Five Characters Made Up for Non-Canon Star Trek

I talked about how Superfriends decided to add a little diversity to its roster by inventing a few Superheroes who were not original DC characters. This really isn’t unusual, all of the DC and Marvel TV shows or movies have invented all new characters. Some caught on and became regular characters in the main comic.

(Harley Quinn anyone?).

Star Trek is no exception to this, as far as their non-canon material goes. Of course non-canon means that as far as the TV and movies are concerned, the events never took place. So why not throw some new characters in there? Especially since the books and comics had specific rules regrading what they could and could not do with the main characters. Here are five Star Trek characters totally created for non-canon material.


Bearclaw

For a period of time when DC published Star Trek, it must have occurred to them that there were only so many stories they could tell with the original crew. So they invented some new characters to work alongside the established nine. This way they could explore these characters without harming the canon behind the main crew. Despite that stupid name, Ensign Bearclaw was one of the. He was the kind of character you’d never see on a Gene Roddenberry helmed series. He was brash, rude, and arrogant. He wanted to be a good officer but his bigotry would often get in the way. As a result he would scuffle with the other officers and but head’s with Kirk most of the time.





Konom

DC created a few of these characters, this probably being the most notable. Before Worf was a thing, this was the first Klingon in Starfleet. Problem is that while Worf was always a fierce warrior, he joined Starfleet because he felt he owed them for saving him as a child, Konom was kind of a wuss. He hated violence and whined a lot. He defected from the Klingons because he couldn’t stand the violence. After he was disgraced Kirk would bring him in to the fold as a Starfleet officer. He would eventually marry another new character, Nancy Bryce, and settle down and marry her. Even though she was human. I won’t even get into who Bernie was.






Captain Mackenzie Calhoun

The novels have a huge history of doing this. In fact, an entire series was created based on a totally made up character. Captain Calhoun is one the greatest Star Trek captain’s ever. Never heard of him? Guess you didn’t read the New Frontier novels. These books (and comics) were an attempt to create a new universe to tell stories in without being tied down to the familiar ships and or crew. New characters, new ships, new everything. Though the stories were littered with minor characters from the serious series. This guy is pretty popular, even having an action figure. That’s pretty cool for a totally made up character! Peter David wrote most of these and he is one of the premier Star Trek author’s out there.







Ensign Naraht

I don’t get this one. Remember The Horta? She was the rock creature that could phase through living rock and could kill people very easily. The episode “The Devil in the Dark” is a tad underrated. Would you believe in the comics and some novels there is a Horta officer on the Enterprise? Yeah it seems really weird and yet this character has appeared quite a few times in various books, and comics of course. How can a Horta be a crew member? Got me. Apparently, they have to be sprayed with Teflon to survive the atmosphere. Sure. Diane Duane is a good writer but WTF? And DC Comics also featured this character. All kidding aside expanded media have given The Horta a much richer culture than the one TV episode ever could!






Arex and M’Ress


Remember the Animated Series that I have talked so little about? These two characters were created for that. Why were they created? Got me. Arex was a stand in for Chekov (and his absence never made sense) while M’Ress would sit in for Uhura off and on for…reasons. M’Ress was a Caitian cat lady and Arex an Edosian…no idea. He had three arms though. On TAS they were played by James Doohan and Majel Barrett respectively. And to be honest, I hated these characters. What were they doing here?? While they obviously never appeared in canon work they did reappear many times in DC Comics, novels, and IDW Star Trek comics. Heck there’s even a Hallmark ornament of the two out this year, so someone must remember them! And let’s not argue about whether or not TAS is canon or not, these characters are clearly not.






There are plenty more from non-canon materials I could have mentioned, including video games (Ensign Munroe!!). While the Star Wars novels have truly opened up that universe, the Star Trek novels, comics, and cartoons have had there fair share of world building also.