- jack0fhearts
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- Honorable Member
"Where ere thou hast been, here or in yon world manifest? Canst thou tell what is, or what was, or what is to come? No thing shall last. Yet there are some things that will never change. History is written in blood, yet are battles really lost on the battlefield? Canst thou tell me where thou comest, and where thou goest, and what is, or what was, or what will be? For everything remains, AS IT NEVER WAS."
Fall of Reach (an 11 year old book) might say nothing on it. But Halsey's journal does.
Carver's reports on the colonies srely led me here; that scarcely begins to tell the story.
"And so I begin... to learn whether humanity can be saved from itself, and the role I will play in its uncertain destiny.
It was clear from this that Halsey did not develop the Spartan II's purely for some sort of "mad scientist" curiosity. Right from the beginning, they had purpose.
The Office of Naval Intelligence had apparently had their eye on me for years and knew that the only way to convince me to join them was to get ME to convince me.
It worked. I joined.
After re-running Carver's model with her own callculations, Halsey arrived at the conclusion that the Outer Colonies would rebel very soon, and that the outcome would be worse. When she took this to the "Vice Admiral" (assumed to be Parangosky, as it's dealing with ONI,) they already knew. Right from the beginning, ONI was aware of the problem, and had the solution. All they needed was a scientist to make it happen. She was set to improve upon the ORION project.
As we read, as early as September 8th, 2511 Halsey was planning to flash-clone the children. That six years before it had been carried out. There is no way, with Parangosky funding and leading this project, that she would not have known.
I've informed the vice admiral that we are initiating the next phase of the project: candidate procurement.
Halsey was keeping Parangosky updated.
July 21, 2517
Since I can't personally screen every candidate from the Outer Colonies within a reasonable time frame, I'm delegating much of this responsibility to my team, while I will process candidates in Sector 4. ONI has provided me with a diplomatic shuttle, the Han, along with a dedicated AI, Toran, and my young lieutenant to pilot the craft and act as an attache ("babysitter" comes to mind).
Here we see that Halsey did not conduct the conscription process alone. She had a team of ONI agents. ONI gave her a crew, gave her the ship, an AI that would have surely kept tabs on them, and gave her a soldier to pilot the craft - though I think at this point Halsey may have underlined "my" to emphasis that Keyes was her own choosing, though a requirement. Foreshadowing their relationship, of course.
As we see in her notes from September 15th, Kelly eluded capture for six hours. Retrieval Team Gamma reports this. Later "they" implement new retrieval protocols (going in at night.) So it's clear that Halsey did not abduct and replace the kids alone (as we see from the Scanned trailer, in which ONI operatives do the work,) but that there were entire teams dedicated to it. With other individuals who are ONI operatives, not just civilian experts, there is no way that Parangosky would have not known about this before and during the events.
After months together, Jacob and I parted company. Amicably, I think.
He's a brilliant thinker and superb tactician; he's also a decent man. Because he is all those things, I feel he was beginning to suspect there is more to our excursions to meet candidates than mere field observations.
His intuition serves him well.
For his protection and the protection of the program, I requested that he be reassigned.
Yes, Halsey had Keyes reassigned to protect the project because he had begun to "get wise." However notice how she points out his decency, and puts his protection before that of the project? She genuinely cared about him, and knew the nature of the Spartan II project would destroy him.
This Lieutenant Keyes seems curious, intelligent, and also, so far, adept at keeping his mouth shut--a rare combination of traits.
I haven't decided whether to recommend him for permanent reassignment to my staff. I'm not sure he has the long-range vision required to overcome the moral ambiguities of our mission.
As for Mendez, at this point in the game, he wasn't introduced to the Spartan II program. He would have had no clue of the clones, because he didn't need to know about the clones. He just had to train kids. That is all that should have ever plagued him, and it would have been if Traviss did her homework.
[Edited on 11.03.2012 12:26 PM PDT]