lore-and-universe

[vagrant ocean]

At least modern Halo.

Nylund wrote us into a corner for genetics from the get go.

[modest marsh]

I don’t really agree with that

At least as early as Ghosts of Onyx you can say there’s a definitive refutation of that perspective

[prime mauve]

If Chloe dies at like 30 due to cloning complications it will make me so so sad

[vagrant ocean]

He doubled down in Halsey’s Journal

[prime mauve]

She's a precious bean

[vagrant ocean]

That’s most likely the scenario.

[modest marsh]

In what sense?

[vagrant ocean]

Dead on some barren word looking like Tim Blake Nelson.

[modest marsh]

I think she’s smart enough to figure out how to lead a fulfilling life even if it won’t be a long one

[vagrant ocean]

In it he has Halsey say she did genetic screening for the candidates, so that implies that the candidates are genetically superior to the 99.999999999% of the remaining human population.

[vagrant ocean]

She becomes Mother Brain from Metroid.

[modest marsh]

Halsey (an unreliable narrator) has different criteria for what is acceptable for her super soldier program than what most would define as “genetically superior”

Again, Ghosts of Onyx refutes her

[vagrant ocean]

Obviously.

[modest marsh]

She was not aware of the Spartan-IIIs, did not realize how successful they were

[vagrant ocean]

GoO was written before the journal was, I’m talking meta.

Not lore.

[modest marsh]

It’s honestly a common refrain that Halsey herself underestimates the capacity for humans

[orchid kettle]

im a pretty big believer that Chief was supposed to be uniquely moral among the Spartans in TFOR

[stoic hamlet]

The journal is also from Halsey’s POV. She’s an inherently unreliable narrator.

Authors (the good ones, anyways) don’t necessarily agree with the viewpoints of their characters.

[vagrant ocean]

Not saying he agreed with it, just saying that he wrote us into that corner.

[modest marsh]

I think Halsey’s journal is very clearly written in such a way that paints her as being at best misguided in what she currently believes that she would obviously be forced to reassess upon obtaining new information

[stoic hamlet]

As Magg said, Ghosts of Onyx pretty conclusively refutes that.

[carmine sleet]

And this will lead to the reveal Halo is just a Metroid prequel the whole time

[modest marsh]

Even Spartan Ops has that moment where she regards Thorne with uncharacteristic respect

[vagrant ocean]

As I said, Nylund wrote the journal after GoO was made. Which means he doubled down.

[modest marsh]

I think he just understands the character he came up with and knows how she would think or act during specific periods of her life

[stoic hamlet]

Again the journal is an in-universe document, not an objective source.

[modest marsh]

When Halsey believed those things, she was at her most arrogant and misinformed

I don’t think she would continue to believe that (beyond irrational favoritism and ego) now that she’s learned what Spartans other than hers are capable of

[vagrant ocean]

Never said it was an objective source, I’m literally just saying that Nylund’s writings from 2001 and 2010 seem to imply that the IIs are genetically superior to the vast majority of humans, regardless of what he wrote in 2006. The refutation doesn’t negate the implication.

[modest marsh]

I think you have to examine context besides the mere timetable of when the literature releases to know what was in his head and what he was trying to convey to the reader

[stoic hamlet]

Any good author does, really.

If the character isn’t a self insert the idea is you wrote them regardless and independent of your personal views.

[vagrant ocean]

Anyways, I don’t disagree with the usage of clones by the program to replace the candidates, despite it obviously violating the Mortal Dictata.

[modest marsh]

Halsey said things that were materially incorrect and contradictory to what we later know to be true because 1) she’s not a perfect authority 2) when she wrote those things, she did not have access to the totality of the information we do

There’s other examples of her getting things wrong in the journal for that matter

Not because she’s stupid, it just wouldn’t make sense for her to know things even if the reader does

[modest marsh]

Something something we don’t talk about what was happening on Jupiter’s moons in the 2160s

[stoic hamlet]

A good example of such is the little blurb in the journal about who the better leader of the II’s would be, where Mendez correctly guessed Kurt was a better people person and would make the best leader, while Halsey disregarded everyone else in favour of John…

…only to privately admit to herself in Ghosts of Onyx that Kurt actually was a better leader.

[modest marsh]

Yeah, in spite of her arrogance/ego, Halsey has the capacity to admit she’s wrong

Maybe not publicly, but certainly to herself

[stoic hamlet]

Yeah.

[vagrant ocean]

I hate the stupid mod bot here.

[stoic hamlet]

I don’t think she’s publicly ever admitted being wrong, not without making things a sort of “well I’m only wrong because X, but if we consider Y, then I’m still right.”

[vagrant ocean]

“Let’s not talk about what the space Neo-Neo-Fascists were doing on Ganymede.”

There, is that better Section Two? I’m not gonna be sent to a ONI black site am I?

[modest marsh]

In fairness, you might say that’s a strategic tact given that you wouldn’t want to harm the reputational authority of the UNSC’s lead scientist who’s been mostly correct about everything she’s opined on

It does read a little selfish more often than not though

[vagrant ocean]

You’re telling me a child who is the smartest human to ever live in over a thousand years and was treated as a wunderkind her entire life has an ego?

I’m gobsmacked.

[modest marsh]

ORION candidates were volunteers from various UNSC special forces: men and women who were undoubtedly qualified for any military assignment. But they were much too old to undergo genetic augmentation. Inserted gene sequences led to subminimal target changes, while the immunosuppressants failed in most subjects, causing rampant, irreversible genetic fragmentation and degenerative conditions.

Refinement: Next-generation candidates must have more malleable, robust DNA structure/repair enzymes. With satisfactory testing of the L-DNA hydroxyl re-polymerase, the most suitable candidate would be prepubescent.

Generation-ll genetic selection criteria are astronomically improbable. Statistically, over thirty-nine billion DNA records are required.

Alright I double checked and to be frank, Halsey doesn’t even insinuate herself that the genetic criteria has anything to do with being the perfect soldier or a superior human

She even says that the men and women who served as the subjects for ORION were “undoubtedly qualified”

[vagrant ocean]

I guess my memory is cooked then.

[modest marsh]

I think this is understandable given how the journal is quite literally compared to Mein Kampf

Or in the Halo show, Halsey is looking for heroes of prophecy based on their genes

[vagrant ocean]

I wouldn’t go that far, Halsey is definitely a flawed person but I wouldn’t call her a monster.

[vagrant ocean]

Still have not, and will not, seen that show.

[modest marsh]

You wouldn’t go that far, but it’s a pervasive enough of an opinion that I’m sure it influenced your view of her

I don’t think someone who thinks Halsey deserves to be hanged is unreasonable even if I don’t necessarily agree

[vagrant ocean]

Eh, I’ve always viewed her as a flawed scientist who was (for most of her life anyway) unparalleled. Obviously a ton of the blame for the issues caused by the program lays at her feet, but not enough of it is thrown at the people who funded and green lit every single thing she proposed.

It’s like hanging a guard but not the commissar.

[modest marsh]

Anyways, yeah, towards the end of S2 it’s revealed that Halsey started the Spartan program because she found a forerunner reliquary on Onyx that contained human genetic sequences so she made up a plan to capture them under the pretense of creating super soldiers for the UNSC

[vagrant ocean]

The entirety of Section III from 2510-2530 should be held just as accountable as Halsey.

[modest marsh]

I’m sympathetic to the idea that this was something the UNSC was going to do with or without her and she felt morally obliged to follow through as penance for proving their “necessity”

She clearly feels bad about Carver

[vagrant ocean]

Tbf if I basically predicted an impending civil war across the entirety of human space, I’d do the same.

[modest marsh]

Well it’s mostly an issue of taking ownership of a situation you believe you may have materially made worse by involving yourself

The monkey’s paw curled on her

She showed up a famous and successful academic so early in her career, only for the end result to be terrible for everyone involved

[vagrant ocean]

Especially if a 15 year old proved me wrong and showed my calculations were even more disastrous than originally expected.

[modest marsh]

If not working for the government, she doesn’t have many options available to her to remedy the situation

[vagrant ocean]

Yep.

And people said she lacked empathy.

[modest marsh]

I think she consciously tries not to have empathy

Which is an interesting behavioral quirk because it’s paralleled strongly by her Spartans, especially Chief, in that they try their hardest to be unreadable and stoic in all contexts, even between each other

The bubbling emotions inside them are something they actively try to suppress because they view it as a liability to their mission

[vagrant ocean]

Especially during the program, despite her actively trying to make the augmentation procedure less deadly up until the last minute. It showed a crack.

I’ll be the first to bring up all the horrible effects of the program, but I will always defend it as a necessary evil to stop the potential extinction of mankind due to civil war.

[modest marsh]

But then, you know, the show came up with a emotion regulation chip that can be removed so we can skip past the nuances of dealing with repressed emotions as a result of an oppressive environment

[vagrant ocean]

Like, people forget that the refined Carver Findings predicted at MINIMUM 30 years of civil war and 5 billion dead, 12% of the human population at the time.

[unique rune]

I feel like that’s giving a bit too much credit to what was essentially a controversial study that mostly comes off as justification for the authoritarian government to double down on being authoritarian

[vagrant ocean]

Comes off as justification to Innie sympathizers.

As I’ve said before, I highly doubt every rebel group was just made up of independence loving freedom fighters. I have a strong feeling that many held Friedenist and Koslovic ideals which is extremely dangerous. They were also using nuclear weapons on civilian centers and bombing restaurants. Not exactly a noble thing to do.

[unique rune]

“gee guys massive civil war will break out if we keep doing the things that are oppressing people so we should oppress them harder and kill them all first!”

10/10 thinking there from Carver

[vagrant ocean]

That’s being obtuse.

[modest marsh]

The way Ive always looked at it is a failure of the civilian government to take necessary measures and forcing the military to take action

“When you’re the hammer”

[unique rune]

all the various insurrectionist movements sure weren’t all sunshine and rainbows but the Carver Findings just seem like abhorrent circular reasoning to me

[modest marsh]

I don’t like unilaterally blaming the UNSC because they’re not the ones approving the budget to commission the multimillion ton, nuclear warhead equipped, apocalypse magnet boats

[vagrant ocean]

Just a reminder that rebel groups that were against the UN/UEG historically at that point were very extremist, so it makes sense that the UNSC would view these new groups the same way.

[modest marsh]

People voted for that

[vagrant ocean]

Many of them colonists themselves.

Cuz the CAA is subordinate to the UEG.

[modest marsh]

“Hmm do we spend money on improving the material conditions of the less fortunate? Or make hundreds of building sized death machines? Hard decision.”

[vagrant ocean]

Almost as if the UEG and UNSC are based on the US.

[unique rune]

in theory it’s a messy complicated situation that I’m sure 343/HS will never elaborate on but

idk I’m not inclined to give the Carver Findings and its direct outcomes much credit for “saving humanity” or whatever when a lot of it is a pretty direct result of incredibly bad and stupid decisions from the UEG’s side of things

[vagrant ocean]

I’m not saying the findings saved anyone, models don’t save people, actions do. It’s just that the calculations run on the findings by the smartest person born in 1200 years just so happened to not only predict the same result but showed the outcomes to be far worse than previously anticipated, and thus an extremely drastic solution was needed, and ONI decided that solution was ORION Gen 2.

The Carver Findings only showed that the UNSC needed to prepare for the largest war humanity has ever experienced and it needed to do it fast.

It was ONI, specifically Section III, that decided that part of the preparation was making supersoldiers using very unethical methods.

I’m sure that if given the chance, HS would inject more nuance into the Insurrection, but atm the best we can do is extrapolate from prior uprisings against the UN/UEG and the motives of those groups.

I went in-depth on this last month with Trench, but they left which made me sad.

[modest marsh]

Tbh I don’t read it that way either

[vagrant ocean]

It’s pretty blatant.

[modest marsh]

If there was a government that I would compare the UEG to, it would be the British empire

[vagrant ocean]

RULE, BRITANNIA.

Unrelated but I want to get my sandwich but my cat won’t let me.

[modest marsh]

The US still and historically operates as a colonialist power, but not nearly as successful as Britain

The US also never relied on colonial expansion to fuel its economy the way Britain and the UEG did

[vagrant ocean]

Tbf, we never really needed to use colonialism to fuel our economy, tho we tried.

[modest marsh]

“Need” is about framing

[vagrant ocean]

We’re not a small island whose primary export is fog and actors.

[modest marsh]

It was far more disruptive to Britain losing its colonies than anything the US has endured

[vagrant ocean]

The US didn’t need to use expansionism to fuel its economy because we had nearly every resource we needed.

[modest marsh]

Anyways, something about Harvest feels distinctly “new world” in its construction

Impossibly fertile land used to industrially export crops to other lands, with substantial wealth inequality experienced by the colonial settlers

You’re just missing the dehumanization of the workers themselves (except sometimes it’s there)

Lasky stereotyping dissident outer colonists as farmers will never not be funny to me

[vagrant ocean]

Tbf, it’s like calling West Virginians coal miners or moonshiners. It’s just stereotypes and pattern recognition.

