Ben (Benthic Sediment)
He's the water specialist among surveyors always looking for excuses to jump into lakes or any body of water you can swim in, because swimming is awesome!
"at just about any given time i would rather be jumping in a lake than do the activity im currently doing. lakes are so nice to jump in cold and refreshing to play in swim in"
(Credit for the name and quote go to ilovecoelacanths)
Genetic augment: He got almost the whole package of otter genes. Webbed feet and hands, a warm, water-repellent coat that covers his entire body save for his face and chin, a wet otter nose with whiskers and otter ears, plus inner transparent eyelid that allows for underwater sight but makes him short-sighted.
Age: 31 (21 when the Strato landed)
Place of birth: Vertumna Group compound at the southern shore of the Gulf of Finland, Estonia
Occupation: Surveyor, preferably in the cold northern plains, aka the Prosaic Plains. Would do poorly in the swamps, melt in the ridges, and get bored in the valley. Might be looking for ways to open up the unknown coast south of the swamps for surveying, though.
In the plains, he Investigates (or "investigates") the lakes, gathers resources, or collects shiny rocks and crystals.
Favorite food: Anything living he can catch with his bare claws hands or with his fishing rod that he always carries with him (and preferably was tested for toxicity, although he's not above taking risks for, uh, everyone else's sake)
Biography: He's the son of a woman who worked as a cook and part-time fisher in the main Vertumna Compound, located at the edge of a large pine forest at Estonia's northern coast.
Long ago it had been a fishing village, then an increasingly gentrified and touristy location with more and more rich people houses appearing alongside century-old farms, before both were largely abandoned as the, well, geopolitical situation worsened in the region and many homeowners fled, allowing the nascent Vertumna Group to buy up most of the land.
His mother thought he would enjoy the mostly isolated and marginalized life at the water more if he had an augment to help him with that, and he would additionally be able to assist her with her jobs more and so help provide for the community. Before him, she had already given birth to a girl, Calcareous Ooze or Callie for short, and her own sister had a child named Ally (full name Alluvial deposit).
Unfortunately, the Vertumna Group had to pack up things and hastily depart their compound when hostile forces threatened it (the same ones that Fluorescence fought hard to keep off), and so before he could even walk he was whisked away from his home and alongside everyone else was put on the old compound buses and on a long journey to the sole conflict-free spaceport left in the world: NASRDA's Solstice Launch Center, named after the first space mission with a Nigerian on board, Solstice-33, located at the outskirts of Lagos in Nigeria.
The journey to it involved covering thousands of kilometers on road, railways and ships after air travel had become unsafe and expensive, through the Baltic states, Poland, Germany, France and Spain before setting over to Africa, moving along Morocco's high-speed railway Al Boraq southwards, to Algeria, the legendary but also very real city of Timbuktu in Mali, to Burkina Faso until finally reaching Ivory Coast, from which a ferry took them to Lagos.
At the spaceport they awaited the arrival of the Stratospheric, which had been "acquired" in America by their "partners", the shipping of which across the ocean had to be coordinated through satellite phones and tablets on the way to Nigeria.
AMONG THE STARS
After launch, Ben not only suffered from being stuck for 20 years in a frequently stuffy enclosed space that was altogether way too warm for someone with fur as thick as him, enough to be granted an exception from the dress code at school, allowing him to come to class topless, wearing just shorts and sandals.
He also suffered from having to spend his entire childhood and teenage years far away from all bodies of waters he was born for, only getting to know them through holonovels, games and holovideos, and a photoalbum assembled by his mother of their old home at the coast.
He held them close to his heart, with his favorite story being an unfinished one about two human-sized otters forming a rescue team in the wilderness to rescue furry and non-furry creatures from natural and human-caused disasters, titled Two Men at a Lake.
This single-minded desire bordering on obsession, and very visible non-human traits set him apart from most people onboard the ship, especially as there were few people in his age group aside from Utopia. It led to him keeping mostly to himself, usually lost in daydreaming when he wasn't reading, not paying much attention in class unless it could be tied to his aquatic interests.
When not in class, he often had to spend most of his day in his quarters, the only place where the temperature could be set low enough to be comfortable for him, low enough most other people would have complained about it resembling a walk-in fridge. Since that also included his parents and siblings, he was one of the few on the ship to enjoy a room to his own, small and cramped as it was, enough to grant him the nickname "Cellmate" by some.
Additionally, the limited supply of water onboard made grooming his extensive fur difficult even with the best of efforts, and so most people didn't enjoy spending much time around him, although there were exceptions. As Dys grew up, he showed some interest in the "creature" that was Ben as Dys called him as a toddler, but Ben was never good with children and so they never spent much time together, and when they did, it was largely just being alone together in the same room.
