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Player Roster | PC Roster | NPC Roster | External Cadre | Honored Heroes
Table of Organization | Psionic Abilities
1991-93 New York University (1991-94), B.S. in Physics and Psychology, with distinction
2161-63 Starfleet Academy/UESPA, Completion of 2nd class at Academy, in the so-called "Class of Colonels," without distinction
2340-42 Under the name Hal Ian, completed correspondence course, M.S. In Xenology, University of Luna, while a prisoner in UFP "Starlag."
2369 Assigned as ensign to Starfleet Marine training. Failed marksmanship tests
2370-73 Starfleet Medical Academy. MD in Emergency Xenosurgery, minor in Crisis Counseling
1993-1996 Special Agent, U.S. Directorate of Scientific Investigation
1996-2068 Missing (Unnamed chase ship in depowered orbit of Mars; cold sleep). Rescued by second Vulcan diplomatic mission to Terra in 2068.
2068-2069 Medical assistance and psi training on Vulcan
2069-2072 Astronaut, Cochrane Space Service, Montana Center, US Directorate
2072-2098 Missing (Lost in Deep Stellar Space explorer Event Horizon)
2098-2102 Student, Vulcan Academy of Sciences
2102-2103 Lieutenant, United States Space Ship Romany, stellar survey
2103-2158 Missing (Ship lost in stellar anomaly near Tau Ceti)
2158-2161 Captain to Lt. Colonel, United Earth Space Probe Agency, Utopia Planitia, Sol System Actively fought Romulan War for three years, as commander of the Advanced Scouting Forces.
2161-2162 Political consultant to newborn Federation Council (agitator)
2162-2164 "Short Class" graduate of second class of Starfleet Academy, 53 of 53
2164-2165 Lt. Colonel and XO then Captain of Star Cruiser Cougar
2165-2294 Missing (presumed lost in explosion of Star Fighter Cougar Blue)
2294-2296 Recovered from Escape Pod, in hibernation, retrained at Starbase One. Served as Civilan Scientist to Federation Science Branch. Lost at "City at the Edge of Forever" in 2396.
2296-2336 Lost in Guardian. Tried for treason in absentia, found guilty.
2336-2338 Reappeared at "City". Arrested and taken to secure holding at Farside 233, Luna. Earn MS in Xenology through prison program with University of Luna extension program under assumed name and high security.
2338-2341 Prisoner Special Release Parolee, Operation: Crow. Granted Starfleet rank of Ensign. Earned freedom in Crede's Nebula War
2341-2369 Lost in subspace disaster. Subspace scans by USS Galaxy recover him.
2369-2369 Psychiatric reconditioning and retraining at San Francisco, Terra
2370-2370 Attempt to train as Federation Marine. Washed out, final marksmen exam.
2370-2373 Earn M.D. with specialization in Xenosurgery at Starfleet Academy.
2373-2373 Combat Pilot, Federation Heavy Interdiction Warpfighter Jericho-17, during Borg invasion of Earth. Personal assault on USS Oriental reclaimed her from Borg. Saved lives of 197 persons on crippled and dying USS Independence. Q CLEARANCE REQUIRED FOR DETAILS.
2373-2373 UFP Intelligence as Special Agent, to investigate "Sight" indications. Posted at at Betazed, after verification by psionic review of his "hunch" that there will be a need for his peculiar talents.
2373-2373 Officially on detached status, three months. Widely know to be testing USS Mischievous, a Recluse Spider class spy ship.
2373-2373 Reinstated as Specialist 1/c USS Knight. Promoted, Lt(jg), Fourth Officer, Shuttle Flight Operations Officer and Intelligence Services Liaison.
2373-2374 Continued service USS Knight. Under Captain Braxton, removed from command roster. Made Acting Chief of Engineering and promoted to Lt. Commander.
2374-2374 Promoted to XO after a month as interim Drydock CO of the Knight.
2375-2375 Promoted to Commander and later to Acting Captain, USS Knight
2375-2375 Promoted to Captain and confrmed by Starfleet, CO, USS Knight
2376-2376 Promoted to Commodore, and given orders to work up Knight One Squadron
Note: Dates in ( ) signify that the medal is posthumous.
