Halo 4's plot and the abundance of retcons

Games Other Halo
1

I won’t bother prefacing this by stating that I have no intention to flame; please take that as a given.

I was wondering what other people’s feelings were concerning what I see as a veritable deluge of retcons that are being introduced into the Halo mythology; namely, those present in the Forerunner Saga (which I have not read) and in the terminals found throughout Halo Anniversary (which we already know have some connection to the plot of Halo 4). These, to me, are the most egregious examples:

  1. Whilst Halo 3 represented, in my opinion, the pinnacle of Bungie’s storytelling in the Halo series, particularly with regard to the tale of the Didact and the Librarian, I highly doubt that they intended the Didact to be nothing more than a memory in another Forerunner’s body. In some ineffable way, this cheapens his character for me, as though he was never really there, having those highly emotive conversations with the Librarian.

  2. The Anniversary terminals opened up some gaping inconsistencies in the first Halo game’s story; specifically, Guilty Spark seemed to be a hell of lot more aware of humanity than he pretended to be during his eponymous level and The Library thereafter. Similarly, as usually happens with prequels of any sort, 343 Industries were eager to throw in arbitrary connections with earlier titles, such as Guilty Spark showing signs of rampancy and his brief colour changes prefacing his future madness (does this mean that Penitent Tangent was rampant from the beginning?). Worst of all, Guilty Spark, instead of being one of the most compelling artificial personalities of the entire series, is revealed to be human.

  3. Finally, what I consider to be the very worst retcon of all: humans were actually a spacefaring species hundreds of thousands of years ago, had already encountered both the Forerunner and the Flood, and had even managed to devise a cure to an affliction that resulted in a supposedly superior species resorting to suicide in order to eradicate (though I think that detail may have been altered in the most recent book).

The fact that Bungie most likely had none of these plot points in mind when they made the original Halo game isn’t a bad thing in and of itself (after all, the plots of Halo 2 and Halo 3 would have been devised long after each of the previous games had been released), but I can’t help but feel as though the Halo mythos is (to borrow a phrase that I generally despise) jumping the shark right before our eyes. Everything that was once mysterious (the Forerunners, Guilty Spark, the past) has now been rendered mundane by 343’s desire to explore these things in elaborate detail. Sometimes the most compelling elements of a story are the ones we know the least about. I would be much happier if the Reclaimer trilogy were to focus on the current state of the galaxy, addressing the echoes of long-forgotten events without trying to situate those events front and center beneath a spotlight.

I’m curious to know other people’s views. Is this a widely held concern, or am I alone in my uneasiness?

2

I guess I am alone. I thought people would be a lot more opinionated on this matter.

3

I actually dont mind those retcons, the humanity one does make sense in my view. We wouldn’t want to introduce 10 new species a la mass effect and just kill them off later

4

Pretty much. The series has been over complicated to the point where the media payed less attention to, the novels, are completely different and irrelevant to the games, namely the Forerunner Saga.

In other words, either the novels are out of damn control, or the games are having a hard time keeping up.

5

I don’t agree. I feel Halo 2’s story was 20x better than 3’s, even though the game wasn’t finished.

The Arbiter missions were amazing, so was the dialogue, the cinematic presentation and just the plain awesomeness.

Halo 3’s story was IMO nowhere near as memorable, and had many plot holes. Even Reach’s campaign made sense (this is not a canon argument).

/Opinion.

