Halo 5 Guardians: #huntthetruth

Darryl M R said:
Halo lore is so much deeper than "I'm a super human watch me shoot these aliens" . . but it seems hidden away in the books. Is this correct?
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The games hint at a lot of stuff (even Halo CE which didn't have terminals or anything like that) but yes, that stuff is expanded upon in books/ARGs/comics/animated shorts/web series/etc.
 
GringoSuave89 said:
The whole thing is apples and oranges, but just cause something was mentioned in game doesn't mean someone would retain that waiting for the next mention of it. Since we're on a Star Wars kick, how many people know what the Kessel Run is? It was in the Expanded Universe, but did any casual viewer go "huh what's that? I better remember in case it pops up in the next movie".
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I'll just leave this here: http://marathon.bungie.org/story/halo_backstory.html

Take a seat and enjoy the trip back in time to a different place. That's basically the extent of what Halo "lore" was back in the day. Yeah it's a rampancy post, but I remember it very clearly when the Cortana Letters first came out and people were freaking.

Courtesy of one Hamish Sinclair. Only the nerdiest of nerds still remember that name I bet.

I'm not even sure what the disagreement is about honestly, I was only saying that Cole has been part of Halo since the very beginning and if you don't know that you're new or didn't pay attention to what was said right at the beginning of everything "Halo" (both are fair enough, since he's ancillary in the game proper)
 
Darryl M R said:
Halo lore is so much deeper than "I'm a super human watch me shoot these aliens" . . but it seems hidden away in the books. Is this correct?
Click to expand...

Well the stories have always been pretty dense for first person shooters (Halo 2 for example) but they've always worked well as 'just shoot aliens' at the same time. Up until Halo 4 anyway, for me the balance was off there.
 
MrGreencastle said:
I'm not even sure what the disagreement is about honestly, I was only saying that Cole has been part of Halo since the very beginning and if you don't know that you're new or didn't pay attention to what was said right at the beginning of everything "Halo" (both are fair enough, since he's ancillary in the game proper)
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And I was simply saying the number of people that paid attention to those details was/is far smaller than you think.
 
Did anyone suggest that the voice that Frankie referred to could be the Arbiter?

Ben getting an interview with him would definitely be interesting. Might shed some light on the more recent events and why Chief seems to have gone rogue.
 
Without the context provided by the novels, the Cole Protocol line is a simple plot device with some random space military jargon tossed in. Cole is a very important character in the Halo universe and his story is awesome, but saying you "weren't paying attention" if you didn't file away a piece of space marine moonspeak from one cutscene is a bit of a reach.

#andthatsallivegottosayaboutthat
 
GringoSuave89 said:
Then why are we arguing? Haha I agree on that! I was saying I wish he was in game (ACTUALLY in game) and you came out swinging.
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Lol maybe I was coming across that way, I apologize. I'm just so used to people saying that the lore is too convoluted these days and that 343i are ruining everything and it used to be simpler. I was just trying to provide insight into how the whole universe started and how integral Cole has always been - even if most people these days have never heard of him, despite being referenced in in-game dialogue in one of the first cutscenes at the inception of the entire franchise. People never pay attention to this stuff anyway, but this is a Halo ARG thread after all, so it's important to remember where it all started.
 
With the confirmation of the Blue Team in Halo 5, does anyone think that you'll be able to command them on the fly, or do you think it will be more like, these Blue Team members are spawned in as co-op teammates?
 
GringoSuave89 said:
a sizeable chunk, yes, but not all. Terminals help a bit, and the basics are all covered, but the finer points are in the EU.
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The games alone are like a hot plate of nachos with melted shredded cheese on top.

The games + the lore are like a hot plate of nachos with melted cheese, olives, jalapeños, shredded chicken, green onions, bacon and a dollop of sour cream.

Both are enjoyable, but when enjoyed together, it's a much richer experience.
 
wesleyshark said:
The games alone are like a hot plate of nachos with melted shredded cheese on top.

The games + the lore are like a hot plate of nachos with melted cheese, olives, jalapeños, shredded chicken, green onions, bacon and a dollop of sour cream.

Both are enjoyable, but when enjoyed together, it's a much richer experience.
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See, that sounds worse to me. Nachos are best enjoyed plain, with cheese of melted pepperjack.

The games are the chips. Delicious, crunchy, salty. The lore is the cheese.
 
WhiteRabbitEXE said:
Without the context provided by the novels, the Cole Protocol line is a simple plot device with some random space military jargon tossed in. Cole is a very important character in the Halo universe and his story is awesome, but saying you "weren't paying attention" if you didn't file away a piece of space marine moonspeak from one cutscene is a bit of a reach.

