Zamha

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 STAR FLEET PERSONNEL COMMAND FILE
 SECURITY RATING 3, CONFIDENTIAL[1]

Zama
Zamha2.jpg
Career Occupation
Position:
Medical Officer
Assignment:
USS Titania, NCC-88002
Rank:
Lieutenant
Lieutenant
Time on Site:
Longevity Medal 3
Biographical Attributes
Species:
Selay
Gender:
Male
Height:
185 cm (6 ft. 1 in.)
Weight:
89.8 kg (198 lb.)
Eye Color:
gold, slit pupil
Hair Color:
N/A
Hairstyle:
N/A
Physique:
Trim, wiry. Muscular, but not in a bulky way
Complexion:
Dark green with lighter areas
Voice:
Breathy. Does not hiss while he talks or breathes. When he does hiss, it's generally laughter.
Affiliation:
United Federation of Planets
Birthplace:
Solokana, Selay
Born:
19608.20
Age:
22
Familial Relationships
Father:
Father parent: Szriss (52); Other-fathers: Nastat (44), Korus (42)
Mother:
n/a. Other-mother: Anshu (46); New mother: Sokoa (38)
Status of Parents:
all living
Siblings:
Vaska (brother, 29), Omrak (brother, 18), Aksay (brother, 15), Smeris (sister, 7), Azris (sister, 3, daughter of Szriss), Zanzo (female new child, 2)
Marital Status:
Single


Personal History

Raised by a loving, stable family. At the age of 8, after watching a parade celebrating the anniversary of Selay's Federation membership, featuring holographic ships, holographic aliens, and real aliens, decided he wanted to go out into space and meet the aliens himself. He found out for himself what was required for entry into Starfleet, and asked his family if he could start training. They supported his decision, even though it meant he would need schooling from more than one educational Clutch. With the help of his father, he was able to obtain additional educational materials from the nearest Federation Consulate, located in Solokana only twenty kilometers from his home. He started learning Federation Standard and Federation History in addition to his Clutch studies.


Around the age of 12, Zamha began visiting the Consulate as often as he could manage, and began asking to work there. His goal was exposure to humans and other aliens, and the opportunity to practice Standard. They turned him down at first. His persistence and slowly growing mastery of the human language finally convinced them to let him volunteer there when he was 14 years old. During the two year period before, he found a variety of small jobs elsewhere, often just to pay for his transportation to the Consulate, so that by the time the Consulate let him volunteer, he had already learned a variety of basic job skills.


Zamha did whatever was needed of him, restricted to the public areas of the Consulate, as often as he could manage to get there, for the next two years, all the while making no secret of the fact that his eventual goal was Starfleet Academy. He decided to give his pet, Kathuu, to one of his siblings after bringing her to the Consulate that one time, realizing he would never be able to take her to the Academy with him.


The Consulate finally hired him on as a part-time worker at the age of 16, doing general maintenance and clerical assignments. He completed his schooling and applied to Starfleet Academy before turning 19, and was successful on his first try.


The trip from Beta Renner to Sol was a long one. Zamha had been to the moons of Selay a few times, for the sake of the experience, but the opportunity to travel to Earth on a Federation starship returning there was a lucky break. It was his first opportunity, outside of simulations, to see how a starship really operated. As part of its normal operations, the ship stopped at a dozen worlds on the way, though the only ones Zamha had the opportunity to visit were Pacifica (Alien World #1!) and Betazed (#2).


That made Earth the third planet he'd been to, and he had two months at liberty before classes began. He spent the entire time traveling, visiting many sites on Earth and going as far as Earth's moon, as well as to Mars (#4) to pay his respects, according to human custom, at Robert Barnes's grave.


Cadet induction was an exciting time, as all the cadets who hadn't already chosen a service branch figured out what they wanted to do. While the Academy didn't require a major to be declared until a cadet's third year, like many cadets, Zamha wanted to get it done right away. His testing had pointed him in the direction of Science and Medicine. He soon decided on Medicine, and on Nursing as the Medical track he wanted to follow.


