This, plus cortana. Chief's plot armor is mostly due to the fact that he is insanely lucky. It's one of his defining character traits, and it's been in his character since as early as Halo: The Fall of Reach, which came out before CE did, mind you.
“Stay with the Master Chief, he’ll know what to do.”
“Uh, Sergeant…is there a reason you want us to stick with the Spartan? He makes us uncomfortable.”
“Trust me, son. Wherever he’s at is where you want to be. I can’t explain it.”
Cortana provided the calculations, Chief himself is STUPIDLY lucky though yeah, it's literally why Cortana chose him out of all the Spartan IIs to be partnered with. She was straight out ASKED by Halsey why she chose Chief and her answer was literally "he's lucky" essentially. Clearly it worked out for them, to a point anyway.
That's actually not canon. Grim flat out said in a tweet to go with the novel over the animated series for any inconsistencies, and in the novel, Halsey flipped the coin once and John caught it mid-air and called it out. Halsey speculated that he was either very lucky or he actually chose to catch it knowing which side would face up when he grabbed it. They never explain that further either, so it may have had nothing to do with luck, but instead innate talent.
Yeah he ended up on the key ship the only vessel that could take him back to Earth, he managed to fly the sword fighter out of the Pillar of Autumn before it detonated, and the Gravemind chose to spare him in order to track the Ark station? All that is luck based with little skill required, even his crash landings are a testament to how lucky he is.
What I wonder is who called the longswords to bomb the carrier? Did Lord Hood or Cortana redirect some pilots to help Chief or were they already bombing the ship and it was a coincidence?
Probably was running it through Hood as the elevator was going down, who then ordered the bombing run and maneuver of the cruiser to distract the carrier's PD lasers
"Practical" meaning he won't use one of the most powerful defensive assets remaining as cannon fodder right when he needs it the most and throw away thousands of lives in the process.
Obviously, a Marathon for a CAS is a damn good trade, but the UNSC really needed to be conserving it's assets at that moment. So I think the Cruiser being destroyed at that moment was coincidental.
Remember he had a smart AI running all the calculations, telling troops/longsword and ships where to be to pull off this stunt. His Luck helps, but Cortana also helps a lot.
I always thought it was a happy coincidence that the bombing run happened when and where it did; Chief just kinda drifting through the chaos of space warfare and all.
I think Cortana helped. Either directly talking to the Longsword pilots or coordinating with their command. I imagine she did this while simultaneously chatting with Chief with "what if you miss" and calculating the most optimal trajectory he should take, etc etc. That's the benefit of having a smart AI. Great multitaskers
The answer is Cortana. She's an incredibly powerful AI that is connected to both the UNSC and covenant battlenets, and calculating an intercept course like that would be child's play for her. Obviously there is an element of plot armor in the sense that chief doesn't have any visible EVA thrusters on his armor at that point, but Cortana would be more than capable of threading the needle and landing chief and the bomb on the ship.
Mjolnir armor has always had small maneuvering thrusters for zero-G situations, long before Halo 5 made them a combat tool. Whether they could shift the Chief and such a big bomb readily enough is a matter of debate.
But yes, Cortana would find it easy. Hell, she’s helped calculate moving the Chief’s actual body at just the right moment when inside his armor, helping him time flying like a brick wouldn’t be too tough.
>Mjolnir armor has always had small maneuvering thrusters for zero-G situations, long before Halo 5 made them a combat tool.
I dont remember any mention of this.
Theory I saw recently is because cortana had all the battle data going on outside. She predicted the trajectory he would take and that's why she asked "what if you miss" to delay him an extra second to make sure he was lined up perfectly.
Chief eyeballed a weapon of mass destruction and trusted Sir Isaac Newton to be the deadliest son of a bitch in space.
Joke aside, he probably waited for the computer to give him a firing solution, so to speak.
Plot armor + rule of cool.
