Name of Officer: Keiran O'Sullivan
Rank: Department Of Temporal Investigations: Captain
Aboard the USS Serendipity: Commander
Current Assignment: Security Liaison for The Alchemy Project
Previous Assignment: Captain of the USS Perseids NX 57871, Temporal Investigations (2388 current timeline)
Species: Human
Age: 42 Standard Years
Physical Description:
Height: 6'4"
Weight: 225 pounds
Hair: Light Brown/Gray
Eyes: Blue
Marital Status: Married:
To Captain Zanh Liis
Stardate 81020
Aboard the USS Serendipity: Commander
Current Assignment: Security Liaison for The Alchemy Project
Previous Assignment: Captain of the USS Perseids NX 57871, Temporal Investigations (2388 current timeline)
Species: Human
Age: 42 Standard Years
Physical Description:
Height: 6'4"
Weight: 225 pounds
Hair: Light Brown/Gray
Eyes: Blue
Marital Status: Married:
To Captain Zanh Liis
Stardate 81020
Scars/Tattoos/Distinguishing Physical Characteristics:
Keiran Riley O'Sullivan is broad shouldered and barrel chested man, with a ruggedly handsome appearance. He's been known at times to sport a neatly trimmed beard.
He has broken his nose more than once in physical altercations, the first happening when he was only fourteen, and due to a dislike of doctors that began as a child, he never had it surgically corrected.
He also broke it once in a high school rugby match.
He has a tattoo of his family crest on his right arm.
Personal History:
*1 (see footnote)
Keiran is the middle child of a large family (he has six siblings)born to parents who fought loudly, but at the end of the day, still loved each other. His housewife mother and dock worker father were married for more than forty years until his mother's passing- his father is still alive and still ornery.
The motto for the O'Sullivans is "An Lámh Fhoisteanach Abú" which translates as "The Steady Hand to Victory".
Like many security officers assigned to the brutal front lines during the Dominion War, Keiran found that even though the Federation eventually won the fight, he lost himself along the way, dying a piece at a time along with each of his friends and comrades who perished before the conflict was over.
When Keiran came home in 2374 (To County Cork, Ireland, where he'd been born in 2345) after suffering a critical combat injury, he found that he had been too changed by the war to return to the life of a family man. His wife, Maggie told him that she didn't know the man he'd become. She took their only child, a son, Carrick, and moved away.
The divorce was final a year later and Keiran has not seen his son, who would now be nearly seventeen, since he was a small boy. He writes letters to Carrick frequently, but never receives any reply.
With Keiran's family ties severed and his career stalling due to the baggage he carried back with him from the front, he was deemed a good candidate for recruitment into Special Ops, or Temporal Investigations.
He attended several levels of Advanced Tactical Training in anticipation of a career in either of those fields, but was frustrated that Starfleet Intelligence made him repeat core courses twice. Little did he realize that his temperament was being tested to an even greater degree than his skills as a law enforcement officer.
Eventually he was given the position of senior operative, working as a Jumper with the Timeline Control Division of Temporal Investigations under the direct supervision of a man named Jonas Vox.
In 2376 Keiran was assigned to mentor a headstrong new recruit named Zanh Liis. He had no idea that this meeting would end up changing the course of the rest of his life.
Due to repeated attempts at memory resequencing procedures (with varying degrees of success) Keiran would remember, and then lose memory of having worked with Zanh as his career progressed.
His relationship with Liis was complicated from the start, but became even more difficult as his feelings towards her changed and he wanted to pursue a relationship with her that nothing to do with their work. He knew that this was strictly against the code of conduct for Temporal Operatives, and did everything he could to keep their relationship professional- and Zanh Liis at a safe emotional distance.
In an alternate timeline version of the year 2377, Keiran O'Sullivan found that Zanh reciprocated his feelings. Acting on those emotions, however, would have catastrophic consequences for them both and require Keiran to make a jump into the past to correct the timeline, even though doing so meant that they could not be together again.
Despite this, he would repeat the same mistake again of going against the rules and in another variant of the year 2380, he and Zanh retired from Temporal Investigations and actually married.
They lived a year as man and wife before disaster struck and, as Keiran put it to Jariel Camen when he tried to explain, "Time took its penance."
After it became clear that their relationship was simply not meant to be, he would once again have to make the lonely journey of jumping back, to correct history and restore Zanh to her proper place.
Devastated by the loss of his wife and former TI partner- and what he considered to be all hopes of happiness along with her- Keiran submitted to a very dangerous procedure; one that he was promised would rid him of the memories of Zanh Liis once and for all. *2 (see footnote)
By the time Keiran was assigned to the Serendipity in early 2388, he had been free of the memories of his past for a long enough time that Admiral Vox felt it necessary to test whether or not that final, drastic resequencing procedure had worked, and would hold. He assigned Keiran as Zanh's Chief of Security on the brand new ship- knowing that she did not remember O'Sullivan, but worrying that O'Sullivan's memories and emotions were too strong to be suppressed forever.
