Lily Ventu

Airseé Lily Ventu
Character Type	Personal NPC
Biographical Information
Homeworld	Earth
Born	April 24, 2344
Age	47
Physical Description
Species	Human
Gender	Female
Family Information
Father	Toré Ventu
Mother	Starlotte Rouaix
Sibling(s)	Rose Rouaix Ventu
Partner	Hayden Reynolds
Child(ren)	Rhys "Saturday"
Political Information
Affiliation	United Federation of Planets
Position	Secretary of the Exterior

Aresee Lily Ventu was an officer of the Federation Starfleet whose primary career included the five-year period from 2382 to 2387. Career highlights included her position as commanding officer of a major Federation installation, Starbase 118, in 2386 and 2387; as Federation ambassador to the Trinity and Serellan sectors; and as executive officer on the Federation starships Tiger and Triumphant. In those roles, Ventu was able to participate directly in important galactic events, including the defeat of tyrant Brol Isak and the emergence of the Reapers as a major military force. She has also made diplomatic first contact with the Avor, the Senmeten, and the Lysandro. Commander Ventu disappeared during her tour of duty as commanding officer of Starbase 118; reports are varied, but it appears that she was involved in the dissident movement on Beta Pictoris IV.

Personnel file

• Serial number: UV 545-982
• Last active rank: Commander
• Most recent assignment: Commanding officer of Starbase 118

Biography

Childhood

Aresee Lily Ventu was born in Trondheim, Norway on Earth on May 24, 2352. She was both an only child and a bit of a miracle baby for Matilda, a merchant marine trader, and Jarin, an FSN newsman. It came as quite a shock, then, when Aresee was diagnosed at five with bipolar disorder. The diagnosis was initially upsetting to her parents, but Aresee quickly adapted to the pill regimen.

At the age of ten, Aresee experienced a particularly bout of mania, broke some school property, and injured two other children. In the aftermath of the "Playground Incident," three pediatric specialists examined her and discovered that she had been misdiagnosed as a young child and actually suffered from genetic hypercyclothemia, a rare, recessive, but also very major form of bipolar disorder. Aresee's medical and counseling therapies were adjusted accordingly, but the incident left her embarrassed and withdrawn, and she was home-schooled for the next eight years.

Academy Years

Acceptance

Aresee was eager for a new adventure as she came out of her secondary school education. She requested information from Starfleet Academy, and was contacted personally by a recruitment officer, Ensign Abby Roberts. Roberts answered all of Aresee's questions, up to the date of the entrance exam. After a few weeks of waiting, however, Aresee received her failing results.

Far from depressing her, Aresee was galvanized by the experience: She was more determined than ever simply to move somewhere, and so applied to several schools around the world and was accepted to a few. She was in the midst of making her final decision in the summer of 2370 when she was contacted again by Ensign Roberts.

Although she's not supposed to, Roberts reveals that Aresee was within the +/- 3% of being accepted, and that with all the non-acceptances the Academy has received, many late re-testers will have a good chance of getting in. In short, Aresee was convinced enough to take the test again, and when her acceptance came, she went with her first choice and her initial feeling.

The First Few Years

The first days and weeks at the para-military Academy were quite an awakening for Aresee. To her benefit, Ensign Roberts continued to serve as cadet liaison, and she served in a further capacity as Aresee's advisor and don. Aresee continued to see a campus counselor for a year before declaring herself a counseling major. She also entertained a few pre-medical classes, but balked at the idea of a full multi-year follow up doctoral degree. Perhaps the most exciting think to happen to Aresee during her first year was meeting Nick Parks. Both of them took more time than "normal" to adjust to Academy proceedings, and his indecisive and flighty air complimented her previous hermitic existence. By the end of first November, they were more than friends. At eighteen, Nick was Lily's first boyfriend, but - free of the strict roles of her high school and expectations of what she expected - the relationship blossomed.

Aresee continued at the Academy for another two years. Classes grew harder and her amount of free time decreased. Ensign Roberts received a promotion and an offer to serve as a tactical officer aboard the USS Martel. Finally, when Nick broke up with Aresee in December of their junior year, she went off all of her treatments, ended up severely depressed, and missed all of her finals. When her failing grade are reported, Aresee veered to the extreme and applied immediately for a medical leave of absence. Though it was granted, she had left the Academy campus ten minutes after submitting the paperwork.

