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This topic has moved here: Subject: Second class of Sp IIs, Nicole, ILBs all retroconned?
  • Subject: Second class of Sp IIs, Nicole, ILBs all retroconned?
Subject: Second class of Sp IIs, Nicole, ILBs all retroconned?

Posted by; A random forum poster
Posted by; ghostvirus
This apple is brown, and rotten. This orange on the other hand, is in relatively average shape. So the orange is definitely the preferable option.
----------You can't compare apples and oranges. You're so dumb.

Are the main characters of Halo: Reach, indirectly referenced in preexistent Halo fiction? Are they a part of a second generation of Spartan IIs? Was ILBs, and Nicoles backstory retroconned to conviently create a new generation of Spartan IIs, that weren't tied up in other conflicts? Stick around, if you want my perspective, and more importantly why I have that perspective.

Heres something I stumbled on, at Halo wiki.

It is also stated in Fall of Reach that there are 25 Spartans present during the Battle of Reach, however later it states that there are 30 Spartans present. This number is maintained in Halo: First Strike.

The most current count of Spartans comes from Halo Wars timeline that states that 25 of the 28 remaining Spartans were present at Reach. The remaining three Spartans are generally assumed to be Grey Team, whose status at that time is still unknown. This information also confirms that since the Augmentation of the Spartans five had since gone missing or had died. Samuel, Kurt, Randall, and Sheila are part of this count, with the final Spartan likely the one too wounded to continue active duty.

Bungie, along with Eric S. Trautmann, have said that these discrepancies only seem to be errors and that everything will be made clear in time


If some one can provide exact quotes, so that I can get closure regarding the exact wording in the novels, that would be great.

Now don't be distracted by the part at the bottom. There were originally 33 Spartan IIs, five of them were called out of duty, and are accounted for.

The part you should pay attention to, is the discrepancy involving the amount of Spartans at Reach. Halo Wars states 25, out of 28 remaining, original Spartan IIs came to Reach. The three not at Reach, are gray team. Other parts indicate 30 Spartan IIs fought on reach. There is a logical problem here.How could 30 Spartan IIs have fought on Reach, if only 28 of the original Spartan IIs were alive at the time Reach takes place, further more when we know three others were somewhere else.

Lets do simple arithmetic.

30 (Spartan IIs fighting on Reach) - 25 ( original Spartan IIs on Reach) = 5 Spartan IIs, that could not of been from Masterchiefs generation, that fought on Reach. Five enigmatic Spartan IIs. That have existed as an enigma, since Fall of Reach was released in 2001.

So is it possible we may solve this enigma? Is it possible we will learn about these five Spartan IIs, that do not seem to be part of the original generation ? Look at the banner at the top. There are five Spartans. Coincidence?

As further evidence ,watch the trailer, two Spartans identify themselves as having a call sign higher than 150. The amount of potential canidates from the original SP II group. No Spartan in official canon has previously broken this rule. Further more they identify themselves as, Sierra. Clearly they are not Spartan IIIs. Who identify themselves by using the first letter of their company name, followed by a call sign. Example: G123

I think, Bungie has retroconned these enigmatic 5 spartan IIs, as well as the second class of Spartan IIs mentioned in both ILBs and Nicoles backstory. Because it was convient to have a new group of Spartan IIs that weren't already tied up.

Heres the timeline as I see it;

2531, Hasely puts the second class of Spartan IIs on hold. Funding was being redirected to Mjolnir, and Sp IIIs. Additionally she couldn't find enough canidates that met her standards.

In 2537, ONI began funding a rebirth of the Sp II project. That would remain top secret. After the first squad of Sp- IIIs failed expectations. Delivering both a smaller force then expected, and dieing within a year of being operational. ONI realizes the value in the mass produced, disposable nature of Spartan IIIs. But also recognizes the resilence the Spartan IIs have continued to show over the years. And concludes that it makes tactical sense to have a large disposable force of super soliders, in addition to a smaller, more reliable force for cov-ops.

The second generation of Sp IIs, recycles un-used canidates from Alpha and Beta company,. Which would give it a population of 315 candidates. The second generation of Spartan IIs are then conscripted in 2537, as stated in ILBs.

Alpha Company: Of the 497 Spartans, only 300 were conscripted.

497- 300 = 197

Beta Company: 418 candidates were selected in 2539, but only 300 were conscripted.

418 - 300 = 118

197 + 118 = 315

315 + 150 = 465

The highest Sp II call sign would then be 465. This accounts for Sierra 259, 320 from the teaser trailer, AND Nicole, 458.


Fact: Nicoles call sign is said to be 458 .

465 - 458 = 7.

Now before you guys attack me, saying ILBs is not canon, and that neither is Nicole.

