Wasn’t Parangosky planning to come clean about the SII program at the end of Mortal Dictata? If that’s the case, then how is it that Benjamin Giraud is just now investigating the truth of Chief’s past? Isn’t the truth already public, or am I forgetting something?
Parangosky (cough Karen Traviss) talked a big game about exposing the horrors of the S-II Program, but that revelation never seemed to materialize past rumors within the UNSC.
> 2533274812652989;2:
> Parangosky (cough Karen Traviss) talked a big game about exposing the horrors of the S-II Program, but that revelation never seemed to materialize past rumors within the UNSC.
And, seemingly, some select Spartan-IIs being reunited with their families and regaining their old identities to some degree. I don’t remember to what degree this came to pass, but I was pretty sure Spartan-IIs were at least given the chance to read their own classified files, weren’t they? I haven’t read a Kilo-5 novel in a while, admittedly. I’m a little fuzzy on the details.
It is kind of a huge and abrupt step backward that Admiral Parangosky seemingly did not go public with the details of the Spartan-IIs. It makes me wonder if they had originally planned to go this way, published these novels to lay the groundwork, and then backpedaled hard in the new media.
I’m pretty sure Parangosky said she wanted to “someday expose” all the information on the SPARTAN program. There are probably many reasons why it doesn’t make sense to make all the details public currently.
> 2533274806352868;3:
> > 2533274812652989;2:
> > Parangosky (cough Karen Traviss) talked a big game about exposing the horrors of the S-II Program, but that revelation never seemed to materialize past rumors within the UNSC.
>
>
> And, seemingly, some select Spartan-IIs being reunited with their families and regaining their old identities to some degree. I don’t remember to what degree this came to pass, but I was pretty sure Spartan-IIs were at least given the chance to read their own classified files, weren’t they? I haven’t read a Kilo-5 novel in a while, admittedly. I’m a little fuzzy on the details.
>
> It is kind of a huge and abrupt step backward that Admiral Parangosky seemingly did not go public with the details of the Spartan-IIs. It makes me wonder if they had originally planned to go this way, published these novels to lay the groundwork, and then backpedaled hard in the new media.
Naomi is the only SII that was given access to her file but didn’t read it. Instead she had someone else read it and, by a twist of fate, ended up having to track down her insurrectionist father. It wasn’t that she was allowed to reconnect with her family, it just kind of happened that way.
Osman, Head of ONI and SII Washout, was given access to her file and ended up visiting one of her old teachers. That’s about it. No other Spartan II, that we know of, has gotten access to their file.
> 2533274908138382;5:
> > 2533274806352868;3:
> > > 2533274812652989;2:
> > > Parangosky (cough Karen Traviss) talked a big game about exposing the horrors of the S-II Program, but that revelation never seemed to materialize past rumors within the UNSC.
> >
> >
> > And, seemingly, some select Spartan-IIs being reunited with their families and regaining their old identities to some degree. I don’t remember to what degree this came to pass, but I was pretty sure Spartan-IIs were at least given the chance to read their own classified files, weren’t they? I haven’t read a Kilo-5 novel in a while, admittedly. I’m a little fuzzy on the details.
> >
> > It is kind of a huge and abrupt step backward that Admiral Parangosky seemingly did not go public with the details of the Spartan-IIs. It makes me wonder if they had originally planned to go this way, published these novels to lay the groundwork, and then backpedaled hard in the new media.
>
>
> Naomi is the only SII that was given access to her file but didn’t read it. Instead she had someone else read it and, by a twist of fate, ended up having to track down her insurrectionist father. It wasn’t that she was allowed to reconnect with her family, it just kind of happened that way.
> Osman, Head of ONI and SII Washout, was given access to her file and ended up visiting one of her old teachers. That’s about it. No other Spartan II, that we know of, has gotten access to their file.
No, in Glasslands, they gave Blue Team (Fred, Kelly, and Linda) the opportunity to read their files, but they all declined.
I think she came clean about it to the Defence council not the public as a whole.
