Halo 4 Rewrite

Games Other Halo
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> While I thought the plot of Halo 4 was a great effort at trying to tie together the expanded universe of Halo with the games and at creating a more “personal” Halo story with the relationship between Cortana and Chief highlighted and the Didact serving as a nemesis of sorts, I was still a bit turned off by the plot and its pacing. So instead of just whining about it, I decided to rewrite it the way I think it should’ve gone. Now the levels remain mostly the same for the most part, but I’ve added situations and conversations that would shed more light on the plot and why certain events are being done in the game. Just a warning though, this will require three sections, so hang tight as I post the rest.
>
> Enjoy.

Dawn: The game starts with Cortana taking Chief from cryo and fighting his was to the bridge. As they get to the bridge, the Elite Zealot inside is conversing with a holographic representation of Jul 'Mdama. The Zealot says there are reports of a demon inside the derelict ship and 'Mdama says to find the demon, slay it and present the corpse to him and fades away. After this encounter and fighting his way to the missile silos Cortana sheds light on the new Covenant by revealing information she gleamed from their Battle Net. She reveals that these Covenant are searching for one of their gods and they believe he is on the Forerunner world in front of them. She also reveals that they have a series of ships chanting the word “Didact”. Master Chief asks who or what a Didact is and Cortana says she’ll check the info recovered from the Ark, but then starts to glitch.

Cortana recovers for her glitching and says she came up with nothing, but that they better focus on the Covenant. Chief tries to fire one of the nukes, but it stops in the silo with a Covenant ship coming towards the Dawn with its glassing beam charging. Suddenly an orange light scans the Covenant ship and blasts it to pieces. Chief asks what happened, but Cortana doesn’t know. A few more ships are scanned and destroyed until the Dawn is scanned and the planet opens. The Dawn is sucked into the planet.

Requiem: After shifting through the wreckage of the Dawn, Chief confronts Cortana about her behavior from Dawn and she tells him about rampancy. Chief still comes to the conclusion that Halsey can fix her. Chief fights more Covenant troops down the path to the Cartogpraher, but several Covenant camps have projectors with Jul 'Mdama being projected. He attempts to justify Requiem opening for a human by saying that Forerunner technology has always acted strangely to humans, but not to falter in faith as they must now prove to the Didact that they deserve to attain the legacy of the Forerunners, not humanity. Garbled transmissions from Infinity begin to pop up and Chief and Cortana attempt to contact the Infinity repeatedly. Once they reach the end and gather the information on Requiem from the Cartographer, they encounter the Prometheans and enter a portal Cortana produces to escape.

Forerunner: Master Chief and Cortana teleport to the rocky terrain of Requiem’s interior and encounter the Prometheans and Covenant. Chief’s and Cortana’s goal is to contact the Infinity and to do this they must shut down two energy pylons scrambling the Infinity. They do this and can clearly hear the Infinity, but are unable to reply back to them to warn then not to enter Requiem. Cortana says that they must regroup with Infinity to warn them about Requiem and the Covenant’s goal and she opens a portal to their predicted destination. Before they enter, Chief notices Phantoms and Covenant cruisers going in the opposite direction and then enters the portal.

Infinity: Master Chief and Cortana phase to a mountaintop and wonder where the Infinity is before it comes out of the clouds and crashes into the jungle below. Chief trudges through the jungle and fights the Covenant and Prometheans, still not allied yet. Eventually Cortana learns from the Covenant Battle Net that UNSC troops have been captured and are intended to be used as sacrifices to the Didact when they find him to appease him. Chief manages to rescue them and meets Commander Thomas Lasky, Lasky responds with saying he never thought he’d see Chief again and Chief replies that he remembers Lasky from a mission during the early days of the Human-Covenant War. Lasky says it is just like old times. Lasky is picked up by a Pelican, but before another one for Chief and some of the Marines can pick them up it is swarmed by several Knights and crashes.

Chief and the Marines fight their way to the Infinity and encounter the Spartan-IVs and Cortana asks “Are those Spartans?”. The humans manage to get inside the Infinity and Chief uses the Mantis to clear out its passageways. Once on the top of Infinity, Chief clears the deck and turns on the defense cannons They begin to fire on incoming Covenant cruisers, destroys two and send the rest retreating.

