T'Ryssa Chen

Lieutenant T'Ryssa "Trys" Chen was a female born in 2354 to Human mother Antigone Chen, and Vulcan father Sylix.

Early life and career
When she was about two years old, her parents divorced, and her mother retained custody. She never knew her father while growing up, and self-identified more as a human than a Vulcan. Feeling that her mother, a Starfleet officer, resented her presence, T'Ryssa ran away from home several times over her childhood, the first time at age seven, after learning of the kahs-wan ritual in Vulcan culture. At that time, she was taken aboard a Barolian freighter as ship's cook. After a week, a Starfleet security contingent tracked her down and reunited her with her mother. She also often escaped from her mother by hiding within the Jeffries tubes of the ships on which her mother was stationed. 

In 2364, at age ten, Trys and her mother were stationed at the Starfleet research station on planet Maravel. This location was the favorite of her mother's many postings throughout Chen's childhood.

Sometime before 2369, Trys and Antigone were posted aboard the USS Odyssey (NCC-71832). They were amongst the non-vital personnel off-loaded at station Deep Space 9 when the Odyssey traveled to the Gamma Quadrant to confront the Jem'Hadar. 


 * Trys says she was aboard the Odyssey for "a few years" prior to that ship's destruction.

Starfleet
T'Ryssa Chen entered Starfleet Academy at age seventeen. It took her five years to graduate, finally earning her commission in 2376, after the end of the Dominion War. She served on several ships, usually transferring after a brief period, making few friends other than short-term lovers.

By mid 2380, Chen was serving aboard the USS Rhea (NCC-80110). That year, while surveying planet NGC 6281, the Rhea was attacked by a Borg ship. However, an encounter between Chen and an entity living in NGC 6281 halted the attack, and inexplicably transported Chen to the planet Maravel.

She was then transferred to the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-E) as contact specialist when it went to NGC 6281 to investigate the Rhea's fate, and to keep the Borg from potentially acquiring quantum slipstream technology. Chen proved instrumental in this mission, as she succeeded in communicating with the entity -- naming it Qing Long -- and convincing it to allow the Enterprise to stop the Borg.

During this same time, Chen began a romantic relationship with Ensign Rennan Konya, who had also newly joined the Enterprise crew. 

Borg Invasion
Chen also served as a backup flight controller on the Enterprise. During the Borg Invasion of 2381, she was on bridge duty when the Enterprise destroyed a Borg cube at Korvat. When she expressed relief that the battle was over, Captain Picard insisted that the conflict was merely beginning. 

After the discovery of the Borg's subspace tunnels in the Azure Nebula, Chen expressed disagreement with Picard's decision to collapse the passageways, earning her a rebuke from first officer Worf. During the subsequent scouting of the tunnels, the Enterprise encountered a fleet of Hirogen vessels, and Chen saved Aneta Šmrhová from injury from an exploding console, burning her own arm in the process. 

After the USS Titan joined the USS Aventine and Enterprise in their fight, Chen was temporarily assigned to assist Lieutenant Commander Melora Pazlar, Chief Science Officer on the Titan, in locating a suitable Borg scout craft to use in order to secure its vinculum. Chen was exceptionally interested in Earth Starfleet Captain Erika Hernandez's experiences amongst the Caeliar, and pestered her with a long series of questions. Hernandez was only partly willing to answer, and only in exchange for the end of Chen's questioning. Hernandez later asked Chen if she made a special effort to confound expectations about her heritage; when Chen confirmed this, Hernandez suggested not trying so hard. 

Post-Destiny
Following the end of the invasion, the Enterprise returned to McKinley Station in Earth orbit, and Chen volunteered to remain aboard as other crewmembers took leave. During this time, she developed a closer friendship with Lieutenant Dina Elfiki, the two engaging in pulling a series of practical jokes on each other. This earned them both the ire of assistant chief engineer Taurik. Following the ship's release from drydock, Chen was recruited to assist the engineering crew in continuing repairs and maintenance.

When the Enterprise discovered a lost ship, the SS, carrying thousands of evacuees from the destroyed planet Deneva, Captain Picard assigned Chen as liaison and leader of the Enterprise boarding party. However, during the initial meeting, she erred in assuming the crew was already aware of Deneva's fate, revealing it in an inappropriate manner.

Also shortly after the Borg Invasion, Chen was contacted, for the first time since childhood, by her father, Sylix. He had been seriously injured during the Borg assault on, and had hoped to contact his former wife, Antigone. Chen dismissed him in a hostile manner. Later, when Chen belatedly learned her mother had been killed in action during the invasion, she contacted Sylix again to give him the news. During that conversation, she left open the possibility of future communication between them. 

