Orion slave girl

A trio of Orion slave sisters are entertainment, after servings of Meridor, for Archer and Reed aboard Harrad-Sar's barge in 2154

Vina, fantasized as a "green Orion animal woman"

"They're like animals: vicious, seductive. They say no Human male can resist them."

– Commodore Mendez – as projected onto the USS Enterprise by the Talosians, 2267 ("The Menagerie, Part II")

Orion slave girls (also known as Orion animal women) were female Orions who were very popular "commodities," trafficked through the slavemarkets of the Orion Syndicate.

In 2152, Zoumas recalled to Charles "Trip" Tucker, while they were on an Enolian transport together, how he himself had once spent two hours with an Orion slave girl. This story was among many Zoumas told Tucker, to the point of driving Tucker to become irritated with how much Zoumas was talking to him. (ENT: "Canamar")

The next year, Tellarite bounty hunter Skalaar commented to Captain Jonathan Archer that, if rival bounty hunter Kago-Darr managed to collect a reward the Klingons were offering for the capture of Archer, Kago-Darr would probably spend it on Orion slave girls, an expenditure Skalaar considered a "waste." If he managed to obtain the reward himself, on the other hand, he planned not to spend it on Orion slave girls but would instead spend it on buying back Tezra, a freighter he previously owned. (ENT: "Bounty")

In 2154, some Enterprise crew members wound up as commodities themselves, at a processing station on Verex III. When Captain Archer expressed surprise that the Orions would sell their own kind, Arik Soong told him the females were "known for their extreme appetites, their innate skills." The Verex market's Orion slaver had even sold his last wife. (ENT: "Borderland")

Later that year, the secret of the Orion slave girls' irresistibility was discovered when the slave sisters Navaar, D'Nesh, and Maras were presented to Captain Archer, ostensibly to improve relations between Earth and the Orions. Their presence became a major distraction to the crew of Enterprise due – it turned out – to the powerful pheromones which they were releasing. It was revealed that Orion females were not enslaved at all, but rather the enslavers, and the sisters were active agents in a plot to capture Enterprise for the Orion Syndicate. (ENT: "Bound")

In the 2250s, Captain Pike had some personal experience of Orion culture to weigh against Starfleet's 23rd century scientific insights. In 2254, his fantasy of doing business on the Orion colony at one point came to include Vina in the form of an "animal woman". (TOS: "The Cage", "The Menagerie, Part II") One of his fantasized guests remarked that the natives of the colony were "funny" because they "actually like being taken advantage of." (TOS: "The Cage")

In the final draft script of "The Menagerie, Part II", the projection of Commodore Mendez, while viewing footage of this fantasy during Spock's court martial on the USS Enterprise, said he had heard about Orion slave girls and Spock responded it was "correct" that they were animalistic and purportedly irresistible to Human males. However, these comments were excluded from the final version of the episode.

By the 24th century, Orion slave girls had become quite popular characters in holosuite programs. (DS9: "The Begotten", "In the Pale Moonlight")

According to a cut line from the script for DS9: "For the Uniform", Michael Eddington had once told Julian Bashir and Miles O'Brien a story about a four-legged Talorian and an Orion slave girl.

While in the brig aboard the USS Honshu in 2374, Dukat casually requested a bottle of kanar and an Orion slave girl to help him pass the time. (DS9: "Waltz")

Background information

The Orion slave girls were first conceived in the story outline for "The Cage", as "sinuous green dancing girls" of Protos VI, who danced barefooted along with Vina, though she herself was not technically said to be one of them. (The Making of Star Trek, p. 58)

In the second revised final draft script of "The Cage" (which contained Captain James Winter rather than Captain Pike), the appearance of Vina as an Orion slave girl was described thus; "Wild! Green skin, glistening as if oiled. Her fingertips are long gleaming razor-edged scimitars, her hair not unattractive but suggesting a wild animal mane." After her eyes were also stated to be "wild," the script continued, "We feel she's larger than before, immensely strong […] Now dancing wildly, animal beautiful […] The green, animal Vina […] seeming taller than Winter, perhaps even stronger."

Manny Coto once admitted that, prior to becoming largely responsible for the appearance of Orion slave girls in ENT Season 4, he had "always been fascinated with […] the Orion slave girls." ("Before Her Time: Decommissioning Enterprise, Part Two: Memorable Voyages", ENT Season 4 Blu-ray special features)

In the final draft script of ENT: "Bound", the Orion slave girls in that installment were described as "stunningly beautiful."

Commenting on the existence of Orions on Earth in the alternate reality, Roberto Orci suggested that there might be "an underground railroad and some of the [Orion Slave Girls] got out and they were sold to freedom…" [1]

External link

• Orion slave girl at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• Orion slavery at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works