Margaret Parangosky
From Halopedia, the Halo wiki
| Margaret Parangosky | |
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Female[4] |
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Height: |
160 cm (5ft 5 in)[1] |
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Weight: |
49 kg (108 lbs)[1] |
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White[4] |
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Eye color: |
Green[1] |
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Admiral (Retired)[1] |
- "In his opinion, she was the most dangerous person in the UNSC. She was the real power in ONI. To his knowledge, only one person had ever crossed her and lived."
- — Colonel James Ackerson's opinion of Admiral Parangosky.
Admiral Margaret Orlenda Parangosky (service number 00230-00923-MP; UNSCMID 03669271) is the former Commander-in-Chief of the Office of Naval Intelligence.[5][1][6][7] In office by 2511, she coordinated ONI's activities during the Insurrection, throughout the Human-Covenant War, and in the years that followed. Respected and feared by even the most influential members of civil, military, and criminal society,[1] Doctor Catherine Halsey is the only person who had ever crossed her and lived. Colonel James Ackerson considered her to be the most dangerous person in the UNSC.[4] By 2555, she had been succeeded by her protegé, Admiral Serin Osman.[8]
Biography[edit]
Early career[edit]
- "Gentlemen, I'll be brief. After almost fifteen years of continuous and ruinously expensive research without a single new useful technology discovered, the budget of the Onyx initiative has been reprioritized. Although the alien artifacts and hieroglyphics continue to be of interest, recent rebel activities in the Outer Colonies demand that we face realities and reallocate our finite A.I. and military personnel to counter this new threat."
- — Rear Admiral Parangosky explains the reasoning behind the Onyx initiative's loss of funding.[9]
Margaret Orlenda Parangosky was born on Luna on February 21, 2461.[1] She joined the United Nations Space Command when she was around 22 years old, eventually becoming a Captain in the Navy.[10] The first warship she served aboard was the UNSC Lutyens.[11] Parangosky frequently punched well above her weight, so to speak, and brought down a number of senior officers despite her rank. When the Colonial Administration Authority fell from grace due to a series of scandals, Parangosky elected to take on the Department of Colonial Security, which nobody wanted, with the intent to improve it. In doing so, she instantly acquired a virtual army of civilian spies with no preexisting loyalties to anyone else in the UNSC.[10]
On January 2, 2511, now-Rear Admiral Parangosky issued an order reclassifying all materials concerning the planet Onyx as Top Secret, Eyes Only. This order affected anything mentioning, referencing, or containing reports, surveys, personal notes and logs, images, or any other data pertaining to the planet. It also was accompanied by an ONI-authorized system-wide network purge under the direction of a military artificial intelligence.[9]
The Office of Naval Intelligence Section Three project that would come to be christened "SPARTAN-II" had been in its planning stages as early as 2510.[12] The program eventually involved the abduction and conscription of young children in order to create the ultimate fighting force for the UNSC, and Parangosky approved almost every aspect of it. The kidnappings were carried out in 2517 and the great majority of the seventy-five children acquired were replaced with flash clones, though this particular detail escaped Margaret's knowledge for at least a couple of years.[13][14]
On March 6, 2525, the Admiral announced through another order that after almost 15 years of continuous and ruinously expensive research without the discovery of a single new useful technology, the Onyx initiative's budget had been reprioritized. Though the alien artifacts and hieroglyphics there continued to be of interest, she said that recent rebel activities in the Outer Colonies demanded that A.I. and military personnel were reallocated. Parangosky emphasized that Onyx was to remain classified and shared that all its materials and files had been re-designated under new nomenclature. Any breaches of confidentiality, she added, would be punishable by death in accordance with various legal articles. A skeleton crew and one A.I. would continue to probe the mysteries of the site known as Zone 67 on the planet, she noted. She closed by saying that in the meantime, the rest of them had a war to fight.[9]
SPARTAN-III[edit]
- Margaret Parangosky: "You want to trade lives for time."
- James Ackerson: "Yes, ma'am. Isn't that the job of a soldier? Is there another option? How many worlds are now cinders? How many billions of colonists have died? If we save a single planet, gain a few weeks, isn't that worth a handful of men and women?"
- Margaret Parangosky: "Of course it is. God help us all. Yes, Colonel. Yes, it is worth it."
- — Vice Admiral Parangosky concedes the uncomfortable point made by Colonel Ackerson.[4]
In May of 2531, Vice Admiral Preston Cole told Vice Admiral Michael Stanforth his assistance would be needed in order to get Parangosky to allow Cole to use her assets to manipulate energy in slipspace in what he was sure she would consider an "extreme risk" operation.[15] Cole was proposing that Section Two of ONI begin broadcasting prerecorded carrier signals from antiquity in order to attenuate and obfuscate the radio signatures already in slipspace, hoping that doing so would prevent the Covenant from triangulating Earth's location.[15] Later that year, on October 24, Margaret met with Rear Admiral Ned Rich, Colonel James Ackerson, and Captain Aaron Gibson aboard the Point Blank-class prowler