Star Trek Voyager seems primitive in the post-Battlestar Galactica, but still had some remarkable ideas. 7 of 9 joined Voyager after being separated from the Borg Collective. With her metal parts removed, 7 of 9 opted for a skin tight jumpsuit and a fully featured female form. Retaining some of her Borg-like mentality and a child-like sociability, 7 of 9 started as high-class eye candy, but candy that made Voyager more interesting, and the Star Trek Universe a much hotter place.

Star Trek’s opening monologue has become a mantra for space travel. Space, the final frontier, must be explored because we’ve seen everything else. We have a more than 5-year mission to seek out new life and new civilizations. Captain “William Shatner” Kirk read the opening in almost every Star Trek episode followed by Patrick Stewart in the Next Generation. The opening went through several evolutions and only made it onto the show after several episodes were done filming, soon to premiere. The intro has even been placed inside Star Trek continuity as a speech by Zefram Cochrane, the inventor of warp travel. Because of his invention and the brilliances of televisions, geeks were able to, yes I’m this corny, boldly go where no man has gone before.

Loosing a friend, a confidant, and a mentor all at once, Spock’s death still stings the hearts of Trekkies everywhere. Spock sacrificed himself at the end of the second film, Wrath of Khan, under the assumption that actor Leonard Nimoy didn’t want to return in future films. Of course, Spock came back from the death in the next film, but the death scene itself remains an emotional and thrilling moment as two men, Spock and Captain Kirk, brothers in arms, true friends, said their final farewell. Until next time.

William Shatner’s unique acting style helped define Captain Kirk for generations. But all the years of over acting and stuttering speech paled in comparison to his To be or not to be moment. Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan brought the return of Kirk’s nemesis Khan. Years before (during the original series) Kirk left Khan on a barren planet hoping the world would placate the conqueror. But Khan escaped and launched his attack on the surprised captain. Kirk, enraged and shocked, let out a galactic scream that geeks would remember for years.

When Pig Latin isn’t enough, geeks turn to the popular alien language Klingon.  And thanks to its creator Marc Okrand, we have an entire dictionary dedicated to teaching us how to speak it.  Okrand, a linguistics professor at University of California, Santa Barbara, published the Klingon Dictionary in 1985.  He had been hired by Paramount Pictures to help create the language and teach the actors for the various Star Trek movies and series.  He even had a hand in developing the Vulcan language.  With the Klingon Dictionary in hand, geeks around the world have a common language and a sign for who are the truly devoted.

Goatees are evil.  This is a well known geek fact best portrayed by the Mirror, Mirror episode of the original Star Trek where the Enterprise accidentally trades Captain Kirk, Scotty, and Lt. Uhura for their alternate reality, evil dopplegangers.  In the Mirror Universe, Kirk meets evil, goatee wearing Spock and since that classic moment in facial hair history, I’ve never been able to look at Tim Curry the same way again.  Aside from being a classic Star Trek episode, Mirror, Mirror inspired years of prejudice against goatee wearing characters, becoming a common Hollywood tool to reveal the villain of the piece - like evil David Hasselhoff.  Terrifying, I know.

Campy, silly, cutesy.  These are totally the best description of what makes Star Trek great.  "Trouble with Tribbles" is the 1967 classic episode from the original Star Trek series where the Enterprise crew find these cute, furry balls that are born pregnant and reproduce like bunnies in an accelerated time warp.  The comical yet endearing episode has remained a fan favorite, even been worked into a time travel episode more than 20 years later in Deep Space Nine.  The Tribbles have evolved into a Star Trek staple, the butt of constant jokes and references across all science fiction.  If only all Star Trek villains were as cute and cuddly: it’d make their action figures a lot better.

Every geek dreams of commanding their own starship, but few get the chance.  I want to recognize the starship captains that have inspired us over the years.  They’ve shown up how to lead and how not to lead.  How to handle crisis and how not to handle crisis?  And most of all, how to speak every line with the gravitas of a Shakespearian actor.  Here’s to you, the 7 best starship captains and your gravitas.

7. Turanga Leela

The Planet Express ship might only be expected to deliver packages across the galaxy, but that hasn’t stopped Leela and her crew from stopped (and starting) interstellar catastrophes.  She’s help save the universe from random time skips to fighting giant bees, beetles, and women to doing with the nasty with an embarrassing cadre of space dorks.  All part of the job.

6. Captain Peter Quincy Taggart

So technically he’s a captain who isn’t a captain who becomes a captain but not really.  Well, for the sake of this list, Captain Peter Quincy Taggart can pretend to captain my ship any day.  Taggart captains the NSEA Protector on the classic TV series Galaxy Quest (best remembered in the documentary film of the same name).  On the show he foiled the greatest evil aliens the universe has ever seen, but his greatest triumph came in the 1999 Galaxy Quest film where he and his crew has to save an alien race from certain extinction.  Even though he was really an aging actor with no command experience except for lines in a script, Taggart rose to the occasion and saved the day.  Never give up. Never surrender.

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Wikipedia has been a great tool for geeks to finally write down all the crap we used to have to remember.  And now we can share that knowledge with the world wide web.  Wikipedia allows anyone to not only edit articles, but to start their own speciality encyclopedias.  This list ranks the geekiest, most complete wikia dedicated to the topics geeks care most about.  It’s not simply which site has the most articles, but how deep into the subject did it take to find that many articles.  And how geeky those articles are.  That counts.

7. Transformers Wiki

Want to know how more than meets the eye the Transformers really were?  Check out the Transformers Wikia.  There are more than 5,500 articles to transform your thinking about giant robots, from the comics to the cartoons to the movies, in every generation of the series.

6. Doctor Who Wiki

The fan community of the longest running sci-fi series have written more than 7,600 articles about the ten different Doctors and all his enemies and friends.  It’s like time travel without the motion sickness.

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Mel Brook’s love letter to Star Wars lampooned all the things we love…and hate…about this sci-fi saga.  Star wars creator George Lucas gave his blessing to Spaceballs as long as the movie produced no merchandise.  So Brooks included this classic scene where the wise Yogurt showed off all the cool Spaceballs toys, from Spaceballs cereal to Spaceballs the flamethrower.  The kids love that one.