UK Astronaut’s Career In Our Hands
LIEUTENANT Malcolm Reed is the British astronaut
with the most extensive experience in space. But unless we wage a
successful letter-writing campaign on his behalf, his career may be
terminated.
Reed is descended from a long line of Royal Navy
men. Indeed, when he joined Starfleet instead of the Navy, his
father was insulted that the ocean didn’t seem big enough for his
son.
Currently Reed serves as the weapons and tactical
officer aboard Enterprise NX-01. His duty station is the
tactical console on the ship’s bridge. In any encounter with an
alien vessel he is the one who immediately scans the ship for
weapons and engine configurations.
He is also in charge of security and procedures for
locking down the ship in an emergency, such as being boarded.
A natural pessimist, Reed’s misgivings about the
friendliness he and his shipmates would encounter in deep space have
been proven valid. Many times he has had to improvise against
hostile aliens with superior weaponry.
In one battle early in the Enterprise’s
mission, the ship’s torpedoes failed to penetrate an enemy ship’s
defences. The crew were nearly captured, to be drained of their
bodily fluids. Only the cooperation between Reed and an friendly
alien enabled them to destroy their common foe.
Reed is fascinated by munitions and what he can
create next in his Armoury. It was he who presented the Enterprise’s
crew with their new hand weapons, called "phase-pistols."
As he explained, "They have two settings, stun and kill. It
would be best not to confuse them."
He has made technological strides in other ways,
such as perfecting a stable electromagnetic barrier, also known as a
"forcefield." When a strange, growing organism invaded Enterprise
and tried to absorb several crewmembers, Reed needed a way to stop
the creature from spreading and capturing more people.
He jury-rigged a prototype based on specs in the Enterprise’s
database and found a way to control the particle density, something
Starfleet had not been able to do in five years.
Reed’s knowledge of ship’s weaponry, his
professionalism and his dedication to duty make him vital member of
the crew as Enterprise now probes the mysterious area of
space known as the "Delphic Expanse."
Almost 2000 light-years across, the Delphic Expanse
is an intergalactic equivalent of earth’s Bermuda Triangle. It is
home to many strange anomalies and dangerous species. Sometimes even
the laws of physics do not apply. Ships have been known to return
from the Expanse with their crews’ bodies anatomically inverted,
if they return at all.
In 2153, the crew of Enterprise NX-01 were
dispatched on a mission to the Expanse to locate the mysterious
alien race known as the Xindi, after Starfleet determined the Xindi
were responsible for a devastating attack upon earth.
For full details, visit www.startrek.com/startrek/view/series/ENT/.
Starring Dominic Keating as Lieutenant Reed
British actor Dominic Keating portrays Starfleet
Lieutenant Malcolm Reed weekly on Star Trek: Enterprise on
Sky One in the UK and on UPN in the United States.
A native of Leicester, Keating went into acting
after earning a BA with Honours in history from University College
London. His personal website is online on http://dominickeating.com/.
His television credits include the regular role of
Tony on Channel Four’s Desmonds, a recurring role of Mallos
in the Canadian TV series The Immortals, and one-off roles in
Inspector Morse and Casualty.
His film credits include a starring role in the
feature film Jungle 2 Jungle opposite Tim Allen and Martin
Short, and an appearance in the Oscar-nominated feature film Almost
Famous.
Keating remains a resident of Los Angeles, as
reported in Union Jack last September: www.ujnews.com/html/DominicKeating.shtml.
This could change, of course, should Star Trek: Enterprise
be cancelled, as is rumoured.
Fans Try to Save Enterprise
The official Star Trek website reports that Enterprise
has struggled in the ratings this year as it nears the end of its
third season on UPN, and the conclusion of its season-long story arc
involving the crew’s sojourn in the Delphic Expanse to stop the
Xindi from destroying earth.
So Enterprise fans have organized a Save
Enterprise website on www.saveenterprise.com/.
Visit it to learn how you may write or phone UPN, CBS and Viacom,
which produce and broadcast Enterprise, to ensure the show’s
renewal.
Also, USA Today includes Star Trek:
Enterprise in its Save Our Shows website, on http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/save-our-shows.htm.
Browse there to vote for Enterprise.
The fate of Star Trek: Enterprise – and the
UK’s greatest space hero, Lieutenant Malcolm Reed — should be
announced about May 20.
AUTHOR: Dr Richard Tracey is an
educational researcher based in Carlsbad, California. His email
address is rtrac3y@hotmail.com.
The Union Jack’s email address is ujnews@ujnews.com.
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