Ciffao Tharc

Ciffao Tharc
Biographical Information
Full Name	Ciffao Tharc
Place of Origin	Tellar Prime
Species	Tellarite
Gender	Female
Date of Birth	2348
Career Information
Affiliation	Starfleet
Rank
Posting	Starbase 86
Position	Commanding Officer
Template:Character

Commodore Ciffao Tharc is the current commanding officer of Starbase 86 and previous commander of the USS Majestic. Her early career was in the operations division, but since 2380 she has been a command-grade officer. After seventeen years in command of USS Majestic, Tharc moved from starship service to commanding one of Starfleet's most important frontier defensive stations.

Starfleet Academy (2358-2362)

Tharc’s formative years at the Academy were defined by an acute sense of homesickness. Hailing from a relatively rural region of Tellar Prime, it took her the best part of two years to get used to the institution’s culture of inclusiveness and cooperation. Having grown up treating arguments as a sport, at first she found the even temperaments and agreeability of her academy comrades to be needless social niceties. This all changed in her sophomore year, when a particularly difficult spatial physics exam left her reliant upon a Vulcan classmate for help. Despite her icy, logical exterior, Cadet T’Shona was extremely patient. She showed Tharc through the entirety of quantum mechanical theory, from Planck to Varnegyxx. In later years the content of that exam would seem to Tharc far less important than the understanding of friendship she gained through her Academy years.

USS Prince of Wales (2362-2370)

As an Ensign in the Operations Department aboard the Prince of Wales, Tharc would learn what makes a starship tick. Far from the theories and abstractions that characterised the academy, Tharc would be faced with real situations that demanded on the spot decisions. For her part in coordinating successful resupply missions to colonies along the Federation-Cardassian border, Tharc was promoted to Lieutenant Junior Grade in July 2364.

The USS Prince of Wales was reassigned soon thereafter to frontier patrol duty along the edge of what would, in 2370, become a demilitarised zone between Federation and Cardassian space. Tharc was directly involved in devising a set of streamlined diagnostic procedures for a series of sensor buoys deployed along the edge of the zone. This greatly reduced the time required for the Prince of Wales to scan and check each buoy for signs of third party tampering. Despite the signing of the Federation-Cardassian armistice agreement in 2367, interference with Starfleet sensor equipment from supposedly neutral entities such as the Xepolites was not uncommon. In recognition of her efforts, she was promoted to the rank of full Lieutenant and offered the role of Chief Operations Officer aboard the newly launched USS Clarion.

USS Clarion (2370-2376)

Tensions were beginning to ease in the Alpha Quadrant in the year the USS Clarion left spacedock. The Federation-Cardassian Treaty had been signed, creating the demilitarised zone. It pained Tharc to learn that some of the colony worlds she had visited aboard the Prince of Wales had now been ceded to Cardassian control. Magnifying this sense of loss, it was in 2370 that Tharc learned of her good friend Kreylan Botthega’s defection to the Maquis. A colleague of hers since the academy and following a similar career trajectory, she had never considered the possibility that the Kriosian’s loyalties could change in such a way. Tharc was confused, and feelings of betrayal crept through her. For a time, she struggled to understand how anyone could bring themself to go against the oath they had pledged to Starfleet. She worked hard to suppress her anger, and she dived deeper into her work than ever before. It would be the first great test of her resolve.

Then, in 2373, the Dominion War came to the Alpha Quadrant. The Clarion was recalled from her five year mission of exploration beyond Metron Consortium space, and once again Tharc found herself face to face with the Cardassians. Regularly deployed on scouting missions behind Dominion lines, Tharc was tasked with helping configure ship’s sensors to penetrate enemy subspace countermeasures. On several occasions the ship was caught out, detected by the Dominion’s own sensors forcing retreat at maximum warp back to allied controlled space. Tharc would come to think of those two years of war as the longest of her life. The constant red alerts, lack of sleep, chaos and lost comrades would haunt her for many years to come. In the war’s aftermath, Tharc was part of reconstruction efforts as the Clarion spent 2376 distributing aid to previously conquered colonies now returned to Federation governance. Later that year, Tharc and the Clarion would part ways on her acceptance of a posting to the USS Vanguard as Chief Operations Officer.

USS Vanguard (2376-2385)

Now a Lieutenant Commander, Tharc was thrown into an operating environment unlike anything she had experienced before. Under the command of Captain Th’enas, the Vanguard was assigned to skirt the edges of the Romulan Neutral Zone. Its mission would include the interdiction and investigation of any vessels entering Federation space from the Zone, and the covert gathering of intelligence relating to reports of Reman activity within the Romulan Imperial Senate. For the first time in her career, Tharc was required to attend briefings on the wider Federation-Romulan security situation. Despite these efforts, the Shinzon incident of 2379 still caught Starfleet by surprise, resulting in the Vanguard’s mission being supplemented with an additional four starships from the Fourth Fleet’s Task Force 86.

