lore-and-universe

[warm ridge]

Modern Halo universe sure, but Forerunner era? Ehh, there were probably stronger Forerunners then him that existed. Just not as politically motivated.

[rigid viper]

True

[warm ridge]

Most of the Ur-Didact's power came from politics purely.

[rigid viper]

It's ironic how his plan was to terminate the flood though

The humans had the same idea in mind too

[warm ridge]

Even at the end of it with the Greater Ark and a lot of Forerunners seeing him return, just about everyone was about to immediately crown the Ur-Didact as the supreme ruler over Faber who at the time was in control.

Well, that is until the Primordial's own plan worked, and through the Ur-Didact he figured out where the Greater Ark was meanwhile he & whatever Warrior-Servants that could follow him went to Requiem.

[rigid viper]

Yeah

[warm ridge]

Ancient Humanity wasn't trying to sacrifice itself in order to make "warrior troops", not the same at all.

The Ur-Didact only did it out of necessity, he wouldn't of done it otherwise.

[rigid viper]

Ok

[warm ridge]

Plus, he quickly changed into turning the Librarian's "pets" (whatever Humanity was before the modern era of Halo), after realizing he simply didn't have enough.

[rigid viper]

Your also right , I read Ur-Didact was in higher power , man was literally supreme commander of the Prometheans

[warm ridge]

Honestly the Ur-Didact's plan would've worked to, it'd just require turning a vast quanity of whatever species still existed at that time into robotic Prometheans.

well, we don't know how long it would've worked for. His entire idea was that living Forerunners would control multiple shield worlds as "fortresses", being these massive planet sized weapons to combat the Flood.

[rigid viper]

Had his plan effectively worked and he indeed defeated all the flood then that would mean some big events we see in halo would not even happen then

[warm ridge]

It also works in favor of the Mantle, because you aren't erasing the entire galaxy, which the Halo rings did.

[rigid viper]

True , honestly Ur-Didact could pass as an Anti-Hero if you know what I mean by that term

[warm ridge]

Still not entirely sure how well the Primordial should be believed when it comes to him saying the Mantle is a "lie", he is correct that it's a test though. A test to see if a species is willing to do the hardest thing in order to survive.

[warm ridge]

The entire thing behind him wanting Humanity exterminated in the modern era is due to the Primordial poking at his memories and giving him a "sickness" (logic plague).

Originally, he actually preferred keeping Humanity around. He & the Librarian are big reasons why Ancient Humanity didn't just get deleted, because the Forerunner council wanted this to happen.

[rigid viper]

True , glad Librarian wasn't poked with her memories though

[stoic hamlet]

Tbf, Spartans shouldn’t really be in constant combat either.

They’d have long periods of downtime, more than most soldiers today, or even your typical UNSC marine or army unit, even, especially if they’re only spending short stints on whatever planet the mission is on.

Most of their time would be spent onboard a ship, and they could possibly enjoy some limited R&R. We do also know they were rotated back to Reach and other places, occasionally. This was for training, but they were likely given some Leave as well, even if just for a purely psychological test.

[minor sky]

What was Ancient Humanity's view on the Mantle Of Responciblity, if they had one at all?

[empty bloom]

According to the Ur-Didact they wanted it, but I don't really consider him a reliable narrator considering his own motivations and behaviors.

The Humans basically flagrantly operated in the opposite way the Mantle dictates in a practical sense-being eager to cooperate with other species to the point of frequent co-habitation of worlds and allying closely enough that they'd bleed alongside alien allies, so the veracity of the Ur-Didact is in question.

Considering the Ur-Didact's mindset and position in the Forerunner Ecumene, I think it's a healthy dose of projection and misunderstanding of another culture's viewpoints on his part-it's not uncommon for dominating political leadership to be paranoid and believe that others want what they have, regardless of reality.

[minor sky]

Right

I was wondering if the Lord of Admirals or somebody made reference to it somewhere

The Ur-Didact's statements on humanity should always be taken with a pound of salt

[vagrant ocean]

The Lord of Admirals was more concerned with containing the Shaping Sickness than the MoR.

[minor sky]

Yes I am aware. I was just using him as a specific example of a specific character from Ancient Humanity

[vagrant ocean]

I wish we knew more about the Ancestors.

They’re such an interesting concept.

[minor sky]

Didn't they put out a Waypoint Chronicle about them not too long ago?

[vagrant ocean]

Tulpemancy.

[wispy pewter]

Got two stories in the ancient ship and that’s it

When was the last waypoint chronicle

[vagrant ocean]

October. Fifth Canticle.

[wispy pewter]

That was long

[stoic hamlet]

We’re not getting anymore until they release the book of volume 1, in March.

[fair hazel]

im excited for it

[wispy pewter]

Ah I see. That will include new ones or just the previous ones?

[fair hazel]

A few new ones

[stoic hamlet]

10, to be specific.

[wispy pewter]

Cool. Can’t wait

[dusk haven]

Anybody got opinions on the whole nobel 6 living?

[rigid viper]

I think it's actually plausible that he survived homestly

Throughout the whole game of Reach we saw the noble team getting killed on the screen like for example kat , Emile , Carter but the only exception can be made of course for Noble Six and also we don't see him getting killed on screen

Hot take : I think Noble Six didn't actually die and went M.I.A

Also the only thing we see at the end is his helmet only and not his whole body or so

[marble lion]

6 is confirmed dead by both Bungie and 343. He is not coming back to life in any capacity.

[rigid viper]

😭

[modest marsh]

Even if the fight ended with Six somehow overpowering the Zealot that is mid energy dagger plunge and managed to push him back, she is surrounded from 3 directions by that Zealot as well as the Ultra she managed to stun with an elbow and Field Marshall approaching from behind the helmet https://www.halopedia.org/images/archive/b/b0/20120712112836!HReach_-_Lone_Wolf_Closing.png?70ae9

Six is prone to the ground, an anatomically compromising position, having to physically contend with peer level attackers armed with weapons capable of instantly piercing her already damaged armor

Six is fatigued from days of fighting with fresh injuries caused by several plasma bolts that impacted her torso not moments before, as well as whatever compounding injuries and armor damage that accumulated in the past day or so of constant fighting

With the lack of a helmet, whatever blinding effects of covenant energy weapons, including their energy daggers, would dull her senses and diminish her ability to react and defend

[rigid viper]

Bro what is your pfp bruh

Little Master chief junior boy

[modest marsh]

Yeah pretty much

[modest marsh]

The helmet thing is a big deal mind you because even if Six manages to beat all 3 attackers or even just escape, the entire Azsod landscape is quickly becoming incompatible with life as dust storms carrying irradiated particles and toxic gas caused by the nearby glassing would eventually cause Six to suffocate or suffer from acute radiation poisoning

Spartans are resistant to radiation but they still need to breathe and do not enjoy having spicy particles decaying their DNA

[modest marsh]

Also this is just going off of what we see in the end cutscene because technically we don’t know if there we’re more elites/covenant present

If you go off of the gameplay, they’re sending in troops wave after wave including wraiths dropped in by spirits

With enough time they could just bring in bigger and bigger guns to kill Six, which funnily enough, is what happened to Beta Company during Operation Torpedo

A lone Spartan does not have a ghost of a chance against a warship, whatever means it chooses to use to kill them whether that be by deploying hundreds if not thousands of troops or by blasting them with its weapons

[carmine sleet]

Your best bet against a warship if you're on the ground is hoping they don't know you're there or finding somewhere to hide and hoping you can survive whatever it is they're about to drop on you. And well, Six never made it that long to find out what would happen if they decided to just bombard where they were fighting

[stoic hamlet]

*Noble

But B-312 turning into a shiny metal is also not likely, considering the conditions of the world around him.

[unique rune]

still in that cave because not enough 14 year olds have given them their mothers’ credit card info

[empty bloom]

Even I don't hate Halo Reach's story enough to destroy one of its only good story elements.

And I am one of Halo Reach's greatest haters.

[dusk jetty]

Death used to be permanent

[vagrant ocean]

My opinion is that he is dead. His body reduced to glass.

I hate people who try to say B312 is still alive.

He’s dead.

[carmine sleet]

And it should stay that way with Noble Six

And the rest of the dead members of Noble

[dusk jetty]

Somehow Rho Barutamee returned

With a zombie Emile

[carmine sleet]

We're not going to see a zombie Emile

[dusk jetty]

Think about it the devoted sentries somehow survive reach and resurrect all of noble team with the flood and we have to fight them in our dead space marine spinoff

(Kill me)

[minor sky]

There was a video Kammyshep put out not too long ago breaking down how the whole "Six's last stand lasted days" statement is nonsense. But he did still say that it is plausable that Six could've lasted for a few hours before dying

Which I do think is pretty cool

[dusk jetty]

I’ve seen it yeah, it’s just typical hype aura nonsense around reach

Same with the claim “an entire army” took him down

[empty bloom]

Six was actively routed by the final cutscene. The location it takes place is further away from the Autumn's launch platform and down the dirt road back to the mountains.

He was trying to leave, because it was a bad position lmao

[minor sky]

While the whole "Hyper Lethal" thing is nonsense, I do kind of like the idea that Six was on par with Chief in terms of skill, he just didn't have the luck

[lavish frigate]

How do the elites and arbiter blink in halo 3? I'm making an animation but it is hard to see what's actually happening in any cut scene from the game. Is it a vertical or horizontal blink?

[dusk jetty]

I don’t think they blink in 3 period

But reasonably given their physiology they blink horizontally with a vertical third eyelid

Like a croc

[lavish frigate]

okay, I'm pretty sure you kinda see a "shadow" move across their eyes fast which I think is supposed to be the blinking in Halo 3

[gusty star]

They blink horizontally in 3

[lavish frigate]

alright thanks

[wispy pewter]

I think hyper lethal concept is not that… bad of an idea. Like there is a difference between Titus and the other two Space Marines

[stoic hamlet]

I mean, no.

Titus specifically isn’t any more or less dangerous or effective than the rest of the veterans he goes with. He’s just blessed by the Emperor, but it has no effect on his lethality.

A better example is Sigismund, but he’s actually fated/Anime enough for it to be quantifiable.

Though part of it is also just the Warp.

When Siggy goes wild with the Black Sword, the Warp is breaking reality. and even then, per the text, Siggy’s not actually doing anything beyond what he usually does, it’s just brought to a larger audience due to Warp shenanigans

IMO he’s actually a much better example of Chief’s whole idea.

[silver lava]

Halopedia says that once The Flood consume everything in a galaxy it has reached the Transgalactic Stage and moves to a different galaxy to learn more, this could potentially mean that the Flood are the most intelligent lifeforms in the entire Halo Universe, they are capable of consuming everything in a galaxy, knowing every thought imaginable, every technological advancement and everything literally possible in that current galaxy.

[empty bloom]

Sure, but what if they like didn't though

[unique rune]

have they tried eating a Snickers bar

[minor sky]

I was listening to some of Josh Holmes' "Halo 4 Postmordem" GDC talk and it really does seem to me that there was a shift between Halo 4 and 5 about the nature of the Mantle, at least on some level

Holmes makes reference to how one of the core ideas 343i set out to build upon was "humanity", more specifically "what humanity can achieve if we put our petty differences aside" and "becoming stewards of the galaxy"

Which on the face of it sounds a lot like the Mantle. Now maybe even then they wanted to make a distinction about the Forerunners and their failings and modern-Humanity's place in the galaxy, but given some of the lines in Halo 4, I don't know

Much as I do not like a lot of Halo 5's handling of its ideas, I will admit having Chief directly dismiss the Mantle as being imperialist was the correct call to make. I wonder if they always planned to want to have "the mantle is a lie" angle or that was something they figured out as they went along

[jade cape]

Might be a bit of an unpopular opinion, but:

I think Spartan - IV’s are criminally over-hated by a lot of fans, and I would love to see more portrayals of them that do them (or at least the concept of them) more justice, as opposed to just being nameless faceless player insert characters that seem to be kind of vapid, with no real weight in comparison to previous generations apart from a few examples like Horvath, Buck, Thorne and a few others (at least in my opinion)

Their augmentations I find to be very interesting personally, and there’s a lot of potential with the ways that could change and evolve as time goes on and technology advances even further within the UNSC

[wispy pewter]

I don’t think that is an unpopular opinion.

I just think that Spartan IVs introduction did make Spartan feel less mysterious and serious. Considering now they are very common and are just the ordinary soldier who can sign up for the programme. Then you have a fire team majestic situation where it feels like they are just normal marines

[jade cape]

I can’t even tell you how awesome it would be to get a follow up story with fireteam majestic or to have Spartan ops brought back as a game mode in future titles

It’s shame that all that ever happens in regards to continuing some of the best stuff in the Halo universe is relegated (not that comics, books and other mediums aren’t valid or are somehow lesser in quality or value) to being in a comic or a book instead of adapting those stories into stuff that would undoubtedly get more exposure

[unique rune]

make Spartans feel less mysterious
what

[jade cape]

Spartan - IV’s certainly feel a little more open-ended and far less secretive than something like say Spartan - II’s or even III’s for that matter

I get what he’s saying, to an extent

but like lore wise the fact that IV’s were less in the shadows and secretive was kind of the whole point

[stoic hamlet]

Spartan III: the most secretive of all the programs, with no electronic records kept at all, hidden even from the rest of Section III, then further made even more secretive with their armour and choices of battlefield insertion.
considered less secret than the Spartan II’s.

Huh?

But yeah, the issue with the IV’s was their introduction. It was terrible and not endearing at all. They should have saved John from an ambush, not the other way around. That alone would have helped their portrayal immensely.

Then Spartan Ops really should have taken itself more seriously, Palmer especially doesn’t really engender any sort of ideas of leadership or regimentedness, and then every ing after that, with Escalation, Initiation, and etc, just makes the whole thing seem even more inept than it already was.

[jade cape]

I don’t understand where the contradiction with what I said is supposed to be (not trying to be argumentative, just think we’re on the same page for the most part)

Regardless, the intro for the 4s was certainly less than helpful if the goal was to get people used to the idea of Spartan 4s

having them start off as sort of egotistical meatheads was a bad choice writing wise I would say, although even DeMarco was made far more likable within escalation

I’d love to see Spartan Ops & cinematic spinoff game modes make a comeback, I always looked forward to the next chapter of it

[marsh lintel]

i found a halopedia article about twinscythes, an ancient sangheili melee weapon, but there's barely any information on it. no images or anything. would official media tell me any more about it?

