Olivia-G291

Olivia-G291, nicknamed "O" or  ' Livi is a SPARTAN-III supersoldier of Gamma Company. Originally assigned to Team Saber, one of the leading squads in Gamma Company, she served as part of Blue Team following the Battle of Onyx. After Operation: JOVIAN WHISTLE in July 2553, Olivia was assigned to an Office of Naval Intelligence Ferret Team led by Veta Lopis along with fellow Gamma Spartans Ash-G099 and Mark-G313, serving as the team's information specialist.

Conscription
Olivia joined the SPARTAN-III program developed by Colonel James Ackerson at age six when she, along with other orphans, "volunteered" to become Spartans to avenge their families' deaths. She and the other Spartan-III candidates were trained under Senior Chief Petty Officer Mendez, surviving Beta Company SPARTAN-IIIs Lucy-B091 and Tom-B292, and SPARTAN-II Lieutenant Commander Kurt Ambrose at Camp Currahee on the planet Onyx. Olivia was assigned to Team Saber under the command of Ash-G099.

Initial attack
When the human forces on Onyx came under attack by Sentinels on October 31, 2552, the teams were still vying for top honors. Team Saber went dangerously close to the restricted Zone 67 to avoid the other teams during a training exercise. There they spied what they assumed at the time to be a new kind of Covenant drone, based on its energy shielding, and decided to investigate. The Sentinels quickly turned hostile, forcing the exercise to come to an abrupt halt.

Olivia remained with the team as they tried to figure out the drones' weak spots. She and the rest of the team hurled rocks at the drones and to their surprise, the drone's shields did not activate. One of the Sentinels chased Ash into a small ravine, but he was saved by the rest of the team, who pummeled the Sentinel with rocks, destroying it just in time.

Regrouping with UNSC forces
A general decision was made and the Team moved to the Camp Currahee armory to obtain heavier weapons. Team Saber met up with Commander Ambrose, CPO Mendez, Tom, and Lucy, and proceeded to engage the Sentinels with guerrilla tactics. Some time later, Olivia and the team met up with Kelly-087 and Dr. Catherine Halsey but had no time for pleasantries because they were soon engaged by a pair of Sentinels. After the skirmish was over, the team took Dr. Halsey and Kelly to a bombed-out bunker, while Olivia went out on watch. While in the bunker, Dr. Halsey revealed the origin of the Sentinels and what their next action should be.

Just as Team Saber was in the middle of battling the Sentinels, a Covenant dropship from the Bloodied Spirit, carrying SPARTAN-II Blue Team—Fred-104, Linda-058, and William-043—landed rather abruptly in the forest at the source of an emergency transmission sent out by the UNSC forces on Onyx. With the Sentinels increasing in number, Olivia and the others decided to retreat back to Zone 67. By now, the team had figured out that the Sentinels only come after them in pairs and there was always one observer that recorded all of the action and reported back to others, making the Sentinels smarter and harder to defeat each time they engaged in combat with the humans. Using Kelly as bait, they managed to trap a Sentinel pair in a tunnel, thereby buying themselves some time.

Retreat into Zone 67
Shortly thereafter, they moved into Zone 67 and discovered an unearthed Forerunner city. Once there, they discovered the map room of Onyx and the location of Team Katana, whose signal Olivia had picked up earlier before communications with them were lost. Meanwhile, a Covenant fleet led by Fleet Master Voro Nar 'Mantakree arrived at Onyx, dispatching forces after the Spartans. In looking in the map room and examining the Forerunner text, Dr. Halsey figured out how to utilize Onyx's slipspace translocation grid, allowing them to easily move across the artificial world.

Just before the team was about to jump to team Katana, Zone 67's AI Endless Summer contacted Dr. Halsey and Kurt-051, telling them they needed to destroy the Sentinel manufacturing facility in order to save a UNSC battle group in orbit. After teleporting to the Sentinel factory near the northern pole of Onyx, Olivia and Team Saber used the facility's teleportation grid to an advantage, destroying three key structures by tricking Sentinels into firing on them in a line with the structures. Having successfully destabilized the factory's systems, they teleported away as the facility was destroyed.