(1999) U.S Intelligence Branch Medal of Valor
(2074) U.N. Medal of Exploration
(2093) Member, Terran Stellar Explorers Hall of Fame
(2161) Terran Medal of Valor
(2166) UESPA Medal of Honor
2373 Federation Grand Council Special Merit Award
2373 StarFleet Purple Heart
2375 Intelligence Star
2376 Order of the Atomic Knights (unofficial)
2376 Grankite Order of Tactics
2376 Intelligence Star
Full Name: Howell Aidan Bridger
Alias: Man from the Past, Flying "Dutchman" of Space
Age: 52 years lived; 35 physiologically; 402 temporally
Species: Human
Gender: Male
Place of Birth: Dublin, Ireland, Earth
Birth Date: April 22, 1972
Height: 5'11"
Weight: 225 lbs
Hair: Red-brown
Eyes: Pale hazel
Languages: Federation Standard, English, Irish Gaelic, French, Spanish (poor), Russian, Vulcan, Orion (poor), Ferengi (poor), Bajoran (very poor)
Interests: temporal physics, warp physics, gadgeteering, astrophysics, magical and occult systems, psi training, fencing and main gauche, dramatics, reading, flying (anything once)
(For greater relevance, see Recent Background, next) Bridger is a "time traveller". Parts of his 400 year history are under Federation Security seals. He is broadly considered to be the "Flying Dutchman" of Starfleet legend. He became an unwilling celebrity early in 2374 when his story was leaked to the press on Terra by sources within Starfleet.
He was born in 1972 to Sarah Howell and Gen. Ian Jeremiah Bridger, US Army. His mother was separated from her husband when Howell was young, and he spent much of his childhood in Ireland with her family in an enclave near Dublin. As a child he was frequently ill, and suffered "spells" during his teen years. From the ages of 13 to 15 he was actually missing. His memories are of being raised by a nobleman in an alternate, low-tech Earth where magic was prevalent, and being rescued from that world by his elder brothers Ford and Coel and sister, Eleanora. During the initial part of this period he was apparently physically blinded, but maintains that magical forces regenerated his vision. Medical exams until 2373 demonstrated that he had minor brain damage to visual cortex and several other areas of his brain. The structure of his eyes is quite different from human standard. He tells others that he has the "old clan's sixth sense", but that it is a hard gift, and not used lightly.
His near family were highly involved in government and private research into "psychic" and "alien" phenomena. His own brief career as an Analyst and Intelligence agent ended when he "died" in the chase of Khan and the impulse drive prototype vessel Botany Bay. He had commandeered the US test ship, the USSS Manhattan, and its crew. He was placed in cold sleep by the other surviving crew member, who managed to achieve orbit around Pluto before dying of radiation poisoning.
Bridger was awakened and returned to Earth by the Second Ambassadorial Force from Vulcan in late 2068. Due to his injuries, he was transported to Vulcan, where he was discovered to somehow be developing operant empathic and telepathic abilities, and researchers at the Vulcan Science Academy taught him the Vulcan language and Vulcan techniques to deal with his emerging psi capabilities. After eighteen months at Vulcan, he returned to Terra, the second human ever rescued from a ship lost in deep space. There he joined the Cochrane corporate exploration division under the name Ethan Howard, and became a warp and impulse drive theory specialist and astronaut. However, on an early voyage to Vulcan, on the DSS Event Horizon, his ships warp field buckled, leaving him with the job of deceleration from lightspeed, taking 1 apparent year but 29 real years.
He rejoined the Terran United Space Services in 2102 as a Lieutenant, and Commander of the explorer TUSS Romany. His ship and 9 crew were lost in battle with an unknown alien race (Orion pirates) near Tau Ceti, but he managed to place his escape craft into a "Subspace bubble" caused by a stellar anomaly. Thereafter, he took to wearing a space helmet with skulls representing his three lost ships.
Bridger served as a Captain and gained rank until he was a Lt. Colonel (old Aerospace forces ranking system) of an advanced Star Fighter squadron during the Romulan War, from 2158-2160. His small ship tactics demonstrated during the war are still used in textbooks in the modern era. After the war, he became a political agitator and worked against leading elements in the formation and early political life of the UFP. Unsuccessful in politics, he became a part of the officer corps in the historic "first class" of 2164, with a new post-war rank of Lt. Cmdr.