Inside the Infinity, Master Chief is escorted to the bridge by Lasky who explains the basic origins of the Infinity, it being constructed over 20 years, it receiving every bit of Forerunner and Covenant tech that had been scavenged, some by Dr. Halsey herself. Chief asks where she is now causing Lasky to say that she is in a bit of a tight spot legally and that he can’t say much. The attention would be shifted towards the Spartan-IVs as Chief and Lasky pass by an observation window of the armor assembly and training facility for the IVs. Lasky would explain how the research and sacrifices that went into Chief and the other Spartans helped lead to the expansion of the Spartan program to include the best and most promising soldiers. Chief would notice the jump between II and IV and ask if there were S-IIIs, Lasky simply says that was still classified, even for him.

The first scene on the bridge begins Chief and Cortana asking why Infinity was nearby. Captain Del Rio and Lasky tell how Infinity’s mission was to find the rest of the Halo rings and other Forerunner installations. However, they also mention that they were tracking a mass movement of Covenant client species that would eventually become the Covenant that were orbiting Requiem in the beginning. More information would be shed on Jul 'Mdama about him being one of the most dangerous Sangheili extremists that ONI has had their eye on and that he somehow managed to craft considerable influence on his people and the other Covenant beings. Del Rio still reasons that leaving Requiem is still the priority despite Cortana and Chief bringing up that the Covenant are looking for a god by saying “If they couldn’t even open up Requiem, they won’t succeed in chasing fairy tales. Requiem can be reclaimed, Infinity cannot.”

(Part 2 Continued Below)

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spoiler much? :stuck_out_tongue:

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Part 2

Reclaimer: The objective Del Rio assigns Chief and a group of Spartan-IVs is to eliminate a series of particle cannons that stand in Infinity’s path of escape. Once the last cannon is destroyed and Chief enters the cannon command post, he doesn’t meet the Librarian. Chief is instead teleported out of the complex by Cortana. They regroup with Infinity and Cortana tells Captain Del Rio that there is increased Covenant chatter about discovering an important artifact and that they should stop them from getting it. Del Rio disagrees and orders Infinity to take off. Cortana becomes outraged and the reactions from Chief and Del Rio remain the same.

Lasky procures a souped-up Pelican for Chief and he takes off into a large hole that leads into Requiem’s core. Covenant vessels line the passage and attempt to stop him, but he gets through. Chief lands the Pelican until he gets to the room where the Cryptum is located. Cortana tells him to put her in the console found by the orb so she can control Requiem’s defenses and get them and Infinity off of the planet. He does so and as he fends off Covenant and Promethean attackers he asks Cortana to hurry up. However, Cortana changes to green and her eyes become the Iris symbols. She turns towards Chief and thanks him for getting her this far and opens the Cryptum.

Instead of the Didact residing inside, it is a different Forerunner. He reveals himself to be the Master Builder and laughs at the Master Chief for awakening him. The Prometheans finally change from blue to orange as Cortana waves her hand and secure the Chief. The Master Builder’s platform floats down towards Chief and he stands above him gloating about how such a lesser-being could makes such a mistake as to free him from imprisonment. The Master Builder notices the Covenant races bowing before him except for a lone Elite who identifies himself as Grandprophet Jul 'Mdama and he asks why he is not the Didact. The Master Builder mocks the easily influenced nature of his thinking and reveals that the Didact had lied about Requiem’s true nature and occupant to keep overly curious species away. He also says that he is here because the Didact believed he could be reformed and guide humanity on its path to the Mantle, he then calls the Didact a fool for thinking this and says that the Forerunners shall reclaim the galaxy once more even if he is the last one alive.

Suddenly, a large device rises from the bottom of the room. It has a large, glowing circle and attempts to fire on the Master Builder, but before it fires the light glows green. The Master Builder looks confused and then looks at Cortana and asks who she is. Cortana refers to herself as Mendicant Bias and that he had waited for thousands of years and traveled across the stars to free his former master, the Master Builder. Bias says that after he had betrayed the Forerunners to the Flood and now sought to atone for his sins. Master Chief realizes that when Cortana accessed the information from the Ark, she had been taken over by Mendicant Bias, Bias then confirms this.

Bias then says that the machine behind them is the Composer and that it is now in control of the Master Builder. The Master Builder them fires it on the Covenant races and turns them into ash. Master Chief is inexplicably teleported out of the room and the Master Builder confronts a shocked Jul 'Mdama. The Master Builder tells 'Mdama that he has use of him as more Promethean Knights phase into existence behind him.

