One of the first alien species Gene Roddenberry created for Star Trek were the Orions, mentioned as trading in “green animal women” and slaves in “The Cage,” and then seen in one of the illusions for Pike created by the Talosians, with Susan Oliver’s Vina reimagined as one of those “green animal women.”
We saw Orion pirates on the original series in “Journey to Babel” and the animated series in the aptly titled “The Pirates of Orion,” and another sexy Orion woman, played by Yvonne Craig, in “Whom Gods Destroy.” Later uses of the Orions on Enterprise, Discovery, and Lower Decks—with an Orion woman in the main cast—have made the society a bit less cringe-y
Tendi has always been a bit of a mystery, as she’s a classic Starfleet science dork, but every once in a while bits of her Orion past show up. The most notable were in “We’ll Always Have Tom Paris,” when other Orions referred to her respectfully as the Mistress of the Winter Constellations, and in both “Veritas” and “Hear All, Trust Nothing,” where she kicked some serious ass.
All is finally revealed this week, as Tendi is invited to her sister D’Erika’s wedding. Tendi doesn’t wish to attend, but Freeman makes it clear that Starfleet wants her to go. They still don’t know that much about Orion society. Mariner is dying to learn more about Tendi, and T’Lyn is curious for scientific reasons, and feels that a report to Vulcan High Command about Orion would be beneficial, so we get a road trip with the three women among the lower-decksers.
For one thing, all three want to get away from Boimler and Rutherford, who have become roommate bros to an annoying degree, going so far as to finish each others’ sentences. However, as we soon see, there is trouble in paradise, as Boimler and Rutherford argue over who should mist their bonsai tree. Rutherford’s argument is that he knows the precise amount the tree needs thanks to his cybernetic implants, while Boimler’s counterargument is that he grew up on a vineyard and knows how to take care of plants.
Their argument is interrupted by it being their holodeck time, where they’ve re-created a nineteenth-century riverboat on which Mark Twain is a passenger—and then they argue over who is playing Mr. Samuel Clemens, as they both show up in white suits and big-ass mustaches.
What follows made my teeth hurt a little bit, as they weren’t so much doing Mark Twain as they were doing Foghorn Leghorn. But talking in gruff Southern accents and doing bits of wordplay as they argue has a salubrious effect on them and they wind up being friends again.
Which is okay, I guess, but then we get the dopey sitcom plot. The Cerritos wants to examine a nebula, but there’s a Chalnoth ship that refuses to let them. Boimler and Rutherford, for some stupid-ass reason, suggest that Freeman and the Chalnoth captain go to the riverboat holodeck program and talk like Mark Twain to settle their differences. I don’t know what’s more idiotic, that the two lieutenants even suggested such a dopey notion or that Freeman actually tried it.
In the end, the solution comes, not from badly impersonating Mark Twain on the holodeck, but instead by the Chalnoth eating the bonsai tree and therefore being more conciliatory. This also nicely solves the dilemma of who mists the plant…
But that’s not the fun part of the episode, the fun part of the episode is Tendi getting sucked into family drama and Mariner (goofily) and T’Lyn (in her usual deadpan) commenting on it. D’Erika has been kidnapped—something that happens pretty regularly to children of important Orion families, of which the Tendis very much are one—and Tendi is appalled to realize that her parents specifically invited her to the wedding so that the Mistress of the Winter Constellations will rescue her sister.
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I love the Orion society that we see here, especially the casual near-boredom with kidnappings, as they’re so matter-of-course that nobody makes any kind of big deal about them. In addition, we get to see a pheremone bar. The Enterprise episode “Bound” established that Orion women emit pheremones that make heterosexual males devoted to them; LD has backed that off some, establishing that only certain Orion women emit those ’mones (and Tendi is not one of them). However, it also makes perfect sense that there’d be the equivalent of an opium den, or an oxygen bar, where guys come to sniff the ’mones. (Points to scripter Grace Parra Janney for the abbreviation of pheremones and its perfect double meaning.) We see such an establishment as a place where D’Erika’s ex hangs out, as Tendi sees him as a prime suspect. (D’Erika’s future husband is not him, as the marriage is a political union of families rather than a love match.) But he’s too busy sniffing ’mones to be kidnapping anyone.