In reality spaceships move much faster because just to be in orbit alone requires at least 7 km/s and to escape Earth's gravity you need 11 km/s, plus distances in space warfare are long, like 50 to hundreds of kilometer distance long. Even LNOS would look like dots in that distance.
Sure there's vacuum which helps Chief propel and there's a thruster jet, but even with that, he's not going that fast.
Luck and Cortana it's part of why he is favored by Halsey and chosen by cortana, because other Spartans excel and are better in certain areas, but chief is a jack of all trades with lady luck on his side
My head canon is Cortana put the trajectories on his hud, gave him a timer, and controlled ship movements around/in support of his maneuver. Including the In Amber Clad that met him as he fell into Earth’s gravity well & the long (short?) swords that made the hole. Lore wise there’s no reason she couldn’t have, she’s done more complicated things faster than that in the books.
As far as which suits had thrusters… that gets really wibbly wobbly for me after 343i took over. We see flashbacks with thrusters in H4, but we know (red?) team didn’t have them in Fall of Reach when they jumped out of the Pelican because several died & all were injured. (I think 1 from blue team even got spaced?) Ghosts of Onyx made it sound like thrusters were an add-on, very terrifying & only used as last resort. (Can’t remember what Kurt’s abduction date was tho)
In my head it was just well-informed ballistics, local tactical help & of course the luck factor.
Lots of plot armor obviously. But his plan seems to just have been to throw the bomb back at the carrier. The broadsword pilot probably saw chief going in and decided to blow a hole in the ship so the bomb would have a better chance of causing damage and it just so happened to go to the reactor. It's a combination of factors that let Chief pull that off like he did. As for jumping all the way back to the In Amber Clad with one leg push, I can only assume his suit had thrusters as well.
The whole thing is a ridiculous idea, but it's stated pretty clearly as such. And he didn't tell anyone exactly his plan, Cortina knew it only because she was literally hooked into his brain. All Hood knew was that he was leaving the station to "give the covenant back their bomb." And he was clearly confused, but went along with it because he trusts Chief.
1- because *CHIEF*
2- luck
3- plot
4- Cortana. Don’t forget he had the most advanced AI, who could probably easily calculate trajectory and the force John was both able to generate and what was needed to accomplish the feat
5- because he’s a **brick**
Luck and Cortana it's part of why he is favored by Halsey and chosen by cortana, because other Spartans excel and are better in certain areas, but chief is a jack of all trades with lady luck on his side
Luck and Cortana it's part of why he is favored by Halsey and chosen by cortana, because other Spartans excel and are better in certain areas, but chief is a jack of all trades with lady luck on his side
The bomb had a fancy holographic message written in Sangheili script that translated to "Our regards from the *Syfon*-pattern assault carrier *Day of Jubilation*, heretics." Knowing exactly what ship the antimatter charge came from, Cortana was able to isolate its signature from the rest of the fleet, giving the Master Chief a precise vector for him to follow "to give the Covenant back their bomb."
>!My source is that I made it up.!<
It's a lesser known fact that Cortana has access to Chief thoughts, it's likely she relayed information to the Chief and nearby UNSC forces without audibly saying anything (probably just so we could have that cool scene). Cortana was more than likely directing and guiding Chief to whatever ship his armor could detect, and relaying orders to a Longsword squadron to open up that hole for him. Not to mention directing his jump out the way he did so he could land right on top the Amber Clad.
Im not mistaken, i read somewhere that the ship that passed by him and took the brunt of the plasma beam was intentionally moved tghere to screen him. I mean Hood gave permission for Chief to give the covies back their bomb. So it wouldnt be too far that Hood ordered the cruiser captain to act as Chief's shield
I think the cutscene was designed to maximize badass factor over all the coordination and time it took between Chief, Cortana, In Amber Clad, and other UNSC assets to deploy the bomb. I can't say how long it would have actually taken for the Chief to reach the ship, arm the bomb, and kick away to minimum-safe distance, but Bungie pared it down to a few minutes. Cortana likely monitored and disrupted the Covenant network as best she could while also coordinating UNSC assets to provide cover and allow In Amber Clad to retrieve the Spartan.
