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02 Jul 2013 @ 6:30am
Lieutenant JG Kestra Orexil
Name Kestra 'lunaris Orexil
Position Master-at-Arms
Rank Lieutenant JG
Character Information
| Gender | Female | |
| Species | Betazoid | |
| Age | 29 | |
| Date of Birth | January 21, 2360 | |
| Place of Birth | Betazed |
Character Type
Starfleet ID
| Serial Number | RT-541-7564 | |
| Security Clearance | Level 5 | |
| Duty Watch | Alpha |
Physical Appearance
| Height | 5'7" | |
| Weight | 135 | |
| Hair Color | Dark Red | |
| Eye Color | Black | |
| Physical Description | Kestra is often underestimated due to her looks and ancestry; a fact she has come to rely on in her career with Starfleet. In regulation uniform, she looks like a perfectly harmless Betazoid. Aware, alert, but generally unthreatening. Her full lips are usually partially open, allowing her to physically breathe in her surroundings and they're usually curved into a slight smile as though she finds everything she sees quite charming. Generally, she does. Her face is elven and gaunt; a pointed chin giving a hint of mischief no matter what the expression. Her cheek bones are high; her neck is long. Her eyes are pitch black from center to the edges of her irises and always slightly wider than normal, as though she's in a state of permanent interest. Her build is slender and lanky, with long arms that end in nimble fingers - those fingers are calloused from playing the harp; her palms are calloused from playing with knives. Kestra's dark red hair is long enough to reach her waist and she maintains it in dreadlocks, winding the thick cords around her head in a crown when she needs it out of the way. Currently: Still recovering from plasma burns, Kestra has reddened criss-cross scarring on her arms, legs, and abdomen. |
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| Body Art | Kestra has two piercings in each ear; usually these are pierced with spindles of black horn. She also has a small silver hoop in her nose and two tattoos: one on the inside of her right forearm of the words 'for our peace and glory' in the looping, cat scratch written Betazoid; and one on her left shoulder of thirteen concentric circles overlapped by five rings. |
Family
| Spouse | None | |
| Children | None | |
| Father | Daedele Orexil, poet and philosopher | |
| Mother | Elwani Devar, harpist and dramatist | |
| Brother(s) | Farek (19), Starfleet Academy student Zarin (deceased - 23), metal sculptor Cesla (39), "The Impressive", illusionist In Law Borek (44), dessert chef |
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| Sister(s) | Ilana (35), author of the "Divinity Tales", a series of romantic holonovels In Law Hride (deceased - 35), wife of Cesla, illusionist |
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| Other Family | Uncle Gelkin (67), radio show host Children of Ilana and Borek: Gretha (6) and Klicka (3) Children of Cesla and Hride (deceased): Dethan (4) |
Personality & Traits
| General Overview | Kestra is not your typical security officer. She lives in tune with the people around her and so takes her job very, very seriously - not as an enforcer, but as a peace-keeper. Her motto is 'resolution before conflict'. She's found that works quite well, for the most part, since no one really wants to be punished or get caught. It's better just to guide them away from causing a disruption in the first place. In general, she is dimly aware of the thoughts and emotions of those around her (about the same way as most humans are dimly aware of the complexion of other people - sometimes things stand out, most of the time it's all just information to be absorbed and released). The longer she knows someone, the clearer their thoughts become to her. Physical contact helps to immediately create a temporary link, so she is careful about touching others unless they've expressly allowed her access to their thoughts and feelings. She is capable of speaking mind to mind with non-telepaths, but she never does this unless they have been adequately prepared for her entrance there as it tends to panic them, which is a very unpleasant experience for her. |
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| Strengths | Kestra is able to telepathically communicate with other telepaths, which comes in handy when comm systems are down or there is a need for stealth. She is also able to absorb surface thoughts from most people and is a very good judge of emotional state. This allows her to keep an observant and curious eye on what is happening around her, a trait she uses to try to nip conflicts in the bud before they can become a problem. She can offer thoughts and memories to non-telepaths, but it takes a great deal of strength and it takes a toll on her emotionally and physicaly. |
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| Weaknesses | One of the downfalls of being a Betazoid in Kestra's line of work is the necessary evil of being open to the feelings of others. If she is forced to take physical action against a threat, she feels the result of that action from the other side. This can make her extra selective in deciding what the best method is for dealing with a situation and, in the result of a large scale assault, has the possibility of giving her sometimes overwhelming overflows of heartache, loss, grief, and guilt. | |
