Star Trek Universe, a Brief(ish) User Guide
This is a brief introduction to Star Trek, primarily as a relevant guide for writers new to the vast breadth of and wealth of canon, fanon, books, comics, movies, cartoons, and stuff out there in the universe of Star Trek. It is also what devoured my Tuesday evening like a three year old with a cookie. Three things before we get into it:
1) This is not complete nor is it meant to be comprehensive. You want comprehensive? Pick an article at Memory Alpha and start working your way through the related topics. Those folks have detailed every piece of minutia relating to Star Trek in the last 44 years, and while I wish they had chosen a better stylesheet to present it in, my hat's off to them. If you think I missed something/got something wrong, mention it in the comments.
2) This introduction is geared primarily towards new writers in the fandom, hopefully to provide a easy way to get relevant information and offer a straightforward guide for further investigation. I love all the writing you're doing, people, and I want to make it easy for you to write more.
3) I'm going to use TOS to indicate The Original Series and AOS to refer to Alternate Original Series, i.e. Star Trek XI. It's not an endorsement of AOS as a descriptor, mind. It's just easier to type.
So! In the beginning there was the Milky Way Galaxy.
The Federation and thus Starfleet is Sol-centric, for no other reason than because homo sapiens lived there. You will notice that the stellar cartography of the MWG is presented two-dimensionally, even though any high school kid in Physics 101 will object that you can't calculate distance between spatial objects in the known universe without other stuff, like relativistic time, gravity, and the center of the damned galaxy ("Galactic Core"). We know this. Roll with it.
Furthermore, the MWG is divided into four quadrants. The cool shit, I mean, the Federation, exists in the border between the Alpha and Beta Quadrants. USS Voyager is in the Delta Quadrant. The Dominion is in the Gamma Quadrant. Question--why we haven't left the MWG? There's way too much shit to deal with in the galaxy we have, much less go looking for trouble in other ones.
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Let's talk about the Federation. There is an excellent introduction to the Federation here by
skywaterblue, I recommend checking it out. There are four founding races: Humans, Vulcans, Tellarites, and Andorians; and five founding worlds, including Alpha Centauri, a human-colony world. These worlds signed the Federation Charter.
The base of the Federation was formed in response to the Romulan Empire, and as you can see from the map, the Romulans and the Klingons are in pretty close proximity to Sol. At the time of the Federation's creation in 2161, they were also much longer-lived and more powerful than the peoples who had come together to form the Federation. So in the time of TOS (and generally true for AOS) the three major military-industrial powers in the Alpha and Beta quadrants (which are known space, in the 23rd century) are the Federation, the Klingons, and the Romulans; with lesser powers including the Ferengi and Orionate space traders/privateers.
The Federation is governed by a Council comprised of representatives from its member worlds; the Council chooses a President, and the seat of government is Paris on United Earth (also known as Terra). The Federation, in general, seems to be a government largely concerned with the furthering of its membership throughout the MWG and the protection of those member worlds. (For a truly excellent discussion of Federation economics, I recommend Ilya Somin's article on Federation socialism. The comments are brilliant. He also has a preceding article in the National Review well worth the read. I don't necessarily agree with his points, but it's fascinating [if dense] reading.) However, the UFP has many subsidiary departments which may or may not be controlled by the Cabinet selected by the Federation President. Arguably the two most important department types are science and military.
While Federation sciences and Federation military seemingly go hand in hand, the Federation supports an extensive scientific operations throughout its domain that does not have a military element. For example, Carol Marcus's Genesis project (Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan) has no Starfleet contingent involved; Noonien Soong, Data's creator, also ran a Starfleet-independent lab. While scientific work is clearly carried out by Starfleet crews, it is far from monopolizing Federation science.
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Which brings us to Starfleet. Starfleet was the primary space-going and defence system of United Earth in the 22nd century before the inception of the Federation; it was integrated into the Federation afterwards. Starfleet is regulated by Starfleet Command, which is located in San Francisco alongside the Starfleet Academy. Starfleet is a military organization based on Terran naval tradition; it is really really helpful to learn a little bit about the American and British naval histories to better understand what's up with Starfleet. If you were ever a fan of Master and Commander, I've found it to be a great view into the mentality behind Starfleet commissioned officer personnel and the attitude of TOS Enterprise personnel in general. (
eleanorjane is doing a great job recapping some of the finer points about Starfleet and the Star Trek Universe.
catalysticat did a fascinating analysis of Starfleet enlisted rank, though it may be more immediately helpful to know the commissioned officers ranking, as nearly all the characters we see in every incarnation of Star Trek are commissioned.)
Starfleet primarily consists of starships (which only came into use in 2249, as opposed to the previously termed spacecraft) which explore the unknown sectors of the MWG, patrol Federation-protected sectors, and act as diplomatic craft for the Federation in certain circumstances. Prior to the development of large, multi-function warp-enabled ships capable of long-term and long-range exploration, Federation spacecraft filled a more localized, member-world specific role. The USS Kelvin was a starship; the USS Enterprise is Starfleet's flagship starship.
