Lieutenant Commander Drevas
Name Drevas
Position Chief Tactical Officer
Rank Lieutenant Commander
Character Information
| Gender | Male | |
| Species | Kelpien (post vahar'ai) | |
| Age | 39 |
Physical Appearance
| Height | 6'8" | |
| Weight | 190 lbs | |
| Hair Color | None | |
| Eye Color | Amber | |
| Physical Description | Drevas is about the average height and build for his people - 6’8” tall, gangly and a little bit prawnlike (depending on whom you ask). Some reckon (wrongly) that a particularly strong wind might snap him in half, at least until he demonstrates that he's far more agile, strong and sturdy than they might think. He's hardly frail, just... lean. That's all. |
Family
| Spouse | None | |
| Children | None, and he's not terribly optimistic about having any. |
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| Father | Aakar (deceased) | |
| Mother | Kivaa | |
| Brother(s) | None | |
| Sister(s) | None | |
| Other Family | Several younger cousins of varying gender and age (and more recently, species too). Also, a paternal aunt and her husband whom he worked for while studying for Starfleet Academy. |
Personality & Traits
| General Overview | Drevas isn't really the talkative type. When he does speak, he tries to make the words count - though that's not always easy, given the line of work he's chosen for himself. He'd rather let what he does speak quietly for itself; words are but noise if not backed by action. You can thank his upbringing for that. That being said, quiet does not equal unwillingness to listen or asocialness. Throughout his leadership journey in Starfleet, Drevas has always tried hard to listen to those around him with humility and grace. He's learned well enough that oftentimes the people below him might even have even more experience than he, and to take their counsel and advice seriously as he makes decisions. Making friends has never really been easy for him; not that it bothers him excessively. The few friends he has he keeps close to his heart though the distance between them may be vast. One wonders if he spends way too much time in his head, thinking and working efficiently through his day sometimes to properly notice that the world around him is rich and full of others willing to connect to him and come into his life in a meaningful fashion. Picking up on romantic or other such overtures is unfortunately not his strong suit as a result - which is not to say that he's clueless in that department. |
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| Strengths & Weaknesses | + Consultative + Unafraid of long, tedious tasks + Hardworking; will work at something until it is completed to his satisfaction. - Will readily work till burnout. It's happened a handful of times over his career by now. - Not particularly good at engineering-related tasks. - Might actually be too patient for his own good. |
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| Ambitions | * To captain his own starship. He would settle for being commander of a base or training institute too, but it just wouldn't feel the same to him. * To finally learn how to play the violin. * To have a tactic or maneuver named after him. He's aware that this will probably only happen when pigs fly, of course, but one can hope. |
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| Hobbies & Interests | * Curling up with a good book. He prefers fiction, particularly that written by Andorians. * Cooking his own meals - not that he's got time or the ability to source ingredients nowadays. * Holonovels of various kinds. He may or may not secretly love the cheesy ones. |
| Personal History | The term 'rags to riches' takes on a somewhat different form in the 24th century; Drevas' beginning is one such story. Born in a less well-to-do village in rural modern Kaminar, he grew up to a to a farmer father and schoolteacher mother. Drevas attended school in the nearest town by day and helped out on the family farm by night. Overall their life was simple but comfortable. Comfortable as their life indeed was his father was intent on making sure that his daughter knew that nothing in life ever came easy; as soon as he was old enough he would have Drevas help him with his work on the land; much of his childhood was spent this way helping to grow, harvest and then help carry his produce to the local market. Success, his father emphasised, only truly meant something if you’d earned it with your own two hands. Drevas carried this attitude to school with him. He worked extremely hard to earn every mark, perhaps to a somewhat unhealthy extent; despite consistently earning good grades he wasn’t good at making friends or socializing, choosing to spend his spare time studying or helping his father instead. His social life suffered, and eventually it crashed down on him in high school, where he suffered an emotional breakdown over the isolation, and his academics took a hit. That was when he finally decided to start taking his social life seriously; in fact, he started an outreach club in his final year, aimed at identifying and bringing isolated students out of their shells. That same club still exists in his high school today. Starfleet came into his life in his final year of high school, when they gave a recruitment talk and set up a booth at a career fair on campus. Drevas liked the idea of being able to travel the stars and broach new horizons for the Federation, all while pursuing a line of work he liked. He could not then decide on a career track to follow, though, and so he shelved the idea as he completed his studies. What *actually* got the idea to stick was a tragic incident that occurred just days after his graduation from high school. While out celebrating with his parents, the restaurant was invaded by a group of anti-Alliance insurgents with antiproton weapons, whose goal was to return society back to its oldest days of Kelpien dominance and Ba’ul as prey. Drevas and his family, along with several others, were among those kidnapped and taken to a safe house in the Kaminar forest, and used as bargaining chips. Poor Drevas was forced to watch helplessly as their kidnappers shot and killed one captive each time the governing body refused to accede to their demands. His father was the last hostage to lose his life before law enforcement discovered the safe house and rescued the still-living, including Drevas and his mother. That was the day he discovered he really, really didn’t like helplessly standing by and watching as others committed the unspeakable - and his resolve to enlist with Starfleet crystallised. He knew what he wanted to do at last. There were still several months left before the next earliest entrance exam, however. Drevas found employment with one of his aunts, who let him work in a restaurant she owned while studying by night. It was ultimately she who helped him discover his love for cooking and encouraged him to continue doing it as he got