Captain T'Zera

Character Information

Gender		Female
Species		Vulcan/Romulan
Age		31
Date of Birth		12 April 2360
Place of Birth		Earth

Character Type

Starfleet ID

Serial Number		NL-412-0306
Security Clearance		Level 10
Duty Watch		Alpha

Physical Appearance

Height		5'5"
Weight		130
Hair Color		Brown
Eye Color		Blue
Physical Description		Slender and lithe. Typical Vulcan features such as pointed ears and upwardly-canted eyebrows. Keeps herself smart and presentable while on duty. She has often been told she looks like her mother.
Body Art		N/A

Family

Spouse		Captain Seklar - First Officer, USS Nimitz
Children		Step-son Salai (born 2389) Step-daughter Ishara (born 2389)
Father		Sitorek, former trade and commerce delegate to Federation Embassy on Romulus and undercover intelligence operative. Now an Admiral working at Starfleet headquarters in San Francisco.
Mother		Tanara, former senior Tal’Shiar advisor to the Romulan Praetor who defected to the Federation. Now lives on Earth with her husband under the assumed name T’Nar. Serves Starfleet as an informal advisor on Romulan matters.
Brother(s)		Verin
Sister(s)		T'Qal

Personality & Traits

General Overview		T’Zera is a calm and serene woman who carries herself with an air of confidence and natural grace. She tends not to speak unless she has something to say, but is very good at speaking with the tact and diplomacy expected of a Starfleet captain. She speaks in a soft, feminine voice, but has no trouble affecting a strong, commanding tone when needed. Because of her Romulan side she struggles with her emotions, although most casual observers would have no idea of this. Only those close to her understand how much of a struggle it really is. To everyone else she comes off as typically Vulcan; calm, unemotional, and effortlessly logical.
Strengths		-Deeply committed to her duties as a Starfleet officer -Skilled diplomat -Good listener
Weaknesses		-Sometimes has a temper, like her mother. -Struggles with keeping her emotions in check, although it is a private struggle and she is good at keeping it concealed. Most of the time. -Can sometimes seem aloof because of her Vulcan demeanor.
Ambitions		T’Zera had considered that she might one day command a ship, but it was not a goal that she was ambitious to achieve at an early stage in her career. Now that she’s there, she desires to be an exceptional captain who gets the missions done and looks after her crew.
Hobbies & Interests		Vulcan meditation, archaeology, competitive swimming, music, stellar cartography, flying. Has an extensive collection of books, the old kind, made of paper. Is also interested in her Romulan heritage because of her mother, but her mother does not speak of it much, choosing to adhere to a Vulcan way of life. T’Zera’s parents brought her and her siblings up in the same way. She is also interested in the histories of the royal dynasties that ruled Vulcan millennia ago, as she can trace her lineage back to them on her father’s side.
Orientation		Heterosexual
Language(s) Spoken		Languages spoken: -Vulcan -Romulan -Terran English -Some Klingon

