Poll: The Halo Story

[Spencer Petersen]

If a game is trying to tell a story then it should tell it IN THE GAME. Telling people to buy books and other stuff just to know whats going on is shameful and unacceptable. I'm not saying you need a codex system or buckets of dialogue but it should at least try to convey what the broader impact of the events going on in the game. It also doesn't help that the games have a nasty habit of awkwardly and suddenly switching back and forth between themes including hardcore war action (parts with marines), comedy (chasing down grunts and pistol-whipping them) and horror (Flood sections).

 

[AwesomeExpress]

I think it's interesting enough on its own, but despite the books, anime, etc., it really needs more backstory. Then again, I'm really picky about stuff like that, so maybe that's just me.
Nyoro~n
:3

Yeah, but that's why the books are there..

 

[Velvo]

4) Humans being descended from the Forerunners is just about the most cliche, silly, and outright ridiculous plot decisions it's possible to make. The odds of such a thing happening are almost infinitely many to one. Especially since in the story, they activated the Halos. That should have eliminated all of them, and even if it didn't, there's no way to keep a viable population sample stable long enough for the food supply to re-stabilize. It's not as bad as the other three, if only because it's actually possible (if not necessarily plausible), but it requires a rather massive amount of suspension of disbelief.

There's a few more, but I don't care enough to dredge through my memory and remember them.

Sure, the story falls into a lot of Sci-fi cliches, but the fact that it's told in such an interesting way (at least in the first game) is what makes it special. All sci-fi has kinda been done to death. I mean, Mass Effect has been done in sci-fi novels since the 70s. It's the immersive and unique method of story telling that changes things. Or the interesting specifics or combinations (like the religious amalgam of species thing).

But I don't think that they ever said that humans are descended from Forerunners. What I think they were insinuating is that the Forerunners, knowing full well that they were all going to die, uplifted the human race from our apelike ancestors so that they would reach sentience soon but not be destroyed by the Halo rings. On Earth particularly because that happened to be where the gateway to the Ark was situated. So humans are in a way "related" but not genetically. More like the Forerunners are the fathers of human sentience.

Hell, perhaps they made ALL the galactic species to watch over their tech, but the species of the Covenant got all obsessed.

 

[Eipok Kruden]

Not to mention there's a few bits of it that simply don't make any sense. For example:
1) Why would the Forerunners keep the Flood alive on the Halos? They know it's a direct threat to every major living organism in the galaxy, why in all seven hells would they not eliminate it entirely?

The Forerunners didn't know where the Flood had come from. They tried to track down their origins, but couldn't find any kind of natural record on the planet they first encountered them on. Through more research, they realized that the Flood was actually of extragalactic origin and that purging the Milky Way galaxy of the Flood wasn't a lasting option. The Flood might eventually come back and try to assimilate the Milky Way again. They kept Flood in stasis and placed artificial intelligences to monitor and research them in an effort to understand them and perhaps eventually find a more efficient way of combating them.

2) Covenant structure, especially the brute -> elite transfer of responsibility in Halo 2. There's no reason for it, and even if there was, the Sanghelli wouldn't relinquish their position without a fight.

The High Prophet of Truth realized that the Sangheili were an intelligent and curious species and that they would inevitably find the flaws in the Covenant's structure and their religion. He feared that the Covenant would unravel and that he would lose his seat of power if that happened, if the Sangheili rebelled against the Prophets. To protect the Covenant (and himself), he made plans to cast the Sangheili out of the Covenant and replace them with the more obedient Jiralhanae, who had embraced Covenant ideology and theology and were fiercely loyal to the Prophets. This stems from their original assimilation into the Covenant. The Sangheili wanted to just exterminate the Jiralhanae, thinking that they weren't worth the trouble, that they were too brutish and barbaric to be of use. The Prophets, on the other hand, felt that they could be very useful as devoted laborers, given their psychology and anatomy. Also, as far as strength and resilience go, the Jiralhanae are actually superior to the Sangheili.

