Colonel Shaun Geoffrey Christopher was a male Human military service member. He was born after 1969 to US Force Captain John Christopher and his wife. Shaun also had two older sisters.
In 1969, the USS Enterprise, which had accidentally traveled back in time from the year 2267, took aboard Shaun's father Captain John Christopher when he attempted to intercept the Enterprise with his F-104 Starfighter. Initially believing that returning Christopher to Earth would be impossible due to the fact that he might inadvertently change history with his new-found knowledge of the future, Lieutenant Commander Spock eventually realized that he had to be returned, or Shaun Geoffrey Christopher would never be born and the Saturn mission would never take place. (TOS: "Tomorrow is Yesterday")
In the early 21st century, Shaun was the commander of the first successful mission to Saturn. He was accompanied on this mission by the astronauts Fontana and O'Herlihy. (ENT: "First Flight")
By 2401, Starfleet had named several Gagarin-class ships after astronauts, including one designated USS Christopher. (PIC: "Võx")
Appendices
Background information[]
According to Star Trek Encyclopedia, 4th ed., vol. 1, p. 141, Shaun Geoffrey Christopher was named after writer John D.F. Black's three sons: Shaun, Geoffrey, and Christopher.
According to Star Trek Chronology, 1st ed., p. 18, the mission to Saturn took place in 2009. According to the Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology (p. 45), the mission took place in 2020.
Apocrypha[]
In the short story "Assignment: One", part of the Strange New Worlds 8 anthology, Gary Seven briefly came out of retirement to prevent Christopher from boarding one of the airplanes that was involved in the 11 September 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.
Christopher played a minor part in Greg Cox's 2000s Eugenics Wars novels, where he was meant to be the pilot of the first DY-100-class sleeper ship initially scheduled to go to Saturn. Shannon O'Donnel was his colleague, but having been secretly recruited by Gary Seven's organization, she scuttled Christopher's short-term dream by stealing the ship to allow Khan Noonien Singh to go into nonviolent exile.
Greg Cox's subsequent novel The Rings of Time detailed the Saturn mission that Christopher commanded in 2020. During the mission, he and Captain Kirk switch bodies due to the effects of an alien probe, with Kirk saving Christopher's ship from sabotage by the contemporary terrorist organization the Human Extinction League (β), while Christopher uses knowledge gained from the probe to prevent the collapse of a gas planet's rings by triggering an ancient 'reboot'. The Enterprise subsequently travels back to 2020 via the Slingshot effect so that Spock can return Kirk and Christopher to each others' bodies via a mind meld.
Christopher appeared in the Star Trek: Myriad Universes story "Seeds of Dissent" in Infinity's Prism as the captain of the SS Botany Bay in an alternate reality where Khan Noonien Singh won the Eugenics Wars.
Commander Shaun Christopher was the main character of the Star Trek: Live stage show produced by Mad Science Productions and performed at various locations from 2010–2011, including Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.
The novelization of the episode "Relics" gave the name of the shuttle "loaned" to Montgomery Scott as the Christopher, named for Shaun Geoffrey Christopher; however in the episode, the name Goddard was legible on the hull. Allegiance in Exile also gives this as the name of a shuttle on Kirk's Enterprise, though it is unclear whether it was named after him or not.
The novel From History's Shadow spells his first name as "Sean".
External link[]
- Shaun Geoffrey Christopher at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works