10 Greatest Star Trek Callbacks

The destruction of the original Enterprise in Star Trek III: The Search For Spock was one of the most devastating moments in film history. This ship became iconic. Watching it explode was like watching the death of a beloved character. The terror and regret on the faces of Kirk, Scotty, and Chekov as they activated the self-destruct sequence made it even more emotional.

However, it's interesting to note that this was not the first time the crew were forced to speak these codes. In fact, the exact same codes were used in the Original Series episode Let That Be Your Last Battlefield, but the explosion was cancelled at the last second.

In both scenes, the self-destruct sequence was voice-activated and began with the Captain confirming their identity, then speaking the command 'destruct sequence one, code: 11A'. Two other high-ranking officers would then need to confirm their identities and activate the second and third codes, '11A2B' and '1B2B3'. In Let That Be Your Last Battlefield these codes were given by Kirk, Spock, and Scotty, but Chekov filled in for Spock in Star Trek III. These steps would engage the destruction sequence, requiring only one more command from the captain to activate: 'code 000 destruct 0'.