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| SERVICE NUMBER: 2-4729015 - DELTA
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Lieutenant Current Position: |
EDUCATION
2358-2364 - University of Betazed (MBBS) 2364-2365 - Janaran Falls Hospital (internship) 2365-2369 - Starfleet Academy SERVICE RECORD None of Note - |
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| BACKGROUND |
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| 2339: Born to parents Andrus and Kestra Suder on Betazed. 2354: Her grandmother passes away. 2364: Graduates from the University of Betazed with a degree in Medicine and Surgery. 2369: Graduates from Starfleet Academy. Posted to the USS Tripoli. 2374: Posted as a medical officer to the Federation Embassy on Betazed. 2375: Placed in a psychiactric hospital on Betazed following the end of the Dominion War. 2378: Transferred to the distant Ryalli Sector, and later posted to the USS Terra Nova. CHILDHOOD: Arden Suder was born to parents Andrus and Kestra in 2339, the second child of what would eventually be three. Her brother, Ballard, was two years older than her, while she herself was two years older than her sister, Adela. Both parents worked full-time, so Arden and her siblings were raised by their maternal grandmother until she passed away in 2354. Her childhood was reasonably uneventful and she was fortunate enough to have sailed through high school with relative ease. Following her grandmother’s death in 2354, her father introduced her and her brother to his favorite pastime – spelunking -- to try and pick up their spirits. To this day, Arden remains an enthusiastic cave explorer, and her brother is now a professional geologist. EDUCATION: By the time she graduated from high school in 2357, Arden had already decided that she wanted to pursue a career in medicine, and she applied to four universities on Betazed to study undergraduate medicine. Much to her delight, she was accepted into the prestigious University of Betazed to study for a Bachelor of Medicine & Surgery (MBBS). The next six years proved to be the most difficult of Arden’s life. Although possessing a high I.Q., her memory itself was nothing if not average, and although she could instantly comprehend even the most difficult of concepts, committing it all to memory proved to be more difficult. Abandoning all semblance of a social-life, Arden spent her days attending classes and studying her textbooks. Unfortunately, while her unwavering devotion to her studies paid off in terms of grades, six years of it effectively destroyed her social life and when she graduated with an MBBS in December of 2363, she had little left in the way of friends or personal interests. Of course, this mattered little to Arden herself, given that she was now about to begin her one-year internship. At the Janaran Falls Hospital, Arden spent the next twelve months working under the guidance and supervision of the Doctor Kila Trix, the head of Medicine. By the end of her internship, Arden came to realize that it was frontier medicine that she craved – the tedium of healing fractured limbs and cuts not challenging enough. Working in a Betazoid hospital, she came to realize, would never satisfy that craving. Fortunately a close friend, whose uncle was a veteran in Starfleet, suggested a solution to her problem: join Starfleet. Providing that she could get posted on either a science or exploration vessel, it was a reasonably safe assumption that the range of illnesses that she would encounter ‘out there’ would be vastly different to the everyday illnesses that occurred on Betazed. Up for the challenge (craving it, in fact), Arden applied to Starfleet Academy via subspace. Traveling to Earth, she attended a three-day long selection period during which she completed an array of aptitude and medical tests, followed by an interview with two Starfleet officers. Passing the Officer Selection Committee, she was accepted into the Academy and began Initial Officer Training (IOT). 24 weeks later, Arden began training in her selected course. Already having a six-year degree in medicine, she was only required to complete the standard four years. At the recommendation of her guidance counselor, she chose to specialize in 4 species biology: Human, Vulcan, Trill and Bolian. Having been educated on Betazed, she was already intimately familiar with Betazoid physiology. STARFLEET SERVICE: Graduating from the Academy at the end of 2369, Arden didn’t even have time to visit her parents back on Betazed before she was ordered to report for duty onboard the USS Tripoli. Arriving onboard as a freshly minted Ensign, she was posted as a medical officer during gamma shift. Although the Tripoli, assigned to police the Federation’s inner core, wasn’t exactly frontier medicine, it was a start nonetheless. Much to her surprise, she was only onboard the Tripoli for a year before Starfleet Command reassigned her, although not of her own fault. In 2370, Starfleet made first-contact with a telepathic species called the Cairn. Unfortunately, while the Cairn expressed strong interest in joining the Federation, they had no concept of a spoken language and almost no vocal ability. At Starfleet’s