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Although not being excessivley tall in Human terms, Espin is unusually large and stocky for the El-Aurian race, with wide shoulders and quite a well built, muscular frame. His appearance gives him a certain enigmatic charisma that many find hard to resist - his hair is jet black, straight as a ruler and cut quite short to his head, with just a slight fringe hanging out over a forehead that is very heavy and imposing, with thick black eyebrows marking it's angular edge. His cheeks and nose are equally angular, and sport between them a pair of incredibly large, dark brown eyes, deep as singularities and gleaming with an intelligence and intensity that can almost have a hypnotysing effect if stared at for too long. His lips are thin, framed by a neatly manicured goatee of the same black color as his hair, but often give way to a broad, beaming grin that reveals a wide row of gleaming ivory white teeth in perfect order and position behind them. His jawline is equally as strong and muscular as his brow, very square and angular in shape.

Not a lot is yet known about Espin's past. He was a young child when the Borg decimated his race's homeworld, and he escaped with his parents, drifting from planet to planet for a while as so many others of their race were doing at that point too. Eventually as Espin entered his teens, his parents settled on a colony somewhere in the Delta quadrant near the galactic center, but by that time he himself had grown accustomed to the nomad life, and didn't want to settle down himself. With that in view, he swiftly set out on his own travels, roving far and wide across the expance of the Delta and Beta quadrants wherever the fancy took him, and having wild adventures along the way.

At some point during this time he crash-landed a shuttle on a planet poppulated by a pre-warp civilisation, who took him for some kind of deity and began to worship him. He still has the sandals they made him as proof, and wears them when off duty. He also had a rather pained experience with the inhabitants of a water world (which he does not elaborate about) that cultivated a healthy dislike for swimming on his part. He has also visited numerous other places, such as the Shimmering Caverns on the moon of Orion-Incandice Four, and the Gem Caves of Brakkahl Two, which excited his passion for caving. Quite how many places he has been to, or how many experiences he has had, over the course of his life is unknown, but it seems these experiences barely scratch the surface.

Eventually his travels brought him to the Alpha/Beta quadrants and the area of space known by the Federation, arriving at roughly the same time as the launch of the USS Enterprise B and the death of the legendary Captain Kirk. It is known that he spent some seventy or so years travelling this area of space before joining Starfleet, although like much of his life before his arrival, the full extent of his activities during this time can only be guessed at. One thing that is known is he has tried numerous types of hobbies, including long-distance running and various sports, and one of his more recent fascinations is crime literature of various cultures, particularly Romulan.

He has also taken a strong interest in Science, and decided to enrol at Starfleet Academy Sciences during his 252nd year. He passed with considerable recognition and was assigned to the USS Newton as an Ensign, a science ship linked to the Sirius II colony near the Regula Badlands. He quickly showed his worth, and after just three years was reassigned to Starbase 47 near the pleasure planet Risa, becoming Chief Science Officer of the station two years after that. Work on the station was slow and dull, however, so during this time he started work on a number of personal science projects, including quantum singularities and temporal mechanics.

Despite his work on the Starbase, however, he became largely overlooked by Starfleet for a time, partly because of the fallout from the aftermath of the Dominion War and the political upheval with the Romulans over the Reman incident, and so ended up spending a further twelve years on the job before being reassigned. Eventually, though, he was called to serve on the USS Entente, a much more active and interesting role than the boring life on a static starbase, and has thrown himself into the mission with his usual flare and charisma, taking many of his fellow officers by surprise in the process.

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