MI Stuff- Dr. Michael Fisher (Patreon)

JK. For a protag I guess I haven't really gone into a lot of detail inside the comic, mostly because I noticed that... I don't know if this is the case for you, but when I'm reading or watching scifi, I often automatically approve of the credentials of the characters. Unless something really dumb happens (like the biologists running away from the creatures in Prometheus)(!!!scream!!!), or unless their job function is a vital plot point (like you-are-the-only-pilot-who-can-do-this dad in Interstellar), I'll assume they were vetted by whoever hired them and mentally move on. But. Maybe other people like meticulous credentials, idk.

Michael comes from a geology family— his paternal grandfather was a petroleum geologist, and his father was an executive in natural gas (and Mike's mom was also in geology, I guess, if you count gold digging). His dad had a vague plan for his son to be more on the business track and continue in his foot$tep$, but Mike wound up getting his degree in geohydrology with a focus on hydrothermal systems. He bailed on his postdoc to go into the private sector with another ex-academic who was developing an extreme-environment robotic survey tool, which eventually led to him becoming the geology lead for the team developing LEVi. Once that took off, he was turned into more of a project manager, and then finally robot babysitter. I guess we know how that turned out, haha.

He was considered "a great fit" for the mission he is on since he doesn't have a family and has a lot of hands-on experience working far far far South or North... LEVi has been tested in (terran) polar volcanoes, dry valleys, katabatics (kinda), etc. Although he has many seasons of field work under his belt, he prefers working at his desk. If there hadn't been a precedent he probably would have gone into math or programming or something cleaner. To be honest he is happiest to be in whatever place it is where people leave him alone and stop interrupting with stupid questions.

[I GUESS HE FOUND IT]

The pic up top is a little doodle of him in front of Erebus, an active volcano in Antarctica. Ascension Drive, the company he works for, ended up filming a bunch of their tests there as part of a promotional documentary, so he has a tiny amount of unwanted notoriety back on Earth for that.