Edward Shield


 * For the mirror universe counterpart, see Edward Shield (mirror).

Edward James Shield was an Ensign Junior Class aboard the USS Enterprise-C between 2332 and 2344. After the deaths of the senior officers, he was promoted to Captain.

Birth
Born on Lunar Colony 7 on Titan, one of the moons of Saturn, in 2317 Edward Shield was the youngest of nine children. His father, Leopold Pedrag Shield, was the former Secretary of Defense of the Federation Council. His mother, Marya, was of unknown origins from somewhere on Earth.

Childhood and Death of Parents
Shield's father was no family man, and wanted nothing to do with these children that he had made. He spent no time among them, always trying to get back into favor with the Federation Council. One by one, his older brothers either left for Starfleet Academy or ran away from home, leaving him - Shield - alone to face the wrath of their father.

In 2324, Leopold was finally given a position as the Secretary of the President of the Federation. However, his new office would be on Megara II, so Leopold packed up his wife and his son, boarded a passenger ship and headed for Megara II.

The ship came out of warp unexpectedly, but none of this bothered anyone onboard. It wasn't until it was too late that they discovered the problem. A group of Romulan pirates had sent out a false distress signal, which caught the attention of the passenger liner. Once they had come out of warp, the pirate's flagship, the Romulan warbird Kalryhha, opened fire on the passenger ship. When the shields finally gave out, the Romulans beamed on to the ship and slaughtered everyone on board. Leopold and Marya were slain by Nox, one of the younger pirates, but he refused to slay seven-year-old Edward Shield.

The Romulans didn't scuttle the ship, so it was later picked up by another Federation vessel hours later. Edward was taken back to Titan to live in an orphanage.

Though Edward believed his father had died that day, he was wrong...

Starfleet Academy
In 2327, at the age of ten, Edward Shield surprised the orphanage headmaster by surpassing all the other orphans in their studies. The headmaster personally vouched for Edward Shield to be accepted into Starfleet Academy. At first, the committee refused to do so, because he was so young. Again the petition was made, and again it was denied. Only after a third time was Edward Shield accepted into the Academy.

For the next five years, Shield took every course offered in Starfleet Academy. He was exceptionally bright, if not a little controversial. He graduated the youngest of his class, but was not to be accepted into the fleet until reaching the age of nineteen.

Before the Enterprise-C was launched in 2332, a representative from the new crew came to the Academy looking for students willing to get some first-hand experience or possibly future jobs with Starfleet. Though he was only fifteen, Shield signed up for the junior officer corps. The Academy teachers refused blatantly to allow this, until they received a personal visit from Rachel Garrett, the captain of the Enterprise, who personally vouched for Shield.

Enterprise Years: Ensign
Since he was young, Shield could not be given a command of his own. He was promoted to Cadet and placed under the head of the Junior Officer corps., a Vulcan named T'Mar. Due to his age, T'Mar did not allow Shield to see any action during his time aboard the ship, but drilled him endlessly during his studies. Though, as a teenager, he resented this, Shield later commented about his training with her:


 * If it hadn't been for all the training, all the hard-work, all the [expletive] she put me through, I doubt I'd still be alive today.

The training paid off, for he was one day being toured on the bridge, when he noticed a faulty command console that was about to explode in the captain's face. He pushed out of the way, just as the panel exploded, saving her life. For this, he was promoted to Ensign Junior class and allowed access to the bridge.

Narendra III
In 2344, the Enterprise-C received a distress call from the Klingon outposts over Narendra III. They were under attack by the Romulans. Captain Garrett ordered the Enterprise to action to defend the outposts. Once they had reached the Narendra system, they saw that they had entered a "blood-bath". She immediately sent a distress call to the Enterprise's sister-ship, the U.S.S. Admonitor, to come to their aid before they became beleaugered. But it was too late. The Enterprise was on the verge of destruction...

Until a wormhole took the Enterprise-C into the future. Shield never went aboard the other ship, but he learned a little from the talk he heard being whispered among the crew. From what he learned, the other captain told Garrett to go back into the wormhole, even though it meant certain death. She obliged, but Shield didn't like this decision.

According to his own personal log, he was on the bridge, repairing damaged circuitry, when the captain's command console exploded, sending shrapnel into Garrett's face. She was dead, and he felt personally responsible for the incident.

Richard Castillo took command of the Enterprise-C, and took it through the wormhole back to 2344. It was no better, and the Admonitor hadn't come. But when the Romulans had brought the Enterprise to critical condition, they boarded the ship and took prisoners. Shield was hit by a disruptor blast, but survived somehow.

When he awoke, the bridge was deserted and the ship was on the verge of destruction. Atmosphere was leaking, the warp engines were offline and the shields couldn't be reactivated to protect against a laser barrage. He was about to resign himself to his death when T'Mar arrived on the bridge. Due to her Vulcan strength, she was able to save Shield and take him to a part of the ship that had some remnant of atmosphere left.

When all hope seemed gone, the Admonitor finally arrived...

