2369: Starfleet Academy, San Francisco, Earth, First Year Cadet

2370: Starfleet Academy, San Francisco, Earth, Second Year Cadet

2371: Starfleet Academy, San Francisco, Earth, Third Year Cadet

2372: Starfleet Academy, San Francisco, Earth, Fourth Year Cadet

2373: Starfleet Medical, San Francisco, Earth

2374: Starfleet Medical, San Francisco, Earth

2374: Assigned, Medical Officer, Starfleet HQ/Academy botanical-synthesis pharmacological treatments

2376: Assigned research run on USS Sarek as a Medical Officer conducting research with alien botanical pharmacological surveys

2384: Transferred, Ensign, Medical Officer, USS Galaxy

Mestith, like all of his species, are born sentient, though the misnomer of birth is highly inaccurate. They are 'alive' for a long period prior to sentience, many decades in fact, gaining size and mass as their secondary life-stage grows from a seed through to a emergence pod. Once the pod is the right size, once the new Shehuryll has been formed, they emerge fully-formed and 'adult', if young.

It is unknown who had seeded the grove that Mestith matured in, it is unknown specifically which Shehuryll matings brought about his traits. What is know is that his fertilized seed was cast onto the soil some thirty years prior where it dug itself into the fertile, dry soil and waited for the annual rains to flood the alluvial plains.

A year or so later it rained and his and the other few hundred sleeping seeds awoke to moisture and nutrient-rich soil and sprouted, quickly pushing upward to nourishing light and downward to life-sustaining water deep in the soil.

Many years and seasons passed, insect swarms ravaged the groves, herbivores trimmed them back and milked them for their fluids, until finally, several of the central pods cracked open and the newly released Shehuryll young stepped out into their very old world.

Mestith, like many of his species, journeyed to a local city and acquired contacts from which to gain food and moisture and adornment for his body. He remembered his prior life, genetically passed down, though the time of seeding was always difficult to remember. Within moments of arrival he fertilized three 'bearers' who had become swollen with Ounah, the 'winds of life'. As it was close to their time to go and release potential life into the winds, he annointed each of them and sent them into the desert, giving his blessing for a swift rebirth.

For the Shehuryll life is fairly idyllic. They want for little and industry and craft exist mostly for their enjoyment and the pursuit of diversion. They evolved sentience and domesticated animals and plants, developed agriculture and technology and began to consider what they were and why they were there.

As a species the Shehuryll developed an industrial age but most of their industry was based on physical principles far less destructive than most other species. Electricity was observed in the rains and then found in the stones, when sunlight or pressure was applied to certain crystals. Solar power was quickly developed and then harder industries developed.

Since the Shehuryll passed information to their surviving young genetically, the scientific and industrial base of the civilization evolved quickly and smoothly, though the occasional industrial accident still occurred. The Shehuryll were always alarmed by any impact they made to their delicate ecosystem and were quick to make repairs, which made their skills in terraforming very advanced for a culture with a similar tech-level. Chemistry and biochemistry followed but they lacked the desire to tamper, because also as a spiritual people, the natural evolution of the species was considered paramount.

Mestith remembers from a prior incarnation when his people had attained flight, remembered when the skies were filled with ultralight solar-powered craft. He remembers when the first chemical rockets were developed and quickly abandoned for more efficient hydrogen/oxygen drives. A few decades later gravitons were discovered and a decade or so later, the first tractor/pressor was tested. A decade longer saw regular traffic to and from orbit, a lunar base established and lunar industry begun.

A second less hospitable and most barren planet was discovered slight further out in their system and the Shehuryll colonized it, terraforming it. It had seemed to have even less water than their own world but after some decades of work they found vast underground seas. About that time they encountered another intelligent life form.

First Contact with the Mihoa was difficult, not for the Shehuryll but for the Mihoa who had never believed that anything lived beyond the surface, had never ventured to the surface for more than the few exploratory missions to see what was up there. By and large, racially conditioned to fear open spaces, they were terrified of the prospect of beings from the "sky".

The Shehuryll left the world alone after that, leaving the Minoah to sort themselves out and promising not to return, or allow others to come, without being invited.

Thirty years before Mestith's memories became blurry, the Shehuryll generated their first, completed, jump-link. Using two huge stations that generated a subspace fold between them, the Shehuryll were able to send ships back and forth between them at warp speeds.

They were already able to generate warp speeds on their own but they used ships that had "charges" of stored energy and used that energy to move from place to place at warp speed.

By the prior reincarnation, the Shehuryll had managed to find a habitable and uninhabited world eighteen lightyears distant, had completed a jump station and were using them to travel back and forth regularly.