Ahh, Karen, Karen… I’m almost ready to put Kilo 5 in the bad fan-fiction section of my brain lol. I wonder sometimes if it’s a good or bad thing that 343 so obviously changes the direction of the fiction based on feedback from the fans. We get a better story, but it makes me wonder about whether or not there’s any real artistic soul to some of the stories we’re given or if they’re just pandering to us… (Or maybe Traviss just went buck wild and didn’t have enough oversight and now they really are just backtracking over that stuff? Who knows.)
Some partial release of the information has already happened within the military, but i think the ‘Hunt the truth’ is the full disclosure in action, though i think it isn’t quite the way Parangosky imagined it. My theory is currently that Osman is going to throw Parangosky under the bus along with Halsey and everyone else who worked on the program and label them pre-war ‘rogue elements’, then go about making a show of arresting them but they ‘tragically’ either commit suicide or ‘resist arrest’. If she combines this with maybe revealing her past as a victim of the SII program it will be a major PR victory for ONI. Not only are they suddenly ‘honest and transparent’, but under the management of one of their victims, a colony girl from the slums no less. And just like that, Osman has not only claimed more prestige for her organization but also claimed her pound of flesh for her time in the SII program as well.
> 2533274809073993;8:
> Ahh, Karen, Karen… I’m almost ready to put Kilo 5 in the bad fan-fiction section of my brain lol. I wonder sometimes if it’s a good or bad thing that 343 so obviously changes the direction of the fiction based on feedback from the fans. We get a better story, but it makes me wonder about whether or not there’s any real artistic soul to some of the stories we’re given or if they’re just pandering to us… (Or maybe Traviss just went buck wild and didn’t have enough oversight and now they really are just backtracking over that stuff? Who knows.)
Pandering can be a problem, but I don’t think the correction of Traviss’ research errors and biased misinterpretations of previous canon counts as that. Of course, 343i themselves share a lot of the guilt for not keeping Traviss on a tighter editorial leash, but at least they’ve shown they can learn from their mistakes.
I still wish that the Kilo-Five books, or at least the Onyx segments of Glasslands, were established as unreliable and biased records created by ONI. It would certainly explain a lot.
Idk. I loved the Kilo-Five books, gave oni that darker edge of screw you aliens. Humanity is top dog now and we’ll kick you guys on your cruch to knock you on your face to keep you down. Like real life CIA
> 2533274803137071;11:
> Idk. I loved the Kilo-Five books, gave oni that darker edge of screw you aliens. Humanity is top dog now and we’ll kick you guys on your cruch to knock you on your face to keep you down. Like real life CIA
Yeah, about humanity being the “top dog” and capable of dominating everyone else including the Elites… There’s a reason a lot of fans outright reject that notion as utterly nonsensical. Well, many reasons. Not the least of which is that you don’t really get to dominate anyone after suffering through thirty years of methodical extermination whilst losing the vast majority of your military, resources and industrial base all the while the other side (the ones ONI thinks they’re dominating) has lost maybe one or two shipyards and their capital city. Not to mention that the Covenant had a few thousand years’ head start on the whole galactic expansion thing. And with most of humanity’s empire in ruins, all of their efforts should focus on rebuilding and not a ridiculous race war.
As far as real-world comparisons go, the post-war UNSC isn’t the post-WWII United States. It’s maybe the post-WWII France, tops. They aren’t going to be meaningfully threatening the former Covenant any time soon.
> 2533274848433317;12:
> > 2533274803137071;11:
> > Idk. I loved the Kilo-Five books, gave oni that darker edge of screw you aliens. Humanity is top dog now and we’ll kick you guys on your cruch to knock you on your face to keep you down. Like real life CIA
>
>
> Yeah, about humanity being the “top dog” and capable of dominating everyone else including the Elites… There’s a reason a lot of fans outright reject that notion as utterly nonsensical. Well, many reasons. Not the least of which is that you don’t really get to dominate anyone after suffering through thirty years of methodical extermination whilst losing the vast majority of your military, resources and industrial base all the while the other side (the ones ONI thinks they’re dominating) has lost maybe one or two shipyards and their capital city. Not to mention that the Covenant had a few thousand years’ head start on the whole galactic expansion thing. And with most of humanity’s empire in ruins, all of their efforts should focus on rebuilding and not a ridiculous race war.
