Wallace Jenkins

This article is about the marine. For other characters named "Jenkins", see Jenkins.

Wallace Jenkins
Jenkins as he is infected by the Flood
Biographical information
Homeworld:	Harvest
Died:	September 22, 2552
Cause of death:	Partially infected by the Flood, killed in the crash landing of the Truth and Reconciliation
Personal details
Species:	Human
Gender:	Male
Hair color:	Auburn
Political and military information
Affiliation:	UNSC Colonial Militia (c. 2525) First Platoon UNSC Marine Corps (c. 2525-2552)
Rank:	Private (c. 2552)
Notable info:	One of the first humans to fight the Covenant. Was infected by the Flood but retained partial control over his body.

"There are too many!"

— Jenkins while fighting the Flood outbreak on Installation 04.

Private Wallace A. Jenkins was an infantryman in the UNSC Marine Corps. He was one of the first humans to engage Covenant forces during the First Battle of Harvest. In September 2552, Jenkins was stationed aboard the UNSC Pillar of Autumn during the Battle of Installation 04, eventually becoming partially infected by the Flood.

Biography

Early life and career

"When I get out of school, I'd like to join the Marines—get a chance to shoot for real..."

— Jenkins to Captain Ponder.

Wallace Jenkins was born on the Outer Colony world of Harvest. He was the eldest of three children of a farming family. In 2524, he joined the Harvest militia in an effort to make use of himself. His ambition was to join the UNSC Marine Corps as an officer. Though Staff Sergeant Avery Johnson frequently criticized him, he proved to be an extremely quick thinker and a competent militiaman. One notable event occurred when he and a fellow recruit, Forsell, were participating in a training exercise with all the other recruits in the Colonial Militia. The two were able to quickly assess the situation and go around the mock attack staged by Sergeants Johnson and Byrne. By doing so, they were almost able to win the exercise; however, a recruit named Osmo beat them to the goal. This earned Jenkins the trust of Staff Sergeant Johnson, and the two developed a close bond during the First Battle of Harvest.

Battle of Harvest

"Staff Sergeant. He's all I've got left."

— Jenkins to Johnson, lamenting the loss of his family after the glassing of Harvest.

Jenkins was a superb sharpshooter and was assigned one of the few XBR55 Battle Rifles during the battle. Jenkins' entire family was killed when Gladsheim was attacked by the Covenant. He was deeply depressed after losing his family, and used his anger to fuel his hatred of the Covenant. The only person close to him to survive was his fellow sharpshooter and friend, Forsell. Forsell had saved Jenkins' life when the latter was blinded by rage, stopping him from trying to kill Tartarus. After escaping from Harvest, Staff Sergeant Johnson offered Jenkins, Forsell, and the remaining militiamen the chance to become Marines in his unit.

Fall of Reach

During the Fall of Reach, Jenkins was one of the Marines aboard Station Gamma above Reach. Bisenti, along with Sergeant Major Avery Johnson, Private Bisenti, and Private O'Brien, were fighting a group of Kig-Yar in the hangar bay when MCPO John-117 and Petty Officer Linda-058 boarded the station to destroy the logs of the prowler UNSC Circumference. Jenkins and his team were evacuated from the station, and flown back to the UNSC Pillar of Autumn.

Battle of Installation 04

Main article: Battle of Installation 04

Jenkins was one of the Marines on the Autumn when the ship escaped from Reach on August 30, 2552. On September 19, he was listed as a member of Marine Security Detail A on Alpha Shift on Pillar of Autumn's duty roster alongside Bisenti and Kappus. When the ship arrived at Installation 04 on September 19, it was attacked by the Covenant, marking the beginning of the Battle of Installation 04. Later on, Jenkins was part of the UNSC team led by Captain Jacob Keyes and Sergeant Johnson, to find a supposed Covenant weapons cache that a captured Sangheili, 'Qualomee, had uncovered and disclosed to them in passing. Unbeknownst to them, the "cache" was in fact a Flood containment facility. Inside the facility, the marines and Captain Keyes were ambushed by the Flood.

