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REG BARCLAY'S |
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REG BARCLAY'S |
 Barclay in a corridor of USS Enterprise-D |
Reginald Barclay (full name Reginald Endicott Barclay III) is a Starfleet systems diagnostic engineer. He served aboard USS Zhukov NCC-62136 under Captain Gleason, and in 2366 transfers to USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D under Captain Jean-Luc Picard. |
Barclay is first seen on Star Trek in [TNG], specifically Season Three's story [TNG: Hollow Pursuits] in which, although a very talented engineer his timidity and awkwardness in social situations is first seen. He seems to have no friends. According to his superior officer, La Forge, "Barclay, well, he's always late, the man's nervous, nobody wants to be around this guy." His nervousness makes him stammer. His increasingly successful career in Starfleet sees him gradually overcoming his diffidence and gaining friends (in particular La Forge and Deanna Troi). In the unrealised timeline of the early 25th century depicted in [#171 and #172 Endgame], he has eventually gained full self-confidence (and the rank of Commander). The stories in which Barclay features deal with, among other things, this development toward self-confidence.
 Barclay on the holodeck
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In [TNG: Hollow Pursuits], stardate 43807.4, Reginald Barclay (Lieutenant, Junior Grade), nicknamed "Broccoli" by the crew, is a diffident man with poor social skills. Guinan reports that when he is in Ten Forward he stands at the bar, does not say much and orders a warm milk. Barclay deals with his shyness by retreating inside the Enterprise-D's holodeck where he re-created images of certain crewmembers in fictional settings whose parameters his programming controlled. After Barclay messed up an antigrav repair diagnosis, Captain Picard tells the ship's Chief Engineer Geordi La Forge, Barclay's head of department, to find Barclay's main strengths and bring them out. Wandering into the holodeck, La Forge discovers Barclay's holodiction (holo-addiction) and his fantasy programs which range from the seduction of Deanna Troi to Barclay program 15 in which La Forge, Data and Picard are cast as Three Musketeers whose swordplay are no match for Barclay's own while Troi is cast as the erotic Goddess of Empathy. |
 Barclay bests musketeer Picard |
 musketeers Data, Picard and La Forge |
 the Goddess of Empathy |
La Forge dissuades Barclay from applying for a transfer off the ship.
Barclay to La Forge: "The whole ship knows I just can't cut it here. When I'm in there [the holodeck], I'm just more comfortable. You don't know what a struggle this has been for me, Commander, being afraid all of the time, forgetting somebody's name, not knowing what to do with your hands. I mean, I am the guy who writes down things to remember to say when there's a party and then when he finally gets there he winds up alone in the corner trying to look comfortable examining a potted plant. Just shy, sounds like nothing serious, doesn't it. You can't know." Meanwhile, during a routine transport of medical samples to help stop a plague, systems such as the transporter, replicator and warp drive start showing faults. The matter-antimatter injectors freeze open, catapulting the ship forward with a sudden burst of warp speed. The ship continues to accelerate - if La Forge cannot slow it down the ship will lose structural integrity and be destroyed within minutes. Barclay realises that the problem is a little-used substance leaked from the containers of medical samples and which then spread via crewmembers to the affected ship's systems. La Forge is able to unfreeze the injectors and regain control of the ship, just in time. Barclay gains some self-confidence as the result of his performance and decides to get rid of his holodeck fantasies for good....except, and he smiles to himself, program 9. |
 Picard inadvertently addresses Barclay by the derogatory nickname "Broccoli".
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 Barclay on stage.
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In 2367, in [TNG: The Nth Degree], stardate 44704.2, we find that Barclay has moved his fantasy life out of the holodeck and into theatrical acting thanks to drama lessons from Dr Crusher, although he is still diffident. Deanna Troi tells him he has progressed: he is not acting but "interacting".
