Zach Banner

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For the mirror universe counterpart, see Zach Banner (mirror).

For the counterpart in the timeline created by Nero's incursion, see Zach Banner (alternate reality)‎.

Zachary Horatio Banner was the former commanding officer of the USS Eagle. (Star Trek: Eagle)

Early life

Zach was a member of a long line of Starfleet captains dating back to his great-great-grandfather who captained a Starfleet vessel during the Earth-Romulan War. Like his older brother and his forefathers, Zach entered Starfleet Academy once he was of age. During his time in the Academy, he was known as an energetic and enthusiastic student who was very dedicated to his work.

Temporal toss

In 2256 he took the infamous Kobayashi Maru test. His approach was noted as unorthodox, sacrificing his own ship while allowing the escape pods of Kobayashi Maru to make it to safety, in his view the best possible outcome. Captain Oliver Ashburn was impressed with the young man's noble thinking and allowed him on a two-week training course of deep space fighter training on the USS Hawkins.

On May 11th of that year, the training mission was interrupted when news reached the crew of the sudden outbreak of war with the Klingon Empire after the Battle of the Binary Stars. (Star Trek: Eagle: Into the fire)

Nearby Klingon ships sprung into action and attacked the cadet-manned USS Hawkins over Solza IV. Ashburn ordered the cadets to man their fighters to buy the ship time for reinforcements. during the dogfight Banner was shot down and crashed on the planet surface.

After he escaped the wreck of his burning fighter, he made his way through the planet's forest. In a clearing he discovered what was a temporal distortion. As he investigated a (unknown to him) Romulan ship decloaked, he panicked and attempted to escape. The cloaking of the Romulan ship then triggered a massive temporal shift that threw Banner. When Banner awoke he attempted to make sense of what happened. Banner made his way to a mining base where he found a miner, Banner asked where he was and in disbelief found he was still on Solza IV that Banner thought was uninhabited. The minor told him he could help him to Beta III where there was a Federation starbase.

Once there Banner went to a tavern to find out what had happened, to his surprise he was surrounded by Starfleet uniforms he didn't recognize. There a Starfleet officer who called himself "Johann Auen" introduced himself.

Suddenly the base began to shake. A Starfleet vessel, the Bismarck, under control of the entity Redjac, was attacking the base. The mysteries Auen then came to his rescue saying he "had a future ahead of him" and he knows of a place to survive the attack. As they ran Banner was filled by a pain in his chest, in a shock he was phased from time and again transported even further in the future.

Once in the year of 2293 of this timeline Banner was rescued by USS Enterprise, now under the command of captain Ray Martin. They were tasked with returning him to Solza iv, while on their voyage their Banner was informed of the situation by Agent Ryan who gave him a device that once brought to the original sport where he was transported to the future would return him to his own time and correct the timeline. But once over the planet Banner's shuttle was damaged and captured by forces of a new Terran Empire. Once captured he was brought to confront the new Emperor, to his surprise it was an older version of himself from an alternate universe. But with Ryans help Banner was able to escape, find his way back to the jump point, and return to his own era. He was shortly rescued by the crew of the USS Heritage. (Star Trek: Eagle "Agents of Destiny (Eagle episode)")

Zach Banner at the sight of First Contact

When the war with the klingons began to take a turn for the worst Banner, like many, began to loose hope. He and his friend Keldar visited the statue of Zefram Cochrane in Montana at the sight of first contact. There Zach told the story of one of his ancestors who was a witness to the event. (Through the Night)

The Bismarck

Banner meets Shrelic for the first time

In 2266, he was promoted to commander and assigned as first officer and helmsman of the USS Bismarck under Commodore Shrelic. Banner started his new command position on the space station K-19. While there, he met with one of his old friends from the Academy, but a drunken station crewmate decided to pick a fight with Banner. Banner won the fight but was interrupted by his new commander, Commodore Shrelic. Shrelic gave him a brief tour around the ship, then the two left the system.

