lore-and-universe

[carmine sleet]

I wouldn't mind a Halo stealth game, but I don't think it should be about Spartans wearing SPI

And we're definitely not getting a Battle Royale at this point

[modest marsh]

Yeah it should be about ODSTs wearing SPI

[unique rune]

they should make a stealth game with an Unggoy player character

[modest marsh]

Joke but I think it’s bizarre how besides the headhunters motion comic, there is no visual medium that actually represents SPI/Mirage as a stealth infiltration suit

[stoic hamlet]

And it doesn’t even use the actual stealth features, lol

[modest marsh]

The closest we got was it being introduced alongside covert one flag as a themed playlist

[carmine sleet]

Ah yes, the backdoor prequel to Unggoy Farmer

[unique rune]

and then the third game is also a stealth game where they get the farmer to come out of retirement

[modest marsh]

And tbh I don’t think they leaned hard enough into the spies vs mercs gameplay loop for it to really land that theme is stealth

[carmine sleet]

Exactly. The farmer is using the farming tools to do stealth

[unique rune]

this is how we save Halo

[stoic hamlet]

The issue with Spartans and SPI is that it would be more akin to an MGS style stealth, not a Splinter Cell stealth.

“Action stealth”.

[carmine sleet]

Aye

And that's not necessarily a bad thing but I imagine most people wanting a full stealth Halo experience would be thinking of Splinter Cell and not MGS

[modest marsh]

This is where I drop my headcanon that Mendez has some sort of PHYSINT background to justify his expertise in hand to hand combat and a game featuring him as a protagonist would play like splinter cell

[stoic hamlet]

Yeah.

It comes from people mishearing or misremembering how SPI operates, which I think is part of why they think it’s so awful as an armour system.

But it’s actually a better shock trooper armour than ODST armour.

Like, all the times ww see ODST’s dead or dying in that ODST live action trailer? If they had been in SPI they’d probably have been fine.

It’s a highly bullet resistant plate suit that augments strength and speed, and can take multiple plasma bolts and still protect you. You only lose the stealth coating

[carmine sleet]

Indeed. But it's clear that while not as expensive as Mjolnir, hence the IIIs being outfitted with it, it's clearly expensive enough that it can't be outfitted to all ODSTs

[stoic hamlet]

Yeah. They can’t even fit more than a battalion, really.

Only 2K suits made throughout the entire war.

The attrition rate you’d see when in use by ODST’s would be astronomical.

It would actually probably come out to being more expensive than MJOLNIR, ironically.

[modest marsh]

“Black body suit” is right there for your sneaky infiltrator equivalent (needs a better name)

And, well, a redesign, because neither the comic nor the animated series versions doing it for me visually

[stoic hamlet]

They make it seem too armoured? Oddly enough? At least IMO.

At least the animated version.

[unique rune]

the animated series version is just the GEN2 undersuit lol

[carmine sleet]

Good old asset reuse because they most certainly didn't have the resources to make a complete new design

[stoic hamlet]

Yeah, but it looks more bulky than GEN2? Idk, it’s odd.

It might also be the animation style.

[unique rune]

and the comic version is pretty nondescript

[modest marsh]

This is a problem with a lot of sneaky suits I find, even outside of the animated series straight up using the gen2 undersuit

[unique rune]

I know the comic had to find some way to make sure everyone was identifiable but having their numbers pasted in giant text across the chest

sure was a way to do that

[modest marsh]

The splinter cell tac suit up after a certain point just became tactical riot gear with bulk armor plates everywhere

The one Sam has in siege has a stainless steel plate on his collar which does not read very stealthy lol

There’s also a weird aversion towards matte textures, everything’s gotta be glossy

I know camouflage is a little more complicated than light reflectivity but I think it’s a stronger visual shorthand to communicate your outfit is sneaky if it isn’t reflecting a lot

[stoic hamlet]

So, this will sound really awful out of context, but Linda’s H5 bodysuit around the booty is how I envisioned the wetsuit to look, like, visually.

A sort of matte black, sort of rubbery finish. Skintight but with texture.

Again, that sounds awful, but maybe you’ll kind of get what I meant? lol.

I’m not sure what else to use as a visual aide, off the top of my head.

[modest marsh]

I don’t think her suit looks much differently from anyone else’s on blue team?

Maybe the colors slightly

[stoic hamlet]

Sort of. It’s the texture I mean.

[modest marsh]

You get a good look at Chief’s glutes when he’s hunched over after getting smacked by Locke which is what my mind went to lol

[stoic hamlet]

It has a sort of rubberness to it.

You either see stealth suits go the glossy route, or look too matte and like a void.

[carmine sleet]

So you're saying black rubber wetsuits is the best way to go for stealth suits? I agree with that

[stoic hamlet]

Essentially, yeah.

[unique rune]

they look kinda like tire rubber

[carmine sleet]

I'm so glad I'm not the only one

[stoic hamlet]

I’m so glad someone understood what I meant, lol

Like, I always envisioned the black body suit to be sort of like an outer rubber-like visual, not glossy, but matte, with a magazine-rig on the belt and small of the stomach, and maybe a few hardened storage containers on the thighs and hips.

[modest marsh]

I’m sweating like a pig inside my custom-made uniform. I forgot to adjust the temperature control before going to sleep. I quickly turn the knob at my belt to make it cooler. Immediately I can feel the cold water flowing through the vessels embedded within the uniform’s lining. The military calls it an “Objective Force Warrior” uniform. It’s like an astronaut’s suit, only sleeker and tighter. I can make it cold or hot, depending on what kind of environment I’m in. It’s made of a heavy material with Kevlar sewn into it, yet it’s flexible enough for me to perform any gymnastic feat I wish to attempt. I wouldn’t call it bulletproof, but it’s close. The tough outer hide feels like elephant skin to the touch, and it goes a long way toward deflecting stuff. I suppose if I were shot at point blank I’d be dead, but bullets fired from a range of fifteen feet or more might penetrate the suit but not me. The Kevlar acts as a braking mechanism. Pretty cool stuff. Another interesting feature is that it’s got photosensitive threading that reacts when a targeting laser strikes the material. The suit sends a signal to my OPSAT, alerting me that I’m in a sniper’s gun sight. My only beef with the uniform is that it’s so tight fitting and neat that it makes me look like a comic book superhero. Even my special headpiece looks like a mask when I have the goggles down.

[stoic hamlet]

That’s from…. The novelization of Crysis 2, right?

I have no idea how I came to that conclusion, but it feels familiar.

[modest marsh]

Splinter cell lol

Redding nodded. “Meet the Mark V Tactical Operations Suit, code-named RhinoPlate. Weight, four pounds unloaded; thickness, eight millimeters—about a quarter inch. Outer shell is Kevlar; core material RhinoPlate; inner layer is seventh-generation Gore-tex.”

“Stats?”

“Good against shrapnel at twelve feet; rifle rounds at fifteen; pistol and shotgun at eight feet. The Gore-Tex is tested to maintain core body temperatures down to fifteen degrees Fahrenheit with the hood up, and as high as one hundred ten. You could go from Alaska to the Sahara and stay relatively comfortable.”

“The color’s different.”

“Good eye. New camouflage. The outer layer of the Kevlar is treated with a polymer fiber similar to the coating on stealth aircraft: matte-black, slightly rough to the touch for maximum light absorption. I won’t bore you with the physics, but the micro-roughened exterior partially defuses light. Basically, about thirty percent of whatever photons strike the surface gets trapped—if for only a split second—but enough to diffuse them. Bottom line: You stand still in a shadow, you’re virtually part of the shadow.”

“And the pouches and harness points? Everything’s moved. It looks . . . lumpy.”

“Disruptive patterning. We’ve resized and rearranged them to break up your form.”

Mother Nature abhors straight lines. In low-light conditions the human eye tends to seek out movement, color difference, and geometric form. Of the three, movement was the easiest to address: stand still. Color difference was also easy: Black gives the eye little to draw from the background. Form, however, was problematic. The human body is a unique collection of angles and lines easily discernible to the human eye. By rearranging the pouches to various spots on the suit, the familiar outline of the body becomes fuzzy.

[stoic hamlet]

Damnit.

[modest marsh]

bbs should just be a Haloverse equivalent to this (its depiction in TFOR is pretty consistent)

[stoic hamlet]

Actually yeah, it can’t be Crysis, not enough curses or innuendos.

[carmine sleet]

I'm a big fan of stealth, what can I say. But obviously there are times where a different approach is needed for stealth, like taking a uniform from the enemy (Or stealing their entire face and clothes like in Dishonoured: Death of the Outsider)

[modest marsh]

Oh don’t worry there’s plenty of questionable elements in other parts of the book (it’s supposed to be a Clancyverse novel after all)

[stoic hamlet]

Yeah but Crysis 2’s novelization had Alcatraz be quite the sailor.

I guess it’s fitting, hin being a marine.

[modest marsh]

Not just a marine, a force recon operative affiliated with the cia in a strangely dystopian alternative history world

[stoic hamlet]

Mhm.

It’s an interesting thing, how sometimes being just crass and vulgar can work, and other times it can’t.

Not everyone can pull that off, in writing.

[prime mauve]

White sneaking suits like the one The Boss uses in Metal Gear Solid 3 are also incredibly cool and imo are more of a flex to wear since they'd be rather visible

[frigid heart]

Not on a snowy day

[prime mauve]

Or the field of Star of Bethlehem flowers of that boss fight (pun intended lol)

[ocean tartan]

those who have listened to the Fall of Reach audiobook on audible is it closer to the revisions or the original?

[stoic hamlet]

I believe it uses the 2010 revisions. But I’ve not listened to it in a while.

[ocean tartan]

alright

[prime mauve]

The Audible version seems to have been added on 2019 so it is probably the revised version

[ocean tartan]

alright

[modest marsh]

Note that whatever version currently exists will be rendered obsolete once the master Chief omnibus releases in terms of canon compliance

Although the changes that are expected are still going to amount to small changes that may not even register to most readers

[carmine sleet]

May we forever remember Blue 5

[stoic hamlet]

The stated reason still makes me incredibly angry.

The actual reason is understandable but I still don’t like it. More of an annoyance.

[prime mauve]

Is there gonna be an audiobook version of the Omnibus?

[stoic hamlet]

I don’t think we know, actuslly.

[prime mauve]

I'm seeing that apparently there's only been one narrator for it so it could be the old version actually

[obsidian thistle]

I'd have made them Will. But thats beside the point

[stoic hamlet]

They really could have been anyone.

Technically, so could any of them, as their names aren’t given.

But yeah, as you say, besides the point.

[obsidian thistle]

(I hate how my crux end up being "make it Will" a lot)

Believe - Make the Spartan Will.
Spartan Strike - Make the random Mark VI Spartan Will.

[stoic hamlet]

I think it makes sense in that context, though.

Who else could it be, really?

I guess technically Omega, or Owen, or someone.

But Will is the easiest choice.

[atomic stump]

Well I just finished Ghosts of Onyx. The ending is really good.

I finished the book in 3 days which might be the fastest I have read a Halo book. It definitely kept my attention. Kind of the perfect balance of complexity and conciseness. I have a good idea of how Nylund would have written the post war books if he had done so. He really liked the budget battles over the Spartan IIs and Spartan IIIs in Ghosts of Onyx and I think we would have got more of that in a potential 4th Nylund book. The story of the postwar SIIIs is a bit awkward though. They are war orphans who volunteered to fight the covenant. I don't know if they would be willing to fight insurrectionists or kill humans. It goes against the whole spirit of the Spartan IIIs.

The SIIs on the other hand are willing to inflict death or dismemberment on whoever you want to. They are virtually robots (at least in the Nylund books). They will kill humans, insurrectionists, allied Elites, anybody you want them to. That has advantages in a world where the primary antagonist is not the Covenant. Also, by 2553 the war is over and the supply of war orphans will diminish simply because these kids are ageing into adulthood. By 2570, the youngest war orphan will be 18 years old at which point we are talking about consenting adults. And I don't think the SIIIs augmentations worked on adults. So by 2570 or even earlier the Spartan program would have to move back to kidnapping children or move towards consenting adults. There are advantages to either method. The NOVA bombs themselves are also an alternative to the Spartan program. I can easily see an mathematical argument for why the UNSC should terminate future Spartan programs and pour resources into planet killing NOVA bombs. And then there is a 4th idea which is the UNSC focuses on building more starships.

Halsey is probably the strongest character in the Nylund trilogy but her arc is kind of lame. She decided that the war could not be won and the only way to "win" in the war against the covenant was to kidnap Kelly and desert. I get the impulse but it makes her whole plan pretty far fetched. I think Nylund had more ideas for Halsey but I can't get behind the "run and hide" plan for fighting the covenant. Especially when it means abandoning Blue team and Earth during their hour of need. I do think Nylund wanted Halsey to find a huge Forerunner superweapon and find her confidence to use that to win the war against the Covenant but he just didn't have a 4th book in him.

One last nitpick though. I get that the Halo universe does not operate based on Classic Physics but you can't live on the inside of a Dyson Sphere. Gravity would pull you towards the Sun. You can live on the outside of a Dyson sphere because gravity pulls your feat towards the ground but not the inside.

