♖ R/s App
Player Name: Jchan
Player LJ: vampydirector
Email / AIM: vampwrite@gmail.com / vampwrite
Timezone: EST
Other Characters: Tenth Doctor, Rory Williams
Character: Agent Washington (or "Wash" for short. His real name is David, last name unknown.)
Series: Red vs Blue
Deviance: 1
Age: Early-mid twenties (He'll be in his early-mid thirties by the time he gets to his S6 canon (unless otherwise noted by canon--but that probably won't happen.))
Gender: Male
Species: Human
Canon Used: The online machinima webseries known as Red vs. Blue, and the Halo series in terms of terminology of weapons and basic mythology, though RvB is really its own bubble universe in the Halo universe (see chart in the reality description). You won't find Master Chief coming across these guys at like...a military ball or on a base somewhere. But in Wash's case, he gets introduced in a mini-series called "Recovery One", set between seasons 5 and 6 of RvB. However, those events and those that follow in seasons 6 through 8 are from a later part of his life. We get a lot of insight into his past in season 9. So for him, I'll be using those specific seasons (and mini-series), and the rest of the seasons will be used for basic set-up of the world and such.
Appearance: Wash is tall, over six feet, and wears steel-colored Mark VI body armor with yellow trim. The armor covers him from head to foot, like so, and as a Freelancer agent, he's been equipped with an armor enhancement that...hasn't been revealed yet. He is typically armed with a battle rifle, a pistol known as a magnum, and a long, standard issue knife (amongst other things). He carries these weapons on his person at all times and more on these later. Underneath that armor are most likely scars from bullet wounds, knife wounds, and lord knows what other injuries he's sustained in training and on missions.
Psychology:
Where to even start with a guy like Wash... He changes so much as the years go on and the betrayals/backstabbings start to and continue happening to him, but with Season 9, we're treated to a Wash before that happens. One who is painfully idealistic about Project Freelancer and all that the Director is doing for him and his friends. One who is essentially a boy scout with his rigidity and constant reminder about the rules and many protocols they all have to abide by (or should be doing, damnit.)
It makes his future and inevitable breaking all the more heartwrenching.
But...backing up a bit.
First and foremost, Washington is a soldier. He's loyal and fights for what he believes should be fought against, and obeys orders to a T. It's...actually a bit of a problem that he does. He's rather picky about adherence to safety protocols and all that fun stuff, and hates having to improvise in the middle of a mission. Nonetheless, he will do it; he has no other choice but to improvise once it gets to that point and really, he doesn't gripe too much about it or puts up any resistance. Resistance would lead to slowing things down and increasing the chances of a failed mission.
Failure means getting bumped down in rank, risking one's chances of getting good missions and other things that are to come, and worst of all--for someone like Wash--and getting chastised by the Director. Of anyone in Project Freelancer, the Director is someone Wash does not want to disappoint. The man's helped and is continuing to help them in so many ways; he's already done so much for them by bringing them into the program, giving them new names, and treating them as highly valued soldiers. Because of all that, Wash has an almost blind loyalty to the Director (possibly rivaled with Carolina's own) and it will take quite a lot to break him of that image he's placed on a huge fucking pedestal. (And it will be a big thing too.)
He is, unfortunately, pretty damn idealistic for someone in the middle of a war. For example, if a soldier isn't following safety protocols in a training scenario, you'd better believe he'd want to tell the Director about it because that simply isn't how things are supposed to be done. Never mind he misses the point that the rules would be tossed completely out the window in an actual battle... He'll later get all that--but really...he does get it now in his own way--but damnit, right now it's training, so things should be done by the rules! The safety protocols are there for a reason, and there have been enough accidents as it is. (See: Agent Utah and his untimely demise during a training session with armor enhancements, and no doubt other failed missions with other agents in training, etc.)
Now...this isn't to say that Wash is anal about everything. He isn't, not really... (and he sure as hell isn't later in life.) He's just professional in his actions and attitude towards his duty (though he can relax and joke around with friends and colleagues.) He's actually pretty forgiving when someone makes a mistake, especially on a mission. He'd rather that person move on from it instead of beating themselves up about it. Live and learn, you know? (Of course, it's easier to forgive something that isn't a direct slight against him personally, but...more on that later.) And he does try to make that person feel better; he really does. Might even offer advice (even if it's unwanted) or if he knows the person pretty well, just a pat on the armored shoulder and a reminder that they're all part of a team. He's a team player, like the good soldier boy he is (but don't expect too much sympathy from him if you're an enemy. Freelancers are notorious for being cold motherfuckers and Wash is no different, though he might feel a modicum of sympathy for the poor bastards depending on who they're up against.) And because he is a good little soldier boy, he's also pretty damn skilled in...well, everything really. He might not be an expert, but he's definitely got the training background so if someone is unable to fulfill their duty (due to illness, injury, etc), he'll step up for the task if he's given it. He's pretty certain he can do it (even if there is a hint of hesitance) but usually, reading the field manual about said task will serve as a comforting reminder.
But really, Wash doesn't truly need it. He has a really damn good memory. Like extremely good, which is why he can remember the safety protocols and all that fun shit so well (and thus why it makes him slightly annoying when he brings these up). An interesting quirk related to this is his mental list of the worst things ever of all time, which usually tend to the most idiotic and absurd things he's seen done by those around him, or objects that make no fucking sense about why they work the way they do and who the hell would ever create them (case in point: a gun that bounces, or rather the fired ammunition that bounces off certain surfaces, but by the time the round misses the target, one is not concerned with blaming the ammo.)
As one can probably see, Wash is a bit of a dork under all that armor and goody-two-shoes-ness. He's very smart, both book-smart and common sense-smart (which is more than a lot of people in the main canon can say), but he can be awkward about some things. Those tend to be things that he's so sure of, but when he's flat out told he's wrong, he can get a little flustered. And his attempts at making people feel better? Yeah, he's not so good at it, but can't fault a guy for trying, right? The point is that he tried, even if he...doesn't exactly succeed in making that person feel better. He isn't one to dwell on things like that, nor is he one to sugar-coat things either. He can be pretty blunt. And he can be perceptive about things, but...admittedly, he's rather blind about some things with certain people, and even then, he wants to believe that that's not what they're like or what they're up to, but...he'll still be suspicious. After all, he isn't dumb or anything. Just...a little reluctant to believe that someone might be betraying him or anyone else.
Also, he isn't one to really talk about himself or his past. He's always been one not to talk about things like that until there's a relevancy in the conversation or if he's prompted to talk about it. It's just not something he does. And really, there are other things on his mind as it is, plus everything else going on around them, so the past just doesn't come up all that often anyway. (And sometimes, his mind does drift, but it really only happens every now and then. Someone just has to call his name a couple times to break him out of his reverie.) That doesn't mean, though, that he isn't sociable or anything. He is; he definitely is, and once you get him going, he can talk on end about things. If you want the backstory about something, he's your man. He just knows when to be quiet, which isn't a self-filter that some of his fellow agents have. That self-filter, however, doesn't apply to sarcasm, and Wash can be very sarcastic and dry.
If there's one thing that should be clear by now is that Washington is complicated as hell. And really, he'll only get worse from here on out as life stabs him in the back repeatedly.
In the future (so definitely not at this current canon point), something happens to him. The purpose they are all training for--the implantation of their own AI--finally happens, and for Wash... Well, when he gets his, the AI named Epsilon, his entire world will be turned on its head. The truth about everything--the program, what they did to get the AI, and how much of an asshole the Director truly is--will come to light in an instant as his mind and Epsilon's minds combine (though there are blanks here and there, but Wash is able to connect the dots). What eventually will come for Wash after that is a massive psychotic break because of what had happened to Epsilon (and the Alpha AI) and Epsilon's going insane, and with the way the AI work inside the mind, Epsilon's thoughts will bleed into Wash's and make it impossible for him to distinguish his own thoughts from his insane AI's. Thankfully, he'll have it removed after it supposedly kills itself (that's the story the other Freelancers are going to be told, but Wash will be led to think it is removed and destroyed), but the damage is long, long since done by that point.
He'll be certified Article 12, unfit for duty, while he heals and recovers, but it does take some time. But Wash is a survivor and has an uncanny ability to survive things that would have defeated others. He has to be a survivor and bury heavy, dark thoughts in deep in his mind where no one will ever see them again. Not even another AI as he'll refuse to have one put in him again for fear of it discovering what he knows--only he doesn't say this. That act is just one of many steps in this long game that he starts to play to exact vengeance for what was done to him, the Alpha, and his friends. The betrayals and backstabbings will start piling up so much that by the time he runs into the Blood Gulch crew years later, he's very careful about keeping people at arm's length. He's grown cold, allowing his professional self to take over full-time, and only rarely will one see the man he once was. Now, he's only bitter and hardened, and knows he has to wait a long time to get his revenge on Project Freelancer.
So, he's eventually declared fit for duty again, he goes back to being the proper soldier again, but he'll have far less tolerance for things going wrong and he isn't afraid to deem someone an idiot after meeting them (he's pretty spot-on anyway with those judgements.) He will not hesitate to put someone in their place with a sarcastic remark or a punch in the face, but god help you if you betray him. He'll hold on to the grudge for however long it takes.
And long will be gone the man who hates to improvise. The rules and protocols don't matter; it's a war, after all. He truly gets the lessons now, so why should he play fair when no one else will? And forget about doing things as a team. For a long time, he'll want to do things on his own, but he's not stupid. If he absolutely needs someone's help, he'll get it. He'll get even smarter, as well, and far more perceptive about things than he was before instead of just blindly believing things from certain people like his younger self did. (Amazing what can happen when you have the biggest blindfold removed in the most dramatic fashion ever.)
But the thing is...he could easily be warm and friendly too to those very few he does trust still, but the mood will rarely strike him. Every now and then, he'll show genuine concern--isn't a total heartless bastard--but it's just easier to keep that buffer up. And you better believe he's even more secretive about his past, keeping crucial details out of explanations. But really, it's all part of what will keep him alive as those he knows snub him for losing their chances at getting an AI, or they go rogue, or they eventually get killed... The one thing he'll never give in to, though, is angst and self-pity. Even as angry as he'll become over everything that has been done, he'll never get into a state of emo. He's just never been like that and never will. If someone has a problem with him, oh well, not his problem. Simple as that.
However...for now, we still have the man Wash was: the dorky boy scout who just so happens to be a badass special-ops soldier in a secret military program, and it'll be some time before events come around to kick his ass. (And if you want to see more in-depth exploration about him when he's older and in his Season Six canon, go here)
Other Skills/Abilities:
He is a fully trained soldier, and a damned good one at that (even if there are ones in the program who are even better than him. He isn't in the top 6 for nothing, after all.) He's fast and agile, and not only is he very skilled in hand-to-hand combat, but he has many years of weapons experience as well, ranging from the battle rifle, shotgun, sniper rifle, magnum pistol, and knives. Really, anything that could be used as a weapon, he's proficient at. He's a skilled fighter no matter what side he chooses to fight with; right or southpaw doesn't matter to him. It's safe to say he's received martial arts training of some discipline, or disciplines, along the way. He's also physically strong--well perhaps not as strong as Tex, but he can heft huge guns with ease and not break a sweat or show any strain in his voice or demeanor. Besides, he has to carry many things on his person at all times, like his various weapons (as well as plasma grenades, a flame thrower, etc). And never mind the armor itself. That stuff's heavy, but it needs to be in order to do its job.
