Raised in a relatively well off family, "Donovan" (an assumed name and not his real one) was one of those fortunate enough to get a proper education. He applied himself well enough in school as a child, though was not seldomly noted and reprimanded for his rebellious nature. Donovan's father was a corporate middle man with a penchant for tinkering with cybernetics, robotics and their like. Donovan found it interesting and would often spend his evenings fiddling around in his fathers workshop while showcasing a natural aptitude for his father's hobby. Upon reaching adolescence Donovan was given the opportunity of studying at the New Anselm Institute (NAI), a research university specialising in finding and promoting young talent.

Donovan performed admirably and eventually developed an interest in electrical engineering. Guided by some of the more gifted individuals in Arcadia, Donovan was made part of the Research & Development team at NAI before he turned 18. As intelligent as he was, however, Donovan continued to struggle with obedience. The fights he'd get into with class mates where easily overlooked, even that one time when Donovan hospitalized a girl for "challenging him". More problematic was Donovan's ignorance of authorities in the form of professors and corporate associates. Under normal circumstance an individual might well be thrown out of NAI for such behaviour and see themselves ostracised from the scientific community (and usually far worse, though that was less often talked about), but exceptions were frequently made for Donovan due to his skill and the eventual results his fruits of labor garnered the institute.

At twenty years of age Donovan was given his own small team of scientific engineers as he started up a microelectronics department in the institute dedicated to the research of control systems in cybernetics. The task had been given to Donovan by the headmaster himself - Simo Zouari. The man was a stern individual Donovan had long since assumed had strong corporate ties. The purpose of the study was said to be to develop a more efficient fail-safe in malfunctioning cybernetics, though Donovan had his doubts about the legitimacy of that claim. The NAI was, after all, like all other universities in Arcadia privately held and seldomly dedicated to the good of the public.

The project did well, and ended up a success. It didn't take long for Donovan to realize he was right about his suspicions. As the head developer of the new fail-safe technology there was little Zouari could do other than to either inform Donovan of his plans or replace him. The latter was never a real option considering the kind of groundbreaking design in question. Donovan gladly accepted the opportunity of being part of the "real" community, the one dictating research. As it turned out, the plan behind the fail-safe was to develop a weapon capable of seizing control of operative implants - as in other people's cybernetics. Similar products had existed in the past before cybernetics were as advanced as they had now become, but the NAI was interesting in creating a more potent system that could be sold to trusted associated in Arcadia and elsewhere.

Work continued, and while Donovan's fail-safe, now labelled Vanguard 83 or V-83, would never reach the goals the NAI had in mind, it did somewhat achieve the intended goals - rather than controlling cybernetics it nevertheless proved capable of shutting them down temporarily, potentially permanently. The system itself was a form of electrical gadget that similarly to EMP's of old used disruptive bursts of energy, but V-83 was inserted into the spine of the object, connecting with the central nervous system and targeting the biological computer of the host - the brain - by disturbing the CNS and causing a discord between brain and cybernetics. As such cybernetics were rendered effectively useless unless purely mechanical in nature as the brain would not detect them as anything but chunks of metal and wires.

Donovan was protective of his design, however, and that along with his resistance to listening to his peers - or indeed even considering them peers - made for a delicate situation. To put it bluntly; corporate entities wanted to use Donovan's design as nothing more than a tool to cull the masses while Donovan himself wasn't sure at all he considered the modern mega corporations fit to rule society to begin with. In his life he had seen nothing but incompetence interspersed with the occasional spike of mediocrity in those deciding the fate of Arcadia, and more than once he'd found himself thinking that he himself could do so much better.

His relationship with the NAI tensed beyond salvaging when he thus simply refused to give up V-83 without considerably more influence - the NAI moved against him and within a few months Donovan found himself on the streets, publically humiliated and personally bankrupt at the age of 24. He fell into depression and mixed with the lowest in society - underachieving roaches he'd held nothing but contempt for his entire life. He plied his trade at the black market, constructing and selling various cybernetic implants. He even went so far as to try implanting them himself, but one botched surgery too many saw him stay clear of that particular type of work.

Concurrently he would bitch and moan about the corporations to any who wanted to listen - and often those who didn't - until he was eventually approached by the Militia. He didn't share their ideals of challenging injustice and helping the downtrodden in the slightest, but he did share their corporate hatred and saw a potent tool. His engineering skills to practice made him a valuable asset to the Militia, and while his anything but social demeanour ensured he was never properly included in the Militia, the relationship did see beneficial use for both parties as Donovan orchestrated a string of terrorist attacks against the corps in general and the NAI in particular. He supplied the Militia with V-83, a tool proving very effective against the often more-machine-than-man-security that corporations utilized. The technology obviously made authorities aware of who was responsible, and was probably the main reason why Donovan was caught.

