The Problem with Spartan IVs - Lore and Theory

Comments · 3.7K

• PH

  @Phoenix-214 · 5 years ago (edited) · pinned

  On the topic, I feel inclined to make a comment about how much the fanbase&apos;s perception can change their objective view of a situation. Who here watches MCU films? Yeah, I know, they&apos;re not perfect, but I find Tony Stark to be an excellent point of comparison here. The man built himself a suit of armor likely far more powerful than even MJOLNIR, and used it to pull off some pretty cool stunts, right? Well, his portrayal is often of a flawed person, but he was made relatable by having him fall upwards from a morally dubious war profiteer into a redeemed and fundamentally noble soul who struggled constantly with his baser instincts to do better and to leave the world better than he found it. And...<br><br>...he failed, to be honest. The man was a liability from the start, almost to the finish. He created almost all of his own worst enemies. His haphazard handling of his suit&apos;s own technology and of other superheroes and supervillains put people at risk needlessly. He even ended up being the catalyst that led to the destruction of a team comprised of Earth&apos;s other great heroes. His laundry list of personality flaws, thrown in at the start as a means of making him charming and likable also ended up being his greatest liability. As a superhero, he would be a failure if not for his final act, where he, more through numbers of lives saved than through merits we could have expected to last had he survived, redeemed himself, since bringing back half the universe trumps any comparatively small missteps made along the way. I have a bit of a theory that the reason Dr. Strange&apos;s extremely and unnecessarily convoluted plan to beat Thanos wasn&apos;t truly the only way to beat him, but it was the only future the universe would be safe from both Thanos <i>and</i> Stark. Harsh, but tell me it doesn&apos;t make sense from that perspective.<br><br>And yet, people still adore Stark, and they hate the Spartan-IVs. Why? Well, part of it&apos;s context, part of it&apos;s writing, and part of it is prior expectations. Tony Stark is the godfather of the MCU. He was there before anyone else was. His origin story is what came to define the entire franchise. He drew in a specific demographic of people who enjoyed his portrayal as a snide, narcissistic, reckless, but fundamentally well-intentioned man playing with arguably far too much power for his own good. But Halo was introduced to us with people more akin to Steve Rogers. Professional, quiet, and unshakable, with morals that, while not at DC superhero levels of ideal, are still very strong, despite a very dubious origin story. Next to Superman or even Captain America, suddenly having &quot;Tony Stark&quot; shoved on us might be a bit jarring and given prior expectations, we might find we hate him the way MCU fans hate Captain Marvel for being what is objectively a very capable and powerful superhero with a fairly solid grasp of what she needs to do, but one who doesn&apos;t have an interesting or likable personality to go along with it.<br><br>The Spartan-IVs have personality, but it doesn&apos;t fit the context well. They are often portrayed as grotesquely unprofessional compared to any of the prior generations, and worse, this is often a liability. And I believe that a handful of early mistakes have forever colored fan perception of the entire unit. Many S-IVs <i>are</i> highly professional, capable soldiers in their own right. No, they aren&apos;t a match for past generations, but they&apos;re cold, stoic, focused, and preternaturally deadly, much like their predecessors. Many of the S-IVs seen in the base Halo 4 campaign, and Fireteam Osiris come to mind. But our first named S-IV characters are all unprofessional, undisciplined, and nowhere near as competent as they should be in combat situations. Despite having a distinguished service record and a great deal of respect for her fellow servicemembers (most of the time), Palmer is not a good leader, nor is she particularly likable. Worse, her class of S-IVs was the first, and they didn&apos;t conduct themselves appropriately then, either. They actually did so badly in the immediate post-augmentation period that Jun and Musa, a III and II, respectively, chewed them out for their shortcomings. And the less said about the extreme, at times almost Red vs. Blue levels of immaturity half of Fireteam Majestic displayed during the Requiem campaign, or in subsequent operations, the better.<br><br>My father used to tell me, &quot;First impressions are <i>lasting</i> impressions.&quot; And he&apos;s completely correct here. I believe that no matter what legitimate merits S-IVs have, it will be nearly impossible to make people <i>like</i> them now because every time they see a capable, professional, and focused Spartan like, for instance, Jameson Locke, a man who even Thel &apos;Vadam, an extremely strict judge of character and fighting prowess, deemed worthy of respect, even hinting that he reminded him of <i>the</i> Spartan, John-117, enough to perhaps even consider him a <i>peer</i> to the man, they will always look at him and see Paul DeMarco. Or Anthony Madsen. Or Carlo Hoya. I believe Locke is an example of an S-IV who was selected and trained based on lessons learned from the failings of prior S-IVs. Stricter psychological screening is the most important factor. It&apos;s also possible that their enhancements and armor are more advanced, given the crazy stunts they pulled off relative to known named S-IVs in the Requiem campaign. They fight more like supersoldiers. Majestic fought more like regular troops with enhanced strength and coordination, but with poor discipline. They certainly come off as more professional than ODSTs have historically been portrayed.<br><br>Which brings me to the ODSTs, as a point of comparison. People adore them. Some of the most beloved characters in the franchise are ODSTs. Buck, Johnson, and comparatively minor characters like Stacker and the other members of Alpha-Nine. And yet, were you to hold them to the same standards as Spartans, you would find them quite lacking. (Indeed, they arguably don&apos;t even hold up to the standards imposed on real-world special operations personnel at times. They are far too prone to fighting one another or other UNSC servicemembers, for example.) Even Johnson is far too talkative and loud, and too ready to crack jokes or let his emotions get the better of him in the field to stand with S-IIs or even the relatively undisciplined S-IIIs, were he to be augmented to comparable levels. But they&apos;re human, like 00 said. They <i>aren&apos;t</i> held to those standards, so people can appreciate their relative merits for what they are. It&apos;s all about expectations. Spartan-IVs are <i>not</i> true successors to Spartan-IIs or IIIs...and that&apos;s okay. Despite how they&apos;re played up as &quot;replacements&quot; for them in the very introduction to Halo 4, they&apos;re a different breed of soldier for a different and <i>wildly</i> misunderstood role. As I&apos;ve said many times before, S-IIs are advanced prototypes with no expense spared in their training and their equipment. S-IIIs are arguably a limited production run of more cost-effective personnel, to be created and expended in times of extraordinary crisis. Both of them did their fairly limited jobs well. Spartan-IVs are the production model, so to speak.<br><br>They aren&apos;t as capable, but they don&apos;t have to be. They just have to be supersoldiers, able to be created in a fraction of the time with a fraction of the cost, and fielded in far greater numbers to handle jobs which would otherwise require one of the precious few remaining S-IIs or S-IIIs who survived the war. If they can do the vast majority of the work their predecessors can, that&apos;s enough. It just means the living legends can be where they&apos;re needed most. S-IVs make a <i>lot</i> of military sense from a logistical standpoint. Not many laymen understand how damned <i>important</i> making something logistically viable is for any military organization. They don&apos;t necessarily <i>care</i> that their troops are &quot;the best,&quot; they want their troops to be as good as they possibly can while still being <i>sustainable</i> with the available supply lines. As good as they are, past Spartan generations are <i>not</i> as cost-effective as their all-volunteer &quot;successors.&quot; S-IVs routinely do about as much damage to Covenant, Innie, and Promethean assets, even if more of them die, and more of them make mistakes. On a macroscale, this is an acceptable tradeoff. Ships still get blown up, projects still get sabotaged, HVTs still get captured or killed, enemy offensives get blunted at minimal cost and risk to UNSC forces, and regular troops and the UEG&apos;s public still get to look up to superhuman killing machines in powered armor.

