Lumo

Overview

Elnora loves to think. She grew up looking at people, things, her surroundings and asking one question: why? To find that answer, she enlisted with Starfleet, one of the premier scientific organizations in existence. As a scientist, she began to question her people’s unwavering adherence to the belief in The Prophets. Now, her beliefs are more moderate, she still finds comfort in them at difficult times.  As progressive as that attitude is, she does insist on at least one Bajoran tradition, preferring to be addressed by surname first and her first name last.

She is inquisitive, open minded, and objective, all the qualities desirable in a scientist.  However, her dedication to the pursuit of scientific knowledge has left her ill at ease in social situations.  Her empirical thinking does little to help her socially with people suggesting that she is insensitive.

Career-wise, her ambition would be to become a senior researcher.  Yet, it would be the thrill of a lifetime to personally discover a new race or culture.  For Elnora, her hobbies and her work often blend together, and she can often be found in a museum or at a cultural event.  Thanks to her rural upbringing, she also enjoys exploring the outdoors.

Early Life

Elnora was born and raised in Janitza Province of Bajor in 2361, during the waning years of the Occupation.  The Lumo family had been prosperous up until the Occupation, now they scratched out a living on the very land they used to own.  Life was hard, with much of the harvest going in tribute to the Occupation forces.  Deemed essential to the Occupation, farmers like the Lumo family suffered slightly less than other families, but suffered, nonetheless.  Aside from Cardassian cruelty, Elnora’s abiding memory of that time was of hunger.

Yet, working in the fields gave the young Elnora a strong appreciation of and connection to nature, providing her with some of her earliest scientific experiments. Supplementing Elnora’s meagre formal education were family stories about life on Bajor before the Occupation, Bajoran history, and other fantastic tales. Elnora would sit at nights enraptured by the oral storytelling of the adults, often asking questions about the tale; Elnora would later acknowledge that these stories planted the seeds for her later choice of career and were cherished memories as an adult.  Elnora also prized her mother’s ability to brew Dekka tea in a manner that she would spend years trying to reproduce.

In 2369, Federation forces arrived on Bajor just days before the local occupying forces were due to execute all civilians in the district.  The retreating Cardassians did not have time to poison the soil, as they had done elsewhere, but did manage to set fire to the harvest which hampered rebuilding efforts for months afterwards.  During the commotion, Elnora and her mother fled to woods on the outskirts of the property for safety to eventually be discovered by a Starfleet officer, Sigmund Kennick.  Kennick was the first human Elnora had ever seen and she was fascinated by his lack of nasal ridges.

The following years were relatively quiet for Elnora. Now able to grow and learn in relative peace and safety, she excelled in schooling thanks to the good memory and attention to detail she had cultivated listening to her family stories. Those stories ignited her curiosity of ancient history and culture.  Her fondness of natural sciences reflected in her academics.  Her academics and positive early experience of the Federation gave her an outlook that stretched beyond the provincial borders of Janitza.

On several occasions, her parents hosted agricultural survey parties touring provinces to assess agricultural practices, rebuilding efforts, and crop yields. On one particularly memorable occasion, the survey party included a female exobotanist from the Federation space station Deep Space 9.  Elnora talked to her about the Federation and upon learning from the botanist whose husband served Starfleet, she expressed her hopes for joining Starfleet.  Elnora naively asked if the botanist could influence her application. The woman laughed saying that was unlikely, but if she wanted something badly enough, anything was possible.  Before the survey party left a few days later, the woman sought Elnora out and wished her the best of luck.  The odds of acceptance were long, but she was determined to try.

Sometime after that visit, Elnora was accepted to the Academy thanks to a strong application that focused on the organization’s need for renewed emphasis on exploration. Elnora has always wondered if that woman had not done or said something on her behalf… anything was possible. Her parents were apprehensive, repeatedly suggesting that Elnora should stay on Bajor and help rebuild her homeworld; but Elnora persisted, comparing herself to the early Bajoran explorers who traveled the stars. Her parents eventually relented, but continue to gently suggest she should return home.  Before she left home for the first time, Elnora’s father crafted a new earring out of an old farm tool to allow her to take a piece of home with her on her travels and to remind her of her origins.

Starfleet Academy

Academy life proved to be a large adjustment for Elnora with the regimented structure regularly grating her nerves, reminding her all too much of the Occupation.  However, with resources that she had never dreamed of as a child, Elnora flourished academically and used her studies as a haven from the militaristic bureaucracy.  She felt that the regulation was the price she would have to pay to be an explorer.  Her desire to explore the galaxy as soon as possible led her to choose an enlisted track, though she remained behind after graduation to pursue further classroom and laboratory research before setting out for the stars…

Starfleet Career

Early Career

In 2382, while serving on Starbase 211, then-Crewman Lumo was denied permission to serve on a Starfleet reconstruction team working to rebuild Cardassia Prime, ostensibly due to an unexpectedly large volume of incoming artefacts from the Hogar expedition.  Lumo viewed this action as discriminatory, feeling that her superiors were judging her based on her species’ shared history with the Cardassians.  Following the intervention of the flag officer commanding the sector stationed at Starbase 211, Elnora was detached to a reconstruction team assigned to Betazed.  While on Betazed, Elnora took the opportunity to attend a traditional Betazed wedding – without clothes – she found the experience challenged not only her species’ taboos about nakedness, but also her own personal relationship to her body and feelings about her appearance.

