Jethro Noteah

My name is Jethro Noteah.
I’m half Romulan, there, I’ve said it.
I don’t hide it and I’m not ashamed of it. It says so quite clearly on my application to the academy, and Starfleet security knows it too.
I’ve taken more than my share of licks for it over the years, and if you can’t accept a Starfleet officer with Romulan blood, I happen to think that’s your problem.

As for the rest of you, it’s a pleasure to meet you all, and an honor to be inducted into the fleet.
Let me say a little bit about myself. I was born on Far Ithica, outpost 11 for those of you who don’t know it, just a hair’s breadth from the edge of the old Romulan Neutral Zone. My mother was a defector from the Romulan Navy, she didn’t bring any important state secrets with her, she just got tired of living under the thumb of the Tal Shiar, stole a shuttle, and made for Federation space. Once here, she met and eventually married my Father, a Human Starfleet Senior Chief Petty Officer, and settled on Far Ithica, where I was born in 2363. When the Empire joined the Dominion war, my mother volunteered to serve as a Fleet Liaison Officer for joint Starfleet - Romulan activities, for which she was issued an official pardon from the Romulan Senate. Officially she was killed by a Jem'Hadar boarding party, that what I was told at the time. It wasn’t until I joined Starfleet that I learned that virtually all defectors who came forward to aid the Alliance died and that “Killed during a Jem’Hadar boarding action” was a Tal Shiar euphemism for killing those they still thought of as traitors.

After the war my father left the fleet and moved us to Vega colony. For a number of years, I pretended to be half Vulcan instead of Romulan. I was ashamed of what I was, and tiered of being excluded from the interactions of my classmates. People were more accepting of a Vulcan, and it let me feel normal…but it wasn’t who I was. By the time I enrolled in the Academy, I had dropped the pretense, I didn’t hide my emotions, and when someone asked I admitted what I was freely. It didn’t make me any friends, and it got me a few enemies, but I was being true to mine own self.

Where I did find acceptance at the Academy was in my engineering classes. My skills allowed me to stand out in a positive way. Midway through second year, I was diverted into the intensive Engineer Development Track, meant to turn out the next generation of officers for the Corp of Engineers. I excelled at structural design, shield harmonics, and industrial fabrication and replication; but my real gift was in positronics. At the end of third year, I was given a leave of absence to intern at the Daystrom Institute. For a year I worked under Doctor Bruce Maddox, formerly of Starfleet, mapping the neural net of the B-4 Android for the Soong Foundation. I was a small part of the huge effort which allowed the Data Matrix to be unlocked. It was here that I became a passionate support of the rights of technological life forms, and I would later go on to be a founding member of the Friends of Artificial Sentiences.

I returned to the Academy, and graduated in the class of 86. My first tour as an Ensign was aboard the Prospero. Since then I’ve had a stable carrier, rising steadily through the ranks of the Corp of Engineers. I assumed command of the Voice of Majel in 2403; she’s a good ship, and I think I’ve put together I fine crew. Now, in 2408, Admiral Eclipse has nominated me to lead the Britannian Research Division. I now accept the rank of Commodore, and all the rights and duties therein.