If you could rewrite Halo 4 or 5 what would you change from the story and how would you end it?
Edit: I should clarify this isn’t a Halo 4/5 hate thread, I’m just asking those of you who Would change the story, how would you change it. I’m not asking If you think story should be rewritten or why it’s good or bad.
Personally, I don’t think Halo 4/5 need rewriting, but replaying and careful studying, watching out for clues, hints and references.
Alas, many miss the story of either game, and so also miss the Grand Narrative, the big story arc that arches across both Halo 4, 5 as well as their Lore and Trailers, and on into Halo Infinite.
Careful study of the new Infinite trailers reveals “hidden” story hints that show 343i haven’t changed the basic story of Halo 4 or 5 at all. However, the Retcons we’ll see are simple reveals of the answers to Hunt The Truth in Halo 5, including the truth about Cortana, the AI’s and the Guardians. So, if someone thinks Cortana is “back” and “turned evil”, they missed the in-game clues and so the real story, i.e. there is no “AI Revolution”, that isn’t Cortana, and Halo 5 involves a hidden enemy…
The real Cortana herself is innocent, probably still trapped onboard the Didact’s Ship and waiting to crash-land somewhere (Zeta Halo?), and will finally return in Halo Infinite, so also exposing the imposter in Halo 5 (as I’ve predicted for over 3 years, based on in-game Halo 5 clues).
“That’ll set the cat amongst the pigeons!” 
So, no re-write needed, just re-playing with a different understanding. After all, 343i never said that “Hunt The Truth in Halo 5” would be easy, but they did promise “The greatest hunt in gaming history”, and, not least, Chief’s mission to “Find Cortana” after Halo 4 continues through Halo 5 and into Halo Infinite…
Hope this provides food for thought.
The Chief vs Locke pissed me off… You have no idea how much I wanted to punch Locke. But I personally would not change anything from the campaign.
I personally thought the plot at large for H4 and H5 were cool and straightforward. But, that was after spending hours myself reading into outside material to understand everything that was going on in both games. And that was the problem: the storytelling. For example, who the hell was Osiris? Bungie’s Chief was simple in that he was a supersoldier who could kick a lot of -Yoink-, but that was everything we needed to know about him and everything grew from that. Osiris had lots of backstory and personality, but none of that was explained in any way. But, they were written in a way that asked the player to simply know everything about them. Cheesy lines didn’t help either, but this is specific to H5. H4 had a pretty great story outside of all the new stuff that went unexplained.
So, I think Halos 4 and 5 could benefit from a rewrite purely from a storytelling standpoint and not a plot one, but done by someone who is good at getting to the core of each element. That said though, there are a lot of videos out there that do the exact same thing, so a rewrite is really unnecessary in addition to impractical.
I guess the short answer is that I wouldn’t do a rewrite haha.
Edit: Looks like I finished typing my comment after you made your edit.
I rather enjoyed the story of H4 and really wouldn’t change anything about it. H5 is a different matter though. While the overarching story probably doesn’t need to be changed, I think there was a lot of missed opportunities to explain things to the player in-game. For instance, there’s a moment after Halsey is recovered where she starts babbling to Lasky about how she knew all of this was going to happen. Then Lasky says, “We’ll discuss that in private, doctor”. Then Buck asks Locke what that was all about, to which he says absolutely nothing. Two things should have been changed:
To back track a bit, the opening cut scene needed a prologue before it that actually set up the universe of the game. Instead of Lasky telling us five colonies had been attacked, we should have seen this destruction so we can get invested in the fight. There should have been a little explanation of why Osiris needed to save Halsey so that she could provide answers to all this destruction they were dealing with across human-occupied space.
To improve Halo 5’s storyline, I’m happy with the ‘Hunt the Truth’ campaign, but if I were tasked with writing Halo 5’s story, I would have written it in a different way
This is my Idea
Maybe Chief is rogue because of the actions of the UNSC, for example, there are In-Lore moments when the UNSC betray the Swords of Sanghelios and weaken them with a modified wheat crop. Maybe Chief finds about this event, a secret that would form another war similar to the Covenant War, a war with many casualties, including Sergeant Johnson.
