Clear all moorings, one-half impulse power and set course for <I>a mare incognitum</I>... A popular culture artifact of the New Frontier/Space Race era, <I>Star Trek</I> is often mistakenly viewed as a Space Western. However, the Western format is not what governs the worldbuilding of <I>Star Trek</I>, which was, after all, also pitched as ""Hornblower in space."" <I>Star Trek</I> is modeled on the world of the ""British Golden Age of Sail"" as it is commonly found in the genre of sea fiction. This book re-historicizes and remaps the origins of the franchise and subsequently the entirety of its fictional world--the <I>Star Trek</I> continuum--on an as yet uncharted transatlantic bearing.