Starfleet also controls many Starbases and Deep Space Stations, as well as the Utopia Planitia Shipyards orbiting Mars. (UP is primarily where Starfleet starships are built.) These seem to be in accordance with Federation colonies and Federation economies and are subject to Federation law.
But wait; before I got into Starfleet, I should have talked about what made the whole thing possible: warp drive. Warp drive, or faster-than-light (FTL) travel, is the science that fuels the whole story. In 2063, Zefram Cochrane's warp-engine craft successfully achieves Warp One. This gets the attention of a group of Vulcans doing surveys, who then land in Montana on Earth and make First Contact. At this point in the 21st century, Earth has undergone World War 3, resulting in the deaths of over 600 million people. It's pretty dim there, for awhile. Warp drive revolutionizes--in the most literal sense of the world--Earth, and results in a United Earth which fosters its diplomatic relationships with the other three founding races of the Federation. Warp drive makes Starfleet both possible and necessary.
Also, the origin of Starfleet offers some handwavium as to why it is primarily staffed by humans.
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So now that we have the UFP and Starfleet down, let's do a quick review of the frenemies of the UFP.
Klingons
Klingons are a militaristic warrior-culture based empire. Their home planet is Qo'nos (Kronos), and their empire was founded by the warrior Kahless in AD 822. There is a whole story about Klingons and genetic engineering that was developed mostly to explain why Klingons looked different in TOS versus, well, every other Trek; but it's kind of silly to recount and not really relevant. The important points about Klingons are: in the 23rd century the Federation and Klingons are most emphatically enemies; in the TOS movies, the Klingon Empire is crippled to the point of self-destruction by the accidental implosion of the Qo'nos moon Praxis, which is Empire's main energy source. In Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (or as I call it, The One With the Floating Pink Blood) the UFP and the Klingons only come to an understanding because of the destruction of Praxis, and even then it is a very hard-won peace. This was the signing of the Khitomer Accords in 2293. Eventually this would break down, but not until nearly a century later. Worf (TNG, DS9) was the first Klingon to enter the Starfleet Academy in 2357. He was fostered by human parents after the destruction of a colony of which his birth family was a part, and this likely contributed to his career--but it is worth noting that despite the Accords there was no integration of the Empire into the UFP until Worf's enrollment in the academy, seventy years after those Accords.
So in sum: Klingons bad. In the 23rd century, there is only hostile communication between the UFP and the Empire. Kirk, in TOS, comes to deeply hate Klingons. In AOS, it seems very likely that the same hostility exists, and Uhuru knowing Klingon is best explained by know thine enemy.
The Klingons and the Romulans aren't too hot on each other either. Hey, let's talk about those guys.
Romulans
The Romulan Star Empire is another of the big, powerful political entities in the Beta Quadrant with whom the UFP is at conflict. There are two levels of knowledge here: what Starfleet in the 23rd century knows about Romulans (that is, not much) and what the Vulcans know about Romulans (way more than they ever wanted to know). To understand Romulus, you need to understand Vulcan, and to understand Vulcan you need to read Spock's World. No arguments! You can get it for under $1 USD. I have a whole other post about Essential Reading, but as far as I am aware this is as close to canon as it gets. If you want to know why it's such a big honkin' deal, beatrice_otter did a nice recap of the novel here. Section Six is the important bit.
So Romulans are genetic cousins to Vulcans who eschewed the path of logic. There are a couple of important similarities:
1) Romulans and Vulcans both are insular, xenophobic peoples who tend to stick around their own parts.
2) Both races have very strong, overwhelming emotions that can dominate their life. They almost annihilated Vulcans; those who would become Romulans left and began an empire to work out their anger issues.
3) The whole Vulcans-and-Romulans-look-alike think is a Clark Kent/Superman scenario. Apparently no one could tell they were cousins until Spock brought it up.
Memory Beta has a comprehensive article on Romulans, so I'll just point out that, in the time of TOS, not a whole lot is known about the Star Empire other than Romulans are generally bad news and hopefully far enough away from the Federation at that time to be bothersome only to the Klingons, with whom the Romulans are neighbors. As far as the original, TOS-based timeline goes, Spock (an Ambassador for the UFP [not Vulcan!] by 2368) is working to engender a reunification of Romulus and Vulcan, which is not really pleasing to either group of people. Watch Unification I & II in TNG, and between those two episodes and the Star Trek: Countdown comic books (links below) that preceded Star Trek XI, you'll have a pretty good idea of what Spock Prime was doing with the Romulans up to the point we see him in AOS. Just remember: while there is probably enough contact between the UFP (and thus Starfleet) and the Romulan Star Empire that the two cultures can speak each other's languages, there ain't much else, and the Vulcans would happily keep it that way.
The Borg
The Borg is/are a collective of creatures who were formerly individual persons who have been assimilated into the collective consciousness of the Borg. The Borg are entirely 24th century dangers to the Federation, first encountered by Picard and his crew (TNG) through interference by Q. They don't show up in TOS at all, but that's no reason they can't show up in AOS...
