Halo 4, the 2550s, and World War Two

Community Halo Universe
1

Just a theory I’ve been thinking about for the past couple of days.

There’ve been a few comments on here (including from me) basically arguing it’s pretty unrealistic for the UNSC to go from the edge of utter collapse to the most powerful force in the galaxy in less than five years. For others, though, this isn’t at all a problem.

Could this be perhaps because of different perspectives, due to the massive influence of the Second World War? From the American perspective, the idea of emerging as the world’s greatest power after a major conflict isn’t at all an unfamiliar one; it’s exactly what happened after the Second World War. 343 and their primarily American audience can therefore well relate to the idea of the super-powered UNSC of 2557.

But from the British perspective (from which I write), the idea seems odd: the British Empire took on a heavy battering from WW2, with cities in ruins and colonies occupied, which only added fuel to the fire of already simmering independence movements. After 1945, despite emerging victorious, Britain was never really the same again, and arguably only in the 1980s was there any sort of end to the national decline that the effort of war had started.

I’d argue that the position of the UNSC in 2553 should be much more akin to the British one in 1945 than the American one: battered, bruised, and facing extremely serious problems and difficult choices in the years to come. Instead, though, the UNSC seems to resemble much more strongly the United States in the late 1940s, a nation which had suffered far less than pretty much any other major combatant in the Second World War.

Perhaps badly explained, so to summarise: should the UNSC of the 2550s resemble more bloodied and half-broken Britain, or the mighty and triumphant United States of America?

What do others think of this train of thought?

2

It’s mostly propaganda. The Infinity is the only thing we have keeping us dominant.

We have to deal with the Insurrection, Covenant Splinter Factions, Resource shortages, and overcrowding.

3

If no one can argue against this great!

Someone will but I’d like to see this continuity error be explained and this is good enough for me.

4

It should be in worse shape than post WWII Britain actually. Most of the outter colonies were glassed or became independant, and the inner colonies (especially Earth) relied heavily on the outter colonies for both agriculture and resources.

The post war UNSC should be in extremely dire straights, potentially on the brink of collapse.

As for your theory as to why things are the way they are in the Haloverse, im not sure. Its rather illogical for the UNSC to have bounced back as quickly as they did, and id really like to think that the people in charge of the franchise arent working from such a ridiculous viewpoint.

5

Yeah… I hadn’t thought about that… What about all those refugees from covenant destroyed worlds? And so many people died in the war, too.

You gotta admit though, that isn’t as interesting of a story as LOOK WE’VE GOT A BIG SPAAAACESHIIIIIP!!! They wanted something new. I can see why 343 didn’t expound on this but I hope they do in a later book/game/TV show.

6

Definitely Britain in this example. The only battle in WW2 that took place on U.S. soil was Pearl Harbor, while the rest of the country was untouched. This is in stark contrast to the UNSC, whose colonies were almost all glassed and the only major UNSC planet left was Earth, which had been occupied by the Covenant in 2552. If anything, the UNSC should be in worse shape than Britain was.

7

the Post-war UNSC should be like Great Britain.
I, for one have a personal rant about this. About the way Marines are just treated as ‘cannon fodder’ in game missions and cutscenes.
Every marine or Spartan IV’s death should be taken into great consideration and as a loss of a valuable asset. Considering the fragile condition the UNSC is in post war times, they should need every Veteran Marine and Army Trooper who have survived the Great War, such valued officers we see getting slaughtered on a distant non-important foriegn world for no important reason
Even in gameplay, emphasis should be placed on the survivibility of marine ally units. I don’ care if they give them 3 times the health of normal marine units, but they make them intelligent enough, that when in a Firefight, they should duck more often and provide quite less secondary firepower when not needed, so as to keep themselves alive.

8

Humanity only appears to have recovered because of the Infinity, and the fact that we really don’t see Earth. In Glasslands, we do get a glimpse of the destruction the planet underwent. I would also point out that a couple Human colonies went untouched by the Human-Covenant war (and I’m not talking about Venezia). So, while Earth was devastated, some of UNSC space was untouched.

9

Humanity certainly should, and technically is, more like Britain.

Its more of an illusion that Humanity is so great, propaganda, as people have mentioned.

Infinity. Infinity makes Humanity seem so much better, and its even made Humanity think they are so much better. But you can’t forget Infinity took 20 years to build, and was upgraded because Humanity got lucky with Onyx and some Engineers. Also lucky the Covenant, particularly the Elites, aren’t faring so good (though thats a different discussion).
The Infinity Intro (Multiplayer) has a speech by Captain Lasky about Humanity. “We are the giants now” he says. In a way… this is true. Infinity rivals anything the Covenant currently can throw at us, and Humanity ia coming out strong technologically. But Infinity is covering it all up.

All of Humanity coming out so awesome is coming from Infinity. Infinity is hiding more of the true condition.

For example, the fleet. The UNSC Navy was devastated and extremely reduced.
From what we’ve seen, Humanity has rebuilt quite alot of their navy. This is an illusion. We have pulled a ton of ships, mainly Halcyon Cruisers, out of storage. Some likely upgraded like the Autumn, but still an old ship. We have redesigned the Frigates to be somewhat more structurally stable (from appearance, they look more sturdy than past variants) and are mass producing variants of those. Our Navy is still deep in the stage of rebuilding, but the shiny Forerunner/Covie upgrades hides that.

