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| “ | It's wrong to create a race of Humans to keep as slaves. | „ |
| ~ Number One, overloading her laser. |
Una Chin-Riley (aka Number One) was a character introduced in the Star Trek pilot episode The Cage. Her full name was finally revealed in the pilot for Strange New Worlds.
Number One was portrayed by Majel Barrett in the original pilot. Barrett went on to play Christine Chapel, Lwxana Troi, and Lady Morella on Babylon 5. Number One appeared in the second season of Star Trek: Discovery, portrayed by Rebecca Romijn where her first name was finally revealed to be Una. Romijn reprised the role for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds
History[]
A Illyrian female, Number One was born on Illyria in the early 23rd century who appeared to be indistinguishable from a human female. In the 2240s she attended the Federation Starfleet Academy and graduated by the mid 2240s. Due to being from a race that practiced genetic modification Illyrians were stigmatized in the Federation, so Number-One kept her heritage as an Illyrian a closely guarded secret.
As an Ensign, Number One served on the USS Martin Luther King Jr. when the ship rescued La'an Noonien-Singh, who had been the sole survivor of a Gorn attack on the SS Puget Sound. Number One was instrumental in helping Noonien-Singh recover from the ordeal, and the two became friends during this time. Number One inspired the young Noonien-Singh to join Starfleet herself.
After serving on several vessels, she was assigned as executive officer of the Yorktown under Captain Christopher Pike. When Pike was given command of the Enterprise, Number One went with him to be executive officer on that ship. A persistent and resourceful officer, people wound up tending to owe favors to Number One.
Commander Chin-Riley during the Talos IV mission.
During the mission to Talos IV she worked to free Pike from Talosian captivity. When the Talosians attempted to force Pike to chose between her, Vina, or Yeoman Colt, she set her phaser to overload, deciding it was better to die than remain a human captive. However more Talosians arrived and Pike had her stop the overload from happening. The Talosians had assimilated the history of the human race, and released their captives after seeing how much humans hated captivity.
After the 2256-57 war with the Klingons, the Enterprise was dispatched to investigate a number of red bursts that appeared throughout the galaxy. The ship was disabled when the holographic systems malfunctioned. Captain Pike took temporary command of the USS Discovery to investigate the bursts while Number One remained on the Enterprise to oversee repairs.
While overseeing repairs she investigated Lieutenant Spock's disappearance after taking leave and checking himself into a hospital, refusing to let him go easily. Calling in favors she was able to obtain classified information on Spock, which she took with her when she visited Pike on board Discovery and passed to him so that he could continue the investigation.
Number One in 2257
After receiving an emergency call from Pike on board Discovery Number One and Admiral Cornwell brought the Enterprise to rendezvous with Discovery. Number One reported that the ship had been fully repaired. She manned the helm station on the bridge as the ship fought against Section 31's artificial intelligence Control. Following the apparent destruction of Discovery Number One remained on board to oversee repairs after Enterprise was heavily damaged in battle. She was debriefed by Starfleet Command, and with Pike, Spock, and Ash Tyler insisted that the Discovery had been destroyed due to a spore drive malfunction.
After the Enterprise left space dock, she was on the bridge to greet Spock when he returned to duty. Learning of a new moon in orbit of Edrin II, Number One set a course for that world so Enterprise could examine it closer.
A short time later Enterprise returned to drydock for further maintenance and refitting. Hating the idea of extended downtime, she went on a mission on board the USS Archer to investigate warp signatures from Kiley 257, and realized that the civilization was deeply divided and that the government had not developed warp drive but instead warp bombs to use against their own people. She further realized that the Federation had inadvertently given them warp technology as the Kiley had in effect a front row seat to the Battle of Xahea and saw various warp drives in action. She and the Archer's small crew beamed down to attempt to undo the damage, but they were captured by the Kiley. Pike arrived on the Enterprise to rescue them, and told the people of Kiley that Earth had once tried it the way the Kiley were thinking of which resulted in massive damage to Earth and hundreds of millions of people dead. He offered the aid of the Federation in becoming a member of galactic society. Pike and Number One left the system hopeful that the Kiley would avoid Earth's mistakes, and avoided the wrath of the Federation Council for violating General Order 1.
Number One continued to serve on the Enterprise until Captain Pike was promoted to Fleet Captain in 2264. She decided to remain on the Enterprise as first officer under Captain James T. Kirk, but an accident in the cargo bay seriously injured her, and Number One couldn't stay on as first officer due to the extended recovery time she required.
After leaving the Enterprise, Number One was promoted to command the Yorktown. In the 2270s she was promoted to Admiral.
Quotes[]
| “ | Actually, our odds might be a little better than that. I took the liberty of retrofitting our shuttle and landing pod complement with enhanced phasers, and I commandeered the new experimental tactical flyers, assuming the s--t would hit the fan. | „ |
| ~ Number One on gathering ships to help fight Control |
Trivia[]
- Rebecca Romijn confirmed that her agreement was to portray Number One in only the second season of Discovery, and that she would not be returning for the third season of the series. However a few months later it was announced that she would reprise the role for a new series set to take place on the Enterprise during Pike's command.
- Her first name of Una entered Star Trek canon when it was mentioned on the Star Trek: Discovery season 2 season finale, and her full name entered canon in the pilot episode of Strange New Worlds. Her full name was finally revealed almost six decades after her introduction in The Cage.
- The episode Ghosts of Illyria established that while outwardly indistinguishable from a human female, Number One was actually a member of the Illyrian species.
