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The Resume of a Spartan IV

OP 8/14/2016

hsvrunlover

Recruit - Onyx

I have seen this brought up on other threads, there are many who feel as though Spartan IV's are not worthy to wear the armor. So I would like to ask, what exactly do you feel makes someone a Spartan?

I would like to start off with this comparison, Buck vs Tom vs Naomi.

Tom is a Spartan III who was trained as a kid and has shown exceptional skill even without Mjolnir armor. While he is not extremely seasoned he has been good enough to become part of Blue team.

Buck is the poster child of a soldier. He has survived countless encounters with an enemy who could easily kill him as has arguably done more than most Spartan's before coming one. This guy has fought 25 years in a war with no shields.

Naomi, she is your typical Spartan II trained as a child to be a walking death machine and is.

Out of the three Buck to me personally is who I would call a hero. He is a guy who has chosen to put his life on the line he was never forced to. And he has survived only because of his skill and not his armor.

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8/15/2016

Nneutrino

Marine - Silver

I hate this discussion, it's so full of bias.

. This "true spartan" fallacy is just garbage thought up by the anti-343 circle jerk so they could have something else to complain about . It's sole reason for existence is because Spartan IVs are a 343 creation and not a bungie one.

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8/15/2016

UrbaneRocket495

Spartan - Iron

Nneutrino wrote:
I hate this discussion, it's so full of bias.

. This "true spartan" fallacy is just garbage thought up by the anti-343 circle jerk so they could have something else to complain about . It's sole reason for existence is because Spartan IVs are a 343 creation and not a bungie one.

I think its part that, I think the other is that h4 just portrayed them badly.

We got a bunch of people who mostly seemed like unprofessional rookies in terms of demeanor. One member of Majestic was even there because of political ties. We then had a traitor or two in escalation which didn't help either. They also all seemed fairly young.

Locke and Buck help lead credence to the truth that yes, S-IV's are supposed to primarily be pulling from experienced combatents. Though for some reason both Tanaka and Vale seem once more on the more inexperienced end, iat least they don't seem like some inexperienced dudebros.

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8/16/2016

roamingmachine

Marine - Bronze

UrbaneRocket495 wrote:
Nneutrino wrote:
I hate this discussion, it's so full of bias.
. This "true spartan" fallacy is just garbage thought up by the anti-343 circle jerk so they could have something else to complain about . It's sole reason for existence is because Spartan IVs are a 343 creation and not a bungie one.
I think its part that, I think the other is that h4 just portrayed them badly.
We got a bunch of people who mostly seemed like unprofessional rookies in terms of demeanor. One member of Majestic was even there because of political ties. We then had a traitor or two in escalation which didn't help either. They also all seemed fairly young.
Locke and Buck help lead credence to the truth that yes, S-IV's are supposed to primarily be pulling from experienced combatents. Though for some reason both Tanaka and Vale seem once more on the more inexperienced end, iat least they don't seem like some inexperienced dudebros.

Here's what i think people don't get about S-IV's:
They are not just doorkickers anymore. They have specilized Spartan pilots, technicians, engineers, intelligence people and more. They essentially have the ability for teams to meet almost any mission requirements without having to scrounge fragile normal human support to come with them or rely on flaky communications. Just think how valuable this is, knowing the spectrum of craziness that Spartan missions tend to involve.
Osiris is the perfect example of this: Locke is an intelligence specialist, Buck is a hard-core veteran and great for liasing with other UNSC troops, Tanaka is an engineer (who can operate fusion plants by herself, btw) and a survival specialist and Vale is a 'people person'. Now, i know 'people person' or 'face' doesn't sound very exiting but being able to figure out and build a rapport with wildly diffrent cultures (both human and alien) makes her perhaps the most valuble member of the team.

I think that what has happened that the first 1-2 batches were modeled after the earlier Spartan programs to produce the kind of troops HIGHCOM was expecting to get (doorkickers) and once the future of the program was secured they expanded the talent pool to make the branch much more useful in the long term.

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8/16/2016

Juhox7751

Marine - Onyx

The problem in my opinion is that SIV's are mass produced and If they were as over powered as S2's they would be ridiculously powerfull bunch. Instead like roamingmachine said they should be seen as special force with a large talent pool. As soldier's they're like ODST's on steroids but not really supersoldiers in the way S2's were. Of course some of them are but most of them are not. This is at least how I would like them to be presented in the games.

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8/16/2016

Nneutrino

Marine - Silver

UrbaneRocket495 wrote:
Nneutrino wrote:
I hate this discussion, it's so full of bias.
. This "true spartan" fallacy is just garbage thought up by the anti-343 circle jerk so they could have something else to complain about . It's sole reason for existence is because Spartan IVs are a 343 creation and not a bungie one.
I think its part that, I think the other is that h4 just portrayed them badly.
We got a bunch of people who mostly seemed like unprofessional rookies in terms of demeanor. One member of Majestic was even there because of political ties. We then had a traitor or two in escalation which didn't help either. They also all seemed fairly young.
Locke and Buck help lead credence to the truth that yes, S-IV's are supposed to primarily be pulling from experienced combatents. Though for some reason both Tanaka and Vale seem once more on the more inexperienced end, iat least they don't seem like some inexperienced dudebros.

apparently any characterization that isn't "gravelly voiced strong silent type" is now unprofessional dudebro
Jesus christ, no thank you. I like variety from my characters, and ones that can take the piss out of a combat situation is a welcome change.

