It doesn't matter, she still broke the law.

I just didn't make sense whatsoever. The original human point of the spartan project was to stop the innies from causing a civil war that would have split humanity apart. Halsey was asked by the government to help and only did so because she didn't want somebody else (like ackerson) taking shortcuts and losing site of the purpose of the project. Halsey never hid her feelings for what she was doing and expressed guilt through all the novels. Yet she did [b]her best[/b] to make the spartans ready as possible and give them the best equipment she could. She loved them as her own children and made the time and effort to know each one of them inside and out. She wasn't anything of a monster that Karen made her out to be. the ethical focus should have been on ackerson who was the [b]exact[/b] opposite of halsey.

No one's doubting she saved manknind, but that wasn't the intention of the program. That was an unforseen circumstance. My opinion of her is unchanged. She is a conflicted human being with questionable motives, but admirable ones as well. She loves her Spartans, but she still did horrible things to them--and if Parangosky's right, horrible things to the families. I get the sense people forget that Parangosky is angry with her because the clones themselves suffered through a long, painful genetic break down, and for years the families had to watch their children die that painful death. Halsey should haved known that was going to happen, and if she'd known, she would have known that she was bringing no comfort to the families. Hence, why Parangosky thinks she did it for herself. Halsey is a flawed human being--she is cold and calculating, and puts science at a dangerously high level next to morality. Parangosky's a flawed person too: she's a vengeful -blam!- who will kill or destroy the lives of anyone who crosses her (or lies to her). As a reader, I have no real opinion about them. I'm just here to watch what happens. [Edited on 08.12.2012 1:08 PM PDT]

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] ROBERTO jh if Parangosky's right, horrible things to the families. I get the sense people forget that Parangosky is angry with her because the clones themselves suffered through a long, painful genetic break down, and for years the families had to watch their children die that painful death. Halsey should haved known that was going to happen, and if she'd known, she would have known that she was bringing no comfort to the families. Hence, why Parangosky thinks she did it for herself. Halsey is a flawed human being--she is cold and calculating, and puts science at a dangerously high level next to morality. Parangosky's a flawed person too: she's a vengeful -blam!- who will kill or destroy the lives of anyone who crosses her (or lies to her). As a reader, I have no real opinion about them. I'm just here to watch what happens.[/quote] The clones lasted for a few weeks if not a month or two tops, not "years". Halsey did the to give the families closure to know that their child did [b]die[/b] instead of grieving for decades wondering what happened to them, checking "is this your child" posters, or wondering if their child might have been recovered in a recent sex slave circuit. Morality has no place in logic. What the government asked her to do was a logical one.

Because of Traviss's extremely one-sided writing style, I've grown to feel more and more sorry for her. She's being unfairly treated like she's Satan, and Frankie's justification for that perspective is because she made the Spartan-IIs to fight humans... lolwut? Halsey's journal has a number of records about the Insurrection, colonies being utterly destroyed and the icing on the cake being the findings of Doctor Carver who said that unless the Insurrection was sterilised swiftly then human society would stagnate and completely fall apart. The whole flash clones thing doesn't work as a demonising factor either. Halsey was trying to provide closure to the parents, but I see that grey has already gone into that. I'd be a lot more comfortable with 343i's treatment of Halsey if they provided multiple viewpoints for Halsey's character and didn't turn just about every other person who has been close to her against her. Admittedly she was a total dick with Prone To Drift and deserved to be whacked, but that doesn't make her some amoral demon... Namely, the recurring comparisons drawn between her and Mengele. [Edited on 08.12.2012 1:52 PM PDT]

