Those Nameless Star Trek Security Guards

In the original Star Trek TV series, the security guards wore red shirts.  This must have worried them, as red is such an eye-catching color.  Indeed, most of the people who died on away-missions wore red.  These security guards filled an important function, yet they were rarely recognized, and none became memorable crew-members of the U.S.S. Enterprise.

While the later movies would address this issue by making Mr. Chekov head of Security, “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” really made the security guards stand out.  Each wore armor that covered his torso, as well as a helmet secured by a thick chinstrap.  Unfortunately, the encounter with V’ger never gives them anything to do.  Even when the burst of plasma energy invades the bridge, the security guard is ordered to keep back, and not even fire his phaser, as Ilia, the beautiful Deltan navigator, is killed. 

Apparently Marv Wolfman, who adapted Harold Livingston’s script for Marvel Comics, was dissatisfied with the inability of the security guards to fulfill their proper role.  So he has the security officer on the bridge attempt to combat the V’ger’s plasma-probe, in the hopes of defending his crewmates.

Needless to say, things don’t go well for him. 

While Wolfman doesn’t name the fallen security guard, he will have Kirk list the security guard among the Enterprise personnel “Missing” following their encounter with V’ger.  And so, finally, a Star Trek security guard gets the respect he deserves.   

Images from Marvel Comics' Star Trek Vol. 1, Issue No. 2.

Dragon Dave

Captain John Harriman of the U.S.S. Enterprise-B

The other day, I was searching through a box of “Star Trek” comics at a local shop.  I didn’t find any of the old DC issues I needed, but I found this special issue.  As I hadn’t read any of the recent comics published by IDW, I thought I’d give it a try. 

The issue collects four stories originally published separately.  There’s a story about how difficult it can be for career Romulan military to advance in their stratified society, another that illuminates aspects of Klingon culture by reflecting on one of their proverbs, and the first issue of “Mirror Images,” a prequel to the original TV series episode “Mirror Mirror.”  The story I most enjoyed was the first, and concerned a Starfleet captain I know little about, John Harriman of the USS Enterprise-B.

John Harriman only appears for a few minutes at the beginning of the movie, “Star Trek: Generations.”  Captain Kirk, Scotty, and Chekov accompany Harriman on the ship’s publicity launch from spacedock.  The Enterprise-B is not fully staffed.  Such “necessities” as photon torpedos and a tractor beam have yet to be installed.  Yet, when Harriman receives a distress call from two ships carrying refugees, he decides to investigate, as his ship is the only one nearby.  Lacking the basic tools that starship captains rely on calls for ingenuity, Scotty finally suggests that reprogramming the deflector dish might disrupt the strange phenomenon that is tearing the refugee ships apart.  Captain Harriman’s inclination is to personally make the adjustment, but Kirk convinces Harriman to remain on the bridge while he rushes through the bowels of the new starship.  Kirk and Scotty’s actions save the lives of some of the refugees, but as the Enterprise-B escapes, the area surrounding the deflector dish is destroyed, and Captain James T. Kirk is presumed dead.

In “Captain’s Log: Harriman,” writer Marc Gugginheim demonstrates how someone in Harriman’s position might blame himself for the death of such an illustrious icon.  Dr. McCoy travels aboard the Enterprise-B six months later, and at first, he has difficulty in getting past the fact that Kirk died aboard Harriman’s vessel.  But when Harriman confesses that he is so traumatized by the incident that he plans to resign his commission, McCoy’s compassion comes to the fore.  The doctor tells Harriman a story about Kirk, and tries to give the man insight into what made Kirk such a great starship captain. 

Harriman takes McCoy’s advice to heart.  Toward the end of the story, an emergency arises which tests Harriman’s mettle once more.  This time, he finds inspiration in Kirk’s example, as well as how the great captain handled a similar incident.  Harriman’s solution served as a pleasant twist on an old story, and at the adventure's conclusion, I found myself wishing I knew more about John Harriman, and his further voyages aboard the Enterprise-B.

It is not wrong to fail, but it is wrong to let past failures define you.

Dragon Dave

P.S.  The Art for "Captain’s Log: Harriman" is credited to Andrew Currie, the Colors to Moose Baumann, and the Letters to Neil Uyetake.  These people all deserve recognition for crafting Marc Guggenheim’s script into a powerful, and beautifully told, story.

Related Internet Links

TrekInk: a review of “Star Trek Captain’s Log: Harriman”

The Curiosity Factor

In life, there are the curiosities and the mainstays.  The restaurants we occasionally visit versus our favorites, the friends we check in with every few months versus those we regularly hang out with, even the websites or blogs that are clicked on now and then versus those we read daily.  Often, we may not understand why one remains a mere curiosity while another ascends to become a favorite.  We just know that the latter somehow bonds more fully with us, adds more value to our lives, and as a result helps us better connect with the world around us.

