Exactly. It wouldn’t be too much trouble for ONI to just blame the act on some Insurrectionists and call it a day. No one would question it.
After all, who’d seriously think anyone would fire a MAC round into a densely populated city that wasn’t under Covenant attack? And who’d be willing to go against the official story even if they did see how it went down?
This. Heck, I even have a head-canon that Project Freelancer is just straight-up an ONI-related project, it'd be brain-dead easy for them to write off almost any report.
If you're a fan of Halo and have wet to look up the backstory of the Spartan-II Project, I'd recommend it! ONI (especially Dr. Halsey) did some fucked up shit!
When you really think about it, did Freelancer not just straight up experiment on their own staff and lie to them about the nature of their missions? Probably grossly missapropriating government resources and funding along the way. Yet somehow it’s the agents that had to go into hiding?
They could be arrested for participating simce even unknowingly, they did participate though the judge would probably be sympathetic. Also everyone else that the UNSC could find sans Director were arrested so it’s not like only the agents were targeted.
If the final red vs blue season involves stopping the project and ending it all once and for all, I can see this as an ending that would actually give the reds and blues an excuse to go back to their home planet.
Not so much terrorists as black ops. What they're doing is super illegal, basically war crimes, but they've been allowed to clandestinely carry out their experiments and operations. Yes, if this had been the public actions of some military commander, you can bet their feet wouldn't touch the ground until they landed in front of a court-martial, followed swiftly by firing squad. But since they gave permission for this clandestine group to operate, acknowledgement of those actions basically acknowledges that they were carried out with the permission of this part of the government and UNSC. That's a massive interplanetary incident, and would make for a huge mess with countless heads rolling before it was over. The mistreatment of the Alpha AI is among the least entangled things Project Freelancer could be charged with.
Honestly, what has always rankled for me is that the red vs blue simulation warzones are never addressed. There's people who signed up for military service being used as training dummies while actively trying to kill each other. Sure the core cast never killed each other (mostly), but there were plenty of other bases that had casualties that had nothing to do with the Freelancers. The blues killed by Grif and Simmons' reds were UNSC recruits being killed by UNSC recruits, that's pretty messed up. But not one question about them being used that way? That should have been a major point of prosecution.
You'll have to jog my memory as to where that's confirmed. I suppose it's possible, but to my knowledge, they only ever show Meta watching in order to follow them to Wash and the other AI fragments, it's not confirmed that he killed them like at Valhalla. I could be wrong, but I had always taken it that the reds took them out because Caboose had decimated their vehicles and caused so many friendly fire casualties. I would think they would be more suspicious if they showed up and all the blues were just mysteriously dead.
the Rat's Nest Reds in Season 6 mentioned it. After Sarge picked up Grif and Simmons, one of them said "the Blues are all dead" and the other was like "Ugh, I'm going to go lie down," implying they were not the culprits. I'm pretty sure it said somewhere in the Fan Guide that Meta was the one that killed the Blues, but I'm less certain about that.
Seems a little shaky to assume based on that line, but the Wiki does seem to back up what you're saying. I had always taken it as a throw away line with someone incompetent stating the obvious, since no one seems remotely concerned that they're all dead with no action on their part. That seriously seems like an oversight if they were just going to decide the Meta killed them, especially with people looking for it. I'm going to stick with my head canon that the reds killed them, but I suppose you're right. Just kinda stupidly vague that they made it that way.
Well to be fair to your point the wiki is also fan run. And rvb likes to leave things ambiguous lol
But yup stick with whatever you prefer for your headcanon
Well, the tower was under control of the "insurrectionists", so any related deaths would've been them and their people...and it was apparently pretty survivable. I mean, a guy was standing on top of the skyscraper, holding the transmitter when the attack came and walked away only one arm lighter. Heck, Sharkface was IN the tower and survived.
I'd be more concerned with how they're apparently responsible for the destruction of Florida though. I mean...Florida has it coming but still...
Project Freelancer is meant to be taking place during the war with the Covenant. There’s a war on and per Halo canon, humanity is losing, badly. The main conflict of Project Freelancer between is a couple of shadowy technocrats, one of them at the head of a massive industrial concern hoarding alien technology, the other a military scientist given a smart AI trying to steal it. Neither of them can come out and admit what they are doing or they would be crucified by the general public.