In 2384, when the Enterprise was sent to Galor IV after a break in at the Daystrom Annex, Chen was reporting the status of a Runabout stolen by Doctor Noonien Soong. Not long after she started tracking it, she announced it had been shot down by the planetary ion cannon. Having beamed out at the last second, Soong was able to lead the Enterprise to the planet Mangala, where it was later revealed to be the sight of an abandoned android factory. Upon entrance to the system, the Enterprise detected several Breen warships, prompting the mobilization of an away team to investigate. Before the mission, Chen was tasked with gathering all information regarding the Breen to submit to Jean-Luc Picard. Afterwards, she confirmed a transmission being sent to the ship was from the away team, which she subsequently announced to Picard. 

Later in the year, Chen was responsible for leading the search for the missing Federation interceptor Sirriam, which had been lost in Tirana System. After nearly a day of searching, nothing was found, prompting the search to be called off. It was at this point which the Enterprise was called to Orion by Lieutenant Commander Data. When it had been revealed Data was suspected of committing murder, Picard and four other of the Enterprise's most senior officers beamed down. Firstly to assist their old friend, but secondly to find out what President Bacco and the USS Atlas were doing at Orion. This left Chen in command of the ship, who later gave the order to assist Geordi La Forge and Aneta Šmrhová in their pursuit of an assassin who attempted to assassinate President Bacco and the Gorn Imperator Sozzerozs. During the pursuit, the Gorn ship Hastur-zolis locked weapons on the Atlas and Enterprise, assuming they had something to do with the attempted assassination. When the Atlas locked weapons on the Gorn vessel, Chen contacted the Atlas and pretended to be a higher ranking officer than that of the second officer who had been left in command. Chen was able to accomplish this by pivoting the captain's chair so as not to show her lieutenant pips to the lieutenant commander ranked second officer. Her ploy having worked, the Atlas stood down, leaving Enterprise to face the Gorn vessel alone. Immediately upon cutting communications with the Atlas, Chen ordered the Hastur-zolis to be hailed. When the Gorn appeared on the viewscreen, Chen ordered him too to stand down. He complied, leaving the situation in orbit solved. Chen was left commanding the ship for the remainder of the mission, assisting the crew on the ground in locating the assassin. Upon departure from Orion, Picard replaced Chen when the ship went after the Breen, who had been revealed to be the ones responsible for the assassination attempts. Chen continued to man the sensors while the Enterprise attempted to stop the Breen from stealing an alien starship with advanced technology from Federation space, which had been the whole point of the "attempted" assassination, to draw Federation ships away so the Breen could salvage it. Upon conclusion to the mission, Chen met up in the Happy Bottom Riding Club with La Forge, Elfiki, Worf, Picard, Beverly Crusher, Taurik, and Data. 

In July of 2384, Chen was apart of the away team which boarded the Machine in an attempt to ascertain its mission. Upon arrival to the Machine, Chen determined it was constructed by the same race who constructed V'ger. She also determined the Machine wasn't a single artificial entity, but in fact a conglomerate of smaller AIs. After Taurik determined the language the Machine spoke, Chen was able to put together a message to send to the Machine in an attempt to negotiate with it. The Machine however, didn't care to listen, not considering the Enterprise crew "true lifeforms". A second attempt of communication was made when Data offered his assistance to the Enterprise, prompting Chen to attempt to guide him through his conversation. Though this failed too, it allowed Chen to get a deeper insight into the Machine, allowing her to determine what the Machine's overall goal had been. She had found out that the Machine wasn't sending planets into Abbadon as a means to attack, but was attempting to make a work of "art", one which would outlast even the race who built the Machine. Upon discovering this, Data was able to convince the Machine to stop destroying, having referred the Machine to another project, one that would stop the mass destruction being wrought. After the mission, Chen proceeded to break off her relationship with Taurik, the both of them deciding to simply remain friends. During the mission, Chen realized she had just been interested in him due to the fact he was Vulcan, which she hoped would allow her to reconcile with her Vulcan half thanks to her poor relationship with her Vulcan father. 

In October of 2384, when the Enterprise encountered the Nexus, Chen was given the order to hail the stolen Runabout USS Cam. She later reported it was flying erratically, which was indicative of an inexperienced pilot, giving Picard an idea of who had been piloting it. She also opened a channel to an approaching group of Kinshaya vessels, one of which who ordered the Enterprise to vacate the area around the Nexus, as it had been closing on Kinshayan space. She also reopened a channel to them upon the sealing of the Nexus to prevent the Kinshaya and that of the Tython Pact from having access.