To be honest, the Borg are the wrong kind of enemy for the tone of TOS/AOS, though I'd personally love to see it. (They make an anonymous, brief guest appearance in the TOS novel Probe, which is shocking in its allusions.) I bring them up only because of the events of (my favorite ST movie) First Contact, Star Trek VIII, impact the past of the 21st century in such a way that it makes a little opening for the altered future of AOS. Anyway, the Borg want to assimilate everyone and everything in their/its quest for cybernetic perfection; for more information watch the TNG episodes "The Best of Both Worlds" Parts I & II, Star Trek: First Contact, and the novel Resistance. And of course, watch Voyager from Season 3 on for the absolutely wicked Seven of Nine.
After all, Resistance Is Futile.
The Dominion
If the Borg were the bane of TNG and later VOY, the Dominion were the problem of DS9. In 2370 the Dominion made first contact with Starfleet powers (DS9: "The Jem'Hadar") and by 2373 the Federation had declared war upon the Dominion-Cardassian Alliance. The Dominion is a Gamma Quadrant power, accessible through the Bajoran wormhole by which Deep Space Nine floats. The Dominion are to the Gamma Quadrant what the Borg are to the Delta. Big, bad, and rapacious. While this has no bearing on the events of TOS, it was contemporaneous for Spock Prime's timeline and relevant to the problems of both the UFP and the Romulan Star Empire in the late 24th century.
Other Guys
Orions: There's an Orion world with a government we don't know much about. In TOS and The Animated Series (TAS) we mostly see Orion pirates selling Orion females as slaves. At the time of TOS, Orions are officially neutral while generally shady. Eventually they get into bed with the Dominion; they always stay in trade with the UFP but never become a part of it. Alpha Quadrant.
Ferengi: My favorites. Seriously. Also politically neutral and non-member of the UFP, the Ferengi Alliance is the governmental control over a large population of space traders. The first UFP contact with Ferengi is in 2151 (ENT), though the first logged contact is in 2355 (TNG). The Ferengi are pretty pointless until DS9, when Quark and his family made them awesome. They were framed as "bad" in TNG, but were mostly just ridiculous. Ferenginar (fun to saaaaaaay) is in the Beta Quadrant.
Cardassians: Xenophobic militaristic empire-driven enemies of the Federation. Sound familiar? Mostly they were a problem for Bajor and other worlds the Cardassian Empire subjugated; the first substantial interaction between Cardassia and the UFP happens when Starfleet overtakes Deep Space Nine. They only become a threat to the UFP when they join forces with the Dominion. The Klingon Empire tries to overtake the Cardassian empire, resulting in the war that furthers Cardassia's alliance with the Dominion. The Federation's alliance with the Klingons is an aspect of what draws the UFP into the war. You can somewhat liken the Cardassians to the Klingons in terms of AOS: known, likely considered a threat, generally avoided if possible. Cardassia is located in the Alpha Quadrant.
ETA: skywaterblue rightly pointed out that just before the start of TNG, the Federation and Cardassians are embroiled in a border dispute war, which I had forgotten about; this makes them a more present threat in intervening years between Star Trek VI and the start of TNG, but I maintain that since the war began in 2347 and a ceasefire reached in 2367, Cardassians were still a largely irrelevant threat to the majority of the events in TOS. At most you could point to escalating tensions based on border disputes as the number of member worlds in the Federation grew, brining UFP territory that much closer to Cardassian. But the arguable hinge of the universe hangs on the "death" of Kirk in 2293, so I would put any noticeable conflict between the two governments after that, at the start of the 24th century. Then again, you could completely redefine these tensions based on the events of AOS, so whatever.
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Cool. So now we know the lay of the land a little bit. Here's some basic biographical information about Jim Kirk and his time on the Enterprise. All of this is drawn from TOS and original-storyline materials unless stated otherwise. There will be a booklist at the end of this, I promise. Or threaten. Maybe both.
James Tiberius Kirk [Memory Alpha; Memory Beta]: Born March 23, 2233, Riverside, Iowa, (in XI, January 04, 2233, USS Kelvin) to George and Winona Kirk. Older brother George Samuel, born in 2230. George Sr. was a commander in the Security division of Starfleet; Winona was a scientist based on Terra. In 2246, the Kirk family moved to Tarsus IV, where a famine nearly killed the population. Barely surviving, the Kirk family moved to the planet Grex in 2247; by the time Jim is 16, in 2249, the family has relocated back to Iowa and George and Winona were amicably estranged.
In Best Destiny, also known as one of my favorite ST books, a pig-headed, rebellious, gang-leading, runaway, potty-mouthed sixteen year old Jim Kirk (...sound familiar?) is hauled off to space by his father George, where an encounter with a forcible salvage crew brings Jim face to face with what his father does for a living and fundamentally changes his attitude about life and Starfleet. (His brother Sam, called George in AOS, becomes a scientist on Deneva with wife Aurelan and sons Peter, Alexander, and Julius.) Jim enrolls in the Academy at the age of 17, and from 2250-2254 he is a student there until being commissioned as an Ensign on the USS Farragut. After a successful tour of duty on the Farrugut he was commissioned as second in command for the USS Constitution, where he met Dr Leonard McCoy. Other stuff happened, and 2264 Kirk was commissioned as a captain upon the promotion of Chris Pike, and given command of Pike's Enterprise. Over the next five years a bunch of stuff happened. (If people want a synopsis of the five-year mission, just let me know.)
