Longbotham was a Human Starfleet crewmember assigned to the engineering section of the refit USS Enterprise in the 23rd century. In 2273, he and Nicholson were sent by Montgomery Scott to retrieve a spare dilithium matrix module for the warp drive's dilithium chamber. (TOS novel: Ex Machina) Nicholson and Longbotham were named after Sam Nicholson and Brian Longbotham, who provided the kinetic lighting effects used in engineering in The Motion Picture.