Edward Buck

"But you let him live. Because you're not only a Spartan, you're the best kind. The kind with the potential to save us all. You may be a Spartan, but you're goddamn human, too, and that's something you should be proud of."

- Musa-096 to Edward Buck, commemorating him for sparing Michael Crespo

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 was a 25-year veteran of the Covenant 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. Following the war, Buck became a SPARTAN-IV and eventually joined Fireteam Osiris, led by Jameson Locke.

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. Buck soon gained command of the ODST squad Alpha-Nine. Throughout the war, Buck intentionally sabotaged and turned down numerous promotions in order to remain a squad leader.

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 as part of Operation: SWORD 52, 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 would not 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.

Buck and his squad guarded Vergil at an ONI orbital facility for the following weeks. A month after the battle, they watched as Sergeant Major Avery Johnson interrogated the Engineer. Shortly after this, Alpha-Nine was redeployed in the field and fought in the concluding battles of the war. One of these operations, known as Operation: JOINT MONITOR, consisted of biohazard containment in the Voi Exclusion Zone, at some point following the Battle of Voi.

Post-Covenant War
After the end of the Covenant War in 2553, Buck and Dare traveled to Sundown for a vacation together while on shore leave. Near the end of their vacation, Jun-A266 met with Buck and offered him the opportunity to join the first class of the new SPARTAN-IV program. To Jun's surprise, Buck declined the offer, as he felt that he might have to abandon his team and Dare. Buck was the first individual that declined Jun's offer to join the SPARTAN-IV program.

In 2554, the United Rebel Front attempted to take control of Draco III, which was finally being settled for the first time in nearly two decades. Dare sent Buck to lead the mission to eliminate the rebels on the planet, as he was one of the few Draconians left. Returning to Draco for the first time in years, Buck and the rest of Alpha-Nine traveled to New Albany and stormed the insurgents' headquarters established in the city's capitol building. After breaching their way into the building's legislature chambers, their entrance was quickly blocked off by some rebels. Buck sent the Rookie to secure the emergency exit, but he was ultimately captured and held at gunpoint by Captain Ingridson, the leader of the United Rebel Front on the planet. Spartan Sarah Palmer, who was battling insurgents elsewhere in the city, contacted Buck and offered her assistance with the situation.

However, Buck declined the aid as he believed that the appearance of Spartans would lead to the Rookie's execution. As a stand-off ensured, the URF soldiers were positioned safely on the presidential balcony, which was protected with energy shielding. Buck signaled for Dutch and Mickey to sneak up to the balcony, while he and Romeo distracted her. Buck and Ingridson engaged in a conversation about each others' views, with both individuals attempting to stall the other. Buck soon learned of Ingridson's intent when Palmer notified him that URF soldiers were surrounding the capitol building. Once Dutch and Mickey got into position, Buck ordered the squad to attack the rebels while having Palmer and her Spartans engage the approaching rebels outside. In the ensuring firefight, Buck was shot in the arm. Realizing she was out of options, Ingridson executed the Rookie. Dutch managed to kill Ingridson and one of the rebels, while the last one surrendered. Palmer and her Spartans arrived seconds later, having wiped out the rest of the rebels in the city. Afterwards, Alpha-Five buried the Rookie out at sea on Draco III. Troubled by his death, Dutch decided to retire alongside his wife.

After the funeral, Buck returned to his former city of residence, Karnak. While he was at Leeward's, Jun visited him and the two shared baijiu together to honor the Rookie. Buck maintained that his answer was the same a year later, but Jun informed him that the increased funding in the program allowed for the remainder of Buck's team to become Spartans alongside him. With his largest concerns alleviated, Buck decided to join the program.

At some point between the end of the war and 2555, he participated in reconnaissance and strike operations in an unknown Joint Occupation Zone as part of Operation: KINETIC STORM.

