Tim Williams


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Basic information
Assignment
Captain Timothy Alan Williams is a noted Starfleet engineer and command officer, perhaps best known for his assignments as commanding officer of the USS Highlander from 2384 and his command of Epsilon Force's Task Force 84 from its inception until his appointment to Chief of Starfleet Exploratory Operations in the Alpha Quadrant in 2386. His highest attained rank was commodore, but he was returned to the rank of captain in 2386 following an incident where he and his former crew travelled to the forbidden planet Talos IV, in an incident which has since been highly classified by Starfleet.

Williams generally detests what he describes as the "pomp of high rank", and dislikes having to wear a dress uniform for almost any occasion. His command style is notably more casual and jocular than that of many Starfleet captains, and he often encourages a relaxed dynamic amongst his crew.

Childhood & Early Life

Tim was born as the third son in the Williams family in Detroit, in North America on Earth. He attended school like all children in the Federation, and went to one located near his home that had strong roots in history as being a reputable school. His brothers all attended the school as well - John and Mark his older brothers, and later on his younger brother, Martin.

Tim's favourite class throughout school was engineering, or what used to be called 'shop' in the 21st century equivalent, and he soon developed a passion for 20th and 21st century cars, and some even older vehicles too, recreating them in the local holosuites to work on them in his spare time. Tim soon became known as the class clown; always cracking jokes to his peers and often getting in trouble with his teachers for playing up. After his graduation, he decided to go and work for a garage that one of his brother John's friends ran, called "Tom & Joe's Garage". Tom & Joe's worked to repair small personal shuttles and all kinds of ground vehicles, though they rarely got much 'upper class' traffic, since they were seen as the grease monkeys of the area, and weren't a big enough company to be able to afford the tools to repair the larger and more expensive shuttles.

Tim's father Kevin had tried to convince him to make more of his life than wasting his hours in a local garage, and after two years working at Tom & Joe's, managed to get his son enrolled at the Starfleet Academy, hoping to not only make a better life for Tim, but also hoping that Starfleet would give him some discipline. Tim passed the general education course within the standard year, and was selected for officer training, and enrolled onto the course of his choice - engineering.


Starfleet Career

Again proving to be the class clown, Tim made many friends at the Academy, and found a new challenge: Trying to make his new Vulcan friend Sath laugh; something to which he devoted hours with no success. Two years later, they both graduated and were assigned as Ensigns on the USS Merryweather to serve as engineering officers.

The two had a relatively standard career as Starfleet engineers and Engineering was always cheerful during Tim's shifts, despite Sath's logic slicing through some – or rather most – of his jokes. After serving for over a year on the vessel, Tim received a promotion to lieutenant, junior grade - one rank grade above his logical friend. Soon after, during early 2356, the chiefs of security and engineering retired, and changes were made to the crew roster to accommodate their departure. Sath was promoted equal to Tim and transferred upon his request to become a security officer, while Tim was assigned as the ship's assistant chief engineer, replacing the officer who moved up to occupy the chief position.

In late 2356, pirates attacked the Merryweather - thought to belong to the Marquis - and destroyed the ship. Most of the crew managed to make it out of the ship in time in shuttles and escape pods, but the executive officer was among those killed in the final explosion.

After rescue, Starfleet separated Tim and Sath; Tim received an assignment on the USS Athena as his friend was sent elsewhere. Tim was able to keep his position as assistant chief engineering officer, despite the transfer. Three years went by with Tim having a comparatively uneventful career until his promotion to full lieutenant in 2359, at the age of 28. After two more years of uneventful service, he received a plea for help from his father.

Kevin Williams had also had a change in career, and now served as the captain of his own freighter - his wife and Tim's mother as his first mate. Their chief engineer had recently died of sickness, and they had been unable to find someone to help them keep the ship together. Tim agreed to go and help them, taking an extended leave of absence from Starfleet. It was on the cargo ship that he met and began dating who would become his future wife: Laura Smithe, who served as the ship's doctor.

