Emile-A239

Emile-A239
Biographical information
Homeworld:	Luxor, Eridanus II
Born:	March 11, 2523
Died:	August 30, 2552 (aged 29)
Cause of death:	Stabbed by a Sangheili Zealot
Personal details
Species:	Human
Gender:	Male
Height:	208.4 centimetres (6 ft 10.0 in)
Weight:	106.5 kilograms (235 lb)
Political and military information
Affiliation:	UNSC Navy (formerly) Naval Special Weapons SPARTAN-III program; ; ; UNSC Army Special Warfare Group Three (operationally under NOBLE Team); ;
Rank:	Warrant Officer
Service number:	S-A239

"In recognition of this, his warrior's spirit, we honor him as the merciless wrath of Noble."

— The Monument to Noble Team

Warrant Officer Emile-A239 was a SPARTAN-III commando of the UNSC Naval Special Warfare Command, attached to Special Warfare Group Three of the UNSC Army.^[3] He fought as part of NOBLE Team with the call sign Noble Four, during the Fall of Reach in 2552.^[4]^[5]

Biography[edit]

Early life and military career[edit]

Emile during the Battle of Fumirole on April 22, 2552.

Emile was born in Luxor on Eridanus II in 2523. When he was very young, his parents were killed during Insurrection activity. Subsequently, his older brother took care of him in Luxor. In 2530 his planet was glassed by the Covenant and his brother sacrificed himself so that Emile could escape; this event had a profound impact on him.^[6] Orphaned, he was conscripted into the SPARTAN-III program as a part of Alpha Company. Discovering that he could fill the hole in his heart with the corpses of the Covenant, Emile quickly adapted and excelled in his training. Emile graduated from the program at the age of 13, though his aptitude was such that he was removed from the general population of Alpha Company by Kurt-051 and Franklin Mendez before Operation: PROMETHEUS in 2537 (which resulted in the deaths of most members of the company) to be used for tasks that required a more skillful hand.^[7]

Some time following December 2551, Emile was assigned onto NOBLE Team to fill the spot left by the departure of Rosenda-A344 after the defense of Concord, taking on the callsign Noble Four. Despite this, on March 9, 2552, Colonel Urban Holland still considered reversing this placement in the event that an operation against Insurrectionists was to come up, due to Emile's noted excessive violence in combat against human rebels.^[5] In April of that year, Emile fought alongside NOBLE in the Battle of Fumirole in an assault on Sanctity of Purification, a Ket-pattern battlecruiser which had taken position over the planet's capital city.^[8]

Fall of Reach[edit]

On July 23, 2552, contact with the Visegrad communications relay on Reach was lost. After losing contact with the Army fireteams that he had deployed to investigate the disturbance, Colonel Urban Holland sent Noble Team to find the cause of the communications blackout. Soon after arriving at the relay, Noble Team encountered a Covenant incursion force. Soon, the team split in half, with Emile, Jun, and Kat flying directly to the relay and Carter, Jorge, and Noble Six proceeding on the ground. After the team battled their way inside and fought a team of Sangheili Zealots known as the Devoted Sentries, Carter informed Holland that the WINTER CONTINGENCY was in effect, as Covenant forces were on Reach.^[9]

Emile, Jorge and Carter having a small field debrief

On July 26, Noble Team helped defend the Office of Naval Intelligence's Sword Base from a Covenant attack spearheaded by an overhead corvette. Near the end of the battle, Emile took position near the top of the structure. From this position, he engaged several Phantoms and Banshees to allow some of the base's remaining Longswords to get airborne. After the corvette was destroyed by one of Reach's Orbital Defense Platforms, Noble Team met Dr. Catherine Halsey, with whom they discussed the Zealot team they had previously encountered.^[10]

On August 23, Noble Team rendezvoused inside ONI's now-compromised Olympic Tower in New Alexandria. During this meeting, Emile tried to mask his sorrow for Jorge's death through humor. Moments later, the Covenant began glassing dangerously close to Noble Team's position. As the SPARTANs fled, Kat was killed by a waiting Sangheili marksman. The survivors attempted to kill the Elite to no avail. On August 26, Noble Team emerged from a fallout bunker beneath the ruins of the Olympic Tower.^[11]

On August 29, the remaining members of Noble Team were sent to the Covenant-occupied remnants of Sword Base; they were ordered to demolish Sword Base to prevent Halsey's excavation data from falling into Covenant hands. Emile, Carter, and Jun remained in a UH-144 Falcon while Noble Six and a team of Orbital Drop Shock Troopers eliminated a pair of Covenant anti-aircraft cannons. After the cannons were disabled, Noble Team fought their way into the interior of the base. After the team arrived at the pre-arranged coordinates, which seemed to be a dead end with no load-bearing structures, Auntie Dot revealed that the team had been given a new objective. They were to rendezvous with Dr. Halsey over a kilometer away and 2,000 feet below ground.

