Lieutenant Aristede Hobbes
Name Aristede Hobbes
Position Chief Engineering Officer
Rank Lieutenant
Character Information
| Gender | Cisgender Male | |
| Species | Human | |
| Age | 28 | |
| Sexuality | Gay / prefers men |
Physical Appearance
| Height | 6'2" | |
| Weight | 159 lbs | |
| Hair Color | Dark Blonde | |
| Eye Color | Gray | |
| Physical Description | Lean and well-muscled; moves with a sort of fluid grace owing to a lifetime of training in gymnastics, ballet, and the high wire. Dark blonde hair that's generally worn long on top and shorter on the sides with gray eyes sparkling with intelligence and humor. While he can be serious when he needs to be, he always seems to be ready to smile or laugh even when he doesn't. |
Family
| Spouse | None | |
| Children | None | |
| Father | Leopold | |
| Mother | Magadalene | |
| Brother(s) | None | |
| Sister(s) | None | |
| Other Family | Alex (Paternal Uncle) Otto (Paternal Cousin/Alex's Son) |
Personality & Traits
| General Overview | Having grown up as a performer in Circus Breshard, he’s practically immune to the fear and nervousness that comes with being center stage. The focus and discipline he built in his youth have helped him grow into an individual that works extremely well under pressure. He’s loyal and speaks his mind. He’s got a sense of humor and thanks to spending time among the clowns, a better sense of fun. He’s very well suited to life aboard a starship. Being constantly on the move was a huge part of his formative years and to him, feels very natural. And while he doesn’t miss being a performer, he did miss the close bonds that formed among the performers themselves. Starfleet provides the best of all possible solutions for him -- travel with people he respects and doing the work that he loves most. The death of his Uncle Alex on the high wire proved to be a traumatic event. |
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| Strengths & Weaknesses | Strengths: (+) Skilled gymnast and high wire artist (+) Has studied ballet - and even performed a time or two (+) Highly focused, excels under pressure (+) Altruistic - works for the common good sometimes to the exclusion of self Weaknesses: (-) Recurring bouts of insomnia associated with lingering post-traumatic stress related to the death of his uncle during a performance (-) Gets caught up in the work to the exclusion of meals/sleep/time off |
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| Ambitions | Never gave the matter much thought. When your entire life is mapped out for you at the age of three, you never figure there’s a need to bother with that sort of thing. Guess it became a habit. Living in the moment. Enjoying the moment. |
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| Hobbies & Interests | (+) Gymnastic training. It's been a part of his life since he was three, he just doesn’t know how to stop even though it's no longer needed. More than that, his mind quiets when he’s working out. (+) Reading. Nonfiction - Purely technical. Fiction: Anything related to puzzles and mysteries. (+) Live performances - especially enjoys the theater. (+) Writing holodeck programs and dDebugging other holodeck programs for his friends. (+) Quiet evenings at home, dinner and wine, good conversation. |
| Personal History | Stage Name: Aristede Annestri Nicknames: Steed, Steady, Ari 2366: Born on the freighter, Circus Breshard 2370: First performance on the high wire 2381: Alex Annestri dies from an aneurysm; family act disbands 2381: Relocates to Earth and opens a school for circus acts My earliest memory? Training. Probably the first words I remember my Papa saying were, “Again!” I started training at three years old. Daily regimen of gymnastics, balance work, and ballet. And before you ask, ballet taught grace and a sense of movement. I needed that most of all - because while I’ve always excelled technically, I lacked the theatrical aspect. It's been said that I never would have become a star but then, I never wanted to be either. It was Papa and Uncle Alex -- and they were brilliant. By the time I was 4, I was already part of the act. The Family Annestri - high wire artists. By the time I was six, I was well on my way to being an accomplished gymnast; for every show, the opening was me walking up the ground wire, set at a 45 degree angle, to the platform. Sixty feet in the air, my father walked the wire with my uncle, Alex, standing on his shoulders, and me sitting on my Uncle’s shoulders. Right about in the middle, Papa would stop and that was my moment. I stood. I climbed up on Alex’s shoulders. Then, while the crowd gasped because we never worked with a net, I balanced on my Uncle’s head. When Papa raised his leg, so did I -- straight up past the top of my head The crowd