Madeline Allard
Rear Admiral Madeleine Allard is the current commanding officer of Farpoint Station. A veteran of the Dominion War, Allard is an experienced tactician, starship captain, and diplomat. She is most noted for commanding two iterations of the USS Magellan from 2381 through 2397 before her promotion to flag rank. As commanding officer of Farpoint, and thus commanding officer of the senior starbase in the Deneb Sector, she is the most senior Starfleet official in the area. During the Lost Fleet crisis, the chain of command and her authority were fractured by Task Group 514's reluctance to cooperate with the Fourth Fleet.
Personality
Rear Admiral Allard is extremely self-assured of her own talent and brilliance, thanks to a long career of other people reinforcing that. At her best, this allows her to slice through bureaucratic red tape with ease and quickly identify people who are wasting her time. At her worst, this manifests as imperiousness and an unwillingness to listen to subordinates. While she has a natural talent for negotiations with people she considers to be peers, like ambassadors and other flag officers, she expects subordinates to do what she says how she says it and when she says it.
History
Pre-Starfleet Life
Born at the very heart of the Federation in Paris on Earth, Madeleine Allard's family had served the United Earth and Federation governments for generations. Her family tree was filled with bureaucrats, ministers, diplomats, and functionaries who held roles at all different levels. No one in her family, however, had ever joined Starfleet, and Allard decided that for her life to be unique or interesting, she needed to break the mold and do something unexpected. While it took her three attempts, Allard persevered through the Starfleet Academy application process and matriculated at the San Francisco campus as part of the class of 2366.
Education & Early Career
Starfleet Academy
Entering the Academy in the fall of 2362, Allard traded a life of academic and diplomatic intrigue in Paris for an environment of competition and rigor. To appease her parents, she declared a major in Interstellar Relations, reasoning to them that she could always follow the family tradition of service to the Federation in a civilian capacity with that degree. She quietly added a second major in physics, though. The hard sciences didn't immediately come naturally to her, but the desire to prove herself was enough to help her find the energy to come to grips with the math necessary to succeed in that field.
With that particular combination of academic training, Allard was identified as a strong candidate for specialization as a tactical officer. She had a keen strategic mind and an appetite for proving others wrong if they made assumptions about her capabilities based on her short stature. In particular, she found that besting male cadets in war games to be quite satisfying.
Junior Officer
Allard was posted as an ensign in the tactical department aboard the USS Lexington, a Nebula-class exploratory cruiser, following her graduation in 2366. Under the command of Captain WIl Thoms, her first two years on the ship were spent as a relief tactical officer, taking over the bridge station when senior officers had to step aside. Benefiting from her captain's tactical expertise, Allard quickly worked her way up to Assistant Chief Tactical Officer with a promotion to lieutenant junior grade by 2368.
Sector 001 & The Dominion War
In 2371, Allard became a full lieutenant and the Chief Tactical Officer aboard the Lexington at age 27. Considered a rising star, she was the front-runner for several executive officer postings within a year of her promotion. She would move quickly into command, but only thanks to the horrors of combat: while Lexington had been spared participation in the Battle of Wolf 359, she was on the front lines of the Federation that engaged the Borg in the Battle of Sector 001. The Lexington sustained heavy damage, and the first officer was among the 96 people who were killed in the battle. Captain Thoms gave Allard a field promotion to lieutenant commander in the aftermath of the battle, a promotion that was later confirmed by Starfleet Command.
Receiving enough repairs to be battle-worthy, the Lexington left the repair yards just months after the battle to be pressed into service against the Dominion. Allard remained first officer through the duration of the war, as the ship participated in a number of conflicts. By the end of the war, the Lexington was one of the most decorated vessels in Starfleet, later leading to her inclusion in the Starfleet Museum at the beginning of the 25th century. A decorated veteran herself, Allard continued aboard the Lexington until 2377 when the ship was withdrawn from service for a major refit.
