Simon Tarses

Simon Tarses

Simon Tarses was a human (who was one-quarter Romulan), originally from the Martian colonies. He was an enlisted crewman first class, serving as a medical technician aboard the Enterprise-D under Doctor Beverly Crusher.

In 2367, an explosion in the Enterprise warp core lead investigators to discover that J'Dan, a Klingon exchange officer on board the ship, had been involved in smuggling secrets to the Romulans. J'Dan admitted to his espionage, and hinted that there were co-conspirators on board the Enterprise as well. Simon Tarses, who occassionally administered a medicinal hypospray to the Klingon traitor, was extensively questioned by a Starfleet board of inquiry, which uncovered that Tarses was a quarter-Romulan and not a quarter Vulcan, as he had falsely claimed on his Starfleet entrance application. His falsehood threatened to end his Starfleet career. (TNG: "The Drumhead")

Tarses was played by Spencer Garrett. This episode established in dialogue that he was an enlisted crewman who had not gone to the Starfleet Academy; therefore, he wore a blank collar. This lack of rank insignia for crewmen and noncoms was used throughout Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager, although chief petty officers were assigned different insignia.

Outside of his canon appearance, Tarses has been mentioned in the Pocket DS9 series of novels. He also appeared in the TNG novel Sins of Commission, in which Tarses finally came to terms with his origins.