Staff Warrant Officer Blaise Birch
Name Blaise Birch
Position Science Officer
Rank Staff Warrant Officer
Character Information
| Gender | Male | |
| Species | Corvan (Altered Human) | |
| Age | 28 |
Physical Appearance
| Height | 6'0 | |
| Weight | 190lbs | |
| Hair Color | Black | |
| Eye Color | Black | |
| Physical Description | Blaise is a stereotypical tall, pale, and handsome Corvan with blackened facial features and extremities. Corvans are evolutionarily altered humanoids unique to the Theta-Corvus system. The toxic environment which arose from an impact winter, failed subsequent terraforming, and rapid industrial development within a blanketed atmosphere created a perfect storm in the environment which advanced mutation within the colonists. The subsequent condition can only be overcome by regular and ongoing medical treatment. Left alone, “wild” Corvans will succumb to feral dhampirism, a culturally and biologically regressive state where they feed upon the blood and flesh of others. This advanced state is precipitated by a number of painful symptoms connected to porphyric diseases, such as hypersensitivity to sunlight, hemophilia, and various neurological disorders. |
Family
Personality & Traits
| Personal History | Blaise is a product of his environment. His parents were wealthy enough to ensure he never missed a NOS-4A-2 treatment which prevented feral dhampirism yet too poor to give him the finer things on Corvus Prime. Upon adulthood, he enlisted in Starfleet as a means to escape mediocrity and the crushing yet subtle aristocracy. The first colonists to the Theta-Corvus system in 2202 settled the only terrestrial planet to be found. First named Romania Colony after the Romaine dynasty of Mars which funded the far expedition, small settlements cropped up all around the ark ship’s landing site. Little did they know that what they believed to be a stable moon was actually in the final circuits of a decaying orbit. By the time the colonists realized their fate, it was too late to flee. Many of them dug bunkers into the hills and mountains for protection, but outlying settlements were annihilated by the crashing moon. There were no surface survivors from the cataclysm of 2207. Deep in the crust, however, many of the original colonists eked out an existence for several years before the impact winter thawed enough to allow rebuilding. Unfortunately, they discovered that although the ash-snows had melted along the equator, their Class M world had been rendered a Class K and might even become Class Y without intervention. Around the same time, industrial surveyors began to return to the spoils of a devastated, rich world, who not only discovered the newly emerging survivors, but also pledged aid in the reconstruction and terraforming. The climate was made more temperate through altering the atmospheric mixture, but with little to no sunlight the planet in places, it was still barely more than a darkened Class K except at the equator. By 2220, Theta-Corvus III was reborn as New Romania. Though the temperature was habitable in most regions, the toxicity of the atmosphere remained problematic. All incoming personnel were filtered through a spaceport for environmental hazard training. Such efforts managed to overcome the world’s new challenges and open the threshold for mining, agriculture, and manufacturing, with hab-domes, refineries, and processing plants popping up all over the poisoned landscape. In the years that followed, a de facto social strata began to form around the original survivors, or Romanians, and the newcomers, simply called Corvans (so named after the sector of space in an attempt to preserve the native colonial culture). Though the Romanians welcomed the influx of new workers and the reconstruction opportunities they would bring, they still resented the notion of others profiting from their world without having earned the right to be there through survival. Clad in hazard suits and clunky mining equipment, the Corvans dug out the natural resources of the planet sought by the Federation’s industries who had cut their losses before the cataclysm. Despite the eternal night of the impact winter that 15 years of terraforming had not even dented, an industrial boom returned to the devastated world. Decades of hard work and great bounty resulted in the return of luxury to New Romania. Scandal struck the world in 2235 when it was discovered that many wealthy Romanians had actually been halting the terraforming efforts, which meant that many deaths in the menial Corvan class could have been prevented. Harsh crackdowns were implemented to prevent worker uprisings and maintain the status quo. At one point even the spaceport was restricted to all but Romanian residents and their commercial businesses. The hostilities soon quieted down after Starfleet Security was said to open an investigation, but with no crimes against the Federation charter to prosecute, Starfleet’s investigators withdrew. Tensions remained at an all-time high, ultimately leading to the Scourge of 2250. Originating first as a labor uprising, it soon turned grisly. In the later months of 2250, an epidemic broke out in the remote mining settlement of Bao Van-Shi in the northern hemisphere. As an unimportant site that was nearing its decommissioning date, most of the settlers were forced to flee rather than receive treatment. Subsequent Starfleet Medical reports determined that the residents of Bao Van-Shi were genetically predisposed to Congenital Erythropoietic Porphyria (CEP), a trait that is reduced through gene therapy on most Federation worlds but allowed to flourish on New Romania’s harsh and isolated landscape. The advanced stages of the particular native brand of CEP resulted in afflicted individuals driven to madness, particularly in the presence of light sources. They would attack, maim, and sometimes even devour anyone near a light source. What made matters worse was that the bloodborne pathogens of the afflicted triggered the latent CEP within any native-born Romanian or Corvan. Emergency medical responders from the USS Nightingale-A nicknamed the resultant condition the Corvan Hemophagia, a unique form of porphyric symptoms that led to hematophagy and even anthropophagy, and the name stuck in future medical journals. Unable to cure the outbreak, Starfleet Medical issued a quarantine of New Romania in 2252 that lasted over fifty years. Periodic surveys were conducted by passing mercy ships, but the assessment was always the same -- a complete breakdown of society with the civilian population rendered somewhere between stone age and feral. Journalists were less kind, christening the afflicted world with the name Dhampir in the press. In 2303, a breakthrough was made by researchers from Pathos BioMed (a wholly owned subsidiary of Ingram Nanoscale Solutions) in the form of NOS-4-A2, a synthetic blood compound which could suppress the symptoms of Corvan Hemophagia. Mildly toxic to most humanoids, the NOS-4-A2 compound, when replacing approximately 50% of the blood of a Corvan Hemophagia patient, successfully sends the chronic disease into remission with only mild side effects -- blackening of the irises, collagen, and keratin, resulting in ebony hair, nails, and eyes. Researchers determined these side-effects to be advantageous, as their lapse would signal a return to full symptomatic Hemophagia. After several generations of restored sentience, the denizens of Theta-Corvus III officially rejoined the United Federation of Planets in 2380 under a new charter. Rather than cling to the past, they embraced their newfound cultural and biological distinction as Corvans, they cast off both the old name of New Romania and the slur Dhampir, choosing instead to call their world Corvus Prime. Corvanism, a growing movement that exalts Dhamprisim as a cultural affinity for Corvan Hemophagia, persists to this day. |
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| Starfleet History | The unique upbringing on Corvus Prime lent Blaise a natural penchant for planetary sciences. After graduating the Academy, Blaise served aboard exploration vessels in pursuit of Starfleet's original mandate--to seek out new life and new civilizations. As such, he often works in close proximity with stellar cartography, biologists, chemists, and other experts who comprise what he considers subdivisions of his field of expertise. | |
| Service Record | 2382 Graduated Starfleet Academy with a warrant in Planetary Sciences 2382-2385 WO | Outpost 404 (Van Helsing Station) - Science Officer, Planetary Specialist 2385-2388 SWO | USS Belmont - Planetary Science Specialist 2389 SWO | Canopus Station - Planetary Science Specialist |