Douglas Schofield

Early Life (2349-2365)

Douglas Robert Schofield was born in 2349 and grew up on his family’s ancestral cattle ranch in the foothills of Alberta with his parents, Elias and Lucia Schofield, who used to joke that Doug had learned to ride a horse before he had learned to read, which was not far off from the truth. At age three, he was riding with his father, and by the age of seven, he could saddle, mount, and ride unsupervised in the ranch’s back pasture.

His childhood was a happy one, marked by a balance of long days of hard work and late nights gazing into the starlit open skies that shaped him into a grounded and observant young man. His father, a retired Starfleet security officer, nurtured his developing sense of discipline, while his mother nurtured his imagination with Old Earth Westerns and cowboy novels from the 20th and 21st centuries.

When Doug was ten, his father gifted him an old Daisy Red Ryder BB Gun, an heirloom from Doug’s Great-Grandfather. It was a simple present, more sentimental than practical, but it had unintended consequences. Doug began practicing with it religiously, honing a steady hand and an exceptional aim by plinking cans off of fenceposts. He didn’t just shoot; he began to study the art of marksmanship: breathing, grip, focus, wind, rhythm, until all of it became second nature to him.

By age 15, Doug had won first place in a Regional Under-18 Marksmanship competition, and this success made him believe he might be able to serve Starfleet as his father had.

Starfleet Academy (2365-2369)

At the age of 16, with his parents’ blessing, Doug enrolled in Starfleet Academy. At the academy, he was known for being friendly, easy-going, and approachable. While not a rule-breaker, he did garner some eye-rolls from his instructors for disregarding some minor regulations. He excelled in survival training, as well as his continuing obsession with marksmanship, earning a spot on the academy team and routinely taking podium spots during competitions.

He graduated in 2369, still mostly a boy who was soft around the edges, and convinced that he could be a commander who was both relaxed and responsible.

Early Career, Marriage, Dominion War (2369-2375)

Shortly after graduation, Doug met Ana Maria Rodriguez, a brilliant medical officer with sharp eyes and a sharper wit, during his first tour aboard the Nebula-Class cruiser, USS Excursion. They married quickly, drawn together by a mutual passion.

During the Dominion War, Doug was stationed aboard the USS Oklahoma, while his wife Ana Maria was stationed aboard a hospital ship, the USS William Harvey. Though the traumas of the war tried him, he remained fundamentally gentle, diplomatic, and flexible. His marriage remained strong and loving, though long-distance.

In 2374, the Oklahoma was caught in a Breen ambush. Struck brutally, shields downed, bulkheads collapsed, and decks were vented into space. More than half the crew died, including the Captain. More than half the crew lost their lives, including the ship’s captain. Doug was below decks leading a repair team when the deck lost pressure, pulling his team into space. He was the only survivor.

The loss and trauma shattered his worldview, and the survivor’s guilt hollowed him out. Believing his easygoing nature caused the deaths of his team, it calcified into a rigid adherence to discipline, and his fear of losing people twisted into a relentless control.

Unable to properly handle his trauma, he began drinking. Not heavily enough to be court-martialed, but enough to estrange him from the wife who loved him. Ana Maria tried. For a long time, she tried, but he had become unreachable, locked behind a wall of grief and duty. They divorced in 2380, a quiet dissolution that neither spoke of again.

Post-War to Present (2375-2402)

After his divorce, Schofield straightened out and rebuilt himself into a new kind of officer. He became unyieldingly disciplined, with an absolute adherence to protocol. He asks those under him for near-peak readiness at all times, utilizing strict and regimented training standards. He would never again lose a crew because he hadn’t prepared them enough. His demons are still there, ever-present below the surface, but he now carries his grief with dignity.

He still drinks sometimes, but he keeps it rigorously controlled so he won’t fall back into old patterns, and he occasionally smokes cigarettes or cigars, but only ever alone, and typically only in the holo-deck or his personal quarters.