Too long; didn’t read.
Lol.
EXACTLY MY POINT IN THE FINAL SECTION
“TLDR” is one of the main reasons why 343’s method of telling their story is so bad. Most of it is in books, and gamers typically don’t like books.
Moreso that you’re overtyping again.
Sometimes conveying too much to persuade can have the opposite effect, so.
Which is ironic as I point out that 343’s reliance on written media has resulted in a story that is difficult for players to follow.
In March we will be at 31 novels with the release of Halo: Outcasts.
Meanwhile in Bungie’s decade with the franchise, we only had 6 novels.
Shame on them for trying to expand the universe.
There is nothing wrong with expanding the universe.
(except when you explain cosmic horror’s origins like they did in Halo Cryptum, Primordium, and Silentium. The whole point of Cosmic Horror is that it is unknowable. And yet, they described the origins of the Flood).
My issue is that the books were not essential to understanding the story of the games.
Sure, if you were curious about what it means to be a Spartan and what this “Reach” place that Keys and Cortana mention only in the first mission of the game, you could read Halo: The Fall of Reach.
And if you were curious as to how Chief got back to Earth between CE and 2, you could read Halo: First Strike.
BUT those books weren’t ultimately required. Halo 2 picked up where Halo CE left off from.
And then the other books Bungie made were just extra fluff to give us more history.
Contact Harvest - The Cole Protocol - Ghosts of Onyx
Heck, The Flood was just a novelized version of the first game that just added some extra chapters to make it more filling than just reading the same story as the game.
But then we have 343’s games.
Some of the books are indeed extra universe lore. Some of which exist only to hammer in a ret-con.
Immediately we have books and comics to read to lead into Halo 4, without which you have some frustrations to be had.
- Cryptum
- Primordium
- Silentium
- Initiation Comics
- Glasslands
- The Thursday War
- Mortal Dictata
Then you have the books between Halo 4 to Halo 5
- New Blood
- Escalation Comics Issues 1-24
- Hunters In The Dark
- Last Light
Add on top of that all FIVE HOURS of Hunt-The-Truth (which is now moot thanks to rewrites), Halo Nightfall the movie, and Halo: Fall of Reach the movie; without all of those things which equal up to beyond $100 total to purchase and read through/watch . . . it makes the story harder to follow.
And then we have Halo 5 to Halo Infinite
- Fractures
- Broken Circle
- Saint’s Testimony
- Shadow of Intent
- Smoke and Shadow
- Retribution
- Legacy of Onyx
- Point of Light
- Bad Blood
- Divine Wind
- Silent Storm
- Obliviion
- Shadows of Reach
- Rubicon Protocol (which comes out in August)
- Outcasts (which releases next year)
Do you see the issue with this?
People are complaining about Halo Infinite’s story. Just scroll up to see my argument with the other guy earlier for immediate proof.
Because so much is needed to gain proper context perspective of the story, because so much of what is needed to understand the story is OUTSIDE THE STORY, you have a whole lot of reading to do and money to burn.
And as a result, a lot of people are confused and frustrated with what is going on.
Some of of these books aren’t even published yet!
Again, TV show decides to do a time-skip between two episodes and asks you to read a book or two to understand what happened in the time-skip.
It is messy.
This isn’t anyone’s fault necessarily so much as it is mine, I should have known things would get off topic, but I’m done here.
I was hoping we could do something constructive and new for a change instead of complaining constantly- something I myself am guilty of even within this topic, as well as something that in all fairness we have plenty of reason to do- but I guess it didn’t pan out.
If you guys wanna debate about how badly written the lore is, I’m hardly in a position to oppose you. But since nobody seems interested in trying to theorize on the current possibilities of Osiris within the current game’s canon while also thinking of interesting things for them to actually do, I will leave you all to instead ruminate on how broken the lore is and why it should all be rewritten and that anyone who wants to salvage it is wrong and we should all just New 52 the entire timeline regardless of the possibilities for it to cause brand new and unique problems like reboots and rewrites often can.
No we are still on topic.
Had 343 actually paid attention to their target audience and known that gamers are not typically bookish; we would’ve received animations that introduced the characters better and people would’ve received them better to begin with.
In fact, I’d wager that more people have WATCHED The Mona Lisa instead of actually READING the story in Halo Evolutions!
Well, Halo Outcasts will show us what Arby and Vale are up to.
Locke is 98% assured to be dead.
And I’d wager that Tanaka will make a comeback in a Season animation to have some dialogue with Spartan Agryna . . . . that or be the focus of ANOTHER book or comic.
Destiny was made by Bungie and Joe had a hand in making the Vex. I think Bungie are perfectly fine drawing on AI stories for inspiration and putting beep boop robots in their stories. Like didn’t Joe want to make a massive story involving Rasputin the main Sol system defence AI? Which Bungie eventually did get around to addressing? With the Traveller itself being “the Great Machine”? Nathan Fillian even voices a talking robot who are a playable species in it.
Really, Bungie never had a crazy AI that started killing everybody in its Halo games? They’ve always retained this “purity” of story telling?
Where does 343 get its name from?
Oh yeah, Guilty Spark, the AI monitor that goes Hal and decides it needs to fire the Halo array. The main villain of Combat Evolved and a returning character through the entire original Bungie series.
That 7 year lifespan definitely didn’t come from Bladerunner.
