Hippolyte is an Antecorn Yuanie. They are ungulate-like creatures born from an artificial hybridization of human DNA with genes from various species (horses, antelopes, arthropods and bacterias).
From an external point of view, Antecorns mostly look like bipedal humanoids with antelope-like legs, head and tail.

Head anatomy : He has a relatively equine-like head, with a more straight head. There is no prominent chin and the bottom part of the face is rather flat overall (still with some angles for the cheeks and a slight chin). The upper part presents a slight stop on the forehead. The head overall is thin and relatively long, with large and thin horse-like ears. The head starts by a deer-like nose and is topped by a pair of long horns. The horns do not come straight from the forehead and do not form a perpendicular angle with the head line. Instead, they come from a small protuberance of the skull that is covered with fur (with a small cream ring on it), forming an acute angle with the face. The horns have a double-curved shape, going downward first, and then pointing upward.

Body anatomy : The body overall is human-like, but fully covered by a short and satiny fur. It is of a sportive type, thin and muscular, with longish legs. His body is sculpted by well-defined muscles, thin and shaped from natural work rather than bulky. His hands are fully human-like, beside his tiny pointy nails that somewhat look like claws. His legs are equine-built, formed with three main vertical segments, as he is an unguligrade. He walks on roundish horse-like hooves that are cloven within two slightly separated parts. There are two little claws behind his feet, like on a deer leg. A small bit of fluff, somewhat similar to some horses’ feathering, runs between the claws.
He wears a long and thin tail that starts with a slight underfluff, and ends with a wide fluff of long hairs.

Colours and markings : His body is mainly of a slate colour, a dark shade of grey (#0E0E0E), that turns black onto the face, in a soft gradient way : the cheeks are slate, the forehead and the muzzle are black, as well as the nose. His face is ornamented by off-white markings running on each side on his head, from the nose to the ears, circling his eyes. The markings are lighter around the eyes than near their ends, fading from #c4b6a1 to #ded5c7. His eyes are bicoloured, from a concentric gradient of (#922605) and orange (#cc8917). They are completed by round, black pupils and a white sclera.
His horns are black with bright red (#8b1903) points, and they are circled by an off-white marking on below their base, on the furry skull protuberance.
An off-white marking also covers his belly, going thinner and darker onto the chest. His palms and the back of his arms are of this colour as well.
His mane, tail tip, claws and hooves are black in a natural state, but he likes to dye them in red. His mane is often striped with red strands, sometimes with white ones as well, or can be dyed in various ways using these colours (tips, triangles, waves…).

Clothing style : Yuanies usually do not wear much clothes, unless for weather reasons, and Hippolyte is of no exception. He likes to walk around naked, only wearing a silvery bracelet at his left arm. In his lab, he usually wears a white labcoat for safety reason, and sometimes black pants and goggles if he has to be fully covered. Out of work, he only wears some thick and covering clothes when the weather is too cold for him to handle.

Hippolyte is before everything a passionate person. He devotes his life to science, granting it most of his time, his energy and his thoughts. In love with his job, he spends his days at it, as much for pleasure than for duty. Science is what is the most important to his eyes, and he accepts no concession that could slow his work. He is an accomplished scientist, proud of his proficiency and knowledge. Author of numerous publications, and quite active on the international scene, he knew how to build himself a renown and a merit with his colleagues.

He spends his days satisfying his passion, and he couldn't be more accomplished, pleased with his job and personal life (which are basically the same). Granted with great intellectual capacities, and a certain number of national and international supports, he possesses the required tools to lead his research at his discretion. His only frustration is to know that he'll never be able to give a satisfying answer to all of the questions he's asking himself. As a good scientist, Hippolyte is very curious. He is interested by numerous topics: biology, of course, but also astronomy, physics, chemistry, mathematics, or even psychology and sociology. He is fascinated by sciences, and hungry for new discoveries, broadening his knowledge without ever feeling satisfied.

He is skilful in his domain, being gifted by a strong critical and analytical mind. He knows to set the most appropriate experiments (even though he sometimes is the only one to consider them as appropriate) to test new elements and validate (or invalidate) his theories. He also is able to call his ideas and knowledge in question, being willing to reassess what he thought he knew. He knows that he cannot be certain of his knowledge, as science will never bring definite answers, being unsure, flexible and renewable at any time. Thus, Hippolyte will try to assert his knowledge and validate his theories without persisting in a wrong way, being ready to accept any new element that would shake his habits up. He is open to new theories, being curious about any constructed idea, even the ones that look hare-brained. Being a bit too enthusiastic with his job, he may sometimes act compulsive: some question or experiment idea randomly crosses his mind, and he'll run into his lab, even if he has to sacrifice something that was meant to be used into another set experiment. He may sometimes regret his acts but, rather than recognizing his mistake, he would rather try to justify his choices.

