Rhea Peterson

Overview here

## Appearance

Rhea is a tall, curvy yet toned woman, standing at 5'7" tall and from years of keeping her diet and fitness in tight check. Her dark brown eyes seem to constantly carry a friendly smile even if her lips don't. She prefers to wear her fiery red hair in a ponytail when on duty so that it doesn't interfere with her vision, but off duty, as soon as the scrunchie that keeps it together comes off it spills down her shoulders in a wave of red and usually stays that way till she decides to get a haircut.

## Personality

Warm, open and kind, Rhea knows how boring the helmswoman's duties can be and what it can make people into, which is why she strives to at all times prove that pilots aren't always boring. She gives out hugs quite often, in fact, especially to those she feels really do need it. Above all, however, she takes her job and duties very, very seriously; she knows a bit too well what the consequences of not doing so can be and as such strives hard to ensure that it'll never happen again to anyone - not to her crewmates or herself especially.

## Trivia

* She sometimes dyes her hair dark red to change things up from its natural color. She always finds herself reverting back to her natural fiery red, though.
* She isn’t too fond of Klingons in general following a rather nasty childhood encounter.
* She suffers from mild PTSD from watching her parents be killed. She continues to attend counselling for it to this day.

### Likes

* Playing the violin
* Exercising (especially running and weights)
* Socializing
* Mango pudding, which she doesn’t eat very much of to control her weight

### Dislikes

* Reckless pilots. Those will kill someone if not careful.
* Being told that she’s dumb because of her red hair
* Any pilot or conn officer who takes their job as a laissez-faire affair

### Ambitions

* Open a flight school when she gets bored of Starfleet life
* Become a captain and work in Starfleet Academy’s flight control training wing when she has enough experience

### Morals

* Fly safe and your ship and crew will thank you for it.
* No more accidents - especially not on my watch.

### Core Courses

* ADMIN101: Star Fleet Operations
* ADMIN110: Chain of Command and General Protocol
* DIPL101: General
* ENG221: LCARS Programming 1
* ENG231: Computer Memory and Personnel Interfaces
* ENG232: Replicators, Transporters, and Holodecks
* ENG233: Sensors, Communications, and Helm Systems
* HIST101: Birth of the Federation
* LANG101: Federation Standard
* LANG110: Major Species (Elementary) - Cadet's Choice
* LAW101: Federation, General
* MATH101: Concepts
* MED101: First Aid and Field Medicine
* PHYS101: Concepts
* PILOT101: Runabouts and Shuttles
* SURV101: Starship Emergencies
* SURV110: Environmental Suits and Zero-G Training
* TAC101: Combat, Unarmed
* TAC110: Combat, Small Weapons
* BIO101: Concepts
* XEN101: General

## History

Rhea was brought up on the Federation colony of Nova Prime on Mars as compared to Earth, her parents having emigrated there from Earth some years ago. Her childhood was as ordinary as most human teenagers would get; her mother personally supervised her education, eagerly helping her with homework, personal studies and so on. She also personally took care of her daughter's appearance through her diet and personal appearance care, as any doting mother would. Her father, meanwhile, was a shuttle pilot, flying the citizens of Nova Prime around the city for a living. He would always fetch her from school in his own personal shuttle; memories of talking to her father about her school day as the craft zipped through the city form some of her fondest.

Of course, she had her own life outside of studying.

Living near the local lake and the surrounding forest meant that she spent a good portion of her free time outside playing in the trees or in the sparkling waters with her friends from school. It was during these play sessions that they learned to climb up and down trees (albeit with multiple instances of falling off and sustaining injuries of various degrees); perhaps in this sense the forest was their playground. On one occasion they even built a small tree house in the biggest tree they could scale with their parents' assistance, at least, until it collapsed in the rain and was never rebuilt.

When not outdoors, however, she was involved in the performing arts. She learned to play the Betazoid lute early on in her childhood following a short experience session in school and in time joined the school lute ensemble in secondary school. She was in fact part of several performances throughout her education which she looks upon with pride. She's also been known to carry a tune beautifully, though she rarely ever sings.

Disaster, and the biggest tipping point in her life, befell her on the day she turned seventeen. She'd only just come home from school and put her belongings away in her room when a commotion came from just outside their house. Looking out the window she saw, with horror, a shuttle flying haphazardly through the streets, clearly out of control. She'd seen that much flying in her father's shuttle. Worse still she saw her parents standing paralyzed with on the other end of the road. She bolted down the stairs and out the door, imploring her parents in her mind to please move, they were in danger…

Too late. The shuttle swerved sharply and crashed through the bystanders on that side of the road, injuring all and killing some - both her parents included.

She was broken, to say the least. She would take a good, long time to heal, but when she finally did she had a resolution in mind: she wanted to prevent future such accidents. Ensure that no one else would lose their life like that. But more importantly she wasn't happy with just teaching people to fly; no, she wanted to sit at the helm herself and carry out her adopted duty with her own two hands… in Starfleet. She saw no better opportunity or platform to do so. As such she left Mars aged eighteen for Earth, determined to make real her goal.

Till then she'd never left Mars; reaching Earth and checking into a hotel by herself was admittedly one of the more nerve-wracking things she'd done, and earned her a snicker or two from the customs officials who processed her. That done, however, it was time for her to concentrate on studying for her entrance examination which was only a few days away. She was no stranger to hard work of course; she spent most of her time studying in her room with some relaxing music behind her. She wasn't content to simply coop herself up and study, though. She wanted to experience life on Earth for herself, and besides, her parents weren't around to stop her this time! Ha! She'd occasionally slip out of her room with a PADD containing her study materials in hand and slip out to the local nightlife, happily partying the night away before returning to her room. This hardly if at all detracted from her efficiency as a student, however; when her entrance examination results came back to her room she passed reasonably well, enough to admit her into the next batch of cadets.

Needless to say, she was overjoyed.

Rhea readily calls the years of her Academy studies and training some of the best of her life. Theory could be a bit dry but the practical lessons she loved to bits; feeling the thrill and rush of handling a spacecraft, and then entire starships were among the most exciting things to happen in her studies. Her goal she made sure to keep well in mind, though; she let it drive her to keep doing her best and take her training seriously, for after all safety and control were among the most important things as a pilot.

Personal life wise, though, she was well liked by classmates and tutors alike. She spent most of her off time in the Academy gardens studying, but she would always help out a struggling classmate with a smile and an encouraging hug if need be. She was also minorly known for drinking some of her classmates under the table, though not often. She additionally found time to exercise her musical talents, joining the Academy concert band as an extracurricular activity along with taking up badminton on the side.

Her extracurricular activities once more hardly detracted from her academic prowess; she graduated handsomely as a helmswoman, and was thereafter assigned to the Matador as a helmswoman before subsequently being transferred to the U.S.S. Odysseus.