Ethan Allan Neill, Jeremiah Neill's elder brother.
Marshal Ethan Allen Neill (born October 18, 2293, in Oakdale, California) is a fictional character created by Joshua Underwood in the Star Trek universe. Ethan is the elder brother of Marshal Jeremiah Neill, and is portrayed by Gerald McRaney. He is known by Reydovan Intelligence as the "Dark Phoenix" because of his tendencies to disappear for years on end, only to return and wreak havoc on the Imperial government. He is named after American patriot Ethan Allen.
Underwood decided to create the "lost brother" of Neill in order to create a dark, conflicted (rather than outright evil) character - a "not-someone-we-talk-about" member of the Neill family. His idea was to have it somewhat like the relationship between Spock and his half-brother Sybok in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier - an elder son who became an outcast and a younger who became an influential presence finally meeting after many years - but there the similarity ends. Where Jeremiah is a loyal, albeit powerhungry and overly zealous, soldier to the Reydovan Empire with the aloofness of a patrician officer, Ethan is highly intelligent, cold and calculating, but has a kinship with the many men and women who follow him.
Origins[]
Hailing from the town of Oakdale in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, Ethan Neill was born into power. His father, Admiral Daniel Neill, was the Chief of the Starfleet General Staff and a very powerful political and military leader. It was believed that he intended to run against Ra-ghoratrei of Efros in the 2300 elections, but fate had played a cruel hand when, in 2298, the Admiral stepped aboard the starship Independence to build a new starbase in what was now the Reydovan Empire...
Along with the family of Alexander Britanov, Daniel Neill had taken his son along with him to visit Reydovan Prime, having come to an agreement with the government of the planet four years earlier to build a starbase in the sector as a defense against the Klingons. Upon approaching the Korolev Expanse, however, the Independence was ambushed by Joshua Underwood and his Imperial Navy. All of the ship's officers and crew were arrested and brought before the Emperor, Kiran Joshmaul I. In exchange for Neill's loyalty - as a final twist of revenge against the Admiral for prosecuting him during his court-martial in 2276 - the Emperor spared the lives of the Independence crew and allowed them to go home. It is believed that Joshmaul spared Daniel Neill's life if only because of his five-year-old son, much as he spared Peter Britanov because of his eight-year-old-son Alexander.
When the war between the Federation and the Reydovan Empire ended in 2301, Daniel Neill was installed as Count Neill of Easthaven and became a respected member of Imperial society. When Jeremiah Neill was born in 2301, he became officially designated as Daniel's heir - while the eldest would normally have been given that honor, Jeremiah was the first child born while Daniel was Count of Easthaven. This would cause great resentment between Ethan and Jeremiah that had never been truly resolved, even during their service in the military...
Military Service[]
Ethan joined the Reydovan Imperial Marine Corps in 2311, at the age of 18, and was trained by Underwood himself for the majority of his officer training. He was a Captain in the Marines when his brother Jeremiah enlisted in 2318. While he resisted the idea at first, Ethan acknowledged Jeremiah's dedication, and along with Neill's commanding officer suggested that he be sent to Earth for advanced training - there was an uneasy truce with the Federation, and the Reydovan Empire had vowed not to attack them. Upon Jeremiah's return, he began a meteoric rise. While Jeremiah was off in the field, Ethan was commander of the newly formed Chancellery Guard, praetorians to now-Chancellor Underwood, and remained in the Imperial capital of Montagne Noire. In 2349, he joined his younger brother in the field of battle during the Sha'kurian War. Both men left with great honors: Jeremiah fought in every engagement in the war and was promoted to Lieutenant General following the Battle of Belle Terre, on April 1, 2350. Ethan, who had fought alongside his younger brother in that war, was also promoted several times, and left one grade higher. Both were also awarded the Order of Reydovan and the Order of the Sword of Joshmaul, the highest awards presentable to an Imperial officer, as well as the Iron Cross and the Purple Heart. It seemed that a mutual respect had finally grown between the war hero brothers, and they became the most popular men in the Empire. Ethan was eventually promoted to Marshal, and Jeremiah to General, as the lieutenants of Marshal Daniel Longstreet, the commander of the Imperial Marine Corps. That respect was suddenly shattered upon Daniel Neill's death, on November 2, 2371...
The Succession Issue[]
As the elder sibling, Ethan expected that Daniel would name him as the successor to the House of Neill following his death. Jeremiah, however, had already been promised that honor. Fully expecting that his father "had come to his senses", Ethan waited expectantly to receive the notification from Emperor Joshmaul after his father died, naming him the family patriarch. What he received was a slap to the face as his father's will was carried out, and Jeremiah was given the title Count Neill of Easthaven. After his ascension, Jeremiah named his own eldest son, Ross, as the heir to the House of Neill.
