Josh Herrick
| USS Octavia E Butler | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Josh Herrick | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Pronunciation | j-AH-sh h-EH-r-ih-k | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Position | Acting Chief Engineer | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Rank | Lieutenant JG | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Species | Human | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gender | Male | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Pronouns | He/him | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| DOB | 237308.01 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Age | 27 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Birthplace | San Francisco, Earth | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Writer ID | O240005JH3 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Lieutenant JG Josh Tobias Herrick is a human officer of the Federation Starfleet currently serving as the acting chief engineer aboard the USS Octavia E Butler.
Explore this record by selecting section headers. Alternatively, expand the full record.
Personal Details
Appearance
Photo Gallery
In Uniform
Arcade JOPA Outfit
Bio data:
- Height: 6 feet
- Hair: Dirty blonde
- Eyes: Dark Hazel
- Notable markings: Scar tracing the spine of his back from an engineering accident
History
Born in 2373 on Earth, in the city of San Francisco, near Starfleet Academy.
Grew up with an interest in engineering, influenced by his father's career, and developed a passion for holodeck adventures, often creating his own immersive scenarios based on popular novels and historical events
At age:
- 12, he joined a junior Starfleet club, where he learned basic skills and protocols. Although introverted, Josh began forming friendships with other teens aspiring to be Starfleet cadets.
- 16, Josh began seriously considering a career in Starfleet, inspired by his father's work and his experiences in the junior Starfleet club. He started focusing on the necessary subjects and developing his skills.
- 18, helped retrofit an existing starship in spacedock for several months, under a project led by his father.
- While the ship never left the Sol system, he gained valuable practical experience of day-to-day engineering operations and routine problems engineers face in the field.
- 20, enrolled in Starfleet Academy with average academic performance, majoring in engineering like his father and also taking the command track.
- 26, graduated Starfleet Academy with average marks in his engineering and command courses, but with strong recommendations from his instructors for his dedication and attention to detail. Specializations in: Replicators, Warp Systems, Holodeck Simulations, System Design and Programming.
Goals
Professional:
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Personal:
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Relationships
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William Herrick, age 52 and born on 234902.14, is a Commander in the Starfleet Corps of Engineers, stationed at the Utopia Planetia shipyards in the Sol system. He leads one of the refit crews that overhauls Starfleet vessels. He hails from Earth and is married to Laura Herrick. His strong work ethic and dedication to Starfleet were ultimately the contributing factors for Josh to apply to the academy. He regularly sends engineering focused texts to Josh to help him broaden his knowledge. With a regular 5 on / 2 off rotation, he returns to Earth each week to spend time with Laura. | ||
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Laura Herrick, age 48 and born on 235207.23, is a skilled chef and restaurant owner on Earth. She was originally born on Luna (Earth's moon) and relocated to San Francisco upon marrying her husband William. Her restaurant, the Lunarium, is unique given is open from sunset to sunrise and specializes in Lunar cuisine. Both her parents, Royce and Rita, are now deceased. Laura instilled a love for home cooked meals and instilled the virtue that that the value of anything in life is the journey and experiences along the way — not just the end result. | ||
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Emily Herrick, age 30 and born on 237006.06 is a Lieutenant in Starfleet's science division, working as a botanist. While Josh usually keeps a variety of plants as more of a botany hobbyist, she aggressively pursued it as her career. Now, she specializes in cataloguing and identifying the traits of new and unusual flora on yet-to-be-colonized planets. | ||
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Lieutenant Corelli was Josh's first 'boss' after graduating the Academy. Josh's worst fear came true of having a terrible first day, getting caught in an explosion in a jefferies tube with the man, with both men needing to get treated in Sickbay. However, through this event and while they were posted together, Kammus showed how compassion, perseverance and humor, can bring an officer from good to great. Even though he has since transferred to the USS Ronin, he's made a positive and lasting impression of leadership. | ||
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The two officers first met in the sensor pod section of the USS Oumuamua, where Eli found Josh struggling to cope with his claustrophobia (unbeknownst to Eli at the time). After Eli forced Josh to report to Sickbay, which created a great deal of animosity from Josh, they discovered that Josh was also radioactive — a potentially life saving visit. Now, as Herrick enters his next career step as the Acting Chief Engineer, he has to put aside his hard feelings and maintain professional courtesy. | ||
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The pair first met on a shore leave excursion gone wrong, a trip to Paradiso — a name that did not reflect that strange creatures the away team encountered. After narrowly escaping with their lives, the pair met again at a going away party for Kel, Corelli, Rox, Vomek and Perez. Something sparked in Josh's mind, somehow he knew the man, and now is trying to figure out how. A recent encounter in mess hall where Josh tried to push for more information from the man led to an explosive reaction, creating distance between them. | ||
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After being mandated to undergo counseling after a severe panic attack during a routine maintenance shift, he wasn't sure how much he should reveal to the counselor he just met. But, through her thoughtful questions and patience, he started to open up about the traumatic experience he had as a child. Now, they're working together on his rehabilitation to make sure that he doesn't jeopardize himself, his fellow crew or the ship. | ||
Service Record
Awards, Citations and Ribbons
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- For award descriptions, see: Awards and Service Ribbons
After Action Reports
Josh heads out on the shuttle Nichols for an away mission to Alpha Brenkelvi II accompanied by Toxin Arlill, Arturo Maxwell, and Etan Iljor (1); their purpose to investigate a low-level energy field. Equipped with visual recording devices (VRDs), the team begin to explore the area, noting readings that seemed somewhat typical to the Bajoran orbs. 1. The Mass Optical Orthogonal Monitoring and Oscillating Object (MOOMOO) starts to pick up signs that could be construed as lifeforms, as well as the general direction of the readings towards the ancient ruins that were estimated to be over 65,000 years old. Before the MOOMOO could complete its scans, it overloaded, and an explosion was narrowly avoided thanks to Arlill's skill (2).
After heading into the ruins, the away team saw intricate carvings and geometric patterns etched into the surface of the stone. Scans revealed sprawling tunnels kilometers below the planet's surface. As they pressed further on, they encountered skeletal remains from 50-60 years prior, with no indication on what had led to their demise. Without any immediate danger, they continued deeper into the complex. Josh stepped on a floor plate, a booby trap that when triggered closed the path back (3). Each room they encountered had triggers, either for traps or to reveal doors. After entering one room, the team found an orb that, when the commander waved his arm toward it, a temporal phenomenon occurred with multiple images of the same arm reached out and then syncing up. As chronitons surged in the device, the orb expanded and touched Josh - and he, and the rest of the away team, saw images hooded figures with ridged noses (4), perhaps due to an overload. Given what they'd seen, the team started suspecting a Bajoran influence on the planet, but it was unclear how that would be possible so many eons ago (5).
As they continued, Arlill incidentally triggered a trap, narrowly escaping with his life. This action also revealed another corridor for them to progress through, which led to an opulent room 150 meters in length, containing large intricate carvings of the sun and moon; and various statues and more skeletons - suspected grave robbers (6). Scans of the statues revealed they were over 100,000 years old. After another switch triggered by Arlill, an opening led to a more ornate room. As the away team checked in with the {USS|Oumuamua}, there was difficulty permeating the stone. The ship shared reports of visions, that the ship's captain, Ossa V'Airu was injured, and they were taking a defensive position. With Sherlock in command of the ship, Etan continued to press on to find answers. As they worked to improve comms the chamber took them downward and deeper into the complex (7).
Through some ingenuity between Arlill and Herrick, after the descent had completed, they were able to check in with the other away team (Katsim Peri, Avander Promontory, Alexander Brodie) on the planet, 60 kilometers away from them. Their update was brief, that they were continuing to investigate signs reminiscent of ancient Bajoran. As the comms closed, Josh noticed, to his shock, the form of Commander Voss, the man who gave his life to protect Josh as a child (8). The form had pointed to an area on the wall, and a symbol glowed and intensified when anyone got closer to the symbol. The room descended further, and as it reached the next level, Etan saw the form of his grandmother, guiding them to go deeper in the tunnel. As they followed her into the next chamber, which was 5-10x times larger than the opulent one they’d discovered. Countless light panels coated the ceiling and walls, which when combined, created the familiar glow that was in the other caverns. (9).
As they scanned the newly revealed area, it was determined that the location was 250 million years old. Herrick and Arlill bridged off to interface with a terminal. (10). Their first attempt to interface with the device was unsuccessful, resulting in a melted tricorder. A second attempt was more successful, revealing over a goopbyte of data. Most of it was in the ancient and unreadable language, so Josh suggested loading the Universal Translator program from the tricorder to take advantage of the processing power (11). The reaction to this development was Arlill getting possessed by some unknown being; only indicating that the away team's questions were not right. After the being left Toxin's body, after mentioning that the body was imperfect, Arlill's conciousness took over. He mentioned a memory of home, with a strange man also indicating the questions asked were not right. The commander indicated that all signs seemed to be trying to get the team to reach the control room in this cavern, that they were being led somewhere. The team would need to rope climb to reach their destination (12).
