With the success of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 1 under her belt, Melissa Navia has happily settled into the fact her novel, non-canon character, Lt. Erica Ortegas, has quickly become one of the most beloved crew members aboard this iteration of the USS Enterprise.
The most recent adventure on (and in orbit around) Rigel VII offers fans insights into what makes the highly skilled pilot tick. (Warning: spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 Episode 4.)
Speaking with TV Fanatic in an exclusive interview over Zoom, Navia delves into how having memories and identity stripped away reveals her character’s core strength and intrinsic qualities.
Navia recognizes that audiences feel that Ortegas is accessible and that they connect with her as a capable and open character with a solid understanding of her abilities and role on the ship.
“I feel like what everyone fell in love with in Season 1 was Ortegas as the helmsman, right? That was the most backstory we really got about her. We saw her in all these situations in every episode where she’s an integral part of the crew, but what we really knew was that she’s an excellent helmsman.
“She loves piloting the ship. Captain Pike trusts her, and she knows that she’s really good at what she does. She’s calm under pressure, but that’s because she’s highly skilled, and she knows that she can execute what needs to be done.
“So, moving into [Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2], fans are like, ‘We wanted more. We want more backstory.’
“I keep repeating, but the showrunners and writers always had that backstory in mind. It’s just a matter of you have ten episodes; you have this amazing ensemble, and there’s only so many storylines you can fit in.
“In this episode, we get to see that part of her that is a soldier and is somebody who wants to be in on the action. She wants to go on this away mission and be even more useful than she already is as the ship’s helmsman.
“When that’s taken from her, this is another moment where audiences will be like, ‘Well, I know what that’s like.’ Y’know, where finally, something’s gonna happen, and then, nope, that’s just is not going to happen. It’s just not in the cards for [her], and so she’s stuck on the ship, and then the absolute most terrifying thing happens.
“You ask people what they’re scared of in life – and I guess some people might say standing up in front of an audience – but a lot of people are scared of losing your memory, of losing your connection to what it is that you do, and that is what starts happening.
“For her — somebody who identifies so much with her job and knows that is so much of what she brings to her crew — when that disappears, what do you do? When you literally don’t know what makes you you, what do you do? And it happens like that. *snaps fingers* It happens in a span of not very long.”
Navia understands that what is so terrifying about the memory loss scenario is how unthinkable it is.
“I love how, at the start of it, Spock hands her the little tablet [saying,] ‘This is who you are just in case we need it,’ and she’s like, ‘Okay, whatever. How am I gonna forget who I am? Y’know, like, this is me. This is what makes me tick. This is what I do, what I love doing.’
“So when she does forget… As an actor, my big question was, how do I go to that really, really dark, scary place where you literally do not know who you are and you don’t feel like you’re capable of doing anything and then rise back up into that confidence where you’re like, ‘Oh, I’m the only one who can do what is being asked of me.'”
The stages of the Rigel VII radiation effects on the crew parallel the real-life progression of dementia, with the victims experiencing time loss, fear, and anger.
Was this something the cast discussed when preparing for their scenes?
“I didn’t speak to anybody on the cast about it, but that’s something that, on a personal level, I have experience with. I know that it can be so incredibly hard on the person who is battling it and also on all those people around that person who will also be battling it and who are then going to rise up to help that person.
“At some point, I would love to be part of a conversation where we talk more openly about it. So many people don’t like to plan for it because they don’t even want to think that it’s a possibility. But it could be genetic, but there are so many things that contribute to it.
“What gets me is when somebody has dementia, and people are like, ‘Oh, that’s so weird that he would’ve gotten it when he does this and that.’
“There’s no rhyme or reason. There’s still so little that we know about it. It can’t be stopped — the progression cannot be stopped — but it’s something that people are so afraid about. Then, when it happens, there’s still a stigma around people talking about it.
“We need to talk more about it and help caregivers, especially family members, to also talk about it and to know that so many people are going through it.
“People get so sad about somebody being diagnosed with dementia or Alzheimer’s. Instead of that, it’s a moment to [focus on] the importance of getting a diagnosis and doing things to be able to help with it.
“Especially if they’re older — y’know, dementia can happen at so many different ages – but when they’ve lived a life where they’re surrounded by family members and friends who are now their eyes and ears and who now can create the conversations that they used to create.
