Arvin Rockney
From Hidden Frontier
Lieutenant Commander Arvin Rockney is the Chief Engineer aboard the USS Helena.
Contents |
Personnel File
- Active rank: Lieutenant Commander
- Most recent assignment: Chief Engineer of the USS Helena (NCC-80455)
Service Record
Childhood
Rockney was born in the Utopia Planetia shipyards to Starfleet engineers Mark and Juanita Rockney. What with both parents being severe workaholics, Rockney spent his infancy mostly watched by a robotic nanny constructed by his father. This pseudo-android minder continued to monitor Rockney until the age of five, when Juanita Rockney discovered that her son had somehow re-programmed the nanny-bot to replicate chocolate cake instead of vegetables.
Cutting back to half-shifts, Mark and Juanita took turns home-schooling their son, but their passion for engineering and starship construction soon got the better of them and they resumed full duty, sneaking their child to work in order to supervise him and continue his education.
By the age of twelve, Rockney had an intimate knowledge the inner workings of a starship, but almost zero social skills.
Academy Years
At the Academy, Rockney continued his pattern of becoming more skilled with technology and less skilled with people. He avoided all social gatherings and had a string of roommates, none of whom could remember his name. This lack of social grace nearly cost him a Starfleet career, as faculty advisors didn’t feel he was capable of the interaction necessary to fit in aboard a starship. This hurdle was overcome when a permanent position was created for Rockney at Utopia Planetia, pursuant to his graduating the Academy.
Utopia Planetia
Despite being essentially grounded, Rockney rose in rank quickly by constantly improving construction efficiency and efficacy. Despite his strengths as a starship builder, Rockney was the last engineer anybody wanted to work under. He rarely had a spare word for another sentient. When he issued commands they’d be terse, and brook no argument. Rockny had no ability to coddle or empathize. Members of his team either did their job or he’d get rid of them.
Though Rockney participated in or led construction of various starships, something was different about the Renaissance Mark II project. Almost from the start, Rockney seemed obsessed with the Ren. Mk2, neglecting other duties, taking on double shifts, and even dismissing members of his crew so he could do the work by himself.
As the starship neared completion, Rockney surprised everyone by aggressively bidding for assignment as her chief engineer. When he gained no satisfaction from his immediate superiors, he reached all the way out to DS12 and it's said that the subspace communiqué he had with then-commander Tolian Naros was the longest conversation Rockney’s ever had with another living being. Whatever transpired during this cross-space meeting, Naros officially requested that Rockney be onboard when the Renaissance Mark II left on its shakedown cruise.
Aboard the Helena
Rockney has been Helena’s chief engineer since she first departed Utopia Planetia. As part of the team that constructed her, Rockney literally knows the ship from the ground up.
Medical Record
At the request of various Academy advisors and superior officers, Rockney’s undergone more than his share of psychiatric evaluations. Though he’s certainly displayed anti-social tendencies, no counselor has ever been able to definitively declare him a victim of mental illness.
Personal Life
Rockney doesn’t have a personal life. He’s more comfortable with engines than people, to the point where he has better conversations with them. Rockney mumbles constantly to the ship, the impulse engines, the manifolds. He argues philosophy with the ODN relays and tells dirty jokes to the Bussard collectors. The local legend is that he once talked the warp core out of breaching. The local joke is that, in the holodeck, he turns it off to get it on.
The closest thing Rockney has to a living friend on Helena is Dr. Ness and that tenuous relationship is attributed by crewmates to the fact that Ness is part machine.
| ||||||||
