star trek tng leah brahms

• Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards personnel
• Daystrom Institute personnel

Leah Brahms

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Doctor Leah Susan Brahms was a female Human scientist of the 24th century United Federation of Planets . Considered a leader in warp field theory and its applications, she made major contributions to the development of the Galaxy -class ' warp drive system. She became a professor at the Daystrom Institute .

• 1.1 Academic Background
• 1.2 Inspection of the Enterprise
• 1.3 Later in life
• 2 Engineering manuals
• 3.1 Background information
• 3.2 Apocrypha
• 3.3 External link

History [ ]

Leah Brahms was born on September 11 , 2336 in Damascus City , Alpha Delphi IX , to Theodore Brahms and Susan Brahms Beaumont .

At some point prior to 2367 , she married Michael . ( TNG : " Galaxy's Child ")

Academic Background [ ]

Brahms attended the University of Alpha Centauri where she earned a Bachelor of Science in Subspace Physics and graduated cum laude . After graduation, she attended the University of Tomobiki where she wrote the masters' thesis " Subspace Processing Modes in Warp Propulsion Applications " and was awarded a Master of Cybernetics in Optical Technologies . Finally, she attended the Daystrom Institute of Technology where she wrote the doctoral thesis " Higher Order Warp Field Propulsion Applications " and was awarded a Doctor of Theoretical Physics .

Brahms started her career as a research assistant for the Daystrom Institute, developing protocols for measuring higher order subspace field distortions. During her tenure at the Daystrom Institute, she wrote articles that were published in the Scientific Tasmanian . She was later promoted to junior engineer and was assigned to Design Team 7 at the Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards ; she was then promoted to team leader of this team. During her time with the design team, she was credited for improved dilithium crystal servo subsystems and a plasma resonance sampling device . Next, she was assigned to lead the Theoretical Propulsion Project, on which she was promoted to design engineer. During her time as a design engineer, she supervised the implementation of improved subspace field generators onto the Galaxy -class USS Enterprise -D and USS Yamato . After this, she was named a Starfleet Design Consultant .

Brahms became a Professor of Theoretical Physics at the Daystrom Institute of Technology on Mars , where she was awarded an honorary Feynman Chair . She lived at Quayle Canals Northeast , Utopia Planitia Gardens . ( TNG : " Booby Trap ")

Inspection of the Enterprise [ ]

A holographic simulation of Dr. Leah Brahms in 2366

In 2366 , the Enterprise -D was caught in an ancient trap which drained the energy from its engines and bombarded the crew with radiation . To learn more about the engine design and help him find a solution to the problem, Geordi La Forge created a holographic version of Dr. Brahms based on her Starfleet personality profile analysis from stardate 40056 ( 2363 ) and her public persona as recorded from her appearances at the Chaya VII Intergalactic Caucuses. The holographic Dr. Brahms was opinionated on engineering matters but still friendly, and La Forge developed an attraction to her image. Together, they were able to save the Enterprise , and La Forge shared a kiss with the hologram before ending the program. ( TNG : " Booby Trap ")

Since the Enterprise -D was commissioned, Dr. Brahms learned of the field modifications La Forge had made to the ship's engines. She was critical of his work, but did not reach out to him. Finally, Starfleet Command had her go to the Enterprise -D to inspect his designs in 2367 . She boarded via Starbase 313 soon after stardate 44614.6. Being protective of her designs, she treated him with disdain and didn't respond to his friendly overtone. Furthermore, she picked up on his over-familiar gestures and asked him about it, but he said he was just a fan of hers. She also replied she was married, which surprised him. La Forge and Brahms tried to work out their differences until she discovered the records of her hologram's somewhat romantic interactions with La Forge during his attempts to resolve the aceton assimilator crisis and strongly objected to his having programmed a holographic replica of herself. She told him that she felt violated, to which La Forge expressed his indignation of her judgmental attitude. The two engineers then pulled together in a crisis when the Enterprise encountered a spaceborn creature whose offspring had drawn energy from it. Afterwards, they became good friends. ( TNG : " Galaxy's Child ", " Relics ")

Later in life [ ]

In 2370 , Leah Brahms was the director of the Zefram Cochrane Institute for Advanced Theoretical Physics . She signed her name onto the Cochrane Medal of Excellence for Harry Kim on stardate 47302.5. ( VOY : " Non Sequitur ", production art [1] )

Dr. Brahms and her work was still well-known in 2381 as Ensign Sam Rutherford was approached by an illusion of her created by psychic mines on Jengus IV , who tried to tempt him with the idea of "designing warp cores" and later joined the illusion of Ensign Jennifer Sh'reyan in trying to seduce Ensign Beckett Mariner . ( LD : " Mining The Mind's Mines ")

In an alternate future around 2395 , La Forge was married to someone named Leah, possibly Dr. Brahms. The couple was living on Rigel III and they had three children together: Alandra , Bret , and Sidney . During this time, Leah had become the director of the Daystrom Institute, as well as quite a gardener . ( TNG : " All Good Things... ")

Engineering manuals [ ]

She wrote several engineering manuals for the Enterprise that were stored in the Engineering Systems Database . ( TNG : " Booby Trap ", okudagram ) These included:

• Operating Protocol - Subspace Field Generators
• Operating Protocol - Subspace Harmonic Monitors
• Operating Protocol - Primary Field Coils
• Operating Protocol - Secondary Field Coils
• Subspace Design Logs - Theoretical Propulsion
• Gravimetric Power Limits (Theoretical)
• Emergency Plasma Vent Procedures
• Synthetic Grav Field Interaction Considerations
• Emergency Field Quench Procedures
• Field Maintenance Power Requirements
• Secondary Harmonic Safety Requirements

Appendices [ ]

Background information [ ].

Leah Brahms was played by Susan Gibney . For the double Brahms in "Galaxy's Child", Ron B. Moore worked on video sequences and photo double Griffin was hired.

According to the Star Trek Encyclopedia  (4th ed., vol. 1, p. 100), Dr. Brahms joined Design Team 7 in 2358 .

About the character's creation, the Star Trek Encyclopedia  (4th ed., vol. 1, p. 100) stated, " In an early draft of " Booby Trap ", Brahms was named Navid Daystrom, presumably a descendant of Dr. Richard Daystrom . Unfortunately, the casting department did not realize that this would require a Black actress to play the part until after Susan Gibney had been hired. At the suggestion of script coordinator Eric Stillwell , the character was renamed, but the Daystrom tie-in was kept by adding a line that she had graduated from the Daystrom Institute. "

According to a line in the revised final draft of "Galaxy's Child", Brahms' husband was an engineer on Garran IV . [2]

In the original script for Star Trek Nemesis , Brahms and La Forge had in fact become a couple by 2379 , and the two of them attended Will Riker and Deanna Troi 's wedding together. However, because actress Susan Gibney was unavailable, her character was removed, and the scene with La Forge was re-written for Guinan . [3]

Apocrypha [ ]

The novelization of All Good Things... made it clear that the "Leah" referenced in the episode was indeed Brahms.

In the Genesis Wave series, set in 2377 , Leah Brahms is the first person to discover that the Genesis Device technology has been stolen, surviving the initial destruction caused by the wave thanks to her experiments with phase-shifting technology as a suit (although her husband is killed). During the crisis, she is given command of a Klingon ship, with Maltz , one of the few survivors of the original Genesis crisis, serving as her first officer due to the respect he develops for her during their attempts to escape the Genesis Wave. Thanks to her research, the location of the source of the Genesis Wave is discovered, with Maltz destroying it on a suicide mission. In a subsequent conversation with Geordi La Forge, he admits his love for Brahms, but assures her that he expects nothing in return. La Forge only asks her to meet him at an engineering conference in a few months' time, and she agrees.

