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Type-2 hand phaser, 2260s

Starship phasers, 2360s

Phasers were the most common and standard directed energy weapon in the arsenal of Starfleet and several other powers. Most phasers were classified as particle weapons and fire nadion particle beams , ( Star Trek: First Contact ; TNG : " The Mind's Eye "; VOY : " Time and Again ", " Demon ") but some, like the Ferengi hand phaser , were classified as plasma weapons and fired forced plasma beams . ( TNG : " Descent ") Based on the intensity and field of the beam and a variety of adjustments, a wide variety of effects could be achieved.

• 2 Descriptions and uses
• 3 Modifications
• 4 Sidearm settings
• 5.1 Hand-held phasers
• 5.2 Planetary or starship-mounted phasers
• 6.1 See also
• 6.2 References
• 6.3.1 Establishing phaser technology
• 6.3.2 Phaser settings
• 6.3.3 Other types of starship phasers
• 6.4 External links

History [ ]

Phaser rifle, 2260s

Phaser technology used by Starfleet was preceded by phase-modulated particle weapons in the mid- 22nd century , including such weapons as the hand-held phase-pistol and ship-mounted phase cannon . Laser weapons , such as the laser pistol , were also used before phasers became the standard-issue weapon in the Starfleet arsenal. ( Star Trek: Enterprise , all; TOS : " The Cage ")

Rose holding a Type 2 phaser in 2257 .

Phaser weaponry was invented during the 23rd century . ( TNG : " A Matter Of Time ") The technology was used by Starfleet as early as 2233 ; the USS Kelvin was equipped with ship-mounted phaser banks . ( Star Trek ) Phaser rifles were used as early as 2265 , although at that time officers were still armed with laser pistols. ( TOS : " Where No Man Has Gone Before ") In 2269 , starship bridges were defended by an automatic bridge defense system programmed to defend the ship from capture. ( TAS : " Beyond the Farthest Star ") On Deneb V , in 2268 , death by phaser was one method of execution for those who were given the death penalty . ( TOS : " I, Mudd ")

Akira -class starship firing from a phaser array and a Defiant -class starship firing with phaser cannons

In the 2270s , phaser power systems of Federation starships were redesigned to channel power directly from the warp core , thereby increasing the power output of phaser banks. If the ship went to warp and experiences antimatter imbalance or gets trapped in a wormhole or a subspace rift phasers will not work until the ship has cleared the distortion and the wormhole effect has dissipated. ( Star Trek: The Motion Picture )

23rd century Starfleet phasers became inoperative from exposure to the radiation eminating from 20th century nuclear fission reactors , even if said reactors were safely shielded for Humans. ( Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home )

The 24th century saw many new advanced forms of phaser weaponry for the Federation, such as the ever more powerful phaser arrays that made use of multiple phaser emitter segments, the rapid-fire phaser cannons and new compression phaser rifles . ( Star Trek: The Next Generation , all; DS9 : " The Search, Part I "; VOY : " Caretaker ") As a historical note, the regenerative phaser was chosen instead of the TR-116 for development. ( DS9 : " Field of Fire ")

In the 29th century , phaser pistols were still used by Starfleet, ( VOY : " Relativity ") but subatomic disruptors were used on timeships , such as the Aeon , as a ship-mounted directed energy weapon. ( VOY : " Future's End ")

Descriptions and uses [ ]

Phaser rifle, 2370s

The phaser beam could stun , heat, kill, or disintegrate living creatures. Phasers could damage shields or other systems or even cut through a hull . Phasers could also be used to cut through walls and burrow through rock. The beam could be focused to a single spot or widened to impact a large area.

In the nadion particle beam phasers, plasma was passed to a phaser emitter resulting in a discharge of nadion particles . Residual particles could be found in places where a battle had recently taken place. The disruptive effects of nadion discharges were moderated to produce varying effects (discussed below), ranging from benign to extremely destructive. ( VOY : " Phage ", " Memorial ", " Endgame ")

Using phaser drills

The Starfleet-issue personnel phasers came in three types: The phaser type-1 ( hand phaser ) was small and could be concealed easily. The type 2 phaser was larger and hand-held. It had a longer hand grip or a pistol grip, depending on the model. The phaser type-3 was also known as the phaser rifle. It had a longer barrel , a stock, and some models had a second grip. Over the centuries of use, there have been several models of these weapon types. ( TOS : " The Devil in the Dark "; TNG : " The Mind's Eye ")

Beyond these types, phasers were usually mounted devices, such as the type 4 phaser emitters , which were sometimes used on Starfleet shuttlecraft , all the way up to the large phaser banks and phaser arrays of starships and space stations . Various types of banks, arrays, and emitters existed, such as the more powerful phaser type-8 and the phaser cannon . ( TNG : " The Outcast ", " Preemptive Strike "; VOY : " Live Fast and Prosper ")

A phaser being used to heat rocks

Hand-held phasers were also used by Starfleet personnel as tools and not just weapons. The phaser could be used to heat rocks and stones for warmth. ( TOS : " The Enemy Within ", " A Private Little War ", " Spock's Brain "; TNG : " Final Mission "; VOY : " Parturition "; DS9 : " Rocks and Shoals ") While there were specialized tools like phaser bores and phaser drills , ( TAS : " Once Upon a Planet "; VOY : " Once Upon a Time ") Worf once used his type-2 phaser to open a tunnel on the Cardassian planet Celtris III . ( TNG : " Chain Of Command, Part I ") A phaser, when fired together with another in tandem or set to a high setting could create an opening in a solid rock wall. ( VOY : " Caretaker "; DS9 : " Rapture "; Star Trek: Insurrection ) Hand phasers were used to clean carbon filters by scraping off the build up of carbon , ( LD : " Moist Vessel ") and with the right setting could even do something as mundane as removing graffiti off a bulkhead . ( LD : " Temporal Edict ")

Different models of phasers made different sounds when fired, depending on the model and setting. Federation phaser fire typically made a high-pitched "whistling" or "tearing" sound, for example. A knowledgeable person could use the sound to differentiate between types and power settings. ( TOS : " Errand of Mercy "; TNG : " Too Short A Season "; DS9 : " Sacrifice of Angels ")

The alternate Enterprise firing all phasers

In the alternate reality created by Nero 's temporal incursion, hand phasers of the late 2250s emitted concentrated bolts of phaser energy rather than the steady streams generated by phasers of the prime reality.

An alternate reality phaser pistol

In addition, these phasers had a rotating nozzle which flipped when set from stun to kill or vice versa. The ship-mounted phaser banks aboard the USS Enterprise were also used to fire bolts resembling proximity blasts. ( Star Trek )

The advanced phaser weaponry of the USS Vengeance included emitters capable of firing powerful arcing phaser blasts. ( Star Trek Into Darkness )

Soran firing his phaser

Bajoran phaser rifles were used by the Bajoran Militia , based on the design of their own hand phasers . ( DS9 : " The Way of the Warrior ") Regalian phaser rifles were less powerful than their Starfleet counterparts. ( TNG : " The Vengeance Factor ") The phaser used by Tolian Soran in 2371 fired concentrated bolts of phaser energy. ( Star Trek Generations )

While phasers were powerful weapons, they also had limitations. Phasers had no effect on neutronium alloys or the dikironium cloud creature . ( TOS : " The Doomsday Machine ", " Obsession ") The creature known as Armus even seemed to be able to feed off of phaser blasts. ( TNG : " Skin Of Evil ") In 2369 , two type-2 hand phasers at maximum level were unable to penetrate the toranium inlays of Cardassian doors. Major Kira Nerys recommended a bipolar torch to be used to cut through the door. ( DS9 : " The Forsaken ")

Hand phasers could be made to overload, either deliberately or by sabotage. Phasers in the process of overloading emitted a distinctive high-pitched whine. The weapon released all of its energy in an explosion capable of doing considerable damage to its surroundings. In 2266 , Lenore Karidian attempted to murder James T. Kirk by hiding an overloading phaser in his cabin. ( TOS : " The Conscience of the King ") In 2269 , Kirk, McCoy , and Sulu were almost killed while on the Kalandan outpost planet, when its defensive computer fused the controls on Kirk's phaser, causing it to overload. ( TOS : " That Which Survives ")

Modifications [ ]

Personnel phasers were normally set to fire a single steady stream of nadion particles. This beam could be widened to perform a phaser sweep . Most types of phasers could be set to alternatively fire a concentrated bolt of phaser energy. In addition a personnel phaser could be set to fire a spread of multiple beams at once, a field burst of a specific frequency, a luvetric pulse , or an expanding energy pulse . ( TOS : " The Enemy Within "; TNG : " Time's Arrow, Part II ", " Descent "; DS9 : " The Way of the Warrior ", " The Adversary ")

Phasers had an adjustable resonance frequency . When modified, the color of the beam changed. Borg systems were vulnerable to a frequency spread in the high narrow band, but compensated for the weakness after Locutus was assimilated in 2366 . ( TNG : " The Best of Both Worlds ") In 2367 , the phaser adapter was designed, a chip that automatically retuned the phaser to a random setting after each discharge. Using the adapter, phasers were set on a rotating modulation to allow at most twelve shots to penetrate Borg shielding before they adapted. ( TNG : " The Best of Both Worlds, Part II "; Star Trek: First Contact ; VOY : " Scorpion ")

Phasers could be reconfigured to fire a low-intensity burst which would not cause damage to a spacecraft 's hull and would also not affect a hull resiliency evaluation's test procedure. ( TNG : " Lower Decks ")

Hand phasers also had an adjustable dispersion frequency measured in gigahertz and they could be set for specific phase variances . These allowed the phaser beam impact targets that were phased or interphased . ( VOY : " Distant Origin ", " Scientific Method ") A phaser's setting could be modified to disrupt a hologram 's holo- matrix . ( VOY : " Renaissance Man ")

Like the transporters and sensors , hand-held and starship-mounted phasers were also inoperative in areas with high levels of hyperonic radiation , because the phaser beams were randomized by the radiation. To compensate, it was possible to modify a phaser with a servo circuit that continuously recollimated the output. Neural subprocessors of Soong-type androids could be utilized as these servos. ( TNG : " The Ensigns of Command ")

Starship-mounted phasers were normally set to fire steady streams. They could also be set to fire concentrated bolts of phaser energy that detonated at a specific point in space known as proximity blasts . In addition to the powerful settings, the ship's phasers also had a stun setting that could be used to render lifeforms unconscious when fired at a planetary surface from orbit. ( TOS : " Balance of Terror ", " The Trouble with Tribbles ", " A Piece of the Action ")

It was possible to configure starship phasers to also fire energy beams for power transfer, antimatter spreads , laser pulse beams , photon pulses , pulse compression waves , modulating phaser pulses , and covariant phaser pulses . ( TNG : " Encounter at Farpoint ", " Sub Rosa ", " Peak Performance ", " The Best of Both Worlds, Part II ", " The Outcast "; DS9 : " Emissary "; VOY : " Dark Frontier ", " Parturition ")

Sidearm settings [ ]

The 23rd and 24th century personnel phasers included several settings.

• Setting number one is also called the base cycle stunning force. ( TOS : " The Enemy Within ") This minimal setting caused only a stun effect to the average humanoid lifeform. A hit would leave the target dazed and unable to stand or think straight for a short time. ( TOS : " The Man Trap ") When used at close range, a phaser set on stun was still capable of inducing sufficient trauma to kill a Human if fired at a vital organ such as the brain . ( Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country ) However, even several hits on stun had very little effect on an Augment , though only by hitting the torso, while a shot to the head would be enough to knock them out for less than a minute. ( Star Trek Into Darkness ) Two phasers set on setting one fired simultaneously could break large objects into pieces, such as the urns of the second planet of the Taurean system . ( TAS : " The Lorelei Signal ")
• Setting 3.1 was enough to cause a Changeling to experience the stun effect. Setting 3.4 or 3.5 was determined to be a stun setting that would effectively stun and force any Changeling to revert back into the gelatinous state. ( DS9 : " Homefront ") A wide-field stun setting was used when large groups needed to be stunned with a single shot. ( TOS : " The Return of the Archons ") Some stun settings could also cause unconsciousness. Although mostly harmless when used at these low settings, multiple phaser stuns like this could result in injury and death. ( TNG : " Samaritan Snare ") There was a heavy stun force setting and a maximum stun setting also known as full stun charge. ( TOS : " Tomorrow is Yesterday "; TNG : " Legacy "; TAS : " The Eye of the Beholder ") The highest stun setting was strong enough to immobilize a Soong-type android . ( TNG : " A Matter Of Time ")

Damage caused by setting 6 or 7

• A phaser could be used as a heat beam , to heat up a variety of substances, such as rocks or even coffee . ( TOS : " The Enemy Within ", " The Corbomite Maneuver ", " Spock's Brain ") Phasers could be set to inflict non-lethal second degree burns. ( VOY : " Worst Case Scenario ") Settings 6 and 7 caused severe burns in the flesh of humanoids. ( TNG : " Night Terrors ") Setting 7 was also powerful enough to vaporize noranium carbide . ( TNG : " The Vengeance Factor ") Phasers could be used to melt certain ores from solid to liquid. ( TNG : " The Enemy ") They could also be used to quickly boil through tens of meters of ice. ( TAS : " The Slaver Weapon ")
• One-quarter, force 3 and level 10 were different names for the kill setting on a hand phaser. ( TOS : " The Man Trap ", " Operation -- Annihilate! "; TNG : " Aquiel ") The kill setting on hand phasers used by the Mordanites had a distinct sound from the stun setting. ( TNG : " Too Short A Season ") To a humanoid infected by a parasitic being , the kill setting only caused unconsciousness, due to the high levels of adrenaline in the target's body. However, extended exposure to a body part such as the head of a humanoid would cause it to explosively vaporize. Two phasers set to kill could also disintegrate smaller lifeforms such as the neural parasite mother creature with extended exposure. ( TNG : " Conspiracy ") The kill setting was also non-lethal to the flying parasites that invaded Deneva in 2267 . Because each parasite was part of a huge organism, and drew strength from that organism, it could largely resist force 3. Parasites exposed for five to ten seconds reacted as if mildly stunned; they fell from the surface to which they were attached, and did not react to external stimuli for about a minute . ( TOS : " Operation -- Annihilate! ") Firing a phaser on kill at point blank range against an Andorian can cause phase pulse infection and at higher frequencies it can also kill them. ( ENT :" Babel One [!] ")

Phaser used to cut through a corridor wall ( TOS : " The Naked Time ")

• Cutting settings could be used to slice off segments of a steelplast wall, ( TNG : " Too Short A Season ") a standard Starfleet corridor wall, ( TOS : " The Naked Time ", " The Way to Eden ") or even to slice off body parts. ( Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country )
• The normal maximum setting on a hand phaser would vaporize a humanoid lifeform or a Human-size android with a single hit. ( TOS : " What Are Little Girls Made Of? "; TOS : " Mirror, Mirror "; TNG : " The Vengeance Factor "; Star Trek: First Contact ) This was also called disintegration. ( ENT : " In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II ") When used as a means of suicide , the phaser would also disintegrate along with the person shooting at himself. ( TOS : " Elaan of Troyius ") There was also a maximum setting that could set parts of clothing or humanoids on fire. ( TNG : " Datalore ", " The Wounded ") Against a Horta , even when set specifically for silicon , the maximum setting would only hurt the creature. ( TOS : " The Devil in the Dark ") Disruptor-B was another maximum setting for the type 2 phaser . It was also called the disruptor effect setting. This setting was assessed to be the most effective against gaseous dikironium . ( TOS : " Obsession ") According to Valeris , and demonstrated to Mr. Chekov , a phaser fired on a setting of vaporize aboard a starship releases so much energy that it will trigger a security alarm. ( Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country )
• The standard level 16 setting on a type 2 phaser could be used to vaporize tunnels through rock large enough to crawl through. ( TNG : " Chain Of Command, Part I ") The level 16 wide-field setting could easily destroy half of a large building with a single shot. ( TNG : " Frame of Mind ") However there were materials phasers couldn't cut through even at this maximum level, such as toranium ( DS9 : " The Forsaken ") and the unknown material used to create the Hotel Royale on Theta VIII . ( TNG : " The Royale ")

Types of phaser weapons [ ]

The diagram of the ship-mounted phaser bank on Constitution -class starships

Constitution -class forward phaser bank in a schematic

Enterprise phaser banks disintegrating a building

There were several numbered types of phasers of increasing size and capability: types 1, 2, and 3 were personnel phasers, and types 4 and above were ship-mounted weapons. The phasers mounted aboard starships were considerably more powerful than those used by Starfleet personnel, owing to the increased power reserves available. Early phasers, such as the MK IX/01 type found on the USS Enterprise , were mounted in banks of one or two emitters.

