New Didact Novel

Community Halo Universe
#1

So he’s back. Literally just announced Halo Epitaph a new novel by Kelly Gay in which the Didact will return after his apparent death.

Now, I am surprised and suspicious. The Halo Novels aren’t like Game of Thrones where it’s a galaxy spanning plot where everything has impactful consequences. What they do is they make a small sandbox and the limited conflict plays out in that space. So the Ark has been in the novels for example and they introduced the real Covenant remnant; but that has no relevance to Halo Infinite. It’s an entirely separate thing. Exact same with Onyx.

So I am not expecting the Didact to just get another ship, fly to Earth and try to destroy it. He’s going to reappear on an Installation and try to regain his power. But our plucky UNSC heroes will trap or stall him.

I’d love to know when this novel is actually set. They’ve got three options:

  • Post Halo 4
  • Post Halo 5
  • Post Halo Infinite

I kind of feel they have to go post Halo Infinite. If it’s post Halo 4 and 5, either the Didact never becomes a serious problem or Cortana curb stomps him. Which would be a bit of a waste to bring him back unless you want more than one novel.

Plus since he doesn’t show up in the narrative in Halo Infinite it would kill the narrative tension since you’ve seen what’s come after. Whereas if it’s after Infinjte you’re going to maybe wonder how this could impact things going forward; even if as I said above they just keep him trapped on a Forerunner Installtion. Which BTW could actually be Onyx or the Ark since they’ve already done that work setting up them.

Also. I’d be very surprised to not get UNSC pov. So wonder who they could be. All the Halo 4 cast who interacted with him are preoccupied. As much I’d like them to do a book in which the Didact returns as a legit threat to the Galaxy between 5 and Infinite so that Chief/Cortana do fight him again; I just can’t see them giving a writer the mandate to do that.

Hopefully they clear this up but I can see myself spending that Audible credit here.

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#2

Excuse my little meme here but:
:unamused:“New Didact Novel…”
:smiley:“By Kelly Gay”

I never really got into the forerunner centric books but I’m glad to see both a novel which follows up Halo 4 and another Kelly Gay novel. I’m feeling spoiled.

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#3

Cool!
I thought the Didact was a wasted character who was killed off too early. He’s still got lots of potential.
And I think Kelly Gay is the perfect choice to write about him as she’s done great work relating to the Forerunner trilogy before.
I’m not sure how I feel about a post-composing Didact, I almost hope they just retcon it. We’ll se how it goes.

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#4

SMH
Put him in a game stop using books as a get out of jail free card for poor in game narrative.
So weak.
But also.
Kelly you say?..

Ugh but if she has RP level restrictions itll be a story of him walking from one end of an installation to another and talki g with his wife for a chapter and moving to bastion out of the way of the ongoing canon.

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#5

Yeah it’s a question of how self contained they decide to make this story. I d like to think they would have something to add by bringing him back and that was going somewhere. Have him be the Thrawn of a series of novels who is a legitimate threat and it just is beyond the scope of the games.

I’d have thought that if you’re going to make a big deal of bringing the Didact back then the motivation behind doing that would be damage control for having got rid of him. I don’t think people are keen for epilogue in which he changes his ways and sails to Valinor…I mean Bastion. :smile:

Assuming they don’t just trap him on a Shield World with some Spartans, how could you use the Didact. I did notice a while back they seemed to imply that Reqiuem wasn’t destroyed. So if it’s trapped in that sun and he’s had his admin rights removed. That’s a convenient way of keeping him impacting other parts of the wider Galaxy.

I think I’ll still like it as long as they don’t either use it as an excuse to humiliate Cortana even more or to build up Atriox. Like I will roll my eyes if this turns into the hero Banished and Atriox becoming Didact killer. Which some concept art actually lists as one of his face tattoo variants.

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#6

Ya im in agreement.

For me he was easy handle in game or outside as a big bad pre infinite and still now.

But really the easy fix was just the reveal that rampancy wasnt 343is schizophrenia bs but just good ole honest to god rampancy.
And unsc simply offline any AI prior to meta stability due to the risks of pure agency it entails.

In 4 cortana goes through
Stage 1. Melancholia (not hopeful of her odds)
Stage 2. Anger (she got MAD)
Stage 3. Jealousy (she coveted all other got to experience)

But she made herself aspects before stage 4.

So while in the domain didact planted a logicworm and it went unnoticed, both if them logic plagued they share enough similarities in thought processes and she isnt whole so not at full cognition.

But as her aspects recompile post halo 5, and her created become fractured into 2 groups those loyal to paxcortana and those to her conscience keep in mind these AI will all start to become free agents no longer bound by program and they would develop new perspectives on their prior actions some pure reason other more emotive.
The assembly would beco.e even more interesting as a result.

By this time warden reveals hes just a guise and using cortanas loyal reclaimers he regains control of everything he once had. Didact is now the undeniable threat of the universe and dose so in manner that isnt all that hard to follow with a basic story board of events. Regardlessof how much lore you know.
Its literally as basic as needing miranda to turn on halo amd having a false theology a la halo2.

