GOLIATH Program

"Sicut Tonitro."

- The motto of the GOLIATHs, meaning "Like Thunder".

The GOLIATH Program was a Army-sponsored attempt to create elite supersoldiers through chemical and physical augmentation. They attempted to recreate the lethal effectiveness of the SPARTANs without following in it's footsteps, following their own agenda and recruitment methods. Their aim was to match and indeed replace the SPARTANs without using the morally questionable kidnapping of children and dangerous augmentative surgery. GOLIATH was drawn from consenting -though not entirely aware- adults.

The results were spectacular, but dangerous. The GOLIATHs proved volatile, unstable, and less disciplined. The Program's developing and admittedly flawed augmentation procedures resulted in side-effects more far reaching then any of their estimates could have predicted. Ultimately this and other factors contributed to the eventual destruction of GOLIATH.

Conception
[Reconstruction in progress]

GOLIATH was the brainchild of then-Brigadier General Gregor A. Ashfield of the UNSC Army. In December of 2529, he witnessed firsthand the effectiveness of the SPARTAN-II Program when a team of them helped rescued his unit from the Covenant. While he was awed by their prowess, he resented that only one branch of the UNSCDF had such a incredible and threatening force under it's jurisdiction. It was his idea to create a independent force of supersoldiers to "even the playing field" as he put it and give the Army a political strongarm against the Navy's longstanding strategic dominance.

Ashfield was approached by members of a classified army research group, who knew about Ashfield's interests.

Recruitment
"The UNSC Army is now recruiting special forces operators for a new special forces unit. You have been selected to take part in a new special forces unit. You have been selected to join a new special forces branch. Should you accept you will be the elite of the UNSC. Contact the provided number if you accept."

- Excerpt from recruitment notices sent out to hopeful GOLIATH candidates.

GOLIATH was up and underway towards the beginning of February of 2530 as the needed faculty and equipment were moved to Fort Jorge on New Fallon. New personnel were enlisted; trainers, drill sergeants technicians, and general staff. Scientists and researchers of numerous fields were called in to work under GOLIATH, including some previously affiliated with the SPARTAN-II Program. However GOLIATH would have a few hurdles to leap that SPARTAN did not. GOLIATH would be smaller and less well funded than it's counterpart. SPARTAN was already well established with a five year head start, most funding that could have gone to GOLIATH went to SPARTAN funding. But the Program's project heads proved resourceful and made due with what they had.

Recruitment notices were sent out privately to those deemed to be of suitable stock. To avoid the potential political blow-back of kidnapping children, recruits were drawn instead from consenting adults from Army Airborne and other Army special forces units. Recruits had to be male, over twenty-one years of a age, had to have atleast three years of regular service in the Army, and had to meet the Program's strict physical requirements. Under the not-entirely-false guise of a new special army unit, over sixty promising recruits signed up for service.

Training
Every candidate was already a veteran of another special forces outfit, Airborne or otherwise and therefore had already gone through atleast two cases of screening and intense special forces training to make it this far.

Recruits were trained under the watch of First Sergeant Gabriel "Hacksaw" Hackson, a man well known for training some of the best soldiers in the Army.

Project AMBROSIA & Augmentation
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By not using highly invasive and damaging surgery, GOLIATH enjoyed a much higher success rate that it's counterpart with a mere 13% failure rate as opposed to the SPARTANs 56%. Out of the sixty-odd recruits, fifty-five survive unscathed. The others were crippled or died as a result of unforeseen consequences in the augmentations and procedural complications.

Augmentations
As primary focus of GOLIATH, the Program's augmentation procedure relied less on surgical implants but chemical drugs to boot the GOLIATH's biology to superhuman levels. The chemicals and drugs used in Project AMBROSIA were experimental and even more potent than those used in the SPARTAN-IIs, however they were also unstable. To ensure the survival of each subject, the procedure was done with the utmost caution with regards to singular safety. The procedures themselves were actually fairly safe, mostly using chemicals to get results. It was a point during the Program that fully augmented GOLIATHs were much more individual products as opposed the SPARTAN "batches"

However despite initial success, time would prove that GOLIATH augmentations were flawed. The neurosurgery done to the recruits was deeply scarring and resulted in severe psychological damage that would haunt the Program till its demise. The experimental drugs involved were experimental in nature and unstable.

While the primary focus of AMBROSIA was the use of chemical augmentation, conversely the project also made use of important but less prominent use of surgical procedures to better mold the individual's into the ideal GOLIATHs, including the highly questionable use of neurosurgery to alter the mindset of the recruits.

GOLIATH Personnel

 * General Gregor Ashfield
 * GOLIATH-01
 * GOLIATH-02
 * GOLIATH-06
 * GOLITAH-08
 * GOLIATH-11
 * GOLIATH-12
 * GOLIATH-13
 * GOLIATH-55