343, how is the Chief anything like Escharum?

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I don’t think 343 would be putting stuff like this into articles on the website if they didn’t think it was relevant.

Because Bungie cleverly don’t draw your attention to it. This is why Arbiter is not in Halo Reach when he is the Commander ordering all these terrible things to happen. Because we never see him do anything bad the player is led to assume that he’s a good guy. If you got POV of civilians being massacred on his orders it would be a bit difficult to sell him turning good. This is why they demonised Cortana so much in Halo 5 and Infinite because they really draw your attention to this and batter you over the head with it. Whereas with the Arbiter you aren’t given this information or context with which to form a negative judgement. So forgiving him is very easy because we haven’t seen or heard him do anything bad.

Also Chief doesn’t act like the Arbiter glassed his home planet. It’s more like two boxers playing up a rivalry than two species in a war of annihilation.

The Arbiter abandons the Covenant and takes up arms against it. I don’t see Atriox taking up arms against his own organisation. The Banished exist because of him and there isn’t a “lie” that I could see changing that. Like if Atriox is just a meat puppet for Mendicant Bias, maybe some Brutes would object, but they seem happy going along with his plan for power and conquest. Again I think it would be a terrible direction to take the Banished.

Plus it’s a better story if Chief goes full Robert Baratheon and wants to kill Atriox because he killed Cortana. Having him forgive the Banished and Atriox; I’d reject that entirely. That would be a terrible direction to take the story.

They can say it’s canon. However, show don’t tell. If all we see in game is Chief indifferently killing the Banished and then showing sympathy for the Banished; that doesn’t square with him having stronger opinions on the Banished in Shadows of Reach.

TBH I have read that novel I can’t really remember any of the characters seriously discussing:

  • Why are the Banished occupying a human world.
  • It’s monstrous that they’re taking advantage of humanities weakened state
  • They spend more time on why the colonists are bad at this whole Resistance thing.
  • I mean it’s annoying that in Bad Blood we get a lengthy 1984 rant on the Created being fascist AI but in Shadows of Reach the Banished are just sort of there. Like an obstacle to be chopped down instead of addressing that they are a repulsive military junta. I am not sure why one faction gets the Saturday morning cartoon treatment and other gets vilified.
  • They definitely don’t act as if the Banished are a galactic power that rules the Galaxy.

It’s like in the novel they have this tunnel vision and only consider what’s in front of them. How do we get to this cave. How do we get to the box. How do we get out. They don’t consider the why or what the Banished presence really means for the Galaxy.

That’s a flimsy definition. Eating humans is cannibalism so eating another sentient species would be cannibalism. Plus, how do you know Brutes don’t eat their own dead?

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I don’t think 343 would be putting stuff like this into articles on the website if they didn’t think it was relevant.

No argument here.

Because Bungie cleverly don’t draw your attention to it. . . .with the Arbiter you aren’t given this information or context with which to form a negative judgement. So forgiving him is very easy because we haven’t seen or heard him do anything bad.

For the most part, yeah. But he himself mentions his war crimes in Halo 2’s opening cutscenes:

“[The Pillar of Autumn] fled, as we set fire to their planet.”

“I will continue my campaign against the humans!”

It’s brief, sure, but it’s there.

Also Chief doesn’t act like the Arbiter glassed his home planet. It’s more like two boxers playing up a rivalry than two species in a war of annihilation.

They only time they meet in Halo 2 is when they’re being held by the Gravemind, and John is playing it very cool because he wants to live through that encounter. In Halo 3, he’s ready to blow Thel’s brains out as soon as he sees him. Even after Johnson talks him down, there’s lingering hostility shown through the Chief’s refusal to say anything to him except for a single world throughout the entirety of Halo 3.

You’re right that Atriox hasn’t had a redemption arc, and I don’t expect him to get one, but Thel is responsible for just as many atrocities, if not more. Atriox having a change of mind or heart, even if only a temporary one, isn’t out of the question.