[modest marsh]

It’s just something I find interesting because similar to coal mining, it’s likely something perceived as a menial and out dated occupation despite serving as the cultural bedrock of a specific group of people

In contact harvest, you get the impression that the original colonial settlers of the planet are basically out of luck once the planet fully industrializes with the newest and most advanced automated machinery that only the wealthiest farms can afford putting them out of the job

[vagrant ocean]

And all they’ll have to keep them afloat are 26th century hipsters.

[modest marsh]

Farming is one of those jobs that has historically formed multigenerational bonds/identity but in the pursuit of efficiency, many farmers aren’t going to be farmers for much longer

[vagrant ocean]

Yerp

[modest marsh]

Reach is pretty interesting about this because they created an entire indigenous culture for the original settlers of the planet hailing from Hungary

In order to feed themselves, these people obviously had to be the first ones to plant the seeds of what would be humanity’s most important colony

But this got completely overshadowed once it became a military asset

[vagrant ocean]

It makes sense tho, countless colonist trips were basically monocultural. The first colonists to Pennsylvania were almost entirely Welsh.

[modest marsh]

Cities populated by people speaking English with American and British accents outnumber the “native” Reavians

[vagrant ocean]

Yerp

[vagrant ocean]

I like to imagine a planet populated by Welsh colonists, perhaps named New Gwynedd after the first Welsh town in the New World nearly 1,000 years prior.

[minor sky]

Is there a specific reason ONI headquarters are in Sydney?

[modest marsh]

That is apparently the UEG capital

[jade cape]

Additionally: is there any reason Sydney is the UEG capital?

[unique rune]

Australia was the only place where all of its member nations would be suffering equally and thus could agree upon

[minor sky]

Australia is the new Switzerland idk

I'm suprised that the Waypoint Chronicles haven't touched upon Fireteam Majestic at all. I would love to see what they are up to currently

Plus it'd be nice for Naiya Ray to show up in something besides Escalation

[chrome apex]

What are all types of damage that exist in Halo?

[modest marsh]

Gameplay wise?

[wraith garden]

i guess shield damage headshot damage blast damage vehicle slam damage melee damage and trauma damage from legendary

[modest marsh]

Headshots/weakpoints are a damage modifier but it isn’t a damage type

[wraith garden]

i forgot the fall damage in some games

[modest marsh]

In CE each weapon has its own damage modifier for each enemy and then 2 onward they changed it to a damage type system that accounts for the material that is struck

[wraith garden]

and there is some kinda glitched equipnet damage like of deployable cover and quantumn tranlocator

[modest marsh]

That’s not glitched

[wraith garden]

yea hquantumn one is default

flame damage was very manacing in halo 3

[prime mauve]

For real, I miss my boy Gabriel Thorne. Proper hero.

[modest marsh]

Unfortunately in all likelihood Majestic along with the majority of S-IVs stationed on Infinity perished fighting the Banished during the 6 month period before Chief shows up

The only reason for them to be spared is because they’re named characters but frankly their story presence has largely been abandoned completely for about a decade now

[prime mauve]

Thorne and Ray were deployed away from Infinity enough times that I think there's precedent for them to have been absent on December 12

[stoic hamlet]

We have too many named characters surviving, at this point.

(Looking at you, Fall of Reach S-II’s)

We need actual losses.

[modest marsh]

Yeah but what would they be doing that would be of lower risk?

Not being with infinity doesn’t make them safer necessarily

And well, Thorne does not have a strong track record for taking care of himself

[prime mauve]

They could have been split off with the majority of the crew that was gone by late 2559

[prime mauve]

Okay yeah fair he's a trouble magnet lol

[modest marsh]

The attrition that infinity suffered wasn’t just shedding off extraneous forces to different tasks, they were also seemingly facing genuine loses in the year between 5 and infinite

Not to say it’s definitely what happened but I think it’s “realistic” that Majestic in part or it’s entirety suffered casualties offscreen even before the events of Infinite, let alone during the big purge

I think it’s a bit too much to basically treat the entirety of Alpha Nine, all Spartan-IIs, Jun, Rosenda, and Vale as guaranteed safe because at that point that’s like half of all major Spartan characters besides those specifically introduced in Infinite itself

And well, most of the Spartans killed off in infinite don’t do much besides existing to be killed

[wispy pewter]

A lot of Spartans are introduced just to be killed off in the same story

[prime mauve]

Jun and Rosenda are safe as of March 4, 2560 where they showed up at Nysa, had some quick and frankly banal skeet shooting against Banshees, and left with the survivors. (Personally that Waypoint Chronicle was just the worst)

But knowing Jun there could have been some way for him to once again be exposed to the hard vacuum of space

[chrome apex]

That and lore. Like radiation damage, etc. whatever is there but not in gameplay.

[minor sky]

I reject your hypothesis

Thorne is unlikely to show up in a game because his actor is busy playing Spock, but it would be really cool if he and Ray were there with Lasky and Palmer on Zeta Halo

But because that is unlikely to happen, it is also totally possible that Majestic is off fighting elsewhere and/or split up on different missions

Hell, given the events of Escalation, you could maybe work Tanaka's whereabouts in with Majestic's

[slim salmon]

How much of a genius is Preston Cole? Is he smarter than, say, Ender Wiggin?

[icy yoke]

Homage or just easy design .
M965 coilguns used on Infinity resemble Rhinemetal/Oerliken Millennium gun

[modest marsh]

Whatever equivalent to “radiation damage” that exists in Halo would resemble what happens when objects or people are exposed to sufficient amounts or types of radiation in the real world

In game there’s nothing that inflicts damage from invisible radiation particles like a Fallout or Metro 2033

Energy weapons like plasma and lasers generate radiation across the electromagnetic spectrum, but most of their danger comes from their thermal output which is mainly generated by the infrared wavelength

Halo infinite has more explicit “damage types” by delineating them based on what form of energy the weapon uses to inflict harm, which is broken down into Kinetic, Plasma, Hardlight, and Shock

https://www.halopedia.org/Weapon_types

One thing I wish to point out is that in game damage values are often completely irrespective of the canonical functionality of a given method of attack

Plasma weapons for example have a disadvantage against armor and health but do significantly more damage against shields compared to bullets, but generally speaking plasma weapons are no less penetrative and harmful to organic tissue than most conventional firearms

[minor sky]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UovZfI6HVn0

Interesting bit of cut dialogue at 2:15

I like how it shows Cortana trying to confort herself in face of what is most definitely going to be her and Chief's deaths

Also very funny how they used what I think was Microsoft SAM to fill in lines for Cortana that Jen Taylor hadn't recorded

[prime mauve]

He's pretty genius but he also has to deal with more mundane stuff that Ender seemingly doesn't for his strategies so I'd give Ender the top spot. Cole was just human at the end of the day.

[vagrant ocean]

I wonder how the UNSC solved the problems with caseless ammunition.

[modest marsh]

I mean, it seems like they haven’t fully solved them since there’s only a small number of caseless weapons and one of them is a version of the underbarrel grenade launcher that is only canon because it was cut content for CE that was loosely canonized

[wraith garden]

idk why but in infinite the weapon drop crashes on my face killing me

[vagrant ocean]

And how the M20 uses the 5.7mm FN round.

[modest marsh]

The M20 isn’t caseless though

[vagrant ocean]

That’s what I said.

The M20 was designed to replace the M7.

[modest marsh]

Oh, I thought you were referring to the M7

[vagrant ocean]

And is like an upside down P90.

[wraith garden]

m7 was waht

idr it

[vagrant ocean]

And I’d argue it’s better than the M7 in that 5.7x28 has innate AP abilities.

[wraith garden]

m20 was like smg?

[vagrant ocean]

The H2 SMG.

[wraith garden]

oh

[vagrant ocean]

It’s the H5G SMG.

[vagrant ocean]

Even FMJ.

[wraith garden]

screw hs that they didnt bring back dual weilding

[vagrant ocean]

Bro is yelling at HS despite them not having made a game yet.

[wraith garden]

no ik its 343 before they changed their name

im just yelling their latest name 😑

[vagrant ocean]

HS hasn’t released a game yet.

[unique rune]

dual-wielding sucked anyway

[wraith garden]

but i liked it

in h3

[vagrant ocean]

Find me a Halo game that they’ve released.

[unique rune]

I love compromising on melee and grenades so I can use two guns that only kind of function as well as any other single weapon

[wraith garden]

halo 4 halo 4 infinite spartan assault halo wars 2

[vagrant ocean]

Those are all 343i, as shown on the copyright.

[wraith garden]

wait 343i and hs are seperate companies?

[vagrant ocean]

Yes, 343i no longer exists, hence the creation of HS.

[wraith garden]

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

so they really havent released a game yet

[vagrant ocean]

lol

[vagrant ocean]

Correct.

Halo: Campaign Evolved is their first title.

[wraith garden]

yeah

i would like the new missions

cuz they will have johnson ... OORAH!

[modest marsh]

The ammunition used by the M20 is specifically HVAP

[vagrant ocean]

Even better.

[wraith garden]

m20 is infinitely better than halo 4 suppresser

https://tenor.com/view/poppy-playtime-chapter-5-poppy-playtime-the-prototype-kissy-missy-head-turn-gif-16525118146443141976

wait a sec can i still play halo 3 custom games by gamertag on 360?

[wispy pewter]

Halo

[minor sky]

Dual-wielding is fun in the moment but it does really screw with gameplay and the sandbox

Still better than armor lock

Dual-wielding means you have an entire set of weapons that are half as effective on their own and you basically have to design a weapons sandbox within the weapons sandbox

The idea seemed to be that you'd be able to supplement your lack of punching/grenades with your second gun being a "mini-shotgun, shield-drainer, precision gun" but that still resulted in the issue above

I prefer a weapons sandbox which prioritzes strongly defined roles and functions for each gun (with some wiggle room)

[coarse hamlet]

They should bring it back because its fun in the moment and thats what matters

[unique rune]

I’ve never found it particularly fun just because every time I do it I get reminded that I could achieve the same results in like half the time and half the ammo with any precision weapon

I’m sure there’s ways to balance a dual wielding feature better in Halo but what with it being Halo I kinda don’t see the point when you’ll probably get domed by a BR before it would ever be effective

[wraith garden]

plasma pistol and br are still a ~~ deadly~~ goated duo

[fair hazel]

I prefer big sandboxes where there's a lot of options and it's just fun, like halo 5 and its variants, versus smaller sandboxes which weapons are too hyper focused and it's just, less variety less fun, like halo infinite

But that's gameplay stuff not lore stuff

I remember people trying to argue the plasma pistol in the lore doesn't EMP as an excuse to halo infinite's lacking it. Only for, if I recall, a blog or something mentioning it's EMP function lore wise

[modest marsh]

im sympathetic to the perspective that its overtuned in game compare to how it would function canonically at least

the overcharge is simply too powerful for what is supposed to be a low tier and extremely common weapon

[coarse hamlet]

theres probably a good reason not everyone is overcharging it as a default, probably breaks the weapon in some way that covvie quartermasters would skin someone over. also never found it overtuned in the sandboxs, shield jackels are the only ones who regularly will use it and are kinda incapable of capitalizing on the opening it makes without others enemies there

[modest marsh]

i dont really buy the idea its a doctrinal thing because i dont trust grunts or jackals to be disciplined enough to follow through with that, nor has reliability ever been an issue for covenant weapons before

as far as who uses the overcharge, thats game and difficulty dependent

grunts can use the overcharge, especially the higher ranked ones

[coarse hamlet]

well jackals already violate it. and the reliability and maintenance hasnt been an issue cause authors havent been interested in it so far

[modest marsh]

This is largely a vibes thing but i think Covenant technology at a baseline is demonstrably too sophisticated for what is largely an intended feature to be detrimental to the health of the tool or else this would probably be commented on as a notable distinction between human and covenant design philosophy

you have tweaked versions of weapons that modify the baseline functions but usually theres a tradeoff, like in the case of the brute plasma rifle

Allegedly Jul Mdama's covenant at Requiem used plasma pistols that did more damage per shot at the cost of a shorter battery life to coincide with its in game behavior

(Halo 4 plasma pistols have way less ammo due to being a loadout weapon in multiplayer)

[warm ridge]

Definitely not. Seems more likely they were off the Infinity.

Also, even if they were, pretty high chance they all survived given what Edge of Dawn says

[warm ridge]

We'll probably get more about then eventually, wouldn't doubt it at all

[warm ridge]

100%

[warm ridge]

Basically the whole reason they introduced new S-IV's with Infinite was so they wouldn't have to kill off previously named characters. I highly doubt any of them are going to be dead honestly.

