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Wed Nov 1st, 2023 @ 11:49pm
Captain Charlotte Rhodes
Name Charlotte Alexandria Rhodes
Position Commanding Officer
Rank Captain
Character Information
| Gender | Female | |
| Species | Human | |
| Age | 30 |
Physical Appearance
| Height | 5'9" | |
| Weight | 140 lbs | |
| Hair Color | Blonde | |
| Eye Color | Blue-Green | |
| Physical Description | Charlotte is a woman of athletic and lean build. She has a small tattoo of a phoenix on her lower back, a reference to her place of birth. She has a lingering scar across her abdomen, front and back, from a near fatal injury she suffered as a younger officer. She tends to prefer her hair tied back while on duty, but tends to style it much more while enjoying personal time. It is part of her compartmentalization of her life that has kept her sane so far. Following her extended medical treatments in the past, Charlotte was left with an adverse sensitivity to a number of standard medications. One of these is the retinax series of medicines. Due to a slight case of farsightedness, Rhodes occasionally makes use of eyeglasses or corrective contact lenses for reading, a fact she is hesitant to share with most. |
Family
| Spouse | N/A | |
| Father | Jasper Rhodes, Unknown (Estranged) | |
| Mother | Mallory Rhodes (Deceased) | |
| Brother(s) | Arthur Rhodes, Unknown (Estranged) |
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| Sister(s) | Jaina Rhodes, Starfleet Academy |
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| Other Family | Aveline Morris, Living on Alpha Eridani II (Aunt on Maternal Side) Achilles (Cat), USS Defiant |
Personality & Traits
| General Overview | Charlotte Rhodes has matured a great deal since her Academy. As a younger officer, she was not an intentionally combative person, but her personality got her into trouble more than once. She is a strong willed individual, firmly set in her beliefs, and willing to fight harder than most to stick to those. This reflex, while noble, was ill-suited to diplomatic situations. She has spent the ensuing years tempering this instinct, leading to her much more measured demeanor while in the chair. She's idealistic, occasionally to a fault. And while she has gained significant self control, she is still opinionated and not always afraid to make herself known, even if those others are superiors. She is cheerful, with a playful and sarcastic streak. However, in normal social settings, she can be a bit more reserved. While she promotes a comfortable atmosphere, she herself often finds it difficult to settle into the crowd. In the past, she was nearly killed by a grievous injury in the line of duty, sidelined for months to recover, and is therefore much more aware of the risks she's inflicting on her crew. As such, she draws a firm line between a comfortable workplace and a negligent one. While a casual environment is encouraged, she comes down hard the moment someone's actions verge on endangering the crew. Despite plenty of experience, she has no love for combat and will do her best to avoid such situations. However, many foes have found that her substantial effort to avoid violent conflict is matched by a sharp and adaptive tactical mind. |
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| Strengths & Weaknesses | + Talented Diplomat...when she isn’t sidetracked by her own opinions + Clear head in the thick of a crisis + Has received cross training training in both helm and numerous scientific disciplines, particularly planetary sciences and astrometrics +- Her stalwart ideology has made her a powerful representative of the Federation at numerous points in her career. However, while she can be quite tactful on contact missions, she also does not tolerate injustices and refuses to overlook them for the sake of a negotiation. This has made her a bit of a gamble on Starfleet's part. - Losing people under her command can have an overly detrimental effect on her. Though she maintains composure on duty, she tends to bottle up that emotion and let it loose on herself when off duty. - She still has a hard time delegating responsibilities to others, because she isn't comfortable putting the lives of those under her command in other people's hands. - She is sometimes impulsive when emotionally invested in a situation, though she's tempered this over time. - Due to a series of betrayals in her past, trust is difficult for Charlotte. Though professional trust is something she is easily able to convey, she is extremely guard in personal dealings. |
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| Ambitions | Charlotte has achieved her career goals and will fight like hell to keep her Captain's chair. While she has considered the idea of some day making admiral, good luck to whoever plans to drag her out of the Captain's chair. She'd prefer a regional command, which would allow her to stay in the center seat. |
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| Hobbies & Interests | Amateur astronomy, old Earth movies, reading, and spending time with her cat. Billiards (a bit of a shark), swimming, and sailing (recreational). But when the blood is pumping, sometimes you just need to fly something to get it out of your system. |
