Admiral William Ross

Character Information

Gender		Male
Species		Human
Age		75

Physical Appearance

Height		6' 1"
Weight		255 lbs
Hair Color		Brown
Eye Color		Brown

Family

Personality & Traits

General Overview

Member of the Starfleet Command Staff.

Personal History		William J. Ross was a senior Starfleet official in command of military operations during the Dominion War. He led the Allied forces during the Battle of Cardassia, and presided over the signing of the Treaty of Bajor, which ended the war. As head of Starfleet forces during the Dominion War, Ross coordinated battle plans from Starbase 375. After Captain Benjamin Sisko and his team returned to Starbase 375 after successfully destroying a Dominion ketracel-white facility, Admiral Ross asked them to report to the conference room for a full debriefing. Captain Bennet served as his adjutant during the early days of the war. When Bennet transferred to command the Seventh Tactical Wing, Ross assigned Captain Sisko as his new adjutant, and gave command of the USS Defiant to Lieutenant Commander Jadzia Dax. He supported Sisko's plan for Operation Return. After Sisko refused to return the Reckoning Tablet to Bajor, Kai Winn Adami lodged a protest with Starfleet and Ross ordered Sisko to return it. In late-2374, Ross presented Sisko with the Christopher Pike Medal of Valor for his actions in retaking Deep Space 9 and forcing the Dominion into temporary retreat. He then ordered Sisko to command the first strike into Dominion space in the First Battle of Chin'toka. General Martok made a promise with Ross and Sisko that in one year, they would defeat the Dominion and drink bloodwine in the Cardassian Central Command. After the Romulan Star Empire joined the war effort in 2374, Admiral Ross came to DS9 to help with the establishment of a Romulan contingent on the front lines. After it was discovered that the Romulans had established plasma torpedo launchers on the Bajoran moon Derna, Ross at first refused to get involved, as he felt it could destroy the alliance with the Romulans. He later relented and told Senator Kimara Cretak that if she didn't remove the weapons, he would. Ross temporarily aided the covert Federation organization Section 31 in 2375 by helping Section 31 agents infiltrate the first Federation-Romulan conference on Romulus, and place a mole, Koval, at the highest levels of the Romulan government. Doctor Julian Bashir was deceived and used by both Section 31 and Admiral Ross in a formidable plot to deliver Senator Cretak into the hands of the Tal Shiar for treason, in exchange for Koval's continued loyalty to the alliance that existed between the Federation and Romulans during the Dominion War. Cretak had been in consideration for a seat on the Romulan Continuing Committee, just like Koval; but when she was arrested by the Tal Shiar based on a scheme perpetrated by Section 31 and Ross, the seat fell to Koval, insuring his loyalty to the Federation. When he found out, Bashir was furious and confronted Ross. Going off-record, Ross defended his actions of setting up an innocent woman by stating that he had no choice. He saw Cretak as a patriot who would not have had any remorse delivering the Federation into the hands of the Dominion and striking a separate deal with them if it served the Romulan Empire. He admitted not liking what he did, stating, however, that he disliked ordering young women and men to die even less and that he, therefore, was forced to aide Section 31 to insure the alliance between the Federation and Romulus remained solid. He recited Cicero's famous line "In time of war the law falls silent" to justify what he did. Ross performed a wedding ceremony later that year on Deep Space 9 for Captain Sisko and Kasidy Yates. He delivered the USS São Paulo to DS9 in late-2375, following the destruction of the Defiant, and relayed Fleet Admiral Bremer's orders that transferred command to Captain Sisko and allowing a special dispensation to rename the new ship "Defiant". During the Battle of Cardassia, Ross led the Starfleet wing of the assault fleet. Soon afterward he presided over the signing of the Treaty of Bajor, and gave a speech to the delegates at the signing ceremony.
