Joribel 'Gerbil' Oouga

Gender: Male

Age: 21 physical age at time of death

Group: Officers

Game: Blue Dwarf

Species

Human (previously), generated as a sometimes hard-light hologram

Job

Health and Safety Inspector and Holographic Technician (previously the same occupation for The Journeyer before being jettisoned for generally annoying behavior)

Physical Appearance

A small, reflective, H of ever-changing colors on his forehead. Short, brown-black curls; Grey-green eyes; 5 feet six inches tall; trim and athletic (runner), with a preference for off-duty wear such as denim trousers, button down shirts (open a button or three), motorcycle half-boots, and a leather jacket. He tends to keep his curls styled with gel (at least before becoming a hologram and simulating this effect instead). He does have a monogrammed track suit and high-top sneakers for running and PT. When in uniform, he keeps it as neat and striking as possibly, proudly wearing his Rank, 4-year long service ribbon, and experimental-service ribbon, as well as the dual-insignia of Inspections and Holographics. His name-tag reads "Gerbil", and no matter what he tries, he cannot get it to switch back to his own name for any length of time (see explanation in History).

Personality and Interests

He is a font of trivial knowledge, knowing a variety of tidbits anywhere from "the original, literal meaning of the word kangaroo - I don't know" to "the name of the United States (Earth) president whose mother kept him in a dress until the age of six - Franklin D. Roosevelt". And he is happy to share his wealth of knowledge with anyone, even if they seem shy about learning it.

Joribel has a stuffed plush tiger he 'rescued' from the garbage pod he was found in (see history). T.O.D. (Tiger of Destruction) is his best friend and favorite bedfellow, and is kept at all times in his bunk. He is very sensitive about teasing concerning T.O.D. and has to take a minute to figure out if he should laugh, cry, or throw a fit concerning other people's reactions or comments to this inanimate 'security' object. He thinks people are genuinely good and don't mean to be hurtful, so he feels practical jokes and pranks are not malicious even when they 'backfire', but he doesn't voluntarily participate in them. One could say he is rather gullible to a point in the name of friendship.

He is adamant, almost fanatical, about performing his job for three reasons: it gives him a brilliant service record to impress people with, it gives him almost unlimited contact with people who general 'pretend' to not like him in order to show them what a great, fun guy he is, and it shows up those smeg-heads in the JMC Crew Selection Board who did this to him (the third reason only developed in the last three million years).

He can be friendly and genial, but does lose his temper if confronted (say with the fact that he's wrong). He genuinely feels hurt if someone tells him he's not wanted around, as he believes he's perfectly amenable and well-liked. He isn't wholly annoying, if one is willing to listen to his stories or trivia, but he tends to 'beat a dead horse with another dead horse' if allowed to drone on. If handles with sensitivity, he will shut up and listen without hurt feelings.

He is unafraid to try new things, even though more times than not he finds he dislikes the results. However, he feels that if he doesn't try, how can he learn why other people like those things. He still doesn't understand why people like those things he dislikes, but he figures with enough trying, he'll souse it out.

When off duty, if he isn't resting the requisite 8 hours due to his light-bee, he can be found voraciously reading, studying, or trying to make friends and impress others.

He has nightmares of death practically every night. But as he is recharging while sleeping, he is unable to break out of these dreams until it fully recharged. Thus, he is always trying to get on someone's good-side so no one will be tempted to re-enact his worst fears (dying in any form- but mainly enclosed and thrown in water to slowly drown in a claustrophobic coffin). He never tells what his fears are, and would probably be willing to give up his first, second, and third born children to keep the secret, if he had children. As it stands, he could be convinced to give up his stuffed tiger to keep someone quiet if genuinely faced with the water-coffin of death.

His short-term goal is to get out of the pod, resurrect his career, and make new friends to replace those who thought putting him in a garbage pod and shooting him in space a funny sort of prank. His long-term goal is to give T.O.D. a sonic roar to match that of a real tiger.

History

Born on Phobos, a moon of Mars, to an up-and-coming interior decorator (Mum) and a stand-offish yet brilliant research scientist (Daddy).

