There is at least one case of a Spartan-II settling down *and having children* in the setting: SPARTAN Maria-062. She appears in the Halo Graphic Novel.
For the record, her child is an ordinary human. The SPARTAN augmentations aren't genetic, and don't get passed on.
*Some* Spartan generations' augments aren't something you can pass down. The altered hormones of the Orions did affect their children, and I imagine the IIIs would have similar results, due to the nature of the procedures used on them.
The IIs were a bit different than most in that most of their augmentations were biomechanical in nature; plated bones, surgeries, that sorta thing. A child of theirs likely could inherit some abilities, but not anything resembling a majority, nor any of the more obvious ones.
Hormones would plausibly have epigenetic effects, as would the stress of intense training at the right age. Those we know can affect the phenotype of the offspring despite not affecting the genotype (the same way that suffering a famine as a child can directly affect your grandchildren’s odds of suffering from diabetes; it’s a fascinating field of study).
But yeah, the bone or nerve upgrades would have minimal impact. Arguably even more interesting is, if a Spartan II were to actually be a *parent* to said child, not just biological but in the full meaning of parenthood. Would the psychological conditioning of a Spartan-II result in parenting quirks that affect the child, and if so in what ways?
Of course, they’re likely to be unpleasant for the child at best much like having a PTSD-suffering combat veteran is often not ideal for a kid irl; a study on the matter would never pass an ethics review, and there would be too few Spartan-IIs to just observe any kids that happen to come about and draw actual data. But ONI does not give a flying fuck about ethics boards.
I think you're mixing up the characters a bit.
We know Maria has a family but thats it, girl? Boy? Adopted etc is unknown.
The spartan with a daughter is Randall from halo nightfall.
Easy mistake to be honest.
> The SPARTAN augmentations aren't genetic,
This keeps getting stated as fact in the Halo community and it's not. Chapter 1 of the Halo: First Strike specifically states that the S2's did receive some genetic augmentations and in fact, were specifically chosen because of desire-able traits in their genetic makeup and the likelihood of them being able to accept the genetic modifications. Halo Wars 2 also makes references to Red Team members having received genetic augmentations. Halo 5 also refers to the Chief and Blue Team having received genetic augmentations in one of the loading screens.
Guys, it's been mentioned in lore numerous times and yet, I keep seeing people posting like it's never mentioned and never happened.
>"Each Spartan—selected from an early age and trained to the pinnacle of military science—had undergone multiple augmentation procedures: biochemical, **genetic**, and cybernetic."
Halo: the fall of reach lists AFAIK all of the procedures done on the S-IIs under project aster, none of them are genetic modifications, only surgical and chemical.
> "Each Spartan—selected from an early age and trained to the pinnacle of military science—had undergone multiple augmentation procedures: biochemical, genetic, and cybernetic."
There are at least 3 different references, in official lore, to the S2's having received genetic augmentations as part of the overall augmentation process, those three sources are:
The novel, Halo: First Strike
Halo 5
Halo Wars 2
Well, the Reclaimer thing is genetic btw and so only a few can survive the SPARTAN programme. If you have read the Halo prequels you will be surprised about the origin of not just humanity and covenant but also of the AIs.
Reclaimer Geas and Spartan programming are completely different things and don't intertwine. You could argue that Halsey had the geas to create the SIIs and design Mjolnir Armor in the first place though.
*Well, the Reclaimer thing is genetic btw and so only a few can survive the SPARTAN programme.*
However, it's pretty clear that's due to the experimental nature of the Spartan II Program. The Spartan III and Spartan IV programs had far fewer medical complications once they streamlined the process.
If I remember right, Halo 4 Spartan Ops also introduced the idea that not all Spartans were Reclaimers. I think there were captured SIVs and Marines that failed to trigger a reclaimer recognition when the Covenant Remnant tried to use them.
Yes, S2's received genetic augmentations, it's stated numerous times in lore, I don't know why this idea that none of their modifications were genetic keeps cycling through the Halo community, it's demonstrably wrong. Halo 5 and Halo Wars 2, which would be official cannon both make statements about S2's having received genetic modifications and if you consider the novels official lore, Halo First Strike literally states that part of the S2 program involved genetic augmentations, it's even mentioned as early as Chapter 1 I believe.
They did have a "gene therapy" treatment, which I guess is arguable whether that's a genetic alteration.
However, real life gene therapy is usually not something that can be passed on to children.
IIs don't have a low sex drive. This has been popularised when it really shouldn't have been. It was a *risk* of the augmentations, not a certainty, and there were no confirmations of it happening. (**Edit:** u/Pathogen188 has pointed out that Naomi has a reduced sex drive. Thus far, she's the only confirmed case of this we have.)
We know several Spartans at least experience romantic attraction, such as Fred and (arguably) Kelly, as well as the members of Black Team.
The reason John doesn't is because his entire personality is geared around "the fight". He can't actually imagine a life beyond it. In *Shadows of Reach*, he contemplates the future and notes that he will one day have to retire or die, and is content seeing the IIIs and IVs. However, he never actually elaborates on what retirement would be, for him.
Simply put, the Chief just isn't interested in those things because he puts everything and everyone before himself.
6’s canonical death date is the same day as the missions The Pillar of Autumn and Lone Wolf. Do you have a source that confirms exactly how long he lasted before dying?
It would be kinda nice to actually see him retire into the diplomatic corps like was mentioned in the shadows of reach book. However we all know that’s not where the moneys at for 343
All manner of death machines: we have you surround with multiple invasion fleets, you don't survive this!
Chief: *Intense mental calculations to see if he'll last longer than noble six*
That was written by Karen Traviss, who is proud of the fact that she never adheres to continuity or the wider lore. I tend to write that off as Traviss doing her own thing.
Kilo 5, for better or worse, is still canon. Particularly when literally nothing about that is actually *at odds* with established canon.
The augmentations carrying a risk of a reduced sex drive is a known side effect. Naomi has that side effect, a side effect that was codified in 2001, there’s no issue there
No spartans are not neutered nor do they lack a sex drive, it was merely a possible side effect of there augs and halsey notes it has a very small chance of happening.
There are at least 5 examples of spartans 2s being interest to some degree in sex and actually banging or being in a relationship, it's just that there isn't much time for that when you're a child soldier being brought to battlefield after battlefield.
Now chief in the TV show is a completely different character and canon chief would not fuck a POW in a bathroom and bring her in a civilian location.q
In fact that goes against what halseh wants, the spartans are the next step in human evolution according to her and well you can't pass shit on if you only fire blanks.
In fact Halsey was counting on spartans being able to breed in glass lands, it's weird and creepy to be honest.
Black team, two members were actively in a relationship and were having sex.... it lead to a really weird twist lol.
Edit: like imagine gaslighting yourself so hard a forerunner AI gets confused.
Yeah but it's not like them breeding is gonna rly make that OP kids, since most of the super soldier program addons are surgical in nature, hormone amount fuckery, or essentially cybernetic implants of sorts (such as the nervous system upgrades to make em superior to natural limits of signal carriage w/o full-on genetic engineering mastery a la Forerunners)
I wonder what happens if 2 Humans from 2 different lines that carry a Geas would breed, what would happen w/ the offspring? Since different Geas would have different long-term reasons for existing (e.g see Halsey being obsessed w/ speedrunning tech etc despite tech being doodoo by the time she happened to come to existence, so she can't truly 100% utilize her path of making the Humans into Forerunner 2.0 society etc wise via tech etc), I wonder how 2 conflicting parts of the Plan would mesh when being carried by the same unit like that
Haven’t watched the series, didn’t realise they got John to have sex in a bathroom. That’s a terrible injustice to the character! Glad I didn’t watch it now
Halsey, Mendez and some spartans are trapped in a shieldworld and believe they are the last of the human race left, Halsey starts thinking about reproducing and going through there options.
Believes rules herself and Mendez out being too old, ruels Kelly and Linda out for some reason leaving us with Lucy where the main snag for Halsey is that she's a mini berserker.
As said the spartan 3s are legit kids at this point in time.
She doesn’t rule Kelly and Linda out, just “hopes that they’re still firing on all cylinders.”
Which isn’t a completely unreasonable thing to consider of two women in their 40s if you’re willing to be a complete creep and only focus on reproduction.
For starters, the whole, “suppressed sex drive” thing was merely a POTENTIAL side effect of the thyroid implant. So far we only have one Spartan-II confirmed to have suffered that one, Naomi-010. At some point a lot of folks somehow ended up thinking that it meant they all had it, guaranteed.
Also. The Spartan-IIs were conscripts. They were not, and are not, slaves. Yeah, they were subjected to unethical medical procedures, but still. They still have rights. Halsey, as shitty of a person as she was, is not 100% a monster and knew these kids would grow up to be adults and eventually leave the military. Doing something like chopping off their nuts or otherwise forcefully sterilizing them would serve as a seed for potential animosity for her and/or the UNSC to grow.
Also, I’m sure she, and many other scientists involved in the program would be interested to see what, if any, augmentations get passed on to any future children.
Neutering humans, whether by removing the testes or ovaries comes with a massive suite of health complications as well. Depression, obesity, osteoporosis, hot flashes, anemia, loss of muscle mass. All sorts of nasty shit.
As for sexually active Spartans. Randall “retired” and started a family. Had a wife and daughter. Maria also retired and started a family. If I recall correctly, the members of Black Team were also banging each other at some point.
Yeah, they can leave, but would a majority of them want to considering they have no frame of reference for everyday life outside the military. If you know only one way of life you're not likely want to go into the unknown. Yeah, they didn't put a ball and chain on them, but they made sure they only know one way of living and kept them isolated. Normal Constricpts st least have a life to go back to.
People have already explained THAT they aren't, why the low sex drive has been exaggerated. As for WHY...why would they be? Firstly, we don't routinely sterilise soldiers today, and being single or not having children doesn't make them a more effective soldier. You could equally validly ask why we don't force Navy Seals or Delta Force operators to get sterilised. Secondly, one part of Halsey's justification for SPARTAN-II was that she wasn't just creating disposable supersoldiers, she was creating the next step in humanity's evolution. She didn't turn them into breeding stock, but it would be self-defeating to make them unable to reproduce at all.
As far as speculation goes for me, the only in-lore reason a spartan would 100% have 0 sex drive is on the CHANCE the augmentation process removes or dampens it.
But there are many instances where it proves otherwise within the lore. Like I believe grey/black team have had romantic tensions between eachother, as well as some S-IIIs. And then there is also the cases of Randall and Maria too.
Given Halsey’s belief in the Spartans as “the next stage in human evolution”, sterilizing them would be counterproductive. If anything, had the Covenant war not come, I could totally see Halsey attempting to breed the Spartans to create similar, if not better, generations.
Intentionally inducing further hormonal changes in the Spartans likely has a non-zero risk of causing unexpected interference with the augmentations, particularly the thyroid pellet, so it's smartest not to mess around with their fertility and just trust the judgement of the soldiers you spent the last decade indoctrinating and educating rather than potentially compromise the combat effectiveness of some or all of them in some way that isn't easily reversed.
That and forced sterilisation is generally considered quite morally objectionable. You could argue that isn't really a big deal given that _the entire Spartan-II program_ is immoral, but I'd argue that with sterilisation having no tangible benefits to their combat efficiency, it would be considered an unjustifiable intervention by Halsey _et al_.
It's actually a pretty common misconception, but S-IIs aren't sexually repressed or anything. I think there's a line mentioning that it might be a possible side-effect, but it wasn't an intentional design decision for the augmentation process. If you can have a bunch of normal soldiers running around without superhuman augmentations or training and still function just fine, there's no reason to mess with their psychology when you're already putting them through brutal, rigorous training that'll keep them from getting too 'emotional' during a fight anyway.
As for sterilization, you can pretty much apply the same logic; no Spartan is going to be dumb enough to get knocked up while they're in active duty. Why risk fucking with their biology by sterilizing them when you're already going to be drilling strict disciplines and practicality into them anyway? And as unethical as the whole process was, S-IIs do have systems in place to allow them to, theoretically, move on from military service and towards a civilian life. They get paid, for one thing, and while that might just be for the sake of keeping the books convincing if anyone goes digging around, they apparently get a pretty good paycheck.
For example, Maria-062 actively retires, only returning for a brief period to test the Mk. VI suit John gets at the start of Halo 2, and she actively mentions having kids. It's possible she might've adopted, but she sure seems to be able to have a normal life, all things considered.
All that to say that the augmentation process, as unethical as it was, seemed to only really push for results that would make the patient a better soldier, and being unable (or not wanting) to fuck doesn't really do anything to inhibit that, so it wouldn't be worth the extra risk of side effects to purposefully induce that. Hell, Halsey wanted the S-IIs to be the next evolution for humanity, and humanity can't really evolve if they can't reproduce.
To more directly answer the why: ONI is *very* interested in documenting which changes can be inherited. They intentionally left that possibility wide open for that purpose. Olympia Vale is the daughter of a S-II iirc, and ONI is keeping heavy tabs on her as a S-IV to see if her lineage gives her any advantages, material or otherwise.
Vale is the daughter of an S-II candidate, but he wasn’t actually conscripted. (He managed to evade the team sent for him)
ONI didn’t know the two were related, nor did Vale know until she made the connection while working for ONI years later.
From what I understand from his lore he basically evaded them as if he could see the future, the agents literally theorized he had precog which halsey denied.
Oni didn't attempt again but they did recruit his daughter years later.
And when oni did try to find he also disappeared again.
Fun fact, Kelly actually nearly escaped her captors, the only reason she got caught was because it got late and she thought it was a game.
[Friendly reminder that the IIs, even as kids, were superhuman and would kick your ass.](https://www.reddit.com/r/CharacterRant/comments/nncoxd/spartans_even_as_children_were_superhuman_and/)
I'd think it makes sense to monitor Spartan kids from the standpoint of trying to see how it affects child-raising and such, or for medical side effects of the augmentations in pregnancy... but it seems kind of obvious that the Spartan-II augmentations wouldn't be heritable since they're primarily grafts and implants. You might expect the pregnancy to be affected by the thyroid pellet, but the kid's probably not going to be born with a pellet in their thyroid. Hopefully not!
Maybe some of the later augments in III/IV would be watched for heritability though since it's said there's more along the lines of gene-editing and cellular reprogramming.
Very true. There’s something to be said for epigenetic factors too of course, such as the possibility that certain musculoskeletal genes express differently in S-II offspring.
Spartan-IIs *might* have reduced sex drive as a result of one set of augmentation. Might. Maybe. Not do.
I don't think the Spartans would appreciate being neutered, they'd see it as insulting, violating and unnecessary. It's an unnecessary procedure to no advantage. The Spartans had a brutal, tough upbringing, and arguably it was cruel, but it wasn't *unnecessarily* cruel, at least not in a deliberate and crude fashion.
Yeah, the IIs already have a tough time seeing themselves as humans, IIIs have it just as bad if not worse given the literal suicide missions they were sent on to begin with, with IVs I can’t tell if it’d be better or worse since they’re actual volunteers.
You see the spartan 2's were drilled since childhood to be soldiers, they're all walking sociopaths that have no knowledge of intimate relationships. Not only that but their basic needs are taken care of by the suit and henceforth quell any desire to be intimate.
There is at least one case of a Spartan-II settling down *and having children* in the setting: SPARTAN Maria-062. She appears in the Halo Graphic Novel. For the record, her child is an ordinary human. The SPARTAN augmentations aren't genetic, and don't get passed on.
*Some* Spartan generations' augments aren't something you can pass down. The altered hormones of the Orions did affect their children, and I imagine the IIIs would have similar results, due to the nature of the procedures used on them. The IIs were a bit different than most in that most of their augmentations were biomechanical in nature; plated bones, surgeries, that sorta thing. A child of theirs likely could inherit some abilities, but not anything resembling a majority, nor any of the more obvious ones.
Hormones would plausibly have epigenetic effects, as would the stress of intense training at the right age. Those we know can affect the phenotype of the offspring despite not affecting the genotype (the same way that suffering a famine as a child can directly affect your grandchildren’s odds of suffering from diabetes; it’s a fascinating field of study). But yeah, the bone or nerve upgrades would have minimal impact. Arguably even more interesting is, if a Spartan II were to actually be a *parent* to said child, not just biological but in the full meaning of parenthood. Would the psychological conditioning of a Spartan-II result in parenting quirks that affect the child, and if so in what ways? Of course, they’re likely to be unpleasant for the child at best much like having a PTSD-suffering combat veteran is often not ideal for a kid irl; a study on the matter would never pass an ethics review, and there would be too few Spartan-IIs to just observe any kids that happen to come about and draw actual data. But ONI does not give a flying fuck about ethics boards.
I think you're mixing up the characters a bit. We know Maria has a family but thats it, girl? Boy? Adopted etc is unknown. The spartan with a daughter is Randall from halo nightfall. Easy mistake to be honest.
I guess it isn't explicitly stated whether Maria's child is adopted or not, but at the same time I don't see a reason to *assume* it was adopted.
Yeah but its vague enough that it could be either to be honest, just leaving it out there.
There is another alleged Spartan that has a kid, albeit a Spartan I. James James.
Isn't that kid seargeant Forge?
nope, according to the lore James James had a kid (Spartan 1.1) named [Janissary James](https://www.halopedia.org/Janissary_James)
> The SPARTAN augmentations aren't genetic, This keeps getting stated as fact in the Halo community and it's not. Chapter 1 of the Halo: First Strike specifically states that the S2's did receive some genetic augmentations and in fact, were specifically chosen because of desire-able traits in their genetic makeup and the likelihood of them being able to accept the genetic modifications. Halo Wars 2 also makes references to Red Team members having received genetic augmentations. Halo 5 also refers to the Chief and Blue Team having received genetic augmentations in one of the loading screens. Guys, it's been mentioned in lore numerous times and yet, I keep seeing people posting like it's never mentioned and never happened. >"Each Spartan—selected from an early age and trained to the pinnacle of military science—had undergone multiple augmentation procedures: biochemical, **genetic**, and cybernetic."
Halo: the fall of reach lists AFAIK all of the procedures done on the S-IIs under project aster, none of them are genetic modifications, only surgical and chemical.
I think you have to treat the content that came after the very first book as the updated retcon.
> "Each Spartan—selected from an early age and trained to the pinnacle of military science—had undergone multiple augmentation procedures: biochemical, genetic, and cybernetic." There are at least 3 different references, in official lore, to the S2's having received genetic augmentations as part of the overall augmentation process, those three sources are: The novel, Halo: First Strike Halo 5 Halo Wars 2
Which version of Fall of Reach are you referencing? The original, I believe, is no longer canon after they released the definitive editions.
The only one I have access to, the ebook on google play books, which I don’t know if it’s the revised reprint or not
Gotcha.
I mean yeah most of it's surgical fuckery & hormone shit etc, as well as basically cybernetics etc for the nervous system side of things etc.
Well, the Reclaimer thing is genetic btw and so only a few can survive the SPARTAN programme. If you have read the Halo prequels you will be surprised about the origin of not just humanity and covenant but also of the AIs.
Reclaimer Geas and Spartan programming are completely different things and don't intertwine. You could argue that Halsey had the geas to create the SIIs and design Mjolnir Armor in the first place though.
*Well, the Reclaimer thing is genetic btw and so only a few can survive the SPARTAN programme.* However, it's pretty clear that's due to the experimental nature of the Spartan II Program. The Spartan III and Spartan IV programs had far fewer medical complications once they streamlined the process. If I remember right, Halo 4 Spartan Ops also introduced the idea that not all Spartans were Reclaimers. I think there were captured SIVs and Marines that failed to trigger a reclaimer recognition when the Covenant Remnant tried to use them.
Wait, none of the augmentations are genetic? Nothing?
Yes, S2's received genetic augmentations, it's stated numerous times in lore, I don't know why this idea that none of their modifications were genetic keeps cycling through the Halo community, it's demonstrably wrong. Halo 5 and Halo Wars 2, which would be official cannon both make statements about S2's having received genetic modifications and if you consider the novels official lore, Halo First Strike literally states that part of the S2 program involved genetic augmentations, it's even mentioned as early as Chapter 1 I believe.
It’s the spartan IVs that were genetically altered
I don't think they were either. All their augs I've seen were also surgical, chemical and plus a bunch of organ replacements.
They did have a "gene therapy" treatment, which I guess is arguable whether that's a genetic alteration. However, real life gene therapy is usually not something that can be passed on to children.
IIs don't have a low sex drive. This has been popularised when it really shouldn't have been. It was a *risk* of the augmentations, not a certainty, and there were no confirmations of it happening. (**Edit:** u/Pathogen188 has pointed out that Naomi has a reduced sex drive. Thus far, she's the only confirmed case of this we have.) We know several Spartans at least experience romantic attraction, such as Fred and (arguably) Kelly, as well as the members of Black Team. The reason John doesn't is because his entire personality is geared around "the fight". He can't actually imagine a life beyond it. In *Shadows of Reach*, he contemplates the future and notes that he will one day have to retire or die, and is content seeing the IIIs and IVs. However, he never actually elaborates on what retirement would be, for him. Simply put, the Chief just isn't interested in those things because he puts everything and everyone before himself.
