Commanding Officer, U.S.S. Endeavour, NCC-1716

So, I didn't have anything specific to post about, but it's been a few days since I last posted, so I decided to follow up on my October 30th post about the Starship Endeavour by introducing you all to some of her officers, beginning today with her commanding officer.

What you're about to read below is the background I created for him when I was working on my novelette, The 11th Hour.

Captain Christopher MacLeod: Human male, Caucasian, brown hair, brown eyes, mustache/goatee.

Chris MacLeod is a few years older than James T. Kirk, but attended Starfleet Academy at the same time, and in fact had several classes with him during their first two years as cadets. He didn’t particularly like Kirk at first—although he didn’t like the way upperclassman Cadet Finnegan treated him, either—so despite having had those classes together, the two of them never really became friends. “Friendly acquaintances” would be a better description of their relationship at that time. Later, when MacLeod and Kirk selected different career paths—MacLeod chose to pursue a career as a security officer—that acquaintance grew more distant.

Years later, when then Commander James T. Kirk took over as commanding officer of the scout ship Aeolus and brought Lieutenant (J.G.) Gary Mitchell in to serve as his chief helmsman, Lieutenant MacLeod saw it as an opportunity. He’d served with distinction in security and had even served with the MACOs for a period of time, but he’d wanted to transfer out of security altogether for some years by then and enter the command path. Unfortunately, Starfleet Command had denied his repeated requests, claiming that he was too valuable in his capacity as an experienced, seasoned security officer to be allowed to leave that specialty. Upon hearing of Kirk’s promotion, he contacted his old classmate and inquired after a position. A few weeks later he received orders promoting him to lieutenant commander and transferring him to the Aeolus as a helm and navigation transfer trainee.

MacLeod took to helm and navigation quickly, and during the time he served under Kirk he grew to admire the man and came to realize that those traits in his former classmate that he hadn’t liked were exactly the traits that had enabled him to rise to command so quickly. As required, they maintained a professional commander-subordinate relationship, but a friendship did develop in spite of that, and when the first officer was killed in the line of duty, Kirk selected MacLeod to replace him. Later, when Kirk was promoted to captain of the Enterprise and took Mitchell with him, MacLeod was promoted to commander and appointed the new captain of the Aeolus.

MacLeod has served as commanding officer of the Aeolus ever since, but has now been promoted to the rank of captain and selected to command Starfleet’s newest starship, the U.S.S. Endeavour.