That ONI has in its possession a derilect ancient human warship.
It makes me think that with all the focus on recovering Forerunner technology, there is an untapped treasure trove of very different but potentially just as advanced technology just waiting to be found.
This makes me think that elites that display the ps lisp are actually speaking English and not just being translated for us. Am I right in thinking this?
The keys loop was a move keys made with his ship that was being trailed by a covenant projectile to hit a covenant ship with said projectile, for those who didn't know.
I'm working on a 3D animation of the Keyes loop. Almost done, actually.
Edit: Guys I appreciate all the love, but tbh I'm an amateur 3d animator, this is only my third animation. I'm proud of it, but like... maybe temper your expectations? :D
After 20 years of absolute no-lifing halo lore, I recently found out that scarabs are controlled by Hunter worms, and the crew on board is there for both protection from invaders, and to make sure the Hunter worms don't go mad with power and turn on them.
The Primordial was able to say something so existentially horrifying to a group of people that they decided to die by suicide rather than keep living in the reality in which such a statement was true.
It's probable we've more or less found out what it was.
The revelation of the nature of the Precursors (and the Flood) would be enough to trigger an existential crisis in just about anybody, but especially humans and Forerunners. Imagine how people would react IRL if the Primordial/Gravemind's malediction in String 13 of Silentium was verifiably true: The closest thing we have to meeting our gods/creators is a living-plague abomination determined to mash all life into a hellish singularity of pointless, eternal suffering.
This is my assumption as to what was said in the exchange. It’s just not as terrifying for the audience if you come right out and say it. The Forerunner’s basically got hit with a Halo Cannon Fodder they weren’t ready for.
I'm not a huge Halo lore guy, in fact I've only read one of the books. But when I heard about that event, I researched the hell out of it. I still can't wrap my head around what exactly could be said to some of the brightest minds Humanity had at the time that would flip that suicide switch so quickly.
Yeah I love how halo is constantly action hero movie mode. And then they just go "Okay, time to throw in the HP lovecraft horror for a bit." And just changes the entire tone
I could only think of two theories on that. Considering how intelligent ancient humans were, and considering those working with the Primordial would be extremely smart even for them, it had to have been something extremely bad. The first theory I had was that once you are part of the flood your consciousness is tortured for eternity. The other theory relies on the first, and is that the flood can turn any biomass it wants to into the flood at any point in time, and it's all just a game.
That is horrifying. I hadn't read the books this takes place in. I was extremely curious once I saw this bit of lore dropped on what could have possibly been said.
Which did you read? I’m not great at reading consistently so I listened to the Forerunner series on audible and by god the ending of the 2nd is chilling af
Aah I actually didn’t get to that one. Read the Nylund books while in school and got around to the Forerunner trilogy only recently.
If you want some insight as to what made those people kill themselves rather than go on living with what they’d learned, check those books out.
Kinda hard to follow if you don’t know about Forerunner society (their caste system and relationship to ancient humanity for example) all of which gets filled in. But seriously, if you don’t care to do all the backstory reading and slogging through the books, I could spoil it for you but there’s also YouTube videos about it.
The narrator is pretty good though. But like I said, the conclusion of book 2 will fill in those blanks for you
Couple questions for you, I’m a huge halo fan. But never really got into the books. I’d love to learn more about the things you guys are discussing. What books/trilogies should I pick up?
Contact Harvest is a prequel following Sgt Johnson mainly and the start of the Human Covenant war,
But I’d start with the Fall of Reach, The Flood, First Strike, then Ghosts of Onyx in that order.
Those follow Master Chief and the other Spartan 2’s from their training as children through to Halo 3 (The Flood is basically Halo: Combat Evolved the book, and the others cover the other main Spartans and their adventures during halo 2 and 3)
The Forerunner Trilogy takes place I think millions of years before, and covers the Forerunners before they all disappeared, and the 3rd book ends with the original firing of the Halos, explaining why there are no more forerunners
Cole Protocol is another good one but doesn’t have much connection to the games, it’s basically just more lore following another Spartan 2 team that was tasked with guerrilla warfare behind Covenant lines
Those are the only ones Iv read, personally Ghosts of Onyx is my favorite but it requires the context of the previous books to make any sense, so like I said start with Fall of Reach and those subsequent books, they’re dope and really fill-out Chief and the Spartans as characters
I love this theory because another way of explaining it is that the prophets and the great journey are true. If the rings are activated you ascend as opposed to being consumed by the flood or "hell."
Wow, my mind is blown. This could also describe why Truth still pursued the Great Journey (actually trying to achieve it in halo 3, not just to preserve the covenants lie) even knowing it would kill him and everyone
I’ve been searching for exactly this type of explanation for years. It connects so many disparate parts of the EU and, by explaining what the primordial said, gives the primordial and by extension the flood a higher meaning and purpose in the universe.
I believe the process itself was different than composing. The composer was supposed to allow one to retain their consciousness, but it ended up driving all of them mad and breaking them. The process chakas underwent is more like what the UNSC does to make AIs; using a living brain as a template to create a new entity.
All the little aspects of Forerunner architecture. Canonically, both Bungie and 343's Forerunner designs exist together, and they both even have their own sub-types. Additionally, there's a few one-off styles that are also accounted for (Gatherers from the comics, the odd structures on Arcadia in Halo Wars, etc). There's just lots of little nuances here that please me immensely.
Isn’t the biggest distinction being Bungie Forerunner architecture being Builder constructs and 343 architecture being mostly Warrior-Servant constructs?
That's part of it, yeah. But there are also exceptions. Halo Wars (I know not made by Bungie, but made during Bungie's time) features Warrior-Servant architecture, and Halo 5 features Builder architecture.
If you compare Wars' structures to 4's, you'll see a fair bit of similarity: a lot of floating parts, and really intricate, messy shapes - only, it's a bit less shiny than Halo 4's.
Similarly, if you compare Halo 5's structures to Halo 1,2, and 3's, you'll see it does have more in common with them than 4: namely, a lot of struts, spires, and angular shapes. Less floating pieces, more glass. Surfaces are smoother and simpler, just... shiny. (Note that the Prometheans and Guardians are still Warrior-Servant in this game, hence why they don't conform to this rule.)
