Douglas-042

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 in 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 among the ones who survived and were not crippled or killed by the procedure.

Battle of Arcadia
Douglas was a member of Red Team during the Battle of 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. During the pursuit, Douglas fought Sergeant Forge over the former's recommendation to destroy the Covenant vessel carrying Professor Anders; the fight resulted in a broken chair and a broken bulkhead. However, the two always ate lunch in the mess hall together afterward.

Shield world


Later, upon arriving at a Forerunner Shield World, 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 planet. 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 the Red Team engaged numerous 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 to locate the Spirit of Fire for the next three years and eventually, in 2534, the Spirit of Fire and all its crew were declared "lost with all hands". Thus Douglas had been declared MIA.

The Ark
In 2559, after 28 years of drifting in space the UNSC Spirit of Fire found way to the orbit of the Forerunner Installation 00, known as the Ark. Awakened from the cryo-sleep, Douglas, as part of the Red Team, was tasked with investigating the UNSC distress signal coming from surface of the Ark. There, inside abandoned UNSC outpost they encountered Isabel, a logistics AI, who warned Spartans about danger concealed on the Ark. They 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, and Atriox ordered his troops to hunt them down and capture them, in order to learn where they came from. It was not long before the team was in an Warthog and being pursued by Ghosts. In order to escape the pursuers, Jerome requested the Spirit of Fire for orbital bombardment on their location. Later Spartans were evacuated back to the ship.

After this encounter, core components of his Mark IV armor couldn't be replicated by the Spirit of Fire, and the Red Team took advantage of the [GEN2] parts recovered from the UNSC outpost, ingenious reverse-engineered solutions developed by Serina, and deft modifications made by Isabel to stay in the fight. 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.

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.

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 his armor was damaged by Atriox, Douglas began to wear a Mark IV-GEN2 hybrid armor.

Trivia

 * 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