Lieutenant Commander Alyssa Maren
Name Alyssa Maren
Position Chief Science Officer
Rank Lieutenant Commander
Character Information
| Gender | Female | |
| Species | Human/Betazoid | |
| Age | 32 |
Physical Appearance
| Height | 5' 4" | |
| Weight | 117 lbs | |
| Hair Color | Dark Brown | |
| Eye Color | Black | |
| Physical Description | Alyssa is petite with a natural beauty of which she is generally unconscious. She is vibrant in her dress and her personality. She prefers bright colors when off duty, primarily reds, purples, and blues. She likes wearing sarongs. She smiles and laughs frequently and has a bright, engaging smile. Alyssa is toned and curvaceous. Her primary forms of exercise are dancing, hiking and swimming. She was a competitive swimmer in college and still likes to spend time in the water as often as she can. |
Family
| Father | Vigo Maren | |
| Mother | Anna Roca |
Personality & Traits
| General Overview | Alyssa is generally warm and friendly. She's a tactile person who likes to touch people when she talks to them and will often hug her friends and family. She genuinely cares about others and does what she can to make her work environment a pleasant one. She loves music and has been known to play it in the lab if she has to work late. She prefers classic rock from the late 20th century Earth when she can. However, there are times when she's in a more contemplative mood and listens to classical music. Growing up, she had a series of pets, many of them strays she adopted. She had a pet monkey that traveled with her for several years and spent time in the arboretum when the botanist allowed it. In many ways he was more like a child than a pet. While she does not have a pet at the moment, she is prone to adopting strays. |
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| Strengths & Weaknesses | Alyssa is smart, cheerful, loving, considerate and can be a bit of a do-gooder. She tries to do what she feels is right. Once or twice this has put her at odds with her superiors. She generally won't break the law, but she has been known to bend it. She is stubborn and willful. On occasion she has a temper that can lead her to mouth off--which can also get her in trouble. She tends to get too involved in her work and occasionally has to be urged to leave in order to make her eat or sleep. When she works on an archaeological site, she has been known to keep a bedroll with her and sleep where she's at. Alyssa is not a fighter. Whenever possible, she will look for a way to get out of a fight, or to disable an opponent without doing serious damage. She can use a phaser, but likes creative options. |
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| Ambitions | Alyssa has a thirst for knowledge and wants to explore the galaxy. Eventually she wants to settle down on a colony with lots of ancient ruins she can excavate. She would also like to write, when she has more time. She is not against the idea of falling in love and getting married, but she has yet to find anyone who can compete with her job--or sticks around. |
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| Hobbies & Interests | Swimming, camping, fishing, hiking. She loves deserts and occasionally paints them. She's done some social dancing and occasionally goes dancing on the holodeck where no one can see her. She sings and plays the guitar. She loves to read fiction and hopes to be a writer when she stops exploring. She enjoys writing poetry. Alyssa is adept at programming and fixing computers. Mostly, she uses this to set up databases and do research. She recently took up using a blowgun, at which she has become quite adept. Languages Spoken: Standard, Spanish, Vulcan, Romulan, Bajoran, Betazoid. She reads hieroglyphics (Egyptian, Mayan, etc.) |
| Personal History | Alyssa was born November 11, 2364, on Betazed, but moved to Earth with her parents when she was still a child. She grew up in New Mexico and fell in love with the desert and would often go out hiking or horseback riding to explore. On one occasion she found an Ancestral Pueblo cave dwelling with paintings on the wall. She was fascinated with them and took several images. When she got back home, she went on her computer and looked up information on the dwelling and the painting to see what they meant. This started her fascination with history and ancient cultures. Her fascination with the Ancestral Pueblo Indians spread to other ancient inhabitants of North America, and then to Central and South America where she fell in love with the Mayan and Incan civilizations. She spent much of her free time reading and exploring. Her parents supported her interest by taking her on trips to various ancient sites during vacations. Alyssa, in turn, would study up on the area and tell her parents about the civilizations and the ruins they visited. She always took time to talk to museum curators and archaeologists about the artifacts, architecture and people of the ancient sites to learn more. She and her family made a point of going camping every summer to various scenic areas of the region to hike and enjoy the outdoors. It was her parent’s way of making sure Alyssa didn’t spend all her time studying. As a student, she did well academically and got good grades, but she often spent her free time reading rather than socializing with the other students. At home, she studied about other civilizations and cultures on Earth. She loved seeing how the different cultures interconnected and how they progressed on a global scale. She learned Spanish and how to read hieroglyphics and pictographs. She took several college courses in history, archaeology and language while she was still in secondary school. Her parents, eager to support her thirst for knowledge, helped her get on several archaeological digs during the summer as an intern. She also became fascinated with Vulcan due to its rich heritage and millennia of history. On a dig in Central America before her senior year she had the opportunity to work with a Vulcan and spent a good deal of time in the evenings talking to the other woman about Vulcan, its language and its history. When she graduated from school, she chose a university that would allow her to continue with the studies she’d begun earlier. She chose history, archaeology and language. The way she saw it, the three were interconnected. History and archaeology went hand in hand and to truly know a culture you had to study it in its native language. She added classes on anthropology and social science to help with her overall learning. Her father, a prominent architect, had friends in Starfleet Command who were happy to help Alyssa get a hands-on education on condition that she joined Starfleet after she graduated. With her degree and their sponsorship, she had. No trouble being accepted into Starfleet Academy. As she already had degrees in history, archaeology and linguistics, she took the opportunity to expand her learning and studied computer science, mathematics, and astronomy. She was quite interested in how ancient cultures used math and astronomy in their architecture and mythos, so to her they seemed a natural addition to her other areas of expertise. In the Academy, she was teased a lot about being a bookworm, but Alyssa didn't mind as she knew it was true and she