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Mendez, and the possibility of more Spartan trainees
Brian Wahl (bkwahl@athenet.net) writes:
I was reading through "The Fall of Reach" for the third time and I came across an odd part in the book regarding Chief Mendez. We all know that Chief Mendez put the first group of Spartans through their training on planet Reach starting in the year 2517. On page 99, Chief Mendez states he is leaving to train a new group of Spartans in the year 2525. On page 101, the book states John 117 never sees Chief Mendez again. Now this brings up some interesting questions.
1. Where did Chief Mendez go to train the new group of Spartans? - The original training took place on Reach. We would assume the new group of Spartans would be trained on Reach also, right? To my knowledge, the book never states where the new group of Spartans were training. My thoughts are that the training could be taking place on Earth. The probability is low, but they could be training there.
2. Why didn't we hear more about the new Spartan training group? - The first group of Spartans trained from 2517 to 2525. That's only 8 years of training. The battle that occurred on Sigma Octanus IV took place in the year 2552. That is 27 years after the first training group left the care of Chief Mendez. Wouldn't we think that there would be at least 3 additional groups of Spartans trained and ready to kick ass if each group completed training in eight years? Another possibility why the new group of Spartans was never talked about is that the funding for future Spartan soldiers were cut off by the Military. Now that does not seem likely given the awesome results that occurred from the first group of Spartans.
3. If Chief Mendez was training the new Spartans on Reach, why didn't John 117 see Chief Mendez or at least hear about Chief Mendez when he went back to Reach to try out the new MJOLNIR suit (with Cortana) in the year 2552? (pg. 246) - Now it is entirely possible that John 117 and Chief Mendez just never crossed paths while John 117 was on Reach. But that seems a little weird since the MJOLNIR suit training with Cortana took place on the same training grounds as he trained in the year 2517. The book even states he rang the same bell as when the original training took place. The other possibility is that Chief Mendez passed away before any other Spartan groups were trained. Now, even if Chief Mendez did pass away, I think the Military would have someone else handle the training of these important soldiers.
I guess what I'm trying to say is this.....It is entirely possible that there are additional Spartans alive and well on Earth. There hasn't been any talk by Bungie of additional Spartans, but it seems the book left this area open for discussion. Plus, I'm not sure how Bungie would incorporate additional Spartans in the game that were not controlled by us, the players.
A well-written and thoroghly documented analysis. Good job! As far as other Spartans are concerned, though, we might have to wait for Halo 2 to see if that particular story element is addressed, unless there's something in the game we've missed? ;-)
-mnemesis
