Theo Metaxas

Political Information

• Affiliation: Starfleet, United Earth Commonwealth

Family

• Mother: Captain Demi Metaxas, Deputy-Director of Fleet Operations, Starfleet Operations
• Father: Commander Jace Metaxas, MD, Dean of the Starfleet Teaching Hospital, Starfleet Medical
• Brother: 1^st Lieutenant Deacon Metaxas, MACO Specialist, Voyager NV-03

Biography

Early Life

Born to two Greek parents who were raised on the island of Cephalonia, Theo would only visit the island during the summer holidays as a child due to his parents both having busy careers. His mother, Demi, was originally started her career in the Hellenic Armed Forces as a pilot. Quickly rising through the ranks, she was eventually picked to represent her country as member of the UESPA. During her time there she met her husband Jace – one of the flight-doctors. The two ended up marrying and had their first-born son, Deacon – Theo’s older brother. A year later and Theo was born. Theo’s family was privileged in being able to have a happy and well-fortunate life. Initially his parents were had a home just outside of Orlando, Florida before they moved to California so they were closer to Starfleet Headquarters and Starfleet Medical in San Francisco. Deciding that they both wanted to transfer from the UESPA to Starfleet, Theo’s parents were keen to show their sons what Earth could achieve through the work they were undertaking. As a result of his parents working long hours, Theo became extremely close to his brother Deacon. The two would normally spend most of their evenings after school surfing. This was something that Theo loved, along with swimming and diving. As teenagers he and his brother represented their high school in these sports as well as part of the water-polo team. It wasn’t only his enjoyment in the water that inspired Theo, he found himself at an early age enjoying maths and later on physics. Even though Theo was a confident youngster, he did not have hordes of friends. His social scenery was small, with only big events being related to one of his sports teams. By the time he turned fourteen he took an interest in playing guitar and piano, eventually he became quite good at this and started his own band with his friends. He became their lead singer and guitarist, eventually after a few local performances his social status was raised among his high school. Before he graduated high school, his band performed at the prom and this was one his highlights.

Earning himself a scholarship, Theo decided to take a degree in applied engineering at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). His brother had already gone off and joined the MACOs as a young enlisted officer. After three years, Theo left Caltech with a Bachelor of Engineering and decided to make good use of it and follow his parents’ footsteps in joining Starfleet.

Starfleet Career

Early Career

Theo aced the admission exams and assessments due to his previous high grades as well as physical development. He was offered the opportunity to join the fast-track program at Starfleet Training Command (STC), this would see him become an officer with a space of two years instead of taking the normal four years. He picked the latter, on advice from his parents, as he wanted to enjoy every moment that STC would have on offer.

Four enjoyable but intense years; Theo came out of STC as well-rounded individual with high honours in a Master of Science in Engineering. Loved by all of his instructors and professors, Theo ended up having a number of glowing references to his name. His parents were extremely proud of his achievements. While at STC, he also captained one of the water polo teams and was given special dispensation from the commandment to attend the 2152 Summer Olympics in London. As part of the Greek diving team, he came third and won a bronze medal. However he was part of the Greek water polo team who went on to gain the gold medal. Finishing STC at the end of 2154, he was approached by the campus’ recruitment director with the offer to join the crew of the third warp five capable ship; Challenger NX-03. Captain Karim, its commanding officer, was impressed with the young man’s service record and wanted him as part of her engineering team. Honoured with the offer, Theo accepted and joined the ship as its Third Engineer at the rank of Ensign.

Challenger NX-03

Joining the newest NX-class starship in January 2155, Theo quickly learnt that the class of ship had proved to be technological marvel but also needed the hands of skilled engineers to keep them functioning at peak efficiency. Deciding not to be a social hermit in any shape or form, Theo quickly went about getting to know the rest of his colleagues in the engineering department and eventually the rest of the ship. When Captain Karim was killed prior to the ship’s launch, Theo was shocked just like everyone else. Even though he did not know the woman well enough to fully grieve unlike some of his peers, he was still shaken from the event. When Starfleet decided to promote the ship’s first officer to commanding officer, Theo was one of many on the crew to welcome Lloyd Burton’s promotion to Captain from Commander. In his first few weeks on the ship, Theo became good friends under his superior officer of Lieutenant Masuko and came to respect the experienced engineer. When Captain Burton made the appointment of the ship’s new chief engineer with Commander Michael Stanton, Theo was even happier than ever. Like some of the other crew, he had trained under Stanton at STC. Stanton was known as a fair and highly intelligent engineer; he was respected by many of the cadets that he taught and Theo had known that he had huge fan club among those who fancied the man.

During the ship’s first mission a number of the crew were kidnapped by the Orions, including Stanton. This happened while they were ferrying Earth diplomats to an important conference with the Denobulans. It was down to Theo to work with Masuko to keep the ship together until their boss was rescued, which he was later on. Once Stanton recovered from his injuries, Stanton went about organising the engineering department. He would give his senior engineers, of which Theo was part of, a range of responsibilities that would rotate over a period of time. First off Theo was responsible for overseeing damage repair teams as well as the maintenance teams. He enjoyed the work as it kept him on his toes and meant that he had to think outside of the box to deal with problems under some stressful circumstances.