He has wonderful aim with a firearm as well as a very high accuracy rating, and is top notch in battle strategies. He is not a fan of improvisation while in the middle of a fight, but he'll do it nonetheless and against his better judgment. He's also very skilled at infiltration techniques (like building, and air-to-ground infiltration) and if needed, he can act as a back-up locksmith (but with a bit of review from the field manual), and isn't afraid to make a big noise to distract (as it also serves as his signal to his teammates). Even in that armor, he can seemingly disappear in a snap without making a sound. In a general fight, he can hold his own very well and is efficient--but he also fights smart. If he's got an enemy attacking him for no provoked reason, he won't kill them outright even though he easily could. He can judge how much of a fight someone will give him (like he'll eventually give Sister ten seconds when he meets her, and even that's probably too optimistic of an estimate.) Needless to say, he's very observant--and training has added to this, enabling him to recognize possible traps within seconds.
Other training he's received in addition to the fighting/weapons include skydiving and mid-air combat training, and he's been trained to operate a myriad of vehicles. No doubt he and the other agents have received flight training with the Pelicans, Hornets, and whatever else happens to be in the program's disposal.
Part of his Freelancer training he'll receive in the future, he'll be able to modify AI storage units, as well as maintain them in case they were ever damaged. The tools he'll end up carrying with him also have come in handy to remove armor enhancements that he normally would have brought back to Command as part of the Recovery process.
Now for his armor! His head-to-foot MJOLNIR Mark VI battle armor comes with many standard features, the first and most obvious being a ventilation/oxygen system that enables him to breathe (and one would assume it'd recycle or take care of the carbon dioxide emitted with each breath. They can wear just their suits for travel in space, so they have to have that sort of life support system). But other equipment, that we know of, consists of a motion tracker that can track the movements of people and things in the area; a voice amplifier, which is like a glorified megaphone, a radio communications system that can be used for suit-to-suit communications or contact others from a very long distance. The radios can get damaged and jammed, but they're pretty strong radios and don't seem to have a range limit. There's also a computer system built into the helmet that houses the biocomm, which can check on a whole squad's vital statistics (current health status, heart rate, blood pressure, and brain activity like so) during combat in real time (but it doesn't work on dead people or robots). At the same time, it displays such information like mission time (days/hours/minutes/seconds), recon footage that can be used to record what he sees and hears and can be played back at the same time as it's recording, and also displays certain battle stats, such as how close or far a ricocheted bullet had been detected from his current position down to a hundredth of a meter and the type of caliber the bullet was. The computer system is also linked to information from Command that he'd need in any situation, such as procuring the secure codeword for different Red and Blue outfits (no matter how stupid the codeword might be). It's what he can use to gain clearance as well as trust from the simulation troopers, and prove he's not a "dirty Blue/Red" depending on the side he's been sent to for the scenario. And also, the computer system records audio and video logs of what the agent sees so there is a record that can be studied later on for data crunching. If an agent is injured, the HUD will also reflect this, listing such things as oxygen levels within the suit (be they leaking or the agent's actual consumption of air), visibility, whether the armor enhancement is on or not, and armor connect, which...most likely means whether the helmet is completely sealed with the rest of the armor or not (or connected to Command. It really could go both ways.)
The armor itself can do a lot for the agent within it, but there are some differences between the armor the Freelancer agents receive, what the simulation soldiers get, and the real armor that the Spartans receive in the Halo-verse. (See reality description for the reasons why it's different.) The RvB versions of the armor can still go into lockdown if hit with this really strange paint the Freelancers use in training exercises, and there's a safety protocol override that locks all armor with that specific upgrade. (The Mark V's and below don't have it.) All in all, the armor and all its components give the agents a tactical and practical advantage over the other soldiers they face. They're better equipped to use it to the full extent it can be used (whereas simulation soldiers still don't know about basic functions in their suits that have been standard features for years.) The armor itself is very, very durable, or at least Wash's seems to be (combined with his own physical strength and durability), and can help Wash compensate when he's wounded. Most likely, it dispenses first aid in the form of biofoam right then and there so the agent won't have to pause in the middle of a fight. Now, the armor isn't perfect and does have its weaknesses, but for the most part, he can get hit by a speeding armored vehicle and still manage to cling to the front then climb up to beat some ass. The armor has two different magnetic systems as well. On the back, waist, and legs of the suit, there are magnetic strips where he can attach his weapons so he doesn't have to fuss with a holster or anything. And if he needs to move around in zero-g environments? He can switch on another system in his boots that'll keep him on any metal surface. (They're very strong magnets.)
Speaking of armor, as a Freelancer, he has been granted the use of an armor enhancement, but at this time, we haven't exactly learned what that is. (However, he'll later get a healing unit from Agent York that was his armor enhancement until his death. Wash procured it when he recovered Delta, and it's because of this that Wash was able to survive being shot in the back, as well as numerous other physical wounds he's sustained since then. Needless to say, he can recover pretty quickly with it. (Like he can be caught in the middle of an explosion and maybe like...ten minutes later can get up and get into a full-on brawl and be fine.)) Even if he could use it, though, right now he has to be connected to Command somehow in order to record the data of his usage of it, and anyway...without an AI to stabilize its use, it could go awry. And he's rather rule-abiding anyway, so he won't be using it unless he absolutely has to.
Other Weaknesses:
Despite all his strengths, Wash is still human. This means he can still get sick, injured, and yes, can be killed (despite his ridiculous tendency to survive things that'd kill just about everyone else.)
Also, while he is very proficient in battle strategies, he can walk into a trap. He'll recognise the signs of, say four traps, but miss the fifth.
As powerful as his armor is, it still does have its weak points. Just the right, lucky shot can penetrate his armor and harm him (or potentially kill him), be it a body shot or head shot--or a direct, point blank shot to the back as he, one day, will sustain. And if his armor enhancement is activated without an AI to help control it, it could have bad results for Wash (but then again, that's hypothetical since we don't know what his armor enhancement is.)
What will become a big weakness down the road, and he'll vehemently deny it, is his own mental state. Hell, even official records question his sanity (though it should be pointed out that if it weren't for the program and the incident with Epsilon, this probably wouldn't have been an issue to begin with.) But nonetheless, he's fine right now (since his mental break is far down the road), but it wouldn't take too much for a psychic or something to get in there and find that vulnerability (well, that is if they aren't chased off by the heavy stuff going on in his head after the mental break, anyway) and exploit it. As strong as he is, he isn't trained to fend off any psychic attacks.
History:
There isn't much that we know for certain about Washington's life prior to his involvement with Project Freelancer. Unfortunately, that's a trend with this series and Wash isn't the kind of guy to go talking about his past unless he's been prompted and feels like it. Some ideas and possibilities about his past can be gathered from the world itself and how he acts, so...let's start there. There are two solid facts that we can go from and they are these: Agent Washington's real first name was David, and he used to wet the bed.
Yep, that's really it.
It wasn't, "Oh, the man named David used to live in an abusive household where his father beat him senseless every day," or "David [Last name unknown] lived a rather innocent live filled with rainbows and metaphorical unicorns (because really, unicorns haven't been alive for more than two hundred years, having died out by the end of the epic Unicorn-Pegasus War of 2034-2322)." Nope. Not this canon. (And it's important to note that neither fantastical beasts exist in this world--and neither does Florida. Anymore.) A man who would become a formidable soldier with an incredible memory--for things like the worst things ever, of all time, for example--was a bed-wetter. (One can only imagine what other embarrassing childhood things are waiting for him and the others in the minds of the creators.) Not exactly the sort of picture one would paint for special ops space marine, but there it is, all in his psych profile Project Freelancer had gathered together.
Okay, we do know more about him since we know that at one point he does enlist to become a soldier (otherwise we wouldn't be seeing him at all), but going back a bit to his earlier life. Not much is known about him, like was said before, but we can theorize. Most likely, he grew up on Earth and not one of colony planets spread pretty far away from Earth in the 26th century. There's a full colony on the Moon, for example, but Earth has remained the central hub for the human empire (though I hesitate to use 'empire' to describe it. It sure as shit isn't a monarchy). For the most part, everyone in the RvB series seems to be from or near Earth.
Naturally, he had parents (otherwise, his birth would have been a bit...odd), but it's unknown whether he had any siblings, if he lived with his parents until the ripe age of 18 before setting off to seek his fortune in the military, if his parents died (or if one is dead and the other isn't), if he was raised by relatives, or even in an orphanage. Hell, he could have grown up around a bunch of adults with hardly any kids his age, and he could have enlisted far earlier than 18 for all we know. (Keep in mind this is a similar universe to that which sent fully trained 14-year-old Spartan soldiers into battle against a new alien threat. The whole age issue in today's world seems to be a...non-issue (or just is kept secret. Go secret organizations!)) Or, you know, he might not have meant to sign up at all--but that is doubtful.
See, one major event that probably, for Wash, has been going on for his entire life (or at least most of it), is the Great War. It's been going on for quite some time but has been largely kept out of Earth's hair. Most of the major battling and carnage has gone on in the outer colony worlds, the poor bastards. But that isn't to say that Earth and the inner colonies haven't had their share of problems either, oh no. That's the problem when the government and its scope is vast: there are bound to be people who aren't satisfied and are ignored most of the time because there are so many people, and...well. It's no surprise that an insurrection has started--or has been going on for even longer than the Great War since some special ops programs were started to tackle the insurrectionists and were later diverted to focus on the alien threat the Covenant posed. So for the most part, Wash has always lived in a period of war--it's what he knows, even if Earth has been spared most of it--and as a law-abiding young man, the only natural course of action for him is to enlist and fight the good fight.
And he just so happens to be very damned good at being a soldier.
Of course, other elements could have factored into his decision as well. He could have run away from home and enlisted to spite a family figure (be it blood-related or adopted), walked past an enlistment office on his way home from school and figured what the hell, why not?, or maybe he had no one left at home. The last person close to him could have died prior to his enlisting, and since he didn't have anything left to tie him down...hello enrollment.
His early days of enlistment--yeah for boot camp!--tested him on his skills both in the field and off, as well as his mental faculties. Little did he know his high proficiency ratings above those in his initial squad in boot camp would lead to his conscription into Project Freelancer. From there, the training only got harder and more vigorous, but for someone like Wash, he looked forward to the opportunity to prove himself and relished the greater challenges. The Director took him in, expected great things from him, so it was only right that he did just that. For the next few years, he'd continue to train, going through different and increasingly more taxing training regiments until he finally was made an agent and given the designation name of "Washington". His old name would no longer be used from that point on. That old life no longer mattered, and possibly for safety reasons, it was best the old name was left in the dust.
