Stephen April

    Stephen Boone April has led a long and interesting career.  A creature of duty, intellect, and the consummate explorer, he has devoted his life to a love affair with the stars, and the ships under his command.
    Descended from Robert April (the first captain of the USS Enterprise later commanded by James Kirk), April was born in a New England community on Earth.  He grew up traveling, from seagoing ships in Boston Harbor to interstellar trips with family and friends, stimulating a penchant for exploration at an early age.  While highly intelligent and intuitive, learning to read on his own before any formal education, April was a loner.  With career-minded parents focused on work, he developed a natural sense of independence in childhood, making him headstrong and insistent on doing things his way, occasionally landing him in trouble.  He often "ran away" in quests to explore, learning to take care of himself as a child.  Traveling the stars became April's lifelong ambition.  He spent countless nights stargazing, possessed by a deep awe of the universe and its many wonders.  Several factors prompted him to later join Starfleet, including family members in the service (such as his father), and accounts of notable Starfleet figures; but the "call of the stars", instilling April's lust for exploration, had the most impact.  Despite his adventurous youth, April's childhood was not without some tragedy: His younger brother Kevin was lost in 2352, while visiting relatives away from Earth, and presumed dead (though later recovered).
    An exceptional student in school, April proved to be nothing less at Starfleet Academy, yet was also a brash hotshot.  During second-year flight training, he deviated from a pre-set flight plan, resulting in a fellow cadet's death and April's near-expulsion.  He would have resigned if not for Admiral T'Urla, a Vulcan woman who had a strong influence on April, teaching him the value of logic.  He learned from the incident, and thanks to those who saw potential in him, stayed in the Academy, but lost all credits and had to repeat his second year.  While at the Academy April became involved with a fellow cadet, Lacy Lomupo, who conceived (but lost) a child by him.  In 2362, aboard the USS Michigan, April again became romantically involved, with Ilona, the daughter of an alien magnate, violating her people's custom and provoking a diplomatic incident.  The matter was resolved with the stipulation that April would have no contact with her and never set foot on her planet.  (Unknown to April at the time, Ilona bore a daughter by him named Neria, whom he met in 2379.  Neria followed in her father's footsteps, joining Starfleet, but quit before she could finish Academy training.)  These events were learning experiences for April, who gradually abandoned his ways to concentrate on an officer's career.  In 2353, while awaiting his first deep space assignment, he saved a Rigellian ambassador from an assassination attempt, earning a citation for heroism.  Despite his academic record, April graduated Command School with average marks, but excelled in actual command, earning several merits and distinctions.
    Prior to the Arcadia, April commanded the USS Freedom (aboard which he earned the Klingon quv tIq ("heart of honor"), for saving Klingons in distress at great personal risk) and the USS Questor, an experimental ship (like the later Arcadia) which tested a type of "wormhole propulsion". Though the Questor project was deemed a failure, it allowed April to make first contact with a new alien race and set him up to later take command of the Arcadia.  April once activated the Questor's auto-destruct to prevent the ship from falling into the wrong hands; although her destruction was avoided, it nearly incited a mutiny led by chief engineer Damon Crowley.  The incident became the basis for an ongoing enmity between the two men.  The Questor continued operating as a standard Starfleet vessel until her destruction during the Dominion War.
    After the Questor, April became Admiral T'Urla's attaché, joining the Starfleet Diplomatic Corps, serving as a liaison to the Federation Council and adviser under the Federation President.  He disliked the job for its political tones, longing to command a ship again, but accepted it as a valuable learning experience, coming away with an appreciation for the art of diplomacy, a skill he needed later in life.  Eventually April pursued and received command of a starship again, in 2378: the new United Federation Starship Arcadia, the first working testbed for quantum slipstream drive.  April took part in several historic events while commanding the Arcadia, such as discovering a Kelvan-Species 8472 alliance, ushering the Grazellius admission and negotiating peace with the Borg, but his heart has always sought the stars.
