Edward Buck

"Eddie Buck is a career Marine that has seen more than his fair share of this war. He has had the dubious honor of participating in many of the wars' most vicious battles; including both the Liberation of Harvest and the Fall of Reach. That he has survived through it all speaks volumes. Truly, if he was any better he'd be a Spartan."

- Profile on Edward Buck

Spartan Edward "Eddie" Buck (service number 92458-37017-EB) is a SPARTAN-IV supersoldier who served with the UNSC Marine Corps throughout the Human-Covenant War, the last years of which he spent as an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper. Counting time spent in cryo-sleep, Buck is a 25-year veteran of the war and served in numerous battles. He was regarded as an extremely skilled Marine and by the Battle of Earth, was the leader of a small team, Alpha-Nine, which was appropriated by Captain Veronica Dare for a classified ONI mission before the drop on New Mombasa, Kenya in October 20, 2552.

Early life
Edward Buck was born on August 22, 2510 to working-class parents in Draco Mercy in New Albany, Lombard on Draco III. Buck's father was a dockworker and his mother formerly served in the UNSC Marine Corps, until she retired to raise Buck and his younger sister, Lucy. During his summers, Buck apprenticed with his uncle Lou as a fisherman on Draco's Gold Sea. Serving aboard an industrial fishing ship, Buck and his uncle worked to catch the massive naeori that dwelled in the sea. During one of the fishing runs, a crew member of the ship fell into the sea. To prevent her attached safety line from snapping, Buck grabbed it while Lou hauled her back into the ship. Afterwards, Buck performed CPR on her until she coughed up the water in her lungs. Buck's last known place of residence is Karnak on Draco III, where he is also a citizen. His civilian occupation is listed as student.

Early military career
On December 5, 2528, at the age of eighteen, he enlisted in the UNSC Marine Corps. The night before he had to report to the UNSC for the first time, his father and uncle Lou threw him a going away party at the Leeward's dive bar. It resulted in him still being intoxicated when he reported to the recruiter's office the next day. Upon enlisting, he trained at several training facilities at Earth and Reach. In sniper school, Buck earned the top marks of his class. He served in many battles during the Human-Covenant War, including the Harvest campaign in 2531. During the campaign, Buck and his unit were posted at the ruins of the capital city of Utgard and he was commended for his actions during the Liberation of Harvest. He continued to serve on the front lines for the following two decades.

At some point prior to 2545, Buck's father was killed in a traffic accident. In 2545, after an extended period of cryosleep during a slipstream space jump between Mars and Hardscrabble, Buck learned of the Covenant attack on his homeworld and the slaughter of all its citizens, including his family and relatives. He obsessively watched video footage of the Unggoy and Kig-Yar hunting down and devouring the human survivors, which fueled his hatred of the Covenant and further steeled his fighting resolve. He requested a transfer for the Orbital Drop Shock Troopers immediately afterwards; his request was granted three weeks later. His commanding officer ordered Buck to take some shore leave, claiming that his presence was "jeopardizing others". Only when she threatened to send him in for a psychiatric evaluation, did he relent. He took his shore leave at Castellaneta, over Saturn, where he first met Captain Veronica Dare. The two spent their week together, until Buck eventually realized that she worked for the Office of Naval Intelligence. Although the two parted on rough terms, at some point they reconciled and Buck even asked her to marry him, though Dare unfortunately remained silent, a decision that continued to haunt Buck throughout all of his career. The two were eventually forced to split up due to Dare's job with Section One of ONI.

Battle of Sargasso
During the battle on Sargasso in 2546, Dare tasked Alpha-Nine—then composed of Buck, Gomez, Svensdottir, and Samrat—with retrieving Lethbridge Industrial's research data from its laboratories in the town of Belisk before the Covenant did. Fellow ODST squad Gamma-Six was charged with unknowingly distracting the Covenant, while Alpha-Nine retrieved the data chip. Buck vocally voiced his disapproval of the mission, as he was reluctant to allow another ODST squad die on what was essentially a suicide mission. Buck eventually relented and Alpha-Nine was covertly dropped off by a dropship five kilometers away from Belisk, rather than by deployed in Human Entry Vehicles from orbit. The squad reached Lethbridge's headquarters in the town and, after eliminated scattered Covenant forces, Buck retrieved the data chip.

As Alpha-Nine completed their mission and prepared to leave the town of Belisk, Buck overheard Sarah Palmer of Gamma-Six questioning Command about their lack of extraction. Command informed Palmer that the amount of hostiles at her position made extraction infeasible, and ordered for her to retreat to a safer location. Buck had ignored ONI's orders and led his squad to rescue Palmer and Gamma-Six. By the time Alpha-Nine arrived, Palmer was the last remaining member of her squad. Together, the ODSTs eliminated the Jiralhanae, Kig-Yar, Unggoy and Banshees assaulting their position and returned back to base in a civilian truck. Buck was reprimanded by Dare for disobeying her direct order and he was threatened with a charge of insubordination, but he did not receive any other apparent punishment.