[unique rune]

no

it’s only ever been mentioned as historical context for the Energy Sword with no visual depictions

[carmine sleet]

Best bet is reading the Encyclopaedia from 2022 but I doubt you'll get anything that isn't already on Halopedia

[unique rune]

the ‘22 Encyclopedia only mentions it as a historical Sangheili weapon type that informed the design of more modern Energy Swords

same deal as the old Waypoint entry

if I had to guess it’s probably meant to be the part of its development from the curveblade to explain why there’s two blades while curveblades are typically depicted as single-bladed

[modest marsh]

If you ask me I think it’s a bit of a mistake to have a conventional bladed weapon that looks exactly like the energy sword without the functional novelty of its design in mind

Energy swords look like big horseshoe magnets or tuning forks, with each prong resonating with each other and visible electrical arcs sparking between them

You get the impression that it’s designed this way because it fulfills an intuitive purpose using an understood visual shorthand that other devices follow, as opposed to being “sword shaped”

But if the elites were already making swords like this long before it implemented any form of advanced technology, I think that gets undermined a lot

Burnblades I think just barely get a pass, because they conceivably operate by generating heat through an electromagnet or ultrasonic vibrations

[warm ridge]

Best distinction would be something like the Curve blade as a Scythe, and make it 2 of them.

[marsh lintel]

so like, something vaguely resembling euporia from shadow of the erdtree?

or would it be more like a glaive or axe head?

[warm ridge]

No, probably something like like a double bladed scythe, with 2 of them at the top.

Either both facing the same direction, or opposite from one another.

[marsh lintel]

mm i see

[warm ridge]

It has scythe in the name, so think of the scythe itself.

We've also seen Sangheili wield energy swords that are completely made of metal from Halo Legends, and wooden energy swords as well.

Another thing that comes from Halo Legends is wooden staffs. @marsh lintel

[marsh lintel]

huh.

[warm ridge]

metal "energy" sword look-alike https://www.halopedia.org/Haka_'Suukaree
wooden staffs https://www.halopedia.org/images/3/3a/AncientSangheili.png
wooden energy sword look-alikes https://www.halopedia.org/images/8/8a/Elite_training_Duel.jpg

[lapis steeple]

Nah he's in a cave

[marsh lintel]

seeing as it did inspire the design of energy swords and by extension burnblades, maybe it is more similar than i initially made it out to be

[warm ridge]

@marsh lintel
the wooden staffs here might actually just be these, but considering the Sangheili seen in that image are before the rings fired, they could honestly be anything.
https://www.halopedia.org/images/2/29/SangheiliCermArmor.png

[warm ridge]

Curve blades are actually huge, Halo 5 in-game made them look small but they're actually gigantic.

although Halo 5 does have a rare case of a Sangheili who used a Curve blade, you can see just how big it really is.
https://www.halopedia.org/images/c/cc/H5G_Curveblade_Screenshot_5.png

It's also probable they came in many sizes & shapes, some absolutely massive, some dagger sized, so on so forth.

[marsh lintel]

if it's anything like a human sword that's probably true.

[warm ridge]

there's also this ancient Sangheili weapon that was used to cut off multiple San'Shyuum's heads off.
https://www.halopedia.org/images/0/03/H2A_Terminals_-_Ancient_Arbiter_4.jpg @marsh lintel

[marsh lintel]

yeah at that point halo might as well have a soulslike spinoff

actually

that's kinda the reason i asked the question in the first place come to think of it

i was just cooking up ideas for one

[vagrant ocean]

No disrespect but the last thing this world needs is another soulslike.

[marsh lintel]

i could say the same about another fps

[modest marsh]

“Character action RPG”

[empty bloom]

💀

[minor sky]

Is there ever a case of an Elite smiling? Because I'm trying to think how they would emote like that

When they're angry or annoyed their mandibles will droop down like with Ripa 'Moramee

[warm ridge]

Don't think they can smile. They don't exactly show off emotions / expressions like that.

[minor sky]

I ment more specifically "what expression they make when happy or pleased" or the Elite equivalent of a smile

[warm ridge]

they turn there head in a circle

[dusk haven]

They do their thang

[fading flume]

May get a lot of hate for the question, but why not: if you had to consider who the most powerful being in Halo may be (through abilities and what not that make up their fundamental nature as opposed to a political role that grants them armies), who’d you choose? I’m guessing a lot of y’all will probably say the Precursors, which isn’t wrong, but I’m talking about specific individuals on top of them

[unique rune]

forklift

[fading flume]

A valid answer

[wispy pewter]

Me

[fading flume]

And what are you?

A forklift?

[wispy pewter]

I am a writer. The universe bends to my will!

[fading flume]

Dang it, you’re right!

[minor sky]

One part of the early drafts of Halo 2's story that I do wish made it into the final game is how Chief and Arby got into a proper fight before being captured by the Gravemind

[dusk jetty]

We’re just saying stuff now

[minor sky]

Super experimental hard sci-fi horror game where you play as a Forerunner trapped in the burn, slowly going insane

I am only half-joking about this

[wispy pewter]

An Anime where Truck-kun sends a 15 year old Japanese boy into the Halo universe

[ruby lagoon]

Halo wars 3, trust.

[modest marsh]

The Elite removed its helmet and dropped it. The plasma pistol clattered to the deck a moment later. It leaned forward, and its mandibles parted in what the Chief guessed had to be a smile.

From first strike

It’s funny to think this specific elite was meant to be Arbiter but they backed down from that so it’s just a random guy instead (this happens twice)

Well technically 3 times if you count the halo show

[modest marsh]

“Power” manifests in a lot of different ways

I think the precursors were the most powerful in the sense of what they could do, but they weren’t really interested in “force projection” the same way more violent individuals are

The flood used precursor knowledge of neural physics to wreak havoc on the galaxy, poisoning space time itself and using the star roads to obliterate entire solar systems in an instant

I think the Precursors at their peak would be at least as powerful, but unwilling to use their capabilities in ways that would be disruptive to their own goals of nurturing life in the galaxy

[carmine sleet]

I kinda like the idea this Elite ended up being Henry from Mona Lisa

[fading flume]

I mean yea, the Precursors were the pioneers of Neural physics in the Halo universe so that should grant them the title of most powerful beings in the Halo universe, but what about specific entities? Perhaps, the Flood Hivemind, or the Primordial, or even Abaddon

The primordial used the flood as its tool, and in Halo Mythos, merging with the hivemind gave it a now “unimaginable power.” So one begs the question of if the Flood Hivemind wields the Primordial or vise versa

[gusty star]

? Where do you get that idea from

[carmine sleet]

Nowhere, I made it up. I'm not trying to present it as if that's an actual implication of Mona Lisa

[spark pivot]

Thats how 1337 came to be

[gusty star]

Im just confused why you made the connection

What do they have in common

[carmine sleet]

The Elite from First Strike was never confirmed to be killed, only pushed into an escape pod. There's a non-zero chance of him being found and recovered by the Mona Lisa in the aftermath, given the Ascendant Justice hadn't jumped from the Soell System. But like I said, I don't want to be seen as presenting this as an actual canon thing

[gusty star]

I didn’t think you were saying it was canon, just wanted to hear your theory. It’s interesting

[carmine sleet]

Fair

Like, I personally wouldn't call it a theory, as that implies there's proper evidence

[obsidian thistle]

At one single point of time. I'd have said they were Thel. BUT that just doesnt work anymore

That one single point of time was right before Halo 2s release

Where the manual nuked that idea

[fading flume]

@obsidian thistle so sorry for the ping, bus since you’re vastly more knowledgeable on the Halo universe than I, I was really hoping to get your input on this question

[obsidian thistle]

I stay out "powerful" discussions as thats always subjective lol

Anything I say

Will be easy to have a counter

[fading flume]

Of course of course, but I would appreciate input on the matter. Such a question doesn’t have a canonical answer (maybe Precursors in a broad category), but regardless I love seeing others interpretation of the story in that sense

[drowsy rose]

Quick question; the only ones to independently develop slipspace travel post-activation of the array were humanity, right? With the San'Shyuum Reformists reverse engineering Forerunner technology, and the Sangheili... well, I don't know actually. Did they independently develop it, or figure it out by looking at what Forerunner technology does?

And even then, Humanity were steered in that direction by the geas imposed upon them by the Librarian right?

I'm trying to figure out just how likely it is that civilisations independent of Forerunner influence would develop slipspace capability

[empty bloom]

They weren't steered the first time by the Librarian as Ancient Humans, so that's unclear.

[empty bloom]

Humanity, to Humanity's knowledge, would've been the only independent developers of Slipspace technology; However, that's to Humanity's knowledge. The Elites and Prophets both reverse engineered it, and the other species are unknown (Though Jackals, at least, were adept at space travel to some degree, and Brutes had lost the technology to some degree, though it was still in living memory; No mention on either using slipspace).

[old pebble]

Didn't the Brutes stop at their "Nuclear Phase"?

[empty bloom]

No, Brutes were actually very highly advanced beyond 'nukes'.

[old pebble]

"stop"

[empty bloom]

They had functioning Electrolasers, which are well beyond anything humanity currently has; They also independently colonized every moon of their homeworld before the immolation.

[old pebble]

Until they sent themselves back to the Stone Age...

[empty bloom]

Eh, from how it sounds, it was more reducing themselves back to the early-to-mid industrial age.

The early wording made it sound worse than it was, but from what we know of the Immolation, it was actually well within living memory of Brutes that were 50 or older.

[old pebble]

Makes Sense

[empty bloom]

(The Shock Rifle is canonically something they actually had before the Immolation and it was recently rediscovered technology)

[severe wind]

whats the newest halo book?

[minor sky]

I can buy this

[drowsy rose]

Ah yeah that’s true! I didn’t take anything from that period of time into account

With that said though, how likely do we think it’d be that other civilisations around the galaxy would’ve also developed it by the present date?

Unless slipspace technology is somehow really difficult to develop (and other forms of interstellar travel aren’t feasibly possible) it strikes me as being a little far fetched that only the interstellar civilisations we know of existing actually do exist

[lyric flume]

It should be Halo: Edge of Dawn which came out in December which I hear is very good

[minor sky]

How recent was the Immolation when the Covenant made contact with the Brutes?

[empty bloom]

Within 2-3 decades

[wispy pewter]

It’s a big galaxy. That one species that crash landed on one of the rings with a squid like ship probably designed their own

Is it even that difficult to design FTL travel? The humans designed one before knowing about energy shielding and weaponry but already figured out nuclear fusion the size of a backpack

[drowsy rose]

Oh I forgot about those!

[minor sky]

Checks out

[drowsy rose]

I’d have thought something like that if not for the whole geas thing, and how much of a role that played if at all

[wispy pewter]

You also have to take into account they are descended from the Ancient Humans. Who conquered most of the Orion arm I think? Rivaled the forerunners in technology

[minor sky]

Do you think Eric Nyland will ever write another Halo novel?

[wispy pewter]

Someone’s gotta fire Kelly or Troy

[minor sky]

Why would they need to do that?

They didn't need to fire anybody to let Jeremy Patenaude write Empty Throne

Or Tim Lebbon write Parasite's Wake

[wispy pewter]

You’re right

[bleak goblet]

He needs to be the lead writer for their next attempt at a show.

[carmine sleet]

Being a novel writer doesn't mean he'd be the best pick for writing a show

[bleak goblet]

Agreed, but it doesn’t seem as if the professional show writers that were previously hired were cut out for the job either. Leading to the shows over all poor performance, reviews and cancellation.

[modest marsh]

The show was canceled because it was too expensive to produce

It got decent numbers

[carmine sleet]

So your ideal solution is to hire someone who has no experience as a show writer and hope it would fix the problems?

[modest marsh]

Ideally you’d have someone experienced in showrunning and is knowledgeable of Halo’s fiction

[bleak goblet]

No, like I said I agreed with you…….but at least having someone who has a clear understanding of the source material would benefit future projects

[modest marsh]

The latter is optional though because knowing halo lore isn’t a skill in high demand

[carmine sleet]

I'd argue having at least one person who isn't an expert on the writing team to help make sure things are digestible for people who aren't lore experts would be a good idea. Like how Andor wasn't just made by people who are big Star Wars nerds who wanted to see their favourites show up all the time

[bleak goblet]

Again, agree completely!

I think that was Andor’s greatest strength. It remained respectful to the lore, while being digestible to new comers, and almost immediately cemented itself as must see Star Wars media.

[stoic hamlet]

Look at Tony Gilroy with Andor. He’s stated a few times he isn’t a Star Wars fan… but Andor/Rogue One is one of the best pieces of media the franchise has seen in decades.

Being a fan can be a benefit, but also a curse.

Ah, @carmine sleet already made the connection, lmao.

But yeah, the danger you have with a fan at the helm is they might “go overboard” or be a fan but not of what the masses like, or what the show needs.

Like, Halo, for example, people were ragging on the show runners for not having played the games… but with a show like that, what people should actually have asked (if being a Halo fan actually matters) is “have you read the books?”

[bleak goblet]

I was one of those on the side of “Have you read the books?” Mainly because I felt as if the writers had asked Chat GPT to “Summerize the halo series” then filled in the gaps with their own creative freedoms.

All of that being said…..I also recognize that they didn’t want to compete directly with the Mandalorian series aesthetically. And these Creative freedoms were necessary.

[carmine sleet]

https://tenor.com/view/eto-bleh-gif-14618428694469046242

[vagrant ocean]

Eh, he’s part of the reason we’re written into a corner when it comes the eugenicist aspects of the Spartan program.

[bleak goblet]

Clarification on that please?

[vagrant ocean]

The whole “Spartan-IIs are genetically superior than most of humanity which is why the augments work” thing. @empty bloom can help explain further.

[stoic hamlet]

I wouldn’t really say that, tbh.

The issue, really, is HS just keep doubling down on it. Every time they have a chance to reframe it, they don’t.

The 2022 Encyclopedia comes to mind.

When their mantra is to really hammer home Chief specifically as an icon and focus on individual heroics, over a collective, (a very American outlook, understandably) it’s kind of a given, though.

