What is the point of having Elite Special Forces in scifi settings when in said settings actually have even better near...

>More numerous
>More easily replaced
>Less risk of them turning against you

In most cases the demigod elites of a setting are too cost-intensive to mass produce or else they'd be the grunts of their army in the first place.

>46 of 3 suspects confirmed dead

Sides vaporized

There was a significant period where there were only like a dozen spartans wasn't there? And Space Marines have hardcoded limits to their numbers. Jedi almost got wiped out

Spartan 1s were always rare, Spartan 2s basically started getting ground down immediately and never increased in numbers, Spartan 3s were watered down and much sneakier, but also died like mayflies, I haven't kept up with the games, but Spartan 4s seem to be almost as good as 2s, and it's a lot easier to make new ones.

This is highly amusing. Thanks.

You have a real point, unfortunately your chosen examples are not good ones.

ODSTs are useful because they are true special forces, whereas SPARTANs fill a niche that simply cannot be occupied by conventional forces. They are also only numbering in the hundreds for a galactic battle, and ODSTs are good enough for most jobs. Eventually when mass-production gets good ODSTs start to be supplanted for SF work by SPARTANs but by then they get relegated to being more like Rangers or Commandos, support in force for regular SF.

Storm Troopers and Space Marines are exactly the same, but a thousand times more numerous in a galaxy with a thousand times more worlds. And, more to the point, Storm Troopers are directly within the chain of command of the military; Space Marines are not. No commander will tolerate having to have their SF on loan.

Likewise for ARC troopers and Jedi. Jedi number in the hundreds at best, maybe dozens; there are far more ARC troopers and they are under the direct control of the military. Jedi are only ever on loan at best, and when on loan they fill the role of frontline officer, based on the numbers at minimum Captain going up to Brigadier. Captains and Brigadiers cannot be your SF mainstay.

Your point is perhaps best suited to superhero capeshit, where every country has super-elite forces but even the most pithy mutant/hero/whatever can easily kill ozens without being in danger, and there are hundreds of the special people. Then, it doesn't make sense to invest hard in SF when you either invest in hero SF, or you ditch it for the useless force it has become.

This is more for things like Xmen and such; things like Metal Gear Solid gets a pass just because there are only a few dozen special individuals in the world and a few dozen people is not enough to fulfil the SF requirements of the world's militaries.

There were no SPARTAN-Is. The first were SPARTAN-IIs; the generation before that was a production failure and could not be harnessed, but Halsey respected their sacrifice and so named the first generation of SPARTANs the II series, as a kind of subtle memorial.

The IIIs were halfway between ODSTs and IIs; very good but without the extraordinary physiological edge or extreme recruitment standards of the IIs had and so died as fast as they could make them. The IVs used full II-level tech and are closer to as good, and still mass-producible so they are starting to eclipse regular SF and are relegating ODSTs to ranger/commando types. They never explain how IVs can stack up to IIs; it doesn't make sense that a program that enrols thousands of semi-volunteers can equal the candidates of a program that recruited the best 300 kids in the entire galaxy by force.

Sauce me faggot

...

Only if you're nice.

Sure. Please sauce me senpai?

>They never explain how IVs can stack up to IIs; it doesn't make sense that a program that enrols thousands of semi-volunteers can equal the candidates of a program that recruited the best 300 kids in the entire galaxy by force.
That's because they can't. Outside the armor, a II will take a IV down to brown-pound-town 10 times out of 10. In fact, IIRC, the second generation power armor was the only reason Locke could even stand up to the Chief. Basically, a IV is inferior in every conceivable way to a II, so the armor was improved to make up for this loss in quality. Don't get me wrong, IV's are still better than marines or ODST's, but the IV's follow the "Quantity is a quality all of its own" philosophy when it comes to SPARTANS.

Hijabolic on tumblr. Even takes commissions.

>There were no SPARTAN-Is.
Are you daft? The Orion project was the precursor to the SPARTAN project and the surviving applicants are referred to as SPARTAN-Is.

Actually, there are only 10.000 stormtroopers across the entire Imperium.

>less stormies than astartes
dont each planet raise their own scions?