His keen sense of smell was also occasionally of use in Hydroponics, to notice subtle changes in the state of plants or the beginning of rot or plant stress long before it became visible, but the hot and humid air in it was hard for him to bear as someone who could not simply take off his coat. The occasionally misting of the air was nice, though.
The whole time, his mother would try to comfort him by keeping his dream of swimming alive with the promise that the planet they would land on would have at least as much water as Earth, more than he could ever imagine. And so he hold on to the hope that some day he would live somewhere where he could jump into a lake every morning, feeling the flow of water and the cold streams all around him whenever he wanted.
Eventually, he would hear from Utopia about the possibility of becoming a surveyor after landing, and exploring the planet's natural geography. From then on, he started paying more attention in classes, including ones he had previously not cared about if he had heard they were about subjects important for any prospective surveyor.
Even in his free time he would now learn all he could about the physics of waterways, Earth marine biology, and known and speculated ocean worlds. By the time the spaceship was approaching the wormhole, he could write the definite guide to exo-oceanography. Not that he was interested in that in the slightest, as his unmatched knowledge of hydrology had in fact managed to land him a position as surveyor by then, his hopes of making his dream come true now resting entirely on this job.
PLANETFALL
Unfortunately, the Stratospheric landed in a rather dry location an annoyingly unknown amount of distance from the coast away, although he didn't let that depress him for very long, since at least he was outside of that stuffy spaceship in the open, and the temperatures were even pleasantly cold. Rolling in the acidic snow felt like the biggest fun he had ever had! The slight prickliness of it as it melted on contact with his body made him feel comfortable for the first time in his life, even at home.
So he didn't mind having to spend another month waiting and asking for news from the first Expeditions team that he had been excluded from. As the first mid-quiet month rolled around, he was overjoyed when he heard that not *too* far away from his new home, less than a day of traveling to the north, a whole system of lakes existed.
He immediately signed up for the next mission to these Prosaic Plains, but to his dismay was told the lake water was considered dangerous and only deemed fit for testing, any unprotected contact with skin and hair (or fur) supposed to be entirely avoided.
But after over 20 years of waiting he wasn't about to let that stop him. He knew that not following the orders of the lead surveyor could get him kicked out of expeditions entirely, though, so he began to think of ways to go for a swim in secret.
NEVER GIVE UP!
He first thought he might try it at night, only to realize soon that the expeditions outpost was guarded by men with laser rifles and that at night he might actually resemble a xeno more than a human with the silhouette his fur, ears and whiskers gave him and the sound his webbed feet made on the ground, so he reluctantly used the nights for sleeping, as intended.
Next, he suggested obtaining water samples for totally legitimate scientific purposes. From the middle of a lake, of course, since coastal waters have, as he would go on to great lengths to explain, a very different quality to them than the water further from the shore. He was given a drone to avoid getting wet in the task. Reluctantly, he agreed and noted down the unusual properties of the lake water in the northern plains.
Then, on a mission to collect mush- and lichenwood samples from the plains to compare their properties to the mushwood trees from the colony surroundings, he deliberately tried to cut down a tree in a way it would make the most noise and distract the other surveyors. But his lasersaw got stuck in it repeatedly and the automatic warning sound was eventually just ignored by the other members of his team.
At the fourth or fifth tree the alarm however attracted bounceweasels that came to investigate the sound. At first just a couple, then more and more until there were dozens surrounding him. They distracted him badly enough he couldn't get the saw out this time, his grip slipped, and he fell backwards on the ground, with all the small creatures now descending on him, and not letting go of him no matter how much he was trying to shake them off. However, they seemed to feel a certain sense of kinship to him due to his shared mustelid features, as he did with them, and it was really less of an attack and more of a gigantic involuntary cuddle pile that he couldn't get away from.
He announced to his surveyors with slightly muffled words that he had just encountered more bounceweasels than any other human might ever seen in their life, but the other surveyors ignored him.
It was captured on a holophoto by a cooing Nomi-Nomi, who had joined expeditions that day and too distracted by the seeming adorableness of the scene in front of them to try and help. Hearing the simulated shutter sound, Ben managed to wrestle an arm free and give a thumbs up to strike a pose as much as he could which Nomi-Nomi took as an invitation to take another holophoto. Eventually, a very disgruntled Utopia appeared, switched off the obnoxious alarm and released him from the furry grip the local xenos had on him. She didn't even bother warning him to be more careful.
Eventually, he somehow managed to be left behind, and so finally could jump into the frigid lakes and enjoy himself for a day, supplying himself with some beings he caught with his fishing rod that he was reasonably sure were not toxic. Ignore how when the expedition vehicle returned the next day to pick him up the white in his eyes had turned orange. Everyone else is doing that, too!