[minor sky]

Imagine if Throne was in the Tower instead of Griffin

Actually on that note, I think Kelly Gay could do something really good with Majestic

Her track-record with writing Spartan IVs has been really good

[warm ridge]

That's not cut dialogue, that happens in the game itself.
https://youtu.be/OFE-CMy0X1g?si=iEubok-DMO4lNzAg&t=7991

[coarse hamlet]

you can full auto 6 magazines of ammunition through any modern assault rifle/carbine in a couple minutes but unless you had a REALLY good reason to youre gonna get chewed out cause it puts a lot of wear on the components, possible warping cause of the heat and youre risking cooking off the ammunition. dont see why the same train of logic wouldnt apply to the covenant. i mean just look at the plasma pistol during and after its overcharged

[minor sky]

I'm talking about the bit that comes after it

Where she talks about getting back to Halsey/improving her matrix

[warm ridge]

how does Cortana addressing her rampancy trying to comfort chief's death? that's confusing

doesn't make sense

[minor sky]

I am saying that in that moment Cortana realizes that she and Cheif are probably not going to make it out alive and she is telling herself things to do once they get back to Halsey to distract herself from that fact

[warm ridge]

seems more like a misplaced line that wasn't intended to be there judging from the change in cortana's over-all voice & tone

i highly doubt it's related at all

[modest marsh]

because the logistics of the covenant are entirely different to the extent individual small arms are going to be considered utterly disposable which is why they give them to footsoldiers widely regarded as disposable canonfodder themselves

granted in TFOR Nylund seemed to suggest that it was unusual to arm Grunts at all

if they give this gun to guys trained to run at something with live grenades i dont think they're too concerned with what happens to it

aside from that, based on the manufacturing capacity of the covenant at its height, they could easily print billions of plasma pistols and lose half of them without noticing

its a different story in the post war granted, but as of 2558 it seems like the major factions have mostly worked out their manufacturing shortfalls

if i were worried about losing equipment, i'd prefer to get it back damaged than not at all, so if spamming overcharged bolts means that more of the enemy gets taken out of the fight, that's a better economic exchange

[vagrant ocean]

This reminds me of a quote a UNSC service man gave on the Eos'Mak-pattern Pistol (the HCE-4 pistol), I believe he was part of E2-BAG/1/7.

“[The plasma pistol] is the bread and butter of Covenant small arms—almost as common as the MA5 is with the UNSC. After the Covenant Carrier jumped there were some areas of Mombasa where plasma pistols covered the ground like leaves—that maneuver killed a bunch of dudes on both sides."

Which makes sense because it wasn’t just issued to Grunts. Jackals, Drones, even some Elites ran them as primaries.

[modest marsh]

theyre also deployed in bulk in those big purple crates

[vagrant ocean]

Yep

[modest marsh]

still has not been confirmed but i headcanon they double as recharge stations

[warm ridge]

were they not confirmed to be batteries of some sort?

plasma batteries

[vagrant ocean]

It’d make sense, especially in H5 (?) when you can refill ammo at some I think. Might have to play it again to double check.

[warm ridge]

https://www.halopedia.org/Plasma_battery

[warm ridge]

you're thinking of halo infinite, none of the plasma batteries in halo 5 let you refill ammo at them

[vagrant ocean]

Aight. My memory is fuzzy these days.

[warm ridge]

the covenant supply cases aren't batteries or recharge stations afaik

https://www.halopedia.org/Covenant_supply_case

head canon or not, i doubt they do considering we have estabilished covenant recharge batteries for this exact purpose

[vagrant ocean]

And they make/deploy enough that recharge stations aren’t really necessary.

[warm ridge]

yea i wouldn't be surprised if it was a common occurance in the covenant to just dispose of the weapon once the battery runs out

[icy yoke]

One think all those spares lying around UNSC would have ample subject for reverse engineering

[warm ridge]

they can be recharged ofc

honestly that whole thing about the UNSC finding it difficult to get Covenant equipment to reverse engineer really doesn't make much sense

it's literally everywhere

surely on Harvest when they took it back they were finding Covenant equipment by the motherloads & sending it to be reverse engineered no?

[vagrant ocean]

I think it’s a multifaceted issue.

1. The Covenant has had millennia to test and refine their plasma weaponry, with the earliest iterations of the plasma rifle being in use since the War of Beginnings. We didn’t, so we have an inherent disadvantage in that regard.

2. ONI basically banned the collection of Covenant tech out of fear that trackers would be placed in them, with only handfuls of weapons and other equipment being captured.

3. These designs are combination of San'Shyuum, Sangheili, and Forerunner tech and R&D, and maintenance and production of these weapons is a sacred tradition, with even the tiniest deviation being seen as heretical. Thus, most members of the Covenant, even some of the highest ranking ones, had no idea how their weapons truly worked.

4. The UNSC was probably more focused on adapting their energy shields to their vessels or powered exoskeletons than introducing a brand new and potentially far more expensive weapon system than the ones they’ve been using for nearly a quarter millennium.

All these reasons prolly explains why it took until 2548 when arms manufacturers such as Chalybs Defense Solutions to begin prototyping tech demonstration models of plasma-based DEWs.

I’m sure companies like Misriah, WST, and Vakara all tried to make plasma weapons, but they didn’t see the value in investing in such tech during wartime.

[modest marsh]

This is addressed in Halsey’s journal

They did have ample materials to research

[vagrant ocean]

We just couldn’t figure the damn things out.

[modest marsh]

There was a standing order to collect as much covenant technology as possible well into the final days of the war

The problem is that there are security measures built into the covenant tech as well as new fields of science that make studying them nearly impossible

[vagrant ocean]

Just look at the analysis of the Needler.

[modest marsh]

Scanners are not able to penetrate the casings of most equipment

[vagrant ocean]

And cracking the case sometimes just ends in some poor ONI intern being vaporized.

[modest marsh]

Yeah, there’s an implicit dead man’s switch built into all covenant tech, it just seems like the conditions are different to trigger it

[vagrant ocean]

“Jones (read as Joe Enez), crack open that plasma rifle.”

[vagrant ocean]

Yes this is a reference.

[modest marsh]

In CE, this was the lore justification for the fuel rod gun and energy sword to self destruct, but later games obviously rescinded that

[vagrant ocean]

“For the last time it’s JONES. I don’t see what good opening this thing will d-“

[modest marsh]

small correction but ONI didn’t ban the collection of covenant tech, they just had strict rules about how to go about it because of concerns of them being bugged or boobytrapped

[vagrant ocean]

Correct, again my memory is fuzzy and it’s been a while since I read the journal.

[modest marsh]

Spartans were authorized to capture pretty much everything they could get their hands on

[vagrant ocean]

Then again they were authorized to do pretty much anything.

[modest marsh]

Well, they technically weren’t allowed to keep things they commandeered, but we know some Spartans got away with ignoring that rule

[vagrant ocean]

Well, when Mom is still the second scariest person who works for ONI, they can pretty much get away with anything.

[modest marsh]

Emile, Kodiak, Vale, and Thorne are the main offenders off the top of my head

[vagrant ocean]

I believe Omega got away with it too,

[modest marsh]

I forget if Leon and Robert are also known to keep their sword and plasma cannon respectively because those could just be field scavenged

[vagrant ocean]

Wouldn’t be shocked if they kept them. Especially since Leon’s sword is described as having been customized.

So he either stole it or he’s best buds with a Sangheili swordsmith.

[modest marsh]

Powering their weapons is the thing that bugs me

[vagrant ocean]

Yeh

Vale makes sense given her freakishly close ties to the SoS.

[modest marsh]

Gameplay exaggerates how quickly an energy sword burns through its charge but we know it’s still a consideration that can present itself in combat, like in The Duel when Fal Chavamee is fighting the covenant army

[vagrant ocean]

Yeah

RIP to the goat.

The first of his kind to find his honor since the Writ of Union.

[warm ridge]

Thus, most members of the Covenant, even some of the highest ranking ones, had no idea how their weapons truly worked.
This is exactly the same as humans, a majority of the population doesn't know how the guns work other then point & shoot goes bang bang. Obviously other alien species would probably be similar, just because you know how to use it doesn't mean you know how it actually works.
Case & point, you think a majority of the human population knows how Cars work?

There are people in the Covenant who 100% know how the weapons work and are capable of making finely tuned versions of them to be more lethal. It's why weapon variants existed at all. Most of which come directly from the manufacturing plants themselves.

All these reasons prolly explains why it took until 2548 when arms manufacturers such as Chalybs Defense Solutions to begin prototyping tech demonstration models of plasma-based DEWs.
UNSC had more pressing concerns like losing manufacturing capability entirely due to planets being glassed, prototypes disappeared, plans burned in flames.

[vagrant ocean]

That goes without saying.

[vagrant ocean]

Not sure what the point of contention is.

[stoic hamlet]

We know with Emile he was only allowed to keep his stuff because Holland wanted/let him snub Navy regulations.

Logic dictates Leon and Robert wouldn’t be allowed to keep their stuff, with them working much more closely with the Navy.

We do know ONI supplied a lot of covenant gear for the training of the Spartan III’s, at least, so it wouldn’t shock me if basically standing orders for everyone was “capture as much as you can.”

[minor sky]

It could just be a different take they put in as a placeholder + Rampancy caused Cortana to change her tone of voice plenty of times

[slim salmon]

Now that I look at what a Precursor looks like, they look oddly like a less disgusting version of the Flood.

I know the Flood is just Infectious Precursor Powder, but I never knew that it turns people into Precursors. I thought it turns people into a random potato mash of animal cells, and that's what Flood tissue is.

[fading flume]

Precursors can take any form they want im pretty sure

Like my pfp was a form the Primordial took

[prime mauve]

The Primordial is indeed an ugly beastie but I don't think we can take it as a good example of what the average Precursor might have looked like. They could have mostly looked like Danny DeVito for all we know

[fading flume]

😭

[prime mauve]

Halo 9, the Endless have finally achieved their goals and the Precursors return and they mysteriously look like the cast of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

[stoic hamlet]

“The gang stops future war.”

[minor sky]

"The Gang Gets Revenge Thousands Of Years Later"

[hearty whale]

"The Gang Realizes They Are Reclaimers"

[minor sky]

"The Gang Turns Into Dust Before Winding Up As Dog Food"

Anyway, somebody really needs to update the "Current Employees" section of the 343 Industries/Halo Studios page on Halopedia

A ton of names in that section aren't working there and in some cases haven't been working there in a decade

[prime mauve]

The updating process for Halopedia may be longer than current contracts under Microsoft 😭

[minor sky]

Bonnie Ross, Frank O'Conner, Robogabo, Kenneth Peters, Joesph Staten, Kenneth Scott, Brian Reed, Kiki Wolfkill, Paul Bertone, ect.

Those are the names that just stuck out to me in that section

[stoic hamlet]

Kenneth Peters is still there, I believe.

Just not public-facing

[minor sky]

Oh no wait, you're right

[minor sky]

Jeremy Patenaude also left the studio on 2023

[prime mauve]

They should give him 5 million dollars and the mission to give us two sequels to Empty Throne

Same for Joe Staten but with whatever stories he wants to give us

[minor sky]

I don't see Joesph Staten coming back to Halo

I think his return to the series was entirely so Halo Infinite could finally release, and they needed somebody who could help make that happen

So I doubt he was ever sticking around long term

Best we'll get is probably a novella like Shadow of Intent

[minor sky]

I would prefer Empty Throne be adapted into a game

Or at least events featured in Empty Throne

[prime mauve]

That would be pretty excellent

[minor sky]

A lot of stuff there fills in the gap between Halo 5 and Infinite as well as gives us some pretty important lore details (i.e. the Banished being lead by Tartarus' son back in the milky way)

[prime mauve]

Severan boss fight as Dovo Nesto where the HUD goes like in Reach "Objective: Survive"

[minor sky]

Not as a traditional Halo game though. I think a 3rd Person Action game would fit Empty Throne

[prime mauve]

Halo has a ton of potential to branch out game styles some more

[minor sky]

I feel like the tradtional Halo gameplay style, while still excellent 25 year later, is limiting in regards to what you can or can't do

[prime mauve]

Yeah

[vagrant ocean]

I’m fine with that.

[vagrant ocean]

Oooooooo

I keep saying HS should license out the IP to other MS/XGS studios for spinoffs, keeping one or two staff members to ensure it stays canon whilst the main crew makes mainline titles.

Imagine if Coalition or Machine Games made a Halo title?

Or iD?

[minor sky]

The Coalition is firmly Gears Of War I think

Machine Games could do something neat with the series but I don't want any studio to be handed the series without any passion or vision for it

[vagrant ocean]

I’m sure there’s some chaos over there who’d love to try.

[modest marsh]

part of the problem with this strategy is that due to the campaign team being largely gutted in 2023, there are like 5 people in charge of franchise writing who are stretched impossibly thin as is

[obsidian thistle]

Ken is still around. 🙂

[strange pumice]

I still don't understand why Chief tried to delete Joy during infinite campaign
To prevent that Joy wouldn't be another Cortana?
I do wonder if Chief actually deleted her, how he would to fight on Zeta Halo without an AI helper?

[coarse hamlet]

there was a whole thing in halo 5 where the ais were being evil. being made during that joyeuse was designed to be deleted after blowing up cortant with chief being aware of all of this

[strange pumice]

I know that Cortana turned evil in Halo 5 and know why Joy was created
I'm asking if Chief actually deleted her, how he would travel across Zeta Halo without help from AI?

[stoic hamlet]

He’s spent more time without an AI than with one. From his clock, as it were, he’s only spent around 12 days total with Cortana, compared to 27 years beforehand.

