With great fandom comes many a fan theory as well. With Star Trek, there’s little surprise that there have been several insane theories cooked up by the fans over the years. The show has been around since the late 1960s, with it becoming a revived cult hit that expanded into seven more TV shows and thirteen major feature films.
Over that time, there have been classics as well as forgotten ventures; there have been missteps as well as iconic moments. What is clear is that the years have a created an epic archive of lore that holds several deep-seated secrets, misinterpretations, or wild inconsistencies.
The Trek fan circles are highly studious when it comes to their passion, arguably more then Star Wars fans, they will not let one minor detail pass them by without some form of analysation. And so have the fan theories accumulated over the several decades of the shows existence—whether it be an attempt to fill in an epic plot-hole, or the discovering of a sly secret by the writers, or even just a bit of old fanboy wishful thinking—there are several great, if completely bonkers, fan theories out there that more then deserve to come to the forefront for observation.
And so this list will chart the many that stand out as the best, from large stretches to ones that have actually been confirmed to be accurate… yet they are all equally baffling.
30 Q Created The Mirror Universe
The Mirror Universe was a prevalent part of the original series of Star Trek where seemingly the sinister versions of your favourite characters exist—usually with added facial hair. In fact, Spock’s mirror-verse persona is something of an iconic moment of the Kirk and co’s adventures.
Later in TNG came the God-like trickster Q, who treated the vast galaxy as his playground; fans have boiled down that it could very well have been Q that created the mirror-verse all in name of his amusement and trolling the Federation on an epic scale—yeah, sounds like Q, alright.
29 Star Trek V Is All Just Kirk’s Nexus Dream?
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier was a misguided mess of a movie that tethered on being a ‘so bad, it’s good’ type of deal. The plot twists were baffling with a finale were Kirk took on God himself.
It all sounds like some weird fever dream, so what if it actually was?
Trekkies have theorised that all the events of part V were from a living dream from when Kirk was trapped inside the Nexus purgatory-like state in Star Trek: Generations. It certainly helps excuse a lot of the ridiculous aspects, although Generations was conceived five years after Frontier.
28 The Enterprise Show Is Set In A Different Timeline
27 It Was A Fake Khan In Star Trek: Into Darkness
26 Picard Was Switched Mid-Season 2 Of TNG
TNG is now considered a classic series, but for its first two seasons, it was a rough road. This theory weirdly coincides with the change in quality with season 2’s Time Squared episode.
In it, the Enterprise becomes stuck in a time-loop by a sinister wormhole entity, a future version of Picard comes in to save the day but fans have speculated what if that wasn’t the case and it the fabricated doppelganger emerged instead?
There’s certainly no solid evidence to back it up asides from Picard becoming a much more likeable and intriguing character in the show afterwards.
25 The Next-Gen Theme Song Is The Federation National Anthem
Jerry Goldsmith’s epic Star Trek theme created for the movies was used as a series iconic mainstay theme when the show was continued with TNG. There’s no doubting that it’s a fantastic piece of musical work, but several fans have cooked up that it’s also an intricate part of the Trek universe as well.
It’s been speculated that the theme itself is the National Anthem for the Federation itself. Now, there’s been little to back this up asides from some rose-tinted musings—still, with Goldsmith’s landmark composition there’s very little reason for the Federation not to officially adopt it.
24 The Borg Are Really Farming Federation Technology
23 The French Language Was Abolished On Earth
This stems from the fact that Captain Jean-Luc Picard from the TNG series is referred to as French man, but is played with an English accent by UK actor Patrick Stewart. Was this a case of American ignorance towards European accents or an actual plot point?
Fans speculated that the French language was eventually phased out during Earth’s timespan and thus replaced with the English language. Turns out it was validated even; in the episode Code Of Honour, a reference by Data and Picard is made that the French language is ‘obscure’ but ‘had’ represented Earth’s civilisation for centuries.
