Official Sources

We'd be remiss if we didn't start with the official Star Trek website, although it's hardly the best resource out there. Parts of the site seem completely deactivated, with even their news page barely updated past 2007 (and call me crazy, but I'd say there's some Star Trek news to report at the moment). Still, CBS has dozens of Original Series episodes available online, so Star Trek's official web presence isn't a complete washout. That said, it's hardly surprising that if you really want to learn about Star Trek, you've got to go to the fans.

General Reference

Wikipedia has a pretty decent Star Trek Portal that is a great starting point to explore their articles on the franchise. But even Wikipedia can't hold a candle to Memory Alpha, the dedicated online encyclopedia for all things Trek. The existence of Memory Alpha makes this list about a tenth as long as it would have been even a few years ago, as it covers pretty much every conceivable topic you could possibly imagine. If you want to jump into the deep end of the Star Trek universe, a couple hours spent at Memory Alpha is pretty much the best way to start. If that's just not nerdy enough for you, there's always Memory Beta, which exclusively covers all the stuff that doesn't even officially exist in the Star Trek universe, like all the novels and comic books that have been written over the years.

Beginner's Guide

Of course, all that information all in one place can get a little daunting, so you might want to step back for a refresher course. Again, it's got to be said that Star Trek's Wikipedia page is a pretty good primer, tracing the show's history from Gene Roddenberry's initial ideas for the show to the new movie. If you can get past the early 2000's design, The Omega Quadrant is also a good place to go for a stripped down beginner's guide to the show. It carefully works through both the factual and fictional history of Star Trek, assuming no prior knowledge and taking the time to answer all the questions that tend to confuse non-fans (like the legendary issue of what's the difference between a Trekkie and a Trekker).

Episode Guides and Reviews

The official site, Memory Alpha, and Wikipedia all have fairly extensive episode guides, although TrekGuide is probably the best website specifically devoted to the topic, providing helpful charts that for instance list which aliens appear in which episodes. If you're looking for episode reviews, Jammer's Reviews might be the gold standard, covering everything except the Animated Series (he also looks at the new Battlestar Galactica and Gene Roddenberry's other science fiction show, Andromeda). Tim Lynch's Reviews also have their charms, but he only covers parts of the 24th century shows (TNG, DS9, and Voyager), and none of The Original Series or Enterprise. The always excellent AV Club is currently working through The Original Series, with weekly posts each reviewing two episodes (they're just starting up on season 2).

Military Science and Technology

One topics on which Memory Alpha hasn't made other sites obsolete is tech specs for the franchise's starships. Star Trek Intelligence is written as though it's, well, an intelligence report prepared for the Federation, compiling all known information about every ship from Xindi Reptilian Cruisers to Kazon Torpedo Ships and quite literally everything in between. The Starship Schematic Database focuses more on visual records of the ships. Either way, half an hour spent at one of these sites will get you ready for war, 23rd century style.

Toys and Collectibles

When just watching Star Trek isn't enough, it's time to stock up on some toys, and there are certainly no shortage of options. Both The Star Trek Toy Reference Center and Star Trek Toys Online list pretty much every toy ever made from the sixties onward. Toys Online wins based on aesthetics, but the Reference Center arguably has a more complete visual record, so I suppose it depends on what you care about looking at. Still, Toys Online does have eBay links beneath all of its pages, so it's the better option when you're actually ready to start spending.

Costumes

Unfortunately, there really isn't a comprehensive guide to the world of Star Trek cosplay, but at least Star Trek Costumes offers a comprehensive catalog of Federation uniforms from every era. If you've ever wondered how diehard Trek fans manage to pull off authentic Klingon costumes, here's the complete seven part process for making your very own Klingon forehead.

Conventions and Online Communities

Looking to meet up with your fellow fans? Though just about any science fiction convention is pretty much guaranteed to have a Star Trek presence, the franchise's very own convention is Star Trek Las Vegas, which will be held in August with William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy already announced as attending. There are also no end of online communities for Star Trek fans to get together, including United Federation of Trek,
Trek Web, and Starfleet. Finally, though it hasn't launched yet, the massively multiplayer role-playing game Star Trek Online has already built a strong community as fans wait for the opportunity to explore the game's 25th century setting.

Fan Fiction

Though it's not for the faint of heart, Star Trek fan fiction offers the adventurous fan an opportunity to explore the universe in ways the official version hasn't. Star Trek Fan Fiction and Orion Press are two of the best, but I'll leave it to you to locate some of the worst (they're certainly not hard to find).

Star Trek is also notable for not just prose fan fiction but also a huge amount of fan films, some of which have taken the form of full-fledged amateur TV series. Star Trek: Phase II, formerly The New Voyages, started as an attempt to complete the five-year mission of The Original Series, and has since morphed into a more open-ended continuation of Gene Roddenberry's original ideas. Although the show features the original characters played by new actors, both George Takei and Walter Koenig have appeared to reprise their roles as Sulu and Checkov, and Roddenberry's son serves as a consulting producer.

