David Garrovick

Ensign David Garrovick was a male Human Starfleet officer who lived during the mid-23rd century. His father was the former commander of the USS Farragut, while Garrovick himself served as an operations division security officer aboard the USS Enterprise under Captain James T. Kirk during the late 2260s.

Starfleet career[]

Garrovick and Ensign Rizzo were good friends and Starfleet Academy classmates.

In 2268, a newly transferred Garrovick reported to the bridge of the Enterprise and learned of Rizzo's death from Nyota Uhura, who was presenting a report on his condition to Kirk at the time. Kirk offered Garrovick the chance to avenge Rizzo's death, once he learned of their friendship. Kirk and Garrovick encountered the same dikironium cloud creature on Argus X that killed his father, and two hundred crewmembers from the Farragut, eleven years earlier.

Garrovick sighted the creature but was temporarily paralyzed and unable to shoot it. Kirk blamed Garrovick for his hesitation, a blunder which caused the death of two security officers. He was subsequently relieved of duty and confined to quarters until further notice, a punishment Leonard McCoy viewed as harsh in light of the circumstances.

Guilt-ridden, Garrovick lay around in his quarters, only to be visited by Nurse Chapel, who brought him some dinner as per Doctor McCoy's orders. He asked her for an update, and she gave him one, adding that he was lucky to not have to deal with the situation. Though Garrovick refused the food twice, Chapel showed him a microtape and told him that it was McCoy's officially logged prescription for the man to eat, adding that if he didn't comply, McCoy could and likely would have him dragged to sickbay and fed intravenously. (In reality, the tape contained A Survey on Cygnian Respiratory Diseases.)

It was later discovered that Garrovick's hesitation was unintentional and that phaser fire would not have harmed the creature. When Spock came to tell him that, the creature tried to enter his quarters through the air vent. The first officer ordered him out of the room while he attempted to stop it. As Kirk and crewmembers responded to the emergency, Garrovick bemoaned that he should be dead in that room instead of an officer as valuable as Spock. Fortunately, Spock emerged from the room in perfect health noting that the cloud creature was apparently revolted from sampling his copper-based blood and did not harm him further before the air pressure was reversed to remove it.

Kirk allowed Garrovick to redeem himself upon the ensign's request. Together, they set a trap for the creature, which consisted of a container of red blood and a matter/antimatter bomb. The two beamed back to the Enterprise, moments before the bomb went off, which at the same time, destroyed the cloud creature.

Following their return to the Enterprise, Kirk invited Garrovick to stop by his quarters sometime so he could tell the younger Garrovick a few "tall tales" about his father. (TOS: "Obsession")

Sometime after this, later in 2268 or circa 2269, Garrovick volunteered for a solo mission that ended with him crashing the Galileo on Planet 0042692.

Known as "En Son" to the natives, who were themselves later known as "Enderprizians", they preserved the mission logs in the form of a play, which told that the Enterprise found their world and discovered that the natives needed their help, but the Enterprise crew was unable to intervene due to the Prime Directive. Garrovick – or "En Son of Star-Flight Enda-Prize, Bearer of Crimson, bravest among us" – arrived on the planet and attempted to discreetly resolve the native's issue but suffered a shuttle accident instead. He eventually reached out to the natives and brought, as perceived by this pre-warp civilization, "gifts of knowledge and wonder." Garrovick taught them "a way of peace" and "the way of Star-Flight", but also warned them of his damaged shuttlecraft, which became known the natives as "The Gallows". A sickness, caused from a toxic runoff created from the warp plasma that leaked from the Galileo into the native dilithium crystals, soon followed, and Garrovick, according to the natives, "spent his final months here teaching us what he could so we might survive the curse when he was gone." Garrovick, "with his final breath [...], promised that one day Star-Flight will come and rid us of the evil."

In Garrovick's own words, as recorded in "The Call of En Son":

"This is Ensign Garrovick of the USS Enterprise. This'll be my final call to Starfleet... [...] Hoping you'll come, though I've long given up that anyone'll hear it. Hope's a funny thing, isn't it? I tried to do my duty, salvaged what I could from the wreck, went to save the locals from the danger. Before I fell to my injuries. But then, they welcomed me, healed me, gave me hope when I had none. In the end, they were the ones who saved me."

Over a century later, in 2384, the crew of the USS Protostar located Garrovick's distress call, and discovered his legacy on the planet, and true to his words, were able to rid the area of the danger created by the Galileo from his crash, making second contact with the Enderprizians on behalf of the Federation. Doctor Boons revealed that Garrovick had told the natives about the Prime Directive and that they weren't ready for the Federation's technology or ideas, but Starfleet had given them something to believe in. (PRO: "All the World's a Stage")

Appendices[]

Appearances[]

Background information[]

Garrovick was played by Stephen Brooks in "Obsession". Fred Tatasciore voiced Garrovick in "All the World's a Stage".

While the character's first name was not established through dialogue, the sign to Garrovick's quarters read: "David Garrovick."

Regarding Garrovick's fate in "All the World's a Stage", Aaron Waltke stated: "I always found it odd that Garrovick had such an arc in “Obsession,” only to disappear off-camera and never be seen or mentioned again on the show, presumably like all the others. I wanted to give him a slightly bigger fanfare sendoff — and tribute to all the other redshirts." [1]

Apocrypha[]

The character has appeared in multiple novels and comics and has variously been given the first name David (Star Trek 9 by James Blish), Stephen (In the Name of Honor by Dayton Ward), and Tom (Debt of Honor comic by Chris Claremont).

The video game Star Trek: Starship Creator calls him Stephen Garrovick and gives his parents' names as Joseph and Jeanne Garrovick. His mother is named Anne in the novel In the Name of Honor.

External links[]

• David Garrovick at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works