And the Sangheili DID fight for it. High Charity, and every ship and colony where the Jiralhanae tried to assert their dominance, broke out into fierce fighting. The Sangheili didn't just up and leave, the entire Covenant fell apart from infighting. Truth probably would have gotten away with it, too, and succeeded in creating a new Jiralhanae-based Covenant under his rule, if the Flood hadn't taken over High Charity (which the Covenant couldn't have stopped, by the way. The Flood actually performed an incredibly precise slipspace jump and ended up inside High Charity. There's no way to stop that.). Hell, he actually succeeded in getting away with a huge number of Jiralhanae-run ships even without High Charity. Probably would have beaten the Sangheili in the end, since they were basically confused and leaderless after losing the leadership of the Prophets, if he hadn't tried to activate the Ark and died at the hands of the Chief, Arbiter, and the Flood.

3) The elites would never side with the humans. It's been beaten into them over and over again for decades that humanity is Evil. No matter how mad they are about the Brutes usurping their position, they'd never ally themselves with those they perceive to be basically Satan.

They didn't actually ally with the humans, they just stopped shooting at them long enough to bring down Truth. They probably could have quarantined and eliminated the Flood on Earth without glassing the entire African continent, too, but they didn't care about all the human lives that would be lost. I didn't see any Sangheili fighting alongside Humans in Halo 3, either. At least, none other than the Arbiter, but he's a pretty special case. If it were up to 'Rtas, the Sangheili probably would have just killed all of the humans. Don't think just because the Sangheili were cast out of the Covenant and realized their religion was wrong, they instantly became best friends with the Humans.

4) Humans being descended from the Forerunners is just about the most cliche, silly, and outright ridiculous plot decisions it's possible to make. The odds of such a thing happening are almost infinitely many to one. Especially since in the story, they activated the Halos. That should have eliminated all of them, and even if it didn't, there's no way to keep a viable population sample stable long enough for the food supply to re-stabilize. It's not as bad as the other three, if only because it's actually possible (if not necessarily plausible), but it requires a rather massive amount of suspension of disbelief.

Humans aren't actually descendants of the Forerunners. It's not like some Forerunners stayed on Earth and fell in love with a bunch of humans and made little Human-Forerunner babies. No. The Forerunners picked humanity as a worthy successor, should the Forerunners be wiped out by the Flood and the galaxy have to be repopulated. They embedded markers into human DNA and left facilities and information on Earth to guide humanity once they reached a certain stage and uncovered it all. It was all part of their plan. The descendant bit, I mean. Not the Covenant and their religious fanaticism. That was definitely not part of their plan, hehe.

There's a few more, but I don't care enough to dredge through my memory and remember them.

No, please do dredge through your memory and remember them.

 

[Skoldpadda]

Well, the singleplayer story isn't brilliant, but it's interesting enough to keep you playing. Fanboys tend to overrate it in spectacular amounts though.

However, I only count the games. If it's not explained in-game, to me, it isn't part of the story. I don't read videogame books and I never will.
1) They create too much confusion over what's canon and what isn't. 2) They're crap.

 

[Infinatex]

Never played them. I getting Reach tonight though and then I'll play the other three after that and see what it's like.

 

[Velvo]

If a game is trying to tell a story then it should tell it IN THE GAME. Telling people to buy books and other stuff just to know whats going on is shameful and unacceptable. I'm not saying you need a codex system or buckets of dialogue but it should at least try to convey what the broader impact of the events going on in the game. It also doesn't help that the games have a nasty habit of awkwardly and suddenly switching back and forth between themes including hardcore war action (parts with marines), comedy (chasing down grunts and pistol-whipping them) and horror (Flood sections).

I think that the brief insinuations and little hints you get in the game are AMAZING! They make you think, and wonder. I remember in the first Halo just looking at all the architecture and being in awe of how no one cared about the history of the place except Cortana and then only briefly. Of course, I love Archeology, and alien archeology just gives me shivers.

I think that a game that can switch genres is an amazing game, especially how Halo does it so fluidly. The fact that you usually feel so in control is what makes the harder, scarier parts of the game such good horror.

Of course, I like complexity in my games, and I love a story that forces you to think and make things up yourself (the books DID seem like a cop-out, though a welcome one). Halo does most of this pretty well. The first Halo was the best at it though, methinks. Halo 3 was good only in that it followed the pattern of the first.

