MERSIEL BAMBATTE
ARDANAN MALE
AGE 58 HEIGHT 185 CM WEIGHT 88 KG PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION A tall, middle-aged Troglyte from a lower latitude of Ardana, Bambatte could be mistaken for a human from Africa or the West Indies, with a dark complexion, broad, angular features, and a strong, noble brow. His kind eyes and quick smile do much to soften his powerful, broad-shouldered build. A mature and hard-working man, he is beginning to succumb to the effects of age (including onset rheumatoid arthritis in his knees, which makes it hard for him to run long distances). |
The Chief talks in a deep, hoarse but very soft voice, and with a relaxed, even-handed attitude. He laughs easily, and with an absence of reserve that usually leaves others laughing as well. An old CPO, he can handle himself, and can muster an intimidating severity.
PERSONALITY
Bambatte (or 'The Chief,' 'Bam,' and even 'Merse' to his friends) is a calm and professional man, easy-going, and exceedingly reliable to work with. Having some reservations about certain decisions he has made in the past, he does not care to judge others for their mistakes, and will go a long way out of his way to help someone in trouble. He will also look for every way to avoid getting into trouble in the first place.
Bambatte attained a position of authority and responsibility in Starfleet by hard work, humor and dedication, and he appreciates those qualities in others most of all. Because he is an engineer, he tends to break most problems down into manageable pieces and then try to solve them in the most methodical possible fashion. He enjoys teaching, is good at it, and knows when to back off or take a different approach. A solid performer, in general.
STRENGTHS & WEAKNESSES
Bambatte has fairly good insight into people, and tries to forgive mistakes. Because he grew up in a fairly harsh and unforgiving environment, he understands the effects that stress, limited resources and strenuous labor can have on the psyche over time. He does not like to give more bad news than he thinks a person can handle, and will shoulder as many burdens as he has to with very little complaint. At times he can be overbearing.
The Chief's biggest weakness is a kind of willful morale naivety. He seems to almost refuse to understand why some people are so keen to hurt others, and has difficulty with problems of great moral complexity or that can not be solved to the satisfaction of all parties. In his estimation, life does not have to be any harder than it already is, and people ought to help each other. Sometimes his desire to give people the benefit of the doubt puts him in an excellent position to be manipulated.
When he does lose his temper, which doesn't often happen (and perhaps because he doesn't), the Chief can be pretty intimidating. He doesn't like to fight, and he isn't a great technical fighter; but he figures a fight should be harder to finish than it was to start, and will not back down once the fists start flying.
Another serious weakness is his ironclad attachment to his family and loved ones, especially his young granddaughter. He would not be able to live with himself if Soo's safety were seriously jeopardized, nor indeed the safety of anyone for whom he feels responsible. He also feels a terrible, lingering sense of guilt about having abandoned his wife and daughter to a life on Ardana (a place he both loves and despises).
AMBITIONS
As a retiree, Bambatte does not want much more for himself than he has already been given. He would like to raise his granddaughter in an environment where she can grow and develop into the person she wants to be, without fear of oppressive Ardanan societal inequalities or the effects of a toxic atmosphere. If that means working on an old freighter, so be it. He would rather be around machines anyway, since their problems are predictable.
HOBBIES & INTERESTS
The Chief likes to smoke and drink, play games of cards and dice, listen to music, maybe even cut the rug from time to time. He is very low-key in his off time, and does happily take on stressful activities, even ones ostensibly organized for entertainment purposes. The only unusual hobby he has is building models and train sets.
He may devote the odd hour or two to working on some small engineering project that has grabbed his interest, and almost compulsively tackles small maintenance chores as he passes down the corridors, such as repairing light bulbs and the like. He likes things neat.
FAMILY
FATHER Deurond Pen (2311-50), a mining equipment operator.
MOTHER Phoa Bambatte (2311-60), a train conductor.
BROTHER Kalij Bambatte (2336-), a mining equipment operator.
SPOUSE Mohai Abattan (2331-68), a fuel technician.
CHILDREN Numiue Abattan (2350-2386), a chemical technician.
OTHER Soodyani Abattan (2374-).
