Carter-A259 (Earth-4001)

Commander Carter-A259 was a SPARTAN-III commando of the UNSC Naval Special Warfare Command, attached to the UNSC Army's Special Warfare Group Three. Carter was the leader of NOBLE Team, an elite team of Spartans who fought during the Fall of Reach. His call sign in the team was Noble One.

History
The history of Carter-A259 is the same as his mainstream counterpart.

Personality & Traits
Carter is described as charismatic and reassuring, as well as a born leader, inspiring confidence in those under his command. He is said to be cool under pressure, with laser-like focus, even while maintaining adaptability and flexibility. Carter is also noted as being capable of interacting with non-SPARTAN personnel effectively and efficiently with low-to-no expected stress issues, and was said to be at his best while building a team. As a result, he was given considerable freedom by his superiors in picking replacement personnel for his team; an exception to this was when Colonel Holland personally selected SPARTAN-B312 as a replacement for Thom-A293 after the latter's death in the Battle of Fumirole.

As team commander, his defining trait is his desire to bring his people back alive, but he knows the challenge of losing members of his command. However, he was said to have "minor trust issues" due to the death of Thom-A293 under his command; Carter attributed S-A293's death to his own "inadequate team preparation" while it was evidently due to enemy action or Thom-A293's own lapse in situational awareness. Carrying the guilt over Thom's death may have also been the source of Carter's hesitation to commit to one of the replacements. Despite this, Carter grew to trust Noble Six and even informed his subordinate that Cortana had made the right choice by picking Noble Six.

Equipment
Carter wore a MJOLNIR Mark V Commando helmet and an Assault/Commando chest piece. He wore a Commando shoulder piece for his left shoulder and a Mk. V shoulder piece for his right shoulder. Carter also had a Tactical/Tacpad wrist piece on his left wrist and FJ/PARA knees guards.

Trivia

 * As a commander, Carter was one of the highest-ranked SPARTANs.
 * Carter's date of birth made him one of the oldest SPARTAN-IIIs. The majority of the trainees for Alpha Company were four, five, and six years old when the project began in 2531; Carter would have been eleven at that time, making him nearly as old when he was conscripted as most other Alpha Company members were when they graduated from the program. Given his rather extreme deviation from the otherwise consistent age range as well as the risk of complications in the augmentation procedures for those outside the ideal age group, it is possible that Carter had spent considerable time in cryosleep prior to his induction to the program; as individuals effectively do not age in cryo, Carter's biological age may have been closer to the SPARTAN-III standard than his chronological age.
 * Carter's SPARTAN tag, A259, may be a reference to the element Nobelium. Nobelium has a standard atomic mass of 259 and is linguistically similar to Noble.
 * During the Halo: Reach Legendary Edition developer commentary, Lee Wilson jokes that Carter was upset by Kat's death because "She was cute." Martin O'Donnell responds, "We know there was some relationship between Carter and Kat at some point."