Liquidsnake
Banned
Remember when you would fire up Halo, and just let it sit at the home screen, because it was so good.
Was Dr. Halsey justified, ultimately, in creating the Spartan-II program in Halo?
- Thread starter T'Zariah
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FUNKNOWN iXi
Member
If Baird on the Midlothian didn't stop the Engineer from discovering Earth's location, then humanity would have be doomed.
The Arbiter was the most important part to all of this IMO.
rogue_nine82
Member
Justified...totally. Humanity would have been wiped out without the Spartans....
I hate though how Traviss has ruined Halsey's character. In the books, it is clear that Halsey is not acting alone, and that she has the blessing of ONI and by extension the UNSC to start the SPARTAN II program. Traviss makes it seem like she started the program all by her lonesome and therefore is a monster. Glasslands was painful to read due to this nonsense. And Halsey being Mendele? Give me a break....
I hate though how Traviss has ruined Halsey's character. In the books, it is clear that Halsey is not acting alone, and that she has the blessing of ONI and by extension the UNSC to start the SPARTAN II program. Traviss makes it seem like she started the program all by her lonesome and therefore is a monster. Glasslands was painful to read due to this nonsense. And Halsey being Mendele? Give me a break....
SicSemperTyrannis
Member
Spartans III's were children without parents that wanted revenge on the Covenant that took their family/home/planet from them during intergalactic wartime. They more or less enlisted iirc.
Spartan II's were kidnapped and replaced with flash cloned versions of themselves during a time of relative peace, where the only fear was outer colonies no longer supporting the inner colonies lifestyle with their harvested bounties.
I think they may have been VERY different when looked at in this light, sorry.
No. Her justification at the time was that she could abduct children and make goons to suppress lesser humans exercising their right to self-determination, not that she was some savant who saw omnicidal war with the Flood and Covenant coming.
That great good can be rendered from great evil after the fact doesn't justify committing evil, but people are justified nonetheless in trying to transform it. That's what peculiar about the Halsey character, because her reformers are in large part packed into her character by the time of the war. Still, it doesn't redeem what she did prior to that point.
That great good can be rendered from great evil after the fact doesn't justify committing evil, but people are justified nonetheless in trying to transform it. That's what peculiar about the Halsey character, because her reformers are in large part packed into her character by the time of the war. Still, it doesn't redeem what she did prior to that point.
Anticitizen One
Banned
Pretty much this
The morality of Halsey's actions, for me, is easy to determine when you realize that she didn't merely abduct children, but also brain washed them. The processes that were performed on them stripped them of their sexuality and their personalities suppressed. By the time they were of age to make any kind of decision, all they knew was the military and that they should follow their orders.
This lead to my interpretation of Master Chief, which I think is somewhat rare; that Master Chief is a human war machine. What I mean by that is that he is a person who was stripped of his personhood and basically turned into a military tool, able to think for himself in terms of strategy and combat, but otherwise he services the military simply because he can't do anything else. He doesn't risk his life over and over out of good will, he doesn't have any personal feelings of affection for the people he saves, he doesn't even have any particular feelings about the covenant. He just follows orders. This is supported by his utter apathy to the medals and public adoration he receives, as well as his complete lack of reservation or questions that the giant bi-pedal land shark monsters he's been fighting all his life are now suddenly his allies. That's just how he views the world, with complete detachment to all life, and nothing exists but the objectives highlighted on his HUD. If the Elites are now suddenly his friends after being an enemy all these years, who is he to argue? And all the people he saved? He would just as soon turn around and blow their brains out against the pavement if the military snapped their fingers and told him thats what they wanted him to do, and he'd do it with no reservations or guilt. All they have to do is tell him they're the enemy. He is a machine, literally a tool who has been as psychologically stripped of free will as a person can be without falling into total insanity to be used as a weapon against any the military deem as an enemy. And you'd never hear him or any of the spartans complaining about it. At this point, this is the only life they've ever known. They're utterly, unthinkingly loyal, no matter what happens.
Of course, the exception to this is Cortana, who is the one emotional connection he has to anybody. All the same, the process rendered them all mindlessly faithful to the call of duty the UNSC rings whenever they want. You don't do that to a person, even in the midst of war. I don't see Halsey as a monster of any kind, as she feels immense guilt over the fact, and that it is the one thing that saved humanities ass in the greatest war they've ever had is something that should be taken into consideration. But to completely alter a person like that seems fundamentally wrong to me.
This lead to my interpretation of Master Chief, which I think is somewhat rare; that Master Chief is a human war machine. What I mean by that is that he is a person who was stripped of his personhood and basically turned into a military tool, able to think for himself in terms of strategy and combat, but otherwise he services the military simply because he can't do anything else. He doesn't risk his life over and over out of good will, he doesn't have any personal feelings of affection for the people he saves, he doesn't even have any particular feelings about the covenant. He just follows orders. This is supported by his utter apathy to the medals and public adoration he receives, as well as his complete lack of reservation or questions that the giant bi-pedal land shark monsters he's been fighting all his life are now suddenly his allies. That's just how he views the world, with complete detachment to all life, and nothing exists but the objectives highlighted on his HUD. If the Elites are now suddenly his friends after being an enemy all these years, who is he to argue? And all the people he saved? He would just as soon turn around and blow their brains out against the pavement if the military snapped their fingers and told him thats what they wanted him to do, and he'd do it with no reservations or guilt. All they have to do is tell him they're the enemy. He is a machine, literally a tool who has been as psychologically stripped of free will as a person can be without falling into total insanity to be used as a weapon against any the military deem as an enemy. And you'd never hear him or any of the spartans complaining about it. At this point, this is the only life they've ever known. They're utterly, unthinkingly loyal, no matter what happens.
Of course, the exception to this is Cortana, who is the one emotional connection he has to anybody. All the same, the process rendered them all mindlessly faithful to the call of duty the UNSC rings whenever they want. You don't do that to a person, even in the midst of war. I don't see Halsey as a monster of any kind, as she feels immense guilt over the fact, and that it is the one thing that saved humanities ass in the greatest war they've ever had is something that should be taken into consideration. But to completely alter a person like that seems fundamentally wrong to me.
Monocle
Member
Hell yes I do. That's one of my defining memories of gaming.
Veelk, you're mostly correct about the Spartans. They are unflinchingly loyal, but they do have personalities and they do care very much for one another and Halsey. Chief is always about that business but he does form some bonds, and is capable of emotional processing. He makes a moral decision in First Strike that actually went against ONI/UNSC in order to save a life, for an example.
Nylund's books seemed like good military sci-fi. Traviss' seem like... anti-military sci-fi, as does 343's treatment of the series, which is kinda missing the point. Maybe they're going to do some absolutely incredible things, but the books--as well as Halo 4--have been a letdown on some pretty basic levels. As in "how did these people get jobs?" levels. Because, seriously, most of them would have flunked the writing/screenwriting classes I've taken. Hard.
The clones all died.
Um. That would violate the first law of robotics.
They had Spartans on the front line and back in command stuffs (like Kurt, iirc?).
This isn't bad things happening for the greater good, though.
This is bad things randomly turning out to be useful in the long run.
Yeah, basically this.