Player Name: Shawna Username: shadowesque Current/former characters: N/A
Sleeper Character: Malcolm Reed Username: tactical_alert Canon: Star Trek: Enterprise Canon point: After the Battle of Cheron, during The Romulan War: To Brave The Storm Age: 37
Appearance: At 5'9", Malcolm is of a leaner, smaller frame than a lot of men around him, and his genial nature and penchant for uniforms and clothing that are not tight, revealing, or in any way attract the eye to his body hide well-toned muscle underneath. Short, dark brown hair he likes to have combed back neatly, grey eyes, and a few lines about the mouth and eyes that make him perhaps appear slightly older than he is.
Personality: Malcolm is, at times, the epitome of the English caricature. He's got a stiff upper lip, a dry sense of gallows humour, is polite, coy, witty, gentle, quiet, prideful, and not very big on dealing with his own emotions. Then he's got a love of things that go boom and can knock you flat on your ass, so it's not all tea and crumpets.
He steps through the world trying to find someplace where he thinks he can finally fit in comfortably with solid footing--and a pessimistic outlook. He calls his dreary thought process realism and blames his tactical security job for requiring him to see all possibilities and preparing for the worst case scenario, but it's an outlook he's developed since long before he needed to. What is more difficult to see is that past the pessimism is, in fact, hope. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. As his life has been a series of fairly steep ups and downs, this has worked out pretty well for him. He tries not to appear too hopeful knowing that if something awful happens instead, it might crush him. He is instead pragmatic and practical, but he does enjoy his personal moments of victory whenever he can nab them.
Instead of being what one might normally think of with a chief of security--the big, beefy, loud, trigger happy jock, for instance--Malcolm is instead extremely reserved. He is a firm believer in speaking softly and carrying a big phase rifle. He only raises his voice when it's necessary, to shout over noise or to alert, but in normal speech, his voice is calm. And while he does enjoy himself some explosions and gets a twinkle in his eye at shiny new weaponry, he would, in the end, much prefer a diplomatic approach to problems. It might be more boring for him, but it sure as hell keeps casualties down. In fighting, being a tactical officer, he prefers agility and outflanking, out-thinking his opponents rather than charging straight in guns blazing. But don't think for a second that he can't or won't bust your nose if he feels he has to. He's a by-the-book, memorize regulations to the letter and follow them so kind of guy. Doesn't help that he's more than a bit of a perfectionist, especially harsh on himself.
And when I say extremely reserved, that's no exaggeration. But when he finally gets comfortable enough around someone to call them a friend, he will become much more casual with them, though still won't completely let them in. He will act very polite and personable to most people, though it's hard for him to hide that airy aloofness that comes along with. He keeps his distance, keeps his book closed, and keeps a professional air about him until someone wriggles their way in. This comes from so many different reasons ranging from his emotionally distant upbringing to the knowledge that being in Starfleet means a lot of relocating to being so by-the-book about regulations that no fraternization seems to also mean no friendships. On this last point he's mellowed out somewhat after being with the same crew for nearly ten years, but just because he's really close to the people he already knows and trusts doesn't mean just anyone can waltz into his life and expect to get into his personal bubble. Even with his friends, he tends to keep his private life private, not express personal preferences, not talk about a lot of normal things like family or hobbies or dreams, though he can when he feels he should.
That said, when he learns to give someone his trust, he is loyal to them to a fault, risking career and personal safety for them. This can sometimes pose as a point of conflict if his loyalties clash with his strong ethical and moral sense. Sometimes he gets caught up in moral grey areas that get him into trouble, but he will always do what he thinks is right. Even if it goes against orders. And especially if it's to help out someone he cares for.
Though stern and serious much of the time, Malcolm can certainly learn to let his guard down and enjoy himself. And he's been known to make witty remarks and jokes of dark humour when facing down almost certain death. And he can be a troublemaker, though he would argue that he only gets into trouble by trying to help certain chief engineers out of trouble. He'd rather be the good little soldier boy with the spotless record, but hey, life throws curveballs, especially when you're a space explorer.
On the other hand, Malcolm can also get into some deep trenches of moods that, with his pessimism, make it hard for him sometimes to dig himself back out of again. While he is a closed book in talking about himself, he tends to inadvertently wear his heart on his sleeve. People that know him can tell from a look, however hard he tries to cover it up, what he's feeling, especially when he's upset. The thing is, Malcolm feels very deeply. But coming from a family (and going along with the caricature idea, a country) that was emotionally stifling has made it hard for him to express what he feels or making sense of it all. Basically, he's just emotionally stupid all around. Bottling all of that up inside tends to work for him, but it can, at times, prove to be a dangerous thing that comes out in unhealthy ways. He also walks a fine line between doing his job and putting himself in unnecessary danger. It's usually just stubbornness, selflessness, and duty that makes him push himself this way. The needs of the many makes perfect sense to him.
