Traviss humanized Lucy-B091 in an amazing way that Spartans really needed to be shown as, among others. More often than not you see Spartans devoid of any friendly or nurturing spark, even from the youngest among them to augmentees at age 14 and veteran Spartans in their forties.

Previously you'd see Spartans all painted as emotionally absent and objectively focused. When your buddy is wounded in battle, of course you fear for their health, but you know it's better to put that aside and carry on your mission while you tend to their wounds. Should that apply to innocent bystanders though?

Lucy was sneaking around in the dark, completely isolated from her people, and as a Spartan she was trained to shoot at bright colors. Covenant combatant? Shoot first and ask questions later. Unfortunately some poor Huragok, completely unaffiliated with the genocidal Covenant, was in the wrong place and fell upon the young, veteran Spartan's sights. Lucy had dealt with so much pain with the loss of her best friends on TORPEDO, suffering from survivor's guilt, and not being able to do a damn thing about it. But here she saw a Huragok slipping away ever so much and she felt absolutely terrible. Instead of moving on she tried to do all she could to help them.

Was it futile? Of course. But the best thing about Traviss's portrayal of Lucy, however flawed it might be for some, it personified Spartans as something more than an absolutely loyal killing machine. This is something Halo at the time really started to get across as not being what they are. They're just people. Yes, they've lived through extremely traumatic circumstances and suffered terribly on the inside to protect others. However they still haven't lost who they were. Lucy unlocked something within herself deep within the shield world that had been lost to her with self-isolation. Withering away was the girl who pitied herself and out came a young woman who knew what she was all about.

I see a lot of myself in Lucy and it finally afforded me some familiarity with the Spartans, a class of people in Halo that I had largely regarded as a monolith.