There is a brief political science analysis of Battlestar Galactica that I found very interesting. Since Caprica Burning is now my second most-downloaded map to Covenant War, here is a brief analysis of the political science of Halo.
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Halo, a science fiction video game series, does not have much political commentary at first glance. True, the player’s enemies were part of the Covenant, led by “Prophets” who manipulated their religion to commit genocide against humanity. But, given Halo’s popularity, it is more interesting to note that the series’ backstory has governments on Earth and most of humanity finally united - under a military government.
At the time of Halo: Combat Evolved, in the year 2552, humanity’s largest fleet and shipyard facilities on the planet Reach were destroyed in an overwhelming Covenant attack. The player character, a human super-soldier known as Master Chief Petty Officer John-117, escaped the attack onboard an antiquated, but well-constructed ship, the Pillar of Autumn. The ship was under the flag of the United Nations Space Command (UNSC), the space-faring navy of humanity, as well as its government.
The UNSC was created after numerous inter-planetary wars in the Solar System during the 22nd century. Facing the challenges of space colonization, overpopulation, starvation, and a collapsing world economy, the UN eventually established a supranational government, the Unified Earth Government (UEG), capable of passing legislation that was enforced by consolidated national police forces and militaries. The latter formed the nucleus of the UNSC. The UEG also incorporated extra-terrestrial colonies, uniting humanity in a unitary republic. It is described as a union of independently governed worlds, but Earth is in a “privileged position over the colonies in the election process” (which election in particular is unknown).
Before the Covenant first attacked humanity, the UEG was already in crisis. Outside of the Solar System, some colonies wanted more governmental autonomy, while others demanded complete independence; the UEG granted neither. Anticipating a civil war, the UNSC secretly kidnapped dozens of genetically-ideal children, conditioned them in military training, and subjected them to extensive and often fatal biological enhancements. To hide the kidnappings, the children were replaced in their families with “flash clones,” who soon died due to the imperfection of cloning. This was the SPARTAN-II program, which John-117 was a result of. The SPARTANs’ objective was to subdue insurrections in their early stages, avoiding civil war.
After the Covenant began their genocidal war against humanity in 2525, the UEG delegated its governmental powers to the UNSC, installing an “emergency military” government [or aristocratic oligarchy, with “society’s best citizens” (military) to rule, as well as a “small group of individuals from diverse social strata” (the military does not socioeconomically discriminate in recruiting)]. The SPARTANs were highly effective in ground combat, but the UNSC was outnumbered and outgunned by the Covenant in space, suffering many defeats and billions of human deaths. Because of this, the UNSC instituted the Cole Protocol to protect locations of the remaining human colonies: reteating ships must avoid population centers, or, in the face of imminent capture, destroy all data and self-destruct.
The SPARTANs were tasked with capturing a Prophet, one of the Covenant’s highest rulers, so that the UNSC could force a truce with the Covenant. Before the mission could commence, most of the SPARTANs were killed on Reach. After escaping the battle, the Pillar of Autumn discovered Halo, an ancient ring-shaped world constructed by nearly-extinct aliens. While on Halo, John-117 uncovered the Flood, a parasitic life-form that Halo was built to eliminate by annihilating all life in the galaxy. John-117 destroyed Halo by detonating the Pillar of Autumn’s reactors, and returned to Earth.
In Halo 2, the player encounters the highest-ranking official in the game series, Fleet Admiral Lord Terrence Hood, the UNSC Chief of Naval Operations. He was conducting an awards ceremony when the first Covenant fleet attacked Earth, and assumed command of the UNSC Home Fleet during the battle. Only a few ships of the Home Fleet were left when Hood authorized a joint UNSC-Covenant separatist mission in Halo 3, and only then because he trusted John-117.
At the end of Halo 3, Fleet Admiral Hood conducted a post-war UNSC memorial service. Although he could not forgive the Covenant separatists, he thanked their leader, Thel ‘Vadam, for his alliance and for fighting alongside John-117 to the end. Fleet Admiral Hood is not directly referenced in Halo 4, but UNSC Fleet Command’s replacement of a commanding officer for abandoning John-117 was most likely ordered by Hood.
The most vivid and official description of government in Halo was given on an online forum, set chronologically after the events of Halo 3:
Human records indicate transition to noncombatant administrative control [ref: UEG] [January 8, 2553]. No notable adjustment in military [bureaucratic tactical] behavior and scope of authority.
