Difference between revisions of "Benjamin J. Byrne"


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[[Commander]] '''Benjamin James Byrne''' is a [[United Federation of Planets|Federation]] [[Starfleet]] officer serving the [[Pegasus Fleet|Eleventh Fleet]]. He is most noted for his command of the USS ''Hendrix'' during the Dominion War, and for his current command of the {{USS|Endeavour}}, a {{Class|Sovereign}} vessel.
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[[Captain]] '''Benjamin James Byrne''' is a [[United Federation of Planets|Federation]] [[Starfleet]] officer serving the [[Pegasus Fleet|Eleventh Fleet]]. He is most noted for his command of the USS ''Hendrix'' during the Dominion War, and for his current command of the {{USS|Endeavour}}, a {{Class|Sovereign}} vessel.
  
 
Benjamin is a man who makes more use out of the different variations of Starfleet uniform than most officers, making use of the duty uniform, Captain's vest variant, training uniform, simple Starfleet-emblazoned fatigues, and the various away team speciality uniforms, among others. He can also sometimes be seen with a pair of old-style glasses, as he is allergic to Retinax V, the typical treatment for vision-correction and is ever-so-slightly far-sighted. Occasionally, he chooses to wear his glasses when he doesn't actually need them, as he has found that in some cases, it can be more beneficial to his goals if he presents an intellectual appearance.
 
Benjamin is a man who makes more use out of the different variations of Starfleet uniform than most officers, making use of the duty uniform, Captain's vest variant, training uniform, simple Starfleet-emblazoned fatigues, and the various away team speciality uniforms, among others. He can also sometimes be seen with a pair of old-style glasses, as he is allergic to Retinax V, the typical treatment for vision-correction and is ever-so-slightly far-sighted. Occasionally, he chooses to wear his glasses when he doesn't actually need them, as he has found that in some cases, it can be more beneficial to his goals if he presents an intellectual appearance.
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Lieutenant Commander - Executive Officer, USS Antarctic (2375 - 2378)<br>
 
Lieutenant Commander - Executive Officer, USS Antarctic (2375 - 2378)<br>
 
Commander - Commanding Officer, USS New York (2378 - 2386)<br>
 
Commander - Commanding Officer, USS New York (2378 - 2386)<br>
Commander - Commanding Officer, USS Endeavour (2386 - Present)<br>
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Commander - Commanding Officer, USS Endeavour (2386 - 2386)<br>
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Captain - Commanding Officer, USS Endeavour (2386 - Present)<br>
  
 
[[Category:Human]]
 
[[Category:Human]]
 
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[[Category:Commanding Officer]]
[[Category:Commander]]
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[[Category:Captain]]
 
[[Category:USS Endeavour Personnel]]
 
[[Category:USS Endeavour Personnel]]

Revision as of 00:09, 15 March 2010

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Basic information
Assignment
Captain Benjamin James Byrne is a Federation Starfleet officer serving the Eleventh Fleet. He is most noted for his command of the USS Hendrix during the Dominion War, and for his current command of the USS Endeavour, a Sovereign-class vessel.

Benjamin is a man who makes more use out of the different variations of Starfleet uniform than most officers, making use of the duty uniform, Captain's vest variant, training uniform, simple Starfleet-emblazoned fatigues, and the various away team speciality uniforms, among others. He can also sometimes be seen with a pair of old-style glasses, as he is allergic to Retinax V, the typical treatment for vision-correction and is ever-so-slightly far-sighted. Occasionally, he chooses to wear his glasses when he doesn't actually need them, as he has found that in some cases, it can be more beneficial to his goals if he presents an intellectual appearance.

Personality & Traits

General Overview

Benjamin comes across at first as a care-free and joyous man, for that indeed is the kind of man he is. Often preferring informal conversations with his officers, treating them often like close friends, which he has become accustomed to them becoming, he is one of the COs of the fleet who is much loved and respected by those he commands.

