I was extremely surprised and saddened today, to see that Majel Barrett-Roddenberry has passed away after a short battle with leukemia. Majel has often been dubbed “The First Lady of Star Trek”, and it is a very fitting title.  

She has been a part of “Star Trek” longer than even William Shatner.  She first appeared in the original “Trek” pilot, “The Cage” as the mysterious and beautiful “Number One”.  

When the show was reworked she became a regular fixture as Nurse Chapel.  She also provided the voice for the computer in every incarnation of the series except “Enterprise” which did not feature a computer voice at all.  Even on that show, however, she made an appearance as the voice of the computer in a TOS era ship during a 2-part episode.  Majel was also a regular fixture of the 24th Century appearing on “The Next Generation” and “Deep Space Nine” as the character Lwaxana Troi.  

It was recently announced that she will be providing the voice of the computer in J.J. Abram’s new “Star Trek” film which will be in theaters next year.  It wouldn’t be “Star Trek” without her.

To say that we’re Trekkie’s here at iVerse would be a bit of an understatement.  As I do a 360 in my office chair I can see an Enterprise or two, DVDs of the films stacked on the edge of my desk, and a variety of recent, and very NOT recent, Trek-related paperback books on my bookshelf.  I personally don’t think that this company would even exist without “Star Trek” – because I’m not sure we’d have the iPhone at all.

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak (the founders of Apple) were both fans of the series, as was Martin Cooper, the inventor of the cell phone.  “Star Trek” influenced them all in moving technology forward, and in the time since they watched the original series as young men, to the present day, we have surpassed many of the technologies and concepts introduced in the series because their genius was sparked by the genius of the men and women behind this revolutionary franchise.

Majel has always remained a dignified figurehead of Trek, and we are deeply saddened by her loss. Our thoughts and prayers go out to her family, and her son Rod.