Image by Nova1701DMS

From: Lt. Commander Ivek

To: Captain Elizabeth Raleigh, U.S.S. Lovelace

Captain,

As per your request, I have conducted a personnel assessment of Lt. Junior Grade Grixa, recently assigned to us from Starbase 11. As part of this personnel assessment, I felt it only logical to examine her personal history as well as her service record, as I felt that an examination of her background would be relevant to assessing her character as an officer.

According to her personnel file, Grixa originally came from the Ferengi frontier colony of Lohkova IV. For much of her adolescence and early adulthood, she worked with her two brothers in their father’s surveying firm, and routinely conducted atmospheric, geological and mineralogical surveys of the planetary landscape to aid in the colony’s expansion. However, while she was an adept surveyor, and had aptitude in the many scientific disciplines involved in planetary assessment, the unique restrictions of Ferengi society meant that she, as a female, could not hope to advance within the corporate structure of her father’s firm, nor could she ever attain the respect or recognition her peers. It was her frustration with this state of affairs that prompted her to leave Lokhova IV and emigrate to the Federation. 

Her decision at the time was made all the more attainable by the fact that the Dominion War had ended, allowing for safe civilian movement and settlement within the Federation once more. Furthermore, the precedent of other Ferengi finding a new career in Starfleet (cross reference file 8755.12, Lieutenant Nog, U.S.S. Defiant) encouraged Grixa to apply to the Academy, where, despite the initial culture shock of moving into a post-capitalist society, she passed with excellent grades. Upon her graduation and formal induction into Starfleet as an ensign, Grixa was soon posted to a research facility in the Kavlan Asteroid Belt, to participate in ongoing studies of a passing comet.

During Grixa’s time at this posting, her unique experience with the terraforming initiatives of her home colony enabled her to provide valuable insight towards the mineralogical and magnetic analysis of Comet Omicron-Kappa. In particular, she was able to recalibrate the station’s sensors to conduct a detailed wave form analysis of the comet’s rich deuterium core, an accomplishment that earned her the praise of her superiors. It was during the course of this analysis, however, that the station was also able to identify patterns in the unique, and aberrant, seismic activity of the comet, particularly in reaction to their attempts to penetrate the outer layer. After a full day of testing and eliminating hypotheses, the station crew came to a startling conclusion: the comet was in fact a massive spacefaring lithoid lifeform, and their attempts to mine its deuterium-based circulatory system were in fact causing it injury.

At the time, Starfleet was attempting to rebuild back to pre-Dominion War levels of operational effectiveness, and deuterium was high in demand for warp cores: without it, Starfleet would not be able to field an adequate number of ships at tactical readiness. Despite the pressing needs of Starfleet Command however, the station commander refused to conduct any further mining operations if it meant harming this creature. Ensign Grixa, notably, protested this action, arguing that all of their progress in analyzing this comet would have amounted to nothing if they could not extract the deuterium from its core. For these protests Ensign Grixa received a formal reprimand, citing her lack of ethical consideration for the safety of a possibly sentient being, before she was reposted to Starbase 11.

While Lieutenant Grixa’s reprimand is a notable spot on her record, it did not prevent her subsequent promotion in light of her ingenuity at Comet Omicron-Kappa, and I have observed that her rigour in her duties is impeccable. She has an intense and almost insatiable drive to make new discoveries and to prove herself that I have found in many of Starfleet’s best officers. She equates scientific discovery and excelling in her field with profit, believing that her contributions to the Federation’s scientific community are ultimately of benefit to her and of equal value to the monetary gain she once enjoyed. If I were to identify any points of contention, it is that her eagerness often borders on recklessness, and more than once she has disregarded proper scientific methodology in favour of– to use a Human expression– “winging it” to maximize favourable results. Furthermore, while she is fully aware that there is no possibility for financial gain within the Federation, she still has an almost fanatical zeal for the advancement of her station and the increase of her material possessions, and often cites her culture’s Rules of Acquisition as justification for her behaviour.