I haven’t seen Game of Thrones, but again, I would much rather that the Chief act like the Chief as opposed to some other character. Especially considering the Halo TV show. shivers

They can say it’s canon. However, show don’t tell. If all we see in game is Chief indifferently killing the Banished and then showing sympathy for the Banished; that doesn’t square with him having stronger opinions on the Banished in Shadows of Reach.

Well, sort of? Books can show the inner thought life of characters in a way that’s more difficult for visual media.

It’s like in the novel they have this tunnel vision and only consider what’s in front of them. How do we get to this cave. How do we get to the box. How do we get out. They don’t consider the why or what the Banished presence really means for the Galaxy.

That is a pretty accurate summary of the way the book reads. And the Infinity audio log Arrival gives me the impression that this was still their attitude just before Infinite’s opening cinematic.

Infinity Comms Officer: Captain Lasky. We have hull breaches… These locations.
Bridge Officer: We’ve been boarded! Sir, reports of Banished raiding parties. Lots of them!
Lasky: Banished? What are they doing here?
Chief: Making a mistake.

Heck, even Escharum himself feels like he has to scream at the Chief, asking him if he’s got his attention by using Echo-216. It seems like the UNSC looked at the Banished as just another faction vying for whatever resources they could get their hands on, right up until the Infinity got jumped.

But this has been the case since Halo Wars 2. I’d recommend reading the Rise of Atriox Phoenix Logs on Halopedia for the Milky Way-based UNSC’s analysis of them.

As for the Chief specifically, I have an explanation, but you probably won’t find it satisfying.

He fought a thirty-year war against the Covenant, then dealt with the Flood (with whom you can’t win a philosophical argument apparently), then after he was revived he had to fight Covenant splinter factions, the Didact, then Cortana and the Warden Eternal, and now the Banished. After all that, I imagine his ability to be emotionally invested in philosophically challenging his enemies would be pretty low. There’s always some new contender trying to wipe out humanity. It makes sense to me that he wouldn’t waste time trying to criticize his enemies instead of just killing them.

That’s a flimsy definition. Eating humans is cannibalism so eating another sentient species would be cannibalism. Plus, how do you know Brutes don’t eat their own dead?

Okay? I’m not making it up or something. The real definition of cannibalism is “the eating of human flesh by human beings,” and “the eating of the flesh of an animal by another animal of the same kind.” Sentience doesn’t have much to do with it.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Brutes have eaten their own at one point or another, but eating humans doesn’t make them cannibals.

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Which is framing it as the destruction of a thing and making everything abstract. The player is very deliberately not being given the information to frame the Arbiter as a monster. The depiction makes him just a soldier doing his duty and prevent details getting in the way of his redemption arc.

Compare that to Halo 5 where you see a Guardian awaken, you see people die, flee and beg for their lives. You then see Chief accuse of Cortana of having callously done this.

I’d actually say Bungie was inconsistent. When he first meets the Arbiter he’s like all friendly banter “I’d rather not piss this thing off” to Halo 3 where for dramatic effect he does go for him randomly. Halo 2 and 3 are very disconnected.

Atriox army has per the Season 2 blurb conquered there Galaxy. So he has committed more crimes than an Elite Admiral.

Not every character should get a redemption arc. The Prophets all die horribly because they are the cause of the war and get punished. Why shouldn’t Atriox? Indeed that is framed as revenge for the Arbiter so Halo isn’t averse to this.

Comparing TV show Chiefs Mommy issues to wanting to kill Atriox isn’t a fair comparison. He promised to save Cortana and this Brute prevented that. He’s a clear danger to humanity. He should want him dead and I’d question why he wouldn’t be of that view. This should be Robert Baratheon wanting Rhaegar dead.

