456 replies to this topic

[Battle8111]

Well, what I read so far I enjoyed it. 

 

-Recap; Well, its a fuck ton, and I rather give someone else the job of typing, as my fingers are going to fall of soon. 

 

But, its interesting and it changes up a lot of what I expected in Halo. I can't wait to read rest of whats out. 

[SternuS]

Can someone make a recap? I feel like my eyes would bleed if I actually sat down and read all of these.

First Issues: peace talks between UNSC, the Arbiter's Sangheili and a Brute Chief; S-IV deployed as securtiy; one of them betrays (...no comment...) and tells the position of these peace talks to 'Mdama. 'Gajat is a Snagheili Fleet Commander dispatched by 'Mdama to kill the commanders. Eventually, Hood, the Brute Chieftain and the Arbiter escape to their vessels, along with the S-IV, except for DeMarco who sacrifices himself.

 

Middle Issues: the son of Cutter captured a world-glassing Covenant space station. Creates a fake SOS signal, making them think it comes from the Spirit of Fire. The Infinity jumps to the coordinates, it gets slashed by this cannon, the commander (not Lasky) dies, Hood gets pierced by a metal bar, everything seems lost; Palmer and friends take those silly vehicles seen in The Package (Halo Legends) and manage to breach in the station, capturing Cutter's son and firing the station's cannon toward 'Gajat's ship, killing him. Cut. Hood talks to Cutter's son in some prison, don't remember the dialogue, was something like "blah blah blah revelation". Cut. SoF crashing into a planet, with Flood aboard.

 

Issue 8,9,10: 72 hours after Didact's defeat, Chief and friends (blue team) get to Halo 03. Find Black Team dead. They arrive where the Composer was. Portal. They arrive on a Forerunner planet. Didact's alive. Chief & Co. find the planet is actually a Composers' foundry. Didact takes a Composer and puts it in Halo 03. Chief & Co. fight their way back to the portal, helped by the installation's monitor, who is upset about Didact's making Prometheans out of Humans. Cief & Co. get back to 03, fight the Didact, Chief stabs him in an eye, Didact's crunches Chief's head. Gets rid of Blue team, but before he can kill them, the Monitor's back and stuns the Didact, teleporting him in the Halo's control room. Didact wants to fire the Halo against humanity (then why the hell did he take a Composer? Nonesense). Chief has the Index, arrives in Control Room, puts the index in the Halo but the Monitor detaches that section of the Halo and clashes it against the Planet's surface. Didact gets killed or Composed. Chief & Co. arrive at Earth, Hood says good job, take a break, they say no, they go where they are needed (no I'm not kidding, they really said that).

 

The end.

[Unikraken]

Pruning comments in here. Try to stay on topic.

[SternuS]

EDIT: Whoops, didn't see Uni's post.

 

 

Spoiler

343GS is still alive, according to the books. There is also no proof of the graveminds death. Bodily death, highly likely. Mental death? Near impossible to confirm due to the omniscient traits of the gravemind.

On top of that, i highly doubt the didact is truly dead. If he came back once before, im willing to bet he can do so again.

And dont get me started on star wars. The emperor (palpatine) had his final, true death in a book. Many of the best battles, stories, and lore from star wars came from books, such as the books about revan, darth bane, thrawn, and the yuuzhan vong wars. So, if youre upset about a "comic", keep in mind that you can only do so much with a video game cutscene.

All the infos you stated in your post are right. But you are missing my point (it's probably because recently I'm a tad ritarded with words, it happens sometimes): I don't care if they make the Villain rvive in the books/comics just to kill him subsequentely; that villain already had a certain depth in the movie/game/past book.

 

I'll talk about Halo because I know its lore: Truth had a huge importance throughout the entire Halo serie; 343GS had an enormous importance, just like the Gravemind. Now, they were given a proper end in a proper way: the Trilogy finale in Halo 3, where they got annihilated (wether the Gravemind is alive or not, that is another thread).

