Kalena Miren

Lt. JG Kalena Miren is a Helmsman on the USS Odyssey. 
== Childhood ==
She always had a feeling that she didn’t belong. Uncomfortable in her skin. The odd person out. Unable to adapt to situations like she was supposed to – or like others did. Her parents told her not to worry about it, that this was natural, that all children felt this way. One day, they said, her body would feel normal. She was perfect just the way she was, they said, and she should never want that to change.
In fact, her parents told her that so often that Kalena Miren considered it one of the two rules that governed her life.
# Never change who you are.
# Always take your medicine.
Her medication – taken every morning when she woke up, without fail – was for a chemical imbalance in her brain. When pressed for information, her parents would reply with a horribly long and confusing explanation. The best she could figure, going without it would give her mood swings for the day, which was inconvenient, but hardly the catastrophe her parents seem to view it as. Personally, she didn’t think that going without it would make her any more of an oddball than she already was, but trust a physician and a geneticist to overreact to any small medical problem their daughter might have. Nonetheless, Kalena applied the hypospray every morning, for her parent’s sake, rather than her own.
Of course, no one can be that diligent forever. In hindsight, Kalena supposed that the impressive thing wasn’t that she forgot, but that it took her seventeen years to do so.
On any other morning, she would have gotten up and immediately taken her medicine, one pull of the hypo on her bedside table before even leaving her sheets. But that was not a normal morning, and Kalena had something else on her mind, jumping out of bed the moment her eyes opened and rushing to the computer to check her messages.
“I got in!” she shouted, not even getting past the Congratulations! at the beginning of the comm before jumping into the air once more. “Starfleet Academy, here I come!”
She didn’t even think of taking her medicine after that, her routine already broken. As she celebrated with her parents over breakfast, it never occurred to her that she could feel their joy and excitement like a living tangible thing, because why would they not be excited for her?
And why should she not feel normal in her body for once, on this day which marked the start of the rest of her life?
And why shouldn’t she feel the need to go out and party that night, even though she never did so normally?
It was a special day, she knew, so it was supposed to feel different. Feel special.
That was easily the best night of her life. Kalena flirted between groups of strangers, automatically knowing how to act and what to say. She was accepted everywhere, friends with everyone, loved by all. She was the center of the action, the star of the show, and before long, everyone in the club was begging for her attention, instead of the other way around. She rode the emotions of everyone around her, twisting and changing to stay afloat in the currents.
After midnight, the exhaustion began to set in, and the young Kriosian realized that what she was feeling was more than just excitement from a special day. The emotions began to pummel her, and instead of riding the waves she was drowning beneath them, her brain ripping itself apart as it tried to adapt to each person crowding around her.
Finally, she screamed and screamed and screamed, until her parents came for her.
They spent the rest of the night running tests on her, and she could feel their relief at the results, eating away at the fear. That fear had always been there, Kalena realized, hidden deep inside, and she’d never noticed it until now. Finally, as dawn was breaking, they told her that she was going to be ok, then gave her a dose of the medication.
Kalena immediately felt wrong again. Her brain was locked in place when it needed to change. The emotions she felt cut off like she had suddenly gone blind. Her parents merely watched as the medication did its work, Kalena shuddering as it closed off parts of herself that she’d never even realized existed until now.
They told her she was an empathic metamorph, and Kalena laughed. Metamorphs were rare enough that she’d never even met one, and for a girl to be a metamorph was practically unheard of. But her parents assured her it was the truth. They had realized what she was when Kalena was a toddler. Since her mother was also her pediatrician, they’d been able to alter her medical records. If anyone found out, Kalena would have been taken away, spending her whole life being trained to become someone else’s perfect mate, and never allowed to be herself.
But falsifying records wasn’t enough. Metamorphs were too attuned to the emotions around them, too quick to change to what others wanted them to be. So Doram and Lorena worked to dampen her abilities, making it so she wouldn’t be able to change. Kalena had always felt like she didn’t fit, and her parents finally told her she was right, because her nature was to change, and they couldn’t allow her to do so.
