Lisa Beck

Lisa Diane Beck was born in a small town in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains in North Carolina. Her mother and father both worked for Astro-Tech, a spacecraft design firm that Starfleet often contracted with. Beck's mother, Christine, had dreamed of being a Starfleet officer, but she was not accepted into the academy. After regrouping, she found a new goal for her life; seeing to it that her eldest daughter, Lisa, succeeded where she had failed. Beck was never forced to pursue a career in Starfleet, but her parents did provide her with holovids, Junior Starfleet toys, a membership in the Starfleet Scouts, and summers at Starfleet Preparatory Camps. Beck's decision to join Starfleet was finalized at the age of eleven after her close friend Stephanie Hodges' brother Joel was snatched by an Andorian cult who believed he was their god. Beck and Hodges pursued the Andorians and even managed to stow away aboard their ship but quickly found themselves in over their heads. Beck was able to contact Starfleet for help and, after seeing real Starfleet officers in action, decided that was what she wanted to do with her life. ("Trials of Youth" [REJ]) From then on, Beck was devoted to getting into the Academy. She even spent vacations to the family's beach house on a small island just off the coast of North Carolina studying while her younger sister Kathy played or helped their mother. Beck was accepted into the academy and focused her studies on linguistics and communications. She'd found during her adventure with the Andorians that she had a knack for languages and that she found theirs quite beautiful. She went so far as to request an Andorian for her roommate at the Academy. Her roommate introduced her to Andorian cuisine and took Beck back to Andor for the Festival of Garnish. After graduation, Beck was posted to the xenolinguistics department at Starfleet Headquarters and earned a promotion to lieutenant for her work on translating the language of the Duralins, which consisted solely of a series of flashing lights and arcing electrical bursts. Beck's parents were both killed in a transport accident during this period. Her parents' deaths, particularly that of her mother who had so wanted Beck to join Starfleet, was a wake-up call for Beck. She realized that, despite her skill at her job, she was bored, a state that would become a common theme throughout her career. She wanted to be out on a starship, but there just wasn't a call for communications officers anymore. Modern universal translator protocols had made them unnecessary. After learning that the USS Secondprize had accidentally been constructed with an old-fashioned bridge, including communications console, Beck requested a transfer to the ship, making her the only officer to actually request a post on the Secondprize. Her inclination towards command showed itself early. She took charge of the operation to find out what unfortunate woman Commander Dillon was interested in dating and generally was the central member of the group of friends formed by the Secondprize's female bridge officers. ("Reason to Panic" [TRK]). Her abilities came to the attention of Captain Rydell during the Joegonot mission. After Counselor Webber abdicated command while the ship was under attack, Beck took over and repelled the Joegonot ships. She also sent a rescue team down to Ugilious and helped Scott Baird capture the saboteur on board the Secondprize. ("Star Traks 1" [TRK]) When Rydell was kidnapped by Zero, Beck commanded the Secondprize while Dillon, Jaroch, and Sullivan investigated the temporal anomalies emanating from Dr. Azar's laboratory. ("Star Traks 2" [TRK]) Beck offered the use of her family's beach house, which Beck had inherited, to Webber and Sullivan for their experiment in retraining Scott Baird's personality. Her role in this plot also made her a victim of Baird's revenge prank. ("Star Traks 3" [TRK]) Risking her career, Beck, with the help of Lt. Porter, disobeyed Ambassador Baradda's direct orders and freed Hawkins and Dillon from a sabotaged holodeck. Fortunately, Baradda actually turned out to be a terrorist, so the disobeying orders charge wasn't really an issue. ("Star Traks 4" [TRK]) A few months later, Beck was feeling restless again. She'd been with the Secondprize for almost three years, but she realized that there weren't many opportunities for career advancement in the communications field. Fortunately for her, the Secondprize ran into the Multeks. Beck's first assignment was to find a way to translate the Multek language, which came across as a series of screeches. She also had to contend with Jaroch's derisive barbs about her translation speed. In order to learn more about the Multeks, Beck accompanied Dillon, Jaroch, and Russell to Edgeworld, where she was able to create a translation matrix just before the team was captured by a Multek ship. While Jaroch and Russell escaped back to the Secondprize with a captured Multek, Beck remained on the ship with Dillon to try to disable the Multeks' shields. They were rescued by the Secondprize moments before the Multeks vaporized them. Based on Beck's performance during the Multek mission and her prior record, Starfleet decided to promote her to command her and put her in charge of Waystation, a thrown-together space station Starfleet was establishing near Multek space. While at Starbase 219 to supervise the construction of Waystation, she and Captain Rydell