Alexander Kurtz
Male

Place of Origin: Mars

Tall and bald, he has piercing blue eyes that often draw the attention first. A strong jawline adds to his commanding presence.

Kurtz is a complex man, on one hand, he has a set of principles that he believes very strongly in, but on the other hand, he often finds himself making choices that many would consider morally questionable. Being from an engineering background, he tends to think of problems in a mechanical way, what tools to use to fix them. As such, he can struggle when it comes to more abstract problems, particularly those that deal with personality rather than practicality.

Alexander Kurtz grew up around the starship yards of utopia planetia, and engineering was in his blood from a young age. His parents were not engineers, his father is a Doctor and his mother a security officer at the yards, but he was around engineers and mechanical parts from the time he could walk. As he grew up, his fascination only grew. He struck up a friendship of sorts with a Tellarite structural engineer named Ragar when he was eight years old. Ragar allowed him to assist with his work, which usually consisted of carrying his tools and bringing him drinks at first, but eventually the grumpy engineer began showing him a few practical skills.

When Alex was fifteen, his mother was killed in a shuttle accident. The incident shook him badly, and he took it upon himself to find the cause when the investigation moved too slowly for his liking. In the end, he came to the same conclusion as the investigating team, that a faulty power coupling was to blame. He then took it upon himself to redesign that power coupling and, with Ragar’s assistance, was able to persuade Starfleet to replace that part across the entire line of those shuttles.

The incident brought Alex and his father closer together and lit a fire under the young man. He resolved to apply to Starfleet academy and put his skills to good use. He did well at the academy, excelling in engineering and related fields and managing to pass those that he was less interested in.

After graduation, Kurtz was assigned to the USS Tornado as a junior engineer. He didn’t make much of a connection with Sterrik, the Vulcan chief engineer, but he found that he got along well with his colleagues. The team worked well together and he got an appreciation of how everyone’s individual skills made the whole work better.

Alex was later assigned to the USS Rhineland and worked his way quickly up to assistant chief engineer, due in part to his much better working relationship with Lieutenant Mitchell, who saw definite potential in the young man.

Alex made chief engineer of the USS Indomitable a couple of years later. During that time, he began a relationship with Commander Elizabeth Danvers, the ship’s XO, who was married at the time. When their relationship went public, Lizzie’s marriage ended. She accepted a transfer onto starbase 214, but the two of them remain in a committed, if long distance, relationship to this day.

Eventually, Kurtz accepted a promotion to first officer of the USS Sherwood, a vessel based out of Starbase 214. While at first unsure of his new role, he quickly grew into it, forming a good working relationship with Captain Teage Ryla, a Bajoran with a wealth of experience. She taught Alexa lot about tactics and he brought his engineering experience to the table.

After a number of years on the Sherwood, Alex Was given his own command, the USS Tempest, a Galaxy class ship. They were initially assigned to deep space research, a 6 month mission which went well, if uneventfully. The Tempest was later sent to negotiate a peace treaty on the planet Ardat Rao. The planet was a warp capable world, divided between two major nation states. They had come into conflict over an island that had religious significance. Captain Kurtz struggled with the negotiations. He was unable to fully appreciate the island’s meaning to the Rao and was unable to persuade either side to give up their claim on what he saw as a fairly insignificant piece of land. The conflict threatened to reignite when the negotiations broke down and the peace was only saved when a federation diplomatic team arrived.

After that, the Tempest found herself on border patrol and deep space missions far more often than diplomacy. Alex forged a good relationship with his first officer, a Bolian named Mara Gors. After three years, Alex believed that Mara was ready for a command of her own. As they sat discussing her promotion prospects, disaster struck. The ship was caught in a subspace distortion that disabled her engines, and threw them out of warp speed into a star’s gravity well.

The Tempest had minutes before her hull was overwhelmed by stellar radiation, and the engineering team was overwhelmed. Their damage control teams had been hit hard, and the survivors were struggling to repair the power relays that would restart the impulse engines. Alex realised that he was the best person to make the repairs in time, and left the bridge for impulse control.

The repairs proved difficult, and extremely hazardous, but he succeeded in getting the engines running. As the ship broke free of the star’s gravity, a plasma conduit overloaded, injuring Alex severely.

The explosion had caused a number of injuries, the most severe of which was nerve damage in his left arm. Alex needed months of rehab in order to be fit for command and the Tempest would be repaired well before he was. He knew what he needed to do. He persuaded Starfleet Command to give command of the Tempest to Mara and watched as his ship went off on a three year exploration mission.

Six months later, Alex received a clean bill of health. His nerve damage would never be fully healed, but he was capable of doing everything that could reasonably be expected of a Captain. Now he just needed a ship