Most recently in his life is the end of a five year war against the Romulans, which will, in about a year's time, culminate in the creation of the fledgling Federation. There are few, if any, who could walk away from the war without mental scars, and Malcolm isn't about to be the exception. After five years of working overtime in battles, on tactics, and simply trying to help whole worlds survive genocidal assaults, five years of losing friends and shipmates, dealing with the horrors of Romulan attacks and the horrors of some of the things they've had to do themselves, his captain being a pariah, and now the wounds left on the planets, the ships, the people, and perhaps the death of his best friend... Malcolm is, above all, tired. He is older, wiser, and ready to move on to a brighter future, but the past five years have been difficult to say the least. Now his ship, beaten quite nearly beyond repair, is to join the mothball fleet, and everyone will go their separate ways. As far as he knows, Trip, his best friend, really and truly dead this time, something he will silently blame himself for. On the whole, compared to how he was ten years ago or even five, he's a bit more relaxed around people and certainly less naive than he was in his younger years. He has experience and rank and an understanding of battle and war that he'd been trying to learn and prepare for since he was a kid. After living for years, and especially the last few months, right on the edge, Malcolm's ready to try and ease back into a more normal and less tension-filled life.
Which means that ending up in the City suddenly is not going to go over very well. At all. He's likely to be stubborn and irritable and think it all some horrible cosmic joke, might even have a more sensitive trigger. He is likely to eventually go along with the rules of the city but, in his own way with his own skills, attempt to use his position to figure out what exactly is going on and how to work the system from the inside while appearing to work with it.
History: Memory Alpha link Memory Beta link The Beta link is so woeful when it comes to any canon regarding more recent books, though general overviews of said books can be found on their respective pages. Since I can get a little picky and choose-y about what I do and do not consider canon, a short list might be in order: "These are the Voyages" is absolutley not canon, since the books take that, laugh, and try to fix it. Of the books that feature Malcolm prominently in any way, Last Full Measure, The Good That Men Do, Kobayashi Maru, Beneath the Raptor's Wing, and To Brave The Storm are all canon (since they're all written by the same authors and have connecting, overarching plots). What Price Honor? is not canon in itself, but I do lift a few items of history and tidbits from it.
Born September 2, 2122 to a traditional, conservative English family in Leicester, Malcolm's life was decided for him from day one. Growing up knowing he'd continue the Reed family tradition of becoming a naval officer was perfectly fine for him--until the day a couple of school bullies tried to drown him in a fountain. Turns out that developing a deeply-rooted fear of drowning (and thus a fear of being in water deep enough to reasonably drown in) doesn't help those goals. In years following, he would come to realize that he didn't want to risk it out on the sea and instead had much higher aspirations, but telling his patriarchal father that he'd rather join Starfleet began a breakdown of the family that would prove to be irreconcilable. While he still talks to his older sister Madeline and bears little ill-will toward his quiet housewife of a mother, the dynamics between Malcolm and his father got to a point--despite Malcolm's repeated attempts to bridge the communications gap between them--where they simply stopped trying.
His early years in Starfleet were adventurous to say the least. On the other side of the globe and free from his familial constraints, Malcolm began to explore who he was and who he could be. While he used his well-taught dedication and talent to excel in his studies and training, he also became a notorious ladies-man around San Francisco, having a long string of sexual encounters that resulted in a lot of one-night stands and a couple of fuck buddies, but nothing anywhere near more meaningful than that. After finally becoming a fresh-faced ensign, he let his James Bond-admiring, adventure and spy-thriller side of him get the better when a shady character named Harris charmed him into joining "the bureau", what would later become known as Section 31. The idea that he would be getting out there, doing a little dangerous spy-related work for Earth's interests and keeping Earth safe was intoxicating. However, Malcolm found the entire organization to be set firmly in the moral grey area, a position he was not comfortable remaining in. He quit on bad terms, getting back into Starfleet proper, though was warned that nobody could simply leave the bureau and that his skills might be called upon again later.
