Earth-like moon or planet, and what does that letter stand for?
14. What does the “T” in Captain James T. Kirk stand for?
15. Which “Star Trek: Voyager” actor now plays Russian prison cook Red on the hit Netflix series “Orange is the New Black”?
16. What’s the name of the lizard-man species that Captain Kirk fights in the episode “Arena”?
17. What were the last words spoken in The Original Series?
18. Name the terraformed planet where Spock dies and is reborn in the movies “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” and “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.”
19. Where were captains Kirk and Picard born?
20. Who invented Spock’s famous Vulcan nerve pinch and hand salute?
ANSWERS
1. Thursday, Sept. 8, 1966 on NBC
2. Dilithium crystals (also known as radan)
3. Khan. Or as Captain Kirk would say it: “KHAAAAAANN!”
4. Locutus of Borg
5. NCC-1701
6. “Set a course … for home,” spoken by Captain Janeway
7. “Beyond the rim of the star-light, my love is wand’ring in star flight…”
8. Worf of “Star Trek: The Next Generation”
9. Seven of Nine
10. It’s series creator Gene Roddenberry’s middle name.
11. Species 5618
12. “Pop Goes the Weasel”
13. Class M for Minshara, a Vulcan word for planets suitable for humanoid life
14. Tiberius
15. Kate Mulgrew, better known as Captain Janeway
16. The Gorn
17. “If only… if only…” Kirk says those lines in reference to the power-hungry Dr. Janice Lester, who swapped bodies with the Enterprise captain in the 1969 episode “Turnabout Intruder.” But the words also served as a fitting epitaph for the canceled Original Series, too, which returned years later in movie form and in several subsequent spin-off TV series.
18. Genesis. It’s also the name of the experimental device that transforms the dead planet into a lush paradise and brings Spock back to life.
19. Riverside, Iowa (Kirk) and La Barre, France (Picard)
20. Spock actor Leonard Nimoy. He thought the nerve pinch was a more sophisticated method of subduing an evil version of Captain Kirk (in the episode “The Enemy Within”). The script called for him to knock out Kirk with a punch. Nimoy based the hand gesture on Winston Churchill’s victory sign and also the shape of the Hebrew letter “shin.”
Connect with this reporter: Charles Runnells (News-Press) (Facebook) or @CharlesRunnells (Twitter)
