Age: 63
Rank/Position: Chief Medical Officer
Race: Human
Appearance:
6'2", stocky, bald, and with a slight paunch, Guy has not aged well, looking at least ten years above his actual age of sixty three. Guy is wrinkled, with a heavily lined face and a hand that looks more like a claw than a hand. Guy's skin is pale and covered in the white spots of vitiligo, a disorder he has had since birth, especially pronounced in the splotches around his eyes and on his chin, though as he ages and grows ever paler, the spots become less and less noticeable. Guy has a large nose with a wart resting slightly off to the left, the long black hair extending from it being the only hair on his face other than his eyebrows, A pair of dull white eyes, the color of ocean mist, milky and ever duller as a result of cataracts which are too early in development to treat.
Born with a single arm, his right arm ending at the elbow, Guy's remaining limb is thin and veiny, the same pale white as the rest of his skin, with white spots upon it as a result of his vitiligo. His body looks like a Jackson Pollock painting if all the colors the artist used were white and a whitish-pink, splatting white spots covering his body from chest to waist, especially apparent on his joints, all of which possess the telltale irregular white spots.
When upon a ship, Dr. Merritt wears the usual uniform of a medical officer, but the empty right arm of his top is pinned to his chest via his combadge, his casual wear pinned similarly but without his combadge. When at more formal events, Guy wears a black suit and tie with baggy legs and a good pair of shoes, the right arm of the jacket rolled up and pinned at his elbow as to not obstruct his tie. Guy especially enjoys wearing yellow jackets and black pants when off-duty. Guy only wears a prosthetic arm when completely necessary, having grown up without one, and finding them difficult to get used to.
Personality:
Sarcastically deadpan, Dr. Merritt is very quick with a joke and a smug smile afterwards, Guy is steel-witted and is rarely caught off-guard, sardonically reacting to every even thrown in front of him. Determined and idealistic, he is unyielding in his determination to ensure the survival of his patients and thus often puts himself or others in danger to ensure that no-one is left behind.
He is, however, slow to warm, seemingly cynical and self-deprecating, showing no mercy towards his own perceived faults, and his wit and inability to step down from an argument make him unpopular amongst those he doesn't know well. He is well known for his initiative, reacting fast and seeing any situation through, even if he is known for rarely thinking these same situations through to the extent of his colleagues. His lack of fear pertaining to ignoring orders to suit his own moral compass often earns him the ire of captains and colleagues, and he is not the most inspiring of leaders when it comes to his sub-ordinates.
It is hard to break Merritt's wit-infused shell to reach his idealistic and reliably friendly interior, but he values friendship and loyalty, trusting even the youngest captain despite his older age.
History:
Born on Alpha Centauri VII as Tom Hagan Jr. to a Tom and Martha Hagan, Hagan's father, unable to provide financial support for the young, one-armed child, gave up the infant for adoption despite the protests of Guy's mother Martha, who spent the rest of her adult life searching for her lost child.
The young Hagan ended up in a poor orphanage, where he spent his childhood, obsessing over the human body and how it worked, spending long hours at libraries and on the interface, reading medical textbooks and records, he also developed an interest in starfleet, purchasing books on starfleet's history once he had gotten his first job at age eleven. Hagan had few friends, but many mentors, even if he hadn't met them. Hagan obsessed over starfleet members such as Admiral James Kirk, Captain Hikaru Sulu and especially Admiral Leonard McCoy, who quickly grew into Hagan's idol and inspiration.
At age twelve, Hagan was adopted by William and Yuki Merritt, a starfleet ensign and an accountant respectively, and baptized Guy Merritt after his adopted grandfather. Although his father was often away, Hagan couldn't help but be enthralled by his father's profession, and asked as much as he could whenever his father returned from assignments. Graduating from Alpha Centauri University as a MD at age twenty-one, Merritt discovered that his father had died on an away mission to Romulan space, Merritt fell into a depression, unable to work or even think, living on the streets of Alpha Centauri VII due to his unwillingness to get a job, Merritt met his birth-mother in a chance encounter. Ms. Hagan spoke to Merritt, revealing to him that she had been in starfleet academy when the young man was born, and her unwillingness to drop out was what left her unable to support him, but she later dropped out in an attempt to provide a home for the now orphaned child, but was unable to find him before a new family adopted him. Merritt was touched by her story, and, with her permission, decided to enter starfleet in order to live the life she was unable to.