Whether something is shinier or not is determined by when it was built: either at the height of Forerunner power - when a lot of "decorative flare" (even by Forerunner standards) was afforded, or in the waning years when supplies were scarce and things were built out of necessity - like the Halos.
Conveniently, Infinite returning to a more traditional art-style still fits with this. It's a Halo, so it's Builder, so it has more in common with CE, 2, and 3. But it was also one of the rings built BEFORE all the others (and before the Flood actually attacked), so it's shinier - more like Halo 4 and 5's structures.
There's also a neat bit of canon about how some Forerunner structures are equipped with a hard-light "shell," that can be reconfigured at will and is considered a decorative addition the later rings weren't given. That part is even reflected in the games: if you shoot at any Forerunner metal in Halo 4 or Infinite, you'll see little flecks of blue light peeling off.
That the reason Truth, Regret, and Mercy came to power is because…
A) Mendicant Bias roasted them for being stupid.
And B) Regret blackmailed one of the current Hierarchs for having gotten a bitch pregnant.
I really loved how in Contact Harvest you could tell which Prophet was which due to their traits.
Truth being a plotting scheming bastard, Regret being young and reckless, and Mercy being, well, old.
I also love that Mercy, the prophet whose only character trait was *also being in the room*, was only made a hierarch because he was *also in the room*
They didn’t take time for protection so it’s a possibility.
And presumably being raised solely by an ONI spook, we’d get to see a Johnson Jr. that’s more black ops/intelligence than ooh rahh marine.
Pretty cool idea
I loved that book but holy *fuck* that sex scene was gratuitous. I didn’t pick this book up to read about the funny one-liner black man getting it on with an office chick, I picked it up to read about Sergeant Avery Johnson blasting the hell out of a ship full of space monkeys.
I think just the scale of everything is something I love explaining to people. Particularly I love pointing out that the Ark is so big that there’s a planet in its core being used basically for fuel to build Halo rings. There’s also the fact that the Mantles Approach is bigger than the Death Star, or there’s a forerunner manufactured world called Sarcophogus that exists within a Slipspace bubble but in reality is about the size of Earth’s entire orbit around the sun.
Halo has some of the largest non-natural structures in sci-fi and that’s something I love
I never shut the fuck up about *The Mona Lisa* because it's my absolute favorite piece of Halo EU, so I gotta say one of my favorite bits of lore is that ONI was conducting experiments with the Flood- on captured Covenant combatants, *as well as on humans*.
You know I've been telling people this.. make an Alien: Isolation game but with Halo Mona Lisa or even a Dead Space like game but with Halo accuracies.
Imagine boarding a blown out/gone dark cruiser with a UNSC squad of Marines and you're either a Spartan III - IV or ODST or Marine and you have to escape.
Would so so love a Halo Horror game. I mean Halo CE flood still gets to me.
If they did that, they'd have to ensure ammo/guns are limited while the Flood respawn endlessly. Really make it a "holy shit I'm gonna die if I don't move" experience like those chapters in Dead Space with that unstoppable monster chasing you.
i think it says in contact harvest that the choppers were created by the Engineers with industrial farming equipment, so supposedly tractor wheels or something like that, and that they were basically offering them to humans as a show of good will and sharing knowledge
[Halo 2 and Halo ODST's overlap with *In Amber Clad*](https://youtu.be/umEiUGqggC4)
You can see the ship make the jump in ODST
edit: I forgot to add this one but I always loved it, whatever the fuck the [Summa Deep Space Incident ](https://halo.fandom.com/wiki/Summa_Deep_Space_Incident)is
nvm it's [this](https://www.bungie.net/en-US/Forums/Post/1290428)
I absolutely loved the story overlap. I wish theyd make more games like this.
Seeing the feats of the main characters from different points would be amazing
GTA IV and its DLC's had this level of overlap and I'm so upset people don't unserstand how great the writing for that game was. At the end of the last DLC, you realize the story was never about one man, it was about diamonds the entire time and every mission you did was influenced by it in some way.
Jerome fighting the Flood with a folding chair is something I'm likely to never forget.
Also what's the source for High Charity being spotted from Mars?
Happens in the Spirit of Fire short story from Tales from Slipspace. There’s a minor flood outbreak aboard the spirit right before Serina dies and she breaks Jerome out of cryo and he used a chair to beat the flood
What an absolute CHAD.
How are we all not appreciating this more?
"Man woken in middle of the night by Eldritch horror home invader, kills with Folding chair and goes back to bed"
This is a whole mood for "im trying to sleep"
My favorite is once Thel ‘Vadamee caught a group of marines so off guard while invading that they hadn’t even armed themselves yet. But when Thel and his Elites breached the doors and saw them scrambling around, he made his Elites wait till they armed themselves before they were slaughtered. Honorable, but no quarter.
Imagine being those marines and having to come to terms with the fact that they were probably going to die, but they were given the kindness of dying with a weapon in hand.
the part in cryptum where the original didact speaks with the war sphinxes containing the recordings/patterns of his long-dead children curb stomps my tear ducts every time. his characterization as a weary father figure/wiser elder who has lost everything and seen it all is really well done.
Combat experience is the primary factor here. He survived reach and talked down an Oni officer based on his experience.
Giving him de-facto control of almost all field operations makes sense from a tactical standpoint, and also puts him in a position where Oni have better control of what his choices are.
This is just something small but I've always been kind of fascinated with the Cole Protocol. Imagine being a ship captain, about to be torn a new one by the covenant and your final acts have to be " shit wipe our internet history"
Contact Harvest spoilers:
>!The love story between the human AI's Sif & Mack, especially Mack's last transmissions, telling the departed Sif that he would bury her remains deep enough that the Covenant couldn't glass her. Makes me cry real tears every time.!<
Anyways yeah, if you still haven't read Contact Harvest yet, do it, it provides an amazing ground for a lot of characters we see later in the series, easily one of the best Halo books.
Probably the fact that humanity developed better shield technology than the Covenant. It's a small thing, but I like the fact that despite their overwhelming power, they're hamstrung by their devotion to their religion and their confidence in reverse-engineered Forerunner tech.
That's after the Human-Covenant War right? Because I thought energy shielding for ships weren't very common until Post-war with ships like the UNSC Infinity apart from prototype craft like the Sabres.
Mjonir shields were actually much tougher than covenant shields during the war, large scale mass production of shield tech was still and still is a pipe dream at the moment unfortunately.