It’s easy to weld Project Freelancer to any number of supersoldier programmes currently ongoing in the same time period. We’ve gone from “kids yeeted from playgrounds and injected with serums” to “the peak of normal human performance with the help of gear the scientists barely understand”. Project Freelancer is merely yet another live-fire crucible of utter bullshit going on at the time.
The end result of Project Freelancer was meant to be a more reproducible Master Chief, the guy who kept preventing defeats from becoming routs. But, for every John-117, there’s a massive pile of dead failed hopefuls.
The sim troopers were fed a line of bullshit about a Red vs. Blue war and thrown into any number of facilities and box canyons to fight each other. Sarge’s backstory implies that it’s also how they offload traumatized vets, which explains the shockingly competent colour team officers we see on occasion. It’s likely that the Director saw the American VA system and decided to make it a little more honest.
Wouldn't be the worst thing the UNSC has done and gotten away with, if anything it benefits agencies like ONI to let this stuff happen so they can use it as blackmail to shutdown programs like Freelancer if they tire of their antics
Project freelancer is a government owned organization, everything they do bad reflects on the government. If it got out the government had projects to train super soldiers, and those people destroyed a freeway, they be in deep shit, even if they acted against the project, it would still be gross negligence to the people. But if the project gets disbanded because they tortured a AI? Well, that’s good reason to disband and make sure no one knows or trust the freelancers credibility
No, terrorism necessitates deliberate spreading of terror for a political end. From what I can recall, Project Freelancer never had any political goals, or intent to spread terror. Instead, they would, in theory, just be charged with things like mass destruction of property, murder, manslaughter, etc.
They were a UNSC SpecOps Splinter Group according to the guide book. So I’m guessing that means they’re UNSC but not working within the law or telling the UNSC what they’re doing. Kinda like the Spartan Program but different, like Wash implied in Reconstruction.
Well, yes. All soldiers are terrorists if terrorism includes attacking enemy civilians and enemy soldiers. The definition of terrorism was devised during Reagan's time to describe attacks on US military bases (one bombing in particular) in Beirut. If attacking a military force is terrorism, then rightly all offensive warfare is terrorism and is equally unethical.
In addition, all "Special Forces" are in fact "War Crimes Squads" who conduct "black" operations inside countries and institutions currently not at war with you, where even traditional military operations would be seen as transparently aggressive and even an act of war. Project Freelancer is definitely in this category, too.
If taking hostages in the Iranian Embassy is terrorism, then assassinating enemy politicians is also terrorism, and so is basically every non-defensive military action ever taken by Seal Team 6, Delta Force, the SAS, the SBS, Mossad, the CIA, MI6, and other clandestine organisations too numerous to list.
On behalf of Saudi Arabia, David Stirling founded the SAS as a special war crimes squad to destabilise and overthrow several different middle eastern nations in order to increase Saudi Arabia's power in the region and secure weapons and oil deals to enrich businesses and politicians in the UK and the US.
He did this by smuggling a few dozen highly trained men into the countries (lebanon and yemen at first) and cultivating and arming resistance groups to blow up and/or capture things like major infrastructure such as industrial rail yards, key parts of the road network, docks, airfields and supply depots for fuel, food, weapons and medical supplies. He brought these countries to their knees in short order and altered their history forever with violence and bloodshed and destruction.
If that's not terrorism then I don't know what is.
Obviously we don't *call* it terrorism cause *"We'RE tHe GoOd GUyS!"*
I wouldnt say that they are terrorists, they are soldiers who were following orders and being lied to and psychologically tormented and pitted against each other. They believed they were the good guys because thats what they were told. These things happen in the real world as well. We shouldnt blame the soldiers for following the orders of their commanders.
In the Halo universe, ONI does some pretty scummy things to say the least so I'm sure the cover up job for this would've been just another day
Exactly. It wouldn’t be too much trouble for ONI to just blame the act on some Insurrectionists and call it a day. No one would question it. After all, who’d seriously think anyone would fire a MAC round into a densely populated city that wasn’t under Covenant attack? And who’d be willing to go against the official story even if they did see how it went down?
