Tex (Epsilon)

Epsilon-Tex first appeared in Backup Plans. She was created by Epsilon, as the original Tex by Alpha, as a by-product based upon the memories of Allison.

Awakening
She was seen in Revelation in a memory flash by Epsilon-Church watching him as he attempts to preach at the funeral. Epsilon also talked about a girl before passing out in Revelation. It is later revealed that he was talking about Tex.

Tex reappears in Chapter 9 of Revelation, after Epsilon-Church discovers an underground auxiliary project freelancer base. In a room only allowed access to by the Director was a small, human sized chamber, that Epsilon opens at the end of Chapter 8. Towards the end of Chapter 9, Tex ominously busts down the steel door, making anticipated return to the series. In Chapter 10, she defeats a team of Tucker, Simmons, Grif and Sarge, before being challenged by Epsilon-Church, who has now taken a new body from the room Epsilon-Church awoke Tex from, in which there were many spare bodies.

Tex easily defeats Epsilon-Church by beating him with his previous Monitor body, however Caboose activates the Armor Lock on Tex's armor, restraining her. This lockdown protocol also affects everyone else in the room except Caboose because he is wearing the Mark V helmet, which does not have that function installed. Epsilon-Church later had a debate with Tucker and the Reds about letting her free from armor lock, resulting in Tucker saying she is meaner than his (non-existent) ex-wife. Epsilon-Church enters Tex's body and he and Tex come to an agreement to let her out as long as she doesn't beat anyone up, however she says that she will hit Tucker for his ex-wife crack. Epsilon-Church agrees and asks F.I.L.S.S. to turn off armor lock for all units while assuring the others that she will be fine. This freed Tex, who proceeded to hit Tucker in the face for his ex-wife crack, prompting Epsilon-Church to mention that he forgot to mention something.

Afterward, Tex catches up on what she's missed since she was last active, which turns out not to be as much as she was expecting. However, she still wants to know more, especially any information in regards to who she really is. Epsilon-Church agrees to provide her "Director level" access to F.I.L.S.S.'s files for this reason. She attempts to find the location of Freelancer Headquarters, but quickly discovers that the group had destroyed it during the events of Reconstruction, much to her annoyance. She then enlists Simmons's help in eliciting more information from F.I.L.S.S., although the A.I. proves to be difficult to interrogate (as much of the information is restricted to the Director only). When Epsilon-Church, posing as the director accesses the files however, it is shown that the Counselor calls Tex "a byproduct" which means that she is actually a fragment of Alpha's memory, though not a personality fragment. Nonetheless, she manages to find information about a Freelancer base that piques her interest, and informs the group of her departure. Epsilon-Church, however, refuses to let her go alone. She allows him to, musing that he could be of some use once they arrive.

Avalanche
At this Freelancer base, Tex makes quick work of the guards there. They then enter the facility, at which point she tells Epsilon-Church that this is where they had once kept Alpha, and that they had both been here before. Evidently, she was the one who had led a group of rogue Freelancers to rescue the Alpha, refusing to let the A.I. suffer at the hands of the project's continued experiments, and revealed that the Director was using other AI's, including Gamma and Omega, to break down the Alpha even more. However, she had failed, having arrived too late. The Alpha's mental state had deteriorated past the breaking point, and no longer even able to recognize Tex. In a defeated tone, she confesses to Epsilon-Church the belief that the fault all lied with her. After searching the facility, Tex decides that the elusive Director will have the answers she needs. Tex believes that the whereabouts of the Director are known by Agent Washington and the Meta.

