Who the Heck are Briggs and Dietz?
I've created this page for a few reasons. One, as an introduction to the characters for those who might want to read my "Lurking" series without reading A&P and C&S first. Two, both characters have proven quite popular, so I thought people might enjoy seeing what I think they look like, and what their backstories are...including information about them that hasn't appeared in print.
Nora Briggs and Nam Dietzbader are original characters from my long DS9 O/K story Angle and Plane, both also appeared in its sequel Circle and Spiral. I received enough positive feedback about them that I'm creating a spinoff fanfiction series that's just about them.
Briggs
Briggs first appeared as a walk-on character, the DS9 Ops night duty officer, in my story They. But she refused to stay put, so I incorporated her into "Angle and Plane."
Nora Lambert Briggs, age 34, is a native of the North American continent on Earth. She was born in Philadelphia; her parents are both musicians, her mother an opera singer and her father a composer and conductor of the Philadelphia Philharmonic Orchestra. She is an only child and possesses no musical talent whatsoever, though her family never held this against her. Demonstrating an aptitude for logic and engineering, she entered Starfleet Academy at age 18 and soon distinguished herself. While her academic performance was good if not stellar, she became known for creative solutions to seemingly impossible problems and for her physical prowess. She excelled at marksmanship and martial arts, becoming the youngest person (and the first human) to win the Pan-Galactic Personal Combat Championship. Her cheerful personality and amiable manner also made her a class favorite.
Soon after her graduation, Briggs found herself transferred to a remote starbase. At first dismayed by this inauspicious posting she soon learned that she'd been sent there for a reason: to be recruited by Section 31. Her creativity and aptitude for violence made her an ideal candidate, and Briggs decided that she would accept recruitment despite a few moral misgivings. During her Section 31 training, she met a young man named Harry London. They were married soon after completing the training. That is how an unassuming woman from Philadelphia found herself working as an assassin in a top-secret Federation intelligence branch.
Briggs soon proved an excellent spy. She moved up through the ranks until, three years after joining Section 31, she was assigned to a deep cover assignment in the Orion Syndicate. Harry entered the operation after some time as a middleman, but he was caught and executed. Briggs completed the mission with such success that she was made a discretionary free agent, one of only 24 in the organization, independent agents with no orders or accountability, trusted to act in the best interests of the Federation. She spent her first two years as a DFA working undercover on Ty'GoKor as a Klingon. After the Bajoran wormhole was discovered, she was transferred to Deep Space Nine and took a post as the Ops night duty officer. Her open and friendly attitude soon made her a station fixture. Soon after she arrived, she became aware that two people on the station no doubt knew of her true identity: Security Chief Odo, who missed very little of what went on even in secret, and Elim Garak, whose Obsidian Order background enabled him to recognize a fellow spy readily. She knew she could trust Odo to keep her secret, and made it clear to Garak that he'd regret it if he didn't.
It's been implied that "Nora Briggs" is, in fact, her codename and that her real name is as yet unknown. I'll let you wonder about that, but it is a fact that she is sometimes called "Jack," a shortened version of her assassin's handle "Candlestick Jack." The intergalactic community of high-end assassins is something of a loose brotherhood that transcends political loyalty or enemy lines, and they have their own ways of recognizing each other...each has a handle or a nickname that's known only to other assassins or those who trained with them. "Jack" is how Briggs is known to this community of assassins. One's handle is traditionally inspired by one's first target...hers was a human isolationist and terrorist leader known as Candlestick Jack in the black-market underground.
Briggs' leading characteristic is her optimistic, cheerful personality. Always a smile and a joke and a kind word. Her emotional underpinnings are like Gibraltar, which explains how she has kept her sanity *and* her spirit alive with the kind of work she does. While her demeanor is genuine, it also provides her with a rather handy camouflage to hide the emotional consequence she does experience. Her husband's death was the most traumatic event of her life, and it scarred her considerably...both the manner of his death and the guilt that she did nothing to stop it, choosing the integrity of the mission over Harry's life. Her tasks as an assassin, though she restricts herself to targets she can justify morally, take their toll. Harry, though he loved her deeply, never fully understood the darkness she was forced to co-exist with, because he'd never been there. No one really understood her until she met Dietz.
Dietz
Nam Dietzbader is a Changeling dissident, a rebel against the Founders who chooses to live separate from the Great Link. He was written in as a character for Odo to interact with and get assistance from in "Angle and Plane" and he proved interesting enough to take on something of a life of his own.
Dietz is 634 years old, which puts him in his mid-30's considering a Changeling's long lifespan. Like any Changeling, he began his existence in the Great Link. He was a Founder, and it didn't occur to him to be anything else. After his hundredth year once he'd reached functional adulthood, he was one of those Founders who is sent out amongst the Dominion troops to conduct the Founder's business. His particular specialty was interrogation and information retreival from solids. He had something of a ruthless reputation among the Vorta, who referred to him as The Questioner. He conducted Dominion business faithfully and did as he was told...until the seminal event in his life, which happened when he was 213. A Bajoran science vessel, exploring in the Denorios Belt, happened upon the wormhole and slipped through. He was assigned to interrogate its captain, a Bajoran scientist and philosopher named Litan Meru. An attack upon his ship trapped him with her in the interrogation area for seven days, and by the time they were rescued, she'd succeeded in shaking him to his foundations. When they returned to the Founders' planet, he stole a shuttle, rescued her from her captors, and left the Link never to return.
