Rana Sisrex

Early Years

Born to a moderately ranked family on Betazed, Rana was a happy child, often described as imaginative and energetic. To her mother’s displeasure she would while away the hours picking her way through forest groves and mountain passes near their home, desperately searching for the fey creatures she had heard of from her father’s stories in front of the fire. At night she would lay on her back on the veranda, barely wrapped in a blanket, as she watched the constellations dance across the night sky.

She was playing in these forests when the Dominion came to Betazed, to this day Rana can still smell the burning of the treetops as she hid in a cavemouth; she shut herself off from the world, unable to sustain the telepathic trauma of her planet’s suffering. When she returned home after the attack she found the buildings levelled and her family lost. She spent the next few years a ward of the system, as it struggle to operate beneath the Dominion’s draconian rule. Even after the war she found herself moving frequently between foster services, many of them struggling to make a connection with the quiet, cold child. Thankfully, Rana was spotted by a retired Starfleet Officer, now principle at her school who saw that behind the protective shell lay a young woman with a thirst for knowledge and guided her hand as she applied to Starfleet. To this day, Aydenna Tyler is one of the few people Rana considers a friend.

Education

Rana excelled at the Academy, her deep thirst for knowledge combined with her acutely interrogative mind placed her top of most of her classes and as she approached her final year she was invited to assist in several select research groups. Life at the Academy suited Rana, her exploration of science was encouraged at every turn but despite several visits to the counsellors and a series of ill-fated ‘buddy programmes’ she graduated at the top of her class, alone. It was a mentor again who noticed Rana’s particularly inquisitorial mind and took her under her literal and proverbial wings, encouraging the young woman to apply to the prestigious Illyrian Institute research programme. When the acceptance letter came, Rana added Professor Yellowtail to her close circle of friends.

The year at the Illyrian Institute exposed Rana to a whole new world, at Starfleet Academy excellence was expected but she had always struggled with the assumed comradery. On Illyria, she was encouraged to combine excellence with a strong independent research focus and she garnered high praise from several senior researchers for her focussed, analytical mind. Whilst she put on her uniform for her graduate viva voce, a letter from the Daystrom Institute arrived and she was on the shuttle to Okinawa that night.

Daystrom & Starfleet

Working as part of Starfleet’s Cybernetic think tank, Rana worked with her fellow researchers to develop a wide range of technologies to further artificial and synthetic intelligences, working on projects that reached throughout the Federation; from improvements to EMH algorithms, to the next generation of synthetic intelligences. The Daystrom Institute was a haven for Rana, a world where she could disappear into the lab for nights on end and the next three years were filled with late nights and strong coffees. It was with horror that she watched the video feeds from Utopia Planitia on First Contact day as the scrolling banners declared the betrayal of her beloved synths. The think tank was dissolved and the researchers dispatched back into Starfleet, their involvement with Daystrom quietly pushed to the side. Rana left earth for her next assignment with the vision of a second home in flames.

The young Betazoid was assigned to USS Hart following the tragedy, an older science vessel that was dispatched to investigate and remove possible artificial intelligence threats and decommission the various synthetic assets throughout Federation. The image of Mars constantly in the back of her mind, the cries of distant victims echoing in her ears, Rana took to her work with grim determination as she helped decommission thousands of synths and pursue fugitive AIs throughout the quadrant. Her cold and focused attitude, combined with her inquisitorial mind brought many success to the small ship and following her superiors departing recommendations she was assigned Chief Science Officer and project lead.

After a particularly difficult pursuit involving a pair of rogue synthetics and a stolen bird of prey along the Romulan border in 2395, Hart was severely damaged and returned to Sol sector for decommissioning. Whilst many of the crew departed quietly to other assignments, glad to be departing a ship full of synthetic ghosts, Rana returned to Daystrom looking for guidance on her next steps. She spent the next few years on the now mostly theoretical campus, lending her expertise to various projects.

Rana was sitting amongst the cherry blossoms when she saw the news of Picard’s stand on Coppelius and the Federation’s lift on the Synth Ban. A rare glimmer of hope in her heart Rana contacted Starfleet Command requesting transfer to active duty.

Daedalus

Rana transferred to the newly refitted Daedalus shortly before it’s departure and reassignment to Starbase 72, where it would deploy to the Federation/Cardassian border. It was on her first day aboard, seated alone at the small table in the corner of the mess-hall that Rana met Oyvo, the young Xindi woman appearing from behind a tray of freshly acquired plums with a series of questions about her research. In her she saw a young woman, fascinated by possibilities and haunted by a troubled history. As they sat together, passing hypothesis back and forth, Rana smiled for the first time in years.