References in Star Trek
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The writers of Star Trek have often made use of existing culture, sometimes as a central plot element and sometimes as a minor reference for the attentive viewer to pick up on. The references listed here need not be cultural – historical references or other noteworthy references are also listed.
- If you would like to contribute to this page, please see the discussion page where there is a list of unconfirmed references to Star Trek.
Apart from sometimes giving away plot details, the descriptions may also spoil the fun of discovering the references for oneself.
Contents |
Star Trek: The Original Series
The Conscience of the King
The title of this episode came from Hamlet, act 2, scene 2 by William Shakespeare. Lenore Karidian, speaking in private with Captain Kirk, recalls the old nursery rhyme Star Light, Star Bright.
This Side of Paradise
The title of this episode probably came from This Side of Paradise, a novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
By Any Other Name
The title of this episode came from Romeo and Juliet, act 2, scene 1 by William Shakespeare.
The Omega Glory
Captain Kirk quoted John Masefield's poem "Sea-Fever" when Kirk said "All I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by." This quote also appears in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier and on the dedication plaque of the USS Defiant (NCC-74205). This episode also focused on a conflict between the Yangs and the Kohms on the planet Omega IV; this is an allegory for the Cold War and inspired by a visit to Washington, D.C. by writer Gene Roddenberry.
All Our Yesterdays
The title of this episode came a soliloquy by Macbeth from the tragedy Macbeth, act 5, scene 5 by William Shakespeare.
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Manhunt
Mick Fleetwood of Fleetwood Mac makes a cameo as an Antedian dignitary.
Chain of Command
Gul Madred, using torture, tries to make Captain Jean-Luc Picard see five lights in front of him when there are actually four. This alludes to George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four where Winston Smith, under torture, is made to see five fingers when four are held up in front of him.
Lessons
Commander Nella Daren (Wendy Hughes) played Frédéric Chopin on the piano during a recital in Ten Forward. She also played Mozart with Picard on his flute in a private lesson.
Timescape
Suffering from temporal narcosis, Captain Picard laughed hysterically at a smiley face he carved in a cloud of smoke that was frozen in time. The cloud was a product of a warp core explosion.
Descent, Part I
Commander Data plays a simulated poker game on the holodeck with Albert Einstein, Sir Isaac Newton and Stephen Hawking. Steven Hawking was the only person to star as himself in the history of Star Trek.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Past Tense, Part I
In a scene set in the year 2024, a baseball fan says the greatest team he ever saw was the 1999 New York Yankees. Interestingly enough, the Yankees ended up winning the World Series that year, four years after this episode originally aired.
The Die is Cast
During the Battle of the Omarion Nebula, Garak quoted a portion of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare to Enabran Tain, saying "I'm afraid the fault, dear Tain, is not in our stars but in ourselves." The title itself is a reference to Caesar's words upon crossing the Rubicon, and beginning the chain of events that would lead to his takeover of Rome.
Paradise Lost
The title of the episode refers to Paradise Lost by John Milton.
Bar Association
Rom paraphrases The Communist Manifesto when he says "Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains."
For The Uniform
Lieutenant Michael Eddington was a fan of Les Misérables by Victor Hugo and Eddington compares himself to Jean Valjean while he compares Benjamin Sisko to Inspector Javert.
Far Beyond the Stars
Joesph Sisko's biblical quote: "I have fought the good fight. I have finished the course. I have kept the faith", is from 2 Timothy 4:7.
In the Pale Moonlight
The title of the episode refers to a quote from the Batman movie: "Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?"
Once More Unto the Breach
The title of this episode came from Henry V, act 3, scene 1 by William Shakespeare.
Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges
The title of this episode came from Cicero and translated from Latin to English as "In times of war, the law falls silent." (It is rather brutally mispronounced by actor Barry Jenner (Admiral Ross) in the episode itself.)
The Dogs of War
The title of this episode came from Julius Caesar, act 3, scene 1 by William Shakespeare.
Star Trek: Voyager
Heroes and Demons
Harry Kim, Chakotay and Tuvok disappear after playing a holodeck program based on Beowulf, leaving The Doctor to save them from an energy being who has assumed the character of Grendel.
Death Wish
It is discovered that Q helped Sir Isaac Newton discover gravity, invent calculus, and change the face of human mathematics. According to Q, without his intervention, Newton would never have discovered gravity and would have died in a debtor's prison and the suspect of several prostitute murders.