In 2270, after the five-year mission, Kirk was promoted to Admiral and given a desk job that he promptly gave up as soon as a suitably Earth-shattering mission came around and he could claim back command of the Enterprise from the dad from Seventh Heaven. (Star Trek: The Motion Picture.) Admiral Kirk ran amok with the Enterprise for another five-year mission, despite being an Admiral, and finally retired around 2278. Six years later he was bored with retirement and reactivated his commission, riding a desk as an instructor at Starfleet Academy. In 2285 (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan) he regains command from Spock of the Enterprise during a training mission, and follows Khan down the rabbithole, resulting in the re-encounter of an old flame, Carol Marcus, and the knowledge of his twentysomething year old son, David. After Spock sacrifices his life to save the Enterprise and her crew, and the Genesis machine is launched, the Enterprise is decommissioned and Kirk removed from her command.
And now, 2286 (Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and Star Trek IV: The One With the Space Whales); Kirk and his crew steal back the Enterprise to go recover Spock, the half-Vulcan Lt. Saavik, and Kirk's son David from the Genesis planet. David is killed by Klingons trying to claim the Genesis materials, and Spock has some shit going on himself. With Spock on board and the Genesis planet imploding, the Enterprise returns to Vulcan where more stuff happens to Spock. The crew of the Enterprise remains in exiled limbo on Vulcan for three months waiting for Starfleet and the Federation Council to determine their fate; but then Space Whales intervene, the crew of the Enterprise go back in time to meet the mom from Seventh Heaven and get some whales. When they come back to the 23rd century, they are exonerated from their actions, except for Kirk who gets "busted" down to captain.
Though the Enterprise has been destroyed, Starfleet rewards their screwing with the timeline by creating another Constitution-class ship, the 1701-A, in 2286. Captain Kirk commanded that vessel until 2293; three months shy of his retirement the events leading to the Khitomer Accords happen, and Kirk is put on trial for Crimes against Klingons. After he escapes from a labor camp with Bones Mccoy and foils a assassination, he retires from Starfleet. But before he can enjoy climbing rocks and charming people out of their pants in his dotage, he gets sucked into the Nexus (Star Trek: Generations) where he remains out of time until Captain Picard engages him in an effort to stop the destruction of Veridian III and the crew of the 1701-D in 2371, which results in his death. (In what is somewhat derisively called the Shatnerverse, William Shatner wrote some novels that brought back Kirk in a really stupid way. So we generally pretend that shit didn't happen.)
Damn, that's a lot of story. And that's just the high points.
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So there you go. Introduction to Star Trek, Starfleet, and Jim Kirk. If there's interest I'll do a round-up on Spock and the rest of the crew; a lot of Spock's life is covered in AOS, but to really understand the timeline of Spock to the point we meet Spock Prime in AOS, you need to go through a bunch more stuff that I am happy to consolidate here for you.
Relevant novels:
Diane Carey, "Best Destiny." Tells the story of Kirk's second trip into space at the age of sixteen. For people who criticized AOS Kirk for being brash, rebellious, and kind of douchey, I say: he was that way in the TOS universe too. It took seeing two people die, nearly killing a third, almost dying himself, and watching his father command through the entire thing that changed him from being a snotty teenager into the driven, successful, still pretty douchey guy who got a command at 30. AOS Kirk is right on the money, and I can expound on that at will.
Diane Duane, "Spock's World." Simply put, this is one of the best ST novels in the entire lit canon. Not only does it effortlessly weave together the many preceding threads of Vulcan culture and society, Duane brilliantly theorizes the history of Vulcan leading up the framework of the plot. Absolutely fantastic; required reading.
J.M. Dillard, "The Lost Years." Provides the bridge between the first five year mission of the Enterprise and the events of Star Trek: TMP. Really well thought out.
Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens, "Prime Directive." J & G are the reason Enterprise didn't suck so bad after the fourth season. They are prolific ST novel writers and have contributed a lot to the canon. "Prime Directive" is no different; when the crew of the Enterprise violate Starfleet's First Rule, they must answer for the consequences of their actions. Great read.
I can recommend more, but this is a start. And if it would be helpful I can provide detailed synopses.
