[hider=Deacon][center]
[img] https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/e8/03/9f/e8039febcf168cc0434defee682224b2.jpg [/img]
[b][h3] Dr. Deacon H. Randall: Common Aliases – Deke & Doc Randall[/h3][/b][/center]  

[b]Age[/b] – 38 

[b]Sex[/b] – Male 

[b]Occupation[/b] – Planetary biologist, Weyland-Yutani Corporation, Hestia Prime division.  Doc Randall specializes in the introduction and adaptation of Terran species to terraformed worlds.

[b]Appearance[/b] – Flashing green digits, digital demons in the shapes of a single five followed by two zeros accompanied a shrill and repetitive screeching that wrenched Deacon from a heavy slumber that had begun the minute his concrete block of a skull had hit the pillow.  Automated lights began to glow in the small room, growing brighter as the minutes slipped by, the alarm clock continued to shriek, 5:05am now. A shape that consumed the small single mattress shifted reluctantly, an outline of mass, bulk, and humanity clear under the thin sheets.  An arm reached up and a hand smashed down on the alarm clocks control panel smashing every button down simultaneously and silencing the shrill machine. Seconds later the shape under the sheets rose and stumbled into the washroom attached to the spartan living quarters.

Brighter lights winked to life in the washroom revealing a faced lined with the exertions of the day before. Greens eyes regarded his own reflection from under a heavy brow, a nose wide enough to look as if it had been broken a few times (it has not been) descended towards a hard, square jaw line covered in close cut grey stubble, much like the top of the head it was all attached to.  With a giant sigh, Deacon committed to moving his sore body into the shower and after some hot water and a shave the man standing in the mirror was refreshed and less zombie like.  

At 5’ 11” and 228lbs Deacon is not what people expect to walk through the door when they call for a rep from the science department to attend colony stakeholder meetings. His muscular bulk and preference for functional field clothing over lab coats and data pads will often lead newcomers to mistake Deacon for colonial security.  His preference for working on his experiments and gathering his data from the field normally leads him to be unkempt in some way, be it caked in mud, stained by turf, dripping sweat, or plastered by other biological unmentionables.  His clothing normally consists of earth toned jump suits, flat greens or browns with the tops of those often unzipped to and tied around his waist in favor of the micro-fiber sleeveless undershirts that are standard colony fare.  Over the jumpsuits, he will wear the utility belts, harnesses, boots, gloves, and packs required to gather samples and transport gear to remote sites far afield from the colony.  For Deacon function always overrides form.      

[b]Strengths[/b] – When it comes to biology and adapting life to new worlds Deacon has a ten-pound brain to match the strongman’s body.  The Weyland-Yutani Corporation considers Deacon to be in the top 10% of the corporation’s staff of biologists and some academic circles place him in the top 25% of the entire field of planetary biology.  Besides the specific expertise in his field, his level of intelligence makes him a solid critical thinker and problem solver.    

Since his only other passions, other than biological field work, are strength sports Deacon is a very, very strong person.  Coupled with this raw strength, the time Deacon has spent slogging through the field has conditioned his endurance as well.  This however doesn’t make him suited to anything but his sport and hiking to remote locations, as a fighter or combatant he has no skill, technique, or training.

[b]Weaknesses[/b] – Since Deacon’s life is pretty much divvied up between his passion for his sport and his passion for his work he tends to be socially removed.  He is used to being alone and long stretches of isolation and field work have reinforced his tendencies to not rely on others or ask for assistance, even when he needs it.  Deacon also compensates for his lack of social graces with an intense bravado that covers a deep, deep fear of failing.  Deacon uses his aggressive sport training and isolation during field work to build a persona that covers something raw and jagged beneath, if he creates a large enough legacy here it may overshadow the demons of his past, or so he thinks. He left something important and unfinished when he came to Hestia Prime, something unresolved and unhealthy.

While Deacon is a brilliant biologist in the field, many of his more lab focused peers contend that his methods are reckless and dangerous.  Deacon will be first to take a risk with his work, with his own safety, and sometimes with the safety of others if he, in his hubris, believes he controls the situation.  Deacon is also a horrible science communicator, he can understand the science of planetary biology as simply as he can breathe, but he is unable to effectively communicate or teach those ideas to others.  

Deacon, due to his upbringing in the Archology and other elements of his past and connections with Weyland-Yutani is absurdly loyal to Weyland-Yutani and that would be a difficult tie to break.

[b]Personality[/b] – Deacon has a very cultivated personality that he presents to everyone.  He would be happy if the people around him compared him to the feasting, competitive, and exuberant heathens of old earth, except with advanced scientific degrees and experience.  He is outwardly enthusiastic, boisterous, and can be counted on to indulge in most things just a little too much.  In reality though, Deacon prefers the quiet order of the natural world and the inexorable cycles of life, death, energy, and entropy.  Despite his intense public facade, he prefers the quiet reflection of the isolated wilderness and uses that to refresh his mind and psyche because putting on the over-the-top front he maintains is as mentally draining as intense scientific study can be.     

[b]Family[/b] – Deacon never speaks of having family before the colony, after the colony he has been close with some of the security and engineering guys and gals (mostly from training in the gym together or working in the field with the engineers), he tends to be isolated from many of the others in the science department due to his extensive time in the field and over the top personality. 

[b]Backstory[/b] – Deacon’s life as a child was a success story of corporate sponsorship and scholarship.  Raised in a Weyland-Yutani Archology (Architectural Ecology, a massive self-sustaining building that houses thousands of residents and needs to import or export zero resources to survive indefinably) Deacon was accustomed to corporate life from childhood.  His schools were all Weyland-Yutani, his food was Weyland-Yutani, his clothing Weyland-Yutani, etc. etc. In this environment, Deacon lived a relatively average life up until his prodigious academic talent was cultivated and he decided to leave the Archology.  His studies and progress in his chosen collegiate, post-grad, and doctoral field could have been pursued easily from within the safe confines of the Archology but his desire to experience field work had already developed into a full-grown passion.  At 26 he left the Archology and headed to Southeast Asia to study potential factors that could increase mammalian adaptation thresholds to newly terraformed planets.  While there two events would happen that would forever change Deacon’s life.  The first is that he researched, defined, and published, to much acclaim and support, a model and method that would allow for the successfully alteration of the biological circadian rhythm.  Up until that point in planetary biology an insurmountable problem had been adapting organisms that have a 24-hour circadian rhythm to new worlds with non-24-hour time cycles.  Not only did this discovery sky-rocket Deacon to the forefront of his field at 30, it led to multiple colonial division chief positions being offered. The second event that propelled Deacon off of Earth is still a sealed record and a matter of Weyland-Yutani internal security.[/hider]