With this round of roleplay ended, I think I've got the gist of each scholar's character. Evan is the elitist conspiracy theorist who latches on to every new bit of hearsay(especially if it validates his theories) and proclaims it fact, and of course he's a credible source because he knows so much more than you. Actually, he's right about 5% of the time, but only because the rumors are right 5% of the time.
Ouster is the "stuffy academic," the college English professor that always wears tweed and still uses his old film projector for his (pictureless) slideshows. He has hundreds of years of learning from which to pick which facts to selectively ignore and which to assert the absolute truth of, despite any new evidence to the contrary. Don't beleive any of that mumbo jumbo, believe him, because he knows so much more than you.
We already know about Avos Torr. A naturalist, passionate about learning, a bit of a snob, but that's just a side effect of existing in Academia for any period of time. But here, we learn that to deal with his colleagues, he dons heavy armor of pure snark.