LT. Etah Sidyn

Biographical Narrative

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Early Life

Sidyn was born into the Gallitep Labor Camp toward the end of the Cardassian occupation of Bajor. As a child he observed humiliation, torture, rape and murder happening to those he loved the most. His family was a large faction within the camp numbering in the dozens, but by the time the family escaped the camp in 2358 there was just the eight of them.

The same kind of violence that would dominate Sidyn’s teen years had claimed his cousins, aunts, most of his uncles and two of his sisters. This violent, traumatic foundation would set into motion two distinct phases of his life. The first phase being the destructive phase of his life that led him to being a Bajoran insurgent and the second phase being the healing he went through that led him to dedicating his life to helping others as a member of Starfleet.

The part of his childhood that helped bring him sanity was his times they were able to get away from Gallitep and spend time at the Kiessa Monastery. He loved the Monks there. They taught him the fundamentals of Bajoran Martial Arts, and they taught him how to focus and breath to be able to meditate. As he became a preteen and his fingers got smarter, the monks taught him to play the Tivara, a woodwind instrument somewhere between a flute and a clarinet.

As Sidyn became a teenager and could take lay vows becoming a lay monk he learned a kind of kinetic or whirling meditation. This was a newly created style of meditation that incorporated banned martial arts moves into Bajoran meditative practices. Humans might identify this style of whirling meditation as a combination of the Afro-Brazilian martial art of Capoeira and the hypnotic motions of the Whirling Dervishes of the Ottoman Empire. It was at once: martial arts training, meditation and prayer.

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Bajoran Resistance

Around the time that Sidyn became a lay monk and a Bajoran Dervish, the last eight surviving members of his family, who happened to be the closest members of his family escaped Gallitep  for good. But this task wasn’t accomplished without sacrifice. They were wanted fugitives now, and on the run from Cardassian authorities. Which meant that Sidyn would never again see the walls of the Kiessa Monastery. Years later, after he had escaped to Betazed, when he learned that Monks of Kiessa were slaughtered en masse he fell into a deep depression that took months from his to emerge from. He still visits the Monastery and the monks that helped raise him on the holodeck when he needs to find his center.

So it was that Sidyn found himself at the center of armed conflict at the tender age of fourteen. The teenager was able to use the meditation he had learned at the Monastery to center he brain effective enough to shoot people from far distances. He would go on to become one of the best observer snipers in the Occupation. Looking straight down the scope at the enemy that was tracking him and his family, he would kill his first Cardassian not long after their escape.

Sidyn’s mother didn’t want him involved in fighting, Sidyn’s father didn’t believe anyone could be spared from the fight and wanted him on the front lines. Sidyn found his own path and got his parents to agree to it. He would travel in a group of three, find the high ground overlooking the resistance cell and their enemy forces. He would observe, record intelligence information and report back. As he turned fifteen this turned into reconnaissance and hunter killer missions. In addition to recording intelligence, he would identify and neutralize leadership and their ability to communicate. It was during this time he taught himself to read, write and speak Cardassian.

After the death of his uncle, who had co-led the cell with Sidyn’s father, Sidyn became a patrol leader. Largely doing what he had done before, taking a smaller group to search for intel and perhaps take out important targets, but now his group was larger, better armed and had more freedom to engage the enemy. These patrols protected his family from ambush and from being flanked. This is when he began spending time not just killing, but killing and watching people die in large numbers. After a while the idea of killing someone or someone dying didn’t even seem significant to him. It was just a part of his everyday reality.

At this point in his life Sidyn was an 18-year-old with enough combat experience to last two lifetimes and he felt invincible. Unfortunately, his apparent invincibility didn’t extend to others. On a recon mission in 2371 where his older brother was acting as his observer, his brother was killed by Cardassian counter snipers. To this day Sidyn believes it should have been him that died, because his brother was a stronger person, a stronger soldier and a stronger leader and he could have led the family after the next tragedy Sidyn would experience.

A year and a half later, while Sidyn and his squad was on another recon mission the camp was flanked by Cardassian commandos. In the years since the family escaped Gallitep they had handed the Cardassians many strategic defeats based on their willingness to expose themselves to danger and then to act decisively. The original five members of the family, now down to three, had garnered the support of dozens of Bajorans who all pledged their loyalty to the Etah Cell. So, on that day, after finally obtaining the upper hand, those Cardassian commandos wasted no time in butchering everyone in view. Men, women, children. Everyone. In one fell swoop Sidyn lost his father, his fiancé, the child she was carrying and their infant son. Sidyn doesn’t remember what happened afterward, but he remembers stabbing a Cardassian commando in the eye again and again until he realized that he was no longer in danger.

