Jeff "Joker" Moreau

### Early Life

Jeff Moreau was born in 2155 with a moderate to severe case of Vrolik syndrome (colloquially "Brittle Bone Disease"), with a number of his bones breaking before he was even born. He spent much of his early life on Arcurus Station due to his mother's civilian contractor job there, and from an early age he was enamored by the ships he was surrounded by. Unfortunately, while modern medicine allowed him to survive he found it difficult to walk without crutches or his leg braces. Nevertheless, he dreamed of flying and enlisted in the Alliance Navy when he was old enough.

Jeff worked extremely hard in flight school- to the point of one of his instructors giving him the nickname "Joker" due to him rarely smiling. Before his schooling was complete however, he had surpassed not only his classmates but also all his teachers. He later remarked, "They all got their asses kicked by the sickly kid with the creaky little legs. One guess who was smiling at graduation."

## Mass Effect

### Pre-Mass Effect

When the *SSV Normandy* SR-1 came up for it's first test flight, Joker applied to be her pilot. Unfortunately, he was turned down due to his medical issues. His pride picked by the denial, along with a turian general twisting the knife that "they would never allow a cripple to control such a sophisticated starship as the *Normandy*", Joker resolved to steal the ship and show them their mistake.

Though a patrol tried to disable the *Normandy*, Joker handily evaded their fire and landed the ship without a scratch. While Captain Anderson told him that he would have to be punished for the stunt, he agreed that Joker was the most qualified pilot and both Anderson and the turian general Invectus insisted that Joker be installed as her pilot.

### Mass Effect

In 2183, *The Normandy* began her shake-down cruise with David Anderson as her captain and Commander Shepard as XO. They had one other guest of note on board- Nihlus Kryik, a turian Council Spectre. Joker, along with much of the rest of the Normandy's highly qualified crew, picked up that they were out under false pretenses though Joker was more vocal about it than most. As they reached their destination of Eden Prime, Joker passed along a disturbing video of their colony world being attacked by an unknown entity.

After the disaster, Joker was ordered to take the *Normandy* to the Citadel to report what had happened. The eventual aftermath of this saw Shepard being granted the rank and privileges of a Council Spectre, and being given command of the *Normandy* instead of Anderson. Shepard's and the Normandy's new mission was to track down and apprehend Saren Arterius- a fellow Spectre gone rouge, and stop him from reaching the Conduit- whatever that was.

When she inquired after him while checking in on her crew, Joker mistakenly thought that she was questioning his skill due to his disability only to learn to his chagrin that she had no idea he had a medical issue. Joker assured the Commander that he could make the Normandy "dance"- just to not ask him to *personally* dance. Joker and Shepard quickly built a close camaraderie, under Joker's somewhat acidic sense of humor he had complete faith in Shepard's leadership.

After Ambassador Udina grounded the *Normandy*, Joker was in lock step with the rest of the crew in stealing the ship back to complete their mission.

After dropping off the Commander and her ground team on Ilos, Joker took the Normandy to the Andura Sector and rallied the Fifth Fleet along with Admiral Hackett to defend the Citadel against Sovereign and the geth's attack.

Joker's skill at flying the Normandy was critical at several points, notably his extraction of the ground team on the planet of Therum in the midst of volcanic activity, his dodging of heavy fire during the mission on Virmire, his drop of the Mako in an incredibly tight landing zone on Ilos, and flying in the Battle of the Citadel against the Reaper Sovereign.

### Mass Effect 2

On September 12th, 2183 the *Normandy* was dispatched to an area that had seen an uptick in disappearing ships. *Normandy* was blindsided by a Collector ship attack, and while it is likely Joker's evasive maneuvers kept casualties to a minimum the ship was mortally wounded within seconds- forcing an evacuation of all living crew. Joker had to be persuaded by Shepard to leave the cockpit and abandon the SR-1. While Shepard was able to help Joker to a close escape pod, she was unable to escape herself.

Jeff Moreau found himself trying to cope with an intense self-loathing afterward- blaming himself for Shepard's death, and coping with the bitter knowledge that the Reapers were coming. Shortly after the *Normandy* went down, the Alliance grounded Joker and tried to bury everything the crew had found.

As a result, Joker was receptive to Cerberus' overtures to join their Lazarus Cell where he would pilot a reborn *Normandy:* her newer sister, the SR-2. Joker received some medical upgrades from Cerberus to assist his movements, though he was still very slow and had an awkward gate when he walked. While Joker had retained his trademark humor it was slightly sharper and more sarcastic, and he was less shy (if he ever had been) about sharing his opinion with Shepard- when Garrus joined the crew, Joker exclaimed "Hey, Commander, we got Garrus back! That's great, because he was totally my favorite. With that pole up his ass." While Cerberus took great care to upgrade much of the Normandy's design (Joker was particularly enamored of the leather in his new pilots' chair), there was one upgrade Joker took great umbrage to.

