Kyle Gregon

Rifle Kyle Gregon is the supression gunner in 2 Section, and is the youngest soldier in L Platoon. After a rollercoster lifestyle and release from "Daydreamers" rehabilitation, Gregon joined the Pariah Rifles hoping that a military lifestyle would sustain the level head that rehabilitation gave him. The prospect of fighting in the war was of little concern to him upon signing up but quickly surfaced as a challenge which he would welcome.

Early Life
Gregon was born on Python (10 January 2415) and was the son of two local politicians who were well known for their anti-confederate views and constant advocating for succession from the United Interstellar Confederacy. This meant that they were heavily criticised and marginalised by the majority-loyalist Pythonian government, and were also shunned by much of the community still sore from the first human civil war.

On Kyle's sixth birthday whilst being driven by his parents to his birthday party venue, the transport was followed and consequently rammed into a building-face by an enraged widow, whose husband had been killed in the Ganomay counterattack of 2381. The transport took the majority of the blow; however a resident of the building and Kyle’s father had been killed in the crash. Kyle’s mother died shortly after the crash before the emergency services could arrive. Kyle sustained a head injury and broke his forearm, but survived. The enraged widow was caught fifteen minutes later and in court pleaded guilty, and as a result was sentenced to life imprisonment to the outrage of many extremist loyalists.

Due to the fact that Kyle's parents had moved to Python together later in life, Kyle had no family on Python or anywhere within ten FTL jumps. As a result Gregon was put up for adoption and for two years lived in an orphanage in his home city of Ison.

He was finally adopted when he was eight by a lesbian couple, who upon Kyle's request let him keep the last name Gregon. The couple were natives to Python and earned an average wage, and lived in an area of Ison generally considered to be out of their league (as the class system is more prominent on Python than on most planets, and there is a clear gap of income between the working and middle classes). Gregon then received a public education, which he found more comfortable than his previous private education which seemed to him to emphasise class superiority, which the public system did not allow.

Social Life
Despite his early experiences in life Gregon was known to be a happy teenager who could blend into any crowd and only saw the best in the people he socialised with. He also earned a reputation for being the 'weakling’s bodyguard' as he would physically defend students who were being bullied by stronger students. Despite getting himself involved in other peoples fights he never had a personal fight himself, as the more violent students knew perfectly well that he was the strongest in his schools so would be sure not to give him reason to fight them. Although he would never get physically bullied, many tried to mentally bully him as they knew he would not react physically to insults. The primary of which was the nickname 'giant' as he is unusually tall for a person who has grown up on a high gravity planet like Python, and as a result was also called an alien and accused of not actually being a Pythonian.

He saw these verbal insults as a sign that they were too scared to confront him physically and had to result to verbal abuse which was obviously not their strong point. So he laughed off all insults and became harder to offend with every slur. Gregon left school at the age of sixteen with above average grades and a deep interest in technology, particularly that concerning direct mental stimulation and neurological mapping.

At the age of sixteen Gregon started his first year of college at Ison College of Technology and Art studying practical applications of neurological stimulation. The course was based around studying technology which uses electrical signals to produce predictable reactions within the brain, primarily used to help treat mental disorders or conditions such as PTSD. However it also delved into the world of the "Daydreamer", which is a person who has become addicted to electrical-neurological stimulation, usually through the over use of full sensory visors and drugs. Whilst learning he became particularly interested in experiencing strong electrical-neurological stimulation, and became less and less concerned with the dangers of doing so. He stared experimenting with full sensory visors eight months into his course.

He then began to combine these experiences with drugs, but found that the high gained from the legal dosage was too small and that if his mind could reach higher heights of pleasure then he would keep going until he could see his limit. However with this highly tactile application of mental stimulation there was no limit, and Gregon found himself too enthralled in his experimentation to go to college any more.

As he fell deeper into his mind he spent all day in his room at his parents’ home, only coming out of his dream like state to eat and drink. Through his self-mental manipulation he began to search his memory, and was trying to remember all of the good times he had in his teenage years to add to the mental pleasure; however he found his past which was long since forgotten. Deep beneath the good memories laid the memory of his parent’s death, which had remained very potent despite being supressed by his sub-conscious defence mechanisms. Suddenly his mental experiences were plagued with trauma, and along with this one memory there came a flood of all other smaller and supressed memories ranging from private school to college, each shrouded in negative emotions.

Breaking away from college and from the outside world had a negative effect on what limited social interactions Gregon had, and there was a noticeable breakdown in speech and understanding which was visible to his parents. After weeks of limited communication between Gregon and his parents, his parents realised that there was a serious problem with him, and that it was not likely a temporary state of mind, so they began to observe his condition. After three days of carefully watching him his parents contacted their local Mental Rehabilitation clinic and organised a meeting with them in their home. At this point Gregon had become depressed by the constant hauntings of his past mixed in with extremely pleasurable highs, and so was hardly responsive to the specialist he had been dragged down the stairs to meet.

After a two hour talk between Gregon, his parents and the rehabilitation specialists Gregon agreed to move into the Mental Rehabilitation clinic and begin a recovery. The recovery process in a sense uses the condition as a cure, as it uses electrical-neurological stimulation to condition the patient to feel disgust when experiencing a particularly high level of manual mental stimulation and to receive pleasure when not engaged in these activities. The process is a very delicate one, as making the patient feel too much pleasure from not engaging in those activities is classes as personality-washing and is illegal, and yet not enough pleasure will mean that the patient will easily fall back into habit. The aim is to strike a balance between giving the patient a physical incentive to not perform such actions and an apparent distaste of actually performing such actions. Gregon in particular needed extra attention to help deal with his past demons to ease him off the mental drugs pain-free.

Gregon was finally released from rehabilitation two years after entry, which is an unusually long time for the procedures which he was going through, however he came out the other side totally "clean" from full sensory visor or drug over usage. In fact he left with a stronger resolve and a hatred towards the industry which had caused him so much mental instability, and vowed never to use drugs or visors for personal mental gain unless medically required.

During his rehabilitation the UIC had been thrust into war with the Republic of Genesi, however the patients at the clinic were kept blissfully unaware of the situation as it could cause stress or panic amongst them. Upon his release and becoming aware of this war Gregon decided to join UCAF, a decision which was mainly influenced by his new found mental state of clarity, which he wanted to sustain and reinforce in a regulated military environment.

Military Career
Gregon signed up to join UCAF in 2433 and passed his initial mental suitability selection tests with the highest scores attainable, which was a surprise to the recruiters as he was applying to join the infantry, which only required an average pass score in every category. Despite being told that he could do anything he wanted in the military with these scores he insisted on infantry as he had grown to the idea of seeking a physically and mentally demanding challenge.

Despite growing up on a high gravity world Gregon easilly met the strenuous physical requirements of infantry training and passed out of phase one training having been awared the title Dyreun Prime Recruit 2433 for exceptional physical performance and commitment to training, and was persistently the top student in war studies.

Using his prestigious title he secured himself a place within the Pariah Rifles, a famous regiment based in the Ulleous sector which only accepted the best soldiers passing out of phase one, and had phase two training situated around colonial warfare, infantry warfare, rapid deployment and planetary invasion warfare. After several weeks of being jumped from one system to the next, he had finally reached the Imperial solar system, and was preparing for the final jump to Pariah 096C.