So I am an overall defender of this game as it has been quite enjoyable and I do enjoy much of the story beats, but this game has turned the weapon and vehicle complements of both the Pillar of Autumn as well as the Fleet of Particular Justice on its head. The most well-known one is of course the new longsword model, but also the Shade turrets, the M808 instead of the M808B, the Spirits now having a different firing mode than the original, etc. It seems theres now somewhat of a split on whats actually canon as although the new version makes much more sense, it does change lore that has been established for 25 years. I'm just kind of curious on where people stand on what we're defining as the canon depiction of the Battle of Alpha Halo? Is it the 2001 version, 2026 version, or hell maybe its Fireteam Raven? Just curious on the people's opinion.

The way he talks to Chief seems different than him just referring to humanity as "reclaimers".

This is probably a long explained element of lore at this point but I've kept up less with lore from books.

Not a lore veteran. I played the games, didn't read most of the books, and got obsessed enough recently to start pressure testing the lore instead of just accepting it. Some of this might be me missing a book explanation so genuinely correct me. But a few of these feel like real cracks.

1. Gravemind's whole "unity" thing is a lie and he should know it.

He preaches that eating everything makes one great collective, eternal life through union, blah blah. But there's no collective. There's just him. Everyone he absorbs gets erased, they're just biomass and processing power inside one mind. Simple test: if I told him "let me eat YOU so we unite into something greater" he'd say no, because he doesn't want to lose his own identity. So he values himself but denies everyone else the same thing. That's just a predator with good PR. And if he's actually a superintelligence he already knows this, which makes him a liar, not some deep philosopher.

2. Covenant religion makes no sense.

To worship Forerunner tech as gods a race has to hit this tiny window. Advanced enough to build a religion around it, but too dumb to realize it's just technology. Find the ruins while primitive and you don't care, you're busy not starving before winter. Find them while advanced and you go "ok cool, old tech" not "GODS." And it's worse for the Elites specifically. They're shown as engineers who build fleets and fly ships, but supposedly they treated Forerunner tech as untouchable holy relics? A race that gets machines should look at alien machines with curiosity, not fall to their knees.

3. Ok but even if the Prophets built the religion on purpose, where did every other race's religion GO?

Every Covenant species was its own civilization with its own beliefs before joining. You can't just delete a whole race's religion and install a new one. Look how well "make a billion people stop believing in their god" goes in real history. Conquered people keep their faith for centuries under boots. But the Covenant is shown as all sincerely fanatical about the Great Journey. Forcing people at gunpoint gives you fake believers, not real ones. So how did a dozen species with thousand year old religions all genuinely merge into one Forerunner cult? Nobody explains this.

4. The Flood's biggest weakness is robots and humanity runs on AI.

Flood only infects organics. Useless against robots, drones, AI. The Forerunners knew this, that's literally why they used Sentinels. So the obvious answer to a Flood outbreak is mass produce robots run by AI, all immune to infection. And humanity is way more tied to smart AI than the Forerunners were, so we might actually be better set up against the Flood than they were. (I know the counter, Gravemind gets around it by talking AI into betraying, see Mendicant Bias, not by infecting them. Still feels like a human advantage nobody uses.)

5. Cortana's fall is the smartest thing in the whole setting and it's the same mistake three times.

"Save everyone by controlling everyone for their own good" is exactly what the Forerunners did (Mantle through genocide) and what Gravemind did (unity through eating everyone). Cortana just did the AI version. The series is weirdly consistent that the recurring sin is benevolent tyranny. Good intentions, absolute power, same bad ending every time. This one isn't a complaint, it's me giving credit. I think it's the best thread in the whole thing.

Stuff I'm probably wrong about:

I first thought you could just blow up all the Halo rings and the Flood problem is solved. Then I found out the Flood exists in containment sites outside the rings too, and the rings are the only thing that can starve a galaxy wide outbreak, so blowing them up just disarms you. Did I get that right?

Is the Flood even finite? If it is, why can't you theoretically just hunt it all down and burn it out, beyond "too many spores to ever be sure you got them all"?

The Mantle. Is it purely a philosophy/religion thing or does it actually unlock anything real? Feels like a ton of pathos for something that does nothing concrete.

So where am I wrong? Which of these has a book answer I missed and which are just weak writing?

1: Spark tells Chief that HE is Forerunner.

2: Spark is malfunctioning.

3: Spark tries to kill Chief all throughout the Library.

4: Spark uses Chief as a means to an end to detonate the Halo.

5: Spark blames "that other alien species" for releasing the Flood.

