Bradley David Coleman

Birth and Family Origins

Bradley David Coleman was born on 23 October 1980 at Royal Hobart Hospital, the first child of David Andrew Coleman and Margaret Rose Coleman (née Thornton). His arrival came during one of Tasmania's unpredictable spring storms, rain lashing the hospital windows while his parents welcomed a son whose life would eventually bridge worlds they could not yet imagine.

David Andrew Coleman had established himself as a respected botanist at the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens, his specialty the taxonomy and conservation of Tasmania's endemic plant species. Born in 1951 to a family of orchardists in the Huon Valley, David had been the first in his family to attend university, earning his doctorate from the University of Tasmania before returning to the island whose flora had fascinated him since childhood. His academic publications were solid rather than spectacular, his contribution lying more in meticulous fieldwork and species documentation than in theoretical innovation. Colleagues respected his thoroughness; students appreciated his patience; administrators valued his reliability. These were not qualities that attracted attention, but they were qualities that accumulated into a career of genuine contribution.

Margaret Rose Thornton had grown up in Launceston, the daughter of a schoolteacher and a nurse, her childhood shaped by modest means and high expectations. She discovered photography in high school, borrowed cameras leading to part-time work, part-time work leading to a diploma from what was then the Tasmanian College of Advanced Education. Her specialty — wildlife photography — emerged from Tasmania's accessibility to subjects that mainland photographers had to travel far to capture. By the time she met David at a conservation conference in 1978, she had built a reputation for images that captured not merely animals but their relationships to landscapes, her work appearing in publications ranging from Australian Geographic to international nature magazines.

The marriage in 1979 united two people whose professional passions aligned even when their temperaments didn't quite match. David was methodical, patient, content with slow accumulation of knowledge. Margaret was restless, drawn to the next shot, the next location, the next opportunity to capture something she hadn't captured before. Their household balanced these differences without fully resolving them, creating an environment where Brad would absorb both his father's steadiness and his mother's drive — qualities that would prove alternately complementary and conflicting throughout his life.

Emily Rose Coleman arrived on 4 March 1984, completing the family. The three-and-a-half years separating the siblings created natural asymmetry, but their relationship developed with less tension than might have been expected. Brad proved protective rather than competitive, helping with homework, teaching her to identify birds on family expeditions, defending her from childhood cruelties with intensity that sometimes exceeded what situations required. Emily would eventually follow their mother into wildlife photography, her career building on Margaret's reputation while establishing distinctive style that earned her own recognition.

Childhood and Early Education

Brad's childhood unfolded in the spaces where suburban Hobart met the wilderness that began at the city's edges. The family home in West Hobart — a weatherboard cottage purchased the year before Brad's birth — sat within walking distance of bushland that provided endless exploration for a boy whose energy seemed to exceed what domestic spaces could contain. Weekends often involved expeditions with David to document plant populations or with Margaret to photograph wildlife, education by immersion that shaped Brad's understanding of the natural world before formal schooling began.

Lansdowne Crescent Primary School (1986-1992) provided structure that Brad found alternately useful and constraining. He was bright but restless, earning good marks when subjects engaged him while struggling to focus on material he found tedious. Teachers noted both his enthusiasm for science and nature topics and his difficulty sitting still through lessons that didn't capture his interest. The gardening club became his refuge — structured activity that involved movement and tangible outcomes rather than passive absorption of information.

His social development proved more complicated than his academic progress. Brad made friends easily, his energy and confidence attracting peers who found him exciting, but he also made enemies among children who found his intensity overwhelming. He was involved in more than his share of playground conflicts, not because he sought them but because his responses to provocation tended toward escalation rather than de-escalation. David and Margaret received regular communications from teachers concerned about incidents that, while never serious, suggested patterns that might prove problematic if not addressed.

Elizabeth College (1993-1998) provided the structured challenge Brad needed. The school's emphasis on environmental education aligned with interests his family had cultivated, while its expectations demanded focus that primary school hadn't required. He excelled in biology, geography, and environmental science, finding in these subjects the engagement that made concentration possible. His involvement in the environmental club — eventually becoming its president — channelled energy into constructive directions, organising clean-up initiatives and awareness campaigns that gave him scope for the leadership his personality demanded.

