Martia Martia was a Chameloid in the 23rd century . She had committed a major crime against the Klingon Empire and was thus imprisoned on the Klingon penal colony Rura Penthe in the 2290s . As a Chameloid , she was able to change her appearance at will . One seemingly preferred guise was as a female humanoid dressed in a dark brown fur outfit ( complete with scarf and including a jacket or coat ) , smoking a cigar . Other appearances included a small child or a large male alien . In 2293 , she was involved in a plot to kill Captain James T . Kirk and Doctor Leonard McCoy . Martia was offered a full pardon for her crimes if she assisted the Klingons in murder ing the two Starfleet officer s , by helping them escape and therefore giving the guards a believable excuse for killing them . She initially approached Kirk and McCoy when they were imprisoned in Rura Penthe , and helped them avoid a fight with a large , threatening inmate as well as with a horned alien prisoner . Then , she offered them a way to escape . Using her shapeshifting abilities , she alternately appeared as a hulking , hirsute male alien to infiltrate a male - only level , and then as a little blond girl to escape her restraints . Helping Kirk and McCoy travel beyond the magnetic shield , Martia then attempted to alert the guards to their location , and engaged in a fight with Kirk , changing her appearance again to mimic Kirk ' s features . When the commandant of the colony arrived , however , he was tricked into killing Martia by the genuine Kirk . ( ) Appendices . Background information . Usual appearance . Martia , appearing as she primarily did , was played by Iman . In the script for " Star Trek VI " , this appearance was described thus : " " She ' s a tall and very good looking female , boots to her thighs , exotic furs , tattered but clearly humanoid . " " Screenplay co - writer Denny Martin Flinn initially considered for the part . " " The person I had in mind , " " he said , " " was as different as night and day from Iman [ . . . ] I ' m not sure we didn ' t come up with a better choice . I didn ' t imagine that we could ever afford [ . . . ] [ Weaver ] , but I just saw the character as a big , ballsy space pirate ; a female version of , " " Flinn explained . " " She turns out to be rather villainous , but a kind of swashbuckling female space pirate , and I thought of Sigourney . " " According to producer Ralph Winter , the reasoning behind the casting of Iman was not only because she was thought to be a high - caliber performer but also because she was considered to have an appropriate look . ( " The Making of the Trek Films " , UK 3rd ed . , p . 108 ) Iman was more - or - less cajoled into accepting the role . She remembered , " " I was in Venice , Italy , when I was offered the part . And I kept on thinking , ' I don ' t know . I mean , it ' s an alien . Do I want to play an alien ? ' And [ her manager ] is such a fan that he told me , he gave me no opportunity . He said , ' You ' re going to do it and that ' s it . We ' re not even going to discuss it . " " ( Original interviews : Iman , special features ) Iman used her own accent to play Martia . Her voice was ultimately looped in the studio for most of the character ' s other appearances . ( Original interviews : Iman , special features ) In an audio commentary for " Star Trek VI " ( available on the film ' s DVD release ) , director Nicholas Meyer tells Denny Martin Flinn that Iman did not wear contact lenses for this role . However , Iman actually did don contact lenses , noticeably so . " " They ' re a pain , " " she laughed . " " It ' s very uncomfortable . They ' re soft lenses . They ' re amber color with sparkles of black to make it look very bird - like [ . . . ] It ' s very uncomfortable to wear them for a long period of time . To put them in , to put them out , they ' re uncomfortable . So they also mess with the makeup , ' cause you have to retouch everything every time when you finish makeup and they put them in . So it ' s really a pain . " " ( Original interviews : Iman , special features ) " " I think , from the outfit , they couldn ' t decide whether it was a bird or cat , " " stated Iman , with a laugh , " " so they came up with something in between . " " ( Original interviews : Iman , special features ) Her alien appearance ( what Ed French termed , " " Vogue " in space , " in recognition of Iman ' s modeling work for " Vogue " ) was designed after Nick Meyer described the character as " Kirk ' s fantasy woman . " To preserve Iman ' s attractive features , French chose to give her a simple makeup design . He and hairstylist Janice R . Alexander devised a feathered look . " " Some people may think a lot of what ' s on her head is hair , " " French suspected , " " but everything was made of feathers . Even her eyebrows were little tiny feathers which we applied . We also attached feathers to the sides of her face and neck . " " ( " Cinefantastique " , Vol . 