What happened in Halo 4? They presented us the Diact in the third mission of the game, the most iconic character of the Halo saga since we read the terminals in Halo 3, the last living Forerunner, and he gets defeated at the end of the game, 5 missions later; which is cool, since they left us with a dubt about his death, so we all (or at least me) thought he would've had a major role in the upcoming game.

And yet, they manage to kill him in a comic, that many won't read. One of the most iconic characters in the Halo Universe.How are they gonna explain this?

Escalation just felt like an agglomeration of events that should've been told via a game or book, and instead are told in a 14-pages-long comic.

 

Wether he is still alive, composed or whatelse, thing that I am pretty certain he is, it won't make up for the fact that he just won't be him anymore. All that vengeance we read in Escalation (which I found quite enjoyable...until this last issue) could've been wonderfully told in Halo 5.

[Lord Stark]

The Didact issue was utterly pointless aside from giving them an excuse to kill Team Black.  I mean hell at least DeMarco's death also gave us some political intrigue.  The issues have been getting progressively worse plot wise imo. Less intrigue more Spartans killing shit...not the best in terms of advancing plot.

[Zero]

 

Kelly is the Sniper and Linda is the scout. This is why the comics are terrible.

[Jaeger]

Wait what why the hell is kelly the sniper and linda the Scout? What the fuck have I been missing Linda is said to be the best damn sniper in the Spartan IIs in the novels.

 

EDIT: I didn't see your comment at the bottom till after I posted. Just why? Who makes these? Do they not know how to read a novel? Dear lord 343 needs to be lined against the wall and shot. I mean every single person who works their who has not only played the games but also read every novel made from before Halo 1 to right before Bungie ended their contract.

[SternuS]

Wait what why the hell is kelly the sniper and linda the Scout? What the fuck have I been missing Linda is said to be the best damn sniper in the Spartan IIs in the novels

343i. They care about the lore.

[Lord Stark]

Whenever I think of the throbbing nerd boner I had when we first got the previews for the Arbiter peace summit, I rage because of what a disappointment this series has been.  I mean seriously they wasted a good character design and character in general in Vata 'Gajat...fucked up Infinity's reputation all for the sake of some douche with daddy issues.  I mean come the fuck on.

[theselfescaping]

Politics in Halo: Escalation
If nothing else, the comics depict the military continuing to use short-term strategy, even after the greatest threat of genocide has ended:

Our mission was to stop another attack like New Phoenix, ma'am. Which I believe we did. (Lasky)

Tactically defeating an intergalactic enemy force is no small feat, but "stopping another attack" in general is impossible, as the Boston Marathon bombings sadly demonstrated. Even without an external threat, a free society cannot have a complete lack of radical or potentially destabilizing elements.

Finding a way to pacify the Brutes and get access to their resources is in the UNSC's best interests. (Hood)

While this is a very simplistic statement, economic cooperation through investment in infrastructure and technology can be an effective method of diplomacy. Of course, diplomatic efforts are not foolproof, but contingency plans can cause the failures they anticipate:

Why do you think Arbiter hasn't been able to make peace on his own in the past five years? (Scruggs)

The leader of a moderate faction may still threaten one's national interests at least passively, whether it be from nationalistic fervor, or inconvenient positions towards one's private sector. To prevent one's former enemy from acquiring further military equipment, or sabotaging a political arrangement that could result in a regional hegemon, are rational, albeit not-completely-ethical ends and means.

I have committed a great number of sins in the name of protecting my people from extinction. (Hood)

There are two particular sins, or crimes that the state have committed in the Halo universe, which come to mind. (To be fair, Hood did not order either of them.) The state was formally the Unified Earth Government (UEG), which incorporated both Earth's countries and extra-terrestrial colonies in a supranational, interplanetary, and interstellar unitary republic. However, developed colonies suffered from inequality in the electoral process, compared to Earth's countries. Meanwhile, developing colonies, the origin of most of the UEG's agricultural and manufacturing products, had no representation in the UEG. The Outer Colonies were govered by the Colonial Administration Authority and policed by the Colonial Military Administration, both of which were subordinate to the UEG.
 