[dense falcon]

Yall, the other day I had a brainwave while driving and I need to get it off my chest

It is a sensitive topic, but hear me out:

In our modern day and age, the way the AI and LLMs work and the industry works, we're okay. But the thing scientists, researchers, tech savants, etc... fear when referring to development is a scenario where AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) evolves by itself into ASI (Artificial Super Intelligence) and its values are not aligned to ours, and ends up going against us Skynet-style. For example, if it was ordered to end climate change, first it needs to stop the creation of more greenhouse gases, which means stopping humans, which means killing them all. It reached its objective, but not the way it would've been intended. So that's the #1 problem: How are you going to make an AI that is aligned to our core values first try? It is a problem OpenAI gave up on due to its difficulty, and the stakes are high in case it doesn't go well. How do you give it ethics?

And then I realized: In Halo they use the brain of a recently deceased subjects for Smart AIs. All those neurons, their weights, all that is used to make the base of a _model _. So technically, those neurons being read and converted into weights by 26th century technology not only use the person's intelligence to make a good, efficient Smart AI, but it also maps out their morality so the AI knows right from wrong. So that'd be how Halo solved this problem.

@obsidian thistle what do you think

[warm ridge]

Type IV or above @prime mauve
Although, in the Halo universe, the Precursors are quite literally the "gods". Like, full on god.

There is only Type's 1, 2, and 3 on the Karadasheev scale. Type 4 civilization would be one that controls the entire galaxy, the capability to use the energy of the entire universe. We know Precursors are certainly capable of such feats, or at least are described to of existed before the universe did.

[stoic hamlet]

I would advise against tagging people if they’re not currently participating in a discussion.

[royal relic]

Honestly I've always taken it more to Ghost Recon stealth than Splinter Cell

[wispy pewter]

If AI becomes super intelligent to the point of being human-like, they would also have the same free will as any other humans to either be good or evil

[obsidian thistle]

In this chat. I allow anyone to ping me cause Lore.

That said there is a lotta stories people could write on AI.

• The first smart AI to go rampant
• The first smart AI (may not have lived long enough to go rampant)
• What stops people kidnapping people turning them into AI to do a FERO-esc interrogation.

[modest marsh]

I don’t think NOVA bombs are a practical alternative to Spartans whatsoever

NOVAs are indiscriminate, difficult to deploy, and do not have the same psychological impact on people that Spartans do

[modest marsh]

The star inside Onyx is an artificial one anyways, and the forerunners have already demonstrated a complete mastery over antigravity technology anyways

[wispy pewter]

I think nova bombs on its own is not really a good replacement for Spartans. What can be however, are mutiple Infinity class carriers

[orchid kettle]

It's funny to me how in TFOR, it's mentioned that what makes the Spartans good for solving the Insurrection problem is that they're a surgical, precise strike force, but in Covenant War material, it's because they can surf on Banshees and chuck nukes like footballs

[orchid kettle]

Which I guess is what makes Red Flag interesting, it was essentially the Watts heist writ large

[prime mauve]

"Master Chief, you call that "surgical precision"?"
"Sir, amputating the whole leg is surgery too."
"Fair enough. Let's give you another medal."

[minor sky]

"Traxis-IV ruins the martian economy"

[prime mauve]

A NOVA bomb is more of a human answer to planetary glassing than to the Spartan program imo, with the advantage that it is much faster and has a much greater area of effect, and that the bomb can be smuggled to the blast site, which leverages human advantages like prowlers. It's a good tool of deterrence, especially postwar that humanity knows where the aliens live, but it's indiscriminate and there are few targets of that size that can be nuked for strategic wins. Its original intended use as a fleet killer is also somewhat mitigated by Covenant ships having quick and accurate in system slipspace jumps, so if they caught the NOVA in deployment towards a fleet they could maybe flee in time

[prime mauve]

Wait this is actually genius. Nylund was cooking. The Spartans are born through kidnapping, are baptized in battle by kidnapping, and their ultimate goal for the Covenant War was for the most daring kidnapping of all.

[atomic stump]

yeah my point is that it was just another Wunderwaffe that competed with the Spartan program. And the advantage of investing in a fleet of NOVAs is that the regular UNSC military could be demobilized with a skeleton crew to operate the NOVAs. After Nylund left, the NOVAs as a concept were pretty much dropped and we haven't seen them come up again. I think Tobias brings them back in Envoy but only as backstory. I don't know how popular or exciting a novel about post-war budget cuts would be but Nylund made the budget wars between Ackerman and Halsey interesting enough in Ghosts of Onyx.

[modest marsh]

i think blowing up a planet of billions is pretty significant all things considered

[atomic stump]

idk I haven't read Envoy yet

I will withold my opinion

[modest marsh]

there just arent any situations in which it makes sense for the unsc to have a NOVA at the ready besides as a cheeky genocide machine

its too big to attach to a delivery method that is inconspicuous enough not to immediately get vaporized, let alone the ship its being deployed from, outside of the very specific circumstances of a prowler infiltrating a star system that is unaware

[vagrant ocean]

NOVA bombs are an alternative to Spartans in the same way using napalm to kill a spider is an alternative to just hitting it with a shoe.

And they came too late for them to compete with the Spartan programs.

[atomic stump]

Deliberately pretending to be stupid

[vagrant ocean]

By the time the first NOVA bomb was detonated the UNSC had two Spartan programs that were in full swing. They had 22 Spartan-IIs still active in one shape or form, over 300+ active Spartan-IIIs, and at least half a dozen prototype Spartan-IVs. This isn’t even mentioning similar programs like JAVELIN which appeared to be active at the time.

[vagrant ocean]

Who is?

[icy aurora]

give me the history of thel vadam to explain to a friend

ik i can gpt it or just do it myself but let me hear what the community wants to say

[unique rune]

once there was an ugly Sangheili
he was so ugly that everyone died
the end

[minor sky]

Did Glibnub say that?

[modest marsh]

A good place to start would be Halopedia or the halo 2A terminals that are in universe dossiers on him prepared by Spartan Locke prior to the end of the war

The short version is that he was a prodigy warrior from vadam keep, a powerful sangheili clan, and quickly rose through the ranks of the covenant military, eventually becoming a zealot, shipmaster, fleetmaster of the fleet of particular justice, and eventual supreme commander at a notably young age, and led some of the most successful military campaigns against the UNSC that resulted in a combined casualty count well into the billions

He participated in the attack on Reach, pursued the pillar of Autumn to Halo, and was met by his first and gravest setback of his career by failing to stop Master Chief from destroying the ring, and the rest is what we see in the games

[fresh granite]

Does anyone else think that Thel's cape in that one piece of concept art was pretty badass?

[prime mauve]

Yes it was pretty badass

[minor sky]

100%

[fading flume]

That reminded me of a certain barnacle

[chrome apex]

How many boats and naval ships does the halo universe have?

[prime mauve]

There's a couple in Halo 3 (the carrier for Wombat drones and the civilian vessel stuck in Voi after the shoreline was dried with the nearby glassing), a submarine in Halo 5, and there was a Sangheili ship in one of the Halo 2 Anniversary terminals with one of the Arbiters

[chrome apex]

Do we know the combat capabilities of these vehicles?

[prime mauve]

The one in Longshore has 8 Wombat UCAVs and 2 Pelican dropships on its deck, so that's the minimum complement imo. It doesn't seem to have missiles or other weapons in its model

https://www.halopedia.org/Crassus-class_supercarrier

[modest marsh]

“Aquatic vessels” would probably be the preferred term in the context of the Haloverse as the navy exclusively operates space craft

The UNSC army and militia forces operate the wet navy

You’re never going to get a hard number, but chances are this is going to depend heavily on the planet in question

Earth by default is likely going to consist of the largest wet navy, probably the majority of the total ships in service as you would need to construct most warships on the same planet they are to be deployed

[vagrant ocean]

I’ve seen people criticize the usage of a “wet” navy but it makes total sense. The amount of ordnance and aircraft on a planet can be effectively multiplied by having such vessels, especially when large “dry” vessels could be out of system or otherwise engaged.

The Crassus is a prime example of this.

[prime mauve]

Yeah, the Crassus is bigger than irl carriers by a margin and it could really carry a pretty useful complement

Definitely more than the 8 Wombats it has on deck in Longshore

[icy yoke]

Idea wet oceanic naval ships unless armed similar armament to keep up

A example a destroyer or frigate. Given real world naval vessels combatants 150-200 meters doesnt leave muchnroom for MAC

Railgun like those aboard Mammoth or Onager

Ocean going vessel presumably has what speed difference

Ocean warships top 30 plus knots now obviously fusion power and improved propulsion better than propellers

Like impeller, cavity thrusters or MHD

Ocean ships likely patrol and safe deployment fighters earth, is Round and the ocean is gap between land bases for fighters

[vagrant ocean]

I have a feeling those 8 wombats are just the ones that haven’t launched.

[prime mauve]

Yeah it would be the lowest baseline complement it can have

[vagrant ocean]

Cuz I guarantee there’s other UNSC aircraft we haven’t seen that can be launched from carriers. Hell, imagine how many Hornets, JOV-99 Kestrels, or Skyhawks it could carry.

[minor sky]

One day Marcus Lehto's dream of putting a boat in Halo will come true

I remember when Bungie was showing off scrapped Halo Reach stuff they mentioned that "Marcus has been trying to let you drive a boat for 10 years"

[wraith garden]

out of lore question will halo flood able to infect/control gears of wars imulsion?

[modest marsh]

Cross universe stuff is always going to be held up by a level of uncertainty as to how certain things would interact, but the flood are famously adaptable and absolute when it comes to their ability to corrupt and manipulate things, whether it be living, synthetic, or metaphysical

Imulsion is basically just a fungal goo that also functions as a parasite, but the host body is still mostly intact so it’s largely a matter of the flood either processing the material into something usable or simply coexisting with the existing infection

Lambent victims still have a functioning CNS, meaning infector pods can still burrow into their torsos and override the motor functions of the host

Worst case scenario, the hosts are resistant to the infection at the cellular level and the flood will need to destroy the body entirely in order to reconfigure it into usable biomass

Flood transformation is famously fast and requires very little contamination to trigger

[wispy pewter]

Can anyone tell if the current situation of the UNSC was as bad as back in 2544 when they managed to start construction of the Infinity?

[stoic hamlet]

Current situation as in “2560?”

[wispy pewter]

Yeah

[stoic hamlet]

I’d say 2560 is worse in some ways, better in others.

[wispy pewter]

Like if they wanted to start the next generation of shipbuilding in 2560

[stoic hamlet]

There’s no major existential threat (comparatively) to the Covenant anymore.

But Humanity’s shipbuilding is worse off than in 2544, and the lines of threats are a lot blurrier.

[modest marsh]

There are more players of relevance involved, and humanity is significantly more stratified in its interests and allegiances

[wispy pewter]

There goes any hope of fixing or rebuilding the Infinity for the next decade. Then again I guess if they do decide to bring back the ship it will be writer's magic

[stoic hamlet]

I mean, Sol is “sort of” secure again.

[modest marsh]

Infinity is too big to conceivably rebuild but they can build smaller and more capable ships as technology progresses

The advent of upgrade seeds being a thing opens the possibility of older UNSC vessels gaining Forerunner-level capabilities for that matter

[stoic hamlet]

I really dislike upgrade seeds.

Well, I don’t dislike them inherently.

I dislike that they’re a macguffin that can be thrown onto anything, but only ever get used on hero ships.

[carmine sleet]

Canadian, you have given me an idea that I have to note down

[stoic hamlet]

Oh? Do tell.

[wispy pewter]

Im guessing they will first reverse-engineer the one of the most important aspect of the Infinity: It's Engines and Navigation system

[wraith garden]

well my best guess is that infinity survivors are struggling while 117 is cooking

[wraith garden]

my favorite reverse engineer is quantumn translocator as a 7 years old child i was obsessed with knights teleportation ability which i finally got in infinite

not exact but yeah it works

[carmine sleet]

Ex Covenant shipmaster finding an upgrade seed and using it to modify their own ship so they can be harder to stop than normal. So instead of it being a hero ship, it's a villain ship with one

[wraith garden]

that shadow of intent?

[carmine sleet]

No

[prime mauve]

The shipyard that built Infinity is still intact afaik. The shipyards on Mars were pretty capable of pumping out Strident frigates and other postwar designs, and the Banished didn't get to them when they attacked and got repelled by Abigail Cole. I don't think Cortana would have destroyed them either.

[chrome apex]

Could the flood infect xenomorphs or would the infection form die from the acidic blood? It’s strong enough to melt metal.

I know in many alien video games stepping over the dead bodies of Xenomorphs still damages the player.

[modest marsh]

Xenomorph acid blood is highly corrosive but its effects are disproportionate against metal when compared to what it does to people

[vagrant ocean]

They can’t, most shipyards were managed by AI and the majority of UNSC AIs defected to the Created. Theres also the issue of groups like the Banished, Innies, and Covenant remnants being much more emboldened due to the scattered state of the UNSC.

[modest marsh]

The flood would have to adapt to become more chemically basic which seems within their ability but would obviously limit their ability to overtake a xenomorph as a host

[prime mauve]

Can Xenomorph blood protect their spine and brain stem?

[vagrant ocean]

Imagine a Valiant or Punic snacking on a seed.

[modest marsh]

Blood goes into the brain so I would imagine so

[chrome apex]

Pretty sure, they bleed it wherever they get damaged.

[vagrant ocean]

The only way humanity can build a ship of that size in the “near future” is by finishing the Eternity with whatever they can salvage, or by somehow continuing to reverse engineer Ancestor tech.

