Lieutenant JG Baaru Liana
Name Baaru Liana
Position Chief Engineering Officer
Rank Lieutenant JG
Character Information
| Gender | Female | |
| Species | Bajoran/Cardassian Hybrid | |
| Age | 30 |
Physical Appearance
| Height | 5'6" or 167cm | |
| Weight | 130lbs or 59kg | |
| Hair Color | Black | |
| Eye Color | Black | |
| Physical Description | Liana has an average height and weight for either a Bajoran or Cardassian female with a slim athletic and well toned figure. She has long brown hair, which she has died blonde on several occasions, and she often leaves hanging around her face but ties back while on away missions. Liana keeps the left side of her head shaved to keep her hair from being tangled up in her Earrings or getting in her way when she uses a phaser rifle. Liana has the telltale ridges of a bajoran on the bridge of her nose along with the crainial ridges of her Cardassian heritage. However, unlike most Cardassians, the centre of her forehead ridge is not blue, but instead the same colour as the rest of her skin. While off duty, Liana wears her family’s earring on her right ear. |
Family
| Father | Unknown Cardassian Male | |
| Mother | Ailiyi Baaru | |
| Sister(s) | Ixalia Baaru Sarra Baaru Kora Baaru |
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| Other Family | Rifu Baaru (Step-Father) |
Personality & Traits
| General Overview | Liana can be very open, kind and somewhat playful, which can be a surprise to some people coming from a half-Cardassian. She is always willing to talk to just about anyone about anything. This has come in useful during her service as she's found having a more 'friendly' appearance has helped her when dealing with both Federation and non-Federation Civilians while on active duty. She does have a bit of a temper which can get the better of her, but she has learned to manage her anger with deep breaths and calm thoughts, or at least she's tried to.... When off duty, she can often be found in either the mess hall, in the gym or on the holodeck keeping her skills sharp. |
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| Strengths & Weaknesses | Strengths: Liana has above average physical fitness thanks to her personal training regime which she uses to keep just above the standards set by Starfleet command. Her hearing and eyesight are also more sensitive than is usual for either of her races. This comes in useful during high stress situations when the ship is falling apart around her, espesally when her staff are being relied on. Weaknesses: At times, she can be a little too mistrusting, though her time in Starfleet has tempered her more suspicious tendencies. Her temper can get the better of her at times, but she does her best to keep it in check. |
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| Ambitions | Liana's core ambition is to make her parents proud by becoming the best Starfleet officer she can be. Although she’ll never admit it out loud, she has always known that Starfleet would be the only place outside of her family that she would be accepted for who she was and not for who she looked like. | |
| Hobbies & Interests | Interests: Pre-Federation Starships, Ancient Bajoran Solar Sails, Alien forms of Hand-to-Hand Combat (Klingon, Andorian, Vulcan, etc), armed combat and Alien Computer Encryptions. Hobbies: Reading, diving and sketching. Liana often seeks out ancient paper books from all across the Alpha Quadrant. her most prized possession is a copy of an Earth holy text, The Gutenberg Bible, although she's never read it. She keeps it in a sealed transparent-aluminium case. |
| Personal History | Born on Bajor in the Kendra Provence, Liana's Bajoran family were Kava farmers who survived the occupation by keeping mostly to themselves, even though they would shelter any resistance fighters who would come their way. They were able to hide the fighters so well by putting them on their books as 'hired laborers' so the Cardassians didn't have an excuse to raid their farm as often as others in the area. Raised during the occupation, Liana spent most of her early life on her family's farm, helping out where she could and learning her 'schooling' from her parents as well as any friendly bajoran resistance members that might have been at their farm. Although most of the time, the reactions she received from the Bajoran Resistance Fighters was quite negative, there were more then enough who could see past the Cardassian features on her face. By the time the Cardassian Occupation ended, Liana was already 12 years old. Her family's farm was one of the fortunate ones to be left mostly intact as the Cardassians withdrew from Bajor. It was around the time that the Federation came to Bajor that her parents chose to sit Liana down and tell her the truth about who her biological father was and why she looked different from everyone around her. Although they did their best to keep their explanation neutral, it didn’t stop Liana from developing a distinct dislike towards