>
> As far as real-world comparisons go, the post-war UNSC isn’t the post-WWII United States. It’s maybe the post-WWII France, tops. They aren’t going to be meaningfully threatening the former Covenant any time soon.
And yet the Infinity splits a covie capital in half And is able to tackle a whole covie fleet by itself in spartan ops. The arbiter’s faction is really one of the smallest factions out there. Even Ghost of Oynx states this. They only leaders the elites had that could prevent any of the houses from going warlord were killed by that mega bomb in ghost of oynx.
The Covenant are splintered to all to hell. Right now splintered to all to hell. How you have to look at is the the Galactic empire. They lost the emperor with the Great schism as most the Elite Council getting killed on the delta halo. Then they practically lost what was the elite’s equivalent of coruscant when the elites summoned all their remaining top leaders to that fortress world and then bamn, all killed and one of the largest gathering of fleets the elites gathered
So now the elites covenant empire is at the level the the Galactic empire was when they lost all leadership and they’re strongest stronghold world. They all turned into squabbling warlords consolidating their holdings. Same with the brutes, Where in the Escalation comics, have gone back to nuking each other back to the stone age.
So in truth. Karren Traviss did not create the world she took advantage of. It was the author of “The Ghost of Oynx” who pretty much destroyed the Elite empire. You guys are all really hating on the wrong author
> 2533274803137071;13:
> > 2533274848433317;12:
> > > 2533274803137071;11:
> > > Idk. I loved the Kilo-Five books, gave oni that darker edge of screw you aliens. Humanity is top dog now and we’ll kick you guys on your cruch to knock you on your face to keep you down. Like real life CIA
> >
> >
> > Yeah, about humanity being the “top dog” and capable of dominating everyone else including the Elites… There’s a reason a lot of fans outright reject that notion as utterly nonsensical. Well, many reasons. Not the least of which is that you don’t really get to dominate anyone after suffering through thirty years of methodical extermination whilst losing the vast majority of your military, resources and industrial base all the while the other side (the ones ONI thinks they’re dominating) has lost maybe one or two shipyards and their capital city. Not to mention that the Covenant had a few thousand years’ head start on the whole galactic expansion thing. And with most of humanity’s empire in ruins, all of their efforts should focus on rebuilding and not a ridiculous race war.
> >
> > As far as real-world comparisons go, the post-war UNSC isn’t the post-WWII United States. It’s maybe the post-WWII France, tops. They aren’t going to be meaningfully threatening the former Covenant any time soon.
>
>
> And yet the Infinity splits a covie capital in half And is able to tackle a whole covie fleet by itself in spartan ops. The arbiter’s faction is really one of the smallest factions out there. Even Ghost of Oynx states this. They only leaders the elites had that could prevent any of the houses from going warlord were killed by that mega bomb in ghost of oynx.
>
> The Covenant are splintered to all to hell. Right now splintered to all to hell. How you have to look at is the the Galactic empire. They lost the emperor with the Great schism as most the Elite Council getting killed on the delta halo. Then they practically lost what was the elite’s equivalent of coruscant when the elites summoned all their remaining top leaders to that fortress world and then bamn, all killed and one of the largest gathering of fleets the elites gathered
>
> So now the elites covenant empire is at the level the the Galactic empire was when they lost all leadership and they’re strongest stronghold world. They all turned into squabbling warlords consolidating their holdings. Same with the brutes, Where in the Escalation comics, have gone back to nuking each other back to the stone age.
>
> So in truth. Karren Traviss did not create the world she took advantage of. It was the author of “The Ghost of Oynx” who pretty much destroyed the Elite empire. You guys are all really hating on the wrong author
The Covenant have been reduced to a bunch of feuding warlords, yes, but you have to consider the matter of scale. The Covenant was a militaristic interstellar polity with 3000+ years to expand their empire, and the Elites were spacefaring long before that. The point remains that the UNSC wasn’t able to meaningfully damage the Covenant’s infrastructure during the war aside from isolated cases like some of the Spartan-IIIs’ missions, while the Covenant rampaged through UNSC planets and fleets for decades.
