Ian Soulton

	Ian Soulton
Ian earns 3 for every alien fruit planted.
Pacifist Wherever you are, aggressive actions cost an additional 2 .
Skills:
1	Botanist
2	Biologist
3	Mycologist
4	Green Thumb
5	Firefighter
6	Frugivore
Position on title lists:
#14	Commander
#7	NERON Administrator
#11	Communications Officer

Ian Soulton actively participated in Mush research. An authority on the subject, and also on botany, he prepared a study into numerous extra-terrestrial species and created several hundred hybrids using plants from earth. His curiosity for fruit species is particularly evident.

How to play

Ian's main task is to take care about plants. Also, it is important for him to acquire alien fruits from the expeditions. His unique ability is a Pacifist, it helps protect himself and the person in the room (although sometimes it may work to the disadvantage of the crew). Typically, he is considered to be a member of the research team.

Bronze Tips

Botanist: Your first skill. If you are Bronze player it is best choice. With this skill you can save some when you will take care of plants. Also you will receive aditional fruit from expedition in which you participated.

Biologist: It allow you to be a valuable help in research. However, until your task is to take care of plants choosing it, when you are Bronze player, isn't best choice.

Mycologist: Your unique and the most useless skill. If you are Bronze player - don't take it!

Green Thumb: Your unique and the most important skill. It give you 2 additional pots and help grow hybrids. It also good skill to take as Bronze, but only if your crew is active - take care of 7 plants cost a lot of .

Firefighter: Situationally useful skill, but not worth taking because other skills are more important for Ian.

Frugivore: Your unique skill. You will receive additional from eating fruits. But if you take it as your only skill it will be very selfish, so it also isn't good choice until you are Bronze player.

Silver Tips

Botanist / Biologist: Best combination if you have low level. It allow you to take care of plants and use rest of your effectively in research.

Botanist / Green Thumb: You will become great gardener. You will be able to take good care about your 7 plants.

Green Thumb / Frugivore: You should take this one only if your crew have chance for long voyage with a lot of expeditions (and you have Hua with Botanist). In the begining this skill set is weak, but later in game you will be able to recive a lot of from alien fruits and use them to help a crew.

Gold Tips

You should take Botanist, Biologist and Green Thumb, then:

At level 5

You shouldn't take Mycologist or Firefighter at the begining, you should wait and see which of this skills will be more useful.

At level 6

Drop both of the above and take Frugivore as your fourth skill and become ultimate gardener.

Useful tips

• Read the Gardening page, as that will be your main field of responsibility.

Biography

3106 

Born on Earth.

3130 

Ian is sent to the Antemis colony on Tau-Ceti to carry out research into new species which have been discovered in the system. He is sent in one of the 5 intergalactic trains of colonists which took thousands of miners to the promised lands of Boxylium.

3145 

Revolt erupts on Atemis, and Ian, who sympathizes with the cause of the miners nonetheless is too scared to speak publicly as he is worried that the federation will cut the funding for his laboratory. After the success of the rebellion, federation funding is suspended and the militia refuse his request to be repatriated to Earth.

3146 

After the bloodbath at the battle of Sol, the laboratory is requisitioned for the treatment of the wounded. While trying to lend a helping hand, Ian meets a charming nurse by the name of Eleesha Williams. He is impressed by her committment to the sick and wounded. She confides in him that she has made a shocking discovery in some of their cohabitants. A matter of days after this announcement, Eleesha swiftly leaves the system to join the federation. Before her departure, she entrusts him with an unusual sample of spinal bone marrow.

3147 

While carrying out tests on the sample, Ian identified a layer of complex mycelium which he managed to introduce into a rat. The mycelium spread throughout the spinal marrow of the animal without seeming to affect the animal. Once the subject was placed amongst other rats, the infected subject exhibited unusual behaviour during which the rat would vomit a spore of 1mm diameter and transports it to a group of healthy rats. Upon contact with spores, healthy subjects undergo three stages of infection at the end of which the mycelium binds to the subject. Ian sent the findings of his research to Eleesha who compiled a report of their work for the scientific press.

3149 

Following the government declaration of the Mush invasion of Tau-Ceti and Ross154, Ian is seized by an uncontrollable panic. He subjects some of his team to bone marrow extractions but is still not convinced by the fiability of his experiment. He eventually closes his laboratory and carries out his research on his own..

3150 

Once back on Antemis, Eleesha joins him on a project to build a scanner which detects the mycelyum inside the nervous tissue of a body.

3151 

The early mycoscan prototypes detected the presence of spores on a rat but stayed silent when the rat was entirely infected.

3152 

On the 13th of December, Eleesha and Ian intercept a signal from Jupiter. This transmission informed them of the advanced status of the Mush invasion not only in the rebel camp, but also within the federation. The Jupiter team claimed to have been able to build an ark capable of saving a small group of humans in order to continue their research into Mush in a distant galaxy. Ian is terrorized by the idea of a pandemic decimating the human race. He joins the crew of the Daedalus, but Eleesha wants to stay where she is in order to try to save the miners.

3153 

Ian modernized the hydroponic garden project aboard the Daedalus. Thanks to a combination of 12 specific species of plant, he managed to ensure a constantly renewing supply of oxygen aboard the ship.

3170 

When Ian awakes, the fire alarm indicates damage in the hydroponic garden. When he arrives it is already too late, only three plants remain, thus condemning the team to certain death.