Immediately, Chief abandons the UNSC, taking down Marines and destroying bases. ONI tasks none other that Spartan Locke to take out the Master Chief. This is where I would start Halo 5’s Story
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> To improve Halo 5’s storyline, I’m happy with the ‘Hunt the Truth’ campaign, but if I were tasked with writing Halo 5’s story, I would have written it in a different way
> This is my Idea
> Maybe Chief is rogue because of the actions of the UNSC, for example, there are In-Lore moments when the UNSC betray the Swords of Sanghelios and weaken them with a modified wheat crop. Maybe Chief finds about this event, a secret that would form another war similar to the Covenant War, a war with many casualties, including Sergeant Johnson.
>
> Immediately, Chief abandons the UNSC, taking down Marines and destroying bases. ONI tasks none other that Spartan Locke to take out the Master Chief. This is where I would start Halo 5’s Story
I have not played Halo 3+, but from what knowledge I do have regarding the lore (avoiding spoiling all the fun while waiting for MCC), how does Cortana play into your idea of the story? I am aware, between Halo 2 and 3, Cortana was corrupted by the Gravemind, causing her to go into an AI’s version of insanity. Does Cortana still try to do the same things she did throughout 343’s version of Halo 5 or is she still with Chief waiting to be fixed? Keep in mind, I know nothing about Halo 4 but I am assuming Cortana’s condition worsened during that game’s time period.
What about other people who find out about the UNSC’s betrayal? You would think a civil war would break out, tearing the UNSC apart.
It should stay the same, otherwise it might disturb the timeline of the novels and subsequent games.
Since you cannot rewrite 4/5 I’d rather infinite ended as a simulation still on board the forward unto dawn with Cortana at the start of her rampancy as a scenario made up of her paranoia. That way you can still reboot the franchise without redacting the previous games. If you think its a bad idea note Link’s awakening.
I thought Halo 4 was well done. Halo 5 on the other hand was horrible.
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> I rather enjoyed the story of H4 and really wouldn’t change anything about it. H5 is a different matter though. While the overarching story probably doesn’t need to be changed, I think there was a lot of missed opportunities to explain things to the player in-game. For instance, there’s a moment after Halsey is recovered where she starts babbling to Lasky about how she knew all of this was going to happen. Then Lasky says, “We’ll discuss that in private, doctor”. Then Buck asks Locke what that was all about, to which he says absolutely nothing. Two things should have been changed:
> - Locke should have actually responded to Buck, giving Locke an opportunity to actually develop as a character. There could have been a short exchange between the two where they speculate on what that meant. Heck, bring in the whole team so they all have some screen time to develop their characters and drop in some back story. - There should have been a cut scene after this that shows the actual conversation between Lasky and Halsey where she explains that Cortana is still alive and causing all of this. That way, when Chief informed Infinity that Cortana was on Meridian and they told him that a team was being prepped to deal with her, the fact that the Infinity knows about Cortana wouldn’t have been so out of left field. We literally just found out about her, but for some reason everyone else knows already.There are a lot of little moments like this throughout the game where the opportunity to expand on the plot was there, but it wasn’t used. It’s like we got a bare bones story when there was plenty of room for explanation, but instead we got none of that.
I agree it really bugs me when there are elements of dialogue that are dismissed and are never picked back up. These “we’ll talk about that later” comments are perfect for terminals or some other secondary source of information.
> To back track a bit, the opening cut scene needed a prologue before it that actually set up the universe of the game. Instead of Lasky telling us five colonies had been attacked, we should have seen this destruction so we can get invested in the fight. There should have been a little explanation of why Osiris needed to save Halsey so that she could provide answers to all this destruction they were dealing with across human-occupied space.
Spartan Ops provided the prologue you are refering to. I think it’s important that we remember those episodes actually contributed to the broader narrative, if only slightly.
Scorched Earth, clean the slate, back to the drawing board, rewrite from the ground up.
