Faith Hopkins

Authored by David Fergusson

Biographic Information

• Position: Captain's Yeoman on USS Merrimack
• Rank: Crewman
• Species: Human (North American)
• Weight: 148 lbs
• Height: 5' 06"
• Age: 26

Actions Available

View

List all posts

Character Biography

Faith has had a weird upbringing. Until the age of 5 she lived in New York, United States of America, Earth, where she attended a Star Fleet Kindergarten, but she claims that she then visited practically every space station that existed. That is probably as slight exaggeration, though her father was away a lot, or else they had to move frequently to be with him. She always resented her father for being gone all the time. For a few years, she felt more than resentful. She felt betrayed. Faith felt he cared more about his job then he did about her and her mother. Her mother, Janice Hopkins neé Glen, was originally from the European Hegemony, Earth. Her mother’s family were all Starfleet officers. Her very first memory is of a Starfleet Captain, probably an uncle, visiting the house. Her grandfather was an Admiral in Starfleet.

Faith’s father, Gerald Hopkins, was an engineer, from the United States of Africa, however, Faith’s knowledge of all things African is rather poor. In his youth Gerald played Soccer for the junior United States of Africa team for three years. Gerald was the famous inventor of Waldos, a brilliant scholar and a wealthy philanthropist. Waldos are those teleoperated devices used for handling things remotely, such as radioactives, and other dangerous professions, microsurgery, mining coal and uranium, work under deep oceans or in vacuums. Faith never saw much of her father as he was rarely at home, and then there was a reported accident on Jupiter Station and he died when Faith was almost 6. Faith has very early memories of her father’s experiments using Dolphins to operate these devices.

Gerald created a team who used positronic scanners, capable of emitting high-frequency interphasic energy pulses, to create an interphasic neutralising field around items of value, to examine them when they couldn’t be otherwise touched.

The lab accident was a cover up. Some believe there was an error in some experiment. Some believe that Gerald was actually murdered by Klingons who feared that his amateur archaeological research into an ancient Iconian stone would bring greater co-operation between the Empire and the Federation. John Glen had believed it was Romulans, but later saw evidence of the Klingons.

On the polished stone was a map of intergalactic space lanes between class M planets, not all of them inhabited, and it goes beyond known space, outside of the alpha quadrant into the beta quadrant and beyond that. It is not known who originally found it, or where, but it had lain in the Alpha Centuari Museum among a pile of other rocks and never attracted any interest until discovered by Gerald and borrowed for further research. There was an emblem and a strange script that could not be deciphered, but which matches old Zibalian and the Zibalian culture is rich in rumours of ancient Gods who could travel via portals.

Faith’s mother took Gerald’s death very badly. She moved away from Earth and took Faith to Eta Cassiopeia, also known as Terra Nova, for a new start. The community known as the Sons of the New Earth helped her mother when she needed compassion and a shoulder to cry on. The Cassiopieans looked after their every need and in return they gave over all their property and worked for the good of the brotherhood. The clothing worn within the brotherhood was simple and plain, and there were only two colours allowed; black or white. Hair had to be worn short; no jewellery was to be worn.

Life there was a little basic; it was one of Earth’s first colonies but contact had been lost during World War III and only re-established about a Century ago. The Cassiopieans or the Sons of New Earth; they settled there believing it was the ‘New Heaven’ prophesised in John’s ‘Revelations’ and waited for ‘Babylon’ or the Federation to fall. They tried to establish themselves on Vulcan but gained no response.

They banned all communication devices and any kind of new technology and life was very puritanical. No alcohol of any kind was allowed, no dancing, no musical instruments, and only the singing of hymns on the seventh day. Life was simple there but baking bread and cakes was allowed. Homemade jam tarts still remind Faith of her time there, one of the few pleasures possible.

They are anti-abortionists and hold the principle of respect for human life, in particular the life of the unborn child.

There were a number of Germans in the Sons of the New Earth, who spoke about the Munich Oktoberfest with great scorn due to its drinking and dancing. Before she became fully immersed within the cult this already tweaked Faith’s curiosity about the outside world, and it stayed in her memory until later. She can’t play any instruments and claims that she is not very musical, which she puts down to her time in the sect. But Faith still listens to antiquated 20th Century rock music, and can recount the lines from ‘Rolling Stones’ songs, so that cannot be altogether true.

