Marla Aster (portrayed by Susan Powell) was an archaeological specialist aboard the USS Enterprise-D in Star Trek: The Next Generation. In the third season episode The Bonding, Lt. Aster joined an away mission under Worf's command to study ruins on the homeworld of the extinct Koinonian race. During the mission, Aster inadvertantly set off an old Koinonian bomb hidden within a cavern and was killed in the explosion.
Following Marla's death, the Enterprise staff had to inform her 12 year-old son Jeremy of her passing. However, the orphaned boy was suddenly approached by a being that had taken his mother's form and wished to take him down to the planet in order to give him an idealistic life, or at least her interpretation of it. The replica was thwarted by Captain Picard, Deanna Troi, Worf and Wesley Crusher, who all managed to convince Jeremy that the life that his mother's replica offered him was merely a fantasy and that he would never come to terms with his true mother's death if he chose that fantasy. Jeremy ultimately accepted the truth and told the replica of his mother to leave him.