Xander Selman

Xander Selman is a seventeen year old Junior Inquirer who studies at the Elysian Institute for Advanced Inquiry. His field of inquiry is biochemical virology, with a subfield in pretachyonic history. He lives in the trade city Seaport Kaitra on the planet Freya, and like most of the Institute's Inquirers, he attends classes via neuralinking.

Phase One
At the start of his second year at the Institute, Xander enrolls in a Pretachyonic Tartaran History class, which is Mentored by Alistair Marcellus. It quickly becomes apparent that Marcellus' snarky attitude towards teaching is radically different than what Xander has been used to, making him concerned about his own future performance in the prerequisite class. Adding to Xander's stress is Talon Sinclair, son of a Valhallan congressman, who Xander believes seems intent on challenging Marcellus and distracting the class. He makes a wary friendship with the dignitary's son, however, and in turn becomes introduced to Julyan Novas, another Valhallan who Xander is able to identify with more.

During the passing period following a lecture on the concept of originality, Xander is introduced by Tal and Julyan to the younger Sinclair, Morgan. who is Talon's sister and in her first year at the Institute. The conversation afterwards comes to a sudden halt, however, as Xander's neuralink connection suddenly fails, and he disappears from the virtual meeting room. Returning to reality in a haze of irritation, Xander curses his shoddy connection capability at his house, and hurriedly begins to trek into the city -- the rest of his classes for the day, he decides, will have to take place in a public neuralink hub. Ignoring his feelings of hesitation, he traverses the stormy streets of the Seaport in search of the nearest neural receptacle, something he soon regrets doing. He encounters a gang of Hadeans, but thankfully they give him no real trouble, and Xander reaches the public hub unscathed.