 

[TheTaco007]

People dismiss it as shit because the game mainly focuses on multiplayer. They don't realize that having a fantastic multiplayer doesn't mean the story has to be shit.

 

[Dr. Gorgenflex]

There should be middle ground between incredibly deep and not that fleshed out. It certinly has depth and continuity and a fairly good story telling universe, but then again it is not incredibly depth. Interesting, but it is no 1984.

 

[Echo136]

The whole game is pretty shallow. None of the characters have much depth at all besides the Arbiter, which is a shame that this series is so popular. I give credit that the first two were enjoyable but theres so many other games with deeper plots that deserve the praise Halo gets.

 

[Tdc2182]

it needs more back story and to not have a faceless space marine as the main charictor

Im gonna be honest; This statement bugs the shit out of me. Mainly because it is some stupid thing Yahtzee or Moviebob said that people picked up on, mostly because it isnt true.

I personally find the Halo series a little "meh", but in video game terms, Master Chief is one of the most fleshed out characters. Look at the most popular character out there; Gordon Freeman. He doesnt talk, he never gives any personal insight to the present problem, and he never shows any emotion. Yet no one ever complains about him being shallow.

Master Chief: He is the last of his kind Super Soldier that has no idea where he comes from, but is one of the lasts hopes to save the world. Basically, he is the only character that could possibly play the role. You can't have a random guy who is feeling the weight of the world coming down upon him. He was built to be the bad ass who could realistcally do the job. He is chemically engineered to do what no one else can.

And what more backstory could you possibly need? Alien Zealots are trying to destroy the world and you need to stop it. What else is there?

 

[RandomWords]

it needs more back story and to not have a faceless space marine as the main character

The only reason they didn't give him a face is so YOU could be masterchief, not playing some random buffed out, generic hero.

OT: As for the story it was good (especially when you get all of the info), but not very well told.

 

[Agayek]

Sure, the story falls into a lot of Sci-fi cliches, but the fact that it's told in such an interesting way (at least in the first game) is what makes it special. All sci-fi has kinda been done to death. I mean, Mass Effect has been done in sci-fi novels since the 70s. It's the immersive and unique method of story telling that changes things. Or the interesting specifics or combinations (like the religious amalgam of species thing).

But I don't think that they ever said that humans are descended from Forerunners. What I think they were insinuating is that the Forerunners, knowing full well that they were all going to die, uplifted the human race from our apelike ancestors so that they would reach sentience soon but not be destroyed by the Halo rings. On Earth particularly because that happened to be where the gateway to the Ark was situated. So humans are in a way "related" but not genetically. More like the Forerunners are the fathers of human sentience.

Hell, perhaps they made ALL the galactic species to watch over their tech, but the species of the Covenant got all obsessed.

According to 343 Guilty Spark in the first game, the activation of the Halos destroys all organic life large enough to support a Flood infestation. As that pertains to just about everything larger than a breadbox, there were no real human ancestors at that point. Just a bunch of different species of rat.

The Forerunners didn't know where the Flood had come from. They tried to track down their origins, but couldn't find any kind of natural record on the planet they first encountered them on. Through more research, they realized that the Flood was actually of extragalactic origin and that purging the Milky Way galaxy of the Flood wasn't a lasting option. The Flood might eventually come back and try to assimilate the Milky Way again. They kept Flood in stasis and placed artificial intelligences to monitor and research them in an effort to understand them and perhaps eventually find a more efficient way of combating them.

If the threat posed is sufficient that you need wipe out all life in the galaxy bigger than a few crumbs, you do not keep any alive that you can find. You eliminate every specimen you can find and pray they never come back.

Also, none of that was actually discussed in any of the games, thus it's fairly irrelevant when discussing the story of said games.

