Regardless of whether or not you despised the barely functional custom pallet exclusive to the map, Halo 4’s asteroid-set Impact easily has the most intriguing lore behind it. In fact, the map’s official description…
> This observation outpost was established to examine the site of a spectacularly violent meteor collision recorded by an ONI patrol drone in 2547. When researchers first arrived, they were startled to find a non-native fragment of the impacting agent had actually survived and was of unknown origin. More recently, interest in the site has grown as the fragment has proven to have originated from long before the earliest of known Forerunner artifacts
…hints that the crystallized column of rock inside of the massive UNSC facility on the larger asteroid is Precursor in origin. This is further affirmed in the Halo 4 Essential Visual Guide, where the page on Impact goes into further detail and not only states that the artifact originated from outside of the galactic rim, but also that it was “unlike anything ONI had ever seen before.”
And then we have Nebula.
Although there isn’t much to it as it’s just Impact’s skybox, the description of the map…
> Despite the immense value of the find, the remote contact team charged with security of this site deemed it too dangerous to remain.
…leaves me with a few questions:
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Are Impact and Nebula in the same setting? (Catalog, I SUMMON YOU!!!)
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Since it’s excessively likely that Nebula and Impact refer to the same site, is there a reason that Nebula lacks the pair of asteroids that Impact was composed of, or is that change non-canon?
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Again, assuming that Impact and Nebula are in the same setting, what was so dangerous about the site that forced researchers to abandon its immense value? Could it be that the potential Precursor artifact had a more malicious function to it than simply being an inanimate rock?
This is why I LOVE canonical multiplayer. Lore fans like myself get an entire basket of eggs to ponder over.