After three years of helping on the freighter, Tim, his parents and Laura agreed it was time for him to return to his career, and he returned to Starfleet as the chief engineer of the small starship USS Aegis, with the provisional rank of lieutenant. One year later, he asked Laura to marry him, which was followed shortly by his reinstatement back to a full lieutenant. Tim managed to pull a few favours with his CO, and although the ship was small, managed to get Laura permission to come aboard and share his quarters. After two years of happy marriage, a healthy young girl by the name of Katherine Williams was born; named after her grandmother on Laura's side, who had recently passed away. This however proved that the Aegis was no place for a family of three, and in 2367 Tim put in for a transfer to Deep Space 6 as the chief engineer.

On the Ethereal-class station, there was plenty of room for the small, happy family. However, their quarters were destroyed in an attack on the station, and though Laura and Kathy were fine, Tim ended up spending weeks in sickbay. Ever still the joker, the chief medical officer always said he brought cheeriness to the gloomy ward, and that when he returned to active duty, the place never seemed the same again. After the incident, though, Tim had his families quarters moved deeper into the station for protection.

In 2373 the Dominion War began, and Tim was transferred to the front lines, returning to the USS Athena as the chief engineer. He insisted his family stay behind on DS6, saying that a front-line warship wasn't the place for a family. One year after the start of the war, for his exemplary service, Tim was promoted to lieutenant commander, and given the extra duties of second officer. By August however, the Athena had been destroyed in battle, and Tim was transferred to the USS Pathmaker. Though he lost his second officer status due to it already being taken, Tim was reunited with an old friend; Lieutenant Commander Sath, who served as the chief of security on the vessel.

In 2375, Laura divorced him by subspace message, saying that she couldn't hold up a marriage over such a long distance when he could die in battle any day, and that she had found someone else. She allowed him to keep all rights to come and see their daughter, now 8 years old. Later that year, the Pathmaker was critically damaged in deep space, and stranded without operable warp engines or communications and only half functional impulse drives. As the second officer was killed in an explosion, Tim was given the position, while he and his teams desperately tried to repair the ship. The Pathfinder finally made it back to a starbase in late 2375 to be repaired fully and see the end of the war. The ship was decommissioned four years later, at which time Tim enrolled on the command course back at Starfleet Academy in San Francisco. This provided him the perfect opportunity to see his daughter, as she and her mother had moved back to Earth; her mother single again, though not willing to restart her relationship with Tim. After the standard yearlong course, Tim graduated the command academy and was assigned to a position on the USS Wayward as the executive officer with a promotion to full commander; the same ship Sath had gone to serve on as the second officer of after the Pathmaker had been decommissioned. Tim used to have Kathy come and stay on the ship with him during her school holidays, up until she started college at seventeen and began getting a summer job, limiting their time together.

USS Highlander

In 2384, Tim was assigned as the commanding officer of the USS Highlander; an Intrepid-class starship serving in Starfleet’s Sigma Division. His friend Sath accompanied him to Deep Space Nine, where the Wayward - of which he was to be the new executive officer - had made its shore leave, so as to give Tim transport to his new command. A mere few months after this, Sigma Division command appointed Tim to the rank of Captain, and named him the task force commander for Alpha Group in operations in the Gamma Quadrant.

Less than a year later, Admiral Janeway's petition for more exploration in the Delta Quadrant finally received approval from Starfleet Command, and the Highlander was re-assigned to Epsilon Force, with Tim moving from Task Group Alpha CO to command of Task Force 84 at the head of Starfleet’s foray into the new region of space. A year later, with the ships assigned to Epsilon Force reaching ever greater numbers and Tim having responsibility over more captains than ever before, he was promoted to the rank of Fleet Captain - a prestigious title, with less holders than even the rank of Vice Admiral.

At the end of 2386, Starfleet promoted Tim once again - this time to the rank of Commodore, which was a promotion he was not too pleased to receive. Though he was able to keep his active command and his flag on the Highlander, he hated the extra pomp and status that came with the flag rank, and often did all he could to discourage his crew from thinking of or referring to him differently. He even went so far as to do away with the gold piping on his standard uniform when aboard his ship.

