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Master Chief (Halo)

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Master Chief Petty Officer Spartan John-117 (alternatively known by his rank, Master Chief or John-117; to the Covenant, as the Demon) is a fictional character featured in the video games ', Halo 2 and in a fan made free download game Halo Zero. He also played a role in the novels ', ', and '.

Although his official military designation is Spartan-117, he is most often referred to simply as the "Master Chief" or "Chief", short for his rank of Master Chief Petty Officer. The traditional rank of Master Chief is a purely administrative position, but the protagonist of Halo is more like an action hero.

The Master Chief is a SPARTAN-II Super Soldier, a genetically and cybernetically augmented warrior designed to put down rebels and insurgents within the United Nations Space Command. When the powerful alien empire known as the Covenant attacked, the Master Chief and the other Spartans had a priority shift. Extensive surgical alteration coupled with a ruthless lifelong training regimen has resulted in Master Chief being significantly stronger than even the strongest natural human, and his strength and fighting ability are further augmented by the advanced MJOLNIR power armor he wears.

According to Bungie Studios, The Master Chief stands 7 feet tall and weighs approximately 'half a ton' in full battle armor (2.1 metres and 454 kilograms). He is approximately forty-one years old at the time of the events of Halo: Combat Evolved (2552). Between Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2, the Chief's armor is upgraded from MJOLNIR Mark V to Mark VI. Both iterations of the armor include a helmet with reflective visor so the face of the Chief is never seen: in spite he is seen removing his helmet once in each game, the camera view always conceals the Master Chief's face from the viewers. Master Chief is voiced by Steve Downes in both and Halo 2.

Contents

Character history

The Fall Of Reach

John was born in 2511 and spent the first part of his childhood at Elysium City, on the human colony planet Eridanus 2 where he lived with his family. John was large for his age at the time, approximately a foot above his school peers, a sign of a "perfect genetic match" for a project dubbed "SPARTAN-II". He is described (at the age of six) as having brown hair, freckles and a gap inbetween his two front teeth. This is the only clear description of his face ever given in the Halo universe.

In 2517, John and seventy-four other children his age were covertly taken from their homes and replaced with flash clones. This specific form of clone was employed to ensure that none of the families knew that their children had been kidnapped. However, the cloning was rushed and unstable and all of the clones died shortly after from what was termed as 'Metabolic Cascade Failure' making it seem like natural causes. Dr. Catherine Halsey, head of the Spartan II project, later commented that this side effect was unfortunate, but the timeframe requirements of the project left no alternative. The original children were brought to planet Reach, one of the UNSC's headquarters, to train to become SPARTAN-II supersoldiers. On Reach, the abducted children began intensive physical, mental and psychological training as part of the Spartan program, and were assigned new identification numbers instead of last names. John became known as John-117. Despite popular belief, there appears to be no direct correlation between the numbers assigned to the recruits and when they were selected. (however, John's DOB ends with the number 11, and the first two digits added together are 7, making 117 backwards, though this might just be a coincidence.)

On the first day (September 24, 2517) John met his teammates Kelly-087 and Sam-034. They later become best friends. On July 12, 2519, at the age of eight they were sent out into the wilderness in Pelican dropships to participate in a survival exercise. Their trainer, Chief Petty Officer Mendez, said the last trainee to complete the objective had to walk back to the base from the mountainous wilderness. The trainees quickly got involved in a fight with men who wore no uniforms or insignia (who were assigned by Mendez to protect the Pelican from the trainees) that resulted in extensive injuries. John wanted to make sure everyone got back so he and his fellow trainees stole the Pelican and flew it back to the military complex. When they returned home Mendez deemed him Squad Leader as a result of both his ability to adapt and his leadership over the other Spartans.

In March 2525, the children were biologically, genetically and eventually cybernetically augmented and enhanced, undergoing the following procedures:

These procedures had substantial risks, and only 33 Spartans of the original 75 survived to functional status after the augmentations (At the time of augmentation, there were actually only 64 Spartans). Of the others, 12 suffered 'significant impairment' and were relegated to tactical and administrative duties in the Reach complex. The rest died. John, during his time with the Spartans, was deemed the "luckiest" and was the first to test the MJOLNIR armor. He also took command of the trainees during free-form tactical exercises.

John-117's first real mission (September of that same year) was against rebels in the asteroid belt of the Eridanus System, where his homeworld was located. He was wounded but not incapacitated while leading his squad to capture Colonel Robert Watts, leader of the insurgent forces. He received a Purple Heart after the mission.

