Episode 8 of Spartan Ops came out today and during a part in the cinematic, Spartan Gabriel Thorne discovers the ‘Active Camo’ Armor Ability module from Gek. When he uses it, Thorne seems like he has never used or seen an Armor Ability before. Because of this, and how we have never seen a human use an AA in a cutscene/cinematic ever before, this encourages me to ask you guys the question; are armor abilities canon?
343 says it so super canon so it must be so super canon. Thruster Pack and Jetpack are Canon…
Maybe Covenant AAs are more advanced? He was able to walk around without breaking the camo.
> Maybe Covenant AAs are more advanced? He was able to walk around without breaking the camo.
Good point. It’s like the power-up active camo in past Halo games where you don’t break the camo while you’re walking.
I loved Active Camo as a power up in Halo, not an armor ability. The fact that everyone can start off with it and the camo breaking really irks me.
> > Maybe Covenant AAs are more advanced? He was able to walk around without breaking the camo.
>
> Good point. It’s like the power-up active camo in past Halo games where you don’t break the camo while you’re walking.
>
> I loved Active Camo as a power up in Halo, not an armor ability. The fact that everyone can start off with it and the camo breaking really irks me.
I completely agree; A huge part of the Halo Series was map control; You had to fight for rockets, sniper, and power-ups such as camo. Now, everyone just sits in the corner with a sniper and camo.
I would guess AAs are canon and the covenant version of Active Camo is better then ours.
And from the looks of it, it seems that Spartans can have more than one armour ability yay!
> > > Maybe Covenant AAs are more advanced? He was able to walk around without breaking the camo.
> >
> > Good point. It’s like the power-up active camo in past Halo games where you don’t break the camo while you’re walking.
> >
> > I loved Active Camo as a power up in Halo, not an armor ability. The fact that everyone can start off with it and the camo breaking really irks me.
>
> I completely agree; A huge part of the Halo Series was map control; You had to fight for rockets, sniper, and power-ups such as camo. Now, everyone just sits in the corner with a sniper and camo.
Hey hey! You might want to keep those kinds of discussions in the Halo 4 forum.
On Topic: You GET Active Camo armor abilities from the Elites. Surely Spartans are familiar with it by then if they can pick up the module with no problem.
The chief even picks one up off of a dead elite in the campaign and Cortana rewrites the hardware to work with Chiefs Mk. VI but it still makes you show up when you walk around. but maybe with the GEN-2 MJOLNIR it would work with Thorne’s armor?
Wasn’t it in one of the books that certain Spartan II’s and III’s had tested out some versions of active camo?
Jet Packs were in Reach, so therefore they are canon (though in a slightly different form). PV and Autosentry are picked up by Chief and Cortana makes it possible for him to use them, so they are technically now canon.
> The chief even picks one up off of a dead elite in the campaign and Cortana rewrites the hardware to work with Chiefs Mk. VI but it still makes you show up when you walk around. but maybe with the GEN-2 MJOLNIR it would work with Thorne’s armor?
Exactly what I was wondering. Spartan Thorne was able to use Gek’s Active Camo without the camo breaking, but gameplay-wise, I think camo breaks for both Elites and Spartans. I think it’s just a gameplay thing, or there are multiple different versions of camo Elites use.
> > The chief even picks one up off of a dead elite in the campaign and Cortana rewrites the hardware to work with Chiefs Mk. VI but it still makes you show up when you walk around. but maybe with the GEN-2 MJOLNIR it would work with Thorne’s armor?
>
> Exactly what I was wondering. Spartan Thorne was able to use Gek’s Active Camo without the camo breaking, but gameplay-wise, I think camo breaks for both Elites and Spartans. I think it’s just a gameplay thing, or there are multiple different versions of camo Elites use.
Camo doesn’t break for Elites in Halo 4. The UNSC version seems to do so, though.
> Wasn’t it in one of the books that certain Spartan II’s and III’s had tested out some versions of active camo?
>
> Jet Packs were in Reach, so therefore they are canon (though in a slightly different form). PV and Autosentry are picked up by Chief and Cortana makes it possible for him to use them, so they are technically now canon.
Yes, Spartan IIIs within project HEADHUNTER had AVCAM that din’t break, but only lasted a few minutes and drained their power supply. Also, in the books, most SIIIs had AC that was kind of blurry unlike the Covie version.
We have to consider that armor abilities outside War Games might be a bit different,(I’m not sure how many Auto Sentry’s the Infinity armory has laying around for field use) and that Covenant abilities are probably a tad more advanced than what the UNSC has.
Zealot’s like Gek use a more advanced form that allows them to remain hidden even while moving at full speed, they are no more than a shimmer and almost impossible to pick out of a environment.
I’m guessing that Armor Abilities are experimental hardware at this point in time and that the UNSC is using War Games as a simulator to test them out before it actually equips its Spartans with them.
Like Connor said, we’ll have to consider that AAs in the training sim world of War Games act a little differently than “real” ones. Not to mention that the Spartan IVs may have something in their armor that makes Covie AAs more compatible, thereby enabling the “total camo” aspect. Chief’s armor was pretty outdated by 2557.
I get the feeling the that active camo module might reappear in the last couple of episodes. Seems odd to draw attention to something most of us have known about for many years now.
Thorne was just like “Check this out, guys.” I’m pretty sure they’ve seen active camo modules before, just that it’s more powerful than others.
You have to consider, though, that Crimson drops with any loadout they want, and that includes Active Camo. When you look at Active Camo on a Spartan’s back, it appears to be of Covenant origin, not UNSC. I theorize that the Active Camo from the cutscene is not an AA at all, but something more powerful and convenient. The AA likely has to be in that specific spot on a spartan’s back, and somehow it integrated with Mjolnir. Thorne just has it in hand when he uses it, and like it’s stated above, he walks around with it.
That, or Crimson just gets access to better stuff…