Still makes more sense than most of our tweets though. twitter.com/TemplinEdu

Templin Institute: “Here’s a look at the Spartan branch.” Also Templin Institute the next day: “Here’s why the Spartan branch is the dumb.”

"Son, you're being transferred to the Spartan branch" "Oh wow, will I get some augmentations and power armor?" "No, you're logistics and procurement. Grab a clipboard, we need to slightly change the colors on all the logos. "

The Spartans were perfectly fine being under Naval Special Warfare Command. Let the brass handle strategic deployment of Spartans so the Spartans can full devote themselves to using their enhanced abilities and equipment without having to worry about running themselves. You don’t see Delta Force or the SAS having such autonomy. You need those guys to achieve the objectives they’re given by military command.

I think your argument is solid here. The arrangement and details of Spartan Operations sound a lot like an attempt to create an independent, autonomous military order within the UNSC that can operate as it pleases. Operational efficiency be damned.

The Spartan branch feels like a war to de militarize the universe. The Spartans being under the normal services felt like a more realistic implication of a special forces branch. Now that the Spartans are more separate from the unsc as a whole and making more like super heroes rather than highly trained soldiers. And it’s odd considering the 4s are pulled from different branches. They would work so much better staying within their branches and cultures. The branch seems like they have created a kind of super warrior class rather like something out of 40k but without the aesthetic and culture that comes with that behavior

Bungie: and they'll be massive. Like 210+cm tall! Also Bungie: designs all equipment and vehicles in the game for Spartan model size, then forces 170cm humans into weird poses to use all that.

"Spartans are what will see us through the darkness" might not be a good argument, however "Spartans are no longer assets of ONI" is a REALLY good one considering how... problematic ONI tends to be.

I guess it depends on how independant it actually is. There are many countries that have a joint command for Special Operations, that standardised training, tactics etc, but then in the actual hierarchy, the SpecOps are still under the High Command of each of the three branches of the military.

So we have a ‘makes no sense’ video. Does this mean we will get a ‘reimagined video’ as well?

2:42 An extreme example in sci-fi being when the Jedi sent most clone commandos onto the frontlines on Geonosis and around half of the 10,000 Commandos produced by the Kaminoans got wiped out.

"Think of the Spartans like if the UNSC developed a super special new bomber." "your mistake is viewing Spartans as military hardware. My Spartans are humanity's next step, our destination as a species. Do not underestimate them."

If we're going to lean into the melodrama over military sense (as Halo seems wont to do), having Spartans be their own separate branch makes sense for another reason. For all their successes, first against the insurrections and then against the Covenant, the Spartans were always treated as tools or weapons instead of soldiers. Their humanity was denied and their agency constrained in a way that no other service's members were. Spartans were tactical and operational geniuses, but they had no voice at the strategic level. More than any other force in the UNSC, quoth Tennyson, "theirs not to make reply, theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die." And the burden of the UNSC's strategic mistakes fell disproportionately on their MJOLNIR-armored shoulders, and Ghanem and the other SPARTAN-II's probably considered that unjust. With the fracturing of the Covenant, the massive expansion of the Spartans through the SPARTAN-IV program, and the end of the cloak-and-dagger brutality that made the SPARTAN-IIs due to public outrage, any practical reasons for treating Spartans as "less than" human disappeared too. From this perspective, making Spartans an independent branch was first and foremost about making sure if they were going to be sent "to do and die," they would at least have someone in the room with the authority to question the other UNSC branches, and even to tell them that they were wrong. The bureaucratics and logistics were to be worked out later. I imagine that in practice Spartan Ops has a similar role to the UNSC Navy (and Marines) as the IRL US Marine Corps does to the US Navy - a partner service, but not literally a part, separate chains of command but sharing a common expeditionary mission and logistics chain, and freely sharing personnel and capabilities to get the mission done.

ONI Ensign: Mac rounds in atmosphere, for one Canadian national..? We have plenty of Other options ma’am.. ONI Admiral: This will send a message, you may fire when ready..

My impression, with no evidence to back it up, is that the intent is to transition over time to a fully Spartan combat soldier deployment, with non-Spartans only filling support, second-line, or crew roles that don't require or really benefit from the Spartan enhancements. Splitting them off from whichever services they originated from and consolidating them into a new branch lays that groundwork. It's not for immediate utility, it's for twenty years down the line when Spartan Ops are the dominant branch for armed personnel deployment.

