The upcoming series of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, with Captain Pike and crew,
features new and returning characters to the Star Trek Universe!
One character in particular has caught my eye, mainly because he is a member of a species we have seen before in Trek, that would be Hemmer.
Welcome to Trek Central! I’m your host, Captain Jack, and let’s get into it!
Star Trek Day 2021 gave us plenty of surprise announcements, including our first small look at Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
While we’ve got a good look at Anson Mount’s Captain Pike, and the additional new cast members joining him on the Enterprise, we’re also introduced to a new character of Hemmer, an Aenar, who is played by Canadian actor Bruce Horak.
Let’s dive in and see what makes this character so special!
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So where have you seen the Aenar before? Well if you watched Star Trek: Enterprise, then you might have noticed them.
The Aenar species are a subspecies of the Andorains, yes those Andorains we have seen throughout the Star Trek Universe in many different ways and iterations before.
The Aenar were native to the Northern Wastes of Andoria, in subterranean compounds shielded by dampening fields to not be discovered.
They consisted of a population of only a few thousand around the time of the 22nd century.
Physiologically, the Aenar were very similar to the Andorians, due to being a subspecies and all.
Looking at the Aenar, they looked almost identical to andorians, but their stark difference was that they had no skin or hair pigmentation, resulting in pale and white skin appearance.
What made the subspecies so unique and special, compared to the Andorians, was the fact they had highly evolved telepathic abilities.
An Aenar was capable of reading minds and therefore physically projecting themselves onto other humanoids.
Given the majority of Aenar were blind, they used telepathy to communicate with each other.
Their telepathic strength allowed them to see the world around them.
The Aenar were largely considered a myth by Andorian Society until 2104, when Andorians discovered the Aenar living on the planet in the North Wastes.
Due to the cultural differences, relations were difficult between the species and subspecies.
However he Aenar maintained diplomatic relations and contact with the Andorian Government, even if they were determined to be extremely secretive.
By 2154, the Aenar were forced into interstellar affairs.
This was due to the meddling of the Romulan Star Empire, in which they kidnapped an individual named Gareb, and forced him to use his telepathy to pilot an experimental Romulan Drone Ship,
fitted with holographic emitters.
The goal of the Romulans was to use the drone ships to destabilize the growing political alliances between Earth, the Andorians and the Tellarites.
Their first critical attack was destroying Andorian Commander Shran’s warship Kumari as well as the Andorian Ambassadors ship.
The Drone ship used its holographic emitters to appear as other ships when attacking enemies, in order to sow chaos between these powers.
Eventually, the NX-01 Enterprise under the command of Captain Jonathan Archer caught up with the Marauder Drone and started to put an end to the crisis.
Ironically, the drone ship's presence and the use of an Aenar, caused what the Romulans hoped to avoid: an alliance against them.
The crisis united the Andorians, Tellarites, Humans and Vulcans against the drone, who eventually attacked and forced it to withdraw to Romulan space.
Thankfully, Captain Archer convinced another Aenar, Jhamel, to come aboard Enterprise and interfere with the drone using a home-made Telepresence Unit.
Jhamel was successful, as she used her telepathy to communicate with the Drone Aenar pilot, Gareb, her brother, and ask him to stop.
While Gareb died via Admiral Valdore shooting him, he successfully destroyed one Drone Ship, allowing Enterprise and the alliance to destroy the other.
Hemmer is the unique new interesting character that will be onboard the USS Enterprise in the upcoming Star Trek Strange New Worlds series.
How he’ll fit into Pike’s crew is so far unknown, though we do see him wearing a red shirt, so perhaps he is in the engineering department, or something along those lines?
What is really cool is that Actor Bruce Horak is in fact legally blind himself.
Meaning he’ll be the first legally blind actor to play a Star Trek main character, once again Star Trek champions it’s exclusivity and equality opportunities.
A blind man playing a blind alien species is also really cool, I personally find it great for reasons I’ve just mentioned.
We have seen a blind engineering officer before, and obviously that man is Geordi LaForge, who was born blind and had to use a Visor in order to see.
Obviously in the crew reveal of Strange New Worlds we do not see Hemmer wearing a visor, but it is interesting to note that a more chunky visor compared to Geordi’s was seen in Star Trek: Discovery,
obviously a precursor to the iconic visor we see Geordi wear in The Next Generation.
So how might Hemmer work aboard the USS Enterprise without the use of a visor, even if his telepathy gives him some degree of ability to see his surroundings,
how might he work on this starship? Well there are a number of options.
An alternate timeline in 2374, saw Lieutenant Commander Tuvok become blinded by detonating a Chroniton Torpedo.
Due to Voyager's low crew complement as a result of constant attacks, he still needed to serve on the bridge.
Doing some meant his tactical station on the bridge would need special controls as he could no longer read the LCAR displays.
During the 24th century, a feature of Starfleet’s LCARS panels worked to alter the typical flat panels intending to be read to a more tactile display,
so that users with poor eyesight or who were blind in Tuvok's case could use the consoles.
This type of interface was activated by a user asking the computer to activate the tactile interface.
It’s possible that during Pike’s time, the computer interfaces that operated on the Enterprise would have a similar system.
Then again, the USS Enterprise that Captain Pike commanded, which would later be commanded by Captain Kirk, did use manual systems,such as buttons and controls to operate it.
Buttons and controls could easily be fitted with braille to aid visually impared crewmembers to operate the ship's systems.
Another option could actually be a really nice link to the Aenar in Enterprise, which is the utilisation of a telepresence unit,
which would allow Hemmer to communicate with the ship and diagnose problems easily in order to fix them, even using the unit to alter systems on the ship in different situations.
The Telepresence unit seen in Enterprise, during the 22nd century was a very hefty piece of equipment, resulting in the user having to be stationary while using it,
but we could see that come the 23rd century, enough research has taken place for it to be an implant or a wearable piece of equipment.
I think this would be a great way to not only honour the Aenar’s previous appearance in Trek,
but also an interesting way to differentiate Hemmer from other Enterprise Engineers, if he is the engineer.
Regardless of how it works, seeing Hemmer in action during Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is going to be fantastic.
Not only are we getting more representation in Star Trek, but we’re also getting to see more of the Aenar species which was a great element of Star Trek Enterprise.
Are you excited to see how the character of Hemmer will fit into Star Trek: Strange New Worlds? I know I am.
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For now, I’ve been Captain Jack, thanks for watching and we’ll see you next time! Live Long and prosper my friends!