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Halo 4 Announced (MS Conf, 2012, Start Of New Trilogy)

Man, there is no discussion around it. Next XBOX is 2013 except if some shit hit the fan at MS.

RPG/Open world...fuck my life.
ODST meets CE with better than Reach graphics and a long campaign. I can't ask for more.

Haven't started Skyrim yet as I was waiting for patch 1.03 but I can see how I'd like to have a Halo game that let's me wander around just to get a few items and some good skirmishes before I go to bed. If SP exploration gets me better stuff in MP, I would love to be able to replay SP segments just for the sake of it.
 
Yep, I was tired and you're correct. Not good writing after 5am. However, you got it wrong too. =P

The Prisoner was discovered by Humanity when they colonised a former Precursor world and found him locked up. They viewed him as an Oracle, like how the Covenant viewed Guilty Spark for a comparison, and sought his answer to questions and wisdom on various topics, even though his answers were usually very cryptic or bizarre.

One of the important interactions between Humanity and the Prisoner came when Humanity asked about the Flood, the answer the Prisoner gave was apparently so horrific and disturbing that many of those present committed suicide. Humanity then placed the Prisoner within more locks and seals and cased communications with him.

The last we know of the Prisoner, and the new book Primordium will shed more light for sure, was he had escaped together with a powerful Forerunner AI who had hijacked an entire Halo installation at the height of the Flood-Forerunner war.
That's right. Totally forgot.
 
Oh and chronologically it's not correct to say the human/forerunner division happened after the Bungie split, that's a continuum with a lot of great storytellers involved, including Joe Staten Robt McLees, Damian Isla and Rob Stokes, to name a few, and while we have certainly evolved it and built on it significantly, it's unfair to forget how many people contributed to the lore and when.

True. I just remember some old forum post from a Bungie dev that basically said "When we wrote Guilty Spark's line in Halo 3 saying 'You are Forerunner' we meant it literally."

It's always been ambiguous/mysterious, but I thought the idea that Humans directly descended from Forerunner wasn't invalidated until Halo Legends and Cryptum came out.

I'm fine with the change and I agree that a lot of talent has been put into evolving the story over the past ten years. I just wanted to point out that at one point in the franchise's development Humans really were intended to be Forerunner and the division didn't come until later (to my knowledge).

Regardless, I feel like the canon consistency across mediums is going to be tighter under 343i's watch and I'm really enjoying the hints at connections between the new books and games. It's much smoother when trilogies are planned as trilogies from day one. :)
 
Don't know if true, but from the materials presented so far since Bungie's gone, i feel like Halo's presentation is taking a more dramatic, slightly darker tone.

Guess it could be a major difference between Bungie's love of utilitarian aesthetics and 343 yet to be discovered one.

no emo MC, though.

I loved the tad cartoonish presentation, but going in age I feel confortable with everything as long as it is aesthetic. Don't care for a real life Halo.
 
Regardless, I feel like the canon consistency across mediums is going to be tighter under 343i's watch and I'm really enjoying the hints at connections between the new books and games. It's much smoother when trilogies are planned as trilogies from day one. :)

tell that to bioware :(
 
Don't know if true, but from the materials presented so far since Bungie's gone, i feel like Halo's presentation is taking a more dramatic, slightly darker tone.

Guess it could be a major difference between Bungie's love of utilitarian aesthetics and 343 yet to be discovered one.

no emo MC, though.

I loved the tad cartoonish presentation, but going in age I feel confortable with everything as long as it is aesthetic. Don't care for a real life Halo.

Under Bungie we got this.

Good:

FoR, First Strike, GoO

Mediocre: Contact Harvest

Bad: The Flood, Cole Protocol*

*I don't think CP is actually bad, per se, but it's closer to bad than mediocre.

343's track record:

Good: Cryptum, most of Evolutions

Mediocre: Glasslands, rest of Evolutions

Cryptum and Glasslands don't reveal the thematic nature of 343's storytelling, but H4 has to jive with the events of them both in some way. If 343 had to go one way or the other, Cryptum is preferable in my opinion (this entire post is mostly my opinion, although The Flood is indisputably, objectively, bad), because it captures the large scale of Halo while leaving mystery and (fantasy?)science in the equation. The entire breadth of Traviss' characterization (or attempt at characterization) doesn't seem fitting for Halo going forward, but more attention paid to the characters than the OG Trilogy presented is most likely going to happen.
 
Under Bungie we got this.

Good:

FoR, First Strike, GoO

Mediocre: Contact Harvest

Bad: The Flood, Cole Protocol

343's track record:

Good: Cryptum, most of Evolutions

Mediocre: Glasslands, rest of Evolutions

See, now I thought Cryptum AND Glasslands were fantastic. I am actually thinking about reading Glasslands again.

Reading through FoR (original print) again right now, and just finished playing through the whole Halo trilogy (again, hadn't played CE in a LOOONNGG time, CEA is great).

Gotta re-read Cryptum before Primordium comes out.

This too.
 
True. I just remember some old forum post from a Bungie dev that basically said "When we wrote Guilty Spark's line in Halo 3 saying 'You are Forerunner' we meant it literally."

It's always been ambiguous/mysterious, but I thought the idea that Humans directly descended from Forerunner wasn't invalidated until Halo Legends and Cryptum came out.

