Alexander McDonald was born in South Boston, Massachusetts. His father was a janitor at a major aviation manufacturing firm and his mother was a house wife that was more of a 'neighborhood diva'.

 

As Alex grew up, he enjoyed tinkering with things like the broken technical devices his father would bring home from work that would be 'thrown out' at Alex's dad's work. Alex would devise future-y looking stuff from these items and use them in pretend play with the other local kids, pretending they were space rangers fighting in space from their cardboard space station, running about their neighborhood on tricked out skateboards, bikes and scooters pretending them to be their space fighters.

 

By age 12, Alex wasn't able to survive in his youthful imagination anymore and instead he and his childhood friends 'had' to join a Southie gang called 'Southie Sluggers'. Since not being in a gang made you instead a 'target' by all gangs, Alex and his friends knew their choices were limited if they intended to survive in the neighborhood. Thankfully for Alex, his self-learned technical skills garnered him gang respect for him and his friends by being able to electronically break into places and cars to steal things. Of course they didn't do this in their own 'territory' or 'turf', leading to them getting involved in many gang fights and brazen gang turf interdictions where the Southie Sluggers did most of their stealing from. The Southie Sluggers did protected everyone in their 'turf', especially all the mom and pop businesses in there.  They actually got quite a reputation, especially Alex who became quite a bad-ass as a scrapper and a leader.  By age 16, Alex still hadn't been arrested even though everyone un the area knew what Alex and the gang was into. The Southie Sluggers gang leader, 'Mickey', however, did get jailed and was shanked to death in 'juvie hall' along with one of Alex's childhood friends, Jimmy. Alex had an epiphany after Jimmy's and Mickey's deaths; he realized he was only a step away from getting that same one-way ticket.  With that, and his father suffering a heart attack that same year, Alex knew he had to change his life right then and there.

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From age 16 to 19 (1996 to 1999), Alex left the Southie Sluggers gang and instead invested every minute of his life to work, his education and his father. His mother, who was the local drama diva, was not 'geared' to take care of her newly out-of-work, post heart-attack husband and decided it was time for her to 'move on' to a new life in Las Vegas. She left the divorce papers on Alex's bed with the note stating 'Be a big boy and make sure your daddy signs this. I'm done with all this. Gonna go find a new life. Wish me luck! -Mom'. 

 

Alex never saw his mother again.

 

Alex instead had to take care of his father, all while doubling-down on his studies and working two jobs a day to barely get by with making enough money for food and rent for the two of them. Alex worked at a local mom & pop electronics store, repairing TVs and electronic equipment, making quite a name for himself in the process. At age 19, Alex was able to finally graduate high school. During his graduation ceremony, he was surprised to find out he was awarded a grant to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) based on a one-shot 'Southie' town application that the people of his neighborhood petitioned for and to which MIT was more than happy to get the press for.  With that, Alex went on to his freshman year at MIT, working towards his degree in aeronautical engineering, a job he'd always dreamed about.

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In January 2000, Earth was invaded by the Soltan Star Empire. MIT was taken over by Soltan troops within an hour's time from the start of the invasion. Alex was able to escape the campus and made his way back home, only to find his neighborhood already taken over and being used as a staging area for Soltan troops in attacking Boston. There, he found his father had been killed by Soltans after his father shot at the Soltan troopers that were trying to kill his and his father's neighbors. Alex was devastated over the loss of his father. He buried him in the backyard of his father's apartment complex. Filled with rage, Alex found the remnants of his fellow Southie Slugger gang members (including his old childhood friends) and together, they started arming themselves with everything they could get their hands on. 

