T'Pia

Captain T'Pia is a Vulcan female Starfleet officer, currently in command of the U.S.S. Baikonur.

She comes from the next generation of Vulcans serving directly in Starfleet. Beginning her time at the Academy upon completing the ritual of Kolinahr, she developed the first part of what would become her academic magnum opus. She devised a series of metrics that she believed would predict the rise and fall of the political fortunes of politicians and government officials in the Romulan Empire. She was able to successfully use the model to predict which senators would be elevated to key cabinet posts with 78% accuracy.

She went on to further develop this model as a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Hong Kong, studying under Dr. Wallace Li, director of the Political Econometrics Lab. Over time, she became more and more interested in using the model to predict political crises in the Federation, causing a great deal of controversy. While controversial, Cadet T'Pia's thesis on predicting galactic crises using statistical models was commended by the faculty. However, it did not achieve her ambitious goal of bringing about changes in Federation policy. Upon graduation, T'Pia became determined to fast track her career in order to have to power and influence needed to correct the problems she saw.

On her first assignment, T'Pia was unexpectedly (to others) thrust into a command role as the security officer of her vessel, the U.S.S Curie, was uncovered as a Tal Shiar spy. He managed to kill some of the command officers, including the Captain, before he was captured. T'Pia's sympathies for reunification between the Romulan and Vulcan people nearly set her plans back years, but the resulting incident had the young officer arrest the infiltrator and lead the crew through a tense negotiation between Romulan and Federation agents. With her loyalty no longer in any doubt, T'Pia served as the acting XO of the U.S.S. Curie for the remainder of the deployment until relieved.

Following a short tour as an instructor at Starfleet Academy, T'Pia was assigned her first official command aboard the U.S.S. Baikonur. She owes her command to an influential patron at Starfleet Command: Commander Tygas Bazzi. Bazzi, a male Joined Trill, is the Strategic Operations Officer assigned to Admiral Alynna Nechayev’s staff and a trusted confidante of the admiral. He has, for unknown reasons, taken an interest in T’Pia and worked to protect her career despite her controversial and outspoken dissenting views on Federation policy.

This protection puts the Admiral in a somewhat delicate position. The current Chief of Starfleet Operations is expected to retire soon. Nechayev is one of the leading candidates to take his place. However, she knows that the Federation Council will scrutinize her every decision during the vetting process for this high-profile job. She has no intention of appearing any more controversial than necessary. CDR Bazzi has persuaded her, for now, that T’Pia is a safe choice to command a starship. But he has made T’Pia aware of the political sensitivity of the role, and of the risks he and the admiral are taking by supporting her.