Liora t'Nerik

**Liora t'Nerik** is a Starfleet officer currently serving aboard the USS Phoenix as the assistant chief security officer, commanded by Captain T'Svai.

## Background

### Early Life

Liora was born upon Vashti, the Romulan Relocation Hub, to a Romulan mother and human father. The latter was an officer of the Federation, stationed indefinitely on the planet to aid relocation following 2387’s Supernova. Nestled in the Qiris sector, the planet’s evolution since its establishment as a sanctuary was by no means promising, and it shortly succumbed to the tension and unrest spurred by the disarray that had ensued after Romulus’ destruction. As such, Vashti was no place to raise a child, let alone one whose very existence seemed a mockery in the face of the Federation’s failure to intervene. The resentment many Romulans felt for the union manifested in attacks upon the family, both veiled and entirely blatant. Conditioned to flinch upon every disturbance, every shadow to sweep the walls, the young girl’s formative years were lived stricken with terror, bewildered by what she or her parents possibly could have done to incur such wrath from the people they ought to know as neighbours.

Cowering would not serve Liora forever, and as she grew older, it became evident that a certain resolution was required if she were to have some semblance of life as a functioning adolescent. Her parents, held in such disdain by the locale as it was, could not afford shortcomings when it came to societal contributions. As such, they continued to work throughout Liora’s teenage years, reluctantly leaving their daughter to grapple with her independence in the face of adversity. She managed, understanding the necessity that she do so. No longer was she small enough to hide, young enough to negate confrontation. Now, she had to be nimble enough, formidable enough so that confrontation was reconsidered, at the very least. In adopting the fast-paced, rough and ready existence of her contemporaries, Liora only felt all the more ostracised. It was not belonging, not relativity, but adaptation. Some convoluted instance of survival of the fittest, demanding she prove herself somewhat like-minded: competent, and far removed from their preconceptions that had her as the inferior to be preyed upon, and justifiably.

There were only so many times she could return home in such a state that it betrayed a failure in her efforts. Oftentimes worse for wear, Liora failed to back down out of frustration, possessing no true connection to the workings of Earth, or the Empire’s former glory. This was all she had known, and her parents concluded they could no longer stand to see their child face weaned on the animosity of her surroundings.

Benjamin and Livala vowed to take their leave from Vashti as soon as possible, given the planet’s worsening strife. Alongside a few other Federation officers, the couple arranged for a transport out of the system, where they would head for Earth in order to settle down and start anew. Interstellar traffic in the planet’s orbit was managed via a clearance system, in which unverified vessels passing through the shield were fired upon without hesitation. As such, clearance was arranged, and the small shuttle departed without issue. Gazing from its windows, the young hybrid was uncertain as to how she ought to feel. A part of her, indignant, resented that in one way or another she was surrendering to the so-called neighbours who had been set on her family’s misery. Another wished to never see Vashti again, neither its people, nor its rolling, unforgiving dunes of stark, dry sand. That, strangely enough, was her last memory of the planet before everything went dark, spanning out beyond the window, dusty gold and illuminated by sudden streaks of red.

She awoke upon Earth, in the starkly clinical interior of what was revealed to be Starfleet Medical. There, Liora came to learn the fate of her parents, common amongst the majority of passengers aboard the shuttle. It was believed, at this early stage, at least, that some effort had been made to tip off Vashti’s traffic operators, bribing them to revoke the vessel’s status of clearance. Orphaned, and disallowed the latitude to process such a fact, the young hybrid was granted asylum on Earth. Here, she was to aid legal proceedings following the attack on her parents, and likely did so in demeanour alone. It was easily discernible that she had endured all sorts of injustices, apparently, and it seemed as though the Federation believed quite readily that the instance had been premeditated. ‘Motivated’ aggression, they had said, spurred by those all-too familiar reasons that had yet to be anything but alien to Liora.