The Borderlands Interim

Aresee borrowed one of her mother's refitted trading vessels and struck out on her own. She set course out of the Federation, toward the edge of the galaxy, determined to explore a strange region known as the Borderlands. The once-insular woman learned quickly what was required in largely lawless space, and she chose the life of trader and explorer for the next four years.

Her Borderland stay came to close when she put herself at risk to rescue a young girl named Alexa, and was subsequently chased away by the enemies of the girl's late family. Aresee returned to the Federation and her family, and while Alexa was happy to become a member of their family, Aresee had lived the life of a trade-to-day trader for too long, and wanted something more than a string of jobs.

A Career and an Officer

With her previous work behind her, Aresee was fairly certain what she wanted to do, and so she set out to do it. By 2382, she had finished her studies at Starfleet Academy and graduated as an ensign, but she had also found time to obtain a doctorate in psychiatry. Her friends were few and far between, as her old allies were long gone, but she made it to her final trial run, a holo-cruise from Starbase 118 aboard the USS Centris, in August of 2382.

Early Starfleet Career

Victory

Aresee's first assignment was to the USS Victory, just as that ship was ordered to Tanuga IV. Aresee was assigned as counselor and medical assistant on a planetary triage team, there to assist the coup-torn planet. In the course of her duties, she was abducted by entities unknown. Despite deep-mind probes and many hours of meditation, she is currently uncertain what happened while she was a hostage. Aresee was rescued by a team from the Victory and returned to the ship's Sickbay. There, she spent several weeks off-duty and in technologically-induced resting periods, regaining her health.

The Victory's next mission took the crew to the border of the Trinity Sector, near both Romulan and Klingon space. The goal of the mission was to recover a platoon of marines whose ship had, officially, "wandered off course" and ended up near the (officially) abandoned Romulan Celipentha Station. Disguised as a Romulan, Aresee assisted the command crew in infiltrating the base, which had been reactivated by the Tal Shiar. The unexpected arrival of Aresee's mother complicated the situation, and the Starfleet teams were barely able to escape with their lives.

Then-Lieutenant Ventu was offered her first chance at command when the Victory suffered a total power failure in June 2383, stranding the command staff in different areas of the ship.

During the Victory's next mission, Aresee was assisting with the transport of several Bajoran diplomats when the Victory became a temporal battlefield, playing host to a variety of factions from a number of time periods. Aresee herself was "phased out" of temporal sync by a temporal agent named Aurelie Trenet, though she enlisted the help of her captain, Robin Phoenix, to resolve the situation.

Constitution

With the Victory's decommissioning and her own promotion to lieutenant commander, Aresee was assigned to the Constitution as second officer. Her first and only mission there involved the colony world Angel One, and its petition for Federation membership. While the negotiations took place, Aresee had the unexpected task of rebuffing a terrorist invasion of the Constitution.

Also aboard the Constitution, Aresee was reunited with Nick Parks, now a lieutenant in the sciences division. They re-kindled their relationship during the Constitution's shore leave to Risa, just in time for Aresee's next transfer to be made permanent: She had impressed her superiors and was being moved to the USS Triumphant.

Later Starfleet Career

Triumphant

During the transfer period, Aresee decided to use her middle name as her given name, and so asked her new crew to begin referring to her as "Lily." She and Nick transferred as executive officer and chief of operations, respectively.

The Triumphant was sent by Starfleet to open trade negotiations with the Free Trade Union at its base of operations, the Asterospolis. The political mission involved a lot of alliances and betrayals, as well as the tyrant Brol Isak and his modified Dominion battlecruiser. Nearly half the crew was lost or incapacitated in the resultant battles, including the Triumphant's captain, Rhys Bejain, and forcing Lily, Nick, and Lieutenant, junior grade Quinn Reynolds into the command posts.

Although they overcame Isak, the negotiations were eventually a failure and the Triumphant decommissioned shortly after its mission due to the damage it had sustained during its mission.

Independence

Lily was transferred to the USS Independence as that ship's chief of medicine and counselor, and later acting first officer. Aboard the Independence, she continued to serve with Quinn and met her cousin, Doctor Hayden Reynolds, the man she would eventually marry.

Lily's first mission of note was a mission of aid to the TE-IV colony world, which quickly turned into a terrorist/hostage situation. The most memorable part for Lily was being stranded alone with a gravely injured Quinn, and being forced to care for her until help came.

