Donald Varley

Captain Donald Varley was an officer in the United Federation of Planets Starfleet who was the commanding officer of the Galaxy-class USS Yamato.
He was portrayed by Thalmus Rasulala.
An old friend of fellow Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Varley attended Starfleet Academy at the same time as Picard. Both of them took archeology classes given by Professor Richard Galen and both developed a strong interest in archeology as a result of Galen's influence. Following the loss of the USS Stargazer, Varley reached out to Picard to give his condolences, and provided a great deal of assistance to Picard as his fellow Captain conducted independent research over the next nine years.
In 2363 Varley took command of the USS Yamato. When Picard was considering whether to accept command of the Galaxy-class USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D) he spoke with Varley about his experiences commanding the Yamato. Varley told him that a Galaxy-class ship was like a mobile university campus in space, that such ships offered those who served on them to be on the forefront of exploration and scientific advancements. 
Sometime between 2363 and late 2365 Varley briefly left the Yamato and was replaced as commanding officer by Captain Richard McKenzie. Varley resumed his post as Captain of the Yamato in late 2365. Given an Iconian artifact by a fellow archeologist, Varley was able to locate the Iconian homeworld, which was deep in the Neutral Zone between the Federation and the Romulan Star Empire. Even though Varley's first officer questioned his Captain's decision to enter the Neutral Zone and travel to Iconia, Varley felt that it was necessary to go to Iconia and see if any techonology remained before the Romulans got their hands on it. Varley knew if any advanced Iconian technology remained that it would give the Romulans an overwhelming advantage. 
Arriving at Iconia, the Yamato was scanned by a probe launched by an automated system still active on the surface of the planet. The probe translated an alien computer program to the Yamato, which caused increasingly dangerous system malfunctions. Not knowing an ancient Iconian program was causing havoc with his ship, Varley believed there was a design flaw in Galaxy-class ships causing all the malfunctions. With his ship increasingly hobbled by a series of malfunctions, Varley took the ship to meet Picard and the Enterprise-D to fix the system issues. Arriving at the rendezvous Varley and Picard began talking about why he was in the Neutral Zone, but before they could get very far the Iconian program caused warp containment to shut down, causing a massive matter/anti-matter explosion that destroyed the Yamato, with Varley dying on the bridge of his ship. 
After the destruction of the Yamato, Picard was able to piece together Varley's last days. Using the information obtained from the Yamato, Picard took the Enterprise-D to Iconia. Finding a still working Iconian gateway on the surface, Picard destroyed the gateway before the Romulans could get their hands on the technology. The sacrifice of Varley and his crew kept the Romulans from obtaining Iconian technology and using it to conquer the Alpha Quadrant.
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