Beverly Crusher


 * For the alternate reality counterpart, please see Beverly Crusher (alternate reality).

Beverly Cheryl Crusher MD, was a female Human who was a Starfleet officer who served as chief medical officer of the USS Enterprise-D and USS Enterprise-E for many years from 2364 to the 2380s, under Captain Jean-Luc Picard, with brief stints serving as head of Starfleet Medical in 2365 and 2378. In 2385, Beverly Crusher was promoted to the rank of captain and given command of the USS Pasteur. She maintained her command and rank through at least 2390.

History
Beverly Cheryl Crusher was born (prematurely) as Beverly Cheryl Howard, daughter of Paul and Isabel Howard, on August 28 2324 in Copernicus City on Luna. When Beverly was three (and a half) years old, her parents were killed when their research vessel was destroyed by an Ubarrak warship. From that time she was raised by her grandmother, Felisa Howard, on the small colony world of Arvada III.

In 2339 a disaster exhausted the colony's medical supplies. The elder Howard had learned how to use the local roots and herbs for medicinal purposes during the Arvada III disaster. This sparked Beverly's interest in the medical field. Following the disaster, Beverly and her grandmother moved to Caldos Colony, where Felisa worked as a local healer.

Jack Crusher
At the age of 18, Beverly entered Starfleet Medical Academy and toward the end of her medical studies, was introduced to Starfleet officer Jack Crusher of the USS Stargazer by acquaintance Walker Keel. The couple was soon engaged to be married. In 2344, Beverly first met Jack's Captain on the Stargazer, Jean-Luc Picard, at the Utopia Planitia Shipyards on Mars.

Jack proposed to Beverly through the use of the gag gift of a book entitled, "How to Advance Your Career Through Marriage". Beverly accepted and the two were married in 2348 in a ceremony performed in San Francisco. Although Jack's assignment to the Stargazer kept the couple apart for long stretches, they corresponded often and got together whenever they could. In late 2348 Jack got an unexpected leave and was able to spend time with his wife, which resulted in Beverly becoming pregnant. She later gave birth to the couple's only child, Wesley, in July of 2349. Because of his deep-space assignment aboard the Stargazer, Jack was unable to return until five days after Wesley was born.

Unfortunately, their marriage was short-lived as Jack was killed trying to detach a damaged warp nacelle from the body of the Stargazer in 2354. Picard personally brought his friend's body home to Earth and Beverly.

Starfleet
Beverly entered Starfleet in 2349 and spent several years Earth-bound at Starfleet Medical. After being on Earth for several years, Beverly interned on Delos IV under the tutelage of Dalen Quaice and his wife. In addition, sometime during her early career in Starfleet she was stationed on Tau Ceti III and the USS Prague. While serving on the Prague, the ship was hit by a tachyon field, which offered her the opportunity to push the boundaries of her medical training. In 2354, Beverly served as assistant CMO onboard Starbase 32, when the base's CO Admiral Jerusalmi came to inform her that Jack had been killed in service. After her husband's death, and in part motivated by her son's well-being, Beverly turned down an offer to serve as CMO of the USS Hammarskjöld and resigned from Starfleet. After leaving Starfleet in 2354, following the death of Jack, Beverly moved to Earth and worked in private practice in St. Louis, before returning to Starfleet in 2360.

In 2360, Beverly assisted Admiral Nyota Uhura of Starfleet Intelligence in a top-secret investigation of the Romulan disease known as the gnawing.

Beverly didn't want to be restricted in rank just because she was a doctor, and worked her way through the ranks during her early Starfleet career. In 2362, Beverly took the bridge officer's test and was promoted to full Commander, allowing her to assume command if the situation called for it. During her tenure aboard the Enterprise, Beverly often commanded the night-shift. Captain Picard again relied on his old confidant's command capabilities during his investigation into the Borg Collective after the Oniaka III massacre. These leadership experiences may have been the prelude to her eventual rise to command. In a possible future, she was in charge of the medical starship USS Pasteur by the 25th century.

Beverly also worked on Khyme's Syndrome, earning herself a Nobel Prize.

Aboard the Enterprise-D
In 2364, Beverly applied for the position of Chief Medical Officer aboard the Enterprise and her application was accepted. She would be working under her husband's old Captain, Jean-Luc Picard, which she didn't view as a problem, though there was some initial discomfort from Captain Picard.

During her time aboard the Enterprise-D, she proved popular and spearheaded many activities aboard ship, such as an acting workshop and giving dancing lessons to Data. Over the years, Beverly and Picard formed a very close friendship that always stopped just short of becoming romantic.

A few weeks after her assignment aboard the Enterprise, the starship was called to Archaria III to deal with a large scale disease that was killing the Peladian colonists on the planet. Crusher battled to find a cure for the disease along with the medical staff aboard the USS Constitution. Crusher and her team discovered that the disease was engineered from a sample of Rhulian flu. Thankfully, Lieutenant Natasha Yar was able to obtain a sample of the cure for the disease, and Beverly was able to engineer a vaccine.

