Setting:Halo

This is a /v/ related article, which we tolerate because it's relevant and/or popular on /tg/... or we just can't be bothered to delete it.

Hardcorez

Halo is a vidyagame series exclusively released for the ECKSBAWKS, ECKSBAWKS 360 and PC. The series was developed by Bungie, though Microsoft has bought the rights to the game. The Halo universe is pretty massive, with all sorts of media ranging from video games and graphic novels to action figures and a series of short movies released to DVD. It became famous for being the game that saved ECKSBAWKS from doing an Atari Jaguar by identifying an untapped new market of loud, stupid fratboys, and was the only reason anyone would even want to buy an ECKSBAWKS console. Its storyline is pretty much a copy of any everyday generic sci-fi storyline you can think of, with some bland angsty space-opera bullshit thrown in for good measure and a multiplayer that isn't too original either. It's also famous for its FUCKING cliffhangers and the definitely too many retarded fanboys convinced it's either the Lord of the Rings of sci-fi, the inventor of all vidyagames, the inventor of the FPS genre or all three of the above.

Occasionally it breaks away from this pattern and explores a more fatalistic and human side to the story without having to suck Master Chief's dick or obsess over ancient alien technology every three seconds, and is generally regarded as being about ten times better and more mature for it. Unfortunately, this lasted a grand total of one game before 343 Studios acquired the license and got right back to inserting themselves up the Chief's rectum.

/tg/ isn't big on Halo and topics pertaining to Halo will normally be saged, trolled, told to go to /v/, or some combination therein. On /v/ however, Halo is... still widely hated. Then again, /v/ hates video games in general. The hatred of /tg/ comes less from the actual game/gameplay, and more from it being off-topic and a few fanboys being retarded asshats.

Setting

The Halo universe takes place in the 26th century. Mankind, led by the United Nations Space Command (UNSC), has developed its own crude faster-than-light drive (the Shaw-Fujikawa Drive) and finally colonized other worlds. At its height, human civilization occupies nearly 800 planets, forming a ring of outer colonies and rings of inner colonies with Earth as its capital. This is not what they're talking about when they say Halo, mind you.

Sometime in the year 2525 (believed to be roughly half past three), an agricultural world in the outer colonies, creatively named Harvest, is attacked by an unknown force. In the succeeding months, all attempts to make contact, or even defend against the alien forces are met with swift destruction. It is not long before more colonies are wiped out.

The unknown menace finally identifies itself as the Covenant, a coalition of several alien races bent on destroying humanity. At first they seem to be doing this because that's just what aliens do, but later on it is discovered that the story is somewhat deeper. Apparently humans are the descendants of an ancient super-advanced alien race called the Forerunners.

This made the Covenant kinda jealous, because it was them who first discovered the Forerunner technology, adapted it to their own, and finally started worshipping the Forerunners. Apparently, knowing that your gods had a favorite, finding out that it isn't you, and finding out that it's instead the species that invented truck balls upset them just a little. So, back to glassing. It's not long before the UNSC military, and humanity itself, finds out that it is being pwned. Clearly the only solution to this would be a ridiculously tiny unit of infantry (thirty three men to defend eight hundred planets, lolwat?) In clever armour with a name in allcaps. This leads to the Spartan-II program, humanity's last hope.

The Spartan-II program

You have been called upon to serve, you will be trained... and you will become the best we can make of you. You will be the protectors of Earth and all her colonies.
— Dr. Catherine Halsey, founder of the program, to the young Spartan-II recruits

The Spartan-II program was originally a super soldier project intended to fight increasing terrorist and rebel threats throughout UNSC space. It was masterminded by genius geneticist Dr. Catherine Halsey, who is the founder and former director of the the project. She and her team visited practically all 800 planets in human space, trying to find children who matched the exact psychological and genetic profile of Big Boss that would accept her newly-developed super soldier treatments. In the end, over 300 children were selected for the program but only 150 were actually abducted due to budget constraints. Those that were abducted were replaced with clones so the families would never know they went missing, since apparently making stable clones is impossible in the future. It is unclear why nobody pointed out this pointlessly angsty backstory would probably result in all of them turning evil like in every other game where this sort of thing is tried, or asked how a fighting force of 150 would be useful to an alliance with five times that number of planets. Some may object in the Warhammer 40K universe there are much more planets then there are Space Marines, and still the Astartes are a very useful force, but That's because they can deploy in the dozens, hundreds or even thousands. And they have a specialized armory built to maximize their effectiveness as a fighting force. Spartans have to make do with the same "shittier than what we have in real life" arsenal that the cannon fodder does, because the UNSC can afford super soldiers and power armor, but not special guns for them (in every single game the best weapons are the ones you scavenge from your alien enemies, fer chrissake). Fucktards.

The child-recruits were brought to a secret, heavily fortified military world called Reach. They were trained, given numbers instead of names, beaten, retrained, mindfucked, trained some more, and in general subjected to the kind of treatment someone who's half-watched parts of Full Metal Jacket thinks of as military training. Finally, the children, now in their late teens, were cleared for biological enhancement. Using the latest experimental treatments, the 150 were pumped full of drugs that induced their muscles to grow, enriched their blood, and increase their brain processing to the point some of them even knew how to set up a TiVo. They were surgically modified to give them superior eye sight, hearing, and ceramic skeletons. The procedures were so dangerous that over half of the remaining recruits were lost in the surgeries. Only about 33 of the original 150 survived the experimental augmentation procedure program that would've utterly crippled all those without the proper genetics (which makes you wonder how this process was developed to begin with). The result, however, were the Spartan-IIs, who had a laundry list of biologically unlikely abilities. On the other hand, severe psychological issues result in them thinking all objects are exactly the same size for inventory purposes, from a rocket launcher to a pistol. This makes day-to-day life difficult, as they stand confused in front of their dresser trying to figure out whether to drop their car keys or wallet in order to put on their clothes.

Later, the super soldiers were finally given their signature green armor, a prototype powered suit called MJOLNIR (the second choice, as ALLCAPS was already taken). The suit added mechanically unlikely abilities to their biologically unlikely abilities, and canonically weighed a metric ton. Despite that it doesn't make people sink into the ground or fall through every staircase in the universe, thus showing Halo's fluff writers have no fucking clue what they're talking about.