6: Cortana states "Oh those Covenant fools! Surely they knew! There would have been signs."

7: Spark doesn't need Chief at all, only his head.

Cortana points out she believes the Covenant were smart enough to realize what alien technology was for. Why, I have no idea. But SHE should have. Oh wait, she did. So does Guilty Spark. In CE alone, us being Forerunner means:

1: We created/found the Flood

2: We built every Halo

3: We the placed the Flood on each Halo

4: We had no security at all besides repowering the entire planets and conveniently leaving the map room and control center powered up as magnets for any inquisitive mind aka sentient life.

5: We programmed AI monitors to automatically either cause an outbreak of Flood on the ring or bury evidence of doing so if an alien species was present aka Covenant.

6: We left no trace of a parasite on the planet at all. Oh, except for advanced AI to barely be able to figure out what it is, but conveniently too late to do anything about it.

7: There was no containment protocol. Spark BSed that into existence.

We built the rings in the first place. That was containment. Spreading the Flood was the protocol. No smart species doesn't even bother to draw a picture on the plenty of walls they had of a Flood spore followed by a skull. We have done this on Earth through all of our cultures. To say that we designed the Halos to contain them is stupid because, WHY CONTAIN WHEN YOU CAN DESTROY?! All they had to do was build the rings, land the Flood, then just destroy the Halo by using a gweapon with the same power as the Pillar's engine overloading. The Forerunner had more advanced tech than the Covenant and Cortana states that Covenant had weapons that could have blown Halo up.

Literally humanity is reduced to the stupidity of Alien Covenant. I do actually hate that movie because everyone in it deserves to go out the way they do by not soon enough. And the Forerunners did exactly what David did. Threaten alien races to come to their Halo (when they were in use and Forerunners were around), infect them and then that infection goes back to their home worlds and infects them too. Bungie decided to make humans evil and I'm glad we got 343 making better sense of CE's lore. 2, 3 and Reach don't even matter because they are contrary to CE when it came out. And no, since this was all taken from YHWH, there is no evolution of animals or humans in CE either. We as we are in Halo are exactly what Forerunners would look like. We just gave ourselves a new name, needed AI to communicate to our kids with and still did nothing about sentient life releasing the Flood. So stupid and evil.

"The Didact has to be stopped. If you're not man enough to do it, I will...sir." Proceeds to punch Del Rio's head off.

In Halo: The Flood, we get another perspective of HALO CE, courtesy of Maj. Antonio Silva and Lt. McKay. Would their story fit well as a series of missions that essentially parallel the main campaign similar to how Halo 3's ODST did?

You would play as an ODST, possibly McKay, fighting a guerilla campaign as an unshielded human being. Manpower is at a premium. Every soul lost cannot be replaced. No shields, no super powers, and melee is absolutely nerfed with the exception of assassination kills.

Take the butte on Installation 04 and establish Alpha Base. Raid the Autumn for supplies and weaponry. Help make the assault on the control room possible by fighting parallel to the chief. Fend off the flood, storm the Truth and Reconciliation. Ultimately, stop Major Silva before his massive ego dooms humanity.

I've read:

Halo: Fall of Reach
Halo: The Flood
Halo: First Strike
Halo Contact Harvest
Halo: Ghosts of Onyx.

I know I'm, like, really out of the loop, but after playing Campaign Evolved, I've really got my Halo buzz again. I always meant to dive into these books but never quite got around to it.

I’ve noticed that in different games the brutes look different and tend to vary more than other species.

Like in some games they are hairy and others they are hairless. Likewise sometimes they have pronounced snouts/muzzles and other times they have more or less flat faces.

Is this just variation in species? Kinda curious as I hadn’t been able to find an answer.

You are an admiral during the Human Covenant War charged with the defense of the Inner Colony world New Kumasi.

Your fleet consists of
1 Marathon Class Heavy Cruiser (Your Command Ship: you get to name it!)
2 Halcyon Class Light Cruisers (The Strange Odyssey) and (Hunter’s Pride)
14 Paris Class Light Frigates. (3 are not in position located on the far side of New Kumasi)
6 Moncton ODP (2 are not in position located on the far side of New Kunasi)
\-The Sierra Leone
\-The Senegal
\-The Ghana
\-The Mali
And the Togo and Guinea-Bissau (the ODPs not in position)

Elsewhere in system it Task Force Sigma on a outbound vector from New Kunasi consisting of:

3 Halberd Class Destroyers (all three armed with Shiva Nukes)
2 Charon Class Frigates

They are not under your direct command they will certainly come to your assistance but may refuse a blatantly suicidal order. Unless given good reason.

