Mikal Rousseau

Mikal Rousseau is a professor at the University of Meridian campus in Port Moyne on the Outer Colony of Meridian and the father of Evelyn Rousseau.

Early history
Mikal grew up on the Outer Colony of Meridian, eventually becoming a professor at the University of Meridian campus in Port Moyne, though he lived in the seaside town of Brume-sur-Mer. According to his wife, her rebellious streak was what drew Mikal to her and the two eventually married and had a daughter, Evelyn.

In 2543, Mikal's wife decided to join the UNSC and fight the Covenant, leaving Mikal to raise Evie mainly by himself. Mikal placed a great deal of pressure upon his daughter to excel academically and greatly restricted her leisure time, though she was able to rebel occasionally by using her mother against him.

Battle of Meridian
In 2548, Evie requested Mikal's permission to go to a concert that would be starring Dorian Nguyen. Despite the fact that Victor Gallardo would be going, Mikal was unusually hesitant, but ultimately agreed. Evie neglected to inform her father that the concert would be taking place in the town's bomb shelter, knowing that he wouldn't like it.

The next night, the Covenant invaded Meridian. Evie, along with Victor, Dorian and Saskia Nazari were left trapped outside the bomb shelter, but managed to make contact with the town's AI Salome. Salome confirmed that Mikal had made it into the bomb shelter along with the rest of their families, to Evie's great relief. In an attempt to open the bomb shelter, Evie used Mikal's lessons in hacking computer systems to access Salome's code through a backdoor, but found it to be too convoluted for her to be able to hack into fast enough.

A week after the invasion started, Evie was able to get Salome to open one of the doors to the shelter, which was now flooding, by implanting her with a virus. When questioned by Salome how she got the access codes to update the AI's systems, Evie lied that she got them from Mikal who in fact didn't have them as he was a professor and not one of the engineers allowed to mess with Salome's code. Evie simply lied that Mikal must've gotten them from somewhere to cover up having gotten the codes from Dorian. When Saskia made it into the shelter and began an evacuation, Mikal approached Saskia and asked her if one of the others she had mentioned was his daughter Evie. Saskia reassured Mikal that his daughter was fine and had been the one to get Salome to open the door, relieving Mikal to learn that his only daughter had survived. Saskia reassured Mikal that he would see his daughter soon, and they joined the evacuation.

After the survivors made it aboard the, Evie was reunited with Mikal. To Saskia's surprise, Mikal gave her a hug and thanked her for saving Evie's life and his own, stating that the survivors trapped in the shelter had pretty much given up hope before Saskia arrived. After learning that Saskia's parents were out of town when the invasion started, Mikal promised to help make sure she could get access to a working comm system and invited Saskia to join him and Evie and getting cleaned up, which she accepted.

List of appearances

 * Halo: Battle Born