Over the course of the fluff, the Spartans are sent into several missions that even the UNSC elite forces (the Orbital Drop Shock Troopers or ODST) can't go in. Basically, the Spartans Get Shit Done. By the time the Covenant starts to attack human worlds, the Spartan-IIs have been in service for nearly a decade and they are quickly redeployed with the new MJOLNIR Mark-V armor, each complete with a reverse-engineered personal shield stolen from the Covenant. Almost all of them then die since in Crunch (and even in some fluff) their armour provides slightly less protection than lingerie and the shield goes down if a space lizard sneezes on them. The rest of the fluff was apparently played on a secret super-easy difficulty where you defeat every enemy in the game with your penis in the first ten minutes.

Overall, humanity's ass was only saved because the elites noped out of the covenant at the best possible time, the SPARTANS by and large accomplished jack and shit.

The Spartan-III Program

Mr."Totally not a Spartan normal human soldier" showing those losers in Halo how it is done.

Late into the war. People relished they were running out of Spartans. So people who not only hated Halsey but hated that whole kidnapping thing started the Spartan IIIs. So rather than break into homes and steal babies, they rounded up orphans of glassed worlds pumped them full of drugs and sent them out on human wave suicide missions. IIIs had none of the cool armor or weapons what cool weapons? instead they used cheap knock off versions which lacked the shields. Minus the ones you play in Halo Reach. So basically, this entire situation can be blame on not only humans obsession with technology, but the lack of leadership, tactical geniuses and manliness. Apparently, some human soldiers in Warhammer 40k are capable of melee the shit out of the green monster that is larger than they are with a chainsword, but the humans in halo cannot. Like the Guard fare better in melee.

The people in change even have the balls to claim the moral high ground compare to Halsey stating that all of the IIIs were volunteers. Because as we know, 14-year-olds who just watched their world burn totally understand what they're signing up for.

The Spartan-IV program

spartan IV in a nutshell

In Halo 4, it has revealed the child soldier program is no longer enable, because that old cougar Halsey is fed up with child kidnapping and abusing crap. The new Spartan IV program is similar to the original Spartan program, which only requires typical adult volunteer who weren't beaten to shit since childhood, nor kidnapped. The Spartans will be training in a X-men training simulation, where they fight each other in a safe environment. This is Colonel Schaeffer speaking, and I am, truly, disapprove with the Spartan IV program, which it should've continue the use of child soldier with even harsh training in the REAL environment. And I-but Sir, you don't work in the UNS-*BLAM* QUIET YOU INCOMPETENT SCRUB!!!I CAN IN CHARGE OF ANY HUMAN MILITARY IN THE EMPEROR'S NAME!!!! But anyways, the new program basically ruined the meaning of the title "Spartan", might as well replaced their name with "Captain America IN SPEHSS", since Captain America was a normal (if scrawny and useless) human who was injected with steroids and exposed to "bullshit" rays.

Then again, the real life Spartans were destroyed by a small volunteer army (despite outnumbering the force 10 to 1) from Thebes. The Spartans' own harsh training methods meant they couldn't replace their losses in time for Thebes to show up, free their slaves, as the slaves were the only one thing keeping Sparta running (as all the free men were warriors) Spartans quickly fell and became a run down shadow of its former glory to a point where no one ever invaded it because it was so worthless it wasn't worth the effort.

So grimdark training isn't really needed to make badass soldiers. Also the fact that, well those GrimDark Spartans FAILED. The IIs were expensive as all fuck, took forever to train, had high "drop out" rates. And while kicked a tons of ass there were so few it didn't really mattered. The IIIs were glorified cannon fodder, much like real world child solders and often had 100% casualty rates and missions only really delayed the Covenant.

The IVs are what the Spartan II were designed to be only cheaper and easier to make.

UNSC Marines

These are your everyday cannon-fodder from the UNSC who in fluff meet fates similar of the mobile infantry in the first Starship Troopers movie or your typical Imperial Guardsman (Except they don't have non-super human combat monster such as Yarrick or Tactical Genius such as CREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDDDDDDD!!!, and they rely everything on Spartan). In crunch, they vary from scripted death-by-anything to being able to laugh off multiple Fuel Rod Gun hits. They are also suck in melee against anything, as shown in crunch, they are unable to kill a grunt in melee. *BLAM!* WHO IN THE NAME OF THE EMPEROR MOCKING MY FINE SOLDIER'S ABILITIES??!!but sir these are not you soldi-*BLAM!* QUIET!! EVERY SOLDIERS ARE EMPEROR'S CURRENCY!!! AND THAT MEANS THEY ARE UNDER MY COMMAND!!! But anyway, in contrast with the guardsman, they are not expendable, Since most of the planets humans colonize in Halo were glassed, so does many civilians, were shoved in the ass by energy sword and blasted by plasma fire. But hey, that happens to the humans in Warhammer 40k everyday, so welcome to the club I guess? Besides, the humans in Warhammer 40k are living in way worse condition compared to the humans in halo, which some of them that had survived since childhood, are badass with a strong will, and that should tells us how competent those motherfuckers on Cadia really are. But the UNSC does has some non-super human elite, like the ODST, which they got their own shitty spin off 60$ game. Not to mention that badass motherfucker from Halo Wars, who is capable of took down the largest elite that dual-wields energy swords. awesome ensure.

'UNSC marines vs guardsman

This is a matter of great skub, but this archived thread should show the basic factors in play.

The Covenant

The Covenant are a coalition of religious alien civilizations. They venerate and worship the Forerunners and are known to utilize some Forerunner technology for their own means, giving them a colossal fleet of ships that outmatches the UNSC Navy. They are composed of the following:

• Grunts: Ewoks wearing giant seashells with technicolour blood. Typically shout "he's unstoppable!" in their helium voice and then die. Since the UNSC marines are bunch of incompetent faggot pansy, these grunt are somehow very effective in terms of being expendable. Breath methane, and sometimes explode when shot under the pressure of their own fail.

