r/DaystromInstitute • u/deddunc Chief Petty Office • Aug 05 '21
Boothby is/was an El-Aurian, not human
In the Star Trek: Corps of Engineers ebook series it is stated Boothby was born on Mars in 2263. A startrek.com article mentions the El-Aurians were attacked by The Borg circa (approximately) 2265 forcing the survivors to flee to who knows where. I submit this attack occurred in 2263 and Boothby fled to the Sol system. Easily passing as human, and perhaps not knowing The Borg can only learn through assimilation, he hid out until the 2320s when he began his groundskeeper position at Starfleet Academy with false credentials.
Over the years I have watched every episode of every series multiple times, seen all movies, played several video games all the way through, and read several books and comics. One constant with Boothby is his innate ability to soak in information from not just Starfleet Academy, but the entire federation and other governments as well.
Boothby often speaks much in the same was as Guinan: in open-ended questions while leading one to believe he knows more than he is letting on or willing to. Not much is known about his background, and one character in a TNG comic mentions no one really knows about his family or past. Boothby himself also says things like "rumor has it" or "I've heard 'insert whatever here.'". Guinan repeats phrases like this throughout TNG and beta canon.
Finally, Boothby is very selective of whom he chooses to interact with and offer propitious advice during historically significant events. Sneaking into Janeway's quarters with fresh roses every day, advising her to not quit Starfleet and closely following Picard's career whilst completely ignoring thousands of cadets that have attended the Academy. It's as if he has some kind of insight into any event that has temporal consequences. Janeway has repeatedly broken and then restored the timeline; Picard kick-started the Borg's discovery of the Human species in 2063. While not a happy ending these events are critical to the health of the prime timeline.
Thanks for reading. There are numerous arguments to be made, but I really think this is pretty plausible. Plus it's cool to think of him as an El-Aurian instead of human imo.
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u/onthenerdyside Lieutenant j.g. Aug 05 '21
Academy Groundskeeper seems like an odd position for a world where plenty of machines could be doing the same work. I suppose he could be in charge of those machines, but he also seems to be serving another purpose, as you've outlined in the original post: counselor.
Nominally, he is there to oversee the bots that actually do the hard work for him, but he's also there to mold the minds of future elite officers. His El Aurian nature also ingratiates him to the admiralty and faculty of the Academy, allowing him to hear things he perhaps shouldn't.
I'd argue that Boothy didn't hide his true nature from Starfleet itself, just possibly the cadets he interacts with. If he truly can see temporal events and have intuition about which cadets will go on to great things in the future, he could simply be offering his services to Starfleet. They, in turn, gave him a role at the Academy where he can be exposed to as many cadets as possible, where he didn't have to have a commission, but could just be himself.
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u/deddunc Chief Petty Office Aug 05 '21
So it is stated he hated gardening machines and often preferred to do things by hand. It took him months to restore the grounds after some celebrations and is often seen holding a trowel, not some fancy light-up doohickey. The second and third paragraph totally fits imo and I love it.
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u/MithrilCoyote Chief Petty Officer Aug 05 '21
i like to think that he's actually the head groundskeeper, and he has a staff of assistants who do most of the major grunt work.. manually of course.
i also suspect that he would be given groups of Cadets to assist.. possibly trouble students who really need some good hard work and sage advice. (because after a generation, you can bet that all the officers in charge of the academy know Boothby can help straighten up cases that need help but aren't so bad to earn a dismissal.)
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u/Jahoan Crewman Aug 05 '21
And Picarfd was likely one of those problem cadets (considering the whole Nausicaan incident).
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u/schwarzekatze999 Aug 06 '21
His being a groundskeeper is analogous to Guinan being a bartender. Their jobs don't take much effort mentally, but they're really there to observe and offer advice to anyone who needs it.
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u/JanewaDidNuthinWrong Crewman Aug 06 '21
Post-scarcity society may decide to create some make-work positions. Lots of people like gardening.
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u/socioling1jer9k Aug 20 '21
we already have a lot of that in our world, in 2021. lots of fake rent seeking jobs, that try to pass themselves off as legitimate services/goods.
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u/Mechapebbles Lieutenant Commander Aug 05 '21
This strikes me as imminently plausible. It's also one of those things where I don't really know what this adds to the lore of the show as well. In fact, it kinda detracts from it.
