Aria Edir

Aria was born in 2335 to a pair of botanists working for the Trill Science Ministry studying the evolution of flora across various Federation worlds. Her early years were relatively carefree. Aria and her parents would take up residency on a Federation colony for several years. While there, her parents would conduct their research while Aria attended local schools, and then, when the research was done, they’d pick up and move again.

All of this changed in 2347 when Aria and her parents were living on Setlik III. On one fateful morning, they awoke to a surprise attack by the Cardassian Union. As the Cardassians entered the village where they were living, Aria’s parents told her to run and hide in the forest, and they stayed behind to buy time. Neither of them survived. Aria hid for days, living off the land in the ways her parents had taught her during some of their early camping trips. When the the USS Rutledge and Starfleet reinforcements finally arrived, among the survivors, they found a traumatized young newly-orphaned Trill girl.

On the whole, Starfleet was unsure what to do with the Trill orphan. Coincidentally though, they had one Trill officer aboard, Commander Devroth Edir. Devroth was able to locate an uncle of Aria back on the Trill homeworld. Unbeknownst to either of them at the time, Aria had just had her first encounter with the symbiont to whom she’d one day be joined. As the Chief Security/Tactical Officer of the vessel that had engaged the Cardassians at Setlik III, Edir had a very different perspective of the battle than the young girl, one that she would eventually have to reconcile with her own experiences.

While Commander Devroth Edir went on to become a Captain during the Federation-Cardassian War and became known by the Union as a particularly ruthless adversary, Aria was released into the custody of her uncle Tarrik, a Guardian back on Trill. It took years for Aria to get past her anger, but her uncle taught her to rechannel it in more productive ways. This gave her a singular focus to apply to Starfleet, which she viewed as her way of preventing a massacre like Setlik III from ever happening again. In 2353, he goal was achieved, and Aria was accepted into Starfleet Academy.

Aria’s instructors at the Academy viewed her as incredibly motivated and driven. She propelled herself into the security and tactical fields with a zealousness unlike many of her softer peers. In 2357, Ensign Aria graduated with high marks and landed a job as a Security/Tactical Officer serving on the USS Vigilance, a frontline vessel on the Cardassian front.

For ten years, Aria trained hard and executed well. During this time, she distinguished herself as a skillful tactician and strategist and climbed to the rank of Lieutenant Commander and Chief of Security/Tactical. The only thing that made her superiors nervous was her complete focus on the military aspects of Starfleet, but in her field and under the context of the Federation-Cardassian War, that was somewhat understandable.

In 2367, the Federation signed an Armistice agreement with the Cardassian Union, officially ending hostilities. Unable or unwilling to trust the Armistice, Aria objected vocally and loudly to anyone she could, but Starfleet would not listen. She was viewed as a warmonger, and she was unable to adjust to duties elsewhere in Starfleet when combat wasn’t the end product. Out of frustration, the Lieutenant Commander resigned from Starfleet in 2367 and returned to Trill.

Back at home, Aria and her uncle Tarrik spent a good time trying to reconcile her feelings. Ultimately, he convinced her to join the Trill Initiate program, hoping it would give her new meaning. While Aria’s war-inspired view of the galaxy was controversial, she had impeccable credentials and easily met the physical and mental requirements for a symbiont. The Symbiosis Commission also did not take lightly the role her uncle played in the care of the symbionts, and thus, in 2369, she graduated from the Trill Initiate program.

While Aria waited for the opportunity to be joined, she was approached by a Commander Frank DeVoe from Starfleet Intelligence. Contrary to the tone set by Starfleet as a whole, DeVoe told her that there were many within Starfleet Intelligence that believed another war with the Cardassian Empire was inevitable. He offered her an opportunity to join Starfleet Intelligence and take part in their continuing vigilance of the Empire. At the objection of her uncle and the Symbiosis Commission, she gave up her spot as a joining candidate and returned to Starfleet.

Commander DeVoe’s prediction of Cardassian aggression came true sooner than even he had expected. Within a year, Starfleet encountered the Dominion, and Starfleet Intelligence soon began to suspect a relationship developing between covert elements of the Cardassian Union and this new threat from the Gamma Quadrant. Lieutenant Commander Aria became a part of a special unit inside of Starfleet Intelligence tasked with studying the exact nature of the relationship.

In 2373, Starfleet Intelligence’s suspicions were confirmed when Gul Dukat announced that the Cardassian Union had officially joined the Dominion. Because of their intimate knowledge of the situation, Commander Aria’s small unit was suddenly thrust into the middle of a galactic war effort, and she found herself giving a briefing to a combined Federation-Klingon task force that would be attacking a Dominion shipyard they’d identified at Torros III. One of the tactical wing commanders at the briefing was Commodore Devroth Edir, the same man who years earlier had saved her at Setlik III. Impressed by her attention to detail regarding ship dispositions, attack plans, etc., he invited the unjoined Trill aboard his flagship for the battle as a tactical advisor. During the days leading up to the attack, the two bonded over their shared perspective and experiences.