“The Dawn Beyond” would make for a good ship name considering the other names of ships (pillar of autumn comes to mind)

Its a good argument. Don't really wanna dispute it. But I think of how it was originally and I can't say I like the Spartans being under the 'ownership' of ONI post-war. They were the ones who 'recruited' the Spartans, trained them, augmented them and gave them their iconic armor. All that and more makes them ONI assets which is not a calming thought. Throughout the war, Spartans have gain an mythical reputation and it was a Spartan would was instrumental in saving humanity. Musa, being a washout Spartan, capitalized on all that to make this push and the Infinity Incident as a means to seal the deal. There was clearly a whole lot going through his head and I would love to gain details on it all.

Personally I find the Spartans being a separate branch to be relatively beneficial for one major reason: No singular branch can try claiming Spartans that came from those branches. When it comes to inner military politics, many branches will try to keep their claims on soldiers unless they're explicitly moved to other branches. Having the Spartans be classified as Army, Navy, or Marine while being expected to operate as a Spartan in special operations could make conflicts. I can't imagine an Admiral isn't going to want a group of Spartans at a high ranking ceremony, and will try to pull as many Spartans as they need for the occasion, regardless of if those Spartans could be put to better use elsewhere, all because they are still under his command.

What if in part the Spartans being their own branch is a feature, not a bug. Consider the Horus Heresy from the Warhammer 40k universe. Pre-heresy the Imperial Army and Navy were one combine branch. They were split to limit the power of any individual group to go rogue and conduct war. Now consider Spartans, superhuman in almost every way. Perhaps they were spun into their own branch not only so they could command themselves but also to help prevent one or a group of charismatic Spartans from rising the ranks and then revolting against the government and military. Similar instances of these exist in the Halo universe with the Arbiter and Atriox. This way, they command no ships, they have no ground assets or forces except those supplied to them by other branches. Indeed, they likely have to have their own tech developed for them. They have the independence they need to operate but the dependence to keep them in line and manageable.

In the US we have a quasi branch called SOCOM (Special Opperations Command) that does the same thing the spartan branch does in Halo, and the opperational and logistical benifits from doing so has been of great benifit to us, makes sense for halo too.

I agree that the branch designation doesn't make sense in an organizational sense. I've seen SOCOM get brought up already and I think that would be the type of structure that would make the most sense. I feel like a solid retcon for the lore would be to indicate that calling it Spartan Branch was a propaganda tool.

Personally I'd compare Spartan Ops to something akin to CIA 'special operations' of sorts - almost a black books operation but not quite Not limited by the other branches of the military, at arms length - able to conduct their own ops but still able to assist other branches as needed Another comparison may be the Spectres of the Mass effect universe as a fictional comparator - although I see this comparison as more tenuous

It's its own "branch" in the same way that the Phoenix Program in the Vietnam War was its own thing by the end.

The problem, as always with these kinds of things, is that the people writing for the game don't really understand how these things work. They always go first with the 'this looks/sounds cool' factor instead of the 'does this make any sense' factor...

3:05 Also special forces units usually need to work with a main force. Like paratroopers are useless without an immediate follow up assault.

Yay! It's time for another episode of "Marc Critiquing Things I Think Are Cool"

Yeah, but isn't the modern military of our era moving towards smaller specialised forces? Spartan branch would be like any special branch that can be appended to any other branch. Their independence made them stronger. You are after all as strong as your weakest link. And as a close knit unit made them a weapon/tool which can be used on special missions just like you would to fire a missile at a bunker. You wouldn't allow one major branch missiles but not the other branch.

