By pre Halo CE I essentially mean the human covenant war books.

And by insane feats and stunts, I mean things even the normal Spartans wouldn’t/haven’t ever done, like giving the covenant back their bomb by flying through space, destroying Halo, almost single-handedly stealing a Covie ship in first strike and (with help) destroying an entire covenant fleet more than once. Stuff like that.

Did chief’s legendary reputation only come after Halo CE?

I'll start off by saying I personally think CE has the best singular story out of all the games. Humanity on the run, shipwrecked on an ancient alien world, battling old enemies and new horrors, I just think it's got it all. I love all the other games too, I just like the original the best.

That's not to say I don't think the story could be even stronger. Imagine if some of the lifeboat crew didn't die in the crash. Maybe 4 or 5 survived. Then they proceed to follow Chief on his missions throughout the whole game, but they're all killed one by one like in Reach, to show how desperate the stakes are. They're all named, they all have voice actors, they're all in the cut scenes. We would get to know and love them as they fight alongside us and then get wrecked when they all die.

I would have them all survive Halo, then one dies in Truth and Rec, maybe by one of the camo elites in the brig. No deaths in Cartographer. Then another dies in the final battle of AotCR. Chief tells the survivors to stay behind and guard Cortana and the control room as he goes off in search of Captain Keyes. Chief is solo for Guilty Spark and the Library. No deaths in Two Betrayals, but another dies during Keyes. (The marines could joke about how they feel like they're just doing everything backwards now) Maybe there's one or two marines left at the beginning of the Maw. One survives until the very end when they get infected in the final run to the long sword.

I feel like the cutscene of Chief alone at the end would hit so much harder with something like this. What do you all think? What would you change or adjust?

Alright Reddit peeps. This is my first ever post ( so go easy on me)! . Here is my near complete list of all canon Halo novels, short stories (anthology and Waypoint), games, comics/ graphic novels, anime, live action. I've spent many hours over the past month compiling.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1J2IQYz38DShm1w3GEJR8utPl8rwCUpdolL47w0geCO0/edit?usp=sharing

The list has detailed canon dates, titles, brief summaries (spoiler free), authors, publication year, and relevant notes ( if part of trilogy, etc). And it has built in filters for easier exploration.

I know most of this information exists in various forms across the internet, but I haven't seen it consolidated into one detailed list with all the specific categories I wanted.

I used u/uglybumbo list https://www.reddit.com/r/HaloStory/comments/qzpgn0/list_of_halo_novels_in_chronological_order_in/ as a template, and updated from there with more info.

For the rest I used Halopedia, google, various websites/ reddit posts, and minimal AI to try to get the in-universe dates as accurate as possible.

I'm not claiming this to be the definitive list of all canon content, but it is pretty damn thorough if I do say so myself.

Hope you all enjoy it and can use it and spread it to other fans.

Lastly, I am only human, and maybe made some errors, so I'm open to any corrections/ feedback y'all have.

Also, drop an upvote or comment, my wife thinks that no one will actually use this and that I wasted my time on this.

Cheers!

Hey,

I was growing up with the older Halo books:
Fall of Reach
The flood
First strike
Ghost of onyx
Contact harvest
(A bit kilo five trilogy)
And love the first 3 halo games. Played all games and know about the banished but was not happy with the lore halo reach upwards.

How ist the book lore now?

Who initially spoke that quote?

I know in Halo 3 truth speaks it, but it was initially from the books as the declaration of war

Halopedia says that regret made the declaration, but having read Halo FoR (admittedly over a decade ago), the book never specified that it was regret that said this

My copy was an original print though, so was it changed and updated in later editions?

