Before Star Trek there was Pulp! Here are three dozen different ideas seen on Star Trek the original series, Star Trek The Next Generation and in all its other series and movies. All these concepts appeared in old magazines, some even before the Pulps. I gratefully acknowledge a wonderful resource known as the Science Fiction Timeline of Inventions.
Before the Pulps
Prime Directive
The idea that the Federation should not meddle in developing planets is the oldest idea found on the show. Despite all the chin-wagging to protect this ideal, it was often challenged.
“I would have found a way to come,” he said easily, yet with a strange accent; somewhat as though his words were snowflake crystals, cold at first but melting as they fell. “We had not thought it worth while; but you have made so much advance lately that it seemed best to help you. We Kurols move by will-power. It is said many of our people have come to you secretly before. We know a great deal about your life. But until just now it was against the law for our people to visit earth; it lowered them, and always did you harm, and caused wars among you, much against our will and desire. Even now, I fear my coming will make disturbance.” (In the Deep of Time by George Parsons Lathrop, 1879)
Universal Translator
When you get to space, how will communicate with all those aliens? Well, computers are pretty amazing so why wouldn’t they be able to translate for you? It is also pretty convenient for the writers too…
“When, after countless experiments and disappointments, and days and nights of hard study and hard work, I finished my little machine, which I called a translatophone, I was naturally anxious to see how it would work with some other person than myself at the mouth-piece. In the course of its construction I had frequently tried the machine by putting the ear-piece into my ear and speaking into the mouth-piece such scraps of foreign languages as I was able to command. These experiments were generally satisfactory, but I could not be satisfied that the machine was a success until some one else should speak into it in some foreign tongue of which I knew positively nothing, so that it would be impossible for me to translate it unconsciously. (My Translaphone” by Frank Stockton 1901)
The 1920s
Android
The term android dates back to the 18th Century. Karl Capek’s robots in “R.U. R.” (1920) are probably the first prominent use of androids. Capek coins the term “robot’ but his creations are really androids, not clanking metal men.
Parallel Universe
“We conceive ourselves to be living in a parallel universe to yours, on a planet the very brother of your own.” (Men Like Gods by H. G. Wells 1923).
Star Trek did the classic “Mirror, Mirror” episode that so many shows have copied since like Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Star Trek returned to the idea big time with Star Trek: Discovery.
Spacesuit with a Dome Helmet
Star Trek didn’t use spacesuits a lot. Being able to scan the planet then beam down there wasn’t much call. Occasionally Kirk or Spock got into one though.
“After I had gotten into the suit, the Professor placed over my head a sort of transparent dome which he explained was made of strong unbreakable bakelite. The globe itself really was made of several globes, one within the other. The globes only touched at the lower rim. The interstices where the globes did not touch formed a vacuum, the air having been drawn from the spaces. Consequently heat could not escape from the transparent head piece nor could the cold come in. From the back of this head gear, a flexible tube led into the interior; this tube being connected to a small compressed oxygen tank, which the Professor strapped to my back.” (“The Man From the Atom” by G. Peyton Wertenbaker, Science and Invention, August 1923)
Handheld Ray-Gun
H. G. Wells gave us the heat ray in The War of the Worlds (1898) but it took a while before the idea of holding such a device in your hand came along.
“Well it was for me that, in obedience to Hul Jok’s imperative command, I was holding my Blastor pointing ahead of me; for as I blundered full upon the monstrosity it upheaved its ugly bulk—how I do not know, for I saw no legs nor did it have wings—to one edge and would have flopped down upon me, but instinctively I slid forward the catch on the tiny Blastor, and the foul thing vanished—save for a few fragments of its edges—smitten into nothingness by the vibration hurled forth from that powerful little disintegrator. (“When the Green Star Waned” by Nictzin Dyalhis, Weird Tales, April 1925)
Starship
Calling a ship that travels between the stars a “starship” showed up in 1926, but “Space-ship” is even earlier from 1894.