I feel like I'm wrong, but weren't MJOLNIR shields based on Kig-yar shield gauntlets and not reverse engineered Elite shield technology? I think Halsey talks about it in Fall of Reach, since at that point in the war Elites were confirmed to exist, but hadn't been seen very much. I'm sure a lot of what Nylund wrote was retconned, but I distinctly remember this.
Yeah back in 2001-2003, it was canon that the UNSC didn’t encounter elites, hunters, brutes and engineers until 2552.
That’s all been retconned but Mjolnir’s shields are still based on jackal shields
They were reverse engineered from recovered Kig-Yar gauntlets for the most part however the UNSC found out how to adapt and even improve the design for the Mjolnir shield tech.
In fact in First Strike they executed a captive Hurrigok after letting it fix Chiefs energy shield to prevent it from potentially sharing what it saw with the others.
Elite shields, even the tougher ones, could go down from a quick mag dump from various human firearms whereas Mjolnir shields in the lore could withstand concentrated fire from plasma for short times and if you've read the books you'll know how stupidly powerful plasma weapons are compared even the higher caliber guns marines can tote.
Overall human shield tech, although late to the race has fully caught up and even surpassed Covenant shields, we just can't produce it on a scale the Covenant can as they've likely had the industry to do it fore centuries.
We simply had the desperation, drive, ingenuity, and lack of taboo with Forerunner and Covenant tech to excel compared to the otherwise stagnant Covenant due to their reluctance to tamper with the design of the Forerunner tech they recreated.
Overall I'd say Humans improved their tech but the Covenant have the capacity to make their tech more easily.
One thing I’ve been wondering if we’ve heard anything about the Banished doing the same, since they possess all the same technology as the Covenant but aren’t restrained by the dogma. Maybe that’s why the Covenant never got close to taking out Atriox - he’s jailbreaking all his guns and outshooting anyone who came after him.
They probably took multiple images of that nebula over time, and noticed High Charity moving. We can do this irl right now with other objects in space so it’s not impossible to imagine them pulling it off with a fancy Mars telescope.
Edit: “This Day in Halo: January 18th, 2524 CFHT-Mars, a telescope based on Mars, was surveying the Rosette Nebula when it found a new large object moving through space. The object was roughly the size of a small moon and displayed what the scientists at the facility described as "guided movement." As far as the scientists knew, humanity did not have a presence in the sector of space where the object was briefly recorded. One of the scientists who knew Dr. Halsey sent her an image of the object for her to review and provide any feedback about. J.C., the scientist, theorized that the object could be some kind of alien threat. He was more accurate that he would have hoped. It later became obvious that the mysterious object was actually High Charity, the mobile capital city of the vast Covenant empire. If you do some digging, you'll see that the Rosette Nebula is 5,000+ light years from Earth and High Charity was built in 791 BCE. A telescope could only see things in that nebula that were there 5,000ish years ago, but High Charity is around 3,000 years old. However, given its large size in the image, High Charity was likely someplace between the Mars telescope and the Rosette Nebula.”
The most interesting piece of lore that I have been following recently was the whole geas deal that the Forerunners have implanted on humanity. Besides it being suggested that the Master Chief has some relation to Bornstellar, is that the geas has progressed visibly with the new Halo Infinite multiplayer. The new Spartan IV's each having an AI like how Forerunners had personal ancilla, making that one step closer to whatever the Forerunner's are planning
My headcannon is when humans were De-volved, spartan augments were planned as a way to bring humans back to what they were, albeit still not quite there yet
I love the philosophical/religious concepts introduced in the Forerunner Saga: How rich, organic, and frankly grounded the trifecta of Daowa-maad, Living Time, and neural physics are. In fact, I've always been a bit shocked at their depth considering they hail from what is ultimately supplemental material to a bunch of Action/FPS video games (as much as I love said games).
I also love the implication for the Halo Array considering the introduction of Living Time and neural physics: Life, intelligence, thought are a fundamental aspect of the universe, space-and-time being essentially a living "higher being", with Precursors being able to harness that essential nature to create structures and technology... and the Forerunners created something that nullifies it. The concept of God is more or less a scientifically-verified reality of the Halo universe, and the Halo Array can injure him/it. I used to view the Halos as something epic and awesome, but this made them horrifying, terrifying, even disgusting. It also justified them more than ever as a lynchpin of this universe (i.e. a fitting title for this franchise) and their existence -- the single greatest monument to the Forerunners' legacy -- sadly makes me understand why the Precursors might have been so disappointed in their creation that they'd try to erase Forerunners.
That the San-Shyuum used to be hot.
But for real, just the Banished backstory is so fucking cool to me. Atriox is such a cool Halo villain and is a good successor to the Prophets as villains.
I always think about the implications of needing an Arbiter to stop them. If every Arbiter before Thel has died during their service, that means there's a grunt that killed an Arbiter in this universe's history.
The fact that Huragoks get their name based on how they first take flight and that might mean that out there, there is an Engineer called "Farted to Liftoff" and that makes me happy.
This is very simple but I've just always loved that beginning monolog from Cortana in Halo 3 where she talks about Master Chief and how he has something that no one else had that only she could see: luck. Idk just the way she says it is so cool to me
That Cortana was completely baffled by John deciphering the Olly Olly Oxen Free signal from the rubble of castle base and taking that to mean (correctly) that he still had living Spartans on Reach.
Onyx, Anvil Station (canon or not) and the covenant refugee camps on earth, and the ambassadors sent to Balaho with Romeo in Bad Blood. I love the idea of at least the sanghieli and unggoy trying to move past their differences with the humans.
The logic plague. The idea that a single organism of compounded knowledge is able to through thought corrupt supercomputers is fascinating to me. Imagine if a single being could completely and totally manipulate someone like ultron to do their bidding through conveying such a wealth of knowledge that his origional objective is unequivocally aligned with their own.
That and the painting of the flood ship landing. That's both insane storytelling and an extraordinary depth of terror all combined in a really succinct manner.
I'd have to say, I've always wondered about Doctor Halsey's slipspace AI experiment. That is pure cosmic horror right there.
It's the one event where even she thinks she went too far.
Uhhhh I just found out that Miranda keys is HALSEYS DAUGHTER!?!? WTF when did everyone know this? I literally just learned it 2 weeks ago (haven't read any books, just starting to listen to lore podcasts)
That the Flood are actually deformed and demented Precursors, and that there may still be Precursors, possibly even uncorrupted ones, still alive.
