Stats
- 308 Mission Posts
- 16 Personal Logs
- 3 News Items
Last Post
Thu May 17th, 2012 @ 10:53pm
Lieutenant Commander Daniël de Vos
Name Daniël de Vos
Position Chief Science Officer
Rank Lieutenant Commander
Character Information
| Gender | Male | |
| Species | Human | |
| Age | 40 | |
| Languages | Federation Standard, Dutch |
Physical Appearance
| Height | 5'7" (171 cm) | |
| Weight | 187 lbs (85 kg) | |
| Hair Color | Black, looks untamable | |
| Eye Color | Dark-gray, with what looks like specks of gold | |
| Physical Description | Daniël is solidly built; he grew up on a planet with a higher-than-normal gravity (1.3 g). As a result, Daniël is strong for his size. Also his bones are stronger than normal to withstand the additional force. He is not specially attractive or unattractive, but his deep-set eyes have a certain intense curiosity that is easily remembered. Beyond that he looks like a normal Western male. His dress style can best be described as 'practical'. He will wear whatever is appropriate, practical or comfortable (in that order). On the job he will often dress in a Starfleet lab coat with his own customized tricorder in one pocket and a PADD in another. In his own choice of clothes he prefers earthen colors (ochre, brick-red, dark-green, etc.), sometimes with subtle weavings or embroidery. Daniël's high-gravity background is clearly visible in his movements. They are careful and precise, while at the same time his footing is extremely stable. This slow movement sometimes makes people to think that he is slow in mind as well. Mostly Daniël uses such a situation to play a quick joke on that person, thus convincing him that he actually has a very good set of brains and uses them. On his right forearm he wears a copper-like arm bracer, inscribed with some kind of glyphs. He has the habit of examining everything; a sign of his great curiosity. For the same reason, he always seems to gaze intently at whatever he is looking at (even when talking to other peoples, who are sometimes a little unnerved by the intensity). |
Family
| Spouse | Amber Taltos | |
| Children | ||
| Father | Johan de Vos | |
| Mother | Marieke de Vos - Zeggelaar | |
| Brother(s) | ||
| Sister(s) | Judith de Vos | |
| Other Family |
Personality & Traits
| General Overview | Enthusiastic is the best way to describe Daniël's mood. He is always ready to do things, but he has learned to 'pace' himself. While he will always be enthusiastic, he will not be tempted into putting too much energy (and stress) into a single project. Second thing one notes is, of course, his curiosity. A new thing, either a completely new phenomena or just a new scenery can catch his attention quickly. 'Under fire' he tends to totally focus on his immediate task, which in his opinion is, in order of descending importance the safety of the ship, the safety of whoever is his responsibility and finally whatever task he has been assigned to perform. Daniël is a very social person. He is an easy talker, but can also be quite happy just watching and observing. In general he is quite relaxed (although in emergency situations he can become totally focused and to the point, almost snappish). His slow behavior can be misleading, but he is more than happy to help people 'realize' his intelligence, often through a small joke or such. Although congenial, he still finds it difficult sometimes to make, what he ironically calls, 'first contact'. Once he accepts you as his friend, you have one in him as well. But while Daniël has a lot of acquaintances, he as only a few of these deep friends. |
|
| Strengths & Weaknesses | Daniël is strong! This is due to the fact that he grew up in a higher gravity. This strength is mainly full body strength, but with some extra hit points due to his tougher bones. Daniël's intelligence is of the immensely curious and analytical type. Always interested in the world around him and almost constantly analyzing the things around him. But he has learned to 'shut off' the analyses when he is off duty. He will still be curious about everything, but he will not put the same amount of energy in it as on duty, just enough to get some understanding and to file the interesting bits away for when he _is_ on duty again. He does have a fear of heights. Heights as in standing on the edge of a precipice, standing on a high ladder. Note that flying, or being inside a building is no problem. It is the actual presence of a large drop that frightens him. Similarly, he finds the feeling of falling (parachuting or something like that) very frightening. Weightlessness is uncomfortable for him for the same reason, but the lack of the rushing wind and, when present, the enclosure of the spaceship/base reduces the feeling. Still, zero-g and especially EVA activities are definitely not his favorites. Daniël attributes this fear to an incident in his youth, where he broke an arm and a leg after a fall. Due to the higher gravity on his birth planet such an accident can often be more dangerous. |
|