Weird. From the games it seemed as if the Spartans were, up until the end of the Human/Covenant War, an independent special forces branch that owed them being an independent branch to the fact they were meant to be a secret - and were a branch related to and under the supervision of ONI, whom would monitor and assign various Spartan Units to various UNSC military branches or SpecOps/Black Ops assignments, with the common denominator (if I'm using the phrase correctly) being that the Spartans received their orders either from ONI or the highest ranking Naval Officer in the region they were deployed to. After the Human/Covenant War the need for secrecy was dropped and the Spartan branch was officially made public and properly integrated into the UNSC military, whilst ONI was given direct command over them as the people the Spartans report to, whom would still be assigned to different UNSC branches/operations by ONI, but with the caveat now that ONI's orders and directives supersedes those given by the highest ranking officers of those other branches the Spartans were assigned to, if any conflicting commands were to be given by them. This is what I got just from playing the games and reading the Initiation/Escalation comic series. During the war, the Navy called the shots, ONI kept tabs on them. After the war, ONI called the shots and their word superseded everyone elses. This apparent fact that the Spartans were made an autonomous branch of the UNSC military without apparently being monitored, supervised, or even being directed and given assignments by another branch, let alone ONI, is new information and brings numerous questions to mind, like how do you even deploy them now or who even is calling the shots for them anymore?? Edit: grammar

I think an argument could be made that the way spartans are best used is different enough from the way conventional troops or even human special forces are used to warrent their own branch to focus on developing unique spartan doctrine. They aren't human in any previous sense of the word and I think a more apt comparison to their incorporation into the unsc would be the advent of planes to warfare than a specific kind of plane being invented.

Counterpoint: The teenage boys I teach at work tell me it's very cool.

I concur. I don't think the Spartans provide enough of a service to warrant a separate branch. Yes, they're excellent special forces, but that doesn't warrant being a separate service. They'll still need to use the Navy to get where they're going, they still need the Army and Marine Corps to conduct meaningful frontline operations, which is where all of their recruits will be procured from anyway. They will have to have a separate budget that needs to be approved, a separate procurement chain, etc. They really are operationally best served by being integrated into the Navy in my opinion.

I've always seen the Spartan Branch creation as the UNSC experimenting with the idea of Spartans replacing baseline marines and ODSTs over a long period of time. As tech and gene advancements are made the process becomes cheaper and ultimately every human soldier will have Spartan armor, training, and physiology

I mean the real answer is "we wanted games workshop style space marines without litigation"

You reckon this allows Commander Ghanem some degree of political authority? Given the martial law the UNCS was formed under, it's not that much of an assumption. This will bite humanity in the ass when there's a coup or succession crisis, I promise you that.

“What if the Air Force came up with a bomber unlike anything we’ve ever seen before, would it make sense to split them off in to their own branch” Interestingly, that’s originally what had happened with the US Army Airforce. When it began it’s life, the USAF was a smaller branch of the United States Army (because there weren’t enough planes in the world to justify giving them their own service.). Over time though, the nature of air conflict necessitated a split, and that split was caused by the introduction of the strategic bomber. Before this point in time, aircraft fell under either the navy’s jurisdiction (if it were carrier based) or the Army’s jurisdiction because they built the forward airbases. After 1947 though we made the first proper strategic bombers (really more like 42 but whatever, the important part is that until 42 we had been using twin engine aircraft as our strategic bombers) that could deliver nuclear payloads, and those bombers were so different than anything the army or navy had been using to this point they were broken in to a new branch. So yes if the airforce suddenly created hovercraft,,, or a space shuttle: it might make sense to give them their own branch

my man is playing both sides to always come on top

The "Spartan Branch" might be mirroring the US Marine Corp. Marines were originally soldiers on ships, but evolved into their own branch. Also the other groups still having special forces is not unusual. Consider that despite _the Airforce_ being a thing, the Navy and Marines both have their own Airforces.

It literally seems like a push to turn Spartans into Spacemarines from Warhammer 40,000...

This never would've happened in the Marathon timeline.

Thanks for mentioning the background music in the description. I definitely want this.

I'm guessing this same argument can also be used against 501st Infantry Regiment, or Vipers, in the Merkiaari wars.

"the UNSC navy probably has something like the US navy SEALs" I always read the spartans as being based on the SEALs, hence why they were navy instead of UNSCMC

The real reason Spartans have their own branch is so that military contractors (Halo Storefront) can charge ridiculous prices for Spartan equipment. The Navy contractors had better bargaining leverage for acquiring supplies to distribute among the Spartans as deemed necessary by Naval Command. On Reach, suppliers would divert more equipment (Cosmetic Armor Pieces) to Spartans that performed above and beyond the call of duty. In the current state of the Spartan Branch, the only method of acquiring that same equipment is to grease the palms of less than savory arms dealers.

