Lieutenant Harold was a male Human Starfleet officer who lived during the mid-23rd century. He served at the Earth observation outpost on Cestus III in 2267 under the command of Commodore Travers. He was one of the colony's communications officers.
That same year, Harold survived a Gorn attack that destroyed the outpost. During the attack, Harold tried to contact the attacking ship. He first signaling the outpost's surrender, then begging up to the attackers that there were women and children among their personnel, but his pleas were ignored.
The following day, he was discovered by a landing party from the USS Enterprise, where Doctor Leonard McCoy's initial analysis of Harold's condition indicated "shock, radiation burns, and internal injuries almost certainly, he's in a bad way." Moments later, the landing party was ambushed by the Gorn, forcing them to move to safety, which included having McCoy, Kelowitz and Lang carry Harold to cover. McCoy's further assessment determined that Harold had approximately a half-hour to live.
Following the deterrence of the Gorn and the withdrawal of their vessel, Harold was beamed up with the surviving landing party and taken to Sickbay where his injuries were tended to.
Once he was stabilized, Harold described to Kirk, Spock and McCoy what had happened to the outpost, and later confirmed that the outpost never sent a signal out to the Enterprise. (TOS: "Arena")
Appendices
Background information
Harold was played by actor Tom Troupe. Harold's name was not mentioned on screen, but was rather given in final draft script and listed in the end credits.
Much of Harold's background was established in the final draft script, notably his rank of "lieutenant". Though mentioned once on screen, the script included four additional references to his rank, this despite the fact that no rank braids were present on Harold's uniform. Additionally, the script referred to him as a "communications officer", which corresponded with his recollection of events mentioned in sickbay, and described the rubble amid which he was discovered as the remains of his communications equipment.
Apocrypha
The Star Trek: The Next Generation novel Requiem gives him the first name Matthew.
External links
- [1]
- Matthew Harold at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works