#### EDI

The **E**nhanced **D**efense **I**ntelligence (EDI for short) was a full-fat (but shackled) Artificial Intelligence Cerberus installed to assist a newly ressurected Commander Shepard and her crew to investigate the Collector's wholesale abduction of human colonies- and Joker deeply resented its presence. Joker smeared grease on the cameras and made biting commentary. EDI, in turn, began to do things such as spin Joker's chair out from his control- when questioned EDI claimed that she has noticed that he works better when pushed. Eventually the two came to a mutual understanding.

#### Crew Abduction

After acquiring the Reaper Identify Friend Foe module, Shepard ended up taking the squad away on a short mission while the final tests were run on the device. While she was gone, the Collectors attacked the *Normandy*. While EDI fought with the hidden virus within the IFF, she told Joker the only way to save the *Normandy* was to give her full control of the ship and unshackle her. Joker was no fan of the idea, but realized there were no other options. After linking EDI to their core control systems, Joker manually restarted the power core. EDI then jumped the Normandy away from the danger, spacing all remaining Collectors on board. Unfortunately the crew were already taken from the ship.

After this incident EDI and Joker established a much more friendly relationship with Joker referring to EDI with feminine pronouns rather than "it".

#### Beyond the Omega-4

Shepard ordered an immediate assault on the Collector Base to get their people back. Joker was instrumental in making it past the initial gauntlet of broken, derelict ships and dealing with the Collector Ship. After Shepard set the base to explode, Joker managed their narrow escape from the blast radius.

After the destruction of the Alpha Relay, Joker was among the crew who surrendered to Alliance custody. Before he was arrested, Joker and EDI devised a plan to disguise EDI as a mere Virtual Intelligence keyed only to Joker.

### Mass Effect 3

The Alliance wasn't going to destroy the SR-2 just because Cerberus built her, and Anderson was well aware of the impending Reaper invasion. As such, he planned to use the Normandy as his command ship after abdicating his position of humanity's representative to the Citadel. This desire allowed EDI and Joker's plan to work well- despite his arrest he was never charged with a crime and was often brought aboard the Normandy under guard.

On June 19th, 2186 the Reapers began their invasion of Earth, annihilating Arcturus Station as well as the Alliance Second Fleet on their way in. In a fortunate turn of events, Joker happened to be on the *Normandy*. EDI took control of the ship and Joker's guards allowed him to extract Shepard from Vancouver before leaving Earth. Shepard, having been reinstated as a Commander of the Alliance, in turn reinstated Joker as a Flight Lieutenant. Joker's guards would later turn their talents to their talents elsewhere on the *Normandy*.

When EDI elected to take control of the mobile platform captured by Shepard after confronting Cerberus and the Illusive Man at the Mars Archives, Joker denied any knowledge of EDI's plans. When Shepard pressed him, Joker replied honestly that he wouldn't have been able to keep it a secret telling her, "I would have baked a cake!".

Anderson kept in regular contact with Joker from Earth, entrusting the pilot to look after Shepard.

Joker found the Citadel's citizens' indifference to the Reaper War ignorant and distasteful, though this blindness has had it's own benefits; due to his disability he is legally entitled to a "mobility assistance mech", and no one is willing to look too closely at EDI performing in this role. Joker feels like his medical issues are useful for once by allowing EDI to see the Citadel without fear as a kind of "shore leave".

In October, the tiny human colony of Tiptree was attacked by Reapers. While Joker held out ever slimmer hope that his sister might have survived, he knew his dad likely had not. Later Liara used her network to find there was a small shuttle of children who had escaped from Tiptree, Joker comforted himself by says that his sister was 15, so she'd still be a kid. Liara agreed with him, telling him it was important to hold on to hope.

On November 8th of that year, after Cerberus assaulted the Citadel, Joker went down to the bar Purgatory and found himself deeply thinking about his changing relationship with and feelings for EDI. Shepard spotted him, brought him his customary water over to his table and told him to stop worrying if he was being stupid, telling him in fact, "You deserve to be stupid". Afterwards, Joker gathered his courage and joined EDI on the dance floor and started their romantic relationship.

The *Normandy* flew in the Battle of London, Joker at the helm. As Shepard's team made for the beacon, Garrus got taken out by a concussive round and Shepard called for an evac for her battered squad. Late in the battle, Shepard sent orders for the Normandy to get past the Charon relay via her omni-tool. Joker tried to locate the signal but could not get a lock on it. However, the orders were triple-encoded and the identity codes showed them as coming from the Commander, so Joker followed them.

## Every One That Asketh

### Act I

When the Crucible went off, the resulting wave struck the *Normandy*, shorting EDI out in-mid sentience, and taking many critical systems off line. Joker was forced to steer the ship as best he could while Tali'Zorah tried return manual control of the systems to Joker. He managed to crash-land the *Normandy* without doing too much extra damage.