However, that didn't mean the his training was done. No, far from it! The newly anointed Washington only leveled up and was moved up to the next tier of training and psychological tests the Counsellor posed for him and his teammates. Some tests didn't make sense or their point was only made clear after it was all done (or they were left in perpetual befuddlement since who knows why the Counsellor tests for the weird shit that he does? Not even the Director takes all of the results from the man's tests seriously.) As for the training, well, things were becoming more and more dangerous. He's going to training outposts (see reality description for better explanation of these) to be run through whatever random scenario is thrown at him, and he's set with an objective to complete. And he does them well. He rarely, if ever, fails. He's also given an armor enhancement (though what it is/does we don't know at all), and is trained to use it to its full advantage. At this phase in the program's timeline, the agents can only use their enhancements while connected to the Command server so all data can be collected, including each agent's bio-data before/during/after the testing phase and how well the enhancement itself works. There...are, however, instances of...well, catastrophic failure. The armor enhancement system isn't exactly perfect, and control of it is all over the board. It might not work so well at all, work partially, work too damn well and overload, etc. One instance that will always be with Wash is the one involving Agent Utah and what happened to him when he tried his armor enhancement. (That didn't end well at all.) The fact that the armor enhancement equipment isn't playing nice with the rest of their equipment is, much to Wash's and the others' ignorance, what will lead the Director to set up the next set of missions that the agents will embark upon in the Season 9 canon. Such an oversight only weakens the Director's team of Freelancers (and takes out potential soldiers for him to utilize), and he can't have that.
This entire time, the Freelancers have been all competing with each other for the top spots. Whoever is on the top of the board seems to get the best missions and the best attention from the Director. Wash thinks very, very highly of the Director, as the man has done everything for them all, not just Wash himself. The man's a bit of a father figure, in a way. Someone Wash knows will absolutely stick to the rules and use them in times of conflict. And to repay him, Wash continues to do his best no matter how dangerous the situation might be. Despite this competitive environment, though, Wash and the others are still able to form friendships and working partnerships. He's closer to some than he is others, and part of that could be due to his own ranking on the board. He's bound to end up being paired with the same agent or agents over and over depending on their mission successes and the skills needed for the mission, and besides, when one is in a top spot on the ranking board, it's like being in the honors classes in school. One will always see the other top-ranked students in those classes, and this is no different. And while Wash won't see it for a long time, there is a divide slowly beginning to grow, and the Director himself is drawing that line with his system of ranking, and rewarding (or punishing) those who do well (or fail) on a mission.
Soon, though, a certain mission (that he doesn't go on but Agents North and South Dakota do) to the Bjørndal Cryogenics Research Facility will set him and his friends on paths that'll lead them to the AI implantation phase of the training (though not all will receive AI). What happens to Wash when he gets his AI is a rather famous incident amongst those in the project, and it's from that point on that he's changed forever when the truth about practically everything comes to light for him.
However, he hasn't yet reached that part of his timeline. He hasn't yet reached the point where the significant betrayals and backstabbing have occurred (and if they have, the seeds for them have been sowed and have yet to fully bloom. For now, Wash has his missions when they're assigned, and is in process of looking into the rumors of possible insurrectionist connections aboard the Mother of Invention during his off-mission time for the higher-ups (or more specifically, the internals, as the agents called them). Something's rotten in the state of Denmark (random note: not an actual Freelancer name), and if there is anyone who can find out who's behind it all and for what reason, it's Project Freelancer's own boy scout. Without Project Freelancer, Wash wouldn't be who he is today--nor the man he will become in the future.
Canon Point:
Prior to the start of events depicted in S9. (So for Wash, that means things in Recovery One, seasons 6, 7, and 8 have yet to happen. This timeline should help show what I mean.) So as things stand, the agents can't use their armor enhancements unless they are hooked up to the command computers in some way and have been authorized by the higher-ups to use it, and the AI have not come into play at all.
Reality Description:
Think of the RvB world as a bubble universe in the vast mythology that makes up the Halo universe. Any danger in the RvB world is merely hinted at or isn't present at all. In fact, the only dangers we get hints of is the presence of one of the tribes belonging to the Covenant (though they do break off near the end of the war) called the Elites. Only...they aren't called that. At all. They're just the aliens and they speak in honks and blarghs. They do retain their religious fervor for ancient relics (as we discover in Season 7 when the Reds and Blues are under siege in a temple and accidentally activate an old relic that the people besieging them shoot at--and then are themselves shot at and killed for daring to harm a relic) but their religious attachments to the relics isn't what it is with the real Elites. That whole thing is far more complicated and deadly, and has no place in the RvB universe.
The United Nations Space Command, or UNSC for short, is also there in this universe, but they're also a vague entity. They don't even figure into the equation officially (and I mean officially because...well, I'll explain that soon) until the very, very end of Season 6, and even then, we don't know much about their role; only that they're allowing things to go on as they were.
So basically, there is a war going on. It's the Great War--but at the same time, it isn't. The war has been going on for many decades, but it's never explicitly stated how long it's been going on. (Sensing a running pattern with the vagueness yet?) The enemies of the humans aren't ever...really stated at all either. In Season 9, we do learn there are insurrectionists within the UNSC on Earth, but that's...really all we know. But make no bones about it: this war is vast and dangerous; it'd have to be to have so many different scientists and Special Operations programs all searching for a solution to finally end the war. And Project Freelancer is one of those groups.
Project Freelancer is headed up by a man known as Dr. Leonard Church, the Director of Project Freelancer. This particular program's purpose was to train highly skilled soldiers, give them each their own unique armor enhancement to use in the battle, and prepare them for implantation of artificial intelligences. The AIs would assist the soldier in battle, as well as efficiently run and manage each soldier's armor enhancement. Without the AI there to regulate it, well...sometimes things didn't turn out too well depending on the enhancement. It didn't always happen, but it was liable to. Also, think of the AI as another set of eyes for the soldiers, ones that could offer tactical advice and give warnings while the soldier is in the midst of battle.
However, the AIs haven't come around yet, at least not in this current canon point, but they will soon enough and that's when things with the program get very interesting. But more on that later.
The selection process for the program and its many facets all depends on a two factors: test scores and field skills. Those with exemplary, highly classed skills and scores stood a chance of being conscripted into the Freelancer program. Those who did pretty decent and have a good head on their shoulders were most likely recruited for lesser duties like piloting, recovery work, and back-up. But like the casting of a middle school play where everyone gets in and is given a part, there are those who are given the parts of "Dancing Rock #5" so to speak--and that's where the program starts becoming a little...unethical.
See...Project Freelancer had to train its already-highly skilled soldiers somehow and each soldier--49 in all, each named after a state (though not Florida since Florida is gone in this universe)--is most likely pretty damn expensive considering the custom armor, armor enhancement, etc. One can't just...throw them into a full-on battle with the enemy without training them for any possible scenario they might encounter on the galactic battlefield.
So that is where the third group of soldiers came in. These low-level operatives comprised of those who had the lowest test scores and worst field skills around. They were all split up between different simulation outposts in varying locations spread throughout the colonies. (None, so far as we can tell, were ever based on Earth or the fully colonized Moon, and for good reason. Such a thing would have come under the attention of the UNSC and other governments and most likely shut down fairly early on.) The climates also varied, but that's only the beginning of the testing rigors. Several scenarios were devised that the Freelancers might come up against in battle, and...these aren't exactly normal scenarios. For example, what consists of the main plot in Seasons 2-4 is Scenario #3; i.e. getting into battle, setting off a massive bomb that would blast them through time (only not), and meeting an alien that would get one of the soldiers pregnant. (Yes, mpreg with an alien is canon.)
For each outpost, the soldiers are split into warring factions: the Red Army and the Blue Army. The Red and Blue soldiers are told that the fate of the galaxy rests in their hands ('their' meaning the Red and Blue soldiers respectively) and thus began the 'epic' battle of Red vs Blue, a seeming but entirely fake civil war. And the simulation soldiers buy this because, well, they're too dumb to know any better. These soldiers are ones that people won't miss if something happens to them--and because it's a training simulation, things usually do go wrong--or nothing at all happens. Depends on the group of soldiers. Each of the bases at the simulation outposts are given the same weapons and vehicles so there isn't a strategic advantage for either side and thus, they are set for a really, really long battle.
But most of the time, the soldiers just stand around doing nothing, standing around bitching and arguing, actually fighting each other, or patrolling their respective bases and occasionally radioing Red/Blue Command for advice. Sometimes, Command would call them. (And Command? Plays for both sides. The Reds/Blues just aren't supposed to know that.) But largely? Nothing would happen on the bases unless Command called them or sent someone to the outpost--namely, one of the Freelancers for a training exercise. The Freelancers are given full-reign to do whatever it takes to accomplish the mission, and sometimes (or most of the time), that involves doing favors for whichever base requested help and whatnot. At no time were the Red/Blue soldiers ever made aware of the fact that they are essentially cannon fodder for the better soldiers. And if things ever went south for the Freelancers? It could definitely be chocked up to sheer, incredible dumb luck on the part of the simulation soldiers.
Beating on the simulation soldiers, though, isn't all the Freelancers will do. Whatever the Director needs or the Counsellor (the Director's right-hand man) sets them up to do, the Freelancers will do. So missions of many varieties would be the objective of the day (unless they weren't put on a mission) and their progress and successes are tracked on The Board. Every Freelancer receives a rank for any number of reasons, and those in the top six were typically the cream of the crop. Needless to say, getting an extremely high rank out of all the rest created a bit of a competitive atmosphere. ...Okay, it was really competitive. Being high up on the board meant going on the best (and most dangerous) missions and being in the good graces of the Director. The Counsellor, meanwhile, works with the agents a lot when they're not on missions, usually hitting them with psych tests and searching for...any number of things that he deems relevant to the whole process. The Director doesn't think so, though, but the Director's also a dick, so it comes to no surprise to anyone that he completely shuts out the Counsellor when he's hellbent on doing something at that particular moment. At this current point in his timeline, Wash is completely devoted to the Director and all he's done for them, and feels he has to pay him back in some way by continuing to do his duty to the letter. (Have I said that he's a huge boy scout? Because he fucking is.)
One thing should be made clear: the Director is the most secretive of the bunch in this secretive organization. There are so many secrets that even the agents themselves aren't aware of many of them, not even much, much later on. Information is a need-to-know thing and they're told one thing that is somewhat close to the truth, but in reality is something different.
And this is where the AIs come in. Like I said before, the AIs haven't come around yet in this canon point, but throughout Season 9, it becomes clear that Project Freelancer DID get the one smart AI it was allotted for testing purposes--but that is not what the soldiers will be told. They're also not told how this smart AI came to be either. In this case, the smart AI are based off a real, living person, and AI cannot be copied. You just can't. They can, however, be fragmented in a very cruel process that amounts to breaking the mind of the AI (and since it's like a human mind, well, it's not so difficult) so it fragments. At one point, it's said it's like "reverse engineering a multiple personality disorder". To get the AI fragments that will be used for the program, they'll use several means of torture, via showing it scenario after scenario of stress and danger to get the Alpha to fragment itself off to protect itself, and as it does, each fragment will take away a personality trait; they are the compartmentalized emotions being shed from the Alpha. Like Gamma will have its deceit, Delta the logic, Sigma the creativity, Omega the rage, and Epsilon... Well, Epsilon will be the last to be fragmented (or at least it makes sense that it'd be the last), and it will contain the Alpha's memories so the Alpha won't go completely insane with what has been done to it. (Though that does leave the Epsilon to go insane. It's sort of...meant to--and it will.) This treatment of the Alpha AI is tantamount to torture to a living being and will, eventually, get the program in deep shit--but thankfully, not many people know this is how the fragments will be created. (See? Secrets.) There can be, in addition to all that, unfortunate effects for anyone who removes the AI fragment without the proper procedure. (Think of it as the negative consequences for removing a hard drive before it was safe to do.) It can mess up the mind of that person in varying ways and degrees. The AI leaves a lasting impression of its own personality trait--like Wyoming and Gamma with their knock-knock jokes--or it can...well, make the person even dumber and nonsensical than before. There are protective algorithms in place to prevent such failures, and even AI failures themselves (as we'll see with Epsilon), but the fail-safes don't always work... In some cases, the mind can heal, but in others, the mind just won't ever be what it was.