[modest marsh]

I think having a genetic predisposition for being a super soldier isn’t proof of eugenics unless you subscribe to the belief that being a super soldier innately makes you better or more important than other people

The messaging on that can get twisted when talking about a franchise in which it is trying to sell you on the fantasy of being a super soldier which is why characters like the Pilot are so important

Infinite’s marketing campaign did a good job of democratizing the achievements of humanity as a whole that empowered Chief (our player avatar) to be a hero in the circumstances that required his specific abilities and character

https://youtu.be/BmA_T72PXcQ

The UNSC Archives trailers more directly made this connection by attributing the specific sacrifices that people made in order to make the construction of the Mjolnir armor we wear possible https://youtu.be/GttElXQBf9w

[stoic hamlet]

IMO it could have done a better job, but I think the best trailer of the bunch was the “forever we fight” one, where it went through various points of human history.

The others, I felt, adding the tagline calling out advancements to Chief specifically somewhat diluted the message.

But the “big history lesson” one did a great job because Chief wasn’t really called out at all, he was just another “link in the chain” as it were.

[modest marsh]

The UNSC archives I think are more likely to land with people because the impact felt is more tangible to someone who only thinks of halo as a video game

“That cool grapple thing you use? A woman spent years of her life toiling away just to perfect that technology even after her daughter was brutally killed”

[stoic hamlet]

Yeah.

I mean, I can understand the point, but the message to me kind of loses it’s focus when you call out specifically one person it was made for (even if, realistically, it wouldn’t be made for that one person).

Like, the people who developed… idk, NVG’s, didn’t make them specifically so Seal Team Six could kill Bin Laden.

It frames the actions as a kind of hero worship, even if retroactively in-universe.

Which is kind of my point.

That was a great chance to peel it back and focus on other people, without tying it to Chief.

(But obviously Infinite’s marketing was heavy on that, so that was never going to happen).

To bring up Andor again, that did essentially what I’d want from Halo, in that it reframes Luke’s actions as something much lesser, but also larger.

Andor frames Luke as being a culmination of thousands if not millions of others, the final break in the dam, but it was already crumbling, already breaking. It doesn’t make his actions any lesser because of that, it heightens them.

He’s not a hero because he’s special, or the chosen one, or a Jedi, he’s a hero because he stood up when needed, just like Luthen, just like Andor, just like Saw and Jyn and Mon and Bail, and etc.

They might not have all done it for the right reasons, but they did it when it counted, and they didn’t do it for Luke, or what have you.

[empty bloom]

What hi

Sorry I was in class

Yes the IIs are eugenicist dream

[unique rune]

yeah every time I see someone level that as a criticism against the show I tend to assume they're approaching the whole deal in bad faith

the supposed goal of the show was to explore Chief more as a character
the games by and large do not do that
you would not get anything from the games to inform the show even if you had played them

we already have a direct game to other media adaptation in the form of The Flood and basically everyone rags on the parts that are directly from CE for being the least interesting and engaging
because there's really only so much you can do to write about gunning down aliens in a shiny metal corridor

[minor sky]

I do think playing the games or having an understanding of them goes a very long way

They are the foundational media for the series

And what 90% of people identify the series as being

Either way, I do think the show did a pretty crummy job of adapting or being representitve of the source material

It reminds me of the never produced American 90s reboot of Doctor Who or Dragon Ball Evolution

(FTR I am not talking about the 1996 TV movie staring Paul McGann, but instead an earlier pitch of a full on Doctor Who reboot)

[tight badge]

Has anyone in lore noticed the similarites between the covenant And Christianity

[vagrant ocean]

I mean, pick any extremist religious movement and you’ll find similarities between it and the Covenant Empire.

[empty bloom]

Understanding literally anything about religion and religious struggles is basically the rosetta stone for understanding the Covenant in general.

Or the post-schism Covenant.

[minor sky]

You can make many parallels between The Covenant and extremist religious groups in the real world

[tight badge]

No, it’s just a Covenant searching for a lost Ark

[vagrant ocean]

So you found similarities between Halo 3 and Indiana Jones

[tight badge]

Wasn’t talking about extremists

[vagrant ocean]

Well, the Covenant are literally extremists.

[tight badge]

I was making the pretty obvious connection between the Covenant searching for the Halos/Ark to the Lost Ark of the Covenant

[minor sky]

Yeah but like

Christianity isn't really a quest for a religious artifact

I'm sure there are a few denominations that might be like that, but broadly speaking that isn't the case

Anyway

I wonder if we'll ever see Petra Janecek again

As far as I can tell, the last time we saw her she was arrested by ONI for looking into Girrard's work

I wonder if Lasky tried pulling some strings idk

[empty bloom]

That's like. A footnote of a footnote relative to the Covenant's entire existence. Missing the tower of babel for a brick of it, if you will.

[minor sky]

That has more to do with the plot of a 1981 action movie than religion

[slow goblet]

i need some help with a lore discussion i am having

i need pointers to convince someone that Humanity wouldnt have won the war without the Great Schismo, the fall of High Charity and the Nova Bomb killing the Imperial Admiral

[coarse hamlet]

what no? if i for example wanted to make a star wars video game the thing im asking developers isn't if theyve read the new jedi order or to name the glups at the cantina i ask if theyve watched the movies cause the movies are the primary bedrock thing that all the rest draw off of, with halo its the games. gonna make a lotr tv show with only the war in the north video game as a reference like c'mon

[empty bloom]

... Did they somehow miss Halo Reach and Halo 3 ODST?

Or Halo 3, or Halo 2?

[coarse hamlet]

or ce like the first cutscene of the game

[empty bloom]

The Nova bomb's whatever because that's entirely offscreen, but the first two are literally visibly instrumental in showing why humanity survived

[slow goblet]

the person i am arguing with is convince Humanity was going to win regardless

something about all strong armies in earth lost steam in the end of their wars

[empty bloom]

That's not even a good take on real world history what

What the hell are the 'strong armies' in question? The one with the troops high on narcotics that let them successfully blitz France and then do nothing else useful? The one that bombed one (1) US fleet at harbor, spent years getting kicked back home, then got nuked twice?

[slow goblet]

germany, he mentioned germany specifically

[stoic hamlet]

Obviously you hope they’ve played the games (or watched the movies, in Star Wars case) but tonally, the games aren’t really what you want from a show about Master Chief and Cortana.

If anything, tying the show to those characters is part of what killed it (or at least made it harder to do) because the show runners (even if they were good) were in a rock and a hard place.

We already know everything that happens with Chief and Cortana, mapped to something as small as the hour. You can’t add anything new there without changing things.

At the same time, in the games and the games alone, until you get to around H4, Chief isn’t really a character. He’s a green brick and a gun, who maybe flies pretty good, but he has no history or background to draw upon.

Unless you look at the books.

But even beyond that, the games just do not really provide enough character depth for anyone else, either. Johnson in the games for example is a wisecracking, cigar chomping sergeant… in the books, he’s a PTSD riddled alcoholic who has no good way to express his grief and loss and blows his money on more booze and strippers.

Thel’s past and life as a feudal lord who has to deal with assassins and familial politics doesn’t come up in the games (except Halo 5, but even then not really)

Cortana’s really the only one who actually has a good character showing, but only really because of the games as a medium allowing it.

But Halo’s campaigns, especially the original trilogy, are not exactly five star stories. (But they are a product of their time and for their time are pretty good).

So asking “have you played the games?” (Which was done by “fans” in a derogatory fashion, anyways) isn’t really a valid question, because the main characters they were trying to bring to the screen aren’t characters in those games.

[empty bloom]

WW1 Germany lost because of attrition against similarly scaled enemies, and WW2 Germany lost because they were never all that strong.

[stoic hamlet]

Oh boy, history. I can contribute to this.

[slow goblet]

and i did say that the convenant lost for three reasons: the great schism, the flood and the Nova bomb killing the imperial admiral

[empty bloom]

Well, yeah, the Covenant lost basically the entire command backbone of their military over the course of like, a week.

[stoic hamlet]

I mean, technically, the NOVA killed Separatists, not Covenant.

[empty bloom]

And not even to dying, but to them taking arms against their betrayers

[stoic hamlet]

But, you know, splitting hairs.

[slow goblet]

still, it is debatable if the Imperial would be going after humans or not

[stoic hamlet]

He would be.

But he wasn’t Covenant anymore, technically.

[empty bloom]

Humanity's continued survival would've ended at his hands, considering he was still fully bought in on the Covenant religion.

It's more to Thel's luck that Xytan got greased.

[stoic hamlet]

Just so.

[slow goblet]

those engineers saved us all

[empty bloom]

Also like saying WW2 Germany was 'strong' is... Kinda telling on yourself, lmao. They were strong relative to like, France.

[stoic hamlet]

Xytan living means he wins the eventual civil war, kills Thel, and continues the war.

At most humanity gets some breathing room, but the whole “fire Halo to get to Heaven thing” he was still fully on board for.

[empty bloom]

And even then France, on paper, was still really good, they just got screwed by bad strategy. Materially they were still very good.

[coarse hamlet]

i see that a lot, that people think chief in the original trilogy had no character, but like go replay the games he's not from the onset.

[stoic hamlet]

France were arguably stronger, IMO.

[empty bloom]

Wehraboos isn't a banned word, right?

[slow goblet]

and with that we have the end of all life and the flood finally losing

[empty bloom]

Yep, not a banned word. Nice.

[coarse hamlet]

remember when the us army was clearing austria then they suddenly lost steam and the germans were able to win the war?

[empty bloom]

The relative strength of the US Military in WW2 is utterly mind-bending.

Like, just a massive flex of industrial capability.

Like Germany took years to lose because that's just how wars work, every action of taking ground and killing men and destroying factories takes time.

[stoic hamlet]

He had character.

But not enough for a show.

You can’t make a show with… 6(?) cutscenes in three games of spoken dialogue that aren’t just a quippy one-liner.

And I say this as someone who’s favourite John-game moments are Halo 3’s Cortana cutscene and the ending of the game where Cortana finally says his name.

Even Rob Mclees, one of Halo’s original writers, referenced book material when he wrote his own short story, it was arguably the lynchpin of said story.

You cannot use the games alone for a long form show, especially a drama. It’s just not possible.

[slow goblet]

i have a questions, does anyone know what happaned to that Brute faction that was having peace talks with the swords of sanghelios and the UNSC?

did they die off or something?[

[empty bloom]

They joined the Banished as shipmakers in exchange for plunder.

[slow goblet]

bruh

[stoic hamlet]

Most of that was because they hadn’t gotten burnt out during WW1.

Factories, but also populations were basically untouched.

[slow goblet]

i wanted to see good brutes and elites working with us

[empty bloom]

Eh, there's a cultural advantage to siding with the Banished. It appeals more to Brute cultural and social doctrine.

[stoic hamlet]

And even then, Brutes are inherently pack/social creatures.

The Banished are the largest pack, ergo…

[empty bloom]

It's a bit lame but most Brute factions that we see joining the Banished in general aren't even doing it out of agreed goals beyond 'kill things get rich/get famous', more pragmatism. People like Escharum are exceptions, not the rule.

[stoic hamlet]

They even commented as such in the recent Spartan Chatter.

[empty bloom]

Still mad I missed that, I was having a depression episode.

[stoic hamlet]

Basically “the Banished” is an ideal held up by Atriox and Escharum, once they’re gone, it’ll probably die.

[empty bloom]

Damn seasonal depression.

[stoic hamlet]

They mentioned the same might be true of the Swords, as well.

Which makes more than enough sense.

[slow goblet]

i do think there will be a time that even the UNSC ends and it is just a bunch of factions fighting eachother

[stoic hamlet]

Unlikely.

Out of the three the UNSC has longevity on their side, as they’re not held up by one or two visionaries.

[empty bloom]

There's a reason I basically consider Atriox to be the Genghis Khan of Brutes.

He's brilliant as a strategic leader and empire-builder, but that comes at a cost of his organization also being wholly dependent on his continued existence-he's the only one who can successfully keep it together.

[coarse hamlet]

ah i think i see the issue. you are disregarding characterization that isnt "dramatic"(searching for a better word but this is as close as im getting tonight), which is fair thats a matter of taste, and im just gonna disagree with you there

[empty bloom]

Democracy, baby. We love to see it.

Swords of Sanghelios really lucked out in that they got something close to a Philospher King, but that's gonna cause problems if Thel dies.

[stoic hamlet]

Though, constitutional monarchies historically tend to be the longest lived political entities, sooooo

[slow goblet]

bro replied to me saying that my evidence with books is not strong enough, that humans use hit and run tatics well and would end the convenant, bro is just ragebaiting me

[empty bloom]

I mean he unironically thinks the Nazis were strong

Wait. I can say that?

Since when?

[stoic hamlet]

Tbf, it should be causing problems now.

If he goes to Zeta he’ll cause a schism.

[coarse hamlet]

"patrolling the colonies makes you wish for a glassy vacation"

[modest marsh]

I mean one thing you can do is just like, count the casualties on each side

[empty bloom]

This server needs patch notes dude, I have like four warnings on this account over time for saying this

[modest marsh]

We have a big list of planets that were either glassed or abandoned by the UNSC

The list of impacted covenant planets is far smaller

[stoic hamlet]

I’ve gotten at least one, lmao.

[slow goblet]

bro doesnt believe sources i give tho, it ainta argument to win, even after i mentioned the 800 planets

[empty bloom]

Yeah, I totally get why Vale was calling him out on his crap.

[modest marsh]

What about how the high charity fleet in halo 2 that we see is bigger than the entire combined UNSC fleet across the entire war combined by tonnage and it’s not even close

(Not counting high charity)

[empty bloom]

Like, it frames it as big drama, and a big reveal, but Vale being pissed at Thel for shirking because of things he did NOT COMMUNICATE WITH ONE OF HIS MOST MAJOR FIELD OFFICERS AT THE TIME is kind of justified. If anything she should've hurled angrier abuse.

[coarse hamlet]

sometimes you just gotta leave them on read

[slow goblet]

i mentioned the High charity fleet, i calculated the number of ships humans had (around 103-233) at the end of the war and the Imperial Admiral fleet and gave proof, bro just doesnt want to believe

[stoic hamlet]

Yeah. It speaks to a dangerous lapse of leadership.

