CAPTAIN’S LOG: AN INTRODUCTION

AFTER 50 YEARS, THE TRUTH IS CLEAR: STAR TREK IS MORE THAN JUST A TV SHOW. IT’S AN IDEA THAT CHANGED THE WORLD

BY THOMAS E. WEBER

FOR ME, IT WAS A CHILDHOOD bonding experience with my grandfather, a Scottish immigrant whose brogue had a tendency to become more impenetrable when he was excited—a trait he shared with a certain chief engineer of the U.S.S. Enterprise. Star Trek’s first run had ended in 1969, but by the early 1970s, the show was beginning to find a robust second life in reruns. My grandfather and I would sit together and watch, thrilled whenever Scotty had a chance to do more than energize the transporter beam. The more I saw, the more captivating Trek’s fictional future seemed. Powerful computers. Constant adventure. And people committed to doing the right thing in the face of complicated moral dilemmas. I was hooked.

So were millions of other fans around the world. Star Trek, it turned out, was something much more than a popular television show. As we mark the 50th anniversary of its first episode, the phenomenon that is Star Trek is stronger than ever—with a 13th feature film arriving and a new series set to begin streaming in early 2017.

To commemorate this landmark anniversary, TIME’s editors examined the big question at the heart of all the passion and devotion: Why is Star Trek so influential? As you’ll see in this book, the answer is far more complex than the show’s capacity for telling good dramatic stories (though Trek has produced plenty of those). No, to really understand Star Trek’s appeal, you need to go back to the very beginning, as we do in “A Bold Vision,” to look at the DNA that Gene Roddenberry, the TV show’s creator, encoded deep in its design. Roddenberry, as you’ll see, didn’t just want to depict adventures in space. He wanted to show how the future offered the possibility of humans searching for the best in themselves and in one another.

That DNA imbued Star Trek’s fictional universe with an uncanny ability to connect with our real one in a number of ways. In “Diversity on the Bridge,” you’ll learn how the show’s ­forward-thinking casting helped inspire optimism about equal rights for all. “Racing to Space” details the ways Star Trek forged a link with the U.S. space program—right down to a real-life space shuttle named Enterprise. “Wait . . . Are They Making That Up?” looks at the theories behind Trek’s futuristic science, such as faster-than-light travel. And in “The Future of Gadgets Is Now,” we reveal the true stories of how the hardware of Starfleet helped inspired the technology we rely on every day.

Because alien life offered a singularly compelling way to hold a mirror up to humanity, Star Trek introduced a long line of memorable extraterrestrials. You can read the stories behind some of the most imaginative aliens in “To Seek Out New Life” and also find out about an actual Klingon war: a legal battle over the fictional race’s invented language. In “Spock and Awe,” you’ll get the inside scoop on the creation of history’s most famous Vulcan and his relationship with Capt. Kirk from none other than William Shatner himself.

In “Rise of the Trekker,” we uncover an energy source more powerful than the Enterprise’s antimatter engines: Trekkers, the dedicated fans who have kept Star Trek at the forefront of pop culture for over five decades. (We also present a completely impartial analysis of which space franchise is superior: Star Trek or Star Wars.) And in our closing chapter, “A Political Enterprise,” you’ll gain insight into the politics that have made Star Trek uniquely relevant, then and now.

Fifty years. Five TV series. Hundreds of episodes and a galaxy of characters, ships and plots. There’s plenty to explore, so read on—and live long and prosper.

Weber meets Leonard ­Nimoy backstage at ­Detroit’s Fisher Theatre in 1976. Nimoy was starring in a stage production of Sherlock Holmes.

EVERYONE DISCOVERS THE POWER OF STAR TREK IN HIS OR HER OWN WAY.

Thomas E. Weber is TIME’s ­executive editor.