spoiler warning.
Why was the Ur-Didact removed from the story off screen? They kill/compose?/contain or who knows what to him in the Escalation next 72 hrs story line but after spending the HCEA terminals and the Forerunner Trilogy and Halo 4 setting him up as the big bad, they discreetly get rid of him and not even in-game! I could understand if Halo 4 did a Mass Effect-esque DLC where you can play a mission or two with the story of Next 72 hrs and mainstream fans got to see it. But to just discard your newest antagonist off screen is ridiculous. Does anybody know why this happened? I had assumed the Didact and the newly awakened might of the Forerunners and maybe even some Forerunners returning to the Milky Way were to replace the Covies and Flood as Halos big bads. But now it’s all a mess. Was this 343’s plans from day one? To give us and take away the Didact and then replace him with Warden Eternal? Like did they really have the sudden appearance of the Warden Eternal all mapped out in the Halo Bible ten years ago? Or is it what I suspect to be, something they pulled outta their -Yoinks!- at the last moment? Can anybody she’d light on this travesty?
I think 343i made a smart move. At the end of H4, you defeat him. For those who don’t read the comics, I’m betting there was an assumption that people figured the Didact died from Master Chief’s epic nade stick. On top of that, there was that nuke that destroyed the Composer. That’s the way I felt at the end of H4, and was actually surprised they brought the Didact back in the comics, just to kill him off. Oh well. 
Its easier and an comic is cheaper to produce then a game.
Also hes only redacted what doesnt mean hes dead.
He got composed and is now somewhere between dead and alive.
> I think 343i made a smart move. At the end of H4, you defeat him. For those who don’t read the comics, I’m betting there was an assumption that people figured the Didact died from Master Chief’s epic nade stick. On top of that, there was that nuke that destroyed the Composer. That’s the way I felt at the end of H4, and was actually surprised they brought the Didact back in the comics, just to kill him off. Oh well.
Next 72 Hours was kind of an unholy mess to be honest, as was a lot of Escalation. I feel like it was supposed to be Spartan Ops Season 2, but not enough people liked Season 1 for it to be worth while to make so they shifted the story there.
Probably because they haven’t quite thought-out their post-Halo 4 story plans as well as they think they have.
Ultimately how they handled the Didact’s exit in the comics was similar to how they handled his exit in Halo 4. In both cases, he was defeated but with enough ambiguity that they could bring him back in some fashion. Now I’m not sure why they felt the need to use him again so early to showcase the Master Chief immediately after the events of 4; maybe it’s because he was fresh on people’s minds, maybe they thought he’d be a good selling point for those issues.
Now, I don’t think that 343i had Halo 5’s story in mind when they made Halo 4; at least, not the iteration we got. Hell, the disconnects between Escalations and Halo 5 suggests they didn’t have Halo 5 in mind when writing Escalations. But as far as doing things off screen, it’s not the first time we get events explained outside of the games. How Gulity Spark made it to the Elite Heretics, how Johnson made it back to Earth, how Chief made it from the Keyship to Earth… all these events are detailed in expanded universe and not the games. And ultimately, the degree to which the Didact was “gotten rid of” in Escalation was the same as in Halo 4. In Halo 4, he falls into what Cortana previously called a “slipspace event” under the Composer, and while we know exposure to slipspace is extremely dangerous and pretty much fatal, the Didact was a powerful enough character that surviving unshielded travel through slipspace could be acceptable. There is ambiguity there: maybe he died, maybe he got sent to some unknown part of the galaxy. Either way, he was out of the picture. In Escalation, the method of his defeat was again ambiguous, maybe even less so, as MC tells Lord Admiral Hood to call him “contained” instead of “dead”. So now he’s in the same sort of limbo he was in at the end of 4, in that he could be brought back, or he could not be, and either would be justifiable in the lore.
