Douglas-042

"I was looking for a second round with the ringmaster, but his whipping boy will do just fine."

- Douglas-042 about rematch with Decimus.

Senior Chief Petty Officer Douglas-042, born Douglas Rutland, is a SPARTAN-II supersoldier of the UNSC Naval Special Warfare Command. He was a member of Red Team and fought alongside the crew of the in February 2531.

Conscription
Born to an affluent family on the remote world of Asphodel, Douglas Rutland was abducted and conscripted into the SPARTAN-II program headed by Dr. Catherine Halsey in 2517 when he was six years old. He was then taken to the human colony world of Reach and trained by the AI Déjà and Chief Petty Officer Franklin Mendez along with the rest of the SPARTAN children. Douglas-042 had a tough time adjusting to the SPARTAN-II program. However, after an initial bout of culture shock, his anger gave way to a quiet confidence. In 2525, he and the other candidates underwent a series of augmentations to improve their strength. Douglas was one of a number of "washouts" whose bodies initially rejected the augmentations, but he was able to be retrained and re-augmented separately. During the process, he was partnered with fellow augmentation washouts Alice-130 and Jerome-092, with the three being organized into an incarnation of Red Team.

Battle for Arcadia
Douglas was a member of Red Team during the Battle for Arcadia in February 2531 and was tasked with delaying the Covenant forces long enough to evacuate the civilians of Arcadia. Afterward, he and the rest of Red Team linked up with forces from the UNSC Spirit of Fire and assisted in a counter-attack on a Covenant outpost. Once the plan to infiltrate a large Covenant energy shield dome was passed down from Captain James Cutter of the Spirit of Fire, he and Red Team remained with the crew to assist with the assignment. They prevented the destruction of several prototype M-145D "Rhino" artillery tanks while they ensured that the shield was destroyed. After Sergeant John Forge's forces triumphed over a Scarab assault platform, the SPARTANs searched for Covenant survivors in the jungles on a Warthog. Upon hearing that Professor Ellen Anders had been abducted by Arbiter Ripa 'Moramee, they went to the Spirit of Fire, which soon jumped into slipspace in pursuit of the Covenant vessel carrying Anders.

The Etran Harborage
Later, upon arriving at the Etran Harborage, Douglas assisted the Spirit of Fire ' s crew in neutralizing Covenant and Flood forces. Later, Red Team assisted Marines in destroying a proto-Gravemind. Some time later, he and Red Team became stranded on the surface of the shield world. With the Spirit of Fire being dragged down inside the megastructure, Red Team was assisted by Forge and his forces and successfully withdrew to the ship. Red Team then assisted the crew in scouring the Flood forces from the hull of the Spirit of Fire. Later, after the Spirit of Fire collided with a Covenant CPV-class heavy destroyer, Red Team successfully repelled Covenant boarders while the crew repaired the vessel's drive core.

Once Anders was rescued, Douglas assisted Red Team in capturing a Covenant Scarab and used it to help Forge secure a beachhead. The Spartans were then tasked with escorting the Spirit of Fire ' s slipspace drive to a teleporter that was linked to the Apex Site. At the Apex Site's command center, he and Red Team engaged a force of Stealth Sangheili while Forge dueled the Arbiter. Douglas, with the Spirit of Fire ' s crew, was then charged with opening the gate which allowed the Spirit of Fire to exit the Shield World. Douglas, as with the rest of the crew, entered cryo sleep after the Spirit of Fire escaped the destruction of the Shield World. After the loss of contact, the UNSC tried unsuccessfully to locate the Spirit of Fire for the next three years, before declaring the ship and its crew "lost with all hands" in 2534. Thus Douglas was declared MIA.

The Ark
"I've missed this!"

- Douglas on his return into action.

