USS Unification

Lieutenant Trishna Durani

Name Trishna Durani

Position Chief Intelligence Officer

Rank Lieutenant


Stats

  • 5 Mission Posts

Last Post

Thu Sep 4th, 2014 @ 12:43pm

Character Information

Gender Female
Species Human
Age 37

Physical Appearance

Height 1.65 m (5'5")
Weight 57.1 kg
Hair Color Brown
Eye Color Brown
Physical Description Trishna is about average in height, although on the shorter end of that average, and doesn't strike a particularly domineering figure. She's more muscular than one might expect someone with a background in the Science Department, and a current member of Starfleet Intelligence to be. But she's still not going to be winning any arm wrestling competitions with a Klingon, and doesn't exercise for the sole purpose of gaining muscle mass. Her hair is quite long, and a very dark brown, to the point of almost being black and appearing as such in some lighting environments. Her eyes are also a dark brown color, but no so much so as to be mistaken for a Betazoids black eyes, and as far as human eyes go they're nothing special in and of themselves. She has no tattoos but a few scars (almost unnoticeable due thanks to the work of a dermal regenerator) on her back due to the effects of a ruptured plasma conduit during one of the many battles of the Dominion War. As a member of Starfleet she can most often be seen in the usual duty uniform with the red coloring of the Intelligence Department and tends to wear whatever's appropriate for the situation.

Family

Spouse None
Children None
Father Narayan Durani
Mother Erica Durani
Brother(s) Jacob Durani (Deceased)
Sister(s) Drishti Durani (cousin, female), Esha Durani (Niece)

Personality & Traits

General Overview As native of the Juhraya colony, Trishna has a vigorous, down to earth personality that people often associate with the hardy beings that live in settlements at the edges of Federation space. She's all about the practical, and always backs the facts. If they're wrong, she's wrong and she's not afraid to admit or revise her opinion if the facts should change. In her youth she showed the optimistic yearning for exploration and adventure that defined Starfleet in the early 2360's, and as part of the generation of Officers who entered service expecting such conditions to continue, only to exit the Academy as the Dominion War engulfed the Alpha and Beta Quadrants. As a result she's a much more cautious individual than she might have been, and though still an adventurer at heart. She's insatiably curious, and loves learning new things. Now she just prefers to learn what things might try to kill her before moving on to the others.

Trishna tends to be very social and the only people she doesn't get along with are people that don't get along with her. She typically has no problems talking to, working with, or socialzing with people who are the complete opposite of her. She has a calm demeanor that makes her easy to approach and talk to, and she's a great listener. There are however a few groups she doesn't get along with so well, such as the more gung-ho and shoot'em up types which she really doesn't like. Not the least of which because she's often convinced they have no idea what they're really doing. She also has a hard time getting along with the more rebellious or loose cannon types of Officers, along with Cardassians for the same reasons relating to the border disputes over her homeworld. Although this obviously goes much further in the case of Cardassians, and one could easily make the argument that she's prejudiced against them.

In the past she's also had trouble sorting out her loyalties to Starfleet and those to her family. She's always valued family very highly, and her parents was very supportive of her joining Starfleet, going to great lengths to help make sure their daughter was the first in the family to make it in. But her homeworld was one of those ceded to the Cardassian's in 2370, and her own brother ended up joining the Maquis, and was killed as a result. Her aunt, uncle, and cousin's husband also lost their lives as a result of the border disputes, which is the source of her dislike for hot heads and Cardassians. She sees both as being culpable in their deaths which is something that's estranged her from her family. They hold the common view that the Federation had abandoned them, and also think the same way about their daughter since unlike quite a few officers she didn't leave Starfleet to join the Maquis or help them. To her the commitment she made to Starfleet was just as important, and to leave would have thrown away everything she'd worked for, and what her parents had hoped for her as well. As the conflict has faded into the past so have these problems, but scars from her perceived betrayal still persist.
Strengths & Weaknesses Trishna's greatest strength is her ability to compartmentalize. She can set aside her own feelings, dislikes, and any discomforts to focus on the job at hand. She's seen combat, and been in plenty of stressful situations before and knows to stay cool under pressure. She might not be a genius or a wonderkid rank climber, but has a keen analytical mind and is quite shrewd.

