With the release of Silentium, we’re barrelling towards the end of the road for the particular path Halo’s been on the last few years. We still have the last Kilo-Five book and then it truly is the end. In retrospect, it was all a part of the Halo 4 release cycle and prepping us for that particular story. All Halo lore news for 2+ years has been about the game, the terminals in CEA, the webseries or these novels. So, and I’m speaking from more of a real world perspective, where do we go from here?
It’s just about as blank and wide open of a period as I can remember in Halo fandom for many years. There’s been no comics talk in a long time, we have just the one novel on the horizon, continued Spartan Ops is far from guaranteed and, unless they accelerate the release cycle, no game in the main storyline (if any at all) until 2015. In recent times, we’ve been spoiled with near yearly game releases and a pretty steady stream of fiction, so it’s weird to have all this unknown.
The two main storylines left hanging as of now are:
Halsey/Jul, the Infinity and the two halves of the Janus Key
343 Guilty Spark and the Rubicon off to their mysterious destination
It’s probably very safe to say that the third Kilo-Five book will not deal with either of those two plot points (though it may create a third lingering plot thread of its own), so in what medium do we see the Halo story move forward first? Will we have a new novel series? Is it more Spartan Ops? I’m still expecting another animated film of feature-length to pop out sometime. Most unexpectedly, does Master Chief return sooner than we think with a new game?
I wouldn’t say that’s all we have left. I mean as you said yourself, we still have the next Kilo-Five book, which is dealing with problems all its own, such as the forward-moving relationship between the Covenant Remnant, specifically the Sangheili, and Humanity. Heck, we even have to start looking again at the Human Insurrection, as there are still issues surround that whole thing that won’t go away lightly. And who’s to say we don’t get something completely out of left field? A new problem? New places to explore, maybe even a new species to deal with? Who knows? I would imagine that 343 has a few surprises up their sleeve for where we might go from here, whether that be in a game form, or books, comics, etc. I definitely agree though that we are in a really amazing period of a far more “open slate” future that we’ve become accustomed to in recent years as Halo fans. It’s going to be exciting to say the least!
I am extremely interested to see what the setting is going to be for the next (post-Kilo-Five) novel is going to be. Hopefully we’ll get info at Comic Con!
I wonder if 343I is going with the same philosophy with extended fiction as they did Pre-Halo 4? Maybe Silentium, the Final Kilo 5 book, and whatever other fiction that comes between now and Halo 5 will give hints towards Halo 5.
That said, I’d expect another trillogy or stand alone book between now and Halo 5.
If I had to guess, at the same time they announce the name and release date for the last Kilo-Five book, we’ll have some kind of first acknowledgement of a new novel for next year. I’d like an end-all, be-all novel that accounts for all the myriad of Spartans we know no certain fate for. The Halo universe has become dense with content, but low on resolutions. We get a lot of interesting stuff that is never followed up on.
I want to know about the Nylund Spartan-II’s and III’s, Gray Team, Black Team and Jun. Some we know nothing about since their adventures and some of them have been suggested to have entered the Spartan-IV ranks. On that front, we really don’t know anything about that program at all. I dig that the universe has expanded over the years, but The Fall of Reach got me invested in the fiction as a young teenager, so I still most identify with the Spartans as the core of my Halo experience. I’ve been big into the Star Wars expanded universe as well and it’s a treat to read the novels they pepper in that show the breadth of the galaxy far, far away, but the majority involve lightsabers and Jedi. Spartans and MJOLNIR armor are that Halo anchor for me.
The last Kilo-Five book could possibly delve into some of the remaining Spartan question marks and, quite likely, will show some of the Spartan-IV program origins, but there’s enough plotlines still floating around in that series that the Spartan story couldn’t get the focus I’d prefer. If I were to be granted an ultimate wish, we’d get a Nylund-written, “The Impossible Life and the Possible Death of Preston J. Cole”-esque tale of Spartan history; ORION Project through the current class of IV’s. Maybe even done Watchmen style with those memos, documents and the sort being additional info between chapters providing context to a larger, full-fledged narrative set in the “present” of the Halo universe. Basically, getting both Nylund’s skill for a well-plotted adventure and his uncanny ability to tell a tale through pastiches of military files and memos. A man can dream.