Later on November 2, 2525 he was briefed on the Covenant threat; he and the other Spartans would fight for many years against this new enemy. They were first sent to the Damascus Materials Testing Facility on the planet Chi Ceti 4 to retrieve the MJOLNIR Mark V armor. While retrieving the armor they encountered a Covenant frigate above the planet: Sam, Kelly and John subsequently boarded it and planted a bomb. This resulted in the death of Sam, who stayed behind to ensure the detonation of the explosives, and because of a puncture in his armor that disallowed direct travel through space. John was forced to leave the Covenant ship along with one of his closest friends.

The Flood

As Earth fought a losing war against the Covenant, the UNSC High Command developed a last-ditch plan to capture a Covenant High Prophet, who they hoped could be used in order to barter a truce. Before this mission could be put into action, Reach, the staging ground for the operation and the centre of naval operations, was attacked. The majority of the Spartans were diverted to Reach's surface to defend groundside installations and the fusion reactors for the MAC guns in orbit. The Master Chief was sent along with two other Spartans, Linda and James, to destroy a small Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) stealth ship so that the vessel's navigation info, which could lead the Covenant to Earth, would not fall into enemy hands. As the UNSC fleet, the Marines and Spartans defending Reach were being destroyed, the Master Chief managed to complete his mission and return to the Pillar of Autumn. However, James was lost in deep space and Linda was placed into a cryo chamber aboard the Pillar of Autumn after being severely wounded in action. Knowing Reach was lost, the Pillar of Autumn plotted a random course as per the Cole Protocol. The Master Chief, seemingly the last Spartan alive, went into cryo sleep along with the Autumn's crew, standard operating procedure for slipspace jumps. As Reach's rivers turned to steam and the land became molten slag as a result of the Covenant's orbital bombardment, a few Spartans managed to escape and hide in the one area that was not being targeted.

Upon coming out of slipspace, the Pillar of Autumn, commanded by Captain Jacob Keyes, aided by Cortana, the ship's Artificial Intelligence, was attacked by the Covenant and crash landed on Installation 04, called 'Halo' by the Covenant. In the midst of fighting the Covenant, it was discovered that Halo was a ring-shaped construct created by the Forerunners as a last line of defense against an alien parasite called The Flood. The Flood was accidentally unleashed by exploratory Covenant; as a direct result, a majority of the Covenant and UNSC troops who landed on Halo were infected and became Flood themselves. On behalf of the installation's Monitor, a hundred millennia-old A.I. called 343 Guilty Spark, the Master Chief retrieved the Index, a device which would activate Halo and supposedly wipe out the Flood. However, Guilty Spark neglected to inform Master Chief that Halo would accomplish this by destroying all sentient life in a vast radius, essentially starving The Flood to death. From Guilty Spark's words, it is implied that he believed that the "other installations" would follow suit, and the entire galaxy would be wiped clean of sentient life. Cortana's timely intervention prevented Halo's activation, and the two decided to destroy Halo itself. Fighting off immeasurable numbers of Covenant, Flood, and Guilty Spark's Forerunner Sentinels, the Chief temporarily disabled Halo's firing mechanism, and made his way back to the Pillar of Autumn. There, he used the ship's fusion reactor core to trigger an explosion that initiated a chain reaction that allowed Halo's centrifugal forces to tear itself apart, destroying Halo and crippling the Covenant invasion/occupation forces led by the future Arbiter that had destroyed Reach and pursued the Pillar of Autumn.

First Strike

The Master Chief, along with the few UNSC personnel who survived Halo, managed to capture the Covenant flagship Ascendant Justice, and return to Reach to contact Earth's High Command. At Reach, the Master Chief discovered that the Covenant had not eradicated the planet's biosphere the way they normally did, and that a few other Spartans were still alive. He retrieved them, as well as Dr. Catherine Halsey, the creative genius behind the SPARTAN-II project. The Spartans then attacked a Covenant command station, the Unyielding Hierophant, which was being used as a staging area for an attack on Earth - or, at least, Earth's coordinates.

By the end of the novel, the only other remaining Halo survivor is Sergeant Avery Johnson, whose life was in the Master Chief's hands. Prior to Dr. Halsey's disappearance, Halsey gives Master Chief a final lesson about sacrificing a life for the greater good, or saving every single life possible. In Johnson's case, the Master Chief had the option to give just the combat data on the Flood, or give the complete data including Johnson's freak accident survival. At the end of First Strike, the Master Chief chose to give the regular combat data. Furthermore, only five of the original Spartans are in active service: Linda (Spartan-058), who was revived by Dr. Halsey's medical care and organ transplants, Will (Spartan-043), Fred (Spartan-104), and John himself. Kelly, Spartan-087, is still alive but has been kidnapped by Dr. Halsey for purposes unknown. All other Spartans are either missing in action (MIA) or confirmed killed in action; however, dead SPARTANs are listed as Missing in action to maintain the illusion that Spartans cannot die, in an effort to give the human race hope and to boost morale.

