Vada: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 00:26, 26 October 2024

Passenger on the USS Khitomer

Master Chief Petty Officer (ret.) Vada

Rank: Master Chief Petty Officer (Retired)
Location: USS Khitomer
Occupation: Independent Journalist
Species: El-Aurian
Gender: Female
Pronouns: she/her
Age: 125
DoB: 227602.15
Birthplace: Lauresse, El-Auria

Vada (Federation Basic: [vɛədɑ]) (she/her) is an independent journalist and currently a passenger aboard the USS Khitomer. She is a retired Starfleet NCO, retiring with the rank of Master Chief Petty Officer. She completed enlistment and basic training and was posted to the Forberance as a Torpedo Bay Crewman on Stardate 229509.17. She is an El-Aurian from the planet El-Auria and was born on Stardate 227602.15.

Statistics

Full Name: Vada
Other Names: Has gone by several nicknames and pen names over time, especially since leaving Starfleet
Species: El-Aurian
Gender: Female
Date of Birth: February 15th, 2276
Birthplace: Lauresse, El-Auria
Telepathic Status: T0/E0

Appearance

Height: 157 cm (5’2’’)
Hair: Dark Brown
Eyes: Brown
Build: Medium
Birthmarks/Scars: Several old scars, mostly faded or healed over
Handedness: Right-Handed
Taste in Clothing (off duty): Varied, with a large collection from across decades

Personality

Personality Type: ENTP (Extraverted Intuitive Thinking Perceiving)

Manners

Mannerisms: Vada is a good listener, happy to sit back and gain someone’s trust and be a confidant they are all too happy to spill information to. She loves hearing people’s stories and rarely forgets details of what she’s heard. Vada also enjoys telling stories and entertaining people.
Routines: Vada’s days are very unstructured, going wherever the events of the day take her
Speech Patterns: Vada’s voice is usually calm, not betraying any panic and always ready to crack a joke. However, she’s always ready to break out her drill instructor voice when it’s called for. She is fluent in SASS (Starfleet Acronyms Slang and Shorthand)
Carriage and Posture: Walks quickly, but without much regard for her posture

Likes and Dislikes

Favorite Book: The Tragedy of Khamlet, Son of the Emperor of Qo'nos, by Wil'yam Shex'pir
Favorite Color: Scarlet
Favorite Food: Too many to pick from, it’s changed over time. But anything real over replicated.
Hobbies: Chess, traveling, writing, target shooting, tongo, ballet, playing violin
Fears: The Borg; she’d rather face down a Jem’Hadar armed with nothing but a stick then face them again.
Pet Peeves: Anything that gets in the way of a good story, inflexible authority figures, sources who withhold information the public has a right to know

History

Childhood and The Great Assimilation

Vada’s early childhood was a relatively peaceful one. She was born to a psychiatrist, Vollin, and a bartender named Tielra. The family lived in a cliffside cottage overlooking the natural beauty of El-Auria. As soon as she saw how beautiful homeworld was, Vada knew that she wanted to explore it all. She would never get the chance.

The Borg arrived when Vada was still little and began assimilating the entire El-Aurian homeworld. Including her father, who was taken right in front of the family. Tielra took Vada and fled, managing to find passage aboard an ore freighter that fled El-Auria as it was destroyed. Thus began a period where the family was without any permanent home. They found refuge anywhere that would take them or on any ship that would transport them.

Diaspora

After years of wandering, Vada and her mother arrived on Earth in 2288. Tielra opened an inn outside of Paris, catering to visitors to the Federation capital. Vada’s childhood and teenage years were spent helping around in the inn and listening to all of the interesting visitors. While her mother saw Earth as little more than an emergency refuge and didn’t think much one way or another of the Federation, Vada was quick to fall in love with the Human homeworld and saw herself as a citizen of Federation as much as a citizen of what was once El-Auria.

Two of her closest friends growing up were the children of a Starfleet captain who lived in the same town as the family inn. She heard all about stories of adventure in Starfleet. The idea of the organization appealed to her inner explorer. And she was already comfortable with life aboard ships. Starfleet seemed like an excellent opportunity for her. But her mother vehemently disagreed. While Vada was an adult by Federation standards, Tielra took the view that Vada wouldn’t really be considered mature enough until she was in her 30s if not all the way up to 50. She was not about to let her little girl go anywhere near such a dangerous organization until she was responsible enough to make that decision for herself.

