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okay folks. what do you want to play?

for right now, as we are in the nascent stages, we can keep this loose and free. it is wide open. also, you aren't necessarily bound to any of your choices just yet. there will be plenty of time for adjustment. this is just an opportunity for some good old brainstorming. your descriptions and character concepts need not be exhaustive. i just wanted people to voice preferences here. maybe a character sketch of two or so sentences. or even simply a name, species, and rank (if you choose to play a federation crewmember).

if you're not sure what you're interested in playing, say so. maybe some of us can help.

in the coming weeks i will post a synopsis of the campaign. just for right now know that your character will be on a defiant-class ship (with a complement of 40 crewmembers) on the dominion side of the worm-hole after the federation-dominion war.

Uh, who won that war?

I think I'd like to be a vulcan. Maybe a medical or science officer of some sort.

the federation. john, can i get a confirmation on that?

a vulcan science/medical officer sounds hella tight.

I want to play a Bjoran. Not sure what job. Not engineer though as that is what I was last time.

Either Captain/1st officer or Security officer

I really like the shapechanging guys (Odo on DS9), but that might be a little weird given the context of the game. A ferrengi might also be really fun. If you don't mind, next time we get together bring some of the books, I'd love to flip through them and read about the various races, planets, etc.

[edit: What about the black goo that killed Tasha Yar? Can I play goo?]

Reading up a little more on things, and playing a Skrreean might be cool as well.

I think I'm gonna play something exotic. Like a human.

Lovely.

Geez I miss you guys

skrreeans are fine by me, andy.

other andy, i'm not allowing humans. none. at all. how's that for exotic?

you should definitely play, simon!

Apparently not good enough...I spent last night explaining the post deep space 9 situation and how cool it would be. DS9 is one of her Favs, you see. She said that sounds really cool but then asked if this was the weekend group. I said yes. She said no way...schedule wise. Me sad

I would have like to play a Cardassian

So, I'm thinking here's probably the deal.

Dr. Leitha (house name to be determined) is a Betazoid. She comes from one of the great houses. In accordance with tradition, she was bonded genetically with a member of another great house at infancy, with the intent that they should mate. This would hardly bear mention except that it would turn out badly later.

I'm a little unclear on the dominion war timeline, but I imagine having your homeworld taken over would be the kind of thing that spurs a lot of people into signing up to kick some ass, which would explain Leitha's history in starfleet where she was a science officer specializing in xenoanthropology and archaeology, which turns out to be more useful than it sounds, particularly if you're a telepath with an interest in telepathic contact with people pretty much entirely unlike yourself. Her background has been critical in analyzing intelligence from unfamiliar species and she is thoroughly respected and well published.

Leitha's intended husband would enter the picture peripherally. An arrogant, fairly useless sort of historian and self-acclaimed poet (This may be unfair, he did manage to garner a few awards before, well...), he didn't meet a pleasant end. Leitha would be in the starfleet team that made first diplomatic contact with a number of races and factions who had no particular reason to love starfleet before, even if they had pressing reason to unite with them now. As a diplomatic gesture, and because Traise wouldn't leave it lie, the historian would be included in one of these missions. It looked a little funny when he was the only casualty. It looked even funnier when Leitha continued negotiations and eventually succeeded in achieving the federation goals for the mission, minus one Betazoid historian. Accusations were bound to be made by Traise's family. Naturally, they were.

The problem with species that lack telepathy is that they are often very wrong about people's motives. Leitha isn't callous, she just has a particular kind of common sense. She's not cruel, she wouldn't have bumped him off, but most of her colleagues still couldn't manage to put it past her to have done so, however erroneous they may have been. She came through the investigation alright, but somewhat embittered. It had cost her quite a bit of time and time is work and work is discovery. The war was over, they said and Betazed free of its conquerors. She had been going to leave to be married. If that pompous ass had stayed at his science station in a distant sector, children might be on the horizon, and they had seemed like a thoroughly worthwhile endeavor. Without the man, though, the idea seemed even better. Also, not so pressing. Further, it's hard to find a mate when people think you offed your last one and you don't feel like clarifying yourself to a bunch of telepaths, because there are a number of other things that you really might prefer not to share that aren't so dire, but that don't necessarily paint a pretty picture.

