Ro Laren


Origin: Deep Space Nine
Hair:
Parents: Ro Gale
Occupation:
Place of residence: Castle, 15th floor, Room 3-5
Race: Bajoran

Ro Laren was a Bajoran national who formerly served in Starfleet aboard the Federation starship USS Enterprise-D before finally sympathizing with, and later defecting to, the Maquis.

Ro was born on January 17, 2340 on Bajor to Ro Talia and Ro Gale. (TNG: "Conundrum", "The Next Phase" personnel file)

Recalling her childhood as "a long, depressing period of [her] life, [she] was grateful when it was finally over." (TNG: "Rascals") Ro had grown up in the Bajoran diaspora, as one of the thousands displaced into refugee camps by the Cardassian occupation of her homeworld. During her youth, she spent some time in the camps on Valo II. (TNG: "Ensign Ro") In all, she spent ten years in the camps. (TNG: "Preemptive Strike")

Although most of the time she didn't even have a bed while living in the camps, there were times she did, when she was very young, and she would be afraid of the imaginary monsters that were under her bed. (TNG: "Rascals", "Preemptive Strike") To help ease her fears, Ro's father would play the belaklavion for her, which he told her had "special powers" and that "monsters were afraid of it, and they'd disappear whenever they heard it." She recalled that when she heard her father's music, she was never afraid to go to sleep. (TNG: "Preemptive Strike")

In 2347, Ro was shown the true nature of the occupation as she was given a piece of sugar candy by a Cardassian who led her to a room where she found her father sitting inside. For the next two hours, she was forced to sit and watch as a Cardassian questioned and tortured her father until he died.

Throughout the entire ordeal, Ro felt ashamed for being a Bajoran. She was ashamed for her father being so weak, as she watched him beg for mercy. Laren eventually found that she could not live in an environment where her people were unable to feed and clothe themselves. Because of this, she ran away. (TNG: "Ensign Ro") After his death, she finally realized that even her father could not make all the monsters in her life go away. (TNG: "Preemptive Strike")

Over time, Ro later began to understand how misguided her feelings of shame were and eventually chose to no longer be ashamed of her heritage, as she had been before. Ro decided to keep her name in traditional form: family name first, given name second. She did this despite the fact that most Bajorans accepted the distortion of their names in order to assimilate. She also strongly favored wearing the traditional Bajoran earring, albeit on the left ear as opposed to the traditional right ear. (TNG: "Ensign Ro")

Later in her life, she revealed that she never really drew a picture of her mother. It was also revealed that the young Ro Laren was a repressed jumper. (TNG: "Rascals")

Ro Laren entered Starfleet Academy in 2358 and graduated with the class of 2362. (TNG: "Conundrum", "The Next Phase") The information presented here comes from Ro's death certificate in "The Next Phase," which was apparently a revision of Ro's personnel file that originally appeared in "Conundrum". Included in the death certificate revisions were two notable corrections from the original file, including the changing of her birthplace from "Bajora" to "Bajor" and her graduation date from the academy changed from "2364" to "2362." As Bajor was not a member of the Federation at the time Ro joined Starfleet, she would have needed endorsment by a command-level officer. (DS9: "Heart of Stone")

One of Ro's early assignments was aboard the USS Wellington. During that assignment in the mid-2360s, Ro was a member of the disastrous away team mission to Garon II. During the mission, Ro disobeyed direct orders, causing the eight other members of the away team to die. Ro was court martialed for her actions and refused to speak in her defense. With little alternative, the court found Ro guilty and sentenced her to imprisonment in the stockade on Jaros II. (TNG: "Ensign Ro") Jean-Luc Picard felt that, had Ro not lost her rank following her court martial, she could have been a lieutenant commander by late 2368. (TNG: "The Next Phase") Picard also noted that the incident took place on "Garon IV" rather than "Garon II."

In 2368, Ro was released by Admiral Kennelly and reinstated into Starfleet in exchange for helping locate a Bajoran terrorist. While secretly conducting her mission, Ro was assigned to assist the USS Enterprise-D on stardate 45076.3. Due to her familiarity with the Valo system, she was initially assigned as flight controller. Upon reaching Valo II, she suggested the best route for them to take would be for them to go to the camp on the southern continent to find a man named Keeve Falor. Picard, reluctant to let go of an officer with Ro's potential, requested that Ro remain on board for the Enterprise's next scheduled mission to survey Sector 21305. (TNG: "Ensign Ro")

Not long after Ro's transfer to the Enterprise, a quantum filament caused major damage to the ship. Unable to communicate with the rest of the crew, Ro, Lt. Cmdr. Troi, Chief O'Brien and Ensign Mandel were trapped on the bridge. The quantum resonance of the filament caused a polarity shift in the ship's antimatter containment fields, leading to a progressive degeneration in the fields, threatening the ship. Before Commander Riker and Lt. Cmdr. Data were able to restore control over the containment field, Ro suggested a saucer separation to save the saucer section, while sacrificing the stardrive section, stating that she was not sure whether anyone was still alive there. After Lt. Cmdr. Troi rejected Ro's proposal, the Enterprise's main computer was brought back online and the antimatter containment was fully restored. (TNG: "Disaster")

On stardate 45571.2, Ro Laren was at the helm of the Enterprise when one of the vessel's shuttlecraft crashed on the surface of a moon orbiting Mab-Bu VI. There, a number of the crew became possessed by anionic energy lifeforms superimposing neural patterns. During their attempted takeover of the bridge, Ro attempted to shoot the possessed Miles O'Brien, but missed. She was in turn stunned by O'Brien.

