Vincent A-291

Spartan Vincent A-291

(Insert quick summery here).

## Biography

Vincent Iascoe, like nearly every Spartan III, was born on a UNSC colony world, specifically Harvest on March 3rd of 2523 at the very edge of space as humanity knew it. The middle of three children, Harvest came under attack by the Covenant in 2525, resulting in the complete annihilation of most of the world's defenses as well as the vast majority of the population. While the generally accepted statistic was that only one in six ships managed to escape the world ahead of the Covenant's advance, the family was lucky enough to make it out intact the first time.

From that point on the populations of the frontier worlds would begin to constantly shift. Refugees were ferried deeper and deeper into UNSC controlled space as more and more colonies fell to the hands of the Covenant's genocidal campaign. The three siblings would escape the onslaught on Biko in the same year as Harvest and yet again on Madrigal in 2528 and later Eridanus II in 2530. Not, however, without losses as one parent would be killed during the siege of Madrigal and the children separated from the other during the confusion in 2530. Despite the overwhelming odds they managed to escape the same tireless war machine thrice when billions did not, a fact that inevitably came to the attention of the UNSC's Office of Naval Intelligence.

By the time that Eridanus fell, humanity had grown increasingly desperate. Despite having built and maintained an empire for nearly 300 years and even bending a the laws of physics themselves to master interstellar space travel, the United Nations Space Command was losing. Badly. Every world lost resulted in millions of casualties and increasing strain on the remaining colonies. Victory only came on the ground with naval engagements invariably ending in the Covenant's favor at which point they would simply glass the planet, bombarding the surface with plasma until the crust melted and the seas boiled. The only measure that had proven effective had been the Spartan II program which, while hailed as humanity's saviors publicly, was far more morally ambiguous to those few who knew its origins. Others, however, saw it as a template. A place to begin and a process to be refined. And with nearly a full generation having passed since the conscription of the original children, ONI saw an entire demographic ready not for conscription, but *recruitment*. The Covenant had left thousands of children orphaned not only young enough for the improved augmentation procedures, but more than motivated to spill blood in the name of revenge. When the proposed Spartan III project was finally greenlit the organization would begin doing what it had in 2517, albeit on a much larger scale. Abducting hundreds of children from across numerous different colonies, their last names would be redacted and replaced by only a three digit callsign preceded by a letter indicating their class within the Spartan III program. Vincent and his siblings would arrive on Onyx on December 7th, 2531.

Over the next handful of years Vincent, Anna, Jeremy and the 400 other children would begin training under Kurt Ambrose and Franklin Mendez with the intent of becoming exactly what the former was. A knight in armor, the ultimate warrior with which to strike back at the Covenant, and over those five years they would become far stronger than they could have imagined. When graduation came in 2536 all three were among the final 300 to survive the augmentation process unscathed. Granted what would become the signature equipment of the IIIs, the SPI Mark I armor, Jeremy was given command of the company as a whole upon the class's activation as an official military unit. Vincent, however, had a different path ahead of him. Noted for his inclination towards independent thought and action, he was one of the many anomalies present within Alpha Company. Anomalies that had been missed by ONI's screening in 2511 due to simply not existing at the time, individuals that matched both the genetic template used in selecting the Spartan IIs as well as their performance following the augmenation process. Deemed far too valuable for what Alpha Company had been intended for, ONI transferred Vincent and a handful of others out of Alpha Company immediately after graduation. Rather than being directly deployed against the Covenant as his brothers and sisters were, Vincent was instead given the far superior MJOLNIR Mark IV armor and deployed alongside more conventional UNSC Special Forces.

While he hadn't been too young to understand the loss of his parents, however, Vincent hadn't truly comprehended the reasoning behind his transfer out of Alpha Company until receiving news of Operation PROMETHEUS later that year. When they had agreed to participate in the Spartan III program - as ONI had, unusually, given all prospective recruits a choice - it had been with the understanding and intent to make the Covenant bleed. And they did, albeit not in the manner that most had probably imagined. When Alpha Company had graduated it had already been with an assignment in mind, one too dangerous for conventional forces to possibly attempt, too high risk to even have reasonable expecations about the legendary Spartan IIs surviving. Humanity was losing worlds every few months, and time was running out before they found the Inner Colonies and Earth along with them. That was what the Spartan III program was. An attempt to buy time with lives, and to take out targets critical to the Covenant's war effort without sacrificing fleets to do it. The IIIs were the UNSC's sword and dagger, intended to strike down humanity's enemies. The Spartan IIs and those transfered out of Alpha Company, effectively *selected* for survival? They were the shield meant to protect what humanity had left.

