View source for David Murdoc

{{Character
|department = Intel
|firstname= David Logan
|lastname= Murdoc
|image=[[Image:DMurdoc.png|250px]]
|Homeworld=[[memoryalpha:Earth|Earth]]
|Species=[[memoryalpha:Human|Human]]
|Gender=Male
|Birth=2349
|Death=
|Height=6' 1"
|Weight=157 lbs
|Hair=Brown
|Eyes=Brown
|Affiliation=[[United Federation of Planets]] [[Starfleet]]
|Posting=
|Position=[[Chief Intelligence Officer]]
|Rank={{LtCommander|silver}}
|Played By=[[User:Sanchez|Matthew Williams]]
}}
[[Lieutenant Commander]] '''David Murdoc''' is a [[United Federation of Planets|Federation]] [[Starfleet]] officer currently serving as [[Chief Intelligence Officer]] on [[Starbase 519]]. He is noted for his exemplary service as an Intelligence officer, his most notable assignment to date being the USS ''Scimitar''.

David has often been described as "skinny", though he does not look malnourished. His face is bordered by dark brown hair, often styled, and a light beard. While off-duty, he usually wears formal-casual clothes, with the collar's loose and thin sports trainers similar to the ankle-high basketball trainers popular amongst youth in the 21st century. David often appears to be more casually dressed than his shipmates, though he makes no conscious effort to appear so, and he wears his uniform no differently to his shipmates.

His body language at all times - on and off duty - tends to match that of his personality; easy going and carefree, as he often leans on various surfaces, stands with hands in his pockets or bounces round with excitement. He normally always has a broad grin on his face.

==Childhood==
David was born to a family who took pride in their heritage and the Scottish way of life. Even through the centuries and many technological advances, the country still retains a large amount of countryside, and David lived in a traditional Scottish brick house. It's original builders, however would have been shocked speechless at the study, which was the one room with the most technological advances - having a large LCARs terminal among its features. The remainder of the house was populated technologically with only a largely-unused replicator in the kitchen and small, portable LCARs computers owned separately by each of the three family members.

He attended Paisley Grammar School, a historical academy still running since 1896, and considered a very prestigious place to attain an eduction. He was a popular enough boy in school - never bullied or looked down upon, and had a knack for staying unnoticed when he was in the company of other people. Nobody really paid him any mind as he walked the corridors, and he was quite happy with this state of affairs. It allowed him to think, and marvel at the world around him. His favourite subject was history, and he used to look around the ancient school, at its mergance of new technologies with old architecture and books, and simply marvel at it.

That is not to say that he was without friends. David had a large group of friends, with which he shared a great many jokes and good times, but his one closest companion turned out to be the Englishwoman Moira Aclestone, a young teacher-in-training (only just out of school herself) with which David became romantically involved with during the last year of his school life. The two continued their relationship for three years after David's graduation, the first two of which he spent in college. Their third year, Moira was offered a teaching job on a new Federation Starbase, and the two moved in together on the station.

While Moira was at work, teaching the children onboard, David spent his time exploring the station, and mingling with the people on it. He became good friends with most of the bar keepers, store owners and other entrepreneurs working there, and a great number of the Starfleet personnel. He was often found by all to be a very friendly man, rarely unhappy and always up for a good time - to "live a little" as he called it, though his enthusiastic attitude to most things landed him with the cheerful description of "totally mad!" During his time onboard the station, David learned the art of gossip and rumour reading. He listened a lot to what was being said in the various establishments on the Promenade, and learned to see through the exaggerations and see the truth - or at least some of the truth - which had started the Chinese whispers. It was not a skill picked up intentionally, or for any purpose in which David could see it being fulfilled in the near future, but he did enjoy hearing all the gossip going about the station.

