Elias Vaughn

Commander Elias Vaughn was a Starfleet officer with eighty years experience in Starfleet Intelligence, Special Operations and Tactical. Vaughn was a critical player in several crucial events in Starfleet history, including the Tomed, the Betreka Nebula Incidents, the Arvada III disaster, and the liberation of Betazed from the Dominion, among many others. (DS9 relaunch)

Early Life

Elias Vaughn was born Saturday, October 24th, 2274, and was raised on the planet Berengaria VII. He was taught about the stars by his mother, which fueled his early passion for exploration. While he was quite young, Vaughn's mother died of Burkhardt's disease. (DS9 novels: Twilight, Abyss)

Starfleet

Vaughn joined Starfleet Academy in the year 2293, and discovered that he had a talent for intelligence and tactical operations. Vaughn gave up his dreams of exploration for a career in Starfleet Intelligence. (DS9 novel: Section 31: Abyss)

Vaughn's first decade in Intelligence was spent as an analyst, and he rarely left his desk. His few field assignments during that time including included shadowing a Benzite engineer eventually found innocent of trading stolen technology, the infiltration of a Tellarite mining facility, and the recovery of a container with a stolen Linellian Fluid Effigy inside. (The Lost Era novel: Serpents Among the Ruins; DS9 novel: Avatar)

His first major field assignment was during the Tomed Incident of 2311, when he met Captain John Harriman. He first worked with the operative T'Prynn in 2319, beginning a partnership that lasted for thirty years, off and on. (The Lost Era: Serpents Among the Ruins; DS9 novel: Lesser Evil)

During the early days of the Betreka Nebula Incident, Vaughn befriended Starfleet officer Ian Andrew Troi, and became an occasional guest of the Troi household. (The Lost Era novel: The Art of the Impossible; TNG novel: The Battle of Betazed)

In 2343, Vaughn fist met Starfleet Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the USS Stargazer. The two would meet several times over the ensuing years, once during a coup on Darnak VII. Later that year, Vaughn was promoted to Lieutenant Commander, and with T'Prynn, rescued Special Emmissary Raisa Tartovsky from the Cardassian planet Devniad. His superior in Starfleet Intelligence at the time was Captain Nyota Uhura. (The Lost Era novel: The Art of the Impossible; Divided We Fall comic)

Vaughn first met Starfleet Intelligence operative Ruriko Tenmei on the planet Kora II in 2347, when the two were assigned to aid the defection of Cardassian scientist Crem Veruda.

Though initially rivals, Vaughn and Ruriko began a relationship, sometime after the death of T'Prynn in a transporter accident. When their daughter was born in 2350, they named her Prynn Tenmei, in honor of their late colleague. While Ruriko took a leave of absence to raise their daughter, Vaughn continued his work, to the detriment of his family life. In one instance, Vaughn was called away from his daughter's fifth birthday celebration to deal with a coup on the Elaysian homeworld. (Lesser Evil)

Off and on, Vaughn taught courses at Starfleet Academy, and in the late 2350s, they modeled the Advanced Tactical Training Program on his curriculum.

In 2367, Vaughn took part in a classified mission to Alexandras Planet involving Romulans and an Iconian gateway. (DS9 novel: Demons of Air and Darkness)

Vaughn was promoted to Commander in 2369, and shortly thereafter was forced to send Ruriko to her death in order to prevent the Borg from assimilating Veruda's artificial intelligence construct. (Lesser Evil)

In early 2376, Vaughn was sent to search the Badlands with the USS Enterprise-E in response to a rumored Breen incursion. While there, Vaughn discovered one of the missing Bajoran Orbs Of the Prophets. The orb, the Orb of Memory, reminded Vaughn of his lost dream of being an explorer. Vaughn began to re-evaluate his life and career at that point. (Avatar)

In mid-2376, Vaughn captained the USS Defiant during the Battle of Sol. (Star Trek: Adventure: "Once More Unto the Breach")

Relationship with Section 31

At some point in Vaughn's career he became aware of the rogue agency that called itself Section 31, a branch of SI that dealt in black ops and the kind of activities that went against everything that the Federation stood for. Vaughn joined a small cabal of Starfleet officers dedicated to the elimination of Section 31. In 2375, this cabal obtained an illegal 'holo-ship' used in a failed Section 31 operation in the Briar Patch, which Vaughn later used on several missions. (Abyss)

Fan continuities

Star Trek: Pendragon

During the Federation Civil War of 2372 to 2374, Vaughn played a crucial role in defeating Admiral James Leyton.

In October 2372, Vaughn and Picard led a commando team past the blockade of Sector 001. The team included Lt. Commanders Data and La Forge, Lieutenant Neal Hawk, and Chief Miles O'Brien. Their mission was to steal the new Sovereign-class USS Enterprise from Utopia Planitia, or if necessary to prevent the ship from falling into Leyton's hands, destroy her. With the help of Captains Montgomery Scott and Morgan Bateson, the mission was a success and the Enterprise was delivered into the hands of the patriots, leveling the odds against Leyton.

Vaughn had become so jaded by fighting his fellow officers that after the war, he supported Admiral Alynna Nechayev's policies of withdrawing Starfleet within the Federation borders and turning a blind eye to the rest of the galaxy.

In 2379, Vaughn attended the commissioning of the new Deep Space 9. During that visit, he had an encounter with the Orb of Memory which reawakened his love of exploration, and he began to move away from the cynicism that had marked the last four decades of his life.

Star Trek: War Aftermath

In 2376, Vaughn commanded the USS Defiant on a mission to Cardassia Prime in order to rescue USS Lambda Paz personnel taken hostage by the True Way.

When the Defiant came under attack by True Way forces, Vaughn devised a strategy in which the ship entered Cardassia Prime's atmosphere. He then ordered an anti-matter pod and two escape pods ejected and then fired a quantum torpedo at those targets to create the illusion the ship was destroyed. Gul Revok almost immediately saw through the deception, but chose not to pursue believing that the Defiant would return too late to derail his plans for Castellan Alon Ghemor.

Fortunately, Vaughn and the Defiant's crew learned of the assassination plot when Limis Vircona, who was being coerced into helping Revok, sent a subliminal warning. Vaughn then led a successful rescue of the hostages, while Ezri Dax and a team of MACO's prevented the assassination. ("The True Way")

External links

Elias Vaughn article at Memory Beta, the non-canon Star Trek wiki.