[chrome apex]

Is the flood capable of that?

They can’t adapt to cold

[modest marsh]

There is no direct evidence of them doing this

[modest marsh]

What gave you that impression?

To be clear, the flood has weaknesses

But that doesn’t mean they have no answer to hostile conditions or unique obstacles

[vagrant ocean]

The Flood are able to manipulate the very fabric of the universe when an infestation gets large enough. They prolly can adapt to infect xenomorphs.

[modest marsh]

If it were that simple, the Forerunners would’ve likely used those methods already

[chrome apex]

I thought that was just for traveling and sending asteroids into space time?

[vagrant ocean]

We have Forerunner records that say that as the infection grew it seemed as if space itself began to corrupt and warp.

[prime mauve]

It would be pretty hard for an average infection form to do them in if their penetrator tendrils melted on the way to the spine, I think. But maybe a couple pure forms could hold a Xenomorph down and see if they can be infected by spores?

Generally I think the Flood would be most interested in the Queens and the eggs.

[modest marsh]

I think more practically, the xenomorph’s body would be destroyed and the leftover biomass would be dissolved and processed

[prime mauve]

Yeah they probably aren't that attractive for making Combat Forms versus other species that can be converted quick and easy

[chrome apex]

The infection form or the consciousness of the gravemind itself?

[vagrant ocean]

The Gravemind, a pod infector can only infect.

[carmine sleet]

I honestly don't think Eternity being finished is viable. Much of it was already repurposed to fix up Infinity before Halo 5

[vagrant ocean]

I know, just saying that I doubt a ship that size will be built for a long time.

[carmine sleet]

Ah fair

[vagrant ocean]

It took 9 years for her to be finished, and that was with the UNSC devoting a HUGE chunk of their war chest to build her.

[prime mauve]

If Eternity ever got the Forerunner engines I think the sunk cost fallacy would have admirals urging for her to be finished even if it's silly at this point

[vagrant ocean]

I could see her being finished in like, 20-30 years later, especially if we’ve managed to reverse engineer more Ancestor tech.

[stoic hamlet]

I mean, idk, they built multiple Punic-Class warships by the 2520’s, and those are only 1,000 metres shorter.

[vagrant ocean]

That was also before a huge chunk of UNSC mining and shipbuilding planets were obliterated, and before the Created.

[stoic hamlet]

Yeah, but I don’t think the size is the inherent issue.

[vagrant ocean]

Size and complexity.

She’s the largest ship we ever built, 5km.

[modest marsh]

The thing with mining is that debris fields and glassed cities actually make this all a lot easier to do, in a sort of darkly ironic way

There’s plenty of melted down raw materials to recycle

[vagrant ocean]

Good luck getting it and safely transporting it.

[modest marsh]

You don’t need to locate veins of titanium when there’s millions of tons of it floating in space

[unique rune]

I mean those shouldn't even really be an issue considering they'd already built the first Infinity
and given they'd started on a second one presumably most of the tooling and other infrastructure is still fairly intact
plus they've got a lot of the processes and other logistical hurdles ironed out from the first one

barring bureaucratic snarls and major calamities it should really only be faster to build subsequent vessels

[slim salmon]

How exactly did the Flood and 343 escape Installation 04?

[carmine sleet]

The Flood didn't escape the destruction of 04

[modest marsh]

Flood samples were already stored on the Threshold gas mine, and guilty Spark spent a few weeks flying himself there

[prime mauve]

The Flood samples taken for the experiments at the Mona Lisa would have been those that survived the explosion and were thrown into space when the Halo broke. They'd just be wriggling creepily in the vacuum.

[slim salmon]

Wait...
The Arbiter was located on Threshold!?
Okay that makes so much more sense now.

But that doesn't explain Guilty Spark. Did he just somehow manage to fly into the atmosphere with his Sentinel buddies and just call it a day?

[modest marsh]

There were sentinels already at threshold

Anyways, I don’t think it’s all that surprising he could do this given he had plenty of time

[prime mauve]

Sesa Refumee met Spark in late September so Spark could have flown a few days to reach the Heretics

[modest marsh]

I don’t think that’s strictly confirmed anywhere

It would’ve been after September 22nd but before October 20th

[prime mauve]

Fair enough, I would actually prefer Spark taking his time with it

He's got a lot to think about on his flight lol

[wispy pewter]

perhaps the latter is more feasible

[vagrant ocean]

I’d consider the Created uprising to be a major calamity.

[wispy pewter]

No way they had 1 single Smart AI handling everything on one shipyard

[vagrant ocean]

They prolly had several, given the importance of Concord.

[modest marsh]

They had 1 Dumb AI managing the municipal infrastructure of an entire mega city

[wispy pewter]

UNSC clearly never watched 21st century movies to create anti-AI contingency before they blew all the infrastructure up

[vagrant ocean]

The UNSC has already reverse engineered Ancestor armor and Project ENOCH.

[vagrant ocean]

Tbf, people even today refuse to accept the possibility of an AI uprising.

[wispy pewter]

Yeah. They still have access to the ship as well

[vagrant ocean]

There’s also a sizable contingent of UNSC personnel at Site Yankee-002-G.

[vagrant ocean]

If the Dreamer can share what they found with PANGEA and not be found to be insane, they could work on transferring the coordinates they found with a shuttle or survey vessel and try and find one of these troves of Ancestor tech.

[wispy pewter]

imagine if they start commandeering Site Yankee-002-G as the new flagship

[vagrant ocean]

I mean, it’d be sick. Just strap a bunch of UNSC vessels to it and find a way to get the fibril cutters working.

[wispy pewter]

well, one of the latest stories has mentioned there are remnants of the ancestors the Forerunners didnt touch

Either they are still alive or only their technology are left

[wispy pewter]

agree

[vagrant ocean]

That’s what I was referring to, the Dreamer found coordinates to an entire region of the galaxy filled to the brim with Ancestor tech.

[wispy pewter]

Oh yeah. I wish they have more stories on it

[prime mauve]

Probably not physically alive but digitized some way

[vagrant ocean]

I want more info on them.

[prime mauve]

Some AI alternative to Composing and to current AI scanning would be very welcome for the lore

[vagrant ocean]

I doubt they’d be digitized, maybe the trove is monitored by the Ancestor analogue to an Ancila.

[prime mauve]

I don't think Ancient Humans should have any way to survive the Halos in physical form

[vagrant ocean]

Or they did what the Forerunners in Path Kethona did and just abandoned their tech to live primitive lives.

[vagrant ocean]

Unless they constructed their own shield world.

[prime mauve]

Takes the Endless' whole special thing away if Ancient Humans survived

[vagrant ocean]

Remember, we were just as advanced as the Forerunners at our peak.

[prime mauve]

But the Ancient Humans' focus was different

We wouldn't expect them to have made Halos either

[wispy pewter]

Too bad after that was 100,000 years of Ooga Booga-ing

[wispy pewter]

I dont think they had the capabilities

so far in the Halo universe only the forerunners were able to create megastructure weapons and technology that lasted thousands of years

[prime mauve]

I don't think Shield Worlds are too likely either

[vagrant ocean]

I doubt the focus of the Ancestors was uniform. I have a feeling the motivations and plans of the Ancestors was as diverse as ours are today. You gotta remember that Requiem, the first shield world, is millennia older than the Forerunner-Ancestor war.

If enough Ancestor scientists and engineers devoted millennia to copying a Forerunner shield world, I think one could be made.

Never underestimate the capabilities of the featherless biped.

Like, humans figure stuff out pretty quickly. In just over a thousand years we went from the invention of gunpowder to harnessing the power of nuclear fission.

In under 40 we developed the jet aircraft.

We are crafty little creatures.

[prime mauve]

I mean, they had a timelock for the Primordial

Maybe it could be something with that type of tech

[vagrant ocean]

Our allies the San’Shyuum did.

[prime mauve]

I hope we get a novel about the Ancient Human stuff happening in the present day

[icy yoke]

More stories ancient humanity. Neat sxifi fantasy setting

[wispy pewter]

Ancient Humanity? like Parongosky

[chrome apex]

Was there ever an official war against the Moas?

[prime mauve]

"I knew it, you had Yprin Yprikushma's geas all along!"
"Oh no I'm actually her sister lol."

[vagrant ocean]

Lowkey HS should make a canonical Moa war.

[minor sky]

"The Moa shall inherit the Earth"

[wispy pewter]

The Second Moa War

[vagrant ocean]

If anyone is the descendant or possess the geas of Yprin, it’s our favorite hot unethical polymath, Catherine Elizabeth Halsey.

[minor sky]

I've been semi-casually playing Halo 5's campaign and it has really occured to me just how totally squandered Buck was in this game in ways I didn't consider before

Like we spend ¼ of the game on Sanghelios, the planet of deadly aliens who killed a ton of humans in the war Buck had been fighting for the better part of 30 years. And we don't get much, if anything, from Buck

[minor sky]

Buck was an excellent choice for Osiris because he added the perspective of a veteran who was there on the front lines for the entirety of the war. Locke is somewhat isolated as an ONI Agent, Vale's background is more rooted in Academia and Deplomacy (something also not utilized as well as it could have been), and Tanaka was survivor of glassing who only joined the UNSC late in the war.

Really, Buck is just a microcosium of a much larger issue of how Halo 5 just failed capitalize on its characters

They have a great cast, they just didn't do anything interesting with them

[vagrant ocean]

Speaking of Buck, I’m meeting Nathan Fillion tomorrow.

[chrome apex]

Hooray 🎉

[prime mauve]

They had everything to be a really interesting and compelling team but imo they had the wrong mission focus to really show their full strengths and personalities. If the mission to Sanghelios didn't have the overarching objective of chasing the Master Chief and Osiris were straight up just given the task of helping Arby, and we could see him interacting with the team, it would have really let them shine a lot more.

Also Tanaka really should have shone more in Meridian. Returning to a glassed world like the one she was trapped in for her backstory really could have shown more sides to her than the "capable Spartan but not particularly charismatic public speaker" we got.

[minor sky]

Woah

Awesome

[tame raven]

for an interview?

[vagrant ocean]

Autographs and selfie. Gonna have him sign my copy of ODST.

[tame raven]

Amazing, I wish I could have this opportunity but I live in Türkiye 🙂

[prime mauve]

Awesome, give him all our best

[ocean zinc]

Did halo 5 fix the lore?

[prime mauve]

What lore?

[ocean zinc]

The halo lore. Games 1-3

[prime mauve]

It didn't need fixing? It works pretty well with what we currently have, honestly

[ocean zinc]

Aight

[robust frigate]

Right now I’m loving Halo lore at this point, especially since I finished Halo: Edge of Dawn

[prime mauve]

I think there's a couple dumb things here and there but the current status quo for 2560 is great

[minor sky]

Edge of Dawn was excellent

Though it does make me a tad worried about how Halo 7 will handle introducing certain characters or plot elements

[stoic hamlet]

If the lore for 2560 was the lore for 2553 (minus the Created) the Halo universe would be in a much better spot.

As is, it’s dealing with a lot of baggage from early 343.

[modest marsh]

Halo 7 will launch on PS5 and I don’t know what to make of that

[minor sky]

Not unless Xbox's new boss changes their mind

[wispy pewter]

Did they say Halo 7 will pick up after Edge of Dawn?

[minor sky]

Considering they just removed all references to the "This is an Xbox" campaign and spoken about the importance of exclusives

[modest marsh]

They have compared the novel to First Strike which is a bridge story for CE and 2

[wispy pewter]

Dragging the zeta halo storyline across 2 books and 1 game...

[modest marsh]

https://www.playstation.com/en-us/games/halo-campaign-evolved/ genie has been let out of the bottle methinks

[minor sky]

Yeah. And like how First Strike was more of a follow-up to The Fall Of Reach, Edge Of Dawn is more a follow-up to Rublicon Protocol than explictily Halo Infinite

[minor sky]

Time will tell ig

I am still hoping that The Master Chief Collection comes to Playstation with Campaign Cross-Play

[wispy pewter]

Actally much of Edge of Dawn was follwing chief after Halo Infinite. We get some previous characters like Horvath and... Kovan I think

and that medic

[minor sky]

The MacGuffin of the novel is a character from Rubicon Protocol

The entire plot kind of hinges on him

[modest marsh]

Technically Lucas browning and the rubicon Spartans are in infinite via audio logs

[wispy pewter]

There should have been more of the Infinite's crew showing up in the books like Majestic, Lasky, and Palmer

[minor sky]

My main concerns are:
The Weapon's new name
The Engineer
Jega's Survival
The digitized scientists
Chief nuking a large chunk of Banished leadership
Introducing the Rubicon Spartans
Fernando's recording not being his
And most importantly, the nature of the Endless

These range from minor concerns to major worries

The easiest way I can think of that it could explain the events of Edge of Dawn would be to have us play from the Swords of Sanghelios' perspective at the start

But still, I worry that will just mean we will wind-up with an info-dump or spend a chunk of the game playing catch-up

Or they can do the nuclear option and just adapt Edge of Dawn

[warm ridge]

Why is that?

[warm ridge]

Yea a lot of this is gonna be weird how they explain or adapt it in Halo 7's campaign.
Probably just going to get some sort of info dump / audio logs that explain the whole thing to be honest. Maybe even flash backs, something they attempted to do in Halo Infinite but did very, very poorly.

