10 Star Trek Quotes That Made Us Trekkies

10. "Risk Is Our Business."

If we're talking making Trekkies (or 'Trekkers,' if you prefer), we first have to go back to the makings of Trek. In The Original Series episode Return to Tomorrow, the crew of the Enterprise get a strange call from an unexplored region of space. When they arrive at the source, they find a devastated planet and, beneath the surface, the remnants of a once powerful species who might have seeded life on Earth and Vulcan. They are Sargon and co., the Arretans, now living as energy in big balls.

Asked by the Arretans if they might lend out their bodies for a bit, Kirk gives his now legendary, rousing speech to reassure those crewmembers assembled in the briefing room. What "this starship is all about" is, by extension, what Star Trek and its fandom are all about too.

Kirk is not asking anyone, crew or audience, to take reckless risks without proper consideration, but to dare, to dare to move beyond our trepidations and make choices that just might lead to new possibilities, knowledge, and advancement. Risk is the business of every explorer, whether you've got a starship to do it or not. Risk is also part of Star Trek's very existence — no one had to take a punt on that second pilot, after all.