Tahlin Alse
Ensign Tahlin Alse is an El-Aurian who serves as the operations officer aboard the USS Veritas.
| USS Veritas | ||
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| Tahlin Alse | ||
| Position | Operations Officer | |
| Rank | Ensign | |
| Species | El-Aurian | |
| Gender | Male | |
| DOB | 2369 | |
| Age | 32 | |
| Birthplace | Maravel | |
| Writer ID | C239305TA0 | |
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Vitals
Full Name Tahlin Aiolande Alse Manchu 
Species El-Aurian T/E Rating 0+ (?) Date of Birth June 3rd 2369 Age 32 Place of Birth Aguda Township, Aixa Autonomous Banner, Sarhu League, Imperial State of Maravel Hometown Coranum Sector, Cardassia City, Cardassia Prime Gender Male
Education
PhD, Astrophysics Jagiellonian University, 2396 Masters, Philosophy & History of Science Starfleet Academy, 2393 Bachelors, Philosophy & History of Science/Physics Starfleet Academy, 2393 High School Hildurcrest Preparatory School, 2387 Intermediary School Ghemor Technical Academy, 2383 Elementary School Empress Kojun Day School, 2379
Appearance
Height 6'1 Hair Brown Eyes Blue
Personality
Elegant, whimsical, but also slightly aloof and hieratic, Tahlin has a brisk, indomitable manner who is never waylaid in deed and action though his inner contemplations reveal this is something of a front. While hardly cold or anti-social, Tahlin values professionalism and can sometimes been seen as unsympathetic with his focus on the task at hand. Cultivated and tailored, Tahlin’s glossy and cut-glass exterior masks everything else about him. Most will find that they know incredibly little about him personally and he rarely volunteers information about himself. He is a man who has an incredible amount of self-awareness in regard to his strengths and weaknesses, sometimes to the point of arrogance or self-deprecation. He constantly makes reference to the fact that he is a physics specialist but has proven time and again that his skills and considerable amount of background knowledge are much broader than he lets on, such as his ‘knack’ for electrical systems.
Tahlin is surprisingly at home in large crowds of people, especially formal functions, dinners and assemblies. He’s a great dancer, master of small talk and a fabulous dinner companion. This probably came about from growing up among diplomats and being expected to attend entire seasons of social events with his parents from the time he was a small child. Perhaps growing up in these sometimes vapid and hollow diplomatic, aristocratic and elite circles stunted his development in more meaningful relationships outside of his family.
While his quarters leave little indication of his interests or personal history, Tahlin has very diverse interests to compliment his diverse skill set. He is a champion fencer, a student of history, an accomplished velocity player, a prolific journal writer and likes to press flowers, having a large collection of dried flowers.
Family
Parents Atria (Mors) & Jhelion (Suraan) 
Tahlin's parents are career Federation diplomats, his mother an expert on Federation-Cardassian relations and his father an economic development specialist. Both arrived in Federation space as refugees over a century ago and met each other while being processed on Earth. Since that time they have worked tirelessly for the Federation, that government which gave them shelter and eventually both would feel secure enough to produce a child, Tahlin, on the eve of peace with the Cardassian Union. After the Dominion War Atria was assigned to Cardassia Prime and took her family with her, spending the next 15 years there before returning to Earth in 2391 to accept a professorship at the University of Chicago. Jhelion meanwhile went into business for himself, using contacts he had built over decades of diplomatic work with outlying colonies and powers to develop a small but robust import-export business.
Tahlin enjoys a very close relationship with both of his parents and as their only child has received all of their love, attention and care his entire life. Both worked hard to provide a stable and nurturing environment for their son to grow up in, encouraging his intellectual pursuits and different hobbies. Jhelion in particular has always been conspicuous with his attentions and his concern for his sensitive son's well being, though he sometimes masked it behind humor and jocularity. More passive and hands off than her husband, Atria used different activities to help build her son's self confidence like Tworin and velocity, and always brought him to attend parties and functions to bolster his social skills. Both had reservations, particularly Jhelion, about their son joining Starfleet but never voiced any true objections. Both would've preferred that Tahlin take another path; Jhelion had always seen his son as a medical doctor while Atria tried to groom her son to follow his parents into the foreign service. Both however are proud of their son for what he has accomplished in Starfleet and Jhelion in particular is proud that Tahlin is carrying on his family's military tradition.