request, Betazoids were brought in to act as intermediaries, the first of whom was Ambassador Lwaxana Troi. Being both a Starfleet officer and a Betazoid, Arden was sent to the Cairn homeworld as part of a convoy of Betazoids, Federation diplomats and Starfleet officers, whose purpose was to teach the Cairn to talk and to evaluate their suitability for Federation membership. Unfortunately though, Cairn telepathy varied greatly from Betazoid telepathy and problems quickly arose. Whereas Betazoid telepathy involved the transmission of words and sounds, Cairn telepathy involved the transmission of pure thoughts and images. Communication between the two species was possible, but proved extremely draining on Betazoids and often resulted in their psilosynine levels dropping. Nonetheless, Arden and her kin remained on the Cairn homeworld and continued to help expedite the Cairn’s learning of spoken language. While this work was far from being frontier medicine – far from being medicine at all, for that fact -- Arden did find satisfaction in teaching young Cairn how to verbalize, and developed many close friendships during her four years on the planet. In 2374 though, with the outbreak of the Dominion war the previous year, Arden put in for a transfer back to Betazed, feeling the need to be close to her family. Her transfer was granted and she was posted to the Federation embassy as one of its in-house physicians. Unfortunately though, her return to her homeworld was ill-timed, and the planet was invaded by the Dominion weeks later. Although the tenth fleet had been assigned to protect Betazed, they were caught out of position on a training exercise and Betazed was forced to fall back onto its own defenses. Unfortunately, these defenses were both undermanned and outdated, and the Dominion was able to annex the planet in less than ten hours. The ease with which Betazed fell was a huge blow to the moral of the Federation. Within days of the initial invasion, all military and government officials were rounded up and imprisoned. Being both a Starfleet officer and working at the Federation embassy, Arden was one of the first group to be arrested and was taken to a Dominion internment camp located on the southern continent. As bad as it was in the internment camp, life on the outside wasn’t much better. During the course of the occupation, thousands of Betazoids ‘disappeared’ – taken by Dominion troops to participate in horrific experiments aimed at creating a breed of telepathic Jemhadar. Those who were left at home were no less subjugated though, with the entire population under strict movement and curfew laws to limit communication and therefore reduce the incidence of resistance groups emerging. Resistance wasn’t entirely crushed though. Although the Dominion could restrict all access to communication equipment and stop people from congregating in large groups, they had no way of stopping telepathic communication. Messages were being passed across entire continents in waves of telepathy; organizing sabotage and raids against Dominion buildings and military bases. Even in the internment camp, Arden and the other Betazoids had a decent understanding of what was happening on the outside, although it didn’t make their life any more bearable. The Starfleet officers who had been posted at the Federation embassy were forced to participate in combat against the Jemhadar, who saw it as a form of practice and sport. Arden, being the only qualified doctor in the internment camp, did her best to treat the officers who were injured during these ‘combat games’, although with no equipment she was limited to the most fundamental of treatment options. Watching her fellow detainees suffer needlessly was too frustrating for her, and she eventually demanded to see the Vorta in charge of the camp. Unfortunately though, her protestations fell on deaf ears and only served to draw attention to herself. Kilana, the Vorta in charge of the camp, was once a qualified psychopharmacologist and was interested in researching ways to stop Betazoids from communicating telepathically. Bitter over being assigned supervision of an internment camp, she decided to experiment in her free time. Since Arden had made herself noticeable by demanding an end to the combat games, Kilana had her separated from the general prisoner population and isolated. Although her experiments weren’t officially sanctified by Dominion command, she was able to have a large supply of psychotropic drugs transported to the internment camp, rerouted from several psychiatric hospitals from around Betazed. What time left Arden spent in the internment camp before Betazed was liberated from the Dominion is a blur to her. When she wasn’t being scanned or pumped full of psychotropic drugs to see what effect they would have on her telepathy, she was alone in solitary confinement, hallucinating or in a hypnotic stupor (hardly in any state to hold a conversation or help injured prisoners). When the Dominion surrendered to the Federation in 2375, the prisoners of the internment camp were released and Kilana faced war-crimes for unethical experimentation. Arden, who was in no mental condition to celebrate the end of the war, was