In the novel Indistinguishable from Magic , set between 2381 and 2383 , Brahms is reunited with the newly-promoted Captain La Forge during the USS Challenger 's assignment to investigate trans-slipstream drive. The two begin a romantic relationship, and after the Challenger is destroyed, Brahms moves in with La Forge aboard the USS Enterprise -E after he accepts his original position. She is convinced to join him when he offers her the opportunity to work on only one vessel, instead of many. Subsequent novels taking place over the next two years,such as the Cold Equations trilogy and Takedown , depicted La Forge in his relationship with Tamala Harstad, a doctor aboard the Enterprise , with no mention of Brahms until The Light Fantastic when La Forge was on sabbatical in San Francisco and the two were obviously enjoying each other's company, despite Geordi's misgiving about having been "seeing someone else" before he left the Enterprise . Once Geordi returned to the ship, all subsequent novels show him and Harstad as a couple, again with no mention of Brahms, until Collateral Damage when Brahms invites the two of them to dinner in Berlin , and La Forge expresses worry that the three of them socializing could turn his open relationships with both them (of which both women were aware and accepting) awkward. Brahms suggested he ask Harstad and see what she thought.

The storyline in the Star Trek: Countdown comic indicates that La Forge and Brahms were married by 2387.

External link [ ]

• Leah Brahms at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• 2 ISS Enterprise (NCC-1701)

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The Intriguing World Of Entertainment

Whatever Happened To Susan Gibney, ‘Leah Brahms’ On Star Trek: The Next Generation?

By Nick Lee | September 18, 2023

Susan Gibney is one of many people who became celebrated for their connection to Star Trek. Her best-known role is playing Dr. Leah Brahms on Star Trek: Next Generation. She has also been in different television and movie roles.

Gibney is a California native whose family moved to Webster in western New York. She graduated from Webster Schroeder High School in 1979. A college graduate, Gibney attended Buffalo State College, majoring in theater. She later got her MFA from the Yale School of Drama. 

She was born on 9/11/1961 and is now 61 years old. Her parents divorced when she was young. Gibney is one of eight children and stands 5’7”. Her astrological sign is Virgo.

After graduation, Susan appeared in several plays, such as Tartufe (1992) at Connecticut’s Hartford Stage. She cut next her teeth with off-Broadway roles in New York. 

Acting Career

Gibney has been active in film, theater, and television since the late 1980s. Her first credited T.V. role was in Spenser for Hire. Other acting gigs include Columbo (1989) and an episode of L.A. Law. Film parts include The Waterdance (1992) and 2015’s horror movie We Are Still Here. 

In the series Diagnosis Murder, Gibney had two roles. One lasted for an episode, the other a recurring role. 

Star Trek: The Next Generation

Gibney’s involvement in Star Trek started with two episodes of The Next Generation. She played Dr. Leah Brahms, a flinty warp drive engineer responsible for the Enterprise’s warp engines.

Her character was seen on two episodes – “Booby Trap” and “Galaxy’s Child.” In the first episode, the Enterprise finds an ancient warship among a planet’s rubble in the first episode. A dormant booby trap ensnared the ship, draining the ship’s engines and showering radiation. 

Lieutenant LaForge discovers Brahms’s information in the ship’s memory. He creates a holodeck image of her to help him find a solution. He then imbues Brahms’s A.I. with her tough, smart personality. Together, they solve the Enterprise’s dilemma. 

In “Galaxy’s Child,” the real Dr. Brahms travels to the Enterprise. She and Lt. LaForge clash over how he cares for the warp engines. She angrily discovers LaForge created a holodeck program. The program helped rescue the crew in “Booby Trap.”

LaForge then created a virtual affair, not knowing Brahms was married. They patch up their differences to free the ship from a space-borne energy-sucking life form and its offspring. 

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

After her TNG stint, destiny had more Trek coming Gibney’s way. 1996 brought an appearance on Deep Space 9. She guest starred as Commander Benteen in the two episodes – “Homefront” and “Paradise Lost.”

Gibney’s character was the adjutant of a Star Fleet Admiral using war to cover up his political plotting. The DS9 crew uncovered the plot – traveling to Earth to expose it. The Admiral ordered Benteen to stop them. Once she realized the truth, the Commander defied the order, siding with the crew.   

Star Trek Auditions

Gibney almost achieved Trek greatness three times. She auditioned unsuccessfully for three of the most well-known characters. Her first brush was Captain Janeway , followed by Seven of Nine . Gibney also tried for the Borg Queen in the movie Star Trek: First Contact.

The actress also auditioned for the roles of Tasha Yar and Deanne Troi. Alas, this was not to be!

The Early 2000’s

Following her Star Trek roles, Gibney acted in T.V. roles and a smattering of movies. Her first role was in the short-lived The Fearing Mind for six episodes. Crossing Jordan was a recurring role for Gibney – from 2002 to 2007 as DA Rene Walcott.

Her last ongoing sitcom was Happy Family (2003) for one season. She played a middle-aged woman dating a neighbor’s younger son. 

What is Susan Gibney doing now?

Susan Gibney has retired from acting for the most part. In 2004, after becoming pregnant with her daughter, Gibney moved to her mother’s home town of Webster, New York. She stated that she moved because Los Angeles was not a suitable environment to raise kids. She specifically mentioned that the education system in Los Angeles was not very good, unless you can afford an expensive private school.

She did however reprise her role as Leah Brahms in a 2022 episode of Star Trek Lower Decks. Instead of the steely engineer, she played a steamy one. Is it nerd love?

Gibney has focused her efforts on teaching acting instead of being an actor. Her business, Rogue Acting Training, is located in Rochester, NY. 

Family Life

Unlike many stars today, Gibney has kept this part of her life quiet. No sources mention a divorce. There is not much information on the web or social media. She holds a Twitter account – @susangibney911 –, but there have been no tweets since 2018.

Gibney has two children. Her daughter Samantha came first in 1992 and another in 2004.

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About Nick Lee

Nick is a Senior Staff Writer for Ned Hardy. Some of his favorite subjects include sci-fi, history, and obscure facts about 90's television. When he's not writing, he's probably wondering how Frank Dux got 52 consecutive knockouts in a single tournament. More from Nick

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Galaxy's Child

Star trek: the next generation.

