John Richardson

Finding himself an orphan at birth, with his mother giving her life due to complications with the pregnancy and his father being unknown, John grew up as a ward of the state, moved from one house to the next. Since his father was an unknown human and his Acamarian mother was admitted to the hospital as a Jane Doe when giving birth, he was assigned the name John Richardson by Child Protective Services. He had the potential to be a sweet child, but due to his mixed-race he was not considered a desirable candidate for adoption and so he was forced to spend the early years of his life jumping from one foster home to the next.

He grew up with little to no personal connections in his life, and so developed extreme intimacy issues and continued to find it difficult to open up to anyone.  Growing up in the system proved to be detrimental to his upbringing, and he developed a wild energy and untamable spirit which most families he stayed with quickly determined could not be contained. He made one friend named Akeno Chung during their time together at a shared foster home, and the boys formed a lasting connection, but when Akeno was adopted by a wealthy family, John was once again sent on to the next home.

At a young age, he became obsessed with explosives and guns, to the even greater dismay of the foster care system. The obsession first began with potato guns and then developed into more advanced improvised firearms. Soon he had learned to make basic HMEs with common household chemicals and was responsible for the destruction of more than one tool shed. With his unruly and chaotic nature, he was deemed dangerous by most foster homes and it became difficult for Human Resources to find families that would take him in.

Young John accepted this rebuff with scorn, and the rejection simply seemed to fuel his disruptive behavior. In honor of his Acamarian mother, he would sneak away to tattoo shops to add to the growing collection of ink covering his skin. The moment he was old enough, he requested admission to the Starfleet Technical Services Academy. With no better plan for dealing with such an unruly ward, Child Welfare pushed to have him admitted and was able to gain him a probationary admission based on his meeting agreed-upon criteria within his first year in the academy. When Akeno heard that John was joining Starfleet, Akeno wanted to follow him to the academy, to the chagrin of Akeno’s adoptive parents. Akeno’s parents finally caved to their son joining Starfleet, but would not allow him to take the route of a non-commissioned officer and instead secured him admission to Starfleet Academy.

John was not like most of the recruits who yearned for admission to Starfleet based on their honorable desire to protect others and fight for a greater moral power, but his desire to join the academy was solely fueled by the desire to have an authorized means by which to shoot things. The only saving grace that kept his instructors from immediately exiling him from the academy, was his good-natured attitude and his ability to follow instructions, as well as Akeno’s guiding advice that was constantly talking John down from the worst of situations. While John may have proven difficult and unmanageable in the foster care system, he showed a great degree of respect to his instructors in Starfleet, eager to gain the knowledge they had to give. Sliding into his classes with an easy grin and humor that was contagious, he won Starfleet over with the sheer force of his desire to use his disruptive behavior for some good. With a genuine desire to do the right thing and protect the innocent rather than harm them, John’s instructors determined that his volatile personality could be good if aimed in the right direction.

John was self-aware, fully conscious that his raucous behavior was deemed unsettling by many, but if he ever realized he had gone too far with some ill-placed joke or overdone prank, he was quick to apologize and try to make amends. Akeno also greatly helped to keep John from trouble whenever the boys met up, helping break up fights before they could start with a well-timed joke and an apologetic smile. Although they were planets apart, the young men remained in contact throughout their training and met up as often as they could. The young men saw themselves as brothers more than friends and stood by one another no matter the situation.

John proved to be a magnificent blunt force instrument, unafraid to venture into the most dangerous of situations with minimal weapons in order to complete the mission at hand. An expert in weapons and explosives, he is unmatched in search and rescue techniques, although he is not the type of soldier you want to send in on covert espionage. John is the type to leave any mission with a bang, and not many enemies survive an encounter with him, but stealth is not a word in his vocabulary.

Since his graduation from the academy, he has been assigned as a marksman and shuttle pilot on a few different Starfleet vessels. Graduating before Akeno, due to the shorter length of his training program, John was thrown into the world of Starfleet and given the opportunity to gain some hands-on experience while his friend finished out his training. John’s skills were quickly recognized and he rose from enlisted personnel to a non-commissioned officer fairly quickly.

Once the newly commissioned Tesla had been completed, John was pulled from his current assignment to serve under Captain Ryder. His commanders had recognized Master Chief Richardson’s potential, but also realized the rogue’s need for strong supervision, and so deemed Captain Ryder and Commander Savik to be the ideal management team for such an individual. While serving under Tia Savik as she filled the role of XO aboard the Tesla, he formed a tight bond with her as they shared several encounters in the field. He and Akeno both developed a strong respect for Savik as their CO, and when Savik became captain of her own ship, he and Akeno jumped at the chance to follow her.