Morgan Zhao

**Morgan Zhao** is a biotic soldier and member of the Council Recovery Corps.

## Biography

Born September 24th, 2162, in the city of Chicago, Illinois, on Earth, to a pair of young entrepreneurs.  Due to Element Zero exposure while in her mother’s womb, Morgan would develop biotic abilities later in her life. This occurred during a starship accident in 2162, during which the freighter ‘Sunrider’ had dispersed Element Zero over a wide populated area. Morgan was born intersex, due to genetic defects from element zero exposure while her mother was still pregnant with her. Morgan would suffer debilitating insomnia early on, though her parents would attribute it to eezo exposure, but they could do little about it, often resulting in long nights for the new parents.

Morgan grew up with all the advantages of being born into a wealthy family, and was educated by the finest instructors from a young age. Her father wanted her to have an edge on the developing world, and put in every effort to make it happen. Due to this, Morgan would develop a fascination with learning from a young age.

Morgan would truly start to blossom when she was enrolled in a private school at age eight, when she’d be exposed to social interaction with more than her usual variety of playdates and tutors. Morgan’s biological sex would end up separating her from her peers when one of the kids discovered that she had an extra ‘organ’. The teasing would be relentless, and would drive Morgan into the depths of shame.

While at the private school, the child would use learning as a means of escape the sheltered nature of her home life, and use it to learn about the world around her as a whole. Due in part to her education before coming to the school, she scored high on her tests, and was close to being a model student, though this would give her a reputation as a ‘know-it-all’, and would separate her further from her peers. This would make her father incredibly proud of her, and even win compliments from her mother, back at home, but at school, teasing would turn into bullying, and Morgan would suffer from it.

While at first, she was desperate to make friends, it never panned out, often leaving her humiliated, more often than not. Eventually, Morgan’s will to make friends would shrink, and she’d shrivel socially, developing a shy, quiet exterior, as she built up an emotional wall to protect herself from social harrassment.

As time passed, and Morgan grew older, she would grow taller than the other girls, making her stand out, when before, she’d held a somewhat neutral appearance that really didn’t stand out that much. Her own height made her uncomfortable, now, as she stood taller than most girls her age, in her class. Morgan first noticed it when she walked with the other girls to class. She knew she’d grown a bit lately, but she hadn’t really realized how *much* she’d grown in height. Hearing Alice giggle, and hushedly comment on how *tall* and *lanky* she was made her feel awful about herself - worse than ever before. She stood still, in shock, as she realized that she was starting to stand out in a way that made her feel uncomfortable.

Socially, Morgan would suffer, with her classmates often making fun of her appearance in passing. Most of it came from her looking different, but a good portion of it came from her not ‘fitting in’ with either the boys or the girls, due to her biological sex.

Morgan would persevere through the hardship, though things would only end up getting worse as time passed; it was only a matter of time until things got physical. Morgan often left bloody from these fights, but she also came out on top, more often than not, leaving the other kid with bruises. This quickly gave her a reputation as being violent, and to some degree, it was true. She’d been mistreated and bullied for so long, that it felt good to lash out and hurt her classmates when they crossed her. To some degree, it felt justified, and the obvious logical outcome. If it made them leave her alone, then she was fine with being violent, and hurting other people.

This would be quickly picked up upon by the school staff, who would often give Morgan detention, or other forms of punishment. It was only a matter of time before things reached their ultimate boiling point, with Morgan being expelled in 2175, at age thirteen.

Her parents were furious for a time, not only with the school board, but also with Morgan herself. Morgan didn’t quite understand it, and at the time, she didn’t particularly care. All that mattered to her, at the time, was that she wasn’t going back, and that she wouldn’t have to deal with bullies anymore.

Morgan received surgery to control her biotics with, after Morgan’s biotic aptitude was discovered. During this, her father’s attitude completely changed, becoming distant and cold, treating her more like she was dangerous, than as his child.   During the surgery, she would receive an L-3 Implant.  While the surgery was successful, Morgan’s nutritional requirements would skyrocket.

Her parents viewed their daughter as a living weapon. With rumors of how dangerous biotics were, and actual evidence to prove it, they knew that they couldn’t send her to a normal school; despite how unfavorable it was, they had to keep their daughter safe, and keep other people safe. The only solution was to keep Morgan locked in her room, like a prisoner. They couldn’t trust her to act on her own without hurting people - either accidentally, or on purpose, and she did have a history of past violence in school, so it seemed like a logical decision at the time. Her mother *loathed* the idea of keeping their child as a prisoner, but her husband would have none of it, saying that it was ‘for her own good’.

