Science Fiction in Halo Universe

Games Halo Infinite
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I was talking in the discord forums and there seemed to be a massive misunderstanding of what made the original Halo games great: Sci-fi.

Halo is packed full of Sci-fi related things… things that are close to “science” but still in the realms of entertainment and imagination. The kind of stuff books talked about before common things like satellite orbits were common knowledge and used in the real world.

From the interactions I had on the Halo discord, people confuse Sci-fi with lore, which is a whole different topic entirely. New species? Key Halo history plot points? That kind of stuff is all lore.

Science fiction is using existing science and adding to it in creative ways that bring cohesion to a fictional universe: Halo, for example, was not a reference to the “Halo Rings” we find John 117 exploring, but in fact a “Halo drop”; “high altitude low opening”: Spartans are famous for being able to fall great distances without taking injury and that fictional technological aspect comes from the real world technology of high altitude low opening research.

This is just one of the many “sci-fi” aspects of the Halo Universe that made the originals such a hit and is what is lacking in Halo Infinite (in my opinion).

Examples of topics we could explore in this thread:
How did Cortana suspend data in what seems to be thin air (matter)?
In the campaign we “pass though” memories Cortana left behind after her deletion, but people (and 117) didn’t even question how that kind of data imprinting was being done without a signal or power source: it was just “ghost data”, but the “sci-fi” technology aspect of how that “ghost data” came to be, could be an interesting topic to explore.

Feel free to add your own Sci-fi topics (with sources to real technology) and try not to get it confused with lore topics, which would cover things like “the forerunners” or “what species a grunt is”.

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Some Sci-fi topics that could be covered:

  • Technological
    Weapons wise we have Kinetic, Electrical, Plasma and Hardlight ammunition types, but in real world technology everything from irradiated ceramic rounds that kill due to radiation exposure rather than direct impact are considered (and sometimes implemented). Kinetic rounds that emit Hardlight? Kinetic rounds that emit plasma? There’s a lot that can be discussed.

  • Biological
    Current stories all seem to suggest a very “human” or Spartan centric focus on gene editing, but real-life examples of existing biological phenomena being brought into the Halo Universe, like the very real and current study of insect immune systems is being undertaken, so more fleshed out wildlife or biological advancements on zeta would be nice to see.

  • Chemical
    Chemical weapons, for some reason, are not considered in fighting the Flood and the aspects of combating it seem to all be technological or biological.

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So this aged well.
20 characters.

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Im confused as to what the purpose of you op is?

Are you just pointing out that halo as a franchise is mostly just made up of random ideas and tropes from popular scifi franchises plagerised and repurposed?

Is it you dont like the lore?

Is it you want less lore in the games?

Cortana didnt store data in air? Least I never encountered that in any game or book.

Halo is scfi, every release has been full of scifi.

Genuinely curious what your saying here cause its going over my head a bit.

Edit: how is it referring to a halo drop? We didnt do a single halo jump in CE?
The life boats didnt halo drop, if thats what your referring to.
It was named after the ring world. Halo was just a cool name cause ring wold was copy righted.

Like what do you actually want to discuss here specifically or is this just a broad pinpoint the inspiration of x and y thread?
Sorry its all sort of vague.

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No.

The lore is fine from the two games I have played (Reach and Infinite).

I want more compelling lore, but the focus wasn’t to be “anti-lore”, it was just to try and talk about realistic Sci-Fi elements, as we haven’t really seen any new technology (just variations of similar tropes).

We literally pass through “Cortana dust” or “Ghost data”, which has no energy origin and seem to just be encoded in 4 dimensional space.

The core technology of the Halo Universe has not changed much since Halo 1 and we keep seeing “new species and characters” (lore) but no breakthrough technology.

Distinction between Lore (story) and Sci-fi (fictional technology based on existing/projected technology) is pretty well laid out.

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i think the “ghost” data is probably being transmitted by the ring it self, kinda like radio signals, wi-fi, maybe also like some hologram projector, his suit may let him see it as if it’s floating in thin air too.

honestly i don’t think the issue with halo is the sci-fi part but the actual lore like, how the hell did the banished manage to defeat the infinity so quickly?!? what the hell happened to the banisheds’ weapon and vehicles from halo wars 2? who the hell is this new alien and why should i care? infinite is just so underwhelming in almost every part of the game.

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That would imply parts of Cortana are indeed not dead… has Cortana been “ghosting” John-117 and using the Weapon to gain data to find out if John would actually have followed through with deleting here with the Weapon (all “lore” building guesses).

That should have been the title of this thread. What new tech is going to enter the battlefield?

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no i think she’s for real dead this time, she just recorded her final moments into the ring, this seems to be the case in cortanas final message. they should’ve given the new alien a lot more in this game instead of just some replacement for the drones.

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Still not sure what to point of thos thread is of im honest.

What? In infinite? Thats just a visual representation of the data in the access point. It isnt just in the air we have to go to specific points on halo to extract the data being held their.
Its like how spark has blue energy beams for interacring with terminals on an installation.
Its forerunner UI a holographic representation not a literal cloud of data.

What sort of change you hoping to see?

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what about the smart link in halo 5, also the thruster in spartan armor, human weapons integrating covenant and forerunner tech like the holo-sights, energy bayonets, and that warthog that shoots needler rounds, and being able to finally use our hands to grab ledges!!! now that specifically is pretty revolutionary for halo.

