Name: Christopher Tracey
Gender: Male
Age: 27
Date of Birth: September 21
Height: 5'9"
Weight: 146 lbs.
Hair color: Brown
Eye color: Red
Ethnicity: Caucasian (Side 3)
Race: Oldtype?
Original Timeline: Solar Era
Affiliation: Central Earth Union
Character Theme: Mogura Oyaji - Redline OST
Battle Theme: Test Flight Delight - Macross Frontier OST II
Other Information:
Combat Style: Steadfast
While precise control of mobile suits has come to be second nature for Christopher, the chaotic action of combat is decidedly less intrinsic. Accordingly, he favors a slower-paced, steady approach to taking the offensive, preferring to bide his time until a clear opportunity presents itself. This is both a strength and a weakness; while it does tend to minimize risk to life and limb, it also means that a quicker or especially powerful opponent may more easily overwhelm his ability to react effectively.
Something of a jury-rigger by trade courtesy of his background in construction, Chris has shown an aptitude for rapidly adapting to situations as a whole, such as exploiting the idiosyncrasies of a foe's fighting style or using the environment to his advantage; you could say he's adept at seeing the bigger picture rather than focusing solely on the enemy. Combined with his cautious nature, these traits help to make up for his lack of raw skill compared to pilots with more experience. He meshes well with the Gundam AGE's all-around abilities while still being able to shift his style as necessitated by the various Wears and their unique attributes.
Appearance:
More often than not covered in a light layer of grime, Christopher seems to attract dirt like a magnet despite his best efforts; a penchant for cleaning up only to go crawling in some foul place immediately after may be largely to blame. Oft-disheveled, it's been years since he gave much thought to his appearance, and basic personal hygiene tends to be both the beginning and the end of his primping. While working with the military has succeeded in shoring up his bad habits to a degree, you'd still have to fight to get him to do more than run a hand through his hair and call it a day.
Chris's dress is generally as casual as it gets when he's not wearing a pilot suit, with jeans and hooded sweatshirts a staple of his wardrobe. He has a strange penchant for dress shirts, though the manner in which he wears them is anything but classy; wrinkled and left untucked, most are spotted with the occasional grease stain or similar soiling. Years of rough, hands-on work have left him with a bevy of scars, though most are fairly insignificant; the exception is the remnant of a long gash crossing his back from left shoulder to right side. In build, he's distinctly average, being of a normal height and weight, though his line of work has left him in particularly good physical condition.
Personality: As described by his peers, Christopher is a hard-working, driven individual. He's the sort of person who can set his mind to a task and excel, but does so without losing sight of the bigger picture. And while supremely confident in his own abilities, he also possesses the humility to recognize when a task is beyond him, giving him a well-balanced perspective; he generally won't rush headlong into a situation, but neither will he hold back due to self-doubt.
In interacting with others, Chris is generally light-hearted and, somewhat contrary to his attitude toward his work, easy-going. He's the kind of guy who'll give almost anyone a chance; he's also the kind of guy who won't forget the people who squander that chance, and while outright hostility isn't really his game, he won't be doing them favors anytime soon either. Earn his trust and he'll gladly put full force behind watching your back, while expecting the same in return. He values the company of others, preferring to spend his off-time in the presence of friends rather than alone.
Biography: Colony born and raised, there isn't much of relevance to say in regards to Christopher's childhood. While he came about before the advent of the Cataclysm, he has only the vaguest memory at best of the event, having been far too young to grasp the gravity of the situation. All things considered, his family got off lightly; their way of life remained more or less intact despite the turmoil. This was opposed to, say, the Side 3 colony which they inhabited vanishing like a fancy magician's trick, a fate that more than one other community seemed to suffer.
