Lionel Jericho

Early Life

Born in Redwood, Texas, Lionel Jericho was the youngest child of a large family of ranchers. Every child was expected to pull their weight, their father instilling in the children a sense of responsibility and discipline from an early age. Lionel did not escape these lessons, but as the youngest he was less embedded in expectations, and showed a certain sense of wanderlust his siblings did not share.

It helped that he was, as his teachers described him, a foot smarter than other kids in his class at school. But his courtesies and natural charm made Lionel well-liked, and though he excelled in his studies he committed to sports and an active social life as well. Despite his natural talents, few people expected him to apply for Starfleet.

Going to the Academy was to transition from being a big fish in a small pond to much deeper waters. Though he studied at the prestigious San Francisco campus, Jericho was not an exceptional cadet when compared to his peers. He took the shift with humility, and surrounded himself with close friends with whom he could share the journey and all its difficulties.

He studied as an engineer, forever wanting to make sense of what was around him, and enjoying the work which placed exacting standards on him even under sometimes very high pressure. This made him seek out the most difficult and exciting training opportunities, especially if it had a physical as much as a mental challenge. He was commended after a training simulation in his fourth year, where he salvaged an exercise in disaster response by suiting up and performing EV repairs on a critically damaged ship. This enthusiasm and selfless commitment awarded him a respectable placement in his class upon graduation.

Early Career

Ensign Jericho entered active service at the height of Starfleet’s golden days. There was no frontier too far, no challenge that could not be overcome by diplomacy, compassion, and intellectual curiosity and brilliance. But the erosion began almost at once, the Battle of Wolf 359 occurring only two years after his graduation. The USS Chicago was too far to respond in time, and Jericho stood in the mess hall and watched the casualty reports come in. Many of the names from his graduating class were among them.

It was aboard the Chicago that he met his wife, Alison Weller, a fellow engineer. She challenged him on an early maintenance decision, and Jericho smoothly suggested they debate the scientific merits over dinner. She did not accept. The next four years were spent with neither confident to commit to a Starfleet relationship, both of them intelligent and career-driven. When Jericho’s intellect and bravery as a Disaster Relief Officer saw him made Assistant Chief Engineer of the Highlander in 2370, Alison did not go with him, and their relationship fizzled out.

Wolf 359 had been world-shaking, but it had been distant. The Klingon-Federation War hit the Highlander head on not long after Jericho’s transfer. It was here he had his first taste of combat, and he thrived as well as he did under any other pressure. In 2373 he was decorated for bravery by manning his post even as his section flooded with coolant, almost losing his life but saving half the ship. Adversity was met the way it had always been, though: with good humour, kind words, and a close bond among his fellow engineers.

His assignment as Chief Engineer of the USS Providence in 2374 seemed a blessing at first. It was not only an impressive feat in his career, but it reunited him with Alison, who had shifted to the operations department. They were only just rekindling their relationship at the outbreak of the Dominion War.

The conflict took its toll on both of them. Friends and colleagues were lost and while this drove them closer together, the two married by the war’s end, they both emerged eager for a change. The only thing that kept them on the Providence after the war, working on the Cardassian border to help rebuild what the Alpha Quadrant had helped tear apart, was waiting for the right assignment where they could stay together.

Utopia Planitia

A posting to Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards was ideal. Jericho advanced in rank to commander and took on a supervisory role in the construction of starships, his wife settled into the orbital bases as a logistics officer. Over the next four years they had two daughters, and after a life of exploration, adventure, and war, the family was in a perfect place to settle down.

It was a grim sort of luck that disaster wasn’t worse. In early 2385, the USS Aldington was destroyed in a mysterious accident, prompting an inquiry. The Aldington had only launched six months earlier from under Jericho’s supervision, and the of mechanical error saw him summoned to Earth, suspected of some culpability or neglect. Alison suggested he bring the girls with him to see their grandparents and, though he was reluctant to have them nearby while he went through something difficult, he agreed. Despite his requests, however, his wife did not take the time off work to join him.

Lionel Jericho was in San Francisco on First Contact Day 2385, when death rained down on Mars and the Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards were destroyed. It took two weeks for his wife to be confirmed as one of the casualties. Leaving his young daughters with his Earth-bound family, he requested a return to front-line duty the moment counsellors deemed him fit.

Return to the Front Lines

With his experience, he was posted as first officer on the USS Washington. Though Jericho had never had aspirations of command, the trauma of the Attack on Mars left him a changed man. Starfleet was changing rapidly, the Federation struggling with body blow after body blow with the internal turmoil of whether to help Romulus and then an attack from the inside. The Washington was a ship of exploration, but was posted to the Romulan border to stop illegal refugees from flooding into Federation territory.