• Jackals: Irritating bastard-creatures with space shields who like to spam grenades and camp like they were playing Call of Doody,only with particle rifles. Basically Kroot, but with more piracy and fewer genetic shenanigans. Notably only going along with the Covenant because of pragmatism instead of faith, and therefore better than the other races. Never entrusted with boarding missions because of the fear they might steal the ship and generate some lulz.

• Elites: De-tailed lizardmen IIIIIINNNN SPAAAAAACE! They have the same shields as a Spartan, and are a bit tougher than the lower-ranked enemies. Some are Arbiters, equipped with laser swords with which they Arbitrarily kill you. Eventually join the humans due to the plot. How the fuck they eat and drink without a bottom jaw is never explained.

• Hunters: Some odd combination of worm/alien/giant thingy. They stand nearly 10 feet tall, but are actually a hive collection of worm-like aliens fusing together to form 1 giant thing, and usually come in pairs. A single hunter is armored from head to toe in overlapping tank-class plate armor, vulnerable only to fire from heavy weapons and badly-balanced OP handguns. They are armed with powerful Noob Tubes Fuel Rod Guns that can take out anything up to light armored vehicles in fluff and can deal anything up to minor damage to NPC Marines in the game. Basically terminators that don't get shit done, with slightly interesting fluff and a vaguely samurai-esque warrior poet feel to their culture on the extremely rare occasions it gets a mention. Their species can also made into a gigantic quadruped walking tank known as Scarab, that again is only good at looking impressive and making laser shows.

• Drones: Bee people with guns! And that's...pretty much it. They're apparently good engineers and don't feel fear, but they die like grunts and their queens shit out eggs by the thousands. They're annoying fuckers who are a pain to hit, swarm around in the dozens, and zap you to death with elite guns.

• Engineers: Flying ball sacks made out of nanomachines (son!), who are nonviolent technophiles who go around randomly fixing anybody's shit and churning out kit. Made by the forerunners who were lazy fucks, sometimes used as unwilling suicide bombers.

• Brutes: Slightly intelligent Yeti/Cave Troll/Gorilla-like creatures... IIIIIINNN SPAAAAACE! Reputedly, they are the only race in the Covenant that had developed super advanced technology through constant warfare - namely, nukes - then became a space-faring race, then nuked their own civilization back to the stone age, only to claw their way back up to space-faring again...and learned nothing from the experience. They later replace the Elites as the go-to force of the Covenant, and bodyguards of the Prophets, forcing the Elites into exile. This makes sense somehow. They bolt blades onto all of their weapons to make it easier to get choppy, have pistols that fire eight-inch steel spikes and hammers that manipulate gravity for no reason other than dickishness, somehow hadn't developed shotguns until they encountered humanity and stole the idea from them, and have a tendency to start ripping people in half once they get bored of shooting. TL;DR they are the copypasta of the Mangalores from The Fifth Element confusingly awesome given the state of the rest of the setting, and in 40K terms are basically a marginally more intelligent and cool-looking version of the Ogryn.

• The Prophets: They form the leadership cadre of the Covenant, claiming that they alone know the true purpose the Forerunners had for them, leading the Covenant in a spiritual-militaristic philosophy called "The Great Journey." It was the Prophets whom discovered that Humanity was the genetic descendants of the Forerunners, and declared humans as a threat to The Great Journey.

The Covenant actually think that tinkering with the advanced technology they dug up from the olden days is HERESY, meaning most of their stuff kinda sucks and they don't know much more about how it works than humans do Humans in fact know a big MORE about there tech, Cortana once super charged a Covenant ship's weapons just by messing with the power settling (which pissed off the ship's AI you don't see an AI scream Heresy everyday). The exception here are the Brutes, who make their own tech but are also way too stupid to make any progress, thus keeping the status quo intact.

Battles with the Covenant by the humans have often resulted in catastrophic losses on the human side. On the ground, UNSC Marines, armored divisions, and Spartans can hold their own against their foe, but it is a different story in space. Naval engagements almost always results in the obliteration of all human ships. The weapons of the Covenant ships are able to melt right through the meter-thick battle-plating of human warships. The only chance the human Navy has are nukes and massive slow-firing coilguns called MACs (Magnetic Accelerator Cannons) that fling 600-ton rounds, able to break Covenant ships in half.

In addition for the new fluff in halo 4, the covenant is no longer control by those lazy old man with OP machine chairs. Many of those aliens who still believe in the prophet formed a renegade faction known as "shadow covenant", and they want to discover more forerunner artifacts and weaponry in order to out <>pwn those incompetent, captain America rejects. They have to get threw the Human Navy who want some Payback

The Flood

The other antagonists are "The Flood". A race of silly bouncing potatoes that exist only to infest other lifeforms and OMNOMNOMNOM them. They are more or less a viral form of the Star Trek Borg, and make you sprout gross stuff and serve their hive mind if they touch you. They were the ancient enemy of the Forerunners and why the Forerunners built the Halo devices. Battles with The Flood destroyed the Forerunner civilization, as The Flood could infest their own people and technology to use against them.

Previous to the Flood - Forerunner war, an advanced AI named Mendicant Bias was interrogating a creatively named being, The Captive. This captive later turned out to be a Gravemind and convinced Mendicant Bias to join The Flood. Originally designed to operate Forerunner defenses, and in emergencies their fleet, Mendicant Bias assaulted the Forerunner homeworld using said fleet. In response to this the Forerunners created a second AI, Offensive Bias, to lead the remnants of their fleets against The Flood, seeing as an AI fleet-master worked so well the first time.

Finally, with all their massive fleets defeated and all their soldiers massacred, the Forerunners committed mass suicide on a galactic scale to prevent more of their people and other fledgling civilizations from falling prey to The Flood, depriving The Flood of its essential hosts and food sources. The Flood finally died off due to starvation and were defeated...sorta. Small pockets of them where kept in stasis by the Forerunners in installations across the galaxy, which is fucking stupid because they are just going to goddamn escape.

This shows the Forerunners were completely incompetent and if The Flood hadn't come along they'd probably have been eaten by a swarm of space rats or fallen down some space stairs eventually anyway.

