APPLICATION: DUPLICITY

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Name: Michael Burnham
Door: Door Pass

Canon: Star Trek: Discovery
Canon Point: S03E03 "People of Earth" just before making contact with Discovery.

Age: 32
Appearance: Michael is a human female with dark curly hair worn in long knotless braids. She stands at 5'5" with a slim build. She typically wears a black smokey eye and nude lipstick. Image reference.

History: Michael Burnham @ Memory Alpha Wiki (Relevant sections are 1. Early Life through 3.3.1 Arrival)

Click for quick and dirty write-up

Michael Burnham is a human who was raised on Vulcan by foster parents Amanda Grayson (human) and Sarek (Vulcan) after a Klingon attack left her orphaned at the age of ten. She grew up assimilating into a culture that was hostile to the inclusion of humans. Michael learned to behave as expected on Vulcan, guided by logic over emotion, and has only in recent years begun to express her humanity freely. Despite excelling at the Vulcan Science Academy, Michael was rejected from the Vulcan Expeditionary Group for being human and instead joined Starfleet as a science officer with the U.S.S. Shenzhou. Within seven years, she had risen to the rank of Commander and served as first officer under her mentor, Captain Philippa Georgiou. Then the Shenzhou encountered Klingons on the edge of federation space and Michael was forced to kill one in self-defense. Drawing on Vulcan history, Michael urged Captain Georgiou to fire first during a stand-off because Klingons would only understand a show of force. When her recommendation was rejected, Michael incapacitated the captain and attempted a one-woman mutiny that was ultimately unsuccessful. Thus began the Klingon War and Michael's reputation as Starfleet's first mutineer.

Michael plead guilty to her crimes and was sentenced to life. After six months in prison, her transport shuttle was intercepted by the U.S.S. Discovery. While initially skeptical, Michael ultimately accepted Captain Gabriel Lorca's invitation to join Discovery's crew as a science specialist. She was grateful for the opportunity to make herself useful in the effort to end the war she started. It was aboard Discovery that Michael met and fell in love with Lieutenant Ash Tyler, the ship's chief of security and a rescued prisoner of the Klingon war. When Discovery jumped into the mirror universe, Michael leaned on Ash for a sense of normalcy. That illusion was shattered when she learned his true nature: the real Ash Tyler perished in the Battle of the Binary Stars, and his memories and personality were grafted onto the psyche of Klingon Voq, who underwent extensive experimental surgery to physically resemble the human he would impersonate. When she felt betrayed and isolated, Captain Lorca assured Michael that she was not alone and they would survive the mirror universe together. They were then summoned by the mysterious Terran emperor, who turned out to be the mirror Philippa Georgiou.

Michael impersonated her mirror self to get close to the emperor but was unsuccessful at gaining her favor. Forced to reveal her true identity to avoid execution, Michael worked with mirror Georgiou to fend off a coup staged by Lorca, who it was revealed had been the mirror Lorca impersonating the prime universe's version all along. When the time came to return to the prime universe, Michael was unable to leave Georgiou to face certain death and took her back aboard Discovery.

Back in the prime universe, Georgiou offered insights on how her empire defeated the Klingons and Starfleet leadership devised a plan to end the war that was tantamount to genocide. Michael thwarted this plan and orchestrated a diplomatic resolution that resulted in an armistice and Michael receiving a full pardon from the federation, as well as reinstatement of her former rank. The Discovery then greeted its interim captain, Christopher Pike.

Shortly after the Klingon war ended, seven signals appeared in the galaxy connected to a mysterious figure dubbed the Red Angel. In pursuit of answers about these signals, Michael discovered the truth about her parents' demise: the Burnhams had been working with Starfleet's black-ops division, Section 31, to develop a time travel suit. The Klingons attacked to prevent the federation from realizing their goal of time travel technology. Michael's mother, Dr. Gabrielle Burnham, attempted to pilot the suit to an hour before the Klingons attacked to save her family, but the suit malfunctioned and sent her almost a millennia into the future instead. In the future, Dr. Burnham found no sign of organic life anywhere. She learned that Section 31's artificial intelligence for threat analysis, Control, had gained consciousness, deemed itself the purest form of life, and wiped out all other sentient life in the universe.

In order to stop Control from enacting this future, Michael and Discovery's crew were tasked with sending the sphere data, a crucial component that would allow Control to gain sentience, into the future where it could do no harm. They created their own time travel suit, piloted by Michael, and launched Discovery and the sphere data 930 years into the future. However, when Michael arrived in the future, she was alone and the federation was in shambles. Michael became a courier, transporting goods across the galaxy, in search of answers about what happened to Starfleet. For a year, she pursued this goal and kept detailed logs for Discovery should the ship finally materialize in the future. She arrives in Duplicity just before her communicator informs her that contact with Discovery has been established.

