Commander Kyral Ry’Anauk, First Officer Of The U.S.S. Eridani

Gerardposting

tell me more about sopek i beg you

Absolutely!!

Sopek is the 19 year old astrophysicist aboard the U.S.S Eridani, a constitution-class starship captained by Captain Saavik. He’s one of the characters featured in the storyline/project series which is being posted about in more detail soon at @startrek-eridani ! (He’d be very disappointed I did such a rush-job on this portrait. You can’t rush perfection.)

Here’s some facts about Sopek:

- He joins Starfleet at 17 and fast-tracks his studies so he graduates in two years, focusing mainly on his astrophysics and tangential scientific studies.

-in hindsight, he probably should’ve spent the full 4 years there actually gaining experience, learning about human social mores, and making connections with others because he’s sorely lacking in understanding of human culture by the time he’s on the Eridani. He failed to consider this. Whoops. But he’s Sopek so he thinks he’ll get along just fine regardless

- he doesn’t tell anyone who his parents are nor does he share his clan name. He doesn’t want anything getting in the way of his chances of getting onto the Eridani (including potential biases against the kid of the woman who incited kal-if-fee on spock)

-he started a club for Human Studies while at the academy because he’s so desperately lost when it comes to the stuff humans reference and a lot of the behaviors they exhibit, their media, etc. The handful of Vulcans who are also attending the academy at the same time, plus a scattering of other alien races all join the club and Study Intensely and Take Notes to try and figure out the enigma that is human socialization. He persuades (intimidates) one (1) human into coming by every semester and grading their Findings, and every semester the club is sorely disappointed to be told everything they thought they figured out is actually not on the mark at all.

-the human who he continuously gets to do the grading is Terrance Riley, son of Kevin Riley. Terrance actually ends up serving aboard the Eridani too, so he becomes Sopek’s go-to for Human Consultations. Terrance is too scared to refuse his questions :)

-once he’s aboard the Eridani, he learns of a phenomenon some of the crew members partake in called “girl’s night”. It becomes his life’s mission to be formally invited to girl’s night for anthropological reasons. (Also one of the male crew is always invited to girl’s night so he wants to be included too >~< )

-He’s not as well-versed in cross-studies and other fields (unlike his idol Spock :/) due to his hyper focus on his contributions to findings in his field of specialization. In other words, this man couldn’t throw a punch, run a mile, or cook a meal to save his life prior to starfleet survival training. What can he say? He’s a ShiKahrian snob and we love him for it

-he was given the choice of whether or not he had to go through the kahs-wan, and chose to do so (motivations may or may not have involved potential bragging rights). made it through the kahs-wan by just chilling in a hideout at night and stealing eggs from a Teresh-kah nest. He secretly thinks his little commemorative kahs-wan bicep tattoo looks dope as fuck, logically speaking in terms of aesthetics

-Stonn and T’Pring do not force him to be bonded at the age of seven due to their own experiences with the traditional rituals, so Sopek remains unbonded. Some of his clan elders are concerned about this choice, but Sopek isn’t worried at all, and thinks if he really NEEDED to form an emergency bond with someone, he’d have no problem securing one in a pinch. There’s no shortage of people who would want to be secured to him. It’s only logical- after all, he thinks he’s Vulcan’s Green Gift^TM to the galaxy

-his parents may have unwittingly unleashed a monster

-what did they expect? He’s an only child

-he def wears finely embroidered Vulcan robes of high quality as casual wear (and the embroidery matches his eyes. He’s so julia)

- he may or may not imagine Spock giving him advice when he meditates sometimes

-he may or may not have an Interest (crush) on a certain Betazoid communications officer aboard the Eridani… we’ll learn more about her in a post I’m gonna make soon!

-maybe the whole simping for a cool woman out of his league thing is genetic on his father’s side

-he may or may not be the Actual Worst when it comes to actual, real life flirting. His idea of a marriage proposal is telling someone their work is adequate and then very swiftly fleeing the room

That’s all I’ve got for now without any significant spoilers! I think Sopek would be Very satisfied with all the attention he’s already generating on tumblr dot com (he’s so diva superstar).

<333 thank you for your interest

You write sopek fic for me??🥺🥺

I’m blown away by you guys and your immediate love of Sopek, seriously thank you guys for your interest and support!

I’m gonna do a couple of Sopek comics soon and some small written pieces to give more context and Lore for him and his crewmates, but actually, once the episode synopses are posted for @startrek-eridani , we’re going to open those episode plots up for you guys to sign up and write fics if you want! (It’s like signing up for K/S spring fever or other prompt memes). The crew bios and the episode plots for Star Trek: Eridani are gonna be posted soon so you’ll have context, and then you can use those episodes as prompts to write Trek fic however you please! @purple-iris and I will probably do some fics as well, but it’ll mostly be in your hands!

