The Life Story of Shkor-Dyet Dom'Pesh

[Mofo1995]

So I was writing a head of staff whitelist app, and in the backstory section I ended up writing a massive wall of text. I decided that no one reviewing a whitelist app wants to read an essay's worth of material, and so I decided to plop it down here in the character stories subforum. Have I screwed up and stepped on the toes of anything lore related? Let me know! Does my character suck? You can let me know if you really want to. I for one, think he's one sweet squid-man.

PRE-FIRST ENCOUNTER WITH HUMANS:

Shkor-Dyet Dom'Pesh was hatched in the year (according to the calendar of Humans) 2373. Shkor grew up on Aliose (Jargon V) which is a planet where many Skrell live subterranean lives due to the frigid weather. Aliose is also a planet within the Jargon Federation, and indeed the Jargon home solar system itself, which is widely well known for its expansive research labs and for the density of high technology which it provides for the Skrell as a race/empire. Shkor's family primarily worked as engineers aboard military vessels, and had a strong: "No military experience, no honor" attitude. But Shkor really wasn't interested in fixing aft thrusters or port-side laser turret number five, or whatever hallway airlock. He really liked the sciences, and so he went to one of the many universities on Aliose which provided undergraduate research experiences. His research as an undergrad was largely trivial and not all that important, as undergraduate research usually goes, but he spent a long time picking up a few undergraduate degrees to lay out the groundwork for work in the future. Given the costs of these endeavors and his refusal to join the military, his family cut him off at the ripe age of 27. And so he decided to finally nail down a Ph.D in order to obtain a more sustainable income by getting actual work beyond being a lifelong student. At the age of 33 he was able to obtain his first Ph.D in Optical Theory by contributing research which lead to higher frequency lasers becoming more feasible. Of course, Shkor never manufactured said laser himself and is not its father, but his contribution, among the contributions of many others, was noted.

 

POST FIRST ENCOUNTER WITH HUMANS:

When Shkor reached the age of 40, Skrell and humans made first contact. The prospect of meeting another race which had its own empire in the stars was astonishing to say the very least, and so Shkor set off in a foreign exchange program the first moment he could at the age of 43. He went to Mars where he joined a research group focused around mechatronic engineering. He made close friends with the humans, and took multiple trips to Earth and Luna over the course of his stay in the Sol System, immersing himself in human culture and using his friends to help him communicate. Of course he wasn't well received everywhere, but he remembers the times fondly as a golden era of his life. However, at the age of 59 in the year 2432, anti-xeno terrorism against the Skrell and rising racism in the Sol Alliance caused the funding for Shkor's exchange program to be cut, forcing him to move back to Aliose and become separated from his dream team of friends/coworkers. All though he was distraught and kept his eyes peeled for future job opportunities in Human space, he went to work for the Jargon Military by contributing his knowledge of mechatronic engineering and optical theory, primarily to get back in the good graces of his family. This went on for some years, before he took a three year break to work with slimes as a subject of curiosity at Aliose Biomedical before coming back to the Jargon Military to work as the Principal Investigator for his own mostly military funded research lab, Shkor-lab, which was housed at his Alma-Matter still on Aliose.

 

RETURN TO HUMAN SPACE: THE NSS AURORA

At the age of 80, Shkor finally found work back in human space, and all though it wouldn't be with his dream team it would still be with humans who he had come to immensely respect and be interested in after his long time in the Sol System. Picking up and moving his life to an alien planet, however, was an arduous task. And so, Shkor spent five years between Aliose and the Republic of Biesel both finding someone to take over Shkor-lab and learning Tau Ceti Basic, as well as moving his belongings and going through numerous interviews and background checks with NanoTransen. Finally, in the year 2458, he boarded the station to once again work with humans.

 

ALSO: Is your character old and works in science as either a roboticist or scientist and is either Human or Skrell? Why not collaborate on a common backstory! Looking for humans who would've been active in either of these two fields in the years 2416 - > 2432, and Skrell for any years before or after that gap. That way when we're both on the station, we can be like old pals and talk about things that never happened like as if they were good old times.

[Guest]

It's great, well thought out and realistic. Seems like an intelligent scientist and skrell.

Even by referencing Mars you missed all the pitfalls about Martians being xenophobic and technophobic assholes. Usually, aliens don't have trouble unless they go to lower levels. As for characters, Elena was born and raised on Mars. By 2432, she was a raging teenage cunt at around 16 or 17 year of age, probably involved in the racist crap as well as a proud daughter of the racist Martian working class. If your character was famous enough or visited martian schools as part of some diplomatic and tolerance action, she may remember him from vids or stuff. After all, there weren't that many Skrell on Mars at that time.

[Mofo1995]

Thanks!

I tried to keep xenoracism away from being the central point of my back story, because I didn't want to box myself into being forced to choose between a frogsecution complex and a deus ex machina, since Shkor is pretty tolerant. But surely it would've been impossible to fully insulate himself from all racist events, so I left the "not well received everywhere" as a blanket statement.

As for your character, Shkor would've certainly included primary school education as part of his in depth study of humans, and I'd imagine would've contributed to teaching people about Skrell I.e. by occasionally visiting schools as a guest speaker. So Elena might remember him, but likely not vice versa.

[Guest]

She would've probably laughed at a noises your Skrell produced, being a juvenile moron at the time. I'll keep that in mind if it ever pops up during RP.

[Jennalele]

T'is likely he'd seen a younger, more freshly retired Morkai when he was working on his first degree. Around 2390-2420, he was teaching full time, buuut.. not in the same fields, by the looks of it, Morkai taught xenogenetics and biology stuff. Squishy scientist for squishy sciences.

[Mofo1995]

Within that timeframe, its not entirely unreasonable that Shkor picked up a bachelors in biology, but he wouldn't have gotten his Ph.D until far later. His plan as a young adult was to be a jack of all trades master of none, but of course it didn't pan out that way. I think it's entirely reasonable, if Morkai was teaching on Aliose, that Shkor could've been a student at some of his lectures.