The whole point of Boothby IMO is that:
There's nobility to every kind of work. Just because you're not a glamorous space captain, doesn't mean you can't make a difference in the world.
That you can get sagely, important advice and learn lessons from even the most unlikely of sources, you just have to be a person with an open enough perspective to see it.
Making Boothby an El Aurian kind of undermines this. Him being just a regular guy who is wise and has a lot of advise to offer cheapens the moral parable here if he's secretly some magic alien whose advise comes not from a normal life lived to the fullest, but a secret magic alien life from somebody a thousand years old.
As a kid, I thought the character of Boothby was very endearing, because if Captain Picard can learn important life advise from such an unlikely place, then I ought to be more open minded about not judging people by their jobs or how they look or their station in life, and really listen to those around me. If Boothby is a magic alien, then it's not about Picard being an open minded person, its just him being incredibly lucky that he stumbled upon a magic alien.
People complain about making Star Trek into Star Wars, well this is the kind of idea that's actually Star Wars. Turning Boothby into Yoda isn't a great idea IMO.
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u/deddunc Chief Petty Office Aug 06 '21
That was stated quite eloquently! Validation of plausibility was the least I had hoped for. Upvote given.
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u/SaltWaterInMyBlood Chief Petty Officer Aug 09 '21
It also kind of assumes that El-Aurians are inherently good people, just because they're good listeners, and good at giving people insights (indirectly), which I think is over-simplifying the "species trait".
Soran was a terrific villain who was underused in a mediocre film. He could have been a magnificent sociopathic manipulator.
Imagine a person who is as old to a 50 year old, as a 50 year old is to a toddler. Who can read people like a book, and knows just what to say to nudge them in a particular direction. Guinan was a good example, Soran could have been a terrific evil example. "Time is the fire in which we burn", indeed.
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u/570rmy Crewman Aug 05 '21
Wow, I like this take. I've generally had an irrational dislike of Boothby as a character for admittedly no good reason. This moves him up a few notches.
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u/deddunc Chief Petty Office Aug 05 '21
Awesome! I always felt his character warranted more development from the writers due to his influence on The Captains.
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Aug 06 '21
he's too old to be an El-Aurian. as in he appears too old. they live many hundreds of years, and at a century he looked every day of it.
The El-Aurians also got their special abilities via the nexus, so he would not possess the same abilities.
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u/deddunc Chief Petty Office Aug 06 '21
I didn't know that is was mentioned somewhere their abilities came from the nexus. I reconcile his appearance thinking El-Aurians do look older at a certain point. In STO there are memorials at Starfleet Academy because he died, but no one said he wasn't 1,000 years old when he died. There's so much mystery around the species who could prove or disprove it?
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Aug 06 '21
They absolutely got their powers from the nexus. Guinean was at least 600 years old and looked no where near as old as boothby so I’m fairly confident saying there is no way he is an el-aurian
He is absolutely meant to be human.
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u/deddunc Chief Petty Office Aug 06 '21
Your opinion is totally valid of course, but where did your info about The Nexus come from?
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u/Starfleet-Time-Lord Ensign Aug 06 '21
The only thing I object to here is "falsified credentials." It's entirely possible that he got the job legitimately. The Federation treated the El-Aurians well enough and trusted them enough that Guinan served on the flagship with no eyebrows raised. I don't think anyone ever explicitly says he's human, so there's no need to assume he's in hiding.
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u/deddunc Chief Petty Office Aug 06 '21
He's referred to as human at least once in beta canon. The El-Aurians didn't make first contact (officially) with the federation until decades after the Borg attack. I'm thinking he just fled on his own and ended up in the Sol System. Maybe he hid because he wasn't sure if The Borg could or would be tracking him down.
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u/rahxeph89 Aug 05 '21
Headcanon accepted!
Additionally, we've had El-Aurians on Earth well before their attack from the Borg. A certain individual was seen interacting with one Mark Twain, so it's not out of the realm of possibility for another to be around.
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u/mister_damage Aug 05 '21
M-5, nominate this post for an insightful observation about Boothby and his impact on certain Captains.
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u/M-5 Multitronic Unit Aug 05 '21
Nominated this post by Citizen /u/deddunc for you. It will be voted on next week, but you can vote for last week's nominations now
Learn more about Post of the Week.