Two months before their fourth anniversary, it was a school field trip which tore Moira away from David. Moira had organised for the children in her class to come down to the planet's surface with her, and visit one of the local industries. David accompanied them to the manufacturing station, where they learned how the locals turned raw materials into fantastic produce. Unfortunately, halfway through the tour, while they were walking along the metal walkway looking down on the main pieces of machinery and their operators, a large machine malfunctioned - David never learned what its name or purpose was, but something inside it overloaded and exploded. Though only throwing sparks and shrapnel, with a small amount of fire, one piece of metal managed to hit one of the walkway's supports, breaking it, allowing a section of the walkway to drop under the weight being exerted on it - hitting another piece of machinery, this one more delicate and sending that into and overload. A chain reaction started within moments, and the facility was soon in flames. Moira and David worked to pull the children up from the fallen piece of walkway, now just barely clinging onto the more secure and stable steel still being held by all it's supports. Moira was with a young girl - Lisa - holding onto her with one hand, and the railing with the other, as she tried to lift the girl up to David - the last of the children who had fallen into danger. As David grasped the girl's hand, the stricken walkway gave way, falling into the fire below, and taking Moira with it into the flames.

It took David a long time to get over the grief. He moved back home to Scotland, and got a job in an office - something insignificant and repetitive. He went unnoticed once again, but there was no thinking this time. If he allowed himself to think, he knew he would think of her.

After two years, a switch seemed to flick in David's head. The pain of the loss was still there, but he didn't feel as if life was pointless anymore. He began to treasure his memories of Moira once more, rather than refraining to think of them, and quit his job for something more fulfilling - somewhere that he could live a little.

He remembered his friends from the starbase, and joined Starfleet.

==Starfleet Career==
He progressed through the basic training quickly enough, being a quick learner, and was soon picked out by the man whose care David's 'year group' came under - William. William noticed what others didn't - the way David easily interacted with people - strangers and friends alike - without any mental alarms going off in anyone, and the way he could walk through the Academy almost completely unnoticed. He suggested David take the courses for an Intelligence officer for his second year, a suggestion to which David took to heart.

David learned just as quickly in his new field of study, and finally found a place where he could put his naturally picked-up skills to use. He learned the power of information - how the man who has the knowledge can control a nation, a military or a war with just words. He studied the historical wars of man kind once again - World War I, World War II, World War III, the Cold War, all of the ones he studied in school, but applied a new perspective on them. He looked at them from the view points of the various Secret Intelligence agencies throughout the war, and studied how the knowledge those operatives gained influenced the war, without the agents needing to fire a single shot to add to those already flying in the war. He read about Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, who said "A brilliant man would find a way not to fight a war." David felt that the ultimate way to prevent a war would be to have more knowledge than your potential enemy. His third year at the academy, David concentrated on the foreign organisations from the Federation - their alliances, technologies, politics - everything there was to know about them.

David graduated the Academy with excellent grades, and was assigned to an office in Starfleet Command HQ, along with the majority of his fellow graduates - Starfleet didn't make a habit of sending inexperienced officers out into the field. And so David spend a year or two working behind the scenes, gathering information, supplying it to the right people, and getting a general feel for the way the Intelligence organisation worked. Finally, he was reassigned to a field position.

He was assigned to the USS Athens as an Intelligence Officer. The Athens was a largely diplomatic ship, and David had a chance to do what he did best - mingle. He was able to gather so much current information from his ventures, that his superior soon came to sending him on more specific assignments and relying on him a lot.

David served onboard the Athens for a number of years, staying on while many of his fellow Intelligence Officers onboard moved on elsewhere. Luckily for David, the amount of time he spent with the ship helped him - he blended into the background. He wasn't noticed, just in the same way that one wouldn't notice an ornament or a statue any longer after walking past it for so long. You wouldn't notice it was there, but as soon as it was taken away, you would realise that something wasn't quite the same.

The same happened to David, when he was eventually transferred off the ship to Deep Space 16, and assigned as the stations Assistant Chief Intelligence Officer. He had been offered the Chief position, but felt at the time that such a position would draw too much attention to him, and hinder him, rather than help him. And so he was given the assistant role, while the second choice for the chieftainship was granted the honour.

