the Oceanborn:

Hand-to-hand combat when he was sixteen against three seasoned combat veterans. Tell all of the facts, or shut your gob.

And you likewise. John 117 had been trained for a decade, and had just undergone enhancements for bone density and strength.

Now take those same ODSTs and John, and put them in an urban environment with assault rifles. What happens? Even if John does make it through, he ain't going to be uninjured.

the Oceanborn:

Spartans are also trained to use every weapon  and vehicle in the UNSC arsenal with lethal efficiency, as well as every known Covenant weapon and vehicle. ODST don't get that kind of training.

According to Bungie.net, they do. And with the demise of the Spartan II program, more money could have gone into training and better armor.

the Oceanborn:

Felix had a valid point that you casually batted aside with your ever-present attitude of "I'm right you're wrong and your facts are crap." This is getting really annoying.

And if I am an arrogant arsehole, you are a hypocrite.

the Oceanborn:

You're quotes only strengthen your argument if you're arguing this in today's terms. In 20th century combat, with humans fighting humans, strength of numbers does add some advantage. However, those quotes were not referring to the Halo, and don't apply to the Human-Covenant war. In that war, humans are faced with a highly advanced alien race, and face their extinction.

Only towards the end. The UNSC had just as many soldiers as it could get. Remember the refugee camps? Perfect breeding grounds for innies... or a perfect breeding ground for soldiers.

Look at the Russians. They were faced with an inhumane enemy that was literally butchering them, driving the populace back, and bent on extermination. The people didn't revolt, they fought back.

the Oceanborn:

Out of the 800 human colony worlds, most were captured, including inner colony worlds. Humanity was outnumbered and outgunned, with Covenant ships able to decimate a UNSC fleet of much larger numbers. In the Halo universe, "One death is a blessing, a million deaths is one step closer to extinction. 

Perhaps. But development along other lines, such as the NOVA, would have SIGNIFICANTLY leveled the playing field. Especially if the NOVAs had slipspace drives attached, and were fired at known Covenant planets.

the Oceanborn:

Have you followed any of the Halo storyline? At all? You don't even bring up any valid arguments in you're "rebuttal" I think you just don't like me (the feeling is mutual) and you're bound and determined to prove me wrong no matter what.

Again, hypocrisy. 

the Oceanborn:

You said that most of humanity was dying in the glassing. Therein lies the problem. How can you train Marines, and then have them become ODST, if your population is dying?

Let me clarify what I thought was an obvious point. Most of the humans who died, died in the glassing. If you have more Marines to fight, more crewmen to serve on your ships, the death rate of the human race would not have raised, which counters his argument succinctly.

Bash back the Covenant hard enough, delay just long enough, and they'll start asking questions sooner than they did.

the Oceanborn:

You need civilians to become marines, and becoming an ODST isn't just saying "I wanna be a Helljumper" at the recruiting office. They had to have been Marines and proven themselves to be ODST stuff. 

No people = No Marines = No ODST.

You would still have more people fighting for you. You have more people building ships, mining ore, anything other than sitting and rotting in refugee camps, like the populace of New Orleans and their FEMA trailers.

the Oceanborn:

Are you serious? You are... Okay, perhaps not a thousand ODST, but the Master Chief did something that no ODST would EVER be able to do, no matter what kind of training they had. If you had read The Fall of Reach, which it seems you didn't...

Yes, I have read it, thank you very much.

the Oceanborn:

John fought a total of 10 ODST, disarming 3 before they had time to react, and handled all of them non-fatally. He then proceeded to dodge a field of Lotus anti-tank mines without being blown to bits, disabled three 30mm turrets without being hit, ran through a razor-wire field (which would have shredded an ODST). He then outmaneuvered a SkyHawk jump jet with a 50mm cannon on foot while jumping on poles 10 centimeters in diameter, dodging napalm and sonic grenades at the same time. He then dodged a Scorpion missile fired by the SkyHawk, slapping it aside. He then ran a half-kilometer (500 meters or 1640.4 ft) in 17 seconds!

Could an ODST have done that?

