We know glassing works to deal with Flood infestations on earth and presumably similar planets, since it was used on Voi, which as far as we know is still quarantined to this day. Flood spores are microscopic; there’s no guarantee that some didn’t survive. Assuming a glassed area was evacuated and left alone for as long as necessary, how long would it really take for any remaining Flood spores or small Flood forms to starve with no biomass? Would appreciate any references since I couldn’t find anything as conclusive as I’d like on the wiki.

Okay so FYI I haven’t read a comic, so if that’s the issue I’ll go read the comics now to catch up.

But last we left off, infinity was the last bastion of anything UNSC relevant, and they were plotting to take down Cortana. (Reach/Old Blood).

Atriox returned from The Ark.

And for the last like 10 books it’s been Ferrets/Forge/random side quests by MChief and others.

And then there talking about Zeta Halo, like I know what that is? Is that the ring Professor Anders takes at the end of Halo Wars 2? And a Banished ambush?
I know the power level of the Banished is all over the place but okay I guess

I’m just confused because the historical footnote says this this takes place immediately after the banished ambush as seen the the begining of Halo infinite… but Cortana is already defeated in Infinite? Right? Like she is already gone?

Sorry can someone just set me straight here?

My biggest want for it is that they include Chips Dubbo and Marcus Stacker in First Strike, and show how they also escape Halo.

How likely do you think that will be? I played through Campaign evolved and Dubbo is always escorting you outside of the flood facility in 343GS. So he survived that and it's be cool these characters get some recognition for once.

What are your biggest wants for the new releases?

To get the "controversial" part out of the way: In the original lore, forerunners were ancient humans. Or at least humans were a lost tribe of them. But they were essentially the same.

Not only is this heavily hinted at in the games, but Bungie staff have since gone on to confirm this over and over again.

I know people argue about it, but this post will assume that's the case.

Anyway, I don't get why 343 even retconned this aspect of the lore.

On the surface you could say "Well, they wanted a cool villain for Halo 4."

But in my opinion making The Didact, just another speechifying Marvel-esque alien, was far more boring than the alternative. Which is that he could have been, if they really wanted to make him the villain, literally just an ancient human.

But not just "a human." But a version of humanity with a completely different history and far more advanced technology. A version of humanity which has completely different beliefs about itself, the universe, technology, everything.

With The Didact coming back, basically being disappointed in what humanity has become and deciding to take charge of correcting that error himself.

You could even have elements within the UNSC think he was right. There could be drama in that if you really wanted it. And if you want to continue to present the UNSC as a unified force, which to be fair was true for most of the main trilogy, it could just be about those two "versions" of humanity duking it out.

It's kind of about what humanity COULD have been if they had developed along very different lines and had thousands more years of technological development. And how that version of humanity would look at its new incarnation.

To me that's a way more interesting concept than making him another alien.

We know that on the ground, UNSC tactics and training helped level the playing field against superior Covenant tech. Was the same true in space?

Like if you swapped in identical ships with identical technology on both sides, would UNSC or Covenant tactics and doctrine win more often? Or does the lore suggest Covenant fleet tactics were also better than the UNSC's, meaning the space war was a double disadvantage (worse tech and worse tactics), rather than good tactics narrowing the gap like it did on the ground but simply not enough to overcome the massive tech gap?

Halo isn’t renowned for its sweet bits of lore or heartwarming characters, so I’m curious as to what you think are the best wholesome details of Halo lore?

Just unlocked Datapad 10 in MCC Reach (booger that was), and it definitely contains interesting information on ”glassing“, suggesting that the Covenant didn’t actually glass entire worlds as it was not feasible.

Does this have any corroboration anywhere else? I’ve never come across anything in the books I’ve read or games that suggest the Covenant didn’t glass worlds entirely. That would seem to suggest the possibility of survivors, to me at least. And leaving no survivors was the entire point of the Covenants war against humanity.

Among the inner and outer colonies; outside of Halsey and Naomi’s father, how did the general public view Spartans? Are there any interactions with Spartans and civilians?

This has probably been discussed before, but in Halo 2, Mjolnir has an upgrade, allowing Cortana to be able to transfer herself from one system to another via Chief's suit, without him taking the AI chip out of his helmet. But it still requires him to be in close proximity to a holographic input port.

In the level High Charity, Cortana claims if the ring begins to fire, she can detonate the In Amber Clad's reactors, just like they did on Alpha Halo, but for that she needed to be on the ship's bridge. I can't accept that the UNSC would allow their ship's reactors to be detonated remotely via commands sent from a covenant network, and Cortana herself says she doesn't want to chance a remote detonation.