The High Prophet of Truth realized that the Sangheili were an intelligent and curious species and that they would inevitably find the flaws in the Covenant's structure and their religion. He feared that the Covenant would unravel and that he would lose his seat of power if that happened, if the Sangheili rebelled against the Prophets. To protect the Covenant (and himself), he made plans to cast the Sangheili out of the Covenant and replace them with the more obedient Jiralhanae, who had embraced Covenant ideology and theology and were fiercely loyal to the Prophets. This stems from their original assimilation into the Covenant. The Sangheili wanted to just exterminate the Jiralhanae, thinking that they weren't worth the trouble, that they were too brutish and barbaric to be of use. The Prophets, on the other hand, felt that they could be very useful as devoted laborers, given their psychology and anatomy. Also, as far as strength and resilience go, the Jiralhanae are actually superior to the Sangheili.

And the Sangheili DID fight for it. High Charity, and every ship and colony where the Jiralhanae tried to assert their dominance, broke out into fierce fighting. The Sangheili didn't just up and leave, the entire Covenant fell apart from infighting. Truth probably would have gotten away with it, too, and succeeded in creating a new Jiralhanae-based Covenant under his rule, if the Flood hadn't taken over High Charity (which the Covenant couldn't have stopped, by the way. The Flood actually performed an incredibly precise slipspace jump and ended up inside High Charity. There's no way to stop that.). Hell, he actually succeeded in getting away with a huge number of Jiralhanae-run ships even without High Charity. Probably would have beaten the Sangheili in the end, since they were basically confused and leaderless after losing the leadership of the Prophets, if he hadn't tried to activate the Ark and died at the hands of the Chief, Arbiter, and the Flood.

So he initiated a coup against the most militarily powerful (and, debatably second, most fanatically loyal) segment of the Covenant, in the middle of a Crusade. Thus starting a civil war that at absolute best would severely hamper the Covenant's military might just when the humans started winning.

That's either incredible stupidity or very shoddy writing. And considering he was supposedly the great mastermind behind the whole Covenant thing in the first place, he must be fairly smart. Thus it is safe to conclude that the writers just wanted to cram it in there regardless of established canon.

They didn't actually ally with the humans, they just stopped shooting at them long enough to bring down Truth. They probably could have quarantined and eliminated the Flood on Earth without glassing the entire African continent, too, but they didn't care about all the human lives that would be lost. I didn't see any Sangheili fighting alongside Humans in Halo 3, either. At least, none other than the Arbiter, but he's a pretty special case. If it were up to 'Rtas, the Sangheili probably would have just killed all of the humans. Don't think just because the Sangheili were cast out of the Covenant and realized their religion was wrong, they instantly became best friends with the Humans.

If that is true, why did they not immediately start attack the humans when the Covenant was finally dismantled? Humanity was defiling their most holy relics just by existing. At least some of the Sanghelli forces would have turned on the humans as soon as the danger was past.

Humans aren't actually descendants of the Forerunners. It's not like some Forerunners stayed on Earth and fell in love with a bunch of humans and made little Human-Forerunner babies. No. The Forerunners picked humanity as a worthy successor, should the Forerunners be wiped out by the Flood and the galaxy have to be repopulated. They embedded markers into human DNA and left facilities and information on Earth to guide humanity once they reached a certain stage and uncovered it all. It was all part of their plan. The descendant bit, I mean. Not the Covenant and their religious fanaticism. That was definitely not part of their plan, hehe.

They couldn't have embedded markers in any DNA, unless it was to be shared by nigh every species on the planet. The activation of the Halos destroys all organic matter large enough to support the Flood (which is basically everything larger than a few cells). There's no way they could embed markers in anything and then have them still intact millenia later. The only way it could have possibly worked is if the Forerunners somehow simply manufactured some advance life and thrown that on Earth, and there's no mention of that anywhere.

No, please do dredge through your memory and remember them.

Like I said, I don't actually care enough to put any effort into this. You are already decided, regardless of anything I say.

Edit: And I shall also say this again since it seems you didn't get it last time: I enjoy the Halo games (except ODST, which I haven't played). I play through all 3 campaigns regularly, and it's a lot of fun. The story is told quite well and it does a good job of keeping the gameplay flowing. All I am trying to say is that the story has faults, some rather significant and/or glaring. That's not a terrible thing, considering what the games get right, but it's not a good thing.

 

[Velvo]

According to 343 Guilty Spark in the first game, the activation of the Halos destroys all organic life large enough to support a Flood infestation. As that pertains to just about everything larger than a breadbox, there were no real human ancestors at that point. Just a bunch of different species of rat.

