Irina Morozova

> If you were stabbed in the back, Comrade Babanin, would you hand the dagger back to your assailant?
> I did not think so.
>
> Irina Morozova, in Season 4, Episode 4, "House Divided"

**Irina Vasilievna Morozova** is a former KGB handler and the director of Roscosmos succeeding Lenara Catiche following Fyodor Korzhenko's coup of the Soviet Union.

## History

#### Background

Irina served as the handler for Sergei Nikulov, sending him to the United States to work with Margo Madison.

#### Season 4

In March 2003, after Margo Madison visited the Roscosmos headquarter to try to talk with director Catiche, Irina approached her in a park in Moscow, talking about the birds she was feeding, and told Margo that she must be patient. She left a card with a phone number on her bench when she left.

Following Fyodor Korzhenko's succesful coup, she was named the new head of Roscosmos and recruited Margo to work under her.

Following the Vasily Galkin incident, Irina stood firm that Svetlana Zakharova should be returned to the Soviet Union to stand trial, removing Lev Babanin, the only (albeit mildly) dissenting voice at Roscosmos against Zakharova's arrest. When Eli Hobson tried to appeal, Irina reminded him it would be a violation of the Mars-7 Alliance charter if they refused. Later, during a Roscosmos board meeting, she insisted that the asteroid program would remain halted until they discovered what went wrong, before having their incident report distributed.

Later Margo shared with Irina that there was a conversion error with the anchor bolts, which lead to the Kronos tragedy. She summoned Kirill Semenov and questioned him about it. After some questioning, Semenov ultimately confessed that he was responsible for the error and cover up. Irina then escorted Semenov away, before giving Margo a picture of Sergei Nikulov from 1969 as a thank you. He is later removed from Roscosmos by the KGB on Irina's orders, in front of his asteroid capture team.

Irina is informed of 2003LC, an asteroid from a Jovian trojan which potentially has more Iridium that had been mined on Earth. She later negotiated with Eli Hobson after Al Gore took sole credit for discovery of the asteroid on a new agreement, insisting a summit to be hosted in the Soviet Union. After some hesitation, Eli agreed.

While she is a shrewd negotiator, she is also shown to be lacking knowledge on space, relying on Margo to pass her information in order to appear more knowledgable than she really is. This comes to a head during the summit, when after Irina mispronounces key terms and breaks off a meeting with Hobson and Helios engineer Aleida Rosales. Margo Madison is revealed to the world as alive, so that Margo and Aleida can communicate openly to solve a problem with the capture of Goldilocks.

This lack of knowledge again rears it's head during the Helios workers strike, when she proposes for the M-7 engineers at Happy Valley restart the generators necessary for fuel refining for Ranger. This culminates in an explosion due to the lack of experience of the engineers, an issue that Hobson had pointed out during discussions.

It is revealed that the lack of knowledge is due to her history, while she has worked at Star City since at least the first moon landing in 1969, she did not have an engineering or scientific background, instead working as a KGB asset, as the handler for Sergei Nikulov and controlling Margo Madison.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 *For All Mankind* TV Series - Season 4, Episode 8: "Legacy"
2. ↑ *For All Mankind* TV Series - Season 4, Episode 1: "Glasnost"
3. ↑ *For All Mankind* TV Series - Season 4, Episode 3: "The Bear Hug"
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 *For All Mankind* TV Series - Season 4, Episode 4: "House Divided"
5. ↑ *For All Mankind* TV Series - Season 4, Episode 5: "Goldilocks"
6. ↑ *For All Mankind* TV Series - Season 4, Episode 5: "Goldilocks"
7. ↑ *For All Mankind* TV Series - Season 4, Episode 6: "Leningrad"
8. ↑ *For All Mankind* TV Series - Season 4, Episode 7: "Crossing The Line"