Companion

The Companion.

You may also be looking for the articles on the TNG, DS9 or VOY Companions.

The Companion (voiced by Elizabeth Rogers) was a nonhumanoid lifeform native to a planetoid in the Gamma Canaris region. Composed chiefly of ionized hydrogen and electricity, it appeared as a gaseous, vaguely sparkling cloud of yellow, orange, and red.

Encountered first by Zefram Cochrane shortly after 2119, it discovered him, old and dying, and brought him to its home, rejuvenating him and sustaining him for the next 150 years. The next Humans it encountered were a party of four: three USS Enterprise officers and a Federation commissioner, Nancy Hedford, in 2267. Responding to Cochrane's loneliness, it drew their shuttlecraft to its home planetoid so that they might be companions for Cochrane. This was a problem for Hedford, who was then suffering from Sakuro's Disease.

File:CochraneAndCompanion.jpg

Zefram Cochrane and the Companion

Zefram Cochrane could communicate with the Companion, in a limited and non-verbal way. According to his account, he "just sort of cleared" his mind, and it came. Despite the non-verbal nature of the communication, Cochrane claimed he was usually able to get his idea across. The Companion was able to answer at least simple questions in the same fashion – when Cochrane asked whether it could cure Nancy Hedford's illness, it was able to tell him that it could not.

Kirk tried a number of strategems in an attempt to regain his freedom, without much success. He first tried to disable it with an electronic scrambler. This device evidently caused the entity some discomfort or pain, as it reacted immediately, attacking and destroying the device, and nearly killing Kirk and Spock. (During this attack, the Companion changed from a soft golden color to an angry reddish hue, suggestion that its external appearance might offer some clue to its emotional state.)

Kirk next instructed Spock to modify the universal translator so that communication might be possible. Although it could now understand the Humans, attempts to persuade it to release them met with resistance. It wanted Cochrane to remain alive, and it believed he needed other Humans for that.

Finally, after realizing that it was in love with Cochrane, Kirk played on its inability to ever really experience true love with Cochrane, because they would always be too different. To overcome this, the Companion merged with Nancy Hedford, who was moments from death, creating a joined entity. In this merge, it gave up its immortality and its powers, choosing to live out the remainder of a Human lifespan with Cochrane. (TOS: "Metamorphosis")

The Companion demonstated a panoply of abilities, including:

• Traveling through space at warp speed
• Overloading energy producing and using systems
• Gross manipulation of objects, perhaps by some process analogous to telekinesis
• Produce material objects, including food and water
• Disperse or teleport itself
• Attack people and objects with electricity
• Rejuvenate humanoid life, and inhibit the aging process
• Merging with a humanoid, creating a joined entity. In doing this, the creature sacrificed its immortality and other powers.

The Companion having merged with Nancy Hedford

The Companion claimed that it could not cure Nancy Hedford's illness. Yet, when it elected to merge with her, it clearly did cure her illness. One possibility is that it could effect sure a cure only in the process of this sort of union, that cost it all of its extraordinary powers, including its immortality – a price it wasn't prepared to pay until Kirk bounded its choices by explaining how the differences between it and Cochrane would keep them forever apart. Another possibility is that it saw Nancy Hedford – the only other female on the planetoid – as competition for Cochrane, and was prepared to allow her to die, to eliminate that hazard to its relationship with him.