Star Trek: 10 Dropped Plot Threads We'll Never Get The Answer To

2. Whatever Happened To The Romulan Commander? - €œThe Enterprise Incident€

An episode written by D.C. Fontana €“ and loosely inspired on the circumstances surrounding the USS Pueblo €“ an American naval vessel captured by North Korea in 1968 on a charge of espionage after allegedly straying into North Korean waters. When the Enterprise enters the Romulan Neutral Zone, it is immediately surrounded by three Romulan battlecruisers. Their objective is to capture the Star Fleet vessel and take it back to Romulus as a major propaganda victory. Declaring Captain Kirk to be mentally incompetent, Spock takes command of the Enterprise and immediately surrenders to the Romulans. In a pique of irrational temper, Kirk attacks Spock in plain view of the Romulans and delivers an ancient Vulcan defence technique known as the €œDeath Grip€, and apparently kills him. Spock is now prepared to discuss terms with the Romulan Commander, who is revealed to be a woman. Of course, Kirk isn€™t dead and he and Spock are under secret orders to steal a Romulan cloaking device. Kirk, surgically altered by McCoy to look like a Romulan sneaks aboard the Romulan flagship, while Spock distracts the female commander with his Vulcan wiles. The device is installed aboard the Enterprise, the Romulan commander is taken prisoner and the Federation now has a cloaking device to study. What happened to the Romulan commander? As a political prisoner, there would be obvious ramifications as to her career and even her status as a citizen of the Empire. Here€™s a thought: how about we even learn her name? There have been a few attempts to include some mention of her in novels, like My Enemy, My Ally written by Diane Duane. We meet another female Romulan commander who is the aunt of the one Kirk encounters in €œThe Enterprise Incident€. However, the un-named niece isn€™t featured, only mentioned as a background element. It should be a crime to leave such a strong and compelling character to obscurity. She was a character whose fate we needed to know more of.
Contributor
Contributor

John Kirk is a Teacher-Librarian and currently a History/English Teacher with the Toronto District School Board. But mostly, John teaches Geek. Comics, Sci-Fi (Notably Star Trek), Fantasy and Role-Playing and table-top games all make up part of John’s repertoire, There is a whole generation of nerds-in-embryo who rely on him to make sense of it all, to teach that with great power comes great responsibility, that the force will be with us always and that a towel IS the most useful thing to have in one’s possession. When John isn’t in the classroom, he can be found in his basement writing comic reviews for www.popmythology.com and features for Roddenberry Entertainment's www.1701news.com.