Shutdown: Master Chief teleports inside of a room with a holographic representation of Requiem. A Monitor appears and projects a holographic image of another Forerunner, the Didact. The Didact informs Master Chief that a terrible evil has been unleashed causing his “genetic memory” to be awakened and assume control of Requiem. The Didact tells Chief that the Master Builder was a cruel Forerunner over 100,000 years ago and carried a bitter hatred of humanity and other lesser beings in the galaxy. Master Chief asks why, the Didact then shows images of the Human-Forerunner War. The Didact tells of how humanity had once been a greater interstellar empire than they were now, but faced the primordial form of the Flood and were decimated by it before finding a cure. In their haste, the Forerunners attacked humanity as wlel when they entered Forerunner space and de-evolved them as punishment. He then says that the Composer, the device seen behind the Master Builder in the room housing the Cryptum, was used to preserve the genetic memories of some of the defeated humans so that they could one day find the cure for the Flood. However, the Master Builder did not wish to wait and instead kidnapped de-evolved humans from the care of the Didacts wife, the Librarian, and experimented on them horrifically on his most devious creations, the Halos. He was stopped, but before he could be tried for his crimes the Flood broke through the Forerunners defenses and ravaged their people. Believing in justice to the fullest, the Didact had ordered the Master Builder sealed on Requiem in the hopes that many millennia in captivity would reform his ways or that humanity would one day be powerful enough to judge him themselves. He also reveals that the Composer was stored here in the event that he escaped prematurely, but that he did no foresee the return of Mendicant Bias.

Mendicant Bias is explained to be a powerful Forerunner intelligence that defected to the Flood, but was defeated in the closing days of the Forerunner-Flood War. However, he managed to survive and attached itself to Cortana and corrupted her. With the Composer in his hands, the Master Builder can finally purge the galaxy of the species he despises, even humanity. Chief asks how he can stop him and the Didact says that Bias is slowly taking over Requiem’s defenses, but he will help Chief as best he can, but he is dying. The Didact places his hand on Chief’s head and a light shines. Chief then finds himself onboard the Infinity.

(Part 3 Continued Below)

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Part 3

Composer: Once on the Infinity again, Master Chief tells Del Rio and Lasky everything he saw and Del Rio only wishes to arrest the Chief for desertion and disobeying orders. However, Lasky and Commander Palmer apprehend Del Rio and before being led away by Palmer, Lasky says that Del Rio has endagered the lives of everybody on the Infinity and is being temporarily being relieved of duty. Del Rio snarls that Lasky will pay for this with Lasky saying he doesn’t care. The Infinity then pursues the Composers signal and find it is being towed by four Covenant cruisers to a Covenant supercarrier. Chief tells Lasky to stay back from the Composer as it can kill everyone aboard the Infinity in one shot, so Lasky forms a team to infiltrate one of the cruisers in a Pelican and stop the towing.

Master Chief boards a Pelican with several Spartan-IVs when suddenly Promethean Knights phase inside of it. The Spartan-IVs raise their weapons, but the Chief tells them that they are friendly. They continue to stay blue. The Pelican carries them to one of the cruisers and flies off. Chief and company fight through the cruiser. They get to the bridge and before Chief manages to disengage the gravity beam towing the Composer, Cortana-Bias pops up on the console and locks him out. The Knights that accompanied Chief suddenly start to convulse and change from blue to orange. The Spartan-IVs are slayed and Chief is captured.

Midnight: Chief is brought before the Master Builder on the supercarrier as it slips into slipspace. The Master Builder gloats about how close Chief was to halting him, but that he was doomed to fail. Master Chief asks why he is trying to do with the Composer. The Master Builder explains that a grave threat is coming to the galaxy soon and that in the hands of the humans it will fall just as it almost did under the Forerunners. The Composer can digitize organic life and place it in a mechanical form, the perfect solider. The Master Builder says he intends to Compose the lesser beings in the galaxy to form an army to stop the ancient evil of “the ones who came before the Forerunners. The ones who chose you to inherit the Mantle after they attempted to exterminate us. The ones who will be stopped.”

The supercarrier exits slipspace above Earth. The Master Builder says that humanity shall be amongst the first ranks of his new army. The glassing beam has been repurposed as a focusing point for the Composer and the beam starts to Compose the area of Arizona. Suddenly the Infinity and a fleet of UNSC ships drops out of slipspace and begin to attack the supercarrier. The other cruisers engage the Infinity and fleet. In the confusion Master Chief manages to break away and escape the bridge. He fights his way through the supercarrier and then begins the hear the voice of the Didact. The Didact says that if Chief can reach the Composer and damage it enough, It should implode and destroy itself.

