Star Trek: 10 Things You Should Know Before Applying To Starfleet Academy

5. Who's That Groundskeeper?

Picard Boothby
Paramount

His name is synonymous with the Academy; the late great Boothby was a fixture of the San Francisco campus for decades, serving not only as diligent groundskeeper but as a sounding board for countless cadets who came to rely on his sage advice. It is no exaggeration to say that many of today's most decorated Starfleet officers would not be where they are without him. Boothby once got cadet Picard out of an undisclosed sticky situation, and he used to deliver fresh roses to a certain Kathryn Janeway. He was also one hell of a boxing coach!

Such was the influence and aura of the man that when, as we found out from declassified logs, the starship Voyager (still stranded in the Delta Quadrant) chanced upon an extremely detailed and lifelike recreation of Starfleet Command and the Academy that turned out to be the work of Species 8472 (where are they these days?), it was the Boothby replicant who was in charge of the whole operation. Events culminated in a standoff, but, as an attempt to resolve the situation, Captain Janeway proposed "a class reunion" and 'Boothby' settled on a truce with a rose.

So, for all those tough times at the Academy, and for when you just need a friendly face to hear you out after you've started a brawl in Astrotheory 101, we suggest you run the Boothby program on the holodeck.

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Jack has been a content creator for TrekCulture since 2022, and a Star Trek fan for as long as he can remember. He has authored over 170 articles, including one of TrekCulture's longest, and has appeared several times on the TrekCulture podcast. He holds a first-class honours degree in French from the University of Sussex, a master's with distinction in Language, Culture and History: French and Francophone Studies and a PhD in French from University College London (UCL). He has previously worked in the field of translation. His interests extend to science-fiction television and film more widely. His favourite series is Star Trek: Voyager, followed closely by Stargate SG-1.