Corvus DeHavilland
Human Female

Place of Origin: USS Zhukov

Tall and slender, but not an overly physical presence. Most assume her to be as gentle and nurturing as her appearance belies. It’s about as far from her nature as could be.

Strong, slightly lower-tone voice, with mid-western American inflections.

A naturally driven individual. From a young age she’s had one goal in mind and that was a career in Starfleet, just like her Father. Being born on a Starfleet vessel she was immersed in that lifestyle from day one and was always eager to learn more.

Her parents named her Corvus after the ancient constellation as seen from Earth. Her father explained to her that her parents had spent many nights in their youth looking up at the stars and pointing out the various constellations to one another. He said that was how they had fallen in love and so they had named her for their favorite constellation. While Corvus finds that sweet, she prefers her friends to call her Amélie, though the list of those is very, very short.

Corvus is to the point. Always. She doesn’t dance around it, she simply tells you what’s happening and what she thinks. It’s not that she’s without the ability to make small talk or be polite, she just think’s its a waste when there’s more important things to do.

Corvus was born on the USS Zhukov, the daughter of two of their Science Officers. Her parents were both experts in stellar cartography and astrophysics, and were a sought after team within Starlfeet. They had never really wanted to have children of their own, and when they finally did decide they were both rather late in their careers and chose to have just one. They thought that they were providing the best for their one daughter, providing nothing but attention for her, and they certainly didn’t slack on providing it. But for their daughter, the only thing she ever wanted growing up was a little brother or sister; so that she had someone, anyone, to share with.

The DeHavilland’s tried to instill their love of stellar cartography into their daughter but while she certainly retained the information her parents imparted to her, she never truly loved it the way they did. For her, the best part of going anywhere with her parents to look at some astral phenomena was the chance to sit at the helm of their shuttle. Neither of her parents were particularly good at it, and were always more interested in the phenomena itself, so they thought nothing of letting her fly the shuttle as soon as she was old enough to do it solo.

She fell in love with these early flights behind the helm, and with the life aboard a Starfleet vessel. Her parents thought it was all too cute when their only child declared that when she grew up she wanted to join Starfleet too. They just had no idea how driven she would be to that goal. Nor how far from their own path she would end up.

Astrophysics came to her both naturally and because of her own parents teachings, making her an easy stand out in the testing phase of Starfleet Academy training. But once she was away from her parents influence at the Academy, Corvus found out that she preferred being behind a conn terminal full time.

Life at the Academy wasn’t very easy for her, not because she wasn’t smart enough, or because she was too smart for everyone, but because she didn’t know how to get along with everyone. Her parents were natural introverts and kept to themselves, thus keeping Corvus to themselves as well. She hadn’t had a lot of friends growing up, and the kinds of assignments that her parents ended up on didn’t have a whole lot of other children aboard. So her life up to this point had been relatively solitary. She found that fitting in with the other cadets wasn’t that easy.

She’d never really liked being called Corvus, but her parents had insisted that they’d fallen in love with one another under that constellation and wanted the result of that love to share the name. She certainly understood the reason, but it didn’t make her like it more. Once she was at the Academy, she began to hate it. Even going so far as to rebrand herself Amélie in her second semester to try and avoid the other cadets continuing to pick on her. Needless to say, it didn’t work. They just picked on her a little harder, nicknaming her LRC, Little Red Corvette (Corvus) because she was spry, always in her command red’s and managed to meet if not exceed almost all of the Flight Ops speed records.

Corvus’ first Academy Cadet Cruise was supposed to have been aboard the USS Mississippi but the Dominion War took care of that. Had she been one grade higher in the Academy she might have been included in the group of cadets accelerated out to join the Fleet. As it happened, she was not and instead had her cadet cruise cancelled. When it was reactivate the next academic year, after the end of the war, she was assigned to the USS Andoria, which had been assigned to the Bajor as part of the patrols following the cease fire. The Excelsior-class starship was on its final cruise in active service, coming in to support the cease fire as Starfleet’s resources were severely depleted and they needed every ship of the line that they could spare. It wasn’t expected to be an eventful cruise; more of a show of force but it ended up being anything but. Rogue Cardassian’s attempted to reignite the conflict in retaliation for the devastation of their homeworld and very nearly destroyed the Andoria in the process. Captain th’Erak put down their attempted insurrection, but not without significant damage to the ship and the loss of a dozen crew. For Corvus, it was her first taste of battle; something she found herself strangely attracted to. Even in the heat of the conflict she was coordinating the helm maneuvers with the expected tactical outcome, and wanted to learn more. So at the completion of her cadet cruise, when she returned to the Academy, she declared a secondary focus in Tactical

