Name/Nicknames: Zyena Ahvaya-Sanchez (�Zy�)
Gender: f
Rank/Position: Xenobiopsychologist (Masters-level formal training); First Assistant to Kanaye Zimraan of the Dragon Project team
Age: 31
Birthplace: First Centauri

Physical Description: Zyena�s mixed Indic, Latin American, and �mystery� ancestry resulted in the following phenotype: thick, black, rather coarse, curly hair worn to mid-back; black-lashed, almond-shaped, wide-set brown-black eyes with a brighter sienna sunburst around the pupil; an oblong face with a wide, starkly defined jaw, hollow cheeks, and strong features; skin tone a luminous olive/bronzed-brown, true to (parts of) her ethnic heritage. Zyena is the kind of formidable-looking woman who gets called �handsome�, not �pretty� � and who could care less. Her body is 5�4 and quite feminine in build, much like the hourglass-shaped goddesses depicted in the art of her Indic ancestors. She prefers to clothe it in a mixture of simple, classic styles and bright, elegant ethnic garments (from a variety of cultures) of intricate weaves and designs.

Personality: There�s no denying Zyena is one smart cookie. All her life she�s been happily absorbed in the world of scientific academia. If asked to describe her, there�s no one who would not mention her work or research as one of her main identifiers. Interestingly, despite her involvement with the pragmatically-driven dragon project, Zyena is not terribly interested in applied research, nor fame, nor fortune. The force that drives her to study and learn is quite simply the insatiable desire to KNOW � what things are in the world, what they can do, and how they do it. Make no mistake, she *can* apply her considerable brainpower to devising clever solutions to practical problems � she just isn�t normally all that interested in doing so. That�s someone else�s job.

Conversely, though she�s fiercely dedicated to the expansion of knowledge for its own sake, she holds the exact opposite view on high technology; tech is a means to an end for her, and fancy gadgets are simply tools for her to be able to do her research better. In fact, she strongly disliked the extremely technology-heavy societies back on the FSP homeworlds, a fact which helped seal her decision to go to Pern. Evenly balanced as she is between introversion and extraversion, Zyena likes to be around people but values her quiet time and space as well, which led her to an aversion to crowded, urbanized areas.

She also absolutely can�t stand bureaucracy, especially when it gets in the way of the pursuit of knowledge. Though not easily frustrated, repeatedly running up against the same problems aggravates her immensely, and she simmers and simmers and simmers while trying to work around them. One thing is for sure, she has a healthy dose of stick-to-it-iveness, and is not easily discouraged. But if an obstacle persists long enough, Zyena is liable to eventually explode in a blazing, irrational rage, and may take rash action. Like joining a colonization expedition to a far-flung galaxy, for example.

Zyena isn�t all study and science, though (just mostly). Occasionally she will take time off to relax; it�s not necessary to do it very often, since her interest in her work keeps her energized. She�s not likely to ever burn out doing what she does. But when she ends up with spare time, she prefers non-cerebral activities like playing with her kids, doing yoga, going fishing, or just sunbathing on the beach. At times she�s struck by fits of whimsy (see her firelizards� names), which can be disconcerting to those who know her as the serious professional type. Having young children encourages this side; though not Mother of the Year material, Zyena loves her daughters, and they�re just about the only people with whom she will let her guard down and get silly.

Also apt to be surprising to folk who don�t know her intimately is the fact that Zyena is a strongly empathic person; surprising because she doesn�t show it in the traditional ways such as outward emotional reactivity, seeking to help people, or wearing her heart on her sleeve. Zyena is the type who keeps her feelings to herself and seeks refuge in order, rationality, and personal detachment. Nevertheless, some ancestor or other back down the line was mentasynth-enhanced, and the trait has stuck around. This is why she unconsciously keeps things professional with most people, and also why she gravitates towards nonsentient creatures as research subjects; the bombardment of such highly developed species� powerful, complex emotions and reactions tends to be too much for her nerves. She will �absorb� the mood of the company she�s in, so for her own peace she prefers to keep the tone of her interactions with other people light and unemotional. Another side effect, perhaps, of this heightened empathy is Zyena�s acute sense of justice; she�s deeply disturbed when she senses unfairness, and can be dogged in the pursuit of redress for such imbalances.