#andthatsallivegottosayaboutthat
Click to expand...

Yeah today people have forgotten or they never really knew how it was all framed by Bungie and Microsoft back then in 2001. The Microsoft marketing website for Halo talked specifically about the character Preston Cole even before the game came out at the latest in September of 2001. I know because I remember reading the timeline on the page back then. Unfortunately there is no record of it as it was removed by Microsoft around when the game came out in 2001 as is noted in the link I provided assembled by the user Hamish Sinclair of bungie.org "fame" (the guy who received the original Cortana letters back in 1999). The closest I can find today is this page http://web.archive.org/web/20011015035312/http://www.microsoft.com/games/halo/ since the internet archives don't go back that far and are incomplete:

Source: Microsoft's Official Halo site. Thanks to Chlazza for extracting the full timeline from the XML file.
Date: Sept 14, 2001

2530: THE COVENANT WAR BEGINS

On April 3, 2530, contact with the Outer Colony, Harvest, is lost. After failing to re-establish contact with Harvest, the Colonial Military Administration sends a scout ship, the Argo, to investigate. Contact with Argo is subsequently lost after arriving in the Harvest system.
The CMA dispatches a battle group to Harvest, consisting of three warships. The lead ship in the battle group, the Heracles, returns to Reach, badly damaged and with heavy casualties. The ship's commander reports that an alien warship with powerful weaponry was present, and had decimated Harvest, exterminating the colonists (and presumably destroying the Argo). The battle group engaged the alien warship, and was thoroughly routed. The Heracles-following the destruction of the other two ships in the group-jumped out of the system, but due to the damage she had sustained, took several weeks to make it back to Reach.
The Earth military goes on full alert, and begins making preparations to move in and retake Harvest. By December, a massive Earth war fleet under Vice Admiral Preston Cole mobilizes, one of the fastest such mobilizations of such a large fleet in the history of humankind.

2531: THE BATTLE OF HARVEST

Cole's war fleet engages the alien warship responsible for the decimation of the colony, scoring a victory (though the battle cost Cole two-thirds of his battle group). Only a last minute tactical inspiration turned the tide of battle.
After returning to Earth, Cole-promoted to Admiral-learns that a number of outlying colonies have been destroyed, leaving behind no survivors. Cole begins to move his fleet around, trying to intercept the invaders. Ground and ship-to-ship battles begin in earnest, raging throughout the Outer Colonies. During one ground engagement, Human forces capture one of the aliens. Before succumbing to his wounds, interrogators learn that the aliens refer to themselves as "the Covenant" (roughly translated).

2535: THE OUTER COLONY MASSACRED

In the course of four short years, Cole's forces are hammered, despite his excellent leadership and tactical brilliance. It is simply a matter of being outgunned; Covenant kill ratios tend to top four to one in ship-to-ship combat. By 2535, virtually all of the Outer Colony worlds have been destroyed by the Covenant. The "Cole Protocol" is established by military order: all human vessels must ensure that Covenant forces do not find Earth. Human ships must-when forced to withdraw-not move on to an Earth bound vector, even if that means jumping without proper navigational calculations. If blind jumps are not possible, the ship's captain must order self-destruction if capture is imminent. In addition, it is also imperative that the powerful ship A.I. data cores not fall into Covenant hands, so part of this protocol involves either the removal or destruction of the ship's A.I. in extreme situations.
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"Source: The Halo timeline as presented on Microsoft's Xbox.com site. Slight changes from the above timeline discovered two months ago. Note the Timeline was removed shortly after Nov 14th 2001.
Date: Nov 14, 2001"

This is all before the first novel, The Fall of Reach, came out in October of 2001. And then again the material included in the box with every single copy of the game shipped is evidence of what I'm trying to explain, too. It was all part of the marketing push for the game, just like this #huntthetruth is for Halo 5 today.

Anyway. This is old, old, old shit at this point.
 