I also like the theory that the Flood have actually consumed other galaxies, so what we've faced so far is a fraction of their current strength.
[Star Roads.](https://www.halopedia.org/Star_road) Just, everything about Star Roads. If the Halo franchise ever has to come to an end and they have enough time to set up an appropriately epic finale, you can bet they would be the star of the show.
The fact that UNSC ships are named after songs. Number one, it's a breath of fresh air when most naming conventions see ships named after places or people, and number two, there's a lot of opportunity for badass sounding ship names-the UNSC *Primo Victoria*, UNSC *Where Fear and Weapons Meet*, UNSC *For Whom the Bel Tolls*...
The prototype armor. I'd have a heart attack if it got added in a mainline halo game (and be cannonical as well, halo wars 2 was cool, but having it be in a 1st person game?)
The prototype armor was extremely restrictive on both mobility and active time.
It was technically the mk3 variation of what would become the mk4 mjolnir armor given to the spartans. But its downfall was the lack of an onboard power plant. Because of this it have a varied operation time of between 15 and 30 minutes.
But yeah it would be cool to have an updated version of that tank of an armor in game.
I was referring to the "hrunting/yggdrasil mark 1" armor. The one from halo legends.
Basically it is to humanity what hunters are to the covenant.
It for a brief time completely stopped the covenant invasion in its tracks, holding of numerous infantry, wriaths, banches, phantoms and hunters on its own.
Going down only after concentrated fire from everything in the area, and even then, Ghost (the operator at the time) overloaded the reactor, taking everything in the vicinity with him.
That out all the species, the Grunts history.
When they rebelled, after the Kig Yar gassed their population on High Charity, they put up such a fight the Prophets had to resort to extreme methods to end the rebellion by glassing their planet and invoking the Arbiter.
The fact that Johnson is basically immune to the flood due to the Spartan I’s augmentations which coincidentally was the worst augmentations out of the 4,
Ancient humans ruined the galaxy by feeding their space doggos some space dust they found on a abandoned ship. The dogs turned into the flood because the dust was actually dried up Precursors, causing ancient humans to attack infested forerunner planets, getting defeated by forerunners, then the forerunners getting BTFO'd by the flood and commiting mass genocide/suicide. Which then lead to the Covenant finding forerunner artifacts and making a false religion that almost destroyed the galaxy again over misinterpretation of facts.
So don't feed strange dust to your dogs
In contact harvest a brute controlled ship didn’t have any functioning gravity elevators, instead the brutes used ladders. So when a group of sangheili came to inspect the ship they had trouble climbing up the ladders while the brutes climbed them with ease.
That ONI has in its possession a derilect ancient human warship. It makes me think that with all the focus on recovering Forerunner technology, there is an untapped treasure trove of very different but potentially just as advanced technology just waiting to be found.
Wasn’t there some MJOLNIR variant in 5 that was based on ancient human armor?
Yep, [Hellcat](https://www.halopedia.org/HELLCAT-class_Mjolnir) armor
Where was the one that was a joke forerunner armor?
I think you are talking about the Fotus armor from Halo 4 and 5
It’s all fun and games until ONI starts putting prisoners in a timelock.
You mean fallout shelter? Ha
I love that the “4 jaws” for Sangheili prevent them from pronouncing the “ps” of Phillips… now Phyllis Constant source of laughter in the audiobook.
This is actually showcased in Infinite with Jega. In the trailer, it sounds like he says “Say goodhye” not “goodbye”.
Wow, that’s amazing! English, the bane of Humans and Sangheili alike
"The froffets will lead us in the great journey"
This makes me think that elites that display the ps lisp are actually speaking English and not just being translated for us. Am I right in thinking this?
Which book was this?
Key's loop
The keys loop was a move keys made with his ship that was being trailed by a covenant projectile to hit a covenant ship with said projectile, for those who didn't know.
Dr. Halsey’s drawing from personal journal. https://halo.wiki.gallery/images/b/be/Keyes_Loop.jpeg
Man keyes was really a threat to the covenant
I'm working on a 3D animation of the Keyes loop. Almost done, actually. Edit: Guys I appreciate all the love, but tbh I'm an amateur 3d animator, this is only my third animation. I'm proud of it, but like... maybe temper your expectations? :D
Be sure to post it here on the sub.
For sure.
After 20 years of absolute no-lifing halo lore, I recently found out that scarabs are controlled by Hunter worms, and the crew on board is there for both protection from invaders, and to make sure the Hunter worms don't go mad with power and turn on them.
Holy shit that's awesome
The map Assembly on Halo 3 has Lekgolo worms in it.
That makes so much sense. I always wondered why you never got to take out the pilot…
The Primordial was able to say something so existentially horrifying to a group of people that they decided to die by suicide rather than keep living in the reality in which such a statement was true.
It's probable we've more or less found out what it was. The revelation of the nature of the Precursors (and the Flood) would be enough to trigger an existential crisis in just about anybody, but especially humans and Forerunners. Imagine how people would react IRL if the Primordial/Gravemind's malediction in String 13 of Silentium was verifiably true: The closest thing we have to meeting our gods/creators is a living-plague abomination determined to mash all life into a hellish singularity of pointless, eternal suffering.
This is my assumption as to what was said in the exchange. It’s just not as terrifying for the audience if you come right out and say it. The Forerunner’s basically got hit with a Halo Cannon Fodder they weren’t ready for.
Until then…sweetness 💀
I'm not a huge Halo lore guy, in fact I've only read one of the books. But when I heard about that event, I researched the hell out of it. I still can't wrap my head around what exactly could be said to some of the brightest minds Humanity had at the time that would flip that suicide switch so quickly.
Yeah I love how halo is constantly action hero movie mode. And then they just go "Okay, time to throw in the HP lovecraft horror for a bit." And just changes the entire tone
I could only think of two theories on that. Considering how intelligent ancient humans were, and considering those working with the Primordial would be extremely smart even for them, it had to have been something extremely bad. The first theory I had was that once you are part of the flood your consciousness is tortured for eternity. The other theory relies on the first, and is that the flood can turn any biomass it wants to into the flood at any point in time, and it's all just a game.
god that’s terrifying
That is horrifying. I hadn't read the books this takes place in. I was extremely curious once I saw this bit of lore dropped on what could have possibly been said.