Although usually being conscientious in his work, he sometimes let himself wander out of his protocol, doing more than he should, only to satisfy his curiosity or to try to get better results. Still, he will ensure to do his job to the best, in a clean and organised way, and will carefully keep his experiment notes to be able to bring the details of a manipulation he made.

From a strict and down-to-earth nature, Hippolyte has no artistic flair at all. He considers science to be the greatest of arts, but he has no interest for painting, poetry, novels or sculpture, finding no beauty, no use in them. He thinks that art is to be found into truth, and beauty into the comprehension of our world. He will find beauty into a well arranged protein, or will find poetry into an audacious theorem, but he would not discern interest into a human-made or yuanie-made piece of art. He is attached to pure reason, promoting the use of objective logic into any situation. He tries not to let his choices to be influenced by his yuanine feelings, trying to keep a critical view on everything. Thus, the small things of life are of no importance to him, even death. Detached from any kind of spirituality, he does not see life as a "precious gift", and he believes in nothing else than mathematical laws, which he thinks to be the only rulers of this world. He only sees life as a succession of sublime chances, with no beauty nor magic. Although he may admit some less formal ideas on some points, arguing that consciousness may still be more powerful than admitted (see "views on science").

He may still show some creativity and cleverness in his work, finding ingenious ways to handle things to reach his objectives, even when he lacks the adequate tools. He knows how to adapt his needs to his tools, as well as how to adapt his tools to his needs, as it may be quite difficult to find scientific material.

Arguer and reasoner, he likes to ask questions about everything and anything, liking to analyse every little daily thing. As a reflexion lover, he loves intellectual games and exercises of thinking. He is also partial to debates, loving to discuss, to confront ideas, opinions and theories to the ones of some other mind. He enjoys to reason, to build and expound his arguments, to try to convince his spokesperson. He also loves to analyse how his representative would do the same. He finds great interest into his peer's ideas and ways of thinking, even though he often thinks that he is the only one being in the truth, and he will laugh at his spokesperson's errors. Though, he is still open to the ideas of his most qualified peers, looking at them closely to decide whether they are worthy to keep or not. Sometimes, Hippolyte would launch a debate only to see how one would defend one's ideas, and he would sometimes defend an idea he doesn't share only to test someone's reply. He likes to analyse his kind's mind and ways of thinking just like he would do with an animal. Being a great orator, Hippolyte speaks with ease and clearness, demonstrating his ideas in an organized way (not like this biography), being for an everyday conversation, a conference or a lecture. He is confident in front of any kind of public, as he benefits of good speaking skills, using well-constructed sentences and well-chosen words, helped by a good elocution and a strong voice. He is direct in his words, never beating about the bush, it being about announcing an experiment's result or telling a colleague how useless he is. When doing a public speech, he knows how to move and be dynamic without overdoing it, using the appropriate gestures to push his ideas and words. However, it may still happen to him to get ahead of himself, getting a bit out of topic or going to fast, to the risk of losing his auditory.

Taking his laboratory director position to heart, he shows firmness and rigidity with his employees, demanding them to give the best of themselves, and overseeing the quality and quantity of their results. No laziness is to be accepted, and mistakes are only to be tolerated if they remain exceptional. His laboratory being well renowned, Hippolyte can easily find new employees when needed, thus he would fire unproductive workers with no hesitation. Though, he is not a tyrant and can be conciliatory in some situations, accepting some "bad periods" if they are justified enough. He also let his employees use the laboratory material for their own need, allowing them to work on the subject of their choice, as well as they can justify of interesting results.

Beside his demanding nature, Hippolyte's behaviour as a director is also motivated by his taste for domination. He enjoys being the boss, enjoying to be obeyed and respected, to be the one giving orders. As he knows that his employees would never complain, fearing of losing their job, he sometimes likes to tease them, more or less rudely, and likes to make them understand how stupid and incompetent they are in his eyes. Sometimes, he would give them boring and useless work to do, only to annoy them.

As a leader, he stays straight, but is approachable to his workers. Of a sociable and friendly nature, he is open to others, comfortable in society, and self-confident in any situation. His employees can go to him for advice and opinions; they can share their doubts and ideas with him to get his expert point of view. He also likes to chat about everything and anything, only for social contact, or just as a way to draw attention. However, he also knows how to stay alone. He does not get much attached to people around him beside his close family, and does not really think of people as individuals that you might get a liking on. His surrounding could be replaced by perfect strangers; he would not care, as long as they do the work just as good. Thus, he is fine spending evenings alone, and actually enjoys the single company of his unicellular companions.

