Lieutenant JG Shurlok
Name Shurlok
Position Chief Engineering Officer
Rank Lieutenant JG
Character Information
| Gender | Male | |
| Species | Vulcan |
Physical Appearance
| Height | 6' 5" | |
| Weight | 99 kgs | |
| Hair Color | Black | |
| Eye Color | Light Brown | |
| Physical Description | Skin Tone: Bronze with jade shading Build: Athletic Mesomorph Vernacular: Shurlok speaks with a coastal Golic accent (which humans have described as somewhere between New Zealander and New Yorker, but not quite either). He uses a number of expressions (and occasionally less savory vernacular) learned in his travels, particularly borrowed from Nausicaan and Bajoran. Shurlok has never conformed to the uniform standards of Vulcan aesthetics, finding constant personal maintenance illogical beyond a certain regularity. He is inconveniently tall, even by Vulcan standards. Once spindly enough to cause concern, hard work in unautomated freighter engine rooms has made Shurlok physically robust, though he remains clumsy, and prone to tripping over and bumping into things. His ears are large, even by Vulcan standards, though usually obscured by his hair. He inherited his mother’s less severe-than-usual eyebrows, and his father’s complexion. He is covered in large freckles, small scars and burns from carelessness or clumsiness. He is relatively graceless, and possesses an uncouthness of working habits that can belie his competence as an Engineer. He tends to talk with his hands, which are large to the point of being off-putting. Shurlok tends to dress in a relatively eclectic way, favouring unique, aesthetically agreeable and comfortable options, usually omitting the robed Vulcan styles for comfort and utility based choices. |
Family
| Spouse | None | |
| Children | None | |
| Father | Commander Rovak (Starbase 51) | |
| Mother | Doctor T'Ret (Vulcanis Lunar Colony General Hospital) | |
| Brother(s) | None | |
| Sister(s) | Lieutenant T'Shan (Acting XO, USS Centaurus - Half-sister) |
Personality & Traits
| General Overview | Shurlok, as his name would suggest, is not a conventional Vulcan. He does retain many of the traits considered common amongst his people - particularly a boundless curiosity, a desire to provide assistance where assistance is needed, and the driving urge to learn anything and everything he can. Trained in the traditional Vulcan way, Shurlok has a mind as sharp as that of any Vulcan, but he has tended to prefer improvisation and exploration to rules and regulations. It’s not as though he disagrees with the teachings of Surak, he just doesn’t find them particularly interesting or necessary. He still maintains the bare minimum standards of Kolinahr for his own mental health, but has been known to favour unemotional experience-based intuition over pure logic. Living outside the Federation has ironed out much of the naïveté and innocence he was filled with when he first escaped into space. He has learned to hold his tongue and choose his friends carefully, though his understanding of the niceties of illogical thought and expression is still limited. He He is endlessly fascinated by new things, incessantly questioning everything around him. He enjoys jokes and humour, though he does not properly comprehend them or attempt to make them himself. At all times of the day he is extremely energetic, and always eager to do something he enjoys or something he has never done before. Extremely capable at improvisation, Shurlok can find something fun to do in the most boring and uninspiring of situations, though his enthusiasm is not always shared. He has learned some bad habits and dirty tricks in his time in space, and not all of them he has completely kicked, though he keeps himself respectable and to the standards expected of a serviceman. Shurlok has a great respect for all life, but in spite of his name, is not particularly gifted at problem solving or investigation that does not involve machinery or engines. |
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| Strengths & Weaknesses | Strengths: + Confident + Inquisitive + Bold + Vulcan Weaknesses: - Easily distracted - Unaccustomed to Starfleet life - Often restless - Impervious to some emotional and social cues - Unintentionally inappropriate observations and questions |
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| Ambitions | Ambitions: Shurlok’s ambitions are minimal, beyond serving to the best of his capacity. He hopes to one day settle down and raise a family, but after near constant journeying since the beginning of adulthood, he is ready to plant his feet on the ground for a while and think about what might come next. |
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| Hobbies & Interests | Hobbies and Interests: Shurlok enjoys tinkering with any device he hasn’t tinkered with before, repairs, and the construction of devices and instruments. He enjoys games of cards, zero-g basketball, darts, and any of the other sort of activities one finds themselves accustomed to living on a vessel without holographic entertainment. He does not derive much enjoyment from simulation or holography, finding it unethical. He practices the exercises and techniques of Nausicaan boxing, as taught to him during his apprenticeship in the Merchant Marine. He is fond of music and most forms of performance and artistic expression. He sometimes sketches, though he isn’t very good, and has tried his hand at learning the Amvhuii, an instrument best described as an Andorian digeridoo. Exploration and the chance to try things he has not tried before are always at the forefront of his mind. He consumes technical manuals voraciously, and has been known to read books from a number of different cultures in his downtime. |
