We’re here with another interview with a newer member of our community. The title of this column is “Lower Decks,” hearkening back to the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode titled “Lower Decks,” in which junior officers aboard the Enterprise-D speculate on the reasons for recent unusual actions taken by the command crew near the Cardassian border.
This month’s interview is with the writer behind playing a Human/Klingon hybrid Security officer assigned to Amity Outpost.
DeVeau: Tell us a little about the writer behind the character — where in the world do you hail from? Anything you’d like to share!
Iko: Hi I’m Ani, but you probably know me as Bec. I come from a little town in Victoria, Australia – meaning my time travelling power (which isn’t really mine at all – it’s called timezones) puts me around 17 hours ahead of our now three Pacific coast buddies on Amity and even half an hour in front of our XO Wil Ukinix :P. I’m also quite a young’n, currently still in high school, who’s considering a career in directing.
What was your introduction to Science Fiction and Star Trek specifically?
I used to catch snippets of Star Trek when my parents watched it, and then we have somewhat recently got through most (not all – there’s a lot!) Starting with TNG because I specifically remembered the episode Rascals for some reason…
So far we’ve watched all but a few episodes of TOS, TAS, PIC (which we watched the pilot of before rewatching TNG – a mistake) and PRO. These days we’ve also started watching Dr. Who, and now sci-fi is my favourite genre.
What is your experience with roleplaying?
Honestly, mainly SB118, with a few failed attempts previously at other online RPGs. And imagination games as an 8-year-old… if that counts XD. Besides Bec, I don’t think any other of my characters lasted over 3-4 months. I have also wanted to get into DND, and so have a lot of my RL friends… but none of us knows how to play… maybe one day.
What brought you to SB118?
My sister plays Star Wars D&D and the stories that she has of all the shenanigans (like the Mandalorian being possessed by the muffin man) her character and others get up to and the sheer amount of fun there is made me want to join a community like that, so after a little digging, I stumbled across this place via the discord 🙂
Why did you choose this specific character and duty post?
Duty post: that one’s easy. In the beginning, I had a lot of trouble with actually using technobabble because you say what is happening, not what your character is doing. (I don’t have trouble with it anymore, but Bec still does, mainly because it’s funny.). Security seemed like the duty post with the least of that specific kind of shenanigans.
As for Bec herself, I was primarily inspired by K’Ehleyr from TNG’s “The Emissary” – the first Klingon hybrid to enter the Star Trek universe (IIRC), and then B’elanna Torres afterwards. The rest is familiar to my own life, or wildly different… or both. And her first appearances were VERY MUCH like a typical first season of Star Trek…
Where do you see your character five years from now?
Oh, lordy… uhm… Probably just as a Lieutenant or having just passed her Bridge Officers test. Mayyyyybe head of security??? Hopefully, by then she could have also had one good, nice, calm, happy mission… but judging on the few missions she has been on, I doubt that’s going to happen soon 😅 (although that is a goal of mine). She might grow in those five years into a better person too, but not too much. Always more time for character development!
Thanks for your time, Lieutenant JG Iko!
You can read more about Lieutenant JG Rebecca Iko on the wiki.