Spartan-III armor upgrades?

[Tayl0r]

Just a thought that came to me, do you think if a Spartan-III would survive all the way into Halo 2 & 3 era that they would be given the MK.VI armor? Just wondering.

 

[ACDCrockr209]

All of the Halo games that bungie made took place in the same year. So even if a Spartan-III managed to survive through the war, he/she wouldn't be given MK VI armor becuase they aren't qualified to wear it. Only Spartan-IIs could wear that armor. Period.

 

[OptimusWang]

All of the Halo games that bungie made took place in the same year. So even if a Spartan-III managed to survive through the war, he/she would be given MK VI armor becuase they aren't qualified to wear it. Only Spartan-IIs could wear that armor. Period.

Are you trying to say they could or they couldn't? Your post says both right now

Anyway, I think it's pretty obvious they would both be able to wear it and be given a set if they had the opportunity. The mjolnir armor marks are just point designations, similar to when you upgrade your computer OS. When the MK VI armor came out, Earth was about to be invaded and mankind was pretty much screwed, so I think they would have given soldiers any edge they could.

 

[SchizophrenicMC]

Well, to answer, definitively: no.

The SPARTAN-III program was designed to produce cheap fire-and-forget units, comparable to SPARTAN-II, but using less money. To this end, SPARTAN-III did not utilize MJOLNIR, but a separately-developed armor called SPI (Semi-Powered Infiltration) armor. The SPI did not have shields, much less armor, and only had basic force-multiplication. (As opposed to the MJOLNIR's ability to greatly increase the strength and speed of the wearer) It did, however, come with a light active camouflage system.

Project MJOLNIR was expanded and privatized, sometime between 2537 and 2552, and development of the armor continued to include all the variants beyond the stock Mk IV, Mk V, and Mk VI armor. This includes Mk V. The MJOLNIR Mk V armor was only issued to a small number of SPARTAN-IIIs and one SPARTAN-II, in the Noble Team. Noble consisted of hand-picked, specially-trained and certified SPARTAN-IIIs. They are the only ones issued any form of MJOLNIR.

Even if a SPARTAN-III were to survive, they would not be issued MJOLNIR armor. In fact, it's questionable, if they could even utilize it. Their augmentations were not nearly as comprehensive as the SPARTAN-IIs, and it's rather possible they would suffer similar effects as regular soldiers attempting to use it. But, they would not be issued MJOLNIR, in favor of the cheaper SPI armor they were trained to use.

Think of Project MJOLNIR and Project SPARTAN-II as being hand-in-hand. Nothing really touches either, except each other.

 

[OptimusWang]

In the books, you would be correct. The only cannon is the games though, and they treat the S-III's like the next batch of S-II's.

Edit: Rereading your post, that info doesn't jive with the books either. Where are you getting this from?

 

[Toacrabman]

What about Jorge?

 

[penutbuttrbandt]

Jorge was a Spartan II, not a III.

 

[rvb18]

In the books, you would be correct. The only cannon is the games though, and they treat the S-III's like the next batch of S-II's.

Edit: Rereading your post, that info doesn't jive with the books either. Where are you getting this from?

.....everything he said was in the books

also in head hunters the SPI armor was upgraded to include shielding. so the S-IIIs would just be wearing updated SPI armor or a completely new armor system

 

[ACDCrockr209]

Are you trying to say they could or they couldn't? Your post says both right now

I hate it when I can't type right!!!

I meant that they couldn't be given MK VI suits. The had to be 'genetically perfect' to be able to wear the armor.

 

[SchizophrenicMC]

In the books, you would be correct. The only cannon is the games though, and they treat the S-III's like the next batch of S-II's.

Edit: Rereading your post, that info doesn't jive with the books either. Where are you getting this from?

The books are considered canon. Actually, as far as I know, Halo Wars is the only material (well, and a couple bits from Legends) that isn't considered canon.

The first S-III deployment is in 2537. Also, Beta company was deployed that year. Carter and Jun were pulled from Alpha, and Kat, Thom, Emile, and Six were pulled from Beta.

That said, I think I may have pulled that year, mixed it with 2532, when shielding was first experimented, and pulled out some sort of connection. Either way, I would say it's not inaccurate to say that MJOLNIR was privatized between then and 2552, seeing as MkV was fielded in 2551.

