Star Trek: Every Helmsman Ranked From Worst To Best
Plot a course! Engines at full! Helmsman, take us to combat velocity! Engage!
From scrubbing the Jeffries tubes to sitting in the captain's chair, from scraping dilithium shavings off the floor of main engineering to saving lives in sickbay, there's one job on a Starfleet vessel that almost everyone would either be enviable of or too terrified to do; Helmsman. Riding the direct piloting controls of the ship, hands to the conn, the entire fate of the ship entrusted to your reflexes.
It's not a job for the faint of heart, but for every Enterprise and Voyager, for every Defiant and Discovery, someone has to take the front seat and guide the ship through asteroid fields, proto-nebulas, Klingon disruptor fire, and Romulan Warbirds. But are all helmsmen created equal? Are there those who are a cut above the rest?
12. Keyla Detmer
Keyla's one of the most recent additions to the roster of Star Trek Helmsmen and easily the most quiet. After nearly three seasons of Star Trek: Discovery we still don't know much about her, other that she served on the USS Shenzhou before moving over to the USS Discovery, accompanying Saru.
While determined, we've seen Keyla show signs of nervousness and hesitation, but she's someone who has managed to summon up the skill necessary to handle the Discovery's dangerous spore drive, as well as take command of the ship when called upon (wonder how she'll deal with Tilly's sudden promotion... probably quietly).
Keyla was injured after the Battle of the Binary Stars, receiving a cranial and ocular implant to help her regain the use of her eye. One of the few times we've heard her speak is at the funeral of cyborg colleague Airiam, showing a definite human side to her.
Her most notable moment has only just occurred, piloting Book's fighter-ship in a daring attack run against the Emerald Chain. Hopefully, we see more of Keyla as time goes by.