History
During production of early episodes of the original series, several details of the makeup of the Star Trek universe had yet to be worked out, including the operating authority for the USS Enterprise. The terms Star Service ("The Conscience of the King"), Spacefleet Command ("The Squire of Gothos"), United Earth Space Probe Agency ("Charlie X" and "Tomorrow Is Yesterday"), and Space Central ("Miri") were all used to refer to the Enterprise's operating authority before the term "Starfleet" became widespread from the episode "Court Martial" onwards.
References to UESPA were inserted into episodes from later series. For example, the Friendship One probe (launched, on the fictional timeline, in 2067) is marked with the letters UESPA-1 in the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Friendship One". Other background props included additional UESPA references, such as Captain Jean-Luc Picard's family album in Star Trek Generations. During the production of Star Trek: Enterprise, some larger Starfleet insignia designs included the name "United Earth Space Probe Agency".
Many Star Trek: Enterprise episodes refer to Starfleet having already been in full operation in 2119, when it funded research begun by Cochrane and Henry Archer leading to the first successful flight of Warp 3 vessels in the 2140s. This research is said to have evolved into the NX Program leading to Starfleet launching its first Warp 5-capable starship, Enterprise (NX-01), in 2151, followed by Columbia (NX-02) in 2155, as well as other vessels. Starfleet thereby becomes the lead exploratory and military wing of Earth.
Starfleet has a Prime Directive of non-interference with developing worlds or their internal politics. This is said not to be a Human construct, but stemmed from policies originally implemented by the Vulcans, who used the attainment of warp speed as a barometer for making first contact with a civilization. The Prime Directive and Starfleet's first contact policies are at the center of several episodes in each Star Trek series and the film Star Trek: First Contact. For obvious continuity reasons, in Star Trek: Enterprise, the Prime Directive is conspicuously absent.
Starfleet Headquarters is shown to be located on Earth, northeast of the Golden Gate Bridge in the Fort Baker area. Starfleet Academy is located in the same general area. Additionally, various episodes show Starfleet operating a series of starbases throughout Federation territory, either built as planet-side facilities or as orbital docking stations (notably the titular installation in the Deep Space Nine series).
Read more about this topic: Starfleet
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“In history the great moment is, when the savage is just ceasing to be a savage, with all his hairy Pelasgic strength directed on his opening sense of beauty;—and you have Pericles and Phidias,—and not yet passed over into the Corinthian civility. Everything good in nature and in the world is in that moment of transition, when the swarthy juices still flow plentifully from nature, but their astrigency or acridity is got out by ethics and humanity.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“We are told that men protect us; that they are generous, even chivalric in their protection. Gentlemen, if your protectors were women, and they took all your property and your children, and paid you half as much for your work, though as well or better done than your own, would you think much of the chivalry which permitted you to sit in street-cars and picked up your pocket- handkerchief?”
—Mary B. Clay, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 3, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“The principal office of history I take to be this: to prevent virtuous actions from being forgotten, and that evil words and deeds should fear an infamous reputation with posterity.”
—Tacitus (c. 55–c. 120)