T's Trek Trivia Tuesday: "Thank you for being a friend"

Friends are important in the Star Trek universe

MAY 17, 2022 - The Star Trek Book of Friendship by Robb Pearlman and Jordan Hoffman hit store shelves last week. As the title suggests, it takes a deep dive into some of the greatest friendships in the history of Star Trek, from Spock and Kirk’s chess game in the first scene of TOS through Paul Stamets and Jett Reno’s playfully contentious relationship in Star Trek: Discovery. It’s a fun transcription of two friends discussing friendship, with a few special guests stopping by and some gorgeous artwork by J. K. Woodward.

Friendship has always been an important part of Trek, and I thought this would be a good time to examine it. So, check out our own Alison Pitt’s interview with Pearlman and Hoffman below, then test yourself to see how much you know about bosom buddies in the Star Trek universe.

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We never saw Pavel Chekov and Hikaru Sulu meet, but we know they became friends during TOS, presumably after Chekov was transferred to the bridge from wherever he was during “Space Seed.” Although the series didn’t have a lot of time to examine their friendship, there were hints of it every once in a while, such as in the episode “The Deadly Years,” when Chekov is complaining about all the tests McCoy is running on him in sickbay, and Sulu, somewhat amused, says, “You’ll live.” There’s some real chemistry in that scene, and it’s a shame we never saw more of it.

By the time Star Trek V: The Final Frontier was released, they were taking shore leave together. A hostage situation on “The Planet of Galactic Peace,” Nimbus III, requires the Enterprise crew to cut their shore leave short.

What are Sulu and Chekov doing when they are recalled,, where, and what kind of trouble are they in?

Chekov is fed up with all the medical tests in "The Deadly Years"

Sulu and Chekov decided to visit Yellowstone National Park while the new Enterprise was being overhauled, with more problems than an iPhone’s beta software. When Uhura beeps Sulu’s communicator to have them return to the rendezvous point, they are hopelessly lost during a hike through the woods. Chekov advises Sulu not to tell her he’s lost, with the justification, “You’ll never live it down.”

Sulu’s great at flying a starship, but apparently not too good at thinking on his feet, claiming that they are in a blizzard. Rolling his eyes, Chekov goes with it, blowing into the communicator and saying that they can’t see a thing. The jig is up quickly, of course, when Uhura scans the area and sees that the weather in Yellowstone is beautiful. Amused, she tells them she’ll keep their secret and send a shuttle for them.

While it’s not super believable that either Chekov or Sulu would even get lost in the forest (after all, we, the denizens of the twenty-first century, have devices that can lead us out of the woods), it’s fun to see a humorous little scene between them, and also the genuine affection that Uhura seems to have for the pair.

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In the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “The Icarus Factor,” Worf is even moodier than usual, snapping at his friends and seeking solitude. Wesley Crusher is worried about him and mounts an investigation to find out what’s wrong, even going so far as to coerce Geordi and Data into observing him as he gazes at the stars in Ten Forward. This yields no results, but a little research into Klingon tradition gets some results.

What did Wes discover to be wrong with his Klingon friend, and what did he and the rest of the crew do to help?

Wesley tries to find out what’s wrong with his friend Worf, to little success at first, in “The Icarus Factor”

In every Klingon’s life, there comes a time of spiritual attainment, called the “Age of Ascension.” Worf had reached that time, but with no other Klingons aboard the ship, he felt he couldn’t perform the ritual involved. Once they knew what was bothering him, Worf’s friends programmed the ritual into the holodeck, luring him there for the surprise. The ritual involved a double-line of Klingons (including one played by then-Entertainment Tonight host John Tesh), each holding a painstik. The ascendee (in this case, Worf) would then walk between the lines, proclaiming, in Klingon, that he is a warrior. Each Klingon would then subject him to their painstik, until, exhausted and weakened, he made it to the other side. Worf has good friends, who not only care enough to program the ritual into the holodeck, but are also able to stand by and watch as he is willingly subjected to torture.

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Tom Paris and Harry Kim were friends from the moment they met at Quark’s bar. Once they were stranded in the Delta Quadrant with the USS Voyager, their friendship only grew, with Tom frequently trying to get Harry to go on double dates with him and the Delaney sisters, and the pair experiencing the black and white adventures of Captain Proton on the holodeck.

An early episode of VOY, “The Cloud,” takes a look at their friendship in a “B” plot. Tom breaks into Harry’s quarters in the dead of night, wakes him up, mocks his sleep mask, and tells him he has something to show him.

Where does Tom take Harry?

Tom Paris has a surprise for Harry Kim in "The Cloud"

When Tom was a cadet in Starfleet, he was stationed for a time in Marseilles, France. While there, he frequented a wharf-side bistro called Chez Sandrine, owned by a woman named - you guessed it! - Sandrine. Apparently in a nostalgic mood, Paris had programmed the bistro and its staff and customers into the holodeck, which is where he was taking Harry. The bistro featured a pool table, and Paris had added some of the great pool players of history into the program. By the end of the episode, the whole crew knows about the program and we find out that Captain Janeway, at first feigning ignorance about the game, is, perhaps, the best pool player on the ship.

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The crew of the USS Discovery, like that of Voyager, find themselves far from home. But in this case, they aren’t simply in another quadrant of space, but over 900 years in the future. Choosing to leave behind your friends and family, knowing you’ll never see them again, isn’t easy, and it tends to bond one to those who travel with them. It also causes anxiety, and in “Forget Me Not,” Saru and Culber decide they need to do something to ease the tension.

What does Saru decide to do to help his friends and crew?

Culber and Saru discuss the crew's mental health in "Forget me Not"

Saru decides that the best way to heal his crew’s mental health is by hosting a dinner party. The scene has a very “Thanksgiving dinner” feeling as the crew sits around a long table, quietly munching the goodies laid out before them. The tension mounts throughout the meal with bickering and Detmer’s meltdown, accompanied by her haiku about Stamets’ blood, ends the meal. Ultimately, Saru ends up taking the computer’s suggestion, showing the crew a Buster Keaton film, Sherlock Jr., and proving that laughter really is the best medicine.