ONI = The new evil empire

Games Halo 5: Guardians
1

With the introduction of the mysterious new Spartan, Lt. Jameson Locke, I have reason to believe ONI are becoming the new bad guys. Below this text, I have listed out a number of reasons which could imply ONI’s turn to the dark side. Please read before giving your opinion:

  1. The Spartan IVs

Much like the Clone Army from Star Wars, the Spartan IVs are a new lineup of supersoldiers designed with the intent to keep the peace. However, citing the example of Commander Palmer who defied Lasky’s order to stand down in Spartan Ops season 1, the Spartans do not answer to the UNSC. Instead, they answer to ONI’s Admiral Osman, whom I suspect has plans for the Spartan IVs. Remember in the Halo 4 opening how Halsey said to her mystery interrogator to never underestimate her Spartan IIs? Well, perhaps ONI felt she had a point, so they ordered the Spartan IVs to combat the Spartan IIs, knowing that unopposed, the Spartan IIs would go to the HIGHCOM facility, sweeping aside any and all opposition before kicking the yoink out of Osman. But, when faced with high numbers of Spartan IVs, quantity over quality may just win out. Unfortunately for Osman, this will turn out to be a grave mistake, as the Spartan IVs are just Marines with inadequate armor being pitted against highly trained, ages old Spartan IIs with better armor and superior skills.

  1. The REAP-X project

Basing my claim on the products being sold by Mega Bloks, ONI are designing their REAP-X technology with the pretext of arming the UNSC with better, more advanced weaponry in case a threat like the Covenant should ever strike humanity again. However, I believe that the reality is that ONI are designing the REAP-X tech to give their staggeringly inferior troops (black ops infantry, Spartan IVs) a technological advantage over the Spartan IIs. Weapons such as EMP grenades would render the Spartans vulnerable to enemy small arms fire, and vehicles such as the Siege Bike and the Light Assault VTOL would strike the Spartans hard and fast with superior weaponry, leaving them with little time to react or even to defend themselves.

  1. Agent Locke’s role in Halo 5

I suspect Agent Locke has been deployed by ONI to assassinate the Master Chief and frame the Elites for betrayal, giving the UNSC an unrefutable cause to go to war. We all know ONI is going on a warmongering spree against the Elites, and when you take into account the amount of influence they have at present, it seems that Osman is whispering lies and deceit through the UNSC that the Elites intend on rebuilding their army to wage war once more. However, after the events of Halo 3, they knew they’d have to destabilize relations between the Sangheili and humanity in order to give them a foothold on controlling the situation. As for Halsey, the Master Chief and other persons who worked alongside the Elites to defeat the Covenant and Flood, Osman wants to get rid of them, because they are pretty much the only people alive who know the truth, and who would ruin her plans, so to ensure they don’t screw things up, she has deployed Agent Locke to kill the Master Chief, she has Halsey on ONI’s hitlist, I suspect Lord Hood and the Arbiter are also among her targets as well, and speaking of the Arbiter, I suspect she is using the Servants of Abiding Truth, as well as the Covenant Remnant to kill the Arbiter in order to give the UNSC more reason to go to war, because the Arbiter and his allies sought peace with humanity and if they achieved that peace, then Osman wouldn’t be able to go through with her plans, so pretty much anyone that could interfere with Osman’s plans will be/has been marked for death.

  1. Other crimes committed by Osman’s ONI

ONI’s persecution of Halsey, the warmongering against the Elites, Kilo-Five arming Telcam’s forces, as well as helping the latter to escape after the failed assault on Vadam Keep, the REAP-X project, all of these are serving to implicate ONI as the next Big Bad for the foreseeable future. How it will affect canon is simple: after years of bitter fighting between the Covenant and the UNSC, ONI will have sparked yet another powder keg, only this time there will be several factions involved, turning this into a full-blown galactic war which could spell the end of
humanity as we know it in the Haloverse.

What do you guys think?

2

am not to surprised, and honestly I hope that ONI gets dismantled in some form.