Halo 4/5 relies WAY too much on auxiliary lore material such as books. The purpose of novels should be supplementary, not required to make sense of the plot and establish several key characters like the Didact. It’s extremely confusing to game-only players, but if it’s any solace they don’t find out about really stupid plot lines like the first Flood contagion being spread by humans and san’shyuum giving mysterious space spores to their pet alien dogs and then also eating them.
Halo 4 does something cool with the whole “Chief is a human robot and Cortana is a robot human”, but it doesn’t get a chance to flesh itself out. We see Cortana develop a bit more humanity, but Chief has always been a machine. They needed to establish Chief’s childhood, SII training, and Blue Team in Halo 4 either through flashbacks or the Spartan Ops missions (rather than using them to setup Jul who is killed within the first mission of Halo 5). Show the player a time when Chief was more human, as well as develop a camaraderie with Blue team.
I still prefer Joe Staten’s universe of Forerunners being humans. The Flood logic plague/star road stuff is cool and should be kept, but after reading sci-fi for as long as I have the whole “there is one God race responsible for creating all the life in the galaxy” and “humanity are the chosen ones” bit is lame. It kills a lot of the fun and mystery, the Flood just being some perfect lifeform that evolved on a planet that may or may not exist anymore is fine. By their own nature, they are already impressively scary, intelligent, and all-powerful. Forerunners too should stay more esoteric. Halo is about humanity being driven to the brink of extinction and the cusp of greatness by the Covenant. Why is it so strange that the story repeated itself once before with the Flood, and leave it at that?
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> > To back track a bit, the opening cut scene needed a prologue before it that actually set up the universe of the game. Instead of Lasky telling us five colonies had been attacked, we should have seen this destruction so we can get invested in the fight. There should have been a little explanation of why Osiris needed to save Halsey so that she could provide answers to all this destruction they were dealing with across human-occupied space.
>
> Spartan Ops provided the prologue you are refering to. I think it’s important that we remember those episodes actually contributed to the broader narrative, if only slightly.
This brings up another issue with H5. While not as bad as some have claimed, H5 did require people to know more about the universe than what was presented in the game. If you didn’t play Spartan Ops, you had no idea what was going on at the start of the game. So a prologue that gave a quick review of Spartan Ops and other “state of the galaxy” type stuff would have been very helpful.
This kind of stuff actually happens with the books themselves. If a new book touches on a subject that was referred to in a previous book, the new book will give a quick paragraph that summarizes what happened in the previous book that relates to the new book. It’s a small detail that allows a person who never read that previous book, or at least read that book a long time ago, to get caught up quickly and understand the context.
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> > 2535449924081860;6:
> > To improve Halo 5’s storyline, I’m happy with the ‘Hunt the Truth’ campaign, but if I were tasked with writing Halo 5’s story, I would have written it in a different way
> > This is my Idea
> > Maybe Chief is rogue because of the actions of the UNSC, for example, there are In-Lore moments when the UNSC betray the Swords of Sanghelios and weaken them with a modified wheat crop. Maybe Chief finds about this event, a secret that would form another war similar to the Covenant War, a war with many casualties, including Sergeant Johnson.
> >
> > Immediately, Chief abandons the UNSC, taking down Marines and destroying bases. ONI tasks none other that Spartan Locke to take out the Master Chief. This is where I would start Halo 5’s Story
>
> I have not played Halo 3+, but from what knowledge I do have regarding the lore (avoiding spoiling all the fun while waiting for MCC), how does Cortana play into your idea of the story? I am aware, between Halo 2 and 3, Cortana was corrupted by the Gravemind, causing her to go into an AI’s version of insanity. Does Cortana still try to do the same things she did throughout 343’s version of Halo 5 or is she still with Chief waiting to be fixed? Keep in mind, I know nothing about Halo 4 but I am assuming Cortana’s condition worsened during that game’s time period.
>
> What about other people who find out about the UNSC’s betrayal? You would think a civil war would break out, tearing the UNSC apart.
