Master Chief has gone rogue to find Dr. Halsey. He needs to find Halsey and it’s not to bring back Cortana. John knows that she’s dead, a “copycat” Cortana is never going to sit right with him. He’s looking for Halsey because she’s the only one who has answers. He needs to find his own humanity and Halsey knows everything about John. She probably remembers more about John’s childhood than he does. He has to go rogue because even if there’s a manhunt out for her, he will never be assigned to that mission, he is too close to the target and can’t be trusted with her assassination.
He takes Blue Team with him because they can be trusted and they can relate to his new cause. They might question his newfound reckless nature but ultimately they will follow him to the ends of the galaxy. Their bond being raised together as Spartans, as family, cannot be so easily broken.
ONI labels Master Chief as a traitor when he goes rogue and they come to the conclusion that he’s searching for Halsey, who also happens to be a traitor. ONI somehow knows that Halsey is aware of “the truth”. They don’t tell Locke about this and send him on a mission to retrieve the Spartan at any cost, knowing full well that finding John means finding Halsey, the only person who knows “the truth”. What is “the truth”? I wish I knew. Agent Locke soon discovers that the Master Chief’s sudden disappearance and the mysteriously attacked colonies are linked. In what way? No clue, but ONI is definitely hiding something huge from everyone.
Then there’s the Guardians. How do they fit into the story? Who or what even are they? The Forerunners still have a large role to play as the enemies in this game. We will be fighting Prometheans again, so their appearance must mean something. They are no doubt involved in the attacks on the human colonies in some way. Is the Didact still out there pulling the strings? I believe the Guardians are the enemies in this story as well as ONI and their secrecy. They really do remind me of Cerberus from Mass Effect. I have a feeling that the Guardians are going to be Halo’s version of the Reapers (at least in scale, power and age) from Mass Effect.
Halsey is going to end up biting the dust in this campaign but not before she tells John something important. Locke is going to find himself allying with Chief and the Arbiter is going to be the one who kills Jul Mdama. The Master Chief is going to return to ONI and end their lies once and for all after hearing the truth from Halsey and losing a member of Blue Team (yeah random, huh? but it would create more motive). This will be an extremely personal quest for him jam packed with flashbacks and all that goodness (please no Halo 3 visions).
Locke and Arbiter are going to stop the Guardians together and the Arbiter will either die or leave once he has killed Jul Mdama.
Now I pulled most of this out of my -Yoink-, but at least this story does 3 things.
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Keeps Master Chief’s story personal the whole way through the game.
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Locke will get his closure on his journey by doing what he sought out to do: Find out why Master Chief went rogue, unravel the mystery that threatens the galaxy and stop it.
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The Arbiter will either leave the story of Halo 5 after he kills Jul’ Mdama or he’ll stick around and die near the end. Most likely leaving after he kills Jul, which is why he allied himself with Locke for a short time, to mutually benefit each other. The Arbiter gets his showtime for a little while and then departs, leaving his appearance open for future games.
The more and more that I ramble on about this at 5am, I end up realizing that half of this sounds stupid. Anyways, feel free to tell me what you think and keep in mind I just made this up and in no way do I believe this should actually be spot on.