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Halo Lore thread 2.0 | The Mantle Taken Back

Kalentan

Kalentan

Member
Oct 25, 2017
44,710
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Welcome to the Halo Lore Thread 2.0! I am Kalentan and I welcome you to the new revamped lore thread. It's quite a bit different with less links. I apologize but in my defense the original thread was very cumbersome with many more images and many clickable. I hope nevertheless that you enjoy this thread!

Remember this is purely lore discussion or at least how gameplay relates to lore! Be kind to each other!

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Halo CE | Halo 2 | Halo 3 | Halo ODST | Halo: Reach | Halo 4 | Halo 5: Guardians | Halo: Infinite
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Halo Wars | Halo Wars 2
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Halo: Spartan Assault | Halo: Spartan Strike

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Halo: The Fall of Reach | Halo: The Flood | Halo: First Strike | Halo: Ghosts of Onyx | Halo: Contact Harvest | Halo: The Cole Protocol | Halo: Evolutions
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Halo: Glasslands | Halo: The Thursday War | Halo: Mortal Dicata
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Halo: Cryptum | Halo: Primordium | Halo: Silentium
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Halo: Broken Circle | Halo: New Blood | Halo: Hunters in the Dark | Halo: Saint's Testimony | Halo: Last Light | Halo: Shadow of Intent
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Halo: Fractures | Halo: Smoke and Shadows | Halo: Envoy | Halo: Reribution | Halo: Legacy of Onyx | Halo: Bad Blood
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Halo: Silent Storm | Halo: Renegades | Halo: Oblivion | Halo Battle born | Halo Battle Born: Meridian Divide | Halo: Shadows of Reach
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Halo: Mythos | Halo: Warfleet

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Halo: Uprising | Halo: Helljumper | Halo Wars: Genesis | Halo: Graphic Novel
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Halo: Initiation | Halo: Escalation | Halo: Tales from Slipspace | Halo: Rise of Atriox
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Halo: Collateral Damage | Halo: Lone Wolf

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Halo: Legends | Halo: Forward Unto Dawn | Halo: Nightfall | Halo: Hunt The Truth | Halo: The Fall of Reach
 
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SCHUEY 117

SCHUEY 117

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,075
Great OT!

Looking forward to Legacy of Onyx. Want to read Rise of Atriox,but I'm waiting for the new collection.

For books you should add Mythos and Warfleet.
 
Poodlestrike

Poodlestrike

Smooth vs. Crunchy
Administrator
Oct 25, 2017
13,497
Ahhh, now it's really home.

RIP to the tabletop games btw. And I'm still peeved that Warfleet didn't have the CSO!
 
Dancrane212

Dancrane212

Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,962
Nice thread!

I've wondered this off and on while reading the Halo novels but what does the typical person know about what that happened in the games? You read things like the Forerunners being mentioned by civilian characters as normal terms, depending where they are in the universe, but what is the public knowledge? How is the end of the war described in their future Wikipedia aside from the "Master Chief saved everyone" line that gets mentioned from time to time?
 
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OP
Kalentan

Kalentan

Member
Oct 25, 2017
44,710
Dancrane212 said:
Nice thread!

I've wondered this off and on while reading the Halo novels but what does the typical person know about what that happened in the games? You read things like the Forerunners being mentioned by civilian characters as normal terms, depending where they are in the universe, but what is the public knowledge? How is the end of the war described in their future Wikipedia aside from the "Master Chief saved everyone" line that gets mentioned from time to time?
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I think they tend to know generalities rather than specifics.

Like they probably know about things like...

The Forerunners
The Flood
The Halo Rings
The Ark

But they probably don't know some specifics like The Forerunners fought Ancient Humanity, that the Flood were the reason the Halo Rings were made, that the Halo Rings are actually giant WMDs.

They probably even know about how the Forerunner, the Didact, attacked New Phoenix, or how the Flood landed on Earth during the final days of the war.

