Ellie Zax-Adair

History: Elowen was born on Denobula in 2362 to Lt. Cmdr. Willow Adair MD, a human Federation Medical Officer who fell in love with a Denobulan Doctor at a Medical Conference which was being held at the Illuvan Medical Centre on Bajor. The two married and having been accepted into an enormous polygamous family on Denobula, Willow couldn’t have been happier for the first five years.

Travelling in her own job, as Dr Zax did with his too, Willow always returned to the family on Denobula to give birth when the time came. She was then obliged to leave her eldest son – Zeph – there when it was time to go back to duty. Naturally both parents would visit on every possible opportunity and sometimes at the same time, which is when Elowen was conceived (along with her initially un-anticipated twin brother! – Elax).

The care and nurture of the three children was expertly carried out by their extended family but Willow was the only Terran wife amongst many others. Zax took a second wife after five years, and she was a Denobulan woman who fitted in perfectly and was much loved by all, especially Willow who took to Zeephel like the sister she had never had, even though their whole Denobulan family had already given her a wealth of sisters-in-law who were also much loved by her, Zeephel was even closer.

On Denobula, life was idyllic for Willow when she could be there and she seriously began to consider leaving her beloved job within the Federation in order to stay there permanently but her father, at home on Earth became very ill and died quite suddenly. When she returned for the “funeral”/memorial, Willow took the three children with her and found her mother not only distraught but suffering from some fairly serious health problems herself.

Willow decided to stay to spend as many quality hours with her mother as she could and she tried to keep the grandchildren there too. She retired from her commission and took a lot of bitter criticism for not having brought the children home to meet their grandad more often as they grew up, not only from her mother but also from her own conscience.

Missing Zeephel badly, Willow was very grateful when, after almost a year, her sister-wife came to visit with her own children and the step-siblings were reunited joyfully. Zeephel stayed a full three months and she and Willow were both bereft when she had to return. The children felt it too and there was so much distress, protest, rebellion and anger in the kids, that the two mothers put their heads together and tried to do the best for everyone.

Willow was alarmed and deeply affected to see how out-of-character this behaviour was in her sweet-natured, sunny children and it made it very clear how much they were hurting to have been moved away indefinitely like this. All their lives they had been raised in an enormous extended family lifestyle and now they admitted they had been finding the Terran style life very difficult to adapt to, but they hadn’t wanted to hurt their mother by letting this show to her.

Now wracked with still more guilt, Willow agreed to their returning to Denobula with Zeephel but only the boys went in the end. Elowen was not happy to leave their mother to face the oncoming, imminent death of her own mother alone.

Elowen was more Terran than her brothers in character and even in appearance. Even though they were twins, she and Elax were not ‘identical’ (from the same embryo that divided very early) so they were siblings and had as different a mix of genes as any other siblings that might have happened along at different times. As someone interested in medicine as well and hoping to follow her mother into becoming a doctor in her own time, Elowen had been naturally fascinated with the biology of mothers producing an egg from each ovary in the same cycle instead of one at a time. Later, when she got to college age, she went on to specialise in genetics, mostly spurred on by this early curiousity.

Ellie’s grandmother died not long after the boys had gone ‘home’ to Denobula but Willow and Elowen stayed on Earth and eventually she went to the Starfleet Academy.

Not long after she graduated at the Academy, Elowen’s proud mother, overjoyed to see her daughter do so well, particularly in her own field, demonstrating her own empathy, natural ability and passion for healing, Willow retired back to Denobula herself.

Ellie, working her way along her own path, moved out onto starships and pursued her career. After a personal relationship went very wrong, she transferred back to the Cochrane Memorial Hospital to join their Research department and extended her genetics work, finding a lead into A.I as well. After winning a major prize for her 3yr project, Ellie’s need to study settled back a step or two and she returned to space medicine, leading her eventually to the USS Aquarius II as CMO.

Personality: With a bright, sunny disposition, Elowen smiles readily and to her, life is a cup half full. She cares deeply and can be emotional but she retains her childlike sense of fun and has a rather mischievous sense of humour. However, her Starfleet training is usually enough of an inner-parent to guide her out of trouble.

Strengths and weaknesses: Elowen’s strengths include her basic serenity, her deep emotional compassion and protectiveness and her dedication to helping anyone in need. She is slow to rise to anger but can be fiery if pushed too far, in particular in defence of someone she cares about or someone vulnerable, like her patients.

She has perfected the “doctors’ impenetrable mask expression” and can keep her feelings to herself well when necessary and is currently an eminent surgeon, renowned and awarded for her inspired research work.

Her weaknesses include the way her ability to overview and see lots of points of view, which in itself is a strength, but can result in a tendency to indecision due to seeing too many options and possible consequences to choose between.