Ethan was outraged. Taking his protest to Emperor Joshmaul and the Council of Nobles, invoking his right as a member of the House of Neill, he criticized his father's decision to cut him from the succession, claiming that he was the elder son and therefore had the legitimate right to be Count of Easthaven. The Emperor pointed out that while many nobles, himself included, chose their elder sons as the heirs to their titles, it was within the right of the noble to choose who of the family would succeed him. Chancellor Underwood, who held the noble title Archduke of Montagne Noire, and Johann von Spee, the Baron of Icecrown, criticized Ethan's behavior as childish; Spee was particularly brutal, accusing Ethan of being a jealous powermonger who clearly did not accept the superior qualities of his younger sibling. Finally, the new Count Neill himself spoke up, and stripped his elder brother of his status as a member of the Neill family. Unperturbed, he opposed Joshmaul directly, accusing him of favoritism - "kissing ass will not make your subjects love you," was what he said. The Emperor, furious at this insult, tore away his rank and awards, and declared him persona non grata.
The Hijacking of the Pride of Reydovan[]
With nothing left save vengeance, Ethan rallied his few supporters and committed the greatest theft in Imperial history - the hijacking of the experimental Imperial "Mothership", the Pride of Reydovan.
The Pride of Reydovan was an immense and powerful vessel, very similar to the Separatist Flagship, but on a far more complex scale. The Mothership's control systems were a direct neural interface, requiring a powerful psionic implanted with intricate circuitry to interface with the ship's systems, to become the Navigator. Linked into the ship's supercomputers, the psionic-cybernetic interface would practically allow the Navigator to think the ship to its location - if he thought "Activate the engines", the engines would activate, if he thought "Set a course for Earth", the computers would immediately chart a safe course to Earth. While it needed a human crew to truly make the process efficient - and maintain the systems - the Navigator could run the entire ship by himself. Stealing the Mothership was the greatest operation Ethan had ever pulled off.
Ethan's supporters were a motley crew: the former Imperial Chamberlain, cybernetic physicians, pages, veterans who had served with him during the Sha'kurian War, who trained themselves extensively in the operation of the gigantic vessel. After killing or otherwise incapacitating the defense team and beaming the crew onto Reydovan Prime's northern polar icecap, Ethan and his comrades took control of the Mothership, which Ethan named the Harbinger of Vengeance. With the powerful Mothership in his possession, Ethan asked his closest friend, Michael Davenport - a powerful psionic and former Imperial Chamberlain - to become the interface link to the gigantic vessel. Davenport agreed, and underwent delicate surgery to give him the proper cybernetic implants to allow him to connect to the complex circuitry of the interface setup. Upon being hooked to the interface, in what could only be called transcendence, Davenport became the perfect synthesis of man and machine, and guided the Harbinger across the galaxy.
Over his years in exile, Ethan has built up a sizable army of former Imperial troops that had grown disenchanted with Imperial service; desertion and sedition was rampant in the Empire. It was from the young men and women "looking for more action than guard duty" that Ethan found his followers - and they followed him unquestioningly. Ethan's nomadic fleet, known collectively as the Harbingers, now numbers over six dozen vessels and thousands of men, all of them former Imperials, all of them with a grudge against the government, and all well-trained and well-disciplined.
Aiding the Exodus[]
Five years later, Chancellor Underwood - who had felt immense guilt over his part in Ethan's disgrace in the Empire - was contacted by Ethan's agents, who attempted to convince the Chancellor of Joshmaul's tyranny. But Underwood needed little coaxing; both his lieutenant, Kieran Devaneaux, and the sights he had seen with his own eyes had been enough to turn him against his old friend. With Ethan's aid, Underwood and Devaneaux rallied their supporters and made their way across the Reydovan Empire to rendezvous with Ethan's Harbinger Fleet in the Imperial Fringes. Upon reaching Ethan's location, the Harbinger leader unleashed his fury upon the Imperial pursuers; of the eighty ships that had chased Underwood's fleet across the Empire only one was able to return to base; seventy were destroyed outright, and the other nine suffered core breaches between the border and Reydovan Prime.
At Underwood's suggestion, Ethan and his now-bolstered fleet set a course for the Gorak'nar Commonwealth; both Ethan and Underwood had been to Gorak'nar, in complete secrecy, on several occasions. High Inquisitor Jaeden'laek XVI, horrified by the tales of Joshmaul's atrocities, took the exiles in and gave them a place to hide from the Emperor's tyranny. Forming a government in exile, Underwood named Ethan supreme commander of their military forces.