In the case of Star Trek, we know why The Cage is a curiosity: we never had a chance to make it a mainstay.  Passed over by network executives, and given a mandate to make key crew changes, the revised Star Trek that Gene Roddenberry gave us, and with which we subsequently fell in love, concerned an Enterprise captained by James T. Kirk, and with the exception of Mr. Spock, an entirely different crew.  We may have seen excerpts from The Cage in the two episodes of The Menagerie, but most of us never saw The Cage until a decade or more after it was made.  Would we have fallen in love with Pike and company the way we did with his successors?  Sadly, we will never know, as we were never fed a steady diet of stories about them.  We never got to see the crew visit other worlds.  We never watched how Pike dealt with other crises.  We never saw Number One, Dr. Phil, and Pike’s yeoman develop as the series progressed.

Plot is character, and character is plot, as I believe the great author Stephen King once said.  While we can never know what other trials Pike and his crew would have faced, we do know that this original crew had great characters.  Captain Christopher Pike, having rediscovered his love of command, surely would have faced future dangers with dogged determination, and perhaps even good humor.  Number One would have kept the Enterprise running smoothly for Pike, and not weighed him (and us) down with tiresome complaints or unnecessarily dialogue.  Dr. Phil would have continued to dispense moral insights with his medicine, but probably without McCoy’s constant need to needle Mr. Spock for attempting to honor his Vulcan values.  And as for Mr. Spock...well, thankfully, at least we got to see how he developed.

Jews and Christians have their Apocrypha, investors have the commodities market, politicians even have their consciences (We hope!).  In fiction, we all have our curiosities, stories we may not fully understand nor utilize every day of our lives, but nonetheless influence us on an occasional basis.  Given its single-story status, The Cage can never be anything more than a curiosity.  Yet, after reflecting upon the story in so many (perhaps too many?) blog entries, I know I will walk more boldly into my own future, bolstered by how Captain Christopher Pike, the various members of his crew, and the Talosians have rubbed off on me.  I have come to realize what a wonderful curiosity I have found in the Star Trek pilot episode The Cage. 

Thank you, Gene Roddenberry, for creating such a fascinating story.

Spock on the Sidelines

In the Star Trek pilot episode The Cage, the Enterprise suddenly returns to full power.  We find Mr. Spock in the Transporter room, where the chief claims he could not shut down his system if he wanted to.  Mr. Spock prepares for the unanticipated arrival.  He watches as Number One and Pike’s yeoman materialize.  Then, a little later, the system comes on again, and Captain Pike materializes.

When the group reaches the bridge, others pause to talk with their captain, but Mr. Spock quietly resumes his duties.  No longer must he worry about the dangers posed by the Talosians.  No longer must he grapple with conundrums.  No longer does the responsibility for two hundred lives rest upon his shoulders.  His captain is back.  Number One is back.  He stands at attention beside Number One’s console.  He stares at the viewscreen.  He is content.

So often we are told that we must seize the initiative, that we must abandon our comfort zones, that we must take command of a given situation in order to prove our worth.  But not all are meant to be leaders.  Without followers, those willing to work without being noticed, there would be no government, organizations, charitable institutions, churches, clubs, or businesses.  Individually, we can accomplish much, but by happily lending our skills and abilities to others, we can achieve so much more. 

It is not essential to your development that you always seek the spotlight.  If you wish to, or if you feel you must, then by all means vie for leadership.  But if you feel your gifts and abilities are better suited to standing back and playing a supporting role in a given situation, then be content, knowing you have made a wise decision.

Perhaps, even a logical one.

Does Truth Matter?

In the Star Trek pilot episode The Cage, Captain Christopher Pike has escaped his cell, and the Talosians have allowed him to leave their planet.  But Vena refuses to return with him to the Enterprise, and after Number One and Pike’s yeoman beam up, she shows him why.  Slowly, her body begins to change, until she is revealed to be a scarred, misshapen woman.  “This is the female’s true appearance,” the Talosian says.  Pike is shocked, perhaps even repulsed.

“They found me in the wreckage, dying,” Vena tells him.  “They rebuilt me.  Everything works.  But they had never seen a human before.  They had no guide for putting me back together.”  Then, despite this strange affirmation of fitness, she turns from him to slowly hobble toward the underground elevator.  Her real body does not possess the vitality, strength, and ease of movement that her illusory appearance led him to believe.  She might run, dance, or do anything she wished in the Talosian-generated dream, or even within an underground cell, but clearly she could not survive the demands of the planet’s harsh, barren surface.  She is too old and feeble to have children, or to farm. 

“It was necessary to convince you her desire to stay was a genuine one,” The Talosian tells Pike.”