After graduation, she was assigned as a Flight Control Officer aboard the USS Poseidon, a Prometheus-class vessel fresh out of the yards. Her official assignment was as a Flight Control Officer but served frequently on the Gamma shift as a Tactical Officer as well. She served on the Poseidon for several years, earning several commendations and promotions, ultimately taking on the role of Chief Flight Control Officer. It was in this role that she took command of the ship during the Vinnis Expedition, which saw the crew of the Poseidon attacked by unknown hostile aliens who tried to take warp plasma, dilithium and other engineering supplies. They infected the crew with a biological agent when they boarded, incapacitating a great deal of them. Lieutenant Corvus and a handful of officers banded together, despite their nearly crippling symptoms, repelled the boarders and got the Poseidon back to the nearest Starbase. The ship was heavily damaged, and needed extensive space dock repairs.

She was offered the posting of Chief Tactical Officer on the Galaxy-class USS Challenger and chose to take the posting, despite its switch out of her primary department. Corvus wanted the challenge of the new role and thought it would better suit her desire to ascend into command. She’d always wanted her own command, and had gotten a taste for it on the Vinnis Expedition, it seemed like the most logical progression upwards.

The Challenger proved to be a full-scale challenge for her as the crew was well-established, having served together for many years this far. She was the newcomer in almost every aspect and had to fight uphill to gain traction as a senior member of the crew both respected by the Captain and the rest of the Senior Staff who had wanted one of their own to be promoted to the position. Initially, there was progress as she connected quickly with Lieutenant Quincy Masterson, an Engineering Officer. Their romance was a bit of a whirlwind, and they married very soon thereafter. it was something very out of character for her to do, but she’d finally found someone who she could connect with and who understood her. She knew she couldn’t pass that up.

For the first time in her life, she’d given herself completely and wholly to a relationship, to the point she was willing to set aside her own ambitions for the sake of having a family and a life filled with love, like her parents. But that dream came crashing down within a year when Quincy was caught by the Chief Engineer, his Department Head, in a Jeffries Tube access in a fully compromised position with Cadet Reed, one of the Cadets on their 3rd year cruise. Commander Dix hadn’t found them by accident, he’d staked the spot out as he’d been picking up a disturbance in the area he thought might have been a plasma conduit about to overload. He’d instead discovered bio-readings; readings that were consistently Quincy Masterson’s, but his partner was not as consistent. Dix had security bring Quincy to the conference room and explained to Captain Belleson, Commander Oolax, the ships XO, and Corvus exactly what he’d found. When he gave her the news of the cadet, Corvus took it as a blow, but immediately wondered what she’d done wrong. Had she not been enough for her new husband that he’d dallied, but it was a short-lived reaction. As Dix explained the others he’d picked up on his scans, Corvus got up and tried to leave. Quincy made the mistake of trying to stop her, to ask her to forgive him. It took all three security officers and Captain Belleson (a Capellan) to pull her off him. Belleson ordered Lieutenant Masterson off his vessel, and Corvus filed for immediately dissolution of their marriage. After that, Corvus fitting in with the rest of the Challenger crew and senior staff was by sheer force of will. She wasn’t going to let Quincy define the rest of her career nor would she let a man fool her like that again.

It was to be relatively short-lived. Just as Corvus had made her mark on the Challenger and was beginning to gel with the Senior Staff and Command team after the fiasco with Masterson, she was approached by Captain Dansby of the Galaxy-class USS Praetorian. The vessel had been formerly in the command of Vice Admiral Kaspar Isfahani as his flagship.With Isfanahi taking command of his own regional Starbase, the Praetorian was now released into general service under Dansby’s command. He had been assigned to patrol the Tzenketh border, and wanted Corvus as his First Office – his one and only choice. She accepted, despite the hard word she’d put into Poseidon. She wanted command above all and this was the next logical choice.

Life aboard the Praetorian went much more smoothly than it had on the Poseidon. Isfahani had run a tight ship, tighter than Dansby ran it. Jackson was an exemplary Commanding Officer and exactly the type of person Corvus needed as a counterpoint. It made the transition from Isfahni-Dansby to Dansby-DeHavilland that much smoother. Corvus enjoyed life aboard the Praetorian much, much more and decided very quickly that this was where she wanted to make her home. That she could spend the next decade here learning from Dansby and hopefully taking on the role of Commanding Officer in her own time. She’d finally found a place where she felt truly wanted.