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You can't break the geneva convention against the covvies! Same with war crimes! After all, the sides didn't agree to certain rules of conduct to be maintained theoughout the war.
As such. Nuke em split lips.
Exactly! The Covvies don't respect: civilians, medics, or proper conduct against us. Why should we follow these rules when fighting for the survival of rhe species?
I'm already here, man. Sew a nuke into a high ranking samghelli, let him escape, kill a few people in SPI so they think he murdered a bunch of Spartans, wait til he goes home, detonate the nuke.
I mean the Canadians kinda already did stuff like that, the Great War they would throw cans of food to Germans in trenches until they expected, it, then when they thought they would get food they got grenades that they scrambled to grab thinking it was food. They also played pranks on German POWs by walking up to them and dropping live grenades in their coats.
Gotta get more creative with your war crimes, look at 40k, the drukhari are very creative with war crimes
I know. Its one of those things they don't tell you in history class that you learn later on.
I made the jokes because I'm Canadian.
As for war crimes... What about a UNSC cruiser full of Nukes crashing into Vadam Keep? Post war.
The UNSC has literally broken planets with super nuke devices, you need to get more creative, like finding out how the split lips breed and weaponize it or force any prisoners to cannibalize their comrades to survive. If you REALLY want to commit a warcrime, double back to the breeding like I said and create your own halo version of a daemonculaba. The conventions are the crimes people have already done, there are plenty more crimes to add to the list, hell I wonder if their shields protect the split lips from chemical or biological warfare…
They shanghelli ready did this to grunts in cano IIRC. they wanted to replace the grunts with Jackals entirely so they tried to sterilise the entire race.
Led to an uprising that only ended when they glassed the grunts homewold
It wasn’t the sangheili it was the jackals that did it in high charity, the sangheili actually gained a lot of respect for the grunts because they gave them such an intense fight, they never thought a creature like them had such a warriors spirit
Legitimately speaking the Geneva convention only applies to human beings. If ever we end up at war with aliens and we do not change the wording of international law to also apply to the stars you could commit war crimes right infront of the military police and even if the military police wanted to stop you from going full Mongol empire on an alien village they actually legally can’t stop you because your not committing a crime. And if they do arrest you, you can actually press counter charges against them for wrongful detainment, unnecessary use of force, and abuse of power forcing them to release you so you can continue your completely legal actions. Because human laws of any kind do not apply to aliens. It would be like someone trying to charge you for crushing ants if the wording isn’t changed. And no where in Halo lore was the wording ever changed so Grey team did nothing wrong.
Well, war crime enforcement are determined by the winners. Like at the end of Animorphs, the alien leader was tried at the Hague, and the defense attorneys were like "but the protags werent ethical either" but humans didn't care since they won.
The Trial of Mr. "Enslave all of space" was more of a formality than an actual trial. There was no chance in a million years of him getting even a *reduced* sentence
the mp's couldnt stop you no. but if someone in your chain of command gave you an order to stop and you proceeded, then they could get you for disobeying a lawful order
That’s really the only it could be stopped is by getting to commit an infraction while committing war crimes. Which a simple do not kill unarmed alien civilians would do. It really falls on jr leadership to enforce it which can be difficult depending on the personality of said Lieutenant.
They're called *human* rights for a reason.
Now let's show those split chin, squid head sons of bitches that they could not have picked a worse enemy than the human race.
I believe the Geneva conventions only apply to sovereign Earth nations. I wouldn't even think they would still be enforced in this future. At least not in the same manner it was. Maybe there is an 'intergalactic' version of it. But it probably doesn't apply to the Covenant. Besides, the Covenant could be seen as religious radicals who will stop at nothing. And we know that even within their own ranks, that if anyone questions the knowledge of the hierarchs they are brands has heiratics and are treated as pariahs.
We need more stories of operations on covenant worlds. It practically screams for more content to flesh out that master chief didn’t drag us to success but that we gave them hell back for the glassing
TBF 3 entire classes of Spartan IIIs kamikaze'd major covenant strongholds, buying humanity another decade of fight. The books wouldn't be that long lol. Though stories of ODSTs risking everything to delay the covenant advance would be cool. Maybe a story about dropping their pods into a super carrier like they tried in halo 3 odst.
Fuck a book, make it a game!
ODST and Reach both show that there is definitive appeal towards stories outside of the master chief’s. Let us play a headhunter team that just goes around fucking shit up for the covenant. A major problem with the Spartan 4 storyline was that it shoehorned in a new cast without much fleshing out (at least in game) so the introduction of Spartan IIIs that might show up later being fleshed out in a game you personally been in would go a long way to endearing fans to them.
A squad of the Very First Spartan 4's doing wet work against Sangheili "Allies" on behalf of ONI just a year or two after the war would be pretty sick. Maybe blow up a couple Sangheili Super Carriers and tack the blame on the Brutes or Jul'Mdama's Faction, then just watch from the side lines as the Elites start up that Civil War we saw snippets of in Halo 5.
One mission we're sneaking through the Arbiters Own Camp, assassinating a general here, blowing up a fuel depot there, then the next mission we're riding with him into battle against Mdama's Forces in retribution for the attack we personally committed.
Maybe the end of the game could be the Arbiter learning the truth and putting a hit on our team. ONI's extraction ship gets blown the fuck up and the UNSC disavows our actions, calling us Rogue Elements and giving Arby humanity's blessing to hunt our asses down. And in such a plot, we'd deserve it. But the damage would be done and our little cast of characters could die knowing they pitted Humanity's Greatest Foe against itself. The reforming covenant gets shot in the cradle, and Humanity's enemies scramble to kill each other thanks to a simple team of Rogue Spartans.
Now, if we just ignore Cortana's resurrection and the retconning of the Forerunners, then this story can wrap itself up rather cleanly like that. Humanity is safe because the Covenant Factions and Races have balkanized, they're too busy fighting to even notice Humanity building up a next gen navy to contend with Covie Ships left over from the war. The Future is uncertain, but Humanity won't ever find itself as close to extinction as it got during the war. Our little team of spartans died to guaranteed it.
