: 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 touched on the S III's in my other post, but I feel its worth exploring here too.

SI's
We know the SI's were created to be more than the ODSTs could be. The first super soliders. This was OK, because, as far as we know, they were volunteers. To my knowledge, no one ever told them their true purpose though. To fight the Insurrectionists. No indoctrination.

SII's
We know the SII's were created to take it a step further. To fully take advantage of the medical advances and to make the ultimate soldier who never questioned orders , they had to start young. There was indoctrination. The results were impressive, an example of the be all you can be, using the best of the best. They knew early on they would fight Earth's "enemies". That covered anything. The Covenant were a happy accident, indeed.

SIII's
They are supposedly less controversial than the SII's because they were given a choice- asked to serve. Child survivors of Covenant attacks with no family left and no where to go. Preying on their heart strings and lust for revenge. To take the good parts of the SII's but not spend a lot of money. Because, hey, they knew they probably weren't coming back, right? To me, they are equivalent to modern suicide bombers. Sure, they had a 'choice' but they never get all the facts upfront and they don't get the proper medical treatment because they were never intended to survive. I don't see how what Ackerson did here is better than Halsey. And I STILL don't get how Parangosky can not mention them, at all.

SIV's
The best of them all, supposedly. All of the super soldier with none of the horrific genetic side effects or child stealing! From what I remember reading the UNSC was able to perfect Halsey's earlier work and fix Ackerson's shortcuts. An all volunteer force. Problem here is that without that dedication since early childhood, they're a bunch of cocky assholes. A bunch of dude bro's on HGH, really. Show offs, braggarts. Bah.

Obviously, the SIV's are the ideal batch. No shady business conducted and everything had consent from all involved. The problem(in the EU universe) is that people want to just skip right to the 4th gen and pretend the horrible things in the middle ones never happened.