Lilly was born and raised in Cambridge, Mass. He dad taught ethics and Kant at Harvard. Her mom was a sculptor. Neither of them lived to see her graduate college. Her mom drowned in an alcohol related accident while on a family vacation in Banff, Alberta. Her dad mixed the wrong medication with the wrong scotch and died in his sleep a year later. Lilly spent her late teens and year adult life dealing with those losses, but has come through the other side much stronger for the pain. At 30, it is no longer a major waypoint in her personality terrain. She does know that compulsive and addictive behaviors come easily to her family, so she does nothing to tempt herself. Recently, she was exposed to a powerful Risan hallucinogen, and found the experience both enjoyable and liberating, but will not willingly seek such things out.

She went on to graduated from Harvard with a B.A. in Mathematics, and holds dual doctorates from MIT, one in Number Theory, and the other in Mechanical Engineering and Design. Lilly is very smart. Freak smart. Especially when it comes to numbers. She thinks of the passing tide of experiences in terms of numbers, patterns, and codes much in the way that Alan Turing, the early 20th C crypto-mathematician did. She counts Turning as one of her spiritual grandfathers, and writes encrypted haiku to him sometimes for fun. She’s a highly talented engineer as well, but it is not her oxygen the way numbers are. She looks at machines as though they were puzzle games. Her gift as Chief Engineer on Meridian is the fact that she can hold whole systems in her mind, and run little simulations as to what global effects itty bitty changes might make. Of course, all this mind power comes at a price.

Lilly is convinced that she is in direct mental contact with Hypatia of Alexandria. Hypatia was a powerful post-Hellenistic philosopher, teacher and mathematician in the 4th and 5th century CE. She was horribly tortured and killed by a group for Christian monks for political, religious and misogynistic reasons. In Lilly’s mind, Hypatia has become the Bodhisattva of Order, who remains in this world to help enlighten those with similar minds. Lilly’s every action now is calculated to help make herself a suitable host for Hypatia, should the latter choose to be reborn in her body. Only time will tell if Lilly’s faith is a true one, or if she is mad. It could go either way, really.

Lilly is loving her time on Meridian, but if Star Fleet ever offered her a position in Strategic Operations or Intelligence, she would jump at it in a heart beat.