Garland Hunter

Ensign Garland Hunter is a botanist on the USS Odyssey.

## Background

Garlands birth name was Rodra Nuvim, born to a pair of Trill Starfleet officers. Unable to balance raising a child and their commitment as Starfleet officers, they placed the child up for adoption. He was adopted by a couple from a low-tech commune in South America and renamed Garland Hunter.

While the commune Garland grew up in didn't shun technology completely, they limited it to mainly replicators and some other devices, except for medical which had more advanced tech. The aim was to value working with ones hands and connecting to the earth and nature, and they felt that most modern tech interfered with that. Garland was the third out of ten children adopted by the Hunter family. He was raised in a good family with many siblings and loving parents.

During Garlands childhood he was often very ill with one disease or another, coming close to death a few times. As a result of this, his family became good friends with the commune's apothecary and the doctor as well. As Garland got older, he developed a fascination with both plants and medicine.

When he was seven, he'd gone camping with his brothers and father. While they were camped out a mountain lion attacked them, killing two of his brothers, him and his brother Basil also badly injured but able to survive. His older brother Basil sustained bad scarring to his face and chest, while Garland has claw scars on his arm and face on his right eye. The attack damaged his eye beyond repair and left him completely blind on that side.

As Garland got older, he developed a bit of an anger problem and started fighting with other boys in the commune. He was placed in detention a few times for it and severely injured another boy once, leaving with a brain injury and deaf in one ear. As punishment for this, he was forced to find something to curb his anger, being assigned to the apothecary as an apprentice. In the process, Garland discovered he had quite a love for herbs as well as medicine and wanted to pursue it further.

At 18, he took the entrance exam.for Starfleet academy and barely passed. However he did pass and was accepted, starting his first year at 19 in the medical track. Unfortunately when he started at the academy, he became overwhelmed by the amount of tech and dropped out halfway through his first year. After processing his withdrawal from the academy, he returned to the commune.

When he returned, he went back to his job at the apothecary and put Starfleet and exploration out of his mind for a while. After being back in the commune for a year, the itch to travel and expand his horizons started to rise again. Upon discussing it with his parents and siblings, they suggested he give Starfleet another try but maybe find a potion that was a little lower tech. So at 21 he took the exam again and was accepted a second time.

He started over at 22 on the sciences track instead, with a concentration on botany and focused especially on herbs and plants used for medicine and remedies. While at the academy, he took a few courses in hand-to-hand combat as a way to help curb his aggression. He also joined a few sports, mainly finding enjoyment with both standard and kick-boxing and taking up capoeira. While he was never popular, he definitely had a few friends who loved hearing his stories of growing up in the commune.

His first interaction with another Trill happened at the academy as well and ended in a fist fight. Insults were thrown just as much as punches and Garland spent two days in the jail at HQ as a result. He had similar encounters with the student and unfortunately developed a dislike of officers who were overtly arrogant for no reason.

Aside from the marks for fighting, Garland graduated from the academy at 26 and returned to South America to work on a Starfleet base near the commune he grew up in. He was recently assigned to the Odyssey and has been eager to explore beyond the confines of earth.

Appearance: Dark brown skin, around 6'1", classic trill spots running from his head to his toes though they do blend in with his skin a bit, brown eyes, kinda wildly curly brown hair that he usually threads springs of mint, flowers, or other herbs through, eye patch in his right eye, claw scars around his right eye (peeks out from the patch), also has claw scars on his chest and shoulders.

## Personality

Despite having a temper, Garland is incredibly gentle, loving, and compassionate. His main desire is to spread love and to heal. He's never had an issue with authority, though he did once call a security officer a 'bastard' after he was thrown in jail for fighting.

## Psych Evaluation

The main challenges Garland has faced have been "culture shock" from the amount of tech used in Starfleet, as well as having anger issues. Though his shock at the tech was easily overcome, he does still struggle every now and then with it. As far as aggression issues, he's learned to channel it into his work with plants as well as physical pursuits such as kick-boxing and martial arts.

## Medical

Garlands only real medical issue nowadays is that he's blind in one eye. He keeps his bad eye covered with an eye patch outside of his quarters.

## Other information

* He's tall and he's a hippie! He prefers to be with nature and spends a large amount of time in the arboretum. He also enjoys coming to arboretum just to work with the soil and meditate.
* Aside from Standard, Garland can also speak Spanish (Peruvian dialect) and Portuguese (Brazilian dialect) but cannot speak Trill.
* Likes: Plants, Latin music, spicy food, reptiles, meditation
* Dislikes: Felines in general, eggplant, people who ask to see his bad eye or touch his hair