Chris Thomson was born on April 7, 2191. He grew up in a small town in Ohio, until he joined the WSEA Academy when he was fourteen years old. When the First Solar War began in 2206, Chris's parents were sent off to war, and he stayed with Joel and Amanda Williams. The three of them moved around the Houston area during the war, eventually settling in a new community called Nameless.

Two years after the First Solar War, Chris and his friends discovered a mysterious mineral substance called travolite in a cave near Nameless, setting the stage for the events of the Second Solar War. Dormant travolite particles in Chris's blood created an almost magnetic attraction to the travolite in the cave. It is still unknown how the travolite ended up in his bloodstream - something that Madison McBride began to study after the end of the War.