Duty Post award winner interview – Genkos Adea, USS Gorkon

StarBase 118 Staff · November 25, 2019

Join us for another in a series of interviews with winners of Duty Post awards from our recent 2019 Awards Ceremony. Our goal is to give you insight into how our fleet’s best simmers write, and imagine their characters.

This month we’re interviewing the writer behind Lieutenant Commander Genkos Adea playing a Betazoid Chief Medical Officer assigned to the USS Gorkon. He won The Prantares Award – Medical, given to those medical officers who have moved beyond competence to display a true gift for the healing arts in the context of space medicine. The officers given this award should display the ability to keep a steady hand in the often hazardous conditions in which they must practice, as well as the willingness to risk their own life to save the lives of others.

FORTUNE: Tell us a little about the writer behind the character — where in the world do you hail from?

ADEA: I am a Brit, from the rainy south east of England, where I work as both an aspiring theatre director, and a museum guide. One I do for the love, and the other for the money… But I really enjoy both.

What advice can you give to other Medical officers in the fleet who are striving to sim realistic characters?

Interesting question. I would say; never rush anything. Take your time writing every scene and checking it over for mistakes. Also, when looking at medical-themed sims, operations or procedures, look at how we do things now. For example, I wrote a sim last year where I needed to replace a character’s liver. I studied how we do that in the modern age, and then Trekified it. It’s still to this day one of my favourite sims I’ve written.

Medical is a pretty difficult position to play, in this reporter’s view. But I see that your Captain mentioned your quest to find a cure for Rushton’s disease in a recent mission, and that you found a way for other non-med folks to help out. How were you able to accomplish that?

I suppose it’s a case of delegation; remembering that although your character is an expert medic, everyone in Starfleet does have some basic medical training. So if there are little tasks that they can do, like staunching a wound, wrapping bandages, or pressing a hypospray to someone’s neck, then allow them to do that. I also found adding threat helps, so adding an outside threat that the other characters in the scene have to deal with whilst you deal with the medical emergency.

What would you say has been the biggest turning point for Genkos? The moment that he truly felt like a character that’s come to life?

I suppose for me, it was a moment in his very first mission. I casually wrote a snippy retort to a Romulan NPC, which I fully admit I wrote to be funny, not because it was in keeping with his character. The character reacted badly, so then did a lot of the Romulans, and a woman was beaten almost to death because of his words. Genkos then rushed to save the woman, allowing me to write some of my earliest “medical” sims which was great, and has since informed his attitudes towards Romulans, and has also allowed me to explore the fallout of a careless word. Let’s say it still weighs heavily on his conscious, even now.

What would you say is the hardest part of simming Genkos, or a medical officer in general? And would you say it’s gotten easier or something that’s still a bit of a struggle?

Ooh; good question. The hardest part is definitely, for me, keeping check-ups interesting. I’ve found it is a good way of introducing new members to your crew; send them to sickbay for a one-on-one! It allows them an excellent chance to explore their character, without the pressure of a high-stakes mission. The only problem is that for a medical officer, these can get rather repetitive, so you have to keep finding new ways of making them interesting (that aren’t necessarily giving everyone in the crew a fatal disease). I’ve found that humour is a great way of doing that, and it has the added benefit of putting the newbies at their ease.

Last question: As with any duty post, it takes research in order to learn more about what is required. Has learning more about medical influenced your life? Are you going to be… the real Doctor Adea?

There’s no way I’m going to be medical professional any time soon; I’m rather squeamish so I am often pushing myself just writing about the stuff. However it is fascinating to look at medical advancements and seeing what Trek advancements aren’t that far off!

Thanks for your time, Lieutenant Commander Adea!

You can read more about Lieutenant Commander Adea on the wiki.

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