Paige-B203

Lieutenant Paige-B203, born Paige So Lee, was a Spartan III commando in the UNSC Navy.

Biography
Paige was born in July 2534, on the paradise world of Emerald Cove to an upper class aristocratic family. Paige possesses two first names, one English, the other Korean, which is not technically a middle name but is spoken by Korean relatives. As a child, Paige took an interest in sea creatures.

In November 2539, Emerald Cove was discovered by a Covenant scouting party, and after a brief fight with local UNSC ground forces, the world was evacuated and abandoned. The scuffle between the invading aliens and local defensives resulted in many civilian casualties, including that of Paige's parents. While Paige was to be adopted by surviving relatives, the Office of Naval Intelligence reached her first at a refugee camp on Manus. Paige accepted ONI's promise of revenge and was inducted into the Spartan III program.

Training
As a Beta Company Spartan III trainee, Paige was given the designation S-B203. Her trainers observed initial struggles with finding an ingroup, with her upper class upbringing conflicting with the other generally troubled trainees. Paige in particular adapted slowly to training regimes and was on the list for potential dropouts. The crowd eventually rubbed off on her, and she found a group of troublemakers whom took a liking to her. In her early months within the program, Paige was known to start to fights to defend her and her group's honor, and eventually started to backtalk the drill soldiers despite the consequences. Her crowd would eventually become ZULU, YANKEE, and XRAY teams, with Paige herself being a part of ZULU. These three Spartan teams were healthy rivals with one another, and would form 6th Platoon.

ZULU team consisted of Paige-B203, Matthew-B081, Neo-B166 and Ricardo-B257. Along with Matthew-B081, Paige was a proficient runner and possessed an aptitude for leadership. With the latter in mind, Matthew became team leader, with Paige as deputy. These shared traits with Matthew created a rivalry that eventually turned sour the closer Beta Company got to graduation. A physical altercation during a training mission resulted in Paige being put into company reserve, and another Spartan taking her place in ZULU team.

Human-Covenant War
Paige-B203 graduated in late 2544 in the company reserve. Despite previous altercations with her former team leader, Paige expressed her wish to rejoin ZULU team. Her wish would be granted under rather morbid circumstances, as she would be replacing Matthew-B081 as team leader, who had been killed in action just a month after graduation. The death of her former team leader created intense psychological issues for her, especially since she would replace him as team leader. Another company reserve Spartan had joined ZULU team before she took over as leader, Cassidy-B012, to bring the team back up to full strength. Cassidy adjusted well with the rest of the team and for awhile filled a mental void for Paige. With Paige as team leader, Neo as the team's deputy, ZULU was fit for combat once more.

Paige saw her first action against the Covenant in October 2544 during a seven month deployment across the Apollo sector, particularly Bolder and Paris IV. Operation: SOLAR FLARE was an elaborate - but ultimately unsuccessful - defense of Paris IV, which resulted in significant casualties for ZULU team. Paige and Cassidy were hospitalized - with Cassidy dying at the operating table. Being that it was Paige that had dragged her teammate to safety, finding out Cassidy had died regardless caused her worse mental anguish than when Zulu's first team leader was killed.

Paige-B203 was placed on temporary medical leave pending a psychiatric workup, despite her own protests. During her short leave, Operation:TORPEDO occurred, resulting in the destruction of Beta Company as a fighting force. The remaining members of ZULU team were killed in action.

Paige returned to active duty in August 2545 and deployed for a three year tour in the Minerva sector. During her tour, she received Mjolnir Mk. IV armor to supplement her fighting capability, being that she was now without a team. During her tour, Paige-B203 was semi-frequently team leader of other special operations groups, particularly ODSTs. While individually successful, she earned little favor among her non-augmented peers, and was noted for being socially awkward and reserved, in contrast to how she used to be around other Spartans. In 2549, she served as a solo operator running subterfuge and sabotage behind Covenant lines.

In early 2551, Paige-B203 returned to UNSC space only to be immediately redeployed to Meridian following a Covenant invasion of the system. The Spartan would be attached to the UNSC Midsummer Night while it gave chase to a Covenant artefact hunting fleet until the Battle of Reach in mid 2552. Paige would be stranded on Reach for several weeks, after having been declared MIA, and conducting guerilla warfare on occupying forces.

After making a hole, UNSC Midsummer Night and its compliment fled Reach for Earth, arriving just two days before the Battle for Earth in October 2552. Paige fought around the world, mostly assisting in defense of civilian evacuations. On 17 November, Paige fought as a part of a diversionary force around the Kenyan Excession, and was present during the Flood's unsuccessful invasion of Earth. The Spartan remained to ensure that no further Flood presence was detected on the world, as well as to eliminate any remaining Covenant holdouts.

