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"Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big it is.
I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space. It is
also infinite. It is constantly expanding. Because of this fact, it is known that there is an infinite number
of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of
them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by
infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe
can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that
any people you meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination."
-Douglas Adams
Space travel, as it turns out to the surprise of no one, is really hard. Honestly it's probably the hardest thing that
any species living in this great wide universe of ours has to do. There's just so many issues that come with it, so many
problems that constantly need fixing. And then once you build your space going vessel there's one final problem. How do you
go faster than the speed of light? Booping around the local system is all fine and dandy but to really get to the nitty gritty
of space, to really experience the good stuff, you've got to figure out a way to bypass the universal speed limit. It's a test
that any spacefaring civilization worth it's salt has to accomplish and some do so in...interesting ways.
If you're ever travelling through the outer spiral arm of the sunflower galaxy, it's often recommended that you travel to the
planet of Trosk. Not because it's a particularly good vacation spot, a thick atmosphere has left it rather humid and dark,
but because it's home to the Nelkids. The Nelkids are an unusally friendly species that are rarely seen in other parts of the
galaxy. They've got six eyes, four fingers, and hair made of vibrissae, and they all seem to share a love of dumb stunts. Seriously,
it's a well documented fact that it causes them considerable distress to turn down a dare. Going through the annuals of their
history, in fact, it seems that most leaders were elected for doing the best dumb stunt and surviving. Which brings us neatly to
why the Nelkids are so infrequently seen in the galactic community despite building some of the fastests interstellar spacecraft
available. Nelkid ships use a type of FTL propulsion called spacial folding, and what that means is their ships wrinkle the fabric
of space time until point A is actually closer to point B from their point of view and what that is is very dangerous. It gets any
traveller where they need to go in a blink of the eye but unless you know the route well it's very likely that you fold an asteroid
straight at you. Nelkid colonization of planets is considered suicidal by most intelligent species. It goes like this, you send a
few scout ships out in every direction and the one that finds a habitable planet sends the route they took home. The rest most likely
have crashed into something. This repeats until they've set up a colony with trade routes. Nelkid scouts are paid very generously
and have very good life insurance policies.
Which brings us to this character that you're reading the profile of. Serenity Arkham is a Nelkid scout, currently meandering through
space at breakneck speeds that don't seem so breakneck to her but assuredly are. Standing a nice 6'8" with a lovely main of white
vibrassae, Serenity's a healthy example of her species. She's thus far been lucky/unlucky in her chosen vocation as while she has
yet to smash into anything, she also hasn't actually found a habitable planet that isn't already inhabited. The Nelkid aren't known
for being the warring sort, so an inhabited planets are right out as far as colonization goes. She'll usually stop in for a rest and
a bite to eat when she comes across such a world but she can't stop for long. Legally. See, Nelkids tend to reproduce pretty fast
and with the advent of the emergency room their world faces over population. So it's every scout's duty to find a new home to move
some of the population off to. It's a tough job, but someone's got to do it.