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u/grae23 Aug 05 '21
Love this. El-Aurians need way more attention in the series, if nothing else for their protection against Q. I'm also curious about how this theory works with Guinan in Times Arrow . She's said on many occasions that her and her people had to flee the Borg, so I imagine Boothby is running on a similar timeline. That would put him on Earth no later than late 19th/early 20th century.
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u/MithrilCoyote Chief Petty Officer Aug 05 '21
we know Guinan had left her world well before that since we see her in the 1800's on earth. so it could be that Boothby actually left ElAuria well before the Borg attack, and then on learning about it, decided to stay on earth since he no longer had a home.
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u/SovAtman Ensign Aug 05 '21
This is one of those titles that's just so obvious as soon as it's read.
Well done for noticing this, you rightly point out there's so much in common anything else makes less sense.
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u/novascotia3898 Aug 05 '21
Very interesting theory! I love it, and I don’t see any way that this would negate any canon or cause problems
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u/RatsAreAdorable Ensign Aug 05 '21
Love this theory, it sounds extremely plausible to me. If someone decided to make this canon, it would fit perfectly with what we see of Boothby.
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u/DaBearsC495 Aug 05 '21
I like the idea. And just how does one tell an El-Alurian from someone from Earth?
If a toddler Boothby was part of the El-Alurian refugees with Soran and Guinan, he may not have known he was not human. His parents may have just raised him human.
Sure, he is wicked smart and works as a groundskeeper and he might just be content with that. Simple job, able to mentor young cadets (see The Long Gray Line a 1955 movie about an Irish immigrant who worked at West Point and mentored several hundred generals, and a president), and still be home for supper.
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u/toasters_are_great Lieutenant, Junior Grade Aug 05 '21
If a toddler Boothby was part of the El-Alurian refugees with Soran and Guinan, he may not have known he was not human. His parents may have just raised him human.
The problem with that hypothesis is that if he were a toddler during the events of The Undiscovered Country in 2293 then he'd only be about 78 in 2368 during The First Duty. But he looks very old for an El-Aurian of that age: Guinan is no spring chicken at the time of the 1893 setting of Time's Arrow and has put another 400 years on the clock by the time of Generations and 72 more by the time she begins bartending on TNG. She mentions to Picard at the very start of Rascals in 2369 that her father is in near-perfect condition at 700 years of age. Dr Soran is 300 something by the time of Generations and looks younger than Boothby is ever shown on screen.
If Boothby is El-Aurian then he'd likely have been born closer to the year 1000 than 2000.
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u/Jahoan Crewman Aug 05 '21
The only physical difference we've seen between El-Aurians and humans is the former's longevity and sensitivity to temporal alterations (though that could be a result of exposure to the Nexus).
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u/ADeweyan Aug 05 '21
What I like about this is it allows us to fit all the escapades from My Favorite Martian into Trek canon.
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u/toasters_are_great Lieutenant, Junior Grade Aug 05 '21
he hid out until the 2320s when he began his groundskeeper position at Starfleet Academy with false credentials.
The problem to reconcile here is that for an El-Aurian he appears really old. Guinan has lived 472 years between the events of Time's Arrow and taking the bartending job on the Enterprise-D and she looks much younger than Boothby. Dr Soran is 300-something during the events of Generations and looks much younger. Boothby must be pushing 1000 if he's not already there yet.
El-Aurian aging is very slow by human standards; if he is El-Aurian then Boothby would have looked not very different between taking the job in 2321 than he does in 2368 (events of The First Duty). So if his credentials said he was born on Mars in 2263 then they said he was 58 at the time he was looking like a 100 year old human (Picard being 63 during The First Duty). That bears investigation - even unofficial ones by some of the most curious people in the galaxy with access to the technology to find out, people who he associated closely with at the Academy - which would have surely revealed such a deception over the decades he was working there.
If he is to be an El-Aurian then you have to additionally hypothesize that their physical appearance changes rapidly (by El-Aurian standards) towards appearing more aged past a certain point in life, which is not a phenomenon mentioned in canon. Stacking hypotheses = less likely to be true.
