Lieutenant Mothim-Ril

Name Mothim-Ril

Position Chief Science Officer

Rank Lieutenant

Stats

14 Mission Posts

Last Post

Wed Oct 19th, 2022 @ 1:29pm

Basic Info
Personality
History

Character Information

Gender		Male
Species		Aurelian
Birthplace		Aurelia
Age		33

Physical Appearance

Height		7’5”
Weight		120 lbs
Hair Color		Orange and Yellow Feathers
Eye Color		Solid blue with no discernible pupils
Physical Description		Mothim-Ril is definitely a strange looking figure, especially among a lot of the four-limbed, hairy mammals that make up so many of the Federation’s species. Mothim is covered entirely in yellow-orange feathers. In addition to Mothim’s arms and legs, he has a pair of functional wings on his back. The flight feathers on those wings are a touch darker than the feathers on the rest of his body, leaning closer to a reddish orange. He has a long, lanky figure (though not as lanky as some Aurelians – like many these days, he has some Skorr ancestry which does lend him a bit more muscle.) His eyes are solid, pale blue, with no visible pupil. Instead of a nose and mouth, he has a beak. Mothim-Ril only wears clothing when he is required to be in uniform. He finds the uniform quite uncomfortable with the way it brushes against his feathers. When off-duty, he does not wear any clothing, as is normal for his species. Like birds, Mothim has fragile, hollow bones and is not physically strong.

Family

Father		Caas-Ril (deceased; member of the Collector’s Guild)
Mother		never introduced

Personality & Traits

General Overview		Mothim believes that everything in the world follows rules and patterns. And he believes that all it takes to discover these patterns is math. He can find math everywhere he looks – in the way people react to each other, in the way a spilled drink spreads across a table, in the way that diseases take over. He loves it. He is absolutely fascinated by nearly anything, and loves asking for details about it from anyone. He will allow himself to be dragged into anything if he thinks it will let him see something new. He thinks that everybody wants to hear and learn about this math, and the best way to disappoint him is by not seeming interested. Outside of math, he is a slightly clumsy person – both socially and physically. He hates fighting, and will use the excuse of having bones to try and avoid any sort of combat. He follows rules because that’s all he has ever done and all he knows how to do, but that doesn’t mean he won’t complain about the rules if he disagrees with them: notably, the Prime Directive. He’d never even think of acting against it, but he often complains that withholding scientific and mathematical knowledge from certain races only hurts the progression of science and math in the end. And that progression of science and math is all Mothim cares about. He thinks math is bigger than any one of us, and that it will be through math that sentient races will eventually grow into a higher plane of being, as they are meant to. Growing up, Mothim used to be a bit of a handful. When he was young, he was proud and he didn’t play well with others. He was competitive, didn’t take loss very well, and was quite full of himself. His father was rich, and he got to play with all his fathers things, making him the envy of other kids. He did math because he was good at it and he liked being good at things. It wasn’t until he was captured by an enemy, in his thirties, and held prisoner for a couple months that he began to mellow out. Sure, that experience left him with a plethora of issues: he now has some PTSD, is scared of going places alone and doesn’t necessarily trust easily – but it also got him to realize the beauty in the world. While a prisoner, it was math that kept him busy and sane. He made a mental model of everything and he discovered that math is beautiful, there is math in everything and therefore, everything is beautiful. While he was claustrophobic before that, Mothim is even more claustrophobic now. Thanks to the wonders of modern medicine he takes a prescription every day to calm that down, but he still tries to get out of the ship or onto the holodeck every chance he can get. Exceptionally tight spaces make him panic, as do moderately tight spaces if he ends up going without his medicine for even a day.
Strengths & Weaknesses		+ Math. Mothim eats, drinks and breathes math. + Optimism. Mothim can find the beauty in things and loves trying to teach others to see that beauty + Flight. Mothim can fly. - Fragile. Mothim literally has hollow bones. - Carefree. If a responsibility is outside of the scope or math or science, it might be best to not entrust Mothim with it. - Fear. Mothim is a self-described coward. He can’t finish his math works if he dies young, after all. He has had some traumatic experiences in the past and doesn’t wish to relive them
Ambitions		Mothim is looking at the large picture. He wants his math to contribute to society as a whole; he wants to contribute to the foundation that future mathematicians and scientists will further build upon. But even to him that feels a bit hollow. A part of him wants some more concrete, tangible results. He wants to teach other people, and share in his passions. He finds nothing more satisfying to helping a young science officer find their way.
Hobbies & Interests		Math. Besides math, Mothim has many other hobbies. He plays the cello, though he is more interested in music theory and math behind it than the actual sound he produces so while he is technically good, he doesn’t put much emotion in it. He enjoys classic strategy games like chess. He likes hiking and holodeck adventures and general travel, if only as an excuse to get out into the open. He does enjoy flying, of course, and is more than willing to share this love of flying with his crewmates… after all, he can’t fly alongside people easily like his species was meant to do. This had led him to have a penchant for dragging his crewmates into paragliding on the holodeck. He also enjoys baseball, to everybody’s surprise; that was one of the first games that humans really modeled mathematically, and he finds a special interest in that.

