lore-and-universe

[sleek vigil]

Marty's approach was systemic and player-focused. The music was designed to serve the sandbox gameplay, to ebb and flow with the player's own journey, creating a personal and reactive soundtrack for everyone. The priority was mood, atmosphere, and gameplay reinforcement.

Davidge and Jinnouchi's approach is more cinematic and narrative-focused. Their music is designed to score specific emotional beats and set-pieces, much like a film score. The priority was storytelling and emotional guidance.

[graceful river]

Hello I'm new and I just finished Contact harvest by Joseph Staten and I really enjoyed it goes pretty in depth with the lore

[sleek vigil]

New to the franchise entirely or to the EU? Either way, you are welcomed!

[graceful river]

I've played the games since I was really you but I'm pretty much a novice in terms of the EU I've read Fall of Reach and Contact Harvest

Young*

[sleek vigil]

Oh

How did you like Contact Harvest?

[graceful river]

Really liked it

[sleek vigil]

It holds a pretty special place for many fans.

[graceful river]

I can see how I'm on to ghosts of onyx next im not reading them in order im more just educating myself on Halo lore

[sleek vigil]

If that's your approach, that's perfectly fine. I often recommend people to read in release order, but as someone who come to know of this franchise no less than 2 years ago, I did not learn the lore by release order whatsoever. 😅

[graceful river]

Haha

[sleek vigil]

Bit hypocritical of me.

Halopedia is my friend.

[thorn osprey]

Halopedia is a good friend to us all 😭

[sleek vigil]

I've actually contributed to Halopedia, atleast I did for a while.

[orchid kettle]

I read GoO after CH too my first time because it came bundled together, along with Cole Protocol

I recommend checking out First Strike first if you can since it'll bridge the gap between TFOR and GoO

like GoO starts as a pretty standalone tale and very soon shifts into being the third and final act of Eric Nylund's trilogy

[graceful river]

I'll give it a read

[sleek vigil]

My personal favourite: The Forerunner Triology. Read it after or in the middle, chronology doesn't really matter.

[orchid kettle]

I think it makes the most sense to read it like before kilo-5 or any of the other post-war books if only because that's when characters start talking about it

[hot zodiac]

It's definitely harmful to read it before the novels released before it.

[crude walrus]

Are there stats for what is consider fastest single person space vessel

[stoic hamlet]

Fastest for what? Slipspace, sub-light travel?

[crude walrus]

Sublight travel

Preferably something from UNSC

[stoic hamlet]

Sublight travel Generwlly takes days to weeks, so it’s out going to be anything massive.

[fair hazel]

Probably the infinity if i had to guess

FTL, wouldnt the audacity take it if we extent the topic

[obsidian thistle]

Oh a fun thing hit Halopedias shores recently

https://www.halopedia.org/Earth_Day_2014_trading_cards

Thought I'd share cause its like really cool to finally see those

My fav is the Doisac one, cause it legitimately goes well with the Infinite depiction of the planet (pre-destruction)

12 continents - 12 viable spots that could be rejigged slightly very easily.

5, 8 and 10 seem to be the "main" landmasses I'd expect to be Rleod, Fotg, and L'Gesh.

[wispy pewter]

looks like someone scribbled on WorldBox

[obsidian thistle]

The numbers was me lol

I did it quickly to prove a point

[sleek vigil]

Reminds me of Halo Monopoly

[unborn patrol]

Yeah I think like Martys stuff is nice but it lacks the complexity and variation you see from later composers. I think the tunes really are iconic and amazing, but I’d argue the later composers did just better work. Halo 4s music is super overlooked

One of my friends said like ”halo 4s music isnt as good they didnt make anything as iconic” and its like thats an insane standard to set and your pedestal placement of Martys work is a part of that problem. Even Marty couldnt do anything more iconic to top that off in Reach.

Some of old Halos tracks are some of the most iconic game soundtracks ever made. Like they are up there to stay you can probably never match that

[sleek vigil]

That's the important part - right time and culture decided what is going to be iconic. They simply are iconic and near impossible to match. You simply can not artificially manufacture something 'iconic'.

That's why I think going for a new direction and taking risks are worth it, because even if it doesn't result in it becoming iconic, it remains as something different — one that has its own artistic value.

[minor sky]

Replaying parts of Halo 3 after playing Halo 4 I think shows how natural of a next step Cortana's rampancy in 4 was

[mystic crest]

guys how cooked do you think life would be if the flood managed to infect an endless

[wispy pewter]

The possibilities are endless

[drowsy mesa]

New Canon Fodder, people!
https://www.halowaypoint.com/news/canon-fodder-feet-first-into-fall

[fair hazel]

Wooo!

We got the names!

[carmine sleet]

Maria being on Beta-Red surprises me

Since I was under the assumption she had been out of active duty before Reach fell

[fair hazel]

also the journal

[carmine sleet]

Also interesting to note that the members of Silver are not listed as MIA

Oh worm, we got confirmation of Tarkov from the live action ODST trailer being alive still

Or well, I'm assuming it's the same Tarkov

[high elbow]

Heck yeah. Halsey Journal time

[trail coral]

anyone know where i can find a halo star map that shows

major planets and installations ?

[dusk jetty]

That’s a good question

Do we have an official Star map?

[sleek vigil]

I don't think that exists mate...

[dusk jetty]

https://www.halopedia.org/User:ScaleMaster117#Halo_Astronomy

Scale master showed this to 343 but they haven’t endorsed it in anyway

[trail coral]

bless homie

[last anchor]

Does anyone else hear random screaming in the background?
Oh, wait, I think its someone complaining about "another mystery being removed from the universe"

Cool, Imma just keep adding all this new lore to my own understanding and map of the Spartan deployments...

[last anchor]

They might have pulled her back to active duty for Reach.

Then she got off-world and made it to Earth to take part in the armor trial

[carmine sleet]

Not impossible, but it does make her a bit more awkward than she already was

[stoic hamlet]

Sorry, that might be me, I can get kinda loud.

:p

[orchid kettle]

Another day I'm thankful I don't have Spartan OCs

[frigid heart]

[last anchor]

Just make a Spartan-III, theres a lot more flexibility there

[orchid kettle]

or better yet

an ODST

Didn't they kinda clamp down on Alpha CAT-IIs

[last anchor]

"Anything is a weapon, Christian."
"Anything, Liutenant Ambrose?"
"Anything, in the hands of a Spartan."

(Christian drives a Warthog through a wall and goes through the windshield, shotgun in hand, looking like Heero Yui from Gundam Wing as he does)

[orchid kettle]

some thing about Kurt or whoever specifically only mentioning the four canon CAT-IIs

[carmine sleet]

(And then Asher stumbles out from behind the Warthog, wishing to never let anyone drive but himself ever again)

[last anchor]

Anything is a weapon in the hands of a Spartan after all.
The Warthog. The Wall. The 1000 pounds of Spartan going through the windshield into the Jiralhanne on the other side

[modest marsh]

A chair

I’ve had an action scene in my head for awhile where a Spartan ejects an empty magazine from their pistol and kicks it midair into a grunt’s face

[last anchor]

That would do it.

Especially if its one of the longer M6D ones

Chief throws his pistol into a Grunts face in the TV show and knocks it right the hell out

[harsh path]

There's a neat little scene in the call protocol where one of the members of the Spartan great team I believe it's the female member I can't remember her name on top of my head right now picks up a mongoose and uses it to like beat several grunts to death in the ending climax of the book funny enough she comments her body will regret that later meaning even Spartans will feel the damage they inflict but not till a while after the fact

[modest marsh]

Adriana-111

And yeah, she swings it around like a hammer

For context, the median weight of a full sized sledgehammer is about 10lbs

[harsh path]

Yeah her, I was fun imaging an armored super soldier swinging around an ATV as a weapon

[modest marsh]

Well the idea is that she was low on ammo and couldn’t really think of a better way to use the mongoose because of its relatively low speed and lack of protection meant that it isn’t realistically that useful to a Spartan when surrounded by the enemy in open terrain

So she just used it as a shield to block the opening salvo from the grunts so she could safely close the distance

[drowsy karma]

What information do we have on civilian clothing of different species, if any?

[orchid kettle]

Mainly it seems like if they wear anything besides armor, its just like, tunics and robes

Something noncommittal like that

[thorn spindle]

how about a new scary being in Halo that is a mass of giant eyes hands and wings. rare though

[unborn patrol]

it definitely did. I think if the end cut scene in h3 wouldve slightly touched on that it wouldve set it up better

[modest marsh]

Grunts, drones, and brutes seem to be fine with wearing nothing at all

The former two have literal exoskeletons, so the only purpose of clothing would be for social reasons

And brutes tend to have thick coats of fur naturally, so it’s going to depend on the clan what their policy on clothing is since you could make the argument that fur would make most clothing redundant

[orchid kettle]

Dabab wore a tunic because of his station but obviously that was probably a Covenant cultural thing and not an Unggoy thing

[modest marsh]

Yeah, it’s a denotation of status rather than something worn for comfort or style

If anyone in yanme’e society wore clothes it would probably be the queen

[coarse hamlet]

The yanme'e are described as being hive minded but is that in the classic pheromones influencing behavior kinda way or in the scifi telepathy kinda way?

[stoic hamlet]

Stupid sexy Flanders Unggoy/Jiralhanae.

[modest marsh]

The former, as far as we know

Hunters would seemingly fit the latter but it’s established that their communication is through a combination of bioelectrical, chemical, and vibration signals

[coarse hamlet]

Lego nervous system is how i always envisioned hunters

[frigid heart]

Sorry for the ping, wrong channel

[modest marsh]

Apologies for the lack of formatting, but this excerpt from the novel Smoke and Shadow would seemingly suggest that Hunters possess a limited form of cross species telepathic communication, presumably through the physical mechanisms previously described

A strange vibratory groan radiated from the creature, a peculiar, deep sound. A low, keening wail that seemed more in her mind than outside in the corridor. Though that wasn’t possible, was it? As the sound threaded around her, a deep sense of loneliness and grief filled her up and left her utterly stricken. “End.” She wasn’t sure if she heard that word outright or if it somehow had sprouted directly into her mind. Tears stung her eyes and she felt like she was drowning in the creature’s grief. What the hell? The Hunter made an aggressive step forward and suddenly slammed its fists together. It stomped a massive foot, egging her on. “End.” But she couldn’t make herself shoot. Something was off. It didn’t feel right. A thwack, thwack, thwack! of shots rang out. Rion jerked, the sudden, unexpected barrage piercing her eardrums. Orange sprayed in an arc from the Hunter’s opposite side. She felt that moan again in her mind, that hurt and loss and desolation. The pain. And above all, the relief. The staggering relief. The Hunter turned toward Cade, stomping again as though about to charge him. Thwack, thwack, thwack! She flinched each time, ears ringing, eyes stinging, her throat growing thick with emotions that felt very real, yet irrational at the same time. The Hunter doubled over as orange matter and liquid dropped to the floor, and fine bits splattered the wall beside her, a few landing on her chin and cheek. The Hunter fell. And as it did, she continued to experience its pain and its relief.

[coarse hamlet]

Was reading up on them to refresh my mind and i think the buggers are kinda wasted as light shock troops.
They can fly really well, can carry at the least a plasmarifle while in flight, and have a mechanical aptitude. They would be perfect for manning crew weapons. A section flies in each with a part of a disassembled heavy weapon and on the spot put it together in a advantageous position. Snipers, mgs, mortars, at, aa, comms equipment for spotting the possibilities are endless

[modest marsh]

They’re primarily utilized as technicians and combat engineers actually

Maintenance aboard ships is one responsibility they’re typically assigned to

[frigid heart]

The thing is, they need antigravity emitters attached on their bodies to fly, because they evolved to a lower gravity planet and need assistance flying on normal planets.

[modest marsh]

They actually evolved in higher than earth gravity

Ah wait it was something else

Actually, no, I misremembered Eayn as their homeworld, but it’s palamok

Per the bestiarum, palamok has a gravitational constant of 2g

Similar to doisac

[modest marsh]

In any case, regardless of the gravitational constant, wings would still be useful even if they cannot achieve full flight in their natural environment because it would reduce the impact of falls

[drowsy karma]

I'm trying to imagine clothing for a male Kig-Yar civilian of modest social standing.

Some kind of sleeveless top, very loose pants (almost like parachute pants), and cheap jewelry made of old coins and spent casings?

[modest marsh]

And a backwards cap, sunglasses, and air Jordans

[drowsy karma]

Less late 80s rapper, more ren faire🤣

[stone arrow]

Lore question: Is there any evidence of Covenant species having religion/mythology unrelated to the Forerunners?

[modest marsh]

yes

the elites have a pantheon of gods that correspond to cosmic bodies similar to human myth

https://www.halopedia.org/Sangheili_mythology

[lyric root]

The Field Marshal that fought Noble Team has a name now
https://www.halopedia.org/Orsu_Lar_'Ahtalee

[empty bloom]

Marking this down because I actually had a pretty in-depth thought process on different clothing preferences by Covenant species and the cultural/societal/material reasons for whatever clothing choices they would make, and what would make sense.