 

Alex devised several powerful electronic scrambling fields in his neighborhood where, when activated, jammed Soltan communications in the neighborhood, thus allowing Alex, now leading the gang, to make hit and run attacks on the Soltan patrols, taking out dozens and dozens of Soltans in the Southie Sluggers' 'turf', without the possibility of the Soltans calling in for 'backup' or 'air support'. Every time the Soltans sent in more troops to take down 'the resistance', they lost even more troops. After months of fighting (and a LOT of losses for the Southie Sluggers), a rumor came about of an old World War II legend, Major Invader, was recruiting local resistance fighters to perform a massive assault on the Boston Soltan stronghold and drive them out of Boston once and for all. As such, Alex and the remnants of the Southie Sluggers gang were recruited to fight side-by-side with the newest iteration of Major Invader's Allied Fighters. The 'Liberation of Boston', as it was later called, was a monumental assault where Alex and his gang fought to take out the Soltans with high-tech weapons provided by Major Invader designed to easily take down the Soltans. Alex himself killed several dozen Soltans, leading his gang/troops all the way to the steps of Boston's City Hall, taking over City Hall from the Soltans. In the end, Alex and his 'resistance fighters' were described as the city's fighting 'stars' of the Liberation of Boston. The Boston Globe headlined them as "Boston's Star Fighters", which eventually got amended to be 'Alex Mc Donald and his Starfighters'. He received the key to the city while his fellow gang members got their criminal records 'expunged' instead, which was cool and okay with them. After the Soltans finally retreated from Earth in August of 2000, Alex had to move on in his life...but where does one go after being a freedom fighter after an alien invasion?

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MIT's campus was destroyed. It would take four years before the campus was able to open up again to take in their student body, however, Alex had more important paths to pave. As a result of his media exposure (and one hell of a 'major kudo' from Major Invader), Alex was quickly recruited to become an officer in the newly super-funded G.U.A.R.D. organization. After basic training, Alex was assigned to the newly created ASTROGUARD Operations Division, wherein Alex was trained to become a fighter pilot...in a rickety first-generation space fighter craft.  These fighters were BARELY able to fly into space and get to the ASTROGUARD space station and/or new MOONGUARD Moonbase.  Thanks to his 'learning on the fly' and some ingenious innovations, Alex was able to kit-bash fixes for these poorly designed fighter craft, making them far better than what they were. Alex was taught by the best of the best in fighter pilots on how to be the best fighter pilot ever. Alex had a natural talent for dogfighting and had an aggressive nature that was not a staple in standard fighter pilot training. As such, Alex picked up the fighter code name (not surprisingly) of 'Starfighter' and quickly became the best space fighter pilot in GUARD.

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For the next few years, Alex spent day and night practicing to be the greatest space fighter pilot ever as well as a self-taught aerospace engineer. Along with that, he also was learning how to become a better leader. This led to Alex being promoted to the rank of Captain and given leadership of a new ASTROGUARD Fighter squadron.  His reputation grew more after he and his fighter squadron had engaged in several encounters with rogue Soltan fighters, villainous galactic expatriates and several other space-related threats from super-villains and other villainous organizations. He was also notorious for his 'rendezvous with the ladies'; being a bit of a lady's man, Alex engaged in many relationships over his youthful years, but never allowing any relationship to last more than a couple of months. He had commitment issues and prior to each break-up, usually was the cause of the break-up. Sadly, even to this day, he still has no one to love in his life. 

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Amidst all of this, an event occurred that changed Alex's status quo. An 'unbalanced' ex-resistance fighter who'd fought against the Soltans, who was geared up in high-tech alien armor with an energy sword and shield calling himself "Star Knight", believed that the ASTROGUARD Space Station HQ had been taken over by 'shape-shifting aliens' posing as ASTROGUARD crew and personnel. Alex and his squadron were tasked to intercept and take down this 'Star Knight'. Alex did so by damaging Star Knight's spacecraft's engines and power supply, leaving emergency power operational on Star Knight's craft for heat and atmospheric controls and emergency communications. 'Star Knight' stated how impressed he was with Alex's accuracy and morality as Alex towed Star Knight's craft into the ASTROGUARD Space Station hangar bay. There, once Alex extracted and handcuffed Star Knight, he quickly realized something indeed was 'not right' with the space station's crew. As a result, both Alex and Star Knight, in an incredible self-contained story unto itself, discovered the space station personnel were being controlled by an alien mentalist named 'I-Tor'. Working together, Alex and Star Knight properly defeated I-Tor and became heroes of GUARD and ASTROGUARD.  Ensuingly, Star Knight was asked to join a newly created ASTROGUARD superhero group being called 'The Astroguardians'. Star Knight said he'd only join if Alex would be assigned the leader of that new superhero group. Alex attempted to decline, but it became evident that ASTROGUARD and GUARD itself agreed with Star Knight and basically forced the job onto Alex.  Alex had no idea what he was about to get involved with.

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As the leader of a new 'space themed' superhero team, Alex had a lot to learn. First off, he was given a high-tech combat suit that fired extremely powerful energy blasts, was well armored and could even fly and operate in space. ASTROGUARD rolled over Alex's fight pilot handle into his new superhero identity, thus, once again, being called "Starfighter". In leading the team, he quickly discovered he was severely limited in what he was allowed to do. ASTROGUARD's Operations commander, Vladimir Vorisch, who was a powerful Russian cosmonaut legend with a 'follow my orders or else' attitude, gave the orders...not Alex. Alex, as far as Vorisch was concerned, was only there to 'implement' Vorisch's orders and keep everyone else on the team in line. As such, Alex had little say on tactics, team membership, assignments or for that matter, authority over anything regarding the team. Everything had to go through Vorisch. Alex, who was a very dynamic and situational leader, didn't like strategic planning over tactical operations. Alex was a 'hit 'em hard' leader vice a 'let's plan this out before we do anything' leader.  The Astroguardians team realized this quickly and even though they liked and wanted Alex's style of leadership and tactics over Vorisch's, Vorisch got his way no matter what. This lead to dozens of heated discussions, mostly between Star Knight to Vorisch.  Regardless of the leadership issues, the Astroguardians did a phenomenal job against all forms of space-related threats to Earth under Alex's...uhm...'Vorisch's'....leadership.

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During this time, GUARD's ASTROGUARD division was directly involved in a joint venture in creating Earth's first fully operational combat star cruiser called Terracer 1.  During his time as the leader of the Astroguardians, Alex got quite depressed having so little control of his team that he'd instead do something that he could control, like 'tinker' with his new space fighter designs and concepts. Contacts he'd acquired in GUARD, with Major Invader and even some MIT professors (who considered Alex to be an engineering prodigy and a engineering 'diamond in the rough') worked with Alex in designing a new ASTROGUARD fighter craft. He simply called it 'Starfighter's Space Fighter Mk I', but within a few years, the design garnered enough attention that even Lockheed wanted to build the craft. Once again, thanks to Major Invader (and his funding), a smaller yet highly resourceful aviation manufacturer was brought in to create the prototype. Since Alex was officially considered to be the officially designer the craft, he was also tasked (more like 'self-tsked') to test it.

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The new 'Starfighter' class space fighter outperformed everything every made for space flight.

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It's maneuverability, attention to pilot details for use in combat dogfighting in space and its amazing array of weapons, sensors and devices made it to be one of the greatest engineering feats in modern times. The same small aviation manufacturer was awarded the contract to make over 100 of these craft for ASTROGUARD and, eventually, for the Terracer 1 star cruiser.

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After successfully designing his own space fighter, Alex felt his motivation slipping in leading the Astroguardians. Arguments overrode actions; disagreements mounted up to intolerance and worst of all Vorisch would not allow ANY of GUARD's alien allies or alien expatriates to join the Astroguardians at all, instead keeping the Astroguardians as an 'all human club', much to the chagrin of the team and most of GUARD. Since Vorisch had a LOT of influence, he almost always got his way. Alex, however, felt he couldn't do the job as team leader anymore and instead wanted more than anything to get back to being a space fighter pilot and help train new space fighter pilots in the use of his new 'Starfighter' class space fighters. Star Knight saw Alex's frustrations and one night, gave him his blessing to allow Alex to leave the Astroguardians if that is what he wanted. With a heavy heart, Alex resigned from the Astroguardians and put in for a transfer back into ASTROGUARD to become an instructor for ASTROGUARD's Space Fighter Operations. GUARD's new director, Neal Norton, agreed with Alex and not only allowed the transfer (overriding Vorisch's call to keep Alex on as the Astroguardian's leader), but promoted Alex to the rank of Major in order to become ASTROGUARD's new Fighter Operations Wing Commander.  Director Norton told Alex he'd rather see Alex 'lead from the front' rather than 'stand behind a podium teaching'. Alex was more than happy to accept his new position. ASTROGUARD's Operations Director Vorisch, not so happy.

