.jpg)
Lieutenant Commander Maurice Rubens
Name Maurice Zilex Rubens
Position Chief Diplomatic Officer
Rank Lieutenant Commander
Character Information
| Gender | Male | |
| Species | Mostly Trill (1/2 Trill; 3/8 Human; 1/8 Vulcan) | |
| Age | 40 |
Physical Appearance
| Height | 5'11" (2.11m) | |
| Weight | 170 lbs. (77kg) | |
| Hair Color | Black | |
| Eye Color | Blue | |
| Physical Description | At first glance, its easy to mistake Maurice "Rice" Rubens is a full-blooded Trill. Two rows of spots descend from his thick black hair down his neck and (one would assume) to his toes. Further examination, however, would reveal this his spots are not as dark as a full-blooded Trill. After prolonged exposure to sunlight, they tend to vanish as his skin becomes darker. His ears have a slight point to them, as well, and his deep blue eyes have a Sol-ful look. Rice is average height and keeps himself fit. |
Family
| Father | Joshua Rubens (d. 2358) | |
| Mother | Ebizi Rubens (d. 2358) |
Personality & Traits
| General Overview | Rice will freely admit to the contradictions in his personality; the paradoxical way he approaches his professional and private lives. He is a natural introvert, but trained to be an extrovert. His outward stoicism masks an emotional core powered by his moral compass (he has a reputation in the UFP Diplomatic Corps for bursts of rage at diplomats or others who were the root cause unforced diplomatic errors). Rice deeply cares for the plight of others. Ironically, however, empathy is a learned trait. Although he cherishes the skill, it is a tool to be used. He hates bullshit and politics, but can swallow the former without a word and is a master practitioner of the latter. He is friendly and warm, but makes has few friends. He might actively manipulate events or patiently wait for his opportunities. Either way, his primary goal is to see his missions succeed. He walks a fine line between pride in his accomplishments and arrogance born from those achievements. No one will ever convince him that diplomats can’t solve everything given enough time and support; if it fails it’s because people are too impatient, political leaders too devious, military leaders too paranoid, and scientists too oblivious. On the other hand, given those limitations, he’s a realist about prospects of success (although, never happy about it). Rice has a general dislike of Starfleet, believing the organization has lost its way after the events of the Romulan rescue. |
|
| Strengths & Weaknesses | Strengths: + Empathy + Calm and patient under pressure + Thoughtful + Fluent in Rhihannsu (Romulan); Cardassian Con: - Arrogant - Manipulative - Emotional |
|
| Ambitions | Rice is unsure of his ambitions at the moment. Since his days in the Academy, he’s been a high-flyer, aiming for to be part of important inter-power diplomatic missions. Before coming to Obsidian Command, he’d been within touching distance of his professional goals: a chair and a voice in the inner most sanctums of the Federation political power. Had he become unnerved at the very end? Choked? Lost the drive? Maybe. Truthfully, he’s unsure himself. At the very least, what he really wants is to gain some sense of his roots. Or to have roots. Something to moor him when storms blow. |
|
| Hobbies & Interests | Rice enjoys watching and participating in team sports, although he’s admittedly of middling skill in most. His likes to play Parrises Squares, although he’s trending into slower and slower velocities (as his age inevitably catches up to him). He follows AC New York’s team in the Earth Pro League. He enjoys art, has favorite pieces and artists, but truthfully has only passing knowledge of it on the whole. Rice has a keen interest in history, both as a part of his job and in his personal time. |
