James Curbo, aka Phoenix, is from a parallel dimension to this one, except that he is from 300 years in the future in that dimension. His home dimension is identical to ours except that his was never ravaged by the Hell Wyrm, thus there was never a Jihad. In the future of this dimension, the Sol system has been unified under a peaceful government based on Terra. Phoenix was born and raised on Terra, and when he graduated high school he entered the Terran Military Academy, the training school for the Terran Interplanetary Defense Force, the military arm of the government. Phoenix graduated with honors in computer science and engineering, flew his way up through the ranks, and reached the rank of Captain faster than anyone else ever had. A captain in the TIDF is a important rank, because they are in charge of fleet groups, which are grouped together into a fleet under an admiral. The TIDF is grouped into nine such units, one for each planet. Phoenix was captain of a fleet group at Pluto. His vacation time was coming up, and he thought he would get some much needed R&R on Terra. So Phoe took leave of the fleet and prepped his personal ship, the USS _Phoenix_ (Phoenix, besides being Capt. Curbo's nickname, was also his callsign in the academy days; he thought it appropriate to name his personal ship that too), for the flight to Terra. Somewhere between the large empty part of space between Pluto's orbit and Neptune's, Phoenix, who had not yet jumped into hyperspace because he was in no hurry and was not far from Pluto, came upon a small lone ship coasting silently. His computer systems could not identify the ship; its configuration was something noone in the Sol system had ever seen before. Phoe, puzzled by this, approached the ship and hailed it. He was immediately fired upon, but Phoe had good instincts and had already raised his shields. The firing ship began to flee, but Phoe followed, intent on finding out who had fired on him. The small ship began firing some kind of beam out into space; the beam concentrated at a point and a disturbance began to form. Several moments later, just as the _Phoenix_ approached the ship and the disturbance, a large rip in the fabric of the space-time continuum formed at the site of the disturbance. The small ship zipped into the hole, but Phoenix tried to get away. Unfortunately there were large gravimetric disturbances near the hole, and his ship was getting pulled in. There was nothing Phoe could do; the force was too great and his engines were overheating, so he just cut them and let himself get sucked into the gaping hole. The _Phoenix_ fell through, and the hole closed.
Meanwhile, back in the Jihaddi universe, a large hole opened up in space-time at the same place that it had opened in Phoe's universe; out popped the unknown ship and then the _Phoenix_. Phoe, being quite ticked for having getting pulled through that, made mincemeat of the little ship (which was about the same size of the _Phoenix_, but with lesser-grade weaponry.). Phoe found himself apparently where he had been before, somewhere between the orbits of Pluto and Neptune; but none of the TIDF beacons he should have been getting signals from were there. There was, however, strong signals coming from Terra; Phoe decided he must see what the heck was going on. He jumped into hyperspace and came out close to Terra's orbit, where he immediately came upon ships of the TRES Corps Space Fleet. Phoe came in peacefully, seeing he was outgunned, but also wondering where he was. TRES Corps was merciful and didn't blow him out of the sky. Phoe told his story to TRES Corps, and they, not knowing what else to do, sent him to the interdimesional specialists of the Jihad, the Verthandic Rangers. While staying at VR HQ, Phoe learned all about the Jihad, the Hell Wyrm, and what time and where he was. Phoe is a 20th-century nostagia buff, and found he mixed in well in the 20th century, better than he did in his own. Phoenix decided he wanted to join The Cause[tm], but he had to first get permission from his superiors in the TIDF. Using the VRDET GateWay Generator, VRDET's Research and Developent division found the right dimension and opened a gateway. Phoenix went back to his home dimension and persuaded the TIDF to let him be a special envoy to the Jihad, to help them in the fight against the Hell Wyrm. Coming back from his dimension, Phoe was assigned first to R&D, and then to the recently created Communications Division. He wears the normal VR uniform, but wears the overcoat of the TIDF since he is just an envoy and is still a member of that organization. But if you look closely at the patches on the arms of the overcoat, you will see a small patch bearing the words "Verthandic Rangers Communications Division."
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