The ground forces. ONI threw a ton of money into a new Spartan project, creating hundreds of new “Spartans”. Spartans automatically makes it look like the army is doing great. But you have to remember these are just marines and ODSTs given drugs to be bigger and a little stronger, and then equipped with Gen 2 armor. The Gen 2 armor is probably somewhat downgraded so its not as dangerous to wearers, less time and money on augmentations. But again, it hides behind technology. Shielding, Armor Abilities, and a lot of smaller upgrades.

Then look at things like weapons and vehicles. Not much has changed, mainly just appearances and some slight technological upgrades.
Humanity is desperately trying to grab new colonies. They are trying to hold off a new Insurrection and Covenant remnants. ONI is pushing so much budget into the Spartans and Infinity, you can imagine rebuilding efforts are being neglected.

Humanity is hiding behind luck and technology, luck of finding technology. Infinity. Take that away and Humanity is quite frail and damaged still. We’ve put band--Yoink!- on but our wounds haven’t healed much at all.

We just have to hope our wounds heal enough before someone exploits our weaknesses and takes the bandages off.

10

The sangheili were likely down enough, kicked by ONI, so that humanity has the confidence to rest and rebuild. Lets not forget that they have huragoks and better technology. Erosion and Daybreak are both set on planets which will be colonized by human refuges and all.

In halo wars, concepts showed that since harvest was glassed and all, colonies had to find ways of feeding themselves.

Earth’s feature is still fraught with the chance of peril, with civil unrest, a new covenant fomenting and the chance of the didact’s survival.

A lot of colonies were skipped by the covies though.

11

> There’ve been a few comments on here (including from me) basically arguing it’s pretty unrealistic for the UNSC to go from the edge of utter collapse to the most powerful force in the galaxy in less than five years. For others, though, this isn’t at all a problem.
>
> Could this be perhaps because of different perspectives, due to the massive influence of the Second World War? From the American perspective, the idea of emerging as the world’s greatest power after a major conflict isn’t at all an unfamiliar one; it’s exactly what happened after the Second World War. 343 and their primarily American audience can therefore well relate to the idea of the super-powered UNSC of 2557.
>
> But from the British perspective (from which I write), the idea seems odd: the British Empire took on a heavy battering from WW2, with cities in ruins and colonies occupied, which only added fuel to the fire of already simmering independence movements. After 1945, despite emerging victorious, Britain was never really the same again, and arguably only in the 1980s was there any sort of end to the national decline that the effort of war had started.

I doubt it, personally. I don’t think that that period of history is strongly influencing enough now to alter peoples perceptions of where the UNSC should be a decade after such a war. Probably immediately after WWII there would be differences on what is an acceptable level of realistic portrayal after a very costly war, but being almost 70 years ago I doubt that it’s still having that kind of effect. None of us know (Except people well learned in history) what it was like to live in a society shattered by war, and likewise none of us know what it is like to live in a society where we triumphed with very little loss in a war of that calibre.

When I thought of how silly the UNSC’s rise and attitude was I didn’t first think of Britain’s state post WWII or use that as any sort of reference. I just thought about it in the context of the fiction only; what the UNSC has left versus what it had and how long it took for it to originally attain that, as well as what they face in any rival or potential rival powers like the Brutes or Elites.

> I’d argue that the position of the UNSC in 2553 should be much more akin to the British one in 1945 than the American one: battered, bruised, and facing extremely serious problems and difficult choices in the years to come. Instead, though, the UNSC seems to resemble much more strongly the United States in the late 1940s, a nation which had suffered far less than pretty much any other major combatant in the Second World War.
>
> Perhaps badly explained, so to summarise: should the UNSC of the 2550s resemble more bloodied and half-broken Britain, or the mighty and triumphant United States of America?

The former. I think we also need to take into consideration that the fiction is altering to accommodate humans. We find Forerunner Huragok who are conveniently superior to Covenant ones despite the Covenant ones being from the same source originally, and start cracking Forerunner technology when only a few years prior had only begun to make our first tentative steps to learning Covenant technology. There’s all these untouched colonies and additional billions of humans now coming out after Halo 3. The Great Schism, and the undoing of a 3000 year old interstellar empire, is effectively over in the space of 3 months. Additionally, of course, the Sangheili can’t even farm or maintain basic domestic infrastructure and logistics, have no communication initiatives and cannot maintain an efficient domestic government on their own. They have lost all their technical expertise, and all the billions of Huragok on their ships and worlds vanish into thin air; all so that humans can even get within spitting distance of being able to kick them in any way that hurts. The Brutes have effectively fallen off the known galaxy as well.

The post Halo 3 world got a lot easier for Humanity to rise up through. I’m not saying that they should never have gotten out of it, or should have become slaves to the Brutes or Elites; none of that grimdark stuff. However it should have been paced out a lot better with more actual human determination and ingenuity, and attempted cooperation with the Covenant, and maybe a bit of luck, to get back on track rather than just pulling a supership out of nowhere and using that to blitz right through all the issues and play the “Humans -Yoink- yeah” trope.

12

To use the factions as individuals in a fistfight analogy, Halo 3 ended with all involved factions bloodied and dizzy (with the Flood temporarily unconscious in the corner). While everyone is vulnerable, we pulled out some brass knuckles (Chief and the Infinity in 4) to prop us up and buy some time. I feel like we’ll inevitably lose the Infinity and Halo 6 will probably end with all parties involved on the verge of collapse, dead, or resolved in cooperation. Once we lose our crutch not even the Chief could save ourselves from our own hubris.