Azrin Ryn

Personnel File
Name:	Azrin Ryn
Rank:	Lieutenant Junior Grade
Position:	Asst. Chief Engineer
Species:	Joined Trill
Age:	32
Gender:	Female
Orientation:	Bisexual
Birthplace:	SS Izar
Height:	5ft 5in / 1.65m
Weight:	125lbs / 57kg
Hair:	Red
Eye color:	Blue
Played by:	Liza Shmelyova
Writer:	rae
Interests
Model Starships Holodeck action programs Tinkering Astronomy Souvenirs
Education
2354-2363: Homeschool, Federation Distance Learning Curriculum 2363-2367: Mak’ala Preparatory School #7 2367-2371: Starfleet Academy
Service Record
2371-2372: Ensign, Theoretical Drive Systems Lab, Daystrom Institute Starfleet Annex, Galor IV 2372-2373: Ensign, Warp Field Regulation Specialist, USS Excalibur 2373-2375: Ensign, Matter-Antimatter Regulation Specialist, USS Excalibur 2375-2377: Extended Leave of Absence – Trill Initiate Program, Mak’ala, Trill 2377-2380: Lt. JG, Propulsion Engineer – Hot Fire Test Team, Utopia Planitia Shipyards 2380-2381: Lt. JG, Propulsion Engineer – Warp Drive, USS Theurgy 2381-Present: Lt. JG, Asst. Chief Engineer, USS Theurgy
Decorations
None

Character Draft Awaiting Approval

Lt. JG Azrin Ryn was an engineer on the USS Theurgy who was injured and placed in stasis during the Theurgy’s original escape from Earth. After her wounds were healed, she rejoined the engineering department and aided in the opposition of the parasites that compromised Starfleet Command in the end of the 24th century.

Biography

Childhood

On April 29, 2349, Azrin Asix was born on a cargo ship somewhere between Beta Antares and Tellar. They were all a bit busy, for obvious reasons, so no one remembered to mark the exact location. On official records, her father, Istrel Asix was the Captain of the Cargo Ship Izar, but in reality, it was a shared job. He was the salesman, in charge when they were offloading products or gaining new contracts, and her mother Veza was the engineer, in charge when getting the Izar from place to place. Azrin, and eventually her younger sister Nyza, were the only children on the ship. They only had their parents and various assistants employed on the ship to keep them company.

As they traversed from planet to planet, Azrin spent the majority of her time doing one of three things: schoolwork, done alone in her quarters, which was always very boring; helping her father with his work, consisting of inventory or contract reading, which was also boring; or with her mother in the engine room, where the old finicky warp drive could always be counted on to provide endless excitement.

The only break in her schedule was when they arrived at a port, where she went nuts, always gathering a group of local children to be her new best friends. If she was charismatic, upbeat, and played on the exoticness of her ‘adventures’ living in space, it normally wasn’t hard to find friends. Since the Izar normally contained its trade routes to Federation worlds, it was almost always deemed safe to let the children leave the ship and roam at will within a preset distance from the port. Once the introductions were made and stories told, she would lead them off on a real wild adventure – which normally ended with the other children’s parents complaining and Azrin ending her time on that planet confined to the Izar. That was fine, it was worth it.

Eventually, her wild side caused some real trouble, as Veza left the 14-year-old alone in the engine room for 20 minutes, and Azrin almost blew up the ship. She had seen her mother adjust the ship’s warp field thousands of times and saw no reason why she couldn’t do it herself, changing the calculations to something of her own design. The ship shook violently, throwing Azrin into a wall and leaving the room spinning. She could hear the alarms blaring, but couldn’t figure out how to stand up, oddly preoccupied with the metallic taste of blood in her mouth. Thankfully, the alarms brought her mother running back in just in time to correct her mistake.

Trill

After that, her parents made the decision to send both girls to live with Redra and Henzel Korim, a maternal aunt and uncle on Trill, hoping some stability would calm them down. Naturally, her younger sister Nyza, 12-years-old and much better behaved, was furious that Azrin’s antics had gotten her banished to Trill too, and refused to so much as talk to Azrin for months afterwards.

Life on Trill was the complete opposite from life on the Izar. Veza Asix had been considered the black sheep of her family for running off to tinker with a freighter instead of applying to be joined, and they didn’t expect much better from her wild space rat children. Even Nyza found herself frequently in trouble, since she was only better behaved when compared to Azrin. Azrin’s cousins, Ezhin and Korza, were quiet, studious, and determined perfectionists working to the goal of being joined - the complete opposite of the wild teenagers they now lived with. The two groups clashed immediately. Her cousins thought Azrin was crazy and would never amount to anything in life. She thought they were boring suck-ups, and made a habit of telling them so.