The 37s
The crew of the USS Voyager encounter a Ford pickup truck floating in space, which leads them to a planet where they find Amelia Earhart and others cryogenically frozen from the year 1937. Later, Neelix serves the survivors Jell-O as comfort food.
Year of Hell, Part I
On day 47 of the Krenim attack, Ensign Harry Kim and Lieutenant B'Elanna Torres are trapped in a turbolift. Kim entertains her with a trivia game and mention the movie To Catch a Thief and actor Clark Gable.
Mortal Coil
In this episode, Neelix dies but later makes a full recovery. His struggle with his death and the afterlife is shown with the title of this episode comes from the famous "To be, or not to be" soliloquy from Hamlet by William Shakespeare".
Message in a Bottle
While Harry Kim and Tom Paris attempt to create a new Emergency Medical Hologram, the hologram begins to recite Gray's Anatomy.
Timeless
As Tom Paris runs a diagnostic on the quantum slipstream drive, he tells Harry Kim that the quantum slipstream drive is an Edsel and a failure.
Counterpoint
As Devore inspection teams search Voyager for telepaths, Inspector Kashyk drinks coffee and discuss Gustav Mahler's Symphony Number One with Captain Kathryn Janeway in her ready room. The episode ends with Janeway playing Mahler's Symphony Number One as the Devore leave Voyager.
Latent Image
As the Doctor struggles with guilt over killing a patient, Ensign Ahni Jetal, Captain Janeway reads La Vita Nuova by Dante Alighieri. At the end of the episode, the Doctor quotes from the text:
"In that book which is my memory...On the first page of the chapter...That is the day when I first met you...Appear the words...Here begins a new life."
Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy
The title of this episode is based on the novel Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré.
In a daydream, the Doctor sings the opera Don Carlos by Giuseppe Verdi in the mess hall to a cheering crowd.
One Small Step
Chakotay and Tom Paris briefly discuss human spaceflight pioneers Neil Armstrong and John Glenn while searching for the remains of a failed human space flight to Mars. The title of this episode is derived from the first words uttered on the moon.
Virtuoso
In sickbay, The Doctor hums "I've Been Working on the Railroad" and sings "Someone's in the Kitchen with Dinah" to some Qomar survivors. Later, in a reception in the mess hall, The Doctor sings the opera Don Carlos by Giuseppe Verdi in order to expose music to the Qomar species. He ends the episode singing "I've Been Working on the Railroad" to himself in sickbay.
Shattered
Chakotay quoted Dante's Inferno to Captain Janeway as they visited different eras: "In the middle of the journey of our life, I found myself astray in a dark wood, where the straight road had been lost."
Author, Author
Bolian editor Ardon Broht of Broht and Forrester called The Doctor another Tolstoy after reading The Doctor's holo-novel "Photons Be Free".
Friendship One
Throughout the episode, we hear Antonio Vivaldi's Concerto No. 1 in E major, "Spring" from The Four Seasons as a continuing theme.
Star Trek: Enterprise
Broken Bow
Zefram Cochrane (James Cromwell) makes a cameo appearance and said that the warp five engine would allow humanity to "go boldly where no man has gone before." In this episode, the series' pilot, Admiral Forrest (Vaughn Armstrong) is named for Star Trek actor DeForest Kelley who portrayed Dr. Leonard McCoy. The title of this episode is from the town of Broken Bow, Oklahoma where the Klingon scoutship crashes.
Shuttlepod One
On board Shuttlepod One, Malcolm Reed and Charles "Trip" Tucker compare James Joyce to Superman comic books.
Storm Front
In part I, as Archer and Alicia Travers talk in her apartment, the Billie Holiday song "My Old Flame" is used as background music in this episode.
In part II, a speech by Winston Churchill is heard and the assaination of Vladimir Lenin is discussed. Towards the end, as history is restored, we see footage of the September 11, 2001 attacks, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Osama bin Laden, George W. Bush and Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Borderland
Malik quotes Friedrich Nietzsche's Also sprach Zarathustra: "man kind is something to be surpassed".
Observer Effect
While in isolation, Trip asks Hoshi if she ever saw the movie The Andromeda Strain. Hoshi isn't familiar with it, but guesses: "Dr. Andromeda builds a monster, and it kills him in the end." Her guess is closer to the story of Frankenstein. Later, she comments on Trip fixing the warp engines with "duct tape and a pocket knife", the trademark instruments of MacGyver.
