Mara is a rare science officer in the Blood and Honor crew in Star Trek Fleet Command. She was the first female Klingon to appear in the Original Series. She was the wife of Kang, and the science officer on Kang’s battle cruiser in the episode, Day of the Dove.
Her abilities are primarily effective against interceptors.
Captain’s Ability
Icy Analyst – When fighting Interceptors, Mara increases the Weapon damage of the ship by 20%.
This one’s pretty straightforward, if you’re going against an interceptor, she’ll increase the total damage your ship puts out by 20%. With synergy, this can get up to 60%. The rub is, that you can’t get her to 60% synergy without negating her officer ability, which as you’ll note below, requires a hull breach.
Officer Ability
Wife of a Dahar – As long as the opponent ship has a Hull Breach, Mara decreases its Dodge by (20% 25% 30% 35% 40%) at the end of each round.
First things first. In order for this to work, you’ll need to have an officer on board who sets off hull breach – Gorkon, Azetbur, Lorca, or her husband, Kang.
As to the ability itself, dodge is the primary means of damage mitigation for interceptors, and decreasing this will help you defeat them. However, in general, it’s not as the morale crew. But, now that we’ve got Territory Capture forcing players to work further and further down their officer roster – she becomes more valuable.
This won’t be your go-to crew, but rather, your second best explorer crew. The JV, if you will.
So if you’ve got, let’s say, a B’Rel that needs a PvP crew, putting Mara on with Kang and Krell to defeat your opponent’s Saladin could be a good solution for you. And the level of your Krell will make a world of difference.
Susan Howard Trivia
Mara, wife of Dahar Master Kang, was played by actress Susan Howard.
Howard was born in Marshall, Texas in 1944. She got her start on the 60s sitcom Love on a Rooftop. She went on to appear on The Monkees, The Flying Nun, and Tarzan before being cast as Mara on Star Trek.
Her next two TV appearances came on I Dream of Jeannie (more on that later.) And from there she was go-to guest actress on just about everything in the 70s. Mannix, Columbo, The Rockford Files, Barnaby Jones, Love, American Style, The Mod Squad, Mission: Impossible. It’d be easier to list of shows she wasn’t on.
She finally got a starring role in the 1974 NBC legal drama Petrocelli. And since it’s a show I’ve never seen, and I’ll admit I’d never heard about until now, I’m to go with the most interesting thing about that show, from a Trek point-of-view, is that it also starred David Huddleston. Who you might know better as being the title character in The Big Lebowski, or from his appearance in Blazing Saddles. But in Trek, he was the holographic train conductor in one of the oddest Next Generation episode, Emergence.
Sorry, back to Susan Howard. After Petrocelli, she did more guest appearances before finally getting her next (and last) starring role. On Dallas.
So this is the first time (and probably the last time) on this blog that I’ll get to talk about Dallas. So I’m going to tell you my Dallas story, and why the theme song makes me sleepy.
When I was a kid, early 80s, my bedtime was 8 pm. And the Muppet Show aired at 7:30.
So at about 7:59, the Muppet Show would end like this.
I picked this clip not for the great quality (obviously), but because it’s got the original ITC Entertainment logo at the end. At this point, more often than not, as I remember it, without commercial interruption at all, it would go straight into the following…
And it was time for bed. I’ve still never seen an episode of Dallas. I’m told someone shot J.R.
Which brings us back to Susan Howard, who was on Dallas for years.
Now right before Howard’s credit, we get full circle back to Michael Ansara, who played Mara’s husband, Kang. Larry Hagman, as every kid my age or older should know, played Major Tony Nelson on I Dream of Jeannie.
And Jeannie was played by Barbara Eden, who’s husband was … Michael Ansara.
If you’re scoring at home (or if you’re alone), that means I’ve now got two I Dream of Jeannie references. Catching up on the Bewitched references, which is now up to three.
After Dallas, Susan Howard spent one-year co-hosting The 700 Club, and then retired from acting.