Cadet Junior Grade Bram Castello
Name Bram Castello
Position Acting Head Nurse
Rank Cadet Junior Grade
Character Information
| Gender | Male | |
| Species | Human | |
| Age | 21 |
Physical Appearance
| Height | 5'10" | |
| Weight | ||
| Hair Color | Dark Brown | |
| Eye Color | Hazel | |
| Physical Description | Cadet Bram Costello possesses an ethereal, almost otherworldly presence, a figure caught between fragility and quiet strength. Standing about five foot ten, his frame is lean yet graceful, with the subtle poise of someone accustomed to silence and observation. His complexion is pale, often lending him a ghostlike softness under the sterile light of a starship. Dark brown hair falls in soft, slightly tousled waves around his face, framing hazel eyes that seem perpetually caught in contemplation. He is luminous, expressive, and faintly mournful. His features are refined, lips often curved in a half-smile that never quite reaches his eyes. His uniform is impeccably kept, though a faint scent of herbal antiseptic and ink clings to him. In dim light, Bram seems carved from stillness itself, a healer who bears the quiet dignity of one who has already made peace with impermanence. |
Family
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Personality & Traits
| General Overview | Bram Costello is both healer and mourner who is drawn as much to the mystery of death as to the compassion of life. He can be a paradox of empathy and detachment, he is deeply emotional yet very rarely expressive. When he speaks, it’s with an almost lyrical restraint, his words are always sharply deliberate and often philosophical. He believes every life deserves to be remembered, even those lost in the void of space. His fascination with mortuary science stems from the notion that memory, not flesh, preserves the soul. Some cadets find him morbid; others find his quiet reverence comforting, but his obsession the macabre often turns people off. Since the Cavalier’s catastrophic displacement and the death of the adult crew, Bram has become something of a ghostly presence. He has been moving silently between compartments, tending to the deceased, recording names and dates, and offering gentle words over shrouded forms. He often spends hours alone in Sickbay, cataloging the fallen with a poet’s precision and a priest’s humility. Bram internalizes grief it into an aching empathy. “Cadet Costello exhibits remarkable empathy and moral conviction but is prone to periods of melancholy introspection. His fascination with death is not pathological but philosophical... a coping mechanism that allows him to confront mortality with dignity and care. Strong bedside manner, quiet leadership potential, but emotionally volatile under prolonged isolation.” — Starfleet Academy Psychological Evaluation, 2390 |
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| Hobbies & Interests | Xenotaxidermy & Specimen Preservation Bram practices a Federation-approved form of educational taxidermy, preserving deceased non-sentient lifeforms (mostly insects and small alien fauna) for medical and biological study. He approaches the craft with reverence, viewing it as both scientific documentation and quiet memorial art. Holophotography of Still Life and Anatomy Fascinated by the interplay of decay and beauty, Bram uses holographic lenses to capture medical still lifes: the geometry of bones, preserved botanical samples, and reflections of light on bio-stasis fields. His private collection is hauntingly serene. Classical Music & Poetry Analysis A devotee of Romantic-era composers and poets, particularly Chopin, Shelley, and T’Leth of Vulcan as Bram finds emotional release in translating ancient human verse into Federation Standard, pairing it with ambient compositions on his PADD. Entomology and Micro-Ecosystem Cultivation He maintains small terrariums in his quarters, nurturing insects and arthropods from multiple worlds. For Bram, studying their delicate social structures and life cycles provides a meditative counterbalance to his work with mortality. |
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| Personal History | Bram Costello was born in Florence, Italy, in the year 2370, the only child of two physicians attached to the Federation’s Cultural Medicine Exchange. His mother, Dr. Luciana Moretti-Costello, specialized in comparative xenopathology; his father, Dr. Anthony Costello, was a trauma surgeon who volunteered with Starfleet’s civilian relief corps. The Costello household stood at the crossroads of science and art. It's a centuries old townhouse overlooking the Arno River, filled with antique anatomy texts, holographic sculptures, and the scent of old paper. As a boy, Bram was gentle and introspective, with a fascination for both the living and the lost. While other children built shuttle models, Bram sketched skeletons and read Federation ethnographies about funeral customs from across the quadrant. When he was twelve, he accompanied his parents to New Athens Colony, where he witnessed a catastrophic landslide that killed dozens. The images of medics working among the rubble left a lasting mark; he watched his father triage the wounded and his mother catalogue the dead with equal compassion. From that day forward, Bram believed that honoring the fallen was an extension of healing the living. He enrolled in Starfleet Academy at age 18, majoring in Nursing with a concentration in Mortuary Science, a peculiar and often misunderstood specialization. While his instructors noted his uncanny empathy, they also worried about his brooding nature. His essays frequently blurred the line between medicine and metaphysics, quoting poets alongside medical theorists. Yet his academic performance was exemplary; he completed his first two years of the Academy with honors in xenobiology, Federation medical ethics, and comparative culture. Bram’s cadet peers often joked that he seemed born out of another century as he can be soft-spoken, formal, and prone to melancholy reflection. But those who spent time with him discovered a wry humor and a tender heart. He was known for sitting with terminally ill patients long after his shift ended, recording their stories in an old-fashioned paper journal he kept bound in black leather. When selected for the 2391 training cruise aboard the USS Cavalier, Bram saw it as a chance to understand life in deep space and the vast quiet between stars that mirrored his own inward silence. Assigned to Sickbay, he worked alongside the medical staff and fellow cadets Finn Walsh and Shafin Toddenhöfer. When the incident struck that killed the senior officers and took the Cavalier beyond Federation reach, Bram’s gentle vocation took on grim necessity. With the ship’s morgue overflowing and the living traumatized, he became the de facto caretaker of the dead. He has organized a rotation for respectful preparation of remains, catalogued identities, and instituted small memorial rituals drawn from the many cultures represented among the cadets. His Book of Remembrance serves as a chronicle of every lost soul aboard and remains one of the few tangible records these days. Though still a cadet, Bram Costello embodies the paradox at the heart of Starfleet’s mission: the coexistence of exploration and mortality, light and shadow, the living and the memory of the dead. |
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| Medical Records | ||
| Year in Academy | Junior | |
| Majors and/or Minors | Major: Nursing, with high marks in Trauma Care and Xenopathology. Concentration: Mortuary Science and Forensic Medicine (special interest in non-Human funerary customs). Minors: Comparative Literature and Federation Philosophy. Research Thesis (in progress): “Transcendence and the Soul: Comparative Burial Rituals Among Federation Worlds.” |