Jeffrey Holmgren

Station Wagon to the Stars

The United Federation of Planets has been called a coalition of diverse cultures holding hands across the stars. For Jeffrey Holmgren, he often called the Federation his old hometown. Through his youth, he spent more time sleeping on runabouts and passenger liners than any homeworlds, bouncing between colonies in every corner of the alpha and beta quadrants. From Mantilles to Bejarus to New Cairo, the first priority of his fathers was public service. Some years that meant investigative journalism of the Cardassian border wars, other years were focused on protesting the Federation’s protectionist leanings, and sometimes they ran for political office on under-represented border worlds.

Holmgren was home-schooled and prone to anti-social leanings, given few opportunities to make friends until his fathers latched onto a new passion and uprooted their lives. From a young age, he became more accustomed to socialising with adults rather than peers his own age. In his schooling, he was an average student, only performing well in history and library & information sciences. He was easily distracted, preferring the company of his own mind, writing and programming holo-novels that he secretly sold on Ferengi markets.

Although his fathers never made schooling a priority for Holmgren, he was born a duteous eldest son, which conditioned him to crave achievement. If he completed a study module with poor grades, he was prone to retake the class without telling his parents. Towards the end of his adolescence, Holmgren was adopted into the family business, working as an aide for his father, Giacomo’s, campaign to become a mayor on Planet Q. He applied to Starfleet as a blatant rebellion against his fathers and he kept this secret from them too, even after he was rejected twice. Ironically, he craved the stability and steadiness of Starfleet, because it felt like the opposite of what he had as a child, and yet a career in Starfleet offered him all the same star-hopping and uncertainty he grew up with. From his misspent youth writing holo-novels, he latched onto the romantic ideal of an old-school Starfleet explorer being led by a captain with a science officer / first officer by their side. Captainship held no mystique for Holmgren, but he desired to be that trusted advisor, that number one.

Cadet Holmgren

When Holmgren was accepted to Starfleet Academy on Earth as an Art History major, Giacomo threatened to never speak to him again, given the lengths Starfleet had gone to during the Dominion War. Ultimately, those were empty threats, and Holmgren’s fathers virtually supported Holmgren’s career from a distance. Holmgren struggled with the first couple of years in the academy. He wasn’t accustomed to schedules or discipline or social norms. He had never in his life been asked to show anyone respect based on titles rather than achievements. Likely, Holmgren would have failed out of the academy in earlier eras, but he benefitted from Starfleet’s recruitment drive following the losses in the Dominion War.

Holmgren found his way through his remaining years at the academy through his passion for history and archaeology. Although he forgot to attend classes at times, it wasn’t for more sleeping or partying, he only did so to do extra readings or research more for the assignments that excited him. He was self-indulgent in his schooling and his underlying drive for achievement kept him on the right side of the passing grades.

Early Career

Ensign Holmgren returned to the stars as a junior science officer aboard the USS Han-Shir. Despite his education in history and archaeology, his department head rotated Holmgren through every science department in an effort to prepare Holmgren for a generalist career as a science leader. Holmgren’s range of assignments from planetary survey away missions to mapping stellar nurseries continued when he was promoted to Lieutenant (Junior Grade) aboard the USS Ohehtloo. There he received his first leadership opportunities on a couple of small research projects.

One of those research projects led to Holmgren being selected by the Chief Science Officer of Starbase 78, who encouraged Holmgren to specialize as a Staff Archaeologist. It was there that he met his wife, Lalla, and the birth of their first child changed the trajectory of his career. Unwilling to risk his wandering mind and need for achievement leading to obsession over his research projects, Holmgren requested a transfer to the operations department on the night shift. Because he wasn’t as personally invested in managing starbase logistics, it left him with time and capacity during the day to spend with Lalla and his growing family.

Turnabout Imposter

As the Head of Cargo Operations aboard Starbase 310, Lieutenant Commander Holmgren’s career became deeply intertwined with that of a Deltan science officer named Taes. Holmgren assisted Taes with artifact management on a couple of projects and when she learned of his past career as a science officer and historian, she was soon mentoring him into the Head of Archaeology role aboard Starbase 310. Taes was fiercely devoted to her research and she fuelled Holmgren’s creativity. Holmgren tempered Taes’ workaholism and introduced her to her girlfriend at the time, giving Taes, and her departments, a reason not to work long hours every day.

Holmgren’s career only diverged paths with then-Captain Taes after he became her Chief Science Officer aboard the USS Dvorak. On their first interstellar mission, Holmgren experienced disastrous after-effects from an accidental body swap with a non-humanoid Phylosian.  Rendered comatose for weeks, he recovered surrounded by his wife and daughters aboard Deep Space 17.

During his recovery, he was assigned to the refit project of the USS Olympic. Although he was originally slated to serve as Chief Science Officer aboard the Olympic –a prestigious position for the ship’s mission as an academic conference centre– he was promoted to commanding officer for the Olympic’s shakedown cruise. It was considered a development assignment and a proving ground in consideration of Holmgren taking command of the Olympic’s relaunch. Although Holmgren performed well enough, towards the end of the shakedown, the Olympic came under attack by mercenaries hunting for ancient artifacts and Holmgren froze up in battle. Although the ship escaped, Holmgren immediately resigned as commanding officer.

Since Captain Holmgren accepted an assignment as Chief Science Officer, Starbase Bravo has benefitted from his experience in starbase operations and nearly two-decades of leading Starfleet Officers. This position will give both Holmgren and Starfleet time to evaluate if he will ever be ready for the centre seat again.