Changes

|Species Count=1

|Species=Human

|Gender=Female

|Height={{Feet|5|8}}

|Homeworld=

|Place=Eisnor

|Died=

|Age=26

|Position2=

|Assignment=USS Artemis, EX-11000

|Image2=

|SFReg=

|History=Beka grew up on the frontier world of Eisnor. It was a spectacular planet at the extreme north of Federation territory, all soaring mountain ranges, active volcanos and thick jungles. There was so much to study and so much mineral wealth as yet untapped, that a colony was settled there. Both Beka’s parents were born there, the first generation of Eisnoran natives. The colony was originally settled by a fringe group of survivalists, who had been backed by industry in exchange for first refusal on anything that came out of the ground. There was no rancour towards the Federation but the Eisnorans were determined to try and make it on their own.

Education on Eisnor was very much slanted towards the practical rather than the theoretical; everyone in the society needed to find themselves a role fairly quickly and then prepare whilst they grew into their teens. In Beka’s case, she decided early on she wanted to be a doctor. There was a strong protective instinct that ran right through her and she had a knack for knowing what to do to help someone. Her unflappable demeanour was a perfect fit for someone who needed to calm someone in pain and establish what was wrong. And so she was taught how to handle injuries from cuts to broken bones, and identify poisons and bites from the symptoms that she was presented with.

When Sydesh was a little over 15 years old, Eisnor suffered a catastrophic event. For reasons nobody had time to figure out, the planet’s magnetic field went through a series of fluctuations, and these triggered volcanos across the world. Within a week, the once clear blue skies were choked black with ash and sulphur, and magma streams ran through the settlements. The people just about managed to get a distress signal out before the power grid collapsed and they had to cluster together in the few remaining safe areas and hope for help.

The ships that came to Eisnor’s rescue were a motley collection of freighters and tankers, the only vessels willing and able to divert. Beka was at the very front of the efforts for her town, making sure everyone got on board a shuttle and was carried away to safety. She forced her own family onto one of the first ships out and stayed back to help. Unfortunately, her own ride was hit by flying rock from an eruption and crashed in the equatorial jungle. She doesn’t remember much of what happened but she regained consciousness on board an aging cargo vessel called the Riftrunner with nothing but some minor cuts and bruises.

The Riftrunner arrived at Starbase 223 near Corinth with the other stragglers. Much to Beka’s dismay she had been listed amongst the dead, and her family had already packed up and moved on by the time she arrived. They were gone and she had absolutely no idea where to. She had nothing of her own and nowhere to stay, and even though the Sydesh family had no way of knowing she was still alive, their leaving broke Beka’s heart.

Not thinking straight, she accepted an offer from the Riftrunner’s captain for sanctuary on board the ship, in exchange for his help trying to trace her family. Beka didn’t realise how much of a mistake she’d made until the first skirmish. The Riftrunner’s crew were space trash scavengers, cruising the Alteran Expense looking for things they could sell to the Ferengi, the Romulans or the Federation and living perilously close to the edge.

It was a harsh existence but one that Beka was well equipped to survive. She was smart enough to learn how to help keep the engines ticking over as well as the crew, and picked up a lot about how to defend herself and use a gun when she had to.

When the ship’s doctor, a jaded and deeply unpleasant man known as Tox, was killed during a confrontation with a Romulan transport, Beka took his place. She was young but already her intelligence and drive were obvious, and she had one massive plus on her side – those that she treated usually survived, even those that should have succumbed to the treacherous conditions, dangerous lifestyle and poor diet. She really thrived with the responsibility and the respect it brought her amongst the crew.

It was 2 years later when the Riftrunner’s luck finally ran out, and the ship was all but destroyed by a Ferengi marauder. Beka and the handful of survivors were rescued by the USS Phoenix. It wasn’t a simple rescue – the Riftrunner was a big ship and the Star Fleet team had to go in wearing environmental suits. When they reached the makeshift infirmary they found Beka, covered in the blood of those she was still trying to treat even as the ship fell apart around her.

The Phoenix’s CO, Cdr Vonn D’Jaoun, took a personal interest in Sydesh. She was fascinated by the young redhead, who had the conviction to argue with the medical staff trying to treat her and the other Riftrunner survivors. What really caught the CO’s attention was how Beka would take in the detailed explanations that she pressed for and accept the corrections. Vonn decided quickly that she wanted to steer Beka towards Star Fleet, seeing the potential the girl had.

The Phoenix was on a long patrol and wouldn’t return to Starbase for another 6 months; when the rest of the Riftrunner’s crew transferred to a passenger liner en route to a Starbase, Beka stayed on at D’Jaoun’s request. The CO taught her young charge how to access the wealth of information available from the ship’s computer and helped guide her studies, pointing her to medical texts to fill in gaps in her knowledge and broaden her education, whilst getting her time with the medics in Sickbay.

Once the Phoenix returned to base, Vonn urged Beka to travel to Earth to a school in Copenhagen that specialised in helping those who had an incomplete education, as a precursor to the Academy and a Star Fleet career. A revitalised Sydesh didn’t need telling twice. The teachers there worked to harness her ferocious drive and temper her apparently limitless enthusiasm, and whilst she remains headstrong and sometimes impetuous, this is still a huge improvement on the ball of energy that arrived in Copenhagen.

The Academy soon followed. Being surrounded with people who were just as keen and able as her was a revelation to Beka and she threw herself into her studies. She was one of those students who worked hard and made those around her work harder, fuelled by her competitive streak and wicked sense of humour. She was most definitely not universally popular though, as those same qualities could alienate some just as much as drive others. She took it in her stride, learning the lesson that as a medic she was obligated to help everyone regardless of their opinions of each other.

