SPARTAN-II program: Difference between revisions

The SPARTAN-II candidates after being sedated were taken to the colony world [[Reach]], and began their training under [[Chief Petty Officer]] [[Franklin Mendez|Mendez]]. To marginalize the civilian lives they had once led, their names became a combination of their given names and a number, with family names being discarded. The Spartans endured a great deal of hardship during their first years of training: they were placed into situations and drills that pushed their abilities to their very limit and beyond. Their hard training was complemented with a good education, from maths and science, reading and writing, to military tactics. His training methodology was tough, even brutal in some regards; Chief Petty Officer Mendez always instilled discipline, honor, and respect into the Spartans. He taught the Spartans how to kill, but at the same time he taught them the difference between right and wrong. Mendez trained the Spartans until [[2525]] when, at the age of fourteen, the Spartans would go through the toughest part of their training: the Augmentation Procedures, a process that would kill 30 of the 75 children conscripted, and cripple 12 others who would "wash out" of the SPARTAN-II program, going on to join the Office of Naval Intelligence or otherwise; only 33 survived the procedures to move on.

The [[Human-Covenant War]] marked a change in objectives for the program; originally intended to quell rebellions, the Spartans were now forced into battle against a superior opponent to the [[UNSC]]; this new threat accelerated their training to its final phase: Project MJOLNIR. With the MJOLNIR armor, the Spartans would be the first major UNSC response to the [[Covenant]] threat. During the course of the war though, the Spartans frequently demonstrated their superiority over human insurrectionists who, despite the Covenant threat, continued to erode the economic base in the outer colonies. Countless times throughout the war the Spartans proved highly effective against all threats they went up against, and heroic rearguard and delaying actions saved countless human lives from the genocidal Covenant onslaught. In [[2547]], The SPARTAN-II program went public, in an effort to boost morale among the UNSC.