Flint

This article is about theimmortal, Flint. You may be looking for hisalternate reality counterpart(s),Vandar andVandal Savage.

Flint

-Flint, under the alias of Willem Abramson

Flint was the name of an immortal maleHuman who had lived across various periods inhistory.

Biography[]

Early life[]

The being known as Flint was an immortal who was born as Akharin inMesopotamia onEarth in3834 BC. As Akharin, Flint became a foot soldier and discovered that he could not die when he was wounded on the battlefield. After his discovery, Flint continued his life on Earth, taking numerous aliases over the years, often playing a vital role inHumanhistory.

Among his many identities wereKingSolomon,Methuselah,Lazarus,Alexander the Great,Merlin,Leonardo da Vinci andJohannes Brahms. Flint also witnessed numerous historical events, such as theBlack Death in the14th century, and often met other individuals who had a huge impact on the world, such asMoses,Socrates, andGalileo Galilei. Flint also had many wives and children, all of whom he outlived.

During his long life, he acquired many items such as aGutenbergBible, a first folio ofWilliam Shakespeare's plays and a painting byReginald Pollock. It is possible that he lived as one or more of these men. (TOSepisode: "Requiem for Methuselah")

Meeting with Q[]

Early on in his life, in thePaleolithic Era, tens ofthousands of years ago, Akharin had been known asVandar Adg. His body gained immortality when charged with strangeenergy from ameteorite. It was at this time he metQ and tricked him, causing Q to be compelled to follow Vandar's commands on the basis of a wager that Q had made and was obliged to keep. Thisreality sawVandar become quite powerful, using his ability to give Q orders to expand an empire, the Imperial Planets. Vandar's mad reign was not ended until the23rd century, when a group of displacedtime travellers from a futurealternate reality, theLegion of Super-Heroes, were stranded in Vandar's reality. Also trapped was alanding party from theUSSEnterprise, in theprimary universe.

WhenSpock andBrainiac 5 journeyed to thatEarth's past, they found the newly-imprisoned Q, who had been ordered not to take orders "from anyone living on Earth". Spock and Brainiac correctly surmised that they could try giving him an order, to free himself. The plan worked, as Q was not prevented from taking the order—Spock and Brainiac, being from the future, were not technically living on Earth, nor had they been born yet. Q's escape ensured that the alternate reality was never created. In the primary version of history, Vandar became Akharin and found himself to be immortal. In the Legion's reality, however, Vandar remained a villain, taking on the name "Vandal Savage".

Q would return to visit Flint in the23rd century, onHolberg 917G, to ask the immortal about the experience of once having captured an omnipotent being and how the once bloodthirsty conqueror was a now a man of peace while educating him on themultiverse. (TOS -Legion of Super-Heroescomics: "Issue 1", "Issue 4", "Issue 5", "Issue 6")

Q's visit to Earth's ancient history took place numerous thousands of years before Akharin's birth in Mesopotamia. It is possible that Flint was mistaken or no longer remembered that era, or it could be that the interaction with Q displaced the young Flint intime for some other purpose or that Flint's changed history was a result of the distortion in reality between the primary universe and the Legion's reality. Flint's final discussion with Q also leaves open the possibility that he was speaking metaphorically to Kirk when he said he was born in 3834 BC, his "birth" referring to when he turned away from conquest.

Flint the Immortal[]

In the1980s, Flint went by the name Wilson Evergreen and was working as a scientist at the top secretDa Vinci Research Base inAntarctica on a project that would close a hole in Earth'sozone layer.Gary Seven discovered this research and managed to convince Flint not to continue the research as it could be used as a horrible military weapon. During this encounter Seven discovered Flint's immortality when a youngKhan Noonien Singh stabbed him through the heart and Flint returned to life after a few moments. (TOSnovel:The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh, Volume 1)

Later, during the21st century, Flint took parts from Gary Seven'sBeta 5 computer after Seven had left, which Flint used to build Flint's personal computer,Rayna. Rayna assisted Flint in his operations and his personal life, keeping a constant stream of new identities ready for Flint to use as needed.

During the mid-21st century, Flint was using the alias Lewis Bixby and living inNew York City when it was attacked bynuclear weapons at the beginning ofWorld War III. As Bixby would have died in the blast, Flint changed his name to Jerome Drexler and then deployed weather satellites to help cleanse Earth's atmosphere. Several years later, Flint had weapons gradeebola virus dropped ontoPhillip Green's headquarters, killing Green. This was done to ensure thatZefram Cochrane and his team could escape from forced slavery at Green's hands. Later, Flint andChristopher Brynner were witnesses to theVulcan landing atBozeman,Montana. (STshort story: "The Immortality Blues")

William Abramson[]

In the23rd century, Flint became William E. Abramson, a famousphysicist who developed thetranstator. (TOSepisode &Star Trek 5novelization:Requiem for Methuselah,FASA RPGmodules:The Federation,The Four Years War)

STreference:Spaceflight Chronologycalled him Edward Abramson, whileFASA RPGmodule:Where Has All the Glory Gone? called him Willem Abramson.