Throughout the search for D’Erika, Tendi is treated with fear and reverence, and she keeps trying to downplay it to T’Lyn and Mariner, who, of course, don’t buy it. By the end of the episode, we finally know the full story. Tendi was the Prime among the Tendi offspring, trained to be an assassin. But she never wanted that life, preferring to do science (as we’ve seen in, like, every LD episode, as well as SNW’s “Those Old Scientists”), and so she left, leaving D’Erika to take over as Prime.
And that, it turns out, is the issue. Tendi left for Starfleet Academy without discussing it with anyone, leaving D’Erika stuck with her job and in her shadow. They finally find D’Erika in a junkyard full of damaged ships, where the Tendi sisters used to hang out as children. Turns out that D’Erika kidnapped herself to lure her older sibling to Orion so they could have it out.
Tendi is confused, as she thought D’Erika wanted to be Prime—and she’s right. It’s the shadow that’s the problem. D’Erika doesn’t think she can live up to the Mistress of the Winter Constellations.
But she reveals this right after The Obligatory Fight Scene, and all three of the other people in the scene—Tendi, T’Lyn, and Mariner—reassure D’Erika that she was kicking her sister’s ass and makes a great Prime.
The sisters make up and everyone’s happy—but then they need to get to the wedding. Luckily, Tendi is there to hotwire the ship and they crash the wedding (literally) and everyone lives happily ever after. Even T’Lyn, who realizes that reporting about a society without their consent might be ethically dodgy, and so tosses her padd away.
Some of Trek’s best episodes are the ones that give us a look at the homeworld of one of the main characters, from the original series’ “Amok Time” to TNG’s “Sins of the Father” to DS9’s “Family Business” to Voyager’s “Lineage” to Enterprise’s “Home” to Discovery’s “The Sound of Thunder” to LD’s “Where Pleasant Fountains Lie.” This definitely fits nicely with all those episodes, fleshing out Tendi’s character and giving us a fun adventure.
Albeit one with a dopey B-plot. Alas.
Random thoughts
- The Chalnoth were first seen in TNG’s “Allegiance,” established as anarchists. This is only their second on-screen appearance, though they showed up in some TNG comics written by Michael Jan Friedman.
- The real Samuel Clemens, a.k.a. Mark Twain, showed up in TNG’s “Time’s Arrow” two-parter, played by Jerry Hardin.
- Tendi’s parents, Shona and Br’t, have the exact same dynamic as T’Pring’s parents, T’Pril and Sevet, in SNW’s “Charades,” which is more than a little tiresome. It works better here, at least in part because the henpecked male under the thumb of a domineering wife fits the Orion mode more than it does a Vulcan couple, especially after what was established about Orion women in Enterprise’s “Bound.”
- Orions also play a big role in the thirty-second century Alpha Quadrant, as seen in Discovery, as following the Burn the Orions and Andorians teamed up to form the criminal enterprise the Emerald Chain.
- I must confess to finding the running gag that Mariner constantly got stabbed in the exact same spot on her right shoulder to be hilarious. Part of it was how the usually action-oriented Mariner was actively trying not to get stabbed again by the time we got to the sister fight, going so far as to hide behind a console—and she still got stabbed in the same spot…
Keith R.A. DeCandido has a story in the newly released eighth issue of Star Trek Explorer magazine, “The Kellidian Kidnapping,” a Voyager tale that dramatizes an adventure alluded to in the series finale “Endgame.” There’s also a DS9 story by David Mack, “Lost and Founder.” You can find it at bookstores and comic shops, or order directly from Titan.