Working his way through life as steadily as possible under the circumstances, it wasn't until later in his teenage years that Chris began to develop a genuine fascination with mobile suits despite their ubiquitous use. They had simply been an everyday occurance until that point, and true military-use machines were a fairly rare sight, a fact for which he might have done well to count himself thankful. Despite his growing interest, it wasn't delusions of piloting grandeur that landed him in a cockpit for the first time; it was rather more a matter of convenience and coincidence. Finding work with a construction firm at the age of nineteen, their first act was to strap Chris into a Vandera mobile worker and begin educating him in zero-gee colony repair. Interesting? Not particularly, but it was enough excitement for the fresh pilot.
Years later, Christopher had refined his skills from a bumbling newbie to being one of the best at his craft, though saying as much wasn't much of an acolade in the construction business. And yet, it was for that very specific skillset that the Central Earth Union came knocking two years prior to the present day. They seemed to be searching for potential pilots, but not just anyone would do; they were looking, quite specifically, for individuals with extensive experience using particularly low-performance MS, a bill that Chris fit perfectly. While understandably tight-lipped about what he'd be getting himself into, it was a difficult offer to refuse after spending six years staring at the outside of a colony. Almost as soon as he accepted, Chris found himself whisked away to a secret installation to work on their little 'project'.
Even after being brought on-board as a pilot candidate, the Union was enigmatic about precisely what they expected out of Christopher. His peers, a group seemingly assembled from similar backgrounds to his own, were equally in the dark. The list of prospectives was gradually thinned over the coming months as they were put through a strict training regimen and acclimated to military life, with Chris emerging at the top of the pack. While a few of the others would be kept in special reserve for this particular endeavor - should he experience an unfortunate accident - it was now that he was unceremoniously designated primary test pilot of a 'revolutionary' mobile suit...the Gundam AGE-1.
There had been rumors, of course, whispers here and there about exactly what they were being gathered and tested for. There had to be a specific reason the CEU military would bother rounding up a bunch of civilians instead of drawing from their own ranks, right? Taking advantage of his newfound security clearance to learn everything he could about this 'AGE Gundam', Chris didn't expect much by way of results after the roundabout they'd given him until now. He was unexpectedly enlightened, courtesy of both computer records and some chatty engineers.
As it turns out, the stories had been at least partially true. The Gundam AGE was something of a paradox, simultaneously low-tech and incredibly advanced. While he was a little cloudy on the exact details, it seemed as though the Gundam carried a system - the 'AGE System', wouldn't you know it - which collected and analyzed data from the suit's operation. Said data was then used to produce modular additions and modifications for the AGE, and the process repeated itself. Unfortunately, the AGE System's on-board AI was still a work in progress; it could only interpret performance data up until a given threshold before becoming overwhelmed, a threshold which had proven to be very low. The flight characteristics of the AGE itself had to be limited to avoid crashing the system, and the resulting machine fell far short of the metrics expected of a modern mobile suit. This is where Chris and his experience with industrial MS came into play, the idea being that it would be easier improve a newbie's skills than force a more experienced pilot to adapt to a lesser machine than he'd been trained on.
Thrown into a rapid training regiment now that he was considered a military asset, Chris adapted well to his new duties, and his skillset shifted easily from construction to something resembling combat-readiness. The AGE System was put into use in earnest, and throughout this period produced the first two upgrade packages for the Gundam - 'Sparrow' and 'Titus' - to fit particular situations based on their simulations. Construction of the first Diva-class vessel, the Prometheus, was also completed; a new ship built exclusively to house the AGE Builder and computer core, it became his new home in short order. Accompanied by a squadron of the latest GN-XIIIs to protect the Union's investment, they were quickly shipped out to collect real-world combat data in skirmishes against small pirate and dissident groups. It was only after several months that the vessel was redirected to a more vital task, reinforcing the front in this new conflict with the Frontier Commonwealth.
A war was brewing, and it seemed as though Christopher and the AGE-1 were poised to be at the forefront.
Mobile Weapons:
Prototype Mobile Weapons: AGE-1 Gundam AGE-1
Ship: Diva-class
Prometheus