Later that year, Lily and the Independence were flung across the galaxy by an unstable wormhole without their commanding officer, chief of medicine, or security chief, forcing Lily and Hayden into the places of first officer and medical chief, respectively. The Independence successfully made a few first contacts before getting itself home, and the results of the unexpected mission had been so favorable that the Independence's current executive officer, Sidney Riley was given her own ship, and Lily was assigned as her first officer.

Tiger

The Tiger's first mission, in which it encountered the Reapers, was an unqualified disaster. Nearly one-third of the crew perished when the Reapers attacked, and it was only thanks to the quick assistance of the newly-discovered Avor race that the ship was not destroyed.

During the Tiger's layover and refit, Lily finally married Hayden Reynolds, and also requested a period of leave to attend a counseling conference on Betazed. The conference turned into a first contact scenario when a non-human race named the Senmeten initiated contact with the group, which included a number of telepaths.

Just after the conference and her return to the Tiger, Lily discovered that she was pregnant, and it was this discovery that led her to request a transfer to Starbase 118.

Starbase 118

"At the very least, I want to save the captain's life before I get my own ship."

(Lily, July 2384)

Lily and Hayden moved to Starbase 118, and Lily took up a job as diplomatic attaché to the region in the hope that it would be primarily a desk job. Although it was, ostensibly, it was barely a few weeks after she'd given birth to her son that she was ordered back to duty to deal with a major event, a mysterious Klingon pandemic and the visitation of a Klingon opera company. When an opera star was murdered, Quinn was arrested for the crime and Lily and Hayden were both part of the team that went to rescue her.

Following the rescue, Lily was assigned as temporary CO to the USS Prospero for a series of war games with the USS Crazyhorse. During the course of the games, Lily and her crew were captured by a group of alien extremists who had taken over the homeworld of a gas giant species called the Lysandro. With Lily's team's help, the Lysandro were able to defeat their attackers, and Lily and her team were subsequently rescued.

At the crew's leave on Vulcan, Admiral Rocar of Starbase 118 announced that he was promoting Lily to commander, and that he had chosen her to succeed him as commanding officer. Lily's first task as CO was to answer the growing threat of the Klingon disease. She dispatched Ambassador Delinda Sharee to the Klingon Empire while she and new-FO Quinn Reynolds dealt with a species-jumping disease variant on the starbase itself.

Personal Life

Lily is a woman of singular purpose - counseling and diplomacy, and the routes those fields have taken her down - but she is not without hobbies, pastimes, and various intellectual and recreational pursuits.

The scientific field Lily is most interested in, botany, is ironically the one she's worst at. She had no head for the subject in secondary home-schooling or in the Academy, though she found the nomenclature fascinating. She still aspires to be an avid gardener, though her "gardening" usually amounts to maintaining a few houseplants in her office and her quarters. Even then, the plants usually meet their deaths inside a few weeks. The one that hasn't is a gigantic and robust potted aloe that has survived since Lily's assignment to the Tiger

Lily enjoys the arts in many forms. Thanks to her sister Alexa, she has a basic understanding in modern dance; thanks to her friend Quinn, she knows a bit about classical music. She enjoys reading, primarily mystery and historical fiction, as well as acting out holonovels in those genres. She also maintains a rather extensive collection of cookbooks, though the desire usually is much greater than the produced effort when it comes to Lily's cooking.

Personal relationships

Hayden Reynolds

"Tell Hayden... Tell him that if he's got any sense, he'll hold on to you. I think you'd be good for him, Lily. With any luck, he could be good for you, too."

(from Quinn Reynolds, January 2385)

Quinn Reynolds

"I'm dying, aren't I?" "Yes."

(Quinn and Lily, January 2385)

Nick Parks

"Your female is clothed, human! Sell the clothes to me ...and the female!"

(From a Risan Ferengi to Nick re:Lily, June 2384)

Vojana Satscher

"We all know you're strong! You wouldn't be here if you weren't. You are our strength, and even more importantly, [the captain's] strength, but nobody asks how you cope with it. Where's your strength?"

(from Dr. Vojana Satscher, September 2385)

Tildaen Ethelwin

"It's alright. You can ta-talk about if it you want. (beat) You're among friends."

