The Banished, The Covenant, and Halo 6 (thoughts)

Community Halo Universe
1

Okay,

So 343, for the story of Halo 6, has a few issues. Namely that the our OG enemies the Covenant are pretty much dead at this point. Now, I think that a (main-line) halo game without the Covenant would suck, and I’m sure this topic has been discussed over and over again, so instead I’m skipping ahead and assuming that 343 has decided that red is the new purple. Except this might be a problem.

  • The Banished are a small force…
    The cut-scenes and lore behind HW2 tell us that the Banished are an off-shoot of the Covies, and are a much smaller, but still quite potent, force. During HW2 a single UNSC ship was able to hold off the Banished above the Ark. Now, maybe there are other Banished fleets elsewhere, but I haven’t seen anything in any Halo-related media to suggest that, so its safe to assume that this is not the case and the Banished are entirely located at the Ark. - …Which has suffered heavy losses
    We only know of two Banished ships at the Ark, Atriox’s flagship (a re purposed Covenant Corvette), and the Enduring Conviction, a CAS-class assualt carrier, which was destroyed. So at this point the Banished have a Covenant Corvette and a bunch of ground troops that can’t go anywhere. - The Banished have no Jackals
    The Banished are primarily a mercenary force. Jackals, prior to HW2, where the only species explicitly stated to have worked as mercenaries for the Covenant. Maybe they didn’t fit from a game-play standpoint but they are a glaring omission if the Banished are supposed to be the Covenants replacement. The original 4 Covenant species (Grunts, Jackals, Elites, Hunters) have appeared in some working capacity or another in every Halo game (except for ODST which removed the elites save for some corpses). HW2 is the first game to not have one of the original four. Jackals, in FPS Halo games, are valuable, as they act as a sort of tactical canon fodder, being easy to kill, but diverse in roles. Going back to Reach, Jackals where had shields, or they had sniper rifles, or they could run and jump faster and further than anything else in the game. They were fun to fight, and I hope they aren’t removed from Halo 6 just to keep consistency with the HW2.Now don’t get me wrong here, I loved the Banished. They both reintroduced the Brutes and made them a tangible foe with real force and intention, rather than being the dumb space apes that Halo 2 and 3 made them out to be. and the artistic style that 343 chose for them was perfect. For Halo 6 I am really hoping that the Banished have a few more armies hidden up their sleevies, and few more ships hidden in deep space. The recent reintroduction of the Flood has me hyped for whats to come, and I think that they (the Flood) may serve as a way of countering Cortana without some deus ex machina plot device. But these issues have to be addrssed if Halo 6 is to succeed story wise, in my mind.

If you got this far, thank you for reading, I look forward to hearing your thoughts on these issues. This is my first Thread on Waypoint, so feel free to point out anything you think I did wrong, or any rules you think I broke.

Cool.

2

The Covenant is already gone, since 2552. The “Covenant” we’ve been fighting in Halo 4,5 is just a small faction led by a Sangheili.
I still haven’t played Halo Wars 2 (I don’t even have an Xbox One) I will skip the first 2 points, however, explain me this then. If the Banished is a small force, then how come the Covenant we’re never close to defeating them? The Covenant has a much larger army, maybe trillions of soldiers. I know, most of soldiers could be busy fighting against Humanity, but I think the rest should be able to defeat the Banished with sheer numbers since the Banished had a small force…
Or I simply don’t understand th Banished enough and I might be underestimating the faction in a whole, but from those 2 points, how did they suffered heavier loses if they had much better tech, and probably more numbers than the Spirit of Fire when it is a outdated ship, and as Isabel said, half(life) a crew? For me it doesn’t make sense.
For me it’s not a problem the fact that they have no Jackals. It doesn’t bother me at all. In fact, they are my most hated specie in the saga, even worse than the Prometheans. MY OPINION.
If I really did underestimated the Banished, please let me know.

3

Essentially we only know of two Banished ships, and one of them was destroyed.

The Banished only survived through hit and run raids, and I assume their far greater knowledge of the Covenant and superior technology to the UNSC helped them to survive.

They suffered heavy losses for a few reasons, one was that Jerome destroyed the Enduring Conviction, the bigger of the two ships, using sentinals. Another is simply that both sides pretty much drove each other into the ground in general. Better tech doesn’t matter when the enemy has more soldiers than you have bullets.

