Lieutenant Commander Alexander Espersen
Name Alexander Espersen
Position Executive Officer
Rank Lieutenant Commander
Character Information
| Gender | Male | |
| Species | Human | |
| Age | 55 (4 February 2339) |
Physical Appearance
| Height | 6' | |
| Weight | 175 lbs | |
| Hair Color | Black, greying | |
| Eye Color | Brown | |
| Physical Description | Alexander is slightly taller than average for a human male, but is of typical height for someone raised on low-G Mars. He is quite buff, having spent large amounts of time working out to minimize the impact of normal-G on his body. A life spent working hard has left its toll. His hair is greying. He speaks with a Danish accent, having grown up in a community composed largely of Danish immigrants on Mars. |
Family
| Father | Hans Espersen (deceased, destruction of Mars, 2385) | |
| Mother | Eva Espersen (deceased, Vegan Choriomeningitis, 2352) | |
| Sister(s) | Britta Espersen (younger sister), Sigrid Espersen (youngest sister) (deceased in destruction of Mars) | |
| Other Family | Khay Dara (Sigrid’s husband), Sang Dara (Khay and Sigrid’s daughter), Peter Dara (Khay and Sigrid’s son) |
Personality & Traits
| General Overview | Once a highly motivated engineer on a possible track for eventual command, Alexander is a shell of what he was. He gets the job done, and it will be done quickly and we’ll, but is not particularly motivated to do much more than that. In recent years, he has been shuffled around different postings in the Sol system (never far from his family, now living on Ganymede). His prospects for advancement are not good, which is why he was surprised to be reassigned to the Chimera to act as First Officer…. | |
| Strengths & Weaknesses | +Gifted with technology. Knows the ins and outs of the various starship systems. If he hasn’t come across something mechanical before, he can probably figure out how it works in a short while. +Very good at design. Can visualize how things fit together and make improvements. +Physically fit. -Unmotivated to do much more than the minimum required. -Keeps to himself. Introverted more than anti-social. -Suffers from depression. -Does not learn well from classroom instruction. |
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| Ambitions | To keep his head down and get the job asked of him done. | |
| Hobbies & Interests | Above other hobbies, Alexander is an artist. He typically works with pencil and paper, but also has talents in digital design. Though he applies the latter to his work, the former is almost exclusively for his personal use. He also spends time in the ship’s gym or in physical activity holodeck programs. |
| Personal History | Alexander is the eldest child and only son of Hans and Eva Espersen. He was born in 2339 in the domed city of New Copenhagen on Mars, a community largely composed of people who immigrated to Mars from Denmark in the early 2100s. His father worked at Utopia Planitia while his mother was an archaeology professor at the University of New Copenhagen. Young Alexander took to technology very quickly. His parents encouraged him to learn all he could about the different systems that kept people alive on harsh planets, made those worlds hospitable, and transported beings and goods across space. At the same time, he was encouraged to try new things, so he would not get stuck as “only” a tech expert. In doing so, he discovered a love of art and a talent for drawing. He also learned to love physical activity, and as a pre-teen began spending a lot of free time playing sports or working out. Regrettably, one of his weaknesses was classroom learning, and so while he excelled at technical work, his grades were often low. As a teen, his mother contracted vegan choriomeningitis while visiting ruins on Gideon. Treatment came too late and she died far from home. Alexander was devastated by the loss, but tried his best to maintain a strong front for his younger sisters. It was also this loss that prompted him to join Starfleet. He felt that, by keeping a starship functioning at peak efficiency, he might help ensure that Starfleet could send help to those who need it more quickly. His low grades prevented him from being able to enroll at Starfleet Academy. Instead, he enlisted and spent six months at the Starfleet Technical Institute. He apprenticed as a Damage Control Specialist aboard the USS Sternbach, which spent its time delivering relief to worlds attacked by the Cardassians. In 2360, he was promoted to Crewman and assigned to USS Valdemar, which actually saw combat in the Cardassian border wars. A few years later, he was promoted to