St. John Talbot was a human who lived in the 23rd century. Sometimes he would address himself formally as "Singeon" Talbot, (ie: St. Clair = Sinclair). This is the traditional British pronunciation of the name St. John; he also spoke with an English accent. A diplomat, Talbot was stationed on Nimbus III as the United Federation of Planets representative to that world.
Early life[]
Talbot was born to wealthy parents and led a charmed and precocious life. Talbot was rich, brilliant, talented and handsome. He was sent to the best schools and had the goal of entering the Federation Diplomatic Service. He was admitted without a hitch.
Early diplomatic career[]
Talbot started his career as a diplomat in 2260. He had successfully handled a half a dozen hostage negotiations and eventually negotiated a treaty between Capella and Xenar, preventing an interstellar war. This treaty earned Talbot the Surakian Peace Prize and an assignment to Andor where he worked closely with the female governor of Laikan. Talbot was known as one of the most, if not the most respected diplomats in the Federation service. "Not a drop of blood shed" was his motto.
The Andor capital city of Laikan had a large population disaffected immigrants, most of them were miners from the neighboring system of Charulh who had lived on Andor for seven generations. The Andorians were not very hospitable to outworlders which caused some friction between the Charulhans and the Andorians. In 2280 a small group of Charulhans attempted to force the Andorians to allow them to have a voice in the government by taking several influential citizens hostage. This included the son of Laikan's governor. Talbot, believing himself to be in the top of his form, refused any cultural advisers. He sent a message intended to defuse the situation. However, thanks to Talbot's limited knowledge of Charulhan culture, the message had the opposite effect and insulted the hostage takers. The immediate response was to kill the Governor's only son and dump his body on the road outside of Talbot's office. The human diplomat was the first to find the child's body, and the first to inform the mother. It was Talbot's first failure.
- Laikan was not mentioned by name in the novelization. It was refereed to as the Andorian capital city.
Nimbus III[]
In the wake of the failed Andorian mission, Talbot found that he had fallen out of favor within the Federation. Broken by his experiences, he began drinking heavily, and was unhappy with his new assignment to Nimbus III. Talbot preferred to drink Romulan ale because it was stronger and it would help him forget his mistakes on Andor. It also allowed him to kill himself slowly since he was too much of a coward to kill himself outright.
In 2287, the Vulcan renegade Sybok raised a force which he called the Galactic Army of Light, and raided Paradise City. In the process Sybok captured Talbot, the Klingon representative Korrd, and the newly arrived Romulan representative Caithlin Dar. Along with the others, Sybok forced Talbot to face his deepest pain, and in gratitude Talbot willingly followed Sybok on his mission to the center of the galaxy. Talbot, along with his fellow diplomats, captured James T. Kirk and his rescue team allowing Sybok to gain access to the USS Enterprise-A. Talbot accompanied Sybok onto the Enterprise and on his quest to find Sha Ka Ree. When Sybok had sacrificed himself to save those on the Enterprise, Talbot and the other delegates swore to work together to improve conditions on Nimbus III. (TOS movie: Star Trek V: The Final Frontier)
Alternate timeline[]
In an alternate timeline created by Spock's death in 2237, Saavik (who had become a diplomat instead of a scientist) served an internship as an aide to Talbot on Nimbus III at the request of Ambassador Sarek at some point prior to March 2285. (TOS - Myriad Universes novel: The Chimes at Midnight)
External link[]
- St. John Talbot article at Memory Alpha, the wiki for canon Star Trek.