In 2164, he became XO of the Star Cruiser Cougar under Commander Elena Carter, who he had commanded during the Romulan War. During the early part of their exploration mission they married. It was a short marriage, for she was killed in a mission early in 2165. Bridger was testing the Starfighter Cougar Blue while his ship was docked with a repair vessel, when an emergency message from Vega Station indicated they were under attack. He responded and destroyed two Orion pirate vessels, using the now infamous "Bridger Nacelle Toss", later renamed "The Bridger Maneuver". His escape shuttle was damaged severely, and he lay in cold sleep for another 129 years, undiscovered. Later, of course, a fourth lost ship was added to his helmet.
In 2295, on recovery by a group of miners, he was moved to Starbase One, where he was reeducated in modern physics and mathematics. There, he met another traveller from his own time, Gillian Taylor, a Starfleet Xenobiologist and Cetacean studies expert, and they had a brief relationship while he went to school and counseling sessions to reintegrate into society. However, he left active space duty, seeking enlightenment through science, and ended up studying the artifact at the site of the so-called "Guardian of Forever".
A few months after arrival at the site, he was reported missing. He returned to that site in 2336 through the "Guardian", after 40 years "missing". Since he would not explain his situation, Bridger was arrested and tried for illegal use of proscribed technology. Found guilty, he was stripped of rank and sent to the infamous UFP "Starlag" at the "darkside" of Luna. There he was a model prisoner, engaging in counseling of other prisoners who rejected reconditioning, and earning a Masters degree in Xenology through distributed education. When he was offered the chance to earn parole in late 2338, through the special release program instituted for Operation: Crow, he accepted it.
He trained, and acted as tactical commander for a secret strike force against enemy raiders and successfully engaged with hired raiders and other dangers along what later became known as the Ferengi frontier. His force, the "Operation: Crow" team called Crow Squadron, of ex-prisoners, lasted for 25 months, before he was lost at Crede's Nebula, as a result of a "Toss" that threw his starfighter into subspace. His CO, Delia Martin, insisted that he was not lost, and 28 years later, the Starship USS Galaxy rescued him from stasis, using methods pioneered by Montgomery Scott for teleport stasis reintegration.
John Wan Liu, the Crow ops manager, and later a major financial figure and famous Federation lawyer, marketed stories of the old squadron as a children's holovid show called "Blackbird Squadron", that was seen by most of the current generation of 'young turks' in Starfleet.
In 2369, Bridger emerged from stasis, and the USS Galaxy carried him the Earth. He was severely depressed as a result of his experiences, and entered therapy briefly. He then entered training to become a Marine field surgeon, electing to dedicate his life to helping others. However, he failed to pass Marine training through inability to complete a ranged marksman test. Still, Bridger decided to continue studies in Emergency Xenomedicine and in Crisis Counseling, earning his MD in the first, and conditional certification in the latter, within a total of three and a half years. He was pronounced well, and accepted a Starfleet commission as a Lt (jg) with posting to Intelligence Branch status for special operations.
Just after Bridger's reinstatement, Terra was attacked by the Borg. Bridger convinced command to allow him to launch a shuttle assault fighter against the Borg Sphere. He followed it, and the Enterprise, to Terra circa 2061. He nearly destroyed both his own illegally cloaked fighter and a Borged-Enterprise but waited out a final resolution. After, he attempted to remain in 2061, but this effort was nullified by arrival of a UFP Temporal Variance Authority vessel which forced him to return to 2373. On arrival back at Terra in 2373, he docked with crippled USS Oriental (all hands lost), and commandeered it as a rescue craft, saving many crew members from the USS Independence before her warp core problems destroyed the ship. For this work, Bridger earned a Federation Grand Council Special Merit Award. And the thanks of many survivors of the USS Independence, many of whose security team were later were transferred to the USS Knight.
His next Fleet assignment was to Betazed, based on "classified" information sources (his sixth sense), claiming the need of a one-man strike force for a special mission. He spent about three months there, partially in clerkship for Ships Counseling. He was assigned a special attack class command warpshuttle, the USS Mischievous, for "intelligence and liaison duties, under Covert Intelligence Operational command." After about two months of this duty, he followed the USS Knight secretly through the wormhole at DS-9.