Other things:
Star Trek Countdown 1-4. The prequel tie-in comics to Star Trek XI; great bridge between the events of Unification and XI, and fills in some honkin' big plot holes. 52MB zip file; you will need Comical (Mac) or CDisplay (PC) to view. www.mediafire.com/?qyiuzgmz5y2
Star Trek Universe Map; really big detailed map of the stuff in the Milky Way Galaxy. JPG, 2MB. mediafire.com/?yy4h2j0zigc
Navigational Manual; truly fascinating pseudo-physics and guide to the ST Universe circa 1980. PDF, 45MB. mediafire.com/?n0tmzh0yzmj
1) This is not complete nor is it meant to be comprehensive. You want comprehensive? Pick an article at Memory Alpha and start working your way through the related topics. Those folks have detailed every piece of minutia relating to Star Trek in the last 44 years, and while I wish they had chosen a better stylesheet to present it in, my hat's off to them. If you think I missed something/got something wrong, mention it in the comments.
2) This introduction is geared primarily towards new writers in the fandom, hopefully to provide a easy way to get relevant information and offer a straightforward guide for further investigation. I love all the writing you're doing, people, and I want to make it easy for you to write more.
3) I'm going to use TOS to indicate The Original Series and AOS to refer to Alternate Original Series, i.e. Star Trek XI. It's not an endorsement of AOS as a descriptor, mind. It's just easier to type.
So! In the beginning there was the Milky Way Galaxy.
The Federation and thus Starfleet is Sol-centric, for no other reason than because homo sapiens lived there. You will notice that the stellar cartography of the MWG is presented two-dimensionally, even though any high school kid in Physics 101 will object that you can't calculate distance between spatial objects in the known universe without other stuff, like relativistic time, gravity, and the center of the damned galaxy ("Galactic Core"). We know this. Roll with it.
Furthermore, the MWG is divided into four quadrants. The cool shit, I mean, the Federation, exists in the border between the Alpha and Beta Quadrants. USS Voyager is in the Delta Quadrant. The Dominion is in the Gamma Quadrant. Question--why we haven't left the MWG? There's way too much shit to deal with in the galaxy we have, much less go looking for trouble in other ones.
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Let's talk about the Federation. There is an excellent introduction to the Federation here by
skywaterblue, I recommend checking it out. There are four founding races: Humans, Vulcans, Tellarites, and Andorians; and five founding worlds, including Alpha Centauri, a human-colony world. These worlds signed the Federation Charter.
The base of the Federation was formed in response to the Romulan Empire, and as you can see from the map, the Romulans and the Klingons are in pretty close proximity to Sol. At the time of the Federation's creation in 2161, they were also much longer-lived and more powerful than the peoples who had come together to form the Federation. So in the time of TOS (and generally true for AOS) the three major military-industrial powers in the Alpha and Beta quadrants (which are known space, in the 23rd century) are the Federation, the Klingons, and the Romulans; with lesser powers including the Ferengi and Orionate space traders/privateers.
The Federation is governed by a Council comprised of representatives from its member worlds; the Council chooses a President, and the seat of government is Paris on United Earth (also known as Terra). The Federation, in general, seems to be a government largely concerned with the furthering of its membership throughout the MWG and the protection of those member worlds. (For a truly excellent discussion of Federation economics, I recommend Ilya Somin's article on Federation socialism. The comments are brilliant. He also has a preceding article in the National Review well worth the read. I don't necessarily agree with his points, but it's fascinating [if dense] reading.) However, the UFP has many subsidiary departments which may or may not be controlled by the Cabinet selected by the Federation President. Arguably the two most important department types are science and military.
While Federation sciences and Federation military seemingly go hand in hand, the Federation supports an extensive scientific operations throughout its domain that does not have a military element. For example, Carol Marcus's Genesis project (Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan) has no Starfleet contingent involved; Noonien Soong, Data's creator, also ran a Starfleet-independent lab. While scientific work is clearly carried out by Starfleet crews, it is far from monopolizing Federation science.
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Which brings us to Starfleet. Starfleet was the primary space-going and defence system of United Earth in the 22nd century before the inception of the Federation; it was integrated into the Federation afterwards. Starfleet is regulated by Starfleet Command, which is located in San Francisco alongside the Starfleet Academy. Starfleet is a military organization based on Terran naval tradition; it is really really helpful to learn a little bit about the American and British naval histories to better understand what's up with Starfleet. If you were ever a fan of Master and Commander, I've found it to be a great view into the mentality behind Starfleet commissioned officer personnel and the attitude of TOS Enterprise personnel in general. (
eleanorjane is doing a great job recapping some of the finer points about Starfleet and the Star Trek Universe.
catalysticat did a fascinating analysis of Starfleet enlisted rank, though it may be more immediately helpful to know the commissioned officers ranking, as nearly all the characters we see in every incarnation of Star Trek are commissioned.)
Starfleet primarily consists of starships (which only came into use in 2249, as opposed to the previously termed spacecraft) which explore the unknown sectors of the MWG, patrol Federation-protected sectors, and act as diplomatic craft for the Federation in certain circumstances. Prior to the development of large, multi-function warp-enabled ships capable of long-term and long-range exploration, Federation spacecraft filled a more localized, member-world specific role. The USS Kelvin was a starship; the USS Enterprise is Starfleet's flagship starship.
Starfleet also controls many Starbases and Deep Space Stations, as well as the Utopia Planitia Shipyards orbiting Mars. (UP is primarily where Starfleet starships are built.) These seem to be in accordance with Federation colonies and Federation economies and are subject to Federation law.
