The Interdimensional Exploration Genome Project was created out of necessity a century ago, due to the scarcity of human volunteers available and willing to partake in dangerous missions across dimensions. Canine units with one to two human handlers were sent to explore and traverse worlds on the other side of the dimensional portals, searching for habitable worlds and intelligent lifeforms.

The missions are often fatal, and operated with little to no knowledge of what is on the other side, or if the way back home will still be there at the end. Due to the volatile nature of interdimensional travel, these missions are often considered suicidal, though survival rates have increased dramatically over the past 25 years.

The canines of the IEGP are genetically modified to survive harsher conditions, live longer, and be capable of learning and communicating with a variety of languages. While they are not considered to be as intelligent as their human counterparts, many recent canines of the IEGP have displayed excellent abilities for cognitive learning and problem solving, surpassing the results expected of them.

The Upsilon generation is the first in a line of canine genome rebuilding and modification to be sent on these missions alone, equipped with the technology needed to record data of all they see and experience, that can be sent back to base even if the canines themselves do not make it.

Through genetic manipulation, the IEGP has coded what they believe to be the perfect explorers. Intentionally selected and raised to be sociable, self-confident, self-reliant, and assertive, the canines of Upsilon are expected to be natural leaders and brave explorers in the face of unknowable odds and challenges. These traits are the ones carefully coded for in the genome project to help create canine explorers who will not shirk from their responsibilities in the often harsh and unforgiving worlds they are sent to on their missions. Unfortunately, with those traits came less positive attributes. Aggressive, headstrong and even argumentative canines developed as a result of their genetic dispositions. Some became hostile and offensive, as opposed the passive spectators and watchers they were initially designed to be.

The adventurous and independent natures of the Upsilon canines earned them reputations as fearless, uninhibited aggressors, charging into new worlds head first and functioning best when the risks and challenges are at their highest.

Teddy spent the first 13 years of his life in the IEGP Training Facility. His only interactions were with his handlers and other canines of the Upsilon unit. The intense training he was put through from the moment his eyes opened included atmospheric adaptation, simulations, aggressive defense training, scent recognition, threat and resource identification and tracking/directional sense. Much of this training was painful and in some cases, deadly. Only one third of the Upsilon Canines survived to their teenage years. Each of them shared the same designation, and were not differentiated beyond the serial on their neurally-linked collars.

Genetically the canines of Upsilon were virtually identical, but developmentally, each was raised in a different environment. Teddy was designated as a Seeker, and his training reflected this with a heavy emphasis on loyalty training and tracking. He was trained as a search and rescue canine as his side designation.

Teddy excelled at scenting, and proved to be an excellent tracker, if a bit rebellious. He solved problems faster than most of the rest of his unit, and with an ingenuity the other Upsilons lacked. Unfortunately, this ingenuity came with a stubborn streak of arrogance that caused Teddy to rebel against his orders when he believed his own solutions were more effective than his handler's orders.

His directives were set on his thirteenth year: Seek out usable resources, retrieve lost assets, and protect human lives at any cost. These directives were hard-wired neurally. Teddy retained his autonomy, but his instincts were manipulated to make human life more valuable in his mind than his own survival.

For the next three years his training grew more rigorous. He was sent to shadow other canines and their handlers on test missions where the terrain and worlds were considered safe enough to keep a stable portal open. He graduated at the age of sixteen and obtained his upgraded collar before taking his first official mission through an unexplored portal. Teddy survived four missions after his training and grew into a strong-willed juvenile, confident in his skills and dedicated to his missions.

On his fifth assignment he and his handlers entered an unstable portal to retrieve another upsilon unit that had gone offline while returning with vital medical supplies. The world the portal linked to was dark, the sun permanently blocked by a lunar eclipse. Blind in the dark light, Teddy had to rely on his handlers for direction as he followed the scent of his fellow upsilon unit. An hour into the search he picked up the scent of blood just moments before he and his handlers were attacked by the other upsilon unit, crazed and rabid.

Teddy's programmed instincts kicked in, forcing him to attack the other canine unit to protect his handlers. In the fight he managed to take out the other unit, but he was badly injured in the process. His back left leg was broken and his collar damaged rendering his communications and location modules useless. His handlers fled with the medical supplies during the fight, leaving Teddy alone, injured, and virtually blind on the dark planet. He attempted to drag himself back to the portal but it collapsed, leaving him stranded.