Rickard Karne

 was a crewmember of the space ship Vesuvius who served as a biologist for CoreTech. After meeting fellow CoreTech Sheira Rynn employee three years before the Vesuvius was due to set out, the two got engaged to be married.

During the course of the ship's journey, Karne grew suspicious that Rynn and the Vesuvius' captain Mortan Hardak were corporate spies for a rival company. Karne recorded portions of his suspicions in a journal that he ultimately saved as a draft rather than publishing when Sheira interrupted him. Ultimately Mortan and Sheira conspired to murder Rickard. They attempted to cover up their crime by using cellular regrowth technology to make Rickard's corpse resemble Sheira's body. Sheira then used the same technique on her own body to make herself resemble Rickard, faking her own death and assuming his identity.

Rickard's murder was exposed by Professor Bernice Summerfield when she discovered that Rynn and Hardak both previously worked for CoreTech's rival SynoCorp and that the supposed body of Sheira Rynn did not have the regenerative trauma from a broken leg that the real Sheira Rynn once suffered. From this, Summerfield deduced the truth that Rickard Karne was the true murder victim. (AUDIO: Vesuvius Falling)