Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's Nana Visitor hails Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' Lt. Erica Ortegas (Melissa Navia), a character Nana says Star Trek has waited for since the 1960s Releasing October 1st, Visitor's first book, Star Trek: Open a Channel: A Woman's Trek, contains in depth profiles of Star Trek's vast universe of female characters. Nana interviewed women involved in Star Trek in front of and behind the camera, as well as real-world scientists, soldiers, and astronauts who call Star Trek's female heroes their inspirations.
Lt. Erica Ortegas is a new character in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, but one who has roots in Star Trek's original, rejected pilot, "The Cage." In 1964, Gene Roddenberry's first crack at Star Trek centered on the Starship Enterprise led by Captain Christopher Pike (Jeffrey Hunter), aided by Number One (Majel Barrett Roddenberry) and Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy). NBC ordered a second pilot and for Star Trek to be recast. It took 58 years for Captain Pike's version of the Enterprise to return in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, which boasts reimagined versions of "The Cage's" characters, including Erica Ortegas, the helmsman of the Starship Enterprise.
Nana Visitor Explains How Star Trek’s Original Pilot Concept Became Strange New Worlds’ Ortegas
Erica Ortegas has roots in a scrapped Star Trek pilot
In an excerpt from Star Trek: Open a Channel: A Woman's Trek shared exclusively with Screen Rant, Nana Visitor describes how Gene Roddenberry's first concept for Star Trek's pilot, José Ortega, morphed into José Tyler (Peter Duryaa), and finally, decades later, into Lt. Erica Ortegas in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Visitor also accurately charts why the Starship Enterprise's pilot had to be a man in the 1960s and how this has changed today. Read Visitor's quote below:
Star Trek has been waiting since the ’60s for Erica Ortegas. José Ortega never made it out of Gene Roddenberry’s notes. By the time Trek’s first pilot, “The Cage,” was filmed, he had morphed into José Tyler, who was very blond and blue eyed. In fact, the entire cast was scrapped save Leonard Nimoy for the next–ultimately successful–pilot, leaving it for the best part of sixty years and the casting of Melissa Navia to give the character new life. Strange New Worlds’s Erica Ortegas (yes, there’s an s on the end, and yes, plenty of Latinos spell their name that way, says Melissa) has links to the past but drives us straight into the future.
Sixty years ago, it seemed inevitable that the Enterprise’s pilot would be a man. In those days, the characteristics of a hotshot pilot seemed fundamentally male, and the person flying the ship was bound to be inspired by John Glenn or Neil Armstrong. Discovery had already put Emily Coutts’s Detmer at the helm. Strange New Worlds would double down on that.
The breakdown for her character described a Latinx pilot, a soldier who could handle a gun and crack a joke, was capable and confident. Her exuberant “abso-frickin-lutely” while flying the ship demonstrates that she isn’t caught up in her head like José, worrying about instruments and calculations, but piloting from passion. The character is free from any kind of stereotypes about performative femininity or limiting ideas about what it means to be a woman, and that’s something that Melissa seems to share.
Nana Visitor interviewed Melissa Navia for Star Trek: Open a Channel: A Woman's Trek, and, no doubt, Lt. Erica Ortegas' chapter will prove fascinating and insightful. In 2024, female Star Trek pilots are now par for the course. Like Ortegas, Emily Coutts' Lt. Commander Kayla Detmer flies the USS Discovery on Star Trek: Discovery and Ashlei Sharpe Chestnut plays Ensign Sidney La Forge, the USS Titan-A's pilot in Star Trek: Picard season 3. At the end of Star Trek: Picard season 3, Sidney joined Ortegas as a female pilot of the Enterprise, becoming a Lieutenant and the helmsman of the USS Enterprise-G.
Star Trek Fans Have Embraced Strange New Worlds’ Lt. Ortegas
#Mortegas is a call to action
Lt. Erica Ortegas has proven to be a beloved fan-favorite on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. The Starship Enterprise's snarky hotshot pilot has endeared herself to audiences. Thanks to Melissa Navia's effervescence and Strange New Worlds' clever writers and directors, Erica is hugely entertaining, whether she's bantering with Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) on the bridge or tormenting the time traveler Ensign Brad Boimler (Jack Quaid) in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' crossover. Fans have clamored to learn more about Ortegas' past and what makes her tick, spreading the hashtag #Mortegas on social media to urge Strange New Worlds to tell more Erica stories.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3 promises more Lt. Erica Ortegas. Strange New Worlds season 3 kicks off with Erica and some of her Enterprise crewmates kidnapped by the Gorn. Considering how one of Ortegas' wishes was to take a break from the Enterprise's bridge and join a landing party mission, her Gorn abduction becomes a nightmare scenario for Erica. However, that's just a hint of what's to come next for Lt. Erica Ortegas in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, one of the pivotal women spotlighted in Nana Visitor's Star Trek: Open a Channel: A Woman's Trek.
