Elro Kobol

Personnel File
Name:	Elro Kobol
Rank:	Lieutenant
Position:	Chief Medical Officer
Species:	Betazoid
Age:	27
Gender:	Male
Orientation:	Homosexual
Birthplace:	Cambridge, England, Earth
Height:	6ft 3in / 1.91m
Weight:	189lbs / 86kg
Hair:	Dark Blonde
Eye color:	Black
Played by:	Alan Ritchson
Writer:	Sqweloookle Formerly: Mathis, TWilkins
Interests
Medicine Dance Fencing Pole Vaulting Pointed Ears Body Spots Gymnastics Literature Music Vulcan Meditation Toxicology Kinesiology
Education
2367-2372 - Cambridge Interspecies Academy, Secondary Education with advanced studies in Exobiology, Exochemistry and Interspecies Ethics 2372-2376 - Starfleet Academy 2376-2377 - Starfleet Medical, Medical specialisation in Toxicology with previous research in Kinesiology and Interspecies Ethics
Service Record
2377-2378 - Ensign, Medical Officer, USS Artemis 2378-2380 - Lieutenant JG, Medical Officer, USS Artemis 2380-2381 - Lieutenant, Chief Medical Officer, USS Endeavour 2381-2381 - Lieutenant, Medical Officer, USS Niger 2381-Present - Lieutenant, Chief Medical Officer, USS Theurgy
Decorations
N/A

Doctor Elro Kobol was Chief Medical Officer on the USS Endeavour. When the Endeavour was destroyed by the Borg, Kobol escaped on the USS Niger, and would eventually defect to the USS Theurgy. As of March 2381, Kobol served on the USS Theurgy, aiding in the opposition against the parasites that compromised Starfleet Command in the end of the 24^th century.

Biography

Born in Cambridge, England as an only child to Betazoid parents, Elro Kobol grew up navigating the treacherous waters of being a child of two cultures. Atol and Niri Kobol had both emigrated to Earth to pursue lucrative research careers at the prestigious Cambridge Medical Institute, a position that offered some of the most advanced opportunities to study and develop new medical technologies that were available outside of the reigns of Starfleet Medical. It was there, that Niri gave birth to Elro and the couple raised him, trying to blend traditional Betazoid values with a flexibility that would allow him to better understand other cultures.

Despite his parents guidance however, working directly with his peers always proved to be a challenge for Elro; the Betazoid side of his upbringing teaching him to do things slightly differently to the humans around him. He spent much of his childhood conflicted, having his Parents in constant disagreements with his teachers regarding his attitude and behavior, until they ultimately made the decision to homeschool him, with the finest tutors they could find. His friendship options were reduced to the children of his parents’ co-workers, whom he saw fairly regularly, and the occasional visiting family from Betazed, enticed to make the journey to Earth with promises of his parents’ voluptuous parties. Even with options to companionship open to him however, Elro found that when he was alone, he had no longing for company. His solitude was sufficient to explore a multitude of interests.

When he approached adolescence, slightly earlier than the typical Betazoid, he began to develop his telepathic and empathic abilities. He became glad of his slightly more isolationist lifestyle, where he found that even stray thoughts from his tutor’s mind were deafening to him. Over time, his parents, and even a Betazoid telepathy expert from Starfleet, worked with him closely on how to control and manage his abilities. They were mentioned as being especially sensitive, but as he grew to understand and properly apply his abilities, he found that a new world opened up to him.

Eventually, having honed his telepathy to be more responsive to his control, he requested that his parents allow him to attend a local Upper School in order to explore the opportunities that would be available in an environment outside his own home. Though the constant bombardment of thoughts was trying, he excelled in classes, his previous tutolidge giving him an advantage in several disciplines and allowing him to achieve the highest grades. However, with the continual assault from the emotion turmoil of an entire school’s worth of Teenagers, his control gradually began to slip, which lead him to seek help in finding a way to focus his mind and limit the influence that the thoughts of others had on him.

At first, his methods consisted of various Vulcan meditation techniques, as taught by his Xenobiology teacher T’Poi, that gradually allowed him to understand how his paracortex functioned and what it best responded to. He combined this with activities that required absolute concentration: traditional and demanding dance, complicated athletics activities, including pole-vault, fencing and gymnastics, and research projects that were very advanced for his age and required incredible discipline and focus to achieve.