Hand-held phasers [ ]

• A type 1 phaser was a small, concealable sidearm weapon
• A type 2 phaser was a larger sidearm weapon, which evolved from a pistol-styled design
• A type 3 phaser was a rifle -sized weapon

These main types and technologies were further classified to distinguish the many variations.

• Ferengi phaser
• Phaser bazooka (possibly fictional)
• Bajoran phaser
• Cardassian phaser
• Klingon phaser
• Kzinti phaser
• Vulcan phaser
• Bajoran phaser rifle
• Compression phaser rifle
• Regalian phaser rifle
• Plasma phaser – a proposed anti- Borg weapon
• Regenerative phaser

Planetary or starship-mounted phasers [ ]

• Class 3 defensive – used on Miranda -class supply ships
• Particle phaser – used on transport ships from Boreal III
• Phaser array
• Phaser battery
• Phaser cannon – used on Defiant -class starships
• Type 4 phaser emitter – used on Type 6 shuttlecraft
• Phaser type-8 – used on Excelsior -class starships
• Galor -class phaser bank

Appendices [ ]

See also [ ].

• The sound of a hand phaser firing  file info

References [ ]

• " The Cage "
• " Where No Man Has Gone Before "
• " The Man Trap "
• " The Conscience of the King "
• " The Devil in the Dark "
• " A Piece of the Action "
• " Obsession "
• " That Which Survives "
• Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
• Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
• " Encounter at Farpoint "
• " Samaritan Snare "
• " The Outcast "
• " Chain Of Command, Part II "
• " Sanctuary "
• " Second Skin "
• " Starship Down "
• " Extreme Measures "
• " Field of Fire "
• " Broken Bow "

Background information [ ]

Gene Roddenberry had some problems with the look of hand-held phasers. " He didn't want the phasers to look like guns, " explained Production Designer Herman Zimmerman , " with handles and trigger guards and triggers [....] But he didn't do that on the classic series and they didn't do it in the features , which Gene had very little to do with; they used pistol grips and rifles, and Gene was never happy with any of that. " ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 2, Issue 12 , p. 24)

According to Ben Burtt , for the Original Series , " the steady blast of the phaser was derived from the hovering sound of the Martian war machines made for the 1953 version of Paramount 's War of the Worlds . The original was made with tape feedback of an electric guitar and a harp. " For Star Trek , Burtt said, " the steady sound just wasn't the right way to go because the visuals are so different, so I made something that recalls it, but features a Doppler effect and is shorter and sharper. My sounds were added to those that had already been supplied by Mark P. Stoeckinger and Alan Rankin ". Stoeckinger stated that " Harry Cohen made tonal sounds with a concussive element that served what the phaser was doing along with adding a version of that neo classical space phone-like element that Ben Burtt provided to give the phaser roots in the franchise along with adapting it for the current film. " [12] [13]

Establishing phaser technology [ ]

According to the unauthorized 2013 reference book These Are the Voyages: TOS Season One , (p. 40) the term phaser was originally invented as a mash-up of the words ph oton and m aser .

During The Original Series , the mechanics of phasers were never explained on screen. However, as early as the release of The Making of Star Trek in 1968 , the technology behind phasers was explained. Phasers are, according to the book, basically lasers , but they have the beam set on a pulsating frequency that can be specifically set to interfere and interact with the wave pattern of any molecular form. This is called " phasing " the beam frequency, hence the name phaser .

According to Gene Roddenberry in The Making of Star Trek , two days into filming of the second pilot, they realized that three years later, people were going to say, " Oh, come on, lasers can't do that. " The term was consequently substituted, based on the idea of the phasing principle of physics, which is a way of increasing power. Apparently, Roddenberry was talking of using higher phase velocities (aka frequencies) of light that, in turn, consist of higher energy photons. These accounts suggest that the laser weapons seen in " The Cage " and phasers of the rest of the show were possibly just two different terms for the same thing.

Released in 1979 , the Spaceflight Chronology (p. 173) offers an alternative explanation of the technology. It states that phaser weapons were in fact developed by Starfleet to combine the benefits of two previously used weapon technologies: particle-beam cannons and laser banks. While particle weapons delivered a big punch, they had trouble penetrating shields, whereas lasers penetrated shielding easily, but had very little impact force to do damage. Two years after the events of "The Cage", when the problem with frequency aligning the two systems to work simultaneously in ship-mounted phasers was solved, the development of hand phasers began. This timeline for phaser development would, however, not be compatible with canonical accounts, as we saw ship-mounted phasers used by the USS Kelvin in the 2009 film Star Trek , over twenty years before the events of "The Cage".

According to the 1990 Star Trek: The Next Generation Writers' Technical Manual (Fourth season edition, p. 14), the term "phaser" is short for " phase d array emitte r ".

The 1991 reference book Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual (pp. 123-125) explain the inner mechanisms of a phaser in more elaborate detail. "Phaser" is, according to the book, an acronym for " phas ed e nergy r ectification" – named for the process of turning stored energy into an energy beam without an intermediate transformation. Energetic plasma is pumped to a prefire chamber made out of a superconducting lithium-copper. There, it undergoes a rapid nadion effect in which strong nuclear forces are liberated. A protonic charge forms and is released in pulses to the emitter made out of the same superconductive crystal. A beam of electromagnetic energy is released from it, at the speed of light. On starships, energy for phasers originates from the EPS, while on hand units, the charge of energetic plasma is stored into sarium-krellide. This material is used because it can't accidentally release the charge of plasma.

Dialogue in the 1991 episode TNG : " The Mind's Eye " concerning the internal mechanics of a type 3 phaser rifle confirm, canonically, all the elements as they were established in the Manual . However, in Star Trek , phasers have been regularly used while starships travel at warp speeds, so the beam must also be traveling at faster-than-light velocities. Beginning with the 1993 episode TNG : " Inheritance ", instead of being labeled as EM weapons, as the reference works have stated, phasers have been consistently referred to as particle beam weapons on screen. This information was also included in the 1994 Star Trek: Voyager Technical Manual – Writer's Guide, and has been corroborated in Star Trek: First Contact and such episodes as " Time and Again ", " Memorial ", and " Endgame ".

Even though the phaser beam was canonically established as not a beam of pure EM energy but a particle beam of nadions, the 1998 reference book Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Technical Manual still goes on to describe the phaser beam as an EM energy beam. According to page 84 of the Manual , a phaser beam can be delivered at warp speeds due to an annular confinement beam jacket and other advances in subspace technology. These are stated to be new inventions in the late-24th century. However, considering that first on-screen uses of phasers at warp occurred as early as the first season of The Original Series , this timeline for the invention would be inconsistent with canon. Furthermore, according to page 92 of the Manual , when phasers are fired by a ship with deflector shields active, the beam is frequency locked to the second-order harmonics of the shield emissions. This prevents the beam impacting on the shields and overloading them, or rebounding back at the firing ship.

It is not known what class of Federation starships was the first to use phaser array strips instead of banks, but " Yesterday's Enterprise " establishes the Ambassador -class to be the earliest known ship design to employ them in the 2340s .

Recalling how the phasers in Star Trek: Discovery were designed, Aaron Harberts described them as "super-important [...] key props" that "nobody wanted to really change." [14]

Phaser settings [ ]

A type 2 phaser at settings one through sixteen

Skin vaporization and internal organ explosion

Remains of Commander Remmick

The Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual (pages 135 – 137) and The Star Trek Book ( citation needed • edit ) list various settings for type 1, type 2, and type 3 phasers, some of which have not been mentioned on screen and some which have been given a different effect. Type 1 phasers had the first eight settings; type 2 and 3 phasers had all sixteen settings.

• Light Stun – causes central nervous system impairment on humanoids, unconsciousness for up to five minutes. Long exposure by several shots causes reversible neural damage.
• Medium Stun – causes unconsciousness from five to fifteen minutes. Long exposure causes irreversible neural damage, along with damage to epithelial tissue.
• Heavy Stun – causes unconsciousness from fifteen to sixty minutes depending on the level of biological resistance. Significantly heats up metals.
• Thermal Effects – causes extensive neural damage to humanoids and skin burns limited to the outer layers. Causes metals to retain heat when applied for over five seconds.
• Thermal Effects – causes severe outer layer skin burns. Can penetrate simple personal force fields after five seconds of application.
• Disruption Effects – penetrates organic and structural materials. The thermal damage level decreases from this level onward.
• Disruption Effects – due to widespread disruption effects, kills humanoids.
• Disruption Effects – causes a cascade disruption that vaporizes humanoid organisms. Any unprotected material can be penetrated.
• Disruption Effects – causes medium alloys and structural materials, over a meter thick, to exhibit energy rebound prior to vaporization.
• Disruption Effects – causes heavy alloys and structural materials to absorb or rebound energy. There is a 0.55 second delay before the material vaporizes.
• Explosive/Disruption Effects – causes ultra-dense alloys and structural materials to absorb or rebound energy before vaporization. There is a 0.2 second delay before the material vaporizes. Approximately ten cubic meters of rock are disintegrated per shot.
• Explosive/Disruption Effects – causes ultra-dense alloys and structural materials to absorb or rebound energy before vaporization. There is a 0.1 second delay before the material vaporizes. Approximately fifty cubic meters of rock are disintegrated per shot.
• Explosive/Disruption Effects – causes shielded matter to exhibit minor vibrational heating effects. Approximately 90 cubic meters of rock are disintegrated per shot.
• Explosive/Disruption Effects – causes shielded matter to exhibit medium vibrational heating effects. Approximately 160 cubic meters of rock are disintegrated per shot.
• Explosive/Disruption Effects – causes shielded matter to exhibit major vibrational heating effects. Approximately 370 cubic meters of rock are disintegrated per shot.
• Explosive/Disruption Effects – causes shielded matter to exhibit light mechanical fracturing damage. Approximately 650 cubic meters of rock are disintegrated per shot.

The Star Fleet Technical Manual gives the effective ranges for different settings. On the type 1 phaser they were: stun – thirty meters, heat – two meters, disrupt – twenty meters, dematerialization – ten meters. On the type 2 phaser the ranges were: stun – ninety meters, heat – six meters, disrupt – sixty meters, dematerialization – thirty meters. Setting dials on the hand phasers indicated nine settings on the type 1 phaser and fifteen on the type 2 phaser, of which all above ten were labeled by the letters A through E. The letters might be a reference to the disruptor-B setting mentioned in "Obsession", which would make it setting 10B. According to Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise , the hand phasers used during the first four movies had only three preset levels: stun, disrupt, and dematerialize.

Commenting on phaser firepower, Ronald D. Moore said: " The weapons are way too powerful to present them in any realistic kind of way. Given the real power of a hand phaser, we shouldn't be able to show ANY firefights on camera where the opponents are even in sight of each other, much less around the corner! It's annoying, but just one of those things that we tend to slide by in order to concentrate on telling a dramatic and interesting story. " ( AOL chat , 1997 )

The relative power of phasers was also referenced on screen in TOS : " Bread and Circuses ", when Proconsul Claudius Marcus of the planet 892-IV stated that it was his understanding that one hundred men armed with phasers could probably defeat the combined armies of his entire empire. The natives on 892-IV were at the time armed with machine guns and early 20th century level technology.

Other types of starship phasers [ ]

• Type V phaser was used on auxiliary craft. In Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual it was stated that Type 7 shuttlecrafts and type 9A cargo shuttles used phaser emitters of this type during special operations. According to Star Trek: Starship Spotter the Chaffee shuttlepod and the Delta Flyer also used this phaser type.
• Type VI phaser was used on auxiliary craft and runabouts. According to the Star Trek: Starship Spotter , the Aeroshuttle and Danube -class starships phaser arrays were of this type.
• Type VII phaser was used on starships. According to the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Technical Manual and Star Trek: Starship Spotter , the twin phaser banks on Miranda -class starships were of this type.
• Type IX phaser is used on starships. According to the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Technical Manual , the Ambassador -class , Centaur -type , Curry -type , and one type of Excelsior -class variant used them. The phaser emitters in the rotary weapon arrays of the weapon sail towers of Deep Space 9 were of this type.
• Type X phaser was used on starships. According to Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual , this was the type name of the phaser arrays used on the Galaxy -class starships. According to the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Technical Manual the Akira -class , Norway -class , Nebula -class , Saber -class , Soyuz -class , and one type of Constitution -class variant also used them. The fixed phaser emitters in the weapon sail towers of Deep Space 9 were of this type. According to Star Trek: Starship Spotter , the Intrepid -class and Nova -class also used them.
• Type X+ phaser was used for planetary defense. According to Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual , this was the designation of some large dedicated planetary phaser defense emitters.
• Type XI phaser was normally used for planetary defense. According to the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Technical Manual', the emitters were designed to minimize atmospheric blooming of the beam. The phaser emitters in the carriages, embedded into the habitat ring of Deep Space 9, were of this type, modified for use in space.
• Type XII phaser was used on starships. According to Star Trek: Starship Spotter this is the type designation of the phaser cannons of the Defiant -class starships and the standard beam phaser arrays of the Prometheus -class and Sovereign -class starships.

None of these type designations have been mentioned on screen.

External links [ ]

• Phaser at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• Phasers.net

Den of Geek

Star Trek: Lower Decks Episode 9 Easter Eggs & References

The Lower Deckers head to the movies, and take Trekkies into a never-ending wormhole of Star Trek references from the cinematic side of the Final Frontier.

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This Star Trek: Lower Decks article contains spoilers for Episode 9. You can read our review here.

If you started watching new Star Trek in the past ten years, that means your introduction to the franchise might have been the J.J. Abrams reboot films. From 2005 to 2017, there wasn’t any new Trek on TV, making the movies the only representatives of new stories set in the Final Frontier. This was also true for a big chunk of the 80s, before The Next Generation debuted in 1987. Arguably, without the success of the Trek films — either in the ‘80s or in the ‘00s — subsequent renaissances of Trek on TV wouldn’t have been possible. The latest episode Star Trek: Lower Decks is fully aware of this fact, and in episode 9 of season 1 — “Crisis Point” — the show tips its hat to the larger-than-life cinematic voyages of Starfleet. 

Along the way, there are references to all 13 S tar Trek feature films, at least two versions of Star Trek that were never made, and one iconic shout-out to Aliens . Here’s all the Easter eggs and references we caught in Lower Decks episode 9, “Crisis Point.”

They’re eating those guys!

The lizard aliens Mariner is trying to liberate seem to be oppressed by an alien that looks suspiciously like an Antican. In the TNG episode “Lonely Among Us,” the Anticans were self-described carnivores who kind of looked like dogs. In that episode, the Anticans were rivals with a reptilian-like species called the Selay. These lizard people don’t look like the Selay, but the reference seems clear. 

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This is the ‘80s!

Mariner complains about how she doesn’t need therapy because “this is the eighties!” She’s right! Lower Decks takes place in 2380 and depending on how much time has passed in Season 1, we might be in 2381. This also seems like a reference to the fact that even though we think of TNG as a ‘90s show, it debuted in 1987. 

Mariner’s therapist is Paul F. Tompkins

The bird-like therapist (maybe an Aurelian?) is played by Paul F. Tompkins. In our universe, Tompkins is the co-host of the current official Star Trek Podcast; The Pod Directive , along with Tawny Newsome, the voice of Becket Mariner. 

Da Vinci on the Holodeck

When Mariner enters the holodeck, Tendi, Boimler, and Rutherford are all shooting skeet with Leonardo da Vinci. This references da Vinci’s appearances as a holodeck character on Star Trek: Voyager , as played by Jonathan Rhys-Davies. However, this is also, possibly a reference to an unused script idea for a TNG feature film that was never made. Because this entire episode is about movie-versions of Trek, it seems possible that this is a slight nod to a script called Star Trek: Renaissance , which was developed shortly before First Contact became the second TNG film. In that unfilmed script, Data would have traveled back in time and become da Vinci’s apprentice. Really!