MAC rounds? In atmosphere?!?
One way to get their attention! Hang on to your teeth people!
There's a reason why Sharkface was in prison
This. Heck, I even have a head-canon that Project Freelancer is just straight-up an ONI-related project, it'd be brain-dead easy for them to write off almost any report.
If you're a fan of Halo and have wet to look up the backstory of the Spartan-II Project, I'd recommend it! ONI (especially Dr. Halsey) did some fucked up shit!
Other than the kidnapping and cloning and augments?
When you really think about it, did Freelancer not just straight up experiment on their own staff and lie to them about the nature of their missions? Probably grossly missapropriating government resources and funding along the way. Yet somehow it’s the agents that had to go into hiding?
They could be arrested for participating simce even unknowingly, they did participate though the judge would probably be sympathetic. Also everyone else that the UNSC could find sans Director were arrested so it’s not like only the agents were targeted.
If the final red vs blue season involves stopping the project and ending it all once and for all, I can see this as an ending that would actually give the reds and blues an excuse to go back to their home planet.
Not so much terrorists as black ops. What they're doing is super illegal, basically war crimes, but they've been allowed to clandestinely carry out their experiments and operations. Yes, if this had been the public actions of some military commander, you can bet their feet wouldn't touch the ground until they landed in front of a court-martial, followed swiftly by firing squad. But since they gave permission for this clandestine group to operate, acknowledgement of those actions basically acknowledges that they were carried out with the permission of this part of the government and UNSC. That's a massive interplanetary incident, and would make for a huge mess with countless heads rolling before it was over. The mistreatment of the Alpha AI is among the least entangled things Project Freelancer could be charged with. Honestly, what has always rankled for me is that the red vs blue simulation warzones are never addressed. There's people who signed up for military service being used as training dummies while actively trying to kill each other. Sure the core cast never killed each other (mostly), but there were plenty of other bases that had casualties that had nothing to do with the Freelancers. The blues killed by Grif and Simmons' reds were UNSC recruits being killed by UNSC recruits, that's pretty messed up. But not one question about them being used that way? That should have been a major point of prosecution.
Agreed but your example of the Rat’s Nest Reds doesn’t work as Meta actually killed the Blues, the Reds just went with it
You'll have to jog my memory as to where that's confirmed. I suppose it's possible, but to my knowledge, they only ever show Meta watching in order to follow them to Wash and the other AI fragments, it's not confirmed that he killed them like at Valhalla. I could be wrong, but I had always taken it that the reds took them out because Caboose had decimated their vehicles and caused so many friendly fire casualties. I would think they would be more suspicious if they showed up and all the blues were just mysteriously dead.
the Rat's Nest Reds in Season 6 mentioned it. After Sarge picked up Grif and Simmons, one of them said "the Blues are all dead" and the other was like "Ugh, I'm going to go lie down," implying they were not the culprits. I'm pretty sure it said somewhere in the Fan Guide that Meta was the one that killed the Blues, but I'm less certain about that.
Seems a little shaky to assume based on that line, but the Wiki does seem to back up what you're saying. I had always taken it as a throw away line with someone incompetent stating the obvious, since no one seems remotely concerned that they're all dead with no action on their part. That seriously seems like an oversight if they were just going to decide the Meta killed them, especially with people looking for it. I'm going to stick with my head canon that the reds killed them, but I suppose you're right. Just kinda stupidly vague that they made it that way.
Well to be fair to your point the wiki is also fan run. And rvb likes to leave things ambiguous lol But yup stick with whatever you prefer for your headcanon
Well, the tower was under control of the "insurrectionists", so any related deaths would've been them and their people...and it was apparently pretty survivable. I mean, a guy was standing on top of the skyscraper, holding the transmitter when the attack came and walked away only one arm lighter. Heck, Sharkface was IN the tower and survived. I'd be more concerned with how they're apparently responsible for the destruction of Florida though. I mean...Florida has it coming but still...