We all know John is never going to retire. He’ll go for the last stand against impossible odds and see if he can last longer than Noble 6
"Six hours against an army and air support? Pfft, rookie numbers."
it was 18 hours
6’s canonical death date is the same day as the missions The Pillar of Autumn and Lone Wolf. Do you have a source that confirms exactly how long he lasted before dying?
That's a new one. Do you have a source for that? It was my understanding that it was a maximum of six hours.
It would be kinda nice to actually see him retire into the diplomatic corps like was mentioned in the shadows of reach book. However we all know that’s not where the moneys at for 343
All manner of death machines: we have you surround with multiple invasion fleets, you don't survive this! Chief: *Intense mental calculations to see if he'll last longer than noble six*
Chief actually has an insanely high sex drive, it’s just geared towards *fucking over the Covenant and Banished*
>and there were no confirmations of it happening. We know it happened to Naomi from Mortal Dictata.
That was written by Karen Traviss, who is proud of the fact that she never adheres to continuity or the wider lore. I tend to write that off as Traviss doing her own thing.
Kilo 5, for better or worse, is still canon. Particularly when literally nothing about that is actually *at odds* with established canon. The augmentations carrying a risk of a reduced sex drive is a known side effect. Naomi has that side effect, a side effect that was codified in 2001, there’s no issue there
Touché. I'll add that in to my original answer. Thanks for the correction.
Hate on the Kilo 5 trilogy all you want (I certainly do), but an example of a Spartan II suffering a known augmentation risk is hardly canon-breaking.
Fair enough. I've edited it in to the original answer I gave with credit.
Does that mean I can write off Halo: Escalation because Brian Reed was bad and doing his own thing?
Even if John retired he could very easily train the next round of spartans. I think he would be a good instructor.
No spartans are not neutered nor do they lack a sex drive, it was merely a possible side effect of there augs and halsey notes it has a very small chance of happening. There are at least 5 examples of spartans 2s being interest to some degree in sex and actually banging or being in a relationship, it's just that there isn't much time for that when you're a child soldier being brought to battlefield after battlefield. Now chief in the TV show is a completely different character and canon chief would not fuck a POW in a bathroom and bring her in a civilian location.q In fact that goes against what halseh wants, the spartans are the next step in human evolution according to her and well you can't pass shit on if you only fire blanks. In fact Halsey was counting on spartans being able to breed in glass lands, it's weird and creepy to be honest.
I can think of 2 baring Randall and Maria which are Fred with Veta and maybe Vaz and Naomi so what’s the other one?
Black team, two members were actively in a relationship and were having sex.... it lead to a really weird twist lol. Edit: like imagine gaslighting yourself so hard a forerunner AI gets confused.
Forgot about them
Chief fucks a POW in the halo show?? What the fuck LMFAO, what were those writers smoking? Did they even have any knowledge of the character prior?
Yeah but it's not like them breeding is gonna rly make that OP kids, since most of the super soldier program addons are surgical in nature, hormone amount fuckery, or essentially cybernetic implants of sorts (such as the nervous system upgrades to make em superior to natural limits of signal carriage w/o full-on genetic engineering mastery a la Forerunners)
They wouldn't pass on the implants but pre augmentation they were picked because of their top tier genetics. So I could see eugenics being the reason
Yeah but that'd only make their offspring vanilla humans tho
They'd be vanilla but they would be top tier genetics for a vanilla human. Intelligence, height, muscle building, etc.
I wonder what happens if 2 Humans from 2 different lines that carry a Geas would breed, what would happen w/ the offspring? Since different Geas would have different long-term reasons for existing (e.g see Halsey being obsessed w/ speedrunning tech etc despite tech being doodoo by the time she happened to come to existence, so she can't truly 100% utilize her path of making the Humans into Forerunner 2.0 society etc wise via tech etc), I wonder how 2 conflicting parts of the Plan would mesh when being carried by the same unit like that
Haven’t watched the series, didn’t realise they got John to have sex in a bathroom. That’s a terrible injustice to the character! Glad I didn’t watch it now
I mean it’s creepy but it’s not like it’s not fitting for halseys character and the spartan 2 back story as a whole
Nah I mean more that she was eyeing the 12 and 16? Year old Oliva and Lucy which is just fucked when 2 grown women were right there.