Becoming a Spartan-IV
After spending a week-long vacation on Desdoron V with Dare, Buck departed to Mars where he underwent the necessary augmentations alongside Mickey and Romeo. During his last recovery round, Dare visited him and warned him that an unknown individual covertly loyal to the United Rebel Front had succeeded in becoming a SPARTAN-IV. Buck and the rest of the Spartan trainees were transported to a space station orbiting a dwarf planet for further training. With Captain O'Day serving as their drill instructor, the Spartans were trained to break their bad habits that they had formed over their military careers. After a training exercise, Buck witnessed medics carrying away the mutilated body of Hideo Wakahisa, a Spartan that Buck had become acquainted with. Seconds later, Commander Musa-096 ordered for all trainees to return to their quarters. While waiting for the situation to be sorted out, Buck, Mickey, and Romeo were visited by Jun and Musa. Although they had found a medallion belonging to Mickey on the body of Wakahisa, Buck, Romeo, and Mickey insisted that the latter was not responsible for the murder. Musa ordered Jun to search the station's security footage of the locker room to find any further leads. Musa later had Jun assign the three Spartan trainees to a temporary quarters until the situation could be solved.

Rudolf Schein was soon proved responsible for the murder and Jun, Musa, and O'Day went to confront him. However, Schein was waiting for them at the recreational room with the intent to blow up the station, and a skirmish ensued. Buck and his team heard gunshots from their room and the three raced to its place of origin. Before the Spartans reached the rec room, O'Day warned them to stay back before Schein's grenade detonated and sent the four flying backwards as the station's artificial gravity was shut off. As they attempted to escape from the breached rec room, Buck and the heavily wounded O'Day smashed into a door, killing the latter instantly. The three Spartans took shelter in an empty room until the incident was over and the gravity returned an hour later. Returning to their quarters, Buck and his team were debriefed on the events that had transpired and on Schein's defection. For eighteen months, largely at his request, Buck and his squad battled Covenant remnants on human colonies, including New Caracas, Gaenir Beta, and Charion VI.

Mission to Talitsa
In August of 2555, Buck participated in a mission alongside Mickey and Romeo at a United Rebel Front facility on Talitsa to recover the captured Huragok Quick to Adjust, and his human handler, Sadie Endesha. The three were sent on the mission by Dare due to their past experiences with the Huragok. 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. As the rebels, led by Doctor Schein, led Buck and Romeo back to their base, the latter began to insult Mickey and Schein. In response, Mickey attacked and inadvertently pushed Romeo down a hill. While the URF soldiers chased after him, Buck used the opportunity to attack Mickey and succeeded in moving the fight just out of sight of Schein, and Romeo and his pursuers. Romeo learned of Buck's situation and began to massacre the rebels. As their brawl continued, Buck eventually managed to knock Mickey unconscious with a headbutt. However, Buck was shot in the back by Schein. The doctor held him at gunpoint and attempted to use him to force Romeo to surrender, but while Schein was distracted, Buck threw his helmet at Schein's chest and knocked him to the ground. Buck grabbed Schein's rifle and smashed the shoulder stock against his face, killing him.

Taking Schein's rifle, Buck waited for Mickey to gain consciousness and watched as Romeo eliminated the rebels. After eliminating the rebels nearby, Romeo moved on to rescue Quick to Adjust and Sadie Endesha. When Mickey awoke, he asked Buck to kill him. However, Buck opted not to and the two sat down together until a dropship arrived to extract them. When they returned to the Spartan base on Mars, Buck had Mickey handed over to Jun-A266 instead of the ONI operatives that were waiting for their return, since he believed that Mickey was still a Spartan. Afterwards, Buck was congratulated by Musa for his actions on Talitsa. At Buck's request, Musa reassigned Romeo and Buck to another team, with Buck serving as a member of the team rather than as its leader.

At some point after the events on Talitsa, Buck was reassigned to the and acted as Spartan Commander for the Spartan contingent on the ship.

