Physical Description

Name:  Amarande Xiiv
Species: Trill/Vulcan/Unknown?
Gender: Female
Age: 30 - 20.12.2350
Height: 4'10"
Weight: 104
Build/Body Type: Lean, well muscled and toned
Complexion: Freckled, with Trill spots descending from forehead and temples
Hair Color: Red with white streaks in hair
Hair Style: Long, usually tucked into an elaborate knot or braid or partially up and pinned with a hair clip.
Eye Color: Light green/hazel
Voice (optional): Soft, somewhat smokey, gravelled
Off-Duty Clothing Preferences: Prefers loose clothing, always neat, tends to unconsciously picks clothing in hues that play up her unusual green eyes. Darker browns, deep greens.
Distinguishing Features: Her genetically inherited white streak from a mother and father she has never met. Her almost unnervingly pale green eyes. Pointed ears, Vulcan.
Face Claim: Bridget Regan
Character Image:





Personal History

Early Life/Pre-Starfleet Career:

Symbiont: Xiiv
PREVIOUS HOSTS
Tarvia (f)
Interspecies Integration Communications Director 
D’jiani Institute of Communications, Trill Homeworld
Calm, dignified, penchant for hard liquor and the ladies but never forgot a face or a language

Noirya (f)
Transit Race Pilot
Held the fastest recorded time at the Anyanati Galactic Races for 20yrs
Daredevil, stubborn, acerbic wit
(d.) Shaving that last second off her own record well into her 10th decade, with a smile

Lorisa (f)
Xenobiologist, Virology
Helped cure 109 variants of Xenobiologic viruses as part of a team of scientists at Polloi Station near the edge of Federation/Klingon space
Loud, mischievous, terrible at finishing jokes because she was always getting distracted by that one idea that leads to a breakthrough, fearless, loved bloodwine, and Klingon, Vulcan dishes, wide range of gastronomical delights, really.
Practised mixed martial arts from several different worlds

Beloiz (m)
Mathematician 
Vulcan Colony of Asaris III
Obtained 3 PhDs. from Astrophysics, Mathematics, and Biology (a fondness for Orchids)
Won several awards for groundbreaking contributions to the field
V. quiet, extremely focused, published 59 books - among those published were works on advanced mathematical theory as applied to subspace harmonics, astrophysics, and cross-breeding rare orchids, and a memoir about his colony life and interactions.

Matenen (m)
Artificial Intelligence Specialist 
Daystrom Institute, Earth
Doctor of Applied Artificial Intelligence and Bionics, Positronic Relay Enhancements Specialist

Koris (m)
Asst. Liaison Director of Surgery
Vulcan colony of Telek IV
Symbiont Selection Committee member for Telek IV

CURRENT HOST

Born on Vulcan to unknown mother and father, adopted with younger twin brother by Vulcan Ambassador to Trill, M’riyat, and Trill Xenobiologist Gentan who had two daughters of their own already. Amarande and her brother both had the hallmarks of being half-Vulcan in that they had slightly pointed ears and eyebrows that slanted upward.

As a child Amarande was precocious but frustrated. When she couldn't do something - running, for example, she'd exhaust herself and pitch a complete fit over it. If there wasn't something in her hand for her to examine, she'd grab something to examine just to have something to do with her hands. She was also one for taking things apart and putting them together again. Puzzles were her favourite thing and remain so.

Early on she had talents for the Sciences and a keen sense of empathy for other living beings. Her vivacious, bright and bubbly nature wasn't frowned upon by her mother so much as it was gently encouraged to flourish elsewhere in her life than within the realm of academics. Every educational challenge she met and excelled in but her favourites were Science and Linguistics. School was easy for her in that breezy sort of some kids have it. She did go to a Vulcan school, which meant she had a fantastic start when it came to the sciences.

Amarande, when rather young, figured that learning a language without a universal translator was better than needing to rely on one. After all, there were new aliens out there whose languages wouldn’t be in the catalogue. Amarande decided that if her mouth could make it, she’d learn it or try. It didn’t matter what the science subject was, really, she was pretty into it. She was enthralled buy astrophysics, mathematics, and medicine (from herbology to medicinal practices across cultures and species) were her early favourites. Eventually, though, she knew she had to pick something to study and have a profession in. It wasn't until they were on a transport that she figured out where she belonged.