He’d be fine without an AI.

[vagrant ocean]

Same way he navigated planets for 20+ years during the war.

[carmine sleet]

Also during the scene where Chief tries to delete Joy, he saw Joy was being attacked by Harbinger through Zeta Halo's network. He had to make a choice, let Joy be compromised or delete her

He didn't know Joy was using her intrusion routines to trick Harbinger

[obsidian thistle]

Plus its a great scene that just flows with the themes of the story.

[tired mist]

I have a question for those more knowledgable then myself, and perhaps this is the wrong chat to ask it in, idk. I am writing my Halo characters story, and part of it takes place during theHalo 3 mission "The Ark." There's an expression going around of "If you can't imaging your Batman comforting a scared child, you didn't write Batman, you wrotr Punisher in a funny hat." Would a similar sentiment ring true for Chief? "If you can't imagine your version of Chief comforting a dying Soldier, you didn't write Chief, you wrote Doom Slayer in another suit of armor."

[carmine sleet]

I wouldn't say Doom Slayer is comparable to Punisher beyond the fact they both use guns

[tired mist]

Not to make that comparison, more of writing a heartless Chief, it would be more like writing the single minded killing machine that is Doom Slayer.

[wintry sleet]

Quick question: what are those little pods all the spartan kids are held in at the starting scene of h4 called?

[vagrant ocean]

Those are prolly just bunks. Or they’re medical beds.

[wintry sleet]

They look odd though: trapping them all in plastic bubbles

I dunno if it's called just a bunk or sum else

[high ember]

Thats where the augmentations took place

[vagrant ocean]

Prolly a medical bed like I said.

[high ember]

Its explained in Ghosts Of Onyx

[wintry sleet]

I appreciate you both for answering my question, thank you ^^

[modest marsh]

They show up again in The Fall of Reach animated series

They’re just the beds that the kids slept on for some reason

Personally I think that’s just an artistic license thing and shouldn’t be taken seriously because it’s meant to look dramatic and exaggerate the isolating and dehumanizing conditions of their upbringing

[wintry sleet]

They just confused me because they were locked into a confined space, and it doesn't resemble the regular military barracks we know. I was trying to get a name for it, as I am currently writing a fic.

[wintry sleet]

I see I see, just wondering!

[modest marsh]

Spartan-IIs were augmented at 14, not when they were little kids

The Birth of a Spartan live action trailer may also fall under artistic license in terms of representing how Spartans are actually augmented

[sterile portal]

Hey, i wanna to read comics from Halo, but i don't know all the comics, until now
Only the novels i know where to find and a anime, animated movie and some live-action products

[vagrant ocean]

The following are Halo comics.

The Halo Graphic Novel
Halo: Uprising
Halo: HellJumper
Halo: Blood Line
Halo: Fall of Reach
Halo: Initiation
Halo: Escalation
Halo: Tales From Slipspace
Halo Wars: Genesis
Halo: Collateral Damage
Halo 3: The Cradle of Life
Halo: Lone Wolf
Halo: Rise of Atriox

I’m sure you can find them online.

[sterile portal]

Are these all the comics?

Or are there more?

[vagrant ocean]

All of those are comics.

All the ones made so far.

[sterile portal]

I see, thanks

[vagrant ocean]

Np

[stoic hamlet]

Ah, did I miss a discussion about Spartan emotions and empathy?

Man….

[stoic hamlet]

I disagree on that.

I also think that expression is reductive to some of the better Batman’s over the years.

One of the best batmen in the form of the Animated series one quite literally doesn’t comfort or see a dying child in Annie, whereas Robin does.

Robert Pattinson’s Batman in Batman also isn’t exactly the comforting type. He spends 99% of the movie discarding comfort at all, and it’s only when he’s directly confronted with the fact that his actions have made a ton of misguided copycats that he actually tries to go for the good-hearted approach. It’s one of the best aspects of the movie, I’d argue.

That all said, we see John ignore empathy in Infinite, even, with Fernando until the end of the game. One of the better instances of this is when John first meets Fernando, where he goes right into assessing mode. He does the same thing when they’re shot down by the AA guns.

He’s not heartless, but he’s got bigger and better things to worry about than comforting someone.

But he does hurt, ww see this with how Grace and Samuel’s death’s affect him. He just closes himself off intentionally.

[tired mist]

I think thats the best answer someone could give, thank you. I've played Halo for almost 18 years at this point, but I'm so used to Silent Protagonist Chief, or the 343 Emotional Chief, and then the book chief... He only has a small cameo in my story, but I want to make sure I do him right, yknow?

[stoic hamlet]

I’d suggest reading the books, Fall of Reach, First Strike, The Flood, Silent Storm, Oblivion, and Shadows of Reach to get his mentality down.

Also the short story Palace Hotel

[tired mist]

I read FoR, FS, and TF many many many many years ago, maybe two or three after they came out.

For Miranda, Johnson, and the other vharacters, I'm just pulling dialogue straight from thr script of Halo 3. But since Chief doesn't talk, I have to fill him in so to speak, him ordering the ODSTs, things like that.

[stoic hamlet]

I’d highly suggest reading Silent Storm and Oblivion, or Shadows of Reach, then.

It features him working with UNSC forces, and his thoughts on the hero-worship and way everyone treats him (TLDR he doesn’t like it).

[tired mist]

Gotcha. I'm not really showing the Hero-worship since most of the time he's in the story they are in combat with the Covenant. My character really looks up tp him bevuase he saves her from a Hunter (the ones you fight after the 2nd group of enemies under the unfinished AA gun)

He didn't really go out of his way to save her, he had already killed the other hunter and was coming to help with the second. She just happened to be the one in its crosshair.

It really has been a blast writing out my 2nd favorite mission in story form

[modest marsh]

The perspective I tend to have is that Master Chief specifically is a character straddled with the burden of being the platonic ideal of a statuesque, stoic hero who is unwilling to “selfishly” entertain having deeper emotional connections or shows of affection towards anyone, even those he clearly does have a close personal relationship with

All Spartans are stoics, it’s one of Ancient Sparta’s oldest stereotypes, that even among the regressive Greeks they were uniquely antisocial

Spartans developed their own methodology of expressing their feelings towards each other, manifesting as camaraderie or rivalry that few outsiders would understand

This largely leaves them poorly equipped to engage with others in contexts outside of the professional because it is functionally speaking a different language, but this is also partly deliberate

I think Chief’s behavior in 4-Infinite is clearly supposed to be atypical, he’s being even more closed off than usual because of the “distracting” nature of the situation that is causing him emotional distress (exasperating an already fatigued psyche from decades of war that nearly wiped out all of humanity and most of his fellow Spartans)

There’s a moment in The Flood where he nearly cracks when Major Silva is deliberately trying to provoke him at his most vulnerable

He does this by not only mocking the (presumed) untimely demise of all surviving Spartan-IIs at Reach, but also ordering him to report to him without his armor, removing that layer of protection that helps him feel comfortable not only in battle but also in social situations

[modest marsh]

Chief seeing himself as more of a statue, or that failing to uphold a particular image, is also an idea explored in the Hunt the Truth promotional campaign

There’s a lingering insinuation that Chief in particular being flawed, either due to self doubt, ethical mistakes, lack of accountability, or failure to perform consistently in the miraculous way he’s known to is an unacceptable betrayal of his duty

ONI seemed to think this was the case on some level too after the UNSC had effectively deified him after the events of the war only for him to “come back from the dead”, opening up the possibility of tarnishing his image in the process

[thorn spindle]

i hope chief is drinking enough water

[tired mist]

Hes not

[wispy pewter]

Chief quite literally sat down beside the pilot in Infinite

But then again Spartans are soldiers, they are not superheroes in spandex

[modest marsh]

The suit recycles all excreted moisture so he should be relatively well hydrated

[high ember]

Reduce reuse recycle

[minor sky]

https://www.halopedia.org/File:HaloMovie_ReachEvac_Concept.jpg#mw-jump-to-license

It is a pitty that a Spielberg-produced Fall of Reach film didn't happen

Fall of Reach really does feel like something that'd flow into a big screen adaptation quite naturally

[minor sky]

Though I think down the line it might create issues with how you'd handle adapting later stories

You'd introduce all these characters in this hypothetical Fall of Reach movie before having to move over to Halo CE where they aren't present. But by the time you get to Halo 2 you have to ask if you want to adapt First Strike and follow up TFoR and what happened to its cast of characters or just jump into Halo 2

[minor sky]

And then you run into the issue of either splitting Halo 2 and 3's narratives into two films or trying to make it work as one finale

[warm ridge]

That's just the Primordial. They can take any shape they see fit, even a sandwich.
In Halo: Outcasts, 2 of them appear as glowing orbs / lights.
In Halo: Point of Light, one of them turned themselves into a plant.
The Flood does not turn anyone into Precursors, not at all.

[minor sky]

Even a sandwich
Oh no.

The Primordial was on Zeta Halo in 2560

https://www.halopedia.org/Giant_sandwich

Think about it. The Precursors turned themselves into dust which was corrupted. When the dust was discovered by ancient humanity it got fed to their dogs, slowly infecting them.
The Primordial is doing it again, but this time he has taken the form of a delicious sandwhich, which any starving solider trapped on Zeta Halo would happily eat

You ever see that 80s horror-satire, The Stuff?
(i haven't)

I just realized that movie has a similar series of events as Ancient-Humanity's Flood outbreak. Humans find strange thing, said thing is found to be appealing and enters mass-use, only for it to be revealed to be a living organism that infects people

[warm ridge]

I just said that because it's true, they can literally take any shape. It's in the lore. I really don't think people realize that the Precursors don't have a "true form".

So yea, one of them could turn themselves into a sandwich. Another could just be a Human.

I don't actually believe the Dust itself was ever corrupted. I think the dust being separated misconfigured the original forums, altering the DNA of whatever it touched. Like it says, at 1st the alterations were seen as positive.

Over many generations (and this dust now being gone / no longer relevant), these alterations created extremely harmful mutations.

[obsidian thistle]

I think they might have at one point. But their use of the domain so early on in the history of the universe changed the path they would have went

Much like Forerunner Domain is a misnomer.

I firmly believe Precursor Domain is also one.

[warm ridge]

I'm a firm believer the Precursors created the Domain specifically with the intent for it to be a knowledge base "lesser life forms (any species the Precursors created)" could use, not that the Domain had already existed.

Precursors themselves never lost any knowledge, or however it is they remember things in the 1st place.
The Primordial didn't need to access the Domain in order to give the Flood additional knowledge on things after all.

[wheat quarry]

Lies Chief loves water.

[minor sky]

Yes I know. I was just being silly

[prime mauve]

Chief deserves that ice cold glass of water at 3 am

[wheat quarry]

Yes and a smooch...

[prime mauve]

Agreed!

[stoic hamlet]

Everyone who’s good and headpattable deserves a smooch! It’s just right.

[wheat quarry]

Just Jerome, Chief, and Olivia.

[stoic hamlet]

Interesting choices.

I’d add Fred, Lucy, and Holly to that list. (Speaking more to the headpats)

Maybe Ash, as well, though I think he just needs a hug, lol

[wheat quarry]

Fred in the books yes, Fred in the comics and halo 5 no.

Ash just needs a hug, and therapy.

I would also add Spark to the list, but that's because I like my sassy war criminal.

[stoic hamlet]

Can’t forget Daisy.

[wheat quarry]

Is she still canon?

I thought most of the animated stuff was retconed

[stoic hamlet]

The only one that isn’t canon is Odd One Out.

All the others are canon, but not necessarily visually accurate.

Though even if Homecoming wasn’t canon, Daisy appears in Silent Storm.

[slim salmon]

Well I mean, they could.

It's just been lost to time or smth
Maybe their true form is an ant

[coarse hamlet]

The list has one name on it and why is it emile?

[minor sky]

I think so. Chief's care for the well-being of his fellow soliders is something that is heavily entrinched with his character from his first apperance in The Fall of Reach to today

I.e. his refusal to leave any of the other Spartan II trainees behind on a training mission where John was told that he'd have to leave one of them behind

Or everything that happened with Browning in Edge of Dawn

[pale saffron]

question

Is jai-006 noble 6?

[unique rune]

no

Jai is almost 20 years older than B312

[carmine sleet]

Plus Jai is a Spartan II, Six is a III

[prime mauve]

His number being a 6 and armor on the cover of The Cole Protocol resembling Noble 6's are just very indirect coincidences too

[stoic hamlet]

So all grey Spartans look alike to you, is that it? :p

But yeah it’s just coincidence, though funnily enough not the first time people have made it.

Before Reach released even, people were speculating on whether Jai was B-312 due to the similarities of armour. Though that’s because both were designed by Issac Hannaford.

[prime mauve]

One edition of the cover even has the same knife as Noble 6 but yeah it's more about Isaac Hannaford's designs

[wispy pewter]

Would headpet Lucy, but she might punch me unless I am Tom

[pale saffron]

ty

im currently on a run to read all the books

i got confused

but thanks

[vagrant ocean]

Yes.