Only months after his promotion to commodore, Tim had a rather sudden change of circumstances. Recalled back to Earth, he was appointed to a desk job at Starfleet Command, with his first officer Commander Jonathan Black taking active command of the Highlander. It was during this same period that Tim learnt of a mission to Talos IV the forbidden planet; a mission that Starfleet denied any knowledge of. Any travellers to Talos IV faced the punishment of death, and Tim had learnt that his daughter, now a civilian scientist working on the project as an intern for Starfleet, had been one of the people sent.

Appalled, and fearing for his daughter, Tim led the Highlander, with Captain Black's full support, on a rescue mission to Talos IV to order the mission stopped, and remove all Starfleet personnel from the planet's surface. Unfortunately, they hadn't given the Admiral behind the mission a slip for long, and he soon came in, guns blazing and severely damaging the Highlander; forcing her to crash on the planet's surface, from where it would later be recovered, to prevent anyone from being drawn to Talos by any ghost readings of the ship. Tim did however manage to disband the operations on Talos, and force Starfleet to realise that if they attempted to continue with the mission, he would ensure that it was exposed.

Returning to Earth in custody, Tim and his senior staff faced a trial, with Tim shouldering the full responsibility as the officer in charge. Though the circumstances of his trip to Talos were mitigating factors in the decision, they only stopped him from receiving the most severe punishment for disobedience. He was instead demoted to the rank of captain, and ordered to lecture at the Academy until a suitable posting could be found for him. It wasn't until months later that Tim learnt of the recovery of the Highlander, and used his contacts in the Corps of Engineers to push to get the ship restored to its former self, allowing him to receive command of it once again, almost two years later.

Tim and the Highlander were originally tasked to return to service with Epsilon Force in the Delta Quadrant, but after Romulus was damaged by the effects of the Hobus hypernova, Starfleet reassessed their priorities in their ship assignments. More craft were reassigned to the Alpha and Beta Quadrants in order to allow Starfleet to send more ships to assist the Romulans in dealing with their disaster. The Highlander was assigned to the border of the Neutral Zone after launch and though they didn’t have duties involving direct Romulan assistance, they did see their share of issues spilling over across the Neutral Zone.

In 2390, Starfleet's 11th Fleet requisitioned more active vessels and serving captains for transfer in order to bolster its numbers against the growing Sojourner threat. Whilst a number of vessels and captains were transferred, many - including the Highlander - were sent without much of the existing crews, with the fleets donating the vessels preferring to reassign the personnel elsewhere internally. Williams was ordered to land the ship at a Starfleet facility on Cestus III to allow a team from the Starfleet Corps of Engineers to inspect the vessel to ensure the repair works conducted after the vessel's crash had held whilst Personnel Command searched for a replacement crew.

Two months later, the Highlander’s crew was repopulated largely by former officers of the USS Endeavour, after that ship and its captain were presumed lost while on assignment near the outskirts of Klingon space during an encounter with a lone Borg Cube, with additional officers sourced from other assignments around the fleet.


Personal Interests

Humour

Tim was the class clown in the Academy and at school, and it is a trait that has kept with him for all of his years. He is usually found cracking jokes - some good, some bad - to lighten up a situation, and is very confident in what he does. He is not perfect however, and at times when he isn't confident in the situation or himself, he usually uses jokes to divert attention away from the fact.

By 2387, Tim had become interested in the stand-up comedians of Earth's early 21st century, and has been able to acquire a number of programs for the holodecks of their best live shows.

Though a joker, Tim knows when it is time to be serious. He draws the admiration of the younger officers in that the right answers always seem to come to him so naturally, and he can make a decision in an instant, drawing on his past knowledge and experiences.

Mechanics

Tim has expressed a fascination with mechanics ever since he was a small child, and is especially interested in antique Earth vehicles, and has been often seen in the holodeck covered in grease whilst working in a garage simulation. In his programs he has worked on multiple vehicles, including a 1964 Aston Martin DB5, a 1958 Ferrari 250 GT, and a 1969 Lotus Seven.

Since his first posting aboard the Merryweather, Tim has made use of scrap pieces of metal recovered during repairs of debris recovery to craft small sculptures, most commonly of the ship or structure that they originated from, though his makeshift artwork has been described as abstract as he doesn't reform the pieces of metal to the exact shapes needed, preferring to stuck to welding and minor head-assisted bending only. Tim has a small display of these sculptures displayed on a shelf in his quarters.