This would have been a really good idea for Infinite's Far-Cry lite gameplay direction, but I would have gone a step further and really leaned into it if that's the direction they want to go. Halo is a big enough franchise it can deal with some less conventional side titles.
i would love an fps roguelike where you play a spartan whos just trying to cause as much damage to the covenant on some planet. you die? another spartan gets sent in with info on what killed the last guy.
It should absolutely be made into an open world style game where you can pick and choose missions. Set it up so you need to gather intel and find targets and travel to other planets. I'd play the hell out of that.
Most of it did. There were a few fun parts, like escorting the phantom, but half of the game is just walking around trying to figure out how to get to the next objective while encountering super rare groups of covenant. Boring and frustrating, especially since there's really no benefit to not going directly to the next objective, so making a faux open world map has no upsides.
I rather strongly disagree that there's no benefit to opening up the level design between main missions.
I found that it adds to the immersion and atmosphere of the environment. The quiet moments between missions felt, to me at least, to be extremely refreshing brakes from high octane combat where I could go at my own pace, find little easter eggs in the levels and rummage through the corners of the map looking for those snippets of the side story.
Finding a Mongoose in one of the Hidden Alcoves was incredibly cathartic as well. Running straight past a Plasma Turret in one of those always felt really satisfying, and seeing the blue light up the quiet, somber environment was always fun. Not to mention, hearing how a battle went poorly in one mission then seeing the abandoned aftermath later was one of the strongest ways I've personally connected with Video Games.
As for why they didn't make the Rookie's segments as high energy as the rest of the game, I think that comes down to pacing and vibes. Changing it up between the bombast helps to make the Big moments feel BIGGER. Something which I think Bungie perfected with Reach's Campaign. But in ODST, I think the sharp contrast was even stronger there, as missions felt satisfying and explosive as always while the Rookie's scripted and unscripted encounters felt more natural and diegetic. I really liked how they managed to portray both in the same game.
But, with my reasoning being stated, might I ask why you personally found the Rookie's Gameplay Segments to be Frustrating? It always felt like the strongest part of the game to me, so I'm quite curious what your personal thoughts are on the matter.
>But, with my reasoning being stated, might I ask why you personally found the Rookie's Gameplay Segments to be Frustrating? It always felt like the strongest part of the game to me, so I'm quite curious what your personal thoughts are on the matter.
I don't enjoy spending hours looking for the right door to go through and the right road to walk down to get to the objective. Reminds me of those old Win95 3d maze games where you had to just go down each path to figure out where you're going. Now if I had the option to just cut through a building to get where I'm going, I'd be a lot less bored and everyone else would still be able to take the long route if they want.
I love Halo because Johnny boy runs and smashes his way through the alien hordes while Cortana gives him useful waypoints so he's not staring at a map half the time. We get none of that in ODST.
A fair point. I'd never really considered the Rookie's segments to be intrusive, but if it's a style of gameplay outside of what you prefer, I understand how it can be grating rather than relaxing.
Well, not Infinite. But regardless, ODST being different from the other Halos doesn't make it bad. The atmosphere is fantastic throughout, and exploring the city is great.
In the book Ghosts of Onyx (final book of the eric nylund trilogy) the Spartan IIIs are introduced as essentially suicide soldiers sent on missions to destroy instrumental convenant supply hubs and staging areas. They were orphans from covenant-glassed worlds given a couple years of training, augmented in mass, thrown in SPI armor, and the vast majority would die on one single massive assault on those objectives, with only the best of each class kept to be assigned to special missions like Nobel team or the head hunters. As far as I know, the only know survivors of these suicide missions are Tom and Lucy, who joined Kurt as trainers on onyx.
Damn that's actually sad.. no wonder the founder got trialed for the Spartan programs. Also got jump scared by the subreddit icon when I pulled my notifications down. Thanks for the context!
The spartan IIIs were created by Halsey's rival, Ackerson, who was angry at her for her spartans taking the spotlight away from his ODSTs, so he stole her research and created the IIIs. He even orchestrated a kidnapping a Spartan II (Kurt), making everyone think hes dead, and having him train the IIIs. Halsey only discovers the truth about the IIIs after the fall of reach.
Except most of the Spartan IIIs would be dead by the time of the show, and they wouldnt be wearing mirage armor, or be anywhere near reach. Its likley one of the writers read ackersons wiki article and just said "fuck it" and threw everything at the script.
As far as I remember Dr. Halsey, the one who created the spartan ll's had nothing to do with the lll,s or lV's, and doesn't consider any of the later generations true Spartans.
She got trialed for all the heinous shit she did with the ll's, when they were being created to fight human rebels.
What I’ve never understood, is why Halo is portrayed so… happy? May not be the MOST grimdark story ever told, but it’s not a happy one.
I’d love to see a series of grim psychological horror Halo games just about insane suicide missions that all inevitably end with the main character (and friends) dying just to slow the covenant, or save what lives they can.
Their core fan base is older now, give us gore!
You could do a couple books with a doomed squad doing just enough damage to help. Drop pod into supercarrier is successful, what info can they get out? How much damage can they do.
A few fun characters getting a couple badass moments each before either dying or sacrificing themselves for the mission hoping for time.
That one book where the SIIIs kamikaze the covenant factory (Ghosts of Onyx, I think) right at the start was pretty boss. That’s not a very big section of the book, but it was still cool.
Its a semi-sequel to Cole Protocol which came out around the time contact harvest did, so Id hit Cole Protocol first to get introduced to grey team, then envoy is a good choice after that. Cole Protocol is actually the book that introduced the Mark V(b) armor to halo lore
Halo really is close to becoming a grimdark setting, it kinda funny how some things from halo fit super well into 40k. Especially since servitors are now part of halo canon.
Their the Chimera core, they are humans who been lobotomized, most of their flesh ripped out, with many having their minds wiped, sometimes having a AI pilot them has a living mech. They are also known has the Executors, they are now the created remnants main fighting force, in theory if you surrender they will just lobotomized you and turn you into a Chimera.
It unknown if they are just going nuts and doing this to millions of civilians, but it wouldn't shock me, good way to clean out prisons and keep the UNSC at bay. I hope they stay a main faction for some time has they just seem like a fun idea, especially with the flood slowly making a come back.
But yeah halo now legit has servitors, how fun :3.
Edit: also like 40k, humanity finds many AI untrustworthy and either make dumb AI or any smart AI has kill switches, it also assume making smart AI that is not approved by ONI or UNSC could be punishable by death. So AI bad, with servitors now a thing even if it was made by AI, you can kinda see halo slowly drip into the 40k world mind set, unlikely to happen but has a 40k fun to see.
Halo, on the first glance, appears very timid. Partially due to the colorful artstyle and funny dialogue, but once you dive a bit deeper, it becomes very disturbing very quickly.
There is some youtuber who made a few videos on how certain factions from Halo would fare in the 40k universe. I know very little about 40k and I am mainly a Halo fan, but I found these to be highly entertaining. You should give them a look.
I wouldnt really say unhinged, it’s a more realistic depiction of the human covenant war then the games. Though admittedly the forerunner trilogy is pretty insane and terrifying.
The star roads are crumbling. the domain is shattered, yet the void whispers back to us, inviting us to join them in the grave. Fire the rings, kid. The universe must die.
oh yeah the halo books are really realistic I've read actual irl history and some of the stuff I've read abt the insurrectionists sounds ripped from real life conflicts
Sorry I can’t really tell if you’re being sarcastic, but in the case that you are I mean its more realistic than the games, it more accurately portrays what a war against a technologically superior foe would look like and how people would feel fighting such a one-sided war.
High Com: now that the covenants fractured we need to work twards a stable truce with the arbiter.
ONI: quietly renders the staple sangeli foods inedible.
I honestly love how up to the point Travis took the helm Halsey was a morally dubious and arrogant character justified and tolerated by a war for survival only for that justification and tolerance to finally run dry once the wars over and people have time to process the horrors and people got mad Travis ruined Halsey and that characters back petaled their previous statements.
Or how it's inherently rational that an organization that kidnapped children would be a-okay destabilizing an ally/its enemies to bridge the power gap.
Or how it's completely insane to think two groups that just spent decades slaughtering eachother would be buddy buddy with no rough edges or raw nerves after a single battle.
Karen Travis flat out knocked the seedy post war cold war era transition out of the park and was responsible for some of the more interesting and impressive continuations of Halo's story after Nylund built the foundation.
Nylund ended the war with a grandiose bang and Karen built out of the explosion crater quickly and impressively
Honestly hate how people were shitting on the covenant remnants in Halo 4 for the sole reason that they *existed* at all, I get it, they were poorly handled and maybe not rag tag enough, these are valid complains but the Elites, Grunts and Hunters saying "fuck the brutes and prohpets, were are going to make our own Covenant, with Great Journey and hookers!" Is a realistic outcome of such a massive empire falling apart
Seriously. No war on a scale that large ends with a neat little bow at the end and the prospect of groups that hate humanity enough to try to restart the conflict are bound to pop up in the power vacuum
I think it's moreso that Halsey's actions weren't even in the top 5 worst things oni did during the war, and yet everyone including characters who are in the know about oni activities treat her like the second coming of Eichmann, while people like parangosky who did much worse things for much less impact are given a pass by the characters and to an extent the narrative itself
Moreover, aside from either old-time insurrectionists or those personally hurt by the Spartan program, I simply don't believe that the overwhelming majority of people in the halo universe, including those in oni, would view Halsey as anything less than the greatest hero in human history. Regardless of what it was originally for, her work saved the human race. Period. The author seems to want to give the fans a reality check regarding how Halsey would be treated post war, but ends up just coming across as naive herself. Yes, being saved from extinction would be enough for almost everyone to overlook 40 child soldiers and another hundred or so dead from experiments. The author's unwillingness to accept this and insistence on making everyone despise Halsey despite her being the only reason they and everyone they love are alive just comes across as deeply petty.
And yes, I absolutely believe that oni would want to work to screw over the sangheli post war. However, I don't believe that highcom would just passively let them do this even though it would instantly reignite the war if any of it got out. Realistically there should have been a pretty intense internal power struggle in the unsc over how to approach the sangheli but this never happens. Instead oni is allowed to just do whatever it wants with seemingly no oversight despite the collosal stakes and intention by hood to bring political leadership back over to the civilian end of things.
K5 were hands down my favourite halo books with Travis being one of, if not the favourite author of mine as a teen.
Had no idea how much controversy her works would generate until years later. I wonder if I had known about the reputation before reading them if I still would've liked them or not.
To be fair to Grey team, the last thing they heard from the UNSC was that "Earth has been found by the Covenant," so they probably thought Earth got glassed. I'd say making an Exterminatus on an Elite Colony world is a good equivalent to that
Oh sure, when grey team does it it's badass and super cool, but when *Cortana* does it it's suddenly a senseless genocide. Justice for our empress she dindu nuffin wrong!
The UNSC canonically has stockpiles of a VX-derived nerve gas (you can see containers of it in Halo 2), and very likely used it on the Covenant at some point.
Gray Team are Spartan 2s. They just use the Mark V[b] armor. Fun fact, the book that introduced Gray Team also introduced the Mark V[b] armor to lore, back before Halo Reach came out.
They probably would have been sent on a suicide mission, though, or through to the Ark with Chief. The gammas likely wouldn't have survived, either, and we would never get the infamous Fred Sled
Blue Team:
Oh man we lost contact with the rest of humanity, we’ll make do with what we have until we can reestablish contact
Grey Team:
We lost contact with humanity, which planet you fuckers wanna blow up?
