Crew

Name: Commander Matthew Drake
Position: Commanding Officer, USS Mariner
Serial Number: 743X-LDCR001-Alpha
Race: Human
Gender: Male
Age: 45
Height: 5' 11"
Hair: Brown with grey
Eyes: Brown
DOB: July 12, 2228
Languages: Federation Standard, a few Vulcan phrases, Tellerite curses
Family: Father, Ian; Mother, Annabelle; Younger brother, Liam; Younger sister, Mia

Hobbies:
Anything on the ocean (he’s a Master Mariner), reading, fishing, boxing, Early Starfleet missions

Personality:
Matthew Drake is a man out of time. His interests and attitudes befit one from an earlier era. His passion for early Starfleet missions and the ocean has left him with a sense of ‘disjointedness’. He feels as if he does not fit into this time, preferring instead the relative simplicity of earlier days. Drake feels as if Starfleet has become more and more ‘comfortable’, eschewing honest hard work and moving toward a ‘push a button and let a computer do it’ attitude. Throughout his Starfleet career, he has been viewed as something of a maverick, a competent officer to be sure, but slightly less ‘refined’ than his peers. This is something that Drake does not concern himself with.

Background:
Matthew Drake was born in the city of Salem, Massachusetts, to a family with a long tradition of working on the sea. His father Ian served with the Coast Guard before joining Starfleet, still alive and well in the 23rd century, though their duties were more in the area of rescuing recreational boaters than securing coastal waters from smugglers, etc.

Drake’s father instilled in him a deep love and respect for the sea, telling the young boy stories of his ancestor, the privateer Sir Francis Drake, who circumnavigated the globe in the 16th century. Throughout his early years, Matthew would sit on the docks and stare out at the endless sea and daydream of someday exploring its limits. As it so often does however, fate stepped in to guide him on a path far different than he could ever have imagined.

One of the young boy’s passions was reading about Starfleet’s early missions. Something about the time period intrigued Matthew, and touched something deep within him. It was a relatively simple time, when many of the technological advances of the twenty-third century simply didn’t exist. He tended to avoid the glossed over, romanticized accounts of the 22rd century, preferring the honest historical accounts. Even as he served in his father’s old job on the Coast Guard, Drake continued to read and study the logs, the data tapes, nearly anything concerning the early days of Starfleet. Oddly, not once during this time did he actually consider joining Starfleet itself. He felt Starfleet had lost much of its ‘heart’, and its best days were behind them. It wasn’t until his twentieth birthday that his father, now a Starfleet Admiral, sat him down to talk about his future.

Drake’s father told him that Starfleet may have lost its heart, but that people like him could help bring the fleet back to the place it was in the old days. At first Matthew was skeptical, but something in his father’s voice made him pause. There was a note of fervency, as if Ian was asking his son to do this for him. This left the young man troubled and confused, so he went to the one place where he knew he could think clearly – the docks near his home. For several days he sat alone, pondering his future as he stared out into the endless vista of ocean. The sea did not provide answers, but it listened, as it always did. On the fifth day, the young man rose, his decision made. The following morning he went to the nearest Starfleet recruitment office and applied.

he process was vigorous and quite challenging, but he managed to get through it and into Starfleet Academy, much to his parent’s delight. The young man felt excitement at the new adventure we was about to undertake, and a heart-wrenching sadness at having to leave his beloved ocean. The one consolation was that during his time at Starfleet Academy, he was close to the Pacific, so he still had that much needed link to the sea. It wasn’t long though before this was also taken away, to be replaced (to Drake’s utter amazement) by a far greater, far more vast sea. A sea of stars.

Drake’s early years as an Ensign aboard the cruiser USS Maryland were uneventful, though he did make many friends among the crew. He still didn’t know where exactly he was going with his Starfleet career, taking the Security/Tactical and then Command track moreso just to find something to major in. It wasn’t until his service on the Starfleet Border Service that Matthew found his true path.

Matthew’s interaction with Bateson was limited, but the young man found him warm and engaging, and a veritable fountain of knowledge. His determination to get his crew through crises showed through in every action, every word, and it had a great effect on the young officer. The young man had of course studied everything about the Border Service and “Bulldog” Bateson, but actually meeting the man, that was a different thing. In his brief interviews with Bateson, the Captain extolled the virtues of service on the frontier, and Matthew found himself agreeing with the man and began to wonder if perhaps this was where he could make a difference in Starfleet.

All too soon the assignment with the Bozeman crew ended, and though Drake had made many friends among the crew (most notably Dayton), he knew sadly that he would probably never see most of them again. Sitting out on one of the docks near the old dockyards in San Francisco, he once again pondered his future while staring out at the endless sea. And once again, a decision was reached. The following morning Matthew Drake signed up for the first deep space explorer vessel available.

His first assignment was to the USS Perseus as a Security Officer. The ship was responsible for maintaining the peace along the Romulan border. The aging Perseus was retired three years later, and he was assigned to the border cutter Thomas Paine as the First Mate, and it was here that he learned the most about running a vessel. Captain Bert Mancuso was an old school officer and something of a rogue, much like Drake, believing that Starfleet had lost its spirit over the decades. His laid back and informal style appealed to Matthew, and the two became close friends. When Mancuso retired, he recommended Drake for a command of his own.