It’s a well known maxim that nobody wants to be a redshirt on Star Trek: The Original Series. The proud members of Operations, Engineering, and Security are the space-expendables, the first line of defense, the… well the ones who always get sent down with the away party full of more important characters and get murdered by the space monster of the week. Like, all the time. But what if, instead of considering this from the viewer’s perspective, you considered it from the perspective of a crewman choosing a line of work? What if you’re just a redshirt, and not “this episode’s redshirt?”

Matthew Barsalou took this perspective and applied math to it, and lets just say that Kirk, Chekov, and Sulu might not be to happy about it.

J.J. Abrams hasn’t been giving many details about Star Trek Into Darkness but he has said some interesting things about Dr. Carol Marcus. Oh, and he just happened to confirm whether or not we’ll be seing the Klingons this time around. 

The world is full of people with amazing ideas. The latest example is Star Trek & the City, a Twitter feed that mixes Star Trek with Sex and the City. Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha are all Starfleet officers dealing with the usual relationship promises and pitfalls. Whoever is running the account certainly has the Bradshaw voice down but it’s great imagining Kim Cattrall as her Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country character Lt. Valeris. I’m assuming the girls have somehow fashionized the regular Starfleet uniforms. Check out some of our favorite tweets and see how easily space explorations fits with sex talk.

(via io9)

I’m convinced having Leonard Nimoy doing voiceovers for space videos is the only way to go. Here he is now narrating a video about NASA’s Dawn mission. It’s goal is to study two of our universe’s largest aesteroids – Ceres and Vesta (though the Doctor Who fan in me keeps seeing Vastra instead of Vesta). Enjoy the dulcet tones of Nimoy as you travel into the beyond…

(via io9)

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It’s one thing to see science and science-fiction collide in something like the real sonic screwdriver, but it’s another when characters are involved. Star Trek’s own Captain Kirk, William Shatner, was recently spotted tweeting at the Canadian Space Agency’s Commander Chris Hadfield. About space. While Hadfield was actually in space headed for the International Space Station. It doesn’t get much better than this, folks.

(Why Evolution is True via Tipster Rebecca)

Previously in Star Trek

As you may have figured out by now, the White House’s petitions website, which pledges to respond and weigh in on the proposal of any petition that reaches 25 thousand signatures within thirty days, isn’t exactly the most… effective thing on the planet. Well, let me be more specific: it’s pretty effective a recording how many people have signed a petition. But it’s pretty clear that at best it’s an interesting way to get people thinking about what they want from their government and getting said government to acknowledge those desires in a way as committal or non-committal as they feel like on that particular day.

So I’m okay with somebody starting up a petition for the U.S. government to throw resources behind the Galaxy Questian endeavor of building a working Constitution Class starship Enterprise, as long as he admits that that’s not really the point.

I’m pretty sure I’ve gone on record before as stating that I will never ever get tired of the audio from movie and video game trailers being played over selected clips from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Here’s a MLP trailer for Star Trek Into Darkness. Maybe MLP:FiM could loan STID its colon? Maybe just for like, opening weekend.

(I’ve posted the actual STID trailer below, if you’d like to compare.)

We’ve already seen one of the new Star Trek Into Darkness images from the latest issue of Empire magazine. That one had Benedict Cumberbatch‘s character (technically he’s named John Harrison, but I’m calling him the CumberVillain until we find out who he really is) looking evil and scary in handcuffs like a bizarro Superman. Now, courtesy of Coming Soon, we have 12 more pics to share with you. Click through for Kirk, Uhura being awesome, Spock in a volcano, Scotty, Pike, and CumberVillain, CumberVillain, CumberVillain.

This new Star Trek Into Darkness has Christopher “I Dare You To Better” Pike and the CumberVillain splitting voiceover duties, creating a one-two punch of monologues that really gives the impression that someone is going to die (even more than the tail end of that Japanese trailer did). Unless J.J. Abrams is messing with us, which I absolutely would not put beyond him. Heed the words of the Backstreet Boys, Abrams, and please, please, quit playing games with my heart.

The trailer, as well as various questions and comments inspired by it, are behind the cut. Feel free to leave your own in the comments. We’ll get through this together.

I’m pretty sure Vulcans would consider “bling” illogical but that doesn’t mean Star Trek fans won’t jump at these. To be fair, these earrings by designer Raja Gondkar don’t look particularly comfortable and weren’t designed with the sci-fi series in mind but they did win him The Overall Design Award for the Bridal Wear Category at the Indian Jewelry Design Competition. Would you wear them?

(via When Geeks Wed)

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