lore-and-universe

[vagrant ocean]

That’d be my guess, or maybe a week or two prior to 20/10/52.

[stoic hamlet]

I wouldn’t even call her “retired” in the conventional sense.

[vagrant ocean]

Retired from active service.

She’s a reservist.

Which, having a reservist Spartan isn’t a bad idea imo.

[stoic hamlet]

Yeah, but then she’s also doing armour testing.

Like, she’s “retired” but the word I think is slightly misused.

[vagrant ocean]

Which many reserve units today do. A ton of equipment testing is done by reserve and home units in the US.

[stoic hamlet]

Mhm.

It just makes sense.

[vagrant ocean]

That’s why I qualify it as retired from active service or transfer to reserve.

I will say I pity her kid. I know for a fact Naval Intelligence is studying the little creature whenever they can.

[stoic hamlet]

I still really don’t know how that whole situation occurred.

“Contrived” isn’t the word I’d use, but “unlikely” is closer.

[vagrant ocean]

Especially since the window of retirement is WAY too short for a child to be born. I need information!!!!

If there’s any part of Maria’s story that needs to be retconned, I think that’s the one.

[prime mauve]

Spartans are just so superhuman they can just have kids that quickly!

[sharp bough]

“Lowstakes” “inoffensive” - Yikes. Seems like just pushing out content for contents sake

[prime mauve]

I'm giving them a second chance but I can't really recommend them as amazing reads

[prime mauve]

The other anthologies I do recommend, especially Evolutions

[carmine sleet]

The Chronicles aren't meant to be anything grand or game changing, if that's what you're expecting

[sharp bough]

Since there seem to be a lot of people here that keep up with the 343 lore (which I didn’t continue reading) How has 343 era lore dealt with and expanded on Spartan III’s? Clearly the team’s approach is to try to fit the book and game lore together while prioritizing the game lore.

So I’m just curious if there has been new content created to try to reconcile it. Because in the original Nylund book lore Spartan III’s weren’t on Reach, didn’t operate in MJOLNIR armor, were a secret program.

Has 343 produced any new content explaining Noble Team’s origin and why/how they were on Reach? Why they operated in MJOLNIR armor and if that was the norm for Spartan III’s in new canon, whether they are still a more secret program than Spartan II’s or if they are just as public knowledge etc? Just curious what has been added to Spartan III lore in the 343/Halo Studios era. Thanks

[carmine sleet]

The chronicles exist to flesh out the world a bit more, add details or explain a small detail which may have been overlooked

[sharp bough]

Oh, and then I forgot. They also added Spartan IV’s which were like ODST’s or something - so does that mean the Spartan III program also ended at some point? Any idea how many are supposed to be alive after they moved onto Spartan IV program etc?

Just curious how much this idea of Spartan programs is actually explained in current lore or if they just throw them out in games and just ignore background explanations and general timelines of them.

I think there was at least one book exploring Spartan 4’s and Bucks team. I didn’t read that so don’t know if it explains something about when they moved from Spartan III to Spartan IV program 🤷‍♂️

[carmine sleet]

You don't need to keep bringing up the fact you've not kept up with the 343 lore, it feels like every time you say something here you've been bringing it up.

And the IIIs are still the IIIs. We see Gamma Company work alongside members of Blue Team during Last Light and get some stories showing us IIIs in the post war era, including a specific team known as the Ferrets. Only select IIIs wear Mjolnir during the war, such as teams like Noble, the majority of IIIs still wore SPI armour.

Noble's origins has not been expanded upon but we did get a Waypoint Chronicle detailing their mission before the events of the Deliver Hope trailer. As for why they were on Reach in the first place, considering the planet is a stronghold for the UNSC, it's not too much of a stretch to say they were there before being sent out on their next mission. It just so happened that mission ended up being investigating the relay at the start of Reach.

I can point you to a great website to learn more if you need to

[carmine sleet]

Spartan IVs are not like ODSTs and the Spartan III program ended when Onyx's Sentinels became active to destroy the Covenant fleet which had found the planet. The awakening of these Sentinels destroyed the surface of the planet, the training facilities for the IIIs included. Not to mention the deaths of Kurt and Ackerson would've made it hard to keep the program going.

No Spartan IIIs became Spartan IVs, that's not how it works. All the IVs are consenting human adults from various branches of the UNSC, primarily veterans of the Human-Covenant War. We have plenty of details about the Spartan IV Program thanks to stories like Bad Blood and Initiation, both of which are set in the post war era, they haven't dumped any Spartan IVs into the middle of the Human-Covenant War when they didn't exist yet if that's what you're worried about.

[sharp bough]

I was more asking whether the Spartan III and IV programs were going concurrently or if Spartan III program had completely ended by the time the Spartan IV program happened. You cited Ghost of Onyx lore for suggesting it ended and no new Spartan III’s were being created anymore. I wasn’t sure how much of Ghost of Onyx Spartan III lore still remained after changes made in Halo Reach.

Also, do we know anything about which Spartan III company/batch the members of Noble team came from?

[carmine sleet]

They didn't throw out the lore from Ghosts of Onyx when 343 came up with the IVs

[vagrant ocean]

The III program ended when the war did. They had just gotten the materials to begin selecting members for Delta Company when the war ended.

[carmine sleet]

And Noble Team has IIIs from multiple companies. Carter, Jun and Emile are all Alpha Company, Kat and Six are Beta. Jorge is not a III, he's a Spartan II

[sharp bough]

Ok, but much of it got retconned by the story in Halo Reach by Bungie team before they left

[vagrant ocean]

No it didn’t. The retcons were relatively minor.

[sharp bough]

And 343 seems to use the same Bungie logic of prioritizing game lore over book lore

[vagrant ocean]

A few IIIs being pulled from the main company isn’t lore-breaking.

[sharp bough]

I mean original lore:

-No Spartan III’s at Reach (first two batches were fully wiped out in suicide mission and third batch is being trained on Onyx during Battle of Reach)
-Secret Program Halsey knew nothing about
-Spartan III’s used SPI armor and only Spartan II’s used MJOLNIR

In the game version, all of these are retconned. Those are pretty big retcons to me. Like, almost their entire backstory…

[sharp bough]

Which main company? The one that hasn’t finished training yet in Onyx or one of the previous two companies that had 100% fatality rate on previous missions?

[vagrant ocean]

Beta was not fully wiped out, Lucy and Tom both survived their mission. So you’re already incorrect.

Halsey didn’t know about the IIIs until she saw them.

These IIIs ARE equipped with MJÖLNIR.

[vagrant ocean]

Prior to their missions commencing. Holy hell you sound like a massive tourist and you’re being so snobby about it.

[sharp bough]

I’m just calling out the flat lie that nothing was retconned about Spartan III’s from the original book lore. Obviously stuff was 🤷‍♂️

[vagrant ocean]

I’m trying to be civil but the attitude is insane.

[vagrant ocean]

I never said nothing was retconned. Great job at lying about my position. Quite sad honestly.

[carmine sleet]

It's not like Halsey identifies members of Noble as IIIs in Reach too. It's still awkward that she's meeting some before the events of GoO but for all she knows from seeing unknown Spartans in Mjolnir, they could just be from a Spartan II Class II which was worked on behind her back

[obsidian thistle]

Changes happen. And at the end of the day, Halo is a living breathing universe where the writers will do stuff ultimately for a better story. Is it ok to agree or disagree with changes, sure. But lets not argue over it shall we.

[stoic hamlet]

This has gone on so long I see no way to jump in, but I can see I’m in for…. A read.

[vagrant ocean]

She simply identifies them as supersoldiers, which could mean either a new class of IIs, a new Spartan program, or JAVELIN.

[carmine sleet]

Indeed

[vagrant ocean]

Which she mentions in her journal.

So her not knowing about the IIIs is still true.

[carmine sleet]

I was gonna mention the journal but I haven't read it yet so I didn't want to get it wrong

[stoic hamlet]

It’s now free, I believe!

[vagrant ocean]

It’s a fascinating read. I’ve been over it a dozen times.

[stoic hamlet]

So that’s yay~

[vagrant ocean]

Gives you a better grasp of Halsey’s psyche and character.

[carmine sleet]

Aye! I have it saved somewhere on my hard drive, that's my main issue with reading it, I can't remember where it's saved

[prime mauve]

I think the line from Colonel Holland where he says that ONI thinks it is a misallocation of resources to deploy Noble to Reach but he disagrees is enough to know why they are there, honestly.

[carmine sleet]

Aye

[stoic hamlet]

Specifically it was to chase down the missing trooper teams.

Not just being deployed on reach.

[prime mauve]

Indeed

Good thing Holland's instincts told him it was something big and worthy of a Spartan team

The other Cat 2 teams, though? I'd really, really like to know more about them

[sharp bough]

You work for Halopedia? What does it say about the Origins of Noble Team? Are they survivors of Alpa or Beta Company? Or Oni Operatives that got pulled from the program before these companies were formed? Or do they still have no origin story yet in currently written canon lore? Thanks!

[carmine sleet]

You know you could just go on Halopedia to find that info out, right?

You don't need someone who works there to get that info for you

[sharp bough]

Well Halopedia page seems to link to a archived aka deleted waypoint page on Kurt-A259. So I don’t know if that is still current Halo Studios canon or if they’ve changed things about their origin and hence deleted that content 🤷‍♂️

[stoic hamlet]

Waypoint had a restructuring a few years ago, a lot of pages were lost.

[carmine sleet]

Halopedia is very much up to date. Them linking to an archived page is not somehow proof of something being retconned. Waypoint has over the years been reworked and updated, meaning that some things have been lost from the live version of Waypoint

[prime mauve]

Also they usually link to web archive pages for the things that have been taken down

[vagrant ocean]

Yup.

[modest marsh]

Wayback machine works for most of those links

[somber arch]

Why do female sangheili look so different compared to the males?
Idk if it’s an old lore bit, but they look completely different if memory serves

[carmine sleet]

You mean in that one episode of Halo Legends? Yeah, that was just a stylistic choice for that episode

[vagrant ocean]

Correct.

From what we can gather, there isn’t a ton of dimorphism between males and females.

[prime mauve]

The pictures we have of Scions like Tul Juran definitely look pretty similar to the guy Sangheili

[modest marsh]

The current consensus is they largely look identical to male sangheili but with a slimmer build on average

[somber arch]

I have a dumb question;
I’ve only played reach and infinite and some of 5.
How do the covenant vehicles hover?

[frigid heart]

Christmas magic

[wispy pewter]

They use plating that is allergic to the ground

[modest marsh]

Anti gravity propulsion, which is visualized as a glowing blue effect or red effect underneath the vehicle in question depending on the faction affiliation

Sometimes you’ll see electrical discharges, presumably a consequence of static electricity buildup

UNSC ships use a similar principle to levitate in place despite only having rear facing engines, and it’s also presumably how they stay in a fixed position when firing their MAC cannons

UNSC technology is less sophisticated in this respect so it has not seen widespread adoption beyond ship-based applications (and implicitly this is a recent development relative to the timeline of the series)

[sharp bough]

Reverse engineered Forerunner tech

[modest marsh]

Maybe the modern application, but it’s been made known that the elites possessed pre-covenant vehicles, ships, and weaponry that couldn’t have been produced by reverse engineering forerunner technology since it was considered a cultural taboo prior to the Writ of Union

[vagrant ocean]

Yes, quite.

[modest marsh]

https://web.archive.org/web/20210712171728/https://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/universe/vehicles/banshee

The Banshee has had a long history of usage not just within the Covenant, but also by the ancient Sangheili fleets who explored the stars decades before the arrival of the San’Shyuum. Though refined over the ages, these early Banshees would still be recognizable into the modern day, as they are all patterned on the ‘sKelln, a voracious and cunning aerial predator that stalks the skies on Sanghelios.

[sharp bough]

But I’m sure the modern anti-gravity technology is much more advanced that pre-Covenant Sangheili tech

[modest marsh]

The main difference I would assume relates to power generation

Covenant plasma generators are extraordinarily powerful for how small they are relative to the equipment they provide energy for

This is readily apparent with the differences between the pre-covenant Burnblade vs the covenant energy sword

The former merely heats a metal blade to searing temperatures, whereas the latter creates a self contained plasma envelope that flash vaporizes most mundane materials on contact

[wispy pewter]

if UNSC ground vehicles are nuclear powered, wouldnt that make it extremely deadly in an accident 🤔

[somber arch]

They probably have super sci-fi way of containing it
Or maybe everything’s just super advanced and can handle radiation easy in halo

[modest marsh]

Only some of them are, not all

That is to say, anything that could cause a scorpion to suffer a catastrophic reactor failure probably killed anyone close enough to it to begin with

[unique rune]

Halo's humanity figured out how to use nuclear fusion so if anything does happen they should be relatively safe

the frigate that dropped on Sydney still exploded and obliterated the city so there's apparently some kind of risk involved

[wispy pewter]

That is definitely not ideal. Also can't be the only ship to ever crash

[unique rune]

I think it's just one of Halo's usual "what even is physics" moments because based on current understanding of the whole thing fusion reactions shouldn't cause the same sorts of nuclear explosions or runaway chain reactions typically associated with fission

at least on their own

I guess maybe if it had nukes onboard the engine core detonating could've set those off or something but it's

I dunno

I'm not a physicist but Halo gets wacky with real science a lot

[sharp bough]

I mean, if the San’Shyuum were able to dominate or at least stalemate the Sangheili, they must have had much more advanced weaponry. The San’Shyuum are not a particularly warrior like race…

[unique rune]

they had a Forerunner keyship that they didn't seem particularly hesitant about using

[sharp bough]

And they had also already reverse engineered tons of forerunner tech into weaponry if I’m not mistaken. The Sangheili were just a normal space faring race. Not one that had immediate access to tier one civilization mega technology to base weaponry and designs off of…

[modest marsh]

They had a stalemate because the forerunner Dreadnaught is functionally invincible compared to anything else in the setting that isn’t a super weapon in the modern setting, let alone thousands of years ago

[modest marsh]

Halo ships necessarily are physics defying because if we took numbers at face value, the displacement required to push In Amber Clad across new Mombasa in a matter of seconds would completely torch the city in the process along with a significant chunk of the surrounding atmosphere

[orchid kettle]

Even by Halo logic the idea that Cortana was confident that In Amber Clad going critical would wipe out all of High Charity seemed silly to me

I guess these overly destructive frigate engines finally bit the UNSC in the butt when one fell on Sydney and turned it into a crater

[hardy swan]

That makes atmospheric battles very destructive

if one of them crashes with a critical engine that is a nuclear explosion

[somber arch]

Lore question:
have there ever been any Spartans who chose a specification (I.e Medic, demolitions, heavy weapons, etc) or are they all generally all-rounders, jack of all trades master of none type beat?