Honestly, in Halo 4, Cortana presumably died, then in Halo 5, she came back. I think 343 Should have waited a moment to resurrect Cortana, there was great potential in having a story when Chief is without Cortana, I know you might be relating to Halo 3, seeing as we didn’t have Cortana for most of the game, but again, she was ‘lost’ in Halo 3, Halo 5 should have covered the impact on Cortana’s DEATH. Chief could be mentally ill, to the point when we see his breaking point. Maybe she could be resurrected in some way, seeing as she is a smart AI, she could have predicted her death, made a duplicate of herself, or stored her data somewhere. If it were in the remains of High Charity or near the Ark during Halo 3 for example, That could be an entire Halo game on its own, about Chief finding Cortana, without all this ‘evil overlord’ stuff, or it could
be a side plot to the next Halo Wars game. Maybe the Banished find Cortana, Chief could go on a quest to find Cortana. Maybe Cortana splits herself into fragments, and Chief is not able to recover all the fragments. It could affect Cortana’s memory or computing ability. This would give 343 a chance to renew their friendship, in the way they invision it.
As for whether I think other characters finding out about could affect the story even more, it certainly could. If Arbiter found out for example, he would be furious, so much that he cuts the alliance with the UNSC. He could be apart of the formation of a ‘New Covenant’, not revolved around The Great Journey, but intended to grasp the Original Covenants glory. Maybe Chief could try stop the formation of the new covenant, and we could even see some rivalry between the two. As far as im concerned, we have never seen the Arbiter and Chief fight.
As for whether a Civil War could happen, it certainly could. Maybe an ‘Old VS New’ story trope could be added. Those who experienced the horror of fighting the covenant could be on Chief’s side, while those who are loyal to the UNSC or ONI would be on the opposing side. I talked about Halo Wars earlier, and I think it would be interesting if the Spirit of Fire returns home, only to be involved in a civil war. Am I overthinking this? Probably
I hope this answers your question
Pretty simple I would leave Halo 4 as is and cut escalations from existence. Then have 5 be straight up a battle between a fleshed out Didact/Juul for control of the janus key while Cortana’s logic plague slowly creeps in as a subplot has you finding increasingly less subtle hints her fragments are in the domain(that was rebuilt by the Didact). we think mendicant is helping us as we learn what he is and his history IN GAME for game only fans and boom it was really her but after an actual fight with the Didact we learn Cortana has been helping us but betrays us due to logic plague we get a lot H2/3 call backs and it ends with H5G’s ending and mendicant bias becoming our AI and exposing John to his memories of "Last time, you asked me, if it was my choice, would I do it? Having had considerable time to ponder your query, my answer has not changed. "
Fade to black.
We hear a message on the bridge of the UNSC infinity after they jump to lose Cortana, “This is the UNSC Rubicon please respond.”
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> This brings up another issue with H5. While not as bad as some have claimed, H5 did require people to know more about the universe than what was presented in the game. If you didn’t play Spartan Ops, you had no idea what was going on at the start of the game. So a prologue that gave a quick review of Spartan Ops and other “state of the galaxy” type stuff would have been very helpful.
>
> This kind of stuff actually happens with the books themselves. If a new book touches on a subject that was referred to in a previous book, the new book will give a quick paragraph that summarizes what happened in the previous book that relates to the new book. It’s a small detail that allows a person who never read that previous book, or at least read that book a long time ago, to get caught up quickly and understand the context.
Good point. I guess it’s assumed that people can get caught up on all the games by watching the episodes on Youtube.
Spartan Ops didn’t reveal anything revolutionary, or at least I didn’t notice it. The Spartans hunted Jul 'Mdama, who had been searching for a Forerunner artifact. At the same time, Halsey was looking for this artifact. Fast forward a few episodes, Halsey and 'Mdama meet, Spartan Palmer goes to kill both of the. Halsey gets shot by Palmer, but 'Mdama escapes with the doctor. This is a very brief overview of Spartan Ops and a mini prologue to Halo 5, lol. Someone is going to have to fact check me…
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> 1) Halo 4/5 relies WAY too much on auxiliary lore material such as books. The purpose of novels should be supplementary, not required to make sense of the plot and establish several key characters like the Didact. It’s extremely confusing to game-only players, but if it’s any solace they don’t find out about really stupid plot lines like the first Flood contagion being spread by humans and san’shyuum giving mysterious space spores to their pet alien dogs and then also eating them.
