Ensign Mara Venn

Character Information

Gender		Female
Species		Human
Place of Birth		Cygnia Minor
Age		23
Date of Birth		11/05/2368

Physical Appearance

Height		5'6"
Weight		135 lbs.
Hair Color		black
Eye Color		brown
Physical Description		Mara has a slender, lightly athletic build, shaped by years of physical work on her family's farm and her continuing love of hiking and fieldwork. She is fit without being particularly muscular, with strong legs and capable hands that were made for physical labor. Her hair, which falls just below her shoulders is black, thick, and wavy. It falls just below her shoulders. Mara has dark brown eyes that appear almost black in dim lighting, though their warm brown color becomes more apparent in direct light. Her complexion is light olive with a few faint freckles across the bridge of her nose and upper cheeks that become more noticeable after time spent outdoors.

Family

Spouse		none
Children		none
Mother		Elaine Venn
Father		Thomas Venn
Siblings		Caleb Venn, age 25; Ruth Venn, age 20
Other Family		none

Personality & Traits

General Overview		Mara is reserved and quiet. She rarely raises her voice. When she is angry, she becomes quieter. When she is excited about science, she breaks into an unusually rapid series of observations, hypotheses, and questions. She is comfortable being alone and dislikes small talk. She can participate in it but does not understand why someone would talk about nothing when they could discuss something interesting. Consequently, she only tends to speak when she has something substantive or meaningful to say. However, she rarely will say anything until she has evaluated everything. She also has a dry sense of humor. When she jokes, the delivery is so matter-of-factly that others often cannot tell if she is being serious or humorous. Mara also listens carefully. She remembers details others forget, including passing comments about someone's interests, habits, or concerns. She favors practical clothing, colored in earth tones or darker colors. She rarely wears jewelry beyond that pendant and a discreet wrist chronometer. She rarely dresses elegantly; she sees little reason to do so in everyday life. However, Mara also is a woman that can also be at odds with herself and her upbringing. Coming from a very conservative family background, she finds herself at odds between her upbringing and some of her desires. She tries to reconcile them as best she can, but when they conflict, it is difficult for her to follow her desires. Instead, she often falls back on her family’s background, sacrificing her personal happiness when the conflict becomes too great. This is especially true where her sexuality is concerned. Mara is bisexual; however, to date, she has had much more meaningful relationships with women. She cannot tell her family about these relationships as she was raised to expect to get married to a man and have children. This is something that she would greatly desire but few men have been able to hold her attention for more than a few weeks.
Strengths & Weaknesses		Strengths Weaknesses +Observant -Slow to speak +Patient -Perfectionist +Independent -Stubborn +Calm under pressure -Emotional reserved +Resourceful -Reluctant to ask for help +Honest -Blunt +Dependable -Can be Tactless +Attentive -Avoids Confrontation
Ambitions		Mara isn't particularly interested in rank for its own sake. She has little desire to seek the spotlight or become an admiral or spend her career managing personnel and attending administrative meetings. Ultimately, she merely wants to have her research have practical applications which will improve life on her planet for her family.
Hobbies & Interests		Gardening, Xenobotany and cultivating alien plants, hiking, being in nature, acoustic music, tea, cooking, and people watching.
Languages Spoken		Federation Standard, English

Background		Mara grew up in Havenbrook, a small agricultural settlement on Cygnia Minor. Her family had farmed the same stretch of land for three generations. Cygnia Minor’s citizens grow grains, fruits, vegetables, and specialized crops adapted to the planet's soil. Despite the Federation's advanced technology, many families still take pride in hands-on farming, maintaining traditional practices alongside modern automation. Mara's family is one of those families. Her parents' conservatism is rooted in tradition. Though they appreciate technology when it helps the farm, their primary goals are to support their local community and treat people decently. Her parents taught her to believe in hard work, personal responsibility, self-reliance, and the importance of maintaining family traditions. To them, a good life means inheriting the farm, marrying someone respectable, raising children, and leaving the land better than you found it. Mara was expected to do exactly that. However, they are uncomfortable with lifestyles that challenge their expectations. Therefore, Mara's bisexuality was never something she could comfortably discuss at home. Her parents would never accept her dating women. They would expect that she eventually settles down with a man and establish a conventional family. Therefore, Mara learned early that some truths were easier to live with than to explain. She does not consider her sexuality shameful. However, she also will not discuss it, considering it personal information that only needs to be revealed when relevant. Cygnia Minor experienced a series of unusual growing seasons by the time that Mara turned seventeen. Crops that had thrived for decades began failing in several neighboring farming communities. However, the soil appeared healthy, irrigation was functioning, and the crops appeared to be receiving the correct nutrients. The colony's agricultural specialists initially blamed weather fluctuations. Mara, however, noticed something different. She had been keeping informal records of the plants she tended, recording changes in leaf color, growth rates, and root development. She realized the affected crops were exhibiting similar symptoms despite being planted in different soils and exposed to different conditions. She suspected a previously unidentified microorganism was interfering with nutrient absorption. Her father dismissed the idea as speculation, but Mara kept investigating. She collected samples, compared healthy and diseased plants, and discovered that a microscopic organism was colonizing the roots and disrupting the plants' ability to absorb essential minerals. The organism had evolved an unusual symbiotic relationship with native soil bacterium. These findings eventually reached a Federation agricultural research team and the researchers confirmed her hypothesis and developed a treatment that saved much of the next planting season. Because of this, the Federation researchers offered her a chance to participate in a youth science program. She traveled off world for the first time and encountered scientists studying life forms that had no equivalent on Cygnia Minor. She saw a plant that communicated through electrical impulses, a microbial colony that altered its metabolism in response to music, and a species whose entire life cycle depended on a moon's magnetic field. These discoveries captivated her. When she told her parents she wanted to pursue science, her father assumed she meant agricultural science that would eventually help her improve the family farm. When she explained that she wanted to study alien ecosystems and join Starfleet, he was deeply disappointed. She applied to Starfleet Academy the following year and was accepted at the age of nineteen. Her father regarded Starfleet as a detour from a sensible future. Her mother worried that a life in Starfleet would leave her without a family of her own. Mara left anyway. She did not leave because she hated farming or wanted to escape her family. She did not want to spend her entire life working one piece of land and never be able to answer all the questions it had taught her to ask.
Service Record		2387-2391 Starfleet Academy 2391 – present USS Fenrir
Medical History		Her overall health is excellent. She has no known allergies. Most of her prior injuries and concerns related to overexertion.