On the other hand she doesn't have the same initiative an other officer might. She likes to have all the facts at her fingertips, and prefers to have time to analyze a situation rather than rush into it. She also doesn't particularly enjoy fighting, and has seen enough combat to know she'd really rather not see any more. As a result she might sacrifice a tactical advantage without realizing it, trying to settle a situation in a non-violent way. This isn't to say she's no good in a fight, but her talents lay in other areas, and while she might've been in a firefight or two she doesn't understand battlefield tactics on an intuitive level.
Ambitions When Trishna first joined Starfleet her only ambition was to land a position on one of the vaunted deep space exploration missions. After she finished her training at the academy it was the safeguard her home from the numerous threats that had dragged it down into violence. Now that all those conflicts are a thing of the past she'd once again like very much to serve on a deep space mission of some kind. She's not much of a ladder climber when to comes to rank, although like anyone she'd like to see herself advance, it's not something she fixates on like others.
Hobbies & Interests Years ago, before the Dominion War, Trishna was on the Science Departments track, and subjects such as anthropology are still a passion for her. She enjoys mystery and romance holonovels, and her favorite holoprograms are those set on any really alien worlds. 20th and 21st century Earth holoprograms however are ones she finds utterly boring, and can't stand being dragged into them. She also isn't a big fan of any tunes from the area, or classical music to start with, but does like Andorian tunes, and some string music.

Personal History Trishna Durani was born and raised on the colony world of Juhraya. Her parents family was among the first to call the world home, and very close knit across the generations, and all the cousins, uncles, and nephews. The world was along the troubled border with the Cardassian's, and so not the safest or easiest place to home, but Trish and her family did. She was quite close with her brother, and her cousin Drishti, and in spite of the border problems life was relatively peaceful for the section of Juhraya her family lived on. Her parents operated a large farm along with her uncle and his family, and though no member of her family had ever served in Starfleet as far as was known, her father was also a member of a local militia that helped keep the colony safe from Cardassian incursions. Her mother on the other hand was botanist in all but title, and also worked as a teacher in the small colonial settlement some distance from the farm.

From a young age it was clear (at least according to her mother) that Trish was quite bright. Her parents were the ones that pushed her in the direction of Starfleet. During that time the people of what would become known as the demilitarized zone held Starfleet in some prestige, thanks to their actions durign the Border Wars. In addition it was the age of great exploration, with ships like the Galaxy Class coming online, and the new frontier ever expanding. Her parents weren't just pushing her to better the family name however, they'd come out to Juhraya make a better life for themselves and their family. With her daughters sharp mind, Trishna's mother believed she could do the same in Starfleet, and at the very least it would give her a good jumping off platform to find out what she really wanted to do with her life.

On top of the already rough life on the edge, the pressure from her parents to succeed only made Trishna's life harder. It also put the first wedge between her and her brother who seemed more likely to inherit the family farm and keep things running. From then on it was almost as if the two were in competition, something which would eventually set the stage for a larger spit between Trishna and her family later on down the road. Still she didn't crack from the pressure placed upon her, and if anything by the time she was old enough to enter the Academy, she was well prepared for the stresses it could bring to bear as well. By the time she entered in 2369, new threats were on the horizon.The Battle of Wolf 359 had put a dampener on the era of peaceful exploration, but with discoveries such as the Bajoran wormhole it was believed a new era would soon be ushered in.

Trishna's first year at the Starfleet Academy in San Francsico was something of a culture shock for her. She'd never visited the homeworld of humanity before, and living alone on the coastal was far cry from the rustic scenery of Juhraya. Initially Trish was dead set on becoming a Science Officer, more specifically an anthropologist. She wanted to be the kind of Starfleet Officer who'd study civilizations, and work hand in hand with the Diplomatic Corps on things like first contact missions. But before she could really get into it, her world started to come crashing down around her, starting with the Treaty of 2370 between the Federation and the Cardassian Union. Her homeworld and family were on the otherside of the border in the demilitarized zone, and her grades suffered as she worried over the chaos unfolding. She didn't leave the Academy however, the situation was still very fluid at the time and her parents encouraged her to stay, even as they chose to stay as well. Her brother on the other hand was more hot headed, and had joined with the fledgling Maquis. As the year progressed the situation deteriorated.

Without being there though, Trishna had a harder time understanding her parents desire to stay. She pleaded with them to leave as the violence increased, but they wouldn't. Wanting to know more about what was going on in the mess surrounding her homeworld, Trish would change from the sciences to Intelligence department. With her background she was considered a prime candidate for infiltration of the Maquis, although the question of loyalties would come up on more than one occasion. By the time she graduated though, those questions were well in the past. She didn't graduate at the top of her class but counted herself lucky for not being at the bottom given the problems she had been facing. Shortly after that though her brother would be killed in a raid, and this would be the event that split Trish from the rest of her family. She didn't race home to help after that, she went forward with her duty as a new Starfleet Officer.