Even so, I believe that, with guidance and oversight, Lieutenant Grixa would in fact be a vital asset to the Lovelace’s science division. Whatever flaws or shortcomings she possesses can be overcome with experience, and I believe it is logical that she will gain that experience as a member of the Lovelace’s crew. I recognize that the Ferengi view of the universe is largely inconsistent with the values of the Federation, and as such, the presence of a Ferengi crew member would present its own unique challenges; however, the Federation functions, and thrives, on the confluence of many different backgrounds and perspectives working in tandem, and for this reason I believe that Lieutenant Grixa would be a valuable crew member, not only for her relentless scientific curiosity, but also for bringing a unique perspective that has perhaps been ignored for far too long within the Federation.

I will await your feedback before providing assignments.

Live Long and Prosper,

Lieutenant Commander Ivek

******

CHARACTER NAME: Grixa

RANK: Lieutenant, Junior Grade

PRONOUNS: She/her

ASSIGNMENT: U.S.S. Lovelace

SPECIES & TRAITS: Ferengi

ENVIRONMENT: Frontier Colony

UPBRINGING: Science and Technology

CAREER PATH EXPERIENCE

CAREER EVENT 1- Breakthrough or Invention
CAREER EVENT 2- Encounter With a Truly Alien Being

VALUES 

Rule of Acquisition #75: Home is where the heart is, but the stars are made of latinum.
Rule of Acquisition #62: The riskier the road, the greater the profit.
Rule of Acquisition #74: Knowledge equals profit.
Rule of Acquisition #35: Peace is good for business.

ATTRIBUTES

CONTROL 11
DARING 8
FITNESS 7
INSIGHT 11
PRESENCE 8
REASON 11

DEPARTMENTS

COMMAND 1
CONN 4
ENGINEERING 4
SECURITY 1
SCIENCE 4
MEDICINE 2

SPECIES ABILITY

The Great Material Continuum: Once per session, when obtaining additional equipment, you may reduce the Opportunity Cost of an item by 1, to a minimum of 0.

FOCUSES

Terraforming, Physics, Expedition Expert, Geology, Improvisation, Subspace Theory

TALENTS

Testing a Theory
Theory into Practice
Untapped Potential
Bold Science

PASTIMES

Gambling, Fashion, Stock Market Investment

ATTACKS

Unarmed Strike: Melee, Stun 2, Size 1H
Phaser type-1: Ranged, Stun/Deadly 3, Charge, Hidden 1, Size 1H

EQUIPMENT

Uniform, Communicator, Tricorder

*****

U.S.S. Lovelace (NCC-74767)

LAUNCH YEAR: 2400

TIMELINE: 2400 (1 year of service)

MISSION PROFILE: Multirole Explorer

TRAITS: Federation Starship, Nova Class, Prototype

RESISTANCE: 3 

SCALE: 3 

CREW SUPPORT: 3

SYSTEMS

COMMS 10 
ENGINES 10 
STRUCTURE 8
COMPUTER 11 
SENSORS 11
WEAPONS 8

ATTACKS

Phaser Arrays: Energy Weapon, 4, Versatile 2
Photon Torpedoes: Torpedo, 4, High Yield
Tractor Beam: Tractor/Grappler, 2

TALENTS

Advanced Sensor Suites: Whenever a character performs a task roll assisted by the ship’s Sensors, the ship may roll 2d20 for assistance rather than only one (if Reserve Power is rerouted to Sensors, one of these dice is set to a 1). This talent cannot be used if the ship is suffering one or more breaches to Sensors.

Secondary Reactors [Rank: 1]: The ship has additional impulse and fusion reactors which allow the ship to generate far greater quantities of energy. Once per scene, when you take the Reroute Power action, you may spend 2 Momentum (Immediate) to immediately regain the use of Reserve Power.