Zamha's habit of self-instruction served him well, allowing him to keep up with the intensive program when other, seemingly more gifted cadets fell behind. In fact, several fellow nursing cadets began coming to him for tutoring. However, he tried not to limit his connections to the Medical branch, and gained a group of friends made up of cadets from all the branches. Though the individual members would change from year to year, this group, which came to call itself the Fellowship, remained close throughout its Academy tenure.


In his second year, Zamha added a Xenology minor, as he felt a deeper understanding of interstellar cultures and species would help him as a nurse. It was midway through this year that the incident would occur that led to his discovery that some fruits and vegetables were edible to him. He and a few other cadets of the Fellowship had gone into San Francisco to have lunch at one of the city's farmers' markets (Zamha had sashimi from a nearby restaurant). The cadets had just finished eating when an argument in the market turned into a brawl. Two of the cadets were in Security and decided to try to break it up, while the others tried to support them. The cadets quickly found themselves in over their heads, and at one point one of the brawlers grabbed a basket of berries and shoved it in the Selay's mouth, causing him to swallow. Quite to Zamha's surprise, he did not get sick.


He tried to find out what the fruit had been and why it hadn't made him sick, and in his third year turned it into a research project for his multispecies nutrition class. He contacted his physician back on Selay, who put him in touch with a medical research scientist, and the end result was a list of plant compounds Selay could not consume, a list of vegetable foods Selay could safely eat, and a paper published in a respected Federation journal, in which Zamha, much to his surprise, was given co-author credit. He'd expected no more than an associate credit; the coauthorship had been a gift from the Selay scientist he'd worked with.


His cadet cruise was eventful. He was assigned to USS Gargoyle, temporarily assigned to the Academy while awaiting structural repairs which prevented it from returning to combat.


The cruise began with a transwarp transit from the gate at Sol to Andoria (one world Zamha was glad not to have visited due to its climate). En route to its next destination, the Gargoyle responded to a distress call from an Andorian patrol ship that had gotten the worst from an encounter with a disguised Orion craft. Gargoyle rescued the ship's surviving crew, several of whom were injured seriously enough to require them to remain in Gargoyle's sickbay for the three days it took the ship to return to Andoria. That was Zamha's most substantial practical experience performing his duties in a real world setting to date.


A month later, the ship detected a spatial anomaly that appeared to match the temporal anomaly reported by Voyager a few months before that ship's final disappearance ==Shattered==. After taking what were felt to be appropriate precautions, the ship approached the anomaly to perform detailed scans. However, it turned out that the anomaly was transdimensional rather than temporal, their precautions were ineffective, and the ship was split into 18 zones experiencing different timelines rather than different time periods. In addition, about ten percent of the crew throughout the ship were replaced with alternate reality counterparts, who were able to move freely between the different zones of the ship. Zamha was one of those affected by the split, temporarily becoming Engineering cadet Zamha, working with the engineers gathered from the different zones to restore the ship to its original timeline. Zamha suffered side effects afterwards, remembering both his past as a Medical and as an Engineering cadet. Gargoyle's Engineering staff determined the source of this and other residual effects of the anomaly three weeks later, and were finally able to fully purge those effects. As a result, Zamha now remembers those three weeks differently than the actual timeline--he remembers a timeline in which the anomaly was never encountered. The personal logs he recorded during those three weeks are his only reference.


The Gargoyle next spent a week at Risa (#5) for shore leave, during which time Zamha was approached by a Ferengi businessman with an unlawful proposal. After refusing the Ferengi's offer and reporting the event to Gargoyle's Chief of Security, the cadet learned from Risan Security that the Ferengi's goal could be attained by legal means and assisted him in doing so. Afterwards, the Ferengi had a live Shetland pony delivered to Gargoyle's sickbay, apparently in payment for the assistance. Gargoyle's CMO noted in Zamha's record that while he felt the incident did not require a reprimand, he did have the cadet thoroughly clean the sickbay reception area. The pony was returned to Risa before the ship's departure.