I ended up liking Halsey more after reading that wonderful piece of literature. Of course, by "Halsey" I mean the character pre-Glasslands. The Halsey in Glasslands was a whiny, idiotic, emotional pile of crap that had to be lead around by the others; she wasn't the Halsey that was strong/capable/intelligent. Thought the idea of Lucy, a veritable super-human, full-on punching Halsey in the head and not instantly killing her/causing a more severe injury than a broken nose to be stupid - then again, Spartans = stormtroopers now, I guess. I don't like the character in Glasslands (though, I don't really like [b]any[/b] part of Glasslands) because she just seems to be... lacking, I guess. She does almost nothing throughout the entire book - Mendez or the S-IIs seemed to come up with the answers for most problems, whereas Nylund's Halsey would figure stuff out quick - and when she does, chances are it is accompanied by "Sigh I'm an awful person I deserve death sigh moan sigh." The ending, in particular, peeved me; it seems to me that ONI, and thus Parangosky, are the ones who OKed everything on the S-II program - including the flash clones. Parangosky being pissed at Halsey for that was just dumb. Basically, I don't hate her on the level of "Hurr durr, she's like Mengele what an awful -blam!-!" as the mouthpieces for Traviss do, even though new Halsey, to be frank, sucks. Ended up liking original Halsey more cause of it. Edit: Also had a problem with Halsey's interaction with Prone. Old Halsey would've tried to figure out the sitch with him, would've probably translated Engineerspeak... but, of course, new Halsey reacts irrationally and is a douche about it. Luckily, Mary S- I mean, Lucy, was there to take care of the situation. (If you couldn't tell, I don't have a high opinion of 343i/Traviss' horrid attempt at crafting new Halo material). [Edited on 08.12.2012 5:53 PM PDT]

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] ajw34307 Because of Traviss's extremely one-sided writing style, I've grown to feel more and more sorry for her. She's being unfairly treated like she's Satan, and Frankie's justification for that perspective is because she made the Spartan-IIs to fight humans... lolwut? Halsey's journal has a number of records about the Insurrection, colonies being utterly destroyed and the icing on the cake being the findings of Doctor Carver who said that unless the Insurrection was sterilised swiftly then human society would stagnate and completely fall apart. The whole flash clones thing doesn't work as a demonising factor either. Halsey was trying to provide closure to the parents, but I see that grey has already gone into that. I'd be a lot more comfortable with 343i's treatment of Halsey if they provided multiple viewpoints for Halsey's character and didn't turn just about every other person who has been close to her against her. Admittedly she was a total dick with Prone To Drift and deserved to be whacked, but that doesn't make her some amoral demon... Namely, the recurring comparisons drawn between her and Mengele.[/quote] I believe I've said this a number of times across many discussions, they had Naomi, they introduce her by literally having Paragonsky mention something about being careful, as Naomi would defend Halsey (as I recall).... Then Naomi not once steps up to talk about Halsey's good actions. Hell, throughout the entire book I think the ONLY defense of Halsey was Fred saying, after Mendez asked (in a manner that made me think it was to purposefully turn Fred against Halsey, IIRC), and Fred went "If Halsey didn't do what she did, I'd be another corpse, I'd have never hit my full potential." Like AJW, I'd be happier with Halsey's treatment if others, like say Mendez, or the Spartans/Naomi had stepped up and went "Okay, yeah this was awful, but look at the good things she did for us!" instead of being silent, or turning around her. Mendez turning against her and doing such things like accusing her of purposefully withholding information THAT WOULD harm the group was >_<. Justice: I know right? The lore before made it sound like Flash clones were part of the plan, then Glasslands comes along and apparently Parangosky, who BOASTS about having hacked all of Halsey's secrets, never learned of the flash clones until they got to the families... And Parangosky was damning Halsey because she had more morality... I mean, did you catch that Parangosky hints the spartans will reunite with their families? Not "I'll give them the data so they know their past." it came across as "I'm giving them it so they can reunite with their parents. Your flash clones thing is causing problems with that!" John -117 met a childhood friend. He was tempted, then went "Such knowledge being released would tear the UNSC apart." Yet Parangosky thinks it is okay >_<. [Edited on 08.12.2012 8:01 PM PDT]