But I have to ride my bike to class soon and can't answer for another two hours or so.

[versed helm]

Wait

Who killed 6?

[lyric root]

No 6 killed him

[versed helm]

I mean, yeah, but

Who was the one that killed Noble 6?

Was he left unnamed?

[lyric root]

i dont know to be honest

[carmine sleet]

The Elites who killed Six are currently unknown

[versed helm]

Oh, I see

Thank you

[empty bloom]

Okay, I'm tagging you again now that I'm getting back to this.

So with grunts, I figure their relative austerity makes a lot of sense considering their homeworld. The type of world that Balaho is described as intensely inhospitable, with many predators, brackish oceans, and most importantly, a notable lack of garment-related types of plant life. As most animals described utterly lack anything that could be utilized as leather, and most plants not being suitable for clothing-especially since everything is going to be roughly as, if not less, durable as a grunt's shell-the grunts would not have much use for learning the crafting of clothing beyond basic tribal armors-and likely have very little materials to even do so.

Life is short and brutal on Balaho, and a need to wear clothing is largely not even a feasible option that a grunt would really have-with no mammals and no effective ways of getting thick, soft clothing for the cold, grunts are largely left to their own devices. Similarly, a lack of feasible methods of getting twine-like materials similarly reduces their ability to develop clothing for cultural showmanship, with little ways to wear trinkets or baubles or trophies, or knit larger garments. Any amount of decoration would likely be limited to, of all things, body paint.

If the Covenant never showed up, I don't think the grunts would've survived another few centuries, a long-term casualty of their own overindustrialization pre-Halo effect.

As for Drones;

Drones have too many mouths to feed and too many bodies for clothing to be a practical aspect for their survival aside from the queen, and they naturally have shells that denote their hierarchy.

As for Brutes;

Pre-Halo, Brutes didn't seem particularly advanced.

Pre-apocalypse 1, Brute clothing and materials have zero actual elaboration. We know what weapons tech they had (Electrolasers), we know they were spacefaring enough to colonize moons, and we know they blew themselves up.

I wager that Brute attitudes towards clothing are sharply determined by social skein, with ones belonging to Rh'Tol likely being more adamantly opposed to non-utility equipment that kept them light, was breathable, and required very little care. Clothing among the Rh'Tol, due to the austere requirements of their homeworld and their relatively uncaring/undisciplined nature, is likely derided outside of strict necessity; Meaning that on Doisac, Rh'Tol were likely more typically raiders, preferring to pillage and burn instead of build and maintain. What little clothes they wear denotes the emphasis they place on clothes; Basic needs (Helmets, belts for equipment) and trophies/Rank signatures (Captain Banners, skulls, crownlike helmets).

Conversely, the Vheiloth have displayed a consistent desire for clothing, with all marks, ranks, and adherents to Vheiloth or similar Master-Pack philosophies extensively shown being clad head-to-toe in mass-produced clothing, primarily leather and hide with metal coverings. Vheiloths, by implication, are willing to stay static long enough and conserve enough material to produce war material, and by extension, they have a much broader field of armor and weapons development. Whereas one could confer that the Rh'Tols were nomads and raiders, Vheiloth are clearly more static settlement builders-the basic philosophy of their equipment indicates a culture of melting down and recycling equipment into workable purpose, with the extensive usage of leather indicating significantly more downtime and care to be had in how they approach everything. This also means that I figure the grand majority of Vheiloth clothing is not meant as a status icon; Most Vheiloth likely utilize a limited jerkin and pants, with the grade of care in the equipment and extensive usage of said leather determining social status, with care of armor determining such in a martial setting.

In other words; Rh'Tol's clothing choice or lack theorof indicates that they were nomadic raiders with a short-term survival mindset, and Vheiloth clothing choices indicates they were static scavengers with a long-term survival mindset. I wager they were, less than determined pre-Immolation, actually determined more by need and access post-Immolation. If they were around pre-Immolation, I'd posit that the Rh'Tol were the aggressors in whatever war caused the collapse, at least until national identities would've ceased to matter in the fallout.

As for why I bring up the Immolation; The Immolation pointedly devastated the Doisac landscape, reducing much of it to ash, harsh winters, and radioactive glass. Workable plant life for material is going to be scarce, meaning leather will be your primary clothing-making material. Of the two skeins, only the Vheiloth have displayed an actual long-term planning thought process, and thus would likely be capable of the concept of shepherding for meat and leather, meaning they would have a higher capability to mass-produce clothing for their skein and packs accordingly. Due to their truncated introduction to the Covenant, I figure the Vheiloth eagerly adopted Covenant synthetics for leather and such, while the Rh'Tol, with their staunch position and regressive, short-term instincts, likely did not see a point in changing and in fact chose not to as a point of personal pride.

The Rh'Tol would have significantly less capability to get clothing due to their presumably nomadic raiding-focused lifestyle, meaning leather they had needed to serve specific needs.

@drowsy karma Since you were the one who asked first, you might also find the above interesting.

[latent olive]

Is there a in-lore reason why Cortana is purplish in halo reach/CE compared to the rest of the halo games?

[modest marsh]

No AI has a fixed coloration or appearance, they can change it at will

[sour raven]

Yeah

[modest marsh]

Cortana could be a rock if she wanted to be

[latent olive]

So, if I made a fan animation of CE, and she’s purple, all is well?

[modest marsh]

Yeah

[latent olive]

Like how she was originally

[stoic hamlet]

They can even have multiple colours.

[modest marsh]

I mean she literally turns green midway through the game

[stoic hamlet]

Sif for example had a red poncho and gold dress/hair.

[latent olive]

Yeah, when she’s connected to the ring.

[latent olive]

Who’s Sif?

[stoic hamlet]

AI from Contact Harvest

[modest marsh]

Anyways, both reach and infinite reference her more purplish color, so that may as well be what she looked like “canonically”, with her becoming bluer over time for whatever reason

[latent olive]

Oh okay, on list of books to read.

[latent olive]

I see, thank you for the knowledge and opinions.

[modest marsh]

BB materialized next to them, not the usual featureless blue box but sporting a bright red bow tied as if he was a gift. Vaz frowned at him.

“I didn’t know you could do other colors, BB,” he said. “What’s the bow for? Got a date?”

“Oh, I can do the full spectrum.” BB cycled the bow through the rainbow before settling back on red again.

[latent olive]

Straight from a book?

[modest marsh]

Glasslands, yeah

[latent olive]

Neat.

[stoic hamlet]

Can grab the Sif excerpt, if you want.

[modest marsh]

Black Box is an AI that deliberately chooses to be a featureless black cube instead of something more sophisticated

As far as why AI don’t just look like people and tend to choose “colors”, I think part of that is so they don’t accidentally anthropomorphize themselves too much for the sake of their human colleagues

[latent olive]

Only makes sense.

[empty bloom]

:c

I went to all that effort too

[wispy pewter]

actually he's blue btw

[empty bloom]

daba dee daba die

[sleek vigil]

I would love see M99A2S3 Stanchion make an appearance in a game.

Beifre you say it, Infinite only has a skin, that's no functioning coilguin.

[stoic hamlet]

HW2.

[sleek vigil]

Ah, I should've been specific. HW2 isn't an FPS, you cannot wield it in 1st person.

[stoic hamlet]

Fair.

Mind you I have no idea how it wouldn’t just be akin to the Arclight from H5. Like, there’s no other way to really balance it.

[worn wolf]

stanchion would've been a nice way to add the spartan laser or something to that effect to the sandbox regardless

no need to make it a skin

[wispy pewter]

its huge

[spark pivot]

a stanchion to a spartan is still basically what a barret .50 cal is to a normal person, a HUGE sniper compared to them, so it would be unwieldy and borderline useless outside of a large scale type game like arma, HOWEVER, I would still love to see it in a standard halo FPS

[wispy pewter]

an M82 that fires apfsds at a higher velocity than the Abrams

[minor sky]

As cool as the Stanchion is, I think it just becomes too difficult to balance/make meaningfully stand out in the sandbox

Between the Spartan Laser, Railgun, Binary Rifle, Skewer, ect. I think it's invisioned niche is already somewhat covered

If it were to make an apperance, it'd probably be in a solely PvE game or be in a game with a heavy focus on a loadout/variant system alla 5

[modest marsh]

it would be fine for a scripted set piece but not much else

[stoic hamlet]

Darn auto correct.

The Stanchion IMO would only work if the game was one that took into account stuff like bullet drop, laser longevity, armour penetration values, shot deflection, cover, etc.

[boreal bane]

Pardoned

[versed helm]

real life

I genuinely don't think any game, especially HALO, would ever do something like that though

The only game that comes to mind that gets anywhere close is Armed Assault

But Armed Assault was inherently a game that was incredibly deep into this stuff since the beginning

[frigid heart]

The basic S7 is basically a barret, it fires 14.7mm compared to the 12.7mm 50 cal

[spark pivot]

I know, I'm just making a comparison if how it would look, a barret is huge even next to a 6'+ person, the stanchion would be even bigger. Also I coulda sworn the S7 used 12.7 rounds

[frigid heart]

https://www.halopedia.org/14.5×114mm

[versed helm]

nay, it's 14.5x114mm

Only the chainguns use 12.7x99mm

(I think?)

[coarse hamlet]

Im sure this brings a smile to Sergei Simonov but scifi authors pleeeeaaaaase you can just make up sizes for ammunition you dont need to copy ammo dimensions from 6 centuries ago i beg you

[modest marsh]

Helldivers 2 does

[versed helm]

really?

[versed helm]

HAHAHA

[modest marsh]

https://helldivers.wiki.gg/wiki/Damage

Halo technically has the capacity to incorporate some of this already in engine, it’s just not utilized meaningfully

[versed helm]

Is it like, as accurate as Arma or smth?

[modest marsh]

No

[versed helm]

Oh, eh, good enough!

Helldivers 2 incorporating such a system is wild

[stoic hamlet]

It was a thing in the first game as well.

To a lesser extent, but it was there.

In the recent Halo collab they had to modify some of the weapons to make them more realistic/help with the gameplay systems.

The M90, for example.

[modest marsh]

There’s a hidden materials system in all Halo games that applies conditional damage modifiers as well as ballistic calculations for gravity and drag which can be applied to any weapon

[versed helm]

Oh? That's very interesting

[modest marsh]

The main innovation with HD2 is that there are very specific material volumes on every single object which makes precise aiming that much more important

Halo doesn’t really have an equivalent to that besides headshot modifiers and the occasional vehicle weakspot

Like, brutes will sometimes wear armor that will shed from repeated shots, but that’s about it

[orchid kettle]

was that "realism" or just because the shotgun's ejection port didn't line up at all with where it should be

[carmine sleet]

I think it was both

[drowsy karma]

Interesting read 🤔

[crimson oak]

The Flood do have nervous systems right?

[modest marsh]

They are all nerves

Every flood cell functions as both muscle and nerve tissue

The decay that most flood forms we see is a function of them constantly mutating the tissues to fit a specific need in the moment, essentially treating biomass as a clay that can it mold into shape

In some ways it’s analogous to the scifi conception of nanomachine swarms

[vagrant ocean]

Eh, they’re basically eldritch horrors made from stem cells.

[soft vault]

I forget. I know there’s an alternate log in the Halo 3 terminals than normal if you’re playing on Legendary, but does it replace the old log, or is it in addition?

[stoic hamlet]

There’s extra logs for each terminal. It’s an additional log, IIRC.

[soft vault]

Yeah, but I mean does it play after the original log, or does it appear in its stead when you’re on legendary?

[stoic hamlet]

I’d have to double check Halopedia.

[soft vault]

It’s cool.
I was kinda just finding reasons not to load up Halo 3 myself and check. Lmao.
No worries

[stoic hamlet]

Halopedia has the clarifications.

I’d check on there.

[soft vault]

Kay. No worries

[flint sage]

I’m creating a found footage short that takes place on the pillar of autumn is there anything I should know about how the covenant boarded the ship or something like that

[stoic hamlet]

Read The Flood as it goes into this in good detail.

[flint sage]

okay

[dark zodiac]

so how does an energy sword canonically stick inside someone instead of falling down to the ground slicing them in half?

[modest marsh]

To add onto this, the first level of Fireteam Raven may be useful

[flint sage]

thanks

I have watched and played the pillar of autumn too

[modest marsh]

There’s no clear answer so we have to speculate

As far as we know the “blade” is both extremely hot and razor sharp which means it should not provide meaningful resistance

[orchid kettle]

i feel like its for the same reason Jedi will swinging their lightsabers like baseball bats

when you'd figure an omni-directional cutting edge that burns through things doesn't exactly need any extra force behind it

[dark zodiac]

And yet it it can remain impaired in an enemy unattended

How intresting

[orchid kettle]

people being lifted up when they're stabbed by an energy sword is probably just because it looks cool and the alternative would perhaps be a bit too gruesome lol

[modest marsh]

On some level I think it’s supposed to be evocative of Predator?

Or maybe Alien

Both of them seem keen on holding up their “quarry”

[orchid kettle]

yeah, and often the one doing the lifting is also invisible

like the guy in FuD and the Silent Shadow in Headhunters

happens a lot in Reach and 4 assassinations too, I think just because its about maximizing the impact

[modest marsh]

At least in the case of Emile, it’s possible the armor itself provides enough resistance to keep him from sliding on the blade or being cut in half without it bisecting him

That doesn’t work for the halo 4 intro cutscene

Where Zuckerberg sits on the blade

[orchid kettle]

and if Emile fell he couldnt stab the Elite back

he would just drop like a sack of bricks lol

there is a possibility that the sword is more like a jackal shield then we may realize

in the reclaimer saga they were big on giving the sword a more defined edge and the energy didnt look quite as violent

as if you could just put your hand on the blunt part and be fine

[dark zodiac]

Isn't it pure plasma tho? So it would disintegrate your hand?

[modest marsh]

In that respect I’ve mused the idea that there’s an invisible “guard” around the hilt

[orchid kettle]

Well itd probably still burn but people have wondered if Jackal shields would burn you too

[modest marsh]

It doesn’t burn whatever you hit it with

[minor sky]

"Looks cooler"

[versed salmon]

If it turns out they reveal on the 24th that the next game is a CE remake, how would that affect the lore? What’s considered canon then?

[stoic hamlet]

Anything in the remake.

Likely it would take from events in the other sources, not retconning so much as adding in/combining them all.

[versed salmon]

:/

[stoic hamlet]

I mean I don’t want a CE remake regardless.

Mainly because it would spite all the clickbaity YT slop I can’t stay ignorant of due to other people, but also because it’s just needless.

[minor sky]

I think in regards to the studio, its not a bad idea

Going back to square one and getting it right

Ryan Payton said something similar about the development of Halo 4

Wishing that they started with a from the ground up remake of Halo CE to learn how to work as a team, understand the series core essence, and win fans over

If a CE Remake is what comes next, I think they are doing it with the same sort of intentions

[versed salmon]

Me personally I’m looking with absolute dread to a CE remake

I want the story to move forward because I’m so starved for halo content

[empty bloom]

I'd be pissed.

I don't need 'rediscovering fundamentals'. Even if I disagree with direction, 'rediscovering fundamentals' is just... No.

[carmine sleet]

You also don't need to remake the first game to "rediscover fundamentals" or learn how to work as a team

[modest marsh]

Halo has always had redundant/conflicting interpretations dating back to The Flood which is a novelization of CE that contains key differences from the game itself

If Reach didn’t render TFOR noncanon, then you probably shouldnt expect major changes to anything

At most I would expect a RE/Dead Space remake situation where most of the changes still preserve the core narrative while bolting on stuff from later entries that didn’t exist when the first game was made so it’s more coherent

So for example, odd lines like Keyes “overhearing the guards” might change but broadly speaking we’d likely still learn from him that he discovered the Covenant believes the ring is some kind of holy weapon

Also, as far as what counts as canon in cases of conflicting depictions of the same event, I would weigh things based on how material referencing those events lean in terms of interpretation

For example, out of the three interpretations of TFOR (book, comic, animated series) the original novel in its current incarnation seems to hold significantly more weight than the latter two in terms of the specifics of certain things

In the comic for instance, James-005 dies from getting shot in the back with a plasma pistol, but we know from Empty Throne only his jetpack was damaged, and this was from needler fire, just as it was described in the first book

In the animated series, Fred and Linda are present on the Unrelenting, but the comic Collateral Damage and novel Silent Storm more closely reflects the novel’s version where it’s just John, Sam, and Kelly onboard

[thorn spindle]

isleep

[minor sky]

Unless it changes some major plotpoint, and I don't see any reason why they would, I don't think a remake's existance would invalidate the original's status as canon

[thorn spindle]

halo 1 needler is pretty cool. great range too

[unborn island]

does anyone have a rough idea about how many spartan IVs were there during halo 4

cause considering the gap between halo 3 and 4 there are a lot of them on infinity alone

[modest marsh]

That number is gonna fluctuate a lot depending on when you’re talking about

[unborn island]

right when h4 takes place

[orchid kettle]

Specifically before Halo 4's release 343 floated a 300-500 number

[modest marsh]

Pre requiem, I would guess several hundred on infinity alone

[orchid kettle]

but that's probably not true anymore if it ever was

[modest marsh]

But a lot of IVs died on requiem

[empty bloom]

I still guess roughly 2-3k (low end) to 5-7K (high end) by 2558.

[orchid kettle]

Spartan Ops was only a year or two before the current stories, and we have another ship in ET carrying hundreds of IVs

[unborn island]

5-7k is kinda crazy if you think about it

[orchid kettle]

I would have assumed the Infinity was carrying 300 because funni spartan number, and that would have accounted for the majority of IVs

[unborn island]

meanwhile there's only 12 Spartan IIs left

[orchid kettle]

with the rest spread across human space

[empty bloom]

Not really, IMO. There's like 5 facilities and there's roughly a 1 year turnaround time on Spartan training and augmentation.

[orchid kettle]

but yeah we could be in the thousands at this rate

[modest marsh]

IVs die much more frequently than the IIs and IIIs do (largely a consequence of their relative ubiquity and lower “status” metanarratively) so I think it can be simultaneously true that there’s been thousands of IVs and yet there’s only been a few hundred available at any given point depending on context

[empty bloom]

My numbers are mostly assuming roughly Spartan III level class sizes and depends on when facilities are spun up.

[unborn island]

3s die much more imo, they were literally made for suicide missions

[orchid kettle]

Cortana did also target training facilities

[empty bloom]

That's more of a myth brought on by rigid and flavored interpretation based on one guy's perspective.

It's like taking Buck's word about how good IVs are as gospel.

[modest marsh]

Spartans, IIIs included, have a much higher survival rate than any other class of soldier

[orchid kettle]

and the IVs of the Infinity obviously aren't having a great time on Zeta

[unborn island]

i mean

[orchid kettle]

it certainly feels like Infinite was implying there weren't a ton of Spartans left in general when Escharum taunts Chief about it lol

[unborn island]

apart from the main cast i don't think there's much of anyone alive on zeta halo

[modest marsh]

And that’s before you account for the severity of mission they’re deployed on a regular basis

[unborn island]

hey, isn't there a novel releasing soon about the story following infinite?

[empty bloom]

I honestly think the Banished have zero idea how many Spartans are left around and there's a mistaken belief that the Infinity is most of the UNSC's Spartan compliment, when it's more of a plurality.

Which, tbf, if I'm deploying 200-300 odd Spartans on one field at a time from one ship, I don't blame people for thinking that's all I actually have, especially amid a galactic communication breakdown.

[orchid kettle]

I dunno, even in the Academy storyline, doesn't it make more sense just like from a narrative standpoint that your character is the one of a precious few recruits

[modest marsh]

They’ve been vague about this because originally Infinity was gonna be crashed on the surface of zeta and act as a hub area, but they opted to use the frigate Reverie for that instead

[orchid kettle]

but then here comes Anvil

[modest marsh]

Which means it’s possible there is still a crashed infinity on zeta

We just haven’t heard about it yet

[orchid kettle]

It also ends up meaning like

[unborn island]

parts of it most likely, it got obliterated very bad in the opening scene

[orchid kettle]

the UNSC/ONI apparently didn't have another Spartan to spare for Outcasts

[empty bloom]

There's a reason I tend to be somewhat obnoxiously acute about how much I think 'narrative' matters versus actual in-universe reality, lmao. Much to Maggruber's chagrin.

Guh.

[unborn island]

what are outcasts, ive only reads 4 novels uptil ghosts of onyx

[empty bloom]

Brain no worky this morning.

[orchid kettle]

Even in ET it feels kinda silly they're sending ODSTs to die taking out AA guns when you could probably do the same with the IVs and suffer fewer casualties

[modest marsh]

The ODSTs needed something to do

[orchid kettle]

what were the chances too that the one of the few IVs they assigned to Gray Team was also a dovo nesto spy

[empty bloom]

I do think part of the issue is that the remaining Spartans take a lot to move around quickly right now, due to the aformentioned issues with logistics and communication. Could just as easily be that Spartans are hard to shift around from theater to theater due to logistics issues, and Vale being able to take point is a rare moment of a Spartan being able to move around as a "Spartan Errant" type deal with an actual support detail.

I feel like "Spartan Errant" would've been a way cooler title than "Lone Wolf".

[versed salmon]

In a few months

[empty bloom]

While a lot of armor descriptions don't reflect it, reasonably speaking, the UNSC's primary logistics system would be pretty bruised up right about now, so Spartans being deployed as more consolidated strike forces or small team embedded assets a'la Lone Wolves would most likely be the majority of forces.

Which I guess isn't too different from normal, but I wager the ops would be significantly longer term than a normal day at the office.

[orchid kettle]

Empty Throne in general imo doesn't really fit with the tone established in the other Infinite adjacent stories, like the chronicles

[versed salmon]

That’s the name of a book. Halo Outcasts. Takes place sometime after Halo 5, follows the Arbiter and Spartan Vale

[versed salmon]

It didn’t do anything for the plot I felt

[orchid kettle]

You have these conflicting ideas of Cortana either sitting at the edge of Sol doing nothing, apparently content to leave Earth alone after that big EMP blast

but then in the next chronicle, Old Mombasa is occupied by Armigers and protesters are composed on sight

[empty bloom]

Maybe HS needs a 'force posture compliance guide' of some kind, lmao.

[orchid kettle]

like say what you want about them ditching Halo 5's story for Infinite, but usually there was this idea that Cortana was ruling during that missing year

the game just chose to basically skip it

But Empty Throne felt like it was going out of its way to try and make the Created as much of a nonfactor as possible and contradict everything we thought we knew

[empty bloom]

Poor decision making and pandering to a reactionary consumer base that doesn't really want what makes sense, IMO.

[orchid kettle]

I mean Haruspis has said the Created material in the Infinite-adjacent material has been generally well received

so i don't know why they'd walk back on that for ET

other than for a desperate want for the biggest space battle ever or something

[wispy pewter]

I mean

you cant have space battles without getting rid of this AI dictator

[stoic hamlet]

Aside from two operations where things went out of control, III’s (not the special ones, the regular ones) are stated to have a flawless record with no casualties.

[wispy pewter]

Rest in Peace Mark

[stoic hamlet]

It’s not really impossible to think, tbh.

Isolated units might mistake one Spartan for another, or see a mass deployment as all of them.

[dusk jetty]

Why I think Spartans should all be unique as opposed to standardized

[wispy pewter]

Wym unique

[dusk jetty]

Every Spartan II wearing identical mark v sounds like a nightmare

[wispy pewter]

Another nightmare is Mjolnir logistics

Different parts for every Spartan

[stoic hamlet]

I mean, I was being a tad hyperbolic, tbf.

But to date, far, far less III’s have died “normally” without looking at extenuating circumstances.

Holly died saving Kelly. Dante died to save Fred. Thom and Carter exploded, Kat was sniped, B-312 was surrounded and killed alone.

The only real example of a “poor” death is Emile, but we don’t know his overall armour status. He might not have had a Working motion tracker, or etc

[dusk jetty]

Is it really? This is 500+ years in the future, I’m quite sure that the UNSC has figured out manufacturing and distribution quite well for the essentials

[wispy pewter]

No matter how many times they destroy the humans in Halo they somehow still have intact infrastructure to maintain their military

[dusk jetty]

Spartans can requisition armor anyway

[wispy pewter]

It’s so weird

[stoic hamlet]

If you’ve got specific custom made parts and assets, then that’s not something you can make easily.

We see this (well, it’s mentioned as such) in Infinite, the Rampart armour is one of the only advanced helmets they can make aboard large warships, but it’s still worse than your regular Mark VII.

The biggest hurdle is resupplying Spartans’ MJOLNIR.

It’s expensive, needs unique materials, and if it’s a custom job, you can’t retool existing production lines for that easily.

[dusk jetty]

Rampart also wasn’t intended for full production, but yes, form fitted armor wasn’t quite what I meant and would be insane to make and distribute

[stoic hamlet]

What you would easily see manufactured is supplemental gear, extra plating, ammunition pouches and containers, etc.

The base armour is the same, the additions are not. This was the case even in the earliest books.

[dusk jetty]

I’m sure that there is nonetheless mass production capabilities for lots of standardized permutations ex: pauldrons and knee pads

[wispy pewter]

I guess Mjolnir isn’t as costly as a ship anymore

[dusk jetty]

Form fitted custom made variants are probably far more complex as well

Feel like that would be reserved for teams like blue team

And they are, as per the lore blurb for Mark VI mod in infinite

[stoic hamlet]

For example, in Ghosts of Onyx, despite the text saying that all the III’s looked identical in their armour, this doesn’t mean you couldn’t tell them apart.

Tom’s Team Foxtrot wouldn’t be equipped the same as one of the Beta Company Rocket teams.

The armour they wear is the same. The gear they wear is not.

[dusk jetty]

Noble team also has unique features in their armor that the multiplayer variants don’t have

This is really noticeable in Jorge and Carter

[stoic hamlet]

It’s the result of the game being well, a game.

Models are custom made.

In reality, you’d see a lot more granular differences.

[dusk jetty]

Sure, but it was worth bringing up in the context of small differences

Scratch here denotes this being that Spartan, stripe markings here denote this as this Spartan and so forth

In a game design sense, it also is better to visually distinguish between characters

[fair hazel]

The costs went way down

Didn't some text description say dropship cost?

[stoic hamlet]

That’s for the unaugmented versions of Air Assault.

AIR ASSAULT spin-offs were considered for adoption by unaugmented Delta-Six operators, but each suit costs as much as a dropship.

[orchid kettle]

makes you wonder what's so special about air assault that it needs a normie equivalent

is it because its helmet is unique for having comms

[modest marsh]

I’m not entirely certain if this is true of the others, but one of the Mister Chief AI lines claims that “…[you] cost as much as a space ship”

I could’ve sworn either Fret or Circ have similar lines

There’s a big gradient in cost between different classes of ship

[minor sky]

Everytime I rewatch Tron Legacy I wonder if the art team at 343 were at all inspired by it for Halo 4

The architecture and environments in Forerunner especially make me think of that film's redesigned Grid

[drowsy mesa]

Never forget him
https://x.com/Halo/status/1974097353310151006?t=xPNxjHFDuPRUsNsOua3PSQ&s=19

Halo (@Halo)

Journalist and war photographer, Benjamin Giraud worked for ONI Section Two and published a notable photograph of the Master Chief. His later attempts to reveal the truth of the SPARTAN-II program's history resulted in his incarceration at Midnight Facility. #FictionFriday

X · Oct 3, 2025, 1:01 PM

[stoic hamlet]

I won’t forget his poor journalism. :p

[minor sky]

Midnight Facility's finest resident

[empty bloom]

They should have him be forced to be the second to wear chimera. And have the Midnight Facility AI be one of the Created Sympathizers.

[minor sky]

That would've been a really messed up ending for Giraud

More than his actual proper ending

[carmine sleet]

A secret prison tucked away in the middle of nowhere is a perfect place to find more fresh mea- I mean volunteers for to be Executors honestly

[empty bloom]

An AI running one of those facilities is already going to have a more authoritarian way of handling human resources, eh?

[carmine sleet]

Indeed

And it'd be a waste to just leave them in their cells when they could be serving as agents of the Created

[unborn island]

hey i never really gave it much thought but...
why did the elites make a new covenant after halo 3?

[modest marsh]

Covenant empire was extremely large, momentum of a multigenerational war participated in by hundreds of distinct clans isn’t necessarily easy to stop, only those directly allied to the Arbiter were subject to the ceasefire

Not everyone gave up their religious faith, since only a very tiny minority of the covenant population would’ve directly witnessed the great schism

You also have to consider the fact the covenant is over 3000 years old

Even outside of their motivations to continually wage war against humans, that’s a long pedigree to give up for the same reason there were numerous nations claiming to be the successors of imperial Rome for hundreds of years after its collapse

[unborn island]

@pure pebble

[wispy pewter]

just like Musolini attempting to restore the Roman Empire but failed terribly

[rugged creek]

Adding to what @modest marsh said, on top of all that, there was also a lot of turmoil on Sanghelios after the Covenant fell. Even people who weren’t necessarily still loyal to the Covenant religion had personal or political reasons for joining - for example, the leader of the Storm Covenant, Jul Mdama, was actually not very religious, but he strongly opposed the idea of Sanghelios being led by the Arbiter and having an alliance with the UNSC because ONI murdered his wife and children. So a lot of the Elites sided with the Storm Covenant for reasons like that, where they were just against the Arbiter’s vision for Sanghelios or didn’t want an alliance with humanity.

One might even say the Storm Covenant’s goals had more to do with the domestic politics of Sangheilios, and all the Covenant branding and religious stuff was more of a marketing strategy to get Covenant loyalists to join.

[stoic root]

can someone help me understand the mjolnir generations? does it go: Mark 5[B], Mark 5, Mark 6 Gen 1, Mark 6 Gen 2, Mark 6 Gen 3, Mark 7 or is it another way?

[modest marsh]

So the GEN and Mark system are distinct from each other completely

Technically all suits originally designated a “Mark” were all GEN1

Mark VII is the last GEN1 design, which was designed by Halsey before the end of the war

However, there are GEN2 and GEN3 versions of the Mark armors

[stoic root]

cause my "understanding" was chief wore the mk6 gen 1 in halo2/3 and in halo 4/5 its mark 6 gen 2

[modest marsh]

There are also Mark armors that were given backported upgrades that brings them in line with GEN2/3

[modest marsh]

In halo 4, Chief’s armor is the same as the suit he had in Halo 3, it’s just been modified by Cortana

(Yes this doesn’t make a whole lot of sense)

It’s full designation would be Mark VI MOD GEN1

“MOD” denoting its modified status

[stoic root]

all the other spartans wear similar armour though like the undersuit and all (might not have anything to do with lore and its just character design)

[modest marsh]

In halo 5, he receives a newly built suit using the exact same design but with GEN2 updates, which is called Mark VI MOD GEN2

[stoic root]

k, I think I get it

[modest marsh]

Or rather, he received it sometime between 4 and 5

[modest marsh]

Yeah it doesn’t make perfect sense

For all intents and purposes H4 Chief is wearing GEN2 but it’s still supposed to be the GEN1 armor

[stoic root]

so its mk4, mk5[b], mk6, mk7 gen, mk7 gen2, mk7 gen3? but the "gen" can also be applyed to the mk6?

[modest marsh]

The h5 suit, along with blue team, was a custom job done by Watershed Division and overseen Dr Halsey

[stoic root]

makes sence considering their armour was very different from osiris

[modest marsh]

There technically isn’t a formal Mark VII GEN2, because Mark VII was deemed too expensive to produce

https://www.halopedia.org/Project_KEYSTONE

Instead Mark VII was used a testbed to prepare for an eventual GEN3

Which is why it’s the default form factor of GEN3 armor now

[vagrant ocean]

However DECIMATOR can be considered the GEN2 variant.

[stoic root]

so what is chief wearing in Infinite? and what is the "newest" version as of current lore?

[vagrant ocean]

He’s wearing Mk VI GEN3

[modest marsh]

He’s wearing a custom set designed by Halsey modeled after the Mark VI

[vagrant ocean]

As for the best? It depends.

[stoic root]

newest not best

I assume MK7 GEN 3

[modest marsh]

As far as we know, Blue Team’s custom Mark VI GEN3 is the newest actually

[vagrant ocean]

Yee, or the variants made for Mk IV post war.

[stoic root]

would mk6 gen 3 be worse than mk 7 gen 3 or are they the same gen they are the same internally?

[modest marsh]

The only reason why Mark VI would be superior is because of the special attention given to it by Halsey to specifically outfit blue team

[stoic root]

but gen is the deciding factor not the mark

[modest marsh]

For obvious meta reasons, the iconic older design is given more in universe attention despite Mark VII being predicated on having more advanced technology as a bedrock design principle

And it’s also more unique/rare whereas Mark VII is relatively common by comparison

We aren’t given explicit justifications as to why Mark VI is a better fit for Blue Team, they just wear it because it’s a visual shorthand/continuity with what fans expect

It’s possible that this proper “production” iteration of Mark VII is a reduced cost version that sacrifices performance compared to the Mark VI, but that’s just speculation

For that matter GEN3 as a whole is supposed to be a return to prioritization of performance compared to GEN2’s focus on cost reduction, accessibility, and specialization

[stoic root]

in the rubicon protocal they wear mk7 armour and it dosent seem any different, it might be better though cause spartan horvath was paralyzed but the armour allowed him to walk

[modest marsh]

Horvath was never paralyzed?

You may be misremembering something

[stoic root]

sorry, his spine was shatterd

my bad

[modest marsh]

Oh, that was before his augmentations

He’s a recovered disabled veteran

[stoic root]

oh

[modest marsh]

The Spartan-IV program gave him back his mobility

It’s a recurrent theme that IVs recruited talented veterans that otherwise were discharged from service due to disabilities

[modest marsh]

Anyways, I would say that Chief’s Mark VI is obviously intended to be more resilient than the Mark VII worn by the IVs purely based on the fact he still has an intact anything after the beating Atriox gave him

Master Chief's unique GEN3 suit includes an unsanctioned energy shield design created by Dr. Glassman and Dr. Halsey.

Experimental, compact, hardened, fusion core produced by Naoto Technologies.

From the encyclopedia, they seem to acknowledge the fact that clearly his armor has some special sauce to justify how his suit was able to recover from being depowered by Atriox’s gravity mace

[stoic root]

ok, thanks for the explanation!

[trail coral]

ok so im doing a alt Arma 3 halo story line and the UNSC is retaking Earth now the question I have for yall is
A. Would the covenant have glassed the whole planet
B. Not glass it due the possible forunner tech

Note this is 4 years after the battle at the Arc only main difference is Truth lived and the Gravemind didnt leave 05

[dusk jetty]

The covenant probably wouldn’t have glassed earth at all had truths plan actually fallen through

Truth brings the covenant to the ark, they’re safe from halo, they fire it, galaxy is theirs

That arma op is fun though, I know which one you mean

[rugged creek]

The in-universe justification could be that MKVI was designed to be worn by Spartan IIs, while MK VII is designed for people with Spartan IV augmentations. Since so few IIs are still in service, continuing to make every new armor model in both Spartan-II and Spartan IV variants would be a huge waste of resources. It would be easier to continue updating the Spartan II armor platform already exists with Gen 3 tech than to try and make every MK VII suit backwards compatible in case one of the like 6 Spartan IIs still alive wants to wear it

[modest marsh]

That doesn’t make any sense frankly, Naomi-010 was the first and only person to wear Mark VII when it first was issued and she’s a Spartan-II

[rugged creek]

Oh yeah I forgot abt that

[modest marsh]

Halsey designed Mark VII with her Spartans in mind

[rugged creek]

All 3 of them?

[modest marsh]

It’s just that later they used it as a basis for new armor

[trail coral]

Well in this case Chief and Arby stop that Arby comes back and forms the SOS early and allies with the UNSC Chief goes missing as per lore

[modest marsh]

In the respect to what you’re describing here, GEN2 was designed with IVs in mind, which is why Blue Team used customized configurations unique to them

Other Spartan-IIs like Gray Team and Red Team by contrast have instead stuck with legacy GEN1 armor that’s been upgraded

[modest marsh]

Well, I should amend this, there are unknown Spartans deployed in London during the battle of earth that appear to be wearing mark VII

[rugged creek]

Conversely then, MKVI was designed for the conflicts of its day, It could simply have different design priorities than MKVII. MK VI was tested against the Covenant, but MKVII was created when the Covenant was long gone and Prometheans/The Created and guerilla warfare against the various covenant splinter factions were the main threat actors. Having a sleeker, faster, stealthier suit is great for those kinds of situations, so MKVII was designed with that in mind, but since some Spartans inevitably will still be going to to toe with huge Jiralhane like Atriox on occasion, it makes sense to also update the more heavily armored MKVI for when those kinds of missions do pop up.

They don’t need MKVI often enough to completely design MKVII after it, but they still need it occasionally, so they do keep it updated

[modest marsh]

Mark V, Mark VI, and Mark VII were all conceptualized by Halsey at the same time after ONI told her that she was breaking bank by constantly upgrading the Mark IV

They also rolled out within a year of each other

[rugged creek]

What year did MKVII come out?

[modest marsh]

Mark V[B], Mark V, MJOLNIR Black, Mark VI, and Mark VII were all developed and issued within the span between 2551 and 2553

[rugged creek]

I see, after Chief was in cryo

[modest marsh]

No

[rugged creek]

Didn’t he go in cryo in 2552, at the end of Halo 3?

[modest marsh]

CE happens in September 2552

That’s in 2553

Well, more specifically, Dec 2552 is the battle of I00

[rugged creek]

Oh I didn’t realize the year switched over between

[modest marsh]

So yeah technically he’s in cryo by then

But the hostilities on Earth were (likely) still technically ongoing into 2553

[rugged creek]

So who was MKVII first mass produced for? SIII?

[modest marsh]

It was never mass produced at all

[rugged creek]

Then how do SIVs have it in 2560

[modest marsh]

We’re talking about GEN1 Mark VII

GEN3 Mark VII entered production as the next generation of equipment issued to Spartan-IVs

[rugged creek]

Ohh I see what you mean

[rugged creek]

Ok so to recap the question is:
Why is MKVI still updated with subsequent gens when MKVII exists, correct?