| Personal History | 2237: The Early Years Charlotte Rhodes was born January 12th, 2235 to Jasper and Mallory Rhodes in Phoenix, Arizona on Earth. They had a modest planet side home where she grew up for a few years. However, her father's various professional forays took them off-world frequently. He frequently served as a trade broker outside Federation Space, dipping into occasionally less than savory sales. However, on Federation business, he served as a useful contact, sometimes leading to the family being temporarily housed aboard Starfleet vessels or installations. From a very young age, she was used to the idea of being away from the planet for months at a time, and life aboard a starship came easy to her. 2247: First Losses At the age of 10, Charlotte had her first experience with battle. In a skirmish with Orion Pirates, the USS Agincourt, her home at the time, engaged one of the peripheral Syndicate forces near a major hub. The Agincourt only suffered minor casualties, but one of them was the ship's head nurse, who Charlotte had been close with. The loss was one of many that would eventually form the young Rhodes's attitude toward war. It would be over a decade before Charlotte learned her father's attempt to swindle the Cartel had motivated the attack on the Agincourt. 2250: Inspiration to Join Starfleet At the age of 13, Charlotte was able to attend a Starfleet Command conference on exploration. The conference had been taking place aboard Starbase 6, her father's housing at the time. Despite the darkening mood of the time, several key officials, including Fleet Admiral Jonathan Archer, had advocated for sticking to Starfleet's better angels. Charlotte had considered the elderly admiral a personal hero even before the meeting, much to her father's chagrin, and having actually gotten to meet him only strengthened her resolve to join Starfleet. It was around this time that her relationship with her father began to sour. The two had always had a somewhat strained relationship, but it slowly turned more bitter. Jasper's dealings had increasingly exposed Charlotte to Starfleet though, and her burgeoning ideology was beginning to chafe against his profit motivated antics. Her growing independence also came with a rebellious streak and her father grew increasingly authoritarian. However, Mallory, her mother, was able to smooth the relationship a bit. 2252: For several months, Charlotte left Starbase 6 to do a brief shadowing tour aboard the USS Charon. The CO was a close friend of her mother's and she was able to shadow numerous departments to help decide what direction she would pursue during her academic career. She was also able to experience life away from the shadow of her father for a little while. During this time, Charlotte met a friend who defined the next few years of her life: T'Lok, a Vulcan who was also shadowing aboard the Charon. The two quickly developed a warm friendship, becoming nearly inseparable as they moved into the Academy years. T'Lok, a surprisingly mischief minded Vulcan, would frequently pull her into hijinks, though neither of them ever got into too much trouble. 2254-2254: Academy Years At the age of 18, Charlotte departed to join Starfleet Academy. Her parents were not even remotely surprised at this, as her bedroom had been a shrine to Starfleet history since she had been old enough to speak. However, it was still an adjustment for her. Suddenly, she was no longer with her family every day, but could only communicate with them via comm. Additionally, she was back on Earth, the home they'd left so long ago. The family home in Phoenix was now a brief transport away, giving her a place to expand her new independence. Away from her father, but away from her mother as well, she struggled initially with this transition. She hadn't honed her social skills with peers particularly well, as she was used to dealing with the personalities of the older officer's aboard the vessels and stations they had frequented. Her ability to retreat to the family home slowed her acclimation as well. However, she eventually came into her own through no small amount of assistance from her Vulcan partner in crime, T'Lok. She found she had a knack for science and soon began diving into Astrophysics, Planetary Sciences, and Stellar Development. She also discovered an old recreational habit served her well. Through the years, she had always enjoyed her opportunities to pilot the many different craft she was around, a recreation which transitioned easily into supplemental helm courses. She gained certifications in several smaller craft, before seeking out helm officer training for larger craft. As her courses continued, her unfocused approach across two departments eventually led her to the conclusion that she was chasing something which would allow her to use all of her varied skills: the center chair. She enrolled into the Command Training Program and her journey had begun. In 2257, she was placed as a Cadet Navigation Officer aboard the USS Magellan. The position gave her an opportunity to test both her science and helm commendations. It was also not long after the ship had begun its tour that the Klingon-Federation War broke out, sending the young Cadet and her ship into the fires of combat. 2257: The Klingon War of 2257 Charlotte's tour on the Magellan brought her directly into the brief, but tumultuous war with the Klingon Empire. It was here that she met then Captain Sergei Denovitz, who quickly took her under his wing. The two would develop a strong mentor-mentee relationship which would last throughout her career. For the next several months, she served as Navigator, occasionally dipping into relief for the Science and Helm officers. The Magellan navigated to safety time and again. However, her luck eventually ran thin. In a shockingly brazen attack, the Klingon forces decimated the defenses of Starbase 1, the station which Magellan had been assigned to. The ship managed to escape the battle, but only just. It was struck by a torpedo at the moment it made the jump to warp. The bridge plating collapsed and a piece of it impaled the young officer, nearly killing her. It was only the quick actions of the medical staff aboard the vessel that stopped the injury from becoming fatal. The Magellan itself was deemed too damaged to