3

I never liked ONI. Imprisoning Halsey just made it worse and honestly I can see another covenant war start because of them.

4

No, ONI has always been about maintaining the security of Humanity, and that will not change. Osman was a SII. She is running ONI much differently then the previous administration yes, but she was trained to be “a protector of Earth and all her Colonies.” Her action may be questionable but it will always be for the greater good.

P.S Osman is an Admiral, when she ordered Palmer to kill Halsey she had to follow that order as Lasky is only a Captain and she outranks him, it had nothing to do with ONI vs UNSC as they are one in the same. Imo

5

ONI is the new OCP (Omni Consumer Products)

6

ONI’s goal is to protect humanity no matter the cost or by any method necessary. They aren’t really an evil empire in the making.

7

ONI and the UNSC are indeed the same, but I don’t see them splitting from the main body like Cerberus did, nor do I see them actively fighting the UNSC. Rather, I see them announcing something shocking, like the death of the Master Chief by the hand of a Sangheili, giving the UNSC good cause to go to war. With the Army and Marines occupied, ONI could then perform covert black ops against figures that could expose their crimes, such as the Master Chief, the Arbiter, Halsey or even Lord Hood, were he to suspect ONI was up to no good.

And DeceptionCobra, would you call Osman’s treatment of Halsey, or even the Innies protecting humanity no matter what? Halsey may have kidnapped a few kids and replaced them with flash clones, but that pales in comparison to the fact her creation, the Spartan IIs, saved millions of lives. A few of her Spartans even survive to this day, proving how much she should not be treated like a criminal, as ONI have done to her, and also proving how much the Spartan IIs should not be underestimated, as ONI are doing right now.

I’m not trying to sound aggressive here, but the point I’m making is that ONI are striding up that boulevard where Cerberus went. The boulevard not of broken dreams, but of becoming an organisation which wreaks of antagonism. I mean, with all the Forerunner and Covie tech they may have gleaned over the course of the war, imagine what they could do with it.

8

> DeceptionCobra, would you call Osman’s treatment of Halsey, or even the Innies protecting humanity no matter what? Halsey may have kidnapped a few kids and replaced them with flash clones, but that pales in comparison to the fact her creation, the Spartan IIs, saved millions of lives. A few of her Spartans even survive to this day, proving how much she should not be treated like a criminal, as ONI have done to her, and also proving how much the Spartan IIs should not be underestimated, as ONI are doing right now.
>
> I’m not trying to sound aggressive here, but the point I’m making is that ONI are striding up that boulevard where Cerberus went. The boulevard not of broken dreams, but of becoming an organisation which wreaks of antagonism. I mean, with all the Forerunner and Covie tech they may have gleaned over the course of the war, imagine what they could do with it.

Halsey is a war criminal and Osman felt she needed to be punished. Not only was she pivotal in the creation of child soldiers, but she also kidnapped a Spartan and used her as bait to lure the rest of Blue Team away from the fighting which may have cost hundreds of lives as she was the sole cause of valuable war assets going missing. Not to mention she was communicating with the enemy (although she didn’t know it was Jul tbf, it was still a security breach).

I see no reason to believe that ONI are in any way going down the same path as Cerberus or any other cliche shadow organisation. There are a few Spartan IVs under ONI’s command yes, but the vast majority remain in the Spartan Branch.

9

When I read the 1. paragraph I remembered for when Chief fought against the ODST’s and they had no chance against him. The SIV program is a strange idea, but sure they can capable to do actions that the Marines can’t but we all know that the SII program is more advanced even at a cost.
Otherwise, I can imagine what are you say.

10

All personal preference here, but I never really liked ONI as a cloak and dagger organization. When the franchise started to go down that road I just… lost some interest. At least so far it’s been mostly in the novels and not had an affect on the video game story. I read a few novels (Nylund, I believe) where ONI was doing its wet ops/super secret stuff and it just didn’t appeal to me. I guess there are limits to this guys appreciation of military sci fi.