After some precarious tightrope walking, the team made it to the other side. The cavern on the other side had large and rosy, pink spires that twisted and curved, they seemed both ancient yet futuristic, an almost timeless quality. At the centre was a massive sphere, but the more Josh tried to look at it, the harder it became — it made his brain hurt. Sensors had detected a void there- because it is and is not inside our universe all at once. As Max accidentally touched one of the walls, he was flung away. Luckily, he was mostly uninjured, and through a new entrance, they found a room of ancient computers and the ghost that Josh had seen earlier, Commander Voss. Screens displayed different images people in the various chambers they'd gone through. (13).
It was discovered that each of the away team saw an image of a close relative, exactly where Josh had seen Commander Voss. Arlill worked to download the data, and from what he could tell, it looked like a historical encounter (14). As Josh hooked in the VRD to the alien computers to see what additional data the VRD picked up, it seemed to somehow be able to pull more than the VRD had been originally programmed to detect. As the download continued, the ghosts directed them to go through another passage and to yet another large, gigantic chamber. There was a crowd before him his folks, his grandparents, his sister, and many other family and friends. As the team scanned these people, they discovered chroniton-based beings. The beings couldn't speak, instead using Federation Sign Language, with Arlill verbally interpreting for them. (15).
Josh pushed the beings for more information, wanting to understand what their purpose was. The beings indicated that they were lonely; that in the past, many civilizations would visit them to see ancestors that had passed on. Almost like a living memorial. Then, the mood shifted in the room. The beings didn't understand the actions of the Oumuamua, an image of the ship telepathically broadcast to the away team - the beings wanted answers on why the ship's deflectors were activated, the (16). It appeared that the ship was gathering chronitons, and that it had been attacked. The beings shared that they were part of the moon, indicating that the damage had come from the moon itself, inhabited by The Scourge that only sought out destruction. The beings that the away team had met on Alpha Brenkelvi II were bound to the planet. If they left, they would cease to exist. Despite Josh's attempts to convince the commander to go back to the ship, they were not in transporter range and kilometers beneath the crust. Answers would need to come first. When Etan asked who created this place, he wasn't able to get a clear answer until a disembodied but melodic voice chimed in(17).
As the being came into existence, an ethereal being and almost reptilian bi-ped creature. The being introduced themselves as Na'Shaala (a Manraloth) and that it had been millions of years since they had corporealized (18). Arlill had begun work on reestablishing communications with the {USS|Oumuamua}, and as he worked, fire fight was exchanged between the moon and the ship above. After Arlill's repairs, the Commander got in contact with the ship and was able to get a status update and telling Sherlock that she'd need to retreat if the battle turned against them (19). The old autmated defense platform of the Scourage proved not enough for the Oumuamua and were dispatched easily and now the away team needed help returning home. They turned to Na'Shaala, asking if they could do anything.
Na'Shaala mentioned that they could, but at the expense of not being able to return to their own realm, and in a moment later despite the initial protests, the team was transported above the surface (20. While they couldn’t raise the other away team, they were able to get a hold of the ship that apprised them of their success and that they'd be ready to welcome them home (21). It was unclear exactly what the future would hold for Na'Shaala, or for the other 'spirits' that resided on Alpha Brenkelvi II, only time would tell.
Post-landing, the team broke into 2 groups; Rox and Herrick went in search of supplies while TK and Nilsen stayed back to effect repairs - with the comms array down, they would be out of contact until they returned. As Rox and Herrick started to get to know each other better while they walked towards the settlement, they encountered strange tricorder readings and an abandoned dwelling. During their investigation they heard strange screeches but were unable to attribute them to a source (7). The pair decided to head back to the shuttle, and as they made their way back, contact had been reestablished. On their journey back, they, Josh got a view of the lizard-man hybrid monster, which hastened their pace. They were able to make it back to the shuttle, narrowly escaping the clutches of the monster, and returning back to the {USS|Oumuamua} (8).
Following the trip to Paradiso, Herrick attended his second JOPA meeting, where he realized he had yet to pull a prank on one of the senior officers. There was only 1 notable member that had missed the boat in JOPA history, and he didn't want to be the second. During this meeting, each of the JOPA members received custom bowling shirts, with Herrick's reading Ensign and (in almost microscopic font) Chief Explosion Officer. They wished Promontory in his final meeting, having recently been promoted to Lieutenant and parties with rounds of bowling — where Josh discovered this sport was not his forte (9|10|11|12|13).