The Bismarck in the Orion Station

Banner's first test as the Bismarck's second in command came when the ship was disabled and taken captive by Orion pirates. When the ship was locked into the pirate’s space station docking bay and Shrelic was taken aboard, it was Banner's task to free him. He and Security Chief Anten beamed over to the station disguised as Orions and with a little help from the chief engineer, Ivan Kofloski, were able to rescue the commodore.

Shortly after the Romulan attack of 2266 that was stopped by James T. Kirk the Bismarck was sent to escort construction ships to reinforce the

Banner along with the Romulan commander while on the Bismarck's bridge

Romulan Neutral Zone with new defense stations. During which they received a distress call from a damaged Romulan bird of prey escorting a ship of civilians. They took the refugees aboard and helped them back to Romulus after the Bismarck fought two battles with the tharcel, an alien race that the Romulan Star Empire was engaged in fighting with. (Bismarck (Eagle comic))

In 2267 Zach met Shrelic's 15-year-old son, Rayten, while on a mission to Andoria. (Starship Saladin The Captain's Table Part 2)

Captain of the Eagle

The Eagle in dry dock

In 2269, he returned to Earth to take command of the USS Eagle with his new crew: science officer/second in command, Michele Tyler, chief engineer, Clause Elberg, helmsman, Lt. Tevek and navigator, Oakley Gelson, among others. After the first few weeks of the Eagle's voyage, Charlie Christianson would become Banner's medical officer.

Encounter with the mirror universe

One week after taking command, he had an unfortunate encounter with his counterpart from the Mirror Universe. His counterpart attempted to kill him and take his place to return the Eagle to the Mirror Universe, but failed. The Eagle, after being attacked by the ISS Eagle, successfully returned to the Prime Universe after the encounter and received help from the Romulan Republic of the Mirror Universe. (Star Trek: Eagle Into the Mirror (Eagle episode))

Bismarck infected

In early 2270, the Eagle intercepted a Federation distress coming from the planet Gamma Ceti. Banner led a landing party to the frozen world to investigate. There he found a crashed Federation shuttlecraft manned by his old friend, Shrelic. Sadly, he came too late and Shrelic died shortly after Banner found him. His last message was that the Bismarck was in the Havar system. Banner set course to the system but found the Bismarck abandoned and adrift in space. The landing party beamed over only to find out that the ship had been taken over by an insane alien computer. With the shields raised and unable to beam back to the Eagle, Banner and Lt. Rich Smith set out to find the alien computer. The computer tried to kill the captain using the turbolift, but failed. The computer then tried to trap the two between force fields. He then realized that the computer was only able to control one system at a time, so he ordered Elberg to launch auto-piloted shuttles as a distraction. The plan worked perfectly. The force fields were lowered and Banner was able to find and destroy the computer. (Star Trek: Eagle The Bismark (Eagle episode))

House of Tk'nev Conflict

Banner during the conflict

In 2270 Banner and the rest of the crew of the Eagle were forced to go off to war when the house of Tk’nev invaded Federation space. On their way to the front, after receiving word of the attack, they received a distress call from the Dowive system. Once there, they found the Federation base had been leveled by a Klingon destroyer, which had beamed up one of the base's prisoners, after which the destroyer attacked the Eagle. After a short battle the Klingon attacker was driven off by reinforcements led by Admiral Jacob Ross of the USS Bismarck.

Two week into the conflict the situation for the Eagle was not going well. Mr. Elberg's crew was working around the clock to keep the ship in the fight and Banner had lost several of his crew, including Lt. Kinzler, a crew member who was the son of one of his former commanding officers on the Macarthur. Soon after the federation task force was nearly whipped out while they were escorting the USS Yiannopoulos, a ship that was caring a group of scientist who had with them a new classified project that was believed could turn the war in the federation's favor. Once the Eagle proceeded to clear the planet's orbit of the Klingon ships, including a destroyer and two D-7s.

