TJ Murphy

TJ Murphy
Biographical information
Homeworld:	Lexington, Earth
Born:	c. 2519
Died:	May 14, 2560 (aged 40)
Cause of death:	Shot multiple times by a Banished Sangheili Enforcer's pulse carbine
Personal details
Species:	Human
Gender:	Male
Eye color:	Brown
Political and military information
Affiliation:	United Nations Space Command UNSC Marine Corps Boat crew
Rank:	First Lieutenant

TJ Murphy was a First Lieutenant in the UNSC Marine Corps and a member of Icebreaker squad, which was stationed aboard the UNSC Infinity. During the Requiem Campaign, Murphy helped Fireteam Crimson in many of their missions on Requiem. Murphy was later one of the survivors of the disastrous Battle over Installation 07, co-leading a group of survivors dubbed the boat crew alongside Spartan Nina Kovan on Installation 07's surface until his death in battle.

Biography

Early life

TJ Murphy was born circa 2519 and grew up in Lexington, Earth. As a child, Murphy had an interest in aviation; in the autumn, he ran up the hill behind his house with a bucket of paper airplanes. He joined the UNSC in 2537, when he turned eighteen, then participated in the Human-Covenant War, having fought his first engagement when he was twenty years old.

Requiem Campaign

Main article: Requiem Campaign

During the Requiem Campaign, Murphy, along with the rest of Icebreaker squad, was listed as MIA. They had been captured by Covenant forces and were imprisoned in the same detention facility as Fireteam Crimson. While Crimson was escaping, Roland picked up Icebreaker's signal and Crimson freed them. Murphy helped Crimson by remotely taking over a nearby Phantom and later piloting it for them through various missions in Covenant territory.

Sometime later, a Covenant/Promethean force attacked the UNSC Infinity, causing Captain Lasky to recall all Spartan forces. Crimson and Murphy encountered heavy Covenant/Promethean resistance. Murphy eventually delivered Mantises to support Crimson, allowing them to secure a landing zone. On their way back to Infinity, the ship's automated defense system auto-targeted their Phantom. Despite Murphy's evasive maneuvers, the Phantom took a direct hit, lost control, and subsequently crashed into one of Infinity's hangars. Murphy survived the crash but was stuck inside the downed Phantom. Miller ordered Roland to send an extraction team for Murphy, but couldn't get through to the AI. Eventually, Murphy was rescued or managed to escape on his own.

Crimson's and Majestic's Pelicans escaping from Requiem.

After the attack on Infinity was thwarted, Murphy continued to assist Fireteam Crimson in their activities on Requiem, providing them with Pelican support. When Fireteam Majestic reported they were under fire from Covenant artillery, Murphy flew Crimson to the site of the artillery. While dropping off Crimson, Murphy informed Infinity that Fireteam Kodiak's Pelican was shot down, Miller then warned Murphy to evac as Crimson would radio for a ride later. Murphy later assisted Crimson and Lancer in destroying a Covenant nest in the Warrens. During the same mission, he provided evac for Crimson and Fireteam Switchback, who'd been rescued from the Covenant base.

At the end of the Requiem campaign, Murphy retrieved Fireteam Crimson after they deactivated one of the slipspace artifacts binding the Infinity to Requiem. Murphy successfully brought Crimson back to the Infinity just in time for everyone to escape Requiem's destruction.

Freighter ambush

In March 2558, the UNSC Infinity picked up distress signal originating in the Artesia-702 system. When Infinity arrived in the system on March 11, it found a damaged freighter, the Pilgrims' Pride. Murphy, leading several other Pelicans, analyzed the freighter. He reported that the freighter was in bad shape and was leaking atmosphere.

Battle for Zeta Halo

Main article: Battle for Zeta Halo

On December 12, 2559, Murphy was onboard UNSC Infinity when it was ambushed by Banished forces upon arrival at Installation 07. As the Infinity fell to the Banished assault, Murphy’s Pelican was destroyed with its hangar bay. With orders to evacuate from the ship, Murphy piloted a lifeboat, Papa Tango Delta 09, and followed his companion lifeboat piloted by Spartan-IV Bonita Stone to the surface of the ring. However, as the lifeboat flew through a destroyed Banished dreadnought, it lost its back section to weapon fire, and spun out of control as it entered the ring's atmosphere.

