HISTORY

[tldr:]

Created and raised in an isolated biome on earth as part of one of project SPECTRA's hidden directives.
Raised as part of an experiment to determine the feasibility of biomechanically enhanced soldiers for Mars. This is never directly disclosed to them.
Become more and more suspicious of their purpose, making deliberate efforts to find out more about the biome and Earth surrounding it.
Eventually the project as a whole was determined to be a failure
Accidentally discovering the plans for the biome after closure, Cayde and three others make a messy escape attempt.
Only Cayde and Flynn make it out
They travel for a short while before being picked up by and joining ISON

[CW: Human experimentation, unethical practices & corporate exploitation, childhood trauma, violence mentions]

Three white walls. A locked door. A numbing buzz from blinding white overhead lights. A home.

Apparently the ones they make these days have fake memories. The clones don’t have to grow up; they're just grown. Project SPECTRA was different. SPECTRA was created to help people. SPECTRA promised to build families and make generations stronger through genetic modification.

SPECTRA accomplished all this on Mars. The wake of success brought a deeper corruption, one that took root on the husk of Earth, away from the eyes of the Martian public. Obtained genetic material was used and modified more experimentally. None of them were clones, each unique and carefully created and augmented many thousands of miles away from what should have been home.

A home. A strict schooling that never made much sense to him, training, testing. A rigid schedule. Lonely machinery beeping. Hallways with a strong chemical smell. Three white walls.

Cayde couldn’t tell you much else about those formative years. Not because he can’t recall it, or doesn’t want to talk about it, but because that’s really all there was to it. Things were dull, repetitive. For a long time, he didn’t understand what it meant when he caught glimpses of the paperwork speculating on his success; what it meant to be put into the ‘risk group’ with the other 14. How he was any different from the workers that spent hours asking him questions, or what it meant to be labelled a combat unit.

A new procedure meant C-units and I-Units were partnered together; they said it was something to do with complimentary skills, but Cayde didn’t really care about that. Cayde and his new work partner didn’t get along very well, not for the first few years. Though their starting performance had been poor, it wasn’t as bad as some of their respective teammates. So when those teammates started going missing without explanation, the first hints of suspicion started to creep in.

SPECTRA’s: The Expansion Project had been formed to weaponise genetic modification and mechanical augmentation in the human population. They sought to create enhanced humans, better equipped to handle rigorous biome work or engage in more effective combat with what L-004 declared to them as Aliens.

It was rare that those created under the expansion project questioned their existence, when this biome was all they’d ever known. Everything here was a careful simulation, a false safety net. The ones that started asking questions slipped through that net and were never seen again. With more and more unexplained happenings within the biome, holes began to form in the thickly woven illusion of their lives. Nobody wanted to ask what happened to the people that left, but for some like Cayde and Flynn, those who had been deemed project ‘risks’, there was a silent knowing. The silent knowing came with a solemn agreement that they wouldn’t be the next ones to vanish, and through that they excelled, enough that their faltering trust in their home was never brought into question.

Their capacity for success as a unit is what kept them and many others safe for years, the threat of an unknown fate ever-lingering but falling to the wayside as the pair grew to be integrated into fully functional members of the B-074 workforce in early adulthood. It wasn’t long before the unit was finally able to venture beyond the Biome, handling perimeter checks, searches and transits. These were largely uneventful, becoming routine for the men, no run-ins of these human impersonating aliens they’d been taught to fight against.

With the newest mission the pair had been sent on, they expected no different. The wastes, ruins of old buildings, occasional roaming Guard that paid them no mind- they had always seemed quite passive to them. It was all normal. Even the spray of bullets in a worn wall barely disturbed them, until they came across abandoned Martian gear nearby. Then bags, armour, coolers, traveling gear. A steadily burning fire. They’d discovered an outpost. Before they could figure out whose, they’d turn with the click of a gun being readied. It wasn’t an alien or monster they were face to face with, but what looked like a person. Still, didn’t they impersonate humans?

They looked familiar though, a face that the pair of them recognised. Older, beaten down by the wrath of the wastes. It looked like they recognised them, too, because with the realisation, they lowered their gun and fled.

Nobody ever asked what happened to the people that went missing. Cayde and Flynn still knew better than to ask too, even with their findings. Even though they returned ‘home’ that night, their report was falsified. Marked as no incident and forgotten about. But they didn’t forget, and wouldn't forget. If anything, now more than ever they understood there was something very wrong with the world they lived in, and they weren’t supposed to know that.

Months of taking on additional missions and work was met with recognition, never suspected to have been used by the pair to broaden their understanding of the world around them- the real world, not the one that had been crafted for them to believe. They often discussed amongst themselves what to do with information they were gathering, if they should up and leave, keep their heads low enough just to get by, confront their superiors, tell other members of their unit. Ideas were never solidly agreed on, each having their pros and cons and being left open to discussion but never acted on. That changed when Flynn stumbled into files he should never have seen.

They decided to leave that night.

The pair returned to the outpost they’d discovered months before, finding it disassembled but salvageable enough to use as a safe spot for a few days while they recuperated. They didn’t come across the familiar face of the teammate they’d presumed dead many years before again, only speculating they were out there in the now very unfamiliar and new world they’d thrown themselves into.

Spending a year out in the wastes, the interlopers slowly became accustomed to the new environment, integrating as cohesively as possible even with each passing day bringing a new realisation. The robots were no longer friendly towards them, nobody outside of the foreboding structures thought of L-004 as their friend. In fact, why had they even been taught to care for a planet they’d never even know, be allowed to see? Referring to a ‘home’ that had never been theirs. Here, they were more human than they’d ever been seen as in that biome.

It was an acknowledgement that paid off, when after a year of fending for themselves they were intercepted by a large traveling convoy, a heavy militarized group almost akin to the biome they’d escaped from. Only - there was one key difference, this group was distinctly in the favour of Earth. They called themselves ISO.N, run by a man called Matija and his daughter Nina. A second, more outlandish outlandish girl, a traveling monk, a martian android and a martian man with a child. A patchwork team of fighters united under one goal. Yeah, they’d fit right in here.

Cayde has remained with ISO.N for the past 15 years, traveling and engaging in combat with the militant group over the course of that. They are currently stationed at Salus, where he hopes to continue efforts to make the world a bit of a safer place, from a threat they can all finally agree on.

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