Born 03.12.797 on Freeport 1 to a fairly typical Zoner family, from a young age he would be encouraged to find his own place, his own stride, his own skills. His parents worked with the docks, like most of nearly everyone on the station, and Hector worked along with them fixing various fighters, freighters, transports. Some were groups he knew, corporations that Freeport 1 charged just a bit, some were freelancers aiming to make their payday among the Omegas, and some were groups he didn't know. His parents kept him away from those latter folks and their ships, though afterwards Hector could see they'd been pirates of one stripe or another. It all melded into one experience for him.

Naturally, like most others, Hector started to help unload ships too if they weren't banged up too hard. He grew to talk with them, one way or another, if they were around for the unloading. In just a year, he was taken on as crew aboard the Zoner transport Neil Marshe, a short sprint hauler in the area doing runs in Omega-3 and a few other nearby systems. He'd start dealing with missiles and mines, too, a surprisingly safe job considering the many dozens of safety systems that still was dangerous in the Edge Worlds given how many of those safety systems were often bypassed or otherwise removed.

He found the experience aboard Neil Marshe altogether fairly good, accumulating enough credits and training there to start flying escort flights at age 18. These weren't especially difficult runs then, not compared to flights further out into the Omicrons, but Hector got more than his fair share of dogfights between the various pirates in the Omegas who thought they could jump a Zoner convoy quietly. It was a good amount of natural selection, seeing that those few who thought so normally were also new enough to get shot down by the Zoners. That wasn't where Hector wanted to be, though, not by a long shot. As such, he drew up contracts with some colleagues at Freeport 1 to partially own the freighter Luka, flying it on behalf of the gracious investors. Three years later of flying the Omegas and he’d earned enough to pay for a freighter of his own, the Bregger Meres.

Of course, a year into that deal and something interesting happened just a few systems away in Vespucci. The Hellfire Legion and Commonwealth, entities that he didn’t know enough about to care for their ideologies but did know enough about how they started to know there were credits to be made. Hector started runs in to the system, delivering supplies, materials, and more exotic things from suppliers at Freeport 1 and 5 with a few runs even into the Sigmas. He grew a good few friendships with citizens from the Commonwealth, establishing ties here and there. In 824, he even started a relationship with one Adriana Thatch at one of their stations, though it perhaps would be more accurate to say she started the dance. A year later and the pair were married with a kid on the way. In 827, Hector upsized again with the purchase of a “Crane” from a Commonwealth dealer, sourced from Xenos who sourced it from someone else, and named her Powhatan after a good, long back-forth with Adriana. The crew was a mixture of Zoner and Commonwealth then.

Two years later, the Liberty Blitz went through Kansas and into Vespucci. Powhatan was called in to help with the evacuation efforts at Veracruz as it became evident that a ground invasion was likely to occur. They survived through the whole issue as heavier, better armed vessels were targeted by the Liberty craft. All told, they moved out several hundred Commonwealth civilians from the surface as the Liberty carrier Ohio had commenced orbital bombardment, moved them off to Freeport 1 for a few months before shifting up into Pennsylvania and planet Erie. Of course, a few months after that and Liberty had taken Erie as well, Booth once again trying to help by moving whoever wanted to go up to Bethlehem and taking others on as crew.

Following the taking of Pennsylvania, Booth and the crew of the Powhatan had largely been taking jobs moving Neon up into Kusari, H-Fuel back down to Bethlehem until 834. Seeking a more legitimate way, and a group of like-minded individuals, they've signed on with Bristol in moving goods out from Cleveland and Arcetri.

820 AS. /_/ Basic Damage Control /_/ West Point Military Academy
820 AS. /_/ Propulsion Mechanics /_/ West Point Military Academy
820 AS. /_/ Ensign Graduation /_/ West Point Military Academy
821 AS. /_/ Fire Control Command /_/ Richmond Military Academy
821 AS. /_/ Assistant Fire Control Officer /_/ LNS-Honolulu
823 AS. /_/ Damage Control Assistant /_/ LNS-Honolulu
825 AS. /_/ Battle of Dover /_/ LNS-Honolulu
825 AS. /_/ Fire Control Officer /_/ LNS-Honolulu
825 AS. /_/ Letter of Commendation /_/ LNS-Honolulu
826 AS. /_/ Battle of New London /_/ LNS-Honolulu
826 AS. /_/ Counter-Invasion of Leeds /_/ LNS-Honolulu
826 AS. /_/ Navy Unit Commendation /_/ LNS-Honolulu
828 AS. /_/ Demobilized from Liberty Navy /_/ Planet Los Angeles
828 AS. /_/ Recruitment to Commission for Veterans /_/ Planet Los Angeles
830 AS. /_/ Recruitment to Bristol Constructions & Manufacturing /_/ Bristol Bay Station

Born on one of the company settlements on Pittsburgh under a different name and family, Esme Blake had an upbringing among the chaotic periods following the grand interferences. Rheinland and Kusari at one-another’s throats, Liberty gearing for war, this that and the other, the spectre of the Hudson War rising up, all of it loomed as she was growing up on little old Pittsburgh, a little old mine waiting for her, and like many residents of that planet in the heart of Liberty space Blake decided that she didn’t really want to live there. From a young age, just fifteen, she enrolled in supplementary education for light starship piloting, one of the fast-tracks for Libertonians to get their certification, and at age eighteen Blake would start her Academy education at West Point.

