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|Species Count=
|Gender=Male
|Age=32
|Height=5’9”
|Weight=205lbs
|Marital= Single (Divorced)
|Children=None
|Sibling= Mary, 3229; David, 3128.
|Mother= Theresa (deceased)
|Father= Peter, 64
Benjamin wasn’t born with an innate desire to see the stars. He wasn’t an explorer, he wasn’t a dreamer. His world was a much more concrete one, growing up in a colony in the Eta Draconis system. His mother died when he was young and his father worked the mines, leaving Benjamin mostly alone with his siblings. He quickly learned to be the responsible one, as though they had a loving father who tried his best, long hours in the mines left him either absent or exhausted. He stayed long enough to see his brother and sister off to universities off-planet, and then joined up with a long-haul freighter out to the edges of known space, glad to finally bid the bleak mines farewell and take up his love of machines and engineering rather than caretaking.
He served a few years making runs between outer colonies and Ferengi space when, as often happens in these stories, he met a girl. Her name was Iris, and she owned a small boutique in on Allanis, the home port of his current ship the Aces Wild, the ship he was currently on. They hit it off one night at a small bar he frequented, and after a couple months of meeting up every time he came back, they got married. His ship didn’t allow families, but that was alright – the run was a fairly short one, and he was home with her at minimum two days every week. They’d both known the kind of work he was in when they married.
During a run through Ferengi space, there was an accident in engineering. They were testing a replacement conduit they had gotten from a less-than-trustworthy merchant, when it failed during a pressure test. Shrapnel lodged in his eye, and was beyond the skill of their medic to repair. Due to a lack of credit and low available funds, he wasn’t able to get much more than a functional replacement from the Ferengi hospital he was taken to. When he got back to Federation space, he inquired about getting it and the scarring healed, but discovered the Ferengi rushed the job and it wasn’t attached to the optic nerve correctly, so replacement could wind up damaging the nerve beyond repair. For fear that things would simply get worse, and since the eye he had was functional - if a little glitchy - he simply kept it and made the best of it. Besides, Iris thought the scar gave him a roguish air, which made her happy, and so he was happy, too.
When Benjamin returned to his room, he was confronted by his old captain, Harkens. The criminal had evidently gotten himself free of the Tzenkethi, and begun working for the Syndicate that he and Nathan had run afoul of on Pomn. As punishment for their transgressions, the Syndicate's leader wanted the two officers eliminated, but Harkens saw an opportunity for more. He kidnapped Iris to blackmail Benjamin into stealing weapons for him to sell. He managed to placate the criminal with emergency supplies - Cera was the quartermaster, and would immediately be alerted that something was wrong if their shuttle's weaponry was missing - but he was told he would have to deliver, and soon, if he wanted Iris to live.
===Battle of the Megasphere===
Returning to the Artemis, Benjamin became surly and aloof. Part of this was by design - Harkens had warned that he had a spy that would be keeping tabs on him - and part of it was simply out of pain. His mind turned and wheeled, trying to find a way out of his predicament, and failing miserably. His drinking worsened, though he managed to hold himself together somehow. The last straw, however, was when he met Lieutenant Commander [[L'Haan]], who had just been assigned as the Artemis' chief engineer.
She was a former instructor from the Academy, and a veteran of the Krynar War. She had a reputation as a superb engineer, but she was also a stickler for the letter of the rule, rather than whether or not it was functional. When she read about the most senior of her new department - an ensign, a former criminal, and a civilian freighter engineer all in one person - she did the only logical thing and banished him to the bridge, rather than having him cluttering up her engine room. This left Benjamin flabbergasted and angry; what right did she have to sideline him like this, when she had come aboard just this day - and now the ship was heading in to battle? She needed what expertise he could offer, and he couldn't stand idly by on the bridge, relaying damage reports when terrible things were about to happen to his ship and his friends.
So, instead of obeying orders, he answered the call from Commander Braggins for volunteers to man the [[USS Voltaire, ES-17694|USS Voltaire]]. He was grateful when he discovered Crewman Kathryn Whitby had followed him, pulling another crewman with her to help him out. The Voltaire was to lead the charge against the Borg, while the Artemis coordinated the captial ship attack force and Admiral Thrawn lead a larger force that would act as a distraction. The battle was indescribable, and best left to the after action reports. The Voltaire was crippled by friendly fire, forcing them to return to Artemis. Benjamin did go to the bridge this time, but soon left again to convert the Voltaire into a spare generator in order to keep the shields of the Artemis running.
Eventually, he was given word of a radiation leak in engineering, and ran to help. Donning his radiation suit, he helped to evacuate those he could, before heading in to look at the warp core itself. He recognized the leak as coming from there, and sealed off the core chamber to protect those in the rest of engineering as much as possible. He stayed inside, however, to close off the leak and ensure that the warp drive continued functioning. His actions earned him the Cross of Gallantry, though Benjamin refuses to discuss it much. From his perspective, the repairs were simple; the difficult part was that four people - friends and fellow officers, even including LCdr L'Haan - had been too close to the core while it was leaking, and lay there in the room with him, already dead when he had reached them.
