Editing STA:Reac Crew Verdan (section)

=Lifepath=

==Home & Upbringing==
*Homeworld/Business & Trade (Rebelled)
*"I'm going to be the best"
Verdan Qet (previously Verdan Laum) is a twenty-nine year old trill scientist joined with the Qet symbiont. Verdan was born on the planet Trill to a wealthy family dealing in extremely rare and expensive off-world items, particularly unique artifacts from pre-space flight societies, both for cultures now involved in interstellar trade and those that are extinct. His parents planned for him to join the family business, and ensured his early education was carefully tailored to that goal. A perfectionist by nature, young Verdan excelled in his studies. However, while growing up surrounded by unusual items from distant corners of the galaxy peaked young Verdan's interest in history and xeno-ethnology, he was deeply disturbed by the fact that even the legitimate trade in such artifacts is de facto encouragement tomb robbing and looting of museums. Even worse, his family routinely dealt in items of "unclear" provenance, preferring opportunity for wealth and influence over protecting the potential knowledge to be gained from proper study.

Thoroughly disgusted by this family history of unethical behavior, Verdan left home as soon as possible. Unsatisfied with a definition of "success" that did not include honorable behavior and service to the greater good, he opted for a career in law enforcement. He briefly studied forensic science at the Trill Science Ministry, but while he was good at the work he soon learned that he did not want to continue in the field. Instead he left the Ministry and trained to become an elite Investigator for the Planetary Anti-Crime Bureau. Verdan was still a junior agent, less than a year into a career he had no plans of leaving and barely twenty-four years old, when he had the encounter that would completely change the trajectory of his life and eventually lead to his decision to join Starfleet.

==Career Events==
*Encounter With a Truly Alien Being/Special Commendation
*“Sacrifice for the Greater Good”

It was clear from the beginning that this case would be a strange one, but there was no way to know ahead of time just how profoundly Verdan's life would change as a result of an investigation at a small mining colony. He and his partner, Senior Investigator Garam Maadis, were sent to look into a series of mysterious and bloody deaths at a small mining outpost on the second moon of Trelik 3, on the edge of Trill space. While the Trelik system is still barely settled and largely without significant resources, scans of this moon had found extensive deposits of a unique crystal appropriate for decorative and industrial uses. Construction on the mining station had begun about five years prior, and for the last three years the Mineral Extraction Conglomerate's "Trelkian lunar crystals" had been steadily supplied to a widening set of interested buyers. Keeping miners at the station, however, was difficult, as they complained of strange lights and movement just on the edge of vision.

Then the deaths started. First they occurred only in the deepest parts of the mine, where active expansion created greater risk of accidents that could, if one was sufficiently determined, explain the unexpected disappearances followed by later discovery of various body parts. However, after the eighth such death and the spread of the trouble into the higher levels of the mine - literally and figuratively, as the last victim was an aide to the Conglomerate's onsite overseer - the authorities on Trill were contacted and the two Investigators sent off to uncover the cause.

After an extended investigation - and another victim - Verdan observed that before each disappearance and again before the appearance of the remains the lights in the tunnels started burning slightly brighter and the cameras revealed slight static around the edges of the image. New sensing equipment, jury rigged by the remaining staff of the facility, revealed a crackling, slightly clouded distortion in the air, as if an electrical pulse had taken gaseous form. This entity - for its movements were clearly intelligent, stealthy, and actively predatory - would wait for a victim to be monetarily isolated out of sight of the cameras and swiftly engulf them before slinking away. After a period of hours of "digestion," the form would rapidly retract, flash brightly, and then explosively expand, showering an assortment of remaining pieces of the victim over a small area.

Then it would return to its hunt - a hunt that became more effective and more efficient the more victims it took. Once the discovery was made, however, there was no clear way to contain the entity, as it flitted unconcerned through any barrier placed before it, including ones made of the native rock and crystal, and it was showing increased interest in the spacecraft, indicating both a desire to leave the moon and a growing understanding that this was the way to achieve its desire. Two more victims were taken before Garam Maadis realized that the way of stopping the creature lay not in the material, but its arrangement. The veins of crystal were not random, but seeded, providing a harmonic field capable of capturing the entity's energy form, apparently the invention of a past species faced with its deprivations so long before that no records were left of the danger. The engineering crew was able to devise a careful pattern of explosions to reform the hole they had unknowingly created in the entity's prison, but it required luring the creature back into the depths, which had avoided since its first emergence. 

Garam volunteered to serve as bait, as the senior officer present, knowing that there was no possibility of escape. But the risk of allowing a nearly undetectable, highly intelligent, actively malevolent, and incomprehensibly ancient entity to escape into populated space left no real option. Verdan was ordered to organize the miners, ensure the trap was successfully triggered and could contain the entity, and then to evacuate the moon and report on the profound danger of any living being returning to it, much less digging back into the depths. To help a friend to choose a painful death would have been bad enough, but - contrary to all rules and regulations - Verdan and Garam had been lovers as well, since almost the beginning of their time working together. Still, with eleven dead civilians and no ability to evacuate without risking bringing the entity as well, there was no other choice. The plan worked, but Verdan was left profoundly broken by the experience.

Back on Trill, his superiors gave him - and Garam posthumously - the highest honors for bravery and dedication to the people of Trill. Verdan, meanwhile, struggled with carefully hidden suicidality and profound depression. At the suggestion of a superior he applied for consideration by the Symbiosis Commission. He did not anticipate being selected but any chance to start over seemed appealing. Despite concerns over psychological stability leading to extensive debate on his suitability, the Board approved his joining. The surgery was almost a year to the day from when he and Garam had set out for the Trelkian moon. The newly joined Verdan Qet left as soon as he was healed enough for travel, headed to Earth to study at the Starfleet Academy.

==Starfleet Academy==
*Major: Science 
*Minors: Security and Command
*“The future is always worth it"
Newly joined Verdan Qet joined Starfleet as an escape from his previous life on Trill and as a way to cope with his severe depression following the death of his partner and lover Garam Maadis. Initially his grieving meant he was not inclined to risk making new connections with his classmates, and even as he started to come out of his shell the age and experience difference between Verdan and the rest of his cohort made socializing difficult. However, as the passage of time - as well as the influence of his friend and first year lab mate Elaza Xoff - slowly brought Verdan out of his shell, and he as started to build connections with other students at the Academy, occasionally even teasing and flirting. Despite this Verdan has remained determined avoid any actual romances, instead preferring to dedicate the bulk of his time and energy into his quest to achieve top spot in the Science Department's graduating class.

==Finishing Touches==
*“Multi-lifetime learning”

The Qet symbiont had spent multiple lifetimes studying the impact of First Contact on various species, both in terms of culturally as a xeno-ethnologist and physically as a xeno-biologist. Verdan's childhood surrounded by ancient artifacts and his experience at the Ministry studying forensic science meant their interests were particularly well matched. None of Qet's previous hosts were ever involved with Starfleet, so the opportunity appealed to its need to continue growing and learning. The excellence of the match between Verdan and Qet and lack of similarly well matched candidates for joining with the Qet symbiont are what finally convinced the Joining Commission to risk this particular host, despite concerns that his reaction to the trauma at the Trelkian mine and the loss of his partner indicated psychological unsuitability as a candidate.