SPARTAN-III program

"Welcome to Blue, Spartans. We're going to make a great team."

- Kelly to the surviving Spartan-IIIs

The SPARTAN-III Program was an Office of Naval Intelligence, Section-III, Beta-5 Division program to produce expendable super soldiers for the survival of Humanity and the UNSC.

Introduction
The SPARTAN-III Program was the successor to the SPARTAN-II Program. Engineered by Colonel James Ackerson of the Office of Naval Intelligence, the SPARTAN-III soldiers were to be the next generation of super soldiers. They would be cheaper to arm and train, chosen from a wider pool of candidates, and more numerous than their SPARTAN-II predecessors. They would rely on superior battle tactics and teamwork, rather than technology and equipment, to achieve their effectiveness.

Purpose
The SPARTAN-II program had been a dazzling success for the UNSC. Tales of Spartans fighting and beating the Covenant had become the stuff of legend. Unfortunately, there were too few Spartan-IIs to turn the tide of the war. Even worse, the director for the program, Dr. Catherine Halsey, had postponed the training of new Spartan-IIs for a few years due to the extremely specific genetic requirements for the children to be selected.

The Spartan-II program had several problems which overshadowed its success to the ONI. First, the high mortality rate of the children during augmentation was counterproductive to the purpose of the program. Next, funding the Spartan program, plus their MJOLNIR Armor and training cost as much as a Battle Group. Third, there were far too few of them due to the fact that so many had died in battle. Finally, the Spartan-II program had gone public for morale. Even though it was a huge morale boost to the UNSC, it was a problem for most of the ONI. The ONI operated in secrecy, and anything that shone light on their operations was seen as detrimental to their efforts.

The Spartan-III's were designed to be better trained, cheaper, and expendable. They would be trained in companies of 300 at a time, and then sent on suicide missions that the UNSC could not accomplish even with the elite ODSTs. Though the casualty rates of the Spartan-III's stood at 100 percent on some missions, to ONI, all the operations were successes. They were trading lives for time against the larger and technologically superior Covenant. ONI hoped that in time, enough Spartans would survive to train more and more future Spartans, swelling the ranks of available super soldiers from only thirty Spartan-II's in 2531 to a hundred thousand Spartan-III's within ten years.

Spartan-III Training
Not much is known about the Spartan-III training program except for that it was extremely rigorous and academically challenging. Along with Kurt and Mendez, they were trained by Drill Instructors.

Unlike the Spartan-IIs, the Spartan-III children were not conscripted from their homes. The Spartan-III Companies consisted of children orphaned on worlds that had been glassed by the Covenant. From places such as Jericho VII, Harvest, and Biko, there was an abundance of children available to the program, and virtually every one of them volunteered to take revenge on the Covenant.

The fact that many children had their parents and homes destroyed by the covenant induced the forming of anger problems in many of the candidates. Unlike the Spartan-II candidates, the Spartan-III children were violent and aggressive. Often, they would get into bloody and brutal fights even over the smallest of issues.

Alpha Company
Little is known about the training of Alpha Company, except for the fact that their training began upon their arrival at Camp Currahee on Onyx. Their first exercise involved dropping out of an airborne Pelican at night; those who were too afraid to make the jump were promptly cut from the program. This exercise may have carried on into the training of the following companies as a tradition.

Beta Company
Beta Company's training involved an obstacle course, the goal of which is to ring a bell. Obstacles included armed drill instructors in SPI armor and automated machine gun emplacements all armed with stun rounds. Team Foxtrot wound up completing the exercise and recruited other SPARTAN-III candidates on an ambush against the drill instructors.

Gamma Company
Gamma Company's training regimen can be assumed as similar to previous generations. Before the Sentinel attack in Zone 67, Gamma Company was said to have been split into several teams engaging each other in a combat exercise using stun rounds.

Augmentation Procedures
The Spartan-IIIs underwent bio-enhancement procedures similar to those of the Spartan-IIs, but with higher success rates due to the advances in technology. The rate of survival went up from 44% for the Spartan-IIs to 100% for the Spartan-IIIs. The augmentation procedures were referred to as Project CHRYSANTHEMUM. The Spartan-III's were injected with the following drugs:


 * Drug 8942-LQ99: A carbide ceramic ossification catalyst to make skeletons virtually unbreakable.
 * Drug 88005-MX77: A fibroid muscular protein complex that boosted muscle density and strength.
 * Drug 88947-OP24: A retina-inversion stabilizer drug. It boosted color and night vision capabilities.
 * Drug 87556-UD61: Improved colloidal neural dis-unification solution, which in turn decreases reaction time.

In addition, the following drugs were injected into the Spartans of Gamma Company. They were illegal, but Kurt-051 felt that they were necessary for the Spartans to survive in battle.


 * Drug 009762-OO: a mutagen that alters key regions of the subject's frontal lobe. It enhances aggression, strength, endurance, and tolerance to injury. Negative effects include a loss in rational thinking and tactics. This is counter-balanced by the anti-psychotic and bipolar-integration drugs listed below.


 * Drug 009927-DG: Miso-olanzapine. An anti-psychotic. This drug counters the mutagen's properties.