[modest marsh]

Answered here

But also, technically all MJOLNIR is continually supported in some form or fashion

Like, they’re still maintaining Mark IV and everything after it

[rugged creek]

Right but I’m trying to come up with a plausible in-universe explanation

[modest marsh]

The only thing I’m coming up with is that they received customized equipment and are just getting it updated

It could also be that they’re just so used to it at this point that it’s a preferential thing

[rugged creek]

Well, consider this. Since the development model for Mjolnir seems to have always been making a new mark and then continually updating it, as there’s the MKV Gen 2 in Halo 3, it’s possible again that each mark has different design priorities. Additionally, it isn’t just Blue Team, they make previous Marks in GEN3 variants for SVIs as well, which you can wear in multiplayer. So, this is my hypothesis: If you already know a suit is going to be updated forever once you make it, why make it again? If MKVI GEN3 was the same as MKVII, then MKVII would be redundant. It would make more sense in that case not to make the next mark a linear upgrade from the previous one, as that’s what the Gen already is. Instead, it would make more sense to design a new mark with different capabilities, priorities, and specialized features, so that the range of total applications MJOLNIR can be used for increases. Therefore, it would be an “upgrade” and “more advanced” in the sense that it expands the capabilities, not necessarily that it’s better in a 1:1 comparison.

Plus if Halsey designed them all at the same time, why would she then even bother putting MKVI into production if she already had designed a better one? Designing multiple marks at the same time suggests they have different intended use cases

[modest marsh]

Nah

We know the explicit reasons for every Mark/Gen existing

[rugged creek]

What are they?

This is a part of lore I’m not super familiar with, forerunner and flood stuff is my area of expertise

[modest marsh]

It’s articulated in depth originally in Halsey’s journal but essentially they forced her to implement major updates to the armor using the Mark system instead of constantly improving the Mark IV

So instead the updates would be implemented in waves

Then in her journal she lists all the changes she plans for each mark and it’s just linear upgrades

Mark VII’s main difference was supposedly the capability to shape energy shields

GEN2 Mjolnir incorporated radical simplification of the overall exoskeleton architecture, bringing suits down in cost to the point that they could be mass-produced. Most of the suit's custom components were replaced by modular systems, intended to increase manufacturing speed and efficiency. Some equipment options, such as thrusters for mobility enhancement, had widespread adoption.

GEN3 Mjolnir incorporates the many lessons learned from GEN2 improvements while also returning to some of the performance characteristics and higher levels of protection offered by GEN1. GEN3 represents a mature, stable development platform that is shared between both the UNSC and its many corporate partners. The ubiquity of GEN3 armor components and manufacturing techniques, however, have fostered security concerns.

Decades after the previous iteration, Mark V introduced a significant upgrade drawn from reverse-engineered Covenant technology: a personal energy shielding system that could automatically regenerate. Eventually, Mark V would also offer the capacity for an Al to piggyback within the armor's memory superconductor.

The culmination of all former upgrades, Mark VI improved every facet of the previous iterations, most notably with a more resilient and quick-charging shield system. Despite these improvements, the Mark VI was even more streamlined and compact than earlier versions, and enjoyed its own impressive spectrum of variation across its designs.

Mark VII was intended to be the next iteration and advancement of Mjolnir GEN1 architecture, but only a handful of development testbeds were manufactured before the project was deprioritized for GEN2 armor systems. Dr. Halsey reopened the project files in 2558 to plan her GEN3 improvements.

“Improvement” “upgrade” “advancement”

[rugged creek]

Ok so let me get this straight (I don’t mean that sarcastically, I’m actually trying to get it straight)

• Gen 1 armors are basically the experimental cutting edge Alpha/Beta Testing version

• Gen 2 armors are the mass produced launch day version of the Gen 1

• Gen 3 armors are the deluxe remaster with all DLC included

[modest marsh]

I wouldn’t count GEN1 as experimental unless like, you’d count the 30 years of service by the Spartan-IIs as a big experiment

[rugged creek]

It was an open beta 😂

[modest marsh]

GEN1 is the artisan built product that you buy at some obscure store with a single location but is the only place you can get it and is of the highest quality, GEN2 is mostly the same product but at a big department store

And costs a fraction to make

GEN3 is when you get the artisan to consult on how to make the mass produced version better again when you got the supply chain down

[rugged creek]

Yeah, except that the version IIIs and IVs get were tested by SPARTAN IIs, it’s not two brands of the same product. It’s more like Gen 1 is the fancy production sample that gets shown to investors and Gen 2 is the mass market version

[modest marsh]

If you want to get technical, MJOLNIR equipped Spartan-IIIs tested MJOLNIR before IIs did

[rugged creek]

You know what I mean

[modest marsh]

I don’t think the analogy works because the investment for GEN1 was considered much higher, as was its length of service

GEN2 only lasted 6 or so years before being mostly supplanted by GEN3

Compared to GEN1 being the dominant form of MJOLNIR for roughly 28 years

And like, Halsey never really intended for GEN2 to exist

They kinda just did their own thing to make that happen since they needed to outfit the next generation of Spartan faster and cheaper

[rugged creek]

Ok screw that analogy, what about this: Gen 1 is the director’s original, no-compromises, ideal masterpiece they made behind closed doors with all deleted scenes and everything. Gen 2 is the theatrical release with changes from the producer to have a shorter runtime and be more accessible to mainstream audiences. Gen 3 is the Blu-Ray Director’s Cut that has some of the deleted scenes added back but still isn’t the original masterpiece the director keeps the sole copy of on a film reel in their house

The analogy isn’t important I guess

[rugged creek]

Ok it says here that Gen 2 has added customizations options and increased compatibility with equipment like thruster pack

Which means that later gens do have some compatibility updates

And obviously, MK IV GEN 3 has energy shields, which means later generations can even have features introduced by later marks

[modest marsh]

There’s no “Mark IV GEN3” as like, an official designation

You can wear Mark IV in halo 5 and infinite but this is understood to be armor that was given upgrades that make them perform similarly to current forms of armor

As the basis for the GEN1 Mjolnir standard, many components of the original Mark IV can be used with GEN2 techsuits and VISRs after firmware updates. This hybrid GEN2/MARK IV [GEN1] suit is still used by select Spartan-II's.

Stocks of Mark IV armor recovered from the Damascus archives have now been rebuilt under the direction of Dr. Halsey. These refits are fully compatible with official GEN2 and GEN3 standards but Halsey has her own ideas about the next step for Mjolnir.

The Halsey-refit Mark IV helmets are masterpieces of military engineering. Each is a refurbished Covenant War-era relic, stripped down and packed with the latest Mjolnir technology

[rugged creek]

Yes, many components. I doubt your Multipleyer Spartan wore two pairs of socks to be taller so they could fit into a Spartan II suit though, so some of it is also newly developed. It even mentions firmware updates and calls it a hybrid suit, which means some level of new tech is being developed for them, they didn’t just take a helmet out of the closet from 2552 and put it on raw.

[modest marsh]

There’s no evidence of IVs wearing refit GEN1 armor to my knowledge, but I would have to double check

This is most likely referring to IIs and IIIs

[modest marsh]

Well, outside of your MP Spartan

[rugged creek]

So then the MKIV in 5 and Infinite likely is Gen 3

Even if it’s not explicitly said to be

[modest marsh]

It’s referred to as a hybrid here because the tech suits in Halo 5 are the “core” used by all armor sets

The armor pieces itself are still just refurbished GEN1

The capabilities of the assemblage would be brought to current gen standards, but that doesn’t change what gen it is

[rugged creek]

I’m talking about in Infinite where it’s the whole suit, not Halo 5 where it’s the pieces on a gen2 techsuit

[modest marsh]

All armors in halo infinite belong to a specific core, until they allowed cross core customization in spite of the lore

So Mark V[B] pieces were not compatible with Mark VII

Since they aren’t part of the same design family

[rugged creek]

I know, I’m talking about the gens still

[modest marsh]

I’m saying that the Mark V[B] in infinite is likely intended to be refurbished GEN1 and thus isn’t compatible with GEN3 architecture necessarily

[stoic hamlet]

I mean, broadly, shoulders should have been cross core anyways. And most (but not all) chests, hips, wrists, and knees.

Because those aren’t like, armour specific. Just supplementals.

[modest marsh]

This is absolutely true from a user experience standpoint, merely commenting on the lore justification

[stoic hamlet]

I mean even from lore.

[modest marsh]

you’re right in the sense there’s nothing stopping them from mounting a given up armored shoulder plate but these distinctions are arbitrary and meta regardless

Something something waveguides

[rugged creek]

If your Spartan in Halo Infinite wears MKIV, that suit of MKIV will have

• Energy Shields
• Onboard AI
• Current VISR version
• Compatibility with equipment
• Fit a Spartan IV.

Like what I’m saying is that they didn’t just put a Gen 1 suit in the dryer to shrink it, they had to make one that would fit a SIV and be compatible with their augmentations.

[modest marsh]

“Your Spartan” can also wear fracture armor so I don’t think this is necessarily a gold standard

[rugged creek]

The fracture armor is explicitly non-canon

[modest marsh]

I’m saying that an armor being canon doesn’t necessarily mean its usage is canon

It’s also worth noting that IVs aren’t necessarily smaller than IIs and IIIs

On average, they trend smaller, but several are the same or similar heights

[modest marsh]

The most obvious example of this is the flood or janissary armors

I should’ve led with that

I would also just generally call into question the canonicity of your MP Spartan using anything with “legendary” rarity or made by watershed division instead of the more common manufacturers

These tend to be fairly unique if not specific to a particular character

Custom-made for ONI pilots, WHISPER helmets features both a UNSC machine interlink and encrypted platform interface for Watershed's latest prototypes.

Like idk why your Spartan at the academy would have this

[rugged creek]

Right, but the Flood armors are still representing something that exists in canon - the Flood-Infected Spartans from Saturn Devouring His Son. Even though the multiplayer match you wear Rusalka in may not be canon, it’s portraying a thing that does exist in Halo. The existence of the corrupter is canon, its presence in the Academy teabagging bots isn’t

So by similar logic, I would assume that if Spartan IVs are portrayed wearing MKIV and it has lore entries, a version of it for them does exist

[modest marsh]

This supports my position that just because it exists does not infer anything about it’s availability to Spartan-IVs

[stoic hamlet]

On average, III’s are smaller, it should be said.

But yeah, some stuff is specific to certain characters, maybe not even Spartans.

SCORN is another example

your Spartan isn’t wearing that.

[rugged creek]

Idk, I think it makes sense for Spartans to train with gear they may actually have to use one day

[modest marsh]

There’s also the fact that several of the attachments for Mark IV specifically are clearly talking about Red and Omega Team with zero ambiguity

Most of the Ark remains a black box, but Spartans with Isabel's passive sensor system and "copilot" functionality may shed some light on its inner workings

Your IV couldn’t be wearing this

[stoic hamlet]

A few coatings also imply former branch of service.

Like Air Force versus Navy.

You can’t really be both.

[rugged creek]

If you’re gonna be an ONI pilot why wouldn’t you? Also SIVs are made from military volunteers, so if your guy was already an oni pilot who got spartanified to become a SUPER oni pilot, sure you’d have gear. The SIVs have existing military backgrounds, connections, etc before the academy. If you were a shady ONI operative before you got augmented, of course you’d still be one after

[modest marsh]

You can’t be an ONI pilot if you’re a Spartan because Spartans are part of the Spartan branch

Lore wise I think it’s most obviously just a case of a Spartan using whatever they can get their hands on

But when specifically talking about your Spartan, that doesn’t really make sense

[rugged creek]

Yeah, but Spartans can still be cherry-picked by ONI to do their dirty work, like Locke.

[modest marsh]

This is true of all Spartans? I’m unclear what distinction you’re making

[frigid heart]

ONI would probably draw from special forces or their own to be their pilots on operations

Not too much added if the pilot is a spartan

[rugged creek]

I’m saying the two aren’t mutually exclusive. You can be part of the Spartan branch and still work for ONI.

[modest marsh]

Eh, faster reaction time, better tolerance to g forces

Spartans are probably still more useful in proportion to their sum capability as special forces operators and shock troops compared to being pilots, but the best pilots are still gonna overwhelmingly be Spartans because of their innate physiological advantages

[rugged creek]

Plus, do you think all the SIVs who do ONI Black Ops stuff were bright eyed hoorah marines before getting augmented and then were poached by ONI as full adults with existing loyalties and friendships and stuff? I think it’s almost more likely that any op that’s both shady enough for oni and important enough for a spartan would only be entrusted to someone who already had an extensive black ops career and a file covered in black ink before becoming a Spartan, who they knew wasn’t a liability

You have no idea who your guy was before the academy, it’s not a college. These people are adult military veterans. The Spartan wearing SCORN could be your Spartan.

[rugged creek]

So if ONI needed a pilot like this to manuever a longsword into Sangheili airspace and drop a nuke on the Arbiter, why would they poach some random from the navy, when they could get one of their own top pilots augmented to do it?

