Ruvok

Ruvok’s parents had an arranged marriage since infancy, but they grew to develop a strong connection with one another over the course of their childhood. After their marriage they were both proud to bring a child into the world, the fruit of their relationship. When his mother became pregnant with Ruvok, their first child, his parent’s could barely hide their pride as they practically beamed with joy at the prospect of a baby. His mother spoke of how intelligent their son would be, and his father discussed the many sports he would excel at. Then when Ruvok was born, he instantly became his father’s greatest disappointment. Ruvok took his mother’s life during childbirth. 

So Ruvok grew up as an only child with a Vulcan father, who even with his typical Vulcan ability to hide emotions, found it difficult to cover up his resentment for a child who had stolen away his mate. Ruvok was raised primarily by wetnurses and then various governesses. His father became obsessed with his work as a StarFleet officer and was often deployed on long assignments. His father was also extremely driven and continually pushed him to strive to be the best. Ruvok felt his father’s disappointment when he consistently remained an average student in both schooling and sports. Never able to excel at anything, Ruvok lived with his father’s dismay. His father’s attempts to hide his chagrin at his son’s imperfections only served to further drive Ruvok’s desire to be the best. At a young age, Ruvok began to act out due to the pressure of failing his father’s expectations and dealing with his father’s absence.

Ruvok’s instructors had a difficult time teaching him to control his emotions and allow logic and intellect to rule over sentiment. Ruvok knew he had failed his father’s expectations and so he began to purposely thwart his teacher’s attempts to train him in an effort to keep his father’s attention since he knew he could never win his father’s approval through sports or academics. His father didn’t know what to do with such an unruly child, and so primarily condemned him to a life surrounded by tutors and trainers with no allowances for friends or family. Ruvok grew to resent his father almost as much as his father resented him. It wasn’t till his father employed a strong willed female, human tutor to train him that someone was finally able to break through the troublesome child’s defenses. 

Ruvok’s human tutor, Elena, was able to reach out and sympathize with the child better than any Vulcan could. She understood the emotions of his young and developing mind and was able to explain them to him in a way that made them sound not so bad. Ruvok was able to square with what he had always seen as his own weaknesses and inabilities, and learned to accept and move past them, instead honing new skills that his father had never been willing to notice.  

Elena quickly realized that Ruvok did not learn in the typical Vulcan fashion, but the boy instead saw things in a way that many people would not be able to understand. Ruvok’s mind worked in an abstract manner that allowed him to discover patterns and sequences in a different way. He was able to see designs in all manner of things, finding correlations between mathematics and music as well as art and science, discovering a connectivity of ideas that not even Elena could fully realize. Yet she quickly recognized the boy’s unique talent and encouraged it, finding new ways to teach him and adapting her curriculum to meet his specific learning pattern. 

Under her tutelage, it soon became apparent that Ruvok was truly a child prodigy that had simply struggled to learn under the Vulcan way of teaching. While not understanding science and mathematics had caused him to become frustrated with sports, as he grew to learn biology and physics he connected his knowledge with the understanding of sports mechanics and soon he could analyze the trajectory and force required to manipulate objects in a way that made him a formidable opponent in any field. 

Ruvok still rarely visited his father, primarily living under the care of his tutor, Elena. She still raised him in the Vulcan ways to consider your words before you say them, and not allowing emotion to control his actions. But she also taught him to consider his emotions when making decisions, as sometimes emotion can be an indicator of instinctual thinking. He grew to be a strong young lad, well versed in athletics and scholastics. As soon as he was accepted in the academy, he began his route towards a position in Starfleet, determined to someday outrank his father. 

Ruvok thrived in the Academy and was put in the operations branch, learning the ins and outs of the position quickly. Ruvok thrived and was placed upon Graduation on Earth Spacedock as an ops officer He was stationed on the station for three years earning Lieutenant Junior Grade. His time there taught him valuable skills to help gain the attention of Commander Michael Ryder for Ruvok to be chosen as the Chief Operations Officer for the soon-to-be commissioned USS Tesla.