lore-and-universe

[orchid kettle]

Im a pretty big believer that characters are defined by their bonds, Chief with Cortana, Palmer with Lasky, etc etc

but Locke doesn't really have bonds

Im sure he likes Osiris just fine

But beyond that

Dude's got nothing. No quest for revenge, or a search for a long lost father.

Maybe it's less "bonds" and more like "motivation". Bonds just inform our motivations.

But in Locke's case, he's just a dude doing what he's told

There ain't no skin in the game for him

[high elbow]

Isn’t most of Osiris like that?

Save for Buck and Alpha-Nine I mean. Everyone else was just kinda there with Locke to get the job done

[empty bloom]

Tanaka and Locke were supposed to be tighter-knit originally.

They all have reason to be there, Locke's just the most boring by virtue of being a guy who is effectively married to the job.

Buck, Vale, and Tanaka are all far more interesting people and have motivations for why and how they do their jobs beyond just "Somebody's gotta do it"

(Granted Buck rejoining and reforming Alpha Nine is still total and utter schlock and is by a country mile one of the worst possible decisions that could've been made IMO)

[meager pier]

Wonder how the team dynamic would’ve worked if Thorne had been a part of Osiris

[unborn patrol]

Vale has the whole sangheili thing goin on, Buck weve met before and are familiar with

[meager pier]

Main cast I would have are aside from Chief and the Weapon: Lasky, Palmer, Lasky, Arbiter, and Esparza, while the villains are Atriox, Jega, leader of the Endless, and a couple others
Throw Offensive Bias into the mix as well

It’s a good amount, but not too overwhelming

[carmine sleet]

Interesting that you have Lasky twice

[unborn patrol]

Lasky Jr

[carmine sleet]

Lasky from Earth-2

[meager pier]

Oh lol

*Halsey

[carmine sleet]

Ok but now I need to figure out what I'd like to see for the main cast of the next game

[high elbow]

Just Lasky. It’s a walking sim

[meager pier]

Lasky goes home for the Lasky family reunion

[carmine sleet]

Obviously Chief, Weapon and Esparza have gotta be back. Lasky needs to show up, Palmer and Halsey too. As much as I like Arby, he's got stuff going on at home so instead N'tho or Usze. Obviously we need Atriox and Jega showing up (Jega as the other playable character to mirror Arbiter). Some sort of commander for the Endless also makes logical sense, maybe someone who knew Harbinger personally and is mad she's dead

And I kinda like the idea that Offensive Bias is what everyone is after because he's so dangerous

I'd also like to see a Created AI be involved too (Where are my Prometheans 343!!), so every side on the ring is vying for control over Offensive Bias

[empty bloom]

Tanaka's was mostly that she is, ultimately, still trying to find her overall purpose and such.

Being a Spartan was a big deal but the problem that she had, being depressed and generally struggling to move on from what happened to her, was only partially worked through in Halo 5 (And will likely never get a proper resolution)

Like

It's actually sad as hell

Because she got along with Locke but not enough to make it obvious, Vale was kinda eh with her (There's frequent dialogue in 5 where Tanaka seems almost offended by Vale's constant niavete about the plight of Outer Colony workers), and ultimately got along like a house on fire with Buck over their shared similarities in upbringing (Outer Colony, orphaned by the war).

[meager pier]

While you’re likely right about Arbiter doing his own thing, I want Steve and Keith reunited
Not to be a downer, but whenever this game releases, who know the age of these, especially Steve

[empty bloom]

Buck left, Vale left, and Locke's missing-Tanaka's support network basically got shredded to pieces right after Halo 5.

And that's... Really bad for a loner type.

Great engineer, great Spartan, but really bad with people.

[last anchor]

Wonder where they put her

[empty bloom]

I have ideas.

I'd imagine she's basically running whatever they could salvage from the Infinity's Spartan Town on the way off the Infinity and running engineering ops to keep whatever tech they could keep.

Because she's specifically noted as being near Halsey's level when it comes to engineering knowledge for Covenant, Forerunner, and UNSC tech alike.

So her specifically running those things, with or without Halsey, just makes sense.

[last anchor]

Litreally the only person holding it together.

[carmine sleet]

Just jumping off of this to quickly mention that I'd kill for a Locke spin-off where he's using guerrilla tactics to fight Banished solo in damaged armour

[carmine sleet]

Honestly, I'd love to see that

[empty bloom]

If they actually went with it, I think it'd be incredibly useful.

Killing a character with that skill set offscreen is a waste, having her actually using her talents isn't.

[empty bloom]

My Tanaka bias makes me think that having one where she's trying to find Locke while solo-walking a more frigid region of Zeta Halo might be a bit more compelling. Newer character, gives you a lot of opportunity for her to speak her mind because she seems the type to talk through what she's doing to herself.

Finding him in a similar state to Horvath when he got impaled-crippled by combat damage, basically comatose.

Basically going on her own Chief-esque journey in the process.

Plus, you'd be able to have her upgrade her own armor through the trip, providing more of a gameplay incentive and capability to upgrades.

... Really, that's kind of the funny thing about Infinite, you can come up with a good reason for pretty much any Spartan to upgrade their gear.

Locke's piecemealing kit back together to be able to fight proper again, Tanaka's upgrading her kit as she goes along, Chief's... Apparently canonically fine from the start of the game to the end, actually, and canonically started with everything maxed out already.

[empty bloom]

Plus, in a winter environment, that's basically what the state of her world was. I'd imagine that traversing that would bring back some very sour memories to explore.

[meager pier]

If Locke is still kicking, how badly wounded do you think he is, considering his helmet and chest piece were tied to Hyperius?

[last anchor]

Also it removes some of the Banished "power spike" people have been commenting on.
They didn't kill Infinity, now those in the shadows have to take up arms properly.

Last we checked though, Locke was off-ship so

Tanaka using her knowlage of forerunner tech to rip chunks out of a Sentinel and make the UA/Macrospline a canon armor piece

[empty bloom]

Too bad it was apparently Halsey that did that.

No, I'm not annoyed at all.

[empty bloom]

Well... He's not gonna be doing great.

I mean, the helmet's fine-Spartans have had their helmets knocked off before.

Somehow.

The chest though... Well, the chest itself doesn't actually have anything that would indicate a wound, weirdly enough.

Like, the scrap armor really doesn't have anything that could possibly show how Locke lost besides the visor being broken, similar but off-color blue finger plating on Hyperius' torso, and that's really about it.

[last anchor]

Im personally convinced the helmets all thats left after he used it as a battering ram.
Basically just beat the dude around a bit and dipped

Like how Palmer shoved a dozen plasma grenades into her helmet and chucked em up the grav lift of a Phantom

[empty bloom]

As Hyperius is explicitly called a coward by his brother Tovarus, I feel the best narrative outcome to have is that the fight between Locke and Hyperius was actually third-partied and neither technically won, Hyperius just ended up better off and took a trophy before leaving.

It'd fit with the absolutely stupid luck that the Banished tend to have because they're poorly written, Locke can live while being injured disproportionately because that fits the general theme of author fiat against anything Halo 5, and Hyperius can get his 'easy' win that his brother calls him a coward over. It's a win-win-win.

[last anchor]

That works for me.

[carmine sleet]

I like that, especially the cold environment mirroring where she grew up

[orchid kettle]

I was gonna mention that but I forgor. Even outside of the trailer where they touch foreheads, it feels like their designs are supposed to compliment each other. Locke's armor is dark and sleek, Tanaka's is white and bulky.

[empty bloom]

Tanaka's armor in general, IMO, is one of the most strongly 'coded' among Osiris.

... I just realized it has stealth trans colors.

How did I just now notice that?

[orchid kettle]

But alas, I guess it just wasnt meant to be. Which is a big shame for Locke specifically. The way he's handled, it kind of reminds me of how people make their OCs

[empty bloom]

White, pink, blue.

[orchid kettle]

where like, the characater has this huge backstory where they've gone through all these crazy stages in their life, worn all these hats. Hitman for hire, ONI assassin, Spartan boy-scout. But somehow, they go through all these without ever forming a lasting bond with any other human being.

[empty bloom]

I don't think it's intentional, by the by, I just realized that.

[orchid kettle]

as if Locke just sat in a room, did some self-reflection, and just naturally came to the conclusion that being an ONI assassin was bad, it was time to be a good boy now

[empty bloom]

Yeah, I get that vibe, on the OC thing.

I think part of the problem is that his character was made in a big damn hurry.

[orchid kettle]

I honestly wonder if the intent was that Locke was inspired by Chief to become a Spartan, and he was like conflicted soldier, forced to hunt down his idol

but all I have to go off of is that line in that one scene with Buck

"You're not the only one here because of him."

Like, what are you talking about, Locke

[unique rune]

he was running late for Spartan auditions and Chief yeeted him through the door at the last second

[wispy pewter]

I honestly rather want any other Spartan. Like erm the Spartans introduced in the book or the fan favourite Thorne

Thorne is like the best IV out there imo

Buck is up there too. Simply because his armor is cool af

[orchid kettle]

gorilla tactics

[wispy pewter]

Apes together strong

[empty bloom]

I actually took that line as Locke being pissed at Chief over the Arbiter of all people.

Like, I figured that there was good odds on Locke's homeworld being one of the many glassed by Thel's actions-and he had personally signed on with ONI and personally signed on the mission to kill Thel out of pure revenge, with Chief befriending Thel being what 'saved' Locke's life.

Because a lot of Locke's canon paints him as being a very angry young adult.

And signing on with ONI sounds weird, buuuut him realizing he can get revenge on the specific guy who glassed his homeworld, then settling into being a Spartan hound once the war is over because the events on the shard made him realize that'd be a fool's goal (Alongside his work with ONI telling him that's a bad idea)?

IOW;

When Locke says that Buck isn't the only one there because of Chief's actions, I felt it had a double meaning-Locke was signed on and requesting to head the op to kill Thel. If he had done so, he knows he likely would have died in the process. With Chief's actions resulting in Thel allying with humanity, that inadvertently 'saved' Locke, who likely didn't really want to be saved, he wanted Thel dead.

[wispy pewter]

he and arby was in some cutscene for the Halo 2 Anniversary

he was only talking about hunting chief down

[empty bloom]

I don't tend to bring up that I reallllllly wanted to kill someone in a conversation.

[obsidian thistle]

I viewed it as John stopped the Halo in CE, and he helped stop the Halos in 3.

Two significant acts that cause most life in the galaxy to be there because of him!

[empty bloom]

I mean, yeah, that too, but it would still make it a lot more personal if Locke was formerly a death seeker who had to find new purpose due to the alliance.

[wispy pewter]

He wants his autograph

"you know they are going to hate us right?"
Actually buck the hate is mostly on Locke because he broke Chief's Visor

[carmine sleet]

If I found out that a team was sent after the guy who saved the galaxy multiple times and the reasons why were unclear, I'd be hating that team too

Obviously as we're experiencing the story from an outside perspective, we know why Osiris was sent after Chief

But in universe, most people won't have that information

[whole bear]

Why not hate the senders

Aka UNSC

I doubt they had a choice

[wispy pewter]

Because If you blindly follow orders like that then you're no better

[whole bear]

This

What choice do they have

[scarlet quiver]

But you follow orders because you’re bounded by contract to.