But the restlessness that had characterised his childhood didn't disappear with adolescence; it merely found new outlets. Brad pushed boundaries in ways that worried his parents — late nights with friends whose influence they questioned, experimentation with alcohol earlier than they would have preferred, a recklessness about physical safety that produced minor injuries and major arguments. He wasn't a troubled teenager so much as an intense one, his passions running hot whether directed toward conservation advocacy or the risk-taking that adolescent boys sometimes pursue.

University and Professional Formation

Brad enrolled at the University of Tasmania in 1999 to pursue a Bachelor of Environmental Science, a year later than classmates his age because he had taken a gap year working for a conservation organisation in Queensland — partly to gain experience, partly because he wasn't ready for the discipline that university required. The Queensland year proved formative: real conservation work, with its frustrations and compromises, taught lessons that academic study alone couldn't provide. He returned to Tasmania with clearer purpose and greater capacity for the sustained effort that higher education demanded.

His undergraduate years combined academic achievement with the social intensity that characterised everything Brad did. He studied hard when exams approached but struggled with the steady accumulation that scholarship required. His honours thesis — investigating urbanisation impacts on local wildlife — earned distinction more through insight and passion than through methodological rigour, his supervisor noting both genuine talent and concerning inconsistency in his research approach. He graduated in 2002 with credentials that opened professional doors while leaving questions about whether he could sustain the discipline that careers required.

The Master of Environmental Management at Australian National University (2003-2005) demanded exactly the sustained focus that his undergraduate experience had suggested might be difficult. Canberra provided distance from Hobart's familiar temptations, and Brad discovered that he could maintain discipline when circumstances required it. His thesis on protected area effectiveness earned publication and demonstrated capacity for the rigorous analysis that professional consulting would require. But the two years also revealed something about himself he hadn't fully recognised: he was better at starting things than finishing them, better at the excitement of new projects than the grind of seeing them through.

The recognition didn't change the pattern, but it made him more strategic about managing it. He learned to structure his work so that the exciting phases carried him through the tedious ones, to surround himself with colleagues whose steadiness complemented his inconsistency, to channel his energy toward beginnings while ensuring others could handle conclusions. These weren't solutions so much as accommodations, but they were accommodations that would enable a career more successful than his undergraduate inconsistency might have predicted.

Early Career and Finding Direction

The internship at DPIPWE during summer 2001 — between undergraduate years — had provided Brad's first exposure to environmental consulting's realities. He assisted with impact assessments and conservation planning, gaining field experience that academic study couldn't replicate. More importantly, he observed how environmental protection actually functioned: the negotiations, the compromises, the gap between what advocates wanted and what regulatory frameworks delivered. The observation didn't diminish his commitment, but it complicated his understanding of what commitment might achieve.

His first professional position at GreenWorld Consulting (2002-2006) introduced the commercial dimensions of environmental work. Clients needed assessments that satisfied regulatory requirements; they didn't necessarily want outcomes that maximised environmental protection. Brad learned to navigate the tension between advocacy and service, developing skills in presenting recommendations that clients could accept while still achieving genuine conservation outcomes. Some colleagues saw this as compromise; Brad saw it as strategy, understanding that influence required relationships that pure advocacy often destroyed.

The move to Tasmanian Land Conservancy (2006-2009) shifted his focus from assessment to acquisition. As Project Coordinator, he managed efforts to secure conservation easements and implement habitat restoration across properties whose owners needed convincing that protection served their interests as well as the environment's. The work required skills he hadn't known he possessed: patience with landowners whose timelines differed from conservation urgency, diplomacy in negotiations where competing interests required careful balance, persistence through setbacks that would have discouraged less committed advocates.

But the role also revealed limitations. Brad was excellent at initiating relationships and generating enthusiasm; he was less effective at the sustained follow-through that complex negotiations required. Projects he began with energy sometimes stalled when his attention shifted to newer opportunities. Colleagues learned to provide the continuity that Brad's restlessness undermined, a pattern that worked well enough when everyone understood their roles but created friction when expectations weren't managed.

