The ORION Project, sometimes referred to as Spartan I, was an Naval Special Warfare program, overseen by the Colonial Military Administration, tasked with producing special advanced warfare squads to combat the Insurrection. However, expectations for the new soldiers were not met, and the project was deactivated in 2506, and all members reassigned to other Special Operations units. The SPARTAN-II project, was conceived by Dr. Catherine Halsey of ONI's Section 3, as the successor to the original ORION project and the best possible solution to end the conflict.