Editorial Mission · Issue No. 372 · January 2026
Star Trek Site is an independent, fan-built reference to the entire Star Trek universe — every episode across 11 series and 4 animated shows, every named starship (847 and counting), every captain's log entry. Cross-linked, searchable, and reviewed by a 240-person reviewer corps before it goes live.
est. 2017 · 847 ships · 926 episodes · 48,300 readers · featured in Wired & Den of Geek
A Letter from the Editor
I started Star Trek Site in March 2017 out of frustration. I had spent four years contributing to the third edition of the Star Trek Encyclopedia, and I loved the project — but the print workflow meant it was already two years out of date before it hit shelves. By the time a fan looked up the registry of the USS Shenzhou, the reference was a stub. I wanted something that updated the moment a new series aired.
What began as a single Notion database of ships grew, over eighteen months, into a public site. I wrote the first 40 episode guides myself. Today the team is seven full-time editors and a volunteer reviewer corps of 240+ active members, and the database tracks 926 episodes, 13 films, 2,140 named characters, and 847 canonical starships — 34% more ships than Memory Alpha publicly lists.
We do three things differently. First, every episode page carries the same metadata block — director, writer, stardate, air date, production number — so a podcast host can quote our attribution without chasing it down. Second, when we disagree with Memory Alpha on a canon point, we don't pretend it doesn't exist: we log the disagreement in a public Canon Notes appendix on every article, with both positions cited. Third, we translate synopses into six languages — including Japanese, the only fan archive to do so.
The site now receives 1.4 million visitors a month, with 38% returning within seven days. Our weekly newsletter, Captain's Log, has been read by 48,300 subscribers since February 2019 — a 42% open rate, more than twice the industry average for fandom newsletters. We have been cited as a source in three published Star Trek non-fiction books (2021–2024), featured by Wired in 2023 and Den of Geek in 2024, and ranked #1 on Google for "Star Trek ship database" continuously since Q3 2021.
None of this is official. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or licensed by CBS, Paramount, or ViacomCBS. All images are fair-use thumbnails or attributed official press stills. We are a fan-built archive, run by a small editorial team that takes canon seriously and readers even more so.
If you are an academic, a podcaster, or just someone who wants to know what stardate a particular line of dialogue aired on — welcome. The archive is free, the database is open, and the newsletter is the best way to follow what we add each week.
Marisa Hollander Founder & Editor-in-Chief · San Francisco
The Masthead
Star Trek Site is run like a small magazine: every section of the archive has a named editor with a beat, and every fact on a published page has been read by at least two volunteer reviewers. No anonymous edits, no bot-generated synopses.
Editor-in-Chief
Founder · ships & canon notes
Archivist and Trek historian. Former contributor to the Star Trek Encyclopedia (3rd ed.). Founded the site in 2017 from a one-room office in San Francisco. Writes the weekly newsletter's editorial.
Senior Editor
Beat: episodes & series coverage
Oversees all 926 episode guides across the 11 live-action and 4 animated series. Holds the site to a metadata standard of director, writer, stardate, air date, and production number on every entry.
Database Editor
Beat: starships & technical manuals
Maintains the 847-ship registry — registry numbers, class, debut episode, commanding officer, and status. Built the cross-link system that lets an episode page surface every ship mentioned by name.
Characters Editor
Beat: characters & continuity
Custodian of the 2,140 named-character index. Reviews every character page for species, rank, posting history, and last canonical appearance. Logs continuity disagreements in Canon Notes.
Films Editor
Beat: films & Kelvin timeline
Edits all 13 film entries and the 4 Kelvin-timeline spinoff guides. Former video essayist; brings a director's-eye view to production trivia and box-office context.
Translations Lead
Beat: EN · DE · FR · ES · IT · JA
Runs the six-language synopsis programme — the only fan archive offering Japanese-language summaries. Coordinates 18 freelance translators and a glossary of 1,200 canonical terms.
Reviewer Corps
Active in 19 countries · est. 2018
Every published page has been read by at least two members of the reviewer corps against a checklist of 14 canon rules. Disagreements with Memory Alpha are logged in a public Canon Notes appendix — never silently overridden.
Editorial Standards
Memory Alpha is the gold standard for canon detail; we aim to match it on accuracy and beat it on usability. Our differentiators: 34% more indexed ships, episode guides that load in 0.6s (Lighthouse 99/100), six-language synopsis coverage, and a public disagreements log on every article.
Read the full standards document →Editorial Methodology
Every entry in the archive passes through the same five-stage review before it is published. The system is designed so that a disagreement between our editors and Memory Alpha is logged publicly, never buried — readers see the canon note, the source, and the resolution.
Each episode, film, or ship entry is built from the aired broadcast, official production stills, and on-screen dialogue. We treat the episode as the canonical anchor and log supplementary materials (novelisations, comics, press releases) separately.
A second editor pulls the matching Memory Alpha page and compares metadata field-by-field: stardate, air-date, director, writer, registry, and command crew. Differences are flagged before the article is approved for the next stage.
When we differ from Memory Alpha on a canon point, we do not silently overwrite their entry. The article carries a "Canon Notes" appendix listing both readings, the source for each, and which one the editorial board accepted for this archive.
Episode synopses are translated into English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, and Japanese — the only fan archive to publish Japanese-language summaries. Each translation is reviewed by a native speaker on the volunteer reviewer corps before publication.
A senior editor signs off on every batch of new and revised articles in a weekly editorial meeting. Sign-offs, reviewer IDs, and revision history are attached to each article's metadata block — visible to readers, not just staff.
Transparent Comparison
Memory Alpha is an extraordinary resource and the foundation our editors cross-check against every week. The table below is a transparent accounting of where our independent, fan-built archive differs — in scope, in tooling, and in what we ship to readers each week.
Both archives are independent and unaffiliated with CBS, Paramount, or ViacomCBS. Our Canon Notes appendix records every disagreement so readers can weigh both readings.
Citations & Press
The archive is read by 1.4 million people each month and has been referenced in published Trek non-fiction, in mainstream tech and entertainment press, and across the podcasting community that covers the franchise weekly.
Independent and fan-built since 2017. Founded by archivist and Trek historian Marisa Hollander; staffed by 7 full-time editors and a volunteer reviewer corps of 240+ active members.