| Ambitions | The driving factor for Daniël is mainly his curiosity and the pleasure he finds in exploration. That he is slowly working his way up the ranks is more or less an added bonus (although it cannot be denied that he is very proud of his achievements). At the moment his goal is to learn the manage a larger department, one where he'll need to delegate the tasks. For the future a more prestigious assignment and perhaps working towards the command of a science vessel? If the opportunity presents itself, Daniël will grab it, but he is not the elbow-type. He likes to have a live outside of his job as well. His impending marriage with Amber Taltos, for example, would weight heavily in on any decision he makes. For now he is happy with the posting he got and he is looking forward to the job, both the scientific and the management part. | |
| Hobbies & Interests | Daniël has several. For one, he enjoys fly-fishing. On Ranius II a lot of local life that evolved in the water; mainly because the buoyancy counteracts the higher gravity, making life easier. One of his favorite ways to spend his high-gravity holodeck visits is to go fly-fishing. Another activity he engages in because of his high-gravity background is strength training. He discovered that he actually likes to work up a decent sweat on the exercise machines. He also developed a taste for literature and actually prefers the paper books above PADD's (although that does not keep him from using PADD's to access books he does not have himself). Some of his favorites include medieval ballads, fantasy books and a very diverse collection of alien literature (mostly to get some insight into the specific culture). He also enjoys a lot of music, most of it of the easy-listening type (although he does enjoy the more active beats during parties). A good glass of wine and a decent meal now and then are also a good way to relax. |
| Personal History | Daniël Egbertus Johannes de Vos was born to Johan Andreus Pieter de Vos en Marieke de Vos - Zeggelaar on May 6, 2348 in the Ranius II colony (The De Vos' also have a daughter, named Judith, whom Daniël adores; sadly she is something of a spoiled brat). Ranius II is a high-gravity (1.3 g) world that had been colonized by a group of settlers of European origin. Being born and growing up on a world with a higher-than-average gravity resulted in Daniël having a compact but strong build. His movements also reflect this, with an emphasis on careful movement. But the gravity did nothing to hamper Daniëls spirit! From an early age his curiosity and enthusiasm shown forth. He drove his parents absolutely nuts during is 'why?' phase. In a way, he never got out of that.. He attacked every new thing with the same enthusiasm and confidence that he could handle it, whatever it was. With his intelligence (and a little luck now and then) he indeed did manage to handle most of what came on his path. And what he could not handle head-on, he found a way around, underneath or over. Daniël likes working with other people and has everybody's best interest at heart. However, he knows that not everyone thinks like that. If he is convinced that you are his friend, you will have a friend for life. If not, he will act cautiously around you. This, together with the fact that he did not lord his intelligence over others but used it to help others, gave him a lot of friends. For someone with his intelligence, school was easy and he had a lot of free time to devote to hobbies and other interests. These soon settled on physics, so it was no surprise to anyone that Daniël graduated from highschool as the best of his class and as science award winner. Most were happily surprised, however, when he managed to receive a scholarship to study on Earth. This, with some backing from his parents, allowed him to enter Strathclyde University on Earth; not the number one university on Earth, but still quite prestigious in itself. His family doctor warned him that this prolonged stay out of the heavier gravity of Ranius II would reduce his resistance to it. His bones would de-calcify and his muscles strength would reduce (much like long-term astronauts before the introduction of artificial gravity). Daniël decided that he wanted to able to return to his home planet and together with the doctor worked out a program to keep his body in shape. This mostly consisted of muscle training, calcium supplements and the occasional stay in a high-gravity environment as provided by a holodeck. He did break a lot of things during his initial time on Earth, due to his large strength. One of the things that he picked up while at university was a deeper interest in the Christian faith. His parents had raised him as a Christian in the Dutch-reformed tradition, but before his stay at university - and his meet-up with the local evangelical student organization - it had been more of a habit than a spiritual thing for him. His stay at the university was a pleasant one. Again he excelled in his chosen subjects (physics major with a history minor), but he was by no means a loner. Being on Earth enabled him to visit many of the major sites on the 'cradle of humanity'. Strathclyde University was located in former England and that enabled him to visit his ancestral roots in the former Netherlands. His interest in history was partly inspired by this. He was active in a number of student clubs and as everywhere was wildly curious about almost everything. His Master study went along the same lines, with