BiographyEarly Life (2474—2487)Thomas was born in the Insurrectionist enclave, known as "the Sanctuary" in the outskirts of Asphodel City, on Eridanus II. He is the son of Abigail and Raymond Martel, and the younger brother to Felix Martel. In 2484, Lieutenant Colonel Robert Watts defected from the UNSC by faking his own death and joining the Insurrection, employing less moral methods of controlling the United Rebel Front and causing anti-UEG movements on Eridanus II. This prompted the UNSC to launch a small assault on the Sanctuary, which resulted in the deaths of many of its inhabitants, including Tom's parents. Tom was mistaken for an informant, codename HERMES, who had been executed after being exposed. Tom was brought back to the UNSC and unwittingly became an informant for them. Tom undertook a few other missions for the UNSC and was sent to various rebel locations on Eridanus II before he was placed in contact with Private Jess Morley, and his own brother Felix, who had helped her escape a rebel ambush camp where her entire squad was executed. Now the only ones with the knowledge that Watts was a traitor, Tom headed to Reach to relay the information. But upon arriving to report to ONI, he, along with Felix and Tom, discovered that not only was Watts there as well, but his identity as a UNSC officer remained intact. Jess' brother Anton arranged for Tom to leave Reach for his own safety, and he requested another assignment as an informant on another colony. Studies on Taradia (2487—2491)ONI sent Tom to Taradia to spy on a rebel by the name of David Kahn, while studying at a university as cover. He was to assume the identity of "Walter Keller", and because of his natural talent for medicine and fixing things, he was to be a medic, something the rebels desperately needed. Tom soon discovered that Kahn was planning to build a network of mass drivers to distribute to other planets with Insurrectionist strongholds, and brought this information to the UNSC. However, the mass drivers proved to be a decoy in 2491, and the rebels unleashed their actual weapons; numerous artillery launchers that would devastate an entire Taradian city and keep the UNSC force on edge for weeks. During this time, Tom was reunited with Felix, who was now a Naval Officer and working as part of the special operations military force to counter the rebel threat. After the UNSC won the skirmish and Kahn was killed, Tom returned to his studies, now as a full-time occupation. College Education (2491—2525)Tom became closer to Jess' older brother Anton after Felix disappeared in 2496, and Jess herself not long afterward. Anton introduced him to one of his friends, Kaitlin Bessler, whom Tom soon entered a relationship with and married in 2499. They had a son, James Martel I, in 2502. First Human-Covenant War Efforts (2525—2537)Contagion Research (2537—2552)In 2537, Tom started working on a joint project between the Office of Naval Intelligence and the UNSC Advanced Research Projects Agency, known as Project MONTEZUMA, which was an effort to create a biological contagion that severely affected one or more member species of the Covenant, with little or no effect to humans. Tom and his colleagues were supplied with specimens from the battlefield. ONI indicated that a plague affecting the Sangheili would have the greatest effect in the war and was the most worthwhile putting effort into. For the decade of the project, little or no progress was made on finding a contagion that would kill the Sangheili. However in 2547, Thomas realized that the project was going the wrong direction. Instead of a swift death from a plague of sorts, it was realized that a slow death, that the species watching itself die out in a generation or two may be more effective. The plan was to have a contagion that sterilized the Sangheili species, instead of outright killing them. Unfortunately, ONI didn't like the idea "taking at least a generation" to kill the Sangheili. They believed that as colonies were falling, it would be less than ten years before the war would end with a Covenant victory and humanity's probable extinction. Tom would continue the project not to much avail, however. He would still work on the sterilization project on the side, coming closer and closer to viable contagion. Capture by the Covenant (2552—2553)Tom's lab, located at joint ONI/ARPA ENSIFERUM Base, would eventually come under Covenant attack during the Fall of Reach. When the Covenant invaded the base, everyone inside was killed but he was taken captive. He learned that they had discovered his efforts to wipe out the Sangheili, and was sent to the Covenant prison world to create a cure, performing scientific research under heavy guard. While in the prison, Tom was placed in the company of Jun-A266, who had also been captured on Reach in possession of a Forerunner artifact. The artifact had been discovered by Dr. Catherine Halsey under Reach, and she quickly determined that it wasn't a technological asset, but rather was a device that would lead to a Shield World on the planet of Onyx. After duplicating the artifact's capabilities, Dr. Halsey planted it on Jun without his knowledge while he was escorting her to CASTLE Base. The Covenant was unable to decipher the functions of the artifact, and forced Tom to do so while working with Jun, whom they assumed knew but didn't tell. During this time, the two became close friends, and the Spartan would often keep him from coming to harm in prison. When Admiral Margaret Parangosky pieced together what Dr. Halsey had done with the artifact and realized that she was risking exposure of the SPARTAN-III Program to the Covenant, she sent Rykie-247 with a UNSC team to rescue Tom from the prison world; the team was later joined by Jorge-052, who had escaped the Slipspace rift he had conjured at Reach and unwittingly arrived at the prison world following various incidents. Tom was successfully rescued along with Jun, and the information he held would prompt Parangosky to send out unit Kilo-Five to find Dr. Halsey at Onyx. Later Life (2553—2618)Tom returned to his research after being freed, although he would receive a number of new assignments due to the formation of the Interspecies Union and the factions they became enemies with. His wife Kaitlin passed away in 2567 due to illness, for which Tom had attempted to prevent for almost a decade; he took her death very hard and blamed himself for not finding the solution in time. Tom would remain friends with Anton until the latter's death in 2581; they had become reunited with Jess, who had been found in a Forerunner slipspace pod by Felix in Antarctica in 2556, who had resurfaced earlier that year with tier-1 augmentations. She never disclosed Felix's survival to either of them due to complicated matters, and Tom would have no knowledge of him until 2583, when Felix became ill with side effects from his augmentations coupled with an artificial disease he gained in 2568. Tom retired from ARPA in 2584 at the age of 108, and lived peacefully until he died of natural causes in 2618. Discoveries and DistinctionsNobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine (2584)In 2584, about one year after retiring from ARPA, Thomas was awarded the Nobel Prize, "for his discoveries concerning the physiology and biochemistry of the Sangheili species." It was his findings nearly twenty years prior, in 2565, that shed light onto the enigma of the Sangheili genetic structure. PersonalityFamily
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† Deceased