Sela
From Memory Alpha, the free Star Trek reference
 Sela | |
| Gender: | Female |
| Species: | Romulan/Human hybrid |
| Affiliation: | Romulan Star Empire |
| Rank: | Commander |
| Born: | 2345 |
| Father: | Romulan general |
| Mother: | Natasha Yar |
| Played by: | Denise Crosby |
Commander Sela was a Romulan-Human hybrid; her mother was Lieutenant Natasha Yar of the USS Enterprise-D from an alternate timeline, while her father was a Romulan general.
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[edit] Events leading to birth
In 2344, a temporal rift transported the USS Enterprise-C to the year 2366. The starship had been in the process of answering a distress call from Narendra III, a Klingon outpost that was under attack by the Romulans. With the Enterprise-C absent from its original timeline, hostilities continued between the Federation and the Klingon Empire, resulting in open war from the early to late 24th century. In this timeline, Natasha Yar had not been killed at Vagra II and continued to serve in Starfleet. When the Enterprise-C returned to its correct position in the timeline, Yar traveled with them, knowing that to remain in 2366 would result in her dying a senseless death. (TNG: "Yesterday's Enterprise")
[edit] Early life
When the Enterprise-C returned to its original timeline, it was destroyed. Yar and several other crew members survived and were taken prisoner by the Romulans. Yar agreed to become the consort of a Romulan in exchange for the other crew members being spared from execution. One year later, the couple bore a child, Sela. In 2349, Yar tried to escape from Romulus and attempted to take Sela with her. Unfortunately, Sela called out when she recognized she was being taken from her father. Consequently, Yar was executed and Sela was henceforth raised completely Romulan. (TNG: "Redemption II")
[edit] Military career
Over the next fifteen years, Sela rose to the position of commander in the Romulan military. By 2367, she was a high-ranking officer and was involved in the kidnapping of Geordi La Forge for the plot to assassinate Klingon governor Vagh of Krios. She also organized the Romulan support of the Duras sisters during the Klingon Civil War, when her existence and the alternate timeline created by the Enterprise-C was revealed to the Federation. (TNG: "The Mind's Eye", "Redemption", "Redemption II")
Sela was encountered again later in 2368, when she masterminded the Romulan plan to invade Vulcan in collaboration with Proconsul Neral and Senator Pardek. Once she had lured Ambassador Spock to Romulus, Sela created a holographic replica of Spock to provide a cover for the Romulan invasion force. Unfortunately, she under-estimated Spock's ability to access the Romulan computers, allowing her prisoners to create a holographic diversion and escape. This led to the failure of her venture. (TNG: "Unification I", "Unification II")
[edit] Appendices
[edit] Background
Sela was devised and played by Denise Crosby. In devising the role, Crosby stated, "the part of Sela sort of came about from me sitting around in my house one day thinking about how much fun it was for me to go back and do "Yesterday's Enterprise", and it was so much fun that I thought what else can I do? I thought it was pretty well established that Lt. Yar and Lt. Castillo on "Yesterday's Enterprise" had something going so perhaps they had a child or Yar was pregnant when she went back into the past to fight her final battle. And I sort of thought it out and it seemed to really make sense, and there were no flaws."
"So my original intention was that Lt. Yar would have a daughter that was raised by Romulans and would grow up to try to actually be a Romulan. So I brought this up and the producers really liked the idea and they sort of toyed with it for a while. A few months went by and I got a call and they said we like your idea but we just can't make sense of that Lt. Yar got pregnant by Castillo. We'll have it so that Yar was captured, they didn't all die in the battle, the ship was captured and she was taken by a Romulan general." (Trek: The Next Generation Crew Book)
Sela has the distinction of being the first (and only) blond Romulan seen in Star Trek. This is due to the fact that her mother is a Human with blond hair.
Though Sela states how Tasha, her mother, died when she was four for trying to escape, Picard is completely unconvinced that her story is true, and insists it won't affect his judgment in any way. Sela's story is supported by Guinan, who retains memories from the alternate timeline shown in "Yesterday's Enterprise". Romulans are however, known throughout Star Trek – though with several exceptions – for their duplicity. If this is so, and Sela was lying, her mother, Tasha may in fact either still be alive or had died for another reason.
[edit] Apocrypha
Sela returned to plague Captain Jean-Luc Picard and company several more times in the Star Trek novels, notably in Peter David's books Triangle: Imzadi II, in which she attempted to trick Thomas Riker into releasing a nanovirus that would destroy the entire Klingon population on their homeworld; the plan was thwarted by the intervention of William T. Riker, Worf and Odo. Another notable return was in book five of the Double Helix series Double or Nothing. In the book The Romulan Stratagem, Sela forms an alliance with Data to uncover the truth about a series of disastrous events that cast suspicion on both the Romulans and the Federation.
Sela also appeared, with the rank of admiral, in the computer game Star Trek: Armada. Further, in the comic book miniseries The Killing Shadows by Scott Ciencin and Andrew Currie, Sela resurfaces as an exile from Romulus, serving alongside Picard on the planet Nydaris in common cause against a race of ninja-like assassins called the Bodai Shin.
[edit] External link
- Sela at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
