Hopefully halo 5's story won't be so obscene

Community Halo Universe
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And by obscene, i mean awful.

I suffer from being analytical. Which means i constantly find plot holes and usualy pick out an antagonist who’s not meant to be known far earlier than he’s revealed because of silly things that writers do to make him look evil. I even look at the science fiction stuff and seperate ‘Science fiction’ and ‘magic -Yoink-’.

and other than The change in equipment/apearance/armour/vehicles between games,the unsc’s lack of killer robots and the over-abundance of Australians voiced horribly i didn’t realy pick That much crap out.

Bungie was ok
The prophets have sound logic in their decision to exterminate humanity and the rest of the covenant have perfect reason to follow them. They’re good villains and the whole holy war/attempted genocide thing has already occured in real history. It’s perfectly human for guilty spark to flip

The didact however is a terrible villain.
He wants to ensure forerunner supremacy- They’re already dead.
He’s been given a many thousands of years to think about what he’s done wrong and has no knowledge of the current state of the galaxy - Begins a war right after getting out of the ball.
One must assume that the composer left the original prometheans with free will. Logicaly they would have all attempted to reason with the didact. Furthermore the prometheans would have logicaly prefered to hide in a shield world whilst the halo array is activated than be converted into robot slaves
you don’t become the most advanced race ever for being stupid.
He looks so evil… Rawr!!
personal guards would have served him well.

If you’re unsatisfied with that… we have halo 4’s Librarian encounter. I couldn’t watch it without thinking '-Yoink-'

Of all the ways to help humanity… she plants memories (scientifically wrong, sending a few ships on a timer full of data would have been far easier for her and more beneficial for us) Into humanities genes that only begin to occur… well civilisation started 5000 years ago but according to halo we’ve been on earth for more than 100,000. Better late than never? Im sure if the librarian set the clock a few tens of thousands of years earlier then humanity would have had the tech to laugh at the covenant and assume the mantle far earlier. Maybe she might have assumed we’d be -Yoink- and enslaved the galaxy… though why would she put faith in humans at all if that were so?

And then the ending. The part with cortana and the hardlight.

Hard light is a real theory.

Just like rays of light travel in a straight line (unless refracted or reflected) Hardlight would also travel in a straight line. It makes sense to use it for bridges. However since bridges only emit light in one flat rectangle… It becomes -Yoink- out-of-universe magic when an avatar can project herself not from a projector but from something projected by a projector.

( a more logical way to fight someone on a light bridge would be to turn it off and watch them fall. You’d also have the option of turning it back on again

Furthermore hard light is supposed to have an emitter. You can’t have light forming a box float around in space if it doesn’t come from anywhere.

(also… Plasma weapons would work far better against the flood, since hardlight weaponry would essentially be either battery powered ballistics or very much like the beam rifle. It’s magic that makes non Prometheans disintegrate) (another point-It’s a little strange that covenant weaponry is so different from what it emulates)

Terminals- How long would it realy have taken to tell the forerunners that there were flood on the plannet? Even still the humans could have easily told the forerunners as they began to glass. Perhaps asked for assistance?

There probably should have been some mention of why the composer would have not been used on the flood.

It doesn’t make sense that human weapons are made to look more futuristic just for the sake of looking more futuristic (unless of course they were to function differently, but they don’t.)I realy can’t imagine the unsc asking their suppliers to make exactly the same gun but with a cooler look.

Furthermore we’ve got some conflict on the Storm’s equipment
-Prophets and engineers have abandoned the elites
-Elite’s have such little knowledge of their technology
-The storm somehow have different armour that works better than their old armour (considering there is less armour) despite not having the capability to design new things for the factories that are undoubtedly tightly patrolled by the half the elite fleet

Demographics for the united nations space command infinity are wrong. Surely there would be more diversity than americans +one irish girl. a chinese man there with an indian here would have gone a long way.

the Lasky/del rio thing is so very… unoriginal? So uninspired… On one hand we have a coward with a temper and a stereotypical hard -Yoink- commander voice and on the other a friendly and understanding individual with a friendly voice and a nicer sounding last name. Not to mention that the majority of del rio’s decisions were tactically sound from most standpoints. After -Yoink!- off the commanding officer… everyone’s totaly fine to have you around.