It’s one of those things where like, hype-moments, I kinda get it… but that’s alarming to see from a leader, and would see many Keeps and etc if not plot to “find someone better” just up and jump ship.

Because this isn’t him leaving UNSC forces out to dry, this is Sangheilios. These are his vassals, their troops and keeps and etc.

[modest marsh]

More important than the total number of individual ships is how big they are

[empty bloom]

It'd be great for drama to have him want to do more than like, send Vale and a tiny fleet to deal with the problem, but really want to handle it on his own, but I doubt that will happen.

[modest marsh]

The ket pattern battlecruiser is worth 100 stalwarts in mass

[slow goblet]

even then, the ships in just high charity out numbered human ships 6 to 1

[empty bloom]

And that's if the captain is blind, deaf, and dumb.

[modest marsh]

Covenant ships are huge

[coarse hamlet]

ton for ton theyre also just better

autumn solo getting 4 kills against ccs battlecruisers not withstanding

[slow goblet]

if i remember it right it needed at least 3 humans ships to have a chance to win against 1 convenant ship

and that chance was low

[coarse hamlet]

i wanna say that loose ratio comes from a naval engagement from one of the early books but i cant recall which. had a battle where the unsc outnumbered them 3:1 and only lost most of the fleet

[slow goblet]

yeah, 3:1 to have a chance with a high cost to victory

[stoic hamlet]

They’ll have him go himself.

And I’m not sure if they should, because I don’t know that they’ll commit to the consequences of that.

[empty bloom]

Alas.

[unique rune]

I mean it's not necessarily about being "dramatic" it's about telling a story that will keep people engaged

if they had played the games and used that solely as a reference point for an adaptation then what even is the point of making an adaptation
you'd just be telling stories people have already experienced but without the the direct player engagement that helps patch over the narrative rough spots

you don't think too much about how drawn out the experience of Attack on the Control Room is when you're the one running through the environment shooting things and blowing them up
but when you're effectively just watching a dry, humorless, 100% series "prestige television" playthrough of it then it just becomes 50 minutes of metallic corridors and snowy canyons that all look the same

[stoic hamlet]

And don’t forget, you then do it backwards, lol.

At least when speaking of AotCR.

[unique rune]

the writing of Halo games generally falls in some range of alright to good that is also well supported by the fact (particularly in the Bungie campaigns) that you are the one doing things because it's a video game
but when you move it to a medium that doesn't have that interactivity then you should probably have something else to keep it going so that the audience feels invested in it
which is something the games struggle with because Chief doesn't really have anything resembling a character arc throughout CE, 2, or 3
he's mostly just there and doing his job

if they'd decided to make a show about Arbiter Thel 'Vadam, sure, that might be something to reference Halo 2 for because he does have pretty clear cut development and agency as a character that the audience can latch onto without needing to be the ones behind the button presses
which is kind of a saving grace because his missions in Halo 2 are generally the less fun ones in my experience

[wispy pewter]

That became redundant with the latest Mac cannons

[minor sky]

I think it might've been a solid foundation for "The Reclaimer Saga" if they put more focus on the Forerunner location and its relationship to the specific rate it served. Like with Requiem, you can more specifically look at the Warrior Servants, Halo 5's Genesis was a Builder planet, and a hypothetical Halo 6 would maybe dig in more to the lifeworkers

You can then use these threads to weave the rise and fall of the Forerunners and the failures of their society

It is a thought

[wispy pewter]

Interesting question from Reddit. If the Brutes were under the Covenant this whole time, how did the Banished build their ships so quickly?

[modest marsh]

I don’t think this is really proven to be the case lol

UNSC ships are better than they used to be but by and large they’re still outgunned by an equivalent class of covenant ship

It’s really just the infinity that can punch above its weight, followed by the valiant class per empty throne

And the Spirit of Fire just has obscene plot armor

[wispy pewter]

Yes that is why I said latest Mac cannons. The valiant class equipped with the Sarisa class was destroying banished and covenant ship in one shot

[modest marsh]

Not so simply

[glass pine]

its mostly old covenant ships stolen by banished raids, banished weapons and vehicles lookd similar to covey tech is because its all just outdated covenant tech

they'd give em makeovers too, but the foundation is covenant

lots of it could be from Doisac as well, so maybe tech made by the jiralhanae

[glass pine]

this cause brute weapons themselves are very different than traditional covenant tech

[modest marsh]

Victory was equipped with seventy-five M58 Archer missile pods, but only a fraction of those were necessary to deplete the dreadnought’s shields. Because of the prevalence of ramming as a Banished tactic, that meant their shielding at the bow of the ship would invariably be strongest. A dozen Archer missiles found their mark around the dreadnought’s midsection, softening up its center.

“Confirmed hits, ma’am,” Nishioka announced. “And MAC rounds are ready.” Cole nodded. “Then let’s introduce this sorry lot to SARISSA.”

“With pleasure, Captain.”

The MACs fired again, both hitting the lead dreadnought. From their firing angle, the blast was sufficient to seriously damage the Banished vessel, but it was still operational.

Dreadnaughts can sustain multiple rounds, withstanding several Archer missiles before taking two SARISSA shots to the broadside and staying combat capable

[wispy pewter]

Meanwhile the Infinity vaporised a ship in a Mac shot… that was in the first few pages of Rubicon Protocol I think

[modest marsh]

Four hundred meters ahead, an enemy dreadnought lay powerless with a gaping hole in its midsection, the victim of a direct hit from Infinity’s MAC rounds.

Important to remember the Infinity’s MAC is a quad bore

To be clear, this may have been overkill, but you don’t pull your punches in a situation like this

[obsidian thistle]

https://www.halowaypoint.com/news/canon-fodder-parasites-cake

Some gems here

[drowsy mesa]

I don't know why, but the pictures aren't loading 😕

[wispy pewter]

I see. But still a single Valiant class stood on its own pretty well.

[modest marsh]

A little too well to be frank

They should’ve gone with one of the heftier ship classes

But it feels like they wanted to power creep a cruiser that happens to look like the autumn

Its kind of like how the m6D is treated like a super duper handcannon even though it should’ve been supplanted by a newer handgun already but it has staying power because its iconic in its debut appearance

[wispy pewter]

To be fair it was refitted. Not sure if it had energy shielding

[modest marsh]

It does not

[stoic hamlet]

If you assume it’s actually a Vindication it makes a lot more sense.

[modest marsh]

The written lore may make it a more suitable fit but it does not read as “hero ship” the same way the Valiant clearly does

(Also the Valiant is 50% bigger so there’s that)

In terms of “power level” they’re probably close to even when you account for Victory of Samothrace’s refit upgrades

[stoic hamlet]

Yeah.

But broadly speaking, a Vindication makes more logical sense.

As you say though, it’s not “hero ship” (I hate that that’s a thing, I’m sorry, lol) material.

[modest marsh]

I think an Epoch or Punic were more obvious choices personally but I also get the impression they wanted to avoid it coming across as Infinity-lite in terms of capability

But like, Infinity probably would’ve struggled in the same circumstances

Like idk, I think Patenaude was trying to make a deliberate send up of TFOR’s ship combat where the UNSC ships are by all accounts dramatically outgunned but persevere anyways, so you might say that Victory being this underdog with an oversized gun was intentional but it comes across awkwardly in the prose given the SARISSA is treated as something that uniquely requires a Valiant to mount

It kinda comes off as strapping a field cannon onto the bed of a Toyota pickup and treating this as their best and only option

Like yeah under the right circumstances that genuinely might be the right move but surely there were other options to consider

[stoic hamlet]

Part of why Nylund’s ship combat worked though is that the UNSC didn’t have the tools it does now, from an out of universe perspective.

Like, James’ whole thing with the Winter-class prowler is impossible under Nylund’s universe.

The Prowler Admiral, Al-Cyngi uses, her personal ship (also not something Nylund ever did, but…) wouldn’t have been able to do what it does in the book either.

The SARISSA is something Nylund might have done… but in his world, it’d have been used as a metaphor for the perseverance and ingenuity clashing with reality, that no matter how much they try to advance they just can’t win conventionally, as he did with the Cradle, the SMAC’s over Reach, Patterson’s battlegroup, etc.

Nylund tended to avoid stuff like hero ships and his ship combat was especially bleak.

*and when he did have hero ships, they weren’t actually special via equipment, but “hero ships” only in the sense we had their POV’s.

[modest marsh]

These are fair critiques but also part of it that makes me think where Nylund’s work differs from other authors, especially Patenaude’s, is that he went in with the expectation that his work would never appear meaningfully in a game

Meanwhile there is a reasonably high probability of Victory of Samothrace appearing in a game if they get the green light to do something like that

[wispy pewter]

I don’t think the UNSC should keep losing in space battles

[stoic hamlet]

Yeah. I mean, they’re not critiques per se, just observations.

regardless. The two worlds (perhaps not the most apt term, but it works well enough) are hard to mold together. Nylund’s tone does not really allow for ships like Infinity or The Spirit of Fire, or Victory of Samothrace, or the Winter-Class and its absurdities to exist, as his work basically shuns the very idea of such things.

[modest marsh]

They should probably start by not fighting an enemy that dramatically outnumbers and outguns them

[stoic hamlet]

It’s not about losing, it’s tone and how they’re presented.

[wispy pewter]

Oh yeah because the Banished are very friendly and understanding

[stoic hamlet]

Nylund did have several UNSC victories in his books.

The two biggest being Sigma Octanus and (briefly) Patterson’s group 7v20’ing a Covenant group over Onyx.

The difference is that these fights (aside from Keyes’ special maneuver) didn’t lynchpin on a single ship the way modern lore does.

The POV ships involved just dispersed into the background, and it was a slow, attrition grind against the Covenant to secure victory, because the POV ships weren’t really special, they were just “one among many” or there were otherwise smaller touches highlighting how the battle was bigger than the stuff our POV ship was doing.

But newer lore that tends to be the opposite, where our POV ships are the ones calling everyone else to battle. They’re the stars in a clear sky, rather than the sky being filled with equally important pinpricks of light.

[wispy pewter]

Right because during the battle we are only following Cole’s daughter

[stoic hamlet]

Kind of but no.

During Onyx, we only follow the crew of the Dusk.

We don’t get the POV’s of anyone else in Patterson’s battlegroup. Same for Sigma Octanus, we only follow Keyes, not anyone in Battle Group Leviathan.

But the difference is that Samothrace can directly affect the battle both in space and on the ground, and we specifically focus on Abigail, not the Samothrace’s crew. It makes the whole affair far more isolating, but also kind of meaningless, because no one else here actually matters.

Nylund’s books tended (briefly) to peel back and acknowledge the wider picture, or have the lead POV ship not actually be the most important or deadly.

For example, during the opening MAC salvo during Sigma Octanus, we don’t actually know what ship the Iroquois actually targeted and hit, the only ship ww directly know was hit by a heavy MAC was the lead Covenant destroyer, but by and large we don’t know specifics. Or, later, when things get close-quartered, a random UNSC ship YOLO’s its way into the heart of the Covenant fleet.

Newer lore would specifically highlight the contributions of our hero ship, instead of the contributions of the overall fleet.

[wispy pewter]

I guess some Authors are just better at some things

I should start reading his Halo books

The UNSC Infinity was the most important ship since 343s first game

[warm ridge]

The Covenant was a massive empire by all accounts, and you're basically acting as if Xytan was the only Imperial Admiral in existence at that time. We have no idea how many Imperial Admirals the Covenant may of had, all we know is just of one's existence.

The High Councilors for example, would be above the rank of Imperial Admiral. All those Sangheili were higher in rank then Xytan would of been.

and we know quite a few of the Sangheili High Councilors survived the Great Schism.

[unique rune]

I mean I don’t think they were saying killing Xytan was important because they killed a high-ranking admiral

the reason it was important was that it meant that most of the Sangheili ended up falling behind a faction that was tenuously friendly towards humanity instead of one that would’ve almost certainly continued to kill them, regardless of belief in the Great Journey

[stoic hamlet]

Political versus military, also.

In times of war (under the right circumstances), a politician has no power over the military.

We already know not all High Councillors or their attendants were military. With the Schism, Xytan could have had de jure authority by some ancient code.

[slow goblet]

yeah, he and hundreds of ships as well as high ranking sangheili got killed there, by all means it killed a huge chunk of believers that would have screwed the UNSC

[warm ridge]

The Sangeili High Councilors are said to be the highest rank achievable in the Covenant Military. It is a Military rank. They control units & lead battles just like any other rank.

It's not just a "political title".

They are absolutely the highest authority there is, and would be the most influential among the species.

All we know for sure is very few survived the Great Schism. Xytan wouldn't be the only threat to contend with.

[warm ridge]

We know most of the Sangeili allied with factions that wanted to kill Humans, a majority didn't align with Thel at all.

Over half of Sangheilos population either evacuated or was killed because of the civil war (Blooding years).

The only reason Thel has been successful is through his alliance with Humanity. Humanity has not only saved him more then once, it's also killed off or assassinated entire factions that were against the Swords of Sangheilos

This has obviously lead to a positive effect with the Swords slowly becoming the biggest faction on Sanghelios itself. More people join the Swords because the Swords are the most durable.

[minor sky]

Halo CE Marine design thats the good stuff

RYTHAZE IS DOING THE COVER ART?!

No wonder it looks so good

I hope he gets to do more offical Halo art down the road, his stuff is outstanding

I hate to say it, but Campaign Evolved has gotta look more like how the Marines and Elite are shown here

Because they do look damn good

[empty bloom]

@stoic hamlet So looking into it more, they are apparently independently assigned under Fleetmaster 'Kulul to taskforces as subordinates under various shipmasters, including the Evocatus Fahl 'Nto.

I mean using some mental gymnastics, with other personnel on the planet, I could see the UNSC saying that technically the Spartans under Fleetmaster 'Kulul are not a 'detachment from the UNSC', but I think the more 'accurate' answer at the end of the day that there's not really a form of interpretation that frames Chief as being correct when he says that the UNSC doesn't make Spartan detachments, either in the normal (IE under the command of the Navy from the Army) sense, the grand (IE under command of the Independent Military of some JOZ planet termporarily) sense, or under the seperative sense (IE retired, a'la Randall or James)

Whether he's doing it as a lie, doesn't know, or doesn't care, is kind of irrelevant-I doubt he'd actually have any reason to know about Fireteam Joragumo, Gray Team, Randall, or James, and likely wouldn't be particularly snippy about whether or not what he said was entirely accurate.

