Gunnery Sergeant Matewa Natana
Name Matewa Natana
Position Marine
Rank Gunnery Sergeant
Character Information
| Gender | Male | |
| Species | Human | |
| Age | 34 |
Physical Appearance
| Height | 6' 2" | |
| Weight | 215 lbs | |
| Hair Color | Dark Brown | |
| Eye Color | Dark Brown | |
| Physical Description | At 6'2" and 215 lbs, Matewa cuts a broad-shouldered, fight-honed figure—power compacted into an athletic frame rather than bulk. Dark brown hair (kept short for the deck and the ring) and dark brown eyes give him a steady, referee’s gaze that rarely telegraphs emotion. His bearing is economical and controlled, the kind of stillness that comes from endless drills and a lot of bell rounds. Across his body he wears Māori tā moko that honour his whakapapa and service, a visible through-line to his Aotearoa roots even when the uniform covers most of the story. |
Family
| Father | Wiremu “Wils” Natana (64) Former commercial diver who now works as a coastal environmental steward and liaison to the local iwi trust and harbour authority. Taciturn with dry humour; taught Matewa breath control, rope craft, and the discipline to “check the knot twice.” |
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| Mother | Moana Rangi-Natana (62) Primary school principal and te reo Māori advocate. Warm but exacting, she believes service starts at home and on the marae. She’s the family organiser, the one who turns any gathering into a roster with jobs. |
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| Brother(s) | Hemi Natana (40) Logistics brain of a regional orchard co-op. Calm, practical, and unflappable; runs the family’s crisis plans when storms hit. Married with three kids. Tāne Natana (36) Marine engineer on inter-island cargo craft and orbital tugs. Hands-on problem solver; passed down his love of neat rigging and immaculate tool care. Kauri Natana (30) Fisheries ranger/kaitiaki. Dawn-patrol kayaker with a defender’s streak; quick temper, quicker to apologise. Swears by cold-water swims and honest korero. Nikau Natana (23) Engineering student focusing on micro-gravity structures. Dreamy, clever, and endlessly curious; sends Matewa CAD ideas for safer ring frames and boarding-team training props. |
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| Sister(s) | Matariki “Riki” Natana (38) Emergency physician (ED/trauma). Fiercely protective and brutally honest; she’s the one who taught Matewa proper scene safety and first response—and who refuses to watch his sparring. Āria Natana (32) Kapa haka tutor and cultural advisor to the regional council. Charismatic, quick with a laugh; choreographs welcomes for visiting starships and bullies the brothers into learning their parts. Maia Natana (27) Social worker in youth justice. Gentle steel; calls Matewa out when he armours up and is the first to send a quiet “proud of you” after hard days. |
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| Other Family | Maternal Grandparents (Rangi whānau) Pare Rangi (104) – Retired midwife and kuia. Keeper of whakapapa and family stories; her bedside manner is the family’s moral compass. Tea first, lessons second. Te Ariki Rangi (107) – Former deep-sea navigator and carbon-sail skipper. Mobility’s slowed but the mind’s sharp; his wayfinding metaphors are the bones of Matewa’s small-unit briefs. Paternal Grandparents (Natana whānau) Matakite “Mata” Natana (98) – Retired coxswain from the Federation Coastal Survey Corps; part-time carver. Patient teacher of tool safety and tide sense; still insists on “one more check” before launching any boat—or any plan. Mereana Natana (Passed in 2383, 95) – Master weaver and community organiser. Her patterns appear in Matewa’s tā moko; she taught him that strength without weaving is just rope, not a net. Notable Aunties/Uncles & Cousins Rereahu “Aunty Rere” Rangi (116) – Great-aunt, retired language teacher who helped lead early-24th-century reo revitalisation in their rohe. Her haka openings are family canon; Matewa borrows her lines when he needs a room’s attention. Tuhewhetū “Uncle Tū” Natana (89) – Former coastal search-and-rescue crew chief. Gruff marshmallow; shows up with tools, says little, fixes everything. Pania Natana (34) – First cousin and closest contemporary; civilian starship paramedic. Trade-craft confidante who keeps him honest about recovery and rest. Rawiri Natana (Passed in 2375, 22) – Cousin lost during a Dominion War convoy action. The reason Matewa treats fight nights as pressure-release, not spectacle, and drills restraint as hard as aggression. Family Dynamics A sprawling coastal whānau anchored by the grandparents’ home and marae. Sunday subspace calls are sacred; everyone gets teased and everyone gets fed. They celebrate with haka, music, and sea air, and they expect Matewa to bring two things on leave: his calm—and a properly packed first-aid kit. |
Personality & Traits
