Space, the neglected thing in the Halo Franchise

Community Halo Universe
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A small report of things that took my attention concerning the Halo Franchise/Universe:

  1. Introduction:

I have had just the possibility to play the Halo Wars with a friend. I think I played now all bigger Halo Campaigns: MCC – all 6 – Halo 1-4 +Spartan Ops + ODST (don’t have my own ODST finished, but one of my other mates had the game on 360, so I know the campaign, even if I don’t play all missions); Halo Wars 1; Spartan Assault (with each difficulty setting :S); and Halo 30FPS, also called Halo Reach.

There are much less Halo Games out there, than I thought – Halo CE can be counted 4 times: Halo CE, Halo CE (Xbox), Halo CE:A, Halo CE in the MCC. I mean lol, this pumps the list … also I had the problem that the Halo Games List is very confusing: I didn’t know Halo Wars or ODST since Halo Wars 2 was announced or ODST was out (again) for the MCC.

I have the feeling, that this is the right time, to repeat and specify some point, that I don’t like to much in the Halo Game Franchise.
The Halo Franchise has two aspects: it is Sci-Fi; and it plays with epic, big things, that go off behind you.
The Halo Franchsie itself started (not with Reach, as I figuered out -) with Halo CE; so with the Ring that get’s destroyed and is itself a gigant weapon structure.
Seems big in the first view, and it is realy something new and cool in Sci-Fi, as I can imagine in the year 2000/2001. But after all these years, everything evolved, exept the Sci-Fi like “Fireworks” behind you.

  1. The “space envents” in Halo so far

I try to list them up here, regarding each Halo Campaign as long as they are worth to being mentioned here. This aspect is a mix of “size and size of the effects radius” and the Sci-Fi based creative fantasy that was used for it. Using () means, the effect is hard to the border not to being mentioned here:

[Sorted: Main Game Row, chronologically // not Main Game Row, alphabethically]

Halo CE/CE:A:

  • Ringworld gets destroyed by an overloaded fusion reactor. (II)

Halo 2:

  • A Small station was thrown into a gas gigant. (/)
  • (City flashed by slip drive.) (/)
  • (Parasite overruns mothership with city inside.) (/)

Halo 3:

  • Halo Weapon used against a part of our galaxy to destroy the whole feeling life. (II-V)
    (- bit of Earth was melted down to destroy Parasite.) (/)

Halo 4:
(- Minor damage to the core of an artificial planet caused by a slip drive.) (/)
(- Battleship was destroyed by a nuclear device while it was attacking Earth.) (/)

ODST:
/

Reach:
(- Melting down a planet a bit. Destroying some ancient ruins. …) (/)

Spartan Assault:

  • Planet get’s destroyed by an energy beam of it’s moon (II)

Spartan Ops:

  • Artificial planet was navigated into it’s sun and let it detonate (III-IV)

Wars:

  • Artificial planet was destroyed by detonating the mini sun in it’s core (II-III)

As it is visible here, the gigant effects become a bit more uninspired … and generally they are realy small if you compare them with real effects in space. The biggest effect was firing the Halo Weapon in Halo III – sadly it was not over spectaculary, … the escape was a a bit more special – bigger bomb, more tension by running away).
Also the structures itself in the Halo Franchse are not very big: the Ring World is a bit small, artificial planets not bigger than … lol planets. If you near something realy big in a fast moving vessel, and you break down, it feels like you are shrinking, as long as you have free sight on that thing.
A little solar flare, of a normal G-Class-Sun (look out of the windown, right there: distance 8 LiMi (Light minutes)) is bigger than everything used in the Halo Franchsie concerning structures.

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  1. Comparison Values

If you checked the list up there and saw the roman numbesrs on the right side: I added a comparision value to each effect now, how big and massive it is like. Here the List for some comparision events/effects:

X – tesseract-hypersphere feedback acceleration (creates filaments),
hyperspheric chronophotonic implusion (so-called: “supercluster-effect”),
alteration-fan shock expansion (so-called: “filament-burst-effect”, generates timefans)

IX – singularity star desingularation (so-called: “white whole burst”),
hyperroom-nullroom-imbrication (so-called: “rip”),
alteration-fan delooping burst (creates voids)

VIII – hyper-gamma ray burst (so-called “ultimative black hole gamma ray burst”),
photogravitonic star expenetation,
gravitation-wave impulse (so-called: pentachoron-hyperroom-wave or -vortex)

