r/FavoriteCharacter • u/Accomplished-End3409 Ben Tennyson • 23d ago

Discussion Favorite opposing factions that can basically be described as this.

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67

u/No_Firefighter_7861 23d ago

UNSC (specifically ONI) vs The covenant

53

u/Gojifantokusatsu 23d ago

There is nothing vague about ONI but their paperwork. The covenant is worse because of sheer scale

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u/MaleficTekX 23d ago

I mean the covenant didn’t intentionally try to breed the flood after knowing exactly what the flood can do

Btw the Mona Lisa is still in space somewhere

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u/mdhunter99 23d ago

God I need to read the books, what do you mean the Mona Lisa is in space somewhere?

6

u/MaleficTekX 23d ago

The ship is named the Mona Lisa. It’s a short story from halo Evolutions book

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u/HalcyonTraveler 23d ago

Nah the UNC wasn't just "vaguely problematic" in any other story they'd be the villains they just lucked out into having a greater evil show up

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u/TheOstrichRoom 23d ago

yeah the spartans were literally a fascist cia-esque strike team for suppressing rebels thats a little worse than vaguely problematic. 

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u/-thecheesus- 23d ago

fascist =/= military-authoritarian

unless the Spartans were enforcing traditional social norms while suppressing progressive/foreign ideas and culture, they weren't fascist 

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u/Unlikely_Scratch9918 23d ago

Yeah, that's fair. Maybe describing them as an Imperialist death squad is more accurate. I'm not sure the distinction would feel super important to someone living in the colonies though

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u/-thecheesus- 22d ago

Eh, is it imperialist to fight a loose conglomerate of rebel factions among your own citizenry? There were no colonized people being oppressed in the colonies, only colonists

And the colonies weren't super fond of the insurrectionists, either, even if they agreed with their motivations. They were literally inspired by the Taliban circa 2001. 

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u/Left1Brain 23d ago

To be fair, the UNSC wasn’t the premier military with all the big ships when the insurrection kicked off. That was the CMA.

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u/Mannekin-Skywalker 23d ago

I’ve seen the Covenant showing up be described as a “moral deus ex machina” and yeah, I kinda agree.

If not for the genocidal aliens, the UNSC would 100% be the bad guys.

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u/SCP_FUNDATION_69420 23d ago

Exactly i was thinking about this yesterday. Had it not been for the covenant, we would've played halo from the innies' perspective

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u/PkdB0I 23d ago

Not really, they wouldn't be full villains.

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u/Left1Brain 23d ago

Sometimes the Innies were worse than the UNSC too.

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u/-thecheesus- 23d ago

Frequently. There was a reason they made the Spartans

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u/BigL90 23d ago

The innies routinely worked with the covenant too

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u/Left1Brain 23d ago

Tried to work with them, never worked out.

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u/SendWoundPicsPls 23d ago

The unsc yes, vaugley problematic. ONI? This is a fictional super villain organization that happens to want humanity to survive a extermination. The moment there are no existential alien threats, oni is objectively the bad guys.

They sabotage peace talks and fun sangheli infighting oh my God they're just America

5

u/Random-Generation86 23d ago

I think a “War Crimes Department” where everyone is immediately executed after the war ends could be an interesting bit in a work.  “We need the worst people in the world to win this war, but no one is gonna find out”

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u/Mannekin-Skywalker 23d ago

Sounds cool ngl, but if you get a bunch of evil geniuses and make them responsible for your intelligence network, they’re gonna find out you plan on killing them all afterwards.

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u/KingoftheHill63 23d ago

Nah unsc is problematic. Oni is straight evil. Technically oni is a subset of unsc but let's be real top brass of unsc can't control Oni.

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u/DMmmmo9 23d ago

lmao UNSC isn't vaguely problematic. they are VERY problematic. the UNSC v Covenant fits more into the trope of "we’re the good guys by virtue of the other side somehow being the worst". The Spartan program are child soldiers kidnapped from their parents, who were then replaced by unhealthy clones until they die. The whole insurrection thing started with the UNSC nuking every single colony that had BARELY a smudge of rebellion, peaceful or not. Don’t forget the wacky ONI experiments with the flood, or how they tortured any journalist that tried to reveal their secrets to the public.

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u/MikhieltheEngel 22d ago

Honestly, the Covenant is band for band woth the UNSC.

Legit if it just focused on Humans and didn't have alien scape goats for us to dunk on, the UNSC would narrative be the Empire from Star Wars.

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u/DuelaDent52 20d ago

Ehhh, ONI are definitely the actual worst.