HE does not exist, and even in his fictional world he has not yet been born. But that has not stopped four Scottish cities from charging their warp drives and gearing up for battle over plans to commemorate Montgomery Scott, the Star Trek character better known as “Scotty”.

When Linlithgow announced plans last month to erect a plaque in honour of the irascible engineer of USS Enterprise, only the most fanatical Trekkie fan could have predicted a challenge to its claim as the city of Scotty’s birth in the year 2222.

But a bizarre four-way spat has now erupted over the ownership of the man who will forever be associated with the phrase never uttered on the show: “Beam me up, Scotty”.

Willie Dunn, the West Lothian councillor who announced plans for the Linlithgow plaque ten days ago, was only half joking yesterday as he accused councils in Aberdeen, Elgin and Edinburgh of “boldly clinging on to our coat-tails”.

Just two weeks after the death of James Doohan, the Canadian-born actor famous for his character’s flustered cry of “I dinnae know if she can take it any more, Captain”, Mr Dunn said that he would not be shaken from his belief that Scotty was from Linlithgow. He said: “I’m sure everybody and their dog will try to get in on the act. We have information that Scotty was born here in 2222, and then he moved to Aberdeen for a while.

“Fair do’s to Aberdeen, you can see where their claim comes from, but Edinburgh or Elgin? I’m not so sure.”

Despite the absurdity of erecting a plaque to a fictional character whose birth will not occur for another two centuries, Mr Dunn said that the council had commissioned a report to assess the economic benefits of such a move.

“We are trying to figure out what the name of it would be, because you can’t really have a memorial to somebody before they are born, can you?” he said.

But Mr Dunn’s confidence in Linlithgow’s claim, based on scripts in the series, was questioned by others yesterday.

In Aberdeen, where local Star Trek fans claim that Scotty was born in the city’s Constitution Street, and in 2120 not 2222, Pamela MacDonald, the council’s education and leisure leader, said that it should consider a statue of its own.

According to the official Star Trek website, Scotty refers to himself in one episode of the science fiction show as an “Aberdeen pub crawler”.

Doohan also made no secret of the fact that he attempted to give his character an Aberdeen accent after meeting an officer from there while stationed in England during the Second World War, where he served in the Canadian Army.

Ms MacDonald said yesterday: “If he [Scotty] came from Aberdeen and there’s a quotation to say that, then we should claim him. We should get a copy of that quotation and put up a statue with it on the plinth.”

Edinburgh’s claim is based on the popular Scifi.com website, which records Scotty’s birthplace as “Edinburgh, Earth”. Lesley Hinds, the city’s Lord Provost, said: “This is something we need to look into. If he really is from Edinburgh then we shouldn’t let any of these other places claim him, and we should put up something in recognition of his Edinburgh connections.”

As for Elgin, its bid is based on an interview with Doohan himself, who said that Scotty came from “Elgin, near Aberdeen”. Referring to the “friendly rivalry” between the four cities bidding for Scotty’s legacy, Keith Sands, an Elgin councillor, said: “I guess you could see it as being silly, but why not? There are all sorts of things throughout the world that get commemorated, so why not do something like this?” He added: “If all this leads to a wee bit of competition and maybe even a trail between the four different places, then so much the better.”

In perhaps the best possible solution to the dispute, Mr Dunn said last night: “There’s no definitive answer, but we should all agree to meet up in 2222 and see who was right.”

• The University of Glasgow has been awarded £1.1 million to set up a laboratory to develop gravitational wave detectors to help in the search for life in deep space. The grant is part of an £8 million boost for eight Scottish universities from the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council.

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