Jack R. Crusher

Lieutenant Commander Jack R. Crusher was a Starfleet officer. Considered by Jean-Luc Picard to have been his best friend, he served under Picard's command on the . He was husband to Beverly Crusher and father to Wesley Crusher. He was killed on an away mission in 2353. ()
== Starfleet career == 
Jack Crusher enrolled in Starfleet Academy sometime around the 2320s. There, he met Jean-Luc Picard and the two became best friends. Later, they both would be assigned to the . 
During a stopover at Argelius IV, Picard and Crusher met two delightful and enthusiastic young women. Picard and Crusher were unexpectedly called back to the Stargazer but Picard had hatched a plan to "borrow" a shuttlecraft to return to Argelius briefly so he and Crusher could have sex with the young ladies. However, during their journey a micrometeoroid shower hit the shuttle at high speed and it wrecked the craft to the point that the duo were blind, powerless and were running out of oxygen. 
Unfortunately the duo couldn't contact the Stargazer because Picard disabled the comms before they left, so the ship didn't know that Picard had borrowed it. The duo later improvised a system to swap the remaining power between docking thrusters and life support. It took ten hours to get back to the Stargazer.
Picard would later retell this story to his son Jack in 2401 aboard the . William T. Riker had once been told the story at some point. ()
== Death ==
Crusher was killed on an away mission while serving on the Stargazer. () His death was considered an accident. () It also involved a choice of life and death made by Picard, which resulted in Wesley having to make a similar choice at his "psych test" during his first application to Starfleet Academy. () 
Picard personally returned Jack's body to Beverly and Wesley (). Picard accompanied Beverly to view Jack in the morgue on Starbase 32. When Beverly was mentally assaulted by the Ullian Jev in 2368, she was forced to revisit this event. ()
== Legacy ==
When Beverly asked Picard to describe Wesley, he said, "He's his father's son. Honest, trusting, strong." ()
In 2367, Beverly brought several of Jack's personal belongings out of storage and aboard the , including How to Advance Your Career Through Marriage and the computer chip containing the holographic recording. She gave it to Wesley, and he watched the recording on the holodeck. ()
While on a vision quest on the Native American world of Dorvan V, Wesley saw his father. The vision told him that the quest which Wesley had been on – following Jack's death – was now ended, and that Wesley must now find his own path. ()
Beverly had a second son with Picard, Jack, named after her late husband. When Jack broached the subject of his name with his father, he believed that Picard might have felt slighted over his son being named after a lover's deceased husband, but Picard stated that he probably would have also used the name, as the elder Jack had been his best friend. ()
== Relationships ==
=== Beverly Crusher ===
Jack was introduced to Beverly sometime in the 2340s by mutual friend Walker Keel. () It took months for Beverly to figure out her attraction to Jack. () He proposed to her in 2348 through a gag gift, a book entitled How to Advance Your Career Through Marriage. ()
The Crushers spent much time with Jean-Luc Picard, resulting in Picard developing an attraction towards Beverly. He never acted on his feelings even after Jack's death, feeling to do so would betray his friend. () In an alternate future timeline, Jean-Luc and Beverly did get married but subsequently divorced. ()
=== Wesley Crusher ===
Their son, Wesley, was born in 2348. Jack recorded a holographic message to Wesley shortly after his birth, intending it as a present for when Wesley reached his eighteenth birthday. Jack wanted to create a whole series of messages, but by the time Wesley was five years old, he had only completed the one. ()
While his son was a young boy, Crusher taught Wesley about baseball. ()
The family took a camping trip to Balfour Lake sometime prior to his death in 2353. During this trip, Wesley amused himself by throwing manta leaves into the fire and watching them pop. This prompted a response from Jack. Beverly was telling this story to Picard in 2370 but was interrupted before she could tell him what Jack said. ()
== Chronology ==
* Early 2340s: Introduced to Beverly Howard by Walker Keel.
* 2348: Marries medical student Beverly Howard. ()
* 2348: Wesley Crusher born. Jack records a message to Wesley, which will be replayed nineteen years later. ()
* 2353: Dies on an away mission while serving on the USS Stargazer. Jean-Luc Picard returns his body to Beverly and Wesley. ()
== Appendices ==
=== Appearances ===
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=== Background information ===
Jack Crusher was originally to have appeared in the first season episode . According to the first draft of that episode's script, he was to be pictured in a still hologram of himself, his wife, and Picard that had been taken the day before the Stargazer launched. All mention of Jack Crusher was removed from the script for "The Battle" by the time its final draft was issued. 
According to the script for "Family", Jack Crusher was about twenty-four years old in 2348, placing his birth in or around 2324. 
A deleted scene from "Family" mentions that during his boyhood, Jack Crusher was given his first flying lesson by his grandfather, Richard Wesley Crusher. The same scene also mentions that Jack had several ancestors whom he considered "heroes". One ancestor fought in the American Civil War – on the Confederate side – in the opening battle of the conflict at Bull Run. Another ancestor died in the surprise attack on Station Salem-One.
=== Apocrypha ===
The novel provides details about Jack's death; he was conducting external repairs of the Stargazer with security chief Peter "Pug" Joseph, but in the process, Pug basically had a panic attack and stayed behind while Jack carried out the repairs and was injured, Pug feigning unconsciousness to create the impression he was injured as well and unprepared for Picard to take him inside before Jack as the other two were closer friends. Pug spends years blaming himself for Crusher's death, feeling that the other man might have lived if Picard went for him first, but when he admits the truth to Beverly, she forgives him, recognizing that Jack wouldn't want his friend to keep blaming himself for what happened all those years ago. 
In the Peter David novel Q-Squared, an alternate timeline is witnessed in which Jack Crusher is captain of the Enterprise after he took command of the Stargazer during its final mission and Picard was summarily demoted, although Jack and Beverly have divorced due to Wesley dying after falling out of a tree. In the course of the novel, Trelane reveals to this alternate Jack that he only survives in one timeline of all the timelines that exist in the multiverse order; in other words, he is alone, compared to the infinite copies of his friend, Jean-Luc Picard, and his ex, Beverly Howard. Through a series of events manipulated by Trelane, including the implication that Wesley died solely so that the universe could bring Picard and Beverly together – as well as Trelane 'tweaking' Jack's mind so that he believes Picard let him die in the 'main' universe on purpose rather than as an accident – this Jack Crusher goes insane and kills himself after killing his world's Beverly in front of the 'canon' Picard, destroying the only living version of Jack Crusher in all existence (this is debatable, however, since Trelane seems to have been purposefully tormenting Jack in order to further the chaos of merging timelines).
=== External link ===
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