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Bits of Cortana with an unexplained Weapon that has not deleted. The closes “tech” that does this kind of data suspension are the Unlockable ring arrays that hint about an ancient AI when you start to unlock them

No change, which is the narrative you are driving that I refuse to get baited into, but some new tech would be cool, which is what this thread is about.

  • Drones.
  • Network education.

Are just 2 things I can think about off the top of my head that we have not seeing utilised in any Halo game (there is a resistance to incorporated androids, robots, etc. that would probably be one of the most useful advancements for the UNSC and AI/droids seem always to either be an enemy or reliant on a Spartan, who’s knowledge about IT systems is “Cortana, help me or I’ll punch”.

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I’ve only played Halo Reach and Halo Infinite, and that jump felt like a load of stuff was taken out of the game, not added to it as far as technology (and seems to be more lore concerned and less tech concerned, which could be where the failings are).

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Ive never read any of this as being data in the air.

Just from how halo has always represented AI and advanced computational tech of any faction as being holographic projections from nearby physical systems.
It just reads as abstraction to me. A visualiser for the sake of narrative and presentation.
It never would have occured to me it be data bount in air.

Same goes for a prometheans souls.
We know the domain is able to transmit info without any meduim at all so I just assume the lights are something akin to ui or laoding screens for forerunner tech.
We explicitly know that at least 1 ancilla is interspersed with cortanas code on zeta.
And there are fsctors such as her being possibly
aspect or logic plagued.
Like the tech is all around you.
The environment is a supercomputer weapon.
And there are nodes and access points in an instance I recall interactions with AI and the ring.

I am not driving at any narrative pal, any perceived “bait” is entirely imagined.

As for new tech.
I feel like it has been consistently giving that.
We started at retro futurism and now the unsc is sleek far western future high tech.
The weapons have advanced.
Railgun and hydra, a metal gear.
Displays are more advanced.
War games is a vrtual training system.
It all feels more advanced to me at least.

The AI are too independent, spark cortana and exuberent witness all show independence and agency.
And halo 5 explicitly deals with the dangers of AI advancing to obtain immortality and taking over a la skynet.

Prometheans are literally androids.
Ghosts in shells.

Ok so this thread is about new tech.
Got ya now.

Bipedal tanks feel like a big step forward to me.
As does the personal rail gun and the incorporating of sanghilli tech into humans ordinance.
The mammoth feels like a progression of the old tech.

Mass producing spartans is essentially the trajectory to cyborgs in society.

The hydra is like an ipod nano to the missle pods boom box.

So what sort of evolution or visual representation are you looking for?

I cant think of leap that would feel like a major step above what humanity has with mechanical limbs and sunbeds that cure the big C in minutes are standard and FTL travel is trivial.
Curious what big shift or breakthrough you’d like to see.

I guess for me halo has never been popular for the tech.
Rather the hybridisation of well loved tropes in science fiction with immediacy in interaction with said elements.

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WhAttt???! Dude how can you say the tech hasn’t improved from 1 when you’ve only played 2 games in the series, and ypu didnt play 1!? are you trolling or something!? honestly if you play 5, then infinite, you might just hate infinite more.

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this guy really shouldn’t be talking about lore or technology when he’s only played two game in the series, reach and infinite.

“Ghosts in shells.” i see what you did there, heh.

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17

Hardlight is the only “innovative sci-fi tech” in Halo, and it’s am ammo type. Name anything else that is close to the concept of Hardlight as a sci-fi trope and it’ll be a great additional point for people to think about in this thread.

We’re literally seeing and exploring fictional timelines of early AI in the UNSC universe and all it has done is go insane when it realises it is immortal (and sentient) or kill everything.

That’s real inspirational science fiction.

How about a whole expansion where the Weapon teaches 117 how to build a transistor radio using a potato, in case she stops giving a crap about all this dram…lore.

Literally why would you plug a expertly play tested organic component with a synthetic variant? If I was an AI, I’d want an optimised organic body that can interface with tech (so an upgraded biological human, not a human with substations).

I just want to see interesting sci-fi like Hardlight, something that is based loosely on reality but is entirely fictional.

Just be my soilent green already, gah.

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Hardlight is literally the only thing Halo has added to the entire lexicon of sci-fi tropes, and you only need to play 2 games to see that.

now we’re trolling

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Hahaha
Hard lights been around since the 30s sugar.
Campbell although it wasnt called HL.
But the concept is, as is true of all of halos concepts a trope.

Anyway seeing how nonsensical your responces are ita pretty obvious what you are doing.

Enjoy the feeding troll.

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Soz babe, wasn’t around those times and never read a sci-fi book that has mentioned it.

calling the kettle black, troll

Name one thing in Halo that wasn’t written about in the Ender’s Saga?
Child taken away and goes on a military adventure in space, ends up becoming humanities best and brightest space soldier?

(I’m not talking about John-117, but that simple description of the Ender Saga is pretty much the entire “lore” of Halo, which is not new Science Fiction tropes which is what this thread was created for).

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they didn’t invent hard light ya dinglenutt that -Yoink!-’s been around since star wars, ever heard of a lightsaber or a force feild?

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