EcoSolutions Consulting and Professional Maturity

The decision to join EcoSolutions Consulting in 2009 represented recognition that Brad's strengths aligned better with consulting's variety than with the sustained focus that land acquisition required. The firm was small but ambitious, its founders recognising that environmental consulting was becoming both more complex and more essential as regulatory frameworks expanded. Brad's appointment as Senior Environmental Consultant placed him in a role that combined technical expertise with client relationship management — a combination that suited his capabilities.

His performance justified the appointment. Brad proved skilled at translating complex environmental requirements into language that clients could understand and accept. His enthusiasm for projects was genuine and infectious, helping EcoSolutions win work that larger competitors might otherwise have secured. The variety of consulting — different clients, different sites, different challenges — provided the novelty that sustained his engagement, while the firm's structure ensured that projects continued even when his attention moved elsewhere.

Promotion to Principal Environmental Consultant in 2014 formalised leadership that his performance had already established. Brad now oversaw the firm's major projects, working with government bodies, private developers, and community organisations on initiatives ranging from renewable energy assessments to biodiversity management plans. His networks across Tasmania's environmental sector — built through years of genuine relationship cultivation — made him valuable beyond his technical expertise.

But professional success didn't resolve personal patterns. Brad's romantic relationships followed familiar trajectories: intense beginnings, gradual diminishment of attention, endings that left partners feeling abandoned even when Brad hadn't intended abandonment. He dated regularly throughout his thirties, each relationship promising more than his capacity for sustained intimacy could deliver. The pattern bothered him without quite motivating change, recognition that something was missing coexisting with inability or unwillingness to address it.

By forty, Brad had accepted that marriage and family were unlikely to feature in his life — not from principled choice but from accumulated pattern. Colleagues assumed his single status reflected career dedication; they didn't perceive the complicated mix of restlessness, difficulty with sustained intimacy, and genuine uncertainty about whether he wanted what conventional relationships required. The acceptance brought relief alongside regret, freedom from expectations he hadn't chosen coexisting with awareness that choices had been made, however unconsciously, that foreclosed alternatives.

The Approach and Transformation

The approach came in late 2012, after Brad had established himself as one of Tasmania's most effective environmental consultants. Thaddeus Wainwright appeared at a stakeholder consultation that Brad was facilitating, an elderly Englishman whose questions revealed knowledge that seemed to exceed what any ordinary participant might possess. The questions probed not merely the project under discussion but the frameworks within which environmental protection operated — their assumptions, their limitations, their blind spots.

The subsequent conversations unfolded across several months, Thaddeus revealing truths gradually with the patience of someone who had learned that revelation required preparation. The existence of Clivilius. The Portal Keys that enabled dimensional travel. The Guardians who carried these keys and the responsibilities that accompanied them. Each revelation challenged everything Brad's training had taught him about the boundaries of the natural world — but the evidence Thaddeus provided proved impossible to dismiss.

What distinguished Brad's response from mere acceptance was enthusiasm that Thaddeus hadn't anticipated. Where other potential Guardians approached dimensional knowledge with caution, Brad approached it with the excitement that new challenges always generated. The existence of ecosystems beyond Earth, conservation challenges that extended across dimensional boundaries, opportunities to apply expertise in contexts no consultant had ever imagined — these possibilities ignited the restlessness that had driven Brad throughout his life, channelling it toward purposes that finally seemed adequate to its intensity.

The Portal Key Thaddeus presented in late 2012 represented not merely dimensional access but transformation of purpose. Brad's first journey through the portal — alone, carrying only his Key and the instructions Thaddeus had provided — introduced him to a world that confirmed everything he had been told while exceeding what he had imagined. The ecosystems of Clivilius operated on principles familiar enough to recognise yet different enough to challenge. The conservation needs were genuine and urgent. The opportunity to contribute was real.

He returned to Earth after three days, his understanding of what his expertise might serve permanently expanded. The restlessness that had characterised his entire life had found, finally, scope adequate to its demands.