Azrin spent her first year on Trill acting out constantly, nearly getting herself thrown out of school multiple times, all the while begging her parents over subspace to let her return home. Every comm she got in return showed her parents united and steadfast in their refusal. This would be better for her in the long run, they said. She needed to learn discipline, they said. Failing grades, a list of disciplinary reports, and a PADD full of no’s only served to confirm her cousin’s thoughts about her – something they were equally as quick to point out.

Eventually, Azrin conceded that something had to change. If only for the sole purpose of proving her cousins wrong. For the first time in her life, she actually started working at school. Her grades skyrocketed. She’d always been technically-minded, which is why she’d enjoyed the Izar’s engine room so much. Being in school with other students was a great deal more enjoyable than homeschooling had ever been. And honestly, once she gave it a chance… school was kind of fun. She even applied to the symbiosis commission at 17, because her cousins viewed that as perfection, and Azrin wanted to win. She was cut from the program before even finishing the entry interviews, with the note that she was there for all the wrong reasons. Her cousin Korza was cut as well, and their shared rejection served as a détente in the now years long family feud.

As her school graduation neared, Azrin found herself aimless. Oddly enough, she was going to graduate near the top of her class, but she still felt unsettled. She’d always missed her chaotic life on the freighter, but that was because she liked the engine room and visiting new planets, not the work itself. The business, she hated that. One of her school counselors suggested Starfleet. Starship engineering was top notch, they were always going to new places… and Starfleet’s strict rules and regulations would serve to calm her down. Azrin had thought it a wonderful idea, having grown up hearing about all the exciting adventures that awaited the intrepid explorers of Starfleet. She’d never been afraid of work, as long as she was having fun along the way.

Starfleet Academy

It was tough for the first few months, but Azrin found that she really liked Starfleet Academy. The work kept her challenged and there were always new people to meet. She wanted to stay, so she worked to do well. She chose Propulsion Systems for her Engineering specialty. Because, to put it in the most elegant of languages – Pakled – Azrin liked to make things go.

There were slips along the way. She was personable and quick to form friendships, a habit that had stuck from her nomadic childhood. Every once and a while she’d make new friends who would easily pull her off the straight and narrow, her work ethic slipping in favor of wild parties around the Earth. Once she even went off on a jaunt to Luna for the weekend, a scandal that ended with her spending the rest of the semester on probation.

When focused, Azrin did extremely well. Aided along the way by a few professors who saw her potential and a small group of steadfast friends unafraid to give her a dose of reality when required, she consistently passed her classes with flying colors. She lived for the practical side, always the first to book a holodeck and get her hands dirty while trying out whatever theory or application they’d discussed in class that day. Unlike her very real childhood experiment, blowing up a holographic starship was an ordinary event for engineering cadets, as one learned as much from failure as they did from success. It was how they learned what not to do during a real crisis.

Eventually, the rigid rules and expectations of the military-esque Starfleet took their toll, molding Azrin into a responsible officer. It was a gradual process, once that she didn’t even recognize was happening at the time. From probation her first year, to a few disciplinary comments the second, a warning the third, and then… She finished her final year without even a hint of trouble following her. The freshly minted ensign who went off to her first assignment was a far cry from the wild teenager who had entered it. In hindsight, Azrin was surprised to realize that she’d welcomed the change.

Early Starfleet Career

Originally, she was unhappy to learn that her first assignment was going to be planet bound, much to the consternation of the multiple professors who had recommended her for the prestigious posting. Once arriving on Galor IV and spending a day at the Daystrom Institute’s Theoretical Drive Systems Lab, Azrin thought she would be perfectly content to never see the outside of that lab complex again. The work was purely theoretical, but it was a place of dreams. A group of mad scientists and engineers who weren’t tasked with making a better warp drive, but replacing the warp drive entirely. In the year Azrin spent there, they accomplished absolutely nothing. There was no idea that had a chance of working, no design that was considered worthy of pre-production testing, no simulation that the computer hadn’t deemed a failure. It was a fellowship given to young officers because it taught them to think out of the box. But Starfleet always made sure to rotate them out before they got too entrenched, leaving the old dreamers to deal with another round of fresh faces.