Personal History		Childhood – raised on Aurelia by a member of the Collector’s Guild Mothim grew up fairly privileged. His father was a wealthy member of the Collector’s Guild (while Aurelians are generally known as fine historians, his father wanted to go a step further and actually own the historical artifacts instead of just studying them), as well as being seen as a generally unpopular and greedy figure. Unlike some collectors, Mothim and his father lived on planet, on Aurelia – Aurelians generally did not like enclosed spaces, so his father opted to keep his collection in a large building, as opposed to on a ship. Mothim’s mother left before he was really old enough to know her, on account of not getting along with his father any more. Mothim himself was never really a big fan of his father. The man was always finding some way to criticize him. Despite the criticism, Mothim got pretty much any material thing he asked for. He had private tutors, and honestly he liked studying with them. The kid was smart enough, and generally obedient, so the lessons were easy but the tutors were often kinder to him than his father. The more time he spent with studies and other activities, the more time he could be away from his dad. As Mothim grew older, he started to gravitate towards math. He was especially good at math, and he liked being complimented about it. By the time he was ten years old, Mothim began to travel for math competitions. As he grew into being a teenager, Mothim continued with the math competitions. He also grew to be a bit smug. Now that he was older, he recognized that his father’s wealth was not something most people had, so he liked showing it off. He obtained a small racing ship, and would spend most of time that was not occupied by his studies or math contests at parties. That was not entirely because he enjoyed the parties – he did, of course – but also because it was a good way to avoid his father. His father, in turn, grew to dislike Mothim more and more. When Mothim was about seventeen, he made some poor choices and crashed his ship. He almost died. His father took away some of his privileges after all, allowing him only to leave the building for math competitions or for his studies. Mothim didn’t mind staying at home, the experience had scared him as well, but he did mind that his father made that decision for him. The two’s relationship only worsened for those last two years until Mothim decided to leave. He went to the Academy; partially because his fathered had vocalized a dislike of Starfleet a few times, partially because it was one of the few places where his father’s wealth wouldn’t have influence, and partially because he genuinely was interested in their research and exploration. Education – joined the Academy, mostly to spite his father When Mothim started at the Academy, he thought he was interested in history, and took extra courses in such. After all, Aurelians had a reputation for being good historians. But those classes bored him. He already had some experience with history through his father’s collection. The history classes only served to remind him of his father and make him roll his eyes at the way the archaeologists and historians would tiptoe around findings, not wanting to disturb them, instead of just pulling them up to study them like his father did. He quickly decided that the math and physics courses were more interesting – after all, his passion was math – although he did well in the few piloting courses he took. He did have some experience illegally flying his ship as a youth, but also he was a species naturally meant to fly. There was less of a learning curve for moving in three dimensions than there were for some land-bound species. Mothim scored well at the Academy but he made few friends. To some folk he was considered stuck up. He knew he was good at math, and he didn’t try to hide it. To other folk, he was considering vain. He was used to being important, and he was used to being in charge. While that might have not boded well for the more disciplinary side of Starfleet, Mothim found himself obedient enough as well. His main rebellion in childhood had been against his father specifically, not against authority itself. He was always kind and dutiful to his tutors. It was also during Mothim’s time at the Academy that his father passed away. He had gone to the location of an old artifact, only to be killed by some traps left behind by the ancient civilization. This hit Mothim harder than he thought it might have. Sure, he didn’t like his father, but he always pictured that one day his father would take it all back and admit that he was proud of him. Mothim never got that. His grades for that semester faltered a bit, but not for long. Mothim hid his sorrows in further math, and started helping run math competitions for the youth. He graduated the Academy in 2389. Although he graduated in top half of his class, he left the Academy with few friends and now with no family. Starting his career as an officer was truly a fresh start for him. Although Aurelians are notoriously claustrophobic, the idea of sitting at a planetary base not moving did not appeal to Mothim. That was basically just like when he was locked away at home. Instead, he spoke to counselors to try to work through his issue and received his first real assignment as an ensign on the USS Rosalind Franklin. Career – career has been mostly standard, except for a couple months he spent captured by pirates Mothim’s time on the USS Rosalind Franklin was pretty standard. He knew science well enough and he was good at following orders. He was intelligent, though he didn’t seek out extra teamwork. Although he was very much a mathematician and did his best work at a computer, Mothim liked getting out of the ship and the away teams often enjoyed the company of somebody who could fly, so the man got an interesting variety of experience on the Rosalind Franklin. He also, under the study of some of the other officers, obtained his shuttle pilot certification. Considering he had already flown a ship before, albeit with questionable legality, back on Aurelia and had done well in his Academy courses about it, it only seemed fitting enough. After five years, he was promoted and sent to a slightly larger ship, the USS Voice. Unfortunately, soon after being assigned to the Voice Mothim ran into a predicament. He and an Ensign, a young pilot, were sent in a shuttle to pick up some scientific samples. That shuttle was taken by pirates. The pirates found little of value there, except for the shuttle itself, but they saw the use in having a source of Federation intel. They killed off the brave pilot – a young human named Sarah Kim – and kept Mothim, the higher ranking member, and less fire-hearted of the two. In his defense, Mothim told them nothing of value. But that didn’t mean he got out without incident. He was kept in a mostly solitary cell for two months. He hid behind math and models, using them to entertain himself. He swore if he got out he would be a better person. And he got out, when the Federation found the pirate outpost a couple months later, looking for somebody else entirely, and found him. Mothim spent the next couple months in therapy. He still has PTSD, quite a few fears, and a lack of trust. But he had learned the value of life, something that he had before taken for granted. He found a new beauty in everything, and a sort of optimism. He was out. He was free. That was all that mattered. He became the cheerful, big-picture sort of scientist he is today and took a new sort of enthusiasm for his work. He went back to the Voice. A few years later he received a promotion in rank and was assigned to be the assistant chief science officer, but the Chief Scientist thought he would do well with his own ship. When a position opened up on the Sojourner, his superiors convinced him to apply for transfer.
Service Record		2385-2389 – Cadet, Starfleet Academy 2389-2394 – Ensign, Science Officer, USS Rosalind Franklin 2394-2396 – Lieutenant JG, Science Officer, USS Voice 2396-2399 – Lieutenant, Assistant Chief Science Officer, USS Voice 2399-Current – Lieutenant, Chief Science Officer, USS Sojourner