The picture of new phoenix that is shown at the start of spartan opps with majestic is also the exact same picture found when going through the data from the promethean knight. The exact same picture. lazy?

Master chief’s magic armour change is also -Yoink- magic crap.
Nanites ( i assume they are only used for building tiny things slowly) How the hell did cortana get those into a cryopod?

there’s still no reason why cortana has a different face and an even more disturbingly sexual body. All the other Ai’s have avatars who wear clothes. Could she start wearing clothes please? Im a perplexed as to why a digital digital character gave herself childbearing hips.

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The reason why the Didact is trying to turn Humans into a Promethean Army is the Flood’s impending return (not just an outbreak, but a full scale intergalactic invasion). Creating a Promethean Army would be the galaxy’s best defense against this invasion.

The Didact is also hitting two birds with one stone by destroying Humanity in the process, eliminating the Flood’s intended target as well as stopping the reclamation. Who says the Forerunners are extinct?

In the Terminals, the Lord Admiral was correct that warning the Forerunners instead of taking immediate action would have allowed the Flood to spread. The Forerunners would have likely been wrapped up in all their dogma and obedience to the Mantle to destroy one of their own planets. There may also be bad blood between Humans and Forerunners to begin with, before the war.

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The Prometheans would not have attempted to reason with the Didact, as they are now AIs with no free will, as I can see.

The flesh-and-blood Prometheans volunteered to be Composed because they would no longer be susceptible to Flood infection and therefore be able to combat the Flood better.

The Librarian is not a puppet-master. We advanced when we advanced. She didn’t set any particular time for us to start banging sticks together. The geas was supposed to activate WHEN we reached certain points in our evolution, not force us along a specific evolutionary path.

I don’t believe that the Forerunners are all dead. The Didact was obviously talking to somebody in the Epilogue. Not to mention that the Forerunners fired the Array from the Ark, meaning that there is a distinct possibility that they are still around today, just hidden. It makes sense that the Didact would want to ensure Forerunner supremacy.

Plasma weaponry does not absolutely 100% ensure that a Flood victim will not get back up again, which is why the Forerunners use Hardlight to disintegrate the bodies.

Ancient Human weapons look more futuristic because they are more futuristic. They have increased capabilities, which means that they may have to have different designs and such. They didn’t warn the Forerunners because the Flood spreads very quickly and the Humans didn’t have time to wait until the Forerunners evacuated.

And the demographic thing… sigh. It’s one ship, guys, and we’ve only seen a few of the crew members. I thought we were over hyper-reactions to perceived racism, anyway.

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Frankly, you don’t seem very well versed in the Halo lore, most of your questions/complaints have been answered/explained. Nevertheless, I’ll explain them to you so you don’t have to hunt them down.

First off, how do we know the Forerunners are dead? In fact, the exact opposite has been confirmed. The Forerunners left the galaxy/the Orion arm (which one is still a mystery, as the Halo Encyclopedia says both), there are most certainly other Forerunners alive. The Didact absolutely hates humans, in fact he was involved in a war with them where they killed all of his children in battle. He views them as lesser beings and are certainly not capable of protecting the galaxy. His motives are not only for the greater good of the Forerunners, but also the greater good of the entire galaxy. The only reason Humanity is as advanced as they are is because they re-purposed Forerunner technology.

Whether the Composer left the Prometheans with free will or not is still up in the air, as it most certainly did not leave the humans with free will. Even if it did leave them with free will, they are “programmed” to do whatever the Didact says without questions, which is part of the reason they were so deadly. They weren’t made into “robots” to escape the Halo’s firing, they did so to prevent the Halos from being fired by providing another alternative, an un-infectable army.

