Star Trek

Star Trek is a popular and long-lived science fiction television series that was created by Gene Roddenberry and published by Paramount Pictures, a famous television and film studio.

Brief history
Started in 1964, the series proposal to Paramount kicked off rather poorly with its first pilot episode, "The Cage". Critics in the company cited that the original pilot was too complex or too intelligent for prime time viewers to understand, and the network executives asked Roddenberry to make some adjustments which included removing the pointy-eared officer from the cast. The drafting board was put to work to create an alternate pilot, and within that year they produced their first official episode titled "Where no man has gone before" which earned the green light and was aired in 1966 on the NBC network.

However, Roddenberry wasn't going to let go of all of the cast members he was asked to cut. In the second pilot, the "pointy eared" officer was kept where he is and the other cast member, the original pilot's first officer, was recast with blonde hair and put into sickbay as a nurse. This character later became known as Nurse Chapel while the pointy-eared officer became known as Mister Spock and identified as a Vulcan. (In Roddenberry's own words: "I kept the Vulcan and married the woman, because obviously I couldn't have done it the other way around.")

The series plot had called for a 5 year mission of the USS Enterprise, the center stage of nearly all the episodes in the show and the start for nearly all of them as well. It sufferred from a short budget and limited resources, a trouble which plagued special effects and set crews as well as the prop designers and makeup crews when they couldn't assemble everything they needed to make things happen more realistically. Yet despite the budget shortfalls, the series quality gradually got better. Unfortunately, three years into the "five year mission", Paramount Pictures canceled the series citing that the show had poor ratings. And in a twist of irony, the demographics had shown the company that the show had appealed to the target audience exactly as the advertisers had hoped and since that time, the show had remained in popular syndication.

This popular demographics had also resulted in the creation of Star Trek: The Animated Series, a very short-lived spinoff which for the most part consisted of sequels to episodes of The Original Series.

From 1986 and on, the series produced sequels entitled Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, and Star Trek: Enterprise.

In the afterglow of the various shows, twelve films have been produced, the majority of them following the USS Enterprise on her ongoing mission to seek out new life and new civilizations as she boldly goes where no one has gone before.

Species
The universe of the Star Trek series consisted predominantly of humans at first, as they were the most visible on the show. However, the series as a whole introduced species like the Romulans, Klingons, Caitians (in the cartoon), Orions, Bajorans, The Borg, and even the Jem'Hadar.

Technology
The technology as a whole in the series is often based using real physics. However much one looks at it though, some technology just defies physics itself and it is all considered fictional with exceptions. For example, the "hypospray" in the series was a device that injected medical compounds into the blood stream without having to pierce the skin with any kind of needle. In reality, much the same thing can be done although articles have to be found to support this.

Furries and Trek
So far, only a few species in the show are considered of interest in regard to the furry fandom.

The most notorious is the tribble, an extremely furry, extremely unintelligent species - effectively a hungry ball of fur that purrs or screams depending on it's perceived level of safety. Even so, there are a handful of furs using the Tribble as their fursona of choice - the most notable being Shujin Tribble and his child, 'Tiny Tribble'.

Another notable species are the Caitians which to this date are considered non-canon in general though have been referenced in one movie and in about two of the syndicated shows of the series.

Additionally, the sister feline races of Eeiauoan and Sivaoan appear (and play leading role) in Star Trek series novel Uhura's Song. Other feline races include the Caitians, seen in the animated series and the movie Star Trek IV, and the Kzinti, also from the animated series.

At the furry fan fiction level, the Chakona Space setting that provides backstory for the chakat species is embedded within Star Trek continuity.

Furry characters are featured in the fan fiction and audio drama series TrekWars: The Furry Conflict.