Project Freelancer

Project Freelancer was a research endeavor to train a force of specialists, each with their own enhancements and accompanying A.I., as well as numerous scenarios and special weapons.

Purpose

Project Freelancer was attempting to create a group of elite soldiers, each with their own special abilities and assisted by an artificial intelligence; in this, the project was quite similar to other UNSC special warfare projects.

Personnel

Project Freelancer recruited personnel of great variety: some of the best combat-effective soldiers were selected, as were those considered the "worst" available. 

Supervision

• Director Leonard Church- (the Alpha AI was based off him) The Director was the commanding officer of all the Freelancers, and the one responsible for tormenting the Alpha. Eventually, his torture of the Alpha was discovered and he went into hiding. He was eventually found by Carolina and Epsilon. He presumably committed suicide after asking for Carolina to leave her pistol and asking the base's AI to seal his room shut.
• Councilor-The Director's right hand man. He assisted in the creation of AI and sanctioned all the training matches. He also was responsible for relocating the Alpha and Agent Florida to Blood Gulch, and reassigning different operatives in the simulation program.
• Four Seven Niner-The pilot for the main Freelancer team. She appears to be very skilled at piloting as she was able to maintain control of her Pelican even when doing a totally vertical nose dive, and was able to, albeit with AI assistance, shut off the engine and reactivate it at the last possible second to avoid crashing to launch a sneak attack on an Insurrectionist base.
• Vic- The "command representative" of both the Reds and Blues of the Freelancer Simulation Program. Speaks in a mocking manner, often disconnected from the events, and doesn't seem to care about what happens. He tends to give very general orders.

Agents

Freelancer Agents were each codenamed by state names. Only Agent Florida, better known as Butch Flowers, has had his real name revealled. Each of the Freelancer's armor has a built in alarm that alerts central command and other agents of a Freelancer in peril,  so that another agent may come to assist or recover equipment. Upon the death of a Freelancer, the armor and equipment of a killed agent is to be recovered as quickly as possible to avoid the technology falling into the wrong hands. In the Dakota agents instances, their armor and bodies were thoroughly destroyed by Washington.

These are the agents that have made an apearance in RVB

• Agent Maine (The Meta) - Defected, KIA 
• Agent Carolina - Defected, Active
• Agent Connecticut -Defected, KIA
• Agent New York - KIA
• Agent North Dakota - KIA
• Agent South Dakota -KIA
• Agent Texas - KIA
• Agent Washington - Defected, Active
• Agent Wyoming -KIA
• Agent Georgia - MIA
• Agent Florida (AKA Butch Flowers) - KIA
• Agent Utah-MIA
• Agent Montana-KIA
• Agent Washington DC-KIA

Artificial Intelligence Experiments

Certain agents were selected to receive an AI unit to assist them in battle. The purpose of the AI was to help the assigned freelancer use their unique armor equipment while in combat. This also greatly enhanced the freelancer's combat abilities as the AI is able to use and control the armor effect independent of the freelancer's control and to a greater ability than the freelancer could.

The AIs were created by subjecting one original AI to a lot of torture until it started isolating parts of its mind. These isolated parts were then removed to become the AI implanted in the agents. Following Washington's violent reaction to his AI, the Director ordered all AIs to be removed from each of the agents.

AI-Agent assignments were also very important as it was stated that each AI was crafted for a specific agent. This is shown when the Councilor stated that Theta was assigned specifically to Agent North because of North's caring behavior. This key fact is also evident by Agent Maine's strange, eventually murderous, behavior. He was being influenced by an AI, Sigma, that was not originally intended to be his in the first place. It is also noted that each agent is normally allowed one AI. Agent Carolina was the exception and was granted two at the same time. However, she couldn't function long with two AI and couldn't function well when she could cope with it.

Before this could happen though, Agent Tex attempted to free the original AI by staging a rebellion against the Director. Also, Agent Maine went rougue and became "The Meta", bent on collecting all other AI to reassemble into the original AI, and collect other agent's armor equipment. Eventually, most of the AIs were destroyed by an EMP explosion, only Epsilon survived as it wasn't caught in the blast.