her Cardassian heritage. One of the most memorable days of her early life was when the Emissary discovered the Celestial Temple, known by the rest of the Galaxy as the Bajoran Wormhole. Her family was working on repairing what parts of their farm were damaged when the news reached them. The family invited all of their neighbours around for a celebratory feast. The Next biggest memory for her was the day when the newly elected Kai Winn signed a treaty with the hated Cardassian Empire in 2371. By this time Liana was 14 years old and old enough to understand what was going on. No one could believe that it had actually happened and with Kai Winn's poor reputation, many of the people in Kendra Province were skeptical that the Cardassians would actually hold up their end of the treaty. For Liana, this peace treaty between Bajor and Cardassia caused her to have to face a few things that she’d been avoiding for years. Being a child of both worlds, she never felt like she could fit in anywhere outside of her parents farm, but now with this peace treaty Cardassians were starting to be seen as less of a threat and now as genuine neighbours and potential trading partners. However, this new found comradary still didn’t shift most people’s doubt of the treaty. This doubt was proven somewhat true a few years later when the Cardassians, along with their new allies from the Gamma Quadrent, attack and retake Deep Space 9, causing the Emissary to flee. Fortunately for Bajor, the Emissary had convinced the Bajoran Government to sign a non agression pact with the Dominion, Cardassia's new ally. This act kept Bajor out of the conflict between the Dominion and the Federation and allowed life on Bajor to continue with some form of normalcy. While privately Liana didn't like the return of the Cardassians or the arrival of the Dominion, these 'enemies' stayed mostly on the station and even allowed Bajor to keep trading with any people who were not allied with the federation, like the Ferengi. This allowed Liana's family's farm to continue to produce good food for both Bajor and export. And like during the Occupation, Liana's family would 'hire' any out of work militia forces from Deep Space 9 who didn't wish to work along side their former oppressors. Fortunatly, Liana had build up enough good will with the bajoran villagers around her family’s farm that during the second occupation, she wasn’t treated any different from any other Bajoran. However, as quickly as the Dominion had taken the Bajoran system, The Federation and the Klingon Empire retake it while being lead by the Emissary himself. The return of the Federation is celebrated across Bajor, and again just like when the Cardassians were defeated the first time, Liana's family held a feast for anyone to attend from the surrounding area. The remaining years of the Dominion War went by for Liana rather uneventfully and her life fell into a new sense of normalcy. When the war ended in 2375, all of Bajor was wrapped up in celebrations and sorrow. Word of the disappearance of the Emissary spread quickly and a day of morning was announced. On her 18th birthday, Liana travelled to a nearby shelter for those who lost their homes or families during the war. Over the next few years, Liana continued to help out around the family farm as well as at the local shelters and orphanages, but as she matured into an adult, Liana found her thoughts drawn towards the stars and it's promise of adventure. on her 21st birthday, Liana raised the subject with her parents, and although they were a little hesitant to let her join Starfleet itself, they figured it wouldn't hurt to allow her to visit Deep Space 9 to interact with both Starfleet Personnel as well as Bajoran Militia station onboard the station. Taking a few days away from the farm, the whole family went to visit Deep Space 9 in a form of pilgrimage to the wormhole where the Emissary had been said to reside with the Prophets in the Celestial Temple. While staying on the station, Liana met a member of one of the Starfleet ships docked at the station. Liana was fascinated by the technology of the station and the starships. Spotting a female starfleet officer, Liana quietly followed her, managing to sneak her way onboard. She managed to keep out of the way for a while until a security officer spotted her standing near the doorway into engineering. The officer could tell from Liana’s body language and her clothing that she was not a threat to the ship, simply a curious person. Figuring the young woman might be interested in joining Starfleet, the officer quickly collected the young woman and brought her to the security office. Rather then giving Liana the standard recruiting pitch, the Officer chose to get to know this Bajoran woman by simply talking to her. Liana was more then happy to talk to this Officer and as the day went on, Liana became more and more convinced that she wanted to join Starfleet. It sounded very exciting, and even sounded a little like