‘Star Trek’’s Intergenerational Fan Base Shares More Than Just Quotes

At 76, Fran Friedrich knows the words to every episode of the original “Star Trek.” In fact, she’s pretty sure she could recite them by heart if she had to. “I say the lines with them, ’cause I’ve seen them a zillion times,” Ms. Friedrich said, referring to the nightly reruns of the original series on cable, which she watches in addition to streaming the other “Star Trek” series during the day. “I can’t live without it. It’s just part of my life.”

That’s how Ms. Friedrich’s son, Robert, remembers it, too. A “Star Trek” fan “by birth,” he described a childhood spent listening to his mother and his aunt quote different phrases from the show back and forth at each other, or speak them in unison. “Sometimes I’d catch it, and sometimes I didn’t,” Mr. Friedrich said. “And if I didn’t catch it, I knew it was from ‘Star Trek.’ It was always from ‘Star Trek.’”

As of 2026, the 60-year-old science fiction franchise boasts a fandom of carbon units — sorry, humans — that spans at least three generations. What began, in 1966, as a five-year space mission on the U.S.S. Enterprise to “boldly go where no man has gone before” now represents an anthology of space travel across more than 25 series and films in parts of two centuries. Where once it was James T. Kirk or bust, it’s not unusual to find fans who prefer other captains, like Picard, Janeway or Sisko. There are so many series to keep track of that fans often communicate using country code-like abbreviations for each installment: TOS (the original series), TNG (“The Next Generation”), DS9 (“Deep Space Nine”), ENT (“Enterprise”) and so on.

Outside the Trekiverse, disparities in generational slang, politics and social mores are practically a foregone conclusion. But “Star Trek” functions as connective tissue between fans past and present. Some of that tissue is just shared references: There will always be captain’s logs, timelines by stardate, warp factors one through 10, phasers and photon torpedoes and, every now and then, a doctor who insists, “I’m a doctor, not a ____!” The Vulcan salute has become a general symbol of geek-recognize-geek, but real Trekkies (or Trekkers, as some prefer) know that “Live long and prosper” is only half the message; the recipient is meant to say “Peace and long life” in response.

But the series’ staying power, and the ease with which each generation finds its way into them, is an indication that fans of all ages share not only language, but values, in common.

Ms. Friedrich, who grew up Catholic and remains religious, also found a certain proverbial wisdom in the ways in which characters treat one another. “Everyone cares about each other,” she said. “I’ve always liked that, because I’m kind of a compassionate person. And it relates to God quite a bit.”