My personal selection would be Iron Mike 'Mighty Mite' ONeil from John Ringo's 'Legacy of the Aldenata
stories. A screwed-up individual who designed a suit of armour so tough it can survive an almost point-blank multi-megaton nuclear blast. It can fly, shoot bullets so fast they clear orbit and the commander is so good he doesn't even need to see the battlefield any more, his entire view is a hyper-compressed plot of charts, graphs and statistics.

BTW. The entry on Sgt. Todd is slightly incorrect. He wasn't genetically engineered, his replacements were.

MarkTBSc

ashewyntr

fwi1298

"I blew up more than any other Invader!"
"You blew up ALL THE OTHER INVADERS!"

"I put the fires out."
"YOU MADE THEM WORSE!"
"Worse? Or better?"

Nothing beats Chaotic Neutral on a team designed around maximum carnage. ^_~

zanbowser

Sergeant Avery Johnson has survived so many Covenant assaults that his body developed a condition from too much plasma exposure. That condition made him immune to The Flood. Sure, he's entirely based on the Sarge from Aliens, but he's still the most badass character in the entire Halo universe.

Chiper

Boba Fett - most hardcore bounty hunter ever (and new Mandalore).
And in line with Fett either an ARC or a pod of RC's...

A Soul Drinker Space Marine - what's harder than a space marine? A space marine with crazy mutant powers.

A combat adept from Reality Dysfunction - cyborg mercs who've optimized their bodies for war, nuff said.

The Major, Saito, and Batou of Section 9 - all around badasses but would come come in handy with tech skills the others couldn't match.

Battle Angel Alita - Panzer Kunst...

Max from Dark Angel - the X-5's own (and it's Jessica friggan Alba)

Solid Snake - In case I run into any Metal Gears

Typhus

I disagree that Spartan's are the best scifi soldiers, because Space Marines are more reliable in warfare, and have a stronger loyalty to earth (although that's debatable). The nature of 40k means that Space Marines as a fighting force have over ten thousand years of combat history, while the Spartans are the first generation of their kind (yes I know there are Spartan 1's, but the 2's have nothing to do with those men and women). Spartan's excel at special forces type operations, and are no slouches in out and out warfare, but Space Marines take anything Spartans can do, and do it better.

Spartan's can't fight without arms, survive for extended periods of time without eating drinking or sleeping, never bleed out, and a whole host of other things Space Marines can do. All Spartans have, from an objective stance, is good armor and enhanced reflexes. We know Space Marines, while possibly slower, can outdo this level of reflexes, because they constantly take on Eldar and Dark Eldar hand to hand. In Nightbringer, you see a Dark Eldar almost dodge a bullet, so comparing them to Spartans is generous.

As for 'best chance humanity has,' I'd point you to the Mandalorians. Past, or 'present.' In Boba Fett's lifetime, his Mandos's took on the Yu Zen Vong, something the New Republic got tangled up with. Mando's have more years of warfare under their belt as a race, and their training starts just as early as the Spartans. Again, Spartans, having only better reflexes and armor, have no real glaring advantage to any number of SciFi soldiers.

Garro

Should we be able to throw in 'alien personalities' as a few posters mentioned above, I wouldn't mind having the Krogan, Wrex (Mass Effect) on my team.

Cantonkid

miborovsky

MaxTwice

superbryant

Bryan01

Frozen-Tex

avconsumer

gybryant

Frozen-Tex

deckard97

Roy Batty from Blade Runner. A little unstable and given to existentialist monologues (not to mention putting nails through his hand) but he's super fast, super strong, and cool as hell. Kinda looks like Rutger Hauer dressing up as Sting for a costume party.

JohnBizzle

jaredluse

QuasarErazar

Garro

Sure, they might not go in guns-a-blazing (not that often, anyway), but his unusual tactics will win the day.

El_Bandito

Irrafixable

JSharkey

JSharkey

nickh

Fedhman Kassad certainly gets a vote from me, and although John Perry certainly had a few excellent moments of innovation, I think I'd take a member of the Ghost Brigades first, what with the whole trained from "birth" to fight in their nifty green bodies. Takeshi Kovacs from Richard Morgan's novels would be another excellent choice. Bit of a loner, although does work well in teams (unless they torture people for fun.) Plus he can be sleeved into bodies with all sorts of useful abilities.

And if we need someone to lead our little band of misfits, I think one could do worse than John Connor (adult version).

icelight

Stryker65

CaptRavis

Robert Isbell

aleph null

jamescole

Git Em SteveDave seeks Lego build buddy. How about you?

Lampbane

astrocramp

victheremin

rbb

mikecoscia

NefariousNewt

girraffesack

apparently, it's actually a true story that jeanette goldstein showed up for the casting call in turn-of-century irish immigrant garb, thus the line in the movie "she thought they said ILLEGAL aliens, so she signed up." cameron later cast her as an irish immigrant in titanic.

arachnophilia

icowdave

MenaceIISobriety

Any team needs certain roles filled. I will try to get a good mix.