In a Mirror, Darkly
The Mirror universe Phlox uses the USS Defiant library to examine classical human literature. He wanted to compare the major works of the universes and he noted that the characters were weak and compassionate. "With the exception of Shakespeare, of course. From what I can tell, his plays were equally grim in both universes." The title alludes to 1 Corinthians chapter 13, verse 12: "For now we see through a glass, darkly."
Motion pictures
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Khan's fanatical pursuit of revenge leading to his ultimate self-destruction and demise, can certainly be seen as a reference to Herman Melville's Moby Dick. Indeed, Khan quotes the novel extensively throughout its course. One such example would be Khan's final words, "No...no, you can't get away...from hell's heart, I stab at thee...for hate's sake, I spit my last breath...at thee..." uttered during his final moments alive and taken directly from Moby Dick.
Before battle, Khan mentions a Klingon proverb "Revenge is a dish, best served cold". This is, in fact, a Sicilian proverb.
At the beginning of the movie, Captain Spock gives Admiral Kirk a copy A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens for his birthday; Kirk quotes the first few lines. As the ship returns to Earth towards the end of the movie, Admiral Kirk quotes the last few lines of the novel.
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
To test Spock's memory, Doctor Leonard McCoy quotes: "Angels and ministers of grace defend us", which Spock in turn accurately identifies as Hamlet, Act I, Scene 4.
In the pizza restaurant, Admiral Kirk drinks a Michelob.
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
The title of this movie came from the famous To be, or not to be soliloquy from Hamlet by William Shakespeare.
According to Spock, "only Nixon could go to China" is an old Vulcan proverb. This is presumed by most to be one of Spock's attempts at humor; for the background of this reference, see Nixon in China. Some fans more charitably believe that this is an attempt by Spock to contextualize a translation of an actual Vulcan proverb (which remains unspoken) in a way that Kirk (and probably more importantly a 20th century human audience) could understand.
There is a painting in Spock's room depicting the expulsion from paradise. Spock tells Valeris that it serves as "a reminder that all things end."
The Klingon flagship carrying the chancellor Gorkon is named "Kronos One" which is a reference to the "Air Force One."
When it is decided that the Klingons will be having dinner on the Enterprise, Pavel Chekov says "Guess who's coming to dinner." Guess Who's Coming to Dinner is the title of a movie about confrontation of races from 1967.
Spock helps us identify the first Shakespeare reference, which is also in the movies title:
- Gorkon: I offer a toast: the undiscovered country. The future.
- Everyone: The undiscovered country!
- Spock: Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1.
- Gorkon: You have not experienced Shakespeare until you have read him in the original Klingon.
- Chang: taH pagh taHbe'
The words spoken by Chang are "to be or not to be" (Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1), or more exactly "to survive or not to survive", in the Klingon language.
Gorkon's comment about Shakespeare is an in-joke dating from the Original Series. Ensign Chekov was given to outrageously pro-Russian claims and once said the same phrase, replaced with "the original Russian". This was a then-topical joke about Soviet boosterism and over-the-top propaganda claims of prior invention in science and technology, a behavior which was rooted in the Cold War and not the Russian character (making it an appropriate in-joke to recycle in this context). Interestingly, Hamlet has been translated into the "original Klingon" by the Klingon Language Institute since the making of this movie.
The totalitarian references continue at the dinner table:
- Chang: To be or not to be. That is the question which preoccupies our people, Captain. We need breathing room.
- Kirk: Earth. Hitler, 1938.
Kirk's reaction is a reference to the Nazi idea of Lebensraum ("living space").
Gorkon to Kirk in the transporter room:
- "If there is to be a brave new world, our generation is going to have the hardest time living in it". The phrase "brave new world" is from The Tempest, Act 5, Scene 1.
Chang to Kirk in the transporter room:
- "Parting is such sweet sorrow." – Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 2.
- "Have we not heard the chimes at midnight?" (paraphrased) – Henry IV, Part 2, Act 3, Scene 2.
Chang to Kirk during the trial:
- "What would your favorite author say, Captain? 'Let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the death of kings.'" – Richard II, Act 3, Scene 2.
- "Don't wait for the translation, answer me now!" Similar words were originally spoken by Adlai Stevenson to Valerian Zorin in an emergency session of the United Nations during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Spock on the bridge of the Enterprise:
- "An ancestor of mine maintained that if you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." This ancestor is Sherlock Holmes or possibly the author of the Sherlock Holmes stories, Arthur Conan Doyle.
