Spartan (Grizzlei)

"Honoro quod vallo."

- Motto of the Spartan Branch (Latin for "To honor and defend. ")

Spartan (CS; also known as "Spartan Branch ") is the newly independent branch of the Colonial Forces responsible for the command, maintenance, and training of. The result of jurisdictional infighting between the Army and Fleet, Spartan Branch was established on October 2nd, 2554 at the request of Fleet Admiral Margaret Parangosky, Commander-in-Chief, Naval Intelligence.

At an estimated strength of 2,500 Spartans and over 8,000 support personnel, this force has the smallest operational component of any branch in the military. Spartan, unique to any other branch, has no organic military personnel and draws its manpower directly from the SOCOM units of the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps. Civilian medical, science, and engineering staff have traditionally been recruited from Naval Intelligence, Ministries of Health and Science, and various corporations.

Spartan Branch is headquartered at the in Seongnam, Gyeonggi, Korea and is commanded by Commodore Isabelle Spencer, a  who enlisted in the SPARTAN-IV project.

Generational overview
The Colonial Forces, while acknowledging that Spartan Branch primarily contains fourth-generation soldiers, states that the lineage of the command consists of all three prior classes of supersoldiers, dating back to the first tests in the 2200's.

ADAPT: The First Spartan
Formed on June 28th, 2265, the "" (or ADAPT) was the first attempt at creating a unit of commandos with stable genetic enhancements to fill the expanding ranks of the newly established United Nations Special Operations Command. Led by Dr. Abraham Wheaton, ADAPT began as little more than a "pet science project" in the eyes of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and was subsequently funded very poorly in-favor of amalgamating national Terran, Lunar, and Martian special forces into the increasing colonial fold. This caused resources to run dry for Wheaton, who was unable to test his remarkable protocols for gene manipulation, furthermore compacted by SOCOM's resistance to recruiting candidates. Ultimately, Dr. Wheaton would call upon his niece, Hayley Carter, following her failed attempts at enlisting as a rifleman in the Marine Corps due to mental and physical handicaps. Early treatments to Carter's immune system nearly proved fatal to the 18-year old girl and Wheaton risked permanent damage to all her vital systems, risking the cancellation of ADAPT and ultimately, the death of his niece.

Allowing her body to recuperate for three months following the failed treatment regimen, Wheaton noticed that Hayley was rapidly healing in places that would previously require long-term recovery as well as additions to her skeletal structure and bone density. Though the process was slow, even with gradual injections, Hayley was proving her uncle's work a success. However, March 2266 would be the defining moment when Wheaton began his final work in curing her mental illnesses and shortly after, altering her functions to include superior senses and reflex abilities. His doubts misplaced as the manipulation quickly spread and his niece finally ended her trials. Enlisting the help of her reluctant father, a former Force Recon Marine, she began rigorous physical, mental, and combat training for the next two years in the remote Martian Highlands. SOCOM, which had ignored Wheaton for some time, began observation of Hayley and later approached the now 21-year old supersoldier. Then began her expansive career of 20 years in the United Nations Marine Corps in the rapidly growing colonies, serving as the commander of infantry, reconnaissance, and Human intelligence units. Carter earned nearly every major accommodation that a serviceman could receive, including the and retired after serving as Commander, MacMillian Special Warfare Center in Scotland shaping the training, doctrine, and role of Special Operations Forces for the future. A further unit of 11 additional supersoldiers would be enhanced with Wheaton's research following his death, though only two of the candidates survived the augmentation process.

Brigadier General Hayley Carter's true identity as a supersoldier was known to very few until 226 years later when she became a figurehead in the lore taught to the first generation of augmented soldiers who would be altered with her uncle's successful research learned about her. Though the story of conspiracy theorists for centuries, Carter would be revealed to the public as "The First Spartan" in the non-fiction novel Saviors of the Damned by war journalist.

The Orion Project
"Who Dares Wins."

- Motto of the Naval Clandestine Group

For a century, the economic and political differences between the prosperous and the developing  drove a divide in relations between Earth and the far reaches of its new empire. Advocates for the secession of individual colonies to become independent nations grew in numbers as Earth impressed further into uncharted space. Militant elements, consisting mostly of disgruntled colonial soldiers and Marines, proposed conflict openly in The Congress. Their pleas would be followed by an increasing reluctance in the Outer Commonwealths to accept Earth's colonial governance, security, and aid. Civil war between pro-Commonwealth and anti-Earth populations raged on a number of colonies, soon spreading to encompass the UNSC Army and Marine Corps spread thin by over-expansion. Thus begun the opening shots of the Colonial Civil War which would ultimately spread to the present day.

suggested to, a group of advanced constructs influencing the course of the Human race, that the United Nations Space Command should reconsider the ADAPT (Advanced Augmentation Project) in its strategy to counter the growing "." Its motion would carry weight with the committee, supported by the of  endorsed independently by the UNSC High Command. Within a month, 10 trillion cR would be funded to the High Yield Defense Research Agency for the creation of a battalion of supersoldiers known as "ORION." Throughout Summer 2490, the Joint Special Operations Command in-partnership with BETA-5 Special Activities Division enlisted 65 candidates from Naval Special Warfare (Army SOC was noted as being full of "innie" sympathizers) to begin brutal, unsanctioned training in-preparation for augmentations. Miraculously, every one of the 65 sailors and Marines exited gene manipulation without any noticeable side effects. This would be followed by analysis of individual augments through comprehensive re-training; these procedures, kept in-secret by The Assembly and BETA-5, were written by Brigadier Hayley Carter for the effective training of supersoldiers. ORION would be cleared for unrestricted active duty as the Naval Clandestine Group in November 2495 with Captain Rafael Ackerson in command.

