Welcome to the first installment of Tuesdays at Quarks! We’re starting off with a month of NPCs connected to Starfleet Academy, something that all Star Trek Adventures campaigns have in common. Whether captains or ensigns, Vulcans or Trills, Starfleet characters in STA have an Academy experience to fall back on.

The first of this series is a common archetype in stories about crews and ships: the promising young officer. Zyle sh’Azonan is a bright and eager young ensign, fresh out of Starfleet Academy and ready to join your crew or the crew of a sister ship. Like any good character she has a few skeletons in her closet so you might use her as a supporting character who’s past slowly comes out or as the focus of a particular mission when things come to a head all at once.

Here are a few plot hooks to get you started:

• A mission requires the ship to travel to Andoria and transport officials there to Earth for a meeting of the Federation Senate. Ensign sh’Azonan has been selected to be the delegation’s liaison while aboard but she seems oddly reticent.
• After Zyle has been serving aboard your ship for a while, an ensign she knew at the Academy transfers aboard and immediately seeks her out to reconnect. Zyle seems nervous, though, and observant crew members might even think this transferred ensign is holding something over the young Andorian.
• One of the bridge crew gets a subspace message from a beloved professor at the Academy. They tell the PC that Ensign sh’Azonan is coming aboard and asks them to take her under their wing. When she arrives to her first posting, though, Zyle proves to be a bundle of nerves making careless mistakes and the PC needs to decide whether to protect her or tell the captain before someone gets hurt.

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