✮ VERSE SPECIFICATION.
Sam Kirk's characterization is based heavily upon the snippets we see of him as a teenager in the Star Trek XI novelization, as well as the feel his mun got for the sort of environment he grew up in without the role model George Kirk, Sr. was to him in The Original Series and without much contact with his brother due to his having left home out of an inability to deal with their step-father, Frank. The following is purely headcanon, as the only "canon" support for the Sam of the alternate timeline is provided in the afore mentioned novel.
Initially, Sam moved in with a friend after running away from home and continued attending the same school he was enrolled in. It was during this period of rebelliousness and subsequent need to rid himself of the burden of a name he shared with a man who was long gone that he stopped going by George and started going by Samuel and finally, Sam. He kept an eye on his brother at school, but took off for another corner of the state once he'd scrounged up the means to after Frank attempted, for reasons Sam didn't bother to learn, to force him to come home. Sam would finish out his senior year at another school and without a proper father figure to encourage him to put his mind to good use, opted not to further his education and instead went straight into the work field as an apprentice mechanic. By the time he returned to Riverside, his little brother had hopped on a shuttle to Starfleet.
He dislikes Starfleet; not hate, dislikes. Strongly dislikes. He disapproves of many of their methods, of the risks and the sacrifices people are expected to make. Part of him blames Starfleet for his father's death and the chain of events that followed it: his mother remarrying an abusive man and finding any excuse to be off-planet and away from her sons, what "forced" him to run away, and so on. Despite all that, he supported his brother's decision after voicing his disapproval, understanding the need to do what one felt needed to be done. Must be a Kirk trait.
The elder Kirk brother kept in contact with his brother throughout his Starfleet training and was present at Jim's promotion ceremony following the events surrounding the destruction of Vulcan. Sam is played from around this point in time.
PB is Ben Browder. Concrit is welcomed. Questions, concerns, requests? Ask away!
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