While I work on the rest of the sheet, how's this for my character's backstory? Five paragraphs was a little intimidating but I think I managed to get something together.

[hider=The story of Ruben Schuyler]No natural disaster or unbeatable crisis drove humanity to seek worlds beyond their own. No ecological meltdown, no doomsday event, no world-wide war. Humanity still had enough space, for earth still featured a wealth of uninhabited areas. So when Earth's first intrepid few joined Tycho to venture beyond the planet's atmosphere and into space, they did not wonder or refuge among the stars, but wealth. As they found it and work out in space and on other worlds became more normal, colonies sprouted where the seeds of industry took root. Well before the Schon Cluster was a twinkle in Tycho's eye, the corporation bent the frigid outer planets and moons of the solar system to its will, and in one of the cities carved out of those inhospitable worlds Ruben Schuyler's story began.

Like his engineer father and pilot mother, Schuyler was someone who dared. His upbringing was no stranger to hardship, for the colonies lacked the millennia of civilized infrastructure accumulated on earth, but he was taught to meet the challenges that came his way with uncompromising strength of character. With a lot of toughness and a little luck, his family held their own. Their life working as a few of the boots on the ground for Tycho wasn't comfortable, but that dauntless engine of progress offered nothing if not opportunity. More a man of dexterity and fortitude than accounts, electronics, or equations, Ruben honed his skills in the risky fields of construction and then security. 

For a time he even served with the Enforcers, but everyone knew that while Tycho still worked the old colonies, they had their sights elsewhere. Tycho had already begun its conquest of the Schon Cluster, sending industrialists and colonists alike, and something in Ruben drove him to long for the frontier all over again—the sense of adventure that was the very lifesblood of the colonies in his earlier years. Unable to secure transfer from his employers, Schuyler resigned and joined an up-and-coming PMC interested in the new frontier. Poised to become the second option for protection on Dumah, wherever Tycho and its cronies might be unwelcome, Hawkwood Solutions gave Schuyler the chance he needed to reach Dumah himself.

Of course, he spent a while as an escort guard for ships going to and from Dumah before setting foot on the place himself, but eventually Schuyler reached his destination. He, and indeed Hawkwood itself, arrived at an important time. Farther than ever from the threat of accountability, Tycho was ruthless in its utilization of the people to rake in the profit. As dissatisfaction with the corporation and rebellious sentiment grew, Hawkwood presented itself as the alternative, a helping hand by the people for the people, and for a time business was very good. Schuyler found for himself a place where he truly belonged, and friends he soon found he couldn't do without. Yet all too soon Tycho turned its eye on the lucky startup competing with their Enforcers, and it spared no expense making an example. Sabotage put an unbearable strain on Hawkwood's operations, and it quickly escalated into full-blown shootouts between Hawkwood troops and the Enforcers across the desert. When it came the killing blow was struck with dizzying swiftness. Hawkwood's troops, branded as undesirables, were left marooned on the frontier, with no funding, no backing, no security, and no escape. Schuyler was one of them, and like the rest found himself faced with a choice as to how to make the best of sorry circumstances. Then again, since his options were the execrable Raiders or the drifting Dusters, it wasn't really a choice at all.

With what retrofitted equipment he could scrounge up Schuyler set out to earn a living for himself as a Duster. Though many of his fellows danced around the lines that ought not be crossed, he set out to abide by the law, if not strictly uphold it. As he wandered across great distances, finding work here and there as a bodyguard or escort, he maintained a loose connections with his former comrades from Hawkwood, with whom he shared the bond of being abandoned together. It's been quite a while now, but as tensions mount across Dumah his old grudge bubbles to the surface, and his service rifle -long since cut down to the size of an inconspicuous pistol- yearns for what once was.[/hider]