Mackenzie Calhoun

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Mackenzie Calhoun
Captain Mackenzie Calhoun, flanked by his mentor Jean-Luc Picard and Ambassador Spock, on the cover of the 1997 novel, Star Trek: New Frontier: House of Cards. Art by Keith Birdsong
Gender	male
Home planet	Xenex
Affiliation	Starfleet
Posting	USS Grissom USS Excalibur
Rank	Captain
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Captain Mackenzie Calhoun (born M'k'n'zy of Calhoun) is a fictional character from the Star Trek universe, and the star of the Star Trek: New Frontier novel series. Created by Peter David, Calhoun is an extraterrestrial from the planet Xenex, and is Captain of the Federation starship USS Excalibur. He appears exclusively in Star Trek: New Frontier, a series of spinoff novels and comic books set during the 24th Century era of Star Trek: The Next Generation, in which he is the main character. He first appeared in the 1997 New Frontier debut novel, Star Trek: New Frontier: House of Cards. He is the only Star Trek character that has not appeared in any of the Star Trek television series or movies to have an action figure.

Contents 1 History 2 Mirror Universe 3 Personality and appearance 4 Influences 5 Action figure 6 Fan film appearance 7 References 8 External links

[edit] History

Calhoun was born M'k'n'zy of Calhoun on the planet Xenex, in the city of Calhoun. He grew up under the brutal rule of the Danteri, who occupied his world. As a child, he witnessed the public execution of his father in a town square by Falkar of Danter, which spurred him to grow into a rebel warlord.^[1] He killed his first person at age fourteen, and given command of a strike vessel that marked the beginning of the Xenexian rebellion.^[2] By the time Calhon was twenty, he had liberated Xenex.^[1] Shortly after doing so, he fathered a son, Xyon, with Catrine, a woman from the Calhoun clan whose husband had died, as she requested as part of the Xenexian culture.^[3] Calhoun encountered a young Jean-Luc Picard, who, while Captain of the USS Stargazer, visited Xenex as a representative of the United Federation of Planets, to assist in negotiations between Xenex and Danter. Picard convinced Calhoun to join Starfleet, the scientific and defensive arm of the United Federation of Planets.^[1]

As a Starfleet officer, Calhoun served aboard the USS Grissom,^[1] where he met Katarina "Kat" Mueller, who would become his lover.^[2] It was on the Grissom that he learned to play poker, and established a reputation for being able to bluff his way through any hand, even evading an empath’s attempt to get a bead on him.^[4] Calhoun was present during a catastrophic event aboard the USS Grissom, which led to his apparent departure from Starfleet.^[2] In reality, he had become an undercover operative for Admiral Nechayev, who years afterward, fearing Calhoun was getting "too deep" into the lifestyle of the thugs and criminals he was associating with, pulled him out, and gave him his own starship to command, the Excalibur. It was in taking this command that he was reunited with both Shelby, who was now his First Officer,^[1] and Mueller, whom he picked as his Executive Officer (the terms are normally synonymous on the various television series, but in the New Frontier novels, a First Officer heads the ship's day shift, while the Executive Officer commands the night shift watch).^[2] Calhoun was assigned to Sector 221-G, the area of space of the former Thallonian Empire, which had collapsed, resulting in destabilization of the region.^[1]

Calhoun makes an appearance in the 2007 Star Trek: The Next Generation novel Before Dishonor by Peter David. In the novel, Calhoun encounters Picard en route to Sector 001 to defend Earth against the new Borg threat. Upon rendezvousing with Picard, Calhoun promptly promotes him to Commodore and gives him command of the armada of starships. The two commanders then travel to Jupiter where they encounter several borg-modified star ships and engage in a heated battle.

