Project NERO

Project NERO was the name for a group of supersoldiers developed for the Section 0, as a way for them to enforce CINCONI's decisions and to eliminate potential threats from the inside. Using a variant of the augmentations, NERO operatives are able to wear for limited amounts of time. This has given them the ability to masquerade as members of many of ONI's other augmentee projects, including JAVELIN and occasionally SPARTAN operators.
Activated in 2544, by order of Admiral , as a means of more effectively handling projects that CINCONI did not approve of, without having to pull SPARTAN operators from the front lines. One such operator was Colin-142, who up until that point had to perform the duties of a soldier and that of ONI's personal in-house executioner, a fact he shared with few. Coupled with the conclusion of the recent battle of New Zaječar, the activation came just in time, as SPARTAN-142 was beginning to wear down under the pressure of both assignments.
Due to wartime pressure and the ever fleeting resource of funding, Project NERO had a very limited budget compared to other related programs. Fortunately, those other related projects inadvertently helped NERO along, as data collected from previous projects, such as JAVELIN and CAESAR, allowed the developers of Project NERO to reduce costs by referencing earlier works. Using a mixture of the JAVELIN and CAESAR augmentations, ONI was able to give NERO operators the strength and reflexes of a JAVELIN operator, while mostly maintaining mental stability due to the CAESAR augmentations. This allowed the project to expand from the initial candidate roster of merely twenty five candidates to a much more substantial sixty, all recruited from the ONI Black Operations Division. With a 11% fatality risk, the program successfully augmented fifty operators, with the, what was considered minor at the time, side effect of heightened aggression.
After augmentations, all NERO operatives were assigned to the Office of Naval Intelligence's Section 0 under the discretion of Admiral Parangosky. Under the command of Reginald Hays, now Reginald-N01, the NEROs preformed operations against rogue agents and cells, as well as rebel sympathizers, demonstrating their lethality to ONI. In 2546, Parangosky prepared an experiment to see how NEROs compared to a SPARTAN, to this end, she had Colin-142 temporarily returned to Section 0's service and teamed him up with a team of NERO operators. Moving against a rogue collection of agents, SPARTAN-142 disarmed the agents and was preparing to bring them to ONI custody when the NEROs executed every prisoner. 142, disgusted with what he described as the murder of unarmed personnel, requested their immediate termination. Upon reviewing the data gained during the mission, Captain Keegan Pitt, the head of Project NERO, not only ignored the Spartan's request, but recommended that ONI give the program additional funding to create additional operators.
==Personnel==
*Reginald-N01 - Best performing candidate after augmentations, given operational command of any NERO operators in the field, call sign: NERO.
*Matthias-N08 - Second-in-Command of all NERO operators, call sign: GAIUS.
*Zachary-N16 - Team Bravo, call sign: AEBUTIUS.
*Gerald-N25 - Leader of Team Bravo, call sign: SEPTIMUS.
Category:Demons of Hope
Category:Office of Naval Intelligence
Category:UNSC Projects
Category:Units