Yesterday we got our first glorious look at the first-ever Lego Star Trek set: the Enterprise-D from The Next Generation. It’s a big, wonderful set, a fun replica of an iconic ship, and it has all the minifigures you’d want to display around it. But hopefully it’s not the first and last Star Trek to come (especially because of its hefty price tag).
Star Trek has the potential to be so much more than a one-off like so many of Lego’s collaborations and be a line as expansive and rich as Star Wars is for the brick builder—and definitely more than just display models of Trek‘s iconic ships that forget that we don’t live in its post-scarcity society. As cool as those massive, pricey replicas can be, Star Trek sets could be so much more than ship models. For almost 60 years across dozens of shows and films, there’s tons of inspiration for sets that could fulfill a multiple range of price points.
Here are a few ideas—some silly, some less so—that we’d suggest to Lego, in the hopes it doesn’t just do the big main ships (do those too though, please, especially Voyager, thank you).
A Tricorder
© Paramount
Lego’s general distaste for explicit focuses on military weaponry might mean prop replicas like phasers or bat’leths would be off the table—but that’s okay when Star Trek has so many iconic non-violent prop options. There could be combadges, PADDs, and hyposprays, but of course, the obvious pick is a scaled tricorder—think the recent Lego Game Boy, and it could even borrow the idea of the lenticular screens used there to showcase different fluctuating readings as you wave it about doing your best scanning impression!
Dixon Hill’s Office
© Paramount
The holodeck gives us so many potential ideas for sets, but if we had to pick one, Picard’s holo-home away from home would just be a really fun little build and give Lego a chance at some very unique alternate minifigures.
Ordinary Lego Sets That Just Come With a Minifigure Star Trek Away Team
© Paramount
The easiest way to cheat new Star Trek sets is to just put Star Trek minifigures in otherwise completely normal Lego lines and pretend it’s just an away team beaming down into another crazy scenario. Lego City? They’ve gone back in time again! Lego Castle? It’s Q mucking about like the Robin Hood bits in “Qpid”! Lego Friends? Close enough to The Adventures of Flotter.
A Kal-Toh Set
© Paramount
Make it out of Technic pieces! And let people give up trying to actually understand the rules of Kal-Toh, and let them build the final wireframe piece if they want.
Lego Art Bajoran Wormhole
© Paramount
Kind of cheating, considering the Lego art line already did a Milky Way art piece that is kinda close enough if you squint, but imagine a textured, 3D art piece that even had a little microbuild Federation runabout you could have floating like it was about to enter the opening wormhole… or maybe even a bigger fleet of microbuild Dominion warships to replicate their invasion of the Alpha quadrant.
The Thomas Riker Transporter Accident
© Paramount
A Lego transporter room is an easy win of an idea for a small set (more on that later). But a Transporter set where you can basically pack the same Will Riker minifigure twice? Perfection. Bonus if Tom comes with an alternate face print you can swap around to show him with a goatee after he’s ripped his sideburns off.
The Delta Flyer and Other Shuttlecraft
© Paramount
Sure, do the big ships, but smaller ships for smaller prices? That’d be great too. We’re already getting a fun little midi-scaled Type-15 as the Enterprise-D’s bonus gift with purchase set, so why not do Voyager‘s Delta Flyer, or the classic Galileo from “The Galileo Seven,” or one of DS9‘s runabouts?
The Horga’hn
© Paramount
Think of it as a buildable art piece that only the most dedicated would even realize is a Star Trek reference. And then think of how absolutely insane you’ll sound picking it up to show a guest and saying, “Yes, that is my Lego Risan fertility symbol, thank you for asking.”
Ma’ah’s Bloodwine Farm
© Paramount
Lego is, in some ways, quite a lot like Star Trek broadly—sets based around conflict exist, sure, just like sometimes people in Trek just really need to fire some phasers. But a lot of the time, Lego and Star Trek alike prefer more peaceful, everyday situations that are also worth making into examples of play. And what’s more Lego than a nice little farm that just happens to have some very big Targs and a couple of Klingons on it?