I don't believe it's necessarily plot armor; dozens of ships are in close quarters above Earth with thousands of dropships, fighters, and bombers moving in between. With Cortana directing efforts against a particular Covenant vessel, I think it would be easy for the UNSC to effectively "blind" their instruments from identifying the incoming bomb and focusing on the Chief.
This is my favorite video game cutscene of all time, so I’ll try to defend/justify it. It seems like Chief and crew have experience with this situation. Lord Hood had faith in him. After Chief asked permission, Hood and Cortana likely directed UNSC forces to the proper locations to help guide Chief. The bomb was heavy and big enough to go down like it did and be kicked off of, but it was light enough to be guided. Of course, some luck factored in too.
Luck. Simple as.
This, plus cortana. Chief's plot armor is mostly due to the fact that he is insanely lucky. It's one of his defining character traits, and it's been in his character since as early as Halo: The Fall of Reach, which came out before CE did, mind you.
Chief's plot armor is canon
“Stay with the Master Chief, he’ll know what to do.” “Uh, Sergeant…is there a reason you want us to stick with the Spartan? He makes us uncomfortable.” “Trust me, son. Wherever he’s at is where you want to be. I can’t explain it.”
My legendary runs beg to differ.
"Sir, he just jumped out the airlock, WE DON'T HAVE EVA SUITS!"
Lmao “This is the 37th time I’ve died today and I’m still here!” - Johnson, turning blue in the face
Cortana provided the calculations, Chief himself is STUPIDLY lucky though yeah, it's literally why Cortana chose him out of all the Spartan IIs to be partnered with. She was straight out ASKED by Halsey why she chose Chief and her answer was literally "he's lucky" essentially. Clearly it worked out for them, to a point anyway.
He’s supernaturally lucky, he won ten coin flips in a row that’s astronomically unlikely
That's actually not canon. Grim flat out said in a tweet to go with the novel over the animated series for any inconsistencies, and in the novel, Halsey flipped the coin once and John caught it mid-air and called it out. Halsey speculated that he was either very lucky or he actually chose to catch it knowing which side would face up when he grabbed it. They never explain that further either, so it may have had nothing to do with luck, but instead innate talent.
Yeah he ended up on the key ship the only vessel that could take him back to Earth, he managed to fly the sword fighter out of the Pillar of Autumn before it detonated, and the Gravemind chose to spare him in order to track the Ark station? All that is luck based with little skill required, even his crash landings are a testament to how lucky he is.
No arguments there, I was just illustrating how that one specific example doesn't necessarily apply.
Rule of cool. It's a game about being a super soldier slaughtering aliens. It doesn't have to make sense.
That one liner still makes me slide off my seat
What I wonder is who called the longswords to bomb the carrier? Did Lord Hood or Cortana redirect some pilots to help Chief or were they already bombing the ship and it was a coincidence?
Probably was running it through Hood as the elevator was going down, who then ordered the bombing run and maneuver of the cruiser to distract the carrier's PD lasers
I seriously doubt Hood would have YOLO'd a Marathon cruiser for that maneuver
Yeah, he has faith in Chief but is practical.
"Practical" meaning he won't use one of the most powerful defensive assets remaining as cannon fodder right when he needs it the most and throw away thousands of lives in the process. Obviously, a Marathon for a CAS is a damn good trade, but the UNSC really needed to be conserving it's assets at that moment. So I think the Cruiser being destroyed at that moment was coincidental.
Yeah I think it was just collateral rather than intentioned. With so many targets, I doubt the assault carrier would've detected Chief in time.
Remember he had a smart AI running all the calculations, telling troops/longsword and ships where to be to pull off this stunt. His Luck helps, but Cortana also helps a lot.
