Halo-The Fall of Reach

Halo-The Fall of Reach

Halo-The Fall of Reach: Main Character.

The novel that I have read is "Halo: The Fall of Reach" by Eric Nylund. This science fiction story is about the war of humanity against an alien race in the future. In this story, the main character is Master Chief, John- 117.

Ever after since humanity first encounters with the aggressive alien race known as the Covenant, war has never stopped and humanity has suffered severely. Outnumbered and outgunned, the soldiers seem to have little chance against the Covenant. In order to protect humanity against the alien's onslaught, the United Nations Space Command, or UNSC in short, has launched a secret military training programme in order to form a special army of super soldiers---"Spartan-II".

In this programme, children who are classified as suitable in being these super soldiers are covertly taken from their homes at a very young age and they are replaced by clones in their homes to hide the kidnapping. John, was one of them. He was taken to the planet Reach, one of UNSC's bastion. There, he was assigned new identification number John-117, and has to undergo harsh trainings at the age of 7.

John-117 has great endurance. He managed to endure through the entire harsh military tranings everday. For example: waking up at 5.30 in the morning for a long march, doing 100 times of jumping jack and sit-ups without a single bit of rest and so on. But because of his great endurance, he managed to stay in the training programme and became one of the best recruit.

Not only that, John has a great leadership. During one of their exam mission at the age of 9, all seventy-five recruits are supposed to navigate their ways by foot in the middle of snow to a marked extraction point with just a small portion of the local region map. John gave signals to his comrades before dropping of from dropship to meet together so that everyone will make it to the extraction point together in one piece. After that, John led them through the place and encounter dangers, but he managed to command all the recruits to work together and get to the extraction point.

When John turned 15, he was biologically and cybernetically augmented and enhanced. These procedures have substantial risks; only John and thirty-two other Spartans survived. They are equipped with special armors that are only suitable for them to handle--"MJOLNIR". After Spartan's first successful operation in taking out human rebels in other space colonies, John was briefed on the threat posed by the Covenant, and witnesses the utter devastation brought by a single sapceship. After a few successful missions against battles with rebels and the Covenant, he became the leader of the entire Spartan, known as the Master Chief.

In 2552, Master Chief's armor was upgraded and he was given a top class AI (Artificial Intelligence) known as Cortana to help him complete his missions. But some time later, the Covenant reached the planet Reach, they invaded it and destroyed it despite the best efforts of Spartans and UNSC. Aboard the spaceship "Pillar of Autumn", Master Chief and the other marines escaped planet Reach. Seemingly the last surviving Spartan, Master Chief gets enters cryonic sleep to recover and to get ready to risk everything he has again on the battlefield in order to protect humanity.

All in all, Master Chief is an elite soldier with superhuman abilities and noble values and he is willing to sacrifice everything he had in order to protect humanity from the onslaught of the Covenant. 

Loh Khang Wen
4 Cergas
12-1-2014