Cellar Door

Early Life (2377-2380)

On the first day of autumn on the Planet Q in 2377, two exocomps were constructed in the exocomp pagoda. One of them was adopted by a human couple, Federation psychiatrists, who named him Angela. Not long after, as his awareness and communication skills developed, the psychiatrists encouraged their exocomp child to choose his own name. As he felt no connection to ‘Angela’, he searched Federation databases for options. Looking to his own people, he also rejected the ironically robotic names that had been so popular among the traditional generation of exocomps. Before his first birthday, he selected the name Cellar Door for himself, based on its pleasing linguistic aesthetics.

While still the equivalent of a humanoid infant, Cellar Door began to form new circuit pathways in his memories as he absorbed the primary school curriculum. The importance of academics was instilled in Cellar from a very young age. Nearly every night at family dinner, Cellar was inundated with stories about his parents’ academic excellence. Only on odd nights, now and then, Cellar also heard stories of another impressive student: his older sister, Angela, who had died at eight year old. Overcome with the emphasis on achievement, Cellar challenged himself from a very young age to excel in standardized academic testing. The manner in which Cellar formed new circuit patterns to learn required little of the educational process required by humanoids, and so achievement was all that mattered to Cellar.

At heart, Cellar yearned to be a dancer, but he didn’t possess the anti-grav finesse to perform at a competitive level.  Instead, he lost himself in his own world, writing rock operas while attending the human day care centre during the week.  On weekends, he went to worship at the exocomp pagoda — to remain connected with his own culture, while living in a mostly-human community.

Starfleet Academy (2380-2384)

The mythos of Starfleet captured Cellar Door’s imagination from a young age. The trappings of Starfleet appealed to Cellar experientially and spiritually. No matter how often Cellar’s parents encouraged him to immerse himself in his love of the arts, he couldn’t be swayed from his route to Starfleet. He longed for a more cosmopolitan quality of life than could be found in his mostly-human town in his sleepy Federation colony. Starfleet seemed to offer him far more inclusion and infinite diversity on its trek across the stars.  Moreover, he felt some religious pressure to join Starfleet too, given the role Starfleet played in recognizing exocomps as sentient life.

By 2380, Cellar had achieved the educational requirements and had developed the emotional intelligence circuit pathways to be accepted by Starfleet Academy on Earth. Cadet Cellar Door majored in economics because it felt deliciously self-indulgent in a post-economics society. A part of himself he wouldn’t admit appreciated that economics offered smaller class-sizes than many of the other majors at the academy, which reminded him of the comforts of home.

Over the years, Starfleet Academy was a time of growth and resiliency for Cellar, as it was for so many students. Learning to interact with so many species he had never met before gave him pause. The ways he interacted with the world was so very different too, operating with replicated tools and anti-gravs rather than humanoid limbs. To avoid the misunderstandings and conflict as he witnessed with so many other students, Cellar was prone to withdraw. It was only the academic expectations for public speaking, project leadership, and philosophical debate that finally drew him out of his shell. Although Cellar never quite showed up as a leader among leaders, he excelled in starship operations and always put the mission first for the sake of a grade. Cadet Cellar Door always presented himself as a compromising, self-sacrificing team member on project after project. By the end of his education, Cellar was smitten with pursuing a career in personnel administration: he came to understand all the tricorders and quantum torpedoes in the galaxy meant nothing without the Starfleet officers to lead the charge.

Starbase 72 (2384-2385)

Ensign Cellar Door’s first assignment was to Starbase 72 as a yeoman. Although his aspirations were for personnel, he began his path of learning by offering administrative assistance to the medical department. Cellar was practically still learning his duties when the unthinkable happened: the synthetic workers at Utopia Planitia destroyed the fleet yard and set the entire planet of Mars on fire. In all the uncertainty in the days that followed, Cellar received an encrypted warning from someone senior aboard the starbase, and the message simply told him to RUN. Ensign Cellar Door had already abandoned his post and was halfway to Bajor by the time the Federation Council enacted a ban on synthetic life.

AWOL (2385-2400)

Reflecting on the Starfleet holonovels of his youth, Cellar fled to the Gamma Quadrant. Beyond the reach of the Federation, Cellar sought employment as a navigator aboard a Karemma cargo ship. Cellar lived a solitary life for achingly long years. Many of his crewmates couldn’t find much value in socialising with synthetic lifeforms. Cellar filled his days with his work and his art: he learned how to paint with a replicated paint brush. Although he prayed for the day he could show his works to his parents, Cellar made no contact with them, for fear of tarnishing their reputations further.

And then the Federation Council lifted the ban on synthetic life in 2399. Cellar Door discovered his mother had known his location the whole time, because she quickly notified him that he could return home. Cellar immediately surrendered himself to Starfleet for dereliction of duty. Because he no longer feared for his life, the integrity he’d been raised with compelled him to atone for his actions through court martial. While held in custody on Deep Space 17, Cellar’s trial by JAG was prolonged and precedent setting. Given the extenuating circumstances of the synth ban, Cellar was eventually reinstated into Starfleet.

As a free being once more, Ensign Cellar Door was assigned to the newly-launched USS Sarek as the Captain’s yeoman.