Despite his friendly and sociable attitude, Hippolyte is a quite proud person, acting somewhat arrogant. He often thinks of himself as being superior to others. Enjoying his leading position, he likes to make his employees understand who is in charge, showing off his hierarchic, but also intellectual domination. He is a dominant by nature, loving authority and being obeyed. He also enjoys the freedom granted by his status, as he is free to do anything he likes, at any times, and if he need any help on his new experiment idea, his employees have the obligation to do the lower work for him. Being at ease with his arrogant personality, he does not try to hide his narcissism and superiority beliefs. He is proud of his physical and intellectual abilities. Thought he would not despise his subordinates, he sometimes infantilise them, explaining things to them as if they were stupid and inapt. However, he would not try to keep people behind him, and would rather try to educate them, and help them to find a way to improve themselves. Especially, he holds great hopes in some young scientists or students, hoping for them to be able, someday, to produce as ambitious ideas as he does.

Being imbued with self-esteem, he loves to be admired and loved, and often acts flirty and charming for this. His ego being too high to be reached by any criticism, he does not listen to the negative opinion held by several persons around him. His main passion is science, and his second passion is himself. He is gifted with a rock-solid self-confidence, never showing hesitation or shyness, fearing no opinion, no shame. Nothing could sully the opinion he has of himself and he considers that anyone having a negative opinion of him is just stupid or jealous. Hippolyte loves himself; he loves his beauty, his personality, his skills and his knowledge. He takes well care of his body, more to please himself than to appeal to others, working on his muscles to give them an ideal shape. He cares of his body and fur health and cleanliness, and regularly uses capillary care products. This well-maintained body sometimes is enlivened by some make-up accessories, such as a bright red polish on his hooves and nails, and he regularly gets his mane cut and dyed. Even though he claims not to care for beauty, Hippolyte loves to admire his body.

By dint of an excessive self-esteem, he becomes pretentious and presumptuous, not caring for how it could irritate his colleagues. Hippolyte sees himself as better than anyone around him, and likes to show it off, acting conceited and arrogant, being quite often harsh and harmful in his words. Full of himself, he can act unpleasant, belittling his colleagues while putting himself on a pedestal, insisting on the superiority of his intellectual skills. He tends to see his employees as being inferior to him, seeing them as simple underlings, as if they were unable to do great things. He somewhat sees them as children, and often acts paternalistic to them, overly simplifying things when explaining them to them, and telling them what they should do and how they should do it, even on a personal topic, as he thinks that he knows better than them what they might need.

He also acts provocateur, trying to push people to accept a challenge, or acting unpleasant and mocking so that one would surpass themselves only to prove him wrong. He tickles other's pride as a way to motivate them to get out of their comfort zone, to push them to always do more and better, to realise things they would not have known they were able to.

Hippolyte is audacious and daring. He fears few things, and certainly not other yuanies. He fears no aggression, and can act insolent and impudent to anyone. Out of the science community, he likes to tell his fellow citizen how stupid and devoid of interest he thinks they are. When his provocative behaviour leads to physical replies, he will defend himself with no hesitation; even though he prefers verbal battles to muscle ones, he is always ready to exhibit his (thought moderate) physical strength. No attack, being verbal or physical, would tarnish his high self-esteem.

He is an audacious and ambitious person. He is not going to satisfy himself with small results nor minor discoveries, he aims to record his name in the History of Science, wishing to be the source of great discoveries, not only to satisfy his own curiosity, but also for the desire to impress his peers and future generations of scientists. He would let nothing but the rules of physics limit his ambition, and he can somewhat acts irrational in his projects. As long as an experiment is theoretically possible, there is no reason not to try it, according to an adage saying "they did not know it was impossible, so they did it".

He is always full of energy and enthusiasm, somewhat being tiresome to his co-workers (especially to Méristème) when being noisy and restless. Full of life, he likes to tease and horse around his colleagues, enjoying annoying and irritating them. From a joyful nature, he usually is smiley and optimistic. His fails do not slow him down nor demotivate him, and it is rare to see him being sad or morose. He stays confidant and positive, working on improving things rather than complaining, as he considers that lamentations are nothing but a waste of time. He dislikes people who complain rather than acting, as he says that everyone should do anything they can do to reach their goals and achieve their objectives.

Overall, Hippolyte is gifted with a strong personality. He is either loved, either hated, but he rarely faces indifference. He is before everything a passionate person, building his life around his passions and not caring much for anything else.

• To learn about his species and the world he lives in, click he-wait no it's not done yet

Let's admit it straight away: Hippolyte's childhood was perfectly normal and nothing happened at all. Him writing down his memories would result in the most boring biography.

Hippolyte was born to a single mother, living in a community home somewhere in Zverigrad's suburbia. Community homes are large buildings shared by people who does not feel like living alone : they all have their own space and rooms, but share some common rooms as well, such as a kitchen, a dining place and a living room. These buildings host around ten persons per floor, allowing them to live as small groups of room-mates. The exterior often hosts a large garden to grow food for all of the building's inhabitants.