    In 2382, April's life took a dramatic turn.  The Usurpers, a mysterious race in the No'Zal Cluster, manipulated Romulan warbirds into attacking the Arcadia, injuring and paralyzing April from the neck down.  April experienced a sense of spiritual rebirth despite his condition, seeing it as a "blessing", a catalyst opening his eyes to a new calling.  He retired from space service (retaining a reactivation clause in his Starfleet contract) to join a growing number of humans who felt lethargic in the Federation's "land of plenty", seeking fulfillment in archaic religions.  For almost three years, April devoted himself to religious study, serving as a spokesman for the movement, but eventually became disillusioned, due in part to deaths of friends and family members, and underwent restorative surgery in 2385 in order to resume command.  Soon afterward, death claimed his daughter as well.  Such personal losses changed April drastically from the man he used to be.
    In early 2386, April accepted promotion to the rank of admiral, working as chief of Starfleet's slipstream exploration program.  Lured again by "the call of the stars", he rejoined the Arcadia, making the ship his personal command post.  During this period he married Brenda Shoemaker, commanding officer of the USS Liberty.  In early 2387, a temporal anomaly forced April and the Arcadia to time-travel to the year 2407, where they permanently remained.  As a result of their separation, April's wife divorced him, though she bore him a daughter, Stephanie, in the intervening years.  Removed from supervision of Starfleet's slipstream program, April requested demotion to the rank of captain and resumed his career as the ship's commanding officer.

    April was born to command, a natural leader.  Though generally calm and casual, growing modest and reserved with age (compared to brazen younger days), when it came to business, he was all business: confident, driven and determined to get the job done.  He rose to new challenges without question, taking charge and refusing to fail.  He believed anything was possible and denied the "no-win scenario".  A fierce sense of duty defined April.  He viewed his command role as a great responsibility, with the lives and safety of others hinging on his decisions, and if problems arose, he felt that he would have to answer for it.  As starships proved instrumental in interstellar affairs, it made his duty that much more profound.  Due to the pressure of such obligations, he preferred the "simple" thrills of exploration.
    Since April strived to put forth his best effort, he expected the same from others.  He believed strongly in the chain of command and had clear-cut ideas of what Starfleet officers should and should not do.  He often had difficulty reconciling this with their individual quirks, and tried to step back and let others "be themselves", but would push and challenge them if he felt they could do better, though he sometimes expected the impossible.  While loyal to his crew, and willing to risk much for individuals in dire situations, April rarely placed the good of one over the good of many.  The welfare of Starfleet and the Federation as a whole characterized his every move.  By contrast, one of his personality "sore points" was the piercing sense of loss he experienced at losing a crew-member under his command.  His crew was his family, and his ship his "home"; he did what he could to protect them.  April tried to avoid risky situations, proceeding cautiously, though he had been known to enter "where angels fear to tread".  This accounted partly for his detached nature.  He maintained a discreet personal distance in order to avoid becoming too attached.  At one time, April resisted committing to long-term romantic relationships, preferring the solitude of command as necessary to his objectivity, fearing potential complications might interfere with his professional command obligations.  Yet as a result of the Cirean ("lost Earth") incident in 2385, he became involved with Brenda Shoemaker, soon marrying her.
    Often "on the go", April liked to stay busy.  Even during off-duty hours he could be found pursuing some task, usually tending matters of shipboard efficiency.  Sometimes April became so busy that he needed to be in two or more places at once.  To make this literally possible, he created holographic "clones", taking advantage of the Arcadia's holoemitter array, to generate "copies" of himself where needed.  As holograms, they could alter appearance to simulate nearly any person or object, or appear invisible.  The "holo-Aprils" were capable of accessing computer and command routines, acting virtually as the "soul" of the ship if necessary.  They could also leave the ship via mobile holoemitters, duplicates of a device originally worn by USS Voyager's Emergency Medical Hologram.  Though April preferred not to utilize this program (and found it rather embarrassing), he did occasionally, as needed, to increase his efficiency in ship operations.
    Despite a zest for action, April possessed an intense intellectual side, given to profound thoughts and contemplation sometimes too deep to express.  Mental pursuits stimulated him, and when not wrapping his mind around the latest challenge facing his ship, he sought to quench his intellectual thirst through arts, philosophy and sophisticated recreation.  A natural ability to think in multiple dimensions gave him an instinctive grasp of spatial tactics, a talent he used to great effect.
    April had a passion for motorcycles, which his job rarely allowed him time to indulge.  He took pride in a custom-built Harley-Davidson Road King, "suped up" with 24th century "extras", such as a protective forcefield, remote transporter activation, and plasma-fuel injection.