General Carson serving as umpire of a field exercise before the war
Major General Nasrudin Carson was a Light Infantry officer, whose final post was commanding all Federation forces during the invasion of St. Michael's Star.
After several officers above him in the chain of command were killed or separated from their men after the Earth Fleet task force under Vice Admiral Gabriella Munoz was forced to pull out of the system, General Carson reluctantly inherited command of the large force of Tech Infantry and Light Infantry forces stranded on the planet. In a nearly impossible situation, he continued fighting in the face of superior numbers and no immediate hope of resuce or reinforcement. His field headquarters was moved frequently, and attacked several times by Imperial forces looking to kill or capture him in hopes his successor would be more willing to surrender. Security and protection from these attacks was provided by a detachment of Tech Infantry soldiers that includes Soti's Slammers, who normally would have been more likely to be hunting and killing enemy commanders than protecting their own, but they have kept him alive for three weeks after the fleet withdrew.
Literally moments before the Fleet returned, however, General Carson finally gave up hope as his headquarters was about to be overrun, and attempted to surrender his forces to the Empire. He was prevented in this by Argus McCall, and then killed by Bernard Dent, so that orders could instead be sent out ordering a fighting withdrawal rather than a surrender.
Behind the Scenes[]
His first name is in homage to Mullah Nasrudin, a Sufi holy man and satirical philosopher-poet in traditional Turko-Persian literature. His last name was chosen more or less at random, but with an eye to a concept Marcus introduced in Season 4.3 of having Black Muslims in positions of power, to symbolize how different ethno-religious groups wax and wane in socio-economic status over the centuries. Abdul Johnson and Rashid King are the most famous examples of this concept in action. His Actor Avatar is Dennis Haysbert.