Izak Waryn

Izak is an intelligent and highly competitive overachiever who holds himself to extremely high standards. He tries to stay within established instructions and regulations, but his desire to excel can lead him to overwork himself and push beyond reasonable limits. His competitive streak extends past work and into Springball, handball, and sparring in the gym or holo-deck with his crewmates.

Appearance & Style

Izak is above average in height with an athletic build. He has dark greenish-gray eyes and medium-length blond hair in a side swept undercut. While never pristine, he usually manages to keep his hair presentable by running his hands through it a few times. As a Brekkian, he has faint nose ridges, but they are flatter and more ‘U’ shaped than a Bajoran’s.

Early History

Izak was born on Brekka but left with his family as things started to get bad during the invasion. He was raised on a cargo freighter that his parents worked on and eventually commanded. When he was young, the freighter was attacked by pirates, and Izak ended up killing one to defend the other children on board. As a teenager, he saw the U.S.S. Mandel rescue the crew from a damaged freighter, which was one of the many reasons he eventually joined Starfleet.

He missed the interview portion of his first Academy application because his parents’ flight got delayed. Izak left the freighter and lived with his sister on Tendara so he could ensure his application went through. It took him two attempts (three if you count the cancelled application due to the missed interview) to get accepted into the Academy.

Izak took to the Academy with gusto; his natural intellect and experience on board ships served him well as he took a plethora of engineering, science, and piloting courses. During his later years, he focused primarily on engineering, with a particular emphasis on power, propulsion, and computer systems. He was extremely interested in temporal mechanics, but his attention waned because the Academy didn’t allow any practical experimentation.

During his third year, he was the cause of a horrible accident during the Warp Core Dynamics midterm that caused another Cadet, Quina Kelby, to become seriously injured and leave the Academy. Izak was given a formal reprimand and placed on academic probation for the rest of the year.

He completed a Cadet Cruise and ended up destroying a scavenger ship while manning the tactical station onboard a Liberty-class runabout.

Starfleet History

Onboard the Ark Angel he received an early promotion to Lieutenant Junior Grade for his hard work. Izak spent a lot of time learning the ship and its systems on Gamma shift, while volunteering to qualify as an Operations Manager during Alpha Shift. With this promotion, he became the Duty Engineer for Gamma Shift.

Several months later, when the Chief Engineer was promoted and a slew of senior Engineers left, Izak was appointed the Provisional Chief Engineer. The already overworked Engineer started putting in 16 hour days to keep the Department running, though he did leverage the experience of his senior crewman like Kotok and Vo. Despite his tendency to overwork himself, Izak has gradually learned that being Chief Engineer does not mean personally handling every problem. He deliberately gives his engineers opportunities to solve problems independently, recognizing that his department needs experience and that constantly intervening would prevent them from developing.

Service Timeline:
Izak managed to finish within the top 2% of his class in the Academy (23 years old)

Assigned to the Ark Angel out of the Academy.

Promoted to Lt J.G. onboard the Ark Angel after some months onboard. (24 years old)

Appointed as Chief Engineer (provisionally) after some months as a Lt J.G. (24 years old)

Promoted to Lieutenant onboard the Ark Angel after serving as Chief Engineer for several months (25 years old)

Relatives &Relationships

• Fiane & Potar Waryn (Parents) - Command a freighter that operates between Federation and independent planets. Izak has a few younger siblings who presumably still live on the ship with his parents.

• Geth Waryn (Older Sister) - Works at a repair shop on Tendara. Izak stayed with her while applying for the Academy.

• Mordan Waryn (Uncle) - A criminal and probable pirate who repeatedly tried to pressure Izak’s parents into his schemes.

• Quina Kelby (Fellow Cadet) - Was on the same team of cadets during the Year 3 Warp Core Dynamics Midterm. She got badly burned when Izak tried taking a shortcut that backfired. (Andoran Female)

• Tora Kelby (Fellow Ensign) - Cadet Quina Kelby’s older sister, who happens to be stationed on the Ark Angel. She was two years ahead of Izak in the Academy. They met on the Ark Angel, and she didn’t know of his role in Quina’s injury. They struck up a friendship and maybe a budding relationship, but when he learned he kept his involvement in Quina’s accident a secret, she got pissed at him and broke off any contact. Her anger was less at the fact that Quina had been hurt, and more at the fact that he had hidden that information from her for months. (Andoran Female)

• Boras (Fellow Ensign) - An Engineering Officer who checked onboard the Ark Angel a month before Izak. He focused on tactical system engineering (shields, phasers, torpedoes) while at the Academy. He seems happy for Izak getting promoted (twice) and becoming Chief Engineer, though Izak is often self-conscious about it. Boras has qualified as a Shift Leader, and even held the role for a few months, but his strength lies in tactical systems. He serves as the Tactical Systems Officer, providing oversight for maintenance and repairs of those systems. (Arkarian Male)

• Kotok (Warrant Officer/Senior Non-commissioned officer in Engineering) An older Klingon whose hair had turned steel gray. He had a full beard, and the thick, wavy locks on his head were pulled back into a man bun. He’s around 6‘3 and seemed to be in great physical shape despite being in his early 70’s. He’s gruff, but to the point. He’s not looking for fame; he just wants to train technicians (and officers) and help the department run smoothly. (Klingon Male)

• Vo Kaardel (Senior Chief) One of the more senior non-commissioned officers in Engineering, he serves as the Reactor Chief. (Bajoran Male)

• L’Essa (Lieutenant Junior Grade) Duty Engineer for Alpha shift. A female Orion with pale green skind and pale blond hair down to her waist. Ties it up in a sloppy bun when working. Is a bit more casual than Izak in her communications with other officers.

