Ensign Branwen Martell-Darby

Character Information

Gender		Female
Species		Xenexian
Age		26
Date of Birth		July 10, 2363
Place of Birth		Tr'tr'n, Xenex

Character Type

Starfleet ID

Serial Number		IK-683-9603
Security Clearance		Level 4
Duty Watch		Alpha

Physical Appearance

Height		158 cm
Weight		53 kg
Hair Color		Dark brown, flecked with lighter notes
Eye Color		Purple
Physical Description		Branwen's Xenexian heritage is immediately apparent from her striking purple eyes; otherwise, she appears to be a petite, healthy young woman. She has pale skin and long, brown hair that shifts colours in the light, one moment almost black, another lighting up into autumn hazel. She is short, with a fit, athletic build and a reserved, slightly mousey demeanour, a little restless, never quite at ease in her own skin. Her outward emotions tend away from the extremes, never breaking into a huge grin, nor collapsing into morose sobs, rather holding her pose enigmatically. Neat and organized, she tends to wear a formal uniform style, rarely rolling up her sleeves or opening her jacket. She wears her hair long, tying it up only when strictly needed, and eschews most accessories save a single bracelet, which she usually keeps hidden below the cuff to satisfy uniform regulations. Off-duty, she favours light pastels and earth tones, opting for comfort rather than style in her outfits. On very rare occasions she wears an intricate ceremonial braid in her hair, but this is something most people are rarely privileged to see.
Body Art		Branwen has two tattoos, though neither are usually seen. She has a traditional Xenexian script on her ribcage, and a Gaelic knot on her lower back.
Portrait

Family

Spouse		None
Children		None
Father		Unknown (biological); Hugh Martell and Bold Darby (adoptive)
Mother		Unknown
Brother(s)		None
Sister(s)		None
Other Family		The Xenexian orphanage from which she was adopted had no records of her family, and as such Branwen does not have knowledge of her extended family on Xenex. She believes her biological parents to be dead.

