Va'Kel Shon

Va'Kel Shon was a male Andorian Starfleet officer who held the rank of Captain. He served as commanding officer of the USS Belfast and later the USS Enterprise-F. (ST video game: Star Trek Online)

Biography
By 2409 Shon had been serving in Starfleet for twenty-three years, primarily as a tactical officer. He had been on three deep space exploration missions and fourteen first contact missions, and had also served as a liaison to the Romulans after the Hobus supernova. (STO mission: "First Contact Day")

Shon's wife and children were listed as missing, presumed dead after the 2409 Borg attack on the Vega colony, their home planet. (STO short story: "Mirror Image")

Not long after the formation of the Romulan Republic, Shon's USS Belfast was assigned to Battlegroup Phi and responded to an Elachi invasion of New Romulus along with several other Starfleet and Klingon Defense Force vessels. (STO missions: "Devil's Choice", "Shadow Play")

Soon afterward, Shon took custody of former Praetor Taris after she was apprehended by another Starfleet captain in the Iconia system. (STO - "Romulan Mystery" mission: "Taris")

Shon represented the Federation during the Borg Conference on Deep Space 9, and took part in the running firefight that ensued when time-shifted Dominion forces under First Kar'ukan attacked through the Bajoran wormhole. (STO - "The 2800" mission: "Second Wave")

Shon engaged the Jem'Hadar at Facility 4028. He managed to push them back but lost the Belfast and most of her crew. (STO - "The 2800" mission: "Facility 4028")

After the battle, he was offered command of the newly commissioned USS Enterprise-F. He intended to turn down the offer, as he felt that Data should take command of the new ship. After meeting with Data, he changed his mind and accepted when Data encouraged him to take the command. (STO short story: "Unexpected Honor")

Shon's command of the Enterprise led the Andorians to feel that they had returned to prominence in the Federation. (ST magazine: "Star Trek Magazine #40")

In one of his first missions on the Enterprise, he led the assault against the Dominion fleet at Deep Space 9. The fleet was able to retake the station. (STO - "The 2800" mission: "Boldly They Rode")

Sometime later, Captain Shon commanded the Enterprise in missions to the Tau Dewa sector block, assisting in efforts to secure it against threats to the recently established Romulan Republic. (STO mission: "Tau Dewa Sector Patrol (Daily)")

Shon and the Enterprise were later summoned to New Romulus to be on hand for the activation of an Iconian gateway. The gateway activated, but a malfunction or misalignment triggered a seismic event, and Shon, Worf, and a party of Romulan, Federation and Klingon personnel were forced to escape through the gateway. They found themselves inside Storage Facility Z98. While investigating, Shon was captured by the Solanae and experimented on. He was rescued by Worf and one of the captains from the New Romulus alliance delegation. Shon, Worf, and the other survivors then stole a ship, the Obelisk 1, and made their escape through a gateway to the Jouret system where, fighting alongside the flagships of the Federation, Klingon Empire, and Romulan Republic, they engaged and defeated a fleet of Elachi vessels. After the engagement, Captain Shon advocated destroying the gateway, but relented, and was ordered otherwise, because the gate was in Romulan jurisdiction and the presence of Omega particles was detected on the other side. (STO - "Solanae Dyson Sphere" mission: "Sphere of Influence")

Very late in 2409, Shon and the other two flagships fought as part of a large fleet to prevent the Voth from activating the Solanae Dyson sphere's jump capability, eventually pursuing the USS Dyson and a Voth Citadel-class dreadnought through another Iconian space gate into the Jenolan Dyson sphere, where the four ships were able to stymie an Undine fleet's attempt to capture the Dyson sphere.

After this, a Mexican standoff ensued between the three flagship captains: Captain Koren of the IKS Bortasqu' tried to claim the sphere as property of the Klingon Empire, while Shon disputed the claim on grounds of the Federation's prior possession. Commander Tiaru Jarok of the RRW Lleiset tried to claim the sphere as an ostensibly neutral party, but was shouted down. Rear Admiral Tuvok managed to defuse the standoff and invited all concerned parties to a summit in the sphere to settle the argument diplomatically. (STO - "Solanae Dyson Sphere" mission: "A Step Between Stars")

In 2410 Shon attended the conference. When the Empire's Ambassador S'taass accused the Federation of hypocrisy in dragging its feet in dealing with the Undine in the past, and then rushing to defend what it saw as its property when directly threatened, Ambassador Jiro Sugihara started to downplay the issue, but Shon interrupted Sugihara and admitted that the Federation had been in the wrong. When the Undine in turn interrupted the entire conference, Shon took the Enterprise to the Sol system to aid in the defense, and headed for Luna to clear away the attackers there. Shon subsequently led Starfleet reinforcements to Qo'noS to help repel an Undine assault on the Klingon capital.

When an Undine planet killer appeared through a giant fluidic space rift late in the battle, Shon launched from the Enterprise in the USS Aquarius and, with an allied starship escorting him, rammed it into a hull breach opened by a nanite torpedo from the USS Voyager. Voyager was able to beam him off just before impact, and he subsequently made an appearance at the victory celebration on Qo'noS. (STO - "Solanae Dyson Sphere" mission: "Surface Tension")

Alternate Timeline
In an alternate timeline where the Klingon Empire conquered the Federation in the 2360s and was in turn conquered by the Dominion, Va'Kel Shon was the skipper of a freighter called the Belfast employed by the Tholian Assembly. He had a family in this timeline. During a stopover at a Tholian space station in the Azure Nebula in 2409, he encountered the alternate timeline counterpart of a captain from the prime universe, who may have convinced him to distract a Tholian guard so the captain could infiltrate the control center and free the USS Enterprise-C. This timeline was erased when the Enterprise escaped the station and returned to Narendra III in 2344. (STO mission: "Temporal Ambassador")

Alternate 2422
In an alternate future where the Tzenkethi went to war with the Alliance in 2410, the Borg sized the opportunity to expand their space in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants and conquered an Alliance weakend the Tzenkethi only the Federation survived but lost half their fleet and a Trill Commander Dilalai Quinn was assimilated and became the new Borg Queen due to her importance to both Jorel Quinn, her father, and Marty Chisnall, her commanding officer.

In this timeline Va'Kel Shon had been killed when the U.S.S. Enterprise had been destroyed when trying to stop the Borg assimilating Andoria, Tellar and Vulcan