Service Record		In the 2350s, Ross was a Lieutenant Commander, and worked with Starfleet Intelligence. In 2355 he recruited the services of civilian captains Giancarlo and Aldo Corsi of the freighter Ulrika's Hope to conduct some discreet scans of the Topin system in hopes of gaining intelligence on the workings within the Cardassian Union. Despite Ross's assurances, the scans were detected and the Ulrika's Hope was intercepted by a Cardassian vessel commanded by Gul Mogad, who killed Giancarlo Corsi. Ross and his team managed to save most of the rest of the Hope's crew, but the grieving Aldo gave Mogad the intel gathered in exchange for a cessation of hostilities. Ross was assigned to the USS Leonov during the conflict with the Tzenkethi as second officer. During one battle against two Tzenkethi vessels the Leonov's warp core was breached, and the crew barely had time to make it to escape pods. The Tzenkethi killed half of the surviving crew by shooting down the pods. Those who survived found refuge on an L-class planet. A few months later, Ross learned that the Leonov's coordinates had been given to the Tzenkethi by a member of a rogue intelligence network from within the Federation. Ross tracked down the agent to a remote moon in the Arias sector, where the agent of the rogue intelligence agency known as Section 31 explained his reasoning. The Leonov had been about to receive orders to destroy a presumed Tzenkethi industrial complex that had been based on bad intelligence. Section 31 thought that the loss of innocent life would aggravate matters with the Tzenkethi, and took steps to keep the Leonov from carrying out its mission. Ross made the difficult decision not to report the man to Starfleet Command and would work with Section 31 again at various times in his career. By at least 2361, Ross was serving as the executive officer of the USS Ulysses. He would survive the attack on the Ulysses by a Galor-class starship, although he was taken captive by the Cardassians. In 2369, Admiral Ross travelled to Draken IV after Vice-Proconsul M'ret and his aides N'veran and Revaik defected to the Federation and were brought aboard the USS Enterprise-D. Ross had planned to oversee their debriefing although the Vulcans had pressed for the Romulans to be debriefed on Vulcan. After the Enterprise was damaged by a Romulan weapon and Starfleet was unable to contact her, Ross sent the USS Nolan to investigate. Admiral Ross was assigned to command Starbase 375 in 2372, following the the death of Admiral Eric Hahn and the arrest of Captain Ishmael Snowden for his role in James Leyton's conspiracy against the Federation government. Following the Romulan entry into the war, Ross attended a conference on Earth which brought together Humans, Klingons, Romulans and Cardassians. When the Romulans installed plasma torpedo weapons on the Bajoran moon of Derna, Admiral Ross initially did not involve the Federation in the dispute. Ross would later relent and force Senator Kimara Cretak to order the removal of the torpedoes. Ross would work with Luther Sloan to discredit Senator Cretak and allow Koval, the head of the Tal Shiar and the top Federation operative in the Romulan Star Empire, to be appointed to the Continuing Committee. Ross was aboard the USS Farragut during the Battle of Cardassia. Following the battle, Ross joined Benjamin Sisko and Martok in viewing the destroyed headquarters of the Cardassian Central Command. Ross would later preside over the official Dominion surrender and offer Worf the position of Federation Ambassador to the Klingon Empire. Ross kept busy in the months following the war, overseeing the response to an attack by rogue Jem'Hadar soldiers on starbase Deep Space 9. Admiral Ross would also coordinate fleet actions during the Gateways Crisis. In 2376, Ross headed the inquiry into the near-destruction of the USS da Vinci at Galvan VI, and found Captain David Gold not at fault for the incident. Ross had access to the Pathfinder Project database and asked the crew of Deep Space 9 for their opinions on the data the USS Voyager had gathered on the Delta Quadrant. In 2379, Ross discovered that Federation President Min Zife was responsible for supplying the Tezwan madman Kinchawn with the weapons that were responsible for the deaths of 6000 Klingon warriors. Ross and several other Starfleet Admirals resolved to remove Zife from office, with Ross insisting that the President needed to be held accountable for his crimes even if the public never knew. Ross was contacted by Section 31, who wrote Zife's resignation speech and had the President and two of his top advisers quietly executed for their crimes. Following Zife's resignation, Ross was considered as a likely candidate for the office. He declined to run, and instead became an advisor to Nanietta Bacco's campaign. Shortly after Bacco's election, Ross and Admiral Leonard James Akaar ordered the USS Titan under Captain William T. Riker to Romulus in response to Praetor Tal'Aura's request for relief and humanitarian aid to the stricken Romulan Star Empire following Shinzon's assassination of the Imperial Senate. Ross served as Starfleet liaison to the president following Bacco's election. In late 2380, he retired from this position, and from Starfleet, when Bacco discovered his role in the forced resignation of Zife. Ross returned to Starfleet is 2383 and was appointed to the Starfleet Command Staff by Fleet Admiral Nechayev.