Even in their splintered state, a Covenant faction like the Arbiter’s would realistically possess more military power than what remains of the UNSC post-war. They’re no longer an empire, but the scale of that empire was so far beyond the UNSC that even a small fraction of that empire would pose a threat to a UNSC that only survived because the Elites helped them. And even though the UNSC “won” the war, their military was utterly wrecked. Billions of people were killed. Reach, which housed most of their shipyards and military power, burned to cinder. The fleet at Earth, exhausted to almost nothing.
And the Infinity isn’t really all it’s made out to be. It got instantly crippled by a Covenant station, got repeatedly trolled by Jul at Requiem, and only seemed to be inflicting minor casualties on Jul’s fleet during a seven-hour battle in the latest Escalation issues. As for what happened in The Thursday War, well, that’s what I was criticizing in the first place.
And while Ghosts of Onyx portrays the destruction of one Elite world, admittedly an important one at that, it doesn’t really delve into the deeper political implications of that. It wasn’t until Glasslands that we got the HFY nonsense about the Huragok magically disappearing, prowlers one-shotting Covenant cruisers, the Arbiter being threatened by a small band of Elite hillbillies, etc.
All that said, my main problems with the Kilo-Five books (Glasslands in particular) lie with the mangling of established characterizations and the squandering of Onyx’s storytelling potential.
> 2533274848433317;14:
> > 2533274803137071;13:
> > > 2533274848433317;12:
> > > > 2533274803137071;11:
> > > > Idk. I loved the Kilo-Five books, gave oni that darker edge of screw you aliens. Humanity is top dog now and we’ll kick you guys on your cruch to knock you on your face to keep you down. Like real life CIA
> > >
> > >
> > > Yeah, about humanity being the “top dog” and capable of dominating everyone else including the Elites… There’s a reason a lot of fans outright reject that notion as utterly nonsensical. Well, many reasons. Not the least of which is that you don’t really get to dominate anyone after suffering through thirty years of methodical extermination whilst losing the vast majority of your military, resources and industrial base all the while the other side (the ones ONI thinks they’re dominating) has lost maybe one or two shipyards and their capital city. Not to mention that the Covenant had a few thousand years’ head start on the whole galactic expansion thing. And with most of humanity’s empire in ruins, all of their efforts should focus on rebuilding and not a ridiculous race war.
> > >
> > > As far as real-world comparisons go, the post-war UNSC isn’t the post-WWII United States. It’s maybe the post-WWII France, tops. They aren’t going to be meaningfully threatening the former Covenant any time soon.
> >
> >
> > And yet the Infinity splits a covie capital in half And is able to tackle a whole covie fleet by itself in spartan ops. The arbiter’s faction is really one of the smallest factions out there. Even Ghost of Oynx states this. They only leaders the elites had that could prevent any of the houses from going warlord were killed by that mega bomb in ghost of oynx.
> >
> > The Covenant are splintered to all to hell. Right now splintered to all to hell. How you have to look at is the the Galactic empire. They lost the emperor with the Great schism as most the Elite Council getting killed on the delta halo. Then they practically lost what was the elite’s equivalent of coruscant when the elites summoned all their remaining top leaders to that fortress world and then bamn, all killed and one of the largest gathering of fleets the elites gathered
> >
> > So now the elites covenant empire is at the level the the Galactic empire was when they lost all leadership and they’re strongest stronghold world. They all turned into squabbling warlords consolidating their holdings. Same with the brutes, Where in the Escalation comics, have gone back to nuking each other back to the stone age.
> >
> > So in truth. Karren Traviss did not create the world she took advantage of. It was the author of “The Ghost of Oynx” who pretty much destroyed the Elite empire. You guys are all really hating on the wrong author
>
>
> The Covenant have been reduced to a bunch of feuding warlords, yes, but you have to consider the matter of scale. The Covenant was a militaristic interstellar polity with 3000+ years to expand their empire, and the Elites were spacefaring long before that. The point remains that the UNSC wasn’t able to meaningfully damage the Covenant’s infrastructure during the war aside from isolated cases like some of the Spartan-IIIs’ missions, while the Covenant rampaged through UNSC planets and fleets for decades.