“Before they quarrelled, the two scientists invented a wonderful projectile, capable of travelling through the millions of miles of ether that separated Ikon and the world, swearing a solemn vow that neither would use it except in the interests of the earthmen. But crazy, planning diabolical schemes of world rulership, Swarfsmidt travelled, aboard his starship, to Ikon, where he obtained supreme power.” (War in Space by Raymond Quiex, Boys’ Magazine 1926)
Spock’s Brain
The idea of communicating with a severed head or brain goes back to at least “The Talking Brain” (Amazing Stories, August 1926) by M. H. Hasta. Eando Binder wrote a novel called “Enslaved Brains” in Wonder Stories, July 1934. Anthony Gilmore used it in the Hawk Carse series and later Edmond Hamilton had his Science Guy a severed brain in Captain Future. Not Star Trek’s best episode…
Space Patrol
The concept of an interstellar patrol of ships that cruise around the galaxy (or solar system) keeping everything in check begins with “Crashing Suns” by Edmond Hamilton, Weird Tales, August 1928 and ran to eight stories. Hamilton told of different ships and captains in this series, who took on invaders, robots, well, you know the kind of stuff…
Borg
Edmond Hamilton was busy in the 1920s. His “The Comet Doom” was another important tale, giving us the invading killer cyborg. This story inspired some of those stolen brain stories, too, like H. P. Lovecraft’s Yuggothian brain jars.
“When the brain is finally placed in its platinum chamber, the surgeon carefully connect the nerve ends of the brains with the electrical nerve connections of the metal body. Then an apparent miracle is accomplished. The body lives, it can move, and can walk. And that intelligence is now forever free from the demands of it’s former body of flesh, residing as it does now in the untiring metal body which requires neither food nor sleep.” (“The Comet Doom” by Edmond Hamilton, Amazing Stories, January 1928)
Phasers
Still more Hamilton, going back to “Crashing Suns”. Ed got the idea first of spaceships having laser weapons to attack each other or asteroids or whatever you needed to blow up.
“…there leaped from the foremost of the up-rushing craft a pale broad beam of ghostly white light that stabbed up toward and past us, grazing our ship, and that struck the foremost of the ships of our squadron behind us. I saw the broad beam strike that ship squarely, saw it playing on and through it, and for a moment could see no effect apparent. Then, as the great pale beam played across the ship in a swift slicing sweep, I saw that as it shone through that ship’s pilot room the figures inside it suddenly vanished! The next movement the ship had suddenly driven crazily off into space, whirling blindly away without occupant or crew, all life in it wiped instantly from existence by that terrible death-beam that had played through it!” (“Crashing Suns” by Edmond Hamilton, Weird Tales, August 1928)
The 1930s
Artificial Gravity
The scientific term actually dates back to 1813 but the first SF writer to really worry about it in space fiction was Ray Cummings. When we got closer to actually going into space the concept of spinning the ship to create a gravity field came into being. Artificial gravity allows you to move around less. Star Trek would not address it often, but it did make for a cool scene in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, when the Klingons get murdered.
“We rushed to the nearest descending ladder. In the deserted lower room the bank of dials stood neglected. A score of dials and switches were here, governing the magnetism of different areas of the ship. There should have been a night operator, but he was gone.” (Brigands of the Moon by Ray Cummings, March April May June 1930)
Lunar Mining
Ray Cummings also explored the idea of mining on the moon. Star Trek has miners in several stories but the most prominent is Star Trek VI again when the moon Praxis blows up too much mining.
“The work was over. The borers had been dismantled and packed away. At one end of the cliff the mining equipment lay piled in a ltter. There was a heap of discarded ore where Grantline had carted and dumped it after his crude refining process had yielded it as waste. The ore slag lay like gray powder flakes strewn down the cliff.” (Brigands of the Moon by Ray Cummings, March April May June 1930)
Visi-plate (Screens)
“On screen!” says Captain Picard in his British and commanding manner. The idea of having a viewscreen would have been important for a medium as visual as television. But, of course, the Pulps were there long before Star Trek. This one was created by Doc Smith, another SF pioneer. He might not have been very first but his version of space opera became dominant very quickly.