[stoic hamlet]

Generally they’re all rounders. They need to be.

But some do specialize in certain roles. But they’re not locked into them.

Like, Jorge served as a weapons’ specialist for Noble, but he could have easily served as a sniper, or demolitions expert, etc.

[somber arch]

Gotcha, gotcha.
All rounders who can fill any specific niche if need be, got it, thx

[stoic hamlet]

Yep.

Obviously they’ll be kitted out for specific specializations, especially when it comes to niche skillsets like piloting, or heavy weapons, but they can swap on the fly.

[orchid kettle]

ODSTs seem weirdly well rounded too which I kinda just chalk up to the need to explain why Buck can shoot a sniper rifle or fly a banshee in the game.

And it's probably the same for Spartans. Players have a lot of freedom in terms of loadout choices and vehicles, so you gotta make the protag somebody who's trained in everything.

[vagrant ocean]

Makes sense for both to be very well versed given their purpose.

[somber arch]

Speaking of ODST’s, what makes them different from Spartans?
I’ve never played a game with ODST’s in it, unless reach has ODST’s and I just wasn’t paying attention

Speaking of ODST’s, what makes them different from Spartans?
I’ve never played a game with ODST’s in it, unless reach has ODST’s and I just wasn’t paying attention

[vagrant ocean]

ODSTs are the original elite special forces of the UNSC, having been around since 2163 when they were deployed to Mars to quell a Koslovic and Friedenist rebellion. Until the formation of the Spartan-II program in 2511, they were used for deep strike and reconnaissance missions against Insurrectionist forces across human space. The main thing that distinguishes them from all four Spartan programs is that they are unaugmented, tho many ODSTs probably volunteered for the ORION program and were reintegrated after its cancellation in 2506 such as Avery Johnson. They still see service for when Spartans cannot or should not be deployed and in many occasions have been instrumental in turning the tide of battle.

You play as ODSTs in Halo 3: ODST.

[somber arch]

Ah, I see, so they’re effectively souped up marines who were put in before Spartans?
Neat

[vagrant ocean]

ODSTs interestingly enough are pulled from all branches of the UNSCDF special forces units and even UEG member state forces. They’re called Orbital Drop Shock Troopers because they literally drop from orbit in a metal coffin.

Several Spartan units have also been deployed this way.

Cuz it’s just effective.

Albeit risky.

[carmine sleet]

There are also ODSTs in Reach, such as the Bullfrogs we see in Exodus

[vagrant ocean]

And ODSTs in 2 and 3.

[carmine sleet]

Indeed

[vagrant ocean]

They’re also great expeditionary forces.

[unique rune]

also physically ODSTs are just normal humans vs Spartans having artificial augmentations

the only thing special about them is that they’ve got a few screws loose

[vagrant ocean]

Chief, Cal-141, there’s entire MJÖLNIR variants dedicated to it.

[somber arch]

I mean, yeah. Why bother having to clear out an LZ to land a pelican or something when you can just get shot out of a cannon at Mach 40

[vagrant ocean]

And use those troops to secure an LZ for a larger contingent.

No different than a HALO jump.

[vagrant ocean]

As was seen in Halo 2.

[vagrant ocean]

HellJumper, ODST, Jumpmaster, Firefall,

[heady peak]

“We are green, and very, very mean!!”

[somber arch]

What’s the lore on the other branches of the military?
Cuz the Navy is the main one, the marines are marines, but what about the coast guard or the Air Force or the such?

[prime mauve]

Some are big ol' boys naturally. Just pure, cornfed, built like a brick outhouse, boys like Dutch, Golly Barnes and Mike Baird.

[prime mauve]

The Air Force mans the Orbital Defense Platforms if I recall

And generally do most air defense in atmosphere

[modest marsh]

Drones are their domain as well

[unique rune]

They're around but mostly don't get much time in the spotlight because our heroes are usually being carted around in spaceships

[modest marsh]

Army are the main guys in Reach specifically

Ironically they are also the ones that run wet navies

[prime mauve]

I wonder if the Army also run some drones? That could explain their Wombats in the sea carrier

[vagrant ocean]

That is possible.

[worn wolf]

the next logical step for halo is the spartan v program.

[vagrant ocean]

For what reason? What improvements can be made on the IVs that can’t be solved with better tech and strategy?

[worn wolf]

it sounds cool

[vagrant ocean]

Not really.

Like I said, there is no room for meaningful iterative improvement on the IVs, so why bother?

Not strong enough? Improve MJÖLNIR. Not trained well enough? Rotate out the better operatives into training roles and narrow the recruitment requirements.

But doing the latter would just hinder the program.

[modest marsh]

Everyone would have drones, but the bulk of the unmanned aerospace fleet would be Air Force operated

Longswords for example technically qualify as a self contained unmanned strike craft

We generally see them manned, but that’s because we mostly focus on them being deployed by the navy

I’d imagine that the Air Force longswords would rely more on remote operation or even completely autonomous systems

[prime mauve]

Yeah the Longswords were getting turned to drones time and again in the early Nylund books

It would be pretty cool to depict that visually some way, maybe with the empty cockpits and light strips like the unmanned converted jets in Ace Combat 7

[prime mauve]

If Roland hadn't already owned the pilot outfit so hard as his image, an Air Force smart AI looking like that should definitely be a thing

[modest marsh]

The “issue” with the longsword and its iterations is that original one is so monstrously large and later ones are just shrunken down versions that have questionably scaled cabins because it retains the same rough silhouette

[vagrant ocean]

Somehow the UNSC Air Force was on 04.

[modest marsh]

A good way to reconcile this imo is to just say they’re unnamed variants

[modest marsh]

Tbh I think the direction to go (which they’ve made steps towards slowly anyways) is to democratize augmentation protocols and powered exoskeletons more such that “Spartan” just becomes a form factor of super soldier rather than its knightly or samurai status that it’s been historically beholden to

From the UNSC’s perspective, Spartans are their most valuable as symbols of humanity’s triumph over impossible odds, but the amount of resources required to maintain and supply them individually isn’t justifiable when those resources should trickle down more to other sectors of society, not even just the military

That doesn’t mean people like Master Chief will stop being important but if we’re led to believe that Spartans represent aspirational progress, we should see that blossom

Janissaries exist to be this sort of adversarial counterfactual to the idea that super soldiers are a net positive for society, but imo the problem is it positions itself as “they’re bad because they’re not loyal to the military/government”

We don’t see civilians represented here

[vagrant ocean]

They’re also bad because so far they’ve only been used by crime lords.

[modest marsh]

That’s part in parcel of not being controlled by the UNSC

Spartans are good guys because they’re on a leash

Ilsa Zane is bad because she’s not on a leash

This is pretty similar to what Clancy games tend to be about

[vagrant ocean]

That and she is severely unstable.

She would not be able to be tamed.

[modest marsh]

“It’s bad/unethical/dangerous for a secret paramilitary organization to exist without any oversight and unlimited resources with cutting edge technology IF they’re not working for the government”

[vagrant ocean]

I think the democratization of augmentation protocols will lead to an arms race that will be reminiscent of what we know about the Interplanetary and Rainforest wars.

[modest marsh]

This is part of the reason why I wished they expanded more on why these rules/taboos exist in the first place

[vagrant ocean]

Same. Just because it occurred in the 22nd century doesn’t mean it isn’t relevant.

[modest marsh]

Well it’s relevant today

[vagrant ocean]

We know what went down was bad enough to necessitate the Mortal Dictata.

[modest marsh]

PEDs are increasingly popular and normalized, as well as a growing transhumanist/technocratic movement

Halo isn’t really supposed to be speculative science fiction but it’s still influenced by works that tackled these issues

Alien, Terminator, Ghost in the Shell, etc

[vagrant ocean]

Unrelated but I would love someone to build a scale model of the Scorpion and have David Fletcher MBE talk about it. Sadly he’s retired.

[prime mauve]

The looksmaxxing community on Venezia has got to be insane

Dudes combining rumbledrugs, Covenant narcotics, smashing their jaws with gravity maces...

[modest marsh]

i still like my idea of an alien organ supplement racket

[prime mauve]

Also Lance Armstrong type doping controversies

[somber arch]

Question:
how many covenant species became “good guys” after the end of the human/covenant war?
I haven’t played many post-war games, but I haven’t heard anything about the hunters or the engineers or whatnot

I assume the jackals didn’t do anything different, they just stayed with their pirating ways

[modest marsh]

So, none of the races in Halo are fully aligned on anything except maybe the drones (and even that’s debatable since there may be differences between the queens)

[somber arch]

Oh yeah, like a less intense warhammer, nobody’s really “the good guy”

We just follow humanity because we’re humans

[modest marsh]

Most of the covenant races largely have an antagonistic position towards the UNSC specifically but may take a neutral stance or even ally with them depending on the situation

The main alien faction that the UNSC is allied with is the Swords of Sanghelios, which at minimum comprises of Elites and Grunts

We have also seen more recently that Jackals are also willing to work for the Swords as mercenaries

The same is probably true of some Brutes and Hunters, but we don’t have any direct examples of this

The drones largely seem to be neutral/isolationist due to their specific societal structure (which is basically an in universe justification for their absence in the games)

It’s also important to note that there are non-UNSC human led factions including criminal groups, rebel cells, sovereign colonial governments, and even private corporations that enjoy stronger ties with the various alien races due to shared interests that are at odds with the UNSC itself

And of course, the Banished recruits humans as well

[somber arch]

Gotcha, I see.
So basically after the war every race on every side, in some way shape or form, thx

[modest marsh]

Yeah, though the trend remains that aliens and humans maintain a hostile relationship even after the war and even the strongest alliance has some uneasy political tensions going on

[somber arch]

Yeah that just seems natural
30 years of war is gonna make plenty of people biased

[modest marsh]

The arbiter being the leader of the SoS is highly skeptical of the UNSC despite his willingness to work with them on friendly terms because of their continued reliance on ONI, which he has personal grievances with

He also has to contend with the fact other clan leaders he’s allied with have even stronger xenophobic positions than he does, including against other non-elite races besides humans

[somber arch]

Yeah, I feel like the unggoy would be pissed after being cannon fodder for upwards of 30 years

[modest marsh]

Elites after all have spent thousands of years believing themselves to be a superior race chosen by the gods themselves to lead the charge towards transcendence into godhood, which speaks to the culture they would maintain even after those religious beliefs were disrupted

[somber arch]

Yeah, the entire covenant was basically glazing the elites and the prophets.
The main language was sangheili, sangheili had all final say when it came to military, sangheili always had control by default
They were probably the species who would’ve wanted the covenant to last longer, had they not had the honor or whatever

[atomic stump]

In Legacy of Onyx, the Grunts and Elites are the only species allowed inside of the Dyson Sphere. There are probably other species in the Swords of Sanghelios but they are not permitted inside of the sphere.

[vagrant ocean]

They openly collaborated with the Created.

[prime mauve]

The Swords being human allies relies on a few well placed Sangheili that do like humanity. Thankfully that number likely has grown thanks to Anvil and other projects like that, and joint ops like in Empty Throne. But I could kinda get why ONI would be so set on sabotaging the Swords at first; if the Arbiter was taken out, the whole faction would have probably gone back to war against humanity if the guy taking over was xenophobic.

[latent olive]

So, was Cortana always meant to be blue? Because if I remember she was more of a purplish, pink in halo Reach and CE, and is there any reasons for this change?

[prime mauve]

She can change color both voluntarily and involuntarily

She can choose her base hue at will, but she will also flicker with other colors in reaction to certain stimuli, like overwhelming amounts of information, or the presence of the Flood.

[unique rune]

she’s green for an amazing reason

[latent olive]

So in CE to halo three there isn’t a lore reason other than her preference?

[prime mauve]

She's green and red for lore reasons, she's purple and blue because she felt like it imo

[stoic hamlet]

They can even have multiple colours.

For example, Black Box (he’s actually blue) adds a red ribbon around his avatar for a celebration.

And Sif, usually orange, adds a yellow dress and red shawl over her shoulders at one point in Contact Harvest

[vagrant ocean]

Classy, but I expected such from the wife of Þor.

[sharp bough]

Even before the war to some extent there were examples of Jackal pirates working with human rebel factions but these would have been outlaw aliens not aligned with the actual Covenant hierarchy and government structure.

Of course I assume this changed to a much larger extent after the war with large amounts of Elites working with humans after the Covenant Schism. I guess the lore behind the Banished faction also claims they were willing to work with humans or allow humans to join their ranks… why any humans would do so is beyond me and not sure if there are ever any human Banished depicted. I only played up to Halo 5

[unique rune]

why any humans would do so is beyond me
Plenty of humans dislike the UEG for any number of reasons and the Banished are (on paper, at least) a meritocratic organization that doesn't maintain any official policy for discriminating based on species that also has the resources to oppose the UEG/UNSC, so. Plenty of reason for humans to sign up.

[warm ridge]

pretty sure that was the interpretation. The nuclear reactor caused a chain reaction & everything just kind of exploded all at once. Many of the other ships suffered similar fates.

[warm ridge]

In Amber Clad exploding would then cause a chain reaction inside of High Charity, you know, the largely unprotected insides full of advanced volatile stuff?

