Lieutenant Nir Giorgiou

Nir appears to be a Human of a mixed ethnic heritage in his mid to late twenties. His skin has a strong tendency toward permanently freckling, particularly across his nose and cheeks, but also on his shoulders and arms. He has an angular face which he keeps smoothly shaven.

Nir’s hair has a resemblance to a previous member of the Sojourner’s crew on a cursory glance, though his is far laxer in its curls. It tends to wave and ringlet more than spiral. In build, Nir has a dancer’s physique with a little extra definition in his core- largely due to the fact that his homeworld has more gravity than Earth.

Nir respects Starfleet’s dress codes and removes his earrings on duty, but they are tied to his faith. He is perfectly content to wear a single bracelet on duty, which holds the same significance.

Nir has a few tattoos: notably he has a thick, dark armband with a smaller armband below on his left forearm. He also has Arabic script across the right side of his ribcage. الله يكون معاك which in English translates roughly as, "Allah walks with you wherever you go, and however you struggle." It is pronounced, "Allah Yokon Maak."

Strengths

Patient and Reliable: Nir has the fortitude to see things through to their appropriate conclusion, and he doesn’t half-ass ideas. He is an example of someone who can take their creativity and birth it into something usable.

Observant: Nir has an observant personality who picks up on details of an environment and a situation. Although many people with his personality type are people-focused observers, Nir’s perception is more akin to the details of what keeps people safe.

Supportive: Nir applies his presence, skills, knowledge, and energy with anyone who needs it on his team- it’s one of his best leadership qualities. To strives for win-win scenarios that parties get something they need.

Enthusiastic: Nir tackles new problems ready to form solutions. He applies his patience, diligence, and energy to accomplishing group goals. There is nothing technology- and the stewards of technology- cannot achieve.

Weaknesses

Modest: Nir struggles to make his thoughts and feelings known, and is not good at accepting the recognition or reward that he earns (or worse, if it's not earned but bestowed). A sense of perfectionism can rob him of the personal revelry of a job well done. Almasar al'Akhdar, his religion, teaches that both men and women should strive to be modest and not boast or draw too much attention to themselves. Allah sees their worth and is the sole judge.

Represses Feelings: Nir prefers to express his thoughts more than his feelings. Feelings are vulnerabilities and so easily judged by others. Thoughts are less personal. His lack of an emotional outlet can bottle up stress and cause fatigue, even burnout.

Reluctant to Change: Nir values traditions and he values history, and he does tend to gauge some situations by what can be taught by them. He also doesn’t seek change such as transfers. Most of his career transfers have not been initiated by him, but by request (and eventually, by order).

Overload: That combination of duty, loyalty, and perfectionism can lead Nir to take on too many tasks for himself. And at the worst of times, he can slip into micro-managing underperforming subordinates when there is a crunch.

Automotive (Motorcycle) Mechanics: Kentauros has a “cruising culture.” But in its domes and warrens, there is seldom enough room to actually roll out a classic car or motorcycle. Most of these relics are relegated to museum garages or the private ownership of restorers. But some of the cities of Kentauros do make room for a once-a-month cruise parade where people drive these prized pieces of art for all to see.

Kentauros does have an offshoot culture that accepts the reality of their desert planet now- and that revolves around land vehicles that can handle Kentauros’ terrain. Whenever possible they are designed to look similar to classic cars and motorcycles.

Duster Drag: Dusters are Rigil Kentauros’ answer to highway-cruising boss hogs. Built and slung low similarly to old Harleys, they are fitted with life support tubes connected to helmets and masks which resemble old fighter pilot gear. Duster Dragsters wear skinsuits for life support in the hot, dry Kentauros atmosphere- often layered with old-Earth-inspired leathers.

Thunder and Lightning: There is plenty of it on Rigil Kentauros Colony. What Nir is less fond of are the feshstorms- sandstorm-like analogs with Kentauros soil, which is so fine it is like flour. On Earth, that is called fesh-fesh. On Kentauros these massive storms can span hundreds of miles and often reach hurricane strength.