“Crane looked into the visiplate and gasped.” (Skylark Three by E. E. Doc Smith Amazing Stories, August September October 1930)
Force Field
Again Doc Smith. The force field is so useful on Star Trek. Any time you want to put someone in jail or create a weird barrier, there it is.
“The inhabitants of planet three of sun six four seven three Pilarone show unusual development and may cause trouble, as they have already brought knowledge of the metal of power and of the impenetrable shield to the Central System, which is to be our base. Recommend volatilization of this planet by vessel sent on special mission.” (Skylark Three by E. E. Doc Smith Amazing Stories, August September October 1930)
Terraforming
The idea of changing a planet to suit our needs got the term “terraforming” from Jack Williamson in the 1940s, but he wasn’t the first to use the idea. Olaf Stapeldon, a visionary SF writer equal to H. G. Wells got his one rolling. The Star Trek films have the Genesis Device to create a world from a barren rock.
“On the other hand, Mars could not be made habitable without first being stocked with air and water; and such an undertaking seemed impossible. There was nothing for it, then, but to attack Venus. The polar surfaces of that planet, shielded by impenetrable depths of cloud, proved after all not unendurably hot. Subsequent generations might perhaps be modified so as to withstand even the sub-arctic and “temperate” climates. Oxygen was plentiful, but it was all tied up in chemical combination. Inevitably so, since oxygen combines very readily, and on Venus there was no vegetable life to exhale the free gas and replenish the ever-vanishing supply. It was necessary, then, to equip Venus with an appropriate vegetation, which in the course of ages should render the planet’s atmosphere hospitable to man.” (Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon, 1930)
Tractor Beam
All those ships in space, wouldn’t it be handy if there was some way to grab hold of them. Doc Smith also gave us the tractor beam.
“We’ll carry off the pieces of that ship, too, Quince—we may be able to get a lot of pointers from it,” and Brandon swung mighty tractor beams upon the severed halves of the Jovian vessel, then extended a couple of smaller rays to meet the two little figures racing across the smooth green meadow toward the Sirius. (“Spacehounds of the IPC” by E. E. Doc Smith, Amazing Stories, July August September 1931)
Photon Torpedo
So many of the ideas about spaceships are based on naval vessels. Torpedoes are no exception. Jack Williamson thought of these devices after World War I and the rise of submarine warfare.
“Bill pressed the red button. The tube drove heavily backward in his hands, and then was but a light, sheetmetal shell. He saw a little gleam of white light before him, against the right blue globe, a diminishing point. It was the motor ray that drove the torpedo speeding toward its mark.” (“The Prince of Space” by Jack Williamson, Amazing Stories, January 1931)
Light Speed
Now the term “light speed” belongs to another franchise but Star Trek‘s version of “warp speed” basically means the same thing. The concept of going really fast is important in a place as big as space.
“I’ll stick at twenty-five times light speed and slow down after we get there by taking an orbit.” (“Out Around Rigel” by Clyde Wilson, 1931)
Transporter
What if you didn’t have to actually use a spaceship? What if you could just magically appear elsewhere? The transporter (or transmat as it is called in other TV shows) is handy unless there is a problem. Star Trek would have difficulties with their transporters, usually when it would heighten the tension, beaming away the good guys at the last second.
“But when the word of the strangers’ descent over our home city, Tola, came to us, all else was forgotten. With me at her side, Geble hastened to the beam station and there in the matter transmitter we dispatched our physical beings to the palace at Tola, and the next moment were staring upward at the two strange shapes etched against the sky.” (“The Conquest of Gola” by Leslie F. Stone, Wonder Stories, April 1931)
Deflector Screens
You got those laser beam weapons on your ships, so how do you protect yourself? Shielding, of course.
“By evening Chick and Flynn were firm friends; they were talking about reaction-motors, meteorite deflectors, three-dimensional sextants, and such things with a fondness that only the two of them felt.” (“On Board the Martian Liner” by Miles J. Breuer, Amazing Stories, March 1931)
Search Beams (Scanners)
The explorers of Star Trek are always showing up somewhere new and need information. Scan the planet or that ship. Sometimes the crew on the Bridge get scanned by the baddies. Another pioneer was Nat Schachner (Shatner?) who began writing with Arthur Leo Zagat, then went solo.