In 2559, after 28 years of drifting in space the UNSC Spirit of Fire found its way to the orbit of the Forerunner Installation 00, known as the Ark. Awakened from cryo-sleep, Douglas, as part of Red Team, was tasked with investigating a UNSC distress signal coming from surface of the Ark. There, inside an abandoned UNSC outpost, they encountered Isabel, a logistics AI, who warned the Spartans about a danger concealed on the Ark. The Spartans extracted Isabel and continued investigating the outpost. However, they were soon ambushed by the Jiralhanae warlord Atriox, the leader of a mercenary organization known as the Banished: Atriox defeated the Spartans, severely wounding Douglas by crushing his left shoulder. Red Team was forced to retreat, while Atriox ordered his troops to hunt them down and capture them, in order to learn where they came from. Douglas soon fell unconscious but was carried into a Warthog by Alice. With Red Team speeding toward pickup and pursued by Ghosts, Jerome requested an orbital bombardment on their location from the Spirit of Fire. Reaching the landing zone, Alice decided to stay back and provide cover for Jerome and Douglas' safe evacuation to the Spirit, where medical teams were already awaiting Douglas. Soon, after receiving medical treatment and repairing his Mjolnir armor with [GEN2] components recovered from UNSC outposts on the Ark, Douglas returned to the field assisting Jerome in his mission to cripple the Banished portal network and successfully terminating Decimus, Atriox's right hand. Later on Douglas led a defensive operation of a captured Forerunner particle cannon, which the UNSC used against the Enduring Conviction, immobilizing the carrier and disabling its shields, allowing Jerome and Isabel to infiltrate the carrier through its gravity lift, while Alice and her artillery units cleared out a Banished base around the lift.

As soon as the Enduring Conviction was destroyed and a new Halo ring emerged from the Ark's Foundry, Douglas and Alice were ordered to cut off the Banished reinforcements Atriox was sending to the Halo via the Ark's access points, which were blocked by vehicle barricades. To overcome the enemy blockade, Douglas commandeered a Banished Scarab, neutralizing its previous commander, Orda Val 'Saham, while Alice provided cover for other UNSC forces. After all enemy bases around access points were destroyed, Douglas and Alice were ordered to proceed through the portal and destroy it behind them, then move on to regroup with Jerome and assist with fighting the Banished forces on the ring in order to reach the control room.

As the battle on the new Halo progressed, a Retriever Sentinel appeared, wreaking havoc on the UNSC forces, who were eventually able to send it into retreat. After Red Team secured three control towers, Prof. Ellen Anders managed to take control of the massive sentinel and use its weapon to gain access to the control room. As the professor descended into the control center, the Spartans and Marines stayed behind to defend the structure. With support from the Spirit of Fire, Red Team and the Marines held back heavy Banished reinforcements long enough for Anders to access the Halo's weapons systems and plant a distress beacon to the UNSC. Once the Banished forces on the ring had been dealt with, Red Team evacuated to the Spirit of Fire immediately before Halo entered slipspace and departed for the Soell system.

Personality
Even among other Spartans, Douglas is considered something of a giant. His faith in his destiny marks Douglas as an optimist by Spartan standards, and his hopefulness often lifts the spirits of his more cynical comrades. He also displayed an agressive grudge torwards the Banished, mainly torwards Atriox, especially after recovering from his injuries from his encounter with the Jiralhanae.

Equipment
Douglas wears olive green Mark IV MJOLNIR armor with a white stripe along the center of the helmet. His right pauldron is painted with a red phoenix character; his suit's biceps bear the image of a Sangheili skull with a bullet hole in the temple, set against a shield with crossed knives. He commonly used a four-barreled variant of the M41 rocket launcher from the Battle of Arcadia to Spirit of Fire ' s escape from Shield World 0459. He and Alice-130 both wielded pairs of M7 submachine guns during the raid on the Apex.

After Red Team's encounter with Atriox and the subsequent operations on the Ark, Douglas' armor was repaired with new technology from various sources. Core components of his Mark IV armor could not be replicated by the Spirit of Fire, and Red Team took advantage of [GEN2] components recovered from UNSC outposts on the Ark, reverse-engineered solutions developed by Serina, and modifications made by Isabel to remain combat operational. The amalgamation of these changes and Red Team's original Mark IV armor resulted in completely new design permutations customized to the needs of each Spartan.

Trivia

 * Douglas was portrayed by Matt Waterson in Halo Wars 2.
 * Douglas' name and tag are clear homages to the book The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and its creator, Douglas Adams. In the book, the number 42 is stated to be "the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything".
 * Douglas' service number 42 is a 7 multiple:42/6=7. He is one of the two known Spartan-IIs (The other being Fhajad-084) to have 7 as a factor in their service number.

List of appearances

 * Halo Wars
 * Know Your Enemy
 * Halo Wars 2