Rupesh Iyer

Political Information

• Affiliation: Military Assault Command Operations, United Earth Commonwealth

Family

• Mother: Professor Sayeeda Iyer, Entomologist
  
• Father: Professor Sajid Iyer, Entomologist
  
• Brother: Zain Iyer, singer and musician
• Adopted Son(s):
  • Roburn
  • Edro

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Biography

Early Life

Rupesh was born in Lahore, the capital of the Pakistani province of Punjab. His mother and father were entomologists that had been travelling around Earth for most of their adult lives and such when they were offered the opportunity to settle down in their home country they were keen to do so. They both taught at the University of Lahore and raised both Rupesh with his younger brother Zain. Both parents wanted their sons to follow them in becoming scientists too. However Rupesh could never get the grades he wanted while Zain rebelled against his parents’ wishes. The Iyer family life wasn’t a happy one and when both sons were old enough to leave their parents’ home they did.

M.A.C.O. Career

Early Career

While Zain went off with his college friends to explore the world, Rupesh decided to try out for Earth’s special forces: the Military Assault Command Operations. At eighteen he was a young recruit who was out to please everyone. He kept himself out of trouble and on many occasions was the victim of his training unit’s taunts. One day though he stood up for himself and gained the respect of his comrades.

By 2145 he had finished his initial training at Berlin and was assigned to develop his specialised skills. Rupesh found himself developing his skills as a Reconnaissance/Tracking Specialist. He was also an excellent marksman and was particularly good with a sniper rifle. One of his trainers encouraged him to continue to develop this skill and had him try out archery. Rupesh became quite a gifted archer as such he was nicknamed Arrow which eventually became his call sign. He scored the highest marks during his zero-g and basic starship operations assessment.

Ares City, Mars

Rupesh was assigned to the MACO training station just outside the Martian capital city from 2145 to 2148. Although his daily work was almost common he did use the time to improve on several areas of his skills, including archer and sparring. On a few occasions his team was asked to help local emergency services with various cases that required their expertise. While on Mars he fell in love with a local woman, a nurse called Caitlin Frost. The two date for almost two and a half years until Caitlin decides to end it. Rupesh’s team was called into stop a group of extremists of the Terra Prime movement who attempted to execute two Denobulan historians who were working at the McKay University. The operation was a success; however Rupesh was the only survivor of his team to return. As the entire situation was televised by Terra Prime across the Sol system it meant that Caitlin saw the entire thing. She told Rupesh she couldn’t live her life wondering if she would return home to find out he was dead. He begged her to reconsider and even asked her to marry him; she declined and told him she didn’t want to be a military widow. Several weeks later, Rupesh made a request to transfer and was soon assigned to Jupiter Station.

Jupiter Station

Jupiter Station was one of Starfleet’s outermost orbital space stations in the Sol system. It was a multi-purpose base; designed to repair and refuel ships, conduct low-level research and a place for training. Starfleet had granted the MACO access almost two decades prior as such a strong MACO presence was noticeable on the base. By the end of 2149 the base was attacked by unknown masked assailants, who boarded the station and attempted to steal the entire computer directory and a number of supplies from the cargo bays. Rupesh once again saw action and led a small team in defending the base’s primary computer core. During the close-quarter fighting he engaged the attackers in hand-to-hand combat and when they deployed an energy dampening field he resorted in using his bow and arrow to stop them. When the starships Intrepid, Kaveri and Paraná arrived to combat the two alien crafts, one had docked with the base, they were able to send over teams to support the joint Starfleet-MACO crew that was repelling the invaders. The aliens soon retreated, taking their injured and fleeing the Sol system at warp four point five. During the clean-up operation, Rupesh was praised by Captain Ramirez of the Intrepidfor holding the line and defending Jupiter Station’s computer core so well. As a result of this he was promoted to the rank of Sergeant for his strong leadership and courage in the line of duty.

Lian Yu, Earth

MACO Headquarters on Lian Yu, a small chain of islands in the North China Sea, would be Rupesh’s next assignment. Here continued his training as well as undertaking the role of teaching new recruits too.

