Octavio Morales

Octavio Morales
Biographical information
Children:	Kevin Morales (son)
Personal details
Species:	Human
Gender:	Male
Political and military information
Affiliation:	UNSC Navy Office of Naval Intelligence
Rank:	Admiral
Notable info:	SPARTAN-I Father of a Spartan 1.1

Admiral Octavio Morales is an operative for Section Three of the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), working under the anonymous codename SURGEON (Operator Number AA2). He was originally an operative of the ORION, or "Spartan-I", program, though ultimately moved into a career in naval intelligence after the program's cancellation in 2506. He worked in this role as a Section III operative throughout the Insurrection, Human-Covenant War, and Post-Covenant War conflicts, well into the Created uprising. As-described by James Solomon, Morales works as a "paper-pusher", except involved in the kinds of decisions which affect all of humanity, including some beyond the reach of even the Commander-in-Chief of the Office of Naval Intelligence.

Morales has a son, Kevin Morales, one of a handful of "Spartan 1.1s" consisting of children born to augmented ORION parents.

Biography

Early life and career

In his early career, Morales served as a part of the ORION Project's second phase; an ONI supersoldier program active in the early period of the Insurrection between 2491 and 2506. In his time as an ORION, Octavio worked alongside several other candidates including both Gilly and James James. After the program's cancellation, Octavio kept in touch with these fellow ex-ORIONs, though he ultimately went on to serve in the United Nations Space Command as an operative for ONI Section Three, now-working under the classified pseudonym Codename SURGEON. Morales would later reflect on the ORION era of his life as fighting much more "simple" wars than the ones of his later career.

At some point after his augmentations, Octavio had a son, Kevin. In late 2552, Octavio and Kevin both attended the funeral of James James, where they met up with Gilly (now-James' widow) and their daughter - another Spartan 1.1 named Janissary James.

ONI operative

In his work as Codename SURGEON, Morales was involved in many Section III intelligence efforts related to the SPARTAN-III program and the broader Human-Covenant War. In 2532, he received a message concerning the SPARTAN-III program from Admiral Jilan al-Cygni (another ONI operative working under the Codename: COALMINER). The message noted that the early stages of preparation for SPARTAN-III Alpha Company were progressing satisfactorily and expressed confidence in Kurt-051's planned training regimen.

More broadly, Morales worked alongside Al-Cygni under their respective codenames as part of the leadership for Operation: HYPODERMIC; an intelligence effort connected to the Cole Protocol (HYPODERMIC FXT-J) that involved the use and upgrade of several prowler stealth ships disguised as civilian vessels for the purpose of deploying into the systems surrounding Epsilon Eridani to scout out Covenant fleets. On August 29, 2552, Al-Cygni sent a transmission to Morales noting that HYPODERMIC was proceeding as expected aboard Gamma Station orbiting Reach, though also noted that potential interference by the station's AI Doppler had nearly caused the operation to be exposed. As such, the prowler UNSC Circumference was disconnected from Gamma Station's network - according to Al-Cygni, as far as the station's computers were concerned, it was as though Circumference never existed. This disconnect ultimately proved problematic the following day when a massive Covenant fleet arrived at Reach to execute the final fall of the planet. In the ensuing space battle, three SPARTAN-IIs; John-117, Linda-058, and James-005, were deployed to Gamma Station to manually execute the Cole Protocol and destroy Circumference's navigation database. The operation was successful, though saw Linda-058 heavily injured and James-005 ejected into space, where he was declared missing in action (MIA) and thought dead by his peers. In reality, James was recovered from deep space by a tug and passed into ONI hands, ultimately recovering a year later and going on to work under Octavio Morales for the next six years as a private contractor, now rechristened James Solomon - nicknamed "Big Jim" by Morales.

Post-war

After the end of the Human-Covenant War in December 2552, Morales continued to work for ONI in reshaping the galaxy of the post-war era. On December 31, 2552, Morales was stationed aboard the stealth cruiser UNSC Point of No Return in sychronous orbit on the far side of Luna, where he wrote a report addressed to Codename: USUAL SUSPECTS titled "Historical/Psychological Analysis of Cole, Preston J.". The extensive report outlined the life and career of Admiral Preston J. Cole and postulated that he was in fact alive and living outside UNSC-controlled space. These findings were later seemingly known to the AI Black-Box, who in 2559 volunteered to share the truth of the matter with Cole's daughter Abigail, to her refusal.

Around or after December 15, 2554, Morales wrote to Al-Cygni a series of reports named the "Eleventh Hour reports", discussing the state of the post-war galaxy including the status of the ex-Covenant races, the newly-established Spartan Operations division, early post-war expeditions to the Ark, the Halo Array, and the discovery of the Composer.

