Lieutenant JG Constance 'Connie' Montoya

Name Constance 'Connie' Montoya

Position Counselor

Rank Lieutenant JG

Basic Info
Personality
History

Character Information

Gender		Female
Species		Human
Age		37

Physical Appearance

Height		5'9"
Hair Color		Brown
Eye Color		Hazel
Physical Description		Connie Montoya carries herself with a tall, refined poise that speals of quiet assumed authority and deliberate restraint. Standing at around 5'9", she has a slim, willowy frame and moves with the kind of efficiency that never wastes a gesture. Her face is long and angular, with high cheekbones, a finely shaped jaw, and eyes the colour of burnished hazel, sharp and observant beneath neatly arched brows. At first glance there was little warmth in her expression by default, but an intense, watchful intelligence make her presence undeniable, and her smile softens her face. Her dark brown hair is always impeccably kept, worn in sleek styles or pinned back in professional, understated waves that frames her pale complexion. Her voice is low and precise, a velvet edge to every carefully chosen word, with a cadence that demands attention without raising volume. Her uniform is always crisp, and off duty she favours structured, neutral clothing that echoes her composed aesthetic. And skirts. She is quite fond of skirts and heels.

Family

Personality & Traits

General Overview		Connie is a seasoned counsellor specialising in trauma, with a deep well of patience, empathy, and resolve. She's a realist and she doesn’t romanticise recovery or underestimate what trauma can do to a person; but she still believes in the potential for healing. She is analytical and observant, and reads people with precision, picking up on the smallest shifts in body language and tone. It is a learned trait, echoing from a childhood of rubbing shoulders with diplomats and people in position of power within the Federation. She’s deeply ethical, sometimes weary, and often finds herself walking the line between hope and realism. She avoids confrontation when possible but holds her ground when it counts. Her manner is calm, intentional, and unshaken even by the most emotionally guarded individuals. Off duty, she is somewhat reserved, not out of a lack of wanting connection but because of her job. She tries to leave it behind in her office, but the emotional drain of her position leaves her very little want to go out there and get involved. She does make the effort though, heading to lounge or going to the holodeck for walks. She always speaks in a very polite way, but there is a sharp humour under there too. She does not suffer fools or liars kindly and will challenge anyone trying to pull the wool over her eyes.
Strengths & Weaknesses		Strengths: • Trauma Expertise: Deep understanding of psychological and emotional trauma, especially among war veterans. • Emotional Intelligence: Reads people with ease, rarely misses subtext or manipulation. • Restraint: Knows when to hold silence, when to speak, and how to maintain professional distance without detachment. • Cultural Insight: Well-versed in human and Federation history, particularly the ideological evolution of Starfleet. Weaknesses: • Cynicism: Though she hides it well, Connie sometimes battles with disillusionment, especially when change is slow or fails to materialise. • Isolation: Maintains emotional distance to protect herself, which can make her seem cold or aloof to colleagues. This is something that she is working on through therapy. • Burnout Risk: Years of absorbing others' pain has begun to wear on her, and she rarely allows herself space to recover. • Limited Rapport with Brass: Her frank reports and unwillingness to “sanitise” trauma for senior officers have made her politically unpopular at times in the past. She also expects the same from the lowest crewman as she does her Captain and she will go and hunt them out if either miss their session.
Ambitions		• To create an internal model for trauma-informed support structures aboard starships and outposts. • Quietly hopes to be part of a crew that changes lives for the better, perhaps one individual at a time.
Hobbies & Interests		Connie would usually chuckle at the idea of calling it a hobby, but one of her habits has become making herself a twice-daily pot of tea. Always the same way, in the same teapot. It is always Assam, with a dash of milk and no sugar. She enjoys reading and annotating essays by pre-Federation philosophers and early Starfleet ethicists. She is fond of hiking and will book time in the holodeck to walk around the woods that she once use to ride in as a teenager. She is also fond of classical music, usually Earth compositions, quiet piano pieces and string quartets. She has a secret enjoyment of historical crime fiction and holodeck novels. She used to fence at Oxford.

Personal History

Constance, or Connie as she was always called, was born and raised in the English countryside on Earth, on a sprawling estate that had belonged to her mother’s family for generations. The manor house was old enough to have its own ghosts, both literal and metaphorical…echoes of war heroes, diplomats, and idealists carved into dusty portraits and family lore. From a young age, she absorbed the rhythm of that life: the quiet ticking of antique clocks, the soft scuff of boots across stone floors, the expectation that she would carry herself with decorum at the breakfast table, even if she was only eight years old.

