Character Improvement

[Lan Parker]

Hi,

I have a character, Karin Bishop and some have labelled her a Mary Sue, to be honest I can see somewhat how this could be perceived however I was going along the assumption that people tended to things earlier... for instance LaForge was learning quantum mechanics aged 14 and so on and so forth.

I would appreciate any critique on the character so that I may improve it. The character is below.

Personal History
Karin was born to Jack and Luzanna Bishop twenty two years ago. Her father was well known amongst his peers and a starlfeet officer to boot. His longest serving vessel was The Langport. Karin's mother however was a botanist and expert in plants and a keen explorer of landscapes and new worlds. Thus Karin didn't have what many would call a stable life style and home was generally where the rest of the family happened to congregate all at once. Usually on a starbase.

With both her parents accomplished, they didn't push Karin to be like them instead wanting to shelter her from the real world. Karin was sent originally to all girls school but it was promptly that which gave her a confidence boost and she often sought to better herself. While striving to do her best at what she did one of the teachers noted her interest in not necessarily the sciences themselves but in the pursuit of knowledge. Often they would find her in amongst the books trying to explore more about her lessons. Something which she juggled with an integrated social life. Three times elected class representative she also had a voluntary occupation as a librarian but that, slowly became not enough.

Some worried that she didn't have enough time to herself, that she was stretching herself too thin and she was sent twice to a psychiatrist for evaluation. While in one of these appointments it soon became clear that it was her thirst for knowledge that was driving her. Not because she really enjoyed getting along with others but because she wanted to find out more about them. She found it hard to talk about what she liked and would often put on false pretences in order to mix well, to satiate her desire.

The counsellor recommended, not that she be excluded or restricted but the school should tailor a package of education to really push her to her extremes. Her classes were doubled, her homework, doubled, the school signed her up to three more extra curricular activities and to compensate they made her alter her diet. While the rest of the students would eat one portion of cold pasta salad, Karin would be eating three portions of sushi and then take extra vitamin supplements.

She earned the nickname of 'Gluttony' amongst her friends for how much she ate, but yet she never put any weight on and she always seemed to be on the go. As if she couldn't stop learning or being interested. The teachers were proud of the level of focus she could achieve and then...she was thrown into the real world.

It was more of a class excursion, but it was outside of the school environment something that she had been extremely used to, she knew how it worked and how to get the most out of it. In the real world however, she knew very little, few things were applicable from school in the real world and when she was instructed to run a small business for just two weeks she burned out. Much to everyone's astonishment.

This was perhaps the first time that she left the boarding school and travelled with her parents due to a mental brake down that saw her unable to look after herself. Psychiatrists seemed to think it was because she had been driven and finally broke under the strain, her parents thought it was because the teachers had placed too much on her. What though did Karin think? Karin had come to a realisation that she had been wasting her time. All of that effort and learning at school, hadn't really counted for much, her thirst for knowledge was pointless.

She helped her mother where she could, investigating new worlds and plants cataloguing anything and everything, examining everything in a methodical and disciplined way. It wasn't till her father took her aboard the Langport aged 19 that the next chapter of her life began.

It was on the Langport that she interacted with the crew, they liked how inquisitive she was, how focused she could be, yet also how naive she was. It was a running joke that she should have been born blonde.

One particular voyage she wandered into the Stella Cartography section a place that she had never been before and a place that she didn't leave for a while. No one knew where she was because it wasn't used all together that much.

When the Intelligence officers found her, she had immersed herself in a virtual environment with information everywhere using the enhanced graphics and visualisations of the stella cartography suit to learn more. The two became close friends and it seemed that this was what Karin was good at. Analysing, dissecting and compiling information. Monitoring the charts and investigating things was just something she enjoyed doing. Requiring all her focus, all her energy it was as if she had found her calling. The officer suggested putting her through the academy to which her father objected to but eventually relented.

Being quite a late entrant to the academy, Karin was however filled with most of what she needed. She wasn't the top student in all of her subjects, some subjects required more creativity and while she could be creative in that manner, it really wasn't her speciality and she wasn't all together good at it. However give her a book and an exam and she'd pass it rather quickly.

Perfect, they surmised when she graduated for the Intelligence Division. As she applied for a ship.

Service history

USS Langport 19 - 22
USS Overseer 22...


Notes
1. The Gluttony Reference. I was actually basing off one of my own relatives. Who would, eat like a horse. (She was 1m62cm, weighed in about 60kg) When I say eat like a horse I mean, a full english breakfast, four slices of bacon half a tin of beans four sausages, two eggs (or something equivalent...she went through buckets of porridge), then she'd be off and we see her for lunch, four ham sandwiches (four of something anyway) off she went again, came back for dinner and would eat twice servings plus desert...

We thought she had a metabolism problem -.-;