Oh thank god i'm not the only one who thinks this

Wasn't project ORION cancelled by the UNSC? Later, ORION2 was enacted in secret by Halsey, and therefore couldn't be a part of the normal UNSC's established branches because it wasn't authorized until the spartan IIs accomplishments were impossible to overlook. At least, that's what I thought lol

Loved the video @The Templin Institute! Can't wait for the next video man! Just Watched this and your Previous video about the Spartans after having watched Ginger Kitsu's 8 hour vod of her, Rimmy Downunder Gaming and his friends play Stormworks: Build and Rescue and Try out Space Engineers in the UNSC Panama!

The idea: Adeptus Astartes, being self-governing high-power spacemarines The reality: VDV, lacking coordinated logistics or combined-arms

The reasoning for the separation of the Spartan Branch is to give Musa 096 the head of the Spartan IV program more administrative control over the deployment of Spartans (particularly his Spartan IVs). Remember that during the war with the covenant Spartans (3's) were on the regular viewed as expandable assets for high priority objectives by ONI something I am sure Jun A266 was keen to inform Musa when creating the Spartan IV program. It would make sense in that regard that Musa would take steps to ensure that his fellow Spartans would not be expended so readily without exploring other tactical alternatives to a given situation. It also allowed for a steady flow of feedback from deployed Spartans on things such as Armor and training modifications to ensure the highest standards of efficiency on the field.

From what I recall, the Spartan Ops Manual specifically mentions a couple of special operations forces utilized by the UNSC. The one I remember is the Army Rangers which are stay behind units designed to conduct a guerrilla warfare resistance should a colony be captured and occupied by a hostile force

I think your analysis is a little off to me the creation of separate branch for the Spartans seems to have many parallels with the waffen ss

I mean, Spartan 2 training did more than make effective frontline commandos. The 2s were taught tactics and grand strategy, and any one of them was capable of becoming a new Napoleon. The 3s, granted had a more solid commando focus. Bringing in pre-trained specops personnel is interesting, because soldiers with previous specops experience can make for incredible military leaders, giving them a chance to shine in a capacity they may not have had in a standard military branch, especially after years of heavy physical and mental tolls. I think the video makes some good points about logistics within the military, but I think it also ignores some of the lore that Spartans have the capacity to be more than frontline commandos. So, yeah, i do think a spartan 2 general or admiral would have a better idea on how to deploy Spartan assets than a Naval admiral.

There's definitely a lot more people in the comment section then there were in the last video!

I like the idea of the next game being a kind of Human civil war and you play as a Spartan and can give orders to your average person squad that if you let die it makes the game significantly harder, make it actually tactical this time around. And the mini-bosses will be other Spartans and their squads.

I believe that the reason to give their own branch is that it allows more scrutiny over a project that has a deeply questionable and quite illegal history. The origin of the Spartans is illegal human tests conducted on kidnapped children with the purpose of crushing rebels. After the start of the war with the covenant the Spartan II became special ops but the Spartan III became something much darker... The Spartan III project was about creating cheaper and more expendable elite soldiers (i know it's an Oxymoron) to use in strategic suicide missions: hundreds of teenagers were used and lost this way. With a history like this i think it's extremely important to check and limit the autonomy of this branch in order to avoid some new abuse of power.

You should do your own version of a spartan brach like you did with the new republic and first order

When you look at military structures, you can learn a lot by how different unit types are deployed and integrated with others: 1. Squad/Platoon level integration - roles that can't be independent and need other unit types present to function, and don't need specialised sustainment/logistics (e.g. Grenadiers, Light machine gunners) 2. Company level - units that need to work very closely in cooperation and will likely deploy together but can be grouped separately (e.g generally limited to homogeneous platoons/squads, HQ units and organic logistics) 3. Battalion level - units that will work in the same area of operations to support each other closely, but potentially separated by some distance, or with flexibility of how specialised sub-units are deployed. This is where specialist weapons teams that need independent logistics start to integrate, like Anti-tank teams, mortars, and specialised units like engineers. 4 - Brigade level - This is where units of very different types start to work together to give combined arms capabilities and may or may not be deployed together across a wide area. Particularly tanks, infantry, entire battalions of specialist weapons teams like Anti-tank, AA and artillery, larger logistics units, and specialised non combat forces like medical units. 5 - Divisional. Larger specialised units, particularly those needing substantial independent logistics or operating independently over a wide area. Heavy artillery and Anti-Air, potentially organic air support (helicopters) and substantial non-combat support units like police, repair units etc. 6 - Theatre level - Specialised divisions or independent battalions that might work together over a theatre of operations. For example airborne troops, high level artillery formations. 7 - Independent branches - Units that operate almost completely independently and only come under shared command at the highest level. Should be units that rarely need to cooperate intimately except for specific support (e.g. navy transporting army troops and supplies, air force providing air support, intelligence sharing). Have almost completely independently logistics, non-combat support, procurement and training programmes. On that basis, I would expect Spartans to mostly operate organisationally as a nominal independent Brigade level unit at its highest level, but in practical terms more as a groups of association of much smaller units of Platoon to to Company size being able to be detached for independent tasks for short periods or be temporarily attached to regular Divisional or Brigade formations as additional specialised support forces, with loaned logistics and non-combat support from whatever units it was embedded with cooperating with most closely. It's the logistics that's the killer here. Spartan forces just don't have the logistical slice needed without relying on regular units, meaning independent operation of larger units is virtually impossible for an extended period.

One thing I always found really weird was that in halo 4 spartan ops the comms officer on infinity had spartan augmentation and mjolnir armor. Even though his main job appeared to have him out of any sort of combat. Seems like a normal human could be trained to do that job. It's kinda like giving a logistics officer a tank for his daily driver.

I love how you guys always make a video about an organisation before mercilessly desecting them. It's like showing the new kid in school around before you stuff them in a locker and steal their lunch money. Very cordial of you MARC! One aspect I think you missed is the political downsides of creating the Spartan Command. Not only could this make them less effective overall, but it also seems like it could be potentially dangerous for the UNSC to give such an exclusive branch so much unchallenged power. Last time I checked the Spartans were all super soldiers, right? An exclusive, tight knit group of people who are scientifically proven to be better than everyone else, who according to the general's speech also think that they are the only one capable of keeping humanity safe, right? So why would you give them their own independent military service that apparently doesn't even answer to the highest command! Do you really trust them enough to not abuse their new found power? What if the Spartans decide that the best way to keep humanity safe is to control it? Do you really want your best soldiers, with the best equipment to be a potential enemy with no oversight to detect their treachery early?

I agree completely. When the spartans are their own branch every operation suddenly becomes a joint operation, the success of which relies almost entirely on different branches having flawless coordination and communication with each other at all times. Spartans while incredibly potent in and of themselves, are systemically little more than ground infantry units. They still need every form of supporting elements such as artillery, air support, logistics, intelligence, communications, and even supplementary infantry units to do their job effectively. Suddenly you create this logistical nightmare because the army needs to reallocate artillary units to a certain front but the only units on hand belong to the spartan branch so you have to go through chain of command to get approval to requisition support from a separate branch instead of just sending what you need where you need it when it's needed. What's more is that support units within a special forces branch are specialized and wouldn't be utilized regularly because of the unique nature of specific mission sets, so you just freeze up assets that could be better used elsewhere while the spartans are off doing god knows what.

I was initially ready to slice and dice with an energy sword when I saw this notification, but now I understand what you mean. I apologize for my initial brash thought process.

“the office of naval intelligence has its own special security force-for… _some_ reason” Loved that lmao, ONI’s always up to something nefarious

One of the funniest things I've seen is in Spartan Ops in Halo 4. When you meet your handler and he's in full Mjolnir armor, but sat at a desk running Operations. It's a complete waste of resources for something a Naval Officer on the Infinity could handle, so that he coild be out there. Why equip Spartans with millions of dollars in tech just to sit them down at a desk and coordinate troops. Having their own branch is a mistake.

I would argue that ODSTs are the navy seals of the UNSC.

Just a thought, since you made videos on how to organise a navy, a tank force, and a planetary invasion, will a guide to organising the armed forces of an interstellar nation ever be in the cards? Stuff like the several branches, explaining some of the more common ones (Army, Navy, Air Force, etc.) and some of the less common ones (a dedicated special warfare branch, a dedicated cyber warfare branch, air defence branch, gendarmerie branch, border troops branch, etc.), their function and role, as well as how they might be integrated with one another (joint command structures, general staff, joint operations, etc.) and what may cause friction between them (competition for resources or equipment, more generally interservice rivalries), and how their relationship with the national government could look like (measures to enforce civilian control over the military, as well as situations in which the military could act independently or even guide national strategy by itself)

I miss when Spartans had ranks. Best example is John 117 is a master chief petty officer. Now its "spartan jake, spartan sara, spartan so-and-so". That's like saying "oh that's SEAL Adam or SEAL David".