The books detailing the Forerunner-flood war revealed that the flood are actually a weapon/test created by Precursors, the oldest race in the galaxy, to see who's worthy of taking up their mantle of rulers of the universe.

Prometheans

In Halo 4, some machine living being called Promethean's was introduced as the new enemy for the new game. They have awesome weapons and blade that are capable of turning living beings into digital dusts. They are also capable of warping by blend themselves within time and space, making them similar to Warp spiders in many ways(even appearances). These creatures were once ancient humans, but were transformed by the dick known as the Didact in order to combat the flood. However, the councils found out and kick banned him into orbit. The rest of the surviving Prometheans then serves the Didact in halo 4 to turn those poor bastard living in Pheonix into digital dust with their awesome death star. Sadly, Master Chief single-handed killed off every Promethean by shooting them with any xeno weaponry he can find on the ground, and defeated the Didact in a very lame boss sequence with Cortana's help (wtf? Cortana can split herself into three and grab a living being?) and push the Didact down to the energy pit. And the game ends just like that. Now let's wait for halo 5.

Editor's note: Apollo and the Didact shares the same VA, Keith Szarabajka.

The Halos

The actual Halos are artificial "ringworlds" stolen from a book by Larry Niven, which are covered in illogical geography, annoying copy-paste buildings because the level designers were feeling lazy, and together form a superweapon that kills all complex life in the galaxy. This was created by the Forerunners to defeat The Flood, the ancient super-race apparently not really understanding that if you destroy all sentient life to defeat a race that will destroy all sentient life it still counts as losing.

Battletech and Halo

Taking full advantage of the resurgence of mech combat in video games and the currently crippled state of Battletech's videogame franchise, Halo 4 now includes a Shadowcat lookalike. Fear the coming "Halo did that mech first" cries from thirteen-year-olds everywhere.

Warhammer 40k and Halo comparison

A TL;DR section in a nutshell.

Spartan vs. Space Marine

TL:DR part 1

If we're going to try to make any kind of comparison, here, then the FIRST thing we have to look at is what the primary sources (i.e. word-of-God from the creators, in this case Bungie and GW) actually say about the capabilities of the two forces. Right? Right. Both Black Library and the various Halo novels are usually sub-contracted out, and both are pretty inconsistent; the Halo novels tend to be a bit better than BL, but they're certainly not perfect.

So we did that already. We went through the official sources; the codex, the official Halo sourcebooks, etc. We did that pages ago. Not everything can be compared directly, so really we could only get solid information on the physical improvements that went into the SPARTANs and Space Marines bodies, and a little bit about the different armors. And guess what they told us?

They told us that SPARTANs have a lot of really, really cool stuff; bioenhancements that make them inhumanly strong, fast and perceptive, built-in AIs, automatic high-performance first aid systems, powerful high-tech equipment. They're damn good soldiers, easily capable of taking on a very large number of humans and winning.

And they also told us that Space Marines have all that and much, much more. This is the problem that the "SPARTANs are superstrong!" and "SPARTANs never miss!" and "SPARTANs are ninjas!" arguments are failing to understand; there is NOTHING, literally nothing at all, that tells us that SPARTANs are any better in any of these fields than Space Marines are, and a whole hell of a lot that tells us they're WORSE in most of them. This is a strictly comparative point, not an objective one; you can argue that Space Marines are as weak as you want, but that doesn't change the fact that SPARTANs, according to their own source materials, are weaker.

I'm just gonna quote myself here; yes, these are two long posts. You still might want to read them, since basically everything that anyone has said in this entire thread is dealt with in them. We're making a comparison, people; the answer to "Pssh, Space Marines just have plot armor, they aren't that good" is "Read the sources; they're a hell of a lot better than SPARTANs".

There is one ability which SPARTANS receive from their biological implants and Space Marines don't, directly; improved reflex action speed, due to faster neurotransmission. That is, indeed, an important advantage; although it should be noted that even in this area Space Marines aren't clearly behind, as they receive years of intense hypno-therapy and chemical conditioning which is designed to give them this very ability, along with many others. But let's leave that aside and focus only on the physical implants for now.

Space Marine biological improvements give them a host of OTHER advantages, which more than compensate. Here's a list, leaving out those that SPARTANS also possess, such as super-dense muscle, hardened bones, and enhanced eyesight; we'll assume that SPARTAN biotech and Space Marine biotech are equally efficient for the purpose of this discussion, so those enhancements that they both have we won't count on either side. Furthermore, we won't bother to mention those enhancements which Space Marines possess, but are not directly relevant to a combat scenario. The particular implant which provides each enhancement is also listed.

• Growth of (ceramically-reinforced) bone tissue into dense, interlocking plates, which provide a bulletproof layer of secondary armor over vital organs. Yes, it is explicitly called "bulletproof". (Ossmodula)
• Increased blood supply and redundant circulatory organs, both increasing a Space Marine's strength and speed by supplying far more oxygen and nutrients to his muscles than a human (or SPARTAN) can, and allowing him to survive normally catastrophic damage to his original heart. (Secondary heart)
• Increased oxygen-carrying efficiency of blood, allowing a Space Marine to draw more energy from a given amount of oxygen than normal. (Haemastamen)
• Increased oxygen capacity due to additional lung volume, allowing Space Marines to function in environments too oxygen-poor for humans to survive. (Multi-lung)
• The ability to absorb oxygen from toxic environments without injury. This includes the ability to breathe and function normally underwater.(Multi-lung)
• The ability to form scar tissue within seconds after suffering an injury, preventing blood loss and infection from wounds. (Larraman's Organ)
• The ability to perform continuous combat operations without sleep for a much longer time than normal before performance begins to erode, and to maintain conscious situational awareness even while sleeping. (Catalepsean Node)
• Immunity to toxins whether aerosol, contact/injected or ingested, as well as the ability to go briefly unconscious and carry out a rapid emergency detoxification of the body if something extremely dangerous has managed to bypass all the layers of defense. (Preomnor, Multi-lung, Oolitic Kidney)
• Chemical regulation of all bodily functions, maintaining the peak efficiency of both implanted and natural organs. (Oolitic Kidney)
• Improved hearing, including the ability to selectively filter out or enhance particular sounds, and immunity to nausea or disorientation from inner-ear disturbance. This includes immunity to the disorienting effects of explosions and other rapid changes in pressure. (Lyman's Ear)
• Ability to track by smell and taste like a bloodhound. (Neuroglottis)
• Protection against extreme temperatures and low-pressure environments, including limited protection even from vacuum. (Mucranoid, Melanochrome to some extent)
• Direct neural connection to the machine-spirit of their personal suit of power armor, essentially allowing them to react and move much more quickly and flexibly than is possible without such a connection. This is why Astartes power armor is personal; only one Space Marine can connect to a given suit in this manner, and it must be individually adapted to that particular Space Marine. (Black Carapace)

