The sole remaining photograph of Lena Kelso.
Lena Kelso was born Lena Horen on the colony of Tauron. In spite of being born amid the chaos of the Tauron uprising, Lena was spared many of the first hand horrors of the conflict. Because of her family's relative wealth, her parents arranged for her transport off-planet to stay with relatives who'd already immigrated to Gemenon.
In spite of spending some of her earliest years on Gemenon, Lena was imbued by her relatives with a strong sense of her Tauron heritage. As the uprising abated, arrangements were made that returned Lena to her parents and her home colony. While her parents had remained behind of Tauron and weathered the uprising in person, Lena never questioned the depth of their affection for her, but nevertheless encountered a certain level of silence or emotional distance, especially when she tried to discuss with them what occurred during the uprising.
As she continued to grow, Lena came to understand that this stoicism and tight-lipped nature was a common response by many of those who'd survived the uprising.
Fascinated by the paradox that such an important societal event was routinely treated with the utmost of quiet and avoidance, Lena became very much intrigued by the study of human psychology. In fact, her near-obsession with the motivations and working of the human mind actually served to stifle her social interactions. An exceptionally attractive woman, Lena was able to turn heads wherever she went, and yet to the surprise of many rarely ever went on a date, instead preferring to immerse herself in her studies. The few times she did date, she had an almost unerring tendency to intimidate her suitors by constantly analyzing every move, every action. In spite of her own understanding of psychology, Lena was more or less blind to this trait in herself but nevertheless felt a sense of isolation over her inability to maintain a romantic relationship.
As a student the psychology, especially as it related to the effects of violence and conflict on the human mind, Lena soon received an ample opportunity to study as the Cylon War erupted across Colonial space. As the emotionally devastated veterans began to return from the front lines of this brutal conflict, Lena continued her education with nothing less than an entire society’s worth of case study subjects.
By the time she graduated with advanced degrees in psychology and psychiatry, the First Cylon War had left an utterly devastated wake of human emotional and cognitive damage that to her mind was every bit as dangerous and destructive as any physical wounds inflicted by weapons.
By the end of the First Cylon War, Lena was firmly established as a staff resident in psychiatry for the fledgling Ministry of Veterans Affairs. Regrettably, the fledgling MVA was woefully underprepared for the sheer volume of veterans seeking services. Lena herself was one of the first to warn that a violent response could be expected if the process of providing services was not streamlined. Regrettably, an incident of just such violence took place before adequate measures could be taken.