• As Geordi La Forge finally meets the real Dr. Leah Brahms, a tragic first contact leaves the Enterprise with a gigantic galactic infant suckling the ship's energy.
• While the Enterprise is in a star-base, Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge gets a very special visitor, brilliant engineering designer Dr. Leah Brahms, whom he feels to know almost intimately as a 'hologram version' of herself with 'whom' he bonded; however, the real Brahms proves icy and arrogantly unwilling to consider any of Geordi's empirical findings that could conceivably stand against her theoretically impermeable truth. They take on the challenge to collaborate and learn to know each other better, but when she finds Geordi's hologram version of her, Brahms feels almost pornographically 'abused'. That's one prejudiced insult too many for Geordi. Meanwhile Picard, his bridge officers, and Dr. Crusher have a very different problem, a strange life form which approaches and dies but contains a baby version inside its corpse, which must be separated to stand a chance of survival. When that succeeds, 'junior' instinctively identifies the Enterprise as its mother and locks on, draining energy through the hull, which is only safely sustainable for a few hours. Only after Geordi and Brahms join the bridge does its relevant normal mode of life in an asteroid field become revealed, and the duo come up with an idea. — KGF Vissers
• Geordi La Forge is over the moon to learn that Dr. Leah Brahms, designer of the ship's engines, will be coming aboard to study his engine modifications. He became quite smitten with her during an emergency situation a year ago when the holodeck recreated Brahms to assist with a problem. When she arrives, however, she sees Geordi as a competitor and hasn't take kindly to him having tampered with "her" engines. Her frosty demeanor improves over time, but when she realizes Geordi's romantic interest, she has some shocking news for him - then she finds his holodeck program. Meanwhile, the Enterprise has to deal with the outcome of killing an unknown species. The dead creature produces a newborn which imprints itself on the Enterprise, thinking it's its mother. A crisis arises when adults of the same species answer its distress cries. — garykmcd
• At Starbase 313, Dr. Leah Brahms boards the Enterprise to confront Geordi about changes he made to her engine designs. Elated, Geordi feels he knows her intimately from the hologram version of her created a year ago during a crisis (a figure with whom he bonded). The real Brahms, however, proves icy and arrogantly unwilling to consider any of Geordi's empirical findings. Things turn ugly when she discovers her holo-recreation in Geordi's holo-program and feels pornographically abused. Meanwhile, the Enterprise encounters a new, space-dwelling life-form, unaware of it as a pregnant mother nearing birth and unintentionally killing it. Phaser fire frees "Junior" from its dead mother, a child which then bonds with the ship (literally), suckling its energy output. The Enterprise heads to an asteroid belt (the surmised destination of the mother) to wean Junior before it sucks them dry, but the child's distress cries attract the attention of several adults. — statmanjeff
• While the Enterprise is in a star-base, Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge gets a very special visitor, brilliant engineering designer Dr. Leah Brahms (Susan Gibney). She is coming on board the Enterprise to see the engine modifications he has made which improved upon her original design. Geordi feels that knows her almost intimately as a 'hologram version' of herself with 'whom' he bonded. Guinan warns Geordi that he has fallen in love with a fantasy and the reality might be different. Geordi is certain that he and Brahms will be good friends. However, the real Brahms proves icy and arrogantly unwilling to consider any of Geordi's empirical findings that could conceivably stand against her theoretically impermeable truth. Geordi insists that he made all the changes based on his observations and practical experiences in space. Brahms is annoyed. They take on the challenge to collaborate and learn to know each other better. Brahms senses a bit too much "friendship" coming on from Goerdi and tells Geordi that she is married. Brahms is curious as to how Geordi had incorporated some exact changes that she was putting in the next class of star ships being designed currently. Plus, Geordi knew about her favorite dishes and even the way she used to wear her hair. Brahms decides to study all of Geordi's engine modifications and comes across the Hologram program in the ship's computers. Brahms finds Geordi's Hologram version of her. Brahms feels almost pornographically 'abused'. That's one prejudiced insult too many for Geordi. Geordi tells Brahms that the only thing he is guilty of is trying to be her friend. He walks away. Meanwhile Picard, his bridge officers, and Dr. Crusher have a very different problem, a strange life form which approaches. The life form probes the Enterprise and then raises its energy output by 50% and sends an energy beam at the Enterprise which immobilizes it. As the radiations levels rise on the Enterprise, Picard is forced to fire phasers at the life form. The life form dies but contains a baby version inside its corpse, which must be separated to stand a chance of survival. The enterprise uses its phasers (under Beverly's supervision) as a scalpel to perform a C section on the dead creature, 'Junior' instinctively identifies the Enterprise as its mother and locks on to the ship's hull. Junior starts draining energy from the Enterprise's fusion reactors through the hull, which is only safely sustainable for a few hours. Picard asks Data to figure out where the parent entity was headed when it encountered the Enterprise. Beverly speculates that parent beings typically move to a nurturing environment just prior to giving birth. Data figures out that the mother was headed toward an asteroid field in the solar system. The asteroid belt has minerals which make up the life form. The Enterprise tries to shake off Junior from the hull, but Junior starts emitting radio waves. The power drain on the engines increase to 93% and reaches auto-shutdown. The ship is on auxiliary power with no weapons and no shields. This evokes a response from the asteroid belt, where other members of the species come towards the Enterprise. With 6 mins to go till the other members of the species intercept the Enterprise, Brahms suggests that they contaminate the energy feed from the Enterprise to shake Junior off from the hull. They come up with an idea to alter the power frequency as they speculate the life form exists in certain frequencies in space, which are naturally occurring. As Brahms reduces the power frequency, the other members construe this as an attack and increase their speed. With seconds to go, Junior lets go of the hull and joins the other members, who gladly take it away. Power returns to normal on the Enterprise and it bugs out. Brahms and Geordi make up

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Revisiting Star Trek TNG: Galaxy’s Child

Who doesn't like a Star Trek: TNG episode about Geordi LaForge's love life? Er... James' weekly season four look-backs continue...

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This review contains spoilers.

4.16 Galaxy’s Child

The Enterprise welcomes aboard Dr. Leah Brahms, an engine specialist who helped design the Enterprise’s engines. Geordi is looking forward to meeting her, mainly because in the previous season he fell in love with a hologram version of her. Clearly, none of this can go wrong.

But somehow, it goes wrong. Brahms is uninterested in Geordi’s personal interest in her and cares more about negging his engineering modifications. How can this be?

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Meanwhile, the Enterprise has found a weird space-fish in orbit around a nearby planet. Since they’re ahead of schedule, they decide to check it out (would they have ignored it if they weren’t? “Captain, there’s some new life over there, should we seek it out?” “No Data, this utterly generic science hardware comes first.”). Unfortunately, when they check it out the space-fish attacks them. They are forced to retaliate, and upsettingly this species is one shot, one kill. It dies.

Picard gets very emotional about this and is about to go and sulk when they realise there are still energy readings inside the creature. It seems that it might be pregnant.

Elsewhere, Geordi is hoping that the space-fish won’t be the only thing pregnant by the end of this episode, but Brahms is having none of it. She rejects his advances despite him breaking out his finest casual sweater, and eventually informs him that she’s married. Geordi realises what a fool he’s been and apologises.

Back on the bridge, Picard & co. give the space-fish a backstreet caesarean, phasering a hole through which the baby space-fish can be born. It all goes well and they’re about to leave it to fend for itself, but it chases the Enterprise and clamps its space-fish jaws onto the Enterprise’s fusion-reactor teat and starts draining the power. Oh great, this again.

Picard asks Geordi upstairs to help solve the space-fish thing, so he leaves Brahms to check out his engine modifications herself. In the process, she loads his old holodeck program (from the episode Booby Trap ) where a hologrammatic version of her is breathily inviting Geordi to lay his hands on her nacelles. She is understandably not pleased. Geordi is massively defensive and keen to inform her that nothing sexual happened, but she’s not exactly convinced. He goes on a nice-guy rant about how he’s been nothing but friendly to her and that means he at least deserves to get to third shap with her, but she tells him to move along home.

As Geordi tries to fix the power situation, Brahms comes back and admits that she hasn’t been very fair to him (what?!) and then comes up with an idea for detaching the space-fish by “souring its milk”. Which is good, because the Enterprise has no power, no defences, a radiation problem and a bunch of angry space fish about to turn up. Luckily modulating the frequencies (or possibly inverting the polarities) fixes the problem and everyone’s happy. The space-fish flies off to join its pod of adult space-fish and the Enterprise is free to leave. Geordi and Leah strike up a genuine friendship and have a good laugh about how angry she got when she found out he’d been romancing a fantasy-driven avatar that wore her face. Ha ha ha. Sounds hilarious.

TNG WTF: There are plenty of moments in this that made me go “what”, but I’ll talk more generally about those later. For now, let’s just settle on the idea that Geordi was genuinely considering trying to woo Brahms by playing her some Brahms. Is that really his technique? Good job he never tried to date Doctor Crusher, really, otherwise he might’ve tried to start the evening off by pushing a book case on top of her. In fact it’s a really good job he wasn’t trying to romance Worf, because he’d have to play some Thomas Dolby and be like “Moog was the only thing that sounded like Mogh.”

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TNG LOL: “Hey Guinan, remember about a year ago, when we were caught in that booby trap? It was in the episode ‘booby trap’.” (Who doesn’t love an awkward title drop?)

I also laughed at Worf’s grim delivery of the line “They are changing colour!” I guess that’s bad, right? Although it does make it seem like the colour change is the problem, rather than what they do AFTER they change colour.

To Boldly Go: The Enterprise is picking up a shipment of scientific equipment for transport to the Guernica system. Because being a glorified Yodel driver is the best use of your fleet’s flagship. (Also, who names their new star system after a town that was famously bombed flat? That’s like naming your new ship after the Titanic, or your new movie after Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four .)

Time Until Meeting: 21:06. Halfway through the episode. The Enterprise senior staff try to figure out if they should deliver the space-fish’s baby.

Captain’s Log: Who doesn’t like an episode about Geordi’s love life? Oh, everyone? Well, yeah, fair point. It’s a real shame that Geordi is a whiny, unpleasant, unreasonable dickhead because LeVar Burton is really acting the hell out of his scenes. He’s good enough to make you think that being a whiny, unpleasant, unreasonable dickhead is actually some kind of positive trait. Which is kind of a problem, because this episode’s subplot largely revolves around making a fairly good point: that women won’t necessarily like you because you like them, and that’s your problem not theirs.