[warm ridge]

just an fyi not all ships that crash land explode. Many ships in the UNSC are built specifically for crash landing & surviving it, mainly when it's a "controlled" crash landing though.

Pelicans are pretty famous of doing just this.
Pillar of Autumn had done it.
UNSC Roman Blue, a Halcyon light cruiser (same type of ship as the POA), had done it.
Mortal Reverie, a Frigate that had split in half upon impact, was capable of doing it.

[modern gale]

where can i read about the motivations and historical events behind the various insurrectionist groups within halo lore?

skimming the wiki, alot of the pages just summarize them as wanting to split with the wider UNSC without stating why, or what transgressions the UNSC enacted to incite this desire in the outer colonies' populations.

[unique rune]

unfortunately that's kinda just where it ends

there's not a whole lot of material that really gets into the insurrection and what we do have pretty much just starts and ends with "they think the UEG/UNSC is oppressive" and doesn't elaborate beyond that

[modern gale]

bummer

-# can always write my own, more fleshed out fanfic insurrection at least >:)

[sharp bough]

What is their goal though? Doesn’t seem to be any goal aligned with the goals of human rebel factions. They basically function as a primarily Brute-centered military junta under Atriox. Bit weird for a human to be like:

Yeah, I totally am down to live under a Brute military dictatorship, you know, because I just hate the UNSC so much for slightly restricting the rights and political representation of the human outer colonies… 🤷‍♂️

[unique rune]

I mean the goal of the Banished is pretty much to obtain power

for some insurrectionist groups "not the UNSC" is probably good enough

[sharp bough]

Under a Brute led military dictatorship…

[unique rune]

yeah and

[sharp bough]

I doubt it. Makes zero sense to join a brutal alien dictatorship just because you disagree a bit with the ruling human faction

[unique rune]

okay but they don't just disagree "a bit"

if an insurrectionist group joins the Banished it's because they've got some pretty extreme attitudes towards the UEG

[vagrant ocean]

Quite.

[unique rune]

there were insurrectionists that tried to sell the UNSC out to the Covenant during the war when they still only thought that the Covenant's beef was just with the UEG/UNSC

[vagrant ocean]

I member that.

[sharp bough]

I said I haven’t seen any examples of humans that did. Are there examples in current lore of specific humans joining them? I only remember one off line from Halo Wars 2 mentioning that they weren’t opposed to humans joining their ranks either but don’t know if any books or Halo infinite showed human banished members

[unique rune]

it's not a huge leap for anti-UNSC sentiment to lead to some people joining up with a faction that opposes the UNSC

[vagrant ocean]

A pretty major one at that.

[unique rune]

https://www.halopedia.org/The_Inspector
https://www.halopedia.org/Order_of_Harmony

[sharp bough]

I mean, it only makes sense if that faction offers something better for them than the UNSC. A Brute dictatorship doesn’t really seem to fit the bill. I get why some Covenant memebers ended up joining them. The Covenant were brutal genocidal maniacs that wiped out the homeworlds of numerous species and forced a bunch of races into their Covenant through forced conquest… But I struggle to see how the UNSC was as bad as the Covenant (unless you’re going by Silver timeline BS from that live action show)

[unique rune]

the faction offers something better for them in that they are

1. not the UNSC
2. actively fighting the UNSC

that is literally the point

[sharp bough]

Wow. What a bunch of retards…

[unique rune]

if they join up with the Banished and the Banished come out on top, they still get a piece of the pie and for the most part the Banished probably wouldn't much care about what they do as long as they don't rock the boat

for more extreme insurrectionists it's probably seen as a mutually beneficial alliance

[sharp bough]

Not the UNSC only works if they are better than the UNSC or offer a more stable form of government for humans than the UNSC. I don’t see how some splinter military junta of monkeys (said in Frieza’s voice) has a great governing structure for the human outer colonies… Also, ain’t the brutes known for having destroyed most of their home planet with a nuclear holocaust 🤷‍♂️

[unique rune]

if they are better than the UNSC
and how does one judge that

[vagrant ocean]

Bro is getting mogged.

[sharp bough]

Literally savage monkeys who wiped themselves out with nukes

[unique rune]

if they're joining the Banished then fundamentally they must think that what the Banished is offering is better than the UNSC

[vagrant ocean]

Whoah there buddy.

[unique rune]

I do not understand why this is so difficult for you to comprehend

[sharp bough]

Are you a Banished/post-Schism Covenant sympathizer? I’m team Chief and Arbiter 💯

[unique rune]

even if someone isn't fully onboard with the Banished there are practical arguments to be made about how they have the resources to meaningfully push back the UNSC when smaller insurrectionist groups might only have small localized resources

[wispy pewter]

It would make more sense to be non aligned than joining an alien organisation hellbent on killing humans

[unique rune]

does it though

"kill all humans" isn't exactly part of their mission statement
the UNSC just happens to be in their way

[sharp bough]

I don’t know that they do unless their strength got massively inflated in Halo Infinite or 343 era books. As far as their introduction in Halo Wars 2 (my main knowledge source for them) they were basically depicted as a super minor faction with one CAS-class capital ship and a few cruisers. Not anyone who could go up against the UNSC or post-Schism Covenant or Elite factions in an open war

[unique rune]

yes they got massively powercreeped for Infinite

[sharp bough]

Ok

[hardy swan]

Yeah, must have insane levels of reactor protection or just depending if the writer wnts to wipe out a city

[unique rune]

I'm not a huge fan of the decision but prior to Doisac being exploded Atriox was able to get a decent chunk of the Jiralhanae and other Covenant remnants behind him and they had plenty of resources to maintain their own fleets of warships and other materiel

[wispy pewter]

But they have their own made ships

[sharp bough]

Honestly, I’d think that the insurrectionists would be way less powerful in relation to the UNSC post Human-Covenant war. For one, many of their outer colonies were the first to be glassed by the Covenant. Second, the all out war against the Covenant forced the UNSC to pour tons more money into their military (think of how strong surviving militaries were at the end of WWII) and third, many insurrectionists joined the UNSC when the Covenant attacked and afterwards there are probably many who are much more bitter at aliens who genocided over half the human race than they are with the UNSC

[wispy pewter]

Veta Lopis

[unique rune]

many insurrectionists joined the UNSC when the Covenant attacked
they mostly didn't
once they figured out the Covenant wanted to wipe out humanity in general they tended to keep their heads down instead
afterwards there are probably many who are much more bitter at aliens who genocided over half the human race than they are with the UNSC
you do realize they can be bitter towards both

a lot of them are opportunists
the Banished are broadly more concerned with keeping the UNSC in their sights than what amounts to a militia that also hates the UNSC

for the time being their goals are aligned

if Banished leadership decides that the innies need out that's a future them problem but for now they both want the UNSC gone

[wispy pewter]

Didint they already turn against the banished humans in the recent books

[unique rune]

I think some clans in the Banished purged their human members after Doisac went to bits but I don't believe it's official policy for them as a whole

[sharp bough]

So how powerful are the banished depicted in Infinite and the later book material? Are they just suggested to have absorbed the rest of the Covenant Remnant or something? I also heard that one of the book authors power krept their faction a lot in one of the books that was somewhat controversial

[wispy pewter]

they took down the Infinity in 4 minutes, but apprently it's most likely an exaggeration

in Halo Wars they lose to one colony ship

[modest marsh]

The setting in general has been power crept from what was implied early in 343i’s history, including there being yet another covenant faction that has been working from the shadows all along

[sharp bough]

Oh, is this the new race in infinite? I gotta watch some play through of the campaign

[wispy pewter]

Mosquito aliens

[modest marsh]

No, it’s just a sect of the covenant that is still led by surviving prophets, some of which are their own class of super soldier known as Prelates

[prime mauve]

Atriox is inspiring enough that we sometimes go "He kinda has a point, you know?" so I think it makes sense that some fully radicalized Insurrectionist would hear him out when finding out he isn't 100% genocidal like the Covenant were.

[prime mauve]

Personally I think that Dovo Nesto has been spouting more lies per sentence than the average San'shyuum which is a very impressive feat by itself. I especially don't believe it one bit about his longevity, even if he found Forerunner tech that could keep him healthy and alive in the bowels of the Dreadnought I don't see any chance of him being that old. He is probably just really learned in history and tricked others into thinking he's old with random trivia from back then.

As for how he got as much influence, he's probably a San'shyuum information broker, dealing with secrets and favors. Kind of a Littlefinger from Game of Thrones that ingratiates himself with the powerful while developing his own soft power and influence and gathering small pieces of blackmail info.

And when the Flotilla leaves he ended up with more powerful Prophets in his pocket than expected and went "Oh, all my besties with some clout are here. How about we restore the Covenant, even greater than before? I have a plan already, trust me, you always trusted me, didn't you?"

And meanwhile he's been grooming Severan Anakin Skywalker style so that he'll rise in hierarchy and his Jiralhanae can be used as pawns, and gets even luckier when Severan gets the most authority he could get handed over in just the right moment.

And also he has been sweet talking Sali Nyon, who had seen through Jul Mdama's floundering leadership but couldn't compete against a San'shyuum bs artist, especially one that likely nudged Sali towards the fortress world he used to build up his fleet several times over.

[worn wolf]

nah humans joining the banished are dumb as hell

as in the humans who are joining are dumb, not that the idea humans would are dumb. given you could do a poll on anything and theres always somehow a varying but low percentage of people that somehow always choose the dumbest option

even if the banished are the best chance of challenging the unsc their current goal is to use a halo ring to destroy earth. even the least patriotic humans should take strong issue with that.

[modest marsh]

I think that we often tend to overestimate the availability of information in setting for the average person in halo’s setting

We know that for the majority of the war, humanity at large was receiving an extremely sanitized and diminished picture of how bad things were going for the UNSC with a major sector of their intelligence apparatus dedicated to disseminating propaganda

The whole point of Outpost Discovery was to acknowledge that most people would be ignorant of basic facts that the audience would be aware of because of their omniscient perspective

And even then, OD was pretty coy about the particulars

Humanity at large, especially those in the outer colonies who have largely been cut off from earth for the past 20 or so years, are just plain ignorant about what’s being going on if they’re still alive because every other system in the Orion arm was subjected to funny space lasers until no stone lay atop another

We take this for granted a lot because halo’s modern setting especially takes interstellar communications and travel for granted, but the original intent during the war era was that most people stuck to whatever rock they were born on for their entire lives unless they enlisted

[hardy swan]

perhaps earth is not seen as the eternal homeworld of humanity everywhere else

[orchid kettle]

That is essentially the viewpoint a lot of humans in Halo have.

Romeo expresses basically that in his pre-mission interview video, where he tells Buck that to him, Earth is just another rock. His home is the actual world he grew up on.

[sharp bough]

I disagree. What they do know is that genocidal aliens are invading human planets and glassing them and the only force capable of defending Humanity is the UNSC. That would probably turn tons of former insurgency colonies away from hating them

[vagrant ocean]

I disagree with that. I can’t name many former insurrectionists that joined the UNSC for that reason. Sure there might’ve been a lot, but that’s relative.

[modest marsh]

According to who though? How do they receive that information, and what compels them to trust its authenticity?

The UNSC has a near monopoly on communications and travel between colonies, especially with the Cole protocol in effect limiting non-essential interaction

[sharp bough]

You think outer colonies don’t have contact and trade relations with other outer colonies and don’t know when that goes dark or have survivors from nearby worlds escape and tell them about the Covenant? You think a massive 25+ year long war with genocidal aliens is completely kept secret from entire human worlds? Highly doubtful

[modest marsh]

I didn’t say they don’t have any interaction whatsoever

But you’re talking about largely inconsequential populations

Those most isolated from the UNSC’s influence would be extremely remote and sparsely populated with limited local infrastructure and access to FTL capable ships or communications relays

Part of what makes the setting “work” requires a lack of access to these things besides the UNSC itself because otherwise either through negligence or malice, more human population centers would be rendered vulnerable

[vagrant ocean]

I think of the later years of the war to be similar to the Reddekar Plan in WWZ where “expendable” population centers would be sacrificed to save VIPs.

[sharp bough]

The whole ‘enemy of my enemy is my friend’ thing would, I think? be playing out heavily among insurgency factions during the Human-Covenant war. The Covenant were entirely genocidal towards all of humanity. This alone would reasonable push insurgents towards siding with the main human faction putting up a fight against them. There were maybe some weird insurgent groups that didn’t but I think most would in that type of scenario…

[modest marsh]

How do they know the covenant is genocidal though if they aren’t getting the news directly from the UNSC

[vagrant ocean]

Any long range assets would probably be pulled back to cluster around important worlds or join the Sol Defense Fleet.

[modest marsh]

Not to say all rebel cells are this ignorant, but many would be

[vagrant ocean]

Especially on backwater worlds.

[modest marsh]

Like, just to be clear, human FTL drives even late war were uniquely expensive and rare pieces of equipment that few would realistically have access to without the government’s involvement, and construction of SFTE was strictly regulated, in no small part because they could be easily weaponized

Them being as common as they are is one of those things that the modern setting takes for granted but was not remotely the status quo until very late in the war

[vagrant ocean]

And the increased availability of FTL drives was mainly to enhance evacuation efforts. Get colony ships and transports out of system to avoid Covenant interception.

[modest marsh]

Just to be clear, obviously displaced refugees could disseminate information through word of mouth, but their reach is contingent upon what happens after they’re evacuated from their home colony which is largely in the hands of the UNSC

How media institutions choose to report their testimony is evidently controlled in some part by the government, which we factually know is the case, which in turn may lead civilians that are skeptical of the government to doubt the veracity of specific claims, ie the one sided destruction the covenant is engaging in

For one, the UNSC has a vested interest in downplaying how badly things are going so as to not demoralize the civilian population to keep the economy churning without major disruption

[vagrant ocean]

It also appears that it takes time for information of any kind to circulate.