| Ambitions | Kestra was brought into the world without a fate, so far as she knows. All of her siblings have known since they were very young exactly what they were destined to become and accomplish, but Kestra's only intuition of this is a vague desire to do good and create harmony out of disarray. She is torn as far as her ambitions go. On the one hand, she longs to one day captain her own starship. On the other hand, she has pressure from her parents and older siblings to marry and start a family - an occurrence which would pretty much end her career as she's envisioned it. She is fairly certain she could be happy in either life, just as she is happy to do the best she can at her current position. |
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| Hobbies & Interests | Kestra enjoys a variety of physical activities including running and yoga. She meditates on a daily basis, often more than once a day, to clear her mind and create in herself a vessel in which to store the information she absorbs and sort through it. She plays the harp, sometimes as a part of meditational exercise, though more often just for pleasure. She spends a great deal of time in quiet reflection on the observation decks of whatever ship she is on and finds that comforting. She also enjoys showing people the card and coin tricks she learned from her brother. |
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| Vernacular | Kestra is soft-spoken and taciturn. Even her threats, when she is driven to them, are delivered more in expression than words. She prefers communicating mind to mind as she finds that is a more holistic and detailed way of expressing thoughts and ideas (in 4D, if you will). What she does say is uncompromisingly honest and straight-forward. Her voice is low in her chest, emerging somewhat like a purr. She also finds a great deal of satisfaction in cursing in Klingon as a stress-relief tool. And just for fun. | |
| Orientation | Heterosexual | |
| Language(s) Spoken | Betazoid, Federation Standard, Klingon |
| Personal History | Kestra'lunaris Orexil of the Thirteenth House of Betazoid was born in a wealthy district on Betazed proper, but within two years she and her family were on a brand new starship. Her parents were always bouncing them from one place to another, always in search of new audiences and new patrons for their work. It was on one such of these trips that her artistic family arrived on the decks of the Qin Harbinger and a nine year old Kestra met a six year old Lilou Peers. The two became fast friends and kept in contact even when Kestra's family eventually bounded off for other ships and stations. Kestra's upbringing was fairly standard with the exception of the excessive amounts of travel. Her parents raised her and her siblings as worthy and interesting individuals, encouraging them to write, draw, sing, cook, dance, or anything else that would allow them to express themselves fully and uniquely. They saw to it that each of their children developed something that belonged entirely to them and encouraged them to build on those skills. Age ten, Kestra began experiencing telepathic flux. Thoughts and feelings from outside of herself would weigh in abruptly and just as abruptly fade away. She wasn't scared by this; she'd been very well prepared and educated on the matter. In fact, since she'd been old enough to read and comprehend, her parents and her older siblings had been teaching her all about her mind and what she was capable of. When the time came, she and her parents returned to Betazed to undergo her age-marking ritual in the presence of her extended family. When her family took to the skies again, Kestra elected to stay behind on Betazed and continue her studies there. It was there, living with her uncle Gelkin, that Kestra first began to study the Federation. Previously, Federation history had only been a part of her education in so far as it applied to references in her parents' plays and writing. Kestra was not immediately entranced by the lure of the Federation. She wasn't awed or inspired. What she thought was, "well, of course, that makes sense". Of course the planets needed to have intergalactic peace keeping to stop them from getting into terrible rows over cultural differences. All hell broke loose as the Dominion War began in earnest. Still, Betazed was relatively unharmed, though everyone was consistently listening the comms and desperately seeking information about family members in the Federation and those who were simply elsewhere. In November of 2373, Gelkin began packing their things into crates and explained to her that they were going to leave Betazed before anything bad could happen to them. Kestra, like many other Betazoids on the planet at the time, thought this was ridiculous as there had been no direct threats made against them, but her uncle was insistent that she consider his words and she could feel the sudden fear in him. Two months later, from Earth, she heard of the beginning of the Battle of Betazed and immediately joined the Starfleet Academy. |