VII – hypernova,
gamma ray burst,
singularity star (=black hole) collision

VI – supernova (bigger type and over),
ion vortex implusion,
neutron star collision

V – sun expenetation,
CNO-reaction jolt up (O-Class-Suns or bigger),
small supernova (lower type)

IV – sun collision,
hot gas gigant expenetation (= very explosive expansion),
nucleothectonic planet explosion

III – planet collision,
bursting solar flare,
hyper-CME (Choronal Mass Ejection)

II – moon collision,
gravomagnetic planet burst,
highspeed comet collision (don’t mix up: asteroids and comets)

I – highspeed asteroid impact,
hyper-thectonic burst (massive vulcanic erruption),
planetoid cracks

/ – vulcan erruptions,
earthquakes,
small asteroid impacts

The biggest effect was, as mentioned, in Halo III; it had a big radius, but at all: a small effect on everything. Precision substracts power. So it was hard to rate. Size is a V … but effect … maximal a II. The other ones are not very exactly shown. The sun in Spartan Ops seemed to be very small, so a IV is the maximum it get get. I think it is only as big as a gas gigant – so it should’ve be a III more than a IV.

  1. What’s wrong?

Generaly, as said: the whole “space-effects” and the whole “space enviroment” in Halo become uninspired. The focus is more on the relationships between the aliens, the humans and so on. This is kinda bad, because these space effects and sci-fi thematics don’t disagree with each other.
I would whish myself more sci-fi thematics for the Halo Franchsise. And if it plkays around with big effects, why not take real big ones? Keep in mind, that this effects are not always done in seconds: they could move slow through the space or create a lot of tension.
If you dunno what they exaclty what for example a “White Hole” can be, who cares. Halo is a game, means the things don’t need to be realistic.
For example: the planets in the most Halo Games are so close, that they would collide by their gravity. Or the gravity at all is so low, that sun’s for example can’t exist there, like they do.
But … who cares? It looks more epic, if you can see them big in the sky.
That’s not the point.

The point is … try to create something more interessting than a beam, a planet and the destruction of the planet. Darth Vadder doesn’t even wake up if this stuff happens :stuck_out_tongue:

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  1. One example, how to avoid this negative trend

Imagine this scenario – I am not a Halo Fan, so please be gentle with me, if I mixed something up:
The didact want’s to destroy the remaining humans, because he failed with it, and he is raging now, he fires a few V-weapons (Vector) into a black hole until it leaps iteslf into an instabile white hole. The detonation (expenetation) moves now relative slow through space and pushes suns away until they disapear in the shockwave. Means navigating a spaceship would be very tricky. And the wall of boom moves through some galaxies now. (IX)
Saying like in Halo 3: Bang!, Superweapon!, and that’s it, … I don’t think it is enaugh. Who knows who was hit by the Halo Weapon Impulse aswell, and what it also caused.

Bio- or Chemie weapons are always not very spectacular for a firework – so the Halo Weapon in my oppinion.
The tension before it fires in Halo 3 was great, but a bit short and cutted. Who doesn’t feel the apocalyptic panic if she/he looks up and sees a wall of light and fire, which is moving through galaxies, moving towards the planet she/he stands on – and becomes brighter and brighter – then the moon disapears (and cuz’ it is a game with firework: the moon explodes). A small timer to the right and here we go.
But in opposite to the Halo 3 events, this big effects shouldn’t stop after one or two missions. That’s boring. It can be used to create tension over a few game events.

  1. Let’s see, and hope / a few closing words

Now, in Halo 5 we might have big guardians – I give it a try for sure.
But I don’t like the general fact, that the Halo Franchise moves away from “Science-Sci-Fi Themes” to much:
It is more and sadly ONLY focused on alien stuff and so on (after Halo 2 or, at least, 3) … forgetting that space itself can be full of amazing things.

Halo would be something more special, if it is not only focused on aliens and wars and alien structures – a lot of Sci-Fi games ahve that, too. Halo seemed to be always a mix of these things and “space things”: The Ringworld itself in Halo CE; or throwing down the station into the gas gigant in Halo 2. After Halo 3, which felt a bit cutted, this things got lost.
And I suspect, that a lot of fans might feel it, but don’t detect it so good, and don’t know now what became wrong with the Halo Franchise.
What started to miss since Halo 2?

