Name/Nicknames: Jesse Konstantopoulos-Cortez
Gender: male
Rank/Position: sled mechanic/ candidate
Age: 23
Birthplace: A base somewhere, he was never sure

Physical Description: Jesse is young and that’s what makes him handsome. However, like most attractive young people, once middle age hits, he will grow into an average looking guy of no particular beauty or value. His hair was black as a child but has since turned a dark chocolate brown due to sun exposure. It curls slightly and, when not done up in a ship-load of mousse, tends to fall about his face into what looks like a makeshift helmet of sorts. Facial hair comes in at rather odd places, making crude mutton chops (which, no matter how much he shaves, can’t seem to get rid of). He also has a fairly good amount of hair on his legs and arms, which he thanks and curses his Greek ancestors for. His nose is a little bulbous and in need of exfoliation and his lips are somewhere in between medium-full and thin. His skin, while it doesn’t burn, takes forever to tan. The only think striking about him, that won’t leave during middle age, it his piercing gaze. Rich chocolate brown eyes seem to look into the depths of a person’s soul when he’s passionate about a subject or studying something of interest (whether it be object, animal or person). As for his body, he’s rather average. Not fat, by any means, nor is he buff, also, by any means. He’s fit and toned for his age, still unable to get rid of his semi-awkward teenager body. He has various scars from outside activities or his first thread experience (those being mainly on his arms); except for one that splits his left eye brow in a clean line. That’s from when Nadia threw a cooking utensil at him. As for ethnicities, he’s Greek, Nicaraguan, Irish, and more Greek, plus a dash of other random ethnicities.

Personality: Despite the occasional bout of depression (which usually comes around his sister and mother’s death anniversaries or when he seriously is considering dumping his wife out in thread), Jesse is a pretty upbeat guy. Though quiet when people first meet him, he enjoys being around people and quickly warms up to pretty much anyone. He’s long since gotten over the “it’s all my fault” phase in mourning his sister and mother, but it tends to be a touchy subject (not sad, just uncomfortable). When he smiles, it always turns into a mad-man grin that one can usually find when Jesse’s amused or ready for trouble. When he’s concentrating on something, he absorbs himself in it and grunts, which usually make him the butt end of jokes. He hates talking about his wife, but doesn’t mind venting about her from time to time. Background: Jesse’s whole life seems to have been one of accidents and mistakes, starting from the moment he was conceived. His mother, Athis, was the daughter of a prominent officer in the army during the Nahti wars (though she refused to tell him who). Being of a “noble birth,” it was almost her duty to act the insane floozy daughter, which was chalked up to being a phase (though it made Athis’ father nervous enough to have his daughter take her mother’s maiden name as a surname, just to be safe). However, when she accidentally became a pregnant, unwed, teenage mother, there was a quick shotgun wedding and then both she and Micah, the man she was almost positive was the father, were promptly kicked out and sent to live on a base in the middle of no where, so as that none of the dark secrets could be a burden to Athis’ father’s career.

Then, when the babies, Jesse and his twin sister Astrid, were born a few months later, it was certain that Micah was the father, based on blood tests and such. So, the young couple, with babies in tote, found that they had no where to go and were almost dirt poor. Eventually, Athis found a job, as did Micah, and they worked making a meager amount, just enough to survive and buy the twins a few toys. As for the babies, it was obvious Astrid was the more dominant and Jesse followed her around like a baby duck. He adored his 3-minute-older sister. Even into childhood and preteen years, they were inseparable.

This is how Jesse lived and grew up until the chance for the Pern project came along. At the chance for a new, more prosperous life, Micah used his wife’s family’s military background to reserve a spot for his small family and they were thus shipped to a new planet. Jesse didn’t really care that they were leaving. He was happy, if anything, to leave the hell hole they were living in. Arriving when he was in his preteens or so, he found that trees and water were so abundant that it was intoxicating. He rarely spent time inside anymore, a trait that carried on into present day. He’d spend hours outside, either playing his guitar or making random contraptions from around the house. Any excuse to go outside, he’d take it. Astrid, generally the more quieter of the two, though she had her brother wrapped around her finger, tended to stay inside, meditating or reading, only joining Jesse if he begged hard enough. His father became a mechanic, and his mother was a nurse, while he and his sister went to school. Life was good and picture perfect for the little family. Life became even more of stereotypical happy family scene when Athis found out she was pregnant. All anticipated the arrival of the new baby, none more than Astrid, who looked forward to mothering one day.

When thread fell, Jesse’s mother was eight months pregnant and resting, Micah was at work, and Jesse had just coaxed his sister into coming outside with him. They sat, near the water and watched anything that became of interest, chatting leisurely like they always did, laughing and talking. When the lethal silver spores rained from the sky, they thought it was pretty. When some landed on Astrid’s hand and leg, eating away at her skin, she screamed and panicked, trying to stop, drop and roll it out. Jesse watched it in horror, only coming to his senses when his sister began to call for help as clump after clump hit. Pulling his twin into the water, he took a deep breath and helped Astrid under, hoping it would have some affect.

By the time it was over, not only had he himself be scored on his arms and shoulders, but Astrid was dead. Too much of her body had been scored and in her panic she had taken too much water into her lungs. When Jesse came home to his mother, her grief caused her to go into early labor. The birth eventually killed her, the baby, and Micah’s will to be anywhere near New Landing. He promptly left, leaving Jesse the rest of the family’s money and a note about how sorry he was, that he had to get away from “that place,” and that he would send him money. Last Jesse ever heard of Micah, he was at Barrier Hold and stopped sending Jesse money when Jesse turned twenty.

It was a little after this that Jesse met the biggest mistake of his life. Nadia Ilica was seventeen when Jesse met her. She was gorgeous, young, flirtatious, and looking for a way to stay at New Landing while her family went north. She found that in Jesse, who was all too well grounded at New Landing, having nowhere else to go. She also found him at a good time, when he was still trying to give his life meaning and not blame himself for the death of his mother and sister, as well as the desertion of his father. So, he tomcatted around, sleeping with anything, until he eventually met Nadia. Pretty soon, she tricked Jesse into thinking that he was in “love” (which really only meant that she was fantastic in all physical aspects of the relationship) he married her a year later. Soon enough, her family left and Jesse was left with his new bride.

A few weeks into it, he not only found that she was manipulative monster, but she had no attraction to him at all and found any excuse to insult him. Except for an occasional lay to keep Jesse married to her, Nadia rarely touched him except to punch, kick, bite, or claw (testing Jesse’s strict “no hitting girls” policy). Hence forth, Jesse signed up for the Dragon program (as a way to get him away from his psychotic and most likely unfaithful wife), spent more time at work and found every reason to be away from the house he once loved.

Family/Friends:
Nadia Konstantopoulos-Ilica (wife)/20/nurse/New Landing
Astrid Konstantopoulos-Coretz (twin sister)/dead-combination of thread and drowning/New Landing
Athis Cortez (mother)/dead-childbirth/ New Landing
Micah Konstantopoulos (father)/42/miner/Barrier Hold

Hobbies & Skills: Music and making things. He’s a rather gifted musician with guitar and also likes to make/fix random objects.

Theme Song: Crackerman- Stone Temple Pilots