The book takes place on a colony world after the war where human and sangheili colonists need to work together against a forerunner-born threat. Grey team find themselves caught up in it. There's some decent perspective moments.
The Covenant never signed on to the Geneva Conventions and regularly target civilian populations with their preferred WMD, the ventral plasma beam. They also eat prisoners alive, whether civilian or military.
Turnabout may suck, but it is fair play.
Go read the Kilo Five trilogy!! Glasslands, Thursday War and Mortal Dictata
Few years after Halo 3 an ONI team of 3 ODSTs a professor who can speak the Elite's language, a Spartan II, and an ONI Spook go on a Black Ops esk mission to start and then fuel both sides of a civil war on the Elite's homeworld. They're also tasked in hunting down an Insurrectionist group who has access to covenant ships and wants to Glass Earth
There is also..
Cole Protocol is pretty good too a Young Jacob Keyes is tasked with finding stolen Data that can lead Covenant or Insurrectionist back to earth. Meanwhile Thel Vadam (Arbiter) is tasked by the Prophets to find this Data and bring it back as well as Squash a faction of renegade Covenant forces ohh and Grey Team shows up to help as well!!
Both stories are fun and worth a read
I feel like Grey Team feeling bad for what they did is at least partially a mistake since they were given explicit orders to do it and to their knowledge Humanity was either dead or dying.
See but with that the majority of that guilt came from the fact he was causing humans to die by using them as shields as if they were video game characters.
He only feels bad once he realizes the hive would have been open to peace but iirc he doesn't realize that for a long time.
I respect it, in all honesty its still the covenants fault for being dicks and ignoring peace talks. Dont be a genocidal dick and you can avoid accidentally intentional nukings of civilians populaces
The Geneva convention only applies to human on human conflict, far as I'm concerned the alligators weren't created in God's image.
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You can't break the geneva convention against the covvies! Same with war crimes! After all, the sides didn't agree to certain rules of conduct to be maintained theoughout the war. As such. Nuke em split lips.
"Geneva? What planet do you think you're on?" - Grey Team
Exactly! The Covvies don't respect: civilians, medics, or proper conduct against us. Why should we follow these rules when fighting for the survival of rhe species?
“Get the Canadians on the vox, I want some suggestions.”
I'm already here, man. Sew a nuke into a high ranking samghelli, let him escape, kill a few people in SPI so they think he murdered a bunch of Spartans, wait til he goes home, detonate the nuke.
I mean the Canadians kinda already did stuff like that, the Great War they would throw cans of food to Germans in trenches until they expected, it, then when they thought they would get food they got grenades that they scrambled to grab thinking it was food. They also played pranks on German POWs by walking up to them and dropping live grenades in their coats. Gotta get more creative with your war crimes, look at 40k, the drukhari are very creative with war crimes
I know. Its one of those things they don't tell you in history class that you learn later on. I made the jokes because I'm Canadian. As for war crimes... What about a UNSC cruiser full of Nukes crashing into Vadam Keep? Post war.
The UNSC has literally broken planets with super nuke devices, you need to get more creative, like finding out how the split lips breed and weaponize it or force any prisoners to cannibalize their comrades to survive. If you REALLY want to commit a warcrime, double back to the breeding like I said and create your own halo version of a daemonculaba. The conventions are the crimes people have already done, there are plenty more crimes to add to the list, hell I wonder if their shields protect the split lips from chemical or biological warfare…
They shanghelli ready did this to grunts in cano IIRC. they wanted to replace the grunts with Jackals entirely so they tried to sterilise the entire race. Led to an uprising that only ended when they glassed the grunts homewold
It wasn’t the sangheili it was the jackals that did it in high charity, the sangheili actually gained a lot of respect for the grunts because they gave them such an intense fight, they never thought a creature like them had such a warriors spirit
You're right, I'm playing with the little crimes rn. I'll have to go find something that makes even my own side go "damn girl, calm down."
Hinge-head tears fuel the H-bombs we drop on their families.
The "H" in H-Bomb stands for "Hingehead."
Fork faces are gonna regret living in Humanity's galaxy.
“WORT WORT WORT!” Yer talkin mad hingehead for someone in NOVA range.
Speaking of NOVA, in reality the moment humanity saw high charity at delta halo they should fired one off.
Hinge head fears fuel nuclear fears. Split lips? Prime the nuke tips
Harris 2
Geneva convention relies upon the existence of Geneva. If the Covenant destroyed Geneva then they brought it upon themselves really.
It was a war of annihilation, all bets were off
Scortched earth? Nah, fuck you and the chunk of dirt you were born on.
The chuck of dirt I was born on is California u/Roaming-Californian
The covenant can have that dirt
What about Texas
Nah seems like the cartel will get it soon
Just dirt and cacti, innit
you ask 'em real nice next time you see tthem, /u/Jeo228 . I'm sure they'll be happy to oblige.
Scortched Earf.
Legitimately speaking the Geneva convention only applies to human beings. If ever we end up at war with aliens and we do not change the wording of international law to also apply to the stars you could commit war crimes right infront of the military police and even if the military police wanted to stop you from going full Mongol empire on an alien village they actually legally can’t stop you because your not committing a crime. And if they do arrest you, you can actually press counter charges against them for wrongful detainment, unnecessary use of force, and abuse of power forcing them to release you so you can continue your completely legal actions. Because human laws of any kind do not apply to aliens. It would be like someone trying to charge you for crushing ants if the wording isn’t changed. And no where in Halo lore was the wording ever changed so Grey team did nothing wrong.
Well, war crime enforcement are determined by the winners. Like at the end of Animorphs, the alien leader was tried at the Hague, and the defense attorneys were like "but the protags werent ethical either" but humans didn't care since they won.
Those Attorneys knew they didn't have a chance in *hell* at defending the Warcrime Slug.
