"When you want to build a ship, do not begin by gathering wood, cutting boards, and distributing work, but rather awaken within men the desire for the vast and endless sea." (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry)

Identity:
Born Ifan Martel, son of Hadrien Martel and Jannah (HJ-0976). (Legal name change at 18.)

Default point of departure:
Age 19, about a year after finishing his brawn training, in search of a brainship partner.

Backstory [spoiler warning]:
Hadrien, a Sunex-trained brawn, was assigned to Jannah as his second brainship partner. (The first did not get along with him.) The two of them hit it off, and became romantically involved.

Eventually, however, Jannah picked up on the fact that Hadrien was (a) a total creep, and (b) not a very good brawn; Jannah being an ambitious type, (b) was particularly compelling. So she got in touch with Sunex, and asked if they could please find her a new brawn, and also maybe spin it as them insisting on her getting a new brawn, so that Hadrien (being a total creep) wouldn't blame her for it.

Unfortunately, this plan did not go so well, due to exhibit A: the total creepiness of Hadrien. He found out about the prospective transfer, and decided that Nothing Could Conquer Their Love, and that If He Couldn't Have Her, No One Could. And (being the source of half of a Jean's DNA) he decided that the correct way to express this would be to kill Jannah and raise their baby.

Of course, there were a number of problems with this plan. First of all, it was completely nuts. Second, he didn't have a way to get into the shell and kill Jannah. Third, they didn't actually have a baby.

None of this was going to stop Hadrien. He bribed a particularly immoral doctor to be standing by, talked Jannah into buying and installing a cheap off-brand capacitor known to cause problems, and then faked a disastrous mechanical failure.

In the stress of the moment, Hadrien managed to convince Jannah that the mechanical failure was going to kill her, and that he had a doctor ready to transfer and rescue her. She unlocked the shell for him; he opened it, and let her die. The doctor harvested one of her ovaries and left with it, and then Hadrien sabotaged some things to cause an actual mechanical failure that would destroy all the evidence.

The tragedy of the heroic brawn who ran into a burning ship to try to rescue his partner was a news story for about five minutes, before being displaced. Sunex was happy enough to play up the "why you should only buy licensed Sunex parts" moral. Hadrien got away scot-free, and, with the help of IVF and a surrogate, arranged for the existence of baby Ifan.

Hadrien raised Ifan to be the Perfect Brawn, telling him stories about his mother, and how Hadrien "failed her" by "not being good enough," and how Ifan needed to Do Better to atone. When Ifan turned 18, Hadrien gave him the full story, helped him get a legal name change, and then turned himself in for Jannah's murder.

Hadrien managed to get himself a plea bargain that involved the story not getting spread around or put on the news. Sunex, of course, found out, and wouldn't have anything to do with Ifan, but they didn't particularly want everyone to hear about this particular pile-up of creepiness either. So Ifan is not generally known as the world's only brainship offspring.