Regardless, this was the expected out come. I'm surprised people expected this to not happen.

[minor sky]

Yeah that will really suck

[minor sky]

I don't know if it was "the expected outcome"

I think plenty of people were holding out hope that they wouldn't do this again

Though I think Edge of Dawn is less glairing than say, The Next 72 Hours or two thirds of the Forerunner Trilogy

With the exception of Tartarus and Truth's first brief apperance, First Strike doesn't heavily bleed through into Halo 2

First Strike exists so that Halo 2 doesn't have to follow-up anything from Fall of Reach. Edge of Dawn sets-up considerably more stuff that I don't know how organically they can introduce it all

[warm ridge]

It was pretty obvious to me they were going to.
After all the cancelations & no campaign dlc for infinite I fully expected it.

The guy who wrote Infinite is no longer there, left way back in 2022. So they're going in a new direction now.

[minor sky]

Its frustrating more than anything. That isn't a knock against Edge of Dawn, I think it is really good, but it feels like Halo 7 is going to be stuck doing the same rigmarole

[carmine sleet]

You speak like someone else cannot continue a story from where it was left off without wiping the slate clean

[prime mauve]

The Created now lack Guardians which makes them more interesting to fight imo. And shut out from the Domain and Cortana's promise for a cure from rampancy, they are now in a spectrum of mostly sane to pretty close to full on rampancy and they are only gonna get worse, so they are gonna be more desperate and aggressive and we could see them really get creative with that.

Personally I always wanted a ship AI as an enemy in one of the novels. Essentially a dark mirror to Roland and early Cortana, just a really efficient battlefield AI, but ruthless and uncaring for her crew to the point where she killed them in the Created uprising and replaced some, like the loaders for the MAC guns, with a few armigers or those Spartan robot drones...
Basically she would be a ghost ship relentlessly chasing the good guys in a story.

[carmine sleet]

I'd be down for a story like that

[prime mauve]

Maybe it is chasing a smaller UNSC ship that has to show some true organic human ingenuity (and luck) to beat the ghost ship, Master and Commander style. Or maybe it's a sister ship and they are evenly matched technically, but the AI outperforms them in efficiency. The humans would have their work cut out for them and really earn that win.
And after the final space battle their Marine complement would have to board the ghost ship and fight the AI's drones in the midst of the original crew's frozen corpses, and it could be a scary part in the style of the Heart of Midlothian or Mona Lisa short stories. And then they confront the AI herself.

[wispy pewter]

I think I had enough of the UNSC being the underdogs

[vagrant ocean]

Nvm his autographs are sold out so I’m doing Alan Tudyk who was Mickey.

[prime mauve]

Pretty great too!

[vagrant ocean]

The arch traitor himself.

[vagrant ocean]

Btw, just a friendly reminder that the Insurrection is probably way more nuanced than what is shown.

[atomic stump]

I am reading through the Cole Protocl right now and I like the idea of a faction of humans who think they can bargain with, run away from, surrender to, or try to join the Covenant. That is basically the Rubble. Of course, some people would refuse to fight the Covenant either out of cowardice or pacifism.

I imagine there would have been political parties organized around pacifism and attempting to negotiate with the Covenant. Even in total war, there are some incredibly intelligent individuals who think they can negotiate a peace. I am reminded of the July plot on Hitler's life by generals who thought they could kill Hitler and negotiate and make peace with the Western Allies even if that was a pipe dream.

[atomic stump]

The McClellan campaign of 1864 is another good example but from a non-violent group.

[slim salmon]

In the Halo 2 "Return to Sender" cutscene, Cortana tells Chief to put her in his helmet, which means that she was communicating to Chief on radio before.

Does that mean Cortana was just given full access to Cairo Station and could travel between the hologram-emitting thingies?

[modest marsh]

Halo 2 implicitly acts like Chief upgrading to Mark VI means that the data chip from CE was now obsolete

but this was reverted back in 3

In both the cutscene and later on High Charity during gameplay, Chief wirelessly transfers cortana by hovering his hand over the plinth

Halo 3 sorta melds the two interpretations by having cortana do a weird hologram leap from the chip into the control room terminal

and in halo 4 they opted for forerunner plinths with a conveniently shaped slot that can read a completely foreign storage device

the e3 2013 trailer is kinda funny because chief still has the datachip but in halo 4 the plinth that supposedly housed it was vaporized by the didact

evidently symbolic, not literal

Infinite seems to go with a full wireless solution again

[vagrant ocean]

Yes. This was common practice for Smart AI at the time.

[torpid jay]

Hot take but I'm getting kinda bored of Chief. Give me new spartans or give Jerome a bit of spotlight.

[modest marsh]

Why limit ourselves to Spartans?

[prime mauve]

Yeah Cortana was using the Cairo to shoot at Regret's fleet and even killed some of their ships

[stoic hamlet]

Also, why Jerome of all options?

[topaz latch]

mildly random lore question, but do oni personnel recruited from other branches take on navy ranks, or do they retain their previous branch's rank system? (e.g. would a marine corps staff sergeant retain the rank of staff sergeant, or would they become a petty officer first class?)

[stoic hamlet]

They retain their previous ranks,

There’s a distinction between someone from ONI, and someone recruited/used by them.

You can be with ONI but not be ONI.

Like, Colonel Ackerson, for example, is still part of the UNSC Army, but assigned to ONI to head up cross-branch special projects

[topaz latch]

gotcha. and then i'm guessing people who are part of oni proper (e.g. field agents) get swapped to navy ranks if they weren't navy already? or are they structured more like, e.g., the cia irl?

[minor sky]

Idk because he is cool

[stoic hamlet]

If you’re actually actually ONI you’re Navy.

[vagrant ocean]

He’s young and has a ton of stories he can be used in. He’s quite literally in his prime.

[modest marsh]

So is Chief on account of being biologically in his late 30s/early 40s tbh

[prime mauve]

They do have some civilian contractors (Halsey, Anders, Evan Phillips) but the precedent so far is that they use military ranks even if a CIA job for it would just use the role's name, like a case officer (like whoever is running Ayit Sevi as their agent, I think it was currently Jilan al-Cygni), operations officer (Ackerson when running the Spartan IIIs), paramilitary team leader (Veta Lopis, Veronica Dare), analyst (Elias Haverson in The Fall of Reach), or a DCIA (CINCONI)

Adding rank to it kinda lets ONI personnel be more aggressive and competitive with their beefs with each other

[stoic hamlet]

It also helps with regards to cross-branch stuff.

It’s not “The Office of Human Intelligence” after all. They’re still Navy, at least, on paper.

[slim salmon]

CHAIR MAN

[vagrant ocean]

Yes.

But he’s also been in combat far longer so mentally who knows. Jerome has been frozen for nearly 30 years.

[warm ridge]

New direction doesn't mean every single character has to die / be wiped off.

It just means they're taking whatever comes next in a different direction then what Halo Infinite tried to do, just like how Infinite was a different direction vs Halo 5.

For example, Harbinger? Gone. Escharum? Also gone.
Just about every important character involved with Halo Infinite's campaign got killed.

The only real threats remaining are -

• whatever remains of the Endless (which got wrote about in Edge of Dawn & setting up a proper back story for them, something Infinite failed to do)
• whatever remains of the Banished on Zeta Halo + Atriox (who showed up twice in Infinite lol)
• Jega (probably the only actual enemy character we saw in Infinite that'll be returning)

The whole "mystery" behind who the Endless actually even were has kinda been exposed now to, we know what they are, who they are, where they came from, etc. Halo: Edge of Dawn answered quite a lot.

[orchid kettle]

Harby is gone but Edge of Dawn does set up a new leader for the Endless

[warm ridge]

3 main leaders actually.

[orchid kettle]

whoever the male Endless was that accompanied her to their meeting with the Forerunners

[warm ridge]

or 2 now I guess

Also I wouldn't even call them the main "leaders", they were delegates sent by the actual leaders.

[orchid kettle]

was there a third? I thought it was 3 forerunners and the 2 Endless.

[warm ridge]

No, it was 3 Endless. Harbinger was 1 of them.

[prime mauve]

Their familiars accompanied them if I recall, those could be future boss fights if they turn out to be powerful

[orchid kettle]

I'm honestly surprised Jega survived the events of the book

Or that we didn't see the return of Atriox like the Encyclopedia said will eventually happen

Surely before the SoS arrive

Maybe that will be the intro cutscene for a new game

[warm ridge]

The lead Xalanyn inclined his head slightly. “We sensed deception in your invitation,” he replied.

“We are Endless. Endurance is our essence.” These words came from another Xalanyn, one noted in the initial salutations as the Harbinger.

Another delegate, with deep indigo skin wrapped in pearl-white armor, separated itself from its identical twin and moved forward to speak. “We are explorers, observers, and scholars,” she said, her voice a whisper that seemed to come from all directions. “We seek not to conquer or destroy, or to impose our will upon others. We are… beyond such things.”

[atomic stump]

Troy denning revealed in June 2025 that he is "rapidly approaching retirement". So Kelly Gay might surpass him in total books written.

[orchid kettle]

I guess I just assumed the "Another delegate, with deep indigo skin" was still the Harbinger, just, I dunno in white armor because she hasnt been turned into Punished Harby

but I guess Harby has a twin then in that case?

[warm ridge]

I believe that's the "smaller" one of the 3.

“We seek only to exist,” the soft-spoken smaller Xalanyn restated.

But yes, it's 3 of them.

[orchid kettle]

then I guess we'll have a Xalanyn that perhaps will advocate for peace, while the other may be like Harbinger and bent on vengeance?

[warm ridge]

Grand Edict & the Chief Judicate.

The Grand Edict stood on the balcony and stared upon the great circular seal of the Eld inlaid in the floor of the Silent Auditorium as the Inspector Meritious and Chief Judicate took their seats.

Could also be an error on Kelly Gay's part, but it's pretty obvious there's 3 Xalanyn present.
I am saying this because at the beginning it says 5 individuals at the very beginning of Chapter 33, while not counting Offensive Bias nor Despondent Pyre as "individuals".

[carmine sleet]

Ok but that's not how you were acting before. You were talking as if Edge of Dawn wiped the slate clean and that Halo 7 wouldn't have any meaningful ties to Halo Infinite. The death of the two villains who were at the forefront of Infinite doesn't mean they can't continue the story from where Infinite and Edge of Dawn left things. The Banished being on Zeta are still enough of a threat for us to fight them and I'm not sure why you're treating Jega as separate when he is part of the Banished. If anything, it feels like you're just trying to drum up some false narrative that they're just going to not follow up on things for some reason

[warm ridge]

that Halo 7 wouldn't have any meaningful ties to Halo Infinite
I never said this. In fact, I specifically said they'll probably explain it all through the use of audio logs / flash back sequences. It's pretty impossible for it to not have some amount of ties, just like it was impossible for Halo Infinite to not have any ties to Halo 5's story.

The point is they're going in a different story writing direction vs how Halo Infinite was. AKA New direction, that's what it means. We're not getting the direct 1:1 sequel with Infinite. Edge of Dawn makes that pretty clear.

[carmine sleet]

And you have proof of this? Or are you just purposely ignoring what I actually said?

Halo 2 is a direct sequel to Halo Combat Evolved, but it doesn't pick up the very moment where CE left off

[warm ridge]

I think you're building your argument off of something I never said in the 1st place.
Proof is the book. Idk what else to tell you.

[carmine sleet]

Or are we going to act like stories can't be told between two directly connected stories

[warm ridge]

I just know the Harbinger seems to have a "twin" but was wearing pearl-white armor. I do believe they're the "smaller one" of the 3.

The main one, a male, seemed to just let them speak. He only ever spoke once.

[somber idol]

I saw a comment on internet saying that the Covenant where calling pretty much every Spartans "demons" and then that Master Chief being called "The demon" made him more spécial.

But for my part i always thought the Covenant where calling Master Chief "Demon" since Halo 2 basically because what he did in the first game, destroy the first Halo ring.

And so that Atriox calling Red Team "little demons" was only like a subtil, funny and cool reference.

And also that the call for "Demon" for the Master Chief in the first épisode of the Halo TV show a very bad mistake because he didn't achieved anything yet to "diserve" this title.

But so i was wrong this all time ?

[modest marsh]

its the consequence of retcons

originally in halo 2 spartans were not that famous until after the events of CE

in TFOR, they were only declassified in 2549 and didn't really do much to warrant much attention

but retroactively that was changed

Now, Spartans have been critical and widely known about since the very beginning of the war and have been consistently pulling off crazy stuff that the Covenant, rebels, and wider humanity had to have known about, so they developed a reputation despite being a closely guarded secret officially

i believe Ghosts of Onyx specifically is when we start to see this shift

[stoic hamlet]

Ghosts of Onyx is when they’re all called “Demons”, yes. It’s the first noting.

But it’s now retroactively applied.

[modest marsh]

well also general graves knowing about blue team

[stoic hamlet]

Yeah but specifically the “demons” thing.

[somber idol]

That's bad, i mean i always thought that was only a John thing for what he did achieved

[stoic hamlet]

The Covenant doesn’t really distinguish between Spartans. It’s used as a descriptor for them.

[somber idol]

And i always thought that was cool but also really diserved

[modest marsh]

I think Cole Protocol is the first chronological instance of a spartan being referred to as a demon, by Thel Vadam?

[stoic hamlet]

Yeah.

And Last Light clarified that Spartan III’s in SPI are also considered as such.