Glasslands? What's Glasslands? There's no such book with that name /sarcasm :P hehe My opinion of Halsey has not been changed by Glasslands in the least, I always liked the character, and if anything I like her even more now because of Traviss' effort to drag Halsey through the mud and assassinate and bash on her character. I did not approve of Traviss' "alternate" character interpretation at all, it felt like some other character with Halsey's name and wearing a Halsey suit running around. And another really big issue I had was characters who should have been sticking up for Halsey tooth and nail (the Spartans) just sat around on their asses and essentially just went "lol wut, hur dur, hurp derp" over the whole thing >_< Or Mendez suddenly and inexplicably developing a massive hate-on for Halsey over a couple hours in universe. I mean, he was just fine toward Halsey in Ghosts of Onyx, and now suddenly he hates Halsey's guts and sure acts like he's seriously considering in his mind letting her starve to death!!! The most annoying though is how he seemed to throwing all the blame at Halsey >_> ...when he has no room to talk after taking a key part in a project that in my mind is arguably worse. It's one thing to kidnap kids and then train them to become soldiers later in life, and another entirely to send kids to their certain deaths as suicide soldiers. What particularly takes the cake though is Parangosky's apparent reasoning as given by Traviss for hating Halsey being the fact that there were flash-clones of the kids. I mean, it doesn't even make any sense, that's not something that Halsey would have been able to keep secret, and if Halsey went over Parangosky to get approval for the flash-clones, then there is absolutely jack--blam!- she can do about it and she has absolutely no reason at all to complain. And the fact that that hag has the [i][b]gall[/b][/i] to try and take the moral highground when her own sins are far blacker and more numerous just pisses me off to no end. In regards to breaking the law, have you ever heard the phrase "the buck stops here", OP? Parangosky and any other members of authority in the UNSC who authorized the Spartan II program are the true ones bearing the responsibility and holding the bag in the end, the blame rests on their shoulders. Especially since they were the ones who came up with Spartan II in the first place and approached Halsey on the subject, rather than the other way around as Traviss would have us believe. Halsey is not the one who came up with the Spartan program, ONI/UNSC even had to persuade her to join in on it as she initially refused and only accepted after she ran all the prospective numbers on casualties that would ultimately result from outright war if the Insurrectionists kept escalating things as well as seeing the Carver Findings which stated if the Insurrection continued unabated and unchecked then humanity would enter another dark age. And Halsey wasn't really that cold and calculating either, that's another mis-characterization that Traviss introduced to things and muddled up canon. More than Traviss though I'm very disappointed n 343i for allowing it to be published the way it was. [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] ROBERTO jh No one's doubting she saved manknind, but that wasn't the intention of the program. That was an unforseen circumstance. My opinion of her is unchanged. She is a conflicted human being with questionable motives, but admirable ones as well. She loves her Spartans, but she still did horrible things to them--and if Parangosky's right, horrible things to the families. I get the sense people forget that Parangosky is angry with her because the clones themselves suffered through a long, painful genetic break down, and for years the families had to watch their children die that painful death. Halsey should haved known that was going to happen, and if she'd known, she would have known that she was bringing no comfort to the families. Hence, why Parangosky thinks she did it for herself. Halsey is a flawed human being--she is cold and calculating, and puts science at a dangerously high level next to morality. Parangosky's a flawed person too: she's a vengeful -blam!- who will kill or destroy the lives of anyone who crosses her (or lies to her). As a reader, I have no real opinion about them. I'm just here to watch what happens.[/quote] Well let me ask you this? Would you be happier knowing that your kid died surrounded by loved ones and all their family (even death is painful and not at all happy), or one day having your kid completely vanish and never finding out whatever happened to them and left wondering what their fate was until the day you died? I know for one that if any of the kids I would possibly have (or hell, even one of my younger siblings) got kidnapped that I'd never be able to forgive myself and I'd just be miserable far longer, most likely for my whole life, than I'd be if my kid died. It would be one constant nagging emotion at the back of my brain if they just disappeared, even if it is still a horrible tragedy if they died, I wouldn't be left constantly worrying over their fate, it's a loose end tied up and I'd eventually be able to move on from it...not so if I never, ever see them again. Even if the flash-clones did die, it's still the more proper thing to do than just kidnapping the kids and leaving it at that, at least with the flash-clones the family has some small measure of comfort as opposed to the alternative. And I don't ever remember it being implied that the death the flash-clones would have would be painful at all, or no more painful than most sicknesses are, just that they would die. And even so, it's still whole universes better than never knowing what happened at all. Parangosky is honestly a heartless fiend if she thinks that just kidnapping the kids would have been better for everyone involved. And no, that last paragraph does not really apply at all to Halsey, [i][b]Traviss'[/b][/i] character-derailed portrayal is certainly that, but I never really got any of that vibe from Halsey when Nylund or Bungie wrote for her. She was never particularly cold or all that deliberately calculating either. And science certainly wasn't the end all and be all of her existence, that last one [i]especially[/i] is something Traviss pulled from her behind and slapped onto the character to give her a reason to bash Halsey even more. Your bit about Parangosky though is most definitely true and fits to a "t". I always hated Parangosky though, along with Ackerson though he redeemed himself a bit in the end, ever since she appeared in Ghosts of Onyx. I'm not a huge fan of Halsey, but I've always liked her.