Personality & Traits

General Overview		Branwen is a flighty dreamer, an impressionable romantic, an eternal wanderer. Born with the stars in her eyes, she has been searching restlessly ever since for the truth of her existence in the dome above her, eventually moving to explore it as part of Starfleet. Yet the inherently unreachable nature of space means her journey never seems to be over, and she drifts, forever out of place. This attitude reflects a passion for her work - cosmology - but it also affects her personal life, where she seems to lack direction and drift from one new diversion to another. She is sociable and earnest, but difficult to truly know. Vague, and a little pretentious, her ethereal nature is not to everyone's tastes, and she inability to fix on any one thing, constantly picking up a new hobby only to abandon it later, can be frustrating to those trying to form a mutual connection. She has a whimsical side and an enjoyment of absurdity, and even while working she is prone to digressions into speculation and wonder. Not the most conscientious, and prone to lapses of concentration or attention to detail, she isn't always at ease with more single-minded scientists, but she dislikes argument and will quickly fall into line if pushed to be more attentive to her duties. She's fundamentally a bit of a dreamer: for those willing to indulge her, that can be enchanting; otherwise, her capricious nature is difficult to bear. Xenex, the planet Branwen was born on, is a world that was ruled by the Danteri for a long time, before being liberated midway through the 24th century, after which the Federation helped mediate a peace treaty. Federation personnel remained on the planet, including establishing medical facilities; her adoptive parents were working at such when she was first taken in. Xenexian culture has a highly tribal structure, with clan names - guttural and often unpronouncable to off-worlders - and ceremonies of major importance. This means that outcast children such as Branwen are at a social disadvantage, and helped inform the decision to permit off-worlders to adopt her. It is likely she was given up for adoption because her parents were from different tribes, meaning their union would have been taboo, although she does not to this day know their identities. Xenexians traditionally worship a polytheistic religion, but Branwen is not an active adherent, seeing the religion as nothing more than a collection of folk tales.
Strengths		Branwen has a very strong scientific background, with her flighty nature actually benefitting a multidisciplinary approach. She has a natural affinity for numbers and is adept at advanced mathematics; she also has advanced memory, near eidetic, with instant recall of star charts and astrometric plots. She has conducted field work in 37 different atmospheric types and has training in numerous gravity levels. She is trained in the latest Starfleet Science equipment. Her intellectual curiosity is near-insatiable: asked to research a passing comet, she will come back with everything from submolecular analysis to a projection of its path for the next millennium. Never turning down extra work in the labs, even if it means staying past her shift, she is as willing to volunteer for Away Team duty as she is to sit at a computer terminal and trawl through the archives for some long-forgotten journal publication. For a scientist, her flight and navigation skills are fairly well developed, having flown hundreds of shuttle missions researching planetary bodies. Nonetheless, she understands her limits, never taking undue risks, and always putting safety before even the most tempting of research possibilities. She works well with others and is always happy to collaborate on a scientific project; equally, in her off hours, she will take an interest in others, pursue friendships, and make sure to engage in crew social activities.
Weaknesses		Branwen's instincts are sound, but her personality is slightly off-centre, and it ends up with many people finding her to be dreamy, vague, and hard to read. While she buries herself in her work, she ignores other aspects of her duties, and as a general science officer she will often eschew important tasks for the sake of some interesting byline in research. Equally, the moment something more fascinating captures her attention, she will drop old projects and never get around to picking them up again. Her effervescence bleeds into her social life. She cancels plans at a moment's notice, drifts between friends and even romantic partners, and is reluctant to let anyone close enough to pin her down to a specific position. She has a thousand and one hobbies, and zero solid accomplishments in any of them as she will never commit. Some people get the sense she is apathetic or selfish; harsh, but possibly fair judgements that reflect how obsessive she can be about pursuing her own interests. Outside the science labs, her skill set is limited, lacking training in Engineering - while she can use advanced equipment, she has little idea of how to put it together again - Security/Tactical, or Medical fields. She is also slightly blind to social cues, sometimes insulting senior officers or foreign dignitaries, other times slighting friends and colleagues. A slim, petite young woman, she barely meets Starfleet physical standards and is not much use in a fight.
Ambitions		Branwen's driving desire is to explore the universe, a rather lofty goal that understandably is difficult to put into practical, achievable ambitions. Equally, she is torn between her instincts as a researcher, and as an explorer: between describing and explaining the cosmos, and getting out there and actually experiencing it for herself. All of this means she cannot easily pin down her own ambitions. She is uninterested in attaining rank, and sees Starfleet merely as a vehicle to achieve her goals, or at least better realize what those goals actually are. She doesn't compete for promotions or advancements. She will, however, vie for select assignments, and for opportunities to engage in field work, to take a shuttle out, or to lead a research team, all of which sometimes means jockeying for station and stature. Knowing little of her past and choosing to reject her culture at an early age, her curiosity to discover more of her family and origins has stirred up, and she is cautiously investigating the history and sociology of Xenex. Nonetheless, she still embraces her adopted culture and is constantly striving to become more human and adapt to those who chose to accept her.
Hobbies & Interests		Branwen's hobbies are innumerable, but reflect her flighty nature. She has taken up half a dozen musical instruments, and mastered none; unfinished drawings, paintings, even sculptures litter her quarters; and every week she is off the holodeck to try out some new program, only for another to catch her eye instead. A few things she has managed to stick at include Betazoid Yoga, Bajoran pottery, and Vulcan harmonic poetry. She is also an extremely adept chess player.
Vernacular		Branwen has a soft, light voice reflecting her rather dreamy nature. Her accent is flavoured with a very slight Irish lilt, though much less pronounced than those of her adoptive fathers. She tends to speak quickly, to umm and ahh a great deal, and to drift off mid-sentence when something new catches her eye.
Orientation		Bisexual
Language(s) Spoken		Federation Standard, beginner level in numerous other languages without mastering any