Equally impressive is Star Trek: Hidden Frontier, which has made fifty full-length episodes depicting the voyages of the USS Excelsior in the Next Generation era. Current Star Trek rights owners CBS and Paramount rather awesomely tolerate unauthorized fan productions as long as the makers don't profit from them.

Awesome Star Trek images from DesktopStarships.

This weeks Simpsons journeyed into the fanfic-writing mind of little Lisa Simpson. After she meets Juliet, voiced by Blunt, the two escape to a world in their imagination. But their new-found friendship isn't meant to last. Their magical world begins to bleed into their real lives a bit too much.

But the best part of the entire episode is when Nelson Muntz pops up with his headless Darth Vader doll, which he presses against his Vader's "girlfriend," a broke-down Malibu Stacy. Excellent.

Enjoy the entire episode below:

Real World Metropolis was the second fan movie in a row made by Wells that won Wizard Magazine's now defunct "Direct To Video" contest (Superhero Birthday Party having won the year before), and at a Wizard-sponsored convention that year, his acceptance speech caught the attention of Marvel editor Axel Alonso:

So they show it - a spoof episode of The Real World, with super heroes in the house. Not blisteringly original but my friends make up for it by being funny as hell. I got to give a little speech afterwards. I got up there and took some friendly jabs at [Marvel Editor In Chief] Joe Quesada and [star Marvel writer] Brian Michael Bendis, spending ample time addressing the timely subject of how worthless my friends and I are - one of the few subjects I'm an expert in.

The next day I heard that Axel was looking for me, almost threw up, then ran into him in a bar that night. He asked me to send him some ideas for [now-cancelled anthology title] Spider-Man's Tangled Web. We went back and forth a bit and eventually he told me to just write it. It was pretty rough, but he helped me tighten it up. I'm sure I don't need to say it, but he's a damn good editor. And then I was off and running, head still spinning.

Real World Metropolis [YouTube.com]

Essentially, what Shadow Unit is, is a virtual serial drama—sort of a TV show without the actors or directors or Hollywood, for that matter. If you're familiar with the fanfiction concept of a virtual season, it won't seem that unfamiliar.

In addition to the site content (we plan to do eight novella-or-novel-length episodes a season, and Season 1 just started), there are also "DVD extras" (vignettes, goodies, artwork, cut scenes, clever bits of meta (a few pages from a crumpled shooting script that might have been used by one of the actors for this show that doesn't exist, for example)—and several of the characters have a web presence. Which is to say, in-character blogs that don't break the fourth wall.

It's all quite experimental.

Shadow Unit [official site]

QUIZ

1. Do you fight with your friends over whether Starbuck and Apollo would be better for each other than Starbuck and Anders on Battlestar Galactica? Or insist that Martha would be a more fit girlfriend for the Doctor than Rose, on Doctor Who? If you have these kinds of debates about any couples (real or potential) in a show, add 5 points to your score.

2. When you buy DVD box sets of your favorite show, do you skip to the episodes that show the most tension between people in your favorite couple? Plus 5 points for that. If you have ever bought a DVD that is specifically related to one relationship, like the Buffy/Spike special edition, give yourself 20 points.

3. Do you suspect it's just a scam to boost ratings when when two characters get together for a romantic liaison and then conveniently break it off one episode later? Take 5 points off your score.

4. Have you ever had a dream about your favorite couple from a TV show? Plus 5 points. Plus 20 points if you dreamed that you were one member of the couple.

5. Did you think the whole Han Solo/Princess Leia thing was either A) a lame plot diversion to get chicks to see a Star Wars movie, or B) a sexist plot to undermine Leia's power? If A or B, take 5 points off your score.

6. Did the love scenes between Padme and Anakin in Revenge of the Sith make you yearn for a fast-forward button? Well, that makes you normal. No points added or subtracted.

7. Have you ever thought maybe certain characters in the Star Trek universe are too slutty and need to settle down with certain characters who are more faithful? Give yourself 5 points.

8. Do you know that people write Shipper fiction on LiveJournal and share it with each other? Simply having that knowledge, even if you've never read any, means giving yourself 2 points.

9. Did you squeak - out loud OR in your mind - during the scene in Serenity when Kaylee and Simon got it on? Give yourself 5 points.

10. Are you bummed that Ripley from the Alien movies never hooked up with anybody? Plus 2 points. Have you tried to match her up in your mind with spaceship captains from other movies or TV shows? Plus 10 points.

SCORE

Less than 0 points. You're pragmatic about pop culture and maybe a little cynical about love.

Less than 10 points. You're just a normal person who enjoys science fiction and has occasional naughty thoughts.

10-20 points. Your ship is veering into Shipper territory. We suspect you fast-forward to the shippy parts of stories.

20-40 points. You've read at least one piece of fanfic, and more likely a thousand.

More than 41-50 points. Not only do you have a LiveJournal where you write about your favorite Ship, but you probably have a gang of friends who hate the rival Ship. You also refer to yourself as a Shipper in mixed company as if everybody knows what that means.

More than 50 points. You are to blame for the scene where Troi shaves Riker in the tub in Star Trek: Insurrection. Go sit in the corner with this silly hat on!