Entry: Horatio Blackburn
Rank: Lieutenant Commander, Starfleet
Position: First Officer, I.K.S. Ty'Gokor
Age: 36
Height: 5'11"
Weight: 170lbs
Eyes: Green
Hair: Blond
Species: Human
Special Marks: Scars on his back after a cane broke the skin, scar over left eye and on right cheek, several
battlescars on chest.
Birthplace: Sheffield, Yorkshire, England
Date Of Birth: March 2344
Family: None known
Hobbies: Swordsfights, fistfights, drinking, gambling, weapons, playing pool.
Languages: Standard/English, Klingon (enough to get by, both reading and speaking), insults in Cardassian, Vulcan
and Trill.
Service Record:
2630-2362: Starfleet Enlisted
2362-2367: USS Patrick Henry, Security, Petty Officer 2C
2367: Temporary Transfer to Starfleet Intel
2367-2368: Starfleet Intel Operative
2368-2372: USS Santiago, Security, Chief Petty Officer
2372: Field Commission, Lieutenant JG
2372-2376: USS Arizona, Security, Lieutenant JG-Lieutenant
2376-2379: USS Montezuma, Ast Chief Of Security, Lieutenant-Lt. Commander
2379-2381: USS Ganymede, Chief Of Security, Lt. Commander
2381-Pres: I.K.S. Ty'Gokor, First Officer, Lt. Commander
Awards and Decorations:
2365- Purple Heart for wounds recived.
Background:
Horatio Blackburn was born in Sheffield, Yorkshire to unknown parents in March 2344. He was left at the
hospital in the care of nurses when his mother walked away. The nurses remember the woman as no more than 15 with long
blond hair and serious blue eyes. The natural thing to do with a baby would to be to put it up for adoption, however,
2340-2346 were hard years for the city of Sheffield. The baby was therefore put in an orphanage. He was named
Horatio after the Horatio Hornblower in the Hornblower books and got the surname Neirn from one of the nurses who had taken
care of him during the first weeks.
Life at an orphanage in Yorkshire was hard and Horatio grew up in a system where the weak never survived and
the strong had to be mean. Horatio was a tall boy, but lanky and quick rather than strong. He survived on cheating,
either in fights or cards. Then nuns that would visit would teach them to read and write, but Horatio had problems grasping
it all. He was usually called stupid when in reality he had a genuine reading problem. As he got older, he got
into more trouble, usually with the Director of the All Boys' Institution. Physical punishments were often used simply
because there were no social workers that came and checked on the boys.
When Horatio was 14, he had had enough. After hitting the Director he ran away, hiking from Sheffield to
Newcastle to get away. He worked at the docks, leading cargo to the few ships that still came to port from Norway, and
shuttles that would take the cargo to the Moon. He became a hustler, poolshark, and thief; breaking into houses and
robbing them of valuables as well as picking pockets. He kept the company of whores, sailors and pimps and was quite
happy with it. But it was a hard life, where you had to be able to drink most under the table just to rob them blind
afterward. In the end, something happened: Horatio killed a man who tried to rob him by drivinf a knife in him.
To get away from hit all he enlisted, taking the name of Blackburn. He didn't have any papers, but the enlistment office
did not ask nor bother to run a DNA search on him. Horatio lied about his age and name but was now in Starfleet.
He went with Security, the only place where no one would notice the fact that he didn't read or write very well. He
was survivable, but it took him hours to get through five pages of written work.
Starfleet, oddly enough, agreed with him. He was good at following orders, knowing what needed to be done,
and had a natural ability of leading people. However, it was all hidden beneath a grim and angry attitude and he often
got into fistfights. He still rose fairly quickly in the ranks and was allways up-to-date with developments thanks to
having the computer read PADDs for him and voice-recorded things. He still kept up reading, although only for his own
training. He read books by authors like Remarque, Voltaire and Norman Mailer, seeing a slow progress in his own reading,
yet it was still slow. However, life on the USS Patrick Henry was hardly easy. The P.H. often got into fights
simply because they kept to the boarders. Horatio got one Purple Heart while serving there. He
also became friends with his Chief of Security, an Englishman with good breeding who liked the spirit that he had. He
taught Horatio how to fence, seeing the natural ability that he had with blades... even if here and there he would hit and
kick when he could to get the upper hand.