learned that, Lt. Terris, an officer on the Spacedock was a Romulan spy. Terris transported Beck and Rydell to the hostile planet below the starbase, where they were almost killed by the resident wildlife. Baird and Dr. Aldridge rescued Beck and Rydell and captured Terris. A few weeks later, Beck finally got her station, which was promptly attacked by the Romulans and the Multeks. Beck was able to stop the battle and establish contact with Wuddle, the Multek captain. She also met and immediately disliked Colonel Lazlo of the Federation Marine battalion assigned to Waystation. ("Star Traks 5" [TRK]) Lazlo did not like taking orders from a Starfleet officer and was even more enraged when his pilot, Stephanie Hodges, turned out to be one of Beck's oldest friends. He moved his marines to Ridalis Two to escape Beck, but she had to come rescue them after they were attacked by the planet's squirrels. ("Send the Marines" [WAY]) Boredom with station life prompted Beck to go on a scouting mission with Porter on Stardate 50357. The two were captured by a Multek carnival operator who wished to display them. Beck was seriously injured by a Multek forcefield but recovered enough to escape from her cage with Porter. ("Field Trip" [WAY]) She later infiltrated the Happy Universe pretending to be her Happy counterpart, Mistress Beck, in order to rescue Tina Jones. ("Close to Home" [WAY]) Beck's continued boredom on Waystation was almost her undoing when Karyna arrived on the station and tempted her with the power of the Q. Beck briefly abandoned the station to roam the universe with Karyna looking for new and different pleasures. At the time, she was also furious with Russell for his disobedience of her orders and gave in to the temptation offered by Karyna to torture him. She came to her senses before she could cause too much harm. Unfortunately, her anger at Russell had also prompted her to make Lazlo chief of security on Waystation. With Beck gone with Karyna, he and his marines staged takeover. Learning of this, Beck returned to Waystation with Karyna to give Lazlo what was coming to him. The arrival of the Q Karyna had gotten her powers from changed everything. Karyna tried to kill most of the crew will fighting Q. Realizing Karyna's true nature, Beck attacked her, giving Q a change to recover from Karyna's assault. Karyna turned all her anger on Beck, but Russell tacked the demi-god before she could kill Beck. Q took Karyna's powers, ending the crisis. With the danger past, Beck and the other Waystation crewmembers decided to pretend none of it had ever happened. Otherwise, they all could have been facing court-martial for various charges. ("That Sinking Feeling" [WAY]) Beck's command was almost completely destroyed when Waystation was engulfed in riots thensliced in half by Lazlo's badly aimed phaser blasts. ("Gridlock" [WAY]) Beck requested help from Starfleet, which decided to renovate the entire station. During the renovation, Beck was forced to share a cargo module with Dr. Nelson. The two fought at first over just about everything but gradually became close friends. During the renovation, Beck and Hodges went on leave to Sargonis, an snow-covered world with fantastic skiing. While there, Beck became involved with Banyon Kovacs, a Starfleet Intelligence operative. Beck helped Kovacs steal a stolen item back from the Orion Syndicate and had a brief romance with him. The entire experience rejuvenated Beck and restored her sense of fun that she felt she had lost. ("You May Meet a Stranger" [WAY]) The fun almost came to an abrupt stop when Beck, along with Bradley Dillon, Jones, and three Starfleet higher-ups, was taken hostage by the Starshine Kids while on a tour of the renovated station. Before Sesil could brainwash her with his orb, Beck was snatched into the non-material plain by Leximas, who needed her help to battle the Critics. Beck's experience with Karyna gave her some knowledge of how to handle situations outside of normal reality. She created a non-material image of serial killer Michael Myers to keep the Critics busy while her crew retook Waystation on the material plane. With the Starshine Kids captured and the Critics' plans ruined, Beck was finally able to take command of her renovated station. ("Lip Lock" [WAY]) Beck made another trip to the Happy Universe several months later during a visit from the USS Explorer. Beck and the Explorer's captain, Andy Baxter, where both captured by Jean-Jean Picard and subjected to the Happy ray. Fortunately, Dr. Browning of the Explorer was able to reverse the effects. ("Worlds Apart" [VEX]) By the time of the Forever incident ten years later, Beck had been promoted to admiral and had returned to Earth. She was informed of the Forever situation and ordered to take the Secondprize officers involved in the whole mess to Forever to see if they could stop the destruction of the universe. Her first stop was to pick up Alexander Rydell from the resort he owned. Since she had taken command of Waystation, Beck and Rydell had become good friends through their common bond as commanding officers. While the Secondprize Five took care of things on Forever, Beck manned the tactical console on the Secondprize during the ship's battle with the Mitgogae. She, along with Carr, Trinian, and Sullivan, boarded the Mitgogae to stop Morticent and rescue Craig Porter. One year later, she visited Rydell shortly after the birth of his daughter. ("Please Hold For Oblivion" [TRK])