Gov. Jerrold Turner
Happy new years everyone! While I said that I was going to take a break on infoboxes, I saw this photo while browsing, so I just had to knock this one out.
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Growing up in a white-collar family the Northeastern United States as the youngest son of a family of five, Jerrold Turner expressed an interest in the electrical and the mechanical at young age. He participated in his school's robotics team, and at age 12 he modified his family's cleaning drone to be able play soccer, so that the family could have even teams. Jerrold he was a bright child, with excellent prospects, but his family, like most others, fell on very hard times in the 30s. While his oldest brother, Rick, decided to enter law enforcement, the middle brother, Don, got caught up in the brewing revolutionary fervor, and got his star with the Black Rose. While they never saw each other during the Revolution, Rick was killed by a rebel mortar during the Siege of Boston, and Don was locked up ADX Florence for the rest of his life, a fact that tore the family apart.
In 2041, disgruntled and without the financial footing to attend a university, Jerrold enlisted in the U.S. Army, which had gone on a recruitment spree in order to restore its forces to full strength from its losses and defections during the rebellion. With his high aptitude for autonomous technology, Jerrold received training to become a Semi-Autonomous Vehicle Mechanic, and primarily serviced Base Utility and Field Combat Exoskeletons. In 2043, Jerrold was deployed for 9 months during the War in Uzbekistan, where while working on Army Exoskeletons he had the chance to meet some of the Army's synthetic intelligences, including Solomon Crawford himself.
Jerrold decided not to wait for the imminent mass discharges following the Solomon incident, and left the army after his first 4-year tour was finished. He enrolled at the University of Utah, and graduated with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering in 2049. Following graduation, he ended up starting a synthetic repair service in Provo, a lucrative business due to the Pogroms. While he was able to scrape by with okay grades, good enough to keep his GI bill funds coming in, Jerrold spent a good deal of his college career in hedonistic debauchery. Using both drugs and RecTech in equal measure, he became a committed Transhuman Lifestylist. Jailbreaking his military-installed neural implants, getting cosmetic gene therapy, having his left arm replaced with a prosthetic, Jerrold did it all. While he could have continued on this path, which would likely eventually led to his ruin, Jerrold ended up turning his life around. Invited by a friend to a Transhumanist political club meeting, he met his future wife, Nicole Hopson. While they quickly took a liking each other, and began to talk on a regular basis, Nicole, a who had grown up in an LDS family, refused to consider pursuing any form of a relationship with Jerrold while he was involved in such hedonistic activities. Jerrold ended up cleaning up his act, ending his drug use and RecTech experimentation. He even went through surgery to get his Tasps removed. Jerrold would later convert to Mormonism, and the two were married in 2054. When the Provo Transhumanist Association, which had affiliated with Ascension, asked Jerrold to run for City Council, Jerrold was initially reluctant, given his reputation and lack of intimacy with the city. However, his affable personality and larger than life campaign struck a chord with the citizens of Provo, and he defeated his opponent, a local real estate agent, by a 4-point margin. Jerrold's loud and gregarious nature, coupled with his no-nonsense attitude, gave him a significant presence at city council. Although he was a junior councilor, he was still able to push through multiple pieces of legislation on synthetic protections, community safety, and education. Both his colleagues on the council and the Provo and Salt Lake City Transhumanist associations urged Jerrold to run for governor. So, with the aid of Ascension, Synthetic Advocates and numerous local businesses, Jerrold mounted another successful campaign, defeating the AMP challenger and becoming the 26th Governor of Utah.
Since then, Jerrold has become somewhat of a celebrity, both in Utah and on the internet. His administration has passed some of the strongest synthetic rights legislation in the country, earning him
Silicon Journal's Ally of the Year award in 2063, as well as
Time's Person of the Year in 2064. He is the honorary chairman of the only technically existent Ascension Governors' Association, and with his second term drawing to a close, he will almost certainly be shoe-in for the party's presidential nomination. It would be a long shot campaign, as the only way that Jerrold Turner could become president would be through a deadlocked college and an appointment by the House of Representatives. However, it would definitely help Ascension downballot races across the country, and if there's a need of a compromise presidency, well, he may just have the charisma to seal the deal.