6

> I won’t bother prefacing this by stating that I have no intention to flame; please take that as a given.
>
> I was wondering what other people’s feelings were concerning what I see as a veritable deluge of retcons that are being introduced into the Halo mythology; namely, those present in the Forerunner Saga (which I have not read) and in the terminals found throughout Halo Anniversary (which we already know have some connection to the plot of Halo 4). These, to me, are the most egregious examples:
>
> 1. Whilst Halo 3 represented, in my opinion, the pinnacle of Bungie’s storytelling in the Halo series, particularly with regard to the tale of the Didact and the Librarian, I highly doubt that they intended the Didact to be nothing more than a memory in another Forerunner’s body. In some ineffable way, this cheapens his character for me, as though he was never really there, having those highly emotive conversations with the Librarian.
>
> The Didact impressed his consciousness upon Bornstellar, not just a memory.
>
> 2. The Anniversary terminals opened up some gaping inconsistencies in the first Halo game’s story; specifically, Guilty Spark seemed to be a hell of lot more aware of humanity than he pretended to be during his eponymous level and The Library thereafter. Similarly, as usually happens with prequels of any sort, 343 Industries were eager to throw in arbitrary connections with earlier titles, such as Guilty Spark showing signs of rampancy and his brief colour changes prefacing his future madness (does this mean that Penitent Tangent was rampant from the beginning?). Worst of all, Guilty Spark, instead of being one of the most compelling artificial personalities of the entire series, is revealed to be human.
>
> He seemed pretty comfortable with us around, considering he literally handed the key to the single most devestating weapon in the universe to a human. Seriously, he seemed to know who we were, man. And so what if he was a human? Doesn’t change anything.
>
> 3. Finally, what I consider to be the very worst retcon of all: humans were actually a spacefaring species hundreds of thousands of years ago, had already encountered both the Forerunner and the Flood, and had even managed to devise a cure to an affliction that resulted in a supposedly superior species resorting to suicide in order to eradicate (though I think that detail may have been altered in the most recent book).
>
> The space faring human empire has been alluded to throughout the series, namely the human race’s “specialness,” our ability to comprehend Forerunner writing instinctively and so on. It also creates a massive overarching theme of the human race Reclaiming their past greatness and gives the Reclaimer Trilogy reason to exist in the first place, since the Flood is a test that the Precursors use in order to test the worth of any race or civilization–it is in fact both judge and executioner.
>
> And no, there is no cure. The Precursors needed only for us to prove on our own that we were willing to sacrifice everything we had to protect the galaxy from the Flood. The cure, which sacrificed 2/3 our population, was actually the Precursors pulling the Flood back, confident (at the time) of our worth. We will be tested again in the Relaimer Trilogy according to the Primordial, to see if 110,000 years has changed us or not.
>
> The fact that Bungie most likely had none of these plot points in mind when they made the original Halo game isn’t a bad thing in and of itself (after all, the plots of Halo 2 and Halo 3 would have been devised long after each of the previous games had been released), but I can’t help but feel as though the Halo mythos is (to borrow a phrase that I generally despise) jumping the shark right before our eyes. Everything that was once mysterious (the Forerunners, Guilty Spark, the past) has now been rendered mundane by 343’s desire to explore these things in elaborate detail. Sometimes the most compelling elements of a story are the ones we know the least about. I would be much happier if the Reclaimer trilogy were to focus on the current state of the galaxy, addressing the echoes of long-forgotten events without trying to situate those events front and center beneath a spotlight.
>
> I’m curious to know other people’s views. Is this a widely held concern, or am I alone in my uneasiness?

All of these “retcons” are easily explained, but you have to look deep.

7

> I don’t agree. I feel Halo 2’s story was 20x better than 3’s, even though the game wasn’t finished.
>
> The Arbiter missions were amazing, so was the dialogue, the cinematic presentation and just the plain awesomeness.
>
> Halo 3’s story was IMO nowhere near as memorable, and had many plot holes. Even Reach’s campaign made sense (this is not a canon argument).
>
> /Opinion.

I also thought Halo 3 was a bit rushed in its story telling. It went from Earth in Floodgate to the Ark in the next level. Pretty big jump and then the Covenant is defeated easily. I thought Halo 3 should have been longer.

But anyway, back to the OP.

Personally I don’t see the Halo mythos being damaged much. I mean, Halo Reach went against a novel, but in reality nearly every piece of media went against Fall of Reach in the end so I suppose that doesn’t matter. The Forerunner just seems to be giving the Halo universe depth.

Halo 3 ended with a mysterious cliffhanger and to make any Halo based story off of it there has got to be some background with the Forerunners.

The retcons are fine in my opinion.