The UNSC's role in all this is fairly transient in this whole thing (as for ONI, the Office of Naval Intelligence, which is Halo-verse's equivalent of the CIA, well, ONI has yet to be brought up in the RvB-verse. We won't worry about them for now.) They're a super big military power--have to be to maintain peace across the galaxy and fight any oppositions, be they human or alien in nature--but they don't really touch anything that's going on with Project Freelancer or the fake civil war that the Reds and Blues are fighting. Hell, even some of the Red/Blue soldiers have no idea what the UNSC is! (But again, keep in mind these soldiers are largely idiots, so it should come to no one's surprise that they have no clue.) Years down the road, however, the UNSC will start to assert its presence when it begins investigating Project Freelancer, or rather the Chairman for the Oversight Subcommittee does when it starts to investigate an incident at one of the simulation outposts. From there, all the dirty laundry about Project Freelancer will get aired out and it will eventually be shut down--but the control over the Red and Blue bases, however, will just be merely passed on to the UNSC and will continue like there is nothing wrong with this. To them, the soldiers there are just in training exercises.
But for now, we won't have to worry about the stuff that will happen in the future. For now, we're concerned with Project Freelancer at its height before the AI's figure into the equation, and thus before the experiments really kick into gear at a faster pace because the war with the Covenant is being lost--and the humans have been on the losing side of that war pretty much since it started, but the humans have gotten lucky here and there. Because of that, they're still in the game. So long as nothing ever happens to the Earth, the central hub of the human empire, things will still continue for the humans.
Now, the Freelancer program has in its command a mobile command center in the form of the frigate called the Mother of Invention RT-636, or just Mother of Invention for short. (Also, the various outposts belong to the program, as well as a ground-based command center where the AI fragments will later be housed, and other secret, back-up command outposts in case anything happens to everything else.) For the record, the Mother of Invention is huge. How huge? This huge. For reference, this is a Pelican, and this is a Pelican with people on it. See? Huge. The frigate itself is armed with several cannons and guns, including a MAC gun or Magnetic Accelerator Cannon. These things are super powerful and can be fired from space and still hit its target with deadly accuracy if given the coordinates. Within the Mother of Invention, there are a plethora of rooms and chambers, including a vast bridge, where the Director heads up operations and briefs/debriefs agents. One of the many ranking boards can also be found here. Of course, there are the standard mess halls, troop barracks, and probably an equivalent of officer barracks for the higher-ups. (The Director certainly wouldn't be slumming it with the rest of the rabble.) There are several training arenas with courtside viewing areas for other agents/soldiers to watch each other train. Training regiments vary, and can include pugil stick fights, hand-to-hand combat sparring, and the paint. The paint drill is essentially like paintball with their regular weapons equipped with special cartridges of these paint pellets. The moment one impacts the armor, it expands and locks up the armor--and it hurts when that happens. Depending on where the paint strikes, it can completely immobilize the agent or simply slow them down. Live ammo typically isn't authorized on the training floor (but there will be an incident in the future where it is and it leads to nasty results.) Thankfully, at least, there is a highly advanced sick bay and large medical team ready at all times in case anything goes wrong.
The medical techniques by this time are so advanced that someone could get shot and wounded and still go on like nothing had really hit them. Things like biofoam and healing units that help mend and rapidly regenerate tissue exist, as well as other techniques that save countless lives when...well, hundreds of years ago would simply doom the wounded to an awful death. (For example? One of the soldiers will survive getting shot multiple times in the throat and through his jaw sometime down the line from this canon point. He recovers, but won't be able to speak again after that. But his survival just shows how the medical stuff is that badass.) There are...some questionable techniques that the inexperienced have used and still work through some sort of idiot logic. Like CPR for a gunshot wound to the head (of the non-fatal kind), or rubbing aloe on the back of one's neck for a bullet to the foot. (Really, a lot of things can be chocked up to dumb luck in this universe...)
The agents also train their minds as well and not just their bodies, so this is where the Counsellor comes in to offer his barrage of psych tests and evaluations--even if it doesn't seem like a test at all. One is always learning on the Mother of Invention. Even such things as relaxing in the rec areas with a rousing game of darts can be used to evaluate one's targeting process and hand-eye coordination. Or relaxing with a book. There is always something to be done. Any of the agents, like Carolina, York (New York), CT (Connecticut), Maine, and South (South Dakota), for example, can be seen around the ship, or even partnered up with Wash for missions. He gets along with them all on varying levels, but Carolina (as the number one on the board) is the only one he calls "boss" since she's basically the squad leader of the group. As a group, though, the Freelancers are his friends and surrogate family in a way, even if that family is highly competitive with each other and some can be bitchy to others, and some lines are subtly starting to be drawn in the sand...
And an AI known as F.I.L.S.S. (or the Freelancer Integrated Logistics and Security System) helps the Director, Counsellor, and all agents really around the Mother of Invention and out in the field. She keeps things running smoothly and can have a bit of a snarky attitude (but all the AI in this universe do.) She's not a smart AI like the Alpha. Well, she's smart, yes, but not in that sense. She isn't free-thinking and based off a human mind. She's a more traditional AI, or "dumb" AI in that even her personality quirk is programmed in and intentional. FILSS does what is logical, but even her suggestions for adherence to safety protocols are ignored and overruled by the Director, and since those are her orders, she adheres to them.
The Mother of Invention contains the program's own fleet of Pelicans and other vehicles it might need to deploy with its agents on missions, and has its own extensive armory where agents can procure new armor pieces if they get ruined or shot to hell. And the arsenal itself...well. Most agents stick with the standard pistol and battle rifle, but some choose sniper rifles, shotguns, sub-machine guns, and assault rifles. Whatever they're best with and what the job needs, they'll choose. And of course, there are frag grenades and plasma grenades, as well as knives, and all that fun stuff. The only one 'weapon' that isn't a weapon (but can be if overcharged) is this. It's technically a plasma pistol, but in this world, it's used as a medical scanner and its operator is trained to recognize what shade of green means what ailment (supposedly). Actually, any weaponry that isn't standard military issue--like the fuel rod gun, gravity hammer, and plasma rifle, and vehicles like the the Banshee and Ghost--are manufactured by an Earth-based company and are not Covenant-developed weapons as they are in the Halo-canon.
And since we're talking about the Halo-canon, let's start this explanation with this chart. The common ground is the basic functionality of the weapons (aside from the medical use of the plasma pistol) and vehicles, the look and functions of the armor, the UNSC presence, and the long war in the future (the real Great War (Human-Covenant War) that's been going on since 2525 and will end in 2553). From there, things diverge and sometimes parallel each other. We'll start with the main group of soldiers themselves. There isn't an equivalent for the simulation soldiers in Halo-verse (...though one could argue an intellectual equal could possibly be the dinky Grunts, who also happen to be the lowest tier tribe in the Covenant, and were once considered cannon fodder), but where the Director has his Freelancers, another genius scientist named Dr. Halsey had her Spartans. This particular group of soldiers had been conscripted (read: kidnapped and replaced with flash clones of themselves that wouldn't survive for long) when they were six years old and were subject to many years of hard, rigorous training, and later on biological augmentations that honed and enhanced their bodies into finely tuned machines with hair-trigger reflexes and senses--if they survived the process. Many didn't. Oh, and many of these soldiers grew to be almost seven feet tall without the armor on. The Freelancers...yeah, they didn't go through anything like that. Enlistment started with enlistment into the military itself and then things went from there. The only augmentation process (if it can even truly be called that in comparison to the Spartan augmentations) will be the implantation of an AI into the minds of the Freelancers--and like the Spartans, there will be failures. Even the originally top-ranked agents will fail for one reason or another, but some will succeed. Why this is, we're not entirely sure (though at least in Wash's case, it's VERY clear why it doesn't work.)
Another thing the Spartans had been trained to handle was the MJOLNIR armor--the real armor. In the Halo-verse, the entire suit of armor, sans soldier, weighs half a ton. Literally. It takes several people to help put it on/take it off, and really, the only ones who can operate while in the armor are the Spartans. The armor amplifies the movement and strength of every motion, so it takes a bit to get used to and not like...crush something on accident. Like, the simple act of lifting one's arm could end up jerking that arm completely out of whack--and with a non-Spartan, it could break that arm so badly, the shock of the vibrating bones could kill that person. The armor used in the RvB-verse doesn't have this problem. Never mind how it could potentially kill them all; each suit is expensive, so there has to be a...well, an economy-version of the armor to give to ones like the Red/Blue cannon fodder soldiers and finely sophisticated versions for the Freelancers. (Or maybe it's best not to think so deeply about the glaring differences.) Besides, if Master Chief ever showed up (which won't ever happen), he'd be very confused by all these soldiers wearing armor like his. Most of the Spartans are dead, killed in the war and many of them perished on Reach, an important colony planet that had was a strategic military location for many reasons, and those who aren't are trapped in yet another bubble universe and are effectively missing in action.
Aside from never knowing exactly where the outposts are located--obviously they're not on Earth, or else someone would have stumbled upon them and raised a stink about it long ago--or the exact year (the Great War in Halo-verse will end in 2553, for example), there are other aspects of the Halo-verse that just won't ever appear in the RvB-verse. Those mainly are the other tribes/races in the Covenant. For one, they're not available for player control at all in the game, so the machinima aspects of the show wouldn't be able to use them, and really, the other tribes are nasty pieces of work. ...Granted, the Elites are the top-notch fighters and are even nastier as enemies, but they're also the most intelligent in the Halo-verse, aside from the Prophets but they're not in this universe either, so fuck those guys. (And you can play them in multi-player, so yeah for that!) Also, no Flood (and thank fucking god for that.) The Flood basically are parasites that feed off and infect living and dead organic tissue. It takes over the host, infecting it and mutating it into a Flood hybrid thing and ugh. The Flood is the worst and scary. They can spread fast. And I mean fast. The only way to kill it for good is to kill the food source (or so the Forerunners thought when they built the Halo Array in the first place.) Everything in the Halo-verse goes back to the Forerunners in some way, and thanks to them, there are seven giant halos in the universe that if activated, will wipe out all biomass within a 25,000 light year range--and that's from each individual Halo. So imagine that times seven. Basically, if any of these elements were included? It would completely and drastically change the tone of RvB into something far, far scarier and not comedic at all.
To sum up this very long explanation, have the chart again. That just...yeah. That pretty much says it all.
First Person Speaking Sample: Go here!
Third Person Writing Sample: Go here!