So it seemed like an opportune moment to leave starfleet. The freedom suits Leitha better, but being planetside doesn't, so much. If you're not out looking for trouble, it might find you first. She needed a ship and someone who understood her worth enough to put up with her specimen collecting and constant analysis of everything. Also someone who doesn't mind Doom, the teleraptor (a princely early wedding gift from Traise; it's not like she could give it back, exactly) or the training flights in the zero g training room with the weird bird-space-suit prototype. Or her occasional tendency to forget that people get uncomfortable around telepaths. Or her language and tendency to drink and whore and start fights and leave to let everyone else hurt themselves when she's drunk, which is fairly often. Or the moments when she decides that the advancement of science is far more important than safety. Or that perfectly harmless bugs don't look perfectly harmless to anyone else. In fact, if she weren't really good, it'd be hard to imagine why anyone would put up with her. Her own people certainly prefer not to, thinking she's tainted by outworlder thought and behavior.

Also, JC, I'm way open to suggestion if there's something in your head that would help or improve any of this.

Also, as an addendum, I'd like to note that Leitha gave her fiance a very, very rare beetle specimen in a jar. The beetle is from the Vudar Enclave and regarded as an ancient symbol of familial prosperity because although it mates only once every 35 or so years and lays only 2 eggs, the beetle is adept at protecting and providing for its young before entering a dormant phase that may last up to 10 years. The beetles may live for up to 200 years.

She was certain to get it back.

if you guys have some free time, can those of you who haven't already done so submit player sketches so that i may print them out and commit them to memory?

i know free time's a rare commodity these days, so i'll take whatever i can get. if you can only manage to write name, position, and a two sentence description, that's fine by me. it's just been over a month since chargen and my old brain can't remember that far back all too clearly.

hey mordraine, are you still planning to play a starfleet liason officer?

winter, refresh my memory. is your ship called "tiger's claw"?

thanks, d00d!

Taban Latha
Bajoran
Born Stardate: 14123.28

Taban got mixed us with the Bajoran resistance at an early age after his father was killed for stockpiling weapons against the Cardassians.

After the Bajoran's became free of Cardassian rule Taban joined on the Tiger's Claw. After a few years he proved himself to the captain and became the tactical officer.

Taban is loyal to his captain and his people. He doesn't like the idea of the Bajoran's trying to join the Federation but accepts it and as a result accepts any Federation officers on board.

However, he will not accept the presence of a Cardassian and has been known to pick fights with them on neutral ground.

nice! bajoran with a chip on his shoulder: check.

got your character background over pm, cthulhu. well done.

In 20 years, Leitha has had 7 different faces by surgical alteration and a handful of names. She barely remembers her original face and when she looks at old pictures it seems foreign. Leitha had a house name, it had been one of the Betazoid great houses. She'd had a handsomely politically advantageous fiance who died playing at the role of diplomat, a post garnered through his mommy's connections. He'd had the poor taste to do it in the same room with Leitha, who kept working and has been working ever since. The politics of the situation left her with a bad taste in her mouth and the allure of being a spy too great to pass by. Betazoids and humans mostly look the same anyway and Leitha now sports a human set of eyes, complete with their own unique retinal pattern, in entirely unremarkable brown.

The captain and Leitha served together in Leitha's earliest starfleet experiences. One woman joined starfleet, another one altogether turned up as the new ship's pilot. It was this crew that penetrated enemy territory and planted the telepath deep in the heart of Dominion territory and retrieved intermittent intelligence and ultimately performed the silent extraction when it became too dangerous to remain.

Leitha is a scientist and a woman of the universe, an adventurer and occasional hell-raiser. She likes bugs and birds, invertebrates, and a front seat on the edge of disaster with a bottle of whisky. She has sunk the formidable force of her determination lately into training the second generation teleraptor to replace its dying and blind predecessor, an early wedding gift from the now forgotten fiance. Her specimen collection, both live and dead, mostly takes over her quarters and most people stay away on the grounds that alien bugs in cases are, in fact, pretty fucking creepy.

Leitha herself seems to have tremendous presence and an overwhelming confidence. Sometimes, it's a drawback. She avoids her former people since it's hard to lie to telepaths and there's always the chance that one would put together that something isn't quite right. Not that it's necessarily a problem, but it's easier to keep life uncomplicated. There are more important things to do.

i found your pc portrait, captain r'ath. better late than never? you be the judge:



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