[modest marsh]

But also, to collect evidence about what happens to colonies after a covenant attack is untenable without assuming serious risk, because for one it is very likely a breach of the Cole protocol if certain measures are not taken, and obviously if the covenant maintains any presence whatsoever they themselves could intercept a hypothetical civilian vessel trying to investigate

Which would be certain death

Their faster ships with infinitely more powerful scanners would let them find and chase down anyone who appears within the system

[vagrant ocean]

Which basically means that intel gathering after a battle would be a job for prowlers.

Which by the later years would possibly be used as either picket ships or evac vessels for HIGHCOM.

Instead of gathering data on a dead planet.

[modest marsh]

We know salvaging the remains of debris fields of attacked colonies is a major industry in the post war era

Which by default means that they’ve largely been left untouched in the decades of war

[unique rune]

and for many anti-UEG cells the enemy that they’re far more concerned about is the UEG and UNSC
not the Covenant

they don’t necessarily all know that the Covenant wants to eradicate all of humanity, just that they’re fighting the UNSC and maybe even winning

I don’t know why this is so hard to grasp

[modest marsh]

They (generally) know that the UNSC claims that the Covenant is fighting an existential war and that there’s been mass displacement of human colonists

People are going to doubt the given reasons why off rip because anti-institutional thought is very strong in more liberal societies

https://sciencebusiness.net/news/covid-19/conspiracy-thinking-25-europeans-say-moon-landing-never-happened

A lot of civilians and rebels may assume that while the evidence of death and destruction on the human side is indisputable, the scale or disproportionality of it may be more up for debate

Who’s to say the UNSC didn’t provoke the Covenant and is in fact causing similar harm in offensive campaigns they simply aren’t disclosing, no differently than a Far Isle situation?

Unless you’re in a naval CIC watching a battle unfold before your very eyes, you abstractly have to trust a lot of information from a single source that has a very clear conflict of interest

[modest marsh]

To be clear, that conflict being a massive redistribution of resources and wealth into the military industrial complex that was already ramping up absurdly years prior to the human covenant war including capital ships and the early conceptual stages of the orbital defense grid which are in massive excess of proportionality with whatever hypothetical insurrectionist threat that was on the horizon

The UEG failed to solve their crisis diplomatically so they wrote the military a blank check to massively escalate its destructive capacity such that each fleet was easily capable of ending a civilization in a matter of minutes with their weapons and hardly anything could feasibly reciprocate on the rebel side short of kamikaze strikes

[orchid kettle]

I do think Nylund originally intended the Innies to just disappear in 2525 with the arrival of the Covenant but I think that's also partially because in TFOR, the "Insurrection" wasn't really the Insurrection that we know it to be in current canon

And also probably just the result of nobody thinking Halo was going to explode into a whole franchise

In the Preston Cole short story it's brought up how some were hopeful that the Covenant war if nothing else would finally unite all of humanity behind a common cause, only for those hopes to be dashed

and I can't help but read that line at Nylund kinda taking a dig at himself

[modest marsh]

In some way I think you’re correct but I’m also of the opinion Nylund was walking back how “small” the setting was as early as First Strike where it demonstrated that there were in fact still non-insignificant rebel holdouts

At least one, anyways

[sharp bough]

I do hope that no one is trying to fold Silver Timeline into this discussion where the UNSC were basically depicted as evil for evils sake and rebels completely unconcerned with death by a genocidal alien invasion 🤷‍♂️

[carmine sleet]

Nobody brought up the Silver timeline until you did

[modest marsh]

This is authentic to The Cole Protocol which is obviously where they drew the most inspiration for how to depict the rebels

Granted, I didn’t like what they came up with, but let’s not pretend that rebels thinking that they could skirt their way around the war is something that the show did completely unprecedented

The show is much more blasé about the whole interstellar travel stuff what with the Condor having FTL comms and a slipspace drive in early 2552

I think this serves to undermine the purported isolation and lack of knowledge that we’re led to believe is the status quo

[unique rune]

you say that like the space military that looked at their rebel problem and signed off on a child supersoldier death squad as a viable solution was ever really above board

[vagrant ocean]

Literally nobody mentioned the show until you did bro. You’re just trying to start stuff.

[somber arch]

Is there a lore reason why the cyclops mech looks so different in halo wars 1 and 2 or is it just a stylized choice
Or is it a “the new design is the 2nd gen of the cyclops”

[carmine sleet]

Halo Wars 1 is the Mark III [B] Cyclops, Halo Wars 2 is the Mark III [S] Cyclops

I imagine originally the differences were just simply stylistic during the development of Halo Wars 2, but it was given a lore reason closer to the game's launch

It's not like Chief's armour in Halo 4 where nanomachines was thrown out as an explanation in an interview because they kept getting asked why the armour looked different compared to older games

[somber arch]

Ah, I see, thx

[tranquil cairn]

Realized this should go here.

This means there are likely hunters we have faced in halo several times. Imagine fighting a hunter who has gone against chief in H2, H3 and suddenly he is on the banished side in H Infinite.```

[tranquil cairn]

Hate halo 4s reasoning, and if the campaign evolved stuff goes well, I hope they null and void that BS.

[frigid heart]

Great copy paste bro

[atomic stump]

The nanomachines are also mentioned in the Thursday War.

Imo, most people were perfectly fine with Halo: Reach style customization where your armor in multiplayer is your armor in the campaign. 343 would not have received nearly as much blowback if they just let the player decide how Chief looks.

Players understand that when we play through a campaign with a Santa hat, this is a non-canon cosmetic. Players are able to suspend their disbelief to enjoy the customization.

[tranquil cairn]

I copy pasted it because I realized I posted it in the wrong section.

[tranquil cairn]

I think that is why Campaign evolved is going to be the first game where we customize chief is that realization.

[bronze prawn]

Why doesn't the covenant mourn regret in halo 2

Isnt he like a one of the most sacred persons in the covenant

[modest marsh]

Technically the first instance of mjolnir being regarded as self repairing (which would necessarily require nanomachines) was the halo movie screenplay by Alex Garland which may or may not have been derived from unreleased internal documentation from Bungie/microsoft

Bungie and later 343i were pretty particular about canonizing gameplay mechanics one way or another, so i imagine it was brought up at one point or another that the fact that Chief heals from damage would in turn require the armor to repair itself somehow

[vagrant ocean]

There wasn’t time. In their eyes the Great Journey was upon them.

[modest marsh]

I think regret dying as a martyr was convenient and most of the covenant was jubilant about the impending great journey

His untimely demise didn’t matter in terms of delaying the activation of the ring

In the covenant religion, all members that pledged faithful service would be rewarded, even those that died prior

[prime mauve]

They mourned him less with sadness and more with indignation and the Changing of the Guard was done as a direct consequence of his death so we could also consider it part of the mourning process

[icy yoke]

Not case all vehicles . Yes fusion produces radiation much form high energy neutron and Xrays but no heavy metal lanthanides or transuranic wastes. In scifi sense once fusion reactor breaches the artificial conditions that create fusion reaction cease immediately. Density/temperature and confinement. Quickly collapses integrity. Since fuel is not stored in reactor but fuel bottles likely to simply flare what residual.

[somber arch]

How are spartan names made for each generation?
I wanna make some spartan OC’s of each generation and I want them to be lore accurate

(Also is the spartan number 299 used by a character in canon or no)

[strange pumice]

As far as I know, Spartan 2 uses the names of Spartans
Like, Kelly-087, John-117 etc etc. where number means the count of kidnapped kid

For the Spartan 3 generation system was used like this, Jun-A266
Name + Company of Spartan 3. Alpha(A), Beta(B) and Gamma(G)
Noble six was from Beta company, so he was Spartan B312

For the Spartan 4 program were used the real names of recruited soldiers, like Edward Buck or Sarah Palmer
They don't have the number in their names
(Lore knowing people will tell it better than me, I'm telling what I understand)

[somber arch]

Thx! Appreciate it

[unique rune]

that sounds pretty much accurate

S-II dropped their last names for their candidate numbers
S-III did the same and added a letter representing their respective company
then S-IV is just their regular names

[raven kettle]

I have a question about the primordial

[fading flume]

What might be this question

[raven kettle]

What exactly is the primordial?

[fading flume]

A mutated precursor

[raven kettle]

I know that much

[fading flume]

Well you mean it’s relation to the flood?

[raven kettle]

Kinda

[junior rivet]

Why was that one elite in halo CE in 343 guilty spark mangled instead of getting infected?

[raven kettle]

The only big flood creature I knew was the grave mind in halo 2 and 3

[fading flume]

Well, the Primordial is considered by the Halo encyclopedia to be the “progenitor” of the Flood, if that helps

[junior rivet]

there was also that one gravemind in halo wars. That thing was fairly large.

[raven kettle]

Yea

[raven kettle]

Ohhh

Ok

One more question

All information from infected hosts went to the grave mind right?

[fading flume]

Yerp, in fact all flood forms are just one intelligence behind it all

[raven kettle]

Ok ok

[fading flume]

Probably the elite wasn’t able to be utilized as a host. I’m a bit dusty on my Halo lore but I know for a fact there are some criteria for what a flood can and can’t infect

[unique rune]

I don't think there's really any good lore explanation for it. Maybe an infection form attempted to take it over and mangled the body to the point of being unusable directly?

But I think it's primarily meant as a storytelling device for the Keyes & co. to be grossed out by.

[raven kettle]

I know I said one more question but is the infected spartan still alive

[junior rivet]

is that why theres no flood grunts/jackals? (excluding halo wars) or is it gameplay reasons.

[fading flume]

Definitely not, pretty sure that whole short story ended with them getting nuked

[raven kettle]

Oh ok

You know those flood juggernauts that walk around in halo 3

[fading flume]

I think Jackels can be turned into exploders? As for Grunts maybe it’s their physiology, but who’s to say I’d have to read more into that. Someone here could defo give a better answer than I tho

[fading flume]

Yuh

[raven kettle]

I always thought they were flood hunters when I was a toddler

And the ranged ones were jackles

[junior rivet]

That halo 3 level must've terrified you lol.

[raven kettle]

And the spider ones were grunts because they acted the same

[raven kettle]

YES

I COULDNT BEAT CORTANA UNTIL WE DID COAP WITH MY DAD

Coop

[fading flume]

Hunters would be the biggest pain to try and infect

[raven kettle]

Have to infect every single worm

[fading flume]

Even then I wonder if they could infect organisms like that

[raven kettle]

Which does mean scarabs could be infected

[fading flume]

True, but it take time surely

[raven kettle]

The flood have time

[fading flume]

Fair point

[raven kettle]

But with lagolo they can't use parasites to infect them because they are too small

So they need to use super cells or smt

Speaking of supercells how did arby survive flood levels with exposed skin?

[junior rivet]

halo wars had flood thrashers and even a bomber unit that levitated. The flood on that world must've evolved.

[raven kettle]

Well they needed more flood units

[unique rune]

kinda-sorta-ish

the infected Spartan doesn’t really exist as its own distinct entity anymore
the Condor escaped and later crashed on a distant planet and it was largely destroyed in that crash, but the planet was home to a small population of stranded human pirates and a radical Flood-worshipping Covenant sect
the latter recovered what was left of the Flood from the Condor and its members would ritualistically offer themselves as sacrifices so it could rebuild
it’s a bit of a whole thing

[raven kettle]

Mk mk

[junior rivet]

TIL people worship the flood 🤯

[raven kettle]

YES

[fading flume]

I think the hype around Spartan being infected goes beyond it’s physical capability, imo most of it is around the fact the flood would have access to a treasure trove of knowledge

[raven kettle]

FLOOD CULTS

Like in the halo wars 2 dlc

[fading flume]

Still it’s an absolute weapon for the flood

[raven kettle]

Do you know the true strongest halo character

[strange pumice]

I heard about the elite that wanted to be consumed by Flood

[fading flume]

It’s either the primordial or Yap Yap

[raven kettle]

The true strongest character in halo is yapyap

[unique rune]

yeah they were a minor plot point in The Flood novel all the way back

the Governors of Contrition (the aformentioned nutty Covenant sect) believed that all creations of the Forerunners were sacred and holy and had thought the Flood were something they created

[raven kettle]

YESSS

[fading flume]

Great minds think alike

[raven kettle]

grave minds think alike

[unique rune]

so they were willing to sacrifice themselves to let the Flood grow stronger

which led to a mutiny aboard one of the ships present at Alpha Halo

[fading flume]

Boy were they wrong

[junior rivet]

they just let an infection form get them?

[fading flume]

I was thinking that too

[raven kettle]

The halo 3 rat is also a good character

Or characters

[unique rune]

what happened in The Flood was that the commanding officer of the ship wanted to let the Flood onboard and basically present all of his crew as offerings to them

the crew was not particularly enthusiastic so one of his subordinates shot him

whole thing really

[raven kettle]

I have a question about the nmpd

Or about vehicles and stuff

[fading flume]

For some the flood is essentially like looking up at a god, most are intimated by such horror (that’s why so many committed sicide listening to the Primordial’s rambles). For some it’s probably comforting to know some figure like god exists, and they want to become apart of it

[raven kettle]

The flood kinda is a god tho

A god dust

Also are pelicans in halo commercially available? Because the nmpd has them and those outer colony areas in halo 5 has them too

[junior rivet]

I saw some police hornets in halo 4 so its likely possible.