Background: Born on First Centauri to scientist parents, Zyena was immersed in the world of alien biology practically from birth. Saranda Ahvaya was a PhD in biopsychology doing research and teaching at the prestigious First University, where she met Tekku Sanchez, a doctorate in xenobiology. When a certain project set them to working together on such a tantalizing subject as alien nervous systems, the predictable happened � they got married. Their second child, Zyena, took after both her parents in her academic leanings; from the time she could be trusted around the lab, the girl was a fixture in the xenobiology department at the university. Naturally scholarly, she read anything she could find, which comprised a considerable education in the Ahvaya-Sanchez household. Not just old Terran literature, but reams of paper and digital archives on the topics of psychology, extraterrestrial life, and biology littered their ample shelves and storage drives, and as Zyena grew she absorbed it all.

Working in her parents�s labs, Zyena also learned well the hoops that researchers had to jump through in the continuous battle for funding. The FSP, technocrats, and most importantly the enormously powerful supercorporations shared the purse strings on research grants, and they were interested only in applied studies which could serve to further their own causes. Zyena saw her parents continually struggle to maintain the means necessary to their research ends, and more than once shift the focus of their work from their true topic of interest to something that suited government or commercial desires. This rankled with Zyena, who loved learning for its own sake and couldn�t understand why anyone would want to get in the way of scientific understanding.

The dragged-out Nathi War had long-reaching effects on all aspects of life in the FSP; in particular, drafting of personnel for the war effort took its toll. When Zyena was 14, her father was called into service, tearing him away from his family and some very promising research on nonsentient species altered by Eridani techniques. Stationed on a ship near the front lines of battle, Tekku was put to work studying a load of Nathi captives; he died only a few short weeks later when the Nathi ruthlessly destroyed the FSP ships containing prisoners. It only increased the bitterness Zyena felt about her father�s death when the war ended just a few months later. Her mother carried on working at the university, but mostly in a teaching capacity, as grief over Tekku�s death caused her to lose much of her zeal for the research they�d done together for years.

Zyena on the other hand fell to academia with a vengeance, determined to do her father proud by succeeding in the kind of work he�d held so dear. She fast-tracked through high school and, thanks in part to her background working on her parents� research, was accepted into First University before her 17th birthday. She pursued directed studies in xenobiology and biopsychology under the guidance of her father�s colleague and friend, Dr Kanaye Zimraan. As she lived near the university and was well-ensconced in the labs, it was no hardship for her to work on her studies through the summers as well, and she completed a BSc in the mixed discipline of xenobiopsychology at the age of 19.

Continuing in the spirit in which she�d begun, Zyena went straight into a Master�s program, still under Dr Zimraan�s direction. She resurrected her father�s interrupted work on Eridani-altered species and was making some quite exciting progress when the funding to her project was pulled. An irate Zyena discovered that the corporation which had given her grant were displeased with her preliminary results; appeals to other sources such as the First Founding Families for cash were politely but firmly refused. Finally it became unavoidably apparent to Zyena that unless she was willing to prostitute her work to the results-centred demands of SOME high-influence political group or other, she was s.o.l. in terms of funding.

Discouraged, frustrated, infuriated with these tight bureaucratic strangleholds on academia, and resentful of the FSP who had sent her father to his death, Zyena told Dr Zimraan that she�d had enough and was dropping out of university. It was then that he suggested the Pern Colonization Expedition to her, which he and his son Bhavin were already registered for. On Pern, she could continue to work with him, making worthwhile use of her valuable xenobiological skills in studying the fauna of the planet, working relatively independently according to her own curiosity. Zyena seized on this as a way to continue doing the pure research she loved without the funding headaches, and in a somewhat rash move, signed on for the colony. She figured doing her part to expand the settlement by having a few kids was a small price to pay for being able to study virtually anything that interested her on an entirely new world.