The problem is that the episode has to be on Geordi’s side because he’s the regular character. So we get a very weird scene where Brahms apologises to Geordi for jumping to conclusions and tries to absolve him of his weirdness. Except that he DID kiss the hologrammatic Leah, which isn’t what she thought was happening, but in creepiness terms that’s on a similar level to stealing a woman’s jumper so that you can smell it in secret. Certainly, you wouldn’t want to share a turbolift with someone who had done that to you.

But on the plus side, Brahms is well-realised (although it’s hard to buy her insistence that she’s cold, awkward and socially inept when she seems to be reacting completely reasonably) and the twist that she’s actually married is beautifully done. It’s set up in advance, but you don’t see it coming purely because Geordi never considers it for a second.

The other plot strand (wait, maybe THAT’S the subplot?) dealing the weird space-fish is considerably more interesting, if only for the genuine emotion Patrick Stewart manages to imbue into such an abstract concept as accidentally killing a pregnant space-fish. We’ve all been there, Jean-Luc. By which I mean, no-one has remotely been there. It’s a good story which involves most of the crew in an interesting way (although Worf’s suggestion that they basically pre-emptively kill the baby space-fish is pretty funny, in context. Is there any problem he wouldn’t solve with pre-emptive killing?) And it sort of has a happy ending, if you forget that the space-fish’s mother is dead.

If nothing else, you can safely say that this episode is well-structured and has some interesting ideas, and that the chemistry between Brahms and LaForge is pretty good in its own right, even though it’s working from an untenable premise that nothing he did was wrong or particularly weird. And hey, it’s nice to spend time with a cast member who rarely gets much time in the spotlight.

Read James’ look-back at the previous episode, First Contact, here .

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Meet The Crew Of The USS Resolute On A Mission For Leah Brahms In Preview Of ‘Star Trek: Resurgence’ #1

| November 8, 2022 | By: TrekMovie.com Staff 10 comments so far

This week IDW Publishing kicks off a comic mini-series tied to the upcoming narrative adventure game Star Trek: Resurgence , coming to PC and consoles in April 2023. The game is set in Star Trek: The Next Generation era onboard the USS Resolute. IDW’s five-issue prequel series (also titled Star Trek: Resurgence ) introduces the ship and the game’s main characters, along with some backstory for the game. The game features a few legacy characters and the same is true with the new comic book.

The miniseries is written by lead game writers Andrew Grant and Dan Martin with art by Josh Hood ( Avatar: The Next Shadow ). We have a five-page preview for the first issue which arrives tomorrow.

Star Trek: Resurgence #1 (of 5)

On a windswept planet bordering the notoriously hostile Talarian Republic, a scientist on the cusp of developing technology that will revolutionize warp goes missing. The crew of the U.S.S. Resolute is tasked with an urgent stealth mission to recover Dr. Leah Brahms and keep her research out of enemy hands!

Cover A by Josh Hood

Cover B by Malachi Ward

Retail incentive cover

Five-page preview: 

Resurgence begins on Wednesday

Star Trek: Resurgence #1 is available starting November 9. You can order and pre-order individual copies at TFAW or pick up individual digital editions at Amazon/comiXology .

Keep up with all the Star Trek comics news, previews, and reviews in TrekMovie’s comics category .

We may link to products to buy on Amazon in our articles; these are customized affiliate links that support TrekMovie by earning a small commission when you purchase through them.

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I haven’t been interested in a Trek comic in ages – but I am looking forward to checking this series out. Was bummed when I heard that the game is being delayed a full year, so this will be a nice placeholder.

I’ve only recently been getting into them but I’d totally recommend u check out the new Star Trek flasgship series from IDW. I’m not a super big comic person so I didn’t really know what to expect going in but it was a fun read!

That interior art isn’t very good, but the covers are beautiful.

Why does it look like the stardrive portion of the ship is backwards? Where’s the dish?!

That is how the Centaur always looked.

This is how the ship is supposed to look.

Never heard of the Centaur class until I Google’d after reading comments. I guess it’s primarily in STO. Looks oddly backwards to me, but sure, I can go for it.

There’s a great DS9 episode where Sisko/crew are undercover and encounter a Centaur class ship, Worse yet, he knows the Captain. And Sisko/crew cannot break cover, so both ships must engage one another. The scenes are just a few minutes, but the ship was definitely onscreen.

Yea, the ship itself is based on a kit-bash from DS9, but was one of the primary ships from STO and will be the main ship for the upcoming game this comic is based on.

Such boring art…

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Recap / Star Trek: The Next Generation S4E16 "Galaxy's Child"

Edit locked.

Original air date: March 11, 1991

Geordi is delighted to welcome starship engine designer Dr. Leah Brahms aboard the Enterprise . He's a big fan, having "collaborated" with a holographic recreation of her back in " Booby Trap ." In spite of Guinan's warnings about being fixated on a fantasy, Geordi is dismayed to find the real Brahms to be curt, cold and highly disapproving of his modifications to her engine designs. Still, Geordi soldiers on, trying to establish friendly relations with the engineer while occasionally creeping her out by his mysteriously comprehensive knowledge about her.

Meanwhile, the Enterprise comes across a starship-sized creature that seems to dwell in space as its natural habitat. Picard is overjoyed to discover a new, exotic lifeform and orders the ship closer to examine it. The space slug is not so enthused to see the Enterprise , however, and attacks. With no other option, Picard orders the ship to fire phasers at their lowest setting, which unfortunately kills the creature. Picard is mortified that his mission of discovery has led to a death.

Brahms finally discovers the records of Geordi's interactions with her holographic alter-ego. Geordi bursts into the holodeck to explain, but it's too late. The horrified Brahms chews him out for using her image as some sort of fantasy girlfriend. Geordi reacts with equal indignation, declaring that his behavior has been entirely justified and that he has only ever tried to be friendly.

While that mess is going on, the bridge has detected that the dead space slug was pregnant, and the offspring is trying to be born. The crew use the ship's phasers to perform the galaxy's first large-scale Caesarian-section. However, the newly born slug immediately imprints on the Enterprise and begins feeding on its energy like it would its mother. They find a nearby asteroid field with minerals that would likely sustain the creature, so they begin shepherding the creature there.

At the asteroid field, however, the creature refuses to detach itself. Worse, it starts summoning other adults of its kind. If the crew can't figure out a way to dislodge the baby slug, they'll be put in a very sticky situation. Geordi and Brahms must put aside their differences and concoct a plan to alter the frequency of the ship's energy, souring the baby slug's "milk." The ploy works. The slug joins its kind, and the ship is free to leave in peace.

Tropes featured in "Galaxy's Child" include:

• Aesop Amnesia : In " Booby Trap ," Geordi learned he was trying too hard in his attempts to woo Christy Henshaw. In " Transfigurations ," he finally gains the confidence to pursue a relationship with Henshaw. In this episode, he slips back into trying too hard, going into intricate detail preparing his dinner date with Brahms. He even thinks of playing a Johannes Brahms song once again, which was something he'd done during his first date with Henshaw. There is, in fact, no mention of Henshaw or what became of their relationship.
• Broken Pedestal : See Whoopi Epiphany Speech .
• Cassandra Truth : Brahms refuses to believe Geordi's reassurances that her holographic counterpart was not created for romantic/sexual reasons.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome : Geordi is apparently single again, with no mention at all of his relationship with Christy Henshaw, even though this episode explicitly references the episode that introduced her.
• First-Name Basis : When Picard tells Geordi that Dr. Brahms will be visiting the ship, Geordi remarks, "Leah!" before remembering that he's never actually met the woman.
• Ice Queen : Geordi is shocked to discover that the real Brahms is quite cold. She admits in the end that she's aware of how she comes across, and it's something she's always trying to work on.
• Imprinting : After Worf and Dr. Crusher deliver the space creature's infant by C-section, using the ship's phaser as a scalpel, it starts following the Enterprise , eventually latching on and "nursing" by draining energy from the reactors.
• Letting Her Hair Down : Inverted. The warm and flirty holo-Brahms wears her hair up, while the real, cold Brahms wears long and flowing locks.
• Let's Just Be Friends : Eventual resolution of the Geordi/Brahms plot. Geordi: I should have told you straight out. Brahms: Well, if you had, then I never would have had the chance to see the look on your face when you walked in on me, and me, in the holodeck. Geordi: [laughing] The look on my face? How about the look on your face?
• Loving a Shadow : Deconstructed . This episode shows what happens when the real person gets to see the shadow in question, and the results are not pretty.
• The Missus and the Ex : Geordi has a truly unique case of this—both the Missus and the Ex are the same person: one his holofantasy and the other the real woman.
• Monster Is a Mommy : The space creature didn't want the Enterprise around because it was pregnant .
• My God, What Have I Done? : Picard after unintentionally killing the space creature.
• Non-Malicious Monster : The space creature and its baby.
• Non-Verbal Miscommunication : This is what inadvertently leads the crew to kill the space creature.
• Not What It Looks Like : In the previous episode, Geordi had genuinely not been trying to hook up with holo-Brahms. While he did ask the computer to add elements of her real personality, he didn't choose to simulate her (the computer instead making the decision) and even after developing feelings for her never tried to pursue a romantic/sexual relationship with her. Of course, for Brahms walking in at the end of the show, it looked more like Geordi had intentionally used her image to generate a Brahms love toy.
• Oh, Crap! : Geordi has two in succession, the first when he finds that his crewmember has shown Dr. Brahms the holo-simulation, and the second (even bigger one) when he finds Dr. Brahms already there. His feet momentarily break the other way upon this discovery as if they almost want to say Screw This, I'm Outta Here .
• Other Me Annoys Me : Brahms finds her holographic self from " Booby Trap ," who repeats that episode's closing lines, "Every time you look at this engine, you're looking at me. Every time you touch it, it's me." She feels understandably violated, and at that point, nothing La Forge could say would convince her that he didn't do more than collaborate with her holo-self.
• Phlebotinum Analogy : The Trope Codifier is La Forge and Brahms' "souring the milk" explanation—if the baby creature is "nursing" on the Enterprise , then they need to make the energy it's feeding on unappetizing so it will leave. Later, when another engineer is told the story, he immediately makes the same analogy.
• Stalker with a Crush : Brahms thinks Geordi is this after seeing the holodeck recreation of herself.
• Tempting Fate : During his conversation with Guinan at the beginning of the episode, Geordi claims quite confidently that no matter what, the real Leah Brahms and him will at least be good friends upon meeting each other.
• Visual Pun : Geordi considers employing an audio pun for his date with Leah Brahms, having the computer play some Johannes Brahms as mood music. He decides that's too corny and obvious, and changes it.
• Wham Line : Brahms telling Geordi she's actually married.
• Whoopi Epiphany Speech : Guinan's response to how disappointed Geordi is with the real Leah Brahms. Guinan: You had a perfectly wonderful, marvelous little fantasy... until the real Leah showed up and ruined it. Now, she's probably done the most horrific thing one person can do to another—not live up to your expectations. So I'd take a good, long, hard look, La Forge. See her for who she is, not for what you want her to be.
• Star Trek: The Next Generation S4E15 "First Contact"
• Recap/Star Trek: The Next Generation
• Star Trek: The Next Generation S4E17 "Night Terrors"

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Star Trek: The Next Generation : "Galaxy's Child"/"Night Terrors"

"Galaxy's Child"

Or  The One Where I Get Uncomfortable

Geordi La Forge is very excited. Dr. Leah Brahms is coming on board the  Enterprise  to personally study the alterations the Chief Engineer has made to the ship's engines, and even though Geordi has never met Dr. Brahms in person, he's positive they're going to be the best of friends. See, he has a special connection with the good doctor. Back in  TNG 's third season, the  Enterprise 's computer created a holographic version of Brahms to help Geordi solve a crisis, and that holographic representation just happened to be a bit on the flirty side. It gave Geordi a new self-confidence, and while one would think that increased esteem would've helped his love life, apparently such is not the case, because now he's super stoked to meet Brahms, and he's convinced they're going to hit it off wonderfully. Oh sure, he says he's just looking to be "friends," but that's just something you say when you're going out of your mind. He's convinced this is true love. All she has to be is exactly what he needs.

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"Galaxy's Child" is going to be a tricky episode for me to review. We all have our blind spots; we all have our red flags. Most times, I'm sure I'm not even aware of mine. But a storyline like this is different, because it hits me in a personal way that makes it difficult for me to balance the episode's flaws and strengths against my own vulnerabilities. I'm pretty sure this isn't a classic; I'm also pretty sure that it has some serious problems, and that these problems connect back to some larger concerns I have with the show as a whole. But I also suspect that my intense discomfort for much of the episode is unique to me. While it's true that, specifically speaking, all my reactions are uniquely mine, their intensity here served to unbalance my perception of the entirety of "Child." Or, to put it plainly, I was too busy cringing most of the time to keep both eyes on the screen.

A bit of personal history, then, if you'll indulge me, and I promise it's relevant to the issue at hand. In college, I fell in love with a girl. Let's call her Matilda, because that was really not her name. Matilda was very pretty and very nice, and we did some acting classes together; I was overweight (I looked a bit like a young Philip Seymour Hoffman), but I was very confident when it came to acting, so we became decent friends. At some point, I developed a crush, which was fine. Crushes aren't really fun, but they are generally containable. In my experience, I'd pine for a while, and do some mild obsessing, but it would never go farther than that.

Cut to a year later. I've never really understood how it happened, but through a combination of depression and coincidence, I decided I was in love with Matilda. I can even remember the exact moment; walking from the common room of the suite I lived in with my friends, and thinking, "I'm in love with her. I really am in love with her," and that was pretty much the end of me. Winter break followed soon after, and I spent the whole time trying to understand what was going on, going utterly out of my mind, half blissful, half terrified. Then I come back to school, I find out Matilda has broken up with her boyfriend, and I decide this is a sign. It has to be a sign, right? We go see a movie together ( American Beauty ), and I probably should have known I was off the track when I made to pay her way, and she got uncomfortable. But, like I said, out of my mind. After the movie, I told her I thought we should go out, and she started crying.

Gah, this is taking too long; and besides, none of that is all that unusual. What happened next, though, is something that still terrifies me. Because Matilda said she wasn't interested in me, and I got really sad and scared for a while, and then I decided that, okay, maybe she just wasn't  ready , y'know? Maybe she just needed space after the break-up. What I felt was so strong, so real, there's no way she couldn't return my feelings, and if I was just patient and respectful, eventually, everything would turn out okay. Which doesn't sound so bad, saying it like that, but it's horrifying to realize you can be so thoroughly misled by your emotions, that my perception of events was so clouded by what I thought I needed, I believed in a false reality for five whole months. It worked out all right in the end. I'm not really the stalking type, so I mostly just broke off contact with Matilda, and then, one day, I came to my senses. But it's still one of the worst times in my life.

So who cares, everybody's got a crappy story like that. Geordi's crush on Brahms is less about misreading obvious signs (although he does do that), and more about assuming a connection where none exists. But then, that's basically what I did with poor Matilda. In my head, we were soul mates, and all information I received was interpreted with that conviction firmly in view. Geordi isn't quite that far gone, but he's certain that he and Brahms are well-matched, even after she's initially cold to him and unhappy with the changes he's made to "her" engines. His smarmy chumminess, the way he keeps using her first name, his petulant frustration that she isn't behaving like he assumed she would, all of this is almost unbearable for me to watch. While I suspect other people may feel the same, this is one of the rare cases when I'm nearly certain my reaction is more intense than most. Like, that dinner date he sets up? Ugh. I watched much of that scene on mute. There were subtitles, but that was as far as I was willing to go. And then, when Brahms finally sees her computer-created doppelganger, well, for a few seconds, I was expecting Geordi was going to have to find a way to hide a body very quickly.