In early 2365, Beverly was offered the position as Head of Starfleet Medical and she accepted, though Wesley remained aboard the Enterprise. During her time at Starfleet Medical, she worked closely with Carter Greyhorse, another former crewmate of her husband's, and Lewis Zimmerman. She supported Zimmerman's plan to develop the Emergency Medical Hologram and provided the initial funding. She also taught at least one course at Starfleet Medical Academy, where one of her best students was Elizabeth Lense.

After a year as head, she decided to return to her post aboard the Enterprise, replacing Katherine Pulaski. In late 2367, the Enterprise crew discovered that the insectoid Jarada were suffering with a biochemical imbalance that was causing insanity. Beverly and Dr. Selar were able to develop a cure and presented it to the Jarada, but they didn't want to take the cure or have any dealings with the Federation.

Mid-2368 saw Dr. Crusher inadvertently stopping a war between the Krann and the Lethanta after she discovered that the virus that had decimated the ancient Krann was a natural occurrence, and not an act of aggression by the Lethanta.

Shortly thereafter, Beverly worked with Leonard McCoy to develop a serum to a disease that was similar to the one that had struck Archaria III, only this time it affected the Romulan royal family. The two doctors were able to synthesize a vaccine after obtaining a clean blood sample from Zevon, who had been on Pojjan PiraKot when the virus struck.

In her command role, Beverly occasionally lead the Enterprise. In 2370, she commanded the vessel when it came under attack from a Borg vessel while most of the crew were searching for Data on a nearby planet. Later in the year she took command while the rest of the senior staff were attempting to reveal the activities of a Starfleet conspiracy. To cover her comrade's activities, she told Admiral Adams that the Enterprise was suffering an outbreak of Andorian measles and, as such, Captain Picard was unable to explain why the Enterprise had returned to Earth.

Crusher remained aboard the Enterprise in 2371, when the starship was destroyed by a Klingon Bird-of-Prey in orbit of Veridian III. The crew survived aboard the saucer section, which was forced to crash on the surface of Veridian III. After the situation was over, Beverly directed the medical teams at the crash site until the USS Farragut arrived.

Aboard the Enterprise-E
Beverly joined the rest of Picard's command crew when the Enterprise-E launched in 2372.

In 2375, Beverly worked with Dr. Julian Bashir on starbase Deep Space 9 when the Dominion engineered a virus that targeted Vulcans. The cure was found after consulting the notes of a 22nd century Starfleet doctor named Phlox.

Beverly briefly left the Enterprise in 2379 to again serve as head of Starfleet Medical when she was captured on the planet Kevratas by the Romulan Sela. Beverly was listed as "Missing: Presumed Dead", but Picard did not believe this to be the case.

Picard and two other former Stargazer crew members, "Pug" Joseph and Carter Greyhorse, traveled to Kevratas and mounted a rescue. Upon her rescue, Picard finally revealed the depths of his feelings for Beverly. Soon after, Beverly left Starfleet Medical and returned to the Enterprise and began a romantic relationship with Picard.

In late 2380, the Borg Collective launched a new offensive against the Federation and the Alpha and Beta quadrants. Beverly assisted in transforming Picard back into Locutus so that he could infiltrate the Borg and stop the creation of a new Borg Queen. Beverly also developed an antigen that worked specifically on a single Queen.

Not long after, Doctor Crusher married Jean-Luc Picard. They decided that Beverly would keep her married name of Crusher so as not to cause confusion. Although Picard was initially hesitant to conceive a child, the two dealt with Jean-Luc's emotional baggage, and conceived a son in December of 2380.

When stopping the new Queen failed to cease the Borg invasion, the Enterprise became heavily involved in a number of stellar battles, as the only ship equipped with transphasic torpedoes. With the Starfleet Command admiralty unwilling to risk overuse of the torpedoes, second officer Miranda Kadohata summoned Crusher, Commander Geordi La Forge, and deputy security chief Rennan Konya to a midnight planning and brainstorming session. Although La Forge's and Crusher's previous technological and biological weapons against the Borg were adapted to, the quartet worked on applying the technology from the transphasic torpedoes to their shields and other weapons, but the phasers weren't designed to handle the load.

Crusher was the only one to witness the effects the Borg invasion was having on her husband, who claimed that their war with the Borg would not end without one side being completely obliterated. Crusher became worried at Picard's obsession with eradicating the Borg, including advocating otherwise banned strategies, and sought the council of La Forge. Unable to realize where the line between the Captain's personalities started and ended, they feared they would not realize which Picard was in charge until it was too late.

After the Enterprise engaged three Borg cubes at the Azure Nebula, Doctors Crusher and Tropp worked to repair and save the wounded; at one point, Crusher had to insist that Tropp cease working on a deceased patient so that he could move on to others. One of Crusher's patients was Rennan Konya, brought to her attention by Rymond. Crusher was later on duty when Worf came in with injuries, and Jasminder Choudhury slightly after, and determined that the two had been physically intimate; she agreed to keep the incident discreet.

In the midst of the crisis, Crusher tried, with little success, to prevent Picard from sinking irretrievably into depression and hopelessness. After the crisis ended and the Borg Collective had been dissolved, Crusher felt his spirit of optimism return as the two embraced on the Bridge.