The Librarian wants to interfere as little as possible now that her plans have been set in motion. The only reason she had those memories on Requiem was to help Humanity in the case that the Didact awakened, as his awakening might put her plan at risk, which it did. She had faith in us both because of the imprints that she put into our genetic code, and because of our history, when the Forerunners were still around. Besides, the Forerunners effectively enslaved the galaxy, they wouldn’t care if the next race did so as well.

Yes, Hardlight is a real theory, but that’s all it is as far as I’ve heard. How do we know how Hardlight actually works? Even if we have created Hardlight, the Forerunners are MUCH more advanced than us, who’s to say they can’t manipulate it much better than us. We can’t judge how logical Forerunner technology, or how it works, considering we won’t reach their level of advancement for a long time.

The cartridges that are placed in the Forerunner weapons are most likely batteries. If Covenant technology could be reloaded it would have a very similar method, considering it also runs on batteries. In fact, the only way to recharge Covenant plasma weapons is by a large, bulky machine that would take a few Elites to carry. Like I said earlier, we are no where near the level of advancement as the Forerunners are, so we can’t judge how “magical” their technology is.

Forthencho was correct in saying that warning the Forerunners would be too risky. Even if they did warn the Forerunners, they would likely doubt them and forbid them to glass the planet, and the exact same thing would happen, but the Forerunner scientists might look into it, at most. They wouldn’t find anything though, as they would more than likely be infected if they did. Warning the Forerunners would just waste time, time which the Flood could use to get off the planet.

Human weapons don’t look futuristic just for the sake of looking futuristic, they look futuristic because they are different weapons. That would be like a modern day gun looking like a WWII gun. As for Storm, their armor is most likely older armor, as most of their infantry and equipment comes from the forgotten colony of Kelekos, which Jul stumbles upon through a teleportation system.

I won’t touch on your next two points as they are just opinions and there’s nothing factual I could say about them. However, I can explain John’s armor and Cortana. John’s armor was changed by Cortana using nanobots already in his suit, she just manipulated by communicating with them from outside John’s cryopod. She looks different now because she has the ability to change her appearance, as she is just a hologram visually. She is mostly naked because it gives her an edge in an argument, makes her opponent uncomfortable.

Hope that explains everything, just say so if not, I’ll be glad to explain anything else.

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Were you only half paying attention the whole game?

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I enjoyed halo 4’s campaigne. its the multiplayer I hated

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After reading Cryptum, I think the decision to make Hardlight Weapons probably came about with Halo 4. Like, Bornstellar makes a couple of references to Forerunner ships using plasma, and the Sentinel Beam is a plasma weapon, albeit not an infantry weapon.

Honestly, it just seems to me that the Forerunner’s arsenal was originally intended to be far more sophisticated plasma. Remember in First Strike where Cortana makes the captured Covenant flagship’s plasma turrets more effective by tuning them? I’d imagine that the Forerunners had similar methods that made their plasma weaponry centuries ahead of the Covenant’s, had the original intention continued.

Also, yeah, that whole bit with Cortana and the hardlight bridge is just a deus ex machina.

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> Frankly, you don’t seem very well versed in the Halo lore, most of your questions/complaints have been answered/explained. Nevertheless, I’ll explain them to you so you don’t have to hunt them down.
>
> First off, how do we know the Forerunners are dead? In fact, the exact opposite has been confirmed. The Forerunners left the galaxy/the Orion arm (which one is still a mystery, as the Halo Encyclopedia says both), there are most certainly other Forerunners alive. The Didact absolutely hates humans, in fact he was involved in a war with them where they killed all of his children in battle. He views them as lesser beings and are certainly not capable of protecting the galaxy. His motives are not only for the greater good of the Forerunners, but also the greater good of the entire galaxy. The only reason Humanity is as advanced as they are is because they re-purposed Forerunner technology.

