Travis Mayweather
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On Star Trek: Enterprise, Travis Mayweather is a navigator and helm officer on board the Earth starship Enterprise (NX-01). He was born in 2126 aboard the ECS Horizon, a human J-class cargo ship, and later visited many places such as Trillius Prime, Draylax, Vega Colony and both Tenebian moons. He is a "boomer", meaning he grew up in space on board cargo ships. This also means that he has more experience in space than the captain of the Enterprise, Jonathan Archer. Mayweather is a quiet and enthusiastic young man who is a highly skilled pilot and has some spelunking experience.
Travis Mayweather has at least one brother, Paul Mayweather, who became the captain of the ECS Horizon after the death of their father - the ship's previous captain - in January 2153. Their mother, Rianna Mayweather, was the ship's medic and chief engineer. Travis returns home to the Horizon circa January 10, 2153 while the Horizon was heading to the Deneva colony. While heading to Deneva Station, the Horizon was attacked by pirates but Travis Mayweather's experience with weapons from Starfleet allowed the Horizon to defend herself against her attackers. In 2155, Travis Mayweather holds the rank of Ensign and is in the command division.
Over the course of the series, Travis has been injured, incapacitated or even "killed" more times than any other character in the primary cast.
When Star Trek: Enterprise was first conceived, Travis Mayweather was intended to be a lieutenant, due to his experience in space. His rank was changed to ensign because the producers thought that having Mayweather and the older Lieutenant Malcolm Reed at a similar rank wouldn't be believable. In the final episode of Enterprise it is indicated that both Mayweather and Hoshi Sato are still ensigns despite having served aboard the NX-01 for ten years. The reason for this has yet to be chronicled, although it is not unheard of for Starfleet personnel to serve for extended periods of time without promotion, such as Harry Kim who remained an ensign for the entire seven years of Star Trek: Voyager; the demotion of Tom Paris in that series also sets precedent for an as-yet unchronicled incident that may have had a bearing on the two officers' ranks.
Mirror Universe
In the two-part episode "In a Mirror, Darkly" we learn that the Mirror Universe version of Travis Mayweather is a sergeant in the MACO corps. He eventually allies himself with the Mirror Hoshi Sato in her attempt to take over the Terran Empire.
Criticism
Fan criticism about the under-use of minor characters on Enterprise began during the first season, but Mayweather has always been regarded as having received the worst treatment. The executive producers had long declared their intention to build up a new "big three" core character set of Archer, T'Pol, and Tucker, to mimic the previously successful Kirk-Spock-McCoy mechanic on the Original Series. This was tried previously on Star Trek: Voyager, with Janeway, Seven of Nine and The Doctor reigning over the Voyager crew; this coincided with a steady drop in the quality of the series, and has been widely derided as a poor decision. Despite this, Star Trek's producers attempted to recreate the Big Three on Enterprise, and though Phlox received a certain amount of screentime (probably due to the charisma of his character), Reed, Hoshi, and Mayweather were the subject of few (if any) storylines devoted to them, and sometimes even lacked dialogue.
When Enterprise began, many critics, and the fanbase as a whole, expressed fears that he would become another "Harry Kim," a main character on Voyager whose underuse became legendary. Unfortunately, Mayweather surpassed the precedent set by Kim, and has replaced him in the Star Trek lexicon as the archetypal example of a useless and underdeveloped character. In four seasons, Mayweather only had two episodes devoted to himself, and he only had significant dialogue in a half dozen. Eventually it came to the point that Mayweather had few if any speaking lines in any episode (even including throwaway acknowledgement such as "Aye, sir"), and recurring characters like Shran were developed and characterized more than he ever was.
Ironically, Mayweather and Sato, widely viewed as the characters with the least amount of dialogue and screen time in the 'normal' version of Star Trek: Enterprise, seemed poised to take power over the Mirror Universe at the end of "In a Mirror, Darkly (Part II)". With greater irony, Travis and Hoshi eliminated Mirror-Archer without saying a word, just silently kissing as he lay dying.
External links
- "Travis Mayweather" at Memory Alpha (http://www.memory-alpha.org/en/index.php/Travis_Mayweather)
- STARTREK.COM: Travis Mayweather (http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/series/ENT/character/1122657.html)it:Travis Mayweather