Captain Violet Bluegarden
Name Violet Bluegarden
Position Commanding Officer - USS The Sullivans A
Rank Captain
Character Information
| Gender | Female | |
| Species | Human | |
| Age | 58 | |
| Date of Birth | August 4, 2338 | |
| Place of Birth | Ocala, Florida, United States, Earth | |
| Sexuality | heterosexual |
Physical Appearance
| Height | 5'5 | |
| Weight | 130 lbs | |
| Hair Color | greying blonde | |
| Eye Color | blue | |
| Physical Description | Violet has a slim build of average height. Her face is slightly narrow and elongated, and she has blue eyes, thick lashes, and her silky blonde hair, when let down, extends to her hips. However, she generally keeps it tied in a French braid. Alongside her Starfleet uniform, Violet wears a pair of brown leather driving gloves. This is done to hide her prosthetic hands, as she lost both of her forearms in a racing accident. |
Family
| Status | married | |
| Father | Richard "Ricky" Bluegarden | |
| Mother | Stacy Bluegarden | |
| Other Family | Bradford Bluegarden (3x great grandfather) Lucy Bluegarden (3x great grandmother) Rebecca Bluegarden (2x great grandmother) |
Personality & Traits
| Strengths & Weaknesses | +Respects older spaceframes +Firm but fair command style +Respected tactician -Self-conscious of her prosthetic arms -Somewhat prejudiced against Cardassians |
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| Hobbies & Interests | -Stock car racing -Johnny Cash music -Paramotoring -Nickelback music (it's one of her guilty pleasures) |
Personal History
| Personal History | Violet Bluegarden was born and raised in Ocala, Florida. Violet was born into the infamous Bluegarden family: A family that always seemed to straddle the line between vintage stock car racing and Starfleet. Beginning with Lucy Bluegarden in the 2230s and 40s, the Bluegarden family has a long and storied history in vintage stock car racing. Of course, the family also has produced Starfleet legends: Admiral Bradford Bluegarden was most famous for being the USS Yorktown's final commanding officer in her original configuration, and Captain Rebecca Bluegarden was known as the longtime commanding officer of the USS The Sullivans. Growing up, Violet loved running around her family's shop and racing museum, located in Ocala. She would sit and watch her family's employees wrench on cars, and they even let her turn a wrench every now and again. It seemed that, like the generations before her, Violet was destined to go racing, and when she turned 16, she did just that, and made her first start at the family's home track of Daytona International Speedway. By the time Violet turned 18, she was very much a rising star among her peers. However, a tragic accident at Charlotte Motor Speedway would change Violet's life forever: While running the track's "roval" configuration, Violet lost control and slammed into the inside wall. Holding onto the wheel the whole time, the kickback from the impact broke both her forearms. Though most of her other injuries from the crash healed with time, the same could not be said for Violet's forearms: Violet's bones had always been on the brittle side, and the bones in her forearms were so shattered that the doctors believed that she would never regain full usage of her natural forearms again. As Violet was 18 at the time, she made the difficult decision to authorize her forearms up to the elbow to be amputated and replaced with prosthetic forearms. With her racing career over, Violet turned to the other path her family had walked to great success, and applied for Starfleet Academy. Though she was sure Starfleet would turn away a double amputee, Violet was surprised when her application came back approved. Violet's years at the Academy were... Rough, to say the least: Not only was she still getting used to her prosthetic arms, Violet was also taunted and teased for having 'robot arms,' and Violet became very self-conscious of her prosthetic arms, and began wearing driving gloves to cover up her prosthetic hands. Violet graduated from Starfleet Academy at the rank of Ensign in 2360 and was assigned to the USS Croaker, an old Miranda class starship on the front lines of the Cardassian Border Wars. Most of Starfleet's war effort on the Cardassian front comprised older ships, as there was little need for Starfleet to throw its newest and best ships into battle against an enemy that was perfectly content to be technologically behind the times. As a junior security officer working in the lower decks aboard the Croaker, a nickname began that would follow Violet through her Starfleet career to the present day - "The Big Bruise." Originally coined because violet and blue were both bruise colors. However, the nickname would take on a new meaning in 2362, when Cardassians successfully disabled and boarded the Croaker. In