Essex: Biotic Marine of Delta Squad

Essex was a gifted human biotic of the Systems Alliance, serving in the special forces unit known as Delta Squad. Carefree, overconfident, and forever boasting of his powers, he had the talent to back up much of his bravado, dispatching enemies with ease and clear enjoyment. Deployed to the colony of Fehl Prime in the Terminus Systems under the command of Lieutenant James Vega, he fought through two battles for the colony and gave his life in the second.

A brash biotic#

Essex carried a carefree and easygoing nature that fed a constant air of overconfidence. He bragged endlessly of his biotic ability, yet the boasts had some foundation, for he could dispatch enemies casually and took plain pleasure in doing so. He was given to grandstanding and to the mistakes that came with it, but generally found a way to make up for them, summing up his attitude in his favorite line about looking cool before he died. He was drawn to a fellow marine named Kamille, whose rejections never discouraged him.

The Blood Pack at Fehl Prime#

Essex arrived at Fehl Prime with the rest of Delta Squad while the colony was under assault by Blood Pack mercenaries. When the squad's drop shuttle was shot down and its captain incapacitated, command fell to Lieutenant James Vega, who set Essex and Kamille to flank the enemy while he drew their attention. Essex nearly betrayed the maneuver with a careless throw of his rifle, but redeemed himself by devastating the mercenary ranks with his biotics, supported by sniper fire from his comrade Milque. The colony was held, and Essex was both reprimanded for his recklessness and commended for his results.

The Collectors#

Two years later, with Fehl Prime recovered and reinforced by a heavy anti-ship cannon and military-grade kinetic barriers, Delta Squad was sent to investigate a strange jamming signal at the colony's edge. The source proved to be an unknown alien device, which the squad destroyed, but the colony then came under attack by the Collectors, the force responsible for a string of disappearances across the Terminus Systems.

Through the long battle that followed, Essex saw the fight turn against the squad. Kamille was seized and carried off by a Collector drone as he looked on helplessly. He held off swarms of the creatures to cover his comrades' retreats, and at one point stayed behind to buy the others time, only to be left for dead after being paralyzed by the Collectors' seeker plague. Recovering against all expectation, he returned to immobilize a pursuing Praetorian so that Vega could destroy it, and helped administer to the squad an antidote found within the colony's underground labs.

Last stand#

With the Collector ship rising to carry off the captured colonists, the survivors resolved to disable it from within. Boarding the vessel, Essex defended their improvised attack and worked to disperse the antidote among the imprisoned colonists, amplifying his biotics with a power cell to enormous effect. In the final confrontation a multilegged Collector boss shrugged off his every attack, and as he gathered himself for a decisive strike it impaled him from behind. Near death, he flared his biotics one last time, broke through the creature's defenses, and fell with it into the abyss, dying as he had always said he would, in a final act of defiance.