command Commander Bass Th'ichalloq - (Andorian, First Officer)

[GleefulNihilism]

 So we're going for SNW Pre-TOS era? Because I did have an idea. The pic is the wrong era but gets the job done I think. [Aren't disciplines capped at 5?]

Bass Th'ichalloq AKA "D'akturak" AKA "The Bass-Thich"
Commander, XO

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Lifepath

Species: Andorian
Environment: Frontier Colony
Upbringing: Agricultural/Rural (A)
Starfleet Academy: Command
Career: Experienced Officer
Career Events: Ship Destroyed, Cultural Exchange

Attributes Control 11 Insight 7 Daring 11 Presence 8 Fitness 11 Reason 8

Disciplines Command 4 Engineering 2 Conn 2 Science 1 Security 5 Medicine 2

Values

• We Stand Together.
• I Don't Believe In A No-Win Scenario.
• I Want To Believe.
• Don't Reject Passion.

Talents

• The Ushaan
• Tough
• Dauntless
• Veteran

Focuses

• Endurance
• Tactics
• Composure
• Discipline
• The Art of War
• Survival

 

 

Edited May 14, 2023 by GleefulNihilism (see edit history)

[GleefulNihilism]

Distinguishing Marks: Bass has an array of scars on his body, including a dramatic scar above his right eye starting near where the eye socket meets the nose and continuing past the antennae and going under his hairline. His medical records will also show that the corresponding antennae was regenerated and that most of his fingers, toes, and the eye that corresponds to his scar are all biosynthetic.

Character Description: Muscular and with a posture that tells you instantly that he's a graduate of Laikan Military Academy, it sometimes seems like he doesn't wear the uniform so much as it holds him back. Does keep his hair short as per regulation but feels naked without some facial hair. Is fully aware that the scars on his body including the one on his face could be removed but refuses to do so out of principle, calling his scars "The Poetry of Soldiers" and believing getting rid of them would dishonor fallen comrades.

Personality: There's a reason he's been nicknamed "The Bass-Thich", intentionally coming close to but not quite copying a set of syllables that are dirty words in multiple languages. Because he has a rare combination of Ruthlessness and Tactical-Mindedness that can be horrifying to behold but is better on your side. He's been honed like an Ushaan-Tor and knows it, and he uses it so others don't have to. It's not that he doesn't believe in the principles of the Federation, far from it. It's just he knows this is a cold universe where the ideals of the Federation are sometimes just a child's fantasy - but if he got to make the choice he'd pick the fantasy to reality every time.

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Bio: Bass is a Survivor of the Failed Colony of Almaria. How it failed exactly is still a mystery, all that's known is that Almaria was on a planet where it was a known fact that the winters could get too cold even for Andorians and somehow the environmental controls failed and weren't fixable. About 80% of the colonists froze to death before help could arrive, the then teenage Bass had frostbite so bad that he actually lost most of his fingers, all of his toes, one of his antennae, and one of his eyes. When rescued he still managed to stay conscious long enough to help the teams locate other survivors.

When he healed and the lost parts replaced the now orphaned Bass was offered a sponsorship with Andoria's Laikan Military Academy, which he graduated with distinction among the Honor Gaurd and used that to apply to Starfleet. He believes he survived for a reason, and Starfleet may be the best way to find the reason. His instructors at Laikan and Starfleet Academy could tell right away that this cadet was someone to watch, as he just has that Will. You can see it in his eyes. Like he's a throwback to an earlier century, and if he had been born before Andorians got Warp Drive he would have been on an Ice-Cutter ship exploring the Frozen Seas.

He picked up the nickname "The Bass-Thich" during his Kobayashi Maru "No-Win-Scenario" Exam when he actually "beat" it - by maneuvering the simulated Romulan Warbirds near the titular ship then blowing up the Kobayashi Maru himself to take the Warbirds with it. It's not that he didn't try to rescue the civilians, but when it became obvious that the Romulans in the Simulation had made that impossible he figured a quick death was preferable, and there was a good chance the whole scenario was a Romulan trap anyway. Most certainly not a Win in the conventional sense, but he ended the simulation with his simulated crew still alive which definitely counts as a Win in the eyes of many of his instructors.

He fought in the Klingon War and has the medals to prove it, and he likes to think he did a lot of good there at least as what can be done in a War. He's more proud of what he did afterwords though to maintain the peace. In Klingon mythology there's a monster called the "D'akturak", a sort of Honorless Bogeyman made of Ice and Snow said to slay all that cross it's path including eating the flesh of Klingon Children. Completely fictional of course, except reports were coming in of one actually being spotted in the southern mountain ranges of Qo'nos. It didn't help the local hunting parties that Klingons semi-secretly have some of the worst Tolerances for Cold in the Galaxy. So when the Klingon High Council deemed the Federation worthy enough to offered an invitation to send some representatives join the next hunting party, Bass happily volunteered.