To summon them, Tex shoots Epsilon-Church in the foot, which triggers his recovery beacon. When Epsilon-Church says that he could have helped her, she claims that he can't even help himself, which is the reason why he made her. She then leaves him incapacitated as she makes preparations for her fellow Freelancers' arrival. When they finally appear, Wash incorrectly ascertains that she must be hiding out somewhere, waiting to take them out with a sniper. In reality, she had set explosives where she predicted they would be, and promptly blows them up. Wash and the Meta (as well as Doc) survive the surprise attack, and quickly engage

Tex in hand-to-hand combat. However, in order to even the odds against her two adversaries, she planted numerous weapons all over the battlefield, including a Chaingun, an Assault Rifle, a Battle Rifle, and multiple explosives, which collapse part of the area. However, she fails to best them, and despite Wash's protests, an overzealous Meta manages to stab her in the face with a capture unit.



The capture unit traps her within itself. The Meta then uses this unit to give himself Tex's signature ability: invisibility. He then betrays Wash, attacking him with his Brute Shot the moment he phases out of sight. Wash attempts to fight back, simultaneously trying to keep Epsilon-Church from coming to harm. However, as in their last encounter, the Meta easily bests him. Fortunately, he is saved by the sudden arrival of the rest of Blue Team and most of the Reds. After the Meta is temporarily incapacitated, Epsilon-Church pleads with Wash to let Tex out of the unit. Wash, however, explains that the unit is one-way, and that he won't be able to let her out without the necessary tools. He eventually agrees to help after Epsilon-Church promises to come with him if he should save her. At this point, Epsilon clarifies Tex's real identity: like the fragments, she is an A.I. who was once part of the Alpha. However, unlike the fragments who were pieces of the Alpha's shattered pysche, Tex is a byproduct. She was based on the memories of the real Alison, a woman the Director had loved who died years before. As a result, she would always be doomed to fail in anything she tried to accomplish, since that is all the Director could remember of her.

Epsilon-Church made the decision to follow Tex into the unit in an attempt to find her. Inside, he describes finding her inside the massive data stores as like looking for a good memory, saying that you always push it away the harder you try to remember it, and how you need to patient and let it come to you. Rather then seeking her out, Epsilon-Church stays in a recreation of Blood Gulch created from his memories, saying that if he is going to wait for Tex to find him in a memory for forever, it should be a good one.

Blood Gulch
Tex arrives at Blood Gulch and while Epsilon, his memory versions of Tucker, and Caboose are in a circle Tex throws a flashbang at the center of the 3. They believe they are under attack and fire blindly in the sky while Tex watches from a nearby hill calling them idiots. She then goes down to them and listens to them complain. She asks about the dead soldier and Church, in an effort to get her to stay, gives her a fake soldier name.

She calls command to verify and is told to stay until she helps. She goes to Church and the other Blues and tells them she'll help by evening the teams, thus killing a Red. She is then seen in the middle of the canyon with Blue Team. She asks Church which one and, in an effort to keep her, tells her he can't decide. When his aim is brought into question Tex has Church shoot a rock. He misses and she takes the Sniper Rifle from him. She kills Lopez and decides to kill another. She aims at Donut however hearing his screaming decides to let him live saying he will just demoralize the Reds. Church tries to get Tex to stay longer and has Tucker help him come up with ways to do so. Tex comes over to them and announces she will stay as Caboose paid her $100 to get Sheila working. Later Church tries to talk to her while shes working on the tank but is interrupted by Caboose. When Caboose fails to grasp the concept of him leaving Church asks for Tex to help. However Tex tells him that this is probably more interesting than what he wanted to talk about. She is later working on the tank alone when Epsilon comes back up to her. She reveals she knows all about the real world, surprising Epsilon. She then says she doesn't know why The Director made her and that shes just along for the ride. She gets Sheila to work and asks Epsilon "See what happens when you treat something right?" and he, thinking about Tex, replies "Yeah. I think I do." Tex is with Church listening to Grif's insults towards Blue Team. Eventually she gets mad and decides to kill all the Reds. She has Caboose get her tools and using a robot kit builds Andy the Bomb. She is surrounding Andy with the rest of the Blues answering their questions about Andy. When she goes to take him to Red Base Church tries to give her pointers on lifting causing Tex to insult him. Later Tex is about to leave Blue Base with the rest of the Blues but Church says he's not going. Later when Caboose and Tucker are leaving Tex reveals she stayed. She and Church then share a heartfelt moment. Later she is conversing with Epsilon at the top of Blue Base still. Church reveals he knows now what the Director and Alpha couldn't figure out. He tells her he has three words for her, despite her not wanting to hear them believing it to be "I love you", and he tells her "I forget you". She then disappears.