His newfound passion and dedication had knock-on-effects that branched across almost every aspect of his life. Firstly, he began to learn how to focus and dampen his sensitive paracortex gaining new levels of control of his empathic and telepathic abilities that even his parents were impressed by. Secondly, his newfound athleticism greatly enhanced his physical health and muscularity, combined with his winning of local tournaments gaining him somewhat undesired popularity and attention. But perhaps most importantly, his interest in advanced topics of Xenobiology and Medicine was noticed keenly by both his teachers and his parents, both of whom only encouraged him to work harder.

Throughout his entire life, Elro had felt the expectation from his parents that he would eventually join them at the Cambridge Institute, developing cutting edge medical technologies to sell to Starfleet and other medical institutions. However, whilst he found himself excelling in his school’s Starfleet funded program in Exobiology and Exochemistry, two key disciplines in medical technology, as more options became available to him, he began studying Interspecies Ethics and other topics more related to treatment rather than research and development. Elro found himself suddenly drawn to a career more varied than just developing new technologies, but instead, practising in treatment and healthcare. As he began to study anatomy and medical science in more thorough detail, reading medical journals in his time off, and reviewing records of physicians who saved entire Starships from life-threatening situations in the most extraordinary circumstances, he knew he’d found his calling.

When he made the decision to apply for the Medical program at Starfleet Academy, he knew how disappointed his parents would be at the news. So for the first time in his life, he attempted to keep something from them. He had T’Poi write his letter of recommendation and letter of character, being the teacher he was closest to and whom he held in the highest regard. The letters were well received, and he was accepted before he had even completed his final year of schooling; passing the Starfleet entrance exams with top grades. He was proud, in a way. But it also meant that he could no longer keep it a secret. Unfortunately for his parents, it was not the only disappointment they would face.

Though Elro had fully realised his homosexuality in his early teens, realising that when he danced with his female colleagues, beautiful and lithe women, he felt nothing. When he compared this to when he competed in fencing, furious sparring and riposting, he found a myriad of emotions flooding out when those boys pulled off their visors and revealed their handsome faces, hair plastered to skin with sweat, or when muscular bodies, taught with focus, vaulted cleanly over a pole and tumbled down into a crash mat, lycra hugging every inch of their bodies... It wasn’t difficult for him to realise where his desires fell. And whilst his parents were more than accepting, he also had a wife pre-arranged for him on Betazed.

The resulting conversations with his parents were tough and long. Whilst it wasn’t in their nature to be angry, they certainly had many tactics to try and convince him, on both accounts. His career, to his surprise, though it didn’t thrill them, they were begrudgingly supportive, even going as far as to throw a party in celebration of his efforts, making sure to tell all of their friends that their son had passed the entrance exams with flying colours. His marriage, on the other hand, was as much for them as it was for him. They were getting bonded to a powerful family whom would raise their status considerably. At every opportunity, they hinted and suggested, and he felt his nerves wearing down, to the point where he almost relented several times. He parents reminded him continuously that the marriage didn’t need to mean anything more than a contract. He didn’t need to love his wife... But the side of him that had become embedded in human culture struggled to accept that.

Once he began his course at the Academy, moving to San Francisco and getting away from the constant pestering about marriage, he quickly established places in numerous extra-curricular activities along with taking as many courses across the board of medical disciplines as he could. One of his instructors noticed, quite by accident, that Elro possessed a profound skill and aptitude in controlling his paracortex and using his empathic and telepathic abilities. Elro had controlled his paracortex almost without effort for years, the combination of focus and Vulcan meditation techniques giving him a keen control over his abilities, but one of his instructors arranged for him to take an extra course in psionic abilities to develop his talents even further.

