Re: Blindness in GURPS, and the "Star Trek" setting 2262...
 

A short and simple answer to your lengthy post.

She got the glaucoma in childhood.

In her teen years she had very limited partial sight, she could see changes in light and some partial color...still had already learned how to read Braille.

As an adult is totally Blind because the glaucoma got worse.

Again, basing this on a real person that I know who is totally blind, but loves "Star Trek"....

- Ed C.

Re: Blindness in GURPS, and the "Star Trek" setting 2262...
 

Ah, understood, I must have missed the bit where she was based on a real person. I think you're right that Starfleet would have been willing to take a risk on her, particularly if, as you suggested, she tested extremely well. I'd imagine she had a more effective means of mitigating her blindness during her time with Starfleet but has sense opted to move on to something simpler - perhaps she originally had something that outright gave her Vibration Sense, but now the cane gives her a much more limited version of that and she largely relies on her memory to get around with a bit of assistance from the cane. On that note, it may be appropriate to give her either Eidetic Memory or Photographic Memory (perhaps with the latter renamed to something like Perfect Recall to avoid confusion), but not strictly necessary.