The group of scientists were rescued by Banner and the USS Eagle (NCC-956) after an intense set of fire fights both around the crash site and inside the crashed ship itself. Banner was able to find the device the scientists were working on, a long-range code braking machine, and return to the Eagle. But once in orbit the Eagle was ambushed by a Klingon task force, to banner's surprise it was under the command of his counterpart from the mirror universe, the same who he thought he had left in Starfleet captivity. Fortunately they were driven off with the help of Ray Martin and the USS Saladin (NCC-500).

With this new technology Banner helped save Star fleet intelligence was able to find a new weapons platform being built by the Klingons. Commodore April ordered an assault on the Kathra system. The USS Roosevelt lead the first wave of the assault, the Hannibal manned the left flank, the Eagle the right, and the Enterprise in the center reserve. The Roosevelt lost nine ships in their attack group by the time the Enterprise arrived to assist.

The Eagle's attack group was able to bate a Klingon reinforcement squad into a nearby nebula. The ambush was a success due to the federation ships using satellites to assist their aiming and compensating for the nebula's effect. Unknown to Banner his Mirror universe counterpart was leading the attack group. in a shock to both Banners, Admiral Shrelic (mirror) of the ISS Emperor appeared. He announced he was on a mission to apprehend Banner's counterpart.

Following the destruction of Tk'nev's supper weapon at the heart of the Kathra system the Klingon's quickly asked the federation forces for a sees fire. Due to this the Klingon crew of Mirror Banner's ship handed him over to the Terran forces who were after him.

Although several ships of Banner's task force were crippled or destroyed this battle helped the Enterprise destroy Tk'nev's platform. With Kirk's victory the federation signed an armistice with the house of Tk'nev, ending the war. (Star Trek: Eagle-Incursion (Eagle comic), Starship Saladin The Captain's Table Part 2)

Banner on shore leave

Shore Leave

After the conflict Banner took a several week leave of absence from the Eagle, during Banner’s absence Commander Tyler took command of the Eagle while he was away. He spent much of this time hunting whiled animals in the frozen forests of his home state of Minnesota. After several weeks he called the Eagle to see how his first officer was handling "the center seat". (Star Trek: Eagle Past Regrets (Eagle episode))

Before returning to the Eagle, Banner stopped at star fleet HQ to catch up on some paperwork. There Banner ran into a new recruit at the academy, a Mr. Rayten, the son of his deceased former commanding officer Shrelic. Rayten and Banner hadn't seen each other in three years and the enthusiastic young cadet was most honored to meet Banner face to face again. Banner told him much about the time he served with his father.

The Captain's Table

After the long talk about his lost commander Banner took a trip to a bar to get his mind off the loss. He stopped at a mysterious place called The Captain's Table, a pocket dimension where captains from any fleet and any era can meet for a drink. There he was spotted at the bar by another star fleet officer, captain Ray Martin of the Saladin. Martin noticed how he looked like he needed a talk so he brought him to his table to meet a few other captains, such as Holt Allen, Hikaru Sulu, Serek, Francisco Cumberland, and others. Banner shared his story about seeing Rayten again, his battle during the Tk'nev conflict, and his loss of Shrelic and Gamma Ceti. Banner told the story how the Bismarck was lost to the insane alien computer and captain Sulul made a connection, he theorized it could have been Redjac, and alien life form he had faced in the past. During his story about his friend's passing another officer over hared his name, it was Shrelic, but from ten years in Banner's passed while he was still captain of the Madison. Banner was shocked by the coincidence and decided to buy Shrelic a drink and have one last conversation with him. But since the nature of the place they were in neither of them remembered their encounter when they left. (Starship Saladin The Captain's Table Part 2)

The Stolvez incident

Banner talking with the Stolvez council, shortly before the ambush

After his return from shore leave Banner and Tyler were sent on a diplomatic mission to the Stolvez system in 2270, leaving Clause Elberg in command. The talks were over a Federation treaty for mining on their homeworld but the events of the talks went in a different direction as planned. After an emergency transmission to the Eagle in orbit, Banner ordered Clause to have the Eagle give covering orbital fire to assist him and the crew with their fire fight with Stolvez rebels. (Starship Antyllus 247 (Antyllus episode))

