Kayden Harman

[personalmoniker]

Player

Player name: PersonalMoniker
English language proficiency: Native
Character number: 1
Faction: USSA, Civilian
Requested faction membership: Yes

General

Full name: Kayden Harman
Nickname:
Age: 23
Gender: Male
Race: 1st Gen Coordinator
Occupation: Civilian Mobile Weapon Engineer
Birthplace: Onogoro Island, Orb Union
Citizenship: USSA
Personality:
Kayden is a stoic individual by nature, with a face that more often than not holds no expression. When it does, it often starts as a somewhat sheepish grin – as though he's kicking himself just a bit for forgetting to put something on. Endlessly patient, and erring just slightly towards optimism over pragmatism, he's pleasant enough to spend time with. In a group setting, he circles the outer edges; never fully integrated, but never too far out of reach either. It seems less that he's uninterested in social affairs, and more than he's not entirely sure of how best to be involved at any given time.

He prefers his humor wry and cynical, and his own delivery leans heavily towards deadpan. Still, he can appreciate a much wider variety of humor than his outward attitude would indicate. Few are the things that will make him laugh outright, a short bark of a sound which he quickly suppresses. He seems somewhat uncomfortable with letting the full range of an emotion be expressed, instead favoring tempered reactions.

Left to his own devices, Kayden can come off a bit spacey. He'll lose hours at a time in his work, stopping only as biological needs dictate. Other times, he can be found staring off into space for hours, occasionally sketching largely nonsensical lines into the air with a free hand. He's brought back to reality quickly enough, a simple tap on the shoulder or his name spoken even softly will turn his attention immediately to the person seeking it.

More than anything, he seems nearly dependent on music. A radio, a portable player, live bands, anything. Deprive him of any source of music long enough, and he'll grow edgy and restless. His tastes are wide and varied – pop, rock, classical, new-age, he listens to it all.

He finds his existence as a coordinator to be something of a grand cosmic joke, an object lesson in what happens when man tries to map his destiny. He cares little for whether someone is natural or coordinator; what matters is how much effort they're willing to put in above and beyond what their innate capabilities are. He's not sure which point he'd rather prove, whether destiny is something handed to you or something you claim for yourself, but for now both answers lie along similar paths.

Perhaps more than anything though, Kayden is an idealist. The only good thing to have ever come from war and battles are the mobile suits he devotes himself to caring for. They themselves are best suited for exploration, expansion – and flight. Call him biased, but his favorite MS will always be the ones that ply the sky and the stars.

Appearance
Height: 6'3" (1.905 M)
Weight: 207 lbs (98.43 kg)
Hair Colour and Style: Black, worn to mid-back in a loose tail gathered at the nape of his neck by a leather cord.
Eye Colour: Gray
Identifying Marks: Nothing particular
Skin Tone: Caucasian, mild tan
Build: Broad-shouldered, with moderate musculature. Long limbs give him a slimmer, lankier appearance than he would otherwise posses.
Clothing: Kayden prefers to dress in loose-fitting, casual attire. He can most commonly be found wearing loose jeans with a t-shirt tucked into them, and low-top sneakers. When the occasion calls for him to be a tad more formal, he'll switch to khakis with short-sleeved dress shirts and leather shoes. He's only seen in full sleeves when work obligations specifically requires them.
Handiness: Right-handed

Background

Mother: Marie Harman (45, Natural)
Father: Patrick Harman (45, Natural)
Siblings: Sister, Zoe Harman (15, Natural)
Spouse: None

Personal History:
Born August 19th, CE 62 to Patrick Harman, an aerospace engineer at Morgenroete, and his wife Marie, a music teacher he had met in college, Kayden was to be his father's ideal heir: a brilliant engineer and top-notch pilot, as capable of designing and maintaining the tools of his trade as he was to be at operating them. Delivered on base at Onogoro Island, Kayden spent his early years surrounded by the tools of war, dreaming of a life split betwixt clouds and stars.

In February of CE 70, with the shadow of war approaching, Patrick moved his family to the main island. Marie was only too happy to get off the base, and adapted quickly to life in the city. In November of the same year, she gave birth to a daughter, Zoe. A bit unplanned, Zoe was born a natural like her parents, and Kayden was taught that as not just her older brother, but her older coordinator brother, it was his job to protect her. Despite Patrick's work at Morgenroete, the family managed to stay uninvolved with the growing war until a year later in CE 71, when Patrick was transferred to the late stages of Morgenroete's MS program. Even at nine, Kayden was fascinated by the technical documents his father would bring home, and Patrick was only too happy to try and explain them to his son.