Plus, you can have a stoic character be contemptful and judge the enemy. Captain American when he says Thanos vision is a world “born in blood”. I don’t see why the Chief wouldn’t have a similar attitude towards the Banished. If it’s not him then why can’t the Weapon or Pilot provide this?

Because the Chief does make such judgements in Halo 5 “the Didact said that the Mantle of Responsibility was an Imperial peace, step out of line and suffer”. But the Banished are just another target that he’s indifferent to? I am not sure why the Rogue Servitor is worse than the Fanatic Militarist with purge/slavery enabled. By not criticising the Banished, like the Arbiter, it leaves the door open for fans to think of the Banished as a normal faction that hasn’t done anything bad. This is just a boxing match with Escharum. All fun and games.

It’s being pretty philosophical if you’re empathising with your enemy and saying they’re just like us whilst he dies in his arms. This is 343 dramatising his respect for the Banished and shows he doesn’t hold any strong opinions against them.

You could get away with actions speaking louder than words because he is killing Escharum and the Banished. But this scene and the emphasis 343 places on it undercuts that sentiment entirely. 343 didn’t make a breakdown about how Chief was looking to settle the score they made a video about how he had this compassion and could relate to his enemy.

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The player is very deliberately not being given the information to frame the Arbiter as a monster. The depiction makes him just a soldier doing his duty and prevent details getting in the way of his redemption arc.
Compare that to Halo 5 where you see a Guardian awaken, you see people die, flee and beg for their lives. You then see Chief accuse of Cortana of having callously done this.

the Chief does make such judgements in Halo 5 “the Didact said that the Mantle of Responsibility was an Imperial peace, step out of line and suffer”. But the Banished are just another target that he’s indifferent to? I am not sure why the Rogue Servitor is worse than the Fanatic Militarist with purge/slavery enabled.

I know that I included Cortana in my list of the enemies he’s faced, but his indifference in that case was more focused on the Warden Eternal. In Halo 5, and throughout Halo Infinite, the distinction between Cortana and the other factions is that she was his teammate once. He believed he could have dissuaded her from implementing an oppressive regime. He thought that he could have convinced her to come back to the UNSC and be his teammate again.

I don’t think he cares whether or not the Banished could have a change of mind, so he doesn’t try to make it happen. They’re nothing to him but an obstacle, whereas Cortana was his friend.

It’s being pretty philosophical if you’re empathising with your enemy and saying they’re just like us whilst he dies in his arms. This is 343 dramatising his respect for the Banished and shows he doesn’t hold any strong opinions against them.

Guess we’ll just have to wait and see whether this is important in the long run, or whether they go a different route.

As the saying goes, “plans change.”

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But it’s not just that the Chief is a bit hurt by not being able to save Cortana. I mentioned Bucke in Bad Blood earlier on. Putting such a strong emphasis on all the bad things Cortana and the Created do creates an incredibly negative impression to the player. 343 are the ones pushing that particular theme. It is a case of demonising one faction and treating the other as just a normal war; the Banished are well in their rights to fight humanity over control of Halo.

Whilst the Covenant and the Banished are depicted with relative indifference. Take how Iratus is depicted as a comic relief character whereas Leonidas was vilified throughout Bad Blood. You’re led to not take the Banished or Covenant too seriously even though what they are doing is vastly worse than anything Cortana was doing. We don’t see people screaming and being massacred by Banished troops; even Halo Wars 2 only gave a second hand account.

If we take the Season 2 blurb as read, they occupy the Galaxy and that should involve a vast amount of violence against civilians; if not open genocide. So why is that being glossed over? Surely that level of violence should be addressed by the characters.

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The Encyclopedia states that Atriox only wants revenge against Cortana, not humanity. This whole thing about blaming humanity for Cortana was just made up by fans. The Encyclopedia even mentions a new human group still working for the Banished.

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Wanting revenge and justice isn’t inherently bad. Invading a neutral country to destroy it and massacring innocent people is. Wanting to carve out an Empire is kind of suspect.