In February 2556, Octavio worked with another codenamed operative, FIXER, on Operation: BLEACH - an investigation related to the terrorist attack conducted on Sedra City, Sedra. Morales seemingly acted as FIXER's supervisor or commanding officer for the operation, with FIXER collating local intelligence data related to the attack and Locke's team, and forwarding information to Morales. In early February, FIXER provided Morales with a report detailing his findings on Operation: BLEACH with particular attention made to a series of attempted information searches by Brynn Morad, a doctor at the Sedra Colonial Guard Hospital. Morad had attempted to access information about Element 120.V (the weapon used in the attack) and the death of an Alerian smuggler, Indrid Lota, in relation to her autopsy of one of the attack's victims, Rowan Daoud. Morad's searches had been flagged by Sedra Medical AI NOX and forwarded to FIXER, who in turn recommended to Morales that the flagged information required security quarantine.

Created uprising

Throughout the Created uprising, Morales operated from Research Center Oscar, a fortified and hardened UNSC complex built around the Excession in Kenya, Earth, complete with a Faraday cage chamber similar to the "Odin's Eye" meeting room of the UNSC's stealth cruisers. From here, Morales worked alongside UNSC Special Forces director Captain Annabelle Richards and directed various ONI and UNSC operations from the shadows in the aftermath of the destruction of HIGHCOM Facility Bravo-6, culminating in a November 4, 2559 mission to Rossbach's World conducted by Gray Team. On that day, he gave signoff for the mission to proceed, with Captain Abigail Cole of UNSC Victory of Samothrace personally leading the mission aboard U81 Condor Zulu Seven Nine; the mission's goal was to extract Black-Box and, by extension, Admirals Osman and Terrence Hood from their exile on the world, thanks to an emerging UNSC plan that could see the Created defeated in short order. After confirming the mission's go-ahead, Morales also realised that the second stage of the plan, whose end goal was to gain control of the Domain from Cortana, would require the acquisition of a special asset - a child clone of Catherine Halsey named Chloe Hall. Morales signalled to Al-Cygni that he was going to personally enlist his longtime contractor James Solomon (who was currently engaged in a mission on Terceira) for the mission, and then proceeded to travel to Solomon's home of St. Anino, Far Isle.

Morales arrived on Far Isle on November 21, 2559, and proceeded to interrupt James in a quiet pub in St. Anino, the first time the two had met and communicated outside of remote messages in years. Morales tried to recruit James to the mission to kidnap Chloe Hall, with James initially countering by announcing his own resignation - citing that working for ONI was destroying him mentally. After a Created Armiger attempted to interrupt the meeting to be interrupted by James destroying it with a combat knife, Morales calmly returned to his drink and reminded James that there was nowhere that he could run that neither Cortana or ONI could find him. Morales was eventually able to convince James to do the mission, but only after promising that it was both the most important mission he had been given yet, and that it would be his last.

During the Banished invasion of Earth on December 14, 2559, Octavio presumably remained in the research station at the Excession and survived through the battle, continuing to work from the facility up until New Years' Day 2560. On January 1, Admiral Al-Cygni sent a communication from her prowler Akkadian to Research Center Oscar addressed to Morales, informing him of a report from an informant within the Order of Restoration that necessitated a change in her own plans regarding the order. She also requested that Morales keep her informed with any updates on UNSC Infinity and Installation 07, both of which had gone missing the same day as the attack on Earth.

Relationships

Morales typically works at a distance from his contractors and coworkers, seemingly preferring to near-exclusively communicate through his codename of SURGEON via remote Waypoint messages. His low profile is such that few people know of his existence at all, though his influence can at times exceed that of even ONI's Commander-in-Chief. He had a close bond with one of his contractors James Solomon, prior to Solomon's death, resulting in Solomon being one of the few contractors who personally knew Morales and even getting his own nickname of "Big Jim"; this was credited by Morales to him seeing much of himself in James. After James' recovery from his near-death aboard Gamma Station in 2553, Octavio was responsible for arranging his new life as an ONI private contractor rather than simply reentering service as a regular SPARTAN-II. Despite this, the two still rarely saw one another in person, and this mutual bond was not shared as heavily by James, who eventually began to feel that working for ONI was "killing his soul". By the time the two met for the final time on Far Isle in November 2559, Solomon only agreed to work for Morales a final time after being assured that it would be the final mission he would undertake.

Throughout the postwar years, Morales worked closely with a personal smart AI named JJ - likely created from the the deceased brain of Morales' fellow ORION candidate James James, who passed away in late 2552. The AI was noted to perfectly replicate the tone of voice of one of Morales' old friends (presumably James James'), and Morales continued to hold full faith in his abilities even after the onset of the Created uprising. This was in part thanks to the installation of the RUINA subroutine, which would ensure JJ's destruction if he began to turn against the UNSC.

List of appearances

• Halo: The Fall of Reach (First appearance)
• i love bees
• Halo: Ghosts of Onyx
• Halo: Evolutions - Essential Tales of the Halo Universe
  • The Impossible Life and the Possible Death of Preston J. Cole
• Halo: Nightfall
  • Second Stories (Mentioned only)
• Halo: Empty Throne