Name: Kristoffer Foyn Sørstad
Nicknames: Kris/Chris, Greenie
Gender: Male
Age: 36
Ethnicity: Caucuasian
Nationality: Norway
Occupation: Marine biologist and Greenpeace activist
Physique: Kristoffer's build is what you'd call 'fairly average'; He's got some muscles here and there from occationaly working out and manning the ship, but isn't muscular in that sense.
Height: 175cm - 5ft 9 inches
Weight: 74 kilograms - 163lbs
Hair: Dark brown
Eyes: Brown
Skin: Fair
Scars / Markings / Etc: N/A
Clothing Description:Kristoffer can be seen wearing practical clothing that fits the occation and current situation. On a warm and sunny day, he wears a buttoned shirt with its sleeves upfolded and knee-high shorts with too many pockets than he has use for. But when nature is at her worst, he does whatever good Norwegian feels neccecary and changes his attire; a navy blue, woolen beanie on his head, a thick water-proof jacket, a good pair of pants and proper boots. And don't forget the fingerless gloves!
- Nikon camera w/ shoulderstrap
- Swiss army knife
- Smartphone
- Notebook and pencil
- Laptop and external harddisk
- Binoculars
- ID
- Headphones
Personality:One of the first things you might notice about Kristoffer upon first sight, is that he smiles. A lot. And surprisingly to those only knowing of the Norwegian stereotype, the smile is genuine. He shows a open politeness and interest in getting to know new people around him, happily striking up conversation with people he's yet to meet. The same applies for those he like to call friends, showing kindness and generiousity towards them.
He believes in the value of all living beings, especially after experiencing what pain are caused human greed by his very own family. Therefore he never takes kindly to people treating animals poorly, and is one of the main reasons he became a marine biologist in the first place. All in all, Kristoffer is actually a really nice guy.
Really, as long as he's not got a fight to pick with you.
And a fight he's got to pick with many; fishermen and whalers, oil-tychoons, industrialists, fur-farmers, climate-change deniers, the list goes on. He's polite until he realizes you're one of these people, and then the northernen comes out in him. He'll have the tendency to shout at you and argue his face blue why you're wrong and he's right. Now he won't go as far as to hit you in the face...intentionally at least, but he'll give you looks that could kill you.
Possibly even arrange a Greenpeace demonstration against the whaling-ship and cause it to sink...
Strengths: Kristoffer is dedicated to all forms of life and the preserving of their lives, and is this deeply curious as to what can be learned about them. This dedication combines finely with his sharp eyes and quick thinking, helping him to notice movement out at sea and down in the darkness, him ready with his camera or phone. It helps that he's quite experienced after many years out at sea. This experience has hardened him too, making him shrug off minor injuries, bad weather and the like.
Weaknesses: What then can be argued to be his weaknesses? Well...he might have a bad habit of not working so well with people he either doesn't like, or doesn't agree with. You can blame his previous experiences with his family and protests for that, causing him to go as far as to sabotage other people's work research. Or you could hammer him with his family's past enough to make him flip out at you.
What else? Oh yes, he's what you can call an 'idealist'. Kristoffer firmly believes in the value of ALL animal life, even if his own or other people's lives are in danger. It won't be uncommon for him to stop others from stopping a dangerous animal, say for example a big shark, about to attack them, just because he always thinks there is a peaceful way out of the sticky situaton.
Likes: - Photography
- Reading
- Lazy days on a calm ocean during the day
- Cooking. Eating hardly any meat, if any at all, he's come to enjoy experimenting with food and gotten half-decent at it too.
- Proving himself right over others
Dislikes: - His family
- Spending too much time on land. Perhaps he's gotten too much salt-water in his veins?
- Know-it-alls. Nothing get's on his nerves than stubborn people not understanding that he's right. Can you believe him?
- Anything and anyone clearly endangouring the enviornment.
- Cats. He doesn't know why, there's just something...esoretic about them that gives him the creeps.
