Gordon King

Captain , Ph.D, was an UNSC physicist who worked in the Office of Naval Research within the UNSC Navy during the Human-Covenant War and post-war. He was notable for his significant accomplishments working with members of deployed Orbital Drop Shock Troopers to defend UNSC High Command Facility Bravo 6 during the Battle of Sydney in October 2552, and later played a pivotal role in the rearmament of the UNSC military post-Human Covenant War to make the UNSC military more than a match for their former foes.
==Biography==
===Early Life===
Gordon King was born in 2525, on Humanity's homeworld of Earth, in the city of Seattle, in the former American state of Washington. From the very beginning of his life, he possessed a very high intellect, and by the age of 6, had a very acute understanding of electrical appliances, fashioning fairly complex tools out of simple household items.
===Schooling===
When he entered Kindergarten in 2532, at the age of 7, King could already read and compose a 400-word essay in almost any subject. He was quickly advanced to the second grade, in which he excelled in, despite being two to three years younger then his peers. He was given an aptitude test, scored a score of 179, surprising his parents and teachers.
King's earliest heroes were Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking and Richard Feynman, all for their contribution to the scientific community.
King was discovered to be short sighted in 2535, and received glasses to compensate in lieu of optical surgery (which he always turned down, having developed a preferance for glasses.)
King was bullied for a short time in the sixth grade at the age of 11, because he was considered the 'nerd' of the class for his consistently high marks. On one occurance, walking home from school while in a alley, King was assaulted, knocked to the ground and kicked by a gang of larger children. Enraged by this act of cruel and rather pointless violence, King sprang up, seized a four foot long metal pipe that was lying in the shadows of the alley, and began to strike his tormentors with the weapon. Three of the children went down hard, bloody and beaten. 
As a direct result, King cruised through the rest of his middle school years, very much left alone with a reputation for being able to handle himself admirable in a tough spot.
He entered into high school in 2539 at age 14, with all honors classes. King took physics his freshmen year, and became intensely interested in the field; deciding that his future career would involve the topic. He took all the math, science, and English language classes he could in the next 3 years of high school.
However, again he was forced to fight in his sophomore year, when a group of seniors began a fight with him; continuing his trend of fighting to win, disregarding all conventional societorial rules. King was hesitant to fight at first; however, he was goaded into it immediately after the first punch was thrown, he promptly knocked out his opponent - and continued on through his high school years left alone, and maintaining a 4.0 Grade Point Average and earning multiple scholarships to the very best colleges on Earth.
In 2544, King became his high school's Valedictorian at age 17 as a junior, and upon his High school graduation, gave a twenty minute speech on the importance of education to humanity, and the importance of math in all aspects of life. Later that same year, he was accepted into the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in which he majored in physics, and minored in Human history. He graduated MIT in May 2547, three years after he began began, at the age of 22. He transferred into the University of Innsbruck, and began intensive study under various professors, most notably, under Doctor Kevin Kleiner, doctor of physics. 
Following four years of intensive academics, 26-year old Gordon King was awarded a doctorate in theoretical physics in April 2551, which was explained in his doctoral thesis, Observation of Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Entanglement on Supraquantum Structures by Induction Through Nonlinear Transuranic Crystal of Extremely Long Wavelength (ELW) Pulse from Mode-Locked Source Array, which theorized the possibility of transportation of matter through extremely dense elements.
===Employment===
====Aperture Defense Industries====
King began seeking employment in May 2551, attempting employment in his field of theoretical physics. He found very few available jobs in the civilian sector, with exception to Aperture Defense Science Industries, Incorporated, which was a research and development shell company clandestinely funded by the Office of Naval of Intelligence. King applied for employment, and following interview, was immediately employed and moved to the main laboratories in Cleveland, in the former American state of Ohio. 
King became heavily involved in Aperture's work in artificial gravity, namely the dissection of a captured Covenant 'gravity lift' for reverse engineering. His contributions led to the establishment of several new theories regarding conversion of power to distort and manipulate fields of gravity, as well as several prototype human gravity lifts. Unfortunately, these gravity lifts were simply too power intensive for widespread application. Additionally, his work left him adept tinkering with both electronic devices.
However, King's employment with Aperture was short lived; as in January 2552, after a mere seven months into his employment with Aperture Industries, he abruptly quit the company over a dispute with a supervisor. He left behind his research and colleagues, and began to search for work again.
===Service in UNSC Navy===
====Recruitment====
Gordon King was unable to find any other employment in any physics field within the civilian field, because almost every business dealing with his field was now concentrating on aiding the war effort. He finally gave up searching upon receiving a letter from the UNSC Admiralty, informing him he had been drafted into the UNSC Navy.
Within days of receiving the letter, a pair of Officers from the Navy appeared at King's house. He was offered a commission to Lieutenant j.g. if he agreed to work for ONR once in the Navy, following a 16-week course at OCS. King agreed, and signed the paperwork the Officers offered. He then found his way to an shuttle-port, and took a military flight to Luna.
====Officer Candidate School====
Midshipman King found that OCS was unlike MIT or any other University he had attended, even though he was not participating in the academic portion of the program due to his already-extensive education. Gordon found that, instead of being praised for ingenious ideas, he was instead roared at by instructors on how he was "not acting on his ideas". Intelligence was considered second to getting the job done at OCS. 