Something that should be considered in this (especially since it was mentioned in the previous video): Musa Ghanem is a survivor of the SPARTAN-II program (specifically SPARTAN-096). He's one of the children who were kidnapped, indoctrinated, and experimented on, and those early enhancement procedures left him crippled and many of his friends dead. I find it entirely believable that he would have pushed for Spartans getting their own branch, even at the expense of operational effectiveness, so that his people could be under their own command. He doesn't trust any other part of the military or government to not treat them as expendable weapons (with pretty good reason - aside from _literally everything_ about the first two iterations, which might be excused as necessary operating requirements, see Operation TORPEDO for what ONI does when they don't have to use up their horribleness budget on setup), so he makes sure the Spartan Branch is answerable to their own kind, humanity's civilian government, and as few other people as possible.

I was going to argue but I was only thinking of the spartan 2s. Everything after the war makes no sense and you made very good points for why it makes no sense. Great video

I see it as laziness, they should be under the navy since they are a spacefaring civilization and thus the spartans would then get access to naval budgets which are always larger than what ground forces would get. That and spartans go wherever they are needed thus they require the navy to transport them, they are just Super SEALS

Gotta say you've brought up some good points regarding Spartan Ops. Are we gonna see a reimagining of Spartan Ops soon?

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about Spartan Branch one way or another, but some food for thought from a Halo lore nerd: -Spartans were always separate from the other branches. They never answered to anybody higher up the chain of command outside of ONI and HIGHCOM. Specific actions could be led by officers from their respective branch, or even other branches, such as when a young Blue Team (as well as 2 other Spartan-II teams) was put under the command of an ODST officer, which would be a different branch altogether. But, with any instance of Spartans being placed under somebody else's command, they would then always return to ONI after the mission, not their respective branch command. (Also, Spartan-II was under Navy and Spartan-III was under Army. I don't know where this talk of Spartans being in the Air Force comes from.) -Nearly every time Spartans were placed under somebody else's command it hampered the Spartans. Even some ONI commanders couldn't figure out how best to use Spartans. -Administrative tasks in Halo are generally trivial for the UNSC due to the use of AIs. Even dumb AIs, like were used almost exclusively after the Created Uprising, can handle the main bulk of administrative duties, and a smart AI like Roland, Serina, or Cortana hardly even need to think about taking care of the administrative duties for, say, a battlegroup, it is so trivial for them. Though, that is not to say the UNSC leaves it only to AIs, they still have admin personnel, but there is nothing to say the Spartan Branch wouldn't use dedicated administrative personnel. -The use of AI, likewise, makes coordination between branches in a battlespace pretty much a non-factor. Now, all those points seem to favor Spartan Branch, which was what I was going for, but just because you /can/ do something doesn't mean you should. They really haven't fleshed out in the lore what Spartan Branch really means for the UNSC or the Spartans. Functionally, from what we've seen, Spartan Branch just means that the Spartans have their own training facilities that were built from the ground-up for the Spartans and.... that's about it. Everything else that Spartan Branch is supposed to be doing for the Spartans was basically already the way the UNSC used the Spartans.

To be honest, I think it makes some sense if you look at Spartans as an evolution of the species. Beneficiaries of technology that could eventually be used to up lift mankind as a group. But is currently reserved for the UNSC's latest implements of war. By separating into a different branch. They'll start to use different equipment than the other branches. And can focus in on making more weapons uniquely suite to their physiology. And yes, the move might've been started by some petulant officer. But it'll pay off over the next few centuries as humanity moves towards reclaiming more and more ancient tech. With Spartans acting as branch sized prototype for what humanity will eventually become. Once they're able to make the augmentations safe enough to be near species wide. And they have enough resources to make power armor near standard issue. They'll be able to take lessons learned from the Spartan branch. And institute it through the whole force. With the Spartan branch then being consumed into the normal forces or taking on ceremonial role. If you look at Spartans as pieces of military hardware. Then splitting them up into their own branch doesn't make sense. But from the perspective of Spartans as a stepping stone towards humanities collective ascension. The move makes a lot more sense.

