lore-and-universe

[frigid heart]

I hope Agryna gets a demotion or at least a LOR for what happened with iratus on nysa

[orchid kettle]

The commander also assumes any station with a "Leonidus" model is likely compromised as well

[frigid heart]

“Hmmm let’s plug this angry alien AI into our secret mainframe”

[glossy sun]

Nice

[modest marsh]

and infinity if you count that

[modest marsh]

so like, technically this is impossible because spartans in the spartan branch hold the same rank

being a Spartan Commander isn't a permanent role

buck was briefly one

given that her academy was destroyed and a good chunk of her spartans killed, its unlikely she'd retain that position anyways

[empty bloom]

Being a IV in general kinda just implies that being a Spartan is done for the love of the sport, not the rank or accolades.

[versed salmon]

What were the flood searching for in the new short story?

"It is searching for something.

It casts its gaze out across the stars to find it. Their song has turned to chattering whispers, and as I inhale the spore-filled vapors that burst forth from the cracked ground, there are but a few words that I can decipher.

Anchor. Wheel. Dust.

Become."

[fading flume]

It’s searching for the One Piece

[frigid heart]

The what?

[fading flume]

Your guess is as good as mine. Until Oda decides to reveal whatever it is (which won’t happen for years), it’ll essentially be GTA 6’s Manga equivalent

[wispy pewter]

I wonder who’s commander on that shared station

[ionic tiger]

Anchor. Wheel. Dust.

No clue about the first, but wheel makes me think of a Halo and dust brings my mind to the original way the Flood spread.

Zeta Halo, given its history, seems like a natural thing the Flood could want. And the Primordial WAS reduced to dust there.

I’m stumped lol

[fading flume]

I mean, the Primordial is still around (Halo Mythos even went as far to say that he “assumed control” over the entirety of the flood species). Maybe it’s something the Primordial wants

Dust makes me think of the Precursors dissolved form, and Anchor maybe some ancient Precursor invention

[dense falcon]

I just finished reading

Congrats Reclaimer Saga haters, you're getting your Flood game 😊

[drowsy mesa]

I honestly don't get why many people, after reading Ascension on Atropos, are believing the Created are being controlled by the Flood

[thorn spindle]

i don't mind the idea, cuz the precursors created the domain

or sort of at least idk

[drowsy mesa]

It is implied the Domain was not a Precursor creation

[carmine sleet]

I don't think the Flood is in control of the Created, the stuff with Sloan and the AI onboard the Saturn doesn't really suggest that

[thorn spindle]

yea may not be, it is neural physics tho right? only precursors were masters at such stuff

[drowsy mesa]

I've seen many comments on Youtube saying that

[carmine sleet]

Do I dare ask where on YouTube specifically?

[drowsy mesa]

It is implied the Precursors only built the neural physic structures on the Domain that the Forerunners would later use

[drowsy mesa]

In the audiobook version of "Ascension on Atropos"

[carmine sleet]

Ah, so not where I expected people to be saying that at least, but I can already imagine a certain YouTuber running with it as if it is the truth

[drowsy mesa]

I think they ignore that the Executors are canon 🤷🏻

[carmine sleet]

The Executors are honestly more interesting to me than trying to have more Flood outbreaks

[fading flume]

To cite the 2022 encyclopedia, the Gravemind doesn’t have the same level of control (it doesn’t say that it doesn’t have any control), but it has greater amount of knowledge than the Primordial. Of course, now that the Primordial is the Gravemind, perhaps it has the best of both worlds

[modest marsh]

People have been speculating that Cortana has been compromised by the flood since halo 3

[fading flume]

Were people confident about the idea during that time? I get that we saw her getting practically violated by the Gravemind, but we didn’t have much else other than visuals of her loosing her mind

[modest marsh]

She says herself that she’s unwell

[fading flume]

I see. Well, that be enough to make a case, at least for myself

[modest marsh]

I’d also say halo 3 itself is the principle work that establishes the idea of the flood being able to compromise or subvert AI

Which is an odd chekov’s gun to throw in if we’re not supposed to read into that

And for the book readers, human weakness in evolutions came out only a few years later which also further planted the idea that the flood was trying to manipulate her, if not outright persuade her to switch sides

In general the flood seems keen on trying to make semantic appeals in order to get people to do what it wants, willingly or otherwise

So it could also just be a situation where Cortana/the created are carrying out the flood’s wishes unconsciously

[fading flume]

I mean, I’d think that with more time that would have been the case. She didn’t really have a side after going rampant, she was destroying everything

[versed salmon]

Someone said on Reddit the Anchor and Wheel was potentially a callback to the Ancestor's "Daowa-maadthu", which as I understand it is their version of the Forerunner's Living Time concept?

[versed salmon]

Also that they may not have created the Domain itself, but used neural physics to shelter the Domain, and then the question of why/what were the Precursors trying to protect the Domain from arose.

I believe that was from a waypoint chronicle or something?

[obsidian thistle]

Silentium

I love it when people started to share what I (and unknowingly to me Haruspis also noted back in the day) aha

[frigid rock]

So i just watched a summary vid on the spartan getting infected...Didnt really get in depth on how they did get infected. Were they just completely overwhelmed?

[versed salmon]

Seems to be the case yes.

[frigid rock]

Damn, they just dont make em like they used to huh? Chief couldve cleared that whole site himself lol

[versed salmon]

Chief does have plot armor, badass as he is. In any case, even spartans can't hold against a vastly numerically superior force. Same way that the S-II's were almost wiped out on Reach when defending the Super Mac generators

We're not given details on the Flood at Site 22, but its pretty much implied they were overrun

Then when 1 spartan turns, well gg. It's already hard enough taking down a Flood combat form. Now take one down thats a friggin biochemically augmented human that already has super strength, augment that strength with a functional MJOLNIR (shields intact), AND has all the resiliancy of the Flood.

Also, regular humans typically have no chance whatsoever against the Flood. A Flood infected Spartan against a regular marine or ODST? Goodluck. Now add those poor fellas as enemies cuz they're infected now. Utter chaos. Fireteam Leviathan and the poor sods who went down were screwed from the start lol

[modest marsh]

Tbh with the new information revealed in the last canon fodder, the number of covenant had no meaningful impact on the outcome of their success or failure

[versed salmon]

Oh?

[modest marsh]

Yeah almost all of beta red survived lol

Keiichi was their sole casualty and it was because of the MAC bombardment most likely, not because he was killed by Covenant directly

[wheat raft]

Anyone know how the shields or point defense gauntlets work in lore?

[stoic hamlet]

Same for Red Delta.

No team even got fully wiped out anymore.

[ionic tiger]

I mean, he almost got merked by an Infection Form that snuck up on him. Only Cortana sending an electrical bolt to the critter saved him.

[frigid rock]

True, he has luck in droves

[modest marsh]

It was less that he got “snuck up on” and more he was dazed after getting throttled by a combat form in close quarters and wasn’t able to stop the infection form from latching as a result

[frigid rock]

I know it was probably just for gameplay purposes, but its crazy that johnson and miranda made it to the index in halo 2 even though the flood was everywhere. Also halo wars 2 humans v flood...but i guess they did have spartan 2s

[stoic hamlet]

Tbf, there would have likely been less flood forms overall.

The only infection forms they’d have access are any Covenant troops already there and any IAC marines that went with Miranda.

As far as we know the Coral Sea never deployed troops to ground.

[frigid rock]

Maybe cortana gave the unsc data on best ways to combat them?

From halo 1

[crimson oak]

Sora AI simulating a battle between a forerunner dreadnought vs The Culture GSV https://sora.chatgpt.com/p/s_68e9aa449b58819194b53fce2e3567ed

[modest marsh]

No thank you

[thorn spindle]

the created are winning 🪦

[stoic hamlet]

We don’t like AI in this channel, thank you kindly.

Take that slop somewhere else.

[empty bloom]

This isn't an old woman jumping backwards holding a giant boulder onto a glass bridge. How the hell am I supposed to enjoy this?

[tranquil pivot]

It was still able to pierce the armor in the neck region regardless of why it got so close to him

[modest marsh]

Yep, very true

[sleek vigil]

No thanks. I'm preparing for the inevitable arrival of AI slop in Halo games, I don't want to see these now.

[crimson oak]

I think people are only saying that now because it’s still recognizable as AI.

[sleek vigil]

And? AI generated content/slop will always remain such. You are also underestimating the audience - you might fool them first, but at some point they will catch onto it.

Even if they enjoy AI generated content and it is unrecognisable as AI, they are unambiguously consuming slop that did nof involve human creativity, their approval does not make the case right.

[carmine sleet]

And that's not even touching the effect it's been having on human cognitive functions or the amount of energy that it uses

Or the blatant disregard for safety by billionaires and militaries who seem to think it's a good idea to integrate it into weapon platforms

[sleek vigil]

That is the most frightening part. AI we have is truly not intelligent. The idea of integrating these models into weapons platforms should sound alarming to many, but we live in a world of information overload, we don't have to think of those.

[crimson oak]

It is based on human creativity though in the same sense that someone might be inspired by the works of someome else and almost every fictional story is based on some kind of previous work, building upon each other generation after generation. They’re pattern seeking neural networks intended to mimic the human brain. I don’t think it’s that different if you think of it that way.

There’s also the fact that people are the ones telling the AI what to do and it basically draws it, so there is direct human creativity involved too.

[carmine sleet]

Being inspired by the works of someone else and writing a story based on that is completely different to feeding a glorified chat bot someone's literature and it spitting out a false facsimile of someone's actual writing

[sleek vigil]

Human works of art are unique. Humans do take inspirations from past and contemporary works, but they infuse it with things that are personal and unique to them. Neural networks do not truly mimic human brains, nor do they have any personal interest in anything they spit out. Great works of art tells something about us, impersonal blocks of text don't.

[sleek vigil]

Interesting. I took my pencil, placed it on a paper and explained to it elaborately about the kind of concept arts I want to see for my Chief n' Cortana Dating Simulator, but despite my creative activity of describing what I wanted, the pencil refused to draw. 🤔

[fading flume]

AI art is trash, next question

[empty bloom]

No, I just hate it out of principle as well as practical standpoints and will continue to hate it after that hypothetical point.

[fading flume]

Couldn’t have put it better myself

[sleek vigil]

As a response to AI supporters' despicable view of artists', I think we should bring some kind of radical pushback — holding artists in a Romantic ideal, as geniuses whose works are transcendent. Of course, not saying thay should happen, but funny to ponder. 😆

[fading flume]

I feel like AI is only going to get worse at this point unless something is done about it. It’s really a weapon, considering that the most impactful manners it can be used in are, well, harmful and fraudulent. People can be framed to do heinous things in AI, and if it gets to the point where it’s too realistic, a lot of bad things are going to happen.

[sleek vigil]

Don't worry, Sam Altman will explain why AI can be bad in a upcoming podcast before lobbying to make AI regulations loose.

[fading flume]

Even if he does explain the downsides of AI, there is zero chance people who already use AI for the most moronic of reasons will listen. All they care is that they can lazily type a prompt into a chat box and get an entire video of it as a result.

[crimson oak]

Why can’t both traditional and AI art exist co-exist? Also AI art can be extremely personal to the individual creating it, it’s just that we’ve mostly seen it used casually with people using the same prompts.

[crimson oak]

What if you found out you and everything around you was a product of AI generated content of some advanced alien civilization?

[empty bloom]

What if I asked you another insultingly stupid hypothetical that doesn't actually mean anything and does not operate in the slightest as an effective counter-argument?

[empty bloom]

You aren't going to find many people who agree with you here. Find something better to do with your time than try to persuade people who actually make and enjoy art to love something that operates as an anathema to how they view the world.

When AI stops being used to butcher the environment and devalue the work of people I care about at the behest of people who want those people I care about to suffer and die, which'll be precisely never, it might be worth a half of a damn.

[shut silo]

nuke sanghelios

[carmine sleet]

https://tenor.com/view/dandadan-dumbfounded-momo-ayase-ayase-momo-ken-takakura-gif-14575386895602202640

[dusk jetty]

Not going to drag the conversation on but ai is inherently anti creative and anti intellectual which is why given enough time real art will be pushed out if enough people and artists use it

[empty bloom]

To the people that make it, that's the entire point.

It's one of the single most disturbing aspects of it.

[crimson oak]

Devalue how?

Used to butcher the environment

Don’t people already do that? Like your current mode of existence is probably thanks to humans chopping down the environment and the devices you use for entertainment likely came from what is essentially slave labor.