[edit] Mirror Universe

The Mirror Universe counterpart of Calhoun appears in "Cutting Ties", a story in the Obsidian Alliances anthology. In the Mirror Universe, M'k'n'zy's father, Gr'zy, is the tribal chieftain of Calhoun, the oldest and largest settlement on Xenex. When M'k'n'zy is several years old, and his older son D’ndai has recently started his rebellion, the Danteri arrest Gr’zy while searching for D'ndai. When Gr’zy denies knowing D’ndai's whereabouts, they tie him to a stake and begin to beat him. Whereas in our universe they beat him to death, in the Mirror Universe young M’k’n’zy runs from the crowd, begging the Danteri to spare his father, and insists that Gr’zy knows nothing, as D’ndai is acting entirely on his own. The Danteri spard Gr'zy, who, having been denied a death that he felt would have meant something, is humiliated, and filled with shame of his son, whom he felt was weak-minded. From then on, Gr'zy and the rest of his people treat M'k'n'zy with scorn, while D'ndai grows into a respected warrior. D'ndai eventually dies fighting the Danteri, who ally themselves with the Romulans, who supplied the Danteri with weapons in order to strike a balance of power against the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance. To ensure against further insurrections, Falkar and the Romulan Praetor, Hiren, demand that a Xenexian hostage come live with Hiren on Romulus. Gr'zy chooses M'k'n'zy, who has no stomach for battle. The harsh and abusive Hiren gives him the name "Muck", and when M'k'n'zy objects, Hiren strikes the boy with his armored hand, creating a scar on his face similar to the one borne by his counterpart in our universe. Hiren takes him to Romulus, where the intellectually curious Muck educates himself in philosophy, war strategy, chess, etc. After a year in Hiren's residence, Hiren brings before Muck a beaten and bound Gr'zy, who has continued his rebellious activities on Xenex, despite the danger to Muck, whom Gr'zy says he cares nothing about. Hiren gives Muck a dagger and tells him to kill Gr'zy, but Muck hesitates, and after Gr'zy throws himself on the dagger, killing himself, the furious Hiren banishes Muck to the mines of Remus. Muck endures years of abuse and torment by other miners, until he kills one of them. When five others try to kill him in his sleep, Mucks kills them too, and from then on, he is left alone.

After he saves the like of the Mirror Universe Soleta, who is touring the mines with her father, Rojan, Soleta, who sees the rage and hatred in Muck's eyes, buys him from Labec, her father's business associate who owns the mines. Soleta brings Muck back to Romulus, where she, as a student of the mind, tries to understand the forces that shape him, but finds that he is able to resist her attempts to mind meld with him against his will. She frees Muck, but he returns to her, and they become lovers. When Rojan is asked by Praetor Hiren to be present at a meeting between the Mirror Lord Si Cwan of the Thallonian Empire and Falkar of Danter, whom Hiren suspects is plotting against him, Soleta and Muck join him. There, they meet the Mirror Universe Shelby and Robin Lefler, who are Si Cwan's slaves, and the Mirror Universe Kalinda, Burgoyne 182 and Zak Kebron, who function as the Chief Engineer, Chief of Security and First Officer, respectively, of Si Cwan's flagship, the Stinger. While secretly exploring the ship, Muck discovers that it is powered by a null sphere, a device into which has been placed the Mirror Mark McHenry, whose godlike powers are exploited as the ship's "mind". After Si Cwan kills Falkar and Rojan, Muck and Soleta kill Burgoyne, mind meld with McHenry, and take control of the Stinger. Soleta tells Si Cwan she will let him and his sister Kalinda live if he goes to Romulus and assassinates Praetor Hiren. Si Cwan agrees, but after he and his crew abandon the ship via shuttle, McHenry, sensing that it is what Soleta truly wanted, destroys the shuttles. When Soleta goes to the ship's sick lab to ask Kalinda about McHenry's true nature and abilities, Muck asks McHenry to destroy the surface of Danter, killing all of its life. He intends to do the same to Romulus, to Xenex (with which he has no rapport on account of his brutal treatment there), and to any planet in the galaxy he encounters, arguing that the universe deserves to die. Horrified that Muck's hatred and rage have consumed him, Soleta tries to convince him to channel it by having McHenry show Muck the Mackenzie Calhoun of our universe, the crew of the Excalibur, and how that Calhoun freed his planet by the age of twenty - in order to show Muck how there are other possibilities that he can fight for. Muck decides to destroy only Danter's military infrastructure and uninhabited areas of its surface, frightening the Danteri into leaving Xenex. Muck then journeys to his homeworld, where he rallies his people into joining the Terran resistance. Inspired by his other universe counterpart, he takes the name "Mac", and begins his life anew as a freedom fighter, in the mold of his counterpart.

