In order to understand Alister Azimuth as he is now, it's best to first examine how he began.

Lombaxes are engineers and inventors. They tinker, they innovate, they understand machinery and technology on an instinctual level. It's an affinity that the entire species shares, Alister included. And yet he's categorized as a solider in almost every respect, from working his way up the ranks of the Praetorian Guard to becoming a Four Bolt Magistrate to serving as an Elder Councilman in a military capacity. His primary motivation was to protect what mattered to him, and he felt that he was most capable of achieving that goal through the armed services rather than in a laboratory. Alister took immense pride in safeguarding his people from threats with his strength, skill, experience and bravery rather than solely relying on technological prowess, and his philosophy of "reward over consequences" made him strive against all odds to achieve victories that would benefit the galaxy at large as well as the Lombaxes.

This twin influence of noble duty and favored perspective was what made him decide that trusting Percival Tachyon was worth the risk. Alister believed that uniting Tachyon's ideas with Lombax technology could produce what was necessary to best restore order to the Polaris Galaxy in the wake of the devastating Great War — a conflict begun when the Lombaxes opposed the Cragmite Empire's attempts to conquer Polaris and only ended when every Cragmite (save one) was banished to another dimension entirely. Unaware that Tachyon was that lone remaining Cragmite, Alister allowed him full access to the Lombax archives, only for Tachyon to use the knowledge to create unspeakably powerful tools of destruction and use them to attack the Lombax home planet of Fastoon.

Because of his good intentions, because he believed that the chance of victory mattered more than doubts or failure, Alister Azimuth was indirectly to blame for not only the near-destruction of his entire race but their abrupt departure from the entire universe as well. Tachyon's assault forced the surviving Lombaxes to escape to another dimension, and for his crimes, Alister was forbidden from joining them. He lived in exile for the next twenty-odd years, haunted by the memories of what he had allowed to happen to those he had spent his life trying to protect.

In his own words, he failed them. In his own mind, Alister feels wholly responsible for what befell the Lombaxes, including the deaths of Ratchet's parents. He spent years dwelling on the past and his own culpability until he was simply unable to stop. And that decline into obsession changed him.

Not that the average person is likely to find out even a tenth of that. Alister is close-mouthed and evasive about his past even to Ratchet, his best friend's son, only revealing the truth when backed into a corner. His tough exterior of a confident, pragmatic veteran is one that's easy to accept because Alister wears it well, keeping his grief and shame private without making it obvious that he has a lot to hide. A casual acquaintance with him might suggest that he's been through rough times, but only the vague shape of such a notion. If he happens to take a liking to someone, any hints as to the demons in his closet are buried further under supportive encouragement and well-intentioned advice.

Beneath that veneer of reliability is an unstable wreck of a once-proud general. Grief, guilt, loneliness and loss are the cracks in his armor, undermining his ability to think rationally when the right pressures are applied and outright crippling any potential to move on from the events of his past. Shame and anger, on the other hand, have corrupted him to the point where he's become frighteningly capable of monstrous selfishness so long as he can justify those actions to himself. He has a temper that runs close to the surface, a streak of ruthlessness that's not always put to altruistic ends, a defiant stubbornness that works against him as much as it helps him get through each day of his disgrace. The scope of his aspirations and priorities has narrowed considerably from his younger days, and as his desperation mounts, the price he's willing to pay (or force others to) in order to achieve his goals grows higher and higher. In the right situation he has little trouble switching gears to behave in a blunt, cruel, and even violent manner if it means getting the job done.

Mired in the past despite all of his pretenses of looking to the future, Alister Azimuth is tragic in some ways and contemptible in others. Even now, he clings to the same idea of "reward over consequence" that has guided him to make both the best and the worst decisions of his life. But redemption isn't beyond him yet. Good intentions are still the basis of the majority of his actions......at least, the ones made while in a sane state of mind.