“When people are like, ‘What do you say to somebody who has dementia or who doesn’t talk as much or has aphasia where they lose their ability to speak?’
“Well, you know what? For all your life, that person spoke and did so many things, so now it’s your time to speak and to create the conversation and to be there for that person.
“As you can tell, it’s something that’s very, very close to me. It was absolutely in my head, but I didn’t – I dunno – I didn’t feel like being like, ‘Does anyone realize that this is really scary and how we can relate it to that?’ but absolutely, that was in the back of my mind at all times.
“I always try to be a positive, upbeat person. I know you know about all the things that I’ve talked about in the last year and a half, so that’s definitely been tested.
“But my thing is when that person whom you love, who is so intelligent and was so cognitively on top of everything, and that all starts to kind of disappear, there are certain things that do not disappear – that love of music, love of language, love of the faces that that person recognizes.
“Instead of focusing on what is missing, focus on what is there. I always think about that when people are like, ‘Oh, it’s so sad,’ but it’s – I mean, you could focus on that, but that’s not gonna do anything for anybody at the end of the day. So focus on what is there and what you can tap into and things like music, things like professions, things that you love so much. That’s what you can tap into.”
Stepping back to Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 1 Episode 10, the season finale that saw Captain Pike in an alternate future where the events of Star Trek: The Original Series Season 1 Episode 14 are played out with Pike in place of Kirk, we ask Navia about the choice to have Ortegas stand in for the bigoted and bitter Lt. Stiles.
It’s an uncomfortable and disturbing turn for the character of Ortegas, one that the fans wondered about in the hiatus between seasons. Navia is eager to address the issue.
“I’ve been wanting to speak on this because I think you have fans that absolutely got what I was going for, and then you also have some fans that are looking at the fact that they know the episode that we were mirroring, and they’re like ‘Wow, suddenly Ortegas is not likable and is in place of Stiles,’
“But what I say is when we went into the episode, that was the goal. We’re in an alternative timeline that should not exist. And then that also plays to so many things that we could talk hours about, but this idea of Pike is trying to change the future based on things that he knows.
“He’s being told, ‘Do not change the future because things are happening … things happen as they should happen, and when you mess with that, things suddenly… they don’t work so well.’
“So when I went into it, our director Chris Fisher – who is just excellent, and I adore him – he was like, ‘We all love Ortegas. We all want to get drinks with Ortegas. We want this Ortegas to be somebody we do not love. Somebody who has been through things that have changed her for the worse.’
“And what is it that has happened? Well, instead of the bigotry side of it that we were seeing with Stiles, what we were looking at her backstory as a soldier, which is that she has had friends and family who have been killed by the Romulans, and they have never been brought to justice.
“So that’s what she’s seeing. She’s seeing it very one-note. And we see a darker side to her that then fans are like, ‘Are we going to see that happen like in our regular timeline?’
“I was really playing it as this is an Ortegas we do not want, who has been through things, and she is now looking at the Romulans as one thing that to her is not a good thing. By the end, when she sees that we do have a Romulan who is not somebody who wants to go to war and to kill indiscriminately, we see that change in her.
“But it’s momentary because then we have to get back to the fact Pike is like, ‘A-ha, I get it.‘
“And so, for me, how I saw it was that she went through things that put these biases in place.
“That’s something that’s important to think about when we see people who have biases — not to say that in any way we’re condoning them — but if we are trying to have a conversation about things, we shouldn’t be afraid to have conversations that help us try to dig through those biases.
“For that episode, the point was that you were not supposed to like Ortegas, so that was very purposeful.”
Fortunately, our Prime timeline Ortegas continues to kick ass like the big damn hero she is, and we can look forward to more adventures as Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 continues with new episodes streaming every Thursday on Paramount+.
What are your thoughts about Ortegas’s crisis on this week’s mission to Rigel VII, Fanatics? How glad are you that she flies the ship and knows it even when her identity is lost?
Where would you like to see Ortegas finally get her away mission?
Hit our comments with your wishlist of flight (and plot!) maneuvers you think she should try next!
Diana Keng is a staff writer for TV Fanatic. She is a lifelong fan of smart sci-fi and fantasy media, an upstanding citizen of the United Federation of Planets, and a supporter of AFC Richmond ’til she dies. Her guilty pleasures include female-led procedurals, old-school sitcoms, and Bluey. She teaches, knits, and dreams big. Follow her on Twitter.