Meet the Characters #4: Mission Specialist Grant Oliveras
Official Portrait of Mission Specialist Grant Oliveras.
Mission Specialist Grant Oliveras is a major character in From the Grave of the Gods.
Statistics
Full Name: Grant Oliveras
DOB: 5th May 1995
Hometown: Seville, Andalusia, Spain
Occupation: ESA Astronaut; geologist
Bio
As the Mission Specialist aboard the Magnum Opus, Grant had been at a little bit of a loss during the ship’s seven month journey to Mars. His role on the team wasn’t to begin until they touched down on the surface. A geologist by trade, Grant was in charge of collecting rock and soil samples from around the impact site and remains of the mysterious extra-solar comet. His time on board had been spent taking long morning jogs around the habitation rings, or spending time in the ship’s gymnasium.
He’s on the short side, and has a small head compared to the rest of his muscular body. His head is shaved and face round, with green eyes, and ears that stick out a little.
Grant doesn’t get on very well with the rest of the crew, and harbours a particular dislike for James, stemming from a deep-seated xenophobia. His parents were from Seville, but after their divorce, his father emigrated to Montpellier, France to open a bakery, and Grant spent his childhood flitting back and forth between the two.
After the mission, he plans to help out at his aging father’s bakery as much as he can during his leave. He says that in another life, he would have been a baker, and that he just likes rocks more than bread. But he has a strong sense of family commitment, and in recent years the bakery business was becoming too much for his father to handle.
Despite his general grouchiness - and his tendency to mansplain - Yula and Austin still try to involve him in the social life aboard the ship. This is perhaps how he came to be so fond of Yula, and so jealous of hers and James’ close friendship…
Creating the Character
Originally, Grant was just going to be another likable member of the crew. The entire team was going to get along really well, in fact. But I quickly realised the group lacked dynamism; they were too similar, and there was no drama about their interactions. So I made the decision to turn one of them into a foil for James, picking a character mostly through the process of elimination. Unfortunately for Grant, that was him, but it made him a lot more enjoyable to write. He was also originally going to be American, but, similarly with Yula’s original name, I realised that I wasn’t representing this supposedly international team very well, and so made him Spanish instead.