Increased shipbuilding efforts following the Dominion War had now begun to bear fruit, leading to the reassignment of the Vanguard’s First Officer to her own command. Having taken the bridge officer’s test, Tharc became the lead candidate in the search for a replacement. In 2381, Tharc was promoted to the rank of Commander, beginning her tenure as First Officer.

That was when everything changed for the Romulan Star Empire. Following confirmation that the Romulan sun was soon to go supernova, Starfleet began drawing up resettlement plans at the request of the Romulan government. This began a tumultuous time for the region as the once monolithic Star Empire began to lose cohesion. Factions hostile to Federation aid made good on their threats to harass refugee convoys in the early stages of the evacuation efforts. As Starfleet’s own rescue fleet continued construction, the Vanguard was assigned to coordinate convoys of transports, requisitioned from civilian and other Starfleet departments, in the preliminary evacuation waves.

As First Officer, Tharc proved herself time and again in her ability to liaise and coordinate operations across multiple vessels and crews. On one particular occasion, a convoy departing Romulus for the Meslan System was waylaid by two Tal Shiar Valdore-type warbirds. As the only non-civilian vessel attached to the convoy, the Vanguard was ordered by Captain Th’enas to engage its multi-vector assault mode. While this was enough to encourage the warbirds to stand down, the Vanguard would remain in this formation for the remainder of the journey to Meslan. Tharc’s leadership and bravery during the incident was noted by Starfleet Command, and her name was put forward to be considered for her own captaincy.

USS Majestic (2385-2399)

In 2385, the newly constructed USS Majestic was to become the flagship of the Starfleet’s Task Force 86 in the Fourth Fleet. It was well noted by Command that Tharc had significant experience in the area of operations to which the Task Force would be deployed for the foreseeable future. As a result, Captain Ciffao Tharc embarked on the Majestic’s shakedown cruise at the beginning November of 2385. Then followed nine years of operations in and around the declining and transforming Romulan Star Empire.

The explosion of the Romulan sun in 2387, despite the inevitability of the event itself, exacerbated the unpredictability of an already chaotic region. More suitable colonies were needed for the flow of refugees out of the area that had steadily intensified since resettlement operations had begun two years prior. The Majestic was assigned to scout out suitable locations for these colonies for the remainder of the 2380s. At the dawn of the new decade, the security situation on the Federation-Romulan border deteriorated further. Incursions into Federation became more frequent from within a new hive of lawlessness that had sprung up from what was once the Neutral Zone. The Majestic raced to put out fires. Detection of cloaked vessels was made somewhat easier by a series of tachyon detection arrays constructed by Starfleet from 2391-3. However, these still needed protection. The Majestic was stretched thin by border incursions, political wrangling and acts of retribution committed by Romulan state actors against refugees settled in Federation space. Tharc’s requests for additional support were heard by a Fleet Command reluctant to commit additional resources to an area in which it already felt bogged down. Eventually, after the loss of two tachyon detection posts in 2395, additional ships were assigned to assist the Majestic. Tharc was vindicated and yet frustrated by a decision she felt had come all too late. Little did she know that Starfleet had other, more pressing concerns.

In 2399, beginning in the Archanis Sector, a deadly rampage erupted suddenly. Intelligence from within The Triangle region had been hard to come by, especially with the redeployment of Starfleet assets towards the Romulan border areas. Starfleet was taken by surprise as forces from the rogue Klingon house known as the Hunters of D’Ghor stormed out of the The Triangle, laying waste to several outlying Federation colonies. The Majestic and all other ships from Task Force 86 in the region were scrambled to push the Klingons back into neutral space. Heavy fighting ensued, culminating in a pitched battle at the Legera System. A Starfleet victory was secured, in no small part due to Admiral Beckett’s last minute brokering of Klingon Defence Force intervention against D’Ghor. The Majestic, heavily damaged, was recalled to Starbase 86 for refit and repair.

Starbase 86 (2399-Present)

This would prove to be the Majestic’s final journey under the command of Captain Tharc. She and her crew were lauded by Starfleet Command for their actions in combat. Nevertheless, she was exhausted, and initially saw the promotion to Commodore and transfer to command of Starbase 86 as a welcome respite from fourteen years of frantic action along the Romulan border. This assumption would turn out to be very, very wrong.

Later in 2399, Starfleet was rocked by the Omega Crisis. Together with Task Force 86 staff officers Captain Erill’Yun Mek and Captain Francesca Shilo, Tharc was forced to lead a series of tense negotiations ascertaining the Klingon Empire’s knowledge of the Tkon and the power of the Omega Molecule. The detection of one such molecule in the Azure Nebula further catalysed a perceived standoff between Starfleet and Klingon Defence Force vessels sent to find and neutralise the threat. The situation was later found to be a bluff engineered by Klingon Defence Force General Metraq, partly to show his dissatisfaction with Starfleet’s insistence on preserving the life of the gormagander that had accidentally swallowed the omega particle. While an expert in dealing with Romulan subterfuge, Tharc was severely tested by the sheer recklessness and volatility of the Klingon representatives on Starbase 86. She looked back to her academy days, and at how few solutions were brought about by her argumentative nature. Now a firm believer in the power of dialogue to resolve disputes, she pressed on.