DS16 proved another long assignment for David, and after a while, the chief began delegating more and more tasks to him, and allowing him a greater role in the running of the department. David's superior knew that he had been second choice, and had held a grudge against him at first, but David felt that the grudge had ebbed over time, as the man saw how good he was at what he does, and the wealth of information David brought to him.

[[Image:DMurdoc2.jpg|thumb|right|David on the USS ''Isoroku'']]Many offers came through from Starfleet, asking him to take the role of Chief Intelligence Officer on various ships and stations, and all of them were declined, until finally another switch flicked in that marvellous brain contained within the man's skull, and he decided that he needed something new, something fresh to spice up his life. He accepted the transfer to the USS Isoroku, smiling at the ship's namesake, and remembering the old quote from his Academy days from the famous Admiral; "A brilliant man would find a way not to fight a war."

Unfortunately, his stay on the Isoroku was not to be a long one, and after only a few months, he was given orders to transfer once again, this time to a completely different quadrant. Due to the distance from home, he was given the choice to decline the order, but David saw it as a fantastic opportunity - a chance to explore somewhere new - and so he took his leave of the Akira-class ship, and set off for his rendezvous point with the USS Scimitar.

David's career aboard the Scimitar was a very beneficial one for him. Assigned again as a chief intelligence officer, he received a promotion to lieutenant, and as part of his first mission participated in a rescue operation of a Romulan Warbird which was operating in the region on a scientific survey mission, with permission from Starfleet. The singularity that powered the vessel had destabilised, shifting the entire crew into subspace. David was an integral part of the mission to discover what happened and how to save the Romulan crew; an act which granted him a commendation enough for him to receive early promotion to Lieutenant Commander a month later when he was selected to replace the vessel's departing first officer, serving in the role jointly with his ongoing role of chief intelligence officer.

After a few more mere months of standard patrols, Starfleet Command informed the Scimitar's commanding officer, Field Colonel Shafto, that his first officer had to be a solitary position, and Colonel Shafto and David came to the decision together that David would relinquish his post as ship's intelligence officer to focus on the position of first officer directly. Colonel Shafto promoted him to full Commander - David always suspected in order to spite Command for forcing him to make the decision.

The Scimitar's next mission proved to be her last - assigned to conduct negotiations with a race a Nova-class starship had recently made first contact with, the ship was destroyed by rebel factions while visiting the alien super-station, who desired to keep their culture in isolation. As a result of the failure of the mission, and the actions of the ship's marines taken without either officer's orders in retaliation, both David and Colonel Shafto were demoted - David to Lieutenant Commander whilst Shafto was reduced to Lieutenant Colonel.

David spent the next six months back on Earth as Starfleet Headquarters, undergoing courses by orders of Starfleet Intelligence. For two months after, he was assigned to a deep space station that was under the direct control of Starfleet Intel. After eight months of mediocre assignments, he was finally granted permission to seek reassignment to an active post. Selecting a starship assigned to the Galactic South, he submitted an application for the vacant chief intelligence officer spot on the USS Caboto.


==Personal Life==
David generally displays a light-hearted, talkative, easy-going, witty and somewhat cheeky manner, but combines this with a somewhat egocentric sense of unstoppability when facing a challenge. He is occasionally critical of weapons, preferring to use them as a last resort only, and will never carry one unless it is absolutely necessary. His strong personal sense of justice makes him quick to anger when he feels it is violated.

David has a tendency to babble, mixing apparent nonsense with vital information, sometimes acting erratically. He can also be rude on occasion, and is not always aware of it, being prone to making comments that to outsiders seem obtuse or rude, sometimes to his own embarrassment. He has a tendency to use overly technical language to describe complex concepts before substituting it with a simpler explanation for the benefit of those he is speaking to; sometimes an overly simplistic or vague one. He is also able to rapidly switch between moods, from mania to anger to nonchalance. Around his 'enemies' - though he endeavours not to have any - he often displays a confident, self-assured side when around them, but does not hesitate to taunt them.

