Miala Zoxad
Betazoid Female

Place of Origin: Betazed

Miala has archetypical black irises and dark brown hair that defaults to a thick bob of curls that frame her round face. Her 163 cm (5’4″) height and 57 kg (126 lbs) weight are too modest to make the balanced fitness she maintains an overt part of her presence through the uniform.

Miala is spunky—even among strangers—and her perceptiveness ensures they aren’t for long. Her default persona is lighthearted, irreverent banterer that can shift to substantial conversation, though it’s bound to be direct and pragmatic. Despite her capacity for abstraction as a Betazoid, her psionic abilities are burdensome to use beyond gleaning surface thoughts. She by far prefers the certainty and conciseness of the literal.

Her domain is fast-paced, dynamic situations. She’s thrilled by the challenge of subduing them with her wits and senses, which have proven quick and adaptable. Her most enduring pastimes are action sports, microcosms of freneticism that preserve her acclimation to that state. However, her palette does allow for some variance in tempo. She’s up to trying most anything that impresses her as fun at least once.

Her career progression has forced her to become more forward-thinking, a difficult realm for her. Planning and organization are foibles perpetuated by success bias, fear of entrapment, and impatience. Her initial rebuke of this feedback has progressed into her seeing her career as more than the escape from her family it started as. Nonetheless, she’s living for the present far more than any vision of the future.

Born in 2369, her parents were killed during the Dominion’s 2374 conquest of Betazed, after which she was adopted by well-to-do relatives with two sons. They made Miala the preeminent child despite her being the youngest in keeping with societal traditions, which she embraced over her new brothers’ resentment. Yet when they later tried to impose the customs it entailed, she rebelled.

Starfleet was an idea she considered after its mention in a subsequent dig at her. The benefits it afforded exceeded those of any other option and outweighed her concerns about its rigors. While she began preparing later than most prospects, she figured the personnel demand driven by decades of attrition and the national trepidation it incited would help her chances. Acceptance into the academy in 2388 after a single application and exam attempt seemed to confirm that.

Her eager participation in extracurricular athletics during her core curriculum years inclined her advisor to recommend Astrogation or Tactical Science as prospective majors. She chose the latter and made academic headway on the back of enjoying the competitive, action-oriented nature of its exercises. Finishing in the third quartile of the 2292 graduating class was more reflective of starting slowly than her ceiling; her post-declaration grades were sound and backed by endorsement from some of her instructors.

Still, her first post-graduate assignment wasn’t a prime one. After a brief shakedown, the USS Gora bim Gral was one of several aging reserve ships dispatched to facilitate fleet replenishment in the Beta Quadrant region cordoned from the Federation core by the intersection of Klingon and Romulan territory. She spent the two-year initiative rolling with the charged, marginalized region’s punches and even threw some of her own through her can-do attitude, which became an epicenter of morale. By the time Gora bim Gral itself was slated for mothballs, Miala had ascended to senior relief tactical officer and was asked to join many of her shipmates in transferring to the USS Quiberon in 2395.

She made assistant tactical chief there but a new supervisor halfway into the tour who couldn’t abide their divergent values tried subverting her standing by curtailing her purview to security. Said supervisor’s would-be protege alienated the department out of accepting their leadership however, stirring discord that prompted a department review. Miala almost emerged favorably, only to lose out when she rebuked her supervisor’s attempt to salvage their relationship during the proceedings. Both were verbally reprimanded and transferred off Quiberon in 2398 by its commanding officer, who wanted to assert each’s culpability in the situation yet allow them to reset without career-hampering formalities.

In Miala’s case, it allowed her to leverage her record to pursue promotion externally. . .