loved us. And that was my life. Training. Glitter and spandex. Home-schooling. And moving from place to place, world to world. I’ve probably been on more backwater planets than a twenty-year veteran of Starfleet and all before I hit puberty. The clowns taught me a bit about sleight of hand and the basics of slapstick. When one of the younger ones was ‘indisposed’, I would sometimes fill in; being a gymnast, I was great for pratfalls and the like. Tell you a secret. Everyone in the family loved the spotlight and the applause, I never did. Then again, why would it matter whether I liked it or not? The Family Annestri have been circus people for generations and you don’t let the family down. Ever. When puberty hit, things started to change. For one thing, I grew too tall; and for another, Papa wasn’t as young as he used to be. So his brother and my uncle, Alex, took the base, I was in the middle, and my young cousin, Otto was at the top. I didn’t mind and Alex always had this huge grin on his face once we were done. That made it all worthwhile, you know? When I wasn’t helping set up or break down the rigging, training with the family, performing or home-schooling, I was reading. Never told a soul but what really interested me was how things worked. Not that secrecy mattered all that much. You could shout some secrets from the rooftops and if the family isn’t ready to hear, it's like you never said a word. Two things the family never wanted to hear about -- leaving the act and doing your part to bring up the next generation. My mother took it as a personal failure that she could only have one child; bad for her, worse for me. Trust me, you don’t want to live under those kinds of expectations. Life went on. You always hope that nothing will happen but sometimes, no matter how prepared you are, something does. We were performing on yet another backwater world when the accident happened. My Uncle Alex fell sixty feet to the ground; I got lucky and managed to grab the wire with one hand while I held onto my cousin with the other. He climbed up my body and walked the wire back to the platform; I followed after him but I don’t remember much about that part … or how long I sat there. Or much about the days’ after that. It was an aneurysm. That’s what took him. Mercifully, my Uncle was dead before he hit the ground. I was fourteen and suddenly, there were all these possibilities that I had dreamed about only now, I felt terrible about even the thought of them. Without Alec, there was no act. My mother, who had wanted a large family of entertainers to carry on their legacy, only had me … and Otto was in no shape for years after that. If I suffered, my cousin suffered much, much worse. So … my life changed. There was counseling and a house on Earth. For the first time in my life, there was the opportunity of making friends. Staying in one place. So strange. My parents started teaching the techniques my family had honed over the centuries and I went to school. There was still training and helping out at their facility. Otto came after a bit and started training again; I hear he’s back on the wire as a solo. He’s married and his wife is expecting again. Legacy saved. Where was I? Oh yes. I helped out and I trained but now, there was time to form friendships with people who had never heard of the circus and a chance to learn the things that interested me (that had nothing to do with the circus). And after a whole lot of therapy, I reached a point where I could feel good about that. Turned out, I had a knack for engineering and that became the focus of my studies. Joining Starfleet felt like a betrayal of my entire family -- especially when they found out that I wasn’t looking to marry that girl from the right family they’d picked out (or really any girl ever -- and that was another, more difficult conversation because that meant the line ended with me). I dropped the stage name and enrolled in the Academy using our actual family name -- Hobbes. My mother still cries when I get a chance to call home. You’d think that Otto’s kids would lessen the guilt but you don’t know my mother. So here I am, about to join Starfleet and more excited than I can ever remember being because for the first time in my life, the future is mine. Not part of some generational legacy, just mine … and what’s better? It’s crammed with tech and working with my hands and … seeing what’s out there. Put me in, Coach. I’m ready. |
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| Service Record | 2384: Enters Starfleet Academy. Engineering Discipline - Excels academically 2389: Graduates Starfleet Academy, Assigned to the USS Steadfast as Engineer 2391: Promoted to Asst Chief Engineer. 2394: Assigned to the USS Standing Bear as Chief Engineer |