Fears: - Failing to save marine life
- Never getting out of his family's past
- Never going back to sea
- The shapeless presence that he's seen in his dreams...no, not dreams, but nightmares.
Kristoffer Foyn Sørstad. The black sheep of the Foyn Sørstad-family. The one to break away from everything the family stood for and attempt to carve out his own mark on history. The younger brother who became the outcast, and yet, not the first one to be of particular interest to our story. But that's not important now, so let us focus on Kris himself. Kristoffer was born into the relative wealthy family of Foyn Sørstad, decendents of a famous and equally important whaler from the 1800's. Like their predecessor, his family continued the line of work of whale-hunting and processing, which was still not banned in Norway at the current present.
Kristoffer himself, however, knew little of the harsh reality his family dabbled in as he grew up. The younger brother in the flock of siblings showed from an early age a commendable source of joy and compassion, continuesly smiling and playing with both his siblings and other friends. Not that there were too many other children around his hometown, located far north in the least populated area of Norway. He didn't think about why they had decided to live there, for to him it was a normality. It wasn't until many years later that he started to question his parents' reasoning for living relatively isolated for such a wealthy family.
It was when Kristoffer was perhaps 12 or 13 years old that his grandfather decided to take him with him on a little trip. Perhaps he thought that Kristoffer was old enough to witness the work that his family had done for ages, or perhaps he was simply a little bored? We don't know, but the first was certainly not what happened. Kristoffer was taken down to the harbour where he and his grandfather waited. And waited. For what? Kristoffer asked, but his grandfather wasn't saying. Not that he can remember much of what they were talking about in the meantime, just of some old story about a relative a long time ago and witnessing something horrific in the Pacific Ocean. What he do remember is what one of the ships dragged into the harbour.
A whale. A living, but bleeding whale, dragged by the big ship that carried the name of his family. Whatever his grandfather, or the rest of his family matter thought he would think of this, they surely didn't expect Kristoffer to react how he did. He cried. A mix of immense sadness for the sorry animal desperatlely trying to escape its imminent fate with ever weaker efforts, and anger towards those responsible for it. The sailors, the harpoon-gunner, the captain, and his family. No matter what they tried to tell him afterwards, he couldn't see them as anything other than...than...than cruel.
Fast-forward six years, and Kristoffer finally left the only place he had called home. He simply couldn't live with the people he once knew as family anymore. The distance had only grown over those years, turning Kristoffer into a young man loathing them. He travelled south to the capital, Oslo, to begin a new life. The worst part was to find a new place to live, but he found something much better; a friend. He got into contact with an animal-welfare activist protesting outside the parlimanet, slowly but surely understanding his place in this world full of cruelty; if the animals couldn't fight back, then he would fight for them.
Part of that destiny involved learning as much as possible about said creatures, and with the help of various new friends and a few loans, Kristoffer applied, went to and managed to pull through university with a master's degree in marine-biology. What followed was small odd-jobs for various museums, animal-welfare and enviornmental groups, before he was given a job at a government research vessel. Some argued that he duly deserved the job due to his skills and zeal, while others hinted that his family might not have wanted their son to end up in the gutter. Kristoffer doesn't accknowledge the second theory at all.
By the time Kristoffer was well over 30, he had worked with more marine life than he could count and supported various protests against anything threatening marine- and animal life. Even by that age he had experienced half the world's ocean and every continent, coming into contact with many indigenous people in assitance of their livelyhoods, just to name a few. Perhaps that was why he was given an offer to work on an UN-mission. The destination was the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean. The mission, to investigate the decline of marine life in the area. How could Kristoffer refuse?
Gifted(+5): Biology - Awareness
Adept(+3): Persuasion - SERE - Geology
Average(+2): Anthropology - First Aid - Stealth
Novice(+1): Engineering - Hand-to-Hand - History - Crafting
Languages Norwegian & English
Relationship Status: Single
Family: None that he wishes to speak of.
Opinions of Other Researchers/Crewmembers: Other: