James Hise - The Unauthorized Trekkers’ Guide to the Next Generation and Deep Space Nine

LIEUTENANT GEORDI LA FORGE

Geordi is trained to work on the bridge and as an Away Team member. His unique prosthetic eyes allow him to perform some of the functions of a tricorder and are actually a visor-like device worn on his head, which can detect the entire spectrum of electromagnetic waves, all the way from raw heat to high-frequency ultraviolet. Other crew persons seem blind by comparison, although Geordi often wishes he could see the way they do, since he has been blind since birth.

Although in his early twenties, Geordi has the maturity of a seasoned Starfleet graduate and has the highest respect for Captain Picard, hoping to emulate the captain when he gets older. His best friend aboard the Enterprise is the android Data. Each aspires to be “fully human,” because even though they have traits that make them superior in what they can achieve compared to their normal counterparts, neither asked to be different, nor wants to be.

LEVAR BURTON

Due to the longevity of the original series, the new crew has more than one actor who was a Star Trek fan before landing his role, and LeVar Burton is one of them. He states that he has long “appreciated Gene Roddenberry’s approach to science fiction. Gene’s vision of the future has always included minorities—not just blacks, but Asians and Hispanics as well. He’s saying that unless we learn to cooperate as a species, we won’t be able to make it to the twenty-fourth century. I think that by projecting that image, we’re actually creating a reality for today.”

Philosophy has long been an interest of LeVar Burton. At thirteen he entered a Catholic seminary, with the ultimate goal of becoming a priest. But after two years he discovered an interest in existentialism and by fifteen was reading Lao-Tzu, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche.

“I began to wonder how I fit into the grand scheme of things. The more I thought about it, the less sense it made that the dogma of Catholicism was the be-all, end-all, of the universe,” Burton explains. Following what Burton describes as his “pragmatic search,” comparing the things he did well with the things that excited him about being a priest, he decided to pursue an acting career.

“What attracted me to the priesthood was the opportunity to move people, to provide something essential. I was drawn by the elements of history and magic. As a priest, you live beyond the boundaries of the normal existence. It’s like joining an elite club. You see, it’s not that different from acting, even the Mass is a play, combining these elements of mystery and spectacle.”

NIGHT AND DAY

After he left the seminary, Burton won a scholarship to USC, where he began working toward a degree in drama and fine arts. But the contrast between the sedate, introspective life in a small-town seminary and the USC campus, which he calls “Blond Central,” was startling. “I’d never had so much freedom, and it was difficult to concentrate the first year.” It was during his sophomore year at USC, while only nineteen, that he auditioned and landed the pivotal role of the young Kunta Kinte in the award-winning miniseries Roots .

“I think the producers had exhausted all the normal means of finding professional talent and were beating the bushes at the drama schools,” the actor ventures. The role would win him an Emmy nomination and subsequent acting roles, which prevented his return to college.

Burton starred in a number of made-for-TV movies, such as the Emmy-nominated Dummy; One in a Million: The Ron LeFlore Story; Grambling’s White Tiger; The Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones; Battered; Billy: Portrait of a Street Kid , and the miniseries Liberty . The actor has also been the host of PBS’s highly acclaimed children’s series Reading Rainbow since its inception in 1983. Among his film credits are Looking For Mr. Goodbar, The Hunter (with Steve McQueen), and The Supernaturals (with Nichelle Nichols).

The actor was born in Landsthul, West Germany, where his father was a photographer in the Signal Corps, Third Armored Division. His mother was first an educator, then for years a social worker who is currently working in administration for the County of Sacramento Department of Mental Health. Burton is single and resides in Los Angeles with his German shepherd, Mozart.

SECURITY CHIEF TASHA YAR

Tasha grew up on a failed Earth colony where law and order had broken down and the survival of the fittest became the order of the day. An orphan, she spent her nights and days foraging for food and fleeing the roving rape gangs. The colony broke down due to being comprised largely of renegades and other violent undesirables who were being given a second chance. Instead, violence ruled. A sample of what life there was like was briefly seen in “The Naked Now,” while later developments were seen in the episode entitled “Legacy.”

In her teens, Tasha escaped to Earth, leaving behind a sister who remained by choice, and discovered Starfleet. She worshiped the order and discipline of Starfleet because it was the exact opposite of the chaos she grew up fighting.

At the age of twenty-eight, she achieved the rank of security chief and was handpicked by Captain Picard. She was one of the few crew members who performed the same duties on and off the ship. When an Away Team was selected to investigate a landing site, whether for a possible shore leave or for a conference that Captain Picard was being called to attend, Yar, as Security Chief, was always a part of the initial contact team.

The young security chief satisfied her need for peace and order in her chosen occupation, and held the Starfleet officers embodying this quality of devotion to duty and decency in the highest possible regard. She came close to worshiping them. This is particularly true in her attitude toward the commanding officers of the Enterprise . In her youth, figures of authority had been brutal and deadly.

Captain Picard, having visited Tasha’s homeworld—her “hell planet”—understood what she went through and became her mentor. He taught her to apply the cushioning of history and philosophy to her almost obsessive need to protect the vessel and crew.

TOUGH AND BEAUTIFUL

Natasha was of Ukrainian descent. This, combined with her own strict exercise regimen, gave her a quality of conditioned, subtle beauty that would have flabbergasted males from earlier centuries. With fire in her eyes and a muscularly well-toned and very female body, she was capable of pinning most crewmen. She was also an exciting sensual and intellectual challenge to men who enjoyed full equality between the genders. Neither Number One nor Picard was blind to these qualities in Tasha, but she could never bring herself to view these “saints” as mere mortals.

In “The Naked Now,” Tasha revealed a previously concealed interest in Data. She even went so far as to take him into her quarters and seduce him! When the judgment-inhibiting effects wore off, Tasha realized that she had completely violated her personal sense of decorum, and told the literal-minded android, “It never happened.” Since she didn’t specify what “it” was, Data was a bit confused as to what, exactly, had never occurred.

Tasha’s death at the hands of the creature Armus was a senseless tragedy that left her comrades stunned and bereaved. Oddly enough, it seems to be the emotionless Data who cherishes her memory the most; he keeps a holographic snapshot of her among his most cherished possessions.

The Enterprise crew later encountered Ishara Yar, Tasha’s sister, when they went to rescue a Federation freighter’s crew from captivity on Tasha’s hellish homeworld. She reminded them of Tasha, but she was using them to get help for her political faction. Perhaps she was as capable of loyalty and friendship as Tasha, but Ishara’s loyalties were bound up in the ongoing struggle of her world, and she lacked the courage to turn her back on the chaos and follow her sister’s path.