“The spartan-V program are numerical, engineering and scientific super soldiers, they are also a savage bunch of killers”
-Vice Admiral D. Lindeman.
The SPARTAN-V Program is the fifth generation of the Spartan program, consisting of existing members recruited from the most intellectually gifted in the UNSC Spartan Operations branch, the 69 x - ray program and classified recruitment schemas by the UNSC and ONI.
Unlike the Spartan IV program, the Spartan V recruited both teenagers and adults through a series of often nonvoluntary clandestine efforts and recruits often do not possess military experience. Spartan Vs doctrine often emphasizes the importance of embedding technological sophistication in the new Spartans, with each Spartan V having assigned a Smart AI directly upon graduation. Members of the Spartan Vs also have extremely high scientific requirements, recruits must be able to understand a vast array of advanced mathematical and scientific concepts and apply this to their missions. Besides having newer technology in training, communications, armor, and weaponry, Spartan Vs are also known to be remarkably less experienced than Spartan IV, being accredited to very few missions.
Sometime prior to the iteration of the Spartan V program, a consultative panel consisting of various top-level UNSC admirals known as the “Board for the review of strategic threats to humanity” began a series of consultative meeting and strategic reviews to discuss the performance of UNSC forces during the era of the Post Human Forerunner War. After reviewing the major events that transpired including the defection of Cortana and the discovery of Requiem, it was decided current Spartan IVs and even existing members of Spartan IIs and IIIs are not mentally equipped to face increasingly technologically sophisticated AIs and thereby recommending a new class of Spartans.
The Spartan V program began under the leadership of formerly disgraced commander Andrew Del Rio. Being almost forced to retire, the UNSC instead opted Del Rio to the new post as a means of self-redemption. With his experiences in Infinity, Del Rio began the Spartan V program in secrecy on the Moon base named “Uranus IV”. Recruits began filling in in 2559 from all demographic aspects of Humanity and the UNSC however the demographic emphasis of recruitment was mainly focused on intellectually promising youths (although there is no age limit), scientists, and criminals with little to lose as opposed to disciplined military servicemen of the Spartan IVs. The demographic mix and Del Rio’s brash and authoritative style leadership immediately created disciplinary problems within the Spartan program, with many notable incidents of abuse, even more so than previous Spartan programs.
While going through the conventional procedures of augmentation and military training of the previous Spartan generations, scientific education became an obvious major syllabus within the Spartan V program, with the participation of the very brightest intellectual scientific minds of the UNSC. Recruits were given the most advanced mathematical training, with chemical augmentations to improve their mathematical abilities so as to allowing cross-functioning with AIs. The cross-functioning training was developed to enhance military skills, as such the use of war games was highly focused even much more so than with the Spartan IVs. Throughout their training, Spartan Vs may spend upwards of eighty percent of their training within wargames.
Military doctrine within the Spartan V program was highly emphasized on cross-technology performance. Spartan Vs were given the most expensive technology the UNSC can muster, such as camouflage technology, upgraded Mjolnir armor, energy swords, special grenades and sights. Spartan V helmet huds are also far more informative than that of the Spartan IVs, with the HUD providing information that requires extreme abilities in coordination and precision.
The first Spartan V graduate was a former sixteen-year-old petty criminal whom was enlisted in the program in 2559 as a means to leave jail on the human homeworld of Naboo. Spartan Landon Keyes underwent Spartan augmentation on the Moon Base on Uranus II and subsequently graduated in 2561. Landon was typical of many Spartan V, he had no military experience, was an opportunistic candidate and was intellectually gifted. Landon was a known Sadist, such that in his Spartan training regime, he led to the deaths of multiple trainers and other Spartans. As a result of the Spartan V programs extremely high recruitment standards, many failed candidates became Spartan IVs.
With the Spartan Vs graduating in 2561, Landon immediately received an officer commission in the rank of major creating immediate resentment within the UNSC hierarchy. Known as "a general c***, a**hole, and Rio’s b**** *, Landon began his immediate deployment as the intelligence officer of Spartan Branch, often clashing with commander Palmer whom they both share a mutual disgust to one another. Palmer even stated that “this Landon… is the most disgusting and pathetic human or in fact living alien specimen the Spartan Branch has even come across, and these insults should in no way make him more infamous but to describe him as who he is”. The rift between that of Spartan Vs, V dropouts (informally known as F Vs, or fail - Vs, half a V or IV.5s) and that of the usually far older and almost exclusively former military Spartan IV were also increasingly reputated within UNSC INFINITY.
With the first batch of Spartans V in 2561, their first accredited operation and trial by fire came when fireteam Lover infiltrated the mobile ONI headquarters onboard the flagship “UNSC KASH” to capture the primary aid of Serin Osman as part of a wider power struggle between UNSC and the ONI, specifically under the orders of Admiral Lasky. The mission led by Landon, was assisted with the aid of his new Smart AI named Johnson, an AI made from the brain tissue of the previous famous commander Avery Johnson. The mission was involved the undetected infiltration of an UNSC stealth frigate which used electronic warfare to breach the flagships defensives and dock the Spartan team which culminated in a major battle between ONI Spartan personnel and the said Spartan Vs.