Nah, raising Scions is the job of the Schola Progenium. I think each of these Schola can raise multiple regiments of Scions.

the cadians and catachans dont use the schola

They don't have Scions either. Cadian Kasrkin are comparable to Scions, but aren't Scions.
Didn't know Catachan had a SpecOps group.

so not all stormtroopers are scions, but all scions are stormtroops?

Dude, Spartan-Is existed. That latino boot camp guy, Johnson, and one of the girls from the I Love Bees ARG were Spartan-Is.

iirc there was a precursor to the spartan project that was just the exoskeleton, too

Sound like you have no idea how those things works both in RL and fiction.

An apt description.

right tool for the right job?

you use a trooper like that when you need more than one point of enemy contact and putting a Jedi/spess-maroon/SPARTAN-I. at every point is infeasible or overkill.

the front-line trooper believes that there is no kill like Overkill, BUT unless you are overkilling everywhere available to the super-troopers that is usually a waste.

>dozen spartans wasn't there?
IIRC it was a half dozen SPARTAN-2s(Master Chief being one of them) a couple of dozen SPARTAN-3s(cheaper faster and more expendable) and an indeterminate number of SPARTAN-4s

source?
cause I'm pretty sure there are more than that many in the various armies on THIS planet alone...

>said settings actually have even better near godlike beings
Not all sci fi settings do. Traveller for example. Most races are just standard power level. No real "gods" or "demi-gods". Suits having heavily amored special forces quite nicely.

The settings you mentioned are more science fantasy than true sci fi.

just because gordon ramsay exists, doesnt mean all the other chefs are useless

>France had since then 2 worse terrorist attacks

And then he gets obliterated, because his state-issued flak armor is shit.

>They never explain how IVs can stack up to IIs; it doesn't make sense that a program that enrols thousands of semi-volunteers can equal the candidates of a program that recruited the best 300 kids in the entire galaxy by force.
The training process is better refined?

Or at the least not reliant on insane bullshit

3s were comparable to 2s and not much weaker, it was mainly their PSI armor that blew hard compared to the 2s armor, making the largest difference. They also didn't die like mayflies. There were 3 batches of 300 I believe, and the first 2 were need on 2 one way suicide missions to win the war. The third batch was deployed through the galaxy and operated until the war was won. 4s are just any cuck who's good enough given magic armor minus all the implant and deadly operation requirements, and functionally are on par with 2s. What shame.

Because those super elites are much harder to make.

SPARTANs needed genetic super kids until SPARTAN III, or at least strong kids until 343's mass produced meatheads, Spess mehreens essentially the same.

There are only ten THOUSAND jedi in a galaxy of Trillions.

In the case of Halo, Spartans are not only very limited in number (around 39), but their armor costs as much as a large frigate to make.
ODSTs are a more practical in the sense that you don't have to be abducted at the age of 5, undergo bioaugmentation, and be a child solider in order to become one.

spbp

I think there were more like 50 survivors of the augmentation process, they just got whittled down FAST.

No, almost all of them survived to the fall of reach about 30 years later. THEN they all died.

Huh, I thought they had 10 casualties, Grey team, and the ones from Halo Wars going MIA then lost a whole Platoon at Reach.

The real question OP, is save for 40k and Dune, why the fuck would you employ humans as special forces at all? I don't care if you dress them in power armor and give them BFG's, using humans when you have better alternatives is retarded. It's like using a ballista in trench warefare. Sure it might work from time to time, but you're a dumb asshole for using it and worst you're going to get steamrolled eventually. Spartans may have special training and AI companions and a bunch of other stupid HFY shit, but they wouldn't stand a chance against a vat-grown murder monster or even a mediocre combat drone. The fact that they do across six games is pure plot armor.
>inb4 muh robot soldier uprising
that's not how it works you fucking biscuit

That's what always perplexed me about horror sci fi. You've got the Alien or the Deadly Planet that killed the crew. So you send in the Wayland-Yutani commandos or the Federation spec ops. And then they all get turned into a fine red mist. I feel like a robot might have done better in the same situation.
40k's robot uprising is kind of...cheesy. and ive never read Dune but ill go ahead and assume the same. But you've got to handwave away robots some way or else it changes the setting aesthetic from fantasy sci fi to just regular sci fi

Catachans Devils

Almost every regiment has a spec ops group

>Mission complete with 2 shots fired
>could only afford 2 rounds

Fantastic!