Haze MacMoray

Haze MacMoray (b. 6 June 1990), sometimes referred to by their callsign Trailwalker, is a Lakelander revolutionary, historian, guerrilla fighter, ecologist, and author. One of the founders of the Lakelands Federation and member of the Faculty, who in 2035 joined the XCOM movement, participating in the Terran War of Liberation as the Avenger's Chief Archivist, while also operating as a freelancer working alongside several other resistance cells throughout the former Old-World nations of, , and.

Born Thomas MacMoray to a working-class family in, in 1990, Haze grew up becoming radicalized by witnessing the effects of  on what would become the , becoming a passionate supporter both of radical left-wing politics and of numerous human rights causes by the time she began studying anthropology at  in 2010, where they shortly after began going by their chosen name, Haze, after coming out as non-binary and pursuing medical transition. After meeting with Iman Naifeh, Vincent Karenzi, and Sugnog Marquette, the group established what would later become Beaver Pines as an anarchist commune in November of 2013 in what was then. They would meet lifelong friend Rhiannon Witt, connecting over their shared experiences as trans people, alongside their participation in the in assistance to the. Following their return from the protests, Haze, along with this close circle of confidants, would continue to develop their commune in the two years leading up to the events of the Two-Month War.

In May of 2015, the city of and its surrounding communities, including the campus of Michigan State, was evacuated following a direct strike by a Fog Pod barrage on the area surrounding the state capitol building. In anticipation of the much wider collapse of social order to come over the year, Haze's group, alongside other radicals, ecologists, farm workers, and other rural working-class persons proceeded to expropriate and safeguard a largre stock of written and digital records, as well as useful resources from the University and of the, fleeing to Presque Isle and establishing Beaver Pines as the heart of what would evolve into the modern Lakelands Federation.

Following the Two-Month War and the creation of ADVENT in July of 2015, Haze was largely concerned with helping surviving areas endure the collapse of social order in the region and beginning to introduce "practical anarchism" in the power vacuum left behind by the retreat of the federal government. As a result, they were placed among the group concerned with education and public outreach for Beaver Pines and of the early LF, forming the basis for the Faculty, a close-knit group of experts in their respective fields who came to live a largely itinerant lifestyle across the area administered or allied to the Federation, overseeing mutual aid efforts and redevelopment. Haze, alongside Rhiannon, would later receive ADVENT-provided gene therapy in the wake of worsening chronic or terminal illnesses the two possessed, with Rhiannon recieving treatment for brain cancer and recieving full-body gender reassignment in 2018, while Haze would undergo a similar procedure in 2023. Unbeknownst to them, both of them had their nervous systems transferred into bodies created under Project Canvas, in a bid by ADVENT to create mind-controlled sleeper agents to destabilize the LF. However, the lack of psynet penetration into the region until the latter part of the 2020s made the programming inactive. In 2029, Haze's own programming halted and caused the failure of Rhiannon's, causing the two to seek out assistance from the newly-founded Skirmishers to have their neural implants received as part of gene therapy removed, causing Rhiannon to go into self-imposed exile from the LF while Haze would return to Beaver Pines to continue her work as part of the Faculty.

After hearing of Rhainnon's death taking part in a field operation as part of XCOM in 2035, Haze offered her services to the organization in the pursuit of acting on her friend's last wishes, which were transmitted to her through the activation of a. In the time since, she has taken up the role of archivist on board the Avenger, while also working closely with the Skirmishers at Site X as well as the Children of Earth, while also engaging in a number of smaller-scale resistance actions as a freelancer, cooperating mainly with the likes of Isa Jaeger, Redmond Oakley, and several others.

War of Terran Liberation
After making contact with the Avenger and discussing their proposition directly with John Bradford on 30 March 2035, Haze began the process of making their way out to the former US state of New Mexico, specifically to reach Site X. After being retrieved by Redmond Oakley near their drop point in the Mojave, they were brought to the Avenger proper, where they spent most of the time familiarizing themselves with the existing archives aboard the ship, additionally making connections with other members of the support and combat team present aboard the ship.

In late May 2035, MacMoray, alongside Oakley and Jaeger, entered the former city of Canon City, Colorado, where they entered the site of a former telecommunications company in search of functioning computer hardware to bring back to Isa's place of origin, Sanctum. After successfully locating and entering the building, they discovered that the building held a secure server room that was kept active thanks to an independent elerium-based power source, though the room itself was found to be sealed more haphazardly. After breaching the seal on the doors, they expropriated the appropriate amount of hardware, but discovered the corpse of a Faceless, which had apparently died by self-inflicted gunshot. It held a USB drive, which when plugged into a terminal attached to the servers, revealed that the hardware was linked to Project Canvas, and that it contained records of Haze's status as "offline" alongside the names of thousands of others who were converted into Faceless earlier in ADVENT's history. Haze then took the drive with them and destroyed the remaining servers by demolishing the building. The USB drive was handed over to Richard Tygan, who used it to cross-reference with recruitment databases and known resistance havens.

In July of 2035, MacMoray made contact with the archaeologist Sylvia Carvalho, and accompanied her, alongside Jaeger and two Reapers, to Iraq, where they made contact with the city of New Babylon, a haven built on the semi-restored ruins of the original city, where they, alongside its leader Gilgamesh discovered a Saddam-era command center and antiquities cache located beneath the reconstructed Southern Palace of Nebuchandnezzar. After confronting a company of Pathfinders pursuing the same relics, MacMoray and their group had escaped back into Independent Kurdistan before returning to the Avenger.

Quotes

 * "This, my friend, is Sriracha - the ultimate condiment." - Introducing Isa Jaeger to the eponymous sauce in May of 2035, much to the chagrin of other members of the team.