2363 was a year that Sidyn would never forget for all of the wrong reasons, but he did not leave Bajor right away. For the next two years or so he acted as an acquisition officer for the cell. He avoided active combat, taught himself Ferengi and arranged for the payment and storage of vital munitions. By day he was an effective leader and bureaucrat for the cell. By night, he was tormented by the memories of those he lost and the close calls that should have allowed him to stay with them. Only his mother and his sister saw his never-ending torment and they began to fear that he would shatter.

So, at the age of 21 and four years before the end of the Occupation it was arranged for Sidyn to escape Bajor using the Ferengi contacts he made, heading straight to Betazed where his mom hoped the telepaths there could help him quiet his troubled mind. It was obviously the right call, but he still struggles with the fact that he wasn’t able to see occupation through to the end. Most of the time he’s able to recognize that he had become a liability, but late at night he can’t escape the thought that he is a coward and that better men should be standing in his boots.

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University of Betazed

Sidyn didn’t arrive on Betazed for a career opportunity. He traveled to that world specifically, for mental health treatment. He was immediately assessed by Federation psychiatrists and enrolled into an intensive outpatient therapy and group counseling. There was actually a program for people affected by war, that integrated all of these forms of treatment. The psychiatric treatment helped temporarily restore his brains neuroplasticity, which allowed him to learn and grow and heal in ways that PTSD tends to restrict people from.

It was during this period that he was able to accept and mourn the deaths of his family, especially his fiancé and his two children. With the help of his treatment team and his fellow patients, in a very short amount of time he was able to begin the process of healing. He was able to remember them and cry, and to acknowledge that the future he dreamed of would now have to become fundamentally different. Two months of treatment wasn’t able to fix all his problems, indeed he was becoming more and more cognizant of all of the problems he would have to tackle. But for the first time since he was a child learning how to Whirl, he felt hope.

One particular form of treatment that was effective for Sidyn was psychoeducation. Sidyn loved learning about the brain and behavior and how the one influenced the other. He felt this knowledge helped give him power over his mental health. Shortly after he began treatment he was selected by his therapist to be an assistant group facilitator. It was at this time that he remembered that his families D’jarra were lay priests. They were people who lived in poor communities and helped those in need. It was all of this in mind that Sidyn applied to the Psychology and Nursing Program in the University of Betazed as we’ll as the Starfleet Corps of Cadets, the Starfleet Academy satellite.

Sidyn continued to attend therapy while beginning classes. He first studied Nursing. He learned the basics of bedside treatment, simple medical procedures and other tasks that all nurses were supposed to know in order to assist doctors. He learned as much as he could about neurobiology and psychiatric treatment though, which led to a second degree in psychology. For him this was an extension of the psychoeducation he began while in intensive treatment. In learning about the brain, thought and behavior he was learning more about himself. He earned a third bachelors in Exo-anthropology and for him this was learning about social development so he could understand his patients more.

After completing more undergraduate education than he ever needed, Sidyn began a fairly short Master’s degree in Psychiatric Nursing.

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Starfleet Career

After graduating with his Doctorate, he was commissioned into Starfleet as the Lieutenant and was selected to become the Chief Counselor aboard the USS Denver.

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Biographical Data

Family Information

• ◊ Uncle: Etah Pikke Age: Deceased 2360
• ◊ Father: Etah Anjar Age: Deceased 2363
• ◊ Mother: Etah Kala Age: 46
• ◊ Older Brother: Etah Lugo Age: Deceased 2361
• ◊ Older Sister: Etah Valo Age: Deceased 2355
• ◊ Younger Sister:  Etah Erzu Age: Deceased 2355
• ◊ Younger Sister: Etah Jaade Age: 26
• ◊ Betrothed: Jadu Octel Age: Deceased 2363
• ◊ Infant Child: Etah Tipa Age: Deceased 2363
• ◊Unborn Child:  Etah Rhiyag Age: Deceased 2363

Born: November 22, 2344 – Gallitep Labor Camp on Bajor, Bajor Age: 30

Degrees:

• ◊ Bachelor of Science: Nursing
• ◊ Bachelor of Science: Psychology
• ◊ Bachelor of Science: Exo-Anthropology
• ◊ Master of Nursing Science: Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner
• ◊ Doctor of Clinical Psychology: Neuropsychologist

Branch: Bajor, Bajoran Resistance Fighter – Years of Service in Branch: 2358–2365

Branch: Starfleet, United Federation of Planets – Years of Service in Branch: 2394-Present

Wartime Service: Bajoran Resistance, Occupation of Bajor

Medical Record: Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD) – Symptoms Stable