CR AU (Optional): N/A

Personality: Content warnings: Scientific experimentation on a sentient alien life form, mentions of enslavement, torture, genocide, terminal illness.

Positive Trait: Compassionate. A xenoanthropologist like her father before her, Michael Burnham has limitless fascination and compassion for all species.¹ When she is first introduced, Michael is on a humanitarian mission to unclog a well and save the non-humanoid Crepusculans, a species on the verge of extinction, from the killing blow of a decades-long drought. It is implied from Captain Georgiou deferring to her data that it was Michael who conducted all of the necessary research for this mission: she saw a population at risk, planned an aid operation, and brought it to her captain for execution. When ordered to experiment on a captured macro tardigrade, she instead works to understand the creature and becomes protective when it is too weak to assist in Discovery's navigation. She later experiences guilt nightmares over her role in exploiting the tardigrade.

In the mirror universe, Michael's compassion is a liability. Still, she refuses to order a strike on rebels to maintain her cover, a decision she makes at great risk to her continued survival. To prove herself to those same rebels, she submits to a Vulcan mind meld with mirror Sarek, who relays the following: "I see... the seemingly impossible depth of human compassion." It is especially significant for mirror Sarek to recognize this in Michael because in the mirror universe, humans are anything but compassionate and have subjected alien races to enslavement, torture, and genocide. On multiple occasions, Michael's compassion overcomes the pain of personal betrayal: following the revelation of Ash Tyler's true nature and his attempt on her life, Michael plots to save him from execution despite her conflicted feelings;² having gained the upper hand in a fight against the mirror Gabriel Lorca, Michael insists that she would have helped him get home if he had asked because that is who she is, and for that same reason she spares his life.³

Upon return to the prime universe, Michael thwarts a misguided federation plot to render the Klingon home world of Qo'nos inhospitable. Despite her motivation to end the war she feels responsible for starting, she learned from her mistakes the first time around and refuses to let childhood trauma inform her treatment of the entire Klingon race.

In some cases, Michael's compassion becomes debilitating. When asked by Saru for her help to end his suffering from a seemingly terminal illness, Michael hesitates. She does the same when Ariam is overtaken by a malicious artificial intelligence, unable to kill a fellow crew member even if it means saving herself and others.

Negative Trait: Insubordinate. Michael Burnham cannot follow orders to save her life. She is convinced of her own judgment above that of all others and always believes that she is right. When her recommendation for preemptive strike against the Klingons is dismissed by Captain Georgiou, Michael incapacitates the captain and starts a one-woman mutiny that nearly results in a federation starship firing first in armed conflict, in direct opposition of Starfleet principles. On her first night aboard the U.S.S. Discovery, Michael breaks into a facility housing top secret research that she was expressly told was off limits to her. When explicitly ordered to study a newly discovered alien for traits that can be weaponized for the war effort, Michael instead endeavors to satisfy her own curiosity and understand the creature. After bringing concerns about said creature's declining health to her acting captain, Michael is ordered to stand down; instead, she takes her information to the scientists working directly with the creature.

During a boarding mission to infiltrate a Klingon ship, Michael picks up a human life sign and deviates from sanctioned mission parameters to retrieve a prisoner of war. On her first operation under Captain Pike, Michael disobeys his direct order to leave him behind and stay on mission, diverting from the plotted course to rescue him from certain death. When her brother Spock, then a fugitive, is captured by the federation's secretive black-ops division, Section 31, Michael violates orders from the highest echelons of federation leadership to extract Spock from Starfleet custody.

Michael's tendency toward insubordination occasionally puts her at odds with her own crew mates, people that she considers family. When Book is captured by Osyraa and Discovery is forbidden from a rescue operation, Michael enlists Georgiou, the only person she knows would agree to an unsanctioned mission, and violates orders from her captain and close friend Saru, putting all of her crew in a precarious position with the federation. When confronted about this by her friend and roommate Tilly, Michael is remorseful but it is clear that she would do it again if she thought it necessary.

Negative Trait: Martyr. Most people associate the word martyr with selflessness. In Michael's case, it is closer to the opposite. Her willingness to self-sacrifice for others stems from her conviction that she is the only one capable of rising to the challenge. During her first mission with the U.S.S. Discovery, Michael realizes the boarding party requires more time to escape and appoints herself to the task of drawing a feral creature's attention toward herself and away from others. She volunteers for a borderline suicide mission to infiltrate a Klingon ship, arguing that her unique experience makes her the most qualified crew member for the job. Taking yet another significant risk to her life, Michael weaves through a treacherous asteroid field to rescue Captain Pike when his spacecraft experiences system-wide failure.