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8/16/2016

Killer Orca

Spartan - Bronze

Way I see it, a Spartan is a Spartan if they are A) loyal to the UNSC and B) get the job done.
Do the IVs get the job done? Yes.
Are they loyal? For the most part...probably a lot more so than standard Marine/Trooper/Militia units are. We've had...what, two, three confirmed traitors among their ranks, both of whom got pwned by other S-IVs pretty quickly after showing their true colors?

By that measurement at least Id say S-IVs are real Spartans.
The S-IIs and S-IIIs pass both with flying colors without even needing to think about it (rest in peace, Alpha and Beta Companies, Holly and Dante)

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8/16/2016

Gek Lhar

Marine - Iron

Spartan II's and Spartan IV's are so close in combat capabilities. People need to get over it.

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8/16/2016

Luke Del

ODST - Bronze

Nneutrino wrote:
UrbaneRocket495 wrote:
Nneutrino wrote:
I hate this discussion, it's so full of bias.
. This "true spartan" fallacy is just garbage thought up by the anti-343 circle jerk so they could have something else to complain about . It's sole reason for existence is because Spartan IVs are a 343 creation and not a bungie one.
I think its part that, I think the other is that h4 just portrayed them badly.
We got a bunch of people who mostly seemed like unprofessional rookies in terms of demeanor. One member of Majestic was even there because of political ties. We then had a traitor or two in escalation which didn't help either. They also all seemed fairly young.
Locke and Buck help lead credence to the truth that yes, S-IV's are supposed to primarily be pulling from experienced combatents. Though for some reason both Tanaka and Vale seem once more on the more inexperienced end, iat least they don't seem like some inexperienced dudebros.
apparently any characterization that isn't "gravelly voiced strong silent type" is now unprofessional dudebro
Jesus christ, no thank you. I like variety from my characters, and ones that can take the piss out of a combat situation is a welcome change.

This is my main gripe with the community on this issue. The Spartan IVs simply can't win; any character whose personality deviated from the 'quiet stoic' is labelled a "dudebro", and those that resemble the 'quiet stoic' trope are labelled boring i.e. Tanaka and Locke. On top of that, many generalise all Spartan IVs to be "unprofessional dudebros" when only two Spartan IVs of the many we've seen (DeMarco and Madsen) have resembled that trope in the slightest.

When it comes to Spartans, there are a lot of double standards held in this community.

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8/16/2016

SableVENOM

Marine - Iron

My only gripe with the S-IV's is how many there are of them. Like, to me Spartans will always be UNSC's special forces but if pretty much anyone can undergo the treatment and wear the armor they feel less special.
I mean, if you go from, what? Roughly a few hundred of SII's and SIII's out of tens of thousands of UNSC servicemen to the Spartans actually being their own, fifth, branch of the UNSC they feel to common for special forces.

To me it's understandable if S-IV's are veterans (Locke, Buck, etc.) from different UNSC branches or geniuses (Vale, Tanaka) but in Halo 4 it felt as if most of the S-IV's were just regular mofos who decided to sign up for the Spartan program with no prior military experience at all.

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8/16/2016

tL Armada

ODST - Bronze

SableVENOM wrote:
My only gripe with the S-IV's is how many there are of them. Like, to me Spartans will always be UNSC's special forces but if pretty much anyone can undergo the treatment and wear the armor they feel less special.

But just because anyone can be augmented and don MJOLNIR doesn't mean the UNSC will do that. While the extensive cost of augmenting and producing GEN.2 armor has decreased, it is still very expensive. The UNSC just wouldn't have the funds to support that.

SableVENOM wrote:
I mean, if you go from, what? Roughly a few hundred of SII's and SIII's out of tens of thousands of UNSC servicemen to the Spartans actually being their own, fifth, branch of the UNSC they feel to common for special forces.

Just because the IVs are apart of their own branch now doesn't mean they're being recruited by the boatload. There are only around 300-500 IVs in service. Out of the UNSC's combined forces, that is a very small number.

SableVENOM wrote:

To me it's understandable if S-IV's are veterans (Locke, Buck, etc.) from different UNSC branches or geniuses (Vale, Tanaka) but in Halo 4 it felt as if most of the S-IV's were just regular mofos who decided to sign up for the Spartan program with no prior military experience at all.

I didn't get that impression in Halo 4. Most of the IVs seemed to be respectful and skilled. Even Majestic, who are popularly harped on, got the job done when they were in combat zones.

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8/18/2016

Old Sweepi

Marine - Gold

One thing I feel people over look a lot in the SII, SIII, and SIV debate is mentality. Between the ages of 6 and 12 is one of the major growing stages for the brain. So could you imagine what that'll do to a person trained in nothing but war from 6-18?.. Death machine... Though that's technically the definition of Spartan , trained in war since childhood. But due to the moral implications of child soldiers, I'd say to be a Spartan , you have to be a seasoned warrior and a damn good one.

One of the things I don't like is when people bring up how buck and others had no heavy armor or shields. They didn't, but they weren't sent on the same missions Spartans were and Spartans only had 3-5 guys per team. The job of an ODST may have been to be feet first into hell. But the job of a Spartan was to make sure hell was crowded when they got there

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