With the ongoing story of the Federation of Planets and at least a couple of ships named Enterprise, the Star Trek franchise has inspired generations of die-hard fans. There are still a few persistent myths that the crew just can't seem to shake, though, so here are some of the false "facts" that you've been believing about Star Trek.
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00:00With the ongoing story of the Federation of Planets and at least a couple of ships named
00:04Enterprise, the Star Trek franchise has inspired generations of diehard fans.
00:10There are still a few persistent myths that the crew just can't seem to shake, though,
00:14so here are some of the false facts that you've been believing about Star Trek.
00:18During the first season of Star Trek Discovery, a minor scandal broke out when actor Jason
00:22Isaacs admitted he was told not to ad-lib a particular swear word, not because of the
00:27profanity, but because it included the word God.
00:31Star Trek has long promoted a humanist and non-religious view of the future, with spirituality
00:36usually left to the aliens, and religious figures like God and the Devil often used
00:41as tricks by the bad guys.
00:43"'Excuse me, I'd just like to ask a question.
00:48What does God need with a starship?"
00:50Trek producer Brannon Braga once said that creator Gene Roddenberry handed down an edict
00:55to the show's writing staff, saying that
00:57"...religion and superstition and mystical thinking were not to be a part of his universe."
01:03The show is clearly meant to take place in a future based on atheism and secular humanism,
01:08but in practice, that's not exactly the case.
01:11While Picard wasn't walking around with a giant crucifix on his neck, human religion
01:15has been a bit more present in Star Trek than is popularly thought.
01:19We see the Enterprise's chapel on the original series episode, Balance of Terror, and Star
01:24Trek Generations includes a celebration of Christmas, so some version of Christianity
01:29certainly seems to have survived to the 23rd century.
01:32Uhura even directly references Christianity as being impossible ridicule in Bread and
01:37Circuses, when the crew encounters a technologically advanced Roman Empire who have sun worshipers
01:43broadcasting on pirate radio.
01:45"...but don't you understand?
01:49It's not the sun up in the sky, it's the son of God."
01:54That's a lot of love for the Lord on a supposedly atheist show.
01:58A lot of Star Trek fans think the next generation started from scratch, picking up almost 20
02:04years after the end of the original show, with a collection of brand new characters
02:08completely removed from the classic series.
02:11For the most part, that's true, especially with regards to the idea of adding a prune-juice-loving
02:16Klingon
02:17"...warriors drink."
02:18to a crew commanded by a brooding, Shakespeare-quoting Captain Picard.
02:22"...my love is a fever, longing still for that which longer nurseth the disease."
02:31But before the next generation hit the airwaves in 1987, there was another attempt at reviving
02:37Star Trek, and it included the blueprints for a few key characters.
02:41In 1977, a TV project called Star Trek Phase II almost made it to production.
02:47Sets were built, actors cast, and over a dozen scripts written.
02:52When producers decided it would work better as a feature film, however, the project was
02:56scrapped, and pieces of it were repurposed.
02:59Alan Dean Foster's pilot script was retooled into Star Trek The Motion Picture.
03:04Two of Phase II's characters, the debonair Commander Decker and his former love, the
03:08exotic alien Ilea, made their way into the film.
03:12But a third new character, the emotionless Vulcan Zon, didn't make the same jump to the
03:16big screen.
03:17When all three of those characters were jettisoned from future movies, the Trek team decided to
03:22tweak them again for the small screen.
03:24Zon was transformed from a Vulcan learning to be more human into Data, an android with
03:29the same dream.
03:31Decker and Ilea were reimagined as Commander Riker and Counselor Troi, with the same basic
03:36backstory and personalities.
03:38Even a few of those Phase II scripts were pulled out of the mothballs during the 1988
03:43Rider Strike for some second-season episodes of Next Generation, including the one where
03:48Troi was impregnated by a ball of light.
03:51Maybe it's a good thing that we never got to see more of Phase II.
