In the ending cutscene of Halo: Combat Evolved, John takes off his helmet, and the camera pans upward, leaving the head obscured by the ship window frame as he sets the helmet to his side. Some people have used Halo: Custom Edition development mode to move the camera. However, Bungie's 3D artists did not produce a separate character model for this occasion, just a separate helmet model; if the animation is viewed from inside the ship, it appears as if John takes off his helmet, revealing an identical helmet underneath. Players have also found an Easter Egg in the Halo 3 Beta. Using a Mongoose, players can reveal what looks like a face in a Spartan's helmet. However, Bungie has confirmed that this is Marcus R. Lehto's face, not John's. [ citation needed] They entered it through a hull breach from a MAC round from the Commonwealth and succeeded in completing the mission and destroyed the Covenant ship, but a breach in Sam's armor from Covenant retaliation fire from Covenant forces prevented him from leaving the enemy vessel; he made the most of his misfortune by ensuring that the ship exploded. Sam's death profoundly affected John: it proved to him that the Covenant could be defeated, but only at the cost of many lives. Maître principal is the most correct translation for the rank of "Master Chief Petty Officer" in French, though it was never used. Throughout his career, John has shown a preference for the standard-issue set of the given Mjolnir armor generation used at the time. His Mjolnir armor is invariably colored olive green with a gold visor, which has made his appearance iconic among humans and Covenant alike. At some point during his four-year cryosleep aboard the Forward Unto Dawn, Cortana used nanomachines to repair and physically alter John's MJOLNIR Mark VI armor. [72] [158] Cortana also rewrote the suit's firmware, altering the HUD as well as improving the suit's shield-recharge rate and its compatibility with Covenant and Forerunner armor plugins. [159] His upgraded suit displays the Braille characters "117" on the left of the breastplate.

John leading his fellow Spartans during Battle of Sigma Octanus IV. Main article: Operation: OCEAN BREAKER John succeeded in locating some of his fellow Spartans on Reach, along with Vice Admiral Danforth Whitcomb and Dr. Catherine Halsey. They returned to the carrier and linked it with the damaged UNSC frigate Gettysburg. Before traveling to Earth, they decided to head into the Eridanus system where they discovered that the rebel base, Eridanus Secundus, was still intact, now led by Governor Jacob Jiles. After receiving some repairs, they were forced to abandon the rebels in the face of a Covenant assault, and made their way toward the Covenant refit-and-repair station, Unyielding Hierophant, where an enormous fleet was poised to invade Earth. Through modding, it is possible to see a Master Chief hidden behind a pillar in the Halo 2 level "The Heretic." Fable II makes a reference to the Master Chief with a character of legend named " Hal", also called the Minstrel Chief. The armor featured (clearly inspired by Halos MJOLNIR Powered Assault Armor) is known as " Hal's Armor". [176] A sword resembling the Energy Sword is also featured in the game, known as "Hal's Sword". In addition, with the Special Edition, the player can obtain the title "Master Chief" for their hero for free from any title vendor.Cortana managed to find a nuclear warhead on the station, and the Master Chief decided that it was the only way the Didact could possibly be stopped from taking the Composer. Telling Tillson this caused her great distress, as she had dedicated herself to researching the Composer for a very long time. However, she still gave the Spartan her word that she would make sure the warheads were primed for a remote detonation. Apologizing, John once again asked for Tillson to begin the evacuation. [48] The inner structure of the suit [35] is a layer of piezoelectric liquid crystal that deforms along a preferred axis when exposed to an electric charge. [14] This layer acts as a sheath or a suit of artificial muscle; this reactive piezoelectric effect increases the mobility, speed, and all-around physical performance of the suit's user, [14] doubling their strength and increasing the reaction time of the user by a multiple of five. The material is amorphous, which circumvents a major obstacle in its design: custom fitting millions of the polygonal pieces under the second armor layer. [9] Knitted together at a molecular level the liquid crystal material is merely "poured" into a multilayered Sierpinski capillary system where microelectric fields can direct crystallization geometries. [9] The only downfall is the material's production, which involves classified super-toxic precursor materials and requires a zero-gravity environment. [9] Throughout his training, John proved himself as one of the most promising leaders among Spartans, and Dr. Halsey considered him the best candidate in the entire program. His aspiration to win and his care of his teammates eventually helped him gain the position of squad leader. In years to come, many Spartan fireteams emerged with their own leaders. John took command of Blue Team, though he kept his commander role for the whole SPARTAN-II company. During Operation: SILENT STORM, John so greatly impressed Colonel Marmon Crowther that the Colonel, who had previously expressed doubts about the Spartans, promoted John to the rank of Master Chief Petty Officer from the rank of Petty Officer First Class, a previously unheard of three-rank bump. However, Crowther recognized that John's inexperience left John having trouble differentiating between being a commander and a leader and gave the young Spartan advice that he would take to heart. [135]

The Sangheili and the UNSC watched Cortana's recording, which contained a warning that High Charity, now overwhelmed and controlled by the Gravemind, was heading for Earth. However, she offered hope, with information of a way to stop the Halos from firing and neutralize the Flood threat. Convinced of the reliability of Cortana's message, John resolved to journey to the Ark, while Hood mobilized remaining UNSC forces on Earth. [38] John accompanied a joint UNSC-Sangheili task force through the portal aboard the UNSC Forward Unto Dawn to the Ark. While he is almost universally known to the public as humanity's champion, only a select few have gotten to know John personally. The Mjolnir Mark VI is the third primary version of the system. It introduces several technical improvements while refining advanced technologies introduced in the previous system. The first improvement made to the system is a faster recharge time on the suits' energy shield system so that the Spartan-II super soldier does not have to remain in cover for an extended period of time. The second is improved synchronization between the suit and user, this allows the Spartan to jump higher, run faster, and hit harder than a Spartan could previously.John-117 made his way to the hangar, entering the pilot seat of the Broadsword, which was being armed with the warhead. He then set off from Ivanoff Station in pursuit of the Didact. Cortana stated a plan of boarding the ship and finding the bridge when the Didact began to prepare for another slipspace jump. She warned him that the Broadsword's shields were not rated for slipspace, but John replied that the Didact's were, before boosting forward to take refuge inside his enemy's shielding. The Spartan then started to fly along the outer hull of the Didact's ship, toward the Composer, dodging pieces of the ship as they moved and activated defenses attempting to destroy him. [49] John's leadership skills were correctly observed: the result from their mission clearly solidified his role as the overall leader of the Spartan-IIs. He also became the established leader of the Spartan-II Blue Team.