[minor sky]

Isn't this the case?

[minor sky]

I do wonder how much of the lore introduced in Epitaph was made just for that book or had been worked out before hand

[fading flume]

Is the Primordial the gravemind but the gravemind isn’t the Primordial

[unique rune]

I mean

neither?

the Primordial was its own entity separate from the Gravemind
the Gravemind isn’t solely just the Primordial

[fading flume]

Of course I know that, I’m talking about after the Primordial merged with the Hivemind. Mythos implies it was more of a “take over” and the Primordial assumed control, other ideas seemed more nuanced and that they merged in a sense.

[unique rune]

I don’t think there is a meaningful distinction between the two given how the Flood hivemind works

[fading flume]

So I guess then they are “the flood Hivemind” considering it is supposedly one entity controlling all Flood

So you have a point

I will say Halo themselves on X stated the following:

“The height of the Flood's twisted evolution, a Gravemind contains the memories and information of all intelligence the parasite has consumed and serves as the vessel for the immortal consciousness of the Primordial.”

[minor sky]

Do we know how many Swords of Sanghelios were on the Infinity before arriving at Zeta Halo?

[empty bloom]

Around 24 IIRC

[empty bloom]

Y'know it always tickles the happy part of my brain when I remember some random factoid exactly on the dot.

[minor sky]

Hm, ig that explains why people would have no idea they were there

[empty bloom]

So far we know the whereabouts of exactly 3 Swords; One's dead, two are with the remaining survivors.

[minor sky]

Hopefully we'll be able to fight beside them in Halo 7

Hell, if playable Elites come back we could have them as co-op partners

3, Reach, and 5 were really cool for not having your co-op partners not just be Chief reskins

That only really worked in Halo CE (imo)

Though it was funny at the start of Halo 4 for there to be another Spartan randomly sitting next to Chief and Cortana

[empty bloom]

I think one thing that does mildly annoy me about the post-Infinite depictions of Swords of Sanghelios troops is that they don't adopt Swords livery.

Like, the one Evocati we see still dons white, and the jackal we see still wears blue.

We don't have a reliable livery chart for them and that annoys me; Rtas' ship is still using the off-green Phantoms while the rest of the Sanghelios vehicle fleet is using an umber-red.

I mean we do have a post-Covenant livery chart in the abstract, but it's not consistent.

[vagrant ocean]

Fr.

[empty bloom]

Expanding on this, the faction livery for the post-Covenant splinter groups:

Jul Mdama's Splinter (Pre-2559): Standard Covenant purples with bright green lighting (Ships, equipment)
Jul Mdama's Splinter (Post-2559): Dark purple with red decals, dim blue lighting (Ships, equipment)
Swords of Sanghelios (Pre-2553): Off-green (Ships)
Swords of Sanghelios (Post-2553): Rich Crimson with cream or yellow decals), orange lighting (Ships, equipment, armor)

Keepers of the One Freedom: Blue and Gold (Only worn by Jiralhanae)
Children of Oth Sonin: Orange and White (Only worn by notable leadership)

Banished: Rich red paint on raw metal
Gray Guard: Gray Drab
Bloodstars (Banished): Dark Maroon-Red
Hand of Atriox: Jet-Black with bright red details

[gusty star]

I mean you have to understand that the uniforms of the Sangheili go back thousands of years, some even before the existence of the Covenant. They’re not just gonna drop a color because “Oh another faction already took that color that we all used to wear”

And in the case of Orim ‘Kasaan, he wears a uniform we have yet to see in the lore, with a classified rank. This is good because it expands on the faction and doesn’t bore them down to “Maroon and White”

[empty bloom]

I mean, except for the fact that they have.

Multiple times.

But they also haven't.

Multiple times.

[gusty star]

I’m saying though they can have both

[empty bloom]

The inconsistency annoys me because it's done without rhyme or reason, not because it does or does not happen.

[gusty star]

The thing about the Sangheili (and the Covenant in general) is that they were equivalent to a feudal military that kinda let their members wear whatever they wanted as long as they were permitted to at their rank, and their authority was very fluid and based off of respect rather than a specific uniform

Kinda rambling there but you get the idea

[empty bloom]

Preaching to the choir.

Either way, my main beef is with the apparant lack of appropriate livery for fleet-based assets.

[wispy pewter]

SoS should adopt UNSC Green

[gusty star]

Nah maroon and white Covenant/H5 phantoms would be best for them

[unique rune]

they should be pink and all of their armor should be flocked

[wispy pewter]

Barbie girl arbiter

[vagrant ocean]

I would love to see Sangheili Ultra armor in OD Green.

[supple jasper]

I'm not too knowledgeable of the halo books but I was wondering if there were any stories of medics more specifically Spartan medics. Because I was wondering since obviously Spartans are expensive so would there be any specialized role in treating them? Or if there were Spartans that would care for wounded marines and other Spartans. Same with ODST's would any of them specialize in medical duties? I also feel like if any Spartans would have medics, it would be III's as the SPI armor seems easier to take off and it would be easier to treat wounds. I just would like to think of these armored giants running around dragging marines to safety and treating them. Plus, with their strength I think it would be easy to carry injured. What are yall's thoughts?

I've read the fall of reach to ghosts of Onyx so I know a bit

I've also read a little on halopedia

I've found helena gruss which anwsers my question about ODSTS but nothing on spartan medic''s so far.

[minor sky]

Rubicon Protocol and Edge Of Dawn both heavily feature a Medic character, Lucas Browning

He isn't a Spartan, but it is something

[empty bloom]

There was an armor set being prototyped specifically for Spartan combat medics before the events of Halo 5, named "Suture", but from what we know it never got far past the prototyping phase.

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

[vagrant ocean]

I have a feeling most ANVIL prototypes that didn’t make it past testing had their software and components made into attachments or were bought out by companies such as Beweglichkeitsrüstungsysteme or Emerson Tactical and implemented in their products. It’d be a waste of tech otherwise.

[gusty star]

lol not to be rude but I don’t think he needs proof that there are medics in the UNSC

[minor sky]

He asked if there were any stories with medics

It is in their first sentence

[spark pivot]

To my knowledge there are curently no spartans who are medics, but on the other point I don't think spartans require too much thats different in the way of basic medical treatment compared to a normal person, as for III's, I don't think they were given more than very basic medical training for most of them, given the nature of their missions

[empty bloom]

Oh god, Halo's Subreddit has an official Discord? I can only imagine the cancer in that.

[modest marsh]

Pretty sure that was the first mainstream halo discord?

[fading flume]

The Primordial was their origin source as confirmed by the Halo encyclopedia. No matter how you slice it, the people who’re in charge of Halo at the moment quite obviously have more weight in their deductions of the original text than we do, we’re not really in a place to say otherwise. Especially considering they stated the same fact multiple times. How or what he did to be their explicit origin point is up for debate I guess.

[dense falcon]

Ok I'm gonna change the direction of the chat 1000%. (Dont go back to it plz)

I was reviewing old Halo media thanks to Alex talking manuals on Twitter.

Made me curious what everyone's favourite was! I admit I'm fond of the Halo 2 ones as they 100% enhance the story.

(Sry CIA)

[empty bloom]

The manuals were pretty neat, though I miss having beefy manuals for games in general.

[obsidian thistle]

My heart 💔

Halo 2s manuals were honestly great. I appreciate how they even flowed with the books (unironically they worked back in the day)

[minor sky]

Halo CE's manual was always fun to flip through

Microsoft was lame for gutting the manuals with Halo 4

[fading flume]

So, Abaddon, overseer of the Domain. First of all, did the Domain actually predate the Precursors according to Epitaph? And also, why not put a fellow Precursor in charge of the Domain rather than an Ancilla? Since it’s the Precursors version of an Ancilla, who are created by Forerunners to do things they cannot, does its mental capacity exceed even its own creators?? After all, it is considered the greatest of their technologies and master over all of them.

Also, did the Forerunners intentionally create the Guardians in the image of Abaddon?

[modest marsh]

In their defense, multiplayer required a second disc which took up the slot the manual would normally occupy

In that case they were genuinely making less per copy as a result

The relevant companion material was hosted on waypoint instead

[minor sky]

Iirc all the discs were on one side + games that came in bundles still included manuals on 360

[tight badge]

If the covenant won and didn’t wipe the galaxy could they ever have found every last human, because the UNSC had colonies on the most random astroids plus the infinity was well hidden

[empty bloom]

I mean, infinite monkeys, infinite typewriters, maybe.

[modest marsh]

This is a wishy washy plot point, but in Contact Harvest it is more or less directly stated that the luminaries on covenant ships can identify reclaimers

Of course, this creates plot holes/is contradicted in other sources, and then there’s also the issue of whether or not all humans are considered reclaimers

This still requires the covenant ship in question performing the scan to be within range which is seemingly within the star system if not as close as orbiting the planet

[tight badge]

Imagine living on a random moon like Neso and just watching Earth get slimmed

[modest marsh]

I don’t think it’s feasible for the covenant to wipe out all humans, because it’s entirely possible for a vessel or station to be self sustaining without being anywhere near a location of significance

[tight badge]

Plus people already hid from the covenant like the elites on that one shield world plus the war with the Kig-Yar was just them hiding

[modest marsh]

Humanity at large has access to fusion energy, advanced hydroponics and cloning technology, as well as cryosleep to limit resource drain, as well as robotics and nanotechnology to perform maintenance on equipment

[tight badge]

Speaking of Moons is there any lore about Luna other than it was colonized

[modest marsh]

That covers a lot of the issues specific to long term deep space occupation

[wispy pewter]

I wonder how the Forerunners gathered up every single ancient human

[fading flume]

Lured them in with promises of free space lunch for 5 months

[empty bloom]

This reminds me, I should really try working on that Battletech-Halo AU I was working on, where the Star League encounters the Covenant while the Star League is in its prime.

[vagrant ocean]

The other issue is that humans are basically the primate equivalent of cockroaches.

[empty bloom]

(I think that the Battletech Star League would actually mop the floor with the Covenant compared to the UNSC, even if the UNSC has better FTL)

[tight badge]

Whats that

[empty bloom]

Battletech or the Star League?

[tight badge]

BattleTech Star League

[empty bloom]

Ah, Battletech is the name of a mech-based franchise from the 80s, and the Star League is basically the faction that is emblematic of humanity's golden age in that franchise.

Hyper advanced tech, basically space NATO.

More "Halo but no aliens" than "Warhammer 40K"

[tight badge]

For factions that I think beat the covenant, I’m just going to say it and not respond to anything I don’t feel like starting an argument

Super Earth i genuinly think they beat the covenant

[vagrant ocean]

Well, the humans they rounded up were primitive, just on the cusp of Tier 6.5.

[vagrant ocean]

Mech Assault

[empty bloom]

Battletech, Mechwarrior, MechCommander, and Mechassault are all the same universe, but only Battletech is actually canon.

[vagrant ocean]

I know, I just wanted to be included.

[empty bloom]

m

kay

[sharp smelt]

Hey guys

[fading flume]

So I’m right!!!

[vagrant ocean]

So there was no luring, just abduction.

[fading flume]

Oh. So what happened to the free space lunches…

[minor sky]

I'm trying to think of another faction that could beat the Covenant but they are all either obvious (The Borg) or super context sensitive (Stargate Command, The Vorlons and Shadows, ect.)

[fading flume]

They were promised them.

[vagrant ocean]

It’s a euphemism for indescribable torture.

[fading flume]

ah

[minor sky]

If I am being totally honest, I think the SGC would find some way to beat the Covenant, purely because they are two for two on toppiling tyrannical theocratic space empires

But at the same time, Stargate's rules don't opperate the same as Halo's

[tight badge]

The T’au?

[minor sky]

Maybe? I'm not super well versed in my Warhammer lore

[tight badge]

The illuminate?

[minor sky]

I know even less about them

I don't play Helldivers

[tight badge]

I say they do, they exclusively use Plasma and their mind control would do wonders on a grunt planet

Which IIRC is like 80% of all covenant planets

[minor sky]

Yeah

Also if the Flood ever crossed paths with (John Carpenter's) The Thing or the X Parasite from Metroid, it's game over

The Flood being able to near perfectly immitate any lifeform would pretty much be certain death

[wispy pewter]

The Federation

Starfleet ships may be small, but they are quite powerful

[stoic hamlet]

Anyone in 40K handily beats them.

The Tau might struggle, though.

[minor sky]

I thought about them, but they kind of fell into the same category of The Borg

[wispy pewter]

I guess you’re right

I want to say the Rebel Alliance might…

[minor sky]

Idk. I don't even think the Empire would be able to deal with them

A single Elite would go through Stormtroopers like carving butter

[empty bloom]

I feel like the Federation would just do some shenanigans

And win

[minor sky]

That is my reasoning when it comes to Stargate Command

[stoic hamlet]

The issue broadly is that the Covenant aren’t galactic. They’re limited to a small section of the Orion Arm.

Which means either they utterly stomp (or get really close to it) anyone they come across, or they themselves get utterly stomped. There is no in-between.

[stoic hamlet]

Especially if it’s DS9 Federation.

[minor sky]

That more or less fits with how the Goa'uld and Ori were in Stargate so ig my reasoning still stands

Actually, I'm fairly certain the Goa'uld had a large grip on the Milky Way, which would put them ahead of the Covenant in terms of scale

Though unlike the Covenant, the Goa'uld were more decenteralized with system lords constantly throwing armies at one another, and generally System Lords were pretty stupid

I mean- if I was pitting the Goa'uld against the Covenant, I'd honestly put my money on the Covies. The Goa'uld lead through intimidation and a fragile status-quo

The whole "This is a weapon of fear/this is a weapon of war" bit

[strange pumice]

When Tartarus get that elite skull on his shoulder?
Or it was made only for one cutscene?

