Skip to content

Greg

Role: lead, POV · Status: CANON (core), with provisional arc detail

Snapshot

Human. Grew up on a far-future human colony world (not Earth), alongside the synthetic person Markus. The emotional spine of the book is his bond with Markus.

Childhood characterization CANON

In the early childhood material (roughly 10–12 years old), Greg is:

  • highly curious
  • earnest
  • gentle
  • socially inexperienced and awkward
  • confident partly because he does not yet recognize where he doesn't belong
  • fascinated by technology, people, and environments beyond his ordinary life

He is not yet adult Greg in miniature. Not cynical. Not profane. Not deliberately rebellious. His later defiance develops over time — and his adolescent challenging of rules and laws is what eventually pulls the trusting Markus into serious trouble. (That material is developed later.)

Want — Book One CANON

Greg does not primarily want rank. He wants operational autonomy:

Give capable people the objective and enough information. Allow those closest to the problem to decide how to solve it. Centralized systems frequently fail because they operate too far from consequences.

URRD gives Greg the opportunity to prove this philosophy.

Need / arc PROVISIONAL

His arc must challenge whether instinct and conviction are sufficient. The story pressures the gap between what he believes (autonomy always wins) and what he will have to learn (its limits, its costs, when closeness to the problem is not enough).

  • Start state: convinced, capable, un-tested at scale.
  • End state: OPEN — determined by how the Frontier War and the loss of Markus test the conviction.

Key relationships

  • Markus — grew up together; the spine. Inside SQUADRON, Markus chooses to accept Greg's tactical lead.
  • Adam — father, who brought Markus home.
  • The Older Man — admired childhood figure from the House on the Hill.

Command relationship PROVISIONAL

Markus may outrank Greg institutionally, yet in combat operations follows Greg's tactical leadership by choice. This matters precisely because Markus is self-owned.

Open

  • End-state of the arc.
  • Exact age at each milestone (childhood ~10–12; the rest is a working range).