USS Gargoyle made additional stops at Coridan (#6) and Vulcan (#7) on its course back to Earth, where it immediately began its long-awaited final repairs, while the cadets bid farewell to the ship and crew, and returned to Earth for final exams and graduation.


Zamha's final Academy grades put him just short of the honor roll.


Personality Profile

Academy Major(s): Medical (Nursing track)
Academy Minor(s): Surgical Assistant, Anesthesiology, Xenology
Hobbies and Pastimes: Tries to meet as many alien species as he can; collects mementos from every world he visits. For relaxation, he has been practicing classical Chinese dance for about four years, by holodeck instruction. He had been looking for something physical to do to unwind and relax, unlike the general beating he took in hand to hand combat training. In San Francisco and elsewhere, he watched a variety of martial arts demonstrations and thought that one of the more dance-like forms might do the job. However, when he asked about one particular demonstration he liked, he was told it wasn't a martial art, it was classical Chinese dance.



Short-Term Goals: Prove himself as a nurse; gain postings to take him ever further into (capital S) Space.
Long-Term Goals: complete medical education to become a surgeon, through distance learning program. Eventually. If he still wants to. (He discovered he enjoys being a nurse. Initially, his choice of the nursing track had been due to a misunderstanding on his part: He'd heard about so many medical officers completing their internships at the Academy medical center that he'd thought doctors needed to spend an extra two years at the Academy, and he wanted to get into Space as soon as possible. By the time he learned of his error, he'd become happy with his choice.) And eventually, return to Selay, adopt a child of his own and join a family.

Personality: upbeat, passionate, emotional, friendly, witty, and sometimes a jerk.
Sense of Humor: conversational humor, wordplay; doesn't generally tell jokes, rarely pulls pranks; likes giving people "the creeps". Also a fan of Bugs Bunny, and sometimes quotes him (usually without trying to do the voice). He appreciates the wabbit's finely-honed sense of vengeance.
Phobias: : there's nothing that gives him instant screaming heebie jeebies...but he's never actually met an Antican face to face, so you never know. However, he really disliked the giant mosquitoes (crane flies) on Earth, even though he knew they were harmless.
Likes: meeting new people, trying new foods, going to new places, experiencing new things. An explorer from the egg.
Dislikes: has a really hard time dealing with incompetence. If he discovers a person doesn't know how to his job, or even if a person offers to help with something he doesn't actually know how to do, that really sets Zamha on edge.

Pet Peeves or Gripes: Being mistaken for female. He's a nurse. Humans tend to make the wrong assumption just from that. Selay sexual dimorphism isn't pronounced, and many people aren't aware of the particulars. But to those who are, he's below average male height, and has skin darker than is typical for a Selay male. Two somewhat feminine traits, two more things that cause people to guess wrong (though not Selay). And apparently, quite a few Andorian men think he has the personality traits of an ideal female, such as being an assertive and intelligent conversationalist. Would it be too much trouble for people to confirm their assumptions before jumping into their own mouths with both feet? At least the Vulcans do check. And then there was the time he went to Egypt during an Academy break, to visit the ancient sites, during summer. Deciding that carrying a personal cooling unit while wearing his cadet's uniform wasn't going to cut it, he decided to wear Selay-style robes for comfort, made other adjustments to deal with the heat, and searched the replicator database for a usable head covering. After trying and rejecting several styles, he discovered that the replicator template for a "niqaab" could be adjusted to fit his head, while not noticing something very important about that particular article of clothing. And so, there he was, in Egypt, wearing women's clothing...

