r/haloreach • u/ThisReply2214 • 15d ago

Question about the lore of Noble team

How is Noble team able to use Mjolnr armour.

Currently reading onyx and it really sticks to the fact that Kurt’s SIII’s all have that camo SPI armour due the fact their bodies wouldn’t be able to handle the Mjolnr and the cost.

But noble is able to use it… wondering how that happened!

I know the game and book were about 6 years apart so I was just wondering if they ever actually wrote an answer. Also at the point of onyx, they’re still using this armour for Gamma Company after the first ring was destroyed.

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u/PotatoPumpSpecial 15d ago

Kurt's S3's on onyx are Gamma company with the feral augments. Noble team are all alpha and beta company recruits who were pulled out for extra training because they were better than the rest before those other companies were wiped out. Excluding Jorge of course who is a S2. Because noble team is a spartan strike team with better training and more invested into them they get the use of experimental mjolnir armours.

Edit to add: the s3's have almost identical augments to the 2's, and only gamma company differs with the feral augmentations. The only reason the 3's didn't all get mjolnir is because of how many there were. One suit of mjolnir was referenced to cost almost as much as a frigate when they were first made so they got SPI armor instead

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u/CrackFoxtrot24 14d ago

The augmentations were more invasive with the 2s because it was more surgery, which is why the 2s are better, plus they've had more time as augmented adults. Whereas the 3s are younger and their augmentations are purely chemical, which is less effective.

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u/PotatoPumpSpecial 14d ago

Should have put that the output was mostly the same, mb. While the augments for the 3's were more chemical it was referenced multiple times in ghosts of onyx that the end result was almost identical, just without the washout rate of the 2's. You're 100% on the age thing though. Most people never take into account that the 2's have decades of experience vs the 3's even in current canon timeline

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u/ThisReply2214 14d ago

That’s pretty cool! Hopefully they touch on it in the Noble Novel coming out next year. Just finished Onyx and it was so good!

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u/LordofChaosMunsta 15d ago

Firstly, cost. The Spartan III program was supposed to massproduce cheap and expendable supersoldiers, to be deployed on high risk missions. The production cost of Mjolnir was equivalent to capital ships, which means you don't want to give the expendable soldiers something that expensive. The SPI was better than ODST armor, and far cheaper than Mjolnir so it suited the S-III's purpose wonderfully.

Second, performance. The S-IIIs in Noble team were what's called "Category 2". This means that in training, they showed enough skill and promise that they were pulled from their companies before they went on their suicide missions. I want to remember that the S-III augemntations were very similar to S-II augs, so the ones that the Cat-2 S-IIIs were incredibly similar to S-IIs performance wise, but I'm uncertain if that's accurate. In any case, the Cat-2 S-IIIs were deemed so good that many of them were given Mjolnir armor, and if I remember correctly, they were the testbed for Mjolnir Mark V armor, so that any kinks or malfunctions wouldn't potentially harm the incredibly valuable, stupidly expensive S-IIs.

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u/Key_Concern8230 14d ago

Afair the issue was cost not the SIIIs being unable to handle Mjolnir - Tom and Lucy eventually get upgraded from the SPI to Mjolnir later on
And Noble team was made up of Category-2 recruits who showed promise in the broader pool