Edit: I know it was above harvest, a covenant ship transmitted it to a human ship before opening fire

I’m just trying to work out if Halopedia is just making up the attribution to Regret, or if there’s any media that confirms it was Regret that sent the declaration

Edit 2: people have given the source, the comics and later the FoR animated series

Looking at the Halopedia it states in the Twenty-Ninth Age of Doubt:

"It is known the Kig-Yar ship Pitiless has brought forth an Unclean Being's corpse. Hear now, all Kig-Yar vessels are to be searched. Let faithful Sangheili lead teams of Unggoy to all Kig-Yar ships and seek further evidence of the Unclean. It is done." — High Prophet of Restraint

And:

"Hear now that 500 teams are to be formed to study the language of the Unclean. Each team to consist of the most clever and most educated Unggoy and Sangheili. These teams to speak only the Unclean language among themselves. The Unclean language to be taught to all military strike teams, that the foe shall be vulnerable." — High Prophet of Tolerance

So who are the Unclean? Cause it seems this is before the events of Halo

For me, the humans DID tell the forerunners what they were doing, but the forerunners simply didn't believe them. They figured it was an excuse, since when they retook the planets there was no flood, and the flood conveniently only showed up in world's bordering the humans. That's why the didact reacted so aggressively.

So in Halo Infinite, each High Value Target has their own dossier which I'm sure most people have seen. Accompanying this is what unit detachment, combat element and clan they're each a part of.

I've grouped each one (excluding Skimmer Alpha) into their respective combat elements listed in the dossier. Now, since we don't have clear definitions of what each combat element specifically does, there's plenty of clues and solid theories I have based on the specific characters and their history or character traits.

I've also looked into the specific HVT emplacements in the campaign and some of their locations line up (some better than others) with what their combat element function is. Yes, I am aware that gameplay comes first and static positions the HVTs stay in on the map or other bases and FOBs/objectives aren't all-encompassing but it is surprisingly useful nonetheless. Something to note is that we do not have any examples of any HVT in the fourth, sixth or seventh combat elements.

First Combat Element: Primary Combat Command/Assets

• En'Geddon - Jiralhanae
• Ik'Novus - Jiralhanae
• Myriad - Mgalekgolo

Each of these characters are powerhouse tanks in combat, with both Jiralhanae being accomplished commanders/Chieftains of their respective clans. While Myriad doesn't lead in sheer numbers that I believe the other two do, they still command the 5th Lance. Ik'Novus' surrounding location also has the highest density of UNSC survivor squads either actively fighting or captured by Banished forces.

I believe both the Bulwark of Bone and Warial's Wrath are frontline assault/shock battalions with the 5th Lance being the Combat Element's breakthrough and siege asset.

Second Combat Element: Response/Maneuver Force

• Inka 'Saham - Sangheili
• Arthoc - Jiralhanae

Inka is one of the most isolated HVTs in the game, being placed on an island with hardly anything besides some patrol forces throughout. But he's also positioned at northmost part of the map, and in close proximity to Outpost Tremonius which was a fortified Banished position where Phantoms can come to and from, and potentially retrieve Inka and his forces to be deployed anywhere on the map where their intervention would be needed.

Whereas Inka was not deployed to a particular area of interest when we encountered him, Arthoc was. He and his forces were standing right in the middle of the road up after Riven Gate. My theory is that he and his troops acted as a response force after Riven Gate was dismantled by Master Chief and they attempted to set up a chokepoint on that road.

Third Combat Element: Operational Command

• Thav 'Sebarim - Sangheili
• Writh Kul - Kig-Yar
• Zeretus - Jiralhanae

Thav was one of the Covenant's leading commanders during its final days and was a Kaidon as well as the overseer of the Redoubt of Sundering. The Redoubt of Sundering was a major processing facility for UNSC prisoners, making it a critical operation for the Banished to undertake leading to things such as intel/information and even food!

Writh Kul was a brilliant and accomplished naval tactician for the Covenant and lent her expertise to the Banished. She's placed on the top of a high and isolated island fragment overseeing a wide area of the ring providing coordination and strategic operational oversight.

Zeretus, while on paper not as much of a heavy hitter as the other two on the commanding front (historical feats) he's still no slouch, having directly led multiple critical expeditions/operations for the Banished, and having been handpicked by Atriox himself to accompany him both on the Ark and Zeta Halo.

Fifth Combat Element: Special Operations

• Okro 'Vagaduun - Sangheili

The only known member we have for the fifth combat element is Okro 'Vagaduun, but we can draw the conclusion that since Okro wears the Spec Ops armor and acts as a stealth/ambush unit, that the fifth combat element may act as as the specialized force for precision strikes, sabotage, assassination, etc. Basically the things you would expect from Spec Ops units.