The following year, in February 2553, Paige-B203 would participate in Operation: FORTRESS SIEGE, the liberation of the Epsilon Eridani system.

Operation Ruptured Crucible
After the UNSC learnt of a large impending invasion of the Coelest system in 2560, Paige was called to fight in Operation: RUPTURED CRUCIBLE for Delta Halo.

Retirement
At the behest of her ONI liaisons, Paige was put into retirement and returned to her liberated homeworld of Emerald Cove in 2562. She was returned to civilian life under the careful supervision of ONI. This was done for several reasons: ONI, with the help of local governance, organized a worldwide holiday, Liberation Day, to celebrate the removal of Covenant forces and to mourn those lost during its invasion and eventual liberation. Paige was used as a posterchild for the holiday, it became a local hero, but otherwise did not garner much media attention. Much to ONI's delight, Emerald Cove's Liberation Day helped to mythologize the Spartans and ensure the world's loyalty to the UNSC.
 * To monitor the long term effects of a Spartan III's augmentation suppression.
 * For propaganda purposes as a local war hero and a Spartan.
 * To monitor the effects of a Spartan adjusting to civilian life. especially one rattled by PTSD.

Paige was allowed contact with relatives who had returned home along with her, however she had to present a cover story at all times: which stated that she lived as a refugee before voluntarily joining the UNSC once she was of age - simple enough and partially true. Much like her time in military service, Paige was distant and anti-social, even to her relatives. She occupied her time by keeping in shape, reading, and eventually developing an interest in scuba diving and swimming in her city's vast coastal reefs and rock lands.

Her assigned medical officer noticed several effects of the active augmentation suppression:
 * Despite almost constant exercise, Paige's muscles atrophied.
 * Her eyesight deteriorated to the point of needing corrective eye surgery.
 * Her reaction time slowed to below the human baseline, greatly reducing her ability to process the world around her, and needed a prescription to remedy this.

Pre-Deployment
Outwardly speaking, Paige may appear two ways depending on her company. With her fellow Spartans, particularly the other members of 6th Platoon, Paige is warm and easy going - somewhat uncharacteristic of a Spartan. Though not especially talkative, she is a keen a listener and gauges the strengths of her peers well. With these traits in mind, Paige is a respected member of Beta Company, and trusted leader of fireteam ZULU.

PTSD
Traumatic experiences from the loss of her teammates had a permanent effect on Paige's psyche. ZULU's original team leader Matthew-B081 had died unceremoniously while Paige was at home being punished for insubordination. While there was a bit of sudden bad blood between the two prior to deployment, Paige suffered from tremendous guilt upon learning of his death - which resulted in her developing a silent inferiority complex towards him. Although she would not receive a psychiatric workup until the deaths of her other remaining teammates, Paige would begin to experience mild schizophrenia weeks after Matthew-B081's demise - particularly forgetting that he is in fact no longer ZULU's team leader. The most obvious manifestation of this delusion was getting into arguments with the other ZULU team members over command structure.

Although it seemed that Paige would slowly recover from the trauma in the months since his death, she would once again experience loss on Paris IV. This time she witnessed the death of team member in person, Cassidy-B012. While Paige was seemingly better able to accept and cope with the loss of Cassidy, her PTSD symptoms had become a cause for concern. While Operation:TORPEDO was undoubtedly a suicide mission, the mere fact that she was once again not present to witness the deaths of her fellow Spartans dashed any hopes of recovering from her symptoms. With Beta Company all but destroyed, Paige was without a team and once again without a family.

Despite protests from her medical officers about schizophrenic episodes as a result of PTSD, she was cleared to return to duty. As noted by her officers, Paige saw ghosts, either amongst the living, or replacing the living. Paige's ghosts were of her former team mates, and were usually non-threatening, but sometimes frightening. None of these episodes are apparent to others however, as she is stoned faced to other military personnel.

Following Operation:TORPEDO, Paige noticeably struggled to get along with her non-augmented peers, but mostly for a lack of trying. Out of armor she blends in with many veterans, but when talked to she is described as vacant and anti-social, and as a result she was scarcely trusted in leadership roles despite her track record.

Post-War
A few months after the end of the Human-Covenant War, her seniors offered her retirement, however she refused - citing the fact that Humanity was still under threat from the fractured Covenant, though she secretly still held onto her inferiority complex and survivor's guilt. Paige would not stop until she was dead. Prior to 2560, Paige had been recommended for discharge due to PTSD seven times, her eighth being her final. After Operation: RUPTURED CRUCIBLE, she was honorably discharged from the UNSC Navy. Her retirement improved her mental health significantly, even if seemingly at the cost of her physical wellbeing. Although she remained quiet and somewhat reclusive, Paige was liked by those she lived around, and noted for being warm and attentive towards others after returning to Emerald Cove, even if it took a few years.