Nathan Bates owns Science Frontiers, the company that was contracted to discover the secrets of the L.A. Mothership after the First Invasion.  Nathan's chief scientific researcher is Juliet Parrish, for whom Nathan holds an undisguised attraction.   Prior to Diana's trial, Nathan contacts Ham Tyler (who runs his own security firm) and hires Tyler to fake Diana's death and bring her to him.  When Diana escapes, Tyler quits working for Bates and rejoins the Resistance.  Nathan barters with Diana -- he tells her that he has a secret store of red-dust toxin that he will release into the atmosphere if he is harmed.  Diana is forced to deal with him, and Los Angeles is set up as an Open City, where humans and Visitors can both walk unarmed.  Though Nathan's idea may have been sound at first -- he tells Juliet Parrish that he is merely buying time until another toxin can be discovered -- in the end Nathan's thirst for power gets the better of him.  In his bid he rid the city of the Resistance he has his own son, Resistance member Kyle Bates, beaten by right-hand man Mr. Chiang, and attempts to destroy Resistance Headquarters at Club Creole.  When he agrees to participate in the murder of Mike Donovan, by agreeing to be mediator in a hostage exchange that Charles has set up,  he sets the stage for his own demise.  Elizabeth Maxwell senses the brainwashing that Ham Tyler has received, and manages to divert the bullet Tyler is aiming for Donovan.  Nathan jumps in front of the bullet to save the life of his son.  The two are reconciled, but before Kyle can rescue Nathan from Science Frontiers, Nathan is shot to death by Mr. Chiang.
 
 

In college he was a Business Administration major.  He had a subscription to Forbes and studied the Fortune 500.

Then he had an epiphany - the future belonged to those who had the insight to capture it.  Manipulating stocks and capital gains were as nothing compared to being at the revenue producing source.  He could see the strides to come in computers with the development of the microchip and switched his major to biology.

With the same single-minded purpose he had tackled business, he plunged into the sciences, absorbing the most meticulous points and reading dozens of books on the field.

It turned out that he had a natural affinity for the biological sciences.  He continued his studies until he achieved a master degree.

By that time, he had already established a small company called Science Frontiers.  With two patents on computer components, he was able to expand the business.

During college, Nathan had met and married one Marjorie Holcom, a fellow science student.  She admired his drive and ambition and shared his goals.  It was shortly after Nathan founded the company that their son, Kyle, was born.

As the corporation prospered, Marjorie devoted herself to their son.  One day, when Kyle was five, he and his mother were at their Malibu beach house sunning themselves on their private beach.  While Kyle built sand castles and kicked them down again, Marjorie instructed their housekeeper to keep an eye on the boy while she went for a swim.  She was attacked by a shark and mortally wounded.

Little Kyle didn't understand everything that was going on.  All he knew was this his mommy had gone for a swim and not come back.

Nathan was devastated.  While he may have been cold and calculating in his business affairs, he loved his family and looked upon his success as a springboard to the personal happiness of his wife and child.  He and Marjorie had even been discussing having another baby.  But now all of that was shattered.  Nathan buried himself in his work and unconsciously began avoiding his son, Kyle, because of how much the boy reminded him of Marjorie.

Years passed.  Science Frontiers prospered and became recognized as a leader in the industry.

And then the Visitors arrived.

From the start, Nathan Bates was entranced with the mile-wide spacecraft and the vast secrets they contained.  He attempted behind-the-scenes contacts with the Visitors, and while they seemed receptive to his overtures, they always managed to put him off in a good-natured way.  Nathan knew when he was getting the run-around.  His resentment towards the seemingly benevolent aliens grew, but when the scientist's conspiracy scandal hit, Bates was forced to flee and go into hiding.  He knew the conspiracy was a put-on because if anyone had every organized such a conspiracy it would have been him.

When the attrition between human and alien became more overt, he offered his services in the war against the Visitors, using secret supply houses he owned to operate a massive lab complex.  It was in this lab that the Red Dust was discovered.  Actually a biologically active compound, it attacked the lizards' nervous systems as a biochemical warfare agent.  When the dust was scattered across the face of the planet, it infested Earth to such a degree that any contact with it by the aliens was fatal.  The Visitors withdrew, but not before Diana was captured.

One year after Victory-over-the-Visitors Day, Diana was to go on trial.  But during that year, Nathan Bates and his team had attempted to pierce the secrets of the captured enemy Mothership without success.  Bates knew that he needed Diana.  Arranging her kidnapping with the well-paid help of Ham Tyler, Bates offered to protect Diana and eventually free her if she showed him the secrets of the Mothership's technology.  With such information and the patents it would lead to, Science Frontiers would become the most powerful corporation in the world.  Diana refused, but Bates was sure she would come around eventually.  She had no other choice.

When Diana escaped, Bates was furious.  Tyler was also furious, and accused Bates of using him.  He promised to kill Bates if they ever met again.

Kyle Bates had grown to adulthood by this time and, feeling alienated from his father, eventually fell in with the Underground.

Nathan Bates quickly took advantage of a bad situation by negotiating with Diana and the other aliens to keep Los Angeles a demilitarized zone, which he would govern.  In theory, the idea was sound; in practice, it was honoured more in the breach.

Bates felt that the Underground was interfering with what could still be lucrative negotiations with Diana and when the Mothership was stolen and destroyed, he vowed to crush Mike Donovan and his cohorts at all costs.

He had Ham Tyler kidnapped and brainwashed to kill Donovan at the sound of an innocent phrase.  But the plan backfired and Bates himself was gunned down instead.  He wasn't killed, although he was in a coma for some days.

When he came to, he found that his henchman, Chiang, had been running things in his stead with the help of Diana and her gang.  But Bates was starting to feel differently about things.  He had been shot protecting Kyle from a machine-gun burst, and now he and Kyle had reconciled their long-standing differences.

Kyle realized that his father was being held prisoner in his own company because Chiang had made his own deal with Diana.  When Kyle attempted to rescue Nathan, Chiang caught them and Nathan sacrificed himself so that his unarmed son could escape.  Hours later, Kyle returned, caught Chiang alone and assassinated him.