Pitcairn (transporter chief)

Pitcairn was a male Human Starfleet officer who lived during the mid-23rd century. In 2254, he was assigned as an operations division transporter officer aboard the USS Enterprise under Captain Christopher Pike.

That year, Pitcairn and his assistant beamed the initial landing party from the Enterprise to the surface of Talos IV, setting them down unobserved in a canyon to the left of the SS Columbia survivor camp.

After Pike was captured, Pitcairn beamed down subsequent landing parties during the attempt to mount a rescue of the captain.

When the acting captain, Lieutenant Spock, made the choice to leave the orbit of Talos, Pitcairn responded from the engine room that they were not able to switch to rockets, because all systems were out… "We've got nothing."

Finally, when Pike was able to negotiate for the release of himself, Una Chin-Riley, and Yeoman J.M. Colt, and the Talosians allowed them to return to the Enterprise, Pitcairn, who was once again in the transporter room, notified Spock that power had just been restored to the activated transporter, and there was no way to shut it off, moments before the hostages returned to the ship. (TOS: "The Cage")

A recording of his experience aboard the Enterprise under Captain Pike during the original visit to Talos IV, from thirteen years prior, was transmitted from that planet during Spock's fictional court martial aboard the same ship in 2267. (TOS: "The Menagerie, Part I", "The Menagerie, Part II")

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Background information[]

The part of the transporter chief was played by the uncredited Clegg Hoyt, whose voice was overdubbed by Robert C. Johnson. [1]^(X) Director Robert Butler approved of casting Hoyt for the role, which was described only as the "the transporter chief," commenting in retrospect, "That was a good move, I think, because he always brought a reality to anything he did." (The Star Trek Interview Book, p. 99)

Though Pitcairn's rank was unmentioned and unobserved, his reference to Lieutenant Spock as "sir", indicates he was clearly a subordinate, or most likely an enlisted officer.

Hoyt's role was never identified on-screen, and the character was otherwise only ever directly identified in the script and on call sheets for "The Cage" as "Transporter Chief". The name Pitcairn was first referenced in script for "The Menagerie", where it was actually applied to the episode's contemporary "Security Chief". It was not applied to the "Transporter Chief" character until it began appearing in various reference guides, including the Star Trek Compendium (1st ed., p. 30, 35; 2nd ed., p. 183; 3rd ed., p. 181), The Trek Encyclopedia (2nd ed., pp. 61, 124), the Star Trek Encyclopedia (3rd, pp. 61, 298, 712), and the Star Trek Concordance, where he was named "Pitcairn" in the episode cast and actor cross-reference sections (Citadel ed., pp. 5, 16, 303), but remained unnamed in the actual lexicon, where the character himself was found only under the "transporter chiefs" entry, which describes Hoyt's character as "[a] blocky male who serves under Captain Pike aboard the Enterprise (CA)." (Citadel ed., p. 256)

The name used in the aforementioned reference sources was later retroactively applied, but only through the instance of closed captioning, to the character in the Star Trek: Discovery episode "If Memory Serves".

Apocrypha[]

This character, as identified as the aforementioned "Transporter Chief Pitcairn" was also featured in the comic book series Star Trek: Early Voyages, where it was stated his full name was Nils Pitcairn (β), while Star Trek II: Biographies gives his name as Clegg Pitcairn, and the novel The Children of Kings gives him the first name Glenn.

External link[]

• Nils Pitcairn at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works