Beka Valentine

Beka Valentine is from Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda. Captain of the Eureka Maru and First Officer of the Andromeda Acendant, she most assuredly knows her way around piloting spaceships... which does her little to no good here, but hey, shit happens...

About Her
Though not specified in canon, Beka is most likely in her early thirties. Her natural hair color is "unknown," because when she was a young girl, her father gave her a very interesting sort of gift: nanobots for her hair. These nanobots can change her hair color and style on command - all she has to do is think about it and shake her hair out. (They also can store data on a molecular level, but this is a more tricky thing to do.) She has gray-blue eyes, and her build is relatively average. She's not exceptionally built or skinny, nor is she exceptionally tall or short.

Personality
Beka Valentine's first and foremost priority is keeping herself and her crew safe. She will push a situation to its limits, yes, but the second her crew's safety is compromised she is not above turning tail and fleeing to keep everyone alive and well. Because of this, she can seem a bit like a mother-hen-type, though she denies this if it's ever brought to her attention. She is sarcastic, a bit mean, and usually says exactly what is on her mind even when she isn't asked. Her mouth can definitely get her in trouble. She despises being lied to, but at the same time, she is perfectly okay with keeping her own secrets.

Beka is the first officer aboard the Andromeda, and especially early in the series, she can be quite bitter about losing total command of her crew since agreeing to join up with Dylan. There are quite a few arguments along the lines of: "My crew!" "No, my crew!" some of which are humorous, others of which have gotten the entire group into trouble. Beka means well, but her pride and her skepticism of Dylan can greatly hinder her ability to make the right call. Still, she is most assuredly captain material, which she has proven several times over.

Growing up, Beka idolized her father, pretending not to know (and lying to herself about the fact) that her father was a drug carrier and even an addict. She is completely straight-edge, and doesn't even drink. She used to pride hereslf how clean she was. Of course, that was all thrown out the window when she was given Flash (a very heavy recreational drug) as a form of torture. She will not admit that she almost enjoyed the experience.

It was Beka's father that taught her keep her eyes peeled, and to look for that big score. During his life, Beka's father racked up a lot of debt. Yes, Beka resents that a little, but mostly she is working to pay it off. That is the main reason she is in the smuggling/freelance business, besides the fact that it's really all she knows having allegedly grown up on a spaceship -- most likely the Eureka Maru itself (it's mentioned she has never lived on a planet. It is not explicitly stated where she was born).

However, it was her father's darker side that taught her the hard way to watch what kind of jobs she takes. She has seen crews suffer at the hands of a reckless cause, and she does her best to make sure that does not happen by essentially screening and picking-and-choosing her jobs as she sees fit. Even if the price is exceptional, she will not take missions that she believes are too immoral for her. In one instance, she was livid when she discovered that she had been lied to, and that the cargo she was transporting was not computers to aid the children of a needy planet, but stolen war missiles.

Having lived her life on the Maru, Beka grew close to the members of its crew, especially since they were her literal family for the first seven years of her life. As crew members were adopted, they became part of her metaphorical family of sorts. People always integrated right in and she learned to care for them as she would her blood relations. Even after she inherited and became captain of the Maru after her father's death and the departure of her other blood relatives, her crew became her family. She feels she owes them just as much as they owe her, and she would rather die than let them down.

She has even lost a member of her own crew before. She does not like to speak of it, except to remind her current crew to be careful and stay aware when "spelunking" (for lack of a better all-encompassing... term) so they don't end up like he did (torn suit, no air lock. ouch). While she had a certain loyalty to her crew before that incident, his death definitely had an affect on her, and caused her to worry that much more.

Sexual Attitude/Preference
She's not above sex outside of a relationship, though she'd much prefer to be in a relationship first. She also considers herself straight, if only because she's never actually been with a woman. That's not to say she couldn't swing the other way, she just hasn't ever entertained that sort of thought. Oh, and yes, she's monogamous -- if only because she doesn't like to share and that most assuredly includes her lovers.

Powers
Beka is human, albeit a genetically altered one. She is slightly stronger than your average human, and has superior reaction times and reflexes that add to her already superb abilities as a pilot. She's brought some futuristic tech with her in the form of a gun and a force lance. Oh, and the hair-bots.

Character History
You can have the Character History according to Wikipedia, the Series History according to Wikipedia, or the Character History according to Andromeda Wiki. She's from sometime between episodes 1.13 and 1.14.

I would also like to note here that this show is freaking terrible about time lines/timing. So because of that, a lot of things dealing with things like age, or when things happen in relation to other things, etc., are educated guesswork.

About Her Universe
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