Daniel Webster, Esq.

Early Life (2366 – 2383)

Webster was born on a cool January day in 2366 to Suzanne and Winston Webster. At the time they were taking a break from the lecture circuit as it was very near time for Daniel to arrive. That pause didn’t last long as Winston returned to his classes in Oxford and Suzanne split her time between caring for Daniel and continuing her own research. As he grew, Daniel had all the resources available to grow intellectually. His mother’s position at Harvard and his Father’s posting at Oxford meant that both center’s of learning were at his disposal and only a quick transport away. Thus it was not uncommon for there to be breakfast with mother and tea with father regularly be between long sessions in the extensive collections of both institutions. In his free time, he read, explored the musical offerings of the local venues and eventually took up a couple hobbies that came and went. Of those hobbies, he did manage to stick with fencing, expanding his skill set to blades beyond the epee and saber. He was intellectually advanced, but not a prodigy. He was able to complete his primary and secondary studies with time to spare and was considering attending one of the two universities he has familial connections to, but during this time he decided to look at all his options and sat for the Starfleet entrance exam, passing with a high enough score to be in consideration for the next student class.

The Academy Days (2383 – 2391)

The regimented environment of the Starfleet Academy main campus wasn’t as much of a shock to Webster as the manner in which the more senior cadets exerted their authority cruelly over the more junior cadets. That this was inculcated into the cultural fabric of the Academy was small consolation to the young Cadet Webster. Eventually this became a problem to be solved and overcome, and leaning into the challenge, Webster applied himself, focusing his efforts towards putting himself in direct competition with those whom formed the center of these groups of senior cadets. It didn’t earn him many friends among the senior cadets, but it did earn the respect of several, especially on the fencing floor and rugby grounds.

Completing his general studies requirements, he didn’t feel strongly drawn to life as a bridge officer, nor of the heavier sciences. He was fascinated by engineering disciplines, but didn’t feel as though he would be happy making a career out of them. He settled on interstellar relations as his degree focus and spent the next 4 years dedicating long hours to understanding the various culturally specific influences on the interactions between the many governments and races vying for position beyond the solar system. It was as a senior cadet that he began to debate pursuing a future in the Diplomatic Corps, but the return on efforts at negotiating and mediating were often few and far between and se desired more immediate results to his efforts. Law was a diverse field with broad application, but one he never considered previously. Sure his mother had mentioned the legal program at Harvard before, but it wasn’t until he attended a career exploration event for Starfleet Legal Academy that he seriously considered putting himself on that track. It was a lecture by a retired Deputy Judge Advocate General, speaking about the war crimes tribunals after the Dominion War that gripped Webster and wouldn’t let him go.

His time at Starfleet Legal Academy moved by swiftly. The workload was immense, with accompany levels of stress. The program didn’t instruct so much as forge students into advocates and litigators. He performed well in mock trial exercises and received high marks in research skills, interstellar commerce, and military criminal litigation. His first year was a blur, with the second not significantly better.  The workload lightened a bit during year three and permitted him a return to the fencing strip. Shaking the dust off, he exploited this release during his limited free time to work off the considerable amount of tension that had built up over the previous two years. Year four became more of a gentleman’s course, having enjoyed promotion and now positioned to graduate second in his class, he had come into his own. He radiated confidence in the tools he had and in his own ability to think on his feet. At the end of the class year, he received his Juris Doctorate and turned towards the next chapter of his life.

The First Assignments (2391 – 2395)

Operations against the Sovereignty of Kahless and adjacent stabilization operations along the Klingon/Federation border areas saw an increase in resources and  personnel relocating to supporting starbases in the area. Lieutenant Webster’s first posting was to Starbase 234 as an Assistant Judge Advocate. Practicing in a more generalized capacity, he was required to keep abreast of developing regulations, writing white papers for review and possible inclusion into legal briefs destined to eyes far above his….or destined for the scrap bin if they proved to no longer have utility, but such is the nature of ever shifting military situations. When not otherwise engages in that activity, his duties required him to provide services to station personnel such as the drafting of wills, powers of attorney, and providing contract consultation services to Starfleet personnel. Two years later orders dropped for him to take up a new post as part of Starbase 212’s JAG Detachment Prosecutorial Section, which at the time, was inundated with investigations associated with Operation Gatecrasher, and the inevitable excesses born of the brutal combat against the renegade Klingons. It was three years before the backlog of cases was brought under control and JAG personnel could begin to rotate again.

4th Fleet Special Counsel (2396 – 2397)

As a result of the work done by Webster at SB 212, he was promoted to Lieutenant Commander and posted to 4th Fleet Headquarters JAG Station as a special counsel appointed upon recommendation to coordinate an inquiry into the possibility that a repeated procedural failures and negligence led to the the vulnerabilities exploited by Klingon extremists to attack Federation assets repeatedly in the proceeding 5 years since the Khitomer attacks. After a 9 month investigation 27 Starfleet personnel within logistics and operations organizations were identified as being involved in the procedural failures. Of those 27 personnel, charges were brought against 5 with 4 being convicted of criminal negligence under the SF UCJ. The fifth Starfleet member managed to escape custody and was not able to be located. That final case was handed over to SF Security to locate and apprehend the escapee.

Recent Postings (2397 – 2401)

Webster’s next posting was a cherry. He returned to earth to join the Starfleet Judge Advocate General Staff. His duties relaxed and he focused on direct support for senior JAG officers during his time there, taking time to visit his family, he spent much of his time at the family home in Savannah, hopping the transporter back to San Francisco and back each day.  The more relaxed operational tempo for him was a welcome change allowing him to refocus on this love of classical literature and yes, fencing. After a year of enjoying Earth and rubbing elbows with the shot-callers within JAG senior staff, orders came down for him to report to the Odyssey-class USS Hikaru Sulu as a Staff Judge Advocate. The posting was impressive in every way, the magnificent ship, the crew, among the best in the fleet, and he had landed the posting. His duties were very routine, performing general consultation with Senior Judge Advocates and ships personnel to assist in forming recommendations to the ship’s senior staff, as well as providing those more mundane legal services to the ships crew as a whole.