But wait; before I got into Starfleet, I should have talked about what made the whole thing possible: warp drive. Warp drive, or faster-than-light (FTL) travel, is the science that fuels the whole story. In 2063, Zefram Cochrane's warp-engine craft successfully achieves Warp One. This gets the attention of a group of Vulcans doing surveys, who then land in Montana on Earth and make First Contact. At this point in the 21st century, Earth has undergone World War 3, resulting in the deaths of over 600 million people. It's pretty dim there, for awhile. Warp drive revolutionizes--in the most literal sense of the world--Earth, and results in a United Earth which fosters its diplomatic relationships with the other three founding races of the Federation. Warp drive makes Starfleet both possible and necessary.
Also, the origin of Starfleet offers some handwavium as to why it is primarily staffed by humans.
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So now that we have the UFP and Starfleet down, let's do a quick review of the frenemies of the UFP.
Klingons
Klingons are a militaristic warrior-culture based empire. Their home planet is Qo'nos (Kronos), and their empire was founded by the warrior Kahless in AD 822. There is a whole story about Klingons and genetic engineering that was developed mostly to explain why Klingons looked different in TOS versus, well, every other Trek; but it's kind of silly to recount and not really relevant. The important points about Klingons are: in the 23rd century the Federation and Klingons are most emphatically enemies; in the TOS movies, the Klingon Empire is crippled to the point of self-destruction by the accidental implosion of the Qo'nos moon Praxis, which is Empire's main energy source. In Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (or as I call it, The One With the Floating Pink Blood) the UFP and the Klingons only come to an understanding because of the destruction of Praxis, and even then it is a very hard-won peace. This was the signing of the Khitomer Accords in 2293. Eventually this would break down, but not until nearly a century later. Worf (TNG, DS9) was the first Klingon to enter the Starfleet Academy in 2357. He was fostered by human parents after the destruction of a colony of which his birth family was a part, and this likely contributed to his career--but it is worth noting that despite the Accords there was no integration of the Empire into the UFP until Worf's enrollment in the academy, seventy years after those Accords.
So in sum: Klingons bad. In the 23rd century, there is only hostile communication between the UFP and the Empire. Kirk, in TOS, comes to deeply hate Klingons. In AOS, it seems very likely that the same hostility exists, and Uhuru knowing Klingon is best explained by know thine enemy.
The Klingons and the Romulans aren't too hot on each other either. Hey, let's talk about those guys.
Romulans
The Romulan Star Empire is another of the big, powerful political entities in the Beta Quadrant with whom the UFP is at conflict. There are two levels of knowledge here: what Starfleet in the 23rd century knows about Romulans (that is, not much) and what the Vulcans know about Romulans (way more than they ever wanted to know). To understand Romulus, you need to understand Vulcan, and to understand Vulcan you need to read Spock's World. No arguments! You can get it for under $1 USD. I have a whole other post about Essential Reading, but as far as I am aware this is as close to canon as it gets. If you want to know why it's such a big honkin' deal, beatrice_otter did a nice recap of the novel here. Section Six is the important bit.
So Romulans are genetic cousins to Vulcans who eschewed the path of logic. There are a couple of important similarities:
1) Romulans and Vulcans both are insular, xenophobic peoples who tend to stick around their own parts.
2) Both races have very strong, overwhelming emotions that can dominate their life. They almost annihilated Vulcans; those who would become Romulans left and began an empire to work out their anger issues.
3) The whole Vulcans-and-Romulans-look-alike think is a Clark Kent/Superman scenario. Apparently no one could tell they were cousins until Spock brought it up.
Memory Beta has a comprehensive article on Romulans, so I'll just point out that, in the time of TOS, not a whole lot is known about the Star Empire other than Romulans are generally bad news and hopefully far enough away from the Federation at that time to be bothersome only to the Klingons, with whom the Romulans are neighbors. As far as the original, TOS-based timeline goes, Spock (an Ambassador for the UFP [not Vulcan!] by 2368) is working to engender a reunification of Romulus and Vulcan, which is not really pleasing to either group of people. Watch Unification I & II in TNG, and between those two episodes and the Star Trek: Countdown comic books (links below) that preceded Star Trek XI, you'll have a pretty good idea of what Spock Prime was doing with the Romulans up to the point we see him in AOS. Just remember: while there is probably enough contact between the UFP (and thus Starfleet) and the Romulan Star Empire that the two cultures can speak each other's languages, there ain't much else, and the Vulcans would happily keep it that way.
The Borg
The Borg is/are a collective of creatures who were formerly individual persons who have been assimilated into the collective consciousness of the Borg. The Borg are entirely 24th century dangers to the Federation, first encountered by Picard and his crew (TNG) through interference by Q. They don't show up in TOS at all, but that's no reason they can't show up in AOS...
