SPARTAN-II program
From Halopedia, the Halo wiki
| SPARTAN-II program | |
|---|---|
 The emblem of the Spartan-IIs
| |
|
Branch: |
|
|
Type: |
Special operations |
|
Size: |
|
|
Engagements: |
|
|
Commanders: |
|
- "You have been called upon to serve. You will be trained - and you will become the best we can make of you. You will be the protectors of Earth and all her colonies."
- — Dr. Catherine Halsey to the Spartan-II recruits
The SPARTAN-II program was the first major success of the SPARTAN programs, an effort to produce elite soldiers through mechanical and biological augmentation. Originally envisioned as the second generation of the ORION Project under "Generation-II ORION"[3] and "The ORION Project Generation Two",[4] SPARTAN-II would be the first in the series to meld advanced exoskeleton technology with the soldiers' superior physiques.[5][6]
Spartan-IIs experienced the most extensive and invasive physical augmentations out of all the Spartan generations, starting augmentation at early pubescent ages increased their physical mass and height to around seven feet by adult age.
History
- "From the beginning Spartans were a weapon of last resort. We were built for combat and raised for war."
- — Master Chief Petty Officer John-117[7]
Background
In the years following the deactivation of the original ORION Project in 2506[8] the effectiveness of small special forces combating the Insurrectionists became too difficult for the UNSC to manage. As insurrectionist forces become more effective and the military's responses consequently become more forceful, the need for large scale military campaigns became more and more obvious.
Around 2510, the Office of Naval Intelligence began to reexamine the Carver Findings, which had warned of instability in the Outer Colonies years earlier.[9] The report rationalized that the instability would continue to escalate, and unless drastic military measures were taken, would result in a massive war between the Inner and Outer Colonies. ONI's own projections at that time and up to 2525[10] concluded the same as Dr. Carver's findings. Meanwhile, then-eighteen year old civilian scientist Dr. Catherine Halsey had been improving upon Carver's report on her own. Her independent conclusions predicted an even darker future than Carver's model, with UNSC inaction against the rebel leadership resulting in a minimum of thirty years of war and five billion dead; the maximum was a conflict of indeterminate length potentially leading to the downfall of human civilization. Halsey presented her results to Vice Admiral Michael Stanforth of ONI Section III, finding that they had come to the same conclusions. Determined to prevent the predicted carnage, Halsey agreed to work for ONI, specifically Section III's Special Projects Division, on creating a solution.[6]
Creation
Generation II of the ORION Project was initiated in 2511 as the best possible solution to end the widespread insurgency that raged throughout UNSC space. The project was created with several goals in mind. The first goal was to create a group of elite soldiers meant to subdue insurrections in their infancy, without substantial military casualties. The second goal was to minimize civilian casualties and avert civil war. The third goal was to substantially reduce the cost of conventional means of pacification.[6]
Dr. Halsey's proposal for the project detailed radical changes from the original ORION in many different fields. The first and most controversial was the subjects themselves, who were selected by a gene-candidate pool, and must fit into a certain age restriction protocol. They must also have possessed superior physical and mental attributes. The trainees must be instilled with military value, and the understanding of war; something that cannot be taught to enlisted soldiers. This narrowed the candidates down to children who would be raised and taught in the art of warfare and military values, from a young age. Using such controversial means of creating a soldier meant that the project would have to be carried out in the highest form of secrecy.[6]
Though conventional body armor had protected soldiers for centuries, the Gen-II project's second radical change involved integrating the subject with a new powered exoskeleton device, designed to help keep its user safe and provide a powerful means of combating enemy forces. The drawback of this new armor is its requirement for augmenting the subject, effectively turning the participants into human guinea pigs.[6]
Despite the tremendous risk and the unethical means of creating new soldiers, ORION Generation II was greenlit by the top brass within the Office of Naval Intelligence, who concluded that the lives that could be saved far outweighed the risks involved. The project was initially granted funding for 300 candidates, though funding was later reduced to half this number.[6] By 2517, 150 suitable candidates had been identified through DNA gathered from the UNSC's Outer Colony vaccination program, though funding had been further reduced to support only half that number. 75 children, all around six years old and of both sexes, were kidnapped. In order to preserve the program's secrecy, the children were replaced by flash clones, which would die soon thereafter due to numerous medical complications associated with flash-cloning an entire human being.[6]
Dr. Halsey's use of cloning, following the dissemination of information on the project to the rest of ONI, came to be regarded one of the most controversial decisions involved with the program. In particular, the decision drew the anger of Admiral Margaret Parangosky, Commander in Chief of ONI, who interrogated Halsey after her capture and demanded to know her reasoning for the use of flash clones. Parangosky viewed the clones as unnecessary, maintaining that Halsey replaced the abductees with clones for personal, moral reasons, believing that she was giving the families closure and thus easing her own conscience.