On the cusp of eighteen, Liora was acquainted with foster parents in the form of a human English couple, clumsily reflective of her father. It was rather on the nose, even or someone her age; had she not been so disillusioned, she may have even appreciated the sentiment. She may have also understood the pair’s resignation in trying to get through to her, and would not, had she the comprehension, have blamed Mr. and Mrs. Darwin for such a failure. Less and less rapt with their child day by day, it was hardly the fault of these retired Starfleet officers that they were unable to work through the despondence of a displaced young hybrid. Unsuccessful in their attempts to navigate her reluctance to trust.

She left them with no ill-feelings, rather, a sort of emptiness where the last year of her life ought to be. A blank page that would likely remain that way, to be mindlessly turned over as though it were an error in printing. What was one to do after such devastation other than dwell? Liora certainly had no idea, and would much rather move forward than remain on that blank page, scouring it for something meaningful. One thing that occupied her mind without fail, were the hazy memories of ‘Starfleet’. Dreamlike glimpses of clinical white, sleek and unusual structures dotted with friendly features set in unfamiliar faces. Different faces to the ones upon Vashti. Starfleet and its preservation of law, a stark contrast to the lawless dunes of her homeworld. She pondered what her father must have thought of it, of Vashti. Whether he once believed its potential to provide solace, or remained there in the pursuit of self-righteousness. After all, that’s what the Federation boiled down to, was it not? Altruism in the most self-serving of iterations. Liora was left dubious. Here she was, safe on Federation ground as they attempted to exact justice upon those who had let hate govern their actions. Never before had she seen a similar effort made on Vashti, and thus, thought it to be the typical course of events. Not an eyebrow raised, passivity part and parcel. Justice had not only never been an option, it had not been a concept she was privy to, and a part of Liora resented her father for not amending this sooner.

Navigating life on Earth was a trying feat; little glimmers of customs were just within the hybrid’s reach, a feat she could attribute to Benjamin Jeong. Somehow, and much to her own chagrin, Liora felt more displaced somehow than she had in the relocation hub. At least there, she had been raised knowing what to expect, even if it did turn out to be the unexpected. Being in London ought to have left her with some means of direction, or a convoluted sense of familiarity at the very least. In due time, as she had upon Vashti, Liora acclimatised. Her education carried over from the latter certainly left a lot to desire, disrupted frequently by one thing or another. This was to be, therefore, her first port of call. With newfound autonomy came newfound responsibility, after all, and an adeptness at picking pockets was not going to facilitate survival in this particular instance.

### Romulan Embassy, Earth

Upon Earth, the attitude she’d been received with by the Federation seemed to extend beyond San Francisco. In fact, basic hospitality appeared to be dominant planetwide, albeit bittersweet; the thought had almost soured Liora to London, and all it stood for. The marred memory of her father, his intentions she couldn’t quite decipher. Their devastating consequences, regardless. Loath to fester in resentment, having endured firsthand its repercussions, she endeavoured to become versed in the very notion that had her so stumped. Studying international relations, the young hybrid made for an inquisitive young student who dedicated an immense amount to bettering her knowledge; it was no trying feat when one had nothing else to lose. By her 30s, Liora entered the ranks of Earth’s Romulan Embassy by way of a graduate scheme, delighted to work alongside the likes of diplomats and ambassadors. Having such insight would’ve been greatly beneficial, she imagined, to the likes of Vashti’s populace.

One rather eccentric ambassador the young woman had come to be rather fond of had visited a Beta Quadrant colony left ravaged by the Iconian War ten years prior. During the visit, an assassination attempt was thwarted by attending security officers, assigned to the endeavour due to growing tensions amongst colonists. In the ordeal, Liora came to truly appreciate what she had failed to recognise upon Vashti, devoid of the reading that her studies had necessitated. Situations removed from stable societies were inherently unstable, but this was nothing that could not be prevented without the necessary protocol. Having spent almost a decade at the embassy, she requested to shadow the security detail assigned to a number of meetings to be facilitated throughout the Delos System. A Starfleet vessel was to ferry the Embassy representatives to their destination, much to Liora’s intrigue.

