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January: Morgan. A warning. This article contains major plot spoilers. If you do not yet know of this information, it is heavily recommended that you proceed at your own risk. |
- "We're gonna shake things up, like old times."
- —Alex Yu[src]
Doctor Alexander "Alex" Yu is the president and CEO of TranStar Industries and the older brother of Morgan Yu. Working as the lead scientific and administrative head aboard the Talos I space station, Alex Yu has been a key figure in the development of state-of-the-art mechanical and biotechnical innovations such as the neuromod. He envisions a future where humanity is at home in the stars and wants to be remembered as the man who made that vision a reality. His unshakeable confidence in his views allows him to manipulate almost everyone. Alex is a major character in Prey (2017) and makes a minor voice-only appearance in Prey: Mooncrash.
History
Background
Alex Yu was born the first child of Catherine Yu, a German tech entrepreneur, and William Yu, a distinguished Chinese neuroscientist. In 2005, his younger sibling, Morgan Yu, was born, and they would also have a cousin named Riley Yu. Sometime during childhood, Alex once broke Morgan's arm when he found out they deleted the save files for his Galactic Conquistadors video game, something Alex would later come to regret.
In 2025, William and Catherine Yu joined a cabal of international investors in founding TranStar Industries, with Alex being appointed CEO and Director of Research aboard the newly-established Talos I space station. Under his leadership, the first successful Neuromod technology would be invented in 2030 with a secret reliance on the exotic material of an alien species known as the Typhon, revolutionizing human learning and establishing TranStar as one of the leading scientific and technological corporations on the globe.
Alex's younger sibling, Morgan, would eventually join the Talos I crew in 2032 becoming co-director of research and development, while their cousin, Riley, would be appointed as the new director of the Pytheas moonbase, cementing TranStar firmly under the administrative leadership of the Yu family. With their integral scientific contributions aboard Talos I such as the invention of the psychoscope to study the Typhon, Morgan would eventually become TranStar's Vice President and sole Director of Research while Alex assumed the additional title of President.
With the use of the psychoscope, it was discovered that humans could be granted some of the Typhon's "supernatural" abilities such as kinetic blasts or remote manipulation through the use of neuromods. In October, 2034, Morgan volunteered to be the main test subject for perfecting this Typhon neuromod application with the hesitant approval of Alex. However, it required the removal of all previous neuromods for a "clean slate" in a procedure known as apto-regressive neurotomy which has the adverse effect of resetting a person's memories back to the moment they first installed the neuromod.
To prevent a potential mental breakdown due to the severe time discrepancy of getting their first neuromod, Morgan was placed in a simulation of their apartment on Earth and made to relive the day they first started trial preparations for working aboard Talos I, March 15, 2032, which happened to be the day they installed their first neuromod. In the experiment, Morgan would perform various different Typhon abilities after installing a round of neuromods under the guise of performing physical and mental tests for space life. At the end of each trial, Morgan would be taken out of the simulation and debriefed on the results before having those neuromods removed to make place for a new trial.
The subsequent addition and removal of various neuromods showed a previously unknown side effect of personality drift, alternate decision making, and semi-unstable mental and physical behavior due to extreme effects on the brain. Recognizing Morgan as a completely different person, a disheartened Alex authorized the scrapping of the scheduled debriefs between each test, allowing Morgan to relive the same day over and over again indefinitely.
Prey (2017)
On the morning of February 23, 2035, Alex decides to greet Morgan in-person during the day's trial instead of just the usual pre-recorded message Morgan would receive when they wake up. When the first Typhon outbreak occurs, killing Dr. Sylvain Bellamy in the middle of the trial, Alex receives a call from Marco Simmons who updates him on the situation, stating that Morgan is alive and sedated. Alex then tells him to "clean it up," placing Morgan back in his apartment simulation. Later that day, he would email the entire Neuromod Division to remain calm and refrain from contacting people outside of the department about the incident. He would also lie stating that Dr. Bellamy was in critical but stable condition in the Trauma Center when his body was taken to Psychotronics in an effort to prevent panic and hide the existence of the Typhon from the rest of the station.
For a large portion of the game following this, Alex simply observes Morgan's journey, occasionally contacting Morgan and January. Notably at Morgan's first visit to Psychotronics, and when Alex initiates a station lockdown to trap Morgan in Deep Storage.