[empty bloom]

Not to mention, Osiris was literally prepared to do it peacefully first. Chief was likely the only one who'd actually be in any trouble, and once Osiris knew the stakes of what was going on, the mission changed immediately.

[empty bloom]

I doubt they'd ever even know Chief was doing anything that'd even get him court martialed, actually.

If anything, the UNSC is entirely too lenient on Chief. He was given a lawful order in Halo 4 and refused to listen.

Him and Lasky should've been, in the real world, sharing a brig. But instead Lasky got promoted and the guy giving the legal order got the can due to optics being incredibly kind to Chief's actions, unreasonably so.

It's one of those situations where Del Rio's order is both a valid and sensible one, and so was Osiris', but the narrative of the universe is that Chief is always in the right, especially when he logically is not in the right.

Author Fiat is a huge problem in Halo narratives when Chief is involved, it's one of the biggest reasons I hate him as a character.

[carmine sleet]

Aye. And don't get me wrong, saving the world multiple times would definitely have me not wanting to be trying to bring him in but, kinda not a good look if you're running off to chase after a dead AI when you only had a vision of her calling you to a backwater planet that got glassed in the deadly war that ended 5 years ago as your evidence she's still alive

[wispy pewter]

if I were the UNSC I would be giving him any resources he needs to save humanity again

the standard rules does not need to apply

[wispy pewter]

I mean he was right anyway

[empty bloom]

See, and that's part of why I really hate how he's written. Nobody should look at how he operates and think that this is the most logical thing to do.

[carmine sleet]

Chief being right that Cortana was alive isn't good in the context of Halo 5

[empty bloom]

At least he actually gravely miscalculated what her state was and paid a price for it. For only a few hours at least.

One second he thinks he can talk her down and the next he's in the funny time out sphere.

Most consequences the boy scout ever got.

[carmine sleet]

Interesting how similar happened with Captain America in 2016

Like, goes rogue because he thinks he can save his friend who went missing, doesn't bother telling anyone why when given the chance to, fights with an ally

[empty bloom]

No, see, Halo 5 ripped off Winter Soldier.

[wispy pewter]

Maybe if Osiris didn't delayy him he would have done it

[empty bloom]

They... Literally didn't delay him?

[carmine sleet]

That image was specifically aimed at 1337, for the record

[empty bloom]

They delayed his arrival to Genesis, but that had nothing to do with Cortana's decision to put Chief in the time out ball.

That was all Chief trying to talk her down without forethought or prep.

Hell, Osiris showing up at all the first time is basically a golden ticket to step back and reassess.

But Chief decided to be an idiot instead.

Like, you are blaming the wrong party here lmao

By far

[carmine sleet]

Locke was very clear in that he wanted to talk first too

Like, sure he probably shouldn't put the BR away first but still, Locke wanted to resolve it peacefully

[wispy pewter]

Chief should have said "You're breaking my heart" that would have stopped Cortana

[empty bloom]

Annywho.

You don't give unaccountable checks to real people. It didn't even work in Mass Effect, really, and even the first game explicitly points out the problem with the idea.

"Oh but Shepard is fine"

Yeah, but like... Saren tho.

[wispy pewter]

like ONI

[empty bloom]

Because that's basically what this idea is. It has the potential to go incredibly south. There's a reason you don't make people unaccountable.

[empty bloom]

ONI has their issues brought about due to it, yes. Chief is a product of ONI being unaccountable.

This is not a good thing.

Same unaccountability almost led to the reunification of the Sangheili on the anti-human warpath.

[wispy pewter]

yeah I understand the risk but this dude is a Spartan II who saved humanity countless times. He should be given the benefit of doubt

[wispy pewter]

kinda stupid what they did to Arbiter tbh

[empty bloom]

He was. Several times. Hell, once they figured out what Chief was doing, Osiris was re-sent to deal with him by helping his mission, not arresting him.

Also, I really hate how people say it was just Chief.

Yeah, sure, we'll just pretend the thousands of dead who helped make his success possible don't exist.

Yeah, I guess Arby and Cortana are just chopped liver.

Johnson's sacrifice never meant anything anyways, add him to that little pile.

Crew of the IAC, FUD.

Crew of the Infinity, Lasky, Blue Team, Osiris saving his bacon, the list goes on.

[empty bloom]

Like, you aren't understanding, Osiris' position in 5 is handled the way it is literally because he was being given the benefit of the doubt.

If he had turned around right when Osiris showed up, listened, and went back, I doubt he would've even seen the inside of a Court Martial.

And that's with him provably knowing that his actions were illegal.

[wispy pewter]

"Master Chief, you are sentenced to-- oh wait, nevermind we need you again!"

[empty bloom]

Yes, my point is that they don't punish him even when they problably should.

Like, 4's easily by far the biggest crime he ever committed-going fully and knowingly AWOL in the face of a direct and viable order. It's only the narrative framing of the game that makes Del Rio come across as the wrong party, but his decision to go back and warn the fleet ultimately was what led to Chief having an option to take out the ship in the first place.

[wispy pewter]

People really hate Del Rio apparently

[empty bloom]

You can be hated and right.

[stoic hamlet]

^^^^^

[carmine sleet]

I know what that feels like too well

[scarlet quiver]

https://tenor.com/view/smirk-evil-cute-baby-gif-12151082

[brittle nebula]

:SpaceMarineChad:

[inland pike]

what happend to the gold elits

like they kinda just left the game

and the elits in halo three

[stoic hamlet]

What do you mean? In what way?

[inland pike]

why they leev what happend to them in halo 3

leave

[stoic hamlet]

Like, why don’t they appear?

[whole bear]

Killed an enemy flag bearer in CTF with a back smack while holding their flag

Feeling good

[stoic hamlet]

Nice! But wrong channel. 😛

[carmine sleet]

Zealots aren't as important in the post war as the Covenant empire fell. That's not to say there's none, we see them amongst the ranks of Jul's Covenant, but with a different design, but overall, Zealots are not important

There are also Generals that wear gold, as seen in Reach, Warriors in Halo 4/5, and Warlords in Infinite

Though with the latter two, they can wear other colours too

[empty bloom]

The Zealot orders wearing gold was not a uniform consistency even in the Covenant's heyday, simply the primary worn color by the caste.

For example, all three of these elites are Zealots.

[inland pike]

thx

[empty bloom]

Conversely, these Elites are not Zealots; They are Warriors, Generals, and Warlords.

[inland pike]

thx

why are the elits in halo 4 and 5 diferent from the ones in the other games?

like what happend to them'

[carmine sleet]

Different phenotypes

So really, both exist together but because games are expensive to make, it's not worth having both next to each other within a game

[inland pike]

oh ok

thx

[meager pier]

Different phenotypes, however, it out-of-universe it came down to a different art style

[inland pike]

oh

[turbid willow]

Wouldn't also include that the covenant in 4 aren't the same ones we fought before?? Because that's a Remnant faction so there will be changes even in lore

[bronze prawn]

Is offensive bias that smart

He pretty much lose an entire galaxy and the greater arc

[unborn patrol]

del rio just got zero rizz so I got no respect for him

[empty bloom]

So, technically, pretty much every member of Jul's Covenant was likely a veteran of the HCW-especially ones like Gek.

The ones who weren't were still former civilians under the Covenant empire.

So... They're not literally the same, and the organization is not the same either, but it's the same sort of people with far less resources and far more desperation.

It'd likely have come across better if they actually did fight differently than Reach Covenant.

[wispy pewter]

Lasky so much better and doesn't have white hair

[unborn patrol]

that man got rizz fr

[fallen fox]

Weird question, but WHAT do the forerunners eat? and/or do they eat? has it ever been mentioned in the lore?

or do they just feed on hardlight or something?

[wispy pewter]

They eat food like all organics do.

[unborn patrol]

thatd be like humans eating lead

[fallen fox]

But what do they eat though 😂

[fallen fox]

fair

[wispy pewter]

Alien food I guess. Grain, animals

[fallen fox]

understandable thanks

[fringe robin]

they're vegetarian mostly

(actually true)

[fallen fox]

alright thanks alot

[drowsy mesa]

Forerunners don't eat meat because of their religion (the Mantle)

From Halo's TikTok account
Man, xD

[obsidian thistle]

Reminder their birthplace is known! 🙂

Damask, Jericho VII

A cool fact is thats also the same planet that Locke was from!

Source: https://youtu.be/0CWG6_BKEo0?si=Qb5g7-5O9NooZHX4

(Also a background in MCC but semantics)

[wispy pewter]

Why is everyone from Jericho VII

I wonder if there's 6 other Jericho's

[carmine sleet]

Two characters out of hundreds is hardly everyone

[wispy pewter]

Owen is from there as well

Actually halopedia says a large number of Spartan IIIs. Only 3 named though

[inland pike]

are the halo infinites armor cores canon or no

[latent junco]

all them are cannon, yes
Yoroi, Eaglestrike, and Chimera are "factures" though, which is a branch of cannon

[inland pike]

what about hybussa from halo 3

[latent junco]

not sure as much about some of the MCC ones

I think Hyabusa is cannon tho, I may be wrong

[inland pike]

thx bro

in halo ce were there condors or no

[carmine sleet]

Hayabusa is canon, it exists in universe as a rival project to Mjolnir, but clearly pieces from it are compatible with Mjolnir hardware

[inland pike]

were condors in ce

?

[carmine sleet]

They definitely existed but not sure if the Autumn carried any. Not impossible for it to but as far as I know, the main dropships she carried were Pelicans

[inland pike]

ohh that makes scence

[unborn patrol]

Chimera is technically canon. Just that there is only one

[wispy pewter]

yeah theres so maany of theem

[unborn patrol]

So any additional parts of chimera arent cannon

[wispy pewter]

logistical nightmare and nightmare for the mjolnir maintainance crew

[inland pike]

oh ok

[spark pivot]

Chimera is pure canon, its a concept armor for executors, it seems like there was only one tho, who ended up dying anyways 🫠

[spark pivot]

50/50

[unborn patrol]

I dont think hes dead? idk I didnt read anything about that when I was going through the executor wiki

[spark pivot]

Fractures (eaglestrike and yoroi) are alternate timelines

[spark pivot]

Bro got killed in his story shard

[unborn patrol]

oh damn

[spark pivot]

Idk if there are any others, i wouldnt be suprised if there were, but all we have to go off of is chimera armor ingame lore

[carmine sleet]

You sure he died?

Because I ain't seeing anything saying he died

[spark pivot]

Gimme a minute

Story shard part 4 https://www.halowaypoint.com/news/story-shard-precipice#part-4

He very dead

Both end scenarios end up with him dead, so whichever is canon, hes still dead

[unique rune]

I dunno if that’s the case

the other Chimera parts are canon, just never physically constructed

similar to the Orion armor, where the whole design is canon but only certain components ever made it off the drawing board

[carmine sleet]

I think you're confusing the simulations with reality

[stoic hamlet]

I don’t know if we can really say that for certain. A lot of them only come about in the fracture because the AI deteriorate so much but are still in a position of power.