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Within months, Major McDonald (Alex) had positively altered the ASTROGUARD Fighter Operations Wing, comprised of three squadrons, into one of the greatest fighter units in space or in the sky. Not too long ago, in a 'Top Gun' competition, his fighter pilots outperformed even the best US Air Force and Space Command fighter pilots in the world, with Alex "Starfighter" McDonald taking away the Top Gun Trophy for being the best in the competition. Alex soon realized, once you've reached the pinnacle of your skills and career, where does one go?  His next venture was about to take him on a journey that no one would've ever expected...including Alex.

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Over the years, the world was in a state of ideological flux about how to deal with the Soltans after their invasion and retreat from Earth. All indications pointed to the retreating Soltans to have taken up refuge on the dark side of Mars, possibly amassing for another invasion of Earth. Most of the people on Earth wanted to take the fight to the Soltans and make them think twice about ever attacking Earth again; some, however, had had enough of the Soltans and simply only wanted a 'proper defense' for Earth in case the Soltans ever returned. The people and governments of Earth debated this for years, at times, creating huge rifts in the world's communities. GUARD was no different.

 

Rumors and conjecture abounded about factions in Britain, the US, GUARD and even in the superhero community about going on the offensive without the World Council's permission. It wasn't until his old friend from the Astroguardians, Star Knight, arrived one day to talk to Alex. Star Knight told Alex in utter secrecy that he and a noted anti-Soltan war hero known as Admiral Black had been planning for years to 'commandeer' Terracer 1 from Earth's orbit, load it with nuclear weaponry and pro-offensive movement freedom fighters and heroes and take the fight to the Soltans on the dark side of Mars. Star Knight stated that all involved knew it was a 'suicide run' that they'd most likely never return from, but it was something that he, Admiral Black and thousands of others believed in strongly enough so as to avenge their lost loved ones from the invasion and take down any staged Soltan attack platforms once and for all in our Solar System. It was believed that in doing this, the Soltans would simply 'give up' any future attempts to invade Earth, since, from all reports they'd received, the Soltan Empire was already in disarray with their once-conquered worlds rising up to fight anew against the Soltan regime after hearing of the Soltan retreat from their Earth invasion.  Space Knight offered Alex a seat at the table; Admiral Black wanted Alex to join the movement as his #6 in command...and to lead however many star fighter pilots they could rally together for this movement. Alex asked for time to think about it. Star Knight was more than happy to oblige, but asked to keep this secret...even if Alex decided not to join them.

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After 48 hours of thinking about it, Alex went to his squadron leaders and asked them hypothetically what they thought about the prospect of being asked to mutiny against GUARD in the chance of taking the fight to the Soltans. Not only did his squadron leaders jump at the opportunity of the idea, but they said they'd already been talking to all their squadron pilots and there wasn't one of them that would do otherwise than mutiny to go fight the Soltans and 'kick their ass' for what they did to Earth.

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Realizing his decision would be considered treason and that he and his pilots would most likely be jailed for decades if ever caught and convicted, Alex spent time with his leaders and pilots, going over the consequences...and the fact that doing so most likely was going to be a one-way trip against the Soltans. After their discussions, Alex made his decision.

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Alex met with Star Knight once again and told him he'd be honored to fight alongside Star Knight and Admiral Black...as would all three squadrons, the entire Starfighter wing, of pilots.

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Within weeks, the great pro-offensive heist began.

