Gary Seven is the major character in the last episode of the second season of the original Star Trek television series, "Assignment: Earth". He is portrayed by Robert Lansing.

Assignment: Earth

The episode "Assignment: Earth" was a television pilot for a proposed series about Gary Seven,^[1] a human who is undertaking a mission on Earth in 1968 but who was raised on another planet.^[2] The crew of the Starship Enterprise, who have been sent back in time by the United Federation of Planets to find out what actually had occurred on Earth in 1968, accidentally intercept the transporter beam which is sending Seven to Earth.

(According to Scott Dutton's sources, "Gary Seven is a man sent back in time from the 24th century, the only Earth man to ever survive the transit."^[1])

Seeing humans and Vulcans together, Seven realizes that the starship has come from the future, while the crew suspect that Seven is also a time traveler.

Seven, assigned by his planet's agency as a Class One Supervisor known as Supervisor 194,^[3] has been sent to determine why two resident agents, colleagues Agent 201 and Agent 347, had stopped reporting to his superiors. When he discovers that they had been killed in a traffic collision, he takes over their immediate task of sabotaging the launch of an orbital missile platform by the United States to prevent nuclear war on Earth.

He goes at once to their office in Apartment 12B at 811 East 68th Street in New York City, where he makes use of his Beta 5 computer, which speaks with a female voice and has broad, though limited, powers.^[3]

His colleagues, Agents 201 and 347, had been using the cover of researching for a new encyclopedia, and had hired Miss Roberta Lincoln (portrayed by Teri Garr) as their secretary. She is originally unaware of Seven's origins, but as she "possesses high I.Q.,"^[4], she realizes swiftly that he is not what he seems; she even guesses that he is alien or from the future.

Seven also had a constant companion in Isis, who at first appears to be an ordinary cat, but is shown to have great intelligence and in fact turns out to be able to alter its shape to become what appears to be a human female, which Miss Lincoln discovers during one scene as Isis changes shape into a human female and then back into a cat. Although Miss Lincoln had earlier tried to foil Seven (thinking him to be a spy), the two begin to work together.

At the end of the episode, Captain Kirk informs Seven and Lincoln that he has checked Federation records, and found that the new team would have "many adventures."

Powers and abilities

Although Seven is human, he manifests at least one non-human feature: he is insensitive to the impact of the Vulcan nerve pinch, an ability very few human or humanoid characters of the Star Trek universe ever manifested.^[3] Seven utilizes a small pen-shaped device called a servo which is a tool capable of almost anything.^[5] It functions as a communication device, a remote control to his personal transporter, a handheld weapon with both stun and kill settings and enough precision (and restraint) to cut a telephone wire from across a room, a remote manipulator to circuitry and machinery (used to deactivate the force field keeping him in the brig of the USS Enterprise), and a mechanical manipulation device (unscrewing screws, unlocking doors, etc.). (Physically and in terms of function, it had some similarity to the sonic screwdriver used by the Doctor on Doctor Who. In fact, the sonic screwdriver appeared on television screens in the UK just 13 days before Assignment: Earth aired in the United States.)

Other references

Star Trek novels

In Greg Cox's "Eugenics Wars" novels, Gary Seven had numerous dealings with Khan Noonien Singh and initially hopes to train Khan as his successor.^[3] Along with his now-partner Roberta Lincoln, Seven tries to prevent World War III in a variety of ways. Seven leaves Earth in 1996, after sending Khan on the DY-100 sleeper ship SS Botany Bay.

Cox also wrote a 1997 novel, Assignment: Eternity, featuring Seven. In this novel, the alien agency which Seven works for is called the "Aegis," though whether this refers to Seven's organization or the alien race is unclear.

Seven is mentioned but not seen in the [Temporal Cold War#Apocryphal events from DTI: Watching the Clock|Watching_the_clock|DTI]] novels.

Star Trek comics

According to several issues of the Star Trek comic books released by DC Comics in the 1990s (written by Howard Weinstein and Michael Jan Friedman), Gary Seven and Isis were sent by a force known as the Aegis, who took individuals from many worlds to selectively alter historical events. They gave their agents long lifespans, estimated to be as long as 1,000 years. Not all of these interventions went well—at least one led to an agent becoming the sole survivor of his homeworld—leading to a small rebellion against the Aegis. Several agents go so far as to injure or murder innocent beings who stand in their way.

Gary Seven later went against the wishes of the Aegis when he tried to stop the Devidians from altering the timeline so that the Federation would fall to the Romulans. Seven died in an initial attempt to rescue Spock from the Devidians, but was pulled from the timeline by the Aegis prior to the moment of his death after Exana (another agent of the Aegis, who was romantically involved with Seven) stopped the Devidians with the aid of Captain Kirk and Captain Picard.

In 2008, IDW Publishing launched an Assignment Earth comic book series written and drawn by John Byrne.