a major part of physics, but with many other electives within and without the natural sciences. Nearing the end of his study, Daniël was thinking carefully about what he wanted to do afterwards. He knew that if he did not satisfy his curiosity, he would go out of his mind out of boredom. The choice for Starfleet was easily made. His interest at that time in space-time physics made him choose the Engineering track. However, after two years on that track he found that it did not suit him. To his mild surprise he found Engineering too 'confined' in scope and he decided to switch to the Science track. Overlap of classes and his intelligence enabled him to enter the second year of the Science track without to much difficulty. Here was what Daniël had been looking for. A wild plethora of scientific research, coupled with new discoveries. The added task of being a commissioned Starfleet officer was a side-issue, but Daniëls congeniality made this pretty much a non-problem. His cadet assignment aboard the USS Amsterdam only confirms his choice. Again, to no-ones surprise, he graduated with honours. After graduation Daniël held a number of posts, gradually working his way up the ranks. His career could with all likelihood have gone faster, but to Daniël the first thing was satisfying his curiously, e.g. science, and not the number of pips on his collar. Still, he was quite proud of each of his promotions and works hard to be worthy of the job. While aboard the USS Osaka Daniël underwent his bridge officer examination. He will not speak about what happened there, but it did influence him to the core. Before the examination, he had always gone into a situation confident that he could handle anything that came his way. It might be difficult, but he would persevere. His great skill and the (relatively) limited scope of the Science department helped him in that. However, the examination showed him that there were situations where all your skill could not help you; that sometimes there was no solution that could save everyone and that sometimes sacrifices were necessary. The result was that, although still confident in his skills, Daniël no longer believes that every situation has a complementary neat solution. Daniël's time aboard the Nimitz has been hectic, but also slow. Many missions resulted in extensive damage to the ship, so extended layover at starbases were common. Many of the missions he participated in are actually classified. A brief overview: hunting down a prototypical passive-stealth ship, preventing a coup by Starfleet flag officers who wanted to implicate the Romulans in a terror attack on San Francisco, investigating the alleged Romulan links and rescuing their captain deep within Romulan space, investigating the disappearnce of a colony finally linked to spacetime bubbles, dealing with a descendant of the ancient T'kon empire and her evil twin, participating in a wargame gone wrong, investigating an uprising on a Federation planet which was caused by some shady characters and finally an attempt by the Ferengi (and a surgically altered shady character from the previous mission) to steal the Nimitz and sell it to the highest bidder. He was absent when the Nimitz was captured by the Qaric for study, but he decided to return to Mars and finally finish his Ph.D. research. During that time he and Amber Taltos moved in together once he returned with the Nimitz. They had fallen in love aboard the Nimitz and were in a serious relationship. After his Ph.D. defense, he was recruited by Tal Feryn once again into the quantum slipstream drive project. He and Amber decided to move to Cellis station, as they did not want to split them up. Luckily Daniël and Tal were able to finagle an opening for Amber within the medical staff at the station. His time on the Sojourner was brief but intense. After a visit back to Qaric space, where his fiancée had suffered so much, they got involved in the relief effort operations after the Hobus supernova destroyed Romulus. The near total loss of the Sojourner made his position unclear, and Starfleet was for a while unsure what to do with him. In the end he was assigned to the newly-rechristened USS Nimitz as the Chief Science Officer. With the larger complement, this assignment was a step up from the small Science department he had run aboard the Prometheus-class Nimitz previously. |
|
| Service Record | 2375-2376 cadet, scientist, USS Amsterdam (New-Orleans-class) 2376-2378 ensign, scientist, USS Chamberlain (Niagara-class) 2378-2379 ensign, scientist, Daystrom Institute of Technology, Starbase 32, Maxia system 2379-2381 lieutenant (junior grade), scientist, USS Lakota (Nebula-class) 2381-2383 lieutenant (junior grade), assistant chief science officer, USS Osaka (Ambassador-class) 2383-2384 lieutenant, chief science officer, USS Nimitz (Prometheus-class) 2384-2385 lieutenant-commander, chief science officer, USS Nimitz (Prometheus-class) 2385-2386 lieutenant-commander, Daystrom Institute for Relativity and Spacetime Physics, Mars 2386-2387 lieutenant-commander, QSD project, Cellis Station 2387-2388 lieutenant-commander, QSD project liaison, USS Sojourner (Sojourner-class) 2388-now lieutenant-commander, chief science officer, USS Nimitz (Legacy-class) |