Following Morgan's escape from Deep Storage, Alex will reluctantly agree to meet up in person and offers Morgan his arming key, but not before he contacts Morgan and pleads with them to build a special Nullwave device that will destroy the Typhon but leave the station intact, citing how their research is too valuable to lose.
Alex can be killed at first sight, after which his Arming Key, the keycard to his suite, and some other supplies can be pick up off his body. The Apex Typhon will still appear.
Before Alex hands over the arming key, he tasks Morgan with scanning the Typhon "Coral" growing around the station, and discovers that the Typhon are building some sort of neural network. However, their attempts to study the neural network are interrupted when the TranStar Board of Directors learns of the containment breach and sends a cleanup crew to eliminate the Typhon and any surviving station crew. After the cleanup crew (Walther Dahl and his operator, KASPAR) is eliminated, Alex further analyzes the data and concludes that the Typhon are sending a signal into deep space to summon something. Following this, a massive Typhon will appear and disrupt Talos I's systems as it begins to surround the Arboretum.
Morgan then has the choice to save the now unconscious Alex by moving him into his secure bunker. If he survives, he will be on the Talos I Bridge at the end of the game. If both Alex and January are alive, they will have a confrontation which ends with either Alex killing January with a pistol or January knocking out Alex. If Morgan goes ahead with destroying the station and Alex is still conscious, he will stay behind. If Morgan sits in the captain's seat, Alex will stand beside them as they both wait for the station's self-destruct sequence to complete.
In a post-credits scene, Morgan wakes up in a lab and learns that they are not the real Morgan, but instead a captured Typhon implanted with Morgan's memories in an effort to teach it human emotions and empathy. The real Morgan is implied to be dead and the Typhon have already spread on Earth. Alex and his Operator assistants with the voices of Dayo Igwe, Mikhaila Ilyushin, Danielle Sho and Sarah Elazar then judge "Morgan" based on the choices it made throughout the game. If Igwe stated that "Morgan" failed to show human empathy, then Alex destroys it and starts the experiment over. If Igwe states that "Morgan" did show human empathy (whether it was middle or high) Alex lets it go, whereupon it can choose to accept his offer to become an ambassador between the species, or kill him and join the rest of its kind in the extermination of humanity.
Prey: Mooncrash
He sends a message to Riley Yu, informing her that things on Talos I are becoming chaotic and that Morgan was right about the Typhon being connected. He also tells her there might be a Kasma spy in her midst. Alex then tells Riley to make a mental copy of herself just in case she dies.
Personality and skills
His unshakeable confidence in his views allows him to easily manipulate almost everyone around him. He is also prone to nepotism when he judges his blood relatives apt. This is shown when he named his own sibling Morgan as Vice President of TranStar and Director of Research on Talos I, and his cousin Riley as Administrator of Pytheas.
Morgan describes Alex as a very proud man who is unwilling to acknowledge his failures, especially regarding the Typhon outbreak. Alex also appears to be somewhat arrogant and overconfident, chastising Sarah Elazar when she complained about their equipment and refusing to accept the quality of other ideas than his.
Despite this, he cares for his family, as shown in his messages to his cousin Riley. He also names a special moss-like organism that he created for colonizing Mars after his mother Catherine, showing affection to her. He also watched Morgan closely when they started showing personality changes, and expressed regret rather than anger after discovering their decision to sabotage Talos I. However, he later expresses little surprise at his father's decision to eliminate him and Morgan, exposing a previous awareness of William's cold pragmatism.
Related Quests
Main Quests
Side Quests
Trivia
- Killing Alex will earn an achievement called "Push the Fat Guy", referencing the test at the start of the game.
- Alex can be left alive in earning the achievement "Awkward Ride Home" because he will not take the escape shuttle.
- By going through emails on his personal computer, it is shown that Alex has been avoiding participating in exercise sessions with his colleagues on Talos I. A treadmill with boxes piled on it can be found in his room, indicating its lack of use.
- A wall plaque in Alex's office shows that he graduated from Cologne Technological Institute with a Doctor Rerum Naturalium (Latin for "Doctor of Natural Sciences").
- Alex's appearance in the post-credits sequence is noticeably more weathered. His face is unshaven and his hair has spots of greying. The suit is scratched and its red color has faded. He is also no longer wearing glasses.
Gallery
In-Game
Promotional
Concept Art