[minor sky]

It was just for the end of the game iirc

As much flack as I give Halo 4's story for shoving all of the Didact's backstory into the Terminals, I will admit, they are pretty great

Especially that final one with the Librarian's monologue as Requiem is sealed off

It doesn't help matters that in the 360 version all the terminals were on Waypoint and not in the game. I guess the idea was to get people to use the Waypoint app, getting more insight into the story by logging on. But it just feels like it adds another layer blocking people from getting the picture

[minor sky]

Actually thinking on it some more, that would've been an awesome prologue to Halo 5 had they kept the Didact as antagonist

[tight badge]

I see the covenant being able to beat any ork waagh but Ghaz. And being able to handle the Tyranids

High Charity would slice through a hive fleet with minimal effort

[modest marsh]

While this is true, the covenant have consistently generated better force projection/concentration than a lot of allegedly larger space empires

Much like in real life, geography or even total population and industrial capacity does not directly correlate with military capabilities

Especially given that the larger your empire is, often is the case that a greater proportion of your infrastructure and resources will be spent on domestic issues

A lot of these hypothetical “fictional empire wars” seem to gloss over the fact that the internal politics and social issues of a government don’t just disappear because they’re engaged in a conflict with a peer threat

They can in fact be exasperated by a new faction shaking up the status quo

[stoic hamlet]

Yeah, but the opposite is true as well, where the larger an empire or polity is, the easier it is to “soak up the losses and budget”.

A larger empire might be able to devote more resources to squash a smaller one even if the also much smaller one is using almost everything it has.

But then, as you say, “Who Would Win” tends to take the extreme regardless of the context.

[modest marsh]

I’m just putting out there that we’ve seen the covenant consistently mobilize fleets well into the double and triple digits of vessels of comparable tonnage and destructive power to that of peers so I don’t think it’s as simple as comparing the number of planets under a given faction’s dominion, because different settings have different approaches to justifying (or not justifying) the scope of its wars

Star Wars is very explicitly an entire galaxy’s worth of planets that at minimum have a token polity and economy but because it’s 99% a space western, they don’t actually contribute meaningfully to the big space war

[empty bloom]

Probably doesn't help that people find logistics boring despite it being one of the single most important aspects of any military.

Like, as 'based' and 'chad' or whatever you may think your 'super racist supersoldier' may be, he'll still die if he doesn't eat. And you look a lot less 'cool' when you're dying of dysentery and too weak to fight.

Historically, militaries that focus on the warfighter/warrior/whatever to the exclusion of logistics also tend to lose in such a way that crappy people with crappy takes will do whatever they can to hide that the 'super cool warrior army' died ignobly, starving and sick, to the lame, boring people who knew to keep the outhouse and septic pit several hundred feet away from the water and food supply.

[modest marsh]

Well, depends on how long they can depend upon raiding and pillaging, although this has proven to be an unsustainable model

15th century robber barons had it good for awhile

[empty bloom]

If anything the fact they need to keep raiding and pillaging both adds to the mystique and directly contributes to and compounds the eventual failure.

[modest marsh]

Nah see what you do is you and your band of merry men just keep robbing and pillaging, find yourself a noble to keep hostage, then negotiate terms for a pardon and get knighted

Easy!

[empty bloom]

Barely an inconvenience

[coarse hamlet]

How Truth could've won:

Don't chase after random artifacts, focus on UNSC facilities
Demand Regret not take a tiny fleet for a leisure cruise to unexplored systems
Don't siege New Alexandria, just bomb the spaceport and leave it for later
Zerg rush Voi to cut off reinforcements
Ally with the Innies against the UEG
Ignore Cleveland

[tight badge]

The covenant wouldve won if they werent the covenant

[obsidian thistle]

I suppose the BIGGEST mistake was pushing someone who was actually willing to continue the fight on Earth into a suicide soldier role. Then expect them to die.

As the Limited Edition manual for Halo 2 had Thel legit interested in fighting at Earth. Meaning the loss of Halo initially didnt stop his loyalty.

And we saw how becoming Arbiter pushed Thel closer to being the very Heretic that he was initially pushed to stop

[coarse hamlet]

ignore cleveland is the big one

[obsidian thistle]

(Yes this does mean Regret was... erm... left to his own devices as Truth, Mercy, and the council didnt relay that they knew about Earth. AND they didnt relay the full report that Thel made. Also explaining why Regret was so rash in his choice to "make an example" of Thel.)

(Yea that was another mistake of Truth. Not being 100% in sync with Regret)

Its legit a fascinating thing to break down the mistakes the Covenant made in its final months.

[coarse hamlet]

actually engaging now and not memeing i dont think making thel the arbiter was ever a mistake. the real alternatives are being fired(which wouldnt have satisfied anyone who was mad about the godmachinehalo being destroyed) and execution which wouldve lost a skilled and capable commander. i think thel's encounter with the heretics made him aware of their ideas but his loyalty didnt waver until he was betrayed on delta halo.
"when the prophets learn of this they will have your head"
"when they learn? fool, they ordered me to do it"

[obsidian thistle]

Oh I dont think it was a mistake. I think Regret WAS the risky thing letting him get Thels full report.

1. Truth had plans and Earth was likely part of it. So letting Regret know may have hurt that.
2. Regret has been seen to have a slightly bigger affinity to the Elites in terms of what we see in media so may have been more... forgiving if he was given it all.

BUT that itself was a mistake given the outcome of that very action

I think stuff would have gone 100% different if Regret was told of Earth before he arrived

Maybe the Great Schism wouldn't have happened (or happen in the same way)

TLDR: It all goes back to Halo 2s opening. The moment stuff starts to go belly up

[wispy pewter]

Literally every Mercenary during the medieval ages

If they were not fighting for some king

[vagrant ocean]

The schism was likely already in motion.

[last anchor]

"The Astartes win battles. Wars are won by the ten thousand nameless Admimistratum clerks making sure the Fortress Monastary's forges had the metal to make a bolter and bolt rounds to give to that Marine and supplies for thr serf to feed him"

[minor sky]

It is a pitty they didn't go the originally planned route of having Sesa be killed by Tartarus just before he begins to tell Thel the truth about Halo

I always felt that made a bit more sense than Sesa just firing at Thel just as he gets his attention

There is something painfully tragic about Guilty Spark mistaking Chief for Bornstellar. This dude has spent thousands of years in isolation before suddenly seeing his friend again only for it to not be him at all

[lapis steeple]

What if the Cole Protocol was enacted before contact at Harvest

[carmine sleet]

The Cole Protocol wasn't a thing back when first contact was made with the Covenant at Harvest. And even then, it's not like the Covenant learnt where Earth was thanks to data on Harvest. It took them the entire war basically to find it

[lapis steeple]

What I meant was what if the Cole Protocol was magically made a thing before most of the outer colonies got turned into glass

[carmine sleet]

https://tenor.com/view/i-don't-know-idk-idk-about-that-gif-7336250873949261946

I don't think it'd be too different. Maybe a few more worlds spared from the Covenant earlier on

[wispy pewter]

What if Humanity just gave out the location of Earth to everyone? Reverse Psychology

Dark Forest Strategy

[tropic forge]

It'd probably be reasonably successful in slowing the Covenant down. The Cole Protocol is probably the reason it went from "The Massacre of the Outer Colonies" to "The Siege of the Inner Colonies".

Humanity was still losing though, even if it was slower

[minor sky]

One niche bit of Halo lore I wanna see get elaborated upon is the Forerunner ship ONI was excavating on Reach. I'd love to see the full design of the ship laid out and rendered

There was one sketch of a Forerunner ship that Paul Richards did for Halo 4 that I feel kind of fits it. Specifically with the "fins" present on Breakpoint

[tight badge]

What if Truth had a brain aneurysm

[wispy pewter]

what if Chief was a Tsundere

[modest marsh]

Tsundere (ツンデレ; pronounced [t͡sɯndeɾe]) is a Japanese term for a character development process that depicts a character with an initially harsh personality who gradually reveals a warmer, friendlier side over time.

is that not already the case?

[karmic gulch]

YO WAIT A MINUTE

YOUR ONTO SOMETHING

[tight badge]

How did the fall of maethrillian effect LeBron’s legacy

[fading flume]

He stayed safe in Lebanon, therefore avoiding any ties with the events that happened in Maethrillian

[quasi yacht]

Lebronanon*

[fading flume]

You’re totally right

[wraith garden]

did the truth know that flood is no normal parasite and is corrupted gods and has a gravemind that will nine eleven the high charity and still proceeds to calm the covenant to not to worry

[minor sky]

Truth was already packing his bags to leave

He had to save face and give the typical "everything is under control" speech while allowing Regret and Mercy to kick the bucket

[spiral compass]

"You are the culmination of a thousand lifetimes" when the librarian says this to John theirs a very real possibility that another human who may not be a spartan or odst behaves similar to John and fights the covenant out of revenge for his family, his people, being killed. The covenant were committing genocide, id really like to see Halo studios entertainment the idea of a a civilian taking up arms to bring the fight to the covenant and putting up an incredible fight, even dawning odst armor from fallen humans and maybe even becoming a spartan.. I wish I could get into contact with someone at halo studios so we could story board

@890734351447388190

[wraith garden]

There is an odst mod matching your description but i dont remember

[unique rune]

"You are the culmination of a thousand lifetimes" when the librarian says this to John theirs a very real possibility that another human who may not be a spartan or odst behaves similar to John and fights the covenant out of revenge for his family, his people, being killed.
what

that's not even the full line, she says "a thousand lifetimes of planning" referring to all the geas stuff that's lead to humanity developing the way it had

but regardless an untrained civilian would be dead in less than a week unless they had support
this is cringe

[severe wind]

What is halo waypoint chronicles?

[minor sky]

Short stories they semi-frequently release

[obsidian thistle]

https://www.halopedia.org/Halo_Waypoint_Chronicle

You can find em all here so far

BUT

There is an upcoming release this year holding them all + extras

[minor sky]

Is the short story with Locke and Tanaka only included in the reprint of Battle Born?

[tacit trench]

How did the ueg deal with revanchism among nations? Maybe they used the Kosovo/Danzig solution disputed territories are separated from both nations and made there own separate thing.

[obsidian thistle]

Yes

[minor sky]

Is it only in the print version or is it present in the audio book as well?

[minor sky]

I'll be honest, the Reclaimer geas becoming dormant over time in certain humans doesn't really make much sense to me.

Like, weren't all humans indexed with the geas with the specific purpose of allowing mankind to, y'know, reclaim the Forerunners' stuff? Wouldn't it being able to go dormant screw with that?

Idk, maybe it is just reminds me of Stargate too much

[obsidian thistle]

I'd guess the audio book also as they got redone for the gallery release

[minor sky]

Noted. Thanks

[obsidian thistle]

(Yea, the Battle Born books are a rare case of a book getting 2 different audiobook versions. Kinda funky to look back on)

(Kinda hoping The Master Chief Omnibus follows that. Would be nice to have a updated audiobook release for the original 3 novels)

[stoic hamlet]

I just don’t like the idea of Geas as anything other than a sort of innate understanding of Forerunner tech. Like, you might not know how a radio works, or what the buttons mean, but you can still make it work a bit easier than another species.

And any human can do this, there’s no special Geas for anyone else or anything.

The whole “it guides you to do X” is also not a great look, IMO, for partly the same reason.

[vagrant ocean]

I think the term is genetic memory, which is kind of a thing.

This could make sense if we look at it from a large scale anthropological level, where it was imprinted on EVERYONE the Forerunners reseeded but 99% of those lineages died out, leaving the Mitochondrial Eve and Y-Chromosomal Adam to pass it on to literally every human born after them.

Thus passing it onto all the colonists during the Domus Diaspora.

This is how I make sense of it anyway.

So it doesn’t really guide us,

It’s just a memory of how it “works” buried deep in our species’ memory.

If that makes sense.

I unno I’m sober and thinking this deep without some jazz cabbage is hard.

[minor sky]

Though it is kind of clear that Genesongs/Geas aren't that limited. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Bornsteller, Chakas, and Riser all were manipulated into awakening the Ur-Didact though that very same technology

Anyway, I really want Halo Studios to release that Halo lore-bible from 2002(?)

If I remember correctly, Frank O'Conner still had it at some point

I'm willing to bet it is still in Microsoft's possession

[vagrant ocean]

They won’t. That’s like asking the Catholic Church to release a non-Latin version of the Bible in 1098.

[minor sky]

You never know

Bungie and 343i both have included details which stem directly from it. It'd be fascinating to look through to see how the series narrative grew and expanded

I am most interested in it as a piece of historical record more than anything

Especially if it is what Frank O'Conner wound up using as the basis for establishing Halo's canon/lore when the batton was passed over to 343i

[obsidian thistle]

I am not the biggest fan of "every" human having Geas.

Kinda implies some terrible stuff if some deeper thought is put into it.

Human conflict. Is that "us" or what we are directed towards?

[vagrant ocean]

Conflict is part of life. It’s not exclusive to us.

Other sentient races in the universe experienced the same.

[obsidian thistle]

Oh I know that.

But geas complicates it

Was the conflict due to geas pushing us that way?

Or did humanity do it on their own

Something that wont ever be answered

[stoic hamlet]

The same issue arises if they don’t all have it, though.

Because if some do, and some don’t, who had it in history, and who didn’t?

It pushes the “great man theory” except those great men weren’t acting of their own will, and that’s probably worse, because it then somewhat absolves them of their sins.

Basically everyone should have it, and it shouldn’t compel anyone, but just act as a subliminal message when specifically interacting with Forerunner tech.

[tight badge]

Are Spartans smart people beyond war, so stuff like Math history science literature

[stoic hamlet]

The II’s and III’s were given advanced education le, though highly focused ones.

So, they’re well versed in history, math, sciences, and etc, more than most, but generally only as far as how it would relate to their job.

[minor sky]

https://comics.ha.com/itm/video-games/other/halo-story-bible-v-50-microsoft-c-november-december-2001/a/7263-28248.s

Anybody got 4k laying around

[vagrant ocean]

Yes. They received extensive educations and had high IQs. Candidates 051, 095 (evaded capture), and 137 had IQs of 158, 161, and 163 respectively.

[modest marsh]

what if people are dumber on average in the future

[vagrant ocean]

Candidate 137 is also one of the many candidates that had exceptional strength, as she was unaware of her strength during activities with her schoolmates and even caused the first fatality of the program.

[vagrant ocean]

I mean, in our timeline that’s a certainty. Studies show ai has an adverse effect on our brains.