Emile near the Asźod ship breaking yards

The team soon arrived at a Forerunner complex beneath the Babd Catha Ice Shelf. Halsey insisted upon the importance of the site and demanded Noble Team's support while she completed transferring critical data in her laboratory. Emile and the other Spartans defended Halsey's lab from several waves of Covenant forces, who had found an entrance to the ruins. Eventually, Halsey ushered the Spartans inside, where she revealed the data she had transferred: a fragment of the AI Cortana that carried a "latchkey" discovery found in the ruins. She ordered Noble Team to escort Cortana to the UNSC Pillar of Autumn, a Halcyon-class light cruiser that was drydocked at the ship-breaking yards in Asźod. Jun escorted Halsey to ONI CASTLE Base, while Emile, Carter, and Noble Six flew to rendezvous with the Pillar of Autumn. As the group parted ways, Halsey detonated explosive charges within the ice shelf, burying the ruins.^[12]

On August 30, as Noble Team neared the Pillar of Autumn's location, their Pelican was damaged, and Carter was severely wounded, by pursuing Banshees. Emile attempted to hold the pursuers off to little avail. Carter ordered Emile and Noble Six to escort the package to the Pillar of Autumn on foot. The two Spartans leapt from the Pelican and fought their way to the mouth of a ravine, where they were cornered by a Scarab. Fortunately, Carter arrived, though the Pelican's weapons were not powerful enough to damage the Scarab. As the commander told his plan to ram the Scarab, Emile encouraged Carter to "Hit 'em hard." With their leader dead and the Scarab destroyed, the two remaining SPARTANs continued toward the Pillar of Autumn. Eventually, they reached the drydock's landing platforms, where Captain Keyes would take possession of the package personally. Emile mounted an "Onager" mass driver that the Pillar of Autumn's Marine contingent had installed, using it to destroy several approaching Phantom dropships.^[2].

Death[edit]

"I'm ready! How 'bout you?!"

— Emile's last words.

After Noble Six had cleared Platform Delta, Keyes arrived in a Pelican to take possession of the package. While Noble Six met with the captain, a Phantom flew to the emplacement and dropped off a group of the Devoted Sentries. Emile dismounted the emplacement and knocked an Elite to the ground. The Zealot's energy shields flickered, then turned off as Emile finished it with his shotgun. However, a second Elite managed to impale him with a stab from behind using an energy sword. Defiant to the end, Emile pulled out his kukri and stabbed the Elite through the throat, causing both of them to fall from the platform. When Noble Six ascended the stairs to the mass driver, the bodies of Emile and the Elites who ambushed him were slumped against the railing, lifeless.^[2]

Personality and traits[edit]

"He may say that what he wants is to win the war, but what he really wants is for the enemy to die."

— In-game description

Emile believed maintaining one's humanity during a conflict for survival to be irrational - that both ideas cannot co-exist, so he decided early on in his career to never let them. As such, he favored an aggressive and loud approach to combat, wanting to prove to everyone (as well as himself) that he was not afraid of the enemy nor was he afraid of doing whatever was necessary to win the war. It was for this reason that Emile was often guilty of overkill, but his apparent sadism was in actuality an affectation - he did what he did because he knew that it could potentially break the enemy's will to fight, not necessarily because he enjoyed it. The one personal action Emile took to signify his victories were the scratches he made on his visor - each of the hundreds of marks that make up its skull-visage in order to threaten the Covenant opposition at first sight.^[6]

Colonel Holland noted that Emile-A239's excessive use of force made it hard to field him against insurrectionists due to the unfavorable reaction in civilian media; to this end, shortly before the Fall of Reach, Holland planned to replace him with Rosenda-A344 in the event of a future counterinsurgency operation.^[5]

Emile was noted to have had the most difficulty interacting with non-Spartans than any other member of Noble Team.^[5] He treated civilians with suspicion and disregard, which led to confrontations between him and the more empathetic Jorge. Despite his hard outlook, he held a deep respect for his teammates, as well as readiness and loyalty to sacrifice himself in order to allow the Pillar of Autumn to escape. Emile handled the loss of teammates, such as Jorge, by masking his emotions with humor.^[13] Despite his abrasive outlook, Emile was nonetheless respected by his peers. He was described as being detail-oriented and unbreakable, an effective member of his unit while in the field and one that maintained strict discipline off the field.^[5]