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Alex and his wing's pilots were all onboard with their part of the plan. When ASTROGUARD called for the Starfighters Fighter Operations Wing to go into action against a 'mutiny' aboard Terracer 1, they'd agree and fly off to intercept Terracer 1 and 'do their duty', and that once they got to Terracer 1, they'd declare themselves allies to Admiral Black and instead have the entire Starfighter fighter wing join with the Terracer 1 'mutineers'. With that, Alex and his pilots did exactly as they'd planned. Before Alex could land his now mutinous fighter pilots aboard Terracer 1, something happened that would change Alex's role in this movement forever.

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During the bloodless take-over of Terracer 1, a lone, patriotic crewmember assassinated Admiral Black and all of the Executive leaders of the movement.  By the time Alex had landed his fighter in Terracer 1's hangar bay and made his way to the bridge, it was quickly deduced that the next senior leader left in Admiral Black's chain of command was Alex himself.  Alex was NOT willing to be the leader of this movement; he only wanted to fight the Soltans as a leader of a band of the best space fighter pilots from Earth to take down the Soltans as best he and his pilots could do. NOT THIS. Not lead an entire ship of thousands of personnel. Not make hourly decisions on life and death. Not be responsible for another man's movement.  Not this. Alex was beside himself with waves of self-doubt, anguish, stress and a new exponentially overwhelming fear of the responsibility a man in that position would have. He had to find alternatives.

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After hours of searching through their movement's personnel qualifications, skills and abilities, Alex quickly discovered that no one else had the skills, experience or knowledge to perform this job other than himself. In an attempt to ensure the crew wanted him in this position, Alex opened the newly thrust-upon role to go up to a democratic vote, allowing any one else willing to vie for leadership to be voted on in his stead. Not surprisingly, Alex "Starfighter" McDonald won the vote by a landslide.  The crew in the assembly hall chanted 'Starfighter! Starfighter!' for nearly an hour until Alex finally gave a rousing acceptance speech to accept his role as Captain of Terracer 1 and the leadership of the pro-offensive movement to combat the Soltans located on the far side of Mars.  In his speech, he called each of the crew as his own 'Starfighters';  men, women and aliens alike, all leaving Earth to  fly among the stars to go fight and save Earth from the evil Soltan Star Empire.  After the cheering and celebration ended later that night, Terracer 1 began its expected 20-month journey to Mars to go fight the Soltans there head on.

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Today, Alex McDonald, now designated as "Captain Starfighter", continues as the leader of the pro-offensive movement against the Soltans and as captain of Terracer 1.  He's asked his 'Starfighters' for "150%" every day towards each other and towards their mission to take out the Soltans on the far side of Mars once and for all.  To that degree, Captain Starfighter holds daily drills and training exercises, aboard ship always leading from the front, as he always has. He flies alongside his fellow fighter pilots, leaving bridge command of Terracer 1, as needed and when needed, to any of his super-powered leaders of which he has come to accept and trust, including a wide array of pro-Earth aliens who want nothing more than to either help Earth and its people or simply to get revenge against the Soltans for what they'd done to their planet and/or species. 

 

Captain Starfighter is a tactically brilliant leader, but not a great strategist.  He leads best from the front where he's able to 'think and act on the fly' rather than contemplate from a command chair. He is an influencer and motivator, but he's also very aggressive and stern. He won't put up with other people's 'bullshit' nor will he tolerate milksops and quitters. He'd rather fight than run, shoot than hide and taunt than play any type of fake submissive/non-alpha response.  His actions and demeanor ooze authority and leadership while amongst the crew, however, in private, Alex can drop into a heavy melancholy and even fits of tears and crying, especially when he's lost a friend or a crew member.

 

As the captain of Terracer 1, Captain Starfighter is still in contact with Earth using their Quantum Communications array, however, the captain only talks to Earth with a weekly report to inform Earth of their status and any casualties or situations that warrant Earth's knowledge. Alex allows for 'family grams' to be sent and received routinely, however, these 'family grams' are screened by the captain's communications team to ensure there are no 'encoded messages' or devastatingly bad news that could warrant unrest in the Terracer 1 crew. Other than that, as captain of Terracer 1, Captain Starfighter puts in that '150%' he asks of everyone else into his role as captain of Terracer 1.

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