"I've had many names before...but right now I am known as Simon."

"I am a Therian, a race of asexual shape-shifters from the outer rim. My kind are...sadly spread far and wide due to the destruction of our homeworld."

"In actuality? I am unsure. By last count, perhaps... Maybe two centuries, maybe older. The time my kind spent drifting in deep space...it simply can't be counted."

"For the purposes of this interview, male. Though I can be anyone I wish."

"I am a medical officer serving on the Teret Hierarchy frigate Excalibur, under the employ of PharmCo Pharmaceutical's Military and Medical Research Division."

"Theria. It...was a fringe planet in the outer rim."

"Theria...a lush, green world, much like your human homeworld. Oceans, forests and jungles, mountain ranges and valleys, everything. However, unlike your home, ours was more...lethal. You see, we Therians evolved the way we are now because of survival. Back home, everything was trying to kill us. So we evolved, over the centuries, to be able to take on temporary forms to be able to survive through the harsh seasons. We became shape-shifters as a result.

There was no governing force at the time. All Therians were linked to each other by a psychic link. We were a mostly peaceful culture. Through study of the local fauna we were able to develop remedies to many diseases. Through study of the stars we developed our own astrology, and science soon was able to propel our kind into the stars.

However...time for us was short. Our sun was old, very old. By the time we developed faster-than-light travel, it was going supernova. We had no choice but to abandon our planet before the sun consumed our entire system. Thus the Therians are what we are now: nomads, without a place to call home."

"Well, I stand six feet and one inch tall, weighing a hundred and sixty five pounds. My physique is that of a lean, muscled man. I have a head of messy brown hair and brown eyes, freckles and a slightly crooked nose, putting out an image of your average everyday human male. Which, of course, I'm not. This is only my current image, and I can shift and form it as I see fit. My original form is a slender, grey-skinned humanoid not dissimilar to a naked human male, but without hair, tertiary sexual organs or other discerning characteristics."

"I believe my personnel dossier has already covered all of the equipment provided to me by the PharmCo Corporation, but if you insist."

"Simon is an identity I built to keep myself employed. Us Therians are simple people, intelligent enough for space travel but simple enough to keep our prospects purely within our star system. But when our sun began to go supernova, we entertained the notion of exploring outside of our system, to the stars. Interstellar travel was a concept not yet conceived on our planet, but within years we had our first working subspace vessel, and in a decade and a half we had a fleet.

By then our sun was dangerously close to wiping out our entire system, so we did the only thing we could: we packed up and ran.

However, we did not run fast enough.

When the sun exploded and collapsed, our fleet was decimated. Out of the twelve colony ships that left Theria, only four survived. The rest were either disabled permanently by the electromagnetic pulse created during the explosion and left adrift, or were sucked into the ensuing black hole and destroyed. Our four ships were the ones that survived the EMP blast and carried on

After what seemed like centuries lost in space, our fleet was detected by a Teret Hierarchy scout cruiser and led into allied space. Safety was certain indeed. The humanoid forms we had, coupled with our ability to shapeshift, gave us the freedom we needed to integrate fully within the galactic society. Thus our race, exiled by the destruction of our system, now lay spread thin across the colonies, and I found myself out of work and in need of something to do. I drifted aimlessly between part-time jobs, each with its own identity I tailored for it, all never quite working out the way I intended. I went through so many identities, some alien, most human, that I almost forgot myself.

It was almost two years before I found my calling: medicine. That's right, yes, I discovered that I had a pensity and disposition well suited to the life of a doctor or surgeon, and so I went for formal medical education and received my very own bachelor's degree in medicine. I was a doctor. I branched out into surgery, and soon I found myself working at a colony clinic on Mars. It's where 'Simon' came to be. As my work grew in scale, it attracted the eyes of some big corporations. Like your people.

That's when I found PharmCo, or rather, you found me. I understand that your Research and Development wing is almost fully confidential, which is why, when I signed up, they required me to...invent an identity for myself. I took the basis of 'Simon' and crafted a full story, thoroughly backed up by false evidence made up by the PharmCo officiate staff. Then I was led into their fold, and the rest is history. You can read how I became a field tester of their gear in my - I mean, Simon's dossier

Now that our race is scattered far and wide, I fear that most may have lost memory of our home. I have not, though, and exploration with the CCS Navy has been enlightening. My memory of my home will never fade, though, and one day I hope to return to my system, or what's left of it."

"Objectively? Well, I would describe myself as humble, meek, even a little shy and very, very awkward, mainly because of who I really am underneath the flesh. I am a trifle afraid, actually, of your more human customs and mannerisms, and though I have lived as one of you for a long time, they are still quite foreign, to me. I may seem like a nice person, and in fact I am. Most of what is stated on my personnel dossier is true to me, and I would not say otherwise. I would say, however, that I am more articulate in my choice of words, though I am still quite...quiet under normal circumstances, as my dossier suggests. Under stress, however, I tend to get a little bit rash and abrasive, and also cynical and blunt at times, but I really do mean well."