metamorphosis.

(WAIT SIDENOTE BRAIN BLAST analog horror au armaros being some sort of catalyst for weird undead happenings hence caleb's wrath selfblessing itself with life and this man perhaps being left dredged around too....some sort of weird anomaly that keeps things tied to the plane)

i think when he was young his parents, for better or worse, were incredibly quick to encourage his love for science. i don't think they were precisely abusive per se, but i feel like it was a very cold household. a lot of emotions and conflict getting simply swept under the rug and affections not necessarily withheld out of malice but moreso being a general afterthought.

i think he ends up seeing them get killed when hes like. idfk 13 or so? young enough that he gets shuffled into the system but old enough to remember it + have it warp a lot of his mindset wrt life and death

idk how exactly — maybe before him they were involved with ever/its predecessor/a counterintelligence program? i like the way it plays into his themes of fate if its something hes born dealing with

then probably realistically speaking either ages out of the system or gets adopted by someone associated w ever idk

partially bc i love tragic gays but i think compounding all this i think also maybe he did lose a loved one that really funneled himself into such Emotionless work. i think before that point he was probably a neuroseurgon or something similar — someone who earnestly was attempting to make a difference even if he didn't feel it actually mattered and was mostly just routine to him. or goes into trauma/er care or whatever its called in a half hearted attempt to kind of repay for his parents logically but. again his heart not quite there in it