Intrepid NV-01

In 2153 Sergeant Iyer, along with his unit, was assigned to the Intrepid NV-01 after the Xindi attack on Earth. Starfleet had invited the MACO to assign small units to their ships to help with defence of the Sol system. Rupesh had spent the past eight years refining his skills and talents, in that time he had become a confident, capable soldier and was ready for his first starship assignment. Captain Ramirez had remembered Rupesh from incident at Jupiter Station and had specially requested for his unit to be part of the Intrepid. His skilful talents were used on a number of occasions when Captain Ramirez deployed the Intrepid‘s MACOs in to dangerous situations around the home territories of the Earth Commonwealth. Intrepidhad been made the flagship of the task force assigned to primarily defend the Sol system. Starfleet had increased its security measures in and around the home system while Enterprisewas off in the Delphic Expanse. Ramirez’s no-nonsense and straight forward approach in dealing with precarious matters meant that the MACO teams from the Intrepidwere always the first ones in before the captain sent in any Starfleet officers. None of the MACOs minded this strategy as they felt they were doing the job they were assigned to the ship to do; however there were a few incidents when both Starfleet and MACOs disagreed with the captain’s decision to always send the MACOs in first. On one incident, Rupesh’s team were almost killed when Ramirez sent them to board a known smuggler’s ship. If it hadn’t been for Rupesh’s quick reaction to assess the situation and ability to convince the captain of the smuggler’s ship to stand down then he would have died in a massive fire-fight. Again Rupesh was commended for his actions and promoted to Staff Sergeant for this.

By the end of 2154 Rupesh had supported over fifty-five landing parties from the Intrepid. This ranged from stopping piracy between the Sol and Alpha Centauri systems, helping damaged ships and rescuing survivors from a sunken shuttlecraft.

Challenger NX-03

At the end of 2154 Captain Karim, just like Captains Archer and Hernandez, requested for a MACO unit to be assigned to Challenger, the third NX-class ship to be launched.  Captain Karim had picked out every member of crew and after reviewing many files she pinched Rupesh from Ramirez. Ramirez had owed her a favour and agreed to let the newly promoted Staff Sergeant leave his ship to join her. In his first week on ChallengerRupesh took Private Liam Jenkins under his careful wing, recognising some traits in him that he once held. However Captain Karim’s death before the launch of the ship hit Liam hard. To date he had never had to deal with death. A long heart-to-heart talk about the whole thing helped the young soldier deal with it. After that the two became good friends and would be seen in the ship’s crew lounge sharing a meal with other MACOs as well as working out together in the ship’s gym. Rupesh also formed a good working relationship with his new Detachment Commander; Major Viktoria Yu. As the unit’s First Sergeant, Iyer would oversee all of the enlisted MACO soldiers and would meet daily with Yu and First Lieutenant Khawla al-Fayyad to discuss all MACO matters. Iyer would be the person to report to Yu that the ship’s first officer at the time, Commander Lloyd Burton, had been promoted and made Karim’s replacement as the new captain of Challenger.

Rupesh’s first mission on Challenger began on a bad footing. While ferrying Earth diplomats to an important conference with the Denobulans the ship was attacked and members of the crew were kidnapped. When it was revealed that Major Yu was one of the kidnapped crew, Iyer had to ensure the entire detachment did not lose its morale in its infancy. Fortunately for the missing crew they were rescued by their crewmates who had received helped from their allies in the Coalition of Planets. After Yu’s return she took it upon herself to get to know Rupesh more. He enjoyed socialising with her outside of their working conditions and both found out that the two of them shared the interests of reading old classical novels. They began sharing books and encouraging one another to read different genres that interested them.

While in orbit of the Denobulan homeworld the ship received a distress call from Earth colony ships heading to the Archer system. Rupesh, with the rest of the crew, would engage the Romulans for the first time. Once they had fought back the Romulan threat, Rupesh was part of one of the rescue teams sent over to the colony ships to secure it. They saved the colonists and escorted them to the Archer system, but prior to their arrival they discovered the new Earth colony was about to come under Romulan siege. Once they had won the battle and forced the Romulans out of the Archer system, Rupesh was assigned to aid the colonists in settling on their new homeworld.

