Character Information

Gender		Male
Species		Human
Age		28
Date of Birth		2343
Place of Birth		Earth
Sexuality		Heterosexual

Physical Appearance

Height		6'0"
Weight		215
Hair Color		Brown
Eye Color		Blue

Family

Relationship Status		Single
Children		None
Father		Daniel Houston
Mother		Captain Claire Houston, M.D
Other Family		Walter and Jean Cyr, grandparents

Personality & Traits

General Overview		Thomas is analytical, intense and quietly funny, and he can’t leave a problem alone. His grandparents shaped him more than anyone. From Walter he got patience, stubbornness and the belief that you fix things instead of throwing them away. From Jean he got the habit of questioning everything. He respects authority that has earned it and politely, persistently pushes back on authority that hasn’t. He’s not insubordinate, but “because I said so” doesn’t work on him, and he’ll ask the captain to show him the data. He’s at his best in a crisis. While others tense up, he goes calm and methodical, and he will probably crack a dark joke right when things are worst. Socially he’s warm once you know him, but he leads with directness and facts, which can come across as blunt to people meeting him for the first time.
Strengths & Weaknesses		Pattern recognition. He sees systems and connections other people miss and works through problems step by step. His best discoveries come from asking why a reading doesn’t fit. Steady under fire. He has been through combat and loss, and in an emergency he focuses rather than freezes. Mentor by instinct. Junior officers come to him, and he invests in their growth without being asked. Resilient. He has rebuilt himself from hard places more than once and treats setbacks as data, not verdicts. Crosses disciplines. Training in astrophysics, archaeology and emergency response lets him connect fields that specialists keep apart. Honest to a fault. He tells the captain what the sensors say, not what the captain wants to hear. Weaknesses: Directness that lands hard. He leads with data and the blunt truth, which works with people who know him and can bruise people who don’t. He means well, but it doesn’t always come across that way. Can’t say no. He takes on too much, volunteers for everything and runs himself into the ground. His department may have to protect him from himself. Avoids personal conflict. He’ll argue astrophysics with an admiral but goes quiet when a conflict is personal, and he lets interpersonal problems simmer too long. Something to prove. He’s young for a Galaxy-class science chair, knows people are watching, and pushes himself harder than anyone else would ask. Gallows humor on autopilot. A joke is his first reflex in a tense moment. It usually helps the room, but not always, and some officers find it unsettling. Skeptical of command by default. He respects authority that has earned it and chafes under authority that hasn’t, which could cause friction with a by-the-book XO.
Ambitions		He aspires to command one day.
Hobbies & Interests		Stargazing is still one of Thomas's favorite hobbies.

Personal History		Thomas was born in 2343 in Houlton, Maine, the only child of two people with their eyes on the stars. His mother was a Starfleet medical officer and his father a civilian warp engineer on long-haul survey contracts. Both spent most of his childhood on postings that ran months or years at a time, so when Thomas was three they made the practical decision to leave him with his mother’s parents, Walter and Jean Cyr, on their farm outside Crystal, in Aroostook County. His parents were loving, but to him they were mostly subspace calls and recorded messages. His grandparents did the raising. In the 24th century nobody farms potatoes in Aroostook out of necessity. Walter did it because his father had, and his father before him, and because he believed a man ought to know how to make something grow. He was quiet, stubborn and very patient, and he taught Thomas to fix whatever broke instead of replicating a new one. Jean had taught at the regional school for thirty years. She was sharp and warm, and she never let a question go unanswered or unchallenged. She taught him that “because I said so” was never a good enough reason, including from her. Northern Maine gave him the stars. On winter nights, with the nearest town lights miles away and the aurora rippling over the fields, Walter would set up his antique optical telescope in the yard. He had restored it himself, piece by piece, and the two of them would stay out until their fingers went numb. Thomas could name every visible constellation by the time he was seven and was asking why the stars moved before he was eight. That’s where the astrophysicist began. Life in “the County” also taught him the difference between people who show up and people who don’t. Neighbors brought in each other’s harvests, cleared each other’s roads after the big storms, and turned out when a barn burned. Thomas joined the volunteer emergency response squad at fifteen. It’s the reason he knows damage control better than most science officers, and the reason he still runs toward trouble. He was the first person from his school accepted to Starfleet Academy in over a decade. On the morning he left, Walter walked him down to the transporter station in Houlton and said almost nothing the whole way. At the pad he shook Thomas’s hand, then pulled him into a hug and told him to “go find out why they move.” A second later Thomas was standing in San Francisco. Jean recorded a personal message for him every week of his four years at the Academy, always from the same chair at the kitchen table, with the farm visible through the window behind her, and kept it up long after. Walter died in 2369 while Thomas was posted at Starbase 173. Thomas made it home for the graveside service but not before the end, and that still sits with him. He keeps Walter’s telescope in his quarters aboard the Ermiana. Jean, now in her eighties, still lives on the farm, still sends a message every week, and still asks him the hardest questions anyone asks him.
Service Record		2365–2368: USS Hood (Excelsior-class). Science officer, stellar cartography. Served on the post-battle science team at Wolf 359 (2367), cataloguing Borg debris and analyzing residual transwarp signatures for Starfleet Intelligence. 2368–2370: Starbase 173, Science Division. Research staff. Co-authored a Starfleet technical report on detecting Borg transwarp conduits. 2370–2371: USS Concord (Nebula-class). Joined as Assistant Science Officer on the Cardassian Demilitarized Zone patrol. Became acting Chief Science Officer after the department head was killed in a Maquis ambush, and was confirmed in the post in 2371.