Trekipedia

Barclay, Reginald

Lieutenant Reginald Endicott Barclay III, a Human who was born in 2333, was unusually eccentric for a Starfleet officer. Though he was a talented systems diagnostic engineer, he was uncomfortable in the most common of social situations, and so took great pains to avoid them. Because of his social weaknesses, at one point in his career he was addicted to the holodeck. One of his favorite scenarios was a variation on “The Three Musketeers” in which the holodeck version of Counselor Deanna Troi fell in love with him.^[1] Another of Barclay’s quirks was his morbid fear of the transporter. For the sake of his Starfleet career he tried to hide his unease, but when given the option he would prefer to travel by shuttlecraft for hours rather than beam somewhere in seconds.^[3]

Barclay first joined the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D in 2366 when he transferred from the Ambassador-class U.S.S. Zhukov NCC-26136, which was under the command of Captain Gleason at the time. Soon after his transfer he started to withdraw from reality and completely immersed himself in holodeck fantasies, a condition known as holodiction. However, his work in repairing the malfunctions caused by a shipment of tissue samples sent by the Mikulaks helped give Barclay the confidence needed to begin living without a holodeck crutch.^[1]

In 2367, Barclay was affected by a beam from a space probe sent by the Cytherians, advanced humanoids who live near the center of the galaxy and explore not by leaving their world but by sending out probes that bring outsiders to them. The probe increased Barclay’s IQ to well over 1000. He interfaced directly with the Enterprise‘s computer and modified the warp drive so the ship could travel at speeds previously thought to be impossible. The Enterprise made it to the Cytherian homeworld, where much useful information was exchanged. Unfortunately, Barclay’s superior brain function eventually diminished to normal levels, and he was unable to reproduce the enhancements made to the Enterprise warp drive after the Cytherians had returned the ship to Federation space.^[2]

In 2369, Barclay’s worst fears were realized when he dealt with aliens residing in subspace and accesible during transport. The presence of these aliens caused the destruction of the Oberth-class U.S.S. Yosemite NCC-19002, and nearly destroyed the Enterprise as well. Barclay overcame his fear, and made important contributions to getting the alien microbes off the ship and returning them to their native habitat.^[3]

Later that year, Barclay was part of a team that solved the problem of what to do with the computer-generated intelligence patterned after the fictional Professor James Moriarty. His artificial intelligence was eventually stored in a permanent computer-generated environment, which seemed real to Moriarty.^[4]

In 2370, Barclay, already a hypochondriac to begin with, contracted Urodelean flu, and the treatment he received mutated his introns, causing him and the rest of the Enterprise crew to mutate into bodies similar to other species from their homeworlds; Barclay turned into a spider.^[5] Later that year, he transferred temporarily to Jupiter Station, where he assisted Dr. Lewis Zimmerman in the creation of the Emergency Medical Hologram, which was quickly installed throughout the fleet. As a result of his involvement with the program, in 2372, when the EMH aboard the U.S.S. Voyager NCC-74656 suffered the computer equivalent of a nervous breakdown as its neural pathways were expanding beyond its original programming, Barclay appeared as the Doctor‘s assistant in a nightmarish holodeck experience. The hallucination of Barclay tried to convince the EMH it was a real, flesh-and-blood doctor, and that the only way to save itself was to destroy the holographic illusion of Voyager.^[6]

Following the completion of the Mark I EMH project, Barclay returned to the Enterprise until its destruction at Veridian III, then joined much of the crew aboard the new Sovereign-class U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-E. In 2373, he met one of his heroes, Dr. Zefram Cochrane, when the ship traveled back in time to 2063 to prevent the Borg from changing history.^[7]

Barclay was eventually assigned to Project Pathfinder, which was created in late 2373 in an effort to find a way to return the stranded Starship Voyager to the Alpha Quadrant and Federation space. In late 2375, he overcame a regression into holodiction and discovered a means to establish rapid and secure communications with the stranded vessel by using a tachyon beam from the MIDAS Array to create a micro-wormhole, through which a communications signal could be sent.^[8]

In 2376, Barclay was reunited with Dr. Zimmerman, who was at this point suffering from a debilitating disease. In an effort to find a cure for his friend, Barclay enlisted the aid of Voyager‘s EMH. Though Zimmerman balked at being treated by an obsolete hologram that had made him a virtual laughingstock throughout Starfleet, the Doctor was able to find a cure, thanks to the medical knowledge he’d gained in the Delta Quadrant.^[9]

Barclay created a hologram of himself in 2377 to interact with the crew of Voyager, which had by this point made him an unofficial member of their “family,” due to his role in restoring communications with their homes, but it was intercepted by a group of Ferengi and reprogrammed in an effort to seize the ship and its technology—notably Seven of Nine‘s Borg nanoprobes&mdash in a plan that would have brought the ship home, but would also have killed the entire crew in the process. Fortunately for the crew of Voyager, the plan failed.^[10] Later that year, Barclay assisted the Doctor in an effort to assert his rights as a sentient being, when a publishing firm published an unfinished holonovel that the EMH was working on without his permission.^[11]

Portrayed by Dwight Schultz.