BLOG My favourite Star Trek characters

Who are our readers favourite characters in Star Trek? As SFX asks you to vote, blogger Laura McConnell reckons she can see what it is about two of the most interesting ones…

Whose Side Are You On, Anyway?

When I saw the “Who’s Your Favourite Star Trek Character” post on the main site, my mind immediately went into overdrive. I mean, what a loaded question! I think SFX nearly killed me! How could I possibly pick only three characters in ALL of Trek as my favourites?

Would I choose the father of all captains, the (in?)famous James T Kirk? Or his rival in the age-old debate about starship leaders, the eloquent Jean-Luc Picard? And where did the no-nonsense Janeway fit in? What about the darling Data? The splendid Spock? The roguish Riker? The perfect Paris? The questioning Q?

My mind reeled.

This task was impossible! It just couldn’t be done! I tried to narrow things down to two mental lists. My favourites were on one, and the characters I thought were of the best quality were on another (those two categories are sometimes quite different, you know).

That didn’t help, either. I was about to give up. And then, like a light in the darkness, I had an epiphany. I realized I’d skipped a series. Suddenly, more names appeared on my list and while it was still hard to cut it down, my answers became more clear. It seemed that now I had only one name left to choose, for two spots had been filled by none other than Quark, the nefarious Ferengi bartender from DS9, and Garak, the who-the-heck-knows-what-he’s-up-to Cardassian on the same space station.

It seems I’m not alone in liking these two not-so-upstanding fellows.

I browsed the list of answers on the site before I sat down to write this, and Quark and Garak come up quite a lot. Huh. This got me thinking. Why are these two guys so loved? I mean, they aren’t exactly heroes. They certainly have more than their fair share of faults. So why all the props?

It’s simple, my friends.

Moral ambiguity.

Whose side are Garak and Quark on? Theirs.

Not yours. Not mine. Theirs.

Like Han Solo before them and Malcolm Reynolds after, Quark and Garak don’t exactly fit the hero mould. Instead, they cast their own. They do what works for them; what keeps them flying. They bend the rules and look out for number one. Of course, their idea of number one includes their various crews and friends, but don’t tell them that. It would ruin their reputations as grade A, 100% pure scoundrels, and we wouldn’t want that.

After all, we like them because they’re scoundrels.

Oh, and for the record, I think that third slot is filled by one Emergency Medical Hologram.