Portal:Spartans

An aggregate page for information on the Spartan supersoldiers in the Daybreak Continuum's version of the Halo universe. As with everything UNSC, when it comes to Spartan numbers (and programs) we're trying to do more with less. This means some Spartan characters (particularly Spartan-IIs) from post-2008 canon have been culled, these usually being characters deemed nonessential or extraneous to Daybreak's narrative.

Note that the list below is not final; the Spartan numbers are open for expansion, but to what extent depends on the generation; the Spartan-IIs are the least flexible as their numbers are the most fixed.

Overview
In the Daybreak Continuum, we try to avoid 343i's pitfall of Spartan-II numbers creep, and the consequent need to remedy this with lore band-aids (like increasingly implausible numbers of fully rehabilitated washouts). The original incarnation of Black Team is out, as is Halo Wars 2 ' s version of Omega Team, along with a number of one-off Spartans of suspect story relevance (e.g. the ones who committed suicide in Homecoming). Less than a handful of the washouts may have been rehabilitated for combat duty, but these should be treated as exceptions rather than an easy way to add new Spartan-IIs. Overall, Spartans are one part of a larger cast, but not the end-all of Halo characters. Daybreak's approach is not about whether we can justify the existence of more S-IIs or IIIs, it's about preserving their narrative weight. See the list below for the Spartan characters who do make it in.

In terms of depiction, Spartans are less superhero and more supersoldier. This means no flashy ornamentation as well as an overall emphasis in the Spartans' role as part of a military organization, complete with the support and logistics that come with that. In addition, Spartans, by default, are already very special and exceptional. As such, we try to avoid the fandom (and at times canon) trope of "extra special" Spartans or edgy hyper-lethal lone-wolf assassins and the like. On that note, the Spartan designs that have only solidified in the 343i era may get some reexamining and redefinition. Since there are fewer armor variants in Daybreak, more Spartans will wear either default armor or default armor with attachments, but not altogether unique suits. Kelly, for example, mostly wears default MJOLNIR and so does Fred, though attachments, webbing and armor pieces may vary, on top of Spartans always wearing gear appropriate to the mission environment anyway (e.g. EVA kits on microgravity operations). See MJOLNIR armor for more information on the armor generations and variants.

Likewise, we try to stay true to Ghosts of Onyx ' s thematic framing for the Spartan-III program. This includes downplaying the use of the ill-defined "cat-II" concept introduced in Halo: Reach as a get out of jail free card to have large numbers of surviving Alpha or Beta Company Spartan-IIIs running around. As mentioned before, less is often more, and too much of a cool thing will make it mundane. MJOLNIR-wearing teams such as NOBLE are not altogether absent, but they shouldn't be treated as the norm. Since Daybreak's narrative focus is oriented forward, it is instead the Gamma and potentially Delta Companies who will provide a box of new Spartans to play with in the post-war era. As for "cat-II", don't assume it will stick around as default terminology or even as a formally-codified concept. More than any inherent superiority, Spartan-IIIs' absence from their parent companies was often due to luck, a company reserve assignment, unrelated special assignments and other miscellaneous factors. This is both to introduce nuance to the off-company teams' depiction, and because the idea of Spartans being removed from their companies because they were just so good encourages a wish-fulfillment approach to character creation, setting characters up as inherently extra special whether they earned it or not. It also bears noting that said characters already being part of a program that filtered out the vast majority of the human population.

The Spartan-IVs, as depicted in 343i canon, do not appear in Daybreak, and neither does the Spartan branch. When the next Spartan program comes about, around the 2580s, it will bear little resemblance to its canon incarnation. For now, the UNSC will have to make do with the remaining Spartan-IIs and IIIs (including the new ones of Delta Company who go active in the mid-2560s). However, the absence of new Spartans doesn't mean an absence of augmented people. The ODST HOPLITE program is built on a relatively similar premise as the S-IVs, though hopefully realized in a more balanced way. There will also be an increase in various biological and cybernetic enhancement programs and efforts in both the military and corporate sectors. Though usually not as extensive or holistic as the Spartan augmentations, many of these disparate programs - some of which already operated during the war - will pave way for the next generation of Spartans. And because of the general proliferation of physical augmentations, the new Spartans will have to introduce breakthroughs in some other area to truly be the next generation of supersoldiers.