Did you read the rules? Yep!
Player LJ: vampydirector
Email / AIM: vampwrite@gmail.com / vampwrite
Timezone: EST
Other Characters: Tenth Doctor, Rory Williams
Character: Agent Washington (or "Wash" for short. His real name is David, last name unknown.)
Series: Red vs Blue
Deviance: 1
Age: Early-mid twenties (He'll be in his early-mid thirties by the time he gets to his S6 canon (unless otherwise noted by canon--but that probably won't happen.))
Gender: Male
Species: Human
Canon Used: The online machinima webseries known as Red vs. Blue, and the Halo series in terms of terminology of weapons and basic mythology, though RvB is really its own bubble universe in the Halo universe (see chart in the reality description). You won't find Master Chief coming across these guys at like...a military ball or on a base somewhere. But in Wash's case, he gets introduced in a mini-series called "Recovery One", set between seasons 5 and 6 of RvB. However, those events and those that follow in seasons 6 through 8 are from a later part of his life. We get a lot of insight into his past in season 9. So for him, I'll be using those specific seasons (and mini-series), and the rest of the seasons will be used for basic set-up of the world and such.
Appearance: Wash is tall, over six feet, and wears steel-colored Mark VI body armor with yellow trim. The armor covers him from head to foot, like so, and as a Freelancer agent, he's been equipped with an armor enhancement that...hasn't been revealed yet. He is typically armed with a battle rifle, a pistol known as a magnum, and a long, standard issue knife (amongst other things). He carries these weapons on his person at all times and more on these later. Underneath that armor are most likely scars from bullet wounds, knife wounds, and lord knows what other injuries he's sustained in training and on missions.
Psychology:
Where to even start with a guy like Wash... He changes so much as the years go on and the betrayals/backstabbings start to and continue happening to him, but with Season 9, we're treated to a Wash before that happens. One who is painfully idealistic about Project Freelancer and all that the Director is doing for him and his friends. One who is essentially a boy scout with his rigidity and constant reminder about the rules and many protocols they all have to abide by (or should be doing, damnit.)
It makes his future and inevitable breaking all the more heartwrenching.
But...backing up a bit.
First and foremost, Washington is a soldier. He's loyal and fights for what he believes should be fought against, and obeys orders to a T. It's...actually a bit of a problem that he does. He's rather picky about adherence to safety protocols and all that fun stuff, and hates having to improvise in the middle of a mission. Nonetheless, he will do it; he has no other choice but to improvise once it gets to that point and really, he doesn't gripe too much about it or puts up any resistance. Resistance would lead to slowing things down and increasing the chances of a failed mission.
Failure means getting bumped down in rank, risking one's chances of getting good missions and other things that are to come, and worst of all--for someone like Wash--and getting chastised by the Director. Of anyone in Project Freelancer, the Director is someone Wash does not want to disappoint. The man's helped and is continuing to help them in so many ways; he's already done so much for them by bringing them into the program, giving them new names, and treating them as highly valued soldiers. Because of all that, Wash has an almost blind loyalty to the Director (possibly rivaled with Carolina's own) and it will take quite a lot to break him of that image he's placed on a huge fucking pedestal. (And it will be a big thing too.)
He is, unfortunately, pretty damn idealistic for someone in the middle of a war. For example, if a soldier isn't following safety protocols in a training scenario, you'd better believe he'd want to tell the Director about it because that simply isn't how things are supposed to be done. Never mind he misses the point that the rules would be tossed completely out the window in an actual battle... He'll later get all that--but really...he does get it now in his own way--but damnit, right now it's training, so things should be done by the rules! The safety protocols are there for a reason, and there have been enough accidents as it is. (See: Agent Utah and his untimely demise during a training session with armor enhancements, and no doubt other failed missions with other agents in training, etc.)
Now...this isn't to say that Wash is anal about everything. He isn't, not really... (and he sure as hell isn't later in life.) He's just professional in his actions and attitude towards his duty (though he can relax and joke around with friends and colleagues.) He's actually pretty forgiving when someone makes a mistake, especially on a mission. He'd rather that person move on from it instead of beating themselves up about it. Live and learn, you know? (Of course, it's easier to forgive something that isn't a direct slight against him personally, but...more on that later.) And he does try to make that person feel better; he really does. Might even offer advice (even if it's unwanted) or if he knows the person pretty well, just a pat on the armored shoulder and a reminder that they're all part of a team. He's a team player, like the good soldier boy he is (but don't expect too much sympathy from him if you're an enemy. Freelancers are notorious for being cold motherfuckers and Wash is no different, though he might feel a modicum of sympathy for the poor bastards depending on who they're up against.) And because he is a good little soldier boy, he's also pretty damn skilled in...well, everything really. He might not be an expert, but he's definitely got the training background so if someone is unable to fulfill their duty (due to illness, injury, etc), he'll step up for the task if he's given it. He's pretty certain he can do it (even if there is a hint of hesitance) but usually, reading the field manual about said task will serve as a comforting reminder.
But really, Wash doesn't truly need it. He has a really damn good memory. Like extremely good, which is why he can remember the safety protocols and all that fun shit so well (and thus why it makes him slightly annoying when he brings these up). An interesting quirk related to this is his mental list of the worst things ever of all time, which usually tend to the most idiotic and absurd things he's seen done by those around him, or objects that make no fucking sense about why they work the way they do and who the hell would ever create them (case in point: a gun that bounces, or rather the fired ammunition that bounces off certain surfaces, but by the time the round misses the target, one is not concerned with blaming the ammo.)
As one can probably see, Wash is a bit of a dork under all that armor and goody-two-shoes-ness. He's very smart, both book-smart and common sense-smart (which is more than a lot of people in the main canon can say), but he can be awkward about some things. Those tend to be things that he's so sure of, but when he's flat out told he's wrong, he can get a little flustered. And his attempts at making people feel better? Yeah, he's not so good at it, but can't fault a guy for trying, right? The point is that he tried, even if he...doesn't exactly succeed in making that person feel better. He isn't one to dwell on things like that, nor is he one to sugar-coat things either. He can be pretty blunt. And he can be perceptive about things, but...admittedly, he's rather blind about some things with certain people, and even then, he wants to believe that that's not what they're like or what they're up to, but...he'll still be suspicious. After all, he isn't dumb or anything. Just...a little reluctant to believe that someone might be betraying him or anyone else.
Also, he isn't one to really talk about himself or his past. He's always been one not to talk about things like that until there's a relevancy in the conversation or if he's prompted to talk about it. It's just not something he does. And really, there are other things on his mind as it is, plus everything else going on around them, so the past just doesn't come up all that often anyway. (And sometimes, his mind does drift, but it really only happens every now and then. Someone just has to call his name a couple times to break him out of his reverie.) That doesn't mean, though, that he isn't sociable or anything. He is; he definitely is, and once you get him going, he can talk on end about things. If you want the backstory about something, he's your man. He just knows when to be quiet, which isn't a self-filter that some of his fellow agents have. That self-filter, however, doesn't apply to sarcasm, and Wash can be very sarcastic and dry.
If there's one thing that should be clear by now is that Washington is complicated as hell. And really, he'll only get worse from here on out as life stabs him in the back repeatedly.
In the future (so definitely not at this current canon point), something happens to him. The purpose they are all training for--the implantation of their own AI--finally happens, and for Wash... Well, when he gets his, the AI named Epsilon, his entire world will be turned on its head. The truth about everything--the program, what they did to get the AI, and how much of an asshole the Director truly is--will come to light in an instant as his mind and Epsilon's minds combine (though there are blanks here and there, but Wash is able to connect the dots). What eventually will come for Wash after that is a massive psychotic break because of what had happened to Epsilon (and the Alpha AI) and Epsilon's going insane, and with the way the AI work inside the mind, Epsilon's thoughts will bleed into Wash's and make it impossible for him to distinguish his own thoughts from his insane AI's. Thankfully, he'll have it removed after it supposedly kills itself (that's the story the other Freelancers are going to be told, but Wash will be led to think it is removed and destroyed), but the damage is long, long since done by that point.
He'll be certified Article 12, unfit for duty, while he heals and recovers, but it does take some time. But Wash is a survivor and has an uncanny ability to survive things that would have defeated others. He has to be a survivor and bury heavy, dark thoughts in deep in his mind where no one will ever see them again. Not even another AI as he'll refuse to have one put in him again for fear of it discovering what he knows--only he doesn't say this. That act is just one of many steps in this long game that he starts to play to exact vengeance for what was done to him, the Alpha, and his friends. The betrayals and backstabbings will start piling up so much that by the time he runs into the Blood Gulch crew years later, he's very careful about keeping people at arm's length. He's grown cold, allowing his professional self to take over full-time, and only rarely will one see the man he once was. Now, he's only bitter and hardened, and knows he has to wait a long time to get his revenge on Project Freelancer.
So, he's eventually declared fit for duty again, he goes back to being the proper soldier again, but he'll have far less tolerance for things going wrong and he isn't afraid to deem someone an idiot after meeting them (he's pretty spot-on anyway with those judgements.) He will not hesitate to put someone in their place with a sarcastic remark or a punch in the face, but god help you if you betray him. He'll hold on to the grudge for however long it takes.
And long will be gone the man who hates to improvise. The rules and protocols don't matter; it's a war, after all. He truly gets the lessons now, so why should he play fair when no one else will? And forget about doing things as a team. For a long time, he'll want to do things on his own, but he's not stupid. If he absolutely needs someone's help, he'll get it. He'll get even smarter, as well, and far more perceptive about things than he was before instead of just blindly believing things from certain people like his younger self did. (Amazing what can happen when you have the biggest blindfold removed in the most dramatic fashion ever.)
But the thing is...he could easily be warm and friendly too to those very few he does trust still, but the mood will rarely strike him. Every now and then, he'll show genuine concern--isn't a total heartless bastard--but it's just easier to keep that buffer up. And you better believe he's even more secretive about his past, keeping crucial details out of explanations. But really, it's all part of what will keep him alive as those he knows snub him for losing their chances at getting an AI, or they go rogue, or they eventually get killed... The one thing he'll never give in to, though, is angst and self-pity. Even as angry as he'll become over everything that has been done, he'll never get into a state of emo. He's just never been like that and never will. If someone has a problem with him, oh well, not his problem. Simple as that.
However...for now, we still have the man Wash was: the dorky boy scout who just so happens to be a badass special-ops soldier in a secret military program, and it'll be some time before events come around to kick his ass. (And if you want to see more in-depth exploration about him when he's older and in his Season Six canon, go here)
Other Skills/Abilities:
He is a fully trained soldier, and a damned good one at that (even if there are ones in the program who are even better than him. He isn't in the top 6 for nothing, after all.) He's fast and agile, and not only is he very skilled in hand-to-hand combat, but he has many years of weapons experience as well, ranging from the battle rifle, shotgun, sniper rifle, magnum pistol, and knives. Really, anything that could be used as a weapon, he's proficient at. He's a skilled fighter no matter what side he chooses to fight with; right or southpaw doesn't matter to him. It's safe to say he's received martial arts training of some discipline, or disciplines, along the way. He's also physically strong--well perhaps not as strong as Tex, but he can heft huge guns with ease and not break a sweat or show any strain in his voice or demeanor. Besides, he has to carry many things on his person at all times, like his various weapons (as well as plasma grenades, a flame thrower, etc). And never mind the armor itself. That stuff's heavy, but it needs to be in order to do its job.