“Search beams?” Hilary echoed inquiringly.
“Yes. They act like X-rays, more powerful though, and with the further property of rendering everything they touch transparently crystal for depths of ten to fifteen feet. Lead is the only element they can not penetrate. Another secret our scientists can not fathom, so they talk learnedly about the stream of rays polarizing the structure of matter along a uniaxis.” (“Slaves of Mercury” by Nat Schachner, Astounding Stories of Super-Science, September1932)
Life-tubes (Escape pods)
Since the Titanic everybody has understood the importance of a good lifeboat. Space is no different.
“Could the vessel have been deserted for some reason? The crew might have mutinied, and left her in the life-tubes. She might have been robbed by pirates, and set adrift. But with the space lanes policed as they were, piracy and successful mutiny were rare.” (“Salvage in Space” by Jack Williamson, Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1933)
Magnetic Boots
Walking on the outside of spaceship is pretty dangerous if you get left behind. Good thing we have magnetic boots. And hey, if you want to do a little skiing later...
“His ‘planet’ was the smallest in the solar system, and the loneliest, Thad Allen was thinking, as he straightened wearily in the huge, bulging, inflated fabric of his Osprey space armor. Walking awkwardly in the magnetic boots that held him to the black mass of meteoric iron, he mounted a projection and stood motionless, staring moodily away through the vision panels of his bulky helmet into the dark mystery of the void.” (“Salvage in Space” by Jack Williamson, Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1933)
Replicator
Cooking food is a necessity that space travel will not necessarily remove. SF writers have had all kinds of kitchens on their ships. It was the legendary John W. Campbell (still a writer, not editor yet) who gave us a meal-creator from atoms. Of course, you can use a replicator to make more than just “Earl Grey, hot!”
“The restaurant had the food displayed directly, and I made a choice. The food was three hundred thousand years old, I suppose. I didn’t know, and the machines that served it to me didn’t care, for they made things synthetically, you see, and perfectly.” (“Twilight” by John W. Campbell, Astounding Stories, November 1934)
The Tholian Web
Weird space warp defense systems like the Tholian Web were not new either.
“The oligarchs of Yorrick had builded well to protect themselves and their millions of subjects from outside attacks. Against the warped, folded space that inclosed the three levels of the city, powered as it was by the gravitation-flow machines, the most modern offense was impotent. No weapon conceived by man could break through….The space-warp made an impregnable defense against the assortment of city-states which dotted the American continent.” (“Redmask of the Outlands” by Nat Schachner, Astounding Stories, January 1934)
First Contact
Murray Leinster was another early and important writer of SF. He coined the words “first contact” and wrote several stories about what this might be like. In this first tale, “Proxima Centauri”, the aliens turn out to be meat-eating plants.
“He had piloted the Adastra to its first contact with the civilization of another solar system. His lifework was done and he was wholly prepared to rest…The space ship swelled on the visiplate as Jack turned the knob. He brought it to an apparent distance of a few hundred yards only…” (“Proxima Centauri” by Murray Leinster, Astounding Stories, March 1935)
Space Lab
Star Trek is dominated by space labs of different sorts. There are the traditional science work areas but there are also the engineering deck and the medical “sick bays”.
“There, in the depths of space, flashing like a minor planet, the space laboratory went its way, using no power in its interminable orbit, granting to its master that isolation, that abstraction from mundane noise and crowding which no longer existed on any of the inhabited worlds.” (“Crystalized Thought” by Nat Schachner, Astounding Stories, August 1937)
Space Dock
Space dock is another naval idea used in space. All that traveling, you need to stop off once in a while, have some leave or just gas up. Compare this image to the one at the top of the page done by Frank R. Paul. Not much has changed…
“Space Liner Ardis coming in from Planet Five of Antares. Landing at 10:19 p.m. in fourth cradle of Civic Space Docks. 4-2-5 on board! 4-2-5 on board! Caution! Caution! This is Holman signalling. Attention, Ledack!” (“Hotel Cosmos” by Raymond Z. Gallun, Astounding Science-Fiction, July 1938)
Robot Emotions (and Sex!)
