Lance Donald Cartwright hated his name growing up; he preferred to use his middle name and, later, his rank or simply Cartwright. As much as he hated “Lance”, however, he loved his planet and its people—save, perhaps, those who’d bullied him as a child.

As he moved up in rank and station, Fleet Admiral L. Donald Cartwright had allowed himself to be seduced by the “more conservative elements” within Starfleet Command and the need to protect Earth, whatever the cost: Klingons—all Klingons—posed a threat to Earth’s existence and, therefore, ‘peace’ between species was a lie; a tool to be employed in furtherance of the destruction of Earth. There could be no better ‘poster boy’ for the perpetuation of the war mentality than James Kirk, who had lost his son to a Klingon commander and who, in spite of himself, shared a hatred of Klingons. Cartwright perverted the logic that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, and Kirk and his crew were deemed expendable in a plot to assassinate the Klingon chancellor—which succeeded—and derail the peace process—which did not. When the follow-up plot to murder the Federation president at Camp Khitomer was exposed and foiled, Cartwright was among those convicted.

Over a span of five Solar years in prison, Cartwright had an epiphany: the demonization of an entire species was akin to the crimes committed upon his forebears on Earth. His rationale against any peace with “the alien trash of the galaxy”—extolling instead the opportunity “to bring them to their knees; then, we’ll be in a far better position to dictate terms”—soured and festered, and he began work within his restricted capacity to make good on the damage. When Section 31 got wind of their former colleague’s betrayal, they plotted his assassination. Anticipating this, he reached out to now-Ambassador Spock, who helped Cartwright fake his own death and go into hiding on Vulcan, where he continued his work by proxy.