I guess it depends on what criteria you deem for ‘need to know’ with regards to the books. I don’t think one needs to read any outside media to understand Halo 4 or Halo 5. True, more information is given when doing so, but I don’t consider that a must. I still find the books only supplementary and not mandatory.
I think the bigger issue is the way in which exposition is given to the player. Halo 4 relied heavily on the Librarian cutscene, and I think it served the plot well enough – albeit a little dense on information all in one sitting.
Halo 5 relied too heavily on quick dialogue between characters for its explanations on events, characters, etc. Cutscenes really didn’t go anywhere and lacked the story-driving aspects we’ve come to expect. Halo 5’s method of exposition could have used some refinement.
Haruspis even has an article on not needing the books for Halo 4.
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> 3) I still prefer Joe Staten’s universe of Forerunners being humans. The Flood logic plague/star road stuff is cool and should be kept, but after reading sci-fi for as long as I have the whole “there is one God race responsible for creating all the life in the galaxy” and “humanity are the chosen ones” bit is lame. It kills a lot of the fun and mystery, the Flood just being some perfect lifeform that evolved on a planet that may or may not exist anymore is fine. By their own nature, they are already impressively scary, intelligent, and all-powerful. Forerunners too should stay more esoteric. Halo is about humanity being driven to the brink of extinction and the cusp of greatness by the Covenant. Why is it so strange that the story repeated itself once before with the Flood, and leave it at that?
Truthfully, Bungie started the Forerunners Aren’t Humans aspect by Halo 3. Cradle of Life short comic showed ancient humans watching Forerunner constructs assembling the Ark portal and the Halo 3 terminals also have a message from the Librarian referencing the humans. I wouldn’t be surprised that if Bungie continued their journey with Halo, they’d have kept the Forerunners separate from humans.
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> > > To improve Halo 5’s storyline, I’m happy with the ‘Hunt the Truth’ campaign, but if I were tasked with writing Halo 5’s story, I would have written it in a different way
> > > This is my Idea
> > > Maybe Chief is rogue because of the actions of the UNSC, for example, there are In-Lore moments when the UNSC betray the Swords of Sanghelios and weaken them with a modified wheat crop. Maybe Chief finds about this event, a secret that would form another war similar to the Covenant War, a war with many casualties, including Sergeant Johnson.
> > >
> > > Immediately, Chief abandons the UNSC, taking down Marines and destroying bases. ONI tasks none other that Spartan Locke to take out the Master Chief. This is where I would start Halo 5’s Story
> >
> > I have not played Halo 3+, but from what knowledge I do have regarding the lore (avoiding spoiling all the fun while waiting for MCC), how does Cortana play into your idea of the story? I am aware, between Halo 2 and 3, Cortana was corrupted by the Gravemind, causing her to go into an AI’s version of insanity. Does Cortana still try to do the same things she did throughout 343’s version of Halo 5 or is she still with Chief waiting to be fixed? Keep in mind, I know nothing about Halo 4 but I am assuming Cortana’s condition worsened during that game’s time period.
> >
> > What about other people who find out about the UNSC’s betrayal? You would think a civil war would break out, tearing the UNSC apart.
>
> Honestly, in Halo 4, Cortana presumably died, then in Halo 5, she came back. I think 343 Should have waited a moment to resurrect Cortana, there was great potential in having a story when Chief is without Cortana, I know you might be relating to Halo 3, seeing as we didn’t have Cortana for most of the game, but again, she was ‘lost’ in Halo 3, Halo 5 should have covered the impact on Cortana’s DEATH. Chief could be mentally ill, to the point when we see his breaking point. Maybe she could be resurrected in some way, seeing as she is a smart AI, she could have predicted her death, made a duplicate of herself, or stored her data somewhere. If it were in the remains of High Charity or near the Ark during Halo 3 for example, That could be an entire Halo game on its own, about Chief finding Cortana, without all this ‘evil overlord’ stuff, or it could
> be a side plot to the next Halo Wars game. Maybe the Banished find Cortana, Chief could go on a quest to find Cortana. Maybe Cortana splits herself into fragments, and Chief is not able to recover all the fragments. It could affect Cortana’s memory or computing ability. This would give 343 a chance to renew their friendship, in the way they invision it.