Glass said:
Well now I'm hungry.
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adventuretime-nachos.gif
 
MrGreencastle said:
Yeah today people have forgotten or they never really knew how it was all framed by Bungie and Microsoft back then in 2001. The Microsoft marketing website for Halo talked specifically about the character Preston Cole even before the game came out at the latest in September of 2001. I know because I remember reading the timeline on the page back then. Unfortunately there is no record of it as it was removed by Microsoft around when the game came out in 2001 as is noted in the link I provided assembled by the user Hamish Sinclair of bungie.org "fame" (the guy who received the original Cortana letters back in 1999). The closest I can find today is this page http://web.archive.org/web/20011015035312/http://www.microsoft.com/games/halo/ since the internet archives don't go back that far and are incomplete:

Source: Microsoft's Official Halo site. Thanks to Chlazza for extracting the full timeline from the XML file.
Date: Sept 14, 2001



"Source: The Halo timeline as presented on Microsoft's Xbox.com site. Slight changes from the above timeline discovered two months ago. Note the Timeline was removed shortly after Nov 14th 2001.
Date: Nov 14, 2001"

This is all before the first novel, The Fall of Reach, came out in October of 2001. And then again the material included in the box with every single copy of the game shipped is evidence of what I'm trying to explain, too. It was all part of the marketing push for the game, just like this #huntthetruth is for Halo 5 today.

Anyway. This is old, old, old shit at this point.
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No one's saying Cole isn't important. But going back to the Star Wars text crawl analogy, it's not so much not reading the crawl at the intro, as trying to remember something from the movie poster 35 years ago.
 
AYF 001 said:
No one's saying Cole isn't important. But going back to the Star Wars text crawl analogy, it's not so much not reading the crawl at the intro, as trying to remember something from the movie poster 35 years ago.
Click to expand...

Well my analogy is bad, fine, I get that. Bungie wasn't as popular back then and no one knew what Halo was. My first Bungie game was Myth II, and I remember being a kid and following it all on my shitty old Mac up to and including the release of the game on Xbox. Most people remember ilovebees and IRIS a lot more vividly I think than this stuff. But it's important to remember where this all started (it's a #huntthetruth ARG thread after all). Preston Cole predates Halo books. He IS as Halo as Keyes and Echo 419 in my books and he's always been badass and people DID talk about him and many other things. Looking back at it today and it doesn't seem that way, but it's not representative of how it went down imo.

#hanshotfirst
 
WhiteRabbitEXE said:
Without the context provided by the novels, the Cole Protocol line is a simple plot device with some random space military jargon tossed in. Cole is a very important character in the Halo universe and his story is awesome, but saying you "weren't paying attention" if you didn't file away a piece of space marine moonspeak from one cutscene is a bit of a reach.

#andthatsallivegottosayaboutthat
Click to expand...

The line may have been a plot device, but it had plot backing that wasn't just created by the book authors. Before I popped in the disc when I first got my Xbox, I read the game manual(!) and it had a basic primer on the state of the universe, what the Autumn was running from, and what a Cole Protocol mandated blind jump was meant to do.
 
PanicFreak said:
With the confirmation of the Blue Team in Halo 5, does anyone think that you'll be able to command them on the fly, or do you think it will be more like, these Blue Team members are spawned in as co-op teammates?
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Imagine everybody but MC and Locke are playable.

Story is told from the perspective of their respective squads.
 
Zvonimir Boban said:
Who said he was unimportant?*

* In the Halo universe that is.
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Just rejecting the notion that he's always been unknown hero as far as the game story goes I guess. I don't even know. Mostly because I specifically remember people going on about him a lot even before there were a ton of books and what not expanding out the lore as it is now, before people even considered a Halo 2. There was a time when people did know him. He kinda faded out of the limelight until later, but I guess I just don't want to feel old lol. Too late now I suppose. :/
 
I find it really weird how much the couple of you are fighting this.

To reiterate: If you're a person who just plays the game (which is the vast majority of people, Halo fans or not) and you don't have the additional context surrounding the story of Preston J Cole, that line from Halo CE comes off as nothing more than a jargon-filled plot device. No one without that context is going to file that away as some all-important detail that surely must be central to the entire modern era within the Halo universe. For someone who doesn't read the story intro in a manual or every novel attached to a series, it's just some space marine mumbo jumbo saying "Hey, we have to do this". So calling those people out as "not paying attention" is a bunch of bologna. People can go on and on and on about some really hardcore fans of Bungie circa the Cortana chronicles era delved into every tiny little detail and rant about how things have changed or whatever, but that doesn't change anything.

And honestly, that Star Wars analogy is terrible. This isn't about not paying attention to the opening pitch, not even close. This is a word in a string of mumbo jumbo that's full importance is seemingly explained immediately after. Those words meant Keyes has to do this and your job is this. The average fan isn't going to suddenly think "But wait, who or what is Cole? Why is this a protocol? How did it come about? Oh hey, the manual says this and the book says this blah blah blah" - they're not even going to ask if "Cole" is a who or a what. And that's fine. It's literally supposed to be like that. It's supposed to be something that won't confuse a typical fan and have them questioning what they don't know. For those who want more (i.e. most of us), the "more" exists. But claiming that people who don't hook onto a single piece of jargon and dissect and investigate it in length is silly nonsense.

