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Johnathan Christopher Graham
”I tried being a hero once. I wouldn't recommend it. The Captain'll tell you the same - the only heroes you'll find on the field are dead men, and some comfort it is to them. Let them keep it.” —Captain Jane Hartman, Serviceman's Bar & Grill
___Gender: Male ___Age: 27 Years ___Affiliation: Auxesia, former Liberty Navy ___Date of Birth: 14th March, 798 A.S
#001 Service History-First to Fight
Rank: Commander Service Number: NF-10804831 Division: First Fleet Service Record:
>816A.S - Enlisted: Liberty Navy >816A.S-819A.S [2 Years, 6 Months] - Officer Candidacy School, West Point Military Academy, New York
Promoted to Officer Candidate, assigned to 88th CSG.
>820A.S - Status altered; Court-martialed, summarily demoted to Ensign for conduct unbecoming of a flight officer. >820A.S-821A.S [6 Months] - Officer Re-education Program, West Point Military Academy, New York. >821A.S - Appointed: Liberty Navy Primary Fleet >821A.S-821A.S [1 Month] - Accelerated Flight Training School, Richmond Military Academy, Virginia.
>823A.S - Status altered: Honorably discharged for wounds sustained during Operation Royal Flush.
Decorations (By order of precedence.):
>Bronze Star - LN >Purple Heart - LN >Liberty's Wings - LN >Liberty Logistics Badge - LN >Joint Service Ribbon - LN >Silver Service Pin - LN >Aviator's Wings - LN >Homeland Defense Medal - LN >Rheinland Campaign Medal - LN >Bretonia Expeditionary Medal - LN
#002 Appearance-Fresh Face, Worn Soul
Height: 184.5cm Hair: Brown Eyes: Brown Distinguishing Marks: N/A
With a service record containing more deployments than years, the dramatic shifts between logistics command and front-line warship command - necessitated by the ever-dire war effort - have taken their toll on the once young Graham. While his hair still shines brown and his face seems almost unblemished, the once clean-shaven, snappy Ensign has broken apart into a scraggly, exhausted Commander. His eyes betray his condition more than anything elSE - they're centuries older than anything around him. His attire discloses the same thing - perhaps not ragged, but certainly unkempt, almost uncharacteristically so. Symptoms of a greater ailment.
#003 Personality-A Shattered Man
There was once a time when Graham was known for being boisterous, immature; he was respectful, of course, especially to his superiors, but his speech and actions always betrayed his age and his lack of experience. He was a bright star of the Navy, on a meteoric rise through the ranks - he had gone from being assigned to second-rate training squadron in Ontario to command of one of the most important Naval Orbital Facilities in under a year.
But it would be this command, his assignment to Royal Flush, and the Savo Island incident that would cost him his jovial nature. Between the loss of over half his command in Operation Royal Flush, to the deaths of the five crewmembers aboard the Savo Island, Graham's psyche was torn in half, crumpled into a ball, and tossed into the trash can. Wracked with grief over his perceived failures in both incidents, he withdrew to a life of near-solitude while being treated for injuries at Jacobi Medical Center. Even after taking command of his ship once again, he remained distant - not cold and harsh, as some would describe Hartman - but simply detached and removed, a sign of mental anguish shared by many of the First Fleet's shattered men and women.
#004 History-Sic Semper Tyrannis
Graham's early life was one of stunning normality. As a young child, born to two rather old parents - a recently retired police officer for a father, and an accountant for Interspace Commerce for a mother - Graham's beginnings were average at best. Being raised by protective but not necessarily restrictive elderly parents, he was given a relatively quiet and standard civilian life. He attended primary and secondary school in New Allentown, Pennsylvania, and graduated in the middle third of his class in terms of GPA and achievement.
However, when it came time to choose between college and the workforce, Graham's options fell flat. His academic achievements, while perfectly acceptable and even above average in some respects, were simply not enough to award him any merit-based scholarships, and his parents' meager welfare and salaries could barely support themselves, much less a college enrollment; likewise, the job market, as Liberty slowly began to show, was less and less reliant on unskilled workers, and even the most simple jobs required a two-year degree. Stuck without a job nor an education, Graham took the third option that his parents begged and pleaded against.
Officer Candidate Johnathan C. Graham became one of eighty-six trainees enrolled in Officer Candidate School at West Point Military Academy, New York. The little savings that Graham had accrued working odd jobs during his high school years had netted him a slightly used dress uniform and a one-way ticket from New Allentown to West Point. He gave each of his parents a hug and a kiss, tugged his suitcase in his hands, and stepped onto the shuttle, and into his new life.
However, Graham, like nearly all of the other eighty-five in his class, would not find the adjustment to military life easy. His post-graduation record shows at least six minor infractions and one major infraction, related to an attempt to become romantically involved with a flight instructor. Despite his acts of insubordination and the many other difficulties that West Point offered, he and sixty-two others of the original eighty-six made it to graduation day two years later. With his middling success under his belt, he was given the rank of 'Flight Cadet' and assigned to the 88th Combat Support Group in Ontario.
The 88th CSG was very tame by West Point standards. Stationed on the Battleship Ottawa in the Ontario system, the 88th was primarily tasked with escorting Deep Space Engineering convoys through the system, which appeared to be a favorite for Lane Hacker trainees. Beyond the occasional skirmish, however, the system was as beautiful as it was empty, and by the time Graham was awarded a transfer and a promotion to Ensign, it seemed almost like a gratuity - and his next post would, of course, be a stark contrast.