22 , No . 5 , pp . 33 - 34 ) " " All the crew and the cast are enamored by my look now . So , I don ' t know , maybe I ' ll keep it , " " Iman joked . ( Original interviews : Iman , special features ) Iman was conscious of paying attention to details about the other performers playing Martia ' s range of guises and then tried to mimic their habits . ( Original interviews : Iman , special features ) Other forms . Martia , appearing as " the Brute " , was played by Tom Morga . His makeup for the part was inspired by a sketch of the creature that " Star Trek VI " art director Nilo Rodis - Jamero illustrated . An unrefined version of the Brute ' s makeup was speedily created over a period of three weeks , for location filming in Alaska . " " Fortunately , for those shots , it was only supposed to be seen from some distance , " " noted Ed French . " " I wasn ' t able to refine the makeup until it got back to the studio . " " Costumer Dodie Shepard fabricated the Brute ' s bodysuit , while French was responsible for the creature ' s hands and feet , the latter crafted to fit over " huge Frankenstein boots " that Shepard provided . ( " Cinefantastique " , Vol . 22 , No . 5 , p . 33 ) The very heavy makeup required for the part took about three and a half hours to apply . ( " The Making of the Trek Films " , UK 3rd ed . , p . 110 ) Morga remembered of the Brute , " " He looked like the abominable snowman [ . . . ] I had to learn to walk and move with him , because [ I ] wore so much stuff . I had to have these great big boots on , and the suit they built was an arctic suit to start with . So , it ' s got down in it . I was very warm , and over that they put layers of animal pelts for this character . And I was all in rubber that was glued to me , all my face , my arms . And I had this huge wig on , so I was really hot . Just walking over the ice and up and down the glacier itself was a little bit of a challenge . " " ( " Tom Morga : Alien Stuntman " , DVD ) In her appearance as a small Human girl , Martia was played by Katie Jane Johnston . This girl was scripted to appear " teenaged " . According to Iman , however , she was only nine years old . ( Original interviews : Iman , " Star Trek VI : The Undiscovered Country " ( Blu - ray ) special features ) In her guise as a duplicate of James T . Kirk , Martia was played mostly by an actor who was dressed identically to William Shatner but whose face is never clearly shown and by Shatner himself in a few motion - control split - screen shots . ( text commentary , DVD ) Although Iman ' s voice was used for all of Martia ' s previous appearances , this was not so for her Kirk form . At one point years later , Nick Meyer regretted that the production team had not consistently used Iman ' s voice for all of Martia ' s appearances ( reckoning that it would have made for a funnier scene ) , though he then realized that this would have instantly made Martia , while disguised as Kirk , recognizable from the real Kirk . ( audio commentary , DVD ) Miscellaneous details . Although the movie does not clarify the extent of Martia ' s criminal behavior prior to her detention in Rura Penthe , a draft version of the contains additional dialogue between Kirk and Martia in which she states that she is serving a life sentence for smuggling , which she admits to having been guilty of . The script also specified her to be from a place called Arc . The use of CGI to depict Martia ' s transformations was one of the first instances when was used in feature films , though CGI had previously been utilized for television commercials . ( audio commentary , DVD ) The CG effect was visualized by Industrial Light & Magic , which had developed the morphing technology for and had reused it in . Jay Riddle , who supervised ILM ' s morphing between Martia ' s various appearances , explained , " " This time , computer graphics animator John Berton attempted to do some things we hadn ' t done before in a morph – like moving the camera and letting characters talk as they were transforming – so a lot of care had to be taken in the plate photography to make sure the two characters lined up . " " The filming of the on - set plate photography was overseen by Scott Farrar . Upon filming the sequence wherein Martia transforms from the Brute to the small girl , Farrar utilized ILM ' s VistaGlide motion - control camera system to incorporate camera moves into the sequence . For Martia ' s mid - sentence transformation between her usual appearance and that of Kirk , Farrar had performers Iman and William Shatner sync their deliveries to a video playback whose audio was relayed over loudspeakers . ( " Cinefantastique " , Vol . 22 , No . 5 , p . 50 )