He has wonderful aim with a firearm as well as a very high accuracy rating, and is top notch in battle strategies. He is not a fan of improvisation while in the middle of a fight, but he'll do it nonetheless and against his better judgment. He's also very skilled at infiltration techniques (like building, and air-to-ground infiltration) and if needed, he can act as a back-up locksmith (but with a bit of review from the field manual), and isn't afraid to make a big noise to distract (as it also serves as his signal to his teammates). Even in that armor, he can seemingly disappear in a snap without making a sound. In a general fight, he can hold his own very well and is efficient--but he also fights smart. If he's got an enemy attacking him for no provoked reason, he won't kill them outright even though he easily could. He can judge how much of a fight someone will give him (like he'll eventually give Sister ten seconds when he meets her, and even that's probably too optimistic of an estimate.) Needless to say, he's very observant--and training has added to this, enabling him to recognize possible traps within seconds.
Other training he's received in addition to the fighting/weapons include skydiving and mid-air combat training, and he's been trained to operate a myriad of vehicles. No doubt he and the other agents have received flight training with the Pelicans, Hornets, and whatever else happens to be in the program's disposal.
Part of his Freelancer training he'll receive in the future, he'll be able to modify AI storage units, as well as maintain them in case they were ever damaged. The tools he'll end up carrying with him also have come in handy to remove armor enhancements that he normally would have brought back to Command as part of the Recovery process.
Now for his armor! His head-to-foot MJOLNIR Mark VI battle armor comes with many standard features, the first and most obvious being a ventilation/oxygen system that enables him to breathe (and one would assume it'd recycle or take care of the carbon dioxide emitted with each breath. They can wear just their suits for travel in space, so they have to have that sort of life support system). But other equipment, that we know of, consists of a motion tracker that can track the movements of people and things in the area; a voice amplifier, which is like a glorified megaphone, a radio communications system that can be used for suit-to-suit communications or contact others from a very long distance. The radios can get damaged and jammed, but they're pretty strong radios and don't seem to have a range limit. There's also a computer system built into the helmet that houses the biocomm, which can check on a whole squad's vital statistics (current health status, heart rate, blood pressure, and brain activity like so) during combat in real time (but it doesn't work on dead people or robots). At the same time, it displays such information like mission time (days/hours/minutes/seconds), recon footage that can be used to record what he sees and hears and can be played back at the same time as it's recording, and also displays certain battle stats, such as how close or far a ricocheted bullet had been detected from his current position down to a hundredth of a meter and the type of caliber the bullet was. The computer system is also linked to information from Command that he'd need in any situation, such as procuring the secure codeword for different Red and Blue outfits (no matter how stupid the codeword might be). It's what he can use to gain clearance as well as trust from the simulation troopers, and prove he's not a "dirty Blue/Red" depending on the side he's been sent to for the scenario. And also, the computer system records audio and video logs of what the agent sees so there is a record that can be studied later on for data crunching. If an agent is injured, the HUD will also reflect this, listing such things as oxygen levels within the suit (be they leaking or the agent's actual consumption of air), visibility, whether the armor enhancement is on or not, and armor connect, which...most likely means whether the helmet is completely sealed with the rest of the armor or not (or connected to Command. It really could go both ways.)
The armor itself can do a lot for the agent within it, but there are some differences between the armor the Freelancer agents receive, what the simulation soldiers get, and the real armor that the Spartans receive in the Halo-verse. (See reality description for the reasons why it's different.) The RvB versions of the armor can still go into lockdown if hit with this really strange paint the Freelancers use in training exercises, and there's a safety protocol override that locks all armor with that specific upgrade. (The Mark V's and below don't have it.) All in all, the armor and all its components give the agents a tactical and practical advantage over the other soldiers they face. They're better equipped to use it to the full extent it can be used (whereas simulation soldiers still don't know about basic functions in their suits that have been standard features for years.) The armor itself is very, very durable, or at least Wash's seems to be (combined with his own physical strength and durability), and can help Wash compensate when he's wounded. Most likely, it dispenses first aid in the form of biofoam right then and there so the agent won't have to pause in the middle of a fight. Now, the armor isn't perfect and does have its weaknesses, but for the most part, he can get hit by a speeding armored vehicle and still manage to cling to the front then climb up to beat some ass. The armor has two different magnetic systems as well. On the back, waist, and legs of the suit, there are magnetic strips where he can attach his weapons so he doesn't have to fuss with a holster or anything. And if he needs to move around in zero-g environments? He can switch on another system in his boots that'll keep him on any metal surface. (They're very strong magnets.)
Speaking of armor, as a Freelancer, he has been granted the use of an armor enhancement, but at this time, we haven't exactly learned what that is. (However, he'll later get a healing unit from Agent York that was his armor enhancement until his death. Wash procured it when he recovered Delta, and it's because of this that Wash was able to survive being shot in the back, as well as numerous other physical wounds he's sustained since then. Needless to say, he can recover pretty quickly with it. (Like he can be caught in the middle of an explosion and maybe like...ten minutes later can get up and get into a full-on brawl and be fine.)) Even if he could use it, though, right now he has to be connected to Command somehow in order to record the data of his usage of it, and anyway...without an AI to stabilize its use, it could go awry. And he's rather rule-abiding anyway, so he won't be using it unless he absolutely has to.
Other Weaknesses:
Despite all his strengths, Wash is still human. This means he can still get sick, injured, and yes, can be killed (despite his ridiculous tendency to survive things that'd kill just about everyone else.)
Also, while he is very proficient in battle strategies, he can walk into a trap. He'll recognise the signs of, say four traps, but miss the fifth.
As powerful as his armor is, it still does have its weak points. Just the right, lucky shot can penetrate his armor and harm him (or potentially kill him), be it a body shot or head shot--or a direct, point blank shot to the back as he, one day, will sustain. And if his armor enhancement is activated without an AI to help control it, it could have bad results for Wash (but then again, that's hypothetical since we don't know what his armor enhancement is.)
What will become a big weakness down the road, and he'll vehemently deny it, is his own mental state. Hell, even official records question his sanity (though it should be pointed out that if it weren't for the program and the incident with Epsilon, this probably wouldn't have been an issue to begin with.) But nonetheless, he's fine right now (since his mental break is far down the road), but it wouldn't take too much for a psychic or something to get in there and find that vulnerability (well, that is if they aren't chased off by the heavy stuff going on in his head after the mental break, anyway) and exploit it. As strong as he is, he isn't trained to fend off any psychic attacks.
History:
There isn't much that we know for certain about Washington's life prior to his involvement with Project Freelancer. Unfortunately, that's a trend with this series and Wash isn't the kind of guy to go talking about his past unless he's been prompted and feels like it. Some ideas and possibilities about his past can be gathered from the world itself and how he acts, so...let's start there. There are two solid facts that we can go from and they are these: Agent Washington's real first name was David, and he used to wet the bed.
Yep, that's really it.
It wasn't, "Oh, the man named David used to live in an abusive household where his father beat him senseless every day," or "David [Last name unknown] lived a rather innocent live filled with rainbows and metaphorical unicorns (because really, unicorns haven't been alive for more than two hundred years, having died out by the end of the epic Unicorn-Pegasus War of 2034-2322)." Nope. Not this canon. (And it's important to note that neither fantastical beasts exist in this world--and neither does Florida. Anymore.) A man who would become a formidable soldier with an incredible memory--for things like the worst things ever, of all time, for example--was a bed-wetter. (One can only imagine what other embarrassing childhood things are waiting for him and the others in the minds of the creators.) Not exactly the sort of picture one would paint for special ops space marine, but there it is, all in his psych profile Project Freelancer had gathered together.
Okay, we do know more about him since we know that at one point he does enlist to become a soldier (otherwise we wouldn't be seeing him at all), but going back a bit to his earlier life. Not much is known about him, like was said before, but we can theorize. Most likely, he grew up on Earth and not one of colony planets spread pretty far away from Earth in the 26th century. There's a full colony on the Moon, for example, but Earth has remained the central hub for the human empire (though I hesitate to use 'empire' to describe it. It sure as shit isn't a monarchy). For the most part, everyone in the RvB series seems to be from or near Earth.
Naturally, he had parents (otherwise, his birth would have been a bit...odd), but it's unknown whether he had any siblings, if he lived with his parents until the ripe age of 18 before setting off to seek his fortune in the military, if his parents died (or if one is dead and the other isn't), if he was raised by relatives, or even in an orphanage. Hell, he could have grown up around a bunch of adults with hardly any kids his age, and he could have enlisted far earlier than 18 for all we know. (Keep in mind this is a similar universe to that which sent fully trained 14-year-old Spartan soldiers into battle against a new alien threat. The whole age issue in today's world seems to be a...non-issue (or just is kept secret. Go secret organizations!)) Or, you know, he might not have meant to sign up at all--but that is doubtful.
See, one major event that probably, for Wash, has been going on for his entire life (or at least most of it), is the Great War. It's been going on for quite some time but has been largely kept out of Earth's hair. Most of the major battling and carnage has gone on in the outer colony worlds, the poor bastards. But that isn't to say that Earth and the inner colonies haven't had their share of problems either, oh no. That's the problem when the government and its scope is vast: there are bound to be people who aren't satisfied and are ignored most of the time because there are so many people, and...well. It's no surprise that an insurrection has started--or has been going on for even longer than the Great War since some special ops programs were started to tackle the insurrectionists and were later diverted to focus on the alien threat the Covenant posed. So for the most part, Wash has always lived in a period of war--it's what he knows, even if Earth has been spared most of it--and as a law-abiding young man, the only natural course of action for him is to enlist and fight the good fight.
And he just so happens to be very damned good at being a soldier.
Of course, other elements could have factored into his decision as well. He could have run away from home and enlisted to spite a family figure (be it blood-related or adopted), walked past an enlistment office on his way home from school and figured what the hell, why not?, or maybe he had no one left at home. The last person close to him could have died prior to his enlisting, and since he didn't have anything left to tie him down...hello enrollment.
His early days of enlistment--yeah for boot camp!--tested him on his skills both in the field and off, as well as his mental faculties. Little did he know his high proficiency ratings above those in his initial squad in boot camp would lead to his conscription into Project Freelancer. From there, the training only got harder and more vigorous, but for someone like Wash, he looked forward to the opportunity to prove himself and relished the greater challenges. The Director took him in, expected great things from him, so it was only right that he did just that. For the next few years, he'd continue to train, going through different and increasingly more taxing training regiments until he finally was made an agent and given the designation name of "Washington". His old name would no longer be used from that point on. That old life no longer mattered, and possibly for safety reasons, it was best the old name was left in the dust.