So in short; SPARTAN-IIs are, probably, faster to react than Space Marines are. That isn't certain because of the aforementioned hypnotherapy and mental conditioning, but let's assume they do. Assume that SPARTAN-II nervous signals just move faster through their bodies than those of Space Marines do; this gives them an edge in reaction times. How big an edge, we don't know, but let's assume it's pretty damn big; they're STILL going to get wrecked. That is the only advantage they possess, and the Space Marines have everything else they have plus a hell of a lot more.

A SPARTAN has reinforced bones; a Space Marine has reinforced bones AND has grown them into a suit of bullet-proof plate armor around his internal organs, which makes him much more resistant to injury.

A SPARTAN has enhanced musculature; a Space Marine has enhanced musculature AND more efficient oxygen transfer AND more oxygen circulating overall, so unless you want to argue that the SPARTAN augmentation is by itself more effective than all of those put together (which you can't, since Space Marine and SPARTAN muscle enhancement work identically) a Space Marine is much stronger than a SPARTAN, and faster as well.

A SPARTAN has enhanced eyesight; a Space Marine has enhanced eyesight AND improved hearing (over which can exercise conscious control to the point of selectively focusing on certain sounds) AND can find his enemies by smell alone, which means that he's nearly always going to be the ambusher rather than the ambushee.

In addition to all this a Space Marine can function normally in environments where a SPARTAN would quickly die; maneuver and remain indefinitely in places that a SPARTAN cannot either see into or fight in (such as deep underwater); fight without sleep, unimpaired, for an extended period (permitting him to keep the SPARTAN under continuous pressure until he started to make mistakes due to fatigue); and survive injuries that would kill a SPARTAN immediately, including flat-out ignoring any wound less serious than a smashed bone or vital organ trauma. A SPARTAN is less physically capable than a Space Marine in every aspect of warfare, and on top of that the average Space Marine will have literally decades of experience over any SPARTAN-II.

None of this is 'fanwank'. I haven't made any of this up, it comes straight from the Codex and official materials. I don't play Space Marines, and I don't particularly like it that they're so over the top and Mary Sue-ish, but I do mind your claim that noting the fact that Space Marines are ludicrously powerful even in comparison to other sci-fi supersoldiers somehow removes my objectivity.

TL:DR part 2

Improved lactate recovery versus better oxygenation; SPARTANs lose out, and the reason is twofold; first, that it's not clear that lactate even hinders muscle contraction; and second, that even if it is a hindrance, preventing muscle fibers from going anaerobic (through increased oxygenation), or even slowing down the process, is a much more efficient way of increasing effective strength and endurance.

This is a case where Bungie actually tripped themselves up, because they put a little too much real science in their pseudoscience; since the Halo games have come out there's been further research on muscle fatigue, and it's been discovered that lactate both hinders muscular activity (by lowering the sensitivity of certain contractile tissues to a particular calcium ion) and also aids muscular activity by increasing the amount of calcium which is present, as well as neutralizing the limiting effects of potassium buildup! That being so, even if we assume for the sake of argument that the net result is a hindrance, the benefit is still at least partially counteracting itself, and it certainly won't be very efficient.

Space Marines use a much more straightforward and efficient method; they simply pour more oxygen into the muscular tissue to allow it to respire freely even while working hard. For one thing, that by itself prevents the production of practically all of the byproducts of muscular exertion, since they can only be produced in an anaerobic environment; and for another, aerobic respiration is about nineteen times more efficient than anaerobic. That means that the SPARTAN MEI proteins cut in too late; they slow down lactate buildup, yes, but by the time lactate buildup is occurring at any speed your muscle fibers have already run out of oxygen, and as a consequence are now requiring nineteen times as much energy input to do the same amount of work. The Space Marine implants, by contrast, are going to work much more efficiently simply because they're preventing an anaerobic environment from ever occurring in the muscle tissue; that means that a Space Marine is going to be using a lot less energy to exert the same amount of force as a SPARTAN, which translates to greater strength, greater speed, and greater endurance.

In short, the SPARTAN enhancement is cutting in after deterioration has started and then slowing down the rate at which it multiplies; the Space Marine enhancement begins working sooner and prevents deterioration from ever occurring, or at least begins counteracting it at an earlier point in the process. This means that, even if a SPARTAN and a Space Marine have exactly the same peak strength and speed, a Space Marine is going to remain at peak functionality for far longer, and when he does begin to suffer from fatigue the effects are going to appear more slowly, than the SPARTAN will.

Functioning in a low-oxygen environment; Fair enough, in most cases it wouldn't matter. Do note, however, that in combination with the ability to breathe in a poisonous atmosphere this means that in some circumstances SPARTANs would be sharply time-limited (by the amount of breathable air their armor contains) while Space Marines would not; for instance, if SPARTANS and Space Marines were fighting on a polluted industrial world or in the aftermath of a virus-bombing the Space Marines could safely breathe the air, and the SPARTANs couldn't. This is a decided increase in tactical flexibility for a space-going military force, and it is a great benefit in general; but I agree, assuming we're talking about the two forces meeting on an Earth-like world, it's not very important.

Immunity to toxins: In a face-to-face combat situation, effectively all this does is render chemical and biological weapons ineffective. Mustard gas won't bother Space Marines much, for instance, even if you can manage to get it inside their armor. But since the SPARTANs have never demonstrated the use of that kind of weapon, I agree, that can be left out of this comparison.

