The other day, I caught a ride home from the Office job with a coworker who’d recently discovered Lost. “It’s totally not the kind of show I thought I’d like, but I love JJ Abrams now!” he said, and when I followed up with, “Do you plan on seeing the new Star Trek?” his brow furrowed for a second before he admitted, “Yes! Fuck yes!” and then remarked how absolutely surprised he was that he’d ever possibly want to see anything relating to Star Trek.

It occurred to me that the new Star Trek movie has a lot of appeal far beyond the typical, dedicated Trekker or the casual Trekkie. Since Star Trek “lore” has been passed on through pop culture, I wondered what some of those interested in the movie knew about the original show. So I e-mailed some blogger acquaintances and asked if they’d be willing to take a short quiz on Trek (and, then, if they’d be okay with my mocking them on my blog).

Our participants … Arjewtino, Was It For This, Flip Flops in the Rain, Katherine of Who Invented Roses, Plight of the Pumpernickel, and Herb of DC. To help curve the exam, dorks Urban Bohemian and Pithy Comments agreed to participate as well.

1. In one sentence (honestly, you can do it one word), describe the focus of Klingon culture.

Arjewtino comes in strong with his response: “I believe they are an alien race focused on killing humanity, kind of like the Cylons in “Battlestar Galactica”. Klingons and Cylons might even be related, I believe.”

Plight of the Pumpernickel made me chuckle: “Uhh…peace and harmony? Or are they evil? In which case, death and destruction.”

Katherine, however, wins for her answer: “Death, mayhem and the eating of small snot-nosed children. Also, I know from season six of Buffy the Vampire Slayer that they developed their own written language.”

2. Spock is a member of what race?

FlipFlopsintheRain has a mostly accurate, yet sadly far too vague answer: “Alien?”

Arjewtino: “Oh, I know this! The Elfins, right? Wait, that might be Lord of the Rings, the Orlando Bloom dude. All I know is he does that thing with his fingers to form a “V”, which I didn’t know how to do until I was 21. True story. I was an embarrassment to my family.”

Katherine, alas, obviously cribbed her answer from Arjewtino: “Spock is an elf, as demonstrated by his pointy ears and lack of emotion. His fore bearers are the elves from Lord of the Rings. After they sailed away in those big boats, the elves developed Awesome Technology and got all chummy with the people of um, Deep Space 9, and shared their hypergalatic flying spaceboats….”

3. Chekov and Sulu both sit at the front of the ship: which is the navigator, and which is the pilot?

There are no runners up on this one. WasItForThis, (regardless of her admission to me that she “often get[s] Star Trek confused with Star Wars” — clearly, we were never meant to be) wins this one hands down: “I would say that Chekov’s affinity for stream-of-consciousness writing would, um, lend itself to an understanding of cartography, so clearly, Sulu is the helmsman.”

4. Fill in the blanks: “Dammit, Jim, I’m a ____ not a ____!”

PithyComments is a doctor, not a magician; WasItForThis is a man, not a piece of meat; FlipFlops in the Rain is a Klingon, not a robot; Pumpernickel is a doctor, not a miracle man nor a mindreader; Arjewtino is a mechanist, not a florist.

I think, however, this one goes to Urban Bohemian, the uberdork: “(tricky, since I’m not sure he actually said “Damnit, Jim”) Doctor/Bricklayer, Doctor/Engineer, Doctor/Mechanic, Doctor/Coal Miner and Doctor/Escalator are all I can remember (lots of geek pub trivia in my past).” Uh-huh. Excuses, excuses.

Truthfully — as long as it was “I’m a doctor”, you got full points … “Dammit, Jim, I’m a doctor not a porn star!” would’ve been perfectly acceptable.

5. What is the significance behind the term “red shirt”?

I’m going to start with WasItForThis: “College sports teams use the “red shirt” process to lengthen the the period an athlete is eligible to participate in collegiate-level sports.” Oh, that is so … FAIL!

FlipFlops: “The Klingon’s wear them on laundry day.” Also incorrect, but she’s trying.

Pumpernickel: “Communists in space?” Indeed, one could make the argument that the Federation is communist, since they don’t have that pesky money stuff anymore.

For pure funny, Katherine: “I’m sure it’s not indicative of menstruation, because that would be sexist, and the Federation is not sexist. So I’m going with a fashion statement… “Red, it’s The New Black” and the shirt is the new pencil skirt?” Nope!

Nailing it on the head, Arjewtino: “I totally know this for real! But not because of ‘Star Trek’, it’s because of ‘Family Guy’. The red shirts are the ones who always go down to some planet with the main characters and get killed. This is why I always wear blue.”

However, for total summing up, PithyComments: “You iz gonna be killd ded.”