>
> As for whether I think other characters finding out about could affect the story even more, it certainly could. If Arbiter found out for example, he would be furious, so much that he cuts the alliance with the UNSC. He could be apart of the formation of a ‘New Covenant’, not revolved around The Great Journey, but intended to grasp the Original Covenants glory. Maybe Chief could try stop the formation of the new covenant, and we could even see some rivalry between the two. As far as im concerned, we have never seen the Arbiter and Chief fight.
>
> As for whether a Civil War could happen, it certainly could. Maybe an ‘Old VS New’ story trope could be added. Those who experienced the horror of fighting the covenant could be on Chief’s side, while those who are loyal to the UNSC or ONI would be on the opposing side. I talked about Halo Wars earlier, and I think it would be interesting if the Spirit of Fire returns home, only to be involved in a civil war. Am I overthinking this? Probably
>
> I hope this answers your question
These are some pretty good ideas that can be worked with. I don’t think that 343 will go towards this particular direction, but perhaps the community could create mods or fanfiction story campaigns that could explore these concepts. Interesting how things would play out:
I wonder where the sentinels would come into play. I have watched many of HiddenXperia’s videos and I am curious about the logic plague. Since Cortana is supposedly infected by it and in Halo 5 she takes control over the Forerunner’s sentinels, does that mean that Cortana and the sentinels would work with the Flood in a similar fashion as Mendicant Bias did in the past? If so, that would make the conflict in the Halo Universe even more complex. Perhaps it can be a tenth point in your idea of how the story could play out. HiddenXperia actually mentioned such a theory and I find it interesting, having two versions of Cortana fighting each other. However, where the second version of Cortana comes from would be a mystery, either a copy made by the original in case corruption set in or a new version of Cortana made by Dr. Halsey.
I would make the fight between lock and chief longer, and have both teams fight. The end of the fight would result in a truce. Then all together they can fight an army of Prometheans and other challenges set up to stop their progress in stoping the guardians. The end would be just like halo 5s orginal end, but you wouldn’t have to fight to release the cryptum containing blue team.
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> > > > 2535449924081860;6:
> > > > To improve Halo 5’s storyline, I’m happy with the ‘Hunt the Truth’ campaign, but if I were tasked with writing Halo 5’s story, I would have written it in a different way
> > > > This is my Idea
> > > > Maybe Chief is rogue because of the actions of the UNSC, for example, there are In-Lore moments when the UNSC betray the Swords of Sanghelios and weaken them with a modified wheat crop. Maybe Chief finds about this event, a secret that would form another war similar to the Covenant War, a war with many casualties, including Sergeant Johnson.
> > > >
> > > > Immediately, Chief abandons the UNSC, taking down Marines and destroying bases. ONI tasks none other that Spartan Locke to take out the Master Chief. This is where I would start Halo 5’s Story
> > >
> > > I have not played Halo 3+, but from what knowledge I do have regarding the lore (avoiding spoiling all the fun while waiting for MCC), how does Cortana play into your idea of the story? I am aware, between Halo 2 and 3, Cortana was corrupted by the Gravemind, causing her to go into an AI’s version of insanity. Does Cortana still try to do the same things she did throughout 343’s version of Halo 5 or is she still with Chief waiting to be fixed? Keep in mind, I know nothing about Halo 4 but I am assuming Cortana’s condition worsened during that game’s time period.
> > >
> > > What about other people who find out about the UNSC’s betrayal? You would think a civil war would break out, tearing the UNSC apart.