I think it would be logical to assume that forerunners would begin to reexpand after the activation if they had survived.
And no, you’re thinking of the covenant. The only thing that the Humans in halo got that they didn’t alread have from the forerunners was shielding technology. Everything else is just an improvement

> Whether the Composer left the Prometheans with free will or not is still up in the air, as it most certainly did not leave the humans with free will. Even if it did leave them with free will, they are “programmed” to do whatever the Didact says without questions, which is part of the reason they were so deadly. They weren’t made into “robots” to escape the Halo’s firing, they did so to prevent the Halos from being fired by providing another alternative, an un-infectable army.

Why use sentient creatures at all when you can alter the way that something thinks? Why not just Build robots or Compose one individual once and paste him like you would in a computer document a thousand times?

> The Librarian wants to interfere as little as possible now that her plans have been set in motion. The only reason she had those memories on Requiem was to help Humanity in the case that the Didact awakened, as his awakening might put her plan at risk, which it did. She had faith in us both because of the imprints that she put into our genetic code, and because of our history, when the Forerunners were still around. Besides, the Forerunners effectively enslaved the galaxy, they wouldn’t care if the next race did so as well.

You’d think she’d still come up with more practical means. LIke uh… Politely telling requim not to pull reclaimers in too go so near to the didact?
I’m fairly sure imprints aren’t necessary when you consider that she might have the ability to add some more recent humans to the gene pool?

> Yes, Hardlight is a real theory, but that’s all it is as far as I’ve heard. How do we know how Hardlight actually works? Even if we have created Hardlight, the Forerunners are MUCH more advanced than us, who’s to say they can’t manipulate it much better than us. We can’t judge how logical Forerunner technology, or how it works, considering we won’t reach their level of advancement for a long time.

of course we can. If The didact started pulling elephants from his floating sleeve because of combustion- we’d have every right to dismiss such a thing as magic -Yoink-.

> Forthencho was correct in saying that warning the Forerunners would be too risky. Even if they did warn the Forerunners, they would likely doubt them and forbid them to glass the planet, and the exact same thing would happen, but the Forerunner scientists might look into it, at most. They wouldn’t find anything though, as they would more than likely be infected if they did. Warning the Forerunners would just waste time, time which the Flood could use to get off the planet.

How long do you think it would take to send

“There’s an all consuming parasite on your plannet so we’re glassing the parasite now. we’re not going to fight you. you are welcome too provide assistance so long as you observe quarantine procedures”. Ten seconds maybe? Certainly less than a minute.

> Human weapons don’t look futuristic just for the sake of looking futuristic, they look futuristic because they are different weapons. That would be like a modern day gun looking like a WWII gun. As for Storm, their armor is most likely older armor, as most of their infantry and equipment comes from the forgotten colony of Kelekos, which Jul stumbles upon through a teleportation system.

I forgot to mention that the weapons look more futuristic for the sake of looking more futuristic in comparison to the previous halo games.

A forgotten colony? That raises even more eyebrows. A forgotten colony full of soldiers waiting for some guy to give them orders. The colony is filled with old armour that’s actualy just as good or even better when compared to the new armour and… Need i continue?

> I won’t touch on your next two points as they are just opinions and there’s nothing factual I could say about them. However, I can explain John’s armor and Cortana. John’s armor was changed by Cortana using nanobots already in his suit, she just manipulated by communicating with them from outside John’s cryopod. She looks different now because she has the ability to change her appearance, as she is just a hologram visually. She is mostly naked because it gives her an edge in an argument, makes her opponent uncomfortable.

Was her nakedness not discomforting enough when she wasn’t so curvy? And since the only one she’s realy with happens to be john… why change her face/be naked anyway?

The nanites would be frozen too.
IF not
Where do they get the materials from?
If not
How did cortana learn the specifications of the mark Vii? Which has a drasticaly different underlayer (which john undoubtably has) and powerpack.
Furthermore was the change in the metal parts of john’s armour realy neccessary? The idea that she re-added the plasma burn on his chest because of rampancy is… pretty crap.