An intrigue that proved fruitful, since the voyage was interrupted upon a request for emergency response in regards to a planet en route whose devastation was imminent at the hands of sudden seismic activity. What with the urgency of such an occurrence, any contribution was an appreciated one. Liora found herself aiding with the planet’s evacuation, coordinated with a number of vessels in range at the time. Only once the natives were confirmed out of harm’s way did she allow herself the chance to process the effort fully, and Liora struggled to come to terms with the sheer, relentless determination that was required in such an endeavour. It had only been a small planet, populated only in two main regions. Her mind, despite the hybrid’s innermost efforts, strayed to Romulus. Her mother, for whom her heart ached so dearly, and her father. Her father, his faith in Federation values, and the subsequent intentions she almost felt a fool for ever debating.

### Starfleet Academy

Returning to Earth, Liora was left suitably overwhelmed by what she’d seen. Certain she’d never truly comprehend the state of affairs, she better understood the fragmented social structure of Vashti at the very least. After such devastation, and what had seemingly been minimal intervention, a people left in disarray was to be expected, however dismal a reality. Nonetheless, she had witnessed firsthand the effort to disallow such realities from coming to fruition, and surprising even herself, Liora enrolled in Starfleet Academy.

The experience was like nothing she had endured upon Vashti, and Liora found herself befriending a number of peers, less sceptical of Starfleet’s endeavour to do good than she was enamoured by it. Security was her chosen department, having observed the capability of its officers in aiding evacuation efforts; liaising was all well and good, but there was an element of action involved here, one that granted endeavours like these tangibility. Impact, meaning; quite literally putting oneself on the line for the preservation of others. Beneficial to Liora was the work she’d done prior relating to interspecies protocol, and the osmosis of Federation-based knowledge that came with spending so much time in the Embassy. Unsurprisingly, the theory aspect was the hybrid’s favoured side of her studies, reading into the nuances of interplanetary relations helped her to feel slightly less detached from her own identity, rationally or not.

The physical demands of the pursuit were met easily enough, too; she had never been unfit, given the nature of her upbringing. It would only have left her all the more vulnerable, so it may have been by some extended sense of necessity that Liora continued to hone her agility over the years. By her mid-fifties, she graduated from the Academy, having landed herself an autonomy she never thought possible. Returning to the stars was a daunting notion, but one she was compelled to pursue nonetheless; admittedly, Liora was a little giddied by it all, belied by the level-headed exterior that many classmates declined to maintain themselves. In the hybrid’s case, it was practiced. For someone so young in theory, she was hardened beyond her years. Likely beyond what her peers would have expected for a human of the same age, but they hardly held it against her. Sympathy was not in Liora’s interest, but it made a welcome change from gratuitous resentment. She respected her peers, and the sentiment was shared. Common, too, among Liora and her Academy familiars was belief in the values that had brought them together. Ones they endeavoured to uphold with unfailing optimism, which she hoped to one day share in herself.

### USS Marlborough

Ironically, her first assignment was the USS Marlborough, a vessel facilitating diplomatic endeavours in the Alpha Quadrant. Liora found the role fascinating in its familiarity, more so that she was now suitably equipped to fulfil it. Knowledge of protocol in its differing contexts came into play, and she applied it in the same by-the-book manner in which she’d gotten through the academy. Much to the amusement of her academy peers, that was, who she wrote to frequently without fail. In them, she had acquired a sense of belonging. Or at least, some semblance of what she thought belonging might feel like. She daren’t admit it aloud, in belief that such phenomenons were fleeting; her mother’s dispirited gaze eyes had imparted that to Liora even in her youth. Grey eyes, like her own, seldom bright, and never again to gaze upon the place she herself had once called home. Perhaps foolishly so.

