Miles Mobian
Miles Mobian is a male red fox and a ZPD officer assigned to Precinct 1, introduced in the W-Series. Nick Wilde was the first fox in the department's history; Mobian is the second, and he got there through an Academy class that spent most of its training cycle trying to drive him out of it.
Background
Mobian's parents are red foxes, and both of them come forward at graduation to pin the badge. What the Academy shows of him is a mammal who had already learned, somewhere earlier, to make himself useful enough that nobody asks why he is in the room, and quiet enough that nobody has to answer it either.
Personality
Mobian is analytical and almost silent, and the two things are connected. He reads a room before he walks into it, maps the exits, and works out what an exchange is likely to cost him before deciding to have it. His written scores lead the class by a wide margin and his marksmanship at the range is beaten only by a career intelligence officer in disguise, yet he stands at the edge of every formation and takes on inventory work nobody assigned him, because being useful is cheaper than being seen. He is not modest about the ability. He is hiding it, which is a different thing. Once he is satisfied a room will not cost him anything, the observation turns outward and gets very dry.
Series History
W-Series
In "Recruit Grumpiski", Mobian is being systematically harassed by two cadets in his own company. His uniform is soaked and wadded back into his locker, his study materials are pulled apart, and a note in black marker across the top page tells the fox to go home. He filed one report and pulled it: the complaint cost him more than the harassment did. Luther, embedded in the class under a cover name, never raises it and simply starts occupying the space beside him in formation; Mobian eventually finds him alone in the equipment room and lays out precisely why a private security re-enrollee is nothing of the sort. Neither of them mentions it again. Once the harassers are pulled from the graduating class, Nick talks to him about being the first fox at ZPD, and that evening Mobian walks back to the barracks down the middle of the corridor rather than the edge. He is assigned to Precinct 1, where his first day brings a mandatory welcome donut from Clawhauser, a nod from Luther across the bullpen, and a desk in the center of the room.
In "Scare Tactics", Mobian works the guest parlor during Luther's operation against Nick, in a duplicate of Nick's own shirt so the dark window glass reads as a reflection instead of another fox, and runs a second camera. Once the lights are on, he offers Nick a note on his gait.
Key Relationships
Luther Pawthorne
Almost nothing passes between them at the Academy in words. Luther identifies the harassment and puts his body in the gap without ever making Mobian the subject of a conversation about it; Mobian identifies Luther and declines to do anything with what he knows. Both of them had been watched for the wrong reasons before, and the trust runs on that alone. It carries into the precinct as a nod across a bullpen.
Nick Wilde
Nick recognizes Mobian on sight, because Mobian is wearing an expression Nick wore for twenty years. In the equipment shed Nick lays out his own history to him: the Junior Ranger Scouts, the muzzle at age eight, the two decades of proving them right. Then he passes on the job that replaced it, which has nothing to do with correcting anyone's eyesight and everything to do with proving it wrong. By "Scare Tactics" Mobian is comfortable enough to needle him.
Ralph Packard and Jack Savage
The final assessment puts the three cadets together and they stay that way afterward. Packard asks Mobian to read the corridor because Mobian is the one who sees the shape of a problem first, and Savage takes the high ground while Mobian calls the opening. They turn up at Pawthorne Mansion as a set.
Trivia
- Miles Mobian is named after Miles "Tails" Prower from the Sonic series; "Mobian" is the species designation in Sonic lore.