(upbeat jingle)
1966 was an important year in world history,
Paul Van Doran founded the Van shoe company
which would one day nearly ruin the name Daniel.
It's a small world opened at Disney,
creating animatronic nightmares for generations of kids.
And most importantly,
Gene Roddenberry created a little sci-fi show,
called Star Trek,
which has since spawned a sprawling mythology,
generating countless films,
TV series, novels, video games,
and even a weird marshmallow dispenser.
I don't know why they did that.
With any great franchise that has a die hard fan base
comes a series of increasingly crazy fan theories.
So to help you go boldly,
where no one should've probably gone before,
on today's episode of The Dan Cave
we're gonna talk about some of the weirdest
Star Trek fan theories ever made.
Spok is related to Sherlock Holmes.
In 1991 Star Trek 60, Undiscovered Country,
mister Spok is played by the late great Leonard Nimoy,
uttered the phrase,
"When you've eliminated the impossible,
"whatever remains, however improvable,
"must be the truth."
Well the phrase sounds like something
the highly logical Vulcan might say himself,
it's actually a quote from Sherlock Holmes
in the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle story,
The Sign of the Four.
Now Spok explains that it's something an ancestor
of his used to say.
So, does that mean that Sherlock Holmes
is a secret Vulcan detective
hiding out on Earth who made it with the human woman,
eventually producing Spok?
Well, not quite.
I mean it's been established in the Star Trek Universe,
that Sherlock is a fictional character.
But maybe Spok is a Conan Doyle space baby.
And if not, there's always fan fiction,
I mean, you could be writing it right now.
I can't see you, what are you doing?
What are you writing?
Kirk is a whale murderer.
What happens when a rouge space probe
that only answers to a humpback whale song
threatens to destroy the Earth in the future?
Well, easy.
You get a whale, duh.
A what?
Wait really?
All the whales in the future are extinct?
Well then you just go back to the past,
til like 1986 and you steal two whales
and a marine biologist too.
And that's exactly what James D Kirk did
in Star Trek IV, The Voyage Home.
Except there's one problem,
by removing the whales,
and an expert leading conservation efforts
for humpback whales in a time
when humpback populations were rapidly dwindling,
Kirk created a pre-destination paradox,
thereby dooming these poor undersea bastards
to extinction in the first place.
You know, that old chestnut.
That old time travelin', whale murderin',
butterfly effectin' chestnut.
I think I speak for all of us when I say-
(makes funny noises)
Dumbass on you.
Khan obliterated China and India.
When Star Trek: The Original Series first premiered,
it was unlike anything else on TV,
partially due to its diverse cast of characters.
Yet in spite of this diversity,
there seemed to be remarkably a few characters
of Chinese and Indian decent.
So where did those billions of people go?
Well according to some fans,
Khan slaughtered many of them during the Eugenics Wars.
And then he went full on Gandhi in Civilization IV,
and nuked them out of existence in World War III.
And before you start swearing off
Brindlesnarf Clamberpatches perfect cheek bones,
remember it was Ricardo Montalbon who did it,
Ricardo Montalbon who did it.
Montalbon!
Data is a big fat phony.
Now one of the running conceits
in Star Trek: The Next Generation
is that Data, Enterprises resident android,
doesn't understand human customs or expressions.
But Data's knowledge base is faster
than anyone else's on the ship,
I mean, he's a freakin' android,
he can access reams of data
about all of human history.
So why wouldn't some of humanity's idiosyncrasies
be included in there?
Well the idea behind this theory,
is that Data is playing as simple humans,
like the dumb meat violins that we really are,
lulling us into a false sense of security
so that he can gain our trust and our friendship,
and our empathy
so that he can climb the ranks of Starfleet
and seize control of the galaxy.
After all, he's an android,
he's not exactly gonna die of old age.
I mean that's plenty of time
Prince Machiavelli to puppet master his way to power
and rule the galaxy with an iron fist,
or whatever data he's made of,
robo flesh?
I don't know, you tell me.
Now guys, these are just a few
of the absolutely bonker Star Trek fan theories
floating around out there.
But tell me, what are your favorites?
Let me know in the comments below
and give me a highly illogical thumbs up while you're there.
And be sure to like and subscribe
so you guys don't miss next weeks show,
where we talk about the story
of a Tabby cat and a pug that leave their Japanese farm home
only to wind up on death row
in The Green Milo and Otis.
Until next time, keep on digging.