In the2230s, Abramson was so well known thatFederationAmbassadorEmanuel Tagore made a joke about subtleties ofklingonaase being lost "across an Abramson junction". (TOS -Worlds Apartnovel:The Final Reflection)

Abramson's legacy included sharing the2243Nobel Prize withRichard Daystrom for thecomputer theory behindduotronics. (FASA RPGmodule:The Federation,STreference:Star Trek Chronology,TOSepisode &Star Trek 9novelization:The Ultimate Computer)

Additionally, theRoykirk/Abramson Perimeter Effect was co-named for him. (FASA RPGmodule:Where Has All the Glory Gone?)

Micah Brack[]

He continued to live by the year2239 when he used his identity as the interstellar financierMicah Brack to buy the planetHolberg 917G in theOmega system. As the world was uninhabited, Flint took careful steps to ensure it remained that way while he created a home there in order to live a reclusive existence. During that time, he managed to engineer a number of femaleandroids in his quest for an undying love partner; each of which held the nameRayna, which culminated in Rayna 17 who was not allowed to know of her failed predecessors.

Flint's existence remained secret until2269 when he was discovered by theUnited Federation of Planets vesselUSSEnterprise which orbited his world in order to take the planet'sryetalyn ore for use as an antitoxin forRigelian fever which had infected the entire crew. While they were on Holberg 917G, they encountered Flint who had introduced himself after he stopped hisM-4 robot from killing thelanding party. Taking them to his home, Flint sought to jump start Rayna 17'semotions by allowing her to interact with these visitors. She fell in love withCaptainJames T. Kirk but was unable to transfer this emotion back to her disappointed maker. Being forced to choose between these suitors, Rayna 17 ceased to function to the horror of Flint.

During this time,science officerSpock deducted that Flint had lived for a long time at which point he revealed his immortality. However,DoctorLeonard McCoy discovered that Flint was actually dying as he had previously been sustained by the complex fields on Earth and thus by relocating to his new home he had sacrificed his immortality. Flint stated that he would devote the rest of his new natural life to the improvement of the Human condition. (TOSepisode: "Requiem for Methuselah")

Emil Vaslovik[]

Though McCoy believed that Flint was dying, he had actually misled the doctor. The discovery of his identity by Kirk and his comrades had not been the first time his existence was learnt of, but was the first time in several centuries. Normally, he prepared a new identity to adopt in such conditions but this time the groundwork of this new persona was not fully developed. He quickly decided to adopt the name Emil Vaslovik in an effort to atone for past mistakes, namely the mistakes he had made with Rayna. This was because he believed he had wronged her and instead of giving her life, he simply wanted to shape her for his own purposes. Thus, he had lost a truly wondrous thing which was a soul in his creation and it was this thought that shaped the heart of Flint's new existence as Emil Vaslovik who sought to impart this sense of responsibility on others.

"Emil Vaslovik" was also the name of the scientist who created the android Questor, from Gene Roddenberry'sThe Questor Tapes.

This persona was active by the early part of the24th century when he had met similar cyberneticists who sought to study the field of artificial intelligence. These includedNoonien Soong andIra Graves with whom he worked closely. Such individuals shared Emil's concerns on the ethical treatment of AI and it was this fact that led him to acquire their aid in the recovery of various artifacts which were the"bodies" of numerous machine intelligences. In2307, he accompanied the two on an expedition to the planetExo III in order to learn more of the rumored technology that produced artificial life in order to save the artifacts present on the world. However, their trip to Exo III instead woke a large number of androids that had been in stasis and sought to kill the trio of trespassers. Vaslovik, Graves and Soong, however, managed to escape though were unaware of the intentions of the androids having believed them to have returned to their slumber.

Later, by2374, during theDominion War, Vaslovik joined aStarfleet research program intoHolotronic brains for a new type of android where he worked withBruce Maddox andReginald Barclay. However, Vaslovik's aim was simply to infiltrate the program, steal the prototype android and purge all records of the project. He was successful in this and managed to hide the prototype android as a StarfleetLieutenant that went under the name ofRhea McAdams. Emil was not aware of the fact that the androids of Exo III were secretly working to acquire the android and use its technology to fix a flaw in their design. This chain of events led Rhea McAdams to takeData to a cloakedspace station which was the home of Flint, where the android instantly deduced his identity. He worked with the crew of theUSSEnterprise-E in combating the android threat and helped plan the use of ananite colony which assimilated the rogue Exo III androids. During the crisis, Emil escaped to parts unknown though he later reactivatedJuliana Tainer and introduced himself asAkharin. (TNGnovel:Immortal Coil)

Appendices[]

Appearances[]

• Star Trek: The Original Series
  • Federation (asMicah Brack,2060s)
  • "Requiem for Methuselah"
  • The Cry of the Onlies
  • The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh, Volume 1 (as Wilson Evergreen)
• Star Trek: The Next Generation
  • Immortal Coil (asEmil Vaslovik)
  • The Persistence of Memory (As Emil Vaslovik)
  • The Body Electric (as Akharin)
• Star Trek: Enterprise
  • Uncertain Logic (as Willem Paul Abramson)
  • Live by the Code (as Willem Abramson)
• Strange New Worlds 9
  • The Immortality Blues (asLewis Bixby andJerome Drexel)

External link[]

• Flint article atMemory Alpha, the wiki for canonStar Trek.