Petty Officer 3rd Class and became an Impulse Systems Specialist, a critical role for a vessel that spent its time in combat at sublight speeds. In 2365, the Valdemar was destroyed, but Alexander survived, along with most of the crew. He was promoted to Second Class and assigned as the Assistant Head of Propulse Systems aboard the USS Armstrong, which patrolled Federation space along the Borderlands. Five years later, he was Head of Propulsion aboard the science vessel USS Sybil, now a PO1. The chief engineer of the Sybil encouraged him to seek further advancement, and recommended that he be sent to two years of officer training at the Academy. Alexander Espersen did not fit in well at the Academy. For one, he was 33 years old, fifteen years older than the youngest recruits and even older than most of the mature students. But he kept his head down and got through Academy learning. In 2374, as the Dominion War began to rage across the Alpha Quadrant, he graduated and was assigned as an engineering officer aboard USS Shepard. When the Shepard was lost to the Breen power dampener weapon at Chin’toka, he was reassigned to USS Carolina, where he remained for several years after the war’s end. He was promoted in 2378 to Lieutenant JG and made Assistant Chief Engineer aboard USS Marauder. His chief and the ship’s first officer saw the same potential in him that his superiors on the Sybil did, and he was given more responsibilities over the next several years. In 2382, he was made both Chief Engineer and Second Officer aboard the California-class USS Marin, which had just been launched from Utopia Planitia in order to help with the Romulan evacuation. It was assigned to construct habitats and other infrastructure along the Federation side of the Romulan border to house refugees. It was while he was on assignment aboard the Marin, supporting the construction of new residential units on Vashti when he heard the news: the synthetic workforce constructing the relief ships on Mars had somehow become corrupted and attacked the planet. The entire Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards were destroyed and the planet devastated by plasma fires. Alexander’s father and youngest sister were planetside when weapons fire rained down from the sky, destroying New Copenhagen as well as countless other Martian structures. The Marin was recalled to Earth and Alexander was given leave to be with his family. Alexander returned to active duty in 2387, one month after the supernova destroyed Romulus. He puttered around the Sol system, taking assignments at extraplanetary outposts that no one else wanted, but which kept him close to his surviving sister and the husband and kids of his deceased sister. In 2390, he was given a teaching job at Starfleet Academy. His technical skills were still excellent, despite his depression and new lack of ambition, so command saw fit to have him instill his best capabilities in the next generation. It worked for several years, but Alexander was clearly stuck in a rut. Complaints from students about anti-social behaviour began to climb. Starfleet found an assignment that would ideally give him a much needed kick in the hindquarters, but at worst would get him out of the way: First Officer aboard USS Chimera (though they only told him it was Chief Engineer.) |
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| Service Record | 2357-2358: Technical Training, Starfleet Technical Institute (Crewman Recruit) 2358-2360: Damage Control Specialist, USS Sternbach (Curry-class) (Crewman Apprentice)  2360-2362: Damage Control Specialist, USS Valdemar (Narendra-class) (Crewman)  2362-2365: Impulse Systems Specialist, USS Valdemar (Narendra-class) (Petty Officer 3rd Class)  2365-2370: Assistant Head, Propulsion Systems, USS Armstrong (Challenger-class) (Petty Officer 2nd Class)  2370-2372: Head, Propulsion Systems, USS Sybil (Oberth-class) (Petty Officer 1st Class)  2372-2374: Cadet, Starfleet Academy, Earth (Cadet)   2374-2375: Engineering Officer, USS Shepard (Saber-class) (Ensign)  2375-2378: Engineering Officer, USS Carolina (Centaur-class) (Ensign) 2378-2382: Assistant Chief Engineering Officer, USS Marauder (Cheyenne-class) (Lieutenant JG)  2382-2385: Chief Engineering Officer and Second Officer, USS Marin (California-class) (Lieutenant)  2385-2387: Leave 2387-2389: Chief of Operations, Ishtar Station, Venus (Lieutenant) 2389-2390: Chief of Operations, Eris Station, Eris (Lieutenant) 2390-2394: Engineering Instructor, Starfleet Academy, Earth (Lieutenant) 2394-present: Executive Officer, USS Chimera (Luna-class) (Lieutenant Commander)  |