Grunt “We’re going to take this ring and point it at Earth”
Escharum “This ring will be operational. Then, you will have your revenge.”
Escharum “Humanity will burn. Their brazen defiance will be all but a memory.”
Escharum “Humanitys last hope dies with you”
Escharum “The Covenant is dead. Soon humanity will join them”
Tremonius “You promised us revenge”
Atriox “I have little need of a failed God. This ring is all I need. Surrender it to me.”
Cortana “He has the ring. A weapon pointed into universe. With nothing left to lose. My fault. My stupid fault.”
Master Chief - “The Banished are going to fire this ring.”
Propaganda Grunt - “I yearn for your extinction.”
Propaganda grunt - “Ho Boy, just imagine. All that worthless human culture and industry that’ll go up in flames when we activate this ring. It’ll be like you never existed at all and there’ll be nobody alive to mourn the loss. Anyway have a great day.”
It doesn’t really do you well to laugh when I had to ask you twice to provide it.
So… A grunt smack-talking is the definite, totally-real plans of the Banished. Kay.
Wasn’t that spoken to the Harbinger, in relation to, y’know, releasing her people? Hardly firing the ring.
These point to war. Not exactly using the ring.
Atriox sought the secrets that the ring held. Namely, the Endless. This isn’t hidden or a mystery, nor does this suggest he wanted to fire the ring.
Cortana’s fears don’t make for the plans of the Banished. However this also indicates the aforementioned “tool to threaten the galaxy”, not specifically “We’re going to use the ring on Earth.”
The Propaganda Grunt also asks for an Xbox controller. As well, canonically he is there to discourage and psychologically demoralize the UNSC forces. That does not indicate “This is what’s going to happen 100%.”
No I think that’s pretty conclusive. I don’t think there’s any room for interpretation on this point. You’re talking about the central conflict in the game.
343 said it’s a simple story and that the Banished were filling the role of the Covenant. We have a dozen quotes, among many many others, talking about then firing the Halo Array to destroy humanity because that really is what they want. The Endless are used to help the Banished achieve that goal which is why Esharum works with her.
The only reason to want that not to be the case is because you like the idea of Atriox being a grey character. Which he isn’t. The Banished are not another nation state engaged in taking territory and they are not trying to compel the UNSC to surrender. These are conscious statements of intent to commit genocide against humanity. You’re confusing the games age rating with what the faction actually is. They don’t show us heaps of innocent people being hacked apart, butchered and eaten for that reason; but that’s what they’re all about.
You don’t think having him seemingly kill your friends on the Infinity and prevent you saving Cortana after he physically beats the Chief is setting him up as a clear cut antagonist? I thought it was very clear what they were going for. It’s setting up a showdown in which you put him in the ground for good.
That you think it’s conclusive doesn’t make it so. You’re relying mostly on Grunts - one of them bordering on a complete farce - to show that the Banished plan to fire the ring.
The Harbinger promised the Ring to the Banished to motivate them into helping her. She doesn’t care about their goals or their struggles. The only mentions of plans for the Ring that Escharum ever mentions is that it is the Banished’s new home.
As well, I have never said that Atriox is a grey character. I have never said he is not the antagonist. Bluntly put for this and others brought up here, these problems seem to stem from you reading into things that aren’t there or ignoring things that are - either their presence or their context.
Banished leaders were not killed off screen. Harbinger was not killed off screen.
Atriox isnt dead, when cortana destroyed the ring, atriox was put in a reverse time lock. He would only come out six months later after the Banished took over and everyone thinks hes dead.
The only character killed off screen was cortana. And those four spartans you find.
A theory I really like is that the Endless are precursor descendent. When zeta halo went missing for 43 years, mendicant bias and the primordial came up with a plan after he was destroyed by the halos. They genetically engineered the Endless which are immune to the halo rings. Which explains why they were so unknown when despondent pyre first saw them, and why them being so advanced, but they were found on their homeworld doing nothing really. No massive space ships, no mega structures. The Harbinger also has a reclaimer symbol on her helmet, and makes direct quotes of the Gravemind in halo 2.
“We won’t have a home to go back to if we don’t stop the Banished” - Master Chief
You do realise that conquest, power and Imperialism often involves genocide and that for your typical fictional villain these go hand in hand. Him wanting those things doesn’t preclude him wanting to wipe humanity out. If you are writing a character who wants a 1000 year empire and his followers are talking about killing and massacring people you probably should see the writing on the wall. I don’t think that’s a huge inference and the quotes aren’t exactly subtle.
You’re suggesting he’s a morally grey villain because you’re arguing:
“Atriox is nothing like the Covenant. He respect humans. He wouldn’t just destroy Earth with a Halo ring. He’s a Noble Guy who has been wronged by that nasty AI. He just wants the power of the Endless. 343 would never write him as a clear cut genocidal monster like previous Halo villains.”