Boimler’s simulated crew

Boimler creating an entire holographic version of the Cerritos crew has several precedents, but the most on-the-nose episode being reference is probably the Voyager episode “Worst Case Scenario.” In that one, Tuvok created a holonovel that simulated a situation in which the Maquis tried to retake the USS Voyager . The simulation even meant that Tom Paris encountered his holographic self at one point, which is exactly what happens with Mariner later in the episode. 

Opening credits

The opening credits to Mariner’s “movie,” are mostly reminiscent of the opening credits to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , although the warping streaks behind the letters recall a brief title style used by The Next Generation during the season 5. The way the letters are flying past the Lower Deckers might reference the opening credits to the original Christopher Reeve-starring Superman film from 1978.

“You were kind of a Xon, to be honest”

Mariner says that in her movie, Boimler would be “kind of a Xon,” and that he might not make the final cut. This references David Gautreaux’s Vulcan character Xon, from the unmade ‘70s series Star Trek Phase II . Xon was intended as a kind of replacement for Spock because, at that time, it was unclear if Leonard Nimoy would return for the role. David Gautreaux does appear in Star Trek: The Motion Picture as a human named Commander Branch. 

Artistic license

When the Cerritos is sent to track down a mysterious imposter starship, Boimler says “If this was actually happening, they’d send the Enterprise , but you know, artistic license.” This references the Enterprise itself, obviously, but also the idea that in several Trek movies, the Enterprise is bizarrely the only ship available to respond to a distress call or strange situation. In The Wrath of Khan , the Enterprise is sent on a dangerous mission involving a top-secret project. In Generations , the Enterprise-B is the “only ship in range” to assist refugee ships caught in an energy ribbon. In both cases, it feels odd that the Enterprise is the only ship that can help out, but you know, artistic license. 

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The long approach via shuttlecraft

Think it took a long time for the shuttlecraft to land on the Cerritos ? This is an extended joke that references the loooong wordless scene in The Motion Picture in which Kirk and Scotty lovingly stare at the newly refitted Enterprise until, eventually, docking and getting on the ship. In TMP ,   the reason why Kirk and Scotty make the long approach via shuttlecraft (rather than just beaming over) is that the transporters aren’t actually working. But, in subsequent Treks, from TNG ’s “All Good Things…” to “Caretaker” in Voyager , people tend to take shuttles to get onto big starships, even if it makes zero sense. Perhaps the only scene like this that makes actual sense (other than TMP ) was in the first episode of Enterprise . In 2151, the transporters weren’t reliable! 

The bridge of the Cerritos is bathed in lens flare, referencing the extensive use of this camera technique in the J.J Abrams-directed, 2009 Star Trek reboot film. 

Captain Freeman saying “Warp Me!” references her workshopping a catchphrase in the earlier Lower Decks episode, “Envoys. ” In that episode, she wondered if “It’s Warp Time!” was a good thing to say before ordering the ship into warp.

The “movie” warp speed effect

When the Cerritos jumps into warp, the effect is way more bombastic than on the show. This references the warping effect in Star Trek Into Darkness , but also the rainbow warp speed effect from Star Trek: The Motion Picture .

“Our revels now are ended”

As Vindicta, Mariner says “Hell is empty and the devils are here” and also, “Our revels now are ended.” Ransom asks, “Is she quoting The Tempest ?” The answer is yes, which not only references The Tempes t by William Shakespeare but also the fact that General Chang (Christopher Plummer) said “Our revels now are ended, Kirk!” as he was attacking the Enterprise in S tar Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country . More recently, Picard quoted The Tempest during Data’s “death” in the season finale of Star Trek: Picard , “Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2.”

Mariner’s energy weapon 

The super-destructive phaser used by Vindicta/Mariner has a similar vaporizing effect as lasers used in the TNG “As Loud as a Whisper.” 

The pah-wraiths and Jax’s giant phaser

In the Cerritos bar, Jax says “When you get to hell, tell the pah-wraiths that Jax sent you; special delivery from Bajor!” The pah-wraiths are the “evil” versions of the Bajorian prophets, which first appeared in the DS9 episode “The Assignment.” Jax’s giant phaser seems to be a reference to a huge weapon Guinan busted-out in the bar in the TNG episode “Night Terrors.” The design of this phaser rifle also seems a lot like one of the giant weapons used by Khan (Benedict Cumberbatch) in Star Trek Into Darkness .

The Pirates Orions

Tendi pushes back against the stereotype that all Orions are pirates and slavers. The Orions were first established in TOS episodes “The Cage,” and “Whom Gods Destroy,” and later in the TAS episode “The Pirates of Orion.” It wasn’t until the Enterprise episode “Bound” when it was revealed that certain Orion “slaves” were actually manipulating their “masters” to create an illusion of who has the real power. Tendi isn’t the first Orion we’ve seen serving in Starfleet — Uhura’s roommate Galia (Rachel Nichols) Star Trek 2009 was Orion — but it’s never been fully explained the relationship between the Orions and the Federation. In TOS , TAS and in the Short Treks episode “The Escape Artist,” we get the general idea that every aspect of Orion society is connected to crime and pirating. Tendi points out this isn’t true, and that some Orions haven’t been pirates for “over five years!” So, it sounds like some kind of Orion reform happened in 2375!

The destruction of the Cerritos 

When the Cerritos burns up in the atmosphere of the planet, the effect is similar to the way the Enterprise burned up in the atmosphere of the Genesis planet in Star Trek III: The Search For Spock . But, when the saucer crashes on the planet’s surface, that references the saucer crash of the Enterprise-D in Star Trek: Generations . The Enterprise ’s saucer also crashes on the surface of a planet in Star Trek Beyond .

Weird movie beaming

Rutherford says he uses a “a rapid repeating transport sequence” to beam the entire crew to safety. Billups is utterly confused as to how this is possible, and Rutherford says “No, it’s a movie you can beam whatever- you can do all sorts of beaming stuff in a movie!” This references several times that beaming tech in Trek film has been downright miraculous, as opposed to the slightly more reasonable beaming in TV series. In Star Trek: Generation , Scotty is able to beam 47 people off of one ship with a touch of a button. In Star Trek (2009) Spock helps Kirk and Scotty beam from a planet and onto a moving ship traveling at warp. In Star Trek Beyond , Scotty converts a cargo transporter so it can beam up dozens of people at the same time. In The Voyage Home the crew beam up some humpback whales. You get it.

Get off my mom, you bitch!

Holographic Mariner’s battlecry against Vindicta is not a Trek reference! This line is a reference to the climax of Alien in which Ripley said “Get away from her, you bitch!”

Toby Targ on Halloween

Mariner apparently dressed as “Toby the Targ” when she was a kid for Halloween. A targ is a type of Klingon pet that kind of looks like a dog crossed with a pig. The educational children’s character “Toby the Targ,” comes from Voyager . B’Elanna Torres owned a plush Toby the Targ, and the Doctor was familiar with the publisher of the “Toby the Targ ” stories, Broht & Forrester.

Rickety catwalk

Throughout the episode Mariner is obsessed with having a fight on a “rickety catwalk.” This probably references the ending of Star Trek: Generations , in which Kirk and Picard fight Dr. Soren on a series of rickety catwalks. But, Riker and his duplicate, Thomas Riker, also have a big confrontation on a rickety catwalk in the TNG episode “Second Chances.”

Do you like turtle necks or just standard uniforms?

Boimler absent-mindedly asks Captain Freeman if she likes “turtlenecks or just standard uniforms.” This seems to indicate that the DS9 -style turtleneck uniforms might still be in service in some parts of Starfleet in 2380. Either that, or Boimler is wishing those uniforms could make a comeback.

Mariner is buried in rocks

Captain Freeman buries the body of the holographic Mariner in a strange grave made of rocks. This references the ending of Star Trek; Generations , where Picard buries Kirk in the exact same way. Why did Picard not wait to have Kirk’s body taken back to a starship? Why would Freeman have her daughter buried on a random planet? It’s a movie! Don’t ask questions!

Vindicta’s return

Before being shot by da Vinci, Vindicta rises out of a photon torpedo tube. This references the ending of The Wrath of Khan , which shows that Spock’s casket landed on the Genesis Planet. During the filming of the The Wrath , this scene was actually filmed at the last minute, and was overseen by Robert Sallin because director Nicholas Meyer was opposed to hinting that Spock was still alive. In other words, the photon torpedo casket was a small retcon inside of The Wrath of Khan , which is why it’s fitting to have it as the coda in this episode. Just when you think it’s over — somebody’s gonna rise from the dead. 

Da Vinci shooting Vindicta with a shotgun could be reference to the very first episode of Enterprise — “Broken Bow” — when a farmer shoots a Klingon with a shotgun in the first scene.

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At the very end, all four of the Lower Deckers sign their names in spacey blue ink across a starfield. This references the ending of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country in which all seven cast members of the original series sign their names over the ending credits. This concept is interestingly used for the ending of Avengers: Endgame , probably because Marvel president Kevin Feige is a self-professed Star Trek fan. So, is this a reference to the TOS crew and the Avengers ? It’s an episode of Lower Decks , so it seems like you can totally have it both ways.

Star Trek: Lower Decks will air its Season 1 finale next Thursday on October 8. 

Ryan Britt is a longtime contributor to Den of Geek! He is also the author of three non-fiction books: the Star Trek pop history book PHASERS…

STAR TREK LOWER DECKS Sets Phasers to Fun [Season 1 Review]

A frenetic, and reverent addition to the trek-verse.

Lower Decks marks a change of tack for an episodic jaunt through the Trek-verse. Beyond the cartoon aspect, something not glimpsed since the 1970s effort Star Trek the Animated Series , there is a different focus and level of frivolity not seen in any of the classic ( TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT ), or current day ( Discovery, Picard ) shows. Inspired by the Star Trek The Next Generation Season 7 episode of the same name , we take our eyes off the bridge (mostly), and go down into the Jeffries tubes, focusing on some crew a few rungs below the command staff.

The year is 2380 (shortly after Star Trek Nemesis fyi), and the crew of the U.S.S. Cerritos are continuing Starfleet’s mission to explore the final frontier…kind of. This is not the flagship, but instead one of the fleet’s support vessels. Think the team that makes second contact rather then first, or offers logistical expertise. If you’ve ever sat through an episode of Star Trek and though, well what happens after Picard and Co. warp away, you get your answer here. In keeping with this focus, we follow a small team of ensigns at the bottom rung of the ladder. The talented but chaotic Beckett Mariner (Tawny Newsome), the keen and do-gooder Brad Boimler (Jack Quaid), and the infectiously enthusiastic engineer Samanthan Rutherford (Eugene Cordero) and scientist D’Vana Tendi (Noël Wells). They have to juggle their duties with their social lives, all while the ship is being rocked by a multitude of anomalies, alien encounters, and grappling with their place at the opposite end of the hierachy to the occasionally glimpsed command staff, made up of Captain Carol Freeman (Dawnn Lewis), Commander Jack Ransom, (Jerry O’Connell, Lieutenant Shaxs (Fred Tatasciore) and Doctor T’Ana (Gillian Vigman).

We basically play in the TNG sandbox but instead of seeing the graceful diplomacy, the stirring heroics, the front line endeavors, or galaxy impacting conflicts of a top tier crew, we’re focusing on the (mis)adventures of this motley bunch. Familiar in terms of the types of missions, A and B-storylines, but reworking them with playful, but still engaging results. It’s true to the Trek mythos that has been cultivated for decades, while also playfully riffing off it with irreverent gags, obscure references, and occasionally plunging even deeper into alien cultures and events glimpsed in other Star Trek shows. With its young and keen cast, there is something more relatable and still inspiring about what unfolds. An infectious enthusiasm stemming from this second string Starfleet team.

With Trek -verse shows like Discovery and Picard darkly delving into the past, present, and future, Lower Decks is a lighter, refreshing and more digestible effort. Some of it does feel a little too breezy at times, as the episodes zip along not leaving much time for any emotional impact to really sink in. But overall themes about family, friendship, and character, strongly permeate the show. There’s so much warmth and affection, it’s hard not to be charmed.

The Package

• Includes all 10 episodes of season 1; Second Contact, Envoys, Temporal Edict, Moist Vessel, Cupid’s Errant Arrow, Terminal Provocations, Much Ado About Boimler, Veritas, Crisis Point, and No Small Parts

The release also contains nearly two-hours of extra features that are surprisingly well considered and cover some great aspects of the show:

• Crisis Point: The Rise of Vindicta Trailer: A trailer advertising the holo-movie effort seen in the episode Crisis Point
• Faces of the Fleet: A rundown of the creation of the main cast
• Hiding in Plain Sight: A fun rundown of the various Easter eggs/references tucked away in the show, accompanied by information from cast and crew
• Joining Starfleet: A overarching look at the development of season one
• Aliens Among Us : Showcases the various aliens see in the episode Envoys
• The Animation Process: A look at the technical side of composing an episode
• The Main Titles: Overview of how the intro sequence was put together, visually and audibly
• Art Design: Goes into the style/aesthetic for the show
• The Holodeck : Interviews with cast and crew about their views on this interactive future technology
• Division 14 : An overview of the special Starfleet group introduced in the show
• Deck Dynamics : One of the key aspects of the show is the focus on these lower ranked personable, much of the comedy and conflict comes from how they play off the people and orders that come from the top of the command structure. This featurette dives into these relationships and how it defines much of the show
• The Music of Lower Decks : You’ll hear some familiar tunes and music inspired by previous incarnations as you watch Lower Decks, so it’s nice to see a featurette that explains how they bridge this new show to the old, as well as discuss the differences with scoring an animated vs live series
• All in the Family : An overarching look at the dynamics of the cast over the 10 episodes and how the show fits into (and draws from) the existing Trek family —  *Avoid watching until you’ve seen all 10 episodes!*

The Bottom Line

Some may suggest Lower Decks tilts toward younger viewers, but it actually feels more like a enthusiastic love-letter penned by those of us who grew up during The Next Generation ’s golden years. A reverential and irreverent blast of fun that serves as a love letter to the Roddenberry’s franchise, while charting its own frenetic and fun course.

Star Trek Lower Decks Season 1 is available on Blu-ray and DVD from May 18th

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‘Star Trek: Lower Decks’ Review: Life as Phaser Fodder

An animated addition to the “Trek” universe is part fan service, part smutty office sitcom.

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By Mike Hale

Comedy. The final frontier.

“Star Trek: Lower Decks,” the latest “Trek” extension from CBS All Access (following “Discovery” and “Picard”), goes where no series in the franchise has gone before, at least not intentionally: full-time laughs. The “Trek” shows have had their playful elements from the start. But when your primary source of humor over the years has been making fun of Vulcans or androids who have no sense of humor — well, you see the issue.

“Lower Decks,” whose 10 episodes appear weekly beginning Thursday, also stands out for being animated, but that’s not a first. The earliest “ Star Trek ” spinoff, back in 1973, was “Star Trek: The Animated Series,” a straightforward continuation of the original for which most of its cast supplied voices. (Its two seasons are also available from All Access. )

The new show goes its own way, in keeping with the somewhat freewheeling vibe the television side of the franchise has exhibited under the supervision of Alex Kurtzman . Developed by Mike McMahan, a specialist in animated, adult-oriented science-fiction comedy — he was a creator of Hulu’s “Solar Opposites” and an executive producer of the category’s ne plus ultra, “Rick and Morty” — it’s about half “Star Trek” fan service and half smutty workplace sitcom.

Apparently, that’s not an easy formula. Through four episodes, “Lower Decks” feels caught in between. It’s a smooth and zippy package, but it doesn’t register very strongly as either a geekfest or a transgressive satire. Which is another way of saying it’s not all that funny. Wherever it’s going, it’s not doing it very boldly.

Its premise, stated in the title, is a bit obvious but certainly workable: After six decades of series and movies celebrating the heroic officers on the bridge, “Lower Decks” focuses on the phaser fodder, the people we usually see in the background running through the corridors or being sucked into space through a hull breach.

The heroes, all ensigns, include Boimler (Jack Quaid), a Starfleet true believer who records his own mock captain’s log each day, and Mariner (Tawny Newsome), an insubordinate badass whose millennial self-absorption may have something to do with her mother’s being the ship’s captain. The ship, like the ensigns, has an inferiority complex: Given the less than heroic name Cerritos, it’s a “second contact” vessel, traveling to planets to handle the paperwork after someone else has sought out a new civilization.