During the resulting fight, Jenkins panicked, and a pod infector latched onto him. Johnson fired at the infector that was latched onto him but couldn't stop it from taking over Jenkins' body. Jenkins and the entire squad, save for Johnson, were turned into combat forms. However, Jenkins' Pod infector was weakened from centuries of containment, and could not fully control him. The infection process occurred normally, but unlike most victims of the Flood, who die instantly upon successful infection, Jenkins remained alive and terrified while the Flood took control of and mutated his body. He was able to control himself to a small degree whenever the Pod infector was in pain, but when it had total command, he could only watch "his" actions. His Flood infected body attacked Johnson, throwing the sergeant out of the containment room, across a large observation chamber, and into a wall. Determined to escape, Johnson ran into a hallway and locked the infected Marines inside by using a spoofer.

A Flood-infected Jenkins.

The Master Chief would later watch the horrifying attack using the Recorder Chip from Jenkins' dropped helmet recorder. The video ended suddenly, right as the pod infector attacked Jenkins, and infected him.

Survival and death

The infected Jenkins followed a group of Flood to the surface, where they attacked a group of Orbital Drop Shock Troopers led by First Lieutenant Melissa McKay. Without complete control over his body, Jenkins, who was desperate to end his own life, attempted to get killed while assaulting the Lieutenant. The attempt failed, and he was captured by the ODSTs. Major Antonio Silva tried to interrogate him.

While being interrogated, Jenkins continued making multiple failed attempts to kill himself, notably after seeing his reflection in a mirror. Later, the Pod infector inside Jenkins' body attempted to attack its interrogators by extending a tentacle through Jenkins' hand, snapping the bones and veins, which Jenkins described as a "living hell". However, the parasite was knocked unconscious from the pain, giving Jenkins the chance to reveal the imminent threat of the Flood beneath the base. He pointed with his other hand that had not been broken at the ground. Major Silva believed that Jenkins was pointing at his boot until Lieutenant McKay correctly interpreted that the Flood were going to attack from underground and ordered a squad to exterminate them before telling Jenkins they'd be back speak more with him, much to Jenkins' chagrin.

Jenkins was later taken to the Truth and Reconciliation while the Marines assaulted the ship. Jenkins knew that Silva planned to take the ship home to Earth. He also knew that there were more Flood present on the ship, and that they would inevitably escape and overwhelm the human population should Silva succeed in bringing the ship home. He thus overwhelmed the Pod infector inside him and tried to destroy the ship by destroying a fiber-optic pathway that linked the Control Room to the engines. He failed, but Lieutenant McKay, seeing the truth as well, destroyed the vessel for him by using a fragmentation grenade. The explosion severed the pathway, cutting off control to the engines and causing the ship to crash into the surface of Halo, where it exploded. The destruction of the Truth and Reconciliation mercifully ended his suffering. Before he died, he managed to mouth the words "Thank you" to the Lieutenant.

Production notes

Jenkins' face model in Halo: Combat Evolved (left) and Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary (right).

Voice actor

In the Halo: Combat Evolved credits and a post on halo.bungie.org from the game's audio director, Martin O'Donnell, Chris Wicklund is credited with voicing Wallace Jenkins. Three outtakes from Wicklund's recording sessions were featured on Bungie.net. However, during his canonical appearance in the cinematic on the level 343 Guilty Spark, Jenkins only has one line, which is a brief "sir" in response to Johnson's order. Furthermore, the game files for Wicklund's voice-lines are located in a folder named fitzgerald, and with the release of Halo: Campaign Evolved, Wicklund's performance is attributed to a "PFC Fitzgerald" in both the in-game subtitles and the credits.

As such, it is unclear whether Wicklund's marine variant is intended to be Fitzgerald or Jenkins, with a knock-on effect of the same issue with the supposed screenshot of Jenkins on Bungie.net's outtakes gallery (which is used by Halopedia as a reference for what may be Jenkins' canonical appearance). It is possible that Fitzgerald was simply a working name for Jenkins (like how Andrew McKaige is credited for Chips Dubbo, who has the working name aussie in the game files). Alternatively, Wicklund's marine variant may have been intended to be Fitzgerald—a background character like Dubbo—but later during development, the character was changed to Jenkins—a notable character whose name is a center of focus during the cinematic on the level 343 Guilty Spark, and who appears in Halo: The Fall of Reach alongside Sergeant Johnson and Private Bisenti. Finally, this may have been a production oversight, wherein Wicklund's character was mistakenly attributed to a character with an actual presence in the narrative, but no dialogue. Regardless, both marines are confirmed as canonical characters by the duty roster found on the Autumn in Halo: Campaign Evolved.