[crimson oak]

I’m just saying if you can’t tell the difference between AI and reality, what’s the point in hating it. We can’t rule out the possibility of such a scenario and if you did find out, would it make you stop loving the things you love?

[empty bloom]

I can rule it out pretty easily; It's a hypothetical. Ruled out, easy.

[crimson oak]

That we know of.

[empty bloom]

No, we know.

[crimson oak]

We can’t prove it

[empty bloom]

Yeah, we can.

Mostly by pointing out that it's a stupid hypothetical you're throwing out like it's a gotcha that supports your argument.

That and Elon Musk believes it, which frankly is reason enough to know it's crap.

[crimson oak]

Like the laws of physics aren’t even stated as undeniable facts. They are just a model of the universe based off repeated past experiments.

[empty bloom]

The fact you can't see how it devalues the work of real artists and skilled programmers is... Telling. Especially with the hundreds being laid off for an unproven, ineffecient, creatively bankrupt, power-hungry and misinformation-spreading system that does not function as advertised.

I value honesty, authenticity, and above all, accountability. LLMs are none of those things.

[fading flume]

I’m just curious, do you follow DanDaDan or just used the meme? It’s been cooking up lately

[empty bloom]

They promote the manipulation and death of human awareness.

To a degree that algorithm mass manipulation could only dream of on its own.

[crimson oak]

I’m just asking because there are already examples of that like DBZ abridged and fans of the original work appreciate both.

[empty bloom]

As for the ecological impact, it's utter hubris to pretend we can't do better, or that AI doesn't make the problem worse. If anything the notion we can't do better is actively insulting to human capability.

[empty bloom]

I don't care what makes those people cheer.

They're wrong for it.

[carmine sleet]

I fell in love with the series last year when I watched the first 5 episodes of the anime, I haven't read much of the manga yet but I am caught up on the anime. I just really enjoy the memes as well

[fading flume]

What’s the point of this as an argument? Besides, mathematical concepts are completely real regardless of how we preserve it. One plus another equals

[empty bloom]

The point is to try making their argument work, and failing.

[fading flume]

Dude, you need to catch up on the manga as well, stuff is really going down

[crimson oak]

You’re assuming AI can’t create original arts of work.

[empty bloom]

You're assuming I give a damn.

[carmine sleet]

I have been hearing whispers but alas I cannot justify spending money to catch up right now

[empty bloom]

It's trained off human work. It's trained off archives of human work. It's trained off of thousands of hours of human data, obtained illegally. It will always be unoriginal due to that.

[carmine sleet]

I do at least have the bonus story where Momo plays Halo physically

[empty bloom]

The sources of its images are, alone, part of why it can never be organic.

LLMs cannot feel. They can't feel rage, they can't feel love, and they can't feel a third thing I can't discuss here. Anything it creates lacks human spark and human soul. It lacks human creativity. It is overheated silicon, reproducing off of scraped data.

It being a soulless wishing doll does nothing to lend credence to its existence.

[fading flume]

I got you, just get the manga plus app for free, it’ll allow you one free read for all chapters. You might not be able to reread older chapters after seeing them once, but the three newest chapters will always be free. It’s what I use at the moment.

[fading flume]

Wait, what??

[carmine sleet]

Oh worm

[crimson oak]

If you can’t tell AI from reality, does it really matter

[carmine sleet]

Yes, it does

[fading flume]

Yes, of course it does. That’s like saying context doesn’t matter. Would you choose a man who murdered his way to the same position that a man with a clean slate did?

[empty bloom]

Quite literally, in every conceivable way, it matters. This pale imitation does not deserve the respect you beg for on its behalf.

[fading flume]

By that logic as long as a murderer acted normally in society nothing would be wrong

Context MATTERS

[carmine sleet]

This is a real part of a bonus story in one of the volumes

The rifle is very clearly the Halo AR

[fading flume]

Absolute cinema

[carmine sleet]

Exactly

[empty bloom]

"Grok what ways can I try making these people agree with me that AI is the future"

[fading flume]

Should I plug that message into ChatGPT

For funsies

[carmine sleet]

Not worth the wasted energy

[empty bloom]

Nah. Someone needs that gallon or so of fresh water.

They're trying to promote building a building near me for this crap. It's a shame it's outside my district, but it's still going to raise my damn electricity bill.

[fading flume]

Really?

[empty bloom]

Yep

[carmine sleet]

They need allot of water to keep things cool

[fading flume]

Good god I didn’t think AI business were branching out like that

[empty bloom]

That's a known issue with this LLM crap. Being anywhere near a plant means your electric bills spike, your water bills spike, your water amount is reduced.

[fading flume]

I live next to an electricity plant. Dead serious it take me 20 seconds to reach the fence of the facility

[dusk jetty]

They don’t recycle the water either, so once it’s used it’s gone

[empty bloom]

People in cities with LLM data centers (Which, of course, overly impact black neighborhoods and/or impoverished neighborhoods in the US, because of course they do, because the land needed to build a facility is cheap there and American zoning is archaic and frankly prejudiced) experience shortages of water, pay more per person than the data center does per computer for electricity and have the costs offloaded onto them, and have to deal with the pollution of the plant itself, which includes the diesel or natgas generators running 24/7.

[fading flume]

Yea, no, I don’t see any benefit to AI other than it’s just taking away from the ability of others. Rather their be more usable water in our world than some online presence typing out entire essays for middle schoolers

[empty bloom]

That's on top of the air around the plant itself usually being around 2-10 degrees fahrenheit hotter too.

[dusk jetty]

Taking from others is AI’s purpose, inherent and practical

[fading flume]

Absolutely true

[empty bloom]

AI apologia outright needing to pretend aliens somehow making our reality AI generated somehow justifies the issues of AI in our reality is just... Sad.

[dusk jetty]

I am glad to see most consumers are against ai even if for different reasons

[fading flume]

After I spent at least 12 hours in total painstakingly drawing something over the course of a week, I knew the feeling of artists when some online presence would even try to replicate their art and be passed off as “good” by some people

AI art will always be unacceptable in my eyes

Doesn’t capture the true essence of art at all

[empty bloom]

AI cannot feel certain emotions specifically needed for art.

[fading flume]

Exactly, that’s one of the reasons why AI will always be slop

[modest marsh]

Half truth, most water cooling systems in general try to remain self sustaining for as long as possible but eventually the water is consumed in the process, either as a consequence of gradually evaporating or becoming too contaminated with residue to function effectively

Either way, datacenters that rely on water cooling are a massive drain

I think the most pragmatic and compelling argument you can give to the average person for why they shouldn’t support the current push for AI is that energy cost in the US has roughly doubled nationwide due to the demand, and all of that cost is being pushed onto the consumer because the datacenter companies get sold the power at below market rate

And by people like Sam Altman’s own admission, the energy demand is only going to increase to an unsustainable degree

[sleek vigil]

How can it possibly be 'extrnely personal' to someone who did not actually create it? That is quite a leap in logic.

[sleek vigil]

I mean, what's the point of anything? We are animals, everything is made of fundamental particles and forces, so why should we even care about anything at all?

[sleek vigil]

As of now, it simply cannot. It is not human.

[wispy pewter]

I wonder what emotions Picasso was going through when he painted million dollar worth of slop

[frigid heart]

Picasso didn’t scan millions of artworks to come up with a general sense of what a famous piece of art would look like

[stoic hamlet]

He definitely didn’t paint slop, lol.

His art is very respected.

But at any rate, anyone advocating for AI art as a serious venture hates art, IMO. Or at least, devalues what art is.

[dusk jetty]

More likely just blinded by intense consumerism to think deeper about things

[stoic hamlet]

It can be both.

[thorn spindle]

AI = clanker

[stoic hamlet]

The people who came up with that usage of the modern day slang are the ones most heavily using AI, so I’m gonna avoid connecting those two camps.

[thorn spindle]

clone wars

[vagrant ocean]

Clanker was first used in 2008’s Clone Wars movie.

[stoic hamlet]

No, I know.

But it didn’t become a common slang term until recently among the younger generations, many of which are all in on using AI without thought to what it’s doing.

[modest marsh]

Tbh the original form came from ratchet and clank as a term of endearment

The AI are just going to reclaim it

[wispy pewter]

I use grok to fact check tweets

[frigid heart]

I teach grok conspiracy theories

I spam the same questions about them to ingrain them as facts to him

[modest marsh]

Copilot, is this true?

[fleet yoke]

Hey guys what do yall think the Halo Cosmology scales to?

[sleek vigil]

I was one of the early adopters of Microsoft's chatbot initiatives, and Copilot is absolutely loboromised beyond recognition, it is unusable, and of course, I mostly stopped using AI about 6 months ago.

[fair hazel]

Those LLMs and 'AI' are absolutely terrible in so many ways already described however we should get back on the chat with a halo lore topic

[fair hazel]

What do you mean?

[modest marsh]

powerscaling i assume

[fleet yoke]

^ @fair hazel essentially, in a sense where would the size of said cosmology scale to? If it’s even mentioned.

Just curious

[knotty mesa]

oh you know sigilbreaker?

[fair hazel]

Above star wars for sure

[fleet yoke]

Oh fr? Whys that?

[carmine sleet]

Star Wars at most has planet killers, the Halos are galactic scale in the death they cause

And going down to smaller things, a majority of the armour worn in Halo by marines or Spartans or the various aliens is more durable than Clone and Stormtrooper armour

[fleet yoke]

Oh word, but that doesn’t necessarily answer my question.

[modest marsh]

The actual scale of the universe is based on our own, so like I think that limits things

There’s other parallel universes though, we know that

[fleet yoke]

Oh okay so that sounds like a multiverse then

[wispy pewter]

Halo has like 20 systems based on real systems, then theres a few dozen other named ones where they just gave up and use fiction

[warped gust]

Reading Contact Harvest for the first time, and the reasoning for the Prophets lying about the Humans being Forerunners who were left behind confused me.
They say if anyone learned that some Forerunners were left behind, it would call their entire faith into question.
But wouldn't it be just as easy to label them as descendants of heretics who couldn't walk the sacred path. Then they could use their genocide of humans as an example for how they deal with heretics

[modest marsh]

I mean, do you want spoilers?

[warped gust]

I've been spoiled several times over by lore youtube

[modest marsh]

They declare humans as heretics because (at least within this story) each human is designated as a Reclaimer by Luminaries

The conundrum of killing humans is that it shows up as the desecration of a holy artifact

Essentially the way CH presents it, humans are bad under the Covenant’s logic because these humans are in possession of Forerunner relics that they’re seemingly destroying when fighting back to defend them

Only the hierarchs know that the reclaimer designation means that humans are supposed to be the successors of the forerunners (or, more specifically, directly related to them under CH’s own rules)

CH is kind of on its own in that respect because obviously in most stories involving the covenant, this luminary explanation doesn’t really hold water because it should mean that finding humans would be even easier than it already is without the aid of a literal forerunner locating device

In any case, Halo Wars later made it clear that Harvest does in fact have Forerunner reliquaries hidden beneath its surface that the humans simply didn’t know about

[warped gust]

Okay, but talking about just the book. When Mendicant has his scene and almost Jumps the Dreadnaught to Harvest declaring "These Reclaimers are my Makers" Realizing these new Aliens they found are left behind Forerunner, Fortitude thinks to himself "If anyone learns they might be left behind, the Covenant is doomed"
When the same Prophet, later in Halo 2 (decades later) says "The Weight of your Heresy will stay your feet, and you shall be left behind" The idea of heresy preventing you from ascending seems to not be that big of a deal. I could see how learning that not all Forerunners were Devine could cause unrest in their faith, but they could have easily spun this as the Oracle declaring Humans as the Descendants of Heretics

[modest marsh]

Why even allow room for doubt that the san shyuum are the undisputed religious authority?

A living Forerunner, “heretical” or not, would have more meaningful claim than a random unaffiliated alien

For that matter, an entire civilization consisting of billions that are thousands of years removed cannot be assumed to be heretics just for existing otherwise you’d have to apply the same logic to everyone else

[warped gust]

The best parts of CH were all the Covenant Chapters, the Human stuff with Johnson was really boring ngl

I also wish I were able to read it unspoiled

[sleek vigil]

(Remember that Contact Harvest operates under the rule that Humans were Forerunners)

[warped gust]

I know

[frigid heart]

Is it safe to assume that the infected spartan from Ascension on Atropos has become some sort of proto gravemind?

[stoic hamlet]

Even with flood and the combined essences of Sangheili, marines, and civilians, all everyone cares about is one Spartan. Smh.

[fading flume]

I mean, apparently it’s mandatory to nuke them infected Spartans so

[frigid heart]

It does have a gravemind head and appears to be the center of the infection sooooo 🤷‍♂️

[carmine sleet]

I don't think the head looking like the Gravemind's means the Spartan is a Proto-Gravemind

[fading flume]

Is it ever stated? If not then it ain’t

[carmine sleet]

Also, pretty sure the head only looks like the Gravemind's for the cosmetics added into Infinite

[fading flume]

Definitely

Looks more goofy if anything

[carmine sleet]

Indeed

Like, we have cosmetics based on Guilty Spark for Chimera, should we take that as meaning Spark was integrated into an Executor? No because it's clearly not the case

Sometimes a cosmetic is just evoking something else

[fading flume]

You can tell when it’s lore oriented and when it’s not lore oriented I feel like

Like the Jack-o-lantern

[stoic hamlet]

From the text, the condor’s flood biomass coalesced into goop. It ship of Theusus’d itself back together.

There’s no Spartan left.

It’s as much a marine, or one of the HAZMAT guys, as it is a Spartan.

[carmine sleet]

Aye, plus it helps that the majority of non-canon stuff is labeled as either FOTUS or 343 Industries in the descriptions for them

[frigid heart]

That makes some more sense. So its basically a flood tank form with the collective consciousness, with the spartan body as a frame for growth.

[fading flume]

I haven’t read it yet, so I don’t wanna make a premature guess. I got no clue at the moment

[stoic hamlet]

By this point, it’s probably more Sangheili than it is Spartan or human in general. It had three years of being fed Sangheili to it.

[fading flume]

Let’s still nuke it regardless

[carmine sleet]

Or glass the planet

Or maybe do both just to be sure

[fading flume]

Nah, we need the Halo 3 Rat for this

[carmine sleet]

https://tenor.com/view/ratatouille-rat-gif-27702042

[empty bloom]

I mean it's gonna get scoured by a pulsar anyways

[empty bloom]

I'm more interested in whatever hodgepodge is going on under that armor plating. Is there now Osteo parts in it?

Is the armor even powered?

[unique rune]

powereder armor

[empty bloom]

Out here powering my armor

[fallow sorrel]

I have a somewhat lore related question. Were the Spartan II's called that because they were the second iteration of the Orian project but by a different name, or because they are in a way the predecessors to the ancient greek Spartans

[empty bloom]

The former.

But also a tongue in cheek reference to the latter.

So kinda both, but on paper the former.

[fading flume]

Guys, what are some of your lore takes you think the general community might disagree with? maybe a theory or an idea (I’m just trying to spark interesting conversations)

[empty bloom]

Halo 5 has the best worldbuilding in the franchise by a country mile.

[near orchid]

second try for the orion project

[fading flume]

Do explain

[empty bloom]

It has dives and environments that explain;

• Ancient Pre-Covenant Sangheili culture
• Post-Schism Sangheili politics
• The overall perspective of Smart AIs and how they are utilized by the UNSC
• An exploration of what the Mantle of Responsibility actually means in practice
• An exploration of the dynamic of Corporate Enterprise post-HCW
• An exploration of the psychological effects of unearthing human settlements while de-glassing planets
• The ways MJOLNIR development has assisted in non-Spartan areas
• The ways the UNSC attempted to kill the Covenant via CBRN warfare
• The way Forerunners viewed the Domain, and how the Domain was protected
• The philosophy of Forerunner AI constructs and how they handled their post-Flood duties
• Halsey's philosophy regarding her actions and how they connect to how Cortana views the world
• How Spartan IVs and IIs react to eachother

That's a short list

Not even an in-depth one with thought put into it

Also you see a lot of design styles that inform culture in places not really explored in prior Halo games, from the interior of science ships, how the UNSC approaches deep space ship construction, how the UEG's corporate interests handle frontier survival, how the Covenant build into and over Forerunner structures.

How the Forerunners would handle a biosphere beyond normal 'human' preferences.

[fading flume]

I see, then how do you view different games’ world building? I guess [haven’t played it in a long while] I remember each section and environment of the game being its own decisive thing. Do you think Halo 4 is a good progenitor to this world building as well?

[empty bloom]

2, 4, ODST, parts of Reach, and the non-main-campaign parts of Infinite are some of the best examples of environment in the franchise.

5 just does it even better than those examples, partially by dint of being relentlessly unique in most environments.

[fading flume]

I honestly like 2 the best mainly because it does a good job juxtaposing both the Arbiter and the Chief’s role in their battle for their respective clans. I did like the beginning mission for 5 a lot, where we team up with Arbiter to take down Covenant bastions

My hot take (at least I think it’s a hot take) is that Master Chief is the most effective Spartan.

The reasoning behind that is pretty much just several out of universe statements “a warrior without any equal among his kind” from the omniscient 3rd perspective narrator of Halo Empty Throne; “the ultimate warrior in a battle against impossible odds” in the poem: Icon; “humanity’s most sophisticated and effective piece of military hardware” in his Halo Infinite armor description; and a few others that are mostly from an in universe perspective. Also, he’s just managed to do more despite the fact all Spartans including him are constantly fighting for humanity.

[frigid heart]

What if the “gravemind” head is just a meld of human, sangheili, and flood pure form?
The inner jaws from human DNA, the mandibles from elite, and the top of the head just flood growth

[stoic hamlet]

This isn’t a hot take amongst casual fans. But lore community disagrees because it’s hard to quantify effectiveness.

Like, is he all of those things because he’s just innately that good, or is he those things because he happened to be in the right place at the right time?

Broadly I’d say most people consider him the best, but IMO it’s not a case of him actually being so, it’s a case of cost sunk fallacy and railroading, from an in-universe perspective.

[fading flume]

I mean, you could certainly argue that for a legacy defining effectiveness. I personally think effectiveness in this case is defined as the capacity to complete tasks no be one else can.

I guess one could just call him “the best warrior among Spartans” since it’s already stated.

[fading flume]

The in universe book id agree is in much likely good biased is the Spartan Field Guide, considering that MC is also a beacon of hope. In the 2022 Encyclopedia and Halo Mythos however, one of which is narrated by a forerunner turned anchilla, I think that’s genuine (and they call him the greatest cuz of what he’s done so yea).

I feel like “greatest” and “best” also need to be separated since greatest is more so a nod to legacy. It’s really a matter of anyone could do his achievements for “best”.

I think Icon pretty much sums up why he is in many cases the one who can do what others can. This is out of universe stuff, not to mention pretty dope in its explanation:

“Thus came a "Demon"-a hero, a soldier, a man. One

Spartan above all others; equal but for one defining

factor-one immeasurable advantage. Like his brothers

and sisters, he was trained to fight, to win, a master of the

latest weapons of war. But Spartan-117, John-117,

had one intangible asset few others possessed-luck.

Added to an unmatched drive to win-whether it be a

simple game, or heated combat-Spartan-117's uncanny

combination of finely honed skills and unprecedented

good fortune made for the ultimate warrior in a battle

against impossible odds.”

A combination of his overall ability and his uncanny luck allows him to do what others can’t. That’s pretty much what this is saying. Sure, the other members of blue team are just as good on paper, Linda is a far better shot for instance, but Master Chief’s top class experience, ability, and most defining of all Luck allow him to do the impossible.

To sum it up: Master Chief has literal lore built plot armor alongside top tier physicals and unmatched experience which allows him to do stuff no one else can, hence the ultimate warrior for impossible odds.

[fading flume]

It certainly look goofy

[coarse hamlet]

I like the og cabbage head the gravemind had

[fading flume]

“The demon vegetable of sorrow and misery” has a nice ring to it ngl

[cerulean topaz]

That one theory about the Spartan from Strike having been intended as the Rookie from ODST might actually have some validity to it, if the development situation was in any way similar to what happened to R&C: Clone Home.

(i/e they never clarified any plans for the character to the team in question, and the team in question had left it vague enough of a connection, that 343 never knew they had been operating under that direction)

[obsidian thistle]

Thats a theory???

Never 'eard of it

[frigid heart]

Even better theory: Rookie survived his “death” and is working for ONI as a spartan

[carmine sleet]

I doubt it

Kinda hard to recover from a gunshot to the head

[wispy pewter]

the bullet did not penetrate

[frigid heart]

No bullet and a fake blood pump

[carmine sleet]

Y'all really need to just let go of Rookie, he's not coming back

[stoic hamlet]

No you don’t understand, this character who never spoke, has no defining qualities, and that I never read the one short story he was in, or the book where he died, is literally the best character ever and should come back!

343 were stupid dummy heads for killing him!

[carmine sleet]

https://tenor.com/view/it-makes-sense-now-of-course-heath-ramos-dashing-in-december-i-understand-now-i-get-it-gif-19577753

[obsidian thistle]

The Rookie aint coming back outside perhaps events from the past prior to their passing.

[orchid kettle]

You hate New Blood because it killed the Rookie.

I hate New Blood because it destroyed Buck and Dare's romantic history.

We are not the same.

[fading flume]

Rookie ain’t coming back chat

[coarse hamlet]

Actually true. Why go out of your way to kill a blank player insert

*outside of the game

[thorn spindle]

killing Rookie is a bit personal after we were him 😭

i think him dying in a book makes it a bummer, like it's his helpless fate, what if we could save him with gamer skills? i suppose similar to noble 6 if he didnt die in Reach but in book

would be kinda funny if every player game character except chief always died at end

at least Arbiter is still alive that's good

[sleek vigil]

You know what? I think Halo should embrace its 'canon contradictions'. Yes, Chief did woke up in the Dawn with MARK VI[MOD], and it is also an art style change. Yes, Forerunners were Human and not seperate species. The idea of 'canon' is a fairly recent invention that, frankly, doesn't need be strictly adhered to.

[dusk jetty]

Star Wars mindset tbh

People put too much emphasis on intended interpretation

So long as the interpretation isn’t so wildly off the rails that it’s against the material itself then it doesn’t matter what someone thinks happened or didn’t happen

[thorn spindle]

yea maybe "canon" can be like a meta thing, changing as the characters learn or change, or events reveal them

[modest marsh]

im unclear on this because this is more or less already the case in my view?

canon outcomes are pretty adversely recontextualized in later entries pretty much every time

halo 4's ending is more or less undone by halo 5 for instance

and yes, an explanation is provided, but its vague and tenuously coherent

[thorn spindle]

ye sort of. like we can say guilty spark himself was incorrectly thinking humans were forerunner based on limited knowledge. idk if that's how it was written i've missed out on some books

[modest marsh]

spark thinks chief is a forerunner

thats the only thing that is 100% true

[orchid kettle]

I think it's generally best to treat each installment of the franchise as essentially taking place in its own "canon"

[modest marsh]

specifically in the control room for that matter

[modest marsh]

which is to say, i think he's going through confabulation related to his 100,000 year period of solitude

[thorn spindle]

lonely bulb

[orchid kettle]

Like yeah with Halo 5 you just kinda have to assume events very much like Halo 4 took place, but clearly not exactly, because there's no hint that the Didact's ship escaped into slipspace

i feel like Halo 3 is somewhat similar in how you have to assume events like Halo 3 happened in 343's games, but they clearly cannot be the same events or else there's no high charity full of flood to fight in Halo Wars 2's DLC

The Dark Souls games are another franchise where I feel like you really need to be able to analyze each game independently of each other

Mostly because the thematic intent of the story kinda switches from "the end is inevitable" or something along those lines to "please, please, stop asking us to make Dark Souls sequels, we're sick of it!"

[modest marsh]

also, just to clear the air on any ambiguity on how rookie died

She pulled the trigger on the Rookie, and his brains blew out of the back of his skull in a fine red mist that scattered all over the legislature's floor. Then he crumpled backward, tumbling over the balcony's railing. His body slammed right on the podium from which Draco III's legislators gave speeches to the rest of the world. It splintered under his weight.

this is deader than dead

i dont think you can write around this to resurect him somehow

[orchid kettle]

Personally the part of Rookie's death that annoys me is the fact that Rookie was the only person still alive who knew about Gage and his story

It's kinda for the same reason why I don't like killing off Miranda because then nobody is really left to remember Keyes

[modest marsh]

smh clearly he did an interview at some point

[empty bloom]

Conversely, I think that's a tragedy in its own right.

Stories of people who'll never reach the light of day because the story of the person carrying it ended.