In addition to the five Spartans mentioned above, there are in fact three other Spartans who were out of range when the Spartans were gathered on the Pillar of Autumn, prior to the fall of Reach and the events on Installation 04. They may have since fallen to Covenant forces, or are currently en route to Earth.

Halo 2

Upon arriving back on Earth, the Master Chief's heavily damaged Mark V MJOLNIR armor was replaced by the newer Mark VI model, based on improvements made to the Covenant technology used in the Mark V. Will, Fred, and Linda are un-accounted for, but it is heavily speculated that they are undergoing extensive medical attention. The Master Chief attended a brief awards ceremony aboard Cairo Station defense platform, which was rudely interrupted by a Covenant invasion force, comprised of an unusually small fleet of ships. The Covenant boarded Cairo Station, but were repelled by the Master Chief and the UNSC troops. He destroyed one of their ships with their own bomb intended to destroy the station, and reached the In Amber Clad (Miranda Keyes' ship) which descended to New Mombasa to combat Covenant ground forces. He boarded and destroyed a massive Scarab walker with the assistance of a small squad of Marines. As the Covenant departed using a slipspace jump within the city, the In Amber Clad followed them to Installation 05 - another Halo. On this new Halo, the Master Chief fought and killed the Covenant High Prophet of Regret.

MCPO John was then captured by the Flood Gravemind after barely escaping from the High Prophet's main temple and met his Covenant Elite counterpart, the Arbiter. The Gravemind had a secret agenda and sent the two soldiers to stop the Prophet Hierachs from activating Delta Halo. (Even without Installation 04, the devastation caused by the remaining six rings would still be apocalyptic, destroying both races and much of the Flood's food sources) Gravemind sent the Master Chief to infiltrate High Charity, the Covenant capital city-ship, while the Arbiter went to try and stop Tartarus, on the surface of Delta Halo itself. As the Chief distracted the Covenant on High Charity, who were already embroiled in a civil war of their own, the Gravemind hijacked the abandoned In Amber Clad, filled it with Flood combat forms, and Slipspace jumped the unlucky ship into High Charity. Out of the wreckage spilled a Flood invasion force.

MCPO John followed the Prophet of Truth to a Forerunner ship through waves of Flood Combat Forms and managed to board it before it embarked for Earth. Cortana remained on High Charity to detonate the In Amber Clad in case Delta Halo was activated.

Halo 3

On May 9, 2006, Bungie released a trailer and official announcement on their website confirming Halo 3. Halo 3 will continue John's story on Earth. The trailer shows he will fight the Covenant on Earth to prevent its annihilation. In the teaser trailer it shows the Master Chief walking towards what seems to be a major Forerunner artifact, though the purpose or usefulness of this artifact is unknown. He is shown in his green armour (which has now faded to a golden colour) appearing as if he has been in many battles [link]. Although many people have speculated it isn't Spartan-117, Bungie has confirmed in a Weekly Update that it is in fact him. [link] Also some have noticed three flashes on his visor followed by a slight nod, which may be indicating that there are other Spartans and he is communicating with them as it is said they learned in the books. It is more likely, however, that the flashes are simply reflections of the vortex lighting seen in the trailer, and that the 'nod' is irrelevant.

Trivia

Halo has become such a popular series that it has made guest appearances in other games as well, cementing its status as a videogame icon:

External links

[ v]·[ d]·[ e]
Halo
Halo universe | Halo Installations | Halo (film) | Haunted Apiary | Halo Zero
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Halo Original Soundtrack | | |
Halo 2
Halo 2 | Halo 2 Multiplayer Map Pack | Halo 2 Limited Collector's Edition
| | List of vehicles in Halo 2 | List of multiplayer gametypes in Halo 2 | List of multiplayer maps in Halo 2 | List of Halo 2 changes
Halo 3
Halo 3
Halo Media
| | | | Conversations from the Universe | Halo graphic novel
Races
The Forerunner | Human | The Covenant | The Flood
Main characters
Master Chief (Spartan-117) | Cortana | The Arbiter | Tartarus | The Prophets
Minor characters
Catherine Elizabeth Halsey | Foe Hammer | 2401 Penitent Tangent | 343 Guilty Spark | Sergeant Banks | Fleet Admiral Harper | Sergeant Johnson | Captain Jacob Keyes | Nicole (Spartan-458) | Gravemind

 

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