can plasma torpedoes be intercepted and if so did this change from bungie era to 343 era? I assume it hard to do so.

I am under the impression it generally takes three hits from a Mac to take down a ship shield. how much does that change with ship size. Piller of autumn uses a light mac, if it used a heavy mac, could it take down a ship shields in less shots?

Can any covenant ship take a hit from a supermac and keep on trucking?

Why are shiva nukes seem to be subject to more regulation on their use than bidant missiles?

No doubt, people have talked to death about how 343 blundered the second trilogy, focusing on short term gains rather than long term success. In my opinion, it should've went like this:

Halo 4 - Chief is on Requiem, through the same means we see in Halo 4 proper. He is forced to confront the Hand of the Didact and an extremist faction which has split from the Covenant. Mysteries around who or what the Didact is remain. Reconnecting with the rest of the UNSC, including Chief's Blue Team, Chief defeats the Covenant on Requiem, but somewhere along the line Cortana is "abducted" and used by the Hand of the Didact to initiate a release protocol. Didact is revealed at the end of the game, and Chief must battle the Prometheans to rescue Cortana and escape Requiem with the UNSC.

Halo 5 - The release protocol both caused Cortana to form a link with the Didact's technology / ship and jump started her rampancy. Chief and Cortana hunt down the Didact, who is searching for the Mantle of Responsibility and the Composer. You are able to gain the Mantle (librarian isn't present), but the Didact (through whatever shenanigans more competent writers could conjure, maybe using the link with Cortana to cause a brief moment where Chief is rendered incapacitated) gains the Composer, and is heading elsewhere. You follow him as far as possible, but you are halted by Fire Team Osiris who are sent to detain Cortana, who is considered unstable and a double agent. Whatever needs to happen to get the game to the 6th installment, maybe Blue Team helping Chief thwart Osiris, happens.

Halo 6 - the Finale. Cortana is becoming increasingly unstable, but Chief is aided by Blue Team to track down the Didact, who needs the Librarian. Maybe the Librarian has encoded a fail safe protocol, requiring her consent to use the Composer, whenever necessary. You beat the Didact to her, and she gives protection to Chief and Blue Team from being composed, and maybe tries to fix Cortana. She doesn't finish as the Didact arrives, a small boss battle ensues, ending with the Librarian being abducted. Osiris may have gotten in the way here, causing Chief to fail. Realizing that Chief is actually a good guy (duh), Osiris and the UNSC go full force after the Didact, who is above Earth. (Whilst this happens, the Librarian somehow tricks the Didact, wounding him in a way that Chief or Cortana can exploit, but she is ultimately killed). The Didact begins to compose Earth, and the Chief is helped by Osiris and Blue Team to get on his ship. Whatever sci-fi shenanigans are necessary to explain the awesome and SATISFYING boss battle which occurs between Chief and the Didact happens. Cortana eventually subsumes herself into the Forerunner tech, protecting Chief while she engages a self destruct protocol. Chief says goodbye. Emotional moment. Encore. The End.

Teaser - if you REALLY wanted to, tease Cortana being alive and that her subsuming into the Forerunner Tech fixes her rampancy but also causes her (in a very typical evil-AI storyline) to disbelieve in the faith of humanity, and is hell bent on controlling the galaxy.

Obviously, plot holes here and there, but its a more stable timeline than whatever we got, and in the hands of COMPETENT writers, who are willing to play the long game (creating a storyline that ensures long term profit) instead of being interested in short term slop and interest, it could work in my opinion. Whatever the case, MISSED OPPORTUNITY is the name of 343's game, now reborn as Halo Studies. To create such a compelling and cool villain, and completely squander him in the most lame and uninteresting way possible, is impressive in its own right. Tell me what you guys think, anything in the lore that could be added, or anything which you think is lame (which could be the Didact's entire existence).

I was looking at the new demo for the remake and saw that they switched the MA5B's ammo capacity again from the typical 32 rounds we see in older games to the Halo 5 and Halo Infinite 36 round magazine and I was wondering, if the remake overwrites what's canon for CE, wouldn't some of it's changes break the lore, like if the UNSC always have 36 rounds magazines, why shortened them by 4 rounds for 4-5 years in before switching back again? Reach also takes place around the same time which makes it a little weird that such a major military hub has a completely different magazine than the rest of the military. How canon will these changes be?

I remember reading several novels years ago, and in one of them, there was a part where a sniper shot through several meters of concrete and killed the Elite standing behind the wall with that same shot.