Enlisting in Starfleet

At age 18. Vada decided to enlist in Starfleet anyway. After basic training she was assigned to the USS Forberance as a torpedo bay crewman. For almost the first ten years of her career, working with weapons and explosives was the focus of her career. She learned everything there was to know about probes, photon torpedoes, and other ordnance used by Starfleet. At the start, she rose through the ranks a bit slower than usual. As a crewman she was prone to getting into mischief and ended up being disciplined more than once. Despite a rough early start, she found her footing and went on to work as an EOD and torpedo specialist.

In 2305, she underwent crossrating training as a logistics specialist. She worked on the then-ancient {{USS|Unity}, an aging Constitution class. Before the creation and full implementation of the operations department and the operations bridge officer role, logistics fell under the command division and worked with personnel from various departments to ensure proper supplies and resources were allocated according to need. After the Unity, Vada moved to Starbase 11 and continued in her role.

Starbase 11 was where she met Commander Eneaol, the base’s Intelligence Director. She was his yeoman for a little over two years. He arranged for her to become an intelligence specialist, supporting Starfleet Intelligence operations both from the starbase and sometimes in the field in the Klingon Empire. The job taught her investigative skills that would come in handy much later in her life. A potentially promising career as an intelligence asset was put on hold after a stabbing by an Orion Syndicate enforcer required her to take medical leave on Earth to recover.

Senior NCO

After a few months of medical leave on Earth, Vada transferred to security as a master-at-arms. She started on the Oberth class Benajmin Franklin and then the Ambassador class Yamaguchi. On the Yamaguchi, Vada got her first taste of command. While some previous assignments had placed her in temporary positions of command, she rarely held a supervisory role. Exceptional job performance had carried her to chief with limited experience as a proper NCO leading teams of less-experienced enlisted.

Aboard the Yamaguchi, she was the non-commissioned officer in charge in security for Alpha Shift for four and a half years. To her surprise, leadership came naturally. She was a good listener and able to keep peace within the ranks of the security department. The Alpha Shift team ran like a well-oiled machine. Vada even had the ear of the assistant chief of security, suggesting tweaks to how things were run. To her annoyance, she was transferred in 2318, moving to the USS Melroy.

Aboard both the Excelsior class USS Melroy, and the USS Kyushu, Chief Vada served as chief of the boat, the senio-rmost enlisted officer available on each ship. She monitored the crewmen and NCOs of each department, monitoring their concerns and bringing them to the captain. The task saw her back in red. After three years, Captain Scott of the Kyushu recommended her for a prestigious assignment for senior NCO’s, a post at Starfleet Academy as a drill instructor.

What she expected to be a minor but interesting assignment would dominate her Starfleet career. Vada rose through the ranks of the enlisted instructors at the Academy, teaching a few generations of Starfleet recruits what it meant to be Starfleet officers. In 2352, she moved to the Starfleet Command School, instructing cadets undergoing advanced command training and trainees in the Officer Candidate School who earned their commissions through atypical means. While a tough instructor, Vada was more understanding than most and would give advice to struggling recruits and cadets to foster their growth into new crewmen and ensigns ready to take on the galaxy.

Retirement from the Service

After a long tenure at Starfleet Academy, Vada returned to security as a senior NCO in the security department on Earth Spacedock. The posting only lasted a few months. In early 2367, a Borg cube destroyed 39 Starfleet ships and came within minutes of assimilating Earth itself. Multiple ships that Vada had served on had just been destroyed and another homeworld was about to be assimilated. And Vada froze. She failed to reach her duty station and remained in the bunks, having a serious anxiety attack.

There was a disciplinary panel, but the panel was sensitive to the reasons behind her failure to report to duty and were not considering anything too serious in terms of discipline. However, Vada requested to retire from Starfleet altogether. If the Borg were back and finally in the Federation, she was not confident in her ability to face that threat again. She was allowed to retire in good standing on Stardate 236704.18.

She started writing after her retirement. She wrote a book about her own early life as a refugee of the Borg and would write multiple fictional titles too. A friend submitted one of her accounts of what seeing the assimilation of a planet was like to the FNS on her behalf, getting her a job offer as a correspondent. A position Vada accepted just in time for galactic affairs to become very newsworthy.

The Dominion War served as a trial by fire for the new journalist. She was out in the field as a war reporter, seeing the devastation of the war firsthand. Her Starfleet experience made her a logical choice for dangerous front line assignments. It was during the war that a concealed phaser became a standard part of Vada’s journalistic toolkit. She leveraged her Starfleet background to get close to Starfleet units and was one of the closest civilians to the fighting during battle.

While her Dominion War coverage was exemplary, disagreements with management and a newly-developed habit of sticking her nose where it didn’t belong ensured that Vada would not be with the Federation News Service for much longer. She enjoyed her newfound freedom from decades of protocol and military life a bit too much and could sometimes rub people the wrong way with her meddling.

