Mshak Moradi

Mshak Moradi was a human conspiracy theorist and hacker that often tried to work with reporters and journalists.

Biography

Mshak Moradi, a conspiracy theorist, often sent his opinions and theories to reporters and journalists, including Petra Janecek. Moradi left a voice message in Benjamin Giraud's inbox during the production of Giraud's series of biographical interviews about John-117 in 2558. Moradi's message concerned the discrepancy between Deon Govender's narrative, which placed John in Elysium City in 2524, and a hard copy census registry which listed John as having died in 2517. While Commander Michael Sullivan assured Giraud that the discrepancy was due to bureaucratic errors introduced by the glassing of Eridanus II, Moradi insisted that there was a cover-up in action. Moradi later helped Giraud get in contact with Anthony Petrosky, a retired Orbital Drop Shock Trooper that witnessed boxing incident involving John and several ODSTs aboard UNSC Atlas.

Moradi told Giraud how to secure his line; regardless, he hacked into his network to ensure that the line was fully secure, as Giraud had done it wrong. Later, out of desperation for sources, Giraud contacted Moradi, who ensured their call was secured. He informed Giraud that the Master Chief has gone AWOL and some UNSC personnel even consider him to be a traitor. Moradi revealed that mysterious events were happening in deep space. However, Giraud had to end their conversation, as he was called down to the Office of Naval Intelligence's Boston headquarters by Sullivan. Moradi was contacted by an Insurrectionist leader known only as "FERO". She had him to cross flight itineraries so that Giraud would encounter actor Jakob Walker—who had been hired by ONI to act as one of their sources for Giraud—on his flight from Boston. After Giraud's encounter with Walker incited him to post all of his findings and recordings online for the public to see, Ray Kurzig and Petra Janecek arrived at his apartment, expressing their annoyance that Giraud had uploaded recordings of them online without their permission. When Giraud informed them that he had kept his line secure with the help of Moradi, Janecek claimed that Moradi was probably listening to them from Giraud's COM pad; to Giraud's surprise, he was. Moradi revealed how he had hacked into Giraud's network several weeks earlier and helped keep his line safe by rerouteing rogue monitoring bots, scrambling drone surveillance, and had Giraud placed on the same flight as Walker. Moradi revealed that the individual that contacted him was called FERO. After Kurzig and Janecek left, Moradi revealed that FERO was about to contact him.

Three days later, Giraud attempted to contact Moradi. However, Moradi had gone dark while he investigated something for Giraud and instead left "ridiculous" recorded messages on his answering machine. Giraud became increasingly annoyed with Moradi's recorded messages, though he began to worry that something had happened to him. FERO soon contacted Giraud and revealed her intent to bring down ONI in front of the Unified Earth Government senate by revealing that ONI had conscripted children into the SPARTAN-II program, which she hoped would lead to the UEG senators heavily reprimanding the intelligence agency. Shortly after, ONI shut down Giraud's communications for twelve days, claiming it was a "quadrant error". In response, Giraud moved his workspace to an undisclosed area. After checking his messages, he found that Moradi had called him and left him a message "to say hi". Giraud contacted Moradi, who revealed that residents of both the Inner Colonies and Outer Colonies were growing furious after John-117 had apparently attacked a peace conference on Biko, however, the Outer Colonies were blaming ONI for using the Spartan as a weapon. Moradi later complied a map that demonstrated where each flash clone of each Spartan candidate—that had been left behind by ONI to cover their tracks—had inevitably died due to a clone degeneration disease. The map revealed that Spartans were largely chosen from the Outer Colonies, since it was easier to cover their tracks. Additionally, the Spartans were later used to carry out the "political agenda of ONI" when the Spartans later returned to the Outer Colonies to quell insurrections. Moradi had also revealed that two Spartan-IIs, including Oscar-129, encountered their flash clones, leading them to commit suicide. Giraud intended to use this information to help persecute ONI before the senate.

The day of the senate meeting, Moradi provided Giraud with as much compiled data as he could to show evidence of ONI's abductions and experiments. Shortly after Ben leaked it to the senate, Moradi sent Giraud a message telling him, with uncharacteristic worry, that there was something important that Moradi had to tell him in person. He claimed he would come over to Giraud's location in a few days to tell him, but Giraud never heard from him again. This caused him to speculate that ONI had discovered Mshak's location and either killed him or taken him prisoner. In reality, he was evidently killed by Commander Maya Sankar, the real person behind "FERO", by ONI's orders because Mshak was about to discover her real allegiances. After she had carried out the assassination mission, Sankar's handler Noah Reibach noted that her weapon had not registered as fired during the operation; she implied that she had killed Moradi without it in a particularly gruesome manner.

Personality and traits

Moradi was energetic, annoying, and unpredictable. He was frequently cheery about the data he had procured even if what it stated was morbid, and confident in his abilities to find secrets and avert ONI's radar. He would often persistently nag a target about something he had found and wanted to share, only to disappear for days and leave taunting voicemails to anyone who tried to call him. Mshak had a unique manner of speech that involved strange analogies. Despite his unprofessionalism, Moradi was skilled at combing through "the slush", and even managed to hack ONI's flight and passenger schedules. Although he often spied on allies and manipulated what they encountered, Moradi claimed to have a code of honor in that he'd give someone a choice before offering them the chance to aid his hacking efforts.

Production notes

Moradi is voiced by Kumail Nanjiani, a Pakistani-American comedian, actor, and podcast host.

List of appearances

• Hunt the Truth (First appearance)