As a side note, nobody's going to be figuring out any pattern in the SPARTAN-II candidates' disappearances or the clones' deaths, ever. 75 children on hundreds of colonies—even if they were picked from just a couple dozen worlds—is a statistically insignificant number, and would be drowned out by unrelated disappearances and deaths; and without FTL communications or fully efficient, standardized information-sharing protocols between planetary administrations and/or law enforcement forces, no one would ever be able to pick up on any kind of pattern in the kidnappings, or the flash clone deaths even less so.

Spartan armor

 * MJOLNIR armor generations all have a given definitive look to them, and there is meant to be a clear visual progression from one generation to the next. Some of the "Marks" experience internal development that can be roughly split up in terms of major midlife upgrades, some of which come with changes to physical architecture albeit not to the extent seen in 343i Halo.


 * The MJOLNIR's shield system is now reverse-engineered from Sangheili personal shields, rather than the Kig-Yar gauntlets as indicated in the original Halo novels, to reflect the increased prevalence of Elites since TFoR was originally written.


 * MJOLNIR armor remains a lot more rare and expensive than it is in 343i's post-war fiction, and the GEN2 never becomes a thing as such. Following the war, Mark VI will remain the primary MJOLNIR platform for over a decade due to the relative scarcity of active Spartans; remaining Mark V suits and newer variants thereof remain in fairly constant use as well for about a decade, until the introduction of the Mark VII suits in the mid-2560s. Overall, the end of the war removes pressure and funding from military technologies, though there are some breakthroughs once the UNSC gathers its bearings. The Mark VII is eventually followed by the much more advanced Mark VIII in 2580s, coinciding with the creation of the Spartan-IV program.


 * Spartans, in a general sense, look more uniform, if not necessarily 100% uniform. Armor variants are strictly function-based and often switched out on a mission-by-mission basis. They are also much fewer in number; think Reach's style of customization over Halo 4 or 5. Particularly in the post-war era, ad hoc modifications and components kitbashed from other armor systems will abound. For coloration, muted colors - grays, greens, dark blues - are the norm, as well as camouflage coatings and photoreactive pieces to break off one's silhouette.


 * SPI development will give rise to the MIRAGE Semi-Powered Infiltration Armor in 2554, a kind of final production model of what the SPI suits were prototypes for. It's also what most Spartans post-war will be wearing. It's not quite MJOLNIR in terms of protection or force amplification, but it does the job and is stealthier, cheaper and easier to manufacture - all important to the cash- and resource-strapped postwar UNSC. Select teams of Spartan-IIIs can receive MJOLNIR suits, but they remain fairly exclusive for the time being.


 * The ODST Hoplites will have their own bespoke armor system along with SPI offshoots.

ORION project

 * 1) Avery Johnson
 * 2) Nolan Byrne
 * 3) Randall Aiken
 * 4) Noah Forge
 * 5) Sieghard Schuchardt
 * 6) Kores Van Schalkwyk
 * 7) James James (possibly)

Successfully augmented
33 of the candidates officially made it through the augmentations, so let's try to keep their numbers within that figure. Some of the washouts may have been rehabilitated later, as Halsey suggested in her journal, but only maybe one or two would be able to enter active combat duty. Just because one might technically get away with adding an indefinite number of extra S-II survivors doesn't mean it's a good idea from the standpoint of staying true to the narrative intent; rather, the focus should be on expanding on existing characters, many of whom have had little to no development. Note that some 343i-era Spartan-IIs have been cut from Daybreak to restore their numbers back within reasonable levels.