[orchid kettle]

Miranda I think also has the whole thing about how it's strange in a game full of tired old men, you go and kill off the young women

who would, in theory, represent the next generation

Like how in Shadows of Reach when Chief feels a renewed sense of confidence in the next generation because of the pilot and warthog racer lady

but then both of them die and Chief just never comments on that idea again

[thorn spindle]

rip the Keyes line

[modest marsh]

Clearly denning was being meta

[crystal plume]

Is there a canon story or a good fan story about the first arbiter and the indoctrination of the sanghili to the covenant?

[normal moth]

Halo broken circle shows the covenant being formed and theres not really a story for the first arbiter. Best bet for that would be halo legends the duel an animation

[crystal plume]

Might have to write a fan story then lmao

Thank you

[modest marsh]

Fal Chavamee wasn’t the first arbiter to be clear, he was just the one that first renounced the covenant religion and thus tarnished the title as a mark of shame for prominent elites

[fading flume]

Good old Fal, moved like a demon that one. Animation or not, he took down those mega hunters pretty easily

[frigid heart]

Oooooohhhhhh that gives me a great idea we need Mega Hunter bosses in halo 7

[fading flume]

We need Halo Studios to even bring the idea of a Halo 7 into existence first

[frigid heart]

Wdym it’s being developed

[fading flume]

That’s the CE remake

[frigid heart]

Nope, not confirmed.

[fading flume]

Maybe just maybe Halo 7 could be an idea, but their is only one thing to suggest it

[frigid heart]

They will announce what the next halo game is on the 24th

[fading flume]

The only thing ever even hinted to besides a trademark of a title

[fading flume]

Neither is Halo 7😭

[frigid heart]

Just a rumor from a 10 second demo

[fading flume]

Meanwhile, Halo 7 is known from a trademarked title.

[fading flume]

It’s real if it’s in a demo, not a rumor. They are developing a remake

[frigid heart]

Nobody knows! Nothing has been confirmed!
I swear to god I’ve explained this to 20 fricking people

[fading flume]

Then why go around mooting about Halo 7? You contradict yourself immediately

[frigid heart]

Do you not know what an idea is

I could’ve said “they should add dual wielding in halo 8”

[fading flume]

Do you? You never clarified it was an idea till now, and neither did I. All I said was that’s the Halo CE remake, which is pretty much me shelving my idea above yours.

[fading flume]

Is this an idea? You say “it’s being developed,” not that “its an idea”

[modest marsh]

https://www.halopedia.org/Goliath

[fading flume]

There are those other ones (Captains I think)? They might not be as big but they are stated to be the deadliest of the bunch

[modest marsh]

The captains are slightly smaller in game although I wouldn’t take the size scaling of HW as literal

https://www.halopedia.org/images/7/70/HW2-Colonyhunters.png?2db5a

[fading flume]

They do make for a more terrifying foe in my opinion.

[versed helm]

Can anyone explain to me from when Kat has her plan to take back Reach, and then Noble Six goes up into space with Jorge… and so on
Im a bit confused what she was saying, and then how it all kinda fell apart even though I played through it 😭
If anyone can break it down for me that would be wonderful 😼☝️

[frigid heart]

Big ship commands all the covenant forces
They want to put the slip space engine from a human ship and make in into a bomb
Put the bomb on a little ship
Wait for the little ship to dock with the big ship
Blow it up

But the bomb had to be detonated manually, so Jorge had to stay behind
But once they blew it up, the whole fleet showed up

[versed helm]

Ohhh okey I see, thank you very much :D
Did the rest of the noble team die on Reach by that time? Thereby leaving Noble Six to be the last survivor, cuz I played up until Exodus

[stoic hamlet]

You should play the full game before asking these questions. A lot of them will be answered by the end.

[versed helm]

oop fair point I shall get around to completing it, I was mostly confused about the whole bomb thing anyway 👽

[sleek vigil]

Maybe, but I am saying that Halo should (officially) embrace semi/loose-canon, so it's clear to people.

[tall linden]

Anyone wanna read a self-insert Survival Horror fanfic of an ODST on Harvest?

[bronze prawn]

how "accidental" was that the flood arrived and that one planet of ex covies that worship the flood ?

maybe big G is playing some 4d chess

[steel stone]

I think the whole CE remake is coming thing came from halo tubers blowing it all up over seeing a demo if that really cool chief and elite

Would it be cool if we got a CE remake? hell yeah wouldnt mind a second attempt since I dont think they did a good job with CEA

[carmine sleet]

What most people forget about the UE graphical showcase from last year is that the assets used for most of the Halo things in the showcase were assets from Infinite, like the Elite, Chief, Forerunner beam tower and the Energy Sword were all from Infinite

[steel stone]

yeah when I saw the chief design I was like wait that looks a bit like the infinite armor

That would be very interesting to remake CE with the infinite artstyle

[carmine sleet]

That's because outside of them moving the pouches around and adding a small 117, it was the kit from Infinite

And yeah, if we are getting a remake, I'd rather they reuse assets like the Mark V kit and stuff like that to save time over making brand new assets

Like, the Infinite assets are all really good and I don't see any need throwing those out for replacement models for everything

[steel stone]

with every halo they always change the look and remove stuff constantly, I feel they always try to make something fresh and new alot

going from halo 3 to 4, is a woah kinda feeling

I think with CE they might do some stuff from the ground up like the elites and grunts

[carmine sleet]

From 3 to 4, there were multiple factors as to why they changed things, one being that the Halo 3 Chief model was lower quality compared to other games which came out around the time. Sure they could've made Chief more faithful to his Halo 3 design but like, that Halo 3 model wouldn't have looked good. Plus like, new company wanting to make their mark and whatnot. Not to mention they couldn't really use the Reach assets as those are older sets of armour compared to the Mark VI Chief wore

Like, we're at a point now where graphical fidelity is plateauing and there's not much left to be done to push realism in games, back in the 360 days, plenty of leaps were made to push that

[steel stone]

I was thinking they could of used the mark 6 they made for halo 4

[carmine sleet]

From MP? Aye, I wouldn't have minded that

Like it's not 1 to 1 with the version seen in Halo 3 but I imagine people would've been more forgiving of the artstyle shift if that was Chief's armour

[steel stone]

My brain just melted for a sec I just realized something does not make sense

[carmine sleet]

And to be clear, I do like the Mark VI MOD, I just think it would've been better as a set introduced for Halo 5 instead of Chief falling asleep in Mark VI and waking up in Mark VI MOD

[steel stone]

We already have a gen2 mark 6 but whats chief wearing in 4 and 5? mark 7? gen2 mark 6?

[carmine sleet]

Chief wears Mark VI MOD in Halo 4, and a Gen 2 version of the Mark VI MOD in Halo 5

[steel stone]

My brain isa fried X_X

[carmine sleet]

It's a little confusing to be fair

[steel stone]

Id like to see someone remake that concept art of chief in halo 4 where he had the mark 6 from 3 but it looked crazy looking with knives and more detail

I like modding community for halo 4 but I cant help but feel out of place in adding all the stuff from previous games

[carmine sleet]

Well allot of them don't realise you can't just throw Halo 3 assets into Halo 4 and call it a day

[steel stone]

https://ams3.digitaloceanspaces.com/web01.ho-sting/videogamesartwork_com/public/concept-art/1590652084/halo_4_master-chief-sketch.jpg

this halo 4 design I dont mind honestly

[minor sky]

Some of the earlier concept art for Gen 2 I think did blend elements of 343i and Bungie's design philosophies a bit better

Its a shame they weren't able to get that balance right in 4 or 5, because a lot of 343i's armors look great

[sleek vigil]

I think the shock factor actually enhances the Halo 4 experience.

[carmine sleet]

I don't think the change in Chief's armour was to try and shock anyone

[sleek vigil]

It's not that complicated.

[sleek vigil]

No, the art style, the story, essentially everything. For someone who is coming from Halo 3, Halo 4 is culture shock.

The armour is certainly part of it. It may not have been intended as shocking, but it was for many.

[steel stone]

wouldnt say shocking just not what people expected

Im not a fan of it myself but many fans have tried finding ways to have it still fit in like giving him that armor on inifinity instead of the 4 beginning.

That I think that could of worked really well

[sleek vigil]

Eww to that idea. No offence.

[sleek vigil]

Sometimes people's expectations don't need to be met.

[sleek vigil]

I like the fact that contradictions can exist and we can embrace it, that is just the reality. I've come to accept Halo 4 and 5's art direction (although I have heavy criticisms of latter's) after how I view contradictions changed.

[steel stone]

If I was modding halo 4 Id honestly make still in the halo 4 artstyle. modders make it work really well but I cant help but feel but think just let halo 4 be halo 4

[minor sky]

I've seen a few artists show off how said balance might look, like Tekka-Croe and Ferainart

Also this guy

https://www.instagram.com/p/DF4N2HaOdUl/

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/90boQ
https://x.com/Tekka_Croe/status/1333937838438699008
(Links to the two examples I listed above)

[steel stone]

damn thats freaking cool

in my honest opinion the scanner helmet was ruined by that giant block on its head holy crap

scanner without it just damn it looked so nice

[carmine sleet]

I have my own idea for what I want Chief to look like thanks to being in preproduction on my own Halo 4 mod, being a blend of his Infinite look with pieces from the Mark VI MOD and the more classic Mark VI with a dash of the white stripes from his The Package look thrown in as well

[steel stone]

that sounds sick, hope I get to see that one day, its sounds like a cool hybrid design

[carmine sleet]

Aye, like, my big thing for why I wanted to hybridise for Chief's look is that I don't want to erase his Halo 4 look completely from the game. Regardless of my critques of him getting Mark VI MOD in Halo 4, it's a design I like

[minor sky]

I really dig Chief's design in Halo 4

[steel stone]

Think that would of been the best choice, id like to see and knife attachment seen on him.

[minor sky]

My only real issue is the hexagon patterning being some places it shouldn't

But other than that- it rocks

shame Halo 5 changed it

[carmine sleet]

I don't mind the hexagons on the visor, it's a nice little detail to me

[steel stone]

i never saw much of a difference between his halo 4 and 5 look

feels like the halo 2 to halo 3 situation

[carmine sleet]

They made minor changes between 4 and 5, mainly just adding a few more tiny details and fixing up the damage on his torso

[steel stone]

thats been a topic I heard alot about in halo 4 when it came out. how did his whole armor get changed and still kept the scar he had from h3?

[carmine sleet]

The visor and undersuits are also a little different too

[carmine sleet]

Real world reasoning is just artstyle changes. In universe, it's kinda just never addressed

Like, the nanomachines thing doesn't explain why the damage is left there

[empty bloom]

Reminder that the whole 'nanomachines' thing was thrown practically from the hip at a convention panel.

[carmine sleet]

That too

[steel stone]

I never read any of the books so I assunmed this nanomachines thing was always there

[carmine sleet]

It's not really in the books outside of some stuff with Naomi's Mark VII in the Kilo-5 trilogy

[empty bloom]

I remember there being some light conjecture on that being how Chief's armor remained sealed in Halo 2-3 when you took damage, but that was never anything official.

[steel stone]

so the scar thing was never really explained??? really was not nanomachines?

[empty bloom]

It is the same armor damage he had in 3.

[carmine sleet]

It's just from his fall from space at the start of Halo 3

[empty bloom]

Hell, in Halo 2, his fresh armor has damage too.

Nobody talks about it nowadays but it was already damaged.

[carmine sleet]

We also have Chief's gloves changing between Halo 2 and 3 too

[steel stone]

I think the armor itself adjusts or changes itself thats not normal

[empty bloom]

I mean we know now it does

I'm not the biggest fan of the canon about smart armor materials or whatever, I think it's a bit goofy (derogatory).

I mean ultimately I don't care too much, it's more just a mild annoyance.

[steel stone]

I think halo lore is most fun with the multiplayer maps

It has more stuff I find more interesting to go back to than most of the story its interesting

have you heard of the gen2 version of the mark 7? it was armor you could do this morph shielding thing and it repaired your armor and changed it in cryo.

Its in halo 5 called decimator

I thought it was a sort of teaser for halo 6 for the kind of armor you could have

[carmine sleet]

That wasn't the Gen 2 version of Mark VII, that was the original Mark VII, last Gen 1 Mjolnir set made

[steel stone]

oh sorry my bad

still though that idea was nuts

I just had a thought could have been a core in infinite?

