Francis Gaylord Proffington was a man born into a rich family, but then his family lost everything. Feeling the need to raise money and help his relatives, Proffington—using the alias "Franco DeSalvo"—spent the years of the Unification War gambling on card games on the Rim, circumventing the laws of either side of the conflict. After the war, while he was on the planet Persephone, DeSalvo came aboard CanTankerous, a modified Alliance Landing Ship for Tanks captained by Ming-Mei Kowalski, after the ship's crew ran into a local Tong and some extra firepower was required. The only person aboard CanTankerous who was aware of DeSalvo's real name was the ship's pilot, Colin Fulton, but he kept that information secret from everyone else.