Hansen Al-Salah

Commander Hansen in the ruins of his outpost

Commander Hansen was a 23rd century Starfleet officer, the commander of Outpost 4 along the Romulan Neutral Zone.

In 2266, Hansen was killed, along with his entire staff, when a Romulan Bird-of-Prey outfitted with a new cloaking device made attacks across the Romulan Neutral Zone border. He was on an open communications channel with James T. Kirk, the captain of a defending starship, the USS Enterprise, when the station was destroyed. The highly reinforced cast rodinium plating protecting his station was no match for the Romulan's new plasma weapons. (TOS: "Balance of Terror")

Background

Commander Hansen, played by Garry Walberg, wore a uniform that varied from the crew of Enterprise, but featured no rank insignia on the sleeves. It featured a semicircular assignment patch (denoting he served at an outpost) rather than the familiar Enterprise arrowhead. The uniform was made of a shinier fabric, and the color was dull, closer to beige than the mustard yellow velour used for the ship's costume. Beige was not seen in concurrent Enterprise uniforms, but had been used in the previous uniform style to represent the operations division, before that division's color was changed back to red. This costume would appear again (patch and all), on another outpost attack victim, Lieutenant Harold of Cestus III in "Arena" (TOS). The seashell-like assignment patch would also appear again, as a decoration of the mirror universe uniform worn by Dr. McCoy in "Mirror, Mirror" (TOS).

Since there were no rank insignia shown on the uniform cuffs, it is possible that Hansen was a commander by position only, and not by grade.

In a line deleted from the shooting script, Hansen wanted the Enterprise to warn Earth that either traitors or Romulan spies had stolen starship designs and used them to build the Bird of Prey.[1]