In 2151, as a lieutenant, Captain Jonathan Archer brought him aboard to man the tactical station of the illustrious first warp 5 starship, Enterprise. Which started a chain of events over four years that included, but was not limited to: gaining his best friend Trip, being shot, being stabbed, being cooked alive, suffocation, almost being hanged, torture, the most vulnerable immune system in the world, being skewered, nearly freezing to death, incidents involving hopping around in time or dealing with people who hop around in time, temporarily turning into another species, reconciling with someone only to have them die on him, the past with Section 31 coming back to bite him in the ass... All quite exciting and dangerous, really. Through the years he had started to learn how to drop his guard and make friends (and score a few alien babes, let's be honest), and he'd made a few technological leaps and bounds that would be useful for generations of ships to come. His changes were not easy to come by or to reconcile with himself, by any means, but change he did.
After saw the fruition of Romulan plans in the later years of the ship's original mission of exploration. Governmental bodies wouldn't listen to their warnings about the Romulans; they were merely ghosts and rumors, and there was no solid proof they could share, which led to great disaster. Through the prelude to and during the Romulan war, Malcolm was an integral part of events leading to the end, including but certainly not limited to: retconing the series finale to make it better helping to fake Trip's death after introducing him to the Bureau, going against Archer's orders to go joyriding with T'Pol to save Trip's ass, figuring out how the Romulans were getting past Vulcan's pacifistic as hell early detection grid, finally being promoted to lieutenant commander, and generally doing his job to the best of his ability even as the ship is falling apart around him, staying ever loyal to his captain through thick and thin (especially after the disaster of the Kobayashi Maru).
However, when the dust settled and the final battle of Cheron more or less won, the ship was damaged more or less beyond repair, needing to be towed all the way back to Earth just to be retired after all those years of service, and Trip's fate was left in question. Isn't that a great point for someone to be yanked into a crazy cave and told his life as he knows it is a lie?
Powers/skills: In canon, he is a remarkably normal human being, just with some wit and smarts and strength behind him. For this game, I'm giving him a skill I dub eagle eye. His eyes can work much like binoculars on their own, seeing about double the distance of an average human being if he so chooses, and focusing in where he wants. It goes along with his hypervigilance bordering on paranoia and his aim because he does not hail from stormtrooper academy. He'll find that using it too often or for too long, once he gets the hang of it, gives him eye strain and a nasty headache, though.
Malcolm Reed | Star Trek: Enterprise [1/2]
Name: Shawna
Username:
Current/former characters: N/A
Sleeper
Character: Malcolm Reed
Username:
Canon: Star Trek: Enterprise
Canon point: After the Battle of Cheron, during The Romulan War: To Brave The Storm
Age: 37
Appearance: At 5'9", Malcolm is of a leaner, smaller frame than a lot of men around him, and his genial nature and penchant for uniforms and clothing that are not tight, revealing, or in any way attract the eye to his body hide well-toned muscle underneath. Short, dark brown hair he likes to have combed back neatly, grey eyes, and a few lines about the mouth and eyes that make him perhaps appear slightly older than he is.
Personality: Malcolm is, at times, the epitome of the English caricature. He's got a stiff upper lip, a dry sense of gallows humour, is polite, coy, witty, gentle, quiet, prideful, and not very big on dealing with his own emotions. Then he's got a love of things that go boom and can knock you flat on your ass, so it's not all tea and crumpets.
He steps through the world trying to find someplace where he thinks he can finally fit in comfortably with solid footing--and a pessimistic outlook. He calls his dreary thought process realism and blames his tactical security job for requiring him to see all possibilities and preparing for the worst case scenario, but it's an outlook he's developed since long before he needed to. What is more difficult to see is that past the pessimism is, in fact, hope. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. As his life has been a series of fairly steep ups and downs, this has worked out pretty well for him. He tries not to appear too hopeful knowing that if something awful happens instead, it might crush him. He is instead pragmatic and practical, but he does enjoy his personal moments of victory whenever he can nab them.
Instead of being what one might normally think of with a chief of security--the big, beefy, loud, trigger happy jock, for instance--Malcolm is instead extremely reserved. He is a firm believer in speaking softly and carrying a big phase rifle. He only raises his voice when it's necessary, to shout over noise or to alert, but in normal speech, his voice is calm. And while he does enjoy himself some explosions and gets a twinkle in his eye at shiny new weaponry, he would, in the end, much prefer a diplomatic approach to problems. It might be more boring for him, but it sure as hell keeps casualties down. In fighting, being a tactical officer, he prefers agility and outflanking, out-thinking his opponents rather than charging straight in guns blazing. But don't think for a second that he can't or won't bust your nose if he feels he has to. He's a by-the-book, memorize regulations to the letter and follow them so kind of guy. Doesn't help that he's more than a bit of a perfectionist, especially harsh on himself.
