Character Information
Name : Zhal
Species : Alpha
Gender : Male
Age : 9
Position : Chief Security/Tactical Officer
Height : 6’ 5”
Weight : 295 lbs.
Eye Colour : Black
Hair Colour : Black
History :
Zhal was originally named by a captor. When Zhal was taken to a Starfleet holding and observation station, a Bolian scientist named Nots, named him for his uncle. Nots uncle was a bad tempered, hard headed old soldier and the captured Jem’Hadar was much like him in many ways.
Zhal began his life in Hatchery Alpha 241D, a Dominion facility in Cardassian territory which turned out Jem’Hadar “Alphas” to serve as the Dominions military force in the quadrant. Unfortunately for Zhal this should have been a death sentence as Starfleet attacked and crippled the facility only a few days after his hatching.
The Vorta commanding the facility fled when she realised the Starfleet attack had completely destroyed the Ketracel White storage bays, wiping out the supply. She realised that her control over the Jem’Hadar would soon be lost and she could not risk them turning on her.
It did not take long for the White to run out and the eldest of the Jem’Hadar to begin battling each other. The facility was crowded and soon there was a rampage of insane warriors killing each other. However for some reason Zhal remained clear headed and retained an ability that the others lost, the ability to Shroud.
Jem’Hadar use White, much like a Human uses adrenaline. Adrenaline allows Humans to run faster, fight longer and focus. White is not created within the Jem’Hadar, so as it is absorbed and used, new White needs to be introduced to retain its effects. Shroud is one of the abilities which drains White out of a Jem’Hadars system.
Zhal retained the ability to Shroud for short periods, not as long as he could when his system was flooded with White, but it was strange none the less that he had any ability to use it. As the others killed each other off, Zhal was able to fight coherently and use his abilities to defeat his attackers. Soon he was alone and began his wait to die.
Zhal knew when the White in his system was gone, he would go mad and die, but despite waiting, the end did not come. Each day he carried on, alone. He was still Jem’Hadar and he prepared for battle. He removed the bodies of his fallen brothers and gathered weapons, laid traps and did anything to keep his mind sharp and on his duty to the Founders. Once all the tasks he could think of were completed, he turned his attention to trying to contact his masters. This ultimately proved futile. The systems on the facility were severely damaged, Starfleet had destroyed their primary targets of the communications arrays, weapons systems and fighter bays. The destruction of the White was incidental, but it had left Zhal alone and unable to leave.
Zhal began doing the only thing he could, he used the facilities computers in an effort to understand enough to rebuild the communication arrays or repair a fighter enough to pilot. He spent day after day, searching the databases, absorbing everything he could about anything there. He did not know what could help him so he learned everything he could. Despite the fact Jem’Hadar are breed warriors, the Founders engineered them to learn quickly and retain what they learned. Most Jem’Hadar are only exposed to what they needed and never live long enough to form opinions. Zhal was different and he learned why in the Vortas database.
Aberrations. It was the name the Founders had given to his kind. In the Jem’Hadar, these aberrations were usually rarely discovered. It was estimated that approximately one in three quarters of a million Jem’Hadar were able to create their own White within their system. It was not on the level which was flooded in by absorbing their external supplies, but the naturally occurring White was enough to allow these aberrations to live without these external supplies. The Founders had issued orders that these aberrations would be eliminated.
Zhal was still programmed to believe in the Founders as gods, so for a while he tried to reconcile destroying himself. However after much thought, he decided that his remaining alive and attempting to establish contact with the Dominion was the primary mission and once that was accomplished, the Founders could deal with him themselves.
Zhal began construction of a beacon, to alert the Founders to his presence. It was slow work of trial and error. Zhal had never been instructed in many of the things he was attempting and much of his work was patching together components from other systems. His work bore fruit and a signal began transmitting. However there was no Dominion to receive it. The war was over and the Dominion gone from the quadrant.
The signal was picked up by Starfleet exploratory forces in the region, tasked with destroying Dominion facilities which were hidden. Many of these were secret and even the Cardassians were unaware of their locations. When one of the forces picked up the encoded signal, they realised it was Dominion in origin and tracked it back to the facility they had believed destroyed.
Zhal was unaware of Starfleets approach and continued his daily ministrations. The initial force were greeted with transport scrambling fields and forced to deploy via shuttle crafts to the facility. When they attempted entry to the facility, they were forced to deal with dozens of varied traps, which taxed even the most experienced of them. Force fields which evacuated atmosphere, extreme gravity traps, force fields set to deadly levels, explosive floor plates and door controls designed to put out lethal energy jolts. It was a miracle that no one was killed simply stepping onboard the facility. However the traps were not the most dangerous thing on the base. Zhal was ready for them.
After pinning down one of the Starfleet Special Forces teams, wounding several of them in the initial engagement. The teams had expected to find a fully manned facility, to find a single Jem’Hadar defending it was an oddity and probably saved Zhals life. The commander of the teams was interested to find out what was going on, so ordered the Jem’Hadar to be captured rather than killed, a tall order as Jem’Hadar have a natural resistance to Phasers stun settings.
Zhal knew with an enemy force onboard it was only a matter of time before he was killed, so he started a chain reaction in the facilities reactors. As he was doing so, the Starfleet invaders used gas grenades to incapacitate him. They were unable to stop the chain reaction however so had to withdraw before the facility destroyed itself.
He was taken to a Starfleet holding and observation station. These stations were set up during the war in an effort to understand the Jem’Hadar. Most of the Jem’Hadar would rather die than be captured, so when a Jem’Hadar was taken alive it was very important to study them for intelligence on their species. Data gained from a doctor on a station in the Bajoran sector had given insight into the early weeks of their lives. Able to fight in days, growing to full maturity in only a few weeks and genetically manipulated to be fast, strong and deadly warriors.