Personal History		Br'n'n M'l'nd'ra was anonymously placed left outside an orphanage on Xenex when she was less than one day old. Efforts to trace her ancestry proved fruitless, given the incomplete records that were a legacy of the planet's turbulent history. A possible reason for her abandonment was found when she was diagnosed with Xenexian Infant Flu; she was gravely ill for much of the first year of her life, during which time she was cared for by a Starfleet doctor, Hugh Martell, and his partner, Bold Darby, at a Federation medical facility on the planet. Given the clan structure of Xenex, an unwanted child was something of an outcast, and Martell and Darby offered to adopt her and give her a life she would not be able to have on her homeworld. She left the planet before saying her first word, and has not returned since, cancelling a planned trip to research her ancestry when she was told she would not be welcomed by those who regarded her as an outsider. Instead, she grew up in a succession of Starfleet facilities, before her foster parents returned to the New Ireland colony. Loving parents who doted on her, she grew up with the privilege of access to advanced Starfleet equipment, and only the colour of her eyes ever marked her as different than the other children playing with model ships. Soon model ships became toy telescopes. Her early life, during which her parents frequently travelled, introduced her to the wonders of space, and the fascination remained long past infancy: while other teenagers snuck out to party, her late nights were spent gazing up at the stars or paying black market shuttle pilots for covert solar skims. Though largely stuck on her colony world once her parents settled, her imagination was limitless, and she could always be found investigating galactic models and building holosims of interesting planetary phenomena. Xenexians traditionally undergo a rite of passage called The Search at the age of 13, where they travel to a dangerous area known as The Pit, without supplies, and hope to undergo a vision quest which will guide them in their life choices. Living in New Ireland at the time, Branwen was unable to undergo such a quest and sceptical of its value, but seeking to ensure she did not lose her cultural identity, her adoptive parents encouraged her to explore alternative options. As such, she built a holographic simulation of The Pit and underwent an extensive journey through it. She did not receive a vision and was disheartened; however, when she deactivated the program, the first thing that struck her was the beauty of the night sky above, and how she had missed out on it by losing herself in the false program. It was then that she decided to commit to exploring the stars for her life goal. Restlessly searching for answers to the big questions of the universe, her studies took her to the divergent paths of physics and philosophy, which she united by studying them in a dual degree at the University of Oxford, on Earth, her parents' home planet; during her time there, she visited Ireland, their ancestral home, and met the extended family of her foster fathers. She was an able student, but was prone to taking lengthy, unannounced trips out to fly the Jovian Run, and never really settled in the Oxford community. Realizing that Starfleet was the true means to achieve her goals, she applied for Starfleet Academy, being accepted on her second attempt. At the Academy, her restlessness continued. She changed her majors twice, from stellar cartography, to astrophysics, before settling on cosmology; even then, she was taking courses as diverse as evolutionary biology, and ancient Vulcan gender history, well into her senior year. She was never considered a top student, but she did well enough to pass and earn her pick of assignments, promptly selecting a science mission.
Starfleet History		Branwen's first term of service was on the USS Mao Zedong, a decommissioned ship in permament geosynchronous orbit of the M109 homeworld and now serving as a scientific research base. Her tour of duty was brief and mostly uneventful, earning a commendation for her work on deep background radiation, and a citation for an unauthorised shuttle trip to investigate an asteroid. The slow pace of life on the Mao convinced her to apply for a new station, this time aboard the USS Galileo, where she would be able to gain more experience in the field, and in 2390, she was reassigned.
Medical History		Branwen had Xenexian Infant Flu as a young child, but was healed through the wonders of Starfleet medicine. Since then she has been mostly healthy. Branwen is a Xenexian, and as such has certain unusual physical characteristics. Her eyes are an iridescent shade of purple, and her skin is pale and bronze-hued. She can engage in spontaneous homeostatic thermoregulation. This means that she can lower her body temperature when exposed to extreme heat or raise it when in extreme cold, thus giving her a slight advantage in hostile environments, as well as potentially deceiving thermal imaging technology. Additionally, Branwen enters an estrus cycle once every three months, during which time she becomes fertile and has a pronounced breeding instinct; she takes drugs to suppress the more extreme effects of this cycle but cannot conquer it entirely. A few Xenexians are low-level empaths, but Branwen has not manifested such abilities.
Service Record		2381 - 2384: MA (1st class honours) in physics and philosophy, Cochrane College, University of Oxford, Earth 2384 - 2385: MPhil in theoretical physics, University of Pacifist Studies, Earth 2385 - 2389: Double major in cosmology and planetary science, Starfleet Academy 2389 - 2390: Astrophysicist, USS Mao Zedong 2390: Cosmologist, USS Galileo

Character Progression System

CPS Option		ENABLED
Primary Band		Science
Secondary Band		Flight Control

Skills and Perks

Basic Skills		Intelligence + Education Perception + Insight
Department Skills		Science + Research Flight Control + Support Craft Pilot
Department Perks		Science + Academia Flight Control + Navigator

Skill Training