Not many Starfleet Officers get to say they got to Kill the Bogeyman. It was a bit of a tragedy that it turned out to just be a genetically modified Mugato Ape, modified so heavily that it wasn't going to survive long anyway, and they never figured out who did the modifications exactly, but relations between the Federation and the Empire improved because of it. That a Warrior race have nicknamed him after their Bogeyman is something he views as a bonus as well.

Now given his first assignment as a First Officer, the hope seems to be that his Captain will mold him into something more Federation standard. A little bit.

[GleefulNihilism]

We need to hammer out anything?

[GleefulNihilism]

Sidenote @TiffanyKorta - Probably not going to be important or ever brought up but I did remember that it is absolutely Canon that a traditional Andorian Marriage has four participants, but depending on how canon you consider the novels some material says the Andorians have 4 sexes.

I was going to ignore this since I can’t think of a way for this to logistically make any sense. If you want to do *something* with this, I’m open to the general idea. I would just prefer to put more thought into it then what has come before.

[whoiam]

As someone who plays an Andorian First Officer in another game... Well, honestly, it really doesn't come up much. *shrug* Mostly because her spouses and children aren't on the ship, so they're basically just background details.

But the best explanation I ran across more or less comes out as this: Think of it like Kangaroo reproduction. Kangaroos give birth very early on in development compared to humans, but the newborn then relocates into the pouch to continue developing. Except in Andorians, the pouch and the ovaries belong to separate genders (the zhen has the pouch and then shen has the overies).

As for the two male genders, the given explanation is that Andorian DNA is structured with chromosomes that bind together in triplets (i.e. a Triple-Helix) instead of pairs (like a human's Double-Helix). One chromosome each comes from the thaan, the chan, and the ovum of the shen. Going by the descriptions given of the process (that reproduction needs to happen in a specific order, thaan/shen then chan/shen) I assume that the thaan's chromosomes bind to those of the chan and shen on specific sides (and the chan and shen's chromosomes cannot bind directly to each other without a thaan's in between), which is why you need one of each male gender.

Net result, three genders required to produce a baby, and a fourth required to gestate it.

Edited June 7, 2023 by whoiam (see edit history)

[GleefulNihilism]

I’m pretty sure biologists have nightmares about that scenario. Seems horrifically inefficient, even by the standards of evolution. Personally, I’d instead go “It’s a metaphor for Romance, Sexuality, and Gender Identity all being more Complicated than you’d expect”.

But like I said, this is probably not going to come up anyway. I’m just saying that if it does I’m hoping for more thought then the Impossi-Kangaroo Scenario.

[whoiam]

23 minutes ago, GleefulNihilism said:

I’m pretty sure biologists have nightmares about that scenario.

I cannot speak for Bass, of course, but Zy would absolutely love to be known as the Biologist's Nightmare. Were the choice up to her, she'd have added the Andorians' extra genders purely to mess with the science nerds.

She'd probably also be happy with Impossi-Kangaroo. Kangaroos have a mean punch, therefore that name is clearly a compliment...

 

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Personally, I figured that it was not so much that an advanced mammal had ended up developing extra genders, but more that the distant ancestors of the Andorians had been something along the lines of specialised eusocial insects. (Extreme specialization makes far more evolutionary sense in organisms that are relatively simple and numerous, since the individual members aren't flexible enough to perform multiple roles but they do have a lot of bodies to throw at the problem...) So they had a 'worker' gender (which eventually became zhen), an 'egg-producing' gender (shen), and a couple of specialised breeder genders (which became thaan and chan).

I don't have a great idea for why they had two male genders instead of just one, but if I had to, I'd guess they were originally used to produce different genders of offspring (say, a thaan/shen pairing produces workers and a chan/shen pairing produces fertile breeders), until one particular lineage found that their offspring were stronger and smarter if the shen was fertilized by both at once, and after enough generations of double-fertilization, shens lost the ability to conceive from only a single gender...

 

[GleefulNihilism]

Admittedly I trained more Physics then Biology, but I suppose that works on *some* levels but definitely not others.
 

Did have a Betazoid in a game once who went out of his way to de-mystify the Telepathy. According to him, Betazoids were Telepathic because “we had a relatively recent ancestor that was a schooling fish and we still have those dumb fish brains, that’s it”. So I can’t say “relatively recent hive insect ancestor” explanation doesn’t have *some* appeal.

[GleefulNihilism]

Also worth mentioning, I do intend to play with the tropes a bit with Bass. Don't want to be boring No-Personality-Kick-Ass-Warrior afterall. 😛