A concept comes together
Life was hard on Bortan II, the Brakim homeworld. A planetwide war sometime during the Gap reduced their numbers and left their world an irradiated wasteland. Worse yet, the planet was forcefully added to the Azlanti Star Empire, leaving little opportunity for the Brakim people to ever fully recover from their self-inflicted destruction.
But that was long before Strek was born, and he saw things differently.
Strek was quick to pick up the Azlanti language by tapping into and studying their digital communications. He became so adept with his own accent at points that he gained the confidence to interject a few communique of his own occasionally, and through that, he learned of opportunities.
When he eventually landed his first off-world job he impressed his superiors with his knowledge of Azlanti, their protocols and even their humor. He'd interject self deprecating jokes into Azlanti conversations, usually by saying things like he'd "stick his neck out" for them or how he'd "bend over backwards" to get the job done.
The Azlanti liked those sorts of jokes.
And truth be told, Strek still uses them to this day, but he escaped from an Azlanti job site years ago, so now his humor is more of a reminder of where he came from, and how no matter how bad things may seem, at least he doesn't wake up homeless and starving in a desert encampment.
His last big job before joining the crew of BD514 was terraforming the waterworld of Entha. Strek could swim well, but that wasn't enough to excel and get noticed. So he starved for a week to save up for a gill sheath augmentation to stay underwater long after his oxygen had run up. He even multitasked by using those long hours to practice Aquan, just in case a future supervisor might be impressed with it.
But that job got sour when company profits tanked, and so now he finds himself as a Starship mechanic, wondering what language he should pick up next.
