Lieutenant Commander Elena Cantori
Name Elena Cantori Ph.D.
Position Second Officer | Alien Archaeologist/Anthropologist
Rank Lieutenant Commander
Character Information
| Gender | Female | |
| Species | Argellian/El-Aurian | |
| Age | 70 |
Physical Appearance
| Height | 5'3" | |
| Weight | 110 lbs. | |
| Hair Color | Blonde | |
| Eye Color | Gray | |
| Physical Description | At 5'3", she can't be considered physically imposing nor does she want to be. She has long, straight blonde hair and gray eyes that see a lot more than you'd expect. As a working archeologist, she prefers comfortable clothing though she can dress up with the best of them. Physiology > Extremely dense hippocampus with roughly ten times the normal neural pathways allowing for greater storage of memory. Linked to both sides of the brain with stronger connections to auditory senses. > Fast metabolism. Seems like she's always eating but she never gains weight. > Gets cold easily. Not to a Vulcan extreme, but she loves the heat. > Has been bit by any number of bugs and reptiles over the years but so far, no allergic reactions. |
Family
| Spouse | None | |
| Children | None | |
| Father | Tauren Cantori (Historian) | |
| Mother | Kylara Rynn (Argellian Ambassador) | |
| Brother(s) | None | |
| Sister(s) | None |
Personality & Traits
| General Overview | She comes from a noble line on a dead world. She's the daughter of an Ambassador but has zero interest in politics. She spent her childhood moving from one world to another which means she practically grew up in a suitcase. She's curious and her first question growing up was usually -- 'but why?'. Independent, self-reliant, and highly responsible in her adulthood, her childhood, which extended almost to her thirtieth birthday, was anything but. Though the maternal line, she inherited clairvoyant abilities and that led her to understand the world around her in a different way than most of the people she knew. Her experiences through retrocognition have grounded her, taught her things she might never have experienced otherwise. On the downside of that, she has abilities that a whole lot of people don't believe in or think are real. Yeah, that's fun. She's a true introvert - which means she's quite capable in the world but needs a period on her own to recharge. She has no problem speaking her mind, lecturing in a classroom, or leading a dig but there's always going to be that moment when all she wants is a blanket and a warm cup of tea or hot chocolate, to sit beside a roaring fire and just ... be. She's comfortable wherever she is -- a mud hut, a luxury suite at a hotel, or a patch of dirt beside a fire. She enjoys life and more than that, uncovering the mysteries. Her idea of a great time is getting into a place where no one has been for thousands of years. Getting her to leave after she's in, well, that can take some convincing -- one of her team mates actually beamed her out once because she flat out refused to go. |
|
| Strengths & Weaknesses | Strengths: > Doctorate in Archeology > Clairvoyant Abilities: Precognition and Retrocognition > Passive Telepathy > Can sense disturbances in the space/time continuum (and will remember the original version of history if a change is made in time) > Eidetic Memory (stronger trigger to recover memories with auditory stimulus); when remembered will have a fuller and more robust image > Speaks Argellian and El-Aurian at the mother-tongue level as well as Federation Standard, Vulcan and a smattering of other languages > EMT certified Weaknesses: > The impressions she receive can sometimes have a lasting emotional impact which means she goes through periods of insomnia. > The downside of being independent and self-reliant is that she can also be stubborn though she calls it ... 'determined'. > Gets cold easily so she tends toward layers. If you're in a t-shirt and shorts, she's probably wearing some sort of long sleeved top as well. On digs, she carries a variety of layers with her as well as an endless supply of gloves without fingertips. > Non-violent. She barely passed her phaser certification and can defend herself if its really needed. Then again, the reason why she avoided Starfleet for so long is the idea she had that someone would hand her a phaser and say shoot that -- without trying to understand first. That's not how she works. > Takes the El-Aurian long-view when it comes to people and relationships. Moves forward slowly with a deep understanding of how her longevity will affect any relationship she has. > Needs periods of time on her own to recharge. A weekend party, with a house full of guests, is her idea of torture. You can find her out walking somewhere instead. |
|
| Ambitions | Doesn't know. Pherion III was her ambition and that's been taken away. | |
