Galactic Celebrations: Partying in the Final Frontier

StarTrek.com occasionally presents theme pieces and interviews featured in 'Inside Star Trek Magazine,' the official Star Trek magazine of Italy. Today, we're pleased to share a recent 'Inside Star Trek Magazine' feature, written by Gabriella Cordone Lisiero, that explores how Easter isn't the only event celebrated in Star Trek. The story below had been translated from Italian into English.

It doesn’t happen often that the crew of a Star Trek starship find the time to celebrate holidays; especially highlighting not just human traditions on board, but also finding one to please everyone could be a problem. Sometime, though, you find the time, and on some occasions, there is also someone who invents new celebrations!

We already talked about Christmas quite some time ago in Inside Star Trek Magazine. Aboard Captain Kirk’s Enterprise, they celebrate the traditional American Thanksgiving Day (as seen in the episode “Charlie X”), even if the turkey is a special one. After all, Star Trek future replicators are...vegetarian! In fact, Kirk orders the galley, “If the crew has to eat synthetic meat, that at least it resembles a turkey!”

In a spirit similar to Thanksgiving Day, the Bajorans host the Gratitude Festival (in the episode “Fascination”), in which the festive and joyous spirit involves all participants, whether they are religious or not. One of the most exciting moments is the opening of the Festival where the first parchment is burned, “Let all our troubles, written on these scrolls, become ashes.”

In the episode “11:59” — in a flashback story set on the Earth of the past — we see the arrival of the New Year, but on Voyager Neelix invents a celebration of his own: the Ancestors' Eve, “An evening in honor of those who preceded us!”

The Talaxian celebration Prixin (from the episode “Mortal Coil”) gathers together family and friends for wonderful meals and lots of fun. Neelix’s answer to Seven of Nine's question about what she should do to prepare for the celebration sums up the spirit of Prixin, “It‘s not a mission, it’s just a party!”

Another party is The Day of Honor, the traditional celebration that sees a Klingon warrior evaluate the results of the battles of the past year. Accompanied by a beautiful Rokeg blood pie, the celebration is perhaps too harsh for B’Elanna (as seen in the episode “Day of Honor”), who fails to follow the advice of Neelix, “I think traditions are a great thing, and they should be kept alive.”

The Klingon’s sense of fun is bonded with aggression and rudeness, as the young son of Worf, Alexander, discovers (in “Firstborn”) when he is brought to the Kot’baval Festival. There, historical reconstructions of duels are performed to remember how Kahless the Unforgettable defeated the tyrant Molor in one swift duel.

Historic, but much more fun, is First Contact Day, which is celebrated on April 5, especially if Neelix and Naomi (as seen in the episode “Homestead”) are to organize it. The tradition does not provide anything specific, and so on Voyager sandwiches with cheese are served, a jukebox plays music, and there is the solemn repetition of the first words uttered by Vulcans to Terran people — “Live long and prosper.”

Completely invented, but now traditional for children aboard the Enterprise-D, is Captain Picard Day (seen in “The Pegasus”), with school competitions that reward those kids who are most able to capture the essence of the man aboard the ship who is the best “role model”!

This article was originally published in the December 2014 issue of Insider Star Trek Magazine.

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