Rokiek
full name: Somchrokiek ch'Magnal
sex: chan
pronouns: he/him
Ok, let’s start with the fact, that he isn’t actually very short (~1,79m), his spouses are just all really tall. He is a hothead, but learned to control his temper at starfleet academy. He’s passionate and has a strong protective instinct.
The drawing is like a photo from easier times. Rokiek just fulfilled his dream of becoming Captain of an andorian Starfleet vessel.
A couple of years later, his Spaceship is one of many, that fight against a Borg cube and one of few, that get completely assimilated in the process. Starfleet manages to fight off the cube, but not to destroy it. Rokiek spends 6 months of his life as a drone, before he and other drones from his Unimatrix are freed. He has only vague memories of the stranger, who attacked the Unimatrix, trying to rescue all of them, but only gets 2 of the drones out of the battlefield alive. These drones are Rokiek and the betazoid Sal Astrea.
On board, the stranger uses technology unknown to Starfleet to remove as many Borg implants as possible. Unfortunately, the freed and deeply confused Rokiek attacks his rescuer and destroys a part of the shuttle, so they have to crash-land on the nearest planet (which is – lucky them – a class M Planet). It was the last time Rokiek saw the completely enveloped stranger. He didn’t even find a corpse. Like a phantom, a ghost, that vanished.
Rokiek does find Sal Astrea though, who’s unconscious and injured from the crash. Still confused, disoriented and scared by the sudden silence in his mind, Rokiek functions more on ‘autopilot’. He takes care of Sal and nurses him back to health. They develop a strong bond, since they experienced and escaped the same hell. The reluting main problem is the same for both of them: They’ve been part of the collective, one among many, hearing thousands of voices in their heads, but not in a chaotic way - everything was neatly structured. Millions of minds connected to one, like parts of a single organism, and yet, it was an organism of absolute order. Now they both lost their connection, were ripped out of the 'organism’, out of it’s absolute order. And while the underlying problem is the same, the resulting symptoms are almost contrary for Rokiek and Sal.
Rokiek suffers from the sudden emptiness, the silence, the feeling he lost contact to the universe as a whole, the almost unbearable loneliness. Sal on the other hand is a betazoid with strong empathic and telepathic abilities. An important part of such power is the ability, to filter the stimuli, that you perceive. When Sal enters a room, he can hear the thoughts and feel the emotions of all people in there, regardless of the quantity. But as a kid, he was taught how to block the thoughts and emotions, he doesn’t want to perceive, out of his mind. The Borg technology destroyed his ability to block unwanted thoughts and emotions out. He realizes this while being on the planet with Rokiek. While Rokiek tries everything to signal distress, so that somebody finds them and brings them back to civilization, Sal is scared to death by the mere thought of returning to the chaos of thoughts and emotions that is the federation. He’s so scared, that he actively sabotages Rokiek’s attempts to build and start a distress signal and gets suicidal as soon as Rokiek finds out. (btw. wasn’t this supposed to be short and about Rokiek??)
Long story short, they make a deal:
Rokiek promises to take care of Sal and to bring him to a safe place,
were he can relearn the lost ability (good thing Rokiek is married to
Telpha, who works in a facility for people with problems of
telepathic (and empathic) nature, so Rokiek knows exactly where to
find someone, who’s able to help Sal) and Sal promises to not kill
himself. Rokiek manages to stay sane by
concentrating on the mission, to get Sal to a safe place. He also
manages to start a distress signal, so they get rescued and, in the
end, finally reach Andoria.
It’s time to part company – Sal’s training/therapy demands of him to live in solitude with his trainer and therapist. So, no room for Rokiek anymore, he fullfilled the mission, that gave him a goal to focus on, and falls head first into depression. Good thing he isn’t as alone as he feels. The people in the facility help him to get into contact with Telpha and Vuro, who are beyond happy, that their lost spouse found his way back home. So is Tualeh, but things are a bit more complicated with her.
Rokiek doesn’t realise, how badly he needs therapy himself, so a couple of years have to pass, before he gets professional help. It certainly doesn’t help, that the main event in this couple of years is the dominion war. Rokiek developes an obsession for the idea of freeing all Borg drones and of finding the phantom who freed him and Sal. In addition, he starts to see parallels between the Borg and the Dominion (that aren’t necessarily there), which causes him to want to rescue all genetically manipulated species from the Dominion as well. He doesn’t have the illusion, that he is able to fulfill any of THESE missions, but his inability to do anything against these „collectors of people“ causes him an unhealthy amount of sorrow.
He reunites with his spouses and Sal
(who’s taking meds now, that suppress his telepathic and empathic
abilities) after the war and gets therapy, so everything’s getting
better from that point on.
If you are curious about Rokiek’s 3 spouses, you can find more information about them here: Link