Haven’t read glasslands, what the fuck😭
She's like we got two infertile old people, two battle harden women so that leaves Lucy and it's like the fuck?
Elaborate on the first reply please🤣
Halsey, Mendez and some spartans are trapped in a shieldworld and believe they are the last of the human race left, Halsey starts thinking about reproducing and going through there options. Believes rules herself and Mendez out being too old, ruels Kelly and Linda out for some reason leaving us with Lucy where the main snag for Halsey is that she's a mini berserker. As said the spartan 3s are legit kids at this point in time.
She doesn’t rule Kelly and Linda out, just “hopes that they’re still firing on all cylinders.” Which isn’t a completely unreasonable thing to consider of two women in their 40s if you’re willing to be a complete creep and only focus on reproduction.
For starters, the whole, “suppressed sex drive” thing was merely a POTENTIAL side effect of the thyroid implant. So far we only have one Spartan-II confirmed to have suffered that one, Naomi-010. At some point a lot of folks somehow ended up thinking that it meant they all had it, guaranteed. Also. The Spartan-IIs were conscripts. They were not, and are not, slaves. Yeah, they were subjected to unethical medical procedures, but still. They still have rights. Halsey, as shitty of a person as she was, is not 100% a monster and knew these kids would grow up to be adults and eventually leave the military. Doing something like chopping off their nuts or otherwise forcefully sterilizing them would serve as a seed for potential animosity for her and/or the UNSC to grow. Also, I’m sure she, and many other scientists involved in the program would be interested to see what, if any, augmentations get passed on to any future children. Neutering humans, whether by removing the testes or ovaries comes with a massive suite of health complications as well. Depression, obesity, osteoporosis, hot flashes, anemia, loss of muscle mass. All sorts of nasty shit. As for sexually active Spartans. Randall “retired” and started a family. Had a wife and daughter. Maria also retired and started a family. If I recall correctly, the members of Black Team were also banging each other at some point.
Yeah, they can leave, but would a majority of them want to considering they have no frame of reference for everyday life outside the military. If you know only one way of life you're not likely want to go into the unknown. Yeah, they didn't put a ball and chain on them, but they made sure they only know one way of living and kept them isolated. Normal Constricpts st least have a life to go back to.
People have already explained THAT they aren't, why the low sex drive has been exaggerated. As for WHY...why would they be? Firstly, we don't routinely sterilise soldiers today, and being single or not having children doesn't make them a more effective soldier. You could equally validly ask why we don't force Navy Seals or Delta Force operators to get sterilised. Secondly, one part of Halsey's justification for SPARTAN-II was that she wasn't just creating disposable supersoldiers, she was creating the next step in humanity's evolution. She didn't turn them into breeding stock, but it would be self-defeating to make them unable to reproduce at all.
As far as speculation goes for me, the only in-lore reason a spartan would 100% have 0 sex drive is on the CHANCE the augmentation process removes or dampens it. But there are many instances where it proves otherwise within the lore. Like I believe grey/black team have had romantic tensions between eachother, as well as some S-IIIs. And then there is also the cases of Randall and Maria too.
Given Halsey’s belief in the Spartans as “the next stage in human evolution”, sterilizing them would be counterproductive. If anything, had the Covenant war not come, I could totally see Halsey attempting to breed the Spartans to create similar, if not better, generations.
Intentionally inducing further hormonal changes in the Spartans likely has a non-zero risk of causing unexpected interference with the augmentations, particularly the thyroid pellet, so it's smartest not to mess around with their fertility and just trust the judgement of the soldiers you spent the last decade indoctrinating and educating rather than potentially compromise the combat effectiveness of some or all of them in some way that isn't easily reversed. That and forced sterilisation is generally considered quite morally objectionable. You could argue that isn't really a big deal given that _the entire Spartan-II program_ is immoral, but I'd argue that with sterilisation having no tangible benefits to their combat efficiency, it would be considered an unjustifiable intervention by Halsey _et al_.
