Data Stellare 3219.4: Kirk, Spock e McCoy stanno trasportando a bordo della Galileo Nancy Hedford, che necessita di particolari cure mediche. A causa di un apparente guasto, la navetta è costretta ad atterrare su Gamma Canaris N, un vicino pianeta. Qui trovano Zefram Cochrane, ritenuto morto da oltre 150 anni, e una misteriosa nuvola.

Kirk: Not one hundred percent efficient, of course... but nothing ever is.

Kirk: The idea of male and female are universal constants.

Kirk: Love sometimes expresses itself in sacrifice.

McCoy: There's nothing disgusting about it [the Companion]. It's just another life form, that's all. You get used to those things.

Kirk: We estimate there are millions of planets with intelligent life. We haven't begun to map them.

Kirk: There are certain universal ideas and concepts common to all intelligent life. This device [the universal translator] instantaneously compares the frequency of brain wave patterns, selects those ideas and concepts it recognizes, and then provides the necessary grammar.
Spock: Then it simply translates its findings into English.

Kirk: Our species can only survive if we have obstacles to overcome. You remove those obstacles. Without them to strengthen us, we will weaken and die.

Kirk: Companion, try to understand... it is the nature of our species to be free. Just as it is your nature to stay here. We will... cease to exist in captivity.

Spock: You will both grow old here and finally die.
Cochrane: That's been happening to men and women for a long time. I've got the feeling it's one of the pleasanter things about being human, as long as you grow old together.

Spock: You [humans] are, after all, essentially irrational.

McCoy: I'm a doctor, not a physicist.