[rugged creek]

A Spartan would be ideally suited to almost any ONI black ops mission. For one thing, it would be far fewer loose ends. Why have a pilot, a sniper, and a medic all know about the mission when you could have one guy do every role and be better at all of them than the team would be? A lone operative who can be inserted in a drop pod twenty miles out of an enemy compound's sensor range, travel that entire distance on foot in an hour, hit the shot from a mile away, then steal an escape craft and be gone before anyone has even noticed somebody died. An operative you can send into an innie base unarmed, who will pass all the patdowns and metal detectors, come up clean on a cavity search, lie convincingly, and then , when they're finally granted an audience, cave the leader's head in with a single punch faster than the guards can even react. . Give those abilities to someone who's already an ONI goon with proven loyalty and intimate knowledge of the target, and you have an unbelivably powerful, surgically precise, and ruthlessly efficient weapon with no need to even involve outsiders.

[vital hinge]

we need a chat foR HUSKY RAID... we are a community fr and more maps plz

[carmine sleet]

I don't think the lore channel is the best place to ask for that

[wispy pewter]

remember when they sent their best ONI trained Spartan after master chief and failed

[modest marsh]

He got a lot further than one could’ve expected

[obsidian thistle]

There is an argument for some attachments (thanks Omega lol)

Where the SoF may create their own version of certain stuff

https://www.halopedia.org/ARDENT-class_Mjolnir

Ardent for example

[rugged creek]

Me when I make an unkillable super soldier and then send a normal soldier to fight him

[modest marsh]

The goal wasn’t for them to fight lol that’s why they gave Locke the armor restraint

[rugged creek]

Wait that’s what they were talking about

[rugged creek]

Oh I misread the comment my bad I thought they were talking about a regular agent not a Spartan

Ok let me rephrase my comment

An ONI-trained Spartan would be ideal for any possible mission except nonlethally defeating an enemy in hand to hand combat that’s literally just a stronger, faster and more experienced version of themselves

[modest marsh]

I’ve already expressed my feelings on this issue previously but to repeat it, contriving a situation wherein the characters brawl with each other seemed more ego/machismo driven than something that either character would’ve done if they were written more consistently/coherently and works against their respective “strengths”

[rugged creek]

I agree

It was cool but it was dumb

[modest marsh]

I have nothing against Chief being taken down a peg but from the audiences perspective we have no reason to believe Locke should be a threat to Chief in a direct confrontation with any of the information we as the player have access to so you just run into the awkward conclusion that Chief is a bad fighter and Locke is a bad bounty hunter/assassin

[rugged creek]

I read it as they’re both pulling their punches. Neither of them are actually trying to hurt each other, Locke is just trying to stick a hockey puck on master Chief and Chief is trying to get Locke to stop following him

[modest marsh]

That kinda loses its sway when Locke tries to pull his magnum out just as Chief plants the restraint on him

I too have been of the mind that Chief didn’t take Locke seriously, as if to say he’s a surrogate for the player that’s skeptical of Locke being a worthy successor or a real Spartan

But I also just don’t like the Chief being so bullish and arrogant that he decides to 1v4 Osiris

[rugged creek]

There is absolutely zero chance ONI gave Locke permission to just go ahead and slime the unsc’s most valuable and expensive asset if he didn’t immediately cooperate, the gun was probably just a bluff to make chief stand down

[modest marsh]

I mean, the cutscene on infinity tells a different story

Locke is implying he’s perfectly willing to go whatever lengths necessary to complete his mission which fits the antagonist framing that the Hunt the Truth narrative was setting up

“ONI is willing to present Chief as a war criminal and preemptively declare him as dead, therefore…”

[rugged creek]

I mean yeah I’m sure he could as a last resort, but given that they gave Locke the armor lock thing and his initial approach was to tell Chief to stand down, I’m sure they would’ve strongly preferred to take him alive

[modest marsh]

Obviously, yeah

But it’s also possible that Chief would be held on a close leash after that at best

At worst, he might’ve been sent to the brig

[rugged creek]

I don’t think Locke’s next move was to blow Chief’s brains out after a two sentence exchange and 20 seconds of wrestling, I think it was probably to hold him at gunpoint and try to reason with him again

Imagine that actually happened in the game

Locke just ices him with no warning shot or anything

[modest marsh]

Chief didn’t hesitate to smash his gun when he already had him at gunpoint lol

[rugged creek]

He was further away this time

And wouldn’t be taken by surprise

[modest marsh]

They’re quite literally at arms length?

[rugged creek]

The gun is shorter

(Joke)

[modest marsh]

In any case I don’t think Locke can/should be able to kill Chief just by shooting him with his battle rifle/magnum

Not because he wouldn’t be willing to try but because the armor should be more than capable of withstanding the damage

[wispy pewter]

hes wearing titanium

[modest marsh]

The specs appeared on his HUD even before he finished speaking, and he began to read them off. “With a one-forty-grain armor-piercing round, the SAS-10 has an effective range of sixty-two meters. Even at five meters, the round’s velocity would only be three hundred and eighty-nine meters per second. You wouldn’t even scratch my outer shell.”

Ingridson squeezed off a shot at Romeo. It caught him in his faceplate and knocked him to the floor.

The latter is ODST armor for that matter lol

[rugged creek]

True, but either way my point still stands, Locke isn’t trying to kill chief during their scuffle, he’s just trying to plant the hockey puck on him. The fact he’s willing to go for the gun after cracking Chief’s visor and escalating the situation doesn’t mean that was his goal the whole time

[modest marsh]

I don’t think anyone was suggesting that

[rugged creek]

I was saying it in reference to this

[modest marsh]

I don’t think Locke himself has any incentive to hold back

For him to stand a realistic chance of subduing his opponent he has to try

Also, again, HtT’s framing made it seem extremely plausible that ONI was considering offing Chief, and that only really works if Locke himself is committed to the task to do what’s necessary without hesitating or restraining himself

Lethal force isn’t necessary but everything short of it would be

[wispy pewter]

even though Halo 5 made it seem like he had a chance in the books it was mentioned he did not have a chance at all

[modest marsh]

I believe that’s from Buck’s PoV which is a case of potentially unreliable narration

[wispy pewter]

nah

It may be canonically bucks narration but its just the way the author wrote the book

[modest marsh]

That went about as well as you might expect. The first time we caught up with them, John personally handed Locke’s own [butt] to him, gift-wrapped with a pretty little bow on top.

I think this is a literal generous towards Chief?

Locke quite literally did damage Chief’s visor so it’s not like he didn’t get his licks in

[wispy pewter]

this is why I never take all cutscenes as 100% canon

[rugged creek]

Yeah they were considering it, but it wasn’t their first choice. Again, Locke fully running in there swinging with all his might and instantly resorting to trying to kill Chief (regardless of whether or not he would’ve actually succeeded) would’ve escalated the situation unnecessarily. He let him get back up after he cracked the visor for example. He probably would’ve known almost right away that chief wasn’t trying to kill him, and therefore attempting to de-escalate the situation or plant the thing on him both would’ve been better options than trying to further escalate in my opinion

[modest marsh]

He waited for Chief to get up for dramatic effect let’s be real lol

He should’ve pounced on him the moment his back was turned

[rugged creek]

Plus Locke would certainly know that he can’t just one shot chief with the pistol anyway, so pulling it out for any reason other than either panicking or attempting to get Chief to stand down wouldn’t make sense for him to do

[wispy pewter]

forget armor he still had his shields

[rugged creek]

Yep

In this situation I think the only practical reason I can think of for pulling the gun out is to show Chief that he’s serious and give him another chance to cooperate. “Do you want to escalate this to the point where we are trying to kill each other, or now that you’ve had your emotional reaction, will you listen?”

And that would be an effective threat - not because Chief is in any danger of losing, but because A. Chief doesn’t want to kill Locke, and B. Chief ‘s goal isn’t to permanently leave the UNSC and be a defector, he’s just temporarily gone rouge after Cortana. He’s willing to break the rules by going AWOL, but if he went AWOL and straight up murdered the dude they sent to bring him home, the conversation when he got back would be a lot more awkward and he’d suddenly be guilty of much more serious crimes

So for Locke to pull out the gun and effectively say “you can either come quietly or I can force you to murder me and burn all your bridges with the UNSC” is an appeal I believe Chief very well might respond to.

Plus, even though Locke is willing to kill Chief, he’d know about two seconds into that scene that that’s not happening. Therefore, since he isn’t suicidal, either planting the thing on Chief or reasoning and getting him to come along willingly are his only viable options. But of the two, talking Chief down is the far more likely one to work, because Locke gets smoked by Chief in CQC. Realistically, under the circumstances, de-escalation is the only approach that even has a chance of working, the other two are instant mission failure and likely death. It would therefore be in Locke’s best interests to avoid antagonizing Chief as much as possible beyond the bare minimum of defending himself, so that his next persuasion attempt has the highest possible chance of working

[modest marsh]

What shields?

The scene just pretends they don’t exist

[versed helm]

Hello, quick question real quick

https://www.halopedia.org/Sanctity_of_Purification#/media/File:DeliverHope_-_CCSHangar.png

Is the reason why the Truth & Reconciliation doesn't have this in-lore that:

The Truth & Reconciliation and the Sanctity of Purification, despite being both Ket-pattern, were built differently?

[carmine sleet]

Well, we don't explore the whole Truth and Reconciliation in CE, but I imagine that what we see here is the reuse of the Corvette hangar because it was easier for Bungie to hand that off to whoever did the CGI for that trailer than expecting them to basically remake the CE Ket hangars

[versed helm]

Oh

Lmao

Thank you for the answer

That being said

[versed helm]

The image here that shows the hangar

is larger than the SDV Corvette's hangar, right?

I swear that the image looks way bigger than the in-game Corvette hangar

[carmine sleet]

Looking at the Banshees in the background on the platforms, it looks pretty consistent with how things are scaled in Reach

That being said, the Grunts and Elites in that shot look a bit too small

In fact, some Grunts which are further back look larger than ones closer to the camera

[thorn osprey]

The roof looks way higher than I remember

[versed helm]

no way

[versed helm]

Yeah! Exactly!

[strange pumice]

When The Harbinger was sealed to cylic?(Or how that thing called right)
It was before Halo array activation or after?

[stoic hamlet]

After.

[strange pumice]

Damn it
That answer confused me, but thanks anyway

If she been sealed after, then it means other Endless didn't survived array, or also been sealed

I had thought that Endless actually can be one from surviving precursors, but it's just thought, so can't be sure

[stoic hamlet]

The Forerunners only found the Endless/Xanalyn after the Array’s firing.

[drowsy mesa]

Since Infinite's release that we know the Xalanyn were imprisoned AFTER the firing of the rings (+70 years after that event)

[minor sky]

That reminds me, when a Ring fires does it take out life on the ring or not?

[orchid kettle]

Back before the Ark was an idea or before anybody really sat down to think through the Reseeding, I think it would have been fair to think that the ring supports life precisely because it's there to protect life

But I guess in CE you could argue that it makes no sense for Guilty Spark to encourage the use of the ring if it wouldn't even slow the infestation on his own installation

In which case I have no idea how life survived in CE's vision of the universe

But yeah, when the Ark and Shield Worlds exist, I think it's clear that there are plenty of ways to escape the rings' pulse, but the halo itself is not one of them.

Maybe you'd be safe inside the control room itself but otherwise

[minor sky]

Gotcha

[modest marsh]

Intelligent life in the galaxy would be wiped out so they wouldn’t have anything to eat

They’d “starve” again, whatever that was supposed to mean originally

[versed helm]

Hi uh

[bronze prawn]

How safe is slipspace

[unique rune]

not very

it tends to kill you and rip you apart if you don't have proper shielding and structural support

on top of also being very radioactive

[carmine sleet]

It's also not very breathable if you do somehow survive being torn apart and the radiation

[orchid kettle]

It's safe enough for humanity's purposes, generally

[wispy pewter]

careful, you might slip in there

[coarse hamlet]

If you toss a wet floor sign into slipspace its perfectly safe

[carmine sleet]

Sorry, lost the wet floor sign

[vagrant ocean]

Safer than the Warp, but then again that’s not a high bar.

[bronze prawn]

everything in Sci-fi is safer than the warp

in the warp you push the wrong button on a certain machine and you´re screwed

[frigid rock]

So i havent kept up with the post infinite stuff. Is the infinity confirmed destroyed completely? And wtf happened to the rest of the important crew

[modest marsh]

No one knows

[frigid rock]

Man how has it been almost 4 years and we still dont know

Why 343 gotta be asleep at the wheel of the flagship series of xbox/microsoft

[modest marsh]

Because the version of infinite we got was a fraction of what was planned, and they had no actionable plans after launch

Infinity was likely supposed to be a hub area that then turned into the Reverie

Infinity was conceptualized as a playable hub space since like halo 4 and they just never got to do it

[carmine sleet]

Also we're gonna be learning more about what HS has been doing for new projects at the end of the month, it's not like they have spent the past couple years not doing anything at all

I wouldn't be surprised if we learn more about what happened to the Infinity then

[modest marsh]

Some things need to be held close to the chest until they’re actually certain they can get it done

[carmine sleet]

Indeed

[frigid rock]

Personally, i was never a fan of the hamlet (in media res) style storytelling of infinite, People just do not appear in the story and nothing is really explained I feel.

