Alak H’Daen

Summary
Alak H’Daen was a half Romulan, half Vulcan hybrid who served aboard the USS Lammergeier. He was often a stoic man, who found himself torn between the dichotomy between Vulcan and Romulus, between his mother and his father. While perhaps a bit reserved at first, once he opened up. He was a medical prodigy, having specialized in Trauma Surgery during his residency before being placed aboard the USS Essex, where he served for several years before he was unceremoniously demoted and transferred off ship for performing a trill symbiotic transplant against the wishes of his superior officer.

History
Born in the Capital city of the Romulan Star Empire, Alak H’Daen was born to T’mar and Rajik H’Daen. His mother was a Vulcan diplomat, who was like minded with the Vulcan, Spock in hoping to bring about the reunification of Romulans and Vulcans. She herself had training in Medicine, from her time in Starfleet, and initially masqueraded as a Romulan citizen. Shortly after her arrival on the planet, she entered her first Pon Farr.

The symptoms were recognized immediately by Rajik, himself a Doctor. Rajik came from noble stock where the empire was concerned, his family having wormed its way into the upper echelons of Romulan society through a variety of mining contracts nearly a century prior. Upon finding her, Rajik attempted to stabilize her through medical means but was unsuccessful, leading him to resort to the natural means to end the sickness. The two however, remained close after the Pon Farr had passed, and shortly after, she discovered her pregnancy.

Alak was born screeching and squealing for his mothers' milk. He was known to be a fussy, uncomfortable baby that never sat still for long, and didn’t allow his parents a full night's rest until he was past his second year of life. His early childhood was largely happy, his mother not enforcing the rigorous standards that Vulcan children were forced to cope with upon him, instead allowing him the choice to decide when and how to explore the cultures of his heritage. Through the years, a brother and a sister also came to fruition from his mother, and a second brother by another Romulan woman, who had entered their family unit.

When he reached age ten, he began working on the control of his emotions. Not, however, to much success. His blood ran as hot as fis father, and while he wasn’t designed for the utter control of his mother, his mind was structured much like hers. He saw things logically, and excelled in his studies. His life in school wasn’t simple. He was accosted and harassed nearly constantly by his classmates. The ‘half-breed’ that dared to attend Romulan schooling. While he was legally, protected, and then some given the status of his father, socially, he was not. He was a pariah among his peers, something that his father and mother had vastly differing opinions in the handling of.

His father suggested he deal with the matter with either a show of intellect or a show of force. Humiliate one student and the rest would fall in line. His mother however, urged more conservative action. She suggested that he swallow his pride, and prove his worth through action. He decided on the middle ground. One day at school, he proved his worth intellectually, through a battery test that had been planned for weeks. He outperformed the entirety of his class, and when he was accused of cheating, he took the battery again, side by side with a classmate, outsourcing him once again. When finished however, the student took a swing at him. A single squeeze to his shoulder, and the student fell to the ground. A trick, taught by his mother. Of course, she was furious with him, and his father was as well, but the matter was handled.

The rest of his early life was relatively uneventful. At age fifteen he was, under Romulan law, legally capable of serving in a non-combat role. Thus, he was assigned to vocational school as a student nurse. Immediately, he knew he’d found the career that would eventually become his calling. He progressed through his studies with relative ease, completing his general education alongside his naval training. At age eighteen he graduated vocational and was assigned to a hospital in the Capital city. However, with his achievement, came a new grief.

After some political instability his mother was forced offworld, to return to Vulcan. It created a massive rift in her marriage to Rajik, as the action that had resulted in her expulsion from the planet, was taken in defense of her husband. A husband, who stayed behind, and left her to her exile alone. Alak didn’t find out until his mother had contacted him while escaping the planet, utilizing a Federation contact to secure safe passage. Alak was forced to serve out the remaining month of his mandated service, but intended to join her. His final month was a tumultuous one. With political instability, came violence. Violence, which his clinic saw more than its fair share of.

The growing unrest among the ‘common’ people of the city, had forced him to transfer from a role as a triage and trauma nurse, to a surgical assistant. Eventually, he had enough violence. A boy was brought into the clinic, a year or two younger than Alak. He’s been caught attempting to break into a business, and some of the ‘good folk’ in service to the social elite, stopped him, and left him to die.

The surgeon he’d been learning from and operating with, had opted to let the boy die, even though his treatment was simple, because of what he’d been caught participating in. Alak did the procedure himself, and the boy was able to walk home in less than two hours. However, his indiscretion and insubordination had its consequences, and he was promptly chased off world as well, just behind his mother.

He spent a year on Vulcan, settling into the Federation alongside his mother. On Vulcan, he found a surprisingly welcoming environment given his heritage. Of course, there were those who were less than pleasant, but far more were nothing but welcoming to him. Quickly, he fell into a training routine at a monastery, attempting to further navigate the complicated recesses of his mind, and attain the control that his mother effortlessly flaunted.