03:55Star Trek has always tried its hardest to promote equality, and considering that Martin
04:00Luther King Jr. was a fan, they were clearly doing something right.
04:04When it came to equality, the show always had good intentions, but implementing them
04:08was another matter, and the show's lofty ideals ran into the reality of real-world bigotry
04:13right from the beginning.
04:15The show's original pilot, which saw a woman serving as the Enterprise's first officer,
04:19also saw the captain complaining about his female crewmates.
04:23"...just that I can't get used to having a woman on the bridge."
04:27Then there's the infamous Next Generation episode, Code of Honor, which is often regarded
04:31as one of the worst Star Trek episodes of all time.
04:34It managed to be both racist and sexist at the same time, telling the story of aliens
04:40who, as Scream Prism put it, speak in thick African accents, dress in stereotypical tribal
04:45garb, and are ruled by sexual appetites like ancient barbarians.
04:50And they also kidnapped the blonde Caucasian lieutenant Tasha Yar.
04:53In fact, the director of the episode was fired halfway through filming for his uncomfortably
04:58racist choices.
05:00And that's not the only episode of TNG explicitly based on racial stereotypes, either.
05:05And then there's the long, drawn-out debate about including LGBTQ characters in the Trek
05:10universe.
05:11Trek writer Ronald D. Moore has been candid about the franchise's handling of the topic,
05:16saying, quote, "...we've just failed at it."
05:18Thankfully, Discovery has finally included a gay couple as key members of the ship's
05:22crew, helping to fix an oversight that's long vexed the franchise.
05:27Gene Roddenberry, the visionary behind all things Star Trek, had a very specific edict
05:32for the characters on his shows.
05:34He was creating a utopian future in which humans have achieved peace and conflict will
05:39be a thing of the past.
05:40An admirable goal for humanity, sure, but for a room of TV writers, it was a living
05:45nightmare.
05:46How do you write drama without conflict?
05:49Well, it turns out you can't.
05:51While the conflict-free decree did allow for the more allegorical storytelling style that
05:55the franchise has always been famous for, the writers still managed to sneak in a fight
06:00here and there.
06:01Why else do you think the crew got possessed by alien gods and mating hormones so often?
06:06As long as the personal beefs were the result of some outside force causing trouble with
06:10the crew, Roddenberry would look the other way.
06:13When he passed away in 1991, the writers behind the many Star Trek series began to
06:17loosen the reins.
06:19Deep Space Nine was filled with internal conflict and an all-out war, and incorporating a group
06:24of former terrorists gave the main ensemble of Voyager the flexibility to create conflict
06:29on a weekly basis.
06:31By the time Discovery rolled around, the crew members were at each other's throats.
06:35From a deceitful captain to a key character leading a mutiny, the famous no-conflict rule
06:40became a relic of the past, if it was ever truly followed to begin with.
06:46Everyone knows that on the original series, if you wore a red shirt, you were going to
06:50die.
06:51The crew was always beaming down to some godforsaken planet, where an unforeseen danger would make
06:56itself known by killing off a hapless, no-name, crimson-cloaked officer.
07:00They were the cannon fodder of the Star Trek universe, just anonymous enough to make us
07:04feel bad, without their deaths at the hands of alien blobs really mattering.
07:09But would it surprise you to learn that these cardinal-hued crewmen weren't actually the
07:13most likely to die?
07:15While it's true that the red shirts did represent a whopping 73 percent of the total deaths
07:20over the series' 79 episodes, something surprising pops out once you start running the numbers.
07:26There were 430 crewmen aboard the Enterprise, 239 of them dressed in red.
07:32According to research done by Significance magazine, even though red shirts die pretty
07:36often in the show, when you look at the total population, the fact that they make up over
07:40half the crew means they're statistically much less likely to die than their crewmates
07:45in gold.
07:46Their finding?