Gardens and Greenhouses: Nir may have no talent with growing plants but it’s nice to be in greenhouses and other places where Kentauros’ future can be pictured. He is most fond of trees.

Engineering: Nir’s interest in Engineering has some roots in his childhood- his uncle worked on the antimatter rigs orbiting the Rigil Kentaurus star and he was caught up in Kentauran culture around personal vehicles- but it wasn’t really until Academy that his interest seemed like a worthwhile career path. He generalized his knowledge as most starship engineers do, but the engineering sciences that most easily come to him are structural design, material engineering, and powerplant systems. His interest in engines is there- born more out of his hobby of automotive mechanics- but they are secondary. He does correspond often with his uncle, but more often about their shared interest in old Earth motorcycles.

Model Building: It was more of childhood and early adolescent affectation, but Nir still does occasionally pick up the materials for building models. He has an odd assortment- early warp ships, 20th-century classic cars, and Dhows and Baghlahs of the Arab world’s trading eras.

Dancing (Darwish and Ballet): Nir has no skill in the family business- horticulture and planetary engineering. He lacks that “green thumb” that is somewhat synonymous with people of the Green Path. Many tend to keep plants in their homes as a reminder of their past and their future and Nir’s childhood home was little different. To express his own devotions, he learned to dance Darwish- or Dervish to western pronunciations). That later moved into a more secular interest in dancing ballet as a young teenager.

Almasar al'Akhdar Islam: The “Green Path” of Islam was born out of the fallout of the Eugenics Wars, worsening global climate and what was considered the worst tragedy to befall the Islamic Middle East- the loss of Mecca and Medina. It adopted some homages to the Bedouin and Berber nomads while attempting to realign the Islamic faith away from the violence that had pervaded it for much of the 20th and early 21st centuries.

The Green Path acknowledges that the loss of Mecca and Medina was penance for Humanity’s global sins of warfare and disrespect to their world. Mecca and Medina were lost as Earth of the mid-21st century became warm enough that portions of the Middle East were no longer habitable.

The Green Path (not to be confused with Colonel Green’s Optimist Party) had strong pacifist leanings, with influences from Sikhism. Violence is the last resort. In the wake of Green’s Optimist purges, and World War III, members of the Green Path were often targeted for protecting refugees and those that Colonel Green’s fanatics would target for extermination. To this day the Imams of the Green Path’s sole declarations of Fatwah was against the Optimists and the Death Squads of the post-atomic horrors.

Almasar al'Akhdar largely left Earth after the Phoenix project and First Contact. Its core Imams, their numbers much diminished, wanted a fresh start from the horrors and the rapid changes on Earth. Many- if not most- settled on Rigil Kentauros. This was their desert and their new struggle. From it, there would be a garden. Today they still struggle.

Nir is unusual for a Human of the near-25th century- he is a religious person who follows the spirit of Allah’s teachings in the Green Qur’an. Though as with many faithful in this era, his idea of faith looks different than religion did in the 20th century.

Nir’s ancient terrestrial roots are a mix of Cypriot, Palestinian and Brazilian, though his given name is Hebrew in origin. He is named after a local hero of Rigil Kentauros who fought against corruption within the political system. There have been a lot of Kentaurans named Nir since 2211 and it's not unlike naming someone, “John.”

“A Colony of Dissidents and Malcontents”

Nir is from Rigil Kentauros, a world likened to “Mars on a Bad Day.” As one of the three original Alpha Centauri Colonies, Rigil Kentauros should have been a jewel of the Federation by now, an established and well-oiled society with a similar utopia as those found on Proxima, Toliman, or Earth. It was conceived well before the Federation’s charter with the same optimism that brought Humans to Mars. The same spirit of Human ingenuity, to make a garden of the desert, was its founding inspiration.

However, Rigil Kentauros is anything but that ideal. Kentauros is the problem child- the black sheep- of the three Alpha Centauri colonies. To this day it is one of less than a half-dozen colony worlds that have risen in insurrection against the Federation- and in its case, failed. Some of its most firebrand politicians on the Unity of Alpha Centauri Council still occasionally grumble about Kentauros seceding from the Federation.

