Sylvia Tilly
Sylvia Tilly was an ambitious female Human Starfleet officer who lived during the mid-23rd century. She served aboard the  while still a cadet in 2256, later commissioned as an ensign.

Early life 
Tilly was born in 2233 on Earth. () She was raised by her mother Siobhan, a member of the Federation Diplomatic Corps, whom Tilly described as a "hardass" who refused to compromise, and whose presence was infrequent during Tilly's childhood. Siobhan had planned for her daughter to join the Diplomatic Corps as well, but Tilly ultimately chose to join Starfleet instead. (; )

In 2242, when Tilly was nine, she worked out how to make her food synthesizer produce only spumoni ice cream by calculating the exact protein concentration and small particle dispersion of emulsifiers required. ()

Tilly described her fourteen-year-old self as a "weird" child, who didn't have a lot of friends and had no one who believed in her, including herself. () In 2247, Tilly attended Musk Junior High School for six months, where she befriended May Ahearn, who gave her the nickname "Stilly". () She transferred schools when her mother got another posting. ()

Tilly claimed to have gone through "a bit of a rebellious phase" when she was sixteen, and had hacked into something. ()

In school, her mother remembered a particularly painful time when she had more trouble climbing a wall than the other children, where Tilly chose to run away rather than confront the challenge. ()

Starfleet career 
Tilly attended Starfleet Academy in San Francisco, and used to study under a particular tree popular among cadets. ()

She rated herself as the best theoretical engineer at the Academy, and was fast-tracked in order to serve aboard the Discovery, where she served in engineering. ()

USS Discovery 
Tilly initially had quarters of her own due to her "special needs", since she was allergic to polyester and viscoelastic polyurethane foam, which caused her to snore. ()

The war 
In November of 2256, she participated in her first away mission, investigating the crew's deaths aboard the . ()

Although often socially awkward, Tilly came out of her shell in certain settings, such as the party held on Discovery, even showing aptitude at 20th century beer pong. During the event, Tilly rebuked romantic advances from Lieutenant Rhys. () Paradoxically, Tilly also became a social mentor of sorts to Michael Burnham and facilitated her introduction to future romantic interest, . ()

Post-war 
In 2257, in recognition for her role in ending the , Tilly was awarded the Starfleet Medal of Honor. She received her officer's commission as an ensign and was placed on the command track. ()

Tilly continued to serve on the Discovery, under the temporary command of Captain Christopher Pike. She participated in the Command Training Program during this time, a "terrible mistake" according to her mother. (, )

Later the same year, Tilly volunteered to stay on the Discovery and accompany Burnham when she took the ship forward in time to the 32nd century, with no chance to return. She recorded a farewell message to her mother before she embarked on the journey. ()

Tilly, along with the rest of the volunteering Discovery crew, was presumed dead by Starfleet, based on the testimonies of the  senior staff. ()

32nd century 
During the 32nd century, when the Discovery first arrived, Tilly went on an away mission with Saru to find components needed to repair the ship at The Colony. () 

After Burnham was demoted due to insubordination by Saru, Tilly was offered the job of first officer and expressed her worried about taking the job to Stamets. At first, Stamets was not very reassuring to her and later gathered several members of the crew to express their support for her taking the position. ()

Following the hijacking and retaking of Discovery, Tilly continued as the ship's first officer under Captain Burnham and was promoted to Lieutenant for her actions. Several months later in 3190, Tilly and Ensign Adira Tal were sent to assist Commander Nalas and his crew aboard Deep Space Repair Beta Six. ()

Under the guidance of Dr. Hugh Culber, Tilly began exploring outside of her "comfort zone", such as eating foods she disliked (particularly macaroni and cheese and Rigelian rutabagas), sleeping in different positions, and taking longer walks to the bridge, as well as volunteering to help Saru water the plants in his quarters. Motivated by a desire to help her find something "meaningfully unusual" to do, Saru recommended that she accompany Captain Burnham on a mission with the Qowat Milat to track down the rogue nun J'Vini. (). She later related these activities to Culber as "baby steps", wanting something more challenging.