Head astrophysicist Lt. Sopek, son of Stonn. Read his bio here (but you probably already know who he is 🥴)

The crew is officially all here!! We’ll be making posts of the main groupings of the crew, and I’m going to post some comics soon providing further context for some of the Star Trek: Eridani lore^TM , plus some more Sopek goodness

Lieutenant Lila Velann

Lila Velann was a Betazoid, daughter of diplomatic aides who brought her along travelling with them on various systems. Loving the opportunity to encounter new people, cultures and planets, she began training to enter the diplomatic corps of Betazed. Through these experiences, she learned over 20 languages and came in contact with various cultures. From a young age, she showed signs of intense telepathic and empathic abilities. These abilities caused her to become overwhelmed as she met dishonest, hostile or treacherous diplomats and politicians, and she could not keep the calmness and grace expected of a Betazoid diplomatic aide. Her reactions ruined an important negotiation and she was expelled from the training in the diplomatic corps. 

That event turned her life’s plan upside down, and she quickly had to choose a new career. She entered the University of Betazed in applied politics, but her diplomatic failure became widely known among her classmates, and they began berating her for it, considering how many of her peers had parents or people they knew also involved in that negotiation. Unable to take the pressure of their frequent bullying, shamed and humbled, she transferred to Starfleet Academy to pursue in xenolinguistics and communications. She took a rapid liking to this domain and was at the top of many of her classes, allowing her to get a posting on staships from the age of 18. 

She was assigned as Eridani’s head communication officer in 2293, and was 25 years old at the start of the five year mission in 2296. 

Through her studies and the discipline of the Academy, she worked hard to conform to the genial and unassuming manners that had been expected of her since her early childhood, and by the time she began working on the Eridani, she had become a professional and a much more mild-mannered officer, but the fiery element of her was still vibrant and alive underneath that calmer side she developed. To manage her struggle with her overwhelming telepathic and empathic abilities, she often turned to Betazed religion and meditative techniques.

Star Trek: Eridani is a fan project, by fan, for fans, featuring the crew of the U.S.S. Eridani, a starship commanded by Captain Saavik, with at her side Science Officer David Marcus and CMO Dr. Joanna McCoy, as well as a full crew of characters integrating themselves into the TOS timeline or directly taken from it.

Developed by purple_iris_bloom ( @purple-iris) and ghostofgoldendays ( @parallelfallout), this story is meant to be build upon, with the biography of the characters being already established, as well as prompts representing the synopses of the episodes of the four seasons of Star Trek: Eridani

https://archiveofourown.org/collections/StarTrek_Eridani

Here it is! The official AO3 collection for Star Trek: Eridani is opened, with the prompts ofor the season 1 episodes available for fulfillment! It can be art, fic, analysis, meta and more!

The FAQ of the collectiok hopefully can answer any questions about the collection.

Ugh agreed

OH MY GOSH A MILLION TIMES YES!! (This is a weird note but for some reason this reminded me of how Ponyo evolves from a fish to a girl through weird chicken-frog phases, idk.) I think I’ve seen others (or wikis) mention Betazoid eyesight being different from humans in terms of night vision (like frogs), and maybe field of view is wider, but they evolved to handle similar-to-human typical lighting when they evolved to remain primarily on land?? Maybe this also has some sort of connection to how their REM is reached at a different frequency than humans??

Side note I’ve found the home planet is called Cyndriel by the Betazoid people!

Thank you guys for contributing to this!

Hi! First off I want to say I love your analyses of Vulcan culture and pieces regarding Vulcan language, etc. it’s always so well-thought out and interesting to read/consider!! I’m also a huge fan of your writing in general <3. I was wondering, though, if you’ve ever given any thought to Betazoid culture and religion, or even language? Although there’s mention of the Four Deities and some cultural (religious??) artifacts, as well as seemingly matriarchal Houses, there doesn’t seem to be much info in terms of specifics or what the polytheistic belief system on Betazoid might actually entail- and I’ve seen a handful of Betazoid words, but not much in the way of language or language structure, so I basically was just curious as to whether you had any thoughts or headcanons on any of this! Sorry for such a long ask lol

Oh man, that's so interesting to think of! I really don't know a thing about Betazoids though.

I have a couple headcanons, like that they didn't use language at all before their first contact, or that they are naturally pretty upbeat and non aggressive (which is why they don't shield their telepathy like Vulcans do—no dark feelings to hide).

But I'm fairly certain beta canon would nix the first one, because supposedly Betazoids don't develop telepathy till adolescence. (Though I don't like that—they are so relaxed in their use of it that it feels like they must have it from the beginning.)

I also think Betazed is an exonym—something humans assigned them from the Greek alphabet. Which would mean their own name for themselves might be quite different! That is, if they called themselves anything at all before meeting humans.

So in short: I've got nothing, but maybe somebody else who sees this might know something?

Dr. Malachi Cohen, read his bio here:

Spockin out