The primary issue here, whatever effect my past may have on my current judgment, is that we should be sympathetic to Geordi's mistakes here, and I don't think we're given good reason to be. It's obviously sad what happens to him, but he keeps walking into his own trap over and over again. If Brahms had been warmer and if Geordi had been more reserved in his expectations, "Child" could have effectively made its point about the dangers of forming attachments to fantasy without alienating us from its hero. But he's just too stupid for words, and that's something that comes up a lot on  TNG  and not just with Geordi. There's a weird sense of childishness that runs through the cast whenever the writers decide they want to impart a moral lesson. When I went kind of crazy, I was still in college and not quite into my twenties. Geordi is, what, late twenties, early thirties? He's been on the  Enterprise  for a few years now; he's had dates. And yet it doesn't even occur to him that Brahms might not be what he's expecting. This is the behavior of someone who's painfully inexperienced in dealing with human beings, and while I buy that Geordi is a dork, I don't buy that he's an idiot. It's hard to feel very sorry for him, because he doesn't even try to respect Brahms' wishes until he has no other choice.

Or maybe that's just me; maybe I relate too closely to his circumstance not to despise him a little for it, in the way I can't help despising myself a little when I remember the past. Still, the Geordi/Brahms interactions would have worked better if they'd been handled with greater subtlety. I'm not sure I buy that she'd be so willing to be pals after everything was over. I can see her not hating him, and I can see her getting over her discomfort, but the brief moment of chemistry they have at the end, before her husband calls and ruins everything? Eh, I dunno.

There was a whole other plotline here, and, thank god, this one doesn't bring up any bad memories. The  Enterprise  is forced to kill a living ship, which distresses Picard to no end. Thankfully, the dead living ship was pregnant, and, with the help of some deft phaser work, the  Enterprise  helps set the baby free. Less good, the baby mistakes the  Enterprise  for its mother, latching on to the ship's hull and draining its power reserves for sustenance. It's a clever story made all the more effective by the sincerity of Picard's distress. He's not just disappointed when they accidentally kill the living ship, he's  devastated , and his commitment to the ideals of exploration and the preservation of life gives a weight to what happens here.  TOS  was all about survival in the explored reaches of space, but  TNG  is more concerned with the ideals that make survival worthwhile.

So that's nice. Still, I can't get past the other part of the storyline, for reasons which should be clear now. Credit where it's due: The idea of Geordi meeting Brahms in the flesh is a good one, and it's completely believable that their meeting wouldn't go entirely as he planned. But the execution left a lot to be desired.

Stray Observations:

• Guinan: "You saw exactly what you wanted to see on the holodeck." Which is basically what the holodeck is  for . Can you imagine how creepy it would be for a movie star in the age of holographic simulation? Every fan would have an extensive personal relationship with their fantasy of you, one that had been repeatedly reinforced by a completely lifelike version of yourself who always said whatever they wanted to hear.
• I'm sure Geordi is supposed to come off as misguided here, but my problem is, as with "The Loss," the deconstruction of his character goes too far for me. I actively disliked him for three-quarters of the episode, and I don't think  TNG  is a show that can really support that level of antipathy.

"Night Terrors"

Or  The One With Snakes, Why'd It Have To Be Snakes?

Night terrors, eh? Once again, I must apologize, as I have suffered from night terrors in the past, and this great and tragic suffering of mine makes impossible for me to adequately judge the sight of Riker hallucinating a bed full of snakes. Or Picard hearing his door buzzing repeatedly. Or Chief O'Brien thinking his wife is cheating on him. I've lived too closely all these horrors, and as such, cannot comment upon them, but merely bask in their ugliness. Bask, I tells yah. Just…  bask .

Actually, I really have had night terrors before, but this is less an episode about a familiar real-world phenomenon than it is one that gives writers an excuse to throw out some random scary scenes and then wave them all away with zero consequences. For whatever its faults, "Galaxy's Child" at least told a story that related directly to the crew of the  Enterprise.  The conflict with the living spaceship required Picard and his bridge crew's commitment to the sanctity of life to be suspenseful (otherwise they could've just blasted the alien and gone about their merry way), and, of course, Geordi's troubled relationship with the object of his assumptions was a very personal plotline. That's not really the case in "Terrors." Troi's Betazoid abilities are important, and Data's invulnerability to problems that affect other humanoids probably saves the life of everyone on board, but overall, this is a sort of "could happen to anyone" story, and that makes it somewhat less thrilling.

Still, it starts off well enough. The  Enterprise  comes across the  USS Britain , a ship that's been marked missing in Starfleet records, in deep space. Troi senses something is wrong and accompanies Riker and the away team when they beam over to the ship. They find a lot of bad news: bodies everywhere, murdered in surprisingly gory ways, and one near comatose Betazoid. The Betazoid appears physically unharmed but scared out of his mind and unable to explain exactly what killed everyone on board the  Britain . Beverly gets to work on some autopsies, Troi tries to communicate with her fellow empath, but while the causes of the catastrophe are unclear, the danger to the  Enterprise  is not; the ship is trapped in a kind of energy vortex, and soon, everyone on board starts losing their focus, growing more irritable and experiencing waking nightmares.

That's a classic  Trek  premise right there: random space thingie threatens the lives of our heroes and makes them vulnerable in ways that can't be defeated by phaser fire or negotiation. And "Terrors" does an excellent job of conveying the mind-numbing unpleasantness of insomnia. The transition from normalcy to exhaustion is done with a gratifying amount of… well, subtlety isn't exactly the right word, but the changeover happens quickly, and there's not a lot of hand-holding to make sure we know that the beeping door in Picard's office or O'Brien's paranoia about his wife's fidelity are indicators of degraded mental states. Patrick Stewart, in particular, looks utterly wretched by the end of the episode, a small, defeated man who mostly seems held together by the uniform he's wearing. A few missteps aside (snakes? really?), the night terror sequences themselves are effectively creepy. I especially liked Beverly's morgue freak-out; it reminded me a bit of  Re-Animator , which is a good thing.

But then, I don't think we've ever seen that morgue before. That's not hugely odd; the  Enterprise  doesn't generally run into situations that require storage space for a whole roomful of bodies. Still, in creating a new space to show how the lack of REM sleep affects the good doctor, the episode demonstrates one of its fundamental problems. The "night terrors" would be an excellent way to get into the heads of the main cast, to expose them in ways that their professionalism and competence normally leave hidden. Instead, we just get a lot of disappointingly generic scary sequences, which have less to do with the individual than they do with freaking out the audience. O'Brien's paranoia isn't brilliant (it's odd how the show considers him and Keiko familiar enough to keep returning to), but it's at least a problem that's directly connected to what we know about him.

It's just too bad we don't see that intimacy with the rest of the crew. Picard is bothered by a doorbell that won't stop ringing, and by the lights in the elevator. I liked the doorbell bit well enough. It walks a neat line between irritating and unsettling. But surely, given Picard's rich history on the show, we could've found something more interesting to get under his skin than "Ugh, the ceiling is too bright!" Beverly's encounter with corpse sit-ups is connected to her only in the sense that, as a doctor, she's around corpses from time to time. And with Riker, we get a bed full of snakes. Really? Unless he turned into Indiana Jones when I wasn't looking, I don't see how that's relevant. Admittedly, an episode in which each character suffered from their greatest fear has the potential of being awful enough in its own way, translating complicated worries and paranoia into simplistic fantasy. But at least those fantasies would be distinct. Too much of "Night Terrors" could've been done on any other genre show without a lot of script edits.

It turns out that a ship trapped on the other side of the space anomaly that sucked in the  Enterprise —it's called a "Tyken's Rift," if you're curious—is sending out telepathic messages that make nearly everyone on board the  Enterprise  (and the  Britain  before it) incapable of REM sleep. Hence the exhaustion and the hallucinations. But this effect isn't being done to cause harm; the other ship is just trying to communicate a way in which it and our heroes can work together to escape the Rift, as neither ship can do so under its own power. It's just too bad the messages have the inadvertent effect of driving people crazy. Betazoids can interpret the signals the phantom ship is sending, although this didn't help the Betazoid that Troi finds on the  Britain ; either he was unable to interpret what was happening, or his pure-Betazoid genetics made the message too powerful for him to handle. Whatever the reason, Troi herself, with Beverly's help (I like how the two of them occasionally team up) has to find some way of using her dreams to effectively communicate with the aliens, or else everybody on both ships is doomed.

