Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry and currently under the ownership of CBS and Paramount. Star Trek: The Original Series and its live action TV spin-off shows, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Enterprise as well as the Star Trek film series make up the main canon, while Star Trek: The Animated Series as well as the expansive library of Star Trek novels and comics are part of the franchise, but are generally considered non-canon. The first series, now referred to as "The Original Series", debuted in 1966 and ran for three seasons on NBC. It followed the interstellar adventures of James T. Kirk and the crew of the starship Enterprise, an exploration vessel of a 23rd-century interstellar "United Federation of Planets". In creating the first "Star Trek", Roddenberry was inspired by Westerns such as Wagon Train, along with the Horatio Hornblower novels and Gulliver's Travels. These adventures continued in the short-lived Star Trek: The Animated Series and six feature films. Four spin-off television series were eventually produced: Star Trek: The Next Generation, followed the crew of a new starship Enterprise set a century after the original series; Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager, set contemporaneously with The Next Generation; and Star Trek: Enterprise, set before the original series, in the early days of human interstellar travel. Four additional The Next Generation feature films were produced. In 2009, the film franchise underwent a relaunch with a prequel to the original series set in an alternate timeline titled simply Star Trek. This film featured a new cast portraying younger versions of the crew from the original Enterprise. A sequel to this film, Star Trek Into Darkness, premiered on May 16, 2013. Star Trek has been a cult phenomenon for decades. Fans of the franchise are called Trekkies or Trekkers. The franchise spans a wide range of spin-offs including games, figurines, novels, toys, and comics. Star Trek had a themed attraction in Las Vegas which opened in 1998 and closed in September 2008. At least two museum exhibits of props travel the world. The series has its own full-fledged constructed language, Klingon. Several parodies have been made of Star Trek. Its fans, despite the end of Star Trek episodes on TV, have produced several fan productions to fill that void. Star Trek is noted for its influence on the world outside of science fiction. It has been cited as an inspiration for several technological inventions such as the cell phone. Moreover, the show is noted for its progressive civil rights stances. The original series included one of television's first multiracial casts, and the first televised inter-racial kiss. Star Trek references can be found throughout popular culture from movies such as the submarine thriller Crimson Tide to the cartoon series South Park.

Star Trek: The Next Generation: Future's Past (Star Trek: The Next Generation: Echoes from the Past on Sega) is a 1994 adventure game featuring strategy and puzzle-solving elements. The game was released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, the Sega Genesis and the Sega Game Gear. It takes place in the Star Trek universe, spanning Federation space and the Romulan Neutral Zone, and centers around the appearance of the IFD (Integrated Field Derandomizer), an artifact machine of unknown origin that, as its name suggests, allows its user to reshape matter and energy. It culminates in the IFD Trials, three tests undertaken by representatives of any races that are present when the Trials are held, and failure would mean the destruction of the Federation and the enslavement of countless worlds by the Federation's enemies. Both the Sega and Nintendo games feature largely identical gameplay, but with some key differences between versions.