Merritt immediately applied for starfleet membership, travelling to the academy on Earth in December of that year. Graduating from yet another academy at age twenty-five, Dr. Merritt was assigned to a Constitution-class starship called the USS Diligence, where he served for forty years, going on eight five-year missions before she was retired.
At age thirty-one he married a nurse by the name of Gladys, who he had known since high-school.
At age thirty-five, his daughter Maria was born. She later followed in her father's footsteps in joining starfleet academy, but dropped out, going on to serve as an accountant.
When he was sixty, Merritt was offered the chance to captain his own ship, which he declined due to insecurity in his leadership ability. Merritt decided instead to retire from Starfleet service, serving as a hospital orderly in his home world of Alpha Centauri VII.
With the Dominion threatening the Alpha Centauri system with their recent conquests, Merritt was approached by starfleet, along with a few other retired starfleet officers under the age of seventy-five, to return to service in order to provide the manpower that was quickly being spent in the difficult war that the Federation seemed set to lose.
Merritt accepted near-immediately, again denying the chance at his own ship, and instead being assigned to the USS Orion as Chief Medical Officer, a position he was made for.
Skills: Skilled surgeon and anesthesiologist, Doctor Merritt is also trained in use of a phaser, meaning he is able to serve on landing parties and away missions.
Merritt has served as a hospital orderly before, and thus is experienced in sedating combative patients, translated from doctor-speak, that means punching them in the face with your one remaining arm, leaving Merrit an able hand-to-hand combatant even if his uniarm leaves him at a usual disadvantage.
Sample Post: Guy stood at the door of his home, the door of some brown wood that he was unable to identify, indented with four squares in each quadrant of the door, like the four quadrants of the galaxy, the galaxy he was back to exploring after so long away, it was a bittersweet feeling, he had spent so long at the hospital that he had become attached, and as a surgeon that was what you least wanted to do.
He sighed down the pit in his stomach, adjusting the pin which held his sleeve to his chest, soon to be replaced with the logo of the Federation's naval corps, it was always uncomfortable to try to press it by bending his arm upwards, but he hated those fake arms, they never felt right, he wanted his elbow to breathe, and the sweating that came after putting on one of those crappy metal... things, it just wasn't comfortable, so a few seconds of uncomfortability is worth it instead of a full five years of it.
He had to get these cataracts fixed, but they weren't ready yet, he knew that, he wasn't just some pretty face, he had that doctorate for a reason, and that reason was still unknown to him. Hah, he kidded himself too often, he was one of the few surgeons he knew that could perform surgery one handed, though he was the only one that could do it without outside help. He might have actually been worse with a prosthetic. He was losing his vision quickly though, tree leaves looked more like green blobs now, and he hadn't performed surgery in years now, so the rust combined with the cataracts equaled danger, but he could do it, he thought.
He learned surgery for a reason, to help people, even if he was going blind, he would still help people, it was, as the Vulcans say, illogical to do otherwise, and with this lack of manpower that forced him out of retirement, it was really, really logical. God he hated himself just for saying that, but it was true, he would help anyone, any race, but why did he care? Honestly, why did he care about people? Hell if he knew, but he did know one thing, he was happy to be back, surveying space, exploring planets, healing, he wasn't planning on fighting Dominion crafts, hell no, but if he understood right, this new ship was same as the old one, an exploration and survey craft, he didn't understand ships, but he understood its goal. Eight years of doing just that, exploring and surveying, left him prepared.
Ready.
Unfortunately, he wasn't ready to step through that door, to finally tell his wife he had to leave again, call his daughter, listen to their tears, he'd be like; "Girls, girls, I have to go," then they'd be like; "Oh no, don't leave us you magnificent man," and he'd be like; "No can do, ladies, starfleet needs me," yeah! Now he was ready! He was ready to do this! He smiled and grabbed the doorknob hard, gritting his teeth in a determined smile. Throwing open the door, he threw his arm and half-arm apart and called out to his lovely wife, words that made him happy as he said them.
"Honey! I'm home!"
Captain Uni