>
> Even in their splintered state, a Covenant faction like the Arbiter’s would realistically possess more military power than what remains of the UNSC post-war. They’re no longer an empire, but the scale of that empire was so far beyond the UNSC that even a small fraction of that empire would pose a threat to a UNSC that only survived because the Elites helped them. And even though the UNSC “won” the war, their military was utterly wrecked. Billions of people were killed. Reach, which housed most of their shipyards and military power, burned to cinder. The fleet at Earth, exhausted to almost nothing.
>
> And the Infinity isn’t really all it’s made out to be. It got instantly crippled by a Covenant station, got repeatedly trolled by Jul at Requiem, and only seemed to be inflicting minor casualties on Jul’s fleet during a seven-hour battle in the latest Escalation issues. As for what happened in The Thursday War, well, that’s what I was criticizing in the first place.
>
> And while Ghosts of Onyx portrays the destruction of one Elite world, admittedly an important one at that, it doesn’t really delve into the deeper political implications of that. It wasn’t until Glasslands that we got the HFY nonsense about the Huragok magically disappearing, prowlers one-shotting Covenant cruisers, the Arbiter being threatened by a small band of Elite hillbillies, etc.
>
> All that said, my main problems with the Kilo-Five books (Glasslands in particular) lie with the mangling of established characterizations and the squandering of Onyx’s storytelling potential.
You need to recheck your facts. The Arbiter’s whole fleet comprised of thay you saw on halo 3, with heavy damage done to it in the 3:1 fight it went against. So in truth. The Arbiter was in really no position to fight anyone after the ark
The Events in halo 2 killed almost all of the elite council and the only elite, that many of the remaining elite top dogs respected, summoned all the remaining elite ship commanders that were worth anything to that planet. Yes a small world. but a empire means nothing if you lose all the remaining leaders that can hold it together. Not only did the many of the fleet commanders answer the call, They brought thier fleets. So you had all that was left of Elite top leadership and their fleets in one place. Bam. Planet cracks in half. They are no more.
Mars is Earth’s largest shipyard. Reach was just closer to the front. Though Mars suffered damage as truth rolled through. it is still there.
Also the home fleet may have been damage. But Humanity still has the majority of its inner colonies as the Covenant was in the mid colonies, jumped to reach, then earth. So all those fleets are still mostly intacted.
So at the moment after Halo 3, the Covenant was in complete chaos and nobody knowing what to do. So humanity being still organized and having its key leadership intact still had the advantage
Now by the time of 2557, the covenant was finally able to get its act together, but by Then. Humanity bought enough time to be in a real good spot
Partly conceded on the Arbiter’s fleet, but that’s just him, during the war, and not the houses and keeps scattered across the former Sangheili empire that allied with him after the war ended. The Elites still have dozens (likely hundreds) of thriving colonies and military bases, none of which were hit during the war. And even then, the UNSC-Covenant 3:1 ratio in ship-to-ship combat would’ve gone nowhere by early 2553. Yes, Karen Traviss insists that prowlers can now blow up Covenant warships left and right but that’s what I’m criticizing her books for.
Most UNSC fleets from the Inner Colonies were recalled to defend Earth. That is, those fleets that hadn’t been destroyed at Reach after being recalled to defend it a couple months earlier.
“Reach is the location of the UNSC’s largest and most active shipyard” - CAA Factbook (B.net). Make that a “was”. And I find it difficult to believe the Martian shipyards would come unscathed after the Covenant rolled over Sol.
Humanity has its leadership, yes, but that’s not going to do much good militarily against, say, a band of militants based off of a Sangheili base world with an active shipyard at their disposal who might spontaneously decide to pay a visit to Earth with a fresh, coach-built fleet. And the Arbiter is the only thing preventing that from happening.
We need a canon fodder to clear up the issue of the post war balance of power (after clearing up Sangheili armours though). I want to see the big picture. To know which elites form which factions were actually listening to which leaders. To see what was the real strength of the Sangheili military, whether the hundreds of thousands of covenant ships remaining were really all being hidden by isolated factions. For humans, I want to know if they really could recuperate their military strength so quickly and how much the Infinity can really affect the balance of power.