8

> > I won’t bother prefacing this by stating that I have no intention to flame; please take that as a given.
> >
> > I was wondering what other people’s feelings were concerning what I see as a veritable deluge of retcons that are being introduced into the Halo mythology; namely, those present in the Forerunner Saga (which I have not read) and in the terminals found throughout Halo Anniversary (which we already know have some connection to the plot of Halo 4). These, to me, are the most egregious examples:
> >
> > 1. Whilst Halo 3 represented, in my opinion, the pinnacle of Bungie’s storytelling in the Halo series, particularly with regard to the tale of the Didact and the Librarian, I highly doubt that they intended the Didact to be nothing more than a memory in another Forerunner’s body. In some ineffable way, this cheapens his character for me, as though he was never really there, having those highly emotive conversations with the Librarian.
> >
> > The Didact impressed his consciousness upon Bornstellar, not just a memory.
> >
> > 2. The Anniversary terminals opened up some gaping inconsistencies in the first Halo game’s story; specifically, Guilty Spark seemed to be a hell of lot more aware of humanity than he pretended to be during his eponymous level and The Library thereafter. Similarly, as usually happens with prequels of any sort, 343 Industries were eager to throw in arbitrary connections with earlier titles, such as Guilty Spark showing signs of rampancy and his brief colour changes prefacing his future madness (does this mean that Penitent Tangent was rampant from the beginning?). Worst of all, Guilty Spark, instead of being one of the most compelling artificial personalities of the entire series, is revealed to be human.
> >
> > He seemed pretty comfortable with us around, considering he literally handed the key to the single most devestating weapon in the universe to a human. Seriously, he seemed to know who we were, man. And so what if he was a human? Doesn’t change anything.
> >
> > 3. Finally, what I consider to be the very worst retcon of all: humans were actually a spacefaring species hundreds of thousands of years ago, had already encountered both the Forerunner and the Flood, and had even managed to devise a cure to an affliction that resulted in a supposedly superior species resorting to suicide in order to eradicate (though I think that detail may have been altered in the most recent book).
> >
> > The space faring human empire has been alluded to throughout the series, namely the human race’s “specialness,” our ability to comprehend Forerunner writing instinctively and so on. It also creates a massive overarching theme of the human race Reclaiming their past greatness and gives the Reclaimer Trilogy reason to exist in the first place, since the Flood is a test that the Precursors use in order to test the worth of any race or civilization–it is in fact both judge and executioner.
> >
> > And no, there is no cure. The Precursors needed only for us to prove on our own that we were willing to sacrifice everything we had to protect the galaxy from the Flood. The cure, which sacrificed 2/3 our population, was actually the Precursors pulling the Flood back, confident (at the time) of our worth. We will be tested again in the Relaimer Trilogy according to the Primordial, to see if 110,000 years has changed us or not.
> >
> > The fact that Bungie most likely had none of these plot points in mind when they made the original Halo game isn’t a bad thing in and of itself (after all, the plots of Halo 2 and Halo 3 would have been devised long after each of the previous games had been released), but I can’t help but feel as though the Halo mythos is (to borrow a phrase that I generally despise) jumping the shark right before our eyes. Everything that was once mysterious (the Forerunners, Guilty Spark, the past) has now been rendered mundane by 343’s desire to explore these things in elaborate detail. Sometimes the most compelling elements of a story are the ones we know the least about. I would be much happier if the Reclaimer trilogy were to focus on the current state of the galaxy, addressing the echoes of long-forgotten events without trying to situate those events front and center beneath a spotlight.
> >
> > I’m curious to know other people’s views. Is this a widely held concern, or am I alone in my uneasiness?
>
> All of these “retcons” are easily explained, but you have to look deep.

I actually saw somebody on some forum compare Silent Hill’s 1-4’s complicated stories to the “simple and kiddy” Halo series.

Lol, how they are wrong.

9

> The series has been over complicated to the point where the media payed less attention to, the novels, are completely different and irrelevant to the games, namely the Forerunner Saga.

I agree wholeheartedly with this statement. I think what I’d like more than anything else is for 343 Industries to explicitly state that the mythos of the novels and the mythos of the games are completely self-contained and separate.