Morgan often woke up to the muffled sounds of her parents screaming at eachother. While she tried to drown it out the best she could, sometimes it got unbearable. Sometimes, she’d wonder why they were fighting, and what went wrong. She realized, slowly, that they were fighting because of her, and *that it was her fault.* Whether it was true or not, she couldn’t actually ask them. Her mother visited her sparingly, and whenever she did, she looked incredibly guilty, and she hadn’t seen her father in what felt like months.

Morgan was enrolled into an ‘online’ school, that she’d have to attend through her desktop computer in her room, for eight hours a day, seven days a week. At first, it was tough getting used to the new routine of attending video conference calls, since she wasn’t very experienced with video calls in general. While she was awkward at first, she quickly warmed up to the teachers and her classmates, who encouraged her to speak up in class, and seemed genuinely interested in her wellbeing. She’d make friends with a few of her classmates, but she wouldn’t really make enemies with any of them, resulting in the first time that she had a positive, non-toxic learning environment. The time she spent in class lessened the hurt of being alone, and made it seem not quite as bad as it really was.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and after the end of the school year, Morgan was told that she’d be attending public school, at the newly established Jon Grissom Academy, far from her home, orbiting the planet of Elysium. She’d ask her school-mates for their contact information, and managed to keep in contact with a few of them, but over time, they drifted apart.

In August of 2176, Morgan arrived at Grissom Academy by personal shuttle. Morgan stepped off the shuttle, and looked about, uneasily. She hadn’t really been given any information on the school, or even a pamphlet. She’d been told that it was a school for ‘people like her’, but that wasn’t really saying much. Within the first few minutes, she wished she could just go back home, back to her room, and back to her online classes; being outside of her room, and being in public felt extremely uncomfortable. Having spent the better part of a year in one room had psychologically impacted her, and while she’d spoken to her classmates and instructors during her online classes, they were a select group that she was used to - and people that she didn’t actually have to speak to, face to face, in person.

As she walked with the other students, things started to feel slightly more normal - right until she was pulled aside by a security guard, who recognized her as one of the new Biotic students, who had been entered into the Ascension program by their parents. The man’s face hardened, before he ushered her to a set of double-doors, into an auditorium filled with a short number of students that were roughly her age.

As a person approached the podium, Morgan felt something drop into a pit in her chest. It had dawned upon her; the guards, the dull colored hallways - this was just a prison. She’d been sent from one prison to another. “The Guards are equipped with stun guns, just in case any of you decide to get...ornery with your powers.” That was all it took to solidify her suspicions.

Settling in would prove to be easier than Morgan expected; sure, it still wasn’t *great* being here, but it wasn’t half as bad as she had thought it would be. If she kept her head down, and stuck to the routine that had been laid out for all of them, and performed as expected, life was simple, and structured. Physical training was rough on her for a while, but as time went on, she built up stamina, which helped her build muscular strength. Morgan didn’t quite as much shine in physical endeavors, but she really did put her all into biotics training, partly due to her fascination with it, and out of wanting to improve and become more powerful.

Morgan would finish her education at the Academy in 2180, upon which, Morgan was  enlisted into the Systems Alliance Marine Corps. She despised the fact that it didn’t seem like she had any choice in her future. The pre-destined nature of her future brought Morgan no shortage of discomfort, despite the sense of familiar routine and structure that it provided.

Morgan entered into bootcamp along with a dozen other ‘recruits’, ready for the proverbial meat grinder. Initially, Morgan was full of dread, but she would quickly fall into routine, since it wasn’t all that much different from her daily routine in the Academy; it was more or less, the same, and that routine gave her some strange sense of comfort.

She’d find herself engrossed with the classes and courses that the military provided, and went on to receive medical training, along with various other skill-based courses that came in handy during her military career.

Morgan served in the Alliance Navy well into 2186, when she would be assigned to the SVG Greenway to serve as a guard on a Prothean Dig. and they would go on their way to Feros, in the Theseus System.

Unbeknownst to the group, a group of slavers had decided to sweep the area for worthwhile candidates to sell on the market, resulting in disaster, just three days into the dig. They came like locusts, descending upon the weak and prepared alike, leaving the corpses of those who had the guts to oppose them in their wake. Morgan had seen cruelty before, she’d seen bloodshed, and committed it, but never like this. When her crew-mates fell, lifeless, she joined them, using their bodies as camouflage, so that she would be passed over. Nearby colonists would find the carnage after the Batarians had left, finding Morgan as one of the few survivors of the event, due to her hiding among the corpses.

