Agreed about the last part.

: Y'know, I'm kinda irritated by this rationale that the Spartans were
: justified because the Covenant came. If Spartans were bred to stop a
: genocidal foe, I would perhaps accept such justification on the principal
: of saving humanity. But they weren't. The Spartans are humanity's
: deadliest weapons yet.

And this is where it gets tricky. Had the Covenant not come along, then what are the Spartans? With that Insurrectionist thing I said, they're probably monsters. They're killing other humans who may or may not be a threat. No court decides it. Who knows how it goes. ONI makes the call, the black ops come in, and bam, the "bad guys" are taken out.

But in the context of this universe, the Covenant did come along, and the Spartans happened to get repurposed, and luckily they were created. Happy accident. Greater good. A few lives destroyed so that barely 300,000,000 lives (human lives, period, anywhere) can remain by the time H3 is done. So yeah, you are right, they weren't created to stop the Covenant, but it's a good thing this happened at all.

I can only imagine what happened with all of those S-IIIs who were meant for suicide missions where like 300 would go out and never come back (give or take a few here and there). How about those families? Those orders? The ends still justify the means, and they were created to stop the genocide, right? Except that they were literally child soldiers, fully functional and ready to go, and ONI was all fine and happy with that. And they did it by making Halsey's Spartan creation program more efficient. Yet another thing that wouldn't have occurred without the S-IIs.

: I think of it in historical terms. The atom bomb was created to kill other
: humans with indiscriminately immense power. They perhaps saved the lives
: of millions of Japanese and the Alled troops who invaded the mainland.
: But, they also killed and injured hundreds of thousands of other
: individuals. To this day, we have been on the brink of nuclear catastrophe
: because we couldn't settle our differences like civilized people.

: Would we soon forget the atrocities these weapons have caused, and the mutual
: destruction assured if they were used once more, if our only hope for
: salvation against aliens or an asteroid was to use these weapons? Yes,
: thank God we had them, but we are betraying ourselves if we dare to
: disrespect our past failings.

: As with any warrior, in any war, anywhere. Your regular boot Marine who's
: barely hurt a fly may look like Satan in the flesh to a disgruntled
: colonial. I don't blame the Spartans for where they come from, or what
: they've done, I blame the system that put them there.

I agree with DEEP about this one. I don't think the comparison fully fits here. I look at it from the historical terms of making someone lower than you become the fall-guy. The French were brilliant at it in WWI (and by brilliant, I mean completely jacked up). ONI and the UNSC were fine with the Spartans before the Covenant. They loved the results. I bet none of them batted an eye lash. They just hate Halsey so much that the goal is to have her take the fall for all of it and to paint her out to be the monster. All of these people up to the tippy top should be skewered, not just Halsey.

The large emphasis on Halsey leads me to question whether it's the natural order of this universe for all of this to be happening, or if it is just a clear biased intent by 343, its writers, and the writers they hire to portray Halsey in the worst of lights (whether deserved or not). We'll know in the future if Halsey has some sort of redemption, or if these other characters have their own fall or reveal of just how complicit they were in everything, or if none of this happens and 343 lets stand that Halsey is the one true evil in all the universe. Remember, Palmer's their hero now. They want you to like her soooooooooo much. That's their ideal of something to like.

That or we're all being fooled and missing the subtext, which is that even the people they want you to like suck, and they really want you to know that all of these people suck, and the message is that the UNSC and ONI are just a bunch of corrupt, awful, fascist assholes. Now that'd be awesome if 343 had the balls to blatantly go that route. I'd look forward to seeing the UNSC transformation and the rise of good people trying to correct all of this bad. But that probably will never happen because there's no way this paragraph is a thing with 343 (based on H4, anyway).

: I think she is. Halsey has too much vested in our species not to see us
: flourish. Despite my deep hatred for this woman, she's shown nothing but
: loyalty to Earth and her colonies, whatever ulterior motives may be in
: play. Even after Parangosky's consistent sidelining throughout the war and
: her incarceration on Ivanoff, she was still ready to get back out there
: and advance our capabilities and understanding.

: Going back to her loyalty to humanity, I ask what side is she on, if not her
: own?

I'd say she's on the Spartans' side. She genuinely tried to help those other S-IVs until Palmer came in like a maniac and shot her. She was pretty damn upset to find out that Master Chief was alive and "close" but that it was kept from her. For all we know, she feels horrible for what happened with them as kids, has felt remorse, and now cares for them all so much because she owes it to them, and herself, to do right by them.

I guess what I'm saying, even with all of this Halsey defense, is that yes, she did some really screwed up horrible things. They pretty much are unforgivable. Yes. There can still be redemption. She can still do what she can while living to do right by them and other things. I have a lot of examples, but I'll just use one: Darth Vader was redeemed. Plenty of movies and TV shows with horrible awful unspeakably evil characters who still have some shred of humanity, have a character journey, somehow redeem themselves in the end (and not all of them die in the process). This universe still has so much to offer, but they really have to focus on that writing. Hopefully they're not just doing a thing where they blacklist Halsey and leave it at that and spend the next few games making us hate her even more with that being the only end goal.