She was the third of five children, with an older brother already groomed to inherit the estate and the family name’s more public responsibilities. The assumption was that Connie, sharp and articulate, would take her place in diplomacy or Federation politics, like generations before her. But even as a child, Connie had an inconvenient habit of asking uncomfortable questions. She didn’t just parrot Federation values: she dissected them. She wanted to know why a treaty had failed, why a war had started, why the adults around her said one thing and meant another. By twelve, she could read a room better than most visiting dignitaries, with a raised eyebrow and a slight frown pulling her lips down. By fourteen, she had no patience for hollow pleasantries and had called her aunt a hypocrite over tea…correctly, though it didn’t win her many favours.

She was considered precocious when she was small, a bit of a curiosity with her intense stare and knack for saying things no one else dared. But as she grew into her teens, the charm wore thin. Her refusal to “play the game” of politics made her increasingly difficult to manage in the eyes of her family. When she finally declared, at seventeen, that she had no intention of pursuing a diplomatic career and, in fact, lacked the stomach for it, relations with her parents, especially her mother, cooled. Not a rupture, but a mutual retreat. Still, they supported her when she was accepted to read Psychology at the University of Oxford. That support was partly pride, partly relief: she was someone else’s problem now.

At Oxford, Connie found what she hadn’t known she was looking for: people who valued ideas over appearances. She lived in dorms rather than commute from the estate…her decision entirely, and not one her family understood. She found her footing among ethicists, behaviourists, philosophers, and late-night arguments that turned into lifelong questions. She detested performative debate, and loathed poetry: especially after a fellow undergrad attempted to woo her with Shakespearean sonnets in the courtyard until she tersely informed him that she had no interest in him, or anyone else. She was there to learn, not to be someone’s muse.

She flourished academically. Psychology offered her structure and depth, a way to give language to the patterns she’d seen in people all her life. She became increasingly fascinated by the mind’s ability to both heal and fracture, how people survived things they shouldn’t have, and why some never made it back. When offered a place to pursue her PhD, she nearly accepted. But the Dominion War had begun, and something in her wouldn’t let her stay in the ivory tower. She wasn’t built to study trauma from a distance. She wanted to face it directly. So she turned down the offer, packed her bags, and applied to Starfleet Academy instead.

Starfleet Academy was a different beast altogether. Though she was firmly on the Counselling track, her training was broad by necessity. She completed courses in phaser handling, first aid and minor medical procedures, basic starship systems, and even elected to earn a shuttle pilot’s accreditation: not out of passion, but out of pragmatism. The Dominion War was in full force during her Academy years, and while cadets were kept largely within the safety of Earth and its training programmes, the sense of conflict was never far away. Some cadets dropped out. Others, like Connie, re-focused with quiet intensity.

She chose to specialise in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder, a decision that raised a few eyebrows among instructors. There were concerns she was steering herself into a field many avoided…one too emotionally demanding for a young officer without field experience. But Connie was adamant. She wasn’t about to turn her back on the disciplines most needed, simply because they were painful to confront. If people were breaking, someone had to be willing to look directly at the break.

She graduated in 2377. Her early years in service were shaped by the long aftershock of the war. Assigned first to Starfleet Medical on Earth, she treated personnel from every branch: officers, enlisted, medical staff, engineers, even the occasional diplomat. Some of them coped. Some didn’t. Many struggled to reintegrate, especially those from the Ground Forces. Connie quickly realised that psychological recovery was only part of the challenge. She began requesting assignments to starbases and outer colonies where the Federation was still rebuilding: physically, politically, and emotionally.

It was there she learned how to assess not just individual mental health, but the failure of systems: overburdened departments, underprepared leadership, and cultural blind spots within Starfleet itself. Counselling was stretched thin. The need was immense. And yet there was a lingering shame among those most affected. Officers who had survived the worst of the war were often ashamed to ask for help, skilled at masking distress, or had invented brittle, solitary coping mechanisms. So Connie worked. Quietly. Relentlessly.

She built a reputation: for her patients, she was tireless, perceptive, and grounded. For her colleagues and commanding officers…she was something of a challenge. She questioned policy. She didn’t soften her assessments for the sake of hierarchy. She refused to play the political games required to climb the chain of command, especially if it meant sacrificing someone’s well-being for optics. She became known as the counsellor you absolutely wanted caring for your crew, but perhaps not one you’d invite to a staff meeting. Especially given her tendency to assume she belonged there anyway.

By 2387, after ten years of service across various ships and stations…rarely staying longer than two years before her candour made her someone’s problem to be quietly transferred, Connie Montoya set her bag down aboard the USS Guinevere. One of several counsellors assigned to the vessel, she took the post without ceremony. Another new start. Another crew to understand. And, perhaps, one more chance to do some good.