older. Drevas made the best use of his time as he could, diligently working to keep his academics fresh in his mind before travelling to Earth, alone, one week before the entrance exam, to prepare - and pass, to his great relief. Drevas’s attitude towards his academics continued, though tempered now by a little more self awareness. He was not the best and brightest of his class, but he worked hard to make up for his deficits. What he was not good at, he would practice or ask for remedial training for until he felt that he was, leading some of his instructors to beg him to stop asking them for clarifications despite obviously being familiar with his training and content. This time, however, Drevas took much effort to immerse himself in campus life; he would go on to join a total of three clubs in his cadet life, culminating in winning a silver medal for the Academy’s athletics team and taking up a position as treasurer for the cadet’s debater’s club. Upon graduating, he was assigned to the USS Pentercost as a tactical officer. He would find his formative years unexciting at best; though the ship was assigned to clean up any Dominion insurgents remaining from the war, it would encounter surprisingly little action. The highlight of this tour of duty would come during their first and only first contact mission within the entire period, when the entire team were chased out of the local settlement with polaron rifle fire by locals after being mistaken for Dominion stragglers themselves. Drevas would reassigned to Starfleet Academy’s Betazed campus in 2378 as an instructor. Here he realised that, despite the highly empathic environment, there was a concerning lack of actual empathy for the cadets who studied there. The module he was assigned to teach was an elective, one with already few signups from the get-go due to its toughness - and a famously low retention rate. Drevas quickly realised that trainees didn’t feel supported enough - something his fellow instructors weren’t attending to well enough - which contributed to the overall abysmal retention rate. He worked hard to change this starting with himself; Drevas instituted an open-door policy with all the trainees assigned to him, offering to help them in whatever ways he could with regards to their training without compromising standards. Slowly but surely, retention rates began to improve. By the end of Drevas’ tenure (and several batches of happier, more motivated cadets later), it had increased to about 80%. It probably wasn’t that which got Drevas the opportunity to embark the next leg of his career per se, but you never know. He would be one of a handful of tactical officers selected to attend the Klingon Defence Force’s Harsh Environment Tactics course as a foreign exchange trainee. He would spend the next year, following the completion of his instructional tour, on the Klingon training colony of Korvat Minor with its famously volatile climate, ranging from blazing hot sun to freezing cold and snow for months on end to near pitch black darkness at night to swamps and deserts in which all of the previous could occur. Drevas was, initially, considered too soft and squishy by his Klingon coursemates, who viewed him as too nerdy or too fragile to survive till the end. He fought back peacefully, choosing to simply demonstrate his worth in the field and nothing else. His efforts culminated in his syndicate carrying his limp, dehydrated body over the finish line on an improvised stretcher while lauding him a warrior, after he fought off a hostile desert animal. He keeps in touch with a handful of these individuals today. Starfleet seemed eager to put him and his newly acquired skills to the test; following a brief rest period he was assigned to the USS Maverick as an away missions specialist, where his duties consisted mostly of training her crew in the same things he’d learned from the KDF. A defining moment of this tour of duty would come when he and his away team were trapped on a harsh winter planet for four days, and he was forced to put his skills (and himself) to the test by helping them to find and maintain shelter from the icy biting winds that raged on the planet at nearly all hours. Following the conclusion of this assignment, it seemed that Starfleet had finally had enough of putting him through punishing conditions; he would then be reassigned to Starfleet Headquarters as a staff officer for the next three years. At the end of it, he would finally be sent for advanced command courses at Starfleet’s command college before being transferred to Starfleet Academy - this time as deputy head of its Away Missions Training Branch. In his new position, Drevas was instrumental in developing training programmes for both cadets and serving personnel alike, with particular regard to away missions. He used much of what he’d learned here as well - a handful of programmes being trialled today with regards to outdoor survival skills at the Academy were developed with his input. Finally, after a few years in this position, Drevas was assigned to a shipboard position: assistant chief tactical officer of the USS Merlion. He carried his philosophy of supporting those who needed it the most and keeping his door and ears open for those who needed it the most into this assignment too, especially important given the Merlion’s mission of deep-space exploration. Here he found that the issue was often psychological in nature: given the distance from civilisation, his crew felt isolated - which would on occasion affect training and morale. It would be Drevas who pushed hard for interdepartmental cohesion programmes, with the help of the ship’s counsellors, while doing his utmost to keep his own department together. Doing so was not an easy task. In deep space, the Merlion would often have hostile encounters with other races, which was often not conducive to morale. Balancing tough, realistic training with absolutely necessary recovery was difficult, but Drevas worked hard to make it work. By the time the Merlion returned to drydock in 2388, overall efficiency and morale of his team had remained fairly constant despite their difficult circumstances - not purely due to Drevas’ efforts of course, but some of his crew attribute much of their well-being to him. |
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| Service Record | 2369-2373: Cadet, Starfleet Academy 2372: Appointed Cadet Wing Commander, Spock Wing 2373-2376: Tactical Officer, USS Pentercost 2376-2378: Instructor (Away Mission Tactics), Starfleet Academy Betazed campus Late 2378-2379: Attends and completes the Klingon Defence Force’s Harsh Environment Tactics course as a foreign trainee 2379-2381: Away Missions Specialist, USS Maverick 2381-2383: Staff officer, Starfleet HQ Mid to late 2383: Completes advanced command courses 2383-2385: Deputy Head, Away Missions Training Branch, Starfleet Academy Earth campus 2385-2388: Assistant Chief Tactical Officer, USS Merlion |