Personal History		T’Zera has a unique background. Her story begins with her parents, who met on Romulus in a most unusual way. Her father Sitorek was assigned to the Federation Embassy as a trade and commerce delegate, but that was simply a cover identity, because he was actually a Starfleet Intelligence operative. His true assignment was to recruit spies in the Romulan government and military and use them gain access to the vast ocean of secrets within those organizations. He was very successful at this and had several moles working for him. His most prized intelligence source was Romulan Commander Tanara, who was a member of the Tal’Shiar intelligence directorate and a senior advisor to the Romulan Praetor. Through her Sitorek was able to gain access to secrets and plans from the highest levels of the Romulan government and pass them along to his superiors in Paris and San Francisco. Tanara’s risk-laden activities could not possibly last for long. In time the Tal’Shiar began to suspect that they had a traitor in their midst, and set out find that person with every ruthless method at their disposal. Inevitably their witch hunt led them to Tanara, and she was arrested and sent to the Tal’Shiar’s interrogation facility, a place where no enemy of the state left alive. As Tanara’s handler, Sitorek felt an obligation to help her. Using a disguise and a forged identity that were meant to be used as a means of rescuing himself in an emergency, Sitorek walked into the interrogation facility posing as the Praetor’s executive assistant and demanded that she be released to him for transfer to a military prison. The Tal’Shiar officers were, of course, resistant. They challenged, questioned, and threatened the disguised officer, trying to buy time for themselves in order to confirm his story. It seemed as if Sitorek’s plan wouldn’t work and he would have to flee for his own life. Then something unexpected happened. One of the Tal’Shiar officers was able to get a comm channel open to the Praetor himself and ask if he had indeed sent someone from his staff to transfer Commander Tanara. The Praetor angrily replied, “Yes, now release her or I’ll make you guests in your own facility!” The Tal’Shiar relented and did as they were told, snarling their promises of revenge the whole time. Sitorek said nothing but simply retrieved Tanara, who was in terrible shape and barely able to walk. They left the facility without further incident and went straight to a commercial cargo facility, where a freighter carrying black market ale took them aboard and across the Neutral Zone to safety. No one ever figured out why the Praetor did what he did. Tanara’s guess was that he felt a father-daughter affection for her, having had her on his staff for so many years. It was the only possible thing that could have outweighed any feelings of betrayal he had. It’s a mystery to this day. One thing is for certain, the Praetor doesn’t seem to have paid any price himself for swindling the Tal’Shiar. That was a real trick. Starfleet Command was disappointed to have lost the services of such an important intelligence asset. With Sitorek, however, they were infuriated. Not only had he blown his cover, but he had also conducted an unauthorized rescue mission. After debriefing he was removed from intelligence work and placed back on duty as a line officer. He was not sorry for his actions. He felt he had done the logical thing. As for Tanara, she was given political asylum in the Federation, and employment as an advisor on Romulan affairs. It was all strictly under the table, of course. Officially Tanara did not exist, and the Federation could not acknowledge that she did, or ever had. She was given a new identity as a Vulcan named T’Nar (the closest approximation of her name in the Vulcan language) and advised to adapt the Vulcan lifestyle in order to not draw attention to herself. However, it’s almost certain that the Tal’Shiar knows her whereabouts and is keeping tabs on her. No one knows if or when they’ll try to exact retribution on her. It’s a burden she has to live with. Sitorek kept in touch with Tanara and looked after her, still feeling that he was somehow indebted to her, even though she insisted otherwise. In the fullness of time he took her as his mate, and they were married in a traditional mating ritual on Vulcan. It was an unexpectedly happy event that came from the whole intelligence mess. One of the gifts sent to their ceremony was a bouquet of Romulan flowers. Sender unknown. The couple then moved to Earth as Sitorek took on a new assignment as a training officer at Starfleet Academy. It was not as glamorous as the intelligence service, and certainly not as dangerous. But it allowed them to live and work together in San Francisco. Their first child, T’Zera, was born two years later. Tanara named her daughter in honor of her mother Tizera, whom she had not seen or heard from since she left Romulus, and probably never would again. T’Zera, obviously, was not like the other children growing up. She was passionate, impulsive, rebellious. Her Romulan blood boiled hot within her. She caused her teachers much dismay and was often subject to discipline. Sitorek, wanting to solidify T’Zera’s identity as a Vulcan, arranged for her at age 7 to be bonded to a boy named Nevarik. Like Sitorek, Nevarik’s family traced its lineage to the ancient imperial dynasties that ruled Vulcan thousands of years before