> >
> > Honestly, in Halo 4, Cortana presumably died, then in Halo 5, she came back. I think 343 Should have waited a moment to resurrect Cortana, there was great potential in having a story when Chief is without Cortana, I know you might be relating to Halo 3, seeing as we didn’t have Cortana for most of the game, but again, she was ‘lost’ in Halo 3, Halo 5 should have covered the impact on Cortana’s DEATH. Chief could be mentally ill, to the point when we see his breaking point. Maybe she could be resurrected in some way, seeing as she is a smart AI, she could have predicted her death, made a duplicate of herself, or stored her data somewhere. If it were in the remains of High Charity or near the Ark during Halo 3 for example, That could be an entire Halo game on its own, about Chief finding Cortana, without all this ‘evil overlord’ stuff, or it could
> > be a side plot to the next Halo Wars game. Maybe the Banished find Cortana, Chief could go on a quest to find Cortana. Maybe Cortana splits herself into fragments, and Chief is not able to recover all the fragments. It could affect Cortana’s memory or computing ability. This would give 343 a chance to renew their friendship, in the way they invision it.
> >
> > As for whether I think other characters finding out about could affect the story even more, it certainly could. If Arbiter found out for example, he would be furious, so much that he cuts the alliance with the UNSC. He could be apart of the formation of a ‘New Covenant’, not revolved around The Great Journey, but intended to grasp the Original Covenants glory. Maybe Chief could try stop the formation of the new covenant, and we could even see some rivalry between the two. As far as im concerned, we have never seen the Arbiter and Chief fight.
> >
> > As for whether a Civil War could happen, it certainly could. Maybe an ‘Old VS New’ story trope could be added. Those who experienced the horror of fighting the covenant could be on Chief’s side, while those who are loyal to the UNSC or ONI would be on the opposing side. I talked about Halo Wars earlier, and I think it would be interesting if the Spirit of Fire returns home, only to be involved in a civil war. Am I overthinking this? Probably
> >
> > I hope this answers your question
>
> These are some pretty good ideas that can be worked with. I don’t think that 343 will go towards this particular direction, but perhaps the community could create mods or fanfiction story campaigns that could explore these concepts. Interesting how things would play out:
>
> 1. Cortana dies.
> 2. Master Chief goes insane.
> 3. ONI betrays the Arbiter and forces the UNSC to act against the Sword of Sanghelios’ interests.
> 4. Master Chief leaves the UNSC and gets major support from other Spartans and people, causing major fractures in the UNSC.
> 5. Perhaps Fireteam Osiris from Halo 5 is sent by ONI to take out Master Chief and the Arbiter.
> 6. Civil War breaks out in the UNSC.
> 7. Major confusion over who supports who.
> 8. Perhaps some fragment of Cortana manages to contact Master Chief or she made a copy of herself and stored it somewhere in High Charity, hidden from the Gravemind. (That would be an interesting turn of events.)
> 9. Master Chief investigates.
>
> I wonder where the sentinels would come into play. I have watched many of HiddenXperia’s videos and I am curious about the logic plague. Since Cortana is supposedly infected by it and in Halo 5 she takes control over the Forerunner’s sentinels, does that mean that Cortana and the sentinels would work with the Flood in a similar fashion as Mendicant Bias did in the past? If so, that would make the conflict in the Halo Universe even more complex. Perhaps it can be a tenth point in your idea of how the story could play out. HiddenXperia actually mentioned such a theory and I find it interesting, having two versions of Cortana fighting each other. However, where the second version of Cortana comes from would be a mystery, either a copy made by the original in case corruption set in or a new version of Cortana made by Dr. Halsey.
The Forerunners are the Floods main rival. The Flood are more powerful than the Forerunners, but the Forerunners have tools, such as the Halo rings to dispose of the Flood. Sentinals are equipped with Sentinal Beams, designed to destroy flood biomass. With Cortana now holding the Mantle of Responsibility, she controls the Sentinals, meaning the flood are now the dominant race, assuming their main rival is now controlled by one of them, Cortana.
I think these ideas would be great as some kind of ‘fan made’ campaign