ORION Project
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  Avery Johnson a subject of the ORION Project | |
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300 at height of program[2] |
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- "Spartans pick their battles."
- — James James, an ORION Phase II supersoldier.[4]
Project: ORION, also put as ORION Project, was humanity's first effort to create a special forces unit of biochemically augmented supersoldiers. The project was run in two phases, one in the 24th century, and one in the late-25th and early 26th centuries, both funded by the United Nations Space Command (UNSC) Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) and executed by the Colonial Military Authority.[5][6] The second phase was rendered inactive during the VERITAS scandal in 2496, at which time the UNSC sought to shut down the CMA due to infiltration of the CMA by insurrectionists.[5] While ORION operatives did see success in deployments against rebel forces in the Insurrection, the program was permanently shuttered in 2506.[1][6]
In 2513, the project was retroactively named "SPARTAN-I" at the commencement of its succesor program, SPARTAN-II.[5] The program was renamed "Spartan" by Dr. Catherine Halsey to help distinguish the nascent SPARTAN-II project from the failures associated with the ORION program, with the "-I" serving to honour its participants.[7]
Background
Administratively, the ORION project was under the control of ONI Section III, particularly the Beta-5 Division's Special Projects section. However, the ORION soldiers themselves were under the operational authority of Naval Special Warfare Command/Naval Special Weapons.[2] ORION was an all-volunteer force composed of the best troops from the UNSC Marine Corps[2] and the Special Forces from other branches of the military;[8] operators performed specialized, high-risk operations including counter-insurgency operations, unconventional warfare, direct action, and black operations. The ORION program was headquartered on one of the many orbital docks on Reach,[8] and at its height the program had 300 active-duty personnel.[2]
The members of the ORION program were biologically augmented soldiers, using new training methods and the latest breakthroughs in biochemical developments. Augmentations to the ORION soldiers included muscular enhancement injections, pulmonary respiratory enhancements, retina-inversion injections and cochlea enhancement tuning.[4] In addition, mental augmentations were performed to enhance brain functions[2] including enhanced learning capabilities to allow a subject to learn at a faster and higher rate and enhanced motor skills to improve body movements. The ORION training regime was very difficult and included many tests both mental and physical, including laboratory work. All 65 initial volunteers[2] made it through the training and augmentation procedures and were placed on active duty some time after completing their training. After their initial deployment and success, funding for training the next group of personnel was approved. By the time it was shut down, the ORION program had 165 surviving participants.[8][5] Former ORION project member Avery Johnson remembers the augmentation experience as being agonizing filled with confusing, hormone-induced rages.[9]
History
Phase 1
Origins
The beginning of the ORION program (named for the Orion Arm of the Milky Way[8]) dates back to the 23rd century, when the newly formed United Nations Space Command began developing bioengineering protocols and experimenting with biochemically altering human soldiers. Led by Doctor Ritsa Shephard and fulfilled by the KYKLOS Working Group, the ORION Project began as an extension of the "blue sky" projects commissioned by the UEG before the Domus Diaspora.