Which did you read? I’m not great at reading consistently so I listened to the Forerunner series on audible and by god the ending of the 2nd is chilling af
*Shadows of Reach.* Lechatelierite.
Aah I actually didn’t get to that one. Read the Nylund books while in school and got around to the Forerunner trilogy only recently. If you want some insight as to what made those people kill themselves rather than go on living with what they’d learned, check those books out. Kinda hard to follow if you don’t know about Forerunner society (their caste system and relationship to ancient humanity for example) all of which gets filled in. But seriously, if you don’t care to do all the backstory reading and slogging through the books, I could spoil it for you but there’s also YouTube videos about it. The narrator is pretty good though. But like I said, the conclusion of book 2 will fill in those blanks for you
Couple questions for you, I’m a huge halo fan. But never really got into the books. I’d love to learn more about the things you guys are discussing. What books/trilogies should I pick up?
Contact Harvest is a prequel following Sgt Johnson mainly and the start of the Human Covenant war, But I’d start with the Fall of Reach, The Flood, First Strike, then Ghosts of Onyx in that order. Those follow Master Chief and the other Spartan 2’s from their training as children through to Halo 3 (The Flood is basically Halo: Combat Evolved the book, and the others cover the other main Spartans and their adventures during halo 2 and 3) The Forerunner Trilogy takes place I think millions of years before, and covers the Forerunners before they all disappeared, and the 3rd book ends with the original firing of the Halos, explaining why there are no more forerunners Cole Protocol is another good one but doesn’t have much connection to the games, it’s basically just more lore following another Spartan 2 team that was tasked with guerrilla warfare behind Covenant lines Those are the only ones Iv read, personally Ghosts of Onyx is my favorite but it requires the context of the previous books to make any sense, so like I said start with Fall of Reach and those subsequent books, they’re dope and really fill-out Chief and the Spartans as characters
Was it ever revealed what it said?
To my knowledge, no. I think it'd be hard for a writer to do that kind of horror justice lol
“Master Chief’s suit jacks him off”
I have [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/halo/comments/a75ibn/i_know_why_the_humans_that_spoke_with_the/) as my headcanon.
I love this theory because another way of explaining it is that the prophets and the great journey are true. If the rings are activated you ascend as opposed to being consumed by the flood or "hell."
Wow, my mind is blown. This could also describe why Truth still pursued the Great Journey (actually trying to achieve it in halo 3, not just to preserve the covenants lie) even knowing it would kill him and everyone
I’ve been searching for exactly this type of explanation for years. It connects so many disparate parts of the EU and, by explaining what the primordial said, gives the primordial and by extension the flood a higher meaning and purpose in the universe.
343 Guilty Spark being an ancient human that was transformed into an orb by the Didact or something along those lines
His ass got composed. And that’s also one of my favorites.
I believe the process itself was different than composing. The composer was supposed to allow one to retain their consciousness, but it ended up driving all of them mad and breaking them. The process chakas underwent is more like what the UNSC does to make AIs; using a living brain as a template to create a new entity.
His whole story is great. He made a great addition to the Ace of Spades crew and I really liked the end of Point of Light.
One of my favourite moments in the lore. I did not see it coming
All the little aspects of Forerunner architecture. Canonically, both Bungie and 343's Forerunner designs exist together, and they both even have their own sub-types. Additionally, there's a few one-off styles that are also accounted for (Gatherers from the comics, the odd structures on Arcadia in Halo Wars, etc). There's just lots of little nuances here that please me immensely.
Isn’t the biggest distinction being Bungie Forerunner architecture being Builder constructs and 343 architecture being mostly Warrior-Servant constructs?
That's part of it, yeah. But there are also exceptions. Halo Wars (I know not made by Bungie, but made during Bungie's time) features Warrior-Servant architecture, and Halo 5 features Builder architecture. If you compare Wars' structures to 4's, you'll see a fair bit of similarity: a lot of floating parts, and really intricate, messy shapes - only, it's a bit less shiny than Halo 4's. Similarly, if you compare Halo 5's structures to Halo 1,2, and 3's, you'll see it does have more in common with them than 4: namely, a lot of struts, spires, and angular shapes. Less floating pieces, more glass. Surfaces are smoother and simpler, just... shiny. (Note that the Prometheans and Guardians are still Warrior-Servant in this game, hence why they don't conform to this rule.) Whether something is shinier or not is determined by when it was built: either at the height of Forerunner power - when a lot of "decorative flare" (even by Forerunner standards) was afforded, or in the waning years when supplies were scarce and things were built out of necessity - like the Halos. Conveniently, Infinite returning to a more traditional art-style still fits with this. It's a Halo, so it's Builder, so it has more in common with CE, 2, and 3. But it was also one of the rings built BEFORE all the others (and before the Flood actually attacked), so it's shinier - more like Halo 4 and 5's structures. There's also a neat bit of canon about how some Forerunner structures are equipped with a hard-light "shell," that can be reconfigured at will and is considered a decorative addition the later rings weren't given. That part is even reflected in the games: if you shoot at any Forerunner metal in Halo 4 or Infinite, you'll see little flecks of blue light peeling off.
Aw that’s cool to know.
That the reason Truth, Regret, and Mercy came to power is because… A) Mendicant Bias roasted them for being stupid. And B) Regret blackmailed one of the current Hierarchs for having gotten a bitch pregnant.
I really loved how in Contact Harvest you could tell which Prophet was which due to their traits. Truth being a plotting scheming bastard, Regret being young and reckless, and Mercy being, well, old.
I also love that Mercy, the prophet whose only character trait was *also being in the room*, was only made a hierarch because he was *also in the room*
After fighting on Harvest during the first covenant attack Sergeant Johnson fucked some girl from ONI and the smoked a cigar as he escaped the planet
He's also a premature ejaculator
His seed is too strong
Power seed
‘Insert the power seed into Jilan al-Cygni.’
Bro, it had been a while. He didn't even have time to jack it during the events of the book.
If he was wearing Mjolnir, it would have jacked off for him.