[minor sky]

"My lawyer advised me not to answer that question"

[warm ridge]

It's like how every Spartan that's green & uses Mark VI armor is automatically classified as Chief even when it isn't

[minor sky]

I've brought this idea up once before but I do wonder if Abbadon would've been a better fit for the villain to lead the Created. Much as I love the Ur-Didact, I can see some benifit to the idea of using his apperance in Halo 4 serving as a way to introduce players to Forerunner Trilogy stuff. And then you could fold that in with Precursor/Mantle stuff

[obsidian thistle]

I am admittedly fond of the Will Believe theory. Where Will was thought to be Master Chief during the Second Battle of Mombasa!

[wispy pewter]

Nah

To me it’s anyone in the green MK IV

Since they have similar helmets

[prime mauve]

"Please pose for the camera, Master Chief."
"I'm not John but since my actual rank has not been released I might just be a Master Chief...okay, I'll pose, the sooner we do this the sooner I can go punch a hunter."

[minor sky]

"Does anybody else find it weird how there are four Master Chiefs on the cover of The Fall Of Reach?"

[carmine sleet]

"Clearly it's because they cloned Master Chief and are using those clones to fight the Covenant!"

[stoic hamlet]

Honestly though it’d be hilarious if Will, Joshua, and etc were all MCPO’s.

[prime mauve]

"Master Chief?"
And the whole team turns around

[silk marten]

From greatest to least, which UNSC ships (minus infinity) were considered dangerous to covenant ships?

[visual fern]

i feel like that is completly based on what they are armed with, due to the fact that not many of the covanent ships were weaker than the strongest UNSC ships

[unique rune]

I don't think it's really something you can rank in any sort of order

pretty much anything with a MAC will be able to put some holes in a Covenant ship even if it has shielding

[visual fern]

any one of the UNSC ships could potentially take down a covenant ship so long as they have havoc nuclear bombs

[coarse hamlet]

Id wager the punic just for raw tonnage

[unique rune]

ships like the Halcyon-class have their own weird structural quirks that make them more durable on top of high tonnage increasing survivability

[coarse hamlet]

Specifically pillar of autumn with cortana at the helm was absurd. While under fire by heavy cruiser battlegroups getting 3 to 4 kills while then landing is a feat

[visual fern]

thats true, i think they can have holes in all compartments and still be essentialy perfectly functional

[visual fern]

part of the reason for this could be because the covenant were attempting to capture the ship though

[coarse hamlet]

Its still absurd

[prime mauve]

And the kill against the sniper ship in The Fall of Reach, that one was amazing. The sniper ship had the range advantage, it could jump to slipspace, it had shields, it probably moved faster even in real space. And the Autumn 1v1'd it and won.

[tight badge]

Has a spartan other than a IV and I ever cried

[carmine sleet]

It's been a while, but pretty sure Randal cried during Halo Nightfall, he was a II

[vagrant ocean]

And it makes sense why since he lost his daughter.

[carmine sleet]

Indeed

[vagrant ocean]

Cal-141 cried.

[carmine sleet]

I forgot about Cal crying

[vagrant ocean]

I’d cry too if I had my skull crushed by a hammer.

[obsidian thistle]

RIP the only confirmed Spartan 2.1

[vagrant ocean]

Due to her early death we have no data on if any of the augmentations carried over. The unethical scientist in me is mildly irritated.

Maybe if Maria has a kid with whatever poor (lucky) man she married.

We’ll have data on that.

[wispy pewter]

The ones with the biggest Macs

[minor sky]

How did she manage to even retire?

The war wasn't even over when she was testing out the Mark VI armor

[unique rune]

early lore moment

[modest marsh]

She was in the reserves performing armor testing and presumably other roles

She was still useful to the UNSC, just not fielded into combat

Although recently it was confirmed she was at Reach

[prime mauve]

Maybe she saved some admiral or something during her escape from Reach and "convinced" them to let her retire already. Or maybe she gave Halsey a very good argument about her plans to make many Spartan 2.1's.

[vagrant ocean]

Prolly was deployed to somewhere on Earth during the invasion. Maybe London?

[prime mauve]

I think she'd make sense as one of the Spartans in Agryna's memory

She and Naomi could fit

[wispy pewter]

Yes. Another fodder for the UNSC

[vagrant ocean]

Fodder? It wouldn’t be a Marine.

[wispy pewter]

If she has a kid, chances are they will join the UNSC or become some peaceful monk

Unless there is some crazy nepotism going on

[prime mauve]

I think she's likelier than most parents to encourage a path in the armed forces but also to warn them about the realities of it

[vagrant ocean]

If she has a kid ONI will be observing them closely.

Especially given the existence of 1.1s.

[stoic hamlet]

With the fact she’s still in the reserves and testing armour, clearly she still supports the military.

There’s a theory that she’s essentially “made a deal” with ONI, and not actually retired but just reassigned to permanent Earth defence.

Considering she was present for RED FLAG, this seems the most likely.

[vagrant ocean]

Yeh.

[half pike]

do odsts have built in night vision or do they use nods?

[vagrant ocean]

Built in I think.

[carmine sleet]

VISR mode (Which is what we see in ODST for night vision) is built into their helmets

[modest marsh]

In The Flood they have separate night vision goggles but that novel was written when ODSTs and regular Marines were intended to be more similar

It’s possible that conventional NVGs are still used but as stated, the proliferation of VISR technology means that this doesn’t seem necessary in most cases

One of the vidocs for H3 ODST does imply that the VISR implementation seen in the game is a late war development and therefore it’s possible that the low light enhancement we get wasn’t innately possible before the upgrades that Buck alludes to

[ionic tiger]

I feel like low-light vision is going to become a generalized augmentation that filters down into the rank and file. You can still have VISR tech, but having a backup would be helpful.

[modest marsh]

Meridian Divide is kinda flippant with how it depicts helmet visor magnification although it’s not clear if that’s a consequence of ONI kit or not

He tapped the side of his helmet and zoomed in on the site. The drill was enormous, much bigger than the Locust he and the others had taken down before—it was as big as the surrounding houses, if not bigger. However, the plasma beam it emitted was wider and brighter. Victor counted five Elites on the ground, and none of them looked like they were equipped to fight. They stood in a clump, conferring together, their eyes fixed on the drill. Grunts churned around them, jumping up and down, knocking up against one another. A pack of Brutes at the edge of the scene bellowed at the Grunts with triumphant nods.

Celebrating, Victor realized with a cold slow creep of dread. They’re celebrating.

Immediately, he zoomed in as far as his HUD would take him. The image was blurred a little at the edges, but he could still make out the beam of the drill shooting straight into the ground, ringed by the charred wreckage of the neighborhood. The light flickered and burned at his eyes.

The gear that the Battleborn kids got isn’t exactly well defined but this would suggest whatever they got has integrated/miniaturized digital image enhancement as of 2549(?) at least

[hexed bobcat]

Hey i was referred to ask in this channel, how do can we get kammyshep to become a legitimate certified lore expert?

[modest marsh]

i think kammyshep is probably better than a lot of self proclaimed halo experts based on some of the videos ive seen of his but there's enough ive disagreed with him about that i wouldnt consider him notably authoritative

this is just par for the course when it comes to short form content creators but i take issue with the fact that he and others like him dont provide specific citations for certain claims within the video from the source material or provide overly simplistic answers with a degree of confidence that i think is a little unbecoming

[minor sky]

It is kind of funny how the Halo TV Series still used Requiem in its key-art/promotional images

[hexed bobcat]

When he makes a video or sets of videos its a little obvious where he's getting his information, like most recently with Kilo-5 you can obviously pin point where he's getting the info

[modest marsh]

im not saying he doesnt do research (certainly more research than the halopedia plagiarizers in the community) but if it were up to me I think including the relevant excerpts from the text are a bare minimum when discussing the literature with confidence

[hexed bobcat]

Now i will agree when he is responding to someone's questions he forgets or simply does not verbally say where he is getting his answers

[modest marsh]

as far as i know its not really a violation of TOS or copyright to include relevant text in a youtube video so there isnt really a reason to not do this

[hexed bobcat]

But i will argue, that kammyshep is the only halo content creator that has made halo lore consumable for those unwilling or unable to dive head first into the deep lore on top of the fact with his long term videos he makes it very easy to follow

On top of he has made his own version of a halo encyclopedia by merging all the books to be chronological order

[minor sky]

He is the Youtuber who has come closest to scratching the same itch Halo Canon did

[prime mauve]

The world would be best if content creators used APA format citations, yes

[modest marsh]

im not even asking for that lol

[prime mauve]

It's been like 7 years since I've had to cite anything with the format and I still wake up in a cold sweat fearing I cited something wrong for a project lmao

[somber idol]

In the early Halo trilogy when Forerunner where indeed human, from where the flood would come from?

[modest marsh]

Their name and the entire biblical framing of Halo’s narrative would suggest they are a form of divine retribution by a higher power, so not unlike the current lore insofar as the broad strokes

It gets trickier when you try to interrogate what “god” or “gods” were intended to exist under the pre-halo 4 lore

It’s been suggested by former Bungie staff that one interpretation of the forerunners was that while they originated as protohumans, and they had been uplifted by an unknown precursor race, which is also not too different from what the current fiction entails

If you take Sandy Petersen at his word, the Flood literally want to reset the entire universe, although I would take his comments with a heaping mountain of salt given his flippant “recollections”

[carmine sleet]

The idea of the Flood wanting to "reset the entire universe" is feeling similar to the Reapers from Mass Effect and how they "reset the Milky Way" whenever society has reached a certain stage

[modest marsh]

I think the main issue I have with the entire universal scale idea is that nearly the entirety of halo’s fiction concerns itself with the Milky Way galaxy specifically, and only a small part of it

The stakes being raised to affect all reality, both past and future, is a massive escalation

[carmine sleet]

Aye. Like, beyond the happenings on the Orion Arm, we really don't have much detailing everywhere else in the galaxy in the modern day

[modest marsh]

The gun pointed at the head of the universe turned out to not be halo after all?

[prime mauve]

Honestly Mass Effect did it pretty well all things considered so I'm glad it has been changed.

[carmine sleet]

Aye. Reminds me I need to replay the trilogy again and work on a video I've been putting off for quite some time

[minor sky]

Not the first time Bungie lore makes reference towards a god-like being as something related to the ocean

The Flood and Forerunners were more or less a another variation of the Jjaro and the W’rkncacnter

"Ancient civilization with ties to humanity and worshiped by another alien species. They did battle with an ancient Eldritch abomination before vanishing from the universe"

Obviously they aren't one in the same but the broad strokes are similar

[atomic stump]

I am reading Ghosts of Onyx for the first time. I am trying to keep my expectations low. I know there have been a million retcons since then and all these characters are being written by different authors now.

[atomic stump]

Bro, they put a 20 year old in charge of training the Spartan IIIs....

I guess there weren't any older Spartan IIs available.

The Purple Heart is canon.... Even in the 26th century after all of humans have be united into a single country, George Washington is still on a medal.

This book was written to pander to me specifically.

Even 700 years into the future, they still have not taken George Washington off the Purple Heart for owning slaves. Unfathomably based.

You cannot cancel this man.

[carmine sleet]

Halo isn't set 700 years from now

[atomic stump]

700 years after Washington died

(He invented the Purple Heart)

[frigid heart]

What?

[prime mauve]

I think keeping the tradition was probably more valued than changing the face on the medal to someone better accepted by modern sensibilities

[coarse hamlet]

Very silly if true

Does the unsc also give out victoria crosses?

[stoic hamlet]

There’s no indication that the Purple Heart hasn’t been changed in terms of iconography.

By and large though I’d assume, if Halo were written by anyone who isn’t a yank (or just someone more wordly) the constant uses of US terms, medals, and etc, wouldn’t have happened.

Unfortunately, Halo was made by a US Team with US biases, despite the UNSC being supposedly “UN”.

Though, on the point of “all humans being in a single country” that’s not true, either.

We know of several countries still on Earth as of the 2550’s.

[atomic stump]

It is goofy and weird that they give out Purple Hearts. But I also respect the balls of the writers to just assume that if all of humanity unified into a single country they would use US medals.

Cause what other country would be able to unite all of the other countries?

[stoic hamlet]

You’re assuming it was done via force of arms. But that’s not true, as far as we can tell.

From some early lore, the US dissolved and was reformed along with Canada and Mexico into the “Unified Republics of North America.”

(How Canada became a republic, but remained Canada is anyone’s guess).

But TLDR: there is no US, there hasn’t been for centuries by the time of Halo’s games.

[prime mauve]

URNA was still in the lore in Halo 4 when New Phoenix got Composed

[stoic hamlet]

It’s still around now.

We know from Contact Harvest there is no “US” anymore, but Kilo-5 clarifies that Canada still exists as a recognized place.

[prime mauve]

I think New Phoenix was the latest major lore thing for the URNA. Maybe when Thorne goes home in the comics?

[stoic hamlet]

(Other nations known about include the East African Protectorate, and Korea: a unified one.)