Long, desperate hours to complete Orb's only chance at an even fight meant that Patrick spent less and less time at home. By the time the attacks on Orb began, it had been weeks since Kayden had seen his father. It would only be through sheer luck that the family would rejoin each other on an evacuation ship during the attack. Kayden's memory of the event is somewhat blurred, but forever burned into his mind is the image of the Kaguya Mass Driver erupting along the horizon as ships raced towards the sky and mobile suits filled the air like so many angry hornets.

They spent six months as refugees, before returning to the rebuilt Morgenroete facility in early CE 72. Kayden had lost interest in mobile suits in the intervening months, but the first public test flights of the Murasame brought his fascination back to life as strong as ever. When the second Bloody Valentine war came crashing down upon the world, his family once again retreated to Orb's main island and hoped for the best. This time Kayden's fists clenched, his eyes locked on the sky. This, he decided that day, was not how those machines were meant to be used.

Six years later, he would begin down the path of changing all that. He chased after his father's footsteps, studying engineering and mechanics, with an emphasis on aerospace mobile weapon development. He whiled away his afternoons staring over his father's shoulders as he worked, and even Patrick's superiors took notice of the boy's interest. While he was kept away from the classified areas, he began working part-time as a parts-runner, ferrying boxes from the warehouses to the maintenence facilities. With a fair deal of hard work, he managed to take that position out to sea for a summer during the swept-wing research program. Kayden's most cherished memory of his teenage years was standing on the deck of the carrier as the jet-powered relics of another era roared away on their final departure.

By the time he was seventeen, he had taken an official position as an engineering intern in Morgenroete's mobile suit division. Most of it, to be sure, was spent running errands, but even the snatches of overheard conversation were leagues ahead of what was being taught in his classes. By night, he bargained for time in the simulators, and ran yet more errands for the maintenance crews for the opportunities to sneak a sit in the real deal. Things would have been easier, perhaps, if he had enlisted, but that wasn't what he wanted to get into a mobile suit for. By midsummer of his 18th year, he was flying for real, a civilian contractor. He had a born talent for operating the machines, with a brilliant sense of the space the machine occupied and how it moved in coordination with those around it. By all rights, he would have become exactly what his father had planned out all those years ago. What happened instead, no-one had seen coming.

Kayden grew. Suddenly, inexplicably, and rapidly. A freak growth spurt, the doctors called it. A miscoded gene, perhaps the result of the limitations of a natural womb. What none could deny, what none could stop, was that by the time it ended Kayden had outgrown the pilot's chair. Patrick viewed it as a betrayal of nature. Marie though it brilliant; her son would find another job, one that involved less time flying in a glorified tin can and more time safely grounded. Zoe just grumbled that she had to look up too far.

It would have been easier to accept, perhaps, if the change hadn't taken with it the pride in his father's eyes. If it hadn't taken with it the sheer joy of flight.

He stayed on with his engineering work at Morgenroete, but arranged for a transfer out of his father's department. Focusing his efforts outside of the realm of piloting, he found an outlet in motorcycles. The open 'cockpit', the rush of wind, and the way a well-tuned machine skimmed over the road took away some of the loss.

When Orb began supplying arms to its allies in NOVA, Kayden saw an opportunity. He put his name in as a technical consultant, and by equal parts luck and merit made it in as a civilian consultant provided to the USSA by Morgenroete to help them build their maintenance programs for the Astray and Murasame. Out from under his father's disappointed shadow, he began to move forward once again.

As the years went by, he found himself renewing his VISA time and again to stay where he was. The South American continent had vast tracks of land itching to be explored by bike, and he could still squeeze into an MS well enough to move it around during maintenance. It didn't exactly keep his skills sharp, but his sense of space was as in-tune as ever and it was easier than calling over a pilot every time the crew needed a machine moved. By CE 85, he had applied for full citizenship in the USSA. He hadn't yet found what he was looking for, but he was certain he'd have a better chance of finding it here, where things were still developing, than in the firmly entrenched society of Orb.

[Lunamaria]

If you get the problems I pointed out, (The named projects and the sneaking) a good profile.

[personalmoniker]

Per your suggestions, I have removed the references to Kayden's father being directly involved in specific Morgenroete projects, as well as the references to his sneaking about the base. Thank you for your input!

[Darkness]

I have no complains about this profile; it is quite well-written and was a pleasure to read.

Approved.

United States of South America
Department of Social Security

Dear Kayden Harman,

This paper certifies that you hold the right to be a full citizen of the United States of South America.


Thomas Finn,
Head of Department
Department of Social Security