It was hard, especially compared to anything she’d had to deal with at home, but it was as rewarding as anything might be. Blake would be deemed unable to continue with the avenue of pilot’s courses at West Point with the discovery that she had a degree of color-blindness, though at that stage in life decided to keep on. She still had options with crew duties about the navy’s capital ships, as well as at various posts throughout Liberty, and these all seemed pretty well better than Pittsburgh ever could be. Graduating in 821 after a brief period at Richmond Military Academy in Virginia, ENS Blake would be assigned as Assistant Fire Control Officer aboard the Liberty Navy cruiser LNS-Honolulu. Amid the following years, she would be involved with fleet training exercises, maneuvers in Texas, and would even be assigned as ADCA aboard the vessel. All told, ENS Blake’s readiness reports were very positive.

The 825 California Invasion would see the Honolulu assigned to the 6th Cruiser Squadron in support of the battleship Ottawa, soon thereafter deployed into Bretonia through the Alberta Supergate. The squadron wouldn’t need to wait long before seeing combat at Dover, where Honolulu supported the flanking action against the GRN battleship Beuvray. Early in the action, the cruiser’s primary fire control would be hit by debris from the Ottawa, injuring the Fire Control Officer and cutting off internal communications through parts of the ship. Blake stepped up, directing effective fire against the Beuvray and greatly contributing to the destruction of that vessel. For these actions, she would be commended, promoted to Lieutenant Jr Grade, and assigned as Honolulu’s Fire Control Officer.

Following this action, Honolulu would be relegated with the rest of the squadron in guarding the Kensington junction against GRN attack, receiving ad-hoc repairs from the platform and mobile repair ships. In August of the following year, battleship Ottawa and the 6th Cruiser Squadron would take part in the Battle for New London, with the Honolulu directing main gun fire against the battleships Le Cendre and Nogent-le-Rotrou. Targeting their primary drive systems, the enemy vessels were crippled amid the fighting while the Honolulu survived throughout the engagement, undamaged as the main capital ships engaged one-another with singular fury.

Following this, Honolulu would join the flagship in the counter-invasion of Leeds. She would take part in the engagement with defense systems there, damaged heavily when the Ottawa was destroyed and unable to maneuver effectively, though would survive by directing counter-battery fire from the other escorting vessels against the cloaked platforms. Limping into Leeds orbit, Honolulu and LTJG Blake would spend the rest of the war conducting humanitarian operations there in support of the civilian fleet. In 827, the war over, they traveled back to Liberty with only a short stop in Manchester at Scarborough for drive repairs.

The end of Blake’s term of commission came fast in 828, eight years in the Navy, though at that point they had been well-into the downsizing effort since the end of the war with Gallia. She’d hoped to keep on there, buoyed by her experience in the war, but that turned false with a denial of continuing her commission. Demobilized and with Liberty having no lack of manpower, on the advice of a friend and fellow officer Blake started to lean somewhat on the Commission for Veterans. A Los Angeles organization, the Commission was a non-profit run to help veterans from the Liberty military in finding civilian employment. She found the goal to be pretty well noble, volunteering into managerial roles and such.

That next year, the Commission for Veterans was declared an illegal organization by LSF for ties to the Xenos movement, accused of funneling members into Ontario and elsewhere. A large number of members left the planet for the Sierra Ice Field before Blake even knew what was going on, her first sign of things going bad being the LSF breaking down their headquarters doors and apprehending everyone present. She’d spend several months in their custody, though had few pieces of information to offer. Blake would be released late that year, finding herself once again unemployed with the additional bonus of a strong dislike for the internal Liberty authorities.

In the end, Blake found her place with Bristol. Enlisting with them first as an independent employee in Bering, helping with salvage operations, before later becoming a full permanent employee. She would be stationed aboard Akutan, then later in Cleveland.

829 AS. /_/ KSP Ensign Graduation /_/ Planet Kyushu
829 AS. /_/ Light Fighter Qualification /_/ Planet Kyushu
831 AS. /_/ Administrative Discharge from KSP /_/ Planet Kyushu
834 AS. /_/ Recruitment to Bristol Constructions & Manufacturing /_/ Arcetri Station

Born in Kusari on Planet Kyushu to a farming community, Tani Iwao would live the traditional small town Kusari lifestyle as a kid. Things were mechanized, true, but that hadn’t really taken much away from the community style that had marked Kusari families on Kyushu for generations. Life had grown somewhat harder, though, as Synth Foods had begun encroaching on the Kusari market, and his family would be drawn into that issue like most others.

As he grew up, Iwao’s sister went off to join the Farmers Alliance, and though Iwao had never quite been subjected to the same radicalizing content he still had a good amount of consideration for the more morally sound organizations in Kusari. He wanted though to achieve what most could be considered inadvisable: Earn a steady paycheck for a minimum amount of risk. To that end, Iwao enlisted with the Kusari State Police in 829 AS as a patrol pilot. Of course, this sort of posting through the Kyushu system would lead to interest from his sister and others at the supreme details of KSP’s patrol routes and patterns, something that Iwao was more than alright to send seeing as he viewed such a thing as “Simply good common sense”. Farmers Alliance and others were generally speaking moral goods in his eyes and any sort of conflict would very lead to a shooting match between the police and Alliance vessels.

This continued as a status quo until a blanket purge in 831 AS through KSP’s lower ranks in Kyushu, the upper ranks of the police seeing the corruption and interworking systems as detrimental to their enforcement of the law, and Iwao was caught in that net. He would receive an Administrative Discharge from the Kusari State Police and barred from ever working at a government or company position in Kusari.

As a result, he soon moved into Liberty as a freelancer, working odd jobs here and there. Contact was soon lost with his sister after that, generally a sign that she'd be arrested or killed. Trying to get away from those memories, he'd find more work through the Inter-House systems working as an escort pilot for convoys, a cheap extra hand in dangerous space. After a spell, though, he'd gone back to wanting that same desire before, that same security, that same dependable pay.

And so, in 834 Iwao took on a job with Bristol.