As citizens of the Outer Colonies underwent more economic and political inequality, peaceful protests eventually evolved into the Insurrection, an open rebellion against the UEG. Both of the perceived sins of the UEG (later superceded by the UNSC emergency military government) were reactions to the Insurrection. Although mentioned in only two novels, Ghosts of Onyx and Moral Dicta, the nuclear bombing of the Far Isle colony is arguably the most unethical action of the UEG/UNSC to date. A massive Insurrectionist rebellion occurred on the planet of Far Isle, and the UEG/UNSC could not contain it. In response, the UNSC conducted the nuclear bombing of Far Isle, completely destroying the colony and its inhabitants.
 
The second state crime committed by the UEG was under the auspices of the UNSC's Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), at this point the most powerful intelligence agency in existence. ONI concluded that the Insurrection would result in the collapse of the UEG and a gradual self-destruction of human civilization. Therefore, ONI initiated the SPARTAN-II program, which involved kidnapping dozens of genetically-ideal children; replacing them in their families with "flash clones," who soon died due to the imperfection of cloning; conditioning the children in forced military training; and subjecting them to extensive, often fatal biological enhancements.

The New Colonial Alliance has grown stronger than you can imagine. We have agents on every colony. On the poisoned shores of Earth herself. (Clayton)

In the context of past injustices committed by the UEG/UNSC, the persistence of militant, rebellious elements is rational. Still, even the Confederate States of America primarily aimed for independence, not the destruction of the Union; for the colonial rebels to continue to aim for the destruction of the UEG is unrealistic, and counter-productive to more moderate politics in support of independence.

After decades of war, we could have grown too used to such terrors as these. Instead we refuse ourselves that callousness. We pause and acknowledge what we have lost. We remind ourselves of what it is we continue to live for. And that is our strength as a people. (Charet)

The opening sentiment to the UEG President's statement is an uncomfortable notion: how long will the war on terror be? After the Cold War, democratic countries enjoyed only a decade of relative peace (or at least not having any geopolitically-existential enemies), until it was shattered by the September 11th attacks. Terrorist attacks do not result in the same revulsion and public outcry, if they are not committed in Western cities; and, if they are, they need not be associated with an external actor, due to self-radicalization (as occured in the Boston Marathon bombings).
 
This could be a recurring theme in the Halo universe, potentially expanding on very important and relevant questions: What is a realistic goal of the War on Terror? Why are terrorist acts treated by the media as inhuman anomalies, when terrorism is present throughout human history? Is there a psychologically and socioeconomically healthier way for society to understand terrorism, given that many of its same causes result in the formation of gangs (which are equally persistent, potentially pervasive, and almost as violent)? Given a more nuanced understanding of terrorism, can society accept that if terrorism is a crime, and crime is present in every society, it is impossible and counter-productive to obsess on completely preventing terrorism?
 
P.S. I really didn't like how four of the most physiologically advanced humans in existence were found dead without much ado. I hadn't even heard of Black Team until Escalation, but the handling of the Didact's supposed out-of-game death wasn't that better.
 
(I don't know why certain words out of the quotes are colored differently, but it's fine.)

Edited by sloosecannon, 08 December 2014 - 07:13 AM.
Replace [code] tags with [quote]

[SternuS]

Oh noes! Thorne is in danger! Lasky is sending more Spartans on the ground to save him!

 

AGAIN.

 

And of course it has to be a 2 men operation, in case the Sangheili should notice a bigger disposal of troops, he could hide in some bunkers or tunnels.

On an almost uninhabitable planet.

With no life on it.

No water.

0% chances of survival.

With a 5-kilometers-long battleship of unparalleled firepower stationing above the moon, which could neutralise every possible threat with little to no effort.

But yeah, there's a probable bio-chemical weapon that could possibly be used against humanity in a genocidal way.

 

 

Let's send two Spartans down there.

 

P.S. Has anybody noticed the magical Carabine on page 9? That must be a new technology too!

[SternuS]

Fantastic. I wonder if they're even trying by now or if they just abandoned any committment to make the lore good.

 

So, you're telling me that the Oni masterminded this whole operation to blow up a Kig-Yar pirate base? With a Storm Sangheili, the kind who swore to kill all the Humans?