Any comments what you think about “having more sci-fi- or space-events (like in the lists above)” inside the Halo Storylines are welcome of course.

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[Sry, if you find any tyops up there in my small report, I don’t have time now to check the finished text now - world needs me elsewere :P]

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What? I don’t even…
Did you translate this from another language?
I don’t even…
I’m not even sure what this is all about…
Are you saying you want Michael Bay explosions …?

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> 2533274809220485;5:
> What? I don’t even…
> Did you translate this from another language?
> I don’t even…
> I’m not even sure what this is all about…
> Are you saying you want Michael Bay explosions …?

He’s saying he wants God to rain cosmic destructive piss all over the Halo universe. As if the Forerunners, Guardians, Precursors and Flood weren’t enough. I seriously don’t like all these cataclysmic galactic level destruction events taking place with just Master Chief to fix them all, Halo is supposed to be a military/slightly realistic sci fi and no it’s seeming a lot like full blown Star Wars save the galaxy from destruction type stuff. I know Halo is semi inspired by Star Wars (I love Star Wars by the way, not hate to it) but it would be nice if Halo universe wasn’t set to be destroyed every other Wednesday by some Forerunner or Precursor crap every other day.

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> 2533274974597111;6:
> > 2533274809220485;5:
> > What? I don’t even…
> > Did you translate this from another language?
> > I don’t even…
> > I’m not even sure what this is all about…
> > Are you saying you want Michael Bay explosions …?
>
>
> He’s saying he wants God to rain cosmic destructive piss all over the Halo universe. As if the Forerunners, Guardians, Precursors and Flood weren’t enough. I seriously don’t like all these cataclysmic galactic level destruction events taking place with just Master Chief to fix them all, Halo is supposed to be a military/slightly realistic sci fi and no it’s seeming a lot like full blown Star Wars save the galaxy from destruction type stuff. I know Halo is semi inspired by Star Wars (I love Star Wars by the way, not hate to it) but it would be nice if Halo universe wasn’t set to be destroyed every other Wednesday by some Forerunner or Precursor crap every other day.

No.
Sry, if it is overcomplex for you.

And thx for this destructive comments … it tells me a lot about the future of the Halo Franchise. (Don’t buy Microsoft shares!)
Poor fan workers of 343 Studios who want to try to get new ppl inside the franchise.

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I’m sorry Op I don’t understand what it is you actually want your wall of text just confused me.

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Your rating system is based on galactic phenomenon. I think it’s a bit arbitrary to compare the scale of Halo events to phenomenon. Some Halo stories are meant to be large like the Halo trilogy (Although people’s take of large is subjective), and others are meant to be small like ODST.

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> 2535428825532022;7:
> > 2533274974597111;6:
> > > 2533274809220485;5:
> > > What? I don’t even…
> > > Did you translate this from another language?
> > > I don’t even…
> > > I’m not even sure what this is all about…
> > > Are you saying you want Michael Bay explosions …?
> >
> >
> > He’s saying he wants God to rain cosmic destructive piss all over the Halo universe. As if the Forerunners, Guardians, Precursors and Flood weren’t enough. I seriously don’t like all these cataclysmic galactic level destruction events taking place with just Master Chief to fix them all, Halo is supposed to be a military/slightly realistic sci fi and no it’s seeming a lot like full blown Star Wars save the galaxy from destruction type stuff. I know Halo is semi inspired by Star Wars (I love Star Wars by the way, not hate to it) but it would be nice if Halo universe wasn’t set to be destroyed every other Wednesday by some Forerunner or Precursor crap every other day.
>
>
> No.
> Sry, if it is overcomplex for you.
> And thx for this destructive comments … it tells me a lot about the future of the Halo Franchise. (Don’t buy Microsoft shares!)
> Poor fan workers of 343 Studios who want to try to get new ppl inside the franchise.

The idea you’re trying to convey isn’t complex (I think), it’s just the way you wrote it.

1: I don’t understand what this has to do with space being neglected.

2: You forgot Chief flying through space and detonating a bomb within a Covenant Cruiser in Halo 2, Ivanoff Station, the Space-fight segment, and Infinity being forcefully crashed into Requiem in Halo 4.

3: OK? Is this something you came up with yourself or something else?