[modest marsh]

i dont think modern llm's has been around long enough to know the conclusive impact of them specifically on learning and intelligence but it is looking a little bleak in the short term

im more worried about people not reading

[tight badge]

Id imagine Spartans would be experts in recent history because they lived through it

[modest marsh]

Spartans have a greater capacity for learning and recall than normal people as a consequence of their augmentations, and as far as we know dont really use any of their down time for anything but developing their skills and education

[halcyon bolt]

So, they are progression MCs

[modest marsh]

MCs?

[halcyon bolt]

The “main character” in a progression story.

[modest marsh]

I mean, Spartans are principally designed as player avatars and everything in the narrative is meant to prop up that idea

the fantasy you're being sold affords some self aggrandizement

"yeah your character is extra smart and a quick learner which is why you figure out how to do stuff so quickly"

[minor sky]

It is litterally the "Halo is cool guy" meme

[ionic tiger]

I like to think the canonical version of Nicole-458 still enjoys competitive shooting and watching anime as hobbies.

[modest marsh]

Hey maybe anime serves to help with her combat readiness

[minor sky]

I like to imagine Nicole's canon counterpart is a CQB specialist

Since she is, y'know, from a fighting game

I do wonder if there is any legal issue with using Nicole like there are for Hayabusa. Probably not

[obsidian thistle]

Those are common lol. 5 have appeared in the last 3 years. 4k is just too much for that

If memory serves from old convos with old partners from the 2000s. That specific bible was given to old partners. And was often just something they could print out.

You can take my statements with salt. But the just is.

Its common and too expensive for what it is

(Now if that was an ILBs dvd. Thats way more reasonable to see at 4k lol. Seeing as around 1500 of those were made at a rough estimate and most are now missing destroyed)

[vagrant ocean]

Most likely not.

[warm ridge]

Mythos is correct, the Primordial "took over" the Flood hive mind for his own personal gains.
Before this, the Gravemind / Flood was just it's own thing, operating entirely with the intent to keep consuming as much organic mass as possible.

[warm ridge]

Well they didn't. Ancient Humans still existed on far out reaches of space, areas the Forerunners had never truly been to.
It's speculated they may of retreated outside of the galaxy itself, and may of survived the Halo rings activation.

Anytime the Forerunners came across Ancient human tech, they erased it as much as they could. Due to them not finding everything, some remnants were left behind. Like the Ancient Human ship ONI found floating in space, it likely had Ancient Humans on it still before the Halo rings fired.

[fading flume]

Well dang that was a whole week ago

[warm ridge]

Halo lore heavily implies the Covenant has colonized / spread throughout a large portion of the Milky Way actually, not just the Orion arm only.

[warm ridge]

just reading up on everything I've missed

[fading flume]

To celebrate your return I’m going to throw a kind of a wacky question at you, who do you think is the superior (more powerful) mind among the Flood Hivemind, Primordial, or Abaddon

[warm ridge]

Abaddon has never interacted with the Flood directly, obviously Primordial.
Now if Abaddon did, still Primordial.

Abaddon was created to watch over the Domain while the Precursors were off busy doing other things.

Also, I'm of the full belief the Precursors created the Domain, not that the Domain existed before it.

[fading flume]

I don’t disagree, but is this basis off the fact it’s a Precursor, or do you have more detailed reasoning? I’m interested to hear others’ opinion

[warm ridge]

Primordial is a defacto Precursor no questions asked.

Abaddon is not, he is simply a Precursor AI created with the sole intention of being the Overseer of the Domain.

Similar to a Knowledge Engine I'd assume.

https://www.halopedia.org/Knowledge_engine

[fading flume]

Depending on how you interpret the story and a couple of statements, some may even arrive to the conclusion the Primordial was let behind by its species as a sort-of executioner. It make sense considering the Flood was what they intended to throw onto the Forerunners, and that the Primordial was the one to wield them

[warm ridge]

Definitely not a executioner. It's actually implied the Primordial may of been exiled, locked away & forgotten about due to his aggressive nature & wanting to destroy the organic creations. The Forerunners "betraying" them would've only kept pushing the Primordial's own goals.

Remember, the Ancient Humans found him in a cage, a Precursor created one, not just in a cryo pod. He was completely locked away.

[fading flume]

That would make sense too, it really depends on how strong to their ideals Precursors are.

[fading flume]

It’s explicitly a cage? Huh. In that case yes

He’s what one could call the rogue Precursor

[warm ridge]

Yes.

“A cage built by Precursors, maintained and strengthened by humans before our war with them,” I said. “But a Halo destroyed those protections—I think—and the **captive **it held was released.”

Bear, Greg. Halo: Cryptum: Book One of the Forerunner Saga (p. 249). Gallery Books. Kindle Edition.

*Looking down into the deactivated human timelock, and beyond that secondary cage, tuning the Precursor tool, so small and simple—merely a smooth oval with three notches in its side. . . . *“The humans found a way to activate at least one Precursor artifact,” I said. “What was that?” “A device that could selectively and temporarily open access through the captive’s cage.”

Bear, Greg. Halo: Cryptum: Book One of the Forerunner Saga (pp. 326-327). Gallery Books. Kindle Edition.

[fading flume]

Thanks

[minor sky]

ILB?

[carmine sleet]

I Love Bees

[minor sky]

Ohh

[fair hazel]

halo inifnite sure had a lot of ILB references

[west swallow]

I’m not familiar with this lore. Not even the Forerunners had full galactic control. While they had presence throughout the galaxy, they were primarily situated in the Orion/Sagittarius arm with 3 million worlds. This is why before Halo fired the setting allowed for smaller civilizations like the San ‘Shyuum, Ancestors, and other Ecumene aligned civilizations to exist as well.

So the Covenant I believe is still largely located in the Orion/Sagittarius arm. Happy to be proven wrong though, I haven’t delved into “covenant controlled space” lore in a hot sec 🙂

[modest marsh]

It’s kind of like how Canada or Russia technically possess a huge amount of land but is almost entirely unoccupied because it’s in the remote arctic

[west swallow]

That’s a good analogy!

[left light]

What is the sister ship to the Spirit of Fire?

[modest marsh]

Although by virtue of the halo rings themselves existing at equidistant intervals, I would say the forerunners are more materially occupying places outside of the Orion arm than the covenant

[west swallow]

The Primordial was found outside a cage in dormancy on a remote world in the galactic margins, but was then placed in a Precursor cage that was present in the Citadel on Charum Hakkor. As far as I know, nothing currently suggests the Primordial was imprisoned or ostracized by other Precursors. In fact, the Primordial is assessed to be a Gravemind by Forthencho, made of at least 12 other beings (as I recall). If this is a true assessment, the Primordial was not alone in its beliefs

(Edit: The nature of its dormancy is actually ambiguous as I look into it. Certainly worth a discussion on if it was found in a cage or not)

[west swallow]

This is where the technicalities of Slipspace come into play. For example, Harvest in real space is about the same distance to Earth that Reach is despite being the most “outer” outer colony.

[coarse hamlet]

Phoenix is the nameship of the class.
Spirit of Fire does have the designation CFV-88 but its not known if this type of designation is exclusive to the Phoenix line(in which case there would be at least 88 ships of the Phoenix class) or if other classes had the same designation(in which case halopedia has only 4 known examples of the class).

[vagrant ocean]

That’s not exactly how hull numbers work.

[west swallow]

Honestly wouldn’t be surprised if there are even more than 88 Phoenix class ships. Humanity colonized ~800 planets, you’d need a lot of ships to support and do that

[vagrant ocean]

But CFV is a military designation, and pretty much all Phoenix-classes were used by the CAA, not UNSC.

[west swallow]

Well yeah, the Spirit of Fire underwent a heavy refitting to militarize it

[coarse hamlet]

i agree its probably the second option i said

[west swallow]

Phoenix colony ships are under the CAA because the CAA is the governing body managing humanity’s colonization efforts

[vagrant ocean]

CFV-88 means it was the 88th ship of that classification of vessel type.

[west swallow]

Ahh I see I see

[vagrant ocean]

Much like how the USS Iowa was the 61st battleship in the USN.

BB-61

[west swallow]

This is context I lacked, that’s pretty good info to have

[vagrant ocean]

Or like how the UNSC In Amber Clad FFG-142, meaning it’s a frigate.

[west swallow]

Do you happen to know what the CFV designation indicates?

[modest marsh]

That’s been walked back a bit

[west swallow]

The 800 worlds?

[modest marsh]

old Xbox.com material used 800 worlds but more recent phrasing in the 2022 encyclopedia suggests something more modest

[vagrant ocean]

Probably a variation on carrier, given the CV.

[west swallow]

I see, thanks!

[west swallow]

Do you know the page or section?

[vagrant ocean]

And I doubt that the Phoenix-class was the only type used.

[west swallow]

Oh 100 percent, my mistake was not understanding the hull designation system you explained

[modest marsh]

Page 44 header

NEARLY A THOUSAND HUMAN OUTPOSTS HAD ONCE BEEN SCATTERED ACROSS THE ORION ARM, RANGING FROM RESOURCE FACTORIES BURIED IN MINERAL-RICH ASTEROIDS TO FULLY TERRAFORMED WORLDS WITH POPULATIONS IN THE BILLIONS. THE COVENANT BURNED MANY OF THESE TO GLASS AND RUBBLE, BUT HUMANITY REMAINS RESOLUTE IN THEIR EFFORTS TO REBUILD AND REDEEM WHAT WAS LOST.

[west swallow]

It says nearly 1000 worlds, I don’t see how this contradicts my claim

[modest marsh]

Outposts

[west swallow]

I never implied all were massive colonies

[coarse hamlet]

could easily have into the thousands of colonies but how many of those are terrestrial worlds with an atmosphere and how many are a rock with some structure built onto it?

[modest marsh]

I think “800 worlds” has itself a loaded meaning

[west swallow]

It doesn’t to me

Even Reach is sparsely populated and built up relative to Earth

Most of Reach is wilderness with only a handful of interstellar relays for communication

[modest marsh]

I think a holistic interpretation of what was implied in the original Xbox.com timeline from 2001 was that there were 800 inhabited planets

What the encyclopedia is saying is it’s counting what amounts to mining operations on asteroids in that figure

[west swallow]

800 worlds still holds

IMO

Nearly a thousand is a new number that makes room for mining installations/asteroids/outposts

[modest marsh]

There is not a direct contradiction necessarily but there is a discrete difference in intent because internally Bungie considered Halo’s setting to be of a much smaller scale

[west swallow]

Oh 100%

I recall Bungie originally having less than 20 colonies

Even Contact Harvest has elements of this lore in it despite coming after Halo 3

[coarse hamlet]

considering space travel is still difficult 800 actual planets doesnt seem too unreasonable. drop some people off when investments are high and only a couple of those colonies end up making early dividends to justify later investment

[modest marsh]

I think the new material is an acknowledgment of that idea in spirit while also trying to maintain consistency rather than a direct retcon

[west swallow]

I disagree, as Bungie originally wanted less than 20 planets. 800 was a number by Nylund or Microsoft

[modest marsh]

What are you disagreeing with?

I’m saying that the new material is bridging those separate interpretations

[west swallow]

Bridging those two interpretations in my reading implies the <20 full on colonies is still the case

But if I’m reading your statement wrong that’s my bad 🙂

[modest marsh]

I think this more an issue of trying to maintain the spirit of the original material rather than adhere to specifics that led to conflicts later down the line

[west swallow]

Oh yeah, I’m not disagreeing there. But I think it’s quite a big bridge based on Bungie’s original desire

[modest marsh]

Well, the original original figure was 8 planets total

[west swallow]

It was 8 then somewhere around 20 a few years later

[modest marsh]

That got carved out after TFOR which Bungie tentatively accepted as canon

[west swallow]

Bungie probably realized 8 planets being attacked over 27 years wasn’t realistic

[modest marsh]

Tbh it sounds like the fighting was intended to be far more intermittent with a greater emphasis on long travel times between locations and reliance on cryo sleep

[west swallow]

17 in 2007 per Contact Harvest, found the source at large

[modest marsh]

But then halo 2 came along

[west swallow]

And yes, absolutely

I think ultimately, Bungie probably didn’t understand the implications of their power scaling, and Nylund understood that better haha

[hot zodiac]

800 planets was never realistic and none of the actual book lore gave that weight

It's that damned encyclopedia's fault

[west swallow]

Nah, the 800 worlds is a number back from 2001

The meta-lore is that Bungie and Microsoft disagreed

[hot zodiac]

And was rejected as fast as it was released

[west swallow]

So that discrepancy existed until Microsoft got the franchise in full

Yeah, but it also makes for a less dramatic and devastating Covenant War from my perspective

[hot zodiac]

Contact Harvest settled the issue, but the powers that be on the old encyclopedia disregarded it

[west swallow]

Ehhhh it feels more like Bungie trying to get wrestle back control of the lore from what Nylund/Microsoft wanted

[hot zodiac]

They did have control

[west swallow]

Not fully based several subjects

Colony count being one of them

[hot zodiac]

There's no continuity between the people who came up with the 800 number of the xbox timeline and people who worked on the encyclopedia

[west swallow]

I mean, in the end it’s just historical discussion, the lore now is canonized at nearly a thousand

[modest marsh]

MS more or less ceded full control over the setting to Bungie by the time they started working on Halo 2 as far as I’m aware

[carmine sleet]

Bungie also weren't exactly the best at having consistent details, given how much they were just making up as they went along

[west swallow]

Besides, 17 colonies attacked over 27 years isn’t a very exciting fictional interstellar war, especially for how Bungie power scaled the covenant

[hot zodiac]

They were very consistent that the human diaspora was only a handful of worlds, actually

[carmine sleet]

Oh worm

[west swallow]

I mean, I’m not arguing with that, I just think the 800-1000 fits the setting better

Like, it shouldn’t take the covenant that long to jump to all 17 systems just by process of elimination

Especially if they’ve clocked humanity as being in just the Orion arm, IMO

[hot zodiac]

It's really quite the contrary, the idea of the Cole Protocol (and the feasibility of humanity being able to build colonies) is all designed around the genuine vastness of space

In the original timeline idea, humanity acquired a new colony about every six months or so

[west swallow]

Yeah but then you get into statistical analysis of Slipspace routes combined with brute force. Speaking on the vastness of space, one of the reasons the Fermi paradox exists is because even by sublight speeds, it would only take a few million years to visit every planet in the Milky Way

[modest marsh]

Well it’s more like they discover a star system with celestial bodies worth establishing a permanent presence on

[west swallow]

Minimize that to the Orion Arm and I feel like The covenant if they wanted to could wipe out humanity way quicker than 27 years at 17 colonies

Which is probably why Nylund implied an external threat to the Covenant in Ghosts of Onyx

[warm ridge]

We're not saying anything about "full galactic control", we're just talking about colonization. No one said full galactic control.
Loads of sources all say the Covenant has colonized quite a big chunk of the galaxy.

