The Unsung Star Trek Hero Who Saved Billions Of Lives
When you think about the greatest heroes in Star Trek, chances are that you’re thinking about characters like Captain Kirk and Captain Picard. These two have done amazing things, of course, but they are also constantly celebrated, both in the universe of the franchise and among fans. Today, we’d like to focus on Uhura, the unsung hero who managed to save billions of lives thanks to her quick thinking in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.
The Search For Spock
In Star Trek: The Original Series, Uhura didn’t get too many chances to be a hero, unsung or otherwise. She handled communications, which meant the beginning and end of her heroism mostly began with receiving galactic phone calls. Fortunately, the later films gave Uhura more to do, and she quickly established her value among Kirk’s crew.
For example, in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Uhura becomes Kirk’s personal hero when she helps him hijack the Enterprise so he can head to the Genesis Planet on a crazy quest to save Spock’s body and Dr. McCoy’s mind. By the transitive property, Uhura played a vital role in saving Spock, someone who goes on to save countless lives.
She also plays a big role in the subsequent film by fine-tuning the transmissions from the mysterious Probe, allowing Spock to determine that the alien vessel is inexplicably generating whale song noises.
The Undiscovered Country
However, when it comes to Uhura being an amazing hero who doesn’t get enough credit, we’d like to highlight her role in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Prior to that film, the only thing that really kept cloaked ships in check was that they would have to de-cloak to fire.
That would give someone like Kirk a fighting chance to strike back if a conniving Klingon used the cloaking device to launch a sneak attack.
In this movie, though, Kirk faces his worst nightmare: a Klingon madman (General Chang) with a ship that can fire while remaining cloaked.
He caused even more damage to this ship than Khan did to the previous Enterprise, and it looked like this Klingon was going to be the death of Kirk and his crew. That didn’t happen because of Uhura, who showed her true colors as a hero by throwing out an elegantly simple idea.
The Tailpipe Solution
After Spock points out that even the fanciest cloaked ship would still expel ionized gas, Uhura asks “what about all that equipment we’re carrying to catalogue gaseous anomalies?”
When the crew looks momentarily confused, she clarifies her comment, saying “Well, the thing’s got to have a tailpipe.” This leads to Spock and McCoy modifying a proton torpedo to home in on the cloaked ship, blowing it up and saving the peace talks between the Klingons and the Federation.
Uhura already looks like a major hero in this moment for coming up with a simple solution that even Spock hadn’t thought of. But her heroism takes on a new light once you realize how many lives she helped save by keeping those peace talks alive.
In Star Trek: Discovery, we find out that the previous Klingon/Federation war led to the deaths of 100 million Federation citizens, and that conflict only lasted about half a year.
Klingons Don’t Take Prisoners
In addition to helping save billions of lives by saving Earth, Uhura also helped prevent another war with the Klingons that could have cost countless more lives. Such a conflict would be especially intense because these warriors would now be driven by their newfound lack of resources thanks to the recent explosion of Praxis, their moon and chief energy-production center.
She’s Back In Strange New Worlds
Fortunately, Uhura as a character is finally getting her day in the sun by being a prominent and plucky young hero on Strange New Worlds. However, we think it’s worth noting just how awesome Nichelle Nichols’ incarnation of this character really was. And whenever you want to talk about your shared love of Uhura with us, remember: our hailing frequencies are always open.