And when I say extremely reserved, that's no exaggeration. But when he finally gets comfortable enough around someone to call them a friend, he will become much more casual with them, though still won't completely let them in. He will act very polite and personable to most people, though it's hard for him to hide that airy aloofness that comes along with. He keeps his distance, keeps his book closed, and keeps a professional air about him until someone wriggles their way in. This comes from so many different reasons ranging from his emotionally distant upbringing to the knowledge that being in Starfleet means a lot of relocating to being so by-the-book about regulations that no fraternization seems to also mean no friendships. On this last point he's mellowed out somewhat after being with the same crew for nearly ten years, but just because he's really close to the people he already knows and trusts doesn't mean just anyone can waltz into his life and expect to get into his personal bubble. Even with his friends, he tends to keep his private life private, not express personal preferences, not talk about a lot of normal things like family or hobbies or dreams, though he can when he feels he should.
That said, when he learns to give someone his trust, he is loyal to them to a fault, risking career and personal safety for them. This can sometimes pose as a point of conflict if his loyalties clash with his strong ethical and moral sense. Sometimes he gets caught up in moral grey areas that get him into trouble, but he will always do what he thinks is right. Even if it goes against orders. And especially if it's to help out someone he cares for.
Though stern and serious much of the time, Malcolm can certainly learn to let his guard down and enjoy himself. And he's been known to make witty remarks and jokes of dark humour when facing down almost certain death. And he can be a troublemaker, though he would argue that he only gets into trouble by trying to help certain chief engineers out of trouble. He'd rather be the good little soldier boy with the spotless record, but hey, life throws curveballs, especially when you're a space explorer.
On the other hand, Malcolm can also get into some deep trenches of moods that, with his pessimism, make it hard for him sometimes to dig himself back out of again. While he is a closed book in talking about himself, he tends to inadvertently wear his heart on his sleeve. People that know him can tell from a look, however hard he tries to cover it up, what he's feeling, especially when he's upset. The thing is, Malcolm feels very deeply. But coming from a family (and going along with the caricature idea, a country) that was emotionally stifling has made it hard for him to express what he feels or making sense of it all. Basically, he's just emotionally stupid all around. Bottling all of that up inside tends to work for him, but it can, at times, prove to be a dangerous thing that comes out in unhealthy ways. He also walks a fine line between doing his job and putting himself in unnecessary danger. It's usually just stubbornness, selflessness, and duty that makes him push himself this way. The needs of the many makes perfect sense to him.
Most recently in his life is the end of a five year war against the Romulans, which will, in about a year's time, culminate in the creation of the fledgling Federation. There are few, if any, who could walk away from the war without mental scars, and Malcolm isn't about to be the exception. After five years of working overtime in battles, on tactics, and simply trying to help whole worlds survive genocidal assaults, five years of losing friends and shipmates, dealing with the horrors of Romulan attacks and the horrors of some of the things they've had to do themselves, his captain being a pariah, and now the wounds left on the planets, the ships, the people, and perhaps the death of his best friend... Malcolm is, above all, tired. He is older, wiser, and ready to move on to a brighter future, but the past five years have been difficult to say the least. Now his ship, beaten quite nearly beyond repair, is to join the mothball fleet, and everyone will go their separate ways. As far as he knows, Trip, his best friend, really and truly dead this time, something he will silently blame himself for. On the whole, compared to how he was ten years ago or even five, he's a bit more relaxed around people and certainly less naive than he was in his younger years. He has experience and rank and an understanding of battle and war that he'd been trying to learn and prepare for since he was a kid. After living for years, and especially the last few months, right on the edge, Malcolm's ready to try and ease back into a more normal and less tension-filled life.
Which means that ending up in the City suddenly is not going to go over very well. At all. He's likely to be stubborn and irritable and think it all some horrible cosmic joke, might even have a more sensitive trigger. He is likely to eventually go along with the rules of the city but, in his own way with his own skills, attempt to use his position to figure out what exactly is going on and how to work the system from the inside while appearing to work with it.
History:
Memory Alpha link
Memory Beta link
The Beta link is so woeful when it comes to any canon regarding more recent books, though general overviews of said books can be found on their respective pages. Since I can get a little picky and choose-y about what I do and do not consider canon, a short list might be in order: "These are the Voyages" is absolutley not canon, since the books take that, laugh, and try to fix it. Of the books that feature Malcolm prominently in any way, Last Full Measure, The Good That Men Do, Kobayashi Maru, Beneath the Raptor's Wing, and To Brave The Storm are all canon (since they're all written by the same authors and have connecting, overarching plots). What Price Honor? is not canon in itself, but I do lift a few items of history and tidbits from it.
Born September 2, 2122 to a traditional, conservative English family in Leicester, Malcolm's life was decided for him from day one. Growing up knowing he'd continue the Reed family tradition of becoming a naval officer was perfectly fine for him--until the day a couple of school bullies tried to drown him in a fountain. Turns out that developing a deeply-rooted fear of drowning (and thus a fear of being in water deep enough to reasonably drown in) doesn't help those goals. In years following, he would come to realize that he didn't want to risk it out on the sea and instead had much higher aspirations, but telling his patriarchal father that he'd rather join Starfleet began a breakdown of the family that would prove to be irreconcilable. While he still talks to his older sister Madeline and bears little ill-will toward his quiet housewife of a mother, the dynamics between Malcolm and his father got to a point--despite Malcolm's repeated attempts to bridge the communications gap between them--where they simply stopped trying.
His early years in Starfleet were adventurous to say the least. On the other side of the globe and free from his familial constraints, Malcolm began to explore who he was and who he could be. While he used his well-taught dedication and talent to excel in his studies and training, he also became a notorious ladies-man around San Francisco, having a long string of sexual encounters that resulted in a lot of one-night stands and a couple of fuck buddies, but nothing anywhere near more meaningful than that. After finally becoming a fresh-faced ensign, he let his James Bond-admiring, adventure and spy-thriller side of him get the better when a shady character named Harris charmed him into joining "the bureau", what would later become known as Section 31. The idea that he would be getting out there, doing a little dangerous spy-related work for Earth's interests and keeping Earth safe was intoxicating. However, Malcolm found the entire organization to be set firmly in the moral grey area, a position he was not comfortable remaining in. He quit on bad terms, getting back into Starfleet proper, though was warned that nobody could simply leave the bureau and that his skills might be called upon again later.
In 2151, as a lieutenant, Captain Jonathan Archer brought him aboard to man the tactical station of the illustrious first warp 5 starship, Enterprise. Which started a chain of events over four years that included, but was not limited to: gaining his best friend Trip, being shot, being stabbed, being cooked alive, suffocation, almost being hanged, torture, the most vulnerable immune system in the world, being skewered, nearly freezing to death, incidents involving hopping around in time or dealing with people who hop around in time, temporarily turning into another species, reconciling with someone only to have them die on him, the past with Section 31 coming back to bite him in the ass... All quite exciting and dangerous, really. Through the years he had started to learn how to drop his guard and make friends (and score a few alien babes, let's be honest), and he'd made a few technological leaps and bounds that would be useful for generations of ships to come. His changes were not easy to come by or to reconcile with himself, by any means, but change he did.
After saw the fruition of Romulan plans in the later years of the ship's original mission of exploration. Governmental bodies wouldn't listen to their warnings about the Romulans; they were merely ghosts and rumors, and there was no solid proof they could share, which led to great disaster. Through the prelude to and during the Romulan war, Malcolm was an integral part of events leading to the end, including but certainly not limited to:
retconing the series finale to make it betterhelping to fake Trip's death after introducing him to the Bureau, going against Archer's orders to go joyriding with T'Pol to save Trip's ass, figuring out how the Romulans were getting past Vulcan's pacifistic as hell early detection grid,finallybeing promoted to lieutenant commander, and generally doing his job to the best of his ability even as the ship is falling apart around him, staying ever loyal to his captain through thick and thin (especially after the disaster of the Kobayashi Maru).However, when the dust settled and the final battle of Cheron more or less won, the ship was damaged more or less beyond repair, needing to be towed all the way back to Earth just to be retired after all those years of service, and Trip's fate was left in question. Isn't that a great point for someone to be yanked into a crazy cave and told his life as he knows it is a lie?
Powers/skills: In canon, he is a remarkably normal human being, just with some wit and smarts and strength behind him. For this game, I'm giving him a skill I dub eagle eye. His eyes can work much like binoculars on their own, seeing about double the distance of an average human being if he so chooses, and focusing in where he wants. It goes along with his hypervigilance bordering on paranoia and his aim
because he does not hail from stormtrooper academy. He'll find that using it too often or for too long, once he gets the hang of it, gives him eye strain and a nasty headache, though.