 * Drug 009127-PX: Cyclodexione-4. A bipolar-integration drug. Counters the mutagen's properties.

SPI Armor
Semi-Powered Infiltration Armor, colloquially called "SPI Armor", was an armor system used by the Spartan-III's. Though more advanced than the ODST Body Suits, it was far less advanced and less powerful than the MJOLNIR Armor used by the Spartan-IIs. Its main benefit was that it was drastically cheaper to produce than the MJOLNIR armor. This armor was designed with an emphasis on stealth rather than raw power. It features special photo-reactive panels that mimic the surrounding textures, effectively being the UNSC equivalent to the Covenant Active Camouflage systems. It has been described as part legionnaire mail, part tactical body armor, and part chameleon. It increases mobility and instead of the body moving the suit (or in some cases the suit moving the body) the wearer moves it manually and has no shield so it offers almost no protection.

Similarities can be noted between the SPI armor and the EVA armor permutation in Halo 3, especially in the helmet design. These similarities, however, are purely ascetic.

Alpha Company

 * Team Wolf Pack
 * Jane-A??? - KIA
 * Shane-A??? - KIA
 * Robert-A???- KIA

Beta Company

 * Team Echo - KIA
 * Team Foxtrot
 * Lucy-B091 - Active in Core Room of Onyx
 * Min-B174 - KIA
 * Tom-B292 - Active in Core Room of Onyx
 * Team India - KIA
 * Team Lima - KIA
 * Team X-ray - MIA
 * Team Romeo –KIA

Gamma Company

 * Team Gladius – KIA - Found deceased after several days of fleeing from Sentinels.
 * Team Katana - Inside of Slipspace Field Pods
 * Team Saber
 * Holly-G003 - KIA
 * Ash-G099 - Active in Core Room of Onyx
 * Dante-G188 - KIA
 * Mark-G??? - Active in Core Room of Onyx
 * Olivia-G??? - Active in Core Room of Onyx
 * Other 315 Gamma Company S-IIIs - Unknown, likely KIA

Operational History
The Operational History of the Spartan-III Program has been marked by success and tragedy. Many of the operations undertaken by the soldiers were suicide missions, but were listed as successes by the UNSC.

2536 - 2537

 * Spartan-III Alpha Company is activated
 * Spartan-III Alpha Company quells Insurrection at Mamore - Success
 * The Battle of New Constantinople - Success
 * Operations in the Bonanza Asteroid Belt – Success
 * July 27, 2537 - August 2, 2537 - Operation: PROMETHEUS – Success, all killed

2539

 * Spartan-III Beta Company is selected

2545

 * July 3rd, 2545 - Operation: Torpedo – Success, mostly KIA, two survivors

2545 – 2552

 * Spartan-III Gamma Company is selected
 * October 31, 2552 - November 3, 2552 – Battle of Onyx

Alpha Company
On December 27, 2531, the first group of Spartan-III's, known as Alpha Company, was sent to Onyx to be trained. Of the 497 Spartans, only 300 were conscripted. This class of Spartans all survived the augmentations and was activated in November of 2536. Their record was at first exemplary, as they saw action at the insurrection of Mamore, the Battle of New Constantinople, and the Bonanza Asteroid Belt. Nine months after they were activated, they were massacred in Operation: PROMETHEUS. All of the three-hundred Spartans on the mission were killed. The only Fire team mentioned for Alpha Company is Team Wolf Pack.

Beta Company
Beta Company was approved right after Operation: PROMETHEUS in 2537. 418 candidates were selected in 2539, but only 300 were conscripted. Kurt-051 was disheartened at the loss of his first Spartans, and trained this group in unit cohesiveness along with a tougher training program. Though they were even better trained than the previous Spartans, they were similarly massacred in Operation: TORPEDO in 2545. Only two members from the entire company survived the battle.

Gamma Company
Gamma Company was trained with the help of the only two surviving Spartan-IIIs from Beta Company: Spartan-B292 and Spartan-B091. Gamma Company was said by Kurt to be the finest of the Spartan-III companies ever. 330 candidates were selected, on average only six years old; and at the request of Kurt, all 330 were approved. Every one of them survived the augmentation procedures. Gamma Company received deployment orders only a few weeks after the First Battle of Reach, and most left Onyx before the Battle of Onyx. Left on Onyx were only fifteen Spartan-IIIs who were competing for top honors. By the time the battle was over, seven were killed in action. Teams Gladius and Katana were not present in the early stages of the battle, leaving only Team Saber. Team Saber was the only Spartan-III unit to fight alongside the Spartan-II unit Blue Team. With the help of their older, more experienced counterparts, they successfully fought off a Covenant attack along with destroying a Sentinel manufacturing facility. In the end, the surviving Spartan-IIIs had to escape to the Shield World.

Delta Company
Delta Company was proposed, and Camp Currahee was being prepared for their arrival when the Battle of Onyx occurred in 2552. With the death of Spartan-051 and the disappearance of SCPO Mendez and Dr. Catherine Halsey, as well as the immediate concerns of the Second Battle of Earth, it is unlikely that Delta Company will ever be trained.

Surviving Spartan-IIIs

 * Lucy-B091
 * Tom-B292
 * Team Katana
 * Ash-G099
 * Mark
 * Olivia