ROBERTO jh:
It’s not that I think they haven’t been explained, it’s that I think they’re bad.

BurstingBox478:
I agree that Halo 2’s story was well done (I was even planning to incorporate that remark into the same sentence I wrote about Halo 3); I just feel that Halo 3 was the first game to bring home the idea of an epic conflict that resounded throughout the galaxy, and the first to introduce us to the terrible tragedy of the Forerunners. I’m curious to know what the plot holes are that you mentioned.

10

> > I don’t agree. I feel Halo 2’s story was 20x better than 3’s, even though the game wasn’t finished.
> >
> > The Arbiter missions were amazing, so was the dialogue, the cinematic presentation and just the plain awesomeness.
> >
> > Halo 3’s story was IMO nowhere near as memorable, and had many plot holes. Even Reach’s campaign made sense (this is not a canon argument).
> >
> > /Opinion.
>
> I also thought Halo 3 was a bit rushed in its story telling. It went from Earth in Floodgate to the Ark in the next level. Pretty big jump and then the Covenant is defeated easily. I thought Halo 3 should have been longer.
>
> But anyway, back to the OP.
>
> Personally I don’t see the Halo mythos being damaged much. I mean, Halo Reach went against a novel, but in reality nearly every piece of media went against Fall of Reach in the end so I suppose that doesn’t matter. The Forerunner just seems to be giving the Halo universe depth.
>
> Halo 3 ended with a mysterious cliffhanger and to make any Halo based story off of it there has got to be some background with the Forerunners.
>
> The retcons are fine in my opinion.

I thought Halo 3 had the most interesting plot with the most happening. It was a very fast-paced story, and that’s why I think it’s my favorite plot of the games.

I liked Halo 2’s because of how there were two stories simultaneously occuring at the same time, but the story was pretty slow, I’d say.

CE was sort of a jack of all trades. An excellent start for the first game of the franchise.

11

> I won’t bother prefacing this by stating that I have no intention to flame; please take that as a given.
>
> I was wondering what other people’s feelings were concerning what I see as a veritable deluge of retcons that are being introduced into the Halo mythology; namely, those present in the Forerunner Saga (which I have not read) and in the terminals found throughout Halo Anniversary (which we already know have some connection to the plot of Halo 4). These, to me, are the most egregious examples:

> 1. Whilst Halo 3 represented, in my opinion, the pinnacle of Bungie’s storytelling in the Halo series, particularly with regard to the tale of the Didact and the Librarian, I highly doubt that they intended the Didact to be nothing more than a memory in another Forerunner’s body. In some ineffable way, this cheapens his character for me, as though he was never really there, having those highly emotive conversations with the Librarian.

well They haven’t finished the story line as far as i cant tell from the novels and everything Born-stellar Grows into his own as The Didact, and i see this in the end of Primordium, And i believe this transformation is alot stronger emotionally and that the relationship between the librarian and himself will blossom.

> 2. The Anniversary terminals opened up some gaping inconsistencies in the first Halo game’s story; specifically, Guilty Spark seemed to be a hell of lot more aware of humanity than he pretended to be during his eponymous level and The Library thereafter. Similarly, as usually happens with prequels of any sort, 343 Industries were eager to throw in arbitrary connections with earlier titles, such as Guilty Spark showing signs of rampancy and his brief colour changes prefacing his future madness (does this mean that Penitent Tangent was rampant from the beginning?). Worst of all, Guilty Spark, instead of being one of the most compelling artificial personalities of the entire series, is revealed to be human.

There’s alot shrouded my the whole reclaimer thing and i believe one it all comes together it will fully pan out correctly. Plus Ai have always been general made from former lives of living beings, That does not hinder his drive for knowledge and becoming far advance look at cortana, But where the human AIs falter, Forerunners thrive and live long lives and are there own personal characters. rampancy is a difficult thing

> 3. Finally, what I consider to be the very worst retcon of all: humans were actually a spacefaring species hundreds of thousands of years ago, had already encountered both the Forerunner and the Flood, and had even managed to devise a cure to an affliction that resulted in a supposedly superior species resorting to suicide in order to eradicate (though I think that detail may have been altered in the most recent book).