For his first few decades away from the Link, Dietz was very confused and unsure of himself. He probably only survived because of Litan, who stayed with him until she died of natural causes many years later. She guided him through his difficult transition into independence and taught him what it meant to respect others and feel things for himself. She got them hooked up with the fledgling Dominion Resistance movement in the Gamma Quadrant, herself becoming leader of one of its cells. They did everything they could to hide Dietz' Changeling identity for fear of prejudice, only utilizing his abilities when they did missions alone, which was frequently.
Dietz took his name from a book of Bajoran philosophy that Meru gave him to read. Two philosophers, Bader Nam and Dietz Meru, spoke to him in particular...they studied and described the way that a single individual can influence the gestalt of a group consciousness. He warmed to the idea so much that he combined their names (leaving out Meru, which was of course taken by his partner) for his own.
The first real trauma for Dietz was Meru's death. Left alone, he struggled for a few years but eventually found his own identity away from her. He fell into a pattern to hide his identity; he'd join a resistance cell, age himself, then fake his own death and go somewhere new with a new appearance. He used his shapeshifting skills extensively, at times revealing his identity to his fellow resistance fighters if he trusted them enough. His perpetual worry was hiding from the Founders, who never stopped searching for him. The lifesaver for him was the energy interference disc that Meru invented for him, which made him invisible to the Founders' detection technology.
Because of his activities and his life spent on the run, Dietz became probably the best shapeshifter in the universe. His feats of shapeshifting became something of a legend among those resistance fighters who knew him; among them a working hovercraft, a running river and a hurricane that took out a Jem'Hadar shipyard. His curiosity led him to try many things; once during a particularly cold winter when his cell found themselves stranded, he spent six months as a small mountain with a system of intricate caves to support them until the weather warmed up.
Dietz' ruthlessness as a Founder metastasized into a rather sarcastic, biting demeanor. He is something of a wacky individual, doing nothing halfway and expressing himself freely. He wears his emotions on his sleeve and holds very little back. He hates the Founders, having spent 400 years witnessing their atrocities...and probably due to residual guilt that he was ever a part of their agenda. His dedication to the overthrow of the Dominion is absolute, and he will do almost anything to further his cause.
How did these guys end up in Lori's DS9 fanfiction?
In "Angle and Plane," Kira decides to go to the Gamma Quadrant to try and save Odo from the Link, but she is told in an orb vision that she'll need a powerful guardian to help her. She chooses Briggs...she knows her identity because Odo left her some files when he left to join the Link. Briggs goes along to help, and she and Kira become friends, as much as that's possible.
When Odo manages to escape the Link himself, he feels the need to go find "the blue man," who turns out to be Dietz (who at the time had rather extravagant blue hair). Through the Link he has the feeling that this blue man can help him, and he does...guiding Odo through the spaceport where he lives and allowing him to use his ship. Dietz' only request is that when Odo leaves, he takes Dietz along. Dietz doesn't reveal to Odo and he's a Changeling until it's absolutely necessary, but once he does, Odo is amazed to hear his story.
Once everyone is back on DS9 and Starfleet learns of Dietz and the other Changeling dissidents they've brought back with them, Dietz is recruited by Section 31 and paired off with Briggs. The two are turned loose to wage guerrila warfare against the Dominion.
So what's their relationship like?
One subplot of "Circle and Spiral" was the relationship between Briggs and Dietz. From the very beginning, Dietz saw through her exterior like no one else could, and she resented him for it. He hated that she continued to do things that caused her pain and ignored his concern, and so he'd lash out at her because he didn't know what else to do. He wanted to help her, but she refused to acknowledge that any help was required. She could not escape the specter of Harry's death and her role in it, and she was feeling like nothing more than a killer...he felt shut out by her and his efforts to support her emotionally were stonewalled.
Eventually, through a confrontation with the man responsible for Harry's death, Briggs achieved a kind of peace with her past. She and Dietz were finally able to verbalize how they felt about each other, and it gave Briggs the strength to face the dark things about herself and let go of Harry.
However, theirs is a very volatile relationship. They're both such passionate people, and their passion for each other takes many forms. They don't have a stable, mature, loving relationship like Odo and Kira. Theirs is more of the wild monkey sex on the lawn, throwing pots and pans at each other kind of relationship. They can't live with each other but they can't live without each other.
Their partnership continues. Briggs continues, much to Dietz' chagrin, to take termination assignments; they also take on dangerous undercover assignments and infiltration jobs. They love their work and they love each other, but neither parts of their lives are dull or peaceful.