Had it not been for that realization and the recognition that his actions moving forward would determine the value of Alpha Company's sacrifice, Vincent likely would've likely lost his will to live not long afterwards. While Anna and Jeremy had been his siblings, they weren't his only family. In those five years on Onyx every one of the children in Alpha Company had been raised together, triumphed together against the odds. Taken from a collection of angry, aggressive misfits that had the trainers concerned about them killing one another in the first several months and forged into a single collective able to move and fight as one. Ultimately it was their memory that kept Vincent alive. He was driven not just by the need to not only give their lives meaning in the larger scheme of things, but by the same motivation he had first arrived on Onyx with several years before. The need to make the Covenant pay for what they took, and to ensure that it didn't happen to anyone else. With few remaining Outer Colonies still under UNSC control and an increasing number of the Inner Colonies plagued by rebellion despite the alien juggernaut's genocidal campaign, Vincent was assigned elsewhere, however. Away from the front lines at the suggestion of ONI's psychologists. Away from potential triggers for reckless, risk taking behavior and instead deployed against another threat that needed to be handled quickly, quietly and efficiently. Sent to the Inner Colonies with the intent of crushing the remaining Insurrectionists to avoid forcing the UNSC to fight a war on two separate fronts, it would be both a prelude and a cool down period for the real fight that was coming.

Over the next ten years following the deployment and subsequent destruction of Alpha Company during Operation: PROMETHEUS the UNSC would continue to lose territory as the Covenant pressed their advance. By 2545 nearly every Outer Colony had been lost, and the Inner Colonies beginning to come under siege. While the UNSC could win nearly every ground engagement through superior training and tactics, winning ground wars meant nothing in the face of the Covenant Navy's technological superiority. Only the Cole Protocol kept their worlds hidden after every retreat and humanity in the war as world after world was burned, their populations scattered and exterminated. With the last major conflict between the UNSC and the Insurrectionist movement taking place on Mamore in 2537 as well as being the first and last conflict Vincent would serve in against human threats, the Spartan would steadily begin to be deployed with increasing frequency against Covenant forces on a regular basis, often in a recon/saboteur role. With more and more pressure being placed on the UNSC to hold their colonies with every battle, however, even that role would steadily shift to one of combat. After another few years of war had passed, and by 2545 Vincent was being put to use much more proactively, with standing orders to eliminate Covenant holding command ranks whenever possible to further disrupt their field deployments. While his initial fury following the destruction of Alpha Company in 2536 had long since cooled to become something else entirely, far more calculating and collected, it was a job that he relished at the time.

Having garnered an impressive field record and attained several promotions by 2551, nearly twenty years after having entered active duty, Vincent would be called back to Reach by ONI. Along with the remaining Spartan IIs, the surviving Spartan IIIs from both Alpha and the newer Beta Companies were to be outfitted with the Mark V variant of the armor in December of that year, replacing the battle worn Mark IV suits. Despite seeing brief action on Harmony during an operation to track down one of the few remaining Insurrectionist cells left in existence, 2552 was a fairly quiet year for Vincent during the first seven months. It wouldn't be until August that Vincent would again see deployment in one of the largest conflicts of the war and one of the UNSC's most crushing defeats. With the Covenant's arrival on Reach the ground forces were annihilated by a Covenant Supercarrier in low orbit, and the Vincent was placed on board one of the battlegroups sent to respond from other deployments within UNSC space. By the time his vessel had arrived to Reach on August 15th, the vast majority of the Covenant Navy had already arrived and was engaging the rest of the UNSC vessels present in a losing battle. The line was only held by Reach's orbital defense grid of Super MACs, and even that was a tenuous situation at best due to the presence of Covenant ground forces. Unable to safely deploy its Pelican compliment due to the Covenant fighter presence, the ship's captain instead ordered Vincent, the Orbital Drop Shock Trooper compliment and volunteers from the normal Marine detachment to hard drop to the surface in SOEIVs.