This Is one of the most interesting things and this isn’t a retcon its just unknown the the humans. I find this awesome and make you think what if something like this would have really happened plus it shows you how powerful and fare advance the forerunners were plus alot of the human species existed in known science till this day so its not like Bear made anything up he was just using different concepts with i love. I feel this add depth

> The fact that Bungie most likely had none of these plot points in mind when they made the original Halo game isn’t a bad thing in and of itself (after all, the plots of Halo 2 and Halo 3 would have been devised long after each of the previous games had been released), but I can’t help but feel as though the Halo mythos is (to borrow a phrase that I generally despise) jumping the shark right before our eyes. Everything that was once mysterious (the Forerunners, Guilty Spark, the past) has now been rendered mundane by 343’s desire to explore these things in elaborate detail. Sometimes the most compelling elements of a story are the ones we know the least about. I would be much happier if the Reclaimer trilogy were to focus on the current state of the galaxy, addressing the echoes of long-forgotten events without trying to situate those events front and center beneath a spotlight.
>
> I’m curious to know other people’s views. Is this a widely held concern, or am I alone in my uneasiness?

Really there give us fans what we want. I know that i have always wonder who the forerunner wheres and how they lived and just anything im learning in the forerunner novels are thing that i have been wondering about since the beginning. and im happy to found out more and here this story. And In order to make another halo they have to go big or go home. and that what there doing they have to expand or what else could they do. O post war scenario wouldn’t be an interesting FPS so im definitely excited to see what comes of this

12

> The Didact impressed his consciousness upon Bornstellar, not just a memory.

I think that’s a semantic argument. I used the wrong word, but it still–in my opinion–detracts from the Didact’s character.

> He seemed pretty comfortable with us around, considering he literally handed the key to the single most devestating weapon in the universe to a human. Seriously, he seemed to know who we were, man. And so what if he was a human? Doesn’t change anything.

I believe that he handed humanity the key because Bungie’s original intention was to portray the Guilty Spark as a very artificial construct that, although able to think for itself, was extremely preoccupied with following protocol–hence his uptight language, accent, and behaviour. That’s what made him an interesting enemy: he was just doing what he’d been programmed to do, and, on paper at least, it made complete sense (destroying the Flood).

> It also creates a massive overarching theme of the human race Reclaiming their past greatness and gives the Reclaimer Trilogy reason to exist in the first place, since the Flood is a test that the Precursors use in order to test the worth of any race or civilization–it is in fact both judge and executioner.
>
> And no, there is no cure. The Precursors needed only for us to prove on our own that we were willing to sacrifice everything we had to protect the galaxy from the Flood. The cure, which sacrificed 2/3 our population, was actually the Precursors pulling the Flood back, confident (at the time) of our worth. We will be tested again in the Relaimer Trilogy according to the Primordial, to see if 110,000 years has changed us or not.

I should have included this in my list of examples. There is a huge problem inherent in replacing the Forerunners as the metaphorical “parents” of humanity with the Precursors. From what I’ve always understood, the Forerunners’ desire to “choose” humanity as a successor species was based upon the former’s impending doom at the hands of the Flood; knowing full well that they would no longer be capable of acting as the caretakers of the galaxy, they were forced to bequeath the Mantle upon a species that would both survive and proliferate. The Precursors, however, have absolutely no driving impetus (as far as I’m aware) to justify the anointing of a successor race. It makes no sense to me.

13

Well, I wanted a discussion, and I certainly got one :slight_smile:

> And i believe this transformation is alot stronger emotionally and that the relationship between the librarian and himself will blossom.

But exactly who is in a relationship with the librarian, and who said all those poignant things in the Halo 3 terminals? The Didact, or Bornstellar?

> This Is one of the most interesting things and this isn’t a retcon its just unknown the the humans.

Obviously, there is no way for me to know with certainty, but I feel extremely confident that this detail was never planned at the time of the original game’s inception. I’d very comfortably put money on that fact.