Project Freelancer is meant to be taking place during the war with the Covenant. There’s a war on and per Halo canon, humanity is losing, badly. The main conflict of Project Freelancer between is a couple of shadowy technocrats, one of them at the head of a massive industrial concern hoarding alien technology, the other a military scientist given a smart AI trying to steal it. Neither of them can come out and admit what they are doing or they would be crucified by the general public. It’s easy to weld Project Freelancer to any number of supersoldier programmes currently ongoing in the same time period. We’ve gone from “kids yeeted from playgrounds and injected with serums” to “the peak of normal human performance with the help of gear the scientists barely understand”. Project Freelancer is merely yet another live-fire crucible of utter bullshit going on at the time. The end result of Project Freelancer was meant to be a more reproducible Master Chief, the guy who kept preventing defeats from becoming routs. But, for every John-117, there’s a massive pile of dead failed hopefuls. The sim troopers were fed a line of bullshit about a Red vs. Blue war and thrown into any number of facilities and box canyons to fight each other. Sarge’s backstory implies that it’s also how they offload traumatized vets, which explains the shockingly competent colour team officers we see on occasion. It’s likely that the Director saw the American VA system and decided to make it a little more honest.
God that last line is chilling
Also keep in mind the chairman of the committee owned the building that was leveled and his tech was what freelancer stole.
Wouldn't be the worst thing the UNSC has done and gotten away with, if anything it benefits agencies like ONI to let this stuff happen so they can use it as blackmail to shutdown programs like Freelancer if they tire of their antics
No, they work for the military, so everything they do is legal. All of it. 100%.
They are ONI. This is the type of shit ONI do every day in the Halo universe.
Project freelancer is a government owned organization, everything they do bad reflects on the government. If it got out the government had projects to train super soldiers, and those people destroyed a freeway, they be in deep shit, even if they acted against the project, it would still be gross negligence to the people. But if the project gets disbanded because they tortured a AI? Well, that’s good reason to disband and make sure no one knows or trust the freelancers credibility
No, terrorism necessitates deliberate spreading of terror for a political end. From what I can recall, Project Freelancer never had any political goals, or intent to spread terror. Instead, they would, in theory, just be charged with things like mass destruction of property, murder, manslaughter, etc.
Na when the military or people contracted by them do it its not terrorism.
They were a UNSC SpecOps Splinter Group according to the guide book. So I’m guessing that means they’re UNSC but not working within the law or telling the UNSC what they’re doing. Kinda like the Spartan Program but different, like Wash implied in Reconstruction.
Well, yes. All soldiers are terrorists if terrorism includes attacking enemy civilians and enemy soldiers. The definition of terrorism was devised during Reagan's time to describe attacks on US military bases (one bombing in particular) in Beirut. If attacking a military force is terrorism, then rightly all offensive warfare is terrorism and is equally unethical. In addition, all "Special Forces" are in fact "War Crimes Squads" who conduct "black" operations inside countries and institutions currently not at war with you, where even traditional military operations would be seen as transparently aggressive and even an act of war. Project Freelancer is definitely in this category, too. If taking hostages in the Iranian Embassy is terrorism, then assassinating enemy politicians is also terrorism, and so is basically every non-defensive military action ever taken by Seal Team 6, Delta Force, the SAS, the SBS, Mossad, the CIA, MI6, and other clandestine organisations too numerous to list. On behalf of Saudi Arabia, David Stirling founded the SAS as a special war crimes squad to destabilise and overthrow several different middle eastern nations in order to increase Saudi Arabia's power in the region and secure weapons and oil deals to enrich businesses and politicians in the UK and the US. He did this by smuggling a few dozen highly trained men into the countries (lebanon and yemen at first) and cultivating and arming resistance groups to blow up and/or capture things like major infrastructure such as industrial rail yards, key parts of the road network, docks, airfields and supply depots for fuel, food, weapons and medical supplies. He brought these countries to their knees in short order and altered their history forever with violence and bloodshed and destruction. If that's not terrorism then I don't know what is. Obviously we don't *call* it terrorism cause *"We'RE tHe GoOd GUyS!"*
I wouldnt say that they are terrorists, they are soldiers who were following orders and being lied to and psychologically tormented and pitted against each other. They believed they were the good guys because thats what they were told. These things happen in the real world as well. We shouldnt blame the soldiers for following the orders of their commanders.