Calm, collected, and insightful, Sal is driven by a search for personal meaning through a sense of duty and loyalty. There he is given a chance to express himself, because he often struggles to look at himself from a critical perspective. Testing his own limits and boundaries for himself is an abstract concept with no approach, but devoting himself to a goal is something that can be measured and evaluated.
Emotional repression causes him to withdraw, and become aloof, traits that were often praised in his field and only furthered to exacerbate them into emotional distance from others. Sal became comfortable setting aside his own needs and following orders without having to think too deeply about them. The depth of his frustration with his coping mechanisms runs deeper than he’s willing to admit, often manifesting in violent ways. This tendency, a failure both of his own making and of those around him, has only been fostered over time.
Sal has a quiet confidence in his abilities to formulate and execute a plan. He is, for the most part, the ideal grunt worker.
R-221305-SS resembles a modern-day Earth with all the inner-workings of an urban and rural ecosystem in a post-catastrophe setting. Society was instructed to dismiss these disasters as natural phenomena, but in reality, the rampant destruction was caused by powerful entities not bound by the laws of physics.
“We called them Angels.”
Government organizations were established to address these disasters, but it has since shifted its focus to studying them. Once essential in rebuilding society from its desolate state, it has now evolved into a quest to correct the flaws of their reality. This research ultimately led to the creation of man made angels and subsequently, man made disasters.
Tl;dr Oops we made angels and they’re destroying Earth.
Sal’s earliest memories are of the Italian countryside—stuffy monasteries and clear waters. The rest of Sal’s childhood was a blur, recounted to him after surviving a disaster. He is briefly monitored before being released to his father where he struggles to adjust to the unfamiliar environment and the strict care of his new guardian. His father provided the best care he could within his abilities, but he was never adept at parenting and Sal was a difficult child even before the incident.
Sal believed he was defective in some way. Surviving a catastrophe and being thrust into a new environment only reinforced this feeling, but deep down, he had always sensed that something about him was fundamentally flawed. This sense of being fundamentally flawed was perhaps what drew him to Port Roman – an agency designed specifically to address disasters caused by Angels.
Although it was a point of contention with his father, who discouraged him from working with catastrophes, Sal thrived as an operator at Port Roman. His strong aptitude for the job caught the attention of those with higher security clearance and he quickly climbed the ranks of his career until he was directly handling angels. While he had limited access to classified projects, it was impossible for him to remain completely unaware of what was going on. Organizations were already in the process of creating their own angels.
"I was not given any orders to intervene."
As artificial angels neared perfection, more dissidents began to emerge who opposed the idea of allowing the project to continue due to the danger and unknown risks. Sal's final days on R-221305-SS were chaotic as Port Roman became fractured by internal and external conflict. The last orders he received were to terminate all the Angels before another global catastrophe could occur.
“There was only one left.”
Whether Sal succeeded in his mission remained unclear, as he suddenly found himself staring at a white screen, welcoming him to his first day of orientation.