Plots abide by “Star Trek” norms as misunderstandings with funny-looking aliens or viruses picked up on-planet lead to pitched battles that look catastrophic until suddenly everything’s OK again. Boimler gets to spend a lot of time screeching about the rules, much in the style of the touchy teenager Morty on “Rick and Morty.”

As background music, there’s a continual hum of “Trek” nostalgia and gentle mockery, for which viewers’ appetites will vary. Much of this comes in enthusiastic outbursts from Mariner, a Starfleet history buff, though her facts are shaky. (The legendary Spock “fought Khan and some space whales.”) Reference is made to the “most important person in Starfleet history,” an in-joke that will delight fans of “The Next Generation” and “Deep Space Nine.”

In counterpoint, the show tweaks the franchise’s tradition of hyper-virility, with a Kirk- and Riker-like first officer, Ransom (Jerry O’Connell), who can dispatch green giants in hand-to-hand combat and is given to pronouncements like, “Nothing compares to the firm, hot pulse of a joystick in your hand.” The determination to take the “adult” in adult animation seriously can take even less subtle directions, as when a crew member mistakenly offers a token of timber, rather than crystal, to an alien leader and the dignitary recoils and cries, “He’s got wood!” There are several Prime Directives being violated there, one having to do with lazy joke writing.

Mike Hale is a television critic. He also writes about online video, film and media. He came to The Times in 1995 and worked as an editor in Sports, Arts & Leisure and Weekend Arts before becoming a critic in 2009. More about Mike Hale

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Phasers Set to Stun in First Trailer for ‘Star Trek: Lower Decks’

In space, no one can hear you scream…or giggle; new animated comedy from ‘Solar Opposites’ creator Mike McMahan premieres August 6 on CBS All Access.

If you’ve ever wondered how the other half lives in the nobly idealistic and highly motivated world of Starfleet, then brush off your tricorder - the one you overpaid for years ago at Comic-Con – and set your phasers to August 6, the premiere of CBS All Access’ new animated comedy, Star Trek: Lower Decks .

Half vigilant inter-galactic peacekeepers, half overzealous space newbies, half holodeck waste removal specialists, the “scrappy” ensigns of the of the U.S.S Cerritos are poised for action-adjacent adventure. In the show’s just dropped official trailer, we discover that in the year 2380, jokes about the Captain’s log are as endless as they are here on Earth in 2020, and that workplace comedies can indeed boldly go where no one has gone before.

The show, developed by Emmy Award winner Mike McMahan ( Rick and Morty ,  Solar Opposites ), features the support crew of one of Starfleet’s least important ships, the U.S.S. Cerritos; Ensigns Mariner, Boimler, Rutherford and Tendi have to keep up with their duties and their social lives, often while the ship is being rocked by a multitude of sci-fi anomalies. The crew residing in the “lower decks” of the starship includes “Ensign Beckett Mariner,” voiced by Tawny Newsome, “Ensign Brad Boimler,” voiced by Jack Quaid, “Ensign Tendi,” voiced by Noël Wells and “Ensign Rutherford,” voiced by Eugene Cordero. Starfleet characters that comprise the ship’s bridge crew include “Captain Carol Freeman,” voiced by Dawnn Lewis, “Commander Jack Ransom,” voiced by Jerry O’Connell, “Lieutenant Shaxs,” voiced by Fred Tatasciore and “Doctor T’Ana,” voiced by Gillian Vigman.

The series is produced by CBS’ Eye Animation Productions, CBS Television Studios’ new animation arm; Secret Hideout; and Roddenberry Entertainment. Secret Hideout’s Alex Kurtzman and Heather Kadin and Roddenberry Entertainment’s Rod Roddenberry and Trevor Roth, and Katie Krentz (219 Productions) serve as executive producers alongside creator and showrunner Mike McMahan. Aaron Baiers (Secret Hideout), who brought McMahan to the project, serves as a co-executive producer. Titmouse ( Big Mouth ), the Emmy Award-winning independent animation production company, serves as the animation studio for the series.  Star Trek: Lower Decks  will air exclusively on CBS All Access in the United States and is distributed worldwide by ViacomCBS Global Distribution Group.

Star Trek: Lower Decks  is the first animated series to join CBS All Access’ expanding  Star Trek  franchise that includes the original series  Star Trek: Picard ;  Star Trek: Discovery , returning with season three later this year; the recently announced U.S.S. Enterprise set series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, featuring Anson Mount, Rebecca Romijn and Ethan Peck; and the development of a Section 31-based series with Michelle Yeoh. A CG-animated  Star Trek  series aimed at younger audiences is also in the works for Nickelodeon.

Source: CBS All Access

Dan Sarto is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network.

View the discussion thread.

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The First Ship from Lower Decks!

By Ambassador Kael | Thu 09 Sep 2021 09:00:00 AM PDT

Alongside the release of our next major story update , the Infinity Lock Box will be enjoying a full-length run as the featured Lock Box. This run has already been underway, but starting with the next story update which arrives on PC very soon, a brand new Tier-6 Starship will be added to the existing ship choices, and a series of exciting new Lower Decks -themed items will be added to the Lobi Crystal Store.

Chief among these additions is the Parliament Miracle Worker Surveyor Cruiser [T6] , which can now be chosen from among the existing selection of Tier 6 Starships available in any “Infinity Prize Pack: T6 Ship” won by opening an Infinity Lock Box.

Complete ship details can be found further below in this dev blog!

The following new items will be featured in the Lobi Crystal Store, available immediately for purchase upon the release of our next story update!

Lower Decks Uniforms

Starfleet of the 2380s had style for days. These snappy uniforms are still in circulation, and your Captain can grab them from the Lobi Store and just looks snazzy. Unless you, I don't know, turn it in to go do research on an asteroid or something. You probably won't get eaten. 2380-era Uniforms have a distinctive stripe structure and a familiar feel. Seen on Star Trek: Lower Decks, acquiring this spec of dress allows Captains to replicate the look of the crews from that era, such as that of the U.S.S. Cerritos. 

Special Issue Phaser Weapons

Inspired by weapons seen on Lower Decks , the Special Issue Phaser Weapons have a unifying element: all of them can store multiple Ammo for their Secondary Firing Mode, and activating the Secondary Firing Mode consumes all available Ammo to fire the ability once per Ammo used. Each also has a Proc that grants the Secondary Firing Mode max Ammo for a brief window.

Portable Phaser Cannon Special Issue

Favored by the Bajoran security officer Shaxs, this formidable weapon is among the heaviest personal-use Phaser available in Starfleet. The Primary Fire is a deadly extended beam that deals significant damage. The Secondary Firing Mode is a charge-up blast; the longer the button is held, the deadlier the ensuing storm of Phaser energy is. In addition to greater damage, at medium charge Foes are severely Slowed, and at maximum charge Foes are stunned. As with all Special Issue weapons, the Secondary activates once per available Ammo, so a max charge Secondary with multiple ammo fires multiple fully charged Phaser blasts. The weapon’s Proc allows use of a max-Ammo Secondary within a moderate time window.

Multibarrel Phaser Special Issue

Inspired by a very high rate of fire Phaser pistol designed by the holodeck AI, this pistol fires in bursts and its Secondary sprays the field with marginally-discriminate destruction. As with all Special Issue weapons, the Secondary activates once per available Ammo, so a Secondary with multiple ammo fires multiple volleys of withering suppressive fire. The weapon’s Proc allows use of a max-Ammo Secondary within a moderate time window. Captains should be advised that this weapon lacks a stun setting.

Phaser Split-Beam Rifle Special Issue

Adapting the multiple Ammo system to more conventional weaponry, the Special Issue Split-Beam Rifle functions much as a standard Split-Beam Rifle. As with all Special Issue weapons, the Secondary activates once per available Ammo, so a Secondary with multiple ammo fires multiple waves of independently-targeted Phaser beams. The weapon’s Proc allows use of a max-Ammo Secondary within a moderate time window.

Phaser Sniper Rifle Special Issue

Adapting the multiple Ammo system to more conventional weaponry, the Special Issue Sniper Rifle functions much as a standard Sniper Rifle. As with all Special Issue weapons, the Secondary activates once per available Ammo, so a Secondary with multiple ammo fires multiple deadly sniper shots. If the original Foe is defeated by one, the others automatically select a new Foe target. The weapon’s Proc allows use of a max-Ammo Secondary within a moderate time window.

T-88 Diagnostic Tool Kit

This Kit Frame is one of the most efficient diagnostic tools to grace the Alpha Quadrant. At a baseline, it improves Phaser Damage, Health, Critical Chance and Kit Readiness. It also has an activated Diagnostic ability that performs differently on one’s self, one’s allies, and one’s Foes. The Diagnostic lasts longer than its Recharge time, allowing Captains to maintain it on two to three targets at a time. 

• On Player Friend: Improves Critical Severity
• On non-Player Friend: Adds Bonus Damage
• On Foe: Reduces Damage Resistance Rating

Lower Decks Personal Traits

Personal Space Trait – The Boimler Effect

Provides a chance that using non-specialist Bridge Officer Abilities will recharge all other Bridge Officer Ability recharge times, up to their respective Shared Cooldown Categories.

The gears of any great machine suffer from friction. While ruthless precision is at times the best way, often allowing a bit of slip and wiggle makes the whole structure more resilient. In this way, one should be careful not to police one's crew too closely.

Personal Space Trait – Improvised Boarding Party

Boarding Party deals substantial Physical Damage Over Time, and provides a chance for Control Bridge Officer Abilities to trigger Boarding Party I on their targets.

The types of anomalous problems encountered by explorers can be easily weaponized by the unscrupulous… or the desperate.

Personal Ground Trait – Lower Decks Experience

Grants a massive bonus to the damage of Bridge Officers after they use Ensign-rank Bridge Officer Abilities. 30 second recharge.

A checkered background can be a useful thing, as insights and experiences cultivated in the lower decks of a starship offer lessons impossible to find in a simulation.

Personal Ground Trait – Space Explorer is a Great Gig

Grants a bonus to Kit Performance based on Kit Readiness, and also grants a small bonus to Kit Readiness.

To Boldly Go Where No-One Has Gone Before is not just a matter of academic curiosity or national self-interest -- it provides for a rich, exciting life!

Parliament Miracle Worker Surveyor Cruiser [T6]

The rumors suggest that this state-of-the-art starship design boasts some of the latest technology developed by Federation engineers and scientists, allowing it to focus on complex large-scale engineering projects better than other ships in the fleet. These same sentiments have led to commissioned vessels from this class receiving some of the most epic assignments in recent telling. There's no denying its versatility and resilience, regardless of whether or not its reputation has been exaggerated. I mean, it can’t all be true. It’s a starship, not heaven.

This starship features a Commander Engineering/Miracle Worker specialist seat and a Lieutenant Universal/Miracle Worker specialist seat.

• Faction: Federation or Federation-Aligned
• Requirement: Completed Tutorial
• Hull Modifier: 1.45
• Shield Modifier: 1.125
• Fore Weapons: 4
• Aft Weapons: 4
• Device Slots: 4
• Bridge Officer Stations: 1 Lieutenant Tactical, 1 Commander Engineering/Miracle Worker, 1 Lieutenant Engineering, 1 Lieutenant Commander Science, 1 Lieutenant Universal/Miracle Worker
• Console Modifications: 2 Tactical, 5 Engineering, 4 Science, 1 Universal
• Base Turn Rate: 8.5 degrees/second
• Impulse Modifier: 0.15
• Friction/Traction: 0.40
• +10 Power to Weapons, +10 Power to Auxiliary, +5 Power to Engines, +5 Power to Shields

Console – Universal – Controlled Gravimetric Demolition

• "Innovation" Ship Mechanic
• Command - Strategic Maneuvering
• Command - Shield Frequency Modulation
• Command - Weapon System Efficiency
• Command - Attract Fire
• Absorptive Plating (+Kinetic and Physical Damage Resistance)
• Rapid Repairs (+Regeneration)
• Enhanced Plating (+Energy and Radiation Damage Resistance)
• Armored Hull (+Maximum Hull Capacity)
• Efficient Demolition (Starship Trait)

Admiralty Ship Stats:

• SPECIAL: +20 ENG and SCI when ALONE

This set of equipment is used to demolish derelict hulls and stray celestial bodies in two discrete steps.

First, a deflector platform is deployed to maintain a demolition field around the target. This captures all debris and ships in the area and renders them vulnerable to Kinetic damage, though excessively large ships may push through.

Second, the vessel fires a stream of cohesive gravitons into the center of the field, projecting structural stress into it and dealing Kinetic damage over time to all Foes inside. This also draws nearby objects toward the target, ensuring tidy destruction. The beam then causes a massive detonation at the center of the field, dealing tremendous Kinetic damage to all Foes inside.

This console additionally provides a passive bonus to Kinetic and Physical Damage Resistance Rating, as well as Exotic Particle Generation and Structural Integrity. This console may be equipped on any ship in any console slot.

Starship Trait – Efficient Demolition

While this Starship Trait is slotted, defeating Foes adds a small boost to the subsystem with the lowest power for a moderate duration, and for the next several seconds activations of Efficient Demolition provide an increased boost.

Waste not, want not. Tidy destruction of stellar debris tends to involve the release of a fair amount of energy, and this ship has been modified to capture as much of it as possible.

NOTE: The above stats and systems are subject to change.

Jon Herlache Systems Designer Star Trek Online

Jeremy Randall Senior Systems Designer Star Trek Online

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Designer Reveals Story Behind TOS Phaser Rifle, Exclusive Excerpt From ‘Star Trek – A Celebration’

| September 21, 2021 | By: TrekMovie.com Staff 60 comments so far

Today Hero Collector releases Star Trek – A Celebration , their new book looking at the making of Star Trek: The Original Series . We previewed the book last month and today we have an exclusive chapter all about the iconic phaser rifle designed by legendary game designer Reuben Klamer, who passed away last week .

A message from the co-author

Co-author Ian Spelling had this to say about the chapter and Reuben Klamer:

“The story of the phaser rifle fascinated me and I wanted to be sure we included it in TOS – A Celebration. Mr. Klamer’s prop really and truly helped convince NBC that Star Trek could deliver action in addition to thought-provoking ideas, and so they gambled on picking up the show. Then, the prop was never seen again on the show and it seemed to disappear in a real-world context as well. Mr. Klamer had it for decades, and he sold it at auction for a small fortune a few years ago. It took me several weeks of old-school sleuthing to track him down earlier this year. He was in ill health, but on a good day a few months back his assistant called and said he could speak to me. We chatted right then and there. If this isn’t the last interview that Mr. Klamer gave, it’s one of the last, and I’m so grateful that we got him and could let him comment on his place in the Star Trek phenomenon.”

Excerpt from Star Trek – A Celebration

(Star Trek – A Celebration)

T H E  P H A S E R  R I F L E

After its appearance in the second pilot, one of STAR TREK’s most memorable props disappeared from view for the best part of 60 years.

Gene Roddenberry, Matt Jefferies, and Wah Chang get the lion’s share of credit for creating the look of STAR TREK and inventing its iconic props. However, there’s another crucial figure, a man rarely mentioned in the same breath as the headliners above, who merits recognition. That man is Reuben Klamer.

In 1965, Klamer designed/created the phaser rifle that Kirk wielded in the second STAR TREK pilot, ‘Where No Man Has Gone Before.’ Kirk utilized it to weaken his god-like old friend, Gary Mitchell, and then to topple boulders that buried Mitchell in a grave meant for Kirk. The episode’s action – exemplified and amplified by the phaser rifle – helped nudge NBC to commit to STAR TREK as a series. Also, in 1966, a few months before STAR TREK premiered, network publicists arranged a photoshoot with Shatner, Nimoy, Grace Lee Whitney, and unwittingly, the phaser rifle. The resultant images stoked viewer anticipation about the upcoming sci-fi series – and triggered a mystery.

After ‘Where No Man Has Gone Before,’ the weapon disappeared from the show. The prop itself seemed to vanish, too, until it went under the gavel in 2013. It generated 23 bids and fetched $240,625, the highest price ever paid for a hand- held STAR TREK prop. The seller? Reuben Klamer.

A veteran inventor and toymaker, he developed the classic board game, The Game of Life, and created such products as Busy Blocks and Fisher-Price’s training roller skates. Klamer’s company, Toy Development Center, Inc., also devised props for the entertainment industry. One such prop, a gun produced for The Man from U.N.C.L.E., wowed audiences – and Gene Roddenberry – and became a bestseller when Klamer licensed a toy version. Roddenberry, deep into preproduction on STAR TREK’s second pilot, got Klamer’s name from U.N.C.L.E. producer Norman Felton.