[prime mauve]

Unless something has been mentioned in the canon fodders

[stoic hamlet]

The Hydra MLRS-2 (from Infinite) is stated to be made in Seattle, URNA.

It has a proof mark/label on the grip.

That’s the most up to date mention of the URNA, I believe.

[coarse hamlet]

I wanna say the eu still existed in some capacity but no idea what source that was from

[carmine sleet]

Is the UK part of it again?

[coarse hamlet]

2576 the uk hold a referendum to brexit from the unsc /j

[unique rune]

Brexit 2: They Learned Nothing Boogaloo

[atomic stump]

I assume people pay taxes to the UNSC. There is no way the UNSC could fight an interstellar war on credit and Patreon.

I suppose it is possible that the URNA also collects taxes in the same way I pay state, local, and federal taxes.

[unique rune]

taxes would probably be collected by the UEG which would in turn direct funding to the UNSC
but I would imagine that is generally how it works

[minor sky]

I'm sorry what?

[last spoke]

If anything, i think the reason why the Purple Heart still bears George Washington's image is because Bungie just didn't think that much about it, that and the fact that Halo is just a US franchise.

In the original context, it's just another medal that Hood, Johnson and the others have in the ceremony, and Bungie wouldn't have wasted time deciding if a medal should be changed to fit a united world or not, specially when Halo 2's development was already turbulent and chaotic.

[stoic hamlet]

Yeah, but the context it was brought up in here (Ghosts of Onyx) it’s not actually stated if it has any specific person on the medal.

It’s just termed “a purple heart”.

There’s precedent for this.

In most commonwealth nations, the Victoria Cross is still given out… but the actual medal is no longer the same design as the original. The name ahd station is kept, though.

[vagrant ocean]

Correct.

[vagrant ocean]

That design changes in H2A.

[atomic stump]

I really hope the references to the USNC in Ghosts of Onyx is a typo.

Chapter 13 for those interested.

[vagrant ocean]

Prolly a typo. Happens all the time.

[wispy pewter]

Gmail - Galaxy Mail

[wraith garden]

what I don't get is that did the precursors by default seeded life and consume them (flood is not a mistake hence) or were they just minding there on buisness till forunners got a deep ich and made precursors(primoridal and his fellows) loose their minds and infect the sh out of the galaxy

[modest marsh]

while the precursors are identified as fulfilling "transcendence", I wouldnt jump to call their motivations or choices monolithic

they are still made up of individuals who may have felt differently about what their role in the universe was

same with the forerunners for that matter

that being said, the conventional understanding is that the Forerunners were viewed as a failed attempt at finding an appropriate steward for the galaxy by the precursors, and thus they would inevitably (from the Forerunners' point of view) dismantle their empire to make way for a new chosen people to take charge (what would be known as the Ancestors or ancient humans)

thus the forerunners attacked preemptively out of concern of being unmade by their creators or at the very least striped of their status as the holders of the Mantle

i dont think its meant to be all that clear cut whether or not the precursors intended to follow through on replacing the forerunners, and it could be this was all a mistake

in any case, the Forerunners' capacity and willingness for genocide may be what disqualified them to uphold the mantle in the eyes of the precursors, even if the cause was self-preservation

[wraith garden]

so who is the criminal here forunners ego?

[modest marsh]

when a child misbehaves, do we blame them or the parent?

its a philosophical quandry because you could argue that the precursors involving themselves at all, trying to form a hierarchical system that must be competed for, was the original sin

[minor sky]

I mean wasn't the point of the Mantle for it to be a test of worthiness

You either take it for yourself (not worthy) or reject it/share it (worthy)

[jade cape]

at the same time though like a huge portion of the forerunners were just downright ignorant and childish of the precursor’s wishes to hand the mantle to humanity

the decision to just settle for mass devolving an entire species ontop of near-genocide only proves the point that the vast majority of the forerunners were past the point of being worthy of the mantle

the reason humanity was chosen for the mantle was because of their potential as a species, ontop of being more advanced than the forerunners (among a couple other things)

when the forerunners found out, there was a massive debate within their own society about how they would respond, and the didact and almost the entire class of warrior servants took it as an opportunity to wage an entire galaxy wide sucker-punch of a war against humanity for no other reason than jealousy and intolerance

they also completely fumbled the ball in handling the flood, which is another topic entirely

[modest marsh]

The basis of the mantle itself is flawed

No one species is “worthy” of ruling over all the others

[jade cape]

this is also true

but also

we’re talking about a race of aliens that were unknowable gods who could do anything

impossibly confounding, mysterious, almost antithetical logic in my opinion is to be expected to a degree

however

it’s interesting that they had a view of a galactic hierarchy in a sense

they believed the most advanced, prosperous race had the duty to help advance and care for less advanced species & races

the forerunners just believed it belonged to them by right out of pure hubris mostly

[minor sky]

More or less.

I believe that the Mantle was the right idea for the Post-War era. Having humanity/the elites/whoever reject the mantle seems like a natural conclusion

Working together out of a mutual respect rather than dominating through force

I hope the story is still leaning in that direction with the Arbiter's concert of worlds but time will tell

[jade cape]

I mean, think of it this way:

the current galaxy of halo has a hard enough time just understanding what the mantle is, let alone forerunner technology at all, or the fact that humanity are the intended inheritors of what the forerunners left behind

you can basically kiss any chance of the greater mystery ever being understood by the galaxy’s current inhabitants goodbye, and that’s not even mentioning the flood will probably be the end of everything anyway

the most advanced race in the galaxy so far, couldn’t even accept that the technology wasn’t even meant for any of the covenant races, even when mendicant bias said so himself

It’s a bit of a cycle in halo thematically that ancient knowledge and truths lost to history, will forever remain misinterpreted

[minor sky]

Hm. Yeah that makes sense

[jade cape]

As the fans we’re basically just Matthew McConaughey screaming behind the bookshelf in interstellar hoping someone finally figures it out (I’m team humanity personally)

[minor sky]

It is kind of hard for me to really visualize where Halo's story should go when it very much doesn't have an ending (it makes money for Microsoft)

Doesn't help this franchise can't stick to a narrative thread to save its life

[jade cape]

I mean— as far as the forerunner ancient mystery stuff is concerned? It’s way harder to pin down.

for now? Flood resurgence & the Banished war is enough, they just need a broader category of stories beyond green space man running around another Halo ring saving the galaxy again

I can’t even tell you how much I would pay for another ODST game done right

or Halo Wars 3

both of those are pipe dreams most likely however

quite honestly my biggest gripes with the current ongoing canon & narratives are mostly just the way they’ve sort of lazily introduced rogue/compromised/flood Spartans

[minor sky]

The Flood really only work as a finale to the series

I mean, ultimately, you'd wind up just doing Halo 3 "again"

[somber idol]

To me the franchise need a retcon after H3, things did go on too many direction from there

[wispy pewter]

Well yeah a new studio took over

[somber idol]

That's not my point

I'm not talking about a potential new direction that would have been taken After a new studio took over a licence

I'm talking about the multiples direction that this studio took after each games resulting in a "trilogy" that don't have much sens, either some sort of continuity

Everything is a clearly mess after H3

Just try to play H4, H5 and Infinite in a row and tell me where the story is going and most of all the link between those 3 games
There is barely somes

[wispy pewter]

You're right

they rely too much on books to fill the gaps

[somber idol]

That's not the only issue there

Aside Of that fact that the games are poorly written, when you go from H4 to H5 its difficult tho understand where they are trying to head with the story and most of all why the story don't seems to fit well

[wispy pewter]

I do not even think 4,5 and Infinite were meant to be some connected trilogy

[somber idol]

Yes Indeed but they are least need to have some continuity

If not then don't name Halo 5 with a 5

The true reason is that's people disliked thoses story so they were "forced" to move along with it

[wispy pewter]

Yeah people complained how they moved the entire cortana storyline into the books

[somber idol]

Yes but that's because this story suck

Like what was the next step for the next games?

Continue to fight promethean robots and IA ?

[wispy pewter]

get out of Halo 07

[atomic stump]

I don't know if we got a fully fleshed out backstory to the start of the insurrection but in my mind a revolution in space would loosely follow Mike Duncan's series on the Martian Revolution. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OViD87CKftM

[stoic hamlet]

I mean, tbf, the Created as a concept are much better in a book series, than a traditional FPS.

They rely on a lot of dialogue and philosophical discussion about the nature of free will and servitude, and if your game isn’t built to really discuss that, (Halo isn’t) then it’ll never really land.

[atomic stump]

There is a moment in Ghosts of Onyx where Halsey "hacks" Endless Summer by giving it an existential crisis. I do think Eric had cutting room floor ideas of human-AI conflict and how that would potentially look.

[obsidian thistle]

Yea it sucks Halo 5 did a lotta pretty interesting stuff with the Created.

BUT

You had to wait in areas for dialogue to trigger otherwise the dialogue would skip. Which wasnt great

[chrome apex]

Is the Warden a promethean harbinger?

[somber idol]

Wdym

[chrome apex]

Or specifically a promethean xalanyn

[unique rune]

no

[chrome apex]

He definitely looks like one though.

[somber idol]

No..

And i don't think at the time of H5 they had the idea of the Endless

And either the idea of what they will look like

[unique rune]

I guess if you squint there’s kind of some similarities in their silhouettes
but also not really that strong a resemblance

[somber idol]

Yes but no

[prime mauve]

The Warden's connection to the Xalanyn is very indirect if anything. He is a keeper of the Domain, and Abaddon, the Xalanyn's creator, was the Domain's overseer. So the Domain and their roles with it could be considered a connection and thus have him tangentially but not directly related. We don't know if the Warden even interacted at all with Abaddon directly, the old construct had pretty much receded and faded into legend by the time of the Flood war and only showed that he was still around a time or two.

Abaddon's connection to the Guardians, that hasn't really been explored yet, could also have some other connection to the Warden Eternal. His skull face definitely resembles the Guardians' "face", while the shape of the Guardian's body is pretty much 100% Abaddon's. There could be no intended connection there but I feel like his involvement in a plot about Guardians really could be implying something.

[somber idol]

I don't understand why they didn't keeped the first guardians shape

The one from the reveal trailer

This one look great and better than the final ones

[prime mauve]

It had bigger shards and looked more connected than the final version

[karmic osprey]

So to be clear, the Guardians have full control over earth and Sanghelios

And nearly every other major planet

And it will probably never be mentioned in a videogame again

Like the Endless

343/Halo Studios has to stop making Campaigns end on a teaser because they always abandon the story

[jade cape]

I was under the impression the whole created uprising thing was very short lived and the banished filled that narrative role with HW2 & Infinite relatively quickly

[rigid dawn]

Interesting...

[jade cape]

It would’ve been cool to see any kind of actual plot resolution to Halo 5 beyond audio logs

But I digress

the gamers thirst for more Halo rings

actually that’s disingenuous, I blame an overly sanitized narrative direction, not even so much fan backlash from 5

I think the last really interesting thing Halo did story wise with the main games were 4 & 5’s campaigns, despite the execution & fan reception

first time we see blue team in the games, now they’re permanently & exclusively relegated to books & audio log references

[carmine sleet]

Considering how Edge of Dawn ends, I wouldn't jump to the conclusion the Endless are going to be swept away off screen

[stoic hamlet]

They no longer do after the events of Empty Throne.

[karmic osprey]

I remember when you didnt have to read 8 books before playing a campaign

[atomic stump]

Halo 4 works perfectly fine if we fought Brutes instead of Elites. One simple change. Trying to explain to the player why we are fighting Elites again is so bad.

[cold geyser]

Thats why I wasn't a big fan because it felt so weird going to 4 from 3

[minor sky]

I think Elites were fine in the context of the post-war Galaxy and the civil-war on Sanghelios

The issue lays on how poorly Halo 4 used the Covenant

[unique rune]

4 stumbles around explaining it but the idea that "some of the Sangheili don't want to stop fighting humanity" isn't really that big a hurdle

[minor sky]

4 doesn't really do much with the Covenant beyond giving you something to shoot at

[unique rune]

in hindsight I think Halo 4 just kinda stumbles around like the teams working on the campaign and Spartan Ops weren't really communicating that well

[minor sky]

Iirc 4's sandbox lead said they went with the Elites because of player fatigue with the Brutes

[unique rune]

like surely there could've been a couple of cutscenes in the main campaign where Chief and Cortana just ask the Infinity crew what the deal is with 'Mdama's Covenant and stuff with the Prometheans
which could then tie in better with the Infinity/Spartan Ops storyline later

[carmine sleet]

I think holograms set up by Jul's Covenant to listen to sermons or speeches would've been nice as well

[minor sky]

Totally

I honestly with they just did what Infinite did with Warship Grabakon or however it is spelled

Revese Halo CE's opening with you boarding the enemy ship instead of them boarding yours

[atomic stump]

See but I think this plot point undermines the ending of Halo 3. And it was avoidable. They could have used Brutes or hell even Prometheans leading a covenant force.

I see your point though

[minor sky]

That and let us spend more time on Requiem before meeting the Didact. Have some more intrigue and lay down some plot points for later

[stoic hamlet]

I mean even in Ghosts of Onyx you have Sangheili under Xytan with shipmasters who were at Delta Halo, loyal to The Arbiter and fighting by his side peace out and join Xytan, who tells them all “we’re still fighting humanity” and no one objects.

