My hunt for answers led me to this extremely informative and logical explanation by The Game Theorists. It’s called: Game Theory: Halo Armor’s Fatal Flaw!
If you don’t want to watch a 22 minute video about it (though it’s totally worth it) I’ll give a summary here.
The Spartan suit is 1000 pounds of titanium and a Kevlar/flexible titanium body glove. How could a normal person hold all this weight? They couldn’t. That’s why Spartans are not only augmented with physical upgrades like steroids and etc., but also with a neural link between the suit and the Spartan’s mind. This technological implant uses brain signals to tell/predict what the Spartan wants to do (like moving his right arm) and executes that function. Thus, the Mjolnir armor serves more like a second skin rather than a machine. Tuck that neural link in mind, it’s important.
Now while the suit is incredibly strong, there are certain points where a Spartan is vulnerable. The joints. In making the suit more mobile, the designers sacrificed increased protection. One of these vulnerable joints is the neck. When the Spartan gets punched in the back, the force and whiplash can either snap his neck, shove the neural link into the brain, or just break the neural link (making you unable to control the suit).
This also would explain why headshots do more damage. Assuming the helmet is just as much armor as the body, the bullet might not necessarily get through, but the force against the neck would be enough to snap a Spartan’s neck.
This theory does seem to have a few flaws though. Getting punched in the front would create whiplash too. Though not as much, could that still kill a Spartan? And in the game it takes 2 hits to the front to kill a Spartan.
What are your thoughts on this idea overall?
I’ve seen this video before and took it as them trying to justify a gameplay mechanic. We see in Halo 5 that it takes more than 2 punches to kill a Spartan.
Alternatively, the only things that have ever killed a spartan in one punch are creatures with enough strength to punch straight through thick sheets of metal. You or I could hit a Spartan in the back of the head with a baseball bat as hard as we could, and it wouldn’t be remotely near the force that another Spartan can put behind a punch.
Also, for the utility, the Helmet wouldn’t be the same as the rest of the armor, because the neck needs to be able to hold it up and move freely to not limit visibility/movement.
facepalms
The neural link is not required for the armor to function. This theory is flawed right off of the bat because of this. I repeat: the neural link is not required for safe use of MJOLNIR armor (at least as far as I know). We see Spartans take off their helmets quite frequently. The interface between armor and Spartan is located there. So why don’t they just seize up and die when they take their helmets off?
Additionally, all UNSC personnel are given an implant. While they aren’t all created equal, with command interfaces and Spartan interfaces being upgraded compared to the standard version, everyone who has served in the UNSC has one.
The only reason that MJOLNIR’s early test subjects turned out the way they did was because they weren’t augmented like the Spartans were. They couldn’t operate it properly because their skeletons, muscles, and connective tissues weren’t able to take the strain. It has nothing to do with a neural implant and movement prediction.
Furthermore, snapping someone’s neck either outright kills them or leaves them crippled for life. At that point, the neural link still means nothing. The lack of connection means nothing once you’ve already been killed or completely incapacitated.
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> facepalmsThe neural link is not required for the armor to function. This theory is flawed right off of the bat because of this. I repeat: the neural link is not required for safe use of MJOLNIR armor (at least as far as I know). We see Spartans take off their helmets quite frequently. The interface between armor and Spartan is located there. So why don’t they just seize up and die when they take their helmets off?
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> Additionally, all UNSC personnel are given an implant. While they aren’t all created equal, with command interfaces and Spartan interfaces being upgraded compared to the standard version, everyone who has served in the UNSC has one.
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> The only reason that MJOLNIR’s early test subjects turned out the way they did was because they weren’t augmented like the Spartans were. They couldn’t operate it properly because their skeletons, muscles, and connective tissues weren’t able to take the strain. It has nothing to do with a neural implant and movement prediction.
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> Furthermore, snapping someone’s neck either outright kills them or leaves them crippled for life. At that point, the neural link still means nothing. The lack of connection means nothing once you’ve already been killed or completely incapacitated.
Alrighty. But they’re neck gets snapped. I introduced three theorized ways they could die.
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> Alrighty. But they’re neck gets snapped. I introduced three theorized ways they could die.
Why do we need theories on how they could die? We know how this stuff works.
Spartans don’t change how human neural and skeletal systems work.
MJOLNIR doesn’t change the properties of armor-piercing and semi-armor-piercing ammunition.
And the neural link is irrelevant in MJOLNIR’s operation.
Snapped neck = dead/crippled4lyfe
AP/SAP ammo + helmet = bullets penetrating through helmet and going into head
Neural link = not important