Benjamin Giraud

Benjamin Giraud
Biographical information
Homeworld:	Earth
Personal details
Species:	Human
Gender:	Male
Hair color:	Blue (Formerly) Black
Political and military information
Affiliation:	Office of Naval Intelligence (civilian contractor)

"For the first time in my career I can honestly say I don't know the shape of where this is going. And in fact, the possibilities have me lying awake at night. But I believe we all deserve to know the real story. We need to know where this leads. I know I do."

— Benjamin Giraud

Benjamin "Ben" Giraud is a journalist and a war photographer who for a time worked as a civilian contractor for the Office of Naval Intelligence's Section Two. During the Battle of Mombasa in October 2552, he witnessed Spartan John-117 "saving humanity". This led Giraud to undertake a series of biographical interviews about the Master Chief in 2558. During his investigation he found several inconsistencies between the people he found on his own and the ones given to him by ONI. He soon discovered that ONI's sources were fakes to hide the fact that they kidnapped children to become supersoldiers. Giraud decided to go against ONI and give the public the true story of the Master Chief. In his final try to reveal ONI's tyranny, Ben tried to reveal the organizations secrets on ECB News but soon realized that ONI was in control of the interview and made him seem like an insane conspiracy theorist. He was taken by ONI and is being held hostage in Midnight Facility. Giraud's friend Petra Janecek continued his audio log series until she was later captured.

Biography

"I was little proud and maybe a little guilty too. Because I knew the truth about the Covenant. But why should I feel bad about helping to deceive people on Earth? The war was hundreds of light years away… And besides, they were paying me very good money."

— Benjamin Giraud reflecting on his job.

For years Benjamin Giraud covered human-interest stories on Earth and in the Inner and Outer Colonies. He also contracted for the Unified Earth Government and the United Nations Space Command, covering military affairs. By 2552 he worked for the Office of Naval Intelligence in the city of Mombasa, Kenya, on Earth. Ostensibly a public relations consultant for AMG Transport Dynamics' Hog, he actually helped alter battle footage to keep the public unaware of how badly the UNSC was losing the Human-Covenant War.

Battle of Mombasa

Main article: Battle of Mombasa

"They think this is the attack, that we can fight back, defend the city. But I've seen how the Covenant troops operate... The city was already lost; we're all dead. Because the Covenant come not to dominate or to colonize, but to destroy."

— Benjamin Giraud, as civilians attempt to defend New Mombasa.

On October 20, 2552, Giraud was injured during the Prophet of Regret's invasion of New Mombasa. He fell in league with a small civilian resistance group trying to hold the Covenant back until Marine reinforcements arrived. He recorded and translated an order from a Sangheili to clear the area before the Covenant could access something called "the Ark". A Marine sergeant ordered Giraud to get the recording out of the city to the Office of Naval Intelligence. He was about to board an evacuation boat but stopped when he saw a lone young girl crying. Giraud calmed her down and handed her his laptop with the recording in it. He presumably asked her to give it to the authorities when she got to the mainland. He remained in the city where he observed the Covenant invasion in a room full of displays. During the invasion he met fellow reporter Petra Janecek and the both of them witnessed Spartan John-117 fighting against the Covenant. Giraud was eventually able to find a way out of New Mombasa before the city was glassed.

Post-war investigation

ONI's letter commissioning Giraud to write a bio on John-117.

"When I pulled that first loose thread, something broke. Now everything is caving in and I find myself stuck with all these ugly questions, questions I never intended to ask. Fabricated histories? People who aren't who they say they are? Cover-ups of cover-ups? That steady drumbeat of theories that used to sound insane, now they don't seem so '"out there". And these disturbing rumors, reports of anomalies. Something big is happening in deep space, and I can't even corroborate a single fact about one man's life. It's clear to me now. I can't fix the pretty story, but maybe I can break the ugly one."

— Benjamin Giraud on his investigation of John-117.

