Skip to main content

star trek - What happened to Gillian Taylor after she joined Kirk and the whales on the Klingon ship? Wouldn't people be looking for her?


At the end of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home,



20th century marine biologist Gillian Taylor goes back to the future on the Bird of Prey and is given her own ship to go exploring the galaxy in.



Is there any discussion about what happened with her after that (canonical or not)? Any "continuing adventures in 23rd century marine biology" stories?


More importantly, was there any discussion about people on Earth missing her, or investigating her disappearance?



Answer




Main Canon


There's a throwaway line in the film to explain her decision to time-jump without a second's thought.



GILLIAN: What are you talking about? I'm coming with you.


KIRK: You can't. Our next stop is the 23rd Century.


GILLIAN: What do I care? I've got nobody but those whales...


Star Trek: The Voyage Home - Original Screenplay



While the clear implication is that she has no family and friends, there's nothing specific beyond that within the main canon. She doesn't appear in any future films or within any of the TV shows. The final mention of her is that she's been given her own ship and sent off on a mission to recruit some divers to work with her whales.




"You're going to your ship, I'm going to mine. Science vessel, bound for Mer to recruit some divers to help the whales. Why, the next time you see me, I may have learned to breathe underwater!" She grinned, honestly and completely happy for the first time since Jim had met her. "I've got three hundred years of catchup learning to do," she said.


Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home - Official Novelisation



For the record, the factbook "Who's Who in Star Trek 2" identifies her ship as the USS Clarke and her organisation as the 'New Cetacean Institute'.



EU Canon.


There are several mentions of her in authorised fiction, both relating to the present day and her future in the 23rd century.


In the story "Whales Weep Not" we learn that her disappearance was reported to the police by her landlady. The novel also confirms that she has no family or significant ties.



“She doesn’t have any family. Only child, you know. Her mother died a couple of years ago. Cancer if I recall.” She scratched at a curler and thought for a minute before adding, “she never talks about her dad. I figure he’s long gone. Only steady boyfriend she had quit coming around when her mom got sick."




and that the police left her case open, in the event that she turned up again.



The case couldn’t officially be closed but that didn’t mean he was going to put any more time into it either. After placating Mrs. Schimmerman with some story he would quietly add the folder to the inactive file. He just hoped that Dr. Gillian Taylor was happy with her whales.



She makes a brief return in TOS: Debt of Honor, set some 10 years after her arrival in the future.
enter image description here


She attended Kirk's memorial in 2293



Many individuals had spoken throughout the morning. Dr. Gillian Taylor, a twentieth-century cetacean biologist who had helped the captain and the Enterprise’s command crew bring a pair of humpback whales into the present in order to avert Earth’s destruction, had recalled meeting Jim, being charmed by him, and at last being enlisted to his cause



Crucible: Spock - The Fire and the Rose



The factbook Star Trek: Federation - The First 150 Years lists her 2299 book in its fictional bibliography


a


And the (chronologically) final mention of her is in 2310, as part of an expedition involving Captain Uhura, Carol Marcus, a mysteriously missing humpbacked whale and a renewed Genesis Project.



It wasn’t God who had summoned the darkness, but a woman named Carol Marcus. Even without God making an appearance, this was Genesis: the birth of life on a lifeless world. The rebirth of a failed project. But no birth is without danger. Lost in the birth-tempest was a young humpbacked whale, named Harpo.


In the observation room of the drift-station Madrigal, Gillian searched the waters and swore.


Strange New Worlds II - The Hero of My Own Life




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

harry potter - Do the Kwikspell courses work?

In Harry Potter we are introduced to Kwikspell course in The Chamber of Secrets (and never hear about it again). We see Filch taking courses, presumably by mail. The descriptions of Kwikspell make me think it is for people who are weak in magic (kind of like how Neville was supposed to be when he was younger), but had magic in them nonetheless. However, Ron's comments later in the chapter make it sound like it is mainly for Squibs to learn magic. However, it is strongly implied through out all the books that Squibs are essentially Muggles, and will never be able to do magic. How then is a Kwikspell course supposed to work? Do we have any information to know if it works at all? Is it a scam? An answer from any level of canon is welcome. Answer Kwikspell courses are (probably) useful to some wizards, but not to squibs. The Kwikspell course literature comes with two testimonials. Madam Z. Nettles of Topsham writes: ‘I had no memory for incantations and my potions were a family joke...
Post a Comment
Read more

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.
Post a Comment
Read more

star trek - Warning regarding forward saucer section in Nemesis?

In Star Trek: Nemesis , just before the Enterprise rams into the Scimitar, Picard sends a text message from his captain's chair arm pad to Troi — who is manning the helm in lieu of the crewman who was just blown out through what was once the view screen — indicating that she should put full impulse on standby. (Literally, if you watch the scene closely, Troi's console prefaces the order with "TXT MSG" !) My question is: Did Picard also somehow warn crew members in the forward saucer section about what was about to happen? The ramming of the Scimitar was a heat of the moment decision. Considering that he also resorted to calling the auto-destruct sequence shortly after (which ended up being offline), he probably was of the mindset that any losses would be acceptable in order to hault Shinzon's march to Earth. Still, I'm curious. Answer The original script indicates that he called for the crew to " brace for impact ". Whether that call (or the comma...
Post a Comment
Read more

star wars - What "exactly" happens when someone turns to the Dark Side?

When I saw the original Star Wars saga as a kid, the concept of the Dark Side imprinted in me was quite simple. You did a bad thing, so you're a bad person so you go to the Dark Side and keep doing bad things. Now, obviously this doesn't hold true in reality. In my mind it is perfectly reasonable for Luke to kill the Emperor and Vader and then just flee the Death Star and rejoin the Alliance. After all they are at war, those are enemy officers that have captured him and are taunting him by threatening with death of all loved ones and the whole operation was intended to kill the Emperor anyway. The same would hold true for Anakin. He could have killed Mace Windu to save the Chancellor and Padme but that doesn't mean he's going to then go mad and kill all Jedis including children. It doesn't add up from a merely psychological point of view. He had a set of objectives and that made him want to keep the Chancellor alive (quite valid by the way, Mace Windu is quite clums...
Post a Comment
Read more