Oceri Belus

Oceri Belus is a member of the Dhrvali species - amphibious hexapods derived from decapod crablike ancestors, who primarily inhabit the mangrove swamps that are common on the long coastlines of Dhrvalon. While their home planet is near the core worlds of the Federation, it's a particularly uneasy relationship that the Dhrvali have with most other members, even after so many years of contact. This is mainly due to the fact that there is a humanoid species native to Dhrvalon, usually referred to as Trolls. The trolls, while unintelligent herd creatures, are the Dhrvali's chief food source, and give them their common name: Trollhunters. To earn this name is a rite of passage in which nearly all the species still participates.

The Dhrvali still mostly live in their original mangrove regions, rather than cities; their technology is instead used to guide the growth of their habitat, making room for the increased population capacity that social development brings. Their technological elite is an acetic order, those few Dhrvali that leave the planet rarely come from this background - they are the curious few that prowl out from the edges of their swamps, instead.

Oceri is one of these. These individuals tend to bond into communities of their own, while remaining within Dhrvali society - even among those driven to a life beyond their share of land, it's often little more than a hobby. Rarer yet is that drive so strong in an individual that they make it off-planet, and many of these often do not return. Their portion in the population seems to be shrinking, now, which Oceri takes as an indication there's something genetic at work.

He first found enough like-minded individuals to crew a small ship, and used trading runs as an excuse to poke around neighboring systems. Everywhere he went, though, there seemed to always be a Starfleet presence. At first this dampened his spirits: he knew that everywhere he could go, he'd just find the same people. Eventually, though, he realized that Starfleet ranged far beyond the systems he himself could journey to. His problem was also its own resolution, and after returning home he applied to Starfleet Academy.

The Dhrvali that make it offworld are almost by definition pathological, and ones encountered by other races are usually acting as mercenaries or bandits... with a habit of eating their enemies, as the Trolls of Dhrvalon are the seeded-descendants of the same ancient humanoids as most humanoid species. The Federation's famed tolerance can be stretched a little thin by such habits, and Oceri has often been treated distantly for this; he takes his meals in the privacy of his own quarters, for example.

Oceri's original interest was in biology, though to make himself useful, and so more likely to earn a place on an exploration ship, he quickly branched out, and keeps himself well-versed in a number of disciplines, mostly on the macro-scale; particle, energy, and subspace physics are his weak spots. However, because he's often not fit in well with crews in his past - the Heisenberg is his fourth starship posting - he's been unable so far to land the long-range missions he'd originally sought.

It now seems unlikely that Oceri will earn his place on an exploration mission; he, along with all other hands, is presumed lost in the Heisenberg's failed transwarp experiment.