Dr. Rhys Aloysius Catalano-Moore
Physical Appearance
Rhys Aloysius Catalano-Moore is in his mid 30s, but looks young. He's on the shorter side, about 5'7-5'8"; his build is somewhat slight but he's deceptively in shape. He has short-cropped, slightly disheveled brown hair, a well-kept moustache and a stubbly beard; he wears plain and weather-worn black horn rimmed glasses, the left lens of which is covered due to Rhys' missing left eye (he lost it at the age of 6 in an accident while hiking). He is an off-again, on-again smoker, a habit he picked up as an overworked and overstressed college student. He has a very small set of gauges in his ears and a small hoop ring through his right nostril; XCOM isn't exactly thrilled over the breach in uniform policy, but then again they can't really afford to be picky about things like that in times like these. When not in uniform, he tends to dress plainly and frugally, with a flannel shirt and jeans being a typical outfit; he has a sort of hipster-adjacent aesthetic. During the events of Operation Kodiak* (*or insert whatever cool name for the incident you prefer here), Rhys lost his right arm just above the elbow, which was replaced with an advanced prosthetic. The remaining organic skin on his right arm, as well as his intact left arm, is covered in a complex mixed sleeve of tattoos - depicting (among other things) trilobites, ants, arthropods of various species, trees, flowers, mountainous landscapes, and other natural scenery.
Background
Originally hailing from the tiny Tasmanian town of Eggs and Bacon Bay, Rhys is the son of Bridger Moore, an Australian mining mogul and big game hunter, and Ginevra Catalano, an Italian-born botanist and host of the Australian nature series World-Wide Wonders. As the youngest (and shortest) of seven children, Rhys never really fit in too well with the rest of his family, sharing his parents and siblings' love of the outdoors but not their business acumen or their boisterous personalities. Even so, Rhys' childhood was a pleasant (and privileged) one, largely spent hiking, swimming, climbing, exploring, and otherwise immersing himself in the natural world. Any material concerns for the Catalano-Moore family were more than eliminated by the massive success of the Moore Mining Company - a corporation which, in a grim irony that is one of Rhys' greatest shames, has an absolutely horrific environmental record. Driven by this shame, as well as his general black-sheep syndrome he felt around his family, Rhys leapt at the opportunity that higher education afforded him to get an extended break from his hectic home life. He has been living in the United States since he attended the University of Washington - first earning his masters in entomology, followed by consecutive doctorates in astrobiology and biochemistry. As an aside, it was also at UW that he obtained a degree in linguistics, in order to belong to the rare few on earth who are both entomologists and etymologists. He has a love of learning that borders on the pathological, and a nearly encyclopedic knowledge of a variety of subjects - astrobiology, xenobiology, biochemistry, linguistics, entomology, etymology, astronomy, paleontology, zoology, archaeology, taxonomy, und so weiter. After his graduation, Rhys worked a brief year and a half in the private sector for a research firm by the name of Hennick & Brass, before being approached by a mysterious individual who identified himself only as "Mr. Watch" - and the rest, as they say, is classified.
Easter Eggs
- Dr. Rhys speaks with an Aussie accent
- For the entire first game session, Dr. Rhys did not know how to use the blaster in his prosthetic arm, and first used it on accident
- Dr. Rhys does not suffer lack of depth perception when using the targeting for his alien blaster for some reason