The Admiral was right.
Within months of arriving on the ship and interacting with the Captain, the barriers in Keiran's brain began to break down, reactivating the memory engrams and once again plunging him into despair. Remembering her, their work together and their relationship as it had been in alternate branches of space time- he was secretly tormented by the fact that she did not remember him.
Fearing that discovery of their history could do irreparable damage to Zanh and the timeline, Keiran struggled to maintain control, and asked himself every morning if this day would be the last he was able to spend on her ship without risking another disaster.
All of his struggles appeared to be in vain when Zanh Liis suddenly began remembering things about their past relationship, even as Keiran's memories continued to intensify. They did not know this was due to the fact that a species of alien 'healers' was trying to intervene and 'help' free them of their painful pasts- doing more harm then good in the process.
It turned out in the end that his time on the Sera was simply part of another planned Jump for TI. Upon remembering, and the resolution of the Sylph first contact situation, Keiran was pulled from the Sera's roster and returned to his command within Temporal Investigations.
He continued to hold out hope that the next jump would be the one in which he finally bested both the Fates and Time itself- and found his way back to Zanh Liis for good.
In late 2388, Keiran would get his dearest wish.
After taking a Jump that he was certain would be his last, destiny stepped in and brought him back to his correct place in time, and to Zanh Liis' arms.
Due to the effects of living non-linear time he felt as though they'd been separated for two years; for Liis it was only a matter of weeks. Still he proposed to her as soon as he was told that his days with Temporal Investigations were over; and was amazed when Zanh actually said yes.
Wasting no more time after all they had been through, they married days later, surrounded by family and friends in Ireland on Stardate 81020.18
Work Ethic
Keiran very much considers himself an old fashioned detective; a "cop on the beat" and likes to get to know the faces, if not the personalities of all the people he serves with.
Social Interaction
Keiran is naturally gregarious- especially after several pints of Guinness. When drinking stronger spirits with a mind to escaping dark memories of the past, however, Keiran withdraws from all around him, drinks alone, and is a very sullen drunk.
(NOTE: Keiran swore off alcohol after the conclusion of his time on the Serendipity, toward the end of which he ended up starting a drunken brawl in Illusions Lounge and had to be subdued by TC Blane.)
Keiran was raised strictly Roman Catholic and was a choir boy at the Church of Christ the King at Turner's Cross. He still possesses a fine singing voice that is broad in range and easily covers the octaves between baritone and tenor without missing a note.
Eccentricities: Keiran wears an O'Sullivan family crest signet ring on his left hand where one would normally expect a wedding ring to be. Eventually, Zanh Liis discovered this was because it was the wedding ring she had given him when they had married in the variant version of 2380.
Special Skills
In addition to his advanced tactical training, Keiran is skilled in martial arts, hand to hand combat, use and handling of explosives and firearms. He knows his way around not only the modern weapons of the day, but the historical weapons of his homeland as well, which he considers to be a matter of pride.
Career and Starfleet Record:
Academy Class of 2366 : Third in his class with a degree in forensic science/law enforcement
2366-68: Advanced Tactical Training
2369-2372: Lieutenant in security aboard the USS Excalibur
2373-mid 2374: Volunteered for service on the front lines during the Dominion war: mostly ground fighting.
2374: Recruited by Special Ops and sent for more tactical training. Assigned to Temporal Investigations
2374-2387- Temporal Investigations, Timeline Control Unit: Assignment- Classified
Late 2387-2388: Chief of Security, USS Serendipity: The Alchemy Project
2388: Timeline Control Division, Temporal Investigations: Commanding Officer of the USS Perseids Classified
2388: Security Liaison for The Alchemy Project Classified
Quotes:
Personal log: Stardate 80502.7.
"...some are called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice for their duty.
For some, like me, that ultimate sacrifice is not the giving of the lives that we have. It's the giving up on the lives that we know we might have, if we could but stretch our arms wide enough to outreach the grasp of the Fates, just once."
Songs associated with this character:
Lost! (and Lost? acoustic version) by Coldplay
Right Back Where I Started From by The Alarm
All I Know by Five for Fighting
Far Away by Nickelback
Never Say Never by The Fray
The song that defines Keiran: The Parting Glass, by Shaun Davey: (From the soundtrack to Waking Ned Devine)
*1 The original concept for this character was created in December of 2007 by ZL. Principal authorship of character: ZL: (though dialogue for Keiran has been written at this point by everyone on the Serendipity's crew.)
*2 These additions to Keiran's character history as revealed in posts at the time were written in JUNE of 2008. For further notes on this please see From the Ready Room, article dated 90322.
Original post date of initial character biography: 2/15/08