I’m still not sure what to think. The Kilo 5 trilogy (at least to me) made it seem Sanghelios was the only thing the Sangheili actually possessed after the Schism. It made the situation behind the Sangheili seem so microscopic compared to the enormity of the Covenant Empire. Did so many colonies really lose contact with Sanghelios? Did the Schism really turn into a war of attrition so badly that but a hundred or so ships remain? Take everything I have issues with about the post war Sangheili, reverse it and you will get my issues with humanity. It seemed like humanity was this pervasive, overwhelming force in the galaxy. Is the Infinity really that strong? Did having an intact government really put humans so far ahead compared to every other race?
TL;DR: HUNT the TRUTH and the extent of public knowledge behind the SII program is really part of a big question mark about the whole state of the galaxy post Great Schism.
Grim pls.
> 2533274837720524;6:
> > 2533274908138382;5:
> > > 2533274806352868;3:
> > > > 2533274812652989;2:
> > > > Parangosky (cough Karen Traviss) talked a big game about exposing the horrors of the S-II Program, but that revelation never seemed to materialize past rumors within the UNSC.
> > >
> > >
> > > And, seemingly, some select Spartan-IIs being reunited with their families and regaining their old identities to some degree. I don’t remember to what degree this came to pass, but I was pretty sure Spartan-IIs were at least given the chance to read their own classified files, weren’t they? I haven’t read a Kilo-5 novel in a while, admittedly. I’m a little fuzzy on the details.
> > >
> > > It is kind of a huge and abrupt step backward that Admiral Parangosky seemingly did not go public with the details of the Spartan-IIs. It makes me wonder if they had originally planned to go this way, published these novels to lay the groundwork, and then backpedaled hard in the new media.
> >
> >
> > Naomi is the only SII that was given access to her file but didn’t read it. Instead she had someone else read it and, by a twist of fate, ended up having to track down her insurrectionist father. It wasn’t that she was allowed to reconnect with her family, it just kind of happened that way.
> > Osman, Head of ONI and SII Washout, was given access to her file and ended up visiting one of her old teachers. That’s about it. No other Spartan II, that we know of, has gotten access to their file.
>
>
> No, in Glasslands, they gave Blue Team (Fred, Kelly, and Linda) the opportunity to read their files, but they all declined.
Hmm I don’t remember that part of the book… But it wasn’t that interesting to begin with, I guess.
> 2533274848433317;17:
> Partly conceded on the Arbiter’s fleet, but that’s just him, during the war, and not the houses and keeps scattered across the former Sangheili empire that allied with him after the war ended. The Elites still have dozens (likely hundreds) of thriving colonies and military bases, none of which were hit during the war. And even then, the UNSC-Covenant 3:1 ratio in ship-to-ship combat would’ve gone nowhere by early 2553. Yes, Karen Traviss insists that prowlers can now blow up Covenant warships left and right but that’s what I’m criticizing her books for.
>
> Most UNSC fleets from the Inner Colonies were recalled to defend Earth. That is, those fleets that hadn’t been destroyed at Reach after being recalled to defend it a couple months earlier.
>
> “Reach is the location of the UNSC’s largest and most active shipyard” - CAA Factbook (B.net). Make that a “was”. And I find it difficult to believe the Martian shipyards would come unscathed after the Covenant rolled over Sol.
>
> Humanity has its leadership, yes, but that’s not going to do much good militarily against, say, a band of militants based off of a Sangheili base world with an active shipyard at their disposal who might spontaneously decide to pay a visit to Earth with a fresh, coach-built fleet. And the Arbiter is the only thing preventing that from happening.
And yet the UNSC is a powerhouse in 2557 and with no covie attacks finishing Earth off. I think they told Traviss, “we need an excuse why humanity can go toe to toe with the Covenant now and why they didn’t finish the humans off.” and she did it to the best of her ability. Yes people hate it. But really. if your saying the Covenant could kill off humanity easy. Why did they not.