I own all of the books and comics and even most of the action figures. I’ve read all the Halo media out there that is available with the sole exception of tales from slip space. My question more or less wasn’t why they picked the comic book medium to get rid if the Didact or tell essential bits of info but rather more my frustration with the Didacts lack of involvement with Halo 5 and his untimely containment as he was the last Forerunner we knew of to be alive and was hell bent of restoring the ecumene. I imagine a Halo 5 where the Didact survived the fall through Slip space and proceeded to raise the Guardians to help rebuild the Ecumene. That would’ve been a much better story. With chiefs Visions of Cortana being simply lure from the Didact to lure Chief and Blue Team to a Cryptum and trap them for good. Instead they mAde Cortanas sacrifice a mute point in Halo 4. Every time I replayed H4 I’d cry at the end, but post H5 it just has no emotional meaning anymore knowing what crap comes next. I’m just wondering what in gods name would make 343 get rid of a villain that they built up just to make the new trilogy’s antagonist, in such a random and unsatisfying way. It just irks me.
I dont know, but H4 in the story, was soo much diferent in contrast with H5. I miss the thematic
Honestly I still think that the Warden Eternal is (or has absorbed) the Ur-Didact.
> Honestly I still think that the Warden Eternal is (or has absorbed) the Ur-Didact.
Yeah we still have zero idea if he is the Warden from Cryptum and Silentium or something else entirely. I doubt he’s the Ur-Didact because he’d never give control of the Prometheans to Cortana. He’d never give ownership of the Mantle to anything or anyone but Forerunners alone. I do think it is still possible the H5 Cortana is not Cortana but a facade created by a composed, computeriZed Didact in an attempt to disable John and Blue Team and all Smart A.I.'s.
> I doubt he’s the Ur-Didact because he’d never give control of the Prometheans to Cortana.
Unless Cortana is just as much under his control as the Prometheans are. I am also not sure that Cortana was directing the Prometheans, so much as they were just of the “Forerunner faction” that’s trying to subdue humanity. So if the Warden is the Didact, he could still very well be controlling them.
> He’d never give ownership of the Mantle to anything or anyone but Forerunners alone.
Even if he’s not a Forerunner anymore? We already know that the Ur-Didact was insane. Now he’s digital, but he still wants that power. I can’t think of any other reason why the Mantle’s ownership would go from “Only Forerunners” to “Only the Created” so quickly, unless it’s the Didact maintaining his possession of that ideal in line with what he is - Forerunner or “Created”.
Here’s some largely unsupported conjecture: they killed off the Didact because whiners said that Halo 4 wasn’t very Halo. So they tried to make Halo 5 more like Halo, and the result is that they made something that technically does feel like Halo – but in the sense that it feels like a zombie wearing Halo’s skin.
What we know for a fact is that they surmised that the Didact was no longer necessary to tell Halo 5’s story, and so decided that they needed some way to put a freeze on him. So they put him in computer jail.
> Honestly I still think that the Warden Eternal is (or has absorbed) the Ur-Didact.
He was already in the Domain when Cortana arrived and melding the Didact with some brand new character just complicates matters.
> Here’s some largely unsupported conjecture: they killed off the Didact because whiners said that Halo 4 wasn’t very Halo. So they tried to make Halo 5 more like Halo, and the result is that they made something that technically does feel like Halo – but in the sense that it feels like a zombie wearing Halo’s skin.
>
> What we know for a fact is that they surmised that the Didact was no longer necessary to tell Halo 5’s story, and so decided that they needed some way to put a freeze on him. So they put him in computer jail.
Halo 5 feels like Halo? There are things I do and don’t like about Halo 5, but the story does not feel to me like a Halo story at all, not even a zombie of it or a shadow of it.
Halo stories have epic events surrounding small groups. Halo stories follow those small groups, gets to know them, watches them struggle against the galaxy-size threats set against them. Halo 5? Halo 5 has cardboard cut outs dressed as Spartans chasing Attempted Fan Service: The Villain and her army of… somethings. Somethings we don’t ever know anything about or understand how they are threatening (something something destruction we never see, something something EMP blasts), yet the game is literally named after them instead of just being called Halo. Halo 5 feels like Halo, if by Halo you mean the worst side of Halo fanfiction.
The fact that they decided that the Didact was not only somehow less than the most important character the studio has introduced to the series, but totally unnecessary, stuns me to this day.
> I think 343i made a smart move. At the end of H4, you defeat him. For those who don’t read the comics, I’m betting there was an assumption that people figured the Didact died from Master Chief’s epic nade stick. On top of that, there was that nuke that destroyed the Composer. That’s the way I felt at the end of H4, and was actually surprised they brought the Didact back in the comics, just to kill him off. Oh well.