Murphy's lifeboat crash-landed on the surface of the ring, and was lodged inside a crevice, leaving its occupants trapped. The crew took turns transmitting a distress call, which was answered by Spartan-IV Tomas Horvath of Fireteam Intrepid. However, after the explosion on the ring and its sudden slipspace jump, they lost contact with Horvath. The event, which fractured the ring, also buried the lifeboat deeper into the crevice, until Spartan Bonita Stone arrived and tore open the lifeboat's hull to pull out each survivor, including Murphy. Over the next six days, Murphy and other lifeboat survivors travelled across the region with Spartan Stone. They eventually rendezvoused with another group of survivors led by Spartan Nina Kovan. The combined group became the "boat crew". Led by Stone and Kovan, they travelled to the UNSC stronghold at the wreckage of the UNSC Mortal Reverie; they arrived on December 19. Murphy was put in charge of providing military training to supply staff and non-military personnel, including other members of the boat crew.

Murphy participated in the defense of the Reverie when the Banished launched an assault on the wreckage on January 31, 2560. Along with other members of the boat crew, she was stationed at the secondary barricade. On February 2, as the UNSC defenses fell to the Banished assault, Lucas Browning and Gavin Jo were attacked by a Sangheili Enforcer. While Jo was impaled by the Sangheili's energy sword, Browning was saved by Spartan Kovan. Murphy and Erik Bender tried to carry Jo to cover so Browning could tend to Jo's injury, but Jo begged them to leave as more Banished troops approached. They reluctantly left Jo lying on the ground, then fled along with other UNSC survivors. Murphy and the rest of the boat crew—minus Lucas Browning, who drew Banished away from the group and was captured—hid in a cave from the Banished; they waited until Kovan returned with supplies, then set off on the morning of February 5.

Over the next month, Murphy and the rest of the boat crew travelled across the region with Kovan; with the enactment of the Rubicon Protocol, the group was resolved to deter the Banished's efforts. Led by Kovan, the boat crew carried out numerous guerilla operations against the Banished. On April 18, they reunited with Spartan Stone. The group noticed the increased air traffic towards the Reverie—now a Banished outpost named after the Chieftain who led the assault on the wreckage—and decided to investigate. Arriving at the area on 22 April, while Kovan and Stone investigated the newly-constructed outpost, Murphy and the rest of the boat crew made a supply run to scavenge from a ledge that caught some of the supplies the Banished had thrown into the chasm below the outpost. They linked up with only Kovan at the camp.

On April 27, Murphy confronted Kovan—questioning why Stone had not rejoined the group at the camp and why Kovan refused to divulge why—and it was revealed that Stone had entered the Forerunner subterranean structure underneath the outpost to investigate the Banished excavation. More importantly, Browning was alive, and the Spartans kept that a secret, knowing the rest of the boat crew would want to launch a rescue. At Murphy's decision, the boat crew followed Kovan back to Outpost Tremonius to track down Stone. They snuck into the outpost and took the Banished elevator into the Forerunner subterranean structure underneath. There, they discovered Stone's lifeless body and recovered a data chip Stone had hidden away from her killer. with the Banished taking the elevator down, the boat crew was forced to escape by venturing deeper into the facility. Hours later, while they were resting, the boat crew was approached by submonitor 091 Adjutant Veridity, who revealed Stone's data chip contained data the Banished had stolen from the ring's Conspectus network, including the ring's galactic coordinates. The boat crew realized they could transmit the data to the UNSC to summon reinforcements, but doing so required the Installation's monitor 117649 Despondent Pyre's support to decrypt the data. Under Veridity's guidance, the boat crew set out to the monitor's facility, the Conservatory, to free Pyre from Cortana's lockdown.

On May 3, while en route to the Conservatory, the boat crew linked up with Spartan Tomas Horvath, who was separated from UNSC forces since the ring fractured nearly six months ago. That evening, Murphy and the rest of the crew caught up with Horvath. They decided to use one of ring's beacon towers as a supraluminal communications array to broadcast the ring's location to UNSC space and summon reinforcements. In order to access the beacon tower, however, they still needed to release Despondent Pyre.