[edit] Personality and appearance

Calhoun is intelligent, cunning, canny,^[1] resourceful and sneaky.^[4] His success as a tactician is due in part to his ability to sense imminent danger, and anticipate his enemies’ moves. Admiral Jellico sees him as an unpredictable maverick and a cowboy. Picard has observed that reverence was never one of Calhoun's strong suits. Calhoun feels that deep down, he was a savage, and that any appearance of civilization on his part was a façade that he wore like a cloak, though he keeps the scar Falkar gave him as a reminder of his roots.^[1]

Like all Xenexians, Calhoun resembles a human being almost entirely, with the exception of his purple eyes. Calhoun's skin has a leathery, burnished texture, the years of hardship he endured early in life having given him a weathered look, with several deep creases already lining his forehead by the time he was nineteen. He has a scar down the right side of his face from his right temple down across his cheek, left by the wound Falkar inflicted on him with his short sword in 2373. He is a head shorter than his older brother, D'ndai.^[1] The renditions of Calhoun on the New Frontier novel covers and in the comic book Double Time consistently depict him as resembling a Caucasian human male with dark brown hair. The Mirror Universe, Calhoun, however, has been described as having black hair.^[5]

[edit] Influences

Fans have noted the similarity between Calhoun and another of Peter David's Trek characters, Commander Quintin Stone from David's 1991 Star Trek: The Next Generation novel, A Rock and a Hard Place^[6]. David has explained that Calhoun was not intentionally a remodeled Stone, but that interestingly, both were based to some extent by characters portrayed by film actor Mel Gibson: the apparently unstable "cowboy diplomat" Stone was based on Martin Riggs from the Lethal Weapon films, and Calhoun, who was a rebel leader at twenty, was inspired by the Scottish rebel leader William Wallace from Braveheart. David has added that Calhoun is closer to the historical Wallace, in that like Calhoun, Wallace was much younger than the real-life Gibson was when he portrayed Wallace in the movie.^[7]

In addition, Calhoun, who is depicted as something of a cowboy, has been compared by other characters in the stories to Captain Kirk, as in a conversation with Admiral Edward Jellico in the novel Martyr, a likely indication that in terms of his style as a starship captain, Peter David modelled Calhoun in some respect after Kirk. David has also stated that on his blog that Calhoun indeed looks up to and identifies with Kirk, seeing himself himself very much in the cowboy mold that Kirk personified.^[8]

[edit] Action figure

Playmates Toys produced a limited edition Captain Calhoun 4.5 inch action figure which was available only via mail order through the Star Trek Communicator fan club magazine, and began shipping in September 1998.^[9] There were approximately 10,000 of these figures produced.^[9]

[edit] Fan film appearance

In September, 2005 Captain Mackenzie Calhoun made a cameo appearance in "Vigil", a sixth season episode of the Star Trek fan film series Star Trek: Hidden Frontier, in which he meets his old lover, Captain Elizabeth Shelby, now commanding the Excelsior, in the Briar Patch. Calhoun was played by James Cawley, producer and star of Star Trek: New Voyages, in which he plays Captains James T. Kirk. Peter David stated on his blog that although the creators of the episode did not check with him beforehand, he thought it was very entertaining.^[10]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Star Trek: New Frontier: House of Cards at Amazon.com