First and for most, let me say, ILBs states the second generation of Spartan IIs were conscripted in 2537. Nicoles backstory would make her six at that time. The age the original Spartan IIs were at conscription. So why are these two works of non canon, consistent? Besides that, lets look at the facts.

I cannot find one resource that states Nicoles backstory is non-canon. This is what the weekly update that first mentioned Nicole states:

Reason for creation:

Initially, team Ninja wanted, and asked very politely, for Master Chief. Well, we balked at that. Master Chief is busy, fictionally speaking. We left him at the end of Halo 2, involved in a very large scale galactic conflict with world-ending repercussions. Fictionally speaking, he just wasn't available for fisticuffs.

But we loved the idea of seeing a Spartan fight, unarmed. You have to figure they'd be pretty serious pugilistic contenders right? Half ton of bio-mechanically enhanced armor-clad uber-trained soldiering nightmare? Has to have at least a decent right hook.

So we created Spartan 458, Nicole. And she's quite a lady. If you define "lady" as ferociously violent killing machine.


If Bungie wasn't concerned with their DOA 4 character following Halo canon, why wouldn't they just give Team Ninja Masterchief? Why would they create a new Spartan, because Masterchief was fictionally busy? Why not do the same thing they did with Firefight, and Johnson? Say, who cares, lets throw Masterchief in DOA 4 even if it makes no sense.

The update later states;

Here's a list of things Nicole, Spartan 458 is NOT .

She's not a character who's ever been described in other Halo fiction.
She's not a character from our next project.
She's not one of the Spartans from Fall of Reach.
She's not a character from the Halo movie.
She's not returning my calls. I blame time bubbles.

In short, she's a fictional means to an end that we gave careful thought, but with a jaunty tip of our hat and a wry wink in the general direction of levity.


One definetly could say, they only really created her to explain why a Spartan would be in the 21st century. But lets go on. But weither Nicole is official canon or nor is never directly stated. Bungie does however indirectly refer to her backstory as "Halo fiction".

Now, following Halo 2s release it WAS stated ILBS was not canon. One Specific case:

HaloStoryPage: If you were to define what is and isn't Halo story canon, would the I Love Bees stuff make the cut?

Joseph Staten:The Bees would not make the cut.

Those guys basically did their own thing with very little Bungie input (save for massaging and approving the initial plot-treatment). While we helped define the boundaries of their fiction, we let them do what they thought best. And I think the game turned out great.


Specificly two pieces of information should be taken away from this. 1. Bungie helped iron out the story of ILBs, and set the boundaries. But didn't hold their hands. 2. At this time ILBs was not canon.

However, here is a later interview;

HSP: The dialogue from the Halo 3 trailer bears obvious similarity to the Cortana Letters from the early Halo days. Given that they have been discouraged as canon over the years, are they now to be afforded greater consideration? Additionally, the Letters themselves were strongly reminiscent of the messages from Durandal, the rampant AI from Marathon. What are your thoughts on "rampancy," AIs in the Halo universe, and Cortana specifically?

JS: Canon is tricky (see my controversial statement about I Love Bees - believe it or not, we're actually working to answer the is it, or isn't it? question right now!). The Halo story has as many loose threads as influences. And we do our best to sew the former into canon as we find them - are reminded of their potential. The Cortana Letters are an excellent example of this phenomenon. For all sorts of reasons, they lingered in canonical purgatory for years. But when we needed some compelling dialog to remind folks what's at stake in Halo3: Bam! Newfound utility! Alas, I'd have to say that, as of now, the only canonized parts of the letters are the fragments we pulled for use in the announcement trailer.


First off, the interview takes place just after Halo 3 is announced. It occurs years after Bungie says ILBs is not canon. Specificly Joseph references the earlier interview, and states they are now deciding weither ILBs is canon or not. But beyond that, is it possible this pro- retrocon attitude was applied to ILBs and Nicoles backstory? Was it possible Bungie realized it was convient to have new Spartan IIs, without previous ties?

Now you get decided, and all we can do is wait and find out.

Im going to make another prediction: Several people are not going to read this, and will say something along the lines of; "ILBs and Nicole are not canon. you dum dur.."

[Edited on 07.23.2009 3:02 AM PDT]

  • 07.23.2009 2:59 AM PDT

Mate that is seriously well thought out. Infact It wouldn't surprise me at all if you hit the nail right on the head. The 5 would be easy to introduce as well, I'm sure all it would take is a couple of weekly updates or perhaps a viddoc.

This is my first post in ages, It makes a nice change to read a well thought out logical theory.

  • 07.23.2009 3:24 AM PDT

i agree. i read the whole thing but its kinda hard to follow. all i got was that there might be more spartan 2s then we originally thought. i hope your right and its nice to see some one on these forums with a meaningful thought out thread.

  • 07.23.2009 5:15 AM PDT

Don't hate... ...loathe.

Given the time and energy that this tread took to put together I would just go ahead and re/reread the Reach book with a highlighter pen and a note pad. That would be some indepth analysis for sure and that book is regarded as canon for sure. An interesting read I just have find I love bee's to read it and figure out what "retrocon" and such jargon means.

The DOA 4 charicter is by all accounts that I've heard just a fun cross-over to give a unique charicter for the Xbox 360 version of the game (they made Spawn the charicter in DOA 3 on the Xbox last time I think) to up sales and give Halo some more buzz. The made her outside of the story line so they could give some tolken fighter game back story.

I could only wonder at what zellots would make of John 117's invovment in the story line. Time travel is part of the story just look at when MC went back in time in DOA 4, thats what we saw at the end of the Halo 3 Ledgendary ending - Earth in the past Halo 4 will be a fighter For example.

  • 07.23.2009 8:41 AM PDT

I'm not too sure about the time travel though.

  • 08.01.2009 10:55 AM PDT

Posted by: Vidmaster
<BEGIN TRANSMISSION>

<COMMANDER> 7192-/- "Vinh are you still there?" -/-<END>

<VINH-030> -/- "They... took... Isaac" -/-<END>

<COMMANDER> 7192-/- "Hang in there Vinh were coming" -/-<END>

<VINH-030> -/- "They... took... Isaac, Commander" -/-<END>

<COMMANDER> 7192-/- "Who took Isaac?" -/-<END>

<VINH-030> -/- "I... I don't know... who... they were..." -/-<END>

<VINH-030 OUT>

<TRANSMISSION END>

Could someone please clarify this? this could be a clue about anything that happens in reach.

  • 08.01.2009 11:12 AM PDT

Signatures are for squares.

Spartan II class II's don't exist.

  • 08.01.2009 11:14 AM PDT

PLEASE DO NOT SEND ME GROUP INVITATIONS

The Halo REACH Script (post thoughts in thread)

Writing Lead of Whisper Studios. Check out Heron!

Look... I'm on bungiepedia!

Just finished reading it, you make some great points, bungie could definitely be borrowing the Class IIs from I Love Bees. Just because 5 new Spartans showed up, however, does not have to mean they are from a Class II, its also possible that some of the wash-outs from the augmentation didn't die at all, but were just secretly separated from the group and used on some obscure black-ops missions.

And maybe they just so happened to be at Reach in 2552 and were brought together with Red Team in orbit to go defend the generators so that the space battle could be maintained.

  • 08.01.2009 11:29 AM PDT

Mythic Conqueror #22

More information regarding Mythic difficulty can be found at this thread

Posted by: MichaelYEAHH
Posted by: Vidmaster
<BEGIN TRANSMISSION>

<COMMANDER> 7192-/- "Vinh are you still there?" -/-<END>

<VINH-030> -/- "They... took... Isaac" -/-<END>

<COMMANDER> 7192-/- "Hang in there Vinh were coming" -/-<END>

<VINH-030> -/- "They... took... Isaac, Commander" -/-<END>

<COMMANDER> 7192-/- "Who took Isaac?" -/-<END>

<VINH-030> -/- "I... I don't know... who... they were..." -/-<END>

<VINH-030 OUT>

<TRANSMISSION END>

Could someone please clarify this? this could be a clue about anything that happens in reach.

Well the names given are real. Not sure if it means anything. You can check out who Vihn is here and who Isaac is here.

  • 08.01.2009 9:41 PM PDT

Posted by: MichaelYEAHH
Posted by: Vidmaster
<BEGIN TRANSMISSION>

<COMMANDER> 7192-/- "Vinh are you still there?" -/-<END>

<VINH-030> -/- "They... took... Isaac" -/-<END>

<COMMANDER> 7192-/- "Hang in there Vinh were coming" -/-<END>

<VINH-030> -/- "They... took... Isaac, Commander" -/-<END>

<COMMANDER> 7192-/- "Who took Isaac?" -/-<END>

<VINH-030> -/- "I... I don't know... who... they were..." -/-<END>

<VINH-030 OUT>

<TRANSMISSION END>

Could someone please clarify this? this could be a clue about anything that happens in reach.

He is probably mentioning the fact that Vinh and Isaac were swamped by Covenant forces in First Strike, and nobody has heard from them since. It seems to me that he is just being a jerk, because there were no other forces on Reach at the time, therefore no one could talk to Vinh or Isaac, who are probably dead.

  • 08.01.2009 10:02 PM PDT

Ugh...

First on a BWU.. yeah, I'm cool.

ODST;MYTHIC Screenshot winner! One of the first to get their hands on the mythic map pack.

