Happy September, everyone — and we’ve got a collection of Star Trek news from around the web to kick off this first weekend of the month, from a special honor bestowed on the Trek franchise, a bit of new info on the next film, a look inside the forthcoming Picard series’ development, and more!

On Thursday, the Television Academy announced that the Star Trek franchise would be their 2018 honoree of the prestigious Governor’s Award, which for forty years has been given to individuals or organization which are “exceptional and universal in nature,” and has contributed more to the television landscape than any single award could reward.

While the full press release includes extensive commentary on the notability of the Trek franchise, the Academy highlighted diversity, optimism, and the inspirational nature of the many television series, along with the behind-the-scenes production achievements from the past 52 years.

“Star Trek is the first television program I can remember watching as a child, and has always been ahead of its time,” said Mark Spatny, Governors Award committee chair. “Not only have all the franchises promoted inclusiveness and acceptance of all people, and inspired creative thought about space exploration and our future, but the technical innovations sparked by the franchise are incredibly significant to the evolution of television production, and also to the communication and computer tools we use in our daily life.”

From casting decisions to plot points, the series has consciously pursued diversity and equality, providing an optimistic depiction of a diverse and just future that inspires its audience.

The original Star Trek provided a war-torn, culturally-divided audience with a sense of hope for the future, one in which race, gender and nationality mattered significantly less than one’s capabilities and strengths. The show actively cast actors of various ethnicities in roles of respect—an actor of Russian descent portrayed Ensign Chekov during the Cold War and an African-American woman portrayed Lieutenant Uhura during the Civil Rights
Movement. Further, the character of Lieutenant Uhura (portrayed by Nichelle Nichols) inspired Dr. Mae Jemison, the first African-American woman to fly in space, and was described as a symbol of hope for equality by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. himself.

In addition, the franchise is responsible for significant visual and special effects innovations that have set the standard for television production, advancing the art of motion control photography, video and digital compositing and editing, as well as computer graphics.

Star Trek continues to inspire generations of dreamers and doers. Scientists from the California Institute of Technology, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Boeing Company and Worcester Polytechnic Institute, among several other organizations, credit Star Trek and its far-reaching, long-lasting social and cultural impact with driving their careers toward STEM fields.

The 2018 Governor’s Award will be presented to CBS Television Studios, the current franchise management, at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards ceremony on September 8 — a fitting date, as the 52nd anniversary of the original Star Trek series debut in 1966.

Star Trek actor Karl Urban made an appearance at the Ticonderoga, NY Star Trek Set Tour late last month for the annual “Trekconderoga” convention, and revealed to TrekMovie.com that the next Kelvin Timeline film is expected to film in the United Kingdom.

This wouldn’t be the first international jaunt for the Trek franchise, of course: Star Trek Beyond and Star Trek: Discovery are each Canadian productions, and Star Trek Into Darkness, Beyond, and Discovery have all featured ventures outside North America for portions of the projects.

Filming all of Trek 4 in the UK would be, however, the largest production to travel overseas; the Dubai sequences for Star Trek Beyond cost $32 Million for the cast and crew to shoot in the city.

While Star Trek 4 continues to face salary challenges with lead Chris Pine and returning star Chris Hemsworth, Urban says he’s “confident” the issue will be resolved and the film franchise will continue as expected.

Foundational work for the upcoming return of Jean-Luc Picard continues in Los Angeles, where the series’ nascent writers’ room is actively in story development.

Writer-producer Michael Chabon shared this image on his Instagram account yesterday, illustrating a sketch of the late-24th-Century state of the Trek galaxy, as drawn by fellow writer-producer — and “supreme guardian of all Trek canon” — Kirsten Beyer.

Clearly visible are the four quadrants of the galaxy, with the transwarp network of the Borg taking up the Delta Quadrant (top right), the Dominion owning the Gamma Quadrant (top left), the wormhole leading to Bajor and Cardassia in the Alpha Quadrant (bottom left), the Federation (and Earth) straddling the border between Alpha and Beta Quadrants, and the Klingon Empire, Romulan Neutral Zone, and the (former?) Romulan Empire taking up the Beta Quadrant (bottom right).

While there’s nothing new to Trek fans in the map, it’s nice to see discussion of the state of the post-2370s era happening once again — except for Spock’s brief flashbacks in the 2009 Kelvin Timeline film, detailing the destruction of Romulus in 2387, no canon Star Trek production has ventured past the events of the 2002 film Star Trek: Nemesis.

Eaglemoss has revealed first looks at three additions to their line of starship reference books, with new hardcovers for Star Trek ship aficionados set to arrive in the new year.

First up is a mass-market re-release of their second Star Trek: Designing Starships book, which we reviewed last summer, focused on the Intrepid-class USS Voyager, along with a myriad of other Trek ships from V’Ger (“The Motion Picture”) to the Enterprise-J (“Azati Prime”). The book is due January 9 and can be preordered now.

Next is a third entry in the new Star Trek Shipyards series centered on the ships of the Klingon Empire, which will include Klingon ship content stretching from the warrior species’ first appearance in the Original Series all the way through their current incarnation in Star Trek: Discovery. The 152-page hardcover is coming in May and can be preordered now.

Finally, the first Star Trek Illustrated Handbook, all about the Enterprise-D, has been announced for a May 2019 release and is up for preorder now.

Likely to include many of the graphics first created for Star Trek Fact Files in the 1990s, the hardcover is said to be “packed with full-color illustrations including isometric views of all the major locations on the USS Enterprise-D, exterior views of auxiliary craft, diagrams of the ship’s systems and detailed artwork showing uniforms and equipment.”

Keep checking back to TrekCore for all the latest in Star Trek news as it arrives!