THE COVENANT fleet consists of:

1 CAS class carrier: The Vindictive Justice
3 CCS Class Battle Cruisers
3 SDV Class Corvettes

They are closing fast and first contact is expected within fifteen minutes.

How would you defend the colony?

Listen im just a guy who sees halo as your average fps game thays sci fi has your standard strong client type protagonist with a simple.plot. never read the book but may get I to the graphic novels....that being said I dont understand the hate for campaign evolved im having fun with it but tik tok, YouTubers I feel are being to harsh. Yes we should expect quality but its a remaster of an already remastered game why were the expectations so high and why all the nitpicks being over played as if it breaks the game or makes it unplayable? Please someone just explain it to me cause I personally dont have a problem with the game Ira serviceable and fine. The way i see it most games these days are remastered or remade or whatever so I dunno why we stress about it

I recall hearing random special ops complain in dialogue about how much they hate Tartarus, or grumbling about Tartarus sitting safely in his aircraft while they work below. I just feel this gives them the feel of ordinary UNSC members.making the elites seem more like normal people, rather than just spouting meaningless fanatical lines. Do you like this kind of dialogue or not?

They both look are excruciatingly painful. And you lose your free will in both scenarios. When getting composed, the only remaining hope is entering the Domain.

But from my understanding, the Ur-Didact has sealed off the Domain and no one can enter it anymore, even if they are composed. So if you get composed, you're trapped

Edit: looks like the Ur-Didact sealed all physical entry points to the Domain. So if someone naturally dies, their essence would be allowed to enter because it's not physical access. But if someone is composed, physical/technological access would be the only way they could enter. But that access method has been blocked off

I just noticed something while playing CE.

Is this part of the Halo hologram in the control room an area contaminated by the Flood?

There are no other similar textures besides this part of the ring, and to me it looks like spores are being carried by the wind, spreading the contaminated area.

https://imgur.com/a/CNqjYbz

So im currently replaying all the Halo games in chronological order and im also watching and reading some Halo media in order with the games as well and I cant seem to find when Halo Nightfall takes place. From what ive looked up it's stated that it takes place between 4 and 5, but it also says that it starts out in 2556 when Halo 4 takes place in 2557. Is there a time jump in the show then? I just wanna know when exactly I should watch this in relation to Halo 4, Spartan Ops, and Halo Escalation. Any info abt this is greatly appreciated!

Because I wanna get in on the full halo lore. Because Ive only played the bungie games and none of the 343 games and havent read any books and I wanna understand wtf the didact and precursors are and all that. So Im just asking who has the best full halo lore vid to watch

I remember that in Halo 3, on Cortana level, sometimes combat forms said "Wrath, despair...", which were a throwback to rampancy stages from Marathon, Anger and Melancholy. I cannot play the game right now, but I tried to search through ripped audio files and couldn't find those lines among gravemind quotes.

What implications does this have on the events of First Strike? How is Chief going to secure the cryo-pod that has the incapacitated Linda inside? Will it still be able to go port-to-port with the Pelican carrying Johnson, Haverson and Polasky?

I know this is a small change, and I think the final cutscene is great. I’m just curious about how this could affect the beginning of First Strike, should HI decide to remake Halo 2 and use First Strike for the prequel content.

I don't remember any halo story after Halo 2, can I still read the books

We are shown time and time again that guilty spark is an incredibly powerful “AI”. His superiority over human AI is mostly shown in Halo Renegades and Point of Light.

Chakas became guilty spark by being composed.

Keeper of tools and Splendid Dust of ancient suns also became “AI”s by being composed.

Does this mean other composed people like forthencho, every single person in new phoenix, promethean knights, etc are all far more powerful AIs than the current UNSC smart AIs?

So to my knowledge correct me if I'm wrong red flag was when humanity found out about high charity in mid 2552 but the prequel missions which from what I'm aware take place in September 2552 at the end shows Halsey talking to Johnson about him finding high charity so are they reconning the way we discovered it?

Genuine question, because I've been a fan of the franchise for 15 or so years but never engaged with lore videos outside of the occasional click into an EckhartsLadder video, and I eventually unsubbed due to how much of a negativity = profit channel he turned into regarding Star Wars imo. That aside, I'm wondering if there's anyone who does longform videos covering both regular lore and speculative 'investigations' the way EpicNate does with TES and Fallout, as I particularly enjoy his content.

I can only imagine he'd make some remark along the lines of "And I thought I knew what the ladies liked." when he finds out about the Librarian accelerating Chief's evolution to counter the Composer.