When the Enterprise-D is sent to repair the malfunctioning Argus Array telescope, they discover an alien probe near the installation. A broad-spectrum emission or energy surge from the probe knocks out La Forge and Barclay, who are in a shuttlecraft studying it. When they regain consciousness both officers seem fine, but Barclay soon begins to exhibit extraordinary insight and abilities he never had before; as the result of enhanced neurochemical activity his IQ grows to at least 1000. He describes how to destroy the probe when it grows dangerous and then how to repair the telescope in a fraction of the time he would normally need. When his brain is scanned it reveals a physical explanation for for his new abilities: he is quickly evolving into the most advanced human ever seen. The crew is nervous about his new powers, but Barclay seems innocent enough. Then the telescope's reactors begin to fail rapidly, and even Barclay cannot offer a solution. Just as the installation is about to explode, the computer goes offline then comes back online speaking with Barclay's voice - he creates and builds an innovative new computer interface system and an incredibly fast new warp drive. The mutated Barclay saves the installation then propels the ship 30,000 light-years away. Although now very worried, Picard does not want to sever Barclay's link to the computer for fear it would kill him. Suddenly the image of an alien appears. Barclay explains that an alien race, the Cytherians, study other species by transforming them using the probe and then bringing them to the Cytherian star system. In this first contact situation, the Enterprise spends ten days with the Cytherians and is then returned to Federation space. Barclay is restored to normal (and the advanced warp drive technology is lost). |
Barclay had a strong phobia of travelling by transporter and had a "mortal terror" of being dematerialised (he is not the only famous Starfleet officer to feel apprehension about transporter beaming: Dr Leonard McCoy felt the same even late in life [Star Trek: The Motion Picture]). Barclay concealed this fear to avoid jeopardising his Starfleet career, but he spent many hours travelling aboard shuttlecraft in order to avoid being beamed. He ultimately faces his greatest fears in 2369, in [TNG: Realm of Fear], stardates 46041.1 to 46093.6. The Enterprise warps to the last known location of USS Yosemite NCC-19002. Encouraged by Deanna Troi's counselling, Barclay beams over to the dead ship as part of the away team. They find an almost entirely deserted ship and a crewmember whose cause of death is a mystery. They collect fragments of a smashed container. While transporting back to the Enterprise, Barclay sees a wormlike object "swimming" in the transporter's matter stream. It rushes toward him and bites his arm. Aware of his reputation among the crew (his holodiction seen in [TNG: Hollow Pursuits] described above), Barclay keeps the story to himself, afraid that he is suffering 'transporter psychosis'.
 Picture source: ST:M. May be replaced by a screenshot from my DVD. |
But then the spot on his arm where the creature touched him begins to glow. Eventually he reports the incident to a sceptical crew. La Forge and Data determine that the Yosemite's crew beamed plasma into the container (whose fragments the away team returned with) but, unknown to the Yosemite's crew, the plasma contain quasi-matter/energy lifeforms. When the Yosemite's crew began scanning the container the lifeforms reacted and exploded the container, thus exposing the crew to high-energy plasma and wiping out all computer functions. Apparently, as Barclay beamed back, some of the lifeforms mixed with his pattern and are causing the pain in his arm. |
La Forge and Transporter Chief O'Brien (Miles Edward O'Brien later transferred to Deep Space 9) decide to cleanse Barclay's body in mid-beaming using a modified transporter, while his molecules are disassembled. Once again Barclay must confront his phobia. During the beaming, Barclay sees more of the wormlike creatures. Not only does Barclay not panic, a major step in coming to terms with his transporter phobia, but he is inspired to grab one of the creatures just as O'Brien rematerialises him. Upon rematerialisation, it turns out that the "creature" is one of the lost Yosemite crewmembers. Barclay sends a security team into the transporter to rescue the other Yosemite crew. The Yosemite's crew were also trying to cleanse themselves of the lifeforms but their patterns got caught in the plasma stream and they could not get out. For his rescue of the Yosemite crew, Barclay finds himself a hero.
Barclay helps Worf's son, Alexander Rozhenko, create a holodeck program called Ancient West just before stardate 46271, 2369, [TNG: A Fistful of Datas]. Various members of the Enterprise crew get caught up in an adventure within the program on stardates 46271.5-46278.3.
In 2369, stardate 46424.1, in [TNG: Ship in a Bottle] which is the sequel to [TNG: Elementary, My Dear Data]. Barclay searches for an error in a Sherlock Holmes holodeck adventure. The holocharacter Dr Moriarty appears and demands to know why Picard has not kept his four-year-old promise to find a way to free Moriarty from the holodeck. Shortly afterwards Picard, Data, and Barclay have a meeting with Moriarty on holodeck 3 and explain that Starfleet scientists have still not yet worked out how to make the holodeck scenario retain its cohesion once it leaves the holodeck grid. Moriarty takes matters into own hands and walks off the holodeck. The confused trio follows, not realising that they are still actually on the holodeck, which Moriarty has programmed to simulate the Enterprise. Eventually Moriarty tricks Picard into giving him the codes to take command of the ship, then demands that Riker find a way to bring him out of the holodeck.