ONI probably censors a bunch of it but even for ONI there are stuff that happened in the games that simply too many people witnessed to properly censor the information. We know at least from things like HTT that the truth about the S-II's is still underwraps after Benjamin Giraud was set up by ONI to get documents that held the truth but were unverified and had inproper dates and such and instantly discredited him.
 
Prinz Eugn

Prinz Eugn

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,393
Man, I was confused at that book list, I guess Saint's Testimony and Shadow of Intent were also released outside Fractures?
 

Deleted member 2226

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Oct 25, 2017
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Dancrane212 said:
Nice thread!

I've wondered this off and on while reading the Halo novels but what does the typical person know about what that happened in the games? You read things like the Forerunners being mentioned by civilian characters as normal terms, depending where they are in the universe, but what is the public knowledge? How is the end of the war described in their future Wikipedia aside from the "Master Chief saved everyone" line that gets mentioned from time to time?
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Generalities, probably. The existence of the Forerunners is clearly common knowledge; less clear is how much is known about the Flood. I have to imagine that ONI would like to keep things under wraps but even for them trying to censor knowledge of the Halo installations given the now-numerous number of people working and living on them seems impossible.
 
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Kalentan

Kalentan

Member
Oct 25, 2017
44,710
Plan to catch up on the books soon now than I have a job to pay for them.

Got to pick up... Smoke and Shadows, Envoy, and Retribution and then pick up Legacy when that comes out.

Though need to finish Last Light before Reribution since it's a sequel.
 

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I'm a decent chunk of the ways into Retribution. I enjoy it for the attempts at detective work (kinda breezes through, but Veta's that smart, right?) and the family-esque dynamic between Veta and the rest of the Ferrets.

So far I haven't come across anything too off-the-deep-end. Light read, which is kinda nice from time to time.
 
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Deleted member 2226

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AlStrong said:
I'm a decent chunk of the ways into Retribution. I enjoy it for the attempts at detective work (kinda breezes through, but Veta's that smart, right?) and the family-esque dynamic between Veta and the rest of the Ferrets.

So far I haven't come across anything too off-the-deep-end. Light read, which is kinda nice from time to time.
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I definitely appreciated the investigative aspects of the Ferret team books the most thus far. Sometimes it veers into CSI-level pseudoscience but I appreciate that it's a different approach to conflict resolution and plot advancement than we usually see.
 
SCHUEY 117

SCHUEY 117

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,075
AlStrong said:
I'm a decent chunk of the ways into Retribution. I enjoy it for the attempts at detective work (kinda breezes through, but Veta's that smart, right?) and the family-esque dynamic between Veta and the rest of the Ferrets.

So far I haven't come across anything too off-the-deep-end. Light read, which is kinda nice from time to time.
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Yeah, it's not bad. I'm listening to the audiobook.
 

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SlightlyLive said:
Fixed that.
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pft. :p

On a sidenote, it might be interesting to see a modern II (i.e. stringent genetic screening) based off of advances in medical tech post-Onyx (I assume there must be something more to scavenging Forerunner tech/science besides designing and constructing Biggus-Dickus capital ships and power armour ;)).

I did not get the impression that the advances in the augmentation for the IVs were Forerunner-related per se.

Then again, power creep & DBZ shenanigans.
 
Dancrane212

Dancrane212

Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,962
Kalentan said:
I think they tend to know generalities rather than specifics.

Like they probably know about things like...

The Forerunners
The Flood
The Halo Rings
The Ark

But they probably don't know some specifics like The Forerunners fought Ancient Humanity, that the Flood were the reason the Halo Rings were made, that the Halo Rings are actually giant WMDs.

They probably even know about how the Forerunner, the Didact, attacked New Phoenix, or how the Flood landed on Earth during the final days of the war.

