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This fanfiction article, Epimetheus Programme, was written by SilverLastname. Please do not edit this fiction without the writer's permission. |
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This article, Epimetheus Programme, is currently under active construction. |
 The Epimetheus programme was a collection of projects aimed at furthering the goals of the Office of Naval Intelligence, often in such a way that would be deemed as immoral or otherwise outlandish by the Office at large. Notable projects include;
ONI Section III Admiral Abigail Daltona spearheaded the project, with much funding and political capital coming from her own coffers. She was responsible for the procurement of an Orion-Class Assault Carrier, a previously-defunct ONI installation on Reach, and several classified information packets on the blueprints and production costs of MJOLNIR Powered Assault Armour. She would be instrumental in the continuation of the Programme's existence following the tragedy at Icarus in 2558, the loss of the Artemis-Class cruiser UNSC Selene's Lance in 2531, and disastrous security breaches at Clairmont in 2536.
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Background[]
The Epimetheus Programme was a clandestine Section III programme initiated by Admiral Abigail Daltona of Section III, Major Romero Briggenshaw of Section 0, and Doctor Charles Monroe of Section I. The Programme's goals were to covertly pursue research and practical experimentations into discovering the risks associated with genetically—and surgically—augmenting individuals in an attempt to create super soldiers. The Programme would attempt to discover and create ways to mitigate these risks, utilising live 'volunteers' as test subjects. To that end the three individuals came together, pooled their resources, connections, and funds to create the Epimetheus Programme; a sister project to Orion Project Generation II, though not officially recognised in any capacity. The Programme would locate experimental subjects from the destitute masses of Reach, and the Epsilon Eridani colonies, and perform experiments on them involving samples of the genetic and surgical augmentations planned for use by the mainline ORION-II Programme. Their hope in doing so was that they may be able to garner some useful information from the way candidates without the predetermined genetic markers would react to the procedures, in an attempt to better understand both the processes by which the body reacted to the augmentations, and to divine some way of preventing such fates from befalling the candidates under the tutelage of Doctor C. E. Halsey and CPO F. Mendez. For the sake of cataloging a diverse range of data, subjects and candidates were selected from ages older and younger than those of the SII Candidates, as well as chosen based on an absence—rather than the presence—of the genetic markers deemed necessary by Doctor Halsey. It bears mentioning that the programme never intended to field actual surviving candidates. The failure rates, and risks associated with performing the procedure on unsuitable candidates were deemed too high to successfully produce viable survivors, however the procedure was deemed necessary, as the knowledge would've been invaluable to the UNSC and to the Office. The programme was never meant to operate beyond three years at most, and was never meant to perform surgical and genetic augmentations on more than one batch of candidates. The three Programme heads never suspected that their actions would have consequences beyond mere data collection, and they considered any potential survivors to be rare fringe cases, and severely physically handicapped cases at that. Such considerations proved to be false following the augmentation of one hundred initial experimental candidates. Twenty five of them would survive, albeit with great difficulty on the parts of medical personnel to keep them that way. These twenty five Spartans would go on the be the foundations for one of the most polarising Programmes in the Office of Naval Intelligence's history.
Inception[]
At the turn of the twenty sixth century, the effectiveness of small-scale operations—and elite special forces units—at combating the insurrectionists had already begun to diminish, with the Insurrectionist movement quickly becoming far too large for the UNSC to contain with mere peacekeeping operations. As Insurrectionists became more numerous, more brutal, and more effective, the military's responses consequently become more forceful; the need for large scale military campaigns became more obvious. Civil strife became normalised, and radicalisation of civilian elements at the hand of an increasingly-draconian parent state reached a tipping point. The Office began re-examining, and cross-referencing studies such as the Carver Findings, published in 2491 by Dr. Elias Carver, and came to much the same conclusion as was presented in said studies; if severe force was not used to mitigate the snowballing unrest in the Outer Colonies, then the planets would secede, and human society would be torn apart by widespread ideological conflict and civil war. The Office vowed to prevent this from happening, by any means necessary. A host of programmes were greenlit by ONI admiralty board in an effort to combat the increasingly hostile attitudes of the Outer Colonies. While the UNSC engaged hostile forces with brute strength, ONI saw the need for more effective surgical strikes performed by elite, highly-trained units. However, the effectiveness of standard Special Operations Forces, and subsequent small-scale combat units, were noticeably failing to achieve desired results. This new generation of teams would need to be something else—something new. The Orion Project Generation II, under Dr. Catherine Elizabeth Halsey was approved, and by 2517 one hundred and fifty (150) suitable candidates were identified for genetic and surgical augmentations. While the long-term goals of the programme were known to various ONI officials, the extent of the genetic augmentations and surgical procedures these candidates would undergo was known only to a few. Admiral Abigail Daltona of Section III was one such individual, and correctly assumed that many of the candidates would perish during the procedures. Her belief was that many more unnecessary deaths would occur among the augmented candidates, unless drastic steps were taken to study the effects of the process on human subjects before the augmentation procedures were undertaken. Admiral Daltona approached Dr. Charles Monroe, of ONI's bioscience research division, and presented the idea of working alongside him to experiment with newly-created augmentations, never-before seen or used on human subjects. The Doctor agreed, on the condition that every available measure be taken to increase the chances of survival, and if the opportunity arose, that he and his team would be given a chance to save the life of the subject. The Admiral agreed to these terms, and the two began compiling a report on their proposed project to submit to the same ONI brass that reviewed and accepted the proposal for Orion Generation II.