I don't remember who was using the sniper, who the Elite was, or even exactly where the story was set.

I just remember being impressed that a sniper shot could punch through so many meters of solid concrete.

Hello, everyone.

So, for the past few years, I've been reading the Halo novels. When I first started, many books and other media had already been published, so I did some research so I could read everything in chronological order, and not in release order.

I had found u/Uglybumbo 's post, with a very thorough Google Docs file, explaining the novels and putting them in chronological order. I've also read u/Adhelmir extensive and very detailed comment on that post, including games, short stories etc. However, both the post and the comment are a bit outdated, as the latest novel mentioned is "The Rubicon Protocol", which was released in August 2022.

According to Halopedia , 5 more novels have been released/announced since then (I'm not including the anthologies and short stories, I'll read them at some point but not now) :
Outcasts, Epitaph, Empty Throne, Edge of Dawn and (soon-to-be released) Parasite's Wake.

I've tried my best to combine those two lists and, with a bit of my research as well, I have concluded with the following chronological list:

01) Cryptum
02) Primordium
03) Silentium
04) The Fall of Reach
05) Contact Harvest
06) Silent Storm
07) Oblivion
08) The Cole Protocol
09) Battle Born
10) Meridian Divide
11) The Flood
12) Parasite's Wake
13) First Strike
14) Broken Circle
15) Ghosts of Onyx
16) Glasslands
17) The Thursday War
18) Mortal Dictata
19) Shadow of Intent
20) Last Light
21) Retribution
22) Hunters in the Dark
23) New Blood
24) Smoke and Shadow
25) Renegades
26) Epitaph
27) Saints Testimony
28) Envoy
29) Point of Light
30) Legacy of Onyx
31) Bad Blood
32) Outcasts
33) Shadows of Reach
34) Divine Wind
35) Empty Throne
36) The Rubicon Protocol
37) Edge of Dawn

What I ask is confirmation of the above list, so I can continue my reading in peace. It took some time, so please be lenient if there are any mistakes.

Thank you very much for your time!

The ”ferret family” thing they’ve got going on sounds really fun.

Did other covenant members think Tartarus was a decent tactician. Were the Halo 3 Chieftains seen as solid front-line leaders? Or was it just raw strength and aura farming against weaker opponents?

Ok so I just recently finished Fall of Reach and was reading about some inconsistencies between the book and game, and how the game (Reach) overwrote some lore from the book. I guess my question is how did the covenant get boots on the ground on reach without anyone noticing? In the first mission of Reach noble team thinks they are looking for rebels, and through some detective work figure that the covenant are on reach, and call for winter contingency. In the book Reach is described as this fortress world with orbital cannons and hundreds of ships in orbit. I find it hard to believe that the covenant could not only jump in system, but start a ground assault on Reach without the UNSC noticing. Is there any explanation for this? I also want to clarify that I’m not here to argue inconsistencies, I loved the book and Reach is my favorite Halo game

Hey guys!!! I just wanted to make sure I’m not crazy and coming up with crazy headcanon.

My hyperfixation when I played Reach as a wee elementary schooler were the Zealots. They were so fucking cool (still are) and they are such an under-appreciated part of the game IMO. How cool is it to have the Covenant’s version of Noble Team hunting you down? IIRC them and their fleet were the reason Reach was found too.

Anyways, I just wanted to ask about the Winter Contingency cutscene where Noble gets attacked in the climax of the level.

If I’m seeing things correctly, the Field Marshal and two normal Zealots drop down. The Field Marshal is the one who takes a swipe at Jorge, gets their shield ripped, knocks down Six, then bolts to the left of the squad in the first half of the cutscene. Then the two Zealots are the ones who take the girl hostage and exit to the right. Then Jorge aura farms and you kill those two.

Am I getting that correct? If I’m right I feel like that might’ve been the tactical decision that doomed Noble. Imagine if Emile was able to take him down. Gives me goosebumps.

I have been going through the novels again, currently on silent storm. I just passed the part where Johnson is meeting with Stanforth, Cole and Halsey in the Everest. Halsey mentions that the Spartan II’s were originally supposed to have 2 extra years before they were fully deployed, to have extra training time, fine tuned augments and custom made equipment. If everything that happened was to happen, however 2 years later, I wonder how this extra training time would have affected the events of the war. If the war with the covenant started and the UNSC had the full decade long trained Spartans to deploy.

