Lawrence H. Styles

Species:	Human
Affiliation:	Federation Starfleet
Rank:	Captain
Played by:	James B. Sikking

Captain Styles was a Starfleet officer in the late 23rd century. He was known to carry a swagger stick, as well as an attitude that could be viewed as self-righteous and even pompous.

By 2285, Captain Styles was placed in command of the USS Excelsior which was, at that time, a testbed for the experimental transwarp drive. He had the utmost pride in his assignment, believing his ship would be able to break the warp speed records of the legendary USS Enterprise.

When Admiral James T. Kirk hijacked the Enterprise from Earth Spacedock in 2285, Styles was ordered to stop him. Although confident of his ship's capabilities, he did not succeed, as the Excelsior had been sabotaged by Styles' own captain of engineering, Montgomery Scott. (Star Trek III: The Search for Spock)

By 2290, Styles had been replaced as Excelsior's captain by Hikaru Sulu. (Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country)

Background

Styles was played by actor James B. Sikking. According to the film's script, "Styles is an officer about Kirk's age. If he's a little stuffy, it's pardonable; he does, after all, have the plum assignment in all of Starfleet."

Apocrypha

In the Pocket TOS novel Prime Directive, a younger Lieutenant Styles was the annoying nemesis to Lieutenant Commander Scott (and a discharged Kirk) when he was given temporary command of the damaged USS Enterprise during its refit. He regarded himself as superior to Kirk, stating that, with him in charge, Enterprise would have a "real" captain. However, he lost his position after Kirk was allowed to take the Enterprise to investigate the possibility of foul play; Styles, outraged at this, told a superior officer that he could not do that. The novel also revealed that Kirk and Styles once served together on the USS Farragut, and developed a keen dislike for each other. He picked up his swagger stick from a Klingon that he beat in personal combat. In the novel, Scott, mightily annoyed by the behavior of Styles, broke the stick over his knee.

Styles also made a brief appearance in the Pocket TOS novelization of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home by Vonda N. McIntyre. Here, still in command of Excelsior, he was ordered by Starfleet Command to intercept and destroy the whale probe before it reached Earth. However, he never even made it out of Spacedock before the probe's transmissions rendered his ship and the massive space station around it completely useless.

In the original comic by DC, Styles was humiliated by Kirk and Scott's sabotage. Around the Fleet, he was given the nickname "Drydock Styles". As such, he sought to embarrass Kirk at any opportunity.

According to the novel Forged in Fire, Styles was killed in late 2289 at an early peace talk on the planet Korvat between the Klingons and the Federation when a bomb set by a Klingon pirate named Qagh - who became known simply as "the Albino" - detonated in the main chamber. It was at that point that Sulu, Styles' first officer, became captain of the Excelsior.

Styles made an appearance in the comic book series titled The Mirror Universe Saga created by DC Comics. At this point, he was still captain of the Excelsior. At the start of the story, he is trying to retrieve Kirk to answer for disobeying orders, and is captured by James T. Kirk of the mirror universe and placed in a statis chamber.