Adira Tal

Adira Tal was a non-binary Human who lived on the planet Earth and later the during the late 32nd century. Adira preferred to be addressed by the pronouns "they" or "them".
== Biography ==
=== Early history ===
They were born as Adira on Earth in 3173. () Adira lost their parents at a young age, becoming an orphan. In the 3180s, Adira was aboard a generation ship seeking out Federation Headquarters. They formed a relationship with Gray, a young Trill. Following the death of Admiral Senna Tal, who was also aboard, Gray was joined with the symbiont. He reassured Adira that this would not change their relationship. 
In 3188, the ship was struck by an asteroid, killing Gray and wounding Adira. With Adira's consent, medical drones implanted the Tal symbiont in Adira, the first successful joining with a non-Trill in two thousand years. Adira abandoned the ship in an escape pod, after which they were found by the United Earth Defense Force. They lost their memory up to that point. ()
=== United Earth Defense Force service ===
Adira joined the United Earth Defense Force as an inspector.
During Adira's time in the service, they used transport locks because Mars had a lot of interference. ()
In 3189, Adira participated in the Defense Force inspection of the Discovery. While investigating the engineering section, they showed their technical acumen by quickly noticing several facts about the ship's technology. Fascinated by the by-then-ancient technology as well as the spore drive, they sabotaged Discoverys systems to interfere with the Defense Force inspectors' personal transporters, then struck out independently to investigate the ship.
Adira's search led to a confrontation with Paul Stamets in a Jefferies tube. The two struck up a friendly conversation, and Adira asked and was allowed to join the crew of the Discovery. Adira also revealed that Admiral Tal, for whom Discovery was searching, was actually Adira themself: despite being Human, they had become the host to the Trill symbiont Tal after their boyfriend Gray Tal's death. Discovery traveled to , and with help from Commander Michael Burnham and Guardian Xi, Adira was to retrieve their memories from the Caves of Mak'ala. Adira was given a choice by Leader Pav to stay and help the Trill rebuild themselves. Adira chose to return to Discovery and provided them with coordinates to Federation Headquarters from Senna Tal's memories. They also began to see Gray again. ()
When Discovery approached Federation Headquarters, Adira, along with Captain Saru and Commander Burnham, met with Fleet Admiral Charles Vance, the commander-in-chief of Starfleet. They told Vance that Senna was sorry that he kept him waiting due to him wanting to see snow on Earth one last time. Adira was then taken by Lieutenant Audrey Willa for a medical scan. ()
When the Discovery underwent a retrofit with 32nd century technology, Adira changed the spore drive interface to utilize nanogel, which allowed Stamets to control the spore drive without needing to use his implants, permitting them to be removed. ()
By analyzing the combined from several black boxes, and the SB-19 data from Ni'Var President T'Rina, Tal, and Stamets were able to pinpoint The Burn's point of origin. They were also able to identify a signal which was still being sent as a Federation distress call. Adira then wrote an algorithm to decode this message. () When the algorithm had finished Adira and Stamets were able to show the decoded message to Saru. ()
After becoming more comfortable with Stamets, Adira told him, "I've never felt like a 'she' or– or a 'her,' so… I would prefer 'they' or 'them'." Stamets was the first person Adira had confided in besides Gray. ()
When Saru, Hugh Culber, and Michael Burnham were trapped on Theta Zeta in the Verubin Nebula and at risk of deadly radiation exposure, Adira concealed themself aboard Booker's ship without the crew's knowledge, and beamed down to the planet with radiation pills to buy the away team some time. () The holographic environment aboard the caused them to look like a Xahean and also made Gray appear in the form of a Vulcan hologram. ()
In speaking to Aurellio, Stamets referred to Adira as his child. ()
=== Starfleet service ===
Following the rescue of Su'Kal from the wreckage of the Khi'eth and the defeat of Emerald Chain in 3189, Adira was given a Starfleet commission as an ensign in the sciences division. ()
Five months later, Adira was working in main engineering alongside Commander Stamets during Discoverys mission to Alshain IV, helping Stamets workout how to repair the Alshain satellite grid. They were later present along with other Discovery senior officers at the reopening ceremony of Starfleet Academy. Soon after, when Discovery was sent to repair Deep Space Repair Beta Six, Adira was chosen for their first away mission because of their experience with programmable matter. ()
When Discovery investigated the anomaly that destroyed , Adira worked with Tilly to process the information Stamets was able to collect from Booker's ship. ()
As Dr. Culber promised, his continued research into returning Gray to his own body eventually led Culber to a 24th century process by Dr. Altan Soong, which Culber shared with Adira and Gray. () Soon after, Culber was able to prepare a Gray golem, and supported Adira and Gray (via Adira) through the process. Though Adira was concerned about losing Gray, they sought to stick by Gray's side, which helped Gray successfully transfer and awaken, resurrecting him. ()