Notable omissions from the list include most of the Spartans introduced (and subsequently killed off) in Halo Legends, Black Team, Naomi-010, and Serin Osman. Some of the omitted characters may or may not make an appearance in some form later on, but for now they can be assumed to never have existed in Daybreak's internal canon.

There is no Spartan-II Class 2, as the concept is too difficult to reconcile with everything else we know about the progress of the Spartan programs. Some candidates identified for the second class of S-II would likely have been recruited in to the S-III program instead, provided the opportunity presented itself.

As a general rule for creating new successfully-augmented Spartan-IIs: Don't. There's rarely a good reason to. With the washouts there's considerably more leeway, though they can't be cyborg action men. If you want active-duty Spartans, use S-IIIs - preferably Gammas. Expansions of preexisting characters should be discussed with the team on a case-by-case basis, but there is quite a bit of freedom to expand on the less known Spartans in particular.

Spartan-IIs active (in combat duties or otherwise) in the post-war era are highlighted in bold. Spartans who could potentially be active in the post-war era are highlighted in bold italic.


 * 1) James-005 - MIA. Assumed KIA during the mission to Gamma Station in the Fall of Reach (2552). Potentially recoverable, possibly captured by the Covenant. Would have to be a story.
 * 2) Jai-006 - Active as of 2565
 * 3) Li-008 - Assumed KIA during a battle inside an anomalous slipspace bubble (2552)
 * 4) Daisy-023 - Confirmed KIA during the Battle of Sargasso (September 2546)
 * 5) Joshua-029 - Assumed KIA during the Fall of Reach while assaulting a Covenant cruiser (2552)
 * 6) Vinh-030 - Assumed KIA while attempting to escape Reach (2552). Potentially recoverable, but most likely gone for good.
 * 7) Samuel-034 - Confirmed KIA aboard the Covenant vessel Unrelenting. First SPARTAN-II to be killed in action (2525)
 * 8) Isaac-039 - Assumed KIA while attempting to escape Reach (2552). Potentially recoverable, but most likely gone for good.
 * 9) Douglas-042 - MIA with the UNSC Spirit of Fire (2531)
 * 10) Will-043 - Confirmed KIA during the Battle of Onyx (2552)
 * 11) Anton-044 - Assumed KIA during a battle inside anomalous form of slipspace (2552)
 * 12) Keiichi-047 - Last seen on Harvest on February 4, 2531. Call sign Beta-Red Actual during the Fall of Reach. Most likely KIA. (2552)
 * 13) Kurt-051 - Confirmed KIA after the detonation of two FENRIS nuclear warheads at the core of Onyx (2552)
 * 14) Jorge-052 - Withdrawn from the mainline program mid-war to serve with UNICOM SWC3. Initially coached and led S-III off-company teams; later assigned to NOBLE Team. Confirmed KIA during Operation: UPPER CUT in the Fall of Reach (2552)
 * 15) Linda-058 - Active as of 2565
 * 16) Malcolm-059 - Confirmed KIA during the Fall of Reach (2552)
 * 17) Maria-062 - Retired active duty to start a family and assigned to UNSC reserves (potentially WIA/later complications with augmentations?). Worked with SWC Songnam on armor testing; participated in the Battle for Earth.
 * 18) Sheila-065 - Confirmed KIA during the Battle of Miridem (2544)
 * 19) Cassandra-075 - WIA in during the Battle of Actium in 2545 (received severe plasma burns). Residing on the M25L Recovery Station as of October 2552. Potentially rehabilitated post-war, though may not have continued military career.
 * 20) Kelly-087 - Active as of 2565
 * 21) Jerome-092 - MIA with the Spirit of Fire (2531)
 * 22) Grace-093 - Confirmed KIA during Operation: FIRST STRIKE (2552)
 * 23) Frederic-104 - Active as of 2565
 * 24) Adriana-111 - Active as of 2565
 * 25) John-117 - MIA aboard the Forward Unto Dawn (2552)
 * 26) Mike-120 - Active as of 2565
 * 27) Alice-130 - MIA with the Spirit of Fire (2531)
 * 28) Carris-137 - Served during the Fall of Reach as Red-Fifteen. Possibly KIA/MIA (2552); fate TBA
 * 29) Calliope-141 - likely KIA upon landfall on Reach (2552)
 * 30) UNDEFINED - KIA upon landfall on Reach (2552)
 * 31) UNDEFINED - KIA upon landfall on Reach (2552)
 * 32) UNDEFINED - KIA upon landfall on Reach (2552)
 * 33) UNDEFINED/Naomi-010? - Likely KIA during the defense of the ODGs on Reach. Reserved for future review and development.