The Foundation and Project TerraNova

Brad's role in establishing the TerraNova Conservation Foundation reflected capabilities that his consulting career had developed. The Foundation needed someone who could translate Guardian purposes into organisational structures that satisfied regulatory requirements while enabling covert objectives. Brad's experience navigating environmental bureaucracy, his networks across Tasmania's conservation sector, his skills in relationship management and stakeholder communication — all proved essential for establishing an entity that could withstand scrutiny while serving purposes its documentation would never reveal.

His appointment as Secretary of the Foundation's board placed him in the position that controlled documentation and communications — critical functions for an organisation whose success depended on maintaining appearances that differed from realities. He drafted the minutes, managed the correspondence, maintained the records that auditors and regulators might examine. Every document he produced was accurate in letter while incomplete in spirit, describing activities whose true nature only Guardian board members understood.

The appointment as Project Coordinator for Project TerraNova positioned Brad at the operational centre of the Foundation's flagship initiative. He cultivated partnerships with research institutions and conservation organisations, identifying expertise that Clivilius challenges required. He assessed potential contributors, evaluating not merely their capabilities but their psychological suitability for truths that most people couldn't handle. He managed the documentation that introduced selected individuals to possibilities their training had never contemplated, guiding them through phases of revelation that Thaddeus and Michael Tan had designed.

The work suited him perfectly. Project TerraNova offered endless variety — new partners to cultivate, new expertise to evaluate, new challenges requiring creative solutions. The operational responsibility demanded exactly the initiating energy that Brad possessed in abundance, while the Foundation's broader structure ensured that projects continued even when his attention shifted. He was, for the first time in his career, doing work that matched his capabilities rather than requiring constant accommodation of his limitations.

The Bonorong Incident

The events of 29 July 2018 represented Project TerraNova's most significant operational failure. Grant and Sarah Ironbach — wildlife sanctuary professionals whom Brad had spent months cultivating for recruitment — were intercepted by Luke Smith, a Guardian operating outside Foundation knowledge. Sarah mistook Luke for Brad, and within hours the Ironbachs had transited to Clivilius through Luke's portal rather than Brad's, their fate now beyond Foundation monitoring or control.

The incident exposed vulnerabilities in recruitment protocols that Brad had helped design. More personally, it confronted him with consequences he hadn't anticipated — the weight of responsibility for people he had guided toward transformation, now delivered to circumstances he couldn't influence. The Ironbach file remained open, Luke Smith's activities became priority concern, and July 2018 became the month when the Guardian purpose that had finally matched Brad's restlessness revealed costs that enthusiasm alone couldn't address.

The Guardians and Complicated Brotherhood

The Guardians of Ender's Climb became, over years of shared purpose and secret knowledge, something Brad had never quite achieved in ordinary relationships: genuine community sustained by extraordinary circumstance. Michael Tan's steady leadership provided structure that Brad's restlessness appreciated. Laura Chen's intellectual rigour complemented his practical orientation. Derek Simmons's technological creativity offered solutions to challenges that consulting experience alone couldn't address. Abbey Stockton's engineering perspective brought fresh approaches to problems that had seemed intractable.

But the relationships were complicated in ways that surface camaraderie obscured. Brad sometimes chafed against Michael's caution, his energy demanding action that Michael's deliberation delayed. His working relationship with Laura occasionally strained when her methodological rigour conflicted with his preference for practical outcomes over theoretical precision. Derek's technological solutions sometimes seemed to Brad unnecessarily complex when simpler approaches might suffice.

The tensions were manageable — professional disagreements among colleagues who shared fundamental purposes — but they were real. Brad learned to advocate for his perspective while accepting that Guardian decisions required consensus, channelling energy that in earlier life might have produced conflict toward persuasion that respected others' contributions.

Derek's murder in July 2018 — just days before the Bonorong incident — struck Brad with force that surprised him. He and Derek had disagreed frequently, their different approaches to problem-solving creating friction that both had learned to manage. But the disagreements had existed within relationship, the friction evidence of engagement rather than alienation. Derek's death removed not merely capability but someone who had understood dimensions of Brad's life that no one outside the Guardians could share.