[spark pivot]

maybe, maybe not ¯_(ツ)_/¯

[sonic lagoon]

Is the armor the Veronica Dare wears more damage resistant than ODST armor?

[drowsy mesa]

it was just a simulation of Halo CE's first mission

[high elbow]

I think it’s more likely that as an ONI agent, she’s more stealth oriented compared to the rest of Alpha Nine.

[spark pivot]

Where did you get CE from that.....

The story shard had nothing to do with CE

[unique rune]

The second half of Part 4 is pretty unsubtly just mission 1 of CE with a few small changes

[spark pivot]

Oh that

[drowsy mesa]

even with the "killing the Captain" bit

[sonic lagoon]

Would that mean less health but more speed?

[carmine sleet]

Health isn't something so easily measured in real life as it is in a game

It'd be less protection but the benefit of being able to be more agile and stealthy

[obsidian thistle]

Not dead

Most of Precipice is simulations

Stuff that... well never happened

[sonic lagoon]

Ah yes, armor thickness would be more accurate for real measurements.

[wispy pewter]

SPI was made for stealth you'd think the design would be less bulky. But that thing looks huge

[sonic lagoon]

It appears to have more gaps than the Mark 4 or 5.

More indentations.

[unique rune]

I mean. The shape of the armor doesn’t really mean much if it’s covered in panels that functionally let it become invisible.
Its low observability comes from that part of the suit, not the armor being slim and low-profile on its own.

[willow elm]

Is there a lore reason as to why the enemies, weapons, ships, etc. look slightly different between games?

[unique rune]

It’s always either no explanation or a slightly different model or variation

[empty bloom]

They're all existing concurrently.

[willow elm]

Even the same designs for the enemies, such as the Flood forms, and the outer designs of the Halo rings?

Cuz those are all pretty inconsistent if you look close enough.

[empty bloom]

Flood forms are not consistent in-universe.

[willow elm]

Not even the little infection forms?

[empty bloom]

They are ruinous body-mutilating parasites-rigid structure of form is not what they do.

[empty bloom]

Consistently depicted since Halo Wars.

[empty bloom]

Additionally-Yeah, that's kind of the thing. Inconsistency for Covenant ranks? Understandable, organization is not the Covenant's strong suite per say. Some orders wear purple for Zealots, others wear gold. Some ranks wear four different shades of red. Others wear two different hats.

Inconsistency for the UNSC? Go look at the four different branches of military in the US now; Now spread that across 500 planets that can't always get uniforms consistently and sometimes need to locally source uniforms. Some troops IRL use wildly different firearms for different roles.

Inconsistency in MJOLNIR designs? There's tons of microvariants just to fit a specific op and the UNSC microfabs materials anyways.

Flood? They're zombies. Zombies ain't gonna be consistent short of the zombie part.

Forerunners? Only fools would think they only have one engineer. They even have programmable matter.

Banished? See everything about the UNSC and Covenant.

[willow elm]

I find it a little weird how in Halos 1 and 2 the red Flood infector stalk thingies are more like straight lines, but from 3 onward they're all leafy and look like coral.

[unique rune]

I mean. On a practical level it was most likely a hardware limitation. The original Xbox is a weaker machine than a 360, One, or X/S, and it’d be more efficient to use the power that would be spent showing you dozens squiggly tentacles that are barely visible as they rush you on making sure more important aspects of the game run smoothly.

[willow elm]

I would ask why the Flood spores look different between 2 and 3, but I think that's because of biology and stuff, like how there's a lot of different shapes of pollen for each different flower.

[thorn spindle]

for art and style and fun

[willow elm]

I'm just wondering if the book Halo: Warfleet focuses on the design of the ships from Anniversary or the original graphics of Halo 1 and 2...

[empty bloom]

It focuses on the design of human warships.

"Original graphics" aren't canon. They're just "Original graphics".

Same answer as the flood-graphics changed because graphical fidelity got better. If it makes you more comfy, general rule of thumb is that if there is a more modern showing of a warship, the modern showing is considered the canon one. If that doesn't make you feel better, well, too bad I guess, better luck next time.

[wispy pewter]

it's like Rhodey from Iron man 1 and 2. they look different because different actors. in this case different art style ig

[inland pike]

BRU

[sonic lagoon]

Indeed, so where is the cloaking technology stored in SPI?

[unique rune]

…Across the entire thing? The photoreactive panels are part of the armor’s outer surface.

[high elbow]

The real photoreactive panels were the friends we made along the way

[wispy pewter]

UNSC basically has stealth technology they could easily put on nukes and blow stuff up

Heck why didn't the bozo huragoks thought of putting it on the Infinity?

Stealth Infinity would be cool

[stoic hamlet]

They can’t due to the reasons stated in Ghosts of Onyx.

[carmine sleet]

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't part of why the LNoS was able to stay cloaked because of the multiple spires the Covenant set up on Reach? Because I'd say that shows that cloaking such large objects is incredibly hard to do

[stoic hamlet]

Correct.

The bigger question is how they were able to slip it in-system.

[carmine sleet]

Aye, that is a good question

Like, as far as I know, there's no cloaking an object leaving slipspace

And I highly doubt that they would've been able to just drift in system

[unique rune]

It just works

[thorn spindle]

space maygic dood

[last anchor]

There were probably century-long grudge matches between Builders over who could make something slightly different than the other, but only in ways the person they hated would notice.
Everyone else sees a normal Forerunner door.

This one guy, who hates this other guy, sees that the guy he hates has put the Forerunner equivilent of Killroy Was Here into the door JUST TO PISS HIM OFF.

So he makes a Sentinel design that resembles a rude hand gesture...

[last anchor]

The Covenant made a pact with Bill Cipher, obviously.
They let him pilot an Unggoy around for a little bit and in return he let the Long Night get close to Reach.
Of course, he didnt realize just how little the Covenant care for Unggoy, so when he did something stupid and died and got yeeted back to his normal dimension, no one went back to get him and he just got stuck there.

[carmine sleet]

Gonna be honest, all I know about Bill Cipher is that he's dangerous and a book about him just released

[last anchor]

Thats the reason for the meme yeah.
Books real good, Alex cooked again with it. Like he always does tbh

[carmine sleet]

Fair

[sonic lagoon]

Also do the SPI armor have no shields?

[stoic hamlet]

Some specialized versions did.

[last anchor]

UNSC gear is endlessly modular.

[thorn spindle]

Are modular homes popular living quarters on a Halo installation

[unique rune]

They’re probably the only real human living accommodations on any Halo installation considering the UNSC generally doesn’t let just anyone park themselves on a ring.

[thorn spindle]

indeed I assume they'd need manufactured homes. Sailors wont be happy living in ship berthing when there is fine land nearby.

Were the Lifeworkers bear enthusiasts? Did they keep any natural bears as a part of a Halo's natural environment? Or any "Earth species?"

[wispy pewter]

Stealth mines would be so OP

If the UNSC minefields the orbit of a planet any unsuspecting alien would be blown to bits right after exiting slipspace

[slender cedar]

Then again, the mines would have to be able to get through their shields if it's bigger ships.

But it's actually pretty OP, yeah

[wispy pewter]

Plasma weaponry can delete covie and banished shields i'm pretty sure

[thorn spindle]

how are the covenant fleet remnants doing nowdays are the Swords of Sanghelios the most powerful. Or do the Banished have more covenant ships

bc i do like their ships

[wispy pewter]

Jul is dead

[green sand]

all hail jul our lord and savior

[thorn spindle]

i mean the fleet and covenant ships. i presume there are fleet remnants that joined banished. bc they were enormous.

banished are ok but i really like covie ships. do banished use covie ships mainly or do they have their own carrier design?

[wispy pewter]

We know they still exist because in Infinite the UNSC Panama was firing on one

[wispy pewter]

https://youtu.be/MYR_W1masKI?si=ChzW5VrKf9JD1MKo

[shy garnet]

What was the reason for the Forerunner retcon

[wispy pewter]

So it's fair to assume some remnant covie groups still has access to assault carriers

[stoic hamlet]

There are quite “a thousand petty empires” all claiming to be the Covenant.

[carmine sleet]

What retcon are you referring to?

[empty bloom]

https://tenor.com/view/that70s-show-oh-is-that-what-were-gonna-do-today-were-gonna-fight-red-forman-gif-16369724

[wispy pewter]

the forerunner's being humans thing?

[unique rune]

not this again

[carmine sleet]

The answer is it doesn't matter what Bungie planned originally, the canon states they're not human

[placid lava]

I have a lore question. What impact did the librarian upgrading chief in Halo 4 have? I’ve heard it makes him immune to the composer, but is that it?

[spark pivot]

she, "accelerated his evolutionary journey" which i assume means, he's now on the level of the ancient humans, but thats just what i got from it

[high elbow]

I never thought about it that way, but I really like that answer.

[placid lava]

Was it ever followed up on in the books? Seems to be a thread that was dropped in Halo 5

[spark pivot]

not that i know of, but then again, ive only read fall of reach, the flood, first strike, and ghosts of onyx, so i wouldnt really know

[wispy pewter]

The composer turns living things into Prometheans

[spark pivot]

not quite

it turns them into digital essences

which are then put into prometheans

[wispy pewter]

Right.

[carmine sleet]

The Monitors were also created via composed essences

[thorn spindle]

Chief got a lifespan buff

[gentle current]

I have been waiting to get more involved with Lore and reading about it but I am not really sure wear to start. Any advice?

[carmine sleet]

Fall of Reach

[stoic hamlet]

^^^^

[placid lava]

Fall of Reach is essential reading imo

[empty bloom]

Doesn't really track, all things considered. Honestly, sometimes I think Halo 4 itself forgot about it short of one cutscene.

[stoic hamlet]

it should be forgotten. It’s dumb

[carmine sleet]

I like to think that all she did was activate the immunity to the Composer and nothing else

[placid lava]

Ahh makes sense. I never realized that’s what she actually accomplished. The cutscene made it seem like it would have a ton of importance to Chief going forward in the “reclaimer saga”

[orchid kettle]

she also made it so his legs don't fall asleep when he's been sitting too long on the toilet

So, you know. You're welcome.

[carmine sleet]

I wish I had that ability

[hot zodiac]

Yeah, apparently, humans will one day evolve to be immune to the composer but remain otherwise the same? It's super not clear what they were fully going for.

[thorn spindle]

perhaps since the Librarian had plenty of influence over human evolution via the gene seeds. After humans were evolutionarily reduced and then composed by the Didact. After seeing that she may have wanted to add a layer of protection from such a fate repeating itself, but it didnt trigger yet

[orchid kettle]

Halo 4 does not understand what evolution means

[hot zodiac]

The whole era doesn't

[unique rune]

Pokemon crossover confirmed

[carmine sleet]

I'd play it

[icy yoke]

LIbrarian was sympatetic to human plight.
Likely she created a "loop hole" or genetic backdoor to allow humanity a future to progress to their level again.

It took humanity 100,000 years to progress back industrial level society (Tier 6) 200 to tier 5
200 more to Tier 3

[wispy pewter]

Actually humans managed to go to steam engine stuff on the ring after the war. But were wiped out again by the rings

Which is so weird because on earth irl homosapiens have atleast 300000 years of history

[inland pike]

huh that is wierd

[inland pike]

the mystery of arovose

[empty bloom]

I would imagine part of it was meeting needs.