meaningfully repair, and Captain Denovitz was instead assigned the USS Valkyrie. Charlotte spent the next few weeks in and out of consciousness and went into surgery several separate times to deal with the consequences of having a sizable metal beam go straight through a human abdomen. She was eventually recovered enough to resume her courses at the Academy, but was forced to sit out the rest of the war. 2258: Narada Incident Charlotte had only just returned to classes when news came in of an attack on Vulcan. Her tour vessel, the Valkyrie, had not yet returned to Earth and had instead been part of the fleet in the Laurentian System. Though called upon by the Enterprise to deal with the vastly more powerful, futuristic Romulan vessel Narada, they never did meet up with the Constitution Class vessel. Instead, the massive vessel made an attempted attack on Earth, one which Charlotte helplessly watched from the shoreline of Starfleet Academy. The USS Enterprise's timely intervention lured the vessel away before lasting damage could be done to Earth. Despite her distance from the activity, the event did not leave her unscathed. In addition to the fellow officers she knew aboard the Sol fleet vessels and on the planet Vulcan, she had lost someone very dear to her. Her mother had been on Vulcan for a conference at the time, and she was not among those rescued. The loss permanently damaged the relationship between Charlotte and her father. She had needed someone to rely on, but her father buried himself in his work. The darker aspects of his personality came to the forefront. Additionally, her choice to join a service which Jasper viewed as "failing" his wife only furthered their division. The divide led to some extremely harsh words being traded and the two were soon barely speaking. The Narada incident also in a way cost her the company of the closest friend she'd had. T'Lok, a talented Engineer and a member of the now endangered Vulcan race, felt compelled to resign from Starfleet and join the New Vulcan Colonization Initiative. The two would remain in frequent contact, and Charlotte would become like an aunt to his young daughter in coming years, but it was the last time they would serve together. 2259-2261: Further Adventures Charlotte once again joined Captain Denovitz's crew, this time aboard the USS Valkyrie, where she finally became part of a deep space mission. The Valkyrie was assigned to catalog nebulas in the Beta Quadrant, exploring countless systems along the way. The Federation had finally found peace, and she found that bridge duty was less intense when you weren't being shot at. That wasn't to say the journey was without conflict. Numerous skirmishes with Klingons, pirates, and other races kept things from getting too calm. Under Captain Denovitz's mentorship, Charlotte received more exposure than an Ensign perhaps would normally have, allowing her numerous hours of more senior activity in her rolls, and even a few momentary command opportunities. She made the most of this time, but knew she would eventually need to transfer off ship to further her career. The transition toward more command duties confirmed her belief that that was her calling. She began to pursue a transfer to a vessel that would allow her a path to the command chair. Later that year, she transferred to the aged USS Maui, which was exploring space near the galactic center. In the intervening time, her relationship to her father became outright hostile, with the man sending several scathing messages, hiring a proxy to lodge formal complaints, and souring the relationship between Charlotte and her brother. When it became clear to the her that their relationship was unsalvageable, her responses stopped. One in person screaming match marked the last time they'd speak for over 2 years. 2262-2264: Climbing the Ranks Charlotte served as a Bridge Officer on the Maui for 2 years, gaining valuable leadership experience from Captain Adebowale. The vessel was old, but it soon became home. Though initially brought aboard as Chief Science Officer, it did not take long for her to make Second Officer. Charlotte had also begun to branch out socially, and her new home soon became the site of one of the more influential relationships in her life. She became emotionally involved with the mysterious and playful intelligence officer onboard the ship, Lieutenant Alina Soyka. The two made quite a duo, both emotionally and professionally, and Charlotte thrived on the dynamic. Her mentorship under Captain Adebowale also ensured that her command certifications were fully completed and she rose to the rank of Lieutenant Commander. The Maui eventually hit uneasy waters. Cut off from Federation contact for a few weeks following an Ion Storm, the vessel was ambushed by an aggressive gang of Nausican Mercenaries acting on behalf of the Orion Syndicate. After outflanking the old vessel and successfully boarding her, the Nausicans managed to gain control of the ship, taking the crew hostage. After refusing to provide vital intelligence, Captain Adebowale was killed in front of the entire bridge crew. Charlotte had no choice but to look on helplessly. The Executive Officer had broken under the stress. Enraged by the death of her mentor and seeing morale spiraling rapidly out of control, Charlotte knew she had to act, no matter the professional consequences. Seizing authority from the XO, Charlotte rallied the crew around her. Through a series of harrowing bits of subterfuge, the crew managed to isolate and eliminate a number of Nausican guards, securing their weapons. The shift in power was all they needed. The Maui crew was able to rearm themselves and retake the bridge before the raiders fully knew what was happening. Free from their captors but stripped of nearly all weaponry, Charlotte knew she would not be able to fight or outrun their pursuers, so she used her scientific training instead. Maui managed to trick the Nausicans into following it into a dangerous Metrion Nebula. Dodging wild energy discharges with some mixed success, the older vessel used its last remaining torpedo to ignite an energy cascade, knocking out the Nausicans' engines and allowing the Maui to warp away. After limping back to Federation space, it became clear that the crew would be unlikely to accept other any other command than the woman who’d gotten them home. Charlotte was promoted to Commander and granted command of the vessel. 