End of the battle
Olivia and the rest of the team translocated at Team Katana's holding area to find them in slipspace field pods. By deciphering Forerunner glyphs, Dr. Halsey found out that there was a shelter known as a "shield world" in Onyx's core, and persuaded Kurt and the others to make their way to it. However, the Covenant knew the location of the group and was on the way with an entire armada of troops to attempt to stop them.

After making their way into the core room of Onyx, Olivia, along with the other Spartans, made a loose half-circle kill zone around the entrance to the shield world and picked off targets at range. They managed to defend the slipspace rift, although it had come at some serious losses; Will, Dante, and Holly had already died at the hands of the Covenant. As there was little time left and the Covenant forces were closing in for the final kill, Kurt ordered Olivia and the rest of Team Saber through the portal, while he stayed behind to detonate two FENRIS nuclear warheads and deny the Covenant access to the shield world.

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

- Kelly-087 welcoming the Spartan-IIIs to Blue Team

On the other side of the slipspace rift, Olivia and the others found themselves inside a Dyson sphere habitat. There, Olivia and the other survivors waited for Kurt to arrive, but he never came. Shortly afterward, they made gravestones for William, Dante, Kurt and Holly; Olivia was then accepted into Blue Team, along with the other Spartan-IIIs present, by Kelly-087 and Fred-104.

Olivia and the other survivors then proceeded to explore the sphere in order to fulfill their mission to find valuable Forerunner technologies and take them back to Earth. After they had reconnoitered the vast construct for some time and established a camp in a Forerunner structure, Lucy-B091 discovered several Huragok which helped the human survivors contact the ONI ships outside and eventually disabled the slipspace bubble, bringing the shield world into normal space. As the sphere had occupied a pocket of alternate space-time, Olivia and the others had only experienced the passage of several days, whereas over three months had passed in normal space-time. After being retrieved by Kilo-Five, Olivia and the others were taken to Earth aboard the for a debriefing in HIGHCOM Facility Bravo-6.

Olivia and the other Spartan-III survivors of the Battle of Onyx continued to serve with Blue Team and embarked on several missions together.

Gao
In May 2553, Blue Team was attached to ONI's 717th Xeno-Materials Exploitation Battalion deployed to the Outer Colony of Gao to search for a Forerunner ancilla, Intrepid Eye, that had been detected on the planet by the battalion's Commander Murtag Nelson. The UNSC's presence on the planet was largely undesired by the traditionally independent Gao. For over a month, the UNSC attempted to capture the ancilla, who, in turn, regularly harassed the 717th with her Aggressor Sentinels. Additionally, upon learning of the UNSC's intentions, Intrepid Eye began covertly murdering Gao citizens in the Montero Cave System in an effort to create discord between the Gaos and the UNSC. The Gao Ministry of Protection dispatched Special Inspector Veta Lopis to find the murderer and Nelson had members of Blue Team aid her in her efforts to allow the UNSC to return searching for the ancilla without Gao interference. Lopis was initially convinced that the murderer was one of the Spartans, with her suspicions eventually focusing on Mark-G313 in particular.

Journey in the dark
On July 4, 2553, Olivia, Ash, Mark, and Fred accompanied Lopis and her partner Cirilo to the last known location of Major Ira Halal and Private Hayes, both of whom turned out to have been murdered. The Gao investigators decided to follow a trail of an unidentified fluid—in fact belonging to the wounded Huragok Roams Alone—deeper into the caverns, with the Spartans coming along. As they reached a large cavern, after nearly a twelve hours' descent, the humans were attacked by Intrepid Eye's last four remaining Sentinels. Though the Spartans were able to destroy the Forerunner drones, Cirilo was killed and Olivia was seriously wounded, with both of her legs broken by a large falling rock. Following her injury, she destroyed a Sentinel bare-handed in the berserk state experienced by members of Gamma Company under intense pain and stress due to their altered brain chemistry. With the engagement over, Fred left to reconnoiter the area in hopes of finding the Forerunner base the 717th was searching for. While waiting for Fred, the Gammas and Lopis were approached by Roams Alone, a Lifeworker Huragok who began to heal Olivia's wounds.

