Emile-A239

"In recognition of this, his warrior's spirit, we honor him as the merciless wrath of Noble."

- The Monument to Noble Team

Emile-A239 was a SPARTAN-III commando of the UNSC Special Warfare Command, attached to Special Warfare Group Three. He fought as part of Noble Team with the call sign Noble Four during the Fall of Reach in 2552.

Summary
Emile was born in Luxor on Eridanus II on March 11th, 2523. Orphaned, he was soon conscripted as a part of Alpha Company, but was pulled out of the unit by Kurt-051 and Franklin Mendez before Operation: PROMETHEUS in 2537. Later, he became a member of Noble Team and fought during the Fall of Reach.

Fall of Reach
Emile was present when Noble Six was inducted into Noble Team, and accompanied the team on the mission to Visegrad Relay. He was the one who found the distress beacon at the base of the terraces. Later on, he and Catherine-B320 went to the relay station while the rest of the team followed up.

During a later stage in the battle, Emile and the rest of Noble Team were tasked with delivering a Package to the UNSC Pillar of Autumn in Aszod. He was ordered by Carter-A259 to accompany Noble Six on the ground after their Pelican was damaged. Emile fought with Noble Six for the rest of the mission.

Death
"I'm ready! How 'bout you?!"

- Emile, defiant to the end. Emile and Noble Six had made their way to a Reach drydock at Aszod, where the Pillar of Autumn was docked. Whilst clearing a landing site for a Pelican, Emile took control of a Mass Driver emplacement to assist with the defense. After clearing the pad of Covanent forces, he tells Noble Six to give the package to Keythumb|318px|rightes and to get onboard the Pillar of Autumn and escape Reach with them, thus informing Six that he'll stay behind. During the trade off, a Covenant Crusier is spotted by Captain Keyes and instructs Emile to shoot it down with the Mass Driver, but a Phantom pulled up above the emplacement and dropped off a group of Zealots. Emile, unable to quickly target the Phantom in time, dismounts from the emplacement and killed the first Elite with his shotgun. However, a second Elite managed to grab and impale him with an Energy Sword from behind. Calling out his last words, "I'm ready, how 'bout you?!", and being brutally defiant to the end, Emile unsheathed his kukri and stabbed the Elite through the throat. Knocked off balance by the blow, the Zealot fell off the platform, pulling Emile down with him.

Emile's panting can be heard for a short time through Noble Six's comlinks. When the Lieutenant ascends the stairs to the mass driver, two dead Elites and a lifeless Emile are found slumped against the railing, Emile's coveted kukri deep into the neck of an Elite.

Personality and traits
"He may say that what he wants is to win the war, but what he really wants is for the enemy to die."

- In-game description

Respected by his peers, Emile is described as being detail oriented and unbreakable, being an effective member of the unit while in the field and maintaining strict discipline off the field. He is, however, noted to have the most trouble interacting with non-Spartans than anyone else in Noble Team.

Emile is noted for being particularly bold and aggressive. Colonel Urban Holland noted that Emile-A239's excessive use of force makes it hard to field him against insurrectionists, due to the resulting reaction in civilian media, to the degree that they would replace him with SPARTAN-344 if another counterinsurgency operation would come up. He also treats regular civilians with suspicion and disregard, which has led to confrontations between him and Jorge-052. Despite his hard outlook, he held a deep respect for his teammates, as well as readiness to sacrifice himself in order to allow the Pillar of Autumn to escape. Emile is also known to handle the loss of teammates by masking his emotions with humor.

He also possesses an "impressive" collection of Covenant contraband. While in direct violation of Subsection Seven of the Cole Protocol, his superiors ignore this, due to them being part of the Army.

Equipment
"Yeah, I carved that myself. And I'm very proud of it."

- Emile describes his visor.

Emile typically carries an M45 Tactical Shotgun. During the opening cutscene of the level The Pillar of Autumn he is seen using an M319 Individual Grenade Launcher to destroy two Banshees. His signature weapon is the large Kukri knife sheathed on his right shoulder pauldron. In the scene where Kat dies, he uses an Assault Rifle. Emile is also seen using a rocket launcher on Sword Base.