ONI probably censors a bunch of it but even for ONI there are stuff that happened in the games that simply too many people witnessed to properly censor the information. We know at least from things like HTT that the truth about the S-II's is still underwraps after Benjamin Giraud was set up by ONI to get documents that held the truth but were unverified and had inproper dates and such and instantly discredited him.
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fuchsdh said:
Generalities, probably. The existence of the Forerunners is clearly common knowledge; less clear is how much is known about the Flood. I have to imagine that ONI would like to keep things under wraps but even for them trying to censor knowledge of the Halo installations given the now-numerous number of people working and living on them seems impossible.
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You have to figure there is a more specific "story" about how the war ended though. There has to be something more specific than "MC saved everyone; the war we were just about to lose did a 180 and now we've come out on top of all the other species". Shame that's something that hasn't, to my knowledge, come up in the books yet.
 
nillapuddin

nillapuddin

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Oct 25, 2017
3,240
I made this for a friend of mine to catch up, am I right?

(Im also missing anything from this year though : / )
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nillapuddin

nillapuddin

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Oct 25, 2017
3,240
Good stuff, I will try and update it with the new stuff then, it seems they also splinter off of Fractures
 

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Finished Retribution. Has a couple neat connections to some things that show up in Halo 5. Curious to see where it leads given Intrepid Eye's interest in Veta.

Craddog's characterization was weak as a point of contrast to Veta. Clearly he's unsuitable for Intrepid Eye's purposes (his psych profile at the end of the novel might have been relevant to Veta's own past at some point in the story plan, but neither cross paths), but then he wasn't really explained much, and he's given a rather throwaway death (hilarious as it seemed - Veta is awesome xD).

There's a brief glimpse into Veta's troubled past again (I vaguely recall it being touched upon in Last Light). I can't help but feel that a chapter expanding on it might be worthwhile, but then it needs to be relevant to the rest of the story, I guess... e.g. Veta overcame her hagridden, troubled past, but how is that relevant to her being exceptional to the Forerunner AI/Mantle? Guess that depends on what the plan is for this story arc. *shrug*

A lot just happens towards the end so quickly once the Ferrets are rescued. Some of the deaths are just comical in that Halo-game way. Fun but somewhat of an odd change in tone given what happened to the Tuwas earlier.

Liked that last scene before the epilogue report. :P I'd be somewhat curious to see Fred's personal take on that situation, or even what Linda & Kelly think. Wouldn't mind something a bit more mature in the thought processes going on there.

Intrepid's drive for the vaccination had me thinking there's some relation to the Flood even if it wasn't mentioned at all? I've already forgotten the detail. >_> Should have bookmark/highlighted that part. Whoops.

Fun read, but at the same time, I'm left wanting something more mature/in-depth with respect to the character motivations versus having them simply gallivanting across the stars. I'm getting old. xD
 

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I don't think Intrepid's quest for the vaccine related to the Flood, it's just that she wasn't crazy enough to unleash a massive plague on the galaxy without insurance policies—and as the book made abundantly clear, she has lots of contingency plans.


Which of course ties into Halo 5—presumably by the time Blue Team arrives, Intrepid Eye or what's left of her has long fled the station. I feel like given her relatively formidable construction and her interpretation of the Mantle she would by necessity come into conflict with Cortana's plans; on the other hand, maybe Intrepid would see humanity's struggle against their AIs as a "worthy" challenge for them to be tested.
 
Karateka

Karateka

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Oct 28, 2017
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they are releasing way too many books, almost impossible to keep up with it all and most of them aren't worth my money nowadays.