And again, I'm not really sure why this an argument. Like, why you fightin' this? lol

tl;dr I'm not saying that Cole is unimportant, or that's strictly what the line was, or that Bungie didn't have a deep lore surrounding Cole even back then, or that there isn't one now. But not reading a manual or asking the five W's about a single word in a cutscene is not comparable to not paying attention to the plot.
 
WhiteRabbitEXE said:
I find it really weird how much the couple of you are fighting this.

To reiterate: If you're a person who just plays the game (which is the vast majority of people, Halo fans or not) and you don't have the additional context surrounding the story of Preston J Cole, that line from Halo CE comes off as nothing more than a jargon-filled plot device. No one without that context is going to file that away as some all-important detail that surely must be central to the entire modern era within the Halo universe. For someone who doesn't read the story intro in a manual or every novel attached to a series, it's just some space marine mumbo jumbo saying "Hey, we have to do this". So calling those people out as "not paying attention" is a bunch of bologna. People can go on and on and on about some really hardcore fans of Bungie circa the Cortana chronicles era delved into every tiny little detail and rant about how things have changed or whatever, but that doesn't change anything.

And honestly, that Star Wars analogy is terrible. This isn't about not paying attention to the opening pitch, not even close. This is a word in a string of mumbo jumbo that's full importance is seemingly explained immediately after. Those words meant Keyes has to do this and your job is this. The average fan isn't going to suddenly think "But wait, who or what is Cole? Why is this a protocol? How did it come about? Oh hey, the manual says this and the book says this blah blah blah" - they're not even going to ask if "Cole" is a who or a what. And that's fine. It's literally supposed to be like that. It's supposed to be something that won't confuse a typical fan and have them questioning what they don't know. For those who want more (i.e. most of us), the "more" exists. But claiming that people who don't hook onto a single piece of jargon and dissect and investigate it in length is silly nonsense.

And again, I'm not really sure why this an argument. Like, why you fightin' this? lol

tl;dr I'm not saying that Cole is unimportant, or that's strictly what the line was, or that Bungie didn't have a deep lore surrounding Cole even back then, or that there isn't one now. But not reading a manual or asking the five W's about a single word in a cutscene is not comparable to not paying attention to the plot.
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That makes sense. I guess it comes down to it being hard for me to put myself in those shoes. I was introduced to the halo universe through the online marketing hype and Nylund's fall of reach novel leading up to launch. Most people probably played the game first. I just don't think it was that hard core really as that's how Bungie did things even during the marathon days where all of the story was told through text and reading terminals. It really wasn't considered mumbo jumbo as the universe had already been established prior to the launch of the game and it was blatant. But if its mumbo jumbo, then halo is at face value a space marine opera where you shoot aliens and there are zombies that will destroy the world if you don't stop it. Its all mumbo jumbo if you look at it like that.

Edit: ...in other words. Cole wasn't just jargon randomly thrown in there as a plot device that was then later explained in expanded fiction. That character and universe was laid out first, and then afterwards Halo CE was made to fit into that with references here and there tying it together in-game. Just because you played CE in a vacuum doesn't mean everyone did and that's not how it was all presented back in the day when it came out. Just like how the previous games, Nightfall, and #huntthetruth are laying the groundwork leading into Halo 5.

And yes my star wars analogy was bad, I already said that
 
WhiteRabbitEXE said:
I find it really weird how much the couple of you are fighting this.

To reiterate: If you're a person who just plays the game (which is the vast majority of people, Halo fans or not) and you don't have the additional context surrounding the story of Preston J Cole, that line from Halo CE comes off as nothing more than a jargon-filled plot device. No one without that context is going to file that away as some all-important detail that surely must be central to the entire modern era within the Halo universe. For someone who doesn't read the story intro in a manual or every novel attached to a series, it's just some space marine mumbo jumbo saying "Hey, we have to do this". So calling those people out as "not paying attention" is a bunch of bologna. People can go on and on and on about some really hardcore fans of Bungie circa the Cortana chronicles era delved into every tiny little detail and rant about how things have changed or whatever, but that doesn't change anything.

