John Harriman
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In the fictional universe of Star Trek, John Harriman was the captain of the USS Enterprise-B. In 2293, Harriman commanded the new Enterprise on its maiden voyage out of the Earth spacedock with a full complement of reporters from the various news outfits of the Federation, as well as veteran Enterprise officers Captains James T. Kirk and Montgomery Scott, and Commander Pavel Chekov.
What was supposed to be an uneventful tour of the solar system turned deadly serious, and then tragic when it received a distress call from two El-Aurian refugee transports caught in the gravimetric forces of a mysterious energy ribbon. Despite the Enterprise's being sorely under-equipped and undermanned (it had not yet been outfitted with a tractor beam and photon torpedoes, and the medical staff had not yet arrived), Captain Harriman ordered the ship to intercept the transports. The Enterprise arrived too late to save one of the transports, but on Kirk's advice, Harriman moved in close enough to use the Enterprise transporters to rescue forty-seven El-Aurian refugees, including future Enterprise-D Ten-Forward hostess Guinan.
Unfortunately the Enterprise herself was caught in the ribbon. When it was determined that a specially-configured burst from the main deflector would disrupt the ribbon long enough for the ship to escape, Harriman volunteered to do the modifications but was overridden by Kirk, who went below decks to do the necessary modifications. Kirk was successful, and the Enterprise escaped but not before a large energy tendril lopped off a portion of the stardrive section, including the area where Kirk was. Kirk was lost in the incident and presumed dead.
While Captain Harriman was derisively considered by many to be the incompetent captain who killed Kirk, his actions testify to the contrary. As a young commander caught in the middle of a media frenzy, he decided to launch a rescue, despite his ship's condition. And when the moment came, he was courageous enough to take advice from an experienced officer, and as a result, forty-seven lives were saved.
It's not known for sure what Captain Harriman's ultimate fate was. The new Star Trek book series The Lost Era, while not canon, indicated that Harriman remained in command of the Enterprise for many years and developed a reputation as an excellent and capable officer.
In Star Trek: Generations, Harriman was played by Alan Ruck.
The game Star Trek: Starship Creator by Simon and Schuster Interactive has Captain Harriman as one of the characters that can be assigned to one of the various positions on ships that players build. In a nod to Alan Ruck's role on Ferris Bueller's Day Off, the game lists Harriman as a native of Chicago, Illinois with a wife named Sophie, a son named Ferris, and 20th Century sports cars as one of his hobbies.
External links
- Template:Memoryalpha
- Official biography of John Harriman (http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/library/character/bio/1118509.html)