However, that didn't mean the his training was done. No, far from it! The newly anointed Washington only leveled up and was moved up to the next tier of training and psychological tests the Counsellor posed for him and his teammates. Some tests didn't make sense or their point was only made clear after it was all done (or they were left in perpetual befuddlement since who knows why the Counsellor tests for the weird shit that he does? Not even the Director takes all of the results from the man's tests seriously.) As for the training, well, things were becoming more and more dangerous. He's going to training outposts (see reality description for better explanation of these) to be run through whatever random scenario is thrown at him, and he's set with an objective to complete. And he does them well. He rarely, if ever, fails. He's also given an armor enhancement (though what it is/does we don't know at all), and is trained to use it to its full advantage. At this phase in the program's timeline, the agents can only use their enhancements while connected to the Command server so all data can be collected, including each agent's bio-data before/during/after the testing phase and how well the enhancement itself works. There...are, however, instances of...well, catastrophic failure. The armor enhancement system isn't exactly perfect, and control of it is all over the board. It might not work so well at all, work partially, work too damn well and overload, etc. One instance that will always be with Wash is the one involving Agent Utah and what happened to him when he tried his armor enhancement. (That didn't end well at all.) The fact that the armor enhancement equipment isn't playing nice with the rest of their equipment is, much to Wash's and the others' ignorance, what will lead the Director to set up the next set of missions that the agents will embark upon in the Season 9 canon. Such an oversight only weakens the Director's team of Freelancers (and takes out potential soldiers for him to utilize), and he can't have that.
This entire time, the Freelancers have been all competing with each other for the top spots. Whoever is on the top of the board seems to get the best missions and the best attention from the Director. Wash thinks very, very highly of the Director, as the man has done everything for them all, not just Wash himself. The man's a bit of a father figure, in a way. Someone Wash knows will absolutely stick to the rules and use them in times of conflict. And to repay him, Wash continues to do his best no matter how dangerous the situation might be. Despite this competitive environment, though, Wash and the others are still able to form friendships and working partnerships. He's closer to some than he is others, and part of that could be due to his own ranking on the board. He's bound to end up being paired with the same agent or agents over and over depending on their mission successes and the skills needed for the mission, and besides, when one is in a top spot on the ranking board, it's like being in the honors classes in school. One will always see the other top-ranked students in those classes, and this is no different. And while Wash won't see it for a long time, there is a divide slowly beginning to grow, and the Director himself is drawing that line with his system of ranking, and rewarding (or punishing) those who do well (or fail) on a mission.
Soon, though, a certain mission (that he doesn't go on but Agents North and South Dakota do) to the Bjørndal Cryogenics Research Facility will set him and his friends on paths that'll lead them to the AI implantation phase of the training (though not all will receive AI). What happens to Wash when he gets his AI is a rather famous incident amongst those in the project, and it's from that point on that he's changed forever when the truth about practically everything comes to light for him.
However, he hasn't yet reached that part of his timeline. He hasn't yet reached the point where the significant betrayals and backstabbing have occurred (and if they have, the seeds for them have been sowed and have yet to fully bloom. For now, Wash has his missions when they're assigned, and is in process of looking into the rumors of possible insurrectionist connections aboard the Mother of Invention during his off-mission time for the higher-ups (or more specifically, the internals, as the agents called them). Something's rotten in the state of Denmark (random note: not an actual Freelancer name), and if there is anyone who can find out who's behind it all and for what reason, it's Project Freelancer's own boy scout. Without Project Freelancer, Wash wouldn't be who he is today--nor the man he will become in the future.
Canon Point:
Prior to the start of events depicted in S9. (So for Wash, that means things in Recovery One, seasons 6, 7, and 8 have yet to happen. This timeline should help show what I mean.) So as things stand, the agents can't use their armor enhancements unless they are hooked up to the command computers in some way and have been authorized by the higher-ups to use it, and the AI have not come into play at all.
Reality Description:
Think of the RvB world as a bubble universe in the vast mythology that makes up the Halo universe. Any danger in the RvB world is merely hinted at or isn't present at all. In fact, the only dangers we get hints of is the presence of one of the tribes belonging to the Covenant (though they do break off near the end of the war) called the Elites. Only...they aren't called that. At all. They're just the aliens and they speak in honks and blarghs. They do retain their religious fervor for ancient relics (as we discover in Season 7 when the Reds and Blues are under siege in a temple and accidentally activate an old relic that the people besieging them shoot at--and then are themselves shot at and killed for daring to harm a relic) but their religious attachments to the relics isn't what it is with the real Elites. That whole thing is far more complicated and deadly, and has no place in the RvB universe.
The United Nations Space Command, or UNSC for short, is also there in this universe, but they're also a vague entity. They don't even figure into the equation officially (and I mean officially because...well, I'll explain that soon) until the very, very end of Season 6, and even then, we don't know much about their role; only that they're allowing things to go on as they were.
So basically, there is a war going on. It's the Great War--but at the same time, it isn't. The war has been going on for many decades, but it's never explicitly stated how long it's been going on. (Sensing a running pattern with the vagueness yet?) The enemies of the humans aren't ever...really stated at all either. In Season 9, we do learn there are insurrectionists within the UNSC on Earth, but that's...really all we know. But make no bones about it: this war is vast and dangerous; it'd have to be to have so many different scientists and Special Operations programs all searching for a solution to finally end the war. And Project Freelancer is one of those groups.
Project Freelancer is headed up by a man known as Dr. Leonard Church, the Director of Project Freelancer. This particular program's purpose was to train highly skilled soldiers, give them each their own unique armor enhancement to use in the battle, and prepare them for implantation of artificial intelligences. The AIs would assist the soldier in battle, as well as efficiently run and manage each soldier's armor enhancement. Without the AI there to regulate it, well...sometimes things didn't turn out too well depending on the enhancement. It didn't always happen, but it was liable to. Also, think of the AI as another set of eyes for the soldiers, ones that could offer tactical advice and give warnings while the soldier is in the midst of battle.
However, the AIs haven't come around yet, at least not in this current canon point, but they will soon enough and that's when things with the program get very interesting. But more on that later.
The selection process for the program and its many facets all depends on a two factors: test scores and field skills. Those with exemplary, highly classed skills and scores stood a chance of being conscripted into the Freelancer program. Those who did pretty decent and have a good head on their shoulders were most likely recruited for lesser duties like piloting, recovery work, and back-up. But like the casting of a middle school play where everyone gets in and is given a part, there are those who are given the parts of "Dancing Rock #5" so to speak--and that's where the program starts becoming a little...unethical.
See...Project Freelancer had to train its already-highly skilled soldiers somehow and each soldier--49 in all, each named after a state (though not Florida since Florida is gone in this universe)--is most likely pretty damn expensive considering the custom armor, armor enhancement, etc. One can't just...throw them into a full-on battle with the enemy without training them for any possible scenario they might encounter on the galactic battlefield.
So that is where the third group of soldiers came in. These low-level operatives comprised of those who had the lowest test scores and worst field skills around. They were all split up between different simulation outposts in varying locations spread throughout the colonies. (None, so far as we can tell, were ever based on Earth or the fully colonized Moon, and for good reason. Such a thing would have come under the attention of the UNSC and other governments and most likely shut down fairly early on.) The climates also varied, but that's only the beginning of the testing rigors. Several scenarios were devised that the Freelancers might come up against in battle, and...these aren't exactly normal scenarios. For example, what consists of the main plot in Seasons 2-4 is Scenario #3; i.e. getting into battle, setting off a massive bomb that would blast them through time (only not), and meeting an alien that would get one of the soldiers pregnant. (Yes, mpreg with an alien is canon.)
For each outpost, the soldiers are split into warring factions: the Red Army and the Blue Army. The Red and Blue soldiers are told that the fate of the galaxy rests in their hands ('their' meaning the Red and Blue soldiers respectively) and thus began the 'epic' battle of Red vs Blue, a seeming but entirely fake civil war. And the simulation soldiers buy this because, well, they're too dumb to know any better. These soldiers are ones that people won't miss if something happens to them--and because it's a training simulation, things usually do go wrong--or nothing at all happens. Depends on the group of soldiers. Each of the bases at the simulation outposts are given the same weapons and vehicles so there isn't a strategic advantage for either side and thus, they are set for a really, really long battle.
But most of the time, the soldiers just stand around doing nothing, standing around bitching and arguing, actually fighting each other, or patrolling their respective bases and occasionally radioing Red/Blue Command for advice. Sometimes, Command would call them. (And Command? Plays for both sides. The Reds/Blues just aren't supposed to know that.) But largely? Nothing would happen on the bases unless Command called them or sent someone to the outpost--namely, one of the Freelancers for a training exercise. The Freelancers are given full-reign to do whatever it takes to accomplish the mission, and sometimes (or most of the time), that involves doing favors for whichever base requested help and whatnot. At no time were the Red/Blue soldiers ever made aware of the fact that they are essentially cannon fodder for the better soldiers. And if things ever went south for the Freelancers? It could definitely be chocked up to sheer, incredible dumb luck on the part of the simulation soldiers.
Beating on the simulation soldiers, though, isn't all the Freelancers will do. Whatever the Director needs or the Counsellor (the Director's right-hand man) sets them up to do, the Freelancers will do. So missions of many varieties would be the objective of the day (unless they weren't put on a mission) and their progress and successes are tracked on The Board. Every Freelancer receives a rank for any number of reasons, and those in the top six were typically the cream of the crop. Needless to say, getting an extremely high rank out of all the rest created a bit of a competitive atmosphere. ...Okay, it was really competitive. Being high up on the board meant going on the best (and most dangerous) missions and being in the good graces of the Director. The Counsellor, meanwhile, works with the agents a lot when they're not on missions, usually hitting them with psych tests and searching for...any number of things that he deems relevant to the whole process. The Director doesn't think so, though, but the Director's also a dick, so it comes to no surprise to anyone that he completely shuts out the Counsellor when he's hellbent on doing something at that particular moment. At this current point in his timeline, Wash is completely devoted to the Director and all he's done for them, and feels he has to pay him back in some way by continuing to do his duty to the letter. (Have I said that he's a huge boy scout? Because he fucking is.)
One thing should be made clear: the Director is the most secretive of the bunch in this secretive organization. There are so many secrets that even the agents themselves aren't aware of many of them, not even much, much later on. Information is a need-to-know thing and they're told one thing that is somewhat close to the truth, but in reality is something different.
And this is where the AIs come in. Like I said before, the AIs haven't come around yet in this canon point, but throughout Season 9, it becomes clear that Project Freelancer DID get the one smart AI it was allotted for testing purposes--but that is not what the soldiers will be told. They're also not told how this smart AI came to be either. In this case, the smart AI are based off a real, living person, and AI cannot be copied. You just can't. They can, however, be fragmented in a very cruel process that amounts to breaking the mind of the AI (and since it's like a human mind, well, it's not so difficult) so it fragments. At one point, it's said it's like "reverse engineering a multiple personality disorder". To get the AI fragments that will be used for the program, they'll use several means of torture, via showing it scenario after scenario of stress and danger to get the Alpha to fragment itself off to protect itself, and as it does, each fragment will take away a personality trait; they are the compartmentalized emotions being shed from the Alpha. Like Gamma will have its deceit, Delta the logic, Sigma the creativity, Omega the rage, and Epsilon... Well, Epsilon will be the last to be fragmented (or at least it makes sense that it'd be the last), and it will contain the Alpha's memories so the Alpha won't go completely insane with what has been done to it. (Though that does leave the Epsilon to go insane. It's sort of...meant to--and it will.) This treatment of the Alpha AI is tantamount to torture to a living being and will, eventually, get the program in deep shit--but thankfully, not many people know this is how the fragments will be created. (See? Secrets.) There can be, in addition to all that, unfortunate effects for anyone who removes the AI fragment without the proper procedure. (Think of it as the negative consequences for removing a hard drive before it was safe to do.) It can mess up the mind of that person in varying ways and degrees. The AI leaves a lasting impression of its own personality trait--like Wyoming and Gamma with their knock-knock jokes--or it can...well, make the person even dumber and nonsensical than before. There are protective algorithms in place to prevent such failures, and even AI failures themselves (as we'll see with Epsilon), but the fail-safes don't always work... In some cases, the mind can heal, but in others, the mind just won't ever be what it was.