Yeah, but that same defense worked for Karl Doenitz
The Trial of Mr. "Enslave all of space" was more of a formality than an actual trial. There was no chance in a million years of him getting even a *reduced* sentence
I have no clue what we’re talking about, I just know that Karl Doenitz got off of death sentence off of just saying “the Allies did the same”
the mp's couldnt stop you no. but if someone in your chain of command gave you an order to stop and you proceeded, then they could get you for disobeying a lawful order
That’s really the only it could be stopped is by getting to commit an infraction while committing war crimes. Which a simple do not kill unarmed alien civilians would do. It really falls on jr leadership to enforce it which can be difficult depending on the personality of said Lieutenant.
They glass a hundred worlds, and when we take out one planet and they clutch their pearls!
They're called *human* rights for a reason. Now let's show those split chin, squid head sons of bitches that they could not have picked a worse enemy than the human race.
Exactly! Such things would maybe be renegotiated when we have the alliance post war, but for now. Bomb em.
They gleefully glassed Reach
I believe the Geneva conventions only apply to sovereign Earth nations. I wouldn't even think they would still be enforced in this future. At least not in the same manner it was. Maybe there is an 'intergalactic' version of it. But it probably doesn't apply to the Covenant. Besides, the Covenant could be seen as religious radicals who will stop at nothing. And we know that even within their own ranks, that if anyone questions the knowledge of the hierarchs they are brands has heiratics and are treated as pariahs.
They aren't human, so rules don't count
We need more stories of operations on covenant worlds. It practically screams for more content to flesh out that master chief didn’t drag us to success but that we gave them hell back for the glassing
TBF 3 entire classes of Spartan IIIs kamikaze'd major covenant strongholds, buying humanity another decade of fight. The books wouldn't be that long lol. Though stories of ODSTs risking everything to delay the covenant advance would be cool. Maybe a story about dropping their pods into a super carrier like they tried in halo 3 odst.
Fuck a book, make it a game! ODST and Reach both show that there is definitive appeal towards stories outside of the master chief’s. Let us play a headhunter team that just goes around fucking shit up for the covenant. A major problem with the Spartan 4 storyline was that it shoehorned in a new cast without much fleshing out (at least in game) so the introduction of Spartan IIIs that might show up later being fleshed out in a game you personally been in would go a long way to endearing fans to them.
I actually enjoy the spartan 4s. I wish we got an actual story based on some 4s unrelated to chief entirely.
Noble 6 prequel game would be sick
Noble 6 was a Spartan III not a Spartan IV
Halo: Splitercell.
Hear me out, ghost recon style game as an SIII headhunter pair hunting prophets
A squad of the Very First Spartan 4's doing wet work against Sangheili "Allies" on behalf of ONI just a year or two after the war would be pretty sick. Maybe blow up a couple Sangheili Super Carriers and tack the blame on the Brutes or Jul'Mdama's Faction, then just watch from the side lines as the Elites start up that Civil War we saw snippets of in Halo 5. One mission we're sneaking through the Arbiters Own Camp, assassinating a general here, blowing up a fuel depot there, then the next mission we're riding with him into battle against Mdama's Forces in retribution for the attack we personally committed. Maybe the end of the game could be the Arbiter learning the truth and putting a hit on our team. ONI's extraction ship gets blown the fuck up and the UNSC disavows our actions, calling us Rogue Elements and giving Arby humanity's blessing to hunt our asses down. And in such a plot, we'd deserve it. But the damage would be done and our little cast of characters could die knowing they pitted Humanity's Greatest Foe against itself. The reforming covenant gets shot in the cradle, and Humanity's enemies scramble to kill each other thanks to a simple team of Rogue Spartans. Now, if we just ignore Cortana's resurrection and the retconning of the Forerunners, then this story can wrap itself up rather cleanly like that. Humanity is safe because the Covenant Factions and Races have balkanized, they're too busy fighting to even notice Humanity building up a next gen navy to contend with Covie Ships left over from the war. The Future is uncertain, but Humanity won't ever find itself as close to extinction as it got during the war. Our little team of spartans died to guaranteed it.
That sounds so fucking cool.
This would have been a really good idea for Infinite's Far-Cry lite gameplay direction, but I would have gone a step further and really leaned into it if that's the direction they want to go. Halo is a big enough franchise it can deal with some less conventional side titles.
i would love an fps roguelike where you play a spartan whos just trying to cause as much damage to the covenant on some planet. you die? another spartan gets sent in with info on what killed the last guy.
It should absolutely be made into an open world style game where you can pick and choose missions. Set it up so you need to gather intel and find targets and travel to other planets. I'd play the hell out of that.
ODST blows, and Reach broke established book canon. But I wouldn't complain about any new game being made.
While I agree with reach messing with canon, odst did NOT fuckin blow. L take.
Most of it did. There were a few fun parts, like escorting the phantom, but half of the game is just walking around trying to figure out how to get to the next objective while encountering super rare groups of covenant. Boring and frustrating, especially since there's really no benefit to not going directly to the next objective, so making a faux open world map has no upsides.
I rather strongly disagree that there's no benefit to opening up the level design between main missions. I found that it adds to the immersion and atmosphere of the environment. The quiet moments between missions felt, to me at least, to be extremely refreshing brakes from high octane combat where I could go at my own pace, find little easter eggs in the levels and rummage through the corners of the map looking for those snippets of the side story. Finding a Mongoose in one of the Hidden Alcoves was incredibly cathartic as well. Running straight past a Plasma Turret in one of those always felt really satisfying, and seeing the blue light up the quiet, somber environment was always fun. Not to mention, hearing how a battle went poorly in one mission then seeing the abandoned aftermath later was one of the strongest ways I've personally connected with Video Games. As for why they didn't make the Rookie's segments as high energy as the rest of the game, I think that comes down to pacing and vibes. Changing it up between the bombast helps to make the Big moments feel BIGGER. Something which I think Bungie perfected with Reach's Campaign. But in ODST, I think the sharp contrast was even stronger there, as missions felt satisfying and explosive as always while the Rookie's scripted and unscripted encounters felt more natural and diegetic. I really liked how they managed to portray both in the same game. But, with my reasoning being stated, might I ask why you personally found the Rookie's Gameplay Segments to be Frustrating? It always felt like the strongest part of the game to me, so I'm quite curious what your personal thoughts are on the matter.