the ensuing scuffle, Violet knocked out multiple Cardassians with simple melee attacks, which led to a perception that she was much stronger than she looked. She never said a peep about her prosthetic arms, instead allowing a legend about her to start. After the battle, when the Croaker was towed back to the nearest shipyard for repairs, Violet was reassigned to the USS Kidd along with a promotion to Lieutenant Junior Grade. The Kidd was an Excelsior class Starship, and Violet was assigned as a security team leader. For the first time being in charge of someone other than herself, Violet was a fish out of water. However, she eventually came to develop a leadership style that earned respect from her peers. More and more security officers aboard the Kidd wanted to serve on Violet's team, so the Vulcan Security Chief made the only logical decision and promoted her to be his assistant along with her extra half pip. Violet served aboard the Kidd in various skirmishes with the Cardassians through the 2366 ceasefire. In early 2367, while the Kidd was among the Starfleet vessels overseeing the peace talks that would eventually lead to the drafting of the Cardassian treaty, word reached the talks of the massacre at Wolf 359. As the Kidd was an ancillary vessel at the talks, she was reassigned to search and rescue and later recovery operations in the Wolf system. The Kidd picked up the survivors of the USS Bellerophon, among them was her Chief of Security, Lieutenant Mikoto Misaka. Violet didn't need to say a word to the younger Lieutenant to understand the trauma that the other officer had gone through. At Violet's recommendation, the Kidd's counseling services were offered to the survivors that the Excelsior class starship had picked up as they were transported to safety. What Violet saw as the Kidd worked recovery at the Wolf system deeply affected her, and soon, she began seeing a counselor over her survivor's guilt. It was recommended that she take a leave of absence to clear her mind: When her request for leave was granted, Violet returned home to Florida. Walking her family's race shop and museum once again, Violet had an idea one day while looking at Lucy's (and later Rebecca's) Fabulous Hudson Hornet: She went out behind the shop building, where wrecked racecars were kept awaiting final disposal, and she found the racecar she had wrecked over a decade ago. Knowing that the car had sat for 11 years and still hadn't been disposed of, Violet took this as a sign that the car was meant to be saved, and had it relocated into a corner of the shop, where she began the process of rebuilding the car. When Violet's leave ran up, she reported back to Starfleet to discover that she was being reassigned to fill a Security Chief opening aboard the USS Cassin Young. At first, Violet was excited... Until she found out that the Cassin Young was another Excelsior class. However, while the Kidd had been a Block IV Excelsior class with modern conveniences such as holodecks incorporated into the design, the Cassin Young was one of the last Block II Excelsior class, commissioned 'just as the last of the Block Is were being taken out of service.' As such, most of her amenities had come about as a result of refits over the years. When Violet reported in, she was promoted to Lieutenant Commander, as the Cassin Young's captain and much of her senior staff believed that Lieutenant and below were 'lower deck ranks.' For a year, the Cassin Young patrolled the Romulan Neutral Zone before ghosts from Violet's past once again caught up with her: In 2369, the Cardassians withdrew from the Bajor system after a brutal half-century long occupation. The newly-formed Bajoran Provisional Government knew that the task of rebuilding would be too great to accomplish alone, and had reached out to the Federation for assistance. The Cassin Young was among the vessels allocated to this relief effort. As the captain and first officer had no idea what they were getting themselves into, and with Violet having bragged about being a 'Cardassian War Hero' at senior staff poker games, Violet was asked to become the Cassin Young's Second Officer in addition to her current duties. Violet agreed to step up into this advisory role, and what the crew of Cassin Young uncovered that the Cardassians had done during the occupation made Violet hate the spoonheads even more. In 2370, Violet would swap out her security gold uniform for command red following an extracurricular Kobayashi Maru exam. Her instructors were so impressed by how long she managed to hold out against the Cardassians the program had generated (speaking to her deep familiarity with Cardassian military tactics) that she was fast tracked to full Commander and assigned to the USS Little Rock; a New Orleans class starship in need of a new First Officer