[fading flume]

I mean the gravemind is a vessel for the most deranged of what are essentially the gods of the halo Mythos

[raven kettle]

Yes

Yea

[unique rune]

getting back to this it’s mostly the latter

in The Flood one of the ODSTs present at Alpha Halo speculated that the Flood might not have directly converted Grunts or Jackals due to a lack of calcium or other biomass
which was kind of just the thing people throughout the fandom said a lot as a result but explicitly in-universe it’s not really a limitation and the Flood can kinda just do whatever it needs really

[raven kettle]

This isn't important but has anyone seen halo legends

[fading flume]

Ya

[raven kettle]

You know that super duper powerful expsyit

Exosuit

[fading flume]

Yuh

[unique rune]

yeah Misriah will sell them to whoever has money basically

the civilian market models won’t be as heavily armed as the militarized versions but they do exist

[raven kettle]

How powerful would it be with a spartan

[raven kettle]

Oh

[raven kettle]

Is that what they have trash pick up elephants

[unique rune]

probably

[fading flume]

Probably it be vastly better used, but I don’t think it really change much since it’s heavily emphasized on the suit’s own strength over the one controlling it

[raven kettle]

But the spartan reaction time would be better

And one marine took down an entire army with it

[unique rune]

it’s not a terribly uncommon practice IRL either
think of it like the military Humvee vs. the civilian Hummer H1

[raven kettle]

Yea

[unique rune]

which has its own direct parallel in the UNSC’s Warthogs and the Hog that AMG Transport Dynamics canonically sells to whoever is willing to buy one of those things

[modest marsh]

All biological matter can be mutated by the flood, but there’s degrees of malleability and utility to the flood between sentient life forms that make them more or less advantageous for certain roles depending on the situation

[raven kettle]

I got another question about the infinity

That thing could hold 13 mammoths correct?

[modest marsh]

Yes, we see it’s hangar easily contain one

[raven kettle]

Imagine a level where you lead a herd of mammoths through covenant territory and I'm not saying 3 or 4 more like 10

[unique rune]

Warfleet gave its complement 10 Mammoths but depending on operational needs they could probably fit more

[modest marsh]

The official 2558 compliment is 10 mammoths but yeah

[raven kettle]

A absolutely ridiculous amount of them

[modest marsh]

I mean, there would be no real reason to cramp them up

[raven kettle]

All firing a nuclear beam of energy and just ahnniliting the sun

[modest marsh]

Their mini-MAC’s effectively make them the most powerful ground artillery the UNSC has

[raven kettle]

That's crazy

[modest marsh]

They couldn’t do that, no

[raven kettle]

I might be exhagery

Dangit

Exaggerating

[junior rivet]

the timespan between reach to halo 3 is crazy

[modest marsh]

They simply fire a very large MAC round (relative to a ground based platform) at very high velocity

[raven kettle]

Yuh

Would you guys be interested in a halo game where you play as arby in-between halo 3 and 4 when cheif is in cryo sleep

[modest marsh]

For reference, the Reach Onager fires a 150mm projectile

The Mammoth’s MAC is 350mm

[raven kettle]

I would be

[modest marsh]

One idea that I’m really committed to is that realistically we should’ve had a separate campaign entirely for the sanghelios civil war and not just a couple missions in halo 5

[raven kettle]

YES

[modest marsh]

Halo 5 has 3 games worth of events and characters in it

[junior rivet]

Is there a channel to talk about halo's soundtrack?

[raven kettle]

Halo 5 was a missed opportunity

[raven kettle]

Idk

[junior rivet]

how do you guys feel about the halo wars marines from the cinematics?

[ancient plover]

i think there cool i mean yeah they are kinda in the background (haven't playing in awhile sorry if wrong) but yeah there design is over all good

[stoic hamlet]

I’m sad none of them have the monocular.

But they’re overall a good design.

[carmine sleet]

Note to self, give monoculars to some of the marines in my Halo 4 mod to make Canadian happy

[minor sky]

I dig em. Hard to say if they are my favorite since the competition is pretty stiff

But they do look pretty cool

[minor sky]

I am inclined to agree

The whole post-war era feels like it should have been 5 separate games with how much stuff is going on

Ig Spartan Ops was supposed to fill that gap but that didn't pan out like they wanted

I still think we should have gotten an Infinity centric story as a lead-in to Halo 4 to better establish the post-war universe, as opposed to Spartan Ops taking place 6 months later

You could probably clear up a lot of issues with Halo 4's narrative with something like that. Establish Infinity's crew and their relationships, lay the ground work for the Composer, Jul's Covenant and their MO, ect.

Though I also think Alpha-Nine would've been a really good cast to establish the post-war galaxy's status quo

[carmine sleet]

While it wouldn't solve all the issues, I genuinely think Halo 4 would've benefitted from having holograms of Jul preaching to his Covenant scattered about the levels, akin to what we saw of Truth in Halo 3

[stoic hamlet]

Tbf, the post war status quo isn’t the same as Halo 4’s era presents it.

It’s much more dangerous.

H4 ahd that era of lore presents it as being muxh more safe.

[minor sky]

Oh 100%

[carmine sleet]

It's one of the things I want to do in my mod when I'm out of preproduction, albeit with a generic Zealot who I'll likely have to voice myself as I don't think I've got a good enough voice to mimic Travis Willingham's Jul

Well, that and scattered datapads which give an insight into Jul's Covenant and some of those who follow him

[junior rivet]

That moment on exodus with the grunts with plasma grenades really stuck with me.

[minor sky]

You could maybe do some Sanghelli gibbrish and then put some subtitles under there or something

[carmine sleet]

See, I don't know how feasible it would be for me to add in custom subtitles

And well, I want the holograms to be speaking English for the sake of the player and helping give more insight into Jul's Covenant and what they believe (Which is also why the datapads which are from his Covenant I plan on adding are also going to be in an Earth based language)

[minor sky]

Idk, it was just a idea off the top of my head is all

[sharp bough]

It’s definitely not lore… unless we are assuming the characters are meta aware of the music playing over the game like some 4th wall break (would be pretty funny lol)

[sharp bough]

I mean, Infinity is basically a direct lore sequel to Halo Wars 2 rather than any of the mainline FPS games. Halo 4 decided to go with the Cortana rampancy plot that didn’t focus on the Banished like Halo Wars 2 did

[modest marsh]

The Gregorian chants are diegetic at least, attributed to the prophets’ sermons

In halo 2 anyways

[junior rivet]

I wish the banished played different in terms of gameplay compared to the covenant.

In Assault on the Control Room a creepy voice ambience can be heard, It's very foreboding considerint the introduction of the flood later.

[junior rivet]

Also are the flood still out there?

[prime mauve]

Honestly it would be really neat to listen to a choir of Covenant voices singing the canticles

[modest marsh]

The flood is always out there, in some form

There is no active Gravemind at the moment

One nearly amassed in the Awakening the Nightmare DLC for HW2, but the Banished managed to contain it

[prime mauve]

The smartest Flood intelligence currently in play is the one from the Waypoint Chronicles, isn't it?

[junior rivet]

Those flood in halo wars 2 were very evolved

[modest marsh]

The flood that we see in the mainline games are a bit “nerfed” in the sense that there are only so many units they’re able to throw at us

Both halo wars games demonstrate more versatility and unique flood forms despite neither iteration benefiting from a coordinated central intelligence

[junior rivet]

I'm still curious as to how they managed to have a form capable of levitation in the first halo wars.

[modest marsh]

Is it that surprising?

It’s the same principle of gas buoyancy that engineers rely on

Apparently the host species is a type of pseudo-cephalopod with an existing gas bladder that I imagine the flood just mutates to better suit its needs

[junior rivet]

On the topic of the flood I wonder how they came up with some of the designs 😬

[carmine sleet]

Of course Halo 4 didn't focus on the Banished. The concept of the Banished didn't exist yet until Halo Wars 2 began production

[stoic hamlet]

I’d argue the concept of the banished as they are now didn’t exist until Infinite, either.

The Banished in HW2 are an entirely different idea to what they are in Infinite and beyond.

I still kinda prefer the original idea, ngl.

[carmine sleet]

Aye, the positive reception to them in HW2 ultimately caused the faction to change into the version we have now instead of what was originally presented, a smaller faction of mercs who found their way to the Ark

[obsidian thistle]

If there is one thing I dislike. The Banished seem WAY bigger than originally presented

BUT on the contrary I do rather like the stories that involve that version.

[prime mauve]

They did absorb like all the survivor clans from Doisac

[vagrant ocean]

Some joined the Ghost Father.

[prime mauve]

Who had a secret deal with Atriox to attack his enemies first and get shipyards and other resources in returb

[vagrant ocean]

Which is kinda like a Lend-Lease deal.

[orchid kettle]

The Banished being beeg I think wouldn't feel like a big deal if they also felt super volatile

But as is they can feel a little too united and coordinated, even when their leader is dead

I've also always been of the mind that Doisac should've been exploded way earlier on, and the surviving Jiralhanae just kinda naturally flock to Atriox as like this last great folk hero of their people

[carmine sleet]

I second that about Doisac needing to be destroyed earlier. Not just for the idea of them naturally flocking to him but it serves as better motivation to head to the Ark than what is currently the reason for him to have gone there

[modest marsh]

You wanted Doisac destroyed earlier because of its purpose in shaping the overall storytelling of the franchise, I wanted Doisac destroyed because those good for nothing brutes deserved it and more

[rotund wraith]

i kinda feel like the genocidal destruction of a planet home to one of the core species in the franchise is not really given the weight it deserves

in infinite and the extended lore

[frigid heart]

YES

[modest marsh]

Tbf I think part of the point there is to make the brutes and the banished by extension exceptionally resilient as one of their few unambiguous virtues

It’s hard to say humanity would’ve faired remotely as well if the same happened to earth

[vagrant ocean]

We’d do worse. The main reason the Brutes survived the Great Immolation was that their hierarchies were still very primitive all things considered.

Like there might’ve been individual states but it could be like on Sangheilios where one larger clan can contain smaller ones at its beck and call. I assume the way one becomes a Chieftain is less politically complex as the process to becoming a Kaidon, essentially boiling down to “When I’m done killing my predecessor and his bloodline, I’m then going to start killing anyone that doesn’t bend the knee.”

[stoic hamlet]

I’d also say it’s because they didn’t have a large stellar empire.

So any colonies they did have hadn’t had time to really break from the capital.

Whereas that’s not the case with Humanity, where colonies are more independent culturally.

[somber arch]

When did blue team first meet up with chief?
Were they made specifically for halo 5 or were they in the books first or something

[stoic hamlet]

They were first introduced in The Fall of Reach, released one month before Halo CE.

[somber arch]

Oh thx!
I looked up their VA’s on Wikipedia and only saw that they were in halo 5, so they were in other supplementary stuff and their first game appearance was 5, right?

[stoic hamlet]

Correct.

[somber arch]

I see, thanks!

[stoic hamlet]

Well, technically, Linda appears briefly in a Halo 4 trailer,

But otherwise yeah.

The actress looks too old, though. It’s a common issue with the marketing (though an understandable one)

[prime mauve]

They met as 6 year olds in training. As for game events, they first physically appeared in Halo 5 but they met up with Chief in between CE and 2 for a mission, Operation First Strike, and were split up for the defense of Earth. They would meet again after Halo 4, in the couple of days after, as they get teamed up to go after the Didact. They remain together from then until Halo Infinite, where we are told the rest of Blue Team has been deployed on another mission.

[wise iron]

I wish there was lore of the moon Csodazaravas 😍the ringed moon from reach that looks like it has a eyeball

[vagrant ocean]

Indeed.

[sharp bough]

Do people like the direction 343i went with Forerunners being a separate species to humans or do you prefer the original Bungie idea of them being the same species as humans?

[carmine sleet]

Bungie wasn't united in that idea. Plenty of people within the company had different ideas for what the Forerunners should be. Ultimately, thanks to Halo 3's terminals, the Forerunners were made a separate species to humanity

[obsidian thistle]

Weird technicalities time.
Halo CEA has Linda shown on a screen.

MCC pending how you view this has Fred and Linda appear via the prologue terminals.

Halo 4 has NPCs mention them.

There may be others here and there.

So Blue Team has been in 343is mind throughout their games.

I do kinda like how MCC could be seen as introducing Linda and Fred to fans who dont read the books before Halo 5.

Kelly gets the short end of the stick though

[modest marsh]

reach also has a few spartans as custom loadout names including Linda, kelly, Sam, kurt, and john

fred is strangely excluded

[minor sky]

Both are true so it doesn't really matter to me

There are just some extra steps involved to account for a couple millennia of evolution and separation

[stoic hamlet]

I forced the question was better answered with just direct physical appearances.

Getting into technicalities like wth the Reach loadouts and the PoA screen in CEA just adds unnecessary complexity.

[scarlet quiver]

Curious to see if they will bring SIIs back into campaign gameplay for future games.

Or just focus on Chief and SIVs for a bit.

[carmine sleet]

I wouldn't be surprised if they have one cameo in the prequel missions in CEV, but I'm also not expecting it since the missions are focused on Chief and Johnson

[vagrant ocean]

Hooray, this discussion gets rehashed for the 19th time this month.

[vagrant ocean]

They really should.

[prime mauve]

Yes, very much. Next question.

[prime mauve]

Yeah this!

[vagrant ocean]

Yes I am glad they didn’t turn Halo into a terrible Roland Emerich movie.

[zenith valley]

Wanted to ask but what happened to the didact ship after chief nuked him

[carmine sleet]

It was destroyed, with some parts surviving and making their way to Genesis via emergency slipspace jumping

[prime mauve]

The slipspace portal it was using in conjunction with the Composer probably had a hand in ripping the Mantle's Approach apart, I really don't think the nuke would have been enough unless it also made the ship's reactors blow up

[glossy sun]

So why did the Forward Unto Dawn have that big ramp thing on the bottom if it wasn't designed to land on a planet?

Like in Halo 3 some you can overhear some Marines

"is the Dawn rated for atmosphere?"

"Guess we'll find out."

[prime mauve]

I don't think those Marines are really a good authority for that

[fair hazel]

well it clearly was rated for atmosphere

[glossy sun]

Lol

[prime mauve]

True, it had been in atmosphere when firing at the Dreadnought lol

Also the In Amber Clad also was in atmosphere when chasing Regret's ship

[glossy sun]

Ah, true

Guessed I missed that

[modest marsh]

In Amber Clad is a newer Stalwart class

Forward Unto Dawn is a Charon

Older, pre covenant war

[prime mauve]

Also we later see the Paris class also in atmosphere

[modest marsh]

Yeah Paris spawned literally right before the UNSC encountered the covenant

It was more ambiguous whether the older Charons could handle atmospheric maneuvering/landing because they were developed in an era where that wouldn’t have been prioritized as much

And it’s debatable whether the UNSC’s antigravity technology would’ve been sufficiently sophisticated to allow that to work (because in the early lore, that was a new technology)

Similarly the Pillar of Autumn being a pre-war cruiser struggled to land/takeoff under its own power because it’s a pre-war vessel albeit refit

[modest marsh]

In any case, it’s not really a proper ramp anyways, it’s just lowering sections of the internal hangar bay which could be used in microgravity

https://www.halopedia.org/images/f/f5/DawnBase.jpg?24c7c I could easily see this being used to park aircraft or allow more clearance if for whatever reason the actual hangar bay itself needs to remain unobstructed

It does have sloped edges though, which clearly points to it being a ramp

[glossy sun]

I see I see

[prime mauve]

That honestly makes a lot of sense, I hadn't thought of that!

