The new Space Force logo is warping the minds of enterprising Star Trek fans

As the United States prepares to boldly go toward a new military branch — one that’s devoted to watching the skies above the skies — it was only a matter of time before Americans got their first look at the official new logo that’ll represent the U.S. Space Force alongside the other five military branches.

Now that the time’s finally arrived, the new logo is attracting near-universal attention — some positive, some not so much — as casual observers and sci-fi fans alike react to what some see as more than a passing resemblance to one of the most iconic science fiction symbols of all: the official badge of the United Federation of Planets’ Starfleet. 

Star Trek fans are boldly expressing their thoughts on the new logo’s evident similarity to the Starfleet emblem, with fans of all opinions tweeting reactions to President Donald Trump — who posted the new logo today. Before we get to that, though, here's the logo itself, in all its spacey glory:

Some Trekkies may have been all in on the new design — fantasizing about all the cool merchandise that an interstellar-looking logo could inspire, and rhaphsodizing about the apparent crossover between their beloved fictional universe and the real one. But plenty more simply noticed the evident similarity between the two designs, and left things at that:

Aaaand then ... there were others — the Star Trek fans (and at least one former star) who couldn’t express their disapproval strongly enough. Some accused the government of shamelessly plagiarizing the Star Trek logo, while others simply groused that the design is too unoriginal.

While fans and detractors of both Trek and Trump debate the aesthetic merits of the Space Force logo, what about the emblem itself? Well, Trump said in his announcement tweet that the design was created “[a]fter consultation with our Great Military Leaders, designers, and others," so there's that. Viewed from above, the pointy symbol that’s got everyone so worked up has four surfaces and four sides, and superimposes over all the other graphical elements. The same motif also repeats, in flat 2D form, as a handy divider between the top and bottom text that encircles the inner emblem. Then there's the branch’s official name, the Air Force department under which it falls, and MMXIX — the year of Space Force's 2019 founding. 

As several Twitter users pointed out, a number of key design elements inside the Space Force circle logo are almost direct crossovers from the logo of the U.S. Air Force Space Command, an agency that's been around since 1982. In addition to the familiar four-sided symbol, a glance also shows other similarities — including a starfield, as well as an orbital swoosh surrounding an abstract, latitude- and longitudinally-gridded planet (let’s presume it’s Earth).

Regardless of your opinion on the logo, hopefully all this Trek talk makes you want to go check out the new Picard series now streaming on CBS All Access.