The Grunts never got infected, and they're almost the size of humans. They don't have enough calcium (I assume they are referring to bone mass?) and nor do Jackals.

 

[Eipok Kruden]

According to 343 Guilty Spark in the first game, the activation of the Halos destroys all organic life large enough to support a Flood infestation. As that pertains to just about everything larger than a breadbox, there were no real human ancestors at that point. Just a bunch of different species of rat.

*slams head against desk* The entire purpose of the Ark was to keep all of the protected species out of range of the Halos so that the galaxy could be reseeded after they are fired. The Forerunners spent decades cataloging and capturing every species on a few dozen planets. Meaning every species on every planet they deemed worthy was studied, cataloged, and stowed away on the Ark. Then, once the Halos fired and wiped the entire galaxy of anything more advanced than single-cell organisms, the automated systems on the Ark started reactivating the slipspace portals and reseeding all of the selected planets with the specimens that were in stasis. Humans had already evolved by the time the Flood-Forerunner war started. After all, it was only 100,000 years ago, and humans have been around in some form or another for over four million years. We didn't have time to re-evolve. Earth was reseeded. It talks about the Librarian cataloging all the species in Halo 3 and then shows the actual reseeding itself in Halo: Legends.

If the threat posed is sufficient that you need wipe out all life in the galaxy bigger than a few crumbs, you do not keep any alive that you can find. You eliminate every specimen you can find and pray they never come back.

Also, none of that was actually discussed in any of the games, thus it's fairly irrelevant when discussing the story of said games.

Hoping just isn't good enough. What happens if the Flood comes back again? Hope the species you protected from the Halos are advanced enough to combat them successfully? Not good enough. There's a big chance that they will get assimilated anyway and everything you've done, the entire hundred year war, was for nothing.

Also, it was discussed in the games. Did you read the terminals? The terminals in Halo 3 are messages from The Librarian, the Forerunner in charge of cataloging and protecting the species, and her partner. They also have sorts of journal entries from Mendicant Bias, the Forerunner AI that went rampant and defected to the Flood and prevented the Forerunners from making it to their shield worlds and surviving the Halo activation.

So he initiated a coup against the most militarily powerful (and, debatably second, most fanatically loyal) segment of the Covenant, in the middle of a Crusade. Thus starting a civil war that at absolute best would severely hamper the Covenant's military might just when the humans started winning.

That's either incredible stupidity or very shoddy writing. And considering he was supposedly the great mastermind behind the whole Covenant thing in the first place, he must be fairly smart. Thus it is safe to conclude that the writers just wanted to cram it in there regardless of established canon.

The humans winning? Are you fucking crazy? Nearly every human colony had fallen, even Reach. Earth's location was known, its defenses already in pieces. I don't know where you're getting the idea that humanity was winning. They were close to being completely exterminated. If it wasn't for the Flood, Truth's plan would have worked. Humanity would have been wiped out and the Sangheili would be in ruin.

If that is true, why did they not immediately start attack the humans when the Covenant was finally dismantled? Humanity was defiling their most holy relics just by existing. At least some of the Sanghelli forces would have turned on the humans as soon as the danger was past.

How do you know the Sangheili didn't start attacking the humans? When Halo 3 ended, 'Rtas and the Arbiter were leaving Earth to go back to Sanghelios, to make sure it was still under Sangheili control and to rebuild the Sangheili. The only other piece of fiction regarding the Sangheili after the war is that story from Evolutions, but it never says anywhere in there that the Sangheili allied with the humans either. It says that the Sangheili still harbor serious hatred for the humans, but are mostly ignoring them and going after the remnants of the Covenant because starting another war with the humans wouldn't do any good. Plus, they've realized that the only reason they were fighting the humans to begin with was because the hierarchs were afraid the Covenant would fall apart and they'd lose their power if it came to be known that the humans were the chosen successors of the Forerunners, and not them. Most of the Sangheili are probably torn between hatred, guilt, and fear.