Sports

Aside from a passing interest in motor racing spanning from his interest in 20th century high performance cars, and his desire to drive them fast once he has built them in the holodeck. This gradually expanded into a hobby of racing after he began adding competitors to his drives. He has various skills in the martial arts, but he has never trained to a mater level of proficiency with any of them, preferring less violent pursuits.

Tim is a keen horse rider, and has various related simulations on the holodeck, in various settings and eras. He has his own saddle, which he keeps in storage in his quarters until he has occasion to use it.


Personal Relationships

Family

Katherine Williams

Due to his Starfleet career and the divorce of Tim and her mother, Tim has missed a large amount of his daughter's life, though he has tried to keep up regular correspondence with her, and in recent years whilst assigned to Starfleet Academy he has been able to spend significantly more time with her. Despite this distance, Tim considers he and his daughter to be as close as they can reasonably be with the distance that regularly divides them for extended periods of time.

By 2386, Katherine was working as a civilian scientist, and was working with Starfleet as part of the team on Talos IV in the mission that Tim risked his life to abort.

Katie Williams

Through a case of pure coincidence, Tim's younger cousin saw herself assigned to Epsilon Force as commander of the USS Zachary shortly after a more stable method of travel of the quadrant was discovered in the form of the wormhole between Starbase 10 and Starbase Frontier. As task force commander, Tim was Katie's direct superior for most of her early command career, and recommended her for promotion to captain and appointment as one of his task group commanders, before her eventual appointment to an equal footing with him as commander of task force 44.

Following Tim's transfer out of Epsilon Force and back to the Alpha Quadrant, Katie has since become heavily involved in the operational effectiveness of the Delta Quadrant Initiative, rising to match Tim's highest rank of Commodore and moving from direct command of the force's operational fleet to becoming Chief of Staff to Admiral Koolah, and only two steps away from command of the entire Epsilon Force fleet.

Relationships

Laura Smithe

Tim met his wife Laura whilst on leave from Starfleet, serving on his father's cargo freighter as chief engineer in 2361, and the two began dating shortly after they met. They married shortly after Tim returned to Starfleet, and had a daughter together, after which the family moved to Deep Space 6 for some much-needed stability. The Dominion War brought an end to their marriage prematurely, with Laura divorcing Tim by subspace message, stating that she couldn't live with the constant fear that he would be dead the next day. She also told him that she had met someone else, though Tim has never been able to get a straight answer from anyone as to whether or not this was the case.

Though Tim visited after the war when at Starfleet Academy for the command course, both of them decided that they shouldn't attempt to re-start their relationship, and they have remained cordial friends since then, each of them staying in touch largely for the benefit of their daughter. Laura has often told Tim that it was his influence and the stories he brought back of Starfleet in the peacetime years that convinced their daughter to pursue a career as a scientist.

Tim has very few ambitions in life; to make people laugh, and to have a happy family. He has failed to some extent with his family, but is always trying to make his daughter happy, and after recovering from the emotional distress of the divorce, he still wants to start a proper family with somebody new.

Friendships

Sath

One of his oldest friends, Tim and Sath have known each other since their days at the Academy. An unusual pairing - a class clown and a highly logical Vulcan - the young engineers have always bounced off each other very well, and have made an excellent team. The two officers have stayed in regular contact whenever they have been assigned to different starships, and keep each other updated on any major events. Though Tim's progression through the ranks has been at a higher pace than Sath's, there has not ever been any discontent at the difference; Sath has described it as logical that a human with a shorter lifespan than a Vulcan would have a stronger drive towards his career and has been content to allow himself longer to obtain the experience he believes he will need in order to successfully command a starship. In his own way, Tim believes that Sath is truly proud of the accomplishments of his friend.

