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Summary
Indian actress and example Persis Khambatta limn Lieutenant Ilia , Star Trek ’s first - ever Deltan , inStar Trek : The Motion Picture . carry in Bombay , Khambatta get ahead the beauty pageant claim of Femina Miss India in 1965.Persis ' magnanimous gap in Hollywood was when she was cast as Lt . Ilia inStar Trek : Phase II , the sequel toStar Trek : The Original Seriesmeant as the flagship show of Paramount ’s project TV web . alternatively , Star Trek : Phase IIwas repurposed into 1979’sStar Trek : The Motion Picture , with Persis Khambatta joining the reunitedStar Trekoriginal cast .
InStar Trek : The Motion Picture , Lt . Ilia was the navigator of the USS Enterprise . Persis Khambatta ’s Deltan wasthe first major new distaff character preface inStar TreksinceThe Original Seriesended . Deltans were a sexually liberated species , and Ilia took an expletive of celibacy to unite Starfleet . IIia also had a previous human relationship with Captain Will Decker ( Stephen Collins ) , who was supersede byAdmiral James T. Kirk(William Shatner ) as Captain of the Enterprise on their foreboding mission to bug the monumental spaceship called V’Ger .
Star Trek : The Original Series boast some of the most iconic character reference in all of scientific discipline fiction with the crew of the original USS Enterprise .
What Happened to Persis Khambatta’s Lt. Ilia, Star Trek’s First Deltan?
Ilia was a casualty of Star Trek: The Motion Picture
When the Starship Enterprise made First Contact with V’Ger , the alien watercraft scan of the bridge disintegrated Lt . Ilia . However , V’Ger built an stilted investigation with the accurate physical characteristic of Ilia , but lack the Deltan ’s memories or personality . Still , Captain Decker treated the synthetical Ilia as the real thing as she attempted to study about humans at the behest of V’Ger . When Admiral Kirk , Spock ( Leonard Nimoy),Dr . Leonard " Bones " McCoy(DeForest Kelley ) , Decker , and Ilia board V’Ger , Will and Ilia chose to unite with V’Ger to climb up into a higher life form . Decker and Ilia go away and were never experience againafterStar Trek : The Motion Picture .
Persis Khambatta cash in one’s chips away in 1998 at the age of 49 .
Persis Khambatta star in films in India beforeStar Trek : The Motion Picture , and she appeared inNighthawksandMegaforceafter her memorableStar Trekrole . Khambatta also made television appearances onMacGyver , Mickey Spillane ’s Mike Hammer , andLois & Clark : The New Adventures of Superman . lamentably , Persis Khambatta passed away in 1998 at the age of 49 . A lifelong chain smoker , Khambatta was rushed to the hospital after complaining of dresser painfulness , andshe died of a massive philia attack on August 18 , 1998 .
Persis Khambatta’s Deltan Has A Unique Star Trek Legacy
Lt. Ilia inspired TNG’s Counselor Troi
It would be decades until another Deltan was seen afterStar Trek : The Motion Picture , but Persis Khambatta ’s Lt . Ilia spawned a unique legacy . When creatingStar Trek : The Next Generation , Gene Roddenberry returned to the construct of preceding lovers , withLt . Ilia and Captain Decker inspiring Counselor Deanna Troi ( Marina Sirtis ) and Commander Will Riker ( Jonathan Frakes ) . Aspects of the Deltans as a sexually liberated species were also transferred toTroi ’s empathic Betazoid race .
The democratic Riker and Troi eventually wed , find more success as a couple than Decker and Ilia did .
The strikingly baldDeltans have finally begun to make theirStar Trekcomebackover 40 years afterStar Trek : The Motion Picture . Deltans were seen inStar Trek : Picardseason 2 ’s premiere , with Soji ( Isa Briones ) and Dr. Agnes Jurati ( Allison Pill ) meeting twenty-fifth century members of Ilia ’s race on the planet Raritan IV.Star Trek : plane section 31 , the firstStar Trekmovie made for streaming on Paramount+ , also features a24th - century Deltan played by Humberly Gonzalez . Persis Khambatta proved unforgettable as Lt . Ilia andStar Trekis finally breathe new lifetime into the Deltans .
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