Also for a guy who isn’t about revenge he sure does surround himself with people that do and never complains when they torture and kill humans. So he’s a liar. Just because a tyrant is willing to take on the mercenaries of his former adversaries isn’t a point in his favour. It doesn’t even prove that he particularly likes them; they’re just tools for his war machine.

It’s a better story if the Chief wants revenge on Atriox and the Banished. How that’s depicted or how stoic he is comes down to presentation, is he Captain America or the Punisher; but at its core that should be the direction.

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Agreed. Revenge is a terrible motivation to force into the Banished for Halo Infinite, when they were introduced with their core ideology focusing on being practical and Atriox denouncing revenge.

At least they now specified that it is only revenge against Cortana. If it was revenge against all of humanity that would have been incredibly dumb and ruined Atriox’s entire character.

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Yeah, he’s going to be really annoyed when he finds Escharum dead and Zeta Halo filled with columns of burning Banished tanks. You definitely kill more than the Infinities crew compliment in the campaign and never mind exploring the open world. :smile:

It’s weird and it’s a problem of giving you the cliff notes to a game they didn’t make. Like there are things in the Encyclopaedia on Doisac and the Banished that are completely at odds with what we’re shown in Halo Wars 2 and Infinite.

I had thought the multiplayer story would tidy some of this up. So far it hasn’t and what it says in the intro crawl felt like it comes out of nowhere. You would think Chief would remark on the Banished occupying the Galaxy and the implication of that just aren’t being treated seriously. We see a chirpy AI not the declaration of a Galactic Empire and reports of the gravity of the danger.

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They aren’t really a galactic empire. The empire was Cortana and her Created. The Banished just seem like an empire because the UNSC is so small and weak now by comparison, thanks to Cortana. The Encyclopedia still describes them as a mercenary faction.

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The season 2 blurb seems to relate to events past those depicted in the Encyclopaedia. If the Banished are,
like we see in Shadows of Reach, occupying human colonies and using violence to subjugate them then that is an Empire. Until we see more we can’t say.

They’re not really a mercenary faction because the Banished don’t take contracts to work for money. It’s like saying the Mongols are a mercenary faction. The mercenaries like Let Volir have been bought to serve what are pretty clear political goals of the Banished. The UNSC can’t just buy the Banished. They serve Atriox, not money.

Honestly the way the Encyclopedia depicts the Created-Banished war it’s a case of them being more powerful than her. That Cortana had less forces than we all thought and it fell apart once Atriox rocked up with his fleet. For example at Zeta Halo it mentions that Atriox attacked before the Infinity shows up; so he must have been winning at that point presumably. It’s dumb.

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Until we see them described as an Empire in official material, we can’t say they are more than a large mercenary group as they’ve been officially described several times.

They weren’t occupying Reach to keep it, they were raiding and searching for a portal. They’ve also raided Brute regions, as well as other Covenant targets.

The Banished do take contracts, as they took out Lydus’ enemies in exchange for payment. The payment was shipyards and land rather than money, but payment none the less. Each mercenary in the Banished also receives some form of payment, Let 'Volir and his crew are paid in fuel and other mercenaries are described to be paid in military resources for them to deal with other conflicts outside the Banished.

The Encyclopedia and Halo Infinite both made it clear that the Banished didn’t stand a chance against Cortana’s Guardians. One of her Guardians alone chased a huge Banished force off of Reach. The only reason Atriox was able to beat her is because the UNSC already locked her down with the Weapon, it wasn’t through sheer might.

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Because a small mercenary group beating the UNSC and Cortana is dumb. Like ridiculously dumb.

The second the Clans of Doisac swore to serve Atriox, they became the Government of the Brute people. Ruled by Atriox. That’s an Empire, albeit one without a homeworld and with most of its people dead. Basically like the Quarians in Mass Effect or Battlestar Galactica; but they’re Brutes.

