Star Trek Trivia: Debrief and Diversity Round
[Updated November 29, 2016] By Aayesha Siddiqui
Our first Star Trek Trivia event was a roaring hit! Three dozen Trekkies turned out for seven rounds of trivia, laughs, and quality nerd camaraderie. Special thanks to Comicazi for having us and Wes Hazard for hosting. (If you attended and want to give us feedback, please contact us!)
The final team rankings were:
- The Niners
- Rock out with your Spock out
- Deep Space Fine
- Keeping up with the Cardassians
- What happens on Risa... (their final score was 69, no joke!)
- Niners
- The Uhuras
- Captain Kirk's Toupe
- Trouble with Trekkies
The Ladies also had Trek-themed baked goods for sale:
VOY: Enaran algae puffs (cake balls with green icing) DS9: Jam'Hadar (shortbread cookies with homemade jam) TOS: Gorn bread (cornbread dyed green)
https://www.youtube.com/embed/XJ-ATwRq5KY
And nestled in all the fun was one round called Diversity and Representation. I wrote this round because we here at the Ladies are committed to inclusvity. We want all voices to be heard, all life experiences represented.
Below are the questions from that round; I hope they prove both enlightening and enjoyable!
About 7% of the U.S. population is mixed race, according to "Multiracial in America," a 2015 report by the Pew Research Center. Name at least one mixed race character from each series (1 point each).
TOS: Spock (human mother, Vulcan father) TNG: Deanna Troi (Betazoid mother, human father), Alexander Rozhenko (half human/half Klingon mother, Klingon father) TNG/DS9: Molly and Kirayoshi O'Brian (human Asian mother, human white father) DS9: Tora Ziyal (Bajoran mother, Cardassian father) VOY: B’Elanna (Klingon mother, human father) VOY: Naomi Wildman (Human mother, Ktarian father) ENT: Elizabeth, T’pol and Trip’s daughter (Vulcan mother, human father)
In Star Trek: Beyond we see the first openly gay character in the franchise. Which officer do we see greet their family? And who was this an homage to?
Sulu greets his husband and daughter.
The scene is a homage to George Takei, who played Sulu in TOS and who is a prominent LGBTQ activist.
According to the 2016 Comprehensive Annenberg Report on Diversity in Entertainment, men account for — wait for it — 85% of directors and 71% of writers. But there are trailblazing, brilliant women. Name the ONE woman showrunner across all the Star Trek series.
Jeri Taylor
About 1 in 4 children in U.S. families has at least one foreign-born parent, according to the 2010 U.S. Census. Unfortunately, xenophobia doesn’t die easy, even in a world of “infinite diversity in infinite combinations.” Name two xenophobic sects — one in Enterprise which wanted all non-humans to leave Earth, the other in DS9 which wanted all non-Bajorans to leave the space station.
Terra Prime (Earth) The Circle (Bajor)
The Washington Post writes, “Come January, there will be a record number — 38 — women of color serving in Congress (35 Democrats, three Republicans).” But even with those wins in diversity, women only make up 20% of Congress. We have a long way to go, but at least we're not as bad as Ferenginar. Which Ferengi woman dared to wear clothes, earn profit, and fight for women’s rights?
Ishka — aka Moogie (mother) to Quark and Rom
BONUS:
Alison Bechdel in her comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For, featured what she called "The Rule" and what’s now commonly called the Bechdel Test. It highlights gender bias in popular media, and there are three criteria to the test: 1) Are there at least two women characters 2) who talk to each other 3) about something other than a man?
The website The Mary Sue graded all episodes of all five series. Rank the series in their passing of the Bechdel Test — start with the series that had the most episodes meeting the three criteria and go in descending order.
- Voyager
- Deep Space 9
- The Next Generation
- Enterprise
- The Original Series