Fall of Reach
Buck was present along with the rest of Alpha-Nine during the Fall of Reach in August 2552, where he served with the 11th Shock Troops Battalion. During the battle, squadmate Baruti "Gramps" Komen was killed. At the time of his death, the squad was merely holding a piece of ground for reasons undisclosed to them, leaving Buck to later wonder if Baruti had died for a noble cause.

He participated in the failed defense of New Alexandria, during the Covenant's assault on the city. At some point during the siege, Buck met Jun-A266. On August 23rd, he requested assistance from SPARTAN-B312 of NOBLE Team. After receiving assistance from the Spartan, Buck left the center of the city. Buck and the surviving members of Alpha-Nine were later evacuated as Reach fell to the Covenant, escaping to Earth.

Battle of Earth
During the early stages of Battle of Earth in October 2552, Buck's squad was part of the 105th Shock Troops Division that was to be inserted onto the Prophet of Regret's flagship, Solemn Penance, which was stationed over the city of New Mombasa. His mission changed when Veronica Dare, now a captain in the Office of Naval Intelligence, took control of the squad immediately before the orbital drop, in order to use them for her own classified mission. During the drop, Dare ordered the squad to adjust their SOEIVs trajectory away from the assault carrier. Immediately after this, the carrier jumped into slipspace while above the city, generating a massive electromagnetic pulse that disabled the pods' electronic systems. As a result, the pods were scattered throughout the city. After the EMP, Buck's pod ricocheted off the side of a building and landed upside down into Sector 6. He immediately made radio contact with Dare, whose hatch malfunctioned and wouldn't open. After a brief discussion, he realized that Covenant forces were heading for Dare's crash site. On his way to the crash site, he found the corpses of several Sangheili; upon asking Dare about the matter, and noting that the Jiralhanae appeared to be responsible, Dare told him that the information was classified. Later, Veronica contacted him, telling him the Covenant had found her and were moving in on her location. After fighting his way through a large unit of Covenant, including a Hunter pair, he made it to Tayari Plaza, Dare's crash site, where her pod was under fire by a trio of Unggoy. After dispatching the Unggoy he opened up her pod to find it empty. A Huragok approached him holding Dare's damaged helmet, and Buck backed away from the Engineer before Romeo, on a balcony overlooking the crash site and believing the Huragok to be hostile, shot it through the head.

Buck abandoned Dare's original mission, initially thinking her to be dead, and focused on reuniting with his squad and evacuating the city. He and Romeo eventually made their way to the building housing the New Mombasa Police Department's headquarters, where he made contact with Dutch and Mickey via an NMPD officer. Dutch and Mickey, who were at the ONI Alpha Site, offered Buck an air evac. via a Pelican. On the way to the landing zone, Buck tried to contact the Rookie, but received no response.

When Dutch and Mickey's dropship arrived at the NMPD headquarters, it was ambushed and shot down by two patrolling Banshees. Romeo and Buck then moved through the NMPD Headquarters to find and rescue their squadmates on top of a neighboring skyscraper, defending it from waves of Covenant aircraft and infantry assaults. During the ensuing fight, a Jiralhanae Chieftain badly wounded Romeo with its gravity hammer, puncturing one of his lungs with its hind-blade, before being fatally stabbed in the neck by Buck. Buck then led the other ODSTs to Kikowani Station, intending to take the train out of the city, but found that the train tunnels had been flooded. He decided to steal a Phantom dropship to escape the city, killing many Huragok in their recharge stations on the way out. They encountered a Scarab as well, which Buck destroyed. After finally making it out of the city, he realized where Dare might be and ordered Mickey to fly the captured Phantom back into the city.

He headed into the Superintendent's Data Center alone, going right through the Yanme'e hive. When he neared the Data Center's infrastructure, he was reunited with Dare, The Rookie, and the Huragok that had absorbed the Superintendent's subroutine, Vergil. Unaware as to the importance of the Huragok, he had a quick conversation with Dare as to why Vergil was so important, letting slip to Dare that he had killed "one or two" Huragok on the way, much to her annoyance. After finally making it to the elevator, Dare punched Buck in the face, for "abandoning the mission"; a furious Buck complained that she had been missing in action, and that his squad was scattered only to be cut off by Dare, who gave him a passionate kiss for "coming back". Remembering the Rookie and Vergil were present, and that they were rather awkwardly watching, he congratulated the former on doing a good job.

After battling through a Covenant outpost, and boarding another elevator for the highway, the presence of the Covenant fleet was revealed to Dare. Irritated that Buck had neglected to inform her of the fleet, the two began arguing again, Buck protested that he had been preoccupied with keeping the helpless Vergil alive. Taking the gunner position on various Warthogs and a Scorpion tank, Buck and the Rookie covered Dare and Vergil's Olifant, which they commandeered, down the coastal highway, witnessing the arrival of more Covenant ships—including two assault carriers—and marveling at their size. When the first carrier started to glass the city, he was reminded of Reach and briefly began to panic before Dare calmed him down. The Olifant was later severely damaged by a Scarab. Knowing that the Covenant had glassed the highway farther along, Buck ordered Mickey to meet them at the entrance to the Uplift Nature Reserve.