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> I think it would be logical to assume that forerunners would begin to reexpand after the activation if they had survived.
> And no, you’re thinking of the covenant. The only thing that the Humans in halo got that they didn’t alread have from the forerunners was shielding technology. Everything else is just an improvement

Except that they didn’t, at least not the Orion arm of the galaxy. They did survive, that is a fact. Also, Humanity has taken much more than shields from the Forerunners. Infinity is basically a bunch of Forerunner technology clumped together with some human stuff mixed in. There’s also the Huragok/Engineers, without them on our side fixing stuff and building new stuff we would be in ruins. Nearly all advancements post-war and near the end of the war are thanks to the Forerunners.

> Why use sentient creatures at all when you can alter the way that something thinks? Why not just Build robots or Compose one individual once and paste him like you would in a computer document a thousand times?

Remember how in Star Wars droids are inferior to clones because clones can actually think for themselves? Same applies here. The Forerunners barely got the Composer to work at all, they don’t know how to do much with it except Compose beings and force them to do things.

> You’d think she’d still come up with more practical means. LIke uh… Politely telling requim not to pull reclaimers in too go so near to the didact?
> I’m fairly sure imprints aren’t necessary when you consider that she might have the ability to add some more recent humans to the gene pool?

The Librarian is not in control of Requiem, at the point Chief comes across it the Didact is. The Didact is apparently awake when Chief encounters Requiem, and is tricking Chief into letting him out. As for the Librarian, she’s dead. The only remnant we have left at this point is her memories stuck on Requiem, which con’t do much except give us information.

> of course we can. If The didact started pulling elephants from his floating sleeve because of combustion- we’d have every right to dismiss such a thing as magic -Yoink!-.

Actually, that would be perfectly feasible with technology as advanced as the Forerunners. Of course there is a point where it obviously isn’t technology at work, but we are pretty far from reaching that point.

> How long do you think it would take to send
>
> “There’s an all consuming parasite on your plannet so we’re glassing the parasite now. we’re not going to fight you. you are welcome too provide assistance so long as you observe quarantine procedures”. Ten seconds maybe? Certainly less than a minute.

The actual telling part wouldn’t take long, no, but what follows would. Not only would the Forerunners seriously doubt them and think they’re just trying to expand, but if they did take it seriously they would have to check to make sure, which would take quite a while. They not only have to make sure that there is actually something there, but also that it’s parasitic etc. By the time all this happened the Flood would be extremely hard to stop on that particular planet, assuming the Humans didn’t start glassing long before that and halt the Forerunner’s progress.

> I forgot to mention that the weapons look more futuristic for the sake of looking more futuristic in comparison to the previous halo games.
>
> A forgotten colony? That raises even more eyebrows. A forgotten colony full of soldiers waiting for some guy to give them orders. The colony is filled with old armour that’s actualy just as good or even better when compared to the new armour and… Need i continue?

Should they look less futuristic? It’s been 5 years and humanity has discovered a ton of Forerunner technology since then, and have the help of the Huragok/Engineers. Why wouldn’t they look more futuristic? A lot of the weapons look extremely similar to their past models anyway.

As for the colony, it was established during the beginning of the Human-Covenant war. The Covenant was too focused on killing all the humans to care about it, and by the time the war ended they had long been forgotten about. It was full of soldiers because it was a colony of war, it was most likely established to hold a certain strategic position. Also, you’re taking gameplay way to seriously. Gameplay wise the armor might be stronger, but canonically it is not. If gameplay was just like what things are in canon, there would be absolutely no balance and killing things would be much faster and easier.

> Was her nakedness not discomforting enough when she wasn’t so curvy? And since the only one she’s realy with happens to be john… why change her face/be naked anyway?
>
> The nanites would be frozen too.
> IF not
> Where do they get the materials from?
> If not
> How did cortana learn the specifications of the mark Vii? Which has a drasticaly different underlayer (which john undoubtably has) and powerpack.
> Furthermore was the change in the metal parts of john’s armour realy neccessary? The idea that she re-added the plasma burn on his chest because of rampancy is… pretty crap.

When rampancy occurs often AIs have mixed emotions, and want to be more human. It isn’t out of the question that Cortana secretly wished to be in a romantic relationship in order to feel more human, it has happened to other rampant AIs in the past, who fell in love with each other.