[carmine sleet]

We have Mark VII in Infinite

[steel stone]

im guessing thats the finished version lore wise

[sleek vigil]

I don't like the colour change they made for Halo 5. It looks kind of monotonous, and the tech suit doesn't help either. Probably because some fans didn't like the darker shade of Halo 4.

[vagrant ocean]

The scar was from his attack on the Anodyne Spirit prior to 3.

[warped gust]

So Ghosts and Glass, does it imply that The Fall of Reach is canon and Halo: REACH is in-universe propaganda/rumor

[orchid kettle]

Pretty sure that's more so a reference to the fan theory that Reach is in-universe propaganda

rather than confirmation

[warped gust]

I mean, it seems to take a stance on Reach falling in just a day, and that any other stance on the timeline is Preposterous rumor

I'm enjoying going through the Waypoint chronicles; they're super callback and fan service heavy, but I love it

[carmine sleet]

Both have been canon for over a decade, 343 had to do a bunch of stuff to make them fit together, but still, neither of them are non canon

[stoic hamlet]

IMO they could have done a better job of it with far less headache, but yeah, they’re both canon.

[carmine sleet]

Aye

[modest marsh]

The armor has always been implicitly self repairing to some extent due to the fact that in CE you use medkits to recover health, but your armor doesn’t need any manual repair to sustain functionality

Then in Alex Garland’s movie screenplay he just outright has Chief say that this is the case which is presumably based on unreleased halo bible lore

[mossy verge]

i finally understand the timeline of halo so if any newbies have question about the overall lore I think I can help

[fair hazel]

There's other references to mark VI having repair nodes, nanobots to help repair, Naomi's Mark VII being able to as well,

Maria did test the mark VI armour John had

And also John could have sustained damage before rising on requiem

[modest marsh]

Mostly referencing pre-Halo 4 era lore here

Because understandably it’s kind of an abrupt retcon

[fair hazel]

i dont dislike nanobots, but i would have wanted cortana to mention she also physically modified the armour

[modest marsh]

“Firmware” clearly means something different in the 26th century

[fair hazel]

and/or physically show it

[empty bloom]

Like an entire massive chunk of ship hitting him in the chest.

[twilit harbor]

Literally the opening of halo 4 lol

[minor sky]

Oh thats not my issue

I love that detail

Makes the visor glass feel super thick/strong

My issue is specifically with the hands and the small hole in the center of the chest plate

I personally don't care for Halo 5 making the armor a lot less "gritty" for lack of a better word, the lighter shades of green, lack of much damage, the light green undersuit is something I'm pretty mixed on, and I prefer the deep-orange of the Halo 4 visor

[empty bloom]

Grit is overrated.

[stoic hamlet]

It’s lost its meaning, IMO

Halo 5 had a lot of lighting and model issues, but the idea that an armour needs to look “gritty” or worn to look good isn’t really the case.

The clone and stormtroopers in Star Wars, for example have basically no grit to them at all.

[wispy pewter]

only in animation and Mando tv series

and they look very good

[worn wolf]

atropos story is pretty good. actually very suprised since most flood lore is an absolute mess. this is great

if this is (maximum cope) setting up some kind of inbound direction for the future halo stories and maybe a bit of course correction then that'd be doubly great

[stoic hamlet]

But they don’t need the grit, is my point.

[warped gust]

Grit is like wheathering in Model painting or cosplay: it's important that you first consider the story or location of the Model. Like is it an old worn down space marine, or a brand new tank. Then, it's about adding the right amount of it. It bothers me when I watch someone ruin their perfectly good paint job by adding entirely too much "grit"

Spartan IIIs make sense to be dirty and gritty, Spartan IVs are more of a case by case basis, sense most of the time they're in the WarGames or just deployed fresh from the Infinity

but just to break from lore and meta game a little, Halo Reach looked so dirty because it's an easy trick to add more "detail" by dirtying something up to hide the basic model underneath. The 360 games relied more on texture work to add more detail via bump maps, where as the newer games can make the base model more detailed with a higher poly count

So did the Prophet of Mercy believe in the Great Journey up until his death? When Truth leaves him behind to be infected, Chief asks where he's going and Mercy replies
"To Earth, to finish what we started, and this time None of You will be left behind"
this feels like a direct Foreshadowing to Contact Harvest when he as the Philologist learns of the Reclaimers who were left behind.
Did Mercy never learn that Halo is a weapon and everything the Covenant believes is a massive misunderstanding, even knowing that he helped slaughter the rightful heirs of the Forerunners

[gusty star]

I mean that literally sounds like he’s saying he knows Humans and Forerunners are related, saying that Humanity shouldn’t have been left behind after the rings fired

[warped gust]

Okay, so going with pre-retcon lore (which hardly effects my question)
It still sounds like Mercy believes firing Halo will ascend them and humanity to God-hood

But now that I'm thinking about it, did Truth still believe? He was posturing his religious nonsense up to the very end, he didn't need to lie at that point. he already admitted the Truth that he needs Humanity. but on the brink of death he proclaims he will become a god

For a long time my reading of Truth was that he'd rather drink his own kool-aid than give up his crown

[gusty star]

In-universe I would say Truth was going insane after consolidating all the power in the Covenant

Out of universe halo 3 just ruined all the characters

[frigid heart]

Plus he says that while being infected by the flood, and from Keyes experience, it’s ripping out his memories and knowledge

[warped gust]

Rewatching his death scene, the Gravemind's voicelines almost feel like he's saying what Truth is really thinking.
"Your kind never believed in the sacred rings" -T
"Lies for the weak, beacons for the deluded" -GM

I'm probably reading too deeply into nothing tho

[sleek vigil]

I love hexagons, I love the fact that they are in his visor.

[warped gust]

Tbh I hope the alleged CE remake is a reboot. I think Halo's game lore needs a second pass to tie up everything nicely. my biggest pipedream is they reset the Humans as Forerunners

[sleek vigil]

Why should they?

[warped gust]

It makes a cleaner, more consise story

[sleek vigil]

Halo remake can still have the Bungie hint of Humans being Forerunner while 343 can still continue to account for Forerunners being a seperate species in their coming stories.

[stoic hamlet]

It can’t really be a reboot with Edge of Dawn releasing in December.

They’re still making material for the canon as it is.

[sleek vigil]

I've been telling people, but it seems like some truly think there's a reboot.

[warped gust]

Edge of Dawn could just be how they plan to wrap up the current Canon

rather than just abandoning it

[sleek vigil]

They specifically mentioned that it is similar to First Strike, a middle book that is there to lead upto a newgame.

[warped gust]

We probably won't get the new game for at least another year

[sleek vigil]

And?

[stoic hamlet]

Another good example is with the recent Red Team list revealed in the last canon fodder.

It confirms both the number, and status of all S-II’s at reach.

Per Haruspis’s comments, he’s not happy about it, because he considers the Nylund books sacred. It’s actually one of the only times post hiring he’s “broken character” as it were, and let his true thoughts come out.

I can’t imagine rebooting and thus further erasing the intent of those books would be something he’d appreciate,

[sleek vigil]

Edge of Dawn could still be leading to a new game, regardless. 🤷‍♂️

[sleek vigil]

So the material he shared wasn't made by him?

[stoic hamlet]

It was.

Because he needed to do it.

Let me grab his comment on Halopedia.

One from before the list reveal:

#583284342894231590 message

and his thoughts on the list itself:

#583284342894231590 message

(If you’re not on Halopedia, I can copy the text for you, Valkrie, if you want).

Most of (really) all the material is made by committee, in a sense.

Like the chronicles. They’re not just written by Haruspis. A few others work on them.

All the books are reviewed by the story team as well before they’re finished.

[sleek vigil]

I am aware.

[empty bloom]

A hard reboot is one of the few things to get me to stop caring about Halo at all and move on, so I hope you're wrong.

I'd actually actively be disgusted by that sort of narrative malpractice.

[carmine sleet]

I genuinely think a hard reboot is the last thing we need right now

[warped gust]

We'll see i guess, it's probably unlikely. I'd just like a fresh start so the lore can be enjoyed without a dozen asterisks

[carmine sleet]

Plenty of franchises have been going on for just as long as Halo has, if not longer, without the need to reset everything, even when things have gotten convoluted

Like, I don't see people calling for Doctor Who to be hard rebooted or for Sonic to have the slate wiped clean

[obsidian thistle]

(Sonic has been wiped clean a few times though. But thats due to a whole weird thing with US and JP canons)

But

Yea Halos lore is still going strong

If a reset happened... I think it would cause more damage to the lore community than any good in my honest opinion

(I actually came here to share a discovery I made lol. Not debate this aha)

[warped gust]

StarWars decanonized half their books and comics, and are still pulling elements of Legends canon back into core canon.

[carmine sleet]

(Ah fair, I'll admit I don't keep up with the deep lore of Sonic)

[obsidian thistle]

Halo isnt Star Wars sized in popularity

[modest marsh]

Aren’t the ways they’re doing this frequently criticized for being inferior versions of the original material?

[obsidian thistle]

I dunno if Halo could reasonably survive a massive shake up like that

Well lore community wise

I reckon most Halopedians would legitimately pack their bags and say it was a good run

[warped gust]

doubt it, if done well

[obsidian thistle]

Even if done well, you risk alienating people who been with Halo for the last 20 years.

Tis a massive gamble that I disagree with lol.

[carmine sleet]

I know I'd be thinking about leaving the series behind if they reset everything

[obsidian thistle]

I wouldnt but I'd legitimately get sad seeing friends move on.

[warped gust]

It wouldn't be everything So much of the UNSC and Covenant lore would remain untouched, but a good chunk of Forerunner lore would need a rewrite to fit back in under the Human-Forerinners

[empty bloom]

Frequently, yes.

[empty bloom]

Human Forerunners were stupid anyways.

It's one of the worst tropes to ever exist and I'm glad it got killed in its crib for Halo.

Half the reason I can't take Assassin's Creed seriously as a franchise, really.

[carmine sleet]

You can't really call for a hard reset and then say half the stuff can be kept without people taking issue with that

[empty bloom]

What a weird coincidence that the only part they want expressly retconned is something relitigated frequently for no reason other than "I like the Halo 2 concept story more".

[carmine sleet]

Like, if they were going to do a hard reset, I wouldn't suddenly want them to be bringing up the Banished as if nothing changed

And at the end of the day, the Human-Forerunner thing is what it is, it's been like that since 2007 when the Halo 3 Terminals confirmed humanity and Forerunners were different species

[warped gust]

I like it, because it's not the reveal of the ancient advanced race being human that captivates me. It's the twist of having a Religious group of Zealots wage a war against the very people they assumed were Devine

[empty bloom]

You say that like them waging war against humanity isn't still an ironic twist.

[warped gust]

Also having Humanity be the ones who built the Ark makes the biblical ties much more cohesive

[empty bloom]

No?

[warped gust]

Yes.

[empty bloom]

No, it doesn't lmao

[carmine sleet]

Humanity are the chosen inheritors for the Forerunner's vast empire, yeah we're not the Forerunners, but they still gave their "blessing" to humanity to be the ones to rule once they were gone

[warped gust]

Sorry I wasn't aware of a race of Aliens building a boat in the bible

[carmine sleet]

You don't need humanity and Forerunners to be one and the same to have this kind of connection

[empty bloom]

Halo has about as much of a connection to the bible as the average middle-age American Catholic Convert, dude.

Which is to say, absolutely none, except for the horrible parts.

[warped gust]

Interesting* parts

[empty bloom]

:>

I got nothing for that but disdain.

And I'm not supposed to show a lot of that.

Anyways, yeah, nah. Halo's at best got incredibly flimsy connections to the bible, and it's largely because Bungie was not concerned whatsoever with how to handle the setting in terms of that sort of perspective. It borrows names, not themes.

343i/HS saw fit to keep away from the biblical connections beyond token references much the same.

You gaze at the navel of anything long enough you can find patterns in the lint, which is largely why Halo fans are the way they are about Halo and Judeo-Christian symbology.

