Miala Zoxad
Betazoid Female

Place of Origin: Betazed

Miala has her peoples’ archetypical black irises, tawny skin, and dark brown hair she keeps in a mane of curls framing her round face. At 5’4″ / 163 cm and 117 lbs / 53 kg, her wiry physique isn’t substantial enough to challenge the uniform’s constraint, though her athleticism manifests in her vigorous movement.

Miala’s spunky, action-oriented nature is facilitated by keen perception, reasoning, and reflexes, the former two of which aren’t as reliant on telepathy as one might think. Unsettled by the manifestation of hers and its subsequent demands upon her psyche, she only developed basic sensory and suppression techniques. Her psionic resilience is consequently inferior to that of more practiced peers, yet she still enjoys a high capacity for insight.

As a junior officer, success bias and fear of entrapment inclined her to resist her superiors’ direction to become more strategic. She eventually realized that despite herself, a promising career had bloomed out of fleeing her family and its possibilities excited her. Miala now works at being more structured to unlock them, even against the grain of her impulses.

Socially, she reinforces the open, accessible stereotype of her people, albeit with some jauntiness sprinkled in to keep interactions lively. Miala can get on with a variety of people, ultimately favoring those that are direct yet also complimentary of her craving for stimulation and adventure. She can hold her own in intellectual or emotional endeavors; however, her participation in either would be more the result of circumstance than explicit desire.

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 subsequent 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 2392’s 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 Willard Decker was one of several reserve ships dispatched to facilitate fleet replenishment in the Beta Quadrant region separated from the Federation core by the intersection of Klingon and Romulan territory. She spent the two-year initiative rolling with the charged, yet 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 Willard Decker itself was deemed resource-inefficient to continue operating, Miala had ascended to senior tactical officer and was asked to join many of her shipmates in transferring to the USS Quiberon in 2395.

She made assistant lead halfway through the tour, only for a new supervisor to subvert her in favor of a protege. That would-be usurper alienated much of the team out of accepting their leadership, however, stirring discord that prompted a department review. Set to emerge favorably by her colleagues’ accounts, Miala instead lost out when she spitefully rebuked her supervisor’s attempt to salvage their relationship. Their commanding officer quietly transferred both parties off and into the personnel pool in 2398 in an effort to assert each’s culpability in their department’s implosion without permanently hindering their careers. Yet Miala was given a new assignment a month into the tacit suspension she was told to expect. . .