Memory Alpha Provided Assist In Star Trek Beyond Script

In an interview with Star Trek Beyond co-star and co-writer Simon Pegg, he spoke a little bit about the writing process with his co-writer Doug Jung. Specifically he commented on his use of a long time Star Trek wiki site to help during the scripting stage.

“We had the entirety of ‘Star Trek’ history at our disposal and it’s always there online. There’s an amazing Wikipedia online called Memory Alpha. It became Doug [Jung] and my resource and the place that we’d turn to whenever we wanted to know, ‘What kind of weapons does an NX vessel carry?’ Memory Alpha has it. We actually wrote to the Memory Alpha guys and got them to name a certain device in the movie. I sent them a letter saying, ‘Can you come up with this for me?’ In two hours, they came back with an entire etymological history of what the thing was. It’s beautiful. It’s fantastic to have that support network.”

Long time Trek fans have probably been aware of the depository of all things Star Trek called Memory Alpha that focuses on in canon continuity (as in TV and movies) of the universe. Its name is derived from the home of the Federation's central library that was introduced in The Original Series. Its partner in data is Memory Beta which focuses on the non-canon details like the novels, comics, and other licensed works. Basically you need a refresher on a character, planet, ship, race, you name it, between those two sites you answer can likely be found with a little digging. For example, the NX vessel reference is detailed on the website. If the class sounds familiar it is because NX-01 Enterprise is from the Star Trek: Enterprise series as the prototype ship for warp ships to use in exploration and defense that would be the standard design (later the letters NX would be used to denote an experimental ship design). The Constitution class NCC-1701 Enterprise from TOS is its successor (unofficially NCC means Navel Construction Contract, officially it means nothing).

Long story short, its nice to see Star Trek powers that be appreciate fans efforts (those mysterious minds that keep the Memory sites current). From a movie news perspective, it means nothing as likely it was for a Scotty ramble as he repairs something. The actor also commented on the new TV series saying:

“Star Trek has existed for 50 years in very different iterations. There are so many different points from the history of the Federation, from the very beginnings in ‘Enterprise’ to much later on with ‘Voyager’ and ‘Next Generation’. This is a story that will go on and on. It’s a continuing mission. It must have life on television as well as film. It started out as a TV show. It’s home was television. I’m overjoyed at that news and I can’t wait to see what they do.”