Tahlin's relationship with his parents, both individually and as a couple, is the strongest and deepest he has and he's made precious few other connections that are as close as the ones they share as a family. After his first stint in Starfleet, Tahlin returned to Earth to live with them and being together for those three years, away from both of his parents' busy schedules and duties that dominated his childhood, was a rich and fulfilling experience that brought them even closer and helped Tahlin overcome his depression. One of the few uniquely personal effects in Tahlin's quarters on the Veritas are pictures of his family, many from these intervening years between his Starfleet assignments.
Siblings None (that he knows of) Spouse Single Children None
Background
Tahlin Aiolande Alse was born on the Federation Colony of Maravel in the Aguda Township in the Aixa Autonomous Banner of the Sarhu League to Ambassador Atria Mors and Jhellion Suraan, El-Aurian career diplomats in the service of the Federation. As aliens on the Human colony largely populated by peoples from Manchuria, Tahlin’s family was adopted into the Bordered Blue Banner and as such Tahlin speaks Manchu and Chakhar Mongolian as his first languages. Other than his birth on Maravel, his early childhood is unrecorded in his Starfleet file before his parents were assigned to Cardassia Prime in mid 2376 in the aftermath of the Dominion War as part of the occupation and reconstruction forces. It was here that Tahlin would spend the rest of his childhood, coming to consider Cardassia ‘home’ for him and by the time he joined Starfleet he would become a dual citizen of the Cardassian Union and the United Federation of Planets.
Growing up, Tahlin mixed in elite social and political circles befitting his parents’ assignment and would become familiar with nearly everyone important in the new post-war Cardassian government and still counts their children as among his closest friends. As an alien and a symbol of the Federation occupation of Cardassia, Tahlin was sometimes made to feel unwelcome but his youth, coupled with his people’s unique ability to ‘listen’ and assimilate comfortably into other cultures eventually made him in many ways just as Cardassian as his peers. However, Tahlin attended a Federation-style school that was fashionable among the elite of the new democratic government so his indoctrination and ‘Cardassianization’ are woefully incomplete by Cardassian standards and most would only recognize him as El-Aurian with Cardassian trappings. He has an immense appreciation for their arts and literature and his sense of duty is closer to what one might expect of a Cardassian instead of a child of career diplomats in the foreign service. While his childhood was a tug between Federation and Cardassian civilizations, Tahlin did grow up with some uniquely El-Aurian cultural touchstones like the famous El-Aurian fencing/martial art Tworin and collects his people's poetry.
Starfleet was not an obvious choice for Tahlin. Upon his graduation from preparatory school the only viable path on Cardassia for him was the Central University, where he began attending some lectures as a high school student. Initially not considering himself a math or science oriented person, the lectures and professors at the Central University changed his mind towards the sciences and encouraged his exploration of theory and gathering of scientific knowledge while tutoring him in the more ‘hard’, mathematics based portions. It was only on the advice of the wife of one of his mother’s colleagues whose son Tahlin had grown up with, that he applied to Starfleet Academy to study Astrophysics and the Philosophy and History of Science. To his surprise Tahlin was admitted and to the surprise of all he accepted the offer to join Starfleet, leaving the politics of Cardassia for the rigorous training Starfleet Academy had in store for him.
While at the Academy Tahlin was initially a middling student, finding the combined culture shock of the Academy and wider Earth initially quite difficult and without any support system like his extensive social contacts on Cardassia Prime. However after a few Academy mixers and residence hall parties Tahlin quickly found his footing socially but academically it would take him the better part of a year to make the adjustments. Higher level mathematics were still hard for him to process even if he could expound endlessly about cosmological theory. Furthermore, Tahlin was becoming unsure of his purpose in Starfleet. While it had been an 'out' off Cardassia Prime, Tahlin was unsure if he was truly prepared to dedicate his life to Starfleet. During the summer break he instead went to Maravel to visit his childhood friend and now Starfleet officer Chambui Lkhagvasuren rather than return home to Cardassia Prime and it was there that he found a sense of confidence and purpose just from talking to his old friend. He returned to the Academy at the start of the academic year with a new sense of commitment and purpose, more than duty or merely going along with where the winds had taken him.