After helping to save the Knight from a Jem'Hadar attack, he joined the crew of the crippled ship, and helped to get her back to Federation space. When she docked at SB515, he remained on the ship for her refit, developing a new shuttlebay design with Specialist Ras'Kel Bresh, and taking several months leave to Bajor and Vulcan. During this period his ship was won as interstellar salvage in a landmark UFP Federation Courts case. He is lending it, the SS Lady Mischievous, to the Fleet for the duration of his service.
It is an open secret that he was an Intel pilot and that the ship was formerly an Intel craft. However, his mission status was disavowed, and he sued the Federation for the ship as a form of recompense, claiming it as salvage when Intel distanced itself from the Borg-Gate mission. It is also known that he has worked with members of a Terran movement that publicized the Borg-Gate incident.
Due to a leak from Starfleet while the Knight was at drydock early in 2374, after the fateful first encounter with the Lasfanta, his classified personnel file was distributed to news media, a constant embarassment. This happened as a result of a Delta Grey intelligence operation intended to ferret out spies and assassins aboard the Knight and in other places on Earth and other UFP worlds. The operation resulted in Bridger being promoted to XO, after serious tests of his psychological and physiological fitness. It also provided information leading to a series of strike forces led by the Knight on Earth and Starbase One itself.
As a result of that operation, the USS Knight was assigned to Venn Sector, ostensibly to become the lead ship patrolling that important interior UFP region while many ships responded to the ongoing plague at Eminiar VII. However, Bridger and Captain Braxton were working with Admiral M'Benga, the Chief of Starfleet Intelligence Psychological Warfare, a mentor of Bridgers and a paramount telepath, on a followup covert operation from the Delta Green operaton. M'Benga travelled with the Knight, in part to pursue special training and investigations of enhanced psi phenomena and sensors, and for other missions.
With the death of his mentor, Captain Benjamin Braxton, Bridger was made Acting CO, USS Knight, and was later confirmed to Captaincy and CO of the Knight. He initially restricted in duties due to serious injuries resulting from the conclusion of Operation: Freewheel, during combat with Combine and Psion forces from the enemy Q-ship, called SS Fisher King.
Later, Captain Bridger initiated Project: Manhattan III to create the Manhattan Transfer Time Torpedo, using technology and data from tests of a weapons system from the USS Sovereign. Using this technology, he traveled over a year into the past, and saved Dr. Korani Korisse from death, dropped Romulan Ambassador Yanek off in Romulan space, and observed the Psions secretly from the SS Lady Mischeivous for many months. He lived on the Mischievous for a year in order to return to his "proper" time, and then returned to Dunnin's Star, just in time to save the USS Knight and the Marine Base there from destruction by the Psions, by using the MTTT to transport ship and base to the world of Aebrynnis.
Aebrynnis, the world Starfleet has always presumed was some kind of myth, even after admitting half a dozen officers from there, was in crisis, and the Knight helped them to weather their crisis. In the months they were stranded there, the ship was attacked by a pirate vessel, and the Knight launched numerous away teams to try to find a means to get home. Drawn into the coming crisis, called Deismarr, various Knights acquited themselves well. David Poirot became a champion, even though he was blinded, and Bridger sacrificed his own Eyes to David...only to discover that those Eyes were, through the vagaries of time and dimension travel, his anyway! In the end, 200 Marines, a flyer strike force cobbled together by Lawson and Lightoller, and David and his armies led to a massive victory at the Godsmount. Bridger, Poirot, and James entered that place, and with Aebrynnian heroes, keyed the event that expelled kironide from that world, and revealed the massive illusion that cloaked the Aebrynnian moon.
On leaving Aebrynnis, for the Moon, Bridger was made Emperor for Life of Aebrynnis, a dubious honor. He also left his XO, Cyn Stirling, there, as Federation Ambassador, with 40 others including David Poirot's parents, who faced trial for treason back in the UFP. Aebrynnian trickster Ringling convinced Bridger to take him and 40 others to the UFP as an Aebrynnian delegation.
The Aebrynnian moon was the next objective for the Knight, which freed 35 ships from a time stasis, and launched a mission by Korani and her freemate, Naral Darven, to discover the means to access the mysterious Vortex and open a dimensional gateway home. The descendents of ancient Bajoran astronauts attacked the two, but through the actions of the two Bajoran officers and some quick thinking by other Knights, the 36 ship convoy got away through the Vortex, and mapped out a six week voyage home.