Enterprise Years: Captain
Everyone else in the chain of command was dead, but Shield was too humble to accept captaincy of his own accord. So he was promoted captain by the only person available who had half that authority: Lianna Illch Young.

His first duty was to assess the damages of the ship and see to the crew's well-being. They had lost a good number of people, and it seemed as if the Enterprise-C was dead in the water. But, thanks to a bold move by the Chief Engineer of the Admonitor, a tractor beam was hooked onto the Enterprise and it was pulled along with the Admonitor, while it went into warp. The plan worked, though the Enterprise did take collateral damage.

Shield ordered the ship to be put in at Typhon III, where it could be repaired from the damages. While there, he uncovered a Federation-sanctioned concentration camp. After an incident there, a Romulan by the name of Nox had escaped.

Into the Future
With the death of Admiral Sanders, peace-talks among the Federation and Klingon Empire and the dismantling of the Brotherhood of the Aryan Race, Shield began to feel useless. A stable worm-hole near Jjorek posed the possibility of going into the future. When everyone of the Enterprise agreed, as well as the Admonitor, Shield made the decision to venture into the worm-hole. Upon exiting, they found themselves in the year 2380, thirty-six years after Narendra III.

Physicality
Shield is in fit, athletic shape. This is mostly because, during his days at Starfleet Academy, he played soccer and t'lbrah, a Bolian sport that he picked up from watching the other Bolian students at play.

Other than this, Shield spends some of his spare time learning how to use a sword. His dao is his primary sword, but he also has an authentic 8th century Norse short sword. His skills with a sword are second to none in the Federation (most likely because sword-fighting is now only recreational).

Intellect
Shield is of a sharp mind. What free time he does not spend exercising is spent in his cabin, reading over the many hard-back tomes that he possesses. He rarely uses the Federation Memory Alpha database (NOTE: this is about the Federation's library world, not the Internet site of the same name), because he believes that their records are not the originals.

Political Views
Shield views the Federation as a corrupt, socially-repressive government, much like that of the United States during the 20th and 21st centuries. He says that the Federation only favors humans, since the Federation believes that humans are socially and intellectually superior to other aliens, and therefore it cannot coexist with its alien allies.

Shield's beliefs are much along those with the Declaration of Independence of the United States: that all men, women and extra-terrestrials, are created equal, that they are endowed by their Universal Creator - God - with certain "inseparable" rights - namely life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness - that to secure these liberties, governments are established by the expressed consent of the governed, and that when such governments become such that they attempt to suppress the rights of the people under absolute despotism, that the people have a duty to remove such governments and provide new safeguards for their future security.

This he uses as justification for going against the Federation: that, since the Federation is repressive against both extra-terrestrials and its own people, using corrupt, under-the-table methods to keep "the peace", the people of the galaxy should remove those members of the Federation, most notably the admiralty, who seek to suppress their freedoms and reestablish justice for themselves.

Personality
A non-biased outsider would view Edward Shield as an easy-going, fair captain who gives his crew equal opportunity to prove their skills under his command. However, his crew has recently lost faith in him: they blame him for all their troubles, and are currently attempting a coup. Shield knows about this, but he will not kill them because he does not kill, and even in need, he waits until there is no alternative.

Alien Virus Infection
Shield is mostly even-headed, and rarely has strong, emotional outburts of negative emotions. However, when he slew his father, some of Leopold's blood got into open wounds on Shield's hands. This blood was infected by a genetic defect garnered from Leopold's various cloning.

The virus first became evident in Shield with various mood alterations. At times of great duress, he would make rather ruthless and cold actions in order to save the ship and himself. However, this mood-altering virus has yet to manifest itself physically

Yet...

Physical Manifestation
When Counselor Troi of the USS Titan attempted a mind/emotion link with Shield, aided by Tuvok, the result was disastrous. Instead of reading his mind, she unleashed the alien virus into his brain, which allowed it to take full control. Shield transformed into a hideous, black-skinned alien monster. Immune to phaser weaponry, the monster-Shield stole a shuttle-pod and went onto a nearby planet.

When Young heard about this, she ordered a reluctant Enterprise crew to rescue their captain. They pursued him to a planet that had once been visited by the USS Enterprise, as well as an older, pre-Federation vessel named the Archon: Beta III. When she confronted the monster-Shield, K'hallA was severely wounded, Loghri left comatose, five other crewmen were killed, and Young was captured by the monster-Shield.

They were later joined by Captain Riker and Counselor Troi from the USS Titan, who volunteered to aid in the return of monster-Shield to his original state. Nox, however, discovered that their true intentions were healing Troi, who had been infected and had transformed into a mutant-Troi.

Mutant-Troi ran away and found monster-Shield. The crews of the Enterprise-C, the Admonitor and the Titan tried to capture and rescue them, but their attempts were all thwarted. However, the two creatures would not remain monsters forever. A clone of Landru, the ruler of Beta III's commune known as "the Body", was able to help Troi and Shield recover their former selves. The alien rage virus was suppressed...