Kentauros’ rancor revolves around the resources it gives the Federation versus the resources it gets in return. Kentauros has never quite accepted- nor will it ever accept- that as the early realities of terraforming struck home, Mars was favored above all others. The Kentaurans stuck to stubborn pride, willful belief, that they could turn this dry, hot, turbulent world into a garden. It did not align with United Earth’s rebuilding projects or timelines, not with Mars right there in their own system. Kentauros was too difficult, even for the new Human spirit.

But the Federation also needs Kentauros- it is a resource-rich world with excellent (if deep) sources of dilithium, and finds itself with a gas giant within the system that also readily supplies deuterium. Kentauros also processes and refines antimatter for the Federation. Much of these fuels and resources go to the Proxima Shipyards around Proxima Centauri and the Bon Proxima colony- arguably the most successful of the Alpha Centauri colonies even though the capital resides on Toliman.

The insurrection that led to armed conflict with the early Federation happened in 2211. On Rigil Kentauros it was the “Just Uprising,” and “Goshan’s Day.” With an industrial disaster striking the new member world of Draylax’s water resources, ice comets meant for Rigil Kentauros were diverted to the Draylax system- or were to be. It destroyed decades of work as the first aquatic cyanovat reservoirs were being brought online under the Kentauros surface to start growing cyanobacteria. The colonies of oxygen-creating algae failed as water had to be diverted for colonial survival- a story that had happened more than once.

Finally angry enough, groups of Kentauran labor unions led by a man named Nir Goshan used old United Earth ships to move in, surround the ice being taken, and executed raids on the Federation tug ships towing it. For eighty-four days a standoff ensued until the Federation finally forcibly retook the ice; they capitulated by sending 25% of it back to Kentauros. But by then the damage to the cyanovats was done. Kentauros angrily simmered over it for decades.

Kentauros’ last, most serious motion for independence was in the wake of the supernova of the Romulan star. As resources for its projects were yet again diverted to save a hated Federation enemy, Rigil Kentauros was fractured along sociopolitical lines of empathy versus isolationism. It has not healed from those divides yet, having narrowly passed a resolution that if the UFP went ahead with the Armada, it would be among the worlds that seceded.

Early Life

Nir grew up on a hardscrabble world where death was a hull breach, environmental collapse, or powerful coronal mass ejection away. It is a rough rock that some believe is a diamond in the waiting… and some see as the stone Sisyphus is tortured with- one that will never reach its summit.

While much of the Federation’s jewel-worlds feel like a classless society of enlightened Bourgeoise affluence, Rigil Kentaurus- “Al Rijil” or “Kentauros” to the natives- dares to be rough, Proletariat, and fractious. Kentauros is full of malcontent political unions spouting discordant philosophies- anarcho-collectivism in one dome, anarcho-libertarianism the next dome over.

Nir’s homeworld is a society deeply enmeshed with technology, feeling grittily industrial and where function dominates form. Technology keeps them alive, but also enslaves them with the constant need to upkeep, refit, and resupply; what little that is green in the world depends on it.

Nir grew up in the largest domed structure in the Federation- the city of Thessaloniki-Milas. Part warren colony and part domed structure, Thessaloniki-Milas houses over twenty-eight million people. The al-Rijili boast that their dome is a full sixty-seven meters larger than New Berlin’s on Luna. From space, it looks like a large, dull gray set of nails have been driven into the rusty rock.

Nir is from İbrahimpaşa, one of the Qitae of Thessaloniki-Milas. Qitae are like Contrata, Ghettoes, or Neighborhoods. İbrahimpaşa is Thessaloniki-Milas’ largest culturally Middle Eastern neighborhood, dominated by people of Palestinian, Lebanese, Turkish, Kurdish, Cypriot, and Armenian ancestries. Nir’s maternal family lives in another Qitae called Plata-Rocinha, which has strong Brazilian, Bolivian, and Argentine roots.

Nir comes from a blended family. His mother, Solange, had a daughter from a platonic partnership with a man who has since left the Alpha Centauri system. Solange and Basheer did not formally marry until Nir was almost five years old.

Academy Life