Fwiffo

Captain Fwiffo of the Spathi Eluder StarRunner was the only being left in the Sol system to maintain the Ur-Quan Kzer-Za's Earthguard forces after the Ilwrath withdrew to find better sport and the other Spathi, uneasy at being so close to their enemies and far away from home, fled to join the other Spathi defending Spathiwa from the Ultimate Evil. Unwilling to directly defy Ur-Quan orders, the Spathi retreated in small groups, until they finally reached the point of leaving a single individual to captain a vessel by himself in literal obedience to the Ur-Quan, with the mission more or less otherwise abandoned.

Fwiffo therefore attained the rank of Captain and became the sole Earthguard member by being the Spathi to successively lose the most Puun-Taffy decision rituals. Whether this was sheerly bad luck or the result of manipulation by his comrades is arguable; Fwiffo appears to have developed a notorious reputation within the Spathi Navy as being particularly cowardly, weak-willed and impressionable by even Spathi norms, making him doubly so from the point of view of a Human. It is this sort of ill fortune that led such an unusually cowardly Spathi to join the military in the first place; involved in a road accident due to his own carelessness soon after leaving his parents' household, Fwiffo was shanghaied by unscrupulous recruiters while recovering in hospital, forcing him to abandon his dreams of great wealth in a civilian career.

This unimpressive military record nonetheless eventually led Fwiffo down the path of heroism. Having fled to Pluto so as to nominally carry out his duty of observing Earth while remaining as far from possible danger as possible, he was, despite all his precautions, nonetheless discovered. Once the Human Captain Zelnick brought the Vindicator to the Earth Starbase and began hostile actions against the Ur-Quan, Starbase personnel searching for possible threats located the presence of the StarRunner's automatic active sensing and communications signals on Pluto, which Fwiffo had been unable to entirely hide.

When discovered by a Human expedition, Fwiffo opened fire on them, killing several, but quickly surrendered and begged mercy when he was confronted with the Vindicator. Zelnick, rather than retaliating, saw Fwiffo as a useful first ally, and invited him to rebel against the Hierarchy and come under the Vindicator's protection. Without fellow Spathi around to coerce him into obeying his orders, Fwiffo readily agreed, and became one of Zelnick's first allies and friends during the Second War of the Alliance. Like most Spathi, Fwiffo's innate reflexes and tactical ability only manifested themselves when he was forced into combat from which he could not escape, but such situations occurred often in his days on the Vindicator, and the StarRunner was one of the ragtag New Alliance's most valuable tactical assets early in its career.

Prevented from returning to his home planet after it was slave-shielded by the Spathi Safe Ones, Fwiffo was forced to throw his lot in with the Humans and their Alliance for the foreseeable future, hoping at the same time to somehow achieve his goal of retiring to a comfortable villa on a beautiful, secluded and safe planet.