Visual depictions

A potential depiction of Jenkins in Halo: Campaign Evolved.

In Halo: Combat Evolved, Jenkins' ultimate fate is left ambiguous, as his body is not found during the events of the level 343 Guilty Spark. His fate was later revealed in the novelization Halo: The Flood. Rather than being killed outright, Jenkins was infected by an unusually weakened Flood pod infector, which failed to completely overwrite his consciousness. The partially self-aware, Flood-infected Jenkins was later forced to join an attack on UNSC forces led by Melissa McKay, during which he was ultimately captured. In Halo: Campaign Evolved, a marine lies dead directly next to Jenkins' helmet, implying the marine to be its wearer Jenkins himself. However, this contradicts with the aforementioned events of Halo: The Flood.

Jenkins' visual depiction has been the subject of a long-standing fan misconception stemming from the Halo Graphic Novel story Breaking Quarantine. In 2007, a user uploaded an image of a marine from the comic to this very page, assuming the unnamed character to be Jenkins. An argument could initially be made for this identification—specifically, this marine loses his helmet after Johnson shoots a Flood pod infector off his back. However, the comic never explicitly identifies this marine as Jenkins, and several other marines are present in the team.

More importantly, the events of Breaking Quarantine contradicts with Jenkins' fate in Halo: The Flood. In the comic, the marine immediately transforms into an attacker form, attacks Johnson, and pursues him alongside other infected. Near the end of the comic, Johnson throws grenades at the pursuing attacker forms, heavily implying that this infected marine is killed in the blast. This directly contradicts with the novel's assertion that Jenkins' consciousness survived and that he was later captured by McKay's forces. The comic evidently takes artistic license—the depicted series of rooms do not line up perfectly with the game's level layout—so the events around the unnamed marine can similarly be a stylized adaptation rather than a strict canonical depiction of Jenkins.

Despite there being no official confirmation that the marine in Breaking Quarantine is intended to be Jenkins, the image's addition to Halopedia went unchallenged for nearly two decades. Over time, this specific depiction has been widely accepted as Jenkins and perpetuated across the Halo community. As a result, this page is in a difficult position regarding the character's visual depiction; while the misidentification must be acknowledged as a case of fan misinterpretation, any images of the infected marine from Breaking Quarantine are retained on the page even though the character's canonical status as Jenkins is highly dubious.

Miscellaneous

• In Halo: Combat Evolved, during the marines' encounter with the Flood, it is Mendoza who says, "There's too many, Sarge!" In Halo: The Flood, the line is said by Jenkins, with "Sarge" being omitted.
• Despite Jenkins appearing in multiple pieces of Halo media, the character's overarching timeline contains a notable gap of 27 years. The only source explicitly tying the Wallace Jenkins in Halo: Contact Harvest to the Jenkins from Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo: The Flood is a joke made by Joseph Staten, who implied Jenkins may have been in cryo-sleep for a significant period to explain why Jenkins was still a Private despite fighting in the Human-Covenant war for the whole of its 27 years.
• There is an achievement in Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary referencing Jenkins called This One’s for Jenkins!. To earn it, the player needs to kill fifty Flood combat forms in the level 343 Guilty Spark.
• Jenkins' appearance in Halo: The Fall of Reach, and thus his participation in the battle onboard Gamma Station, is omitted from the comic book adaptation Halo: Fall of Reach - Invasion. In the comic, the three Marines are explicitly identified via dialogue as Johnson, Bisenti, and O'Brien.

Gallery

• 

  Sgt. Johnson tries to save Jenkins in Breaking Quarantine.

• 

  Jenkins' body is reanimated by the Flood in Breaking Quarantine.

• 

  Jenkins' body in the foreground, as seen from his discarded helmet recorder, in Halo: Campaign Evolved.

List of appearances

• Halo: The Fall of Reach (First appearance)
• Halo: Combat Evolved
• Halo: The Flood
• Halo: First Strike (Mentioned only)
• Halo Graphic Novel
  • Breaking Quarantine
• Halo: Contact Harvest
• Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary
• Halo: Silent Storm (Indirect mention)
• Halo: Campaign Evolved