Tikva Theodoras

Born in Athens, Greece, Tikva is the only child of Drs Ballis and Mikou Theodoras and as such didn’t want for much in her early years, especially considering her mother was a specialist in early childhood education. While Tikva never found herself under any form of pressure, both of her parents instilled in her a desire and quest to seek out opportunities to learn and develop herself. This encouragement came as loving support from her mother, Mikou, who hailed from Betazed but had turned her back on family for love, and from her father Ballis, a physicist and teacher at the University of Athens, who for years practised new lectures upon his daughter first as a way to see if they were engaging, or to put a rambunctious child to sleep.

A naturally gregarious child, Tikva never sought to be the middle of her social circles, she just ended up there as she self-organised her friends, or dragged them along with her. Heavily extroverted in her childhood she had a tendency to adopt introverts, careful not to drag them along, but to be there when they wanted to engage, or offer them invites so they never felt left out.

While both of her parents had gone into academia and achieved success, Tikva decided to launch herself in a different direction and forge her own path, a decision made in middle school. This done she dedicated herself to her studies, having researched what she would need and found like-minded friends she would work with for their common goal of applying for Starfleet Academy. Instead of her choice of universities across Earth and a few on other Federation worlds she could have attended, Tikva graduated high school as valedictorian and joined Starfleet Academy on its next intake.

Her sophomore year was focused on diplomatic resolutions with an elective in psychology in the vain hope that natural gifts would come to play and help her. Unfortunately, she quickly learned that theory and practise are two different things and while she had a respectable mark at the end of the year, it was not near the top of her class as she would have liked.

It was in her diplomatic courses she befriended one Matthew Dayton, the first of her close Academy friends and the one who suggested the group name of the Fantastic Four. The others include Zillia Sh’torar whom she befriended all thanks to a luck of the draw on piloting assignments and Rachel Garland, her roommate and arguably best friend at the Academy. While schoolmates had entered the Academy at the same time as her and came with history, it was these friendships, made within just the first few months, that persists to this day.

A focus on helm operations and personnel management papers occupied her second year of study, having decided to pursue starship command at the earliest opportunity. Her third year was much more of the same, with what she passed off as filler papers on the side to pad out her studies. Those papers unfortunately suffered from her early dismissal of them and her razor focus on core intent.

Her fourth year however was more of a problem as the dreaded ‘blue shirt requirements’ she’d been putting off for the last three years all came to roost. What started off as a bad year, with scores that she couldn’t keep if she wanted to pass, was turned around into a respectable top ten per cent of her class thanks to the help of the Fantastic Four as all of them had worked to reinforce each other’s strengths and guard against their weaknesses.

In celebration for their successes and enjoying a two-week respite before departing in different directions, likely to see each other rarely from that point forth, Tikva had arranged with her father for her friends to stay at their family’s holiday home, enjoying stunning summer weather in the Greek isles, devoid of the majority of technological conveniences and forced to relay, enjoy the sun and drink. This to date is still the last time the Fantastic Four were all together in person.

Free of the Academy’s structured learning and on her first assignment, Tikva found herself leaping at each opportunity to take on more responsibilities wherever she was, be it on or off duty. Her endless enthusiasm earned her several remarks on her record by commanding officers concerned she’d burn out and advising whoever was lucky enough to be her next commander to throttle her self-education as best as possible to prevent Starfleet from losing such an officer.

In 2392 Tikva achieved her desired goal of independent command while only a Lieutenant, being assigned the Saber-class starship USS Haida in recognition for services rendered on her previous command. Haida served as a patrol and coast guard vessel along the Romulan frontier, never more than a few hours or a day at warp from more capable vessels or starbases. Using this time and not wanting to squander the trust bestowed upon her, Tikva used this opportunity to hone her command style, taking every opportunity she could to ask more senior officers for advice., diving headfirst into this experience to truly see if it was what she wanted.

And as it turned out, it was. She loved the centre seat, the responsibility on her shoulders, the chance to guide a ship and crew to really make a difference in someone’s life one day.

Come 2394 however and she was reassigned from her own ship to take on responsibilities aboard the USS Jutland under the mentorship of Captain Ricta Denevan. While most of her first two years aboard the Jutland could be summed up as routine with the vessel assigned to the Federation’s rimward borders, towards the middle of 2396 things took a turn for the unexpected. Attacked without provocation or warning near the Gorn world of Ssss’lar’ness by Gorn radicals, the Jutland was heavily damaged in the opening salvos.

Badly injured, the bridge a broken mess and most inoperable, the ship itself not much better, Tikva pushed herself to fly the ship out of danger, only collapsing after she’d got the ship away at warp towards the nearest starbase. Her actions saved the ship and many of the crew from rebels who had hoped to provoke a war between the Federation and the Hegemony, a conflict neither power wanted at the time. Her actions, putting the crew ahead of herself, ultimately cost Tikva her left arm and leg, doctors lamenting that if she’d just made it to sickbay by only a few minutes she’d have been fine.

It took over six months to make good the damage to the Jutland and in that time, Captain Denevan had lost a number of his command staff to bigger and better things for their careers. With an empty Executive Officer’s post, he offered the position to his at the time third officer, having had to visit her at a rehabilitation facility to do so. Her excitement at the offer, unleashed upon the captain’s departure, resulted in another injury, a fall caused by an unpractised leg pushed beyond its limits that left her with a faint scar on her jawline which she elected to keep as a small memento, to remind her to walk before dancing.

After three years serving as Executive Officer for Captain Denevan, overseeing numerous exploratory missions and even being Starfleet’s representative to a couple of minor diplomatic outreach efforts run by the Diplomatic Corp, Command pulled out the centre seat once more for a newly promoted Commander Tikva Theodoras and assigning her to the USS Atlantis, an Argonaut-class cruiser ideal for exploration missions which Starfleet was dedicating more and more resources to once more.

Not initially expecting to find love in all the wrong places, Tikva having subscribed herself, much to her own and her mother’s chagrin, to the idea that a captain should be a leader somewhat removed from their crew, she started a relationship with her chief tactical officer, Adelinde Gantzmann. What had started as a fling during months of warp transit as the ship made its way to their designated area of interest, had developed into a serious relationship that she’s very much interested in growing and seeing where it goes.

As circumstances would have it, during her tenure aboard the Atlantis, Tikva would be rapidly promoted to the rank of Captain. Initially a battlefield promotion, the rank was confirmed following events involving the Tkon that had encompassed the entire galaxy and the Atlantis directly, like so many other ships across Starfleet. Events with the Tkon however weren’t quiet finished with the Atlantis as the ship’s unique experience required field repairs in the Delta Quadrant before returning home for proper repairs. These repairs complete, the ship was undertaking trials before the outbreak of the Century Storm saw her deployed to assist in the matter as well. Following this however Tikva was informed of her ship’s imminent decommissioning due to it becoming a subject of great concern for archaeologist and anthropologist wanting to study Tkon artefacts which the ship had unwittingly become.