the stories she was told by the Bajoran Resistance fighters when she was a little girl. That night Liana told her parents about her decision, and again although they had hoped she would join the Bajoran Militia, so she would remain close to home, they accepted her choice and even helped her prepare for the Starfleet entrance exams, both physically and through access to further education. Unfortunately, it wasn’t until Liana had submitted her application that she found out that because neither Bajor or Cardassia was a member world of the Federation, she would require a letter of recommendation from a Starfleet Officer of Commander rank or higher. After returning to Bajor, as a consolation prize of sorts, her parents decided to take the family on a trip to Earth. After all, from what stories they’d heard from the Starfleet officers on DS9, Earth sounded like a true paradise. Making sure that the farm was being looked after while they were gone, the family booked passage on a Starfleet ship returning to Earth, the USS Pegasus. As it turns out, this journey was to became quite fortuitous. One of the Officers onboard just happened to be the only Cardassian that had been aloud into Starfleet, One Lieutenant Commander Hadir Prenar. Their encounter was purely by chance, they Famliy was taking lunch in the mess hall when Commander Prenar walked in after a long shift and immediately spotted the only other Cardassian in the room. It was almost like the two were drawn towards one another. Over the next few hours, the two of them talked and got to know one another. For Liana, seeing a full-blood Cardassian actually in Starfleet with a significant rank to boot was the most mind bending experience for her. Everything she thought of about Cardassians was being challenged by simply talking with this man. After a while, the topic of Starfleet came up and Liana mentioned her previous attempt to enter and how it was rejected. Hearing this, Hadir offered to sponsor Liana and write her a recommendation letter. With this, Hadir had immediately become Liana’s new best friend. With this letter in hand, Liana applied again for Starfleet when the entrance exams came around again, and this time her application flew through without any trouble. The letter and her grades were more than enough for Starfleet Academy to accept her. Her first big choice when she got to Earth was which career path she wanted to follow. While Security sounded interesting at first, Liana always had a mind for mechanical things and always wanted to learn more about those fabulous Starfleet ships and how they ticked. So Engineering was the clear choice for her. While she found the coursework during her first year very challenging, a classmate pointed out one small thing that she had been missing the whole time that let everything click together in her brain. The rest of her time at the academy went by so fast, or at least it seemed to, that she barely spent any time with her group of fiends before it was time to graduate. Liana’s first assignment after graduating from the academy was to Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards. There she was assigned to a work crew whose job it was to either refit or retrofit older starships like the Excelsior and Miranda classes so they could continue to be used by the fleet. Most of the ships that Liana worked on were the old Miranda class starships that ended up being little more then cargo transports moving materials from one starbase to another within the federation core worlds. Although, there was one ship that Liana was assigned to work on that, not only did she meet the Executive Officer, but she would end up serving on as a member of it’s crew a few years later, the Refitted Excelsior class, USS Lakota. Being assigned to the Lakota turned out to be the experience of a lifetime for her. Onboard this Starship, Liana got to enjoy the results of her work back in the yards first hand by seeing how well some refits work with the older technology of the Excelsior class and how some refits just didn’t seem to take or were just not as efficient as the systems they were designed to replace. It was during her service on this wonderful ship that Liana earned her first promotion to Lieutenant JG. After a couple of years on the USS Lakota, Liana’s department commander heard about an opening for a chief of engineering onboard a far more modern starship, the Prometheus class USS Moore. After thinking it over, Liana’s boss urged her to apply for the position. He believed that she was ready to take the reigns of her own department and this seemed like a good opportunity for her to advance her career. |
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| Service Record | 2357 - Born on Bajor 2378 - Entered Starfleet Academy 2382 - Graduated as an Engineer, Assigned to Utopia Planetia fleet yards. 2385 - Transferred to USS Lakota (NCC-42768), Excelsior refit class 2387 - Transferred to USS Moore to take over as Engineering Chief |