Faith’s mother was at very low ebb when they joined the sect and somehow got completely drawn in, believing in their teachings about pursuing the truth; and of government based conspiracies, but luckily they both survived the experience, and eventually they broke free of the influence of the sect with the help of Faith’s uncle, Captain John Tiberius Glen.

Faith speaks three languages; English, Afrikaans and Dutch. She speaks English with an indiscernible accent. She would like to learn German. Faith’s schooling by the brotherhood was a little unorthodox. Priests were employed to teach small groups of children, or individual students, where they would learn to read the ‘Principe’ (the New Earth Bible sent down from Heaven by an angel), and to write about these scriptures and the Brotherhood’s teaching. The teachings by the brothers were in subjects like Temperance, Astrology, Creationism, Aromatherapy, Acupuncture and Vulcan Massage. There were also studies about the Philosophy of the Founder, Joshua Jones, and detailed analysis of his writings and speeches about the evils of Psychiatry, Psychology, Mechanology, Technology and Materialism. Interestingly they made use an interactive book ‘The Young Ladies Primer’ that had been created by an associate of Joshua Jones and which seems at odds with their teachings. Apart from that book they weren’t allowed access to any modern technology, or to contact anyone off world, even by written letter.

Boxing was taught, but physical violence was frowned upon. Nevertheless Faith found that ‘The Young Ladies Primer’ taught other forms of unarmed combat. Faith was a boxing champion, and Krav Maga; a mixed-martial arts, combative and self-defence system, trained. She was skilled in boxing, judo, jujitsu, and aikido.

She had met few alien races until she went to Starfleet Medical. During her time in the Brotherhood she had spent her time in contact with white humans of Germanic decent only. She never saw an Aurora on Terra Nova.

Faith was still young when she joined, and she didn’t understand what was going on at that time, but they were always kept in a status of worthlessness. She could never sleep right; she was zero spiritually, and she never had a moment to think about what they told her. Eventually, she transferred to the stage of parroting: she would take all the sentences she was told and retell them back again. Faith just became a Zombie, an automaton with no personality, no memory, not even the ability to speak. She was a living body without a soul.

It was one of those colonies known more commonly as ‘cultist’. The Cassiopieans believed that people like Faith’s mother, born on the 29th February, were special. Every four years they organised this ‘Festival of Love’ in May as a way of boosting the chances of having further leap-day children the following year. Her mother was important to them; she was their ‘Elect of God’.

Faith never believed what they taught about the ‘good’ people who were inside the community, and ‘bad’ people who were everyone else. After about 9 years, she managed to get a message out to John Tiberius Glen, her mother’s brother, hidden within some hand-made clothing. The family were able to organise a break out from the compound led by John. He stormed their compound, a little gung-ho though, even for him. It was difficult because Faith’s mother was still unwilling to leave and had to be kidnapped, but it all worked out in the end. Her mother had to be removed against her will, screaming all the way about the pseudo scientists and terrorist psychiatrists who were out to get her. Faith only learnt later that it had all been pretty nasty.

The dormitories of the sect smelt like a combination of old socks, arm pits, urine and bad breath. Faith later compared them to a chemical recreation of cat pheromones used to attract Ginger the cat from among the Merrimack Warp Engines.

Faith has delivered babies during the mass births around the ‘Festival of Love’; everyone had to help out. She has delivered 54 babies.
They would eat Macon, a food item that was prepared from mutton. Macon is prepared in a similar manner to bacon, with the meat being cured by soaking it in large quantities of salt or by soaking the meat in brine. Generally Macon has a light black and yellow colour, with the outer edges being a darker pink. Macon looks and feels similar to bacon. Given a choice between Tea and Coffee, Faith would choose Tea.

She was 15 when she left the sect, and she had a hard time adjusting to life outside the compound. She got passed around relatives while her mother had treatments from psychiatrists. Faith was constantly getting into trouble with the police. Often this would involve an expensive fine, but little encouragement to change her offending behaviour. She was living with her grandparents and John Glen, all with Starfleet backgrounds, so it seemed like the right thing to do, to follow them into Starfleet. She is hoping to get a promotion, and doesn’t want to stay a Yeoman forever.

Faith had had some previous training as a Nurse. She worked in a children’s hospital for a few months immediately following her release from the Brotherhood. So she then took a short course as a triage nurse at Starfleet Medical but flunked out of the program. During her time there a Denobulan called Dr Malvae was in charge. He would flirt with the nurses and Faith has many stories to tell about him. She works as an auxiliary Nurse on the Merrimack during states of Red Alert. She was meant to complete a longer course but flunked out. Faith would still like to be a children’s nurse, but little chance of that on a Starship. She regrets not continuing a career in Medicine now. Being a Yeoman doesn’t have many prospects. So, any experience that she can get might help for her reapplication. She missed the application date for the current year’s entry, so she will be applying for next year.