However, this does not mean that he cannot be serious when it is needed, and is also a skilled tactician, winning a number of battles during the Dominion War aboard the Hendrix. He is also not afraid to discipline his officers when he feels that they deserve to be.

Strengths & Weaknesses

Strengths: Strong diplomatic instinct, inspirational speaker, good aim and hand-eye-coordination, strong grasp of linguistics.

Weaknesses: Slightly far-sighted, limited knowledge of ships systems repairs (can do basic repairs only)

Ambitions

Benjamin has attained his main ambition; to command a starship, though before he transferred aboard the Endeavour he never truely knew how much he wanted to command a ship as grand as the Sovereign class. His next ambition is to reach the rank of Captain, and conduct at least 10 First Contacts.

Hobbies & Interests

Benjamin has had an interest in archaeology and foreign languages and linguistics since he was a child, accompanying his parents on their digs around the world. This interest in Earth languages later expanded out into interest in alien languages too when he joined Starfleet, and he set about learning a number of them.

Languages

Federation Basic, Russian, Italian, Egyptian, Vulcan, Klingon, Risian, various alien phrases

Family

Father: James Robert Byrne
Mother: Annika Byrne née Smith
Sisters: Elizabeth Byrne, Natasha Robinson née Byrne
Brother: Thomas Nathan Byrne
Spouse: Sarah Jessica Byrne née Smith
Children: Jacob Benjamin Byrne
Other Family
Grandfather: Robert Gregory Byrne

History

Early Life

Tradition holds in the Byrne family, and has for generations, that the first-born son of a marriage receive their father's first name as their middle name, and James Byrne with his wife Annika weren't going to ignore family tradition when they named their first son Benjamin James Byrne.

In the following six years, three more children arrived in the family, firstly another son, followed by two daughters. The children were all fairly competitive, as siblings tend to be, and would often get into arguments with each other over the simplest of things during their early years. As they grew older, and specifically when their family moved to a larger house, just outside the city of Vancouver allowing each child to have their own room after the youngest, Natasha, reached the age of 11, the children began to get along well together. Benjamin - at that time 17 years old and thinking about what to do with his life, had become fairly close to his younger brother, Thomas, who was a year his junior, though Ben had always looked out for his younger siblings throughout their school lives.

Though Ben had always had a fairly strong idea in his mind since Starfleet Day in school as to what he wanted to do with his life, he had never voiced his ambitions to his parents, for fear that they might disapprove. Ben's parents were Archaeologists, studying the many sites still being discovered on Earth even in the 24th century - a profession which James had taken up after a very poor relationship with his own father during his latter teenage and early twenties years. Robert Bryne had been a Starfleet officer, and had almost always been away from home, or having to be called in to Starfleet Headquarters whenever he was home on 'urgent business'. Ben had never known what said business was, but he had been told his grandfather's absence had caused a rift to form in the family, which had then led to James' desire to distance his own life from Starfleet as much as he could, and to take his family with him whenever he went out on a dig.

Ben had always found the digs fascinating, and had become quite the young archaeologist and studier of history himself. But he knew that his ambitions lay out amongst the stars. As it turned out, on one of the digs they attended with their father, Ben learned that his younger brother felt the same, and while laying in the sand under a boiling sun, they decided that Ben would wait a year after finishing school, and the two brothers would enter Starfleet Academy together after telling their father.

James Byrne, to his credit, showed his boys enormous support. He wasn't fond of what Starfleet did to people and their families, but he had never wanted to stand in the way of what his boys wanted to do with their lives, and so sent them off to San Francisco with a cheery smile on his face.

Ben, not really having any specific idea of what part of Starfleet he wanted to enter, was persuaded by his brother to join the marines, as Tom had always had a strong fascination with the action video games and holo-programs. By the end of their first years, though, each learnt that the marines wasn't right for him, and re-enrolled the following year for Starfleet.

