Bungie Universe
This topic has moved here: Subject: so does everyone see halsey as a monster?
  • Subject: so does everyone see halsey as a monster?
Subject: so does everyone see halsey as a monster?

Wake me when the jews are gone.

what she did whas nothing compared to the mother of all bombings Far Isle


[Edited on 11.10.2011 2:19 PM PST]

  • 11.10.2011 2:18 PM PDT

She is, she caused dozens of families to go through a tough time with their clones, if she didn't know they were going to get sick, I honestly don't get why she didn't use them instead unless she did know.

  • 11.10.2011 2:25 PM PDT
  • gamertag: adzent
  • user homepage:

It depends entirely on an individuals morality.

She shows vigorous emotional detachment from everything except her Spartans, she even realises herself that she only takes interest in things because they are new and exciting.

What is neccessary is almost never right, but it had to be done. Haven got nuked, and an all out war was predicted to happen VERY soon from predictions. The Spartans had to be made.


In my opinion, she over-compensates for the spartans (while abandoning her own child, whether she thinks it better for miranda or not) and is far more detatched than a normal human. This makes her the perfect candidate to create something like this. The clones are testament to her attempt to cleanse her concience, which didn't work and only caused more harm.

I also find Parangosky being so hateful towards her just for that, considering what she sanctioned, was TERRIBLE writing.

  • 11.10.2011 2:35 PM PDT


Posted by: fsabran
what she did whas nothing compared to the mother of all bombings Far Isle


Which we know NOTHING about.

Seriously, the guys there may have been rioting, publicly gutted the police and obtained weapons.

Or they may have pissed on the flowers in the city park.


Posted by: mojeda101
She is, she caused dozens of families to go through a tough time with their clones, if she didn't know they were going to get sick, I honestly don't get why she didn't use them instead unless she did know.


Looking at it, I'd rather deal with the death of a clone then NEVER knowing what happened to my kid.

Besides, if somebody suspected ONI/UNSC, it means ONI did a -blam!- job of a coverup.

Instead of a general "genetic defect." they could've spun a tale about how it's a one in a million chance of this happening, and had an ONI backed doctor go "If you are concerned any other children might get this of yours, schedule frequent checkups and we'll deal with anything before it becomes an issue.

Bam, I just removed what caused Naomi's parents so much trouble. Where ONI was too stupid to do anything.

  • 11.10.2011 2:43 PM PDT

@accordingto343

Your one stop shop for all of 343's fabulous errors and ridiculous notions in the Halo lore.

Seriously, the cloning was really needed. I mean, let's think this through. How many colonies and schools did Halsey visit herself? We know she visited John and Soren are least. Do you think ONI agents may have done some snooping around to? On it's own, the disappearance of kids, even if it's a lot, wouldn't go noticed too much around ALL of the colonies.

However, the kids all disappearing after visitors came to "look at their schools" or "interview" the kids would. It's too big of a coincidence. The clones provided closure AND covered ONI's tracks.

  • 11.10.2011 3:49 PM PDT


Posted by: DecepticonCobra
Seriously, the cloning was really needed. I mean, let's think this through. How many colonies and schools did Halsey visit herself? We know she visited John and Soren are least. Do you think ONI agents may have done some snooping around to? On it's own, the disappearance of kids, even if it's a lot, wouldn't go noticed too much around ALL of the colonies.

However, the kids all disappearing after visitors came to "look at their schools" or "interview" the kids would. It's too big of a coincidence. The clones provided closure AND covered ONI's tracks.


I believe Halsey said it herself in fall of Reach.

Course, that details voided because it'd ruin ONI's hate of Halsey in Glasslands.

  • 11.10.2011 3:59 PM PDT

Lets Boogie

Killing kids is wrong. She caused the deaths of the kids that died becaue of experimintation. She also caused the death of all those flash clones, because they were made with the intent to die.

Adding up the clones, and non-clone kids, she sure killed a fair share.


Spartans were used for good.....but that doesn't invalidate the evil of the act of there creation.

