Sam Lavelle

Sam Lavelle in 2370

Lieutenant junior grade Sam Lavelle was a Human Starfleet officer posted to the USS Enterprise-D. One of his grandfathers was from Canada.

As an ensign, Lavelle shared quarters with his friend Ensign Taurik and was a conn officer on the alpha shift. His circle of friends also included Nurse Alyssa Ogawa, Ensign Sito Jaxa, and Ten Forward waiter Ben. The group had regular poker nights, sometimes including Ogawa's fiancé Andrew Powell. Lavelle felt Powell was one of the worst poker players he had ever met.

Lavelle was very career-oriented, and wanted very badly to be promoted. In 2370, he was up for promotion to the night duty operations officer position, in competition with Sito Jaxa. Although he was the obvious choice for the promotion, his tumultuous relationship with first officer William T. Riker somewhat hurt his chances. Riker took the opportunity to criticize small issues generally to Lavelle's embarrassment, such as Lavelle's use of two "aye"s when responding to a command. His friends thought he was just imagining the situation, and Ben later encouraged Lavelle to introduce himself to Riker. Ben erroneously believed Riker hailed from Canada rather than Alaska, and told this to Lavelle. When Lavelle attempted to strike up a conversation with Riker, using his heritage from Canada as a common ground, the situation quickly became awkward. The next day, Lavelle wanted to remain on bridge duty for another shift, but Riker denied his request.

Riker saw these incidents as no more than attempts by Lavelle to ingratiate himself. However, Counselor Deanna Troi pointed out the large amount of similarity between the two men, and Riker decided that he may have been too hard on Lavelle.

Sito departed the Enterprise on an undercover mission to Cardassian territory around that time, and Lavelle was curious as to her whereabouts. He assumed that she could only have left aboard the recently launched shuttlecraft and commented that it had been damaged, and pressed Taurik and Ogawa for information. Although they both knew certain facts about Sito's mission, they were unwilling to discuss it, as they were under orders to stay confidential. Sito's escape pod was found destroyed just beyond the Federation border, and Lavelle grieved for her along with his friends and superiors.

Lavelle was eventually promoted to the ops position, although he experienced a certain amount of guilt. His friends told him that the best way to honor Sito's memory would be to excel in his new position. (TNG: "Lower Decks")

Background

Lavelle was played by Dan Gauthier. It is unknown whether or not his full given name is Samuel, as the Star Trek: Starship Creator bios written by Mike and Denise Okuda claim. The character's name came from two sources: a close friend of René Echevarria and Ron Wilkerson's Canadian Labrador Samwell. (Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion)

In other non-canon sources, Lavelle was mentioned as ascending to security chief of the USS Enterprise-E, with the rank of full lieutenant, in "Heart of Darkness" a comic book of the Star Trek Unlimited series. Subsequently, Lavelle was serving with Taurik on the USS Aizawa after the outbreak of the Dominion War in the novel series of the same name. Pocket TNG: "Behind Enemy Lines" mentioned that Lavelle and others from the Aizawa became prisoners of war of the Dominion, and "Tunnel Through the Stars" depicted his return to the Federation and wartime romance with Ro Laren.

Template:EnterpriseOperationsOfficers

External link

• Template:NCwiki