Not a single ODST. An ODST squad, with the right equipment, sure.

You forget, certain casualty rates are fine. 

No, forgive me. Fine is the wrong word. Acceptable is the right word, with all the connotations of logic and regret.

the Oceanborn:

The Spartans also have an ability (it's not standard issue) that few to none ODST have, and that's the integration of an AI. While ODST (mostly Majors and higher up) have "Dumb" AI, the MJOLNIR suit is capable of housing a "Smart" AI, which is able to do far more than a "Dumb" AI. No ODST can have that ability, no matter what.

Fine. I accept that. But is one 'smart AI' per soldier really necessary on the battlefield? Were there not Forerunner artifacts to decipher or ship systems to hack, all Cortana would do is just tell you to 'go climb that pyramid'.

Given that a company of ODSTs would be handling entire engagement areas (Exact numbers are uncertain, but the guys on Halo seemed to do just fine with one company of Marines and one company of ODSTs.) a density of one or two AIs per staging area would work out quite well. In case of special missions like boarding ships (The only reason, BTW, that Cortana was issued) smart AIs could be issued.

the Oceanborn:

Yeah, and whatever planet the Covenant were on would have been decimated from the effects of the NOVA bomb. Let's compare the effects:

You send in a squad of 5 Spartan II's. They kill the several invading Covenant forces, experiencing no UNSC casualties. You have a ton of carcasses, which you clean up later and they decompose. You also now have Covenant weapons and vehicles, which can be used for plasma and anti-gravity technologies.

You drop a NOVA bomb on the several invading Covenant. You have no carcasses, no weapons, no vehicles, and no life. The land is desolated, and if enough are used the planet is probably damaged.

Do you see the reason for Spartans vs. NOVA bomb now? You probably don't, but there's the facts.

Hey, genius, the NOVA would completely rip the atmoshpere off of HALF the planet (Ala GoO) and the other half would experience severe (9 on the Richter scale) planetquakes and extreme weather, but it wouldn't be completely destroyed.

Even if total destruction does happen, you don't need their technology. If you have the ability to totally decimate their planets without reprisal, and can carry total war back to their population, then you don't need their technology until you've driven them back to their core planets, at which point you can take what you want.

the Oceanborn:

And you got this number where?

I thought it was mentioned in CH. Even if it wasn't, 800 worlds with an average of one billion humans each would be a safe bet, no?

the Oceanborn:

Still, this proves nothing. 800 billion humans versus so many Covenant that it would be futile to put a number on them. We were outnumbered; did you not read anything from the storyline??

We were outnumbered in space, but usually won the war on the ground. Redundancy?

What we needed was a way to take the fight to the Covenant, or even the playing field. Take out the Spartans, and ODSTs would fill their place, after which you would still have money for research and more starships.

the Oceanborn:

Ceramic armor wouldn't have held up much better. Already the Marines and ODST have metal alloy armor, but it still doesn't compare to a Spartan II's shields. There's no argument there.

No way you can cut it. Thirty Ubersoldaten gets 500% better protection, or tens of thousands of Marines and ODSTS, if not more, get 5% better protection.

the Oceanborn:

Camp New Hope was a base of operations for the United Rebel Front. They would have rebelled against the UNSC, not the Spartans, regardless of the Spartans creation. The point of that argument, however, is that if a Spartan II had trouble penetrating the defenses, then how would a squad of ODST do any better?

Again, you miss my point. The URF scrapped together their nukes because they heard that Spartans were around. And the Spartan's problems were directly related to their armor, because of the A-Grav plate. They didn't have to bat missiles aside, they didn't have to hopscotch across rediculous balancing posts while dodging Napalm and sonic grenades, they just had to sneak in and break a few arms quietly.

the Oceanborn:

Jesus Harold Christ on rubber crutches, Rasq!

