| USS Charon Crew | |
|---|---|
| Nimue Andraste | |
| |
| |
| Rank: | Lieutenant |
| Position: | Chief Helmsman |
| Race: | Ardanian/Betazoid |
| Gender: | Female |
| Age: | 24 |
| Hair Color: | Brown |
| Eye Color: | Brown |
| Height: | 5'6" |
| Weight: | 124 lbs |
| Father: | Captain Saimon Valarin, USS Icarus |
| Mother: | Councillor Xanthe Andraste, Ardana Representative, Earth |
| Siblings: | None |
| Marital Status: | Single |
Biography
If there are gods responsible for creating the universe, they probably look down upon Nimue and shake their heads, certain that they made a mistake when they bound this restless, reckless, fey child to a moral coil...and on Stratos the Cloud City of all possible places. In a city of libraries and museums, this girl who enjoys jumping off the side of a mountain more than reading any book, was the daughter of two individuals destined to be quite important in the politics of their times. Of course, when Xanthe Andraste of Ardana and Saimon Valarin of Betazed first met, they did not much care about the fact that one of them out eventually take a seat as a representative of her world to the Federation Council and the other would become an important figure at Starfleet Command. They were in love.
Despite the fact that no one in her family much liked the young Betazoid man who had caught her fancy, Xanthe married him. Love lasted for about six months, which - to be fair to them - is quite a bit longer than the universal median. Once the young passion of their relationship was gone, once reality set in and the mundane responsibilities of everyday life set in, Xanthe and Saimon discovered that they could not tolerate each other. They tried to make it work. After all, they had a daughter on the way. However, two months before Nimue was born, Saimon left Ardana.
He saw his daughter again, of course, every so often - maybe once every two years or so, he would stop at the Stratos and tell the precocious child about his great adventures and then disappear. The fact that his daughter adored him made no difference. The uniform was always there, waiting for him to return to it as much as the child waited. He loved the uniform more, and he made his choices.
Xanthe, for her part, was as good a mother as one might expect. She did not really like children that much, and she had never really wanted one of her own, so when Nimue came along the young woman tried, as best she could, to be a good mother - and when she could not manage that, she hired servants to watch over the child. Still, in true Stratos fashion, the child was given an excellent education and she led a rather comfortable life.
And yet for some reason Nimue was never quite content. She was always seeking to escape. She hated art and artifice, hated the rigid discipline and silence of Stratos. She was not all that fond of her dominating mother either. In short, she wanted to escape. This desire to escape became physical. Nimue would climb to dangerous heights, hide away in secret little corners for hours and simply play - the one thing that the people of Stratos has never been quite good at. By the time she was eleven, Nimue had convinced her mother to let her learn how to fly a shuttle - in exchange for the rare gift of good behavior (or a limited period of time, of course).
Flying fascinated her. It was as if her soul had finally found expression...and the skills came to her naturally, leaving all her teachers quite impressed. When she was around sixteen, Nimue ran away from home, taking a shuttle with her. Xanthe made a half-hearted attempt to find the girl, but she was quite convinced that the child had taken too much after her father to ever be of any use to anyone.
Starfleet Academy
At seventeen, Nimue - complete with a very minor juvenile criminal record - applied to Starfleet Academy and was admitted. The years that followed were painful for everyone concerned. Military discipline did not sit well with Nimue and she got into a few spots of trouble in her early years at the Academy, though things settled down for her a bit as time went on. Her flight instructors were always happy with her though - in fact, they had not seen any indication of this lack of discipline that the other teachers complained about. Nimue was something of a prodigy, one of the best pilots in her class, and they seemed happy enough to leave it at that.
However, Andraste never quite managed to grasp the art of flying a fighter or other such smaller craft. Her tactical training kept getting drowned out by her obsession with the beautiful and complicated flying maneuvers. She got blown up quite regularly during simulated training, and eventually it was decided that until she could get a better handle on the more military aspects of being a pilot, she should be assigned to a position where someone else was making decisions in battle.