Tom, still ever the action hero, went straight in for tactical training, while Ben took a while to decide. Eventually, he enrolled for courses with a mixture of tactical skills, diplomatic and galactic history elements, and science. His second year, however, he was forced to focus his studies more directly, and so followed his younger brother on the path to becoming a tactical officer. By the time the two boys had left the Academy in 2366, the eldest of their sisters, Elizabeth, had joined the Academy too, studying to become a science officer.

Early Starfleet Career

Though the boys entered the Academy together, they weren't posted together, as Ben was assigned to the USS Pacific as a junior tactical officer, while Tom went on to serve aboard Starbase 12. Ben soon saw action for himself, and was a member of an away team on a mission where the Pacific was investigating the mysterious disappearance of a research station full of civilians when a group of Orion pirates beamed aboard, and tried to take the valuable Starfleet officers as hostages to then sell on to the highest bidder. When the senior officer on the team, the chief of security, was killed instantly by a direct shot to his head after trying to negotiate with the pirates, Benjamin instantly took charge, tackling the nearest of the Orions, and causing enough confusion and commotion for him and the remaining officers to be able to subdue their would-be captors. After disabling the dampening field that the Orions had set up, the Pacific was able to beam up the away team members, and regain control of the situation. When the Captain of the Pacific rather rashly suggested - in jest or not, Ben never found out - that they should just blast the Orions away for killing a Starfleet officer, Ben - who was now manning the tactical station - advised against it. To prevent a diplomatic incident, Ben recommended that the Orions be taken into custody, and extradited to a court to have justice seen to by the legal system, a recommendation which the Captain took. For his actions in saving the lives of most of the away team, and possibly avoiding a diplomatic incident with the Orions, Ben was promoted to Lieutenant JG, and assigned as Chief Tactical and Security Officer aboard the Pacific, replacing the man killed on the station.

As Ben rose through the ranks, he earned a name for himself, becoming known as a sound negotiator, but firm and decisive when it was required, having a strong knowledge of tactics ship-to-ship battle operations. By the year 2368, he was promoted to full Lieutenant, having progressed up from Ensign in only two years. It was in this year that he met someone whom he would fall in love with, a woman by the name of Dianna Crix, who had transferred aboard the Pacifica herself, in the science department. For two years, Dianna and Ben led a successful relationship together - but then things came to a rapid halt for Ben's personal life. He walked into her room one day to find her making a covert call to someone in the Romulan government, and confronted her about it. Her cover blown, the Romulan agent really known as T'Marl revealed her true self, stunning the man who had thought he had loved her for two years to make her escape.

It took Ben a long time to get over the situation, and he spent a number of months during 2370 back home on Earth with his family, who showed him nothing but support. It was only his sense of duty which kept him working, albeit in a minor fashion, as he applied for a transfer to an advisory job at Starfleet Headquarters, working for the office of Federation Security. Occasionally he would partake in a few Earth-bound activities of the Diplomatic Corps, but none of his duties were performed with the sense of motivation he had had previously. It was towards the end of that year that Tom, who was on shoreleave himself to spend time with his brother, and Elizabeth introduced him to Sarah Johnson, in an attempt to cheer him up, and bring some energy back to his life. It worked, too - at first Ben was sceptical about their plan, but agreed to meet her. On their first meeting, they hit it off famously, being able to instantly make each other laugh, and enjoy themselves.

When Ben was made an offer by Captain MonRoe of the USS Antarctic to assume the position of first officer onboard with a promotion to Lieutenant Commander when the threat of the Dominion was first learnt of in 2371, it was Sarah who convinced Ben to take the post, though only after he made her promise to join him and live on the Galaxy-class starship with him. The Antarctic was assigned the duty of helping to make the Federation prepared for the war that Admirals at Starfleet Command knew was inevitable, and she spent the first few months of 2373 guarding important shipyards where new starship designs were being produced. She was in orbit of one such facility's anchor world when war officially broke out with the Dominion, and Ben was made another offer, this time by Starfleet Command. They wanted him to assume command of the USS Hendrix, one of the new Defiant class starships, and join the fourth fleet in the war effort. Ben accepted on two conditions; firstly, that he was allowed to take Sarah to a strategically unimportant world, where she would be safe from the Dominion's advance, and secondly that Sarah would marry him. The two became newly-weds on the oceanic planet of Pacifica one month later, and Ben kissed his new wife goodbye as he set off to help the war effort.