A few days later, Herrick suffered a panic attack while performing maintenance on the sensor pod. Kovacs had unintentionally run into him, and after assessing the man's appearance, informed him he would either need to visit sickbay or get reported. (14). Upon his visit to the Sickbay, where Josh had not attributed the issue to his claustrophobia, additional tests were run — where it was discovered by Kel that he was radioactive (15). Additional scans revealed that he, along with Kel and potentially Corelli had picked up a photo-activated radionuclide (16). Kel, along with Miash and T'Larn, worked to identify exactly how to remediate it, coming up with a combination of the transporter and several subsequent regeneration sessions. Corelli had joined midway through the procedure, and all three officers had effectively gone through the process. However, when it came time to enter the small chamber, Herrick figuratively shoved Kovacs into the booth. While Kovacs underwent his procedure, he caught up with the chief to try (rather unsuccessfully) to learn more about the Nautilus and its mission until the time it was his turn to undergo cellular regeneration (17|18|19).
Given the medical team's observation on his claustrophobia, Herrick was ordered to report to mandated counselling. At his first session, he met Brzezinski and Salo for the first time (20). Rivka was quick to offer exposure therapy, which caused a negative reaction from both Salo and Herrick and let to her being escorted out of the counseling session. Upon Salo's return, she had a more patient approach to therapy, where Josh revealed the source of his claustrophobia. At the age of 7, a combination of poor maintenance and a ship-wide power loss, led to a turbolift failure that had killed the father of his friend. The man had protected Josh and his sister, Em, during it's crash but it led to his demise. It had taken over an hour for rescue teams to arrive; and during that time, the man's eyes were open and glazed over (21|22). This was the first time that Josh had opened up about this experience to anyone, and Salo recommended weekly counselling sessions following this first productive one (23).
With this shore leave came the notable departures of Kel, Corelli, Perez, Rox and Vomek. Josh had been put in charge of pulling together a farewell video for their departure which highlighted different favourite moments as a farewell message from the {USS|Oumuamua} crew. During the party, he ran into the first officer, Etan (24) where the two briefly caught up before joining a larger group containing Sherlock, Maxwell and Nilsen (25). After some brief small talk, the team chatting about forming a small sports club with the interim name of OASIS (26|27) as a way to blow off steam and get to know each other with each group member exited at the prospects. While Josh didn't have a chance to bid the departing crew farewell, he hoped his going away video had done them justice (28).
As the party progressed, Josh realized that he knew Lhandon somehow. It hadn't been clear exactly how he knew the man, and he was left with more unanswered questions after trying to do preliminary digging. The opening of the new operations centre had provided him an opportunity to ask deeper questions, but Nilsen had not been willing to share much detail — however, a friendship had started to form between the men. He was left wondering if this was the same ensign who had been highly publicized in the FNS (29|30).
A week after the farewell party was the awards ceremony, where Herrick receive a promotion to Lieutenant Junior Grade, as well as the Legion of Merit and Captain's Commendation for his service during the Esh-o mission. The recognition and quick promotion had caught him off guard, but he gratefully accepted and had told the Commodore that he wouldn't let her down. It would be an interesting shift, where a more junior engineer would be leading a whole department, but he was willing to take on the challenge (31)
Before their next mission began, Josh had invited Lhandon Nilsen to have lunch with him; attempting to get to know the man better and ultimately determining how he knew the officer (32). However, things escalated quickly as Herrick mentioned a news article that flashed up on the PADD with Nilsen accusing him of acting on behalf of a gossip reporter (33). After he stormed off, his roommate and new Chief of Ops Toxin Arlill, came to investigate what exactly had happened. The Bolian/Tellerite hybrid explained that Nilsen has a complicated past and not to push so hard, which led Josh to pursue his own investigation rather than trying to extract it out him (34). As he continued on, he wondered, was he hurting the man in the spirit of trying to satisfy his curiosity (35).
