Kaya Som

Kaya Som is the Trill Chief of Engineering aboard the USS Mac and Frontier Station.

Physical Description
Kaya Som is a short and stocky Trill with a light brown complexion, dark brown chin-length hair, and dark brown eyes. Her Trill spots are larger scale and darker, characteristic of her ethnicity. She has a round face with strong features - she smiles widely and laughs loudly and her expressive eyebrows show a skeptical forthwrightness. Her voice is low and raspy - a capable alto.

She's very comfortable in her skin and has an active way of moving, making herself comfortable in chairs and a little fidgety in meetings. She does nothing to quiet herself physically.

Off-duty, she dresses casually in Trill fashion. A bit edgy, a bit rock-and-roll.

Personality
For Kaya, life is about exploration and making as many connections as possible. She finds the galaxy to be rich in diversity and adventure. There's nothing she enjoys more than being around a table with new people arguing about music, ranting about politics, and gushing about the latest tech coming out of Starfleet's research and development.

Without a symbiot, being of the younger generation, and living off-world, Kaya isn't as affected by the general Trill culture of romantic detachment. She's quite free with herself. She prefers the company of women and women-like genders but it's not a rule. Her only rule (which she's broken) is no Terrans - she finds them a bit wishy-washy.

Kaya did have some idea about what she was getting into joining Starfleet. Although she's irritated by the majority-human institution and rankles at times to their somewhat paternalistic attitude (super Vulcan, am I right?), she believes in the general mission and loves working on the ships. She's not particularly ambitions, quite happy to be a nobody working with advanced systems, learning loads, and seeing the galaxy.

When it comes to authority, Kaya's not always the most compliant subordinate. She's uncomfortable or awkwardly brusk around command, and doesn't always take well to criticism of her work. She's not always a considerate friend and can be pushy.


 * Hobbies: Kaya is a connoisseur of music and cinema from across the galaxy, sampling heavily from as much as she can get a hold of. The rarer, the better. Or, lacking that, loud. (Her fluency in Bajoran is entirely due to her interest in Bajoran freedom anthems.) She likes food, cinema, fashion, sport - anything sensory that provides another lens to interpret existence.


 * Short-term Goals: Enjoy life, see the galaxy, get settled with new friends on a new ship.


 * Long-term Goals: Kaya doesn’t know if she’ll stay in Starfleet forever. What she wants from her job is more control in what she does and more trust in fiddling with the ship.


 * Phobias or Fears: Getting sucked out of an airlock. She’s always nervous in cargo bays or shuttles.


 * Favorite Things: Betazoid punk, Klingon Folk, spicy food, late nights, cinema from other cultures, shore leave


 * Least Favorite Things: Getting bossed, mornings


 * Bad Habits or Vices: Staying up too late, probably too eager to try new recreational substances


 * Strengths: Fluency with starship systems, improvising, teaching


 * Weaknesses: Lacks ambition, bit sassy at criticism of her work


 * Prejudices: She’s a bit done with humans. They’re everywhere and Starfleet’s very centered on them culturally.

=History=

Early Life

 * Birthdate: 2354, Earth date 15 Apr
 * Birthplace: Tellanastre, Bil Province, Trill
 * Parents: Juna Som (Trill security corps), Aso Tellex (public health) - both live on Trill
 * Other Important Relationships: Uncle Tell Taryl (joined) - Aso's brother; Avi Moz, romantic

Kaya grew up in a provincial city capitol Tellanastre on Trill; one of her mothers is an officer in the security corps and her other mother is a public health specialist. As a kid, Kaya quickly became fluent in all manner of computer systems as part of her thirst for finding all the best new music and cinema from across the quadrant. She may or may not have gotten into a spot of trouble here or there for hacking in where she wasn’t allowed, but her family and teachers deftly kept her energies on the straight and narrow, funneling her into public works projects and hands-on apprenticeships across the homeworld. When she was fourteen, she had the opportunity to attend a youth computing academy on Bajor where her musical eyes were truly opened and she got a taste for their hot sauce.

Like many Trill, Kaya applied to be considered as a symbiont initiate in her early twenties, but her application was declined after an unsatisfactory psychological evaluation. She was gutted. The Commission cited a, 'lack an inner presence,' and that 'a union with a symbiont could never be balanced.' Furthermore it was decided that she had an excessive predilection to romantic attachments.

Starfleet Training
Kaya redirected her interests towards Starfleet where adventure was the promise. She applied to Starfleet Academy, but was turned down twice - tanked the astrophysics and biology sections both times. She would have tried a third time, but a Joined mentor suggested she enlist - there was no shame in that and Kaya would get to do what she wanted to do - get hands in the systems of starships and travel the galaxy.

So, Kaya attended the Starfleet Technical Services Academy specializing in starship computer systems. One of her Engineering instructors was Judith Eastman.

Previous Assignments

 * 2355.04.15 - Born on Trill
 * 2372 - (16) Basic education requirements fulfilled
 * 2375 - (20) Application as symbiot initiative declined
 * 2377 - (22) Starfleet applications declined
 * 2378 - (23) Starfleet Technical Services Academy
 * 2379 - (24) USS Centaur, Crewman
 * 2380.01.2 - (24) USS Mac, Crewman
 * 2380.04.10 - (24) USS Mac, Petty Officer Third Class
 * 2380.08.10 - (25) USS Mac, Petty Officer Second Class
 * 2380.10.15 - (25) USS Mac, Petty Officer First Class
 * 2380.12.20 - (25) USS Mac, Chief Petty Officer

=Personnel File=

Her training academy marks were quite good, no problems there.

Additional items on her personnel file include a spotty disciplinary record of minor infractions starting in 2379 and going into 2380, and that she requested her transfer off the Centaur after less than a year. Her record since starting on the Mac is very clean with good reports and a promotion three months in.

2380.03.20, her record indicates she gave testimony in Ensign Nirak's court martial, Nirak being her supervising officer aboard the Centaur.

2381.01, Documentation of the Serenity settlement incident, where she was one of several captured by a hostile party. Her mandatory med check will have come back clean and she'd have been assigned counseling and granted extra leave. Shortly after that, she'll have been reported missing from duty.