Pole Shift is from the planet Kootharn, which was located in a strange and distant solar system on the opposite side of the galaxy.

The Rikti, always in search of compatible organs, savagely attacked the planet a few years ago. They bombarded the planet, and sent the Kootharnian leaders Solar Lord and Lunar Lord across the galaxy to Earth. Before the Rikti destroyed the Kootharn system they took one million prisoners to bring back to Earth for organ processing. Pole Shift and his brother Solar Wind were among the prisoners.

The details of their rescue by Fusion Force, as well as the current location of the Kootharnian survivors, are classified information at this time.

Pole Shift and Solar Wind are the new leaders of Kootharnian people, however they rarely speak of their roles, their duties, or their people, due to the secret location of the survivors.

Their powers are different from all Kootharnian Lords over the last million years. Kootharnian rulers have always wielded powers of darkness and light, due to the strange astronomical forces of the solar system. It is suspected Pole Shift and Solar Wind’s powers manifested in different ways while they were aboard the Rikti Prisonship and away from Kootharn.

Pole Shift's mutant abilities give him the power to create both ice and stone formations that cover his body at will. He favors his Stone Mallet for melee combat. His short blond hair and ice blue eyes are very rare for a Kootharnian. Pole Shift is 97 years old, however the average life span for a Kootharnian is 750 Earth-years, so he is still considered quite young. He usually wears a modified Vanguard Uniform, but can often be seen in his metallic Kootharnian Lord attire.

Although Pole Shift was offered membership in Fusion Force, he felt serving Jack Pentecost in the Vanguard Lance would provide him with a better opportunity to stop the Rikti menace once and for all. Due to being the leader of a race of people he has the title of Ambassador at the United Nations. Fusion Force also gave him honorary Fusioneer status.

From the very first mission with the Vanguard Lance, Pole Shift has been smitten with Star Queen. He admires her strength as well as her beauty. As both are leaders of alien races he feels a strong connection to her, but has yet to really tell her. He often flirts with her, even during combat. She sees him as brutish and unworthy of affection for now, but see him as a strong ally and they work very well together on the battlefield.

Pole Shift is a powerhouse in combat, but is quiet and reserved most of the time, due to still learning Earth languages and cultures. He has great respect and admiration for his Lancer teammates and a great hatred for the Rikti.

He took his code-name from the Pole Shift hypothesis:

The cataclysmic Pole Shift hypothesis is the conjecture that there have been rapid shifts in the relative positions of the modern-day geographic locations of the poles and the axis of rotation of a planet. For the Earth, such a dynamic change could create calamities such as floods and tectonic events. This type of event would occur if the physical poles had been or would be suddenly shifted with respect to the underlying surface over a geologically short time frame. This hypothesis is almost always discussed in the context of Earth, but other bodies in the Solar System may have experienced axial reorientation during their existences.