Zyena turned 21 just after landing on Pern, and spent 8 blissful years working with the other xenobiologists, studying the planet�s creatures to her heart�s content. Like many, she was particularly fascinated by the firelizards, with their near-sentient intelligence and intriguing empathic and telepathic abilities. She impressed a green and a brown as soon as she could manage it, gaining both a pair of pets, and primary subjects for study. At 24, she bore a daughter by Naeem Mobutu, a vet originally from Zaire on old Earth. They were married once the child, Aneka, was born, and two years later had another daughter, Bizima. Moving to Pern certainly seemed like the best decision Zyena had ever made � a beautiful, clean new world, fascinating work, and a family of her own.

Threadfall put an end to this idyll. Zyena was lucky enough not to lose any family members, but like most everyone else, she had friends and colleagues who were either injured or killed. And in the end Thread did destroy the home life she�d enjoyed, as Naeem insisted that they ought to go North. Zyena refused, determined to do her part with the science team to come up with a solution to the menace, and the two broke their marriage contract before Naeem left with the other Northgoers. The breakup was bitter and both parents fought to keep the children; in the end, Zyena won that battle, and her daughters remain with her at New Landing.

The Dragon Project has taken up the majority of her time for the past two years. She remains Kanaye Zimraan�s primary assistant and as such is very deeply immersed in, and invested in the success of, the Project. She�s particularly eager to study the mental abilities of dragons they�ve (hopefully) created, enhanced as they were with mentasynth and other Eridanite techniques. Had she not turned 31, and thus been out of the candidate age range when the first successful clutch was due to hatch, she might have applied herself to bond with one of the creatures. Luckily, the creatures apparently cared a lot less about age than their creators, as gold Ninhursath proved by marching past the proper candidates in order to impress herself upon the unwitting Zyena. Though ecstatic with her new partner, Zyena has had a difficult time integrating Ninhursath into her life; with two kids and full-time job that she does not at all wish to give up, she's driving herself harder than ever to keep up with all of her responsibilities. Whether she'll be able to successfully balance her new role in the Dragon Project with her family and the work she loves, only time will tell.

Family/Friends:
Mother: Saranda Ahvaya, biopsychologist, PhD, First Centauri
Father: Tekku Sanchez, xenobiologist, PhD, deceased (Nathi War)
Ex-husband: Naeem Mobutu, 35, veterinarian, went North
Daughters: Aneka Ahvaya-Mobutu, 6, New Landing
Bizima Ahvaya-Mobutu, 4, New Landing

Hobbies & Skills: Research background in xenobiology and biopsychology, scientific skills including experimental design, fMRI and physio-scanner operation, neural manipulation, some hands-on mentasynth application. Hobbies including Hatha yoga, fishing, and spending hours perusing the vast information files contained in the main computer�s database.

If your persona were a song, the title: Blinded By Science (Foreigner)

Pets: Brown firelizard Sneezy (a needy, nervous malingerer) and green firelizard Dopey (a talkative and trusting dimwit)

Dragon Name: Ninhursath
Age:infant (hatched 8.1.11)
Color: gold
Physical Description: Showing very little size and build difference from the other dragonets, Ninhursath sports a dark antique gold hide with near-bronze reticulation all over, like very fine marble veining. Personality: Shy. Reticent. Cautious. Even cowardly. Ninhursath doesn�t like unfamiliar people, places, or things, and shies from loud and chaotic scenes. She�s intimidated by the rambunctious behaviour of her clutchmates, though she has begun to show more interest in them, and familiarity is easing (a bit) her intense shyness, around one or two of them.