Chekov speaks to crewman Dax when the magnetic boots have been found:
- "Perhaps you know Russian epic of Cinderella? If shoe fits, wear it."
Martia on the surface of Rura Penthe:
- "I thought I would assume a pleasing shape," from Hamlet: "The spirit that I have seen may be the devil: and the devil hath power to assume a pleasing shape..." (Act 2, Scene 2).
Kirk to Spock onboard the Enterprise:
- "I'm a great one for rushing in where angels fear to tread." This paraphrases the saying "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread" from Alexander Pope's An Essay on Criticism.[1]
Chang during the battle:
- "No peace in our time." The phrase "peace in our time" is from Neville Chamberlain's famous speech after the signing of the Munich Agreement.
- "Once more unto the breach, dear friends." – Henry V, Act 3, Scene 1.
- "Tickle us, do we not laugh? Prick us, do we not bleed? Wrong us, shall we not revenge?" (paraphrased) – The Merchant of Venice, Act 3, Scene 1.
- "The game's afoot." – Henry V, Act 3, Scene 1. (also a reference to Sherlock Holmes)
- "Our revels now are ended." – The Tempest, Act 4, Scene 1.
- "Cry 'Havoc!', and let slip the dogs of war." – Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene 1.
- "I am constant as the northern star." – Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene 1.
Kirk's speech at the Khitomer conference:
- "It's about the future, Madam Chancellor. Some people think the future means the end of history. Well, we haven't run out of history just yet." This is a reference to Francis Fukuyama's argument that the end of the Cold War represented "The End of History".
When Kirk is asked for a course he replies:
- "Second star to the right, and straight on 'til morning." (paraphrased) – J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan.
Star Trek: First Contact
When Captain Picard listens to Vallon Sonore from the opera Les Troyens in his ready room, Commander Riker enters and asks Picard if the music is by Bizet. Captain Picard corrects him, saying that it was by Hector Berlioz.
When appearing on the bridge with Lily Sloane, Picard said "Reports of my assimilation have been greatly exaggerated." This alludes to Mark Twain who in 1897 sent a telegram stating that "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated" after his obituary had been mistakenly published.[2]
As the magnetic locks around the deflector dish are removed, the letters "AE 35" appear on a monitor, alluding to 2001: A Space Odyssey.
In Captain Picard's ready room, Lily Sloane compared Picard to Captain Ahab from the novel Moby Dick as both were on an obsessive quest for revenge. Later, Picard quoted the novel to Lily, who never read it: "And he piled upon the whale's white hump, the sum of all the rage and hate felt by his whole race. If his chest had been a cannon, he would have shot his heart upon it." Patrick Stewart would later play Captain Ahab in a television movie of the novel.
In the movie, we hear music from Roy Orbison and Steppenwolf, played by Zefram Cochrane as he made his famous warp flight.
Zefram Cochrane's quote "So you're all astronauts... on some kind of star trek?" bends the "fourth wall" as an overt reference to Star Trek itself, the first (and so far only) time the words "star trek" have been said intact on screen (Although in the TNG Series Finale Q calls it a "trek through the stars.")
Star Trek: Insurrection
In the battle between the shuttle and the scoutship, Captain Picard and Commander Worf sing A British Tar with Commander Data from the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta HMS Pinafore.
Star Trek: Nemesis
During the wedding reception for William Riker and Deanna Troi, Commander Data sings Blue Skies by Irving Berlin.
Many aspects of this plot have parallels with the book Le Morte d'Arthur, the story that chronicles the final years of King Arthur.
Captain Picard's DNA is stolen by the Romulans to create the clone Shinzon. This resembles the plot in Le Morte d'Arthur where Arthur's evil half-sister, Morgan le Fay, has Arthur impregnant her while disguised as his wife, Guinevere. Morgana gives birth to the child Mordred, who grows to be an ambitious tyrant. In a final battle, Mordred attempts to siege Camelot and kill Arthur. Similarly, Shinzon attempts to destroy the Enterprise-E and kill his "father" at the Battle of the Bassen Rift. Shinzon's death scene, being impaled through the chest with a large metal spike, is a direct reference to Le Morte d'Arthur where King Arthur impales Mordred through the chest with his spear during the final battle scene. Both Picard and Arthur kill their evil offsprings.
Even though Picard isn't mortally wounded by his clone as was Arthur by his son, Nemesis does end the journey of the Enterprise crew, much like the breaking of the Knights of the Round Table.