Chloe Shepherd

Early Life

Chloe Shepherd was born in Brisbane, Australia, to a well-off and privileged family. Her mother worked in the Australian government as the Chief Scientific Advisor, while her father Thomas was a respected biochemist at the University of Melbourne. He particularly doted on Chloe, the youngest of three children, and many of her earliest memories are of him bringing her to the lab and being exposed to his work and his world.

A bright child, Chloe was always eager to earn and keep the approval of her family, and this meant applying herself to her studies. While this isolated her socially at school, the pay-off was outstanding grades and her father’s quiet pride, which only redoubled when she applied to and was accepted to ETH Zurich to study physics. While moving so far from home was a shock to the system, for the first time Chloe was around like-minded peers. Always a little socially awkward, she still thrived and continued to excel in academia, earning her bachelor’s and master’s degrees.

Her father, thrilled at her successes, quietly arranged for her to be offered a place at Melbourne for her doctorate. But the 2140s had seen some of the most exciting advances in stellar sciences as Earth built closer relations with regional alien governments, and from Zurich Chloe had seen data come in for study from deep space telescopes, Starfleet missions, and research agreements. Australia, not part of the United Earth government, was not party to most of this information and so, unaware of her father’s role, Chloe turned down Melbourne’s offer to study at MIT.

Starfleet Career

This was the first rift between father and daughter. The second came when, immediately after earning her doctorate, Chloe Shepherd applied to join Starfleet. She had little interest in serving on board starships on deep space missions, but by 2152 Starfleet had begun more joint research projects with the Vulcan Science Institute, and this was how she could get out and be a part of the cutting edge of stellar sciences. Thomas Shepherd was only quiet in expressing his disappointment, but the Xindi attack transformed this to outright opposition at the idea of his daughter leaving Earth for a more dangerous life.

This did not stop the newly-minted Ensign Shepherd, dispatched on a joint research mission with the Vulcan Science Institute to Gault Station. There she worked on one of the most advanced deep space telescopes and research stations available to humanity, but by 2156, the blossoming Romulan War made a Starfleet officer as qualified as her too valuable for merely research work.

The Phoenix

Shepherd opposed transfer elsewhere, until Commander Sawyer West reached out to request her assignment to Phoenix NX-08. His first choice as second science officer had perished aboard the Pioneer, but West still managed to convince Shepherd the value of her work – and she knew, deep down, she had little choice. For eight months she served on the rather disgraced ship under West, and continued all along to train further in bridge operations to round out her research-focused education and experience.

By early 2157, she had taken on responsibilities for strategic operations and analysis on the Vega front, showing her natural aptitude for quick learning and skilled problem-solving. This, along with limited personnel options, meant that she was a natural choice to become Chief Science Officer when the Vega campaign ended in a battle where Commander West was killed, a battle where Shepherd had successfully taken over his post on the bridge. Despite her limited confidence in front-line service and awkward social manner, Shepherd is still a brilliant scientist and a quick learner, and one of the few on Phoenix with no black marks on her record – but few sterling recommendations either.