Follow

    Nyota Uhura

    Character » Nyota Uhura appears in 788 issues.

    Nyota Uhura is the communications officer aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise.

    Short summary describing this character.

    Nyota Uhura last edited by downinthesewer on 06/22/23 03:11AM View full history

    Origin

    Star Trek Canon Special Note

    Not everything listed in the origin is Canon. That is because only television shows and movies are considered canon. This being a comic website there are many things here that are not canon. So unless it is contradicted in film it should be listed as part of the character biography.

    Early Enterprise Career
    Early Enterprise Career

    Uhura was born in 2230, she comes from the United States of Africa and is of Bantu decent. She speaks Swahili, though it is translated into English by the Universal Translator.

    USS Enterprise

    Uhura became part of the U.S.S. Enterprise crew in 2266 as the ship's communications officer. She is also somewhat of an expert engineer, having more than once re-wired the communications system to break through a jammed signals.

    Uhura with Tribble
    Uhura with Tribble

    While a pat of the Enterprise crew Uhura was responsible for bringing the first Tribble on board the ship, the Tribble then multiplied and overran the ship. This nearly crippled the ship but many of them were killed when some poisonous grain eaten. This led to the discovery of the grain and the Klingon involvement. Unknown to Uhura and the crew time travelers from Deep Space 9 space station were on board ship at the time of the incident and stopped a rouge Klingon from blowing up the space station and killing Captain James Kirk in the process.

    Uhura also showed her ability to lead when the, the male portion of the USS Enterprise became incapacitated, leaving Uhura no other choice, but to take command of the ship. She also led one of the away teams in rescuing Kirk first officer Spock and Dr Leonard McCoy among all the others. In 2270, Uhura took command of the ship once more when Kirk, Spock and half of the away team lost contact with the ship, the other half (comprised of Uhura, engineer Montgomery Scott and lieutenant Hikaru Sulu) return to the Enterprise to find the missing crew members.

    The Crew Saves Spock
    The Crew Saves Spock

    In the late 2270's Uhura was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Commander and continued to serve aboard the Enterprise after its refit, serving with both Captain Willard Decker and Admiral James Kirk during the V'Ger incident. In 2285, Uhura was promoted again to the rank of Commander and acted as communications officer stationed at Starfleet Command. She also worked as a lecturer at Starfleet Academy.

    After the Genesis incident Uhura requested that she be assigned to the transported room at Old City Station, naturally Starfleet granted her request, but did not anticipate that she had planned to use her posting to transport her former crew-mates back to the Enterprise to steal it and search for Spock's remains. It was on this mission that the crew found Spock was still alive. They then returned to his home planet of Vulcan for restoration, were they met up again with Uhura.

    On board The Carrier
    On board The Carrier

    The crew of the now destroyed Enterprise, were heading back in a commandeered Klingon ship. When they discovered a probe was shutting down all ships and creating havoc on earth. Uhura discovered that the prob was trying to communicate to humpback whales but was unable to as they were extinct at this time. This led Kirk and crew to travel back in time to the year 1986 to find the whales and bring them back to their time. It was at this time that Uhura and Commander Pavel Chekov traveled to the San Francisco dockyards to "acquire" high-energy photons from the reactor core of the first nuclear fission-powered aircraft carrier, the aptly named USS Enterprise for their part of this mission.

    After returning to 2286, Uhura along with the main crew of the Enterprise were charged with the theft and subsequent destruction of the ship. The charges were later dropped due to them saving the world from the "whale probe". This led to her and the rest of the crew being assigned to the Enterprise-A. Where she once again served as the ship's communications officer.

    Spock in 2287
    Spock in 2287

    In 2287, the Enterprise was called to settle a hostage situation involving Spock's brother Sybok. In the initial raid to free a compound under Sybok's control, Uhura performed an erotic fan-dance which distracted Sybok's guards, allowing Kirk and his assault team to re-take the compound and arrest the outcast Vulcan. During the Khitomer incident of 2293, Uhura assisted in the rescue of Captain Kirk and Dr McCoy from the prison planet of Rura Penthe under the command of Spock. They also prevented of the assassination of the Federation President, something which would help form the Khitomer Accord, a peace treaty between the Federation and the Klingon Empire.

    Years later presumably after Uhura's death Spock went back into time with a Romulan known a Nero. Nero would set a change of events that would change the life of Uhura quite dramatically as Kirk joins Starfleet and is part of her class. She is also quickly promoted and become the main communications officer on the U.S.S. Enterprise much earlier than she had previously. It is unknown if this is a new timeline or changes the main Star Trek time line.

    Creation

    White Uhura
    White Uhura

    The creation of Uhura was for the original television show Star Trek. Uhura was cast and created by Gene Roddenberry as a means to show both black people and woman being able to work side by side as equals in the future. Ironically the actress who played Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) almost quit the show to focus on her singing career and it was only by a chance meeting at an event with Dr. Martin Luther King that convinced her to stay on the show. Her character would go on to inspire many young black woman and was one of Whoopi Goldberg's biggest influences. Whoopi would also go on to be a major Star Trek character as Guinan.

    It is unknown and unfortunate that in some later comics from the 1970's that Uhura was depicted as a white blue eyed blonde woman. There were many inconsistencies with these books. Hikaru Sulu was depicted as an African male and the character M'Ress who looked like a cat person was drawn without fur and had blue skin and green hair.

    Nichelle would play the character of Uhura for decades and was the final say in picking the character's first name Nyota. This ironically would not become canon until the 2009 movie where Uhura was played by a different actress for the first time.

    sizepositionchange
    sizepositionchange
    positionchange
    positionchange
    positionchange
    bordersheaderpositiontable
    positionchange

    This edit will also create new pages on Comic Vine for:

    Beware, you are proposing to add brand new pages to the wiki along with your edits. Make sure this is what you intended. This will likely increase the time it takes for your changes to go live.

    Comment and Save

    Until you earn 1000 points all your submissions need to be vetted by other Comic Vine users. This process takes no more than a few hours and we'll send you an email once approved.