After the battle, and the escape of the Borg and their two Doomsday Machines, the Artemis returned to Pioneer Station. Harkens pressed the issue and forced him to try and divert several cobalt torpedoes to his clutches, but Benjamin sprung the trap that he had set for Harkens. Making use of the trip home from the wedding, he had hatched a plan with Cera - who was able to get Tyra involved swiftly upon their return - to find the mole and to find Iris. They were able to isolate and trace the mole's communications with Harkens, allowing the local police to find her while Artemis security was able to arrest the mole and the courier they had hired. The fact that [[Ramius, Nathan | Nathan]] got caught up in making the arrests, and in fact arrested Benjamin as part of the ruse - a fact that Benjamin had to apologize for profusely later on.
As Artemis returned to Federation Space proper, Benjamin took the opportunity to meet with Iris again. He met her new husband and child, and they were able to finally put some of their history behind them. Iris admitted she had been wrong about him, and he admitted that they were wrong for each other in the first place. It was a painful meeting, especially to see how battered and bruised Iris was from her time in Harkens' clutches, but by the end of it Benjamin was able to put her behind him properly for the first time since she kicked him out nearly a decade previously.
Following a moment of R&R - and debriefs by Star Fleet Security regarding the infiltration by Syndicate members - Benjamin fulfilled a final duty. While he hadn’t known L’Haan personally, he had felt compelled to return her belongings to her family on Vulcan. He had been the last to see her alive, and somehow he felt he owed it to the woman to do so. The trip was educational, though he felt saddened at seeing the family. They were a long line of security officers, and the fact that their daughter had become an engineer - despite serving faithfully and honorably - had led to their estrangement, a distance that her death had now made permanent. He took the lesson from this and made a point to contact his family, trying to do better than he had in the years previous.
===Pathfinder===
This proved fortuitous, as the Artemis’ new assignment was to the [[Pathfinder Project]] - a collection of advanced, slipstream capable ships being sent to the Delta Quadrant. Even more surprising to him was the fact that Captain Crawford promoted him to Lieutenant (Junior Grade) and assigned him as her chief engineer. It was a weighty responsibility, and one he wasn’t entirely sure he was worthy of, but he accepted gratefully.
While the public goal was to locate Voyager after all of these years, he knew that the idea to locate the Borg after the disaster of the Battle of the Megasphere had to provide at least some of the impetus to get this project launched now. He couldn’t help but feel like he still needed to help rectify some of his failings back when the Megasphere had just been a Rogue Planet, a feeling that surely drove some of his need to stay aboard.
After fleet maneuvers, to help coordinate the slipstreams for the eight ships in the fleet, the crews embarked on the month-long journey to reach the Talaxian colony that was the last point Voyager was in contact with Star Fleet Command. Near the end of the journey, the ships encountered a tachyon field that encompassed all eight ships. While Benjamin and his team struggled to keep the slipstream generator working, mishaps with other ships destabilized the stream, and eventually the Artemis fell out of slipstream just like all the other ships. Fortunately, Artemis was able to stay with several of the other ships, and together they started to try and make repairs and locate their fellows.
Before they could do much more than damage control, however, they encountered the [[Kazon]], who were attacking a [[Talaxian]] ship. Artemis came to their rescue, driving off the Kazon without a fight, and the Pathfinder ships were taken to their asteroid colony as guests. Once there, they discovered that the Talaxians were preparing to move to a nearby planet, but their ships were all but defenseless.
Benjamin was part of the team sent to the asteroid to assist them, and was ordered to begin making sure their ramshackle fleet was at least spaceworthy. In pursuit of that task, he found one locked down from the inside. Afraid of Kazon infiltrators, Benjamin was joined by a security detail, who discovered it was actually a Talaxian inside, but who refused to allow entry. Fearful of leaving the asteroid - the only home the youth had ever known - he had planned to sabotage one of the ships, but was caught by the Star Fleet team before he could do much. Timely intervention from the USS Luna helped to defuse the situation, and soon the Talaxians were able to leave and head to New Talax.
Benjamin and the rest of Pathfinder’s engineers worked overtime, first finding and repairing the rest of the fleet (though [[USS Callisto, RSV-88001|Callisto]] was damaged extensively enough to warrant returning to the Alpha Quadrant), and then helping to make the New Talax colony viable. The job left the Pathfinder mission stuck in orbit of New Talax for several months, enough so that they celebrated a number of year-end holidays there. Benjamin tried to participate - notably helping Nathan with his costume for Halloween by building a shotgun-ax - but was so tired most of the time that he could do little more than show up.
