- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
Just for those in this post who are too lazy to read the books, I thought I would just give a quick summary on the current Spartans:
Okay. During the Fall of Reach, at a briefing, Dr. Hasley says that, out of the augmented Spartans over the years, three were killed, and one was severely wounded. In addition, during the meeting on Reach, three Spartans were too far away to be recalled for the battle. This would mean that, out of the 33 augmented spartans, 26 are currently at Reach.
During the fall of Reach, John, James, and Linda went on to a space station, while the rest of the Spartans. During Fall of Reach, we only know what happens on the Station. James is blasted off in to space, with a limited air supply. His status is currently unknown, presumed dead. Linda is shot by multiple plasma bolts, and is near death. When John leaves the station, he takes Linda with him, and places her in a cryo-tube.
From First Strike, we learn what transipred there: After their entry, their pelican was shot down, and they had to jump out. Their impact resulted in 6 being near-immoblilised, and 4 dead. So, 23 were in the pelican, 4 were killed, and 6 were immoblilized. So, that leaves 19 Spartans on Reach's surface. However, it is stated by fred that there were 22 Spartans after the fall, which leads to a few inconsistancies with numbers. Joshua is seen killed by Fred. Eventually, Fred, Kelly, Will, Issac, and Vinh regroup, meet up with Dr. Hasley, and head deep in to the mountains.
After the destruction of Halo, John retrieves a set of cryo-tubes that were ejected from the PoA. Just happens to be Linda's. After capturing the Ascended Justice, the Mc, as well as Johnson and the other survivors of Halo, return to Reach, to find that a region around the equator was not glassed. Upon landing, he met up with Anton, Li, and Grace, who were with Admiral Whitecomb. They then proceeded to go in to the mountain to rescue the other Spartans. By the time they got there, Issac and Vinh were already killed. The rest were evacuated up to the Ascended Justice. During the battle in the semi-slipspace realm, Anton and Li were killed.
So, that leaves John, Kelly, Fred, Will, Grace, and Linda in the Cryotube.
Linda is revived, and they get ready to go on a mission to destroy the unyeilding heirophant. At this point, however, Dr. Hasley kidnaps Kelly and leaves in an ONI scout ship. On the actual mission, Grace was killed by a Brute.
So, the only Spartans that we can confirm that are alive are the MC, Fred, Will, and Linda. It is also likely that Kelly is alive somewhere with Dr. Hasley. That leaves our count at 5.
However, there is still some room for speculation:
> 22 Spartans alive on reach. Subtract Fred, Kelly, Joshua, Anton, Li, and Grace, who we know the status of. Down to 16. Will, Issac, and Vinh were part of the injured 6, so the fact that they were alone means that the other three are dead. Subtract the 6 for all of them. That gets us down to 10. That means that there were 10 spartans on Reach who were not accounted for. These would be the Spartans that were guarding the power generators. Being as the power generators failed, it is very likely that they are dead, but who knows. there is a possibility that some survived,hijacked a ship, and are now in deep space.
> James had a limited amout of time to find a ship. While it is not likely that he did, it is always possible.
> The three Spartans that are too far away to be recalled. Unlike the other speculation, they are actually likely to be alive. At least, as likely as anyone else in the Halo Universe that is not seen. Considering the extreme focus of the Covenant armada, it is likely that they have been too busy gathering their forces, and the thre unrecalled spartans were not involved in any dangerous combat.
> The One injured spartan. This may be in reference to Cassandra, who was seen in Conversations of the Universe. As she was removed from the battlefield, she is definately alive, though not nessecarily combat ready. However, the Conversations of the Universe said that she was looking forward to having skin again, maybe in reference to her armor. So, she may be ready for combat by Halo 3.
So, we have 4 guaranteed alive, including the MC. Kelly is most likely alive, bringing us up to 5. The 3 unrecalled spartans are still out there, and may be alive. So thats 8. Cassandra is there, though may not be combat capable. Thats 9
As for not likely, we have James, plus the 10 Spartans on Reach.
So, thats 9 that are near definate, and 11 that are not likely. So, if Bungie wanted to pull out as many Spartans as possible, they could pull out 20 of them.
And yes, the books are canon. They are written based off of the Halo Bible, which is the exact outline of what happens in the Halo universe. The Halo Bible has more authority than the Halo games themselves. So, that means that the books are legitamate events in the Halo universe.