Gary Seven

Star Trek character|if=
bgcolor = #ececec
Title = Gary Seven


Caption =
Species = Human
Gender = Male
Planet = Unknown
Portrayed = Robert Lansing

Gary Seven is the major character in the last episode of the second season of the original "" television series, "". He is portrayed by Robert Lansing.

Assignment: Earth

The episode "" was a television pilot for a proposed series about Gary Seven, an Earthman who lives and works for the inhabitants of another planet. His mission was to prevent nuclear war on Earth by stopping a missile launched by the United States in 1968. Seven is encountered by the crew of the starship "Enterprise", who have been sent back in time by the United Federation of Planets to find out what actually had occurred on Earth in the late 1960s.

Seven's secretary was Miss Roberta Lincoln (portrayed by Teri Garr) and was originally unaware of Seven's origins, thinking she was working for a typical businessman. Seven also had a constant companion in Isis, who at first appears to be a cat, but is later shown to have great intelligence and the ability to change shape into a human.

Powers and Abillities

Although Seven is human, he manifests at least one super-human feature: he is insensitive to the impact of the Vulcan nerve pinch, an ability very few human or humanoid characters of the Star Trek franchise ever manifested.

Seven utilizes a small pen-shaped device, called a Servo, with a variety of uses including:

A communicator, which allowed Gary Seven to communicate with the Beta 5 Computer and initiate transport.

A personal defense mechanism. It had both a stun setting, which made its target go into a hypnotic state open for suggestion, and a kill setting. It was also used with enough precision to cut a telephone wire asunder from across a room.

An electronic manipulation device, which Gary Seven used to deactivate the force field keeping him in the brig of the USS Enterprise.

A mechanical manipulation device, with the ability to serve simple purposes such as unscrewing screws, and locking and unlocking doors.

(Source: http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Servo)

Other references

"Star Trek" novels

In Greg Cox's , Gary Seven had numerous dealings with Khan Noonien Singh and initially hopes to train Khan as his successor. Along with his now-partner Roberta Lincoln, Seven tries to prevent World War III in a variety of ways. Seven leaves Earth in 1996, after sending Khan on the "SS Botany Bay" DY-100 sleeper ship.

Cox also wrote a 1997 novel, "", featuring Seven. In this novel, the alien agency which Seven works for is called the "Aegis," though whether this refers to Seven's organization or the alien race is unclear.

"Star Trek" comics

According to several issues of the "Star Trek" comic books released by DC Comics in the 1990s (written by Howard Weinstein and Michael Jan Friedman), Gary Seven and Isis were sent by a force known as the Aegis, who took individuals from many worlds to selectively alter historical events. They gave their agents long lifespans, estimated to be as long as 1,000 years. Not all of these interventions went well -- at least one led to an agent becoming the sole survivor of his homeworld -- leading to a small rebellion against the Aegis. Several agents go so far as to injure or murder innocent beings who stand in their way.

Gary Seven later went against the wishes of the Aegis when he tried to stop the Devidians from altering the timeline so that the Federation would fall to the Romulans. Seven died in an initial attempt to rescue Spock from the Devidians, but was pulled from the timeline by the Aegis prior to the moment of his death after Exana (another agent of the Aegis, who was romantically involved with Seven) stopped the Devidians with the aid of Captain Kirk and Captain Picard.

In 2008, IDW Publishing launched an Assignment Earth comic book series written and drawn by John Byrne.

External links

* [http://www.fastcopyinc.com/orionpress/articles/assignment.htm Link to synopsis of original script]