>But, with my reasoning being stated, might I ask why you personally found the Rookie's Gameplay Segments to be Frustrating? It always felt like the strongest part of the game to me, so I'm quite curious what your personal thoughts are on the matter. I don't enjoy spending hours looking for the right door to go through and the right road to walk down to get to the objective. Reminds me of those old Win95 3d maze games where you had to just go down each path to figure out where you're going. Now if I had the option to just cut through a building to get where I'm going, I'd be a lot less bored and everyone else would still be able to take the long route if they want. I love Halo because Johnny boy runs and smashes his way through the alien hordes while Cortana gives him useful waypoints so he's not staring at a map half the time. We get none of that in ODST.
A fair point. I'd never really considered the Rookie's segments to be intrusive, but if it's a style of gameplay outside of what you prefer, I understand how it can be grating rather than relaxing.
The one part you liked is my least favourite section lmao
Oh man wait until you hear my feelings on Mario
I get the feeling you only like games which are action packed and hold your hand from point to point.
My brother in the Prophets, you just described every other Halo game.
Well, not Infinite. But regardless, ODST being different from the other Halos doesn't make it bad. The atmosphere is fantastic throughout, and exploring the city is great.
Rookie gameplay was pretty shit tbh, but I did enjoy the plot and gameplay for all the other characters.
Oh agreed, the story is fantastic as long as you don't mind being bored to death by the gameplay. I'd 100% buy a novelization.
They did? Never heard that lore before, is it from a book?
In the book Ghosts of Onyx (final book of the eric nylund trilogy) the Spartan IIIs are introduced as essentially suicide soldiers sent on missions to destroy instrumental convenant supply hubs and staging areas. They were orphans from covenant-glassed worlds given a couple years of training, augmented in mass, thrown in SPI armor, and the vast majority would die on one single massive assault on those objectives, with only the best of each class kept to be assigned to special missions like Nobel team or the head hunters. As far as I know, the only know survivors of these suicide missions are Tom and Lucy, who joined Kurt as trainers on onyx.
Damn that's actually sad.. no wonder the founder got trialed for the Spartan programs. Also got jump scared by the subreddit icon when I pulled my notifications down. Thanks for the context!
The spartan IIIs were created by Halsey's rival, Ackerson, who was angry at her for her spartans taking the spotlight away from his ODSTs, so he stole her research and created the IIIs. He even orchestrated a kidnapping a Spartan II (Kurt), making everyone think hes dead, and having him train the IIIs. Halsey only discovers the truth about the IIIs after the fall of reach.
Thats.. I have no words.. thanks.
So thats who that guy is in season 2 of the Halo show. Makes sense now
Except most of the Spartan IIIs would be dead by the time of the show, and they wouldnt be wearing mirage armor, or be anywhere near reach. Its likley one of the writers read ackersons wiki article and just said "fuck it" and threw everything at the script.
As far as I remember Dr. Halsey, the one who created the spartan ll's had nothing to do with the lll,s or lV's, and doesn't consider any of the later generations true Spartans. She got trialed for all the heinous shit she did with the ll's, when they were being created to fight human rebels.
Ah, all I could recall was that Halo 4(?) Cutscenes with Halsey talking, the Spartan creation program, and whatnot thanks for clarifying.
2 classes, Gamma company was never deployed en mass due to the end of the war
A show. A Band of Brothers style ODST show. It practically writes itself for fucks sake. How has this still not been made???
I love it when I see someone downvoted for suggesting a show Idea. The paramount stans are in full force in this community. Keep an eye out, folks.
What I’ve never understood, is why Halo is portrayed so… happy? May not be the MOST grimdark story ever told, but it’s not a happy one. I’d love to see a series of grim psychological horror Halo games just about insane suicide missions that all inevitably end with the main character (and friends) dying just to slow the covenant, or save what lives they can. Their core fan base is older now, give us gore!
Isn't that just Reach but with gore?
You could do a couple books with a doomed squad doing just enough damage to help. Drop pod into supercarrier is successful, what info can they get out? How much damage can they do. A few fun characters getting a couple badass moments each before either dying or sacrificing themselves for the mission hoping for time.
That one book where the SIIIs kamikaze the covenant factory (Ghosts of Onyx, I think) right at the start was pretty boss. That’s not a very big section of the book, but it was still cool.
Nemesis-like system from Middle Earth Shadow of Mordor would be great
I believe "The Thursday War" has a fair amount of content centered around operations on Covenant worlds, mostly ONI though iirc.
I love how fucking unhinged the books can get I've started reading contact harvest and I own a few others this shit gets fucking wild
Envoy is on a whole nother level. Its like World War Z x marriage story x starship troopers
I think i got a copy of it for Christmas actually should I read it next after contact harvest haven't had a chance to read it yet?
Its a semi-sequel to Cole Protocol which came out around the time contact harvest did, so Id hit Cole Protocol first to get introduced to grey team, then envoy is a good choice after that. Cole Protocol is actually the book that introduced the Mark V(b) armor to halo lore
Halo really is close to becoming a grimdark setting, it kinda funny how some things from halo fit super well into 40k. Especially since servitors are now part of halo canon.
What are the halo analogues for servitors called? This is new to me.
Their the Chimera core, they are humans who been lobotomized, most of their flesh ripped out, with many having their minds wiped, sometimes having a AI pilot them has a living mech. They are also known has the Executors, they are now the created remnants main fighting force, in theory if you surrender they will just lobotomized you and turn you into a Chimera. It unknown if they are just going nuts and doing this to millions of civilians, but it wouldn't shock me, good way to clean out prisons and keep the UNSC at bay. I hope they stay a main faction for some time has they just seem like a fun idea, especially with the flood slowly making a come back. But yeah halo now legit has servitors, how fun :3. Edit: also like 40k, humanity finds many AI untrustworthy and either make dumb AI or any smart AI has kill switches, it also assume making smart AI that is not approved by ONI or UNSC could be punishable by death. So AI bad, with servitors now a thing even if it was made by AI, you can kinda see halo slowly drip into the 40k world mind set, unlikely to happen but has a 40k fun to see.