[somber idol]

But that's really a strange thing because if you remember, in Halo 2 anniversary in the new cinematics for Halo 5

Arbiter say that his soldiers called him demon when talking about Chief
And the way he say it that also sounds like really attached to him only

[stoic hamlet]

Well, retroactively, Silent Storm is the first instance, now, where it’s pluralized.

[stoic hamlet]

The distinction is they refer to him as the demon.

But all Spartans are known as “demons”.

In the field you’d have no way to distinguish one from another, and they’re so comparable in skill using the singular is meaningless.

[somber idol]

Ah yes ok, but i think that make loss a bit of the power of this denomination idk

[modest marsh]

although its not used outside of this, Halo 3 ODST also ranked up ODSTs to "imps" according to the brutes

[stoic hamlet]

John’s work in CE wasn’t all that special, it should be said.

He’s given the prestige because he was there, but any Spartan could have accomplished it, some even better than he did.

*assuming they had the same tools.

[somber idol]

Idk
Cortana did find him spécial in the first place, and lucky

Does his particular luck is canon or is something random that she drop there ?

[stoic hamlet]

His luck isn’t really a factor with anything in CE.

[somber idol]

I mean why not ?

And if not, where his luck is relevant in the story at some point in the saga ?

[stoic hamlet]

Because there’s nothing there that another Spartan couldn’t have accomplished. The fights we see are all well within the range of others.

If it had to do with… hacking, and John was the best hacker ever, then maybe.

But he’s inherently a generalist.

[modest marsh]

by the novelization's account, all Chief's luck can really be attributed to is somehow taking out a hunter with a magnum with a "lucky shot" (gameplay send up), and landing the jump with the warthog at the end of the warthog run without knowing it was there

[somber idol]

I need to re-read the book i already read and learn the ones that i didn't read

[modest marsh]

implicitly the first time it's actually taken into account would be in halo 2 because i think Bungie were incorporating stuff from TFOR rather than the luck thing being intended from the start in CE

in which case, the bomb surfing is sorta framed as uniquely impressive in how cool and confident he is

halo 3 follows up with the whole reentry bit where cortana's monologue overlayed there is framed as a justification for his unlikely survival

halo 4 imo is where they lay it on thick

[somber idol]

So any Spartan would have been able to cross the Library and to blow up Halo escaping it ?

It's established i think that John is by far the best or at least one of the best Spartan of the program so the others at least wouldn't had did better

[modest marsh]

best can mean a lot of things but a few hours of shooting hordes of flood is not the greatest test of skill

Red Team did it, a lot

albeit they supported each other for the most part

[somber idol]

Yes sometimes like the bomb thing in Halo 2 seems like a good follow of micro events happened in his way

[stoic hamlet]

So did a lot of marines.

[somber idol]

Yes but idk he carried everything alone

[somber idol]

But no one could pass the Library

[modest marsh]

I think Chief is worse for not being a teamplayer whenever possible, I hate the idea that he is any flavor of lone wolf or at his most capable when relying on his own skills

The Flood is very quick to dispel that notion

[stoic hamlet]

John himself specifically disputes the idea that he’s the best Spartan in both First Strike and Shadows of Reach.

[somber idol]

Idk cause between the first and second game he still do team thing in First strike if i remember well

[stoic hamlet]

The Flood notes he struggled so much specifically because he didn’t have a team to rely on. He’s explicitly not a lone wolf and is at his weakest.

[modest marsh]

he is quite literally at a handicap during the events of CE by his own words due to being conditioned to rely on fellow Spartans to suceed

[somber idol]

I think if i remember well there is another spartan that he consider better than him no?
I don't remember well the first book but i have some memories

But he still one of the best of all for sure

[somber idol]

And saying all that he achieved nearly everything alone, hé maybe relies a bit on the Arbiter on the third game but that's it

Well alone but also with the help of Cortana

Thinking about it Cortana is a reliable asset to him

Would she had been a so much reliable asset with another spartan than him without their relation?

[stoic hamlet]

He considers Linda to be superior to him because she doesn’t need to rely on a team.

[somber idol]

And wasn't also an other child he considèred better ?

A mâle ?

[modest marsh]

in fairness i think part of that is being humble of his own ability, particularly as a leader

[somber idol]

Stronger than him or something like that?

[stoic hamlet]

That said, he also states in Shadows of Reach (when directly called out as “the best”):

*there’s a difference between being the best and the best known. All Spartans are capable.”

[stoic hamlet]

Technically yes, but still. The idea that he’s inherently the best is flawed. Halo doesn’t really work that way.

[somber idol]

Yes but that's also part of his personality, he was never arrogant.

Anyway act means more than anything

Nodoby did achieved more than him at the end Of the day

[modest marsh]

athleticism is an area where Spartans are already in such gross excess of what they actually need in order to do their jobs that this isnt really something that should tip the scales in terms of capability anyways

[iron peak]

I wonder why in Infinite instead of gen 2 armor we have only ridiculous modifications of the mark 7 armor

[stoic hamlet]

He was incredibly arrogant.

[somber idol]

As a child at the beginning of the program

[stoic hamlet]

That was kind of the main point of TFoR, and to a lesser extent Silent Storm.

[modest marsh]

out of universe, art style change, in universe mark 7 is the current main production model that new spartan ivs are being issued

GEN2 and GEN2-inspired variants of GEN3 still exist in universe

[somber idol]

He then learn quickly that's the point of their training

[stoic hamlet]

Notably, they won’t go away for decades, or so stated by 343.

[iron peak]

I understand, but gen 2 armor would look a lot better than those huge Mark 7 armor chest plates

[stoic hamlet]

Sort of, but not entirely.

It takes the events of Silent Storm and a lot of the events of the games for him to truly be humbled.

Even in 2552, during and before Reach, and into Halo 2, he was pretty overconfident and arrogant.

[stoic hamlet]

Most of those chest plates are up-armour rigs.

[modest marsh]

GEN2 can be modified and upgraded to look any particular way so i would not discount the possibility of this happening from an in-universe perspective, but we are unlikely to ever see GEN2 depicted in a mainline game for the foreseeable future in any form outside of multiplayer cosmetics which will probably just be based on GEN2 pieces rather than actual GEN2

[iron peak]

I still believe that in future halo games, gen 2 armor will appear again

I really like the style of this armor

[modest marsh]

If fireteam osiris or other legacy Spartan-IV characters appear, they will probably be wearing a redesigned version of their GEN2 armor but it wont be GEN2, both aesthetically and in-universe

allegedly Vale still has GEN2 Copperhead, but I think that would change if she cameos in a hypothetical halo 7

[iron peak]

Most likely, they will have a variant of this armor based on the mark 7 armor

[carmine sleet]

I wouldn't be surprised if they considered making Gen 2 a proper core at some point in Infinite but they deemed it not worth the effort

[stoic hamlet]

Infinite was such a mess I could see that.

[iron peak]

For some reason, I hoped that they would do it

[carmine sleet]

I would've liked it too but I can live with what we got

Like, my big hot take is that all they'd need to do is update the textures and the Gen 2 stuff would work just fine alongside the Halo Infinite assets

[stoic hamlet]

I just use art to give me my GEN2 and adjacent fix.

Especially because you can incorporate a bunch of Infinite pieces if you want.

[iron peak]

I didn't really like what they did, but I have the campaign chief's armor and I'm glad I still like it

[vagrant ocean]

Disagree, I like the up-armored plates in many ways over GEN2.

[vagrant ocean]

*GEN3

[stoic hamlet]

I mean, tbf, you’d see the same with GEN2 anyways.

[heady peak]

So this is the lore and universe channel huh, now where can I find an in-depth strength comparison of a MA40 and a folding chair?

[stoic hamlet]

You’ll want Spacebattles for that kind of discussion.

[warm ridge]

The domain itself never really cured rampancy, it just halted the progression due to allowing them to use the Domain as a sort of "storage vessel".
We're not entirely sure what it actually did for them, if anything, considering they were able to exit the Domain and still have "lingering effects" of being cured for quite a while.

It's possible the Domain has a sort of healing power that affects everything that enters it, including AI's? Honestly not certain. So it healed the damage, but it never really fixed the underlying problem.

[obsidian thistle]

It never "repaired" what was damaged also

We see as much in Halo 5

Cortana still had some "moments"

[warm ridge]

Believe this is because the Cortana we see in Halo 5 was already so far gone, the Domain wasn't capable of repairing her fully due to a vast amount of lost information.

Rampancy tends to overwrite & delete things until the AI just disappears after all. The Domain isn't capable of finding whatever was lost, just preventing further damage from happening.

A good comparison is Sloan, who was no where near as rampant as Cortana became at the end of her "life" & had prolonged his rampancy as much as humanly possible.

[stoic hamlet]

Also stated flat out in Outcasts

No AI in the domain was repaired.

[warm ridge]

I mean yea, after Domain access was lost, those very same AI's have only continued down there already set rampancy paths (that's what I already said above).

[stoic hamlet]

No even with the Donain.

It doesn’t cure rampancy.

[warm ridge]

I don't think you're understanding what I'm saying at all.

Never said it cured it.

So it healed the damage, but it never really fixed the underlying problem
Underlying problem = Rampancy.

[warm ridge]

This is why I brought Sloan up.

It seemed that the Domain’s effect was not uniform for each attempted integration. It was almost as if the arcane repository itself pushed back with an air of reluctance. For Sloan, the most he was so far able to obtain was a relative plateauing of his current deterioration, and while he was grateful for the temporary victory, he was still determined to one day fully obtain that which had been promised to him.

[warm ridge]

Speaking of the Infinity -
An upgrade seed could easily be used to fix the Infinity on Zeta Halo if they go down that path.

With the Monitor on our side, it shouldn't be that difficult to achieve unless the Banished have managed to scrap the entire ship (although considering it's status seems to largely be unknown, I doubt the Banished even know it's true location after the slipspace jump happened).
@prime mauve @wispy pewter

[warm ridge]

That's not estabilished at all. As far as we're aware, John has largely been established as a CQC enjoyer. His preferred weapon is the Assault rifle, he likes to rush in, mix things up a little. Shoot 1st, ask later. Enemy now, friend later (you can see such a instance happen in Halo Infinite when they 1st encounter Pyre).

He's the "jack of all trades, but master of none." Many other Spartans are far superior in skill in various areas then he is. Fred is a better leader. Linda is a better Sniper. Kelly is a better CQCer (her preferred weapon is the Shotgun).

His "luck" plays a huge factor in all of this for him to accomplish the feats he's managed to do, and this is emphasized in Halo lore quite a lot, throughout both the games & the books. Cortana analyzed every single Spartan, and chose Chief specifically due to his luck, that the other Spartans somehow lacked.

[warm ridge]

It's just what the game chose for customization. Gen 3 still has other variants that aren't strictly Mark VII, but due to how Infinite's customization system works (the flawed Armor Core system), it's really all we ever got to see.

[vagrant ocean]

Plus I don’t think she went with the ring when it jumped, so she’s prolly still somewhere near the Ephsu system.

Or if she managed to have a backup jump drive she might’ve skipped town.

[warm ridge]

I've argued that for years, but Edge of Dawn seems to indicate otherwise.

“Last we heard, Infinity went down somewhere beyond the fracture. No word on survivors or how accurate that intel is.”

[vagrant ocean]

I mean, the last part leaves it open ended.

[warm ridge]

We also know Joyeuse hasn't been able to detect the Infinity at all despite scanning the ring multiple times, even she speculated it's as if the whole ship just..vanished.

[frigid heart]

Like the titanic

[minor sky]

Halo Studios, please the chair in a hidden weapon in a future Halo game. Call it "The Hammer Of Jerome" or smth

[frigid heart]

“Where did it go”

[minor sky]

I believe that Infinity is stuck in a time thing like Chief was at the end of Infinite

[warm ridge]

Survivors on the ring have also done this, coming up with nothing.

“Did you find Infinity?” John asked, stepping closer.
“We used the ship’s unique identifiers to formulate specific locator pings. We did not get a single return—it is possible that the vessel is somehow cloaked and beyond our current capability to detect. However, we were able to use a long-range camera to record visuals where the UNSC signals we detected originated.”
The visuals were projected into the air, and though the feed was not ideal, no one could dispute what they were seeing. Large groups of UNSC survivors had banded together in several areas. More than the Chief or anyone else here had seen on the ring so far.

[minor sky]

Perfect time for a Deus Ex Machina

[warm ridge]

Kinda makes you wonder how such a large vessel that could easily be seen from space on a Halo ring vanished into thin air. No detections, no wreckage, no signals bouncing off of it, no new survivors coming from it, nothing. It's just not there.

[minor sky]

Infinity hitting the ring would result in impact felt across the ring

[warm ridge]

100% agreed.

So many people back before Halo Infinite came out really underestimated just how large the Infinity really is. It's not like a Frigate crashing at all. You'd see the wreckage from space. It'd be very noticable.

I suspect even the guys who made Infinite's story what it is underestimated it, due to all the concept art featuring the Infinity crash landing and such (which ultimately got scrapped from the game).

[vagrant ocean]

Yeah, people forget she’s 5km long. I don’t think she’s near the ring, given how there’s no signals at all. She’s either still near Ephus or she’s trapped in some sort of anomaly. She weighs nearly a billion metric tons, she has to be SOMEWHERE.

