Conner
Conner was brought to Troy as a child by his mother and the man who had captured her and taken her as a forced mate. The man died a couple of years later in a botched raid, and his mother became general property for a few days before latching on the Yarl Marris, an extremely tough man who was both strong enough to protect her and who actually held some genuine affection for her. A bit under nine months later Conner was born - nobody bothered to DNA check his parentage, so it's unknown if he was the barbarian's child, one of his mother's abusers or even Yarl's.
Conner's mother died about three years later, leaving him in Yarl's care. Not knowing what to do with him, Yarl set him to general domestic work and drudgery, until Conner showed an unusual intelligence and ability to handle equipment repairs. He set Conner to educating himself further, then rented out his services as a repairman and mender of discarded equipment. Conner made an acceptable living this way.
Conner hates Troy. He's the sad case of a good man born in a bad environment. The casual violence, the rape, the murder all upsets him - even though he has strong protection from Yarl, and as he grows up is becoming tougher and stronger himself. He does what he can to help those less fortunate than himself - even though he doesn't get a lot of opportunity.
The time is coming soon when Conner will get a chance to break away from Troy, if he can only seize the inituative and dare to take that step.
Stuart Cameron
Stuart's background is one that is destined to lead to either triumph or tragedy. His home was the most stable and safe part of the galaxy - Waypoint Station, one of the enormous space stations that monitor and guard the wormhole junction at Capitol and handle construction, repairs, customs and transhiment duties. His parents were researchers assigned to the station investigating wormhole physics. Stuart himself was a very bright and estremely capable young man, performing well in his schooling and years ahead of his peers is his favourite subject - spaceflight.
Stuart was capable and ready to take his flight certification exams (and had indeed surpassed them significantly using his private simulator software) when his parents were killed in a freak shuttle accident - and the kick in the gut is that he knew that if he had been the pilot, it would not have happened.
A dull following career shuttling cargo and passengers from station to ship or one end of the station to another left an already slightly rudderless young man growing wilder. When he almost slammed his work shuttle into the side of the Empire's newest and most powerful top-secret destroyer during it's launch from a restricted (and supposedly unused) dock during an illegal race, he lost his flight status. Seeing the adverts for a new regeneration program in Sector Seventeen, the far end of Imperial space drove him to sign up and make a fresh start.
Since then things have become interesting.For some reason he not only regained his flight stgatus, but has been receiving advanced training, including in jump-capable starship piloting and operations. Sector Seventeen will also introduce him to someone he works extremely well with...
Yarl Maris
Yarl Maris is the man who took Conner's mother as his woman, and who rather uncertainly looked after him and brought him up after she had died. Once Corporal Yarl Maris of His Imperial Majesty's ten-twenty-fifth Marine Division, Yarl messed up his life when he picked up a serious drug addiction. He disabled his unit's sensor perimeter in order to let his dealer in, and that dealer proceeded to murder an attractive young officer who had rejected his advances earlier. Yarl was blamed and imprisoned. He broke out and killed the murderer, but as he knew that the rest of his unit would be seeking revenge on him, he ran for it. Eventually, after a long, hard, path Yarl ended up on Troy, doing the only thing he had left - using his combat training for piracy.
Yarl does maintain some shreds of decency. He doesn't engage in wanton cruelty - while he'll gun down the local police, he won't shoot civilians or take part in rape or torture. He also does what he can to discourage it and prevent it in the others.,
He's not always completely successful.
Maximillian Magnus
Maximillian Magnus, newly-appointed Governor of Sector Seventeen have a long and storied history - far longer than almost any other individual, in fact. His lifespan has been phenomenally long. Nobody knows just how old he is, but according to his own reminices he solidly outdates the Empire itself (he's on record as commanding a fighter wing during the Four Day War against the Swarm, flying off of Admiral Mason's carrier, he's commented on his experiences fighting Nazis in Stalingrad, and he's mentioned holding up under massed archery). His condition has been quite thoroughly investigated, and is understood, but would be impossible to easily replicate for others (and a couple of Emperors have forced him into hiding throughout the generations as they have tried to have him dissected in an attempt to acheive their own immortality). A very rough but inaccurate analogy would be an extremely agressive and brutal metastasised cancer that constantly overwrites his cells with duplicates of his own cells, with the whole process stabilised by a nasty virus that exists in an uncertain balance with the cancer. He's not the only known example of this condition (or one or two other analagous versions), but in total there are probably less than ten known in the Empire, and at least six of those are mentally incompetent.
As one would probably expect, with so much experience to draw on and a powerful native intelligence to begin with, Maximillian Magnus is fearsomely able, and makes a very bad opponent to have. His presence will probably make some major changes in Sector Seventeen.
Co-ordinator Hamman Bowdak
Hamman Bowdak is supposedly a refugee from the United Commonality of Zan, a human-occupied state that borders Imperial space. Manipulative, methodical and capable, he's actually still working for the Zanni, just as a covert operative with a great deal of subtle support and a lot of implied trust. Bowdak has long term plans for Troy...