T’Rala Mathews

Birth and The Occupation: 2364 – 2374

T’Rala’s parents were farmers. Simple people living, and farming, on the colony world of Revana IV that sat comfortably in Romulan space. Not a lot was made of the Dominion attack on the planet when it happened, few died and little notice was paid, it was just another world under Dominion control in 2374 when T’Rala was ten. Her parents were killed by the Dominion and she lived with a grandmother until the colony was liberated at the end of the war.

Up until then she had been a normal Romulan child, though one growing up on a farm. She was not into politics or intrigue, and was talking (as much as she could at the time) about being a veterinarian one day.

Once the occupation began and she moved in with her grandmother, she began to work under forced labor standards in grain harvesting. For a ten year old this was harsh, but T’Rala had a survivor’s streak in her and rose to the task. Unfortunately her elderly grandmother did not survive, and died working in the fields under the Dominion.

Adoption to Cologne II 2375 – 2385

When Revana IV was liberated it was by the USS McDonald a Starfleet vessel. The crew supplied emergency rations to the population and did what they could to stabilize the colony. They remained until Romulan government officials did, and it soon became clear that not everyone was going to be taken care of. The children orphaned by the occupation were of secondary importance, with so many orphans already from a long and brutal war. T’Rala was given no where to go, and short of living on her own at the age of ten was provided with no future.

Commander Matthews of the McDonald and his wife petitioned to adopt her, and a harried and overworked Romulan colonial government approved of it. Thus T’Rala travelled on the McDonald to her new home on the human colony of Cologne II a Germanic settlement near the Sol system.

There she grew up raised by two humans, one of which was the First Officer on the USS McDonald. Most people in the colony assumed that she was Vulcan and it was only those that got to know her that realized that she was Romulan. Indeed her heritage was not an issue until her early twenties.

2386 – 2398: Post Secondary

It was when T’Rala applied to post secondary school on Earth that being Romulan came to be an issue. At first she was not allowed to be accepted into her first choice university in the former England, but she had to pivot and accept entrance into McGill instead.

From there she went to the University of Toronto for her medical degree, studying human, Klingon, and Vulcan psychologies as her focus. She took emergency medicine and interned in hospital emergency rooms in Las Vegas and Dallas. Upon full graduation as a doctor she enrolled at Starfleet Academy, again facing another uphill battle over being Romulan.

At this point having already been through it, and with an adopted father in Starfleet she was allowed in after appeal. Given her medical degree she was taken into the medical program and performed capably, though she was too human for Vulcans and too odd for most humans so she did not have many friends during these years.

Starfleet 2399 –

Upon graduation T’Rala was assigned to a vessel doing mundane trips well within Federation space. She was not sure whether this was due to her being a Romulan or not, and she began to lobby for a more interesting assignment. This came up when the USS Seattle a Rhode Island Class ship was requiring an Assistant Chief Medical officer and she applied to work under Lieutenant Commander Va’Tok.