“You’ll give her back her illusion of beauty?” he asks.

The Talosian leader, smiling wide, says, “And more.”

Then Vena’s youthful appearance returns, and she holds hands with an illusion of Pike.  Youthful-Vena and illusory-Pike hurry off toward the elevator in the blasted-apart rocky knoll.  Never has the Talosian leader’s smile been so wide.  “She has her illusion, and you have reality,” he tells Pike.  “May you both find your way as pleasant.” 

At last we can understand the Talosians.  Their leader is not acting as if he has seen his fondest dreams crumble before his eyes.  He is not devastated that a new Talosian race will not return life to their barren world.  Instead, he is overjoyed that Vena, the woman they saved from death and have cared for these past eighteen years, is no longer lonely.  Nor is Vena’s spirit crushed.  She smiles at him and the Talosian before pulling her image of Pike back to her underground home.  The Talosians have enough knowledge of Pike’s psyche and experience to sustain this illusion of a real, vibrant Pike.  Her “wisdom” or willingness to accept illusion as fact will enable her to live out her final years happy, content, and fulfilled. 

We’ve been taught that when facts disprove belief, that belief must give way.  Perhaps it is not shattered, but it must reshape itself, rebuild itself so it does not diametrically oppose our current understanding of reality.  Why then does belief so often seem more important to us than fact?  Creationists refuse to believe in evolution, despite the latter’s better grounding in scientists’ findings.  Widows and widowers pen letters to their deceased spouses, and find themselves talking with them during quiet moments, telling them of their current lives, and pledging their continuing love.  Fiction seems to fill a similar need.  People look to great stories to help them better understand their role in society.  They model themselves upon their beloved protagonists.  They might ask themselves: “If Captain Pike (or Mister Spock, or Number One) were here, how would he (or she) handle this situation?

Belief versus Reality.  Fictional role models versus present-day or historical heroes.  Does it matter which we identify with?  Or, as the Talosian leader suggests, might both be equally valid, provided they help us navigate the pitfalls of daily life?

The Hidden Escape Route

In the Star Trek pilot episode The Cage, Captain Christopher Pike has been kidnapped by the Talosians.  In the illusions forced upon him, he protects Vena from a Kaylar warrior, picnics with her back home on Earth, and experiences the carefree life of a trader in Green Animal Women Slaves.  Yet no matter how compelling the illusions, Pike never forgets that his body is trapped in a cell.  And when Number One organizes a team to rescue him, the aliens take command of the Enterprise transporter and beam Number One and Pike’s yeoman into his cell to join him in his imprisonment.

When the Talosian leader opens a secreted panel and reaches into the cell to remove the women’s discarded phasers, Pike discards his facade of sleep and hauls the alien into his cell.  After seeming to transform into two ferocious creatures, the Talosian threatens to destroy the Enterprise.  Vena warns Pike that, through their power of illusion, the aliens can make the crew unwittingly destroy their own vessel.  Pike shoots each phaser at the viewing window of the cell, seemingly to no effect.  Then he points one at the Talosian’s head and offers to test his belief that the weapons really work on the leader’s head.  To Pike’s satisfaction, a hole appears in the viewing window.

At the beginning of the story, Pike is so weary of responsibility that he is contemplating retirement.  But when he awakens in his cell, the walls surrounding him (and the Talosians watching him through the viewing window) fill him with an anger that never begins to dissipate until the alien allows him to see the escape route his phaser has created.  Those trapped in the cell with Pike are also transformed.  Number One subsumes her emotions even more than normal, and shifts into situation-assessment mode.  Like Vena, his Yeoman dares to hope the unthinkable: that a trapped Pike might look to her for love and support.  And the leader of a seemingly-peaceful race threatens to murder two hundred members of another intelligent species. 

The sight of the damaged viewing window likewise effects them.  Order and hierarchy return.  Pike hauls his prisoner from the cell.  Number One, Pike’s second-in-command, assumes her position of primacy, followed by his yeoman.  Vena, who holds no rank in the Enterprise crew, walks out last, knowing the odds that Pike will choose to make a life with her on Talos 4 have decreased dramatically.

We want to believe that we determine our own destinies, yet we are told that our capabilities and life-choices are influenced by our environment (in addition to our genetic make-up).  We may not be trapped in a cage, but our futures seem to be perpetually limited by such factors as job and family commitments, peer pressure and cultural expectations, our incomes and expenses, the homes and neighborhoods we live in, as well as the significant choices we have made up until this moment.

What bonds currently trap you?  What walls seem to surround you?  What might you achieve, if only you could perceive a hidden escape route?  And, most important of all, do such questions amount to little more than pointless speculation, or might attempting to answer them benefit your life in some tangible way?