Dominion War

The Hendrix saw battle on a number of occasions, and managed to stay in one piece every time. When the Breen first entered the war, however, she was caught off-guard by their energy dampening weapon, and completely disabled. Fortunately for her crew, she wasn't destroyed, and was later retrieved and began a refit program to equip her to fight against this new weapon.

During the ship's refit, Ben learnt of certain unease amongst a number of Starfleet Command personnel over his appointment to command the Hendrix by Commodore Gates. None of them doubted his record, or his abilities as he had proven them so far, but they felt that at 26, he was too young to be given a command, and too inexperienced. Tom, who was working as an attaché at headquarters with the rank of Lieutenant, told him that the only reason Gates' decision hadn't been overturned was that they were in a war, and they needed every ship they could get. Besides that, he was only in command of a small vessel, and the Admirals were intending to keep him at Lieutenant Commander until they felt he was old enough and experienced enough to have Gates' decision affirmed by a promotion. Ben didn't care, all he wanted was to protect the Federation, and to protect his wife Sarah. When the modifications to the Hendrix were completed, he contributed to the war effort with just the same determination as he had shown before the revelations brought to him by his brother.

The Hendrix was one of many ships however which did not make it through the rest of the war in one piece. She was destroyed at the battle over Cardassia, losing 6 crew members in the process. After the war had officially come to a close, and Starfleet began assessing its strength, they determined that there were not enough available personnel for him to get another command of his own, and so was assigned back to the Antarctic under Captain MonRoe, to once again serve the man as his first officer, with Sarah finally able to join him onboard again.

After the War

Ben served under MonRoe for a further 3 years, until he was finally promoted to full Commander and granted command of the Nova class USS New York in 2378. Only one month after his promotion, Sarah gave him some wonderful news - she was pregnant!

The small Nova class was ideal for Ben and Sarah, as she was only ever assigned to surveying and scientific missions, with the odd diplomatic function, and so the stress of life raising a child on a starship was fairly minimal, all things considering. That is, they were, until 2386, when the New York was caught off-guard by a wanted criminal, hiding in a nebula they were surveying. The criminal thought that the small, fast starship had come in pursuit of them, and so ignited the volatile gases in the nebula, only just escaping himself, and causing a warp core breach in the New York's reactor.

Later that year, Commander Byrne was offered the third command of his career - this time, a much larger ship; the Sovereign class USS Endeavour, part of Vice Admiral Sanchez's newly-reformed Eleventh Fleet. Understanding that the large ship was not only a big step upwards in his career, but also a much safer home for his family, Benjamin accepted, and he, Sarah and Jacob moved aboard while he began to search for his crew.

Service Record

Cadet - Starfleet Academy (2362 - 2366)
Ensign - Tactical Officer, USS Pacific (2366)
Lieutenant JG - Chief Security/Tactical Officer, USS Pacific (2366 - 2368)
Lieutenant - Chief Security/Tactical Officer, USS Pacific (2368 - 2370)
Lieutenant - Security Officer & Advisor, Starfleet Headquarters (2370 - 2371)
Lieutenant Commander - Executive Officer, USS Antarctic (2371 - 2373)
Lieutenant Commander - Commanding Officer, USS Hendrix (2373 - 2375)
Lieutenant Commander - Executive Officer, USS Antarctic (2375 - 2378)
Commander - Commanding Officer, USS New York (2378 - 2386)
Commander - Commanding Officer, USS Endeavour (2386 - 2386)
Captain - Commanding Officer, USS Endeavour (2386 - Present)