When the time came to graduate, Vonn D’Jaoun came back to Earth for the ceremony. The two of them spent a long time catching up, and the words of encouragement from her mentor gave Sydesh a massive lift as she readied herself for her first assignment.

She was posted to the USS Artemis, joining up with the crew just before the Pathfinder Expedition departed for the Delta Quadrant. Beka was much more confident and assertive than most new graduates, and she found an early niche dealing with the louder and more boisterous patients that came through the doors of the Medical Complex. One of her first patients was Evie Crawford, daughter of the ship’s CO Tyra, and the young doctor took it in her stride.

The Artemis’ first mission in the Delta Quadrant involved the evacuation of a Talaxian asteroid base that had been attacked by Kazon. Midshipman Sydesh led a small medical team that was initially set to work with the ‘walking wounded’, treating cuts, bruises and broken bones. When the Talaxian chief doctor Bix was incapacitated by heart failure and transported to Artemis for treatment, Beka stepped up. She carried out a string of life-saving operations and was instrumental in the transfer of patients to the Sickbays of the Pathfinder ships for transport to New Talax, building out an infirmary on board the Talaxian ship Wixiban for the trip and working as hard as anyone to get proper medical facilities in place on the newly settled world when they arrived.

Beka was awarded the Star Fleet Commendation Medal for her outstanding performance. Unfortunately things weren’t so clear-cut and praiseworthy outside of the Medical Complex. She was reprimanded by the First Officer Jenny Braggins for brawling in the ship’s gym, clashed with Chief of Security Coleman after a misunderstanding about his past, and embarked on a short-lived relationship with Nathan Ramius that ended with her being dumped halfway through their second date at a Halloween party. Most infamously, when the away team was assembling to go to the Talaxian asteroid base, Sydesh saw two officers having an ‘intimate’ conversation outside the transporter room and decided to wolf-whistle them whilst blaming someone else. That decision backfired spectacularly when the two officers were revealed as the Artemis’ Quartermaster Cera Morgan, queen of the ship’s information networks, and the Chief Engineer Benjamin Elias.

The young doctor’s antics were enough to earn her some tough conversations, not least with the CMO Commander Tyrol. To her credit Beka didn’t hide away from the consequences of her actions, and she accepted that she needed to change. Her full-throttle, all-energy style had carried her through the Riftrunner and the Academy, but it was severely hurting her prospects on Artemis.

The next couple of weeks were probably the most formative time in Sydesh’s life to that point. Jenny Braggins agreed to mentor the fiery Midshipman, and the FO’s tough love and experience were a huge help. Beka took part in training exercises with the Security department to show she understood both the military discipline expected of her and how to perform as part of a team. She also took a communications course to better understand how to handle herself in the field, and leadership training to make sure she knew what was expected of her.

Beka also earned her taekwon-do black belt at this point, and it was a huge deal for her. She was lucky and tough enough to have emerged from the destruction of Eisnor and her time on the Riftrunner with relatively few mental scars from her experiences. But one of them was a preoccupation with being able to defend herself. When she was rescued by the USS Phoenix, she weighed a feeble 89lbs and had spent years sleeping in remote corners of the cargo bay, clutching an old disruptor to stay safe. Cdr D’Jaoun, a 3rd-dan black belt in taekwon-do, started to train Sydesh in self-defence and showed her a few moves, and the girl took to it like a natural and stuck with it. Her competitive streak was kept reasonably in check at the Academy but once she joined a crew, she felt a constant need to prove herself and demand the respect of her peers. Training sessions could quickly get out of hand if she felt slighted, and that had caused the fight that got her barred from sparring in the Artemis’ gym. With a black belt around her waist though, she felt validated, like there was no need to prove that she wasn’t that runt off a backwater freighter any more. She was someone that could protect herself and those around her if she needed to.

This also showed itself in how she used her free time away from the Medical Complex. Sydesh still trained to maintain the high levels of fitness and honed physique she worked so hard to get. But she went from someone who spent pretty much every waking hour either working or working out, to making a point of spending just as much time indulging her creative side. This balance helped her gain some perspective, improve her mental health and make sure that her energy and drive was channelled into the right places.

All of her hard work didn’t go unnoticed and Beka was promoted to Ensign, something that had looked to be in doubt as the misdemeanours racked up. In a real show of faith from Dr Tyrol, she was also asked to step up and lead the Medical Complex floor in the absence of the CMO and the supervising doctor.

As a new mission starts, Ensign Sydesh is keen to show just how much she’s learned from her mistakes and grown as a person.

|Majors=Medical training, following the surgical track and specialising in trauma and emergency medicine

|Minors=Xenobiology and advanced surgical techniques. Unusually she also studied field engineering. She learned a lot of shortcuts and bodges keeping the Eisnoran equipment and the Riftrunner going, many of which were considered needlessly dangerous by actual engineers. For her it was important to learn the ‘right way’ to do things, even if it did keep her at the Academy another year.

|Location=Star Fleet Academy

|Assignment=Cadet

|StardateEnd=

|Event=Graduated

}}

{{CHLine

|Assignment=Medical Officer

|StardateEnd=

|Event=Midshipman

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{{CHLine

|Assignment=Medical Officer

|StardateEnd=

|Event=Role Player of the Month

}}

{{CHLine

|Assignment=Medical Officer

|StardateEnd=

|Event=Role Player of the Month

}}

{{CHLine

|Assignment=Medical Officer

|StardateEnd=

|Event=Star Fleet Commendation Medal

}}

{{CHLine

|Assignment=Medical Officer

|StardateEnd=

|Event=Ensign

|Department=Medical

}}

|PreChar=

}}