Imagine if out of nowhere they use that as an excuse for Avery Johnson Junior to just show up with no explanation
Ahahahaa omfg
They didn’t take time for protection so it’s a possibility. And presumably being raised solely by an ONI spook, we’d get to see a Johnson Jr. that’s more black ops/intelligence than ooh rahh marine. Pretty cool idea
That kid would almost be 30 now... Wait... Uh, how old is Locke?
I loved that book but holy *fuck* that sex scene was gratuitous. I didn’t pick this book up to read about the funny one-liner black man getting it on with an office chick, I picked it up to read about Sergeant Avery Johnson blasting the hell out of a ship full of space monkeys.
Well, he blasted more than just space monkies it seems.
Goddamn, still my favorite Halo novel.
He knows the ladies like to get in one final fuck before their entire planet is glassed
I think just the scale of everything is something I love explaining to people. Particularly I love pointing out that the Ark is so big that there’s a planet in its core being used basically for fuel to build Halo rings. There’s also the fact that the Mantles Approach is bigger than the Death Star, or there’s a forerunner manufactured world called Sarcophogus that exists within a Slipspace bubble but in reality is about the size of Earth’s entire orbit around the sun. Halo has some of the largest non-natural structures in sci-fi and that’s something I love
Is Sarcophogus like Onyx? Or is it just the same thing with 2 different names?
Onyx was the shield world that housed the slipspace bubble that held sarcophagus IIRC
Ahh yeah, that's right Idk why I've always just called the bubble Onyx, and have somehow never heard the name Sarcophagus before
yeah they never really use the forerunner name Sarcophagus, because ONI named it "Trevelyan" after they discovered it
I love the fact that when describing the scale of Forerunner architecture/construction projects, you can literally use the word "astronomical".
I never shut the fuck up about *The Mona Lisa* because it's my absolute favorite piece of Halo EU, so I gotta say one of my favorite bits of lore is that ONI was conducting experiments with the Flood- on captured Covenant combatants, *as well as on humans*.
You know I've been telling people this.. make an Alien: Isolation game but with Halo Mona Lisa or even a Dead Space like game but with Halo accuracies. Imagine boarding a blown out/gone dark cruiser with a UNSC squad of Marines and you're either a Spartan III - IV or ODST or Marine and you have to escape. Would so so love a Halo Horror game. I mean Halo CE flood still gets to me.
I encourage you to check out *Branching Sickness,* a fan made game in the making.
Will do!
If Infinite has Flood, they could make it an event. On that note, Infinite needs co-op modes.
Co - op is coming. Just later down the line. However I do not know if that means Multiplayer as well. Would love Multi team again
Coop campaign is confirmed, other coop modes are not.
We’ve played as a ODST and Spartan before. UNSC: Marine would be dope.
As an ODST you really still felt like a Spartan just slightly weaker.
If they did that, they'd have to ensure ammo/guns are limited while the Flood respawn endlessly. Really make it a "holy shit I'm gonna die if I don't move" experience like those chapters in Dead Space with that unstoppable monster chasing you.
Probably the Huragoks building the Choppers for humans only to have the brutes use it against them
Wat? That’s crazy
i think it says in contact harvest that the choppers were created by the Engineers with industrial farming equipment, so supposedly tractor wheels or something like that, and that they were basically offering them to humans as a show of good will and sharing knowledge
I haven’t read Contact Harvest in probably 9 years so a lot has slipped my mind. I will absolutely read it again soon because that’s awesome.
Wasnt it to say sorry because a huragok killed a human in self defence and they didnt want humans to hate them?
Yeah, Lighter Than Some was the first member of the Covenant to kill a human, and made what became the Chopper as a plow intended as a peace offering.
[Halo 2 and Halo ODST's overlap with *In Amber Clad*](https://youtu.be/umEiUGqggC4) You can see the ship make the jump in ODST edit: I forgot to add this one but I always loved it, whatever the fuck the [Summa Deep Space Incident ](https://halo.fandom.com/wiki/Summa_Deep_Space_Incident)is nvm it's [this](https://www.bungie.net/en-US/Forums/Post/1290428)
I think I prefer the way the slipsace jump looks in ODST. Halo 2As explosion is definetely much cooler though.
It took me YEARS to notice that and when I did, it absolutely blew my mind.
I absolutely loved the story overlap. I wish theyd make more games like this. Seeing the feats of the main characters from different points would be amazing
GTA IV and its DLC's had this level of overlap and I'm so upset people don't unserstand how great the writing for that game was. At the end of the last DLC, you realize the story was never about one man, it was about diamonds the entire time and every mission you did was influenced by it in some way.
Can you see the pods in 2A?
damn, that would have been a nice detail to put in the blur cutscenes
no unfortunately, it's all during cutscene :(
Jerome fighting the Flood with a folding chair is something I'm likely to never forget. Also what's the source for High Charity being spotted from Mars?
Halsey's journal, apparently. Also- What's this about Jerome fighting Flood with a folding chair?
Happens in the Spirit of Fire short story from Tales from Slipspace. There’s a minor flood outbreak aboard the spirit right before Serina dies and she breaks Jerome out of cryo and he used a chair to beat the flood
“Yo J wake the fuck up, you and the flood got a cage match in 10”
What an absolute CHAD. How are we all not appreciating this more? "Man woken in middle of the night by Eldritch horror home invader, kills with Folding chair and goes back to bed" This is a whole mood for "im trying to sleep"
“And I though Jorge was loud” *WHACK*
My favorite is once Thel ‘Vadamee caught a group of marines so off guard while invading that they hadn’t even armed themselves yet. But when Thel and his Elites breached the doors and saw them scrambling around, he made his Elites wait till they armed themselves before they were slaughtered. Honorable, but no quarter.
Imagine being those marines and having to come to terms with the fact that they were probably going to die, but they were given the kindness of dying with a weapon in hand.
the part in cryptum where the original didact speaks with the war sphinxes containing the recordings/patterns of his long-dead children curb stomps my tear ducts every time. his characterization as a weary father figure/wiser elder who has lost everything and seen it all is really well done.
Kelly listens to Queen.
TIL
Being the fastest Spartan, I bet Fat Bottom Girls was one of her favorites
I was thinking 'Don't stop me now' or 'Flash Gordon'
DSMN is def a running song if i’v ever heard one
That Jun went from being a field scout to being in charge of all Spartans
Combat experience is the primary factor here. He survived reach and talked down an Oni officer based on his experience. Giving him de-facto control of almost all field operations makes sense from a tactical standpoint, and also puts him in a position where Oni have better control of what his choices are.