| Personal History | Shurlok’s existence was the confluence of several factors, some sinister, some benevolent. His father Rovak had rejected the arranged marriage to his eventual wife T’Ret in childhood, an affront to T’Ret’s influential family. Almost sixty years later, the two reunited by chance, and were soon married, after some pharmaceutical trickery on T’Ret’s behalf. His parents were divorced shortly after his birth, when his father planned to take legal custody of the child, but before he could arrive on Vulcan to make the arrangements official, T’Ret’s family arranged for her to be a participant in a temporal experiment conducted by the Vulcan Science Ministry. The experiment was designed to accelerate time within while time outside remained static, meaning that a year passed inside for every two months on the outside. Taking advantage of once-in-a-millennia conditions necessary for the experiments effect, the Vulcan science academy had built an entire artificial nation to accommodate those who would be monitored during the experiment. Shurlok was only able to have limited contact with his father on the brief occasions he was able to visit the community within the experiment, but his influence lead Shurlok to resist the trappings of Vulcan tradition in favour of being the person he chose to be. Shurlok performed well academically in spite of his less responsible behaviour when interacting with the non-Vulcan children of the experiment’s community, a source of constant friction with his mother. Though many have often questioned how he did not find this experience traumatic, Shurlok simply knew it as his life from infancy, and as a Vulcan he has no strong feelings about it one way or the other. At the age of 17, after a year of education at the Vulcan Science Academy’s satellite branch, Shurlok was able to beam himself aboard a passing freighter and escape the experiment. The Freighter left Shurlok at Deep Space Nine, where with the counsel of Starfleet officers, he joined the Merchant Marine. Apprenticed to a Nausicaan named Behr, Shurlok joined the crew of the SS Fawkes, many of his experiences with which he is legally unable to speak of, the result of a plea bargain with Starfleet Security. It is a matter of public record however, that he served aboard for no less than six months. With his storied time aboard the Fawkes concluded, Shurlok worked his way through half a dozen freighters across the Galaxy for a time, earning his keep with his not insignificant Engineering abilities. Though he was eventually parted from his friend and mentor Behr, Shurlok was eventually promoted within the Merchant Marine to Oiler, then Motorman, the highest rank in the unlicensed Engineering department. His first assignment after the Fawkes was the SS Pentecost, a missionary vessel from Earth, though he found himself stranded after the crew were cooked over a volcano and eaten by the proto-Klingon tribespeople of Fatahri III. Fortunately after managing to convince the proto-Klingons to dig up a number of precious metals he would need to repair the ship, he was soon picked up by a passing Ferengi trader, with whom Shurlok was able to bargain into an unpaid position on his staff in exchange for room and board. Though he enjoyed the strange locales, and the opportunity to work with Ferengi technology (and anything else they happened to have borrowed and kept on board) he found life among Ferengi distasteful and uncomfortable, especially given his relative size. This time allowed him to explore places he was always curious about, including Cardassia, Ferenginar and even parts of the Gamma Quadrant. Upon his return to Federation space, he reluctantly took up an internship with the illustrious Sutler (later renamed Sutulhar after the founders discovery of his Elasian ancestry) Foundation, a Federation think-tank, organized by a friend of his fathers. While he was intrigued by the opportunity that work with the Foundation provided, Shurlok was not comfortable with what he felt was unearned success, and left the Foundation at the end of his internship period. Unable to find the sort of belonging he felt aboard the Fawkes, Shurlok finally decided to enlist in Starfleet, entering the Academy on a two year accelerated entry program designed for those like himself with extensive experience in other affiliated spacefaring organizations like the Merchant Marine. His time at the Academy was an experience he found agreeable and positive, though he found readjusting to life among Federation conditions unusual, and has learned to make arrangements to keep himself from losing the discipline and strength he gained from years of manual labour. His first assignment aboard the USS Intrepid was something of a disaster, with Shurlok assigned to the engine room commanded by his uncle Osk, on his mother’s side. An arch-traditionalist, Osk challenged Shurlok more than was necessary or even professional, though always framed in a completely logical and understandable command. When other engineers in the department noticed the behaviour and took it to the XO, she gave him the offer of transfer, but he declined. When his reviews were made at the end of his year on the intrepid, Osk rated his nephew’s performance poorly in spite of the extra effort that had been put in, and the XO took the unusual step of amending the reports based on feedback from everyone but the Chief. Shurlok took leave after the assignment. Disillusioned with Starfleet after the experience, and concerned about the influence of his mother’s family even there, he considered resigning his commission, until his former XO offered him a position as an engineer on the prototype USS Nimitz-A, a Prometheus-class refit, a position he quietly suspected his father played some role in attaining for him, but could never confirm. After a year he was promoted to Lieutenant JG, and his performance eventually saw him appointed Assistant Chief Engineer. The Nimitz-A saw action and danger at every corner, and though his performance reviews were exemplary, and he was on the path to making Chief Engineer before his 30th birthday, Shurlok did not wish to live among danger and adventure anymore, after finding one of his former Merchant Marine crewmates alive, and reforging the bond they once shared. After assisting the training of his replacement, Shurlok requested a transfer to the USS Io, preferring a non-combat assignment. |
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| Service Record | 2384 – Enlisted in Federation Merchant Marine 2387 – Internship at the Sutler Foundation 2388 – Enrolled in Starfleet Academy, Accelerated Entry Program 2390 – Graduation, Starfleet Academy 2390 – Engineer, USS Intrepid 2391 – Engineer, USS Nimitz-A 2392 – Promoted, Lieutenant JG 2393 – Assistant Chief Engineer, USS Nimitz-A 2395 – Chief Engineer, USS Io |
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