I've yet to read fractures and they have already released 5 books after it and 2 graphic novels? Are they serious? Who is buying all these books? I used to consider myself a hardcore lore fan but wow
 

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fuchsdh said:
I don't think Intrepid's quest for the vaccine related to the Flood, it's just that she wasn't crazy enough to unleash a massive plague on the galaxy without insurance policies—and as the book made abundantly clear, she has lots of contingency plans.
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mm... I thought maybe it was like baby steps, but I was jumping to conclusions because the inoculation stuff reminded me of Halo 4's "magic evolution" of Chief, but that's just me making wild connections. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ haha

Which of course ties into Halo 5—presumably by the time Blue Team arrives, Intrepid Eye or what's left of her has long fled the station. I feel like given her relatively formidable construction and her interpretation of the Mantle she would by necessity come into conflict with Cortana's plans; on the other hand, maybe Intrepid would see humanity's struggle against their AIs as a "worthy" challenge for them to be tested.
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[/quote]

Indeed. Thought maybe I.E. (aha, just got the Internet Explorer) would be like Exuberant Witness, helping out, but it's certainly rather pragmatic in her decisions.
 
Dancrane212

Dancrane212

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Oct 25, 2017
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Just a couple chapters into Legacy of Onyx but digging the "true civilian" perspective. Finally getting to get a glimpse at what the public was told about the events of the trilogy is something I've been hoping to see.
 
Ade

Ade

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Oct 26, 2017
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So interestingly the latest loot crate intel reveals that ONI have a San'Shyuum who survived High Charity in custody and he encountered Cortana and believes her to be infected from that point on with the Logic Plague....
 

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Ade said:
So interestingly the latest loot crate intel reveals that ONI have a San'Shyuum who survived High Charity in custody and he encountered Cortana and believes her to be infected from that point on with the Logic Plague....
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It certainly could be evidence of that. I guess the question is whether 343 backpedaled on their initial ideas for Cortana due to the backlash or not.

---

Crossposting from the Halo OT, but for those interested, there's a new episode of the Forward Unto Dawn podcast out covering Legacy of Onyx.

http://www.forwarduntodawn.com/fudcast24/
 
SCHUEY 117

SCHUEY 117

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Finished up Legacy of Onyx and the last two FUD casts. I'm overall positive about Legacy of Onyx and I agree with most of the criticisms you guys had regarding the novel. Some lore mistakes I would have never have noticed. Regarding the podcast is there any point of having Dani on, sounds like he needs a long Halo sabbatical?
 
SlightlyLive

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SCHUEY 117 said:
Finished up Legacy of Onyx and the last two FUD casts. I'm overall positive about Legacy of Onyx and I agree with most of the criticisms you guys had regarding the novel. Some lore mistakes I would have never have noticed. Regarding the podcast is there any point of having Dani on, sounds like he needs a long Halo sabbatical?
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I kinda edited myself out of one of our last podcasts, but heartily stepped up for our end of year cast, and even stepped up the sound quality on my end. :)
 

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Wonder if they'll explain the reclaimer symbol being on the POA as being "all according to librarian-keikaku". :P
Although I was thinking maybe the group of A.I. mentioned in the Reach datalogs had something to do with it (not mutually exclusive to "it was all pre-destined stuff")

Random thinking
 

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RE: Halo: Bad Blood
Just hours following their climactic battle on the Forerunner planet Genesis, the Spartans of Blue Team and Fireteam Osiris find themselves running for their lives from the malevolent machinations of the now-renegade artificial intelligence Cortana. But even as they attempt to stay one step ahead, trouble seems to find Spartan Edward Buck no matter where he turns.

A secret mission enacted by the Office of Naval Intelligence could possibly help turn the tide, and has Buck reluctantly agreeing to reform his old team, Alpha-Nine. Because if the band is really getting back together for this one, that means everybody—including the Spartan who Buck never wants to see again, the one who committed the ultimate betrayal of trust….
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hm.....

(now I'm expecting a third book called Cold Blood. The Bloody Buck saga? :p)
 

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Poodlestrike said:
Aghhhh stop following up the games' stories in the books!
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To me this sounds like a First Strike-like book. It makes a lot of narrative sense to jump a bit in the games to cement the new status quo, I don't begrudge us getting a book to tide us over.

There's far more people I reckon who are peeved about the fiction having to stand still for the games than people who are annoyed "stuff happens" in the books.
 
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