I think Halo is it at its strongest when humanity is united around a common enemy. Call it cliché, but I’d also call cliché a story where the plot gets subverted by humans infighting.

I’m sure 343 is going to make a point about human nature, or geas or whatever, eventually. Like Cortana said, war is always there… so why not other negative attributes? But as far as story goes, I’m just tired of humans fighting each other instead of [zombies/aliens/whatever].

11

The writers are definitely fleshing ONI out as the classic power-hungry, morally bankrupt organization so beloved of sci-fi. In my humble opinion, it’s a bit of a clichéd route to take, but I suppose narratives need conflict. If 343 do decide to go down that route, I hope we get an Order 66-style scene in which Osman orders a cull of the Spartans.

12

> I hope we get an Order 66-style scene in which Osman orders a cull of the Spartans.

THat doesn’t make any sense. SPartans are part of ONI, an Order 66 on Elites would make more sense.

13

> The writers are definitely fleshing ONI out as the classic power-hungry, morally bankrupt organization so beloved of sci-fi. In my humble opinion, it’s a bit of a clichéd route to take, but I suppose narratives need conflict. If 343 do decide to go down that route, I hope we get an Order 66-style scene in which Osman orders a cull of the Spartans.

Which is exactly what I am suggesting with the creation of the Spartan IVs. Osman appears jealous of those who achieved what she failed; become a Spartan. Therefore, it seems to me that she is planning a sort of Order 66 in which the Spartan IIs, everyone that Chief knew and loved, are gunned down by the Spartan IVs, and Osman assumes full control of the UNSC via assassination of Lord Hood. After all, he’ll be wanting to know why the Spartan IVs are killing the Spartan IIs.

The last bit is my imagination, but the first it almost a certainty. Osman underestimates the Spartan IIs to the point where she thinks killing them will be a cakewalk, but she’s dead wrong. What she is basically trying to do is unleash a full-scale total war on the galaxy. By warmongering about the Elites and trying to kill Halsey, Osman is going to upset a lot of people, particularly the Chief, whom considers Halsey to be his mother. If he were to learn of her attempted assassination, he would want answers.

14

> With the introduction of the mysterious new Spartan, Lt. Jameson Locke, I have reason to believe ONI are becoming the new bad guys. Below this text, I have listed out a number of reasons which could imply ONI’s turn to the dark side. Please read before giving your opinion:
>
> 1. The Spartan IVs
>
> Much like the Clone Army from Star Wars, the Spartan IVs are a new lineup of supersoldiers designed with the intent to keep the peace. However, citing the example of Commander Palmer who defied Lasky’s order to stand down in Spartan Ops season 1, the Spartans do not answer to the UNSC. Instead, they answer to ONI’s Admiral Osman, whom I suspect has plans for the Spartan IVs.
>
> <mark>OR Palmer disobeyed Lasky because 1) She respected Lasky as a friend too much to see him go down for disobeying Palmer, and 2) Palmer is an Admiral, her orders supersede Lasky’s ONI or not.</mark>
>
>
> 3. Agent Locke’s role in Halo 5
>
> I suspect Agent Locke has been deployed by ONI to assassinate the Master Chief and frame the Elites for betrayal, giving the UNSC an irrefutable cause to go to war. We all know ONI is going on a warmongering spree against the Elites,
>
> <mark>No they aren’t. ONI is merely trying to keep the Elites suppressed so that they can’t go on a warmongering spree against humanity. ONI doesn’t want war, they want to remove competition out of humanity’s way before wars even have to start.</mark>
> <mark>What’s more, Arbiter is helping Locke. Out of necessity perhaps, but still. So this doesn’t make any sense.</mark>
>
> 4. Other crimes committed by Osman’s ONI
>
> ONI’s persecution of Halsey, the warmongering against the Elites, Kilo-Five arming Telcam’s forces, as well as helping the latter to escape after the failed assault on Vadam Keep, the REAP-X project, all of these are serving to implicate ONI as the next Big Bad for the foreseeable future.