Officer: Lieutenant Rasczak from Starship Troopers (book). Great leadership qualities.
NCO: Sgt. Todd from Soldier (movie). Years of experience
Point: Billy Sole from Predator (movie). Good in a fight also.
Sniper: Cooper Hawkes from Space: Above and Beyond (TV). Crack shot and a fighter pilot too!
Heavy Weapons: Teal'c from SG-1 (TV). Fearless.
Grunts:
Vasquez from Aliens (movie) as obligatory female. Holds her own in a firefight.
Zylyn from Space Rangers (TV). Warrior monk who needed collar device to control aggressive nature.
Nick O'Malley from Special Unit 2 (TV). Okay so he's not a soldier but he's good with all weapons, hates non-humans, and can serve as comedian to keep team's morale up.

caltrop2004

AmishJohn

Guizzy

girraffesack

"She doesn't follow orders and is way too emotionally unstable."

A-frickin-men. Starbuck is the worst soldier on TV. She may be hot, but she's damn near useless, and a continual liability. I'm sorry, but five minutes of super-ace flying does NOT make up for five years of troop morale suffering from her cheating on the lot of 'em and getting pouty, then all of a sudden punchy and beating on the other half.

s0crates82

Van Buskirk from the Lensman would be a usefull adition.

Mouser_UK

Now a Protoss Zealot or, better still, a Dragoon. I'd definitely put a Dragoon in my squad. Part Protoss, mostly cyborg spider-thing...

@EBone: "No love for the new Starbuck?"

You'd be insane to put her in your squad! She doesn't follow orders and is way too emotionally unstable. Not saying she isn't a good soldier, but she would probably be the first one you lose (assuming she replaced Jango. Sorry, still can't get over that. A bounty hunter so awesome he hires other bounty hunters to do his dirty work).

HJungle

mcsey

Garrison Dean, King Awesome

1369ic

Killa_Charlie

jhwoodyatt

Frozen-Tex

Darkweave

MaxTwice

MaxTwice

darthsodomizer

caltrop2004

The Point Man: The Shrike from Dan Simmons' "Hyperion" - Col. Fedhman Kassad turned into unstoppable killing machine that can stop or slow time and... has a razor wire like carapace. Can bring an entire planet to it's knees, freak you the fuck out, scare the crap out of you, and then feed you your heart before you ever see it. In that order.

The Mojo: Pham Nuwen from Vernor Vinge's "A Deepness in the Sky" - the man, the myth, the legendary "Programmer at Arms". The Odysseus of the stars. Gotta have him Yoda-ing up any team.

The Brute Force: the Possessed from Peter F. Hamilton's "Reality Dysfunction" - good God, don't let even one of them onto your planet! Essentially zombies with force powers from the beyond. Most vicious army ever. They WILL bring your whole 700+ planet galactic empire to it's knees.

That ought to do it. Yep.

Pham Nuwen

I'd also like John Hawkins from "Jericho"; he took out 4 Ravenwood mercs without breaking a sweat last night!

If you talk back to Sgt. Scott, he'll cut your ear off.

Sgt. Todd wasn't genetically engineered, but his replacement was. Todd was just brainwashed and abused from infancy to be a stone killer.

And how 'bout a squad of X-5's from "Dark Angel"? Or could I just have Max Gueverra? Can I? Pleeeease?

Frozen-Tex

DearEditor

FLegion

stjohn

aspiringexpatriate

And those were InVitros. Or tanks, for you dirty bigots. :P

FLegion

Guizzy

Master Chief, with his Mjoliner (sp?) armor, would be unstoppable next to the rest of these people.

EBone

FLegion

Not much special about them but what war can't be won through attrition?

Final

And I'm not talking about the movie, although Verhoeven gets points for casting The Kurgan in that role...

StrangelyBrown

stjohn

[en.wikipedia.org]

HJungle

Garrison Dean, King Awesome

gybryant

LeNoceur

Git Em SteveDave seeks Lego build buddy. How about you?

darcymcgee

darcymcgee

@extracrispy: Nice! Since we're quoting Aliens, "We're on an express elevator to hell, Going DOWN!"

CmdrHunt

Plus I think we're a little lacking in women on this dream team.

And Rico? Really?

draconismoi

Gyrus

gybryant

aubreyAubrey

Rus

gybryant

icowdave

gods-n-clods

MadJackDeacon

Cyborgs ok? Although dumpo the two 'bots and that's still a mighty force.

@gybryant:

Just rip off a purity seal and they crumble. Or threaten some choasy things and it's exterminatus ; )

Seth L

"Hey Vasquez, have you ever been mistaken for a man?"

"No. Have you?"

extracrispy

Kevin Kelly

pumpkin3point14

But I bet their armor gets steeeenky!

gybryant

Completely unstoppable.

Seth L

braak