Talk:Black Team

Where does "Victor-101" come from? Can we get a source for it? If it was from the comic, I would assume the others would be named as well. -- Administrator Specops306 - Qur'a 'Morhek 00:31, February 9, 2010 (UTC)

I know, I did miss it the first time I read it, but he is named in the first issue. It's at the part where he introduces himself to Iona. About halfway through. Exact quote is "Victor-101. Nice to meet you, Iona." But yeah, the others aren't named at any point. --Jugus (Talk | Contribs) 06:27, February 9, 2010 (UTC)

Origins?

Halsey's journal, April 1, 2525:

"I've ordered that NO candidate autopsies be performed (noninvasive scans and blood tests are permissible). Brief funeral services (closed casket) served to help surviving Spartans attain psychological closure.

Bodies of augmentation washouts are cryogenically preserved, pending further study. Perhaps one day we'll discover ways to ameliorate or reverse lethal side effects and revive some, if not all, of them. That is my hope.

Reviving these candidates would be fraught with complexities - and not just from a technological perspective. How would they respond to an essentially new world when resuscitated months or even years later?

How would surviving Spartans react to their comrades' resurrection? I certainly can't predict. One thing is certain - ONI would find a use for them."

Hmm. "ONI would find a use for them." Could this remark suggest the origins of Team Black? Linda was brutally killed on Gamma Station, yet she was resuscitated about a month later - the space-time anomaly notwithstanding. The Forerunners could revive the nearly dead, so it isn't really a stretch that the UNSC could bring back the actually dead. Assuming that the washouts' bodies were placed on ice as soon as they were declared dead, it is quite possible that ONI was indeed able to resurrect some of them.

If Halsey's suspicions were correct - and when aren't they? - ONI could have a team of four Spartans who officially no longer exist: a black ops team who would report to no one but ONI. That describes Team Black perfectly.

On another note, if any of the other dead washouts were resuscitated and any of the crippled candidates were rehabilitated, as mentioned elsewhere in the journal, they might have taken part in the Fall of Reach, thus explaining the numbers discrepancy. As of the Fall of Reach, Cassandra was undergoing rehab, Fhajad was still a data analyst, and Soren was almost certainly dead, but the rest are up for grabs, so to speak. --Courage never dies. 19:09, 8 May 2011 (EDT)

Roman Numerals

(I'm posting this here as a blanket message for all the Team Black members.)

Reading the comic, it seems that the Roman numerals mentioned to be inscribed on the team's visors aren't inscribed at all. I think they're just a narrative device to help readers (and, in the story, Iona) tell them apart. The numerals don't appear until Iona mentions, via narration, that she has to read the Spartans' callsigns to distinguish them.

As a result, I think that the notes in each member's article mentioning the numerals be removed, and a note made in the relevant trivia sections. In fact, it might do to have a general trivia remark on this page instead, rather than one per member.

I mention it here to open it up for discussion, but if nobody has any strong feelings against it, I'll make the appropriate edits later. Say, a day's time? --CaptainRaspberry 15:21, 20 September 2011 (EDT)

I'm sure I read in FoR that you can see inscriptions on the outside of the HUD as well - a rank insignia, for example.-- Forerunner 16:01, 20 September 2011 (EDT)

On the visor, though? I know armor can have inscriptions like unit symbols or Spartan tags, but only on metal parts of the armor, like pauldrons or helmets. Taking into account that the numerals don't appear until after Iona makes specific mention about needing to tell them apart, as well as the fact that the numerals don't appear on their visors on the covers or promotional materials and are never mentioned in the short story in Evolutions, I have to conclude it's a narrative device. It shouldn't be described in their articles like it's actually present, just that, say, "Black One is distinguished from the others in the comic by the Roman numeral I." Or something like that.--CaptainRaspberry 10:25, 21 September 2011 (EDT)