You make sense, good job. (Halfway through, when you began to talk about Nicole, I felt like replying "Not canon" but I carried on, seen it was a good read and it made sense.)

So anyways, 2nd generation Spartan-IIs would be cool, nothing to hold thier story back. :D

  • 08.01.2009 10:18 PM PDT
  • gamertag: Jgros4
  • user homepage:

wow. i mean really, just wow. that was one of the most in depth analysis' i've ever had the pleasure of reading on these forums. I really think your on to something and thus far i think you have the closest theory to the story line, im not so sure about the nicole thing because she does seem fictional but its quite a valid theory and your discovery of the 5 new spartans really sheds light on the whole subject almost proving indefinitely that these are new spartans we have yet to hear about.

  • 08.01.2009 10:22 PM PDT

"Tank beats brute......Tank beats ghost......Tank beats everything" - enthusiastic marine after you kill/destroy the mentioned things with a scorpion on the Ark.

Some of the washouts from the Spartan II augmentation is definately possible, but we won't know for sure until the game comes out and everything is made clear. But since there were no Spartan III's on Reach, and there were no Spartan IV's at all, the only possible explaination for more Spartans than we originally thought is that there was a second generation of Spartan II's, as some of you said. But I agree with Jgros4, this is definately the MOST in depth analysis I ever seen, as well as had the pleasure to read. I must congradulate you on that feat. But I look forward to finding out the answers to this blog's main questions. But the problem with the novels, I'm not sure if I can add anything to that. The fact that the numbers don't add up correctly just doesn't make any sense, and the only two things I can think of are 1) the second generation of Spartan II's, and 2) that it might have been a typo in the novel and there really weren't more spartans than we thought. No matter what, though, all we can really do is speculate while we wait for the answers to come to light.

  • 08.01.2009 10:47 PM PDT

"Tank beats brute......Tank beats ghost......Tank beats everything" - enthusiastic marine after you kill/destroy the mentioned things with a scorpion on the Ark.

That's true, I didn't think of that. And it wouldn't confuse everybody if they put John in there, but it would probably confuse most.

  • 08.01.2009 11:06 PM PDT

Posted by: MLG Cheehwawa
Just finished reading it, you make some great points, bungie could definitely be borrowing the Class IIs from I Love Bees. Just because 5 new Spartans showed up, however, does not have to mean they are from a Class II, its also possible that some of the wash-outs from the augmentation didn't die at all, but were just secretly separated from the group and used on some obscure black-ops missions.

And maybe they just so happened to be at Reach in 2552 and were brought together with Red Team in orbit to go defend the generators so that the space battle could be maintained.


But then again you could be wrong. (Finally a theory that can stand up to cheehwawa, I applaud the OP)

[Edited on 08.01.2009 11:42 PM PDT]

  • 08.01.2009 11:40 PM PDT

Dianna Agron is the epitome of perfection.

Quinntology.

Posted by: ClevelandCav19
Posted by: MLG Cheehwawa
Just finished reading it, you make some great points, bungie could definitely be borrowing the Class IIs from I Love Bees. Just because 5 new Spartans showed up, however, does not have to mean they are from a Class II, its also possible that some of the wash-outs from the augmentation didn't die at all, but were just secretly separated from the group and used on some obscure black-ops missions.

And maybe they just so happened to be at Reach in 2552 and were brought together with Red Team in orbit to go defend the generators so that the space battle could be maintained.


But then agian you could be wrong. (Finally a theory that can stand up to cheehwawa, I applaud the OP)


Very good point.

[Edited on 08.01.2009 11:43 PM PDT]

  • 08.01.2009 11:42 PM PDT

If I was in a room with justin Bieber, Bin Laden, Hitler and a gun with two bullets I would Shoot Bieber twice.
Posted by:Albert Einstein
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Posted by: Vidmaster
<BEGIN TRANSMISSION>

<COMMANDER> 7192-/- "Vinh are you still there?" -/-<END>

<VINH-030> -/- "They... took... Isaac" -/-<END>

<COMMANDER> 7192-/- "Hang in there Vinh were coming" -/-<END>

<VINH-030> -/- "They... took... Isaac, Commander" -/-<END>

<COMMANDER> 7192-/- "Who took Isaac?" -/-<END>

<VINH-030> -/- "I... I don't know... who... they were..." -/-<END>

<VINH-030 OUT>

<TRANSMISSION END>


the bungie controlled forum bot may have just given us a pretty big line hint in reach because VIHN & ISAAC were spartans.....BTW Nicole is not a real spartan the guys of Dead or Alive wanted to put the master chief into #4 so they called up bungie and asked bungie said you cant have chief but you can have a spartan......so we got nicole.

[Edited on 09.03.2009 4:20 PM PDT]

  • 09.03.2009 4:18 PM PDT