Star Trek has a protracted historical past of athletic exercise—from shipboard gymnastics to Sisko’s love of baseball conserving the game alive within the twenty third century, the franchise has cherished exploring real-world sports activities as leisure pastimes, nevertheless it additionally loves inventing just a few of its personal. Such was the case on this week’s Starfleet Academy, which gave us Calica, so let’s induct it into the Star Trek sporting halls of fame alongside the franchise’s different fictitious athletic achievements.
Calica
Let’s get the beginner out of the best way first. A mascot-defense shootout designed to encourage our younger academy heroes to discover ways to deal with a phaser, Calica is at the very least not a Starfleet-specific sport, as a number of cadets point out having beforehand performed in leagues on their homeworlds. Played with modified phasers that may transport a focused opponent to the sidelines to eradicate them, Calica’s round-based matches see opposing groups try and breach one another’s defensive strains to attain factors by capturing a goal defended by a costume-wearing mascot.
Geskana
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Briefly played by Archer and Tucker in the Enterprise episode “Desert Crossing,” Geskana was a sport played by members of Zobral’s clan, an unidentified species that principally invented lacrosse with smaller objectives and extra alternatives for our heroes to take their shirts off.
Vajhaq
Star Trek has a bunch of one-off sports activities which are talked about in passing as soon as after which by no means once more—a well-known bit of worldbuilding shorthand. The brusquely named Vajhaq is one of a number of famous in Deep Space Nine, a ball-based recreation performed on the planet Meridian. Sisko declined the chance to play a match. Surprising, contemplating his adoration of baseball.
Tsunkatse
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Star Trek has a number of iterations of martial arts, reminiscent of Klingon mok’bara or the traditional Vulcan artwork of Suus Mahna (and another newly created Earth iteration we’ll get to later), however few translated to broadcast sports activities the best way Tsunkatse did. Almost fairly actually simply skilled wrestling however Star Trek—proper right down to the looks of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson within the most interesting of his performing endeavors—Tsunkatse was a fight sport the place fighters wore stun disruptors on their palms and ft and performed in an area surrounded by equally charged panels. Tsunkatse matches may very well be performed to a number of levels of violence, from knockout matches to loss of life battles.
Pan Zan
Another offhand sports activities point out from Enterprise, Pan Zan was an Enolian sport that was apparently very near water polo.
Springball
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An immensely popular Bajoran sport similar to Jai Alai, springball saw two opponents attempt to score points by hitting a target goal on a walled court and could be surprisingly violent—while players couldn’t punch or kick one another, they might steal pictures with physique checks. While primarily performed with simply the palms (one gloved, one ungloved, with solely pictures from the gloved hand succesful of scoring factors), Major Kira was talked about as proudly owning a springball racquet a number of instances on DS9, so there might have been a variant of the game that used one… or the writers confused Kira’s sport of alternative with Miles and Bashir’s fondness for racquetball. A confusion that led to Lower Decks by accident having Bajoran safety officer Shax invite Boimler to a recreation of springball, solely to play what appeared lots like racquetball because it appeared on DS9!
Pala
A area sport performed by the Brunali, Pala briefly comes up on Voyager when the younger ex-Borg Icheb, a Brunali himself, is invited to play it once more when given the prospect to return to his homeworld, nevertheless it goes unseen.
Velocity
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Another phaser-based sport like Calica, Velocity saw two players trade shots to keep a Frisbee-esque disc bouncing between them, with points scored when a player failed to stop the disc from hitting their body. It’s solely ever proven being performed on holodecks, so it’s unknown if it’s a purely holographical sport or may very well be performed with an actual disc and phasers.
Karo-Net
We know completely nothing about Karo-Net aside from that it exists—it’s talked about as soon as offhandedly by Odo whereas he bemoans to Quark the compromises made in relationships. Presumably, given Odo’s upbringing, Karo-Net is probably both a Bajoran sport or one thing popularized by the Cardassians throughout their occupation of Bajor.
Anbo-jyutsu
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While we never see Anbo-jyutsu in a professional competitive environment, we would be remiss to not mention the Japanese-influenced martial art that was apparently one of Earth’s premiere fight sports activities by the twenty fourth century. A one-on-one duel performed in a small round area, Anbo gamers wore mild armor that included a full visor to obscure their imaginative and prescient, battling with a workers that included a proximity sensor in a single of its ends to assist present an auditory clue of the place their opponent was.
The Octran Fertility Contest
Another offhanded point out from Enterprise, this contest was performed in an analogous method to basketball, in line with Phlox. Presumably the “fertility” side concerned the truth that it was additionally performed with minimal, if any, clothes.
Hoverball
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While we don’t get to see Hoverball being correctly performed, we briefly get to see the titular ball in TNG‘s “Captain’s Holiday,” when Picard’s studying break on Risa is interrupted by the floating anti-grav machine. Hoverball was apparently extremely common although, particularly on Voyager, with an excellent chunk of the senior workers taking part in it amongst themselves on the holodeck of their downtime.
Hydrosailing
A maritime sport that’s once more talked about offhandedly, with Kes taking holographic classes in it on Voyager. Tuvok bluntly declines the supply to study himself, citing that Vulcans don’t hydrosail, nevertheless it’s unknown if it is a cultural distinction or right down to Tuvok being a grump.
Parrises Squares
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Star Trek loves a preferred sport that it then by no means ever truly reveals being performed, however Parrises Squares is perhaps the game that’s gone the longest between us being launched to it and seeing it get performed. First talked about within the TNG season one episode “11001001” in 1988, it could take 36 years for it to be proven on-screen in Prodigy‘s sophomore season. An apparently dangerous (and occasionally violent) sport, Parrises Squares saw teams of four use ion mallets to bat a ball into an opposing goal. The squares in the name presumably come from the grid-based court it was played on, with each square in the grid capable of changing height mid-game. No wonder people got injured a bunch!
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