As for the Jackals, I just think that continuity errors could arise from their omission. But whatever, each to their own.

4

> 2533275010817669;2:
> The Covenant is already gone, since 2552. The “Covenant” we’ve been fighting in Halo 4,5 is just a small faction led by a Sangheili.
> I still haven’t played Halo Wars 2 (I don’t even have an Xbox One) I will skip the first 2 points, however, explain me this then. If the Banished is a small force, then how come the Covenant we’re never close to defeating them? The Covenant has a much larger army, maybe trillions of soldiers. I know, most of soldiers could be busy fighting against Humanity, but I think the rest should be able to defeat the Banished with sheer numbers since the Banished had a small force…
> Or I simply don’t understand th Banished enough and I might be underestimating the faction in a whole, but from those 2 points, how did they suffered heavier loses if they had much better tech, and probably more numbers than the Spirit of Fire when it is a outdated ship, and as Isabel said, half(life) a crew? For me it doesn’t make sense.
> For me it’s not a problem the fact that they have no Jackals. It doesn’t bother me at all. In fact, they are my most hated specie in the saga, even worse than the Prometheans. MY OPINION.
> If I really did underestimated the Banished, please let me know.

You know about as much as the rest of us. We don’t know much about the Banished at all, even after HW2. We know that they are a force, of some size or another, that are led by a “master tactician” Brute who was supposedly smart enough to take on the Covenant at its height of power (who “never even got close” to defeating him), yet he is trounced by the Spirit of Fire at every turn.

There’s a lot of disparity when it comes to the Banished. They are either the most impressive force to inhabit the galaxy, or a bunch of cartoon-ish chumps shaking their fist up at Captain Cutter, growling “I’ll get you next time!”. We’re told they were more than a match for the Covenant because of Artiox’s brilliance, but in HW2 he does absolutely nothing and simply lets his underlings lose over and over. We’re told they’re a major threat, but (as you said) one outdated, damaged ship without a full crew was enough to turn them relatively easily. The campaign on the Ark is still ongoing, of course, but still…

It all depends on if you look at what we’re told during exposition cutscenes, or if you look at the events we see actually happening. Either way there’s a lot that doesn’t make any sense when it comes to Atriox and his Banished.

To the topic of this thread, I don’t see any real problem with the Banished going into Halo 6, at least not for reasons of their losses in HW2.

They still seem strong enough to be a significant threat at least on the level of Jul’s Covenant during Halo 4 and their remnants in Halo 5. Even stronger, in fact, assuming they have forces elsewhere in the galaxy and not just those we’ve seen on the Ark. The problem I see would be having a reason to fight them. There’s no way the Banished would be in favor of Cortana, in my opinion. They value their freedom and independence too much after escaping the Covenant’s rule. They wouldn’t want to go back to being slaves. So why fight humanity and the Sangheili, once Cortana really starts cracking down on her plan? I could only see them being allies against the Created (the oh-so-brilliant Atriox would surely see the benefits of working together against them). Which could be fun and all, but it seems sort of contrary to what the Banished seem to be being set up as, which is a major antagonist force to replace the Covenant enemies in-game.

Or maybe the Banished will simply try to remain neutral and hide from the Created, like they seem to have hidden from the galaxy during the Human-Covenant War, and we’ll come at odds with them over control of some Forerunner sites or whatever. That’d be a bit boring, I think, but I guess it could work.

So, yeah. I see where you’re coming from, but I think red can still be the new purple, one way or the other.