following the previous one's defection to the Maquis. Violet was thrilled to finally be assigned to a starship that was designed in the 24th century. Violet got along well with the Little Rock's captain, Rutherford "Cotton" Hill- a fellow Cardassian War veteran who held a vendetta against the Maquis: Because as it turned out, Violet's predecessor was only the latest in a series of defections from the Little Rock's crew, and Cotton was going to make them pay. However, only a year into her time as First Officer, the Little Rock would discover a Borg cube in the Badlands. Cotton was abducted by the Borg, and facing the possibility of another Locutus, Violet rallied Starfleet, The Maquis, and the Cardassians together to prevent another tragedy on the scale of Wolf 359. Unfortunately, the battle killed the partially-assimilated Cotton, and Violet was expecting another officer to be brought in to replace him. And was surprised when Starfleet decided that Cotton's replacement had already assumed the center chair, and gave Violet command of the Little Rock along with a promotion to Captain for her efforts. Following the formalization of her command, Violet requested to have the Little Rock's mission changed, as she felt that she still had unfinished business in the Bajor sector from her time on the Cassin Young. For two years the Little Rock made frequent trips to the Bajor sector, including in 2372 being among the Starfleet reinforcements sent to Deep Space 9. However, thanks to Captain Benjamin Sisko convincing Chancellor Gowron that the Klingons continuing their attack on the station would result in the Klingon Empire fighting a war on two fronts, weakening all combatants and paving the way for a Dominion conquest of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants, the Klingons broke off their attack and the Starfleet reinforcements didn't need to engage. However, in 2373, the Dominion captured Deep Space 9 in a major escalation of the Dominion Cold War. With the escalation in hostilities came a need from Starfleet for more ships. Project Phoenix- a post Wolf-359 initiative- was greenlit. As a result, Starfleet began looking into the service histories of its Captains and Commanders to find officers with experience aboard the types of older starships that Starfleet was looking to bring back, and Violet was one of these officers: Violet was ordered to hand over command of the Little Rock to a newly-promoted Commander William Dauterive and report to Algonquin Fleet Yards as prospective Commanding Officer of the USS The Sullivans. The name was familiar to Violet, and it turned out that it was the same USS The Sullivans (NCC-2942) that her "great grand mamaw"- Rebecca Bluegarden- had commanded. Violet had grown up being told that the ship had likely been parted out to keep the other Excelsiors running- and then dismantled once it had given all its useful parts. In reality, the ship had been kept in a reserve basin in the Algonquin system for the past 60 years for just this type of emergency. For two years, Violet commanded her "great grand mamaw's" ship throughout the Dominion War. However, in 2375, at the age of 86, The Sullivans was destroyed during the Second Battle of Chin'toka, landing Violet a comfortable desk job and her crew reassigned through the end of the war. Following the end of the war, Starfleet rechristened a Nebula class starship under construction in honor of the Excelsior class The Sullivans' sacrifice during the war. This new "The Sullivans A" entered service in 2376, with Violet and most of her old crew returning to man the ship. Violet has remained in command of The Sullivans A ever since. In that time, she has seen a relationship with, which later became a marriage to, a Bajoran man as well as the births of her children. She has also retained her rank of Captain for the past two decades, turning down ten different flag officer promotions, as it would mean having to hand over The Sullivans A to someone else- something Violet has already done in her career, and isn't ready to do again yet. |
Starfleet Record
| Commission | officer | |
| Education & Qualifications | 2356-2360: Starfleet Academy - Major in Security/Tactical | |
| Service Record | 2360-2362: USS Croaker (Ensign - Junior Security Officer) 2362-2364: USS Kidd (Lieutenant JG - Security Team Leader) 2364-2367: USS Kidd (Lieutenant - Assistant Chief Security/Tactical Officer 2367: Leave of absence from Starfleet following the Battle of Wolf 359 2367-2370: USS Cassin Young (Lieutenant Commander - Chief Security/Tactical Officer/Second Officer 2370-2371: USS Little Rock (Commander - First Officer) 2371-2373: USS Little Rock (Captain - Commanding Officer) 2373-2375: USS The Sullivans (Captain - Commanding Officer) 2376-present: USS The Sullivans A (Captain - Commanding Officer) |