Barbara McCoy

For other uses, see Barbara.

See McCoy for other articles with titles that contain, either by relationship or by coincidence, this character's surname.

This character is a member of the McCoy family.

Doctor Barbara McCoy was a Human woman, the daughter of Leonard McCoy. She was a xenozoologist and assistant professor at Urey University in the 23rd century and served briefly aboard the USS Enterprise in 2266.

Biography[]

Barbara's mother "wasn't cut out to be a starship doctor's wife" and "couldn't stand starship life" according to Leonard McCoy, which suggests that Barbara was born after her father joined Starfleet, or at least after he had spent some time aboard a Starfleet vessel. (TOS comics: "Furlough to Fury", "World Beneath the Waves")

If Leonard's daughter Joanna McCoy was born before Leonard joined Starfleet, and Barbara was born after Leonard joined Starfleet, then Barbara is apparently a wholly separate character from Joanna McCoy.

As McCoy only divorced once, McCoy's two daughters apparently shared a mother, Jocelyn Treadway.

After her parents divorced, Barbara was sent to a boarding school, which she resented, keeping a grudge against her father and others in uniform.

Barbara graduated from college in 2263.

Barbara worked as a xenozoologist at Urey University on Earth in 2266, where she was adept at working alongside many different animals, including the telepathic ursid-like vrell and a giant Ryunian octopus. In fact, she cultivated Solithian asparagus at the university just for the vrell. She was apparently well-known and respected locally, as state security officer Colonel Mitchum recognized her by name as "the freak-animal doctor" and was trusted to intercede in an incident where the vrell had killed a man and caused a great deal of destruction to public areas. Barbara suggested she might meet James T. Kirk again when she did her university extraterrestrial studies. (TOS comic: "Furlough to Fury")

Later that year, Barbara was assigned to the USS Enterprise in command of a Starfleet mission to Bwuja with the role of chief xenozoologist. She had written a paper on "the adaptability of intelligent life to severe environmental change," and trained three weeks underwater to prepare for the mission. When she arrived, she was still bitter enough about her parents’ divorce to receive a warning from Captain Kirk not to let it interfere with the operation of the ship. But she was deeply affected by the plight of the royal family on Bwuja, which kept their children separated from their parents, and the experience led her to bond with her father and resolve their differences. (TOS comic: "World Beneath the Waves")

Appendices[]

Appearances[]

TOS comic: "Furlough to Fury"
TOS comic: "World Beneath the Waves"

Background[]

Barbara having graduated in 2263 would make her about 25 years old at the time of this story. That suggests a birth year of around 2241. That is consistent with TOS story editor D.C. Fontana's premise that Leonard McCoy was 45 or 46 years old in 2268 and could have a daughter that old. (These Are the Voyages, Season 3, pages 545-549). It's also consistent with McCoy's biography in TOS reference: The Making of Star Trek, page 240, a reference available to the writers of this story, in which McCoy was described as being 45 years old and having a 21-year-old daughter named Joanna. However, it's inconsistent with Leonard McCoy's later established biography of being born in 2227. For her to be 25 in this story, rather than a young teenager, she would have had to experience some sort of temporal disruption.