Shaala'Gila

## Shaala'Gila vas Nedor

**Shaala'Gila vas Nedor** is a botanist and operative in the Council Recovery Corps.

## Biography

Born aboard one of the Migrant Fleet’s Liveships, the Shellen. Shaala was the only child of her father Rol'Gila, a medical research scientist; and her mother Zaaro’Gila, a botanist. Shaala spent most of her childhood in the company of her mother, with her father often away working on medical projects. As a consequence of this, Shaala was a spectator to her mother’s work and that, in turn, started Shaala’s initial interest in plants and the field of Botany, as a means to emulate her mother. This of course was encouraged by her parents and very early on they sought a scientific field for Shaala’s future career.

As Shaala got older, around her early teens; she did what most teenagers do and began to rebel against the powers that be, and the powers, in this case, being her parents. Shaala showed her “rebellion” by beginning to branch out her interests, taking a short-lived apprenticeship of sorts from a friend of her mothers, a Mechanical Engineer named Naalo’Judor. Naalo was one of those charismatic types, always full of wisdom to share, quick to make you laugh, and offer you a hand when you needed it; Shaala found herself drawn to him for those reasons, seeing him as the father figure her real father often couldn’t be. During that time Shaala found herself in the company of a tight-knit group of friends, Raena'Nilun and Haeh’Naarah; both of which introduced Shaala to the fantastical world of table-top games, namely a custom war-game the duo had crafted called Geth Hunt. It was a fairly basic game and not exactly a creative setting, with the players acting as commanders of a Quarian army tasked with pushing the Geth off Rannoch.

Within a couple of years, Shaala rebounded back to her mother’s pre-determined career choice for her, back into the thorny arms of Botany, undertaking a proper apprenticeship under a former colleague of her mother, Ceela'Sheemis; Shaala became known as the dorky plant girl, something she was fairly content with as she balanced her time between working with Ceela and homebrewing tabletop settings for her friends to play.

Shaala would begin her pilgrimage at the age of 18, leaving the Migrant Fleet equipped with her knowledge of plants, and TTRPG systems. Her pilgrimage started with her bouncing around the traverse for a few months before finding herself in the company of the crew of the Cassiopeia, an independent freighter manned by a mostly human crew, save for a Turian engineer, Jutis Panculucs; Shaala and Jutis became close during Shaala’s four-month period spent on the freighter.

Life aboard the Cassiopeia wasn’t always the best for a Quarian among aliens, plenty of snide comments thrown her way by a handful of the crew. Fortunately, the captain of the ship, Jason Ponce; and Jutis always worked to make her feel comfortable, Jutis especially. In one instance in particular, while in port, in the city of Scott, on Terra Nova; Jutis took Shaala on a walk through a public park after a particularly rough day of comments and glares from members of the crew. It was a fairly romantic affair, Jutis did what he could to cheer Shaala up, took her to a small pond and the pair of them spoke of their lives before the Cassiopeia, and gave Shaala a rose at the end of their day out. It was a defining moment for Shaala and Jutis’ relationship and it helped keep Shaala at ease among the crew for a time, knowing she could always find comfort in Jutis.

Eventually, Shaala couldn’t handle the general atmosphere of dislike from most of the Cassiopeia’s crew, and after four months she left when the ship docked at the Citadel, looking to find something less hostile aboard the space station. For a time she worked as a custodian for a shopping center on the Zakera Ward while picking up odd jobs on the side in hopes to get more experience for her Pilgrimage.

Shaala spent about a year doing custodial work before meeting a retired Alliance Naval Officer, Staff Commander Alice Stoepker. Shaala met her at a floral store on the Presidium, that they both frequented; and the pair kicked it off while discussing flowers. After a couple of months of seeing each other at the aforementioned florist, Alice offered Shaala a job as a personal gardener, once Shaala had let slip that she had some experience in botany; Shaala jumped at the chance to do something she’d enjoy a lot more than custodial work and hoped to learn something from the retired naval officer.

Six months went by before something of significance would occur during Shaala's pilgrimage. By this point, Alice and Shaala had become good friends, Alice had taken a bit of a motherly role in their relationship and had been actively looking for ways to help Shaala progress through her pilgrimage. Alice had managed through old Alliance connections to find Shaala work as an assistant to a group of colonial botanists out in the Terminus Systems, their goal to study the flora of Fehl Prime.

Shaala's time spent on Fehl Prime was similar to her time on the Cassiopeia, that's to say the human colonists weren't extremely receptive to her but the botanists took her help all the same. Regardless of the occasional glare and comment, Shaala worked tirelessly to help study and categorize the flora, in particular, the bio-luminescent fungus native to the planet. This experience lasted about a year and towards the end of 2179 Shaala returned to the Citadel with a lot learned, both of colonial life and botany.