They emerged near Mars orbit in Sol system, surprising everybody, and sowing confusion. Knowing, from his spycraft at Venn Starsystem, that Terra was in danger from the PsiBine, Bridger maximized confusion, and launched an Invasion of Terra, joining at the last with the Delta Gray counter-conspiracy forces led by Captain Nyssa Jorges, to free Terra from the stranglehold of Combine forces and Psion agents. They saved the CinCFleet from assassination, rescued the kidnapped and tortured Admiral M'Benga (and 50 other officers and politicians), and freed Starfleet Intel HQ of Psion spies. In the process, they precipitated a new purge of Starfleet senior officers, woke a false-face enemy Marines unit, and lost their Klingon-built ally ship. The Knight herself was badly beaten, and young David Poirot was killed in the assault on Intelligence Command, when CinCFleet called for all forces to stand down, save for those still arresting hidden 'enemies of the Federation'.
After a period of stand-down, with the Knight officers locked down in a pleasant holding facility, the decision was made to honor the war heroes. Several Knights posthumously recieved UFP Medals of Valor, and Bridger gained the Grankite Order of Tactics, a rare and prestigious award. He then did something he surprised himself doing -- he started adoption proceedings for Emili Band'h and for Chircas Jesi Band'h, and took off with them, and with T'K;'Shatri, their new teacher and his new lover, on a trip around Earth.
That trip ended in crisis, as the press leaked the story that Bridger was a Khanian superhuman. He managed to get back to the Knight, which was towed toward Park, by the USS Missouri and secretly watched by the USS Killdevil Hill. It was part of a scheme to draw out a PsiBine reprisal. Instead, it drew both a Sovereign Class ship owned by previous foes, the Andromen, looking for the recently crafted Book of Fourths, and an alternate universe Knight that was raiding our own universe for what they needed to defeat an evil emperor. The climactic Battle of the Sovereigns destroyed the Killdevil Hill, temporarily crippled the Missouri and the Knight. However, in the end, Lightoller and others managed to turn the tables on the Andromen, destroying their own stardrive hull, but capturing the Andromen one. Negotiations with the alternate Universe Knights went as well as they could, and in the end, two exchanges were made. Fieldstalkers, and to his chagrin, T'K'Shatri for her other-universe duplicate.
Finally the Knight reached Park, where Bridger was promoted to Commodore and put in charge of buikling a plan to free the Venn starsystem from the PsiBine, and given permission to build the Knight One Squadron. The Knight was housed in the gigantic engineering and construction ship, the USS Vesuvius, while her crew was alternately allowed holidays (their first in three years) on the pleasure world of Park, where holography is supreme, and training to build them into a real combat ready force against the PsiBine. Bridger took his new staff on a long journey on the USS Jupiter, itself being converted into a spacecraft carrier, with new CO Captain Boyd Madison, and new Captain of Psi Medicine Korani Korisse. He visited Bajor with her, while working on logistics and supply issues for a Secret Fleet, and then went ot the Breen Neutral Zone to meet his estranged son, Will Reinhardt, new CO of the USS Viceroy. There, he assembled certain Romulan Fleet assets in service to the Secret War, and discovered a threat that might change the face of the War.
Bridger is a complex character, a mixture of confidence, arrogance, caring, and scientific imagination. He has experienced seven different epochs from the late 20th century through the present. He is often distant and cool, though his empathic and telepathic abilities, greatly honed by his nearly deadly exposure to kironide, have resulted in more social character. He opens up with those he learns to trust, and shows deep commitments to friends and ideals, and strong feelings that he still often represses using his "Vulcan mind training".
He is a "recovering" workaholic. Bridger is also quite insightful and resourceful. He is plainly interested in everything that goes on, and does not restrict himself to his stated job. People will find him an engaging conversationalist, but very unconventional. He is not a "by the book" officer, and does not worry about breaking the rules. He speaks Vulcan as well as a native.
Interestingly, though a somewhat severe taskmaster, Bridger is also known to be a fine teacher and excellent mentor. He seems difficult to please, but those who work closely with him find that this is simply his public "face". Still, nobody wants him angry, or disapproving. People sometimes claim he can blister a hull by glaring at it.
