Malcolm Reed

Malcolm Reed was a Star Trek character introduced in the Star Trek: Enterprise episode Broken Bow.

He was portrayed by Dominic Keating.

Born in England in 2122, Reed grew up afraid of large bodies of water due to an incident where school bullies attempted to drown him in the school fountain. Because of this fear he felt unable to join the Royal Navy, and instead opted to join the United Earth Starfleet.

During his early Starfleet career he was recruited in to Section 31, but left when he became uncomfortable with some of the extreme measures they would take against their targets.

In 2151 he joined the crew of the new warp five ship Enterprise as the armory officer under the command of Jonathan Archer. In charge of ship's security and the tactical station, he manned a post on the bridge. He initially felt uncomfortable with Archer's approach to command, feeling that a sterner hand was needed. Archer, however, felt that since Enterprise would be on its own for extended periods that it would be counterproductive to act as a stern disciplinarian.

With Reed's reserved personality it was difficult for him to make new friends, but the senior staff of the Enterprise were able to get through his barriers and he became good friends with them, especially engineer Trip Tucker. Soon, if there was a misadventure, usually Trip and Malcolm were in the middle of it.

Reed continued to serve on the Enterprise for the next nine years. In 2156 he was promoted to Lieutenant Commander by Archer, who had felt Reed had more than earned the promotion. Reed remained on Enterprise throughout the Romulan War of 2156-2160. At the end of the war the Enterprise was decommissioned after suffering irreparable battle damage at the Battle of Cheron.

After the founding of the United Federation of Planets, Reed transitioned into the new Federation Starfleet. He was assigned to the Columnbia class ship Endeavour, under the command of Captain T'Pol. In September 2162, Reed was promoted to the rank of Captain and given command of the Intrepid class starship USS Pioneer. He named his old shipmate Travis Mayweather as first officer of the Pioneer.