A year of effort and settling, and his emotions were more in check, but he knew that likely he would struggle to achieve the control he yearned for. He possessed an unquiet mind, not one meant to be bound by logic. He’d volunteered some of his time at a clinic on Vulcan, treating relatively minor medical concerns, and never the violence he experienced on Romulus. At the end of the year, he decided to join Starfleet, and after a healthy dose of political flexing from his mother, and numerous interviews to ensure his trustworthiness, he was allowed to.

He chose to major in Xenobiology and Cellular Biology, which he at first for a change, struggled with. He understood the content and the material, but the structuring of the Academy was a difficult concept for him to grasp, and he floundered with it for the first year. One of his professors, Commander Hal Benren, who taught Differential Equations, took pity on him, and through the summer brought him up to speed on Federation custom, process, and culture. School was a bit easier for him, and with additional support from his classmates and teachers, he flourished.

Following the Academy, he applied for Starfleet medical school. He never intended to find himself in the position between choosing to save a life, or leave it, based solely on political standing or opinion of a superior. He served his medical residency on Luna, at the trauma center of the moon's capital. He intended to follow the path he’d started all those years ago, in the shoes of a nurse, and become a Surgeon, to use his hands to heal.

2377- 09/2379
Following graduation from his residency, he was stationed aboard the USS Essex. He arrived with light in his eyes, and an excitement to discover and cure new diseases and ailments. Serving aboard a Starship was different than simply serving in a planetside hospital. A Starship typically didn’t have the luxury of having a Doctor for every specialty, instead there were several Doctors capable of providing regular patient care, but also capable of advanced procedures typically reserved for a specialized physician.

He wasn’t just a Surgeon. He was a Starship doctor, and each day he felt he learned more to perfect his craft. He’d created a comfortable home for himself, staying in regular contact with his mother. He made friends aboard, and had become relatively close with the physician he served under. He was able to enjoy the creature delights of the ship, as well as his own fair share of time on both away missions and just using r&r to visit the worlds the ship visited.

His comfort, however, came to an abrupt close when news reached the crew about the situation on Romulus. There had been a coup, a violent coup. It had been followed with…a hand of peace? It had never sat right with him. It had only filled him with utter terror, worrying about his father. His father had since gained a great deal of political traction, even finding himself as the second to a Senator. The day after receiving word about the coup, he received word from his mother. His father had been killed.

Alak slipped into a deep depression, alight with rage about his death. The following months felt like he'd been living in a strange fever-dream. He'd wake, attend to his duties, eat dinner, and go to sleep. He didn't do anything for fun. He didn't remember any of the places they visited. Days turned to weeks turned to months. He hardly even noticed when his ship had been retasked to the Shackleton Expanse. Eventually, he was ordered to take some time to process the loss, but the ship had run into trouble, and he was needed.

During the incident, a trill came across his table. A dying one, with a symbiote. Without a transplant, the symbiote would die, and the lifetime's worth of memories contained in it would as well. No matter their efforts, they were unable to save the host, so Alak went to work at trying to find a recipient immediately. There were no other unjoined trill aboard. However, there was a half trill. Alak informed the Chief of Medical, but his idea was shot down immediately.

Again, he’d found himself in a position to make a choice. Again, he chose to save the life. Without his superiors knowledge, Alak proceeded with the procedure, which was a success.

He had furthered medicine. He had done the unimaginable. A joined half trill? That was unheard of. In doing so, though, he’d disobeyed orders. He was stripped to the rank of Ensign, and reassigned to the same vessel that his patient was. If something was to go wrong, they wanted him to watch it happen.

09/2379- 10/2379
Though demoted and removed from the home he’d made for himself, he arrived aboard with an open mind and optimism. When it came to practicing medicine, it was about skill…not his rank. He would be able to keep a close eye on his transplant recipient, and would be there to help with anything unusual that arose as well. His mother, though it didn’t show, was furious with his behavior.

Eventually, he began to mourn his father's death, but the loss did little to help. Instead, it rekindled the flame that was the struggle he’d faced since childhood. Vulcan? Or Romulan?

Appearance
Alak was a handsome man, by many standards. His red hair set the vivid grey of his eyes against alabaster skin like gems in a marble work. He kept himself well groomed most times, but did occasionally allow himself to grow a small beard, though found himself incapable of growing anything substantial. He was tall, and lean, keeping himself in superb physical health.

He walked with confidence, and often his face betrayed more emotion than he intended to allow it to display.

Motivation
Alak had always desired to explore every crevice of the galaxy, to study what life was there, and what further medical advances could be learned as well. He wanted to be remembered as someone who saw the things that no others had, and used the knowledge to heal. He found himself reassigned however, against his wishes, after disobeying orders. His motivation however, remains the same. To discover. To learn.

Episode 01

 * Day 01 | 0000 hrs. | Thread Title with Character 01, Character 02, Character 03