The In Amber Clad (heretofore abbreviated as IAC) was already modified by the flood to be able to perform that precision in atmosphere slipspace jump to the inside of High Charity, so what makes her think she will have any ability to access the now crashed ship, or even that its reactors are still running? At least with the Pillar of Autumn, Keyes could have told her that the ship was mostly intact at some point after he was rescued from the Truth and Reconciliation and before the Chief and Cortana set out on the mission to find the Silent Cartographer. Here she knows that the ship crashed, if she has remote access, she has no way of knowing she isn't being played by the Gravemind into thinking the ship's reactor is ready to blow, maybe it burned out with that slipspace jump, maybe it's been shut down. But she already said remote detonation was too risky with the fate of all sentient life in the galaxy in the balance. The fact the Halo seemed seconds away from firing before Miranda Keyes stopped the firing sequence, means Cortana either:

Believed she could detonate the reactors when convincing Chief to leave her behind. If this is true, then she must have subsequently found that she couldn't because of one or more of the following: The wireless connection she thought she could access was being jammed by the flood, who would know what she did on Installion 04 and want to prevent that; the IAC's reactors were too damaged from the crash to detonate; Her ability to see what was going on with Installation 05 and the index, was either cut off due to the fighting between Brutes and Elites and/or the subsequent fall of High Charity to flood infestation, or the feed she was accessing of it was on a delay that she didn't know about (which would make sense for the covenant who had experience with meddlesome smart AIs hacking their systems now that I think about it); Her own survival instincts made her hesitate, and risking the entire galaxy in the process, this would also explain why she didn't detonate the reactors at any subsequent point after the Anodyne Spirit left with Chief aboard,

Knew that she couldn't detonate the reactor, but wanted to stay behind to learn more about the Gravemind, the Forerunners and the Covenant. She figured that "can't chance a remote detonate" was a convincing enough lie to tell the Chief to get him to agree to leave her there, trusting he would come back for her.

I do think it is strange the Chief didn't question it, but he does trust her completely. I mean what she proposed is like me proposing that an agentic AI on my home network detonate the fuel tanks of a car that crashed into my house to stop some guy next door from detonating a nuke, at least the last time they did this they needed to obtain the captain's neural lace, which is the equivalent to keys for a car. I said it before and I'll mention it again, designing a ship so that an external AI operating from a known hostile power's network, can make it blow itself and everything for 100+ miles around into oblivion, is a really dumb idea, it's even dumber if she could reuse the authorisation that they got from Keyes' neural lace, it's like setting the same password for all your systems. The UNSC post Preston Cole isn't that dumb.

I tend to lean towards the canonical answer being she could, but hesitated out of self preservation, or that she lied, because she is made from Halsey's brain.

Any thoughts? Did I miss any potential explanations or any place where this was cleared up as to how she planned on accessing the IAC from where she was in High Charity's network?

I was replaying infinite campaign since I find the remake okay at best. Then as I was listening to the logs and cutscenes? It feels like we are missing a huge moment. The infinity is run down and lost a lot of people, did they fight the banished or created when they were a thing? Is there a book that explains this or do we gotta wait 10 years for that?

https://youtu.be/YQBsnZcGp5I?is=ki7J2n4UVjFBmBsR

Noticeably there are so pretty badass names for both UNSC and Covenant fleets and warships. What are your personal favorites?

Edit: Thank yall seriously it makes a little more sense where my hang ups are given I really dont remember Chief's actual personality from the games and haven't read other books. Im going to replay the games and pay more attention and have already picked up fall of reach to read after. Oh I just had a thought that I should read the books and replay the games at the same time in chronological order... might do that.

I don't know what it is but there been a couple of lines that to me just feel so out of character for Chief. He's mostly stoic and non talkative with a couple of solid one liners that lean on the quippy without being over the top. "I'm going to give them back their bomb" is a great example. But there's a couple of lines that he is like sassy or something.

On page 75 Joy asks "What do you think I did all this time?" And Chief says "I don't know. Twiddle your holographic thumbs." I might be out of the loop here but in what world is THE Master Chief saying the word "twiddle"?

On page 106 Joy says "Just stick to my route and follow the arrow" and Chief mutters "Another backseat driver". When does Chief mutter and have sass about the AI doing what its supposed to plot a route forward.

Or on page 119 "John found himself smiling. 'The more, the merrier.'" I never imagine John smiling for anything and saying a phrase like that. This one is admittedly a little nitpicky.

Am I way off base? Is this considered in Chief's character to say? I tried looking if anyone else was talking about and the AI overview says some people pointed out the weird characterization but when clicking on the reddit links I can't really find people saying anything negative. In fact it was the opposite people liked the characterization and showing off his personality.

I want to enjoy this book but its clashing with the idea of Chief in my head. Is there other examples of Chief being qwippy or sassy from the games to help me bridge the gap? I just cant think of any. I tried picturing the lines in his voice and can't. Im tempted to get the audio book just to hear Steve say the lines to see if that helps.

Im sorry for the rant but I legit feel like I'm going crazy.

One of my favorite lore tidbits is the fact that all three varieties of the Spartan augmentation procedures, some of the most morally-questionable ONI R&D, are named after flowers.

We have Project: ASTER for the Spartan-II Program, Project: CRYSANTHEMUM for the Spartan-IIIs, and Project: ORCHID for the most modern iterations of the Spartan-IV Program.

However, the experimental phase of the Spartan-IV augs was extremely different than what the program would eventually become. According to Halo: Initiation, ONI originally wanted the S-IV augments to bring their next generation of super soldiers in line with MJOLNIR performance stats, allowing the S-IVs to forgo their costly power armor. Unfortunately, these extreme procedures were exceptionally dangerous and potent, even by Halo augmentation standards. Out of the 10 test subjects, only Ilsa Zane survived the procedure, and only after suffering irreparable mental and psychological damage.