After the lifeform-possessed crew members took over Ten Forward, Ro suggested giving them a plasma shock, as a means of causing pain to the beings without causing any physical harm. If the plan was to work, and they were able to hit all three with a single discharge, they would cause the beings to evacuate the crew members.

Geordi La Forge and Ro Laren later attempted a rescue in the small access area between decks 9 and 10, above Ten Forward. When they finally made their attempt, they were unable to get all three crew members in the beam, which eventually led to the abortion of their rescue attempt. (TNG: "Power Play")

On stardate 45652.1, Ro served on the bridge during an encounter with a temporal causality loop. She interrupted a staff meeting to report that sensors were getting unusual readings, twenty thousand kilometers off the port bow. She noted that sensors did not detect the phenomenon until the ship was almost on top of it. As she attempted to back the Enterprise off from the phenomenon, she reported that the maneuvering thrusters were not responding, and as a ship emerged and she attempted to back the ship off, she reported that the helm was not responding.

In an alternate version of events, when the Enterprise collided with the USS Bozeman, which had emerged from the phenomenon, Ro Laren reported that the Enterprise's inertial dampers were failing and that the ship was losing attitude control, moments before it was destroyed and Ro died. (TNG: "Cause and Effect") While investigating a damaged Romulan ship, Ro and Geordi La Forge were presumed dead in a transporter accident. Finding themselves freely walking around the ship but passing through other objects, Ro suspected that they were dead and simply remaining behind to say their goodbyes to their former lives, but La Forge refused to accept that. Eventually, La Forge figured out that they had actually been sent out of phase with the rest of the ship due to a flawed Romulan attempt to create a new kind of cloaking device, a theory that was proved when they confronted a Romulan in the same position as they. Learning of a Romulan plot to sabotage the Enterprise, Ro and La Forge managed to work out a means of canceling out the phase and restoring themselves to normal, thus allowing them to warn their shipmates of the danger. (TNG: "The Next Phase")

During a survey mission on stardate 46235.7, Ro, Picard, Guinan and Keiko O'Brien were briefly transformed into twelve-year-olds due to a transporter accident. Although Ro initially found the experience frustrating, when the ship was captured by a crew of rogue Ferengi, she took full advantage of her childish appearance to deal with the problem, such as slapping com badges onto the Ferengi to allow them to be transported, while declaring, "Tag – you're it!" After a process was discovered to return everyone to their proper ages, Ro actually spent a few hours longer in her childhood body, drawing pictures of her mother – something she'd never done during her actual childhood. (TNG: "Rascals")

On the recommendation of Captain Picard, Ro attended Starfleet's Advanced Tactical Training where she graduated in late 2370. Following her graduation, she was reassigned to the Enterprise with the rank of lieutenant, where she was given quarters on deck four, section eight. (TNG: "Preemptive Strike") According to the Official Star Trek Website and the TNG companion, one of Ro's instructors was Chakotay.

In 2370 Ro was assigned to infiltrate the Maquis. Although somewhat reluctant she agreed, partially to validate Captain Jean-Luc Picard's belief in her. By having Lt. Commander Data and Lt. Worf faking pursuit on the pretext she had killed a Cardassian soldier, she gained the attention of the Maquis Santos in a DMZ settlement bar.

She was kidnapped by Santos and was briefly questioned by him, Kalita and Macias. Macias immediately took a liking to Ro and trusted her even before her alibi was verified by Santos. He eventually became a fatherlike figure.

She later gained the trust of the rest of the Maquis by "stealing" medical supplies from the Enterprise-D. After gaining the Maquis' trust, she had them plan to invest significant resources to attack a Yridian convoy, which in actuality was a Federation trap.

Soon after, three Cardassians attacked the area near the Maquis cell, and killed Macias who with his dying breath told Ro, "When an old fighter like me dies, someone always steps forward to take his place." She started questioning her loyalties, and tried to have the fake convoy trap canceled by claiming the Maquis would not invest resources to attack. However, Picard saw through her lies and questioned her resolve. She claimed she would carry out her duties but Picard had Commander Riker accompany her to the attack.

During the attack she drew a phaser on Riker, and fired a low-intensity particle beam from the shuttlecraft that revealed a Starfleet attack force hiding in a nebula near the bogus convoy. When the Maquis retreated, she had her ship move towards the Enterprise so Riker could leave. When asked why she was going with the Maquis, she claimed "It's been a long time since I really felt like I belonged somewhere." Just before she beamed to another Maquis ship, she asked Riker to tell Picard she was sorry for betraying his trust. (TNG: "Preemptive Strike").