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00:00As the lowest commissioned rank, Ensigns haven't always gotten the fairest end of the deal in Star Trek.
00:05Having spent years at the Academy, they still have to bunk up, share sonic showers, and eat from the dodgy replicators.
00:11Aboard some ships, at least.
00:13They can often be found toiling away in the background whilst their superiors bask in all the glory.
00:17That, they could just as well end up as cannon fodder.
00:20We all know that the first appearance of Ensign No Name is an immediate red flag.
00:24Of course, if your name is Harry Kim, you'll be cannon fodder and never make it past Ensign.
00:28But you will get some bigger quarters, so small blessings.
00:32On numerous occasions, however, Starfleet Ensigns have been elemental to mission success.
00:36We have seen them save ships from disaster, protect the lives of individuals or entire populations,
00:42and even traverse timelines to help their fellow officers.
00:45So with that in mind, I'm Ellie with TrekCulture here with 10 Incredible Times Star Trek Ensigns Save the Day.
00:52Number 10. First day on the job, Ensign Lang.
00:55It's a baptism of phaser fire for this Ensign on her first day as acting chief of security aboard Voyager in the episode Displaced.
01:03She may well accept Chakotay's humorous comment to that effect with a degree of sarcasm of her own,
01:09but the crew are being slowly replaced by a shifty and thermostat-enthusiast alien race called the Nirians.
01:15In the midst of all the action, and at a moment when it's not at all clear what's going on,
01:19it is indeed Ensign Lang who takes Tuvok's station at the bridge.
01:23There are 40 Voyager crew members remaining and falling, and over 100 Nirians and rising.
01:29Lang is then ordered by Chakotay to organize the lockdown of the ship's critical systems.
01:33She takes to the task with panache and is unfazed when Chakotay leaves her alone on the bridge.
01:38When the Nirians start breaking down the doors, Lang confidently issues orders to two crew members
01:43who have just arrived before taking out her phaser and firing.
01:46She is stunned in return and falls to the floor,
01:48but her heroic efforts and assured command of the situation have already ensured that Voyager will win the day.
01:54She also allows Chakotay the time to grab the Doctor whose duties as Tricorder were later key to the crew's escape.
02:01Number 9. NX2L4. Ensign Mayweather.
02:05When Earth is brutally attacked by the Zindi in the Star Trek Enterprise episode The Expanse,
02:09the Klingon Duras decides to use the moment to get a little revenge on Captain Archer.
02:14Duras has been holding a grudge ever since he was demoted following the pair's encounter earlier in the second season.
02:20In the present episode, Duras first attacks when the NX-01 is arriving home,
02:25but he is fended off by other Earth vessels.
02:27He strikes again when Enterprise is on course for Vulcan, but is readily fought off.
02:31It's not until the ship reaches the Thermobaric Clouds, which surround the Delphic Expanse,
02:35that Ensign Mayweather's extraordinary flying skills truly come into play to save the day.
02:41Those dastardly Klingons attack once more, but this time Enterprise's upgraded weapons,
02:46some fancy new photonic torpedoes, prove ineffective, as Duras has transferred his aft shields forward.
02:53The solution? Get Travis to perform a spectacular L-4 maneuver at full impulse,
02:58which basically means flying the ship up and over the Klingons in a loop to arrive facing their unprotected stern.
03:04Lieutenant Reed then fires torpedoes, and the Klingons are expedited to Grethor.
03:09This wasn't the first or the last time Ensign Mayweather saved the day at the helm of the pioneering Warp 5 starship,
03:16but it sure was impressive. Nice going, Travis, indeed.
03:20Number 8. Saving Dramaphore from disaster, Ensign's Hildebrandt, Davies, Allens, and acting Ensign Crusher.
03:27The Season 2 episode Pen Pals of Star Trek The Next Generation is a bit of an anomaly.
03:31It is strange, not least, for the creepy long-distance communications between Data and a young girl,
03:37Sarzenka, from a pre-Warp planet, Dramer 4, which is facing catastrophe.
03:41The ramifications for the Prime Directive most certainly shouldn't have been the only consideration
03:46when judging Data's behavior.
03:47Still, Data's actions have consequences, and it's up to a group of Ensigns to sort things out for Sarzenka.
