- The Elite Elite
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- Exalted Heroic Member
I like Call of Duty and Gears of War, AND Halo. Why must everyone else like only one or the other?
Posted by: S_034
Posted by: The Elite Elite
Indeed. She is an evil woman. I disagree. For one thing, the term "Evil" is subjective. Nothing about the SPARTAN program seems evil to me. Were there other possible directions that could have been taken that would have been more savory than conscripting six-year-olds? Yes. But the ancient Spartans did the same thing. Literally. Only with their ENTIRE POPULATION. And they threw in pederasty to boot. However, without the Spartans, it's unlikely that modern western civilization would exist; if nothing else, Persian linguistics would play a much larger role in the English language. I'm willing to forgive all the "bad" things that the Spartans did simply because it caused history to end up here, and Halsey's flaws pale by comparison.
I'm also not a fan of the ancient Spartans either, and bringing up the fact that they did worse doesn't excuse what Halsey did.
It just so happened to be that her evil project (kidnapping kids and turning them into tools for the government) Again, contingent upon point of view. It was a project with many unsettling aspects, but it was undertaken during a time when the UNSC looked upon the Insurrectionist problem as potentially catastrophic. Are you suggest that when pressed, you wouldn't perform an unsavory action or two to save yourself, your family, those things you consider sacred?
Not at the expense of someone else that was innocent.
The Insurrectionists in this storyline weren't playing nice. They didn't seem to have any real problems with things that we would consider "evil," so why should the UNSC? The SPARTAN-IIs were created, essentially, as scalpels to excise the Insurrectionist tumors with as little collateral damage as possible. The project, in essence, destroyed the lives of some 150 families in an effort to avert a civil war that would span most of UNSC-controlled space and would consume millions, billions, or even trillions of lives. Given that, I would argue that to not have undertaken the SPARTAN project would have been much more heinous and evil.
I think this might be where the core of our disagreement comes in. Why was it that the Insurrectionists needed to be defeated? From what I remember of the books (it has been a while since I read them so forgive me if I forgot something) they just didn't want to be part of the big galactic government that was the UNSC. What was so horribly evil about that? I see no reason for the UNSC to have taken such steps to stop the Insurrection. They could have avoided a civil war by letting the Insurrectionist do what they wanted and split from the UNSC. But of course that means they'd be out of UNSC control, and apparently we can't have that. Nope, better to steal the lives of a chosen few children (and ruin the lives of their parents when the clones died prematurely) to stop something that by no means needed to be stopped.
ended up being used for good. That doesn't excuse her crimes. Allow me to wax Nuremberg for a moment; if she's a criminal, who else is criminal in this scenario? The military teams who kidnapped the SPARTANs form their beds? The techs who helped grow the flash-clones to replace them? Every member of ONI high command who knew about the project? The soldiers and trainers who kicked these kids' asses day after day? If you really think about it, they are ALL much more villainous than Halsey. ONI command because they green-lighted the project. The military teams because they did the kidnapping. The trainers for subjecting these kids to what amounts to a full special forces training program and a military college academic program at the age of six. EVERYONE had a degree of culpability, and most of them had a higher degree of it than her. Her work was primarily theoretical. If the entire project is evil, then everyone involved is just as evil as our friend the Doctor, if not more so because of their direct involvement. Where do you draw the line?
Oh yes, I do blame a lot of people other than Halsey for the project. The UNSC saw a chance to get a group of elite warriors that would obey their every command and have greater control, so they took it. The guys who actually stole the children could have stopped themselves and asked "Is this moral?" Same with the soldiers and trainers. All those involved should have asked themselves that question, but they didn't. And I wont accept any "Just following orders" crap, as anyone with any sense of morality should know there are times when you draw the line, even from orders by your superiors.
In addition to all of this, I raise, for a moment, a question regarding the nature of "evil." What makes something evil? Is it if an innocent is harmed? Would not more innocents have been harmed if the SPARTAN project had not been undertaken?
Yes, ultimately more would have been harmed by the Covenant had the Spartans not been there. However, no one knew a thing about the Covies at the time the SPARTAN program was conceived, it was all about dealing with the supposed threat the Insurrections posed to the UNSC.
Is evil when one harms others for selfish reasons? Halsey doesn't enter into the project with thoughts of herself and glory; we're given a pretty clear portrait of her psychology in FoR and she seems to be genuinely concerned with saving the galaxy, as well as being sympathetic to the burden which she is placing on these children.
Agreed, she isn't in it for any thoughts of glory.
Is evil about doing harmful things to others when nothing is gained by anyone in return? The project is obviously beneficial to, essentially, the entirety of the UNSC at its inception and the entirety of humanity and Elite-kind by the end of the saga in question, so that's out. Halsey doesn't do this out of sadism or cruelty, or even scientific curiosity. The project is a wartime one, and it is undertaken, at least as those coordinating it see it, out of necessity to keep the galaxy from exploding into a brutal interplanetary civil war.
Like I said above, I don't see know the Insurrections are any kind of threat to the UNSC. If they just left the Insurrectionists alone and let them split from the UNSC, there would have been no civil war. The project was done entirely to keep people under UNSC control, and was not for the benefit of the citizens of the UNSC. That it did end up saving people from the Covenant was not something that was foreseen by those involved in the program, and therefore does not excuse what was done. For example, just because useful data came about from -blam!- Germany's testing on Jews and mentally retarded people does not excuse the -blam!-s. Just because good can can come from evil does not excuse the original evil.
Whether or not the project is seen as evil is, ultimately, subjective. But I would suggest that it is not. To call it heroism might be incorrect; I consider heroism to be standing up in a situation where nobody would fault you for kneeling down. A hero takes the high ground in a situation where nobody else would have the stones to do it. But I think Halsey behaved at least in the same fashion that any one of us would have if pressed into the same situation with the same sets of resources.
I would hope no one would create a program like Halsey's SPARTAN project, but looking at the evils committed throughout history, I would find it very believable that a government would commit such acts for the sake of keeping itself in power. (and of course if exposed I'd believe they'd make up whatever lie they need to tell the public to convince them it's for their own good)
[Edited on 06.01.2011 6:03 AM PDT]