Simon Williams

Name:	Simon Williams
Occupation:	Software Developer, Hobby Farmer
Home:	Southern Michigan
Gender:	Male
Age:	42
Height:	6'0"
Abduction Date:	~May 2014
Alliances:	His Team

Simon Williams is a software developer and hobby farmer who lives in Southern Michigan. He begins the race on the planet of Offworld alone, with only himself and God along for the journey. But then, over time, he picks up five other team members, including Trevor Thompson, Ariana Peterson, Birash, Yurg and Alexander Baker. All of the members of his team, save only for Birash, start out their time with him as atheists, but each gets saved along the way, save only for Yurg. Also, despite being a Software Developer, Simon is an experienced and highly skilled woodsman and farmer, having received lots of training in these skills as a child. His spiritual gift is teaching, of which he is very good at, even though he very humbly denies that he has any real gift for it. While being a leader is not one of his gifts, he proves to be very good at this, and even promises to those under his care that, God willing, he will do all he can to ensure that everyone makes it to the end, alive, and in one piece. Or, at the very least, alive.

His Offworld Journey

Simon arrives on the planet, completely to his surprise, after leaving work late one night. Immediately, while at the Reception Center he meets Trevor Thompson who, after a brief and rocky relationship, they become good friends and trail partners. He even leads Trevor to salvation, and loves on him like his own son, even though Simon is single, and never been married. In fact, he's never even had a date. Not that he didn't want to, but simply because God chose for him to remain single for very important reasons. Later on he meets Aria, who joins the group. After a journey across a large, wide open prairie, they come across a herd of stagnatier, which they stop briefly to harvest, before heading out again. In the process of taking one of the first ones, though, Trevor gets a little too excited about Simon's recent downing of a buck and decides to mount it like a trophy bull, only to end up receiving the ride of his life, which he actually enjoys, despite being terrified out of his mind by the experience.

Further down the trail, after the prairie, they're attacked by bandits and Aria is taken captive while Simon and Trevor are knocked out during the battle. They're then rescued by Alex, who then helps Simon and Trevor save Aria from the local bandits of the 1st hextant, which are ruled by Orbus, the bandit king. In doing so, they gain two new members to the team in the form of Birash and Yurg, the latter of whom is enemies with Birash, but agrees to a truce until his life debt can be paid.

(more will be added as further books in the series are released, or I get a chance to add it here)

History

Simon was born on a small family farm in 1972 near the city of Marshall, Michigan, not far from the village of Marengo, to a farming family and is the fourth of seven siblings. Growing up they raised corn, wheat, oats and soybeans, and had a fair sized herd of cows, which they milked, as well as a sizable collection of chickens, which they raised for eggs and meat. As he grew he was exposed to both modern and traditional farming techniques, as well as woodsmanship, tanning (via an old Chippewa man), horse care (via the Amish), woodland survival (Boy Scouts), and may other things. When he graduated from High School he enrolled in Michigan State University (MSU) in their agricultural program. However, in his first year there he fell in love with computers and switched majors to information systems, transferring his education to University of Michigan (UofM) where he received a degree in computer science. After this he went to work for IBM for a time before moving down to Texas to work for a company there named Techsys (no pun intended), where he had the unique opportunity to work in software development while studying under several prominent bible teachers from Dallas Theological Seminary, receiving more or less the same training that the seminarians were getting in the process of that.

Afterwards he moved to Lansing, Michigan to work for a small startup company there. Upon moving back to the state, he bought a small hobby farm of about 120 acres, and began raising chickens, horses, cattle, sheep, goats and a limited number of crops, mostly for his own use, or to help offset the costs of the farm. The farm rarely makes a profit. But, as long as it pays for itself, Simon is satisfied.

Acquisitions

At Node Zero he retrieves a bible (King James), a survival knife (US Army Issue) and a Navigator Compass. His next acquisition, aside from food, which is a regular item that he collects periodically, is a poncho. Not long after that he picks up a bow, with quiver and arrows and begins using these for hunting, bow fishing and self defense. It's at this node that he requests for it to give him a holographic menu to use rather than the voice activated method he'd been using previously. To his surprise, it grants that to him, after which he uses that almost exclusively the remainder of the race. Later on he picks up a mess kit to make eating meals easier, and a pair of binoculars.