6. What is the duration of the Enterprise’s mission?

PithyComments is right, yet, totally wrong: “1 hr give or take for commercials.”

WasItForThis is getting her 60s TV shows confused: “3 hour tour.” Katherine, too: “To infinity and beyond. Dunno. Didn’t they get lost in space or something? I just know there were a lot of Captain’s Logs.”

Back to Urban Bohemian for the WIN!: “5 Years.”

7. Scotty is in charge of what department on the Enterprise?

With the exception of Urban Bohemian, um, and Katherine, and, er, Herb of DC (who was wrong with his guess of “security”), everyone answered the same — and everyone was wrong. I’m going to lead with Footstep’s answer: “Beaming! (That was an easy one.)”

Pumpernickel also went with beaming, but added: “And speaking in a stereotypical Scottish accent.”

Katherine was right on the dot: “The Department For The Futherance Of Warp Speed and Beaming People Up, duh!” Scotty, of course, was the Enterprise’s Chief Engineer, and made the ship go voom-voom. He also sometimes went to the transporter room, and complained about his bairns. No, I don’t know what bairns are either.

8. The Enterprise travels by ____ propulsion.

Pithy: “Laser?” WasItForThis: “Jet, duh. Or possibly some liberal, left-wingnut “clean” energy source. Damn commies.” FlipFlops: “space?” Arjewtino: “Jet propulsion would probably be too primitive a technology for the Enterprise, so I’m going to say matzo ball propulsion. That’s how I travel.”

UrbanBohemian covers all the bases: “Impulse, or warp for FTL.” (Of course, there’s an argument that warp isn’t really FTL, that it moves space, not the ship. In any case …)

9. Name two characteristics of a Tribble.

Katherine thinks they “come in peace and are furry.” She adds that they’re
[s]imilar to a Furby, but they bite.” What’s a Furby? I don’t know, but this is why they invented Google.

Arjewtino thinks this is a trick question — clearly, “it’s the name of a Teletubby.”

Herb of DC, on the other hand, believes Tribbles to possess “tiny Munchkin-like hands.” He also thinks they “look like Munchkins.”

It’s Pithy for the WIN!: “They multiply rapidly and they’re small, furry creatures.” Also acceptable: they’re born pregnant, and they’re allergic to Klingons.

10. What does it mean to “beam” somewhere?

Herb’s got a strong answer right out of the box on this one: “You get in these tubey things and dissolve and are transported to some planet where everyone is blonde and hot (see: Navigator) and then when all the hot people die you are beamed back to the tubes on the ship.” (Apparently, Herb thinks Chekov is ‘teh hot’).

WasItForThis, clearly, spends too much pushing papers: “You say ‘Beam me up, Scotty’ and Scotty tears himself away from the payroll receipts, presses a button, and you appear on whatever planet you wanted to go to.” Well, except, ‘beam up’ would be the command to return to the ship … see?

Pumpernickel: “You’re transported from one place to another in a beam of light. It’s my preferred mode of transportation.” And having read this nightmare post about a taxi ride, who can blame her?

Despite her claim that she knows “NOTHING about Star Trek”, Katherine nailed this one, too, so I’m thinking she spends her evenings watching 1960s TV shows and drooling over Avery Brooks as her ideal boyfriend (hey, if I liked men, he’d be mine!): “Tele-port them, but you gotta do it right or they loose important bits. Like fingers and belt buckles and hair (which is why Captain Picard is bald — tragic beaming accident).”

Up Next: the FINAL Question!!!!!

When is Star Trek set? It’s okay to guesstimate by centuries.

Herb: “2050.” Pithy Comments: “5000.” WasItForThis: “1984.” FlipFlops: “In the future. The far, far future.” Pumpernickel: “Um … it’s not in the distant past, is it? Like a thousand years in the future maybe?” Katherine: “Which one? There were lots. So is this a trick question? If not, I’m going with start date 3110.”

Oddly, of the “know nothing about Trek crowd”, it’s Arjewtino who comes closest: “The 23rd century? I’ll say 2212 to be exact.” Indeed, Star Trek — Classic Star Trek — was set in the second-half of the 23rd Century.

Here’s how everyone did:

Herb of DC: 3!
Pithy Comments: 8 (although two of those were 1/2 points …)
Urban Bohemian: 100%, A++, Full Marks!*
WasItForThis: Although Klingons are good, no doubt, at “babymaking”, alas — 2.5.
Footsteps — 3!
Plight of the Pumpernickel: 5.5
Katherine “I know NOTHING about Star Trek”: 3.5
Arjewtino: 5.5

*Dork!

Thanks for playing! Now, go visit their blogs and mock their inability to carry on a drunken conversation in Klingon. This smokin’ chick can!