He possessed an "impressive" collection of Covenant contraband. While in direct violation of Subsection Seven of the Cole Protocol, his superiors ignored this, due to them being part of the Army rather than the Navy.^[5]

Equipment[edit]

Emile typically wielded an M45E Tactical Shotgun and occasionally used an M319 grenade launcher, for which he always carried grenades. His signature weapon was a large kukri knife that he sheathed on his right shoulder pauldron.

Emile's Mark V[B] armor consisted of the Assault/Sapper chest piece, the Assault/Breacher wrist utility, Security right shoulder piece, Operator left shoulder piece, Tactical/SOFT CASE utility, and FJ/PARA knee guards. The most distinct piece of Emile's armor was his helmet, a EVA helmet with a HUL attachment, featuring a skull Emile had carved into the faceplate. The skull is made of hundreds of individual scratches, each signifying a member of the Covenant he has killed.^[14]

Trivia[edit]

Emile was voiced by Jamie Hector in Halo: Reach.^[15]
Emile shared his homeworld, Eridanus II, with John-117.
Emile was one of the oldest known SPARTAN-III candidates at the time he entered the program, being age eight. Carter-A259, the oldest known candidate, was eleven.
Emile is the only member of Noble Team, aside from SPARTAN-B312, whose face is not seen throughout Halo: Reach. He is also the only one who does not remove his helmet at any time in the game. However, Emile's face is depicted in a piece of concept art to the far left. The faces shown in the same concept art piece are seen in one of the screens in the Tribute Room, but Emile's face is largely obscured.
Emile's helmet is available as an Avatar Award and is obtained by earning a Bulltrue Medal in either multiplayer or Firefight matchmaking.
In campaign co-op, Emile's helmet is a standard EVA helmet, missing its usual skull. In cutscenes however, the skull is unaffected. This also happens to an EVA[C] helmet worn by a player in all split-screen game modes.
When Emile stabs the Zealot with his kukri, he stabs the Elite on the right side of its neck. However, after the cutscene, the knife is on the left side of the Elite's neck. It is possible though that he might have stabbed the Elite a following time after falling off screen during the cutscene.
Due to a glitch, Emile's shields, as well as those of the Elites who ambush him, still function normally after they are dead. His body also can not be shifted through meleeing or explosions.
Emile's service tag initials are also printed on the base of the Onager as S-239, much like Jorge's tag is printed on the cannon of the Scorpion tank as S-052.
Emile is the only SPARTAN in the game who wears his wrist attachment on his right wrist, though Jorge wears the same wrist attachment on both wrists.
It is possible that Emile was originally intended to be silent, as his profile on Game Informer regularly refers to him as "the silent Spartan" and states that he "does not speak", in heavy contrast to the gung-ho attitude he possesses in the final game.^[16]
Along with Kat, Emile is one of the two Halo: Reach characters in The Coalition's Gears 5 as part of the Ultimate Edition. His role in Horde and Escape modes is Offense, while his Ultimate Ability in Horde mode is Drop Shield. In addition to saying "Echo Tango" like he did in Halo: Reach when marking enemies, he may also shout "Who's next?!" when earning kills and performing executions.^[17]
The Halo 5: Guardians Assassination known as "Emile's Regards" is a reference to his resistive demise at the hands of the Sangheili Zealot.

Gallery[edit]

Early concept art of Emile for Halo: Reach.
Concept art of Emile-A239 holding a grenade launcher.
Concept art of Emile's helmet.
Emile with his shotgun.
Emile crouching.
Emile fires at two Banshees and a Phantom from a Pelican.
Emile drawing his kukri in combat.
Emile, fatally wounded by a Zealot.
Emile's body and that of his killer.
Emile's Firefight profile image.
Emile after killing a Skirmisher.
An Emile Xbox Live avatar.
WRATH-class Mjolnir, a MJOLNIR [GEN2] armor based on Emile's armor in Halo 5: Guardians.
Jun-A266 and Emile-A239 on the Halo Legendary Crate #6 poster.
Emile-A239 on the Halo Legendary Crate #17 poster.
Emile-A239 in Gears 5.
The Emile-A239 armor kit in Halo Infinite.
An Emile weapon charm on an MA40.