[jade cape]

I went through this same process at the beginning of the year— the novels are a great place to start, I can DM you the order I read them in personally if it might help

but for now, I’d say read the first 4 initial novels (in this order)

The Fall Of Reach, The Flood, First Strike, Ghosts Of Onyx

my go-to lore info dumps are typically via the Halo encyclopedia and a boatload of YouTube videos covering a variety of different topics, etc.

you can find lore everywhere in general so that’s not a problem luckily

[gentle current]

@jade cape that would be great thank you!

[wispy pewter]

are Nylund books not outdated

[stoic hamlet]

Not as much as you’d think. They’re very foundational lore.

and in some ways more interesting than what we have now

[carmine sleet]

There's only a few inconsistencies of note these days, the biggest being the ones related to the Fall of Reach itself but that's on Bungie. 343 has done what they can to reconcile those inconsistencies

[empty bloom]

A lot of how Spartans are portrayed in earlier books is less up to snuff with modern portrayals as well, with Linda being the most consistent.

[stoic hamlet]

I miss older Spartans. D:

We do have some hints of it, but mostly with the III’s.

[orchid kettle]

don't you like how Fred is the Dry Wit guy

[high elbow]

I for one enjoy Dry Wit Fred

[stoic hamlet]

I don’t even mind the jokes, but I feel like overall the II’s and III’s should have their own jokes that no one else gets/everyone else finds uncomfortable.

Just dry, blunt humour that gets the occasional chuckle.

But it just sounds… wrong, to everyone else.

[last anchor]

Enhance the inhumanity of the Spartans.
Remind people these are not just "dudes in armor killing aliens"
These are human weapons molded from the youngest possible age to do ungodly things to their fellow man, converted to fight a legitimately alien foe.

Spartans should be like how 40k lore depicts Space Marines (no, not the bad ones, the ones where even seeing one moves causes a normal human to start suffering a minor panic attack because everything about them is just wrong)

Spartans should cause Transhuman Dread.

[stoic hamlet]

Ye.

I liked that about Breaking Strain, the transhumance dread when the Captain faced down Kevin was felt.

[last anchor]

Exactly

[stoic hamlet]

Leone pivoted and saw a towering figure standing by the side of the vehicle. Clad in battered, dark- blue Mjolnir armor, accented here and there by stripes of crimson and black, it resembled a sculpture carved from old steel more than a living being. The helmet’s narrow-eyed aspect made Leone think of a hawk, predatory and unblinking. A gold visor regarded the two men impassively, and finally the head moved, glancing away to the horizon and then back again.

Just… chef’s kiss.

Kevin is basically my ideal Spartan display, ngl.

[last anchor]

The way he talks too.

[stoic hamlet]

He’s not dismissive of everyone because he’s superior, but because they’re almost beneath him. Again, not via superiority, but because he’s just so focused.

Like, he saved the captain earlier, for example, but I don’t think it was because he cared… just because that’s the expected thing to do. He’s just going through the motions.

I’ve likened it to fatalistic apathy.

Nothing matters, but in the moment everything matters. He’ll 110% everything he does… but again, not because he cares, he just doesn’t know how to not.

Kevin unlimbered the long sniper rifle and aimed it out to sea. “Spartans don’t fear enemy contact,” he said, as if the idea itself was foolish. “We want it. I wait and watch. Imagine the sky turning black with Phantoms, like it did on Reach.” He paused. “It’s what I was made for. What all Spartans are made for.”
Kevin’s A-numeral designation meant he was Alpha Company, one of the longest-serving SPARTAN-III units, and Leone knew that meant he had seen some of the worst of the war with the Covenant, on colonies like Kholo and Meridian, even on Sigma Octanus IV not long ago. He thought about the cold terror his own memories of conflict dredged up, and once more he was glad he didn’t have to share the Spartan’s.
”You know what it is we do, captain.” The Spartan shot a last glance over his shoulder at Leone, then donned the helmet, shutting off the sight of anything that made him seem human. “We are not delicate weapons. Put us in the field and things get broken.” He started walking away. “Believe me when I tell you. . . . You don’t want me close.”

[empty bloom]

Pretty chatty and poetic-waxing for an allegedly inhuman killing machine.

[last anchor]

Space Marines can talk quite a bit too if you give them the chance.
It just makes them more unnerving imo.

[empty bloom]

I tend to prefer IVs because their chattiness feels more natural.

[wispy pewter]

but the way they introduced IVs as like frat boys instead of Spartans in Halo 4 had some people hate them

I understand why people dislike Palmers personality

[gaunt pumice]

i thought youd be taller ah personality

[hot zodiac]

Egghead!

[empty bloom]

God, people still whine about that like it's new.

Or even an accurate assessment, when it's really just Palmer that doesn't grow out of it past the first Spartan Ops episode.

Like

Y'all wanted Spartan IVs who weren't 'frat boys'

There was an entire freaking game about it

That had the famous 'Frat Boy' Spartan Locke, appareently

[wispy pewter]

He spends his free time being a superhero

[carmine sleet]

I didn't know Locke was a vigilante moonlighting as a Spartan? Where did you read that? /s

[unique rune]

I have a source that tells me he’s actually Batman

[carmine sleet]

Huh, my money was on him being Power Man

[versed helm]

I wonder if she would have said that if Kurt-052 was the one who walked into the room and not Master Chief🤔

[wispy pewter]

Imagine if it was Lucy

[thorn ember]

They just can't ever let go. Like ever.

[stray coyote]

iirc at least the enemy variations are explained through different subspecies, at least for the Unggoy and the Kig yar

idk if its the same for the jiralhanae and the sanghieli tho

[carmine sleet]

It is

[stray coyote]

has the identity of that weird ship on Wreckage from Halo 4 ever been confirmed? I know HiddenXperia and some others think it might be linked to the Meddlers but i was wondering if there have been any updates on it

[obsidian thistle]

"Meddlers" arnt really a thing. Born from me originally capitalising the term

[stray coyote]

ah, cool!

[carmine sleet]

The true Meddlers (With the capitalised M) were the friends we made along the way

[obsidian thistle]

I'll never escape it will I folks

The term is forever in the community consciousness

[stray coyote]

It's the hiddenxperia brainworms lmao

[orchid kettle]

The Jiralhanae are weird because the idea of there being two distinct "skeins" that hated each other so much that they started the First Immolation was basically an invention of a 2009 short story

and later guidebooks attempted to take the various Brute designs we've had across the series and shove them into one of those skeins

[stray coyote]

odd, i always thought the skeins were supposed to be more like cultural groups. never guessed they had morphological differences

[orchid kettle]

Well yeah in the story I doubt the intention is that the Brutes had different appearances

even now I don't really think you're supposed to take Brute differences too seriously across the series

because all things considered they're pretty consistent

its mainly a matter of how they dress or groom their fur, I feel like

or in the case of Reach Brutes, they have tattoos

Any facial structure difference I personally chalk up to Bungie/343 obviously only making one Brute "face" per game and assigning it to every member of the species

Like most Brutes in Infinite are just Craig with different beards and hairstyles

[carmine sleet]

Only ones with unique faces in Infinite are Atriox and Escherum, right?

[stray coyote]

I like that interpretation, i personally think it myself

[orchid kettle]

Maybe the spartan killer twins too

[carmine sleet]

Now I wanna get a closer look at their faces without being shot at

[orchid kettle]

I think the only oddity with Brutes is how in Infinite, Brutes bleed purple despite bleeding red in past games

but that may be because of the game's T rating?

[empty bloom]

Brute blood was always a reaaaally dark red, almost purple.

[gaunt pumice]

i thought it was purple

[violet nest]

What's the maximum speed of the Sabres

[drowsy mesa]

Well, this month's Canon Fodder is gonna be about Fleetcom

[sonic lagoon]

Can the Covenant religion be considered Theist or Deist?

[wispy pewter]

Does the UNSC even have a fleetcom after the events of cortana

Lol

And now Infinity is gone with the rest of the competent ships. Like the only ship we know exists is the Panama

[stoic hamlet]

Ani’t no stopping noooooowwwwwwww!

But presumably we’ll find out in this canon fodder, maybe.

[wispy pewter]

I was hoping one day we could see the Eternity and Infinity side by side like in Enterprise when we finally got to see NX-02

[carmine sleet]

The Eternity was never finished and was gutted to help repair Infinity

[stoic hamlet]

Well, it might’ve been finished afterwards though not with the systems that give it the same capabilities and power of Infinity.

It’s not clear if the Oort Cloud was interdicted by Created Guardians, for example.

[tribal trench]

the Oort isn’t too far away from Earth (speaking on a cosmological scale)

it should be well within policing range of the Sol guardian

I am highly doubtful of Eternity’s current existence

[wispy pewter]

Yeah I doubt they would have been able to build that large of a ship under Cortana's rule. But would be cool anyway

unless after her guardians fell, they managed to contruct a 6km ship in a few months

[stoic hamlet]

They built multiple Punic Class ships pre and during the HCW, and if they made Eternity like a war-era Halberd-Destroyer they could likely “finish” her relatively quickly.

[tribal trench]

She was 10x longer than a halberd

and weighed hundreds of times more

whilst also carrying several heavy frigates and an invasion’s worth of an army

plus probably the most important aspect

the reverse engineered forerunner slipspace drive

[wispy pewter]

I mean they still have Huragoks right. They seem to build stuff quick

Maybe they can build a skeleton infinity class carrier within this short time. Only active systems are the weapons and troops base

And life support obviously

[tribal trench]

doubtful

we have no reason to believe eternity was even restarted let alone finished in such a manner where it can be used against… anything really

[wispy pewter]

I wonder how much of it was built before it was cancelled to repair Infinity

[carmine sleet]

It's one thing to rebuild a Warthog's engine quick, it's another thing entirely to build a star ship the size of a large city

[carmine sleet]

I can definitely see the UNSC repurposing what they can from Eternity after she was used to fix Infinity. So like, various weapons originally made for her are now used for planetary defence or something

[tribal trench]

nothing she had could have been used for orbital defense except for the SMACs of which there were only 4

and we haven’t heard of them being used at all

[carmine sleet]

Fair

I just think repurposing parts like that makes much more sense than "Somehow, the UNSC finished Eternity"

[wispy pewter]

Somehow the Infinity returned

[versed helm]

Whatever happened to Spartan Locke? i haven’t fully caught up on the other storylines and i know his helmet is in the infinite campaign as a brute trophy he was such a large role in halo 5

[empty bloom]

He got beaten up offscreen and nobody knows anything else whatsoever.

That's literally the start and end of it.

[wispy pewter]

Wow they chose the only black Spartan to write off offscreen. Racism!!

[gusty star]

I don’t think it’s even confirmed that he got beat up tbh

[carmine sleet]

It's most likely he was beaten up given that it's confirmed that Hyperious has Locke's armour on his shoulder

[versed helm]

right okay

thanks

[thorn ember]

Could've been similar to what happened to Red Team. Douglas did lose his helmet during the fight with Atriox. Anyways did anyone know how Dare lost her helmet though?

