Star Trek: Starfleet Academy Continues Franchise's 40-Year Love Affair With Humpback Whales

Warning: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Starfleet Academy Season 1, Episode 2 - "Beta Test"Star Trek's 40-year love affair with humpback whales continues in Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy's first two episodes premiered on Paramount+ to a warm response from Star Trek fans.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy brings the titular college back to San Francisco on Earth. Starfleet Academy's cadets are the first class to study on Earth in 120 years since The Burn upended the United Federation of Planets. San Francisco is also an indelible part of Star Trek's history with humpback whales.

Fondly known as "The One with the Whales," Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home revolved around a preposterous but endearing plot where Admiral James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and the USS Enterprise's crew had to time travel to 1986 and bring humpback whales to the 23rd century to save Earth.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, set in the 32nd century, picks up the torch and continues Star Trek's devotion to the noble humpback whales.

Humpback Whales In Star Trek: Starfleet Academy Explained

In Star Trek: Starfleet Academy season 1, episode 2, Caleb Mir (Sandro Rosta) brings Tarima Sadal (Zoë Steiner) to see the humpback whales in the USS Athena's Cetacean Ops observatory. The daughter of the President of Betazed (Anthony Natale) expressed an interest in seeing Earth's majestic mammals, and Caleb delivered (though they both got in trouble).

Tarima wanted to see humpback whales because of the perspective they offer. To the young Betazoid, the whales are creatures who exist beyond judgment of the problems that burden Tarima and the Betazoids, who were debating ending their isolationism and rejoining the United Federation of Planets.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy offered the first glimpse of humpback whales in the 32nd century, reassuring audiences that Starfleet continues to breed, protect, and benefit from the intelligent and peaceful mammals.

Since Star Trek: The Next Generation, whales and dolphins have played an integral role in Starfleet, helping as starship navigators.

Why Star Trek Has Loved Whales For 40 Years

Star Trek's enduring love affair with humpback whales comes from Leonard Nimoy, who read a book about the potential extinction of humpback whales and made it the focal point of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, which Nimoy directed and conceived its story.

Star Trek: The Next Generation established that there were whales and dolphins in Cetacean Ops aboard the USS Enterprise-D, although the friendly mammals were never fully shown, likely due to the limits of 1990s TV syndication budgets.

Star Trek: Lower Decks made the Beluga whales aboard the USS Cerritos actual Starfleet Officers. Kimolu and Matt were lower deckers who lived in Cetacean Ops, and the horny whales helped save the Cerritos more than once.

Star Trek: Prodigy introduced Gillian, a humpback whale named for whale biologist Dr. Gillian Taylor (Catherine Hicks) from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Gillian was the descendant of Star Trek IV's whales, George and Gracie, and served in Cetacean Ops aboard the USS Voyager-A.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy can also now lay claim to being called "The One with the Whales" thanks to the appearance of humpback whales, continuing a heartwarming tradition introduced by Leonard Nimoy that now spans four decades of Star Trek.