ABOUT VIV

The curculs were once a very community-focused and expressive people, and for a very long time, they were also capable of space travel. But a tragedy happened, long ago, near the end of the last shadow war. There's no one left to explain what specifically happened, and there are very few indicators beyond some spindly craters in the far-off desert areas. After this event, they became incredibly reclusive, only spending time with other curculs to facilitate reproduction; nothing less, nothing more.

Viv's father was the first Curcul to leave homeworld after a thousand years, building a makeshift space vessel with parts of ancient ships he found near those ruins. He knew that if he left he'd never be able to go back, but he knew he'd never be able to rest if he didn't see what else was in the universe. He travelled quite a bit, though his unique appearance got him more attention than he ever wanted... and then he fell in love with a human woman, an Earthforce medical officer who he met when she was on leave. They quickly bonded, and then eventually, as a complete accident because no one in the world thought it was possible, Viv was born.

No one knew what to expect in hir childhood. Hir additional insectoid arms were not present at birth & grew in later, as did the nostril tendrils (which ze breathes out the ends of). As it turns out, Viv grew up to have a similar level of intelligence, and reclusiveness, as hir father, with an eidetic memory that would come in handy much later.... when Viv turns 18 and everything goes to shit.

Ze wakes up one day and his father has disappeared. Hir mother doesn't know what happened and falls into a deep depression, causing her to fold into herself and neglect Viv, who obviously still needed her. Viv also quickly realizes that every material hir father had that tied him to the Curcul homeworld and culture - all of his writing, mementos from home, all of his recollections and drawings and maps - had disappeared along with him. The place the Curcul homeworld was supposed to be has an empty space on the map now. Ze would spend the next several years trying to recreate everything from memory, with a special focus on restoring and preserving the Eupholus Curcul language, which ze had almost become fluent in via lessons from hir father before the disappearance.

Many years later, V'vezeqt is still working on the project in 2249. Ze sees morden's speech to the interplanetary archeological society about the Anfran love stone mistranslations, and is very impressed. Viv has not interacted with a lot of people since hir father died, but he seems really intelligent, and they live pretty close to each other actually, so ze decides to set up a meeting with him. Ze thinks it's finally time to consult someone else on the project.

They meet at a cafe and Viv shows him what ze has put together in those several years. At first it looks like he's bored and would rather be doing something else, but when he looks over Viv’s work, he’s instantly impressed. He believes hir when ze details the reason why ze’s doing the project, because he himself had been studying an ancient language recently that had a lot of similarities to the Curcul language and was said to originate in the same area of space as Viv said the curcul homeworld had been. They get along quite well, and he helps point hir in a few directions. They never see each other again after that....

Until 2258, when Morden and his associates find themselves in need of some more insight and information about the universe. Morden, remembering Viv's vast knowledge of various alien cultures and eidetic memory, suggests V’vezeqt. He meets up with hir again at the same cafe, and ze, being amoral and hating earth, agrees to his proposition. Ze doesn’t find out the… Full extent of the shadow shit until he actually brings hir to z’ha’dum, but isn't disturbed by it at all.