Benjamin Finney

File:Ben Finney.jpg

Ben Finney in 2267.

Benjamin "Ben" Finney was a Human officer in the Federation Starfleet in the mid-23rd Century, and an early friend of James T. Kirk. As a Lieutenant Commander in 2267, he served as records officer aboard the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701).

As a young officer, Finney spent an unusually long period as an instructor at Starfleet Academy, a circumstance that frustrated his ambitions. Finney loved the service, and hoped to command his own starship in the future. In the early 2250s, he met and befriended a young midshipman, James Kirk. The two became such close friends that Finney named his daughter Jame after Kirk. Letters sent home to his wife described their friendship and his esteem for the junior officer. When Finney was finally assigned to a starship, aboard the USS Republic (NCC-1371), Ensign Kirk joined him.

At one point in their tour the friends shared the same engineering duties. On one occasion, when Kirk relieved Finney from his watch, he noticed a circuit open to the atomic-matter piles when it should have been closed. If left unattended another few minutes, the error could have destroyed the Republic. Ensign Kirk closed the circuit, but was bound to report the mistake in his log. As a result, Finney was reprimanded and fell to the bottom of the promotions list. His career, all ready lagging behind from his extended instructor stint, was dealt a crushing blow that made a chance for starship command highly unlikely.

In the following decade Kirk became a rising star in the fleet, while Finney nursed his grudge into a (concealed) paranoid madness. Though their friendship was effectively over, Finney eventually served aboard the Enterprise in 2267 as Records officer, now subordinate to the young Captain Kirk. The embittered officer prepared to sabotage Kirk's career.

Finney's opportunity was the powerful ion storm the Enterprise encountered on stardate 2945.7. The storm coincided with his turn on the roster to take weather reading from the ship's ion pod; an exposed, potentially hazardous, duty. After the ship hit the leading edge of the storm, Kirk ordered a yellow alert from his panel on the captain's chair. As the storm increased in intensity Kirk warned Finney of the possibility of red alert, meaning he'd have seconds to extricate himself before Kirk jettisoned the vulnerable pod. When the storm reached force-7 and the ship was at risk, Kirk declared the new alert status. After the appropriate pause, the pod was jettisoned, but Finney did not report in.

Kirk ordered a phase-1 search of the starship that turned up nothing. Finney managed to keep himself hidden from the search parties, a challenge made easier by the crew's presumption that Finney wanted to be found. By the time Enterprise pulled in to Starbase 11 for repairs and to report an officer's death, the logs reflected a different version of Kirk's actions during the storm, and contradicted the sworn deposition Kirk submitted to the portmaster, Commodore Stone.

The court martial of James T. Kirk proceeded while Finney lurked in the bowels of the Enterprise. The court's sudden change of venue, followed by the departure of all but a handful of ship's personnel, alerted Finney to the court's awareness of his plot and his presence on the Enterprise. He responded with a final attempt to hurt Kirk and the officer corps that left him behind. Echoing his "one mistake" of the previous decade, Finney tapped-out the ship's primary energy circuits, and the Enterprise began to fall from orbit.

Finney leeched out from hiding, holding a phaser to Kirk's back, and the two former friends confronted each other in main engineering. Finney had lost all pretense of sanity, and his demeanor quickly shifted from menacing threat to pathetic melancholy. He ranted about the injustices in his life and jealousy of Kirk in detail while the court monitored every word from the bridge. Kirk revealed that Jame Finney had recently boarded, part of a plan to help calm him down. The realization that he had endangered his daughter sent Finney into hysterics, and Kirk took the opportunity to relieve Finney of his weapon. Beaten and sobbing, Finney revealed the details of his sabotage, allowing Kirk to make the necessary repairs.

Without objection from the prosecution, Stone dismissed the court and the accusations against Kirk. Charges were brought against Finney for his criminal actions, but he quickly found an able defender in Samuel T. Cogley, attorney-at-law. (TOS: "Court Martial")

Memorable Quotes

• FINNEY: "Oh, I wouldn't kill you, Captain. Your own death would mean to little to you. But your ship..."
  KIRK: "What about my ship?"
  FINNEY: "It's dead. I've killed it!"

• FINNEY: "Officers and gentleman... captains all! – except for Finney, and his one mistake."

Background

The Ben Finney story is one of the few (along with Gary Mitchell, Kodos and Captain Garrovick) substantial canon sources for James T. Kirk's early history.

In the final confrontation between Kirk and Finney in engineering, Finney is shown wearing a command division uniform with commander's stripes, although dialogue throughout "Court Martial" identifies him as a lieutenant commander, and no full-commander besides Spock and Leonard McCoy (promoted in 2269 - TAS) served on the Enterprise during her five-year mission. Finney did spent several days in hiding, however, and appeared a little gamey in his climactic appearance. In lieu of a shower, helping himself to an extra shirt might have been his best option. Whether he sewed himself into a promotion is another matter, but not inconsistent with his mental state of the time.

Finney was played by actor Richard Webb.