Zhackie is from a country I'm in the process of making up at the moment. Rosskaya, where red hair has turned into dominant(rather than a recessive) trait and therefore red hair is rather common. It's a country heavily influenced by both science and religion, cybernetic limbs are considered a blessing, it's a privilege to be a cyborg there, if you lose a limb you need to have some sort of status to get it replaced by mechanical parts. Psions on the other hand are considered calamities, popular thought is that Psions are the result of people inheriting sins from their predecessors, 'God's way' of pinpointing those who are more probable of doing wrong. Recently a group called the Red Purge(who got that name by calling for all out genocide on Psions) has begun to gain some influence with the church, and as a result anti-psion attitude throughput Rosskaya is at an all time high. I'll spare Zhackie's story for another day, but it ends in him fleeing, and ending up here.