Although a medical checkup is the classic way to meet the ship's doctor, I was wondering if the fact that Maya's an alien might be used instead. Perhaps a guided tour of the ship to familiarize the viewers at home with the Discovery like they do on TV. This is the pilot after all. We should act like it. I think that a 'tour guide' scene would be 'good for the show' and allow any player to put their two cents in if they want to.

Only downside about a tour is that Chloe isn't a very good tour guide. She got lost on the way to the mess hall, and it was on the same deck as her quarters. Then again, it might make sense for her to give the tour since she's the language and cultural specialist. She could be armed with a map, and they could fumble their way through the ship together.

There's always that old standby, inviting the guest to share a meal in the cafeteria. On Enterprise we saw a cafeteria/mess hall where the majority of the crew dined, including the officers. Since Chloe is a natural linguist who is interested in other cultures it's conceivable that she may join the little Vulcan at mealtime and feel her out.

As for Leo, there's always the old 'missing cat' scenario. I'm assuming that Leo has a cat onboard. (Cue Captain Holister's lines from the first episode of Red Dwarf.) Perhaps Leo's cat gets loose and finds itself in Maya's quarters, or her medical lab as a specimen.

I like that idea in the mess hall. Chloe might have gotten lost on the ship, but that's more out of nerves and naivety than anything else. She's not been very far away from Earth other than on some training missions. She's worked with Vulcans before at Starfleet Command and at Stanford, but she's still interested in getting to know more about their culture. Maybe Chloe would even think that Maya would want to get to know her since Chloe would know more about being Vulcan than anyone else on the ship, excluding Maya, of course.

Ha! I like the idea of Lorenzo (his cat) getting out. Being a long-time shipboard cat, Leo probably has a chip implanted in him and can track him down, so there wouldn't be much of a search. But the signal might lead him straight to Maya's medical lab where he finds him in a cage?

I saw where you mentioned the difficulties of writing an introvert, and it got me thinking about an old character of mine. I had an intelligence officer named Sara Archer (no relation to Jonathan, just loved the name). She was human, but since she lost both of her parents in the line of duty, and then went on to be forced to kill her best friend, and probably lover, when she discovered during the war that he was giving secrets to the Dominion. She was cleared in the official inquiry regarding his death, but it left her pretty psychologically scarred. From then on, she tried to be pretty emotionless, refusing to make friends or form attachments with people. Even her relationship with her aunt, her only living relative, was strained. Over time she opened up little by little, but she was still pretty cold and calloused.

Anyway, I just thought I would share. Sometimes it can be frustrating for others when a character seems apathetic. But sometimes that's just the character's nature. It can be pretty challenging to write a character like that, especially if you have to portray emotion through body language, and not words or other actions. But that was with Sara. A Vulcan trained to suppress emotions would probably be even harder to read, and therefore, harder to write. I've not attempted a Vulcan character because of it. Sara was challenging enough at times.

I've given Maya an alien body language. She's expressive, she simply expresses herself in a strange unfamiliar way. She tilts her head to the right for 'yes' and to the left for 'no'. She gives single respectful nods in acknowledgement and in apology. She also speaks with her hands (a trait I picked up from Lenard Nemoy's I Am Spock. I had also planned for Maya to misinterpret common expressions and idioms or use them wrong. Since we're at a time when Star Trek's future closer to our own time, there should be plenty of familiar expressions still in use.

I've also toyed with the idea of Maya misinterpreting other people's emotions and actually asking them what emotion they're feeling. Sarcasm will go right over her pointy eared little head. This is 'Season One', the perfect time to let Maya play the 'quirky alien' to the hilt.

Unlike Sara Archer, Maya is trying to make friends and form attachments to people, but thanks to her upbringing she appears aloof and distant. Of course, thanks to the "An agent of Terra Prime is onboard" storyline, Maya is currently aloof and distant in reality. Every human is a suspect! The sooner the agent is unmasked the sooner Maya can return to her open and trusting self.