Near the waning end of 819 A.S, Graham was shifted from the 88th CSG to the 7th Carrier Fighter Wing. Here, he found his first true taste of combat - while Ontario had a fair share of Hacker craft, many of them stayed far away from Naval installations, and the few that dared attack transports would strike quickly and return to their seclusion before patrols arrived. Here, however, in the heart of Liberty, the Rogues were the biggest threat around, and they were much less adept at covert operations than their ex-Ageira counterparts. After losing a fair few craft due to damages, Graham managed to score his first confirmed kill - splashing a Rogue scrapheap off of Rochester - in a little under two months. He was quickly promoted to Flight Lieutenant (a formal designation of Lieutenant designating he was, in fact, a combat pilot, and not a crewmember aboard a naval warship), and spent the next six months as wingman to Captain Dan Winters, squadron leader of 3/7 SQN. He impressed the man, much to Graham's surprise, and would've likely become the squadron leader had he not drank away the position late one night in the Servicemember's Bar & Grill.
After delivering a slew of drunken insults long enough to offend even the most depraved of Irishmen, then-Lieutenant John Graham was court-martialed and found guilty of conduct unbecoming of a flight officer, and was summarily demoted to the rank of Ensign and assigned to Officer Re-education at West Point. Here, for the next six months, Graham would lazily drift through lectures and classes figuratively (and sometimes literally) kicking himself for his stupidity. Thankfully for Graham, however, there were some who still saw value in him. Captain Winters, the same Winters that Graham had drunkenly reamed not six months prior, returned to West Point and offered Graham a choice - stay in the ORP, potentially be assigned to a third-rate post on a backwater outpost in Kansas or Humboldt, and live out the rest of his military career in relative uselessness. Or, as Winters offered, apply to the First Fleet in the next recruitment cycle.
Graham nearly fell out of his chair in a fit of laughter, but, after some intense thought, decided to go through with it anyway. And, despite his interesting service record to-date, Admiral Teerin saw something in the man, perhaps the same thing Winters saw, and accepted him as a Cadet in early May of 821. Graham immediately began a rigorous training course, entering the fast-track to warship command, whilst also being assigned to the 21st CSG as commander of the bulk hauler LLS Lakewood. Not wishing to waste the opportunity, the now-Lieutenant Commander and Logistics Support Officer spent the next three months working to supply and maintain the newest pet project of the Logistics Corps, LNSP Long Island, and was eventually made Commanding Officer of the outpost for the following four months, thanks to his efforts.
However, being head of "shifting useless crates of junk around in-system", as Graham put it, was not the way he envisioned spending his time within the Navy. Thus, when Captain Jane Hartman returned from escapades in the Omicrons to relieve him of his command, he was secretly thankful. Shown as a reliable commanding officer aboard Long Island, he was given a commission for a newly reconstructed vessel, the LNS Coral Sea, a Defiant-class Gunboat. He spent two months commanding the vessel within the 78th SQN "Wolfpack" acclimating to the vessel, before being assigned as commanding officer of a wing of Defiant vessels escorting marine transports during the Libertonian defense of Leeds, otherwise known as Operation Royal Flush.
It was an operation conceived for greatness that ended in destruction. While the gunboat wing that Graham held command of was supposed to be able to defend the marine craft, in reality, the Coral Sea was barely able to defend itself. Stricken by group after group of cloaking Gallic strikecraft, Graham's ship was taken out of action by Gallic forces while attempting to defend Navy Logistics vessels in low orbit. It was by pure miracle that he managed to survive and make it off-planet, but with his ship gone and his body broken, he felt only comfort when he was discharged in early 823 after receiving medical care for his injuries. Graham has since spent the last few years living a life of relative seclusion on Planet Erie, watching parts of his House crumble around him.
Liberty Navy Logistics Corps Database - Communication - Complete John Graham, Rachel Baker
Graham, looking for any method of advancement, decides to throw his lot in with the always-understaffed Logistics Corps.
Liberty Navy Awards - Noticeboard - Complete John Graham, Rohj Teerin, Remus Sius, Others.
Office of the Quartermaster: Technology & Advanced Warship Deployment Requests - Communication - Complete John Graham, Marisa Marshall
A newly-promoted Graham requests a Bretonian lend-lease bomber, and shortly thereafter, his fated command, the LNS Coral Sea.
To: Commander John Graham - Communication - Complete John Graham, Jane Hartman
Jane Hartman informs Commander Graham she'll be assuming his current position, and inquires as to the poor state of the Logistics Corps.
Chain of Command - Story - Abandoned John Graham, Jane Hartman
Now-Captain Hartman visits Graham in his soon-to-be-former office, querying as to the state of the Corps, and the man himself.
To the Liberty Navy - Communication - Complete John Graham, Agent 'Seeker'
John Graham liases with the LSF over troubles with the Junker's Congress' installations in Puerto Rico.
Shatterpoint - Story - In Progress John Graham, Ian Stuart
As the Gallic war reaches a fever pitch and Operation Royal Flush reaches its peak, the arc of Graham's life is changed forever.
823 A.S-Present-Human Revolution
Auxesia Enrollment Center - Recruitment - Complete John Graham, Auxesian Inner Phalanx
Graham, almost out of options and desperate for solutions, decides to toss his lot in with a new, transhumanist cult of technology.