One of the most iconic voices on Star Trek, which turns 50 today, is the voice of the USS Enterprise computer, provided for so long by Majel Barrett-Roddenberry. The wife of Trek creator Gene Roddenberry died in 2008, but lent her firm yet dulcet tones to the 2009 reboot of the film series – and now, it seems, her voice could live on in the upcoming Discovery spinoff series and even on our personal devices.
Her son Eugene “Rod” Roddenberry, a producer of the new prequel to the original Trek series, recently tweeted during jubilee festivities that Majel’s voice was recorded phonetically for posterity, and could be incorporated into digital products like Siri or the new series’ starship computer:
Majel's voice is recorded phonetically, &we're working to get her voice for things such as Siri, maybe voice of the computer on #STDiscovery
— RODDENBERRY (@roddenberry) September 4, 2016
Majel Barrett-Roddenberry also played the original series’ Nurse Christine Chapel and Betazoid diplomat and bon-vivant Lwaxana Troi in The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine. But she also played “Number One,” the ahead-of-her-time first officer in the rejected Trek pilot “The Cage” (pictured) – a character that we’ve heard may return, at least in some spirit-tribute form, in Discovery. We can’t wait to see how this unsung heroine is honored in Star Trek’s return to its progressive roots!