[soft fable]

I'm curious the true power difference between UNSC Navy and Covenant in terms of Durability, Weapons etc

[prime mauve]

Actually, don't the Pelicans deploy from there in the Ark?

[soft fable]

I think it is slightly closer to the nose

the nose?

like the front

nono I think you're right actually

[prime mauve]

The Covenant have an advantage in pretty much every field. Human spaceships use titanium A armor that is not too strong against plasma, Covenant ships use nanolaminate alloy that is much tougher. The strongest weapons of each side can one shot some of the other side's ships consistently, but the human vessels that are at that level are the minority, for the Covenant pretty much any ship has what it takes to kill 99% of the UNSC fleet.

[soft fable]

I'm assuming it's MAC Cannon's that kept the UNSC Navy alive for a little bit longer?

[prime mauve]

Yeah! Especially the SuperMAC in orbital defense platforms

[soft fable]

I think you're right because I think it comes from the same place that the ship drops off the Scorpions

[soft fable]

MAC Cannons my beloved

[scarlet quiver]

Flinging your self to the top of the one on Cairo Station in H2 was fun as heck.

[vagrant ocean]

I just had a stupid idea.

[worn wolf]

if you propose it to halo studios fast enough it can be published

[worn wolf]

whichever way you slice it - either humans are the descendants of forerunners and the inheritors to their empire or they are a seperate spieces selected by the forerunners to inherit their empire. neither are anything but silly.

humanity was very close to being wiped out by the covenant with a massive technology advantage on their side as well as luminaries to find more. for all their planning the forerunners never thought to leave anything for their heirs on their homeplanet other a portal to the ark buried so deep they never found it. guilty spark nearly talks chief into lighting the rings in ce without any quick ted talks on what this will do to the galaxy.

the debates always seemed a bit odd that people are so displeased with this and discuss if it was a retcon or just a new story direction - because the forerunners lack of planning for how their descendants are going to reclaim the galaxy contrasts pretty harshly against the fact that they managed to catalogue pretty much every surviving race in the galaxy and program all their tech to recognise humans.

all of this planning and litering tech through-out the galaxy and they just left none on earth besides the portal, but leave enough everywhere else that aliens can use it to recreationally wipe out the spieces it was intended for

[prime mauve]

Well the idea was that everyone would be getting a fair chance at developing when reseeded. The San'shyuum did get a leg up with Mendicant Bias driving a Dreadnought to them but in the long run it was just a couple thousand years of advantage, versus 98 or so thousand of roughly equal standing.

And Mendicant's whole idea was to drive that straight to humanity and give them the unfair advantage ASAP

But the silly rogue screwed up his navigation and gave it to our future enemies instead.

As for why the Forerunners left Earth specifically so devoid of artifacts, at least easily accessible ones, is that they had a policy of interfering as little as possible in the thousands of years where they kept watch over the devolved Ancestors, because by then the Librarian liked the humans and didn't want to oppress them too much. In the time during the Flood war her efforts were more in saving as many lives as possible and giving them geas to progress in the long term rather than giving them physical infrastructure.

Even the Ark portal was more to save some humans in the eleventh hour than anything.

Bornstellar's surviving Forerunners could maybe have done more for the Reclaimers in their years after reseeding besides knocking down the Xalanyn that did have a damn huge advantage over every reseeded species, but after the century and change that it took to complete reseeding, they were pretty firmly set on fading away and relinquishing control.

They probably had some hippy Lifeworker excuse for not giving humanity more of a leg up after that century

[worn wolf]

it always comes down to the hippy lifeworkers. 10 showers in their spaceship and they never use them and they almost cause galactic destruction

[modest marsh]

The answer is gonna depend heavily on when you’re talking both in and out of universe, because both for reasons within and outside the setting the conditions have changed a lot for both sides over time

Obviously in universe the UNSC has become more technologically advanced especially over the course of the war relative to the covenant which has been mostly stagnant for thousands of years now

[vagrant ocean]

Tbf, the Covenant never fought a Tier 3 civilization. Especially one as resilient as humanity.

Sorry they did, millennia ago.

[warm ridge]

Upgrades done to the Cyclops armor done by Serina after they left Trove.
Serina didn't just disappear, she was alive & active from 2531 all the way to 2537 when she self terminated due to rampancy which caused a Flood out break to go out of hand on the ship.

Serina's ideas, implementations and upgrades can be seen all throughout Halo Wars 2. Isabel had modified a few of these designs herself though afaik.

[warm ridge]

He wasn't mutated. As already noted, it appeared he had modified himself quite extensively to survive the passing of time. How he did this, who helped him, and why, we have no idea.

According to 1st hand accounts, his body did appear to be a amalgamation of certain life forms, but not Flood-like in appearance implying the Primordial was the one who did this to himself. Again, we have no idea why.
@raven kettle

[fading flume]

I know you’d be back eventually

[warm ridge]

Just saying he wasn't mutated

[fading flume]

Anywho I’m quite sure encyclopedia states it, but I’m in a car rn so I can’t confirm

Lemme see if I got photos of it

[warm ridge]

Some actually believed the Primordial to be a artificial being btw.

[fading flume]

It says the primordial transmuted its form to survive time expanses

[fading flume]

ME BOMBOO

[warm ridge]

Yes that's what I said 😳

[fading flume]

Nuh uh

I’ve officially made transmuted and mutated synonymous

[warm ridge]

it appeared he had modified himself quite extensively to survive the passing of time. How he did this, who helped him, and why, we have no idea.

Transmute = : to change or alter in form, appearance, or nature and especially to a higher form

The Flood does the same thing btw. They transmute people from there original bodies into the Flood Super Cell.

[fading flume]

Yuh, I thought that was the definition of mutate, but apparently its deeper than that

On a genetic level

[warm ridge]

Mutation isn't transmuting. You don't "become" a higher form through mutation. Mutation is usually just small stuff, usually from a cell making a error, or damaged DNA replicating itself without correcting.

[fading flume]

Yes that's what I said 😳

Heheh

[warm ridge]

People confuse the 2 terms a lot, even Halo lore has at times. Mostly because the word transmute just isn't widely known. Similar, but not 1:1.

[fading flume]

True, definitions are important

[warm ridge]

There is.
What likely happened is one of the guys Elite buddies took the infection form off or killed it. Flood blood does surround the body after all.

Without an infection form, the Elite's body was definitely still infected, but the infection process takes much longer. How much longer isn't exactly certain either, because it can range from just a couple seconds to hours or days. We can see this in Halo: Mona Lisa, and with Truth himself in Halo 3.

I'd also assume with the Elite well you know, dead, the Flood probably moved on to the living host that clearly surrounded the body at some point & moved on. They were in the "Feral" stage after all, so not 100% coordinated and could've just forgot about the dead Elite body altogether (we can find dead Grunt bodies spread throughout the facility to I believe).

Before someone says "but but early bungie lore", the very 1st thing Chief finds is a dead Human pressed up against the door when he goes into the room where Keyes squad was attacked. Just a random dead Human body.
@junior rivet

[warm ridge]

this was already kinda answered but just about every single thing the UNSC has or owns is commercially available to people who have money. You could literally buy an entire UNSC Destroyer if you wanted to, again, if you had the money.

a bunch of Spartan 1.1's who were extremely rich owned a 100 meter Yacht (a space ship, not the water one) with just about everything an ONI spy ship would have.

Spartan IV's have also been commercially used for sport events.

[warm ridge]

The Mantle's Approach can be seen as multiple ships inside of each other. Think of it like a Onion.
Once the outside layer was damaged to the point of causing catastrophic destruction to the rest of the ship (because the nuke caused the now active composer to explode, which then caused more things to explode & so on), this internal layer did an emergency slipspace jump through itself towards the nearest Forerunner repair station. Which happened to be Genesis.

The fate of the ship after that is entirely unknown, presumably it landed on Genesis for repairs because otherwise the now rampant and rapidly degrading Cortana getting onto the shield world wouldn't make any sense.
@zenith valley

[prime mauve]

That makes sense, thanks

[junior rivet]

thanks

[prime mauve]

Maybe the Flood just let it wait there to be added to the biomass pile later, since it hadn't become a viable combat form in the short term?

[warm ridge]

Either explanation works, but I'm pretty sure it's because the Flood being in the feral stage just isn't coordinated well & forgets about stuff.

We don't really see the "biomass piles" until a Proto-Gravemind was firmly established, starting with Keyes being infected actually.

Like I mentioned earlier, a perfectly intact but dead human was found by Chief. Not a single infection form tried to infect it. Which you think would've been a number 1 priority.

[soft fable]

how does a hivemind forget about things

[warm ridge]

Feral stage Flood isn't a hivemind. They're basically just amped up Zombies on steroids.

[soft fable]

oh I was under the impression they were a hivemind

like the Tyranids

or the Necromorphs

[prime mauve]

I used to think that it could have been left behind as a trap as animals do use bait to hunt in different contexts, so it wouldn't be above the feral level of intelligence but it probably wasn't the intent and I'm pretty open to these simpler explanations

[warm ridge]

Necromorphs are very much the same way, the hivemind parts don't start until a Nexus Necromorph is formed.

[soft fable]

this makes them much less dangerous imo

[warm ridge]

Nexus Necromorphs in a way are just proto-Brethren moons.

[prime mauve]

Basically the Feral Flood letting the AWOL Marine, that Elite corpse, and other things be, on purpose, so as to make other beings curious to go deeper into the building until they had enough resources to really begin hunting in earnest

But maybe I was giving them too much credit with that idea

[soft fable]

was the AWOL Marine the one you find that was shooting at you before you see the flood for yourself in CE?

[prime mauve]

Yeah he's inside the facility but before the infection forms swarm you

But by then there were some combat forms outside too, in the mist

[soft fable]

yeah

[warm ridge]

Tyranids are also the exact same way. Remove the more intelligent beings, the less "control" they have, and therefore the less powerful they are.

I don't know much about Tyranid lore in general, but they all follow the same sort of fundamental thing.

[soft fable]

I'm currently painting ODST's and I'm not sure if purple shows a rank for anything

[soft fable]

yeah the Synaptic link

but even the biggest creatures follow something else whether it's a hivemind or it's a Norn Queen or something else

[prime mauve]

There's an ODST with purple details in Fireteam Raven that was an EOD expert

Also a demolition specialist

[soft fable]

ah

[warm ridge]

the whole point is the Flood, Necromorph, and Tyranids all follow the same sort of shit. The bigger they get, the more intelligent they are, the more threatening.

Remove the more intelligent beings, now they're less intelligent, and easier to contain or kill.

[warm ridge]

So this is nonsense.

[soft fable]

yeah the smaller ones and less intelligent ones cease to function properly

[prime mauve]

This one https://www.halopedia.org/Ava_Lang

[warm ridge]

I really don't think that's the case because when the Flood is in the feral stage, they're basically fighting for any resources they can get there hands on. In a way they're basically starving.

Chief for example never actually got "trapped" or ambushed. The Covenant had managed to contain the Flood just enough right before he arrived, but once he killed all the Covenant that was containing them, the Flood managed to break out again & swarm everyone including him.

[prime mauve]

If an anglerfish can use bait to hunt, I think the Flood could too, even at their lowest. And by the time Chief reaches them they aren't at their lowest anymore.

[soft fable]

I only say this because you'd think that if they were like what I originally thought, they'd have interconnected thoughts and would be able to be like cohesive? enough to be a existential threat

not that they aren't a existential threat

just more of one

[prime mauve]

They get that way once there's a Gravemind in play

[warm ridge]

you do realize this stuff has like a range on it, telepathic communication can only go so far before it degrades into nothing

[soft fable]

nope had no idea lol

[warm ridge]

it's a common thing in all these games with hivemind species.

Flood is actually the most threatening because once a Gravemind is firmly established & large enough, it's telepathic signal can stretch across the entire galaxy.

[soft fable]

god damn

[warm ridge]

other hivemind species don't really show this same sort of capability, requiring ships or some other way of sending stuff in.

flood can just tear worm holes into space just about anywhere & be there in seconds

[soft fable]

I see, yeah Tyranids need a synaptic creature to properly spread

whether a Hive Tyrant, Hive Ship, Norn Emissary etc

[prime mauve]

The Flood ship had enough biomass to work as a network node for the Gravemind's telepathic control, right?

[soft fable]

I mean in hindsight this all makes sense

I guess I just didn't really think about it

[warm ridge]

we're talking at LEAST a planet sized+ Gravemind btw. We used to call these Keyminds but new Halo lore kinda retconned but also fixed a lot of this into just being a Gravemind body but bigger. @soft fable

[soft fable]

ah, and that'd take a long while to complete

is this the Gravemind we see in Halo 2?

[warm ridge]

Keyminds are now known as every stage of the Gravemind, along with any Flood form capable of sending out commands. Abominations, Juggernauts, and Blight stalkers are the known ones. @soft fable

[warm ridge]

off of Delta Halo / Installation 05? It wouldn't need enough biomass. It's range could control any Flood form within the immediate vicinity.

We just know the range itself is limited because the Flood on Installation 04 tried to create another Gravemind (was in the process of doing this), despite one having already existed.

[prime mauve]

I meant the Halo 3 one in Floodgate

Like those Flood are under the Gravemind's command, right?

[warm ridge]

Believe so, but by that point I'm pretty sure High Charity was already heading to Earth?

