Clueless about Star Trek? You've come to the right place!
Okay. I've tried to make my story as user-friendly as possible to those not familiar to the Star Trek universe, although a few off-hand comments from one of my friends (you know who you are!) has made me decide to create a little dictionary of sorts to help people understand.
The Ship and Equipment
The Enterprise-E = The starship that they're on.
The Bridge = The main control centre of the Enterprise. This is where the senior crew generally spend most of their time. All primary systems can be accessed from here, including command, engineering, environmental systems (ie. life support), navigation and tactical.
Main Engineering = The location of the ship's propulsion systems, and other general engineering stuff (for lack of a better word!).
Impulse Drive = The main type of propulsion used on board. It is used while inside star systems, and while orbiting planets.
Warp Drive = Faster than light speed. Warp 1 is the slowest, and Warp 9 is the fastest, although high warp speeds cannot be used for extended periods of time. Warp 10 is impossible.
Sickbay = The hospital.
Hypospray = A shot without a needle (boy, wouldn't that be nice!)
Phaser = A gun, so to speak. The laser beam emitted can be adjusted for strength - it can be set to stun or can be powerful enough to kill.
Transporter = It takes you apart molecule by molecule and reassembles you where you want to be, molecule by molecule. It takes a few seconds to complete the process. This is probably one of the more far-fetched fantasies in the Star Trek universe - today, scientists are able to take things apart in a similar manner, although putting things back together in the right order has proven to be something of a challenge.
Turbolift = An elevator capable of going left and right as well as up and down. It is generally voice activated, although there are control panels available for manual overrides.
Main Star Trek Characters
Captain Picard = The captain (duh) of the Enterprise.
Commander William T. Riker = The executive officer, second in command only to the Captain. He is often referred to by the Captain as Number 1.
Lt. Commander Data = Data is an android (a concious robot - capable of thinking for himself), and is the third in command of the Enterprise.
Lt. Commander Geordi LaForge = Chief of Engineering - he's the one that keeps the ship up and running. He was born blind, and for most of his life used a Visor (a headband worn over the eyes) that enabled him to 'see'. Now he has optical implants.
Lt. Worf = Chief of Security. Worf is a Klingon (Klingon's have the funny ridges on their foreheads), and has a strong sense of duty and honor towards things and people he respects.
Cmdr. Deanna Troi = The ship's Counsellor. She is half human, half Betazoid. Full Betazoids are telepaths - they can read minds. Deanna is an empath - she can sense feelings. She can pretty much be compared to a mood ring in certain situations.
Doctor Beverly Crusher = The ship's Doctor (duh). She is one of the best doctors in Starfleet - she left the ship for a year to head Starfleet Medical back on Earth.
Federation? Starfleet? Huh?
Okay, so what's the difference between the Federation and Starfleet? The UFP (United Federation of Planets) is the whole thing. Planets are members of the UFP, and are therefore entitled to protection by Starfleet. Starfleet officers have to go through Starfleet Academy before being assigned to space duty. They follow the chain of command. Generally, Starfleet is a fleet of ships dedicated to the exploration of space. They are, however, the enforcers of Federation law. Protection of UFP planets falls into the category of Starfleet, and wars are fought by Starfleet too.
I've Saved the Best for Last!
Two characters that I know we all love:
Lieutenant Darren Hayes = I haven't determined what exactly he does (command, security, engineering, medicine, science, etc) on the ship, although it never really comes up in the story to know what he does so that's why I haven't decided. Considering the ages are about the same - he is a very young officer to hold the rank of Lieutenant.
Daniel Jones = An academy dropout. (well, in real life he dropped out of high school, so I'm going for the parallelism here).