Leisure Travel and Independent Journalism

Postwar, Vada spent most of the 2380s traveling without much in the way of any responsibilities. She did whatever was interesting. Bartending, teaching, working on a freighter. And the whole time she got to see new things and hear new stories from interesting people. But one event would draw her back in to journalism. The destruction of Romulus.

Given popular attitudes about the attempted evacuation of Romulus and their status as a former enemy, Vada worried the struggles of the Romulan people would be ignored by major publishers. So, she spent four years living among the survivors and documenting precious Romulan history now at risk of being forgotten. She could sympathize with the loss of a homeworld and gathered various Romulan perspectives on the future of the Empire and of Romulans everywhere. She managed to get her stories published in a few smaller outlets and wrote a book titled In The Shadow of Hobus, documenting the effects on the Romulan people.

After that, Vada went to hotspots of newsworthy activity all over the Alpha Quadrant. As her reputation improved, she saw her work published by larger outlets without ever signing on with any of them as a full-time journalists. She remained independent, flying around the galaxy and finding truth wherever it was hidden.

In the months leading up to Frontier Day, Vada arrived in the [Alpha Isles] to report on the newest developments in the region. And the region did not disappoint, with a large-scale battle kicking off early into her newest assignment. She arrived at Deep Space 33 looking for help as well as new opportunities.

Languages

Fluent

El-Aurian: Learned during her childhood.
Federation Standard: Learned during her early years on Earth.
Romulan: Learned from a combination of outside courses and self-teaching to prepare for her story covering the plight of Romulans post-Hobus.

Conversational

Bajoran: Studied as a hobby after her retirement from Starfleet.
Ferengi: Studied to help with investigative journalism in the Ferengi Alliance.

Intermediate

Klingon: Learned during the course of her duties operating in Klingon space.

Basic

Cardassian: Learned in the field while interviewing members of the Cardassian resistance.
Dominionese: Bits and pieces picked up during background research for stories during the war.

Starfleet Records

Service History and Service Ribbons

Starfleet Service History
	Recruit	229509.17	Completed Enlistment Training	Enlistee
	Crewman 3rd Class	229509.17 - 229608.14	USS Forberance	Torpedo Bay Crewman
	Crewman 2nd Class	229608.14 - 22989.25	USS Forberance	Torpedo Bay Crewman
	Crewman 1st Class	22989.25 - 229911.24	USS Princeton	Torpedo Bay Technician
	Petty Officer 3rd Class	229911.24 - 230307.05	USS Princeton	EOD Specialist 3rd Class
	Petty Officer 3rd Class	230307.05 - 230502.06	USS Princeton	Torpedo Specialist 3rd Class
Crossrating Training
	Petty Officer 3rd Class	230504.12 - 230509.12	USS Unity	Logistics Specialist 3rd Class
	Petty Officer 2nd Class	230509.12 - 230604.18	USS Unity	Logistics Specialist 2nd Class
	Petty Officer 2nd Class	230604.18 - 230710.02	Starbase 11	Logistics Specialist 2nd Class
	Petty Officer 2nd Class	230710.02 - 231003.30	Starbase 11	Intelligence Director’s Yeoman 2nd Class
	Petty Officer 1st Class	231003.30 - 231302.15	Starbase 11	Intelligence Specialist 1st Class
Medical Leave (Earth)
	Petty Officer 1st Class	231305.27 - 231308.20	USS Benjamin Franklin	Master-at-Arms 1st Class
	Petty Officer 1st Class	231308.20 - 231311.02	USS Yamaguchi	Master-at-Arms 1st Class
	Chief Petty Officer	231311.02 - 231311.28	USS Yamaguchi	Chief Master-at-Arms
	Chief Petty Officer	231311.28 - 231805.15	USS Yamaguchi	Security Alpha Shift NCOIC
	Chief Petty Officer	231805.15 - 232208.29	USS Melroy	Chief of the Boat
	Senior Chief Petty Officer	232208.29 - 232502.13	USS Kyushu	Chief of the Boat
	Senior Chief Petty Officer	232502.13 - 233002.13	Starfleet Academy	Drill Instructor
	Senior Chief Petty Officer	233002.13 - 234304.19	Starfleet Academy	Senior Drill Instructor
	Master Chief Petty Officer	234304.19 - 235210.21	Starfleet Academy	Recruit Division Commander
	Master Chief Petty Officer	235210.21 - 236701.01	Starfleet Command School	Class Master Chief Petty Officer
	Master Chief Petty Officer	236701.01 - 236704.18	Earth Spacedock	Master Chief Master-at-Arms
RETIRED - Stardate 236704.18