14

> Pretty much. The series has been over complicated to the point where the media payed less attention to, the novels, are completely different and irrelevant to the games, namely the Forerunner Saga.
>
> In other words, either the novels are out of damn control, or the games are having a hard time keeping up.

The Novels and the Game coincide with each other, and very well considering other well known science fiction Universe.
And since when has it been over complicated. The the forerunner saga has alot to do with the upcoming games. frank has stated that there trying to tie in everything together for the fans that enjoy all of the media.

15

> > The series has been over complicated to the point where the media payed less attention to, the novels, are completely different and irrelevant to the games, namely the Forerunner Saga.
>
> I agree wholeheartedly with this statement. I think what I’d like more than anything else is for 343 Industries to explicitly state that the mythos of the novels and the mythos of the games are completely self-contained and separate.
>
> ROBERTO jh:
> It’s not that I think they haven’t been explained, it’s that I think they’re bad.
>
> BurstingBox478:
> I agree that Halo 2’s story was well done (I was even planning to incorporate that remark into the same sentence I wrote about Halo 3); I just feel that Halo 3 was the first game to bring home the idea of an epic conflict that resounded throughout the galaxy, and the first to introduce us to the terrible tragedy of the Forerunners. I’m curious to know what the plot holes are that you mentioned.

Plot Hole One: If High Charity went through the Portal, why didn’t it at least drop some Flood on Earth? It could have taken out the whole planet.
Plot Hole Two: How did Scarab’s fall out of the Sky when Rtas said that Truth’s fleet was in ruin?
Plot Hole Three: Why didn’t they just blow up the Halo ring, using the Dawn’s fusion reactors? That would have destroyed the ring and the Ark, even Cortana mentions the blast is powerful enough to destroy large objects in Halo 2.
Plot Hole Four: Why did Rtas and the Shadow of Intent leave? They could have easily waited for them to activate the ring. They were the only ship on the Ark, they were so high the Flood posed them no threat.
Plot Hole Five: How was the Ark even destroyed? We know the Halo ring didn’t fire, and it is puny small compared to the Ark.

Just a few examples.

16

Guilty Spark is a human? Whaaa?

17

> Well, I wanted a discussion, and I certainly got one :slight_smile:
>
>
>
> > And i believe this transformation is alot stronger emotionally and that the relationship between the librarian and himself will blossom.
>
> But exactly who is in a relationship with the librarian, and who said all those poignant things in the Halo 3 terminals? The Didact, or Bornstellar?

Well that one of the mysteries that will most likely be revealed in the upcoming novel and games im quite interested to find this out which is why people are wanted to find out who the third book will focus on.

> > This Is one of the most interesting things and this isn’t a retcon its just unknown the the humans.
>
> Obviously, there is no way for me to know with certainty, but I feel extremely confident that this detail was never planned at the time of the original game’s inception. I’d very comfortably put money on that fact.

Obviously this wasn’t planed from the beginning unless the psychic
True but thing again Bungie did really plan on making a halo 2 but ended up doing that. And IMO i wouldn’t say they were forced but were contractually obligate to created halo odst and reach by this time i feel they felt they were mental done with the series thus all the recton from reach. IMO

18

> Guilty Spark is a human? Whaaa?

Was, read Primordium.

19

> > Pretty much. The series has been over complicated to the point where the media payed less attention to, the novels, are completely different and irrelevant to the games, namely the Forerunner Saga.
> >
> > In other words, either the novels are out of damn control, or the games are having a hard time keeping up.
>
> The Novels and the Game coincide with each other, and very well considering other well known science fiction Universe.
> And since when has it been over complicated. The the forerunner saga has alot to do with the upcoming games. frank has stated that there trying to tie in everything together for the fans that enjoy all of the media.

Well as of right now, between the novels and the games, it’s like two separate franchises called “Halo”.

20

> And no, there is no cure. <mark>The Precursors needed only for us to prove on our own that we were willing to sacrifice everything we had to protect the galaxy from the Flood.</mark>

This reminds me of the Vault 11 quest in New Vegas… creepy

OT: I am glad Roberto explained the Primordial, it all makes more sense now. I think the OP is just a little too concerned.