While at Starfleet Medical she took part in a charity bed race. Faith was in the bed when they did it. They only got from Starfleet Medical once around the Presidio then one of the wheels fell off. The Bed push race is run every year. The route goes through the collection of coastal defence fortifications, down the end of the national cemetery, straight across the historic fixed-wing airfield, back along the side of the saltwater marsh, briefly into the forest, avoiding the beaches and the coastal bluffs and returning to the start. We are meant to do two laps, but I never made it out of the marsh. Faith wasn’t involved in the organisation and she didn’t do any pushing, she just sat in the bed pretending to be a bandaged patient. They were sponsored to see how many times we could get around the Presidio. She can’t remember the names of the bed pushers though she remembers that she once dated one of them. She went to a museum with him and he laughed like a child at every piece of art with nudity. He even applauded one nude statue of a woman.

Faith has never worked for a female Captain. She has always found her female intuition useful. She had always trusted her instincts. If she felt uneasy about someone, there was probably a reason. It wasn’t being silly. If she didn’t feel comfortable, she would say no.

The Merri is a little quiet for her; although she had come away from the Sons of New Earth as an innocent in the ways of the Galaxy, and an ingénue when it came to fashions, culture and music, she had very quickly made up for it. She became a bit of a wild child, drinking heavily, staying out late dancing, mixing with the wrong crowd and totally uncontrollable. There was a time when she would drink anything she could lay her hands on. That’s really why she’s on the Merri, so John Glen can keep an eye on her. She is still resentful of being in debt to John Glen for saving her and her mother, even after all this time.

She has slowed down, Starfleet helped there, it’s done so much for her, and it gave her life a purpose again; a new platform from which she can pick herself up from and start afresh. She feels that ‘it doesn’t matter how long it takes me I’m going to get there’

Faith has had many goals and priorities that have been constantly changing every once in a while. She’d wanted to escape the Cassiopiean Sect and their planet, but further than that she’d never thought ahead. Once she left she’d just drifted, she’d been forced into Starfleet by her family; her uncle, her grandparents, all with Starfleet backgrounds and she’d guessed that she wanted to be an officer, maybe a Captain, but was it what she really wanted? She would still quite like to resume her medical studies to become a children’s nurse. However, she was ready to end her career in Star Fleet to care for the Doctor Cross’ child, had it been born.

She is writing a novel. It is a kind of bittersweet romantic comedy. She has written 95 pages but the last few pages have taken her a year. It is a romantic historical fiction set in the mid-20th Century. Her story concerns a wanabee actress and singer, in love with a rock musician in a band from London, England. It is a tragic love affair. The heroine of the story, Susannah, is the educated daughter of an Austrian Baroness and a Captain in the British Army. Steve K, the lead guitarist she eventually falls in love with, was born in tenement flats in the slums of East London and dropped out of school at an early age, but he does have a talent for playing loud rock music. On the surface, they do not like each other, and to begin with, he is romantically involved with another girl who is having his child. He tours different cities with the band, while Susannah works in public relations for the recording company from which he is hoping to get a recording deal. Eventually, Susannah must decide between him and her family. Her father disowns her and cuts her off from her inheritance, but in the end true love will win out. It is not Charles Dickens and Doctor Cross thought it was pulp fiction.

She writes more to help her to relax, so she is not bothered if no one else sees it. She writes more when she is unhappy, so she wrote most of it when Crewman Doolittle left the Merrimack.

She drinks dry martini cocktails, or else white wine and soda. She likes shipboard gossip. She has never been very good with sailing boats until Crewman Doolittle taught her how to sail. She has never been scuba diving. Faith has done some Fire walking… walking on glowing coals without harm, and has tried sub-orbital sky diving once. Faith is a reasonable sportswoman and has played Soccer before with her father.

Faith is a terrible cook herself and is afraid she’ll set off the fire suppression system if she attempted to even grill bacon.

Faith’s great grandmother, and Glen’s grandmother, used to keep chickens.

Her hair needs frequent washing. It is hard keeping her bunched-up hairdo neat and tidy. Her hair is so long that she often feels like Rapunzel.