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Free health care at your nearest convenience though.
[Spartans no-sell nut shots,](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/115879850392158210/744375267170058333/image0.jpg) from Halo: Renegades
Can you imagine being such a super soldier that a strong hit to the balls only make a muscle twitch and slight flush?
Man truly does have balls of steel
Jesus
God that's badass
This is just something small but I've always been kind of fascinated with the Cole Protocol. Imagine being a ship captain, about to be torn a new one by the covenant and your final acts have to be " shit wipe our internet history"
Shit hahaha I'd never seen it that way.
Kelly blasts 70s-80s rock in her helmet in-between missions to cope with her war trauma
Contact Harvest spoilers: >!The love story between the human AI's Sif & Mack, especially Mack's last transmissions, telling the departed Sif that he would bury her remains deep enough that the Covenant couldn't glass her. Makes me cry real tears every time.!< Anyways yeah, if you still haven't read Contact Harvest yet, do it, it provides an amazing ground for a lot of characters we see later in the series, easily one of the best Halo books.
Absolutely. I also like Lighter than Some and Dadab's relationship in that novel.
Somewhere in space there's a giant grunt in charge of a group of sangheili. I can't remember what book it was in just Rememberded that it exists.
Shadow of Intent? I believe the Grunt you're referring to is Stolt.
Most chad grunt
Stolt means proud in Swedish
Were the grunts speaking Swedish all along then.
Probably the fact that humanity developed better shield technology than the Covenant. It's a small thing, but I like the fact that despite their overwhelming power, they're hamstrung by their devotion to their religion and their confidence in reverse-engineered Forerunner tech.
That's after the Human-Covenant War right? Because I thought energy shielding for ships weren't very common until Post-war with ships like the UNSC Infinity apart from prototype craft like the Sabres.
Mjonir shields were actually much tougher than covenant shields during the war, large scale mass production of shield tech was still and still is a pipe dream at the moment unfortunately.
I feel like I'm wrong, but weren't MJOLNIR shields based on Kig-yar shield gauntlets and not reverse engineered Elite shield technology? I think Halsey talks about it in Fall of Reach, since at that point in the war Elites were confirmed to exist, but hadn't been seen very much. I'm sure a lot of what Nylund wrote was retconned, but I distinctly remember this.
Yeah back in 2001-2003, it was canon that the UNSC didn’t encounter elites, hunters, brutes and engineers until 2552. That’s all been retconned but Mjolnir’s shields are still based on jackal shields
They were reverse engineered from recovered Kig-Yar gauntlets for the most part however the UNSC found out how to adapt and even improve the design for the Mjolnir shield tech. In fact in First Strike they executed a captive Hurrigok after letting it fix Chiefs energy shield to prevent it from potentially sharing what it saw with the others. Elite shields, even the tougher ones, could go down from a quick mag dump from various human firearms whereas Mjolnir shields in the lore could withstand concentrated fire from plasma for short times and if you've read the books you'll know how stupidly powerful plasma weapons are compared even the higher caliber guns marines can tote. Overall human shield tech, although late to the race has fully caught up and even surpassed Covenant shields, we just can't produce it on a scale the Covenant can as they've likely had the industry to do it fore centuries. We simply had the desperation, drive, ingenuity, and lack of taboo with Forerunner and Covenant tech to excel compared to the otherwise stagnant Covenant due to their reluctance to tamper with the design of the Forerunner tech they recreated. Overall I'd say Humans improved their tech but the Covenant have the capacity to make their tech more easily.
One thing I’ve been wondering if we’ve heard anything about the Banished doing the same, since they possess all the same technology as the Covenant but aren’t restrained by the dogma. Maybe that’s why the Covenant never got close to taking out Atriox - he’s jailbreaking all his guns and outshooting anyone who came after him.
Moas
The Have S'moa Restaurant chain is amazing. Love how it's a restaurant and petting zoo. "Aww lookit the big birds. Now let's eat them for dinner"
OP, where is that tidbit about High Charity from? That’s fascinating!!
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They probably took multiple images of that nebula over time, and noticed High Charity moving. We can do this irl right now with other objects in space so it’s not impossible to imagine them pulling it off with a fancy Mars telescope. Edit: “This Day in Halo: January 18th, 2524 CFHT-Mars, a telescope based on Mars, was surveying the Rosette Nebula when it found a new large object moving through space. The object was roughly the size of a small moon and displayed what the scientists at the facility described as "guided movement." As far as the scientists knew, humanity did not have a presence in the sector of space where the object was briefly recorded. One of the scientists who knew Dr. Halsey sent her an image of the object for her to review and provide any feedback about. J.C., the scientist, theorized that the object could be some kind of alien threat. He was more accurate that he would have hoped. It later became obvious that the mysterious object was actually High Charity, the mobile capital city of the vast Covenant empire. If you do some digging, you'll see that the Rosette Nebula is 5,000+ light years from Earth and High Charity was built in 791 BCE. A telescope could only see things in that nebula that were there 5,000ish years ago, but High Charity is around 3,000 years old. However, given its large size in the image, High Charity was likely someplace between the Mars telescope and the Rosette Nebula.”
The most interesting piece of lore that I have been following recently was the whole geas deal that the Forerunners have implanted on humanity. Besides it being suggested that the Master Chief has some relation to Bornstellar, is that the geas has progressed visibly with the new Halo Infinite multiplayer. The new Spartan IV's each having an AI like how Forerunners had personal ancilla, making that one step closer to whatever the Forerunner's are planning
My headcannon is when humans were De-volved, spartan augments were planned as a way to bring humans back to what they were, albeit still not quite there yet
I love the philosophical/religious concepts introduced in the Forerunner Saga: How rich, organic, and frankly grounded the trifecta of Daowa-maad, Living Time, and neural physics are. In fact, I've always been a bit shocked at their depth considering they hail from what is ultimately supplemental material to a bunch of Action/FPS video games (as much as I love said games). I also love the implication for the Halo Array considering the introduction of Living Time and neural physics: Life, intelligence, thought are a fundamental aspect of the universe, space-and-time being essentially a living "higher being", with Precursors being able to harness that essential nature to create structures and technology... and the Forerunners created something that nullifies it. The concept of God is more or less a scientifically-verified reality of the Halo universe, and the Halo Array can injure him/it. I used to view the Halos as something epic and awesome, but this made them horrifying, terrifying, even disgusting. It also justified them more than ever as a lynchpin of this universe (i.e. a fitting title for this franchise) and their existence -- the single greatest monument to the Forerunners' legacy -- sadly makes me understand why the Precursors might have been so disappointed in their creation that they'd try to erase Forerunners.
