Name: Ben 'Moose' Morse
Species: Human
Gender: Male
Height: 6' 7"
Weight: 200 lbs.
Age: 26
Birthday: 07-07-2357
Birthplace: Newport, South Wales, British Nation State, Europe, Earth.

Hobbies:
Ben's hobbies revolve mainly around sport and history. His first love was football (soccer) – from the age of four he had always been obsessed with the beautiful game; just watching the sphere spin in the air enthralled the youngster.

Apart from soccer Ben enjoys Earth history – his main interest is in the Ancient Greeks and the Romans, but he also enjoys 20th Century history. Since joining Starfleet he has not read as much as he would like on the subject and resents that slightly, but has instead spent more time learning about other cultures.

Languages Spoken:
Federation Standard, Latin, and Ancient Greek.

Known Family:

Father: Lieutenant Barry Morse, deceased 2361
Mother: Petty Officer 2nd Class Ann Morse (O’Dwyer), deceased 2367
Sisters: Emily Morse – Civilian Journalist, Commander Holly Davies (Morse) – Commanding Officer, USS Norway

Service Record
2375 – 2379: Starfleet Academy.
2379 – 2380: Leave Of Absence to spend time exploring Italy and Greece; Unassigned (Ensign).
2380 – 2382: USS Hokkaido, Operations Officer (Ensign).
2382 – 2383: USS Hokkaido, Assistant Chief Operations Officer (Ensign)
2383 – 2383: USS Hokkaido, Chief Operations Officer (Lieutenant Junior Grade)
2383 – Present: Assistant Communications Officer, Deep Space Five.

Appearance:
Eye Colour: Blue
Hair Colour: Brown with Blonde streaks

Ben is very tall for a human – something which has given him both success and difficulty. His brown hair with its seemingly random and natural blonde streaks makes him stand out, as do his bright blue eyes. ‘Moose’ has very long, but muscular legs, however his upper body – while seeming fairly broad is fairly weak – although he is constantly trying to balance out his physique.

His head is fairly long and appears to be of Norse descent – apart from a very Roman looking nose – and fits with the rest of his profile; long and thin. He also has a freakishly long neck – 1 or 2 inches longer than the average human neck length.

Background:

Ben’s upbringing was very strange and it explains why he has such a weird relationship with his parents. His sisters had been brought up with their parents on board ship (because their parents were serving on the same ship[s]) however Ben was born while his parents were on leave on Earth. The timing of the birth was both opportune and terrible; it was only a week before his Mother was to be transferred to the USS Trieste on the Romulan Border and his father was promoted to Lieutenant Commander and assigned as the Tactical Officer for a ship on the Cardassian border. Both of Ben’s parents decided that not only was it impossible to bring a child up aboard a Miranda or a Sabre Class starship (which they were respectively serving aboard), but they thought that it was too dangerous for Ben to go with them. So Ben was raised by his recently retired paternal Grandparents on Earth – due to his maternal grandparents both being older and less welcoming to their ‘wayward daughter’.

He saw his father only twice more – both during leaves – and in 2361 he was woken in the middle of the night by his tearful grandmother to be told that his father was dead. Only being four he did not really understand what this meant – and not seeing his father often anyway it did not seem to impact upon the youngster, but it did.

Those close to him – especially his (then) 22 year old sister Emily who was by now back on Earth working for the Federation News Service – noticed that in the weeks following the death of his father Ben retreated inside himself and suddenly turned his passion for football into something of an obsession. The four year old seemed to spend every second of free time in the garden practicing tricks and ball control.

As his guardians were now approaching 78 and 71 they found that their grandson was just too active for them to look after – and his sister Emily volunteered to look after her younger brother in their parents’ house in South Wales. While this didn’t particularly affect the child’s upbringing – as he still spent 2 hours after school each day with the grandparents while Emily was at work – it meant a leap forward in the career of his sister whose new insight upon caring for children gave her a popular column aimed at parents and prospective parents which she still writes to this day.

From the age of four to the age of nine Ben’s school work seemed nothing more than average for the year group – his football seemed the way forwards and dominated his life. He first joined the small Usk town Under 8s team on the very day of his 6th birthday and began to impress as a striker – racking up 20 goals in 8 games. However by the next season it was obvious that despite his shooting prowess he didn’t have quite enough speed to be a true striker – so he was moved back into the Midfield, where he showed absolutely no tactical awareness whatsoever, but developing tackling abilities.

On moving up to the Usk Under 11s squad on his 8th birthday Morse became a Right Back – in order to fit into the team. After an overall enjoyable and successful season he was looking forward to a relaxing summer and getting back to school and football in September. However – with 1 week of the holidays to go Ben fell down a flight of stairs and broke his leg – this kept him from playing football for the first few games of the season and in order to get back as soon as possible Ben volunteered to play in goal for a bit – a position which was now vacant within the team – while his leg recovered fully.

That decision was to change his footballing forever: he showed an amazing amount of potential in his very first game – and after a few weeks’ training and match practice the 9 year old was attracting quite a lot of attention from scouts and other more professional areas of the game.

As the season (and school term) drew to a close for the youngster he was surprised to see his mother – who gained some leave before starting a new assignment aboard the USS Kyushu.

Enjoying Ann’s stay immensely Ben was unaware of the turmoil his 50 year old mother’s mind was in. Seeing her son – and now being in an environment on a ship where she could bring him up – made her want to look after him herself, but seeing him love his surroundings on Earth so much she refused to tear him away. In the last few days of her stay Ben’s middle sister – Holly – by now a 25 year old Starfleet Assistant Chief Operations Officer visited as well. Seeing a woman he had almost never done before enthralled Ben and he loved the extra company those days gave him. Hearing his sister’s tales of Starfleet made the youngster wonder more and more about joining.

