Emory Erickson

Species:	Human
Occupation:	Inventor
Status:	Alive (2154)
Played by:	Bill Cobbs

Emory Erickson was a Human inventor. His most ambitious invention was the molecular transporter. He had at least two children, Quinn and Danica. In addition to inventing the transporter, he was the first person to go through it.

Emory was a good friend of Henry Archer, Jonathan Archer's father. In 2124, when Henry died of Clarke's Disease after suffering from frequent hallucinations and pain for years, sometimes not even recognizing his own son, the relationship that Jonathan shared with Emory Erickson strengthened and he became like a surrogate father to him. (ENT: "Cold Station 12", "Daedalus")

In 2139, Erickson attempted an even greater achievement by inventing a sub-quantum teleportation device. After Erickson invented the device, several men and women volunteered to test it, only to never be seen again. Among these volunteers was his own son, Quinn, who was a good friend of Jonathan Archer. Erickson himself was left paralyzed and in a wheelchair. Erickson blamed himself for his son's disappearance, because he continued the experiment, knowing that it was flawed. He was obsessed with gaining new-found fame.

Erickson however, soon realized that his son had not died in the transport, but was trapped in subspace, waiting to be rematerialized. He spent all his time trying to find out how to bring him back. After ten years, in 2149, he attempted to bring Quinn back. The process was not successful, and Quinn only came back as a deadly energy form, existing for only a few seconds.

In 2154, Erickson came aboard Enterprise NX-01 under the guise of testing a new transporter method, which supposedly had unlimited range. However, Erickson was actually attempting to rescue his son again, whose pattern he now knew to be trapped within a subspace bubble, the Barrens, before the pattern degraded irretrievably. Erickson was successful in retrieving his son, but Quinn died seconds after his father had transported him aboard. Although his son was dead, Emory felt that it would have been better for Quinn to be dead than "somewhere in between" life and death. (ENT: "Daedalus")

Before the character of Emory Erickson was invented, Manny Coto was highly aware that, whereas much had been revealed about warp drive inventor Zefram Cochrane, nothing on Star Trek had been about the inventor of the transporter. Coto therefore thought up the character, planning a story in which the inventor visited Enterprise with a hidden agenda. (Cinefantastique, Vol. 37, No. 2, p. 37)

Emory Erickson was played by Bill Cobbs. In hindsight, Rick Berman commented, "He gave a lovely performance in 'Daedalus' [....] He did a real nice job, and I was very glad to get him on the show." (Star Trek Magazine issue 120, p. 18)

External link

• Emory Erickson at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works