Spartan Armor canon changes.

Community Halo Universe
1

Now this isn’t about the form or function of the spartan armour like many of you think. I love the armour design of the Halo 4 + universe.

But since reach, the canon Spartan armour irks me greatly. Halo 4 somewhat fixed this with the customisability but ultimately that is Multiplayer and not direct canon.

This is about the colour choices used by spartans on active duty in warfront situations, which is pretty much all of them.

Here we have Noble team:
Noble team

Carter and Kat wear blue armor, and I hadn’t seen a single lick of blue geometry for them to blend into.
Jorge wears black/grey and bright orange chest piece. He looks like he works in construction and needs a high-vis panel so no accidents occur.
Emile, fair enough black/dark colours work in general, you can stay in the shadows and shotgun people. And Jun has green and a sniper to blend into the surroundings.

But let’s also look at Halo 4 and 5.
Spartan Palmer
Palmer is acceptable. She is the commander aboard the UNSC infinity. The UNSC infinity is mostly white and grey so any invading forces she will have some sort of camo and eye-confusing looks. It also works fine in urban environments that use light and gray colours. The Spartan 4’s also work for this reason in the story mode.

But then you got fireteam Majestic…
Majestic.

They wear blue. Again, how is this going to be of any tactical use?

Halo 5 has a bit of a problem with this too.
Blue team
Team Osiris

Vale stands out, big time. However you can see that 343 took her story into consideration. With her affinity for Sanghellians (spelling?) its clear she is imitating an Elite.
Tanaka, if she was an operative on the UNSC infinity that would make sense, but again… tactically unsound.
Locke and Buck are acceptable but Locke is a bit of an offender still as his armour doesn’t really fit in outside of sangheli colours either.

Blue team… Blue team is where I take the most offense. Besides the fact that Blue team should have been wearing colours way more similar to chief in my opinion. (they all wore the same armour all the time before, and was even a point of pride in which Halsey stated that she could tell which spartan was which by the way they carried themselves despite the armour making them look like clones.)

Why are Kelly and Fred wearing blue?! and Linda, the sniper, is in some off-white. What will they possibly blend into? This has just been a long time issue I’ve had with the canon of Halo. It’s cool that they have creative leeway, and honestly it’s NOT THAT BIG OF A DEAL, but I still really miss the idea of a more serious attempt at a solid miltiary implications. I.E. Camouflage, Units matching better. etc.

2

I agree Blue team should be green like chief. Its’s like Linda was the only one to say :" I know we’re Blue team but that’s just stupid. Give me a less visible armor". It’s not a big deal but I don’t understand the reasoning behind this.

3

I get your gripe with the Fireteam Majestic and some of the nitpicky things with the others, but if I’m being honest most Spartan IVs aren’t meant to be the tactical type. The first thing that comes to mind when thinking of the Spartan IIs and IVs is walking tank similar to the Brotherhood of Steel in Fallout. You don’t need to hide when you’re going to be an unstoppable force.

Now I will say Blue Team from a gameplay standpoint should look unique just because you want to know who does what. In terms of canon Fred and Linda had their custom variants since at least November of 2552. I’m not sure on Linda, but I’d assume she has had her EVA for a while. Their colors on the other hand I can’t actually defend, but I can say in comparison to other Spartans seen in Spartan Ops and Campaign of Halo 4 they have the most muted colors. Linda Actually has the best color for blending into almost any area, she has a neutral beige-tan color which doesn’t catch the eye when scanning the environment. Her role is meant for open areas with huge sight-lines, so she would be the hardest to spot in a prone position.

One thing that 343 has made very clear in more recent fiction is the fact that the Spartan Branch is a standalone branch of the UNSC. They don’t have to abide by standard military regs if this is the case. Which means once they’ve been issued their gear for their role they can customize it any which way they want. Majestic if I’m not mistaken actually are wearing the default color for new Spartans in Spartan Ops. Correct me if I’m wrong, but that was my takeaway.

4

They’re pretty much like that just so they’re more distinctive. As for Majestic, I imagine that originally, ALL members of a Fireteam would have the same color so you could quickly tell which team a Spartan was from (“Bluish violet armor? That’s a Majestic member!”), but Escalation has since discarded that idea with the introduction of Bailey and Jackknife.

5

I like as are the armor.

6

  1. When dealing with active camouflage technology and shielding, I’m not sure how much the actual coloring of the armor needs to be relied on for tactical purposes.

  2. Not sure how much stealth matters for some of the Spartans. I doubt that Jorge is being spotted because of his large orange flotation device…probably has more to do with the giant turret he’s toting around.

7

My problem is that in Reach the armors are realistic…I mean if you look at Noble team, you can feel that “yeah their armors are made from mjolnir”. I hope you get it, what I want to say. In H4, the SIV’s armor gave me the feel that it is plastic. In Guardians it’s a bit better, but still doesn’t gives the feel like Reach.

8

Yeah, I get some of the complaints here. I sort of assumed that the logic behind funky-colored Spartans like Majestic and Crimson (if their Mega Bloks set is to be believed) is that they would catch the enemy’s eyes and take the fire away from the frailer and un-shielded Marines they serve alongside.

9

That annoys me too, actually. The only lore reasons I can think of for bright-red or blue spartans is A; psychological warfare and B; drawing hostile attention away from allies.