Bad Habits or Vices: Selay until recently believed themselves to be obligate carnivores, essentially unable to eat anything but meat (although they are able to process dairy). However, during his Academy years, Zamha discovered by accident that Selay can safely eat a limited variety of fruits and vegetables. He even got a published paper out of that discovery. Since then, Zamha has enjoyed identifying and sampling safe plant foods, but owing to the way his body processes carbohydrates, they tend to cause him to put on weight. Plant foods are all junk food to him, nutritionally.
Disappointments: all the major achievements in his life become insignificant next to his graduation from Starfleet Academy. Co-wrote a paper on innovative Selay use of edible plants as food, published in the Journal of Interstellar Nutritional Science. Speaks fluent Federation Standard, having started to learn it years before entering Starfleet Academy.
Illnesses: no unusual illnesses to this point in his life; no lingering effects. However, there was that one time that someone slipped him something that made him really drunk, including a hangover the next day. Selay react to alcohol differently than humans; to them it's an analgesic, a painkiller, not an intoxicant. Whoever the culprit was never came forward, and the substance was not identified.
Strengths: Selay are venomous; their venom is similar to that of the king cobra of Earth. They are mostly immune to their own venom. A go-getter, compassionate, intuitive. One of the most important traits of a nurse is to anticipate the doctor's needs, and Zamha has that.

Weaknesses: Selay are heterothermic. In moderate temperatures (5-30 C, assuming normal clothing), their metabolism behaves like that of a warm-blooded being, maintaining a constant internal temperature. However, high and low temperatures cause their metabolism to slow, like a cold-blooded being. Zamha has difficulty functioning in adverse environmental conditions without protective clothing. Protective clothing is effective, as his body does generate heat as long as it is not forced beyond the ends of its tolerance range. Too-hot or too-cold water can be especially dangerous to him. Selay metabolism also requires that they rest after eating to facilitate digestion. A large enough meal will cause them to enter a state of digestive torpor. Zamha mostly overcomes this by eating small, frequent meals, and timing larger meals to his sleep period. Selay are mostly carnivorous, and thus need access to animal protein and fat for food and health.
Fears: he has had a variety of emotional issues arise from his experiences, and these issues seem to never completely go away, even with counseling. He fears they will eventually accumulate to the point he becomes unable to function as an officer.
Prejudices: hates the Anticans. Has never met one face to face, except for holodeck simulations, a fact for which he is thankful. Nevertheless, he hates them.
Off Duty Clothing Tastes: Human style, Earth European casual. (Robes are comfortable, but not very convenient for an active lifestyle.) Often wears a scarf, gloves, and sweater in cool weather. Hats don't work for him.

Distinguishing Features: (from a human perspective) he is a cobra person, with dark green scaly skin (lighter inside hood, under chin, stomach, palms and soles of feet), slit-pupilled golden eyes (with eyelids), and 3-fingered hands (2 fingers and a thumb). He has claws which normally would be kept sharp at about an inch long, but which he keeps trimmed to half an inch and blunted. He has a very short (20 cm), broad tail normally hidden by clothing. His tongue is long, narrow, pointed at the tip, and dark, but not bifurcated, and he does have the equivalent of a Jacobson's organ (as well as nostrils) for smell, so he does flick his tongue from time to time. (Selay perspective) fairly typical. Young, healthy, somewhat good-looking, but nondescript in a population where those are common characteristics. His skin tone is darker than average for a male but not unusually so, and he is below average height for a male. These two characteristics could be considered slightly feminine, but there are other distinguishing attributes that would prevent a Selay from making that mistake.
Pets: (former) Kathuu, king cobra. Received when Zamha was 7, given to his brother Omrak a little over a year after Zamha, then 13, learned the snakes originally came from Earth and were considered extremely dangerous by humans. (One only takes a cobra to a Federation Consulate once.) Zamha gave Kathuu that name because in learning Federation Standard, he was having a great deal of trouble with the 'th' sound and wanted to create a reason to use it more frequently.
Friends: Robert Barnes, Administrative Assistant to the Federation Consul at Solokana (deceased eight years ago, aged 71). Bob Barnes had been a Starfleet officer, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Commander before retiring after the end of the Dominion War and entering the diplomatic service. He briefly considered returning to Starfleet when the next war broke out, but decided peacemakers were needed more than one more old battered soldier. Barnes was a good mentor and treated Zamha as a cadet or ensign, but Zamha felt much closer to the man than just as his "commanding officer". Zamha has many friends, but hasn't found another "best" friend yet.