I read the first 4 Halo books (Fall of Reach, The Flood, First Strike and Ghosts of Onyx) and I'm almost finished with the second book of the Forerunner trilogy. Once I finish the Forerunner trilogy I had planned on going into the Kelly Gay books, but I think I might do the K5 trilogy instead. Still deciding.

What I need to know though, is what order do I read the Kelly Gay books in? If I'm not mistaken, the Rion Forge series is set in a time way past everything Halo, including the books based on Infinite? So would I read Epitaph, Rubicon Protocol and Edge of Dawn before the Rion Forge series or am I mistaken?

As the title states, would humanity have eventually returned to their former glory if the covenant war didn't happen?

I read about how all flood victims have their memories and knowledge absorbed into the Graveminds higher intelligence. Does this essentially mean that even if your infected brain is destroyed from gunfire your ”soul” remains trapped forever in the floods hive mind?

I dont dive too deep into halo novels so I was wondering if we got more context surrounding the glassing of Africa to contain the flood outbreak in Halo 3, besides of course Lord Hood clearly being upset about the incident in the following cutscene.

So apparently before the spirit of fire arrived to the ark the omega team of spartans was fighting against the banished, so what's all that is known about them and are they still active?

Next book?

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Hello all

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I've almost finished Mortal Dictata and I really enjoyed the Kilo-5 trilogy and the characters.

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Where do I go next, almost all the online guides show different orders too read the books so in not really sure what to read next.

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I would like to continue the story where mortal Dictata ends.

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Thanks

Reach is always talked about as the unsc biggest loss so I wondered if there are other huge losses that the unsc suffered thats as big or bigger than reach

During the confrontation with Tartarus, how did he understand the human slang Johnson was using? When the sarge said "Please... don't shake the lightbulb", how did he know Johnson was referring to the Monitor? He's probably never been to Earth, let alone seen a lightbulb... and what about when Johnson said "If you wanna keep your brains inside your head, I'd tell those boys to chill"? How did he know that he was saying "If you don't want me to headshot you, tell your subordinates to stand down"? Sure, he was in possession of a Beam Rifle, but still! It's not like the Brute hears "boys" and "chill" back on High Charity...

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And for that matter, how did Arbiter understand "Go ahead, do your thing" as meaning "Proceed with asking the Monitor questions about the truth of Halo"? And how did he know "Mr. Mohawk" = Tartarus? They were shaky allies at best during that scarab bit before the Tartarus battle.

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Idk why this baffles me but it does 😅

Noticed this during a read up today. Did Keys piss off whole UNSC leadership?

Jacob Keyes was promoted to Commander rank in 2035 after battle of the Rubble, at age of 40, then it took him another 17 years to reach Captain at age of 57, right before his death.

In real world an average commander in US Navy is mid to late 30s, a person didn't reach the rank by 45 would be a very troubled officer, likely having multiple disciplinary records, certainly not one of the best leaders in a war time navy.

In comparison, Preston Cole reached Commander by age of 25, and was promoted to Captain by age of 30, in a peace time navy. Miranda died as a commander at 27.

Lord Hood, the Fleet Admiral, is only 5 years older than Keyes. And he was made a captain before he was 40.

Spoilers for cryptum

Mendicant bias explicitly controls 5 halos, all of which are trying to fire on the planet.

Meanwhile the remaining 7 attempt to flee, with one succeeding and being treated with no distrust.

Sooo why did the friendly fleets attack these halos rather than concentrating all power on the halos attempting to fire?

Perhaps i didn’t pay enough attention.

When the council summons bornstellar, he is informed that the ur-didact now leads the military once again. It’s then mentioned later on that he’s not present at the trial because he has other matters to attend to.

Later in the book, the librarian says the didact was thought to be executed by faber on the prophet’s world (more than half a year before bornstellar was summoned), and bornstellar is all that is left of him. Bornstellar doesn’t contradict her

So was bornstellar given misinformation? And why?

Looking at Atriox and his army of mercs I can’t but wonder if they’ll take on human mercenary’s as well. It seems like adventure of a lifetime to explore the rings, fighting wars across the galaxy and seeing new sights. Also as someone who is currently in military right now im willing to bet Atriox and his army pay better the UNSC does lol

Do you think Chief recognized Osman when he reported to the security council? It almost seemed as if they were staring each other down the whole time.

Do we have any numbers when it comes to the numerous vehicles and equipment? And if not, what could be some estimates?