While Tahlin specialized heavily in physics and philosophy he also found he had great aptitude in electrical and information systems and earned honors in the Academy's Starship Operations courses. A life long lover and student of history Tahlin maintained a perfect unweighted GPA in that field. It was only in his advanced applied physics courses that Tahlin continued to struggle academically, still finding the math involved difficult and tedious. Tahlin would graduate with high marks and commendations but without actual academic honors from Starfleet Academy in 2393 and began his assignment on the USS Constitution-B the following month after graduation.
However Tahlin did not take to starship life. A case of dysthymia overcame him and he returned to Earth in defeat, ostensibly with the focus of completing his Doctorate at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. Now in the presence of family after the Federation withdrawal from Cardassia, his mother and father were a balm to Tahlin's troubled mind, especially his feelings of failure. During this time Tahlin also took extra courses at Starfleet Academy to re-specialize as an Operations Officer as a way to give himself wider utility as an officer, once again shining as an exemplar of starship operations, especially when it came to the ships information and control systems. In the summer of 2396 Tahlin's commission was reactivated and he was reassigned to the USS Veritas on assignment in the Shoals as their new operations officer.
Service History
| Service History | ||||
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| Insignia | Rank | Dates | Posting | Assignment |
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Cadet First Class | 239305.17 | Graduated Starfleet Academy | Science |
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Ensign | 239305.18 - 239307.19 | USS Constitution-B | Science Officer |
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Ensign | 239608.06 - Present | USS Veritas | Operations Officer |
Awards & Service Ribbons
- For award descriptions, see: Awards and Service Ribbons
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Relationships
Friend Chambui Lkhagvasuren 
A decorated Starfleet Officer, Pilot and Helmsmen, Tahlin and Chambui were neighbors growing up on Maravel. While ten years older than Tahlin, Chambui was close with the El-Aurian toddler and frequently looked after him. When she joined Starfleet and he moved to Cardassia Prime the closeness of their relationship did not dissipate and as both matured they adopted an adult relationship based on subspace communications and letters that were almost daily. After Tahlin too joined Starfleet, it was Chambui who helped him adapt to Academy life after his poor first year, spending the summer together at their childhood home on Maravel. Tahlin is forever grateful to Chambui for everything she has done for him and he values her friendship, being one of the few people he would never refuse a request or favor no matter the extremes. Now Lieutenant Commander Lkhagvasuren is currently assigned as the Helm Officer and Commander of the Air Group of the USS Shinano.
Friend Quinton Argive 
Also known as "Q'n'tin of Argive" or just 'Quin', Quinton was Tahlin's roommate at the Academy from his sophomore to senior years, both pursuing combined bachelors and masters degrees in similar six year programs. At one point a mutual attraction and minor flirtation might've led to something more between them but ultimately both moved past it to become close friends over their years spent together. Both vacationed with each other's families during breaks and Tahlin in particular became close with Quinton's Xenexian family and wider clan. When both graduated and received different assignments they continued their relationship by subspace before Tahlin returned to Earth. Upon hearing of his friend's mental health struggles Quinton took a brief leave of absence to be with Tahlin and even briefly considered a ground posting on Earth to be with him again. Tahlin's pleas and Quinton's knowledge that Tahlin would never forgive himself if both their careers were derailed over his issues squashed the idea but such an act still resonates in Tahlin's mind as the show of a true friend with incredible loyalty. Loyalty he did not think he was capable of receiving, or earning. Since then Quinton has continued to serve in Starfleet, rising to the rank of Lieutenant and becoming Assistant Chief Engineer on the USS Harbin and both spent two months leave on Xenex before Tahlin was assigned to the Veritas.
SIM Archive
Ensign Tahlin Alse - Beginnings
NPC Listing · USS Veritas Crew Manifest · Crew History
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