07:47Only 10 percent of the entire red shirt population was lost during the three-year run of Star
07:52Trek.
07:53This is less than the 13.4 percent of gold shirts.
07:57So if you're looking to make it through that five-year mission unscathed, suiting up in
08:01red isn't exactly a bad bet by the numbers, especially if you make yourself busy when
08:06they're handing out assignments for the away teams.
08:09You might want to make it blue just to be sure, though.
08:12Speaking of uniform colors, any fan of the original series knows that Spock wore blue,
08:17Scotty wore red, and Kirk wore gold.
08:20Those colors are as indelibly linked to their characters as Spock's Vulcan salute and Shatner's
08:24over-the-top acting.
08:27"...Kirk!"
08:29So sit down, because this may come as a bit of a shock.
08:32Kirk's uniform was, in fact, actually more of a lime green.
08:36It only turned into Command Gold, thanks to the quirks of film stock development.
08:41If you don't believe us, take a look at the rest of Kirk's wardrobe, like his wraparound
08:45tunic from the Trouble with Tribbles episode, or his dress uniform in the Season 1 episode
08:50Court Martial.
08:51All green.
08:52Apparently, many of the colors chosen for the show were intended to promote RCA's new
08:56color television units, including the green uniforms.
09:00That explains the bright, striking style of the series, even if some of the colors failed
09:04to turn out exactly as expected.
09:07For decades, fans, and even some of the people behind Trek itself, have steadfastly believed
09:12that Pavel Chekhov, the spunky ensign with the indecipherable accent, was created as
09:18an olive branch to the Soviet Union.
09:20Excuse me, sir, can you direct me to the naval base in Alameda?
09:24It's where they keep the nuclear vessels."
09:29As the legend goes, in the fall of 1966, Gene Roddenberry got the idea to introduce a new,
09:35hunky heartthrob to the cast with hair like a British Invasion rock star, and Walter Koenig
09:40apparently fit the bill.
09:42But at some point, word got to Roddenberry that Pravda, the official newspaper of Soviet
09:47Russia, had criticized the show for not including a Russian character in its vision of the future,
09:52and Gene jumped at the idea.
09:55Chekhov was born, and Roddenberry even wrote a letter to the Minister of Cultural Affairs
09:59in Moscow, apologizing for not including him sooner.
10:02Alas, they never heard back, presumably because there's no record of Pravda ever writing such
10:08an article.
10:09In fact, Star Trek wasn't even available in Russia at the time, so whoever received this
10:13letter from an American television producer proudly hailing the addition of a hunky young
10:17Russian heartthrob to his space show must have been confused beyond belief.
10:23If there's one cultural catchphrase Star Trek is best known for, it's Captain Kirk asking
10:28everyone's favorite engineer to transport him away from whatever salty vampire or lizard
10:34monster the crew was tangling with that week with a quick,
10:37"'Beam me up, Scotty."
10:38But despite the decades-long prominence of this phrase in pop culture and on T-shirts
10:42and buttons, Kirk never actually said it, and neither did anyone else.
10:47Captain Kirk did, of course, say very similar things a number of times throughout the series,
10:52and in Star Trek IV, The Voyage Home, he gets pretty close with this.
10:56"'Scotty, beam me up."
10:58However, the exact phrase, "'Beam me up, Scotty," has never appeared in any Star Trek series
11:03or movie, though it does appear in some of the unofficial Star Trek novels and other
11:08media.
11:09As a result, it belongs in the same category as Casablanca's Play It Again, Sam, and Elementary,
11:14My Dear Watson, from Data's favorite detective Sherlock Holmes, as quotes that have been
11:19mistakenly attributed to their source material so often that most people think they were
11:23there all along.
11:25Yes, this is one big pedantic point, but this is Star Trek we're talking about.
11:30If you don't want to obsess over the most minor details, then it's probably not the
11:34fandom for you.
11:40Don't forget to like and subscribe!