And that book released before Halo 3, even.

[minor sky]

One issue I take with Halo 4 is how little it makes use of Requiem as a setting. We don't really get much of a rundown of what this planet is and what it was used for

[atomic stump]

I am reading Ghosts of Onyx now and yeah. I am starting to understand why we have so many covenant splinter factions.

im about 90% of the way through so you can spoil me. idc

[minor sky]

The OG trilogy did make good use of the Halo rings and making the areas you vist serve a specific purpose in the structure (Cartographer, Control Room, Library, Crashed Sentinel Factory, Ark Citadel, ect.)

4 has some of that with the Gravity Well and Pylons

But a lot of it feels a little too abstract or just isn't in service of much

[atomic stump]

I have to throw some shade on Nylund here. He introduces Xytan and then like 2 pages later he blows up (almost) the whole faction with a NOVA bomb. I haven't fully formed my thoughts on the book but Nylund suffers a bit of scatterbrain syndrome especially in GOO.

[minor sky]

Part it is probably the way missions are framed or how levels flow

[atomic stump]

Its like he has to tie up all these cliffhangers and loose ends from First Strike and that leads to some weird plot points. Like Halsey kidnaps Kelly and goes to Onyx and sends a distress message to Earth..... But Kurt could have just sent that message himself. There was no need to do a kidnapping.

And then Fred shows up to Onyx and finds Halsey and its like "Halsey you could have just stayed with us on the Gettysburg and followed us to Onyx".

[atomic stump]

still a great book though. The naval battles are definitely the highlight.

[warm ridge]

To be fair, over half of the structures mentioned here never appeared in most of those games either.

Halo CE had the most structures show up, but that's kinda it.

[minor sky]

All those structures are in the games

[warm ridge]

You never saw a crashed Sentinel manufacturing facility in Halo 1 or Halo 3. You never saw the Library in Halo 3. Never saw the Cartographer in Halo 2 or 3 either.

So no, they aren't.

[minor sky]

I was being specific to the games

Not saying they were all in each game of the trilogy

Also you do go into a crashed Sentinal Factory in 2

[warm ridge]

The point is you're trying to force multiple structures that showed up in multiple games into a single game, aka Halo 4.

Halo 4 showed a few structures, that's all it needed to do.

[warm ridge]

I meant Halo 3, not 2.

[minor sky]

My issue isn't with the quanity

It is with the context

[warm ridge]

Halo 4 Spartan Ops showed far more actually then any of the previous Halo titles did anyways in regards to structures & what they generally did.

There's a lot that got viewed & explained.
https://www.halopedia.org/Requiem#Locations

[minor sky]

If you want to go on a micro level, take the Satellites on Shutdown. While we are given specific reasons to venture into them, the interiors never really match up to their purpose

Take the shifting battlefield on one of the gondolla stops. This isn't a new idea to Halo, but the battlefield seems to shift just... because. There isn't any context driving the action of it.

[warm ridge]

I don't see the issue with it at all.

[minor sky]

Meanwhile Halo 2 does a similar thing with the Threashold Gasmine, where the conveyor belts are constantly moving with exploadable crates in either direction.

Same basic idea, but one has context that builds off the location while the other doesn't

[warm ridge]

It's more so something that just explains Halsey getting more desperate as time goes on. This is something that at one point, we were being leaded towards. That eventually ONI or someone in the UNSC would order Halsey to be killed.
Which yea, did happen (due to Halsey communicating with the enemy, but only so she could get the Forerunner Janus Key).
but at some point this whole plot got abandoned I'm guessing.

Even Halo 5 out right said it at the beginning, then absolutely nothing was done with it.

[minor sky]

Or when you first get the Hardlight Shield and you have that big laser seemingly producing them. That is just one room in an area with nothing else that fits the description of "manufacturing site"

Context is key to making an envrionment and story spring to life, and Halo 4 is very hit or miss at it

[unique rune]

that reminds me
I think Forerunner kinda sucks
what with all the constant teleporting between locations so you can shut the shield stuff down

feels like you never really get a good opportunity to grasp the space of the mission

I don't love the visuals of most of it either tbh

[minor sky]

The transit nexus was included because in earlier drafts of the game players were confused when they wound up in a new envrionment

[warm ridge]

..And we never see how these gas tanks are formed, what there purpose was for, or why the Forerunners were mining gas at all. It's just a bunch of gas tanks moving around for no apparent reason (and we're lead to believe this has been going on for hundreds of thousands of years, before the firing of the Halo array ever happened).

I really don't see the issue here.

[unique rune]

I guess in that sense Halo 4 accurately recreates CE's occasional thing of making you wander through confusing seemingly unending Forerunner hallways

[warm ridge]

They do build off the locations tho

[minor sky]

I dig the natural envrionments and I like the skybox, but the Forerunner structures don't do it for me. Cool of them to reference the Beam Emitter layout from Halo CE with the Pylons

[warm ridge]

The big laser wasn't producing them. They're just hardlight shield modules sitting next to it. I'm actually confused why you thought a laser had been producing them.

[minor sky]

It looked like the end of an assembly line

[minor sky]

I wish the skybox incorporated some Forerunner glyphs into the planet. Love when they do that with Forerunner structures

[warm ridge]

It wasn't. There's nothing in that room after the bridge area indicating any of that was a manufacturing facility at all.

[unique rune]

I feel like this is the exact problem of context they're getting at here

it's just some weird room that sits between a bridge and the terminus structure because... reasons?

There's hardlight shield modules because...?

[minor sky]

That is the point I'm getting at

[unique rune]

The laser doohickey is also present but it doesn't help you make sense of any of it

[warm ridge]

Pretty normal for Halo.

[unique rune]

I mean
not really

[minor sky]

Ehhhh. I think Bungie was pretty good at having things show up when they made sense to be there

[unique rune]

most of the time those kinds of things are placed in something meant to be in an armory or other cache

[minor sky]

https://www.halopedia.org/File:H4-RequiemForerunnerTech.png

[unique rune]

like Reach introduces you to jetpacks with the Bullfrogs and a room where they've got extra jetpacks and some weapons off to the side
or how on like

I think it's Uprising in Halo 2? there's a room filled with Covenant and UNSC weapons that's pretty evidently just where the Brutes have piled everything for storage

[minor sky]

I don't think I'm being dumb for thinking this looks like the end of an assembly line or some sort of manufacturing device

[unique rune]

agreed

[warm ridge]

It is?
There's stuff everywhere without any real explanation. I just provided one with Halo 2 & the whole gas mine.

[warm ridge]

Then the stuff makes perfect sense to be there in Halo 4?

[minor sky]

Or just little things like dead Marines with a health pack and ammo next to them

[warm ridge]

Doesn't need to.

[warm ridge]

It's a pretty bad point.

[warm ridge]

It looks nothing like one.

[minor sky]

Except, we are told it is a Gas Mine and there are crates of mined gas moving on conveyor belt

[unique rune]

you really didn't though
it's a gas mine
it's producing something

you don't need to explain every small detail but the level design gives you enough context to intuit things inside that

[minor sky]

https://www.halopedia.org/Shutdown#/media/File:HTMCC-H4-PK-Campaign-07.jpg

this bit right here where the structure is moving doesn't have anything in the environment to give you any context for why it is like that

It simply is

[warm ridge]

Not explained why, not explained what it's there for, why it exist, none of that.

In Halo 4, We know the area had some hardlight shields and was a door way entrance between a bridge & a different facility, that's all it needed to do. Nothing else needed to be explained or said.

[vagrant ocean]

What is good my Gs

[warm ridge]

and that's all it needs to be, which is normal for Halo. We see it all the time.

[unique rune]

the gas mine is like walking into a car factory where you can see cars moving down the assembly line

a lot of Halo 4's structures are like the architecture hall at my college where there's like five different stairways that lead to three different levels

[minor sky]

Right

[warm ridge]

I think the both of you are trying to look for purpose in things that don't need any purpose ngl.

they just need to exist, that's it.

which again..is normal for Halo. Long door ways, entrances, things that are just there to be there, so on so forth.

[unique rune]

I mean if that's what you want to tell yourself
I guess

[warm ridge]

you really think the long entrances on assault on control room had any real purpose?
They didn't lol

Same for various buildings we see in Halo 3, they just..never did anything.

[unique rune]

I don't think either of us are saying that everything absolutely needs some kind of context but Halo 4 fumbles pretty hard in spots where it would help

[minor sky]

I'm just comparing and contrasting how games in this series used their environments to drive the gameplay. Yes, in a game you need things to be in a specific area for the design to work, but you need context to make it make sense in the world. Without it, you just wind up feeling like "oh this room has X in it because the devs put it here" rather than "Oh this room has X in it because of Y plot point/environment detail"

[warm ridge]

It doesn't at all though.

[unique rune]

idk I like Halo 4 a lot and looking back on it a lot of the Forerunner structures just feel like they weren't very well thought out

[warm ridge]

So the bridge section on the Ark mission in Halo 3, why does that exist? any reason at all? Beyond just being a light bridge for "tanks to drive over to get to the other side".

It's right before you go into the Cartrogapher section.
There's other Forerunner facilities on that mission that never get explained to, and are kinda just there to be there. Especially areas that had Halo 3's terminals. They have zero real purpose beyond that.

"oh this room has X in it because the devs put it here" rather than "Oh this room has X in it because of Y plot point/environment detail"
at the end of the day, this is all that's needed.

[minor sky]

To use an example
In Doom 1 there is Shotgun Ammo and Health Pick-Ups on the floor because the level designer needs you have Ammo and Health to proceed to the next section, there isn't much of an in universe explanation for why. And that works for Doom because Doom is about shooting demons and has virtually no story.
In Marathon 1 there is a weapons cache because the devs needed you to get ammo, but there is an explanation for why there are hundreds of weapons hidden on a Colony Ship- because Martian Rebels hid them there- and that elevates the game's narrative and helps you feel actually engaged with the world and story

[minor sky]

You let the tanks get across, it explains why you aren't going with them (they need somebody to turn on the light bridge). That is the narrative reason. The gameplay reason is that going from vehicle section to vehicle section is tedious and they need you to go through some corridor fights

"30 Seconds of Fun" only works when every 30 Seconds feels different from the last

[warm ridge]

None of that explains why that facility exist or what it's purpose is. You're doing the same thing I just did with Halo 4.

See here -

In Halo 4, We know the area had some hardlight shields and was a door way entrance between a bridge & a different facility, that's all it needed to do. Nothing else needed to be explained or said.

[minor sky]

A bridge between doorways doesn't feel really that out of place

[warm ridge]

then we're in agreement

[minor sky]

A random assortment of hardlight shields under a giant beam thing at the exit to the Cartographer does

[warm ridge]

You go through multiple areas that last more then 30 seconds so this is a bad analogy.

[minor sky]

30 Seconds of fun is just the core philosophy for Halo it isn't always litteral

Besides even then, those sections usually shift throughout in regards to level design and enemy encounters

[unique rune]

yeah like this is just
weird setbuilding

it's a room right after the Cartographer that has hardlight shield modules for some reason and also some big laser machine hanging from the ceiling presumably to direct your attention to said modules
and right on the other side is an elevator that brings you to a bridge

it's not the end of the world but it's just strangely designed

[minor sky]

In the same way you go from sniping on a cliff side to fighting enemies up close in an area to going through a cave tunnel to sniping again to fighting brutes to fighting hunters to going up a cliff side to fighting Brute Prowlers to a vehicle section to a tank vehicle section to going on foot to a larger vehicle section to going on foot to having a boss fight

That is the entirety of The Ark and each section is different from the last, hell some of those sections change before moving onto the next

[unique rune]

if the only thing a game needs to do is be functional then why even bother with anything like any sort of visual direction
Halo doesn't need to make any effort into implying any sort of context for the world you're playing in, just make everything a bunch of nondescript grey boxes

[minor sky]

But all of those are built into the context of the moment- Chief and the Marines need to take out Covenant forces and reach the Ark's Cartographer.

[minor sky]

Exactly

Halo is in the same camp of Half-Life, Marathon, Duke Nukem, Goldeneye/Perfect Dark, ect. where the narrative defines how the game plays out

Anyway thats my two cents

[minor sky]

Tl;dr

[minor sky]

Composer is a mission that is a case of 4 doing this really well

It is also Halo 4's best mission and that is not up for debate

If every level in Halo 4 was up to Composer's quality, I firmly believe it would be the best game in the series

It is funny, the Halo game whose gameplay I take (probably) the most issue with also has my all time favorite and most played level

I'm sure there is a level I've played more of than that one, but I've played it quite a bit

@unique rune favorite Halo 4 level?

[unique rune]

I think I'd probably give that to Infinity?

