michael j. caboose

Caboose seems to act very childish as his understanding of the world and actions are incorrect and shows a great amount of curiosity. However, Caboose does show a lot of care to many characters, even to the Reds, despite them being rivals. He often tries to impress others in order to gain their respect, although it often backfires in some way. Caboose shows a great amount of loyalty as well, as shown when he kept trying to resurrect Church through Epsilon. Because of his mentality, Caboose easily becomes hurt if insulted, such as in Change of Plans, and is easily abused, such as when he was tricked to shake the Alien's "other arm". Overall, Caboose may act like a child, but is very loyal and brave when the situation calls for it. He's also incessantly cheerful; always expressing enthusiasm and adopting an optimistic mentality on missions and in the face of danger. Upon passing through the Construct portal, Santa describes him as never having a negative attitude. He does show that when he feels lonely he can become highly obsessive and secretive; such as the events in Relocation and his discovery of Freckles. During Out of Mind: Part III, Delta expresses concern about possible mental strain caused to Tex by the ejection of the Omega AI, and states that damage was caused when Gamma forcibly removed himself from Agent Wyoming. It is possible that similar damage ensued when Tex and Church forced Omega out of Caboose's Mind. This would also make sense because in season 1, he was not as detached from reality as he is now. During the Project Freelancer AI experiments, Agent Carolina is known to have been implanted with two A.I. simultaneously. According to Delta, having three minds at once drove Carolina insane. Agent Maine is also known to have had mental strain due to his implantation by multiple AI's. During Season 2, when Tex and Church (now known to be AI units themselves) entered Caboose's Mind to destroy Omega, Caboose would have been implanted with three AI units at the same time. It is highly unlikely that Caboose would have escaped this encounter without having heavy brain damage as well. It is possible that the firefight between Church, Tex and Omega inside Caboose's Mind in season 2 may have caused permanent damage to his thought process. Evidence for this includes when his mind's version of Church was shot, causing everything Caboose knew about Church to be forgotten, similar to deleting a file on a computer. Thus, damaging his mind with weapons could have also led to brain damage. During episode 89, it is revealed that the team once deactivated and rebooted Caboose's armor while he was still wearing it, and that it took longer to come back online than expected. Caboose apparently suffered near asphyxiation

Trivia According to the Season 3 DVD Character Profile for Caboose, he is from a low gravity colony on the Moon, he was the middle child of eighteen children, with all of them implied to be female in Reconstruction: Chapter 3, and he was the first member of his family to attend high school. Caboose has shown that he might actually understand Lopez when he responds to a comment Lopez made correctly in Lost Time. Caboose has nine toes, as his left “pinky toe” fell off after Church shot him in the foot during Motion to Adjourn as an excuse to get Doc over to him. At the beginning of his tour in Blood Gulch, Caboose believed himself to be an exchange student visiting southern France. Behind the scenes, the origin for Caboose's name (along with Donut’s) is that of the randomly generated names assigned to temporary multiplayer profiles in Halo: Combat Evolved. Caboose's name may also be a reference to actor Michael J. Fox. It could also be a reference to Burnie Burns‘ given name, “Michael J. Burns”. Caboose's last name is very appropriate since the caboose is always the last car on a train. Likewise, Caboose's train of thought is considerably slower than that of his friends, and his mind will always come in dead last.