Fred eventually returned and decided that the party should take the Huragok with them, return to the surface and report to Nelson. However, Olivia had lost her "Smoothers"—drugs that controlled the Gammas' destabilizing augmentations—during the fighting, making it inevitable that the young Spartans would run out of them on the way out. Mark volunteered to take only one of the remaining five Smoother injections, leaving two doses each for Ash and Olivia, while Mark subsequently took point as the group began their climb toward the surface. While Roams Alone had improved Olivia's condition, she was still unable to move by herself and had to be carried on a litter.

Battle for Wendosa
After over a day's climb, the party eventually reached the Gallery of the Inverted Forest where they were approached by a Forerunner inspection drone housing Intrepid Eye. While isolated from the others, Olivia and Lopis were confronted by Petora Zoyas, who held Olivia at gunpoint and appeared to know Lopis, telling her that they should take both the Huragok and the Forerunner device with them and escape. Meanwhile, however, Fred used a scramble grenade on the inspection drone, generating a blinding flash of light; Olivia used this to an advantage and promptly killed Zoyas by stabbing the Gao insurgent in the chest with her combat knife. The incident made Olivia exceedingly distrustful of Lopis, convinced that the inspector was a spy in league with Zoyas.

With the ancilla in their possession, the group surfaced at the embattled village of Wendosa and proceeded to reinforce the 717th, which was under attack by the Keepers of the One Freedom. Roams Alone having worked on her, Olivia was now able to move on her own and contribute to the fighting to some extent. Informed that Fred was to return to the Montero Vitality Center with the ancilla, the group fought their way through Wendosa and Fred boarded a Falcon, but the craft was shot down and crashed in the jungle several kilometers away. As the battle in Wendosa began to turn to the UNSC's favor, Olivia and the others reunited with the rest of Blue Team, who decided to make their way to the Falcon's crash site before the Keepers could reach it. Before they departed, the Gammas took double doses of Smoothers, stabilizing their mental condition. After a series of sniper battles along the Briones Ridge, the group arrived at the crash site. With the eventual help of Alpha Company, they fended off the Keepers and recovered Fred as well as the ancilla. The Spartans were brought to the Montero Vitality Center to recover, with Olivia and Ash personally checking on Lopis after she regained consciousness.

Escape
"Olivia"

- Ash

Before the 717th could evacuate, the newly-elected President of Gao Arlo Casille sent Gao Republic's military to forcefully remove the UNSC from the planet. Olivia and Ash joined Fred at the Portable Spartan Support Module in order to acquire their armor. However, Intrepid Eye had taken control of the module and attempted to suffocate Lopis inside the airlock, but the Spartans were able to free the inspector and neutralize Intrepid Eye's inspection drone. Determined to prevent the Forerunner site from falling into Casille's hands, Blue Team, Lopis, and Roams Alone embarked to destroy the facility with a HAVOK tactical nuclear weapon. Pursued by Wyverns carrying Gao battle-jumpers, the team traveled in Warthogs to the Well of Echoes, below which the Forerunner support base was located, and boarded the Owl Silent Claw, with Rear Admiral Serin Osman waiting onboard. Mark dropped the HAVOK into the Well of Echoes, destroying the Forerunner base, while Blue Team exfiltrated from the planet successfully.

With Intrepid Eye captured, the UNSC left Gao. Fearing that Gamma Company's illegal brain mutations may cause a crippling public relations scandal were they to be discovered, Osman had Mark, Ash, and Olivia officially marked as killed in action and transferred to a classified Ferret team of which she gave command of to Lopis.