| Hobbies & Interests | > Loves sunlight and maintains a small room for meditation decorated with candles > Loves spending time in nature - hiking, camping, etc. > Absolutely fearless - bugs, dark caves, and all that. None of it bothers her. > Reads incessantly and loves studying learning about other worlds. Always has a bunch of books with her. > Helped a friend create authentic holodeck recreations of dig sites to help train upcoming archeologists at the Academy with built-in problems that have happened in real life. Sometimes consults with the same friend on additional scenarios. |
| Personal History | Being at least in part El-Aurian, she had an extended childhood which kept her at odds with her mother, an ambassador for the Argellian people who takes the whole 'Argellians are lazy' thing very personally. Until the age of thirty, still young for an El-Aurian, Elena let her curiosity and enthusiasm for life lead her into new experiences and sometimes, problems which required her mother, the Ambassador, to step in and smooth things over. She went to local schools, lived in ambassadorial compounds and attended their schools, she's been home-schooled. Asked now, she'll tell you that her life was a patchwork of experiences. Continuity is existed in her father. A good man, with the sadness of the loss his people baked into his soul, he was always there for her -- through good times and bad. They were best friends. Talked about everything. He smoothed the rough edges of her life and gave her the courage to reach. Two days before her thirtieth birthday, he died. And that changed everything. In the weeks and months that followed, she changed. The frivolity of youth dropped away and she started thinking about her future in a way she hadn't before. The danger, she thought, was in standing still, wrapping the misery of his loss around her, and just never moving again. Her mother found her solace in work and haranguing her daughter over everything. She found hers at Yale, a university on Earth, in a place that her father once told her he had loved, and began studying. Learning, focusing on tests and doing the work, helped her keep moving. She found herself reaching for him, to tell him what was happening, to share all the little moments of her life. The 'experiences' she told no one else about. So, she journaled. She did well in school, found her rhythm and passed Suma Cum Laude. She continued straight through her doctorate, left Earth, and worked in ruins on Federation worlds. It became her specialty. When she wasn't on a dig site, she was at Yale, lecturing, writing up her notes, publishing her finds. And for twenty years, she was happy. Then there came Pherion III in the Beta Quadrant. A barely habitable, silent world where a civilization thrived some 900,000 years ago. She had uncovered the traces and requested permission to investigate. Mounting an expedition proved impossible in the civilian world but in Starfleet ...? Maybe. At least that's what her friend said over dinner one night. Hard decision. She tried to let Pherion go in her mind. There were plenty of other worlds. And yet, the idea of what would be within her reach, the worlds she could study, stayed with her. Within the year, she had enrolled at the Academy after having made a promise to herself in the mirror that if that started to change, she's resign ... retire ... quit ... and return to Yale and her life there. |
|
| Service Record | 2377-2381: Starfleet Academy, Science Major focusing on Archeology While still at the Academy, she put together a proposal to investigate Pherion III. Despite her work in archeology before the Academy, progress was slow and the status of her proposal remained pending throughout her Academy years. And then there was Darius Blaine. Smart, political, and very competitive. He was good at working the system and somehow he got word of Pherion III. 2381-2396: USS Faraday, Archeologist In the fifteen years she served aboard the Faraday, she was promoted and served both as the ship's archeologist and later, after becoming Bridge certified, as the ship's third and then later, second officer. While the Faraday was a multi-purpose science vessel, there were ample opportunities to explore and document worlds that no one had set foot on in thousands of years. She led away teams when needed and more often, watched the Bridge while teams were away. She did her job extremely well but Pherion remained an open question. When word came that Darius Blaine had received permission to investigate Pherion III, with the possibility of a major, long-term, dig there, she was livid. And the then the Faraday, aging when she stepped aboard, was finally decommissioned she had reached a point where she needed to decide what to do next. Continue on? Or return to civilian archeology. 2396-Present: USS Balam, Archeologist |