“I had no clue I was going to get a call from Roddenberry,” says Klamer in 2021, aged 99. “I was surprised. He said, ‘My name is Gene Roddenberry, and I have this show called STAR TREK. I’d like you to come in and talk about an idea we have.’ I said, ‘Of course, I’ll be out there any time you say.’ And we met.” Roddenberry and Klamer agreed that Toy Development Center would construct a phaser rifle in exchange for the merchandising rights to toy phaser rifles and potentially to other STAR TREK products.

Klamer and his design associates, Dick Conroy and Ab Kander, spent two weeks toiling around the clock to build a long, sleek weapon with a trio of transparent tubes in its body and a minisatellite dish at the barrel’s end.

“We had to get the looks of it right first, so we worked on that for days,” Klamer recalls. “Once we got that right, then we could get down to brass tacks. We did the whole thing in two weeks, but it would’ve taken two months under normal conditions. I was willing to do it, though, so I could get the merchandising rights. Our U.N.C.L.E. products were very successful. One of the guns sold over a million pieces and had its own fan mail.”

Everyone loved the rifle, including Shatner, who’d attended an early meeting about the prop. Roddenberry, on seeing the nearly finished version, declared, “This is it!” Next, lawyers negotiated and letters were exchanged, but ultimately, “Gene didn’t follow through” with granting Klamer the merchandising rights to the phaser rifle or any other STAR TREK toys. “I was disappointed,” Klamer concedes, “extremely disappointed.”

NBC, unaware the weapon would never be used again, included it among the props that Shatner, Nimoy, and Whitney posed with for a photoshoot. At some point thereafter, the phaser rifle wound up back in Klamer’s possession. He kept it in its case at his office in Culver City and then in San Diego. “We’d open the box once in a while to show somebody, but it was perfectly preserved,” Klamer says. “The funny thing is we tried to hide the box so that if our office ever got broken into, no one would find it.” He watched ‘Where No Man Has Gone Before,’ and was impressed. “The phaser rifle looked great on- screen, especially with the special effects added,” Klamer says. “And I thought Shatner did a really good job.”

Decades went by. Finally, one of Klamer’s sons suggested selling the rifle. Klamer agreed, and sold it with a design sketch sheet, Polaroid photos, and correspondence from Roddenberry. “I didn’t imagine the bidding would hit $240,000,” Klamer says. “That was great.” Though he no longer owns the prop, he owns something maybe of higher value: a unique place in STAR TREK lore. “That prop was more than a phaser rifle and more than a model,” he claims. “It looked like something special. It was something special. It gave the show some pizzazz.”

Klamer’s original sketch for the phaser rifle. At this stage, the design included a shoulder brace, which wasn’t part of the final prop. When it wasn’t in use, it swung under the main body. Even in 1965, Roddenberry was interested in merchandise rights and hoped the rifle would become a toy. (Star Trek – A Celebration)

Available today

The 256-page  Star Trek – A Celebration was released in hardcover on September 21, and is priced at $34.95 ($44.95 in Canada). You can order it from Amazon.com , or directly from the Eaglemoss Shop .

More from Klamer

As noted above, Reuben Klamer sold the original rifle prop at an auction a decade ago. He appeared in a video ahead of the sale by Julien’s Actions.

Keep up with all the  Star Trek books and merchandise news and reviews at TrekMovie.com .

DISCLAIMER: We may link to products to buy on Amazon in our articles; these are customized affiliate links that support TrekMovie by earning a small commission when you purchase through them.

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Roddenberry reneged on the original promise of merchandising rights? Gee, what a total shock (sarcasm).

First thought that went through my head, as well. Gee, what a surprise.

Yes, Phil, and let’s not forget, Roddenberry screwed Alexander Courage out of half the royalties on the musical score for the opening credits of TOS, by writing lyrics that nobody ever heard. To be blunt, Gene Roddenberry could be a real dick sometimes (and that’s the kind word for it).

Well, A34, I was trying to take the high road. But, hey, you can’t put lipstick on a pig.

I’ll just speak for Roddenberry’s ghost: “You’re welcome, dick.”

I seem to remember Harry Balz commenting that he posted under Michael Hall in the early days here. Care to fess up, Michael / Harry Balz? BTW, I like to agree with myself, too. haha.

Anthony, I have never posted under the name Michael Hall. Interestingly, my first name IS Michael. The only other name I used a few times (years ago) was Holden McGroin. It has a nice ring to it, no?

Nope, sorry. ‘Michael Hall,’ for better or worse, is the name my parents gifted me 63 years ago, and I’ve never posted anything under an alias. As for ‘Harry Ballz,’ I’ll freely admit that there was a time in my life when I would have considered that high wit. Like, when I was in the fourth grade.

Michael, I decided on “Harry Ballz” so it would prove easy to remember, like those cheesy radio ads with a corny jingle. Stupid, but they stick in your head. Corny is hard to forget. :>)

Well, if you’re looking for a memorable handle I’m certainly willing to make some suggestions.

Why not? lol

It’s common practice in the industry. BTW, Courage (and the succeeding generations of his family) has gotten rich off of it and made far more than you’ll see in many lifetimes (unless your ingenious Trek script ever gets produced). harhar.

I can see why the alternative title “Gene Roddenberry: A Celebration” was quickly shot down.

That phaser rifle looks more realistic than the plastic looking toys from TNG.

The TOS weapons props always looked like they had a little heft to them, which you’d expect knowing they had power packs. A lot of the TNG asethetic was plastic, though. That’s been a nit pick for Iron Man and War Machine – they fly in with the fairly form fitting suits, and, Oh! Look! Missiles! Machine guns! Where do you supposed that ordinance was stored in those armor suits?

You’re not supposed to as such questions. What about Hawkeye or Legolas… Did you ever see them run out of arrows?

Never have I ever…..

On the contrary, TOS had the ugliest, most poorly designed props in the franchise. Difficult to take the show seriously when they were so cheap looking. Twilight Zone worked because the episodes were short, and props rarely carried over; not enough time to really focus on the cheap sets and props.

I vehemently disagree.Other than the “white sound device” — a microphone — I’ve always loved TOS’s hand props.

And it sure looks like some folks took TOS seriously, or else we wouldn’t be here talking about this 55 years later.

Props having little to nothing to do with whether or not a series works. Twilight Zone worked because of the writing and Serling’s unique presence. TOS worked because of the actors, the characters, and the camaraderie between them. That’s why we’re still talking about them today.

All I can say, as a kid who watched TOS on re-runs on WPIX 11 out of New York is, it was the TOS props that captivated me. I made my own communicator and phaser out of cardboard and aluminum foil, and sewed velcro to an elastic belt so I could go out in the woods, stand stock still, and “beam” down as part of a landing party to have adventures. On the shelf next to me in my office, I have a TOS Communicator on a stand as one of my most prized collectibles.

So, that’s a contrasting opinion.

They look cheap because they were never intended to be seen in HD. They looked just fine on broadcast TV of the day (and were not in fact cheap, BTW).

Roddenberry was a greedy, insecure creep. He screwed so many people out of money, agreements and credit on Trek. Including David Gerold on his basically co-creating TNG. It’s all well documented how he cheated various people over the years. It doesn’t get much focus because the studio has an interest in pushing this “visionary” myth and we fans play into it as well. I love Star Trek. I don’t drink the kool-aid with the whole Roddenberry-could-do-no-wrong silliness. Glad this guy made his chunk of change when this sold at auction after Roddenberry stiffed him.

Agreed Luke M. The more I read about this guy, the more it’s quite clear he was a major a$$ho.. The fact he was a womanizer and cheated on his wife doesn’t help either. I’m not even convinced he’s responsible for most of what Star Trek turned out to be.

Like George Lucas, Stan Lee or Bob Kane, it was the people around him who took his kernal of an idea and made it great. It was people like Lawrence Kasdan, Irvin Kirschner, Marcia Lucas; Bill Finger and Dick Sprang; Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby– and in this case Gene Koon, Dorothy Fontana, Bob Justman, David Gerrold– who gave Trek its enduring flame, from Roddenberry’s single spark.

It’s been well understood for decades that people like Dorothy Fontana, Gene Coon, and Bob Justman contributed enormously to the success of TOS. But even putting aside the fact that Gene Roddenberry personally hired all of them, if you think that he had nothing to do with Trek’s level of quality you either know nothing of the history of its production, have understood nothing of what you’ve read, or do know and out of spite simply don’t care.

Agreed. People talk about “Gene’s Vision” well, his vision was making money and bedding women!

“ You wanna know what my vision is? …Dollar signs! Money! I didn’t build this ship to usher in a new era for humanity. … I built this ship so that I could retire to some tropical island filled with …naked women. That’s Zefram Cochrane. That’s his vision. This other guy you keep talking about. This historical figure. I never met him. I can’t imagine I ever will.”

I always thought Zefram Cochrane’s speech to Riker in “First Contact” was Ron Moore and Brannon Braga talking about Gene Roddenberry. Have they ever confirmed that?

“I always thought,” based on what? Your magical ability to divine authorial intent from moonbeams and starshine? I spoke with Ron Moore at Michael Piller’s memorial service, and while he said he didn’t get to know Roddenberry all that well as his health was seriously deteriorating by the time Moore was hired, his remarks about the man reflected nothing but fondness and gratitude — not for his job on TNG, but for creating TOS, which Moore genuinely loved.

“I always thought” based on the portrayal of Zefram Cochrane as a flawed visionary, like Roddenberry. Nothing else — and that’s why I presented it as a notion and asked the question, rather than presenting it as fact.

“I always thought” is an assertion, sorry. “I always wondered” is a notion.

It’s really not — in my book “thought” and “notion” are synonyms — but I’m sorry if my suggestion was presented too forcefully for your taste. No offense was intended.

My taste is not the issue. That your “book” is factually incorrect as to what words actually mean is, sorry.

And what is *your* vision, Garak? Is your lofty goal to be the biggest troll and hater on TrekMovie?

I will never understand how he’s still treated in the media as some god like visionary with a heart of gold when pretty much everyone who has actually worked with him has said the complete opposite? There is nothing wrong with being flawed or not actually living up to the ‘vision’ you spout, but he seem to have hurt and mistreated a lot of people along the way which is what really bothers me about him.

Examples of flawed visionaries abound: Picasso, JD Salinger, Steve Jobs, and Elon Musk, to name a few off the top of my head. And we can definitely add Gene Roddenberry to that list. Still, history is generally going to remember the names on that list for their creations, at best with an asterisk; so it is with Star Trek.

The only halfway decent, measured post to be seen on this entire miserable thread. I’ve read more or less everything that’s been said about Trek’s creator, good and bad. I also saw him at several of the college lectures he gave during the Seventies, and I’ll say this much: for all his supposed avarice and other foibles, he always shared credit for Trek’s success, and readily took responsibility for its flaws. Facing thousands who were there to lionize him and his creation, he always went out of his way to put the show into its proper perspective, informing his audience that the true magic lay within them and their desire for a better future, and not a ‘60s TV space opera. And if he attained a celebrity that he ultimately didn’t wholly merit, at least he tried to use it to bring out the best in people, as opposed to their worst. By today’s wretched standards I find that wholly admirable, and a far better pastime than cynically taking down a long-dead TV producer whose great crime was to give birth to a franchise that’s brought so much hope and joy to so many.

I think it’s the hurtfulness and wide-band exploitive behaviour being winked at that bothers me.

The show was great and so is the legacy, but the man was deeply, deeply flawed.

I don’t think we should be asked to look away from that or speak otherwise.

And that’s why the upcoming biopic makes me very deeply uncomfortable.

@ Luke Montgomery – I guess he was actually ‘The Great Fraud Of The Galaxy’ ;)

Sure, he was a lower-tier Hollywood TV producer trying to make money. I’ve never bought the “Gene’s vision” fan worship, either — but we wouldn’t be here talking about this without him.

Isn’t this what usually happens with people of power though? Usually others do the heavy lifting while the one person takes the credit for everything. Its a stupid system that unfortunately still continues to this day and I believe one of the reasons why division between classes exist as it is.

How do you “know” that David Gerrold co-created TNG? By reading the claims of David Gerrold? Well, I’ve got news for you: I worked with Gerrold a decade ago and it was far from a pleasant experience. He was, in fact, something of an ass. That wasn’t just my opinion, either. But I can see now that he was under a lot of pressure at the time, and that the casual abuse he doled out to people who—unlike him—had traveled thousands of miles to work for free was probably not indicative of his true character. People can be complicated, both good and bad, which is more than you’d guess from reading this absurd pile-on of Gene Roddenberry.

People may be complicated, but much of the promotion of Trek is idealizing Roddenberry in a way that makes many of us long time fans very uncomfortable.

Even when celebrating Nichelle Nichols decision to stay with TOS and provide groundbreaking representation, somehow her public statements that the reason she was leaving was that she “didn’t want to be the other woman to the other woman.”

We’re supposed to ignore the transparent evidence of abuse of power with a “casting coach” that set female actors in an ensemble in competition with one another. What an incredibly toxic environment no matter how important that representation was on screen.

Saying that it was another era, doesn’t seem to cut it when Roddenberry is being lauded for his vision of the future and a civil society where people got along and treated one another well.

I think that the volume of these unleavened lionizations is why it’s coming out on this thread.

I can’t speak for others, but I felt very uneasy about the recent news of a biopic being developed. However, few of us brought up these kinds of egregious behaviours on that thread. There were just some views expressed that it had little likelihood of being balanced by publicly known poor behaviour.

So, I think that this small story has given many of us the push to voice our unease.

Oh, really? I’ve been a card-carrying fan for going on a half-century and never realized that I was expected as such to buy 100% into the infallibility and awesomeness of Eugene Wesley Roddenberry. Guess I never got the memo.

Seriously, and sarcasm aside, this is just ahistorical nonsense. Roddenberry died on October 24, 1991. Barely three years later, Joel Engel’s “Gene Roddenberry: The Myth and the Man Behind Star Trek” was published, the first “tell all” biography showcasing him as a womanizer, substance abuser, glory hound, and all-around guru-hypocrite. The book received a fair amount of attention, including a write-up in Entertainment Weekly, but was fairly low-rent and didn’t get much traction. (Engel went on to perform a similar service to the reputation of Roddenberry’s friend Rod Serling a couple of years later. ) In 1996, “Inside Star Trek: the Real Story” by Herb Solow and Bob Justman made its debut, repeating many of the charges in the Engel book while also implying that Solow had virtually co-created the show and that Roddenberry was so addled and unfocused that he could barely utter a coherent sentence in public. This was a much glossier and high-profile effort than Engel’s, written by people who had worked with Roddenberry and knew him intimately. It definitely got the attention of the press and the fanbase, who tend to treat it as gospel to this day. Hell, even the “official” Roddenberry biography, written by David Alexander and published in 1995, didn’t by any means give Roddenberry’s foibles a pass, promising readers on the jacket flap to render a full accounting of the man, “warts and all.” And there it is.

In the years following hundreds of interviews and opinions have been published, televised, and streamed depicting Trek’s creator as way less-than-perfect, while giving people like Dorothy Fontana, Gene Coon, and Robert Justman well-earned credit for their part in the show’s success. So far as I know, no corporate commissar working for Paramount has ever tried suppress them, or even deny their claims on the merits. So if there is any “myth” out there, it’s not that Gene Roddenberry was infallible, but that anyone is trying to depict him as such. That simply hasn’t been true for decades, if it ever was.

As to the historical context of Roddenberry’s treatment of his female employees – well, yes, it does indeed matter, sorry. That the Great Bird was a rampaging sexist by today’s standards and that he abused his authority as such is undeniable. It’s also undeniable that he wrote some of the earliest depictions of women with authority and agency in the history of American television, and that he gave his secretary, D.C. Fontana, a chance to pursue her dream to become one of the first woman writers working in that medium. It should be possible for a thinking person to acknowledge both things, just as it’s possible to give Lincoln credit for freeing the slaves while acknowledging that in the context of 2021 he was an unrepentant racist. Yes, the story of Sherry Jackson, then barely in her twenties, being manhandled by Roddenberry for a “costume fitting” is pretty disgusting. But he wasn’t alone, and even Jackson laughs these days when recounting the incident. It was indeed a different era then.