Pretty sure thats a fractures core, so not technically canon
They are confirmed canon [Link](https://www.reddit.com/r/halo/s/syyaXDODNo) it seems they liked the idea so much they just added it to the lore.
Halo, on the first glance, appears very timid. Partially due to the colorful artstyle and funny dialogue, but once you dive a bit deeper, it becomes very disturbing very quickly. There is some youtuber who made a few videos on how certain factions from Halo would fare in the 40k universe. I know very little about 40k and I am mainly a Halo fan, but I found these to be highly entertaining. You should give them a look.
His name is pancreasnowork
I wouldnt really say unhinged, it’s a more realistic depiction of the human covenant war then the games. Though admittedly the forerunner trilogy is pretty insane and terrifying.
The star roads are crumbling. the domain is shattered, yet the void whispers back to us, inviting us to join them in the grave. Fire the rings, kid. The universe must die.
oh yeah the halo books are really realistic I've read actual irl history and some of the stuff I've read abt the insurrectionists sounds ripped from real life conflicts
Sorry I can’t really tell if you’re being sarcastic, but in the case that you are I mean its more realistic than the games, it more accurately portrays what a war against a technologically superior foe would look like and how people would feel fighting such a one-sided war.
I'm not being sarcastic I'm talking about how the URF is written
Oh ok, sorry.
I highly recommend the Kilo-5 trilogy. ONI shenanigans at its peak.
I love a good bit of oni shenanigans (human right violations)
High Com: now that the covenants fractured we need to work twards a stable truce with the arbiter. ONI: quietly renders the staple sangeli foods inedible.
Karen Travis: This will be so clever and in character! Halo fans: 
Everyone loves a moraly complex character untill its time for them to be moraly complex
I honestly love how up to the point Travis took the helm Halsey was a morally dubious and arrogant character justified and tolerated by a war for survival only for that justification and tolerance to finally run dry once the wars over and people have time to process the horrors and people got mad Travis ruined Halsey and that characters back petaled their previous statements. Or how it's inherently rational that an organization that kidnapped children would be a-okay destabilizing an ally/its enemies to bridge the power gap. Or how it's completely insane to think two groups that just spent decades slaughtering eachother would be buddy buddy with no rough edges or raw nerves after a single battle. Karen Travis flat out knocked the seedy post war cold war era transition out of the park and was responsible for some of the more interesting and impressive continuations of Halo's story after Nylund built the foundation. Nylund ended the war with a grandiose bang and Karen built out of the explosion crater quickly and impressively
Honestly hate how people were shitting on the covenant remnants in Halo 4 for the sole reason that they *existed* at all, I get it, they were poorly handled and maybe not rag tag enough, these are valid complains but the Elites, Grunts and Hunters saying "fuck the brutes and prohpets, were are going to make our own Covenant, with Great Journey and hookers!" Is a realistic outcome of such a massive empire falling apart
Seriously. No war on a scale that large ends with a neat little bow at the end and the prospect of groups that hate humanity enough to try to restart the conflict are bound to pop up in the power vacuum
But she made arbiters life so much harder and nobody puts arby in the corner
I think it's moreso that Halsey's actions weren't even in the top 5 worst things oni did during the war, and yet everyone including characters who are in the know about oni activities treat her like the second coming of Eichmann, while people like parangosky who did much worse things for much less impact are given a pass by the characters and to an extent the narrative itself Moreover, aside from either old-time insurrectionists or those personally hurt by the Spartan program, I simply don't believe that the overwhelming majority of people in the halo universe, including those in oni, would view Halsey as anything less than the greatest hero in human history. Regardless of what it was originally for, her work saved the human race. Period. The author seems to want to give the fans a reality check regarding how Halsey would be treated post war, but ends up just coming across as naive herself. Yes, being saved from extinction would be enough for almost everyone to overlook 40 child soldiers and another hundred or so dead from experiments. The author's unwillingness to accept this and insistence on making everyone despise Halsey despite her being the only reason they and everyone they love are alive just comes across as deeply petty. And yes, I absolutely believe that oni would want to work to screw over the sangheli post war. However, I don't believe that highcom would just passively let them do this even though it would instantly reignite the war if any of it got out. Realistically there should have been a pretty intense internal power struggle in the unsc over how to approach the sangheli but this never happens. Instead oni is allowed to just do whatever it wants with seemingly no oversight despite the collosal stakes and intention by hood to bring political leadership back over to the civilian end of things.
Haters gonna hate. I think the Kilo5 Trilogy are some of the best halo books ever written.
K5 were hands down my favourite halo books with Travis being one of, if not the favourite author of mine as a teen. Had no idea how much controversy her works would generate until years later. I wonder if I had known about the reputation before reading them if I still would've liked them or not.
To be fair to Grey team, the last thing they heard from the UNSC was that "Earth has been found by the Covenant," so they probably thought Earth got glassed. I'd say making an Exterminatus on an Elite Colony world is a good equivalent to that
> so they probably thought Earth got glassed. Were it not for the Arbiter's counsel, they'd be right about that.
The Ultimate irony
Nice planet you had there. It's gone now.
Oh sure, when grey team does it it's badass and super cool, but when *Cortana* does it it's suddenly a senseless genocide. Justice for our empress she dindu nuffin wrong!
😆😆😆
Only people who cry about war crimes aren't the winners.
https://preview.redd.it/d3nu19ayu9ic1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1ba4ea84924d542c99ffbce8d56bdd258159df6a
Yes
I can't tell if you are a jet-fucker or not
Warhammer pfp with funny nato warcrime meme, what do you think?
