Rhea Talos

Rhea Talos is a former Starfleet officer, having served within Starfleet in the Tactical and Command divisions from 2454 to 2477. She was the commanding officer of the USS Phoenix until she stepped down and was later removed from Starfleet on medical grounds. At present she runs a flight school for budding shuttlecraft pilots and also serves as a consultant for firms investigating starship and shuttle crashes.

Early Life
Born on the Indian isle of Kavaratti, Talos – or Proulx-Raval, as her surname was – was brought up to be intensely aware of the significance of the United Federation of Planets. Her mother, Diane Proulx, worked as a Federation diplomat; her father, Vihaan Raval, was on the Federation council. Growing up it was always hard to get away from the talk of Federation politics – and the same went for family politics, too. Her parent’s marriage had been one borne not out of love, but of political and social gain. Proulx was a traditionalist who feared her family line dying out, and Raval was determined to obtain support to further his position on the Federation Council. This lack of true affection consistently shone through in their non-existent family life.

Proulx and Raval were never home, always travelling from one place or another on business. They had a permanent residence for when they were needed in France, another on the Indian mainland, a third on the isle of Kavaratti which had become a scientific and political haven. Talos and her younger sister Leah were dragged back and forth from place to place. The two generally didn’t see their parents, and spent the majority of the time being looked after by au-pairs. It wasn’t unheard of for them to go disappearing from one school for a couple of months and re-appear again suddenly, having spent time in another country completely unannounced.

From a young age Talos worked out how to use this to her advantage. It was difficult for schools to keep track of her, and as a result this enabled her to ignore classes she didn’t like and blame it on her continually changing situation. She was well known for being a problematic child – a later diagnosis of bipolar disorder could account for a fair bit of this – and the education system was never good enough for her. In primary school it was the gym teacher who realised that this angry and troubled child needed an outlet for her frustration, and pushed her to compete in sporting events. Finding that she couldn’t decide on just one to partake in she ended up being trained for pentathlons – the shooting section being left out until an older age. The competitive nature of this provided her with the outlet she had required, and around the age of eleven she managed to get a grasp on reality and finally calm down.

Once Talos had been saddened by her parents’ lack of involvement with herself and her sister; but as she grew this festered into resentment. She became increasingly determined to remove all association with them but she didn’t have a method. It was during a shuttle flight to the Indian mainland when her interest in Starfleet first arose. She had questioned the shuttlecraft pilot on where they had learned to fly and they had told her about Starfleet Academy. It was early-on in high school when she realised that she could use her parents devotion to the Federation to get away from them. How could they ever say no to her serving in Starfleet, the organisation which upheld the Federation’s safety?

Following that decision she became more determined than ever. In high school she continued to skip classes, much to the chagrin of her teachers; but she was still studying. Combining normal classes with what help there was for Starfleet Academy candidates out there, she effectively trained herself to go through the Academy’s selection process. As soon as she turned sixteen, the legal age to leave the secondary education system, she submitted her application to Starfleet Academy and began the selection process. After a nerve-wracking experience at the selection tests – during which she was reprimanded for her childish nature and disrespect for the education system… But approved of for her determination – she was accepted into the Academy. She felt guilty at having to leave her younger sister behind, but Leah only encouraged her, knowing that it had been Talos’s goal for so long. Her parents said nothing on the matter at all and merely let her go on her own way.

Starfleet Academy
Academy life proved to be not too different from that of home. It was one where you had to fend for yourself the majority of the time, but scramble to make allies where you could. She was thankful that most people were ignorant to the names of key players within Federation politics – no one judged her on her parents’ reputation. One thing that made her stand out from the crowd was her concept of religion. Her father had always insisted that herself and her sister be raised following the Hindu religion. It had often fallen by the wayside when her parents weren’t home, but secretly, Talos had always found comfort in the concept that the Gods were out there to help. She didn’t practice religion devoutly, and always forgot to do her daily prayers, but her Academy roommates were soon enlightened to Hindu holidays and customs.

Talos often found that it was difficult to truly make friends. She hated parties and rarely attended them, and for a time it seemed like all she did was study; but the discovery of the Academy’s pentathlon team soon changed that. The sports team became a fixation and when she wasn’t found at lectures she could be found training. Between that and being accepted into the Academy’s aerobatic shuttlecraft team she finally found the group of friends that she had needed; and it was also these friends who pulled her through an incredibly difficult time during her third year.