Washouts

 * 1) Kirk-018 - Discharged for failures in the augmentation process; later rehabilitated to a degree. Post-Spartan alias Kirk Butler. Worked on Project SPHINX.
 * 2) Otto-031 - Discharged after washing out, rehabilitated over several years of therapies though incapable of serving in the field. Working within "Black Team", an ONI intelligence analysis and mission planning unit.
 * 3) Margaret-053 - Discharged after washing out, rehabilitated over several years of therapies though incapable of serving in the field. Working within "Black Team", an ONI intelligence analysis and mission planning unit.
 * 4) Soren-066 - Discharged in 2525 due to being disfigured by the augmentation process. Listed as missing in action on Reach in 2527 after defecting to the insurrectionists. Subsequent fate unknown, though alleged sightings of a "goblin-man" in the wild reported by Reavian farmers may be connected to Soren.
 * 5) René-081 - Discharged after washing out. Later rehabilitated to a degree and assigned to ONI. Post-Spartan alias René Morin. Served as a consultant on the augmentation and training methodologies of the HOPLITE program on Mars.
 * 6) Fhajad-084 - Discharged and reassigned to ONI. Suffered uncontrollable muscle spasms due to failures in augmentation; the most critical damage was later repaired though he required a medical exoskeleton to walk. Post-Spartan alias Fhajad Qamari. Later advanced to lieutenant commander within ONI. Became an expert on higher-dimensional physics; worked on state-of-the-art slipspace technology, including wavespace communicators and contributed to the development of the CODEN-VI slipspace drive. Stationed on Luna.
 * 7) Victor-101 - Discharged after washing out, rehabilitated over several years of therapies though incapable of serving in the field. Working within "Black Team", an ONI intelligence analysis and mission planning unit.
 * 8) Ralph-103 - Discharged after washing out (body rejected most augmentations); rehabilitated to roughly human-baseline health and served as an ONI field attaché with the Marine Corps. Post-Spartan alias Ralph Graham. KIA during the Battle of Sargasso (2546).
 * 9) Roma-143 - Discharged after washing out, rehabilitated over several years of therapies though incapable of serving in the field. Working within "Black Team", an ONI intelligence analysis and mission planning unit.
 * 10) Shannon-150 - Discharged and initially reassigned to ONI Section 3. Later served in the UNSC Navy.

Spartan-III
The Spartan-III program's background is largely similar as in canon, though the reasons for non-company teams are more varied than is implicit in canon material since Reach. Rather than always being the best of their respective companies (since Halo already has enough "best of the best" characters as it is), the still-active "company castoffs" were mostly either part of the augmented company reserve (with Alpha & Beta), or were injured in one of the combat deployments prior to the "meat grinders" of PROMETHEUS and TORPEDO and pulled out for recovery whilst being replaced by Spartans from the company reserve. Most of these WIAs were too gravely injured to serve in combat duties, though a few made full recovery and served in off-company teams. The Headhunters exist but their context is slightly reimagined. Some Spartans were set apart because they were exceptional in some field, e.g. reconnaissance or leadership, and were handed out to various units as bargaining chips by James Ackerson to fuel his ambitions within ONI.

See the SPARTAN-III program page for a personnel list and more notes.

