Admiral Fairbanks was a Starfleet flag officer in the late 23rd century. He was stationed at Starbase 237.
Fairbanks was in charge of Starfleet operations in the Tabula Rasa, a region of space in the Romulan Neutral Zone near Klingon space. This region of space had previously few star systems until the Romulan Star Empire detonated a prototype subspace weapon, Project Shiva. The resulting subspace anomaly accidentally opened up a pocket universe containing dozens of star systems filled with resource-rich worlds, and both the Romulans and Klingons immediately scrambled to claim them.
Once the Federation received a distress call from the Taubat, a species indigenous to these systems, requesting assistance with a plague on the planet of Karazin, they decided to begin establishing outposts and colonies in the Tabula Rasa with the aim of assisting the locals and protecting them from Klingon and Romulan aggression. Fairbanks supervised Starfleet Colonial Operations teams, ordering them to establish supply lines into the region, building colonies on resource-rich planets like Jeddart in order to support further Federation activity in this new region of space.
He had hopes that the alliance Starfleet was building with the Taubat might lead to them joining the Federation, a hope that was quashed when the Taubat awoke the Metar from stasis. He then supervised the conflict with the Metar and the efforts to seal them back into their pocket universe, with the assistance of the Hubrin. (TOS video game: New Worlds)