EARLY LIFE (2330-54)
Ardana was, until about ninety years ago, segregated into two officially unequal cultures, with the Troglytes abiding on the surface and suffering greatly under the effects of the planet's highly toxic heavy atmosphere. Mersiel Bambatte grew up in a very challenging social environment, where most people could not expect to live into their sixth decade; in spite of certain social and (much less significant) economic reforms of the turn of the century, most Troglytes were still forced to take demanding and less-remunerative jobs than their upper-atmosphere cousins, and Mersiel knew even as a child that he would never have the opportunities his parents wanted for him.
His father died of respiratory illness when Mersiel was twenty. By that time he had married and had a daughter with a local girl he had known for most of his life, and had worked for two years repairing the same mining equipment that his father had operated for most of his own life. Deurond's death effected him greatly; he saw that there was no real future for him, in spite of his knack for mechanical and electrical engineering. He had looked into enlisting in Starfleet about a year earlier, on his father's advice. His wife, however -- a decent but extremely sentimental woman -- had very strong attachments to her family, and would not consider a separation from them.
Mersiel had a younger brother, and he could no more bear to see Kalij heading for a short life in the mines than to see his mother taking a menial job in a train terminal. He wanted to find a way to lift his family out of their situation, or at least give them enough to improve their lot; Ardana was a member of the Federation, but it had not completely abandoned commerce, and most Troglytes were relatively poor (especially at the less desirable middle latitudes).
By twenty-four, Mersiel had resolved to escape. He told his wife he thought it would be madness not to take a job in the fleet, especially since his work left him hardly any time for his family anyway, and that he would go alone if he needed to. That, unfortunately, was the final result -- for Mohai Abattan was no spacefarer, and Numiue was only four.
STARFLEET SERVICE (2354-84)
Bambatte enlisted with Starfleet and eventually graduated with an engineer's mate rating. He went to work on an extended variety of projects and assignments, including USS Osage (2356-2361), a Nebula-class; USS William Gilbert (2361-2364), a Nova-class; Starbase 40 'Lycanum Station' (2364-2370); USS Asgard (2370-2372), a Norway-class; Starbase 311 (2372); USS Gladiator (2373-78); De Marys Naval Research Station (2378-80); and finally USS Marcus Aurelius (2380-84), from whence he finally retired, after thirty years of continuous service, as a senior chief petty officer.
Bambatte is familiar with the basic structure and inner workings of a number of ship designs, and has had plenty of opportunities to study alien ship designs as well. He was a solid deckplate leader, and while his friendships were rarely lifelong, he did manage to influence two generations of young Sailors, and can call on a number of old mates at need. By the time he had reached Aurelius, Bambatte was more than qualified to train personnel from multiple departments in basic maintenance duties, including Operations technicians; one of his last students was Máthénwy Eidelwel, a beautiful but very quiet kid from Mars, to whom he took a shine. Eidelwel reminded him a little of his wife, who was about the same age when everything in his personal life had begun to go sour; and also a little of his daughter, who had been about the same age as Eidelwel during the last time he had seen her, and with whom he now had a very strained relationship.
RETIREMENT (2384-88)
Mersiel finally returned for good to Ardana and his family, almost all of whom had died (his mother, with whom he had been particularly close, had died while he was still a young man aboard USS Osage). Over the years he had sent the larger portion of his salary home to support them; but his brother was bad with money, his wife was gone (a victim of aggressive lung cancer twenty years before); and his daughter, who had long resented his absence, was mourning the recent loss of her own husband.
Mersiel made a special effort to repair some of the damage he had inflicted on the relationship he'd had with his daughter, whom he had not often been able to see, and who now had a young daughter of her own. Unfortunately Numiue had suffered too difficult a life, and in spite of the progress they had made, he not only failed to convince her to come with him and settle somewhere less difficult, but to continue living at all. The damaged woman committed suicide in circumstances too terrible to relate, leaving Mersiel with a twelve-year-old granddaughter to care for and almost no living relatives to help him.