Culber had been approached by Dr. Kovich, working as a consultant for the newly-reopened Starfleet Academy, looking for a member of Discoverys crew to lead a group of cadets in a team-building exercise. Culber recommended Tilly, with Adira Tal accompanying her at his suggestion in order to work on their own team-building skills. Despite initial resistance by the cadets and being stranded on a dangerous Class L ice moon, Tilly was successfully able to convince the cadets to work together and survive. Upon her return to Federation Headquarters, Kovich offered Tilly a teaching position at Starfleet Academy. Re-examining her career path and the events that had occurred in her life, Tilly chose to accept. ()

Personal relationships

Friendships

Michael Burnham

Upon meeting Michael Burnham, who at the time was an inmate being assigned to share quarters with Tilly temporarily, Tilly was delighted at the thought of having a roommate, stating "A roommate is like an automatic, built-in friend." While Tilly's offer of friendship was initially rebuked by a cold Burnham, and returned later in engineering, Tilly soon found herself admiring Burnham's courage. While still lacking confidence, Tilly shared her closely held dream with Burnham: that she would be a starship captain some day. Burnham, admiring Tilly's optimism, took her under her wing – often engaging in physical and dietary training together. ()

Tilly kept a photograph of herself and Burnham in their quarters, next to both of their Starfleet Medal of Honor. ()

Later, she volunteered to travel to the future with Burnham in Discovery despite not being able to return home. ()

Me Hani Ika Hali Ka Po

Paul Stamets
Tilly and Paul Stamets frequently worked together on the spore drive. Tilly was one of the first to know of Stamets' side effects after injecting himself with the tardigrade DNA during the Klingon War. After Culber died, Tilly was the first to try and convince Stamets to stay on the Discovery instead of taking a job at the Vulcan Science Academy. () When Tilly was infected by , he tried to help her remove the creature and tried to calm her down when she was panicking. He later went into the network to save Tilly after she had been abducted by May. () After the jump to the future, Stamets, along with some of the other crew members, encouraged Tilly to take the job of first officer after Saru had offered it to her. () She was familiar enough with him to call him "Paul" instead of by rank or last name during a crisis. ()

May Ahearn
Tilly met the real May Ahearn when she briefly attended Musk Junior High School in 2247. They frequently ate lunch together. Tilly never spoke to May again after her mother was transferred to another posting.

After being injured during an attempt to remove a piece of the dark matter asteroid, in 2257, Tilly started seeing a hallucination of Ahearn. After learning the real Ahearn had died in 2252, Tilly discovered the hallucination she was seeing was in fact  of a species native to the mycelial network. ()

Saru

Tilly respected Saru as a superior officer, and asked for his recommendation to the Command Training Program. () Upon acceptance, Tilly often worked with Saru as her CTP director. ()

When Tilly tended to get overexcited and ramble informally in tense situations, Saru often advised her to maintain her professionalism. () Though when appropriate, he also allowed her to do so if it helped her remain calm, such as when they hiked together to a settlement on "The Colony" in 3189. ()

Romance 
Tilly indicated that she had, at various points, been interested in "musician"-types and "soldier"-types. ()

Personal interests
Tilly had read everything there was available on Captain Philippa Georgiou, and was exceptionally excited at the prospect of meeting her after her presumed death. ()

Tilly enjoyed espresso with milk alternative, as well as ice cream. () She did not like cheese or macaroni and cheese. ()

Memorable quotes
"What the heck… heck… hell? What the hell! Hold your horses!" 
 - Tilly, attempting to impersonate Captain "" ()

"Yeah, when the people who are supposed to care about you don't listen to you, it's frightening and it's lonely, and it makes you feel like you're crazy or like you're, like, not even there. I get that."
- Tilly, reminiscing her youth to Me Hani Ika Hali Ka Po ()

Appendices

Appearances
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References

Background information
Sylvia Tilly was portrayed by Mary Wiseman. The character was named after the young niece of Gretchen J. Berg. ()

Apocrypha
Tilly is the focus of the novel The Way to the Stars. Her grandmother on her mother's side is revealed to be named , while Tilly's father is named Iain and serves as a lieutenant specializing in xenoarcheology on the science vessel Dorothy Garrod since a year before Tilly's sixteenth birthday. Tilly's mention in the episode "Project Daedalus" of having run away from home at age 16 and engaging in computer-hacking was very likely a direct reference to the events of this novel, which was released prior to the TV episode.

Tilly appears in the "Age of Discovery" expansion to Star Trek Online, voiced by Mary Wiseman. In the tutorial for Discovery-era player characters, set shortly after the Battle of the Binary Stars, Tilly is a third-year cadet at the Academy, whose engineering aptitude allowed her to be chosen as chief engineer for the cadet cruise aboard a  vessel. When the player character, a fourth-year cadet, unexpectedly becomes the captain, Tilly remains as chief engineer until the ship returns to Earth after rescuing the miners of Corvan II, after which she parts ways with the player just before her eventual assignment to the Discovery. Tilly was also the voice for level-up notifications for Discovery-era Starfleet characters, before being replaced by Gabriel Lorca in May 2019.

External links

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Humans
Starfleet Academy personnel
Starfleet command personnel
Starfleet operations personnel
USS Discovery personnel