Benjamin Giraud

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Benjamin Giraud, previously known just as the Photographer,^[2] was a human civilian journalist and war photographer affiliated with the Office of Naval Intelligence. Ostensibly a civilian working on the public relations of the Civilian Warthog, he helped alter battle footage to keep the public unaware of how the UNSC was losing the Human-Covenant war. Later, after the war's close, he was requested to make an in-depth profile about John-117.^[3]

Biography[]

Battle of Mombasa[]

Main articles: Battle of Mombasa and Second Sunrise Over New Mombasa

Giraud was injured during the Prophet of Regret's invasion of New Mombasa,^[4] and after, was a part of a small resistance group trying to hold the Covenant back until the Marines could come.^[5]

Giraud recorded and translated an order from an Elite to "Clear this area before we can access the Ark." He was ordered by a Marine Sergeant to get the recording out of the city to ONI. He was about to board a boat out of the city, but stopped when he saw a young girl crying and no one with her. He calmed her down and handed her his laptop with the recording in it. Supposedly, he asked her to give it to the authorities when she got to the mainland. He himself remained in the city, and was last seen observing the Covenant invasion in a room full of displays.^[5]

Profiling John-117[]

Main article: Hunt the Truth

After the Human-Covenant war had ended, Giraud was employed by Michael Sullivan of the Office of Naval Intelligence^[6] to compile an in-depth profile of the AWOL John-117.^[3] The idea was to create a patriotic tale of a brave hero and borderline Messiah-figure. He interviewed Deon Govender, Ellie Bloom, Thomas Wu, Mshak Moradi,^[7] Gabriella Dvørak, Katrina, Jakob Walker, and Anthony Petrosky.^[8]

Most of the stories he received from the interviews matched the official records supplied by ONI except a document from an outer colony that stated that John had died at the age of six^[7] and Katrina's testimony that John's parents were still alive by 2528, four years after their date of death as stated by many other interviewees.^[6] Sullivan explained that glassed planets typically have erroneous records. However, Benjamin didn't accept Sullivan's explanation and investigated the discrepancies further.^[6]^[8]

While following up with Thomas Wu about a particular discrepancy in his testimony, Thomas became defensive and started to accidentally contradict some of his previous statements. Thomas quickly hung up, bringing Benjamin to a horrifying realization that he did the entire interview over Waypoint, meaning any ONI personnel could have heard the conversation and flagged it.^[8]

Soon after, Benjamin was called in for a meeting with Sullivan at ONI's Boston headquarters. After a brief meeting with Petra Janecek at a local pub,^[9] Benjamin arrived at the ONI headquarters and discovered that the reason for the meeting was to to interview Franklin Mendez, a soldier who trained John. When Benjamin questioned the benevolence of the Spartans, the interview was cut short and Benjamin was fired and ordered to transfer all of his recorded interviews to ONI.^[10]

On the flight back home, Benjamin recognized one of the other passengers as Jacob Walker, who was supposed to be on Saturn's moon, Castallaneta. Benjamin stood up out of his seat and confronted Jacob. When Benjamin refused to comply with a flight attendant's request to sit back down, the attendant sedated him. Two agents, presumably from ONI, took him and gave him even more sedative. They even called his unconscious body "Ben," as if they knew him. Frustrated with how much ONI disrespected his hard work, Benjamin released all of the audio files he had compiled to the public in a weekly series he titled Hunt the Truth.^[10]

However, things did not go so smoothly after this point. Ben started receiving all sorts of messages. After a few weeks, Ben asked Ray to drop by and hand over all of the files Ben had sent him earlier. Ray did so, along with the news that he was calling quits on Ben's insane crusade. Their meeting was soon interrupted by Petra, who had listened to herself on Ben's series and was incredibly furious at Ben's nerve. It was soon discovered, also, that Mashak had also hacked into Ben's own COM. Distraught, Ray and Petra cut ties with Ben. But not all was lost: Mashak warned Ben that in a few days he would be contacted by a mysterious person under the codename "Fero," who apparently held deep knowledge of ONI and what they have done.^[11]

For three days Ben waited, all the while worried that Mshak might have been put down by ONI, and shortly after he received a call from Ray who asked to meet up with Ben to talk. Ray then revealed to Ben that he had done some of his own independent research and had made a discovery that turned all of Ray's misconceptions on their head, and made him realize that maybe Ben wasn't as insane as he had thought earlier.^[12]

Incarceration at Midnight Facility[]

Giraud incarceration in the Midnight facility.

After the talk show incident, Giraud was captured and transported to Midnight Facility and incarcerated. The psychological effect lead Giraud to cause self-inflicted wounds on his hands and develop a nervous tick of rubbing his head and face raw. It was with this behavior that Michael Sullivan stepped in to "comfort" Giraud. Sullivan's goal is to brainwash Giraud into becoming a PR asset for ONI. Maya Sankar - the ONI agent known to Giraud as FERO - encountered him while awaiting mission reassignment on the facility. At first Giraud still believed her to be FERO, but when it became apparent that she was an ONI agent, Giraud became traumatized and Sullivan later implied that he had regressed to the damaged psychological state he was in when he first arrived.^[13]