Arthur 'Art' Graves

Straight out of the academy on Earth, Graves was assigned to the USS Noble, a Saber-class starship. At the young age of a junior officer, he was gullible, reckless, and immature. While he did take his job as a security officer seriously, he would often find himself in his department chief’s office with a scowl or two. In fact, Graves was on his final notice, at risk of being discharged from Starfleet, when the Noble received orders to join Operation: Gatecrasher to push the Sovereignty out and liberate the Federation worlds.

During the battle, the Noble was disabled and left adrift in space long enough for a Sovereignty vessel to catch it and board it. This forced Graves to fend off the Klingon attackers with everything they had on board and when the energy cells in his weapons depleted, he resorted to hand-to-hand combat. While the crew of the Noble defended against the Klingon invasion, the Sovereignty vessel was destroyed by one of the Klingon Defense Force vessels. With no reinforcements for the Sovereignty invaders on the Noble, they soon surrendered and those that were alive were captured and imprisoned.

Graves’ efforts in defending main engineering from falling into the hands of the Sovereignty invaders had awarded him a medal and a battlefield promotion. This also changed Graves attitude when he witnessed his best friends get cut down by the enemy. Because of that day, Graves whole life changed and he became a model officer.

Since the Operation of 2391, Graves had followed every order that was given to him. As security, he had arrested anyone who violated rules and regulations and he had performed his duties most efficiently. With a captain who was also a by-the-book person, Graves earned a lot of respect from his commanding officer and rose through the ranks quickly in his career. When Graves was made Lieutenant Commander, he was offered a command staffing position as Second Officer on board the Noble. This was a couple of years before the battle at the Archanis Sector against the House of D’Ghor.

Noble once again answered the call to assist, this time to assist the Fourth Fleet in a combat situation with the House of D’Ghor in the Archanis Sector. During the conflict with the enemy, the Noble took a direct hit and the captain and the first officer were killed immediately. This gave Graves the opportunity to take command of the Noble and deliver the final blow to a heavy cruiser that was wreaking havoc on several other Starfleet vessels. Under Graves command, the Noble would pull back from the fight for a brief repair to engines and shields, only to immediately return to take out several more warships that belonged to the House of D’Ghor. Graves was not only able to save the crew of the Noble by taking charge, but he was also able to save more lives from enemy vessels that were dedicated to extinguishing those lives. This earned Graves another medal and another battlefield promotion to Commander. Unfortunately, this did not earn him full command of the Noble, as the ship was ordered to return to the nearest starbase for a full refit and would be out of commission for several months.

Fortunately for Graves, he was given a new opportunity. Captain Henry Maxwell, the Commanding Officer of Task Force 93 and of USS Verity offered Graves the position of First Officer on board the Verity but only provisionary. The explanation was, Maxwell had a few candidates that were qualified for the position and while Graves appeared to be the best candidate, there were some attributes that Maxwell did find to be a flaw in Graves’ character. Graves understood that Maxwell was not entirely by-the-book kind of guy, not like his former captain of the Noble was, and this would have Graves question his new commanding officer. But Graves also learned that appearances can be deceiving, and judging a book by its cover will only make him look like a fool. So Graves bid his time to study Captain Maxwell, while Graves is tasked to conduct humanitarian efforts to independent worlds, worlds that once belonged to the Romulan Star Empire.

In November of 2400, Graves was ordered by Captain Maxwell to return to the Verity before they departed through the Barzan Wormhole to the Delta Quadrant on a priority mission. At first, it was simply to serve as Maxwell’s first officer during the crisis but later it came down to being dispatched to find out what happened to the Sovereign. Graves took his original team from past missions on the runabout Gydan and boarded the Sovereign to find that the captain and majority of the senior staff were killed by sabotage. He also found that the first officer was emotionally unstable and thus forced Graves’ hand to take command of the Sovereign.