Scotty Beams Up To That Great Starship In The Sky

James Doohan, who played Montgomery Scott (a.k.a Scotty) in the classic Star Trek died today at the age of 85. Known for his ability to do a job in 1/5 the time it would take any other Chief Engineer on any other starship, Scotty had a knack for saving the day. Perhaps it was just a practice of under-promising and over-delivering, but whenever he would give Kirk an estimate on how long it would take to fix something or rig something up the rogue captain would always cut that estimate down to a ridiculous fraction of Scotty's estimate.

A great example of this:

Kirk: "Scotty, what's left?"
Scotty: "Just the batteries. I can give you impulse power in a couple minutes."
Kirk: "We don't have a couple minutes."


And Scotty's secret revealed:

Kirk: "How long to re-fit?"
Scotty: "Eight weeks. But you don't have eight weeks, so I'll do it for you in two."
Kirk: "Do you always multiply your repair estimates by a factor of four?"
Scotty: "How else to maintain my reputation as a miracle worker?"
Kirk: "Your reputation is safe with me."


Link to bio on Montgomery Scott

Link to StarTrek.com article on James Doohan