It took her weeks to process it all, and weeks more to decide what to do next. Her parents eventually convinced her to continue onto the Academy like she’d planned. They wanted what they’d always wanted, for her to live her life on her own terms, rather than someone else’s. Kalena wasn’t even sure that was possible.
How can you be yourself, when your nature is to be anything but?
== Starfleet ==
Her first year at the Academy was – rather understandably – a disaster. Kalena became something of a hypochondriac, more focused on making sure she had a hypospray on her than she was in listening to her professors. Logically, she knew that nothing had changed, this was something she’d unknowingly dealt with for her entire life, but the knowledge of what she was managed to change everything. It colored every conversation, every interaction, every reaction. It would have ruined her. Then she discovered the Flight Team.
When she was flying, she felt settled in her body again. The universe around her didn’t want her to become anything. She could feel it and still remain exactly who she was. Like Chuck Yaeger said “'I never let myself be afraid. I just focus on the dials and concentrate on flying.'” There she was, hurling herself around planets at insane speeds, feeling calm for the first time all day. Flying allowed her to find herself again. Kalena began to excel in her classes, while winning awards at flight courses throughout the sol system.
Her original plan had been to major in the sciences. After all, her parents were scientists at heart, and she had always seen herself as their daughter through and through. But when the newly commissioned Ensign graduated the Academy, it was as a command officer, with a record full of impressive helm rankings.
Kalena’s first posting was on the USS Lucille Ball as a shuttle pilot. She excelled in her duties and eventually worked her way up to the helm, but she chose to transfer to the USS Odyssey instead. The Lucille Ball was a fine ship, but she wasn’t a deep space explorer, so her hull configuration didn’t allow for slipstream velocity. Even if she had to start down in the shuttle bay again and work her way back up to the bridge, it would be worth the wait. What pilot wouldn’t give anything to fly that fast?
She wasn’t on the Odyssey for long before Starfleet moved her again, a temporary duty assignment to Utopia Planitia shipyards as a test pilot. Kalena thought it was exhilarating, flying experimental ships with new and improved slipstream drives, but eventually the actual test pilot returned from paternity leave, and she returned to the Odyssey, which was conveniently orbiting Earth.
== Personality ==
MYER’S BRIGGS: ISFP — Introverted Sensing Feeling Perceiving — Turbulent
ALIGNMENT: Chaotic Good
TEMPERAMENT: Sanguine
Kalena craves attention and companionship, but at the same time prefers to be alone. She feels out of sync in the company of others, like her body is struggling to change to fit the environment, and her medication will not allow it to do so. This all leads to making her incredibly awkward and she is painfully aware of that fact. In an unsuccessful attempt to hide her social awkwardness, Kalena will overcompensate for everything. She’s fidgety, talks with her hands, and tends to ramble a lot.
The only time she is confident is when she’s on duty. When she’s flying, she is completely focused on flying and doesn’t worry about how everyone around her perceives her.
Though her empathic abilities are suppressed, Kalena is still highly sensitive to the feelings around her. The feelings are very faint, like what humans would call a ‘sixth sense.’ During her one stint off her medicine, she felt like she was drowning in the emotions of others, constantly pushing and shoving through her. Her true nature is most evident in the early hours of the morning, when the medication is beginning to wear off. Typically, Kalena is in a deep sleep at this time, and her dreams will be colored by the emotions of those around her.
== Appearance ==
Kalena has the potential to be a classic beauty, with sparkling blue eyes, a dimpled smile, and naturally wavy brown hair. She is short and slight of build. With her height and rather fidgety mannerisms, she tends to come off as simply cute.
== Psych Evaluation ==
Kalena suffers from extreme social anxiety, which is caused by her medication. The only real treatment is to go off the medication, so she chooses the anxiety.
As a metamorph, she is naturally empathic. Her neural chemistry will change to make her whatever the person she's talking to wants in a love interest. But she's drugged and all of those natural instincts are suppressed. When she interacts with people, her brain is essentially confused, because instinctively it knows it should be doing something, but it can't. Every interaction she has just feels wrong to her. Leading to the social anxiety.
