How does someone that was born and raised on the backwater world of Canceron end up in the Computer Science Division of Tactical? It really all starts with a mother who wanted her son to do more than live on the planet and work in the maze of mines, and a father who was willing to set aside the money to make sure that his son would do it. Jaxon's father ran an electronics store and from the time he was able to, he was working on the small electronics that were brought into the shop for repairs. Eventually he went from repairing electronics to debugging computers, finding out the issues with them and reprogramming them as he would need to. Of course, as a proper Canceron citizen, that doesn't mean he didn't do a bit of on the side programming to get a few extra cubits to pay for the little collectible wargame figures that he collects and paints.
A few run-ins with the local constables convinced his parents that perhaps remaining on Canceron was not the best thing for what he was doing. After graduation, he went to a techical trade school - it was really to be expected that he was going to learn the repair trade and help his father at his shop. However, when he was in college, he discovered a new love. Coding and cryptology. He took up a love of code breaking, especially in the online strategy games that he played. When he made it known to his parents that he wanted to go further into code and cryptology, they were not terribly thrilled with the concept as they had expected him to remain at home and in the business.
Jaxon had other plans, however, and saw a way off of Canceron, through the Colonial military. He enlisted in Pommos, and went to training outside of Hades. Basic training was a grueling and molding time, Jaxon was broken down more times than he cared to count - ran through courses he could never imagine, and was built back up into a strong Naval enlisted. When the time come for AIT, he was excited to be heading off world to start training, first as a rifleman, then on to the Naval school on Scorpia to start training in on-board computer systems and cryptology. After graduation, he started off on the Gunstar Defiant as one of the many techies assigned to gunnery control systems.
His first two year stint aboard Reliant went without incident. He did well on his test scores, and quickly moved from Crewman to the Specialist rank. His next assignment saw him aboard the Battlestar Solaria as part of the team that was updating her Command Navigation Protocols to network her with the rest of the fleet and running her through her reconditioning cruise. He earned a commendation for his expedited process in the updates and his assistance in getting 'Solaria' updated and returned to the fleet a full month ahead of schedule. He also earned a good conduct award for his behavior while on this assignment, and with his first four year stint over, re-enlisted for a second stint, seeing this as a chance to further career - and pay for his little strategy game figurines and custom cosplay costumes, that got more than a few looks.
His next assignment saw him sent to Fleet Headquarters to learn new techniques and skills on the cryptology front. He was taught of the former exploits that the Cylons used to 'crack' Colonial computers in the First War, and while outdated, it was a lesson that was taught to each of those in his class to watch out for when dealing with possible Cylon attack. Among the assignments they were given was to try to break into military computer systems and crack and understand the first codes of the Cylons and the programming language that was used to create them. Though too advanced now to be fully useful, it was meant to show that every code has it's start somewhere. Jaxon graduated near the top of his class in Cryptology and was given an assignment at Fleet HQ on Picon working to intercept transmissions and translating code. It was a mostly mundane job and allowed Jaxon plenty of time to pursue his little figurines, tabletop strategy games, Cosplay, especially military style such as Warmonger 50K and Zombieworld Survivors.
That is until a letter arrived in early December 2004. The orders were simple, yet confusing. He was to report to a shuttle and report to 'Project: Blackjack'. There was no further information given in the orders, which he complied with.
The shuttle took him, via several jumps, to an undisclosed location where he got the first look at the project he would end up assigned to for the war. His assignment was to the Super Dreadnought Black Harbor, where he was assigned to Tactical for updating the gunnery and electronic countermeasure systems, bringing them the outdated systems up to date. It was the first time he has heard the orders to /not/ install the CNP protocols. The official reasoning given at the time was that the systems were too out of date to handle the new program, but there were murmurs of what the truth might have been.
The truth was worse than they had imagined when two weeks later with the sudden and terrible start of the Second Cylon War. With the start of the war cutting off the Blackjack fleet from the rest of command, Colonel Galloway took command and led the fleet away from the refit area to start it's guerrilla war of retribution. Little did they know that they had unwanted guests aboard. The attack that destroyed the Pocket Carrier 'Pompeii' is what threw up red flags for the fleet. The Cylons somehow knew where the fleet was going to be jumping too next, and it was left to those in tactical and cryptology to figure out exactly how that happened. The thesis that was drawn up that perhaps the CNP program, by now known to allow Cylons to backdoor into systems and shutdown Colonial ships, was leaving a marking tag somehow that allowed the Cylons to get the coordinates of pre-programmed jumps.
The purge was on to rid the fleet completely of the CNP program and track who may have been sent information to the Cylons. That is until fate intervened. While on a downshift after working a double shift, Jaxon was resting in his bunk in the berths with many other members of tactical when a Marine came by and threw in several cylinders. Someone thought it was a joke and went to go pick one up. That's when the grenades went off. A massive fire broke out in the berth, and many of those at the front were immediately killed. Having had a berth in the back corner, Jaxon survived the initial explosion, but was trapped by the flames of the bed and cloth fed fire. Fire control had been shut down by the same Six that had thrown in the grenades, and Jaxon saw little choice. He ran through the flames, his own clothing and hair catching fire as he came out the other side, a screaming, heavily burned mess.
Surgeons treated him for the next 8 hours and while able to save his life, there would be no chance of him recovering his skin to what it was. Burned, heavily scarred, and disfigured, Jaxon started on the long and painful road to recovery. He lives in a constant state of pain, requiring a daily low dose of Morpha to remain treated.
Knowing that the Petty Officer 2nd Class was still useful, he was transferred recently from the Black Harbor to the Orion after the linkup of the two fleets. While still a bit of a homebody, cheerful, and more than a bit of a gaming geek - there's a fear of Skinjobs that has a hold of Jaxon, to the point of angry hatred. He knows of the Skinjob 'traitors' that work within Orion's command, and understand their usefulness, but time will tell how he reacts to them.