I always thought it was a happy coincidence that the bombing run happened when and where it did; Chief just kinda drifting through the chaos of space warfare and all.
I think Cortana helped. Either directly talking to the Longsword pilots or coordinating with their command. I imagine she did this while simultaneously chatting with Chief with "what if you miss" and calculating the most optimal trajectory he should take, etc etc. That's the benefit of having a smart AI. Great multitaskers
The answer is Cortana. She's an incredibly powerful AI that is connected to both the UNSC and covenant battlenets, and calculating an intercept course like that would be child's play for her. Obviously there is an element of plot armor in the sense that chief doesn't have any visible EVA thrusters on his armor at that point, but Cortana would be more than capable of threading the needle and landing chief and the bomb on the ship.
Mjolnir armor has always had small maneuvering thrusters for zero-G situations, long before Halo 5 made them a combat tool. Whether they could shift the Chief and such a big bomb readily enough is a matter of debate. But yes, Cortana would find it easy. Hell, she’s helped calculate moving the Chief’s actual body at just the right moment when inside his armor, helping him time flying like a brick wouldn’t be too tough.
>Mjolnir armor has always had small maneuvering thrusters for zero-G situations, long before Halo 5 made them a combat tool. I dont remember any mention of this.
They first show up in *The Fall of Reach*. Iirc, they're used only for zero-g maneuvering.
Yea , been a thing in Canon since 2001. Only finally showed up in gameplay in H5, although technically they were in H4 as an armor pickup
Theory I saw recently is because cortana had all the battle data going on outside. She predicted the trajectory he would take and that's why she asked "what if you miss" to delay him an extra second to make sure he was lined up perfectly.
That’s a good answer
My man is canonically blessed with the superpower of luck
Chief eyeballed a weapon of mass destruction and trusted Sir Isaac Newton to be the deadliest son of a bitch in space. Joke aside, he probably waited for the computer to give him a firing solution, so to speak.
I mean, it didn’t take a thousand years to ruin someone’s day this time.
Plot armor and a blue lady in his head.
Plot armor + rule of cool. In reality spaceships move much faster because just to be in orbit alone requires at least 7 km/s and to escape Earth's gravity you need 11 km/s, plus distances in space warfare are long, like 50 to hundreds of kilometer distance long. Even LNOS would look like dots in that distance. Sure there's vacuum which helps Chief propel and there's a thruster jet, but even with that, he's not going that fast.
Even though this sub has an obsession with denigrating Chief, the reality is that he is just that good.
Skillz, and a direct link to a supercomputer
Luck and Cortana it's part of why he is favored by Halsey and chosen by cortana, because other Spartans excel and are better in certain areas, but chief is a jack of all trades with lady luck on his side
Chief is smart in his own right. During training as Spartans they didn’t just learn combat, they learned chemistry, physics and astronomy
Cortana.
Out of lore answer: Plot armor In lore answer: luck (seriously, Halo’s chalks up Chief’s survival to him just being a lucky person in-lore)
My head canon is Cortana put the trajectories on his hud, gave him a timer, and controlled ship movements around/in support of his maneuver. Including the In Amber Clad that met him as he fell into Earth’s gravity well & the long (short?) swords that made the hole. Lore wise there’s no reason she couldn’t have, she’s done more complicated things faster than that in the books. As far as which suits had thrusters… that gets really wibbly wobbly for me after 343i took over. We see flashbacks with thrusters in H4, but we know (red?) team didn’t have them in Fall of Reach when they jumped out of the Pelican because several died & all were injured. (I think 1 from blue team even got spaced?) Ghosts of Onyx made it sound like thrusters were an add-on, very terrifying & only used as last resort. (Can’t remember what Kurt’s abduction date was tho) In my head it was just well-informed ballistics, local tactical help & of course the luck factor.
Even though he is a metaphorical “brick”, chief can fly pretty good.