03:53Whilst the senior staff are comforting themselves with the luxury of philosophical debate,
03:56only ever self-serving in this instance, Ensigns, Hildebrandt, Davies, and Allens,
04:02led by acting Ensign Wesley Crusher, are doing the hard work to discover the cause of the planetary breakups
04:08in the Sulkundi-Dramer sector.
04:10Struggling at first in his position of authority, Wesley manages to rally his team of Ensigns behind him.
04:15When he finally summons the courage to order an Ico spectrogram test,
04:19it is this that leads to the discovery of the cause of the planetary instabilities.
04:24Funky interactions with dilithium in the planet's crust, essentially.
04:27The Ensigns are then able to use this information to develop a solution to the problem,
04:31via some modified probe torpedoes at it,
04:33which returns geological stability to Sarzenka's previously doomed homeworld,
04:37and saves the lives of every inhabitant.
04:39Number 7. Linguistic License, Ensign Sato
04:43Hoshi Sato's journey to self-confidence is certainly one of the greatest of any Ensign.
04:48She was always a prodigious linguist,
04:50mastering several languages and picking up new ones with apparent ease.
04:54Later, in Enterprise's mission,
04:55she would make major improvements to the Universal Translator,
04:59and developed the LinguaCode Translation Matrix that was still in use centuries later.
05:03In the beginning, Sato's nerves and lack of self-esteem were often a hurdle for her to overcome.
05:08This struggle is most visible in the Enterprise Season 1 episode, Fight or Flight.
05:12Despite her reservations,
05:14Archer convinces Sato to join the away team that was to board an unresponsive and seemingly damaged alien vessel.
05:20When the team find a string of alien bodies hanging upside down,
05:24Sato has a rather visceral reaction.
05:26I mean, wouldn't you though?
05:27A sense of embarrassment and doubt follow her from the incident.
05:30When Enterprise is attacked,
05:32the Universal Translator struggles to process the language of the alien race in a position to come to the crew's aid.
05:38Searching for synonyms that don't arrive,
05:40Hoshi is understandably more and more frustrated.
05:42Archer suggests that she forget the Universal Translator and communicate with the aliens directly.
05:47Whilst trepidatious,
05:48I mean, she hasn't even had time to learn the language's basic conjugations,
05:51Hoshi accepts.
05:52Doing what she does best,
05:53we see her confidence grow with each line she speaks.
05:56The alien is convinced and saves Enterprise from the hostile species,
06:00all thanks to the exceptional skills of a gifted ensign.
06:03Number 6.
06:04The entire ship and timeline,
06:06Ensign Anna Jameson.
06:08Lieutenant Carey wasn't any the wiser,
06:10but you might recognise this ensign as Seven of Nine.
06:13This is left field,
06:14or maybe even flirting with a bit of a cheat,
06:16but long before Picard's field commission,
06:19Seven was recruited by the USS Relativity.
06:21It is reasonable,
06:22and a little bit of fun,
06:24to assume that she officially carried the rank during that period.
06:27When a mysterious saboteur from the 29th century,
06:30it turns out to be a rancorous future,
06:32future Captain Braxton,
06:34places a Force 3 temporal disruptor somewhere,
06:37sometime on Voyager.
06:39Seven is enlisted to save the day.
06:41She has been back and forth along Voyager's history
06:43to prevent the ship's destruction,
06:45risking temporal psychosis in the process.
06:47She even dies at one point.
06:49Now, that's an incredible sacrifice
06:51for our technically speaking first-time ensign.
06:54Her future, present, past self,
06:56also will be,
06:57has been,
06:58was,
06:59is,
06:59starting to agree with Braxton about those tensers,
07:02afflicted by some dizzying sensory aphasia as a result.
07:05With a little help from a reluctantly drafted Captain Janeway,
07:08Braxton is stopped and Voyager saved.
07:11Let us all look backwards at the time
07:13when Ensign Anna Seven Jameson
07:15gets the praise she clearly deserves.
07:17Number 5.
07:18An enderprisian Ensign.
07:20Ensign Garavik.
07:22As Star Trek prodigy writer Aaron Waltke tweeted
07:25regarding the Star Trek Ensign,
07:27I wanted to give him a slightly bigger fanfare send-off
07:30and tribute to all the other red shirts.