During this time, he did find a moment to work on the two Archangel runabouts, helping Commander Braggins rectify a few flaws that had come out in production as opposed to the prototype she had originally helped build. He gathered a bit more insight into the smaller craft, learned a little about Jenny and himself, as well as came up with a few ideas for improvements to the runabouts of his own, though they have yet to be finalized for presentation, much less implemented. He did also carve out some time for his friends, though not as much as he would have liked - or that the counselor thought was healthy - but the biggest relief came when the Artemis embarked on her next mission.
|Majors= Engineering
|Hobbies=Model building
|Short= Be worthy of becoming the chief engineer
|Long= Start a side business making weapons and armsother devices; perfect the bottomless coffee cup
|Personality= Quiet and reserved, but boisterous with friends
|Humor= Self-deprecating
|Peeves= When someone thinks they know how he should handle his family life better than he does. His life has been a complicated one; unless they’ve lived it, too, they should keep their noses out of it.
|Habits= Heavy Drinker - has lessened this of late, though he still overdoes it occasionally.
|Achievements= Graduated Cum Laude, Has been successful as a starship Made chief engineer for several yearson one of the most advanced starships in the fleet|Disappointments= His divorce. He's made come to terms with his peace with itex, but still regrets that that's has bad feelings about what and how it came to in the endhappened.|Illnesses= Replacement eye due to a shipboard accident on the last ship he served on. Replacement works just fine, but it still itches. Doctors tell him it’s a psychosomatic issue. Doesn’t , but that doesn’t stop the itching.
|Strengths= Excellent problem solver when something breaks on ship
|Weaknesses= Still has trouble doing things the Star Fleet way at times
|Fears= Star Fleet is his last chance; he’s still afraid he’s going to do something to blow it
|Prejudices= People who abandon family when they need help; after all, if you can’t turn to family, who can you turn to? To willingly turn your back on them is just a step too far for Benjamin.
|Painful= While losing his eye would rank up there, the worst was definitely when his wife left him. He’d sensed it coming for a while, as the last few months Despite trying everything he could think of their marriage were conducted by subspace more often than in person, which is no way including trying to make find a relationship last. He had looked for new jobs with little successjob where he could stay closer to home, but after she left he questioned just how hard he’d triednothing had worked. Despite knowing how much he had loved She let her own insecurities get to her , and tried everything nothing he could to keep herhave done would have helped that. He knows that now, but could in the moment... it was a dark and painful time, there’s always hindsight and a time that plays tricks on the mindlasted for years.|Time= Watching his younger siblings as they left for university. He knew they were destined for great things, and seeing them get off out of Archer and out into the wider galaxy was wonderful
|Crucial= The death of his mother. She died when Benjamin was only 11 - old enough for him to know what he was going to have to do. His father tried to be there for them, but mining isn’t the easiest profession, and with three children he just couldn’t do what he wanted and needed to do. So a lot of the time, it fell to Benjamin. He became very take-charge as a result, but also grew to resent his father a bit. He understands, especially now, all the pressures on his father, but still hasn’t quite gotten past having to be a parent to his siblings.
|Role Model= James Temlin, the mine technician where Benjamin’s dad worked. He was gruff, but always friendly whenever Ben came up to the mine, and taught him some basics that got him started on his career path. Whenever he tried to picture what an engineer should be like, James is what he comes up with, and tries his best to project the same picture to those around him.
|Assignment=Chief Engineer
|Stardate=242005.01
|StardateEnd=
|Event=Role Player of the Month
}}
{{CHLine
|Location={{USS|Artemis|EX|11000}}
|Assignment=Chief Engineer
|Stardate=242012.01
|StardateEnd=
|Event=Star Fleet Commendation Medal
}}
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|Assignment=Chief Engineer
|Stardate=242104.01
|StardateEnd=
|Event=Role Player of the Month
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|Assignment=Chief Engineer
|Stardate=242107.01
|StardateEnd=
|Event=Role Player of the Month
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|Assignment=Chief Engineer
|Stardate=242212.01
|StardateEnd=
|Event=Role Player of the Month
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{{CHLine
|Location={{USS|Artemis|EX|11000}}
|Assignment=Chief Engineer
|Stardate=242301.01
|StardateEnd=
|Event=Star Fleet Commendation Medal
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|Location={{USS|Artemis|EX|11000}}
|Assignment=Chief Engineer
|Stardate=242304.01
|StardateEnd=
|Event=Role Player of the Month
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{{CHLine
|Location={{USS|Artemis|EX|11000}}
|Assignment=Chief Engineer
|Stardate=242308.01
|StardateEnd=
|Event=President's Medal
}}
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|Assignment=Chief Engineer
|Stardate=242308.01
|StardateEnd=
|Event=Outstanding Unit Citation
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|Assignment=Chief Engineer
|Stardate=242309.01
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|Event=Role Player of the Month
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|StardateEnd=
|Event=Role Player of the Month
