Geek Tree 2024 - Beam Me Up

Geek Tree 2024 returns to the Star Trek universe, adding one long-wished for ornament: the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701B.

The Geek Tree is a long-running tradition in my house. It dates back to the late 1990s, when my wife and I realized my geeky ornaments threatened to overwhelm the family tree. We exiled them to their own, smaller tree … and that tree grew and evolved as I acquired more ornaments. In 2021, the tree evolved to feature a single series – Star Trek – as I could no longer fit all of my ornaments on a single tree. 2022 was Star Wars, and 2023 was everything else (From Harry Potter to Aliens to Jurassic Park).

Yeah, I’ve got a lot of ornaments.

This year, three new Trek-related ornaments warp to the tree:

U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-B: Featured in the Star Trek: Generations movie, the 1701-B is an Excelsior-class ship. I would LOVE to have the Excelsior on my tree, perhaps with some dialogue from Captain Sulu. For now, I’m happy with the Enterprise.
NSEA Protector NTE-3120: Many Trek fans consider GalaxyQuest to be an honorary Star Trek film, given how much inspiration it draws from the series (and honestly, how much better it is than some of the actual Trek movies). The Protector is a fine looking ship, but lacks the light-up functionality of most Star Trek ornaments.
Captain Pike from Strange New Worlds: The captain of the Enterprise NCC-1701 (no stinking A) sits in his command chair. Pressing a button causes him to recap the Enterprise’s mission and gives the command to go to warp.

I looked for a Star Trek: Lower Decks ornament, but alas, couldn’t find one. Maybe we’ll see some next year (along with the Excelsior … a geek can dream).

Going beyond Star Trek, I also got the Ghost from Star Wars (the Rebel starship featured prominently in the Star Wars: Rebels animated series and the live-action Ashoka film). It plays the theme song from Rebels, but doesn’t have any lights. The Ghost is haunting the main family tree (to avoid crossing genres on the Geek Tree…) and is joined by a few other ornaments I snuck on to the family tree: the Battlestar Galactica (from the rebooted TV series) and Serenity (from Firefly).