Larraman's Organ versus biofoam injectors: Here I'm going to disagree again, though only conditionally.

Biofoam injectors are specifically called out as a temporary, emergency measure; they hold things in place temporarily and stop bleeding. In a brief engagement, I agree; they're just as good as Larraman cells are as a short-term solution, so if a Space Marine and a SPARTAN are just going to fight for an hour and then part ways, this is a wash.

However, I think if Space Marines and SPARTANs were to be heavily engaged with each other for any length of time, the comparison would rapidly get worse for the SPARTANs. The difference is that Larraman's Organ does NOT provide temporary first aid, it allows for a rapid and permanent healing process to begin at once. Biofoam is a first-aid measure that you use to stabilize somebody before medevac can get there. It's specifically called out as such, in fact. Biofoam breaks down and becomes useless after a few hours; if you haven't gotten surgical treatment by that time you're just as badly off as you were originally, unless you apply ANOTHER dose of biofoam.

Larraman's Organ, by contrast, simply supercharges the body's natural healing process. It literally creates instant scar tissue; as long as a bone isn't broken or a vital organ isn't badly traumatized, the wound is basically healed by the Larraman cells. The seal created by Larraman cells is biologically identical to the Space Marine's own flesh; if a Space Marine suffers a flesh wound, even a deep and damaging one, Larraman's Organ scars it over and within seconds, it's as if the injury is weeks old. No, it isn't an immediate, full repair, but it goes much further than simply filling the gash with anti-bacterial foam. A SPARTAN who suffers a severe flesh wound has to get surgical aid within a few hours, or the foam will degrade and he'll be just as badly wounded as ever; a Space Marine who suffers a severe flesh wound will recover rapidly and without help, not even needing a re-application of Larraman cells. This is what I meant when I said Space Marines are capable of "flat-out ignoring any wound less serious than a smashed bone or vital organ trauma".

Over a campaign of days, weeks or months, the Space Marines would gain a definite advantage in this area. Either a SPARTAN or a Space Marine will need medical treatment for a very serious wound, but the Space Marines will recover much more easily from any wound that isn't life-threatening. They are going to recover rapidly and without outside aid; a SPARTAN who suffers a flesh wound, by contrast, is going to need specialized help (which will aggravate the wound again; surgery is always traumatic to at least some extent) and will have a longer recovery time afterwards before he's back to full effectiveness. So over any extended time period Larraman's Organ is far more effective as field medicine than biofoam is, and the advantage will continue to build upon itself as long as the fighting lasts.

And as a final point, Space Marine armor also includes first-aid provisions, which I would assume are designed to function in conjunction with Larraman's Organ, probably by providing reinforcement to wounds too big or too serious (either chunks of missing flesh or shattered bones) for the Organ to repair alone, and likely also injecting copious amounts of stimulants. If nothing else, biological regeneration + technological medical help > technological medical help alone.

Speed, agility and reaction time: I don't think either agility or speed is necessarily in favor of the SPARTANs.

Speed-wise, as I pointed out above, the differences between Space Marine and SPARTAN muscle enhancements indicate that Space Marines have both greater muscular power AND longer endurance; a SPARTAN might beat a Space Marine in a sprint (though there isn't any evidence of that), but a long pursuit would certainly be won by the Space Marine, as he would be able to maintain high speed longer and with shorter rest periods. In combination with the effects of the Catalepsean Node, this means that Space Marines actually have significantly greater tactical mobility than SPARTANs.

In regards to agility and reaction time, as I pointed out, it's explicitly noted that Space Marines receive years of hypno-therapy and medical treatment designed to not only radically reduce their reaction time but also allow them a high degree of conscious control over their metabolisms and nervous systems. How that compares in effectiveness to the biotech modification that SPARTANs receive to their neural system, we simply don't know, but to discount it entirely doesn't seem reasonable. Furthermore, the connection provided by the Black Carapace to power armor is just as powerful as the Spartan Neural Interface (as it's described in almost exactly the same way), and all Astartes power armor apparently contains its own machine spirit/AI, which due to the Black Carapace can essentially read the Space Marine's mind and react with no delay at all to his desires. All this means that power armor does not slow the Space Marine down in the slightest; rather the 'muscles' of the armor will make him both faster and stronger, just as MJOLNIR armor does for SPARTANs.

MJOLNIR armor does seem to provide more flexibility and a wider range of motion; however, it necessarily accomplishes that by incorporating less actual armor, and so almost certainly provides less protection over certain areas. The chest and upper arms are the specific areas I'm thinking of, since for Space Marines they're protected by that very thick barrel-chest and MASSIVE PAULDRONS OF DOOM, which also serve double-duty by partially blocking line of fire to the Space Marines head from some angles.

Ossified ribcage: You say that "but anything that has punched through its armour isn't going to be stopped by bone, no matter how hard", but I don't think that's true. The extra layer of bone will render some kinds of weapons entirely ineffective and force specific tactical decisions in order to penetrate it; and do please remember that this isn't bone as we know it. This is bone with the empty, latticework spaces filled with a ceramic armor compound, of the kind we use on main battle tanks.

Consider; the type of weapons that go through armor well are not actually the type of weapons that are very effective at killing people. If you want to cause a lot of damage to a person you use a fat, blunt, relatively slow round, which will shatter, tumble or simply expand inside the body and thus widen the channel it carves through flesh. That's why hollow-point rounds, which 'mushroom' after penetration, are sometimes called 'cop-killer' bullets; they're the most efficient way to cause the most damage possible to a human body.

The kind of bullet that punches through armor, by contrast, is a narrow, sharply-pointed round fired at the highest practical velocity. That's how you punch through a hard surface. However, that kind of bullet has a tendency to travel right through a person without actually doing much harm; it flies in a straight line, often without tumbling or being significantly deflected, and cuts a small, neat hole in one side and out the other. Low-caliber, high-velocity modern rifles often have this problem. They can get through modern body armor, but they don't have the stopping power to reliably disable the target.