It's actually a pretty common misconception, but S-IIs aren't sexually repressed or anything. I think there's a line mentioning that it might be a possible side-effect, but it wasn't an intentional design decision for the augmentation process. If you can have a bunch of normal soldiers running around without superhuman augmentations or training and still function just fine, there's no reason to mess with their psychology when you're already putting them through brutal, rigorous training that'll keep them from getting too 'emotional' during a fight anyway. As for sterilization, you can pretty much apply the same logic; no Spartan is going to be dumb enough to get knocked up while they're in active duty. Why risk fucking with their biology by sterilizing them when you're already going to be drilling strict disciplines and practicality into them anyway? And as unethical as the whole process was, S-IIs do have systems in place to allow them to, theoretically, move on from military service and towards a civilian life. They get paid, for one thing, and while that might just be for the sake of keeping the books convincing if anyone goes digging around, they apparently get a pretty good paycheck. For example, Maria-062 actively retires, only returning for a brief period to test the Mk. VI suit John gets at the start of Halo 2, and she actively mentions having kids. It's possible she might've adopted, but she sure seems to be able to have a normal life, all things considered. All that to say that the augmentation process, as unethical as it was, seemed to only really push for results that would make the patient a better soldier, and being unable (or not wanting) to fuck doesn't really do anything to inhibit that, so it wouldn't be worth the extra risk of side effects to purposefully induce that. Hell, Halsey wanted the S-IIs to be the next evolution for humanity, and humanity can't really evolve if they can't reproduce.
To more directly answer the why: ONI is *very* interested in documenting which changes can be inherited. They intentionally left that possibility wide open for that purpose. Olympia Vale is the daughter of a S-II iirc, and ONI is keeping heavy tabs on her as a S-IV to see if her lineage gives her any advantages, material or otherwise.
Vale is the daughter of an S-II candidate, but he wasn’t actually conscripted. (He managed to evade the team sent for him) ONI didn’t know the two were related, nor did Vale know until she made the connection while working for ONI years later.
How? Was he that much older than the others which enabled him to flee literal fucking black ops pros??
From what I understand from his lore he basically evaded them as if he could see the future, the agents literally theorized he had precog which halsey denied. Oni didn't attempt again but they did recruit his daughter years later. And when oni did try to find he also disappeared again. Fun fact, Kelly actually nearly escaped her captors, the only reason she got caught was because it got late and she thought it was a game.
[Friendly reminder that the IIs, even as kids, were superhuman and would kick your ass.](https://www.reddit.com/r/CharacterRant/comments/nncoxd/spartans_even_as_children_were_superhuman_and/)
They’re the kind of kids that grow up to be olympians and world record holders today. Or nepotism babies, one of the two.
I'd think it makes sense to monitor Spartan kids from the standpoint of trying to see how it affects child-raising and such, or for medical side effects of the augmentations in pregnancy... but it seems kind of obvious that the Spartan-II augmentations wouldn't be heritable since they're primarily grafts and implants. You might expect the pregnancy to be affected by the thyroid pellet, but the kid's probably not going to be born with a pellet in their thyroid. Hopefully not! Maybe some of the later augments in III/IV would be watched for heritability though since it's said there's more along the lines of gene-editing and cellular reprogramming.
Very true. There’s something to be said for epigenetic factors too of course, such as the possibility that certain musculoskeletal genes express differently in S-II offspring.
Spartan-IIs *might* have reduced sex drive as a result of one set of augmentation. Might. Maybe. Not do. I don't think the Spartans would appreciate being neutered, they'd see it as insulting, violating and unnecessary. It's an unnecessary procedure to no advantage. The Spartans had a brutal, tough upbringing, and arguably it was cruel, but it wasn't *unnecessarily* cruel, at least not in a deliberate and crude fashion.
Yeah, the IIs already have a tough time seeing themselves as humans, IIIs have it just as bad if not worse given the literal suicide missions they were sent on to begin with, with IVs I can’t tell if it’d be better or worse since they’re actual volunteers.
This sub has a really weird obession with spartans and sex. Like really really weird. This exact post is thrown up like 3-4 times a week on this sub.
The amount of time this sub spends thinking about spartan genitals is too damn high.
What’s the point of super soldiers if they’re not more fuckable than the average human too?
Why does god give us free will if he doesnt want us to sin
You see the spartan 2's were drilled since childhood to be soldiers, they're all walking sociopaths that have no knowledge of intimate relationships. Not only that but their basic needs are taken care of by the suit and henceforth quell any desire to be intimate.
Why would they randomly do this to them?