Her first assignment was infiltrating the Maquis, and it wouldn't be an assignment that lasted very long. With her background, and her brothers death it wasn't that hard convincing the Maquis she was legitimate. What was hard was convincing her superior officers she was. There was always a great fear among many of them that the agents they ran would turn on them. But Trish didn't, in fact she blamed the Maquis as much as the Cardassians for her brothers death, and started to settle in as a member of one of the cells operating the near the badlands. Before she could do much however the Maquis were shattered by the Cardassian's new Dominion "allies". For her part Trishna spent a great deal of time running for her life, and barely made it back into the arms of the Federation alive. It was during the escape that the vessel she was on was attacked by the Dominion, and a plasma conduit ruptured near her, resulting in the faint scars on her back, and putting her out of action for a few weeks.

For most of the war, she spent her time still working on assignments related to the Maquis. She was part of a group that tried to make contact with any pockets of the one time enemies of the Federation, and now start helping them, and trying to use their former bases to make inroads to Cardassia via the badlands. The plan didn't work out as well as intended however, there weren't enough Maquis left to do much, and the very nature of the badlands almost assured that Starfleet would get bogged down trying to pass through them. Once Starfleet started making progress in other areas however, she found herself on the move, this time back towards the border areas where she'd grown up. It was quite clear that once the war was over, the area would be incorporated back into the Federation. Some of those areas though weren't too happy about the idea, and so Intelligence Officers like Trish were more or less loaned out to the Diplomatic Corps, helping put the pieces back together. But she was also there to make sure none of the old Maquis diehards would evade justice and start raising trouble with the new peace treaty.

This time was also one of the hardest for Trish as she came back into contact with her family after no contact for years, and started the process of mending fences. It wasn't easy especially with her father, but her cousin ended up being closer than ever, and she eventually managed to get back to place where she could at least be in the same room and be cordial. One thing was clear though, she wasn't going to be retiring and going back home. Even if she could mend fences with her family, she couldn't with her neighbors, and others in the settlement who saw her as a traitor in some extreme cases. More than anything this would prompt her to stay in Starfleet past the end of her assignment in the former DMZ. She also chose to stay in the Intelligence department, finding the hunt for former Maquis thrilling, and also enjoyed the fact that with peace returning she'd also be able to use her anthropological skills in her work, rather than relying on her background.

Her next assignment would be her first real one on a starship, the USS Nelson. She was an old Excelsior class that was patrolling the Klingon Border,and Trish's job on it was to do largely the same thing she'd done in the Cardassian DMZ. The Archanis Sector had been occupied by the Klingons during a brief, changeling influenced, war prior to the start of the larger war with the Dominion, and the region was still seething with problems. Trish worked under the Chief Intelligence Officer helping identify problem Federation and Klingon ships in the region, giving the Nelson targets for her interdiction missions along the border. Trish served with some distinction, enough to earn her a bump up from a regular Intelligence Officer to an Assistant Chief.

Unfortunately there wasn't a spot for another Assistant Chief of Intelligence on the Nelson, and Trishna found herself transferred to fill that role on the USS Saskatoon. The Saskatoon was a Streamrunner class, and was far from Trish's most exciting, which made it all the more challenging. The ship was attached to Starbase 458, along the border with the Ferengi. The Ferengi hadn't exactly been a challenge as intelligence work went for quite some time due to the ease with which it was to bribe anyone who knew anything. For the most part it was all about monitoring the changes in the Ferengi Government that were occurring. The most exciting thing that happened was a collapse in the Ferengi economy which increased some raids, and the backroom dealings that Intelligence also often deals with. In spite of its relative ease, Trish counts it as her hardest due to the lack of anything really transpiring, but was eventually bumped up again to a Chief Intelligence Officer, and in need of a new assignment again as a result.

The USS Unification is her firs assignment in this role, and one she's looked forward to quite a bit as sails off into the Gamma Quadrant. For her it's the perfect place to be with plenty to do as far Intelligence goes, and a chance to really do the exploring she'd joined up for in the first place.
Service Record 2369-2373: Starfleet Academy
2373: Maquis Infiltration
2374-2375: Intelligence Officer, Badlands
2376-2380: Intelligence Officer, Former Demilitarized Zone
2380-2384: Intelligence Officer, USS Nelson
2384-2388: Assistant Chief Intelligence Officer, USS Saskatoon
2388-????: Chief Intelligence Officer, USS Unification