Name: Dr. Shillingford

One species hell is another's heaven. Strahawei, with its surface almost entirely covered in marshy wetlands, would be a nightmare to most. The frogs who settled it felt the opposite and lived in deep comfort.

There is a level of comfort that moves from bliss to lethargy. Strahaweinians were an example of this. On arriving, they built a beautiful society on this planet that only their eyes found beautiful. For the next few centuries, immigrants hopped to Strahawei from around the galaxy, and society flourished. After the initial boom, everything settled into easy enjoyment of their paradise.

Dr. Shillingford was born nearly half a millennium after that boom. The great cities of old laid in mainly ruins as very few Strahaweinians still worked or did much of anything productive. Some squatted in the ruined buildings, though most had moved into the open marshes, living in the mud, often even giving up on wearing clothes. The difference between them and their evolutionary ancestors, from the long-forgotten planet earth, became smaller and fewer.

Dr. Shillingford, then known only as young Shillingford, had had a very traumatic childhood. Their mother came down with a very preventable disease, but without functioning hospitals, or anyone who'd studied anything resembling medicine, she died a very unnecessary young death. Young Shillingford was appalled that this would happen and decided to learn medicine themselves, though they were uncertain if they'd want to bring their knowledge back to help those helpless by choice.

Decades later, now Doctor Shillingford was debating returning to their home planet. After their training, the doctor set up a clinic in a poorer sector of space to provide help to those who really needed it but had not the means. A clinic in this unserved area was an instant sensation, though they did not get their chance to practice the charity they had planned. They did not conclude that the Strahaweinians were any less pathetic, only that the rest of the galaxy was not much better.

Countless species who visited their clinic, though poor and sick, had no real interest in their healing. They were bombarded with requests for the most meaningless treatments, with most of their patients just pretending to be in pain to get free drugs. Dr. Shillingford realized that the rest of the galaxy was not so different from their home planet. The majority of species everywhere had no drives or ambitions of any substantial value, and as a servant to society, their life was equally meaningless.

The security system they'd, unfortunately, needed very much interrupted his melancholy to alert him to two ships approaching. The scanner showed a large pirate vessel leading a smaller transport ship. The doctor turned off the security and went out to meet them. Their clinic wouldn't be of any less value looted by pirates than it had been serving society's most frivolous needs, and their life wouldn't mean any less if it ended here, they thought to themselves.

The ship's landing was so rushed it seemed more of a crash, with the doors opening unsafely early. A band of pirates led by an unmatching cat rushed out, carrying a small bloody thing. "Help, please help us. We need help." Dr. Shillingford jumped to attention. Rushing out to help the crowd bring in their patient. The doctor did not care who this patient was. Their mind was filled with the mission to do the job they'd trained for, and the first uplifting thought they'd felt in a very long time.

They were needed.