Morgan Shackelford

[Morgan Shackelford]

Morgan Shackelford ‘s ancestry primarily consists of long lines of moonshiners and horse thieves. During the Earth’s Second World War, however, one line of his family tree elected for military service, joining the war on the side of the allies as a U.S. naval officer. Since then, several generations of his lineage have answered the call for civil service in varying degrees.

Most notably, Shackelford’s grandfather, Conrad Stroh, served in Starfleet in the Corps of Engineers. His work primarily dealt with replicator technology, and he is well known for developing the subroutine to generate Earl Gray tea at the perfect temperature for an Englishman’s palate.

Shackelford’s father, on the other hand, was largely against the mere idea of Starfleet’s existence. He had a problem with authority, and felt Starfleet’s power was over-reaching. He believed it limited the freedoms of the people it sought to protect. As Morgan graduated into adulthood, his father, in defiance of Starfleet, elected to move the family into a restricted zone of space as part of a small left wing colonial movement. Morgan, in defiance of his father, chose to sign up for Starfleet Academy, to which he was accepted. It was a fortuitous decision. His father’s colony was later razed by Klingon raiders.

Shackelford’s performance at Starfleet Academy was above average. His most outrageous and visible episode occurred during the Kobayashi Maru test. The test is something of a ritual, its nature kept a closely guarded secret by those in the know. When Shackelford realized that a successful outcome was impossible, he ordered his warp core to be purposefully breached and ejected into the Klingon formation. The resulting explosion was calculated to have resulted in loss of all ships in the area, including the trio of Klingon cruisers as well as the Maru itself.

When debriefed on the scenario, and asked why he chose a solution that a scant .08% of students elected, he simply responded “If I can’t win, then no one can.”