Jake Sully (ashadowskull)

Jacob 'Jake' Sully (born August 24, 2126) is the protagonist of Avatar. He is a paraplegic renegade Marine veteran who defects to the Na'vi race and is also one of the 20 known avatar drivers.

After his twin brother, Tom, was killed on Pandora, Jake agreed to replace him in the Avatar Program, in which humans remotely control human/Na'vi hybrids to safely navigate the planet. He was originally assigned to negotiate with the Na'vi. The Na'vi occupation of Hometree was blocking the RDA's access to a very large deposit of unobtanium underneath the tree. Jake learns the ways of the Na'vi hunters from Neytiri and falls in love with her. He is eventually accepted into the Omaticaya clan and becomes Neytiri's mate before finding out the Na'vi killed Tom when they found out he was a spy. He returns to the Omaticaya Clan and leads the Na'vi in a battle to drive the RDA off Pandora.

On Earth
Jake Sully was born and raised on Earth and grew up hearing about Pandora, a small moon orbiting the gas giant Polyphemus in the Alpha Centauri System. Though nothing is known of his childhood, he joined the Marines as an adult for the hardship involved and a cause to fight for. He suffered a spinal injury in an unnamed war while fighting in Venezuela. The injury was severe, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down.

Since his veteran benefits are not enough to pay for the surgery to repair his spine, he has no choice but to live out his life in a wheelchair. After a night of drinking, Jake starts a bar fight with a man who strikes a woman. After breaking up the fight, the bouncers throw him out into the street where he is approached by two RDA agents. They confirm his identity and inform him that his identical twin brother, Tom, had been killed on Pandora. His brother was one of the selected few scientists chosen to participate in the Avatar Program and one of even fewer avatar "drivers." Tom had trained on Earth for three years in preparation for a tour on Pandora. He represented a significant investment on the part of the Resources Development Administration due to the inherent link between the pilot and the avatar he controls, as well as the enormous cost of using new DNA to create an avatar. Since Jake is genetically identical to his brother, he can link with the avatar, saving the company the cost of creating a new one. After being offered significant compensation, he apprehensively agrees to take over his brother's contract and is put in cryosleep for the trip to Pandora.

Arrival on Pandora
After five years, nine months and 22 days of travel, Jake awakens from cryosleep aboard the ISV Venture Star as it orbits above Pandora. Jake, along with the other new arrivals, disembarks from a Valkyrieshuttle at Hell's Gate, where he has his first contact with Pandora's hostile climate. Upon landing, Jake and the other passengers are briefed on the use of exopacks: personal rebreather units that filter the toxic Pandoran atmosphere. Exopacks are required for survival outside of internally pressurized RDA facilities.

When he enters the RDA facility, Jake meets Colonel Miles Quaritch, a seasoned ex-military officer who is in charge of Pandora's entire paramilitary defense force. In a security briefing for the new comers, he explains to them all the dangers of Pandora, stressing that the biggest threat is an indigenous population of humanoids called the Na'vi. He makes it clear that he is not willing to tolerate any resistance from the Na'vi and has very little patience for the scientists working on the avatar project.

The Avatar Program
Jake meets Dr. Grace Augustine, a botanist as well as the leader of the Avatar Program. The avatars are genetically engineered human/Na’vi hybrids which are controlled remotely by avatar "drivers". Using the avatars, Grace and her team have made considerable progress in teaching some Na'vi the English language as well as learning the Na'vi language and culture. However, Grace is not pleased with RDA administrator Parker Selfridge's decision to use Jake to replace his brother’s avatar position, as she will have to spend time training him in Na’vi culture and language as well as teaching him how to control his avatar. In return, Quaritch tells Jake that if he succeeds, he will see to it that Jake gets the surgery needed to regain the use of his legs.

Jake is prepped by Grace to link with his avatar for the first time. When Jake first enters his avatar, he begins to move about, trying to get a feel for his avatar.

First Contact with Pandora
Grace brings Jake (as security) on an expedition to retrieve samples of Pandoran flora. Trudy Chacon is their assigned pilot for the expedition. Jake and Grace visit Grace's closed school. Upon seeing signs of it being attacked, Jake asks Grace what happened, but she changes the subject and the three continue on with the expedition. While Grace studies the wildlife, Jake wanders away and, while playing around with the nearby flora, stumbles across a group of hammerhead titanotheres, a rhinoceros-like animal species. However, the titanotheres flee from a thanator, a terrifying land predator. Jake runs for his life from the thanator, losing his equipment and weapon in the process. He narrowly escapes death from the predator by leaping from the top of a cliff into a river below. After failing to locate Jake, the avatar team is forced to abandon the search for him as night operations were deemed too dangerous by Quaritch.