Doctor Walter Wright

During Walter's childhood he didn't live in any place for more than a couple years. He didn't even stay in the place he was born since his parent were on vacation when he appeared three weeks early. His mother was a corporate restructuring specialist, which meant she never worked for the same company for more than a couple years. His father wrote books about repairing anything and everything. When he was five he learned how to repair an antique television with his father, sparking an interest in electronics. For most of his youth, he wanted to do nothing but design and build electronic devices.

At the age of twelve, Walter received his first IQ test in school. His parent put no weight in the test since they had both known many intelligent people who scores poorly on those kinds of tests. But when the results came back with a perfect score, they couldn't help bragging about their genius son. Over the years he has taken many different IQ tests, getting perfect scores on every one. After the Lights left Earth he discovered most of the memories from the Light that was merged with Jack had been merged with his mind. This lead him to believe his intelligence was not his own. But when he started recalling his past life times, long before receiving the memories, he recalled always getting perfect scores. At the time he did not realize that even though he has the Lights memories in his mind, they would be useless to him since everything in them appears alien to him.

A combination of being short, smart, and nerdy looking was not good for Walter's school life. Combined with never being in the same school for more than a couple years, he rarely made friends. But when he did they always stayed in contact long after he moved to another city. Until he went to university, he had always wanted a career working with electronics. He wanted to be the first person to build an artificial intelligence into a computer chip. But in his university physics courses he discovered many subject he did not know existed. Those subjects took his focus away from electronics and into physics. His initial plan was to get a PHD in physics, but along the way, chemistry and bioelectronic medicine also caught his eye. By his second year at university he was taking a double load of courses and studying for a PHD in all three fields. After five years he had all three PHDs completed and became swamped with job offers from hundreds of large corporations from around the world.

While his school years had been rough socially, his life in large corporation was worse. People were no longer bullying him, but he had no tolerance for ignorance or stubbornness. This was unfortunate because those two qualities exist in abundance on most company’s board of directors. He often got into shouting matched with board members who would ask for something physically impossible then not believe his explanation of why it was impossible. His first three jobs lasted less than a year each. He quit each one, believing the people running the companies were to ignorant to be in positions of power. He decide to start working for smaller companies, run by people closer to his own age, who have a more open mind.

Some of his friends from university had gone on to start up their own companies, but they were having trouble attracting the best employees since they could not pay as much as the large corporations. They were extremely happy when Walter offered to work with them for whatever they could afford to pay him. In his few short years in the corporate world he had saved up enough money to no longer worry about anything. He believed he owed it to the world to help his friends succeed so they could show the large companies how things should be done.

For many years he worked for three different companies. One designed interplanetary probes, another built AI computer systems, with the last designing bioelectronic limbs. He helped all three become huge international companies, while ensuring his friends only hires the most intelligent people available to run the company. As the companies grew, he began to miss the time when they were small, unknown, and looking for a big breakthrough. He eventually quit all three jobs to look for smaller places to work. His friends were saddened that he was quitting, but knew him well enough to understand he would never have stayed permanently.

When the correction started, Walter had just left his job at a biomechanical manufacturer. He had planned on taking a couple weeks of vacation, but that changed when the Alpha One chose him to be the Lights primary human contact in Alpha Ones human settlement. He had casually mentioned to another one of the prisoners that maybe the Lights wanted him as an ambassador, a title regretted mentioning but which stuck with him throughout the correction. Alpha One chose him to be the human who was taught the Lights technology first for two reasons: His mind and brain were the most efficient of all the normal human minds and brains, He had the ability to convey his knowledge to anyone is an easily understandable way.

During the five months it took for Jack to be brought to the settlement, Walter was taught the basic functionality of the technology used in the settlements, as well as how the universe and physics actually work. He was slightly uneasy with knowing how humans really existed, but began accepting it as he learned more about the universe. Before Jack arrived, he spent almost all day every day in the lab provided to him by Alpha One. A decision he later regretted after realizing many of the other people in the settlement saw him as conspiring with the Lights. He slowly began to trust and believe everything Alpha One told him. After the Lights left Earth and Jack discovered they had been manipulating him, Walter no longer knew if he really trusted the Lights or if they had manipulated him too.

After the Lights left and the rebuilding of Earths cities started, Walter made it clear to everyone he preferred not to get involved with the rebuild. He wanted to research everything that was in the Lights planetary systems, but he had no easy way of doing it since their original settlement had been destroyed. Jack suggested that since many of the other people in the settlement were scientists and engineers, maybe they would be willing to help build a laboratory and help with the research. After a few meeting with the others who shared his interest, they decided to build a new city a short distance away. It would be used to not only research the Lights Technology, but also develop off of it.

The new city, eventually named Sun Valley, was built in a small nearby valley. It had a few research buildings and homes for everyone living there, but that was all. It felt more like a high tech mountain resort than a city. Besides the scientists, many artists settled in the city to practice their art. The result was a city that was both beautifully designed and extremely efficient. The buildings were works of art, the landscape was beautiful, and the interiors were laid out to allow any size of experiment or artwork. Walter decided he would spend the rest of his life in Sun Valley, maybe occasionally visiting other places.