David usually speaks with an Estuary English accent, sometimes switching between it and his natural Scottish brogue. He is very good with accents, and has learned to be able to switch between a great many through the years. Through his training at the Academy, he had also picked up a large vocabulary of alien languages, though he most commonly relies on the universal translator.

David has the uncanny ability to blend into any crowd unnoticed, easily being able to pass himself off as someone with a legitimate reason to be where he is whenever he is actually questioned. He can sift through and extract all of the lies and exaggerations in gossip and rumours, and can link together many seemingly disconnected facts and events in his mind to come to a conclusion on a peculiar situation.

==Personal Relationships==
===Family===
Logan Murdoc met his future wife Kyla in one of his regular business visits to the city of Glasgow. Logan was a banker, a large stakeholder in the Scottish banking business and so attended various meetings throughout the year. He usually stayed in a hotel with a room to himself, but often experienced Glasgow's night-life as a way to wind down. It was one of these night-time parties at which Kyla and he first met. They enjoyed a night together, and started seeing each other more often. A few months down the line, they moved in together in the town of Paisley, and were married two years later. 

===Relationships===
During the last year of his school life, David became romantically involved with an English woman named Moira Aclestone, who though she was only a few months older than David, had already graduated and was training to be a teacher herself. The two continued their relationship for the next three years, though they lived separate to each other and each continued with their chosen course of academics. In their third year together however, after Moira had been certified as a teacher she was offered a position aboard a newly-constructed Federation starbase, and the two moved in together aboard the station.

In 2373, during a school trip that David accompanied the class on to an industrial complex on the planet below the station, Moira was killed when one of the machines malfunctioned and destroyed the support for one of the raised walkways and caused multiple explosions in the machines around it. After saving the last of the children from the dangling walkway, Moira fell before David could reach her arm into the intense fires of the explosions of the factory beneath her.

Though David was able to move on from the grief of Moira's death and continue with his life by joining Starfleet, he has not dated anyone again since her death.

===Friendships===
====Kyle Shafto====
When David first began serving on the ''Scimitar'', he was not much more than a junior officer to the ship's captain, [[Colonel]] Kyle Shafto, and the two rarely spoke until the ship was sent to investigate a [[Romulan]] distress call. David was key during the investigation and in discovering what had happened to the crew, and when it was discovered that an anomaly had allowed a being to temporarily phase through to our dimension through the ship's artificial singularity in the warp core and that this being had then progressed to 'harvest' the Romulan crewmembers, taking them back to its dimension each time it went back out of phase, David argued vehemently about how to resolve the situation, determined that whatever action they took should first have the priority of saving the Romulan crew members. He even argued directly with Shafto on the matter.

Upon the successful resolution of the situation, Shafto unexpectedly offered David a promotion and the chance to serve jointly as the chief of intelligence and the first officer aboard the small ship, having found the man's morals and attitude impressive. Over time, the two became close friends.

After the ''Scimitar'''s destruction in 2387 and both officer's subsequent demotions, David and Shafto kept in regular contact with each other whilst they were assigned to Earth, undergoing re-assessment and re-training following the incident. After David was reassigned to field posts, their contact became less frequent, but the two have tried to stay in contact over subspace as much as possible.

==Chronology==
{| border="1" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" class="wikitable" style="border:1px solid darkgray; margin:1em auto;"
|- align="left" 
! style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | Year
! style="border:1px solid darkgray;" width="35%" | Placement
! style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | Rank
! style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | Assignment

|- align="left"
! style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | 2375
| style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | Starfleet Academy
| style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | <center>[[Image:S-c1.png]]<br>
<font size="1">Cadet</font></center>
| style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | Cadet (1st Year)

|- align="left"
! style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | 2376
| style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | Starfleet Academy
| style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | <center>[[Image:S-c2.png]]<br>
<font size="1">Cadet</font></center>
| style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | Cadet (2nd Year)