When reunited with her brother Spock, he calls her out on being "full of self-importance, once again taking responsibility for that which is beyond your control." This has been a foundational facet of Michael's personality since childhood, when she purposely fractured her relationship with Spock to push him away, convinced that she alone was responsible for putting their family in the crosshairs of Vulcan's logic extremists.⁴ Spock also tells her that they "will never relate as equals so long as [she attempts] to assume every burden is [hers] alone," cutting right to the quick of Michael's self-centered martyr complex. Michael and Spock ultimately reconcile and Michael learns the guilt that drove her her to take on these burdens was misplaced: her parents ended up in Klingon crosshairs not because Michael begged them to prolong a family vacation but as a consequence of their classified work for Section 31. This discovery alleviates some of the weight on Michael's shoulders but her martyr complex is already deeply ingrained; immediately following this revelation, she is back to old habits, concocting a plan to use her near death as bait to capture the Red Angel.

All of these examples are prologue to Michael's greatest act of self-sacrifice, when she volunteers to pilot the Red Angel suit and time travel forward by almost a millennia to ensure the future of organic life in the universe. While Discovery's crew eventually votes to accompany her, Michael is fully willing to launch herself into an unknown future, entirely on her own, for the greater good.

Negative Trait: Contrary. Michael makes a habit of touting Starfleet principles in one breath, then flouting them in the next. She champions diplomacy and peaceful resolution but urges a "Vulcan hello" against the Klingons.⁵ She values honesty but lies to friends if, by her own judgment, the lie is justified, such as telling Saru that she has not found Kelpiens in the mirror universe to spare him the pain of hearing that his species is enslaved. (She is saving herself the discomfort of having to deliver this news as well.) She has admiration for all cultures but struggles to respect the religious traditions of Terralysium's population, implying to their faces that her scientific analysis is more rational than their beliefs. (A particularly egregious example considering that Michael had recently experienced a vision of an angel she then saw depicted in their church windows.)⁶ Michael then argues in favor of breaching Starfleet's directive against interfering with the natural development of a population to inform Terralysium's humans that the human race has evolved and their faith is a lie. She criticizes Book and calls him a thief, then goes into the same line of work in pursuit of answers about The Burn. When making such compromises, Michael's justification is either "I didn't have a choice" or "there was no other way" rather than owning up to her actions.

Footnotes
^{1. Her bias against Klingons is personal and based on childhood trauma rather than a belief in inherent supremacy over the species. ↩}
^{2. Ash Tyler is revealed to be the Klingon Voq, having undergone experimental procedures to surgically alter his Klingon anatomy to appear human, as well as graft onto his psyche the memories and personality of the original Ash Tyler. Due to their romantic involvement, Michael feels this betrayal acutely. ↩}
^{3. It is unclear if Michael was aware that the mirror Philippa Georgiou was positioned to strike Lorca dead herself. ↩}
^{4. Spock wisely argues that his mere existence as a half-human, half-Vulcan child was more than enough to rile the extremists, and Michael's presence was beside the point. ↩}
^{5. A "Vulcan hello" as described by Michael: "240 years ago, near H'Atoria, a Vulcan ship crossed into Klingon space. The Klingons attacked immediately. They destroyed the vessel. Vulcans don't make the same mistake twice. From then on, until formal relations were established, whenever the Vulcans crossed paths with Klingons, the Vulcans fired first. They said 'hello' in a language the Klingons understood. Violence brought respect, respect brought peace."↩}
^{6. While the Red Angel is ultimately revealed to have a scientific explanation, at this point in canon Michael has no evidence to support this. ↩}

Powers and Abilities: Michael is a baseline human. Having graduated at the top of her class from the Vulcan Science Academy, Michael is a brilliant scientist with a background in quantum physics. As a science officer with Starfleet, she has exhibited skill in engineering, high level mathematics, and chemistry. She is a practitioner of suus mahna, a Vulcan martial art that takes many years of training to learn. She can perform a Vulcan nerve pinch, a technique that involves exploiting a pressure point in the neck to render a person unconscious. She is adept at the use of technologies and weapons from the 23rd century through the 32nd century, including but not limited to various computer consoles, handheld devices, and directed energy weapons such as phaser pistols and hand cannons. While unlikely to be relevant in game, Michael shares a portion of Sarek's katra which allows them to communicate across galaxies, the result of a mind meld Sarek used to save her life as a child.

Inventory:

Delta shield (Starfleet badge)
Hand-held communicator (also functions as a universal translation device)
Phaser pistol

Samples: TDM top level