[wispy pewter]

dare who

[high elbow]

Veronica Dare. ONI agent from Halo ODST

[carmine sleet]

Likely just a case of she accidentally left it behind as she fled from the Covenant. That drop wasn't exactly standard for any of Alpha Nine

[thorn spindle]

Maybe Locke is retired somewhere or his alleged beat down was a fake story ONI is using to shield his deep cover op

[carmine sleet]

Locke's not been ONI since he became a Spartan

[thorn spindle]

Allegedly oni is secret

[carmine sleet]

People know about ONI, just not everyone knows what they do exactly

[stoic hamlet]

And most of ONI is just your usual propaganda and intelligence group.

[high elbow]

It’s like the CIA of the real world, or MI5. We know of them, just not the war crimes activities they do

[unique rune]

They only let you in if you know the secret code word

[carmine sleet]

MI6 would be a better one to say when it comes to British Intelligence, they're the ones that operate on foreign soil

MI5 sticks mainly to our own country for ops

[high elbow]

I did not know that! Thank you!!

[carmine sleet]

You're welcome

But yeah, MI6 is basically the UK's equivalent to the CIA

[shy garnet]

Guilty Spark saying Master Chief is the child of his makers and that he is forerunner but the forerunners are separate from humanity

[brazen dawn]

uwu

[shy garnet]

?

[brazen dawn]

awww its getting deleted

lol

[shy garnet]

What

[brazen dawn]

i tried saying uwu agains but it got deleted immediately

i was just messin w u lol

[stray coyote]

iirc it was just a 343 decision, from what I know bungie always wanted the forerunners to be Humans

[unique rune]

no

Bungie’s original plans were to make them the same

but part of the issue is that people treat Bungie as if they were some kind of monolith that always had a single unified stance

earlier Halo 2 storyboards stayed with the ‘Forerunners is human’ thing
and the main people working on Halo 3’s campaign stuck with it

but also during 3’s development there were people at Bungie who preferred to make the split

and no this wasn’t just “Frank O’Connor went rogue”

the split has its roots in some of 3’s marketing material and the game’s Terminals

[hot zodiac]

ah cmon guys

[hot zodiac]

This is incorrect. All Halo 3 related materials, including Iris and the terminals, point to at least humans and Forerunners being the same species. There is a contradiction present in some of those that follow a narrative where they co-existed and were not a continuous group of ancestors/descendants.

It's also worth saying that the split was due to the terminals/iris effort being very isolated from the rest of the studio, and upon working to release Contact Harvest the two main writers for the terminals approved of the novels version as editors

[shy garnet]

Right that’s what it was originally

[woven plaza]

@honest plume trolled

[orchid kettle]

Yeah, and personally, I've always been of the mind that Staten's position as the lead writer should hold greater authority than the people who worked on the terminals, and in general it seemed like a recipe for disaster to try and tackle something as lore heavy as the terminals without their lead writer around

I also just generally prefer Staten's vision because I think he's a pretty solid writer and he's been responsible for several of my favorite stories in the franchise

[wispy pewter]

Have we ever seen a Pelican doing close air support or are those guns just for decoration

[tribal trench]

We’ve seen them run a little bit of CAP and some very limited CAS but it’s not what the plane was really built for

for CAS or CAP you’d want something like a broadsword or longsword

[wispy pewter]

343 added ancient hoomans

[pearl aspen]

I believe they were very ancient humans, but idk

[wispy pewter]

they are not bozo

[unique rune]

I wish all Halo fans a very please talk about literally anything else

[wispy pewter]

why are the rings so huge, where do they even get the resources to build these bigger than planet sized rings and arks

[unique rune]

The Forerunners could build different

[woven plaza]

:)

[dusk jetty]

As in Strafing runs? No. But we’ve seen them use their chainguns two or three times

Most we’ve got like that is carter and the scarab

[stoic hamlet]

There's also a Pelican varient that has 3 30mm autocannons, the DC75-77/G

[carmine sleet]

You really want to take the mad ramblings of a degrading and rampant Monitor at face value?

[last anchor]

could be worse. It could be Sprint again

[last anchor]

And while not technically a Pelican, the Condor can carry a mini-mac and four chemical lasers

[carmine sleet]

Or people complaining Forerunner architecture on Requiem and Genesis look different to that found on the Halo Rings

[obsidian thistle]

I like that the Forerunners werent a 1 style civilization.

You know how rare that is irl. 🙂

Especially with us right now as a civilisation

[wispy pewter]

yeah but eventually we would be more homogeneous in terms of architectual designs like you see in developing countries. All glass boxes and skyscrapers.

[rocky ember]

Well Forerunners were really advanced

The scary thing is... even them, far superior to us in HALO universe, still couldn't stop the flood theoretically except by HALO rings which just wipes us and everyone else and not the flood anyways, and we (technically inferior) race should find a way to stop the flood(?!) although we are the successors of mantle so there's hope

So yeah, HALO rings were huge and very advanced.. but like, piece of cake for Forerunners I believe, to make.

[wispy pewter]

We are quite literally the main characters!

thats so weird I got a notification

[rocky ember]

Yeah my message got deleted for some reason and I got a warning eventho I made a normal reply lol

[rocky ember]

But anyways what I already said, yes, but still weird how we, which are inferior to Forerunners have to do what Forerunners couldn't

[wispy pewter]

Humanity is simply built different. Even the Vulcans feared us

[thorn ember]

One elite in Halo Glasslands that humans do not excel at anything, but are able to get by because they are simply good enough at everything.

It's an interesting remark especially from the Elites. Especially for Thel Vadam who is more human than Sangheili. He carries his title as Arbiter well.

[tribal trench]

aside from Cortana and Black Box, are there any other known examples of AI riding alongside spartans in suits and things like that?

[carmine sleet]

Black Team had Iona, specifically Victor after the team crashed on Line Installation 1-4

Likely helped by Mjolnir Black having many features that would become standard for Mjolnir Mark VI

[spark pivot]

Red team and isabel

[wispy pewter]

Jerome

Also doesn't Mk IV not have the link for AI

[ocean kite]

This may be a stupid question but I was just curious
Is it ever actually stated in the games what a Spartan-3 is/the fact that noble team is mainly comprised of Spartan-3s?
It's been a while since I played the game so maybe it is I'm just curious

[orchid kettle]

In Reach itself? No, I don't believe so. All you really get is Halsey being kinda rude to Noble while speaking as if the only one she has any semblance of a prior relationship with is Jorge.

[ocean kite]

Dang ok, I plan on playing through the series with my friend who's never played them before but I feel like a lot the lore is just gonna be completely missed since the games themselves do such a poor job at telling it

[carmine sleet]

Best place to get more info about the IIIs is always gonna be Ghosts of Onyx

[stoic hamlet]

^^^

You can give a rough explanation when that cutscene occurs. @ocean kite them being S-III’s has basically no bearing on the plot, and, in truth, them being S-III’s has no real bearing on them as characters because they’re so disconnected from the rest of the III program.

[ocean kite]

Yeah Ik about the books, but I don't think my friend's gonna become a full fledged Halo enthusiast and wanna read all the books while playing, we're just gonna be doing coop campaign of each game

[ocean kite]

that's fair enough, ig they aren't really brought up again in any of the other games, just would be nice to have some cut scene or dialogue about it though

Are the data pads/terminal things worth searching for during the playthrough? Or is their insight too light?

[carmine sleet]

That varies depending upon the game

CE's terminals provide additional context to the events and insight into Guilty Spark's time on Installation 04

Meanwhile Halo 3's delve into events from the Forerunner-Flood War

And then the Datapads of Reach are about a secret group of human AI, with the datapads themselves having been left behind by someone who discovered their existence (Who is now The Executor)

[ocean kite]

Huh ok interesting, what about Halo 4?

[spark pivot]

Forerunner flood war

[ocean kite]

ah so continued from halo 3?

[spark pivot]

It leans more into the didacts pov i think

[carmine sleet]

It's very focused on the Didact's POV of both the Forerunner Flood War and the creation of the Promethean constructs seen in the game

Then there's H2A which delves into the history of Arbiters, Thel Vadam and touches upon the building schism within the Covenant

[empty bloom]

Jorge's Firefight lines are the most direct statements as well as the code numbers of Noble Team.

[thorn ember]

Her journal that came with the limited edition goes into detail on that topic.

[muted raft]

Is cryptum just some guys steampunk jrpg fantasy in the halo universe?

[thorn spindle]

The book? Forerunner saga is great

[muted raft]

Yeah, it literally exudes jrpg energy, like the author was playing final fantasy before writing

[obsidian thistle]

The author is known for their hard sci-fi

[high elbow]

I recently read Cryptum. As an avid fan of Final Fantasy, I really don’t see any remote connection at all

[carmine sleet]

Why do you give off the vibe that you've not consumed much media?

[muted raft]

Just saying it's like a jrpg, I don't know many names so I threw out final fantasy

[hot zodiac]

Yeah, The Forerunner Saga is overall a large departure from the Halo universe.

[high elbow]

I personally disagree, i feel it follows the more typical “Hero’s Journey” thing more than anything, which is much more western than JRPG adjacent. But, ultimately if it reminds you of a JRPG it reminds you of a JRPG

[muted raft]

Well they mention adamantium for no reason and never elaborate

The metal from marvel, wolverines skeleton

I guess it's been a thing since the 70s and had time to develop into a verb rather than a noun

But still

[high elbow]

Adamantium goes way back to like the 40’s my dude.

Besides. The forerunners are hella advanced alien species. They could’ve found some shiny metal and on some weird rocky planet and called it Adamantium.

[muted raft]

It's never mentioned again in halo

Other than one time

Ah

It's greek

[carmine sleet]

So you think the book is just like a JRPG because it has a specific word used that is often associated with a character created by people in New York?

[muted raft]

Never said that, don't know why you think that

Kinda confusing

You just want to take issue with my opinion and you're looking for any excuse to demean my take

[carmine sleet]

You literally said it was like a JRPG earlier

And used the mention of Adamantium as a reason for why you think that

Not sure what I am meant to think other than that from what you said

[muted raft]

No I didn't

Completely different conversation

[carmine sleet]

So these are just completely unrelated despite the fact that it's about the exact same novel?

[muted raft]

Yeah?

One book isn't one ideal?

There's dozens of chapters, several stories, multiple storyline

Bros acting like I don't know what I'm trying to say

[last anchor]

Also, Adamantiums in 40k too

And technically, they were using it first Im pretty sure. Or at least, around the same time.
Just means "stupidly strong metal"

Actually come to think of it, "Plasteel" is in both Star Wars and 40k too

[high elbow]

Adamantium is in fact all over video games and literature. Heck, I think it’s even in some very old scientific literature from like 1912

[muted raft]

Yeah, it's an adaptation of Greek adamantine

From what I read

[last anchor]

Thats fairly common for chemical and elemental names so yeah

[meager pier]

Disagree, feels more influenced by grand sci-fi of the 60s and 70s than JRPG
Greg Bear was a famous sci-fi author, and was from that era as well

[muted raft]

i agree theres a lot of classical sci fi influence, but i cant get over the party of travelers from all different species

[meager pier]

Tbf, that's a typical trope in a lot of grand fiction
Hell, Primordium could in a way have been influenced by Heart of Darkness, which was ofc loosely adapted into Apocalypse Now

[muted raft]

also the floating merchant cities, steamboats, and a literaly adventurers guild (granted that was all in the first couple of chapters)

[meager pier]

He was also heavily inspired by Lovecraft with the Precursors, these unknowable beings that're basically gods

[muted raft]

and also the greatest enemy the universe has ever faced 🙂

an unbeatable foe, all knowing

[high elbow]

Western media does that ALL THE TIME. The whole “beating greatest foe ever” shtick. Look at literally all hero movies ever basically

[stoic hamlet]

It’s a pretty universal thing.

