Selke

A female born in the mid-24th century, Selke was technically the first full-blooded Romulan to join Starfleet. She is also technically deceased, but components of her original personality live on in the mind of the woman T’Priell. Possessed of a scholarly nature, and something of a political dissident, the original Selke sought a career in academia despite her position as a member of a Minor House. Her enthusiasm for her chosen field of archaeology surpassed any chauvinistic loyalty to the Romulan Star Empire, and she cared little for the Romulan conflict with the Federation. Over the course of her career, she met and befriended the Vulcan T'Priell, an action which would ultimately result in her becoming a pawn of the Tal Shiar.

As a young woman, Selke was a student of archaeology professor N’Vat, whom she considered her mentor. She aspired to be his star pupil and cared little for the politics of the Empire or the galaxy at large. In 2371, Selke agreed to join N'Vat and another student named Terek on an open-ended expedition to discover the common origins of the galaxy’s various Vulcanoid species. Although N’Vat was motivated entirely by scientific curiosity, not politics, he nevertheless held the belief that his expedition embodied the spirit of the Romulan people. Anxious to install in Selke the same values, before embarking on the journey he took her to view the famous Firefall of Gal Gath'Thong, which he considered to be the embodiment of the Romulan heart.

N’Vat, Selke and Terek soon journeyed to an unclaimed world on the edge of Romulan space. While there, they encountered a young Vulcan woman named T'Priell, who was also investigating Vulcanoid colonial history. She had deferred her entrance into Starfleet Academy for a year to engage in a similar quest to N’Vat’s. N'Vat suggested that they combine their efforts, and in a short amount of time, Selke and T'Priell became good friends. Unfortunately, N’Vat’s dissident politics had come to the attention of the Tal Shiar, who had worked to ensure the findings of the expedition would be made to serve the Empire. After the startling discovery of advanced technology and an almost extinct reptilian race affiliated with it, Terek revealed himself to be a member of the Tal Shiar, who hoped to deliver the technology to his masters on Romulus. Using excavation explosives in her backpack, T'Priell managed to destroy the technology, but the explosion mortally wounded her. T'Priell then made the ritual request that Selke carry her katra and return it to Mount Seleya on Vulcan. Touched by her friend’s sacrifice, Selke readily agreed, and accepted the essence of T’Priell’s mind into her own.

However, the Tal Shiar had a very different agenda than returning the katra home. Arresting Selke, they realized the great potential inherent in a Romulan possessing the mind of a Starfleet cadet. A Tal Shiar Sub-Commander named Thokol decided to reconfigure Selke into the perfect spy for the Romulan Star Empire. Thokol had the pacifistic young woman press-ganged into Tal Shiar service, and brainwashed into accepting a violent persona at odds with her original personality. She was also surgically altered to look like T'Priell. Thokol then submerged Selke's true identity deep within her own sub-conscious, allowing T'Priell's katra to control the body. Essentially, Thokol had created a spy unaware of her own mission or true identity, who would act as, and believe herself to be, the Vulcan cadet she had once befriended; at least until Thokol triggered the re-emergence of the Selke persona. The Tal Shiar now possessed the perfect sleeper agent.

Upon arrival at Starfleet Academy in 2372, "T'Priell" was placed in Omega Squad under the command of Trill Commander Kyethn Zund. Other Omegans included Nog (who was also the first Ferengi in Starfleet), Matt Decker, Pava Ek'Noor sh'Aqabaa, and squadron leader, Kamilah Goldstein. The transfer of T'Priell's katra to Selke was never meant to be a long-term commitment, and "T'Priell" often felt out of place as well as suffering unexplained emotional breakdowns. Also, despite the thoroughness of Thokol's programming, she would have occasional, and confusing, memory flashes of Thokol and her original self. During the squad's first liberty to Sydney, Australia, "T'Priell" encountered a drunken Oguran woman who claimed to have the ability to identify any race on sight, despite cosmetic alteration. The Oguran indeed identified "T'Priell" as a Romulan, but as she was so drunk, nobody took the claim seriously.

“T’Priell’s” psychological instability did prove useful on occasion. When Omega Squad took a runabout to the Thasus system, they encountered the Human Charlie Evans, who had been granted god-like power by the Thasians back in the 23rd century. When the Thasians left this plane of existence they were unable to take Charlie with them, and he had been left alone on Thasus. Charlie had created a slightly out of phase alter-ego of himself for company, but the alter-ego quickly grew unstable. It attacked the crew of the freighter El Dorado as well as Omega Squad’s runabout, trapping them both in a pocket universe of its own creation. "T'Priell", sensing a duality in Charlie that was similar to her own, was successful in talking him down from his anger. In an act that may have cost him his own existence, Charlie defeated his other self, and restored his captives to their original position. T’Priell had indirectly resolved the crisis, but the antipathy between Charlie’s two selves was deeply troubling to her, and complicated her own sense of disjointed selfhood. Another benefit to Omega Squad resulting from “T’Priell’s” true nature came in the form of a Tal Shiar guardian angel. In 2373, when Omega Squad was fleeing a death sentence brought on by the cadet’s journey to Talos IV, they were unknowingly assisted in escaping the U.S.S Sagan by Thokol, aboard a Romulan Bird-of-Prey. The spy-master did not wish his greatest experiment to be killed. Fortunately for both him and Omega Squad, the charges against them were later dropped following the meme virus crisis.