Soon Challenger started its mission of exploration, a move that intrigued Rupesh as he had yet to experience this. On a number of occasions he was part of the landing parties when the crew were exploring a new world. His primary purpose was to provide security just in case. Rupesh found walking on new worlds thrilling and was pleased that he had been assigned to the Challenger. The ship’s exploration mission was partly interrupted when Challenger was invited to Andoria by its new elected leader: Chancellor Margerit. Margerit wished to discuss with Burton the possibility of strengthen ties between Earth and Andoria. Rupesh suggested to Yu to assign Private Jenkins as the MACO guard to protect Captain Burton, Commander Leveseque, Sub Commander T’Plau and Ensign Conrad in Shuttlepod One when they visited the Andorian leader. He believed that Jenkins had a lot of potential and this type of mission would give him valuable experience.

When the Andorian colony on Docana was invaded by Malurians and Nausicaans, Challenger led several Starfleet ships in the area to provide relief aid once the Andorian fleet was able to repel the invasion force. Unfortunately the Andorian task force was almost obliterated by a minefield. Only a few ships survived the ordeal, one being the flagship. Before her death, the Andorian Fleet Commander gave Captain Burton command of the remaining forces. He was ordered to liberate the fallen colony by the Andorian chancellor and Prime Minister Samuels. Burton’s well-developed operation saw Docana liberated, but the Romulans (who were the masterminds behind the Malurian-Nausicaan alliance) bombed the world after the last of the Malurian-Nausicaan invasion force retreated. It was discovered that they hoped to destabilise the local area through the use of manipulating other powers against the Coalition, similar to their attempts the previous year with their drone attacks. Iyer, alongside the entire MACO detachment from Challenger and the other Starfleet vessels, landed on the planet to help in finding survivors from the colony. They ended up rescuing all the survivors and were commended for the bravery in such harsh conditions. For the hard efforts in saving so many lives, Captain Burton rewarded every MACO time off once they had an opportunity after the mission.

During the middle of 2155 the ship was ordered to make official first contact with the Deltan species on behalf of the Earth Commonwealth and its allies in the Coalition of Planets. Initially the first contact went well with both side exchanging ideas peacefully, but the ship was dragged in to an ongoing conflict the Deltans were having with a neighbouring race known as the Carreons. Eventually the Carreons began a campaign of attacking the ship on a regular basis. As their weapons weren’t as advanced compared to Starfleet’s the ship received little damaged until they persisted and repeated their attacks almost daily. Rupesh and the MACOs saw themselves working closer than ever before with their Starfleet comrades in ensuring the ship survived the crisis. In their last battle they engaged a Romulan Bird-of-Prey which they discovered was using a telepresence capturing system to control Carreon vessels. They were able to avoid being captured themselves and disabled the craft; unfortunately the Romulans were not prepared to be captured and destroyed their ship. The shockwave from the exploding ship severely damaged Challenger further. Burton told the crew of his decision to order them to abandon ship when it became heavily damaged and unable to sustain any of them any longer. Burton gave Doctor Ben-Ami a battlefield promotion to lieutenant commander and ordered her to take command of the crew and lead them to a safe place. Yu assigned Iyer to be Ben-Ami’s personal body guard. She felt the doctor would benefit from his years of experience and his calm manner would be beneficial too. The crew were led to a Minshara-class world they had detected on long range sensors as a place of sanctuary. The trip took a very long time in escape pods and one shuttlepod, eventually they arrived in orbit. When they began their decent they encountered an alien craft that originated from the world. The vessel opened fire after Kefira attempted to contact them. Their engagement gave the other escape pods time to move out of harm’s way and land on the planet without being hassled, but Kefira’s own escape pod was damaged and was forced to crash land. Rupesh survived the crash and those with him made a small camp within a cave, surviving for several days. The entire group depended on Iyer to share with them his expertise in surviving in such conditions. While in the caves they encountered some of the planet’s inhabitants in the form of two young humanoid boys who they befriended and ended up caring for. Using their universal translator the group were able to communicate with them both and discovered they were brothers who were lost from their mining village. The eldest was named Edro and his younger brother was called Roburn. Without realising it, Rupesh naturally cared for both boys. Ben-Ami noticed how natural fatherhood suited him.

