- For other uses, see Helen.
- See Gordon for other articles with titles that contain, either by relationship or by coincidence, this character's surname.
Dr. Helen H. Gordon was a 23rd century Human woman, an anthropologist from the Federation's Xenological Research Institute.
Biography[]
She grew up in domes on Mars, then went to college on Delta Cygnus. She had an innate desire to understand how alien cultures operated. She was tall, nearly 5' 10", with hazel-green eyes and black hair. She was perceptive, astute, and occasionally frivolous. She liked bagpipe music.
By the year 2268, she was 24 years old and recently completed her doctorate in anthropology. She'd prioritized studies over relationships, though she'd had a few boyfriends. While traveling, she read interstellar field anthropology textbooks.
In 2268, the Federation starship USS Enterprise brought her and teammates Dr. Mei Chu and Dr. Nomias Gzin to Midgwis to join three other scientists studying the culture of the foraging humanoid Midgwins. During the voyage, she and Captain James T. Kirk became quite close. She chose to spend her last night aboard the ship with Kirk, eventually deciding to pursue their relationship and not go to Midgwis. Instead, Gordon would enlist in Starfleet when the ship reached Starbase 9, then serve aboard the Enterprise.
However, tragedy stuck when Kirk beamed back from his final trip to Midgwis — his consciousness was displaced from his body by Midgwin telepath Yarblis Geshkerroth. Gordon quickly realized that Kirk wasn't Kirk when Geshkerroth slept with her, then attempted to murder her, but the disembodied Kirk had survived and was able to rouse aid to rescue her. After Kirk's consciousness was installed in the Enterprise computer core, and the ship returned to Midgwis, Gordon told Midgwin patriarch Kailin Arxoras about the fanatic Geshkerroth's attempt to use the ship's phaser banks to destroy their homeland to fabricate proof Starfleet was bad for Midgwis.
Gordon had a chance to see Geshkerroth after his mind was back in his own body. Recognizing particular small movements and twitches as those she'd seen in Kirk, she was creepily disturbed. While she understood that Kirk wasn't to blame, she also couldn't bare to look at him any more, and remained on Midgwis when the ship left. Geshkerroth's punishment was exile from his culture's hive mind. He sought her forgiveness, and after she gave it, soon committed suicide.
Gordon later translated and wrote the introduction to the Oxford University Press textbook Songs of the Midgwins. (TOS novel: Ghost-Walker)