Expansion proceeded slowly because though the Shehuryll had developed medicine and advanced chemistry, they kept their reproductive processes and the mortality of their spawn as it had been for billions of years to limit their growth. But their species lacked many of the natural conditions and predators on their colony world that caused a higher mortality and they experienced something of a "population explosion". In his last incarnation, Mestith traveled far and wide and met many new races and cultures, becoming something of an expert while continuing research in viable botanical pharmacology.

By the time the Federation made first contact six years prior, the Shehuryll still only had the one colony and the jump-link between them but they had created a fairly large fleet of low-warp vessels using less dangerous and less powerful methods. Their ships are organic, mostly gigantic living floraforms, colony-life that sustains itself and its crew through a symbiotic relationship.

In that time they have traveled far and wide and though they have avoided contact with less-advanced species, they have impressed their other more capable neighbors with their willingness to engage in trade and discourse. And thought they do not have internal commerce, per se, the Shehuryll love adornment and beauty of all kinds and have shown willingness to trade with other species for such things.

Mestith is very much a social creature. Not animal life, per se, he still enjoys many things animal-creatures like to do such as talk, socialize, create art and form relationships.

He also likes to 'taste' new things and though he 'eats' in much the same fashion most other humanoids do, he doesn't need to eat much or often.

In behavior he is a bit reserved because he prefers to look for the "animal hierarchy". His people have no such thing but he has learned in the intervening years that most animal-groups do, even in the wild on his homeworld. He has encountered resistance and threat-response from animals when he asserted himself and so has found it best to be invited into a social interaction rather than to take the initiative and do it himself.

This doesn't mean that he is passive, if only because he has a different drive than many species exhibit. His people don't have complex social hierarchies nor do they have families. They do mate and they understand love and passions of all sorts but like Vulcans, though they have emotions, they are somewhat subdued. It the comparison of Vulcans though, where Vulcans choose, Shehuryll simple are.

Mestith does not compete with others, he simply does as well as he can. He doesn't have a 'moral compass', he simply behaves 'the correct way'. He doesn't try to be arrogant but he is self-assured and confident in himself and often, he has observed with others who have low self-opinions, that is perceived as a threat and the label of arrogance is applied. Mestith is also very open with himself and in all but a few subjects, he will answer any question put to him truthfully and with ebullience.

Psychological Profile

Starfleet Medical Counseling Offices, San Francisco - excerpt of log of assessor Lt. Jane Andrews

On the individual Mestith, and I use that term because it seems to be the best technical identifier of biological pronoun, I found intriguing. Though his people have accepted the designation "he" as a pronoun in standard, it doesn't seem to fit exactly. In the years since the Shehuryll first became members of the Federation, off in their distant little sector of our space, they have had little overt contact with us. They sent individuals to us to learn and for us to learn from and then once that was done, those individuals most departed back to their homeworld and systems. A few, like Mestith, have remained.

I found this subject, this person, very interesting. As a being with a very advanced civilization, who have had warp for centuries longer than the Federation has existed, they have done little exploration. A few dozen worlds explored, a couple of other species encountered and trade relations created and that's it. He observed that in comparison with humans had we had warp as long, we would have either destroyed ourselves or be spread all over both quadrants in that time.

When I asked him what Mestith meant by that I certainly wasn't expecting the explanation I got. "Understand that this is not meant as an insult but Humans, like most shorter-lived species, do not see the 'long view'. You can try to predict perhaps a few years or decades ahead, you make your advances quickly because you need to be fulfilled in your lifetimes and your advances do that for you. Science has become your mana, your faith and exploring everything that is must be done right now because you might die and never know."

So I asked Mestith what that meant exactly. I asked exactly how old this individual was.

"In your terms I am both just over two of your centuries old and over forty centuries as well. I exist in two levels, the present and the past. I remember the development of gravity-technology, particle decay cores and the subsequent subspace field research. I remember the colonization of our moons and the long process to terraform them. I remember the first of us that were born on those bodies and I remember first contact with the Federation. I was on the ship that was waiting for the Starship when it dropped out of warp and 'discovered us'."

That was when I started to get the feeling I might've been a tad out of my depth. I pressed on and avidly recorded everything because, despite medical scans and suppositions, the Shehuryll haven't been overly forthcoming with medical data and have given us nothing about their reproduction. We know they do, we believe they live approximated three to five centuries on average and that they never speak of children, though the concept of 'young' is applied to some of their people. Of 'females' we have only heard of "Bearers" a few times and at those times, the word was spoken reverentially.

"So you are quite old then?" I had asked, trying to clarify this concept, to wrap my mind around it.