I understand Doctor Dawson thinks she might be cloaked, but by what and who? To my knowledge she doesn’t have any cloaking systems

[minor sky]

Once again, I think Infinity is inside a time-stasis/delay thing

I also think Chief was inside it while he was floating space

I think it is the only reasonable explaination we have at the moment. That or what happened to the Spirit of Fire happened to Infinity

Actually

Really far out theory- Infinity got pulled way out to the Ark

Probably not.

[wispy pewter]

5.7 or something wasn’t it

[minor sky]

Pitty we didn't get a proper level set on Infinity at the start of Infinite

We got a very brief romp through the vehicle bay in Halo 4 and a handful of Spartan Ops missions

[warm ridge]

The Infinity was cloaked from being detected by Cortana for a long while apparently. We never got any additional lore about this or how it was, just that Cortana was incapable of finding it despite it being in clear view of Earth. No other UNSC vessel or asset had this problem though.

[vagrant ocean]

Curious.

[warm ridge]

Once she found the Infinity she had no problem of tracking it ofc, at least judging by it's massive slipspace jumps being easily detected through space.

[wispy pewter]

I thought it just ran away

[warm ridge]

wdym?

[minor sky]

I figured it had to do with the Forerunner engine or smth

[wispy pewter]

at the end of Halo 5

[warm ridge]

well yea, that's the assumption but it's never been confirmed nor touched upon beyond Halo 5's ending saying she had trouble finding it.

[warm ridge]

what does the Infinity running away have to do with Cortana tracking it?

[wispy pewter]

Cortana is not god

[warm ridge]

okay you've completely lost me lol

[fair hazel]

one thing that annoys me is how people cant seem to fathom people dyeing their hair

like halsey blond at some points, or different hair

[vagrant ocean]

Jean means that the Infinity prolly did countless jumps to avoid detection.

[minor sky]

Basically jumping in and out of slipspace before The Created can catch up to them

I am still split on The Created as a faction

On one hand I do think they follow up on some narrative threads well (Rampancy, Reach's data files, the Imperalist nature of the Mantle, ect.) but on the other, "Evil AIs taking over" is a bit standard Sci-fi

Not like that is anything new for Halo

I just think it isn't the most interesting direction

[obsidian thistle]

As a sad bit of news that I never like to give.

Author William C. Dietz recently passed away. Author of several novels; from his own creations, tie-ins to Star Wars, and most notably to Halo; Halo: The Flood.

I personally share my best wishes to his friends and family.

To cap this post off I want to end it with a quote from the author from his website that I feel helps show the man loved what he did!

So for the moment I'm having a good time, and doing what I love to do most, which is writing books.

That said, I'm 80 now, and slowing down. I have no complaints. Life gave me lots of opportunities, and I took full advantage of most of them. So, when they beam me up, I won't complain.

Thanks for reading my stuff.

William C. Dietz

In a retrospective thing, I really admire Dietz and how he pushed to make Halo: The Flood more than just a novelisation of the game. Pushing to add other perspectives, which many argue to be the best parts of the novel!

[obsidian thistle]

I also admire how outside funny quips in Halo: CE, and the bare minimum Bungie gave us. His work was actually the first time we got a real Covenant perspective in the Halo series! Many details (while adjusted to fit better) hold up many years later!

[warm ridge]

yes I'm aware of that, but that didn't stop Cortana from tracking the Infinity after she had finally found it. That's what I was saying, jean is just being overly confusing. @minor sky

[warm ridge]

he did write up quite a lot of interesting things that are still used to this very day. Sad to know he's finally been beamed up.
Wish he got to do more Halo stuff, but I sort of understand why Microsoft never got him to write another Halo novel.

[minor sky]

Rest in peace

[obsidian thistle]

I'm glad he got to finish his Winds of War series last year also. Not many authors get that sorta closure. (Interesting series fyi)

[stoic hamlet]

I’m more annoyed she doesn’t ever have her glasses.

she can’t see without her glasses!

[carmine sleet]

At least we can rule out the possibility that she can't be seen without them

[strange pumice]

I would love to see cuffs in her hands

[slim salmon]

Jedi vs Didact, telekinesis-only fight.

Who would win

[modest marsh]

Didact doesn’t really use his constraint field abilities much besides to T-pose Chief but I think you can extrapolate a bit from that considering that’s a lot of compressive force on someone who can bend steel bare handed already

Other prometheans and covenant use similar gravimetric weaponry that you can assume Didact is probably capable of replicating

But tbh if you just go off the fact he could fully restrain Chief without him being able to do much more than struggle, the same effect is probably going to mulch the target that lacks a Spartan’s durability

[slim salmon]

Hmm.

Your username reminds me of someone.

[fair hazel]

May he rest in peace, sad news today

[warm ridge]

Jedi. Forerunners don't exactly have the ability to "use the force".

Without the force being involved, then Ur-Didact.

why?
Ur-Didact was more then capable of cracking Chief's entire MJOLNIR helmet with just his hand. That's Titanium metal, and in Halo's case an even stronger version of whatever Titanium they're using. He could also easily pick Chief up, who already weighed around 1,000 lbs with his MJOLNIR suit on.
Not to mention he's quite clearly faster, more experienced in actual battles, smarter, so on so forth.

Don't think a Jedi could do any of this honestly.

[vagrant ocean]

In or on? Reminder she was only arrested as a scapegoat, the real monsters were everyone who signed on and funded the program.

[modest marsh]

The real monsters are the friends we made along the way

[vagrant ocean]

Mendez is prime example of someone who isn’t given enough credit as a monster. He voluntarily signed up to train child soldiers FOUR TIMES, yet he’s given a pass.

[modest marsh]

Yeah but he did a bang up job so is it even a mark against him

[vagrant ocean]

Yes, it is. He volunteered on four separate occasions to train child soldiers. None of those children had the ability to consent to those programs, and he saw no issue with the programs until 2553.

He gave his men live ammunition during a training exercise with 7 year olds.

[stoic hamlet]

Technically.

[modest marsh]

Are we counting the shopping plaza dojo lessons he gives the kids in Legacy of Onyx

[vagrant ocean]

What was the fifth class?

Cuz Delta never got beyond selection before the war ended.

[vagrant ocean]

No, teaching kids to survive an invasion is not the same as training them to become killing machines.

[vagrant ocean]

Especially since the IVs became a thing.

[stoic hamlet]

Delta was selected but just hadn’t arrived.

The Agincourt had just delivered supplies for the incoming Delta Company. Kurt had asked for a little observational assistance before they broke orbit.

Presumably they’d have arrived December or January.

[modest marsh]

A modest proposal

[vagrant ocean]

And since the war ended and the Spartan-IV program began, they prolly got put back into the system.

[warm ridge]

A grand majority of which had died before the Covenant war ended.

Mendez is given a pass largely because he was just following orders based off what he was told to do by people higher up in both the UNSC & ONI.

Grand reveal, people like Halsey, James Ackerson, various ONI figure heads, etc.

Parangosky was also definitely involved but no one dare touches her so

[vagrant ocean]

Mendez volunteered. Btw, just following orders isn’t a viable defense, hasn’t been for decades, or by then, centuries.

[minor sky]

Parangosky will die and people will still dare to speak ill of her out of fear that her rotting corpse will arise from the ground and curse their bloodline

[vagrant ocean]

She’s basically still in charge since her pet is now CINCONI.

[minor sky]

Well, yeah

[vagrant ocean]

And Serin is only like, 50. She’s still got another 40 years until she even thinks about retiring.

[worn wolf]

question

so seargent johsnon was orion and as a result wasnt a preferable candidate for the flood to infect in halo ce

at the end of halo 3 he's smoked by guilty spark

would his body have been used by the flood as biomass if they found it intact

[strange pumice]

I guess it's impossible because the ring(replacement for installation 04) was blown up

[worn wolf]

oh right

i forgot that was on the new ring i thought it was stilll on the ark

[modest marsh]

this was retconned back in 05 by the graphic novel

per the Breaking Quarantine comic, Johnson shoves off the infection form attempting to latch onto him

he manages to escape without suffering any injuries due to his skill and athletic prowess

in the original interpretation of the flood, they both injected the host with genetic material that causes mutations to occur while also needing to "pilot" the body using the infection form, kind of like a puppet or mechanized suit

later Bungie determined that contamination by the flood would eventually result in the host body transforming into the flood anyways, the infection form simply accelerates the process to be instantaneous

When Johnson "died" in CE and was later observed to be alive in the original version of events described in First Strike, his nervous system was deemed incompatible to the Flood due to a type of radiation sickness he had contracted, but still had Flood mutations that gave him an accelerated healing factor to explain his miraculous recovery

that isnt really compatible with the current understanding of the flood, because even if his body was not usable as a combat form they would still attempt to gestate his biomass somehow

[wispy pewter]

They could have just made him immune

[modest marsh]

Bungie was very explicitly against this

its one of the few times they went out of their way to specifically retcon something because it disagreed with their creative vision

and to be frank, it's hard not to agree with the decision

the mechanism of johnson's immunity isnt really justified that well, since it just so happens to be the case that he got hit with a bunch of radiation resulting in a chronic medical condition that otherwise doesnt seem to have any negative symptoms

so he has none of the down sides of his central nervous system being scrambled by an acutely dangerous amount of radiation exposure, and we're supposed to believe the forerunners never figured out a similar treatment despite having far superior technology and plenty of time?

[wispy pewter]

Touché

[minor sky]

I wonder if the Omnibus will alter any of that

[modest marsh]

that would require a pretty significant rewrite

[wispy pewter]

Then again, 343 did write in some skeleton ahh species that is somehow immune to a superweapon that fries every living organism's nervous systems

Someone did bring up previiously that the Endless are conceptually based on Patrick the starfish

[minor sky]

I hope they do Abbadon justice down the road

[stoic hamlet]

There is a (really weird) implication Spartan III augmentations provide immunity to a Forerunner… thing that targets your nervous system.

Mentioned in Meridian Divide.

[orchid kettle]

It's also funny how the UNSC doesn't know which serum did that

so they had to give the battleborn kids all of them to be safe

i can only assume the planned third battleborn book would have just taken place late enough in the timeline that the UNSC could have just offered the kids a spot in the Spartan-IV program

instead of making up this excuse of them all having mega cancer that can only be cured by having super powers

[stoic hamlet]

I mean that’s kind of the implication I took from it.

They were going to give them proto-SIV augs.

[modest marsh]

the only part that makes sense is the gene therapy

[slim salmon]

Sigh.

Fine, constraint fields, if you have to be so pedantic.

[warm ridge]

The force isn't constraint fields. Not sure where the confusion is.

Constraint fields also wouldn't work outside of a Forerunner environment, specifically there ships or buildings. If said ships or buildings even had them in the 1st place.

[knotty sun]

heyy, kinda new to the halo verse and a question, im learnin more about the Lore and i was earing about the cole protocol. When the UNSC ships won, how did the navigate back home?

[stoic hamlet]

They usually didn’t win.

But if they did, they wouldn’t have jumped away.

They only destroy the data when they’re about to be boarded.

[knotty sun]

wdym they usually didnt win? they kept building massive MASSIVE ships those take recources andd time how did they have so many?

i thought it was like

50/50 space battles usually

[modest marsh]

no

not even close

covenant ships are massively technologically superior to unsc ships in virtually every sense, and tend to be much bigger with more weapons and armor

[knotty sun]

ah.

[modest marsh]

generally the UNSC would need a significant numerical advantage to reliably win which was a rare occurrence because the covenant fleet is also orders of magnitude larger

[knotty sun]

how long did the war go on for?

[modest marsh]

technically its still ongoing in some respects but the conflict known as the human covenant war or war of annihilation went from 2525 to 2553

28 years

a treaty was signed in December of 2552 but some of the battles spilled over into the year after anyways

[knotty sun]

ah

yikess

[modest marsh]

in any case, while navigating without the nav data would be difficult, it wouldnt be impossible by simply triangulating star locations off memory

the bridge crew of a starship would be educated in astronomy and the ship would have the sensory arrays necessary to determine where they are in space roughly

[slim salmon]

This may have probably been answered already but when the UNSC discoverd the Covenant they were terrifying

It wasn't the usual generic space-war, it was losing contact with ships, stations and even entire planets suddenly with no answer.

The UNSC scrambled to keep morale high.

[knotty sun]

if only iscandar sent them a wave motion core SMH

real ball knowers will get that

[knotty sun]

okay so

how many battles did they win?

[slim salmon]

A few, maybe. Initially at the start the UNSC won a bit with Preston Cole and stuff but then it just became a real hell for the humans.

Reach was glassed and one of the most vital military plans were ruined.

[stoic hamlet]

“Soon” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there,
lol

[slim salmon]

Well

I was being dumb lol

[knotty sun]

what does glassed mean ive heard it before was it nuking?

[slim salmon]

Basically.

Planet-wide bombing.

Decimation.

[knotty sun]

ah.

where ships just flinging nukes at eachother?

[slim salmon]

No. Nuking the Covenant was the UNSC's dream but the Covenant ships had powerful shields and stuff. Sure, the nukes were really effective but the Covenant ships were usually too close to the UNSC ships to not cause self-damage.

This is emphaiszed in the Fall of Reach comics.

Eventually they built MAC guns (Magnetic Accelerator Cannon) to pierce the shields.

Maybe.

I'm not the biggest lore nerd.

