Greg + Markus Childhood

Status: CANON (characterization), with ages as a working range

The childhood material establishes the bond that is the book's spine, and the kind of people Greg and Markus start as — before the war, before the ranks, before the loss.

Setting

A far-future human colony world — not Earth — that has been home long enough that children think nothing of it. Greg's region feels rural and agricultural (farmland, streams, small roads, local businesses, a tight-knit community, children on bicycles), yet it is unmistakably far-future (orbital traffic, advanced automation, synthetic workers, interplanetary logistics). Reference feel: a Smallville- like rural childhood, on another world, centuries from now.

Young Greg CANON

Roughly 10–12 in the early material. Curious, earnest, gentle, socially inexperienced, awkward; confident partly because he doesn't yet recognize where he doesn't belong; fascinated by technology, people, and places beyond his ordinary life.

He is not adult Greg in miniature — not cynical, not profane, not deliberately rebellious. His defiance develops later.

Young Markus CANON

Not mischievous. He does not encourage stealing, crime, malicious rule-breaking, delinquency, or reckless behavior for entertainment. He is curious and capable of disagreement, but he trusts Greg enormously and generally follows because Greg is his social anchor.

That excessive trust eventually contributes to serious trouble during adolescence, when Greg begins challenging rules and laws. (Developed later.) Young Markus does not yet speak like adult First Commander Markus; his behavioral sophistication develops over time.

Key childhood episodes

• Markus Origin — how the two came to grow up together.
• House on the Hill — Greg's admiration for the older man, and the family that welcomes them.
• The House Gathering — acceptance without ceremony, a defining memory.

Open

• OPEN Exact ages beyond the ~10–12 window.
• OPEN The later adolescent "trouble" episode(s).