Mendicant Bias story is the most central piece of backstory lore in the games, it’s not just an offhand bit of lore The reason people lost their minds over OB being mentioned is because it’s wrapped up in the Logic Plague and how pivotal it was to the Forerunners downfall. MB returning is like Sauron or Morgoth returning. Are you saying Bungie and 343 are not making a direct parralell between Cortana/Weapon? If anything the deep lore is more about AI not less. There’s even a quote in Halo Encyclopedia which says Atriox knew the Forerunners fell because their machines betrayed them.
Look at the multiplayer story. What’s the first thing 343 did? Oh yeah the Banished are making their own AI….
343 aren’t moving away from AI stories at all, they’re just killing off the Rogue Servitor faction and bringing back the Determined Exterminator factions.
No it is a double standard that many Halo fans have. Where they will call the Created/Cortana stuff cliche and trite but then don’t see 343 Guilty Spark as what he is. It’s a myth that Bungie never put AI stuff in their stories.
Your complaint with Brian Reed is that he cast Cortana as a monster. If Chief saves Cortana from rampancy then she isn’t a monster and it does clear all that up. Killing her off, again, is not the best direction they could have went with and replacing her with the Weapon is a bad idea.
Sorry things didn’t pan out the way ya wanted to man. If it’s consolation I do appreciate that you tried to do something constructive.
My point is that something that set Halo apart form literally every other story with A.I.s in a sci-fi setting WAST THE FACT that we didn’t have Cortana go rogue on us during the story.
Then Halo 5 Gorbians just went and did it.
Brian Reed is a third-rate writer with a fourth-rate pen.
He couldn’t resist the urge to fall-in-line and have Cortana become a rogue A.I.
Tropes are good when they are well executed.
Halo 5 so suddenly just has her BECOME the villain.
For players that don’t read the books and just play the games, having to lose her in the previous game and then immediately have to be thrown into a world where she ACTUALLY survived and became a megalomaniac dictator is just NOT the way to do it.
But what can we expect from Brian Reed? All he knows how to do is swap-out villains the instant the next arc starts.
You know, instead of seeing the villain have their story arc play out and then meet their demise at the END of a story Arc; Brian likes to swap out someone at the BEGINNING of the next one.
The Didact was set to return in Halo 5, but Brian killed him off in a comic book.
Jul 'Mdama was the main antagonist of Spartan-Ops, Escalation, and a few novels . . . and he dies in the first ten minutes of Halo 5.
Do you see what I am getting at?
We get told to tune in next time to see how the villain will attempt villainy, and then we tune in to find that the villain is done and dead within the first ten minutes of the next major episode.
From 343 Guilty Spark, a construct who was known for stabbing you in the back multiple times.
Fitting title since they have constantly promised to give the fans a Halo game and yet we didn’t get Halo 4, we received instead Call of Halo 4: Sci-Fi Warfare.
We didn’t receive Halo 5, we got Halo 5 Gorbians.
We didn’t receive Halo 6, we instead have Halo Infinite Broken Promises.
Following protocol is not going rogue.
Master Chief was breaking his quarantine protocols and countermeasures. And as Monitor of the Ring, hearing that Chief was going to destroy it; what do you think was going to happen?
Of course he would follow his protocols and protect his ring.
It came from the fact that they wanted the number 7 to be used again, that’s for sure.
Bungie’s favorite number.
Plus, nothing lasts forever. Even data stored on hard drives and well maintained will decay and become corrupt files.
It was in Halo 3, when Frank O’Connor first was nudging his retcons into Halo.
The terminals had information that directly contradicted what the main story was saying. And being a tertiary-writer suddenly promoted to Franchise Director; his first act of business was to solidify his retcon and flesh out his mini story of Offensive vs Medicant, Humans not being Forerunners, and to break the number one rule of Cosmic Horror all at once - Commissioned Greg Bear to write the Forerunner Trilogy.
Coincidentally, 2011 saw an immediate re-release of the Halo Encyclopedia from 2009; with a few edits to omit information that would contradict his newly established deep-lore.
Which is concerning because A.I.s is what helped Humanity defeat the Covenant.
Were it not for the likes of Cortana providing tactical intelligence all the time or enhancing Spartan capabilities to such a degree that Chief was able to catch a rocket and football-toss it back, Humanity would be destroyed.
Plus, with how nervous Humanity is now with The Created, what would happen if a A.I. that is violently aggressive enhancing the Banished level of tactical awareness? Or worse, if such an A.I. were to join the Created and wreck havoc?
Besides, that is the Multiplayer Story.
Mutliplayer stories are not known for being, well, stories.
Just snippits of events that are going on in the universe.
Only without the religious fervor and delusions, inspired more out of genuine hatred of Humanity for creating A.I.s and seeking to make their faction more mighty.
Guilty Spark is a Monitor of a Halo Installation that despite his 100,000 years of isolation is able to function his duties up until he breaks in Halo 3 as he is technically breaking protocol by not firing the Halo Ring ASAP.
Not if she still commits atrocities.
If Chief saves her AFTER she has blown up planets and killed off just as many as the Covenant had in just a two year time-span; then she needs to be held accountable.
Otherwise Chief is portrayed as an apologist and those that she had wronged don’t get the closure that they desire.
I have a LOT of complaints with Brian Reed.
Choosing to have Cortana become a tyrant in this fashion was wrong.
Again, if you read my attempt to rewrite Halo 5 in the google doc I shared; you will see another method that allows Chief to save Cortana and have a splinter of herself become the evil Cortana.
Brian Reed had the writing prompt of “Chief goes AWOL to reunite with Cortana and Locke hunts him down”, and decided to make Chief into a naive character who follows a carrot on the string up until the final ten minutes we play as Blue Team.
Wholeheartedly disagree.