| Picard, Data, and Barclay realise that they are still on the holodeck and concoct their own ruse: from inside Moriarty's holodeck simulation of the Enterprise, they program another simulation of the Enterprise. A short time later, a simulated Riker agrees to Moriarty's demands, beams him off the holodeck, and allows him to leave the Enterprise in a shuttlecraft. In exchange Moriarty returns control of the ship and frees Picard, Data, and Barclay. Picard stores the simulation that Moriarty is experiencing in active, so that Moriarty will live out his life believing that he actually escaped the holodeck. Behind-the-scenes: the same prop was used as the holographic module containing Moriarty as is used in [The Killing Game] when Janeway gives it to the Hirogen to keep her promise of giving them holotechnology. |  Picture source: ST:M. May be replaced by a screenshot from my DVD. |
In 2370, 47653.2, in [TNG: Genesis], the Enterprise crew carry out field tests of new tactical systems and weapons upgrades. They suffer a number of minor problems including a stray photon torpedo. Picard takes Data along to retrieve it. Data's cat, called Spot (mentioned also in [Life Line]), is found to be pregnant, thus the crew's belief hitherto that Spot was male is shown as false. Barclay is one of the few people aboard the Enterprise-D, besides Data, that Spot seems to like. (By 2376 Barclay owns a white cat, naming him Neelix after the Neelix aboard USS Voyager and whom Barclay never meets.) Meanwhile, in Picard's and Data's absence Barclay, fond of investigating the Starfleet Medical Database, convinces himself that he has contracted the rare and fatal disease called Terellian Death Syndrome. He visits sickbay where Dr Crusher diagnoses a mild case of the Urodelean flu. She prescribes a synthetic T-cell to allow his body to fight the infection as he has no natural immunity.
| Unfortunately, the T-cell causes some of Barclay's introns to mutate. These mutated introns, once airborne, affect the entire crew. People begin to exhibit odd symptoms: Barclay gets hyper, Troi becomes cold, Riker can not concentrate, and Worf becomes animalistic and withdrawn. Eventually he attacks Dr. Crusher but by now Riker and the others are too far gone to send for help. Picard and Data return to the ship to find it slowly looping unpowered through space. Data discovers that a synthetic cell (which turns out to be Barclay's) has activated crewmembers' dormant introns and changed them to various lower lifeforms. Oddly, however, Spot's kittens are born normal even though their mother is now an iguana. (Possibly that one of Dr Lewis Zimmerman's holographic pets in [Life Line] is an iguana is an in-joke, considering Barclay's presence in the story.) That clue puts Data on the research trail for a cure as Picard, who is now feeling chills himself, distracts the de-evolved and rutting Worf. Picard uses a power cable to stun the Worf-beast when he is cornered inside a Jefferies tube. Data's cure means a return to normal for everyone. Dr. Crusher names the syndrome after Barclay, its first case - Barclay's Protomorphosis Syndrome. |  Barclay de-evolves. Picture source: ST:M. |
By sometime in 2371 Barclay leaves the Enterprise-D and transfers to the Holoprogramming Center at Starfleet's Jupiter Station where he works with Dr. Lewis Zimmerman, called by Voyager's EMH "the father of holography", on the engineering team that designs Starfleet's Emergency Medical Holographic program. Barclay's job is to test the holographic doctor's interpersonal skills. In 2372, stardate 48892.1, depicted in [#17 Projections], the EMH aboard USS Voyager encounters a holographic representation of Barclay - see episode guide for [#17 Projections].
Barclay is aboard the new USS Enterprise (USS Enterprise NCC-1701-E), again under the command of Captain Picard, in 2373. In [Star Trek: First Contact], stardate 50893.5, the Enterprise-E ends up in Earth's past, in 2063, in Montana. They manage to thwart the Borg's attempt to both assimilate Earth in the 21st century and also to prevent humanity's First Contact with the Vulcans (the first step towards the United Federation of Planets). Barclay is part of alpha team which helps repair the Phoenix on Earth. The Enterprise crew meets Zefram Cochrane, the inventor of warp drive technology, and they help to restore the timeline by assisting him in repairing and equipping the Phoenix, whose first warp test-flight shortly afterwards attracts the attention of a passing Vulcan spacecraft, so initiating First Contact. Zefram Cochrane is one of Barclay's heroes, and the overawed Barclay gets to meet him.
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| Barclay meets Zefram Cochrane, inventor of the warp drive, and shakes his hand. | ||
Presumably Barclay, along with other Enterprise crew, is in the watching crowd when Cochrane makes first contact with the Vulcans, before returning, along with the rest of the Enterprise crew, to the correct time and place in 2373.
A 3D cutaway drawing of the Phoenix cockpit can be seen under the entry for year 2063 in CHRONOLOGY BEFORE U.S.S. VOYAGER ARRIVES IN THE DELTA QUADRANT with special reference to people and events in [Star Trek: Voyager].
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