He had a fairly normal upbringing, going to boarding school with the other naturally mentally gifted yet socially despised guys in his form. He graduated top fifth of his class, mastering in holographic technologies, human anatomy & physiology, marathon running, useless trivia, and kissing up to superiors. During schooling he earned the nickname Gerbil due to a blurring of his name and his ability to run circles around everyone else. He graduated at sixteen.

As the top four men in his form were engineers or medical doctors, and all four became officers in the space corps, he decided to follow suite. He went through officer training with the aim of becoming the best Holographic Designer to ever live, but his instructors felt he would be a much better safety and health inspector (as they personally thought no one could be more annoying than him - so the job would be a perfect fit). He let them sway him as long as he could secondary in holographics. The nickname Gerbil remains steadfastly intact during university and officer training. He graduated university at twenty and officer's school at twenty-one.

When the Jupiter Mining Corps (JMC) Crew Selection Board (CSB) were putting together a crew for an exploration ship "The Journeyer" containing a Holographic Second-in-Command, they considered Joribel for the dual-positions of Health & Safety Inspector and Holograph Technician (to save money, as they would only be paying one salary for two jobs). Once done meeting with Joribel to prep him for this unique role, the CSB were so annoyed with him they felt it would be worth paying two people for the jobs rather than have anything to do with the git. Thus, they arranged for him to be accidentally smothered during a spontaneous barracks pillow fight. As an added bonus to reward themselves, the CSB had Joribel resurrected as a soft-light hologram so that each one could have him computer-generated holographically killed off in various ways, having the computer update his personality-storage disc each time he was resurrected in order to give him ongoing nightmares (convincing him each death was his imagination as the only death recorded for him was the smothering). Once the CSB ran out of torture deaths, about the time the JMC on-high's started demanding to know where their Inspector was, the CSB renewed Joribel's light-bee with a rechargeable hard-light bee and Micro-Imperio-Resonant Atomic-Fusion Transducer (MIRAFT) - basically a mini-energy-generator. However, the hard-light bee was in its experimental stage and, while working off an independent generator from any ship or base, it still needed recharging every sixteen hours for eight hours straight. They told the on-high's that the new light-bee had been what took so long, thus clearing themselves of wasting time and resources. The CSB shipped Joribel off to his new assignment, stamping the name Gerbil on his official transfer forms as well as on his official holo-generated name tag. He was twenty-two.

Unfortunately for the crew of The Journeyer, Gerbil insisted on performing his tasks to the best, and thus most annoying, of his ability; he demanded quarterly check-ups for all crew, holograms included, and monthly safety inspections for the entire ship. Unfortunately for Gerbil, this annoyed the crew so much that, by the fifth quarter (or one and a quarter years into the mission), they decided to teach him a lesson.

The crew, with the wholehearted, unofficial permission of the Captain, grabbed his light bee during his down time, along with his MIRAFT so as not to be accused of outright murder, and his personality disc, and tossed both into a garbage pod full of broken A.I. appliances and unwanted children's toys. They then jettisoned the pod into space and gave it a hard boost with their own propulsion jets in order to send it to the other end of the known universes, intending for the pod and it's contents never to be found, opened, and once more unleashed on civilization. They reported that he jumped board and any search efforts had been futile. He was twenty-three.

While imprisoned, he kept sane purely by only onlining once a month to attempt repairing the appliances and to hold long conversations and trivia contests with his new and only best friend, a stuffed plush tiger toy also in the pod. He named this toy Tiger of Destruction or T.O.D. (Tod for short). Three million years later, the garbage pod has been spotted by a misplaced JMC mining ship from another dimension, The Blue Dwarf. He is three million twenty-three years. When rescued, he joined the crew of the Blue Dwarf and has been happily annoying them ever since.

Favourite Sayings

"Hey, did you know . . ."

"Okay, time for your routine check."

"People really [eat, drink, do, etc.] that? Uh, okay then . . ."

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This character is not owned by anyone. You can adopt them if you become a member of this game.