Jill Garner

Admiral Jill Garner met Tim whilst he was serving as second officer on the Pathmaker. The Pathmaker was involved in the years after the war with re-securing the Federation's borders, in an effort overseen by Garner. Garner took a very hands-on approach to command and regularly spoke with the command staff of the starships involved in the operations. It was Admiral Garner who convinced Tim that he was ready to return to Earth and take the intensive command course at the Academy and apply for a first officer's posting. It was also Admiral Garner who gave Tim his command on the Highlander, and later his short-lived stint as chief of operations for Starfleet's exploratory fleets in the Alpha Quadrant.

Jill and Tim have a very relaxed relationship for a captain and his commanding Admiral, and Tim will often joke with her and toss the occasional teasing jibe her way. For Jill's part, she has kept a close focus on Tim's career and was pivotal in ensuring that Tim wasn't cashiered out of Starfleet for his actions during the Talos Incident in 2386, and having Starfleet allow him to retain the ability to command a starship.

Koolah

Tim met Admiral Koolah after the Highlander's transfer from Sigma Division to Epsilon Force. The two met regularly during the preparations for the effort to get the initial fleet of starships to the Delta Quadrant, which was to make use of prototype slipstream drive technology; each of the ships of the fleet would have their computer systems combined, and would work together to create the slipstream effect and perform the required calculations to maintain a stable slipstream tunnel. As the new commander of Task Force 84, Tim worked with the starship commanders to prepare them for the voyage and would be their direct superior after their arrival in the Delta Quadrant, but Admiral Koolah was to take direct overall command during the slipstream journey in order to allow Tim to focus on keeping the Highlander safe during the journey.

Though the slipstream journey itself did not go to plan, and the various vessels were either thrown out early, damaged or both in the attempt, all vessels survived and Tim worked with Admiral Koolah for a number of years as the only Ferengi admiral in Starfleet progressed up the chain of command to rise from Epsilon Force's deputy commander to its overall commander after the medical incapacitation of Admiral Max. The nature of their close work together inevitably formed a friendship between the two officers, and it was Admiral Koolah who insisted on Tim's promotion to Commodore in 2386.

Chronology

Year Placement Rank Assignment
2351 Starfleet Academy Cadet (First Year)
2352 Starfleet Academy Cadet (Second Year)
2353 Starfleet Academy Cadet (Third Year)
2354 Starfleet Academy Cadet (Fourth Year)
2354-2355 USS Merryweather Engineering Officer
2355-2356 USS Merryweather Assistant Chief Engineer
2356 - 2359 USS Athena Assistant Chief Engineer
2359 - 2361 USS Athena Assistant Chief Engineer
2361 - 2364 Leave of Absence
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2364 - 2365 USS Aegis Chief Engineer
2365 - 2369 USS Aegis Chief Engineer
2369 - 2373 Deep Space 6 Chief Engineer
2373 - 2374 USS Athena Chief Engineer
2374 USS Athena Chief Engineer & Second Officer
2374 - 2375 USS Pathmaker Chief Engineer
2375 - 2379 USS Pathmaker Chief Engineer & Second Officer
2379 - 2380 Starfleet Academy Command Course Student
2380 - 2384 USS Wayward First Officer
2384 USS Highlander Commanding Officer
2384 - 2386 USS Highlander Commanding Officer
2386 USS Highlander Commanding Officer
2386 USS Highlander Commanding Officer
2386 Starfleet Command Chief of Alpha Quadrant Exploration Operations
2386 - 2388 Starfleet Academy Engineering & Command Instructor
2388 - USS Highlander Commanding Officer


Preceded by:
Captain Jonathan Black
Commanding Officer of USS Highlander
2388 – Present
Succeeded by:
Incumbent
Preceded by:
Multiple; Unspecified
Engineering & Command Instructor, Starfleet Academy
2386 – 2388
Succeeded by:
Multiple; Unspecified
Preceded by:
Admiral Jill Garner
Chief of Alpha Quadrant Exploration Operations, Starfleet Command
2386
Succeeded by:
Unspecified
Preceded by:
None
Commanding Officer of Task Force 84
2385 – 2386
Succeeded by:
Fleet Captain Robert Fletcher
Preceded by:
None
Commanding Officer of Task Group Alpha
2384 – 2385
Succeeded by:
None
Preceded by:
None
Commanding Officer of USS Highlander
2384 – 2386
Succeeded by:
Captain Jonathan Black