(Tildaen to Lily, September 2384)

Captains

Captain Robin Phoenix

"No one can expect you to be immortal, or untouchable. They - we - don't want a god. We want someone who will lead us well, someone we can trust, someone who will keep us as safe. You've done all that and more. You have exceeded everyone's expectations, even Starfleet's, even if they don't know it yet."

(Lily to Robin Phoenix, November 2383)

Captain Daydan Taboo

"I disagree, Lily; not only do I think you will be a great First Officer, I also think that when the time comes you will make a first rate Captain too."

(from Daydan, June 2384)

Captain Rhys Bejain

"Pray Starfleet doesn't ask you to do anything unethical themselves. It will happen eventually, Ventu. Then you have to look into your heart and see if you can live with yourself afterward."

(from Rhys, December 2385)

Captain Sidney Riley

"I feel like I'm losing myself, Sid. Like I had this ideal vision of my life, and it's ... well, not the same, but that's obvious. I'm not the same. I'm not the woman I saw, the woman I was."

(Lily to Sidney, March 2385)

Admiral Rocar

"I don't know about that, sir. You don't look a day over, ah.... (beat) however old you are, anyway."

(Lily to Rocar, July 2386)

Memorable quotes

Lily's Quotes

"I needed closure. It's the hardest thing to overcome ... I'm sure you remember, learning that in grief counseling ... "MIA" is much harder to deal with than a real body. Is she alive? Is she dead? At what point do I stop wishing that she'll come home? But she came back. She's alive! ...And I'm okay now."

(Lily about her mother, to Robin Phoenix, May 2383)

"I never even saw myself leaving the Victory, but since it was decommissioned, I've been on three different ships in less than a year. How do I make my mark? How do I convince anyone that I'm serious about what I do? Hell, what is it that I do? My position changes so much that I'm not even sure anymore."

(September 2384)

"The office is yours now, so don't be afraid to do with it as you will. Within reason, of course. If I hear you've set it on fire or anything, I'm going to come back and beat you senseless."

(Lily to new counselor Scott, May 2385)

"I kept looking at that [casualty] list and asking myself, what would be better? That this was our first mission, and I didn't know them? Or that we'd lost them all after months or years of being together?" (August 2385)

"It is because of Starfleet and the Federation's wise investments in research, colonization, and alliances with many different (beat) "alien" cultures, that we are able to continue the broad scope of our effort. Our quadrant of the galaxy has benefited more from mutual cooperation than any single military empire or religious doctrine could ever achieve through force or indoctrination."

(Lily to an Academy class, September 2385)

"Captain, I believe you have working sensors, yes? Working, I should point out, along with most of the other systems aboard your charming vessel, and very much unlike this station. Well, I'd suggest using your working sensors to scan for the large starship bearing down on yours at the moment. It should be easy to spot: It's the one with the weapons aimed directly at your bridge."

(Lily to an invading ship, October 2385)

"I'm not so much 'learning as I go' as I am just flying smack into whatever-the-hell-happens-next."

(November 2385)

"Mystery, intrigue, politics - they ought to just stay in books, where they belong."

(December 2385)

"But that's where we're different. Today, I'm still her friend, but you've dishonored the very idea of 'friendship.'"

(Lily to a Klingon about a mutual friend, March 2386)

Quotes About Lily

"Rarely have I met a counselor with such dedication, with such potential and with such a hard head."

(from Captain Robin Phoenix, January 2383)

"If they can take a former hothead rebel like me, and turn me into diplomat, they can work wonders with you."

(from Ambassador Rhys, December 2385)

"I think we may have avoided an interstellar incident thanks to your efforts."

(from Starbase 118 XO Delinda Sharee, April 2386)

"Whilst aboard the USS Tiger Lily Ventu led crew members from some excellent missions. Her role as Starfleet Diplomatic Corps' General Envoy on Starbase 118 was foretold through her encounter with the Avora Network ... She was the driving-force behind this first contact and Captain Sidney Riley wrote a strong recommendation stating that Lieutenant Commander Ventu should be recognized for her efforts there. On the Starbase, Lieutenant Commander Ventu has taken on difficult task of heading up the newly created department and position and has created something truly interesting and solid. She is one of the fleet's most talented officers and adds a lot to every mission and we recognize this by rewarding her The Order of StarFleet Merit and Achievement, First Class."

(from Fleet Admiral Wolf, January 2386)