Aidan Rackham


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Basic information
Assignment


Aidan Rackham was an officer serving in the UFP Starfleet as the commanding officer of the USS Farragut.

Childhood

Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland in 2243, Aidan Rackham always considered himself more Scottish, in keeping with his Father's ancestry. He was an unremarkable student who was seemingly uninterested in most things that his school had to offer. However, he excelled in contact sports and became captain of the school's football (soccer) team until he was stripped of that honour following an off-the-ball incident which left another player in hospital.

Rackham graduated from his high school and was immediately enrolled in Starfleet Academy by a father who was unwilling to accept that his son may have a undiagnosed mental illness. A strict disciplinarian, Anto Rackham was a Security Enforcer for a civilian trading company. His solution for Aidan's problems was to feel the strict regiment of Starfleet Academy.

Unfortunately, when Aidan's assignment papers arrived, he has been assigned to Starfleet Academy in Marseilles, a slightly less strict and overbearing environment than the one in San Francisco.


Starfleet Career

Starfleet Academy - 2261 - 2265

The young Rackham's development did not gather much pace in Marseilles as his irritability and apparent anger at being cooped up in a classroom bubbled over on several occasions. One of his instructors suggested that the cadet take up boxing but that short interest ended during his first competitive bout when he hospitalised his opponent with a well placed right upper-cut.

After his second year at the Academy, during which he was beginning to improve as a student and as a sportsman, Rackham met his future wife Melissa who had been spectating during a football match that Rackham was playing in. They married little over a year later and were divorced after less than six months.

With these distractions taken into account, Rackham graduated near the middle of his class at the Academy with a specialty in Security Operations. Given his track record for being hot-headed and quick to temper, Rackham was assigned to Starfleet Security to learn his trade.

Starfleet Security - 2265

It took Aidan Rackham exactly twenty nine hours and thirty six minutes of service for Starfleet Security to be turfed out. To this day, he claims not to remember what happened but security recordings show him physically assaulting a man a few desks over before being forcibly removed from the premises by armed security personnel.

Merchant Protection Division - 2265 - 2267

Rackham managed to carve out a niche for himself as an officer in the Merchant Protection Division of Starfleet Security after he was transferred out of Galactic Central for violent conduct. What started out as a punishment quickly emerged as a blessing for the young officer. His 'no-nonsense' approach to security kept the freighter captains in line and, perhaps most importantly, kept them safe during difficult time for civilian shipping.

In 2267, he was promoted to Area Commander and given responsibility for convoys passing through the Ilviran sector. The new, more disciplined Lieutenant Rackham had caught the eye of one Lieutenant Commander Elsa Gunning from Starfleet Security and he was brought back to Earth to instruct battle groups in defensive manoeuvres; coming up with "The Rackham Manoeuvre" in the process.

Redemption & The Babel Conference - 2268

Rackham's unique talents for straight talking made him the ideal candidate to replace the deceased Lieutenant Commander Horran as an Operational & Tactical Commander for the Babel Conference in 2268.

He was responsible for all traffic and security within the Conference’s sphere of influence and was highly praised for his successful manoeuvring of the 114 delegates present at the conference.

Command Course & Treatment - 2268 - 2269

Rackham had begun to suspect himself of having some undiagnosed illness during the period leading up to his eventual reassignment to Starfleet Security. Now safely back in the bosom of the Federation and working a series of ‘cushy’ diplomatic assignments, he felt those feelings rising up inside him again and decided to seek help lest he risk jeopardising his Command Academy completion.

[Medical Record Excerpt - Classified - Level 4 Medical Clearance Required]

After extensive psychoanalysis and counselling designed to help him manage and control his aggression, Rackham found himself able to complete the newly introduced command course which was designed with the primary goal of taking officers who had yet to complete Deep Space assignments and prepare them for Command.

Rackham came out of this period with flying colours and managed to cement a new reputation as one of Starfleet's brightest young officers. He was to be assigned to the USS Pilgrim.

USS Pilgrim - 2270 - 2276

Rackham's assignment on the USS Pilgrim was a happy one for him. He was under the command of Captain Elsa Gunning, a woman who ruled with an iron fist and ran a ship that was so tight it would have stifled most officers. During the four years that Rackham served aboard the ship, she gained an incredible reputation for efficiency and ruthlessness in the face of adversity.

Captain Gunning was not a woman who would be held against her own notions and as such became known as the Black Widow amongst some of her colleagues. If she was assigned on a rescue mission, Captain Gunning refused to negotiate, meaning that many hostages were desperate to find a plan B rather than find the USS Pilgrim coming to their rescue.

Elsa Gunning’s fearsome reputation earned her the utmost respect of the crew with whom she served. There was something about her style of command that caused people to flock to her side in times of adversity, her demands for perfection never putting any of her fiercely loyal crew off.

As First Officer and Weapons Officer, Aidan received a crash course in command as they patrolled the Klingon Neutral Zone. He would often reflect on these years as being his rebirth as a Starfleet officer, one that could face up to the challenges inherent in the job rather than lose his temper at the drop of a hat.

The reputation of the Pilgrim was not enough to keep it from being decommissioned and see Captain Gunning promoted and shipped off to tutor at Starfleet Academy. This left Rackham feeling dejected and angry that he was being assigned to a new captain with no idea of how a ship should be run,

USS Fleming - 2276 - 2278

As the Executive officer of the USS Fleming, Rackham found himself working with Captain Morgan Bateson, an officer with scant regard for standard regulation.

Despite Rackham’s attempts to ensure tight discipline across the ship, Bateson preferred a more relaxed style of command and this put Rackham ill-at-ease throughout his short service on the ship. During this mission, cataloguing gaseous anomalies in the vicinity of the Sol system, Aidan learned to respect the differing opinions of his fellow officers and found a grudging admiration for Bateson’s methods, realising that if the ship was running at its maximum capacity it was possible to allow the crew a larger degree of autonomy.

USS Farragut - 2278

When the chance to work with Captain Gunning once again came up, Aidan was on the first transport to Cestus III where he would link up with the newly recommissioned USS Farragut.