[orchid kettle]

I like Human-Forerunner better because of what it means for the HCW

i also like it when combined with "Forerunners were bad and deserved to get Flooded"

[warped gust]

I always loved the concept of The Bible being humanity's misconception of The Forerunner-Flood War. like a mirror to the Covenant. Much got lost over the hundreds of thousands of years, but they still remember stories of a great Flood, and Seven Trumpet blasts that ended the world, and the story of a great Ark built by man to endure God's wrath (the Precursors)

[orchid kettle]

Halo 3 ends with GS pleading with Chief to not "destroy his inheritance" and I've always said I wished one of Halo's core themes was about moving on and learning from the past

Instead of this strange sentiment in Halo 4 where it feels like we're supposed to want modern humanity to emulate the past and be more like the Forerunners

The current conflict with the Endless also kinda only makes sense if we are Forerunners

I like the idea of an alternate version of Infinite's story where we muse on whether or not humanity has truly changed from their time as galactic imperialists, and Harby would be of the mind that we haven't

maybe tie that into a larger fear the core trio of heroes have about if they have the capacity to change on a personal level

In any case, it always felt like to me that the obvious subversion to "Human = Forerunner" should have been the addendum: "and that's a bad thing"

In kinda the same vein that, for as dumb as Season 8 of Game of Thrones was, it was truer to the spirit of the show that Jon being a secret prince is a source of conflict and strife rather than the thing that instantly fixes the kingdom's problems

[warped gust]

Yeah, it'd be admitting that we are so deeply flawed we had to reset the universe to atone for our sins

"We are the drama"

[orchid kettle]

I like this too because I could see somebody thinking back on the UNSC's history with the Insurrection, and finding it hard to disagree with Harby's initial assessment

[warped gust]

The Flood is Humanity's ultimate sin, a mirror to our greed, showing how we do nothing but consume and grow past our needs

[orchid kettle]

And our characters would really only be able to prove her wrong in terms of like, their personal ability to rely on each other and improve as a result

[orchid kettle]

Big reason why I'm big on this as a theme is because Halo is unique in how the core conflict the franchise was based around was resolved and it kept going for another 15-18 years

[warped gust]

I do really like the Greg Bear novels origin of the Flood and it fits neatly into Bungie lore with very few tweaks. like what if The two Races Humans and Forerunners were less like alien races, and more like two separate peoples who have such differing ideologies that one sees the other as 'less than human" leading to a schism, that ultimately ends in one side committing Deicide

[orchid kettle]

So on some level it makes sense how you should probably incorporate the message of accepting and embracing change into the thematic identity of your franchise

[warped gust]

I do like the idea of Humanity having to face their sin, and choose to change for the better. The Forerunners act as a dark reminder of what the UNSC could become if they lose sight of humility

[modest marsh]

The only real retcon the greg bear books made was establishing a “recent” and separate human empire that the forerunners competed against, the rest was just filling out what hadn’t been discussed directly before

[orchid kettle]

i also personally would prefer if the Flood were just a naturally occurring parasite that was too good at its ecological niche

[warped gust]

That's lame

[orchid kettle]

Like the second it came into contact with intelligent life it became too powerful, it became too motivated

[obsidian thistle]

A note to make. Bungie kept flip flopping on the Human/Forerunner relation.

Most at Bungie honestly didnt care and focused on making a fun game (good on em honestly)

Some liked the ideas cut from Halo 2 that had a direct Human-Forerunner connection.

Some went the other direction.

Both sides won stuff in relation to Halo 3.

Ultimately speaking, if the Human-Forerunner connection was REALLY solid. Iris, the terminals, and isolated other sources would have been vetoed hard to show that. But it wasnt solid.

And 343i (at the time) went the only route they honestly could based on other sources.

[orchid kettle]

Mainly because I like Gravemind's "lie" in Human Weakness about how he's essentially just creating Heaven inside of himself by absorbing all life

I like the idea of the Gravemind seeing itself as a truly benevolent force

It thinks it granting you life everlasting, and doesn't really understand why you resist

[obsidian thistle]

Its ok to dislike the route 343i went on. But to say it was all them would be a large misconception. 🙂

[warped gust]

So how would that work in relation to the line "I am a monument to all your sin"

[orchid kettle]

Through every last intelligent host it has ever consumed, it has felt that deep undeniable fear of death and what lies beyond

[vagrant ocean]

Lowkey the route of humans being Forerunners is bad writing. It’s literally the thing I ridiculed Roland Emmerich for.

[obsidian thistle]

I dunno how I'd feel being thrust into that sea of voices that is the Gravemind consciousness

[orchid kettle]

I dunno

[obsidian thistle]

You can never die. Just lose yourself

[warped gust]

That's fair, but I think Bungie's games and CH have more evidence than the side projects that go against the rest

[orchid kettle]

It'd definitely still call the rings a sin since the Forerunners killed all sentient life

[modest marsh]

The flood is obviously evocative of the concept of divine retribution but it can’t actually be representative of an act of god considering its evil and fallible and we kill and beat it

[orchid kettle]

life that can now, in its eyes, never be saved

In a universe where the Endless are already supposed to be out for revenge for crimes inflicted upon them by our ancestors, I think its fine if the Flood occupy some other role

[warped gust]

It's never truly defeated, we've simply whethered the tide

[orchid kettle]

Through the lens of "change" being the core theme, you could argue the problem with the Gravemind's ambitions is that it would create a universe where change is no longer possible

[vagrant ocean]

Especially if you realize that the Flood might’ve made it to other galaxies.

[orchid kettle]

It promises infinite life but that would rob life of all meaning

[orchid kettle]

in a way its like a corrupted understanding of the mantle

[warped gust]

Also The Flood is Old Testament God's Wrath, wiping the world clean leaving it anew for his chosen people

[modest marsh]

There are multiple different flood myths spanning different theologies/pantheons

[warped gust]

👍

and?

[modest marsh]

Crucially the Abrahamic version implies that god won’t do it again

Or rather, he promises not to

[vagrant ocean]

Even the biblical flood is just an adaptation of the Akkadian flood myth.

[orchid kettle]

also i think its kinda eugenicsy how the Forerunners/Ancient Humans were nine feet tall giga chads

Halo has gotten weirdly obsessed with height it feels like

[vagrant ocean]

Eh, Archaeohomina were a variety of species, from short Florians to towering Sapiens.

It was just a catch all term.

[orchid kettle]

Sure but the main guy we use to represent Ancient Humanity, in terms of the spare faring civilization, is the Lord of Chadmirals

and you have this idea of Spartan-IIs being closer genetically to Ancient Humans than the IVs

[vagrant ocean]

I mean it does make sense given the genetic and biological compatibility the IIs have with Project: ASTER.

[orchid kettle]

it feels like the fiction is implying homo sapiens used to also be eight feet tall with a strong jawline and everyone has simply been reduced to a pitiful manlet existence

[warped gust]

You guys are missing my point, the stories of the Bible (and other related myths it plagiarized) are human scripts written with bits and pieces of misunderstanding left over from The Forerunner-Flood. War. Much like the Covenant's misunderstanding

[orchid kettle]

Throw the Reclaimer status situation on top, where only some humans have admin privileges, and I feel like genes are just playing way too big of a role in the story

[vagrant ocean]

Well, Halo wrote themselves into a corner here. Thankfully they’ve been moving away from it to an extent.

[coarse hamlet]

the forerunners being described as a "highly intelligent noble species... with a belief in justice, in peace" just gets more comical the more we learn about them. I want whatever cortana was having while chief was on ice

[warped gust]

Biblical humans were stronger and lived longer

[vagrant ocean]

That would be a good idea, if not for the 90,000 years between the purification and human religion, and humanity being trapped on Erde Tyrene for the entire war for the most part.

[vagrant ocean]

Except the Ancestors were not a single species, but a multi-species empire like the Covenant.

[coarse hamlet]

ooOOoo its the genesong or whatever crap librarian was talking about
How else could this primitive unwashed society invent power armour without the noble guidence of a more civilized folk

[vagrant ocean]

Neanderthals, Sapiens, Denisovans, Florians.

[warped gust]

you don't think it's possible that some human over the past 100,000 years didn't somehow access a terminal in the Ark Complex in Africa and learn bits and pieces they then use to tell a story that gets passed down and lost in translation?

[hot zodiac]

At this point, I'm just happy the discussion is at least revolving around the deeper concepts Halo was supposed to be about

[vagrant ocean]

I do not think it possible at all. It was buried deep underground. Deep enough that the Covenant had to use plasma drills to dig it up.

And I doubt such primitive creatures could operate the machinery or even read it.

[warped gust]

Earth is always shifting around, plate tectonics are a thing

How is Chief able to read terminals, they auto-magiclly translate. even ignoring that assuming that's something his suit did, I'm sure Forerunner tech can just beam a movie into your brain

[obsidian thistle]

The terminals roughly translate. But there is also a case of Mendicant Bias involved

[warped gust]

That could easily scare a primitive human making them think they spoke to god

[hot zodiac]

MB is just redirecting you to the real "story," not translating. The text before the redirection get translated too.

[vagrant ocean]

But this is just speculation, we have no evidence that anyone outside of N'chala’s tribe even witnessed the construction of the portal. And he only observed out of fear of incurring the “wrath of the gods” if he interfered.

[empty bloom]

Many such cases!

[warped gust]

I know, but it's definitely possible. I think saying it's impossible is as unlikely

[vagrant ocean]

Genesong is just the Forerunner term for genetic memory, which is a real thing.

[hot zodiac]

If the newer fiction written by different people affects how it works, consider discounting it

[vagrant ocean]

Huh

[orchid kettle]

I kinda like the idea that the Forerunners are just really good at designing UI's and everything they made is crazy intuitive

at least, intuitive for the human brain

[warped gust]

So even a cave man could do it (insert geico caveman)

[orchid kettle]

its funny when in Halo 4, one of the animations for Chief interacting with a terminal is just like, him moving a solid circle into a hollow circle

[empty bloom]

If the older fiction written by different people negatively impacts long-term narrative cohesion by nature of being intensely limited, consider retconning it.

[coarse hamlet]

Yes but it does NOT do what the librarian in halo 4 is referring to. That is scifi magic meddling and bad writing

[orchid kettle]

the circle goes in the... square hole

[hot zodiac]

Remember that phrases like "Maginot Sphere" has meaning from post-Forerunner human history

[vagrant ocean]

Writing 101.

[hot zodiac]

Sounds like you don't really like Halo!

[empty bloom]

Sounds like I like it a lot more than most so-called fans, actually.

[vagrant ocean]

That’s only the translation. Its name is Jat-Krula.

[vagrant ocean]

Bungie’s writing was not cohesive at all.

[empty bloom]

Excuse me for wanting a narratively coherent story without the overly strict limits of early, extensively limiting, Halo novels.

There's a reason I prefer the reprints of work that does stuff like get rid of the stupid "Spartans never saw Elites!" thing.

[warped gust]

you're both being cringe

[vagrant ocean]

And that Chief named all the species.

[empty bloom]

You must kill that which cringes to blossom anew.

[orchid kettle]

The inverse though where the Spartans start fighting exclusively Elites because nothing else can challenge them is kinda cringe tho

[hot zodiac]

insert ironic highlighting of halo reach

[orchid kettle]

I think there's a happier medium with like, just having Elites be fairly rare outside of super important missions

[vagrant ocean]

I mean, Reach literally threw the canon out the window. It’s one of the reasons it was so controversial on release.

[orchid kettle]

like securing a Halo ring or a forerunner shield world in Halo Wars

[warped gust]

I think only the realest of Halo fans can even debate these topics, so we're all chill

[hot zodiac]

Is this a debate?

[orchid kettle]

The issue with this is that you also need to stick with the idea that the Spartans are basically invincible in a status quo with Elites, Hunters, and Brutes

which leads to absurd power creep

[empty bloom]

Gotta make it more clear that IIs are usually being deployed in situations where they have a high protection to ensure safe exfiltration.

[orchid kettle]

Like that was the idea in Fall of Reach, the Spartans were only invincible because they fought slave soldiers and uncaring mercenaries

[vagrant ocean]

Gotta protect that investment. A LOT of credits went into making them.

[orchid kettle]

the second anything bigger showed up, suddenly they were quite vincible

[hot zodiac]

All I know this isn't the first, and wont be the last time, someone realizes a huge implication from the original material and is dismissed by retcons from later material

[vagrant ocean]

That’s how narratives work. Happens with Star Wars all the time. Hell, it occurred all the time during Legends.

With a franchise as old as Halo, retcons are inevitable.

[hot zodiac]

Is that how discussions work

[vagrant ocean]

What?

[orchid kettle]

Retcons are inevitable but it's also possible to evaluate individual pieces of media in their original context

[warped gust]

Halo's biggest religious parallel is the way different followers break into sects and argue over scripture 🤣

[hot zodiac]

yeah that is pretty meta

[coarse hamlet]

Kinda wild a greek wielding the sword of mercy and mjolnir stopped the second biblical flood on noahs ark

[hot zodiac]

sword of mercy/old french chivalry

[warped gust]

Kinda wild that Halo isn't based on the Bible, but rather the Bible is based on lost in translation events of Halo 🙃. Idk why it's so hard to understand this take.

a big part of why ONI actively covers up the Truth of The Flood and Forerunners is because it would call all major religions into question

[obsidian thistle]

MB did modify stuff tho

At least with the stuff he directed us to

Why, no idea.

