Marla Gilmore was a Starfleet operations division officer who served as an ensign aboard the USS Equinox under the command of Captain Rudolph Ransom in 2371. In that year, the Equinox was stranded in the Delta Quadrant by the alien entity known as the Caretaker.
Gilmore was one of the few engineers who survived aboard the Equinox, and as such, she participated in criminal experiments to augment their warp drive by murdering a series of nucleogenic lifeforms and converting their remains into a source of fuel, presenting the crew with the opportunity of returning to the Alpha Quadrant in mere months. These actions incurred the wrath of the lifeforms, who, in turn, staged near-constant attacks on the Equinox, gradually depleting the ship's defenses.
The Equinox was eventually rescued in 2375 by the crew of the USS Voyager. Soon after their rescue, the two crews made a coordinated attempt to restore the systems aboard the Equinox. Gilmore was assigned to one of the repair crews aboard the Equinox, but requested to Commander Chakotay to remain aboard Voyager, citing that she was experiencing post-traumatic stress syndrome. Chakotay agreed to have her join him in Engineering, as he wished to take advantage of having someone aboard with her engineering abilities. Gilmore then expressed interest in staying aboard Voyager permanently, but Chakotay deemed said request to be unfeasible, as Equinox was already operating with a skeleton crew. Fearing being trapped in a confined space, Gilmore then hesitantly entered the turbolift for the first time in three months, but en route requested an emergency stop. Consequently, on his suggestion, she and Chakotay then proceeded to Engineering via the Jefferies tubes.
Gilmore was later visited by Naomi Wildman in the mess hall, where she was officially welcomed aboard Voyager, as well as offered access to rations and a tour of the lower decks. Her encounter with Wildman reminded Gilmore of her nephew back on Earth, who was Wildman's age the last time she saw him.
Later, Gilmore was recalled to the Equinox where she joined Captain Ransom's attempt to steal Voyager's field generator. She was assigned by Lieutenant Maxwell Burke the task of crawling through an access port and setting up transport enhancers around the component to use aboard Equinox to allow them to escape and continue their experiments. Setting aside her claustrophobia and her own moral misgivings regarding their actions, Gilmore complied with her orders. (VOY: "Equinox")
Although the plan was successful and the Equinox crew was able to escape from Voyager, Captain Ransom eventually had a change of heart, and decided to surrender to Janeway. In response, Burke and a small group of crewmembers mutinied, and attempted to destroy Voyager. Pretending to join Burke's mutiny, Gilmore took Ransom into custody, but instead of escorting him to the brig, they went to engineering and accessed transporter control, beaming the majority of the crew, herself included, to Voyager.
After the deaths of Ransom and Burke, and the destruction of the Equinox, Gilmore was integrated into the Voyager crew along with four others. As a consequence of her actions, she, alongside her fellow Equinox survivors, was stripped of rank, granted severely limited privileges, and ordered to serve under heavy supervision until she could re-earn Janeway's trust. (VOY: "Equinox, Part II")
Appendices[]
Background information[]
Marla Gilmore was played by Olivia Birkelund.
Apocrypha[]
Marla was sometimes called Maria Gilmore in the novelization of Equinox.
The fate of the character and her life on Voyager after the events of "Equinox, Part II" was never portrayed on-screen, but the Pocket VOY novel Homecoming by Christie Golden mentions that she returned to the Alpha Quadrant along with the rest of Voyager's crew.
External links[]
- Marla Gilmore at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works