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Player Name: Chi
Player Contact: chi_sai
Characters you have in the game: 0!!!

Character Name: Sherrinford "Sherri" Holmes // Dr. Telephosphor
Character Canon: This is my Space Station 13 character. You're sorry you asked.
Canon Background: Most of the existing information about the game and server I'm taking him from can be found here, and his bio is here. The page about the Skrell species may also be useful.

In-game, Sherri was a brilliant genetic neuro-psychologist working for Nanotrasen on a project to create the ideal human brain that could be placed into AI cores, cyborgs, or just cloned endlessly and used as the perfect worker. Then some alien terrorists attacked, and Sherri got reassigned to a mining research station despite the fact that he is a totally different kind of alien. Once there, he proceeded to practice medicine, pharmacology, and eventually surgery without a license, but he was better than most of the actual doctors so they made him chief medical officer. Eventually, a rival corporation offered him the chance to do actual science again - and not deal with being blown up every two weeks - so he took it and never looked back.

Omegafriends Background: Rather than residing in the Andromeda galaxy, the Skrell colony planets exist somewhere in the Milky Way. Skrellian spaceships make infrequent passes of Earth, abducting people and mutilating cattle in the name of studying the ways of these strange ape-people. That was basically what Sherri was doing when his ship crashed-landed in a deserted area outside of Venture City. He managed to avoid investigation and capture by government agents by escaping into the city and hiding in an abandoned medical lab. With the aid of some really advanced science stuff, he is now able to pass as a human - he holds down a day job as a mild-mannered clinical psychologist.

In the evenings, however, he becomes... a mild-mannered alien with a handful of biological weaponry that may not actually work. He doesn't so much fight crime as he politely asks it to stop and then sticks it with syringes when it refuses. Sometimes this causes more problems than it solves. The Omegafriends weren't even really sure they wanted him at first, but eventually accepted him under the condition that he stop running around naked in his alien form. So Dr. Telephosphor wears a nurse's outfit now.

He totally wears pants as a 'human', though. You're welcome.

Personality: Central to Sherri's character is the awareness of entropy. He believes that the universe is inherently inhospitable to life, and that all organized systems within it - be they organic, artificial, or social - are doomed to decay. The actions of sentient beings are ultimately of no consequence to this process, and the only destiny of consciousness itself is to eventually experience, in solitude, its own demise. In other words, nothing we do matters, we will all die alone, and the universe does not care.

Most people would find this incredibly depressing, but for Sherri it is actually a motivating force. He has decided that, if organized systems serve any purpose, it is to nurture and create other organized systems. Thus, life is precious to him for its brevity, fragility, and for the potential of each individual to enhance the quality of all life in general. This means that, although he is neither strong nor brave, he is driven not to allow others to suffer or die through his own actions or inaction. Skrell are kind of like slimy, greenish Vulcans with their logical reasoning and muted emotions, so sentimentality doesn't enter into it - he will risk grave injury to save an enemy or a complete stranger as readily as a friend, if he thinks he'll survive it.

What this belief system does mean, however, is that it is sometimes very difficult to get him to care about issues that are not literally life-or-death. Someone trying to take over the city? Who cares, democracy is an inefficient system anyway. Enslaving the entire populace? Sounds like business as usual on this planet. He's too pacifistic and too passive to be the first to take action even when he decides that action should be taken, preferring instead to work as part of a group.

Even inhumanly rational beings have their quirks, however. Due to the combination of a hard-wired fear of predators and various experiences on Earth, Sherri has an intense fear and dislike of law enforcement. They act dominant, they travel in packs, they carry lethal weapons, and they hunt people. How is that not scary? Then again, he's also something of an abject coward. When the chips are down and things look hopeless and the city needs a hero who can survive on determination alone, Sherri will... be hiding under a table, blubbering about how he doesn't want to die. There has been more than one occasion where he has actually run away from a battle and hid somewhere only to go, "wait... aren't I supposed to be the superhero here?" and reluctantly drag himself back to the scene (sometimes too late). This extends to less dire situations, as well. Even having a normal conversation with other people can be a difficult proposition since he is relatively new to human social interaction, and he will stutter and fidget at the best of times. At the worst of times he just loses the ability to speak entirely and will just stand there and stare, as though paralyzed by social anxiety.

Powers: Sherri is essentially a typical member of his species, and this does grant him some abilities that might be considered super-human - as well as a few weaknesses. For starters, he is amphibious and can thus breathe underwater for a limited amount of time. He is double-jointed, which gives him enhanced speed and flexibility in the water - but also has the side-effect of making it easier for him to slip out of a physical grab. His species prefers moist, humid climates but is extremely susceptible to cold temperatures and dehydration; like frogs, they respirate partially through their skin and must maintain a certain level of moisture in order to breathe. A thin mucus layer covering his entire body aids this somewhat, and also gives his skin a somewhat shiny appearance and a texture that can vary between sticky, moist, or slippery depending on the humidity of his surroundings. This makes wearing clothes somewhat uncomfortable and disgusting, but the good news is that he doesn't keep his genitals on his groin - or anywhere else a human might recognize him - and thus can maintain Saturday morning appropriateness while naked.

Aside from that, Sherri's one and only power is the power of SCIENCE! It is the only power he needs. He knows things about the human mind that most people on this planet don't even know they don't know, and the building blocks of life and consciousness itself are his playthings. Again, he is an average member of his species in this regard. While his medical knowledge is rather extensive by Earth standards - especially for someone who is not an actual medical doctor - on his home planet he would only qualify as that friend you go to and ask, "Does this look infected? Should I call a doctor?" The Skrell have Sufficiently Advanced Technology, especially in the medical fields (in order to compensate for their weak immune systems), and they are hard-wired to have an obsessive love for learning things. They are a race of scientists who are best friends with their coworkers and probably even live at their workplaces, so they never have to stop science-ing. So, while Sherri may dabble in all related areas, his training is in genetics and psychology and the specific area where he excels is in mindhacking.

A perfect (and much more specific) example of his use of this ability is his 'human' disguise: there is nothing human about it, and it's not much of a disguise. It's a Holographic Image Suggestion Device that projects a mere suggestion of a human face over his real one, giving the human mind exactly what it wants to see: another human face. Seeing another sentient creature with a human face does a lot to convince people that he really is human, despite the fact that his skin is kind of a light blue color. The other half of his disguise is a pheromone-secreting microbe that he applies topically like perfume. The result is that he looks and smells like a human, and that's apparently 90% of what matters!

Of course, since it's all an illusion, no one sees quite the same thing when they look at him - but most people perceive him as an African-descended male with dreadlocks. It also falls apart if you look at him through a mirror or a camera, and of course it doesn't work at all on non-humans (although the scent part is still effective on domesticated animals).

Most of the other abilities and equipment he'll probably have at the start are chemical and pharmaceutical-related - tranquilizer darts and hallucinogenic gas, mostly. He's new to Venture City and to the superhero scene, so he'd be a bit cautious about getting creative with things.

Sample: Ta-da!

Notes: His name is intentionally a little fourth-wall-breaking. Since Skrellian names are unpronounceable in English, Skrell who make significant contact with humans often choose a human pseudonym. Sherri enjoyed 19th century English literature and thus named himself after Sherlock Holmes. The name is dissimilar enough that I can write that out of his background, however, and just play it off as coincidence if needed.