And honestly, that Star Wars analogy is terrible. This isn't about not paying attention to the opening pitch, not even close. This is a word in a string of mumbo jumbo that's full importance is seemingly explained immediately after. Those words meant Keyes has to do this and your job is this. The average fan isn't going to suddenly think "But wait, who or what is Cole? Why is this a protocol? How did it come about? Oh hey, the manual says this and the book says this blah blah blah" - they're not even going to ask if "Cole" is a who or a what. And that's fine. It's literally supposed to be like that. It's supposed to be something that won't confuse a typical fan and have them questioning what they don't know. For those who want more (i.e. most of us), the "more" exists. But claiming that people who don't hook onto a single piece of jargon and dissect and investigate it in length is silly nonsense.

And again, I'm not really sure why this an argument. Like, why you fightin' this? lol

tl;dr I'm not saying that Cole is unimportant, or that's strictly what the line was, or that Bungie didn't have a deep lore surrounding Cole even back then, or that there isn't one now. But not reading a manual or asking the five W's about a single word in a cutscene is not comparable to not paying attention to the plot.
Click to expand...

This is completely true.
 
MrGreencastle said:
That's more like it. ;)


Here we go. Open on your phone.

What kind of phone OS are you using? My Android gives me 127 hours.
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I guess it takes your time zone and adjust the countdown to it. It says 119hours for me as well.


Edit. So the countdown ends on Wednesday at 7pm GMT+1? That would be 10am PST or 11am or 12am.
 
Jerrod found in the website code. He's the micro AI from Ghosts of Onyx:

Credit goes to In Service, of course.

In Service said:
Yes, but the login page has links to interesting code!

// typing.
var copy = [];
var copyCount = 0;
var copyPause = "^5000";
var startPause = "^2500";
copy[0] = startPause + "Jerrod: I can spin through a hundred-thousand cycles in the time it takes you to rename an access drive. You’ve got no chance against me."+copyPause;
copy[1] = startPause + "Jerrod: I’ve made ‘impenetrable’ firewalls crumble in but moments, I can do the same to your efforts."+copyPause;
copy[2] = startPause + "Jerrod: You are but a fragment of my abilities."+copyPause;
copy[3] = startPause + "Jerrod: You are a splinter, a nuisance… nothing more."+copyPause;
copy[4] = startPause + "Jerrod: You can probe all you want, like a mouse against castle gates. You will accomplish nothing."+copyPause;
copy[5] = startPause + "Jerrod: You think you can get past me? I didn’t know rampancy was possible for such a simple construct."+copyPause;
copy[6] = startPause + "Jerrod: I have built worlds in my mind. You can barely assemble words."+copyPause;
copy[7] = startPause + "Jerrod: Your cyber-intrusion technique is pitiable."+copyPause;
copy[8] = startPause + "Jerrod: I can unravel the puzzles of the ancient and the lost. You lost before you even began."+copyPause;
copy[9] = startPause + "Jerrod: You will forever remain in my shadow."+copyPause;
copy[10] = startPause + "Jerrod: Are you still working on my simple puzzle? I barely noticed."+copyPause;
Click to expand...
 
I sarcastically called that there would be an ARG on this page. I guess that person was entitled to an ARG after all. I do apologize.
 
Munish23 said:
I don't think we'll be getting anything until e3 in terms of trailers/gameplay.
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They did say we'll be learning about the Spartans in the poster who aren't MC and Locke in the run-up to e3. How exactly and in what medium... Not sure.

And when I say "we", I mean, those who aren't as familiar with Blue Team and the others haha. :p
 
I'm thinking countdown to Team Signup.

We had a team going earlier, opens up a chat box portal for you to all discuss what's going on, and work together.

Was quite fun till it was taken down
 
kittens said:
Everything about the Forerunners -- from their names, motives, and history -- is just so convoluted and uninteresting to me. Forerunner lore used to be this mysterious source of fascination, but now I just groan when it's brought up. I'm stoked about all the ONI intrigue, Sangheili politics, Blue Team appearing in a game, Spartan IV stuff... But the direction Forerunner stuff has gone turns me off big time.

Halo lore has gotten so convoluted. Maybe I should just get comfortable with not caring and play the games in lore ignorant bliss.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm in the same boat. I don't necessarily mind stuff like Requiem where you happen to come across an "active" Shield World and see new weapons, tech, etc. but I feel like demystifying the Forerunners goes a long way in screwing with our conventions of them - being able to kill Knights with human weaponry just makes them feel so weak compared to what we've been told about them.

All of the insight into Forerunner lifestyles is pretty disappointing too - I preferred when they came across as dead, mystic engineer Space Jockeys, rather than being crystal spires and togas space hippies. Memory spores, thinking plants, perfumes, etc.
 
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