The extra layer of armor that a Space Marine's ribcage forms thus creates a very difficult problem. If you're shooting at the center of mass, you first have to punch through the thickest part of the armor; that's going to take a round with very good penetration. You then have to punch through the ribs as well, which means you need a VERY high-velocity, small, needle-pointed round. . . but that bullet probably won't do lethal damage. And a Space Marine, even more than a human, is not going to be stopped by anything short of very serious trauma. Furthermore, even if you DO manage to punch a shot through and destroy some important organ, the Space Marine is still functional, because all those implants don't merely increase his physical performance, they also provide redundant copies of every vital organ that's behind that bone shield.

What all this means, in combination with the flesh-wound neutralizing effects of Larraman's Organ, is that in order for the basic ballistic weapons of the SPARTANs to inflict any serious damage at all they basically have to hit the groin or the head. Yes, SPARTANs are great shots, but their effective target area has now been radically reduced in size and limited to some of the most erratically-moving parts of the body; not to mention, Space Marines are extremely good shots themselves. The Space Marine can be fairly confident that wherever he's placing his bolter shells, they will do damage, even though against MJOLNIR armor it may well require multiple hits; effectively, this makes a Space Marine much less likely to be severely injured or killed by a SPARTAN than the SPARTAN is to be injured or killed by him.

So, in conclusion: Halo is trying to use pseudo-science to sound at least barely plausible to modern listeners, while 40k just goes ahead and flat-out tells us that Space Marines are t3h best!!!!1!

When you compare the two, a SPARTAN is a very tough, very fast, very skilled soldier with tremendous strength and extremely high-tech weaponry and armor, allowing him to accomplish things that no normal human could ever do and live through things that would kill any normal human.

A Space Marine is all that, with a bag of chips. He possesses superior strength, speed, and endurance, is nearly unkillable and capable of recovering rapidly from practically anything that DOES have a chance at killing him, not to mention he's been brainwashed and tortured for years until he's a psychotic killing machine that cares nothing for fear or pain. He has conscious control over his normally-unconscious bodily functions; which means, among other things, that he can flood his own system with adrenaline at will. On top of everything else, he can also go for up to two weeks without sleeping at all, and if he wants to sleep he can do so while simultaneously standing guard. He's the classic super-soldier but turned up to eleven, and then he tore the knob off and ate it, because he can do THAT too.

In conclusion of the conclusion: the setting with with a thirty seven thousand year tech advantage wins. Who could have possibly fucking predicted this?

Spartan stats

The majority of arguments in favor of the Spartans neglect to let the opposition use an Independent Character; they consistently use Master Chief as the base of comparison to your average Space Marine. Which is at least a 125-150pt character against a 16pt Marine. The below is an attempt by a writefag to make a set of stats for a basic Spartan soldier. As you can see, the dipshit horribly fumbled by giving them a statline statistically identical to a marines, and better weapons at a relatively low cost.

WS 3 / BS 4 / S 4 / T 3(4) / W 1 / I 4 / A 1 / Ld 8 / Sv 4+/6++

Composition

3 Spartan-IIs
1 Spartan-II Squad Leader

Unit Type

Infantry

Wargear

• MJOLNIR Armor
• MA5C Assault Rifle
• Combat Knife
• Frag Grenades (Offensive)

Special Rules

• At All Costs - As per their tactical doctrines, Spartans are combat veterans of independent action and deep infiltration missions. Spartans gain the Stubborn rule from the Warhammer 40k Core Rulebook.
• Shoot First, Ask Later - Spartans specialize in ranged tactics, and prefer not to engage powerful enemies head-on. Spartans will more often than not disengage from melee combat to use their ranged weapons instead. Spartans gain the Hit & Run rule from the Warhammer 40k Core Rulebook.
• Interface Targeting - Spartan wireless interface targeting systems merge flawlessly with UNSC weapons, giving a degree of precision and accuracy that is almost superhuman. The Spartan gain +1 to his Ballistic Skill (BS) when wielding weapons from the Spartan Armory, already incorporated above in their stat line.

Options:

• May Include up to 4 additional Spartan-IIs for 18 points per Model
• Any model in the squad may take an Onboard AI for 3 points per Model
• For every 4 models in a squad, one model may replace their MA5C Rifle with one of the following:
  • M90 CAWS (Shotgun)...............................6 points per Model
  • SRS99D-S2 AM (Sniper Rifle)..................10 points per Model
  • M41 SSR MAV/AW (Missile Launcher)........15 points per Model

SPARTAN ARMORY

---

• MJOLNIR Armor - Created parallel to the Spartan-II Program, the MJOLNIR Armor is a sealed system, capable of extravehicular activity or operations in toxic atmosphere. Weighing over half a metric ton, the armor's shell is constructed in overlapping layers of Titanium-A plating and highly durable ballistic alloys of remarkable strength. It has even been augmented with a refractive coating capable of dispersing a limited amount of energy weapon strikes. The Spartan gains a 4+ Armor Save.
  • MJOLNIR armor is equipped with a full-body recharging energy shield that was reverse-engineered from captured alien technology. The shield itself is utterly transparent and does not hinder sight in any way but briefly flashes a greenish-gold color when hit. The Spartan-II gains a 6+ Invulnerable Save.

• Onboard AI - All MJOLNIR Mk V models or better feature a complex crystalline matrix within their neural interface, which Cortana likened in structure to the computer systems of the Pillar of Autumn. An AI construct increases tactical awareness, provides an indispensable guide, serving almost as a co-pilot and navigator, and multiplies the Spartan's already phenomenal reflexes. A Spartan equipped with an Onboard AI increases their Initiative value by 1.

