Star Trek, Behind The Scenes

The franchise also includes dozens of computer and video games, hundreds of novels, as well as a themed attraction in Las Vegas (opened in 1998 and closed in September 2008), and at least two traveling museum exhibits of props. Beginning with the original television series and continuing with the subsequent films and series, the franchise has created a cult phenomenon and has spawned many pop culture references.
Conception and setting
As early as 1961, Gene Roddenberry drafted a proposal for the science fiction series that would become Star Trek. Although he publicly marketed it as a Western in outer space—a so-called "Wagon Train to the Stars" (like the popular Western TV series)—he privately told friends that he was actually modeling it on Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, intending each episode to act on two levels: as a suspenseful adventure story and as a morality tale.