Since becoming Captain, Bridger has actually been more relaxed, feeling he has to show others that his work is not simply his duty, but a privilege. He spends a lot of time working on developing his crew, and regrets only that he cannot take time to do his medical residency, and that he no longer has time for any real hobbies. During off-duty times, he can be found handing off paperwork, walking the ship, and peering into what others, of all rank and station, are up to. He does show up often at Ten Forward, to mingle with his crew. Only a few very close persons do not call him "Bridger", or "Captain Bridger", and he is out of the habit of being addressed by any other name.
5'11", 225 lb., male, left handed, red-brown hair, pale, hazel eyed, stocky, More than one 20th century film buff has remarked on his similar appearance to Oliver Reed. He has an enormous bone structure for a human being. This is NOT your typical Starfleet physical specimen. He is in good shape, partially through regular exercise, but also as a result of a recently acquired telekinetic capacity to perform self-repair and to effect healing on a cellular level. Until his exposure to Kironide, he suffered from unregenerated injuries attained in "previous incarnations", including a limp from poorly reconstructed leg injuries. Bridger enjoys eating non-replicated foods and stocks a private larder. He especially enjoys cooking and eating barbecue and various concoctions made from potatoes, claiming that these are typical Irish foods. He also enjoys surprising friends with lavish gifts.
Bridger tests as a mutant variation from human normal genetic stock, and alterations in his physiology, especially in his brain, from exposure to Kironide, are significant.
Bridger suffered terribly through 2375 and the first part of 2376, losing and regenerating both legs, wounded by psychic backlash, facing and beating his kironide dependency, and finally sacrificing his Eyes to David Poirot, and regenerating new eyes. He was temporarily crippled during the Battle of the Sovereigns, too, by a nanitic invasion. However, he seems to be past all of this, and is only dealing with the heartbreak of having his new lady, Kish, desert him to go to an alternate Universe.
Bridger is fastidious in his dress. He wears specialized black armor flight suits normally only seen on starfighter pilots, when he expects a possible armed conflict, and is serious about his crew wearing protective equipment under such conditions. He is unconcerned with others' opinions, and while he performs excellently at many tasks, has no interest in personal advancement. He IS concerned about the problems of others, and those with real problems find him able and willing to help. He is a talented mathematician and astro- and temporal physicist, with quick natural reflexes. He seems to have an ability to aim and fire ships weapons without aid of automation. He is a natural pilot, but not so good with ranged personal weapons. He prefers to fight with a ship, a sword, or his fists, and is a fairly accomplished brawler and rather fine swordsman. He fights "dirty". He believes in personal vengeance.
Bridger is a fine intuitive engineer in the area of ships engines and power systems, and a clever gadgeteer. He is somewhat ill at ease in personal relationships. Those working under him find him an able commander and teacher. Those supervising him find him difficult and fractious, regarding "the book".
Bridger has an array of psionic abilities. He is a powerful empath and telepath, a low order telekinetic, and has training in psi based medicine, as well as a largely unplumbed psionic healing ability. He has also demonstrated low grade electrokinesis, which he has used in conjunction with the Knight's computer expert and cyberpsi, Amanda Foucault.
As a child, Bridger was trained as a mystical adept by a group he calls the Covenant, associated with his mother's family home (Oried Manor) near Dublin. He has a trained ability to perform local astral projection, and an uncontrolled precognitive ability that detects immediate personal danger and frequently alerts him to attacks by others in space. Until exposure to Kironide, Bridger would hemmorhage dangerously when undergoing a precognitive event. Now, he still gets raging headaches when foretells future events.
If he expects combat, wears his flight armor. His helmet has an image of a Dutch Brigantine with flaming sails and with 6 grinning silver skulls on the hull. On the back is the name is English cursive text "Dutchman".The suit has an air supply and protects him from electrical shocks, environmental stresses, some impact damage, and a small amount of projectile and energy weapon damage.
Bridger has a tendency to scan emotions and surface thoughts of others, which will often lead others to be wary of him, when they discover this. He is rather jaded about it.
At present, he is diving into further medical studies related to his healing abilities. He is also studying certain classified Starfleet research into subspace physics, advanced weaponry and time travel, in particular materials obtained from the records of the USS Sovereign.