07:32And that he most certainly did for this bearer of crimson.
07:36In the Prodigy episode All the Worlds Are Sage,
07:38the motley but endearing crew of the protostar
07:41answer a distress call to find a pre-war planet
07:43whose inhabitants are, nonetheless,
07:46cosplaying their hearts out to Kirk-era Starfleet.
07:49Or Starflight.
07:50From one of their plays, filled with uncanny impressions
07:53and fabulously familiar overacting,
07:55we learn about Ensign Garavik's time on the planet.
07:59Over a hundred years before,
08:01Garavik had flown a lone shuttle mission to the planet
08:04to attempt to resolve an unknown problem
08:06without the inhabitants' knowledge.
08:08His shuttle, the Galileo, crashed instead.
08:11Doing his duty, he went to warn the population
08:13of the danger that the damaged Galileo,
08:15now leaking warp plasma, posed.
08:17Before his death, the heroic Ensign did everything in his power
08:20to prevent the inhabitants from falling victim
08:23to what they interpreted as the Curse of the Gallows.
08:26His actions no doubt saved countless lives
08:28before the arrival of the protostar,
08:30whose crew were able to find a definitive solution to the curse.
08:34Going out saving the day is a much better end for the character,
08:37who appeared quite significantly in one episode of the original series
08:41and then was never seen again.
08:43Number 4.
08:43When did he not?
08:45Harry Kim
08:46Poor old Harry Kim.
08:47The archetype of the unsung hero, Ensign.
08:50He saw his jailbird friend demoted and promoted back
08:53without the whiff of a little box on his console.
08:55Seven years is a long time at the bottom,
08:57even if he was senior staff.
08:59But it was a small ship,
09:00and if Harry got a pip, then everyone would want one.
09:03The times Ensign Kim saved the day,
09:05or was a major part of it, are Legion.
09:07They may outnumber the times he died.
09:09For example,
09:10when Voyager is duplicated by a subspace divergence field,
09:13Kim Mark II runs through a ship full of Vidians to get the then-newborn Naomi Wildman
09:19and cross over to the original Voyager.
09:21When he gets to sickbay, he phases one Vidian almost immediately
09:24and performs an epic forward roll move that allows him to shoot the other.
09:28He rescues the baby and, by extension, saves himself.
09:31All the while, his counterpart, technically speaking the real Harry,
09:35is presumably still floating through space.
09:38He deserves a mention simply for retaining his sanity.
09:41Weird really is part of the job.
09:43Later, when Kim gets a taste of command,
09:45he saves Captain Janeway and Chakotay in the nick of time from Cronerworks,
09:49torts down a smart bomb, although he did argue to bring it on board,
09:53gets a reality check on the Nightingale,
09:55and helps rescue an amnesiac crew with some explosive escape pods.
09:59Number 3
10:00Lower Decks! Lower Decks! Lower Decks!
10:03Ensigns Mariner, Boimler, Tendi, and Rutherford.
10:06It was about time they got their own series.
10:09After all, Lower Decks of the Next Generation was first broadcast in 1994.
10:13There was an episode of Voyager with similar intent, but they were all crewmen.
10:17Now aboard the Cali Class, we see just how often the Ensigns save the day,
10:21or, to phrase it more in the style of the show itself,
10:24the number of times they kick Impossible's arse.
10:26For the most part, not yet tired or jaded by the rigours of rank and command,
10:31or precisely to avoid it in one case,
10:33Ensigns Mariner, Boimler, Rutherford, and Tendi have repeatedly innovated their way out of danger.
10:39Either collectively or individually, they have helped cure a zombie rage virus,
10:43defeated Romulan guards, and uncovered spy plots.
10:46They have fended off the Pakled, the Drukhmani, and Billups' mum,
10:50outsmarted a megalomaniacal computer,
10:53compromised with the Ferengi with clever economics,
10:55and generally saved each other's lives countless times.
10:58In the Season 2 finale, First First Contact,
11:01Mariner inspires Rutherford with the plan to remove the outer hull of the Cerritos,
11:06and the entire crew then work around the clock to save the Archimedes from crashing into an inhabited planet.
11:11Tendi also saves Boimler with Cetacean Ops CPR.
