Distinguishing Physical Characteristics

None.

Personality

Harper is the joker of the Firefly crew and can always come up with a sarcastic comment during a crisis. Harper is also very protective of the ship and his "inventions" and can lock himself away for days on end, working on his latest idea. Harper's philosophy on life is that if it intends to kill you, run away, fast.

Background

Harper was born and grew up on Earth, his parents were ordinary folk. His mother was a school teacher and his father a civil engineer. Harper had always been a intelligent boy and his parents had hoped that he would have gone to Starfleet academy to become an engineer.

Harper however had other ideas and at the age of sixteen, he decided that he wanted to see the universe for himself and started to planet hop across Federation space. Initially he paid his way by doing manual labour on cargo vessels, but his talents soon saw him working in the engine room of the vessels he traveled on. Then Harper hit some bad luck.

He got involved with a group of individuals who turned out to be small-time smugglers. During an attack by Federation vessels, Harper was captured. Whilst the rest of the crew were heading for the shuttle, whilst Harper was busy trying to keep the ship together. Harper was caught and tried for smuggling, sentenced to ten years hard labour. He was eventually freed upon appeal two years later, when the rest of the group were captured and Harper's part as the naive Engineer he had always claimed he was revealed to be true and that he had no knowledge of the smuggling. His sentence was reduced to the two years he had served and he was released back into the world.

Harper found himself with nothing but the clothes on his back and was about to return home to Earth, when an opportunity of a life-time came to hand. He had managed to get passage back to Earth on a converted Klingon Raptor named Firefly, in exchange for working on the ship during the trip. The chance to work on a Klingon vessel, even one as old as a Raptor was both a thrill and a challenge to Harper and he jumped at the chance.

It soon became apparent to Captain Stryker that Harper was a talented engineer and he offered Harper the position of Engineer on a permanent basis, which Harper accepted. The Firefly was not the best ship to work on, but Harper enjoyed a challenge and soon had the vessel working better than it had for over a century.