i'll never grow tired of stories that explore what it means to live for hundrends, thousands, millions of years or even for eternity. what does life mean for someone who's seen everything? is everything so insignificant that it loses meaning? is permanence torture or safety? what does it mean to love for that long? and what does it mean to love someone, who is not like you? can the pain of losing everyone you've ever known ever go away?
now, this post is about star trek. nahla ake and the lanthanites specifically. i'm thinking about what does it mean to be half-eternal. at what point does it click that your dad is going to be here forever and that in comparison your mom is going to disappear in a blink of an eye? is the perpetual loss something that lanthanites prepare their children for? or is loss one of those words that don't exist in the lanthanite language?
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Commander Pelia is a Lanthanite, which makes her very similar to humans, except for her life span, Commander Pelia is over 5,000 years old, something that is very normal for Lanthanites. She brings a bit of whimsy to the Enterprise, often referred to as a "space hippie", intelligent, whimsical, chaotic and nonchalant, often surprising her crew members with her laid back way of doing things. Commander Pelia is also a bit of a hoarder, having collected many trinkets over her very long life.
Played to perfection by legendary actress Carol Kane, Commander Pelia is one of the best Star Trek characters in a very long time.
For those not keeping up with "Strange New Worlds" or "Starfleet Academy," the Lanthanites are a race of long-lived humanoids who lived undetected on Earth for thousands of years. They look identical to humans, but have insanely long lifespans. Basically, "Star Trek" wanted an excuse to have immortal characters who would specifically remember stuff from Earth's history.
This unnamed science officer is a background character on "Star Trek: Voyager." But before serving on Voyager, he served on the Enterprise-D, also as a science officer.
...and before that, he served on another Enterprise, as a command officer! His name was Elliott.
Nothing phases this guy.
These background characters are all played by John Copage. At the time he played these roles, the concept of the Lanthanites hadn't been introduced to the franchise yet. Previously, I might've speculated that this dude was an El-Aurian who somehow found the Federation before the rest of his species, or that the science officer was simply the grandson of Elliott. But with the introduction of Lanthanites, we have a clean and easy explanation.
Here he is in "Year of Hell," looking almost bored as Janeway orders the crew to abandon ship. As a centuries-old Lanthanite who served on the two most famous Enterprises, this guy has clearly seen some sh*t.
But he probably isn't be that old...
This guy was not part of the away team to 1990s LA in "Future's End," so he either isn't old enough to be helpful in that situation, or he was living on a part of Earth radically different from Los Angeles. Otherwise, we'd need a reason for why he didn't join the away team to guide them around 20th Century Earth.
I'm thinking he was born during that dark age of the Eugenics Wars, or WWIII. Which would go even further to explaining his chill reaction to everything Voyager goes through.
Since my dad is actually a Captain in the military, this was the simplest conversion, meet the USS Jubilee's Captain!
Actually, a Lanthanite who has been alive for a couple of thousand years, he's currently going by the name Stan, and, having served in many of Earth's previous militaries, is quite enjoying his term with Starfleet. He has an impossible amount of experience mixed with an old-fashioned charisma. Unflinching in the face of danger, Captain Stan's real gift lies in handling the people in his crew; he always has the right things to say and the best advice to help everything run smoothly.
Basically, as usual, a Starfleet captain has a Charisma build, though his is less about charm and more about empathy and emotional maturity.
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The thing about Pelia is that she is old. And she looks old.
Usually, in fantasy or SciFi, peoples who live thousands of years look somewhere in their 40s. They reached that age and they stayed there for whatever the reason. Elves are never grumpy old ladies. Vampires are never sweet old men. They live long but they don't get old.
But Lanthanites do get old, as we see with Pelia. She has been looking like a menopausal human for over 200 years. We can assume then that Lanthanites grow up and mature much slower than Humans. They are the opposite of the Ocampa, who live for 9 years and are grown up and mature enough by the time they are 1 or 2.
She mentions that she is alone and we see her alone, there doesn't seem to be a Lanthanite community (even though they have a particular accent) so how are Lanthanite children raised? Are there children or only adults came to Earth and promised to not have children?
If they raised children and they take longer to grow up than human, I imagine they were either home schooled or constantly on the move to avoid people assuming they had a disabled child. "If he is 10, why does he still behave and look like a 1 year old?"
Or maybe they grow up more or less as fast as humans until adolescence and then it goes muuuuuch slower, and it is the origine of the teenage vampire myth.