Pre-Glasslands, I saw Halsey as a gray character, yes her actions are debatably bad, but the motives behind them were sound and she did feel bad for them. Yet now I have no reason but to defend her because Traviss and 343i decided to hamfist in hatred towards her and force the idea down your throat that she is a bad person. And sorry Karen, I don't buy the "flash clones were done in secret" reasoning behind Maggie's ire, that is utter bull-blam!-. [Edited on 08.13.2012 12:25 AM PDT]

I think that Parangosky is not angry about the clones, she is lying. She is angry, maybe for some other reason. Perhaps Ackerson was her nephew or something :D?! She knew about the Flash Clones. But she wanted Halsey under her control again. Something is up on Installation 03. [Edited on 08.13.2012 2:02 AM PDT]

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] grey101 [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] ROBERTO jh if Parangosky's right, horrible things to the families. I get the sense people forget that Parangosky is angry with her because the clones themselves suffered through a long, painful genetic break down, and for years the families had to watch their children die that painful death. Halsey should haved known that was going to happen, and if she'd known, she would have known that she was bringing no comfort to the families. Hence, why Parangosky thinks she did it for herself. Halsey is a flawed human being--she is cold and calculating, and puts science at a dangerously high level next to morality. Parangosky's a flawed person too: she's a vengeful -blam!- who will kill or destroy the lives of anyone who crosses her (or lies to her). As a reader, I have no real opinion about them. I'm just here to watch what happens.[/quote] The clones lasted for a few weeks if not a month or two tops, not "years". Halsey did the to give the families closure to know that their child did [b]die[/b] instead of grieving for decades wondering what happened to them, checking "is this your child" posters, or wondering if their child might have been recovered in a recent sex slave circuit. Morality has no place in logic. What the government asked her to do was a logical one.[/quote]What about in Homecoming for Daisy? She didn't look 6. She looked like she went through years of training and finally cracked. Sure she had a few augmentations, but she was 14 by then! Meaning the clone had been around for what? 8 years, explain that.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] mojeda101 [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] grey101 [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] ROBERTO jh if Parangosky's right, horrible things to the families. I get the sense people forget that Parangosky is angry with her because the clones themselves suffered through a long, painful genetic break down, and for years the families had to watch their children die that painful death. Halsey should haved known that was going to happen, and if she'd known, she would have known that she was bringing no comfort to the families. Hence, why Parangosky thinks she did it for herself. Halsey is a flawed human being--she is cold and calculating, and puts science at a dangerously high level next to morality. Parangosky's a flawed person too: she's a vengeful -blam!- who will kill or destroy the lives of anyone who crosses her (or lies to her). As a reader, I have no real opinion about them. I'm just here to watch what happens.[/quote] The clones lasted for a few weeks if not a month or two tops, not "years". Halsey did the to give the families closure to know that their child did [b]die[/b] instead of grieving for decades wondering what happened to them, checking "is this your child" posters, or wondering if their child might have been recovered in a recent sex slave circuit. Morality has no place in logic. What the government asked her to do was a logical one.[/quote]What about in Homecoming for Daisy? She didn't look 6. She looked like she went through years of training and finally cracked. Sure she had a few augmentations, but she was 14 by then! Meaning the clone had been around for what? 8 years, explain that.[/quote] I will have to agree with you here, but Daisy appeared to be an exception.

