Tumaini Calumn III

Early Life

Excerpt from the personal logs of Ensign Tumaini Calumn:
“I don’t have many memory from my childhood.  Over time, the actual memories have been overwritten by the stories.  Thinking back, I can remember muddy paintings of what happened, more than the literal experience of being a child. There’s a scant few anecdotes my family tell. The same stories get trotted out at birthdays and funerals; they never change much in the telling, but the canon is contradictory. My mother remembers me as being one for solitude. I question how reliable she is as a narrator. By the time she birthed me –amid my sisters– she didn’t take much time away from her starship design work. She was home every night for a sit-down meal, but she didn’t stray much from her routine. My youngest sister remembers me as being a master of the punchline. I would do anything for a joke, the way she tells it. But mostly, she tells of how I would steal focus from her. If I concentrate very hard, father can project a feeling in my head, and that feeling is what I was like when I was very young.”

Judge Advocate – Starbase Forty-Two

Tumaini Calumn began his Starfleet career aboard Starbase Forty-Two, working for the office of the Judge Advocate General. During his trek through the Academy, practicing law seemed like the answer to Calumn. He retained information easily, which meant he performed well on standardized tests. Even when he’d been doing homework back on Betazed, studying Starfleet regulations had been Calumn’s gateway into imagining what a career in Starfleet would be like. He suspected he could find more truth in the regulations than in the newsmedia or holonovels.

Tumaini Calumn Personal Log Excerpt:
“In the quiet of my office is where I thrive. I forget what room I’m in; I forget I have a body; existing only as an idea of a person, I can pull apart all the evidence and reassemble it into a story. Leave me to analyze the evidence and the legislation, and I can build a defense, or prosecution, that will make you weep. The trouble is… hearings don’t make me sweat like they did my first year. Attending a hearing is becoming a formality, an exercise is waiting out the clock. I must say I’m thankful for the opportunity it’s given me to travel, to participate in hearings on dozens of starships, to meet officers from all over the Federation. But it’s leaving me cold. My satisfaction is only coming from my own cleverness, from winning over others. The thing I loved about the work –the objective, after-the-fact assessment– is what’s holding me back. I feel as if I’m not growing? As a person?”

As Calumn began to find the reality of practicing law wasn’t quite as inspiring as the idea of it, a career slump nearly turned into a losing streak. His Starfleet record is oddly quiet on the matter, but there were rumours of a misstep. One of his more competitive JAG peers tells of Calumn making overtures of a back-room deal with the wrong Captain. But an Operations Officer on Starbase Forty-Two says it wasn’t that at all; rather, Calumn had had an indiscretion with a Lieutenant Jacob Tan, who was also a client at the time. Calumn’s service record only speaks to Calumn requesting a transfer into the Security division.

Security Officer – USS Callisto

Assigned to the USS Callisto, Calumn began his training in Security and Tactical. Aligning his career goals with his personal goals, Calumn appreciated being of service in a way that emboldened him to feel present in his body and his environment. He didn’t want to live in re-creations of starships in his mind palace, nor spend his days observing the world through a tricorder screen. He maintained phaser arrays by hand; he practiced negotiation techniques and de-escalation; he learned how to aim; he re-committed to physical fitness. Security felt the most present he could possibly be. Be present or die.

Excerpt from Tumaini’s Calum’s Performance Self-Review:
“No, I think your system is flawed. Your entire system of performance evaluation is inherently flawed. I appealed this when I was in JAG, but it didn’t get anywhere. If you’re just going to sit there, and read through a list of tasks and events, the measurement of achievement is a problematic task. It doesn’t spell out when no one was hurt or when no one died. I work towards prevention. Violence prevention, injury prevention, fear prevention. Your list simply states that the starship’s mission was completed without event. Period. When you write my service jacket, it’s the failures you’re going to use to flesh out the paragraphs. You’re going to write about my bridge duty during the psychic invasion of the crew by the W’ch Nebula, the number of bones broken during the away mission to Ophiucus III, and the starship intrudulation by the Space Pirates of Shahg Reen. And if that’s what you’re going to write, then I might as well write it for you. Thank you very much.”

Like any transition, Calumn didn’t know what he didn’t know. He didn’t take to security right away; he became overwhelmed by the gaps in his knowledge. He made mistakes and he learned how not to make the same mistakes. He threw himself into holodeck training; he searched for mentors around every corner. His career progression aboard the Callisto came so gradually, he hardly noticed the shift when he went from asking for direction from the Security Chief every day to offering his own advice to the newly minted Security Officers from the Academy. Around that time was when Calumn began leading investigation teams and away teams, leading the tactical team in a phaser array refit. By the time he noticed the shift in his assignments, Calumn supposed it was time for a change.

Chief Security Officer – USS Achilles

When news of his promotion came, Lieutenant Calumn was momentarily reluctant.  Much of the crew of the Callisto had been assigned to support a pre-first contact mission to the planet Vingel IX.  Calumn was assigned on protection duty for the science team and even spent time in the field, surgically disguised as an avian Vingellian.  Leaving the planet in the middle of the mission felt like dereliction of duty to Calumn, but his promotion to Chief Security Officer of the USS Achilles was too tempting to miss.