Wendell Vaughn

Authored by Mike Monte

Character Biography

Rank: Lt. Cmdr.
Chief Science Officer, USS Memorial
Previous Assignments: USS Lexington, USS Aztec (Both Decommissioned), also Starbase 93. as CSO
USS Discovery: Junior Science Officer; prior, Cadet
Starfleet Academy: Cadet
Eyes: Blue Hair: Brown, short
Date of Birth: May 20th
Place of Birth: On the human colony world of Mariposa

Marital Status: Single, no children
Parents: Gilbert (Father), Lisa (Mother, deceased)
Siblings: Gayle (Sister, deceased)

Education: Starfleet Academy, 93 percentile ranked, cross trained for Security (first year) and Engineering (Second year)
Formal Academic Training: Ship’s operations, sensors, transporter diagnostics, Galactic Phenomenology
Bridge: CSO

Star Fleet Career Summary:
Wendell was born on the human colony world of Mariposa, in the Ficus sector. Classified as M class, this ringed world was settled by Humans from the SS Mariposa in the mid-22nd century. This planet was located half a light year from the Bringloid system.
After he graduated from the Academy, he was assigned as cadet to the USS Discovery. He was promoted to Lt. Jg, as Assistant Chief Science Officer, in charge of the Night Watch. Later he was re-assigned to the Starbase 93, as CSO, then to the USS Lexington as the CSO.

Published books:
“Shuttles: Unsafe at Any Speed”
“17 reasons not to have a holodeck on your ship”
“Using replicators takes less power than foraging, storing, and cooking your own damn food”
“Transporters: Likely to malfunction in a really odd way at the most inopportune time”
“The most boring job in Starfleet: That guy on the bridge who stands up for the whole time”
“Time travel: Destiny or coincidence? Or, how to be your own great grandfather”

Background:
Wendell’s father, Gilbert, is one of the Federation’s premier research scientists. He’s an archaeologist who sits on the Federation Science Council. He specializes in alien artifacts. Wendell’s mother, Lisa, was a fellow scientist who assisted Gilbert in his studies. His sister, Gayle was a promising science student.

Wendell never actually wanted to go into Starfleet or science himself. He wanted to be a stage magician. After years of study in that field, he finally enlisted in Starfleet as an engineer.

That didn’t work out too well for him. While at the Academy, he “fixed” the training Warp Drive Simulator by substituting active antimatter for the inert version. This led to a systematic warp core breech, which threatened the entire west coast of North America.

He switched disciplines to the security officer-training course. During a routine field mission, while donning an isolation suit prototype, he stepped on a sharp stick in the woods. This tore the suit. The delicate circuitry in his boot was damaged. This led to a suit malfunction. This resulted in the exhibition of the exact opposite desired effect during a war games exercise.

Instead of cloaking him with invisibility, it lit up like a search beacon in the dead of night. This was actually a safety feature of the suit, used in survival situations, so a passing ship can easily locate the user.

To this date, he still holds the record for being shot the most times with a hand phaser during that exercise.

He decided to go into the field that his instructors had recommended, one that he was all too familiar with: science. He started as a generalist, excelling in all fields. Now he’s a galactic phenomenologist.

When he was a teenager, his family often encamped for months at a time at locations where his dad’s field research took them. He was excavating a recently discovered ancient city on a class M planet. This was a world that had previously been used as a distant planetary outpost by the ancient and now extinct Tkon Empire. Thatw was an ancient and powerful space federation that existed over 600,000 years ago, and was now extinct due to their star going supernova.

The left behind, hidden and in deep stasis, a biological weapon, which took the form of a genetically altered life form (GELF). When activated, the GELF killed most of the Federation research team, including Wendell’s mother and sister.

Wendell’s hobbies include outdoorsman (camping, hunting, fishing) and stage magic.