Known AIs:

• Alpha - the original AI that all the other AIs came from. All of the AIs seem to have an obssession with reuniting to reform the Alpha. His actual identity is the de facto Blue Team leader, Leonard Church. Was based off the Director of Project Freelancer.
• Delta-Alpha's logic-assigned to Agent York-He was created after Alpha separated logic from the rest of his mind to avoid comprehending the torture. Delta is capable of analyzing situations and adjusting his carrier's armor to suit. Also reappears in Epsilon as a memory to warn the two teams after his destruction. He was taken by Agent South, then went with Caboose, then was captured by The Meta.
• Omega (O'Malley)-Alpha's rage, assigned to Agent Texas-Was created when Alpha separated his rage of the Director. Capable of operating Tex's camoflauge unit. He is an aggressive AI that is regarded as the strongest AI out of all the Freelancer AIs. This is evident as he is the only one who is fully capable of controlling his host, unlike the other AI who only can only influence their host through conversation. He also has had the most hosts out of any AI unit, jumping from person to person in the Blood Gulch chronicles. Eventually captured by the Meta.
• Theta-Alpha's empathy, assigned to Agent North-Theta is a shy AI, trusting only his host. He is able to control North's dome shield to great ability, to the point where he can have only portions of the shield active at a given time, and lower and reraise the shield to give North enough time to destroy a turret without letting any bullets pass through. Eventually captured by The Meta.
• Gamma (Gary) - Alpha's deceit, assigned to Wyoming-Has a habit of telling horrible knock knock jokes, talks with a synthetic voice. Is able to control a time distortion unit that can slow or even loop time.Was first presumed to be Church's (uncooperative) ally, but later revealled to be working with Wyoming. Eventually captured by the Meta.
• Sigma-Alpha's creativity and ambition, originally given to Carolina, she later gave it to Agent Maine- Sigma is a manipulative AI. Speaking in a polite manner, he secretly manipulated his fellow AIs (breaking protocol by doing so) and Maine. He was obssessed with the idea of metastability and realized that if he and the other AIs were just fragments, then by reassembling the Alpha, he could achieve metastability. Going on this, it could be possible that Agent Maine did not turn into The Meta on his own will, but through Sigma's manipulation.
• Epsilon-Alpha's memories, intended for Washington-Upon activation of the Epsilon AI, Washington suffered from a fit of insanity, forcing the Director to have him sedated and Epsilon removed, as well as scheduling the other Freelancers for AI removal. He resurfaces as a version of Church after the Alpha was destroyed, mimicing the exact personality that Church had. He also contains the memories of all other AIs, such as Delta's memories. After finding the Director, it appears the Epsilon's host is now Agent Carolina
• Eta and Iota-Unknown attribute, given to Agent Carolina-Unlike other agents, Carolina was granted two AIs after she demanded it. This was because of her competitive ego and envy at Tex's better combat scores. In her short fight against Tex, an incident triggered all AI to behave erratically. While all other AIs quickly returned to normal, Eta and Iota did not restabilize and continued the erratic behavior, tormenting Carolina until she had to be knocked out by Tex. Eventually captured by The Meta.

Freelancer Simulation Program

There exists several locations where Freelancers are given practice. One such location is known to be the hiding place of Alpha. Blood Gulch is a known location of one Simulation zone. When this was revealed, both the Red and Blue teams were caugh in total disbelief, believing that their purpose was something bigger than that. However, there exists several facts that prove they were nothing more than training soldiers:

• Each location had a red and blue team
• The layout of each location was simlar, a long canyon with two small bases on either end
• The "soldiers" there were comprised of the least competent soldiers available (Both the Red and Blue team members had a lot of incompetencies)
• Both Church's and Sarge's teams answered to the same commanding officer
• The central command is also the headquarters of the Freelancer Program
• As stated by Washington, no event of major importance ever occured without the arrival of a Freelancer directly before that event (Tex arriving before Omega's rampage, Washington arriving and The Meta starts going on a rampage)

Termination of Project Freelancer

Eventually, the Meta resurfaces and captures Omega. This causes Agent Washington to go around, reunite Blue team, and prevent additional AIs from falling into his hands. This also raises questions from the Chairman of the UNSC towards the Director. As The Meta's rampage continues, the Chairman investigates Project Freelancer in more detail. Eventually, the truth is uncovered and the Chairman orders the termination of Project Freelancer and the arrest of The Director. All the AIs except Epsilon were destroyed when Washington set off an EMP. Eventually, Carolina and Epsilon found the Director. After a brief conversation, they leave and the Director kills himself.

Trivia

• Blue Team seems to work more closely to the Freelancers than the Red Team and also seems to be on more positive relations with them.