Plus a shame about the infinity. Maybe they can get eternity up and running in the next game to replace it

[modest marsh]

It was an understandable response to the poor reception to H5

5 is very concerned with constant major events involving a gigantic cast of characters in every possible location conceivable

[carmine sleet]

The Eternity is never getting finished, a bunch of its parts were used to fix up the Infinity during Escalation

[modest marsh]

It makes it difficult to follow or care about what’s happening when you’re not given enough time to develop an attachment

Infinite being lean on characters meant that people were more likely to build a rapport with the smaller cast, especially if it was their first halo game

[carmine sleet]

Aye, and outside of a few cases, I've seen nothing but praise for Esparza as a character

Which isn't to say Infinite is perfect because of that one character, but allot of people did grow to care for him within the story

[modest marsh]

In the case of how it handled Escharum and the banished, it’s entirely fair to criticize how they mainly get through to the player via holograms but that’s an inevitable consequence of the series being constrained by the rules of a first person shooter

You didn’t exactly get a lot of time to interact with the final boss of Wolfenstein 3D

[carmine sleet]

There's also how it brushes over the Created conflict begun in Halo 5 as well

[frigid rock]

It was kinda wierd to me how they bring atriox from halo wars just to...not use him lol

[carmine sleet]

Like, my biggest wish was that we got something with the Created on Zeta Halo, even if it was just Prometheans Cortana had with her still fighting after her death

[modest marsh]

I mean, he had to exit the story somehow or else you’d have to justify why he wasn’t present for the rest of the game elsewhere

Again, the rules of FPSs dictate you shoot the bad guy until he dies

Mechahitler.mp4

That is to say, infinite was a “10 year platform” for halo

Atriox was never gonna be a major player in the first campaign just to be killed off right away, so he gets swept away

[frigid rock]

It was just too many things off screen.

Atriox "death" off screen

Infinity crashing off screen

Important spartan IVs off screen

Cortana purge off screen.

Also, I kinda want some continuum in my trilogies you know? Now we got star wars sequels levels of aimlessness

[frigid rock]

Sorry, not really understanding. Why did he have to exit the story before it began?

[modest marsh]

To sequel bait

[carmine sleet]

Which important IVs were killed off screen? Because unless we got info I missed, they didn't kill off Palmer or any of the members of Osiris

[modest marsh]

Locke

[frigid rock]

But inifnite is already a sequel lmao

[modest marsh]

Every game sequel baits

[carmine sleet]

Sequels can still sequel bait

[frigid rock]

How do we know? Have they stated they are safe and sound,

[modest marsh]

Halo 3 sequel baited despite Bungie insisting it was the definitive end to the story

[modest marsh]

I don’t think this is a reasonable criticism to leverage when part of the point was Chief missing so much so that he and the player would be on more even footing when trying to figure out what’s going on, assuming that this was your first halo game

The Weapon being Cortana but without her memories is key in that

I’m almost certain an early version of infinite’s story would’ve just given chief amnesia

Instead they opted with the weapon being the surrogate for newbies

[frigid rock]

Yeah sorry i guess i should catch myself, im too spoiled by the original trilogy's level of coherent story from game to game.

[carmine sleet]

Us not knowing their status does not mean we should assume they are dead. Plus we know that Vale was on Sanghelios and Buck is back with his old team, so the likelihood of those two being dead is low. As for Tanaka and Locke, we have no info on them currently but it's unlikely they're dead, especially considering the only hint at Locke's fate is some of his armour being used by Hyperious, but given dialogue from his brother, it's unlikely he killed Locke when he got the armour. The only other character referencing Locke potentially being dead is a Grunt who does propaganda for the Banished on Zeta Halo. I wouldn't exactly take that Grunt's word as gospel though, since his whole role is to try and demoralise the UNSC forces on Zeta

[modest marsh]

You’re making a value judgement based on preconceived notions of what a story should do, but there are plenty of stories that are intentionally obfuscated as a storytelling device

[frigid rock]

Logically ud think we would be there to take down cortana with the weapon since she was set up to be the big bad in 5 and kinda in 4 too but nope, deeds already done. Was kinda anticlimactic, even if halo 5 story was not great

[modest marsh]

Metal Gear Solid is a famous example of this

[modest marsh]

Chief not being there is an intentional storytelling choice though? It accentuates his sense of failure that he’s grappling with throughout the story

[frigid rock]

But with no info its schrodingers spartans, so could go either way. Heck they got rid of cortana off screen, wouldnt put it past them to do the same to smaller characters.

[carmine sleet]

Blame people being really upset about Halo 5 for that one

[modest marsh]

I don’t think we should be judging stories based on whether or not they’ve adhered closely to conventional storytelling structure

[orchid kettle]

I do think ODST kinda handled the "piecing things together as you go" narrative better if only because you're allowed to swap characters and see events in person rather than purely in hologram form

[modest marsh]

It would’ve been neat if Chief finding the Spartan bodies would let him pull a CE found footage thing and relive whatever happened to them through their eyes

[frigid rock]

It doesnt matter if its intentional or not. Imo it was a bad decision for story continuity and payoff. But im just a random dude on the internet complaining of the mishandling of the story, so take it with a grain of salt.

[orchid kettle]

but you could also argue ODST's central mystery isn't really that ambitious

[modest marsh]

We still have no payoff though

Like, the story is incomplete

[carmine sleet]

Again, you're assuming the fates of characters. Just because Cortana died the way she did in Infinite, that does not somehow mean every Spartan IV which was important in some form in previous games are dead off screen

[orchid kettle]

compared to like, Infinite drip feeding you what happened with Cortana, Atriox, and what anyone's goals actually were

[frigid rock]

We can if what they decided to go with was not that great compared to when they did go conventional

[modest marsh]

This is circular

“They did a bad job so they should’ve just done the safe thing”

[orchid kettle]

imo the biggest source of confusion is the idea that Chief was on the ring, deployed the Weapon, and then ran back to the Infinity

[modest marsh]

If they did something safe and boring you would be saying they should’ve done something ambitious and unique

[orchid kettle]

if that was the prequel level I think the player wouldn't feel as unmoored

[frigid rock]

Which is bonkers for what was supposed to be the end of a trilogy...4-6 was planned to be a trilogy right? Guess they never really said

[modest marsh]

No

That’s not correct

[carmine sleet]

They changed it from a trilogy to a saga back in 2013 if I recall

[modest marsh]

^

[orchid kettle]

we know the intro cutscene of Chief kicking butt on the Infinity was added at relatively the last minute, so its possible the story wouldn't even have shown you the part where Atriox beat Chief up

[carmine sleet]

Which just allows them to go "Oh, we are gonna do X amount of games"

[modest marsh]

And then I would say “reclaimer saga” stopped even being considered the framing since like 2017

[frigid rock]

But again, we got no info so all we can do is speculate and go with pattern recognition. Would love to be proven wrong.

Just want more lore

[orchid kettle]

I dunno, HW2 does end with Anders being found by a Guardian

[modest marsh]

Infinite is a reboot designed to be equally intuitive to newcomers and veterans of the series alike

[orchid kettle]

but i guess by then they could have already change their mind

[carmine sleet]

So you're using Cortana's death to assume that Palmer and Osiris are all dead?

[orchid kettle]

and at that point maybe they should have cut that scene

even if it meant having no legendary ending

[modest marsh]

Pattern recognition would indicate that no character confirmed to be dead is actually dead

In fact this is a widespread complaint of the halo community

Even characters strongly implied to be dead, whose death serves a distinct thematic purpose, turns out to be alive through contrived means

Cortana herself is an example of this

[orchid kettle]

Palmer may honestly die if only because of the backlash to her character

I feel like her station as the Spartana Commander is all that's keeping her around

[carmine sleet]

Most recently we had this with James, only for him to die in the novel he was brought back in

[modest marsh]

Nah, she’s also gotta be there to bully Halsey

[orchid kettle]

Like its too important to just say "Anyway, here's our new commander, Spartan Calmer"

[frigid rock]

Im commenting on "we cant be judging stories based on adhering to conventinal stories"

Yes we definitely can lol. Would love to probe me wrong in the future with whatever they are doing here

Matching the energy and excitement of the original trilogy is a tall order, i get it. But so far its been an airball imo

[orchid kettle]

"She's Calmer than Palmer, you see"

[carmine sleet]

If Palmer dies, we need her replacement as the Infinity's Spartan Commander to be voiced by Mark Meer

[modest marsh]

I’m saying it’s not coherent to say “hmm, this didn’t use the most popular tv tropes articles as gospel, that means it’s bad”

[orchid kettle]

Commander Miller

Handler bros, our time is now

[modest marsh]

Infinite’s flaws have nothing to do with the fact that it intentionally deprives the player of information

CE also did that

What information it does give you is conveyed in an underwhelming manner

[frigid rock]

All im saying is i wouldnt put it past them to do so to more minor characters, thats all. They already did it to cortana. So yes until more info is out, they are dead to me.

[carmine sleet]

Aye, CE started with us having just fled from Reach and putting us into the shoes of some guy called Master Chief. Nobody knew what Reach was or who Chief was when they first played the game

[orchid kettle]

CE mainly just throws you into the deep end about the Covenant

but I'd see it's something you pretty quickly "get"

While Halo and its mysteries are explained to you more conventionally

[carmine sleet]

Do you assume characters like Stacker or Chipps are dead because they didn't show up? Or what about Romeo from Alpha 9? Do you think he's dead because he hasn't shown up in anything since Bad Blood?

[frigid rock]

It is bad to me. If they used conventional storytelling and it was bad id still call it out. Bad is bad.

[modest marsh]

Okay but it’s not causal

You are correlating a story choice, find the execution disagreeable, and then claiming that if they did something safer it would’ve been better

It could’ve been worse!

[orchid kettle]

I'd say even if you couldn't deduce his whole backstory, you understand Chief was special in some way

[frigid rock]

CE was the first in the franchise and had no lore baggage, of course it was fine for everything to be a mystery

[orchid kettle]

if for no other reason than because there's no one else that looks like you

[modest marsh]

Infinite was literally trying to redo CE’s lack of handholding

It was called a reboot, literally

[carmine sleet]

True but you didn't have any frame of reference for what a Spartan was if CE was your first game

[modest marsh]

And they never call Chief a Spartan in the game itself

[orchid kettle]

Yeah but I think that kind of storytelling is naturally harder when you're talking about established characters and what they've been up to or their fate

compared to just like, being introduced to the seemingly surface level premise of "humans vs aliens"

that's just like, a vibe

[carmine sleet]

See this is the problem with me being so deep into the series, I forget stuff like that because I'm so used to people calling Chief a Spartan in so much of the media

[thorn spindle]

how about good guy aliens that wish to be friends immediately

[modest marsh]

If you want to get technical, the closest anyone ever comes to being specific about what Chief is is calling him a Mark V

[orchid kettle]

That's a matter of not having the details, but the story works fine without said details

[carmine sleet]

Indeed

[frigid rock]

Im not saying a conventional story would definitely have saved the writing, im just in the opinion that it would have been better. Bad but better. Conventional story is not a panacea

[orchid kettle]

The details of Cortana's death and what happened in the past is part of the mystery in Infinite

[modest marsh]

Can you at least articulate why

[carmine sleet]

Aye, which is inconsistent with later stories as Mark V is the armour and not the soldier but hey, gotta love those early days oddities

[modest marsh]

(It’s because they used to mean the same thing, cuz he’s a ghost in a shell)

[carmine sleet]

(He's totally gonna end up at Tau Ceti and team up with the Security Officer in the next game!)

[frigid rock]

Articulate why a conventional story wouldve served it better?

[modest marsh]

I think you could very easily describe an alternative interpretation of Infinite’s story after the fact that follows a more conventional pattern of events and tropes

What I’m asking is why you think that means it’s inherently better

I honestly kinda like the idea of Chief getting a big concussion after getting throttled by Atriox and not remembering half of what’s happened in the past 8 years

[carmine sleet]

He wakes up not realising he's not in his Mark V and is just like "I don't remember it looking like this when I went to sleep? Did Captain Keyes order them to upgrade my armour?"

[frigid rock]

Does it matter? I personally like more conventional stories in trilogies where you can follow whats going on.

Lord of the rings they start in the shire then travel to mount doom and get rid of the ring.

Halo 1-3 they have a war with the covenant and flood and deal with both at the end.

Star wars 4-6 they take down the empire

Halo 4-5 cortana is starting to go rampant and by 5 does go rampant and cripples humanity

Halo 6 cortanas already dealt with heres a different baddy. Like wtf?

Its just my preferred way of storytelling, dont read too much into it

[modest marsh]

Now do MGS

[frigid rock]

I dont play mgs

[modest marsh]

Okay

I don’t think you gishgalloping famous examples of linear narratives is compelling

[carmine sleet]

Not every franchise tells its story in a linear fashion, MGS is a great example of one

Like, if I recall, MGS3 is a prequel to MGS1, right?