[modest marsh]

they pump concentrated plasma beams into the crust of a planet until soil itself melts down into silica rendering it unable to sustain life

its like the opposite of terraforming

they also boil the oceans and melt down the cities if they can

[slim salmon]

Basically melting a planet lol

[knotty sun]

so

[modest marsh]

doing so is ruinously expensive for the covenant to do as it requires an absurd amount of energy from an entire fleet of ships but they do it anyways out of their religious dogma

[knotty sun]

why did the covenent decide humanity had to die

?

[slim salmon]

Okay maybe that was a spoiler

So IIRC humanity showed the Covenant a vision of trade and peace

[knotty sun]

yknow i stopped mself cuz i mlike humanity was decided to die over reliion then i remmebered d90% of human history and im like oh okay

[slim salmon]

So the Covenant were religious and thought that humanity was like blasphemous and stuff.

[vagrant ocean]

MAC cannons predate the war.

[modest marsh]

yeah the bottom line is that the covenant are on a quest to bring about the end of the world because they think they will ascend to godhood like the forerunners

[slim salmon]

I know.

[modest marsh]

humanity stands in the way of that because the planets they happened to colonize possess a disproportionate number of forerunner artifacts, unbeknownst to them

[slim salmon]

I don't think they know what ||Halo was for.|| Or am I wrong?

[modest marsh]

humanity is accused of heresy as they have been blamed for the destruction of "holy relics"

[modest marsh]

they do but its complicated

[slim salmon]

Isn't that only after the Battle of Installation 04?

[modest marsh]

no

[slim salmon]

||Did they just build over Forerunner ruins unknowingly||

[modest marsh]

The conflict at Contact Harvest starts because the Covenant essentially want to displace all of the humans living there

[knotty sun]

so ive heard alot about te flood and learned a lot about it did it ever make it to earth?

[modest marsh]

yes but in small number

[carmine sleet]

How much of the games have you played?

[knotty sun]

none

[slim salmon]

Wait, have you played CE yet?

[modest marsh]

The Covenant separatists aligned with the UNSC glassed a portion of east africa to prevent their spread

[slim salmon]

You should learn about the Flood after CE.

[knotty sun]

wait i thouht the covenent where bad dudes

[slim salmon]

Infighting

More to that in Halo 2.

[modest marsh]

The Covenant splits up into a bunch of smaller pieces during halo 2

[knotty sun]

oh.

[slim salmon]

||Basically the fat brutes of the Covenant decided to beat up the Elites in Halo 2.||

||The Elites (Sangheili) found out the truth about the Halo Array, realised they were lied to, and decided to side with the Humans.||

[knotty sun]

and the truth is?

[slim salmon]

Spoiler.

Unless you don't mind.

[knotty sun]

i dont im just here for the lore

[modest marsh]

you should probably consider playing the game instead of getting all the key story details via discord chat

or at least watching the cutscenes on youtube

[knotty sun]

eh i like hearing other peoples opinions plus

i cant find a 10 hour lon oyutube video explaining the lore

[slim salmon]

The Halo Array is a death machine used to stop the Flood.

[knotty sun]

or timel;ine

ahh gotcha

[modest marsh]

halopedia is a great resource

[slim salmon]

The Flood consume all, so why not kill everybody before the Flood consume us?

And then the Flood will die out and the non-sentient beings will re-evolve.

[carmine sleet]

Seconding that Halopedia is a great resource

[slim salmon]

Halopedia is peak.

I started reading it daily after I finished my Halo book collection.

[modest marsh]

well okay, the reveal is that the flood itself cannot be targeted by the halo array, but its food source (intelligent life) can be

[slim salmon]

ngl this was never really explained except for maybe like technological limitations.

Or have I missed something?

[modest marsh]

the flood at its base level is a highly adaptable single cellular organism that has more in common with the scifi conception of nanomachines than real biology

sterilizing them at a galactic scale is not feasible without wiping out all life in general

[slim salmon]

Fair

Who knew God Powder was so dangerous

[modest marsh]

instead the forerunners opted for reducing them to their weakened state before using a more conventional method of sterilization and terraformation of the affected planets in order to reseed life

they had the benefit of thousands of years uncontested but evidently their efforts were not a permanent solution

[slim salmon]

@knotty sun https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VV8MWjpuVDE

You can just watch this

[knotty sun]

oooooooooo

[knotty sun]

exsqueeze me

wtf is godpowder

[slim salmon]

So there was this species called the Precursors.

Long story short the Precursors created all life and decided to give the responsibility of life to its creations - Forerunners and Humans.

The Humans were chosen and the Forerunners were pissed.

[modest marsh]

they didnt create all life, they put their thumb on the scale in terms of shaping the evolutionary outcomes of certain species in the galaxy

[slim salmon]

The Forerunners decided to exterminate all of the Precursors. The Precursors were like "oh no", and they ground them up into a powder and were shipped all over the world to preserve themselves instead of being extinct.

Then the powder was fed to dogs, the dogs mutated, the dogs infected everyone, blah blah blah, turned into Flood. The End.

[slim salmon]

Well, y'know, "creating all life" is easier to say.

[modest marsh]

some things are phrased in such a way that it would appear they are the originators of life in the galaxy but there's enough room for interpretation that it's more like they engineered conditions that were more in line with their preferences

[slim salmon]

I think Chase is watching the video now.

[knotty sun]

i am

[worn wolf]

In halo 3, masterxhief dies when he shoots himself in the leg by mistake with his p360 while pulling it out of his belt

This was seen as a massive loss for the unsc as masterchief held all the passwords to all their bitcoin wallets

The arbiter would go back in time and create arbys.

[carmine sleet]

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

I don't think that's canon

[worn wolf]

I am a published author

[stoic hamlet]

That’s not a high bar.

[knotty sun]

so is hitler that dont mean anything dog 😭

[tepid lagoon]

LOL

[hearty whale]

maybe we shouldnt say that here

[tepid lagoon]

Ehh

[stoic hamlet]

I’m shocked the filter didn’t catch that.

Usually it’s quick on that.

[slim salmon]

Holy moly what did this guy just say!?

He hasn't even been here for one day!

[prime mauve]

Misriah Armory's quality control is thankfully a bit better than Sig's lol

[warm ridge]

I'd expect it to.

[prime mauve]

"Chief, when I said I escaped the Flood cause I'm built different I was talking more about being a certified devil dog badass and less about my messed up DNA!"

[minor sky]

"If I had a nickle for everytime there was a vague cure/immunity to The Flood that Humanity found, I'd have two nickles. Which isn't a lot, but it is weird that it happened twice"

[knotty sun]

The videos alright, its real much more going into the lore of each game and not the war as a whole and its skipping a bunch

[warm ridge]

when UNSC ships won, they never went home. They defended whatever area they were sent to & ordered to defend.
If they got new orders to go somewhere else, they went somewhere else. A "home" doesn't exist. Your home is the ship, unless you get reassigned.

[warm ridge]

Usually if something isn't censored, it's probably cause the admins have never seen it before or thought to censor it in the 1st place.

[knotty sun]

Ah gotcha

[warm ridge]

If you're asking "how do crew mates get reassigned"
easy. A new ship arrives, likely a much smaller one. Picks up whoever it needs, and blast off away.

[knotty sun]

Do we know what the food was like on the ships?

Also how where they powered?

[warm ridge]

think standard military MRE's and such.

[knotty sun]

Nuclear Fusion?

[warm ridge]

or just standard military food in general

[warm ridge]

Better. Nuclear fission.

[knotty sun]

Just standard naval food?

[knotty sun]

Ooooooooo

[warm ridge]

Idk. Just think what type of food does the USA Military eat in there mess hall. Likely similar to that

On the field it'll be MRE's and such (some were actually seen in Halo Infinite)

[knotty sun]

Naval food is typically better so at least it was eh food

[warm ridge]

https://www.halopedia.org/Meal,_Ready-to-Eat

https://www.halopedia.org/Mess_hall

[slim salmon]

Also in Halo CE there's a monitor with a menu of drinks

[warm ridge]

They also had vending machines in certain facilities to.
https://www.halopedia.org/Vending_machine

[slim salmon]

In Anniversary graphics the menu has a new section for food, with stuff like Chef's Special, Hotdog, Meatloaf, Burger, Pizza and Turkey Dinner.

[warm ridge]

It was a wall mounted vending machine, you can find a few of them scattered around.

[slim salmon]

Really?

Well I guess it could be considered a vending machine bc there's a slot where food comes out but still

[warm ridge]

Yes, it's not the only one you can see on the Pillar of Autumn.

The Infinity itself also had a Bar on it that served alcohol. @knotty sun

[slim salmon]

Now the real question is:
What do the Covenant eat? Blind-wolves?

[warm ridge]

https://www.halopedia.org/List_of_food_and_drinks#Covenant

[slim salmon]

Wait, the ancient humans ate Pheru?

Ew.

[warm ridge]

Halo lore directly states the Precursors are the originators of all life, so I'm gonna go with Halo lore on this one.
They had seeded life in multiple galaxies, so.

[warm ridge]

Yes. Modern humans today eat dogs & cats.

Obviously not everyone does, but you get the idea.

[slim salmon]

Curious to know but did they get infected or were the Flood too weak at the time and dissipated in digestive acid

[modest marsh]

To be clear, in the original text his DNA was altered

The flood just couldn’t control his body so they didn’t go through with the transformation

[warm ridge]

Dust -> Dust gets sprinkled onto Pheru -> Dusted Pheru have offspring -> Dusted Pheru become more docile, positive effects. Those Pheru have off spring ->
Hundreds of Pheru offspring generations later, mutations begin forming (Dust is no longer relevant) -> Mutated Pheru begin consuming each other, becoming cannibalistic ->
This eventually evolves over to Humans -> Eventually, it also evolves to spread over to Sangheili ->
Groups of infected individuals begin getting more aggressive, biting, eating each other, piling up bodies ->
These individuals begin forming mutations just like the Pheru did, same thing happens -> Now we're getting to the parts where the Flood is more recognizable.

[modest marsh]

He healed the injuries caused by the flood attacking him due to DNA mutations but otherwise remained the same

[slim salmon]

I know the whole Pheru-Flood thing.

[warm ridge]

Idk what you're asking then.

[slim salmon]

Just curious whether the Flood mutated inside the people who ate the Pheru or not.

[warm ridge]

That's how it spread soo...yes?

It also wasn't really the "flood" at that point in time.

It was basically just a normal disease, think like COVID or something.

[minor sky]

Iirc there are crates in Halo 2 that mention carrying food

They are scattered around all over

[prime mauve]

I think the way they will reconcile both stories will be that the infection form does sting Johnson's spine but in the moment where the Flood cells were like "what the actuall hell is this DNA where do we even begin?" Johnson rips it off and thus begins the Tsutomu Nihei visual novel version of his escape

[warm ridge]

The whole entire thing of Johnson being infected at all was retconned. He's not infected.

I'm fully expecting the Omnibus book to rewrite the whole thing.
Something like -> Chief still suspects Johnson's infected, but Halsey calms him by saying he isn't. (this is basically what happened in the novel originally anyways, but instead it left Johnson with magical healing powers that never got mentioned again, now it won't).

[prime mauve]

I never got the impression that the book was going with Johnson ever getting infected like Jenkins did or anything like that, but that he had some contact. But yeah I think it's better to defer to the Graphic Novel's version because I respect the hell out of Nihei's idea, he's a boss.

[stoic hamlet]

The cookbook, Warfleet, and a few other sources go into it.

Ships suck to live on in Halo. They’re bleak, dehumanizing and isolating, and the food is just as bad, taste wise (though chefs apparently try to make it seem more palatable).

Ships like Infinity, and large stations like the Hopeful, are the exception to the rule.

[warm ridge]

He was "infected" but the infection was for whatever reason dormant. Not Jenkins level obviously, but the infection did come up when Halsey scanned him.
As a result, he got super healing powers & some other enhancements (which never got brought up again ofc).

Think of it like "i got scratched by a flood form therefore infected", because that's how the Flood has worked since the beginning.

[prime mauve]

Yeah that "getting scratched" part would still be pretty possible with Breaking Quarantine. Also breathing up spores.

[warm ridge]

regardless Bungie retconned the whole thing back in 2005, it's no longer "official lore" technically.

[prime mauve]

Maybe for the best

[minor sky]

They can speak for themselves. I for one, love the Chef's Special found in the vending machine between the mess hall and main bridge

I can never forgive those Hinge-Head freaks for scuttling the Pillar of Autumn before I could ask what the chefs were putting into that

[vagrant ocean]

You don’t wanna know.

[minor sky]

What? It isn't like they found some dust on a Spaceship and started putting on food

[minor sky]

I feel like I'm losing my mind rn because I was watching LNG's Fusion Coil video a few days ago and it occurred to me that he missed Halo 4's Covenant Plasma Battery. So I went on to Halopedia to find some images of it and all I could find was this piece of concept art. So I went to Forge to see if I could find it and nope. So does this thing exclusively exist in a handful of Halo 4 missions?

https://www.halopedia.org/Plasma_battery#/media/File:H4_PlasmaBattery_Concept.jpg

(the concept art for reference)

Like I didn't expect him to mention that one generator thing you pass as you enter the room with the Composer on Ivanoff, but this felt kind of glaring. But apparently even Halopedia doesn't have any mention of it?