The “transition” was Ruth Charet being sworn in as the President of the Unified Earth Government, according to the novel Halo: Glasslands. How she assumed the presidency (by election, appointment, or other) is unknown. Presumably, the “bureaucratic tactical behavior” stems from the inherent competition between military branches, or the military’s outmaneuvering of civilian bureaucracy. Additionally, the UNSC still does not require the authorization of the UEG for their budgets, indicating a complete lack of civilian authority over the military.
The UNSC was controlled by the UNSC Security Council, a group of the highest ranking officers from each military branch, having essentially the same composition as the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. However, instead of only advising the President or the Secretary of Defense, the Security Council was the head of humanity’s military government/aristocratic oligarchy.
The UNSC Security Council’s current relationship to President Charet or the Secretary of Defense is unknown, but at the very least, the Security Council has the authority to order military deployments without UEG authorization, or an order from the UEG President (if the President is constitutionally defined as the Commander-in-Chief of the UNSC).
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The story of Halo begins onboard the Pillar of Autumn, a military space-cruiser which fled the destruction of humanity’s last defenses before Earth. Captain Jacob Keyes, a grimly determined veteran, commanded the Autumn and ordered John-117 to protect the ship’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) construct at all costs. The construct had a female persona, Cortana, and while she was literally brilliant, if her AI core was captured or salvaged, she could unwillingly reveal the location of Earth.
The decisions that human leaders made in Halo were solely oriented towards the protection of Earth and human colonies (although the defense of the former was prioritized). The UNSC was installed as an emergency military government, but it certainly was an emergency - after 27 years of war with the Covenant, billions of humans had been killed. It is arguable that presidential or general elections could not reasonably be held during the war, when even basic transportation between colonies was limited to protect the secrecy of their locations.
The UNSC made at least one strategic decision which went against all institutional interests. While destroying a Flood infestation on Earth, John-117 recovered a message from Cortana, who was captured by the Flood. In the message, she said that the Flood will come in full force to Earth, unless John goes through a faster-than-light transportation portal to find a solution to the Flood. Understandably, Fleet Admiral Hood questioned the message, reasoning that it could be a Flood trap, but John trusted her.
Hood authorized Commander Miranda Keyes, daughter of the late Captain Keyes, to take her ship (one of the few the UNSC has left) and accompany the Covenant separatists to find the solution Cortana spoke of. John-117’s trust in her was rewarded, and the war came to an end.
More than four years after the war’s end, the Didact, a survivor of the Forerunner race (which built the Halos and were ancient enemies of humanity) attempted to imprison Earth’s population, using a massive machine capable of transferring organic consciousness to software format.
The captain of the UNSC’s new flagship, Infinity, rejected the threat of the Didact, and a progressively degrading Cortana damaged the ship’s bridge. John-117 defied direct orders, taking Cortana with him to fight the Didact. The Infinity’s executive officer, Commander Thomas Lasky, trusted John and armed him with a Pelican gunship.
When John-117’s pre-emptive attack on the Didact failed, and the Didact’s ship appeared near Earth, now-Captain Thomas Lasky with the Infinity and a UNSC battlegroup assisted John in destroying the Didact’s ship. Fleet Admiral Hood, through UNSC Fleet Command, disapproved of the previous captain’s abandonment of John-117 and promoted Lasky to the position, while Lasky’s trust in John was justified. However, victory against the Didact came at the cost of the destruction of Cortana, who teleported John away to safety.
While all of the decisions made by human leaders in Halo were necessarily of a military nature, they were also predicated by an undercurrent of trust. Instead of destroying Cortana to protect Earth, Captain Keyes trusted John-117 to protect her. Fleet Admiral Hood trusted John-117 enough to commit one of the UNSC’s few ships, and one of the very few SPARTANs, to a mission that could have destroyed the UNSC-Covenant separatist alliance. Captain Thomas Lasky could have been court-martialed for giving John-117 a gunship after he disobeyed orders, but Lasky trusted that John would prevent the Didact’s attack on Earth.
Most of all, Halo 4 depicts the most humanity visible in the series - the relationship between John-117 and Cortana. In Halo: The Fall of Reach, John is understandably skeptical of how a “mission specialist” could not be a liability during combat. After their first, nearly-fatal field exercise together, John realized that Cortana could only help him carry out his duty to protect humanity, no matter the cost. It was only after John learned that Cortana was destroyed, did he come the closest he has been to displaying strong emotions, long-ago suppressed by the SPARTAN program. The political inferences of Halo are most astute when they portray the complexities of inter-personal relationships, which is where politics ultimately begins.
Edited by theselfescaping, 21 September 2014 - 03:49 PM.