To be honest, the Borg are the wrong kind of enemy for the tone of TOS/AOS, though I'd personally love to see it. (They make an anonymous, brief guest appearance in the TOS novel Probe, which is shocking in its allusions.) I bring them up only because of the events of (my favorite ST movie) First Contact, Star Trek VIII, impact the past of the 21st century in such a way that it makes a little opening for the altered future of AOS. Anyway, the Borg want to assimilate everyone and everything in their/its quest for cybernetic perfection; for more information watch the TNG episodes "The Best of Both Worlds" Parts I & II, Star Trek: First Contact, and the novel Resistance. And of course, watch Voyager from Season 3 on for the absolutely wicked Seven of Nine.
After all, Resistance Is Futile.
The Dominion
If the Borg were the bane of TNG and later VOY, the Dominion were the problem of DS9. In 2370 the Dominion made first contact with Starfleet powers (DS9: "The Jem'Hadar") and by 2373 the Federation had declared war upon the Dominion-Cardassian Alliance. The Dominion is a Gamma Quadrant power, accessible through the Bajoran wormhole by which Deep Space Nine floats. The Dominion are to the Gamma Quadrant what the Borg are to the Delta. Big, bad, and rapacious. While this has no bearing on the events of TOS, it was contemporaneous for Spock Prime's timeline and relevant to the problems of both the UFP and the Romulan Star Empire in the late 24th century.
Other Guys
Orions: There's an Orion world with a government we don't know much about. In TOS and The Animated Series (TAS) we mostly see Orion pirates selling Orion females as slaves. At the time of TOS, Orions are officially neutral while generally shady. Eventually they get into bed with the Dominion; they always stay in trade with the UFP but never become a part of it. Alpha Quadrant.
Ferengi: My favorites. Seriously. Also politically neutral and non-member of the UFP, the Ferengi Alliance is the governmental control over a large population of space traders. The first UFP contact with Ferengi is in 2151 (ENT), though the first logged contact is in 2355 (TNG). The Ferengi are pretty pointless until DS9, when Quark and his family made them awesome. They were framed as "bad" in TNG, but were mostly just ridiculous. Ferenginar (fun to saaaaaaay) is in the Beta Quadrant.
Cardassians: Xenophobic militaristic empire-driven enemies of the Federation. Sound familiar? Mostly they were a problem for Bajor and other worlds the Cardassian Empire subjugated; the first substantial interaction between Cardassia and the UFP happens when Starfleet overtakes Deep Space Nine. They only become a threat to the UFP when they join forces with the Dominion. The Klingon Empire tries to overtake the Cardassian empire, resulting in the war that furthers Cardassia's alliance with the Dominion. The Federation's alliance with the Klingons is an aspect of what draws the UFP into the war. You can somewhat liken the Cardassians to the Klingons in terms of AOS: known, likely considered a threat, generally avoided if possible. Cardassia is located in the Alpha Quadrant.
ETA: skywaterblue rightly pointed out that just before the start of TNG, the Federation and Cardassians are embroiled in a border dispute war, which I had forgotten about; this makes them a more present threat in intervening years between Star Trek VI and the start of TNG, but I maintain that since the war began in 2347 and a ceasefire reached in 2367, Cardassians were still a largely irrelevant threat to the majority of the events in TOS. At most you could point to escalating tensions based on border disputes as the number of member worlds in the Federation grew, brining UFP territory that much closer to Cardassian. But the arguable hinge of the universe hangs on the "death" of Kirk in 2293, so I would put any noticeable conflict between the two governments after that, at the start of the 24th century. Then again, you could completely redefine these tensions based on the events of AOS, so whatever.
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Cool. So now we know the lay of the land a little bit. Here's some basic biographical information about Jim Kirk and his time on the Enterprise. All of this is drawn from TOS and original-storyline materials unless stated otherwise. There will be a booklist at the end of this, I promise. Or threaten. Maybe both.
James Tiberius Kirk [Memory Alpha; Memory Beta]: Born March 23, 2233, Riverside, Iowa, (in XI, January 04, 2233, USS Kelvin) to George and Winona Kirk. Older brother George Samuel, born in 2230. George Sr. was a commander in the Security division of Starfleet; Winona was a scientist based on Terra. In 2246, the Kirk family moved to Tarsus IV, where a famine nearly killed the population. Barely surviving, the Kirk family moved to the planet Grex in 2247; by the time Jim is 16, in 2249, the family has relocated back to Iowa and George and Winona were amicably estranged.
In Best Destiny, also known as one of my favorite ST books, a pig-headed, rebellious, gang-leading, runaway, potty-mouthed sixteen year old Jim Kirk (...sound familiar?) is hauled off to space by his father George, where an encounter with a forcible salvage crew brings Jim face to face with what his father does for a living and fundamentally changes his attitude about life and Starfleet. (His brother Sam, called George in AOS, becomes a scientist on Deneva with wife Aurelan and sons Peter, Alexander, and Julius.) Jim enrolls in the Academy at the age of 17, and from 2250-2254 he is a student there until being commissioned as an Ensign on the USS Farragut. After a successful tour of duty on the Farrugut he was commissioned as second in command for the USS Constitution, where he met Dr Leonard McCoy. Other stuff happened, and 2264 Kirk was commissioned as a captain upon the promotion of Chris Pike, and given command of Pike's Enterprise. Over the next five years a bunch of stuff happened. (If people want a synopsis of the five-year mission, just let me know.)
