Editing STA A More Perfect Union/Olivia Reed (section)

==Background==
Olivia was born and grew up in an isolated community, supported by both the Federation and the Ferengi, who were engaged in a scientific and archaeological investigation of an ancient Ferengi world, dating back to before the Rules of Acquisition.

Both of her parents were scientists, and they fostered her scientific curiosity, and her curiosity in the wider universe. It was for this reason, she decided to enter Star Fleet on the science track.

As a newly promoted lieutenant, she came across an ancient piece of technology which was somehow activated and she underwent a rapid evolutionary process, at the end of which she was no longer human. The numerous tests and procedures she went through, revealed she was now, essentially, a type of Changeling, i.e. she had all their racial characteristics and abilities. She had also gained some knowledge in the process, about the ancient relic and the civilisation that had produced it.

Several years later, her ship, the USS Atalanta, was destroyed, when the crew was infected by ancient prions that rapidly destroyed their brains, leading to violence and the destruction of the ship as the pilot locked himself on the bridge and did a suicide run into the atmosphere of a blue supergiant star

Olivia, who was no longer human and thus immune to the disease, and several other (non-humans) whose brains were different enough from the race that the (genetically-created) prions were designed for to grant them immunity, had no choice but to abandon ship on one of the Atalanta’s shuttle crafts.

Olivia took leave after this, for counselling, before her current assignment.