Born on Planet Erie to a native Zoner colonist couple, Gabriel grew up in a stable household with little difficulties in regard to quality of life. Though occasionally prone to misbehaving, he finished his education with relatively good grades and then spent a couple of years working in his father's ship mechanic shop.
Dissatisfied with his lot, and led by patriotic sentiment, Gabriel applied for service in the Liberty Navy Secondary Fleet, just a few months prior to the breakout of the Liberty-Rheinland war. Upon finishing boot camp and fighter pilot training, he was thrown with the rest into the meat-grinder, participating in engagements on the outskirts of Liberty space and the border worlds. Though he survived with only minor injuries from time to time, most of his brothers-in-arms did not, falling one by one during the course of the short but bloody war.
Upon the conclusion of the conflict, Thorne retired from active service, disillusioned and angry with the apparent status quo of the war, and the futileness of the whole ordeal. He returned to his parents' workshop and promptly married under pressure from his father. Even though his marriage produced a son, he grew increasingly more depressed and dissatisfied, haunted by the losses he suffered during the war and brimming with hatred for the apathetic government that created the conflict for its own selfish reasons.
In the following years, he cycled between states of anger and hopelessness, first developing a drinking problem, then a Cardamine addiction, as he searched for answers and any meaning to life. His marriage and social life crumbled as he became exposed to increasingly radicalized ideas on the neural net, everything from Xenos to more fringe organizations. Finally, a presentation from an organization based in the Edge Worlds caught his attention, with promises of a utopian future, an end to war and starvation, and salvation for all who are willing to further this "Great Work".
Having made contact with one of the demagogue operatives of this organization, now revealed to him under the name of "The Commune", he promptly joined without much thought. A transport was organized to pick him up, and he left without even bidding goodbye to his wife and son, arriving first on the Rogues' Niverton base, then hitching a ride on a transport for Malta.
||Personality and Motivations
Thorne is a man of unshakeable conviction, idealistic to the core and possessing an utter devotion to the Commune's philosophy. Though a stark contrast to most of his colleagues, with lessened severity and radicalism and a distaste for common banditry, he understands that some sacrifices have to be made for the greater good.
Though now deeply regretting the abandonment of his family, especially his son, he rationalizes his actions by the merit of the work he's performing, crafting a better world for him to grow up in. Though he mostly stays away, he occasionally slips anonymous gifts and paychecks to his wife through discrete intermediaries, and the centerpiece of his quarters on Eridu is a shrinelike spot with pictures of the family he left behind.
His short but eventful time in the Commune had transformed him utterly, whereas before he was almost in a depressed state of fugue, he's now sharp and motivated, inspired by the leadership of Nomak and possessing a rekindled soldier-like sense of cameraderie with the men he serves with.
His exposure to the Slomon K'hara also made him develop a certain reverence for the same, a veneration for the perfect society that they embody, the one he and the rest of the Commune mean to bring to the whole of humanity.