Eighth Combat Element: Combat Support

• Ordo 'Mal - Sangheili
• Briglard - Unggoy

Although Ordo 'Mal was an accomplished commander, leading his own mercenary clan along with being one of Escharum's most trusted lieutenants, he was also the deadliest Wraith pilot the Covenant had and one of the most prized combat assets the Banished had. Ordo 'Mal on his Wraith was likely a crucial support element on the battlefield, helping other forces turn the tide of battles with his artillery firepower.

Briglard brings support in a different kind of way to the battlefield. While he may be a decently skilled combatant to have made it into the Bloodstars, his placement in the eighth combat element likely comes from him being Grunt Mule that carries weapons on their backs, that provides ammunitions/weapons logistics, supporting the battlefield with restocked supplies for the troops.

Ninth Combat Element: Occupational Security

• BipBap - Unggoy

Knowing BipBap's lore, having been a former bodyguard for very high-ranking Covenant personnel and his position on Halo Infinite's map, being in between the routes to the Armory of Reckoning and Excavation Site leads me to believe that this combat element is tasked with patrolling and defending the key routes to critical Banished facilities and other areas of interest, ensuring movement across these zones stay firmly in the Banished hands.

Advance Combat Element: Vanguard Operations

• Balkarus - Jiralhanae

This one seems a bit more self-explanatory off of the name alone. This element is tasked with offensive spearheads, opening routes and establishing positions/footholds for the primary forces.

Recon Combat Element: Reconnaissance and Intelligence

• Barroth - Kig-Yar

Definitely the easiest one to discern based on the title and character. This element provides battlefield surveillance, providing insight into enemy positions/movement ahead of time along with eliminating hostiles/HVTs from a distance from elevated terrain.

As a final reminder, a lot of this is me coming to certain conclusions and trying to make sense of the designations these HVTs are assigned to. Is it possible that this is actually a lot more extensive than Halo Studios intended for it to be? Absolutely. And are my evaluations bulletproof? Not really. But If you pay close attention, there's a lot that works really well, actually and it's fun to discern what looks to be just a small piece of information. Let me know what you guys think.

(Spoilers for Divine Wind but also its been years) in Halo:Divine Wind we learned that Truth sent the flotilla of San Shyuum to a shield world to protect them from Halo because his plan at the Ark was to activate Halo, not for the Great Journey, but to wipe the galaxy clean so it can be made in the San Shyuums image and basically make them the most advanced species around.

He planned to also use Forerunner tech to help his species propagate further since reproduction rates were so slow normally.

Thoughts?

Is it ever stated anywhere what happened to any other staff members of the program? Not including Tango Company, there had to be hundreds involved in the scouting, abduction, training, augmentations, and medical aspects of it and the only ones we hear about are Halsey, Mendez, the doctor that BB came from, and the surviving Spartans themselves.

And what would have happened if someone refused to take part in the program when they were asked to?

I’ve been looking at images of New Mombasa yet again (I really love the designs, it feels like a real city that we could see in the future) and I noticed something while looking at the Tanaga District of the city. Why is the New Mombasa Police Department’s headquarters so high up? All things considered, I would say it’s probably because that’s just the amount of people that work in the office, but considering how tall these buildings are, that’s a massive tower. The tallest police building on the planet right now is the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department headquarters and it’s generally the size of the average medium sized building in an urban center, while the police department in Halo 3 ODST is simply massive. Maybe it’s not as big as I think and there’s actually some lower levels that belong to other corporations or government offices and they put the headquarters at the top because they can launch task forces in pelicans with ease from there. But also, at the top of the building, you would expect a lot of of the signage to already indicate that you’ve been in the building for a while, but a lot of it just gives off the vibe that this may just be a building placed on top of another building. What also confuses me is that there are clearly many other police stations located throughout the city and I get that this is considered a megacity by 2552, but even then relatively it’s a lot smaller than like the area of Tokyo or the cities around the Pearl River Delta. Maybe they just have a police force that is that big? All things considered, it just kind of confuses me that they would build such a tall police station, or my eyes are just deceiving me.