Necessity[]
While the initial draft of the proposal for Project Epimetheus was outright rejected, and lambasted by ONI Officials as both a waste of time and lives, the Admiral and the Doctor continued to gather support in the form of colleagues within similar divisions. Dr. Monroe recruited surgeons and technicians trained in the use of automatic surgery units, while the Admiral approached a Major Briggenshaw of Section III for security purposes, as well as for the potential selection of candidates. With newfound support, and a plan of action that would be compartmentalised in the event of information leak, the trio of head staff attempted once more to present their findings to a sub-section of the Admiralty Board. Again, they were refused, until Dr. Monroe drew their attention to an enclosed simulation of critical augmentation failure; a worst-case scenario in which the bodies of the candidates rejected each and every planned surgical or genetic augmentation, and entered into a state of catastrophic cascade failure, resulting in the violent and painful deaths of the candidates. Dr. Monroe warned those gathered that unless they proceeded to experiment with human trials so as to better understand the procedure, this fate could very well have befallen each and every one of the 150 planned Orion Generation II Candidates. The question was immediately raised by brass of whether or not this very same fate would befall Epimetheus's experimentation subjects themselves, to which no answer was given—aside from a statement on the cost of doing nothing, instead of doing what they could. Three days later in October of 2517, the plan for the Epimetheus Project was accepted by ONI officials, and the vetting process for selection of candidates could begin.
Turmoil[]
While the board may have approved the use of a certain number of civilian subjects for trial purposes, they did not authorise the use of Prowlers, transports, nor access to the same records as used by personnel on the SPARTAN-II programme. This effectively severed the project's access to a majority of the colony worlds outside of the Epsilon-Eridani system, and made the programme unable to select candidates from beyond the Epsilon-Eridani system. While the Orion II project numbers were cut to half of their goal of three hundred subjects, then cut down to half again when the time came to gather the subjects, the candidates left over were not available for testing, as they were deemed too valuable. When a request was made by Admiral Daltona to have access to the rejected candidates, the request was denied, and a subpoena put in place, summoning the three heads of Epimetheus to a hearing with the heads of the ONI review boards. During the hearing, it was ruled that the project would not have access to, nor information regarding, the rejected candidates. This decision could not be appealed, and prevented future requests in perpetuity. Despite the difficulties faced during the selection and vetting process, the project still had access to Reach, and the surrounding Epsilon-Eridani system, including Tribute, Epsilon Eridani IV, Circumstance, Beta Gabriel, Tantalus, and of course Reach. While Beta Gabriel had limited supplies of suitable candidates, due in part to it being a resort world rather than a full-fledged colony world, the rest of the colonies did not. The decision was made to select candidates from impoverished areas of the planets, typically orphans, or destitute children living with carers on the streets, or living on the edges of society. Acceptable candidates would be those who were already stealing to survive, or turning to a life of petty crime at a young age. Ages of the candidates would be between six to fifteen, so as to form a solid base of reference when stacked against the Orion II candidates, who were all of similar ages to the younger variables. Older candidates were used purely as a reference point, and were not expected to survive the process unharmed. With the political situation of the project already turning grim, the choice was made to deploy Agents, in secret, among civilian transports and cargo freighters. These Agents would embed themselves in areas of high crime, high poverty, and high rates of homelessness when compared to the surrounding areas. They would seek out candidates of an acceptable age bracket, and of appropriate potential as assets to the project. Major R. Briggenshaw took it upon himself to personally search for candidates in the Viery territory of Reach, namely, in and around the coastal city of Zvolic, while maintaining a network of Agents and operatives on the surrounding mainland continent of Eposz. Within seven weeks, thirty two candidates were identified, and a further fifty were vetted and approved up until the end of the following February of 2518. By the time of collection, a full one hundred twenty five candidates were screened and processed by the medical staff working under Dr. Monroe. The collection process, and subsequent experiments were ready to begin.
Codename:BONOBO[]
While Vice Admiral Ysionris Jeromi would later apply the augmentative procedure to Bonobo chimps—in a similar effort to gather data on the process, and the many ways it could fail—Epimetheus initiated Codename: BONOBO, named so after the early twentieth century genetic experiments on relatives of mankind in the ape family. Codename: BONOBO was the name given to the augmentative process itself. A highly-intensive and invasive surgical procedure would be needed in order to fully ensure the augmentations would take. Dr. Monroe matched that intensity to that of the training his medical staff received. Technicians kept their automatic surgical units in top condition, while the surgeons themselves practiced on precision with flash-cloned organs and dummies. Nothing could prepare them for the real thing, but Dr. Monroe trained them nonetheless, in order to give them the maximum possible chance of succeeding. As the surgical and genetic procedures had only ever been tested on close relatives of the human genome, more research was needed in order to properly safeguard the candidates to potential dangers, many of which were still a relative unknown. Dr. Monroe, in lieu of not being able to directly perform the procedure himself, began experimenting and researching heavily into the emergency removal of bio-augmentations, and surgical implants, so as to better prepare for the potential necessity of halting and abandoning the procedures if necessary. While the hours he dedicated to this end were impressive, and grueling, he was no less than totally committed to the upholding of his medical tenets, and personal code of ethics. |
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