transferred to a psychiatric hospital on Betazed. Although the drugs eventually worked their way out of her system, the after-effects did not. Four months of treatment saw her released from the hospital, after which she was required to pass a thorough psychiatric test in order to return to duty in Starfleet. Once Starfleet was satisfied that she was of sound mind again, she was sent to Cardassia Prime to assist with the reconstruction there, pending shore-leave so that she could reunite with her family. The reunion was less joyous than Arden had hoped for. Her mother, being Betazed’s Minister for Education, had been arrested (as had all government officials during the occupation) and incarcerated. Unfortunately, when the Jemhadar came to arrest her, her husband tried to fight them and was killed. With no respect for Betazoid culture, the Jemhadar simply vaporized his body, leaving nothing for the family. While this devastated Arden, she knew that others had suffered greater loss and was thankful that the rest of her family were unharmed. Her mother had survived her incarceration at the hands of the Dominion and was once again serving as Betazed’s Minister for Education. Her sister, a Starfleet counselor, wasn’t even on the planet at the time of the occupation but was given shore-leave to visit. After a couple of weeks with her mother and sister, Arden traveled to Lonita (Betazed’s moon) to visit her brother, Ballard. At the start of the invasion, Ballard had been on Lonita exploring its subterranean cave network with a group of geologists, and had hence been trapped there for the duration of the occupation. Once Arden was satisfied that Ballard was okay, she headed for Cardassia Prime. Before surrendering to the Federation, the Dominion began slaughtering the Cardassians – bombarding entire cities from orbit, which resulted in the death of over 800 million Cardassian civilians. With so much destruction and so many people displaced from their homes, disease and illness was rampant throughout the planet and the Cardassians were in desperate need of doctors and engineers. Initially being posted at a mobile Starfleet hospital, she was eventually moved to a Cardassian hospital and tasked with getting it back up to standard. The Cardassian doctors, she found to some surprise, were extremely friendly and grateful for Starfleet’s help in the situation. In fact, she found the Cardassian people in general to be extremely friendly and talkative – not at all smug like their reputation had indicated in the past. In 2378 she was again transferred, this time with a promotion to the rank of full Lieutenant, to the distant Ryalli Sector. While this required an uncomfortably long journey, Arden was far too happy for it to bother her. For the first time in her Starfleet career, she was being posted beyond the frontier of Federation space. After a few months of serving on Liberty Station, Arden was reassigned to the Defiant-class USS Terra Nova as the new Chief Medical Officer. - - |
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| PERSONALITY PROFILE |
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| Arden
is one of the 40 percent of Betazoids who come under the extroverted
category. While she had originally became a doctor for the challenge
alone, she has since become totally invested in the wellbeing of those
around her. She can’t stand to see anyone suffer – be it physical or
emotional -- and will often forego her own personal safety if it means
helping others. Being Betazoid, she has an extreme dislike for people who lie since she herself doesn’t. Unfortunately, not everyone understands that her total honesty is a trait common amongst Betazoids and some people occasionally take offense when she tells them something that they didn’t want to hear. Her openness aside though, she is an extremely warm and approachable person. - - |
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| PHYSICAL PROFILE |
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Arden
has dark brown hair that falls just over her shoulders. Her eyes are
black (both the irises and the pupils), which is a genetic trait shared
by all Betazoids (and, in some cases, half Betazoids). Being a doctor,
she is careful about maintaining her own physical wellbeing, and keeps
her body in shape through both spelunking (cave exploring, often
involving rock-climbing) and running.
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| SPECIAL NOTES |
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| Since
her incarceration in the Dominion internment camp on Betazed, Starfleet
Medical has some concern that Arden was more effected by the experience
than she’s letting on. While the various psychotropic drugs that were
injected into her system have been removed, any lasting effects that
they might have had on her mind cannot be predicted. FAMILY RECORD: Andrus Suder: -- Father -- DECEASED (2374) Kestra Suder: -- Mother -- Minister of Education, Betazed. Ballard Suder: -- Brother -- Geologist, Lonita (Betazed's moon) -- (older brother, two years) Adela Suder: -- Sister -- Trauma Counselor, Starbase 9 -- (younger sister, two years) - |
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