1. Encyclopedia 2022 - page 22 - "A galaxy-spanning alliance of alien species called the Covenant"
2. Encyclopedia 2022 - page 188 - "The Covenant alliance scoured the galaxy in search of Halo"
3. Encyclopedia 2022 - page 188 - "The Covenant was a** galaxy-spanning**, multi-species empire"
4. Encyclopedia 2022 - page 188 - "The Covenant was forged with numerous distinct species originating from different worlds scattered across the galaxy"
5. Encyclopedia 2022 - page 192 - "the Holy City became the center of Covenant power and from it they deployed countless fleets into the outer reaches of the galaxy"

Halo Broken Circle, Oblivion, Morta Dictata, Empty Throne, Smoke and Shadows, First Strike, & even the 2011 encyclopedia state the Covenant had a galaxy spanning presence 100%.

Yes, the Orion arm is where much of the Covenant's main presence was situated at, it's where the "home world" was at, aka High Charity. The dominion of the Covenant was the Orion arm, but this doesn't suddenly mean they hadn't colonized places outside of that arm, because as mentioned they were exploring & colonizing much of the galaxy itself.

[west swallow]

Nice! Thanks for the citations 🙂

[warm ridge]

I couldn't list everything due to limitations on how big messages can be on this server so I just listed stuff from the encyclopedia 2022 instead

[west swallow]

Hahah that’s so real, but much appreciated. As I said, it’s been a hot sec

[warm ridge]

The Covenant itself didn't really have a centralized military either, it heavily relied on it's ministry fleets to combine themselves into full sized fleets.
They were always competing with each other internally. You can read about that stuff on page 238 in the Encyclopedia 2022 also.

and where did it get all the numbers required to operate such vast fleets?
Through colonization.

Colonization where?
Throughout parts of the galaxy, all on missions in search of both the Halo's & Forerunner artifacts, with it's primary presence being the Orion arm.

[west swallow]

Yeah, I do know that about the Covenant! I’m well versed in Halo lore, real life has just taken a priority for spurts of a few years at a time lately, so some aspects of it I’ve fallen on + it’s gotten so damn expansive the last 10 years

Maybe I should use “was” haha, oh the days of being in high school and college revisiting all the lore multiple times

I think part of my misconception comes from the Covenant being so focused on the war with humanity in the lore, there’s no actual story-based sources about them exploring the galaxy. Maybe Broken Circle is the only one? It’s been a very long time since I’ve read that one

[warm ridge]

yea there's really not much out there beyond it telling us "covenant did this" & that the Covenant itself is a multi-thousand year old empire.
They were a space faring species while Humanity was in the stone age still.

With slipspace drives both that accurate & that fast, it's not like they just limited themselves to the Orion arm exclusively. That's insanity.

[west swallow]

Yeah, 3,000 years is a long time to get up to some interstellar shenanigans

[warm ridge]

It's like saying Humanity invented planes & only ever used them to go to Europe lol

[west swallow]

I didn’t doubt they explored, but wasn’t aware they colonized throughout the galaxy

[warm ridge]

Exploring & colonization tend to go hand in hand, it's like an expected thing to do. You aren't just gonna find a random habitable world, dot it on a map, then say "maybe next time".

[west swallow]

To a degree that the official citations state they were “galaxy spanning”

But yeah, I see what you’re saying for sure

[warm ridge]

The Covenant have the capability to deploy buildings with breathable atmospheres right on the spot on just about any planet, habitable or not. Not that big of a stretch to say the local Civillian populations weren't already doing the same thing, especially when the Military part needs the numbers.

[west swallow]

You are referring to Halo Wars with that? Or is there a specific instance you’re thinking of?

I don’t doubt the capability, just haven’t heard of this occurring stated like that

[warm ridge]

Halo Wars & just about anywhere else we've seem them deploy structures like it.
https://www.halopedia.org/Atmosphere_pit were deployed to allow Unggoy to breath without wearing mask.

[west swallow]

I gotcha!

[warm ridge]

https://www.halopedia.org/Stasis_capsule
The Primordial wasn't found outside a cage, it was found in a Precursor stasis capsule, this is the cage, the prison, the Ur-Didact is referring to.
There was no Precursor cage present on Charum Hakkor, just the Citadel's Arena & the ancient San'Shyuum Time lock that was built to contain it.

“Nobody knows its origins, but what was confined here terrified all who saw it. Millions of years ago, it was **confined **in a stasis capsule and buried thousands of meters below the surface.
Humans found the capsule and excavated it, but fortunately could not break it loose . . . not completely.
They did devise a means of communicating with the prisoner.
What it said to them frightened them deeply. With surprising wisdom, they stopped all attempts to communicate, then added another layer of protection, a San’Shyuum time bolt almost as effective as anything built by Forerunners.
And they placed the capsule here, in the arena, as a warning for all to see.”

Bear, Greg. Halo: Cryptum: Book One of the Forerunner Saga (pp. 120-121). Gallery Books. Kindle Edition.

[minor sky]

Do you know if any scans are out there?

[warm ridge]

of any of the Halo story bibles?
Nope

[minor sky]

Who knows, maybe one day the stars will allign and somebody with a copy will scan it

[warm ridge]

Those pictures of that auction are some of the clearest & cleanest pictures we've ever gotten of one of the Halo story bibles actually @minor sky

There are various versions that exist

[minor sky]

Right

[warm ridge]

https://www.halopedia.org/Halo_Story_Bible

[minor sky]

The auction site makes note of it being "500 pages long"

[warm ridge]

yea thats the v5.0 version from 2001
There was a v6.0 version by 2003 (only one picture of it exist)
Various employees have mentioned it's existence & how it's continuously been updated since.

[minor sky]

Yeah, I'd be very interested to see the early versions or the 6.0 version and how that informed Frank O'Conner's direction of the franchise lore

[west swallow]

Amazing, thank you!!

[warm ridge]

So you now understand the Primordial was found imprisoned right?

[west swallow]

Yup pretty clear!

[warm ridge]

Locked up, hidden, and forgotten about until the Ancient Humans found it.

[west swallow]

One possibility is the Primordial did it to itself intentionally

Its goal was to exist for billions of years

[warm ridge]

We don't really know why it was in stasis though, it was said the being looked like it was modified to survive vast passages of time

Stasis could also be a form of Precursor torture

[west swallow]

We know this is confirmed too with billions of years passing in the time lock when the IsoDicact executed it

[warm ridge]

Because the Primordial was still councious enough that both the Didact & Ancient Humans could talk to it

[warm ridge]

I highly doubt it's goal was to be purposely hidden like it was.

[west swallow]

Right, and you might be correct about extremely lengthy existence being pain to the Precusors. In Halo 2, the Gravemind says, “We will suffer the progress of infinitude”

[warm ridge]

Also, if the Primordial did it to itself, it could've released itself to. Told the Humans how to release it. This never happened

There's no chance it involuntary locked itself up like that.

[west swallow]

Maybe- but it then begs the question of if it was wasn’t done to itself, was the beings that locked it up defeated or something to that effect? Because the ships carrying the Flood powder arrived after the Primordial had been in stasis for a million years

[west swallow]

Well, the Primordial does play the long game. It spent thousands of years tricking the Forerunners of there being a cure. It could’ve been faking not being able to leave, realizing it was more useful being locked away and what progress that makes towards its goals

[warm ridge]

Not what I said at all.

All Precursors are effectively immortal, this isn't painful to them.

Being locked up in a cage with no way to die or communicate with anyone is a form of torture, suffering just by existing. It's clear it was forced into it.

[west swallow]

Fair, my argument still stands

I mean, the Precursors are weird creatures. They submitted themselves to numerous inconsequential forms and many submitted themselves to death at the hands of the Forerunners

To them, dying might be of interest rather than just living forever

[warm ridge]

Forthencho speculated the Primordial was involved with moving those ships.

Idk what you mean by defeated

[west swallow]

Well yeah, but if that’s the case it goes against your claim it was in there involuntarily. You’d think they’d be suppressing neural physics in that cage

Preventing it from sending out signals and manipulating ships

[warm ridge]

None of the Precursors wanted to actually fight the Forerunners, some wanted to only bring joy (Point of light precursors)

Some wanted to be left alone (outcasts precursors)

And one, wanted revenge (Primordial).

[west swallow]

I mean if it was in there involuntarily, the beings that put it in there failed at stopping the primordial

[west swallow]

There’s passages in Silentium (I believe it’s primarily this book, maybe primordium?) about the Precursors wanting to experience their demise

[warm ridge]

After millions of years just about anyone can find themselves around a decaying prison system hundreds of feet underground.

You can get signals out, but not yourself.

This type of stuff is seen in prison breaks all the time

It's just that the Primordials prison break moment involved a Halo ring

[west swallow]

Sure sure, but I mean IDK if the primordial could control ships remotely, why not smash them into its captor’s cities or installations. That’s why I suspect it’s playing a long game

Not claiming my interpretation is correct, there’s a lot of very interesting outcomes

To how it ended up in there

[fading flume]

I mean, if your a master of neural physics in the Halo universe, the stuff you can do is basically endless

[west swallow]

Right, and the forerunners who rose up against the precursors would need neural physical weapons to actually commit the genocide. So either they had the weapons, or the precursors largely wanted to experience death. Or both

[fading flume]

Don’t remember any Forerunner AI being able to utilize Star roads, so eh

[west swallow]

Well, Star roads are made of neural physical material, but a neural physical weapon (that being a weapon that can damage neural physical structures and beings) would be Halo

And the ancient forerunners who attacked the Forerunners I believe had outdated tech for the time. Like, data storage that decays after thousands of years (or more) so I doubt that they had Halo like weapons, but I could be wrong

[west swallow]

String 24 for this claim. The precursors stood by and marveled at the Forerunners destruction against them

[fading flume]

I don’t think being able to destroy neural physical structures means the perp itself is neural physical. Straight up use of Neural physical stuff has been saved for a select few individuals iirc.

The Halo Array is definitely the Forerunner’s greatest literal weapon. Really, we only got 1 vengeful precursor, the others in his own words either just traveled out of the map or just passed on

[fading flume]

All in all I don’t think they really put up a fight

We already saw what the Primordial could do so

[warm ridge]

Only the Primordial. Not other Precursors

[west swallow]

Oh yeah, definitely not my claim that if you can destroy neural physical stuff you can command it. But being able to make a weapon that can destroy neural physical stuff is hyper advanced

[fading flume]

Oh definitely

The Halo array is a beast of a fictional weapon

[west swallow]

Yeah, the only other non-precursor tech that dabbles in the stuff is the Composer

[fading flume]

I’d think he’d be the only “deranged” Precursor if he was the only one found to be caged, no?

[warm ridge]

He's a Precursor, they can do just about anything.
You're not going to smash dust containers into massive cities especially when they'd burn up in atmosphere.

[west swallow]

The dust containers arrived on starships those wouldn’t burn up

And the claim they can do anything, why not escape the prison?

[warm ridge]

No, the Forerunners wouldn't need those weapons at all.

I already told you, Precursors are immortal. They can't actually die no matter what. They simply switch to a new body, or whatever it is Precursors do.

Outcasts Precursors are literally beacons of light lol

[west swallow]

But they would

If the Precsursors didn’t want to die or transition to a new form, why not hide in their palaces of crystallized reality, impenetrable to non-neural physical means

[warm ridge]

Yes

[fading flume]

I’m glad it’s that way too. I like him acting as his own divine sense of justice (while his own species thinks he’s crazy)

[west swallow]

It was probably a small group rather than an individual. I’m a pro “Primrodial is the first Gravemind” kinda guy ahaha

[warm ridge]

They were decaying starships. Ancient derelict ships.

Yes, they would've burned up or been shot down on the spot the moment anyone in the San'Shyuum or Ancient Humanity detected them.

There goes your plans, gone up in flames. Blown up & deleted.

[west swallow]

But they weren’t shot down. They crashed on colonized and colonized planets alike

[warm ridge]

Because he was in a Precursor prison stuck in stasis, I just told you this.

[warm ridge]

No, they didn't.

[west swallow]

Right, and why not just neurally physically unlock the prison. It’s capable of tapping into neural physics after all

[fading flume]

We don’t got much to suggest it was multiple, and the Primordial is definitely a Precursor through and through. The Primordial would have definitely tried to free these other individuals (considering that likely his ideals got him imprisoned, not killed (which is already sort-of impossible)

[west swallow]

Well, it’s a single individual now, but Forthencho alleges it was made up of multiple beings

[fading flume]

I mean, that’s Forthencho, and we already have confirmation of far later sources (via Mythos and the encyclopedia) that he was straight up a Precursor

[west swallow]

Cryptum states the wrecks were found on habited and uninhabited worlds

I can pull sources if you’d like

[warm ridge]

Humans found wreckage of the ships on uninhabited and inhabited worlds alike. The cylinders were carefully examined, using the most stringent cautions, and their powdery contents were analyzed and found to be short-chain molecules, relatively simple and apparently inert—organic, yet neither alive nor capable of life.

[west swallow]

Sure, but then there’s an argument to be had that if the primordial is a true precursor, why did Forthencho allege it was multiple beings? Which may imply precursors are Graveminds to some extent

[west swallow]

Yup

[warm ridge]

That's really not how the info is portrayed though, because the Primordial never became a Gravemind. He simply took control of it away from the Flood (or whatever Flood consciousness existed at that time) in order to get his revenge

[west swallow]

Back when Greg Bear was alive, there was a lot of interesting discussion on his message boards with him about the nature and relationships between the Precursors and Graveminds. He kept his lips tight, but he implied there was a connection between the two. And I’m not referring to the Primordial transitioning into the Flood Gravemind

[warm ridge]

Just because a Precursor might not want to die at any sudden moment doesn't mean it can prevent it. It'll just move itself into a new body, or whatever version of "Precursor reality" that exist.