2264-2264: Her First Command Following repairs, the USS Maui continued its survey of the galactic center. Charlotte found that she grew into command relatively easily. The survey uncovered fascinating new data about the behavior of the inner-galactic blackholes and dark matter, leading some to wonder if the supermassive blackhole at the center was contributing to this. However, the new command also came with difficult choices. A murder aboard her vessel brought her face to face with the darker decisions of the command chair. The perpetrator was one of her own noncommissioned officers and she struggled with her reactions to the situation. Her compartmentalization techniques wore a bit thin and some sharp words got her in trouble with both a local dignitary and the admiral for the region. Regardless, she continued to command the vessel admirably. 2265: Betrayal Following a Federation-Klingon Peace Treaty, the Romulan Star Empire stepped up hostilities, trying to destabilize the delicate and imperfect peace. The Maui was recalled to Federation space. They participated in a few minor skirmishes, but the age of the ship prevented it from being a front line player. It was at this time that Charlotte learned her vessel was the center of a JAG investigation. It appeared that a smuggling ring had been growing in the regions of space the Maui frequented, leading to one inevitable conclusion: the perpetrator was onboard. Charlotte pledged full support for this investigation. Little did she know, it would be one of the most emotionally gutting experiences of her career. It soon became clear that the smuggling organization was linked to none other than Cannidas Solutions, the business her estranged father had started. Pitted directly against her own father and brother, Commander Rhodes took the Maui on a wild chase across the sector, bringing down her father's infrastructure. In one final shoot out on the surface of a moon used as a smuggling dead drop, Charlotte was injured by a near fatal shot from her own brother. Her crew managed to get her to safety, but her father and brother fled. The next day, the Maui secured the main base of operations for Cannidas. It was during her recovery that the final twist of fate played out. Accidentally stumbling upon a cache of hidden latinum aboard the Maui, Charlotte finally uncovered the smuggler aboard her ship. Alina Soyka, her paramour of nearly two years and now a member of her own senior staff, had been the one feeding the industry. Charlotte, feeling betrayed by the person she'd placed the most trust in, was forced to arrest her herself. The incident would deeply shake her trust in others, something she has yet to recover from. It would also teach a valuable lesson. Never become complacent. Alina's motives would later become clearer. She'd amassed the sums of latinum to feed an addiction she'd been forced into when she was forced to consume one of the most addictive narcotic substances in the Quadrant to maintain cover on an assignment. Unable to break the addiction on her own and worried it would derail her career if discovered, she'd tried to wean herself slowly off the substance. The fact that she'd unwittingly fueled Cannidas Solution's black market was unknown to her. Just a cruel random twist of fate. The discover could only lessen the blow for Charlotte so much though. While they eventually resumed contact remotely from Soyka's rehabilitation center, Rhodes never was able to regain the trust she'd once placed in the relationship and they remained only friends. Following this, Maui returned to its support missions for a brief time. However, in the closing months of 2265, Charlotte was recalled to Starbase Yorktown for a new posting. Believing herself to be in trouble for her handling of a diplomatic mission, she had arrived at the station ready for a fight...only to learn of just how prestigious her new command would be. Given command of the newly constructed USS Defiant, Rhodes was honored beyond words. She spent the coming weeks personally overseeing the final stages of the ships preparations, before her launch. Defiant spent the next month or so on simple patrols near Yorktown before being given her first long term assignment. Rhodes was to take her vessel to the very edges of Federation influence, to the newest base in progress: Starbase Arcadia. She and her crew would serve as the backbone of the Federation presence in this untamed frontier. |
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| Service Record | 2254-2258: Starfleet Academy 2256-2258: USS Magellan, Mayflower-Class Cadet Cruise, Command Program: Various Roles 2258: Extended Medical Leave on Earth 2259-2261: USS Valkyrie, Cardenas-Class 2259: Graduation, Assignment to the Valkyrie as Ensign Navigator, Junior Science Officer 2260: Promotion to Lieutenant 2262-2264: USS Maui, Walker-Class Science Officer then Executive Officer 2262: Promotion to Lt. Commander 2264-2265: USS Maui, Walker-Class Commanding Officer, Promotion to Commander End of 2265: Promotion to Captain, Transfer to USS Artemis End of 2265-2266: USS Defiant, Constitution Class Commanding Officer |