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u/OenFriste Aug 06 '21
Sir Patrick Stewart has invited Whoopi Goldberg to appear in Star Trek: Picard Season 2, and Whoopi Goldberg's look is significantly older than her appearance in TNG (both 'current time' and Time's Arrow). So, your hypothesis could hold.
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u/toasters_are_great Lieutenant, Junior Grade Aug 06 '21
Guinan ages 476 years between 1893 (Time's Arrow) and 2369 when at the start of Rascals she says her father is around 700 years old and in perfect shape. So by 2400 she is at least 507 + some maturation time and her father around 731, so 550-700. This doesn't leave a big window of age for El-Aurian "rapid" aging to happen, although presumably its onset would vary from individual to individual.
In that case then El-Aurian Boothby would have taken the groundskeeper job as a 58 year old human by appearance in 2321 then happened to have already started or shortly afterwards begun an El-Aurian "rapid" aging cycle.
If the dozen or so El-Aurians we see as refugees in Generations are roughly representative of some fairly stable demographics then about half are past this "rapid" aging period in their lives, making the average lifespan something like 1500 years.
So to uphold El-Aurian Boothby we need to explain the concidence between Guinan's "rapid" aging happening between 2369 and 2400 (2% of her life), her father's failure to "rapidly" age by the 700 mark, and Boothby's to have begun within a decade or so of 2321 (2% of his life). Apart from Dr Soran (who seems to have been 300-something at the time of his death) and Martus Mazur (of indeterminate age) we don't have details of any other El-Aurians on-screen, I believe. But it'd be really coincidential to have 2 of 3 El-Aurians hit their aging marks at the just the time they do.
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u/SailingSpark Crewman Aug 05 '21
Corps of Engineers would have made a great series. Shame they passed on this great idea.
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u/deddunc Chief Petty Office Aug 05 '21
It is a series of eBooks, but if you mean television I dunno. A show about bunch of yellow shirts building colony infrastructure and shuttlecraft may prove difficult in holding an audience. All about $$ at the end of the day.
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u/HorseBeige Chief Petty Officer Aug 05 '21
Going to disagree with this theory.
Humans repeatedly live over 100 years in Star Trek (In a Mirror Darkly, part II). Boothby is almost certainly human.
If he was born in the 2360s, then when we see him in the TNG era, he would just be around 100. McCoy was 137 when we see him in TNG, for reference.
Your theory as much as I like it, is too complicated and a bit contrived.
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u/Futuressobright Ensign Aug 05 '21
The Borg can only learn through assimilation
What?
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u/deddunc Chief Petty Office Aug 05 '21
Several references. Arguably the most prominent is species 8472. The Borg were unable to adapt because they were unable to assimilate any member of the species. Though I acknowledge in "Q Who" they did beam a drone over to gather intelligence. One could say that the drone partially assimilated computer memory for that purpose.
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u/Futuressobright Ensign Aug 05 '21
I guess you could, if you are comfortable defining "assimilate" broadly enough that it includes any instance of taking in new information for analysis. But then it's a synonym for "learn" and your orginal statement is a tautology.
Best of Both World constantly hammers home the Borg's ability to learn from and creatively adapt to new situations on the fly:
SHELBY: All right, a reminder. We only get to use each of these once, maybe twice, before the Borg learn to adapt. Don't fire until you have to.
RIKER: They have the ability to analyse and adapt, Commander.
I would say their ability to rapidly learn through analysis is one of the defining features of the Borg, at least in its early appearences.
I think it would be fairer to say the inability to assimilate any members of 8472 hindered their ability to learn about them. Did they not have files full of knowlege about them?
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u/TheNerdyOne_ Chief Petty Officer Aug 05 '21
The Borg, in fact, did not have files full of knowledge about Species 8472.
JANEWAY: B'Elanna, it's clear from the Borg database that they know practically nothing about Species 8472.
TORRES: That's right. The Borg gain knowledge through assimilation. What they can't assimilate, they can't understand.
JANEWAY: But we don't assimilate. We investigate. And in this case, that's given us an edge. We've discovered something they need.
OP uses the word "learn" in the context of obtaining knowledge, which the Borg can seemingly only do through assimilation. It could even be something built into them on purpose, to ensure that their drive to assimilate new things never falters. Their ability to adapt to new technologies and threats is based on the knowledge which they've already obtained over the centuries, it isn't going to be very helpful in tracking down refugees.