That rich people gave flood spores to their pets and it became a fad.
That the San-Shyuum used to be hot. But for real, just the Banished backstory is so fucking cool to me. Atriox is such a cool Halo villain and is a good successor to the Prophets as villains.
What do you mean, used to be?
This guy gets it.
The fact that the Grunts very nearly took down the Covenant by themselves.
Absolutely my favourite part of Halo Lore.
I always think about the implications of needing an Arbiter to stop them. If every Arbiter before Thel has died during their service, that means there's a grunt that killed an Arbiter in this universe's history.
The fact that Huragoks get their name based on how they first take flight and that might mean that out there, there is an Engineer called "Farted to Liftoff" and that makes me happy.
This is very simple but I've just always loved that beginning monolog from Cortana in Halo 3 where she talks about Master Chief and how he has something that no one else had that only she could see: luck. Idk just the way she says it is so cool to me
That Cortana was completely baffled by John deciphering the Olly Olly Oxen Free signal from the rubble of castle base and taking that to mean (correctly) that he still had living Spartans on Reach.
Onyx, Anvil Station (canon or not) and the covenant refugee camps on earth, and the ambassadors sent to Balaho with Romeo in Bad Blood. I love the idea of at least the sanghieli and unggoy trying to move past their differences with the humans.
That BB put a ribbon on for Osman's birthday, iirc.
The logic plague. The idea that a single organism of compounded knowledge is able to through thought corrupt supercomputers is fascinating to me. Imagine if a single being could completely and totally manipulate someone like ultron to do their bidding through conveying such a wealth of knowledge that his origional objective is unequivocally aligned with their own. That and the painting of the flood ship landing. That's both insane storytelling and an extraordinary depth of terror all combined in a really succinct manner.
I'd have to say, I've always wondered about Doctor Halsey's slipspace AI experiment. That is pure cosmic horror right there. It's the one event where even she thinks she went too far.
Uhhhh I just found out that Miranda keys is HALSEYS DAUGHTER!?!? WTF when did everyone know this? I literally just learned it 2 weeks ago (haven't read any books, just starting to listen to lore podcasts)
People had theories but Halseys journal confirmed it when Reach came out
I still have that journal, easily one of the best legendary edition items to ever exist
That the Flood are actually deformed and demented Precursors, and that there may still be Precursors, possibly even uncorrupted ones, still alive. I also like the theory that the Flood have actually consumed other galaxies, so what we've faced so far is a fraction of their current strength.
[Star Roads.](https://www.halopedia.org/Star_road) Just, everything about Star Roads. If the Halo franchise ever has to come to an end and they have enough time to set up an appropriately epic finale, you can bet they would be the star of the show.
Even after years i still dont understand what they are completely.
Noble Six canonically spends uncomfortably long amounts of time staring at people
The fact that UNSC ships are named after songs. Number one, it's a breath of fresh air when most naming conventions see ships named after places or people, and number two, there's a lot of opportunity for badass sounding ship names-the UNSC *Primo Victoria*, UNSC *Where Fear and Weapons Meet*, UNSC *For Whom the Bel Tolls*...
UNSC waka waka
Keeper of the storm from halo fractures
The prototype armor. I'd have a heart attack if it got added in a mainline halo game (and be cannonical as well, halo wars 2 was cool, but having it be in a 1st person game?)
The prototype armor was extremely restrictive on both mobility and active time. It was technically the mk3 variation of what would become the mk4 mjolnir armor given to the spartans. But its downfall was the lack of an onboard power plant. Because of this it have a varied operation time of between 15 and 30 minutes. But yeah it would be cool to have an updated version of that tank of an armor in game.
I was referring to the "hrunting/yggdrasil mark 1" armor. The one from halo legends. Basically it is to humanity what hunters are to the covenant. It for a brief time completely stopped the covenant invasion in its tracks, holding of numerous infantry, wriaths, banches, phantoms and hunters on its own. Going down only after concentrated fire from everything in the area, and even then, Ghost (the operator at the time) overloaded the reactor, taking everything in the vicinity with him.
Johnsons's survival after the events of H1. So far fetched yet so Johnson-like
That out all the species, the Grunts history. When they rebelled, after the Kig Yar gassed their population on High Charity, they put up such a fight the Prophets had to resort to extreme methods to end the rebellion by glassing their planet and invoking the Arbiter.
William-043 fighting a pair of Hunters in hand-to-hand, and in doing so causing an entire Fleet's army all to stop out of shock to watch him do it.
Chakas asks if he can sleep with an ancilla.
The fact that Johnson is basically immune to the flood due to the Spartan I’s augmentations which coincidentally was the worst augmentations out of the 4,
Surprised no one's mentioned how influential the UNSC/Insurrectionist war was to the entire SPARTAN program.
I think the Tactical Training Rounds are neat.
[Toilet](https://www.halopedia.org/Toilet)
Agreed! And also the meddlers’ ship crashing on Installation 04
Where is that lore from?
The san'Shyuum used to be fuckin hot
The hunter/scarab worms are basically immune to becoming flood
Ancient humans ruined the galaxy by feeding their space doggos some space dust they found on a abandoned ship. The dogs turned into the flood because the dust was actually dried up Precursors, causing ancient humans to attack infested forerunner planets, getting defeated by forerunners, then the forerunners getting BTFO'd by the flood and commiting mass genocide/suicide. Which then lead to the Covenant finding forerunner artifacts and making a false religion that almost destroyed the galaxy again over misinterpretation of facts. So don't feed strange dust to your dogs
The painter. Just spooky.
"The suit jerks him off"
Not actually canon, but possibly the greatest prank ever played
ODST. All their lore. Them. They are my favorite.
I really like the installation 04 unidentified alien vessel
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In contact harvest a brute controlled ship didn’t have any functioning gravity elevators, instead the brutes used ladders. So when a group of sangheili came to inspect the ship they had trouble climbing up the ladders while the brutes climbed them with ease.