Altogether, Liora’s service aboard the Marlborough was uneventful in the sense of disaster, the hypotheticals of which had been so rigorously covered in the Academy. She, unlike a handful of self-proclaimed renegade ensigns, was thankful for that fact, and cherished the opportunity to learn. In favour, that was, of learning as a product of necessity; the alternative made for a comparably pleasant introduction to life in Starfleet.

### Argelius II Spaceport

Preceding the turn of the decade, the Marlborough’s string of negotiations concluded. The vessel was to head to Luna’s Copernicus Ship Yards to be decommissioned, its officers reassigned. Liora was sent to Lunaport, from where she’d travel to her next posting in the Beta Quadrant; Argelius II, which boasted its own planetary port. Unrest had overcome the pacifist people, whose hiring external administrative officials was common practice. Recently, the endeavour had gone awry. A miscommunication resulted in a newly partnered planet’s government to question the Argelians’ motivation, the Federation spaceport reporting incidents of suspected espionage. Liora and a number of security personnel she’d encountered upon Luna were tasked with monitoring the port’s commerce, ensuring that the planet remained secure given its status as a shore leave destination. In time, the offenders were confirmed, apprehended, and identified as a rogue organisation removed from government supervision. Talks were organised to ensure that no such violation should happen again, an understanding reached between both authorities.

### New Romulus

Following her stint of service on Argelius II, Liora was reassigned to a fleet vessel coordinating negotiations on New Romulus —  she was to serve as a bodyguard for an attending Federation Ambassador. The assignment was one she felt trepidation in regards to, given her removal thus far from her Romulan heritage. Nonetheless, it was nothing she was truly incapable of tackling, given how she had coped in London. Certainly, there was some form of rationality to be considered, given her experience upon Vashti, although Liora sourced reassurance from her studies that these were not the values the Republic had been established with.

Working between the planet itself and the vessel in question, Liora spent a great deal of time at the Mol’Rihan embassy. It was here she met Lerit, a Romulan diplomat who was irritatingly intrigued by the Starfleet officer’s austerity, and as such, perceived a glorious challenge in wearing it down. He succeeded, to some degree — endearing himself to Liora even fractionally was an impressive feat, given her history for receiving any such advancements with the coldest of shoulders. Finally witnessing New Romulus altered this, she imagined; a haven for people amidst whom she might finally have a place. Mol’Rihan was distinctly separate from the home her mother seldom spoke of, its very foundations built upon the opposition of that which had come before. Liora wished her mother could have seen it, too, and a part of her liked to imagine that in some other, distant strand of existence, all three of them had wound up here after all.

The two were married, and brought closer as ever by way of their newfound role as parents. Welcoming two sons, one only a handful of years after the other, Liora and Lerit built for themselves a life that was comparably idyllic to that which the hybrid had endured in her youth. The latter likely had some effect on the woman’s continued devotion to her career, determined that she instil within her sons the same incentive to cherish peace as she did. By now, there was little resentment harboured for her own parents. She saw them not as consciously neglectful, but dispirited, better able to understand the despair that accompanied a displacement so severe. Not only in their case, but planetwide; grief on such an immense scale was all-encompassing, and soured Vashti to the hostile wasteland it had come to be. As such, she was loath that her own children should ever take life upon Mol’Rihan for granted.

Parul was the older of the two, quiet and mild-mannered. He was exceptionally clever, causing him to be the object of Kiros’ fond teasing — the younger and more rambunctious sibling had little time for the likes of academia, nor its subscribers. Nonetheless, the two got on exceptionally, and were loved unconditionally by the couple; Liora continued to work with Starfleet in affairs of planetside security, Lerit climbing the Embassy’s ranks, having been elected as ambassador. It was with a brazen sort of assurance that Lerit approached most things. Liora had come to know this almost immediately, witnessing the phenomenon time and time again throughout their union. Given his newfound status and all its accompanying influence, she willed him to lead an example of level-headedness, neurotically aware, perhaps, of that which had loomed over the Republic since its onset.

