Hikaru Sulu is an uncommon command officer in The Enterprise Crew in Star Trek Fleet Command. He’s one of the few officers in the game who can inspire morale and is a pretty good substitute until you get Kirk.
Getting Hikaru Sulu
You can get Hikaru Sulu shards in Ultra Recruit, Premium Recruit, Standard Recruit, and Federation recruit packs. As such, you’ll probably get this officer sooner than most, and eventually max him, which will give you transporter patterns.
Captain’s Ability
Do Not Test Me – When the Ship is getting hit by a critical hit, Sulu has a 40% chance of inspiring Morale to the ship for one round.
So anything that gives your ship Morale is good, but the trouble is that other officers do this better. Kirk, TOS Kirk, and even Admiral Marcus do a much better job of giving you morale.
The only reason I could see to use Sulu as captain would be if you didn’t have any other morale-inspiring officers.
Officer Ability
Ranking Fire – When the ship has Morale, Sulu increases the total damage made by Energy Weapons by (15% 20% 25% 30% 40%)
First of all, keep in mind that you need to have a morale officer on board to activate this ability. Without one, this ability doesn’t work. You’re also going to want to check the weaponry of the ship you’re using. This would be great on most Explorers, which tend to have energy weapons, but would be terrible on ships that focus on kinetic weapons.
As with his captain’s ability, this isn’t terrible, it’s just that there are usually better alternatives. However, it’s not terrible on an Enterprise, as you’re going to be replacing Spock in your morale crews.
George Takei Background
As has been my pattern thus far, I’ve covered the reboot actor in the article about the cadet officer, and the original actor in the article about the Enterprise Crew officer. So I’ll continue that here, so if you’re looking for background on John Cho, you can find that in my article about Cadet Sulu.
George Hosato Takei was born on April 20th, 1937 in Los Angeles, California, the son of Takekuma Norman Takei from Yamanashi Prefecture in Japan, and his wife Fumiko Emily Nakamura, from Sacramento.
His father named him George, after King George VI of the United Kingdom. You’ll probably remember George (or “Bertie”) from The King’s Speech, or from The Crown.
In 1942, Takei and his family were taken from their home, and forced into an internment camp in Arkansas, and then to another in Northern California. I think this is important enough to let you hear the story in Takei’s own words.
After the war, the family had to rebuild their lives. They moved back to Los Angeles. George graduated from Los Angeles High School, and then attended the University of California-Berkeley. He later transferred to UCLA, where he got his BA in 1960 and his Master’s Degree in Theater in 1964.
He started his acting career while still in college, getting his first film credits for doing voiceover work for the English-redubbing of the 1957 US release of the Japanese monster movie, Rodan, and later for Godzilla Raids Again.
His credited first on-screen appearance came in a 1959 episode of Playhouse 90, “Made in Japan.” I’m going to bet that none of you remember Playhouse 90. It was a series of filmed stage plays that ran on CBS in the late 50s.
He also appeared uncredited in the 1959 Frank Sinatra movie, Never So Few. It wasn’t a big part for him, but it’s one to remember if you’re ever playing Six Degrees of George Takei. Also in that cast were Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, James Hong, Paul Henreid and Mako. McQueen and Bronson are pretty obvious. Hong was a longtime character actor, who you’ll know immediately when you see him, for example, as Cassandra’s father in Wayne’s World 2, fighting Mike Myers. And Henreid was Victor Laszlo in Casablanca. Mako was in everything, really, everything. So, if you’re playing at home, and trying to tie Star Trek to Casablanca, or Wayne’s World, here you go.
Okay, back to Takei, next he appeared on an episode of The Californians. Then, he appeared on an episode of Perry Mason, “The Case of the Blushing Pearls.” You can watch the episode on CBS All Access by clicking here. Conveniently, you won’t have to go hunting to see Takei here, as you do with most actor’s early appearances. He’s the first one on screen.
He also appeared in the 1960 World War II movie, Hell to Eternity, which starred original Christopher Pike actor Jeffrey Hunter. He also appeared with , Alec Guinness in A Majority of One, James Caan in Red Line 7000 and Cary Grant in Walk, Don’t Run.
Like William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, James Doohan, and 72 others, Takei appeared on both Star Trek and The Twilight Zone. His episode called The Encounter was an exceptional two-man drama about the effects of World War II.
Becoming Hikaru Sulu on Star Trek
In the original pilot for Star Trek, there was no Sulu character on the Enterprise. In the second pilot, Where No Man Has Gone Before, Sulu wasn’t on the bridge but was rather the ship’s Physicist.
It wasn’t until the next episode, The Corbomite Maneuver that he first took the helm of the ship.
I think that’s enough for this article. I’ll need to save some in case they add a fourth Sulu to the game.
Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed.