As the rickety, battle-scarred, paintless Diamondback Explorer, "The Trooper," zipped through the system of Nang Ta-Khan, screaming filled the corridors, filling the pilot with panic. Abandoning his chair and setting his ship to auto-pilot, he immediately bolted to the passenger bay, where he found Kira Hunter giving birth to a child, with her husband Roman Hunter beside her, as pale as the flourescent bulbs above them.

A new Hunter child was born, still nameless, and in desperate need of cleaning - even the mother had nearly passed out. For the next five hours, "The Trooper," coasted through Nang Ta-Khan as the pilot helped the family take care of the child. During the night, the baby stayed awake, staring at the cargo hold adjacent. Believing it to be nothing, it was dismissed.

During the morning after, however, as the pilot docked at a station to let off the passengers and the cargo, the Hunter child reached towards the rare and peculiar cargo - meta-alloys and thargoid hearts. "Oh, you like those pretty little artifacts, do you?" joked the pilot, and the Kira smiled lightly.

"What a perfect name," she said. "Artifact Hunter."

As little Artifact grew older, the family noticed their peculiar tendency to be attracted to Thargoid materials, and even gave them toys made from meta-alloys to play with. Unfortunately, during March of 3293, little five-year-old Artifact screamed in pain - their parents hadn't been paying attention, and Artifact had fallen onto corrosive Thargoid cargo.

Thankfully, there was little damage, but the scar on their lip might as well have been carved by a god - their was no undoing it. A permanent scar, marked by the thargoids from a very young age.

Artifact was raised in Tun with their parents, where they attended Federal schools, and was taught the history of the Federation and that the Conservative Federation was the only government who would properly take care of their people. Artifact was too young to understand that other governments took care of their people just fine, and drank in every word with pride for the Federation.

Artifact detested the Empire and the Alliance, and any whose religious or political beliefs even slightly differed from that of their parents. They had even grown to hate those of different systems of origin, but eventually, they realised their wrongs, and greatly lamented their horrible past.

Doubts began to grow in their mind about the so-called perfection of the Federation as they joined the Pilot's Federation, eager to become a pilot of their own, so that they could study xenobiology and study their friends among the stars personally, without having to refer to textbooks. With delight, they discovered that despite the similarities in the name, the Pilot's Federation held no bias, and regarded all potential pilots as equals, no matter their origin or beliefs.

When finally granted the rank of Commander in the system of Sharur, they were gifted a small token of a Sidewinder, 1000 Credits, and a, "Good luck, Commander Hunter!" The engines purred, the lights were steady, the ship rocked slightly, and Artifact eagerly raised the ship's nose, and began their first non-trained flight.

Suddenly, a sharp, watery noise blasted through the air, the space around their ship turned a light hue of blue, the ship no longer responded to controls as easily, and Artifact was forced to submit to an interdiction from Federal pilots. Barely surviving the encounter, and destroying their would-be murderer, Artifact's concept of the solidity of the Federation had finally shattered.

Artifact continually bought better and better ships, used their own name proudly as the codename ArtifactHunter_, and flew with pride to Sagittarius A* and back, selling the cartographic data for millions of credits. Upon their return, they were interdicted, but were surprisingly unable to avoid the interdiction despite years of experience, and their ship was nearly destroyed by an Anaconda.

At very low health, suddenly, the pilot stopped firing, and requested for comms to be opened. Artifact hesitated, then turned them on - and was greeted by a delighted pilot who wished for them to join their Squadron and support their faction. Never having been part of a larger group, Artifact eagerly accepted the request.

Flying to Laukese, and checking out their neighboring systems, Artifact quickly learned with despair that the stations were placed in horrible locations, with atrocious facilities reminiscent of new Federal outposts. With time, resentment grew for their recruitment methods, interdicting and nearly murdering pilots with pleasure, only to recruit them, and killing them in cold blood if recruitment was denied.

Eventually, Artifact had a major disagreement with the power structure of the Squadron and their leaders, noticing it was highly reminiscent of a fascist dictatorship pretending to be a peaceful democracy, and their beliefs were questioned as they were insulted, berated, and belittled publicly.

Artifact Hunter knew it was a futile effort, and left the squadron the next day, and began to form their own squadron, the Independent Council of Dall, hoping to take the system of Dall. However, noticing another squadron owned the system, Artifact instead set their sights on Gurojas, and quickly captured it, and began to expand with the faction, "The Open Hand."

To this day, Artifact Hunter is still willing to take in pilots of any origin, but forbids the griefing and ganking of innocent pilots, and is willing to help in nearly all crises, resources permitting.