Reduced Sensor Silhouette: Through a combination of advanced alloys, EM shielding, and electronic countermeasures, the starship is difficult to detect via electromagnetic radiation and subspace

SPECIAL RULES

Experimental Vessel: When the ship is created, apply two additional refits to the ship. In addition, whenever the ship assists a task attempt, the ship’s die increases its complication range by 2 (to 18–20). A milestone refit can remove this complication range increase, representing the ship’s crew working out the problems in the prototype design.

******

So I think I should preface this by saying that I am a life long Star Trek fan. From an early age, I was hooked on Star Trek: The Next Generation: its fancy visual effects, themes of stellar exploration and discovery impressive space battles, and its overall presentation of an idealistic, utopian future for humanity captured my fervid imagination. It is a series that I have grown to appreciate all the more as an adult, as, going back to rewatch episodes, I found myself understanding and picking up on issues and nuances I had missed as a kid, and appreciating just how good the writing for the show was at the time. From TNG, I then eagerly watched all of DS9 and select episodes of the original series, before finally getting burnt out by Voyager and falling off in its latter seasons. For this reason I, perhaps unfairly, never watched Enterprise. And with Star Trek now enjoying a resurgence…well, let’s say my reception has been mixed, with me being lukewarm on Discovery, absolutely enjoying the hell out of Lower Decks and Strange New Worlds, and wavering between baffled confusion and outright horror at Star Trek: Picard’s mishandling of its title character. (Also the less said about the JJ Abrams movies, the better).

While my reception of Nu-Trek has been mixed, though, I have always been more than a little curious about Modiphius’ official Star Trek Adventures RPG. I already had the fortune of participating in one brief playthrough of the first edition rules, and thoroughly enjoyed it, and I personally know enough fellow Trekkies that running or participating in a full campaign is still something of a dream of mine. So it felt kind of obvious that, for this character creation challenge, I absolutely HAD to make a character off of this system.

For character creation in Star Trek Adventures, you fully have the option to do things like custom-make your own species, and to create anything from a Starfleet officer to a civilian crew member or someone from one of the Federation’s neighbouring/rival powers (hell, there is even a supplement that enables you to play a Klingon Empire campaign, drunken singing and all). For this challenge, I wanted to make a somewhat non-standard Starfleet crew member, from a species outside of the Federation. Initially I was toying with the idea of a Cardassian, based on one of my characters in Star Trek Online, but I ultimately decided on a Ferengi: Nog’s story arc was, in my opinion, one of the best parts of DS9, and I liked the idea of Ferengi actively choosing to move outside of the norms of their ultra-capitalist society and live for something other than profit. Given how unabashedly misogynist Ferengi society is, it made even more sense for this Ferengi officer to be female, as she would be seeking opportunities and recognition that her own society had denied her.

One of the things I love about character creation in Star Trek Adventures is that it gives consideration to events in your character’s backstory and how it shaped who they are now, and also allows you to write in four core values for this character. Over the course of the campaign, your character can grow and change, with these values either being affirmed or challenged, and possibly changing over time to reflect your character’s personal growth. To this end, I imagined Grixa as a flawed character– impulsive, eager to make a name for herself, and not yet tempered by experience or failure. Her values– literally lifted from the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition– were meant to reflect this mindset, and would hopefully change over time along with her.

As a final note, Star Trek Adventures also enables you to create a ship for the party, complete with stats, traits and abilities. As I really wanted to test this out as well, I created the U.S.S. Lovelace, one of the first of the new Nova-class line of ships that was put into service after the Dominion War. While I was tempted to make the Lovelace a pure science vessel in line with her namesake, a friend of mine pointed out that Star Trek works best when the ship in question can fulfill any task required of it, thus opening up far, far more story opportunities, and so I instead made her a multi-mission explorer.

With all of that being said, Star Trek Adventures is one of those systems that continues to nag at me in the back of my mind. I would love to participate in or run a campaign for it at some point, and if I do participate, then who knows, I might actually use Grixa. Opportunity equals profit, as they say.

Next: Tales From The Loop