Fireteam Osiris
Spartan Buck was later assigned into Jameson Locke's Fireteam Osiris, serving as a joint-forces liaison and advisor. His current position on the fireteam is engineered by his superiors to groom him for a greater role within the Spartan branch. In 2558, Buck accompanied Osiris as they were deployed on Kamchatka with the mission to recover Dr. Catherine Halsey from the Covenant. Shortly after returning Halsey aboard Infinity, they were tasked with hunting down the rogue John-117 and his Blue Team.

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. Buck is particularly stubborn, a fact that he is aware of, having been told by his mother many times. Buck is able to always come up with a plan on the fly, an ability he believed was the reason he was in command of Alpha-Nine.

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. When ever he had spare time during his service in the SPARTAN-IV program, Buck generally kept close to Dare, or remained at a UNSC military base and socialized with the leaders of the Spartan branch.

By the time of the Battle of New Mombasa, Buck was considered to be one of the most skilled ODSTs alive, with only SPARTANs being better soldiers than him.

Relationships
"Take my advice, Rookie. You ever fall for a woman? Make sure she's got balls."

- Buck to the Rookie, referring to Dare

Buck developed a romantic relationship with Veronica Dare, an intelligence officer in Section One of the Office of Naval Intelligence. At one point, 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. The two first met on Castellaneta, a resort orbiting Saturn. Although the two enjoyed their week of shore leave together, Dare left him after Buck realized that she was a "spook". After their encounter on Sargasso, the two avoided each other for the remainder of the war, until they were forced to work together in the Battle of Mombasa. Although he thought he had buried his feelings for her, Buck's search for her during the battle made him realized that he had not gotten over her. After their time together on Mombasa reignited a spark in their relationship, the two vacationed together on Sundown.

Buck formed close relationships with his squadmates in Alpha-Nine. One of Buck's primary reasons for not originally joining the SPARTAN-IV program was due to his unwillingness to leave his teammates behind. He developed particularly close friendships with Taylor "Dutch" Miles, Kojo "Romeo" Agu, and Michael "Mickey" Crespo, having served with them for several years. He held himself accountable for the lives of each member of his squad. Even after joining Fireteam Osiris, Buck maintains contact with his former subordinates.

Equipment
As an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper, Edward Buck wore basic ODST armor with a CNM attached to the right side of the helmet and a combat knife on the right side of his chestplate. After joining the SPARTAN-IV program, Buck now wears the Helljumper variant of the MJOLNIR [GEN2] armor, modeled after the ODST armor. The left side of his chestplate bears a carving beneath his knife of an arrow-pierced heart with the letter "V" in it, referencing his relationship with Veronica Dare. He still retains his combat knife on his chestplate but it is now on his left side near his shoulder. There is an ODST crest near his left armpit. Buck typically uses an MA5 rifle and M6 pistol in combat.

Miscellaneous

 * Canonically, Buck's blood type is O-, making him a universal blood donor, but O- is also the hardest type to match. 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 Quick to Adjust, 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.
 * Travis Willingham, who portrays Frederic-104 in Halo 5: Guardians, was a stand-in for Fillion during a few mocap scenes as Fillion was unavailable at the time. However, scenes with Willingham as Buck were redone with Fillion when the actor's schedule let him three months later.
 * 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.
 * Buck's place as the fourth member of Fireteam Osiris was filled by Gabriel Thorne in an early phase of the development of Halo 5: Guardians; Thorne was replaced by Buck later on after Nathan Fillion agreed to reprise his role. Thorne is still shown alongside the members of Osiris in an early piece of artwork featured as the cover of The Art of Halo 5: Guardians.
 * Buck is a playable character in Halo 5: Guardians. His unique base attributes are increased melee damage and faster thruster recharge and slower stabilizer descent.

List of appearances

 * ONI Candidate Assessment Program V5.02A
 * Halo 3: ODST
 * Halo: Reach
 * Halo 2: Anniversary
 * Halo: New Blood
 * Hunt the Truth
 * The Hunt Begins
 * Halo 5: Guardians