She did the wrong thing for the right reasons and she broke the law on various occasions but without the S II program the insurrectionist would have escalated mean humanity would be in a weaker position come the contact with the covenant and with out the Spartans to win the ground battles ( I remember reading John saying on the ground Spartans always won it was the navy that lost the space battles ) they would have easily lost the war. It's probably quite extreme to say but end justify the means applies here the survival of humanity from complete breakdown during the insurrection does explain the etreme lentghs required. The main point of everyone's hatred of her is that she produced flash clones knowing they were going to die which was wrong but she felt she had to provide closure to the parents and as brutal as this sounds it's probably better to know your child is dead than them be missing. I was annoyed that literally no one tried to defend her and the way parangosky twisted everyone to hate her yet no one cares about the other people involved in the program or even the S III program somehow that's less morally wrong. It will be interesting to see what happens to her in the next two books as they can't kill her as she is possibly the greatest scientist who ever lived and has the greatest knowledge of forerunner tech. Overall I think yes she did wrong but without it there would be no UNSC left to arrest her and the way she is treated is just wrong especially the way parangosky just goes oh yeah your daughters dead. [Edited on 08.13.2012 2:54 AM PDT]

Can't help but notice that no one mentioned that Halsey, took a military asset (Kelly) away from the battlefield for her own reasons and she lied to everyone saying her goal was to get to a Forerunner technology cache when it was really to save as many of her Spartans and the new III's as possible and then run away to the farthest area of the galaxy. (Costing the UNSC 8 ships and thousands of lives). So in that area, I can see why she was arrested. Still hate how she was treated though. Preferred her pre-Glasslands a tad.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] ThatOneJedi Can't help but notice that no one mentioned that Halsey, took a military asset (Kelly) away from the battlefield for her own reasons and she lied to everyone saying her goal was to get to a Forerunner technology cache when it was really to save as many of her Spartans and the new III's as possible and then run away to the farthest area of the galaxy. (Costing the UNSC 8 ships and thousands of lives). So in that area, I can see why she was arrested. Still hate how she was treated though. Preferred her pre-Glasslands a tad.[/quote] It's not her fault the UNSC launched ships. Remember, she didn't ask for those. Also, how many people, BESIDES Halsey knows her plan was really just making sure the Spartans survived? That's right... NOBODY in universe, but her. Everybody else doesn't know. And nope, she was arrested for the Flash Clones as I recall, nothing else. Or a BS claim blaming her for the Spartans being sent to Onyx, when that was Entirely Lord Hood's choice and Parangosky did jack -blam!- to stop it. Edit: Halsey asked for the Spartans to be sent, not the battlegroup. So that can't be blamed on her. Also... is it really a bad thing that she tried to save the Spartans, and in a sense, humanity because she predicted that Earth was going to fall (and it would have, if not for Truth who she had no information on). Literally, her predictions would have played out to the letter (humanity losing and being wiped out) if not for the fact internally the Covenant tore itself in half. [Edited on 08.13.2012 6:34 AM PDT]

Well, didn't say my reasons were right, just adding a point no one seemed to notice. And Hood sent the task force to extract the Spartans and the technologies Halsey promised so, indirectly, it was her fault. I honestly don't thin its a bad thing to save the Spartans. She abducted them, indoctrinated them, half died from the augmentations (which weren't her fault) to fight a war and she wanted peace for them, wanted them to have a happy life.