The end results of WW2 caused alot of good/great things to come about. But that does not mean that the evil madmen who caused the war are not evil....just because there actions.....eventually led to some good coming to the world.

  • 11.10.2011 5:14 PM PDT

I am a monument to all your sins


Posted by: adzent
It depends entirely on an individuals morality.

She shows vigorous emotional detachment from everything except her Spartans, she even realises herself that she only takes interest in things because they are new and exciting.

What is neccessary is almost never right, but it had to be done. Haven got nuked, and an all out war was predicted to happen VERY soon from predictions. The Spartans had to be made.


In my opinion, she over-compensates for the spartans (while abandoning her own child, whether she thinks it better for miranda or not) and is far more detatched than a normal human. This makes her the perfect candidate to create something like this. The clones are testament to her attempt to cleanse her concience, which didn't work and only caused more harm.

I also find Parangosky being so hateful towards her just for that, considering what she sanctioned, was TERRIBLE writing.
frankly I think Parangosky just uses the clones as an excuse for hating her. I believe that her hatred really stems from her lack of control over her.

  • 11.10.2011 5:21 PM PDT


Posted by: haloplayer2kill
Killing kids is wrong. She caused the deaths of the kids that died becaue of experimintation. She also caused the death of all those flash clones, because they were made with the intent to die.

Adding up the clones, and non-clone kids, she sure killed a fair share.


Spartans were used for good.....but that doesn't invalidate the evil of the act of there creation.


I'm sorry, but the picture you seem to be painting is Halsey went all mad scientist and experimented on lots of children, and killed them afterwards.

This is false. She also did not make the Flash clones with the intent of them dying. That is just a sad side effect.

You can argue that she killed those that died in augmentations, but it wouldn't hold. Why? Because she had no say if their body would accept it or not. The 75 she had were those best suited to surviving the augmentations.

  • 11.10.2011 5:30 PM PDT

Lets Boogie


Posted by: Cmdr DaeFaron

Posted by: haloplayer2kill
Killing kids is wrong. She caused the deaths of the kids that died becaue of experimintation. She also caused the death of all those flash clones, because they were made with the intent to die.

Adding up the clones, and non-clone kids, she sure killed a fair share.


Spartans were used for good.....but that doesn't invalidate the evil of the act of there creation.


I'm sorry, but the picture you seem to be painting is Halsey went all mad scientist and experimented on lots of children, and killed them afterwards.

This is false. She also did not make the Flash clones with the intent of them dying. That is just a sad side effect.

You can argue that she killed those that died in augmentations, but it wouldn't hold. Why? Because she had no say if their body would accept it or not. The 75 she had were those best suited to surviving the augmentations.


If i remember reading right, flash clones were not perfect copies of the original (there is a reason they were called FLASH clones), and Halsey knew that they had genetic defects and they would eventually die because of them. It would fool the parents into beleving that there child had died.

I could have sworn that was in the "Fall of Reach". Though there is a chance that i am wrong.

  • 11.10.2011 5:33 PM PDT

It was that a clone of the entire body wouldn't last long.

But that doesn't mean she made them solely going "They will die."

I'd say the intent is a major factor. She made the flash clones to not only cover ONI's tracks, but give those families the child back however long they would live. And then closure. As opposed to constantly wondering "Did my child get murdered? Raped?"

  • 11.10.2011 5:47 PM PDT

@JosephBiwald
View my Art

Per Audacia Ad Astra

The kidnappings were for the greater good of humanity.

  • 11.10.2011 6:21 PM PDT

yes

  • 11.10.2011 7:02 PM PDT

Firstly, the comparison Traviss makes between Halsey and Mengele is lazy and a bit oversimplified at best. I could've understood a comparison to Wernher von Braun, socially and politically, instead. He was a N-a-z-i [Why does the filter regard that as profane, guys? C'mon...], made the V2, but ended up tolerated and even honored for his usefulness to US rocketry. His expertise was worth too much. I would expect Halsey to be treated in much the same way- no matter who might hate her personally or in the abstract, her skills are very valuable, and it would be unwise to neglect to use that.

