Character bio:
Name: Captain Constance Giiresbee
Age: 31
Birthplace: Annapolis, Maryland, United States, Earth, Sol System
Physical Description:
Lithe, very young looking, with a prehensile tail that matches her skin tone. Usually wears her black uniform. When off-duty, usually wears loose, Oriental-style clothing. Is not particularly well endowed or curvy, but very nimble and athletic.
Background: Born to Neelaa refugees who fled to Earth in 2512, Constance was given an Earth name by her parents to better facilitate her acclimation to their new home. A cheerful and precocious child, Constance excelled in her studies but was a bit of a social butterfly due to her appearance. Graduating from high school at the age of 16, she entered the United Space Nations of Sol Navy through the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, excelling in tactical and strategic management with an aptitude for command. She was only a mid-shipman aboard the USNS
Enterprise at the outbreak of the Neelaa War.
Upon the revelation that her people were the aggressors, some in the USNSN command structure expressed concerns about the loyalty of Neelaa spacers and Espatiers in their forces. Some in the media did the same. However, Constance went on record to an undercover reporter aboard the
Enterprise that Earth was her home, and "those people" were
not hers. Her heroic actions in saving fifty-one of her crewmen during an engagement from a sealed compartment were played up by the majority of the media as proof that the Neelaa in the armed forces were just as loyal, if not more, than the humans. Constance, however, did not like the spotlight and avoided the media however she could, requesting assignments on the front lines to stay in the fight and away from the cameras.
She became XO of the
Enterprise through a field commission, and served as an adviser to Admiral Ramajee during the campaign to defend Groombridge 1618 from Neelaa invasion. The
Enterprise served as flagship, and despite the Coalition's technological and numerical inferiority to the Neelaa, thanks in part to Constance's advice the system was held for over nine months. The discovery of the Otherspace drive and the rapid reinforcement of the system by Coalition forces allowed them to be driven out. Constance continued to serve as a strategic and tactical adviser to Admiral Ramajee, and took personal command of a refit
Enterprise during the successful assault on Alpha Fornacis, a Neelaa logistics hub. Her advisory role kept her out of the spotlight, but it also kept pushing her towards a desk job when her real goal was to command a starship. All the same, she became very well known to the Neelaa High Command.
After the conclusion of the war, Constance took a leave of absence and traveled to a number of worlds in the Coalition. Returning one year later, she was offered promotion to commander and a job as a liaison to Admiral Grunnings, heading up the peacekeeping mission on the Coalition/Neelaa border. She accepted with the request to be put through command school, and performed her job very well for over ten years. She declined promotion a few times due to her expertise being considered so valuable. However, in June of 2541 a Neelaa refugee ship crossed the border, bearing with it her paternal grandparents. Happy to connect with this aspect of her past, she requested and got permission from the Admiral to meet with them in person and allow them to land on the Coalition Colony on the planet New Bombay.
It was a disaster. The Neelaa had planted Constance's grandparents in a successful plan to destroy the New Bombay colony. Over ten thousand people were killed when the "refugee" ship exploded on the colony's spaceport. Due to guilt and grief Constance suffered a nervous breakdown, while the Neelaa were able to use the incident to facilitate fewer defections from their space to the Coalition due to the fear of additional attacks of this nature. A year of downtime and therapy later, Constance was offered a promotion to captain and a job as a professor at the newly formed Joint Coalition Forces Academy on the Proxima Colony. She declined, instead requesting command of a survey vessel. She was given the USNS
Seraphim, and took command February 2543.
Additional Remarks:
She is an excellent shot and fairly good at hand to hand combat. Due to being raised on Earth, a lot of Neela body language escapes her, particularly with the tail. This was a critical error on her part that helped the New Bombay attack occur.
She is still getting the hang of commanding without a senior officer over her shoulder, and thus sometimes seems under confident in her judgments. She enjoys chess and backgammon, as well as the latest video games. She also enjoys knitting and cooking (though she keeps these facts to herself), and was on the Academy track team (she was also on the gymnastics team, but her tail was thought to give her an unfair advantage and so she declined to participate in competition).
Due to the Neela's very slow aging process, she still looks like a teenager: Something she is rather annoyed about, as she feels it makes her have to work twice as hard to get respect. She is not particularly feminine by human standards, and is very pragmatic about her appearance. She got a skin marking per Neelaa tradition underneath her right eye, in the shape of the crescent moon to symbolize the day she was born.