Following landfall and the rendezvous with the other soldiers that had made the drop down with him, the next several days would be spent fighting a losing battle as the Covenant forces quickly laid waste to the UNSC Navy in orbit. By August 20th the UNSC High Command began ordering a full retreat, redirecting the remaining Spartan deployments to cover civilian evacuations and military rescue and recovery operations. Within the next week the human forces would absorb heavy losses as civilian transports were destroyed fleeing the planet, and UNSC ground forces would begin to be worn down through a sheer war of attrition as increasing numbers of Covenant landing parties and smaller capital ships slipped through the planet's orbital defenses. By August 30th the Covenant began directly attacking the generator complexes providing power to the orbital cannons, and as they systematically began to be wiped out the Covenant would begin glassing the planet. Ordered to a Prowler exfiltration craft with a number of other remaining ONI operatives still planetside, Vincent was evacuated from Reach on August 31st, the vessel making the randomized slipspace jump as per Cole Protocol before changing course to Earth. Arriving at the human homeworld in mid September of that year, Vincent was ordered on leave while the damage to his armor was repaired and upgraded to meet the standards of the newly released Mark VI suits.

With the UNSC consolidating its remaining forces and pulling back from what few colonies were left, Vincent would not see deployment again until October 20th, 2552, the day the Covenant found Earth. While the initial fleet was small and easily dealt with by Earth's newly operational orbital defense grid and the Home Defense Fleet, one assault carrier managed to breach the perimeter to make landfall in New Mombassa, South Africa. Due to the seriousness of the incursion, the UNSC spared no effort in attempting to bring it under control, assigning every free asset available to containment. Halfway across the planet and his own suit barely out of testing, it would be two hours before 291 was made ready for deployment. Not quickly enough, however, as the situation in New Mombassa would rapidly change and deteriorate with the escape of the vessel in question. With the large majority of the forces present suddenly cut off from High Command and enemy troops left behind and still on the ground, the human military was still scrambling to resolve the issue. Skirmishes were still being fought with Covenant ground forces and ill prepared when the bulk of the Covenant's remaining fleet, led by a Forerunner dreadnought, appeared in the Sol System on November 8th.

As with Reach, the ensuing conflict saw nearly the entirety of the UNSC's orbital and naval assets destroyed within the first few hours, cut through with relative ease thanks to the Forerunner vessel and the remainder of the Covenant fleet. With the Covenant holding a clear strategic and tactical advantage UNSC forces were forced to evacuate many of their facilities in light of the alien forces moving to occupy the planet. With the majority of the invading forces focusing on major population centers, the staff and garrison of the Songnam facility were able to evacuate with relative ease. Scattering to other UNSC strongholds hidden across the Asiatic and oceanic theatres of conflict where combat was relatively light, the facilities and recovered assets were well hidden due to their isolated natures. During the next several weeks the UNSC would be forced into a guerrilla war against the overwhelming advantage that the Covenant's naval superiority afforded them, holding back what few ships they had to avoid losing them. Over the course of November of that year the human forces would steadily fall into a pattern of hitting the Covenant when possible, retreating to hidden bases and evacuating those at the first sign of detection. It was a strategy that would force the Covenant's ground troops to pay a heavy toll, but still very much a losing battle as attrition began to wear down the human forces just as it had on Reach. Vincent spent most of that month being deployed in his old roles of reconnaissance and advance saboteur, relaying information back to his superiors and prepping targets for precision strikes rather than being employed as a front line vanguard as he had through much of the late 2540s. With the Battle of Voi and the Covenant fracturing after the attempted genocide of the Sangheili - who had long led the Covenant's military before the Jiralhanae - however, the conflict on Earth essentially came to a close. Covenant Loyalist forces fell back to New Mombassa, retreating through a newly opened Slipspace portal above the remains of the city. Held in reserve on Earth along with the vast majority of the UNSC's remaining forces at the order of Lord Hood, Vincent saw the end of the the Human-Covenant War from humanity's home world on December 31st of 2552.