We do know the Gravemind sent a few messages to Chief via talking him while he was in the wreckage, so they had to be under his control 100%

[prime mauve]

I think Rtas would have been a lot more scared when arriving at Earth if High Charity had escaped under his watch

[soft fable]

also didn't the Flood mess with time and reality by constantly slip spacing?

[warm ridge]

He wouldn't of known because he was chasing after the single Flood ship that escaped & shortly after headed straight to the Ark.

After all, he was surprised that High Charity suddenly just arrived at the Ark out of no where.

[prime mauve]

I think the most logical thing would have been that the Gravemind jumped when the Flood ship confirmed the Ark portal

So the sequence of events would be:

• Single ship breaks blockade
• Fleet of Retribution follows
• Flood ship confirms the portal
• The Gravemind jumps
• Rtas arrives and neutralizes the Flood ship
• Rtas and friends go through the portal
• The Gravemind arrives on the Sol system, then jumps directly to the Ark, bypassing Earth and the portal.

[warm ridge]

And remember, by the time they got to the Ark, High Charity arrived just a few hours later. It's not like the battle went on for an entire day before the Ark arrived.

It would've had to of been sometime between the ship arriving, and them going into the portal at the Ark by the time the Gravemind got there.

The entire Ark battle itself only lasted for a single day, realistically probably around 6 - 8 hours.

[warm ridge]

BTW Rtas already knew or had an idea that the Flood was coming straight to Earth, blockade or not. He even says "Your planet is doomed".

[prime mauve]

Doesn't he say that after they got Cortana's message?

But it would make sense if he had an idea

[warm ridge]

Not sure how that would change his mind. He was going into the portal.

Cortana's message never says the Flood was heading to Earth either. Only that the solution to stopping the Flood was through the portal.

[prime mauve]

If Truth was going to Earth, then the Gravemind going there makes sense

[warm ridge]

yea the Flood don't need that. They can just send in whatever, done. No need for scouts or some special thing to be sent in 1st.
It just takes 1 Flood spore. Once it gains a foot hold, you're done.

OR
Get insanely lucky that some sort of device which threatens the Flood's existence (Halo rings) exist & the only way for it to survive is for it to go to a special location that makes them (the Ark) but all of this was actually an elaborate trap set up by an AI to get rid of the suddenly quite massive Flood infestation

[prime mauve]

"Hey Gravemind, this is clearly an all hands on deck situation, look what happened when you sent a solo ship out there. Oh wait haha we got a new Halo building up right here to shoot you with" is a really, really cavalier plan on Cortana's part honestly

[soft fable]

wasn't one of the Ark's destroyed? and if so wouldn't that mean you could just destroy the second one to prevent the Halos from being built again

[strange pumice]

She said that the High Charity is coming to Earth, with the Flood army

https://youtu.be/jBiHMsKX1AM?t=840&si=tK4PeOqG8ZXHW3_v
Even marked with timestamp

[prime mauve]

The Greater Ark that built the original Halos was destroyed, the one we go to in Halo 3 is the Lesser Ark. And yes if that Ark was lost it was all over for the galaxy

The Gravemind could pretty much just expand at will if the Halos were neutralized

[soft fable]

ah

and I'm assuming Halo Wars 2 is on the lesser Ark

[warm ridge]

That's correct.

Exactly why the Flood wanted to know the exact location of the Ark, then the 2nd Ark.

[warm ridge]

yes

Greater Ark got destroyed long before any of the events of the Halo games ever happened. Back when the Forerunners still existed.

[soft fable]

ah?

[fair hazel]

During the flood war

[strange pumice]

I didn't know the Librarian died from the Halo array, kinda scary, I liked her during halo 4 campaign😢

Even seeing her only once

[warm ridge]

yea I was misremembering that part, but it does confirm what I said about High Charity already being in the process of going to Earth while they were busy dealing with the crashed Flood ship. Way before they entered the portal.

[warm ridge]

said here btw

[prime mauve]

Yeah, if Cortana knew then Rtas was about to find out real quick if he hadn't left in a hurry

And he could probably tell where the wind was blowing

[warm ridge]

the Librarian we see in modern Halo isn't alive, she's just a copy. An essence, created through the use of Mind transferring.

[strange pumice]

I know

[thorn osprey]

hypothetical here

do you think the Banished could take a human garden world and restart jiralhanae society there?

[strange pumice]

They want Halo as their homeworld because in that way, they can threaten the whole galaxy, so I guess it's pointless

And since, Installation 04 status is unknown, Delta Halo is contained because of Flood, not sure about other installations, but Zeta Halo is currently where they concentrated their forces

[carmine sleet]

04 is destroyed

[strange pumice]

I mean about replacement

[thorn osprey]

I'm talking more about Severans Banished forces

If they ever came to the conclusion that Zeta Halo and the Banished there was lost

[carmine sleet]

08 is destroyed, 09 is missing

[strange pumice]

I ain't saying the same?

[soft fable]

A tiny part of the banished are on the Ark I'm still curious about what's going on with the Spirit of Fire

[carmine sleet]

They're still there, fighting the Banished

[soft fable]

oh really? i wish we got a third game

[vagrant ocean]

They have the capabilities but they’d rather have Zeta be their home world given its swath of Forerunner tech, its ability to make slipspace jumps, and it has built in weapon systems.

[vagrant ocean]

You’re not. There only was one Installation 04. The replacement in H3 is 08 and that one’s replacement is 09.

[carmine sleet]

Aye. Basically, we've had little in the way of new stuff about the Spirit of Fire since Halo Wars 2 beyond a few brief appearances in short stories and novels which just confirm they're still there

[carmine sleet]

Everything you need to put a gun to the head of the universe

[soft fable]

yeah and that sucks I wan more for them

[carmine sleet]

We'll just have to wait and see what the future holds for them

[soft fable]

indeed

glad they're still alive atleast

[prime mauve]

If they could convert Zeta Halo back to firing directional pulses (kinda like in the concept art where Cortana would use it to blow up Doisac) it would be incredibly effective as a deterrence tool that is much more manageable than a standard Halo

[vagrant ocean]

The Halo rings already have very powerful anti-ship weapons. I’m sure there could be a way to use the Confidence-class weapon arrays as a bombardment weapon.

[obsidian thistle]

Hmmmm I wonder if a marketing tagline for Halo: Campaign Evolved is "Hope". It appears a lot on the recent Halo Gear items tied to that game. 🙂

(Reason I am saying that here is it may be the focus of how stuff is pushed narratively in the marketing lore wise!)

Easy to spot here.

https://shop.xboxgamestudios.com/products/halo-incoming-transmission-samsung-galaxy-phone-case

[worn wolf]

fanta spartan

[warm ridge]

Banished already has multiple worlds colonized & is actively mining them. They wouldn't be able to take any Human world and know how to work the equipment at all, they'd just go "farming equipment? no more like WEAPON", or they'll just melt everything down.

[warm ridge]

Not actually true. They want the Halo ring to use it as a weapon so the Jiralhanae can never be threatened again (also so they can take whatever they want from any other species or competing Jiralhanae clans).

[warm ridge]

Zeta Halo doesn't have the main force of the Banished there at all.
That was actually sent to attack Earth, once the Guardians were deactivated he pulled them back to go towards Boundary where a Forerunner Lithos access point to the Domain existed. This ended up being destroyed & the Banished retreated. All happened Dec. 2559.

Another fleet was sent to Suban, Sanghelio's Blamite moon on Feb. 2560.

Another fleet was later sent to Nysa, the planet Halo Infinite's multiplayer cut scenes largely took place on. It was attacked & taken over by the Banished in Mar. 2560.

The battle over Suban is still an on going conflict from Feb. all the way to May 2560.

Banished forces still persist at the Ark as well, with reinforcements being sent when Atriox had left it.

[warm ridge]

Probably just left over stuff from the Infinite marketing days that's been sitting in a box inside a warehouse this whole time. Wouldn't be surprised.

Remember the Xbox gear shop went completely offline while Halo Infinite was still being supported, all the way back in July - Aug. 2025. They probably meant to release the last couple of things during Halo Infinite's last HCS event that just never happened, so we're getting it now with the reopening.

Is interesting that none of the Halo Infinite era stuff that did release on the shop before it got closed down is no longer on the website though.

[scarlet quiver]

One rebuttal (just cause):

yall pointed out what Halos we know of and dont. We clearly do not know the status of remaining unknown rings.
We also knownthat Zeta is unique. Yet knowing HS, they can make any ring "unique in its own way".

Even if the Jiralhanae successfully take control over Zeta and colonize there, i dont think that will be a stopping point for them. They will not be satisfied with just Zeta.
They take one ring, unsc can take over more and out number. They/we will still continue to fight for the other rings and greater/lesser arks.

So yes, the Jiralhanae can have a gun pointed at the galaxys head, but the fighting will continue and atriox knows he will still need a clan or two to search for the others locations.

I know HS mentioned the purpose of controlling zeta for Jiralanae being "never being threatened again" . But successful control over the ring does not stop the anyone else from controlling the other installations and still threatening their survival.

I still cannot believe they wrote Doisac being destroyed.

[warm ridge]

they can make any ring "unique in its own way".
This is actually the case, but Chief specifically is noticing a difference that he hasn't seen from the other rings he's been on.
This is likely due to the fact that Installation 07 is a much older ring that was reduced in size & repurposed from the original array.

AKA it's "unique" because of just this, and not much else really.

successful control over the ring does not stop the anyone else from controlling the other installations and still threatening their survival.
Yea that's also correct. Honestly just chalk it up to poor writing, a lot of Infinite's writing really wasn't great & is full of plot holes that'll sadly never get explained.

Kinda why anyone who plays Halo Infinite's campaign nowadays says it sucks. It's literally the 2nd mission of Halo 1 stretched across an entire game.
And worst of all, nothing really happens to "move" the plot forward.

I still cannot believe they wrote Doisac being destroyed.
I can't believe they had all the actual interesting stuff written off screen into books.

[scarlet quiver]

Yea. Holes holes holes.

🙄🥸 you are totally correct. In certain ways infinites campaign became bland in that it was like one really long mission.
But other aspects about it were great. The ring was beautiful and simply fun to traverse.

And that is a thing too, all the gritty lore that moves Halo forward does seem to be from non-game format.

[warm ridge]

And that is a thing too, all the gritty lore that moves Halo forward does seem to be from non-game format.
Wasn't like this during Halo 4 & 5, just saying.
Yea there was stuff that happened in the novels to, but it's not like every single important thing got moved into the novels.

You didn't need to read a book to figure out what the origins of the Created were, where the Ur-Didact came from, who he was, or any of that, you do with the Endless.

You didn't need to play a completely different game just to see what the Prometheans were in Halo 4, you do with the Banished in Infinite.

[scarlet quiver]

It is an interesting direction they've been taking lately, and I wonder how much of that has been from the changes made at Halo studio with staffing and budgets and priorities.
How much that is gonna change going forward?

[warm ridge]

Everything's changed more or less.
We'll see what the next Halo game offers, but don't expect it to be anything like infinite (it'll be better )

[scarlet quiver]

I think each game that came out with is a learning experience and they learn alot, probably more so with infinite. So I am curious as to what was new they did with infinite that they do want to carry forward.

Lore, campaign, multiplayer, shop, and customization wise.

[prime mauve]

If the Endless' threat had been better explained in the game (or like explained at all, and what their endgame is) instead of just having Cortana hype them up as "more dangerous than the Flood", their origin would have been fine to learn elsewhere. But we still don't even know what they want!

[scarlet quiver]

Yeeeeaaaa.
What I got is that they hate the Forerunners.
Great, youre released from prison and Forerunners no longer exist in the galaxy nor control the mantle.
Sooooo....

[frigid heart]

The top loading of the M90 is very intuitive

[vagrant ocean]

Maybe if you trained with an RMB-93 or GM-94.

[frigid heart]

It’s just that lots of people, like competition shooters, turn their shotgun upside down to load it

So they wouldn’t have to on the M90

[vagrant ocean]

Competition shooters aren’t really a good description for the average Joe. The average person would probably lift the weapon and load it that way.

[frigid heart]

Well looks like I’m wrong again and you’re still the smartest smarty pants on discord

[vagrant ocean]

No need to be rude.

What in Odin’s name is that tag.

[glossy sun]

So the Halopedia page says it has 40 "Scindere arrays"

Any idea what those could be? Lmao

[modest marsh]

No, but the naming convention, quantity, and role of the ship would indicate it’s some sort of intermediary weapon system on par with plasma cannons on other comparably sized ships

[heavy grove]

Picked up a copy of Waypoint Chronicles, had an interesting note in one of the as-of-yet unreleased sections regarding Battle Born and Merdiain Divide. Spoilers: || It appears that the children were successfully augmented and deployed to Earth during the Battle of London, as they appear to have saved Spartan Agryna in her youth||

[prime mauve]

Oh come on

Okay thank you you saved me an Audible credit

That is honestly much worse than any other theory I had or had seen

My disappointment is endless and my day is ruined

[heavy grove]

I mean ||it’s not necessarily confirmed but we do hear one of them directly referred to as “Dorian”, so it could be a potentially unnamed S-III?||

[stoic hamlet]

||it’s the battle born kids, almost 100%. Another is referred to a Spartan Rousseau, which is (from memory) Evie.||

[heavy grove]

||Yep, which presents an interesting timeline given that I believe these would the first spartan IV’s we see involved. The curious thing is that they’re referred too as Delta’s, which makes me think they may have been retconned into Spartan-III’s?||

[stoic hamlet]

||it wouldn’t make any sense to retcon them into III’s. Delta Comoany hadn’t even begun training when Earth was attacked. At this point, Gamma’s just been deployed. My guess is Delta is the designation before the UNSC solidifies “Spartan IV”.||

[warm ridge]

Why would it be bad for them to be the Battle born kids?

[prime mauve]

Because I hate that they got augmented in the first place

And upgrading them to full Spartans sucks even more

[warm ridge]

They were already Spartans the moment they got augmented no?