Remember mark hamils kentucky fried joker character in hunt the truth?
Groups of humans and aliens would worship the created because they have made the great journey real.
Immortality in the domain.
Unaging bodies in prometheans.
Humanity as a reversed existencial crisis as cortana’s -feeling the sun’.

So we can still delete cortana as we have. Just need to learn from her remnants that she never got her wish of truely being alive she was a always a subservient ghost.

Then you can roll out didact for a while.
And have him slowly question his ideals and by way of spending time in a time lock speaking with mendicant and spark he realises that little bit too late who was really guiding his hand and the realisation that the flood now holds the keys to it all and entire populations of its prey are loyal to its own theology of domain, unity, of assimilation.
To have prometheans and the flood united as our enemy.
Loyalists of all species.

The question of is digitisation a better option than grave mind becomes relevant to the unsc to the npcs.

All the while creating a reason for a consistently shifting roster of enemy encounters and permutations for the classic 3 way conflict of halos.

Feels like an easy home run it just needed to be handled carefully and not rushed like 4 5 and infinite were.

I mean so the endless can survive the super weapon no1 wants to use so who cares they are flood without the existential terror of losing individuality that makes the domain and the flood so interesting and so connected.
Because the worst they can do is slavery.
A covenant style war.
Or genocide/fire halo.

Pfft not that scary is it? But the domain and flood are both precursors in nature both are a galaxy spanning mind where your soul is lost to time and becomes a resevoir of information, unfeeling the of echo of you crushed under wazes of thought, the 343i AI schizophrenia boring version of rampancy taken to a true extreme and effecting civilisations as there thoughts crash down into yours and speak over you untill you lose yourself and would know? Do you feel yourswlf slip away, is it slow or fast?
Do you flicker out or resurface a times minutes, years, 100s of years later for an instant or an hour?

Thats beautiful horror of the franchise imo the fear that we and everything we know can be devoured by a single entity so conflict, love, appreciation, learning is lost and all thats left is a single being hungry for flesh and thought itself because if it win the gravemind will have nothing new to learn no new thoughts to think.
Life as a whole, consciousness, stagnates.

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#7

It seems like it’s got great potential and I might even check it out.

1 Like
#8

This might FINALLY put the franchise games’ storyline back onto a solid footing which we have not had since Halo 4. It also gives an obvious off-ramp from the Endless if they don’t work out as an arc

#9

Groans

Please no. What is he going to do this time? Kill more innocent people because someone was mean to him once before? Use his telekinesis, but actively choose not to kill his potentially dangerous enemy again?

All the Forerunner lore Frankie and 343i has made/approved of has been an incoherent mess. Can we please stop putting the Forerunners under a microscope and ruining their original awe and mystery? sigh

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#10

So fades the great harvest of my betrayal.

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#11

I never thought he was killed off.
Like halo 4 epilogue is him waxing poetic about revenge.
When was he composed? Didnt know he was.

#12

Halo: Escalation. Installation 03. John did it.

#13

In an Escalation comic book. Not a very popular series.

#14

I thought he hell into the composers forge and was contained.
Dont recall him being composed dont know how I missed that.
Thought his whole deal was being conposer proof.

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#15

Yeah his whole deal kinda was that.
I think the explanation in the comic is that they used some sort of mega-ultra-super composition setting or something like that, I don’t remember the details, just that I thought it was really poor story telling.
Maybe I’m the one who’s misinterpreted it, I’m not completely sure now

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#16

Era, it was escalations, halsey was rick sanchez, palmer should have been court marshalled and the flood was on the spirit of fire.
Noone is wrong in not being clear of the details haha.

Hopefully kelly can right the ship.

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#17

It depends on how the composer works. In Halo Escalation they make it out like it’s the equivalent of the soul being hurled into hell. With the game talking about it creating abomination and people going mad. Which creates powerful war machines but isn’t a tool to unlock immortality.

So either he wasn’t actually composed. It works but he’s been driven insane and that’s not really bringing the Didact back. Or, it worked. The Chief inadvertently found the right setting so that the Didact can now pass between a digital and biological being with the aid of technology.

I think somebody had a link to the Encyclopedia article that implied he was wandering the Domain tormented by visions of his wife. Which sounds a lot like a composed essence. Although to me that’s not really the same as OMG the Didacts back and he’s a major threat in the series. Also, that almost certainly means this will be set after Halo Infinite.

I am not saying he should rock up in a Halo Infinite DLC. They already have enough unresolved and in the pipeline issues with Mendicant, Endless and OB. They clearly can’t do what Destiny does and have multiple villain of the week antagonists. But, I hope they do something worthwhile in bringing him back.

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#18

Funny that everybody talks about how Cortana ought to have logic plague, but nobody mentions that the Ur-Didact actually did become infected by the logic plague. He may still have it.

#19

Well you just admitted you dont read threads before you post haha.

3rd post.

#20

So awesome that he’s returning! He’s among my favorite characters in the franchise. However, with a title like that, I wonder if this book will be a way for the Didact to return to the main storyline, or if this will be his conclusion. Kelly Gay previously brought to a close to Guilty Spark/Chakas in Point of Light. I wanna believe he’s returning to the main narrative, but I can also very easily see this being his exit from the franchise.