On May 9, the team arrived at the Conservatory's main chamber, Pyre's Cradle. Pyre, along with a number of submonitors, were sequestered by Cortana within an energy barrier. As a human and thus, a Reclaimer, Horvath was able to deactivate the barrier and awaken the monitors. Although Pyre was initially uninterested in offering any assistance, upon hearing news of the Harbinger being released, the monitor granted access to the beacon towers. She also gave the humans a data key that they must insert into the central plinth of a beacon tower in order to transmit the ring's location and data to human-occupied space. However, Pyre ordered Veridity to remain with her to counter the Harbinger, leaving Murphy and the other humans to travel to the beacon tower without Veridity’s presence.

On May 14, the team translocated to the vicinity of a beacon tower near the Conservatory. Murphy and Bender followed Kovan into the tower to transmit the ring's data; while Kovan protected the control plinth and interfaced with its panel, Murphy and Bender defended the chamber entrance from two Sangheili Enforcers that were guarding the tower. After Bender ran out of ammo, his chestplate was hit by a plasma round, forcing him to discard the armor before the plasma burnt through to his skin. While Bender was occupied, it left an opening for a Sangheili to fire at the plinth, but leapt in front of the barrage of plasma bolts, sacrificing himself to stop the destruction of the beacon's plinth. Kovan then killed the Sangheili while Bender slid to Murphy's aid, only to watch the lieutenant passed with a smile on his face, knowing the message has been sent. His last thoughts were relief, and then of his childhood in Lexington.

Personality and traits

A leader among his peers, Murphy cared about those around him, comforting those in dire situations. Murphy is very observant, noticing Isaiah Cameron's subtle jaw ticks or Spartan Stone's silence indicating feeling responsible for lost lives. According to Lucas Browning, Murphy had a strong, been-there-seen-it-all kind of face, with a slight quirk to his mouth or humorous glint in his eyes that projected an aura of ease. Altogether, Murphy made Browning feel safe and that he was in capable hands. Murphy was a realist, but also urged those around him to avoid worrying about what-ifs. He displayed great resilience, and was open to acknowledge his own fears when Browning needed reassurance ahead of the Banished's assault on the Mortal Reverie. He also knew to regulate his emotions and behaviour, consciously hiding his own shock and grief to maintain the morale while leading. He did not hesitate to assist those in need, and quietly expressed empathy for those around him; he felt for Cameron who had high expectations from his military family, and understood Jo's shaken response after having killed a Kig-Yar in combat. When the boat crew first reached the Mortal Reverie, Murphy silently expressed his pride in them with a smile. When the boat crew gathered around him to support him, Murphy reflected that he knew he'd lay down his life for any of them. The bond between Murphy and members of the boat crew only deepened after the fall of the Reverie; they held a shared understanding among themselves that they were still willing to give everything to resist the Banished. When Murphy sacrificed himself for the boat crew's mission, he smiled in his final moments, feeling relieved because he was tired of fighting and tired of pretending he did not miss his home at Lexington.

Murphy spoke with a recognisable easy drawl. He had a habit of speaking his thoughts aloud. Murphy used humor to comfort and cheer up those around him, and welcomed jokes with a smile, or even his own jokes. When Murphy confronted Kovan for not sharing Stone's whereabouts, the rest of the boat crew was caught off guard, as they have not seen Murphy angry before.

Murphy developed an interest in aviation during his childhood in Lexington. During his career as a UNSC pilot, he was able to operate Pelicans, Bumblebees, and Phantoms, which according to Murphy, is not a difficult to hijack. Murphy's impressive aviation skills extended to both evasive manoeuver against anti-air artillery and air-to-air combat. When the Infinity was boarded over Requiem, a confident Murphy nearly piloted his Phantom through the flagship's defenses unscathed. His role as a pilot in the UNSC has given him a well-known reputation among Spartans. Murphy himself was aware of his reputation; when Horvath recognized his voice, Murphy cocked a smile and joked, "If I had a credit for every time I've heard a Spartan say that..." Murphy provided enough support to the Spartans over the years that he felt he was trusted to be a confidant for Spartans. Murphy was well-versed in some matters related to the Forerunners, having gathered the information during his missions on Requiem and prior.

Equipment

During the Requiem Campaign, Murphy wore the SECOPS armor. During his time with the boat crew in the Battle for Zeta Halo, Murphy carried a rucksack with him, and carried an Energy Bayonet he'd salvaged from a dead member of the Banished.

List of appearances

• Halo 4
  • Spartan Ops (First appearance)
• Halo: Escalation
• Halo: The Rubicon Protocol