Mathews was a male Human Starfleet crewman who lived during the mid-23rd century. He served in the operations division aboard the USS Enterprise under Captain James T. Kirk diring the mid-2260s.
In 2266, Mathews served as one of the ship's security guards, and was a late assignment to the landing party that arrived on the surface of Exo III. When Kirk and Chapel were beamed to the caverns of Exo III, their expectation was that Dr. Roger Korby would be waiting for them. After beaming down and not finding him waiting for them, Kirk requested a security team; the team consisted of Mathews and Rayburn. Mathews accompanied Kirk and Chapel as they probed deeper into the caverns.
As Mathews was following behind Kirk and Chapel, he was murdered when he fell off a precipice in the outer junction, a death precipitously caused by the massive android Ruk. According to Dr. Brown, Korby's assistant, the cavern into which Mathews fell was "bottomless". (TOS: "What Are Little Girls Made Of?")
Mathews' rank is not established on screen. In the revised final draft script of "What Are Little Girls Made Of?", though, he was referred to as a crewman. [1]
Mathews was the first redshirt to die in The Original Series.
Star Trek: The Original Series - Errand of Vengeance novel The Edge of the Sword portrays the real Ethan Matthews as having been killed and replaced by a Klingon agent, who ultimately dies in this episode.
External links[]
- Ethan Mathews at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works