Starship Command
The Old Magellan
With a promotion to full commander, Allard joined the command crew of the Galaxy-class explorer Magellan in 2377. As first officers of one of Starfleet's largest and most important ships, she was quickly a key participant in numerous diplomatic and first contact missions during Starfleet's return to exploration following the war. Her training in interstellar relations was a little rusty at first, but she warmed to the role and received numerous commendations for her talent in the field. Quite unusually for a brand new-captain, Allard herself took command of the Magellan herself in 2381.
From 2381 through 2385, the Magellan assisted in Admiral Picard's evacuation mission of Romulus. She was too far away to assist in the relief efforts following the Attack on Mars, and was instead pulled off of the evacuation to return to diplomatic and exploration duties on the opposite side of Federation space. By 2387, however, the Magellan had been pulled back to the core of the Federation as Starfleet feared the destabilizing effect the Destruction of Romulus would have on the quadrant.
While Magellan was still a powerful starship by the 2390s, she was over 25 years old and due for a mid-life refit. Allard successfully lobbied for the ship to remain in service for several years, but lost that fight in 2391 when the Magellan was mothballed to allow for a new Inquiry-class exploratory cruiser to bear the name.
The New Magellan
Allard took command of the new Magellan immediately following the decommissioning of the prior one. Though smaller and more biased towards combat than her Galaxy-class predecessor, even Allard had to admit that the more modern vessel performed with excellence. Magellan was initially posted to the Klingon border, but later undertook limited exploratory missions in the Alpha Quadrant in subsequent years. Allard found an unexpected niche in performing interdiction missions against Kzinti pirates, returning to skills she had honed during the Dominion War. In 2396, she was promoted to fleet captain and took command of a squadron of three other Inquiry-class ships in addition to Magellan.
Flag Officer
Starbase 514
Because of her expertise with the Kzinti, Allard was promoted to commodore and assumed command of Starbase 514 in 2397. While she was initially reluctant to leave the center seat, she had been a captain for nearly eighteen years and she knew that it was time for a new chapter in her career. In her first few months on the job, Allard took every excuse to get back into space on one of the ships under her command, but she eventually settled into the role and found satisfaction in cultivating a stable, permanent life for herself for the first time since childhood.
Farpoint Station
A renewed Starfleet presence on Farpoint Station began in 2399 with an interim commanding officer appointed for the first few months. Allard was selected for promotion to rear admiral and assumed command of Farpoint in 2400, becoming the senior Starfleet officer in the Deneb Sector. In 2401, Allard was cut out of the loop by Task Group 514 and struggled to assert her authority during the Lost Fleet crisis, thanks to unexplained tensions between TG 514 and the Fourth Fleet to which she reported.
Service Record
| Date | Position | Posting | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2362-2366 | Interstellar Relations & Physics Student | Starfleet Academy | Cadet |
| 2366-2368 | Relief Tactical Officer | USS Lexington | Ensign |
| 2368-2371 | Assistant Chief Tactical Officer | USS Lexington | Lieutenant Junior Grade |
| 2371-2373 | Chief Tactical Officer | USS Lexington | Lieutenant |
| 2373-2377 | Executive Officer | USS Lexington | Lieutenant Commander |
| 2377-2381 | Executive Officer | USS Magellan | Commander |
| 2381-2391 | Commanding Officer | USS Magellan | Captain |
| 2391-2397 | Commanding Officer | USS Magellan | Captain |
| 2396-2397 | Commander | Magellan Squadron | Fleet Captain |
| 2397-2400 | Commanding Officer | Starbase 514 | Commodore |
| 2400-Present | Commanding Officer | Farpoint Station | Rear Admiral |
Rear Admiral Allard In-Play
- As a fleet-level NPC, Rear Admiral Allard is available for use in Bravo Fleet stories. He is intended to serve as the source of orders for the ships operating in or near the Deneb Sector this way you don't need to use a random flag officer or wait on staff to write joint posts to get the ball rolling on missions.
- You are free to use the admiral as you need to for your story, as long as they do not alter her personality significantly or kill/injure/maim her.
- Allard is as talented and brilliant as she is haughty and demanding. She is not the type to suffer fools gladly.
- During the Lost Fleet event, Allard has been unexpectedly sidelined by other officials in the Deneb Sector and she found that to be extremely frustrating.