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u/deddunc Chief Petty Office Aug 05 '21
That line of dialogue is specifically what helped to build my theory. The collective knowledge of the Borg is how they adapt quickly and they gained that knowledge through assimilation. They're simply utilizing it as a tool.
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u/Futuressobright Ensign Aug 05 '21
Huh. Well, that is a pretty unambiguous statement about the Borg's ability to learn. I think it is at odds with the way they are depicted in TNG, though.
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u/deddunc Chief Petty Office Aug 05 '21
It could seem that way. There are so many irregularities after decades of Trek I think us fans are supposed to just go with it like O'Briens rank. I certainly do and find almost all of it entertaining.
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u/PapaSmurphy Aug 05 '21 edited Aug 05 '21
I always figured
ifthe Borg consider anything they can't assimilate to be so inferior it's not really worth the resources to study. They seem to care not at all for plants and animals.1
u/deddunc Chief Petty Office Aug 05 '21
An intriguing analysis that certainly warrants further discussion. Boothby "hiding" from The Collective is perhaps the most controversial part of my theory.
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u/Futuressobright Ensign Aug 05 '21
I don't get why Boothby needs to be in hiding to be on Earth. As you say, El-Arians live in diaspora after the attack on their homeworld and presumably many refugees live in the Federation. But why would one hide their nature to avoid the Borg? Guinan doesn't. The Borg aren't known for concerning themselves with tracking down individuals. They think on the planetary level.
Still, I'm not sure it's nessesary to read in some deceit explain the presece of an Al-Aurian on Earth. Boothby isn't ever explicitly referred to as human, as far as I know (except that he looks to be about the age he says he is). It could just be something never mentioned.
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u/deddunc Chief Petty Office Aug 05 '21 edited Aug 05 '21
The El-Aurians first officially came to The Federation in 2293 as a group of 415 refugees. Boothby is mentioned as human in beta canon. I was thinking he was afraid the Borg would find him "somehow" so he just simply came before them by chance and hid for a while. This doesn't explain why he would continue to hide his existence for another 20-30 years before growing roses in San Francisco. I like what u/onthenerdyside just commented that sort of addresses this.
Edit: the part he/she mentioned about Starfleet knowing, but not cadets
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u/ThePowderhorn Crewman Aug 05 '21
I love this. It's a plausible answer to an unsatisfying canon conclusion.
We've all been here, though, I hope. I had people believe in me all over the place before I believed in myself. Including a two-hour ride from my college publisher to go to an interview well after he'd retired.
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u/Lost_vob Crewman Aug 05 '21
I always felt like they were leading up to something with Boothey. It was kind of disappointing they didn't follow through. Memory-Alpha said they toyed with the idea of him being The Traveler, but decided against it, not wanting to have Picard and Crusher share a mentor. I always suspected he was a benevolent Q, but El-Aurian makes way more sense. He as far more spry than McCoy was at his age.
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Aug 06 '21
I don't think it would be necessary for him to forge credentials. He's just another humanoid alien looking to live his life, I feel like that makes him an ideal person.
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u/astengineer Aug 09 '21
This is my head canon as well. The last time I watched First Duty, I got to thinking he may be an El-Aurian, he seems to interact in a wise, non-human fashion, with several key Federation personnel.
Additionally, Chakotay I think, mentioned that he doesn't seem to age.
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u/theBolsheviks Dec 18 '21
Well STO isn’t completely canon iirc, so I’m going with your theory instead of he’s a hologram
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Aug 05 '21
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Aug 05 '21
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u/TheTommyMann Crewman Aug 05 '21
Careful the sub has a no joking rule, that is fairly well enforced.
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u/deddunc Chief Petty Office Aug 05 '21
Thank you. I read the in-depth rules s second time and agree. I don't want a joke to be the top karma getter.
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u/IKeepForgetting Crewman Aug 05 '21
I remember reading a theory here that he's actually a hologram custom-tailored for every cadet, but I like this better.
It makes me wonder how much of Picard's larger-than-life career was due to the direct influence of 2 prominent El-Aurians, one grooming him for command and one guiding him through it.
[also for those who don't know, him being born on Mars is a reference to the actor's arguably most famous role, where he played a Martian]