The Keeper
The Keeper was a male Talosian magistrate in the 23rd century. A necklace with a round pendant distinguished him from other Talosians.

History 
The Keeper was charged with the upkeep of the Talosian menagerie, an elaborate test with the aim to find a servant species that was supposed to ultimately repopulate the planet Talos IV. Under his command, the Talosians rescued Vina, the only survivor of the crashed Earth vessel , and later lured the  to the planet in 2254. () The Keeper then sent two Talosian underlings to kidnap Captain Christopher Pike, then captain of the Enterprise, from the surface of the planet. () Using telepathic illusions and a supply of a blue liquid that he claimed was a "nourishing protein complex", The Keeper intended to trap Pike into accepting a life on Talos IV as Vina's mate and breeding stock for a new, stronger race. The Keeper also detailed alternative mating selections from the Enterprise – Number One and Yeoman J.M. Colt, once they were also captured. ()

Upon being caught and strangled by Pike, The Keeper became threatening, momentarily assuming the appearance of an illusory anthropoid ape. After the captain managed to free himself and the female officers by overcoming The Keepers' mental powers, however, the magistrate had to accept that Humanity was unsuitable for his plans, due to their strong will and refusal to submit to captivity. While Pike and the Enterprise were let go, the magistrate agreed to take care of Vina, even providing her with an illusory Pike to keep her company. Before the real Captain Pike was beamed back aboard the Enterprise, The Keeper wished him, "May you find your way as pleasant." ()

In 2257 The Keeper assisted with treating a mentally disabled Spock after Michael Burnham brought him to Talos IV.  As the price for healing Spock, The Keeper insisted on Burnham sharing her memories regarding the source of her conflict with Spock. ()   

When Spock attempted to return Pike to Talos IV against orders in 2267, The Keeper remotely took control of a screen in the Enterprises hearing room, transmitting images of Pike's earlier encounter with the Talosians to a court martial aboard the ship. The Keeper later telepathically contacted the ship directly, relaying footage of himself to the screen, and revealed to Captain Kirk – the current commanding officer of the Enterprise – that a witness of the hearing, Commodore Mendez, had actually been yet another illusion, nullifying the court martial. Finally, The Keeper welcomed Pike back to the planet, ensuring it was what the former captain wanted to do, and wished Kirk, "May you find your way as pleasant [as Pike's]." ()

The Keeper appeared in a photograph, alongside three other Talosians, was displayed on the wall of a bar at Starbase 25 in 2381. ()

Appendices

Appearances 
 
 
  (archive footage)
 
 
  (photograph)

Background information 
Despite being portrayed as a male (per the episode's script) in his appearances on  The Keeper was played by actress Meg Wyllie. The character was voiced by actor Malachi Throne in .  For his appearance on  The Keeper was portrayed by Rob Brownstein.

Conception 
The fact that, in the story outline of "The Cage" (as reprinted in The Making of Star Trek, pp. 47-65), the Talosians were written as crab-like aliens affected how The Keeper was first conceived. For instance, the outline introduced him by stating, "The crab-creature at the televisor controls turns from the screen, using claw-snap and clatter for speech." He was referred to, in the last scene of the outline's first act, as "the 'Keeper" and the outline went on to frequently refer to him as that (though without the use of quotation marks). The story outline twice referred to him as "the crab-creature Keeper". (The Making of Star Trek, pp. 48 & 58) In one scene included in the story outline but not in the episode's final version, The Keeper was apparently killed by an axe-wielding Captain Robert April, though this scenario was yet another of the illusions concocted by the Talosians, and The Keeper was actually still alive, unharmed. (The Making of Star Trek, pp. 59 & 60)

The character was commonly referred to with the moniker "The Keeper" in the script of "The Cage", whose introduction of the character was not quite as elaborate as his initial description from the episode's story outline. After a written direction instructing the trio of Talosians to be shown, the first draft of the script went on to describe The Keeper as "wearing an identifiable insignia on his garb." In the second revised final draft of the script, The Keeper was instead referred to, in the stage directions, as wearing "an authoritative-looking jeweled pendant on a short chain around his neck." When The Keeper first used telepathic communication in the episode, the script specified that he had an "unemotional and almost pedantic tone which will become familiar to us." When he first used vocal language in the episode, the script read, "At first the words will come a bit carefully, as if out of practice in communicating this way. As our scene progresses, speech will follow a bit more smoothly."

First portrayal 
Whereas The Keeper was written consistently in both the story outline and the script of "The Cage" as a male, the decision to cast actress Meg Wyllie in the part was a casting choice that Director Robert Butler took credit for. "When the femininity idea came up for the Talosians," he recalled, "I thought of Meg because I thought it would have been challenging to her, and amusing to her to do that, and I just thought she'd do it really well." (The Star Trek Interview Book, p. 98) Wyllie was thereafter cast by Gene Roddenberry. ( text commentary, TOS Season 1 DVD)

Just as Robert Butler had imagined, Meg Wyllie indeed found The Keeper to be one of her most challenging parts, later remarking, "I had never played such a role nor had such a makeup job applied to me [....] The makeup was not comfortable [....] I was never given a full script, just the sections in which I appeared." Wyllie also related that, due to her unfamiliarity with such a part, she "was most intrigued" and revealed that she was given no unusual advice to prepare her for the performance. "No special instructions," she said, "merely to play the part with dignity and control. A mental, rather than physical, approach was needed to concentrate on the words I was saying. The pulsings of the veins in my skull – and very little facial expressions – were to be the only visible effects of my thought transfers." ( issue #117, pp. 52 & 53)

In post-production, Gene Roddenberry had Meg Wyllie's voice dubbed with a man's voice, increasing the sense of strangeness in how the character was depicted. ( text commentary, TOS Season 1 DVD) In "The Cage", The Keeper's vocals were performed by Malachi Throne. Wyllie was at first entirely unaware of Throne's involvement. "I wasn't even aware my voice would be dubbed," she explained. "I was quite surprised to hear a man's voice issuing from my head." ( issue #117, p. 53)

Reappearance 
In the script for "The Menagerie", The Keeper had an additional line of then-new dialogue that is not included in the episode. In it, he told Captain Kirk, "With only you and Captain Pike present, there was by your own regulations, of course, no legal court martial. We trust you will forgive our interference in this affair." On the other hand, not scripted were The Keeper's lines at the end of the episode, where he tells Kirk, "Captain Pike has an illusion, and you have reality. May you find your way as pleasant."

Because Malachi Throne additionally portrayed Commodore Mendez and an illusion of that character in the "The Menagerie" two-parter, his voice as The Keeper in  had to be mechanically pitch-shifted by the post-production team, so viewers wouldn't confuse the two characters. (These Are the Voyages: TOS Season Two) The "new" footage of The Keeper in that episode evidently reused footage from "The Cage".

Apocrypha 
The Keeper's mirror universe  appeared in the short story "The Greater Good" by Margaret Wander Bonanno contained in the anthology Shards and Shadows. As in the primary universe, the Talosians had used a distress call to lure the  to Talos IV with the intention of having  mate with Vina so as to create a race of  slaves. However, Pike rejected her, refusing to mate with an "insipid Human female." Upon learning of the Terran Empire's fear of telepaths, the Keeper decided to release Captain Pike and use him as their eyes and ears throughout the empire. The captain would give the Talosians an early warning should the empire ever decide to attack and obliterate their planet. After assassinating Pike and assuming the captaincy of the Enterprise in 2264,  returned to Talos IV and ordered that its surface be leveled, annihilating the Talosians for the good of the Empire.

External links 
 
 

Talosians
Government officials