Selke’s cover identity was not perfect, of course. Being based upon the katra of T’Priell rather than the Vulcan’s full consciousness, it was not sufficient to fool those who had known her. When the real T'Priell's parents visited the Academy for the traditional sophomore parent's day, they realized that something was terribly wrong with their daughter. Telark and T’Pen had not seen T'Priell since she left for her independent study project two years prior and already felt that something was wrong. Their concerns were intensified during their visit and after returning to Vulcan they came to the conclusion that, illogical as it might seem, the woman calling herself "T'Priell" was not, in fact, their daughter. They immediately contacted Academy Commandant Admiral Andrea Brand with their suspicions. However, as part of her conditioning by Thokol, Selke had subconsciously programmed the communication system at the Academy to alert her if such a message was detected, and so she was aware of her ouster as soon as it happened. This triggered the re-surfacing of the brainwashed Selke persona, who immediately aimed to return to Romulan space. Using cruel and painful tactics taught to her by the Tal Shiar, Selke attacked Omega Squad and overpowered her former friends. She was able to deliver them to Thokol, who was very interested in Selke's newest squad-mate Edam Astrun, a Betazoid who had the highest psi-Q ever recorded in his species. Instructed to perform invasive medical experiments on Astrun, who, ironically, the T’Priell persona had begun developing romantic feelings for, Selke then left the rest of the squad to die at the hands of ravenous raptor rats.

Remnants of her pre-conditioning, pacifistic self still existed underneath Thokol’s brainwashing, however. These sub-conscious impulses from the “real” Selke momentarily seized control and Selke countermanded her previous actions, and her orders, in order to save Omega Squad from death. With further assistance from the Romulan Re-Unification Movement and Professor N'Vat, the squad sought to escape the Romulan base. Their initial attempt was foiled by Thokol, who then killed N'Vat. The trauma of seeing her beloved mentor murdered caused the real Selke to shake off her Tal Shiar programming, and Thokol was defeated. Rescuing Astrun, the rest of Omega Squad were initially planning on leaving Selke to her fate. Astrun insisted that they rescue her, however, having sensed the conflict within her as her original character traits reasserted themselves, as well as her feelings for him. He insisted that she was two women in conflict, their friend and comrade in need. Finding Selke at the edge of a firefall, contemplating suicide, Astrun and Decker convinced the confused Romulan to step back from the brink and accept Omega Squad's forgiveness. Astrun confessed his own feelings for Selke at this time. The cadets were retrieved from Romulan space by the timely appearance of, ironically, the U.S.S Sagan.

The external crisis may have been over, but Selke’s internal torment still required resolution. The Sagan travelled to Vulcan, so that T’Priell’s katra could finally be removed from Selke’s mind. The process wasn't as easy as anticipated, however, as the priestess assigned to the case reported that the katra had been in residence too long. It could no longer be removed unless it wished to depart, and it had no desire to leave after integrating so deeply into its current body (having fully controlled it for months). Essentially, both T’Priell’s katra and Selke’s original consciousness believed themselves rightful owners of her mind and body, and began to struggle for dominance. With the assistance of Kyethn Zund (who, as a joined Trill, had plenty of experience with shared minds) and Astrun, the two psyches were eventually able to join together, forming a new functioning personality incorporating traits and memories from both forebears. The new combined being chose to go by the name T'Priell, as that is how her squad-mates knew her best. Following the integration, Telark and T'Pen accepted T'Priell as their daughter.

The Federation government granted T'Priell political asylum, anxious to have access to her knowledge of the inner workings of the Tal Shiar. Starfleet allowed T'Priell to continue her education at the Academy, as it was deemed the best way to enable the healing process, under the condition that she undergo regular psychiatric counselling and periodic mind melds with a Vulcan katra expert. However, given the precedent established by the half-Romulan known as Soleta, it is unlikely that T'Priell would ever receive a posting on a starship. In early 2374, when in combat with the cadets of the rival Klingon squad First Cadre, T'Priell combined the discipline of a Vulcan with the ruthlessness of a Romulan agent.