It came as a pronounced surprise, when one afternoon, when his parents had visited him at the Academy for one of their infrequent visits, that they presented to him a holo-photo of a handsome young Betazoid male. His parents, though greatly amused by his obliviousness, which was somewhat pronounced for someone so intelligent, were only overjoyed when they told him the truth. His pleas hadn't fallen on deaf ears, and it was more than a few notable Betazoid families whom had the problem of trying to arrange marriages for resistant sons and daughters. Elro's Father had, by chance, heard of a similar difficulty in finding a spouse their son would agree with, in one of Betazed's more prominent families. Atol had sent a marriage proposal to wed their two sons, knowing that although the Kobol family were perhaps not the most distinguished in the political game of Betazed, the intelligent son of two medical researchers was not a terrible match...

And they accepted the proposal. Elro suddenly found his expectation of a grim future with a wife he could not love, replaced by a promising one with a husband he could, and most certainly would, given the jawline on the holo-photo he had been given.

However, true love was not to be.

During his time at the Academy, Elro experienced the change in tone brought on by the outbreak of the Dominion War. It changed his classmates, his instructors, even the curriculum felt more focussed on war. He found that he learnt more about treating disruptor blasts and plasma burns then he did anything else during the first few months of the war. Whilst Elro had previously taken several semesters of kinesiology, which linked both his medical interests and his athletic ones, he was approached by one of his instructors and asked to consider taking a few semesters to study as a toxicologist, over the fear that the Dominion would unleash bioweapons. Whilst he accepted, and found the studies interesting, there was a great degree of seriousness about the course; the essentiality that the next generation of medical officers would have the necessary skills to combat the new threats brought on by the Dominion. It was shortly after the news that the war was not progressing well for the Federation reached their ears, that Elro’s parents contacted him with news that would change his life greatly.

The Battle of Betazed and the Dominion's occupation of the planet rocked through the entirety of Starfleet Academy. His parents had offered shelter to extended family and friends but many had been lost. Amongst the missing was his future spouse, and his family, knowledge that wracked Elro so violently with the promise of the perfect Betazoid love story being ripped away from him after so many years of his fighting to get it within his reach. He, along with most of the other Betazoids at the Academy, went through a dark time until the news finally reached them that the War was being won.

His final semesters returned to normal, going back to learning about everything from the varied treatments for space sickness to a theoretical research project on Borg countermeasures. However, the news of his passed fiance made any interest in a romantic or sexual avenue close for him, and his parents knew better than to try and remarry him whilst he found himself mired in sorrow for a man whom he had never met, but who represented a chance for his people's perfect ideal of romance...

He graduated with high honours and was requested as a medical officer by several different facilities. In the end, he chose the USS Artemis, a border patrol ship where his Chief Medical Officer would be a Vulcan, whom he always found to be the best mentors, as his assignment. The Artemis saw its fair share of action, the occasional raid from overzealous pirates and even trouble from the Orion Syndicate on a few occasions provided him with ample hands-on experience with medical emergencies. Even under the logical Guidance of Chief Medical Officer Valak, the Artemis was something of a trial by fire. But it made Elro feel ready for anything.

On the Artemis, he began to develop closer relationships with members of the crew, making friends who were more significant than those who tried to probe his mind for answers at Starfleet Academy, or those his parents invited over to bond over being Betazoid. Whilst he did not romantically engage, seeing it as inappropriate considering the small number of the crew and the slightly uncertain nature of a number of the patrols they were sent on, he had a companion who’s quarters were always open to him after a stressful day, for a glass of gin and a comfortable silence looking out at the stars.

After almost two years of service, Elro was promoted to Lieutenant, Junior Grade, after an exemplary track record and numerous occasions of creative thinking that resulted in lives being saved. Then, after a further two years, he received his promotion to full Lieutenant, at the same time as he received transfer orders to serve as the Chief Medical Officer aboard the USS Endeavour.

Whilst leaving the Artemis was gut wrenching for the friends and bonds he had made, the Endeavour was an entirely new challenge. Managing a full team of medical staff proved challenging at first, but he learned to keep his paracortex focused enough to pick out each of their different moods, not prying into their thoughts, but ensuring to know exactly when he needed to step in and make sure they were okay.

His most challenging duty was his new role as a Senior Officer, called to meetings with Captain Amasov and the rest of the Senior Staff when it came to new mission orders or circumstances out of the ordinary. As the Chief Medical Officer, Elro often found himself detailing to the rest of the team about the health and well-being of the crew when it came to more risky missions, and even once overruled a senior officer’s orders on medical grounds.

