(I apologize if I'm making too many presumptions about Byzantium society with this one but it seemed an interesting idea so here goes...)
Name: Hogan "Newtype" Birth
Age: 18
Home Nation: Byzantium
Appearance: While it will most likely serve him well later in life, Hogan is currently cursed with a youthful face that makes him look younger than he already is. With short, wild brown hair, bright green eyes and a lean looking build, he does not seem the eighteen years that he is. His normal state of dress is a white t-shirt, brown cargo pants, a red jacket and an old captain's cap with the ranking insignia torn off and replaced by a stitched on blue patch in the shape of a vulture.
Personality: Hogan is a fairly happy-go-lucky rogue who cares deeply for his crew to the point that he considers them his family. Since he has been around them his whole life, in his opinion, they may as well be. Even mercenaries that have to be occasionally hired for helping with jobs seem to fall under his protective instincts, even if he does bristle a bit at the ones who scoff at his age.
Hogan otherwise has a fairly non-idealist view of the world and a willingness to do questionable things for the sake of keeping himself and his people alive (and hopefully earning them all a large profit on top of that). He's quick to make jokes about, and openly mock, those he views as being overly idealistic, especially those from Constantinople, who he considers the ultimate hypocrites.
He is also a man who goes with his instincts, trusting his hunches as well as the "flashes" of insight he occasionally receives that warn him of imminent danger.
Current M.S.:
Alps-Class Carrier "Freeden"
History: Given Byzantium's de-emphasis on military might, individual units within the army are allowed a certain level of autonomy, provided they never betray the promise to keep the city's trade routes secure. One of the more infamous of these autonomous units is the Blue Vultures, of which Hogan has spent his entire life around due to his father being the leader and keeping the boy by his side since his mother died.
As he grew, Hogan learned much from his father and the other Blue Vultures, including the reason for their unusual troop name. While they carried out their duties of safeguarding merchants in and out of the cities, the Blue Vultures would also be on the look out for skirmishes around the borders. If one was found, they would descend upon the aftermath of the battle and, with their blue colored Tierens standing guard, strip everything of potential value (damaged mobile suits and dead soldier alike) and take the goods back to Byzantium to sell for their own profit.
In addition, before some missions, Hogan would have dreams or feelings of danger that he would report to his father and, to both his and the crew's shock, would be heeded. When asked why, Hogan's father simply replied, "His mom had similar feelings too. They were always right." This began a rumor amongst the crew of Hogan being some "new type of Mancer" which they eventually shortened to "Newtype" as an affectionate nickname for the child.
When he was old enough, Hogan was sent back to Byzantium to "train for military command" (which in Byzantium customs meant greasing the right palms and passing a simple exam, which could be made even simpler by greasing even more palms), with a note of recommendation from his father that Hogan be allowed to take over the Blue Vultures when he retired or died. Once again, the right amount of money in the right hands helped speed the process along.
Eventually, with his new rank in hand, Hogan returned to the Blue Vultures... only to discover his father had died on a scavenging mission that had gone bad. One Hogan might have been able to warn him away from had he been there. It was an attempt to take salvage from a destroyed forge that had been stumbled upon by both Athenian and Spartan forces, resulting in a crossfire that had killed the now-former captain as the Blue Vultures withdrew. However, they had been successful in escaping with the last creation of the forge, which had now become Hogan's "inheritance", the Alps-Class Land Carrier Freeden.
Now captain of both the Blue Vultures and a powerful Land Carrier, Hogan sets out into the world with his men to see what riches they can claim.
Extra: Hogan's Mancer abilities are minor but function like the more "traditional" forms seen in Gundam TV shows: Meaning some minor precognitive powers, the ability to feel "pressure" from other psychics and sensing hostile intentions aimed in his direction.