Then in her twelfth year of life her family moved to Vulcan on a semi-permanent basis. There she learned much of that side of her joint heritage and strongly reinforced what her mother had taught her about logic to that point. She continued on there until she turned 17 and graduated her secondary education, where she applied and was accepted to Oxford, where she studied for four years doing pre-med with a minor in psychology. As it turned out she found psychology more interesting than other medical sciences and so before continuing any further on her medical training enrolled in Starfleet Academy’s counseling program.

There she found herself enjoying the companionship and comradery of the Fleet, something absent in her life until then. She also made a good friend, her roommate Serena Nobuyuki, a traditionalist Japanese woman who like M’Ri was training to be a counselor. Though Nobuyuki and M’Ri often had vastly different views on how their duty should be performed both women got on well in social situations and even enjoyed debating their view points on their profession. Though they were close during the academy, their relationship became distant and sporadic after graduation and both move out into the galaxy to pursue their careers.

M’Ri’s assignment out of the Academy was Starbase 417 on the Cardassian border where at first she aided the Diplomatic Corps in trying to secure alliances with neutral powers along the border but once the war with the Dominion began in earnest she was quickly used to help counsel the wounded personnel that were on the station after being rotated back from the front lines. She performed her job well with only the blemish of a reprimand for insubordination when she slapped the station’s XO for a too forward advance. After the war she remained on 417 again in a more diplomatic capacity but quickly tired of it and wanted a change of assignment and had put in several requests for Starship assignment. Unfortunately there were still plenty of Counselors after the war and her requests were denied until she was offered a position on the USS Valiant by Julius Delacour. He chose her because of her friendship with the ship’s former counselor Serena Nobuyuki, who had died in a skirmish with the Romulans, the thinking being that the crew would be more willing to accept someone who knew Nobuyuki and felt their loss. While devastated by the loss of her old friend, M’Ri accepted the position, which she was warned would be ‘interesting’ by her superiors in Starfleet Medical.