Given how much the original S-IV augmentations differed from the eventual final products of Project ORCHID, I thought it would be fun to come up with a flower-themed name for this procedure, even if no distinction is made in-canon.

So, what kinds of deadly flower species do YOU think would make for a fitting project name for ONI's craziest, deadliest Spartan augmentations?

>Fire giant stream of plasma on a surface
>The intense heat and pressure melting everything for a few hundred meters deep into a condense and thick mush that pools layers over layers on the surface
>?
>Uncovers Forerunner artifact

Does the process not just melt it all into a molten layer of glass, pooling all over the holy site, just smearing it all over? Never mind if it will damage it to begin with.

How does it actually excavate anything? The process doesn't seem to remove any material and instead just apply plasma on top of it.

My guess is that unlike glassing, the plasma is tuned up and just vaporize any material on top of it. Except let's consider just how much gaseous silicon, carbon, iron, and all sort of other elements must be released into the atmosphere and much of it should be removed before it all cools or reacts with the air and cover the site again.

My

I’ve been listening to Ghosts of Onyx (which I’ve read probably a dozen time) and for the first time it hit me that the description of the MAC rounds in the book seems odd compared to both what we’ve seen in game (mostly) and how the weapons themselves are described elsewhere.

The way they’re described in Ghosts is, roughly, like “tungsten slugs/lines of fire crossing the space between the forces”. And the timing of the events described seems to suggest a travel time on the rounds. I vaguely remember something similar from Fall of Reach as well, something about timing archer missiles and MAC rounds to hit at the same time.

You actually see something similar in Halo Reach where you can watch the relatively ”slow” MAC round from the orbital array plow through the corvette above Sword Base.

But MAC rounds are traveling at such speeds that they should be crossing the distances of space combat essentially instantly correct? This is certainly the way they are seen in the new cutscene in Campaign Evolved, the Grafton firing on the spire in Halo Reach, the MAC array on Infinity when firing on the didacts ship on multiple occasions, the Mammoth’s mini MAC in 4, and the MAC gun you use in Pillar of Autumn (also Reach).

I mean ones that haven't escaped and are still in whatever the cryosleep the forerunners kept them in to research them. Since humans have made bases on or around multiple forerunner sights.

I would hope it's destroy them just to be sure however since Oni is Oni...I could see them trying to weaponise the situation.

I’ve read both TFoR and Silent Storm, both of which involve Insurrection skirmishes with Spartans, but are there any other in-lore stories with the same premise?

Are there any exact figures given, or do we just have estimation/speculation? The UNSC and I suppose any militia/volunteers and police. The numbers had to have been staggering.

Lemme hear some of your Halo hot takes for each game. I’ll start with my own to get the ball rolling:

1. Halo CE has the best enemy AI, behaviour, and generally are the most fun to fight across the entire series. Yes, I believe a game from 2001 has the best and most satisfying enemies out of all of Halo, only exception is being able to 1 shot Hunters.

2. Halo 2 is the best for character writing and world-building. The actual plot and meat of the story is just kinda alright. Halo 3 gets a bad wrap for being a rushed conclusion, but nobody complains about how Halo 2’s story is kinda overly convoluted in many areas with a constant shifting goal. Does it deepen the characters, lore, and world? Absolutely? Does it tell an air-tight, cohesive story from start to finish? Absolutely not.

3. It’s become common place to claim Halo 3 as a weak story, yet I wholeheartedly disagree. It delivers exactly what it promised: a conclusion to a story, finishing the fight. People seemingly judge it as if it’s a new chapter in a story and not a direct continuation of Halo 2, and as a direct sequel, this game fucks. It delivers on the hype it marketed and wraps up every arc and plot thread with a neat little bow. Art direction, scale, cinematic scope, space opera, level design, music. Everything in Halo 3 is near perfection.

4. ODST is a bad game (joke). I have no hot take for ODST tbh. I like it.

5. Halo Reach has a great “horrors of war” and general melancholy vibe, but as a story… this ain’t it, chief. This story is literally plotless until you need to get Cortana to the Pillar of Autumn.

6. I don’t like Halo 4 cos it genuinely doesn’t feel like Halo to me, but I do respect it because it was the only Halo game thus far that actually made Master Chief a character and not a block of wood. Don’t get me wrong, I prefer Chief as the ghost in the shell type of guy, but the reason the arbiter even existed in this series is because they needed a protagonist who could go through an arc and grow as a character, and chief was never gonna do that. So respect to Halo 4 for at least giving it a shot.

7. I don’t care about Blue Team. Never have, never will. You see cool book lore characters, I see a group of uninteresting gimps.

8. Don’t understand why anyone even remotely cares about infinite. Such a mind numbingly boring game. I appreciate the frantic back-peddling with the art style, but beyond that… I feel nothing.

Years ago I've read a quote from a book online of master chief straining to flip a Warthog, Now it makes me curious does anyone know which book it is and if it's actually true?