You aren’t completely frozen solid while in cryo, that would kill you. The temperature/other chemicals are just cold enough to put a human in a deep sleep and nearly shut down all of their vital systems. Technology is not effected by cryo sleep very much. They are the materials, they were simply rearranged. Why would Cortana need specifications for Mk.VII? Chief has a very different under-layer (just check for yourself), and none of it’s features contradict anything said in the past. The change in the aesthetics of the suit are likely for increased protection, the shoulders cover a greater area and such. The scar wasn’t re-added, it was never taken away. You realize that to cover that area would require taking resources from other parts of the suit, which would weaken a much greater area than it would if the scar wasn’t fixed, right?

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It’s not Mk. VII. It’s a heavily modified MK. VI.

Older armor = Equal in streangth for gameplay Reasons.

You can’t copy and paste Composed beings as their personalities fragament over time.

Impant memories? You are correct, you can’t, which is why the Librarian implanted Composed Beings.

Surviving Forerunners did not reexpand as they felt they were no longer worthy of upholding the Mantle. (They did kill EVERYTHING in the Galaxy)

Robots can be repourposed by the Flood. Mednicant Bias is the best example of this. (It’s why Promethean Knights disntegrate after being killed, and why their soul is purged.

It would have taken longer than a minute. Most Forerunners didn’t believe Humans were fighting a parasite for nearly 10,000 years until the Flood returned.

Cortana chose the way she looked because of her personality. Don’t forget she wasn’t always with the Chief, before the Halo Trilogy, she interacted with quite a few people.

In terms of MC’s armor changing, along with Cortana’s appearance: It’s the same reason why they both change appearances for every Halo game. A new artistic direction, technology gets better. Cortana looks completely different because she now has a body actor who plays. Same face, Same body. Master Chief’s armor, well, 343i alludes to Nanobots, I say it’s an artistic retcon to make MC’s armor more believable.

If you primarily argue by logic, take note we are arguing by Halo canon, and often times, Halo’s Lore does not coincide with projected advancements. In fact, I’m even surprised your a fan of Halo.

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Yeah the story was really bad. And this was mainly because there was really no opposing force. Sure, the Covenant was there but you never knew why, the Prometheans are also just there and have absolutely no character at all so their reveal had no impact and the Didact appears just a couple of times and pretty much all villainous with little introduction in game.

It was literally, “Hi… im evil.”

And please dont tell me how much the books explain all of this and how the extra videos do as well because NONE of that has a factor as you are playing through the game the first time. And THAT’S the impression i have of the game and not of all the stuff i learned later.

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> The reason why the Didact is trying to turn Humans into a Promethean Army is the Flood’s impending return (not just an outbreak, but a full scale intergalactic invasion). Creating a Promethean Army would be the galaxy’s best defense against this invasion.

Didn’t work last time, nor does the Didact ever give that as justification. Would’ve made his villainy a bit better IMO if he had.

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What bugged me was that everything to do with the Covenant was a mess. They look very generic, their presence as antagonists was not explained at all, the outcome of the Schism isn’t covered nor is the outcome for the truce we had with the Elites. It’s just assumed antagonism from the Covenant which is a step backwards narratively speaking.

The Didact suffers mostly from a sense of “Been there, done that.” Once again, everyone is out to get Humanity, everyone’s fussing over Humans and Humans are the centre of the galaxy. It turned out to be another “Save Earth” plot. One of the best things from Mass Effect 3 was that Earth wasn’t all that special in the grand scheme of things. Palaven was smashed just as hard, if not harder. Everyone was in the deep end together. I also can’t care for the Didact’s reasoning of Humanity being the greatest threat in the galaxy; it has almost no justifications going for it. I’m surprised that such an intelligent being could be so intellectually dishonest. 343i may try to justify it with Humanity turning into sadists (Which might happen given that Humanity are keeping Covenant refugees “all penned up”, something which I missed, which sounds like something out of District 9) but that would just be forced and unnatural, and solely for the sake of plot. No investment.