*Writes that one down...

the Oceanborn:

What triggered the Covenant civil war was the assassination of Regret by John-117. This allowed Truth to blame the Elites, and later to eliminate Mercy. All due to John-117

As per FS and Conversations from the Universe, the Brute tension was already present. The Elites were beginning to doubt the war, and the Brutes were quietly taking their place... or not so quietly. The Truth about the Halos would have split them asunder just as easily as Regret's assassination.

the Oceanborn:

While the Spartans may not have caused the Covenant to fall, it could not have been done without them. Who's suggestion was it to follow Truth into the Ark? A Spartan. Who fought along side Elites and Marines to reach Truth in his citadel? A Spartan. Who destroyed the Gravemind and eliminated a greater threat to humanity than the Covenant, A SPARTAN! Are you noticing a pattern here?

I am noticing a pattern. A stubborn refusal to realize that, without the Spartans, a different timeline would have followed. The UNSC would not have intervened at Alpha Halo, and the Covenant would have discovered Guilty Spark and the Flood. Two huge problems, and since Guilty Spark had an army of Sentinels protecting him, he could not have been silenced as Medicant Bias was.

the Oceanborn:

Once again, a NOVA bomb would have destroyed more than just Covenant forces, as the Spartans do. A NOVA bomb would have destroyed a good section of the planet as well. Not too smart. I suggest you [re]read the Halo novels, because you clearly are missing some points.

Again, if the planets are destroyed for the long term, then the Covenant cannot use them again. They can't rebuild, they have a harder time expanding, and they can be defeated.

Sure, you lose the planet, but you could also go extinct.

the Oceanborn:

Maybe, maybe maybe... You don't provide a solid argument here. Yes, the Spartans were developed to battle insurgents. Why? Because too many Marines and ODST were dying by guriella tactics. They were deployed against the Covenant because they were our best bet; the ODST and Marines couldn't hold up to the Covenants attacks. 

Back when the Spartan III program was incepted, Ackerson stated that the Spartan IIs cost as much as an entire fleet of battleships, and that was before the fancy MJOLNIR Mk Vs, or the Mk VI.

Now, the Spartans werent' created specifically for the war against the Covenant, but an entirely different war. And see my earlier points about death rates and funding.

the Oceanborn:

Did you seriously not hear every time a Marine said "Master Chief! Oh, thank God you're here..." Even at the beginning of Delta Halo, the ODST say "Sir, we've got to take out that anti-air!" Not, "Sit back, Freak, let us do it."

Because the Spartan is good at what it does. You could take out a bunker with an ICBM, or you could do it with the right equipment, which the Marines could have had at the outset.

the Oceanborn:

So out of a troop of lets say 100 ODST and Marines, 10 survive, but the factory that produces Ghosts is damaged. According to your mentality, that's an acceptable loss of 90 soldiers. That's not too great.

Send in 5 Spartans, the Factory is destroyed, and 1 Spartan might be injured. That's sucessful.

My mentality says that, if 100 were sent in and 10 came back, something went wrong. Were there not enough? Was the intelligence bad? Was I using the wrong equipment? Or should I have just dusted the whole factory with chemical weapons and then threw in a thermobaric? 

the Oceanborn:

Great, so the Spartans are a wind-up toy now? What the hell is a xenos?  Do you mean the greek word for Stranger?

Xenos as in the plural form of Xeno. Xeno in it's modern incarnation, as in foreigner, non-human, alien, or "Something other than human". Equipment. Point them, dial in the coordinates, and win the game from bars three thousand miles away, as the song goes. A little more sophisticated than 'wind up toys', but hardly any more human than, say, Wellsly.

the Oceanborn:

This doesn't present any supporting factor as to how the ODST were superior to Spartans. All that this does is strengthen the impression that you are an ODST fan boy, and have no idea what you're talking about.

Hey, some of the arguments I've seen you use support the fact that you are a Spartan fanboy.

And you know what the bitter, cruel irony is?

I took the "Magic: the Gathering" test, just out of curiousity, since I don't really know what "Magic: the Gathering" is.

And we're both Blues.

What a sick, twisted world we live in...

Lethe:

Then you should be pretty happy with the game; it's a lot of fun.
Even if a squad of marines out of dozens of units on a battle field has shoulder pads .25" too thick for a fanboy's tastes :)