Live Long and Prosper

The Branding Wisdom of Star Trek

Heads up! This article is served raw and unfiltered from our content kitchen. It may contain a dash of common typos, grammatical mishaps, and imaginative spellings. Let us know if you’re allergic. Otherwise, enjoy this limited edition dish until our editing team refines it with their discerning palette.

Tags: , ,

From the billboards we pass on the street to the smartphones in our pockets, we are surrounded by branding. Everywhere we look, we encounter messaging and experiences intended to connect our emotions to products and services. A good logo or a clever tagline can quickly convey a company’s values, mission, history, or vibe. In certain rare instances, these emotional connections span generations and reach around the globe.

In 1966, the TV series Star Trek introduced the world to the character Mr Spock. He is a member of a race of aliens known as Vulcans, saluting his human colleagues with the traditional Vulcan greeting: “Live long and prosper.”

This simple yet profound phrase, coupled with its iconic hand gesture, has transcended its sci-fi origins to become a universal symbol of optimism and a cultural touchstone. Let’s explore the history, meaning, and impact of “Live Long and Prosper” as a powerful example of branding that has stood the test of time.

 

My mind to your mind… my thoughts to your thoughts…

 


 

The Origins of LLAP

 

The origins of Live Long and Prosper (LLAP) may have their roots in George du Maurier’s 1894 novel Trilby, who included this character’s description of another: “May he live long and prosper!” A line from Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet reads, “Live and be prosperous: and farewell good fellow.” Despite this literary evidence, it is unknown if Star Trek writer Theodore Sturgeon adapted the phrase or came up with it on his own.

Sturgeon first penned LLAP as a greeting given by Mr Spock, played by actor Leonard Nimoy, in Amok Time (1967), the opening episode of Star Trek’s second season. Spock’s salutation quickly entered the English lexicon.

Spock is a scientist, half-human and half-Vulcan, hailing from a planet where logic trumps emotions. For Vulcans, LLAP is like the Hawaiian “Aloha” or “Salam”, the universal Muslim statement of peace, serving as both ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’.

 

(The first appearance of ‘Live long and prosper’ on Star Trek episode that first aired on September 15th 1967)

 
 

The Accompanying Hand Gesture

LLAP is often accompanied by the Vulcan salute: a raised hand with the palm forward, the thumb extended and fingers parted between the middle and ring finger. Although this gesture appears simple, not everybody can do it. Forking the fingers is physically awkward. Some of Nimoy’s co-stars, like series lead William Shatner as Captain James T Kirk, found it impossible. The actors who lacked the dexterity used fishing line or invisible tape to achieve it.

Nimoy himself contributed the LLAP hand gesture, a logo that could be enacted both bodily and visually. When he was a boy, during an Orthodox Jewish prayer ceremony, he was told to cover his eyes during a specific part of the prayer. The curious youngster peeked and saw the Kohanim priests making the hand gesture while chanting.

(Mosaic in the synagogue of Enschede, source Wikipedia)

 


 

Spiritual Significance

The gesture that Nimoy witnessed as a child formed the Hebrew letter ‘Shin’, which represents ‘Shaddai’ or the Almighty God. In this spiritual context, the gesture is performed in conjunction with the Birkat Kohanim, a priestly blessing also known as the raising of the hands.

Nimoy grew up speaking and reading Yiddish, explored spirituality throughout his career, studied the Kabbalah, and spent years mastering the hand gesture. Later, when the opportunity came to flesh out his character of Mr. Spock and the Vulcans, Nimoy suggested the gesture as a visual complement to the phrase.

From the start, Spock was intended to evoke religious motifs. He was given an intentionally sinister appearance by series creator Gene Roddenberry, sporting menacingly arched eyebrows and ears. In a 1973 letter Roddenberry explained: “I did purposely give him a slight look of the ‘devil’ because I thought that might be particularly provocative to women, particularly when his nature contrasted so greatly to this.”

Yet Spock is almost god-like. He is superior to his colleagues in both strength and intelligence. While this duality contributes to a compelling character, some have gone so far as to theorize Spock is an invocation of the Devil.

 

 


 

…almost all of Spock’s mental feats require that his non-physical mind interact with either his own physical body or the physical body and non-physical mind of another.

 


 

Enduring Legacy

In terms of brand building, Live Long and Prosper resonates on an emotional level. Evoking timeless meaning, the speaker hopes you will live a fulfilling life with good health and abundance (It’s worth remembering that Star Trek is set hundreds of years in the future, in a time when money is not the primary driving force in society and that a Vulcan’s average lifespan is 200 years).

While its designation is unofficial, LLAP’s forked fingers are often used to represent the series in American and British sign language. As handheld devices became extensions of our physical bodies, the gesture was fittingly added to the Unicode standard in 2014 as U+1F596 (“RAISED HAND WITH PART BETWEEN MIDDLE AND RING FINGERS”).


🖖

The phrase and the hand sign have become so ingrained in the culture that when series actress Nichelle Nichols (Lieutenant Uhura) met President Obama in the White House, the two proudly saluted fans with the gesture.

U.S. President Barack Obama poses with actress Nichelle Nichols, White House Photo, 2012-02-29

 


 

Branding That Endures

In a final message shared before his death, Leonard Nimoy tweeted: “A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP” Nimoy’s parting address set the LLAP hashtag trending across the universe. Every day there are new tweets with #LLAP from an astounding variety of people.

 


 

Conclusion

The most effective branding resonates with the culture of its time while enduring for generations. This longevity has made “Live Long and Prosper” (LLAP) resilient, even after the conclusion of the Star Trek series. Whether we read LLAP, hear it spoken, see the hand sign, or receive it in emoji form, Star Trek and its philosophical dimensions immediately come to mind.

It has transcended pop culture and boldly goes where no phrase has gone before.

Live long and prosper!

 

To learn more about the life and work of Leonard Nimoy check out the documentary ‘For the Love of Spock’ available on Netflix.

The Author

Sean Ward
View Profile

Curious for more?

Subscribe to Pixel Dreams newsletter

Subscribe