Her mother – Ambassador Proulx – had been found dead halfway through a diplomatic conference and the circumstances were deemed suspicious. Talos had been completely torn apart by indecision, guilt, anger… She was guilty that part of her didn’t care about her mother’s death, angry that it had happened, indecisive about what she should do. She felt as if she were bound to return to her family; surely her sister would need her help… But Leah insisted that she was fine, sharing Talos’s almost concerning lack of upset. Minister Ravaal had continued his work and used the sudden attention on his family to further his political support – but because of his lack of empathy towards the situation it threw them into a further domestic scandal.

Much to Talos’s displeasure, her surname was suddenly plastered all over Federation news and her friends began to make the connection. It was then that she became determined to get away from them once and for all by changing her name, but she had no idea what to. Her friends had thrown suggestion after suggestion at her, all of them totally random, but for some reason one seemed to stick – Talos. They had been learning about the planet in their Federation history class and a friend from her fencing class had suggested it with the quip “they’re enigmatic gits there, kinda creep me out a bit – like you.” Talos had elbowed him and turned down the suggestion, but he kept using it, and then the rest of their friend group did – and eventually it just stuck. Two months after her mother’s death, her surname was officially changed.

The rest of her Academy studies were largely uneventful. In her final two years when pushed to specialise she went down the tactical route, following her dream of flight. Despite her education record the trainers seemed to trust her, to the extent that she led a team to perform the Kolvoord Starburst at the inauguration of the new President of the UFP. Somehow, they had managed to channel that old sense of irritation into a sense of determination and leadership.

USS Arkaig
Following graduation she put her skill in piloting to good use, being posted to a starbase to perform shuttle runs… Although admittedly, she found it abysmally boring. She continuously irritated senior officers with her complaints, and it is likely that the reason for her being transferred to the more lively position of helmsman aboard a starship was so she wouldn’t have to complain any more.

Talos found the position of helmsman to be far more preferable and finally felt like the work she was doing truly mattered. She was attentive to every little detail; every tiny tic that the manual control system had, working out to tell which warp factor they were travelling at just from the vibrations through the floor. She also strived to master manoeuvres, perfecting them whenever her ship – starting with the USS Rapture – was flung into combat. Most notably whilst fighting a group of raiders wishing to take out the colony known as Trodon she came up with what is known as the Trodon Manoeuvre. Being fired upon from numerous directions they needed a way to avoid being hit. Banking the ship downwards into a dive and simultaneously throwing the vessel into a continuous roll, Talos successfully managed to avoid the majority of the fire. The ship, whilst still conventionally upside down, then launched into the Picard Manoeuvre. Talos jumped them to warp for the briefest of seconds before halting them again in a new location where they could take the enemy vessels by surprise and disable them. She was later commended for her quick thinking and awarded the Order of Grankite.

Practically all of Talos’s time was spent working or doing sports training. It was often pointed out to her that she should take the time to make more friends, but her one true attempt at it led her to find that she had no time for domestic life at all. During a stop at a Starbase, Talos had ended up quite literally bumping into a Klingon woman named K’utsehl. The woman was a geologist from the KDF who were trying to stabilise tectonic movement on some far-flung planet. K’utsehl was intelligent, strict – Talos couldn’t keep up with the ideas and information she talked about… But it intrigued her. K’utsehl intrigued her. The two spent days upon the starbase just talking about anything and everything, and then they continued to talk over subspace when Talos had to leave. They would co-ordinate stops in order to meet up, and enjoyed a relationship for well over a year. However, as things progressed, K’utsehl wanted more. There were continuous hints for Talos to leave the fleet, to settle down somewhere nice, to get married, to adopt children. Unfortunately neither of the two were willing to compromise on their ideals and it ended in a breakup, and Talos has never really cared to try again.

USS Lux Aeterna
Once she was commanding officer of her first ship, she focussed on getting to know her crew in her free time. Almost every morning she could be found teaching some form of sporting class or acting as a personal trainer for the senior staff. Once every week she would host a dinner night and cook for all of the bridge crew. Listening and interacting with them became a philosophy of hers – getting to know them and making sure that they’re alright was key. She just seemed to fall into the charisma and confidence required in her position. Apparently her charisma could be used in diplomacy too – she had been trained in combat, but much preferred a friendly approach at first. A most notable occasion was when she introduced the planet of Odroaphus into the Federation, a planet consisting of two different species who had previously been at war but now were taking the first steps to band together and progress.

