Combine Spartanism

[Lewis!]

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Origins and Manifestation
Since the establishment of Civil Protection, a prevailing ethos has existed amongst their ranks, solidifying its presence especially in the years leading up to the destruction of City Seventeens Citadel. At the time, an officer who prescribed to this ethos would not have classified themselves under any terminology now known to us, indeed their system of belief existed without a name for many years, an unspoken temper amongst the brotherhood of Civil Protection.

What we now know as Combine-Spartanism, Loyalist-Spartanism or Breenite-Spartanism was born out of the initiate officers' desire to prove themselves in the eyes of Overwatch. The rank structure of Civil Protection mandated that an officer continuously shed elements of their humanity, their memories, and their personality in order to receive the benefits promised to them such as family cohesion or ration enhancement. Combine-Spartanism was a means for officers to show Overwatch that they had no such need for the comforts of the ordinary man, that they were indeed a prime candidate for sterilized credit distribution and rank enhancement, the Spartan officer might find themselves volunteering for extended function (longer shifts), disregarding interaction with their cohorts, removing simple comforts from their life (soft bedding, warm showers, luxury items, etc) and in general expressing an overtly hostile or violent disposition, especially to the citizenry.

Gradually, Combine-Spartanism became separated from its original conception as a proving ground for the sociopathic and detached attitude prevalent and encouraged across Civil Protection and soon became heavily intertwined with early loyalist mythos and the writings of Dr Breen, his infamous and oft-quoted speech entitled "Instinct" was a major contributor to the formation of the Combine-Spartanist mythology.

Counterintuitively, Combine-Spartinism was not particularly common among Rank Leaders and was, in fact, rampant amongst the ranks of the 25 and 75 percent respectively. The nature of a Rank Leaders' duty often lead them to seek out and revel in activities contrary to the Combine-Spartanists way of life, their mandated periods of extended function, gruelling deployments and highly stressful daily life, despite all the memory replacements, despite all the shedding of one's humanity gave them a ravenous taste for vice and comfort when afforded to them. There is a reason drug addiction, alcoholism and other debaucherous habits were highly prevalent across Rank Leaders globally.

Spartanism amongst initiative officers was as discussed, a means of proving one capacity for dehumanisation to Overwatch, however many officers after surpassing the 25% rank point mark shed this archaic system of etiquette as their familiarity with Overwatch and Civil Protection as a whole became more established in the intervening ranks up to 75%, it was at this point the career of most officers would come to an end.

Officers who surpassed the 75% rank point mark were often those who had not yet out-grown their Combine-Spartanist philosophy. Through a combination of extended service, propaganda and memory replacement, officers of this rank were almost always Combine hardliners and the foundation of what we now know as ultraloyalism. Entrusted with enhanced equipment and performance stimulants and unburdened by the crushingly stressful duties of a Rank Leader, officers at 75% or above could often achieve field performance far beyond that of a Rank Leader and many lived a life streamlined beyond reason. Duty, revitalisation, duty, revitalisation, 75% is referred to as the "rank of fanatics" for a reason. The lifestyle of these Combine-Spartanist officers, unlike their initiate cousins, was not a means to demonstrate their usefulness to Overwatch, but a new loyalist sub-ideology itself, a means of simply showing their commitment to their duty and the Combine itself.

Ultraloyalist Transformation
Following the destruction of City Seventeens Citadel, Civil Protection was broken, disorientated and on the verge of total destruction. It is at this time we saw the emergence of true ultraloyalism and with it, a form of Combine-Spartanism which rose phoenix-like from the ashes of the Citadel. What has come to be known as Neo Combine-Spartanism or Ultraloyalist-Spartanism was an ideology of meticulous simplification, extreme militarization and overbearing austerity. It was at this time that the ideology came to be more closely associated with the "romanticised" historical image of the ancient Spartans, rather than the simple contemporary meaning of the phrase "Spartan" (i.e marked by simplicity, frugality, or avoidance of luxury and comfort. A Spartan room for example)

Neo Combine-Spartanists came to practice an esoteric ideology parodying the martial culture of male Spartan society. A society of men devoted to war and war alone, devoid of any luxury, pleasure or amusement. A system of Agoge which emphasized duty, discipline, fraternity and endurance in the face of their enemies. First-order ultraloyalists cells holding Neo Combine-Spartanist beliefs or very similar systems of belief were so common in fact that it is not unreasonable to simply label Neo Combine-Spartanism as a facet of first-order ultraloyalism itself.