Oh hey, in all my complaining, I forgot there was another character whose woes in "Terrors" are specific to himself: Worf! We don't actually see any of his hallucinations, but we do see how his growing fear and loss of self-control nearly drive him to suicide. So that's pretty cool. And Guinan has an absolutely ridiculous gun that she busts out to keep the peace in Ten-Forward, and there's definitely entertainment value in that. The final sequence, with Troi desperately trying to send the right message in her sleep while Data essentially runs the entire ship, is thrilling, even if it does follow the model of most climaxes on the show with lots of desperate cutting back and forth, and it looks like everything is lost riiiiight up till the moment when it isn't. (Which is, admittedly, the climax to roughly two-thirds of genre series episode ever produced. I just mention it here because it's somewhat similar to the end of "Galaxy's Child.") And it's neat how Data's invulnerability here works in the  Enterprise 's favor, where last week it nearly got everyone on board killed.

Overall, this was entertaining, and enjoyably well-paced. It just feels a little too bloodless, even with those mutilated corpses at the beginning. This is the same style of episode as "Clues," in a way, because the problems here are nearly entirely external. No one needs to learn any valuable lessons about themselves, and nobody's short-sightedness is to blame for what happens. I think I enjoyed "Clues" a little more, because I dig the weirdness of intentionally erasing a chunk of your memory, and I love the idea of episodes that give us knowledge about our heroes that our heroes will never have for themselves. "Terrors" was arguably more intense, and the sense of otherness in the aliens was more interesting (although again, Troi gets zapped), but it lacked that mild twist at the end to make it memorable. This kind of episode is really the meat-and-potatoes of this sort of show, so it's impressive to realize that  TNG  has gotten to the point where delivering the expected is no longer entirely satisfactory. Given how rich a galaxy the show has built for itself, why should we waste so much time on aliens who can't be bothered to have personalities?

• "There's no technology to block telepathic communications." You'd think there would be, though. Given that this is a reality in which telepathy is a proven fact, you'd think that governments would've funneled crazy amounts of resources into finding a way to keep their secrets secret. I mean, Utopian or no, there are still occasional wars.
• You go to hell, Tom Corbin. You go to hell and you  die .

Next week:  We suffer through an "Identity Crisis," and Barcley's return in "The Nth Degree."

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Dr. Leah Brahms

We don't have a biography for Dr. Leah Brahms yet. Hang in there, or go ahead and contribute one.

Appearances

• Episode 3x06: Booby Trap ( Oct 30, 1989 )
• Episode 4x16: Galaxy's Child ( Mar 11, 1991 )

Why a Forgotten Star Trek TNG Character's Mirror Universe Debut Is Such Big Deal

Dr. Leah Brahams made The Next Generation journey possible in Star Trek and her Mirror Universe counterpart may be an untapped source of genius.

WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Star Trek: The Mirror War #1, available now from IDW.

Star Trek: The Next Generation television series may have ended in 1994 but it remains a hugely popular part of the Star Trek fandom. In IDW's new  Star Trek: The Mirror War comic series, readers are able to beam back aboard USS Enterprise -D with Captain Jean-Luc Picard and his crew. This 2021 comic book series extends the look at a clash between the characters of Next Generation and their Mirror Universe -- parallel and usually evil -- versions of themselves, which is something fans never got to see play out on the television show.

The new series is a continuation of events that took place in IDW's 2017 six-issue series,  Star Trek: The Next Generation: Mirror Broken.   Mirror War   #1, by Scott & David Tipton, Gavin Smith, Charlie Kirchoff and Neil Uyetake, picked up with Lt. Reginald Barclay of the Mirror Universe returning to the alternative ISS Enterprise -D. More of the "evil twin" versions of the Next Generation crew were seen in this issue, including a surprise appearance genius Dr. Leah Brahms.

Related:  Star Trek: Why the Evil Captain Picard Is Starting a Multiverse War

Dr. Brahms was first introduced on Star Trek: The Next Generation in a season three episode called "Booby Trap." This episode found the Enterprise stuck in an energy trap trying to escape while the ship was slowly being drained of all power. Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge searched the ship's records for a way out of the booby trap. In the data files, he found information on Dr. Brahms, who was the designer and engineer of the warp drives on the Enterprise . Using the files, the computer created a holodeck version of Dr. Brahms to hash out the issues with the warp drive. During their intense research and discussions, while under an extreme time crunch to save the ship, La Forge and holodeck Dr. Brahms share a kiss . La Forge figured out they needed to outsmart technology and adjust the warp drive to get out of the trap. He also realized that maybe he should turn off the holodeck program for Dr. Brahms, even though he felt a kinship with her.

The holodeck based Dr. Brahms on all of the information about her it had access to, trying to create the most realistic version possible. However, in season four's episode "Galaxy's Child," La Forge found that the holodeck is not great at re-creating sentient personalities. The real Dr. Brahms came aboard the ship to examine the alterations La Forge had made to her warp engines. La Forge, a fan of Dr. Brahms and hopeful for at least a friendship based on the holodeck encounter, greeted her with excitement on behalf of the crew. The real Dr. Brahms was not as warm and jovial as her computer-created counterpart. La Forge's alterations to the engines upset and dismayed her. He tried to jog her memory of why he made certain alterations before remembering his interactions were not really with her. Although La Forge tried to smooth things over and create a positive working relationship, Dr. Brahms stumbled across her holodeck self and thought La Forge had been unprofessional with a replica of her. Through the episode, the two end up working together to solve another power-related problem and form an actual friendship with each other.

Related:  How Star Trek’s 'The Measure of a Man' Elevates TNG’s Rockier Early Seasons

The Mirror War  created a different story for Dr. Brahms. In the first issue, she was still a doctor but she was now a member of the Mirror Enterprise engineering crew. Yet even in this universe, she has a tie to La Forge. When La Forge gave an important engineering job to Chief O'Brien, Dr. Brahms was upset with him. She insisted to La Forge that she could have used the opportunity to impress the Captain. It is revealed that this version of Dr. Brahms has a habit of being "unreliable and irresponsible" while possibly having a drinking problem. Because Dr. Brahms is part of the crew, she may not have been the one to engineer the warp drives, alluding to doubt that the Enterprise ships are evenly matched. It also sets the scene for Dr. Brahms to be an underdog hero for the Mirror Universe, a source of untapped potential that could help them in the coming war. Or she could sabotage them for treating her unfairly. Either way, Dr. Brahms may be an overlooked character in the Next Generation but she is one to watch in The Mirror War .

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Published Mar 27, 2014

Meet The Actress Who Almost Played Janeway

Susan Gibney appeared in four episodes of Star Trek – portraying Dr. Leah Brahms in The Next Generation hours “ Booby Trap ” and “ Galaxy’s Child ” and Commander Erika Benteen in the Deep Space Nine installments “ Homefront ” and “ Paradise Lost .” However, Gibney very, very nearly spent much more time in the Star Trek universe. She was among the frontrunners for the role of Captain Janeway on Star Trek: Voyager . The role, of course, went to Genevieve Bujold, who departed soon after production commenced. Voyager ’s producers again called back Gibney, though Kate Mulgrew ultimately won the role. It’s also true that Gibney auditioned for the roles of Deanna Troi, Tasha Yar, Seven of Nine and even the Borg Queen.

Undeterred by her Voyager near-miss, the actress got on with her career, starring on Happy Family , recurring on Crossing Jordan and guest starring on Lost and The Mentalist . These days, Gibney runs Rogue Actor Training , a just-opened acting studio in Rochester, New York, where she lives with her family, and she has completed work on an upcoming horror film, We Are Still Here . StarTrek.com recently spoke with Gibney for an extensive interview that we’ll run in two parts. Part one is below and visit StarTrek.com again tomorrow to read part two.

How did you first win your role as Dr. Brahms?

GIBNEY: I lived in New York and I auditioned for the Next Generation pilot. They brought me in several times for the roles that Marina Sirtis and Denise Crosby got. I did not get to the finals for those. I was this little actress just straight out of Yale and doing television and some theater in New York, but I thought, “Now, that they’re looking at me, I think it’s time I went to L.A.” So I moved to L.A. and I let people know that I was there. I started going out for roles. And it seemed like every single week the Star Trek people would bring me in to audition for some role that was being cast for the show. I’d say, “OK, all right,” and I’d go and do it again. I’d say, “See you guys next time.” They’d call me again. I'd say, "See you again." So they’d brought me in at least nine times for various roles, until I did Leah Brahms.