In 2475, with the boys reaching young adulthood, Liora felt justified in returning to work beyond Mol’Rihan, and found for the first time that she was reluctant to do so. She hadn’t allowed herself the latitude to step backward since settling, regard her life as a bird might. From a distance, it was possible that she had achieved what her parents had given their lives in pursuit of. Simplicity, and a compassionate existence. Along came that bittersweet pang, born this time from a want to let Benjamin Jeong and Livala t’Nerik know that their daughter had found her way home, however many years in the making. Liora had to believe that it would be here to greet her upon returning, and set off bearing the most gratitude she’d ever had the pleasure of possessing.

### USS Tenacity

The USS Tenacity was a surveillance vessel, deployed to investigate a newly established Federation colony that had declared a planetwide state of emergency. Following scans, it was suspected that unanticipated shifts in the planet’s natural energy barrier had spurred a number of temporal anomalies. Colonists had been steadily diminishing in numbers, seeming to disappear without explanation. Unsurprisingly, this landed the locale in a state of unease, and it was the job of security personnel to ensure that Aurelon’s inhabitants did not descend into hysteria while the Tenacity’s science department ran their analyses. Upon the conclusion of a week of surveillance, readings suggested that the anomalies coincided with electrical storms, hence the frequently decreasing intervals between disappearances. Unfortunately, this was confirmed as a portion of the guard detail was displaced themselves, leaving Verasa in command by way of the chain system. Beaming the colonists aboard was non-negotiable, too high a risk given the atmosphere’s electrical interference. She opted to study the occurrences of the storms with the aid of a science officer, and map their trajectory. In doing so, a planetary monsoon season was established that had evaded detection by final terraforming assessments. With this knowledge available, a route was mapped through which the colonists could be evacuated, relocated to a zone that would remain untouched by the phenomenon for the longest time.

The relocation was a success, and Tenacity’s crew set to work in the installation of a weather control matrix exclusively sensitive to shifts in atmospheric electromagnetism. Aurelon’s storms were duly brought under control, their recorded occurences utilised in restoring the displaced colonists and crewmembers to the present timeline. The mission’s conclusion ought to have been means to celebrate, but the period following made for a dismal state of affairs.

Liora returned to Mol’Rihan to be met by a household all but devoid of its usual warmth. Fraught with an anxiety she’d never seen crease his brow before, Kiros relayed to his mother the growing unrest within the Republic. It had been an uncomfortable amount of time since any reported activity by Empire loyalists, spurring talk amidst New Romulus’ inhabitants that something untoward lingered in the near-future. The mere notion rattled Liora more than she’d ever admit, though her husband appeared to remain unfazed. At least, he endeavoured to outwardly imply as much, to such an extent that he took the incentive to openly condemn the Tal Shiar and all they stood for. He failed to consider that prodding the bear would lose one a limb; in proclaiming resilience, security, he was only provoking the ruthless into exacting ruthlessness. They were no fools, and would surely leave him as one for even imagining that his little influence may quash the credibility of one of the most formidable threats known across the expanse of space. She despised him for his irrationality, his lack of selflessness in failing to recognise the severity of such an act. A part of Liora, perhaps unfairly, felt the shortcoming to be personally offensive; had he not married a woman who had once lost all hopes of livelihood to needless violence? Sworn to love and protect her blindly, come what may? He had failed to recognise the fragility of fulfilment, and rendered every contributing sacrifice nondescript. He had broken her heart, and Liora vowed she would not allow him to lay further waste to that which she held dear. The place she had finally come to know as home.

