- Name: Neban Jameson
- Date of Birth: June 16, 2020
- Place of Birth: Angel 3 Colony Ship
- Known Relatives: Jehan (father), Carol (mother)
Background
Neban's father Jehan was a skilled confidence man and thief on Earth prior to the First Robotech War while his mother Carol was an art expert working for a museum. The story, according to Jehan, was that he was using Carol as an unsuspecting pawn in one of his schemes when he broke the rules and fell in love with her. Even after learning what he really did for a living, Carol chose to stay with Jehan and the two were wed in a place called Las Vegas. The couple survived the devastation of the Zentraedi planetary bombardment that destroyed much of the Earth but the near-collapse of civilization made it difficult for either of the pair to make a living. Jehan had to make due with petty schemes and Carol did odd jobs, with the pair moving about frequently.
Jehan soon realized that there were few opportunities for he and his wife on Earth and, with a measure of skill, arranged for the pair to be part of one of the early colonization efforts. It was while on board the Angel 3 colony ship that Carol discovered she was pregnant. The story there, again according to Jehan, was that Neban was conceived when the couple were celebrating being selected for the colonization project. Neban was born while the colony ship was still en route to its destination.
The Angel 3 colonists established their new home on the planet Elysium. There were few opportunities for a man with Jehan's talents on a start-up world, so he worked mostly legitimate jobs as the colony established itself. Jehan's skills were most appreciated in the realm of supply acquisition, where he seemed to be able to arrange for whatever the colony had need of, even if others had deemed those items impossible to get. Meanwhile, Carol stayed at home raising Neban when the boy wasn't out getting in trouble with the other first generation children. Young Neban spent much of his time playing with the other children or watching the newsfeeds from the Expeditionary Forces expound on the actions of heroes like Admiral Rick Hunter, Skull Squadron Ace Max Sterling, and the dashing Colonel Jonathan Wolfe.
Elysium quickly grew from starter colony to major crossroads as it became the hub of traffic between Space Station Liberty and the Pioneer Mission, as well as the nearest colony to the newly established Space Station Independence. Any place where people and goods come and go like they were at Elysium is a golden opportunity for a person like Jehan. The intrepid entrepreneur began setting up his own operation to help facilitate the transfer and acquisition of "specialty" items from the various colony worlds. When Neban turned 13 his father brought him into the "family business" and began teaching him the tricks of the trade (confidence games and theft, which meshed nicely with the appraisal skills he had picked up from his mother over the years).
All good things must come to an end, however. As Jehan's operation grew, he slowly became aware of a rival operation on Elysium. Curious, Jehan began digging and became more and more concerned by what he found. Whoever was running this other criminal enterprise was very well connected, and very dangerous. Too late, Jehan realized that he had attracted too much attention to himself. As Expeditionary Force security swept in on him (based on manufactured charges) Jehan desperately tried to get his wife and son to safety. Carol, however, refused to leave her husband behind and sacrificed her own freedom to ensure Neban could escape. It took every ounce of skill the 16-year-old had learned from his father to evade the authorities, leaving behind everything except the half-loaded 9mm automatic his mother had given him as she ran off to distract the police.
Neban managed to sneak aboard a transport shuttle which got him to the Independence station. He soon realized that the authorities on Elysium had notified station security so, needing to keep running, Neban bluffed his way into a group of workers bound for the Haven colony. Arriving on Haven, Neban learned that the workers were miners helping to work on a xenoarchaeological dig. The skills he had learned from his mother helped Neban get away from the menial digging jobs and on as an apprentice to the scientists working the dig, Dr. Sebastian Shaefer and his assistants, Katherine (Katie) Bingham and Jaime Santiago.
Since arriving on Haven, Neban has also been starting to worm his way into the nascent criminal underworld in the colony, one that has grown because of the influx of refugees from Earth. Unfortunately all this has gotten him so far is an off-and-on girlfriend named Tina and a growing addiction to the off-world alien hallucinogen called Rainbow.