When she was eleven, the whole family packed up and went to Trill to start M'riyat's diplomatic duties on Trill. In transit, their diplomatic transport vessel was hijacked by terrorists, leaving dozens critically injured during the attack. The doctor on board, Elisa Trent and the medical staff were severely understaffed as many of the personnel injured were their own staff. Trent enlisted young Amarande’s aid to stabilise as many injured as possible before proper aid could arrive in the form of Starfleet assistance. Amarande continued to assist the injured, staying by the medical personnel’s sides, watching and learning, eyes wide with fascination. When they lost several of the crew to trauma too advanced and beyond the capabilities of even the Federation’s medical teams, it began her decades-long love affair with medicine and was the flashpoint for her perfectionism when it came to the treatment of alien species’ traumatic injuries.

She immediately began courses in emergency medical procedures, even if her ‘patients’ were holographic in nature. Amarande learned at light speed, never satisfied with her results, always adding more casualties, different kinds of wounds, replicating the hijacking victims over and over trying to save them in and around regular coursework and through several different programs as a medic. At seventeen, she began her formal training in medicine and then, when she was satisfied with her training, she began Starfleet Academy.

Despite her dedication, her application to become a Symbiont candidate was received and ultimately rejected. Her reasons for wanting to be Joined were not only the preservation of knowledge but a driving need to further her own knowledge in medicine and the preservation of life itself. She was more than just bright, she had the spark the selection committee had been looking for but in the end, it was her Vulcan side that made the rejection official. It hit her hard and the only way she could cope was to slam herself into study, practice, and more study. It motivated her to do better and felt kinda vindictive at the same time. Like...screw you, I'll show you or something.

NOTES ON XIIV


Xiiv's previous hosts had a pioneering spirit and drive that ultimately resonated deeply with her. Not only would Amarande give Xiiv’s long line of fascinating characters’ legacies lives, but she’d also add to them with her own accomplishments and feats - wherever they took her.

She was joined to Symbiont Xiiv pretty much three hours into her 20th birthday, on a ship heading to Trill.

Prior to her emergency Joining, she was considered a rising star on her own with a talent for language, mathematics, astrophysics, and showed a high aptitude for medical theory with several courses in emergency medical intervention prior to her enrollment at Starfleet Medical with the express purpose of punching through Starfleet Medical as fast and as high scoring as possible. She wanted to make her mark as hard as possible as if she was still sticking to the Commission for their denial. Amarande was so close to rejecting her Vulcan side entirely, something that she was proud of being but something that had denied her one of the one things in life she truly wanted.

JOINING

Her joining with Xiiv at 20 was more emergency than anything as it wound up that during an off-world trip that Xiiv's last host, mathematician Koris, fell down a sharp embankment during a really, really terrible storm, striking his head and nearly severing his spinal cord. It was so bad that he came very close to dying on the spot. Quick thinking by several cadets, including Amarande, kept him alive but the symbiont Xiiv, had to be enjoined, then joined to Amarande to keep the symbiont alive. By the time she got back to Trill, the process was irreversible.

Academy/Technical Academy (if Starfleet):


STARFLEET MEDICAL ACADEMY


She spent the majority of her adolescence knowing exactly what she was supposed to be and considered several research grants after applying at seventeen. She graduated Starfleet Medical with top honours in Xenobiology, Xenobotany, and specialising in surgical intervention across a wide range of species. Amarande found it wasn’t enough to sate her own need to be more the proficient and looked back on several of her offers, one from a Vulcan Science and Medical vessel due to depart for its own research and relief purposes. She was noted as a very hard, focused worker with little time for goofing off and she slammed through courses like a machine. Soft-spoken as she was, she consistently made choices, and risks, that meant she would go to any lengths to save a patient. While her effort was commendable, it could also be dangerous and reckless.

In the end, after graduating, she chose to embark on a six-year mission with the Vulcan Auxiliary Medical Fleet to aid wartorn areas in the aftermath of the Dominion War and other conflicts.

Previous Assignments (if applicable):

Her leave from active service was approved by Starfleet Medical for the mission duration of six years, then another six spent working with new species to aid in their adaptation into Starfleet life, culture, and health catalogues and surgical needs. Please see the following for more information.



Rather than begin serving aboard a ship, she found herself taking a completely different path - a posting with a Vulcan crew as their resident trauma surgeon. Their mission was to relieve war pressures in a what could hardly be said a jaunt around space. It did meant she’d get non-stop practise on a staggering amount of war casualties from one conflict to another.

She took the lessons the mission gave her and embraced them, honing her skills in the medical field and expanding them each time she treated a new patient. Amarande also learned that she couldn't save everyone, even if she worked harder and faster than she ever had before. That lesson - that not everyone could be pulled back from the brink of death was incredibly difficult for her to learn. It was the way of things, of life, really. She lost sleep on it and continues to fuel herself with caffeine and stimulant-based drinks.

She knows that the faces of the dead will haunt her until she learns to let their deaths go.