I am on a Cruise atm so unfortunately I can’t get my copy of the Encyclopedia. But, we see a Guardian on Zeta Halo, with it being quite possible there were more. We see that it takes a few second to cripple all of Earths defence fleet. The Banished Fleet should have been destroyed if they tried a Mass Effect 3 and threw all their ships in. The Encyclopedia says that Atriox gets real mad and then he fights Cortana and then the UNSC happen to show up. It’s really not clear how the battle goes but it’s said they had already engaged Cortanas force and begun to land troops long before Infinity arrived. The implication is that he won.

Also saying they’re just mercenaries shouldn’t be used to make out like they’re not the bad guys and we really need to kill Atriox.

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Well unfortunately the power creep of the Banished between Halo Wars 2 and Halo Infinite was kind of dumb. I agree with you there.

The Banished is not a government. A government does diplomacy, has civilians it looks after, and other stuff beyond just military. Lydus’ faction is a government as it does those things, while the Banished is 100% military with all its members being military. We know Lydus who dominated Doisac didn’t swear fealty to Atriox, as Atriox worked for him.

Halo Infinite described that the UNSC showed up to Zeta Halo first and were ambushed by the Banished. The Weapon locking down Cortana is the only reason why the Banished survived the Created presence there. What part of the Encyclopedia says the Banished beat the Created alone? I missed that part.

I agree they are the bad guys and evil. But they were established as mercenaries, the Encyclopedia continues to call them mercenaries, if they become another Empire like the Covenant that would ruin everything that makes them great.

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“## THE STORY SO FAR

Cortana’s dominion has ended, but the merciless forces of the Banished have rushed in to fill the void, decimating all who stand in their way. Spartan Commander Agryna has enlisted a new generation of Spartans and is preparing them to face the Banished—and perhaps even more dangerous foes. But a few scattered Spartans remain in the field. These Spartans are rugged and resourceful. Hunters in the dark. Lone wolves.”

Rushed to fill the void left by another Empire. Why would this mercenary faction be rampaging about the Galaxy and attacking human colonies? The actions aren’t consistent with a faction that just wants money. The things Atriox says about the Glory of the Brute race aren’t about getting the money.

Well the interesting thing for me about the Banished is how much I want them all horribly dead. :smile: I am only quibbling about this because to me saying the Banished are just mercenaries is a way of dismissing the fascist elements in the organisation and Atriox. It leaves the door open for the faction turning “good” and I don’t want that.

To go back to the original point, playing the game first time around, my take was okay this is about vengeance. Every Banished you kill, break and crush is just a road that leads to you killing Atriox in an appropriately savage manner. The thing with Escharum completely pulls the rug out from under that. To me it strongly suggests that they’re going to try to make Atriox the misunderstood poor little Brute who got his planet smashed and the focus becomes that; instead of caving his skull in with a big old rock.

The Encyclopedia doesn’t say, yeah he would have been absolutely massacred in seconds if he hadn’t lucked out and some short sighted humans hadn’t locked Cortana down. It reads as his vengeance :face_vomiting::face_vomiting::face_vomiting: made him strong and refocused him so he led all the Banished in some glorious quest.

It’s not even the Guardians. The Halo Array should have its own point defence Weapons.

I am not even sure how Chief hasn’t killed all the Banished at the rate you churn through them in the campaign. What kind of mercenary army has millions of soldiers? Unfortunately I suspect the story isnt going to acknowledge that you spanked them once Atriox shows up and we’ll be back to the unstoppable horde. :roll_eyes:

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I think the Banished are an independant army supported by almost all of the brutes in the galaxy, with lucrative and nationalist interests

The Banished couldn’t have arrived at the same time as the Infinity, so they arrived before them. I don’t know how they fought Cortana without be EMP by the Guardian, but it’s impossible they won against her. It’s only the Weapon who turn her down, then the Banished take the Halo

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