Buck and the others took the next exit off the highway, and The Rookie and Buck secured a building to hold and wait for Mickey's dropship to arrive. After fighting off waves of Covenant, Mickey arrived, and as the squad was evacuating, an assault carrier arrived close to their position. A frightened Vergil then refused to get on the Phantom, and was shoved in by Buck while Dare pulled it into the gravity lift. The group successfully escaped the city as it was glassed by the Covenant fleet.

A month later, Buck and his squad guarded Vergil at an ONI orbital facility. They watched as Sergeant Major Avery Johnson interrogated the Engineer.

Post-war era
After the end of the Covenant War in 2553, the UNSC offered Buck the opportunity to join the first class of the new SPARTAN-IV program. He initially declined Jun-A266's invitation to join but after being forced to watch the the Rookie's death at the hands of Insurrectionists during a stand-off on Draco III, he and the remnants of his team decided to become SPARTAN-IVs.

In 2555, Buck, now a SPARTAN-IV, participated in a mission alongside Mickey and Romeo at a United Rebel Front facility on Talitsa to recover the defected Huragok from New Mombasa, Quick to Adjust, and his human handler, Sadie Endesha. On the way to the base, however, they were surrounded and forced to surrender by a large number of insurgents; it was revealed that Crespo had betrayed the team and revealed their mission to the URF. Despite the Insurrectionists' numerical superiority, Buck managed to subdue him and kill the rebels' leader, Dr. Schein, while Romeo fought off the rest of the rebels and rescued both Sadie and the Huragok. Buck and Agu detained Crespo and handed him over to Jun-A266 once the Spartans returned to Mars.

Personality and traits
"Bam, said the lady."

- A recurring catchphrase used by Buck

Edward Buck is a brave soldier who consistently displays strong leadership skills and perseverance. His commendable success in his early military career led to the acceptance of his application to the Orbital Drop Shock Troopers. Buck's two-decade service at the front lines of the Human-Covenant War established him as an incredibly devoted leader and effective combatant, even among the elite ODSTs. Watching so many of his fellow Marines die has left Buck brash and ill-tempered, but this was not always so. When he was younger, Buck never had a particular interest in school. He did, however, love fishing on the Gold Sea with his uncle and other fishers. In his view, he felt free and believed he would be happy living life as a fisherman. However, when the Covenant attacked Harvest, he put his dreams aside to join the UNSC and aid humanity.

His only regret during his service is that he was not given the chance to participate in the Covenant's assault on his homeworld, Draco III, in 2545, in which many of the planet's residents were slaughtered by starving Unggoy and Kig-Yar soldiers; he only shared his remorse with his closest friends. This led to Buck forming a bloodlust against the Covenant, one which he eventually mitigated through his relationship with Veronica Dare.

Relationships
Buck developed a romantic relationship with Veronica Dare, an intelligence officer in Section One of the Office of Naval Intelligence. He proposed to her, but Dare remained silent, feeling that her job would force them to split. The two eventually agreed to end their relationship.

Miscellaneous

 * Canonically, Buck's blood type is O-. However, in Halo: Reach, his MEDREF patch shows his blood type to be O+. This is because he has the same character model as all other ODSTs in the game, as he is not meant to be seen up close.
 * In an Easter egg in the epilogue cutscene after the credits, if the player looks to the left near the end of Johnson's talk with the rogue Huragok, the camera will pan over to Buck standing next to a caveman, he attempts to groom and eat off it.
 * Rarely, if the player jumps with Buck somewhere in a vehicle, he will sing the first few bars of "Dixie" in reference to The Dukes of Hazzard.
 * In the level New Alexandria in Halo: Reach, the player can follow Buck into the building after he lands, but he will disappear after a few moments.

Production notes

 * Buck is voiced by, and his appearance is modeled on, Nathan Fillion, who also starred in Halo 3 as Gunnery Sergeant Reynolds. Fillion has described Buck as "...a bit hardened and a bit cranky."
 * Some of Buck's lines, such as "Gorram!" and "Bam, said the lady!" come from the television shows Firefly and Castle, respectively; Fillion plays the starring roles of both shows. On Firefly, Fillion acted with both Adam Baldwin and Alan Tudyk, who respectively provided the voices of Dutch and Mickey in Halo 3: ODST.
 * In Halo 3: ODST, Buck is unlocked for play in Firefight by getting the Tayari Plaza achievement. In Halo: Reach, Buck's voice can be purchased for 15,000 credits for use in Firefight mode.
 * Buck is the first character in the Halo series to speak while being controlled by the player.

List of appearances

 * ONI Candidate Assessment Program V5.02A
 * Halo 3: ODST
 * Halo: Reach
 * Halo: New Blood