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The one on the left appears to be a sword, and the one on the right... I have no idea.

Chapel

(Picture from TOS 1x08, Balance of Terror)

These do not look familiar to me - especially the triangular one. Were they random designs made for this set, do they come from a real religion, do they have some meaning in-universe I know not of?

Here's a better shot (same episode & scene) of the one on the left (Kirk's right, in the first picture).

enter image description here

  • This question includes further uses later on - I'm not asking about the era this episode was made.
  • I'm primarily looking for TV/movie usage, or something like an interview (quite a long shot there, though) - being visual, novels are unlikely...
Iszi
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Izkata
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    The one on the left resembles a cross. The right sort-of looks like some UFOs I've seen in video games. If you know of any off the top of your head, it would be useful to know which other episodes the chapel was seen in. – Iszi Feb 21 '13 at 01:44
  • @Iszi Heh, a cross never came to mind. The... "shoulders" on the crossbar make it look too much like a sword to me, for some reason. Oddly, I don't see any page on Memory Alpha for "chapel", and "altar" doesn't have this listed. So no clue where else it may appear. – Izkata Feb 21 '13 at 01:49
  • Added a better picture of the one I presume to be a cross. – Iszi Feb 21 '13 at 01:54
  • Very very long shot, but maybe it sparks an idea: The left one could be a Venus symbol upside down and the right one looks a bit like an arrow head, which could allude to a Mars symbol. This would fit very nicely (in a very bizarre way) with Star Trek's insistence on the exclusiveness of heterosexual relationships, as it forms the background of the chapel. – bitmask Feb 21 '13 at 01:55
  • Or could the right one be the Jewish shin letter on which the Vulcan gesture is based, which would then strongly allude to Judaism and Christianity. – bitmask Feb 21 '13 at 01:59
  • The chapel is listed in Memory Alpha as a component of Constitution-class ships, but it does not appear to have its own article. – Iszi Feb 21 '13 at 02:03
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    @bitmask To get Venus, Mars, or shin from either of those symbols would be a bit of a far stretch I think. – Iszi Feb 21 '13 at 02:04
  • @Iszi: Think about how much time they had to evolve. Signs tend to evolve quickly, sometimes. As I said, it most certainly is a stretch, which is why it's a comment, not an answer. – bitmask Feb 21 '13 at 02:07
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    Together they say "thy sword and thy shield" to me - I would speculate they were designed to feel religious without mentioning any existing Earth religion – Kate Gregory Feb 21 '13 at 11:39
  • The symbol on the left of kirk looks like a star destroyer and on the right it could be Someone in a robe with arms out... Clearly they worship Palpatine as a God! – Ward - Trying Codidact Feb 21 '13 at 19:52
  • Sometimes set-designers, in the 60s where they don't think we'd be analyzing this after their first pilot-year, don't load-up the drawings with meanings, just 'themeliness'. – Solemnity Feb 23 '13 at 06:29
  • @Solemnity Yeah, that's why I included the note at the bottom - I'm likewise interested in if it was given meaning (or at least used again) in a later series. – Izkata Feb 23 '13 at 06:55
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    @Izkata you know we went there, various weird logo-designs through the EU years. I did, none. A water-drop in a logo should mean something, and I'm mad that it didn't. All that being said, there's a dude[ss] out there that did this. – Solemnity Feb 23 '13 at 07:00

2 Answers2

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This is another one of those questions for which there may be no canonical answer.

At the point when this story was written, there was no firm idea of just how far in the future Star Trek was taking place. Nowadays, we're pretty firm about the idea that it's set in the mid-to-late 2200s, but at this stage, there are stories that imply hundreds of years further in the future than that; and of course, "Space Seed" and Wrath of Khan both make the same mistake of eliding a century between Kirk's time and Khan's.

The other thing to keep in mind -- and this comes up when talking about classic Doctor Who all the time as well -- is that none of this was meant to stand up to the kind of scrutiny we place upon it! Most people were watching this on crappy 480i sets, possibly in black-and-white, often with questionable reception.

As such, it's quite possible, even likely, that the set dressers were told, "Just...make stuff up." So we get something that looks like a stylized Christ-on-the-Cross; and a few other abstract shapes, and chances are nobody really thought about it much beyond that. We hardly ever see them again, and we never do see them in any of the later series, which suggests further that nobody thought they were important enough for continuity.

Michael Scott Shappe
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    I wish I could give +10 instead of +1, for the line, " is that none of this was meant to stand up to the kind of scrutiny we place upon it! " (and, yes, I used to watch it on a small B&W television, and that was reruns. I was too young to watch it when it first came out. – Basya Jan 20 '21 at 09:27
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    @Basya By contrast, modern shows like The Expanse, that are being made for 4KHDR and an audience they know will scrutinize things, pay surprisingly deep attention to tiny details. Most of the screens and signs and labels on that show are readable and make sense! – Michael Scott Shappe Jan 21 '21 at 17:59
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The image on the left is a Cross representation. The image on the right is that of a flame, like that of the "Holy Spirit candle" found in many liturgical Christian churches - Catholic, various Orthodox, Lutheran, Methodist, etc.

Cosmo De Luca - USS Tarkus
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    Welcome to the site. Could you [edit] in examples of the type of images you have in mind, to help support your answer? Evidence goes a long way around here. – LogicDictates Jan 20 '21 at 05:43