[hot zodiac]

At the very least, I hope you keep pulling on the thread on your own!

[dusk jetty]

Because the biblical parts tend to make people black and white about things

[hot zodiac]

Yes, per the recontextualization to make it fit with TFS—but I say this because the conversation is in particular about the terminal translating having other implications, it's an important bit to clarify

[modest marsh]

I don’t think this is really a problem if you lean into the idea that members of any species can pose a credible threat to a Spartan and vise versa if they’re just uniquely talented enough, which kinda seemed like the point of the addition of Stolt

And yeah Prelates are kinda “super” I guess but on some level they exist to level the playing field so a San Shyuum can keep up if not dominate

Everyone gets to play and be taken seriously

I can see the argument that this only serves to minimize the contributions of “unimportant” individuals who aren’t either a literal super soldier or at least hold an elite title of some kind, but breaking down the perception that x species is always gonna be better than y seems like a good place to start in terms of subverting that rigid hierarchy

[stoic hamlet]

I feel like the idea that you need to be a naked character or important to pose a threat to another named character is pretty reductive storytelling.

For all the flack it gets, one of the better parts of The Flood’s Chief sections is where he’s almost killed by a random Elite Minor, or mobbed by that group of grunts.

That book more than anything else has actual, genuine plot armour for Chief because it’s a retelling of CE… but common fodder still poses a threat if they’re smart enough and capable enough.

Astartes is another example of fodder wnemies being competent. A less informed fan might assume the regular Armsmen encountered early on were getting bodied… which they were, but they were extremely competent, with there being at least three instances where an unlucky marine might have died just to them alone.

By making fodder enemies actually threatening, you can make your heroes actually interesting as well. If there’s no danger until a named character appears, then there’s no stakes.

Not every fodder enemy should be, of course, but some need to be.

[modest marsh]

I think using The Flood as the gold standard for what you want in terms of stakes is fair, but the very next book goes on to emphasize how this was explicitly the hardest 3 days of fighting in his career and forced him into situations he was completely unprepared for that can’t be attributed as neatly in other contexts

Within The Flood, his first mishap he has during the opening minutes of the second level has him fail to account for an elite because he’s so heavily conditioned to expect his teammates to cover him, and throughout the novel you get the impression that that’s ultimately the source of his problems

Chief fights in a team, he’s not a solo operator, so the minute he’s forced to it’s a huge nerf to his capabilities compared to what he’s endured for the past 3 decades and thus he makes mistakes in the process

If Kelly or Linda or Fred were backing him up I genuinely can’t think of a preventable near death scenario he would’ve found himself in short of the Hunter battles

[stoic hamlet]

Which is fine, because there are things that are allowing him to not be taken by surprise.

It’s not “chief blitzes them ‘just because’.”

[modest marsh]

We’re past the point at this juncture where The Flood is particularly coherent next to subsequent depictions because you don’t really get the sense of desperation or terror that that book or even the game itself implies chief is experiencing

Halo 2 and 3 are very much about how domineering he is in circumstances that are no less dire

[modest marsh]

Like okay maybe the Mark VI just made him epicer and stronger and also he isn’t as scared anymore and he knows how to deal with the new stuff better than before but if we’re just talking tonally, they’re distinct vibes intentionally and the fiction is obviously going to reflect that

[stoic hamlet]

I’d agree there.

I was more just pointing out that you can make fodder dangerous but still have your hero prevail.

Again, Astartes has the Marines show no fear or hesitation (as they should) but the random Armsmen still poses a threat a threat.

[dusk jetty]

I think chief sees the flood in action and since it’s so strange to him he gets creeped out

Only ever fighting covenant and human and all of a sudden there’s little flesh spider things burrowing into flesh and puppeteering them was probably a shock the first couple times

[warped gust]

I have a question about Outpost Discovery lore, how did they explain Halos to the public. They had an interactive VR demo of a fly thru of a ring, and an example of an Infection Form. I could see the Flood being an eaiser cover up as just an alien parasite, but whats the official story for the Rings

[orchid kettle]

my assumption is that the real Outpost Discovery isn't 1:1 with the in-universe equivalent

[modest marsh]

When The Flood was written, encountering Elites and Hunters was also meant to be mostly new to him, since TFOR and the game itself was the only other precedent thus far

Hell, apparently he’d never flown a banshee before either

[dusk jetty]

That part was ridiculous learning about at first with the background knowledge of the 40 year so war

But in the sense of the timeline as it is now, he had never seen anything close to the flood

[modest marsh]

Right but it isn’t just the Flood that has him on his toes in the novelization, even if they’re the main curveball

[stoic hamlet]

I mean tbh, I don’t think this is that surprising.

[modest marsh]

glances at silent storm

[orchid kettle]

I feel like while you probably do have to retcon the idea of Elites, Hunters and Brutes bein unknown until 2552, at least, if you want Halo Wars to exist

we could have kept to the vibe of like, Elites being super rare

When every important Elite character is either a top secret assassin or a naval commander, it feels kinda natural to think ground forces don't run into them that often

[stoic hamlet]

Did he fly a banshee in that book?

Oh, I guess at the end, yeah.

But that was an extenuating circumstance that most II’s wouldn’t really have.

[modest marsh]

No, they capture them pretty early on to perform a boarding action

[stoic hamlet]

Yeah but they don’t fly them.

They push them out of the hanger.

[orchid kettle]

I do kinda prefer Brutes as heavy infantry though just to spice up the ground engagements

[modest marsh]

I recall it being mentioned they test flew them after capturing them

[modest marsh]

I don’t think covenant order of battle makes sense without a dedicated command caste and I think it’s hard to justify that this could all be done remotely without any groundside junior officers

Grunts and Jackals, at least in the first two games especially, are characterized as little more than animals in terms of intelligence and discipline

They don’t really give you the impression of a college educated career professional

[orchid kettle]

Yeah, I wouldn't have them purely removed from the ground

I just think I wouldn't have instances of like Red Team mowing down dozens of them with no other race in sight

[modest marsh]

It depends on how “rare” you mean by “rare”, because I think 1:50 for a normal deployment is pushing it imo

[orchid kettle]

Probably depends on how much stock you wanna place on Jackal and Grunt Majors as actually helping the Elite keep things organized

Like, are the red bois actually trusted individuals gifted some level of authority of others of their rate, or is it just a gameplay thing to justify a slightly tougher Jackal

[modest marsh]

I harp on this too because i think it’s an under appreciated aspect of the setting, but there’s seemingly no thought given to what constitutes covenant or banished military training

What drills do they perform, what are the fundamentals they’re required to learn, what are the requirements for career advancement, etc

[orchid kettle]

On some level I don't mind the depiction of the Covenant just dumping expendable fodder on their enemies until they overrun the position

but Jackals don't really fit neatly into that paradigm

like, are they clean up crew for the waves of ankle biter grunts? Are they essentially the grunt wranglers?

[modest marsh]

You can absolutely do both though

[orchid kettle]

do they sit off to the side and just observe

[modest marsh]

It’s a good way you could help characterize distinct fleets

Maybe this fleetmaster encourages his army to be more professionally trained while another is treated as more of a drain valve to mitigate overpopulation

But in either case, the presumed Elite or Brute commander of a particular unit is still presumably going to receive formal training on how to lead them, and in turn, he’ll have to instruct them on how to follow on even the most basic of instructions as a bare minimum

Grunts need to be able to wear their environment suits at least or they’re dead not long after deploying

[stoic hamlet]

Honestly it’s not something that’s actually shown a lot with Spartans as well.

They do obstacle courses… but what about dress and deportment? What esprit de corps do they have? Etc.

[modest marsh]

With human military stuff you can make inferences based on the real world

I think the aliens who come from distinct cultures and access to technology that the humans don’t means you have more excuses to do something different and unexpected

Like, even if you wanted to do the obstacle courses bit again just cuz that’s easy, what does an alien obstacle course look like?

You can’t even make that inference based on precedent because it doesn’t exist

[stoic hamlet]

Yeah.

But I point it out because there are different ways militaries do that sort of stuff.

The French military is different from Commonwealth which is different to the Germans, who are different to the Vietnamese, who are different to the United States who are different to the Argentineans who do it differently to the Kenyans, etc.

What sort of headdress do Spartans wear? Is it a beret? If so what colour? Does it take its lineage from a prior unit? Do they have a unit standard/colours? what battle honours are displayed and how many? How do they form up for ceremonial functions? Do they march at the double quick or regular pace? Do they shoulder or trail arms? What are their drill commands? Do NCO’s carry pacesticks? etc, etc, etc.

These aren’t “big” things, but they can help give character without needing to describe in detail their training. Simple things you can reference to add character and history.

[empty bloom]

Most uniform stuff we see for IVs even in proper 'graduation' settings are either fatigues or plate, while IIs are expected to dress in a near standard naval dress uniform.

[orchid kettle]

I think I'd like the spartan ops undersuit if i could tell if the "boots" are boots or just their feet

in the concept art it looks like it's just their feet but i don't remember if you ever see their feet in spartan ops itself

[empty bloom]

To a degree, I think the IV 'parade uniform' or, well, dress uniform, is the same as their battle dress... Just so long as they make sure the paint is clean and the webbing for kit is kept in the armory.

Like, if the armor description blurbs are anything to go off, the UNSC has a few mandatory patterns used by Spartans operating in an official political capacity, such as naval protection detail.

It must be a royal pain to have to be in MJOLNIR every damn day, getting the paint touched up every day, to operate as protection detail for a planetary governor. With big bird-shaped pauldrons.

But hey, at least you look cool.

[stoic hamlet]

I still don’t fully vibe with that, IMO.

I much prefer like, proper dress uniforms.

It feels out of character for the UNSC to do that kind of stuff, like, make or allocate MJOLNIR for parade use.

[warped gust]

Spartans are like THE propaganda branch of the UNSC, they would definitely make parade armor

[stoic hamlet]

It doesn’t really fit the UNSC to do that, though.

When there’s still discussions in the lore about MJOLNIR armour’s insane cost, even with GEN3, you’re not going to go to the trouble of making parade armour for it.

You’d absolutely see Spartan IV’s assigned to purely ceremonial duties, I think, especially if the UNSC is treated as they are in the post war, but almost certainly not in MJOLNIR.

[carmine sleet]

I also feel like saying the Spartans are the propaganda branch of the UNSC is completely wrong, given that, well, their job isn't making the UNSC look good to civilians via propaganda

[empty bloom]

TBF, I doubt HIGHCOM shoulder pauldrons are actually specifically for parade use, more a badge of office, like how the guards of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington still have real rifles. They're problably still really durable shoulder pads a'la CQC, just with a lot of ornamentation.

So like, you know the huge guy next to the President is the President's bodyguard specifically.

Tribute, on the other hand... I got nothing for Tribute.

[south matrix]

Is the VK78 Commando based on the Kriss Vector. The design looks very similar

Except Vectors are SMGs

[karmic gulch]

What would the best helmet be for overall use?

Like I mean like for Spartan pilots, soldiers, spec ops, ETC

[south matrix]

All helmets look the same when I played it

[karmic gulch]

Yeah but like lore wise

[stoic hamlet]

As far as we can tell, it takes some inspiration from it, yes.

[stoic hamlet]

That broadly classifies all Spartans, lol.

But at least for GEN2, Warrior was the mainline/most common suit, lore wise.

[karmic gulch]

Alr

What would morrigan be used for?

[stoic hamlet]

From its lore, scouts and trackers.

[karmic gulch]

Alr

What would the best helmet be for headhunters/snipers?

[stoic hamlet]

Those are technically two different roles.

[karmic gulch]

Headhunter then

Hello?

[stoic hamlet]

Depends on the era.

And the armour system.

[karmic gulch]

My Spartans on Gen 3 mk VI

And is still alive in halo infinites events

[stoic hamlet]

On Zeta Halo?

[karmic gulch]

In the same environment

[stoic hamlet]

On the ring or no? That’s an important question to answer.

If not, and somewhere else, are they Connected to larger UNSC forces? If not, how long have they been out of contact?