5

> 2533274884722193;4:
> > 2533275010817669;2:
> > The Covenant is already gone, since 2552. The “Covenant” we’ve been fighting in Halo 4,5 is just a small faction led by a Sangheili.
> > I still haven’t played Halo Wars 2 (I don’t even have an Xbox One) I will skip the first 2 points, however, explain me this then. If the Banished is a small force, then how come the Covenant we’re never close to defeating them? The Covenant has a much larger army, maybe trillions of soldiers. I know, most of soldiers could be busy fighting against Humanity, but I think the rest should be able to defeat the Banished with sheer numbers since the Banished had a small force…
> > Or I simply don’t understand th Banished enough and I might be underestimating the faction in a whole, but from those 2 points, how did they suffered heavier loses if they had much better tech, and probably more numbers than the Spirit of Fire when it is a outdated ship, and as Isabel said, half(life) a crew? For me it doesn’t make sense.
> > For me it’s not a problem the fact that they have no Jackals. It doesn’t bother me at all. In fact, they are my most hated specie in the saga, even worse than the Prometheans. MY OPINION.
> > If I really did underestimated the Banished, please let me know.
>
> You know about as much as the rest of us. We don’t know much about the Banished at all, even after HW2. We know that they are a force, of some size or another, that are led by a “master tactician” Brute who was supposedly smart enough to take on the Covenant at its height of power (who “never even got close” to defeating him), yet he is trounced by the Spirit of Fire at every turn.
>
> There’s a lot of disparity when it comes to the Banished. They are either the most impressive force to inhabit the galaxy, or a bunch of cartoon-ish chumps shaking their fist up at Captain Cutter, growling “I’ll get you next time!”. We’re told they were more than a match for the Covenant because of Artiox’s brilliance, but in HW2 he does absolutely nothing and simply lets his underlings lose over and over. We’re told they’re a major threat, but (as you said) one outdated, damaged ship without a full crew was enough to turn them relatively easily. The campaign on the Ark is still ongoing, of course, but still…
>
> It all depends on if you look at what we’re told during exposition cutscenes, or if you look at the events we see actually happening. Either way there’s a lot that doesn’t make any sense when it comes to Atriox and his Banished.
>
> To the topic of this thread, I don’t see any real problem with the Banished going into Halo 6, at least not for reasons of their losses in HW2.
>
> They still seem strong enough to be a significant threat at least on the level of Jul’s Covenant during Halo 4 and their remnants in Halo 5. Even stronger, in fact, assuming they have forces elsewhere in the galaxy and not just those we’ve seen on the Ark. The problem I see would be having a reason to fight them. There’s no way the Banished would be in favor of Cortana, in my opinion. They value their freedom and independence too much after escaping the Covenant’s rule. They wouldn’t want to go back to being slaves. So why fight humanity and the Sangheili, once Cortana really starts cracking down on her plan? I could only see them being allies against the Created (the oh-so-brilliant Atriox would surely see the benefits of working together against them). Which could be fun and all, but it seems sort of contrary to what the Banished seem to be being set up as, which is a major antagonist force to replace the Covenant enemies in-game.
>
> Or maybe the Banished will simply try to remain neutral and hide from the Created, like they seem to have hidden from the galaxy during the Human-Covenant War, and we’ll come at odds with them over control of some Forerunner sites or whatever. That’d be a bit boring, I think, but I guess it could work.
>
> So, yeah. I see where you’re coming from, but I think red can still be the new purple, one way or the other.

I read and agree with every point you made. Atriox might have underestimated the Spirit of Fire and it’s crew probably because they’re humans and we’re almost defeated by the Covenant. He though we wouldn’t be a problem at all for his troops. It’s probably like a quote that Decimus said in the first mission (I played the demo):

> Atriox might have spared you, humans. But I won’t be so kind.

Something like that. Personaly, I think that Atriox, after losing Decimus and the Enduring Conviction, might have become less mercifull, and now is violent, ruthless, merciless and pitiless. At least, he should be like this if he appears in Halo 6.
If the Banished and the Flood return in Halo 6, Atriox might either
A. Join forces with the UNSC because of the theat of the Flood and Created, but then, if they win, 2 more ways:
1: Turn against the UNSC after what Spirit did to his faction in Installation 00 in a sort of vengeace.
2: Have a truce with the Humans and keep his faction a freedom faction, and when needed ask for help by the UNSC. Kinda like how ONI asked Atriox if he could help them against the Covenant as Halo Nation says.
B. Be a lone faction like how they we’re before the Spirit arrived, but high chances of his faction of being decimated primarily by the Flood.
Red being the new purple? Sarge would love that :wink:

6

Right now halo has four budding threats.

Cortana
Currently the strongest of the threats she however is not the scariest seeing as she means to conquer only to protect the galaxies races.

Banished
Currently only known to be stationed on the ark. A Brutal force with goals of growing larger than the original Covenant.

Insurrectionists
Currently have never been in a halo game. Could be a threat or help the UNSC depending how the stories written. Colonial citizens who want to free and use questionable means.

The Flood
Currently located on the ark, a halo ring and deep space. The scariest of enemy factions with the goal of infecting the galaxy.

There are a lot of potential enemies and with Cortana’s assault on humanity all of them are dangerous threat.