Lieutenant Sianna Dal
Name Sianna Dal
Position Chief Diplomatic Officer
Rank Lieutenant
Character Information
| Gender | Female | |
| Species | Orion | |
| Age | 30 |
Physical Appearance
| Height | 187 cm | |
| Weight | 68 kg | |
| Hair Color | Black | |
| Eye Color | Black | |
| Physical Description | To the eyes of a Federation citizen, Sianna Dal appears a throwback to a different, more archaic age. Her height and lean build are nothing extraordinary, her emerald skin, almond-shaped eyes and sharp features draw attention, but no more so than any species that is foreign, exotic or rare inside the borders of the Federation. Were conditions normal, Sianna Dal would attract no more attention than any other person, perhaps a bit more. It is her style that sets her apart. It is not the clothes so often, much to the ire of those like Sianna, attributed to the Orions, little more than strips of cloth covering but a few parts of the body. Instead, Sianna Dal dresses like a Greek philosopher or Roman scholar, in light, airy linen dresses, typically white, held in place at the shoulders with golden fibulae. Even the accompanying jewellery is archaic, golden bracelets and arm-bands in a dizzying variety of styles, with just one piece a constant - an elegant, thin bracelet set with a large ruby. There are some concessions to practicality, however minor they might be. Sianna wars boots, rather than sandals. She keeps her hair set in a simple, if artfully messy bun with a few strands of curly hair allowed to fall free and a stylus often stabbed through the bun for easy retrieval, rather than some elaborate, time-consuming style. She wears but a little make-up, a few touches and no more, sometimes none at all, a far cry from the styles popular among diplomats and politicians. |
Family
| Father | Kotal Dal [deceased] | |
| Mother | Alata Dal [deceased] | |
| Brother(s) | Kandan Dal [deceased] | |
| Other Family | Taida Artois [formerly Dal; fraternal aunt] Phillipe Artois [uncle] Fiera Artois [cousin, twin of Amelie Artois, human-orion hybrid] Amelie Artois [cousin, twin of Fiera Artois, human-orion hybrid] Richard Artois [cousin, human-orion hybrid] |
Personality & Traits
| General Overview | A soft-spoken, bookish academic at heart, Sianna Dal reflects her initial career as a professor. Her speeches are long, winding and overcomplicated, diverting often into minutiae, historic and cultural references, utilizing a complex vocabulary that demands that listeners have a broad understanding of the topic before beginning to listen. Over-dramatic, a reflection of Sianna's love of melodrama and dramatic displays, she can make even the simplest discussion of manufacturing standards for intermodal transport containers seem like a subject upon which the fate of the galaxy rests. Sianna Dal enjoys it all, she enjoys being the centre of attention. Possessed of a penchant for drama and a fondness for personal exhibitionism, she commands attention whenever she is present. The only thing worse than being subject of rumours and small-talk is, after all, not being subject to rumours and small-talk. |
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| Strengths & Weaknesses | Sianna Dal is brilliant, but brittle. She is, without a doubt, intelligent. Her mastery of her chosen field of expertise is unquestionable. Her charisma is self-evident. Her drive, single-minded to the point of ruthlessness, is frightening in its intensity. And, yet, she is arrogant, possessed of a confidence in her own skills that far exceeds her actual capabilities. She is mercurial, pushed and pulled by the tides of emotion and feeling. She is brittle, someone who would rather bend than stand, who retreats when faced with challenge or defeat, always seeking the path of least resistance. Adaptable, by any measure of the word, but bereft of the capability to take a stand for anything of true value. |
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| Ambitions | Power and influence. Even in the Federation, where material wealth is meaningless, there is power. The king of words, beyond God, beyond Mammon, the desire which gave birth to greed, power. Even for Sianna Dal, raised in the Federation, viewing wealth as meaningless, there is greed. An urge and an overwhelming desire for power. Everything had been subordinated to that overarching goal. A career in academia to open avenues to influence, years spent rubbing shoulders with the best and the brightest, the future leaders of the Federation. A lesson as old as civilization, one Orions knew well - beyond ability and knowledge, it is contacts and friendships which lay at the foundation of influence. Even in her sudden and unexpected loss, past grief, Sianna saw opportunity - a chance to ascend to power and influence in the Orion colonies. Her meteoric rise and equally meteoric fall from grace were a humbling lesson. Defeated, but undaunted, Sianna Dal retreated to the Federation, leveraging her newfound experience to recoup her losses - a new career in the Diplomatic Corps. In her heart of hearts, ambition burns as brightly as it always had and the siren song of power still fills Sianna's ears. |
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| Hobbies & Interests | Sianna Dal keeps a small collection of medals framed on a wall - the first one was won when she was eight, the last when she was twenty-four. The first one, won in a gymnastics competition she does not view fondly ... there was an unfair advantage in her Orion physiology involved. The rest, won in a variety of championships, were won fairly - in the hundred-meter dash. Those she views with more pride. Though she no longer competes, having chosen an academic career instead of a sporting one, Sianna does practice regularly. Her old dreams of competing in a marathon, however, continue to elude her. Orion physiology is poorly adapted for sustained effort, better-suited for explosive force. Sianna continues to push herself, nevertheless, stubborn and resolute. And, yet, an observer would hardly equate Sianna Dal with healthy living. She meets every depiction of Orion decadence and even exceeds them at times. To enjoy life, to indulge in creature comforts and the most exotic tastes ... these are virtues among Orions. It doesn't exist until an Orion has seen it, as the old saying goes. So Sianna Dal indulges, pursuing whatever temporary interest catches her fancy, whatever it might be. Her interest wanes quickly, rarely lasting beyond a month or two before being discarded in favour of something new and untried. |