While the ship proceed with its first set of missions, Theo became close with other officers outside of the engineering department, especially those closer in his age. He ended up gaining the nickname of “Teddy Bear” or just “Teddy” by Private Liam Jenkins of the MACO detachment due to Theo’s big brother-like relationship he formed. Not having heard from his own brother or parents for a long time, Theo started to see the crew as the closet thing he would have as a family for the moment. He would regularly train with some of the MACO soldiers, while also attending most of the social events onboard the ship. Stanton eventually gave Theo the responsibility of liaising between engineering and the armoury department in regard to the ship’s tactical systems. This gave him time to get to know Ensign Rachele Cortez, the two became fast friends as well.  Stanton took Theo under his wing, in sort of protégé way, and the two would be known to be swapping ideas about a range of engineering puzzles into the night. Theo enjoyed this exchange of ideas with his superior as he was acutely aware that he was in a senior position in engineering without having much experience on other ships. Anything he could learn from Stanton and Masuko was valuable to him like gold. When Ensign Jack Conrad, the ship’s new pilot, joined the crew he became friends with Theo along with other junior officers. Regularly they would all meet to share in mealtimes together and do other activities. Jack and Theo would end up working on the maintenance of the ship’s auxiliary crafts too.

During the middle of 2155 the ship was ordered to make official first contact with the Deltan species on behalf of the Earth Commonwealth and its allies in the Coalition of Planets. Initially the first contact went well with both side exchanging ideas peacefully, but the ship was dragged into an ongoing conflict the Deltans were having with a neighbouring race known as the Carreons. When the Carreons began a campaign of attacking the ship on a regular basis, Theo’s engineering skills came valuable to the ship’s survival. As their weapons weren’t as advanced compared to Starfleet’s the ship received little damaged until they persisted and repeated their attacks almost daily. During one battle, Theo was injured had to have his shoulder reset and could only assist with light duties for a few days. In their last battle they engaged a Romulan Bird-of-Prey which they discovered was using a telepresence capturing system to control Carreon vessels. They were able to avoid being captured themselves and disabled the craft; unfortunately, the Romulans were not prepared to be captured and destroyed their ship. The shockwave from the exploding ship severely damaged Challenger further. When Captain Burton decided to order the crew to abandon ship, Metaxas left with his shipmates and was assigned to Shuttlepod One. The crew were led to a Minshara-class world they had detected on long range sensors as a place of sanctuary. The trip took a very long time in escape pods and one shuttlepod, eventually they arrived in orbit. When they began their decent, they encountered an alien craft that originated from the world. The vessel opened fire after Doctor Ben-Ami attempted to contact them. Their engagement gave the other escape pods time to move out of harm’s way and land on the planet without being hassled, but Ben-Ami’s own escape pod was damaged and was forced to crash land elsewhere. With the others in the shuttlepod, Theo attempted to fight the aggressive alien ship, however their work was not good enough and eventually their ship was captured. He along with Ensign Conrad, Corporal Jenkins and Second Lieutenant Trommler were made prisoners of the aliens and taken to one of their settlements. While imprisoned they were tortured for any information along with being analysed and subjected to various tests. Eventually their new hosts took them out of prison and gave them back their freedom, with restrictions. As the second senior most officer in the group, Theo supported Jack in taking lead of their team when they met with the aliens’ leader, a man named High Advisor Tonisus. Tonisus explained to the group that they were on a planet named Ardana and his people were known as the Ardanans. Public knowledge of “off-worlders” or aliens was unknown, only those high up in their government and military were aware of life on other worlds. Tonisus attempted to make it up to the team by treating them like real guests once his military advisors believed they were not a threat to their world. Theo and his shipmates soon discovered that the Ardanans lived on cloud-cities that were levitating settlements. They spent almost a fortnight with the Ardanans, learning about their history and culture. While they remained on Stratos, the capital cloud city, Theo repaired their shuttle. Ensign Conrad later agreed to a pact laid out by High Advisor Tonisus, in return for safe harbour for the entire crew – their team had to help the Ardanans find Ben-Ami and the rest of the crew. Tonisus’ administration was worried that the public would find out about the “off-worlders” and widespread panic would erupt across their world. Originally, they weren’t successful and their efforts hit a snag when a Carreon vessel crash landed on the planet. The vessel wiped out an entire mining settlement. Tonisus became uneasy, feeling that if they found the Humans and returned them to Stratos that people would become suspicious. He ordered the humans to leave Stratos and to avoid his people at all cost. Their departure was a swift one and the team was more than happy to leave to find the others. Once the four men returned to their crewmates, they shared with them their experiences with the Ardanans. Ben-Ami agreed with their recommendation in not making contact with the Ardanans, just in case they became aggressive towards them.

Eventually the entire crew were rescued when Captain Burton and the others entered orbit of Ardana. They came with help with the Andorians and with a few days of hard work the entire crew were returned to Challenger. Ben-Ami placed a commendation in Theo’s file for his bravery and engineering ingenuity during their time on Ardana. Theo formed a closer bond with the other three that had been with him on Stratos and knew that the existence of the Ardanan people and their cloud cities would be a secret they would take with them to their graves.

Deciding that his experience on Stratos had changed him, Theo requested that he be given more responsibility and the opportunity to explore other avenues of work on board the ship. This felt important to him, especially as war had been declared against the Romulan Star Empire. His request was agreed shortly before he joined the rest of the crew on Earth to celebrate the wedding of Corporal Liam Jenkins and Ensign Niall Stewart. During the wedding, Theo was one of their ushers and formed a small band from the crew. He ended up singing and performing the song for Jenkins and Stewart’s first dance.