The basic concepts for the SPARTAN Program have been around since the late 22nd century when the first bioengineering protocols were developed for the Inner Colony Wars. Since the establishment of these protocols, humans have been using performance-enhancing equipment and augmentations to make them stronger and faster than previously thought. Initially, the SPARTAN Program arose as a brilliant plan to enhance normal human soldiers into powerfully augmented special operations commandos, code-named ORION. The program then shifted its attention to child candidates, an attempt to mass-produce and make them available to the UNSC as quickly as possible. These supersoldiers have been deployed numerous times throughout human conflict, leading up to and during the Human-Covenant War.