With the immediate crisis on board solved, and a quick shower later, Josh was sent with an away team along with Kammus Corelli, Anton Richards, and V'Len Kel to assist with a dire emergency - the nebula was having ill effects on a remote Esh-o mining colony (9]. With TINFOIL hats in addition to the injections from the Doctor, the team was now in a more emotionally stable position. As the shuttle flew towards the colony, warning lights went off several times on the shuttle, seeming faulty at first. As they got closer, they also detected that the nebula had been dissolving the colony and started exploring options like tractor beams to separate the healthy and 'infected' portions of the asteroid the colony sat upon (10|11). Just before landing, the shuttle's fuel lines had reported being compromised and the away team was forced to make an emergency landing (12).
While the shuttle had crashed into an arboretum in the colony, the team had made it through relatively unscathed and Josh had his first encounter with the Esh-o kind (13). The away team and Esh-o leaders explored options, evacuation being unviable, they elected to try splitting the asteroid using mines (14). As power fluctuations rippled through the colony, the team took on the task of investigating them as well (15). When they entered the mines and proceeded to the main core reactor, they encountered a fierce and winged beast. Josh and the away team worked to subdue the beast, trying to calm the Esh-o's plea to kill it, and narrowly escaped with their lives (16|17). After gathering some more volunteers to strategically place mines at points that would break the asteroid apart, the rode the compact mine carts, where the tight quarters caused Josh's claustrophobia to flare up, to reach and place the mines in strategic positions to split the asteroid, but before they could finish, they were held up by shapeshifters and barely escaped (18|19|20|21).
Making it back to the surface, they struggled with options to get the shuttle off the ground, relying on several crew members that had absconded with worker bees to rescue them. While the explosion had worked, it hadn't created enough distance between the two pieces of rock, and they needed to think of options fast (22). When it seemed like all hope was lost, the experimental ship with the designation Nautilus appeared and both the shuttle and worker bees were transported aboard. As the team emerged from their vessels into the large bay, they witnessed a holographic twin of an experiment running aboard another Nautilus from a parallel universe. The 'real' Nautilus that the team was one was tasked with preventing the other ship from causing a cataclysmic explosion that would wipe out life, and the holo-version had encountered difficulties with their holo-safeties, potentially putting the crew at risk. However, the other ship appeared to be unsuccessful in its attempts, and with the crisis passes, the 'real' Nautilus returned the away team back to the USS Oumuamua (23|24).
To aid in bonding with fellow lower deckers, Josh was invited to the JOPA where he met many of the junior officers he'd be working with in the future and was encouraged to pull a prank on one of the senior officers but wasn't quite sure what might be an appropriate one that wouldn't land him in too much hot water (13|14|15|16). After his recovery, there was an attempt by an officer from Humanoid Resources, Lieutenant Commander Klaaf, to put him on report for a Form B-74-Tango following the incident in the jefferies tube, but he was quickly dispatched by Commander Etan Iljor (17|18). He also had a brief run in with the Charles Tyber, a security officer onboard who seemed unable to wake up from a deep slumber, and luckily kept his life (19|20). The crew finished shore leave with an awards ceremony, where there many officers were decorated for the achievements on the mission previous to Josh coming aboard.
Postings
Starfleet Service Record
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Medical Information
 Josh Herrick
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PAST MEDICAL HISTORY
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PAST HOSPITALIZATIONS/SERIOUS ILLNESS
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PSYCHIATRIC HISTORY
SUBSTANCE USE HISTORY
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FAMILY MEDICAL HISTORY
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SOCIAL HISTORY
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PHYSICIANS' NOTES
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COUNSELORS' NOTES
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Academy
Josh enrolled in the academy in 2393, shortly after his 20th birthday. Like his father, he chose the engineering path, but elected for a 5-year program that included command courses, a future career goal for the young man, followed by a one-year cadet cruise.
After his first semester was completed, he was contacted by an academic counsellor regarding his grades and overall performance. Based on their discussion, a joint decision was made to extend Herrick’s program by an additional year so that he could drop down to four courses a semester; this resulted in a notable improvement in his grades.
While in his second year at the academy, the computer flagged a moment of high emotional distress during a training simulation and auto-referred him to one of the on-site counselors. Through their discussion, it was noted that he suffered from a mild case of claustrophobia and was presented coping techniques — he made it through the rest of the program without incident.
While Josh didn’t necessarily excel at any one area of courseware (no honors), it is noted that he obtained specializations in multiple domains, including: Replicators, Warp Systems, Holodeck Simulations, System Design and Programming. There have been comments noted in his official records that there was a concern with alcohol abuse with the man, however there was no material impact to his interpersonal relationships or academic performance so it was not investigated further.
Linked records available for viewing: Academy Transcript | Diploma