Hippolyte's mother was a sociable young person, spending most of her time around her friends and mates. Job-free, she would take care of the housing, keeping it neat and tidy, as well as cooking for the whole floor. She never had the ambition to do any more of her life, letting her days go without trying to give a specific meaning to her existence. Until the day she felt like she was missing something important : a child. She wanted a little being of her own to teach him life and love, to share her knowledge and ideals with, to perpetuate her memory after her death. She thus looked for a male to breed with, chosed only based on physical and healthiness criterias (which actually is a normal and common attitude for her species), and later gave birth to her first child. She would then consecrate her days to that kid and his education, trying her best to push him toward what she would consider to be a good behaviour and personality, and respectable ideals and opinions. The young Hippolyte quickly developped an acute curiosity for the world surrounding him, and would spend his days asking questions about everything and anything, showing interested for every concept or object he could come accross. He wanted to know and understand everything, and would never get tired of learning. His devoted mother was more than happy to reply to any of his questionnings, even if she had to do her own researchs or ask someone who might know better.

When her first kid reached adolescence, she decided to have another one. Again, she mated with some random male who seemed to have good genetics, and gave birth to a little female, Argyros, who received a similar education, even though she was showing less curiosity than her older brother. She was still a curious kid, but was less inquisitive, satisfying herself into observing and discovering new things by her own, feeling captivated by shapes, colours and textures rather than reasons and functions. Thus, as the two kids were growing up, their mother would do more scientific and educational activities with Hippolyte and more artistic and contemplative ones with Argyros. The two kids lived an happy childhood, growing close to each other and to her mother, while still being socialized as they lived in a community home.

The mother ended up catching some disease at a quite young age. It was one of these rising affections that was not beaten yet, and the current treatments would only work on half of the patients. For this one, it did not. On her deathbed, the young mother started to feel some regrets about her short life : she had forgot to make the best out of it, to give some meaning and goal to her existence. She would finally feel like it was quite a pity to pass away without having ever done anything great, something to remember about, nor for people to remember about her. The only marks she would leave in that world would be her two kids, and she hoped for them to do better than she did.

Hippolyte and Argyros just reached adulthood, but the loss of their dear mother affected them deeply. But this event also broke their glass cocoon and pushed them to move into their adult life with some more ambition, both looking to give their life the meaning their mother could not find. They both went with totally different views, though. Hippolyte would try to produce something important, to get some tangible result that can change something, hoping to mark his domain and to have his name retained. Argyros, though, would rather live for herself and herself only, caring more about living the present to its best rather than working for posterity. She would not care about future, but would rather try to give a practical meaning to her current days. Still, she would follow her mother's lazy path and not do anything specific of her life, but would rather look for a meaning to live the most basic life, simply happy of being alive in such a beautiful world, and fully savouring every single thing she can encounter in her everyday life.

While Argyros would stay at home to continue on her mother's housekeeping and cooking tasks, Hippolyte would attend science lessons at the local university. However, their relations with the other house-mates becoming on the skids, they ended up getting a single home for the both of them. After graduating, Hippolyte joined the main laboratory of the city : the L.R.I.Z., or Life Research Institute of Zverigrad (often called "Liriz" to make it simple). He would quickly produce some interesting results, and acquire quite a reputation within the lab teams, his colleagues recognizing his great potential and leadership capacities. After the death of the laboratory's director, Hippolyte would take his chair. Through years and papers, and with the help of the L.M.E., an unofficial, internation science organization, Hippolyte's renown would slowly grow within the international scientific realm. He would not be considered to be part of the greatests, but this sure is his intention.

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Questions & answers

- May I ask under what field of science you study? Or perhaps what your notable projects have been?
"I'm a biologist. We do not have strict specialisations anymore are there aren't enough scientists around for each of us to focus on one single topic. But may main domains are genetics and embryology. I'm working on a better understanding of the functionments of genes, how they build up complex creatures from scratch and, especially, how we can take advantage of this to create new things or improve existing ones. I actually gave birth to a modified humanoid creature only to test my tools. And this, using dinosaur DNA, some really rare material that's really difficult to use due to time damages. It was quite an achievment to be able to use that DNA. Next step may be to find a way to fully repair some dino DNA to recreate a new one. A real one."

- If you get a chance to create a living creature in the lab, what would it be ?
"I am not sure I would ever be able to create a creature per say.... We've made lots of hybrids, we've mixed DNA from up to heigt different species to give birth to a new organism, but we always worked from existing genes and existing, alive gametes.... Creating something alive totally from scratch would be such an experiment, and such an experience! I would think of what could replace the molecules that are used by our own living kind, like, what else than nucleotids could store the genetic information? That's so exciting."