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Quinn Erickson was the son of Emory Erickson, the inventor of the molecular transporter, and the brother of Danica Erickson. He was very good friends with Jonathan Archer.

In 2139, he was one of the first people to test his father's sub-quantum teleportation device. Unfortunately, his pattern was lost in subspace in an area called the Barrens. However, Emory learned that there were fluctuations within the subspace node of the Barrens, which caused Quinn's transporter signal to reappear, manifesting itself as an energy distortion. Emory was then convinced that his son was still alive, suspended in subspace, and could be rescued.

In 2154, Emory staged a ruse and convinced Starfleet that he was running another test of the sub-quantum transporter. In reality, however, he was attempting to lock onto his son's signal and bring him back to normal space, a mission he believed Starfleet would have never authorized. Starfleet granted Emory access to Enterprise NX-01, under the command of Captain Archer, which returned the inventor to the Barrens to conduct the experiment.

While Emory made the preparations to modify the Enterprise transporter, Quinn's signal manifested itself aboard the vessel and resulted in the death of Crewman Burrows. Emory, when confronted by both his own daughter and Archer, finally revealed the truth, and Archer reluctantly permitted Emory to continue with the experiment.

Emory was ultimately successful in locking onto Quinn's pattern. When Quinn's body materialized in a deteriorated state, completing the transport process would surely kill him. Rather than let his son exist "somewhere in-between" life and death, Emory brought him back to normal space, wishing to hold him one last time and say goodbye. Quinn died in his father's arms. (ENT: "Daedalus")

Background information[]

Quinn was played by Donovan Knowles.

In the final draft script of "Daedalus", Quinn was referred to as being "in his 30's."

Star Trek: Enterprise's visual effects artists were tasked with creating the illusion of Quinn shifting between matter and energy, while also introducing the effect as being extremely vague. Visual Effects Supervisor Dan Curry recalled, "We [initially] had to make sure the audience didn't know whether that being was Human or an alien, whether it was aggressive or accidentally hurting people. I made a sketch of what I thought it might look [like] and John Teska, a wonderful animator, came up with what we were hoping to see which was something constantly turning itself inside out and made of energy not matter. Later on as the character Quinn began to manifest himself we were able to use the actor who played Quinn and map his image onto the polygons used to create the CG perpetually convoluting image so you'd get little glimpses here and there." (Cinefantastique, Vol. 37, No. 2, p. 38)

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