|- align="left"
! style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | 2377
| style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | Starfleet Academy
| style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | <center>[[Image:S-c3.png]]<br>
<font size="1">Cadet</font></center>
| style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | Cadet (3rd Year)

|- align="left"
! style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | 2378
| style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | Starfleet Academy
| style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | <center>[[Image:S-c4.png]]<br>
<font size="1">Cadet</font></center>
| style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | Cadet (4th Year)

|- align="left"
| style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | 
| style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | 
| style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | 
| style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | 

|- align="left"
! style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | 2379-2380
| style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | Starfleet Headquarters
| style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | <center>[[Image:S-o1.png]]<br>
<font size="1">Ensign</font></center>
| style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | Intelligence Assistant

|- align="left"
! style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | 2380-2383
| style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | USS ''Athens''
| style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | <center>[[Image:S-o1.png]]<br>
<font size="1">Ensign</font></center>
| style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | Intelligence Officer

|- align="left"
! style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | 2383-2385
| style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | Deep Space 16
| style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | <center>[[Image:S-o2.png]]<br>
<font size="1">Lieutenant JG</font></center>
| style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | Assistant Chief Intelligence Officer

|- align="left"
! style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | 2385
| style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | USS ''Isoroku''
| style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | <center>[[Image:S-o2.png]]<br>
<font size="1">Lieutenant JG</font></center>
| style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | Chief Intelligence Officer

|- align="left"
! style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | 2385-2386
| style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | USS ''Scimitar''
| style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | <center>[[Image:S-o3.png]]<br>
<font size="1">Lieutenant</font></center>
| style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | Chief Intelligence Officer

|- align="left"
! style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | 2386-2387
| style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | USS ''Scimitar''
| style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | <center>[[Image:S-o4.png]]<br>
<font size="1">Lieutenant Commander</font></center>
| style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | Chief Intelligence Officer & First Officer

|- align="left"
! style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | 2387
| style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | USS ''Scimitar''
| style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | <center>[[Image:R-o5.png]]<br>
<font size="1">Commander</font></center>
| style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | First Officer

|- align="left"
! style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | 2387
| style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | Starfleet Headquarters
| style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | <center>[[Image:S-o4.png]]<br>
<font size="1">Lieutenant Commander</font></center>
| style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | [Re-Assessment & Retraining]

|- align="left"
! style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | 2387
| style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | Base Gamma-9
| style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | <center>[[Image:S-o4.png]]<br>
<font size="1">Lieutenant Commander</font></center>
| style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | Intelligence Officer

|- align="left"
! style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | 2387
| style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | {{USS|Caboto}}
| style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | <center>[[Image:S-o4.png]]<br>
<font size="1">Lieutenant Commander</font></center>
| style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | Chief Intelligence Officer

|- align="left"
! style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | 2388
| style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | [[Starbase 519]]
| style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | <center>[[Image:S-o4.png]]<br>
<font size="1">Lieutenant Commander</font></center>
| style="border:1px solid darkgray;" | Chief Intelligence Officer

|}

{{start box}}
{{succession box | before = Unknown |title = [[Chief Intelligence Officer]] of [[Starbase 519]] | years = 2388 &ndash; Present |after= Incumbent }}
{{succession box | before = None |title = [[Chief Intelligence Officer]] of the {{USS|Caboto}} | years = 2387 |after= None }}
{{succession box | before = Unknown |title = [[First Officer]] of the USS ''Scimitar'' | years = 2386 &ndash; 2387 |after= None - Ship Destroyed }}
{{succession box | before = Unknown |title = [[Chief Intelligence Officer]] of the USS ''Scimitar'' | years = 2385 &ndash; 2387 |after= None }}
{{succession box | before = None |title = [[Chief Intelligence Officer]] of the USS ''Isoroku'' | years = 2385 |after= Unknown }}
{{end box}}

[[Category:Human]]
[[Category:Chief Intelligence Officer]]
[[Category:Lieutenant Commander]]
[[Category:Starbase 519 Personnel]]