For now...

Captain Young
Lianna Young, though she generally hates men, admires Shield as a co-worker of equal intelligence and respects him as an equal. This is quite unusualy, due to her natural feminist views regarding female dominance.

Nox
Nox was rescued from the concentration camp on Typhon III by Shield, and therefore he shows some level of respect. However, Nox was the Romulan who killed Leo and Marya Shield when Edward was nine. Whether or not Shield knows about this now, and whether or not he cares anymore, is an entirely different matter.

Captain Garrett
Shield had great respect for Rachel Garrett, the former captain of the Enterprise-C. She personally vouched for his position aboard the ship. He saved her life from an exploding console, which caused him to be promoted to Ensign.

Even after her death, she continued to inspire him. He would later uncover recorded messages, meant for the First Officer, which would give him hope in the darkest of his moments. This made her out as a kind of "mother-figure" for Shield, which helped him cope over the problems he had in his younger days.

During a pass through an uncharted nebula, Shield relived the day he joined the Enterprise-C crew. While there, Captain Garrett, acting of some kind of self-sentience, asked him if he had the chance, if he would have accepted. He responded by telling her that nothing in the entire universe could have changed his mind.

In a parallel universe, Shield experienced what may have happened if Captain Garrett survived Narendra III. In that universe, she was in charge of the Enterprise-C during the Conflict Years, which ended quicker but at a higher cost. Shield had to decide whether or not he wanted this reality to continue, but when Garrett herself told him that the ship was his, he chose to shoulder the burden that fate had placed on his shoulders. Before they parted - for the last time - they embraced each other...as a mother would her son...

Richard Castillo
Shield considered Castillo to be the "cool, big brother" that he never had. Both were part of the Junior Officer Corps., but Castillo showed less respect for their teacher, T'Mar, than Shield did. Shield showed no enmity when Castillo was promoted before he was, but their friendship remained solid, even after the Cardassian Incident.

The Cardassian Incident involved seven Bajoran refugees fleeing from Terok Nor, the Cardassian space station in orbit over Bajor. They had assassinated a Gul and were facing execution. However, one of them was holding information that was valuable to both the Bajoran Resistance as well as to the Federation. Rather than risk a battle with the Cardassians, Castillo insisted that Shield allow himself to be captured in order to discover exactly what their intentions were. Both escaped alive, and their friendship did not suffer because of it.

Shield never forgot Natasha Yar, that girl from the future who captured Castillo's eye. Though she had been kidnapped by Romulans following Narendra III, Shield made it his personal duty to find her and attempt to rescue her. It wasn't until he encountered Sela, her Romulan daughter in the 24th century, did he learn that she had died.

Alicia Rookwood
Though Shield saved her from a life of violence in the mirror universe, Rookwood joined herself in league with Liin and her lover in their mutiny against Shield. When the ring-leader Pedrag, Liin's lover, was killed by Shield, Rookwood lost all interest in mutiny and has recently tried to be on good standing with the captain.

K'hallA
The only Klingon onboard the Enterprise-C greatly admires Shield as one Klingon warrior to another. She fought him to a draw in a battle of blades, and therefore she respects his skill as a fighter. She intentionally tries to get him angry so that she can see who he really is: and in the few successful attempts, she has begun to like what she sees in him.

It could be called a relationship...or an affair...or something of that sort...

Something More...
After a near-death experience in the mirror universe, Shield married K'hallA.

Loghri
It was Shield who vouched for Loghri to join the Enterprise crew, and yet the Reuian joined himself to the mutiny. When Pedrag was killed by Shield, Loghri also gave up his part in the mutiny and has, since then, attempted to regain his honor by serving Shield loyaly.

Trivia

 * Shield has in his possession a 3rd century | jian, which he keeps in working condition using 24th century technology.
 * His cabin onboard the Enterprise includes a collection of hard-back books. In this collection are several memoirs by famous Federation captains such as | Jonathan Archer, | Pavel Chekov & | Christopher Pike. Other books include "The Lord of the Rings", "Paradise Lost", "The King James Bible", several works by | Shakespeare, and several controversial works by | Khan, | Zefram Cochrane and | Noonien Soong.
 * Ethnically, Shield is Caucasian, with mixed German and Nordic ancestry (more specifically | Faroese on his mother's side). The main dialect, however, that was spoken on Lunar Colony 7 was North-western American, which he picked up.
 * Shield is a Christian. Though Christianity was originally discouraged by the Federation as being repressive, violent and intellectually ignorant (as was said about all of Earth's religions), it survived here and there in certain spots among members of Starfleet. By the 22nd Century, atheistic humanism was the global "religion" of Earth, as well as the official moral belief system for the Federation. However, certain nameless ones have silently kept Christianity alive (note: there are two major factions of the underground Christianity movement: the New Catholic Church and the Second Protestant Movement). Shield is part of the Second Protestant Movement.

See Religion and the Federation