: If I recall correctly, one of the feelies included with the special editions
: of Halo 4 was an intercepted communication between Parangosky and Halsey.
: Parangosky said that Halsey was a criminal but she was still needed by the
: UNSC, so Parangosky decided not to release the details of the Spartan II
: program.

: You might not even have to wait that long. If the information was released in
: 2553 when people were rebuilding from the ashes and were happy just to be
: alive, the average citizen wouldn't care about an atrocity carried out 40
: years ago under another administration.

: "Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the
: Armenians?"

I rechecked that note, and she doesn't mention anything about the Spartan program disclosure—it's mostly talking about Infinity. I haven't reread Glasslands since Thursday War came out though so I might be misremembering the whole exchange that gives me pause in the first place. I'll have to double check.

I'm not sure it'd all blow over, though, just because it's *not* another administration. Parangosky's certainly the longest-lived in the Navy apparently, but it seems that tons of people are still around from those events—and still working.

As for the Armenians, I think the disappearance of their genocide from the public mind, at least in America, has a lot more to do with the fact that it happened in a more remote time (the advances in communications and media in the span of the interwar years can't be denied), it happened in the shadow of a much bigger genocide that followed (and occurred years before they actually came up with the term to describe it), and Jews in America are a lot more numerous and influential. It'd be interesting to see how the detail of the demographics of the Spartans would have impacted/will impact reactions—the nice little bit I loved from the "Hunt the Truth" series was how ultimately most of the Spartans came from the Outer Colonies. You'd wonder if that would make it easier for the more insular elites to ignore what happened to the rebellious hoi polloi.

Ultimately to me the question of the ethics of the Spartan Program are more akin to the debate about the appropriateness the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings—is it worth the cost for a better outcome in war? In some ways the question is both easier (we’re not debating whether a few hundred thousand more American GIs and Japanese would die in a protracted fight, we’re asking if humanity would continue to exist without the Spartans) and harder (they were kidnapping and experimenting on their own people, children who couldn’t fully comprehend or consent.)

the question of the ethics of the Spartan Program are akin to the debate about the appropriateness the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings—is it worth the cost for a better outcome in war? In some ways the question is both easier (we’re not debating whether a few hundred thousand more American GIs and Japanese would die in a protracted fight, we’re asking if humanity would continue to exist without the Spartans) and harder (they were kidnapping and experimenting on their own people, children who couldn’t fully comprehend or consent.)

Artistic or literary merits of Nylund or Traviss aside, I feel like the questions of morals were never really that heavily addressed until Microsoft/343’s turn at the yoke, and I’m glad we get to debate this sort of stuff.