Personality
Epsilon-Tex's personality is almost completely identical to that of the original Tex. There are slight variations, however, most noticeably the fact that she is sometimes kinder with Church (or rather Epsilon-Church) than her previous incarnation was, demonstrated chiefly by the fact that she acknowledges that she is Church's girlfriend, something the original Tex never did. It is possible that their relationship is better because it is more closely based on that of the original Dr. Leonard Church and his lost love Alison, on whom Tex is based; this is because, since Epsilon-Tex is a side product of the creation of Epsilon-Church, which is the memory of the Alpha (which was a copy of Dr. Church's personality), it retains a better memory of what the relationship between Dr. Church and Alison was like.

Despite her soft spot for Church, Tex retains most of her violent traits; as displayed when she attacks the Reds immediately after being released and on how she has no hesitance at all to kill Washington during their battle on Avalanche. She seems even less patient and more stubborn than her previous incarnation, which might possibly be due to the fact that she did not want to be brought back, and she knows that Epsilon-Church is the only thing holding her back.

Skills and Abilities
Epsilon-Tex, like the original, possesses great skill as a fighter, having the ability to fight and defeat Grif, Simmons, Sarge and Tucker in a four-on-one fight. She repeatedly bests them throughout the fight, with every single attempt on their part failing. Her skill in martial arts is further displayed where she took on and was a match for both Washington and the Meta throughout most of the fight.

Along with her skills in martial arts, she seems to have enough knowledge of military tactics to modify them for her own use, as displayed at the end of Rally Cap, where she sets up a trap that, at first glance, looks like a setup for a sniper when in reality was actually a trap made up of an array of trip mines.



When compared to the original Tex, however, Epsilon-Tex leaves much to be desired in terms of skill. Despite being the memory of the original Tex, she does not seem to possess the same skill; during Introductions, the original Tex displayed the ability to fight, defeat and completely overwhelm York, Wyoming and Maine in a 3-on-1 fight. In Reunion, however, Epsilon-Tex was shown to only barely hold her own against Wash and the Meta and she lost in the end; this resulted in her getting trapped in the Capture Unit. Keep in mind that at this time, the Meta in particular had no access to any AI and had no ability to use any of the armor enhancements he possessed, therefore equating roughly to his abilities as the former Agent Maine. Also in the previously mentioned encounter, the original Tex fought and defeated two additional Freelancers who were higher-ranked fighters than Washington. The difference in the odds and results of each fight clearly displays the difference in skill possessed by each Tex.

Failures
Similar to her original counterpart, Epsilon-Tex is based on a woman Dr. Leonard Church loved, but died, leaving him with only the memory of this, and because of this, she is fated to fail at everything she does as Epsilon-Church explained.
 * While fighting the Reds in Revelation, she ran out of ammo as she was about to kill Grif, and as she was about to kill Tucker with his own sword, it turned off, because it only works for Tucker.
 * Her attempts to kill Agent Washington and the Meta on Avalanche ultimately failed when the Meta stabbed her in the face with the capture unit, trapping her inside it.
 * While inside the Epsilon unit, she failed to kill the Reds with a bomb she built, which, ultimately, didn't detonate.

Trivia

 * All scenes in Halo 3 featuring Tex were created using the leader traits to make Tex's armor Black. This is because Black was not a selectable color in Halo 3 without using leader traits.
 * On the Rooster Teeth Reddit AMA, after a fan asked whether Tex would return after Season 9, Burnie Burns responded with "You might have seen the end of Tex's story without seeing all of Tex's story. Make sense?"