Unfortunately, his time aboard the Endeavour was cut short at just over a year. A Borg attack caught the crew by surprise, killing dozens and unleashing to a chain of events that led to he and several other members of the crew escaping aboard a Runabout, the USS Niger, lost in the Azure Nebula.

Personality Profile

From a distance, Elro’s personality is impossible to pin down, raised with Betazoid values, surrounded by human values, but not particularly manifesting the presence of either culture. Instead, his most outward traits lean towards a Vulcan standard; composure, responsibility, dedication, logic. It is only when someone gets close to him that they will see the personality traits that one would expect from a Betazoid.

He is honest and forthcoming to a fault, never quite grasping the human quality to tell a ‘white lie’ to ease someone’s feelings, even as a part of his bedside manner. Elro also has a tendency to keep his empathic abilities active at all times, despite being aware that prying into his colleagues’ heads would most likely not be appreciated. However despite his abilities, he tends not to act on what his prying reveals in any large way. If he were to discover that a colleague was feeling depressed, for example, he would offer them a smile in passing, or perhaps discreetly take on some of their workload. He would not, however, attempt to comfort or console them, as he is a firm believer that each person should seek help when they need it, and not expect it to come to them.

Despite his almost harsh outlook on certain topics, Elro is in fact an especially compassionate individual. Though maintaining a professional distance whilst on duty, Elro ensures that he is never demonstrating less than the utmost courtesy and kindness when interacting with his colleagues. When off duty or with his friends, Elro demonstrates a side more typical of a Betazoid; witty, warm and laid back enough to put almost anyone at ease in his company, even if it only takes a few words to do so.

It would be a mistake to confuse his quieter disposition as a lack of confidence however, as when necessary Elro could easily lead with assertiveness, confidence and charm. Whether it be in a meeting with the Senior Staff, or a medical consultation with a disgruntled crewman Elro did not hesitate to resort to his empathic abilities to ensure everyone at the table was getting what they wanted.

Sexually speaking, Elro is inexperienced and his path in life has managed to pull him away from those pleasures when most opportunities had shown up. His upbringing and surroundings had much conflict as Betazoid culture had a different view on flirting and dating then humanity and other cultures had, and so he had conflicting information and often got things mixed up. The death of his to-be-never-met spouse on Betazed only further hampered his ability to deal in and with romantic opportunities, as well as having the understandable side effect of an unrelenting hatred for the Dominion and Cardassians, whom during their Occupation of Betazed, are responsible for killing his betrothed. Something he does not openly discuss.

Physical Profile

Elro stands at 6’3”, with a lean build that echos years of dedication to both dance and athletics. He is light on his feet yet hides a deceptively strong body beneath his Starfleet uniform. However, aside from traditional fencing, Elro has never found a need to apply his strength in a combat scenario, his limited Starfleet training him on sidearms only. His fencing skills did earn him a merit at the Academy, but there are few species who engage in hand-to-hand combat that Elro would chose to spar with if his life were on the line.

Elro’s eyes are the typical dark black of a Betazoid, as to be expected, whilst his hair is a light brown shade, which he keeps short but diligently styled using a very particular array of hair products. His eyebrows are the same tone as his hair, with a gentle arch over his eye and a slight raise just before the end.

He has a handsome nose, with a strong bridge and defined nostrils, decorated with the occasional smattering of freckles if he tans. His lips on the other hand are delicate, with a natural sultry flush that creates a resting look of slight bewilderment but form a beautiful smile. His jawline is strong, with a dimpled chin, and is often lined with a light dusting of pale stubble that is barely noticeable against his skin.

Special Notes

Even for a Betazoid, Elro has a sensitive paracortex, emphasising both his telepathic and empathic abilities. Through dedicated training and Vulcan meditation techniques, he has learned, over time, to dampen the sensitivity of his paracortex and quieten the thoughts and emotions of others. Due to a more sensitive than average set of abilities, he was selected for advanced psionic training and had special instruction during his time at Starfleet Academy. During this time, he learned to identify and dampen psychic intrusion into his own head, alongside the reinforcement of his control over his telepathic and empathic abilities.