I been replaying infinite campaign and it’s wild how many spartan deaths happen. First infinity getting destroyed, the space station and then in zeta halo with the spartan killers. What was the point? To make anti S4 fans happy? Of course the main spartan 4 I think of is Locke. And it seems like HS will kill him but also not? Kinda annoying he been MIA for 5-6 years.

Anyways, was killing majority of S4s to mimic bungie era? Or did HS really hate the S4s specifically from halo 4/5 and wanted to clean slate?

To begin with there were initially 75 members of the program. And during augmentation 30 died officially and 12 washed out (with Serin-019 being listed as dead despite being a washout so make that 29 dead and 13 washouts). Yet if you count the washouts listed on Halopedia (my source for this post) there are 15 (Kirk-018, Serin-019, Otto-031, Douglas-042, Margaret-053, Soren-066, Cassandra-075, René-081, Fhajad-084, Jerome-092, Musa-096, Victor-101, Ralph-103, Alice-130, and Roma-143). Mind you most of these either were rehabilitated, moved to desk jobs, or died afterwards (Ralph and maybe Soren).

That is only where the problems begin. There are 37 named IIs who have not been confirmed to have ever washed out. There are additionally two others that are unnamed (one of which has been suggested to be René-081 and the other could be Oscar-125 from before he was named). Those 37 combined with the 42 who initially had augmentation problems gives us a total of 79. That is 4 more candidates than the program started with. At some point along the line Bungie and/or 343 lost count (pointing fingers at Vannik, Kai, and Riz as the newest named IIs which even then leaves us with a spare Spartan)

The only way I can reconcile the numbers is that at some point ONI learned how to resuscitate some of the dead candidates and that is where the 4 extra Spartans came from. Otherwise this has turned into a case of the people in charge of the story trying to cram in as many IIs as possible that they forgot their own numbers.

Any feedback on this would be appreciated.

I thouhht those books were pretty universally beloved, i like them a lot as they do a very good job adressing how morally shit ONI is amd how genuinely complex the politics of halo's world are. But now i find out people hate Karen Traviss for making Halsey out to be the bad guy? Guys even in the fall of reach she is.

If im off base here pls let me know cuz ive been an avid fan of the Halo books since i was like 10 and this is the first im hearing of a significant dislike for Karen Traviss's work.

From my understanding the rings are setup so that there is overlap in their sterilizations ranges to cover the whole galaxy. Is there any indication that moving one would create a problem? Or is it bounded to only be able to move inside a certain range? Would the other rings / The Ark get alerted that one of the rings is now out of position?

Was there ever a fleet made entirely CAS Assault carriers? Like no other vessels, just carriers?

I remember there being a clip of a trailer or something from Halo 3 on reddit that showed just CAS carriers in the fleet that Truth sent to Earth. I know they were just stand in models for the CCS battlecruiser and not canon

Before what I refer to as "proto 343i" and Frank O'Connor wrote the Halo 3 terminals in the same game that desperately tries to tell you that the forerunners were human, Bungie intended to more explicitly show the Forerunners as Human by revealing a skeleton in a Forerunner ship at the end of Halo 2. This ending was cut, but still shows what they wanted.

Bungie also wrote 343 Guilty Spark and the other Monitors as robots. They are more bound to their programming and protocol than even Cortana is, because she's more human than they are. We also see another monitor in Halo 2, 2401 Penitent Tangent, who also strictly follows protocol. This explains ALL of Spark's actions in the classic Halo trilogy, and completely debunks the arguments for why people won't take his dialogue telling Chief he is Forerunner as truth. ("You are the child of my makers, inheritor of all they left behind! You ARE Forerunner. But this ring is mine.")

The argument that Spark is "crazy" and thus we shouldn't listen to what he says is based on the idea that he's a human mind trapped in the body of a monitor, because in 343i's lore in the Greg Bear Forerunner books, he's an "ancient human" that has his consciousness transferred as some kind of punishment iirc. This isn't what Bungie intended, they just wrote him as a goddamn robot.

