Setting:Halo

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Hardcorez

Halo is a vidyagame series exclusively released for the ECKSBAWKS, ECKSBAWKS 360 and to the 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 your everyday generic sci-fi storyline you can think of with a multiplayer that isn't too original either. It's also famous for its FUCKING cliffhangers.

/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.

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-Fujiwara 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 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.

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.

USNC 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. In crunch, they vary from scripted death-by-anything to being able to laugh off multiple Fuel Rod Gun hits.

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.

• Jackals: Irritating bastard-creatures with space shields who like to throw grenades at you.

• 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.

• 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 handguns. They are armed with powerful 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.

• 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.

• 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.

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.

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.

Finally, with all their massive fleets defeated and all their soldiers massacred (somehow), 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 hid themselves in the Halo devices waiting for the day the new civilizations would rise so that they might feed again, in the meantime surviving on copious supplies of yoghurt or something.

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 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 universe. 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.

Warhammer 40k and Halo comparison

Why this topic is so popular is beyond comprehension and probably only Tzeentch knows why it came into being. Still it should be addressed with some measure of competence, unlike some people. Firstly, it is rather absurd to compare both universes, since it is like mixing Apples and Onions; You don't know why it happened, but it did and you will have to eat the end result through your ass since that's the same way it's gonna come out. Moving on...

Secondly, the dates are all wrong. Warhammer 40k takes place in the year grimdark 40,000 AD while HALO takes place in fledgling space-faring setting of 2500 AD, there is like a fucking 37,500-year difference... That kinda throws a logical wrench in most conflicting facts about both. Differences in technology are expected.

Third, focusing now on the marked arguments on Spartans vs Astartes. One cannot really objectively relate one thing to the other, since their training, values, experience, gear, and fighting styles are exceedingly different. Since the awesomeness of the Astartes are well-documented by a hundred authors and writefags, this will largely be about the Spartans, and hopefully rather objective. Keep in mind, the author sounding like an Ass may result.

A DIFFERENCE IN PERSPECTIVE

What is often missed by most Spartan vs Astartes debates is not their physical and mental strengths, but the Combat Tactics of both soldiers. They are exceedingly different when it comes to waging war. Spartans don't really put much on things like Glory, Honor, and Faith, as Space Marines do. They just do what they can to Get Shit Done, if it means knifing someone in the back instead of facing them head on, or sneaking around and planting tactical nukes instead of charging and bulldozing head-first, so be it. Because they are so few, they cannot afford to sacrifice themselves needlessly for glory.

In fact a Warhammer 40k Vindicare assassin performs very much the same operations as a whole squad of Spartans (the Vindicare has more training and is an infinitely more dedicated marksman than any Spartan), but the concept remains the same. They go in deep behind enemy lines and do as much damage as possible with as little direct risk to themselves; making use of cover, sensor deficiencies, camouflage, subterfuge, deception, even the cloak of night. If they can get an enemy to shoot himself, or better yet, Nuke their own base, their job is done.

In contrast, Space Marines rarely make use of cover or infiltration, with a few notable exceptions. Space Marines fight head on, their incredible armor, brutal weaponry, and all out stamina and strength enable them to smash into enemy lines like a tide of death. Faced with a simple question between remaining at-range or charging-in with Chainsword in hand, the Space Marine will almost always charge, making use of their vast CQ combat skills. Plus they nearly always have support units in orbit, via Orbital strike, Deep Strike, Thunderhawk strike, Tank strike, and various other strike-strike. Spartans rarely have that kind of support, human ships usually get obliterated, and UNSC marines are far to the rear.

Compared to a space marine, Spartans have shit and sticks, that's it and they don't ask for more. They focus more on mobility than stagnantly holding the line, that's why their armor streamlined instead of hulking and boxy. It makes them more vulnerable to enemy weapons, but if they are moving fast enough, or if they are hidden, that really won't matter. Spartans, before the Covenant war, were once deployed against insurgents and terrorists, so they are highly familiar with guerrilla warfare (a tactic best used against a much larger powerful opponent).

They are an independent small unit of soldiers, usually four in every team, trained to be away for long periods of time from any command structure. As evidence by Grey Team, and even Blue Team (Masterchief's own squad). They are taught to improvise, salvage/steal and use alien weapons (they even have standing orders from the UNSC to steal alien technology), pilot enemy vehicles, take every advantage and cheap shot, to win, to survive. They are taught to observe, to capitalize on battlefield intel provided beforehand and on-site, judging and controlling a field first long before engaging.

They are masters of the Hit-and-run strikes and they don't fuck around about honor and doctrine. No Primarch wrote a Codex for how Spartans should fight so they had to make shit up as they went along. They are not afraid or even banned from using whatever means possible to win. If they have a chance to take you out without you ever seeing them, like planting C4 in your pancakes, so be it. Spartans are kinda Dicks that way, but that's fine by them as long as shit gets done. Against a Space Marine charge, Spartans will plant a Nuke and GTFO, without a second thought (no Last Stands unless ordered to do so).

In a Combat scenario, as per Spartan doctrine, a Space Marine squad will usually be lead into an area where the Spartans have already set up minefields, booby traps, sniper kill-zones, and several heavy gun emplacements that capitalize on over-lapping fields of fire (along with Spartans' incredible range combat skills). THEN, when/if the Space Marines are dead, they will move amongst the corpses and start Securing Bolters and other advance weapons to use in the next engagement... THEN, the Spartans will die after the Spess Mehreens stroll through everything they have done and proceed to tear them apart with their fists.That is how Spartans SPESS MEHREENS fight... They will always engage Spartans head on. Nor will they charge-in with a covenant sword and attempt to idiotically outpace a Spartan, because that's why we have the Imperial Guard. That is not how they think. Unless one intentionally throws them into an arena match, which is kinda foolish, because then the advantage goes to the extensive sparring training, melee experience, and hand-to-hand brutality of an Astartes. The Spartan mind as well kneel down and start sucking the marine's cock, since the battle would fundamentally be pointless and tactically wrong in every way.

A Spartan will almost never fight fairly, he will bring a Tank to a Knife-fight or whatever he deems necessary. Heck, Spartans don't even engage Covenant Brutes toe-to-toe, electing to use rocket launchers instead, and they just gun down Covenant sword-wielding Elites. Why use another dumb sword, when you can Snipe them? Some call it cheating, Spartans call it survival, others call it pussy. For these are desperate tactics, in insurmountable times. The Covenant both outnumbers humanity, and has more advantage technology; they have quantity AND quality on their side. And, in the HALO universe, humanity has lost nearly 60% of all its remaining military forces. It is a tactical nightmare for any soldier on the losing side. Spartans have to use every cheap trick and unconventional weapon in the terrorist handbook.

If they cannot fortify an area, they will blow it up/scorched earth, leaving nothing for the enemy to use against them (which is actually the SOP for modern day U.S. Marines). They do have a certain level of humanity as they try to keep civilian causalities to a minimum (they are, after all, fighting for humanity), but other than that hell blows the fuck up on a regular basis. Sadly, Spartans usually always die in the process. Ultimately, every human life on the battlefield is an expendable resource to the UNSC just to buy humanity a little more time to survive.

Spartan vs. Space Marine

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 respirw 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 it's 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.

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.

WS 3 / BS 5 / S 4 / T 3(4) / W 1 / I 4 / A 1 / Ld 8 / Sv 4+/5++

Composition

3 Spartan-IIs
1 Spartan-II Squad Leader

Unit Type

Infanty

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

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• 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 5+ 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 phenominal 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

See Also

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The CC Debate, in which rage ensues