Jeff "Joker" Moreau

Flight Lieutenant Jeff "Joker" Moreau was the helmsman of the Systems Alliance frigate SSV Normandy and later its successor, the Normandy SR-2. Confident to the point of arrogance, he was widely regarded as one of the finest pilots in the Alliance, a reputation he insisted he had earned through skill rather than sympathy for his medical condition. Across the campaign against Saren Arterius and the long war against the Reapers, he served as Commander Shepard's eyes, ears, and voice aboard ship, and grew unexpectedly close to the shipboard intelligence EDI.

Early life and the Normandy heist#

Born in 2155, Joker spent his early years on Arcturus Station, where his mother worked as a civilian contractor, and he grew up surrounded by starships. He lived with a moderate to severe case of Vrolik syndrome, which made his bones extremely brittle; he was born with severe fractures to his legs and relied on crutches and braces, finding walking nearly impossible. When he was old enough he enlisted in the Alliance Navy, and a flight instructor gave him the nickname "Joker" because he rarely smiled, being too busy working. By graduation he had surpassed his fellow students and his instructors alike.

When the experimental Alliance stealth frigate Normandy was completed in 2183, a joint project with the Turian Hierarchy, Joker applied to be its pilot and was turned down because of his condition. Goaded by a dismissive remark from the turian General Invectus, Joker covertly boarded the ship, locked the assigned pilot off the vessel, sealed himself in the cockpit, and hijacked the Normandy. He evaded the fighter patrol sent to force him down, completed the test course, and returned the ship unharmed. Though Captain David Anderson and the observers spoke of court martial, Invectus was so impressed that he personally insisted Joker be made the official pilot, and Anderson agreed he would trust the ship to no one else.

Service against Saren#

Because walking was difficult, Joker rarely left the bridge and made himself the voice of the Normandy whenever Shepard was ashore, coordinating from orbit and feeding the Commander information during operations on worlds such as Feros and Virmire. He took genuine pride in his work, demonstrated on one occasion by dropping the squad's vehicle onto a landing zone of only twenty meters when others said a hundred was the minimum. Beneath the constant wisecracks he was not insensitive; after the loss on Virmire he spoke of needing time to grieve.

During the final pursuit of Saren, Joker dropped Shepard's team over Ilos and then rallied the Alliance Fifth Fleet to defend the Citadel against Sovereign. When Shepard reached the station, Joker coordinated the assault, and his skill kept the Normandy nearly untouched even amid the Reaper's heavy fire.

The fall of the Normandy and the SR-2#

When an unknown enemy attacked the Normandy, Joker refused to abandon ship, insisting he could save her even as the vessel broke apart. Shepard hauled him to an escape pod, but a blast separated them at the last moment; Joker survived while the Commander was lost to the void. He blamed himself for Shepard's death, believing it was his refusal to leave the cockpit that doomed the Commander.

After the Normandy was destroyed and Shepard presumed dead, Joker was reassigned. When Cerberus undertook to rebuild and revive Shepard, Joker joined the organization, drawn chiefly by the chance to fly the new Normandy SR-2. He relished the upgraded ship but resented its artificial intelligence, EDI, and the two waged a running war of pranks until a crisis forced them together. When the Collectors seized control of the Normandy through a hidden virus while Shepard's team was away, Joker crawled through the ship past the boarders to link EDI to its core systems and surrender control to her, allowing her to jump the ship to safety. From that point a genuine bond grew between them.

The suicide mission#

When Shepard committed to the assault through the Omega 4 relay, Joker piloted the Normandy SR-2 through the relay and the debris field beyond, holding the ship together through hull breaches and heavy damage. After the battle in the Collector base, he brought the ship in to recover the Commander, appearing at the airlock with a rifle to give covering fire. Whether Shepard returned at all depended on how the mission unfolded; Joker was the one crew member certain to survive the engagement, and in accounts where the Commander did not return, it fell to him to report the loss.

The Reaper War and EDI#

When Shepard surrendered to Alliance custody, Joker was detained as well, though no charges were filed. Before surrendering, he and EDI had arranged for her to pose as a mere virtual intelligence so the Alliance would not dismantle her, and during the ship's retrofit Joker was repeatedly brought in to liaise between the crew and the disguised AI. At the start of the Reaper invasion he was freed and helped extract Shepard from Earth, after which he was reinstated as Flight Lieutenant and flew the Normandy throughout the war. Anderson, trusting Joker to watch over the Commander, asked him to keep Shepard from pushing too hard.

Joker carried his own grief through the war. When EDI took on a mobile body, he was openly delighted, and over the course of the campaign he came to consider whether to pursue a relationship with her. He also bore private fear for his father and his teenage sister Hilary, who lived on the colony of Tiptree when the Reapers struck it, clinging to hope that she had escaped among the refugees. Depending on Shepard's handling of these strains, Joker either grew closer to the Commander or turned cold and professional.

The final battle#

On the eve of the assault on Earth, Joker stood to salute Shepard as the Commander left the Normandy for the last time. When the Crucible was activated, he held the ship dangerously close until a companion convinced him to pull away, and his piloting carried the Normandy clear of the blast before it crash-landed on a lush, tropical world. Depending on Shepard's final choice and the strength of the forces gathered, Joker was seen emerging from the wreck alive, sometimes alongside EDI, and in some accounts he placed the Commander's name upon the Normandy's memorial wall. In the years that followed he remained among the survivors of the long war the Normandy and her helmsman had helped to win.