Azrin’s next assignment was to the USS Excalibur as a warp field regulation specialist. Compared to her old job of wide-ranging theorizing, working on a sole system in engineering felt very constraining. She quickly became quite well known in the department for her various quips and conversation starters while on duty. Thankfully, her CO, Commander Burgoyne, was an easy-going sort who didn’t mind keeping the room lively. And her comms were always full of messages from her family, who couldn’t resist teasing Azrin – now entrusted by Starfleet to do the thing that she’d nearly gotten them all killed trying as a teenager.

A year and a half later Azrin’s job title on the ship changed, her focus to be Matter-Antimatter regulation instead. She welcomed the switch, part of a Starfleet initiative to ensure that no one got too specialized so early on in their careers. It was a job that gave her more freedom of movement rather than being locked to a console, as she often got to leave engineering, put on a radiation suit, and crawl into the nacelles to make adjustments manually. Her small stature and nimble fingers meant she was always called upon to wedge herself in tight spaces where some of the others wouldn’t fit.

Life on the Excalibur changed drastically when the Dominion War began. Main engineering was silent for the first time since Azrin had arrived, like a darkness had blanketed the entire ship. Azrin couldn’t stand it. She felt like they were stuck in a depressive spiral that was even more dangerous than the war. She decided to make herself the Excalibur Engineers’ unofficial morale officer. Even in their darkest days, when the ship was badly damaged after a fight or another long list of the dead came over the comms, she was constantly working to cheer everyone up. She would get them talking at the very least, a constant stream of optimism on how they were sure to survive the day.

Joining, Leave of Absence, and Return

But war did take its toll, even on someone determined not to feel it. When it was all finally over, Azrin was awarded a promotion to lieutenant junior grade, and given shore leave to await a new assignment. Once she finally stopped moving, she felt very unsettled. In engineering, facing crisis after crisis, Azrin had never really taken the time to process what had been going on in the universe. When she did, Azrin was miserable in a way that she’d never allowed herself to be during the war itself.

After spending most of her shore leave speaking to a counselor, Azrin wasn’t ready to return to Starfleet just yet. She was in a rare introspective mood, and found herself looking back on her life and wondering if there was anything else she’d regret not doing. Her thoughts kept coming back to the initiate program. She’d gone for the wrong reasons before, but in hindsight she felt that it was an avenue she hadn’t given the proper consideration to. Being joined with a symbiont was the most revered opportunity in trill culture, and she’d never truly thought through what it meant. After surviving a war and getting a belated taste of her own mortality, the idea that she could live on after her death was incredibly comforting.

Azrin took a leave of absence from Starfleet to apply for the initiate program again. This time she threw herself into the program, working full throttle now that her decision was made. She was successful, eventually chosen to be joined with the symbiont Ryn.

After a few months recuperating on Trill, the newly joined Azrin Ryn returned to Starfleet. She was ordered to report to Utopia Planitia, to join the Hot Fire Testing Team. Hot fire testing was an antiquated term from the days when space flight had been achieved by hurling a rocket into the air with enough thrust that it broke orbit – aided by the giant ball of fire they were forcing out of the bottom of the rocket. Obviously, that wasn’t how warp drives worked. But the term had stuck around anyway, for old time’s sake. Their job was to run the final test phase of a newly built warp drive, iron out any kinks they might find, then send the ships off for their shake downs. The thin yellow line that ensured there wasn’t a massive explosion the moment a crew turned their new ship on. It was a job filled with endless challenges. Most engineers would get a feel for their ship’s warp core after a while. But Azrin was always working on a new one. They all had their little oddities and unique malfunctions to track down. Eventually, she started likening it to speed dating – with warp drives. She’d name them, assign them personalities based on little mechanical quirks, then break up with them dramatically when it was time to go their separate ways.

A few enjoyable years passed on Mars, but eventually Azrin started longing for adventure again. She longed for that bit of time on the Excalibur before war had broken out, back when they’d still felt like explorers. With that in mind, she applied for a transfer to a starship, and was assigned to the USS Theurgy as a propulsion engineer in 2380. Needless to say, it didn’t exactly go as planned.

