- For other uses, see Ulysses.
Ulysses was a human from ancient history, a celebrated adventurer and explorer from the planet Earth.
Background[]
Ulysses lived in the time of Ancient Greece and the Trojan War. His exploits were recounted by Homer in the Iliad and the Odyssey, and by Alfred, Lord Tennyson in the poem Ulysses.
He was known as Ulysses in Rome and Odysseus in Greece.
He was the son of Laertes. He had a wife named Penelope and son named Telemachus. Autolycos was his maternal grandfather. Personal friends included Eumaios, a pig farmer, and Euryclea, his wet-nurse. (TNG novel: Gulliver's Fugitives)
Several Federation starships were named after him, including the USS Ulysses (Galaxy-class). He also had a planet and two classes of starships named in his honor: Ulysses class and Odysseus class.
History[]
It took Ulysses and his crew ten years to return home after the events of the Trojan War. His vessel sailed to the Land of the Lotus Eaters, where his crew refused to travel further. Ulysses survived encounters with Aeolus, cannibals, Charybdis, the Cyclops, Scylla and Sirens. These challenges were orchestrated by omnipotent Beings, including Zeus. (TOS comic: "What Fools These Mortals Be..")
In the year 2267, the USS Enterprise discovered Zeus, Aeolus and four other Beings. They resided in Mount Olympus, but had opened a dimensional warp to a planetoid and reformed it to resemble Ancient Greece. The Beings challenged James T. Kirk, Leonard McCoy, and Spock to survive the confrontations Ulysses had faced millennia ago, which the landing party recognized from the Odyssey. (TOS comic: "What Fools These Mortals Be..")
In 2267, Christopher Pike recalled the challenges faced by Odysseus. (TOS novel: Burning Dreams)
In 2268, Lorelei was able to control people through a sort of "sonic brainwashing." Kirk, Spock and McCoy blocked out her voice with jeweler's wax. McCoy commented that the tactic had worked for Odysseus. (TOS novel: Mutiny on the Enterprise)
In 2273, when recalling that Odysseus had traveled the "underworld," Spock considered that the written descriptions weren't meant to be taken literally. (TOS novel: Ex Machina)
In 2285, Montgomery Scott remarked that nobody would remember SSL-1833-VI, but they would remember the name Ulysses. The sixth planet of the Homer system had been named for Ulysses. (TOS short story: "A Vulcan, A Klingon, and an Angel")
In 2365, a holographic simulation of Homer thought of Ulysses as a builder, an engineer, because he'd designed the Trojan horse. (TNG novel: A Call to Darkness)
In 2366, on the planet Rampart, Deanna Troi befriended Powell, a Dissenter who had modeled his personality after Odysseus. He maintained the persona using a method actor approach, by surrounding his home with illustrations of the Cyclops, the Trojan horse, and a Homeric ship. He splashed water on his face to add to the sensation of being at sea. He lifted rocks to build his physique. He projected confidence, an indomitable will and inner strength. Powell was killed by fifty one-eye robots.
Later, Troi had a waking dream in which a band of Other-worlders assaulted CephCom, the headquarters of Cephalic Security in the city of Verity. In the dream, as survivors were being rescued after the assault, Troi had frozen into a stone statue. She caught sight of Powell but realized that he looked different, wore different clothes, and was not Powell. Instead, he was the actual Odysseus from Homer's Odyssey. He knew she was a petrified person and knew how to free her, by warming the stone with touch. He squeezed her wrists, shoulders, cheek and hair, and she felt herself coming back to life. When she recovered, she awoke from the dream to find herself alone on the surface of Rampart. (TNG novel: Gulliver's Fugitives)
Also in 2366, after exposure to a white hole, Geordi La Forge recreated Sirens on the holodeck. William T. Riker recognized the scenario as that when Odysseus tied himself to a mast so as to resist the Siren's song. (TNG comic: "I Have Heard the Mermaids Singing")
In 2370, while traveling in the shuttle within the Dyson Sphere, Jean-Luc Picard was reminded of Odysseus. (TNG novel: Dyson Sphere)
In 2373, Harry Kim described Odysseus' encounter with the Sirens to Neelix. (VOY episode: "Favorite Son")
In 2374, Chakotay recalled that Odysseus was sometimes called "The Trickster." (VOY - String Theory novel: Cohesion)
In 2376, Zeus reflected back on the time when Ulysses and others had first explored the oceans, comparing it to the path chosen by Mark McHenry. (NF novel: Gods Above)
In 2381, Commander Christine Vale showed holoprograms of Odysseus' adventures to the ship's command staff during their approach to the planet Droplet. (TTN novel: Over a Torrent Sea)
Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote the poem Ulysses as a first-person memoir of an elderly Ulysses. In 2383, Benjamin Sisko read Ulysses when the medical equipment that had been keeping Elias Vaughn alive for two years was deactivated. (ST - Typhon Pact novel: Raise the Dawn)
Appendices[]
References[]
- TOS comic: "What Fools These Mortals Be.."
- TOS novel: Mutiny on the Enterprise
- TOS novel: Burning Dreams
- TOS novel: Ex Machina
- TNG novel: Gulliver's Fugitives
- TNG novel: A Call to Darkness
- TNG novel: Dyson Sphere
- TNG comic: "I Have Heard the Mermaids Singing"
- VOY episode: "Favorite Son"
- VOY novel: String Theory #1: Cohesion
- TTN novel: Over a Torrent Sea
- NF novel: Gods Above
- ST - Typhon Pact novel: Raise the Dawn
External links[]
- Ulysses (person) article at Memory Alpha, the wiki for canon Star Trek.
- Ulysses (person) at Wikipedia.
- Ulysses (Tennyson's poem) at Wikipedia.
- Ulysses (person) in the Odyssey at Wikipedia.