Alastair may have been born and raised in the city of Hadrian, Virgon, but as he grew up, he became a citizen of all the colonies in spirit. His mother, a linguistics teacher at a prestigious Virgon university made sure from the moment that he could speak, that he was not only learning the language of the Colonies, but the native tongue of each Colony. His father, a Viper pilot in the first Cylon war, instilled in Alastair a love of the universe and space travel with his stories of battles and clashes and travelling among the stars. It would be these two foundations that would be a basis of his early life.
His upbringing was in the best private schools that his parents could afford, his mother using her influence as a Professor to help him get into Honors courses. He was strong in language and math, and soon it became apparent that he wanted to follow in his father's footsteps, it was actually his old man that convinced himself to take civilian college classes on piloting. However, when he first started in school, it became obvious that there was a problem with Alastair's vision. He was slightly near-sighted. It wasn't enough to keep him from flying if he wanted, but it was enough for it to be suggested that he get into Astronomy and Navigation instead and place his focus there. With this new path to reach for the stars, took classes to become a navigator for flight crews.
Graduating from college with a Bachelor's in Aviation (BAvn), he minored in Linguistics, using his mother's lessons when he was young to help him land a job with the prestigious Pan Galactic as a navigator and flight officer.
From the age of 24, he worked for the space line as a navigator, travelling the colonies, using his language skills to help get better deals and understand conversations on other worlds. This didn't help to cause it's own fair share of problems, as one time on Tauron, he was heard flirting with a pretty local girl in their native tongue and a couple of roughneck locals gave him a lesson on being an outsider in the alley later that night. He learned to temper his knowledge of his languages, instead studying them privately and continuing to expand his knowledge. His love of flight was expanded on Scorpia, where he learned paragliding and took it up with a zest and gusto for it. He had completed over a decade of service, when the Cylons returned.
Alastair, with his pilot and co-pilot, were on Aerilon when the war first began. Had they been in the air when the war had started, surely he would have been shot down or caught in one of the airborne explosions above the planet, by being grounded, he survived. Like most pilots, navigators and others that survived, Alastair was pressed into service to help with navigation on cargo and transport missions. The battle on the homefront of Aerilon was hard-fought for ever acre taken cost blood and lives.
When word of Task Force NOMAD arrived, it lifted the spirits of the defenders of Aerilon. They fought harder to try to retake their planet.
It was known by now that Alastair was one of the senior members of the civilian corps that had any kind of training in navigation, and with the need for ECOs growing desperate in the fleet, a request was put in by ANVIL to send Alastair to Picon. There, he met with Commander Spree and it did not take much coercion to convince him to formally enter the military.
He was quickly trained at CFAB Crandall on military procedures and protocols, but with his years of experience handling navigation systems, it became quickly clear that he was part of the top of the cream of the class. He helped tutor other nuggets that needed help with ECO systems, and while he was the old man of the group at the ripe old age of 36, he tried his best to keep up with them. After graduation, he was chosen as one of the nuggets to be sent back to JTF Nomad to become a Raptor ECO. Having spent the start of the war and beyond fighting planetside - he's finally getting to touch the stars again, much as his father did in the first war.