Secondly, for those insisting that there is no possible way one could argue the ethical justifiability of the Spartan-II or even -III programs, may I introduce utilitarianism. Read a bit, and I think you'll find it was justifiably ethical, if not the single best possible option. (Not saying I agree with that, just pointing out the existence of the necessary arguments, perhaps for a more nuanced debate.) As an example, triage is a sort of medical utilitarianism.

Traviss annoys me at times in Glasslands, and it's largely because the characters' thoughts, dialogue and the author narration are mixed up. It may have something to do with the way she flails unpredictably between a close third person and first person and (sometimes) a nearly-omniscient third person narration, all while the characters' thoughts are only sometimes written in italics in the first person, and are often delivered without properly being associated with a particular character until after the text has already been read.

With all that in mind, there is a potential way the characters' behaviors make sense, though the author depiction of the Spartans and command authority still leaves a great deal to be desired. Basically, you can make sense of it if you just assume that there is political trouble (or a fear thereof) brewing back on Earth, and the ONI brass are just scrambling to cover their behinds. Halsey makes a good target for any animosity: Parangosky wants to make herself look good (or less bad, anyway), Ackerson is dead so can't make a good scapegoat for a show trial, and on down the list you go. Halsey is at best personally unsympathetic, and as the head of the program it's easy to pin things on her. Even Mendez can do that. He states at one point that he's come to loathe himself, too, but there again Halsey makes for an easy target, politically and personally, and he just unloads all of his pent-up frustration and unease on here over and over again while trapped in the Dyson sphere. (It's the same reason he brushes off her criticism of the S-III program: he just wants to feel better by blaming her, not have an honest discussion of ethics.) Potentially, if ONI plans to recruit or kill them, even Osman telling the ODSTs selected, unflattering details of the S-II program can be explained as a way to emotionally coerce them into cooperating with a plan to contain and possibly exploit Halsey further. (Do we know that Osman didn't present them with further misinformation? Perhaps additional, altered material in what she claimed to be Halsey's journal? We have no evidence of that, but it would be like ONI.)

ONI has told the public she's dead, and they hold her. She can be coerced to continue work- see my Wernher von Braun comment at the beginning- or, if necessary, ONI can heroically "save" her or "capture" her, and then trot her out and present her for a show trial, saving several other officers the embarrassment and trouble of answering for all the other delightful stunts they've pulled.

I'd argue that Halsey is an unethical, unsympathetic mess of a person, but she's still somehow- by far- one of the least screwed up people at work here, and it really just makes me despise ONI command more than ever. My opinion of her is more or less unchanged from when read I Nylund's novels. Screwed up person prone to rationalization, but a far lesser evil than the people she works for and with. At least she tries to mitigate the harm after the fact, albeit via fairly cold, clinical acts.

[Edited on 11.13.2011 9:26 AM PST]

  • 11.11.2011 4:17 AM PDT

Remember those times when we all had something better to be doing, but didn't do it? Those were good times. Gooood times

Halsey is a strange character. Views of her is based off of either the idea of the greater good or the effects on the present. Those who defend her believe in the greater good. Those who roast her a only care about what shes doing at the moment, not future effects. At first, she seems like a cruel person who kidnapped children and replaced them with dying clones. But at the same time she was raising humanities defenders. Moreover (I have yet to read glasslands, I kind of don't want to read the add-ons)she did react with anger when she read the 'super soldier serum' and found out that they did not fix the side effects. During this scene, it showed she had some feelings for the spartans, even if it was as tools.
Personally, I see her as a person who chose to drive towards a better future, and I respect her for that. I believe that she is a good person for this fact.

  • 11.11.2011 7:45 AM PDT

Isaiah. M

"Man is lucky to be ignorant, for if he new the truth it would either destroy him or drive him mad."

"Sacrafice the few for the many", I think that perfectly applies here. She did the right thing.

  • 11.11.2011 9:47 AM PDT