The first deployment by an augmented unit would occur two months after Clandestine Group's activation. On January 24th, 2496, during of the Eridanus War, the Orions fought a superior force of rebel soldiers surrounding the  and holding its staff of 8,000 hostage with a Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb. This rebel regiment, one of the largest seen at the time, was the primary combatant force of the region's secessionist group and had threatened to cut off trade for nearly 2/3rd's of the colony. In this lightning action, the Orion's of the Naval Clandestine Group had killed or captured a majority of the regiment on the ground; a small team of 10 Orions, including future Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps Avery Johnson, would conduct the first use of prototype by hurling their vehicles into the tether's sub-orbital transit station to disarm the bomb. Both actions achieved 100% success rates with only one minor casualty incurred upon the newly combat experienced supersoldiers.

Orions would spearhead Special Operations Command's efforts against the emboldened insurrection for the next ten years and would grow to a force numbering 326 commandos following two additional classes of 100 and 161 candidates, respectively. The supersoldiers would fight in the conflict's most heated battles in every corner of Earth's colonial empire and would receive acclaim and distinction in the Eridanus War and in smaller operations on Harvest and Mamore. In August 2505, Clandestine Group's penultimate moment arrived when a hardline element of the Sovereign Army, numbering approximately 10,000, had covertly invaded the capital of the colonies, New York City. Having infiltrated and captured armored vehicles and aircraft from surrounding UNSC bases, these rebels inflicted massive casualties upon the civilian populace and incurred damage on the capital's infrastructure while the Household Corps was nearly defenseless against the invading army. The majority of the Orions, at the time training on Mars, were rushed to New York to bolster defenses and kill the Sovereign's leadership. As casualties mounted, Clandestine Group fought through the city's boroughs destroying enemy positions faster than any conventional force unit. The final moments of the battle came as the Sovereign's commander, General Tercius Esposito, stormed into The Chancellery in a futile attempt to seize power, ending the Civil War and partitioning off the Inner Commonwealths by taking possession of the The Case which contained the activation authority for the colonies' weapons of mass destruction. However this was a false trap laid by the Orions, who leaked that Chancellor Pokryshkin and his aide-de-camp misplaced the briefcase, which General Esposito would later learn had learned contained nothing but advanced communications equipment. The Orions stormed into the Chancellor's office, killed the rebel guard, and then executed Esposito. Similar to the General's intentions of forcing the UNSC to surrender, Corporal Gladys Wilson ironically implanted a voice mimic on the dead generals headset ordering the Sovereign Army to cease combat operations and surrender; this deception would later prove vital to the UNSC's victory as much of the eastern force would have been encircled by the rebels. The Invasion of New York would become a rare occurrance in the Civil War as rebel forces would rarely stand toe-to-toe with the UNSC in massive conventional battle.

Unfortunately, their tremendous success gradually came at a severe cost. The elder Orions began to quickly show previously unseen illnesses and complications from the gene manipulation as required from the augmentations. Operational effectiveness, even in the second and third classes of Orions, began to drop as a result of physical and mental abnormalities and the eventual decline in morale. The majority of the issues surrounding Clandestine Group manifested itself in Post-traumatic stress disorder (or PTSD) ultimately requiring the Navy to discharge these commandos to an uncertain life as a civilian. A number of Orions presented signs of a repressed attitude towards the interior worlds, of whom most were raised in the outer colonies, which advanced to a point of mild-to-severe ; those with less complicated views were honorably discharged with full pension and benefits, though their freedoms to the outside world were limited by constant ONI surveillance. Many, including those at high risk for aiding the rebel cause, were incarcerated in high-security frontier military prisons for life sentences.

Organization
The regiment, an operational upper echelon, has few peacetime command duties and therefore acts only in a support role for subordinate units; in wartime, a regiment will be given autonomous control in-lieu of direct command from Seongnam.

The primary organization of the Spartan branch is an individual squadron, known as a "Commando," consisting of approximately 360 soldiers. Commandos are then broken down into 6 troops of 65 soldiers each, which are reduced to teams of 5 squads of 13; unit composition following a squad is at the discretion of the mission planning and field commanders. There are five commandos in the active component, each deployed within their respective regiment's area of operations. An additional two commandos exist within the 3rd Regiment for recruit training and are authorized to act in a reserve capacity.

Independent groups such as the Carina-Sagittarius Surveillance Unit and Foreign Training Mission Unit vary in-size depending on the mission, though they will normally operate with a strength of 20-30 Spartans.

Command group
(as of 12:00 hours, 1 July 2557 )
 * Commander, Spartan Branch — Commodore Isabelle Spencer (CN)
 * Senior Enlisted Advisor — Command Sergeant Major Lech Malinowski (CMC)

Current structure
Spartan Branch
 * Headquarters Regiment
 * 1st Spartan Regiment
 * 2nd Spartan Regiment
 * Frontier Regiment
 * Commando Training Regiment
 * 3rd Spartan Regiment (Training)
 * Commando Medical Battalion
 * Commando Sustainment Brigade
 * 1st Regiment Commando Support
 * Infinity Commando Battlegroup — ad-hoc task force
 * Headquarters and Signals Unit
 * Gúta Troop, 2 (REACH) Commando
 * Noble Troop, 2 (REACH) Commando
 * Sapphire Team, 2 (JOHN) Ancient Recovery Unit JSA
 * Hopeful Unit, Commando Medical Battalion
 * 1 Expeditionary Logistics Battalion, 1 Logistics Group

Internal

 * Colonial Special Operations Command
 * Office of Naval Intelligence
 * SPARTAN-II Project
 * SPARTAN-III Project