[prime mauve]

Technically

But making it official, armor and all?

[warm ridge]

We just didn't know anything about them after that until now

[prime mauve]

It feels like straight up fanfiction

[warm ridge]

That's what being augmented means. They were 100% Spartans

We're finally getting lore about there where abouts now at least

[prime mauve]

Well three hurrays for that I guess

[warm ridge]

The re-release of those novels that happened back in 2024 makes sense now ngl

[prime mauve]

Must have been such a great moment for all 2.5 fans they had

[warm ridge]

Wonder if it was supposed to be revealed earlier, closer to the re-release

[prime mauve]

Maybe Haruspis thought it was the one reveal he could save up for the published release

[prime mauve]

Are Naomi or Maria there at all?

[heavy grove]

||Nope, we only get Dorian and Evie confirmed, they’re also led by Byrne, who is implied to still be alive, so it’s overall weird. ||

||Apparently, they’re all involved In Ouroboros, which we also don’t get anymore information on||

[prime mauve]

||Byrne as in Nolan Byrne|| from Contact Harvest?

If we get a date on the London mission before November 17th then it would not be contradicting that one's death date but there could be some Kurt-style faking deaths involved otherwise

[heavy grove]

||Yep, it appears that a select group of people get evacuated to the Oort Cloud and are marked KIA. I assume OUROBOROS is just a reference to the Infinity but…||

[heavy grove]

||He specifically mentions how they will be marked KIA lol||

[prime mauve]

Well if an old Orion can still be around fighting in the current day in some form then I guess at least the story moves the status quo into at least one positive place

[heavy grove]

||It is very much implied that he escaped and the UNSC covered it up to protect the secrecy of the Infinity||

Why he hasn’t shown up anywhere else, I cannot say lol

I will say, a bold choice mixing ||Agryna|| with the ||Battleborn Kids|| afaik, neither of them were taken all that well

[prime mauve]

Easier to ignore them if they become a package deal

They can squad up in 2560 and heroically fly a prowler into a black hole

[modest marsh]

This was kind of predictable if you look at the unused infinite multiplayer trailer animatics, it goes with a similar premise

[prime mauve]

Maybe call for another parlay with Ilsa Zane and get stuck with plasma grenades for being stupid. I'd clap for that.

[heavy grove]

Always mad about them getting my girl Rosenda roped up in that

My goat

[prime mauve]

God, no wonder Agryna turned out like she did if her idols were those stupid teenagers

[modest marsh]

They’d survive this though, plasma grenades have a horrible track record hurting Spartans

[prime mauve]

Maybe Jun was too concussed due to oxygen starvation and vacuum exposure to give her proper mentoring

[prime mauve]

Damn that's true. They'd use it as an excuse to lose their helmets and show off some non regulation hair and how they're still edgy and fierce

[modest marsh]

“Regulation hair” has always kinda been fake

Legends cemented this especially but tbh I do think halo being influenced by the likes of 80s and 90s scifi military movies that take liberties with that sort of thing sets a precedent artistically that if anything was diverged from whenever the series tried to be more “realistic” which itself just feels a little too contemporary

Eccentric haircuts are a staple of scifi precisely because you can contrast that against what is considered the norm of today for both practical and traditional reasons, which would naturally erode over the course of centuries

[prime mauve]

"Ah yes, I finally get to bring Rosenda to full canon status. She will destroy one (1) Banshee that isn't even described as being too dangerous in its approach. Jun will lazily shoot the other. Excellent, that's quite enough of that. Story over."

[modest marsh]

That is to say, I’m kinda pro weird haircuts if it makes sense for the character

Even for Spartans

In fact it probably matters the least for Spartans what their hair looks like considering they wear their helmets most of the time anyways, that type of regulation is mostly about uniformity

Something that matters considerably less for special forces in general, let alone the ones who aren’t really supposed to show their faces when deployed

[heavy grove]

I will say, overall I enjoyed the vast majority of the book. Obviously there are some toe dips into genre's I'm not too big of a fan of but even those felt well put together. The new stories are mostly good with one-or-two standouts

[modest marsh]

I remember people complaining about Solomon-069 having locs because that has no precedent in a professional military unit but it’s actually a neat choice imo

[prime mauve]

Honestly he looked great

[modest marsh]

I think it would be cool if there were male Spartans that wore a topknot since that also has some relevant historical/cultural connotations

[prime mauve]

Yeah that'd be cool

I don't know which Spartan I'd pick for it personally but the idea just makes sense

[modest marsh]

I mean, the “easy” choice would be someone of East Asian/pacific descent who is trying to honor their heritage by wearing a traditional hairstyle associated with warriors

I like Spartan Eklund’s headband + braid combo which especially suits her role as a Lone Wolf operative making hair maintenance more arduous, and it ties directly to her Scandinavian heritage

Which is to say, it would follow male Spartans would similarly style their hair either out of convenience or preference

Tbh this mostly comes down to me being a little bored with most Spartans, both male and female, being either close cropped or outright bald

[modest marsh]

Ngl it’s just now occurring to me that Tanaka was originally depicted in the escalation comics with braids but then in Halo 5 she has straight hair which idk how to feel about that since I know this is a sensitive topic for women of color

This feels on par with the birth of a Spartan trailer implying that the augmentations turn your eyes blue

[obsidian thistle]

I'd say that hairstyles can change. Especially after a few years.

[modest marsh]

I’m not denying that it’s an explainable change, but for one it’s implied she’s had braids for pretty much her entire life up to becoming a Spartan

Im confused about the choice of removing them in favor of a more conventional hairstyle is all

If nothing else, preferentially I’d like more variety for variety’s sake

[stoic hamlet]

The biggest reference we have to regulation hair that I can think of is Ghosts of Onyx, but in the framing of the Spartan III’s in training, and I’d say there it makes sense to mandate grooming and the like.

But otherwise I think it depends? Like, Halo’s biggest inspiration for the UNSC is Aliens and the Colonial Marines had pretty uniform hair styles of buzz cuts. It was really just Ripley and Burke (and obviously Newt) who had different hair.

I think a case could be made for either interpretation, really.

[queen nexus]

What’s the lore with Eaglestrike?

It’s alternate universe stuff sure but

Is it the type of thing any spartan IV can wear? Or do you have to be like grafted into the suit like Chimera

[carmine sleet]

It's basically just a suit of armour used by an alternative universe's UNSC for their soldiers

[minor sky]

https://tenor.com/view/collar-tug-tug-collar-simpsons-simpsons-collar-tug-gif-18075840963300305717

[modest marsh]

tbc i think it's supposed to be a dune reference but that doesn't necessarily absolve of it scrutiny since the context of the blue eyes in Dune are very different

i do think Spartans are meant to be the equivalent of Mentats in halo's universe

[minor sky]

Yeah its the augmentations paired with Halsey's "evolution" ramblings that can make it feel a tad eugenics-y, which uh, I would prefer they lean away from

[modest marsh]

for all intents and purposes that trailer takes a lot of liberties that aren't strictly authoritative next to the rest of the fiction but if you wanted to derive some symbolic meaning behind it, i would steer closer to the dune idea where its about being bestowed an awareness that is both a blessing and a curse

[minor sky]

Yeah, it is a much less icky reading

[modest marsh]

the other parallel here is that, much like Paul Astreides, Carter and his fellow Spartans are forced into the role of galactic heroes that suffer through extreme violence, with their path largely predestined for them (if less specifically influenced by intentional genetic engineering)

[minor sky]

You can also make the obvious connection with the Forerunner Trilogy and the Geas

[modest marsh]

i mostly want to keep this self contained to what had been established in the reach era fiction since that would've largely informed what the trailer was trying to say

plus Spartan-IIIs seemingly are "outside" of the Forerunner plan, even if they are obviously worthy successors

[minor sky]

Sure sure

The parallels just came to mind is all

[modest marsh]

yeah i mean the Librarian/lifeworkers in halo 4/forerunner trilogy run pretty close to representing the Bene Gesserit

you're mostly missing the psychic powers to manipulate people, but tbh i think they were kinda setting something equivalent to that in halo 4 when the librarian references "other gifts" besides immunity to the composer after she accelerate's chief's evolution

in cut dialogue this gave him ultrasonic hearing which is supposedly how he could hear didact when cortana initially couldn't but thats stupid

I think they landed on him gaining a connection to the domain, hence the vision in 5, but they haven't really elaborated on this at all in over 10 years

[minor sky]

Add it to the list of things to address

[modest marsh]

they need to introduce the esoteric stuff at some point as part of the A plot

Harbinger and the Silent Auditorium made this front and center to an extent, what was going on there had much more going on than the fantastical technology we're used to

[scarlet quiver]

We need more elaboration on sooo many things left open.

In infinite, they gave us Forge and told us to have at it. The community makes some amazing maps.
They should allow community writers to work for them and address these subjects the studio doesnt have the resources or time for.

[vital mist]

And the fact I don't think Precursors are mentioned in literally any halo game

It seems very strange something so big would be completely left out of the games

[modest marsh]

Not directly, but they’re implied at least

[vital mist]

Would a game only player get the implications though?

[modest marsh]

I think infinite going with “there’s older stuff than forerunners” is enough

The fact that it’s clearly a special collectible/sidequest thingy that’s ascribed importance makes it harder to miss

[vital mist]

I guess I mean more about the flood, aside from a very confusing scene in Halo 4, they come off as pretty regular zombies

Like there's nothing about the Gravemind being anything special

[modest marsh]

Well he has psychic powers

I feel like that’s a big one

[vital mist]

When??

The halo 3 interrupts?

[modest marsh]

The Cortana visions are the most direct thing but also he speaks through the flood

[vital mist]

There's never anything directly showing those are telepathic though, could be PTSD, Chief tripping balls etc.

[modest marsh]

If you contain things to just CE, we’re told that the flood plans to repair both the autumn and truth and reconciliation in order to escape the planet which at minimum requires a sophisticated intelligence on the individual level

[modest marsh]

His vitals flat line when they happen

It’s why he slows down

[boreal bane]

Over the years the studio has hired multiple community members who have gone on to work as writers in the franchise team (Grim and Haruspis).

[vital mist]

When is that mentioned?

[modest marsh]

The first time it happens

Chief reads as KIA on his IFF

[vital mist]

Intelligent zombies aren't giving you the picture of them being the remnants of the Forerunners gods who wish to corrupt your soul for all eternity

[modest marsh]

No but I think it’s disingenuous to call them zombies based purely on their behavior

[vital mist]

Wait, is it said out loud or do you have to notice it???

[modest marsh]

It’s said by a marine

[vital mist]

Oh, when you jump through the dark hole?

[modest marsh]

Cortana (Cortana Moment): "Could you sacrifice me to complete your mission? Could you watch me die?"
Marine #3: (looks back) "Sir, you okay?"
Marine #4: (concerned) "Your vitals just pinged KIA."

[vital mist]

A lot of fictional zombies are intelligent and have something "more" to them. Like yeah, it's obvious the flood aren't Walking dead zombies or anything......but it's not really shown that they're one of the deadliest Sci-fi zombies ever

But that's mainly scaling in the Forerunner trilogy getting wacky

Because I'm not sure if Bungie intended them to be that powerful?

[modest marsh]

You seem to be coming at this from a perspective that is looking for the fallacious conclusion that we should be seeing more explicit evidence of their capabilities

[vital mist]

Pretty much, yeah

[modest marsh]

The point of halo is that it’s supernatural elements are extremely subdued to the point that it’s ambiguous even to the most informed and intelligent people in the setting

You’re not supposed to be sure, there isn’t hard evidence and the mechanics of this stuff weren’t peeled back until much later

Ultimately, the flood overwhelmed the forerunners, who were a galaxy spanning empire capable of cosmic scale engineering

[vital mist]

I don't think 3s writing helps. "One single flood spore can destroy a species" except we see the Arbiter, elites and marines breathing in flood areas just fine.

"You just glassed half a continent" no, he didn't. He just glassed the Voi area and a bit beyond it

[modest marsh]

There are ways to address this but it requires speculative solutions

[vital mist]

Do we know how it actually started? I think I remember a small Forerunner research team being wiped out by monsters. It's not stated, but it's obviously implied flood

[modest marsh]

For one, flood spores are mainly dangerous not because they cause sentient hosts to be infected directly but because the surrounding environment will cascade into incubators for more flood forms

[vital mist]

I think that's old Bungie lore?

But idk

[modest marsh]

This is shown in Spartan assault

Plants, fungus, algae, etc can be mutated and converted into material to develop more dangerous flood forms such as pod infectors

[modest marsh]

You’re going to need to be more specific

[vital mist]

It's the lore of a multiplayer map

I heard it during one of Hiddens "lore of each halo map" videos

[modest marsh]

Legends was the first time we got to see what the flood was like when they faced the forerunners, and obviously they were substantially more powerful than whatever we encountered in the games

[modest marsh]

This we first see in a halo 2 map I believe, and later elaborated in halo 3

[vital mist]

And Legend's is definitely dubious. Some of it is canon, but it's visualisation is definitely dubious

[vital mist]

I believe there's a halo 2 map hinting at the precursors, or whatever Bungie had planned at the time. Some map with technology not Forerunner

[modest marsh]

It’s not really dubious at all anymore except the duel which even that ostensibly preserves aspects of its visuals such as the bespoke design of Haka

[vital mist]

The covenant and UNSC teaming up to fight the flood and coming to peace???

[modest marsh]

That was stated to be a metaphor/non-literal representation in a more recent commentary

But some version of that would’ve happened

[vital mist]

That seems like a cop out

[modest marsh]

In general you can assume that the events of the games, particularly when the player is in control, represents a truncated version of what actually happened, both in terms of scale and timeline

In The Flood for instance, Chief spends 3 hours in The Library alone

Even though the actual level is less than an hour even on legendary

[vital mist]

I guess apart from when books intervene. Like Halo the flood and such

But generally, yeah

[modest marsh]

I’m saying, when non-game material does intervene, it tends to dramatize/embellish what happened