Assignments
She was first assigned, therefore, to the USS Serendipity after she graduated from the Academy. Starfleet believes that with sufficient time on the helm of a starship, Nimue will develop the tactical instincts necessary to fly on her alone. All indications are that that is what she was born to do.
Nimue has since then served on the USS Claymore, the USS Saladin and has recently been assigned to the USS Charon. She continues to train to become a fighter pilot but has not yet been able to convince any commanding officer to give her that role.
Personality Profile
Stratos is an anti-gravity elevated metropolis known for its art. It is such an idyllic and beautiful place that there are those who compare it to Risa - in fact, for anyone who enjoys a more cerebral vacation, it might indeed be a better place to go. It is a place of high culture and intellect - the city-dwellers pride themselves on these qualities. And then there is Nimue...wild, energetic and untamed, she is the exact opposite of everything for which her birthplace is so famous.
Nimue is something of a force of nature. Her endearing child-like qualities: her quick empathy, easy laugh, unconscious beauty, her persistent innocence have not yet begun to fade. She is still very young - and (much to the dismay of her mother) she seems to consciously refuse to grow up. She remains playful and active, completely absorbed in whatever she is doing with a complete disregard for the future. Of course, the problem is that with this kind of personality is that sometimes she has trouble being taken seriously. Her time at the Starfleet Academy was riddled with reprimands - in fact, she spent so much time in the Dean's Office that she was on a first name basis with him (or so she thought).
That said, Andraste is an absolute blast to be around in social situations. She loves a good party and practically specializes in having fun. Her relationships with men are...well, they're not really relationships at all - they're more like flings. There has been a lot of what Nimue calls 'psycho-babble' about how she has "daddy issues" - this kind of stuff really irritates her and she has no use for anyone in a teal uniform who asks her how she feels. As she's fond of pointing out, she's usually pretty happy until she starts talking to counselors.
As for has her flying is concerned, it has been said that she relies too much on her natural talent, and this causes some difficulties when she is engaged with an enemy vessel. She has a decent grasp of the basic tactics - however, she relies too much on her flying ability in a fight, not paying enough attention to strategy. In that sense, she's something of a work in progress for Starfleet.
Andraste is also a bit of an adrenaline junky - she loves heights, free falls and is a bit of an acrobat. It is almost as if she was never meant to be on tied to the ground - she would have been in paradise if she'd been born with wings. Nimue is probably not the most beautiful woman you'll find on a ship. However, there is an aura of sorts around her - as if the universe itself responds to her presence. She always looks like she belongs and yet she's never aware of the fact that she has to belong, which enhances her natural charisma. She gets along with most people, and generally hates confrontations.
She is an empath, but a very weak one. Nimue is not in the habit of relying on that ability in normal everyday interactions with people. She thinks it is intrusive...and finds it often lowers her opinion of people a little when their baser motivations are revealed. Nimue prefers to live in a world where people do good things for the sake of doing them.
Distinctive Physical Characteristics
It should be noted that though Betazoids, even hybrids, usually display the unique feature of having completely black eyes, this trait is recessive to the Ardanian gene controlling eye color. In other words, Nimue has her mother's light brown eyes despite her dual heritage.
Other Information
Hobbies: Nimue is in the habit of participating in high stakes, usually illegal and dangerous underground races. Andraste, and her red speedracer, Hateful Chastity, are known in several circuits of such a nature. (Hateful Chastity was originally featured in The Kevratas Run - Nimue Andraste.) Hateful Chastity is a custom built vessel, with a small, sleek frame and nacelles built into the back of the vessel to reduce the racer's overall size. Nimue is also fond of surfing, running, playing tennis, BASE jumping, rock climbing and snowboarding.
As part of her classical education on Ardana, Nimue was taught to play the violin, which she promptly surrendered for a guitar that she still occasionally strums. She was also trained in a traditional martial art known as Azmaa'Neyar, which involves the use of two Azeyma, weapons that are essentially double bladed, curved tonfa. While Nimue is not a gifted fighter, Azmaa'Neyar suits her slight frame and allows her to use her speed to her advantage, which is why Nimue still occasionally practices the art.
Languages: Federation Standard, Betazoid and Ardanian.