I got the sense that the creation of the Spartan branch was a moved informed by the interbranch rivalry, rather then by logical logistics. Specifically, i got the sense that it was HIGHCOM's plan to remove the Spartans from the direct control of ONI, who had throughout most of the Human-Covenant war, either direct control over, or significant influence on ,all Spartan II and III teams (heck the only non-Oni associated Spartan teams were red team cause they got caught up with the Spirit of Fire crew, and Noble Team which got folded into Oni at the end anyway). perhaps this move was to take the most devastating weapons ever created by humanity out of the control of a single organization with the worst possible reputation and give it its own autonomy so that no one group could directly control them. Maybe HIGHCOM was terrified at what ONI could do if they were allowed to continue to dominate control over the Spartans. The Spartans were originally created to ensure UNSC control over its colonies, what if ONI directed that power at the United Earth Government in a shadow coup. By making the Spartans their own branch under the influence of HIGHCOM alone, maybe they were trying to head off this off. Could be wrong though. either way, great video

ATo be fair: Musa is only of the original Spartan-II's. He was the smartest of the them and lost the use of his legs when they had their final augmentation surgery. He was to valuable to waste and given that this original group was essentially a bunch of kidnapped children...yeah, you could say he's resentful.

It could be to split the budget like the us space force. Instead of the army or navy having to pick between a buying a battle group or creating a platoon of Spartans, a separate branch will deal with the cost of creating said Spartans. In fall of reach it’s stated that 30ish Spartan II costed as much as fleet to outfit and train, now cost might have gone down over time but the Spartan 4’s number from 600-1000 personnel. If the army or navy took up the cost of funding it’s own Spartans they will likely have to disband division and fleets to balance the budget.

I think the Spartans, while linked to the Naval side of things were more "secret police" to start with. ONI, being the supposed handlers, as seen in ODST where Dare just happens to have some Spartan tech while working for them. That being said, most active Spartan IIs were under Halsey's control, making them in their own right a militia that worked with or for other branches. Having th Spartans as their own branch makes them logistically more capable to engage with the others as well as engaging their own missions that are needed for that specific level of prowess. Hope all this made sense, Im a few drinks in. Either way, this was a cool vid. Even had my father debating on it halfway through

I think a very good real world example to take a look at is United States's JSOC (Joint Special Operation Command) which oversee the Tier-1 units from all branches like Delta, Devgru, 24th STS etc. JSOC is not a branch but they operate independently and answer almost directly to Joint Chief of Staff.

Personally I would set up 2 groups of Spartans. 1) For missions that require travel. Being trained for infiltration purposes. 2) For core world protection. Being trained for anti-infiltration.

They are hyper specialized from their biology, equipment, training, and even the way they are dispatched on missions. It makes a good deal of pragmatic sense to let the have their own branch.

A lot of the branches you mentioned that would have their own forces are generally covered by the ODST's. If they get dropped from anything it's usually the hell jumpers in the books. Spartan's II's and III's took the highest risk missions. The III's were supped up suicide squads. So the ODST's take the the high risk as the equivalent of spec ops, OD and the spartan's continue to do the "crazy shit" that no one else can. Having their own branch lets them do the extra crazy for any branch and able to take independent action of other branches.

adding to your point , each unsc branch have own odst contingents especialized in the respective focus of the branch to serve

The US does have SOCOM and JSOC which have their own units largely independent of their host branches, It could be argued Seal Team 6 is far closer to being a subordinate of JSOC rather than the Navy.

Think you could analyze the unsc covenant war and see what went wrong on both sides? That’d be epic

Space Marines rolled into the Imperial Guard would be a trip.

There's a whole lot more wrong... "We are training these ultra-expensive infiltrator/assasin/commando branch. Their primary purpose is to infiltrate, find their mark, then use their enhancements to get out alive".

I imagine them to be similar to something like Russian GRU or SSO, a force reporting directly to the General Staff (in this case to UNSC headquarters) but not necessarily a complete branch of its own in the case of the US, it's something like the NSA, which operates somewhat outside the branches as DOD's own agency on SIGINT and cyber warfare matters (and make up big chunk of the Cyber Command), while the services keep their own SIGINT and cyber units.