Emile wears a MJOLNIR EVA helmet with a skull carved into the faceplate (designated EVA [C]), it also has a HUL attachment. The rest of his armor consists of the Assault/Sapper chest piece, the Assault/Breacher wrist utility, Security right shoulder piece, Operator left shoulder piece, Tactical/SOFT CASE utility, and FJ/PARA knee guards. It is assumed that Emile is left-handed having both his kurki knife and Assault/Breacher wrist utility are on his right arm. He is also seen sharpening his kukri knife with his left hand in the first cutscene in which he appears. His armor's primary and secondary colors are silver and red, respectively. However, his armor cannot be fully replicated, since placing the secondary color as red will not affect the right shoulder pauldron (his Security shoulder with the kukri) and also the Breacher wrist is on his right hand, not on his left like all gameplay wrist items are.

Trivia

 * Emile was voiced by Jamie Hector.
 * Emile also uses a M319 Individual Grenade Launcher in the opening of the mission The Pillar of Autumn taking down Banshees.
 * Emile shares his home world with John-117.
 * Emile was one of the oldest known SPARTAN-III candidates upon conscription, being eight years old at the time. Carter-A259, the oldest, was eleven.
 * Emile's voice can be bought for 10,000 credits, to be used in firefight.
 * Emile is the only member of Noble Team, aside from SPARTAN-B312, whose face is not seen throughout the game, However, He is the only member of Noble Team who does not remove his helmet at any time in the game. Also, Emile's face is depicted in concept art. The faces shown in the same concept art piece are seen in one of the screens in the Tribute Room, but Emile's face is largely obscured.
 * Emile's helmet is available as an Avatar Award and is obtained by earning a Bulltrue Medal in either multiplayer or Firefight matchmaking.
 * Interestingly, shooting or meleeing Emile's body after his death causes his shields to disperse as if they were still active. This quirk also applies to the two Zealots he killed.
 * Emile's carved helmet, the EVA [C], is available for purchase within the Armory, becoming visible at the rank of Lt. Colonel and with the purchase of the EVA Helmet, and purchasable at the rank of Commander.
 * When Emile stabs the Zealot with his kukri, he stabs the Elite on the right side of its neck. When you look at the corpse, the knife is on the left side. He could have stabbed the Elite multiple times, however, as it is not shown that he didn't.
 * To replicate Emile's armor to the fullest extent, you would have to reach the rank of at least General.
 * Emile's dead body is the only one out of the whole of Noble Team that can be actually seen during gameplay.
 * Strangely, while Emile is depicted as having a gold visor on his EVA[C] helmet in most pictures, in various parts of the campaign, his visor appears to be a pearly-pinkish color. This could be due to lighting effect, however, it should be noted that it appears this way in a variety of different lightings, or a possible future visor color.
 * The Onager, a ground-based MAC Cannon, has the initials "S-239", the number tag of Emile and the initials "S-266", the number tag of Jun. This is like the Halo: Reach-era Scorpion, which has the initials of Emile's comrade, Jorge, "S-052".
 * Also, upon firing the Onager, Emile will call out things such as "That was for Kat!" or "This one's for Jorge!" This may be a rare example of him fully showing emotion, without masking it with humour.
 * Emile is one of four major characters in the Halo series whose face is not shown, the others being John-117, Noble six and The Rookie. Out of the four he is the only one who is not a playable character.
 * In one of the Halo: Reach wallpapers, where Emile is in the back of the rest of the team, his helmet seems to have an extra portion of his helmet attached to his visor.
 * In early developement, Emile's left shoulder is shown as a security shoulder, while in his final appearance, he has the operator shoulder piece.
 * In The Pillar of Autumn, it is advised that you drive the Mongoose, as Emile, like most AI players, is a horrible driver and since Emile carries a shotgun he is pretty much useless as a gunner as well.
 * It seems that Bungie originally planned for Emile to be silent, as his profile on Game Informer regularly refers to him as "the silent Spartan" and states that he "does not speak", in heavy contrast to the "gung-ho" attitude he possesses in the final game.
 * If a player were to (somewhat) recreate Emile-A239's concept art armor, they would need EVA(C) helmet, Operator left shoulder, Security right shoulder, Assault/Sapper chest piece, FJ/PARA knee guards, Gold visor, and Steel as Primary color and Brick as Secondary color.
 * Emile is shown to have a second combat knife in concept art tucked behind his Operator shoulder, but in the final release he has only his Kukri.
 * In the Halo: Reach armory all of Emile's armor (including Firefight voice) equals a total of 777,000 credits, possibly another 7 reference from Bungie.
 * The way to get his helmet as an Avatar Award (by achieving a Bulltrue medal) may be a reference to his love of sharp things, such as his knife.

List of appearances

 * Halo: Reach