Nots, a Bolian scientist was tasked with the study of Zhal, who he would later name. At first Zhal was completely barbaric, smashing his cell and trying to escape. Nots attributed this to a lack of White and was ready for Zhal to cease to function slowly, however this did not occur. Zhal continued to function and Nots realised he was enraged, rather than suffering the effects of lack of White. Nots had read intelligence that it was possible for some Jem’Hadar to live without the enzyme, but he never dreamed he would ever get to study one.
He realised the Zhal had retained his ability to process nutrients from ingestion of food. Data had been collected that Jem’Hadar could process food in their youth, but lost the need for it as large quantities of White flooded into their system. Zhal was producing an enzyme which was similar to White and functioning perfectly well. The quantities of this enzyme allowed Zhal to function normally, however as Zhal used draining abilities such as Shrouding, he would weaken until his system could recover. After some testing Nots realised that Zhal could Shroud for no more than four minutes before he would begin suffering ill effects. His strength and stamina would waver and soon he would become unable to function normally at all. After the physical testing, Nots and his team began the psychological studies.
The Jem’Hadar mind is massively complex, able to absorb and retain information, processing it at high levels. The team was surprised that they were so easily controlled by the Founders until they factor in that the Jem’Hadar are never allowed to freely learn anything. They are instructed in Dominion weapons, technology and tactics as well as appropriate information on their enemies, however that is the extent of their education. They are constantly bombarded by the dogma that the Founders are their gods and their life exists to serve and die for the Dominion.
The was some difference however between Alpha and Gamma versions of the Jem’Hadar. The Gamma Jem’Hadar had evolved over centuries in a quadrant which was completely subservient to the Dominion. Always in proximity to their leadership, the Gammas were mainly engineered to be drone warriors who would obey and die for their masters, putting down rebellions and enforcing the Dominions laws. In the war for the Alpha quadrant, the Dominion forces were cut off from their reinforcements. The leadership there was spread thin, so the new generation of Jem’Hadar known a Alphas were much more independent, more able to make their own leadership decisions and more able to understand and destroy their enemies there. This difference is ultimately what helped Zhal survive his time under study.
Nots and his team found Zhal intelligent and able to grasp ideas and form his own opinions. Although they were always weary that Zhal could be playing a part to escape, they were optimistic that Zhal was breaking away from his Dominion programming. Zhal would read and converse with the scientists, he would question them on beliefs and origins. At first it was all from the point of view of the Founders being the true gods and their beliefs being wrong, however as time went on the scientist saw Zhal question the Founders.
Four years passed with Zhal under study before he was given the freedom of moving to an open colony. He was tagged and constantly watched. The colony was mainly for non-violent prisoners of the Federation who were in the process of being reformed for release. Nots was sure that if Zhal could survive there without attempting escape or reverting to his Dominion programming, that it was possible he could one day become a free thinking individual.
Over two years Zhal live on the colony. He never did anything to inspire suspicion that he was still loyal to the Dominion, but Starfleet was uneasy with the fact Zhal still acted like a warrior. He would train religiously each day, go hunting in the woods and spend time exploring the area outside the main colony.
Nots became concerned that Zhals reform may have been damaged by the slow pace on the colony. He was after all a warrior and built for a life of duty. Everything Zhal did seemed focused and planned so Nots was worried that without something to focus on, Zhal may revert to his more base, angered self.
There was massive resistance to Nots proposal. Nots proposed that Zhal be given the option to join Starfleet. Every argument Nots made to that end was met with a dozen counter points on how giving a Jem’Hadar access to Starfleet intelligence would be a monumental error. However Nots had provided quite a lot of important information on the Jem’Hadar, using Zhal and he had developed enough influence to get is idea through the front door and debated by Starfleet.
After a long deliberation, several limits were set up. Zhal would not be allowed to join Starfleet. He was a genetically engineered soldier and his presence in a scientific organisation could be counter productive. He would instead be offered training in the Starfleet Marine Corps. His unique combat orientation would best fit in with their training. He would also not be allowed the ability to enter the commissioned ranks. He would begin with an enlisted grade and be trained as such to limit his access until he was extensively assessed. In 2383, Zhal arrived at the boot camp to begin his training.
Zhal unsurprisingly was a natural soldier. In fact several of the physical requirements had to be redefined for him to gage if he was showing improvement. However, as well as he was doing in his training, he was failing to win friends among the other marines. Most of them had a set idea that the best Jem’Hadar was a dead one and that went for many of the instructors as well. On several occasion Zhal was injured in training, however his ability to recover quickly and his will to carry on kept the incidents from ever slowing him down. The indomitable spirit was impressive, even to those who hated his race.
Quickly passing every course and test that could be applied to him, Zhal was ready to be deployed. But once again this spawned controversy. Zhal was exceptionally well trained and applied his knowledge well. One of the senior staff argued that he was both a resource and a symbol that could be used. To have a well trained, loyal Jem’Hadar serving aboard a Starship would be a massive symbol of how Starfleet could reconcile old enemies to become friends. Also, Zhal had a working knowledge of the Dominion and Jem’Hadar tactics, so if he was to be employed on a vessel serving in the regions which might encounter Dominion forces, he would be a massive asset and could inspire doubt in enemy forces to see him serving in Starfleet. The points were well made and Zhal was deployed to Task Force Nine. Although he was still an Enlisted Marine, he would be granted a Chief’s position in an appropriate department to match his skills. He would also be monitored closely to ensure that his placement was in fact the correct decision.