Esteban Velasco was an Earth-born scientist, of Filipino descent, of the 21st and 22nd centuries, and one of the founders of the extrasolar colony of Yogyakarta Baru. (Star Trek: Shadowstar Station: "Esteban")
He was born to Salvador Timoteo Velasco (II) and Corazon (née Asoy) Velasco in Roxas City, Capiz, the Philippines, in 2086.
In the late 21st century, many island and archipelagic nation-states were recovering from the devastation caused by both World War III and the effects of manmade global climatic change in effect since the Industrial Revolution. The reconstruction process was helped by Vulcan technology, especially nanotechnological repairs to the ozone layer. The post-Eugenics Wars United Nations resolution of 1998 -- proscribing certain lines of genetic research and methodology -- was in abeyance, given that cancers and other illnesses resulting from radiation damage had to be cured. Major cities -- such as New York City, San Francisco, New Orleans, Miami, London, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Manila, and Singapore -- that had lost property to the encroaching oceans recovered some land through the use of barriers made of new materials synthesized by Centaurian processes.
It was in such an era of guarded optimism that Esteban Velasco was born. Each of his parents had known both wealth and privation, and had raised Esteban and his siblings to take harsh lessons of the past to prepare for the uncertainties of the future.
In the early 2100s, Velasco graduated from Central Philippine University in Iloilo City with degrees in biostasis technology and medical engineering. Years later, as part of an American Continent Institute expedition surveying red-dwarf stars, he identified heretofore undiscovered reserves of topaline and pergium on a planet of Wolf 359.
By 2145, a colony on that planet was established, with Velasco, Donal Sastrowardoyo, Victoria Sutomo, Julian Bermudo, and Kieran Arismunandar named as the founders. The Yogyakarta Baru colony's initial settlements consisted mostly of those who had lived in the member nation-states of the short-lived Southeast Asian Confederation.
Family[]
Esteban Velasco was proud of his forebears, especially those who fought for the Philippines' independence from Spain and later the United States of America. Esteban brought with him to Yogyakarta Baru many old books -- including a biography of Graciano López Jaena, a 19th century Filipino revolutionary -- and weapons used by ancestors who fought in the Southeast Asian resistance forces against Khan Noonien Singh during the Eugenics Wars. (Star Trek: Shadowstar Station: Freedom's Just Another Word for Nothing Left to Lose)
Among his descendants were two Federation Starfleet officers, H.H. Velasco and José Velasco.
Namesake starship[]
USS Velasco -- an Ambassador-class heavy cruiser -- was named after Esteban Velasco in the 24th century. (TNG video game: Birth of the Federation)
Background[]
"Velasco" was the surname of the author's paternal grandfather's mother, who died shortly after giving birth to him c. 1902.