At the end of H4, Cortana dies. As in, actually dies, not was defeated in a way that looks like a death. And they still saw fit to break the spine of the story to bring her back.
It’s very strange to me how 343 did the exact same thing twice in a row with the Didact: make it look like he died, so that many (if not most) of the audience is under the impression he did, but do it with the intention that he actually could/would/will return in the future. Did they mean to make so many people think he died in Halo 4? Did they mean to make so many people think he died in the comic? If he ever comes back, we’re going to have people assuming he died in Halo 4 and people assuming he died in the comics all asking why he’s back from the “dead”. These kinds of mistakes are why people think 343 sucks at storytelling, which I think is a crying shame because when they actually set their minds to it and do it well, I think 343 can do storytelling in a way that lives up to what Halo deserves.
Rookie Prime- Also the Covenant in H5 don’t feel like the Covenant. They’re too organic and their vehicles are so bug looking. Those parts dont feel Halo & if what you say is true that 343 got rid of Didact bc some fans said it wasn’t Halo enough, well then that’s sad. I’ve awaited the return of actual Forerunners to the story since H2, then finally one comes & bam! He’s gone…
> Rookie Prime- Also the Covenant in H5 don’t feel like the Covenant. They’re too organic and their vehicles are so bug looking.
That’s because they’re not the Covenant. Halo 5’s art syle actually makes a lot of sense. Not only do things break, but the production of Prophet-era “Covenant” vehicles ended in late 2552. More than that, the Sangheili returned the vehicles to their own production and design, so what we saw is how the Elites do it.
Honestly, I’ve never understood the “this doesn’t feel like Halo” argument. When Halo starts including trolls and dragons, then it won’t “Feel like Halo”.
> > Rookie Prime- Also the Covenant in H5 don’t feel like the Covenant. They’re too organic and their vehicles are so bug looking.
>
> That’s because they’re not the Covenant. Halo 5’s art syle actually makes a lot of sense. Not only do things break, but the production of Prophet-era “Covenant” vehicles ended in late 2552. More than that, the Sangheili returned the vehicles to their own production and design, so what we saw is how the Elites do it.
>
> Honestly, I’ve never understood the “this doesn’t feel like Halo” argument. When Halo starts including trolls and dragons, then it won’t “Feel like Halo”.
I get that. The Covies we see are supposedly using their own Hesduros style of zealotry & art but it still doesn’t explain why SOS use the same crap, or why the Kraken & the Harvester are both Covenant era siege weapons but have the new bug design. The SOS are supposed to look like the H3 & H2A Elites, not wear Storm armor. I think itd be more cool & realistic to have every 4th or 5th Elite wear Reach or H2A gear. Like in Escalation. Obviously theres time & hardware restraints to production & development to consider but if it could be done in game itd be awesome.
YOU ASK EXCELLENT QUESTIONS OP.
And the honest real world answer,
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> Probably because they haven’t quite thought-out their post-Halo 4 story plans as well as they think they have.
is that. Frankie even admitted in one of the episodes of the Sprint - I think it might have been the same one from which we got the diatribe over whether Cortana is evil - that they “kind of know” but “kind of don’t know” where the story arc is going. They don’t really have a hard long term vision for where to take the lore and that’s a serious problem to me.
So since they don’t really know what their final endgame is, they keep changing their mind about what to do with certain story components like the Didact - they brought him back in Escalation to kill him for the express purpose of moving on from him, but then regretted it and realized it’d be a good idea to have him around for the future in case he’s useful to the narrative again, so they reverse direction yet again and decide he’s not really dead and is “out there” somewhere.
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> YSo since they don’t really know what their final endgame is, they keep changing their mind about what to do with certain story components like the Didact - they brought him back in Escalation to kill him
They didn’t kill the Didact. The Chief even says he doesn’t think he’s dead, only contained.
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> > 2533274961806222;18:
> > YSo since they don’t really know what their final endgame is, they keep changing their mind about what to do with certain story components like the Didact - they brought him back in Escalation to kill him
>
> They didn’t kill the Didact. The Chief even says he doesn’t think he’s dead, only contained.
Hence having him be simultaneously defeated yet not defeated at their convenience.