During the above battle Elberg was forced to give the order to abandon ship. Banner's landing party consisting of himself, Commander Tyler, and others were taken prisoner after a long fire fight with Stolvez rebels and listed as MIA. The surviving Eagle crew were sent back to Earth and given other assignments. It would be five year before Banner and the others were found(Star Trek: Eagle - Agents of Destiny (Eagle episode) )

Later career

While his time missing and away from Starfleet Banner found a wife and chose to start a family. He had twin children, a son and a daughter, with his new wife. Open his rescue his rank was reinstated and he was promoted. He requested an assignment on astarbases or planetary base so he would be able to be with his wife to raise their children. He would not serve on a starship for the rest of his career.

By the 2278, he was serving on Starbase 78 with the rank of Admiral where he had fond memories about his time on the Eagle.

In 2293 he had the honor of taking part in talks with the government of Stolvez, this time as a guest of honor on board his old ship, the USS Eagle. This mission included the meeting with his old friend's son, Paul Elberg.

Legacy

Banner lived a long life. By the early 24th century he has became the federation ambassador to Cardassia. He held this position for several decades until he settled down for retirement. He was able to witness the end of the Dominion war because of his history with Cardassia. Three days after the treaty the ship that was escorting him back to Earth was listed as "Missing in Action" marking the official death after a long life of service. Banner went down in history as a noteble figure in Starfleet history and Federation diplomatic relations. (Star Trek: Eagle)

Ancestry

Along with being a descendant of several Starfleet captains of the 22nd and 23rd centuries Banner's heritage of serving in the armed forces goes back to at least the 20th century. One notable ancestor is a private Ian Banner, who in 1983 fought at the battle of hill 763. This was the first major battle of what would become known as the Eugenics Wars, when U.S. forces engaged augment troops under Stavos Keniclius, one of the founders of the Chrysalis Project. Although the very existence of this battle and larger conflict was classified well into the 21st century. (Eugenics Wars (A Star Trek Fan Production))

Three Generations later Ian's great grandson, Travis Banner, was a survivor of World War III and lived in the American mid west. When Travis passing through Bozman Montana while he was looking for work he briefly met Zefram Cochrane, he was not impressed with his alcoholism. That nigh he met a stranger who was looking for copper coil, she told him "something big" was going to happen within the next 24 hours. With this he chose to stay at the site for the next day and became a witnessed of first contact. This story became a long lasting family tale. (Through the Night)

Memorable quotes

"You can keep your flattery to yourself Ms. Tyler. I’ve never been one for it."

"You just make sure my first officer doesn’t die on me. I've lost too many friends today, that's an order."

Chronology

• 2236: Zach Banner is born on Earth
• 2254: Banner enters Starfleet Academy
• 2256: Engages in the war with the Klingon Empire
• 2258: Graduates Starfleet Academy
• 2266: Banner is promoted to commander and is the XO and helm officer on the USS Bismarck.
• 2269: Banner is promoted to captain of the USS Eagle
• 2270: Captured by Stolvez rebels/MIA
• 2273: Becomes a father of two children
• 227X: Found by Starfleet
• 2277: promoted to Admiral
• 2286 Earth HQ
• 2306 Ambassador to Cardassia
• 2350 Retirement
• 2375 Official death/listed as MIA

Service record

	Cadet	2254-2258	attending Starfleet Academy
	Ensign	2258- 2260	Assigned as torpedo technician aboard the USS Lancer
	lieutenant junior grade	2260- 2261	Head torpedo technician aboard the USS Lancer with additional duties as ship's navigator.navigator.
	Lieutenant	2261-2263	Assigned as primary navigator aboard the USS Owen
	Lieutenant commander	2263-2266	Helm officer and shuttle pilot on the USS Macarthur
	commander	2266-2269	First officer and helm officer on the USS Bismarck
	captain	2269-2270	Captain of the USS Eagle
	MIA	2270-227?
	Vice admiral	2278-	starbase 78

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