• MA5C Assault Rifle - The MA5C has an attached electronics suite that provides information on rounds remaining in the magazine, compass heading, and capable of wireless up-link with MJOLNIR systems for improved accuracy. Made of Titanium Alloy and Polymers, the rifle performs well in a variety of environments. Having a rate of fire of 650 rounds a minute, and chambering the old-school M118 7.62x51mm NATO Armor Piercing, Full Metal Jacket Rounds, the MA5C is fully capable of a withering barrage whilst even in motion or on a charge. Though lacking strength and stopping power, these rounds are designed to pierce most conventional ballistic body armor.
  • It has the following stats: Range 24" / Strength 3 / AP - / Type Rapid Fire

• M90 Shotgun - is a pump-action, magazine-fed, dual tubular non-detachable type weapon. It uses the Soellkraft 8-Gauge Magnum Shotgun Shell, a large round capable of phenomenal stopping power.
  • It has the following stats: Range 12" / Strength 4 / AP - / Type Assault 2

• Sniper Rifle S99D-S2 AM - aka the "SR System 99D-S2 Anti-Matériel", it is a semi-automatic UNSC sniper rifle that fires 14.5 x 114mm APFSDS (Armor-Piercing Fin-Stabilized Discarding Sabot, with a tungsten or depleted uranium core) from a 4-round magazine. As a sniper rifle, it is fitted with a variable-magnification optic that shows real time images in infrared vision when not looking through it. When looking through it, the scope shows a target's distance and elevation. The rifle is so powerful it even can be used effectively to fire at light armored vehicles.
  • It has the following stats: Range 36" / Strength 5 / AP 3 (When firing at vehicles, the rifle adds D3 to its Armor penetration value) / Type Heavy 1, Sniper

• M41 Rocket Launcher - aka the "M41 SSR" fires 102mm HEAP (High Explosive Armor Piercing) shaped charge rockets. The launcher sports a 2x scope and can fire rockets over long distances with devastating accuracy, and its two launch tubes allow the wielder to fire two rockets before needing to reload. The rocket launcher spreads a huge amount of damage over a large area. It is capable of taking out entire groups of infantry at any range and is effective against most vehicles.
  • It has the following stats: Range 42" / Strength 8 / AP 3 / Type Heavy 2

• M6D Handgun - This is a laser. You point it at people and they die.
  • It has the following stats: Range 36" / Strength 8 / AP 3 / Type Heavy 5, Sniper

A note on firepower

Halo tards will often try to bullshit you with retardedly massive numbers for their weapons. Don't fall for this, that 1.17 teraton number they like to throw out? Bullcrap contradicted by later sourcebooks and the games themselves. The actual number for ship based MACs is 64 kilotons, or not that much more than three hiroshima bombs put together, while super MACs are in the megaton (NOPE. GIGATON.) range. Covenant weapons are also firmly in the megaton range. In the games, their firepower drops way, way down to being less impressive than modern artillery and fighters with 70mm autocannons (aka as big as your average warhammer autocannon) taking out covenant capital ships.

40k space ships on the other hand have firepower comfortably calculated into the high gigaton to holy shit teraton range for most guns, while nova cannons can bring multiple petatons of pain and cyclonic torpedoes can go into the exa and zettatons. Yes, this means a single lunar class crusier could solo both fleets at the battle of earth without losing a single shield. On the ground Halo is actually largely inferior to modern day earth, with a shitty oversized tank that falls apart to .50 caliber machine gun, is slower than a modern abrams, has a 90mm popgun (And has the muzzle velocity of a nerf gun in it's most recent Halo 4 incarnation), and looks retarded, a derpy Jeep which is about the size of a WW2 medium tank, can only seat two people and conveniently lacks any kind of protective roof or a retardedly undergunned gunship with two piddly autocannons and piss small missiles that an RPG-7 would outdo, heck it's so undergunned that having two marines hang on the sides(!?!) of a hornet noticeably improves it's firepower.

The UNSC Marines are comparable to Imperial PDF at best (and that's being reaaallly fucking generous); with their main standard issue front line weapon being a stupidly-oversized-assault-rifle-yet-too-small-to-be-an-LMG that fires the same type of 7.62mm (No seriously look on their wiki and compare it to the other wiki's 7.62mm page it's practically the same fucking bullet) round that modern NATO and Western armies use for sniper rifles and squad level machine guns. While great, it wouldn't even go through an Imperial Guardsmen's Flak Armor which, while is little more than paper mache in it's own respective universe is bulletproof to Heavy Stubbers (The Browning M2 IN SPAACCEEE) and is incapable of blowing limbs off in one or two hits unlike the Guardsman's own Holy Flashlight. Compared to the Body Armor that the UNSC Marines wear which is still very vulnerable to ballistic weapons (Even in Halo's own Fluff and Graphic Novels it sucks when shot at by an assault rifle) and does almost jack-diddly-shit against a foe's plasma weapons that can only cause 3rd to 5th degree burns (lol it's stated in the books srsly) instead of the "OMGWTF!!! JIMMY'S A PILE OF ASHES NOW!!!!!" vaporization effect that an Imperial plasma gun has on a man sized target. UNSC marines are just shitty overall.

Covenant vehicle design is even worse, with the Scorpion tank doing so well because the Wraith is even shittier, it doesn't even have a fucking turret (it does, in Halo 2, 3, ODST, Reach, Wars and 4) and that blob it shoots is slow as shit and super god damned obvious. Covenant plasma weapons fire bolts at water balloon speeds (That's because the Wraith isn't a tank its artillery) even their infantry small arms can be dodged, they're that fucking slow, the "elites" repeatedly missed a single Spartan during a cutscene at point blank fucking range, the command structure is determined by how many kills you get, the Covenant's tactics themselves are so bad that a 19th century style infantry square stopped a vehicle charge dead in it's tracks.

Oh and their main air support vehicle? The Banshee? Top speed? 62 km/h. SLOWER THAN YOUR FUCKING CAR. And can be shot down with ASSAULT RIFLES (Halo CE maybe, but it was only because of the shitty job they did on the AI). We all make fun of 40ks weird designs, but Halo designs are both actually even shittier and perform way, way worse and have way, way less dakka. Conquering the modern halo setting would be such a ridiculously easy job that Imperial warmasters would fight over the right to partake in such a curbstomp.

It should be noted however that a lot of this is a result of being a video game. Slow projectiles are an hang up of Doom were you have to sidestep in other to avoid damage. The short ranges of weapons are because it wouldn't be all that fun if you shot at dudes form 300 meters away. And slow speed is due to scaling ex Mater Chief only runs at 10-15 mph (compare to Doom Guy's 50 mph that's slow)

See Also

• 1R0QU012

The CC Debate, in which rage ensues