Background
Grew up with her father, 2 sisters and a slew of aunts. Her mother disappeared from the picture around the time she turned 15. Speculation is that her mother took off with a hunk of a captain in charge of a rogue supply ship. The circumstances of her mother leaving are fuzzy for Ruhin and she blames herself because of her role in informing her father about her mother's involvement with the supply ship. Her memory of much of her childhood is tenuous at best.She became interested in botany very very young when her father's aunt, Tina, took her on an impromptu trip to Vulcan to see Sukev, a kind of god-father to her who she'd only known through subspace communications. It was there that she toured his great greenhouse spanning some distance in a remote part of the planet. Sukev made her promise to follow her own intuition and never let tragedy change her focus. Ruhin agreed as she did to all of his strange requests. But this time it was different and indeed as soon as she and Tina had returned to Earth, they got word that Sukev had died in his sleep. Tina wept more bitterly then than she ever did when her own husband passed away but Ruhin was too young to pick up on such subtleties. For two years, she and Tina took charge of Sukev's greenhouse until his assistant, Timur, was able to take over. Timur was Ruhin's first love and they have sporadically stayed in touch throughout the years.
It wasn't until her physical for her cadet cruise on the USS Nebraska that it was determined she had a rare genetic defect so far only known to Vulcans, that she began to wonder about Sukev and T'nea as he had called her that day. The defect has since been corrected for, though the treatment left her with a slight limp that defies medical explanation.
Her family on her mother's side is mostly unknown to her as they had cut off contact with her mother long before Ruhin was born. She has made efforts to contact this side of her family since being in Starfleet with limited success.
Her Irish heritage is from her father and Indian from her mother. Her ethnic identity is something that she is proud of and not shy about though the explanations do become tedious at times. Her Irish accent is mild but noticeable and she has kissed the Blarney Stone. She has a tattoo of a wolf and the O'Connell coat of arms on her right bicep in honor of her father and to balance out the rebellious snake that adorns her left wrist/hand, a product of an extreme but brief stint with a gang of local thugs not long after her mother's departure. How she survived is something she has only ever confronted during a mission where aliens used mind control techniques on the Pegasus crew. For the most part she has suppressed these memories and instead has the occasional nightmare.
Ruhin has lived a fairly jam-packed life with a wide range of sticky situations, family tragedies and the like but no one would really know any of this as she is not likely to discuss her past in great detail. She is pleasant and friendly though a bit aloof at times. When in the mood she can be the life of the party. She has the gift of storytelling and can play a mean game of darts.
Her cadet cruise was on the USS Nebraska and was fairly uneventful with the exception of being promoted to Acting Ensign toward the end of the cruise. After this unexplained promotion, Ruhin then transferred to the Science Division on Azeri Base for 2 years studying in a number of different labs and perfecting her linguistics training in her spare time. In these 2 years she had turned down many an assignment and only returned upon the offer of assistant CSciO on the USS Troy. On the Troy she rediscovered her love of exploration.
On the USS Adams she had a brief stint as a mission science specialist and worked closely with Captain Ian Algren. Needing a break and at the urging of Captain Algren, Lt. O'Connell returned to Starfleet for full Command Training, specializing in Leaderhip with extra diplomacy and linguistics coursework. She passed all her work with high marks but asked for re-assignment to the USS Pegasus rather than a post that was likely to provide her more of a chance of faster promotion. Partly because of a strong bond of friendship formed between Captain Algren and Lt. O'Connell forged during the Adams mission, she was in fact granted the transfer to the USS Pegasus as Chief Science Officer. After a time, and a series of major changes to the command structure of the ship, she was asked to call upon her earlier Command training in the role of Executive Officer on board the USS Pegasus.