It seemed to me that part of the creation of the Spartan branch was also the consolidation and Spartanization of most other special forces groups. Hence why all the named Spartan IVs we get to know where operators in previous special ops groups (though the ODST are 'special forces' only in the original sense of the word, not quite like the modern connotation of assymetric operators).

I'd love to hear your assessment of what an interstellar special forces would be tasked to do, like what you did with a tank force. :)

The thing is, from a practical standpoint the U.S. does have an independent Special forces branch. It's called Private Military Contractors. By outsourcing that work it affords them plausible deniability but the results are the same. They are able to operate outside the mainstream command structure and in places it would be inappropriate to do so. Russia employs a similar tactic and is doing so in Ukraine right now.

There is one overarching assumption here: Spartans are 'special forces'. They are not. The Spartan program originated as special forces teams (Navy special warfare teams, is what they were called), but as time went on, the role of Spartans evolved. They became true supersoldiers, gradually developing an entirely new kind of warfare. Spartan fireteams could either act as special forces or conventional forces, capable of switching from one role to the other instantaneously. One moment, for instance, a dozen Spartans could be sent to the battlefield, running rampage through an enemy's flank and forcing a force a thousand times their size to retreat. The next moment, those same Spartans could be infiltrating a hardened target, accomplishing an objective and withdrawing like ghosts. All the while, Spartans take minimal casualties, resulting in greater retention of experience, resulting in an even deadlier force as time goes on. Long term, as thousands and eventually tens of thousands of new Spartans are trained, they completely replace the now obsolete special forces of the UNSC. The Spartans do the same job, do it better, and do it with far less casualties. Even conventional forces like the Army and Marines must be reformed to work alongside the Spartans, to better take advantage of what the Spartans can do. Overall, the Spartans are an entirely new kind of soldier, much like Marines were once upon a time, and sailors, and pilots. That is why they needed the operational flexibility to act independently.

America is actually an interesting case we’re I’d like to push back against the notion that our military’s special operations don’t have there own branch. I’d argue that they do. The United States Special Operations Command (SOCOM). This is in effect a separate branch that has its own agenda. So for example while the navy seals are a part of the navy, they actually answer to the needs of the SOCOM commander and don’t receive orders from the navy. The same can be said for the Green Berets, Army Rangers, Air Force PJs, and Marine Raiders.

I'm assuming since OSDT's are the UNSC marine special forces the Spartan branch are the equivalent of Space Force off shooting from Air Force?

If that was a real world military, his speech would've been met with bemused smirks, followed by "how cute. Now, here are your ORDERS."

Finally someone else who thinks the same way. It is was a choice made by 343 industries just to sell more of the toys and merchandise.

I like to think for purposes of intel compartmentalization that it might be useful for Spartans to be in their own branch if they are taking on missions that don't necessarily fall under the purview of the Navy itself. Think scope of responsibility A naval officier is tasked with carrying out the mission of the navy, that being the territorial defense of humanity. A spartan officer might also be tasked with the security of the UNSC as an organization, perhaps the strategic assassination of an opposition leader. You are thinking more along the lines of Spartans as Army rangers and I am thinking more along the lines of Spartans as Delta Force. While Delta wears the Army patch, it is almost always going to receive its orders directly from JSOC

Bruh, YOU GUYS made the video just yesterday!

Spartan Thorne compares the Spartan Branch's existance to the split of the Army and Air Force after WWII. Honestly I dont think he's wrong. The flexibility provided outweighs the major issues, and lets the UNSC use the Spartans for what they're best used for; the absolute spear-point of a killing strike to whatever happens to be in their way this time.

Makes more sense for spartan detachments to exist within each branch as a form of SOF instead of having an entire separate branch in and of itself.

I always assumed the founding of a separate SPARTAN branch was a move to specifically take control of humanity's most powerful individual combat units out of the hands of ONI, an organisation that often oversteps its jurisdiction in ways that do not best serve the military or the civilian government. Under that assumption, the choice not to place them under another branch then either indicates that either there was significant worry of ONI continuing to indirectly influence the SPARTAN program or that the SPARTAN program's higher-ups did not trust that the other branches would be better oversight than ONI.

I'm just imagining a bunch of Spartans doing incompentant interviews to get office staff the day after becoming independent.

I've seen a couple of video uploaded over the last 2 days about "Spartan Branch".....is there some new information that's come out?