the age of Surak. They were actually little more than tribal warlords, but they kept some order on the perpetually violent planet, and were among the first to lay down their weapons and adapt Surak’s teachings. Tanara was incensed by the idea of arranging a marriage for her daughter. The whole idea seemed so barbaric and outdated to her. Sitorek, however, was able to persuade her of the advantages of such an arrangement. The chief one being that bonding to a full-blooded Vulcan would still much of the turbulent emotions within her. Finally Tanara acquiesced, and the mating ceremony was set for the day when either Nevarik or T’Zera underwent their first pon farr. No one could say exactly when that would be. In the meantime T’Zera continued her studies. At age 18 she was accepted into ShiKahr Academy on Vulcan. She moved there to attend that school, and it marked the first time she would actually live on one of her two home planets. Over the next five years she earned dual doctorates in archaeology and ancient Vulcan history. She studied hard and didn’t have many friends. Because of her passionate ways she was still shunned by other young Vulcans, save for a few who understood that there was something unique in her background that she could not talk about. They befriended her, and through mind melds were able to help her focus and lean on logic more for guidance. It was a great help to her. At the end of her studies there she was offered a position with the Vulcan Exo-archaeology Commission. However, her interests had wandered to a new field of interest: Starfleet. T’Zera had always admired her father and his work, though he didn’t speak of it much. He had stayed as an instructor at the Academy all those years, and as a result his career had stagnated. After turning down several opportunities for transfer and advancement, the offers had stopped coming. He felt it too much of a risk to take his family into deep space, where Romulans lurked. Perhaps it was an illogical way of seeing things, but when it came to the safety of his wife and children, Sitorek found that his logic was not enough to depend on. And so it was with no small amount of opposition that T’Zera announced her desire to follow in her father’s footsteps. To know and work with the same kind of people he worked with. To feel that same sense of camaraderie and professional respect that Starfleet officers had for each other. Sitorek advised her not to go. He practically begged her. He felt that putting herself in such a high-profile line of work would make her a target. He seriously considered calling in favors to have her application rejected, but this time it was Tanara who stepped in to do the convincing. She told him that holding T’Zera back would only make her resent him and fight to get what she wanted. She was, after all, her mother’s daughter. And besides, she was now a grown woman who could make her own decisions. It was only a matter of time until he would have to let her go. Sitorek could not argue with that logic, and acquiesced. The Academy turned out to be T’Zera’s greatest challenge yet. Her defiant and rebellious attitude was torn down in the high-discipline, high-pressure environment. Her instructors and the upperclass cadets worked her, challenged her, raised the bar for her constantly, always expecting her best, then demanding that she do better. A few months into her plebe year she considered quitting. Maybe her father had been correct in assessing this as a mistake. Then T’Zera discovered her first real love. Flying. T’Zera had a natural instinct for flying craft of all sizes and configurations. Her instructors noticed that she needed very little instruction and could usually figure out things on her own. After passing primary and advanced flight training with high marks she joined and quickly became leader of Nova Squadron, the Academy’s flight demonstration team. She led the team on three successful performance tours across the Federation and other non-aligned worlds. Studies came first, of course, and she applied herself well, studying Probability Mechanics and Exoanthropology. In her senior year she was disciplined, along with 47 other cadets, for engaging in a massive brawl with cadets from the Imperial Romulan Military School during a Parrises Squares tournament on Rigel IV. It’s not clear what happened. Both groups were seated in the viewing stands. Words were exchanged. Then words became shoves, and shoves became punches. When it was all over dozens of people were sent to the infirmary. The Academy Superintendent wrote a letter of apology to the Romulan Embassy, and T’Zera and her classmates each received 100 demerits and suspension of off-campus privileges for the remainder of the academic year. Following graduation T’Zera received her commission as an ensign and reported to USS Discovery for duty as a flight control officer.
Service Record		2380-2384 – Starfleet Academy 2384-2385 – Helmsman, USS Discovery 2385-2386 – Systems Integration Manager, Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards, Mars 2386-2387 – Senior Project Test Pilot, USS Polaris NX-92700 2387-2389 – First Officer, Sicyon Station Deep Space Observatory 2389-2390 – Professor of Astrophysics and Celestial Mechanics at Starfleet Academy, also Senior Flight Instructor 2390-Present - Commanding Officer, USS Crown

Character Progression System

CPS Option

DISABLED

Skills and Perks

Skill Training