USS Theurgy

Azrin had quite enjoyed her trip to Romulus and back, though the officers who’d actually worked on the diplomatic mission would probably hate her for saying so. She’d spent nearly the entire time hidden away in engineering, fawning over a ship with not one, nor two, but three independently functioning warp drives. Oh, she was a beauty. What an engineering marvel! It was – as the saying went – love at first warp. When they eventually returned to Earth, Azrin opted to remain on the ship with her new soulmate instead of taking any shore leave. Having been assigned to the Sol system for years before this post, she still felt like she’d gotten her fill of Earth and had no desire to go back just yet.

Which meant she was on board when everything went sideways. One minute everything was fine, and the next they were fighting their way out of the system, because Starfleet – Starfleet! – was attacking them. Honestly, Azrin didn’t even know what was going on, too focused on trying to keep the ship together while their own people were trying their hardest to kill them.

After a particularly lucky shot from the attacking ships, Azrin rushed to correct an antimatter injector malfunction that would prevent them from going to warp. She practically dove into a Jefferies tube, crawling as fast as she could to the junction she needed, then quickly got to work. A part of her registered someone yelling from her combadge about a power relay overload, telling her to get out, but she was so close to finishing. She only needed a few more seconds… done-

When they found her afterwards, Azrin was burnt, bloody, and unconscious, having nearly asphyxiated from the various fumes in the Jefferies tube after a nearby explosion. The burns and the shrapnel still embedded in her body had prevented her from bleeding out, but the injuries were bad. Once arriving in sickbay, they found a piece of metal embedded in her abdomen barely a centimeter away from the symbiont. Her body was in intense distress and the symbiont was showing the beginning signs of rejection. The decision was made to put Azrin into stasis until the medical team could get the supplies they needed to save her.

Personality Profile

Azrin was a perpetually happy and good-natured person, to the point where it could almost be annoying when everyone was miserable and she was still up beat. Even when she was unhappy, she would put on a cheerful face, preferring that instead of letting her mood bring everyone else down with her.

She was always taking things apart and putting them back together, making minute changes to the engines to get a half a percentage point more output from them. Chaos in engineering was a challenge that she thrived on. In her work, Azrin was a perfectionist who never learned the difference between “it works now” and “it needs to be perfect.” She never competed against other people, but she competed against herself, trying to make everything she worked on better and better each time.

When not in engineering, her described ‘happy place,’ Azrin could be found in her quarters working on miniature starships (the kind that function, not static models and definitely not in a bottle) or running an action or adventure program in the holodeck.

While meticulous in her work, Azrin’s personal life was a bit of a nightmare. Her quarters were a disciplinary report waiting to happen. The table was littered with components from whatever device she had currently disassembled to tinker with. Her bed linens were almost always on the floor, since she preferred to fall asleep feeling the vibrations of the warp engines through the hull. The only place that was consistently clean were the shelves that housed her various knick knacks and souvenirs.

Azrin was an avid collector of souvenirs from her travels, both as a child and after joining Starfleet. They were all small objects that could easily fit in a hand or pocket, ranging from a beautiful crystal from Andoria, a tourist junk statue of the Golden Gate Bridge that said ‘I <3 San Francisco’ on the bottom, a vial of dirt from Deneva, and a broken toggle switch from the Izar’s engine room. There was no rhyme or reason to her collection when simply viewing it, but Azrin had a story to go along with every piece.

Her most consistent romantic partners were warp engines – though the slipstream drive was a strong contender to take over. Partners of a carbon-based humanoid variety never seemed to last long, probably because they weren’t fond of competing with a spaceship.

Physical Profile

Azrin looked like an ordinary trill, her spots easy to see against her red hair and pale skin. Her hair was rarely ever down, always pulled up in some manner: a crown braid if she had time, a bun if in a hurry. The last thing she wanted was to get her hair stuck in whatever she was working on. Her eyes were blue, though in the right light they could look gray or take on hints of green.

Her bearing was straight and proud, and she smiled and laughed easily. She was small and slight, topping out at barely 5’5”. Azrin was the kind of engineer who could climb into a small hatch and still have room to maneuver, leaving the physical heavy lifting for others. It was a habit that also tended to leave her quite dirty, her skin and uniform smeared with all kinds of grease from whatever Jefferies tube she’d been crawling through. She strongly preferred the uniform variants with pants, which protected her knees and modesty while crawling around the bowels of the ship.

Reference Images

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Special Notes (Optional)

Former Hosts:

Drezden Ryn – Astronomer

Elza Ryn – Singer/Songwriter

Mathiz Ryn – Trill Councilman

Zarin Ryn – Starfleet Tactical Officer

Dezra Ryn – Medical Doctor, Médecins Sans Frontières