Onni Salo /ON-nee SAH-lo/ was born in the town of Hancock, Michigan on December 9, 1981. His maternal grandfather fought for Finland in the Winter and Continuation Wars and had moved his family to the Upper Peninsula after the city of Viipuri was ceded to the Soviet Union for the second time. Onni was an average student who enjoyed wreck diving in Lake Superior during the summer, hunting Russian boar during the spring and fall, and skiing in the winter. His grades not enough to bring him any scholarships so, after graduating high school and working some seasonal jobs, he entered the US Army as a combat medic. He joined 101 Airborne Division (Air Assault) in August of 2001 and was assigned to the 1st battalion of the 187th Infantry Regiment. To celebrate his promotion to Private 2nd Class, he immediately bought a brand new Silverado 1500 LS 4WD at 32% APR. A week later, he met a beautiful girl named Jennifer Trimble, who worked at a nearby club called Cat West. A month later they were married. He deployed to Afghanistan in November and assigned to Charlie Company.
The first few months of the deployment were uneventful as his unit trained and performed airfield security. That changed at the beginning of March when an operation began in the Shah-i-Kot Valley. Charlie Company landed in the valley early on March 3rd and lead the battalion on a sweep of a pass in the north east of the valley, looking for enemy positions and weapon caches. During the sweep, Onni found a cave that had been recently uncovered by a rock slide. He saw what appeared to be props from the mummy movies when he shined his flashlight inside. He immediately told his platoon sergeant, who asked him if he saw any weapons or ammunition. When Onni said no, the sergeant told they didn’t have time to deal with it and to leave it for special operations. Charlie Company was needed to reinforce units under fire back in the valley. Onni went back and made sure he knew the cave’s location then grabbed a dark blue metallic sphere with a large cracked red gem and stashed it in his backpack. He spent the next week making sure his unit didn’t have any cold injuries while avoiding the occasional mortar shell and fire from the enemy’s DShKs. When he returned to base, he remembered the sphere and turned it over to the battalion intelligence team. He hadn’t been back in his tent for 5 minutes when a special operations sergeant came to get him.
The next couple days were something of a blur, with special operations people from all four services asking him if he knew what the sphere was and where he had found it. He eventually figured out it was some sort of weapon called a “Tak” and that the officers were concerned that the Afghans might find the weapons cache. Unfortunately, He wasn’t able to point to the its exact location so an Air Force unit called SG-11 took him back to the valley so he could show them where the cave was. Onni found the cave easily once they were back in the pass. The officers told him to wait outside and then discovered the second Takunitagaminituron when its energy blast hit SG-11’s commander. Onni’s medic training took over and he ran to the commander as the rest of the SG team disabled the trap with weird looking lightning guns. After patching up the commander, Onni looked up and realized he was inside a crashed spaceship.
The decision was made to transfer the young Private to the Stargate Program. After training, orientation, and moving Jennifer to Colorado Springs, Onni set foot in Stargate command just in time for Dr Fraser to tell him to clean the replicator parts out of the infirmary and operating room (s5e19: Menace). Everything went well until the background check for his Top Secret clearance looked into his finances. Onni and Jennifer were living beyond their means so Dr Fraser ordered him into financial counseling. She also advised him to join the Phoenix Site, where his pay would be higher and his combat medic skills needed. He agreed and was introduced to Loyer.
Onni Salo is a 19-year-old from a small town. He is inexperienced and unworldly, which sometimes leads him to make poor decisions. His introduction to the Stargate program has opened his eyes to a much bigger universe. While he understands the Goa'uld pose a threat, he still makes fun of Anubis’s holographic villain speech (S6e01: Redemption, Part 1). He is fiercely devoted to his marriage and contacts home at every opportunity. One of his goals is to give Jennifer her dream wedding and honeymoon. He would love to bring her into the Phoenix Program but does not see a way to do so. He currently holds the rank of Private First Class (PFC) and will not eligible for promotion until October 2001.
