Dr. Rachel Scott is a well-qualified virologist who has been assigned by the National Security Council, The President of the United States, the Centers for Disease Control, and the World Health Organization to find a cure for the virus that has killed most of the world's population. The captain and crew of the USS Nathan James are told that she and her assistant, Dr. Quincy Tophet, are doing research on birds. However, her assignment is top-secret and only she and Dr. Quincy are aware of the true nature of her mission, which is to develop a cure for the virus.She is not initially trusted by the crew because of hiding the true nature of her assignment (locating the primordial strain of the virus, which is produced by the Arctic Terns) for four months, and also for being in touch with the outside world (reporting back to the White House) while the crew was starving for news about their families and were on radio silence, thus unable to call or email them. Also, the captain and crew were very aware of the men and supplies they lost in pursuit of the supplies necessary for her to continue her research. Eventually, she gained the respect of the crew after explaining her research to them and letting them see her lab and what she was doing.Dr. Scott frequently balances duty and moral obligation; this was pointed out to her when she tried to explain to the crew that she was only following orders by not telling them about the virus. Lt. Kara Foster replied that the crew understood about orders, as they followed them every day; the unspoken implication was that some things superseded orders.Dr. Scott offered to go aboard the Russian ship with the cure as an exchange incentive for the hostages Chandler and Tex. She convinced Slattery that the Russians would continue to hunt the Nathan James until she did. She showed Doc Rios how to replicate the virus should she not return, and asked Quincy to finish the research if she didn't come back. While on board the Russian ship, she kisses Chandler and passes him a note with the rendezvous point for the extraction team, and a weapon. She is taken to the ship's makeshift lab and ordered to give the cure to Dmitri, who is then placed in isolation with Niels Sorensen. Dr. Scott notices Niels' lack of symptoms and figures out that he is Patient Zero, a carrier, and the one who added his human gene and made the virus able to spread even faster, and ready for use as a bioweapon.Dr. Scott never married or had children and she was in a long-distance, superficial relationship with Michael, a global journalist (during an argument, Quincy said that Michael only saw her twice a month to have sex, and that wasn't a real relationship worthy of sacrifice). She learned from her mentor, Dr. Hut, that Michael had been in China when the virus spread, and assumed to have died. Dr. Scott has a growing romantic interest in Tex, who has been very obvious about his romantic feelings for her since they met and kissed her before he left the NJ crew in Baltimore while he searched for his daughter. Show less «