Chief manages to get to the Composer and gets inside of it. He destroys a series of energy conduits inside of it causing the Didact to respond that he must escape immediately. Chief finds a Ghost and drives down the supercarrier with Cortana-Bias trying to stop him every step of the way by spawning Prometheans and breaking off segments of the supercarrier itself. Eventually Chief is jettisoned into deep space on the Ghost and radios for the UNSC to pick him up. He sees the supercarrier blow apart and thinks the fight is over. The UNSC fleet and Covenant cruisers continue to fight in the background. Suddenly, a Lich picks up Chief and he finds himself in the hands of the Master Builder once more. He chokes Chief with his massive hands and curses him for further endangering the galaxy. A series of QTEs follows as Chief manages to strike the Master Builder in the face and defend further blows. Chief eventually fails and is thrown to the front of the Lich. The Master Builder concludes that with the Composer gone, the Halos may be the galaxies only remaining hope.

Cortana-Bias begins to scream and say that “she is resisting my control”. The Master Builder confronts Cortana-Bias and says to control themselves. Chief stands up and rushes the Master Builder and grapples on him. QTEs involving pounding on the head of the Master Builder result causing him stumbled to the wall. Cortana manages to speak for herself and tells Chief to put her in the Master Builder’s armor. He does this and the Master Builders armor begins to contract and crush the Master Builder. The Master Builder’s final words are “You…fool…you have -Yoink!- the galaxy.”

Master Chief recovers the chip and puts it in his helmet and calls for Cortana, but receives no answer. The remaining Covenant ships retreat and a Pelican comes to recover Chief. Back on the Infinity, Chief oversees a group of scientists working on Cortana’s chip with one coming out to tell him that she locked up the chip, probably to contain the Forerunner ancilla that had been corrupting her. The scientist says there is nothing they can do at the time. Lasky comes up to Chief and offers his sympathy to everything that has happened to him, but mentions that at least the big fight is over for now. The Didact inside of Chief tells him that Lasky is wrong and that the fighting has simply been delayed and that a far deadlier threat is on the horizon.

Master Chief begins to see the what the Didact had seen over 100,000 years ago. A capsule opens and a meritorious creature with the head that resembles a sea scorpion, four arms, two legs and a barbed tail opens its glistening black eyes and says, “We meet again, young one. I am the last of those who gave you breath and shape and form, millions of years ago. I am the last of those whose kind your kind rose up against and ruthlessly destroyed. I am the last Precursors. And our answer is at hand.”

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They should’ve hired you to write this game! I really like some aspects of this rewrite.

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> They should’ve hired you to write this game! I really like some aspects of this rewrite.

Hey man, thanks for the reply. I doubt I’m legit game writer development material, but I’m glad you enjoyed the rewrite.

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I was really upset when the ending didn’t really lead up to anything. It was a very downward spiral at the end of the game, no cliffhanger like I thought there would be. Then I read this, and I was like “OHHH CLIFFHANGER WOOT!!”.

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Im not gonna lie, i didnt read everything, but i do not like the name “Master Builder”. Ugh, something about that name just sounds wrong other than that your quite talented:)

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> I was really upset when the ending didn’t really lead up to anything. It was a very downward spiral at the end of the game, no cliffhanger like I thought there would be. Then I read this, and I was like “OHHH CLIFFHANGER WOOT!!”.

Yeah I have a feeling Spartan Ops is supposed to serve as a sort of “playable cliffhanger”, but the game didn’t really lead or foreshadow something bigger.

> Im not gonna lie, i didnt read everything, but i do not like the name “Master Builder”. Ugh, something about that name just sounds wrong other than that your quite talented:)

Understandable, I just think it’d be better than his real name, Faber.

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As much as I like Halo 4s actually story , and feel 343 did a great job with the struggle of trying to tie all the backstory … I find myself much favouring your edit Cobra .

As a fan of the lure , it feels so much more fitting with the didacts character development through the first two novels of the Forerunner saga , and not such an unexplained shift that’s present in 4 ( which we all hope Silentium will explain ) .