11:14Again, in the Season 3 finale, all three are crucial to saving the day.
11:18They prove that Starfleet needs people,
11:21especially as Ensigns are not a bunch of machines to ensure its mission.
11:25Let's just hope that history doesn't really remember Boimler as
11:28the laziest, most corner-cutting officer in Starfleet.
11:31Number 2. A Dutiful Sacrifice, Ensign Cito
11:34Cito Jaxa got off to a bad start in her Starfleet career.
11:38At the Academy, she was part of the cadet flight team Nova Squadron,
11:42which included Wesley Crusher.
11:44The group had attempted an illegal and highly dangerous Colvord Starburst manoeuvre
11:48that ended in disaster and the death of fellow cadet Joshua Albert.
11:52Cito and the others then lied to a board of inquiry
11:54in an attempt to cover up the cause of the accident,
11:57and shift the blame to Albert until the truth was finally revealed.
12:01All but the squadron leader, Nicholas Locarno,
12:03Tom Paris in another life,
12:05were allowed to continue at the Academy,
12:07but obliged to repeat the year.
12:08There's nothing like a redemption story, however,
12:11and this one stands out both in its heroism and tragic consequences.
12:15The next time we encounter Cito is as an Ensign
12:17and original Lower Decker aboard the Enterprise-D.
12:20After a dress-down fake-out from Picard,
12:23it is in fact he who ensured her transfer,
12:25and an equally fictitious to-the-death Klingon ritual,
12:28Cito learns that she has, in truth, been assigned to the mission
12:31to ensure the safe return of the Cardassian-defector Jorette Dahl to Cardassia Prime.
12:37Even given the enormous risks,
12:38and of course the history between Bajorans and Cardassians,
12:41Cito accepts.
12:42The mission succeeds as Jorette makes it back,
12:45but Cito's escape pod is destroyed in the process,
12:47and she is presumed dead.
12:49As Picard says in a solemn ship-wide announcement,
12:52Ensign Cito was the finest example of a Starfleet officer.
12:55All aboard, and especially her friends are devastated by her loss.
12:59Number 1. Dicey Dyson Sphere Driving Ensign Rhaegar
13:03The Next Generation episode, Relics,
13:05is most remembered for the reappearance of Captain Montgomery's Scotty Scott
13:09via a little transporter wizardry.
13:11It equally features an on-screen realisation of an actual theoretical concept,
13:16a Dyson Sphere,
13:17a gigantic structure that encompasses an entire star to utilise its power,
13:21and not the latest model of a certain type of vacuum cleaner.
13:24When the Enterprise-D is accidentally pulled into the Dyson Sphere
13:27by an automated mechanism,
13:28the ship's power systems are knocked out,
13:30and it begins to fall directly towards the star inside.
13:33Rhaeker manages to divert some powers to thrusters,
13:36but it is Ensign Rhaegar at the helm who manoeuvres the ship into a stable orbit,
13:40thus avoiding total destruction.
13:42Later, LaForge and Scotty hatch the plan to free the Enterprise
13:45using the latter's ship, the USS Janolin, as a doorstop.
13:49However, it is the exceptional flying skills of Ensign Rhaegar
13:52that once again save the day.
13:54When the Janolin is destroyed,
13:55the doors of the Dyson Sphere begin to close.
13:58Rhaegar performs a magnificent 90-degree roll at breakneck speed,
14:02and she does so with such calm composure
14:04that it makes this seriously advanced bit of flying look effortless.
14:07The Enterprise squeezes through the ever-narrowing opening and escapes the sphere.
14:11Ensign Rhaegar, you are a legend.
14:13We don't really see if anyone congratulated you,
14:16as it's back to the Engineers for some ego-stroking,
14:18but we sure hope someone did.
14:20And that concludes our list.
14:21If you think we missed any, then do let us know in the comments below,
14:24and while you're there, don't forget to like and subscribe
14:27and tap that notification bell so you never miss a Trek Culture video again.
14:31Also, head over to Twitter and follow us there and Instagram as well,
14:34and I can be found across various social medias just by searching Ellie Littlechild.
14:38I've been Ellie with Trek Culture.
14:39I hope you have a wonderful day,
14:41and remember to boldly go where no one has gone before.
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