Anyway, the only shielded variant seen in any material is in Headhunters, and it's stated to suck power from the Av-cam system.

But the main point I'm getting at here is SPI, the standard-issue S-III armor, is far cheaper to manufacture, and that's its only benefit over MJOLNIR. And the MJOLNIR Powered Assault Armor MkV is stated to have only been issued to members of SpecWar Group Three. (Official title of Noble Team) Mk V entered service a year before the Fall of Reach, and there were S-II and S-III deployments in that timeframe. Neither were issued the armor, and it's safe to say, based on ONI funding issues (stated in books and on the wiki), the S-IIIs would continue to use SPI as MJOLNIR is just too expensive.

Even game-related material states MkV was only issued to SpecWar Group Three. (I think it's in the Bungie stuff released prior to Reach)

 

[OptimusWang]

You still didn't answer my question though The part I'm curious about is this:

The MJOLNIR Mk V armor was only issued to a small number of SPARTAN-IIIs and one SPARTAN-II, in the Noble Team. Noble consisted of hand-picked, specially-trained and certified SPARTAN-IIIs. They are the only ones issued any form of MJOLNIR.

I don't remember reading that anywhere. I don't doubt you, I just want to know where it came from. "From the books," as rvb put it, is pretty vague Also, Noble 6 wasn't part of Noble team before Reach - he was lone wolfing it in his mjolnir all over the place, which doesn't exactly jive with your position.

Aside from that, I think Halo 4 is going to split so hard from the books that no amount of retconning will save it. I've seen some pretty ridiculous arguments about how Hasley's timeline in the books could have worked with the game, but once 343 puts John on Onyx I'm betting they split with the written fiction as hard as Bungie did with Reach.

 

[DIZZY]

Actually, as far as I know, Halo Wars is the only material (well, and a couple bits from Legends) that isn't considered canon.

I'm pretty sure the story of Halo Wars is considered canon.

 

[Toacrabman]

Jorge was a Spartan II, not a III.

I already knew that, but he is in noble team and he did not get the upgrade, even though he was clearly a veteran, in fact his armor was even more obsolete than the rest of the team.

 

[SchizophrenicMC]

You still didn't answer my question though The part I'm curious about is this:

I don't remember reading that anywhere. I don't doubt you, I just want to know where it came from. "From the books," as rvb put it, is pretty vague Also, Noble 6 wasn't part of Noble team before Reach - he was lone wolfing it in his mjolnir all over the place, which doesn't exactly jive with your position.

Actually, we don't know what Six was doing much at all before he got into Noble. All we do know is the MJOLNIR Powered Assault Armor Mk V was first fielded, alongside the Mk V in November of 2551. That means it saw less than a year of service, after 20 years of development. This does, however, narrow the time it could have been used to Reach. Six's career starts in 2545, after Kurt had him reassigned from Beta Company. In the following 7 years, he trained extensively in the YSS-1000 Sabre, was fielded as his superior's "personal grim reaper", and "made entire militia groups disappear". The first definitive date we have for Six is a counter-insurgency op in the Sabre on 10 May, 2552, which gained Colonel Urban Holland's approval for his assignment to SpecWar Group 3 Team Noble. Most of it is pretty vague, but, given the field date for MkV, it's unlikely he utilized it before joining Noble.

All the active Spartan-IIs are accounted for as wearing Mk V, except Jorge and Kurt, who are stated to have used Mk V and SPI, respectively. This narrows the field down to S-IIIs in Alpha and Beta companies. (Gamma was still in training on Onyx at the time, and are stated to have all used SPI) We know Alpha was sent on a suicide mission with no survivors, except for A239, A259, and A266 who were reassigned, prior to Alpha's deployment. Beta was sent on a suicide mission with only 2 survivors, Tom and Lucy, and had presumably 3 reassignments: Thom, B312, and B320. There are 2 other known S-III reassignments: Jonah and Roland, who must have come from A or B companies, but which one is unknown. It is, however, known that they were KIA before Mk V was issued.

This means that only Noble Team COULD have worn the MkV armor, regardless of other factors. There were no other subjects for its use. Everyone else is accounted for. And, in any case, it's stated, at least on the wiki that MkV was "issued exclusively to members of SPECWAR Group Three".

Dizzy: My source for that must have been wrong, then.