It made me reconsider everything I've learnt about the Spartan project so far. At least Ackerson was honest in his reasons for training Spartan-IIIs, "Trading lives for time". Unlike Halsey, who grew a conscience somewhere along the way in desperately tried to save "her" Spartans by abducting them to Onyx. Don't take my word for it, but I found Halsey a more interesting character instead of the shell she was pre-Glasslands.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] ajw34307 Traviss's extremely one-sided writing style[/quote] Agreed. She's trying to make Halsey into something she's not.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] mojeda101 [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] grey101 [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] ROBERTO jh if Parangosky's right, horrible things to the families. I get the sense people forget that Parangosky is angry with her because the clones themselves suffered through a long, painful genetic break down, and for years the families had to watch their children die that painful death. Halsey should haved known that was going to happen, and if she'd known, she would have known that she was bringing no comfort to the families. Hence, why Parangosky thinks she did it for herself. Halsey is a flawed human being--she is cold and calculating, and puts science at a dangerously high level next to morality. Parangosky's a flawed person too: she's a vengeful -blam!- who will kill or destroy the lives of anyone who crosses her (or lies to her). As a reader, I have no real opinion about them. I'm just here to watch what happens.[/quote] The clones lasted for a few weeks if not a month or two tops, not "years". Halsey did the to give the families closure to know that their child did [b]die[/b] instead of grieving for decades wondering what happened to them, checking "is this your child" posters, or wondering if their child might have been recovered in a recent sex slave circuit. Morality has no place in logic. What the government asked her to do was a logical one.[/quote]What about in Homecoming for Daisy? She didn't look 6. She looked like she went through years of training and finally cracked. Sure she had a few augmentations, but she was 14 by then! Meaning the clone had been around for what? 8 years, explain that.[/quote] You are seriously trying to use the artistic license in glasslands in this conversation? not to mention they aren't going to show a 6 year old kid.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Poy Poy It made me reconsider everything I've learnt about the Spartan project so far. At least Ackerson was honest in his reasons for training Spartan-IIIs, "Trading lives for time". Unlike Halsey, who grew a conscience somewhere along the way in desperately tried to save "her" Spartans by abducting them to Onyx. [/quote] You must have been skipping pages in all the books because she always had a conscience, i think she even apologized to john before she even left his sight. She only took [b]one[/b] spartan and hood sent the rest. It isn't like ONI wasn't going around and re-routing spartans for their own ends anyway.

I thought the same of her. After all, she pretty much saved humanity. And plus, the whole "but you made clooooonnnnneesss" thing was a ploy by Parangosky to take Halsey's power away from her. After all, it was Parangosky who authorized the damn thing in the first place. Halsey was TOLD to do it.

She saved the human race, a small sacrifice for the greater good. If there were no Spartan project, mankind would have been destroyed. [Edited on 08.13.2012 11:46 AM PDT]

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] ThatOneJedi Can't help but notice that no one mentioned that Halsey, took a military asset (Kelly) away from the battlefield for her own reasons [/quote] Like how Parangosky ordered an interrogation on Fred WHILE Earth was being attacked by the Covenant?

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] DecepticonCobra [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] ThatOneJedi Can't help but notice that no one mentioned that Halsey, took a military asset (Kelly) away from the battlefield for her own reasons [/quote] Like how Parangosky ordered an interrogation on Fred WHILE Earth was being attacked by the Covenant?[/quote] Much like Ackerson wanted his own personal spartans.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] ThatOneJedi Well, didn't say my reasons were right, just adding a point no one seemed to notice. And Hood sent the task force to extract the Spartans and the technologies Halsey promised so, indirectly, it was her fault. I honestly don't thin its a bad thing to save the Spartans. She abducted them, indoctrinated them, half died from the augmentations (which weren't her fault) to fight a war and she wanted peace for them, wanted them to have a happy life.[/quote] Actually, IIRC, Halsey didn't mention ANYTHING about tech. Literally her message was trouble/send spartans if I recall right. She didn't indoctrinate them, ONI did. same for Abducting. [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Poy Poy It made me reconsider everything I've learnt about the Spartan project so far. At least Ackerson was honest in his reasons for training Spartan-IIIs, "Trading lives for time". Unlike Halsey, who grew a conscience somewhere along the way in desperately tried to save "her" Spartans by abducting them to Onyx. Don't take my word for it, but I found Halsey a more interesting character instead of the shell she was pre-Glasslands.[/quote] So... somebody who has a conscience/grows one, is WORSE then somebody who went "Eh, let's send these 300+ kids that aren't even teenagers in shoddy armor to their deaths!" A "Shell" pre-glasslands? Care to expand on that? Sheesh, you sound like the "supposedly high moral compass" ODST in Glasslands. *Reads what Halsey did, goes up with mind to kill her. Get's talked down by AI. On way back to room, looks at S3's, notes their size, young age, AND THAT THEY ARE SUICIDE soldiers. Has no issues with that AT ALL.* [Edited on 08.13.2012 1:37 PM PDT]