- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
I swear, some people can't read.
Here is the Quotation (AGAIN)
"In order to deal with increasing civil turmoil the Colonial Military Adminstration had secretly launched "Project ORION" back in 2491." "The purpose of the program was to devolop super-soldiers, code-named "Spartans", who would receive special training and physical augmentation." "The initial effort was succesful and in 2517 a new group of Spartans, the II-series, had selected as the next generation of Super-Soldiers.
Okay, so I outlined the KEY parts
1) Project ORION was secretly launched in 2491
2) The Initial Effort (aka the Spartan-I's) were sucessful
3) In 2517 a NEW group of Spartans, the II-series were to be the NEXT generation of super soldiers
There you go, in plain sight. Spartan I-series were the first generation of super soldiers, my guess is, these were NOT taken as children, instead were taken from the current ranks of the military, and trained even more extensively, but no augmentations were done until the Spartan II project. The reason we may not have heard of them, is because...
The Spartan II project was also hidden to the public, the ONLY reason they released the information, was because the UNSC needed a major moral boost. The Spartan-I's were around in times of peace, so why be exposed if they don't have to?
Chances are, people like Mendoza, Sarge, and that other guy in the flood novel, are NOT Spartan-I's. By 2552, chances are most of the original spartans had aged and no longer fit as combat personnel. (If taken while in military training - 18 to 30), they would be at least 70 years old.
Also, it was said that super soldiers could not be designed overnight, true, but from 2491 to 2517 is 26 years, the original Spartan I-series soldiers, could have been trained for a few years, but like it says 'initial' efforts were sucessful, maybe they all died when they tried to do augmentations to them, therefor, wiping out the entire Spartan I unit from existence.
So there most likely WAS another group of Spartans BEFORE the Spartan IIs, and not including the ones in Greece.
Cheers,
~Kain
[Edited on 6/15/2004 6:20:28 PM]