| General Overview | Matewa is a grounded, good-humoured Marine NCO who sets the tone by doing the unglamorous basics—tightening ropes, running clean drills, and keeping the room light with a jab or two. In training he’s focused and safety-minded (“this is instructional”), yet competitive and flirt-proof when it counts; he’ll banter, but he keeps eyes on the mission and treats sparring as a classroom first. Off duty he’s social and gregarious—quick with the first round, quicker with the teasing—often hosting or anchoring poker nights and bar gatherings. He leans into camaraderie, ribbing friends like Rufio, and uses humour as grease when the crew needs to decompress. Under the jokes there’s a measured read of people and a preference for keeping friction low. He’s also a “wrestler not a boxer” by instinct—direct, tactile, and pragmatic. Flirtation rolls off him as banter rather than distraction; he’ll play along, but he doesn’t lose situational focus. That same steadiness shows in how he talks about violence and justice: not ideological, just intent on preventing harm and following the Captain’s call. When things get loud, the war is still in him. Explosions trigger trained reactions and old memories; he moves fast to cover, scan exits, and protect whoever’s with him. He hates memorials, shows up anyway, and copes with a drink and gallows humour—an NCO’s way of carrying weight without making it someone else’s problem. Finally, there’s a personable streak with medical staff and new faces: he’ll charm, deflect pain with jokes, obey orders when it matters, and leave a mess of blood on the carpet only once. Under the grin is a reliable doer—the Marine you want when the plan needs muscle memory and the team needs a steady pulse. |
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| Strengths & Weaknesses | Strengths: Matewa is built for pressure. He’s cool-headed in noisy, chaotic moments and keeps teams moving with clear, simple language and muscle-memory basics. A natural instructor, he turns sparring rings and boarding drills into safe classrooms—checking kit, tightening the small things, and coaching without ego. He reads tempo like a boxer, adjusts pace for the room, and uses dry humour to keep people loose without losing focus. Cross-department, he’s a bridge: respectful of Security’s precision, receptive to Medical’s constraints, and reliable about follow-through. Culturally grounded and family-minded, he brings steady whānau energy to the deck—protective, practical, and consistent. Weaknesses: His practicality can land as bluntness, trimming nuance in favour of “just do the basics right.” He has little patience for showboating, which can make him short with flashy operators or politics-heavy plans. The war left him with a bias toward control; he sometimes over-preps a scene, double-checks everything, and struggles to delegate when stakes feel high. He deflects vulnerability with jokes, keeps his own weight quiet, and can push physical outlets (sparring, hard drills) when a conversation would serve better. Competitively honest and tactile—more wrestler than boxer—he sometimes underestimates finesse or charm as tools, especially when time is short. |
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| Quirks | He’s got a few endearing rituals. Before any drill or spar he does a quiet three-count on his breath, touches the pounamu at his chest, and checks every rope with a firm two-shake test. He can’t stand loose kit—dangling straps get taped, coils get coiled properly—and he’ll straighten a ring corner or align pads mid-conversation without noticing. Mouthguards are a personal crusade: he keeps spares in his pocket and wordlessly tosses one to anyone who “forgets.” In crowded rooms he’ll drift to a wall with eyes on the exits, a war habit he doesn’t comment on; when he tapes hands he hums a snatch of karakia under his breath. Coffee is always long and black from the same dented metal mug, and his after-action notes read like gym whiteboard lines—short, dry, and oddly motivating. Finally, he calls clinch work “honest minutes,” and he’ll default to it in friendly bouts even when everyone agreed it was “boxing tonight.” | |
| Ambitions | Ambition, for Matewa, is practical: keep his people alive and make the Moore the fleet’s benchmark for boarding safety and CQB realism. He aims to complete his CQB Master Instructor certification, formalise a cross-department “door team” programme with Security, and write drill/SOP packages that cut training injuries without blunting aggression. He wants to grow junior NCOs into calm, competent leaders—the kind who can run a ring or a corridor with equal control—and step into a First Sergeant billet next tour without being dragged off the line. Off the deck, he’s working on sharper te reo, a small youth boxing/mentoring project back home, and carving out enough leave to stay present for whānau milestones. The rest—home, partner, kids—can come in its own time; he won’t trade steadiness for speed. | |
| Hobbies & Interests | Off-duty, Matewa leans into movement, craft, and community. Boxing’s his anchor—these days more coach and ref than brawler—so he rigs rings, tapes hands, and builds safe, ugly-effective holodeck scenarios for CQB and spar work. Long runs clear his head; ropework scratches the same itch, so he’ll happily spend an hour coiling lines, testing anchors, or tinkering with training props his brother Nikau CADs up. Culture sits beside fitness: he keeps his haka sharp, leads basics for anyone keen, and works on his te reo so the karakia he hums before drills lands right. Food is part of the glue—big-batch kai after hard evolutions, coffee always long and black in the dented mug—and he’ll host low-stakes poker nights that are mostly an excuse to debrief and laugh. When he’s planetside, he squeezes in youth-boxing mentoring and coastal runs; when he’s shipbound, he reads after-action reports and rewrites them into clean, bite-sized drills the whole crew can use. |