Although Jericho bonded well with his crewmates, he butted heads repeatedly with his commanding officer. The captain was a traditionally-minded Starfleet officer, reluctant to follow his orders and refuse desperate people help, and it was Jericho who stood by him for three years and reminded him of their mission. This dogged acceptance of the new, paranoid way of Starfleet life caught the attention of hawkish admirals, and three years later he was given his own command, the USS Comanche. Another two years later came the launch of the first wave of Inquiry-class heavy cruisers, and now-Captain Lionel Jericho was a natural choice.

The Triumph

He was given the USS Triumph and a young crew, and at once set to the Klingon border to deal with the last wave of the Sovereignty of Kahless. Drawing on all of his military experience, Captain Jericho shepherded the inexperienced officers through battle with the Klingons, and at once was rewarded with more hot spots, more danger. By now utterly committed to Starfleet’s increasing militarisation and wariness of anything beyond their borders, he took these challenges and his crew and faced them stoically.

For the next ten years, the USS Triumph faced down rogue Klingon houses, pirates paid by anti-Federation Cardassian factionalists, and all the chaos of the Romulan borders. Within three years, Jericho had formed the backbone of a senior staff who would be with him for the long haul. Other young officers earned their stripes under him, weathered by adversity and his guiding hand, before moving on, but most of those who sat at his side were more loyal to him than his ambitions.

In 2398 he was offered a promotion to Commodore and to be given oversight of a stretch of the Romulan border, but refused. Command instead made him a Fleet Captain, keeping him on the Triumph and giving him authority over regional security threats. With the House of Mo’Kai continuing its missions of sabotage and insurgency, the mission of border protection became one more of investigation and intervention.

In 2399, the Triumph was part of the fleet scrambled for Coppelius to face down a Tal Shiar force. It was here that Jericho, along with other Starfleet leadership, discovered the Romulan involvement in the Attack on Mars. Jericho took the news hard, consulting with counsellors to work through a grief he had never truly faced. All who knew him recognised he emerged no more fond of synthetic life – which had still been so susceptible to outside influence in a way the living were not – and with a renewed suspicion, if not outright xenophobia, of the Romulans.

Some in Command wondered if he was a fit choice to send across the border when the Romulan Star Empire fell in 2400, but superiors who trusted Jericho chose to give him a mission more fitting his attitude. The Triumph was sent into the more distant splintering territories, and set to put down a rising warlord threatening Republic allies. The aftermath of peacekeeping in the region – albeit peacekeeping at phaser-point – kept the ship occupied for months more.

An upsurge in Mo’Kai activities in late 2400 drew the Triumph back, and Fleet Captain Jericho was given a new opportunity to keep his beloved United Federation of Planets safe. For months the Triumph had worked with the USS Nighthawk in former Romulan territory, but now the ad hoc unit was formalised as a squadron within the Fourth Fleet. Additional ships were place under Jericho’s direct command, and he was offered the chance to move his flag to the mighty USS Endeavour – but refused, insisting on keeping the Triumph, and leading from his ship.

Fall from Grace

The Dominion Lost Fleet invasion of Deneb in 2401 immediately challenged the new squadron. Charged with liberating the populous Izar system, Jericho’s leadership of the operation was fractured by disputes between him and Captain Rourke of the Endeavour over how to undertake the mission, including conflicts over how much to support and protect Cardassian allies. This led to a breakdown in command, with Rourke arrested for disobeying orders and the attack on Izar undertaken by a fractured and demoralised unit. The battle was nearly lost, and Jericho’s sole role was to nearly sacrifice the Triumph to cover the escape of his squadron. Only the arrival of reinforcements led by a newly-freed Rourke averted disaster.

At the ensuing inquiry, Jericho took full responsibility, but his career was saved by Frontier Day. Not only did the massive losses in personnel mean Starfleet could not afford to lose a commander of his experience, but the full extent of the Changeling infiltration came to light. It was apparent that this had undermined the squadron’s operations at Izar, with ship commander – and Jericho’s former XO and old ally – Ramius Vornar replaced. In this capacity, Vornar had manipulated events and stoked the paranoias of both Jericho and Rourke, driving them to breaking point.

Few officers in Starfleet Command wanted to see Jericho back in command of a starship. He was deemed a little too backwards for the forward-thinking new age of the Federation, emerging from the ashes of the post-Mars paranoia. Some worried about his capacity to make snap judgements under pressure. As such, he was redirected to starbase command, considered a less immediately stressful responsibility that could still make use of his skills.

The decision was made to send him to Gateway Station, a starbase on the Beta Quadrant frontier with the Romulan Republic and now facing serious threat from the newly-aggressive Klingon Empire. This need for a mixture of bridge-building and strategic consolidation made Jericho, on paper, the perfect candidate to take command. Despite his distrust of Romulans, he had played a key role in preserving the liberty of seceding worlds after the 2400 fall of the Star Empire of Rator, and was more willing to consider the military threat of the Klingon Empire than some who had remained sympathetic to their old ally.

There is one more point of tension: Gateway is the headquarters of Sirius Squadron, a unit commanded by an officer Jericho knows well. An officer who, in fact, used to serve under him: newly-promoted Commodore Matt Rourke.