Old-School TOS Novel Question - Help!

[Weyoun Six]

Does anyone recall one of the old TOS novels that mentioned an original character who was of Native American descent? As I recall, it was a high-ranking woman, and she wore a feather in her (possibly greying) hair. The character was original to the novel, and she had several scenes I think, but she wasn't a major player in the plot. I may be misremembering some of this, however.

I'm trying to trace the different American Indian references in Trek, and I'd be grateful if anyone could help me narrow down which novel this is. Thanks so very much!

 

[Weyoun Six]

Just answered off the BBS: It's Vonda McIntyre's The Entropy Effect. Whew!

 

[Corran Horn]

"Final Frontier" had a Native American character as well. Spirit Claw Sanawey.

 

[MichaelS]

I'm trying to trace the different American Indian references in Trek

You might also want to check out the upcoming A Choice of Catastrophes, out later this year.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Don't forget Chief Engineer Moves-With-Burning-Grace from Burning Dreams as well as the Early Voyages comic.

 

[Turtletrekker]

And Ensign Bearclaw from DC's first TOS series.

 

[Turtletrekker]

We also meet Chakotay's previously unseen sister in the Voyager Spirit Walk duology.

 

[zarkon]

Was captain hunter a native american? I only vaguely remember a couple of specific things about her character- having a "dream name" and being given a special feather (crest feather?) from an intelligent/sentient eagle. And something about being in a collective family.

 

[Christopher]

Don't forget Chief Engineer Moves-With-Burning-Grace from Burning Dreams as well as the Early Voyages comic.

Wrong continent. Moves-With-Burning-Grace is descended from the Masai, a semi-nomadic culture from East Africa.


As for Hunter, as I recall, the thing with the feather was a custom from an alien planet. I don't think there was any indication that she was of Native American ancestry.


For what it's worth, there were several Native American crewmembers glimpsed in the rec-room scene in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and in my novel Ex Machina I identified one as Ensign Mosi Nizhoni, making her Chekov's assistant chief of security.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

There's Dawson Walking Bear, from the TAS episode, How Sharper than a Serpent's Tooth. I'm told he makes a cameo appearance in Crucible: The Fire and the Rose, and he may have also appeared in Russell Bates' opus (either a shooting script or a short story), "The Patient Parasites" (Star Trek: The New Voyages 2).

 

[Christopher]

^"The Patient Parasites" was indeed a script, and was published in that form in The New Voyages 2. It was a TAS script that was rejected because it was too visually uninteresting and static, not taking advantage of the potential of animation. As I recall, Walking Bear was in it, but merely as a token character who could easily have been someone else. After "Parasites" was rejected, Bates partnered with veteran animation writer David Wise to write "Serpent's Tooth," a script that avoided those mistakes.

 

[Stevil2001]

The version of "The Patient Parasites" printed in New Voyages replaces Walking Bear with Sulu, as per the script editor(?)'s comment that the character didn't do anything Sulu couldn't. Though it seemed weird to me to follow that suggestion given that if Bates was following the script editor's ideas, the story wouldn't exist.

 

[Christopher]

^It's been a long time since I've read TNV2, but I have the impression that it was changed to Sulu for the anthology, not in the original script.

 

[MLJames]

You're right; in the introduction he wrote for the script's inclusion in TNV2, Bates says exactly that.

 

[Stevil2001]

^It's been a long time since I've read TNV2, but I have the impression that it was changed to Sulu for the anthology, not in the original script.

Yes, that's what I said. Which is what I think is weird. If the intention is to show readers a "lost" script, why change it?

 

[Christopher]

^No, you said "the script editor," which is a job in a television show. For TAS, that would've been D. C. Fontana. It was the anthology editors, Sondra Marshak & Myrna Culbreath, who would've suggested the change to Sulu. And the reason for that was probably to make it feel more like a familiar, conventional ST story. I guess they figured they'd rather give Sulu something to do rather than replace him with a nobody.

 

[Stevil2001]

Oh, I meant that (I thought) Bates changed Walking Bear to Sulu for the anthology because of Fontana's request.