Did they tell you at the time that Dr. Brahms would be on more than once?

GIBNEY: Actually, she was supposed to be on three times, but I got pregnant. They had a third episode planned, but I was pregnant at the time, so that didn’t work. But what they told me when I first got the role was that is what they always tell you on any show, which is, “There is a possibility of this recurring.” They don’t commit to it.

Dr. Brahms was a great character. What did you appreciate most about her?

GIBNEY: Oh my gosh, I got to do everything. First of all, she was Geordi’s love interest. I thought, “This is fantastic.” I don’t know if Geordi and Leah was the first interracial relationship since Uhura and Kirk, but that was exciting to me. So it was a doctor role and a romantic role, which gave it a lot of different arcs to play. There’s the stern part of being a professional and the work ethic and the strength and being immune to emotional things, and then having the opposite happen, too. She has this romantic, loving relationship with… well, it gets torn down a little bit, but there was so much to do as an actor. And, let’s face it, I got to be beamed up. I got to design an engine. I got to restructure the dilithium crystal chamber. The only thing I didn’t get to do was shoot a phaser. I got to do so much of the classic Star Trek stuff.

What do you remember of actually shooting the episodes, of being on set?

GIBNEY: Everything. I knew some of the people on the design crew. I went up, and they were showing me all of the other things that they were working on, the models and stuff. I loved that. I remember LeVar Burton was super-nice. He had to wear that VISOR and he said to me, “I never-ever-ever take this VISOR off on set when I’m doing something, but I’m going to do it for you so that we can look at each other and really have a scene happening.” I said, “LeVar, thank you,” because I didn’t have to look at the metal. I could look at him and we could rehearse the scene and establish it as two actors. He was very nice and I felt quite honored that he would do that for me.

You did your episodes of DS9 in 1996, after you ended up not landing the role of Janeway on Voyager , which we will discuss in detail later. Were those DS9 episodes something of a consolation prize?

GIBNEY: Yes, they were. I think they were, and it was lovely that they did that. Rick Berman was awesome. I think it had been such a huge process, auditioning for Captain Janeway. It was painful.

OK, since you’ve started the conversation… You tried on Janeway costumes. You had different Janeway hairstyles. You shot test scenes with actors who’d already been cast…

GIBNEY: They filmed, yes. They did a whole screen test and brought in the other actors and a crew. We did several hair tests and several costume tests, and then they brought in everybody who’d been cast and the entire crew. And they filmed most of the scenes in the pilot that day. Was that the first test or the second test? I did three tests for them. Every time I thought it was over… I guess I was up against Genevieve (Bujold). She got it. I was in New York at the time (when Bujold left) and I was told, “Susan, you’ve got to fly back to L.A.” Then there was another audition. Then I was told they were thinking of using a man. Then I had an audition with another woman, but evidently, the other woman didn’t do as well that day as they would have liked, so they thought Rick was trying to get me on the show by not having good-enough people opposite me.

Then it went to the last round and, anyway, we know the results of that one. This was weeks and weeks. I was there and I was in and I was out and I was in and I was out. So it was a long process. So DS9 may have been a consolation prize or they just liked having me around. I think they just liked having me around. I’m fun on the set.

Visit StarTrek.com again tomorrow to read part two of our interview with Susan Gibney.

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Screen Rant

Star trek hints at unsettling reunion for la forge in new miniseries.

Resurgence #1 features a character from an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation who shares an interesting history with Geordi La Forge.

Warning! Spoilers for Star Trek: Resurgence #1 ahead! A new Star Trek miniseries' inclusion of a particular character from Star Trek: The Next Generation presents the perfect opportunity for Commander Geordi La Forge to make a return due to the rather uncomfortable history he shares with her.

In Star Trek: The Next Generation , La Forge once created a hologram of renowned scientist Dr. Leah Brahms in the episode "Booby Trap" to help him solve a challenge since the real Dr. Brahms' expertise in the matter fit perfectly with what needed their attention. Of course, as is the case of every great episode, a romance inevitably ensued between the human and hologram, which would have initially not been a problem if the real Dr. Brahms had never shown up in the later TNG episode "Galaxy's Child" to find La Forge's highly idealized program. Understandably, Dr. Brahms was disturbed by her discovery and viewed La Forge's actions as an invasion of privacy.

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Dr. Brahms has never really appeared again ( except in Lower Decks ) until now in IDW Publishing's Star Trek: Resurgence #1 by writers Andrew Grant and Dan Martin, artist Josh Hood, colorist Charlie Kirchoff, and letterer Neil Uyetake. Brahms only makes an appearance in the first few pages because the story centers on saving her from a xenophobic species who captured her during a scientific mission. Although Starfleet would obviously like to save her life, what Dr. Brahms was researching at the time of her abduction is a crucial part of Starfleet's rescue mission, as it would be catastrophic if her work fell into her captor's bigoted hands.

Is Dr. Leah Brahms still married?

Even though she and La Forge were able to put their differences aside and even became friends in Star Trek: The Next Generation , a reunion in Resurgence would definitely unearth some of their earlier feelings towards each other. Undoubtedly, part of what played a role in Dr. Brahms' negative reaction towards La Forge's program, aside from the inherent creepiness of the situation, was that she was married at the time, a union that La Forge, of course, wasn't aware of before her arrival on the Enterprise. And in the first pages of the comic, Dr. Brahms' hands are gloved since she's on an icy planet, hiding whether she's still wearing a wedding ring or not. This opens the possibility that she could be single, which would undoubtedly add a fun dynamic to their already highly complex relationship if Geordi La Forge ever does show up .

The fact that Resurgence features a whole new crew means that longtime Star Trek fans would undoubtedly appreciate a cameo from a beloved and recognizable character like La Forge, regardless of his relationship with one of the miniseries' central characters. Even those who aren't necessary fans of La Forge 's character can still enjoy a cameo from him, because who doesn't enjoy a good awkward scene or two in the midst of a Star Trek adventure?

Next: Star Trek: Picard Hints Janeway Will Return in Series Finale

Star Trek: Resurgence #1 is available now from IDW Publishing.

Dr. Leah Brahms actress was up for three iconic Star Trek roles

By rachel carrington | feb 21, 2022.

Many actors auditioned for roles in Star Trek they didn’t get.

Dr. Leah Brahms (Susan Gibney) was Geordi LaForge’s holodeck obsession and became one part of the weirdest romances on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Gibney appeared in two episodes of the series both in 1989 and again in 1991. Then Gibney screen tested for the role of the captain in Star Trek: Voyager, but, even though producer Rick Berman liked her for the part, she was deemed too young, being six years younger than Kate Mulgrew.

Berman believed in Gibney so much, though, that he actually had her don a Starfleet uniform and film a scene on the Voyager bridge with Tuvok (Tim Russ) and Lt. Torres (Roxan Dawson). It was still a hard no from the studio. Gibney was understandably disappointed and admitted she couldn’t watch the series for a while, and when she did watch it, she could only watch it by herself.

"“They did four different costumes for me, and four different hair and make-up styles, and they filmed for an entire day, doing all of the scenes that were in the pilot episode. Doing something as extensive as that, which involves a lot of money and people and time, was really unusual, and then I didn’t get it. That was really disappointing.”"

Susan Gibney continued to audition for Star Trek

Gibney wasn’t done with Star Trek, though, and returned in 1996 to Deep Space Nine where she portrayed Captain Erika Benteen. After wrapping those two episodes, she auditioned again for Voyager for the role of Seven of Nine. She lost that one to Jeri Ryan.

Still Gibney continued her auditions, the next one for the part of the Borg Queen in Star Trek: First Contact, a role which went to Alice Krige. After portraying Dr. Brahms, Gibney was surprised she was able to audition for Janeway and to appear as Benteen because she was so recognizable as the one character in The Next Generation. Perhaps that was why she wasn’t chosen for a long-term role on Star Trek.

Losing out on two more major roles in the franchise must have been a hard hit for the actress, but she was determined to be a larger part of Star Trek. Though her wishes didn’t come to fruition, she will always be known as Dr. Leah Brahms, thereby securing her part in Star Trek history.

dark. Next. Brannon Braga was angered by fans’ initial response to Jeri Ryan