The timing compounded the weight. Derek's murder, then the Bonorong failure, then the investigation into Luke Smith's activities — July 2018 became the month when everything Brad had built seemed suddenly fragile, when the Guardian purpose that had finally matched his restlessness revealed costs he hadn't fully anticipated.

Personal Life and Its Complications

Brad's personal life remained sparse in ways that professional success hadn't changed. The West Hobart cottage he purchased in 2011 — just blocks from where he had grown up — housed books, outdoor equipment, and the organised solitude of someone who had learned to appreciate his own company. He maintained relationships with family — regular dinners with David and Margaret, collaboration with Emily on conservation projects where her photography complemented his consulting — but kept the deeper dimensions of his life compartmentalised from even those closest to him.

His romantic relationships continued the patterns established in his thirties. Brief involvements that ended when partners wanted more than Brad could sustain, leaving behind confusion about why someone so apparently committed to his work struggled to commit to people. He recognised the pattern without quite understanding its sources — the restlessness that made sustained attention difficult, the compartmentalisation that kept intimate knowledge separated from even intimate relationships, the possibility that the secrets he now carried made genuine openness impossible.

The Guardian dimension complicated matters further. How could he explain absences that portal travel required? How could he share the most significant aspects of his life with partners who couldn't know what that life actually contained? The secrecy that protected Guardian operations also protected him from intimacy that secrets would have compromised — protection that was also isolation, necessity that was also excuse.

His relationship with his parents evolved as they aged. David's retirement from the Botanical Gardens in 2015 and Margaret's gradual reduction of photography work shifted family dynamics. They remained active, their passion for the natural world undimmed by age, but they increasingly relied on Brad and Emily for practical support that independence no longer permitted. Brad visited weekly, helped with tasks that had become difficult, provided presence that distance would have denied — the steady attention he struggled to sustain in romantic relationships somehow easier when directed toward family obligation.

Character and Contradictions

Those who know Brad Coleman professionally describe someone whose energy and enthusiasm make projects feel possible. His presentations are dynamic, his client relationships strong, his ability to translate complex requirements into achievable plans consistently impressive. Colleagues appreciate his capacity for generating momentum, his talent for relationship cultivation, his genuine passion for conservation outcomes. The professional persona is authentic — Brad cares deeply about environmental protection and brings real capability to its pursuit.

But the professional persona exists alongside complications that professional contexts don't reveal. The restlessness that drives his energy also prevents the sustained attention that some challenges require. The enthusiasm that makes beginnings exciting fades when projects enter phases that demand persistence rather than inspiration. The relationship skills that cultivate clients and partners prove less effective at maintaining the intimate connections that personal life requires.

His self-awareness about these patterns is genuine but doesn't produce change. Brad knows that his attention shifts, that his intensity burns hot then cools, that people who rely on him sometimes find themselves abandoned when his focus moves elsewhere. He regrets the pattern without quite knowing how to alter it, the restlessness so fundamental to his nature that eliminating it might eliminate the energy that makes his contributions valuable.

The Guardian dimension has provided purpose that finally matches his intensity — but it has also created isolation that compounds his difficulty with intimacy. The secrets he carries separate him from everyone outside the Guardian circle, making genuine openness impossible even when he might otherwise achieve it. The compartmentalisation that professional life had already encouraged became, with Guardian knowledge, something closer to necessity.

The Present and Continuing Purpose

By the mid-2020s, Brad had spent over a decade as both consultant and Guardian, navigating demands that would have seemed impossible had anyone described them when he began his career. EcoSolutions Consulting continued growing under his leadership, its reputation established through years of effective work across Tasmania's environmental sector. Project TerraNova continued cultivating expertise for purposes that most contributors would never fully understand. The Foundation maintained its appearances while pursuing objectives that its documentation never revealed.

His parents required increasing attention as age brought limitations. David's mobility had declined, Margaret's energy diminished, their independence no longer adequate for challenges that daily life presented. Brad visited more frequently, helped with practicalities, provided support that physical presence required. The attention felt like practice for care he might eventually need to provide more extensively — rehearsal for responsibilities that time would inevitably expand.