It was during her time aboard the Lux Aeterna – the perfect ship with the crew she loved – that the main turning point in her life struck. Whilst upgrading defences of a planet the ship found themselves suddenly facing off against the Borg. They had had no warning, there was no sign that another ship would arrive; but there they were, a Borg cube, hovering ominously over the planet. The Lux Aeterna had fought hard, using manoeuvre after manoeuvre and praying that their distress call would be heard. No one responded to it, however, and the vessel was soon disabled. Dead in the water, the bridge crew had been forced to watch that Borg cube slowly approach. Talos knew that she had to do something. Her crew would be assimilated, and then there was the entire planet below… All of those people would become victims of the Borg. She opted to try something rather untoward. Having her comms officer hail the Borg vessel, she proceeded to voluntarily offer herself up for them. They could assimilate her and have all of the classified information on Starfleet that they wanted – and in return, her crew and the population of the planet would be spared.

She hadn’t expected the Borg to agree. She informed Command of the situation and made them aware of the information that the Borg may be about to obtain. Her officers had tried to convince her otherwise, but she saw no other way; and soon she was piloting a shuttle to come aboard the Borg cube. There had been immediate striking features; the humidity, the dull light… The hands grasping her arms, holding her down. The tubules containing the assimilation virus being stabbed into her neck. The searing pain, the worst she had ever felt… The prayer she gave to all of the Gods, asking them to keep her crew safe. A thousand whispers starting up inside of her head, a needle being pushed through her eyes… And then nothing.

Talos – now known as Nine of Fourteen - remained a member of the collective for three months. The Lux Aeterna had refused to give up on her and had conducted rudimentary repairs so they could chase the Borg cube through Federation space – and found them heading straight for Odroaphus. Out of all the information Talos had, the Borg honed in on that; a new planet with defence systems they knew how to destroy, and a species which were yet to be assimilated. An entire fleet was sent to intercept the vessel, and the cube cut through them with ease. Four-thousand people died at the battle of Odroaphus, and Talos was behind it all.

One crew viewed the Borg as victims instead of enemies, and managed to secure numerous drones for liberation. It was found from an early stage that Talos was a highly volatile drone; as soon as she was disconnected from the hive mind she snapped. She immediately killed one of the medical staff and had to be restrained, and her violent reaction lead to cortical implants being introduced – ones which would blank out the memory of her time with the Borg and her initial liberation. The rest of the process was horrendously slow and painful. For months she referred to herself as ‘we’ instead of I, having completely forgotten her individuality. She couldn’t stand the newfound silence which was in her mind, but at the same time, whenever that remaining part of Borg technology picked up radio chatter from the Collective she would break. She resented what she had done – and she didn’t even know the full story.

For quite some time she was stuck aboard a Starbase, undergoing rigorous physical and mental work to become cleared for duty again. She flat-out ignored the diagnosis of PTSD and clawed her way through the psyche evaluation. Her opinion was always that if they would just let her work again then it would help her to move on far better than being stuck aboard some starbase. Eventually she was cleared for duty once more, but despite this, the Admiralty were reluctant to put her back into a position as commanding officer due to how dangerous a drone she had been. She was subtly moved away from the crew whom she had once known, knocked down a rank, and sent to be the first officer aboard the medical ship Dunant. From there she could slowly work her way back up, the Admiralty said… And also be kept under the watchful eye of the medical staff at the same time.

USS Vanguard
Talos had completely hated the Dunant, finding the work completely dire. All that she could focus on was how she had been knocked down, and her determination to pick herself back up again. On one instance the ship was part of a medical fleet sent to provide humanitarian relief to a stricken planet, and Talos was sent to oversee the work of another vessel there; the USS Vanguard. She assisted aboard the vessel for the duration of the crisis, and to her complete and utter surprise, found herself being reinstated as a captain and given the position of commanding officer. Talos had been completely shocked, but vowed to do her hardest to prove that the admiralty were making the right decision. However, in usual fashion, things ended up doing the opposite and her luck ran out again.

Firstly there was the incident where she had her spine broken and was hit by an EMP which eradicated all nanoprobes within her bloodstream… And secondly, there was the Borg.The position of first officer aboard the Vanguard had remained empty for quite some time and it was due to be filled by a Lieutenant Commander Amethyst MacKenzie. Talos had went to welcome MacKenzie aboard but had immediately been rebuked by the woman who stated that Talos – as a drone – had caused the death of her friends and nearly four-thousand people. Naturally Talos was completely taken aback as she had no recollection of her time with the Borg, but this action was one of many which would create a complete domino effect. After conferring with the Admiralty she found out that MacKenzie’s statement was entirely true, and her world seemed to shatter around her once more.

