Jared Carson - Background
Your father was a mechanical engineer for Subatomic Corp in St. Louis. That's where you were raised. Your mother
was a homemaker. You had one brother, Jason who was quite a bit older than you (10 years); he was killed on Neravax
while serving with the 14th eight years ago.
Your best friend as you grew up was Herbert Allan Vorstead. Herb or Herbie as you called him, both names which
he hated, now uses his middle name. Herbie/Allan was a charismatic sort who more or less was the leader of you
band of friends. Your other good friends were Chris Mitchell and Aikeem Seide. Allan has gone on to a career in
the Foreign Service. In a relatively short period of time he has risen to the rank of Chief of Staff of the ROP
embassy to the USA. Chris on the other hand is currently still living at home with his parents, after flunking
out of Cardwell University (in Columbia, Missouri Territory). He is living of a small welfare payment and now spends
most of his time playing tri-dee games on his computer. Aikeem works for an investment bank as an analyst. He does
a lot of traveling throughout the Terra/Sol solar system, collecting information for his job.
Your friends from college, at the University of St. Louis were Richard "Dick" Sandifer and Carmin Rocha;
both computer science majors like yourself. Richard works for a small startup computer firm in the KC suburb of
Topeka. He is working on an art program with several Elven artists and programmers. He stands to make quite a bit
of money if the program is successful, as he owns an equity interest in the company he is working for. Carmin was
and is a little more than just a friend. She now works for the MAC and has progressed rapidly. She is already a
lead programmer for them. The MAC has been using her on key projects, transferring her around every couple of years.
Currently she is working on a project in Johannesburg, Congolese Republic. You both still see each other whenever
you can and keep in touch on the Grid, but long distance relationships are hard and yours has devolved into a sort
of love hate thing.
After college you felt the need to sign up with the Marines. You felt that you were kind of living in your brother's
shadow as far as your parents were concerned. You were assigned to the 14th Marine Jump Division (divisional motto:
Death from Space). The 14th was involved in the campaign for Neravax a system in the neighboring Cresent sector.
The system had been taken early in GW II by the Nariac, a VoidCorp client state. They had overwhelmed the Austrin-Ontis
colonists. The natives had gone communist after nearly a century of Nariac rule and so proved intractable despite
the fact that the Treaty of Concord had awarded the system to the Orion's. The conflict turned into a guerilla
war, with neither side gaining any clear advantage. There were rumors of VoidCorp involvement and mindwalking soldiers
as well as a whole host of other assorted horrors. The 14th as is it's wont to do adapted to the situation. Marine
Corps Intelligence (MCI, to which you were assigned) developed a new tool to deal with the situation, "Insertion
Teams". That's where you came in. You were assigned to one of the first of these teams. As an incentive to
accept the assignment you were offered a new and experimental NI jack which enhanced your gridding ability. It
did this but also slowly caused a slight tendency toward paranoia. You became obsessed with your new "toy"
and started to try and investigate it. You broke into the classified Database, which you believed contained information
on your NI jack. The systems ICM kicked in and attacked your shadow. You suffered some damage and where unable
to remember anything of the incident from the time of the attack by the ICM. You did think that you had gotten
away with the attempt however, until when mustering out you received a General Discharge Without Comment, instead
of the expected Honorable Discharge With Distinction, which all your other teammates received. You're sure this
was a message from whoever it is whose database that you tried to break into.
GM: Michael Cross (e-mail)