"No, I am still not yet middle-years." He paused and gazed out the window into the bright sunshine and the growing plants. "Your world has such great diversity of plant and animal life. When you were developing as a species, before you had learned how to leave it, did you cherish these creatures and plants? Did you see to their welfare and to maintain a balance?"

I began to feel very uncomfortable at this point, despite the fragrance he seemed to emit that was vaguely relaxing (I had been assured by medical that if I wasn't allergic, there was no harm in his pheromone discharges). I knew from their records that Shehuryll were like Betazoids and sense emotions in non-plant species but more often than not couldn't communicate mind-to-mind-with them so any type of deception would be counterproductive and rude, regardless how I personally felt on the subject.

I sighed, "No. Not really."

"Why is that?" he asked, cocking his head and smiling softly, as if he already knew the answer (as I suspected he did) and wanted me to come to it.

"We warred amongst ourselves," I explained softly, sadly. "Over resources, over differences between us, over territory, over technology- mostly just out of fear." I gestured a bit helplessly, "We didn't take care of our world and we wiped whole species of plants and animals out, even sentient species we didn't recognize their sentience or rights until it was almost too late."

He nodded silently, a gesture he had picked up from us and his skin tone turned a bit lighter, a visual cue of agreement and positivity as I understood it.

"But we're past that now," I added slowly. "We don't make war now, we don't fight over resources and we look for sentient life in all its myriad forms."

"Do you?" he asked, again cocking his head, smiling, his color remaining light. "Did not the Federation attempt to displace the Ba'ku from their colony world to gain access to their metaphasic radiation? Did not they align themselves with a species that used technology and methods that directly violate three prior treaties with other, closer and more powerful, neighboring governments?"

"All of that was a rogue organization within Starfleet," I replied and waved my hand casually to dismiss it.

"Ah," Mestith simply replied, skin darkening slightly as he looked back out the window. "And how do those actions appear to the rest of the galactic community? How does that 'rogue organization' you just dismissed, prove that you now do not make war on others, do not fight over resources and do not predate other species, sentient species, to extinction?"

I was frankly at a loss for words. He had challenged me and I was embarrassed and angry and defensive. My response was 'How dare he!? What does he know about anything?" But I remained silent, flushed, while he turned back and watched me with that same 'patient teacher' expression.

"It really doesn't does it?" I asked and he nodded slowly.

"One act of violence, one act of greed, one act of divisive aggression undoes a thousand years the contrary," he explained. "So in fact, though the Federation holds these ideals you still strive to reach and maintain them. The trick is not to become arrogant that you have attained them and yet you still do these things and dismiss them by blaming someone else."

"I did that didn't I?" I asked, chuckling slightly and I admit, embarrassed.

"You did," he agreed with me and nodded graciously. In a way it was more soothing because there was no malice in his voice, more an amused agreement, like we were laughing over a mild joke. "And this is what I meant. My people cherish our resources, we cherish our people, we cherish our world and our ecosystem. We cherish all life equally and we go slow because we do not wish to intrude, we do not wish to give offense, we do not wish to cause conflict."

I nodded slowly, understanding some of that now. "So your people are careful not to trod over life you cannot see or do not recognize because that would be inconsistent with your beliefs."

"If you like," he agreed, giving me a positive indication and a negative one at the same time. Obviously I wasn't getting it but it was workable and that was what he was allowing for. I wasn't a Shehuryll and he was trying to explain something so ingrained into him and his species that it was part of their very nature, not a particular belief.

It was some time after this, while visiting a friend who is a botanist here at SFC that the subject came up. He had postulated that the Shehuryll could possibly be polar to animal life in their natural instincts and behaviors because ultimately animals break things down into food, mating, safety.

As a plant, even an intelligent one, we assume he would have the same drives when if fact, it seemed they didn't.

The Shehuryll came from an inhospitable world with few temperate regions, at best most of it could be considered 'arid'. Yet as a plant lifeform they not only survived but thrived, adapted to hard physical conditions. In similar conditions on earth, succulents or cacti, worked cooperatively in the ecosystem instead of competitively. Many even shared the same root systems in order to access moisture.

If the same parallel was drawn, the Shehuryll was a species that cooperated on a level we have never encountered before, that are individuals and yet connected in some fashion I hesitate to try to define and who do not compete, period. They draw their nutrients more easily than we do, they need little in the way of material possessions to survive and they don't attach value to resources because there is no hierarchy.

The fact that they could recognize and fit into a hierarchy gave testament to their flexibility as intellects but ever since the entrance assessment and subsequent interviews, I haven't seen much affect that Federation ideas have had on Mestith. He remains true to what he is, despite working with us and our animal hierarchies, he is conscious of our differences and similarities and seems to rejoice in them.