During this voyage, she also finished a doctorate in Xenobiology and Xenobotany and her thesis was published shortly after she left to begin the New Species Initiative Program. Her thesis centred on Xenobiology and the use of Xenobotany when medical stores have depleted.

Upon finishing her six-year voyage she contacted Starfleet Command with the intention of applying for reassignment. This time, after dropping by Trill for a short holiday, she hopes very much to be aboard a ship once more and on her way to Chief Medical Officer.

Birthdate: 2350.20.12
Birthplace: Vulcan

Trill: Living on her species' planet, Trill, her parents settled on a major city on the largest peninsula called Iklan on the coast of the Turek Sea. Her mother commuted to Leran Manev to attend to her duties as an Ambassador.
Marital Status & spouse name(s): Single
Siblings Names and Ages:
Sisters: 2 (older; Vulcan/Trill), Starfleet (Names remain unlisted, in case someone wants to put in for one)
Brother: 1 (younger; natural fraternal twin, distinguishing features: white forelock, adopted with her) Vulcan/Trill 
Children: None

Parents' Names: 
Mother: M'yriat - [Ret.] Vulcan ambassador to Trill (adoptive mother), now living on Vulcan, Professorial posting at Vulcan Academy of Communications
Father: Gentan (adoptive Trill father; Xenobologist), Vulcan, posting on Vulcan Academy of Medicine
Parents' Status: Alive
Other Important Relatives: - None 
Pets: N/A (but really wants one)
Best Friend: N/A


Personality

Department Preference:
1. Medical
2. Science
Commissioned, Enlisted or Civilian: Commissioned

Reason for joining Starfleet or moving to a Federation base:  To assist in saving the lives of all who come into her care as a medical officer, to explore the unknown, and make contact with new species.

Academy/Tech Majors and Interests: Majors: Xenobiology/Xenobotany, Surgery/Trauma. Interests: Bionics, Artificial assistance and intervention, languages

Hobbies:  Vulcan meditation, mixed martial arts, piloting/race flying, xenobotany, 4D chess, brainteasers, growing plants, orchids, painting/drawing

Short-term Goals: Obtaining CMO on a starship

Long-term Goals:  First contact with an unknown species, adventure, learning everything she can about the universe she lives in. 

Defining Characteristic: She's a healer first but an explorer second - sometimes they conflict. Very driven to succeed.

Sense of Humor:   Dry, witty, sometimes naughty

Phobias or Fears:  Failure, not being able to save her patients, losing her symbiont or becoming so injured that she has to have Xiiv removed, which means she'll die, and so will Xiiv. She has a slight phobia heights and has some lingering insomnia and anxiety left from her time on the Vulcan Medical vessel.

Favourite Things: Hot cocoa, Terran oranges, Klingon Bloodwine, Vulcan tea. Saving lives, exploration, riding equines or other types of creatures, playing cards, people in general, getting to know comrades until they're friends. Logic.

Least Favorite Things: Backstabbing idiots, people who intentionally disregard orders that then put other people in danger, voles, slimy things, doing bowel surgery. Losing. At anything.

Bad Habits or Vices: Cussing in general and in various other languages, biting her fingernails when nervous, staring through people who annoy her, paces when thinking, rarely sleeps more than 4hrs, fuels self with stimulant-based drinks and foods. When she fails at something, it frustrates her to no end and she'll keep slamming up against that issue again and again. It's more than a little devastating to her when she can't find the answers she's looking for be it in science or medicine.

Achievements (personal or professional):  Graduated tied for Valedictorian at Starfleet Medical (they went halfsies), has obtained a doctorate in Xenobotany and Xenobiology, and a formal degree in Astrophysics. Has learned many, many languages since she was a child and enjoys linguistics as a hobby, often engaging others in their native languages sans translator because it fascinates her.

Disappointments: Losing patients, being denied by the Symbiosis Committee, her mother and father moving back to Vulcan instead of staying on Trill. Not getting Valedictorian outright but tied. While she took it well, it's kinda one of those irritating disappointments. Not being able to see her mother and father off to Vulcan as she was too engrossed in her studies.

Illnesses: None.

Strengths: Needs little sleep, functioning quite well at four standard hours per twenty-four hours, even if it's stimulant filled. She has an iron will, is eloquent with words, and is loyal to a fault. She also sees fit to make sure her patients are super comfortable and has made some pretty good friends along the way. Amarande is brave in a fight but even more so when it comes to the people she cares about.

Weaknesses: Saying no, working long after she needs to be done with her duty shift (while commendable, it's not ideal at all for someone to stretch themselves thin). Lack of sleep. She says her brain is "too full" sometimes with so many ideas that it keeps her up and busy writing when she should be sleeping.

Prejudices: None, really, she's very open and honest, accepting of others no matter what they might be or say.