The Rekissian Flute From “The Inner Light”
© Paramount
Bonus if it comes with a display stand that is a pair of hands posed as if playing it, just to recreate the very obvious shots from “Lessons” where Patrick Stewart’s hands are clearly not the ones playing the flute.
A Modular DS9 Promenade Range
© Paramount
Lego has done plenty of sets replicating city streets, big or small, and a version of DS9’s promenade could go either way—a larger playset build that incorporates shrunk-down versions of iconic locations from the most-visited section of the station, or multiple sets like its Modular City builds that let you have lavish recreations of the Replimat, Quark’s Bar, the Klingon restaurant (and Jumja stick stand!), or Odo’s office, that you could either have as individual display sets or connect up!
Kirk vs. Gorn “Arena” Battlepack
© Paramount
Any Lego Star Trek line would inevitably draw comparisons with the Lego Star Wars range. And if Lego Star Wars loves one thing, it’s a battle pack: an excuse for a low-end set that has a tiny build and a few minifigures that, let’s be real, you’re buying for the latter. A little Vasquez Rock build, some Lego boulders, and a Kirk and Gorn minifigure? Easy!
A Bridge Series…
© Paramount
This is perhaps the most obvious of all the entries on here—a diorama series that gives you the bridge of each iconic ship from every Star Trek show, from the original all the way up to modern shows like Discovery and Lower Decks. You could even style it like some of Lego’s other “set” displays from TV shows and frame it with studio lights, as if you’ve built the actual soundstage. Wouldn’t this be better than having all those TNG figures in the Enterprise-D come on a simple little line stand?
… And Other Ship Departments
© Paramount
And that bridge series could naturally lend itself toward playsets based around individual departments. Sickbays, engineering, Transporter rooms like we previously mentioned, ready rooms, and captain’s quarters—people would leap at the chance for smaller-scale builds that they can actually put their Trek minifigures in.
Neelix’s Galley
© Paramount
I know we just did other ship departments, but I want to give a specific shoutout to Neelix’s galley on Voyager. Lego’s done plenty of restaurant-style sets in the past; let’s have Neelix cooking up a bricky leola root stew!
The Enterprise Lineage Ship Cabinet
© Paramount
Not to draw another Lego Star Wars range comparison, but the galaxy far, far away has been having a great deal of success with its range of midi-scaled display models of capital ships in the last few years. This could combine that idea into either a single playset that replicates Picard’s display of all the past vessels to bear the Enterprise name from his ready room or an entire series that you could eventually build such a cabinet out of yourself. Maybe with a breaking glass function?
The Baseball Field From “Take Me Out to the Holosuite”
© Paramount
Lego loves being able to resell you a character in a variant outfit, and this’d be an incredible opportunity (and it’s easy to only reuse a couple of legs and torsos for the Niners uniform). All you need is a baseplate detailed up into a field, and maybe a little buildable dugout and a stand section to dump poor Rom on. Death to the opposition!
A Buildable Red Angel Suit
© Paramount
Lego has done a bunch of buildable “action figure”-style sets, both in terms of poseable display pieces or more literal action figure-style pieces across its lines, and Discovery‘s angel suit would make a perfect candidate for either. Hell, if you made it the latter, you could probably just repaint the Brave New World Captain America one they did, but they should put a bit more effort into the catalyst that catapulted Discovery into Star Trek‘s bright future.
A Borg Cube
© Paramount
Okay, sure, to be properly accurate it’d have to be covered in tiny little bits to recreate all the greebling details. But it’d also be really funny if Lego released a massive cube of dark grey 1×1 bricks and called it a day.
A To-Scale Optolythic Data Rod
© Paramount
It could even come with its little carry case! A simple build for Trek fans of all ages to recreate iconic moments from one of the greatest episodes of Star Trek ever made, from doing your best “It’s a fake!” impressions to wondering if all it cost you was the life of one Romulan senator, one criminal, the self-respect of one Starfleet officer… and maybe like $10. I don’t know about you, but I’d call that a bargain.
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