So in Arc 4 of TNG, we get Riker’s Imzadi, Counselor Deanna Troi. She’s an epic science officer in the TNG crew.
Captain’s Maneuver
Telepathic Predictions Deanna Troi reduces the Critical Hit Chance of Armada Targets by 15%.
With full synergy, you can get this up to 25%. The nice thing about this is that it will apply to all the ships in your armada. It’s not quite as good as running Pike and Gaila, which gives you a 50% reduction, it’s still significant, given the massive amount of damage that some armadas can do.
Officer Ability
Nemesis – Deanna Troi increases weapon damage against Romulan Hostiles and Armadas by (100%, 150%, 200%, 250%, 300%)
It’s a pretty standard damage bonus that you’ll want against Romulans, like Riker against the Federation or Geordi against Klingons. The nice thing with this ability is that you don’t have to recrew if you want to switch between armadas and hostiles. She’s good to pair with Picard, but you could also use her with Five of Ten and Six of Ten, or even Kirk and Spock.
I suppose this is a particularly fitting ability for Troi, having been assaulted by Nero’s telepathic abilities in Star Trek: Nemesis.
Marina Sirtis
Marina Sirtis was born on March 29th, 1955 in Hackney, England. Hackney is located in East London. She’s the daughter of Greek parents, John and Despina Sirtis.
Without her parents’ knowledge and against their wishes, as a high schooler, she auditioned and was accepted to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. That school produced such acting talent as Daniel Craig, Ewen MacGregor, and Peter Cushing.
She started her acting career in 1976 in the repertory company at the Connaught Theatre, Worthing, West Sussex. She appeared in What the Butler Saw and as Ophelia in Hamlet.
Her first television appearance came in the 1977 ITV series, Raffles. Someone was nice enough to compile all of her scenes from that series in one place, and here they are.
She spent the next few years making guest appearances on British television programs, before making her film debut came in the 1983 film, The Wicked Lady, starring Faye Dunaway, Alan Bates, and John Gielgud.
But the most interesting person in that cast was the great Denholm Eliot – who you’d probably remember for playing Marcus Brody in the Indiana Jones films. It’s a truly odd film, and her appearance is … erm… memorable. She gets into a whip fight with Faye Dunaway. You can find it on YouTube, dubbed in Russian. Really.
After that, she had a minor role in the 1984 B-movie, Blind Date, which starred a post-Wrath of Khan, but pre-Cheers Kirstie Alley. She played a prostitute who was (spoiler alert) killed by a serial killer. This isn’t the Blind Date with Bruce Willis and Kim Basinger that came out in ’87. (The Trek connections in that one are Armin Shimerman and John Laroquette.)
In 1986, in order to further her career, Sirtis moved to the United States and auditioned for TNG.
Troi Background
The character of Deanna Troi has its roots going all the way back to the aborted Star Trek Phase II television series, which evolved into Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and the character of Ilia. In fact, the Phase II script The Child was developed into the TNG episode of the same name, with Troi directly subbed in for Ilia. Troi’s relationship with Riker paralleled that of Ilia and Will Decker.
The concept of the character came from Gene Roddenberry, who thought that in the 24th century, mental health would be considered as important as physical health.
The character’s name was created by Gene Roddenberry. The name Deanna comes from Gene’s assistant, Susan Sackett’s middle name (like Wesley Crusher gets his first name from Roddenberry’s middle name.)
Originally, Denise Crosby was set to play Counselor Troi, and Marina Sirtis was to play the security chief. In fact, Crosby was, for a time, the only person considered for the role of Troi. The security chief that Sirtis was to play was to be called Macha Hernandez and was inspired by the character Vasquez (played by Jeanette Goldstein) in the 1986 film, Aliens.
Other actresses considered for the part of the security chief were Rosalind Chao, who later played Keiko O’Brien, and Julia Nickson, who played Lian T’Su in The Arsenal of Freedom.
Eventually, Crosby and Sirtis were swapped, as Sirtis was considered to have a more exotic look, and Crosby was more the “All-American girl” type.
Odd that the only thing that made Troi alien were her black contact lenses and unplaceable accent. But… at one point Roddenberry did envision the character having three breasts. Really. It was longtime Trek writer D.C. Fontana who talked him out of it, later commenting that “I felt women have enough trouble with two. And how are you going to line them up? Vertically, horizontally, or what? I was like, please, don’t go there. And they didn’t, fortunately.“