They couldn't have embedded markers in any DNA, unless it was to be shared by nigh every species on the planet. The activation of the Halos destroys all organic matter large enough to support the Flood (which is basically everything larger than a few cells). There's no way they could embed markers in anything and then have them still intact millenia later. The only way it could have possibly worked is if the Forerunners somehow simply manufactured some advance life and thrown that on Earth, and there's no mention of that anywhere.

I explained earlier that humans didn't re-evolve. They couldn't have in 100,000 years. The automated systems on the Ark reseeded Earth and the other protected planets using all of the specimens that had been put in stasis.

Like I said, I don't actually care enough to put any effort into this. You are already decided, regardless of anything I say.

Of course I'm decided. Why wouldn't I be? I just explained all of your new complaints, too. You still haven't brought up an actual unexplainable plothole. Everything you've said is just stuff born from your ignorance (not saying that as an insult, though. You really are just ignorant about the Halo lore.).

Edit: And I shall also say this again since it seems you didn't get it last time: I enjoy the Halo games (except ODST, which I haven't played). I play through all 3 campaigns regularly, and it's a lot of fun. The story is told quite well and it does a good job of keeping the gameplay flowing. All I am trying to say is that the story has faults, some rather significant and/or glaring. That's not a terrible thing, considering what the games get right, but it's not a good thing.

I understand that you enjoy the Halo games' gameplay. I also understand that you think that the story has a lot of glaring faults. The issue I have is that you haven't actually been able to list any of the socalled significant and glaring faults. All of the faults you've brought up can actually be completely explained without ever leaving the Halo games. All the information required is either implied, downright stated, or hidden (in the case of the terminals in Halo 3, which you apparently never read).

According to 343 Guilty Spark in the first game, the activation of the Halos destroys all organic life large enough to support a Flood infestation. As that pertains to just about everything larger than a breadbox, there were no real human ancestors at that point. Just a bunch of different species of rat.

The Grunts never got infected, and they're almost the size of humans. They don't have enough calcium (I assume they are referring to bone mass?) and nor do Jackals.

Indeed. Unggoy are mostly muscle. There's not much actual calcium in their bodies. I guess Kig-Yar just have less dense bones. That's why neither of them are straight-up infected by the Flood, like the Humans, Jiralhanae, and Sangheili are. I'd imagine the Unggoy, Kig-Yar, San'Shyuum, Yanme'e, and everything else with too little calcium are just lumped together and assimilated into larger entities like Brain Forms and Pure Forms. They're probably used to coat the insides of the ships and buildings, too. All that Flood biomass probably comes from all the species unsuitable for Infection Forms.

 

[Agayek]

Hoping just isn't good enough. What happens if the Flood comes back again? Hope the species you protected from the Halos are advanced enough to combat them successfully? Not good enough. There's a big chance that they will get assimilated anyway and everything you've done, the entire hundred year war, was for nothing.

Also, it was discussed in the games. Did you read the terminals? The terminals in Halo 3 are messages from The Librarian, the Forerunner in charge of cataloging and protecting the species, and her partner. They also have sorts of journal entries from Mendicant Bias, the Forerunner AI that went rampant and defected to the Flood and prevented the Forerunners from making it to their shield worlds and surviving the Halo activation.

You're right there. I was not even aware the terminals existed. I was never interested enough in the story to look for them. I'll take your word on that because I really can't be bothered to look it all up.

The humans winning? Are you fucking crazy? Nearly every human colony had fallen, even Reach. Earth's location was known, its defenses already in pieces. I don't know where you're getting the idea that humanity was winning. They were close to being completely exterminated. If it wasn't for the Flood, Truth's plan would have worked. Humanity would have been wiped out and the Sangheili would be in ruin.

True, humanity was pushed to the brink, but lets take a moment and imagine what would have happened had the Flood never made their reappearance on High Charity. Master Chief was already there, and he was well on his way to getting to Truth. If the Flood had never reappeared, he would have marched right in and falcon-punched Truth into a fine paste, and it's highly unlikely the Covenant would have survived the loss of their leaders combined with the civil war against the Sanghelli.

Plus, the momentum of the war was actually swinging away from the Covenant, if not towards the humans. Truth started a war with the Sanghelli before the war with the humans could in any way, shape or form be interpreted as over. They still posed a fairly significant threat, and he destroyed the Covenant war machine.

