Martin Keates

Commander Martin Keates is the First Officer of the U.S.S Valkyrie and the deuteragonist of the series. A suave officer originating from the East Coast of the United States, Martin and Jenna manage to form a platonic but strong bond between the two of them, having previously been in a relationship.

Childhood
Martin was born and raised in Princeton, New Jersey, being born on November 25th of the year 2244 to Violet and Christopher Keates as the middle child - he has two brothers, an elder one named Jesse and a younger one named Cameron. He is of distant Irish descent.

Early Career
Recently after graduating from the UIFA Academy he attended and becoming an Ensign, Martin met a pair of Cadets, Eve Ferencz and Jenna Kaufmann, who he and his already pre-existing friends Lieutenant Hank Anderson and Commander Bruce Sullivan befriended; he and Jenna also started dating soon afterwards.

However, some time later, this relationship of theirs began to sour when Jenna would repeatedly work late to spend less and less time with him in favour of accomplishing assignments. This workaholic attitude of hers made Martin feel as if Jenna, effectively, didn't care about their relationship and was solely concerned with career advancement, to the point where he decided to secretly spend time with Tharela, an Orion who was unaware of him already having a girlfriend. In 2276, when Jenna returned to the apartment they shared in New York and discovered him in the act, both women left despite Martin's desperate protests for a chance to explain himself.

A New Posting
A month later, their relationship having ended after this incident, Martin was reunited with Jenna onboard the exploration starship she was assigned command of that very same day, the U.S.S Valkyrie, after not seeing or hearing from each other at all during this month. Much to her chagrin, he was assigned as her First Officer, and for most of the rest of that day they were visibly hostile to one another after getting into an argument soon after his arrival about his reasons for seeking comfort with Tharela. However, after Martin later came up with a plan to save the ship from a Windermerean battlecruiser attempting to steal an invention from the Epsilon-Iota scientific institute, he apologised and realised his wrongdoing: instead of telling Jenna how hurt he felt at the time by her neglect, he, in his own words, "retreated into a stupid fantasy world". This simultaneously caused Jenna to realise that she was indeed equally to blame for the end of their relationship, which she, too, apologised for. They then reconciled and decided, after her telling him that she wanted him to stay on the Valkyrie so that they could work together, to not continue their romance but to instead become friends again.