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Terminal This fanfiction article, Thomas Martel, was written by Sonasaurus and IsaacDKramer. Please do not edit this fiction without the writers' permission.
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Thomas Martel
File:Tom Martel.png
Thomas Martel on Taradia in 2491.
Biographical Information

HOMEWORLD

Eridanus II

DATE OF BIRTH

September 8, 2474

DATE OF DEATH

March 20, 2618 (aged 143)

Physical Description

SPECIES

Human

GENDER

Male

HEIGHT

5'10" (178 cm)

WEIGHT

177 lb (80 kg)

HAIR COLOR

  • Dark blonde initially
  • White, later

EYE COLOR

Blue

Political and Military Information

SPECIALITY

Engineering/Medical Science

AFFILIATION

UNSC Advanced Research Projects Agency

ERA

[Source]


Dr. Thomas "Tom" Martel (8 September 2474—20 March 2618) is a UNSC scientist and researcher. He grew up with his older brother, in the URF. After his being mistaken as a UNSC informant, Thomas moved to Taradia, to work as an informant against the Insurrection there. He would eventually get his education at Uppland University, on Nyahem, including receiving a master's degree in quantum engineering, and later, a medical doctorate. He started working for the UNSC Advanced Research Projects Agency in 2537 to develop weapons for electronic warfare against the Covenant. The project was shut down after the war ended in 2553.

Biography

Early 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)

After doing undergraduate studies on Taradia, Tom transferred to Uppland University on Nyahem. In 2495, Thomas earned his Master Degree after developing an improved carbide ceramic ossification process. This process would eventually be used on the SPARTAN-II candidates during augmentation.

While doing his studies, Tom's prodigy catches the attention of an Office of Naval Intelligence officer, who had first noticed him in a report stating that Tom helped heal fellow students and even UNSC servicemen on Taradia during Operation: TRIUMVIRATE. In 2492, he was given a "special assignment" outside of his studies, to psychoanalyze ORION subject Roy Koel, who had undergone a severe state of depression at the time. Tom worked with him on a need-to-know basis and managed to successfully cure him in mid-2493. Tom was permitted to return to his studies afterward, unaware that he now had the interest of many ONI officers and would be observed by the UNSC.

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)

Electronic Warfare 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 WASHINGTON, which was an effort to create an electronic weapon that would severely affect the Covenant's technology. While having little or no effect on human technology. Tom and his colleagues were given reports on Covenant AIs and computer systems. For the first decade of the project, little or no progress was made on finding a successful and efficient way that would disable a covenant ship without firing a shot. However in 2547, Thomas realized that the project was going the wrong direction. Instead of a modified Electromagnetic pulse, or even a classic computer virus, it was believed, that since Covenant AIs as rudimentary as UNSC "dumb" AIs, that if a theoretical class of "Smart Infiltrator" AIs were to somehow get aboard a ship, it could disable the ship from the inside, at the cost of sacrificing the AI. The only potential drawback to that would be finding an effective delivery system.

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.

Contributions

Distinctions

Tobias Fleming Shaw Prize (2501)

Tom won his first distinctive award in 2501, the Tobias Fleming Shaw Prize, for his vast contributions in correcting the procedures in engineering and utilizing a Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Engine. Initially beginning his research on SFTEs in 2497, Tom pinpointed several issues with its usage and gained mass recognition after proposing methods to reduce Slipspace "splintering" that reduced the risk by over forty-seven percent. At the age of 26, he was the youngest individual to receive the Tobias Fleming Shaw Prize.

Sabio Award (2508)

Thomas earned the Sabio Award in 2508, for his work on an improved ceramic carbide ossification process that earned him his Engineering Masters Degree in 2495. While there wasn't any official use of the improved process for many years, the clandestine SPARTAN-II program would use it for augmentation of their recruits in 2525.

Albert Einstein World Award of Science (2517)

Epsilon Eridani Award (2527)

Admiral Cole Prize (2529)

Babd Catha Medal (2532)

Colonial Medal of Science (2533)

Scientific Activism Award (2537)

Breakthrough Inventions Award (2544)

Humboldt Prize (2550)

Interspecies Union Honorary Award (2554)

Silver Class for Meritous Action (2565)

The Star of Scorpius Medal (2579)

Gold Class for Meritous Action (2583)

Tom was awarded the Gold Class for Meritous Action by the Unified Earth Government in 2583 for reversing the effects of Madigan's Disease on his brother Felix, who was in critical condition and on the verge of death. It would be his final achievement as a UNSC scientist; Tom would retire from ARPA four months later.

Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine (2584)

In 2584, about one year after retiring from ARPA, Tom 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.

Personality

Family

Main article: Morley Family

Appearances

Deceased

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