The past couple of years have been difficult ones for him. He wants to leave Ardana for good, and raise Soo somewhere healthier and, if not safer, at least less dispiriting. He does not want to bring her up on a station, in standard Federation fashion, however; he is tired of the Federation's inability to manage its own resources, having watched for thirty years as it neglected troubled member worlds like Ardana in favor of big-picture imperial maneuvers, bungled diplomatic disasters and compulsive colonialism. He was considering going to Lya Station Alpha, if necessary, when Eidelwel found him.
PERSONALITY
Bambatte (or 'The Chief,' 'Bam,' and even 'Merse' to his friends) is a calm and professional man, easy-going, and exceedingly reliable to work with. Having some reservations about certain decisions he has made in the past, he does not care to judge others for their mistakes, and will go a long way out of his way to help someone in trouble. He will also look for every way to avoid getting into trouble in the first place.
Bambatte attained a position of authority and responsibility in Starfleet by hard work, humor and dedication, and he appreciates those qualities in others most of all. Because he is an engineer, he tends to break most problems down into manageable pieces and then try to solve them in the most methodical possible fashion. He enjoys teaching, is good at it, and knows when to back off or take a different approach. A solid performer, in general.
STRENGTHS & WEAKNESSES
Bambatte has fairly good insight into people, and tries to forgive mistakes. Because he grew up in a fairly harsh and unforgiving environment, he understands the effects that stress, limited resources and strenuous labor can have on the psyche over time. He does not like to give more bad news than he thinks a person can handle, and will shoulder as many burdens as he has to with very little complaint. At times he can be overbearing.
The Chief's biggest weakness is a kind of willful morale naivety. He seems to almost refuse to understand why some people are so keen to hurt others, and has difficulty with problems of great moral complexity or that can not be solved to the satisfaction of all parties. In his estimation, life does not have to be any harder than it already is, and people ought to help each other. Sometimes his desire to give people the benefit of the doubt puts him in an excellent position to be manipulated.
When he does lose his temper, which doesn't often happen (and perhaps because he doesn't), the Chief can be pretty intimidating. He doesn't like to fight, and he isn't a great technical fighter; but he figures a fight should be harder to finish than it was to start, and will not back down once the fists start flying.
Another serious weakness is his ironclad attachment to his family and loved ones, especially his young granddaughter. He would not be able to live with himself if Soo's safety were seriously jeopardized, nor indeed the safety of anyone for whom he feels responsible. He also feels a terrible, lingering sense of guilt about having abandoned his wife and daughter to a life on Ardana (a place he both loves and despises).
AMBITIONS
As a retiree, Bambatte does not want much more for himself than he has already been given. He would like to raise his granddaughter in an environment where she can grow and develop into the person she wants to be, without fear of oppressive Ardanan societal inequalities or the effects of a toxic atmosphere. If that means working on an old freighter, so be it. He would rather be around machines anyway, since their problems are predictable.
HOBBIES & INTERESTS
The Chief likes to smoke and drink, play games of cards and dice, listen to music, maybe even cut the rug from time to time. He is very low-key in his off time, and does happily take on stressful activities, even ones ostensibly organized for entertainment purposes. The only unusual hobby he has is building models and train sets.
He may devote the odd hour or two to working on some small engineering project that has grabbed his interest, and almost compulsively tackles small maintenance chores as he passes down the corridors, such as repairing light bulbs and the like. He likes things neat.
FAMILY
FATHER Deurond Pen (2311-50), a mining equipment operator.
MOTHER Phoa Bambatte (2311-60), a train conductor.
BROTHER Kalij Bambatte (2336-), a mining equipment operator.
SPOUSE Mohai Abattan (2331-68), a fuel technician.
CHILDREN Numiue Abattan (2350-2386), a chemical technician.
OTHER Soodyani Abattan (2374-).
EARLY LIFE (2330-54)
Ardana was, until about ninety years ago, segregated into two officially unequal cultures, with the Troglytes abiding on the surface and suffering greatly under the effects of the planet's highly toxic heavy atmosphere. Mersiel Bambatte grew up in a very challenging social environment, where most people could not expect to live into their sixth decade; in spite of certain social and (much less significant) economic reforms of the turn of the century, most Troglytes were still forced to take demanding and less-remunerative jobs than their upper-atmosphere cousins, and Mersiel knew even as a child that he would never have the opportunities his parents wanted for him.
