This: the Star Trek franchise

Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment series and media franchise. The Star Trek fictional universe created by Gene Roddenberry is the setting of six television series including the original 1966 Star Trek, and eleven feature films. The franchise also extends to dozens of computer and video games, hundreds of novels and instances of fan fiction, several fan-created video productions, as well as a themed attraction in Las Vegas. Beginning with the original TV series and continuing with the subsequent films and series, the franchise has created a cult phenomenon and has spawned many pop culture references.

Conception and setting

As early as 1960, Gene Roddenberry had put together a proposal for the science fiction series which would become Star Trek. Although he publicly marketed it as a Western in outer space, a so-called "Wagon Train to the Stars", he privately told friends that he was actually modeling it on Swift's Gulliver's Travels, intending each episode to act on two levels, first as a suspenseful adventure story, but also as a morality parable.

In the Star Trek universe, humans developed faster-than-light space travel, using a form of propulsion referred to as "warp drive", following a nuclear war and a post-apocalyptic period in the mid-21st century. According to the story timeline, the first warp flight happened on 5 April 2063, and the Vulcans, an advanced alien race, made first contact with Earth on that day after detecting the warp drive signature. Partly as a result of the intervention and scientific teachings of the Vulcans, humans largely overcame many Earth-bound frailties and vices by the middle of the 22nd century, creating a quasi-utopian society where the central role is played not by money, but rather by the need for exploration and knowledge. Later, mankind united with some of the other sentient species of the galaxy, including the Vulcans, to form the United Federation of Planets.

Star Trek stories usually depict the adventures of humans and aliens who serve in the Federation's Starfleet. The protagonists are essentially altruists whose ideals are sometimes only imperfectly applied to the dilemmas presented in the series. The conflicts and political dimensions of Star Trek form allegories for contemporary cultural realities: Star Trek: The Original Series addressed issues of the 1960s, just as later spin-offs have reflected issues of their respective eras. Issues depicted in the various series include war and peace, the value of personal loyalty, authoritarianism, imperialism, class warfare, economics, racism, religion, human rights, sexism and feminism, and the role of technology. Gene Roddenberry stated: "creating a new world with new rules, I could make statements about sex, religion, Vietnam, politics, and intercontinental missiles. Indeed, we did make them on Star Trek: we were sending messages and fortunately they all got by the network."