Really though, my issues aren’t truly with Halo 4. It was a fine game suffering from much larger overarching issues that also affect all the other fiction; nothing really from the game itself bugged me. Seems to be down to 343i’s opinions and wishes for the overall fiction that brought it down for me.

Also, where did you hear that hard light is an actual hypothesis?

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> What bugged me was that everything to do with the Covenant was a mess. They look very generic, their presence as antagonists not explained at all, the outcome of the Schism isn’t covered nor is the outcome for the truce we had with the Elites. It’s just assumed antagonism from the Covenant which is a step backwards narratively speaking.

How so? The original trilogy never once explain how we met the Covenant nor did it explain why we ended up fighting them. Halo Combat Evolved simply opens with “Aliens are boarding the ship, kill them” and then you continued to do that for the rest of the game. Halo 2 expanded on their motivations for wanting the Halos but they still never actually explained how or why we were in conflict to begin with. We know the reasons for the War because of Halo: Contact Harvest, a novel. We know why the Covenant are at Requiem because of Halo: The Thursday War, a novel.

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> > What bugged me was that everything to do with the Covenant was a mess. They look very generic, their presence as antagonists not explained at all, the outcome of the Schism isn’t covered nor is the outcome for the truce we had with the Elites. It’s just assumed antagonism from the Covenant which is a step backwards narratively speaking.
>
> How so? The original trilogy never once explain how we met the Covenant nor did it explain why we ended up fighting them. Halo Combat Evolved simply opens with “Aliens are boarding the ship, kill them” and then you continued to do that for the rest of the game. Halo 2 expanded on their motivations for wanting the Halos but they still never actually explained how or why we were in conflict to begin with. We know the reasons for the War because of Halo: Contact Harvest, a novel. We know why the Covenant are at Requiem because of Halo: The Thursday War, a novel.

However, it is still a bit odd to not and at least try to explain the Covenant’s presence in Halo 4. You are right that it is said in a novel, but if 343i wishes to bridge both the novels and games, they missed an opportunity. Spartan Ops seems to be explaining things a bit better, but without knowing his story, Jul 'Mdama is just some vague baddy leading his chums.

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> > What bugged me was that everything to do with the Covenant was a mess. They look very generic, their presence as antagonists not explained at all, the outcome of the Schism isn’t covered nor is the outcome for the truce we had with the Elites. It’s just assumed antagonism from the Covenant which is a step backwards narratively speaking.
>
> How so? The original trilogy never once explain how we met the Covenant nor did it explain why we ended up fighting them. Halo Combat Evolved simply opens with “Aliens are boarding the ship, kill them” and then you continued to do that for the rest of the game. Halo 2 expanded on their motivations for wanting the Halos but they still never actually explained how or why we were in conflict to begin with. We know the reasons for the War because of Halo: Contact Harvest, a novel. We know why the Covenant are at Requiem because of Halo: The Thursday War, a novel.

It’s not so much that there’s missing details in the plot, it’s the attitude that such a thing indicates on the part of the developers and writers, and the attitude it creates and reinforces in the community; it is also proportional to how much prior development the Covenant gets. What I was meaning was that it left the impression that the only real purpose and potential for the Covenant is cannon fodder for the player to blow through. It’s like everyone just assumes that there is Covenant, therefore they must be hostile; they can’t be anything else. The lack of details in the game made it feel as though that is the way 343i think; “no need to include details, because it’s just the Covenant. They’ll get them in a book if they are interested”.

It wasn’t so much a problem for me in Halo: CE because the Covenant’s lack of …well, everything, at that point made that assumption trivial. The Covenant weren’t really fleshed out in an interesting way. They literally were just aliens to shoot. I didn’t really care back then. If they were still that way to this day, I still wouldn’t care.

