The Star Trek Star Fleet Technical Manual
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The Star Trek Star Fleet Technical Manual (Ballantine Books 1975, reprinted in 1986) is a "fiction reference" book by Franz Joseph Schnaubelt about the workings of Starfleet, a military, exploratory, and diplomatic organization featured in the television series Star Trek.
Although a work of fiction, the book is presented as a collection of factual documents from the future sent back in time to the 20th century describing Starfleet in the 23rd century.
It features a wide variety of extremely detailed technical information, though non-canon, about Starfleet's organization, ships, and members, and was used as the basis for many elements of the strategy game Star Fleet Battles. It is worth mentioning that at the time this book was first published, it was considered so canonical as to be beyond question, despite it's clear depiction of several elements that openly contradicted the television series (Such as the presence of a second exit to the bridge, and the placement and internal arrangement of the conference room). All the blueprints were presented to series creator Gene Roddenberry who signed off on all of them, and claimed them to be 'completely accurate'. Around a decade later, he retracted these statements, however, claiming the book to have 'always' violated his rules for the Star Trek Universe, despite using it in the first three motion pictures, under his close supervision.
It provides some detail on the workings of the technology used in the original series, including ship, weapons, personal communicators, tri-corders, universal translators, and medical equipment. There is even a blue-print and electronics diagram of a working communicator built using 20th century electronics.
The book was used in the production of the first three Star Trek films for background material. While Paramount Pictures does not consider the book overall canon, it is clear that circa 1986 and earlier, it was used in the Star Trek production offices as an official and canonical reference, and under the current rules of Star Trek canon the parts that were directly cited are canonical in the form they appeared on screen.
- In Star Trek: The Motion Picture during the opening scene at the communications outpost. The starships named in the background were from the starship lists in the Technical Manual.
- In Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan during the Kobayashi Maru test. Starship blueprints from the Technical Manual were visibly used in the background as displays on the bridge simulator.
- In Star Trek III: The Search for Spock when the seal on Spock's quarters is broken, the display of the Enterprise on the monitor was a copy of the blueprints from the Technical Manual.
As an unexpected legacy, this book is solely responsible for beginning the sub-genre revolving around the blueprints and schematics of fictional vehicles and locations, and most subsequent science fiction series and films attempted to cash in on it to a greater or lesser extent. Examples include:
- The Moonbase Alpha Technical Manual
- The Battlestar Galactica Blueprints
- The Star Wars Sketchbook
- Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual
- Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise
and various fanfic publications beyond number.