Alpha Company
''Born between 2525-2528; Trained between 2532-2536. Team size 3, 100 company teams in total (organized into squads/platoons?), teams named after animal themes, e.g. collective nouns for groups of animals)

The initial training class comprised 497 trainees, of which a number dropped out during training (usually early on); 300 of the best-performing teams were selected for the final company (selection was on a team basis), while 30 were augmented as the company reserve to patch up losses in combat and those who experienced complications from the still-early augmentations. In addition to this were Alpha Company's six Headhunters and Lonewolf operatives.

Few "mainline" Spartans were extracted from the company's main body before it was too late (possible exceptions: severe WIAs before PROMETHEUS). James Ackerson used the extracted Spartans as chess pieces in his bid for power within ONI, handing them out to different parties for favors, along with keeping some to himself. Still, augmented Alpha Company survivors should number in less than 10 (pre-Reach).

Beta Company
''Born between 2532-2534; Trained between 2538-2545. Team size 4, 75 company teams in total (organized into squads/platoons?), teams named after UNSC Phonetic Alphabet (and what else?).''

The initial training class comprised 418 trainees; the 300 Spartans from the best-scoring teams were selected for the final company, while 36 were augmented as the company reserve to patch up combat losses (augmentation complications were mild to negligible at this point); in practice, some of the "reserve" for Beta in particular was prepared for separate deployments. In addition to this were Beta's twelve Headhunters and Lonewolf operatives.

As well, only 291 of the final company made it to the ground on Pegasi Delta. Tom-B292 assumed that the missing nine were killed on entry or landing, but it could be that a handful - up to five, maybe - pods were never launched to begin with as a last-minute, potentially impromptu extraction. Still, a few of them should be true fatalities just for realism's sake.

Gamma Company
''Born between 2538-2542; Trained between 2546-2552. Team size 5, 60 company teams in total + 3 top honors teams + 15 Spartans in unspecified special duties (Headhunter/Lonewolf operatives?). Teams named after edged and bladed weapons.''

Of Gamma Company, Team Saber, Gladius and Katana were the ones to be set apart of the main company; there were no washouts per se, though some trainees may have quit early on; the original training class numbered at 346, with 16 trainees dropping out at various phases of training, mostly early on. By the augmentation process in 2551, 330 Spartans remained and all were augmented. Unbeknownst to the Spartans themselves, the final "top honors" training exercise would have determined which team of the three would have been issued with MJOLNIR armor. There are also the 15 others, in addition to the main company of 300, who may have been assigned to special duties, e.g. Headhunter teams, reconnaissance and other off-company deployments, etc. Even the main company didn't deploy as one for their final operations but was deployed in battlegroups of 100 Spartans each.

As per current plans, about 2/3 of Gamma Company made it through the war. Fatalities couldn't of course be avoided altogether, though they were fewer than before, and high-intensity operations ceased before the company could be ground down entirely. Overall, Gamma Company is the most flexible generation in terms of new Spartan characters.

The history of Gamma Company's deployments is still undergoing revision, but over 2/3 of the Gammas made it through the war. They will make up the bulk of the UNSC's Spartan force in the post-war years. The "Smoother Problem" remains as the brain mutations responsible are irreversible, but their need for counter-drugs or "smoothers" isn't quite as frequent as shown in Last Light, as the Gammas by default are implanted with drug-dispensing implants which release the counterdrugs into their systems over a period of several months. This divergence is mostly for the sake of common sense and the authors' overall assumptions prior to Last Light; given the Spartans' mission profiles, it does not seem practical to give super-commandoes such a debilitating flaw as making them reliant on daily injections. Furthermore, the Gammas' counter-drugs never seemed to be an acute concern in Halo: Ghosts of Onyx even as they remained on the run for days without resupply.

Delta Company
Delta Company does happen in Daybreak, but lore around it is not yet very established. Ideas so far include a reduced budget (which may lead to fewer inductees trained and/or augmented, with the rest being kept in cryo indefinitely or shifted to other duties) and a training regimen re-focused to the different strategic and tactical environment of the post-war era (i.e. an emphasis on covert small-unit actions over full company-strength assaults).