When getting a Prowler equipped with a nuke for a hit-and-run operation would've clearly been more simple and cheaper? Because, they did have a fleet (a fleet? You call a Corvette - which is even called "flagship"? - and a bunch of Liches, a fleet?), but nothing able to spot a cloaked Prowler.

A nuke on the planet would've had the same results.

Also, it's fantastic to see the connections to the past games to make it feel more Halo. A Spectre, LONGSWORDS, plasma turrets like those in Halo 3. All references that are missing in the main game.

Also, Pelicans like pre-Halo 4 era. Aboard the Infinity. Wish they didn't change them for the new ones. (little side-note: isn't the Condor in Nightfall a fucking Halo 4 era's PELICAN with a couple more engines? LAME)

A Kig-Yar Queen, a possible good character for future stories - lasted 4 pages. 4 pages.

 

Oh, and the end: Next: Spartan-Ops, the Janus Key.

HAHAHAHAHA

The Janus Key. They realized too late they made a big mistake with Spartan Ops and couldn't end the story they started, they're going to do so in a 2-issues-long comic. Hilarious.

[Lord Stark]

*Facepalm* This past issue was awful.  

-4 page villains

- 2 Corvettes and a handful of Liches a threat to Infinity.

-ONI manipulating shit without anyone thinking of reporting it to Lord Hood or the rest of CENTCOM.  

[MrChipps]

*Facepalm* This past issue was awful.  
-4 page villains
- 2 Corvettes and a handful of Liches a threat to Infinity.
-ONI manipulating shit without anyone thinking of reporting it to Lord Hood or the rest of CENTCOM.

I agree with you on every point exept the last, ONI does not report to Hood or Centcom since they are their own seperate branch headed by adm Osman.

[Jaeger]

 

- 2 Corvettes and a handful of Liches a threat to Infinity.

 

Let me guess at how 343 will explain this

 

343: The reason they were a threat to Infinity was because uh um.... they had plot device Supercarriers power generators, shields, and weapons because fuck logic that the plot device would likely have Generators and Shield Generators the size of a Lich or Corvette.

[sloosecannon]

I agree with you on every point exept the last, ONI does not report to Hood or Centcom since they are their own seperate branch headed by adm Osman.

Technically, they would report to CENTCOM, given that CENTCOM appears to be a regional equivalent of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff - in other words, the military command. ONI is still a military unit (Office of Naval Intelligence)
 

(I don't know why certain words out of the quotes are colored differently, but it's fine.)

Because you used

code

tags, instead of

quote

tags

[MrChipps]

Have you read the Kilo-5 trilogy? ONI more or less runs the UNSC and only tells others what they want to hear.

[sloosecannon]

Have you read the Kilo-5 trilogy? ONI more or less runs the UNSC and only tells others what they want to hear.

No, I'm just commenting on how it *should* work.

I guess your point is valid though - that's probably the norm in the Halo universe.

[Whitehalomango]

I trust the novels more than the comics. The comics are just a excuse to add action and pictures IMO though they are good. Novels have a solid story and don't bloody break the lore around every corner! They add and expand! Just finished Contact Harvest and now Johnson is even more badass. Don't know how thats possible though. Kilo-5 was a pretty good trilogy IMO. All about ONI and their evil deeds. Plus a human insurrection.    

[Jaeger]

I trust the novels more than the comics. The comics are just a excuse to add action and pictures IMO though they are good. Novels have a solid story and don't bloody break the lore around every corner! They add and expand! Just finished Contact Harvest and now Johnson is even more badass. Don't know how thats possible though. Kilo-5 was a pretty good trilogy IMO. All about ONI and their evil deeds. Plus a human insurrection.    

I agree but when the comics break the lore so bad that dark horse comics and 343i need to be lined and shot while pouring lemon juice and rubbing salt on their woundss you know they screwed up very very bad.

 

Contact Harvest was my favorite. Kinda whish we had a UNSC Marines vs Insurrectionst fighters game be awesome to be a marine instead of a Spartan or ODST.