Loch Ness Monster Usurped by Aberdeen Pub Crawler

Star Trek’s thickset chief engineer of the USS Starship Enterprise, Canadian born James Doohan, died Wednesday, July 20th at 85 years of age, but not surprisingly “Beam Me Up” jokes live on. What is a surprise, however, is that the science fictional figure of Lt. Commander Montgomery “Scotty” Scott has four sites in Scotland all hiking up their kilts to be officially recognized as the geek endorsed birthplace of the robust accented, oft imitated character. Linlithgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Elgin have all recently declared themselves the characters spawning spot, who subsequently won’t even be “conceived” for another 200 + years, but with the Star Trek conglomerate alone being worth billions, a piece of that penny pie goes a long way (that’s a lot of Haggis, folks). Each Scottish locality believes that they have proof of Scotty’s indelible link to their individual county; Doohan himself stated that the character was from Elgin, in one episode Scotty referred to himself as an “Aberdeen Pub Crawler” whereas StarTrek.com and scifi.com list the other two as solid possibilities. Consider my phasers on “stun” but don’t these Scots have a little too much air in their bagpipes? Aside from tourism dollars, what kind of distinction can be held from being the real life birthplace of a fictional person (Edinburgh has Sherlock Holmes, what more do they want)?

Believe it or not, a piece of me can sympathize with their plight. When it was learned that infinitely popular Marvel comic creation “Wolverine” was born in Alberta, Canada – our home province - we were thrilled. Our illustrated medium of choice had a hero from the “great white north”, one that we could call our own. So I can understand why a peripheral character in one of the most successful science fiction series of all time would carry with it a certain distinction, but as far as I know there is no operation in existence that makes money off the fact that Wolfie was supposedly born here (that being said, Southern Alberta does contain a town named “Vulcan” – Established 1910, that contains a 9' tall concrete Enterprise and a space themed tourist station hosting events like “Spock Days” and “GalaxyFest” to lure in the loonies*).

According to the Scotsman news publication, the territories are taking this whole thing a tad seriously. A local Elgin councilor said that “I’ve visited Linlithgow, and Elgin is far more attractive” which is suspiciously close to “my mom is hotter than your mom”. Besides that, Edinburgh’s Lord Provost, Lesley Hinds bluntly stated that “all the best people come from Edinburgh”, surely a smack to the Sporran if there ever was one.

Like Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry before him, Doohan’s ashes are to be launched into space and later burned up in orbit, no word on if any Doohan dust will fall onto any part of Scotland, but if any of it does, I’m sure they’ll make a big deal out of it.

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*Popular name for the Canadian one dollar coin with the impression of a loon on one side, first issued in 1987

iPod played "The Aquabats - Martian Girl" while posting