Despite the unlikely victory of the UNSC-Sangheili alliance over the Loyalist forces of the Covenant, the fact remained that the vast majority of the human race no longer existed, with human death toll from the entire war estimated at a high 40 billion at the least. Less than a eighth of that remained and only with a small handful of Inner Colonies left, the UNSC would be forced to turn their attention to rebuilding what they had lost. Engineering details were assigned to civic duties, and military assets given logistical roles to provide the remaining human population with the basic necessities of survival, managing refugees as best as possible. Those forces that weren't assigned those roles were instead given exploratory ones, sent out on the few remaining ships available to survey the UNSC colonies lost during the war. Often it would be in the wake of the Sangheili race's continuing feud with the Jiralhanae, the former continuing to hunt them and their former masters for their attempted betrayal and genocide during the Great Schism. As the first year after the war began to come to a close, it began to become quickly evident that the majority of the UNSC worlds attacked by the Covenant had been completely lost, and would require complete terraforming to be made habitable again. Unfortunately, those that didn't were often occupied by Kig-Yar or Jiralhanae pirates and raiders that had remained behind, making any attempt at resettling a risky proposition. With a new accord signed by both the UNSC and the Sangheili in February of that year formalizing a cease fire between the two factions, however, it became abundantly clear that humanity would be forced to deal with their own problems. Many Sangheili had began seeking asylum on Earth to escape the the civil conflict on Sanghelios following the dissolution of the Covenant Empire, demonstrating that the Sangheili government was in no position to lend aid until their own world was politically stable.

With Earth's own ecosystem already being strained just to support the current population after centuries of abuse and the majority of its major cities in ruin, by 2554 the UNSC would begin devoting its resources to reclaiming the few still viable colonies occupied by only token Covenant garrisons. Vincent would be sent on a number of missions aimed at clearing out Kig-Yar pirate bases and Jiralhanae encampments where possible, and by 2555 the UNSC had begun reestablishing the infrastructure on the regained Inner Colonies and moving on to the Outer Colonies in the same fashion.

Despite his continued performance and service, however, the first three years following the end of the war would become increasingly introspective ones for Vincent. Not only was the war over, but he was still alive. Frankly, it was something of a surprise. For everything he had done to remember his fallen class, the Spartan had come to believe with increasing certainty that it was an ultimately pointless endeavor, that the Covenant were going to win the war. At the very least he had certainly never expected to survive it himself. In a way it had made his job that much easier, not having to worry about what the future held. Merely the certainty that he was eventually going to die, and it was only a question of how much of the Covenant he sent on ahead of himself before it happened. The war's end changed things, however. It opened up possibilities that Vincent hadn't accounted for, and that he frankly didn't know how to deal with. Questions that were heavily focused on one idea - what *did* he do with his life moving forward? What meaning did he want it to have? Was there anything else he had to offer or leave behind beyond his previous contributions? As the end of 2555 began to come to a close, however, Vincent would be approached by representatives from ONI. And, as they had so many years ago, they came with an offer. The choice to retire, or to be folded into a new Spartan program, one that differed from the previous incarnations in that it recruited its soldiers from adult volunteers.

While it didn't distract or put an end to Vincent's contemplations, he knew enough to be well aware that retirement wasn't exactly an option. It wasn't going to be for any of the surviving Spartan IIs or IIIs. War was all they knew of life, and given the difficulty that regular soldiers often had returning from it Vincent couldn't imagine it being a possibility for himself or others like him. That, and there was one major difference with that comparison. Those other soldiers were going home. Vincent was already as close to one as he was ever likely to get. After a final tour of duty in the Outer Colonies in 2556 he would be reassigned to the Spartan IV program, and sent aboard the the UNSC Infinity following the vessel's official commissioning in early 2557.

During the subsequent months aboard the UNSC dreadnought Vincent would play an important role alongside the other remaining Spartans from the program's earlier incarnations, assisting in the training of the newer IVs aboard the ship prior to the discovery of Requiem in July of that year. Assigned to Fireteam Talon, the squad would participate in the First Battle of Requiem as an reconnaissance unit and advance strike team while the UNSC ship lay temporarily disabled on the Shield World's surface, and again during the subsequent efforts to disable the installation's gravity well generator and the defense batteries protecting it. Due to the hastily planned nature of the operation, however, their Pelican would be shot down by Covenant forces during the approach to their target in an effort to provide telemetry to the ground based strike teams, and would be forced to hand their task off to another UNSC unit before returning to the Infinity and departing from Requiem following the mission's success.

