James Neidlinger

Born in 2342 aboard the USS Aconcagua to a pair of Starfleet officers, James Neidlinger spent his childhood bouncing around Starfleet ships as he followed his parents from assignment to assignment. Although his upbringing limited his opportunities to build relationships with other children or receive a standard education, the access he had to Starfleet ships and systems ignited in him a passion for technology that has followed him ever since. When James would finish his studies for the day, he’d wander the ship, watching the engineers, scientists and operations officers work, and at times, the crew would even entertain James by incorporating them into their duties. By age ten, he knew how to perform basic maintenance on isolinear circuitry; by age twelve, he’d authored his first holoprogram; and by age fourteen, he’d developed enough proficiency in ship systems to assist the engineering staff with basic low-risk maintenance tasks. Every step of the way, James soaked up his experiences like a sponge, and by the time he applied to Starfleet Academy in 2360, he had an understanding of starship systems and operations that exceeded many third year cadets.

For Cadet Neidlinger, the curriculum at Starfleet Academy came naturally. While Starfleet protocol, systems and equipment were new to many of his peers, they’d been a part of his life since he was a young boy. Where Neidlinger struggled though was in his interactions with other students. Growing up with career officers all around him, Neidlinger expected a maturity, responsibility and drive from those around him that he found lacking in his classmates. This led him to be relatively isolated at the Academy, but that just pushed him to spend more time in the lab, experimenting with everything from impulse drivers to energy transfer systems to bio-neural circuitry. He knew from the time he submitted his application to the Academy that he wanted to be an engineer, but it wasn’t until after an internship with the Command Information Systems Unit within Starfleet R&D that he settled on a specialization in digital systems design.

When graduated from the Academy, Ensign Neidlinger returned to the same unit he had interned with while at the Academy. Within Starfleet R&D’s Command Information Systems Unit, Neidlinger blossomed as a software systems engineer. He had a knack not just for programming, but also for technical architecture and leadership, and this put him on the fast track for advancement. Two years later, Neidlinger was promoted to Lieutenant J.G. and assigned as lead on Project Anodyne, an initiative to build out a new personnel management suite for Starfleet meant to reduce the pains of personnel management on starships. Under Neidlinger’s leadership, the team rolled out release after release, and within three years, the software built within Project Anodyne was in widespread use across Starfleet.

For Lieutenant J.G. Neidlinger, he’d never spent as much time in one place as he spent on Earth between his time at the Academy and the Command Information Systems Unit. Consequently, following the success of Project Anodyne, he sought out a change of scenery. This led him to accept a role within the Digital Systems Implementation Team at Antares Shipyard. Instead of building systems others would deploy, Lieutenant Neidlinger became responsible for implementing and maintaining these systems across the dozens of ships that passed through Antares shipyard each year. Construction and refit timelines were also far more aggressive than any he’d faced before, but the faster pace simply encouraged him to innovate as he built automated systems to streamline deployment processes. Each step of the way, Neidlinger would also systematize his work in a way that could be shared across all shipbuilding units across the fleet. In 2372, Neidlinger was promoted to Lieutenant Commander and tasked with taking the work he’d done with digital systems deployment and expanding his automations to support shipyard operations more holistically.

In 2373, the Dominion War found Lieutenant Commander Neidlinger, just like it found every other officer across the fleet. The Corps of Engineers had received a massive shipbuilding mandate to support the ongoing war effort, and having just spent the last two years streamlining shipyard operations, Neidlinger was tapped by the Corps to apply these skills and supervise construction of new cruisers as they were rolled off the line. It was a frantic two year grind for Neidlinger, just as it was for everyone else in the Corps, but he rose to the task, leading his construction teams to meet or exceed delivery targets throughout the remainder of the war.

Following the conclusion of the Dominion War, the Starfleet Corps of Engineers incorporated the lessons learned from the successes of Deep Space 9 and began the Unity Station Project to develop a space station class of similar proportions to support other frontier regions. Neidlinger received a promotion to Commander and was assigned to lead the development of command information systems for the new class of stations. For four years, he led a team of software engineers and architects in building out a new breed of software to support these adaptable, combat-ready assets that were to be deployed to frontier regions across the Federation.

In 2379, with the completion of the first Unity class station, Neidlinger then received the opportunity to blend his experience on the Unity Station Project with the skills he’d developed in construction during the Diplomatic War when he was promoted to Captain and assigned as a construction supervisor overseeing the build out of a number of Unity class stations. For six years, Captain Neidlinger traveled the borderlands of the Federation, ensuring that the new stations were built on schedule and on budget, proving both a capable administrator and also someone still willing to get his hands dirty solutioning with his engineers when problems arose.

The next pivotal moment in Neidlinger’s career came on April 15, 2385 when the synths attacked Utopia Planitia. Not only did the attack impact him personally as several of his colleagues lost their lives in the attack, but it also caused Starfleet to shift its focus from outward to inward. As the desire to keep building new stations deep in the frontier waned, Neidlinger received a promotion to Commodore and was reassigned to help lead shipyard construction efforts to reinforce Starfleet’s shipbuilding capacity after its key shipyard, Utopia Planitia, had been destroyed. Applying all he knew about station construction, starship construction, and systems design, he served as Deputy Director of the Shipyard Construction Unit at the Corps of Engineers from 2385 through 2390.

For the first few years in his new role, building out new shipyard facilities and rushing Inquiry-class ships off the assembly line had the frenetic pace that Commodore Neidlinger thrived in, but by the middle of the nineties, Neidlinger had optimized everything he could, and it had become too cookie-cutter for him. This led Neidlinger to seek out new opportunities where he might make a greater impact, and this led him back to his old stomping grounds at Starfleet R&D’s Command Information Systems Unit. Promoted to Rear Admiral and assigned as Director for Command Information Systems, Neidlinger oversaw the construction of a brand new Fleet Management System that, like Project Anodyne several decades prior, was meant to dramatically improve Starfleet’s operations. This Fleet Management System was rolled out to the Fourth Fleet two years later.

Just as with his prior stint on Earth, Rear Admiral Neidlinger eventually grew tired of Earth and longed to get back out to the frontier like he’d been during his time working on the Unity Station Project. This led him to accept the position of Director for the Frontier Fabrication Division of the Starfleet Corps of Engineers, and with it a promotion to Vice Admiral. At first, the role was very out of vogue as Starfleet remained inwardly focused, but with the launch of the Osiris Initiative in 2399, the role received a new lease on life as the Fourth Fleet required a whole new breed of infrastructure to support its operations. For two years, he supported the Fourth Fleet with frontier fabrication, and then in June 2401, Neidlinger received a promotion as he was tapped to take over as Director of the Fourth Fleet Corps of Engineers.