Calhoun is born M'k'n'zy of Calhoun on the planet Xenex, in the city of Calhoun. He grows up under the brutal rule of the Danteri, who occupied his world. As a child, M'k'n'zy witnesses the public execution of his father in a town square by Falkar of Danter, which spurs him to grow into a rebel warlord. He kills his first person at age 14, and is given command of a strike vessel that marked the beginning of the Xenexian rebellion. By the time M'k'n'zy is 20, he liberates Xenex. Shortly after doing so, he fathers a son, Xyon, with Catrine, a woman from the Calhoun clan whose husband had died, as she requests as part of Xenexian culture.