"MORGAN YU"

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Last updated on 9/01/24!

Age: "Mid-30s"
Pronouns: He/they/it
Series: Prey (2017)
Canon Point: Post-canon

CONTENT WARNING: This profile contains references to dubious corporate science projects, live experimentation, genetic modifications, eye trauma, dissociation between fiction and reality, sci-fi typical mass human death via alien infestations.

Hover over images for artist credit.

Personality

Though he would like to have you believe that "intelligent", "resourceful", and "devastatingly handsome" are words that are plastered across all reviews on his behavior, most of Talos I's denizens— and anyone who has ever met Morgan Yu— would describe him as a bit of a cold-hearted, stiff jackass with little interest in any individual over the grand scheme of things. ... and a little less than stable, toward the end of his life.

That Morgan has a bench somewhere on a ruined, Typhon-infested Earth, memorializing his death. It reads "Morgan Yu, Brilliant Mind Taken Too Soon. February 24th, 2035". At least, in the untouched memories of that Earth.

Project Cobalt's prized guinea pig is "Morgan Yu" in merely name and artificially-inserted memory. Implanted mirror neurons and guidance through a misshapen simulacrum of the events of Talos I has formed a being that's almost too deeply empathetic for its own good. There is nary a stone he won't turn over for the sake of merely assisting, no matter how trivial and devoid of practical value such a task's completion entails; and he feels far more than he knows what to do with. Decoupling its sense of self from the "original" Morgan Yu hardly helps with this.

He keeps this overflow of sensation mostly to himself, but all glass must inevitably break when its contents are so totally pressurized. It's easier, here, at least— a steady supply of psi hypos and the lack of memory for that which lies beneath his skin helps.

Backstory

Following the invasion of Earth and all its associated colonies and terraforming projects, Project Cobalt— a last-ditch effort to build a bridge between humankind and the Typhon which doomed them— began aboard Talos II. Many iterations were met with no success, bar a single one, which was set upon the station's scientists for the purposes of socializing and learning what is it to be human.

Though, Morgan would be left questioning what exactly the metric for success had been, then. Humanity and all the social constructs it's saddled with is a nigh-impossible thing to impress upon a creature evolved purely to kill— even moreso when your very existence is perceived as a ticking time-bomb. All that his mirror neurons could stand to do was mimic and learn as an animal would— through positive and negative reinforcement.

Abilities + Items:

Typhon Physiology: What lies beneath the Morgan Yu veneer is an inky-black substance which behaves as a gas, liquid, and a solid all at once; and that might be to blame for his relatively high durability and strength in comparison to most supposedly living things. This material can be morphed into any shape, hardened, and stretched rather far— though, the roughly human amount of mass remains the same.

Of course, despite such an alien and incomprehensible chemical makeup, Morgan's still very susceptible to the good 'ol fashioned fire, pitchforks, and quantum particle beams.

Mimicry: Exactly classifying what subtype of Typhon Morgan is would be an impossibility, but there certainly is a little bit of a Mimic (T. cacoplasmus) in him— after all, to be Typhon is to imitate and adapt. Exact vocal and behavioral mimicry is an impulsive itch that Morgan scratches as liberally as he can bear to; as well as the natural inclination to sluice himself into a quantum entanglement with inanimate (and occasionally living) objects in order to completely morph into them a la prop hunt-style games from the early 2010s. Heightened anxiety spurs on a greater urge to mimic and hide, and disrupts his own human guise, as natural as it is to him.

Now, this translates to skill acquisition as well. Merely by watching and imitating people (as best he can, anyway) Morgan may be able to learn new skills far more quickly than most are capable of, as well as retaining them in a photographic memory (no matter how full of holes it may be).

Energy Manipulation: Similar to Phantoms (T. anthrophantasmus), Poltergeists (T. dysmorpha), and a rather uncountable number of other variants of the ever-evolving Typhon ecology, Morgan may shift the properties of latent energy in the air: kinetic blasts may be elicited in a shockwave with them at the center; they may "invert" the effects of gravity in a focused column; pillars of flame conjured from seemingly nothing; arcs of electricity chained between objects. Morgan may corrupt and/or manipulate machines to do his bidding— but this is efficient only so long as he's had adequate time to study them and rewire them through hands-on means. He may also raise Phantoms of his own from human corpses, but this is an energetically expensive ability and... well, Rhakhan doesn't need any Typhon that lack mirror neurons, no matter how obedient they are.

Telepathy: Morgan's innate telepathy and radiant, miasmic aura is greatly weakened by the lack of Coral or Neuromods in any (known) part of Aetora, yet they're both present enough to be notable. Though he is mostly unfamiliar with the full spectrum of thoughts and feelings usually considered to be "human"— and how they might translate to expressions and behavioral mannerisms— he unconsciously skims the static surface of the current emotional state of others. When stressed, he tends to impose a vague sense of unease on nearby living organisms, humanoid or not.

Psionic Reliance: All of the above abilities, including maintenance of a human form and continued existence, requires psionic energy that doesn't exist in unlimited supply. Over-extending into Typhon abilities or merely going too long without replenishing this energy causes an utter decomposition in any mimetics, hyper-hibernation, and— after a very long "eventually"— death by the only form of starvation a Typhon knows. Restoring this energy can be done through regular consumption of food and drink— like most humans— or through injections of stimulants and the far more grisly (and less palatable) method of consuming fresh, living grey matter.

TranScribe: All there is to Morgan's name (that's of unique note, anyway) is a TranScribe unit— which doubles as both an interface for using compatible machines and as voice- and text-only communication device.

Extra:

Morgan is pulled from the I and Thou (complete empathy) ending of Prey 2017. Therefore, he's not the original Morgan Yu and never lived on the original Talos I or any human-populated planets. This interpretation of him is partially inspired by MittensMcEdgelord's Replica, which can be read on Archive of Our Own.