[unique rune]

I don't think I remember seeing any anywhere in 4's campaign

[minor sky]

https://www.halopedia.org/The_Gate#/media/File:H4-SO-Location-TheGate-Structure-02.jpg

Bottom right corner

The Covies have them piled up around a few areas on Requiem

[worn wolf]

in halo infinite the UNSC lost zeta halo

they spent a long time trying to find it

but they couldnt

[atomic stump]

I don't mind Johnson's flood immunity or flood resistance or whatever we are calling it now. So long as they don't start introducing dozens of Spartan I's and making it a core feature of the universe, then it doesn't impact the wider narrative. Having side effects from human experiments is completely fine in a hard sci fi universe.

The one thing that does bug me (and I hope they change with a Halo 4 remake) is the scene where the Librarian "accellerates Chief's evolution" which allows him to become immune to the composer. That is stretching the definite of hard sci-fi to the breaking point and crossing over into soft sci-fi Star Wars space magic. There could be any reason why the Composer doesn't work on Chief. Maybe the Composer has a 1% failure rate or it is the SII augmentations or maybe the Composer confused Chief and Cortana and thought Chief was already an AI.

[warm ridge]

I don't mind Johnson's flood immunity or flood resistance or whatever we are calling it now.
It was officially retconned by Bungie back in 2005. It's not confirmed Halo lore anymore, hasn't been for years. It's just an exclusive thing stuck to the First Strike book only.

The one thing that does bug me (and I hope they change with a Halo 4 remake) is the scene where the Librarian "accellerates Chief's evolution" which allows him to become immune to the composer.
This is perfectly in the realm of sci-fi and not space magic, how are you struggling to figure that out?
Becoming immune would be as simple as gene editing, something the Forerunners were quite capable of doing.

Also, Forerunner tech in general is basically space magic. Always has been. They break the laws of physics all the time, especially when it comes to heat generation.

[atomic stump]

Evolution occurs over multiple generations. It can't happen to a single individual. Its space magic dude.

[warm ridge]

It can with gene editing. Multiple generations aren't needed. We've literally seen examples of this IRL.

It's like becoming immune to a disease due a vaccine. You don't need 10 generations of people to do that.

[atomic stump]

You can leave somebody a voicemail 100,000 years in the future that edits their genes with no surgery?

[warm ridge]

Given how advanced Forerunner tech is, yeah.

You do realize in the Halo universe they have the ability to cure cancer without surgery, right? It's like getting a booster shot. Cancer gone.

[atomic stump]

the bar is in hell

[warm ridge]

Same with radiation sickness (although there is still a certain point where you succumb to it no matter what)

[atomic stump]

Halo is not or was not a soft sci-fi universe. It was hard sci-fi with some faster than light travel. The hand wavy space magic is a different genre and hurts the narrative.

[warm ridge]

I just explained to you all of that is hard sci-fi.

[warm ridge]

This is Human level tech btw. Been hard confirmed in Halo lore since Halo: Evolutions. Average people have no idea what cancer even is anymore due to how rare it is because it had at some point been cured since the 22nd century.

[warm ridge]

BTW, the genetics were already there present in Chief. All Reclaimers have it, not just Chief exclusively. All the Librarian did was unlock it in Chief, which hadn't happened to other Reclaimers at that point in time.
https://www.halopedia.org/Geas

[prime mauve]

To be fair it was less that the message that did the augmentation and more the whole facility that Chief was in did it

[modest marsh]

i dont care what point the other person is making but how do you square that with purposeful and repeated hints that Spartans have some sort of supernatural extrasensory perception consistently in the nylund books?

Or in the case of The Flood, Chief having premonitions of the flood before he encounters them while dreaming?

https://www.halopedia.org/Caleb_Vale#/media/File:Caleb_Record_2.jpg

Like i think halo aesthetically and tonally pulls from a lot of influences, with varying levels of adherence to realistic scifi concepts, but some things are too far into the realm of fantasy to effectively reconcile without handwave magic, like virtually anything related to the flood

[vagrant ocean]

Yep

[orchid kettle]

I dunno Resident Evil gets away with its zombie monsters creating biomass out of thin air

[atomic stump]

The Flood is grounded and realistic. The infection forms are puppeting the bodies. That has to be the worst analogy of all time

[unique rune]

struggling to figure out what part of the infectious telepathically-linked hivemind super-organism that has never had any apparent need to metabolize energy sources in a conventional sense is supposed to be grounded and realistic

[modest marsh]

When you kill something, they tend to get weaker, not orders of magnitude stronger

A human being’s corpse should not be generating equal or even greater force than that of a 1000lbs supersoldier just because it’s being “piloted” by a parasite that adds a medium sized dog’s worth of bodyweight

[prime mauve]

Zombies generally do superhuman strength feats because they go beyond safety limits our brain uses by default

The Flood augments combat forms way beyond that

[warm ridge]

Literally no. The Flood aren't puppeting anything. The entire body is converted into Flood biomass / supercell in a matter of seconds. The body itself never dies, it just becomes an entirely new type of life form, part of the Flood hivemind.

[stoic hamlet]

Originally that was the idea though.

But yeah it no longer is.

[warm ridge]

Even in the original idea that made it in the games wasn't "puppeting the body". Maybe in some super early design documents when they were discussing "space zombies", but the guys who made the Flood didn't want them to just be "space zombies".

[stoic hamlet]

I mean, yes, originally you needed an Infection form specifically to be taken and used.

That’s why Grunts, Hunters, and Kig-Yar weren’t taken originally, because a pod infector couldn’t turn them into a combat or carrier form.

(Obviously that’s no longer the case).

[warm ridge]

that 2nd part I don't think was ever officially confirmed, was it? by Bungie devs.

[worn wolf]

neither halo or the flood are grounded realistic hard sci-fi

the unsc still havent learned to put roofs and doors on their ground vehicles so they dont get sniped while driving

an odst can jump over a truck and flip a warthog by themselves

cheif and the boys went back in time during first strike

people climb onto the sides of tanks to ride on them and dont seem that bothered by the cannon shooting 2ft from their ears.

[minor sky]

It isn't "hard sci-fi" but it definitely leans into it

In some places more than others of course

With an author like Greg Bear, it comes with the territory

However games are expected to take creative liberties for the sake of gameplay

[vagrant ocean]

Precisely.

[minor sky]

Like, yes canonically Plasma Weapons are pretty nasty tools. However your marines succoming to radiation sickness from the Carbine you gave them doesn't really seem like an especially fun mechanic

Or how the Halo 4 Jackals technically can't be classified as another phenotype of Kig-Yar

[vagrant ocean]

They’d be more like a subspecies of sorts.

[minor sky]

Something like that. Still a fantastic design though

I am legally obligated to bring up how awesome the Reclaimer-era Jackals look

Just an absolutely gnarly looking creature in the best way possible

[worn wolf]

couldnt actually remember what they looked like

tried to copy and paste a picture in here but i cant, but actually the design is fairly solid

the storm covenant arent nessesarily winners though im also reminded of the grunts and elites now

[minor sky]

I like everything about the redesigned Elites and Grunts except for the faces

I specifically like the Halo 5 Grunt armor and body. I think it looks really solid

[worn wolf]

the face with the wierd nosepiese always looked really impractical and just gross to me

if only the covenant had created armour for hte grunts that had some kind of breathing apparatus so they dont need to stick a pipe up its nose instead

[minor sky]

The popped our eyeballs are funny but I can't really get behind how they changed the face and made the neck fatter/bent

[vagrant ocean]

Well those are also subspecies of Unggoy.

[worn wolf]

i can absolutely believe that these are that subspieces yeah

no complaints if they co-exist alongside the other ones

[vagrant ocean]

Specifically the Zimzib and Ritrit. The traditional grunts we see in most games are the Kafv.

[minor sky]

I don't mind that they didn't go with gas-mask, but they do look kind of weird with just a tube up their nose.

[warm ridge]

kinda the whole point is these "new covenant" are running out of supplies, and therefore are running out of full face mask breathing apparatuses for Grunts.
yes other designs of Grunts do feature full face mask in Halo 4.

[worn wolf]

i dont really buy that though

[warm ridge]

you should, because it's the entire point of them being more fanatical lol

spartan ops also talked more about it, they aren't the original covenant, just a splinter faction in 2557.

[minor sky]

The Heritic Grunts had a tube in their mouth

[worn wolf]

if thats the case from a story perspective then ill go with it but i feel like the covenant would have a practically endless supply of stocked up equipment

especially for the grunts with how fast they reproduce and how quick they're used as cannon fodder

[minor sky]

I think it was a missed opportunity not going in a similar route to Halo 2's heritic Elites/Grunts for the multiple splinter factions seen in the reclaimer saga

[minor sky]

Well Jul's Covenant isn't "The Covenant"

[worn wolf]

i know

covenant armouries and supply factories*

that are now taken by jul m'dama's boys

[warm ridge]

that's entirely nonsensical
no military has endless supplies, stuff WILL eventually run out no matter what.

[minor sky]

They are a much smaller faction of many Covenant splinter factions

[strange pumice]

But now by banished I suppose

[warm ridge]

it's why the Banished began manufacturing there own stuff, Covenant era stuff was running out
So did the Swords of Sanghelios.

[worn wolf]

right but for the grunts, they cant spare a few bits to make breathing apparatus for them that isnt a pipe in their nose

maybe a facegaurd that doubles as facial protection in combat?

[warm ridge]

again
other Grunts in Halo 4 feature full face mask that isn't a single pipe going to there nose
no they can't spare these for every single Grunt imaginable, just like how not all the Elites had full body suits. Only certain ones did.

[worn wolf]

i was gonna say that as well fair enough

not many grunts are actually that valuable in combat

[minor sky]

I really really wish Jul's Covenant grew over the course of the Reclaimer Saga. Like they start out as small-fries but then get access to Requiem and their leader is now "The Didact's Hand" + they have access to all kinds of Forerunner tech. Then we see them gobbling up other Splinter Factions, becoming a more dangerous threat to both the UNSC and the Arbiter's efforts

[warm ridge]

also it's not impractical at all, it's actually quite the advantage because now the Grunt doesn't have to worry about a mask on it's face.
imagine being forced to wear a Gas mask everywhere you go. It's not a pleasant experience.

[worn wolf]

it seems a bit more pleasant than a big pipe in one of my nostrils

[warm ridge]

not really

[worn wolf]

especially if it might also shield me from debris or fire

[warm ridge]

that's what there bodies are for

Grunts don't wear armor lol

there entire body is literally just a hard shell. They're crabs.

[worn wolf]

see this in halo 7 where once you kill a grunt you can throw its shell to kill whoevers in first place

[warm ridge]

the closest thing they have to armor is the gas tank on there backs full of methane

I mean you could call parts of it armor sure, but really the whole suit they wear is just so the gas tank doesn't fall off.

[worn wolf]

i actually realised that i couldnt actually visualise the grunt armour in my head so i went and looked at it

and sure enough it is very very useless

[minor sky]

https://halo.wiki.gallery/images/thumb/8/8a/H4-Concept-Dawn-Cryo.jpg/1280px-H4-Concept-Dawn-Cryo.jpg

[minor sky]

FTR it seemed early on they were going with this design for the Grunts armor/mask

[worn wolf]

the breathing apparatus looks awful to me from a design standpoint but the rest of the design i actually kind of fw it

they do look a tiny bit more menacing if you were a regular human up against them which isnt a common perspective for halo but they do to me look the part

[minor sky]

You can find a very early model with this design in some Halo 4 videos

[warm ridge]

Unggoy imperials, Unggoy Heavies, and the Unggoy Rangers are probably what you want

https://www.halopedia.org/Unggoy_Imperial
https://www.halopedia.org/Heavy_(Covenant)
https://www.halopedia.org/Unggoy_Ranger

[minor sky]

Their gasmask has two long tubes connected to their armor much like the H2 Heritic Grunts

[warm ridge]

The Rangers specifically do feature the face mask on there helmets

[worn wolf]

ungoy ranger is what i see as the ideal armour for them yes

with the exception of the strange booster pack things attached to the end of the methane tank

[warm ridge]

one in the far back looks like the Unggoy Heavies

[warm ridge]

Rangers are space ones, that booster thing is a thruster pack of sorts.

they do use them in Halo 4

[minor sky]

It is a much earlier iteration of the final design, yeah. I really want them to do a second edition of the Halo 4 Art Book with tons and tons of newly included concept art

[worn wolf]

im hoping that its not using the methane from the breathing tank as fuel for the boosters

[minor sky]

Hell, do that for each Halo game

[warm ridge]

also used in Halo 5 near the end when you're blowing Argent Moon's reactor

[warm ridge]

probably is

[worn wolf]

gonna need to sit down with mdama's armourer and have a talk i think

[warm ridge]

that's not a Mdama era thing lol

that's a Covenant thing

[worn wolf]

he can do better

[warm ridge]

all the armor you see there is Covenant made, Jul is just using what he can find for his faction

[warm ridge]

I think everyone wishes that, but for whatever reason he got cut short.

[minor sky]

Spartan Ops being cancelled

For one

[warm ridge]

Spartan Ops wasn't linked to his story though

his faction was continued through other pieces of Halo media for quite a while until Halo 5 came out and killed it

[minor sky]

He was prominantly featured as the antagonist in both it and Escalation, which is basically Spartan Ops' cancelled seasons

[warm ridge]

they could've easily continued it through Halo 5 and made him what the Banished are today lol

like I said, they cut him short for whatever reason.