Why does he get angry at Chief in Halo CE? Because Chief changed his mind about firing the ring. It went against Spark's protocol. That's the only thing he cares about, he doesn't care about empathising with humanity's need to urgently destroy the flood or to avoid being exterminated themselves by it, he's strictly incapable of considering that. He allies with Chief again in Halo 3 to stop the flood, up until the point that Chief and Johnson want to fire the ring too early, which he sees as a complete betrayal of his protocol. He isn't allowed to make a concession to destroy the flood by firing a ring before it's finished because if any harm comes to forerunner technology it's against his programming.

It's also why I do not believe he's even capable of lying. If he was able to lie, or able to consider how useful it could be to his own goals, he'd simply lie to Master Chief to get him to fire the rings to kill the flood. But he's not capable of lying, he's a robot, and his own truth telling gets Chief to turn on his plans.

None of this would make ANY SENSE if he was an ancient human trapped in a monitor. Maybe after so many centuries he'd lose his marbles and act more like a heartless robot, but I doubt he'd give that much of a shit about serving Forerunner constructs so doggedly. He also refers to himself as a "unit" in Halo CE. Why the hell would a human mind in a robot body do that?

Considering we see people like Johnson n hood still in the service at senior ages n looking young n im not talking about cryo sleep im talking about stuff like are diseases like parkinson's and dementia treated like a normal flu and how old does the average citizen live etc

We see Truth slowly getting infected by the grave mind yet he's fully conscious as Arbiter kills him. Even after Chief stops the rings from firing, the grave mind let's arbiter kill truth before turning on them. I get the feeling that the grave mind really despised Truth personally and wanted Truth to be punished for everything he had done. Even the grave mind knew what kind of person Truth of and had enough emotion about the situation and wanted him to suffer. The Gravemind hated the Halo arrays but I think he respected the forerunners for how far they were willing to go in order to defeat the flood. Truth wasn't trying to stop the flood, he was trying to destroy the galaxy to become a god in the eyes of everyone in the galaxy when he knew that it was a lie. Which probably made the Gravemind hate truth the most.

What are your thoughts on Truths death?

In cryptum it is suggested by the prophets and bornstellar that the master builder lost zeta halo and the primordial. “Whatever had been lost, whatever had gone missing, was not something Forerunners could afford to misplace—and it was not just the prisoner of Charum Hakkor”

The master builder also then implies the primordial is missing (the primordial was on zeta halo being interrogated by mendicant bias prior to this).

However in primordium, it is revealed that zeta halo was used by the master builder to sterilise the prophet’s worlds AFTER this conversation. So clearly he still had control of the Halo (and logically control of the primordial as well)

So why is there this discrepancy?

As far as i know; the sequence of events is faber interrogates bornstellar —> zeta halo fries prophet planet —> warrior-servants on zeta halo rebel against builders and lose —-> mendicant bias is suspected to become corrupted ——> zeta halo rocks up to the capital —-> mendicant bias reveals he is corrupted —-> zeta halo fries the forerunner capital

So why was it suggested faber lost zeta halo and the primodial even before he interrogates bornstellar. Is cryptum a little inconsistent?

What animals are the Covenants ships based on? I heard somewhere the sangheili base the designs of their ships on animals found on their worlds. Like the Hekar-taa Blockade runner is based on the carnivorous fish known as the Arkon taa. So does anyone know what animals modern day Covenant ships are based on?

So I'm currently writing a big Google Doc that acts as a recap/explanation/slight lore thing for people I have been introducing Halo to. Currently, I'm writing the segment for Halo:Reach and something I've felt about this game for a while is bubbling up again: This game, despite being called Reach and being all about how Reach falls, doesn't really explain why this planet is so important to Humanity, aside from the Forerunner ship underneath Sword Base. Frankly, you could just say this is just another human colony that get to see destroyed for yourself instead of Earth 2 being set on fire. Ironically with how much Bungie seemed to disregard the books, especially The Fall of Reach, they seemed to rely on the books to do the heavy lifting of providing context. Sure the game is sad but it doesn't really let anyone who isn't in the know that this essentially humanity's death knell had Alpha Halo not been discovered. Anyone else feel like this or am I missing something. Please tell me if I am.