I think your version has a better dynamic , and depth , and gives the story more urgency , mystery , and continuity with the introduction of the Precursors . All in all , more expansive than 343s version.

And the direct link with the Captives last words from Cryptum was ingenious and would’ve made for a far better Legendary ending than the 3 second Master Chief eye reveal .

Kudos Spartan , Kudos . To quote Carter - " And that’s how we get It done Spartans " .

I really hope you’ll find the time to write a Halo 5 predict … :slight_smile:

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Nice

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> As much as I like Halo 4s actually story , and feel 343 did a great job with the struggle of trying to tie all the backstory … I find myself much favouring your edit Cobra .
>
> As a fan of the lure , it feels so much more fitting with the didacts character development through the first two novels of the Forerunner saga , and not such an unexplained shift that’s present in 4 ( which we all hope Silentium will explain ) .
>
> I think your version has a better dynamic , and depth , and gives the story more urgency , mystery , and continuity with the introduction of the Precursors . All in all , more expansive than 343s version.
>
> And the direct link with the Captives last words from Cryptum was ingenious and would’ve made for a far better Legendary ending than the 3 second Master Chief eye reveal .
>
> Kudos Spartan , Kudos . To quote Carter - " And that’s how we get It done Spartans " .
>
> I really hope you’ll find the time to write a Halo 5 predict … :slight_smile:

Thanks, glad you enjoyed it. As for the Halo 5 predict…well I’ve been planning a little something to continue my Halo 4 script.

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Excellent write up , indeed you probably would have made Halo one of the best games this gen Have you had the chance to write.

But Im curious, Why did you go for the Master Builder instead of the Didact?

Also would the first mission be bad if rather than it taking place on the dawn it took place inside a covenent capital ship and chief ended up crashing on Reqium on an escape pod or a covernent drop pod?

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While I appluad the attempt. This would cause even more confusion than Halo 4 original story. Adding more characters=/= depth. It only adds more confusion. Not everyone in the Halo audience takes the time to go and read all the books and supplement material.

This is like a Michael Bay version of Halo with a souped up this and a souped up that and more LAZERS.

Going with cannon:

  1. Medicant Bias was from Halo 2 and somehow cannot be Cortana and probably at this point would cease to exist after atoning from rampancy.

  2. Going inside the composer? It’s a weapon that was on the didacts ship.

3.Master Builder is not a person but a rank so a better character would be needed and the only forerunner somehow alive is the Librarian. Having Jul 'Mdama would added more character within the game but this game is about Chief/Cortana.

> I was really upset when the ending didn’t really lead up to anything. It was a very downward spiral at the end of the game, no cliffhanger like I thought there would be. Then I read this, and I was like “OHHH CLIFFHANGER WOOT!!”.

You wanted a cliffhanger? A crazy M. Night Shamaylan twist was not needed and it just wouldn’t make sense with Master Chief. The guy was in cryo sleep for a few years woke up and raged. Then he lost Cortana(for the time being?!). He finally gets some reprieve and take off his armor for the first time several years.

Yes there was no big reveal but there are several cliffhanger questions. I.E. What does the Didact have planned next? What’s up with Cortana? What’s the deal with the Librarian?

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> While I appluad the attempt. This would cause even more confusion than Halo 4 original story. Adding more characters=/= depth. It only adds more confusion. Not everyone in the Halo audience takes the time to go and read all the books and supplement material.

Really I thought he did it quite well,he introduced new characters in an organic way as to make people interested in the back story while at the same time offering enough information to help the plot along.And I think 343 could learn a thing or 2 from that.

> This is like a Michael Bay version of Halo with a souped up this and a souped up that and more LAZERS.

Could you please explain this because so far as I have read ,the emotional core of Halo 4 is still well preserved within his story(Its not perfect but hey Halo 4 wasnt aswell.) but instead he taking advantage of the pre-built universe to set the stage for Chiefs and Cortana’s story.

> 3.Master Builder is not a person but a rank so a better character would be needed and the only forerunner somehow alive is the Librarian. Having Jul 'Mdama would added more character within the game but this game is about Chief/Cortana.

Having Jul’mdama in atleast one cutscene would have cleared up why the covenent are on Reqium . This may be Cortana’s and Chiefs story but the covenent play a massive role in it.

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> While I appluad the attempt. This would cause even more confusion than Halo 4 original story. Adding more characters=/= depth. It only adds more confusion. Not everyone in the Halo audience takes the time to go and read all the books and supplement material.

