Isabella Liana Cerin
Human/Bajoran Female

Place of Origin: Born on Luna in 2355

Height: 5’6″
Weight: 135
Hair Color: Dark Brown/Black
Eye Color: Dark Brown

Lithe and fit with a relatively average height, medium toned skin and sleek dark hair that falls a few inches below her shoulders, Isabella generally carries herself with sophistication, grace, and elegance, and pays a fair amount of attention to her personal style and grooming.

A mid-level career Federation diplomat with an energetic, elegant flair, Isabella has to date had an eclectic career. She followed in the footsteps of her grandmother, who was a Bajoran diplomat before the Cardassian occupation and lived on Earth during it. Isabella has the typical fiery nature of most Bajoran women, only slightly mediated by her human half but somewhat moreso in professional situations by her training. Though she does not wear the usual Bajoran earring, Isabella is a follower of the Bajoran faith.

Strengths & Weaknesses: Professionally speaking, Isabella’s greatest weakness – that she has never developed or focused on a specialization in a particular area of the galaxy or species – is also potentially among her strengths, depending on the situation; with flexibility and adaptability to a variety of cultures and species balancing against knowledge gaps to a degree in any particular one.

Ambitions: Isabella is fascinated by and desires to “see the galaxy”, and came to her career selection fairly early in her life in large part through fascination with and admiration of her Bajoran grandmother. Her end game for her personal life is perhaps less certain; she has no strong feelings as of yet one way or another as to whether or not she would like to marry or have children.

Hobbies & Interests: Isabella enjoys exploring new worlds and cultures, as well as enjoying the finer things in life and having fun – she knows how to play both board and sports games from a variety of cultures in the alpha and beta quadrants and is interested to learn some delta quadrant ones to add to her repertoire.

Languages:
Fluent: Federation Standard, Bajoran, Romulan, Klingon, Ferengi, Vulcan, Talaxian.
Conversational: Several Dominion languages, Andorian, Cardassian, Tellarite, Betazoid (non-telepathic), Caitain, Bolian.
Partial: Tholian (assisted pronunciation), Nausican, Breen (assisted pronunciation), Lissepian, Tallarian.

When most people think of the Bajoran occupation – and for that matter most academic, fictional, or news works on the topic – the inevitable focus is on the social and political dynamics of Bajor, Cardassia, and the surrounding space that led to it, or the galactic and social effects of the occupation of its aftermath. Time is generally often given to the discussion of the Bajoran resistance, the Federation response to the situation, and the state of Bajoran refugee camps and their effects on the sector. What generally remains unmentioned, save for a handful of Federation and other official reports around the time of the initial Cardassian invasion, was the fate of the few Bajorans trapped outside of their home territory at the time – a handful of business travelers and diplomats suddenly cut off from their families, their government, and their homes.

One of them was 30 year old Cerin Lyara, a Bajoran vice-consul stationed on Lissepia along with her 8 year old daughter Alaina. Suddenly cut off from her government and faced with a Lissepian government determined to cooperate with the Cardassians who had arrested the Bajoran consul general when he went to ask for protection for his staff and instead turned him over to the Cardassians, Lyara quickly emptied the contents of the petty cash fund, donned a Lissepian hooded cloak, and bought a set of forged papers for herself and her daughter and a ticket to the Korralis system, where she turned herself over to the Federation embassy on arrival. Resettled on Earth shortly thereafter but unable to reach her husband or family on Bajor, Lyara took employment as a front desk clerk at a hotel, eventually working her way up to hotel manager and building a life for her daughter on Earth. Alaina, who’d always had a flair for art, got a job with a major Federation fashion design firm on Luna at 21 as a designer, and fell fast and hard for a member of the firm’s marketing team named Jon Hammond; and by the end of 2355 the pair were married with their first child – Isabella.

Isabella, called Izzy by family and friends, grew quickly on Luna, joined in 2357 by a younger sister, Sophia. Though named in the human fashion with her first name first, Isabella and Sophia were given their mother’s family name and raised in the Bajoran faith…at least to the degree that could be managed given the situation.

Fascinated with her grandmother’s former line of work, Isabella was close to Lyara growing up. In 2369 with the Cardassian withdrawal, Lyara returned home to Bajor, but it was a bittersweet victory – most of her entire family including her husband, siblings, and parents had died during the occupation, and the damage dealt to her homeworld physically and organizationally matched that suffered by it’s population. Young and relatively junior at the time of the Cardassian annexation of her homeworld, given the decimated population and experience base left after the Cardassian occupation, she was nevertheless quickly offered a slot in the Bajoran provisional government due to this experience, which she accepted. Due to the unstable political situation on Bajor and the life she had built on Earth, Alaina remained behind on Luna with her husband and children, though the family visited Lyara on Bajor in 2370, staying for the better part of a year until Isabella returned to Luna at age 16 to study galactic relations at the University of Luna.

In her final years at the University of Luna, Isabella became an intern and trainee at at Federation Diplomatic Corps headquarters on Earth, transitioning into a full-time position upon her graduation in 2375. For two more years she continued to serve at headquarters until 2377, primarily working as junior staff on the details on the Dominion surrender negotiations.

In 2377, though negotiations were still ongoing, Isabella had perhaps had her fill of Vorta, and was reassigned. Her next posting was to the Klingon Empire, an assignment that among other things forced her to polish her self-defense skills; followed in 2381 by a posting to the Romulan Empire. Thanks to this pairing of assignments, Isabella is more than skilled at subtly pacing her drinking, given the number of times during both that a variety of her Klingon and Romulan opposite numbers attempted to drink her under the table with bloodwine or ale.

Isabella’s next posting in 2385 posed perhaps less threat physically or politically than either of the prior pair, but rather more of one to her wallet: Four years on Ferenginar gave her a habit of wearing any valuables she was carrying on the inside of her clothes…And an impressive collection of umbrellas. She left the umbrellas to her successor in early 2389 when she was transferred to a team attempting to improve and establish relations with the Tzenkethi, an attempt that was short-lived and ultimately unsuccessful. This was followed in later 2389 by a second stint at headquarters, following which she received her assignment to the Vesta.

Relatively uncommonly for her profession, though not unheard of, Isabella has never developed or settled on a specific specialization in a given area of the galaxy and the species and political dynamics there; it is highly possible this “jack of all trades though master of none” mentality and skillset is among what led her to be selected by the diplomatic corps for the Vesta assignment, given its nature.

2371 – 2375: University of Luna
2373 – 2377: Federation Diplomatic Corps Headquarters, Earth
2377 – 2381: Federation Embassy, Qo’nous
2381 – 2385: Federation Embassy, Romulus
2385 – 2389: Federation Embassy, Ferenginar
2389 – 2389: Federation/Tzenkethi Negotiations
2389 – 2391: Federation Diplomatic Corps Headquarters, Earth
2391 – Present: USS Vesta