Dickjackson Jones

Dickjackson Jones -

This is the essence of his character, or the nucleus.

* He's a socially high-functioning autistic
* He's a genius with an IQ of 200
* His focus, his passion, his obsession, is everything to do with air and space flight
* He's had no formal schooling beyond the 5th grade
* He's a self-taught aerospace engineer
* He's a self-taught freelance test pilot
* He's the commander of the Flying Turtle
* He began to have recurring dreams about Mars in 1996 when Pathfinder landed on Mars and, he believed, immediately began beaming signals directly into his brain
* He has since suffered with frequent cycles of cluster headaches
* He has a recurring dream of Olympus Mons, a volcano on Mars, erupting and blowing gentle smoke signals of peace into space from its dormant caldera
* He's certain that his dreams of Mars are somehow related to what he believes to be the signal from Pathfinder but he doesn't know why or how
* When he dreams of Olympus Mons it triggers a new cycle of cluster headaches
* After each cluster cycle his dream of Olympus Mons becomes more frequent and vivid
* Each time he dreams, he is on the cusp of discovering the meaning of his dream, and a new and even more intense cluster cycle is triggered, which shatters his burgeoning understanding
* The repeating cycles of almost comprehension followed by agonized confusion is surely driving him insane
* During his brief periods of lucidity between dream/cluster cycles he feels a growing certainty that his dream is telling him that he has to travel to Mars to find an answer for... something, and that his headaches are inflicted upon him by... something, in order to prevent him from taking action against... something
* He understands and takes seriously the possibility that his entire life is merely an insane hallucination resulting from the mental breakdown of a self-stranger with whom he feels no connection or identity whatsoever
* He is capable of displaying absolutely no outward signs of pain when experiencing the Mortal Agony of a cluster headache, which effectively hides his condition from everyone

WHAT HE WANTS

* Dickjackson Jones wants relief from his cluster headaches, so that...
* He can be rid of the pain, so that...
* He'll be able to think clearly, so that...
* He can finally understand what his recurring dream of Olympus Mons is trying to tell him, so that...
* He can FLY.

WHY HE WANTS IT

* He's terrified of an infinite universe that exists without a meaning or purpose
* He's desperate to discover a meaning, a purpose, or simply a reason for why anything even exists at all
* He's fundamentally afraid that his joy of flying and everything to do with flight, which he believes comprises the sole reason for his existence, might be as meaningless as a dung beetle pushing a ball of shit
* He wants to be comforted with the knowledge of something larger than himself

HOW HE'S GETTING IT

* He steals the Flying Turtle mid-mission and sets course to Mars, to follow his dream.