Kurak was a female Klingon warp field specialist of the 24th century Klingon Empire. Living on Qo'noS, she was an expert in the field of subspace morphology.
Due to the nature of Klingon culture, Klingon scientists were not highly regarded, and Kurak had developed a hostile and defensive attitude when working with other scientists in her field.
In 2369, she was invited by Doctor Beverly Crusher to the USS Enterprise-D to witness the testing of Dr. Reyga's metaphasic shielding. She was highly skeptical he had succeeded, and proposed someone other than Reyga to pilot the shuttle. The shielding worked on the first attempt, although it was sabotaged and the pilot, Dr. Jo'Bril, was believed to have died. Afterwards, Reyga had questioned Kurak, implying she had something to do with it. Kurak was enraged at the accusation and Reyga left. The altercation was overheard by the other scientists, and Dr. Crusher then came to ask her about it. Kurak was physical with her and again was angry at the implication, denying any part in sabotage. (TNG: "Suspicions")
Appendices
Background information
Kurak was played by Tricia O'Neil, who applied a pre-existing knowledge of Klingons while playing the role. She said about the character, "The makeup was difficult, but once I saw it, it was such a support to believe the world, to get into character [...] I knew the difficulty this particular Klingon was involved in because she was advancing. She had the great weight on her shoulders of being intelligent, of being a scientist, and she was crossing barriers. But she was still a Klingon, so she was very... not savage, but physical, where a lot of muscle was still involved, even though she was crossing over into being a scientist. So, as passionate as she was, she also had to be restrained in a way that was not easy for her. So, when she pushed Dr. Crusher around, she was being jousted with, and that tested her." Kurak at StarTrek.com
Apocrypha
Kurak, daughter of Haleka appears as chief engineer of the IKS Gorkon in the non-canon novel series of that name, written by Keith R.A. DeCandido.
External link
- Kurak, daughter of Haleka at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works