Ramesses was born on a backwoods planet in Metropolis in the year YC92, a member of the small and eccentric O'Neill clan of the Vherokior. For half-forgotten and likely spurious reasons involving hair colour, the clan traces its ancestry back to ancient kings upon old Earth, and names its young in accord with this mythic heritage. Ramesses was gifted with a name thought particularly auspicious, auctioned to his wealthy parents as per tradition.

Ramesses' life was particularly impacted by his traditional voluval ritual at age 12. He had an allergic reaction to the cocktail of compounds administered to trigger his emergent tattoos, requiring hospital treatment while his skin blistered to reveal unfamiliar patterns across his body. On his face two signs appeared around his two eyes, one portending to 'spirit', suggesting a strong spirituality, while the other was read - approximately - as the sign of the scientist.

In response to these portents Ramesses was inducted into a prominent theological institute on his home world. At this institute he opposed the traditional mysticism of his peers in favour of holding the deeper truths of reality to be knowable to human reason. These views provoked significant opposition as they were uncomfortably close in form to the doctrines of the Amarr religion, and thus of the old enemy of the Minmatar.

Consternation over the matter came to a head when Ramesses began to argue for a memory-continuity theory of personal identity, defending the view in a series of holovid debates. The immaterialism and rationalism of this doctrine led to calls for Ramesses' arrest as an Amarr sympathiser. While this was prevented by family connections, Ramesses' enemies got their chance for vengeance when Ramesses had himself jump cloned in an effort to show that his identity could survive the death of his body. Unimpressed, local authorities ruled Ramesses legally dead and confiscated his assets. A family friend took pity on the resulting vagrant immortal and funded Ramesses to set himself up as a capsuleer.

Thus, in YC118, Ramesses O'Neill entered exile amongst unfamiliar stars, rejected by his own people but with a certain wry pride. He believes he won his argument.