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• JO

  @joshuadarrow · 5 years ago

  “Sir how did you do it? Those civilians said you got them out of the city, past an army of covenant, sir. How?” <br>“It was the mission, corporal.”

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• AH

  @AhegaoComics · 5 years ago

  Kinda remindes me of how Buck once said that the IIs were like the Greek Titans, the IIIs the Gods, and the IVs Demigods. Even in cannon the IIs &amp; IIIs were larger than life beings who you could almost never compare up to.

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• GR

  @grimmlight4541 · 4 years ago

  For me this was a perfect breakdown of the differences. I love Buck, Vale and Palmer as Spartans, but as he Buck said &quot;we are demi gods compared to the previous Titans and actual Gods of Spartan II &amp; III&apos;s.

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• IM

  @Impartial_Sojourner · 5 years ago

  To borrow a quote from another franchise &quot; Monster is a relative term. To a canary, a cat is a monster. We are just used to being the cat.&quot;

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• BO

  @boinkohh8394 · 5 years ago

  The issue with them is that they carry the title of SPARTAN, but they don&apos;t carry the SPIRIT of a Spartan. Some do, but most don&apos;t

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• VO

  @voicingdragoon7 · 5 years ago (edited)

  &quot;Do you think the Spartans lack of basic humanity helped?&quot; Yes<br>&quot;Do you believe the Master Chief succeeded because he was, at his core, broken?&quot; Yes

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• SE

  @SergeantKillGore · 5 years ago

  Gabriel Thorne embodied what a Spartan IV should be in my opinion. Thoughtful and stoic, but perhaps more human than previous generations. Even though Halsey was mostly dismissive of the IVs, she appeared to recognize that Thorne came closer to the ideals of the original program more than his peers. Thorne was one of the few people who treated her with respect, knocking on the door of her quarters and politely requesting her to join him instead of just barging in like others did. In combat, Thorne has showed creativity and innovation by hijacking a banshee and using Glassman’s explosive vest to cover their escape.

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• SH

  @shutdown117 · 5 years ago

  Incredibles said it best “once everyone is super...no one will be”

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• BO

  @bogustoast22none25 · 5 years ago

  The problem is that we, the viewer, never had a “passing of the torch” moment. We never saw how an S4s life experiences, could be added INTO the Spartan’s way of life, or how when push came to shove, they stepped up to the plate.<br><br>Perfect example, Halo 4. You see the flaw of the S4 when compared to S2. John was willing to, with nothing more than a broken AI, an unkept suit, and a pelican, take on the fucking didact to save humanity. He did the right thing, disobey orders for the sake of the greater good.<br><br>What did every single S4 do? Play it safe and go back home to get reinforcements, and at the end, civilians died, while all they did was with their super suit, press the button to fire MACs to punch a hole in the ship for the Chief to fly into.<br><br>It’s not the powers or the humanity, it’s their lack of determination to do whatever it takes to get the job done and protect lives.<br><br>If a generic S4 had gone with the Chief, and was cheerful, cracked jokes and shit like that, sure, he was no S2, but he was STILL a Spartan, because when it came to step up to the plate and do the right thing, and not the safe thing, he stepped up.

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• VA

  @VallornD · 5 years ago

  Ah yes, and now we return to the adventures of Fireteam Fratboy, where Crimson has to keep cleaning up their messes.

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• PH

  @PhthaloGreenskin · 5 years ago

  I love the spartan IVs conceptually. The problem is how 343 presents them. It&apos;s said that only the best of the best are allowed to become spartan ivs and many of them were former ODST&apos;s but they are constantly being depicted as frat boys that think their shit don&apos;t stink. They should be presented as elite tier 1 operator type soldiers not cocky trust fund kids who&apos;s parents just bought them a yacht.

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