The UNSC's role in all this is fairly transient in this whole thing (as for ONI, the Office of Naval Intelligence, which is Halo-verse's equivalent of the CIA, well, ONI has yet to be brought up in the RvB-verse. We won't worry about them for now.) They're a super big military power--have to be to maintain peace across the galaxy and fight any oppositions, be they human or alien in nature--but they don't really touch anything that's going on with Project Freelancer or the fake civil war that the Reds and Blues are fighting. Hell, even some of the Red/Blue soldiers have no idea what the UNSC is! (But again, keep in mind these soldiers are largely idiots, so it should come to no one's surprise that they have no clue.) Years down the road, however, the UNSC will start to assert its presence when it begins investigating Project Freelancer, or rather the Chairman for the Oversight Subcommittee does when it starts to investigate an incident at one of the simulation outposts. From there, all the dirty laundry about Project Freelancer will get aired out and it will eventually be shut down--but the control over the Red and Blue bases, however, will just be merely passed on to the UNSC and will continue like there is nothing wrong with this. To them, the soldiers there are just in training exercises.
But for now, we won't have to worry about the stuff that will happen in the future. For now, we're concerned with Project Freelancer at its height before the AI's figure into the equation, and thus before the experiments really kick into gear at a faster pace because the war with the Covenant is being lost--and the humans have been on the losing side of that war pretty much since it started, but the humans have gotten lucky here and there. Because of that, they're still in the game. So long as nothing ever happens to the Earth, the central hub of the human empire, things will still continue for the humans.
Now, the Freelancer program has in its command a mobile command center in the form of the frigate called the Mother of Invention RT-636, or just Mother of Invention for short. (Also, the various outposts belong to the program, as well as a ground-based command center where the AI fragments will later be housed, and other secret, back-up command outposts in case anything happens to everything else.) For the record, the Mother of Invention is huge. How huge? This huge. For reference, this is a Pelican, and this is a Pelican with people on it. See? Huge. The frigate itself is armed with several cannons and guns, including a MAC gun or Magnetic Accelerator Cannon. These things are super powerful and can be fired from space and still hit its target with deadly accuracy if given the coordinates. Within the Mother of Invention, there are a plethora of rooms and chambers, including a vast bridge, where the Director heads up operations and briefs/debriefs agents. One of the many ranking boards can also be found here. Of course, there are the standard mess halls, troop barracks, and probably an equivalent of officer barracks for the higher-ups. (The Director certainly wouldn't be slumming it with the rest of the rabble.) There are several training arenas with courtside viewing areas for other agents/soldiers to watch each other train. Training regiments vary, and can include pugil stick fights, hand-to-hand combat sparring, and the paint. The paint drill is essentially like paintball with their regular weapons equipped with special cartridges of these paint pellets. The moment one impacts the armor, it expands and locks up the armor--and it hurts when that happens. Depending on where the paint strikes, it can completely immobilize the agent or simply slow them down. Live ammo typically isn't authorized on the training floor (but there will be an incident in the future where it is and it leads to nasty results.) Thankfully, at least, there is a highly advanced sick bay and large medical team ready at all times in case anything goes wrong.
The medical techniques by this time are so advanced that someone could get shot and wounded and still go on like nothing had really hit them. Things like biofoam and healing units that help mend and rapidly regenerate tissue exist, as well as other techniques that save countless lives when...well, hundreds of years ago would simply doom the wounded to an awful death. (For example? One of the soldiers will survive getting shot multiple times in the throat and through his jaw sometime down the line from this canon point. He recovers, but won't be able to speak again after that. But his survival just shows how the medical stuff is that badass.) There are...some questionable techniques that the inexperienced have used and still work through some sort of idiot logic. Like CPR for a gunshot wound to the head (of the non-fatal kind), or rubbing aloe on the back of one's neck for a bullet to the foot. (Really, a lot of things can be chocked up to dumb luck in this universe...)
The agents also train their minds as well and not just their bodies, so this is where the Counsellor comes in to offer his barrage of psych tests and evaluations--even if it doesn't seem like a test at all. One is always learning on the Mother of Invention. Even such things as relaxing in the rec areas with a rousing game of darts can be used to evaluate one's targeting process and hand-eye coordination. Or relaxing with a book. There is always something to be done. Any of the agents, like Carolina, York (New York), CT (Connecticut), Maine, and South (South Dakota), for example, can be seen around the ship, or even partnered up with Wash for missions. He gets along with them all on varying levels, but Carolina (as the number one on the board) is the only one he calls "boss" since she's basically the squad leader of the group. As a group, though, the Freelancers are his friends and surrogate family in a way, even if that family is highly competitive with each other and some can be bitchy to others, and some lines are subtly starting to be drawn in the sand...
And an AI known as F.I.L.S.S. (or the Freelancer Integrated Logistics and Security System) helps the Director, Counsellor, and all agents really around the Mother of Invention and out in the field. She keeps things running smoothly and can have a bit of a snarky attitude (but all the AI in this universe do.) She's not a smart AI like the Alpha. Well, she's smart, yes, but not in that sense. She isn't free-thinking and based off a human mind. She's a more traditional AI, or "dumb" AI in that even her personality quirk is programmed in and intentional. FILSS does what is logical, but even her suggestions for adherence to safety protocols are ignored and overruled by the Director, and since those are her orders, she adheres to them.
The Mother of Invention contains the program's own fleet of Pelicans and other vehicles it might need to deploy with its agents on missions, and has its own extensive armory where agents can procure new armor pieces if they get ruined or shot to hell. And the arsenal itself...well. Most agents stick with the standard pistol and battle rifle, but some choose sniper rifles, shotguns, sub-machine guns, and assault rifles. Whatever they're best with and what the job needs, they'll choose. And of course, there are frag grenades and plasma grenades, as well as knives, and all that fun stuff. The only one 'weapon' that isn't a weapon (but can be if overcharged) is this. It's technically a plasma pistol, but in this world, it's used as a medical scanner and its operator is trained to recognize what shade of green means what ailment (supposedly). Actually, any weaponry that isn't standard military issue--like the fuel rod gun, gravity hammer, and plasma rifle, and vehicles like the the Banshee and Ghost--are manufactured by an Earth-based company and are not Covenant-developed weapons as they are in the Halo-canon.
And since we're talking about the Halo-canon, let's start this explanation with this chart. The common ground is the basic functionality of the weapons (aside from the medical use of the plasma pistol) and vehicles, the look and functions of the armor, the UNSC presence, and the long war in the future (the real Great War (Human-Covenant War) that's been going on since 2525 and will end in 2553). From there, things diverge and sometimes parallel each other. We'll start with the main group of soldiers themselves. There isn't an equivalent for the simulation soldiers in Halo-verse (...though one could argue an intellectual equal could possibly be the dinky Grunts, who also happen to be the lowest tier tribe in the Covenant, and were once considered cannon fodder), but where the Director has his Freelancers, another genius scientist named Dr. Halsey had her Spartans. This particular group of soldiers had been conscripted (read: kidnapped and replaced with flash clones of themselves that wouldn't survive for long) when they were six years old and were subject to many years of hard, rigorous training, and later on biological augmentations that honed and enhanced their bodies into finely tuned machines with hair-trigger reflexes and senses--if they survived the process. Many didn't. Oh, and many of these soldiers grew to be almost seven feet tall without the armor on. The Freelancers...yeah, they didn't go through anything like that. Enlistment started with enlistment into the military itself and then things went from there. The only augmentation process (if it can even truly be called that in comparison to the Spartan augmentations) will be the implantation of an AI into the minds of the Freelancers--and like the Spartans, there will be failures. Even the originally top-ranked agents will fail for one reason or another, but some will succeed. Why this is, we're not entirely sure (though at least in Wash's case, it's VERY clear why it doesn't work.)
Another thing the Spartans had been trained to handle was the MJOLNIR armor--the real armor. In the Halo-verse, the entire suit of armor, sans soldier, weighs half a ton. Literally. It takes several people to help put it on/take it off, and really, the only ones who can operate while in the armor are the Spartans. The armor amplifies the movement and strength of every motion, so it takes a bit to get used to and not like...crush something on accident. Like, the simple act of lifting one's arm could end up jerking that arm completely out of whack--and with a non-Spartan, it could break that arm so badly, the shock of the vibrating bones could kill that person. The armor used in the RvB-verse doesn't have this problem. Never mind how it could potentially kill them all; each suit is expensive, so there has to be a...well, an economy-version of the armor to give to ones like the Red/Blue cannon fodder soldiers and finely sophisticated versions for the Freelancers. (Or maybe it's best not to think so deeply about the glaring differences.) Besides, if Master Chief ever showed up (which won't ever happen), he'd be very confused by all these soldiers wearing armor like his. Most of the Spartans are dead, killed in the war and many of them perished on Reach, an important colony planet that had was a strategic military location for many reasons, and those who aren't are trapped in yet another bubble universe and are effectively missing in action.
Aside from never knowing exactly where the outposts are located--obviously they're not on Earth, or else someone would have stumbled upon them and raised a stink about it long ago--or the exact year (the Great War in Halo-verse will end in 2553, for example), there are other aspects of the Halo-verse that just won't ever appear in the RvB-verse. Those mainly are the other tribes/races in the Covenant. For one, they're not available for player control at all in the game, so the machinima aspects of the show wouldn't be able to use them, and really, the other tribes are nasty pieces of work. ...Granted, the Elites are the top-notch fighters and are even nastier as enemies, but they're also the most intelligent in the Halo-verse, aside from the Prophets but they're not in this universe either, so fuck those guys. (And you can play them in multi-player, so yeah for that!) Also, no Flood (and thank fucking god for that.) The Flood basically are parasites that feed off and infect living and dead organic tissue. It takes over the host, infecting it and mutating it into a Flood hybrid thing and ugh. The Flood is the worst and scary. They can spread fast. And I mean fast. The only way to kill it for good is to kill the food source (or so the Forerunners thought when they built the Halo Array in the first place.) Everything in the Halo-verse goes back to the Forerunners in some way, and thanks to them, there are seven giant halos in the universe that if activated, will wipe out all biomass within a 25,000 light year range--and that's from each individual Halo. So imagine that times seven. Basically, if any of these elements were included? It would completely and drastically change the tone of RvB into something far, far scarier and not comedic at all.
To sum up this very long explanation, have the chart again. That just...yeah. That pretty much says it all.
First Person Speaking Sample: Go here!
Third Person Writing Sample: Go here!
Did you read the rules? Yep!