Robot and android stories go back to the legend of the golem or Frankenstein, but the concept of creating essentially a living artificial person is a lot newer. Lester Del Rey had an inventor fall for his robot gal Helen. She too was “fully functional”.
“I’d performed plenty of delicate operations on living tissues, and some of them had been tricky, but I still felt like a premed student as we opened the front plate of her torso, and began to sever the leads of her “nerves.” Dave’s mechanical glands were all prepared, complex little bundles of pansistors and wires that heterodyned on the electrical thought impulses and distorted them as adrenalin distorts the reaction of human minds.” (“Helen O’Loy” by Lester Del Rey, Astounding Science-Fiction, December 1938)
Space Prison
Another jump from the earthly is the idea of creating a prison in space. This could be a prison ship or in this case a prison planet. Kirk ends up at Rura Penthe (“The aliens graveyard….”) in Star Trek VI. Simak had an Alcatraz of Space. Not hard to figure where he got that idea. Devil’s Island also shows up.
“He could see the top of the prison dome, just rising above the western horizon. To that Alcatraz of Space were sent only the most desperate of the Solar System’s criminals. The toughest prison in the entire system, its proud tradition was that not a single prisoner had escaped since its establishment twenty years before. Why risk escape, when only misery and death lurked outside the dome?” (“Reunion on Ganymede” by Clifford D. Simak, Astounding Science-Fiction November 1938)
The 1940s and 50s
Space Shuttle
Shuttle boats or “tenders” as they called are a logical idea for large ships that can’t land on the planet.
“The sleek, tapered space shuttle lay immobile upon the private landing field, her steel hull gleaming in the moonlight. Some twenty smartly dressed men and women were visible through the vessel’s wide windows. Seated in rows, like the passengers of a twentieth century airliner, they laughed, joked, sipped drinks…” (“Hell Ship of Space” by Frederic Arnold Kummer Jr., Amazing Stories, November1940)
Antimatter
The whole warp core technology works on antimatter. The idea was created by Jack Williamson in 1941. He called it “Seetee” or contraterrene.
“For ‘seetee’ to the engineer’s mind of old Jim Drake, meant power. Terror to others, to him it was atomic energy, priceless and illimitable. The whole meteor belt was rich in contraterrene drift; matter inside out, with electrons and positrons in reverse positions. It was the dangerous debris of that terrific cataclysm, before the time of man, when a strange stellar wanderer of contraterrene matter shattered the trans-Martian planet. When it touched common matter, the result was a spectacular blaze of gamma radiation; and mutual annihilation – unlike forms of matter canceled out, to leave free neutrons and pure energy. (“Collision Orbit” by Jack Williamson, Astounding Science-Fiction, July 1941)
Holodeck
“The Veldt” by Ray Bradbury in The Saturday Evening Post, September 23, 1950 gave SF the idea of a holodeck. Gene Roddenberry borrowed it for Star Trek: The Next Generation. Bradbury used it for horror purposes mostly but STTNG used it to explore the idea of what is real and unreal. They had characters like Sherlock Holmes’ enemy, Professor Moriarty escape a holo-program.
The Bridge
Gene Roddenberry borrowed this term from another SF writer, James Blish. On a ship “the bridge” is the control area and Blish thought it logical. Roddenberry returned the favor by having Blish write all the first novelizations as well as the novel Spock Must Die (1970).
Conclusion
Of course, we haven’t got all of them. That would take pages and pages. But one writer I would like to mention is Sewell Peaslee Wright and his John Hanson of the Space Patrol. This series from the Clayton Astounding feels most like first proto-Star Trek. The captain, the crew and the adventures they encounter. One term I could have included was “spacial anomoly” which you hear about as often as “running a diagnostic”. John Hanson meets one of these weird space phenoms in “The Vampires of Space” (Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1932)and as a reader from 2021 you can only nod your head and say, Pulp was there first.
Next time we look at that other franchise…Star Wars
