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Warning! This page contains information regarding Star Trek: Lower Decks, and thus may contain spoilers.
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A Betazoid gift box
An opened gift box
The Betazoid gift box was an artifact originating from the planet Betazed that was designed to be given as a "bonding gift" to those who were to be married. The gift box resembled a silver chest, except that it had a seemingly living, humanoid-like face imprinted on its front. This face was capable of speech and movement, and could thus be used to convey messages to the recipient.
In 2364, Counselor Deanna Troi received a Betazoid gift box from Steven and Victoria Miller as a wedding gift, as she had been bonded to their son, Wyatt. When the box was first transported aboard the USS Enterprise-D, it appeared to be in a sleeping state. But when Troi entered the transporter room and spoke, the box "awakened" and informed Troi that her mother, Lwaxana Troi, and the Millers would soon arrive and that her wedding day was near. With its message delivered, the gift box went back to "sleep". (TNG: "Haven")
Kerner Hauze had a Betazoid gift box in his collection at the time of his death in 2381. (LD: "Kayshon, His Eyes Open") Later that year, Lieutenant jgs Beckett Mariner, Sam Rutherford, and D'Vana Tendi discovered another gift box of this type within the anomaly storage room aboard the USS Cerritos. This particular gift box, however, had picked up the speech patterns of Doctor T'Ana and (presumably) others it had encountered, and regularly uttered random and unconnected phrases, including strings of profanity and complete gibberish, as a result. (LD: "In the Cradle of Vexilon")
Appendices[]
Background information[]
In "Haven", the "face on gift-box" (or simply "face", as it was described in the script) was portrayed by Armin Shimerman, who went on to appear as, among others, Quark on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. In "In the Cradle of Vexilon", the face was voiced by an unknown actor.
Shimerman later wrote a scene with Quark selling a gift box to a Bolian in his novel The 34th Rule. The Bolian comments that the face on the box looks like Quark, but then decides he must be imagining things.
In a deleted scene, it was revealed that Betazoid gift boxes evidently had a variety of "faces" to choose from as Victoria Miller noted that her husband had chosen the "ugliest face imaginable", but Steven defended his decision, believing it to be a face that was "full of character."
External link[]
- Betazoid gift box at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works