This page is a tutorial for learning to work with links to episodes and films that make up the Star Trek universe. On Memory Alpha, we use templates to to distinguish episodes from their redirects or alternate meaning titles sharing the same name. These templates allow Memory Alpha to add special tool tips to the links so that when a mouse cursor moves over it, a special text box pops up. These also allow us to maintain all of the episode pages at once without having to edit almost every page on Memory Alpha.
Episode links[]
Episode links are created by using the {{e}} template, while links to an aftershow would use the {{after}} template. A regular wiki link formatted correctly would look like "[[Yesterday's Enterprise (episode)|Yesterday's Enterprise]]", and the template version of the same link appears like {{e|Yesterday's Enterprise}}. Using the template automatically formats the episode title properly for Memory Alpha by wrapping it inside quotes and hiding the episode disambiguation.
Please note that, just like a regular link, if you do not get the episode name correct when adding an episode link, it will appear as a "red link". When using episode links, be sure to use the "Preview" option and correct the link rather than creating a redirect or a new article from that target. Every episode, film, aftershow, and podcast produced for the Star Trek franchise will have an article on Memory Alpha, and thus does not need to be duplicated.
For example:
- {{e|Yesterday's Enterprise}}
will produce:
These episode and aftershow links can also be used in conjunction with a series short form to properly format the episode or list of episodes when using them as a reference on an article. The series identifiers are as follows:
- {{TOS}} – Star Trek: The Original Series
- {{TAS}} – Star Trek: The Animated Series
- {{TNG}} – Star Trek: The Next Generation
- {{DS9}} – Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
- {{VOY}} – Star Trek: Voyager
- {{ENT}} – Star Trek: Enterprise
- {{DIS}} – Star Trek: Discovery
- {{ST}} – Star Trek: Short Treks
- {{PIC}} – Star Trek: Picard
- {{LD}} – Star Trek: Lower Decks
- {{PRO}} – Star Trek: Prodigy
- {{SNW}} – Star Trek: Strange New Worlds
- {{VST}} – Star Trek: very Short Treks
- {{SA}} – Star Trek: Starfleet Academy
- and
- {{P1}} – Priority One: A Roddenberry Star Trek Podcast
- {{ML}} – Mission Log: A Roddenberry Star Trek Podcast
- {{WAW}} – Women at Warp: A Star Trek Podcast
- {{ENG}} – Engage: The Official Star Trek Podcast
- {{MLL}} – Mission Log Live: A Roddenberry Star Trek Podcast
- {{TTF}} – The Trek Files: A Roddenberry Star Trek Podcast
- {{DSTN}} – Daily Star Trek News
- {{PP}} – Star Trek Picard Podcast
- {{TDF}} – The Delta Flyers
- {{TPD}} – Star Trek: The Pod Directive
- {{QGR}} – Quoting Gene Roddenberry
- {{MLP}} – Mission Log: Prodigy
- {{MLG}} – Mission Log: Gene-ology: A Roddenberry Podcast
- {{TT}} – TrekTivism
- {{KHA}} – Star Trek: Khan: Ceti Alpha V
- and
- {{AT}} – After Trek
- {{TRR}} – The Ready Room
Each of these series links can support up to five episode titles that will be formatted in the proper style for Memory Alpha.
For example:
- {{TNG|Yesterday's Enterprise|The Inner Light}}
will produce:
Linking to episode talk pages should be done with the {{EpTalk}} or {{et}} templates.
If more than five episode titles are used in a single reference, any beyond the fifth will be marked as "and more", and the article will be added into a maintenance category. If this happens, it is best to try to split the references up so that they apply to the specific thing that is being cited.
To reference the remastered version of an episode, append "-R" to the template name. For example:
- {{TNG-R|Conundrum}}
will produce:
Film links[]
Similar to the episode links, there is a {{film}} template that is used for automatically formatting and linking to each of the Star Trek films. This template, unlike the episode link template, can only link to one film at a time. Instead of using the title of the film, the template takes a simple number – the number of film in question. As such, the original movie, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, would use the number "1", while Star Trek Generations would use the number "7".
For example:
- {{film|7}}
will produce:
This will also cover instances where a film's title has a conflict in the main namespace and must be suffixed with "(film)". The eleventh film falls into this situation, and {{film|11}} displays Star Trek.
Additionally, when referring to Star Trek films collectively, the following template may be used:
- {{Star Trek films}}
will produce: