The Halo Thread V13: Great, this guy's OP again? - Games

Noble team were the worst part of reach's story. The most human character was a spartan II, and every death was questionable. But I didn't feel it was that sort of 'spartans have people issues' that kept me from disliking them, if it was that, it would've been better. Whole thing felt rushed as fuck and the team was thought up by the bad idea guy. Jun's survival... Maybe he retired and wrote a book on it.

[QUOTE=The Jack;51840353]Noble team were the worst part of reach's story. The most human character was a spartan II, and every death was questionable. But I didn't feel it was that sort of 'spartans have people issues' that kept me from disliking them, if it was that, it would've been better. Whole thing felt rushed as fuck and the team was thought up by the bad idea guy. Jun's survival... Maybe he retired and wrote a book on it.[/QUOTE] Are you one of those people who wonder how Kat died?

[QUOTE=The Jack;51840353]Noble team were the worst part of reach's story. The most human character was a spartan II, and every death was questionable. But I didn't feel it was that sort of 'spartans have people issues' that kept me from disliking them, if it was that, it would've been better. Whole thing felt rushed as fuck and the team was thought up by the bad idea guy. Jun's survival... Maybe he retired and wrote a book on it.[/QUOTE] How the hell was Jorge's death questionable? Or Emile's?

Emile's death was fine. It was straight combat. Kat, George and Carter had contrived deaths.

No they didn't. Carter died in Combat, Kat died in an Ambush, Jorge sacrificed himself.

[QUOTE=Zezibesh;51840038]I hated all the new stuff until like two days ago when I read the Forerunner Trilogy. While the second book was a bit slow, I loved the style as a contrast to the usual military scifi shlock of Halo and the first and third books rocketed up my top Halo novels list to share the first place. I thought they were quite amazing and almost all the concepts mentioned above were well explained and fit in the story. I was never one of the types to think the Forerunners should have remained mysterious or that humanity should have been a direct descendant of them, so the changes weren't a huge shock or anything. There were still some problems with the books ([I]geas[/I] is still pretty dumb to me, massive timeskips and lack of action at parts probably turned off fans of the more traditional Halo novels) but stuff like Keyminds, Star Roads, the logic plague and especially the Didact's story were pure gold. They really made me appreciate the Flood as a villain and they are by far my favorite horde / biomass / space zombie type antagonist now. They also gave me a new appreciation for Halo 4's story and its presentation of the Didact. Shame 343 threw it all away with the ending, Halo 5 and "killing" him in a comic later on. And made 4's story fairly incomprehensible to those who hadn't read the books. I still have some questions though so if anyone more acquainted with the lore could answer I'd appreciate it. Most can probably be explained as inconsistencies due to Bungie and 343 retcons but hey. [sp]The Flood did not originally want to infect humanity during the Human-Forerunner war since the Precursors had meant them to inherit the Mantle and the Flood remembered it even in their corrupted form, right? The Flood were mainly just corrupted statis-dust-Precursors who wanted to fuck up the Forerunners in revenge. However, in Silentium the Gravemind speaks of its plan to enslave all life and keep it in pain and misery forever so it can never be surpassed. How does this mesh with sparing humanity? And in Halo 3, the Gravemind heads immediately to Earth, not trying to infect Covenant homeworlds and later jumps High Charity to the lesser Ark. While this seems like an obvious result of retcons I wonder if there's ever been any explanation why the Gravemind would be so dumb to A: Not try to spread as far and wide as possible instead of putting all its eggs in one basket and B: Try to infect the species it meant to protect earlier. Even in Silentium after proclaiming its life-extinguishing plans it still doesn't try to infect Erde-Tyrene, just sending the human leaders in Flood form to taunt the Librarian. Oh and finally, how have the Halos ever been a counter to the Flood, really? They don't kill absolutely everything, just life above a certain complexity. The Flood could have just seeded worlds with its spores / dust form and re-emerge after the Forerunners re-seeded life.[/sp][/QUOTE] [sp] This is one of those moments it's for you to decide what happened. Some think it was to get back at the Forerunners, others think it was part of a larger plan. The Forerunners, seeing the humans "successfully" repelling the Flood made them believe there was a cure in order to make things worse for the Forerunners when they had their chance to attack them. Yeah, this is a big inconsistency even within Halo 3 itself, particularly why the Gravemind sent a ship to Voi instead of into the jungle where there was plenty of biomass. At the end of the Forerunner Trilogy I think it knew its time was finished (for now) and chose to have some fun. Personally I think it's lying as part of its plan instead of actually wanting to destroy everything, but it could be either one. Yes, that's always been an issue. It at the very least wipes them out as physical threat for some time, but if the Halo Array wasn't fired there would have been no chance anyway.[/sp] [QUOTE=Adarrek;51840059]There is also Jun. How did he survive and get off reach? In the books halo first strike they go back to reach and rescue Halsey but Jun is not with her and he isnt mentioned at all. This always bothered me and its never explained anywhere[/QUOTE] "A fistful of arrows" In all seriousness, we don't know. Some are hoping Grim will do an article on him for the 100th Canon Fodder, but he's said nothing. [QUOTE=ElectricSquid;51840556]How the hell was Jorge's death questionable? Or Emile's?[/QUOTE] Emile's death was questionable because he took a few seconds to gloat instead of taking a look at his radar (or both), his death was completely avoidable. Kat's death was also dumb, there was no reason for her shields to be down (power isn't an issue, it takes a decade to use it all up). Every other death was fine.

"what is an EMP?"

[QUOTE=AbbaDee;51841526] Emile's death was questionable because he took a few seconds to gloat instead of taking a look at his radar (or both), his death was completely avoidable. Kat's death was also dumb, there was no reason for her shields to be down (power isn't an issue, it takes a decade to use it all up). Every other death was fine.[/QUOTE] What you described is [I]exactly[/I] Emile's character though. As for Kat, I've always assumed the team's shields were fried because of the close proximity to the excavation beam. [QUOTE=ElectricSquid;51839796]I've read their summaries and have zero interest in reading the books themselves. Almost everything about the new Forerunner lore is, in my opinion, stupid. There's like maybe 3 or 4 things I don't take issue with, like the whole Precursor neural physics thing. I don't like the very existence of an ancient human civilization, I don't like the logic plague or the geas or the whole "monitors are just digitized human brains" thing, I don't really like any of it really. I don't bring it up every other page like SpartanXC9 but the great majority of "new" Halo is something I have no interest in because it's so heavily dependent on the things I've mentioned. I think the Created plot is an asspull and that the series would have been infinitely more interesting if they'd shifted their focus to the post-war remnants and faction relations rather than write themselves into a corner by jacking the stakes up with Forerunner villains.[/QUOTE] Couldn't agree more. I liked things better when the Foreunners were left mysterious. Now the games have gone this weird route where being up to date on the expanded lore is almost essential to understand what's going on. Extra lore should be supplemental, not necessary. I really, REALLY liked how Halo Wars 2 wasn't heavy handed on Forerunner stuff and had more of the military feel/atmosphere from Bungie's games. Some parts also felt a lot like Eric Nylund's books, which was great, too.

Oh, fuck your EMP bullshit. There's a camping phantom, over a small hole, and the UNSC don't have EMP shielding in their most advanced armour while covenant shield away. Tuskin: carter did a kamikaze on a scarab. Two suicide attacks to kill covenant. Really? I remember the exact specifics making it more contrived, but it's so... yeah nah, it wasn't good. felt rushed.

[QUOTE=The Jack;51841767]Oh, fuck your EMP bullshit. There's a camping phantom, over a small hole, and the UNSC don't have EMP shielding in their most advanced armour while covenant shield away. Tuskin: carter did a kamikaze on a scarab. Two suicide attacks to kill covenant. Really? I remember the exact specifics making it more contrived, but it's so... yeah nah, it wasn't good. felt rushed.[/QUOTE] Carter was shot, he was going to die anyways. And yes, the UNSC don't have EMP shielding, that is why a fully charged plasma pistol works, and the EMP Grenade from the Grenade Launcher.

[QUOTE=The Jack;51841767]Oh, fuck your EMP bullshit.[/QUOTE] Yes, fuck that perfectly logical explanation....

[QUOTE=SpartanXC9;51841608]"what is an EMP?"[/QUOTE] Couldn't have been an EMP. Kat states that the comms device cut out because radiation scrambled the signal, not that the device shut off. The elevator and lights are all functioning inside the building, Kat's arm is still working perfectly fine, and beyond that Phantoms have no protection against an EMP, so if there had been one it wouldn't be flying.

[QUOTE=AbbaDee;51842347]Couldn't have been an EMP. Kat states that the comms device cut out because radiation scrambled the signal, not that the device shut off. The elevator and lights are all functioning inside the building, Kat's arm is still working perfectly fine, and beyond that Phantoms have no protection against an EMP, so if there had been one it wouldn't be flying.[/QUOTE] Radiation from the glassing takes out their shield systems? I don't know the exact science behind that shit but I imagine it's one way to explain it

[QUOTE=Tuskin;51841800]Carter was shot, he was going to die anyways.[/QUOTE] I don't remember much from Reach, but why was Carter so badly wounded?

He was shot through and through IIRC.

[QUOTE=Rascovinne;51842506]Radiation from the glassing takes out their shield systems? I don't know the exact science behind that shit but I imagine it's one way to explain it[/QUOTE] Yeah, I'm not sure on the science myself but I think it was the gamma radiation from the glassing beam overwhelming the shields now.

[QUOTE=AbbaDee;51841526][sp] This is one of those moments it's for you to decide what happened. Some think it was to get back at the Forerunners, others think it was part of a larger plan. The Forerunners, seeing the humans "successfully" repelling the Flood made them believe there was a cure in order to make things worse for the Forerunners when they had their chance to attack them. Yeah, this is a big inconsistency even within Halo 3 itself, particularly why the Gravemind sent a ship to Voi instead of into the jungle where there was plenty of biomass. At the end of the Forerunner Trilogy I think it knew its time was finished (for now) and chose to have some fun. Personally I think it's lying as part of its plan instead of actually wanting to destroy everything, but it could be either one. Yes, that's always been an issue. It at the very least wipes them out as physical threat for some time, but if the Halo Array wasn't fired there would have been no chance anyway.[/sp] "A fistful of arrows" In all seriousness, we don't know. Some are hoping Grim will do an article on him for the 100th Canon Fodder, but he's said nothing. Emile's death was questionable because he took a few seconds to gloat instead of taking a look at his radar (or both), his death was completely avoidable. Kat's death was also dumb, there was no reason for her shields to be down (power isn't an issue, it takes a decade to use it all up). Every other death was fine.[/QUOTE] Well Kat's death can be considered normal seeing as MC can die in one shot from a jackal beam rifle as well in Halo 2 legendary and he has even better armour. Unless it wasn't a beam rifle that killed Kat?

I think it was a needle rifle.

Ok. It would have been immeasurably better if each of noble team had clear cut,simple deaths that we couldn't debate online. Examples: A sniper, in a vantage point a distance away, used a beam rifle to shoot Kat. A beam rifle is a powerful weapon that'd go through shields and armour. Jorge took on a squad of well armed Ultra elites [I]et al[/I] and lost. Emile got ganked by a zealot squad (much like how it went down) Carter's pelican got blasted by an Anti-Air wraith or banshees, and then finished off as the covenant blasted the wreckage, knowing a demon was inside. I think such deaths would've served better than... The detonator breaking so someone has to sacrifice themselves. An unusually silent phantom who's occupants decide to only kill one spartan before retreating, despite the aimbot they obviously have, and six becoming an easier shot because he wants to hold kat. Rewatch the scene and justify it. Keeping the back of the pelican open (a stupid, stupid move for many reasons), getting shot in the pilot seat from the back (with the pelican still working of course, because the banshee's and phantom didn't have the good sense to use their powerful weapons with a blast radius that'd no doubt rip apart a pelican if fired into the interior) and then going kamakazi (probably too slowly) to take out a scarab. More "war film" deaths rather than "action film" deaths would've really helped.

Everything about the history retcon is fucking beyond stupid.

Jack you're like the only one here who seems to care about their deaths,

It wasn't just that Carter got hit, his whole Pelican was shot to shit and he probably couldn't have made a safe landing, especially not with all of the Banshees on him while he was drawing the Covenant's attention away from Six and Emile

[QUOTE=The Jack;51841767]Oh, fuck your EMP bullshit. There's a camping phantom, over a small hole, and the UNSC don't have EMP shielding in their most advanced armour while covenant shield away. Tuskin: carter did a kamikaze on a scarab. Two suicide attacks to kill covenant. Really? I remember the exact specifics making it more contrived, but it's so... yeah nah, it wasn't good. felt rushed.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=AbbaDee;51842347]Couldn't have been an EMP. Kat states that the comms device cut out because radiation scrambled the signal, not that the device shut off. The elevator and lights are all functioning inside the building, Kat's arm is still working perfectly fine, and beyond that Phantoms have no protection against an EMP, so if there had been one it wouldn't be flying.[/QUOTE] The signal was scrambled because of all the glassing near by and when the glassing moved to their position it knocked out their shields.

[QUOTE=The Jack;51842706]Ok. It would have been immeasurably better if each of noble team had clear cut,simple deaths that we couldn't debate online. A sniper, in a vantage point a distance away, used a beam rifle to shoot Kat. A beam rifle is a powerful weapon that'd go through shields and armour. Jorge took on a squad of well armed Ultra elites [I]et al[/I] and lost. Emile got ganked by a zealot squad. Carter's pelican got blasted by an Anti-Air wraith or banshees, and then finished off as the covenant blasted the wreckage, knowing a demon was inside. I think such deaths would've served better than... The detonator breaking so someone has to sacrifice themselves. An unusually silent phantom who's occupants decide to only kill one spartan before retreating, despite the aimbot they obviously have, and six becoming an easier shot because he wants to hold kat. Rewatch the scene and justify it. Keeping the back of the pelican open (a stupid, stupid move for many reasons), getting shot in the pilot seat from the back (with the pelican still working of course, because the banshee's and phantom didn't have the good sense to use their powerful weapons with a blast radius that'd no doubt rip apart a pelican if fired into the interior) and then going kamakazi (probably too slowly) to take out a scarab. More "war film" deaths rather than "action film" deaths would've really helped.[/QUOTE] Kat was sniped because Noble Team didn't stick together and move as one unit - Emile, Carter and Jun's dash ahead of Six and Kat alerted the sniper to be ready. It was also a Needle Rifle, not a Beam Rifle. Jorge took a squad of Marines into a [I]fucking CSO-class Supercarrier[/I]. [I]No one[/I] but Jorge and Six were going to make it out of that. Emile had a death squad drop in on him, he was probably going to die soon anyway with their reinforcements behind him and the number of Phantoms about to do the same thing. Carter commit suicide by flying his Pelican into a Scarab. The entire point of the story of Reach, both the novel and the game, is that Humanity is vulnerable. In the original novel, the Covenant took it out in a single day instead of months, Spartans dying left and right in ways that were avoidable if they had have had seconds more time. In the game, Spartans die unceremonious deaths and are more vulnerable. Reach is not a "badass sci-fi shooter" in the same vein as the original trilogy was, it's a more solemn story of loss against overwhelming odds, and a seed of hope. [QUOTE=SpartanXC9;51842912]The signal was scrambled because of all the glassing near by and when the glassing moved to their position it knocked out their shields.[/QUOTE] The signal was scrambled from the radiation of the glassing beam, and the same radiation took out shields. That's different to an EMP.

[QUOTE=Soul_;51841726]What you described is [I]exactly[/I] Emile's character though. As for Kat, I've always assumed the team's shields were fried because of the close proximity to the excavation beam. Couldn't agree more. I liked things better when the Foreunners were left mysterious. Now the games have gone this weird route where being up to date on the expanded lore is almost essential to understand what's going on. Extra lore should be supplemental, not necessary. I really, REALLY liked how Halo Wars 2 wasn't heavy handed on Forerunner stuff and had more of the military feel/atmosphere from Bungie's games. Some parts also felt a lot like Eric Nylund's books, which was great, too.[/QUOTE] I don't think expanded lore is necessarily a bad thing, but 1) it does raise the barrier of entry for new or returning people (like people who don't follow the EU lore but are familiar with the games, or people who haven't paid attention to the series for a while), and 2) it was the expanded lore in this case specifically that I take issue with. I've also heard people say that "you can't maintain a mystery forever" which I don't really know how to address. I mean, you theoretically [I]can[/I], nothing is forcing your hand to commission a guy to write three books of lore. [QUOTE=The Jack;51842706]Ok. It would have been immeasurably better if each of noble team had clear cut,simple deaths that we couldn't debate online. Examples: A sniper, in a vantage point a distance away, used a beam rifle to shoot Kat. A beam rifle is a powerful weapon that'd go through shields and armour. Jorge took on a squad of well armed Ultra elites [I]et al[/I] and lost. Emile got ganked by a zealot squad (much like how it went down) Carter's pelican got blasted by an Anti-Air wraith or banshees, and then finished off as the covenant blasted the wreckage, knowing a demon was inside. I think such deaths would've served better than... The detonator breaking so someone has to sacrifice themselves. An unusually silent phantom who's occupants decide to only kill one spartan before retreating, despite the aimbot they obviously have, and six becoming an easier shot because he wants to hold kat. Rewatch the scene and justify it. Keeping the back of the pelican open (a stupid, stupid move for many reasons), getting shot in the pilot seat from the back (with the pelican still working of course, because the banshee's and phantom didn't have the good sense to use their powerful weapons with a blast radius that'd no doubt rip apart a pelican if fired into the interior) and then going kamakazi (probably too slowly) to take out a scarab. More "war film" deaths rather than "action film" deaths would've really helped.[/QUOTE] How the fuck are any of them not "simple and clear-cut"? It's hardly like there's anything to debate anyway, except whatever is coming from you. Jorge's death had a purpose in the story and was thematically consistent with the tone of the game, i.e. sacrifices in vain. He cared about Reach more than anyone else on the team and died for it. The detonator breaking isn't really "flimsy" when you consider slipspace drives are extremely delicate and one taking fire is probably more than enough to send it out of whack. It was a desperate and quickly-assembled plan, of course there was probably a flaw in it like that. What would a death by zealot squad serve? It would be another boring, pointless "oh whoops haha he's dead" scenario with no emotional weight. How the fuck is landing a single shot "being an aimbot"? I assume they kept the back open so that Emile could fend off Banshees, considering Pelicans don't really have rear-mounted weaponry. And speaking of Emile, you still can't counter that him gloating completely fits with his character even if it opened him up to an attack. All in all, the "war film deaths" you wanted would have not had an impact the way the canon deaths did. The futility was supposed to emphasize the tone of "shit, we're really losing" that was like the whole damn point of the game. Reach wasn't a victory, and giving everyone war hero deaths wouldn't jive well with that. [editline]19th February 2017[/editline] Shit, I should have probably read the next page before posting that. AbbaDee addressed most of what I said.

[QUOTE=ElectricSquid;51843164]I don't think expanded lore is necessarily a bad thing, but 1) it does raise the barrier of entry for new or returning people (like people who don't follow the EU lore but are familiar with the games, or people who haven't paid attention to the series for a while), and 2) it was the expanded lore in this case specifically that I take issue with. I've also heard people say that "you can't maintain a mystery forever" which I don't really know how to address. I mean, you theoretically [I]can[/I], nothing is forcing your hand to commission a guy to write three books of lore. .[/QUOTE] Im a fan of the older books and I thought it was neat to see Blue Team finally show up, but iirc they have zero introduction and that really bothered me. It's like the writers were expecting you to be such a big Halo fan that you've already read all the EU stuff and know everything, when someone who only ever consumed Halo through the games wouldn't know who these people are and would just have to assume Master Chief as friends now. There's way more examples of this in 4 or 5 than just that, mostly to do with Forerunners, but that's one of the ones that always stood out to me.

[QUOTE=Wulfram;51843214]Im a fan of the older books and I thought it was neat to see Blue Team finally show up, but iirc they have zero introduction and that really bothered me. It's like the writers were expecting you to be such a big Halo fan that you've already read all the EU stuff and know everything, when someone who only ever consumed Halo through the games wouldn't know who these people are and would just have to assume Master Chief as friends now. There's way more examples of this in 4 or 5 than just that, mostly to do with Forerunners, but that's one of the ones that always stood out to me.[/QUOTE] They met up with Chief in Escalation or whatever, I think. That whole comic series was a mess.

Whoever they hired to write these short stories in the Phoenix Logs, do not know about canon, or the events of halo 3. Here's a description of Bedrock. [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/jNroVHB.png[/IMG]

Yeah, Phoenix Logs are mostly garbage and rehash info we already know. I was pissed when [sp]I read the log that was by a Forerunner construct and realized it was 000 Tragic Solitude explaining why he attacked Earth to repair the Ark, instead of having a log hinting at Mendicant Bias' imminent re-reveal.[/sp]

[QUOTE=AbbaDee;51843660][sp]instead of having a log hinting at Mendicant Bias' imminent re-reveal.[/sp][/QUOTE] [sp]I really don't think 343 are going to even go near Mendicant Bias, they had a clear chance to with Halo Wars 2 but nothing, in the end I think he's just going to be left to the EU given how fucked forerunner canon is now[/sp]