In 2387, Elnora reported for her first starship assignment aboard the Venture as an Archaeology and Anthropology specialist assigned to the night shift.  In 2388, Elnora was transferred to alpha shift in a departmental reorganization.  Later Elnora was present at welcoming party for Captain Ritter in the Starlight Lounge, though she did not particularly enjoy the experience.

Soon after, she was tasked with writing the cultural briefing on the inhabitants of Haess III.  Aboard the Venture, during Red Alert conditions, Elnora acted as a Casualty Coordinator.  In this role, she performed personnel accounting duties and marshalled assigned crew to safe areas.

During Venture’s refit at McKinley Station, Elnora was assigned to temporary duty on Earth at Starfleet Headquarters, in the Office of Exploratory Oversight. Tasked with coordinating the reports of the various exploration teams, she soon became frustrated and bored by the largely administrative workload.  Seeking an escape, Elnora was invited to the Division of Planetary Operations Annex in Yokohama by her Academy roommate, Erin.  Together the two women contrived excuses to visit the South Pacific for a few days, with Elnora ostensibly conducting a wildlife survey.  Upon her return to San Francisco, Elnora’s attitude did not improve, and this earned her no praise from her senior non-commissioned supervisor.  She subsequently rejoined Venture’s company upon completion of the refit.

When the Venture arrived in the Raeyan Transit Corridor, Elnora was assigned the task of building cultural profiles of those worlds affected by the terms of the Treaty to assist in diplomatic negotiations and colony resettlement.  Following an attack on the Venture by rogue Romulan forces, Elnora was among those trapped in the ship’s Mess Hall, where she gave aid to the seriously injured Lieutenant Dirk Allaway, Venture’s then Chief Engineer.  Elnora later visited Allaway who was recovering from his injuries bringing him replicated ‘Jello’ to eat.  Lumo began to recognize that she might have feelings for Allaway in the wake of his injuries, but he did not reciprocate them, and he transferred off the ship a short time later. To her dismay, Elnora learnt of Allaway’s sudden departure second hand from a member of his staff.

She was later tasked with creating diplomatic protocols for the visit to the Reyan Prime.

She was assigned to the science away teams tasked to gather cultural information on the colony.  Later she was de-facto leader of a group of crew forced to evacuate the planet in the wake of civil unrest; her own departure was delayed due to the search for Crewman Janowski, who had become separated from the rest of the crew. Together with Security Chief Lieutenant Eisenberg-Sloane, Lumo discovered Janowski safe and well in the company of a Romulan colonist engrossed in an examination of the colony water reclamation system.  Elnora gave Janowski a stern rebuking, and the three Starfleet members returned to Venture safely.  She later volunteered to return to the planet as an adviser to the security forces searching for the Starfleet impostor/Intelligence operative ‘Riis’.

In 2389, following the withdraw from Reayan Prime, Venture was again attacked by a rouge Romulan warbird and Elnora sustained seemingly minor injuries.  However, due to damage in the ship’s systems, there was insufficient power to Sickbay to prevent the spread of a bacterial infection and her condition worsened to the point that she had to be placed in stasis.  While recovering, Elnora learnt that the Venture was to be permanently attached to Starbase 471 as a support vessel.  Finding the prospect of being tethered to a singular spot on the galactic map unappealing, she considered resigning from Starfleet to return to Bajor with the Institute for Science. However, Elnora changed her mind, as it dawned on her she was simply doing what others expected of her and not what would make her happy, so she requested a transfer to the starship Hyperion.

Unfortunately, Elnora’s time on the Hyperion was not a happy one, as she didn’t integrate well with the crew, and the ship’s missions were rarely science-orientated. She once more considered resigning and returning home, and was told there was no way back for her if she chose to do so.  A chance encounter with a Federation official at a diplomatic reception opened her eyes to Federation service in a different way.

She was offered and accepted an secondment to the Federation Office of Planetary Development, overseeing the monitoring of developing pre-warp worlds. The assignment was a breath of fresh air for Elnora, uniform was required only for an annual inspection, a relaxed work environment, she had an apartment in Paris, but importantly it still kept her nominally in Starfleet. She even got the chance to observe the worlds in her files first hand with the odd off-world observer mission.

In 2393, Elnora’s superiors suggested that she apply to be a Starfleet officer, feeling her experience was being wasted behind a desk. With nothing to lose, she applied to the Academy citing her experience as a scientist.  Much to her surprise, she was accepted. It was decided that as an former NCO, she did not need to follow the traditional four year path, and she was placed on an accelerated training track.  She was one of the older members of the class, with some  classmates calling her ‘grandmother’.  She struggled with the physical fitness aspects of the coursework, and had a difficult time readjusting to the intense military-style training atmosphere, but she excelled elsewhere because of her real fleet experience.

In 2395, now-Ensign Lumo was then posted to Starbase 515 as a junior science officer, where she had to practice ‘for real’ how to be an officer instead of an non-commissioned officer. With above average annual reports, Ensign Lumo was promoted early to Lieutenant (JG) and posted elsewhere.