This was my holiday gift from Ming Doyle, artist on The Loneliest Astronauts and much, much more.

I got her the crummy 90s X-Men cartoon on DVD.

I won.

Born on Earth, Miranda comes from a wealthy background. However, underneath her opulent upbringing lies a woman who is calm, collected and driven to accomplish her mission, at any cost. She is quick to judge and values her assignments and goals over people. Miranda is also a powerful biotic as well as a tech specialist.

From the original Star Trek pitch document:

Never referred to as anything but “Number One”, this officer is female. Almost mysteriously female, in fact —- slim and dark in a Nile Valley way, age uncertain, one of those women who will always look the same between years twenty to fifty. An extraordinarily efficient officer, “Number One” enjoys playing it expressionless, cool -— is probably Robert April’s superior in detailed knowledge of the multiple equipment systems, departments and crew members aboard the vessel. When Captain April leaves the craft, “Number One” moves up to the acting commander.

From the Mass Effect Wiki entry (which is based on the game and licensed material):

Miranda [Lawson] was born in 2150. As she explains to Shepard, Miranda never had a mother, only a father who is extremely influential, wealthy, and ego-maniacal. Using a modified copy of his own genome, Miranda was genetically engineered to be a specimen of human perfection. Everything, from her intelligence, physical constitution, biotic abilities, to her appearance were designed before birth to be excellent

From Vulcan’s Glory, a licensed novel by Star Trek series writer D.C. Fontana:

In the four years she had served [Pike] as first officer, first on the old Yorktown and then on the new Enterprise, she had carried out her duties with a precision and perfection he had never seen in anyone else. In fact, perfect was exactly the adjective he applied to her at all times.

(And yes, I know, but I read it when I was 15 or so and it stuck in my head and it was cheap on the Kindle and hey, I occasionally read junk media tie-ins too.)

I also — and I can’t recall where, and I even went through several of the licensed comics along with DC’s Who’s Who In Star Trek — could swear that genetic engineering was added to Number One’s backstory at some point. It’s fascinating that these similarities seem so blatant to me, considering the efforts that the Mass Effect writing team have made to differentiate themselves from other franchises. Their physical appearance is, at least to me, very close and that’s particularly interesting as Miranda’s appearance is based on her voice actress, Yvonne Strahovski, who some of you might know from Chuck and Number One was, of course, played by Majel Barrett.

I’ll just shut up now. OK?

Yes, this is what happens when you’re raised in the south.

ANYWAY, Congratulations to Bart! We’ll see if I can get back on track with these giveaways sometime soon, ok? In the meantime, you can always buy the book on Amazon.

In order to help spread the good word, Abrams sent me a spare copy to give away. Want to get a chance to win it? From now until 11:59PM ET on Sunday, August 29, just leave a comment with your favorite episode that is not “City On The Edge Of Forever” or “The Trouble With Tribbles.” If you want, tell us why. I’ll use Random.org to pick a winner. Please note that you must use a valid email address when entering or I won’t be able to inform you of your winningness and because of the book’s weight, I won’t be shipping it outside of the United States.