: Well, it makes sense. You've expanded the pool of Spartans dramatically, and
: you also have a shifting political landscape where "become a god,
: kill some aliens" isn't necessarily your only job description. For
: all of ONI and branch brass' protestations, not everything is going to be
: screened out of the candidates, and they're still highly vulnerable to
: people becoming disillusioned with the UNSC/UEG while in the service.

If you need more Spartans, it only follows that you need to let more people in. When they're not all orphans of the Covenant War told that they're going to exclusively be retaliating against Covenant combatants, it's certainly going to make a big difference. I don't think it's bad writing, I think it just genuinely fits in with the new fiction of how the S-IVs are recruited and the conflicts they're made for.

Actually, now that I think about it, the S-IIIs who became S-IVs and then had to turn their guns on humans might be the most likely to defect to the Front, since they were trained to kill Covenant and had that hatred burned into them for so long.