Holly Tanaka

Spartan Holly Tanaka is a human soldier of the United Nations Space Command who served in the years following the Human-Covenant War. She was one of the three survivors of the 2550 glassing of her homeworld Minab known to have endured the three year struggle on its barren surface. Shortly after their rescue Tanaka would enlist in the UNSC Army, becoming a non-commissioned officer in the engineers, and later volunteered for augmentation and training as a SPARTAN-IV supersoldier.

Early life and family
Holly Tanaka was born on Minab, an Earth colony. The Tanakas are a multiracial family of Black and East Asian descent courtesy of Holly's mother and father, respectively. She was raised with her brothers in the colony's capital city of Kynur where their parents managed the construction company Tanaka Exploration.

Glassing of Minab
As the Human-Covenant War entered its final stages with the Covenant fully entrenched in the Inner Colonies, Minab stood defenseless against the ensuing genocidal onslaught. Holly's mother was at home with her brothers, washing dishes and reminiscing on a picture of her family, as Covenant destroyers rained down superheated plasma to glass their city. Holly and her father were spared from the indiscriminate Covenant attack that claimed their loved ones by being on the other side of Minab where their family business maintained a mining operation. For a year after the bombing, Holly, her father, and nine other colonists on the mining crew thrived without harassment by Covenant occupation forces and were able to gather resources in the snow-capped landscape caused by nuclear winter. Holly became adept at hunting and setting traps for the local game, including a light brown-skinned species reminiscent of a Gúta from Reach, and was relied upon by her father as his best engineer, able to construct and maintain fusion reactors for the mine. The two of them often debated if and when they should activate a distress beacon for rescue by the United Nations Space Command yet always concluding that anyone could pick up on it, such as the Kig-Yar scavengers roaming the surface of Minab. Some time before Holly went out on a hunt, one of the crew members, a disturbed, aggressively violent man, had attacked and maimed another survivor blinding him in his left eye. The assailant was later subdued and tied down by the other crew who would continually argue about what they would do with this threat to their well-being. Some advocated for his immediate execution while others called for him to be kept and cared for under more hospitable conditions. In the morning after one of these disputes, unknown to his captors, the assailant became unrestrained and escaped into the night to the surrounding wilderness. After discovering that he was gone, the other survivors argued yet again, brandishing a variety of long guns to intimidate each other. Holly fired her shotgun into the air to take control of the volatile situation. Her father volunteered himself to sweep the mine for the assailant and ordered that no further action would be taken if he wasn't found in an effort to end the hostility that was plaguing the group of survivors.

Holly questioned her father hours later about two of the people who continued to incite strife between the survivors, learning that the two of them were very private individuals that kept to themselves with attitudes typical of those living on the fringes of the Outer Colonies. Just then a call came through the radio to Holly's father from the mine's sentry that she had spotted the assailant amongst a group of at least thirteen Ibie'shan and two Ruuhtian Kig-Yar equipped with small arms with two Type-26 Wraith tanks and a Type-44 Phantom dropship supporting them.

The survivors began to mount a defense against the Covenant, blocking off the large gate with a haul truck, when Ibie'shan blew through their impromptu barriers and assaulted the cavern in every direction. Holly stood on a large walkway with her father as a number of the Covenant attackers began climbing onto the structure to attack them. Holly's father ordered her daughter to retreat up to the upper levels of the facility to escape the attackers and she obeyed without question. As the ravenous aliens pressed their attack, Holly held them off for a short while with her shotgun, killing at least one of them, and destroyed a ladder to prevent them from following. High atop a ledge she witnessed her father being captured by two Ibie'shan on one of the mine's other haul truck. Distracted by this sight, the two men she had inquired about just moments before snuck up and kidnapped her in the midst of the Covenant assault.

UNSC Army service
Recovery teams would rescue Holly and two other survivors from Minab two years after the Ibie'shan assault on their mining operation in 2553. Holly Tanaka would come to enlist in the service of the UNSC Army some time after her repatriation and in 2556 she had become a non-commissioned officer at the rank of Sergeant. Her technical skills that had proved so useful in the aftermath of her homeworld's glassing would see her assigned to the 412th Engineer Command.

Remnant factions of the former Covenant wage war across the Milky Way galaxy even in the years following the Treaty of 2552. Many of these genocidal factions continued to follow Covenant wartime doctrine of glassing conquered human worlds. One such colony, Cleyell, was attacked in 2556 by a remnant faction which glassed the planet in an artistic fashion, burning a myriad of glyphs on its surface. UNSC forces that arrived on-scene determined that a single city on Cleyell's surface remained intact despite the furious plasma bombardment of the colony. Then a sergeant in the Army, Holly Tanaka was brought aboard, one ship to arrive in orbit shortly after Cleyell's glassing, to lend her expertise in recovering any survivors on the imperiled colony below. Sergeant Tanaka was ordered by the Navy to conduct a search and rescue mission down to Cleyell with a detachment of two Orbital Drop Shock Troopers.

The mission was a success, with Tanaka discovering a group of survivors in a Kig-Yar-occupied cave system. After the survivors were rescued, Captain French of the Cascadia, impressed by Tanaka's intelligence, initiative and selflessness, recommended her for recruitment by the Spartans. She would eventually accept and volunteer for augmentation with the SPARTAN-IV program.

Hunt for John-117
By 2558 Holly Tanaka had joined a Spartan team led by Jameson Locke in search of the rogue Spartan-II John-117.

Personality and traits
Holly Tanaka displays characteristics well beyond her years fostered by her close family that proved vital in her growth in the months and years following her homeworld's glassing. Her youth highlights the level of maturity that comes from a young person thrust into a cataclysmic setting. Only one of ten other known survivors on Minab, life proves harsh in the barren, snow-capped landscape resulting from nuclear winter, and Holly Tanaka shoulders tremendous burdens. Holly's father becomes a mentor to the young woman as she develops into a skilled, dependable, and loyal member of their less-than-ideal society. Quickly acquiring the necessary mindset needed to adapt to their situation, Holly Tanaka is able to provide a wide assortment of skills for her fellow survivors to thrive. In the ensuing chaos of combat against a superior foe, Holly demonstrates an impersonal attitude towards taking another life and resourcefulness in cutting off their access to other areas of their habitat.

Her appearance greatly represents her interracial background provided by her parents. Holly's eyes are very similar to her father's and her high cheekbones are reminiscent of her late mother. Since childhood, Tanaka has adopted cornrows as her defining hairstyle, a close braiding originating from many African culture and the diasporas that carry on the tradition. However, while she wore it up in a bun as a child, since adolescence and going into her military career, Tanaka has kept her hair short while retaining the braiding.

Equipment
As a child Holly was seen wearing a sky blue and white garment reminiscent of a cheongsam, or qipao, a style of dress worn in China. To survive the freezing conditions of nuclear winter Holly Tanaka's daily dress is cold weather gear to include a khaki parka with a charcoal fur hood paired with navy blue ski pants, black boots, and a blue-gray scarf to protect her face and neck from the elements. In the Army she wore a solid olive drab pattern of the battle dress uniform and a coyote brown armor system.

After becoming a Spartan, she sported the Technician variant of the MJOLNIR GEN2 armor. Her preferred loadout is the M395 DMR with the M6H magnum.

Production notes
Holly is portrayed by actress Cynthia McWilliams in Halo 5: Guardians.

List of appearances

 * Halo: Escalation
 * Halo 2 Anniversary
 * Halo 5: Guardians