Six months after the New Phoenix Incident immediately following the First Battle of Requiem, Fireteam Talon would be deployed alongside the entire Spartan IV branch during the UNSC Infinity's second series of missions to Requiem. Vincent, however, would be detached from the unit on departure from the Sol system and transferred to Fireteam Crimson as the squad's sniper, saboteur and infiltration specialist. Incredibly competent by even more traditional Spartan standards, the group dynamic was close enough to allow Vincent to settle into the unit far quicker than most. Even in spite of the squad being made up of four Spartans compared to the usual five or six assigned to most teams, however, Crimson quickly became the premier frontline unit chosen for delicate or difficult tasks during the Requiem campaign. The unit would go on to play key roles in the defense of UNSC installations as well as the acquisition of several pieces of critical intelligence. By the time that the Requiem Campaign came to a close every member had received numerous commendations, with the four offered the opportunities to form and lead their own Fireteams that would draw from the eventual third class of Spartan IVs. Two of the squad would accept the offer, although Vincent and the remaining squadmate would turn down the opportunity to remain as part of the original unit.

## Personality

Vincent's personality is... complicated, to say the least. Loss has defined a large portion of the man's life as it has for every Spartan III. While every person handles such things in a different way, one of the major failings of the III program was that they weren't *meant* to survive. They were not given the same psychological conditioning that kept the Spartan IIs rock steady and it shows. While all Spartans tended to exhibit a certain degree of antisocial tendencies, in Vincent's case it could come down to either of two factors, or perhaps even both. Whether or not it was due to how he was "raised" or a result of another, deeper set of mental issues and instabilities brought on by his life experiences is entirely up for debate. For the most part, however, how Vincent acts is largely dependent on who he's with. With the vast majority of people, namely those he simply doesn't know nor has any shared history to connect with, there isn't much to Vincent. Quiet, terse and professional, he doesn't talk more than he needs to. This does lend a certain weight to his words as they aren't ever spoken without reason in such situations, but this likewise creates a rather large divide between him and other UNSC personnel, to say nothing of civilians. To most of them, Vincent is an enigma, as alien in his acts and motivations as any of the Covenant's client races... a fact that is not at all helped by the unnerving ruthlessness and eerily focused aggression Vincent often exhibits in combat settings that few sane, stable beings are capable of, a stark contrast to his otherwise stoic and subdued appearance outside of it.

There is another side to Vincent, however, that only a select few see - namely, fellow Spartan IIIs from Alpha Company, or those who he's simply spent enough time around, enough to form an emotional connection in spite of the social barriers that he unintentionally erects. While the change is a subtle one, around those he trusts and feels comfortable with many of Vincent's more prominent traits before war and loss hardened him begin to show. A dry, sardonic sense of humor, with a heavy helping of black comedy courtesy of a military life. An appreciation for irony, in all of its twisted forms. And, most prominently, far more willingness to speak up and hold entire conversations. While far more distant and subdued than he had been before Alpha Company's graduation, Vincent never lost any of his emotions or blocked them out but rather had just distanced himself from them, a necessary act required to continue functioning in the hell that the Covenant War had become after the first ten years. Distant as he often is from them, Vincent shares a heavily empathizes with colonists and refugees in particular, and still takes deaths that could have been prevented hard - if anything, a bit harder than is healthy, with the Spartan having risked his own safety and wellbeing beyond that expected of his station on more than one occasion during the war's later years to assist during evacuation efforts.

On the note of the Covenant and non-humans in general, Vincent's views are rather.... ambivalent. While he has no love for the faction itself, over the years since the Great Schism the Spartan has slowly begun to come to terms with the fact that the client species, for the most part, share many of the same problems as humanity once did. No house is without division, no family without problems and dysfunction. Just as Earth had once been divided - and just as the UEG was even now, still quarreling with dissident factions - those that made up the Covenant hadn't necessarily all been of a single mind, either. That isn't to say that Vincent had forgiven them, nor any of the individuals that may have fought for the cause the original Covenant Empire had once championed, far from it. But Vincent does understand and has come to terms with the idea that pursuing revenge for its own sake and fighting merely to feed his hatred as most of the Spartan IIIs originally had is a dead end and something that will only lead to renewed conflict in the future. Even with the advances made in recent years, humanity cannot weather another war on the same scale as before. Thus, despite his misgivings years ago the Spartan has made a point to bury his hatred as best he can, settling for simple dislike tempered by a healthy respect for them and their abilities. Notably, however, this dislike has not found itself extended to the degree of being labeled as racism - since being assigned to the ANVIL initiative, younger Sangheili having only recently entered military service have been the exception to the rule, with others that were active before 2552 having had to work to earn his trust and be seen as genuine allies.

