Nabihah El Sayid/Personal history

	Prior to Starfleet

Nabihah was raised in the city of Ramallah in Palestine. Her mother was a scientist who mostly worked from home, writing articles for science periodicals, and her father was the Imam of a local mosque. People often would tell Nabihah that she inherited the strongest parts of both her parents. The scientific side of her mother and the faithful side of her father.

When she was ten years old she had a life-changing experience. She responded poorly to a series of vaccinations and was stuck at home for a week, very ill and running a high temperature. On the second day, her mother brought home a telescope, so that she could at least study the stars, there were only so many holovids you can watch in a row.

On the final night, as Nabihah studied the heavens again, she experienced a strange celestial event that she had never even heard of before. It looked like two stars dancing over the course of several hours. She studied these stars as the sun came up and the beauty of the event left her awe struck. There in that magical night she saw the splendour of Allah, and His divine grace inside all of the creations of the universe. She decided, as the sky turned blue obscuring her view of the two stars, that she will go out there and explore everything that He has created, discover everything that could be discovered. And maybe even seeing the true nature of Allah.

When Nabihah graduated high school, she immediately wanted to apply to Starfleet Academy, it was all she wanted to do ever since that night with the dancing stars. But after long careful conversations with her parents, she agreed to attend her mother’s alma mater, Tel Aviv University. She completed her masters at the age of twenty-four, after graduation she straight away applied to the academy, and was quickly accepted.

	Career Timeline

• 239604.16 - 239604.29

Sentinel

Ensigns Nabihah El Sayid, Charlena Vanlith, and Andy Monroe were aboard a shuttle in the Shoals heading to their first assignment after graduation. They had all known each other in the academy and had been good friends. When the shuttle shut down in the Gamma Camelopardalis system due to the tetryon radiation, USS Veritas came to their rescue. The three officers were immediately brought on board and were introduced to the ships Captain Roshanara Rahman (whom Nabihah already idolised due to her work in Engineering and her reputation as a Captain), and her first officer Evan Delano.

The three were quickly co-opted by Captain Rahman due to the danger posed by the rogue A.I sentinel. Nabihah had been quickly briefed on the situation and sent along with an away team to the surface of a Class M planet that was found to be home of the A.I, along with her friend Andy Monroe. While exploring what appeared to be ancient ruins, they were set upon by a group of Klingons wielding deadly disruptors. Nabihah froze, but she was saved by Geoffrey Teller diving into her, pulling her behind cover. At first she panicked in the ensuing firefight, but after regaining some composure she realised that the Klingon warriors were nothing but a projection. she disrupted the signal and revealed small silver orbs that the crew had no trouble dispatching. However, an earthquake shook the chamber and a part of the floor dropped away. Leaving Nabihah along with Geoffrey Teller and Kelrod separated from the rest of the group.

They continued through the ruins and eventually found the machine that housed the A.I. With time running out for The Veritas, Geoffrey Teller instructed that the machine be destroyed. Nabihah argued vehemently that this artifact was too important, even going so far as to scream at a superior officer, but in the end she could do nothing to dissuade him, the order was made to fling a destroyed vessel from orbit into the ruins, giving the away team a short window of time to make their escape and be beamed back aboard USS Veritas.

Fortunately, Kelrod located a network of hidden passages that saw the team safely back outside, and Nabihah could only watch from the ship as an enormous gash was left in the continent at the force of the destruction. Though her and Geoffrey Teller started off on the wrong foot, they made amends and soon became fast friends.

• 239605.09 - 239605.28

Play the Part

USS Veritas had limped back to Utopia Planitia for repairs after the beating it took from the Sentinel controlled ships. During that time, Nabihah had been acclimatising to life on the ship, along with her roommate Charlena Vanlith, with whom she was becoming rather close. There was not much else to do with most of the crew away on leave. After the repairs had been completed the crew of the Veritas had been invited to Cait to attend the promotion of Mei'konda to Captain, and his crews reassignment to the USS Astraeus after the destruction of their previous ship USS Montreal.