Halo 2 broke that down, and Halo 3 outright killed the notion as did many other EU pieces in giving them more character and potential. Even though their motivations still weren’t explained in Halo 3, the assumption that they would always be hostile was gone. Now, in Halo 4 no mention to friendly forces is made, they are called the Covenant by everyone, no further mention of Great Schism or the truce, or the Arbiter. By not including any of these details it seems at least to me to be making the implicit assumption that this is the only feasible way to evolve things. That was true in Halo:CE. The Covenant were just cannon fodder to blow through. Even though plot wise it was a bit of an omission to leave out their motivations, it didn’t negatively impede the narrative because there was no narrative with the Covenant.

We’ve come a long way since CE, and these sort details shouldn’t be left out anymore. It’s obvious that the games are more important than the books; the really big aspects that you want to show of the fiction go in the games and the books fill out the little details. The idea of the Covenant not being cannon fodder anymore should be a big part of the fiction, at least in my opinion, because that is where the narrative lead us to and the truce and the Arbiter themselves were major twists in the last trilogy.

Maybe SpOps will address this later on.

17

> > > What bugged me was that everything to do with the Covenant was a mess. They look very generic, their presence as antagonists not explained at all, the outcome of the Schism isn’t covered nor is the outcome for the truce we had with the Elites. It’s just assumed antagonism from the Covenant which is a step backwards narratively speaking.
> >
> > How so? The original trilogy never once explain how we met the Covenant nor did it explain why we ended up fighting them. Halo Combat Evolved simply opens with “Aliens are boarding the ship, kill them” and then you continued to do that for the rest of the game. Halo 2 expanded on their motivations for wanting the Halos but they still never actually explained how or why we were in conflict to begin with. We know the reasons for the War because of Halo: Contact Harvest, a novel. We know why the Covenant are at Requiem because of Halo: The Thursday War, a novel.
>
> However, it is still a bit odd to not and at least try to explain the Covenant’s presence in Halo 4. You are right that it is said in a novel, but if 343i wishes to bridge both the novels and games, they missed an opportunity. Spartan Ops seems to be explaining things a bit better, but without knowing his story, Jul 'Mdama is just some vague baddy leading his chums.

Who exactly was going to explain it? The Master Chief himself does not know because he just woke up to find himself in this situation. He questions why they’re fighting the Covenant when they should have a treaty and then comments on their increased aggression. Later he does discover that they had been there for 3 years attempting to get inside and they had also been broadcasting the word “Didact” every 30 minutes. It’s not hard to surmise that they are attempting to Reach this mysterious “Didact.”

Later the UNSC arrives but they too have no idea why the Covenant is there. The Thursday War ended with Jul learning of the Didact and Requiem where he is hidden but the UNSC doesn’t know about any of this. Del Rio explains in the game that they themselves discovered Requiem from one of the Halo Rings so they do not know why the Covenant is there other than the Master Chief’s report that they are now working for the Didact whom they sought.

I didn’t find it very complicated at all really. Spartan Ops will fill in the rest of the details but it’s ongoing.

18

I think that detailing their identity, or what they are not (Such as not the entirely of the Covenant; not the Covenant), would have ultimately have been more valuable than detailing their motivations imo. That’s not to say the latter isn’t important, I just think that identity seems more important.

19

> I think that detailing their identity, or what they are not (Such as not the entirely of the Covenant; not the Covenant), would have ultimately have been more valuable than detailing their motivations imo. That’s not to say the latter isn’t important, I just think that identity seems more important.

I do agree here. I liked the idea of them being “The Storm” before that was written off as inaccurate information.

20

> Yeah the story was really bad. And this was mainly because there was really no opposing force. Sure, the Covenant was there but you never knew why, the Prometheans are also just there and have absolutely no character at all so their reveal had no impact and the Didact appears just a couple of times and pretty much all villainous with little introduction in game.
>
> It was literally, “Hi… im evil.”
>
> And please dont tell me how much the books explain all of this and how the extra videos do as well because NONE of that has a factor as you are playing through the game the first time. And THAT’S the impression i have of the game and not of all the stuff i learned later.

I hate when people bring this up.

Did you skip the Cutscene partway through the Level Reclaimer? You know that explains the Didacts backstory and motives right?