| Personal History | Maruice “Rice” Zilex Rubens spent the last years of his childhood in a group home for orphans in New York City on Earth. His foster parents looked after six children, many of whose parents had died off-world and generally in traumatic disasters. Rice had the benefit (if it could be called that) of having no memories of his parents nor of the disaster that took their lives on the Prasi G Colony. He did, however, know his maternal grandmother, Saziana, a Trill who had long ago decamped from her home planet to live with her husband in New York and his only maternal grandmother. Saziana worked with refugees who escaped to the Federation from far flung worlds. At her knee, Rice learned of a dozen different cultures traditions. He knew how to greet each in their own tongue and what movements to make if they had a ritual to say hello, goodbye, or simply share a cup of tea. More than that, Rice lived in the home his mother grew up in, lived in her bedroom, ate dinner at the same table she did. Saziana taught him the same lessons she taught her, told some of the same stories. But his favorite stories were ones about his parents, intrepid explorers and teachers. In this way he came to know his mother and father as best as he could. Rice became cognizant of how history melded with culture to complete a people; how history melded with blood completed a person. The blissful childhood did not last. Tragedy struck again: Saziana died in a shuttle crash shortly after Rice’s twelfth birthday. The group home where the United Earth Department of Families placed him was warm and loving, but no replacement for Saziana, her cornucopia of refugees, or her stories. He spent nearly five years in that home, made few friends and escaped as soon as he came of an age that he could join Starfleet. In later years, he would call joining a war a misadventure or a spectacularly bad decision. Deep in the Dominion War, Starfleet and its Klingon allies were being battered on battlefields across the Quadrant. New recruits like Rice were quickly shuffled off to one front or another. He thought himself lucky to be assigned to a small joint Marine-Security task force in an out-of-the-way system in the Betazed Sector. Luck had never been his friend, however, and the Dominion launched a surprise attack quickly taking almost every system, with the exception of Trippelt. Several months of bitter fighting followed as those on the surface desperately attempted to hold on to both the ground and create an avenue in orbit for supplies to arrive. Rice was part of a breach-and-board squad. The overall tactic was for fighter squads to engage the Jem’Hadar vessels, while the BBs (a nickname referencing an old Earth toy gun that shot tiny metal spheres) broke into vessels and engaged the crews. None of this was meant to capture or even destroy the enemy ships, but rather distract them long enough for supply runs and reinforcements to reach the surface. It was hot, deadly work and often devolved into hand-to-hand combat. Ironically, Rice survived the raids largely unscathed. When he was wounded, it was on the ground. The bunker he was sheltering in during an orbital bombardment collapsed, breaking an arm, both his legs, several ribs, and his back, and trapping him for twenty hours in the rubble. His career as an enlisted crew proved short-lived post-Dominion War. During his months-long recovery, Rice resolved to find a different path. Nearly twenty-years-old, he resolved to follow his grandmother into her vocation, but had become used to the structured environment the Fleet. In the end, he chose to apply to the Academy and entered in 2376 on an interdisciplinary track focused on diplomacy. A star pupil, Rice caught the eye of Chung Dae-Jung, a rising star in the UFP Diplomatic Corps whose focus was on the rebuilding of Cardassia. He plucked Rice for what was supposed to be temporary detached service with the civilian FDC and the Academy graduate went with Chung to the Cardassian Embassy. Dae-Jung nurtured his skill in negotiations, and the young Rice quickly rose through the ranks. When Mars was set ablaze and the Romulan rescue efforts suddenly ceased, the FDC focused itself on both the internal and external diplomatic fallout. Although he’d developed an expertise in Cardassia, Rice saw an opportunity and volunteered to be reassigned back to Earth. Within a couple years, he’d parlayed that decision into an appointment as the Deputy Head of Mission, the second-in-command of the Federation embassy to the new Romulan Free State. It was during this time he had a hand in the ongoing negotiations for Federation involvement in studying ‘the Artifact.’ A return to Cardassia followed, this time as a Consul-General in charge of a consulate for a over two years. Then as an undersecretary at the Department of the Exterior's headquarters in Montevideo. It seemed to most observers, including his old mentor Dae-Jung, that Rice was less than a decade from becoming the Secretary of Department of the Exterior. One, maybe two, key postings as a special advisor in the Executive Branch or ambassador might be all it took. Rice was on the cusp of achieving the pinnacle of his career. But the career came to a grinding halt not on the steps of power, but by a little wooden table in a seafood restaurant in New York City. A failed proposal to his long-time girlfriend Se-Jung, the daughter of his mentor, caused a heartbroken Rice to reexamine his carefully laid career plans and life. The memories of his grandmother’s refugee cases came flooding back to him and he realized he was flying in the stratosphere, unaware of what was happening thousands of feet below him on the ground where the work was personal, the impact immediate. Rice suddenly wanted to come down from his lofty position, if only for a time. Even though his ‘temporary’ assignment to the UFP Diplomatic Corps turned had into sixteen years, he decided to return Starfleet hoping he could find a personal peace that had eluded him since the very last time Saziana told him stories of his parents. |
|
| Service Record | Starfleet Enlisted Record 2374-2376: - 10-week basic training at Camp Drummer, Newfoundland. (10 APR 2374 – 16 JUN 2374) - 10-week advanced Security training on Starbase 1. Promoted Crewman. (26 JUN 2374 – 1 SEPT 2374) - Assigned 343rd Joint Marine-Security Task Force, Trippelt System, Betazed Sector. Siege of Trippelt. Promoted Petty Officer, Third Class. Wounded. Evacuated to Starbase 12. (29 SEP 2374 – 24 APR 2375) - Patient, Starfleet Hospital Ward, Starbase 12 (28 APR 2375 – 3 JUN 2375) - Patient, V’Tal Starfleet Recovery Center, Vulcan (5 JUN 2375 – 7 SEP 2375) - Assigned Security Officer Department, USS Venerable (6 NOV 2375 – 16 MAY 2376) - Detached from Starfleet. Honorable discharge. (17 MAY 2376) Starfleet Academy Record 2376-2380: - Matriculated. Assigned Cadet Company Alpha Four. Promoted CCA4 Freshman Cadet Squad Leader. Winner, Pezcho Freshmen History Award. Third Place, Starfleet Academy Forensic Tournament. (12 AUG 2376 – 18 JUL 2377) - Promoted Sophomore Cadet. Assigned Cadet Company Beta Nine, Cadet Ensign. Winner, Paulson Cultural Studies Award. Winner, Starfleet Academy Forensic Tournament. (10 AUG 2377 – 16 JUL 2378) - Promoted Junior Cadet. Assigned Cadet Company Gamma Twenty, Cadet Lieutenant. Winner, Association of Federation University Forensic Tournament. Winner, Starfleet Academy Forensic Tournament. Winner, Bornholm Political Science Prize. (14 AUG 2378 – 20 JUL 2379) - Promoted Senior Cadet. Assigned Cadet Cruise, USS Marathon. Winner, Khitomer Diplomatic Studies Award. Thesis: A Victory in Defeat: An Examination of Post-War Cardassian Rebuilding and Diplomacy. (21 JUL 2379 – 19 JUN 2380) Starfleet Record, 2380-Present: - Detached for assignment to UFP Diplomatic Corps, Department of the Exterior. (19 JUN 2380) - Promoted Lieutenant JG (5 JULY 2382) - Promoted Lieutenant (25 JUN 2387) - Promoted Lieutenant Commander (19 FEB 2391) - Assigned Starfleet Headquarters, Training Division (6 FEB 2397) - Assigned Chief Diplomatic Officer, Obsidian Command (16 SEP 2397) United Federation of Planets Diplomatic Corps Record, 2380-2396: - Assigned Attaché to Cardassian Mission. (16 JUL 2380 – 1 MAR 2381) - Assigned Diplomatic Negotiations Office, Cardassian Mission. Designated Assistant Deputy Negotiator, Celeste VI Trade Treaty Conference. Designated Deputy Negotiator, Bajor-Cardassian Treaty Conference. (2 MAR 2382 – 17 OCT 2385) - Assigned Assistant to Deputy Undersecretary for Romulan Affairs, Sol. (1 NOV 2385 – 30 AUG 2388) - Assigned Deputy Head of Mission, Romulan Free State, Vvalti. Designated Chief Negotiator, UFP-RFS Joint Research Effort on Borg Technology. (5 NOV 2388- 20 DEC 2390) - Assigned Consul-General, Ekmot Region, Cardassia Prime. (19 FEB 2391 – 7 JUL 2393) - Assigned Undersecretary for Diplomatic Security. Designated Senior Member, UFP Threat Analysis Council. (29 AUG 2393- 19 DEC 2396) |