| Personal History | Sianna Dal was born the second child to Kotal and Alata Dal, the patriarch and matriarch of the prestigious Dal family of Botchok, recorded in Federation archives as Rigel VIII. Long rumoured to be affiliated with the Orion Syndicate and with no shortage of enemies, the patriarch decided to send the four-year-old Sianna Dal to his sister, Taida, who had settled on Earth, married a human Starfleet officer and renounced her name, even if the bonds of loyalty Orions so prized remained as strong as they had ever been. Stronger, perhaps, for in absence the heart grows fonder as time wears away the hard edges from memory. Whether this was an act of kindness, a desire to see his daughter safe and away from the politics of Botchok, the calculated act of a ruthless manipulator, seeking to deprive his enemies of a potential weapon against the family, or the act of a cold strategist, placing one heir, one spare in reserve where she could be retrieved as needed, is a secret Kotal Dal took to his grave. In the end, all that matters is that he did and Sianna Dal arrived to Earth, cast away from Botchok and Orion space. Whether it was intended as a blessing or a curse, Sianna Dal grew up on Earth, in the shining heart of the Federation, far from Orion space, far from her parents and family and in the care of her aunt and uncle. In all the ways that mattered, Taida and Phillip Artois filled the role of parent to the child. Their children were Sianna's siblings, their home her home. Orion became a distant memory, an abstract concept taught to a child by an aunt, filling the girl's head with grand tales of heroes and adventurers, bold pirates and treacherous lords and cunning slaves, of house feuds and wars waged in the shadows. Of virtues and principles and a culture which had little in common with that of the Federation. To Sianna, these were nothing more than tales - she grew up on Earth, attended Federation schools, spoke the languages of Earth and the Federation ... even as her native tongue grew foreign and gained a faint accent, the words tasting strange in her mouth. It came as no surprise that, on the eve of her legal adulthood and on the day her application for a Federation university was accepted, Sianna Dal applied for Federation citizenship. The oath of loyalty she took was, in its own way, merely an affirmation of a choice made years ago, a choice not even made by her, but by her father when he sent her to Earth, her mother when she chose not to stop him, her aunt when she chose to accept her. A formality that she paid no heed to. Sianna took to her studies with the intensity of someone with something to prove. Even in Universite Pantheon-Assas in Paris, which even centuries after its renaming remained famous as Sorbonne, where the very best of the best could be found, Sianna was brilliant. She passed exams with flying marks and the respect of her teachers, she participated in the athletics team for the University, she activelly took part in the political life of the student body. And, when she graduated, she chose to remain. Doctoral studies first, then teaching, then, finally, tenure - the prestigious title of Maitresse de conferences, associate professor. It was on the eve of the first semester she was to teach not as an assistant, but as an equal to the professors, that the news came from Orion. The Dal family had been beheaded, its patriarch, matriarch and heir all killed in a bombing of an apartment ... victims of the internecine conflicts within the Orion Syndicate, the consequences of picking the wrong side at the wrong time, of making the wrong enemy, of missteps and miscalculations. With the message came a request, for the leadership of the family passed to Sianna Dal. Come home, it said. And come home she did. First for the funeral of a family she barely knew, then in the name of loyalty to family that ran deep in Orion culture, something that even the Federation had not been able to rip out, but rather nurtured. Building on half-remembered stories from childhood, Sianna Dal took up the mantle of a true Orion. She took over the family business and, within a year, became a member of the Botchok Planetary Congress. However meaningless that appointment might have seemed, it was a platform, a public platform which could not be ignored. Her voice became the voice of that faction friendliest to the United Federation of Planets. Through her own drive and with the aid of friends and acquaintances from Earth, Sianna Dal oversaw a prospering business empire built on close ties to Federation worlds. A rising star in the political arena of the Orion colonies, Sianna Dal's star would prove to be a meteor, brilliant for a few moments before fading away. Her voice and her ambitions had made her enemies. A campaign began in the media. Accusations levelled against Sianna Dal not in the court of law, where nothing could be proven, but in the court of public opinion, where nothing needed to be proven. Insinuations that she was a member of the Syndicate in good standing. Claims of corruption. Descriptions of influence trading. Stories of clandestine meetings with foreign ambassadors to sell the Orion colonies to the highest bidder. Finally, when that proved insufficient, they accused Sianna Dal of arranging for the systematic and total extermination of the Kelit family by a cadre of professional assassins, a family believed to have been responsible for the deaths of Kotal, Alata and Kandan Dal, Sianna Dal's immediate family. Though no direct evidence could be found, it was enough. Her faction in the Congress fractured and a war of assassins began, waged in the shadowed alleys and slums and in the marbled halls and palaces of Botchok. After the second assassination attempt, one which ended with a running battle waged across the stately grounds of an isolated palace, where mercenaries and security guards battled assassins for six hours before law enforcement finally arrived, conspicuously late, Sianna Dal admitted defeat. She resigned her position in the Congress, appointed trusted men and women to administer the family businesses and cut her losses. She retreated to Federation space, where the reach of her enemies was as ephemeral as their gold-pressed latinum was irrelevant. No longer content with a mere teaching position, Sianna Dal offered her services to the Diplomatic Corps of the United Federation of Planets, an offer readily accepted by the Corps, desiring to gain a veteran diplomat with experience and contacts in multiple stellar nations with no effort on their part. |
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| Service Record | 2381: University Paris-Assas: Graduate, Interstellar Law 2383: University Paris-Assas: Doctorate, Interstellar Commercial Law 2386: University Paris-Assas: Maitresse de conferences [associate professor] 2387 - 2389: Botchok Planetary Congress [Legislative body, Orion colonies]: member 2389: United Federation of Planets - Diplomatic Corps: application received and approved; appointed as charge d'affairs at Starbase Vanguard |