Adira accompanied Lieutenants Sylvia Tilly and Callum on a training mission to Geryon with three Starfleet Academy cadets. Enroute to Geryon, their shuttle was hit by a gamma-ray burst and forced them to crash-land on the Class L ice moon of Kokytos. ()
In 3191, Adira accompanied Burnham and Cleveland Booker to in search of the next clue leading to the Progenitors' technology. Adira's joining with Tal precluded them from taking on Jinaal Bix's consciousness through zhian'tara, and they remained in the Caves of Mak'ala while Burnham, Booker, and Jinaal pursued the clue. By this time, Adira and Gray's romantic relationship had begun to fall apart due to the distance and the differing paths that their lives had taken them. Unwilling to give up their new lives for each other or force the other to do so for them, Adira and Gray amicably ended their relationship, promising to remain friends. Adira later attended the funeral for Kalzara Bix. ()
While they were on Trill, Moll placed a time bug on Adira's jacket, sending Discovery into time cycling for six hours. Adira subsequently blamed themself for this and began second guessing their decisions and work despite everyone else attempting to assure Adira that it wasn't their fault. ()
Adira later requested time working on the bridge which Commander Rayner, the new first officer following the departure of Saru, granted during the ship's time at Halem'no, much to Adira's visible nervousness. Adira also helped to modify the devices that Burnham and Tilly were using during the mission. Burnham leaned heavily on Adira during the mission, particularly as she attempted to repair the Denobulan weather modification tower that was protecting the only inhabitable part of the planet. Rayner recognized Adira's second guessing was because of the time bug and reassured them that Adira was not at fault, and he was certain that Adira was ready to be on the bridge. Their confidence restored, Adira successfully guided Burnham through repairing the tower and attempted to help find a solution when Tilly was trapped in a life-or-death situation soon afterwards. ()
Shortly thereafter, Stamets set Adira and Tilly to work together on deciphering the phrase on the metal card that was found with the clue on Halem'no while Stamets and Booker tried to use the card's composition to identify where it came from. Tilly complimented Adira's recent work and suggested that they were really coming into themself and should keep at it. Adira played a vital role in deciphering the clue, coming up with the idea to check for anyone with experience with rare manuscripts and then using the information Booker found to pinpoint the location of the Eternal Gallery and Archive in the Badlands. ()
While Discoverys team was aboard the Archive, Adira worked with Reno and Stamets to find a way to disable the shield-tunneling technology on Ruhn's dreadnaught. ()
A short time later, Adira volunteered for their first away mission, boarding the Breen dreadnaught to drop its shields so that Discovery could beam out the structure containing a portal to the Progenitors' technology. They also came up with the idea of using transport locks to beam the structure out from a distance. Lieutenant Commander Gen Rhys joined Adira for security, and he managed to fool the lowest-ranking officer on the bridge into giving up their post to Adira, causing Adira to express sympathy because everyone picked on the ensigns. Adira managed to lower the dreadnaught's shields, allowing Discovery to beam them and Rhys out and breach the ship's shuttle bay in a ramming maneuver. ()
==Memorable quotes==
"This science vessel's practically a museum"
"Okay, well, museums are cool, so..."
"That's what someone who lives in a museum would say."
:- Adira and Sylvia Tilly, on museums ()
"Everyone always picks on the ensign."
: - Adira has a bit of sympathy for a Breen bridge officer ()
== Appendices ==
=== Appearances ===
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=== Background information ===
Adira is played by Blu del Barrio and is the first recurring character in the franchise not to identify with their assigned gender at birth.
Adira's non-binary identity was discussed on both StarTrek.com and in a GLAAD interview stating that, like del Barrio, Adira is recognized as non-binary and uses they/them pronouns. Blu del Barrio said, "They remember nothing from their past, and very little about themself. They know they're non-binary, of course, but coming onto Discovery they're cautious about sharing that information with anyone… it's not until Adira has found a place of comfort with Stamets and Culber that they feel they can talk about who they are." Because of this, both Adira and other characters consistently used feminine pronouns in the episodes in which the character appeared prior to . As part of the publicity around the introduction of Adira, del Barrio made it clear that Adira's non-binary identity would have nothing to do with their being joined with a Trill symbiont. 
Del Barrio commented: "To research for the role of Adira, I watched . Specifically, to follow the storyline of Jadzia Dax (now one of my favorite characters). There's not a whole lot of information about the Trill species elsewhere in the other series, so I spent a lot of time with DS9". 
Adira is the first Human known to become a "permanent" host to a Trill symbiont. William T. Riker was temporarily host to the Odan symbiont in the aptly named episode .
=== External link ===
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de:Adira Tal
Category:Humans
Category:United Earth military personnel
Category:USS Discovery personnel
Category:Starfleet sciences personnel