I think he’s a monster, precisely what Cutter and Isabel call him.
But he is unlike the others because he has a brain on his shoulders as well as brash and brawn.
Little known fact about the Brutes, they have gone through nuclear war TWICE. They are a scientific race like the others, but their tenancy for war is like Humanity but turned up to 11. They have had a space age before, and they literally re-discovered nukes and let the hammers fall.
When the Covenant found them, they were in the midst of another industrial age, fueled by war. Kinda like how our Industrial Age really took off with WW1
I really hope they don’t try to make the Chief be all respectful towards Atriox like he was with Escharum. It’s not respectful to the people these monsters have killed, it gives too much dignity to the villains ideology and he should have no more empathy than the Avengers had for Thanos.
He should just go full Doomguy on Atriox and put him down for good.
I mean Atriox makes a big deal about the consequences of actions and choices. For such a smart Brute, he really hasn’t considered the consequences of picking a fight with Chief. Pushing humanity into a corner when you’ve become an endangered species isn’t exactly a winning strategy. I like how Escharum borrows the Stannis metaphor that they don’t bend; because they’re brittle. Humanity and the Chief can take a hit and come back. They can’t.
Chief showed Escharum respect not because he was a monster. But because like himself, he was a soldier. Soldiers fight for what they believe in. Master Chief fought to protect Humanity. Escharum fought for his Banished and Chief likely mis-represented some of the motives of Escharum as well. After all, Cortana destroyed Doisac. And if you pick up the Banished audio recordings, you hear Escharum lament about the loss of his home.
Granted The Banished can be monsters. But each individual soldier has their own reasons to fight. Chief saw that Escharum wanted to die in combat, not from the old age he was clearly suffering from. He wanted to die with dignity and fighting for The Banished he so believed in.
Oh yeah I got that and the Chief does actually accept the Pilots statement that he is a monster. I am glad that wasn’t refuted by the Chief. It would have went too far.
I just hope that isn’t applied to Atriox. With Esharum there was that cartoony “Our Battle will be Legendary” and he was dying so I can accept that. Although, I did want to tell him “No. I will not tell them you died well.”; he did just torture your friend and has been murdering your people for months. However it was good to demonstrate the Chief being Captain America and the better man; it’s that sort of story. He’s not Kratos.
He laments the loss of his home but doesn’t have that self reflection that his species evil actions in all the war, butchery and raiding made his people a target for something they couldn’t smash with a gravity hammer. That’s refusing to accept responsibility and means he’s lashing out at humanity who built Skynet rather than changing his ways.
But with Atriox, it should be personal. He also embodies this evil faction just as much as Truth did. A point should be made of proving why he is wrong and flawed.
The game absolutely makes sense otherwise. You are fixating on the perception that the Banished’s goal is to fire the ring, despite that never being stated in any serious context from their leadership, and thus blinding yourself to any and all other possibilities. The Banished are on a warpath against the UNSC and the pilot wants to go home. What do you tell him? Well, if we don’t do our duty and stop the Banished here there won’t be a home because, y’know, war - That doesn’t mean that they’re planning to fire the ring.
Agreed. I think they needed to either A: Make a better story that integrates more of the characters from previous games, and has more onscreen action, or B: make it clear that 4/5 are non-canon, and start back at the end of Halo 3 and reintegrate some of the better characters (like Lasky) into a new canon.
You do understand that B is never going to happen, right? Call it pessimism or whatnot, but 4 and 5 are canon, and will always be canon. Infinite has ended what they started, and that’s about as good as y’all will get.
Oh I’m fully aware that they aren’t ever going to be able to fix their mistakes.
A certainly would have been reasonable, and I actually think they did create a campaign like that, then realized they could cut 2/3s of it (the parts with the old characters, etc.) and sell it later instead.
The point is though you should NOT have to depend on content outside of the games to know exactly whats going on in the games story and with its characters!!! Leaving fans of the games having to fill in huge story gaps and sometimes even important parts of the story in there games with other content is a disgrace!!! Either ways its either laziness or greed on 343’s part!!!
For me its not even the fact they ditched some of halo 4 and 5 its the fact that infinites story was mediocre at best and still left loads out leaving us with plotholes as they always do! And again im sick of them expecting people to fill in gaps with other content outside the games with there poxy books!
I don’t think plotholes mean what you think they mean.
A plothole isn’t an unexplained thing in the story, a plothole is something that makes absolutely no sense no matter how you try to explain it. A contradiction that makes no sense in the story.
The characters from Halo 4 and 5 not being around in Infinite makes sense, MC was out of commission for 6 months, they could be dead, on a different part of the ring, or have left the system entirely in that time. So it’s not a plothole. It’s just an unexplained part of the story.