Medical Notes & Physiology

• Bio-Electrical Generation: Like Ornarans, Brekkians have the natural ability to generate electrical discharges with their bodies. This can have a mild effect of inducing stasis in another humanoid, or it can kill.

• Bio-Electrical Interface: Izak sometimes experiences a tingling in his hands when working on computer systems. This is accompanied by an intuitive or instinctive sense of the problems with the system. So far, this has been sporadic and is largely similar to what other engineers refer to as “being in the zone” or “getting a gut instinct.”

Counselor’s Notes:

• “I Gotta Prove Myself” Kids on the freighter he grew up on were considered useless, so the teenagers focused on improving their skills to prove that they had grown up. There were limited opportunities to fill useful jobs or roles, so Izak and his peers became hyper-competitive to earn those opportunities. This is a mindset that has served him well… and hindered him… during his academy career. Even after earning multiple promotions and becoming Chief Engineer, Izak still feels compelled to prove that he deserves every opportunity he’s been given.

• But… I Don’t Have to Do Everything” zak still feels personally responsible for everything that happens in Engineering, but he is learning to trust his senior personnel and let them handle problems without him. He deliberately reminds himself that his department needs opportunities to function independently, even when his instinct is to intervene.

• “I Won’t Kill Like That Again” As a young teenager, pirates boarded his parents’ freighter. His mom had him hide with the younger children so “he could keep them safe.” A pirate did find them, however, and after a frantic brawl where he was quickly overpowered, he used his bio-electric generation ability and killed the man. He felt so terrible that he vowed never to kill like that again and has never used the full-strength version of his ability since. Addendum 1: He performs well in sparing and simulated combat missions. It remains to be seen if he will freeze up in an actual life-or-death situation or if he can manage his emotional reaction. Addendum 2: During his cadet cruise at the end of his Third Year, he manned the tactical station of a Liberty-Class Runabout and shot down a scavenger ship during a rescue and assist mission. When we talked afterward, the impersonal nature of ship-to-ship combat did not seem to trigger a response from this particular issue.

• “Procedures over Instincts:” During a lab scenario in Year 3 of the Academy, Izak tried to take a shortcut that resulted in another cadet being seriously injured. The disciplinary review board emphasized that his failure to follow established procedures had contributed to the accident, and Izak became extremely cautious about repeating the mistake. He still looks for unconventional solutions, but now he is much more deliberate about understanding the risks before deviating from established procedures.

• “Overthinker:” Izak applies an engineering mindset to problems that don’t necessarily require one. When confronted with uncertainty, he breaks them down into smaller components, gathers more information, and develops contingencies. This works exceptionally well in engineering and scientific problems, but is less effective when dealing with people or situations where there isn’t enough information to reach a definitive answer.

• “It Can’t Be Controlled” As a result of the same lab incident from, Izak felt like he was personally to blame. He had been selfishly trying to develop his budding bio-electrical interface ability to save the day, and that’s what caused the computer to malfunction and got another cadet injured. In the aftermath, he accepted that the ability just couldn’t be actively controlled and abandoned those efforts altogether. Addendum: His renewed interest in temporal mechanics and unusual engineering phenomena has occasionally reminded him of the ability, but he remains reluctant to deliberately experiment with it.

• “I Nearly Killed Kelby!” The cadet who was nearly killed during the lab incident from was Quina Kelby, an Andorian female in the same year as Izak. Even though she didn’t die, she did end up leaving the Academy. Izak blames himself for nearly killing her and for ending her Starfleet Career before it started. Izak has never properly processed this guilt. His subsequent relationship with Tora demonstrated that the incident continues to influence his decisions and relationships years later.

• “Avoids Emotional Pain:” During the Tora incident, a pattern became clear. Izak tends to avoid things that might cause emotional pain until circumstances force him to confront them. This often means the problems are much worse when they are confronted. His decision to hide his connection to Quina from Tora allowed their friendship to develop, but ultimately made the betrayal far worse when she learned the truth.

• “Budding Leader:” Izak is learning to trust his team and focuses on developing his department’s skills as well as his own. He encourages them to solve problems themselves and knows that mistakes and difficult assignments are sometimes the best teachers. He gives his department considerably more latitude than he gives himself, recognizing that his engineers need opportunities to make decisions and learn from difficult assignments. He is beginning to understand that his success as Chief Engineer is measured by how well his department functions without him, not by how much work he personally accomplishes.

• “Why Me?” Izak remains acutely aware of his age, unusually rapid advancement, and relative lack of command experience. He knows he is technically capable, but sometimes feels like an odd choice for positions of authority, particularly when senior officers are present. He generally suppresses these doubts and performs the job he’s been given, but he still wonders whether he has truly earned his position.

• “Temporal Fascination:” Izak’s old interest in temporal mechanics has been rekindled by his experiences aboard the Ark Angel. He remains fascinated by the practical engineering applications of temporal theory, though he recognizes the limits of his expertise.