Captain Aggravated

Are you asking for Sports or Star Trek trivia? I can’t tell. I’ll do both.

Sports trivia: The Charlotte Hornets (NBA team based out of North Carolina) wear teal and purple uniforms because they were the first NBA team to hire a fashion designer to design their uniforms, and the designer in question, Alexander Julian, considered teal and purple his signature colors.

Star Trek Trivia: The NCC hull numbers are based on pre-1948 American airplane tail numbers. Nowadays American tail numbers start with an N, a maximum of 5 digits, at least one number followed by zero, one or two letters, excluding I or O. N123, N456A, N789AB, etc. N1701 is a valid American tail number, an in fact it is registered to a 1964 Cessna 172 in Minnesota. Bonus trivia: the aircraft registry is a matter of public record.

Before 1948, the category of the aircraft was noted by an additional letter after the N. NR123B would have been a Restricted category, like a cropduster. NG456T would have been a Glider. Most aircraft in the Standard category were given an NC number, so NC1701 was a valid registration at one point. Gene roddenberry made it look more ship-like by adding a C, to make it look more like USS.

And yes, Experimental aircraft got NX callsigns. The Spirit of St. Louis was registered NX211. That’s exactly where USS Excelsior’s NX-2000 and USS Bacula’s NX-01 came from.

The game in that episode is called “chula.” It is apparently just chutes and ladders, in fact CHUtes and LAdders, CHULA.

What if I just…don’t? I didn’t get through the last three, why should I get through this one?

This opens up a whole new bag of cats.