Alistair is a scion of both the Cadwalader and Martindrake families, some of the founders of what later became the states of Connecticut and New York. They originally made their fortunes in the shipping trade (smuggling during the Revolution), but also made heavy (and wise) investments in the building of canals, railways, steamships, steel, oil, and armaments. They were often the silent partners to many of the innovations that built America. Alistair was sent to Yale being expected to study either business, engineering, or one of the emerging fields of science so that he could join the family business and see it successfully through the 20th century. Alistair dutifully began his academic career at Yale studying Mechanical Engineering, Geology, and Metallurgy, with the intent of eventually joining his father’s segment of the family business, which was heavily involved in the maintenance of the Suez Canal. At Yale, Alistair participated in Fencing (being good enough to make the 1924 US Olympic Team), and was also inducted into the Skull and Bones Society.

While visiting his father in Egypt during the summer between his freshmen and sophomore years, Alistair had a complete and inexplicable change of heart regarding his field of study, and upon returning to Yale changed his major to Archeology, as well as informal study of various “pseudo-sciences”. When his father discovered this midway through Alistair’s senior year, he was livid, and immediately set out from Cairo to return to the US and set his son straight. However, his father’s ship was lost at sea during a storm en route to New York while passing the Straights of Gibraltar.

Alistair completed his studies at Yale, but then went into self-imposed exile from his family, travelling widely in the Mediterranean, Near East, and various isles of the Atlantic. His family presumed he was searching for signs of his father’s shipwreck, but what Alistair was actually up to, he has never revealed.