Star Trek Deep Space Nine // S05E09: The Ascent
Just something pretty I found on my drive… click for high-res.
U.S.S. Enterprise helm console graphics from Strange New Worlds, recreated by Jack Watford on Twitter.
Kobayashi Maru Deep Dive
Ever since 1982's Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan established an unwinnable test of character for potential starship captains, fans have been curious about the "real" Kobayashi Maru... if there ever was one. Fan publications and beta canon have provided plenty of contradictory answers over the years...
Rodger Sorenson's 1983 Kobayashi Maru - Neutronic Fuel Carrier blueprint pack version would go on to be the basis of canon versions of the Kobayashi Maru, from 2009 onwards. The pack would be sent to the Star Trek (2009) design team at ILM along with the cover of Julie Ecklar's novel seen further below to establish a "look" for the ship, which would be depicted on-screen for the first time when we see Kirk's third and final attempt.
David Nilsen's Book of S.S. Kobayashi Maru Plans blueprint pack was also published in 1983. His version of the S.S. Kobayashi Maru and her backstory was transplanted uptime to 2155 and featured in the 2008 ENT novel Kobayashi Maru by Andy Mangals and Michael A. Martin. It's a repurposed Klingon ship, and in the novel the Kobayashi Maru incident (which involved Klingon ships under Romulan control), was the final straw which led to the Earth/Romulan war. Also in the novel, Kojiro Vance was gay as hell and dressed like a pirate.
FASA's Lotus Flower-class carrier (from their Star Trek III Sourcebook Update, 1984) actually appeared VERY briefly on-screen in early TNG, as Data read through computer files crazy fast. In FASA lore, the Kobayashi Maru existed only as part of the infamous simulation, there was no "real" ship.
In 1989 Julia Ecklar's novel The Kobayashi Maru would be released, telling the story of Kirk, Scotty and Sulu's attempts at the Kobayashi Maru scenario. On the cover is a Tritium-class ship from the Goldstein's 1980 Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology (a class infamous for it's "insurmountable design flaws")
This is the U.S.S. Kobayashi Maru ECS-1022 as she appeared in Star Trek (2009), the first time we actually see the ship itself in canon.
The registry starting with ECS prefix is a reference to Star Trek: Enterprise, where cargo vessels had names proceeding with E.C.S., for "Earth Cargo Service"
Here's how she appears in Star Trek Online, based on early concept art for the 2009 movie version without the central hull
Star Trek Prodigy's 2022 version ("Kobayashi") is based on the Star Trek Online version which is based on concept art for the 2009 version which is based on a 1983 fan published blueprint set.
Star Trek: Flip-up Communicator history
Star Trek pilot "The Cage" (1964)
The very first version. It's like those see-through game controllers from the 1990's!
Star Trek: TOS (1966-69) The iconic model. Possibly inspired the concept of mobile phones. The case is made from a chopped up Sterling Plastics pencil case.
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
A bulky militaristic look. Modified from a real life army radio
Star Trek III: The Search For Spock (1983)
A return to a more classic shape. I think the inner part is from some ATM machine plastic model, but I might be confusing my Trek prop trivia.
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)
The Search For Spock version with added buttons which remind me of ancient TV remotes.
Star Trek: Enterprise (2001-2005)
Trek's first prequel, set over 100 years before the time of Captain Kirk brought back flip-up communicators after many years of tapping badges in the 24th century.
Star Trek (2009) U.S.S. Kelvin
At the birth of his son and when the Prime and Kelvin timelines split, George Kirk's communicator is a simplified, button-free version of the classic TOS one.
Star Trek (2009) U.S.S. Enterprise
Designed with input from Nokia, the Kelvin Universe version of the classic Trek communicator. 2013's Into Darkness confirms it receives text messages, too - but I'd hate to try typing out a message with that weird button😂
Star Trek: Discovery (2017-)
Another modernisation of the classic TV series one, this time with an animated screen on place of the moire pattern from TOS. Inside that case is an iPhone for the graphics. For the first time in Trek, it's made explicit that the communicators are also universal translators enabling everyone in a room to understand everyone else (even though nobody's lips should sync up and you should hear overlapping voices which only ever happened in Star Trek Beyond)
Strange New Worlds (2022-)
And back to the TOS series version, with some very minor changes. Strange New Worlds is also the first time it's called a phone in dialogue
not that i remember but i did see the one where he heard about sherlock holmes and immediately got himself a bubble pipe and annoyed the shit out of the rest of the crew so im pretty sure he not only knows what a joke is but is also the best at them out of everyone on the enterprise
Amazing cover art for bootleg Star Trek videogames, from the 70's and 80's. Source: Art of Trek on twitter.
Let's not forget Stellar Track from Sears' Tele-Games label.
Tele-Games was the result of a partnership between Sears and Atari that let Sears sell consoles and cartridges under their own house brand. The games on the carts would be exactly the same, but the cartridge labels, manuals, boxes, and many times even the game's name itself would be different.
Stellar Track was one of the few titles that was exclusively released under the Tele-Games label with no corresponding Atari release.
It was a fairly faithful port of a text-based Star Trek turn based strategy game that had unofficially been made for mainframe and minicomputers of the 1970s. For those of you familiar with the on screen sprite limitations of the 2600 hardware the fact that they were able to get such a text based game to even work on the system is fairly astonishing. Alternate rows of pixels for the text were rendered every other frame, relying on persistence of CRT phosphor glow to complete the letters.
It's also interesting that Atari already had another attempt at porting that same Star Trek game, Star Raiders. Atari's offering had more graphical flair and was more arcade-like. Curiously out of the two, Star Raiders required the use of a special pack-in keypad controller, while Stellar Track made do with the standard joystick.
An early concept for the Next Gen Enterprise bridge by Andrew Probert. How weird would it have been to have the conference table on the bridge? And funky booth seating either side of the viewscreen??
Loads more concept art here:
kreuzaderny