And one other thing: about Nichelle Nichols. While it’s common knowledge that she and Roddenberry conducted an affair during the filming of “The Lieutenant” — lucky him — there’s no indication that she wanted to leave Trek in its second year because of any pressure on his part to continue it. Her issue with her role on the show was that she felt she was being under-utilized, and thought that playing the role of the secretary on “Mannix” would be a better career opportunity. (Martin Luther King famously talked her out of that, and Roddenberry had no interest in letting her out of her contract in any case.) Many years later, she wrote and recorded a very nice song called “Gene” after his death, which she performed for convention audiences all over the country. You really think she would have done that if she’d been sexually harassed?

And you’re a jealous little man who has likely contributed nothing of value to this world. So why should I consider your opinion of a great man who contributed much to the world?

Ray line did produce the tracer rifle, which looked nothing like this prop. Always liked the rifle, though it doesn’t “match” the phaser twos — which is ok. Remco could have just added some stickers to their Monkey division motorized gun, which they did for Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, and called it a Star Trek rifle.

Certainly enjoyable to find out some heretofore not known TOS trivia (for good or bad) :) .

What is always sad to me is to know that, once again due to these types of auctions, that some affluent fan out there has yet another classic prop stowed away somewhere where it can’t and won’t be seen by anyone else (except presumably his/her friends and family).

Really wish stuff like this would be kept by a museum so it could be seen, even if only from time to time.

I remember reading an interview with Gene Rodenberry in a fan magazine in the 1960s where Gene states that he decided not to use the rifle again because it didn’t fit in with the image he wanted to portray in the Star Trek Universe.

Hmmm. Those early Phaser 1s didn’t look like guns. And wasn’t that why TNG’s phasers didn’t look like guns either? Because Gene didn’t want Starfleet carrying guns around?

I think it would have been a very different show if landing parties had been carrying that phaser rifle. That’s not a defensive weapon. Also, it’s always just looked fake/cheesy/Forbidden Planet-y to me.

Yeah, I know that the network was sold on the “wagon train to the stars” theme and I am sure they loved the idea of the phaser rifle, but I am not surprised that after it helped sell the series that it got tossed aside in favour of phaser one and two.

As for Gene, we all have flaws with virtually none of us being purely good or evil. He certainly had a vision for Star Trek and the future he wanted to portray on screen and for most of that, we are thankful. That said, it is foolish to believe that he was a man without flaws, that he didn’t ever mistreat anyone or that EVERYTHING he wanted portrayed in Star Trek was something to be totally revered.

Wow. This is the first I have heard of Reuben Klamer creating the phaser rifle. I assumed it was Matt Jefferies or maybe Wah Chang. Awesome!

Has anyone else seen the book yet? Do you recommend buying?

Why all the publicity for this book while other non-fiction books are totally ignored here?

I’ve always thought the original rifle looked incredibly awkward to hold and use, zero ergonomics compared to most of the other phaser rifles – except perhaps the ugly ‘tuning fork’ thing that Voyager had. Janeway had the ‘First Contact’ rifle in one episode a not too much later they’re hefting that ugly lump around.

The rifle was used against Mitchell in an attempt to destroy him, not weaken him. It had no effect either way on him.

Perhaps not directly, but it did fell half a mountain on top of Mitchell which contributed significantly to his ultimate demise.

Star Trek: Discovery Makes Lower Decks' Renaissance Faire Planet Live-Action Canon

WARNING: This article contains spoilers for Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 8, "Labyrinths".

• Star Trek: Discovery canonizes Lower Decks' Hysperia, a Renaissance Faire planet with unique charm & whimsical culture.
• Lower Decks' Hysperians embrace a party lifestyle similar to Risa, maintaining a themed fantasy world of endless festivities.
• Hysperia's inclusion in Discovery expands Star Trek lore, in a rare case of a live-action show referencing an animated series.

Star Trek: Discovery makes Hysperia, the Renaissance Faire planet from Star Trek: Lower Decks, live-action canon in Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 8, "Labyrinths", written by Lauren Wilkinson & Eric J. Robbins, and directed by Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour. Debates over whether animated Star Trek "counts" have existed ever since Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry denounced the canonicity of Star Trek: The Animated Series, but Star Trek: Lower Decks has always been part of the Star Trek canon. Lower Decks ' impressive references to other Star Trek shows cements its place in Star Trek 's 2380s, after Star Trek: Nemesis but before Star Trek: Picard.

Despite Star Trek: Lower Decks ' myriad references to other Star Trek shows, it's rare for a dramatic live-action Star Trek series to return the favor. Only Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, with its ability to navigate shifting genres, pulled it off when Ensigns Brad Boimler (Jack Quaid) and Beckett Mariner (Tawny Newsome) appeared in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2, episode 7 , "Those Old Scientists". Excluding the Strange New Worlds crossover, the mention of Hysperia in Star Trek: Discovery marks the first time that something that originated strictly in Star Trek: Lower Decks makes its way to a live-action Star Trek series.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4 Needs Another Lower Decks Crossover

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4 is confirmed and the best chance to see Star Trek: Lower Decks when the animated show ends with season 5.

Tig Notaro's Jett Reno Visited Star Trek: Lower Decks' Renaissance Faire Planet

Hysperia & lt. commander billups explained.

While brainstorming a solution for combating the Breen's shield tunneling technology in Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 8 , "Labyrinths", Commander Jett Reno (Tig Notaro) offhandedly mentions working on comms relays near Hysperia, the Renaissance Faire planet introduced in Star Trek: Lower Decks season 2, episode 7, "Where Pleasant Fountains Lie". Hysperia's society is notably based on the anachronistic muddle of references to historical Europe commonly found in fantasy fiction, not unlike modern Renaissance Faires. Instead of hiding Star Trek 's advanced technology, Hysperia simply reframes technology as magical, using fantasy-themed names like "dragonsbreath engines" for warp drive.

In Star Trek: Lower Decks , Lt. Commander Andy Billups (Paul Scheer), the USS Cerritos' Chief Engineer who also happens to be the heir to Hysperia's throne, explains that the fantasy trappings of Hysperian culture came about because Hysperia's native fauna look like medieval dragons. The "Ren Faire types" who originally settled Hysperia just kind of ran with it. Billups abdicated his birthright in favor of a Starfleet career, so to bring Andy back home for good, Billups' mother, Queen Paolana (June Diane Raphael), invokes Hysperia's custom of nobles rising to power after losing their virginity, and tries to trick Billups into a sexual encounter with the royal guards. (It doesn't work.)

Lower Decks' Hysperia Is a Star Trek Party Planet

"hysperians really know how to party".

Commander Reno mentions that the Hysperians "really know how to party," drawing parallels to Star Trek 's more famous party planet, Risa . While Risa is like a planet-wide beach resort known for its natural beauty and generous people, Hysperians live in an endless Renaissance Faire, and they don't want to break character. Every part of Hysperian culture, from fashion to architecture, was created with the Renaissance theme in mind. Mead and ale flow freely from replicators, starships have stables for horses, and people keep dragons as pets. Hysperians encourage others to go along with the facade they've so proudly built, easily drawing visitors into Hysperia's sexually-charged theme park party atmosphere.

Hysperians embrace whimsy like Vulcans embrace logic.

Star Trek: Lower Decks frequently references the Star Trek shows that came before it, and Hysperia pays homage to the themed planets from Star Trek: The Original Series that exist because costumes and sets from other productions were used as cost-saving measures. Instead of being explained as a parallel development to Earth, however, the Hysperians embrace whimsy like Vulcans embrace logic, making Hysperia an attractive vacation destination. As someone in the area, Star Trek: Discovery 's Commander Jett Reno likely had to see what Hysperia was all about for herself, making Star Trek: Lower Decks' Renaissance Faire planet canon by mentioning Hysperia in Star Trek: Discovery.

Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Lower Decks are streaming on Paramount+.

Star Trek: Discovery

Cast Blu del Barrio, Oded Fehr, Anthony Rapp, Sonequa Martin-Green, Doug Jones, Wilson Cruz, Eve Harlow, Mary Wiseman, Callum Keith Rennie

Writers Alex Kurtzman

Where To Watch Paramount+

Star Trek: Lower Decks

Cast Gabrielle Ruiz, Fred Tatasciore, Jerry O'Connell, dawnn lewis, Eugene Cordero, Tawny Newsome, Noel Wells, Jack Quaid

Writers Mike McMahan

Screen Rant

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When Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4 Starts Filming According To Anson Mount

Yellowstone's season 6 replacement just got a lot more exciting, young sheldon’s series finale made a big bang theory character detail sadder.

The upcoming crossover between Star Trek: Lower Decks and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds could shatter the Temporal Prime Directive, wrecking canon in the process. Ensigns Beckett Mariner (Tawny Newsome) and Bradward Boimler (Jack Quaid) will be sent back in time to the 23rd century at some point in SNW season 2. As keen students of Starfleet history, the pressures of keeping their knowledge of the future to themselves could prove to be too much, especially for the anxiety-ridden Boimler. Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) already knows about his own death, and this foreknowledge could accidentally trigger Boimler or Mariner to provide unsolicited additional information.

Knowing Boimler, his anxiety over blabbing details about the USS Enterprise crew's futures will actually cause him to reveal far more information than he would if he kept a cool head. Mariner, meanwhile, will likely follow the advice of Admiral Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew), who once said that the Temporal Prime Directive is " less of a headache if you just ignore it. " Here are 10 ways that Boimler and Mariner could cause chaos for Star Trek canon in their upcoming Star Trek: Strange New Worlds appearance.

RELATED: 12 Things You Missed In Strange New Worlds Season 2's Trailer

10 How Will Mariner & Boimler React To La'an Noonien-Singh?

Lieutenant La'an Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong) feels like the type of badass Starfleet officer that Mariner would have styled herself on. That said, Mariner may have difficulty breaking through La'an's stern exterior if she wants to form a bond with the Enterprise's chief of security. More interesting will be how Boimler and Mariner react to meeting a descendant of Khan Noonien-Singh (Ricardo Montalband) who continues to cast a long shadow over Star Trek 's 24th century.

If Boimler and Mariner unintentionally advise La'an, or Lieutenant James T Kirk (Paul Wesley) to give the Botany Bay a swerve, they would remove "Space Seed" and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan from canon. Or worse still, they could leave Khan to be discovered by a Starfleet ship that is less equipped to deal with the tyrant and his army of super soldiers - triggering a second Eugenics War! It's probably best for Boimler and Mariner to keep their mouths shut when it comes to La'an's family history, and its future.

9 The Lower Deckers Get Their Enterprise Crews Mixed Up

Overwhelmed by the experience of being aboard such a legendary 23rd century starship, Boimler or Mariner could request the assistance of those officers they associate with the Enterprise - officers who haven't yet been assigned to the ship. It's easy to imagine Mariner suggest asking Chief of Engineering Montgomery Scott (James Doohan) for advice, only for a panicked Boimler to mouth " Kirk's Enterprise " at her in response. In doing so, they'd cause a predestination paradox by planting the seed for the line-up of the future Star Trek: The Original Series crew in the minds of Pike and Kirk .

8 Strange New Worlds' Pike Finds Out About His Talos IV Return

If Boimler or Mariner become aware that Pike has seen his future, they may accidentally let slip details about what happens next. Commander Spock (Leonard Nimoy) risked a court-martial to take the injured Fleet Captain Christopher Pike (Sean Kenney) back to Talos IV. Given the statures of Spock, Pike, and Kirk this would likely be a matter of public record in the Starfleet history books. Upon discovering that Pike is aware of his tragic accident, it would be on-brand for Boimler to blurt out something like " ...but at least you get to live out your retirement in paradise on Talos IV " before instantly regretting his words.

7 Star Trek: Lower Decks' Gorn Chef Complicates SNW's Retcon

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds changed the Gorn into the show's big bad, but has had to get creative in terms of canon. In SNW , the Enterprise crew have only met the terrifying primal hatchlings, while La'an had a harrowing experience in Gorn captivity. By the time of Star Trek: Lower Decks , a better relationship exists with the Federation, as demonstrated by Mr. Krada, the Gorn chef from "An Embarrassment of Dooplers". This could lead Boimler or Mariner to a sticky end in the 23rd century if they misjudge Federation-Gorn relations, cutting Lower Decks season 4 abruptly short. Alternatively, the brutality and butchery faced by La'an and her fellow captives may mean that Boimler and Mariner seek a plant-based alternative to Mr. Krada's Legs.

RELATED: Strange New Worlds Season 2’s Star Trek Crossover Guest Stars Explained

6 Mariner Interferes With Spock's Love Triangle

The trailer revealed that the love triangle between Spock, Nurse Christine Chapel (Jess Bush), and T'Pring (Gia Sandhu) continues in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2. Boimler and Mariner's arrival on the Enterprise could have two possible outcomes when it comes to the Spock love triangle. One possibility is that the straight-talking Mariner gives Chapel some tough love about her unrequited attraction to the unattainable Mr. Spock. Alternatively, it would be very on-brand for Beckett Mariner to decide that Spock and Chapel need to take a more hands-on approach to the sexual tension between them - canon be damned!

5 The Lower Deckers Know How Everyone In Strange New Worlds Dies

The biggest problem for Boimler and Mariner will be not to spill details about how and when everybody aboard Pike's Enterprise meets their ends. Pike and Kirk are obviously the biggest "deaths" as Spock's still alive in the Lower Decks timeline. However, there are other notable losses that the Lower Deckers will be aware of, such as Lt. Samuel Kirk (Dan Jeannotte). Sam's death opens the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Operation - Annihilate!" so the Lower Deckers will likely be aware of it, but it remains to be seen what they'll do with this information. Perhaps they convince Jim Kirk to build a better relationship with his brother in the intervening years.

4 The Strange New Worlds Crew Learn About Star Trek's Kelvin Timeline

Star Trek: Lower Decks has made a couple of knowing winks in the direction of J.J. Abrams' 2009 Star Trek movie and its rebooted universe. Given that Star Trek: Strange New Worlds also recasts the crew of Kirk's Enterprise, Mariner and Boimler could, at first, mistakenly believe they're in the Kelvin Timeline. Lower Decks crossover director Jonathan Frakes teased that the episode is a "flat out comedy" so meta jokes about the differences in the appearance of both the crew and the Enterprise should be expected. Giving the SNW characters' knowledge of the Abramsverse could lead to all manner of headaches, not least for Captain Pike, who has a much darker fate in the Kelvin Timeline.

3 Bad News For Strange New Worlds' New Star Trek Engineer

Filling the gap left by the tragic loss of Chief Engineer Hemmer (Bruce Horak), Carol Kane's Pelia could get an unwelcome glimpse of her future via Boimler and Mariner. Hopefully, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds won't kill off every Chief Engineer on the road to Montgomery Scott's Enterprise assignment, but Pelia definitively doesn't stay aboard the starship for long. Therefore, Boimler and Mariner could hold the answers to Pelia's fate. Carol Kane is a comedy legend, so it's hoped that she'll play a large part in the comic set pieces of the Lower Decks crossover episode, perhaps reacting to a bombshell from her 24th century visitors.

2 The Lower Decks Crossover Can Canonize Star Trek: The Animated Series

Gene Roddenberry once deemed that Star Trek: The Animated Series isn't canon , however later entries in the franchise dispute this, and have attempted to restore the show to its canonical status. Now that both Star Trek: Lower Decks and Star Trek: Prodigy have successfully adapted Gene Roddenberry's creations into the animated form, it's surely time to bring TAS back in from the cold. Lower Decks has featured various references to Star Trek: The Animated Series , so the crossover episode could finally introduce some of the TAS -exclusive characters like Lieutenants M'Ress or Arex to live-action Star Trek .

1 Boimler And Mariner Could Retcon Kirk's Star Trek Death

Mariner and Boimler meeting Lt. James T. Kirk could retcon Kirk's controversial Star Trek death . A cryptic suggestion from Mariner or Boimler to decline an invitation to the first voyage of the USS Enterprise-B could save Kirk's life and dramatically change Star Trek history. Both Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' showrunner Akiva Goldsman and Picard showrunner Terry Matalas have voiced their disapproval of Kirk's death, so the Lower Decks crossover could be a stealthy way to launch Kirk's resurrection arc.

The Star Trek: Lower Decks crossover is one of the most anticipated episodes of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2, and it's easy to see why. There's always been a lighter tone to the Star Trek: The Original Series prequel show, so Mariner and Boimler will fit in nicely. However, they'll also have to restrain themselves if they want to return to the 24th century in one piece for Star Trek: Lower Decks season 4, later in the summer.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2 premieres Thursday, June 15, on Paramount+.

• Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (2022)
• Star Trek Lower Decks (2020)

‘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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‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Season 2 Trailer: Animated ‘Lower Decks’ Crew Beams Aboard Live-Action Show (Video)

See Ensign Mariner and Ensign Boimler “in the flesh” in the upcoming Paramount+ series crossover

Something weird is afoot in Season 2 of “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.”

The next chapter of the Paramount+ series will feature a crossover with fellow “Trek” series “Lower Decks.” Crossovers aren’t unusual, but in this case “Strange New Worlds” is a live-action show, and “Lower Decks” is animated.

All will be explained in due time, but somehow “Lower Decks” crewmembers Beckett Mariner (Tawny Newsome) and Brad Boimler (Jack Quaid) will board the U.S.S. Enterprise “in the flesh.” Check out the promotional photo below:

The crossover episode, which will also feature animation, was directed by “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and “Star Trek: Picard” actor and director Jonathan Frakes. The shows also take place in two different time periods — “Strange New Worlds” in the 23rd Century and “Lower Decks” in the 24th — so that will need to be explained as well.

The just released Season 2 trailer shows snippets from the crossover, including an awkward exchange between Boimler and Spock (Ethan Peck). Spock is also shown drinking with Klingons, making out with Nurse Chapel (Jess Bush) and even taking the captain’s chair at some point while Pike (Anson Mount) is away or incapacitated.

Meanwhile, Paul Wesley returns as James T. Kirk, and Carol Kane is introduced as the newest crew member: chief engineer Pelia.

New episodes of “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” on Thursdays, beginning June 15, exclusively on Paramount+. Watch the Season 2 trailer below:

• Very Rare items
• Items that Bind on Pickup
• Lower Decks Content
• Special Weapons
• Expose Weapons
• Phaser Weapons

Multibarrel Phaser Pistol Special Issue

• VisualEditor
• View history

The Multibarrel Phaser Pistol Special Issue is a ranged ground weapon that deals phaser damage, based off a design seen in Star Trek: Lower Decks . Special Issue phaser weapons include multiple capacitor arrays capable of powering the secondary firing mode, referred to colloquially as 'ammo'. When the secondary firing mode is used, the secondary mode fires once per ammo and all ammo is consumed. There is a small chance of constructive power backflow, giving each shot a 5% likelihood to briefly charge the capacitors, allowing a free max-ammo Secondary activation.

• 1 Game Description
• 2.1 Primary Attack
• 2.2 Secondary Attack
• 3 Acquisition
• 4.1 Weapon Rarity
• 4.2 Modifier Suffix
• 4.3 Personal Equipment
• 5 External links

Game Description [ | ]

The Multibarrel Phaser Pistol boasts an incredibly high rate of fire for a handheld weapon, similar to certain pistol-type slugthrowers of old. Originally found in the hands of an exceptionally powerful and singular warlord , this design has been adapted for use in Starfleet. It requires too much training and maintenance to be a common use weapon, and so it found its way into the Special Issue catalogue.

Attacks [ | ]

Primary attack [ | ].

Beam Setting Pistol Beam is a standard attack that inflicts energy damage. Fires a steady beam at a single target.

Secondary Attack [ | ]

Volume Fire Beam (Expose) Deals Phaser Damage to up to five Foes in a cone. Repeats once per available ammo, up to three times.

Acquisition [ | ]

Modifiers [ | ]

There are a number of factors that can affect the Multibarrel Phaser Pistol Special Issue . Those specific to Multibarrel Phaser Pistol Special Issues are described below.

For a complete and detailed list, see ground weapon modifiers .

Weapon Rarity [ | ]

Multibarrel Phaser Pistol Special Issues are always Very Rare . They can be upgraded to Ultra Rare and Epic qualities using the Gear Upgrade System .

Modifier Suffix [ | ]

Ultra Rare Modifier: Once upgraded to Ultra Rare , Multibarrel Phaser Pistol Special Issue will receive:

• [Dmg] : +X Damage

Epic Modifier: All ground weapons upgraded to Epic quality receive:

• [Dm/CrH] : +2% Critical Chance, +X Damage

Personal Equipment [ | ]

External links [ | ].

• Vindicta's phaser at Memory Alpha , the Star Trek Wiki.
• 1 Playable starship
• 3 Phoenix Prize Pack

'Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' Anson Mount & Rebecca Romijn on ‘Season 2’ and the ‘Star Trek: Lower Decks’ Crossover Episode

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Anson Mount Just Beamed Up a Huge ‘Strange New Worlds’ Season 4 Update

Pauly d discusses being hospitalized, one of pixar’s best movies is getting a disney+ spin-off.

Showrunners Akiva Goldsman and Henry Myers ’ prequel series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds returns with Season 2 this month, premiering on Paramount+ on June 15. But before we catch back up with Captain Christopher Pike and his Number One, Collider’s Steve Weintraub spoke with the stars behind the USS Enterprise’s first and second in command, Anson Mount and Rebecca Romijn , on the upcoming episodes, and what the pair could tease for fans.

Last year, Strange New Worlds expanded the Star Trek Universe in ways new and old, taking us back a decade before Captain Kirk ( William Shatner ) helmed the Enterprise in Star Trek: The Original Series . It’s a return to the classic episodic adventures that first captured spacefaring fans so many years ago, and Season 2 is bringing new imaginative worlds, aliens, and a surprise crossover with another spinoff series, the animated Star Trek: Lower Decks . Without giving away too much, Mount admits the crossover was a world he wasn’t quite ready to boldly explore when Goldsman and Myers first revealed their plans, believing the duo may have “lost their minds," in fact.

In Collider’s interview with Mount and Romijin, which you can watch or read below, Weintraub asks how they felt about the crossover, directed by Star Trek alum and legend, Jonathan Frakes , and both have a lot to say about their temporary co-stars, Tawny Newsome and Jack Quaid . Though they have to keep it pretty mum, lest they lose their fingers, we do find out that this season will be taking some “ big swings genre-wise ,” as well as big risks, and Mount promises the journey ahead will involve “things that Star Trek has never done before,” which kept the energy up during production to the very final episode. Season 2 will see the return of Ethan Peck , Melissa Navia , Celia Rose Gooding , Paul Wesley , Jess Bush , Babs Olunsanmokun , and introduce Carol Kane as the Enterprise’s new Chief Engineer, Pelia.

COLLIDER: I've seen the first six episodes of Season 2. My only complaint is I couldn't see seven through 10.

ANSON MOUNT: [Laughs] Good to know.

REBECCA ROMIJN: Yeah, thank you!

So you both get to do very cool things this season. What are you actually allowed to say?

ROMIJN: Nothing [laughs]. It makes it so difficult. I can't wait for you to see seven through the final four.

MOUNT: Yeah, it's in our contract, they get to remove a finger every time we make a slip-up.

It has to be interesting, though. It's hard to do press when the hands are tied behind your back. The second season is 10 episodes, which of the 10 is your favorite, and why?

MOUNT: Well, yeah, I have a clear favorite.

ROMIJN: I have a clear favorite, too, and I have a feeling it's the same one as Anson’s. It's gonna be Episode 9, but we can't say anything about it!

MOUNT: [Laughs] Yeah, it's Episode 9.

ROMIJN: Obviously, we can't discuss, but I think they'll probably be announcing something about it soon, possibly? Anyway, we obviously can't say anything about it. We took some big swings genre-wise this season, and we really got to play hard this season. It's like Season 1 but bigger and better, and we're pretty excited about it, to share it with everybody.

MOUNT: And what's cool about taking big risks, which are at the same time maybe things that Star Trek has never done before, is that the level of excitement it brings to the cast is amazing. When we were doing that episode that we've been talking about, Episode 9, obviously that was towards the end of the season’s shoot when everybody is tired. Because when you do the final episode, everybody is like, “Oh, okay, we’re almost done!” But a penultimate episode can be tough to get through. But because of the nature of the episode and what we were doing, we had to rehearse on weekends, and when people were coming in, everyone was genuinely excited to be there.

ROMIJN: Flying! Yeah, it was so exciting.

MOUNT: Which, I've never seen that before in all my days of doing television, and yeah, it came together even better than I'd hoped.

I'm just gonna throw a Hail Mary. It makes me think maybe some of this episode is a oner?

MOUNT: Well, we couldn't tell you if you're right or not.

ROMIJN: [Laughs] Because then we'd lose fingers!

MOUNT: But you are far afield, my friend.

One of the things about this season a lot of people are looking forward to, I believe it's Episode 7, which is your Lower Decks crossover episode. What was it like being able to crossover with that show because I didn't see it coming and it's just a cool idea.

MOUNT: When Akiva and Henry first told me about it, it's one of those moments where you sort of smile and nod your head, and inside your head, you're going, “Oh no, they have lost their minds” because I immediately was picturing something like [ Who Framed Roger Rabbit ], right? But once they explained to me the concept, I was like, “Oh, that is such a smart way to do it!” I had met and spent time with Jack [Quaid] before, and I had spoken with Tawny [Newsome] before, so I was really excited to have them on the set, and they didn't disappoint.

ROMIJN: And they were really smart to bring Jonathan Frakes in to direct that episode. He really added a lot to it. I also know Jack and Tawny fairly well because my husband's on Lower Decks , and they had some adjustments to make, having come from an animated Star Trek show onto our set. I mean, I think they even address it in some of the dialogue. They sort of had to adjust their energy level a little bit. It was interesting watching them, and they're so brilliant, both of them, I mean, two of the funniest people, so talented, so funny. But watching them come in and make little slight adjustments so that it still felt within the correct world was interesting.

MOUNT: Yeah, and also, I have to say, it's really tough in a lot of ways being a guest star on a show that already has its wheels turning and its tone in place. You're kind of hoping you're not disappointing anybody, but they really came in and had full ownership over what they were doing, which you have to with comedy, especially because comedy is more of a living, transformative thing at the moment of doing it.

ROMIJN: And Tawny and Jack both have great backgrounds in improv, so they were really able to play with a lot of the stuff that was given to them. I mean, a lot of it was taken off the page and they would do completely different things in every take. It was really fun to watch.

You can watch all of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 1 on Paramount+ ahead of the Season 2 premiere on June 15.

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Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2 trailer teases Lower Decks crossover and some smooching

Having some fun on the U.S.S. Enterprise

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The trailer for the second season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is arriving with warp speed levels of swagger, throttling up the action, adventure, and romance that viewers can expect from Paramount Plus’ flashy throwback series.

To be fair, some of that confidence is earned, as season 1 of Strange New Worlds built a compelling show around Anson Mount’s Captain Christopher Pike , putting together a rock-solid crew for the U.S.S. Enterprise’s early days for an immediately compelling, if a bit uneven , first season.

Teases abound in the new trailer, which features the return of Paul Wesley as a young James T. Kirk from last season, and shows a bit more of surprise guests Carol Kane and the first live-action appearance of Star Trek: Lower Decks characters Beckett Mariner and Brad Boimler (Tawny Newsome and Jack Quaid, respectively). Also Spock (Ethan Peck) and Nurse Chapel (Jess Bush) kiss. Not sure how I feel about that one, but I’m sure those crazy kids will figure things out.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2 premieres on Paramount Plus June 15.

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‘Star Trek: Starfleet Academy’ Series Casts Holly Hunter in Main Role (EXCLUSIVE)

The “ Star Trek: Starfleet Academy ” series at Paramount+ has cast Holly Hunter in a lead role, Variety has learned.

Hunter’s character will serve as the captain and chancellor of the Academy, presiding over both the faculty and a new class of Starfleet cadets as they learn to navigate the galaxy in the 32nd century.

“It feels like we’ve spent our entire lives watching Holly Hunter be a stone-cold genius,” said co-showrunners Alex Kurtzman and Noga Landau. “To have her extraordinary authenticity, fearlessness, sense of humor, and across the board brilliance leading the charge on ‘Starfleet Academy’ is a gift to all of us, and to the enduring legacy of ‘Star Trek.'”

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With its focus on higher education — from the throes of budding romance to the pressures of academic achievement to the angst of painful self-discovery — “Starfleet Academy” is part of a wider strategy to expand what a “Star Trek” show can look like.

“These are kids who’ve never had a red alert before,” Landau told Variety in a March 27 cover story about the future of “Star Trek.” “They never had to operate a transporter or be in a phaser fight.”

Hunter is part of an elite society of actors to boldly go into “Star Trek” after winning an Academy Award, including Whoopi Goldberg, Louise Fletcher and F. Murray Abraham. Hunter earned an Oscar for best actress for her performance in 1993’s “The Piano,” along with nominations for 1987’s “Broadcast News,” 1993’s “The Firm” and 2003’s “Thirteen.” Her career has spanned five decades, from her breakout role in the Coen brothers film “Raising Arizona” in 1987 to her iconic role as the voice of Elastigirl in 2004’s “Incredibles” and 2018’s “Incredibles 2.”

Hunter is repped by CAA, Entertainment 360, and Ziffren Brittenham.

Kurtzman and Landau serve as co-showrunners and executive produce “Starfleet Academy.” Gaia Violo, Aaron Baiers, Olatunde Osunsanmi, Jenny Lumet, Rod Roddenberry, Trevor Roth, Frank Siracusa, and John Weber also executive produce. The series premiere episode was written by Violo. CBS Studios produces in association with Secret Hideout and Roddenberry Entertainment. The series is distributed by Paramount Global Content Distribution.

“Starfleet Academy” is the latest addition to the “Star Trek” TV universe at Paramount. Next year, “Section 31” will explore Starfleet’s cloak-and-dagger black ops division in the first “Star Trek” streaming movie, starring recent Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh (reprising her role from “Discovery”). Elsewhere, “Lower Decks,” the first “Star Trek” animated comedy, will conclude its run after five seasons in the fall, while “Discovery” — the flagship show of the revamped “Star Trek” TV projects — will end its run after five seasons on May 30. The popular series “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” has been renewed for a fourth season ahead of the third season premiere.

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We begin right where we left off in “Lagrange Point,” as Captain Burnham (Sonequa Martin Green) emerges into the Progenitor’s realm: a seemingly endless space filled with floating walkways that reach to the horizons and windows leading to other worlds.

It’s sleek and high-tech, but there are natural elements as well. It’s very cool looking and well designed, and aesthetically and mechanically it immediately feels like a videogame. I don’t say this as a criticism — I spend a lot of time playing and enjoying video games — just that it’s where my mind went.

Burnham’s fights with one of the Breen who first entered the portal (and later Moll), using wind-gust-enabled super jumps and the strange gravity of the place only reinforced that impression for me. It’s the first time in my many decades of watching Star Trek that I’ve thought, “This is a video game!” It’s after this elaborate fight that takes Burnham and Moll (Eve Harlow) from the “lobby” through to other worlds and back again that the two finally settle on a truce — if they’re focused on fighting each other, neither of them are ever going to get out of here, much less find and activate the Progenitors’ technology.

Outside the portal, Discovery watches as the Breen dreadnought quickly recovers from its skewering to be a threat again, both the ship itself and also the swarm of small fighters it launches.

Commander Rayner (Callum Keith Rennie) wants to be able do it all — stay near the portal, keep the dreadnought away from the portal, keep those fighters at bay, try to communicate with and/or recover Burnham, and stay alive and in the area for when Tahal arrives in a dreadnought of her own — but realizes that he’s got one too many things on his plate. He’s going to need to drop one if he wants to keep everyone alive.

With the opportunity to kill multiple fighters with one detonated plasma cloud too good to pass up, Rayner decides he can’t afford to keep Discovery near the portal. Book (David Ajala) and Culber (Wilson Cruz) of all people — who insists against Stamets’ objections that he needs to come along — stay behind in a shuttle to guard the Progenitor portal.

Meanwhile, Saru (Doug Jones) and Nhan (Rachael Ancheril) are doing their part to defuse the situation as well. Talking to Tahal while he heads to the black holes at high warp, Saru offers her an exclusive trade route in exchange for her turning back from Ruhn’s dreadnought. When she declines, Saru goes in for the kill, calling her a coward and telling her he knows about her secret bases in that same stretch of space. If she doesn’t turn back now the Federation will destroy those bases and will start a war with the Breen.