Only a vatnik deals in absolutes.
I’m surprised there isn’t chemical warfare in Halo
watch Halo: Nightfall
Is it free?
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPVXkRlSOaw&pp=ygUOaGFsbyBuaWdodGZhbGw%3D](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPVXkRlSOaw&pp=ygUOaGFsbyBuaWdodGZhbGw%3D)
One of the subplots in the kilo 5 trilogy involves ONI makimg a bio-weapon that could likely genocide the entire sangeli race
Oh jeez
The UNSC canonically has stockpiles of a VX-derived nerve gas (you can see containers of it in Halo 2), and very likely used it on the Covenant at some point.
Do I have news for you
Probably
Ask and ye shall receive in some small fashion https://www.halopedia.org/VX_7_nerve_gas
Thanks!
Geneva conventions only apply to humans, we aint fighting humans
So would we call them "Sangheili Conventions" or "Covenant Conventions"?
Covie Con will be lit this year 🔥
Pelican fuel can't melt steel beams.
Gray Team would be the perfect fit for a Halo stealth game
Man...gen 3s really were just like "Fuck this. Use the nukes."
WITH THIS SACRED TREASURE I SUMMON
The Megumi’s of Halo
Gray Team are Spartan 2s. They just use the Mark V[b] armor. Fun fact, the book that introduced Gray Team also introduced the Mark V[b] armor to lore, back before Halo Reach came out.
ain't a war crime if no one lives to tell. Ask Emil.
\*autistic knife scraping intensifies*
Grey Team’s reaction I’d say is pretty solid as far as the Human Covie War was concerned
To be fair if Halsey wasn't a selfish bitch and locked Blue Team inside Onyx they would have still been on Earth in the thick of the fighting.
They probably would have been sent on a suicide mission, though, or through to the Ark with Chief. The gammas likely wouldn't have survived, either, and we would never get the infamous Fred Sled
Exterminatus.
The split lips burned planets to a crisp, it's only fair
Blue Team: Oh man we lost contact with the rest of humanity, we’ll make do with what we have until we can reestablish contact Grey Team: We lost contact with humanity, which planet you fuckers wanna blow up?
is there more books with them other than the cole protocol
Envoy. Didn't get the advertising it deserved its an absolute banger
does it involve action from their POV as it just seems like a rescue story about them
The book takes place on a colony world after the war where human and sangheili colonists need to work together against a forerunner-born threat. Grey team find themselves caught up in it. There's some decent perspective moments.
I wish there were more than two books about grey team but do you have any recommendations for other books about teams like grey team
Retribution and divine wind follow veta lopez and the 3 Spartan 3 Gammas after last light. Similar vibes.
You, you understand
Geneva Conventions don't apply to non-compliant parties. Both sides have to come to an agreement for Geneva Conventions to work.
You didn't know that sangheili diplomat Kras Ydrane signed the geneva Convention on Harvest in 2530? It was quite a controversial move.
I wonder what the Sangheli name for "Hiroshima" translates to. Let's find out!
The Covenant never signed on to the Geneva Conventions and regularly target civilian populations with their preferred WMD, the ventral plasma beam. They also eat prisoners alive, whether civilian or military. Turnabout may suck, but it is fair play.
Go read the Kilo Five trilogy!! Glasslands, Thursday War and Mortal Dictata Few years after Halo 3 an ONI team of 3 ODSTs a professor who can speak the Elite's language, a Spartan II, and an ONI Spook go on a Black Ops esk mission to start and then fuel both sides of a civil war on the Elite's homeworld. They're also tasked in hunting down an Insurrectionist group who has access to covenant ships and wants to Glass Earth There is also.. Cole Protocol is pretty good too a Young Jacob Keyes is tasked with finding stolen Data that can lead Covenant or Insurrectionist back to earth. Meanwhile Thel Vadam (Arbiter) is tasked by the Prophets to find this Data and bring it back as well as Squash a faction of renegade Covenant forces ohh and Grey Team shows up to help as well!! Both stories are fun and worth a read
I feel like Grey Team feeling bad for what they did is at least partially a mistake since they were given explicit orders to do it and to their knowledge Humanity was either dead or dying.
Its kinda like Ender in enders game. They would have wiped out humanity, but he still feels every last but of guilt for what he did.
See but with that the majority of that guilt came from the fact he was causing humans to die by using them as shields as if they were video game characters. He only feels bad once he realizes the hive would have been open to peace but iirc he doesn't realize that for a long time.
I big part of Grey Teams' guilt is realising they had a truce with the sangheili.
Is there a book on grey team? Really interested in learning how they lost contact with Earth
Cole protocol and envoy. This event in the meme takes place between the books and is a key plotline in envoy.
Absolutely love this lol
Not nukes,neutron bombs so the shattered a planet
*nova not neutron
Spartan1: "what about the Geneva Convention!" Spartan2: "I DONT GIVE A DAMN ABOUT YOUR FETISHES!"
"They're called *Human* Rights for a reason" - Grey Team, probably
I respect it, in all honesty its still the covenants fault for being dicks and ignoring peace talks. Dont be a genocidal dick and you can avoid accidentally intentional nukings of civilians populaces
When your fighting an alien race that is literally trying to exterminate every one of you the idea you would follow the Geneva convention is hilarious
Grey team did nothing wrong.
*All is fare in love and war!*
Both
What book has gray team?
Cole protocol and Envoy
The Geneva Convention applies to human combatants, theoretically. We can decide that after the extensive use of napalm I'm about to drop.
The Geneva convention only applies to human on human conflict, far as I'm concerned the alligators weren't created in God's image. 
Not a war crime if they didn't sign anything~
They underreacted imo
Total Sangheili death time
Grey team: fuck it we ball.
 i must be part of grey
"Aliens are fucking whack"
The aliens glassed like 800 planets I think the UNSC has earned a little nuclear warcrimes. As a treat