Pictured, the Brașov headquarters of the first-order Inoculate "Express Amputation Jury" who prescribed heavily to the Neo Combine-Spartanist ideology.

Despite the deep association with ancient Sparta's romanticized masculine image, the homogenous nature of the Combine and by extension the ultraloyalists had largely done away with traditional gender norms at least in the case of one's ability as a warfighter, Neo Combine-Spartists also did not see "sublunarys" as their own Helot equivalent, only their ideological enemy, wishing only to crush their humanity through death, will breaking or stalkerization as it has come to be known. Their ideology was simply bathed in the mythos and folklore which surrounds Spartan militersim rather than Spartan society as a whole.

Neo Combine-Spartaism to an extent can be seen as a form of punishment the ultraloyalists imposed on themselves as penitence for their failures in allowing the rebellion to overcome them, attempting to give up ones humanity by shedding empathy, morals and the pleasures of life was to the ultraloyalist, almost as noble as transhumanization itself.

Escape from Transhumanization
The eternal hypocrisies of the ultraloyalists rears its head once again on the topic of transhumanization. While in principle, ultraloyalists viewed transhumanization as the ultimate revolutionary act, allowing one to continue their struggle, terror and viciousness long past their date of expiry, the reality however, is that many were deeply troubled even frightened of the concept. As with most Transhumanists, the idea of being transformed into a mindless, command-following husk was not a particularly appealing proposition, many sought to find ways of justifying their abstention from such a practice. To the ultraloyalists, Neo Combine-Spartanism was their escape, their reason for abstention. In a bizarre reversal of the initiate Combine-Spartanist mindset, the Neo Combine-Spartanist would attempt to forgo "ascension" via transhumanization by proving their lack of a need for it, again drawing ideas from the writings of Dr Breen and his assurances that humanity would one day not require such things as a suppression field, the Neo Combine-Spartanist believed he did not require transhumanization, or as he would like to tell his advisory superiors, "at least not yet."

Occult Conceptions
With the considerable overlap existing between the first and second orders of ultraloyalism, it was inevitable that an extension of Neo Combine-Spartanism would emerge tailored to the esoteric beliefs of the second-order ultraloyalists. Their twist on Neo Combine-Spartanism, creatively dubbed Esoteric Combine-Spartanism or Esoteric Ultraloyalist-Spartanism enfused the reality of life under the Combine with the "spirit" of the ancient Spartans. Esoteric Combine-Spartanists dreamed of a world purged of humanity by a sacred fire and where all traces of profligacy and weakness were excised. No cities bubbling with filth; no "pragmatic" mercy for sublunarys. In barracks-nexuses the pure and transcendent transhuman drilled for war and galactic conquest, while their progeny was honed to perfection through purges and bloodshed.

Dialectics and closing notes
Little information on the third-order of ultraloyalists exists to us, including their interpretation of Combine-Spartanism. It is hypothesised due to the nature of their philosophy, the belief system of Combine-Spartanism was little needed. The third-order of ultraloyalists wished to uncover a means of synthesis between humanity and the Combine, as such, the idea of Spartanism in any form was largely irrelevant to them and potentially seen as archaic nonsense, after all, if we are to bring about a final transcendence between a thesis and anthesis as complex as humanity and the Combine, one does not find inspiration from looking backwards at a fiscal human society which had crumbled long ago.