HERE ARE A LOT OF WORDS about Stillman and his homeworld. There are an awful lot of words. As in almost three pages of words. /Be prepared./
Dr. Marlow Stillman was born on an oceanic planet called Chondrolucia. A vast sea with a slightly lower brine but higher mineral content than Earth’s oceans covers the surface completely, reaching depths of almost ten miles in its trenches and plagued by fierce and frequent storms that are fueled by equatorial warm waters. Since there are no landmasses to reduce windstrength they have a much wider stormpath than hurricanes on earth and are only dissipated when they reach colder water around the frozen poles (which are smaller than Earth’s as the overall atmosphere is several degrees warmer than ours). The planet is older than Earth and its volcanic activity has long since slowed, meaning its already small island landmasses drifted at an increasingly slower rate and new islands stopped forming, until they were all eroded entirely.
Beneath the surface are many species of oceanic life forms that have evolved to fill every possible niche, including many near-sentient races and one sentient race, Chondrolucians. When there were still bits of land, large quadrapedal animals (in turn evolved from fish) slowly adapted to an increasingly aquatic lifestyle much the same as whales, changing into shark-like creatures, and then in the species’s distant past when they began to develop technologies slowly became more bipedal as they started to build over-sea colonies to avoid oceanic predators. This immense stretch of time has left them with a rich and complex history, though much of it has been lost to periodic Dark Ages brought on by cyclical storm patterns that keep the population to a relatively small number.
Chondrolucians are characterized by large stature and muscle mass with practically disproportionate strength. The skin is tough and covered with dendrites that rise above the skin when the individual is agitated. Their teeth are arranged to facilitate an omnivorous lifestyle, with the front nine teeth on each side shaped for cutting and tearing and the last seven having flatter edges for grinding. The sharp teeth are arranged in descending rows like the teeth of a shark, wherein each time a tooth breaks off or falls out a new one rotates forward to replace it. The neck has two flaps on each side that conceal rudimentary gills that facilitate breathing underwater, but only in saline solutions and only for brief periods of time before weakening. Each hand has four square-tipped fingers and a thumb suited for power gripping, with minor webbing, and each foot has four toes and is also webbed.
The most distinctive quality of the Chondrolucians, however, is the ability to secrete an enzyme from glands on the palms that when introduced to damaged cells stimulates repair and regrowth. This likely evolved as an advantage to being one of the smaller megafauna in their environments, therefore being frequent prey to larger creatures. This coupled with a low birth rate made survival easier if there was a way to repair oneself and others.
Chondrolucians vary very little regardless of where on the planet they live; however, those living farthest away from the Equator are paler with a higher instance of recessive near-white skin and scales. There are also some colonies where due to restricted travel have little genetic variation and have produced populations with either larger or smaller body sizes.
Reproduction is internal similarly to humans. However the female, instead of giving live birth, lays an eggsac that sustains two young and must be incubated until they can be born. Only one of the two twins will survive, for reasons unknown. It takes a very long time for a Chondrolucian to reach sexual maturity and frequently live for almost 200 Earth years before succumbing to old age.
There is little physical difference between males and females and gender roles are practically nonexistent, with the exception of religious denominations who practice matriarchal rule. The most practiced religion is polytheistic, with gods based on the massive creatures that live in the sea as well as distantly remembered land creatures who stand for metaphorical concepts, largely benevolent ones. There is only one god of war, Mahnet, but he is largely a figurehead for the reasons violence is mostly taboo amongst the Chondrolucians. Religion is mostly colony-based, with individuals who do not practice leaving for other over-sea cities.
Political systems vary across the planet, but due to low population size there are not many political conflicts. Monarchical republics are the most popular political systems with the monarchs most often being queens, though there are completely democratic colonies.
While Chondrolucians possess the ability to conduct inter-stellar travel they are culturally forbidden to do so with few extenuating circumstances. Far out of bounds of almost all other intergalactic trade routes, almost no other civilization knows about the planet and they prefer to keep it that way. Once in a while ships will crash on their surface but these people are lucky to be allowed to leave, as the Chondrolucians fear what will happen once other races become aware of their healing abilities (though this is largely uninformed as nanotechnology can also conduct cell-level repair, though being much more expensive).
Backstory
When Stillman was a young man (or shark… sharkman), he snuck away from home along with a group of lost traders who in an extraordinary bout of luck were allowed to leave the planet, the logic being that they didn’t know the bearings and were unlikely to find it again. He was a much different being back then, mostly self-concerned and without any set plan, only wanting to get off of his homeworld and see the other parts of the galaxy he’d only ever heard tell about.
The trader’s ship only just made it back onto its scheduled trade route before it broke down again and was picked up by a vessel operating under the control of an intergalactic medical company called Partners-Aphelion. Stillman’s life might have been very different had one of the crew members not recognized him as a Chondrolucian and referred him for study on the main ship.
Once shuttled to the P-A homeship, Stillman spent over five years in a reciprocal study program. As the years went on it felt more and more like a prison as P-A became frustrated with the difficulties of marketing his hand’s enzymes. There was an insurmountably brief shelf-life for the compound and the funding for a synthetic alternative was slowly drying up, and it didn’t help that he had little practice with using them on species other than Chondrolucians. The education he was receiving started to come less and less frequently as interest in his situation dwindled, and his movement around the ship was restricted to the point where he was barely able to leave his quarters.
However, during these years, he met a human scientist and nurse named Yyvone Becotte. They struck up a friendship and eventually fell in love, both planning to leave the ship as soon as her contractual term was up. It was a very tender romance, him being enthralled by her intellect and fierce temper (often both of them flaring at the same time) and her by his gentle nature and eagerness to learn and please. They had three years in which to plan their eventual wedding, him stockpiling communications to send in secret back to his family.
Near the end of Yvonne’s term, tragedy struck when she was injured by falling machinery in the docking bay where she was helping unload new pathology equipment. In a panic, Stillman attempted to heal her, but having never been allowed to actually practice on humans he overexposed her to the enzymes. While her injuries were healed the compounds went rampant in her system and gave her a fast-acting and malignant cancer. She died within two weeks of the incident, leaving Stillman grief-stricken and distraught.
Partners-Aphelion folded ironically within the next two years and Stillman went off the map for a while. He eventually emerged on the other side of the system having enrolled in an intergalactic medical school where he studied for over ten years. He is well-versed in how to treat most of the most common races and a few of the less common ones, though advanced technology continues to be difficult for him to figure out. He has never returned to his homeworld and though he regrets leaving in the way he did has decided it’s better for his people if they continue to live in isolation. None of his attempted communications appear to have been received.
Because of his experience with Yvonne (from which he has never quite recovered), he will use his ability if normal medical treatments will fail or are too slow but prefers to practice medicine like any other doctor. He’s loathe to use his abilities unless they are absolutely necessary.
A pacifist by nature, Dr. Stillman abhors violence in every form, probably due to his past experiences and lingering cultural stigmas. While spontaneous and self-centered in youth his years of study and experience have made him into a much more cautious adult. He will do everything he can to avert a fight and is very protective of his patients and those he has close personal attachments to. He is patient and observant, easily forgives but does not easily forget. Nevertheless he's a huge softy and sometimes comes to injury by avoiding a fight. People often dislike him or think he is weak because of his pacifistic nature. Sometimes he comes across as overly formal or polite.
Stillman is currently working as one of the head doctors in the Infirmary on the Core of War station and is approximately 80 earth years old (about 50 Chondrolucian years). He is in a relationship with Dr. Inka Kitaev.
