In short: Rose from poor beginnings on the streets of Detroit to become a soldier, officer, general, and then celebrity. In the wake of scandal, resigned; in the wake of public outrage, made director of the CIA.

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Matthew Thrawn was born in Detroit, his family among the many victims of a ruthless economic downturn. With a single father laid off with disability, Mitt had to fight to survive from the very beginning, from difficult school environments to crime-ridden streets to violence on every corner. Things took a distinct downturn when Thomas, Thrawn's brother, was adopted by a rich family and became M. Thomas Saffis. Both because and despite of the support from his brother, Thrawn became ruthlessly ambitious, using military service to pay his own way through his education.

Thrawn found a place in the military. An almost effortless one, as it happens; he belonged there better than he'd ever managed to belong anywhere else. He took to being an officer with astonishing and immediate skill, his grasp of tactics intuitive and ever-evolving. Thrawn always brought the men under his command home alive, and that was more than enough to earn him recommendations for promotion again and again.

By merit and force of will, he became the youngest ever to ascend to the rank of general and take over an entire theater of war. Because of this, his name began to show up more and more in the newspapers back home. Matthew Thrawn became a very visible and very important figure of the wars in the Middle East. Add in a few appearances on talk shows and a few important interviews and news stories, and you've got a soldier and a celebrity at once.

Thomas didn't like this series of developments at all. He always knew how smart Thrawn was -- sharp enough to cut himself -- and he became concerned by what he saw as probably violations of ethics and certainly borderline violations of the law.

Instead of submitting to an investigation, Thrawn resigned his commission. This move allowed the press to call politics; the entire thing turned into a hell of a scandal, with Thomas, a Senator, at the heart of it. The only way the administration found to appease their critics was to place Thrawn in an important position, both for military and for policy. As the director of the CIA.

Thrawn had always found a use for spies and covert agents in his operations, and, as usual, he took to the CIA like a duck to water. In fact, the abstract, intellectual maneuvering of espionage combined with warfare fascinated him, and his skill at it made him one of the best CIA directors, if not the best, in history.