History

Dr. Morden was born a seemingly normal guy on May 25, 2223, in Summit, New Jersey, United States of America, Earth, and honestly he just has the vibes of a guy from New Jersey, doesn't he?

Not much is known about his early life, so I like to fill in the gaps--I like to think he had two moms, both of which were very distant and work-focused and had an honestly strained relationship. He just has an "had toxic lesbian moms as a kid" aura to me. I think he moved out as soon as he could. It's canonical he did his Ph.D. at Michigan State (which, ironically, is in the city where my family grew up), but I think he did his undergrad years there too, just to be on his own and get away from his parents. I have a feeling he wasn't well-off as a kid, mostly based on the fact that Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczysnki told Jeanne Cavelos, who wrote a novel in which we see his backstory (The Shadow Within), that he always imagined Morden as a low-level icarus technician, jealous of Anna's success and education.

Anyway, Morden was noticed by Earthforce New Technologies shortly around his graduation, and was recruited into their secret "find useful and weaponizable alien technology on archaeological digs" program (which, yes, means he was shady even before he was shady). Around this time he also fell in love with his wife, who has no canonical name for some fucking reason, and in 2250 she gave birth to their daughter, Sarah Morden. My personal headcanon here is that Morden was a bit of a distant father, work-focused like his parents, barely home... which is why, when his daughter and wife were killed in a terrorist attack on their public transport vessel, he succumbed to his grief so terribly. After the death of Morden's family, he became extremely distant, even lashing out at reporters and news interviewers. He was, in essence, dead inside. The death of his family killed Dr. Morden's soul.

His life would change on a mission to a planet later to be known as Z'ha'dum. Originally a run-of-the-mill (but not really) exploratory dig on the rim of known space, Morden found the planet to be not uninhabited as previously thought---an ancient race of hostile aliens known as the Shadows lived on the planet, and they offered him freedom from the pain of his family's deaths in exchange for eternal servitude, which he accepted even though it meant the death of everyone else on the mission. Because he has always been a shitty, slimy, selfish husk of a man with the vibe of a car salesman who is protected by the local mob. Even before he joined the Shadows---even before his family died---Morden was a terrible person! :)

Morden was perfect for the job as Shadow Emissary. He is perfectly hollow, just the right shape for the Shadows to slither inside and nest. He is self-focused, he is determined, he is extremely skilled at lying - he had to be, for his clandestine work with New Tech -- he is a perfect little malleable puppet just begging to have his strings pulled. And the Shadows gave him the release he needed --- the eradication of his pain, his humanity, his essence. The Shadows cut away the ugly little bits of emotion he had, and excavated his true potential.