The Battle of Torros III was a dramatic success, but not without loss of life. Commodore Devroth Edir’s ship was hit hard. Commander Aria watched as a support beam collapsed on top of Commodore Devroth, dealing a blow that would ultimately prove fatal. As a dying Devroth was rushed back to Trill, Aria accompanied him. His last words were to her. He told her he’d seen the warrior’s spirit in her eyes and wanted her to continue the fight with the symbiont Edir.

Back on Trill, Aria lobbied the Symbiosis Commission to approve her joining with the Edir symbiont. The Commission was incredibly reticent. While it had, in certain past occasions, respected the wishes of prospective host and symbiont, Aria had slighted them by leaving the program years earlier. She was also older than a typical joining candidate. Nonetheless, with the war effort on Trill’s doorsteps and a cultural shift happening within the Commission ever since the revelations of Joran Dax, they warily approved the joining.

As soon as Commander Aria Edir returned to Starfleet, she was sent straight back to the front lines. Initially, she was assigned as Executive Officer of the Steamrunner-class USS Icarus. However, only a few weeks later, the command staff of another ship in their tactical wing, the Defiant-class USS Havoc, were killed in action. Short on command candidates, she was field promoted to Commanding Officer of the Havoc so they could continue the war effort. Commander Edir distinguished herself in a number of engagements in command of the Havoc. When it was damaged beyond repair a few months later, she was transferred to command of the Akira-class USS Phoenix that had just rolled out of spacedock.

With her intelligence background and connections, Commander Edir identified a series of targets that would soften up resistance as Starfleet pressed towards Cardassia Prime. While Starfleet was short on resources and mindshare, they gave her what resources they could in the form of a small tactical wing that she commanded through a series of hit and run attacks behind enemy lines in Cardassian and Breen space. Without backup, they continued these attacks, drawing resources from the main battle lines all the way up until the final Battle of Cardassia.

After the war ended, it became clear that Commander Edir’s risky play had indeed contributed greatly to the war effort. She was promoted to Captain and awarded the Starfleet Medal of Valor. In the aftermath of the war and due to her background, Captain Edir’s USS Phoenix was assigned to intelligence and patrol duty along the Cardassian and Breen borders where it remained for three years.

In 2378, Captain Edir was reassigned to Starfleet Tactical back on Earth. Rather than be let down by her lack of a ship, Edir took the opportunity to have an impact on the way Starfleet as a whole approached tactical engagements. While there, her militaristic view of Starfleet came in direct opposition with elements of Starfleet Command and the Federation that sought a more diplomatic approach to the post-Dominion era. This forced her for the first time in many years to consider that phasers and torpedoes might not always be the solution.

While Aria Edir tried to reconcile her own views against the softer side of the Federation, the Gorn attacked Cestus. Aria Edir was promoted to Commodore, assigned the Prometheus-class USS Agrona, and sent to the Gorn border to lead a task group in a counter-offensive. Serving as part of General Brancer’s war effort, the Agrona was there all the way up until the final strike on the Gorn homeworld. Commodore Edir witnessed as a torpedo from Brancer’s ship barreled straight into the Gorn capital, killing millions of civilians in a heartbeat. For the first time in her life, Aria found herself truly questioning military action. They hadn’t needed to fire that shot. They, just like the Cardassians at Setlik III, had just slaughtered innocent civilians.

When Aria returned to Starfleet Tactical, she began to look at Starfleet’s military purpose in new ways. She attended the hearings that followed Brancer’s actions, and she ended up setting up an ethics initiative in Starfleet Tactical, drawing on the experiences of a previous Edir host that she’d formerly all but ignored in her combat zeal. In the eyes of her peers, this was the moment when Commodore Edir transitioned from warrior-without-a-war to a true member of the Admiralty. She was promoted to Rear Admiral in 2383, and soon thereafter found herself in the Raeyan Sector during the Omega Crisis, followed by a period addressing pirate and slave trade issues in the Triangle.

In 2385, as the Cardassian Union began to flex its muscles once more, Starfleet Intelligence again called on Rear Admiral Edir. This time they wanted her to coordinate an office specifically focused on the Galactic West. They were wary of not just the Cardassians but also what response might follow from the Breen and other powers in the area.

Through the late eighties, Rear Admiral Edir continued her time as a frontline flag officer, including a short stint as a Task Force Commanding Officer. However, as she grew older, and as Starfleet took on a more isolationist stance going into the nineties, Aria Edir decided it was time to hang up her pips.

In retirement, Aria Edir settled in the small French commune of Moustiers-Sainte-Marie on Earth. Although living mostly out of the public spotlight, she is still a guest interviewee on the Federation News Network, and she still consults with elements of the Federation government.