Your character's most painful experience: Losing her first patient when she was aiding the doctor aboard the Embassy transport ship. There was nothing that she could have done in the moment and she took that wound and has carried it ever since.

Your character's best or favourite experience The first time she saved a patient after they'd coded for about fifteen minutes and when everyone else called it, she kept working and brought a man back from the jaws of death, finished his surgery, and made sure his family could see him as soon as possible.

Your character's most crucial experience Joining with Xiiv at 20. While it was an emergency, the connection with her symbiont was instant and powerful from the longing for the stars and the need to do more. She found that she wanted to see and experience everything with her symbiont, to draw on its knowledge and benefit the universe. That first connection, the way knowledge and trust and hope-filled her was as full of wonder as when she saw her first wormhole. The Symbiosis Committee was pleasantly surprised that the Joining was so well matched and that there was no signs of rejection.

Who is your character's role model and why? Her adoptive mother. Stately, serene, gentle, but with the iron will of the Vulcan she was. M'yriat seemed and very nearly was perfect in Amarande's eyes. She encouraged Medical as she encouraged her father to teach her more Xenobiology. While she was sometimes hard-driving, Amarande never minded because if she hadn't been pushed she wouldn't have found her own drive.


Please write a brief sample post from your character’s perspective:



There was nothing quite like the sight of Trill’s amethyst waters. As a child, they had been a wonder as they crashed ashore, so very different than anything on Vulcan. The sheer amount of humidity was exotic, the taste of the water on her tongue a strange other. Even the rain felt somehow more alien than her spots had been in a school of boys and girls with ears that were like her own...but yet not. Then and now were years apart and her green eyes were older, far older, than they had been so many years prior. Xiiv’s fingers brushed through her red hair until she found the shock of white in it. Her mother, M’yriat, said it was a genetic trait, her father said it's where all her light got in and swung her around until she felt the world spun. It had made her laugh when she was younger and still knew better.

Who are you, Amarande?

It had been one of the first questions her mentor had asked her. She had been sure of who she was, what she wanted, how fast she wanted it.

I want life, all of it, to make the darkness in it light, to ease the suffering in the universe, to share the joys and heartbreaks. I want to learn and know as much about life and death as I can.

Amarande was patient in some respects but she wanted knowledge like growing things wanted the rain, sun, earth, and wind. She wanted it with a ferocity that had waylaid most of her plans for Starfleet and pushed her in unexpected directions that challenged her to think and grow and learn. To become, even, who and what she felt she needed to become to be more than of service to Starfleet and the people who existed within it.

Where are you going, Amarande? Her mother’s question sang in her blood, a proud question, a good question.

Forward. She was going forward again, in the direction she’d always been going. At 36, she was going to begin that climb but as she’d seen, promotion wasn’t everything. Sometimes, it didn’t help or it got in the way of something far more important. Not every step up the ladder was a good or right thing.

“Are you getting on this shuttle or not, Starfleet? It will depart very soon.” Blinking in surprise, she glanced up at a very large, very tall Klingon, his shadow blocking the light of the midday sun. “If not, step aside, or you might wind up in water instead of space.” She shifted her weight and made a face.

“Well, it’s space I’m headed into again,” she said, gesturing courteously for him to precede her. “Falling into the water hasn’t been an option since I was eight and learned to swim.” She was more than competent at that and every other challenge she’d met along the way. Rank was not a final challenge but it was in the way of everything else.

Her companion for the duration of their off-world launch laughed and she followed him in, finding the surface to spacedock shuttle somehow smaller than it usually was. It wasn’t just because of the Klingon, either. Sure, she could have beamed up to the orbital station but the travel wasn’t scenic. Maybe the space seemed smaller because she was leaving her brother behind to find his own dreams, still waiting for his symbiont, still frustrated but making his own way stubbornly forward. She set her carryall down, looking out at the bay once more until it became a glistening feature and then a lost in the surface of the planet.

Amarande left her far flung family behind once more for the space between the stars as she read her messages on her PADD, one of which contained Starfleet Command's choice for her next mission. Who knew where she’d be tomorrow? But there was the pleasure of it - anywhere there was a ship, a station, an outpost the Federation touched.

And anywhere was a beautiful place with a beautiful view.



Do you have previous experience with a role-play forum?  
Name: Kitty
Previous Role-Playing Experience: 20+years of RP experience.
Co-admin of 3 Pern RPGs (Rukbat, Fate, Dark Fort)
RP at Dreamwidth.org; Asgard, Drift Fleet, Fernweh, Ruby City, Trans 9, various and sundry others. 
Previous FOX SIMM experience as Dr. Kateri Beniah (Betazoid Doctor) some ages ago.

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