Upon Shaala’s return to the Citadel, she felt confident that her time spent on Fehl Prime and the experience that came with it would do just fine as the ‘gift’ to end her pilgrimage. After a couple of weeks of hitching rides across the galaxy, Shaala returned to the Migrant Fleet and presented her experiences in Botany to Captain Kaas'Hegar of the research vessel Nedor. Shaala’s gift was accepted and her new life aboard the Nedor would begin with her position as an assistant botanist, studying agricultural methods.

For the next few years, leading up to the war between the Terminus Confederacy and the Citadel Council; Shaala’s work would take up a large amount of her time, working on agricultural projects and occasionally studying medicinal properties of plants. Outside of her work Shaala spent a considerable amount of her free time with another botanist aboard the Nedor, Neela'Cimis; the two of them had initially bonded over fiction, with Shaala talking about the various TTRPG settings she knew of, and the stories inherent in them, and Neela with her favorite books. Their mutual love of fiction and stories eventually blossomed into a friendship and that into a romantic relationship.

During the war Shaala’s life wasn’t disturbed, her work kept her from any danger and no one she was close with would end up fighting during the conflict either. It wasn’t until the Reaper invasion that things took a more bleak turn. Jutis, and the crew of the Cassiopeia; would die during the conquest of Eden Prime, and while Shaala would only learn of this a few years after the fact, it left a lasting impact on her. Jutis was the first person outside of the Migrant Fleet to show her respect and compassion, and in remembrance of him, she carved a rose onto her suit’s hand-plate.

Once the Reaper invasion had come to an end and things began to settle down on the galactic scale, at least politically; Shaala was one of many Quarians who felt life on the Migrant Fleet was no longer necessary with the renewed Council citizenship. Shaala enjoyed what the galaxy had to offer, her experiences on her pilgrimage, while not all great; had shown her that there was a lot of good in the galaxy, something worth contributing to. Despite protests against the idea from Neela, Sheela decided to travel back to the Citadel, hoping to lend her talents in the rebuilding efforts across the galaxy, this decision would also be the end of her relationship with Neela.

Returning to the Citadel in 2189, she met up with Alice with the intent to find work, and with her help, Shaala landed a spot in a small agricultural study aboard the Citadel, their work related to bolstering colonial farming attempts post-Reaper war. She would continue to work on the project until 2191. After some time watching the CRC in the news, Shaala felt drawn to their goal of stabilizing and repairing the galaxy and decided her efforts would be better suited in an organization such as the CRC.

## Personality

Shaala could be considered something of an optimist and while she wasn’t always that way, it was her experiences on her pilgrimage that informed her current outlook. She had a lot of help from strangers, even in a galaxy that’s a bit biased against Quarians, which to her showed that people have a positive nature, more often than not.

She’s also a fairly outgoing and happy-go-lucky type, always wanting to talk to people and learn about them. On that same note, she’s often an unintentional conversational narcissistic, while she loves hearing about people, she can go on for hours about herself and her interests, until she either recognizes what she’s doing or someone mentions it.

Shaala is something of a workaholic, while she has her interests outside of botany; nothing quite scratches the itch of trying to understand the science, trying to make a breakthrough, or understanding the unknown properties of new flora. In a certain kind of way, it’s her version of adventure, the most exciting thing she can do.

### Hobbies & Interests

* **Dungeon Master** - Shaala has a deep enjoyment for tabletop games, mainly TTRPGs; a hobby she picked up as a kid. She has an extensive collection of tabletop books and a lot of homebrewed games and settings, she’s worked on since her childhood.
* **The Quarian Florist** - Shaala loves her flowers, something that came with her interest in plants and botany. She always has a flower of some kind in her apartment/living space, typically growing lavender or chrysanthemum, her two favorite Earth flowers.

## Physical Description

Standing at 5’4” and weighing 120lbs, Shaala is a fairly average Quarian, with typical light-purple skin and white/silver eyes. She sports long brown hair with her bangs often swept to the side, all of which would be virtually unknown to the average person, thanks to her environmental suit.

A quick inspection of her environmental suit would show its minimal white/gold-colored design, and blue visor. A small, crudely carved; rose sits on her left hand-plate, an often easy way to ID Shaala among other Quarians.

Shaala is a fairly fidgeting person, her body is in some kind of movement, crossing her legs while standing, tapping her fingers on tables, or pulling on the hood of her suit.