I wasn’t sure if this topic was more prudent going into Halo: Infinite or Universe forums, given it directly impacts Infinite’s storytelling and settings I’ve put it here.
But having just read Halo: Bad Blood, we’re given direct reference to the current UNSC Slip Space transit speeds as opposed to the old ones.
Not a direct quote, but close enough to; “Deployments that once took weeks or months in Slip Space transit now can take hours or days.”
Throughout the original trilogy and the other novels released around it the UNSC was slow in space compared to the Covenant and even slower compared to Forerunner ships, but in the current iteration of the fiction UNSC ships are faster than what the Covenant ever was and the galaxy has seemingly gotten smaller for it.
There are also many references to “the Human controlled portion of the galaxy.”
One thing that I personally always loved about Halo was the sense of scale and the wonder that imparted from the vastness of the unknown. It has never been directly given to us in the form of a map or description (unless it has and I’ve missed it) how much of the Milky Way Humanity inhabits, and how much is controlled by the Covenant/former Cov species.
In some ways, I can’t help but personally feel that this somewhat cheapens the storytelling.
oops, written ourselves into a corner! No dramas, can just have another ship jump into the story to fix that in an hour. No big deal? Then there’s the flow effect of adding more moving parts to a story that didn’t directly need them.
I’m not bashing Halo in that, I enjoy all of the new fiction as much as the old, but I feel like Halo has lost, or is losing, its sense of scale and that story elements can be thrown around with a lot less commitment.
But of course, from a storytelling perspective, this gives the ability to change the canvas more often and more drastically than ever before in Halo. It’s entirely possible that one game could go across a dozen planets thank to these developments in the universe.
So I wondered what the rest of the community would feel about how Slip Space has changed the scale of Halo and how they think that might effect Halo: Infinite?
I believe it is because humanity are beginning to use Forerunner engines in their ships. To get a sense of scale, Requiem is (I believe) in uncharted space and is 7230 light years from Sol, so it is reasonable to assume that the UNSC hasn’t gone much farther than that.
But anyway I would love to see a galactic map of the Halo universe.
> 2535440120215345;2:
> I believe it is because humanity are beginning to use Forerunner engines in their ships. To get a sense of scale, Requiem is (I believe) in uncharted space and is 7230 light years from Sol, so it is reasonable to assume that the UNSC hasn’t gone much farther than that.
>
> But anyway I would love to see a galactic map of the Halo universe.
I’ve been wishing for a map for years!
But if that measurement is correct, then how much space do the Cov races control?
Which then immediately makes me think of Cortana’s speech in H5 about creatures of the galaxy. If all the known species in Halo originate let’s say within 20-30k LY of earth, then there are potentially dozens or hundreds of other species in the galaxy.
Does that mean that there are Guardians out there too and Cortana is oppressing other species whom everyone else is completely unaware of?
> 2533274851997977;3:
> > 2535440120215345;2:
> > I believe it is because humanity are beginning to use Forerunner engines in their ships. To get a sense of scale, Requiem is (I believe) in uncharted space and is 7230 light years from Sol, so it is reasonable to assume that the UNSC hasn’t gone much farther than that.
> >
> > But anyway I would love to see a galactic map of the Halo universe.
>
> I’ve been wishing for a map for years!
>
> But if that measurement is correct, then how much space do the Cov races control?
> Which then immediately makes me think of Cortana’s speech in H5 about creatures of the galaxy. If all the known species in Halo originate let’s say within 20-30k LY of earth, then there are potentially dozens or hundreds of other species in the galaxy.
> Does that mean that there are Guardians out there too and Cortana is oppressing other species whom everyone else is completely unaware of?
Perhaps, but in Halo Nighfall there was a humanoid alien that seem to be almost like smugglers or pre-Covenant jackals.
> 2535440120215345;4:
> > 2533274851997977;3:
> > > 2535440120215345;2:
> > > I believe it is because humanity are beginning to use Forerunner engines in their ships. To get a sense of scale, Requiem is (I believe) in uncharted space and is 7230 light years from Sol, so it is reasonable to assume that the UNSC hasn’t gone much farther than that.
> > >
> > > But anyway I would love to see a galactic map of the Halo universe.
> >
> > I’ve been wishing for a map for years!
> >
> > But if that measurement is correct, then how much space do the Cov races control?
> > Which then immediately makes me think of Cortana’s speech in H5 about creatures of the galaxy. If all the known species in Halo originate let’s say within 20-30k LY of earth, then there are potentially dozens or hundreds of other species in the galaxy.
> > Does that mean that there are Guardians out there too and Cortana is oppressing other species whom everyone else is completely unaware of?
>
> Perhaps, but in Halo Nighfall there was a humanoid alien that seem to be almost like smugglers or pre-Covenant jackals.
That species was also part of the covenant just not part of any warrior caste. As for the speed, a trip to reach from Earth could take a few weeks IIRC so that gets shortened down to a few hours while a colony as far out as let’s say harvest would become only a few weeks of travel. It in no way cheapens the story as a message would have to get from one place, then a military detachment would have to be created, and armed before even being able to leave for where ever the problem is.
Yeah but theoretically wouldn’t the forerunner-enhanced slip space drives only apply to those ships that got upgraded by the huragok?
> 2535444702990491;6:
> Yeah but theoretically wouldn’t the forerunner-enhanced slip space drives only apply to those ships that got upgraded by the huragok?
I would imagine that the UNSC wouldn’t want to make the same kind of fatal mistake that the Covenant did and simply let the Huragok apply their near-magical technology without being able to replicate it themselves.
It would make sense that all of the upgrades learnt either directly from Forerunner drives or from the Huragok that UNSC engineers can reverse engineer and replicate that and there would be an immediate push to outfit all vessels, old and new, with the tech, so that deployments could proceed more smoothly.