Aurelia de Luna
Male

Place of Origin: Spaceborn (USS Axion, Mizar Sector)

Aurelia might be her mother’s daughter, but she inherited her father’s looks. She’s neither sure of nor interested in her heritage—a mix of Lunar-Italian and Chinese-American perhaps? For her, at least, the latter seems most evident, if not most relevant. Slender and petite, she has a dancer’s physique, if not grace. Though still young, she looks especially youthful for her age, and although this may please her sense of vanity, it has not always granted her the sense of maturity she feels she deserves. On-duty she prefers simply styled hair with light cosmetics, and favors a close-fitting one-piece uniform jumpsuit over the two-piece design. Off-duty, Aurelia is rarely seen in anything other than a cozy t-shirt and pair of leggings, though she does have a few vintage Terran outfits that she reserves for shore leave and other special occasions.

Aurelia is the person who shows up to a party already knowing who’s going to be there. This is not because she’s the life of the party. It isn’t because she’s the host of the party, either. Aurelia is the party. Or rather, the purpose behind having it in the first place. She’s an electrochemical synapse on the interplanetary scale, seeking to connect the disparate parts of the Milky Way, in hopes that they may function as a singular mind of progress and reason, fueled by beating hearts of peace, tolerance and understanding. She’s also the Federation’s avatar in the flesh. Does there need to be any more to her beyond this? The job bellows a no, while Aurelia tries to whisper yes. Guess which voice gets lost in the din.

The sole remaining scion of a once great clan of spacefarers, Aurelia de Luna never knew a time when she didn’t feel like a prisoner of fate. Her forebears—the de Lunas—accomplished much in setting Earth’s moon and pioneering the great beyond. A long tradition of service in Starfleet that spanned centuries took its toll, however. Attrition through war and all manner of interstellar mishaps made any sort of quiet retirement a statistical improbability for anyone bearing the de Luna name. By 2375, Aurelia was the last one left, following her mother’s death during the Battle of Cardassia… the final battle of the Dominion War. Her father, also a Starfleet officer, died two years before Aurelia was even born, during one of the last skirmishes of the Federation-Cardassian border conflicts. The product of archived genetic material, Aurelia wasn’t born to be part of a family, so much as she was to prolong the family name.

Though Aurelia was still very young when her mother died, it felt like she’d been orphaned many times before; the Dominion War had not been the first time her mother had been forced to leave her in a safe harbor with only a tearful goodbye, but it had been the last. Starfleet’s juvenile services division had been a dutiful, if impersonal caretaker during those chaotic interludes, ensuring that she always had a thorough education, or at least its interpretation of one. The various boarding schools Aurelia attended throughout her childhood spanned the Federation core. She was a child of Vulcan, and Betazed, Andoria and Tellar as well. Those places taught her many important, and oftentimes contradictory things, such as the balancing act of cool logic versus empathic understanding, as well as the importance of tradition and duty, pitted against the belief that nothing is sacred or should ever be closed to change or debate. Such a diverse education left Aurelia well prepared for her future, but bereft of any true sense of identity or belonging. She was the last de Luna, but she had no idea what that really meant.

One thing Aurelia did understand was that her future would be written out among the stars, and that her destiny suited her. She had no family, very few friends, no place she called home and no set preconceptions about how she was to live her life. In short, she was the perfect candidate for a long-term career in Starfleet. Already well prepared for the academy entrance examinations due to her Starfleet-sponsored education, Aurelia had no trouble gaining acceptance into Starfleet Academy.

At the academy Aurelia may not have ranked among the elite cadets, but she did develop a reputation for being competent, focused and mature. She tended to avoid the social and competitive aspects of academy life, which she saw as distractions to her career preparations. As a result she steered clear of a lot of unnecessary drama and rivalries, but her interpersonal skills suffered as a consequence. As she progressed Aurelia was initially directed toward training in flight control, something she tested favorably in, but she requested placement on a mathematics and social sciences track instead. Her academy advisors informed her that the decision could hinder her future career potential, but they ultimately approved her request. She excelled in her preferred course of studies, and graduated from the academy with degrees in mathematics and political science, with specializations in game theory and interstellar relations.

Coincidentally, Aurelia’s first posting after graduation was to a ship sharing her namesake—the USS Luna. To this day Aurelia insists that someone in Starfleet’s personnel department decided to play a cosmic prank in assigning her name to that particular manifest: Ensign de Luna of the USS Luna. It never got any less awkward saying it, and during her first posting Aurelia got to say it a lot. The first of its class, the aging prototype had not been sent out to chart unknown space. Rather, it had been sent out to re-chart known space instead. Much of that space, however, hadn’t seen another Federation vessel pass through in decades, and in some cases, near a century, when it had originally been explored. In that time, three of the twenty-two planets previously classified as having pre-warp civilizations had achieved interstellar travel, and two of the eight civilizations that did have warp drive technology had progressed enough to become eligible applicants for entry into the UFP. Much had changed, and as a junior science officer specializing in the social sciences, Aurelia played a big part in documenting it.

By the time the Luna had completed its three-year mission, it had made three peaceful first-contact encounters, and returned with six ambassadors from three worlds intent upon joining the Federation. In addition, one new element—Trijarium—had been discovered. The captain of the Luna also reported that not once had her ship resorted to using its armaments as weapons in anything other than a training role. Having played an active role in much of the Luna’s diplomatic endeavors, it came as no surprise when Aurelia was recruited by Starfleet’s Diplomatic Corps, who saw her a promising emissary. She was quickly reassigned to the USS Trident, an Intrepid-class vessel with no diplomatic department to speak of, but enough facilities to conduct small scale-negotiations.

On screen the Trident’s mission was simple: travel to the Voranti Cluster and put an end to the hostilities that had arisen over a series of disputes over mining rights. The disputes had gotten heated enough to disrupt nearby shipping lanes, thus attracting the Federation’s notice. In practice, the mission was a pipe dream. Extensive research into the various involved factions uncovered ancient feuds, labyrinthine claims processes, and a bunch of mining groups that seemed more interested in settling old scores than in actually doing any mining. After many fruitless negotiations and several unfortunate skirmishes, the mission changed from that of peaceful negotiation, to the imposition and enforcement of a Moratorium on all mining activities in the cluster.

“You won’t always win.” Aurelia had been told during her debriefing, after her superiors suggested that she might have taken the mission’s outcome a bit too personally. It had been a hard lesson, learning that sometimes, people just weren’t ready for peace. She was promptly sent off again with a new mission to resolve a border dispute between the Vy’ashan and Akavir. That time, she did win. For the next three years, Aurelia (and the Trident) became Starfleet’s go-to mediator for a range covering three sectors.

After proving herself as a capable ‘fixer’ with a number of localized issues, Starfleet decided to entrust her with missions on a potentially more complicated scale. The USS Tesla, another rapid-response vessel, was in need of a diplomatic specialist for its missions in The Triangle, a border sector that served as a critical junction with for the Federation, Romulan Republic, and Klingon Empire.

Starfleet Academy (2386-90)
2386: First-year Cadet
2387: Second-year Cadet
2388: Third-year Cadet
2389: Fourth-year Cadet

First Posting (2390-93)
USS Luna (NX-80101), Luna-class Explorer
2390: Science Officer

Second Posting (2393-96)
USS Trident (NCC-81832), Intrepid-class Heavy Cruiser
2393: Diplomatic Officer
2395: Diplomatic Officer / Mission Advisor

Third Posting (2396-Present)
USS Tesla (NCC-89022), Merian-class Light Cruiser
2396: Diplomatic Specialist / Mission Advisor