Understandable. It is why I added as much info and backstory within the characters dialogue as I could. No doubt Terminals would help and if I were to make them, I’d use the story from Cryptum and Primordium to provide more backstory for the characters and events, not explain everything.

> This is like a Michael Bay version of Halo with a souped up this and a souped up that and more LAZERS.

An interesting comparison.

> Going with cannon:
> 1. Medicant Bias was from Halo 2 and somehow cannot be Cortana and probably at this point would cease to exist after atoning from rampancy.

Well I never said Cortana was Mendicant Bias, but that Bias hopped on and corrupted Cortana as she accessed data from the Ark to learn about who or what the Didact was. He was in the Terminals in Halo 3, so it would be likely for him to jump aboard.

> 2. Going inside the composer? It’s a weapon that was on the didacts ship.

Yes, but it was a very massive object as the mission Composer showed, no reason it cannot be accessed from the inside.

> 3.Master Builder is not a person but a rank so a better character would be needed and the only forerunner somehow alive is the Librarian. Having Jul 'Mdama would added more character within the game but this game is about Chief/Cortana.

I use Master Builder because his actual name, Faber, doesn’t really sound all too menacing. The Librarian being the only Forerunner alive would be different in the rewrite, after all it doesn’t follow ALL of the events we saw, hence it being a rewrite. And sure, it is the story between Chief and Cortana, but I don’t think the core of that story was excised in my rewrite.

> You wanted a cliffhanger? A crazy M. Night Shamaylan twist was not needed and it just wouldn’t make sense with Master Chief. The guy was in cryo sleep for a few years woke up and raged. Then he lost Cortana(for the time being?!). He finally gets some reprieve and take off his armor for the first time several years.
>
> Yes there was no big reveal but there are several cliffhanger questions. I.E. What does the Didact have planned next? What’s up with Cortana? What’s the deal with the Librarian?

It doesn’t have to be a weird twist, just a warning for more things to come. The Primordials words at the end bring up a sense of mystery and the Master Builders, and I think perhaps the Didacts in the actual Halo 4, were all building up to it anyway.

Great criticism though.

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I read your entire script, or story outline. I guess I am in the minority when I confess that I am not really a fan of your rewrite. You made an awesome show of commitment and effort, but I don’t think that what you presented is better than the existing narrative of Halo 4 (which I will admit I adored).

Over Explanation for the Shake of Over Explanation

The thing you have to remember about visual media is that it is made for telling a story. You present a plot and your goal is to resolve it using information that is required to make the plot understandable. For example, your rewrite has Laskey go into a huge amount of detail about two pretty simple concepts Infinity and the Spartan-IV’s.

You don’t need to know all of the history about the Infinity to understand what it is. All you need to know is how it found Requiem and why it is there, which Halo 4 does a brilliant job of explaining. The Spartans are a simple concept to understand as well, and if you’ve played Halo: Reach, then you understand that there are plenty of Spartans out there.

Putting in so much history doesn’t do anyone any good. It just makes your cut scenes and dialogue longer and it alienates fans of the series who just want to kick -Yoink- as the Master Chief. Also it takes all the fun out of reading the books.

If you disagree, think about Halo CE, the whole first scene is confusing as hell when you really think about it. You don’t know why the Pillar of Autumn is randomly floating outside of the Halo. You don’t know who the aliens are and why they are trying to kill you. You don’t even know that the Master Chief is a human.

Your Villains

For this section I’m going to split it up between the various antagonists

The Covenant: I will agree that if you haven’t read the Thursday War, the Covenant’s role is hard to understand, but I feel like all of that is cleared up by the time you get to the end of the third level in the actual Halo 4. Obviously they worship the Forerunners (we’ve know that for 6 games), so when a Forerunner presents itself it would make sense that the Covenant would follow his lead. If you are still confused about the Covenant, then watch the prologue terminal video or follow Spartan Ops. They both do a wonderful job at explaining it. Your narrative suffers because you present an enemies with very clear goals and then you discard them right away. At least in Halo 4’s main narrative, they continue to serve an important role.

Mendicant Bias: This was a really weird part of your rewrite and it made me groan a little bit when I read it. It seems to me like you are replacing a simple explanation for a complex one. Rampancy makes sense. It’s easy to explain and it doesn’t require using a character that only a few people know about. Furthermore, Mendicant Bias doesn’t serve a vastly different role in your narrative than Rampant Cortana does in Halo 4’s narrative, so why change it?

