Mariel Minuet Woods

Nickname: Mari

Rank: Lt jg

Position: Chief Operations Officer

Race: Human

Sex: Female

Age: 26

Marital Status: Single

Hair color: very dark brown

Eye color: green

Height: 5’6”

Weight: 115 lbs

Languages: Federation Standard, random picked up phrases from other cultures

FAMILY

Father: Joshua Woods – PhD in musicology and teaches

Mother: Breanne Woods – PhD in musicology and teaches

Brother: Lieutenant Bryon Woods (30) – helmsman U.S.S. Oriole

Brother: Lieutenant Aaron Woods (30) – helmsman U.S.S. Sequoia

INTERESTS

Music (plays the violin)

Reading

Loves the beach and activities associated with it (beach volleyball, surfing, etc.)

EDUCATION

Pebbled Beach Elementary School

Oak Hills Middle School

Oak Beach High School

Private instruction from parents in music

CAREER

2375 – 2376 – U.S.S. Lamark, Cadet cruise

2376 – 2379 – U.S.S. Bayou, Promoted to ensign

2379 - 2379 – U.S.S. Shrike, Chief Operations Officer

2380 – Present – U.S.S. Spartan, Chief Operation Officer, Promoted to Lieutenant junior grade

CHARACTER HISTORY

Mariel was born and raised in Florida very close to the beach.  Her two twin older brothers were five at the time.  Her mother played the piano and the violin, her father played the cello, and both her brothers played the viola.  She was exposed to music ever since she can remember (where she got her middle name, Minuet, from), and at the age of four she started the violin under the teaching of her mother.  She proved to be a natural at it and became an accomplished violinist very early in her life.  Her two older brothers, Bryon and Aaron, were both very outgoing and animated, so Mariel developed a very shy personality in comparison, which led to her having only a few very close friends as she grew up and even as she went through starfleet academy.

           Mariel loved the beach and spent most of her free time there reading a book in the sun, playing volleyball, or in the water surfing or swimming.  She could never get enough books to read (all kinds of books from old classics to recent books) and her mother often had to tell her to find other activities, at which she would then go to the beach.  She was fairly close to her brothers and since she loved to laugh, they would often make jokes when they were spending time together.  When she was 11 and they were 16, they all hiked up to the top of a bluff to see the sunrise over the ocean.  It was an old trail, but still hiked upon and at the edge of the cliff there was an old iron fence to keep the authenticity of the trail.  He brothers picked her up and held her over the edge of the cliff, terrifying her to an extreme of now having fear of heights.  If she approaches the edge of a high building or something along those lines, she becomes shaky, almost to the point of freezing up, but she is in the process of overcoming this fear.

Mariel and her brothers always loved music but all three of them felt like they wanted to do something more in their lives.  Both her brothers were accepted into starfleet at the age of 18, and despite her parents’ wishes for them to major in musicology, they were very supportive of Aaron’s and Bryon’s decision.

Deciding to follow the path of her brothers, Mariel entered starfleet five years later also at the age of 18.  There she met Jadin, who became a very close friend of hers and then later they became a couple.  She loved his sense of humor, which complemented her love of laughter. She had some trouble making friends at the academy due to her shy nature, but the one valuable piece of advice that her brothers gave to her about it was to not let it get in the way while on duty and affect her performance quality.  She lives up to that piece of advice and a few people are surprised at how she can put aside he shyness at important moments.

While in the last year at the academy, Jadin and his friends were hiking, and due to their practical jokes and fooling around, Jadin accidentally fell over a cliff and died instantly upon impact.  Mariel was devastated and her fear of heights only increased.  She doesn’t like to talk much about that incident because she was very close to Jadin and he was one of the few people that she wasn’t completely shy around and could talk to very easily.  She graduated from starfleet that year in the top 35% of her class in operations with a lesser focus on engineering and security. She then was accepted on the U.S.S. Lamark, where she was promoted to ensign, and then she transferred to the U.S.S. Bayou.

PSYCHIATRIC NOTES

Mariel has a very shy personality, especially in social situations, but when she gets to know a person, she shyness begins to fade away.  She is more assertive on duty, following the advice from her brothers, and most of the time her shyness doesn’t get in the way of her performance.  It takes a lot of pushing to get her angry at someone and she is usually quick to forgive people for their mistakes, which sometimes in the past has led her to be ‘stepped on.’ She talks more openly around those people she knows really well and she is a very loyal and devoted friend.  She also has an adventurous spirit in her that loves to take challenges and risks, which sometimes can come across as being unexpected.