Matthew McLaren

Matthew McLaren is an assistant chief engineer on board the USS Boudicca. At the time of this writing he holds the rank of Lieutenant junior grade.

Author's note

Below i have written the history of my character as good as i can. I'm no writer so its not perfect but it'll give you some idea of what my character is like. At some stage i'd like to get some pics on here as well, but i am totally blind which naturally makes it a tad difficult to find a half good immage. Maybe one day grin. I chose to make my character to have been blind, but to get his sight back through some wonder of technology and thought it'd be cool to play out what it'd be like to suddenly get sight back. Should be fun.

History

pre-star fleet

Matthew McLaren was born in 2378 on Earth to 2 loving parents. In Matthew's second week of life they moved to Rigal VII where both parents worked in the mines. Unfortunately Matthew was born without the use of both eyes and was rendered completely blind for much of his life his parents not being able to aford the procedure to have implants or a visor installed. They lived a simple life. Both parents were hard working and did their best for their child, but there content lifestyle was shattered only four years later. A mining accident took the lives of both Matthew's mother and father leaving him to fend for himself. Luckily he had a distant uncle on Andoria who agreed to take him under his wing and raise him as his own. So he said... Matthew's uncle, Peter Kimmel, was a prooven smuggler of any goods he could get his hands on. In the beginning he dealt only in small ventures, but as his greed and ambition overtook his judgement he began dealing in weapons and drugs. Matthew was mostly oblivious to his uncle's work until late 2387 when he overheard a deal being hatched between his uncle and some telarites who were after high yield explosives. The deal was completed and three days later eight city blocks were destroyed on Andoria near his home. The authorities prooved the involvement of Telarites and the explosives used were the ones that Peter sold only three days earlier. Although it was never prooved that Kimmel was involved, Matthew knew the truth and decided to go to the authorities. He didn't make it out of the house before his uncle caught him. He was held at gun point and threatened never to say a word about the terrist attack. Not knowing what to do he kept quiet but only a few months later another brutal and unprevoked attack was made on Andoria by the same extremest group and Matthew, still only nine years of age, new he wanted out. After three failed attempts he made it onto a small frater as a stowaway which left Andoria and travveled to Bolorus Prime to deliver its cargo. Matthew made his escape and spent the next months living on the streets of Bolorus. At the age of ten he found a job in a hotel as a maintenance worker. He kept the fact he was blind concealed for risk that he would loose his job. Luckily he had a nack for fixing machinery and kept up this job for several years after which he worked on fraters, small cargo vessils and a transport ship all in the capasity of a maintenance worker or engineer. At the age of 16, the transport that he was working on came under attack and was crippled. Matthew, along with only two other engineers repaired the ship enough to get it to a space dock nearby. Unhappy with the life he was leading Matthew turned to alcahol and spent the next year of his life in depression as he worked on the transport. He was eventually fired because of his addiction and sent to a rehab colony where he beat his habbit and began to look for work once again. On a cargo run to an nutral outpost, Matthew met a doctor who specialised in optometry. He told Matthew that he could provide him with a visor for the right price. Matthew called in all the favers he could and bargoned for the visor and finally purchased it and it was installed. This gave Matthew only partial vision and the visor was not reliable but it was better than nothing. For the next four years he roamed, working in any job he could find until one day in 2401 where he was in a barfight on rigal XII and was badly injured. A star fleet officer who was on vacation there helped him back to health and Matthew found himself enthralled in the federation and star fleet. With nothing else to do he applied for the accadomy but he didn't expect to get in. He took the entrance exam and to his surprise was accepted and began his training at the start of 2403.

Star Fleet Accadomy

Matthew's time at the accadomy went quickly and without any major problems which was a long awaited relief after travelling around the quadrant aimlessly for 15 years. He majored in Engineering and Tactical/Security, both of which he excelled in. He was also known for throwing great parties for cadets much to the accadomy staff's dismay. In late 2406 he undertook his final exam under Lieutenant Holly Morris and was given the rank of Ensign Junior Grade.

First Assignment - Starbase Geneva

On stardate 2406.12.30 Matthew arrived at Starbase Geneva and was given the position of assistant chief engineer. He was one of the first new cadets to report on bored in the senior staff and jumped straight into his job. The station had just undergone a major refit and many of its systems were not fully opporational. Matthew spent most of his time working alone trying to get the station up and running. As the rest of the crew got to know each other Matthew found himself not able to mix as well with the rest of the senior staff because of his work which would usually take at least a double and sometimes tripple shift each day. The lack of engineers on Geneva made it difficult to keep on top of things and that made it difficult to socialise with the other crew.. To make matters worse after only a few days on the job he had a surveer annurism and was confined to the medical centre for two days. After which time he was given a clean bill of health and allowed to go back on duty. On stardate 2407.01.03 McLaren was promoted to Ensign Senior Grade after a mission involving an out of phase plannet in which they had to go on an away mission and Matthew had been the acting chief engineer on board. Through the following days Matthew completed his work on the station and had it running at nominal officiency even though there was still work to be done. To his shock on stardate 2407.01.07 the acting first officer of Geneva, Paul Casely, informed him and the other senior staff that they were being transfered to the USS Boudicca. Matthew was promoted to lieutenant junior grade and boarded the runabout to transfer him and the others to the boudicca. Just before he embarked on the transfer, he received a communique from his uncle which threatened him once again to keep his mouth shut about the attack almost twenty years ago. Matthew was naturally shocked at this message because he had been able to elude his uncle for a long time and now he had been found. His uncle also blamed him for the attack on Andoria at the start of the civil war and prommised revenge. This development unnerved Matthew but the destraction of transferring kept his mind off it and it was less worrisum now that he was moving again. On rout to the Boudicca the runbout was caught in a energy web and dragged down to a plannet where the Boudicca crew were already stranded. Both crews had to work together to escape from the plannet which was inhabbited by preindustrial humanoids who had access to advanced technology far beyond that of the federation. Matthew found the weekness in the personal shields used by the Scions and this allowed the attack on the base to be a lot easier than antissipated.

Second Assignment: USS Boudicca

After making it back to the USS Boudicca the next weeks were spent on grouping the taskforce and preparing for a mission to destroy an installation that would be heavily guarded. This is where the Boudicca is at the moment and i will update this when that mission is completed. I haven't had the chance to spellcheck yet, i'll do that later on today hopefully.

Written by Matthew McLaren on January 21 2006