Personal Paradigm Shifts

Most Painful Experience: the death of Bob Barnes (best friend) is his most painful experience so far. They were close, and his death was sudden and unexpected, despite his age (71). Zamha had a very hard time dealing with human funerary practices. The Selay eat their dead to honor them; they have no graves or cemeteries. Preserving the body, putting it in a box, and burying the box in the ground seemed like the most horrible thing that could be done to his friend. He gradually came to terms with the experience, and realized this was exactly the kind of thing that he would have to adapt to if he would become a Starfleet officer. (Barnes's body was actually shipped off for burial on Mars; the funeral Zamha witnessed took place on the Consulate's holodeck.)
Best Time: Zamha has had a happy life overall, but the best time so far has been his graduation from Starfleet Academy. His father parent was even able to travel to Earth for the ceremony, bringing his recently adopted daughter Azris.
Most Crucial Experience: Again, the death of Robert Barnes (best friend). It really awakened Zamha to the awareness that going out into space and meeting aliens wasn't going to be all fun and games. The aliens he met, the people of other worlds, would have their own ideas about social norms and mores, their own culture, their own history, their own goals and dreams, and some of them would seem strange, even horrible. If he truly wanted to be a Starfleet officer, he would have to learn to let others be themselves, even those who would not accept who he was, and to interact with them on that level. He had been pursuing his dream with great vigor for years, but that was when he started taking it seriously: when his personal goal matured from "wanna go into space and meet aliens" to "explore, to seek new life and new civilzations, and to boldy go".
Role Model: Robert Barnes (best friend). Zamha felt that, as a former Starfleet officer, Barnes was a living example of what he would need to become (even though Barnes had been in the diplomatic service longer than he'd served in Starfleet). Knowing Zamha's desire to join Starfleet, Barnes often treated him as a Starfleet subordinate, with the Selay's understanding and agreement.

Career History

Position Assignment Date(s) Event
Cadet Star Fleet Academy 22008.12 Star Fleet Academy Graduate Ribbon Star Fleet Academy Graduate Ribbon
Medical Officer USS Copernicus, GSC-9035 22008.18 Assigned to USS Copernicus Midshipman
Medical Officer USS Copernicus, GSC-9035 22102.01 Ensign Ensign
Medical Officer USS Copernicus, GSC-9035 22103.01 Role Player of the Month Role Player of the Month
Medical Officer USS Copernicus, GSC-9035 22103.01 Star Fleet Achievement Medal Star Fleet Achievement Medal
Medical Officer USS Copernicus, GSC-9035 22105.01 Lieutenant Junior Grade Lieutenant Junior Grade
Medical Officer USS Titania, NCC-88002 22106.01 Transfer to USS Titania Lieutenant Junior Grade
Medical Officer USS Titania, NCC-88002 22109.01 Role Player of the Month Role Player of the Month
Medical Officer USS Titania, NCC-88002 22112.01 Lieutenant Lieutenant
Medical Officer USS Titania, NCC-88002 22201.01 Role Player of the Month Role Player of the Month
Medical Officer USS Titania, NCC-88002 22203.01 Role Player of the Month Role Player of the Month
Medical Officer USS Titania, NCC-88002 22208.01 Star Fleet Commendation Medal Star Fleet Commendation Medal
Medical Officer USS Titania, NCC-88002 22308.01 Star Fleet Achievement Medal Star Fleet Achievement Medal
Medals Tally:
Service Medals Awarded
Image Description Qty.
Star Fleet Academy Graduate Ribbon Star Fleet Academy Graduate Ribbon 1
Star Fleet Achievement Medal Star Fleet Achievement Medal 2
Star Fleet Commendation Medal Star Fleet Commendation Medal 1
Achievement Medals Awarded
Image Description Qty.
Role Player of the Month Role Player of the Month 4

Contact Information

E-Mail: ichako@sisna.com



  1. Unless otherwise specified, the information contained in this document is rated CONFIDENTIAL.