John "Firefly" Arlen

Authored by Amdirgol S

Character Biography

John Arlen (call sign: Firefly) was born in 2370 in Prescott, Arizona. He was energetic, adventurous, and confident - often overconfident - from the time he figured out how to crawl, although maturity tempered this (slightly, at least). Thus, to no one’s surprise, John ended up walking through the doors of Starfleet Academy.

While not an athlete, John was still burning with energy and more daring than many, and opted to pursue the Tactical branch of Starfleet, where he excelled across the board. He immediately fell in love with every variety of fighter and nimble spacecraft the moment he was put behind the controls of one, and upon his graduation as a Tactical Officer, immediately applied to return for Advanced Fighter Combat, which was granted after a 1-year stint on the Cicero as a junior Tactical Officer and occasional helmsman. It was here that he received his callsign - in a particularly notable moment of cockiness, Lt. Arlen pushed his in-atmosphere fighter’s throttle well past the recommended limit during a low pass over the Academy and actually caught the rear of his craft on fire - an incident which got him suspended from flight operations for 2 weeks and nearly kicked out of the program, but did much more to calm and regulate the young pilot than anything else had to that point. While John remained something of a brash, hotshot fighter pilot, he also managed to learn restraint, being posted to the Air Wings of several starships in increasingly high responsibility and only catching his ship on fire once more (although that time was not his fault, he insists.) Eventually, he reached the rank of Major and took the post of CAG of Starbase 178, quickly becoming bored with the relatively monotonous location and putting in to take over as CAG on the first starship-bound squadron that had an opening.

Physical Appearance: John is in shape but not muscular, keeping himself to a high standard of appearance and always clean-shaven. He has auburn hair and light grey eyes, and generally can be found smiling, especially if he’s been in the cockpit recently.