Mariner was born to the Freemans, a married couple serving in Starfleet, and grew up aboard ship. Her mother Carol rose to the rank of Captain, while her father eventually became an admiral. Mariner followed in their footsteps and went to the Academy. During her time there, she excelled as a student, and her classmates predicted that she would be the first in their class to get a captain's chair.

And then, for some reason, that didn't happen.

It's still unclear why Mariner became disillusioned with Starfleet. Maybe it was the Dominion War. Maybe it was the bureaucracy. Maybe it was watching Starfleet, over and over, jet in to solve a problem and then fly away again without ever following up. But somewhere along the line Mariner went from a model officer to a reckless loose cannon, constantly insubordinate and in violation of protocol. Eventually, her father put her aboard his ship to keep her from getting court-martialed out of the fleet, and when he got fed up, her mother took her in on the Cerritos--with no small amount of friction.

As an ensign on one of the "least important ships in the fleet", Mariner uses her lowly position to mentor new officers in her own unusual style, turn routine duties into fun (for her) adventures, and sneak around doing the things that Starfleet should be doing, but often fails to. Also contraband. Stashing lots and lots of contraband.

Once, when Mariner requested "permission to speak freely", the first officer angrily responded that the problem was that nobody can ever stop her from speaking freely. She's insolent, tactless, brash, and flaunts her lack of respect for proper protocol. Mariner is inherently suspicious of authority and sometimes insubordinate for the sake of it. Whenever it looks like she's being threatened with promotion, Mariner will deliberately tank her chances of gaining that second pip on her collar. She'll feign incompetence or mouth off to superior officers to keep herself firmly at ensign, the lowest rank in Starfleet.

Her confidence in her own abilities tends to get her and anyone with her into trouble, but usually, those abilities are able to get them out again. Mariner relishes action and adventure, and her years of numerous unspecified missions in Starfleet has given her a deep well of skills to draw upon. Unfortunately, this can lead her to dismiss other people's abilities and points of view. She knows so much, and she knows she knows so much, that she is extremely stubborn about using her own ideas and always has to get the last word. She is capable of acknowledging her mistakes and apologizing... but it usually comes at the end of the giant mess she's gotten you both into because she insisted on doing things her own way. Generally, to change her mind, you have to use force.

Underlying all this gusto are the feelings that Mariner doesn't know what to do with. She determinedly remains an ensign, but she has to watch her peers get promoted and transferred away from her. She keeps people at a distance, but it makes her lonely. When she's confronted with feelings she doesn't like, she fights and deflects and gets defensive, even finding reasons to hate people she likes because she doesn't know what to do. Her frustration with Starfleet is born not from cynicism, but from a sense that they aren't living up to their own principles--tying their own hands with the Prime Directive or other bureaucratic nonsense as an excuse to overlook difficult problems and injustices. She wants to fix it, somehow. And she does actually love staring at the warp core.

Mariner's been in Starfleet for ages and has done all sorts of things above- and below-board. She's handy with engineering problems, a capable pilot, good at adapting to local cultures, and a competent medic. One of her particular skills is in hand-to-hand combat. She excels in several martial art forms and can take on huge, burly alien warriors without flinching, as her collection of scars attests.

Backtagging: Yes!
Fourth wall: Ask me first, please.
Tag reminder: If it's been 3+ days, feel free to shoot me a PM! I probably lost track.
Shipping: I am generally a gen player but open to it if the chemistry's right. Mariner is pan and canonically prefers "bad", as in "bad boys, bad girls, bad Binars", etc.
Sensitive topics: If you have one in mind, ask and let's discuss it.