Here are three portraits of some space colonists in an idea that I have had.
It’s a sci-fi story/idea/universe based loosely on science fiction that I like such as Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri (SMAC) and Rimworld.
These are some character concepts that I have been synthesizing into this story idea, though it’s not bearing real fruit yet. This is also actually outdated—an updated version is in their respective descriptions.
-Kexaw Showytt (Kay-Shaw Sho-Weet) is a bugbear. His original intention was to be an architect engineer. While that’s fine, Akemi’s change of occupation has made me rewrite Kexaw into “just” an engineer. He specializes in network engineering and environmental engineering, especially in regards to infrastructure utilizing both (e.g. sensor arrays, monitor grids, network nodes, and all sorts of futuristic-sounding stuff). His expertise is very harmonious with Haruk.
-Akemi (no last name assigned) is a human. Here, she is listed as a geologist. This is fine, but I wasn’t happy with it while playing Rimworld. To make a long story short, Akemi is actually a colonist on one of my saves. She was a space refugee that I took in, and she happened to be a geologist miner with a peg leg (!). In one timeline (that has since been deleted), she gave birth to twin girls. Sadly, that particular save has been lost, but she still exists in an earlier period of that colony. I hope that makes sense.
In any case, after a bit of character editing in Rimworld, I have decided to make her an architect instead, usurping Kexaw. In the game, the architect backstory states that she treats building design more of an art due to the technical aspects being handled by AI and other automated tools. She’s never been on-site, so she hates cleaning and hauling things. This character description fascinated me, so I reanalyzed her as an architect instead of a geologist. It was also hard for me to come up with good ideas for her role, but buildings are necessary for human habitation. You might as well make them pretty…
Her actual, in-story character will (probably) not be one-to-one of the architect backstory in Rimworld, but it’s a good starting point in thinking about how she approaches designing structures more like an art form rather than a problem.
-Haruk is an orc. You probably recognize him! Here, I thought of him as a xenobiologist. In my (very) short story that I wrote in a notebook, he was an engineer on a space ship because I needed to justify his (…kinky?) use of a space suit. He was also (randomly) a biologist studying potential gene therapy on the ship too. Make that make sense. Now, however, on an alien world, there’s nothing stopping him from continuing to use it (at least, in the first times of planetfall). It’s probably not a great idea to expose yourself to an alien atmosphere or biosphere immediately, after all. Now, if the pressure is fine, the colonists could just get away with using respirators, but I’m kinda writing myself into a corner here, huh?
I was more-so apt to writing him as a xenobiologist because biology is more interesting to me than engineering. Engineering is great and has lead to great leaps in humanity and blah blah blah but I’m more of a “soft science” kind of person. I studied the humanities. Sorry for my smooth brain.
The incredible world of SMAC involves a very cool biosphere on Planet. I wanted to see what I could do similarly, and I wanted to include Haruk in a meaningful way.

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These three are actually part of a scouting team. They are exploring the new world using their knowledge to plan out colonization in their own subjects. Haruk studies the local biology, Kexaw designs networks of sensors and monitors, Akemi sketches the new buildings of an entirely novel culture, and—
There is a fourth person named Karo. He’s a self-insert. I hope that’s ok. Self-inserts are not seen very positively, I believe, so I’m timid in sharing too much (or even including him at all). I was planning on him being a settlement designer. Think urban planning meets social science. He’s also an orc, and he is Haruk’s lover.
He has not been included here due to running out of space on the paper. And, you know, crippling fear of the wrath of the Internet due to self-inserts.
…
Ha ha.