His father died of respiratory illness when Mersiel was twenty. By that time he had married and had a daughter with a local girl he had known for most of his life, and had worked for two years repairing the same mining equipment that his father had operated for most of his own life. Deurond's death effected him greatly; he saw that there was no real future for him, in spite of his knack for mechanical and electrical engineering. He had looked into enlisting in Starfleet about a year earlier, on his father's advice. His wife, however -- a decent but extremely sentimental woman -- had very strong attachments to her family, and would not consider a separation from them.
Mersiel had a younger brother, and he could no more bear to see Kalij heading for a short life in the mines than to see his mother taking a menial job in a train terminal. He wanted to find a way to lift his family out of their situation, or at least give them enough to improve their lot; Ardana was a member of the Federation, but it had not completely abandoned commerce, and most Troglytes were relatively poor (especially at the less desirable middle latitudes).
By twenty-four, Mersiel had resolved to escape. He told his wife he thought it would be madness not to take a job in the fleet, especially since his work left him hardly any time for his family anyway, and that he would go alone if he needed to. That, unfortunately, was the final result -- for Mohai Abattan was no spacefarer, and Numiue was only four.
STARFLEET SERVICE (2354-84)
Bambatte enlisted with Starfleet and eventually graduated with an engineer's mate rating. He went to work on an extended variety of projects and assignments, including USS Osage (2356-2361), a Nebula-class; USS William Gilbert (2361-2364), a Nova-class; Starbase 40 'Lycanum Station' (2364-2370); USS Asgard (2370-2372), a Norway-class; Starbase 311 (2372); USS Gladiator (2373-78); De Marys Naval Research Station (2378-80); and finally USS Marcus Aurelius (2380-84), from whence he finally retired, after thirty years of continuous service, as a senior chief petty officer.
Bambatte is familiar with the basic structure and inner workings of a number of ship designs, and has had plenty of opportunities to study alien ship designs as well. He was a solid deckplate leader, and while his friendships were rarely lifelong, he did manage to influence two generations of young Sailors, and can call on a number of old mates at need. By the time he had reached Aurelius, Bambatte was more than qualified to train personnel from multiple departments in basic maintenance duties, including Operations technicians; one of his last students was Máthénwy Eidelwel, a beautiful but very quiet kid from Mars, to whom he took a shine. Eidelwel reminded him a little of his wife, who was about the same age when everything in his personal life had begun to go sour; and also a little of his daughter, who had been about the same age as Eidelwel during the last time he had seen her, and with whom he now had a very strained relationship.
RETIREMENT (2384-88)
Mersiel finally returned for good to Ardana and his family, almost all of whom had died (his mother, with whom he had been particularly close, had died while he was still a young man aboard USS Osage). Over the years he had sent the larger portion of his salary home to support them; but his brother was bad with money, his wife was gone (a victim of aggressive lung cancer twenty years before); and his daughter, who had long resented his absence, was mourning the recent loss of her own husband.
Mersiel made a special effort to repair some of the damage he had inflicted on the relationship he'd had with his daughter, whom he had not often been able to see, and who now had a young daughter of her own. Unfortunately Numiue had suffered too difficult a life, and in spite of the progress they had made, he not only failed to convince her to come with him and settle somewhere less difficult, but to continue living at all. The damaged woman committed suicide in circumstances too terrible to relate, leaving Mersiel with a twelve-year-old granddaughter to care for and almost no living relatives to help him.
The past couple of years have been difficult ones for him. He wants to leave Ardana for good, and raise Soo somewhere healthier and, if not safer, at least less dispiriting. He does not want to bring her up on a station, in standard Federation fashion, however; he is tired of the Federation's inability to manage its own resources, having watched for thirty years as it neglected troubled member worlds like Ardana in favor of big-picture imperial maneuvers, bungled diplomatic disasters and compulsive colonialism. He was considering going to Lya Station Alpha, if necessary, when Eidelwel found him.