personality

Laid-back with a crass sense of humor. While he's not out to intentionally hurt anyone, he has no filter and can be hugely insensitive without realizing until it's too late. Equipped with a very don't-give-a-shit attitude most of the time, and if he does care he's too proud and/or awkward to make it obvious, though he usually has the decency to at least stop what he was doing if he realizes it upset someone, which is probably why he still has a job. Although confident in his abilities as an engineer, he's very modest about his intelligence, and usually feels intimidated by others he considers more "book smart" than him.

story

James had a fairly normal childhood, but things began to change as he grew into... a teenager. Talking back to his parents? Coming home an hour after curfew? Piercings? He was clearly out of control, and for these heinous crimes he was shipped off to a military school for "troubled teens." A hellish experience, but it served its purpose, which was breaking its students spirits and leaving them with the bare minimum of education and little choice but to hop right into the military once they graduated. Which is precisely what he did.

Despite the torturous experience at school, he did end up learning something. He enjoyed working with machines, and was good at it too. So while he wasn't directly in the line of combat, the robots he worked on were. He quickly grew cynical over the fact the advanced technology he helped build and maintain was wasted in war, and once his first term was up he never looked back, opting to freelance blue-collar work instead. Which landed him his most recent job, some kind of environmental research expedition way up north...