The Master Builder: To get nerdy and technical for a second, the Master Builder being in charge doesn’t make sense. Prometheans are of the warrior servant class, so the Builders don’t have any control over them. They even state multiple times in Cryptum and Primordium that all of the Master Builder’s forces were made up of Builders. Beyond that, it seems like another unnecessary change.

If you’re trying to explain away the narrative conflict that Halo 4 has with the Forerunner saga, you aren’t doing a great job because the Master Builder is dead. If you’re doing it because the Forerunner sage presents the Didact as a good guy and the Master Builder as a bad guy, you’re still not fixing anything because the books state so many times that the Didact hates humans. It all goes back to over complication and over explanation. The motivations behind the Didact’s actions make sense when you listen to the Librarian. For further details all you have to do is watch the terminals. You may not completely understand WHAT the Didact is doing, but you understand why he would be doing it. I feel like it takes far more effort to explain why the Master Builder has his motivations, and it would be even harder to balance that out with existing Forerunner history.

Just to put a final nail in the coffin, the Didact seems to be serving the role of the Librarian while the Master Builder seems to be serving the role of the Didact. Why use a brand new character when you can use two characters that have pretty substantial backstories and are important to the existing Halo lore? The Master Builder doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things.

The Composer: I’m going to touch on this quickly because it is 2:30 am and I have one final section to write. I didn’t have a big problem with what you did with the composer, I just think that the impact of the New Phoenix Incident is greatly reduced without the Composer Level. I won’t go into much detail, but I will elaborate if you wish.

An Epic Plot vs. An EmotionL Plot

For all the Forerunnerness and Spartans and such, Halo 4 is a deeply personal story involving the Chief and Cortana. The plot is so much more grounded than every other Halo game (except maybe ODST). By the time I got to the end, I was sad and I understood why the Chief felt the way that he did. I don’t like your plot because it neglects this personal story in favor of a more grandiose one.

I love video games, and I love science fiction, but I think that we’ve gotten to a point in both where it’s time we stop trying to deliver large set pieces, complicated history, and big explosions and we start trying to make characters like the Master Chief more relatable and more human. So many Halo fans are scoffing at 343 for this, but I wish I could thank them. Halo 4 broke the mold of what we expect from Halo. It offered a science fiction plot that was easy to digest and that took a backseat to character development. You don’t need convoluted plot and big explosions to tell a good story.

Everyone says they wanted a cool cliffhanger, but Halo 4 already has a few. What was the Didact doing doing what he was doing? Where happened to Cortana? What did the Composer do to New Phoenix? And most importantly what is the Ancient Evil (because it isn’t the Didact)? Lucky for us, Spartan Ops will continue to fill in pieces of the puzzle at least for the next five weeks (maybe more).

Just to conclude…

I don’t mean to come off like a jerk or to offend you. I’m really impressed with what you did and I wish more fans would show their scripts. I hope to keep seeing you around the forums, thanks for giving me some cool things to think about :slight_smile:

18

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I appreciate the negative criticism and I am sorry you did not enjoy the rewrite. With that said, your points are all valid. What I like in a story differs from what other like. I suppose I am just the kind of person who enjoys a detailed story, otherwise it just raises too many questions. An example of a story leaving the right amount of questions would be the Forerunner Saga.

I’ll admit that just like 343i I was perhaps too vague on the reader (player) and tried to expose too much info in a short time. Do keep in mind though that had I actually made the game, the Terminals would’ve shed some light on things and mostly would’ve followed the path of the Forerunner Saga. I do understand that it sort of removes the fun of reading the Saga, but I felt that the Terminals in Halo 4 made the Saga itself too confusing for my tastes.

To clear up the Knights following the Master Builder, Bias took them over. I wanted to change their color to green to reflect that, but I didn’t want to change that.

Thanks.

19

Nice to see you back online Cobra (you may recognise me by my old name red head 535). Yes, I do agree with a majority of the new script and that disturbs me. It disturbs me that one lone fan can beat a team of script writers at 343 industries. Pathetic.

Well done.

20

Nice work. You really need to do this for the Halo 2 and Halo 3 because they were some of the worst told stories. Confusion on where you were at several points in the games. Reach suffered from the same problem of not enough exposition on what was going on during several points in the game. I think halo 4 did much better with setting scenes than any previous halo game.