In 2270, after the five-year mission, Kirk was promoted to Admiral and given a desk job that he promptly gave up as soon as a suitably Earth-shattering mission came around and he could claim back command of the Enterprise from the dad from Seventh Heaven. (Star Trek: The Motion Picture.) Admiral Kirk ran amok with the Enterprise for another five-year mission, despite being an Admiral, and finally retired around 2278. Six years later he was bored with retirement and reactivated his commission, riding a desk as an instructor at Starfleet Academy. In 2285 (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan) he regains command from Spock of the Enterprise during a training mission, and follows Khan down the rabbithole, resulting in the re-encounter of an old flame, Carol Marcus, and the knowledge of his twentysomething year old son, David. After Spock sacrifices his life to save the Enterprise and her crew, and the Genesis machine is launched, the Enterprise is decommissioned and Kirk removed from her command.
And now, 2286 (Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and Star Trek IV: The One With the Space Whales); Kirk and his crew steal back the Enterprise to go recover Spock, the half-Vulcan Lt. Saavik, and Kirk's son David from the Genesis planet. David is killed by Klingons trying to claim the Genesis materials, and Spock has some shit going on himself. With Spock on board and the Genesis planet imploding, the Enterprise returns to Vulcan where more stuff happens to Spock. The crew of the Enterprise remains in exiled limbo on Vulcan for three months waiting for Starfleet and the Federation Council to determine their fate; but then Space Whales intervene, the crew of the Enterprise go back in time to meet the mom from Seventh Heaven and get some whales. When they come back to the 23rd century, they are exonerated from their actions, except for Kirk who gets "busted" down to captain.
Though the Enterprise has been destroyed, Starfleet rewards their screwing with the timeline by creating another Constitution-class ship, the 1701-A, in 2286. Captain Kirk commanded that vessel until 2293; three months shy of his retirement the events leading to the Khitomer Accords happen, and Kirk is put on trial for Crimes against Klingons. After he escapes from a labor camp with Bones Mccoy and foils a assassination, he retires from Starfleet. But before he can enjoy climbing rocks and charming people out of their pants in his dotage, he gets sucked into the Nexus (Star Trek: Generations) where he remains out of time until Captain Picard engages him in an effort to stop the destruction of Veridian III and the crew of the 1701-D in 2371, which results in his death. (In what is somewhat derisively called the Shatnerverse, William Shatner wrote some novels that brought back Kirk in a really stupid way. So we generally pretend that shit didn't happen.)
Damn, that's a lot of story. And that's just the high points.
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So there you go. Introduction to Star Trek, Starfleet, and Jim Kirk. If there's interest I'll do a round-up on Spock and the rest of the crew; a lot of Spock's life is covered in AOS, but to really understand the timeline of Spock to the point we meet Spock Prime in AOS, you need to go through a bunch more stuff that I am happy to consolidate here for you.
Relevant novels:
Diane Carey, "Best Destiny." Tells the story of Kirk's second trip into space at the age of sixteen. For people who criticized AOS Kirk for being brash, rebellious, and kind of douchey, I say: he was that way in the TOS universe too. It took seeing two people die, nearly killing a third, almost dying himself, and watching his father command through the entire thing that changed him from being a snotty teenager into the driven, successful, still pretty douchey guy who got a command at 30. AOS Kirk is right on the money, and I can expound on that at will.
Diane Duane, "Spock's World." Simply put, this is one of the best ST novels in the entire lit canon. Not only does it effortlessly weave together the many preceding threads of Vulcan culture and society, Duane brilliantly theorizes the history of Vulcan leading up the framework of the plot. Absolutely fantastic; required reading.
J.M. Dillard, "The Lost Years." Provides the bridge between the first five year mission of the Enterprise and the events of Star Trek: TMP. Really well thought out.
Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens, "Prime Directive." J & G are the reason Enterprise didn't suck so bad after the fourth season. They are prolific ST novel writers and have contributed a lot to the canon. "Prime Directive" is no different; when the crew of the Enterprise violate Starfleet's First Rule, they must answer for the consequences of their actions. Great read.
I can recommend more, but this is a start. And if it would be helpful I can provide detailed synopses.
Other things:
Star Trek Countdown 1-4. The prequel tie-in comics to Star Trek XI; great bridge between the events of Unification and XI, and fills in some honkin' big plot holes. 52MB zip file; you will need Comical (Mac) or CDisplay (PC) to view. www.mediafire.com/?qyiuzgmz5y2
Star Trek Universe Map; really big detailed map of the stuff in the Milky Way Galaxy. JPG, 2MB. mediafire.com/?yy4h2j0zigc
Navigational Manual; truly fascinating pseudo-physics and guide to the ST Universe circa 1980. PDF, 45MB. mediafire.com/?n0tmzh0yzmj