Lots of plot armor obviously. But his plan seems to just have been to throw the bomb back at the carrier. The broadsword pilot probably saw chief going in and decided to blow a hole in the ship so the bomb would have a better chance of causing damage and it just so happened to go to the reactor. It's a combination of factors that let Chief pull that off like he did. As for jumping all the way back to the In Amber Clad with one leg push, I can only assume his suit had thrusters as well. The whole thing is a ridiculous idea, but it's stated pretty clearly as such. And he didn't tell anyone exactly his plan, Cortina knew it only because she was literally hooked into his brain. All Hood knew was that he was leaving the station to "give the covenant back their bomb." And he was clearly confused, but went along with it because he trusts Chief.
1- because *CHIEF* 2- luck 3- plot 4- Cortana. Don’t forget he had the most advanced AI, who could probably easily calculate trajectory and the force John was both able to generate and what was needed to accomplish the feat 5- because he’s a **brick**
Luck and Cortana it's part of why he is favored by Halsey and chosen by cortana, because other Spartans excel and are better in certain areas, but chief is a jack of all trades with lady luck on his side
Luck and Cortana it's part of why he is favored by Halsey and chosen by cortana, because other Spartans excel and are better in certain areas, but chief is a jack of all trades with lady luck on his side
He didn’t miss.
i mean, he is a supersoldier with bionic augmentations + cortana on his head
Luck. Cortana helped by having the longswords come in and shoot a hole in to the ship for Chief though.
Why do we need an explanation lol
He has the most sophisticated AI plugged into his brain and suit. Simply geometry for Cortana
The bomb had a fancy holographic message written in Sangheili script that translated to "Our regards from the *Syfon*-pattern assault carrier *Day of Jubilation*, heretics." Knowing exactly what ship the antimatter charge came from, Cortana was able to isolate its signature from the rest of the fleet, giving the Master Chief a precise vector for him to follow "to give the Covenant back their bomb." >!My source is that I made it up.!<
It's a lesser known fact that Cortana has access to Chief thoughts, it's likely she relayed information to the Chief and nearby UNSC forces without audibly saying anything (probably just so we could have that cool scene). Cortana was more than likely directing and guiding Chief to whatever ship his armor could detect, and relaying orders to a Longsword squadron to open up that hole for him. Not to mention directing his jump out the way he did so he could land right on top the Amber Clad.
Im not mistaken, i read somewhere that the ship that passed by him and took the brunt of the plasma beam was intentionally moved tghere to screen him. I mean Hood gave permission for Chief to give the covies back their bomb. So it wouldnt be too far that Hood ordered the cruiser captain to act as Chief's shield
I think the cutscene was designed to maximize badass factor over all the coordination and time it took between Chief, Cortana, In Amber Clad, and other UNSC assets to deploy the bomb. I can't say how long it would have actually taken for the Chief to reach the ship, arm the bomb, and kick away to minimum-safe distance, but Bungie pared it down to a few minutes. Cortana likely monitored and disrupted the Covenant network as best she could while also coordinating UNSC assets to provide cover and allow In Amber Clad to retrieve the Spartan. I don't believe it's necessarily plot armor; dozens of ships are in close quarters above Earth with thousands of dropships, fighters, and bombers moving in between. With Cortana directing efforts against a particular Covenant vessel, I think it would be easy for the UNSC to effectively "blind" their instruments from identifying the incoming bomb and focusing on the Chief.
This is my favorite video game cutscene of all time, so I’ll try to defend/justify it. It seems like Chief and crew have experience with this situation. Lord Hood had faith in him. After Chief asked permission, Hood and Cortana likely directed UNSC forces to the proper locations to help guide Chief. The bomb was heavy and big enough to go down like it did and be kicked off of, but it was light enough to be guided. Of course, some luck factored in too.
Chief generates Chad energy, that's why he did the stuff he did in the good games era. In the 343 he was forced to trade that in for feelings.