Captain Marcus Nelson

Marcus Nelson was born on a Federation starship in 2338 to two Starfleet officers, and was brought up to follow in his family's footsteps almost from the day he was born. Most of his youth was spent on starships, and under his parent's guidance, he learned about starship operations by shadowing officers in different departments, and received training in various human and vulcan martial arts, as well as training to use phasers with his father on the holodeck (which was easily his favorite of the activities his parents made him do). Though this didn't make for much of a childhood, it did ultimately help him get into Starfleet Academy and to excel there.

He became particularly interested in history while at the Academy, and studied as much about the various engagements the Federation found themselves in over the years as he could. These studies in military history, combined with his knowledge of martial arts and skill with a phaser led to his being assigned as a tactical officer following graduation, and he was assigned to an exploratory vessel on the edge of Federation space. He performed his duties admirably, and rapidly rose through the ranks. By 2366 he had reached the rank of Commander and was assigned as First Officer of the Bellerophon, but the assignment was not to last long. In 2367, the Bellerophon was assigned to the Federation task force assembled at Wolf 359 to defend against the Borg incursion; where it would participate in the disastrous Battle of Wolf 359.

Despite having a significant numerical advantage, the information the Borg had obtained by assimilating Captain Picard enabled them to carve through the Federation task force like a hot knife through butter. The Melbourne and the Saratoga were among the first ships to engage the Borg Cube, but were almost immediately neutralized. In an attempt to rescue the disabled ships, the Bellerophon's Captain ordered the ship to approach alongside the Yamaguchi and fire on the Cube, but they had no more luck withstanding the assault than the previous two ships and soon took severe damage when the Cube moved to fire on them. The Bellerophon sustained heavy casualties in the attack, and the Captain had no choice but to give the order to abandon ship. Nelson had intended to remain at his post, but the Captain ordered him to personally oversee the evacuation.

Though he wanted to protest, he knew the Captain had enough on his mind at the moment, and so left the Bridge to carry out his orders. He managed to rescue over a dozen wounded crewmen and civilians and get them to the escape pods, before a total failure of the life support systems necessitated that he cease the search and abandon the ship with what remained of his crew. Of a crew of 750, only 43 survived the attack, and of those only 32 avoided assimilation. After the Enterprise finally succeeded in destroying the Cube, Nelson and the other survivors were eventually rescued, and Nelson learned the terrible toll the battle had taken: 39 Starships had been destroyed, and over 11,000 people had been killed or assimilated by the Borg. Among those were a great many of Nelson's closest friends, and to make matters even worse, he learned that his father's flagship was among those destroyed, and that it had been lost with all hands.

Devastated by the news, Nelson became determined to do everything in his power to keep a disaster like this from ever happening to the Federation again. While most of his surviving crewmates were reassigned to other ships, he decided to take a post at Starfleet Headquarters to give himself easy access to Starfleet Academy, where he would spend every free moment studying military tactics and strategy, and learning every piece of information he could find about the Borg to help Starfleet develop better defenses against them. In addition to his studies, he used his post at Starfleet Headquarters to lobby for an increased militarization of Starfleet at every available opportunity, and helped to get the design plans for ships designed primarily for combat, like the Defiant-class and Sovereign-class, pushed through.

This lobbying would also end up putting him in the good graces of a number of like-minded Admirals, who rushed through his promotion to the rank of Captain at the outbreak of the Klingon-Cardassian War in 2372. He was promised command of one of the new Sovereign-class vessels scheduled to be completed in the next year, and stayed on at Starfleet Headquarters in the interim, but he also started spending a good deal of time at Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards where the vessel was being constructed, to learn as much as possible about the inner-workings of the ship he would one day command. When 2373 did finally roll around, his knowledge of the ship's inner workings would aid him in making suggestions on how the vessel could be better refit to defend against an increasingly likely attack by the Dominion. Sadly, that attack would soon come to pass when the Dominion officially declared war against the Federation and captured Deep Space Nine.

As soon as the refit was complete, Nelson's new ship was christened the USS Constitution, and after hand-picking a crew of the finest fighting men and women he could find, Nelson set out for the front lines of the war. Over the next few months, Nelson and his crew would participate in battles that made Wolf 359 look like child's play, but even in the face of defeat the crew fought valorously, and Nelson along with many of those serving under him would receive numerous commendations for their efforts. Ultimately, this would help lead to the Constitution being selected to participate in Operation Return, where Nelson and his crew would fight harder than ever to finally turn the tide of war in the Federation's favor and retake Deep Space Nine.

When Nelson arrived at DS9 shortly after Captain Sisko and the Defiant, they discovered the Dominion had already been driven out of the station by the Multiversal Alliance. After participating in negotiations between the Federation, Klingons, and Bajorans, Nelson and his crew were assigned to escort the Orb of Contemplation, which was needed to locate the Corax, and to provide assistance to the Alliance in order to rescue the Prophets and protect the Federation from the threat the Ascendants pose.