East and West both do it.

[thorn spindle]

what about steven seagal movies he beats random innocent characters

[meager pier]

lol https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVsGUw9FWoc

[woven plaza]

eastern media never falls into this trope #fact

[tribal trench]

dripping with sarcasm as always

[carmine sleet]

So here's a question, what kind of livestock and food was being grown at the farm that surrounded Visegrád Relay?

[empty bloom]

Moa and what looks to be some form of root vegetable.

Which would make sense.

[high elbow]

Indeed. With much care and attention, the root veggies of Reach can become very healthy Spartan III’s with a bit of training

[carmine sleet]

Huh, I guess I forgot to think about the Moa

[modest crescent]

About the monitors of each Halo Installation:
The monitors were named after the feelings and experiences they had either pre or post Halo Array. 343 Guilty Spark refers to when Bornsteller (Forerunner Iso Didact) asked Spark whether it was no choice to fire the array, in which Spark said yes.

Therefore, 343 was GUILTY of being a part of a SPARK of the Halo array, destroying all sentient life

Same with 401 Penitent Tangent. He sought forgiveness for his sins constantly, only to lead to the Flood outbreak on Delta Halo

Penitent meaning ‘to seek penance,’ and ‘Tangent’ meaning his endless need for his part

[carmine sleet]

And Despondent Pyre?

[modest crescent]

‘Pyre’ refers to a monument to the dead, and ‘Despondent’ meaning loss of hope

So the loss of hope of rebuilding the galaxy as it once was

Like a funeral pyre

[wispy pewter]

Do we know if the UEG has a celebration for the end of the HCW?

[muted raft]

Primordium is a halo themed Lovecraft novel

[meager pier]

Yeah, and wait till you get to Silentium

[earnest niche]

Do I have to read the book numbers in order? Or timeline or..? Cause audible lists halo series as book numbers

[muted raft]

There's multiple orders

I'm reading by release date

You can do it any way you like with the exception of 3 books that I think require prior books for the story to make sense

I forget which books, one is bad blood tho

It's really fun reading by release date tho tying the knots together

[earnest niche]

All righty thanks!

[earnest niche]

Lemme know which ones when you can!

[stoic hamlet]

I’d read by release date. All the books build on one another in many ways, despite what some would have you say.

You don’t technically need to, but I’d very much consider it a requirement.

[sonic lagoon]

Why don’t the flood develop fur to adapt to cold climates?

[wispy pewter]

they can't feel cold because they don't have a neural system otherwise they would be killed by the halo arrays

[tribal tide]

Why doesn't Master Chief talk in Halo CE during the library? He does talk in the rest of the game but not with 343 Guilty spark.

[pearl aspen]

hes mewing

idk

[pallid knoll]

maybe he just doesn’t like spark

[pearl aspen]

maybe hes guilty

343

[tribal tide]

Guilty in 343 cases

[pearl aspen]

yes

[runic wharf]

Spartan 3s were kidnapped too, weren't they?

[carmine sleet]

Orphans

Which doesn't make it better because they're still child soldiers

[carmine sleet]

Bungie just didn't want Chief to speak during gameplay

[carmine sleet]

Because the Flood doesn't work like that. They don't evolve like a traditional species would

[tribal tide]

But he also didn't speak during cutscenes

[carmine sleet]

He just didn't speak in those cutscenes

There's no deep meaning or anything behind why he didn't speak in that level

[tribal tide]

Hmm ok. I just thought that it was weird that he spoke with cortana but not with 343 guilty spark. (Technically he spoke one word with him, "Enough" when cortana and 343 had an argument)

[runic wharf]

Can Spartans reproduce?

So I take it as yes

Has there been any record of a Spartan having a child at all?

[tribal tide]

Damn, gotta look through his vids. If I find one I'll tell ya

[obsidian thistle]

Yes.

No need to look up vids

I can just tell you

[runic wharf]

Who?

[obsidian thistle]

https://www.halopedia.org/Natalie_Aiken

[runic wharf]

And did they say if the child has any genetics of a spartan?

[obsidian thistle]

That was Randall-037's child

[runic wharf]

Oh him

I honestly completely forget he was a spartan

[obsidian thistle]

We have no idea if his wife died of complications due to Spartan augs, or if it was unfortunately natural.

But she is the only known Spartan 2.1* we know about. And unfortunately she died before we learnt anything meaningful about her.

*Spartan 2.1 - A fan name based off the Spartan 1.1's from I Love Bees.

[runic wharf]

Ah

Unfortunate

Well damn

[obsidian thistle]

1.1s however if they are canon are doing way better in their survival rates lol

https://www.halopedia.org/Spartan_1.1

With the "potential" of John Forge being one. Though that depends if his father was part of Orion OR if they caught the hypothetically real Boren's syndrome.

(Boren's syndrome is weird in lore fyi, its been implied that it may be real in-universe)

Going back to Spartan-IIs for a mo

There is the "potential" that Maria-062 had a kid.

I believe the old Encyclopedia says she did. But we are uncertain if its hers or adoption in that case.

(Would be fitting if it was adoption however, a lost kid finding a home for someone who has none. But hey thats for the Fanon Writers to write about or 343i writers to figure out)

[unborn patrol]

Spartans get augs - aug people get kids - kids are born with augs - new evolution of the human kind

[empty bloom]

I always found the concept mildly annoying because most Spartan augs sound like they would barely, if at all, affect gametes.

[tribal tide]

So, I found out that apparently Miranda Keyes is the daughter of Captain Keyes and Dr Halsey. But about spartans having a relationship? Couldn't find anything about that

[tribal tide]

Oh well look like I didn't search deep enough 😂

[runic wharf]

Funny ONI breed project

[runic wharf]

Someone bagged Halsey confirmed

[wispy pewter]

Naomi said the augmentations reduced their drive for pillowing

Not sure about IVs though

I'm sure IVs do it all the time since Buck is married

[tribal tide]

...If they have time for it

[wispy pewter]

I'm sure they do

If Buck could get married on the Infinity during the events of the Cortana uprising, I'm sure they have time for anything

[tribal tide]

Damn, the main Halo titles sure are missing a lot of content. I mean I never played the top down view titles and never watched a Halo movie or the series. When I first played Halo infinite I was like who tf are the banished and who tf is Atriox and Escharum

[wispy pewter]

I started playing with Halo 4 lol. I am too young and gen z to experience the Bungie days. But I only started playing Halo a lot when Infinite came out... Since it was free

[obsidian thistle]

I technically started with CE. Vague memories on that

https://x.com/cia391/status/1047952005807923201?t=ItL0c37McMFTRdsec7wYZg&s=19

Chris Aiken (@cia391) on X

#HaloLookback My earliest memory of Halo was being unable to crouch in the PoA cause of lack of understanding the Xbox controller as a child. (granted I was used to a Dreamcast controller at the time)

Twitter · Oct 4, 2018, 8:50 PM

A old post that pretty much goes over my old experience of CE aha

My real first time was ODST not working for me cause my 360 disk drive conked out.

(One new 360 later and it worked. Dropping me into a universe I grew to love and record lore for)

... this might be a fun discussion point in #1194054578207997982 later 😄

[sonic lagoon]

Yes but why? Is it because precursors had no fur?

[carmine sleet]

They're alien zombies that need to infect other lifeforms to spread

They don't reproduce like the other species in the galaxy, so evolution doesn't work the same for them

Their evolved states are things like the Pure Forms of Halo 3, or as a Gravemind and Keymind, both of which don't have a need for fur, especially the latter since those are consumed planets to put it simply

[sonic lagoon]

So why don’t mammalian combat forms produce more fur when in cold climates?

[empty bloom]

Flatly put, it doesn't really need to.

The flood doesn't need a living host, it just hijacks, and then rides til it can't.

Anything left is used as hive material.

So how the flood likely deals with cold is packing flesh around what's important (the combat form's core) and leaving the extremities to rot, or continually expending more biomass to keep warm until more self sustaining hive structures are formed.

Growing actual hair is too lengthy and complex a process to consider in the end.

I'm not even really sure if the flood could do so in fact.

[wispy pewter]

Why didn't the Finnish develop fur

[empty bloom]

They didn't even develop fins smh

[vivid umbra]

Well they're kinda dead for starters.

[muted raft]

"...It was like shooting an autistic child..."
Halo, Glasslands, chapter 5

Wtf am I reading

[carmine sleet]

Karen Traviss...

[high elbow]

That’s certainly a choice of words ☹️

[muted raft]

Yeahhh

It doesn't even make sense in context

She could have easily said an unnarmed civilian or something

[last anchor]

Traviss, in a nutshell.

[empty bloom]

Was that the part with the Engineer or am I way off?

[muted raft]

Yes

Honestly really annoying that Lucy couldn't even cry when kurt literally nuked himself, but she manages to get a noise out when she's just talking to a huragok

[empty bloom]

That's actually not that surprising

Like, trauma is weird. A lot of weird things can cause a breakthrough point.

Lucy's entire trigger had been watching everyone she was raised with die in one fell swoop sans one; I can't imagine Kurt's death actually did anything more than redouble that trauma alongside the deaths of the Gammas with them.

With the Engineer managing to break through that trauma, I can at least find it more believable than her going through more of the same and suddenly being fixed because a specific mentor died.

[muted raft]

Yeah, but at the same time the engineers (although not that one) are part of the race that killed everyone, and that memory was still fresh, it was only days since Kurt's sacrifice

[empty bloom]

... The first half doesn't factor at all.

The Engineers weren't Forerunner, they were made by Forerunners. They had no active and intentional part in the crimes of their creators.

Not to mention, they're perfectly amicable, and aren't directly responsible for anything that personally happened to Lucy-in fact they're the closest thing to an outsider she had even encountered at any point in her life.

Even the therapists she would've seen would still be appointed by the UNSC. Everything in her world was UNSC. The Engineer was the first thing that wasn't. It was a curious outsider.

[muted raft]

Weren't they also present on the refinery tho? There has to be some kind of connection, she's just a soldier, trained to not think for herself

[empty bloom]

Any competently trained soldier is capable of thinking for themselves.

[muted raft]

But ain't the whole point of Spartans that they're entirely brainwashed, for the most part

[empty bloom]

You can be conditioned and controlled without being a brainless drone.

[muted raft]

Still doesn't change the fact that it's just annoying tho

I don't know what the author meant by any of it

[empty bloom]

If your only critique is being annoyed then it sounds like a personal issue.