Morgan would be transported to the Citadel with the rest of the members of the ill-fated expedition. While aboard, Morgan would spend her time in the Chora’s den while she waited for a response from the Alliance. One day, while drinking the day away, she would see an advertisement for the Council Recovery Corps. Mulling it over with a few drinks, Morgan finally came to the decision to join the ranks of the CRC, after remembering the talks of the ‘legendary’ GUARDIAN organization, and their heroism. Having heard that the CRC was something like GUARDIAN, she made the decision for herself that she wanted to be a part of it. She wasn’t sure that the Alliance would allow it, but she had nothing to lose by asking. Morgan got in contact with Alliance High Command a few days later, and requested permission for a transfer to the C.R.C.

## Personality

Having been treated as a weapon since her teenage years, when she first got her L-3 Implant, Morgan is somewhat wary of others, and holds a deep resentment for people who treat her as a dangerous being who needs to be ‘controlled’. Morgan has trust issues stemming from perceived abandonment, and from being continually painted as an outcast for the majority of her youth, either from her biological sex, or from her biotics. She’s slow to warm up to others, and views most strangers with distrust and suspicion. Morgan is a pessimist, from having experienced continuous negative events while growing up. Generally, she’s learned that it’s better not to even try to hold onto hope, since things will always go to hell anyways.

Morgan believes in treating people fairly whenever possible, but can be noticeably impatient and quick tempered when it comes down to it. Despite whatever emotions she feels, she often displays professionalism whenever possible, rarely letting emotion dictate her course of action, instead relying on logical reasoning to decide her way forward. Morgan has long decided that being too emotional is a weakness that inhibits people from doing what is best. Once she has decided for herself on what is ‘best’, she rarely deviates from it, giving her the appearance of being ‘nice, but a bit of a hardass’.

Morgan’s social awareness isn’t exactly the best. This isn’t to say that she’s inherently inept at socializing, but her social skills have been stunted. Generally, if you speak to her, Morgan will attempt to be friendly, or at the very least, polite, but she doesn’t hold herself back in casual conversation. She’s extremely blunt to a flaw, and can often be rude without realizing it as a result.

Having grown up with the best  education that her family had to offer, Morgan has received at least part of her overall education from a respected learning institution. She always had a fascination with machinery, and how things work. Over the years, in her spare time, she’s fostered this interest with extranet videos on various topics. Morgan has a tendency to tinker and fiddle with her equipment, including her omnitool. It’s a good stand-in for a hobby, since she doesn’t have a permanent home to foster a hobby like model building. Morgan enjoys taking photographs of landscapes, whether they be alien or otherwise. She has a fair amount of experience taking photographs with her omnitool, and often thinks of visiting a printing company to get paper printouts of her shots, after retiring from active duty service.

### Exceptional Skills

* **Trigger Discipline** - Life on the battlefield has taught Morgan to conserve her ammunition and to reload her thermal clips often - it’s also resulted in her firing more carefully, and placing her shots more accurately.
* **If it can go wrong, it will go wrong** - Morgan’s upbringing, and negative experiences during her childhood have taught Morgan that it is better to be pessimistic, and be surprised when something good happens, than to be optimistic, and be crushed, when reality decides to say ‘no’. Morgan tends to have a negative impact on the morale of those around her, due to her expecting the worst out of most situations.

* **Tinkerer** - Morgan, having received education from respected institutions from an early age, has always possessed a scientific mind - and she often puts that to work by tinkering with her omni-tool, or with her weapons and gear. She often disassembles her equipment, just to put it back together later, and often-times modifies her omnitool as a ‘hobby’. If she’s taken it apart, she can put it back together, usually. This makes modifying weapons and armor much easier for her.  Lately, she’s been looking into microrobotics and micro-machinery.

## Physical Description

Morgan is physically quite tall for a woman, and has an athletic frame. Most of it comes from lifting in her off-time, or running to clear her mind. Morgan’s legs are toned, likely from her constant bouncing of her knees when she’s sitting down. Morgan was born with two sets of functional sexual organs, due to genetic defects from being exposed to Element Zero while in the womb, making her a hermaphrodite, or ‘intersex’.

Morgan’s skin is pale. Morgan has an oblong face, and two brown colored eyes with dark areas under them, hinting at a long history of insomnia, and nights spent awake. Her features are very clearly Chinese in ancestry. Morgan has medium length, black hair that’s been tied back into a neat, clean bun. Her hair is kept out of her face in a meticulous fashion, since Morgan can’t stand the sensation of having hair in her face.

Morgan wears a heavier duty version of the standard issue armor assigned to Alliance Marines, complete with a “Death Mask” helmet. All in all, it’s basically the same armor, just with a bit more damage absorption. It’s no N-7 Armor, not by a long shot, but it’ll hold up in most fire-fights.

### Armament

* M-6 Carnifex
* M-23 Katana “Aqua” (Smart Choke with high caliber barrel)
* M-96 Mattock (AR Barrel, AR scope)

### Abilities

* Throw
* Pull
* Slam
* Lance