Diana Paulsen

Originally from Cortland, New York, Paulsen moved with her mother and father to Hartford, Connecticut when she was a teenager. There she grew up being involved in a range of after school activities before heading to college and university to study engineering. Eventually she moved to San Francisco and joined the UESPA as a junior engineer. Between this time, she met her future husband to be, Thomas Vanderbilt. After many years of flirtatious exchanges and numerous dates, Thomas proposed and the two were married in a small, low key wedding.

Over time she built her career and was managing a whole division within UESPA and when the opportunity to transfer to Starfleet appeared she jumped at the chance.

She excelled in all areas of her Starfleet training and soon went on to become a second officer and chief engineer on a small ship at first. She again learnt all she could about leadership and working on a starship before joining another to become first officer and chief engineer.

When Starfleet needed someone to head up the NP-class of ships, she applied and got the position as Project Director. Eventually she went on to command the first ship of this class, the Poseidon. Starfleet wanted Paulsen to assist in developing their presence in the home core territories. She developed herself a reputation among other starship captains, especially freighter captains, who came to like her and her no-nonsense, direct and blunt approaches. The ship got itself a reputation for being the one who could be relied upon as an unofficial liaison between Starfleet and the Earth Cargo Services. Her ability to network and form strong relations impressed Starfleet.

In 2156, unexpectedly she was promoted to Commodore and ordered to lead Starfleet’s forces from Starbase 1 against the Romulans during the Earth-Romulan War. Her first battle was to remove the Romulan base discovered in the Devron system. This was a success and Paulsen continued with leading Starfleet’s efforts in the region.