much preferred learning to some of the after-hours’ activities of the other students, which reminded her a little too much of some of the college pranks she'd seen in her earlier years. But as she’d never been much of a social person to begin with, she was quite happy with the status quo. Her first assignment when she graduated was on Vulcan in the city of Shi’Kahr. She took the opportunity of being close to a major Vulcan University to study Vulcan and history from a Vulcan perspective. She especially enjoyed learning Terran history from a Vulcan. She loved the city and the culture, but between her work, her studies and her cultural explorations, she had no time for a social life yet again. She was able to get an advanced degree while learning how to be a more effective science officer. Shortly after she finished her studies she was transferred to the USS Dominguez, an explorer that spent much of its time along the galactic fringe. Most of the time they found little of interest, but she had several opportunities to discover new ruins and work with Starfleet to set up future excavations. The major down side to her discoveries was that she couldn’t stay behind to supervise the various digs. But she made sure she knew who was in charge and kept in contact so she could follow the excavation from a distance. Alyssa was next transferred to the USS Shiloh, a very different ship with a very different mission. There was very little exploring and she focused much of her work on science in general. She also had several opportunities to work with the XO on assignments where her knowledge of computers and her ability to speak “geek” was needed. Three times she was part of a team posing as a maintenance crew. Once she was tasked with “repairing” a communications malfunction while creating a back door into the database to find a report written by one of the scientists about a secret experiment while the rest of her team focused on the ship itself and its crew. Another time, she had to insert a program into the waste reclamation system that would slowly break down the ship’s emissions and allow them to track it. The third time, the team was sent to retrieve a scientific experiment and return it to the Federation without letting the pirates know they were there. As the only scientist, she made sure the experiment was safely transported and that all the data was deleted from the other ship’s computer. She found that she enjoyed this type of work and was asked to go along with most of the away teams where her knowledge of science and computers could be of use. When the Shiloh was decommissioned and the Captain retired, she accepted what was to have been a two-year assignment heading up a dig on Persis II. She gladly accepted the sabbatical as a chance to get back to a desert environment and to spend time working the entirety of a project. Her stay on Persis II was interrupted by an order to work on the USS Viper, a top-secret Intel ship. It gave her a chance to work with Intel again and show the other crew members that scientists—and science—was of use in an Intel environment. While on Persis II, she was “adopted” by a Capuchin monkey she named “Mozart.” The Capuchin traveled with her to the Viper and other assignments. He was her constant companion and took up what little free time she had. Her former CO recommended her for the job and the Viper was in need of a good science officer. The fact that she had been doing field work and thus considered of little consequence added to her being chosen for the position. However, because of the nature of the missions, her record lists her as being assigned to Subspace Relay Maintenance. It was on the Viper where she taught herself how to use a blowgun and created several types of tranquilizer darts to knock out anyone from a human to a Borg. Her blowgun has come in handy on many occasions where it is more subtle and often more effective than traditional weapons as it can be easily disguised. While on the Viper, Alyssa’s parents became gravely ill and were not expected to live. She asked for – and was granted – emergency leave. But what was expected to be a few weeks turned into months while her parents went through a series of treatments and she was put on extended leave. When they recovered, she was again put on a starship as Chief Science Officer, but it was a short-lived assignment. Starfleet Sciences sent her on a six-month tour of a number of archaeological sites to see if a pattern of colonization could be mapped. It lasted six months. On her last assignment, she ran into a friend and former colleague who asked her to join him on the USS Archimedes, where he’d just been promoted to First Officer. Her next assignment was aboard the USS Archimedes where she had a more 'normal' assignment. It was on the Archimedes that she met Jek’Lar, the Klingon Chief of Security, and fell in love. He was not at all the type of person she thought she’d want to spend her life with, but he became the one person who was more important to her than science. They became bondmates and planned for a future together. Until he was transferred to Qo’Nos to assist the Federation Consulate. It was to be a short assignment, and then he’d rejoin her on the Archimedes. But when he didn’t return, and she’d received no word after his arrival, she tried to contact him—only to be told by someone from the House of Koss that he had been called home for an arranged marriage and she was not to contact Jek’Lar or anyone from his family again. A few months later, Mozart caught a rare virus and died. She tried to focus on work, but for the first time in her life, she found no solace in science. Everything about the ship brought back memories of both Jek'Lar and Mozart. Not even her friend Teenah, the counselor, could do much. She requested a transfer and took an assignment to help set up an observation center on a planet that was being assessed as a potential colony site. It was nothing like New Mexico or Persis II, which helped. And there was enough to keep her working long hours. It gave her time to begin to heal and an excuse for not sleeping. She stayed longer than expected. During the 16-month assignment she began to heal. Not having any Klingons on the team helped. When the job was done, she stayed on for another six months as part of the survey team, then accepted the position of Chief Science Officer aboard the USS Pioneer. It was nothing like any ship she’d served on before and she planned to use it as a new start and an opportunity to throw herself into her work. And then she ran into Jek'Lar on Empok Nor... |
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| Service Record | Graduated Starfleet Academy Shi'Kahr, Vulcan - Historian, Alien Archaeologist USS Palenque - Xeno Archaeologist, Historian, Science Officer USS Dominguez - Assistant Chief Science Officer USS Shiloh - Chief Science Officer Took time off to work on an archaeological site for Starfleet on Persis II. Subspace Relay Maintenance (Classified - USS Viper, Chief Science Officer) (Leave of Absence to take care of her parents) USS Alexandria - Chief Science Officer Spent six months working for Starfleet Sciences USS Archimedes - Chief Science Officer Helped set up an observation post for Starfleet Sciences USS Pioneer - Chief Science Officer |