How do you know the Sangheili didn't start attacking the humans? When Halo 3 ended, 'Rtas and the Arbiter were leaving Earth to go back to Sanghelios, to make sure it was still under Sangheili control and to rebuild the Sangheili. The only other piece of fiction regarding the Sangheili after the war is that story from Evolutions, but it never says anywhere in there that the Sangheili allied with the humans either. It says that the Sangheili still harbor serious hatred for the humans, but are mostly ignoring them and going after the remnants of the Covenant because starting another war with the humans wouldn't do any good. Plus, they've realized that the only reason they were fighting the humans to begin with was because the hierarchs were afraid the Covenant would fall apart and they'd lose their power if it came to be known that the humans were the chosen successors of the Forerunners, and not them. Most of the Sangheili are probably torn between hatred, guilt, and fear.

As far as I know, there was no indication whatsoever of hostilities between the Sanghelli and the humans. Could it have happened? Certainly, but all indications pointed towards a strained tolerance at worst.

As for your last point, have you ever tried to explain to a religious fanatic that their religion is wrong? Try it sometime if you haven't and my point will make perfect sense. If you challenge a fanatics beliefs, especially with proof, the vast majority of the time they react violently. There is no chance the entire race would go "Oh hey, our bad!" and settle for peace with the species their religion condemns as evil.

 

[Sacman]

Mediocre at best...

 

[Eipok Kruden]

As for your last point, have you ever tried to explain to a religious fanatic that their religion is wrong? Try it sometime if you haven't and my point will make perfect sense. If you challenge a fanatics beliefs, especially with proof, the vast majority of the time they react violently. There is no chance the entire race would go "Oh hey, our bad!" and settle for peace with the species their religion condemns as evil.

Yes, actually, I have. I've spent hundreds of hours debating and debunking various religios idiots (mostly young-earth creationists, but I've done my fair share of catholics, jews, and muslims). The difference between them and the Sangheili, though, is the Sangheili had their religious leaders say "Fuck you. Your entire species is just a bunch of filthy heretics, worthy of neither mercy nor pity. Either kill yourselves or we'll do it for you.". I imagine that if your religious leaders, whom you look up to as the emissaries of your gods, beings as divine as any mortal can be, suddenly said that you were all heretics and should be killed, that you'd start to lose a bit of faith in your beliefs too. Their entire species is heretical, unclean filth in the eyes of their Prophets, their religious leaders. The creations of their gods, the oracles (the Forerunner monitors Mendicant Bias and Guilty Spark) themselves have denounced their entire belief system to be faulty, lies based on mistranslations.

 

[Thaius]

In the games themselves, the story holds the appeal of a good sci fi action movie. It's deep but not immensely deep and it's easy enough to follow to accompany the gameplay. Really, that's usually the most one can hope for from a linear shooter.

Part of what makes it great, for me at least, is the presentation. The cinematics always looked like shots from an actual movie and the music was damned near perfect on every note, giving the franchise a good solid atmosphere.

However it still has some great plot ideas thrown in and I still rate it as at least being 'above the status quo' when it comes to Science Fiction shooter plots simply because it isn't just a standard 'kill everything' plot. The basis for this is of course when you take control of the Arbiter and now find yourself fighting alongside the Covenant and essentially seeing both sides of the conflict.

I say it's a good story, there are interesting characters, aliens and some well thought out plot devices. It takes some notes from other works of science fiction no doubt, but it still ultimately has a feel that's entirely its own.

As sci-fi stories go it's closer to Star Wars than say Splice in that it might not be about the actual science or about mind bending but it does deliver a good time and work on huge epic scale conflicts.

Plus, as others have commented before, the books and expanded media have taken the franchise a long way and have fleshed out one of the deeper science fiction universes in gaming, in my opinion anyway.

As expected, your opinion on Halo is spot-on. Good show.

In other words: what he said. I've not really seen any good reason to hate Halo's story, but then the vast majority of Halo-haters I've seen seem to hate it for no other reason than some idiotic attempt to look cool by hating what's popular.

 

[Lukeydoodly]

It's all right I guess, could be far worse.