Hey everyone, I’ve been in the Halo scene since Halo 2’s release and played every game religiously since then but I never paid attention the way some people do like I have seen with the Infinite trailer breakdowns. So I thought it would be a good time to get into the lore and canon of the series. I know what the games have taught but nothing else beyond that. I know there’s a ton of books too and was hoping someone could help me get started on this.
Just not really sure where to start to learn everything. I’m guessing just start with The Fall of Reach book and keep on going?
Thanks
There is s forum with all the books in order but I highly recommend audible so you can listen to the books. It’s more engaging in my opinion
Yeah, starting off with The Fall of Reach is probably the best way to do it. Go through the novels in release order, though I’d recommend reading the Definitive Editions of the books for which they are available. You can try chronological order but I wouldn’t recommend it. Here’s a list of all Halo media out there if you want to take a look. Also, Halopedia is a good resource for information, though do keep in mind that sometimes it does add a little bit of fan speculation.
The Fall of Reach is the perfect entry point. That will naturally lead you into The Flood (which I personally skipped), First Strike and Ghosts of Onyx. By then you’ll have a grasp for the story and know what to go for. Contact Harvest is a favorite of mine, and certainly the Forerunner Saga. Kilo 5, though very controversial, has some fantastoc dialogue and psychology (excluding chapters that discuss Halsey, which is where that book becomes tough to chew on).
But yeah, let’s not confuse you unnecessarily OP. Absolutely start with TFOR. That book was actually the first publish entry of the Halo Universe (preceding Combat Evolved by a whole month, IIRC) and for good reason. It’s the perfect entry point for the series and also happens to be one of the best in EU.
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> Hey everyone, I’ve been in the Halo scene since Halo 2’s release and played every game religiously since then but I never paid attention the way some people do like I have seen with the Infinite trailer breakdowns. So I thought it would be a good time to get into the lore and canon of the series. I know what the games have taught but nothing else beyond that. I know there’s a ton of books too and was hoping someone could help me get started on this.
>
> Just not really sure where to start to learn everything. I’m guessing just start with The Fall of Reach book and keep on going?
>
> Thanks
Personally I’d start with Contact Harvest, but whichever - give all of the UNSC-centred books a read in lore-chronological order and you’ll be squared up (with the possible exception of The Flood).
if you want a general idea up to halo wars 2 I recommend the halo mythos story guide that came out in late 2016
Here’s a link to wikipedia’s List of Halo Media page. Looks reasonably complete, though it most certainly does not represent everything. I recommend taking this stuff in publication order, so what you ought to do is form a list of things in order of release. Might seem like a huge hassle, but it becomes a lot easier if you use Ctrl-F to highlight and find “2001,” “2002,” “2003,” etc., and then you’re just comparing months between like two, maybe three things for each year.
There are still other resources you may find interesting, besides what’s on that page. I recommend googling these, or searching them on Halopedia.
- Data drops. Some from 2010 to address Reach, and there are a regular flow of them from 2016 and onward that touch on a lot of different topics. - Halo 4 and Halo 5 ARGs, basically marketing for those games. Not much to them, but hey. 2012 and 2015 respectively. - Hunt the Truth. It’s a radio drama. Or a podcast drama, I guess. 2015. - Commercials. Generally from the year the games release. From Halo 3 onward the live action ones are canon, as far as I know. - Fleet Battles. It’s a miniatures tabletop game that came out just before Halo 5 in 2015, has lore about ships and minor figures. - Rise of Atriox is a comic series that came out late last year, early this year. Dunno why it’s not on the Wikipedia page. - Waypoint. There’s just a ton of weird ways that canon info comes from 343 Industries on this site. News posts, their faux-canon forum account Catalog, the articles in the Universe section. The extra videos and texts that accompanied Nightfall through the Waypoint app on the Xbox One. Good luck sorting through that.That should cover it, I think. I’ve likely missed something, either assuming it’s on the linked list or simply spacing out. There’s a lot of Halo canon.