Like

I have issues with how its written

[muted raft]

In the same vein your issues are just your opinion

If you wanna think about it that way

Any critique outside of purely grammatical and canonical would be a personal issue

[empty bloom]

But most of my issues with it in that vein are because it's handled carelessly and by someone who pointedly can handle political black and gray very well, but is pretty bad at deeper emotional ties or how trauma really works. The Engineer being the one to break through is a good start for it, but it's still sloppily written from an okay beginning.

[muted raft]

Opinions are opinions, don't demeen mine because you don't agree

[stoic hamlet]

I mean, regardless of whether it makes sense and etc, it’s still a blatant retcon, on the same level as “Halsey never lied”, because it directly contradicts an omnipresent narrator.

…actually that makes it worse than the Halsey one.

Because the Halsey one was just her saying it.

[muted raft]

I love halsey, but I hate the whole "saving my Spartans" arc

In my eyes the first few books built her up to be entirely cold and calculating, only outwardly maternal when the Spartans needed her to be

I kinda get the whole shift, but at the same time I don't

Cortana was an indication of how emotional halsey was capable of being

[empty bloom]

There's a reason I like the Halo 5 Cortana arc and frankly this was always part of it

From Halsey's actions between Escalation and Spartan Ops, there's a huge amount of evidence for showing just how unhinged Halsey would get when she was hellbent on getting humanity ahead, especially with Forerunner tech.

She was so hellbent on it that she was literally stopped because she cheated, just because she wanted to make sure humanity's struggle forwards went forward as she deigned.

I always viewed the fact Halsey shifts between clinical and maternal as being because the clinical was how she dealt with what she was doing for the longest time. Once the figurative birds were out of the nest, and Halsey moved on to other projects, the maternal protective feelings would've moved in to fill the void, and attachment to that band of kids would've been a natural consequence of her not actually being a sociopath, just a bad person with good intentions.

And on some level I feel she owes it to them. Cortana's entire spiel about how she wanted to make a world where soldiers like John and the other IIs weren't needed showcases a certain regret that was on Halsey's mind when Cortana was made; the deemed necessity and desire for penance and fixing what was broken.

Likewise, Cortana, and by extension Halsey, having such a hatred for the mere concept of Spartan IVs actually strikes me as rage born from regret. Halsey's conscience suffered for her actions for years. How dare someone not only improve on her work in any way, but solve the problem that made her monstrous actions necessary in her eyes? It's why she snipes for things she wouldn't even deign to criticize in her own IIs or the offspring of her IIs, the IIIs.

[wispy pewter]

Halsey is right, Lucy should have never been cleared for duty like that. Couldn't even call for help

[stoic hamlet]

I mean, technically she could have used acknowledgment lights, flares, flags and hand signals, but Halsey (Traviss) forgot SPI has the acknowledgment lights.

Mind you, in Lucy’s situation none of those would have worked, nor would she have been able to use a comms channel even if she could talk.

Due to the Slipspace shenanigans.

[wispy pewter]

Should have installed text to speech on her SPI

[stoic hamlet]

It has that.

Well, the in-verse. Where text can be displayed on the HUD.

[wispy pewter]

Ah right, well since she can speak now after punching Halsey, doesn't need it anymore lol

How did Halsey survive that

[empty bloom]

Plot armor.

I think it's one of the bigger messups from the book. Halsey's face should've been pulped.

[inland pike]

so will the master chief and the other Spartans were at the ring in infinite what was the rest of the unsc doing?

[wispy pewter]

they are rebuilding and regrouping because Cortana just died

it was mentioned by the black spartan lady who was training your multiplayer spartan

[inland pike]

Oh ok

[wispy pewter]

yeah and not to mention 70 ish Spartans got blown to bits as well so the UNSC morale is probably absolutely zero rn

not to mention their flagship is gone too now

343 needs to stop punishing humanity fr

[carmine sleet]

Within the wider galaxy, the UNSC is regrouping and rebuilding. While the threat of Cortana is gone, they are still in a vulnerable position, with threats like the Banished or Sloan, and need to properly reestablish their foothold, which given that the Academy seems to be doing fine, I imagine they are doing well on that front

As for the forces on Zeta Halo, Chief killing a bunch of Banished leadership, including some who had been part of the group since the early days, has destabilised their ranks, which will help the UNSC forces on Zeta with regrouping and continuing their fight. I imagine that with intel from Chief, Esparza and The Weapon, they'll also be preparing for the emergence of The Endless too

I just wonder who got the signal sent out at the end of Rubicon Protocol, I hope Swords of Sanghelios because I think it'd be cool to see Arbiter sending some of his people to help Chief stop the Banished on Zeta

[wispy pewter]

Sprit of Fire

[obsidian thistle]

Atm the Academy has a Banished AI going bonkers in the basement infecting Spartans. XD

I'd say stuff isnt doing fine there

[carmine sleet]

Fair point

Maybe they should try giving Iratus cookies

[wispy pewter]

Wasn't he contained and then ONI showed up

Oh right 343 probably ran out of money and stopped doing that

[empty bloom]

Can't do anything because it lacks a slipspace drive. It's also horribly outdated, horribly undergunned, horribly outtonned, horribly understrength, etc etc.

If they actually made the narrative screwup of getting the SoF involved it'd snap my poor SoD harder than a .50 cal bullet evaporating a grapefruit.

[carmine sleet]

The only way I will accept Chief encountering the Spirit of Fire is if he heads back to the Ark to find out what happened there since his last visit

[obsidian thistle]

Here is the thing

Does Chief need to go to the Ark?

Outside learning what Atriox knows, is there a reason for him to go there

[wispy pewter]

what if the Ark comes to him

what if the same entity that pulled the SoF to the ark sends it to the ring

[carmine sleet]

A fair question to raise and right now, there isn't really a reason for him to go there again

[carmine sleet]

I doubt the Ark is going to be moving

[runic wharf]

Were there any Spartans who were related? Like brother sister?

[muted raft]

As far as I know, no

But I haven't gotten into the spartan 4 program at all yet so lmk if I'm wrong

[unique rune]

they might have to delete his cookies to achieve anything

[versed helm]

For the time being, I wouldn’t think so. His story is concerned with the Endless, Offensive Bias, and Atriox, all free and running about on Zeta Halo. I won’t be surprised in the story gravitates towards him, characters and plot somehow making their way to Zeta Halo rather than vise versa.

[versed helm]

All he wants is “a worthy vessel for the Banished”. What if we preform so terribly as Infected we drive him mad and he self destructs?

[empty bloom]

IVs are typically only explored if they are relevant to the story of the day. Hard sell.

[muted raft]

Yeah, imo they went from something interesting to bog standard super soldier

[empty bloom]

I view it as the opposite. Lame boilerplate child supersoldier advancing to ethical multibackground supersoldier.

IVs have a significant starting advantage in specialization and possible personalities/problem approaches that confers to more varied and learned experiences which means more unique personalities and archtypes.

[muted raft]

With the 2s and 3s you get to experience them growing up tho, it makes it more personal

[empty bloom]

They're all raised the same way, the same people, the same place.

There isn't multiple Spartan II or III schoolhouses, there isn't multiple Spartan II or III childhood variants. Regardless of circumstance, past the age of roughly 7-8, all IIs and all IIIs lived more or less the same life.

[muted raft]

Didn't stop them from having personalities and specialties tho

[empty bloom]

Compare and contrast Tanaka, who spent much of her teenage years stranded on a post glassing planet scraping by, and has a fatalist and depressing outlook due to it; Versus Vale, who has a naive and optimistic view on alien cultures and human nature due to her relatively blessed childhood.

Two vastly different people shaped by vastly different upbringings who grew into two separate people as supersoldiers.

[empty bloom]

Not enough that it matters or is a significant portion of their personality.

IVs have higher character potential and also provide that goofy human window people always plead and beg for when it comes to HCW stories.

[muted raft]

The Spartan 2s and 3s were never supposed to be goofy characters, or be massively different

2s especially

[empty bloom]

Oh, they're goofy

Goofy as hell

Just not haha goofy

[muted raft]

They were made to be one unstoppable unit

That can operate on their own if need be

[empty bloom]

Okay, so why are you preaching to the cardinal exactly?

[muted raft]

I guess, Jorge is funny cause he's big, Naomi is funny because she's spent so much time with odsts, but really that's about as wild as it gets

[muted raft]

I just think that personality isn't what makes a good character in the halo story.

[empty bloom]

Not the kind of goofy I mean.

[empty bloom]

Well, yeah, that's kinda why Halo's stories almost always suffer greatly. Because people think some dumb crap about a 'story being about Reach' is good storytelling.

Instead of, y'know. Making compelling characters who have interesting personalities.

For a character driven story

In a character driven franchise

It's peak media illiteracy.

[muted raft]

You don't need compelling characters for an action story really, Tom clancy barely even goes into the characters and his books are amazing

[empty bloom]

He actually goes extremely in depth with characters and plots. He was also extremely capable of following, understanding, and predicting military outcomes, which contributes a lot to how effective his narratives are. Halo does not have that crutch.

[muted raft]

The most you learn about jack reacher is he has a wife and lives at a house wdym

[empty bloom]

I'd hesitate to say his characters are really well written to an exceptional degree for a writer of his caliber, but they're better than Halo's.

[muted raft]

And that's a named character

[empty bloom]

He wrote a lot more than Jack Reacher.

[muted raft]

The rainbow six books were the same way, but only about one man on a team with dozens

Clear and present danger goes into more detail. But not as much as any halo movie or book, and it's hundreds more pages

[empty bloom]

Still doesn't excuse Halo's poor character writing for IIs or IIIs or even IVs tbh.

[muted raft]

Not to take away from Tom clancy. I love his books, but it's an example as to why you don't need a well developed character to make a good story

[empty bloom]

IVs tend to have their relatively unique position squandered. It's very annoying.

[muted raft]

But isn't that what the military kinda does

Removes individuality

[empty bloom]

Not really. Not as much as people who aren't in tend to think.

Maybe in Russia, where the culture is to humiliate you and bully you.

But effective training these days is more about acclimating you to the stressful environment and getting you on the same informational and developmental level. A flower grows best when it's not forced to grow in a square.

It's why Halo's fixation on attempting to form functional agoges is both baffling and annoying to me, because the agoge was, for all intents and purposes, a glorified child abuse cycle.

Obviously, there's uniformity; But it is uniformity as an aesthetic and understanding level, not uniformity as a mindset. You get people on the same informational page. You don't disparage them for having an idea on how to do a process better.

[stoic hamlet]

I’d say only on a surface level.

But people are still individuals, they still have unique experiences, traits, ticks, etc.

A soldier might look identical to another on the surface but they’ll have slight variation on their uniform for one reason or another, little things that show who they are either for rank, specialty, some personal quirk, etc.

[empty bloom]

I used to always and still do shirk uniformity regulations. Grow my hair longer than I should, don't really press my work uniforms into a pressed and clean look.

Never really got it drilled out of me. I care more about getting work done than doing it looking in regs.

[empty bloom]

Also on this-IVs have this, hypothetically, in spades. A Combat Engineer who grew up on a scavenging hellworld is going to have a vastly different approach to taking a building than an ODST Sniper who grew up on some untouched garden world.