He’s later described as ‘Action Saru’ again, but really this is Predator Saru. “Look into my eyes and tell me I’m not serious.” Oh he is, and she turns away, leaving just a small cloaked (but detected) scout ship in the area.

Saru’s shuttle, and Book’s as well, saw the NX-02’s distractingly-flashy bridge lighting and said “Hold my Romulan ale.” I already wasn’t a fan of that shuttle design (why is it so empty and cavernous inside?) but now that they’ve added a huge panel of pulsating lights that sits right in the middle of the frame I really don’t care for it.

Combine this with director Olatunde Osunsanmi’s decision to film much of Saru’s scene through a constantly moving sea of flashes and streaks and what looks like rippled, warped plexiglass, and I found parts of the sequence to be visually unpleasant.

Back in the portal, Burnham and Moll have finally found the Progenitors’ technology. The console is simple, just a surface with nine moveable triangles on it. Burnham shares the final clue (or riddle, really) with Moll, that they need to make the one between the many. Moll interprets this one way, but Burnham’s not so sure. Not wanting to wait any longer, Moll knocks Burnham out and gets to work at the controls. Oops, her solution is wrong, and things start to hit the fan.

I understand how and why the five scientists created tests of ethical and moral fortitude to safeguard the Progenitors’ technology — and ensure that only someone trustworthy would be able to find and access it — but the fact that they added one last obstacle that entirely hinges on just how literally someone is going to be with an abstract riddle is a little strange. Moll’s solution, to make a solid triangle with the pieces, is perfectly reasonable; any “chosen one” of otherwise impeccable character who had passed all the other tests could easily have made the same mistake without any bearing on their worthiness to wield Excalibur, as it were.

I know we’re supposed to see that Moll is being punished for her impatience, but really it seems like a flip of the coin whether the “good” person is or isn’t going to pick the right solution to an open-ended riddle. “Ah, so close, we think you’re great… but it’s actually a young woman instead of an old crone so we’re going to have to kill you now.”

Moll’s incorrect usage of the console kicks it into life, but in what appears to be an uncontrolled way. Outside in space, the portal starts drawing energy (and mass) from one of the black holes, pulling it closer and closer to the event horizon and threatening to destabilize the system.

From his shuttle, Book struggles to get a tractor lock on the portal, but Culber comes to the unlikely rescue. In a moment of epiphany which seems almost magical, he pulls a precise harmonic frequency out of the ether and it works, allowing the shuttle to hold the portal in place and stop its fall.

Was this a moment of divine inspiration? A glimpse of the universe telling Culber its secrets? Well, no, it’s actually just a surfaced memory from his Trill zhian’tara experience with Jinaal, who’d found himself in the same scenario 800 years prior. While this is a perfectly good, logical explanation for Culber’s actions in the moment, is that really it for his larger story arc? Has Culber been dipping his toe into existential questions of religious faith all season because of one nagging Trill memory, or is there more to it?

It feels as if the show wanted something bigger and grander and more mystical to be happening, and then remembered at the last minute that this is Star Trek and we don’t do that here. If this was a plotline I cared more about I would be disappointed with its conclusion, but as it is my response is just a big “Okay.”

Even with the Breen fighters destroyed, the dreadnought — and Tahal’s lingering scout ship — are still a big problem, so Rayner comes up with an equally big solution. Separating Discovery’s saucer and the drive sections and maneuvering them into position on either side of the dreadnought, he essentially uses the ship a huge pattern enhancer, “beaming” the dreadnought to the galactic barrier by initiating a spore jump between Discovery’s two sections. It’s crazy, it looks cool, and it works.

It’s also a harbinger of how Discovery is going to address the other of its two big storylines: simply erasing it from the board.

Inside the portal, Burnham regains consciousness, removes Moll from where she’s been stuck to the console, and comes up with the correct configuration of the little triangles (negative space triangle instead of Moll’s positive space one)… and a Progenitor (Somkele Iyamah-Idhalama) appears.

This is it, the moment the entire season has been leading up to, and it is suitably profound. We watch Burnham have a conversation with someone who’s been dead for four billion years about the nature of life itself, and the revelation that the Progenitors didn’t create this technology — but instead found it just the way Burnham has — hints at the existence of (a) God and also makes me want to play through the Mass Effect trilogy again.

There’s a wrinkle in all of this, though: according to the Progenitor, for completing the quest to access the technology, Burnham is the person who can it. That’s a lot. It’s, understandably, too much. She doesn’t have to use it now, she can come back later, but she cannot, it seems, hand this off to someone else within the Federation. It cannot be a collective venture, it is power for Burnham to wield alone.

And so, she decides to destroy it.

Her reasoning for not wanting to use the technology is valid — and strongly Star Trek . We already have infinite diversity in infinite combinations, and thus we don’t have need for the power of creation. There’s nothing that needs to be added. That works for me as an overarching explanation for why Burnham doesn’t start spinning up new planets for fun.

We know from the Progenitor that the technology can’t really bring people back from the dead — sorry L’ak! — but maybe it can cure disease? Solve any lingering scarcity problems? Something else noble and positive and exhilarating? As Stamets  (Anthony Rapp) excitedly announces, it represents the most significant scientific discovery of their lifetimes.

From a storytelling perspective, the decision not to use — and in this case going even further and deciding to destroy — the Progenitors’ technology is kind of the only choice they have. If the technology is really as powerful as it seems, it comes with the thorny side affect of either solving all plots before they exist or making all plots about itself. It’s not uncommon for television shows to introduce notably powerful characters or objects and then, once their immediate dramatic purpose is fulfilled, de-power or defuse them.

Sending the spore drive into the 32nd century where it can’t “bother” any of the rest of Star Trek ’s long history of traditional warp drive is a perfect example of doing just that. But Stamets is also right in his disappointment, this is a scientifically unsatisfying conclusion and one that, the more I think about it, becomes a narratively unsatisfying one as well.

What are we doing here narratively if, after all the effort to get there (both in-universe but also in the crafting of the story itself) we end up at “Eh, never mind!” after 30 seconds of thought? A story is much more than its ending, but if, as this one was, it’s a story predicated on solving a puzzle and finding an answer, it does need a meaningful conclusion of some sort to be satisfying.

If the presence of the Progenitors’ technology was really such a problem for the story, maybe the writers should have chosen a different puzzle to solve in the first place. Instead, it seems as if Discovery is saying that yes, all jokes aside, the enormous godlike power and incredible scientific breakthroughs really are the friends we made along the way.

This is not the first time Star Trek has shown its characters, who are otherwise on a mission of exploration and the pursuit of knowledge, decide to turn away from that knowledge because gaining it is simply too dangerous. Captain Janeway does just that in “The Omega Directive,” stating that it would be “arrogant” and “irresponsible” to “risk half the quadrant to satisfy [their] curiosity” about the Omega molecule, the most powerful substance known to exist at the time.

But that was one installment of episodic television, not the conclusion to a highly serialized season-long arc, and the Omega molecule remains in existence as something that can be studied at a later date. Not to mention, the central purpose of the story is the discussion of scientific ethics. It’s not an afterthought, it’s front and center and characters spend time debating it.

The Breen have been dispatched with, the Progenitors’ technology is gone, Moll is in custody, and the Red Directive is over. Things are settling back down, so it’s time now for the epilogue, tying things up for our characters and the series as a whole.

And then it turns out that Kovich (David Cronenberg) is actually Daniels , the futuristic temporal agent who visited Captain Archer throughout the four seasons of Star Trek: Enterprise ! I never thought we’d hear about this guy ever again! His time-traveling ways explain a lot about his collection of era-spanning relics, his knowledge of centuries of Starfleet history, and his love of black outfits. (I asked for a bit more background to flesh out Kovich, and the  Discovery writing team certainly delivered, dang.)

Several weeks later, Saru and T’Rina (Tara Rosling) are having lovely beachside wedding. Saru’s wedding attire is gorgeous, T’Rina’s is suitably bizarre — Vulcan’s are, for all their claims of logic, big fans of “more is more” when it comes to women’s fashion and we love them for it — and everyone’s in a good mood at the reception discussing their future plans. It sounds like Rayner (who survived, thank you!) is getting roped into a mentorship role at Starfleet Academy, and Burnham and Book are officially back together.

They talk of the future and literally walk off into the sunset together as they head toward whatever the next mission brings. The end… wait, that wasn’t the epilogue? There’s more? Why is there more? That was a perfect ending!

ONE LAST DANCE

The show jumps decades into the future, as we find a grey-haired Burnham and Book living a semi-retired life on the red-forested planet first visited back in “That Hope is You, Part 1.” Book has planted the last bit of Kweijanian World Root, Burnham is good at mending fences from interloping space deer… and then their grown son, a Starfleet captain, arrives to ferry Admiral Burnham to another Red Directive mission.

I’ll be blunt, I really don’t think show needed this epilogue. It was fine — nothing that happened was terrible — but it seemed completely unnecessary for the episode, the season, and the series as a whole. Watching the pair walk down the beach wondering what the future holds would have been a perfectly satisfying ending, leaving viewers with the hint that the exploration of the galaxy will go on, and that our characters will be the ones doing it, but without creating an unrealized cliffhanger.

Instead, we get a 20-minute setup for 2018’s “Calypso.” Really? The Short Trek that had already been given a perfectly satisfying nod earlier in the season when Zora asked if seeing Burnham and Rayner in the disastrous future was another dream — not to mention that many viewers around the world never even saw “Calypso” thanks to the limited Paramount+ distribution at the time, and minimal DVD release outside of North America.

Yes, there is more to the epilogue than that, but none of what we see is particularly unexpected, nor does it really tie up any loose ends. Burnham and Book live happily ever after? That was implied by them walking away together on the beach, thanks. Tilly (Mary Wiseman) teaches at the Academy still, decades later? Okay cool. Starfleet continues to cycle through new uniforms? Got it.

Burnham sits in the captain’s chair one last time to send Zora (Annabelle Wallis) and an un-refitted (antefitted?) Discovery off to sit somewhere so an 18-minute Short Trek from six years ago can occur, she drifts off into memories of her time aboard Discovery — and then shifts into a recollection of the crew that has the unfortunate feel of someone with dementia recalling people they used to know, but can’t quite remember the context for anymore.

It’s clear that this was not a memory of an actual occurrence, but instead Burnham’s mind lining up her former crew for one last mental goodbye, everyone laughing at jokes that no one’s told, bathed in glowy golden light, sharing hugs that don’t feel rooted in any real event. The whole thing goes on far too long and feels incredibly strange.

Burnham just talked with Tilly last week, why is she remembering their younger selves saying goodbye to one another? Is Discovery , the ship, being put out to pasture, or is Burnham?

OBSERVATION LOUNGE

• Fan-predicted things that did NOT happen this episode: none of the notable Discovery characters were killed, L’ak was not revived, and Book did not use the Progenitor’s technology to restore the Kwejian homeworld.
• This episode’s opening credit sequence includes elements from all four prior seasons of the show. A spacesuit helmet , Klingon weaponry , and an Original Series communicator  represents Season 1; the Red Angel suit, the Enterprise captain’s chair, the transporter room animation and the original Starfleet delta emblem represent Season 2; Book’s ship represents Season 3; the Zora voice modulation graphic represents Season 4.
• Those portable pattern buffers sure are handy. Phasers, dermal regenerators, ham sandwiches — something for every situation!
• L’ak’s body makes an appearance, but actor Elias Toufexis did not actually return to Toronto for this episode, he revealed on social media. 
• Culber gets a nice little McCoy homage with his “I’m a doctor, not a physicist” line.
• Nhan tells Saru, “Remind me to never play you in Ferengi rummy,” a game never previously mentioned in Trek .
• Stamets, Tilly and Adira (Blu del Barrio) find a way to quantum entangle the spore drive’s magic mushrooms, split the ship in two, and surround the Breen dreadnaught to jump it away from the dual singularities. Federation starships really do move at the speed of plot!

• Discovery separates its saucer and secondary hull for the first and only time in the series. (I don’t think we even knew the ship was capable of separation!)
• Force-jumping the Breen dreadnaught was ridiculous, but man did it look cool!
• When the Progenitor gives Burnham a taste of the technology’s power, she sees many past versions of herself: as a young girl, in her Season 1-2 uniform and hairstyle, wearing her yellow Starfleet prison jumpsuit from “Context Is for Kings,” and her Season 3 courier look.
• A reversed clip from Season 1’s “Will You Take My Hand?” is used in the Progenitor sequence — specifically the pullback from 23rd century Paris into Earth orbit, showing Spacedock under construction.
• It seems like the Discovery writing team seemed to have completely forgotten that Adira Tal hosts a Trill symbiont, with the many lifetimes of knowledge and experience that come with a joining. “When did you get so wise?” Stamets asks. Um, when they got a Trill symbiont two seasons ago, people!
• Familiar Star Trek items seen in Kovich’s office include a Terran Empire dagger, a TNG Season 1 “dustbuster” phaser, a bottle of Chateau Picard wine (vintage 2249), and a VISOR like the one worn by Geordi La Forge.
• Agent Daniels’ last appearance — prior to Season 3’s “Die Trying,” where we first met Kovich — was the 2004 Star Trek: Enterprise episode “Storm Front, Part 2.”

• I’m happy for T’Rina, but I did NOT love her wedding hair — yikes! I don’t know if her wig was slipping back under the weight of the headdress or if they just decided to give her a new haircut, but man those bangs were severe.
• Book mentions that he encountered a group of Talaxian pirates on the way to Saru and T’Rina’s wedding.
• The Starfleet officer who notifies Admiral Burnham that her shuttle is about to land is voiced by Star Trek: Discovery showrunner Michelle Paradise .
• The space deer outside of Burnham’s fence is named Alice, named for the main character of Burnham’s favorite childhood book.
• The 33rd century coda introduces yet another new Starfleet uniform design, complete with rank pips under the wearer’s chin (uncomfortable when looking down, no doubt), upside-down trapezoids on the arms, and one more Starfleet combadge redesign. An Admiral’s badge can even initiate an entire costume change, apparently!
• Captain Leto Burnham (Sawandi Wilson) is named for Book’s nephew Leto, who perished when Kwejian was destroyed in Season 4.
• Leto’s next mission is to the planet Crepuscula , which is the desert world where Burnham and Captain Georgiou were visiting in the opening moments of “The Vulcan Hello.”

• Admiral Vance remains on active duty in the 33rd century, and Tilly is the longest-serving Starfleet Academy instructor in history. (Gee, I wonder if she’ll be in the Starfleet Academy series? Hmmmmm!)
• The USS Discovery’s physical arrangement is fully reverted to its original configuration — including the elimination of programmable matter and the “-A” designation on the outer hull, and restoration of the original command chair control panels — to align with the continuity of “Calypso,” which was filmed between Seasons 1 and 2.
• It seems kind of cruel to leave Zora alone for 1,000 years just to wait for Craft , right? Like, she’s a computer but she’s still a sentient being!
• Due to scheduling conflicts, Wilson Cruz was not available when the final ‘crew reunion’ on the Discovery bridge was filmed in 2023. Culber is represented by a stand-in during wide shots and a digital composite of Cruz from archival footage in his close-up — with his white uniform CGI’d in place.
• Detmer (Emily Coutts) and Owosekun (Oyin Oladejo) both say the word “happy” when we see them during the farewell montage. Are they happy… together???
• It may have taken five seasons and 900+ years, but as we see Discovery fly out to complete its last mission, somebody FINALLY remembered to shut the cargo bay door.

Discovery ushered in the modern era of Star Trek , something I truly never would have thought possible before it was announced back in 2015. I simply didn’t think there would ever be any new Star Trek after Enterprise ’s fourth season came to an end in 2005.

I am so grateful for Discovery , not only for opening the door to so much new Trek —  but also for bringing so many new fans into the fold. I know so many people in my personal life who started with Discovery and have gone on to watch and love everything else Star Trek as well. That’s huge, and  Discovery did that.

Despite my personal quibbles with elements of “Life, Itself”, it feels like the right finale for Discovery — an episode that only this series would build towards and do. Lest anyone think I’m giving a backhanded compliment here, I’m not.

“Life, Itself” is the show that Star Trek: Discovery set out to be, unapologetically, and how great is it that it got the opportunity to realize itself?

Star Trek: Discovery may be over, but later this year we’ll be back with episodic reviews of Star Trek: Lower Decks and Star Trek: Prodigy when their next seasons debut.

• DSC Season 5
• Life Itself
• Star Trek: Discovery

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