H5 CAMPAIGN: (1) HOW TO HUNT THE TRUTH [SPOILERS]

Games Halo 5: Guardians
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Spot the lies, then “Hunt the Truth in Halo 5, where the truth is never what it seems”

Do you like solving mysteries? If yes, this is for you. If you’re more like Buck and “love being an ODST, point and shoot, none of this gray area BS”, this may not be quite your type of thing. At some point, I’ll put up a summary of the main ideas of the hidden story for those who just want the main ideas.

Halo 5 Story Type

Halo 5 has a “surface story” (which you probably all know by now), and underneath it, a hidden story - a Mystery to solve called “Hunt the Truth”. Okay, 343 didn’t include an obvious instruction booklet, but they did say “Hunt the Truth” enough times (which did suggest there were lies in the game, maybe even a big ONI cover-up). They also helpfully hid some guides and lots of clues in the Campaign, with some more clues in the trailers. Some are easy clues, though some are much harder to get.

You can solve Halo 5’s main Mystery in-game without wider Lore, but Lore can add more information and the right bits of Lore, can add even greater depth to the story. Trust me when I say it does and will all make sense. It’s worth the effort, and the outcome is stunning!

Now you know this, I hope you will feel more confident that you were always on the right track when you questioned the story. It’s not 343’s plot that’s “poor”, it’s that “surface story” that’s “full of plotholes”, mainly because of the lies in it. Compare the Locke and Master Chief Trailers (see YouTube). Locke makes statements (like the player who’s tricked into believing the “surface story” and its lies), but Chief asks question after question. So, if you’re asking questions, you’ve stopped playing like Locke, and are starting to play the game like Master Chief! As the TV Trailer says, “When he recruits others to join him…”, do you want to join Blue Team to help Chief “Hunt the Truth”? You do? :smiley:

Tips

The Cortana Mystery - The Central Mystery in Halo 5

In Halo 5, we meet an AI claiming to be “Cortana”, which raises an obvious question.

Did Cortana survive Halo 4? There’s two basic answers, yes or no, so we have two characters:

Locke’s point of view “Yes! Cortana is alive, on Genesis, leading an AI Revolution, and launching the Guardians”. (This is Locke’s Visor viewpoint).

Chief’s point of view “No! I watched her die! It can’t be Cortana! Can it? Oh, but wait! What if she is?”. Yes, Chief is fairly certain Cortana is dead, but he has doubts, and this is what drives him to find out, just like we need to. (This is Chief’s Visor viewpoint).

What are the possible outcomes?

(a) If Locke is right - the “surface story” is all true, and Cortana is behind the AI Revolution and the Guardians.

(b) if Chief is right - she’s a fake, so who is behind this plot?

(c) if they’re both right - someone has resurrected Cortana, but have they reprogrammed her, or are they controlling her somehow, and who is behind this plot?

(d) if they’re both wrong - that’s not Cortana on Genesis, but nor is the real Cortana dead! But who is behind faking Cortana, controlling the AI’s and Guardians?

Unless the surface story (a) is true, then in all the other answers (b) to (d) one theme emerges - Cortana is being framed to cover-up someone else’s plot to grab the Mantle and rule the galaxy!

Chief’s Character Development

As you “Hunt the Truth” about Cortana, imagine what effect any of the last three answers above will be having on Chief. On top of everything else they did together, he believes he watched Cortana die saving him and the world at the end of Halo 4. If he now finds out someone is covering up their plot not only by trying to frame him, but also by framing his dead best friend Cortana…

Round Up The Usual Suspects!

If there is a deeper hidden plot, then who could be behind it all? In Halo 4 and the Lore afterwards, after the Didact revealed the Mantle of Responsibility and was then taken out of the way as he treid to claim it for himself, the main battle for the Mantle was between ONI and Jul Mdama’s Covenant. Did one of them finally succeed, or has someone beaten them to it? Even within ONI, it could even be ONI Rogue Agents, or Covenant double-agents within ONI. But there are still other suspects on the list, including the Didact, Colonial Rebels, or even the Flood.

Hopefully this will make more sense as you play the missions in Halo 5, as you see the battles between ONI and the Covenant in a race for the Guardians and the Mantle.

Good Hunting, Spartans!

The clues and answers are all in there, somewhere. Use what you see and hear and the Intel to rule out the false leads and lies, and find out the truth about what really happened to Cortana, if she survived Halo 4 or not, and if she did, is she being controlled, or has she been replaced by a “Cortana Mk.2” look-alike? As well as Chief, is Cortana also being framed to cover up someone’s devious plot to grab the Mantle?

Spot the lies, then “Hunt the Truth in Halo 5, where the truth is never what it seems”?

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“Hunt the Truth in Halo 5, where the truth is never what it seems.”

Halo 5 contains a “surface story” (the story we all end up thinking Halo 5 is about when we first play it), on top of a hidden Mystery Story called “Hunt the Truth”. This means finding out what is really going on behind the scenes in the “surface story”. But how to find the main hidden story? Is there a guide or map? Yes. Sort of…

Play Glassed. Exit the Space Elevator, turn right, and go through the Security Gate, and walk where it points you, straight at a large computer screen, and below it, many smaller screens on the lower panel.

You see in front of you the Key to Halo 5’s Mystery Story “Hunt The Truth”. This is the “Master Map” of the entire Halo 5 plot!

Okay, it’s in all symbols and codes, and you’ll have to work out what they mean, and as you play the story and work out the pieces, you’ll see it is a guide to the entire plot, how it fits together, and even how some of the Trailers fit in with the story! The Trailers are clues to the hidden “Hunt the Truth” story, but as “Teaser Trailers” (not gameplay, nor to be taken too literally at this point), they paint pictures in broad brush-strokes of “Something, somewhere around this kind of story…”. Finding the answers in the game reveals answers to how to understand more things in the trailers, and the trailers contain clues which help you spot certan other ideas in the story. I’ll share a few tips here about the Map.

Standing far enough back, see on the lower panel, there are three graphs left, middle and right, the right side one being both the of the others together. Notice that in both the graph and the story, after it starts, “the plot thickens” rapidly! The upper graph shows dots (information, and ideas in the game), with certain points picked out and numbered (culd be pieces of Intel or things said or seen in the game). Below this is a graph made of lines. Yes, you “join the dots” in the upper graph to make the threads of the plot. There’s one big story (the whole graph pattern), and alongside that are lots of other little threads which are the effects or consequences of the plot. Join the right dots, and the whole hidden story will start to appear.

The graphs are also colour-coded. Look at the upper panel. Anything look familiar? The colours are the Visor colours of Locke and Chief. Look at the ship on the top right. Because there are two versions of the story, one based on Locke’s point of view (Locke’s Visor, Blue, what Locke sees, hears and is told), and a variation being Master Chief’s point of view (Chief’s Visor, Gold/Yellow). Because Chief is the Hero of Halo 5, the “Truth” for which we are “hunting” is “Pure Gold”! This map shows that the “surface storyline” needs “correcting” as it were, to remove the lies that Locke has been led to believe, and add extra information: this will create a different explanation for everything, and reveal the whole, real “Truth” of Halo 5’s hidden plot.

So, in the diagram, what does a spaceship and elevator have in common? They are both “machinery or equipment” which “elevate, ascend, or rise upwards”. What could “machines” which “rise up” have to do with the plot of Halo 5?

Yes, the whole “Rise of the Machines” AI Revolution is being faked as a cover-up for the hidden plot.

Is that Cortana or not? And who is behind the plot controlling the AI’s and the Guardians? Who really wants to hold the Mantle? And if Cortana is being controlled, or if she’s not the real Cortana after all, then who is trying to cover it all up by framing both Master Chief and Cortana?

Halo 5 could have so many suspects. The Didact? The Covenant? The Flood? ONI? Rogue Agents within ONI? Covenant double-agents within ONI? A new and unseen enemy? “I don’t like how many times you said ONI or the Covenant…” :wink:

Welcome to “Halo 5: Hunt the Truth”!

Here we see how the Trailers start to fit in, and how “The hidden story is something like this…”. Look at the TV trailer again (below). If Chief is being framed to cover up that ONI are really behind the Guardians and the AI Revolution, it brings a whole new meaning to the phrase “the Created vs. their Creators”. We hear ONI lying to Locke about why they’re really sending him to stop the Chief, even as we see Master Chief and Blue Team trying to save people by fighting to stop ONI’s Guardians…

Turning Spartan against Spartan: in Halo 5, has the brewing ONI vs. UNSC War finally begun?
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What?? I’m so confused

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I DR HALSEY I I think your replacement just came in.

On topic: good analysis op, I’m gonna finish reading later. But I’m kind of a mix between being like buck and being an investigator.

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nice view to the campain, this was made in halo very well, there are still mistakes fromn my side: -i dont like lokce he is such a flat character whcih creats to intension to follow him
-A lot of people complain about that they HAVE to know the extended lore to understand the story. But with in a franchise that extends more and more, You cant avoid that a lot of characters will have their background

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Us: 1
Truth: 0

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> 2535466834539387;2:
> Halo 5 could have so many suspects. The Didact? The Covenant? The Flood? ONI? Rogue Agents within ONI? Covenant double-agents within ONI? A new and unseen enemy? “I don’t like how many times you said ONI or the Covenant…” :wink:

Space Illuminati confirmed?

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Clearly OP is Brian Reed trying desperately to salvage his reputation that’s been in the gutter ever since this campaign travesty was released. No, there’s no way any amount of mental gymnastics and “hunt the truth” conspiracy theory will save this game’s campaign. It’s canon now, and will have to be drastically fixed and hopefully retconned in the next installment.

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This is very good way at looking at the campaign. I’m going with a separate option though. My bets are that this is a rouge fragment of Cortana that happened to transported to Genesis. Either that or someone is controlling her. Either way I do think there is something more going on.

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> 2533274973807619;9:
> This is very good way at looking at the campaign. I’m going with a separate option though. My bets are that this is a rouge fragment of Cortana that happened to transported to Genesis. Either that or someone is controlling her. Either way I do think there is something more going on.

I can agree with this. There’s gotta be something else to this.

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> 2535466834539387;1:
> Chief’s point of view “No! I watched her die! It can’t be Cortana! Can it? Oh, but wait! What if she is?”. Yes, Chief is fairly certain Cortana is dead, but he has doubts, and this is what drives him to find out, just like we need to. (This is Chief’s Visor viewpoint).

It is? Because he clearly treats her like the real deal, and even is the one who helps explain the forum retcon of the Mantle’s Approach’s escape.