The first season of the Paramount+ Halo TV series has come and gone, leaving some unanswered questions for those new to the franchise. TheHaloTV show starts at the onset of the Human-Covenant war, with the Covenant attacking PlanetMadrigalin the first episode. While most of the characters, themes, and locales may be familiar to Halo fans, there is still information that may have helped non-Halo fans understand who the Spartan IIs are and where they came from.
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In the Halo lore, the Spartan program was initially known as theOrion Project, a government-funded research program headed by the brilliant minds at The Office of Naval Intelligence, orONI. The purpose of the Orion project was to create genetically enhanced super soldiers with advanced technology available to them during the time. The program was eventuallyscrappedas the results from the program’s volunteers, seasoned UNSC soldiers,did not meet expectations.
TheUnited Nations Security Council, or Earth’s future unified government, holds domain over the Earth, and the UNSC controlled Inner-Colonies such asEarth and Reach. During the colonization of other planets beyond Earth, there were entire colonies that chose to maketheir own waywithout the support or taxation of the UNSC. Thus began theUNSC-Insurrection war,as the UNSCcut off supply linesto most of the outer colonies, and the insurrectionists responded withcoordinated terrorist attacksand piracy of UNSC technology and space-bound ships.
The Kidnappings And Experimentation
In an attempt to quell the conflict between the UNSC and outer-colonies insurrectionists, the UNSC and ONI revisited Project Orion in secrecy toexperiment on children.The intent was to create anelite contingentof enhanced soldiers to infiltrate behind insurrectionist lines and destroy them from within.
However, the success parameters of the Spartan Program were dependent on theage of the incumbentwhen they entered the program. And so began the kidnapping of inner-colony children byCaptain Jacob Keyes,whereasDr. Catherine Halsey.Dr. Halsey personally studied andhand-selectedmost child soldiers during the first wave of recruits.
The children, includingMaster Chief Petty Officer John Spartan 117, were flash cloned with similar technology used by Dr. Halsey in the show to clone herself. Thechildren were abductedlate into the night and replaced with clones. The flash-cloned children eventually died from genetic abnormalities due to the cloning process not yet being perfected, as was evident in the show when Halsey’s clone died from unknown causes. Each family who had their children mysteriously abducted in the night was never aware that the child they buried was a copy.
Thechild soldierswere vigorously trained and periodicallyinjected with enhancement drugs.In some cases, theirskeletal structures were augmentedto allow the Spartans torun faster and jump higherthan any human ever could. The MJOLNIR power armor was created to provide the Spartans with an almost impenetrable layer of metal and used to provide real-time combat information. The technology used by the Spartan IIs was far more advanced than any military tool save for the galaxy-skippingSlipspace engine.
Some children could not handle the intensity of the training and the surgical augmentations, and either died from injuries or, in the case ofSoren Spartan 066,developed severe genetic abnormalities and lifelong mental and physical scarring. Some children, however, despite being horribly deformed and disabled during the Spartan program, eventually ended up working for either the UNSC or ONI in non-combat capacities.
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The Spartan II’s performed exceptionally well on almost all of their combat missions during the height of the Insurrection war. Still, progress was ground to a halt when the Covenant showed up andstarted glassing planets, immediately redirecting Spartan II’s attention away from civil war and toward protection against humanity’s extinction.
The Halo TV series starts off in the early stages of theHuman-Covenant warand takes some liberties in adding new characters, such as Master Chief’s Silver Team. The visions Master Chief has during the show are of his first life with his family before he was abducted by Halsey and Keyes and forced to become thesavior of humanity.