## Physical Appearance

Outside of his armor, Vincent would be all but unremarkable except for three simple things, but things that set him apart from the vast majority of the human race - namely his height, build, and the sheer number of scars covering him. Standing at exactly 7' 2" outside of his armor, Vincent towers over virtually everyone else with only a few humans - notably other Spartans - coming close, and usually not by much. While his choice in clothing usually tends to hide it as well, Vincent also appears to be in what many would consider peak physical condition for any normal human. Heavy in both build and weight as a result of both the Spartan augmentation process as well as the brutal training he underwent during his early years during his time in Alpha Company, Vincent weighs in at roughly 311 pounds even without his armor. In terms of distinguishing markings, Vincent bears a small number of facial scars, usually no more than any other professional soldier or mercenary, although the rest of his body is covered in them to an extent few would expect. While most of them are small, a single large patch of darkened skin can be seen on his left shoulder, the remains of an old plasma burn healed years ago. Vincent has dark brown hair, worn about as long as military regulations would allow, and brown eyes with an unnaturally pale complexion.

## Physical Abilities

Spartans were trained to be able to use any kind of equipment they might have come across. Taught to view enemy troops and bases as mobile supply caches, a philosophy that was emphasized even further with the IIIs during their training due to the nature of their missions behind enemy lines. As a result Vincent is able to wield most weapons as well as drive or pilot most vehicles with at least a certain degree of proficiency save for a few notable exceptions. While preferring mid to long range combat Vincent is brutally effective at any range, and is incredibly skilled with most firearms or melee weapons as well as hand to hand combat. It should likewise be noted that Spartans were likewise thoroughly schooled in a number of different fields aside from combat, including military history, strategy and tactics, the end goal being to create soldiers that were not only unmatched in combat but able to think and act independently of any immediate command structure. Spartan III training was particularly brutal even by the standards of the previous Spartan II class, with additional emphasis on creative thinking and enhanced teamwork.

### Bioaugmentation

While all Spartans received the training to match the best shock troops and commandos from any military, their true strength comes from the augmentation procedure performed on them towards the end of their training and at the onset of puberty. While the process was excruciatingly painful and a percentage of the Spartan IIIs were either killed or crippled by it, the survivors were transformed into the ultimate soldiers, living weapons practically without peer among other humans. Their perception, reaction and movement speed (unarmored Spartans were routinely clocked at running speeds of up to forty miles per hour) were incredibly enhanced to the point of bordering on precognition, and their bones were made virtually unbreakable thanks to the ceramic carbide bonded to their skeletal structure. Finally, their eyesight was enhanced to the point where they could essentially see in the dark and their muscle density, already twice the human norm due to their training, was further increased. Even without MJOLNIR the average augmented Spartan III was capable of bench pressing upwards of 1,200 pounds, with that number rising to uncharted levels when stressed. An unarmored Spartan, if forced into a fight or flight survival reaction, could easily become capable of feats that would normally require MJOLNIR in controlled circumstances. However, many of the measured test values were recorded when Alpha Company was - on average - only 14 years old, and it had been specifically noted that their performance would only increase with age as they both acclimated to their augmentations and their innate physical abilities increased with age.

### ONI Operative Training

As a solo operative in ONI's service for a number of years, Vincent has been forced to expand his skill set beyond mere combat prowess to compensate for the lack of squad mates. While he is still only average at best in terms of digital infiltration via manual means, Vincent has become a master of stealth and evasion, leaving the smallest tactical footprint possible during operations. He has also become quite adept with explosives and sabotage over the years as well. If something needs to be dismantled or blown up, he will find a way.