Finally his mother and sister left and normal life resumed – except the young boy’s performance in football seemed lacklustre and his school work suddenly improved dramatically.

Over the course of his last two years at Primary school Ben developed a love of his subjects – especially Maths, Science and History – and soon stopped playing football at every opportunity.

However then something rocked his world and tipped his inclinations once more. The USS Kyushu was destroyed at the Battle of Wolf 359 – and his mother was amongst the dead. Now being old enough to realise what death meant the youngster suddenly withdrew himself again and fell back on his football. As if his life was balanced on a scales his grades in school dropped as he devoted more time to football again.

Emily was now at a loss about her charge, as well as in mourning for her mother – she didn’t want to encourage Ben to join Starfleet – having lost bother her parents due to it, but at the same time she could see him turning into a moody teenager with no real qualifications and only one light in his life. It didn’t help her that both their paternal grandparents fell ill within two months for Wolf 359 and died soon after.

With Holly’s ship now on the edge of the Federation, and no real support at home Emily decided to leave her brother until he started at Secondary School – when she would really begin pushing him to get results – even if she had to push him towards the traditional family path for the last 4 generations: Starfleet.

As Morse rediscovered his love of football and began giving performances between the sticks which attracted numerous offers by local clubs for him to join their youth squads – all of which Emily silently thwarted, his grades kept falling.

Finally the school year ended. The holidays passed very quickly indeed and as the last day dawned Emily made her move. Before the 11 year old got up she pulled out all the things she had belonging to their parents – especially those things relating to Starfleet. Confronting her brother with these things before they even ate breakfast in fact mean that from 10am until 4pm that day Emily told Ben all about their parents’ respective careers and how much Starfleet meant to both of them.

Ben seemed unaffected by this – and immediately went outside to play football – but that evening Emily checked on him while he ‘slept’. She found he brother curled up crying his eyes out. Starting Secondary School the next day is justly called ‘the turning point of my life’ by Ben himself.

For the first time ever the youngster found the perfect balance between school, social life and his football: that of putting school work first, football second and social life with whatever time remained.

His grades and reports showed that while he wasn’t an academic student of the highest calibre he was a determined teenager and showed a knack for physics, and technical topics. He also found an unexpected interest in Latin and Ancient Greek and the history of the civilisations behind those languages. However, he never took opportunities open to him with the languages – and hasn’t now used either in over 6 years.

As the final two years of his time at Monmouth School approached Ben was honoured by being made the 1st XI team goalkeeper – the youngest player (only by 3 months however) to gain that position at the institution. Again he was brought to the eyes of various nearby clubs and scouts – but this time he was approached directly with the offer of a contract. An offer which, to everyone’s surprise, he rejected; citing academic reasons – a recognisable change from the 11 year old of Usk Primary School.

Another change shown by the last 2 years of his time at Monmouth was a gearing up of his effort academically. He still did not show himself to be a veritable ‘brain-box’, but as a fair all-round, young gentleman.

During his sixth form years his social life grew, but was still not pre-eminent or as active as most of his contemporaries’. Ben was not by nature an unsociable person – quite the opposite; he is quite often prominent at social events, not difficult considering his height and the volume of his voice.

As his final year began he immediately started preparing himself to attempt entry to Starfleet academy. No one – not even his sisters – was quite able to truly believe he would get in; especially first attempt. As January 2375 – and the reply date – approached Ben himself knew within his heart that he wasn’t academy materiel – at least first time.

However – for just over a year the Dominion War has been raging – and losses of personnel have been large. Due to this Starfleet Academy’s intake was increased – and Ben was one of the lucky few to benefit from this. His sister Holly – whose ship was attached to the Earth Defence Fleet – was overjoyed and received a reprimand for abandoning her post to come down to Earth and celebrate with her family.

The final six months at school were by far from relaxed for ‘Moose’ – not only was he awarded the captaincy of the 1st XI team and somehow led them to 2nd place in the British School’s Championship, but he was also furiously preparing for the Starfleet Academy Preparatory Program.

As school drew to a close – as did Ben’s short and comical time in the School 3rd XI cricket side – he geared up for the tests – which suddenly were upon him.

The six weeks flew by – and at the other side Ben was stunned to find that he had scraped a pass on the course; by 0.01%.

ACADEMY – coming soon

USS HOKKAIDO – coming soon

Personality:
The nickname ‘Moose’ suits Ben perfectly. He’s headstrong – sometimes to the point of getting himself in above his head – in almost every way and he is an archetypal Southern Welshman – in that he never shuts up and talks just a bit too loudly.

Surprisingly for Ben – considering his past – he is very sociable, and could often be called ‘unmissable’ at a gathering – due to his size and volume more than anything else however.

Despite this; Ben has never really had a serious romantic relationship: he doesn’t seem outwardly concerned about this, but inwardly often curses himself for not putting himself on the line (a rarity for him) and asking women out.

Ben would probably describe himself as outgoing, with a good sense of humour, and an inability to shut up.

Special Notes:

Ben’s nickname is Moose: he first gained it due to his overly aggressive charging down as a goalkeeper for his school’s Under 11 football (soccer) team and it has stuck ever since. The first sign that he considers someone a friend is that he will ask them to call him ‘Moose’.