"... to boldly go where no man has gone before."

Background Information

Star Trek was a Sci-Fi television drama created by Gene Rodenbery, first aired in 1966. It featured the adventures of the starship Enterprise lead by Captain Kirk and his crew to expore the galaxy and meet various aliens. During its time the show was praised for detailing serious real life themes in science fantasy setting and also had a fairly solid main cast with their interactions often being an important part of the show. Star Trek rapidly gained cult popularity and its actors became minor celebrity figures thus beginning the legacy of the franchise. After the launch of Star Trek: The Next Generation, this show earned the retronym "Star Trek: The Original Series".

Overall Star Trek TOS is an enjoyable show though it certainly shows its age. Its characters are arguably the best the franchise ever had and while the shows various scientific or philosophical themes may even make you question whether Rodenbery was on drugs, the character drama and interactions are quite well done. By today's standards Star Trek is by no means the "serious show" it was once celebrated as but it still has a definite charm.

Canonicity

The Original Series is part of the bigger Star Trek franchise. Albeit due to various retcons with succeeding series it could be also defined as its own separate continuity.

The so-called "TOS-canon" consists of:

• Star Trek: The Original Series( TOS 1966-1969, 3 seasons, 79 episodes)
• Star Trek: The Animated Series (TAS, 1973-1974, 22 episodes)
• Star Trek: The Motion Picture (ST:TMP, 1979 movie)
• Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (TWOK, 1982 movie)
• Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (TSFS, 1984 movie)
• Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (TVH, 1987 movie)
• Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (TFF, 1989 movie)
• Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (TUC, 1991 movie)
• Star Trek Generations (GEN, bridges TOS and TNG in a way, 1994 movie)

There are of course tons of various other merchandise related to the TOS era but as with the mainstream series these aren't considered canon.Databooks and tech manuals are mostly consistent with what the show told (unlike for latter series) so it's a plus.

The rebooted Star Trek movies technically also take place in the 23rd century. There are several attempts to reconcile the previous Star Trek series with the 2009 and 2013 movies but regardless of these efforts the so-called nuTrek is an alternate universe and aside from using the same characters (and bastardizing a lot of plot elements) they're separate and don't belong to TOS.

Standing in the Battledome

Just like the mainstream setting the original Star Trek is also a sci-fi/space opera with humans becoming a major interstellar power and the galaxy is populated by countless aliens. The size of the Federation is fairly contradictory, ranging from claimed to be barely extending for 100 lightyears to covering a considerable portion of the galaxy. Same with the Klingons who were portrayed as the Federation's rivals. Starship feats if possible fluctuate even more in TOS than it did in any of succeeding series. The Enterprise at Warp 9.5+ has feats of traveling at hundreds of trillions of times the speed of light, leaving the Milky Way far behind it within just seconds. Some aliens are capable of reaching Warp 15 or even Warp 36. The Enterprise or other ships also regularly used Warp speed while fighting or maneuvering, once even traveling in a narrow circle at Warp 10. Firepower-wise the Enterprise's best feats are in the continent-busting range, most competing races like the Klingons, Vulcans or the Gorn. Consitution-class ships like the Enterprise also have even more powerful shields, capable of even taking the 6 exaton burst from the Planet Killer. Albeit this depletes the Enterprise's power reserves rapidly and cannot take more than a several such attacks.

Unlike later Star Trek shows TOS usually deals with problems via cunning, brawl and diplomacy and technobabble solutions are rare. Even then there are examples like time travel, accidentally switching place with their alternate reality selves, various virus cures and a few more. The Federation also have the Genesis Device. Originally designed to rapidly terraform planets the Genesis rapidly deploys an energy matrix which transforms anything caught within into a life-bearing planet with accelerated growth. Unfortunatelly the technology turned out to be unstable but as a weapon the "Genesis Torpedo" would possess terrible power.

Star Trek TOS is infamous for featuring tons of weird and overpowered aliens. Energy beings, noncorporeals, godlike humanoids and things even weirder. They were regularly featured in TOS and would add a great deal to the verse's power.
Honorable include:

• Talosians: Inhabitants of Talos capable of mind controling people from many lightyears away, giving them extremely realistic illusions, manipulate computers with their mind and supposedly capable of easily destroying the Enterprise with their mental power.
• Trelane: Child of a sufficiently advanced race playing with an artificial planet as his toy. He's non-corporeal, can teleport and alter reality to some extend.
• Metrons: Sufficiently advanced aliens who can shut down the Enterprise from lightyears away, teleport people and can perhaps do even more.
• Lazarus: A scientist with his time and dimensional travel capable of ship bent on killing his antimatter universe counterpart. Contact between the two versions of Lazarus would've apparently annihilated both universes.
• Organians: Former humanoids who evolved beyond the need of physical bodies. They have telepathy, can sense events from countless lightyears away and managed to neutralize both the Federation and Klingons, forcing them to a ceasefire.
• Ornithoid Species: Travelers from other galaxy whose "transmuters" could give them mind control, matter manipulation and illusionary abilities.
• Olympians: Former visitors to Earth whom the Greek revered as gods. Apollo using his temple as power source he could manipulate energy enough to overwhelm the Enterprise, grow in size and perform other feats.
• Redjac: An alien non-corporeal entity feeding on fear and capable of possessing both people and objects (even the Enterprise).
• Nomad: 22th century Earth probe merged with the alien machine Ta Ru. It was much more powerful than the Enterprise, could counter telepathy, resurrect people and manipulate technology with ease.
• Providers: Rulers of Triskelion with tech much more advanced than the Federation. Can transport people from 3 lightyears away, disable the Enterprise and others.
• Dikronium cloud creature: Gaseous entity that drains the lifeforce of beings, shift into different time to avoid phasers and photon torpedoes and can travel faster than the pre-upgrade Enterprise.
• Giant Space Amoeba: planet-sized single cell creature of negative energy which drains lifeforce from lightears away and shrouded in arkness where everything is dawn like it were a black hole and the rules of physics were inverted. Could only be destroyed by the "negative energy" of a photon torpedo.
• Kelvan Empire: Rulers of the Andromeda Galaxy with technology obviously superior to the Federation.
• Grogan: A non-corporeal entity that manipulated minds to turn them insane and mislead children to use them as tools for his plans of domination.
• Beta-XII-A Entity: Non-coporeal being that fed on violent impulses of sentient beings who could read minds, heal fatal injuries, manipulate matter
• Scalosians: Live while being massively accelerated in speed. Have a special drug whihc makes people as fast as them, obviously FTL
• ...
• V'Ger: Gigantic mechanism surrounded by an absolutely huge multi-AU wide electromagnetic storm. It could almost overwhelm the Enterprise's shields and has attacks hundreds of times more powerful.
• Various psychics with telepathy, clairvoyance, matter manipulation and some degrees of reality warping.

Supporters of the Series

• Es (Guy of G)
  
• Ultimate Deathsaurer (Agent Washington)
• willyereb

OBD Profiles

Character Profiles

• James T. Kirk
• Khan Noonien Singh
• Nomad
• Spock

Vehicle/Vessel Profiles

• USS Enterprise NCC-1701
• Planet Killer

Weapon Profiles

• Genesis Device
• Hand Phaser (TOS)
  

Civilization/Race/Faction Profiles

• United Federation of Planets