For the first time in his life, the brilliant Doctor of Physics was challenged going through OCS. However, he excelled during basic training, and finding solutions to problems during exercises, and qualified 'Expert' on the MA5B and M6D weapon systems. He also proved to be very adept in Close Quarters Combat, and physical fitness, which would serve him well, later in his life.
King graduated with flying colors from the school on the 14th of May, 2552. He immediately received orders, assigning him to to an orbital ONR installation, based onboard an older, extensively extended, overhauled and deweaponized Mark V Orbital platform; ONR Earth South, 650 miles above the old Australian capital of Canberra.
====Office of Naval Research====
Lieutenant King transferred to Station ONR South on the 21st of March, 2552. He was then informed he was part Special Projects division of the station; more specifically, the armaments department. His addition to the scientific team boosted output of prototypes and new weapon designs by 6.1%.
King became the problem solver of sorts. He was able to come up with many outside-the-box solutions to unsolvable problems; such as cooling problems for the W/AV M6 G/GNR design. Instead of being powered by loadable chemical batteries, which allowed for only a single shot before reloading was required in addition to a 90 second cooldown time, King devised another method, using a single non-replaceable rechargeable battery, capable of holding power for a total of 5 shots. However, a 5-second cooldown time between shots still existed, as well as a 4 second charge time for the W/AV M6 G/GNR.
Additionally, King was the brainchild of the development of the ONR Hazardous Environment, an armour that was to be superior to UNSC body armor against directed energy weapons. It intentionally traded ballistics protection for 
far more comprehensive protection from directed energy weapons. The armour was externally comprised of hard thick composite ceramic tiles, rated to withstand direct contact with matter with temperatures up to 4,500 C° for up to 15 seconds, with an underlying lining of titanium, and a Kevlar underlay for comfort. While additionally equipped 'smart' automated biofoam and painkiller injectors and proven to be effective enough in tests to be placed into a trial production, the armour was prohibitively bulky and heavy to the standard infantryman at 22.7 kilograms in weight.
King was promoted to the grade of Lieutenant Commander on the 13th of September, 2552, and took charge of a new slipspace engine project. He was on the brink of a breakthrough on the project, when the Covenant attacked Earth on the 20th of October, 2552. As Station ONR South was based 11,480 kilometers distant from Mombasa; Canberra, the station was not in any immediate danger. However, an hour after the initial attack, a much larger Covenant fleet slipped insystem, launching thousands of single ships and boarding craft.
The highest priority targets were the Super-MAC platforms and the larger UNSC fleet vessels, so unsurprisingly, the vast majority of Covenant craft headed for those craft. However, this left a still-sizable amount of Covenant vessels, which then attacked smaller, less important targets, like Station ONR South. Anti-air turrets on the station picked off a few, but a total of 11 landing craft managed to latch onto the station, unleashing a little more then a company of Covenant forces upon the scientists and marines.
Unlike many other servicemen and women on the station, King had been recently requalified in firearms and CQB combat. He retrieved an ONR Hazardous Environment suit from the storeroom on his way to the armory, and was issued a M6D pistol and BR55 battle rifle.
The few marines on the station did what they could to seal off the inner portion of the station from the Covenant boarders, but even with the homefield advantage and knowledge of the stations layout, it was only a matter of time before the superior number of Covenant infantry overwhelmed the marines. This allowed the Covenant forces on the station to enter the more secure areas of the station, massacring ONR personnel in their way.
Lieutenant Commander King managed to gather a few surviving scientists and Marines, and lead them to the hanger bay. Some of the more farsighted crew had known they had to get off the ONR station, and had taken all but one of the vessels onboard the station. The group of survivors, bar King, left the station on the last Pelican.
King then fought his way back through station ONR South to the onboard fusions reactor, where he boosted the output to over 300 percent, which would overheat and destroy the station in just a few minutes. He did this to deny the Covenant UNSC technology and secrets. He quickly returned to the lifeboat bay the way he came, and ejected himself clear of the overloaded station in a Bumblebee-class lifeboat, but was still too close to the station when it detonated into a nuclear fireball just a half minute later. However, King's lifepod had been too close to the station, and EMP from the nuclear explosion fried the Bumblebee's electronics, and the pod plummeted into the atmosphere.
===Battle of Earth===
====Battle of Sydney====
===Post-War===
Immediately following the UNSC victory on Earth, the newly-promoted Captain Gordon King was shuttled into orbit, where he met with surviving ONR personnel and Covenant Linguists, to discuss technology with Covenant experts. It had become common knowledge that the truce between the the Covenant Separatists and UEG were becoming more then that - they relied on each other to prolong their existence. Thus the Interspecies Union was formed, under the Interspecies Union Charter of Formation. The only other signatories at the time were the Huragok, but this just aided to the technological expertise the IU now had under it.
The UNSC immediately requested technological assets from the Separatists, to aid in reconstruction, and allow the upgrading of existing UNSC warships with the new assets; to increase combat effectiveness against Covenant forces - who had never signed any sort of ceasefire before their hasty retreat.
Category:AAO Humans