Qsshrr

Early Life

Qsshrr is one of the 50 thousand-year clutch of eggs laid on Janus VI in the 23rd century, although she did not actually hatch until 2302. The world that she hatched into was one in which the Horta/human partnership had already been going on for more than a generation by human standards, and she had hundreds of older siblings ready to teach her about the only way of living they’d ever known.

After a few short years of learning how to dig and tunnel for her own sake, she began to learn more about the unusual beings known as humanoids. Some of her Horta siblings enjoyed working closely with them while others preferred to keep to themselves in their own tunnels. Qsshrr was one that did not find humanoids particularly engaging. They were short-lived, fragile, and ethereal: an interesting diversion and a novel new addition to Horta society, but nothing more. She preferred to focus her attention on the Horta libraries, reading the histories and legends of her people inscribed in their great crystals.

Librarian

In 2358 at the age of 56 (considered an early milestone in her clan), she left Janus VI for the first time to travel to other Horta mining outposts. The main purpose of her travel was to organize local crystalline libraries in the various burgeoning Horta population centers. Although this gave her an opportunity to meet a greater variety of humanoids, she still didn’t find them particularly interesting and would travel on ships catered to or even piloted by Horta whenever she could. It was aboard one such ship that she encountered a Borg vessel in 2366, and although the Borg left them unassimilated and relatively unscathed, the encounter did nothing to endear humanoid life to her.

Over the course of her travels and her work as a librarian, Qsshrr began to develop a hunger for knowledge. Thoughts of creating her own memoirs and archives in the future occupied her greatly, and it occurred to her that having a deeper knowledge of the galaxy beyond her people could enrich such endeavors. After much deliberation, she decided that the best course of action would be to follow the path of those humanoids who had first made meaningful contact with the Horta a century ago and join Starfleet.

Academy and Early Career

After many years of preparatory study, Qsshrr applied and was accepted to Starfleet Academy in 2377. While there, she often found herself the center of attention. The carbon-based humanoid majority were fascinated by her and always had questions about her experiences, her people, the accommodations she used to adapt to their environment, and so on. The attention was confusing, a little flattering, and sometimes overwhelming.

Though she found herself warming up to humanoids over the next four years, she was relieved to take a position onboard Starfleet’s unique all-Horta ship, the modified Nebula-class USS Darwin. There, she was able to learn the ropes of Starfleet first hand without feeling as though she herself was the object of study. Horta tend to take things more slowly than most humanoids, so she served there as an ensign for six years and as a lieutenant junior grade for two more before she felt ready to push herself further.

Serving with Humanoids

Qsshrr requested a transfer, and was happily accepted onboard the Oberth-class USS Yosemite (NCC-19002) with a promotion as well. Unfortunately, she found herself immediately pigeonholed as the de facto ship’s geologist. She went along with this for a while, but eventually started pushing for a chance to work with other teams and show her true capabilities. She was successful up to a point, but when given an opportunity for further leadership, it was again within the geology (and chemistry) department.

She pushed for a transfer, and finally received the recognition she wanted as the assistant chief science officer aboard the Nova-class USS Pulsar (NCC-72358). Finally, Qsshrr started to feel some balance in her Starfleet career. She was expanding her horizons as a scientist and becoming more comfortable around humanoids. Despite her newfound satisfaction, when the opportunity to serve on a Grissom-class surveyor came up, she jumped at the opportunity for transfer. After all, who had ever heard of an astrophysics team headed up by a Horta?

USS Babylon

So she accepted the position of chief science officer aboard the USS Babylon, and found unexpected enjoyment at having a built-in social circle in the form of the other senior staff. They engaged her as eagerly and thoroughly as they did each other, and for the first time in her life Qsshrr stopped thinking of them as carbon-based humanoids first and crewmembers second. She still finds them confounding and alien sometimes, but such feelings now seem like opportunities to learn rather than roadblocks.

Recent Developments

In March, Qsshrr found herself in temporary command of the Babylon when Captain Banoub retired and their executive officer died of natural causes. Fortunately for her, the ship took on a new commanding officer AND a new executive officer right on the brink of the return of the Lost Fleet. During the crisis, they were ordered to locate a spaceborne lifeform that had been spotted attacking and fleeing from Dominion ships. Communication with the creature proved difficult, but when their resident telepath–Lieutenant Junior Grade Ixabi–enlisted Qsshrr’s help, she was able to moderate the telepathic link between Ixabi and the spaceborne lifeform. Together, they convinced the lifeform to accompany the Babylon back to a Federation base where it would be safer, and where their two cultures might learn more about each other. [Mission 1: In Leviathan’s Wake]