Composer is a good pick

[minor sky]

Infinity is good for sure

The art direction is fantastic

I do wish they weren't so constrained by the 360 to have less linear levels

Fighting your way up the hill and then defending the door is always a good time and I love how the twisting branches work with the Crawlers' gameplay by giving them space to climb around

Also the Mantis rocks and I miss it so much

[minor sky]

Actually, on the note of Infinity, it is a massive shame they cut out Stacker's appearance

I love how he is among the marines you meet when you are fighting uphill in the earlier drafts of the game

[dry cedar]

I like to think he's hunkered down with Lasky, Palmer, Blue Team and Roland at the Infinity's crash site.

I mean, done right, they could do Halo 7 and 8 on Zeta as well.

There is plenty of story potential, given the history of the ring

[minor sky]

I could see Halo 7 ending with SoS forces arriving on the ring

I really want HS to do a Locke story on Zeta Halo like some people have suggested

https://garrettpost.artstation.com/projects/QnX9oZ

I want it to be real so damn bad

Have Tanaka show up at the end idk

[steep wolf]

has the UNSC found all the halo rings yet?

[wispy pewter]

Halo 7 should end with a portal opening and the SoF appears

[dry cedar]

Vale & SoS + Locke (with Locke even congratulating the Chief on "taking down that bastard that stole my helmet. I liked that helmet.") + Tanaka + Buck + Alpha-9 + Spirit of Fire coming back (especially since they have a serious bone to pick with Atriox) + Blue Team + recovery of the "down but not out" Infinity + Fireteam Majestic + a cameo from Crimson

And with Ilsa Zane & co. being recurring baddie Banished allies (boss fights, obvs) in Halo 7, with 8 seeing Chief v Ilsa.

Think a sort of TROS "the fleet arrives" moment at the end of Halo 7, with Halo 8 being the "The Banished go down...or we do" game.

And they could also use Halo 8 to "retire" the Chief, with Joy being handed off to the "next" hero Spartan - maybe Frank Kodiak (if they want a pre-existing Spartan with a history), Evelyn, Dorian, Saskia or Victor (if they want to go "newbie" and fresh-faced), or Vettel, Kovan, Tedra, Madsen or Hoya (Thorne is busy being a half-Vulcan and probably too expensive now), or Naiya Ray. Personally, though, I feel like Horvath has the same fearlessness and "this is a crazy idea" vibes of the Chief, so I think he'd be a more natural successor.

Part of me feels like TRP and EoD were kind of setting him up in that direction.

We also need to find out what happened to Jaide and Rosado.

But, yeah, have 7 be a sort of "getting the Zeta Halo resistance together", with the climax seeing all of the aforementioned arrive, and then, as JVJ said, maybe we get a "Slipspace portal opening, 10 kilometers off our starboard!" And the SOF (+ Kinsano, et al) comes through hot - being chased by Voridus and Pavium, Colony.....

Basically, have 8 be a sort of Avengers: Endgame finale - the big final kick-ass blast of the Master Chief Saga

And then Halo 9 can start a new saga with Horvath (or whoever) as the lead, with Joy as the "sidekick"

And Halo 9 onward can focus on the "return of the San'shyuum" plot threads they're building to

Sort of use 8 to close out a lot of the threads from the first three decades (2001-c.2030), and use Halo 9 as a true "clean restart" soft reboot

[minor sky]

I honestly I don't know if I really want an Endgame style finale where everybody and their mother shows up

Ever since Marvel did it a ton of series have tried to capture the magic of that moment to less and less success

[wraith garden]

i think i know what the primordial said that drove investigators and didact insane "and the gta 6 is what you will never never stumble upon . i am the last of those who gave you false belief that it will ever launch "

[stoic hamlet]

No. Aside from Gamma, Alpha, and Zeta Halo’s, all other rings are outside the Orion Arm and for all intents and purposes, outside the reach of the UNSC*

*except for Infinity.

[dry cedar]

More or less

The Warfleet map has been implied (if not stated) to be inaccurate on locations, so "more or less" or "presumably" is as definitive as we can get right now

Gamma was also relocated to somewhere Static Carillon, and the UNSC still doesn't know where as of 10/2558

And I09 was intercepted in slipspace by a Guardian in transit to Threshold

[warm ridge]

None of those words drove the Ur-Didact insane. The Primordial did something to the Ur-Didact that made him "rotten" from the inside. Something that wasn't inherently Flood infection, but Precursor related.

This is revealed in Halo: Epitaph when the Primordial sends the Ur-Didact back out of the Burn.

The other Humans decided to suicide themselves due to knowing the truth about something that we haven't been told, although I wouldn't be surprised if it was telling them that the Forerunners would win & revert absolutely everything they've ever done to the stone age.

[wraith garden]

it is called logic plague if i remember but yeah didact completely lost it after being exiled to burns after being composed the plague ended with his organic brain

[wraith garden]

probably he said that you are made to be infected and suffer forever and death till your body rots into nothing is only way out i guess

[warm ridge]

It wasn't logic plague, that's not true. Logic plague is inherently something that affects AI's primarily.
We have no idea what the Primordial did to him exactly.

Cortana wasn't cured of the logic plague just because she entered the Domain, the Ur-Didact was cured of whatever made him "rotten" on the inside due to entering the Domain. This is confirmed by a Haruspis still in the Domain.

[wraith garden]

he turned forerunners most intelligent ai against them so turning their supreme military commander mad shouldn't be very rocket science especially when you have consumed trillions

[warm ridge]

Idk why you said this, yes we know this. We just don't know what he did exactly.

[wraith garden]

btw the forunners including the iso didact that went to path kethona just accepted their extinction but he somehow had a son so are they not extint by that means cuz they were very low in numbers but still have their bit of thech their

even tho they promised themselves to not use it

[warm ridge]

This never happened, they never accepted there extinction. They accepted the fact that they shouldn't have any bearing over life in the Milky Way galaxy any longer, so they all left.

The original plan was for the Forerunners to return to the Milky Way after it had been wiped clean of all Flood infection, being the "gods" of all the new life they just planted.

[wraith garden]

idk it was the librarian that said that this is the end of their civilization in like a terminal or something

[warm ridge]

Yes, Forerunner civilization.

You know, like Human civilization?

[wraith garden]

werent they very cooked by abadon

[warm ridge]

Human civilization ending doesn't = humans extinct.

[wraith garden]

343 retconed it

[wraith garden]

i was talking of forerunners

[warm ridge]

no, they didn't.

[warm ridge]

Correct, Forerunners never went extinct dude.

They're still alive.

Just no longer in the Milky Way galaxy.

[wraith garden]

i mean about the retcon of humans and forunners are same species but not same civilization

[wraith garden]

i wonder if it is same with the precursors

[warm ridge]

Literally no one ever mentioned that and no, 343i never retconned it. Move on from that subject now.

[warm ridge]

@wraith garden

[wraith garden]

oh

no i thaught that the remaining forerunners have now passed away with no generation(as they tried but kinds failed)

[warm ridge]

By extension, Forerunner civilization in the Milky Way galaxy doesn't = Forerunners extinct. They never went extinct, they just moved on. Into another galaxy, another world, somewhere else.

on a peaceful farm and had a kid.

[wraith garden]

so thats the thing

[warm ridge]

The Ur-Didact was very likely the last remaining Forerunner who was still alive in the Milky Way. I think the Librarian AI commented on this in one of the books.

[wraith garden]

i just imagined it with didact pov that he is last of his kind that was same kinda for primordial and i thaught if that will happen to humans too

[warm ridge]

We don't know. They still had there advanced tech, but the 2 Forerunners we know about abandoned it in favor of a more peaceful mundane life, no longer to be immortal.

This doesn't mean every surviving Forerunner did obviously.

[warm ridge]

Precursors don't die, they just change bodies, move onto something else. You kill one form, they pop up somewhere else just like that.

[wraith garden]

i mean ik that they dont die they just got what got with pennywise in chapter two the let thir bodies die (exept few that caused flood) but are still alive in their kinda true form

like abadon he didnt have any body but still cooked forerunners

we have no idead probably one of the halo ce shotgun was a precursor or that random bullet

[wraith garden]

some shapeshifting sruff

[warm ridge]

So far, we know of -

• Primordial (moved himself into the Flood counciousness and took control of it over)
• 2 Precursors that appear in the Halo: Outcast book, turned themselves into "balls of light", cured Rosa Fuertes of all her diseases, told her to never mention there existence to anyone otherwise she would be "erased". They call themselves the "Nothing".
• 2 Precursors who became plants, now located on the Bastion shield world that Spark fully controls.

all in the Milky Way.

[wraith garden]

wait that plan is actually in motion i thaught it failed probably because it coudnt find harvest or somehing

well spark has a new body

the nothing precursor was single right and after he removed the power source everyone exept the precursor ofc got faaaahed

[warm ridge]

He's still an AI, he just took over an Armiger which had arms & legs. Said he prefers it.

[wraith garden]

their was also a girl with him

idk who was she

[warm ridge]

That's not at all what Precursors are lol

Pennywise is some sort of demon who can time travel & has been trying to prevent his death through time traveling. He always ends up dying at that point though.

[wraith garden]

pethetic

[warm ridge]

Precursors, like I mentioned above, simply don't die. You can erase a Precursors entire body, they still exist somewhere else no matter what.

[wraith garden]

i just find smilarities in paennywise lord x(sonic.exe) and primordial

[warm ridge]

you could erase the entire galaxy, a Precursor will still be there.

They're said to of existed before the galaxy itself existed, so yeah.

[wraith garden]

like we die in game but actually we dont get a single scratch irl

[wraith garden]

like they are manifestation of universe i thing they are the existence itself manifesting so that the "sweetness" continous

thats why they know every thing is living in some way so they can like commands anything even atoms cuz they are alive in their sense

[wraith garden]

does anyone know where would precursors lie on karadasheev scale (ik i mis spelled it)

[prime mauve]

Higher than Type III but it really depends on how much we can trust their transcendence and how we could grade their Neural Physics to see if they count as a Type Iv

[wraith garden]

ik they aint 5

but it is fiction then the max is 7 right?

while irl is like 4

[modest marsh]

I do not think they qualify as a unitary civilization because for one they’ve existed for millions if not billions of years with varying levels of expression

They don’t possess conventional forms of industry or economy

[wraith garden]

i dont mean them as a specie i mean their tru thingy the metaphysical one

[wraith garden]

they live all the ages from stone to space faring death rebirth blah blah blah

[modest marsh]

Kardashev scale is about measuring the extent of how much a given civilization could theoretically harness or manipulate but it gets complicated in halo because it’s stooped in pseudoscience/borderline magic to justify feats of engineering or metaphysical manipulation that couldn’t exist regardless of how much energy you could exploit in the universe

The forerunner civilization was “only” galactic in scale, and even then they weren’t turning every single star in the galaxy into batteries they could harvest

But then again, they bypassed the need to do this because they were harvesting energy from other universes

[wraith garden]

they would just bring out a pizza from thin air they dont need harvesting(also precursors not harvesting their creationg ruthlessly with flodd)

[atomic stump]

I would love to see Spartans utilize traps in the games the way they do in the books. COD had claymores, satchel charges, bouncing betties, etc. Horizon: Zero Dawn lets you set up tripwires where ever you want and most importantly lets you trip your own tripwire and damage yourself. It really adds to the realism.

But reading GOO, the Spartans rig all sorts of booby traps. They could do explosive trip wires, stun or freeze trip wires, or napalm trip wires. It really adds so much to the Horizon sandbox. You plan out a boss fight several steps in advance. The direction you will attack from, the route the boss will take to follow you, and the traps he will hit on his way to chase you down.

[stoic hamlet]

I’m not sure it’d work in Halo’s usual gameplay loop, sadly.

Halo is an offensive arena shooter.

Traps and etc lend themselves more to tactical shooters, or strategy games.

The closest halo’s cone is the H3 trip mine.

[modest marsh]

Sticky detonator

But that’s mostly a gun

[stoic hamlet]

I also wouldn’t say it was used for traps.

[modest marsh]

You could but it was unreliable

And also a waste

[stoic hamlet]

Yeah.

[carmine sleet]

I wouldn't mind some sort of trip-mine grenade (Like the one Hunters had in Destiny 1 with the laser coming from it and everything) but I don't think Halo is really suited to the gameplay loop of setting up various traps

At least not without major changes to how the game plays

[stoic hamlet]

Mhm.

Halo’s lore and Halo’s gameplay are two different things, essentially.

[atomic stump]

"Halo is an offensive arena shooter."

So I guess you don't want Halo space battles or Halo Souls-like or Halo Battle Royal or Halo SPI stealth combat or anything else. Just offensive arena Shooters until the heat death of the universe. Jeez.

[modest marsh]

Spartan Assault/Strike also had deployable explosives but they didn’t really work like traps

Kind of hard to do that with how those games worked to begin with

[stoic hamlet]

You should read my first reply, I think, before taking words out of context.

[modest marsh]

I don’t think anyone wants a halo souls-like to be perfectly honest

[stoic hamlet]

I don’t even know how you’d do it.

[modest marsh]

Uhhh

[unique rune]

poorly

[modest marsh]

Fal Chavamee simulator I guess

You can’t really do RPG progression or diegetic respawning mechanics though

You’d have to get into forerunner stuff for that to work