## Equipment

### MJOLNIR GEN 1 Mark VII Powered Assault Armor

One of Vincent's sole personal possessions as well as the signature symbol of the SPARTAN IIs and the few SPARTAN IIIs good enough and lucky enough to be chosen. Incredibly durable, the armor not only increases his already astounding physical strength by a factor of eight (Spartans have been routinely witnessed tearing battle tanks apart by hand), but it also boosts a Spartan's reaction time. Already less than 20 milliseconds under controlled situations without the armor, these are decreased to seemingly impossible speeds that appear to almost border precognition to the uninformed eye, and during the initial field tests of the Mark IV suits the Spartan IIs quite literally dodged live rounds *after* they had been fired. The armor itself is a marvel of engineering, composed of several overlapping layers. The armor plates, made of an incredibly strong, non-reactive titanium alloy, also have a refractive coating capable of dissipating light energy attacks and lessening the impact from heavier strikes. Underneath the plating is a lightly armored bodysuit which is completely sealed, protecting the user from both toxic environments and vacuum conditions. Running alongside this is a gel layer capable of reactively changing its density, and protects the user from either environmental pressure, G forces, rapid temperature changes or ballistic weapons. Between this and the inner layer of moisture absorbing cloth is a network of reactive metal liquid crystal, which while responsible for the user's enhanced strength is also capable of transporting a ship class smart artificial intelligence. It is also this layer that is responsible for the user's reaction time when combined with the suit's neural interface, translating intent into motion and effectively allowing control of the suit and its actions through pure thought alone via a linked neural lace. Finally, the Vincent's version of the armor is equipped with both a UNSC developed GEN2 shield system and automatic biofoam injectors situated throughout the armor. It also features several external clips, magnetic holsters and pockets for carrying gear, leaving the Spartan's hands free at most times.

The armor does have some disadvantages, though. First of all, it cannot be used by normal, unaugmented soldiers, as they both lack the reflexes and increased perception rate needed to harness the armor without killing themselves. Also, a fully armored Spartan III weighs nearly 1,000 pounds when equipped with a MJOLNIR suit, not counting the other gear they may be carrying at the time. Despite its status as a GEN1 armor system, several software and firmware upgrades have enabled the suit to safely use many GEN2 armor components and systems. The Mark VII armor system is likewise unique in its ability to withstand suborbital insertion with limited or no additional assistance, and orbital insertions with minimal additional equipment. Unlike other iterations of MJOLNIR save for the GEN2 Decimator variant's attempts to reverse engineer the technology, the Mark VII armor also possesses a limited ability to project and reshape the suit's energy shielding as well as nanites capable of gradually repairing the armor and upgrading it should the user lack a proper facility to do so.

**Tactical Package - Shielding:** Reinforces energy shield emitters by means of a modifying bypass of standard performance regulators, allowing a higher shield-recharge rate after taking damage.

**Support Upgrade - Dexterity:** Circumvents overlock and mobility systems, temporarily allowing the bypass of fine-control movement governors to obtain quicker reloading times and weapon swapping as well as enhanced control over both minute motions and those typically associated with fast twitch response muscles, greatly enhancing speed and precision in hand to hand engagements. Upgrades which enhance movement have increased in popularity for operations with intense close quarters firefights which demand swift weapon versatility.

**Support Upgrade - Stealth:** A largely nominal software upgrade that decreases user movement noise and visibility on thecertain VISR enhancement and other sensory systems. Intended for Spartan-IVs that have completed training and shown aptitude for WETWORKS specialization, the support package enhances MJOLNIR's passive stealth systems to leave the smallest tactical footprint possible.

**VISR:** A shortened name for Virtual Intelligence System, Reconnaissance, this technology has become standard issue on all MJOLNIR armor sets with the release of the GEN2 platform. Vincent's armor is no exception. Utilizing the 4.09 version featuring numerous software and optimization improvements over the default 4.0 issued to new Spartan IV recruits, VISR provides a wide range of benefits and optical enhancements when active. These include but are not limited to thermal imaging, low light visibility settings and threat identification/tracking. More impressively, the system can make full use of MJOLNIR's powerful onboard computation ability to enhance pattern recognition algorithms, allowing it to highlight and track enemies using active camouflage and other cloaking technologies based on light refraction and other environmental factors as early as the 2.0 version utilized by ODST strike teams. Assuming that there are other individuals nearby using the same technology and keyed into the same tactical network, the VISR can also highlight and track not only allies but assign navpoints to enemies and objectives on the fly as well, allowing for additional tactical options as well as enhanced tracking and battlefield navigation.

**Active Camouflage:** Reverse engineered from the Covenant's light bending technology during the UNSC's years spent rebuilding after 2553, the new version of the technology lacks most of the pitfalls of the poor man's version of the reactive "chameleon" plating utilized in the SPI armor employed by most Spartan IIIs during training and active service. While Vincent's MJOLNIR lacked the technology until 2556, his return to using it is like riding a bike - you never forget. Making him effectively invisible when used, the technology's optical effect is very nearly perfect save for a slight shimmer noticeable when the user is moving quickly or in brightly lit areas.