I agree ONI are going to be villains, certainly, but they aren’t as black as you make them out to be. Halsey has broken laws herself and they have imprisoned her on those grounds, they are not warmongering the Elites, they are trying to keep them divided (hence arming Telcam) so humanity can rise relatively uncontested.

They are villains with good intentions. Much like the Forerunner Builders were I’m sure.

15

Well it is the reclaimer saga, and if humanity is is going to take over the mantle to protect the galaxy while ONI only looks out for humanity’s interest something is going to have to give.

16

> > I hope we get an Order 66-style scene in which Osman orders a cull of the Spartans.
>
> That doesn’t make any sense. Spartans are part of ONI, an Order 66 on Elites would make more sense.

Have you actually watched Star Wars? The Jedi were part of the Republic, holding a position highly comparable to Spartans within the UNSC. Carrying this analogy through, Osman is Palpatine. She is planning a coup and Spartans, as one-person armies loyal to the old regime, have to be eliminated. The “old guard” of Spartan-II’s will be targeted, as will any Spartan-IV’s sympathetic to their cause, leaving only ONI-loyal S-IV’s.

Given how ONI seems to be behind just about everything in Halo, I wouldn’t be surprised if Scruggs was ultimately being used by ONI to destabilise the UNSC, whether or not he knew it. Maybe the entire New Colonial Alliance is an ONI puppet.

17

> > > I hope we get an Order 66-style scene in which Osman orders a cull of the Spartans.
> >
> > That doesn’t make any sense. Spartans are part of ONI, an Order 66 on Elites would make more sense.
>
> Have you actually watched Star Wars? The Jedi were part of the Republic, holding a position highly comparable to Spartans within the UNSC. Carrying this analogy through, Osman is Palpatine. <mark>She is planning a coup and Spartans, as one-person armies loyal to the old regime, have to be eliminated.</mark> The “old guard” of Spartan-II’s will be targeted, as will any Spartan-IV’s sympathetic to their cause, leaving only ONI-loyal S-IV’s.
>
> Given how ONI seems to be behind just about everything in Halo, I wouldn’t be surprised if Scruggs was ultimately being used by ONI to destabilise the UNSC, whether or not he knew it. Maybe the entire New Colonial Alliance is an ONI puppet.

There is no evidence of this, so the analogy begins to fall apart.

18

> > With the introduction of the mysterious new Spartan, Lt. Jameson Locke, I have reason to believe ONI are becoming the new bad guys. Below this text, I have listed out a number of reasons which could imply ONI’s turn to the dark side. Please read before giving your opinion:
> >
> > 1. The Spartan IVs
> >
> > Much like the Clone Army from Star Wars, the Spartan IVs are a new lineup of supersoldiers designed with the intent to keep the peace. However, citing the example of Commander Palmer who defied Lasky’s order to stand down in Spartan Ops season 1, the Spartans do not answer to the UNSC. Instead, they answer to ONI’s Admiral Osman, whom I suspect has plans for the Spartan IVs.
> >
> > <mark>OR Palmer disobeyed Lasky because 1) She respected Lasky as a friend too much to see him go down for disobeying Palmer, and 2) Palmer is an Admiral, her orders supersede Lasky’s ONI or not.</mark>
> >
> >
> > 3. Agent Locke’s role in Halo 5
> >
> > I suspect Agent Locke has been deployed by ONI to assassinate the Master Chief and frame the Elites for betrayal, giving the UNSC an irrefutable cause to go to war. We all know ONI is going on a warmongering spree against the Elites,
> >
> > <mark>No they aren’t. ONI is merely trying to keep the Elites suppressed so that they can’t go on a warmongering spree against humanity. ONI doesn’t want war, they want to remove competition out of humanity’s way before wars even have to start.</mark>
> > <mark>What’s more, Arbiter is helping Locke. Out of necessity perhaps, but still. So this doesn’t make any sense.</mark>
> >
> > 4. Other crimes committed by Osman’s ONI
> >
> > ONI’s persecution of Halsey, the warmongering against the Elites, Kilo-Five arming Telcam’s forces, as well as helping the latter to escape after the failed assault on Vadam Keep, the REAP-X project, all of these are serving to implicate ONI as the next Big Bad for the foreseeable future.
>
> I agree ONI are going to be villains, certainly, but they aren’t as black as you make them out to be. Halsey has broken laws herself and they have imprisoned her on those grounds, they are not warmongering the Elites, they are trying to keep them divided (hence arming Telcam) so humanity can rise relatively uncontested.
>
> They are villains with good intentions. Much like the Forerunner Builders were I’m sure.

