Oskar Maising

Born on Archer IV in 2334, Oskar Maising’s family were humble repair workers, a carpenter and an electrician respectively. Unsurprisingly, he and his little brother Sven were more inclined to the mechanical. When he was five, his mother decided to join Starfleet, encouraged by the rest of the family. While he never got to board any of her assignments and remained on Archer IV, his deep-rooted technical aptitude and having his mother as a role model brought him to seek out his own service in Starfleet.

Naturally, once he was 18, Oskar signed up for Starfleet Academy, and his transit from Archer IV to Earth was his first ever time in space. He was no excellent student at the Academy, fairly average in most every regard, but was noted more for his reliability; he wasn’t a stellar student, but he was a consistent one. Here, too, he met Sialle Riamell, a Trill science officer in his class. The two hit it off, and started dating shortly after graduating with the Class of 2355.

Out of the Academy, Oskar found his place on USS Exeter (NCC-26531), an Ambassador-class heavy cruiser. Two years before the launch of USS Galaxy, Exeter and her sisters were still the cream of Starfleet’s crop, even if they were no longer particularly new. As far as Ambassador-class cruisers went, Exeter was a surprisingly reliable ship, and over the years became Maising’s favorite starship in the fleet. He spent seven years aboard, married Sialle in her mess hall in 2360, and had his first of three daughters in her medbay in 2362.

Later that year, Maising was transferred to the newly-launched USS Sanming (NCC-63104), a Centaur-class scout that quickly proved a somewhat boring assignment. She was just as reliable as Exeter and yet never really went anywhere, mostly serving as a patrol ship on internal trade routes. Without any of the excitement to keep an engineer entertained, the two years he served on the ship were, in his opinion, two years too much.

Luckily for him, he’d performed well enough to earn the double-gold pips of a Lieutenant and be transferred to a new ship: USS Melbourne (NCC-62043). Something of a black sheep in Starfleet, Melbourne, or “Burn” as she was derogatorily nicknamed, was one of the last Excelsior-class heavy cruisers constructed, and was regarded as a hard-luck ship. Wherever trouble was, Melbourne was, and she was plagued with mechanical issues throughout her career. Maising found himself liking her no more than Sanming, but for the opposite reason- the damn ship never seemed to be able to hold herself together.

Not that it would’ve helped in her demise. On Stardate 44002.3, January 2367, Melbourne was wrecked in the opening actions of the Battle of Wolf 359. She lost half her saucer in the first few seconds of the action and then was methodically torn apart piece by piece. Maising, somewhat miraculously, survived uninjured- and as the senior surviving engineering officer on the ship. He and the few other engineers capable kept power long enough to launch the lifepods, but were themselves stuck in the derelict ship, sealed in a room for the next 24 hours with their air running out. They were eventually saved by USS Excalibur beaming them out just in the nick of time, but the experience scarred Maising badly. He never stepped foot on an Excelsior-class again, and indeed tendered his resignation from Starfleet.

Maising returned to Archer IV, raising his daughters mostly alone, as Sialle continued in Starfleet. She brought him updates on the regular, always taking the time to stop by on shore leave. She, too, was starting to consider retirement by 2370, before the loss of USS Odyssey to the Dominion shocked the Federation to its core for the second time in three years. She continued in Starfleet, and urged Maising to return as well. Reluctantly, he did- and was surprised to find that Starfleet was impressed enough with his actions at Wolf 359 to make him assistant chief engineer on one of their premier new Galaxy-class starships.

USS Dauntless (NCC-71879) was certainly a comfortable posting, even at a constant state of war readiness, and compared to his last two assignments, Maising found himself liking her significantly more. By the start of the Dominion War in 2373, he was promoted yet again to lieutenant commander and served as her chief engineer.