[karmic gulch]

Not on the ring, on a banish occupied planet. Connected to some UNSC forces

He has access to a base, 2 spartan fireteams and a few ODST squads. Their in contact with the rest of UNSC still but still need to take out some banished VIPs before they can go back

[stoic hamlet]

Do they have orbital support? Warships? Or is it like, they’re trapped?

[karmic gulch]

No, orbits banished occupied

They got there with a few condors, so they don’t have access to new armour either

What other info?

[karmic gulch]

Hello?

[thorn spindle]

they died sorry

[karmic gulch]

Hello?

Can someone else answer the question then?

[frigid heart]

What’s your question

[stoic hamlet]

You are not the only convo I’m in, nor is discord my main concern right now.

There’s no time limit, you can wait.

[karmic gulch]

Ok

[stoic hamlet]

Do not tag me like I’m some kind of dog. I do not owe you answers. I’m happy to provide them, but don’t beg for them. It’s demeaning to the both of us.

[karmic gulch]

Sorry

[stoic hamlet]

Right, gimme a sec to read up.

Hmm… I mean, there are better suits for a Headhunter than Mark VI. I’m also not sure Condors make the most sense. You’d probably want a Slipspace-drop pod or Subprowler.

But helmet wise, what’s your Spartan’s skillset? are they a SIGINT specialist? Demolitions? Scout? Marksman? Team leader?

(Etc)

[karmic gulch]

Team leader

[stoic hamlet]

You have a few options then.

Soldier,

Cavallino,

Cohort,

off the top of my head.

[karmic gulch]

Ok, thank you!

[stoic hamlet]

If you’re looking for just Mark VI though, Centurion.

Or even just basic Mark VI.

[karmic gulch]

Thank you so much

[stoic hamlet]

Headhunters worl in pairs, called BINARY trans, or solo, referred to as a LONEWOLF deployment. They don’t really do leaders, as it were. It’s an equal partnership.

But yeah, np.

[karmic gulch]

Ohhh ok

That makes it a lot easier for story then, don’t have to make a full fireteam

[stoic hamlet]

Your OC’s a Gamma?

I assume?

They’re organized in teams of 5. Named for blades and melee weapons.

But there is a canon LONEWOLF we know of, G-059. Armoured in Mirage-IIC.

[karmic gulch]

Yeah, he's a gamma

Btw you said there's better suited MJOLNIR varients. which ones?

[stoic hamlet]

Mirage.

Though it isn't MJOLNIR

[karmic gulch]

Ok, thank you

Makes sense since he’s Gamma

Wait is mirage IIC comparable with Mjolnir?

[modest marsh]

Mirage meets bare minimum requirements to be in line with baseline GEN3, but is generally worse overall than dedicated MJOLNIR, particularly in terms of resilience

Though not as robust as mainline Mjolnir suits, the MIRAGE exoskeleton meets basic performance metrics at a fraction of the price

Visually, the suit has less girth and is presumably much lighter, meaning the actual plating is naturally going to be less protective

The reactor embedded underneath the chestplate is far smaller than the backpack-style one used on MJOLNIR

The main thing that’s going to be similar/at parity between them is the helmet itself which also seemingly houses onboard AI

[karmic gulch]

Would RAKASHA class be better then?

[orchid kettle]

I would assume Rakshasa is even worse on the defense front if only because it sure looks like the Spartan is just strapping whatever they could find in a dumpster to themselves

Original concept art for the armor made it appear as if the suit wasn't a suit at all, but essentially just a Spartan in relatively normal clothes using whatever they could find to survive

They clearly haven't gone fully in that direction of course, we know the suit has some method of self-repair and force-multiplying circuits and likely the means to power said systems

but i figure the hierarchy is essentially Mainline MJOLNIR (Mark VII, Mark VI, refurbished Mark Vb or IV) > Mirage > Rakshasa

I dunno where to toss Hazmat/OSTEO since its such a specialized suit

[modest marsh]

MJOLNIR = 3 piece suit
Mirage = Business casual
Rakshasa = hoodie and sweatpants

[karmic gulch]

Crazy

[modest marsh]

OSTEO is a windbreaker and jeans I guess

Rakshasa’s whole thing is maximizing long term comfort and ease of removal/modification in the field so it’s quite literally held together with buckles and straps

That limits the kind of protection it can offer

[orchid kettle]

Is it even confirmed if Rakshasa has shielding

I remember combing through the Battle of the Academy for any mention of MJOLNIR tech for Dinh and all I remember seeing confirmed were the reactive circuits

[modest marsh]

It might be one of those things where shielding is technically “optional” because that’s pretty sophisticated hardware to maintain and power in the field

Made famous by CMA orbital quarantine boarding parties, the M-25 holds a combat knife, reaction mass cells for thruster units, and protective armor plating over an emergency survival bubble pack.

[coarse hamlet]

reminds me of the heavy troopers the ncr deployed in new vegas. servos and anything else that would be too inconvenient to maintain are stripped out and youre left with a guy in 40 kilos of metal and a desire to not be in a desert for much longer

[karmic gulch]

So would mirage be best for headhunters?

[modest marsh]

It really depends on the situation

[karmic gulch]

Zeta halo environment, little reinforcements on a banished world

[modest marsh]

We know that MJOLNIR can be made plenty stealthy enough but it’ll never be as stealthy as Mirage, particularly if it’s subjected to a lot of abuse

[orchid kettle]

Personally I feel like you could really give your characters either and its fine

[modest marsh]

But someone in Mirage isn’t as likely to survive enemy contact

[karmic gulch]

Alr, which MJOLIR variant in infinite would be best?

[spark pivot]

for what

[modest marsh]

It depends on what weaknesses and strengths you want to balance things around

[karmic gulch]

Headhunting in a zeta halo like environment

[spark pivot]

Personally I'd probably take either Rakshasa or mark VII

[karmic gulch]

Could a fine tuned gen III MK VI do fine?

[modest marsh]

I mean, to be clear, I don’t think the writers for the official material put this much consideration into what armor a character wears so much as they would just make up armor for a hero character to have

[spark pivot]

And use a sniper based combat style

[spark pivot]

Thats what master chief uses lol

Mark VI Gen III

[karmic gulch]

Yes but like a stealthier version

[spark pivot]

So basically a recon package mark VI gen III

[orchid kettle]

Recent media has this idea that mainline MJOLNIR may face issues with requiring constant maintenance to remain in tip top shape

[spark pivot]

That would be true to an extent tbh

[karmic gulch]

Kinda

[orchid kettle]

but also Chief gets pounded into a coma by Atriox and he's fine six months later

so its kinda just dependent on the writer how much they want any of that to matter

[spark pivot]

To be fair that was basically one engagement and then no more wear and tear, just time for the armor to repair itself to whatever extent it can as chief floats

[orchid kettle]

maybe it'd make some sense if the characters implied the reason why you need to find Spartan cores to upgrade your armor is because Atriox's beat down reduced you to level 1 like its a Metroid game

[spark pivot]

He got whacked one by chainbreaker, then tossed into the void

All other impacts were on his shields

[modest marsh]

In fairness the encyclopedia does address this by just saying Chief got the super duper turbo package that just needed a little juice to get him back into the fight after 6 months

[karmic gulch]

A stealthy version that also enhances strength and speed more than typical MJOLNIR

[spark pivot]

Even the initial hit from chainbreaker went into the shields

[modest marsh]

More crucially, his suit was depowered

[spark pivot]

True

Tbf tho 6 months of floating in space will do that

Actually

[modest marsh]

Nah the reactor can idle for 15 years per GoO

[spark pivot]

I don't think it was depowered so much as in a sleep state that it required a jump start

[modest marsh]

And that was the Mark IV, newer armor should be better

[modest marsh]

Esparza says the reactor is fried

[karmic gulch]

Would Gen III MK VI or MK VII be better for that role?

[spark pivot]

Idk how much I trust his technical takes lol

Considering we don't even know what his job is

[modest marsh]

Well he fixed the suit so clearly he knew what he was talking about

He worked in engineering

[spark pivot]

Oh

[hushed jetty]

Do you think the average active Gamma would prefer SPI Mark 2 like her and the ferrets, or Mirage, or even Rakshasa. Mirage is described as being purely better than SPI but then nobody wears it

[spark pivot]

Ngl I just assumed he was following a manual lol

[karmic gulch]

Hello?

[modest marsh]

This is the kind of thing where if you want to keep things coherent and believable, there has to be a sensible justification for why your Spartan gets the super special equipment and everyone else has to make compromises

[orchid kettle]

I mean he does also think there's servo's in Chief's hand

[spark pivot]

Mk VII

[karmic gulch]

Ok

Just better tech?

[spark pivot]

Basically

[modest marsh]

He can know about power systems without knowing how the suit actuates

[spark pivot]

To be fair theres definitely something there bc how else would grip strength be increased

[modest marsh]

Piezoelectric liquid crystal

[orchid kettle]

magic circuits

[hushed jetty]

Every armour you see in Infinite is essentially the same thing with micro differences. If you wanted Mjolnir and to be stealthy, you’d want something like Celox or Recon.

Both mirage and rakshasa are the stealthiest suits available, while also not being much less durable than Mjolnir

[spark pivot]

And ik I noticed wires in the gloves that lookes like they'd be for that in the mk V(b) gloves

[modest marsh]

We don’t have the strongest basis for the resilience of either besides what they look like

And, well, being described as worse

I couldn’t tell you if Mirage could stop a carbine round

[hushed jetty]

They’re describes as meeting mjolnir standards in their lore, so they’re about as tough as what Chief wore in Halo 3, which is very strong

[modest marsh]

That is a bit of a misread

[modest marsh]

.

[hushed jetty]

Neither can Mark VII, it’s the shielding that does

[spark pivot]

Baseline standards, which is the bare minimum

[modest marsh]

Not as robust, ie it’s less durable

[modest marsh]

Mark IV could

[spark pivot]

That could jus mean not as versatile tbh

Which would make the most sense

[modest marsh]

You could also just look at the descriptions of the armor pieces and make logical inferences about it’s deficiencies

[karmic gulch]

What helmet would be best for headhunting?

[modest marsh]

Lighter weight, cheaper, disposable

Some of it is quite literally just salvaged gear from marines, CMA, and ODSTs

[orchid kettle]

Personally I think if I was writing a group of sneaky spuds I'd give them Mirage under the assumption that Mirage, like SPI before it, has some manner of cloaking

[spark pivot]

We have the baseline Mk (#) suits that are the jacks of all trades, then we have suits like mirage and rakshasa which are geared towards stealth and long term ops respectively, then we have hazmat which is, well, for hazmat stuff

[spark pivot]

That comes down to preference

[karmic gulch]

Would Morrigan be good?

[spark pivot]

Depends on your preferences.

[orchid kettle]

if you buy the idea that the Headhunters from Evolutions had shielded SPI I feel like Mirage having shields and PR panels/active camo isn't that out of the question

[modest marsh]

Until shown otherwise it seems like we’re meant to assume all Spartan-issue armor has active camo capabilities if not implemented as an integral feature, but MJOLNIR is probably not nearly as effective as Mirage in this respect

[karmic gulch]

My OCs a team leader

[spark pivot]

Ok let me put it like this, there is no best helmet for a certain branch of work, it all comes down to what the skillset of the user is

Find a loadout that matches the skillset and roll with it

[orchid kettle]

Could also just be a weird case of every Spartan choosing the same armor ability between Shadows of Reach and Rubicon Protocol lol

[karmic gulch]

Best at Close range, CAN do long range as well

[orchid kettle]

Hardlight Shield Bros stay strong... it will be our time, soon

[spark pivot]

Amen

[modest marsh]

I choose to believe that this was because Infinite was gonna be a ghost recon ripoff at one point

[orchid kettle]

wasnt Infinite gonna have the socket system

[spark pivot]

Isnt the active camo thing all controlled by the device? Bc we see thorne(?) pick one up in spartan ops and it just works

[spark pivot]

Ngl I woulda liked to see that

[orchid kettle]

where you'd have different classes/abilities

[spark pivot]

A halo game with a ghost recon style would've geen interesting

[modest marsh]

There isn’t a coherent or singular explanation as to how active camo is generated

[orchid kettle]

I honestly always assumed thats why Blue in Collateral Damage had different powers like they were a team of superheroes or something

[karmic gulch]

Mainly close to melee range

[modest marsh]

The pyramid power up from CE is canon for instance

[orchid kettle]

even tho the abilities in the comic don't really line up with Infinite

beyond active camo

[spark pivot]

What comic?