Giraud kept a low profile after the Covenant War and began work on a journalistic series titled "Ghosts & Glass", dedicated to unearthing and properly recording the stories and sacrifices of UNSC service personnel throughout the war. A particular focus of this was the events of the Fall of Reach, which as of 2557 were still being pieced together as debris on and around the planet were cleaned up and analysed. The series included recountings of various radio conversations from UNSC personnel involved in the Reach campaign as well as testimonies from Reavian settlers working to recolonise the planet in the postwar era. This work ultimately caught the attention of ONI Section Two's Senior Communications Director Michael Sullivan, who commissioned Giraud to write an in-depth profile on the Master Chief in 2558. Giraud eagerly accepted the offer, and spoke with several people who claimed to have known the Chief. As he accumulated the information, though, Giraud started to sense something was off and began finding hints of cover ups. The data he received was leading him to a story not as inspiring nor heroic as the "blockbuster hero biography" he'd been intending to write. Giraud, uncertain about the veracity of his data, resolved to establish the truth and perhaps discredit the dark rumors associated with John-117.

Giraud was provided with a list of people to interview by ONI, including John's purported childhood teacher, Deon Govender. Govender described his experiences with the future Master Chief up until age thirteen when, according to him, Elysium City was occupied by Insurrectionists who rounded up the citizens in prison camps. Giraud did find one interviewee outside of the list ONI had given him; Ellie Bloom, one of John's childhood friends. After he discovered a document supposedly proving John's death at age six in 2517, Giraud contacted Sullivan about the discrepancy. Sullivan insisted that this was due to a record-keeping mistake and in order to convince Giraud about the veracity of ONI's story, he arranged Giraud to meet Vice Admiral Gabriella Dvørak aboard the UNSC Unto the Breach for an interview; Giraud noted the unusual amount of hospitality he was treated to during the visit. Vice Admiral Dvørak corroborated ONI's forged background story for the Master Chief, recounting her supposed encounter with a thirteen-year-old John during the liberation of Elysium City from Insurrectionist occupiers. While initially convinced that the document listing John as deceased was due to a mistake, Benjamin was prompted to investigate the matter further upon Ellie Bloom's childhood friend Katrina's insistence that John had indeed died at six years old.

Having uncovered more distressing facts about the Master Chief's past, namely information on the boxing incident involving several ODSTs aboard the UNSC Atlas, Giraud confronted the supposed Insurrectionist prison camp survivor Thomas Wu and had him implicitly reveal he had been lying previously about Elysium City being home to one of the camps. However, their conversation had taken place over Waypoint, which was under ONI surveillance. Several hours later, he was called for a mandatory meeting at ONI's headquarters in Boston. Before this he met with his colleague Petra Janecek, who chastised him for calling ONI's official story into question. At Janecek's advice, Giraud uploaded the files on what he had gathered to his trusted friend Ray Kurzig before the ONI meeting. Michael Sullivan initially gave no indication of being aware of Giraud's Waypoint conversation with Wu; Benjamin was even given an exclusive interview with SCPO Franklin Mendez, the man who trained the Spartan-IIs. After the session, however, Sullivan gave him a strict deadline of 24 hours to deliver the raw files of his story to ONI, giving him no time to pursue his unsanctioned investigation further. This led Giraud to suspect that his conversation had indeed been flagged. Despite this, Benjamin intended to finish the job ONI had given him and bury his off-the-record investigation.

While on his return trip home, Giraud spotted a man he recognized as Jakob Walker, one of the people he had interviewed previously. Because Walker had claimed he was permanently residing on Castellaneta, Benjamin began to question him but he was ordered to sit down by the flight crew and eventually sedated when he persisted. After returning home, he discovered that he had been fined 50,000 cR for the incident. However, he noticed that his COM pad had been recording during the entire flight. Listening to the recording, Benjamin found that ONI agents had been shadowing him and given him another dose of the sedative to put him to sleep, then taken custody of him during the flight. Furious about ONI's treatment of him, Benjamin decided to continue his investigation and upload all of his findings online for the public to see in a "part docu-diary, part audio archive".

After publishing his findings, Giraud began to receive a plethora of theories and responses from across human space. While he was meeting with Ray Kurzig regarding his investigation, Petra Janecek stormed Benjamin's apartment, furious about him rec