| Personal History | Born the fourth of eight on Aotearoa’s coast, Matewa grew up between the marae, the gym, and dawn checks of nets with his dad. His mother ran a primary school and community projects; his father was a commercial diver who taught breath control, rope craft, and the habit of “check the knot twice.” Boxing arrived early and stuck—first to burn energy, then as a language for timing, spacing, and patience. Haka, tidy kit, and looking after whānau formed the spine of his character. Enlistment & Early Moore Tour (2371–2373) At eighteen he enlisted in the Starfleet Marine Corps, turning gym habits into discipline at basic. Qualifying as a rifleman, he was posted to the USS Moore as a junior Marine. Tight spaces suited his calm; he gravitated to shipboard security and CQB, integrated cleanly with Security, and started turning spare time into safe spar time—rigging corners correctly, taping hands, and setting a quiet tone of accountability. Dominion War — Shipboard Defence & Boarding (2373–2375) When the Dominion War broke loud, Matewa was already on the Moore’s deck. He cut his teeth on escort duties, anti-boarding actions, and VBSS evolutions where nothing mattered more than clear comms and drilled basics. A cousin was lost during a convoy fight in 2375, a hit that hardened certain rituals—three-count breath, pounamu touch, eyes to exits—and fixed his belief that fight nights are pressure-release, not spectacle. He proved reliable under pressure: move people to cover, make space to breathe, then execute. Post-War Reset & Training Culture on the Moore (2376–2381) With the guns quieter, he helped shift the detachment from survival tempo to sustainable readiness. Promoted through corporal to sergeant, he turned sparrings into classrooms, formalised mouthguard-and-mat safety, and built cross-department drills with Security so “door teams” spoke the same language. He wrote clean after-action notes that became short, repeatable drills and kept the cultural threads—haka, karakia, whānau calls—woven through the unit’s week. Instructor Track & NCO Growth (2381–2385) Advancing to staff sergeant, Matewa leaned into instruction and small-unit leadership on the Moore. He certified as a trauma first responder, standardised VBSS/CQB refreshers, and mentored junior NCOs to run calm rooms and cleaner corners. His poker nights and low-ego coaching kept friction low; his “boring basics done well” mantra reduced needless injuries without blunting aggression. Gunnery Sergeant, Detachment Backbone (2385–Present) Now a gunnery sergeant, he serves as CQB lead and Boarding Team One’s NCOIC on the Moore. He partners closely with Security/Tactical on integrated entries, keeps training realistic and safe, and treats every ring as a classroom. Ambitions are practical—CQB Master Instructor, a First Sergeant track next tour, and a programme that makes the Moore the fleet’s benchmark for shipboard force protection. Through it all he remains the same coastal kid at heart: check the knot twice, look after your people, and leave every space better rigged than you found it. |
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| Service Record | 2371–2373 — Rifleman — Private / Lance Corporal — USS Moore 2373–2374 — Boarding Team Rifleman — Lance Corporal — USS Moore 2374–2376 — Fireteam Leader — Corporal — USS Moore 2376–2381 — Squad Leader — Sergeant — USS Moore 2381–2385 — Platoon Ops NCO / CQB Instructor — Staff Sergeant — USS Moore 2385–Present — CQB Lead & Boarding Team One NCOIC — Gunnery Sergeant — USS Moore |
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| Awards & Decorations | 2374 — Combat Action Ribbon (Shipboard Defence): Direct engagement during enemy boarding attempts. 2375 — Dominion War Campaign Ribbon (with 2 campaign stars): Sustained shipboard defence and escort operations on USS Moore. 2375 — Starfleet Unit Commendation (USS Moore): Collective performance under fire during wartime operations. 2376 — Humanitarian Service Medal: Evacuation and aid during post-war relief patrols. 2378 — Lifesaving Medal: Rapid response during a decompression incident; casualty stabilized and recovered. 2381 — NCO Professional Development Ribbon (Advanced Course): Completion of senior leadership/PME track. 2383 — Instructor Excellence Citation: CQB/VBSS training program credited with reducing injuries and improving readiness. 2384 — Fleet Readiness Excellence (Detachment): Marine detachment recognized for inspection and readiness scores. 2385 — Meritorious Service Medal: Building integrated “door team” SOPs with Security and leading Boarding Team One. 2385 — Boarding Operations Insignia (Gold): Qualification and sustained leadership in VBSS/CQB operations. 2374, 2377, 2380, 2383, 2386 — Marine Good Conduct Medal (5 awards): Continuous exemplary conduct and proficiency. Ongoing — Sea Service Deployment Ribbon (5 awards): Cumulative shipboard tours aboard USS Moore. 2376 & 2383 — Starfleet Commendation Medal (2 awards): Notable initiative during post-war security ops (’76) and for cross-department training impact (’83). Ongoing — Marksmanship Awards: Rifle Expert; Pistol Expert (most recent qual: 2386). |