4: That’s pretty subjective. The reason why things like giant super-weapons, planets blowing up, ships being torn apart, are so prevalent is because people can understand it. You start throwing in things like white holes (because I can guarantee, the majority of the hundreds of thousands of people who play Halo don’t know what that is.) and the fabric of time being torn apart, the over-all theme becomes watered down and cheesy.

5: If I’m reading this right, you really over estimate the power of the Forerunners in established canon.

6: Umm… yeah. You’re point gets lost somewhere between points 2 and 3.

And what do you mean by “Poor fan workers of 343 Studios who want to try to get new ppl inside the franchise.”?

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I just used the space-explosion stuff as one of many examples; because it is the most representable one to hint on the general lack of space things.

The Halo Franchise won’t get any new ppl with: a few aliens that fight against other aliens for the right to start an invasion on the humans first. And a few soldiers mixed with less superhero soldiers who fight against them.

Noone, who is not an Halo Fan, cares about that.
If you have an (complexe) universe full of ppl who feel at home there, it is hard for new ppl to join this franchise
And if you don’t give them something special, that they all can imagine very well, and that is a reason to join this franchse: Like space stuff (see topic) above, the franchise suffers and dries out.

No new ppl in an expanding universe - and the fact, that noone of the core fans want to pay 2x-10x for a game - results the fact, that a franchise will become uneconomical in the end.

Nothing more to say.

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> 2535428825532022;11:
> No new ppl in an expanding universe - and the fact, that noone of the core fans want to pay 2x-10x for a game - results the fact, that a franchise will become uneconomical in the end.
> Nothing more to say.

What?

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Most players seem to value multiplayer over campaign, and it is also the easiest part to sell newcomers, OP.

Besides, Halo 5’s campaign is very welcoming of new players: blue-visored space soldier going against green, rings-a-bell space soldier. All of that surrounded by giant machinery and aliens and a team for each of those characters. I do think it is very eye-catching and doesn’t need space things.

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Aren’t the Guardians - giant colony-destroying Forerunner constructs - serving the purpose you’re talking about here? And either way, large-scale events may be cool, but they don’t make loyal fans. A strong story with strong characters for the campaign and well-made multiplayer are what grab people and hold them.

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Did you make up those terms in IX and X? Because I’ve never once heard of those events, and I’m a bit of an astronomy wiz myself.

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> 2533274863266427;8:
> I’m sorry Op I don’t understand what it is you actually want your wall of text just confused me.

I came in here looking to drop a simple Star Trek joke, and this post confused me so bad I can’t even think of one. Jeepers!

This is why I mostly avoid the Universe forum lol.

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> 2533274822366750;15:
> Did you make up those terms in IX and X? Because I’ve never once heard of those events, and I’m a bit of an astronomy wiz myself.

They are roman numerals.

So… you want more realistic explosions??? Also unless your translating this, please try to clean up your essay.

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This is perhaps the most confusing post I’ve ever seen. Was this run through Google Translate?

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> 2535428825532022;7:
> > 2533274974597111;6:
> > > 2533274809220485;5:
> > > What? I don’t even…
> > > Did you translate this from another language?
> > > I don’t even…
> > > I’m not even sure what this is all about…
> > > Are you saying you want Michael Bay explosions …?
> >
> >
> > He’s saying he wants God to rain cosmic destructive piss all over the Halo universe. As if the Forerunners, Guardians, Precursors and Flood weren’t enough. I seriously don’t like all these cataclysmic galactic level destruction events taking place with just Master Chief to fix them all, Halo is supposed to be a military/slightly realistic sci fi and no it’s seeming a lot like full blown Star Wars save the galaxy from destruction type stuff. I know Halo is semi inspired by Star Wars (I love Star Wars by the way, not hate to it) but it would be nice if Halo universe wasn’t set to be destroyed every other Wednesday by some Forerunner or Precursor crap every other day.
>
>
> No.
> Sry, if it is overcomplex for you.
> And thx for this destructive comments … it tells me a lot about the future of the Halo Franchise. (Don’t buy Microsoft shares!)
> Poor fan workers of 343 Studios who want to try to get new ppl inside the franchise.

No it’s not complex, the way you wrote it made it complex. And so you are saying the way to make Halo better is to put it on the level of all these galactic destruction games like Mass Effect? Right totally. Nice to know you have no idea what Halo has been focused on or how to actually attract new people to the game…
Unrelated question: Do you like Michael Bay?

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neglected… That Space battles Board game doe!