Peter McCullough
Male

Place of Origin: USS Orion

Peter is an average height man with chiseled good looks and a physique to match. He wears his hair short and slicked back, with a slight shadow of a beard. He keeps his uniform collar partly undone, not liking to choke himself, and tends to wear his uniform trousers with a plain white t-shirt when off duty.

Peter is a brash and arrogant man. He is rather intelligent, but all too aware of this, often considering his own reasoning to be the only valid one. His time in penal colonies left his previous disdain for authority all the stronger, and his eye for the ladies just as strong as it had been when he went inside. He’ll follow orders out of his own sense of honor, but will disregard them if he feels they’re morally wrong. He will also disregard his orders for a friend in a heartbeat, viewing loyalty to his friends and colleagues as more important than anything else.

Peter was born in 2360 as the youngest of a group of triplets born to Starfleet Captain Sandra McCullough of the Orion and her husband, Commander Kevin McCullough, who was serving as her Executive Officer. During the first three years of the triplets’ lives, the family lived together as one unit, before Sandra was offered a promotion and transfer to the San Fransisco, one of the new Galaxy Class starships. Kevin accepted, with Peter going with him over to the San Fransisco. Two years after the separation of the family unit, the marriage of Peter’s parents broke down, with the divorce being finalized in 2366.

For the next 3 years, Peter lived primarily with his father, spending the occasional few months with his mother. In 2369, his mother was promoted to Admiral and transferred to Starbase 749 as it’s new Commanding Officer. At this time, Peter began to spend even more time with his father, essentially switching which parent he was with whenever his father’s ship docked. It was during this time he began to read more often, becoming a fan of Shakespeare and of Sherlock Holmes. However, in 2373, upon the outbreak of the Dominion war, Peter, along with his two sisters, Andrea and Maria, were all sent to live with their maternal grandparents on their ranch in Kansas.

A year after going to live with his grandparents, Peter and his grandfather were out fishing when his grandmother and two sisters came to them with terrible news; Peter’s father had been killed during a meeting at Starfleet Command when the Breen had attacked. Following this incident, Peter retreated into himself, disappearing into his bedroom for three days, barely leaving it except to go to the bathroom, and not talking to anyone. When his sisters finally got him to talk, he only had one thing to say; “Why the hell did they tell you first?”

The incident left Peter a changed young man; he became arrogant, thinking everyone else was against him and he had something to prove, possessing a disdain for authority figures and actively declaring Starfleet an oppressive force. In 2377, the 17 year old Peter was arrested following an incident where he had stabbed a Ferengi in the hand with a fork after the Ferengi had tried to cheat him at a Dabo table. He was sent to a penal colony on Venus, with a sentence of ten years, with a further four for contempt of court.

Six months into his sentence, his mother came to him with an offer; she’d made arrangements for him to be released into her custody. In exchange, as part of his parole terms, he’d be enrolled in Starfleet Academy, and would serve in Starfleet until the time of his sentence had elapsed. Peter was less than receptive of the idea, but eventually caved into his mothers’ wishes when she told him the stress his predicament was putting on his grandparents.

Peter enrolled in the security and tactical division of Starfleet Academy in 2378 at the age of 18, and within his first semester, had already gotten into eight fights and earned 40 demerits against him of an allowed 99. His professor, a Vulcan Commander named Saral, called him gifted, but lacking in focus for his anger. Saral offered to instruct Peter in the Vulcan martial art of Kareel-ifia as a means to help improve his focus and help curb his anger. Reluctantly, Peter accepted, beginning to train under Saral. Later, Peter would reflect it was only because of his sessions with Saral and the techniques he’d learned to keep calm that he hadn’t ended up back in a penal colony.

In 2382, Peter graduated in the 94th percentile at the rank of Ensign, with a grand total of 97 demerits against him. He was assigned as the brig officer of Starbase 621, which Peter was sure was a not so subtle joke about his circumstances. His superior, Lieutenant Commander Lucas O’Reilly, made no attempt to hide his disdain for Peter, taking every opportunity he could to make life difficult for him.

However, in 2384, Peter and O’Reilly were assigned to transport a Nausicaan prisoner to a penal colony on Alpha Centauri. En route, there was a power surge, and the prisoner escaped containment. When the prisoner took O’Reilly hostage, Peter responded by first shooting O’Reilly then taking advantage of the Nausicaan’s shock to shoot the Nausicaan. When O’Reilly came too, Peter pointed out what he’d done; he’d used a minimum stun on O’Reilly before hitting the Nausicaan with maximum stun. Upon their return to the station, O’Reilly put Peter in for a promotion to Lieutenant (Jg) and assigned him as his new assistant Chief of Security, along with helping get him a commendation for quick thinking and valor.

In 2386, O’Reilly was elevated to Executive Officer after the previous Executive Officer left to pursue her own command. The Commanding Officer, Captain McTavish, was hesitant to allow Peter to be given the role of Chief of Security, but eventually agreed when O’Reilly made it clear he didn’t want anyone else currently on the station taking his place. Consequently, Peter was elevated to Chief of Security, and promoted to full Lieutenant.

For the next three years, Peter served as the Chief of Security of the Starbase, being promoted in late 2388 to Lieutenant Commander, with the role of Second Officer being added to his duties. In this year, he also finally reconciled with his two sisters, and met their spouses and children for the first time.

In 2389, Peter was given a choice; stay onboard the Starbase in his current role, or be transferred to the USS Luna as it’s new Executive Officer. Peter turned the transfer down. That evening, O’Reilly came to see him and asked why he’d turned the job down; Peter still didn’t want to be in Starfleet, as far as he was concerned, he was still a prisoner. He didn’t want to be one of the wardens. At this point, O’Reilly confided in him why he’d looked out for him since the Nausicaan incident; Peter had had the chance to run, to get out of his ‘sentence,’ but had chosen to stay, and in doing so, had proven himself to be an honorable man. In 2391, Peter was once again offered an Executive Officer role, this time on the USS Apollo, and this time accepted it.

During his first mission, Peter found himself in command of an away mission on a borrowed freighter. During this mission, as part of an attempted ruse to prevent Cardassians who had boarded the ship from killing him and the Apollo’s Second Officer, Peter ended up in a fight, culminating in Peter stabbing the Second Officer near fatally due to his lack of knowledge of Romulan physiology. Subsequent to his return, Peter also discovered that his sister, Maria, and her son, Ian, had been killed six months prior, something his family had tried to communicate to him unsuccessfully due to his evasion of their communiques following a previous argument. Following this revelation, Peter began to find solace in more of his debauchery than normal, along with beginning to drink excessively more frequently.