However Rupesh found himself involved with a philosophical issue once they had been rescued by their crewmates and returned to their base camp. As both Roburn and Edro had become close with him there was the issue of what to do with the boys. Either they would keep them at their base camp or send them back to their village, even though it meant they would be forced to return to mining as part of the planet’s child labour force. Rupesh, along with many of the crew argued for keeping the boys with them as they felt it was morally wrong to send them back to such bad conditions, especially as both boys had never attended a school and were ill from their mistreatment. Nevertheless Doctor Ben-Ami argued that she didn’t want to stand in between the boys from ever seeing their parents again. This was difficult for Rupesh to comprehend as he began developing a deep bond with both boys. Roburn had called him their High Guardian, a name of a character from one of the myths their parents had told them as they grew up. Eventually Ben-Ami decided to leave the issue of what to do with the boys for the moment. Instead she ordered for the crew to care for the boys and return them to good health before dealing with keeping them or trying to find their home. Rupesh became closer with Ensign Angela Hathaway, the ship’s second pilot during this time too. Angela helped with looking after the boys and eventually the two of them formed a good friendship. She too was an avid reader and fellow guitarist.

Eventually surveillance carried out by the stranded crew of the local area reported that a Carreon vessel had crash landed and destroyed a settlement that met the characteristics of Roburn and Edro’s settlement. As the threat of being detected by the aliens increased, Kefira decided not to expose their position any further by the crew exploring the local area. She gave the order to fortify their position as best as they could. Major Yu stepped up the crew’s training in hand to hand combat, but she ordered Rupesh to carry on caring for the two alien boys. He took it upon himself to create some bow and arrows and taught the boys (as well as Ensign Hathaway) some rudimental tricks in archery. Soon after other missing crew appeared (Ensign Alcott, Ensign Metaxas, Second Lieutenant Trommler and Corporal Jenkins) and informed the others about the Ardanans, the species that inhabited the world they had crashed on. The species’ government did not wish to engage in any contact with “off-worlders” in fear that it would change their society. As such the knowledge of alien existence was kept a secret from the general public and only a small number of senior government officials were aware of alien lifeforms from other worlds. Doctor Ben-Ami preserved her choice of keeping a low profile on the planet and to avoid any communication with the Ardanans. They soon found out that the Ardanans were quite technologically advanced due to their cloud cities that they had constructed. Nevertheless they also learnt that only the wealthy and privileged could live on these floating palaces. Those that were less fortunate lived in smaller settlements, with many of these being mining communities. This was the case for Roburn and Edro. Sadly one of the small drone probes that the crew sent out found the boys’ village destroyed. A Carreon vessel (which the crew postulated had been sent after them) crash landed on the planet and wiped out the mining village the boys had come from. Rupesh and Angela had been with the boys when they were told the news. He stayed with them as they mourned over the loss of their loved ones. Ultimately the entire crew were rescued when Captain Burton and the others entered orbit of Ardana. They came with help with the Andorians and with a few days of hard work the entire crew were returned to Challenger. Roburn and Edro, with the support of Rupesh and Angela, requested an asylum with Captain Burton as they did not want to return to the mines of their world. Captain Burton agreed after explaining to the boys they would not be returning to Ardana in the near future. The boys did not mind this and returned to Challenger with their new family. Iyer was given limited duty so he could supervise the boys on the ship. He was moved out of his shared quarters and into the guest quarters which were more suited for the boys.

Rupesh is a calm and peaceful man. He believes in keeping calm in all situations and has rarely had an outburst in front of others. Part of him being this way is the fact he hates the fact his parents’ oppose his choice of career. He remains firmly loyal to his younger brother and the two are always writing letters to each other.