[stoic hamlet]

If you can do what you need to do and you’re not grossly out of sorts, no one will really mind.

Though it depends on the context, station/posting, etc.

[stoic hamlet]

Yeah.

They might have the same rough drill to break and clear, but it would be a guideline, more than anything else.

[empty bloom]

And like, yeah, a II sniper and a II combat engineer might vary too, but there's some things they'll also do all the same because of the same base training and style.

[stoic hamlet]

Yep.

It’s one of the advantages the IV’s have over the other generations.

They’re all more like wildcards.

As much as one can be, anyways.

[empty bloom]

Or at least they would, if they were wrote about in a way that matched that info

[stoic hamlet]

Mhm.

Overall I wish we got to see that a bit more, that inter generational differences.

We kind of (but not really) got a bit of that in Last Light, and there were a few good ODST comparisons between the II’s and them in Shadows of Reach (the Dropship at the end of the book, for example) but overall it’s not really gone into detail well enough.

[empty bloom]

Welp, it seems my cruise is leaving harbor now. Hmn.

[stoic hamlet]

Personally though I always preferred subtle glimpses of individuality, at least among the II’s and III’s, over the more overt stuff.

[empty bloom]

It's never as much of a sticking point as I'd like.

[wispy pewter]

well one thing I dislike about IV's they are basically ODST's in Mjolnir

there are too many of them

[wispy pewter]

I mean they are named after the ancient warriors for a reason...

[empty bloom]

The thing I dislike about the fanbase is that they puppet this incorrect statement.

[stoic hamlet]

Well, they’re named after them due to a misconception and a lie.

But yeah.

[wispy pewter]

Well I for one like the idea... The IIs are definitely wrong but the IIIs at least gave them a choice. Orphan in a refugee camp or train as a Spartan... I think the latter is more attractive.

[empty bloom]

That's not a choice.

It is literally best defined as coercion for a reason.

[wispy pewter]

These kids do not have parents. They are not privileged middle class kids with a future, their world was glassed and parents either missing or dead. They are given a choice between revenge or become a refugee. The choice to become a hero of humanity.

It's not coercion. There's basically only one good choice

And I'm pretty sure Spartan IIIs or all for that matter can retire anytime they want

Like Jun

This is why I think if there's a Spartan V programme it should be an extension of the SIIIs

[unique rune]

Having only one "good" choice doesn't make it a real choice either lmao

Giving traumatized kids the option between hoping to survive in an orphanage or refugee camp vs becoming child soldiers isn't a meaningful choice

[frigid wraith]

Random thought
Did Spartan-IIIs wear Mk IV? Or could they have possibly had access to it? I know of some IIIs having MK V but was curious about the prior version

[pallid knoll]

according to Reach MK V was made in 2551 so unless Spartan-IIIs only started being deployed a couple months prior to Reach’s campaign then some of them might’ve had MK IV armor

[stoic hamlet]

@pallid knoll, tagging for visibility also:

Spartan III’s were overall deployed in Semi-Powered Infiltration armour, but select groups were reassigned by Deep Winter (posing as Kurt) to Headhunter units, where they were issued with either Mjolnir Mark IV or SPI (likely either or, depending on the mission needs).

Notably, the Mark IV Zacharias helmet is said to be field tested by Headhunter teams, and as Headhunters were only ever a Spartan III Inititive in the wartime period, they’re really the only ones who could have used it.

[pallid knoll]

forgot about SPI

[frigid wraith]

Yeah, am aware about SPI being the primary armor deployment for S-IIIs, those select groups indeed are what get me curious. So much we don't know about Headhunters, Cat II, Gamma, so on
Oooooo I didn't remember that about Zacharias, nice catch!

[stoic hamlet]

We know a lot, actually, it’s just hidden in so many different things it’s hard to piece it all together.

That’s kind of the unfortunate aspect of the III’s and IV’s, rather than the II’s, which have so much lore spread throughout so many materials.

Honestly I feel like a codex of sorts for all the Spartan generations, various covenant remnant factions, etc, would be ideal.

The encyclopedia was great, but it could only say so much.

[frigid wraith]

That's a fair point. I suppose I just feel that there's a lot surrounding IIIs and IVs that could use more of a spotlight, more attention. In all fairness, though, I'm behind on much that likely has been done with them in corners of the universe
I'd for sure be interested in more gathered, accessible info on things like that lol, feels like I rely on those who've been around the expanse and can recount it all because they just do know it all

[velvet mason]

I would love to see something like this

The Spartan-IIIs are my favorite, especially the Gammas, and I think the concept of the IV's is actually really additive to the lore of the universe as a whole, sort of a middle ground between Spartan and ordinary without taking too much of their power and what makes them a Spartan. Being able to access all their information in one place would be a great way for people to stop parroting this Spartan-II glazing idealism. Future generations, advancement, it happens for a reason...

[wispy pewter]

Well they still can choose tbh. Like they can choose to have their luck in an orphanage or something, or choose to fight now. It's not like realistically there is a lot of options. The covenant blew up most of the major colonies. And it's not like teens fighting in a war is some sort of foreign concept in popular media

looking at you Katniss everdeen

[unique rune]

…Are you justifying child soldiers with child death games…?

[thorn ember]

In game wise too could be an issue too since they could only add so much. But for those who don't read the books it could serve well if implemented correctly like the Mass Effect trilogy did with an awesome voice actor for the major entries. Infinite with the bounties was a good concept since it added lore to the high value targets but could've been better.

[unique rune]

This would be bad and nonsensical on so many levels I don’t even know where to start

[stoic hamlet]

I don’t understand the fascination with an S-V program. There’s genuinely no point to it with the IV’s existing.

[thorn ember]

I've heard that in some unused dialog for 4 implied that some of the Marines/Spartans you fought alongside in the game were associated with the Chief in previous campaigns. Shame it was barely heard/implemented.

[unique rune]

I think that dialogue is actually in the final game, but since it’s just random NPC idle dialogue it’s incredibly easy to miss.

[stoic hamlet]

They were all references to the EU, not specifically chief.

From memory:

• A Harvest colonial militiaman (that guy’s probably seen some stuff)

• An ODST who fought on/in The Rubble

• A marine who served as a Spotter for Linda-058

• and I wanna say a marine who served on the Ark? But I could be wrong.

[stoic hamlet]

The best time to hear them is the opening of the level you fly the pelican.

[wispy pewter]

one of the Spartan IVs in blue and yellow mentions something about fighting along side chief

[stoic hamlet]

But yeah, there is no reason for an S-V program, the programs are all iterative, building upon the last.

The II’s made the I’s obsolete (though they were a dying breed anyways)

The III’s made the II’s obsolete, they were more numerous, cheaper (comparatively) and had a wider (though still strict) genetic pool.

The IV’s made the III’s obsolete. They were even cheaper and could augment adults to a level that, while not as good individually as their predecessors, meant they fixed pretty much the main issues with both preceding programs. High cost and children augmentees.

The only real, logical iteration is minute things to do with the IV’s augments.

And obviously better armour, but that benefits all generations.

[wispy pewter]

Idk how it works, but the IVs also let 50 year olds get augmentations

[thorn ember]

YeH I don't think a V program would be needed at this point in time. Probably in a few decades or so.

[stoic hamlet]

Well, chronologically they’d be 50, but biologically they’d be much younger.

[wispy pewter]

Wait actually Buck is 42

No Buck is 51

He's a boomer

[unique rune]

Johnson was almost 80 when he died, age really doesn’t seem to be that big a deal for the UNSC.

[thorn ember]

Cryo sleep does wonders for life span extensions.

[stoic hamlet]

Remember Johnson was almost 80 when he died, and UNSC travel times didn’t exactly get faster overall during the war. He notes in Contact Harvest that he’d spent over half his military life in cryo, by that point, and Dirt mentions that Marines remain frozen even during the intrastellar journeys. The same is probably true of Spartans as well.

So, anyone who’s career military probably looks at least a decade younger, if not more.

The younger you start, the more noticeable it would be.

[wispy pewter]

I guess whoever wants to be a Spartan has to wait until enlisting age then get an exceptional service record

[wispy pewter]

Can't believe Parongosky is 96 or something and still perfectly healthy. UNSC has the best medical technology I guess

I wonder if the Spartan augmentations delay physical aging significantly

Like will chief be able to run like he's 14 at 90

[unique rune]

I mean. They’ve solved cancer. Human life expectancy in Halo’s 26th century is supposedly about 10-20 years longer than it is for us now. So like. Yeah. Halo’s human medical science is quite a bit more advanced than what we’re working with.

[carmine sleet]

That's because making kids fight is unethical, just because little Timmy says he wants to be a Spartan and fight aliens, doesn't mean he should be taken as a kid to fight aliens. Please stop trying to justify child soldiers

[obsidian thistle]

Cryo probably helps

Did wonders for Cutter

https://www.halopedia.org/images/d/d1/HW-Cutter.png?20160611150129

https://www.halopedia.org/File:HW2_-_Cutter_promo.png

[scarlet quiver]

Cutter is still lookin sharp.

[obsidian thistle]

(The joke is he looks way younger in Halo Wars 2)

[wispy pewter]

he looks so handsome in HW2 (no homo)

[unborn patrol]

Your pun isnt getting by me

[scarlet quiver]

https://tenor.com/view/pedro-pascal-gif-1833707996207285481

[scarlet quiver]

🤦🏽‍♂️
I cant believe i haven't noticed that until you pointed it out..

[spark pivot]

Where did you get that from? Its noted in the spartan field manual that to be picked up as a IV, you have to have some sort of exceptional record

No one said anything about a re-run of the 2's or 3's

[carmine sleet]

Did you seriously not see the bit where they talk about wanting a Spartan V program that's just redoing the using orphans part of the Spartan III program?

[spark pivot]

Tbh no i did not

[azure mason]

ODSTS can pilot pelicans and other UNSC aircraft, right?

If a regular civilian in Infinite can, then I would assume the marines/ODSTS can too.

[carmine sleet]

So long as they have training, they should be able to

[azure mason]

Gotcha, thanks 🙏

[stoic hamlet]

The controls are described as pretty standardized amount a lot of UNSC craft.

[last anchor]

This would hit better if Hunger Games wasn't like. Bad.

The idea falls apart as soon as you attempt to put logic too it.

Not even the games bit but the war.

So

[stoic hamlet]

It’s one of the early 2000’s YA novels.

They were more for the themes and vibes than anything else.

[stoic hamlet]

I’m not sure it works anyways? The two examples have no real comparison to draw from.

A better one would he Enders Game which Halo’s Spartan programs drew heavy inspiration from.

[last anchor]

Like I said, would hit SLIGHTLY better if it was good
But it isnt, so DOUBLE FAIL

[wispy pewter]

This reminds me of a scene in 300 when Leonidas asks the Arcadians what are their professions. I still think Spartans in the Halo universe should be training their entire lives to becoming a Spartan. It's not something given to ODST's with 5 kills, maybe something more exceptional

Maybe they can still hand pick talents at a young age that is not underage. Using Halsey's criteria

Batman started his training in his early 20s

[thorn spindle]

what if spartans become the new odst and there needs to be a new class of soldier above spartan. what would they be called?

[wispy pewter]

Olympians!