thank you !
ONI is everything else than an “evil empire”. they’re more are “batman-like”, i know this analogy is kind of far-fetched, but they aren’t the protectors humanity deserved, but the protectors who humanity needs.
yes, their methods are happening on the edge of legalness, but they simply do what needs to be done, to protect humanity from an enemy they’ve fought for decades,
to have time to recover from a war in which billions got killed.
their methods are highly “unorthodox”, but they’re indeed justified.
besides that, ONI under the lead of Osman, is not like ONI under the lead of Parangosky.
Osman, a Spartan-II herself, IMO wouldn’t never do any harm to John since she’s like him in many ways, they grew up together at least for some time & i highly doubt that she’d “execute” the Spartans, especially the S-IV’s, since they’re
all volunteers & after all one of humanities greatest assests, beside the Infinity, the gathered Forerunne-Tech from Trevelyan & the Huragok.

19

> > > > I hope we get an Order 66-style scene in which Osman orders a cull of the Spartans.
> > >
> > > That doesn’t make any sense. Spartans are part of ONI, an Order 66 on Elites would make more sense.
> >
> > Have you actually watched Star Wars? The Jedi were part of the Republic, holding a position highly comparable to Spartans within the UNSC. Carrying this analogy through, Osman is Palpatine. <mark>She is planning a coup and Spartans, as one-person armies loyal to the old regime, have to be eliminated.</mark> The “old guard” of Spartan-II’s will be targeted, as will any Spartan-IV’s sympathetic to their cause, leaving only ONI-loyal S-IV’s.
> >
> > Given how ONI seems to be behind just about everything in Halo, I wouldn’t be surprised if Scruggs was ultimately being used by ONI to destabilise the UNSC, whether or not he knew it. Maybe the entire New Colonial Alliance is an ONI puppet.
>
> There is no evidence of this, so the analogy begins to fall apart.

There’s no evidence for any of this beyond ONI not being very nice. I’m just saying what I think might happen, and how I’d do it. It’s entirely possible we’re reading subtexts that don’t exist, and there’s no coup all all.

20

> > > > > I hope we get an Order 66-style scene in which Osman orders a cull of the Spartans.
> > > >
> > > > That doesn’t make any sense. Spartans are part of ONI, an Order 66 on Elites would make more sense.
> > >
> > > Have you actually watched Star Wars? The Jedi were part of the Republic, holding a position highly comparable to Spartans within the UNSC. Carrying this analogy through, Osman is Palpatine. <mark>She is planning a coup and Spartans, as one-person armies loyal to the old regime, have to be eliminated.</mark> The “old guard” of Spartan-II’s will be targeted, as will any Spartan-IV’s sympathetic to their cause, leaving only ONI-loyal S-IV’s.
> > >
> > > Given how ONI seems to be behind just about everything in Halo, I wouldn’t be surprised if Scruggs was ultimately being used by ONI to destabilise the UNSC, whether or not he knew it. Maybe the entire New Colonial Alliance is an ONI puppet.
> >
> > There is no evidence of this, so the analogy begins to fall apart.
>
> There’s no evidence for any of this beyond ONI not being very nice. I’m just saying what I think might happen, and how I’d do it. It’s entirely possible we’re reading subtexts that don’t exist, and there’s no coup all all.

Of course there isn’t any coming coup, it wouldn’t do ONI any good.