Donovan was put in literal chains - his jailers too concerned about Donovan otherwise finding a way of tampering with the security of the corporations' state-of-the-art prisons. Instead, Donovan was chucked in a dark cell of iron and stone. The Peacekeepers interrogated Donovan for several years with their "direct methods". At first they were mainly probing for more information about the Militia and other dissidents even though Donovan had already given them all the information he had straight away. He had no qualms about giving up his "colleagues". They were worth as little to him as anyone else he'd ever met now that he had no use of them.

Since Donovan introduced V-83 to the Militia the technology had quickly spread throughout the bowels of Arcadia and became a real menace through its short lifespan. V-83 was banned even in the higher echelons of society and destroyed on site when found, and soon enough a tracking technology was integrated with Os-Net, capable of recognizing and pinpointing the activation of a V-83. It was a situation that Donovan had long since prepared for. In fact, he had himself helped engineered the groundwork of what would later become the tracking technology back when working at the NAI but given all credit to another, very baffled, scientist. Meanwhile Donovan had developed a variant, V-84, in but a few handmade weapons, very well hidden years before he was caught. Someone had come to suspect a variant might exist him/herself, and eventually Donovan's interrogators were swapped for more familiar faces as Donovan found himself being "interrogated" (tortured, to be clear) by Simo Zouari on a regular basis. He never talked, however, and Zouari ultimately lost interest after deciding that having Donovan being locked and forgotten in a cell for the rest of his life was satisfying enough. Zouari made sure all trace of Donovan having ever existed was eradicated, including Donovan's family and associates. Being completely forgotten and written out of history was after all a punishment worse than death for someone like Donovan - someone craving attention and recognition.

The years and decades went by. There were no cell mates and no guards. A small window, too far up for Donovan to see anything but the sky, was the only source of light while the only sign of human life was the daily food tray delivered by a tiny four-wheeled robot, perhaps in mockery of Donovan. At times he felt as if he losing was his sanity and in truth he probably was too, but he always found a way back somehow. He would scratch the date on the stone floor and walls with his nails to keep time, and in order to pass it dream up fictional storys, eventualities and outcomes, sometimes losing track of what was real and not.

And then one day the food robot never came. Then a second day, and then going on a third. Donovan had already been drinking his urine and was seriously contemplating eating his feces when he heard other human voices for the first time in thirty years. It turned out his prison was not made for him alone, but hosted a rather large number of former dissidents. It was a large stone building situated in Old Town, a small tourist section of Arcadia dedicated to history, full of stone and wood buildings built in the style of those the Earth was filled with centuries ago. The owner of the prison had long since neglected it, and no new prisoner had arrived in the past twenty or so years. The files on inmates, deliveries and everything else was either lost or never kept properly in the first place and while the owner had done a good job of covering his failings this all came to light when he filed for bankruptcy after his other ventures went south.

As such, the Peacekeepers had simply seized his assets - including the prison robots - and left the prisoners to starve until the new owner came to the prison a few days later. Joven Harris was an ambitious criminal posing as businessman (like most ambitious criminals) and considered the old pile of stones a jackpot - here he had hundreds of criminals deemed extraordinarly dangerous by corporations, all forgotten by the authorities, and all now owing him their life should he free them. He had already erased what remained of their prison files, leaving the men nothing but unidentified non-citizens until a new identity was forged for them.

A month later Donovan found himself a free man for the first time since he was 30. Now twice as old, he was hired by Harris following impressing him with both keen mind and skills. Harris was on the hunt for a precious object - Arcadia's Golden Disc - and Donovan and his few still living fellow former prisoners (most of them were executed after being deemed worthless by Harris) was sent on the hunt for it. Due to renovation and construction changing the city landscape, it took Donovan three days to find the V-84 prototype he made all those years ago and use it on Harris, killing him in the progress. Thanks to Simo Zouari he was now completely free of oversight, and in the physical state Donovan was in he little problem blending in with the homeless, the junkies and the crazies as he used Harris' pocket money to forge himself a new identity - Donovan Juilliard.

He found that most of his old associates were dead or worse, but not everyone. The Militia - now little more than just another criminal entity - still retained some members from long, long ago. And boy were they surprised to find Donovan in the flesh. This included Virrian Shear, a then-girl now-grizzled woman who was said to be the leader of the Militia, to the lens sure went blurry when one tried to figure out just what the Militia leadership hierarchy actually looked like. Back in the 80's, a teenaged Virrian had idolized Donovan's careless, unapologetic attitude and presumably this (and/or a lack of intelligence) caused her to believe him when he bullshitted her about not having given the authorities anything but the bare minimum of info when caught. A bargain much like that of old was struck. In return for helping the Militia create or modify much more competitive implants, Donovan was given charge of his own gang of miscreants, Shear tricked into believing Donovan still held ambitions to make a name for himself.

Instead, with nothing to lose but a life not even Donovan himself valued any longer, the only thing left to do before saying his earthly goodbye was to sacrifice said life in a mission to exact vengeance on as many of those who had wronged him as possible. And what better way to do it than to help the criminal scum of Arcadia get a hold of the fabled Golden Disc, turning Arcadian society on its head?