It was a hollow promise; the next few years were lived in apprehension, bitterly remnant of nights spent on Vashti with weary eyes unmoved from dark, bleary windows. The pair were separated, their sons old enough to drift from parent to parent as and when they wished, always less inclined to be in the company of their father by an extension of their mother’s hurt. Destined to worsen, was the latter, when radio silence from Parul served as a wake-up call from the despondence she’d since fallen into. A break in the wave that had refused to do so thus far, building and building just short of the shore, but close enough that it was smothering nonetheless. Accompanied by Kiros, Liora arrived to the residence of her son to be met with such vacancy it was chilling. Rather than belie her son’s status as someone who favoured minimalism, the state of his abode implied that he had simply never existed. All that remained of Parul tr’Nerik was an inscription above the doorway that detailed his unlawful acquisition by, and anticipated indoctrination into the Romulan Tal Shiar, courtesy of his disgraced father.

By 2477, Liora had returned to Earth. In truth, she could not stand to remain on Mol’Rihan any longer, embittered by the manner in which it had ended up not dissimilar to every solace in her life thus far. Coming to terms with Parul’s fate was inevitable, however the notion evoked in her a sense of enveloping dread. Without Kiros, Liora was not certain she could have endured the ramifications herself, and the two resided quietly in England in shared solemnity. Infuriatingly, there was nothing to be done. What had been done was the catalyst for such a horrific outcome as this, and there was some perverse lesson to be learned in the dangers of self-righteousness. As if in cruel confirmation of her despair’s validity, August saw the Tal Shiar rear its head once more, with ruinous repercussions. Liora and Kiros, by some miracle, had avoided the attack of massive proportions in returning to Earth, and by the time they had heard of the endeavour, and witnessed its reversal, were left utterly bewildered. At a loss, likely in keeping with the remainder of the Romulan populace, and yet altogether singled out in their mourning left unaltered by the restoration.

Sure enough, pragmatism took precedence once more. The complexity of circumstances notwithstanding, Liora remained stalwart in her belief that nothing warranted the risks of passivity. By the following year, this belief was put into practice all over again, and she accepted a position aboard the Phoenix, whose role in Mol’Rihan’s survival had been vital — a feat the hybrid was greatly indebted to despite her personal grievances, and one that reminded her of what she had been fighting for this entire time.

## Personality

Wizening with age has been an internal affair for Liora , whose formative years were nothing short of bleak. As such, her youth was lived with atypical pessimism for the most part, a hardened outlook on life the only one that would serve any purpose. Upon her arrival to Earth, the hybrid mellowed out; still remarkably austere at times, she came to admire the values of Starfleet and subsequently adopt them. Compassion is vital to Liora, who aims to uphold this notion despite her learned outward coldness. The latter is not something she is proud of, rather, an old habit impossible to do away with. A defence mechanism, of sorts, that subsides to reveal a kind-hearted, solicitous soul on rare occasions. Closeness is not something she parts with easily, reserved only for those Liora truly believes worthy of trusting. Attributing such reticence to her Romulan lineage is much easier than acknowledging instances of trust broken, and the resulting anguish. As such, she tends to favour approaches of realism, having found the pragmatic middle ground between her years lost to aimlessness, and the ever-unattainable promises of optimism.

## Appearance

Liora appears, at first glance, to be of Vulcan descent. The amalgamation of her Romulan and Human lineage manifests in a high brow notably absent of the former species’ discerning forehead ridges. With a tanned, lightly freckled complexion owed to her desert homeworld, t’Nerik stands at a graceful 5’10, slenderly built and athletically toned. In regards to her age, it’s a figure that remains similarly elusive to her heritage in a general sense. From a distance, at least; Liora appears to be the human equivalent of middle-aged, betrayed only by slight creases about her eyes and lips that are emphasised with even the most minute displays of disapproval. The eyes in question are of a grey hue, framed by dark, softly waved hair that has yet to succumb to silvering. Seldom is the Romulan seen without it swept back into a pristine updo, out of her face for the sake of practicality.