In 2367, he was temporary transferred to Starfleet Intelligence, where he spent a few years as an operative.
His true identity had been discovered, but SI had agreed to keep it under lock and key if he would serve them. He was
placed on the USS Aegis, a ship where they suspected that the Captain of the ship was working with the enemy. Horatio
became close with the man but in the end he did as he had been ordered: killing him as soon as he got proof that he was indeed
a traitor. The whole ordeal left a bad taste with Horatio and he swore never to get himself into that position again.
Ever.
He was transferred back into regular service, this time as a Chief Petty Officer on the USS Santiago and would
see the beginning of the Dominion War there. There had been uneasiness within Starfleet for years prior to the war,
people knowing and hearing that things were going on. The Santiago sent their security department, along with their
shuttles, to evacuate a small religious colony close to the boarder. The Captain, who always had been a hands-on woman,
was there with them. During the mission, they were attacked by Cardassians and Horatio ended up saving the Captain's
life. Captain Rowe was a wise and somewhat original woman and gave Horatio a field comission to Lieutenant JG.
He served with the Santiago for another year before he was sent to the USS Arizona.
Horatio wasn't well liked by the other officers, who all viewed him as an enlisted. And he wasn't comfortable
with the officers, knowing that the training they had was more sophisticated than the experiences he ha behind him.
For a time, he was somewhat bitter as his situation, but he still had the leader ability and knew what he was doing.
He acted more like a sergeant than anything else and he wasn't afraid of expressing his views on things in front of ensigns.
But in a time of war, this was what the ship needed. He was, after all, an efficient man; getting the job done easily
with little fuss but also little finesse.
After the war he came to the USS Montezuma, which was primarily a Marine Ship in need of and Assistant Chief
of Security with a backbone. He went along easily with the Marines, having many of their mannerisms but also ended up
in many fights with them. He gambled, fenced and would spend his leaves either on Risa or on Earth in the company of
whores and liquor. And the strange chain of events pushed further, leaving the newly commissioned USS Ganymede in need
of a Chief of Security. He had never guessed that he would ever get a chief position, yet accepted it eagerly as
something he had earned.
The Ganymede was a diplomatic ship, something that didn't sit too well with Horatio. The calmness of it
all drove him half mad, but it did give him time to do some reading, as well as learning himself Klingon. Like most
things, he picked it up easily in all things except the written word. The irony of it was that he had no idea what was
in store for him before his CO came to his quarters in 2381 and said that he had recommended him to the Officer Exchange Program.
And before he knew it, he was on a shuttle to the I.K.S. Ty'Gokor... to become the ship's First Officer.
Personality Profile:
Horatio is a hard, stubbron man who often switches into violence. He is loyal to his friends, though won't
call them friends or say he cares for them. His actions are, in his opinion, better than words. However, he does
have a natural ability to lead people and is intelligent enough to pick up things quickly. He often pushes himself a
bit too far and knows that if he is tough enough, or appears to be, he will be left alone. His past has shaped him more
than anything else ever could, and a few could ever guess taht beneath the hotheaded facade is somewhat of a quiet observer
who values his men more than his own life. He would never demand something of another that he would not do himself,
and even if the mission matters a lot to him, he'd rather see his men back safe. he wants to give them a better than
even chance to 'kill the bastards and get away with it alive'. He has a strong sense of Honor and does not take insults
easily, but challenges whoever issues them.
He has a temper and he doesn't always follow protocol. He has ways of punishing his men for things that
works far better than anything Starfleet could come up with. He is loyal to them, willing to die and murder for them,
and in return they give him everything. It's the natural trust he brings up in people he orders around, the silent promise
that he would never abandon them. To be around he can either be a great friend and drinking buddy, or a malicious, viloent
bastard... all depending on which side you got with him.
Special Notes:
Horation has a reading problem as well as lacking the formal education that most Starfleet Officers have.
He smokes, drinks and swears a lot and fights very dirty when he can.