[modest marsh]

Yes but it makes no sense if you play it first

[carmine sleet]

Aye

[frigid rock]

Ok i gotta get one thing straight here, im assuming you liked the story of the new halo trilogy then? @modest marsh

[carmine sleet]

Again, this isn't a trilogy

[modest marsh]

I never said anything to indicate that

What I’ve said so far is that none of their plans ever came to fruition so I disagree with taking certain storytelling choices in isolation as causal of its failings

And I’ve mentioned merits of how this could’ve been beneficial

[frigid rock]

Then what the hell are we debating about. Just my propensity for liking linear stories?

[modest marsh]

I think it’s poor feedback to say just do what CE-3 did again when in some ways they technically tried to, but that is also just impossible because the premise is predicated on starting a new storyline and not continuing a long running and active one

[frigid rock]

Couldve been beneficial but to me it wasnt beneficial so again what is ur stance on this. Was the in media res start of infinite a benefit?

[modest marsh]

My only real objection to the opening of infinite is the fact that it isn’t playable

[frigid rock]

This is my feedback right here, do whatever kind of storytelling they want if it can make the story better. Im not a slave to the traditional story, im up for anything. Just make it better. Is that concise enough for you?

[modest marsh]

“Make good story” is not an actionable solution

[carmine sleet]

Having some sort mission on Infinity would've been nice, even if it was a short 5 minute experience within the hangar. It'd be better than just a cutscene

[frigid rock]

Stop thinking i only ever want traditional ones, its just my preferred thing. I prefer vanilla ice cream, doesnt mean its the only ice cream id like

[modest marsh]

I mean what changes to the existing structure would you make to improve it? Because I can think of many ways they could’ve

I already mentioned a few

[carmine sleet]

Like, imagine if while you were in the middle of fighting, they have Atriox spawn in at a random spot so you can't predict where he'll attack you from and you can only do so much damage before it transitions into the cutscene of him beating Chief up

[modest marsh]

I did a write up once as an extension of the cutscene where Atriox defeats Chief where it transitions to the PoV of Esparza when it happens

I had it so Atriox is the one who specifically scared him into stealing the pelican

[frigid rock]

Make taking down cortana be the focal point in infinite for one. What we have now is giving me star wars 8 to 9 vibes with the plot shift and it bugs me

[modest marsh]

I said structure

What you’re talking about is completely changing the premise

[frigid rock]

Thats what i wouldve wanted.

[carmine sleet]

Ooooh, that'd be a nice way to tie things together a bit more

[frigid rock]

Like what do you mean by structure. Like how infinite should just not start in media res? Throw me a line here

[modest marsh]

How the events are ordered and presented to the audience

This would include things occurring offscreen, which was your primary critique originally

[frigid rock]

Yeah as ive been saying, i wouldve liked it better if it didnt start in the middle of all these important events

So why are you asking me for what structural changes id make when u already know im complaining about stuff happening off screen. Ive already said my piece

[modest marsh]

Because I want to actually evaluate if this is a beneficial change to the version of the story we got?

I already stated before that infinite has a particular design goal, which was to place new players and veterans on even footing

From the perspective of the newcomers, they still have to filter through context they lack

Depriving everyone of that context instead of, idk, a big text crawl achieves that

[frigid rock]

Bro its my opinion. It doesnt really matter if you can or cannot evaluate my desired path for the story. Stop trying to hyperanalyze what I like, it aint that deep. Clearly you disagree so lets leave it at that.

Also that design goal of being welcoming to new and veteran players didnt really work for me as a vet of the franchise. They did not do this reboot thing that well imo

[modest marsh]

Yeah and I’ve acknowledged ways in which it could’ve done that better

I haven’t heard the same from you?

I’m just asking you to reciprocate so I can understand your perspective better

[frigid rock]

Prophets above, this guy

Wtf do you want from me. We keep going around in circles

Traditional story is more coherent to me. No in media res bs that they are trying to pull off. Why could it be better if it just closed out the last 3 games? Because we would have gotten some payoff instead of leaving us hanging like this with so many question

People have expectations in a series of games. Jumping around plot directions leads you to disappointments like the new SW sequel trilogy. That it

[carmine sleet]

If you have an issue with in media res, I have to ask, what are your thoughts on how A New Hope opened up? Because it opens up in the middle of a chase

[frigid rock]

If episode 6 started with the empire defeated already and introduced a new big bad i wouldve complained about it too. ANH didnt have lore baggage at that point. Also, if the in media res is done well its fine

[modest marsh]

It’s not exactly neat but I’d say I’m pretty proud of what this accomplishes if it was bolted onto the existing cutscene

After Atriox's fight with Master Chief, our PoV should've shifted to Esparza instantly with no time jump. Instead, he should be in the hangar when it happens, seeing Chief cast into space in horror. The camera then shifts to a FPV scene of Esparza scrambling into the Pelican, sloppily trying to it start up (subtly clueing us in that he isn't an experienced pilot) while Atriox carries out a rampage against the remaining UNSC forces present, indicated by flying bodies, crashing noises, and flashes of crackling red electricity that appear from offscreen to help establish him as a terrifying threat the same way Chief was to the Covenant.

Just as the Pelican is ready to launch, Esparza looks back over his shoulder as he hears the voices of people running towards the Pelican. He runs over to the troop bay, waving them over to get in so they can escape. One of them, an officer, is carrying a wounded marine with the help of a medic. When they're just within seconds of reaching the Pelican, Atriox uses his gravity mace to violently yank the officer offscreen, screaming, and the other two survivors fall to the floor. A Spartan leaps in between them and Atriox, prompting him to swing his mace which releases a violent burst of energy that causes Esparza to fall back towards, and the Pelican shutters and sparks.

Esparza slowly rises, his vision and hearing distorted, with muffled panicked screams heard just outside. When he regains focus he sees the Spartan, arm now limp with visible damage to the armor, defiantly poised to delay Atriox so that the others might escape. Esparza wastes no time to run back to the cockpit and immediately keys the thrusters with the intent to leave, but they sputter from the damage inflicted by Atriox's mace. The Spartan's voice, strained, crackles over the cockpit speakers and orders Esparza to hold until the others can board. The camera shifts PoV again so we can see his face as he decides to leave them behind. The Pelican lurches forward violently out of the hangar bay.

Part of this is to somewhat justify the circumstances we see Esparza in at the beginning of the game, since it’s not exactly clear how or why the Pelican is already dead/damaged when we shift to his PoV

[frigid rock]

Yeah like that. See? And you dont even have the backings of a multi billion dollar company.

[modest marsh]

Chief restores the Pilot’s hope after it was destroyed by Atriox, and that metaphor is made manifest by him powering the pelican up again

[modest marsh]

More to the point though, this is about preserving and reinforcing what was already there

I don’t think the multibillion dollar company got the result they planned on nor do I think I’m a better writer/director than Paul Crocker or what have you

Games are fickle things

(Also I scrawled this together in an hour on my phone’s note app)

[frigid rock]

Which is even more damning in a way to their story

[modest marsh]

Well no I’m pointing out how trivial it is to suggest improvements or changes they could make in hindsight

It’s a little different from actually making it and committing to a plan ahead of time

[wispy pewter]

This is because I assume they don’t have character models ready for most named characters or even have like…
Because Infinite has a totally different art style

And character design

[carmine sleet]

They literally have an Atriox model in the game, as seen in the post credits scene or the Atriox hologram seen on mission one. They didn't have Atriox absent because they lacked a model for him

[wispy pewter]

Yeah but no Majestic, no Palmer no Lasky no

[fair hazel]

Tomorrow we get the new story so excited

[ocean kite]

Is it ever directly stated or explained in the original trilogy why only humans can activate the rings?

I know the librarian did something since humanity were chosen to be reclaimers

But iirc librarian isn't introduced until 343 takes over with Halo 4.

In the first 3 games, do they ever cover the topic other than just showing the covenant forcing a human to do it?

[carmine sleet]

Librarian is first referenced in the Terminals from Halo 3

As for why a human is required to activate Halo and other Forerunner tech, it's basically just that the Forerunners wanted humanity to be their successors

[wicked nimbus]

from my understanding from reading the forerunner trilogy (so i could be completely wrong)

the precursors wanted humanity to take the mantle of responsibility, but the forerunners said no we should be it so they had the whole war with humanity.

but the librarian took pity on them and imprinted their Geas (DNA i guess) with her essense so they could return and one day reactivate stuff

[carmine sleet]

Aye, but Solo's question was specifically to pertaining to what we only see in the original trilogy

[fading flume]

[wicked nimbus]

ah i see

[hot zodiac]

https://tenor.com/view/dexter-james-doakes-surprise-mf-can't-prove-it-gif-7408854170742055240

[ocean kite]

Ik that, as I said, my question was is it ever actually stated in the first 3 games

I'm not asking what the explanation is because I've seen the lore videos, I'm just curious if its ever made obvious for people who only play the games

[modest marsh]

Humans are referred to as reclaimers by guilty Spark

[simple roost]

I have like goldfish memory but I've played the campaign like 10 times through minimum and didn't really realise

[modest marsh]

You are meant to infer they are uniquely qualified to use forerunner technology

When Chief initially refuses to activate the ring, his immediate response is to say he’ll go find another

Then in Halo 2 and 3, truth takes Miranda, Johnson, and other humans prisoner with the plan to use them to activate halo

So clearly the implication here is that yes, humans are needed

[dusk jetty]

That’s not to say nobody else could activate it, the covenant clearly got Alpha halo to work a little bit

The banished also brute forced their way through a couple places on Zeta, they got what looks like cables on boxes on doors throughout the campaign

[carmine sleet]

I love those environment assets in Infinite's campaign

[dusk jetty]

They definitely help to infer some things

Forerunner tech is like a subscription service and humans have access to premium features

[carmine sleet]

Can't believe the Forerunners gave the Netflix password to humanity

[ocean kite]

True, but there's nothing ever said to infer that the covenant can't do it

Other than them forcing humans to

But that could be seen as covenant just being lazy or weird or scared to touch the tech to someone who doesn't know the full lore

[stoic hamlet]

https://www.halowaypoint.com/news/halo-ascension-on-atropos

[modest marsh]

That doesn’t make any sense in the context of Tartarus and truth literally forcing Miranda/Johnson’s hand

And Johnson pleading with Miranda to kill him

[ocean kite]

I guess

Just seems like a key bit of lore that could have been elaborated on further

[fair hazel]

The story was great

Wow

[modest marsh]

Not everything can or should be laid out so plainly if the entire purpose is to give a sense of ambiguity/mystery that you’re supposed to read between the lines on

[ocean kite]

I get that, I really do. But I disagree heavily on this. Some parts of the story are too important to just be left up to ambiguity

[carmine sleet]

So this means more Executors are gonna be coming, right?

[stoic hamlet]

I mean, that was the goal in the future, yeah.

But we don’t even know when the first Executor was created.

Just that it was in 2560.

This could be before the first Executor, for example.

[carmine sleet]

Fair

[empty bloom]

Currently seething

[carmine sleet]

Just hope the planet gets nuked from orbit by whoever ends up stumbling upon it

[dapper pecan]

Why on earth did Alvarez put boots on the ground?

Surely the A.Is suggestion of just bombarding the place is more sound

[empty bloom]

I mean it kinda is a self solving problem if left alone long enough.

[empty bloom]

Also the dead guy clad in 'Demon Armor' is not a Spartan, or at least not entirely?

It's the miner from LV-13.

Weird choice of words considering Osteo is just commercial power armor tbh

[empty bloom]

What's funny is, I imagine the proto(?) Gravemind there has gotta be pissed that the first two things to arrive with a slipspace drive both either purposely shut down or were destroyed due to the stress of arriving.

[coarse hamlet]

"You are the child of my makers, inheritor of all they left behind. You are forerunner..." -lightbulb
Thats about it from the og trilogy beside when he refers to chief as reclaimer and assumes he's well read on protocol. 343(company) went on to make canon that what 343(lightbulb and also the only person in the og trilogy who could know beside 1024 and gravemind) said twice in 5 seconds is technically not incorrect but also false by a lot of omission.

[coarse hamlet]

Dont tell netflix

[carmine sleet]

It just wakes up for the first time like "Oh hey, so I have a ship here that'll ferry me off into the stars to infect othe- What do you mean it can't even take off?! I wanted to infect the galaxy!"

[empty bloom]

"What do you MEAN you disabled your slipspace drives"

[carmine sleet]

"That's just rude to me and my life consuming ways. What's that? You're gonna periodically feed me people?"

[glossy sun]

You think the UNSC was still making Spartan-IV's in secret?
Like during the time between 5 and Infinite

[orchid kettle]

We don't just think so, we know so

I dunno if any class specifically graduated in that time frame

but at the very least we know they're happening

[fading flume]

I don’t know if the Multiplayer storyline is still canon, but they had a whole IV training facility up and running

[frigid heart]

It’s canon

[carmine sleet]

There's multiple training facilities

We know of two which are no longer online, Laconia and the Academy on Nysa (Which is what we see in Infinite)