He reminds me of Admiral Spock, actually.

I have forwarded this information to Starfleet Member World Sociology division to see if they have any more information on this and will contact the Counselor of Mestith's postings for more information as it comes available. They are a unique species, with a unique outlook and I believe may be able to teach us a great deal.

End report.

The Shehuryll are flora-forms, that is instead of evolving from animals they have evolved from lower plant-life. In many ways they seem to imitate or mimic animal life, being humanoid and having 'eyes', 'noses' and 'mouths' (thank the Preservers for that), they are still distinctly different.

Their biology (such as it is) is more photosynthetic than chemical/caloric. Despite that they produce a higher energy producing biotic in their bodies that gives them greater energy for quick movement and motile thought, thus having similar perceptions of time and the ability to move quickly like animals.

The Shehuryll are a species that has evolved from a more primitive state and while they do not have many of the passions of other species, they do have self-preservation instincts and will defend others, defending their relationship to that being. To that end they have the means to defend themselves from outside threats through a variety of plant-like defense mechanisms.

Shehuryll teeth are not only detachable but can be launched up to three meters away with great force, penetrating dense hide. They are very accurate and can usually hit a moving target less than two-centimeters across at that range (like an eye). When doing so they are impregnated with an acidic soporific that simultaneous burns and affect the neurochemical balance of the target, instigating sleep. In ancient times, this is how their species hunted for food, by firing and biting their prey, injecting poison through detachable "stinger-like" teeth. The typical member of their species has eighty-eight "teeth" and can replace one in a few hours. Likewise, they have "nails" like most humanoids but like their teeth, they are detachable and poisonous if detached.

Shehuryll release odors that communicate physiological status to one another, from basic emotional states to readiness to mate for reproduction. Since they only reproduce once in their lifetime, this is a distinct odor and one few non-Shehuryll are likely to encounter. Many of the pheramones they release can affect animals and tend to do one of three things: Relax, attract (food) or attract (mate). An angry or distressed Shehuryll can release a repellent pheromone which, along with coloration changes, will often send a clear message of "I'm dangerous, do not touch". Of course the effect is subjective and depends on many factors such as sensitivity to odor, compatible biochemistry and constitution.

Their bones are fibrous and more flexible than that of bioforms, resembling the cartilage of Terran sharks more than anything. Likewise, much of their florology is decentralized which make it difficult to kill them easily. Like a plant they can lose a limb and grow a replacement or even shed a part that has become sick. Not even decapitating them will kill or much affect their memory, though they are unable to see, smell or taste anything while regrowing a new "head".

If an illness reached the trunk, or internal network of fluids and the Shehuryll is in danger of dying, they can enter the reproductive stage spontaneously in an attempt to reincarnate. This, of course, requires either a mate or a sample of Ouna from a donor stored against this emergency. All star-traveling Shehuryll usually have such a thing on hand.

When a Shehuryll changes to an aggressive or defensive posture, not only does their odor change but their skin does as well. Bright colors that indicate danger to various animals also indicate their aggressive/defensive stance and is as unconscious to them as a flush is to a human. As chlorophyll-based beings they change colors and can produce quite intricate patterns on their skins, at will, though often the anger/fear response unconscious. Sometimes these can be used to help them hide or camouflage. Most of the time, however, it is used to help communicate with one another or evoke a specific response.

Because of their communal nature and the nature of what they are, the Shehuryll are like Betazoids and that they are telepathic amongst their own species and other floraforms capable of processing actual thought. In animals and most other species they can sense moods, get emotional surges and (as seen above) can sometimes influence the moods of others.

Like many plants, some animals are allergic to them and the Shehuryll are very careful not to cause others stress from their presence. They do not delight in the suffering of others, even great enemies and do not believe in torture. So in a social situation with visitors or crew, they will go to great pains to prevent causing discomfort.

In recent millenium the Shehuryll have begun to take their spirituality in new directions, becoming more ascetic and disciplined in those that wish to develop their own understanding of themselves. Because they seem to transmit this information directly to progeny and offspring, any new knowledge and experience is considered valuable as it enriches the whole. To that end, sufficient resources have been diverted to those who wish to do so to live their entire lives in contemplation of one sort or another. This has, interestingly, led to the development of great arts and greater medical development.

Shehuryll adepts have learned many strange and new abilities, unlocking abilities within themselves that hearken back to their pre-sentient lives, accessing racial genetic memories from thousands of years before. With this access comes new levels of understanding, new levels of perception and in many cases a level of contentment.