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Multiple realities
(covers information from several alternate timelines)

For the mirror universe counterpart, please see Gabriel Lorca (mirror).
"The Lorca I came up with was measured, he was reasoned."
– Katrina Cornwell describing Gabriel Lorca, 2257 ("The War Without, The War Within")

Captain Gabriel Lorca was a male Human Starfleet officer who lived during the mid-23rd century. He served as the commanding officer on board at least one Federation starship, the USS Buran. (DIS: "Context Is for Kings", "Choose Your Pain")

Starfleet career[]

Commanding officer of the USS Buran[]

Gabriel Lorca

Lorca's identity was assumed by his mirror universe counterpart

At some point prior to 2256, Lorca was assigned as the captain of the Buran.

Unknown to anyone at this time, Lorca had been replaced by his mirror universe counterpart, who assumed the identity of the prime universe's Lorca. Despite the loss of the Buran, and given mirror Lorca's manipulative ways, he was given command of the USS Discovery. (DIS: "Choose Your Pain")

After discovering what had happened to Lorca, Admiral Katrina Cornwell came to the conclusion that no one would be able to survive alone in the mirror universe and assumed that Lorca was dead. However, the fate of the original Lorca – and the precise timing of his replacement by his mirror counterpart – remained unknown. (DIS: "Vaulting Ambition", "What's Past Is Prologue", "The War Without, The War Within")

In "What's Past Is Prologue", the mirror universe's Lorca tells his crew that they have suffered "one year, 212 days of torture". If that time is meant to indicate or approximate the time since Lorca's journey to the prime universe, then the exchange of Lorcas took place in 2255.

Relationships[]

Romances[]

Katrina Cornwell[]

Lorca and Katrina Cornwell seem to have had a romantic relationship in the past despite their differences in ranks. (DIS: "Choose Your Pain", "Lethe") After learning that the Gabriel Lorca assigned to the USS Discovery was an impostor from a parallel universe, she was angered at the deception and devastated that her Lorca was most likely dead. (DIS: "The War Without, The War Within")

Key dates[]

  • 2250s2256: Commanding officer of the USS Buran. The Buran was later destroyed.
  • 2257: Presumed dead by Admiral Katrina Cornwell, who had assumed that no one could survive alone in the mirror universe.

Appendices[]

References[]

Background information[]

According to Jason Isaacs, Gabriel Lorca was from the Southern United States, which influenced his personality. (SFX, issue 292, p. 82)

Apocrypha[]

The Gallery DIS novel Drastic Measures features the prime universe version of Lorca. Most of the novel takes place during the time of the Tarsus IV massacre, at which time Lorca was a Lieutenant Commander, stationed at a Starfleet monitoring outpost on Tarsus. The novel's epilogue reveals that in the present day, Lorca is still alive (having since been switched with his Mirror counterpart), held in a secure prison. Little else is revealed, but the ruthless nature of Lorca's captors suggests that he is still somewhere in the mirror universe.

The novel also shows that when he was a lieutenant, Lorca served as security chief from 2243 to 2246 onboard the USS Helios (β) under the command of Captain Zachary Matuzas (β).

Lorca appears in the "Rise of Discovery" expansion to Star Trek Online, with Jason Isaacs reprising the role. The mission "The Plausibility of the Possible" shows Lorca in his capacity as captain of the Buran with Ellen Landry as his first officer, overseeing the clean-up following the liberation of Priors World, and asking the player character to take charge of transporting Klingon prisoners of war after a computer virus disables the Buran. In the following mission, "The Impossibility of Reason", Lorca, Landry, and the player character are forced to survive on an ice moon in the Priors system following the destruction of the Buran. It is unclear whether the Lorca in either of these missions is the "prime" Lorca or his mirror counterpart, although it is implied they switched somwhere in between; in the second mission, Lorca suffers from photosensitivity, which he attributes to the injuries he sustained in the loss of the Buran, as he did in "Choose Your Pain", and seems much more ruthless and pragmatic than he was in the first mission. Lorca replaced Sylvia Tilly as the voice for level-up notifications for Discovery-era Starfleet characters, and replaced Amna Patel as the mission contact for "Operation Riposte", the multiplayer Task Force Operation to liberate Priors World.

External link[]

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