NAME: Miranda, daughter of Chang
BORN: Brestant, Klingon Empire, 2279 AD
FIRST DEATH: 2303 AD
TEACHERS: Methos, Kyra
For centuries it was believed that only humans, born of Earth stock, could be Immortal. Even Nonus Flavius Commodus, though born on 892-IV (Magna Roma) was nonetheless human. But it was in the year 2303 that the first non-human Immortal was discovered, a Klingon female with the most un-Klingon name of Miranda.
By the latter half of the twenty-third century, the world of Brestant, within the Klingon Empire, had a high population of QuchHa', translating to "Unhappy Ones" in Klingonese. These were Klingons whose ancestors, in the middle of the twenty-second century, were infected, via the experiments of a Klingon scientist named Antaak, with genetically enhanced human DNA left over from Earth's Eugenics Wars. These Klingons and their descendants were left with extremely un-Klingon appearances, chief among them being mostly smooth foreheads, with little to no trace of the ridges distinctive of the majority of the species.
In 2279 an infant QuchHa' girl was found abandoned in the Brestani countryside. No clue could be found as to who had bore and then abandoned her. But it was a QuchHa' adult male who decided to take this infant and raise her as his own daughter. His name was Chang; he named his adopted child Miranda, after the heroine of William Shakespeare's The Tempest. Despite being of Earth origin, the works of Shakespeare had been circulating in the Empire since being introduced to Antaak by the Denobulan physician Phlox over a century before.
As Miranda grew up, her adoptive father taught her not only the tales of Kahless the Unforgettable, but also the wisdom of Shakespeare, and she too came to share Chang's love of the human bard, developing especially strong fondness for King Lear, Hamlet and Macbeth. In 2292 she decided to enroll in the monastery on Boreth, but less than a year into her studies, she was suddenly recalled to Qo'noS, the Klingon homeworld, by traumatic news: Her father was not only dead; he had been found guilty of being party to the assassination of Gorkon, Chancellor of the High Council, on the eve of talks of alliance between the Empire and the United Federation of Planets, and of the added dishonor of framing Captain James T. Kirk for Gorkon's murder. Azetbur, Gorkon's daughter and successor as Chancellor, condemned Miranda and her adoptive mother - Chang's widow - as sharing in Chang's disgrace, according to Klingon tradition. Azetbur even contacted Kirk and offered the legendary Starfleet hero the lives of Chang's wife and child as compensation for the indignations he had been forced to unjustly endure. And though Kirk chose to spare their lives, Miranda and her mother were discommendated and exiled from the Empire.
Forced into the lives of outcasts, Miranda and her mother spent years wandering from world to desolate world, without hope for a prosperous future, with Miranda forever cursing her maghwI' father and wishing to join him in Gre'thor one day only so she could tear open his chest and rip out his heart with her teeth for what he had done to her.
Miranda's mother died of illness in 2303 when they were living a decrepit existence on the neutral, crime-infested world of Arcturus IV. Desiring to end her life in combat, Miranda armed herself with a mek'leth blade, marched into a tavern and challenged a party of Klingons she found there, making no secret that she was the daughter of the vile Chang. Her challenge accepted, she responded by quoting Macbeth: "'Before my body / I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff; / And damned be him that first cries 'Hold, / enough!''" Putting up a good fight, she was ultimately slain.
But Gre'thor and her father did not await her, as she expected. Instead death refused to fully embrace her, and she returned to the world of living to encounter Methos, one of the oldest surviving Immortals, who currently held the occupation of a dealer in kevas and trillium, and had been visiting Arcturus IV and been in the tavern when she entered, sensing her latent Immortality. Initally wary of this human stranger, it did not take very long for Miranda to grow accustomed to Methos, and allow him to school her in the ways of their kind. Methos shorly introduced her to Kyra, Immortal warrior woman of the ancient Earth nation-state of Sparta, who provided her additional training and became a valued ally of the Klingon female.