From then on it had quite literally been a domino effect. Her falsified memory from her liberation started to break down, and a dormant Borg programme was activated within her brain; one which re-connected her to the Hive Mind. A Borg cube honed in on her signal and arrived to face off against the Vanguard, the vessel becoming heavily damaged in the process and the crew being forced to abandon ship. In order to save the vessel and the remaining crew, Talos – fighting back against the Borg programming which was controlling her – injected herself with a set of non-sequenced nanoprobes to combat the assimilation virus coursing through the ship. She managed to save the crew from the mess she had caused, and it almost cost her her life.

From there she was forcibly demoted once more and escorted off to a medical facility once again. She spent around a year there, and the incident with the Borg prompted Starfleet’s largest screening programme yet; one which tested every liberated Borg to ensure that no one else had the same programming lying dormant in their brain. Talos struggled with guilt over the situation; the Vanguard had been allowed to continue on its journey without her, and she couldn’t even apologise to its crew. She dreaded what they must think of her and legitimately feared encountering any of them again. However, creeping past the guilt, there was the sense of determination. Once more she set about building herself up again; essentially taking over administrative work on the station to prove herself. After a year, Command finally caved and returned her to the position of commanding officer – this time of the Phoenix, the ship she had watched be constructed at the Starbase.

USS Phoenix
Phoenix would have been a pleasant posting had it not been marred by so much trauma prior to it - and, as she would come to find out, there was more trauma destined for her aboard as well. For a time it seemed as if things had settled down. There were issues here and there such as two of the crew committing mutiny to travel and save a captured Intelligence operative, there was the usual stress and day-to-day life of serving aboard a starship - but Talos had been hopeful things might end up better than they had been before.

Unfortunately this was hindered when Talos's Borg cybernetics began to break down after an issue with her nanoprobes. It was feared that the Captain would not survive should she be harmed in any way, and as a result, a specialist consultant had to be brought in in order to see if anything could be done. This doctor was named Nemi - also a Liberated Borg, and from the Romulan Republic. From the off Talos didn't seem to trust the woman. Nemi acted oddly and seemed to fantasise over the Borg's pursuit of the perfect life form. She began to attempt to groom Talos with offers of creating their own perfect collective, trying to drag her back in.

Everything came to a head when Talos did eventually collapse from the slow decline of her Borg cybernetics and nanoprobes. Nemi pretended to treat Talos but was effectively trying to hard-wire her into a new Collective, and her deceit was found when a telepathic member of the crew became suspicious. It was revealed that Nemi was actually a murderer who used her credentials to prey upon other Liberated Borg. Altering Talos's nanoprobes, she had effectively turned the woman into a ticking time bomb, and would only deactivate this if the rest of the crew let her go. Talos was wounded in a skirmish in which Nemi decided to prove the fact she had the Captain hostage. As per her demands Nemi was set free, and unfortunately was not captured by Starfleet Security who still continue to look for her to this day.

Between this event and everything that had occurred on the Vanguard and Phoenix, Talos decided afterwards that she needed to take some time away in order to recover. Intending upon only taking a month of medical leave she left the Phoenix, not knowing that her leaving would become permanent.

Post-Starfleet
Talos opted to use her medical leave in order to go on pilgrimage. Things had been settling down for her until she found out about the election of her father - Vihan Ravaal - as the new President of the United Federation of Planets. Furthermore when she tried to return to the fleet they had to deny her request on psychiatric terms. Things seemed to build up, then, and unfortunately in early 2477 Talos attempted to take her own life. Her attempts were thwarted and she was sectioned in a psychiatric ward for quite some time - but looking back, she does not despise her time there at all. It helped her get back on track, and despite eventually being removed from Starfleet on medical grounds, they managed to work together to show her that she had the ability of shaping her life into the way she wanted it again.

Living on the outskirts of San Francisco has ensured that Talos could still stay close to the Starfleet scene. She set up a flight school for budding shuttlecraft pilots and also worked alongside investigative units to determine the cause of starship and shuttlecraft crashes. It is not the job that she would have envisioned herself doing, rather thinking that Starfleet would have been her permanent career.

USS Rapture
It was at the outbreak of the Iconian war that Starfleet began to look to former officers to join back up, filling the gaps in their personnel. A former commanding officer who had been known to view Starfleet as more of a home than a career, it was unsurprising that the fleet reached out to Talos. The former-CO had been rather incredulous considering how it was the fleet who had removed her on medical grounds, but who was she to say no? Talos felt as if it was her duty to join back up and assist in the war effort. It was as such that she agreed to their offer and, upon passing the medical and psychiatric screenings, went on to take command of the Presidio-class USS Rapture.