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| Starfleet History | Full of heartache and grief, Kestra dove into the curriculum of Starfleet Academy with the intention to learn what must be learned to right the wrongs done to her home world. The act that she attended the academy and studied more than pointing and shooting is entirely due to the wisdom and advice of her uncle. She found the combat regimens particularly difficult at first, given her openness to the feelings of others, but in time learned to discipline her mind and look for methods of taking down her opponents that were not painful and she spent a great deal of time hobnobbing with Vulcans to get them to teach her how to accomplish their famed 'death grip' to put her opponents to sleep. Her studies focused mainly on military history, infantry, and the history of military tactics in aerospace. In 2378, her degree safe in hand, she joined a tactical force to patrol the border of the neutral zone for one year. Her time on the border taught her one life-changing lesson: hate kills. Her crew had been tense during the whole deployment and that tension led to sleeplessness, irritability, and a general lack of good judgement. Aggression overtook compassion and a four fighter pilots died in a skirmish over the border that they initiated out of anger and without direct orders. When she returned to Earth, Kestra went back to school, burying her head in books, searching for some kind of solution. She took courses in Officer's Development and Aerospace tactics, because she wanted to be able to command and encourage her fighters and security personnel to work effectively and safely. But she also delved into communications, studying the history of galactic diplomacy and taking a variety of courses in alien studies to widen her understanding of other cultures. Understanding, as far as she was concerned, was the key to good diplomacy. And diplomacy was the key to solid security. She earned her Master's degree in Command in 2384, was subsequently promoted to Lieutenant Junior Grade, and shipped off to serve her first real service detail aboard the USS Churchill - an Ambassador-class starship whose name she knew and appreciated the significance of, though it passed over many aliens' heads. On the Churchill, she was part of a peace-keeping and relief effort along the borders of the neutral zone, quelling disputes between neighboring planets and space stations, protecting relief supply ships and diplomats traveling over the border, and generally losing sleep on a regular basis as she struggled to learn the ropes of her position on her feet. All her degrees and high marks hadn't prepared her for the reality of commanding a crew on a starship, but she learned. And fast. During the course of her service, she was forced to take control over the Security and Tactical responsibilities of the ship on twenty-seven occasions and performed admirably on all accounts. Most of her duties as Assistant Chief were administrative and tactical, advising the Chief on strategies and making sure that the things he wanted done got done in no uncertain terms. In 2386, Kestra led a security detail to a small planet on the border of the neutral zone in response to a distress signal. The signal was in the midst of an abandoned ship, it's cargo strewn about, and the general consensus had been that the ship had crash landed some time before and looters had raided it recently, clipping something in their haste and activated the distress beacon. But Kestra had felt something, a twinge of terror, and she'd insisted on exploring the area further. What they'd discovered was the ninety eight crew members of the wrecked vessel trapped in a hole where they'd been left to die by pirates. The crew was retrieved and relocated back to their homes and the following year, Kestra received an award for humanitarian service that she didn't really think she'd earned. She hadn't done anything extraordinary. She'd done what they all should have wanted to do. She was surprised when she learned that she'd been transferred to the Galileo as she'd become quite close with her commanding officer, Chief Shovak Klask. The only bone of contention between them, a debate which she had thought they both found challenging and interesting, was where the hard line was drawn. To his mind, anyone who broke command protocol or was sent to the brig by the Captain should remain there indefinitely without recourse of law until such time as the ship had the time to drop them off on a station somewhere for justice. Kestra believed that justice needed to be less brutal and more immediate. The faster truth was found, the less likely trouble would brew. Klask's explanation for her transfer had been that he wasn't leaving any time soon and she'd earned herself a real command post; looking in his eyes, Kestra knew that to be true. |
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| Medical History | Statement of Present Health: Recovering Recent Medical History: In response to severe plasma burns covering most of her body, Kestra was treated with inaprovaline, kelotane, and skin grafts. She was then placed in a stasis field and transferred to Vega IX's medical facility, where her body was stabilized, but her neural responses remained hectic and erratic. She showed no sign of being able to communicate either verbally, physically, or telepathically, but her neural activity did seem to react to different people entering her room, especially her crewmen. For that reason, it was deemed necessary for her continuing health and potential recovery, that she be returned to the Galileo until such time as she were able to return to consciousness on her own. Vision: 20/20 |
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| Service Record | 2374 - Enters Starfleet Academy 2378 - Earns Bachelor's Degree in Military Science, minor in History - Rank: Ensign 2384 - Earns Master's Degree in Command, minor in Communications and Galactic Diplomacy - Promoted to Lt. (JG) - Deployed to USS Churchill - Assignment: Deputy Security/Tactical Officer 2387 - Awarded Humanitarian Service Medal 2388 - Began correspondence courses with Starfleet in Federation Law 2389 - Transferred to Starbase 152 to await boarding onto USS Galileo - Assignment: Chief Security/Tactical Officer - Wounded in Galileo's first mission. Relieved from duty and placed in stasis. |
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