ONI career
In the following months, Olivia, Ash, Mark, and Veta Lopis underwent a training regimen to become ONI field operatives, with Olivia assigned as the Ferret Team's information specialist. While the Gammas were exceptionally quick to learn the new skills, their military background meant they would often instinctually fall back to lethal force in life-or-death situations. During this time, they regularly moved from one planet to another; the colonies they visited included Jastolo.

Neos Atlantis
"Olivia"

- Lopis

On October 14, 2553, the Ferret Team participated in a training exercise against Oscar Squad at UNSC Recreational Facility 6055-NA-A on Neos Atlantis. For the mission, Olivia adopted the cover identity of a Navy lieutenant named Bati, wearing makeup applied to make her appear older than her actual age. At the facility's officers' club, she was approached by a dubious-looking man appearing to show interest in her—in fact the reporter Spencer Hume, who had laced her zantelle with nicothiotal in an attempt to coax her into revealing classified information about the Spartans and Gamma Company in particular. Realizing Olivia had been drugged, Lopis ordered the rest of the team into action. After Mark seized Hume, Lopis escorted Olivia back into the hotel's Halsey Suite, where the team was staying, and administered a counteragent to the nicothiotal.

Mark and Ash returned to the Halsey Suite shortly after, with Mark having been attacked by an unidentified woman on the way. Not long after, they were joined by Admiral Osman, accompanied by Oscar Squad's Commander Svenson, who claimed to have witnessed Mark and Ash carrying a body and demanded an explanation. After a brief argument between Lopis, Svenson and Osman, the admiral left the suite, giving the Ferret Team two hours to resolve the situation. Ash and Mark explained what had happened—Mark had accidentally killed Hume when he was attacked and the two had disposed of the body afterward. After Hume's identity was discovered, Olivia used ONI's Facial Recognition Database to identify Mark's assailant as a former ONI commander named Ota Gallo, now working for the private security company Dark Moon Enterprises. Attempting to recover Hume's belongings, now in the Ferret Team's possession, Gallo and two of her henchmen stormed the Halsey Suite soon after. After a brief firefight, the Ferrets managed to defeat the attackers. Though Olivia received multiple injuries, she was able to throw a knife at Gallo, thwarting the rogue operative's attempt to throw a live grenade into the suite.

Shortly after Gallo was killed by her own grenade, Admiral Osman returned to the suite with an armed escort. After the admiral claimed Hume's personal effects, she asked Lopis what had really happened to Hume. Lopis lied that Gallo killed Hume after the reporter was planning to name her as his source. While clearly incredulous, Osman was apparently satisfied with the explanation.

Personality and traits
Although she originally joined the SPARTAN-III program to get revenge on the Covenant, Olivia stated that she is now motivated by a desire to prevent anyone else having to suffer a similar fate rather than mere personal vengeance. She is quite observant, wary of outsiders, and loyal to her team, quickly noticing Veta Lopis' attempts to gauge information about Mark during a conversation between the two and growing more upset with the inspector as a result of the latter treating Mark as a suspect. Despite becoming suspicious of Lopis after the incident with Petora Zoyas, she did not hold a grudge with the inspector for long, having already grown to respect her after the battle in Wendosa and responding to the creation of the Ferret Team with enthusiasm.

Olivia has a fear of "white fire" generated by a plasma discharge. According to psychologists, this is because she saw her family die in a plasma strike, though by 2553, she could no longer remember the details of the event herself.

Olivia is known as the stealthiest Spartan in Gamma Company and is consequently called "O" for short because she is "as whisper-quiet as her vowel namesake. Kurt Ambrose believed that Olivia could have been wearing fluorescent orange fatigues and still blend in with the terrain.

Physical description
Olivia is of East African descent; Dr. Catherine Halsey estimated that her origins were in the Horn of Africa. Veta Lopis remarked that she looked notably young, "barely even a teen", at the age of fourteen.

List of appearances

 * Halo: Ghosts of Onyx
 * Halo: Glasslands
 * Halo: Last Light
 * Halo Mythos
 * Halo: Fractures
 * A Necessary Truth