En route, a strange energy pattern reported by astrometrics caused Evan Delano, who was in command as Roshanara Rahman was still on leave, to alter course to investigate. Near a G class star they found and brought aboard a previously undiscovered Stasis Box, created by the now extinct Slavers. All of these boxes were thought to have been accounted for so the contents, and any kind of defence mechanism the device contained, were a complete mystery. Evan Delano Set about coordinating research efforts into the contents of the box. After showing the crew a recording of a research team being killed in an attempt to open one, he ensured that adequate safety measures were met. Nabihah had been partnered with Charlena Vanlith and Alora DeVeau to scan and study the box while it was kept safe within a containment field.

Nabihah started with a simple non-invasive gravimetric scan, but quantum phase fluctuations all over the surface of the box were interfering. After realising the distortions were occurring in a pattern, she began running calculations so the quantum state of the scanning emissions ran in time to the fluctuations of the box. As the computer was processing this, Charlena Vanlith began behaving erratically. Nabihah was distracted from helping her friend when her console notified her the calculations were complete. She went ahead and ran the scans but a strange resonance between the Slaver box and the scan emissions caused the artifact to hum. Now hysterical, Charlena Vanlith yelled at Nabihah to stop, but when she did not the young engineer aggressively pushed the scientist away from the console, onto the floor.

Both Ensigns were upset about the incident and, despite sharing quarters, did not speak to each for the rest of the journey to Cait. While the project was put on hold due to what could have been a strange reaction to it.

• 239605.31

Relaunch of the Astraeus

All the crew that had departed for shore leave while the ship had been docked at Utopia Planitia rendezvoused with USS Veritas at Cait Spacedock. Where Mei'konda was being promoted at a venue called The Den. Nabihah attended in her dress whites and mingled with the crews of both USS Veritas and USS Astraeus. She mostly conversed with Sheila Bailey and Stennin, piquing his interest with her research into the Slaver Box. She was also fascinated by Sheila's symbiote Rosemary.

During the event, Nabihah noticed an officer of the Astraeus who came to the party dressed in a red qipao and she looked completely stunning in the form fitting red dress. She was almost instantly smitten but too shy to approach her directly. Later on, Nabihah thought she saw Charlena Vanlith marching towards her. She was momentarily frightened. They still hadn't spoken since the incident and Nabihah had no idea what was going through the engineer's mind. Was she still angry with her? Or maybe she even hated her? Thinking about it just made her anxious. But when she looked again, Charlena Vanlith had stopped to speak with someone else.

The night turned exciting when she noticed Roshanara Rahman purposefully gather together a group of officers, which included the woman in the red qipao, so the young scientist decided to follow and see what was happening. It turned out that severe damage on the station, due to a Cardassian Vole infestation, had compromised many of the systems aboard the station, included the transporters. While beaming from the surface for the ceremony Joseph Washington was almost a casualty of the faulty systems when his signal couldn't be brought through. To top it all off while Roshanara Rahman had been briefing them on the situation, an explosion caused a small freighter to careen towards the docked USS Astraeus.

Some of the officers present were directed to stop the freighter from crashing into the Galaxy Class cruiser, while Nabihah El Sayid, Tal Tel-ar, Geoffrey Teller, and Kawakame Shin were sent to resolve the issue of Joseph Washington's degrading transport pattern. The team made it to the primary pattern buffer array, Geoffrey Teller and Tal Tel-ar were able to enter the relay but it was too small to allow anyone else. El Sayid, joined by Kawakame Shin, instead headed to the main sensor relays in an attempt to get them back online to deal with the Vole problem before it caused any further damage.

While swiping away vicious voles left and right, Nabihah and Kawakame Shin brought the station wide sensors online, located every Cardassian Vole in the station, and forwarded the information to P'Ruuras, chief of Cait Spacedock security to clear out the infestation, but not before being notified by Geoffrey Teller that they had managed to save the Admiral, and that the team sent to intercept the stray freighter (which included the woman in the red qipao) were also successful.

Needing a drink after her run in with a horde of Cardassian Voles, Nabihah returned to The Den, covered in grime and a strip of material missing from

• 239606.13 - 239608.13

The First Colony