She won't take anxiety meds, because the last thing her brain needs is more mood-altering drugs. Traditional therapy won't change anything. She already knows what causes the problem. And she is terrified to tell anyone the problem because if the Kriosians ever figure out there's a metamorph, they'll raise all hell to get her back. As much as she would love therapy, there’s really nothing the counselors can do for her right now. 
== Medical ==
Physically, Kalena is healthy. Her medical records show that a chemical imbalance in her brain was discovered as a child and is treated by a daily dose of medication. Kalena’s parents provided a falsified scan of her brain pre-medication which shows a strong chemical imbalance. When she is on the medication, she will scan like a normal Kriosian. The metamorph gene will read as dormant. She’d need to be scanned off the meds to discover anything. There is nothing in her medical records to make a doctor look twice at her scans or her medication.
The medication is threefold. It suppresses her empathic abilities, stabilizes and balances the chemicals in her brain that would normally be constantly changing for an empathic metamorph, and suppresses the gene which makes her a metamorph. The medication was created in a way that hides the gene suppression.
Her parents are still looking for a way to permanently turn off the genes that make Kalena an empathic metamorph. They are no closer to an answer than they were when Kalena was a child. The best they can do is dampen them.
== Random Facts ==
* Likes: Flying, Stars, Flight simulation programs
* Dislikes: Romance, talking to people, phasers
* She joined Starfleet because it seemed like an adventure. They learned about the most important Starfleet missions in history class, and children told tall tales of the great Starfleet Captains (with the exception of Kirk stories, wherein the truth is ridiculous enough that it rarely requires embellishment). When you’re young, stupid, and bored of the place where you were born, the prospect of adventure is really all you need.
* Kalena is terrified of going a day without her medication, and often carries a small hypospray around in her pocket. She has only forgotten to take the medication one time in her entire life.
* Since her abilities have been suppressed for her entire life, Kalena and her parents have no idea how she is maturing. She is the right age to be entering the Finiis'ral. If she is off her medication, there is a possibility that she’ll immediately enter the Finiis'ral. It is equally possible that she will have years of maturing to catch up on before the Finiis'ral.
* Since the Finiis'ral is the height of a metamorph’s biological, genetic, and emotional changes, her parents are worried that Kalena’s medication will not be enough to dampen her abilities when she enters this stage of development. Kalena does her very best to never think about this outcome.
* Kalena has no interest in a relationship at all. She hates the very idea of being forced to become what a man wants, and hates men for wanting to ‘change’ her in the first place.
== Empathic Metamorphs ==
For those who don’t remember that one TNG episode where Professor X gets it on with Jean Grey. A Kriosian also appeared in one ENT episode – which we shall never speak of again.“A biological curiosity, if you will. With the ability to sense what a potential mate wants, what he needs, what gives him the greatest pleasure and then to become that for him.”— Kamala, The Perfect Mate (TNG 05x21)Empathic Metamorphs are a very rare subset of the Kriosian population. As empaths, they can sense the emotions of the people around them. However, unlike other empathic races, a metamorph’s personality will change to become compatible with those around them. Metamorphs are highly prized as potential mates because of this skill.
A metamorph’s personality is only fluid until they reach the final state of sexual maturity, the  Finiis'ral, when they will imprint on their partner and forever become what they desire.
Female metamorphs are very rare. They are normally taken from their families as children, raised by the government, then forced into arranged marriages when they enter the Finiis'ral.“I wish I could convey to you what it's like to be a metamorph. To feel the inner strength of someone. To realize that being with him is opening your mind and heart to endless new possibilities. To hear yourself say, I like myself when I'm with him. For a metamorph there's no greater pleasure and no greater wish than to bond with that kind of mate at the end of the Finiis'ral.”
— The Perfect Mate (TNG 05x21) 
== Photos/Art ==
File:Kalena Artbreeder2.png
File:Kalena Artbreeder.png
Category:Characters
Category:Odyssey Crew
Category:Command
Category:Lieutenant JG
Category:Kriosian
Category:Female
Category:Rae
Category:Junior Officer
Category:Helmsman