I'm fine with the change and I agree that a lot of talent has been put into evolving the story over the past ten years. I just wanted to point out that at one point in the franchise's development Humans really were intended to be Forerunner and the division didn't come until later (to my knowledge).

Regardless, I feel like the canon consistency across mediums is going to be tighter under 343i's watch and I'm really enjoying the hints at connections between the new books and games. It's much smoother when trilogies are planned as trilogies from day one. :)
Can't find the post right now, but I'm pretty sure it didn't mention Spark's line.
Terminals in Halo 3 quite overtly contradict that idea. Whatever change of plans happened, it was behind the scenes, in the games the two species were always separate.

Librarian's transmissions from Erde-Tyrene:
"L: I certainly can't justify using the [transit measure] to save my own skin when there are still so many innocents to protect and index.
[...]
L: We have no time to spare, Didact. Every vessel we can fill, we send to the Ark. I dare not cease the mission. Not now, not until I've done all I can. Each one of these souls is finite and precious.

And I'm close.

Close to saving them all."

"I'm trapped. On a beautiful, empty world. Its inhabitants have been safely indexed, every single one of them. They're special - well worth the effort it took to build one final gateway, even at this late hour."

"There's so much... potential. We knew this was a special place because of them, but unless you've been here, you can't know.

It's [Eden]. "
 
See, now I thought Cryptum AND Glasslands were fantastic. I am actually thinking about reading Glasslands again.

Reading through FoR (original print) again right now, and just finished playing through the whole Halo trilogy (again, hadn't played CE in a LOOONNGG time, CEA is great).

I can't bring myself to feel the same way about Glasslands.

CEA is great. After I get all the skulls and Terminals, I'll probably stay in Classic more than Anniversary mode, because the game feels much better in the former.
 
Can't find the post right now, but I'm pretty sure it didn't mention Spark's line.
Terminals in Halo 3 quite overtly contradict that idea. Whatever change of plans happened, it was behind the scenes, in the games the two species were always separate.

Librarian's transmissions from Erde-Tyrene:
"L: I certainly can't justify using the [transit measure] to save my own skin when there are still so many innocents to protect and index.
[...]
L: We have no time to spare, Didact. Every vessel we can fill, we send to the Ark. I dare not cease the mission. Not now, not until I've done all I can. Each one of these souls is finite and precious.

And I'm close.

Close to saving them all."

"I'm trapped. On a beautiful, empty world. Its inhabitants have been safely indexed, every single one of them. They're special - well worth the effort it took to build one final gateway, even at this late hour."

"There's so much... potential. We knew this was a special place because of them, but unless you've been here, you can't know.

It's [Eden]. "

ErDetyrENe
 
- The Forerunners were at war with Humanity. Turns out ancient Humanity was pretty badass but we kept to ourselves in a small arm of the galaxy whilst the Forerunners kept to the rest. Then we discovered the Flood. The Flood pushed Humanity into Forerunner territory so Humanity went to war with the Forerunners at the same time it was fighting the Flood.

You gotta wonder why
the Forerunners were content with letting Humanity have their own part of the galaxy when the Forerunners essentially "conquered" the rest of the galaxy.
 
Can't find the post right now, but I'm pretty sure it didn't mention Spark's line.
My Google-fu is strong today. This is the post I was talking about:

Evil Otto said:
One of the most striking retcons to me is the basic concept of whole role of humanity. Originally (back in Halo 1) the reason why humans weren't conquered and incorporated into the Covenant collective was because their presence defied Covenant religion. When the Covenant discovered humans, they knew they were forerunners, but their presence implied the "great journey" failed. They also weren't the all powerful gods they worshiped, so the Prophets wanted to "sweep them under the carpet," as it were.

The plot lines in our games imply this everywhere - the chief being called reclaimer, only humans being able to retrieve and insert the index, Spark telling the chief, "you are forerunner." etc.

I just finished reading Cryptum this morning. In it I discovered that the forerunner are now an entirely different caste-based species with Humans as a beaten, but allied race. At this point, I just follow Cody's lead, shrug my shoulders and say, "eh. it was a good read anyway. I'll buy book 2."

Of course, Dave Candland was a UI guy and not the story writer - so my earlier statement wasn't entirely factual. It's just interesting to see how one Bungie dev reacted to this particular canon adjustment. To me, the Human-Forerunner relationship was always ambiguous enough that the change isn't too jarring.

I'm really looking forward to Primordium. It's only 2.5 weeks away, I'm surprised there hasn't been more promotion of it at Waypoint lately. Hopefully next week we'll get a Sparkast with a Greg Bear interview; the last one was great.
 
You gotta wonder why
the Forerunners were content with letting Humanity have their own part of the galaxy when the Forerunners essentially "conquered" the rest of the galaxy.

Because the Forerunners were rather chill and didn't get all up in other species' business if they could help it.
 
My Google-fu is strong today. This is the post I was talking about:



Of course, Dave Candland was a UI guy and not the story writer - so my earlier statement wasn't entirely factual. It's just interesting to see how one Bungie dev reacted to this particular canon adjustment. To me, the Human-Forerunner relationship was always ambiguous enough that the change isn't too jarring.

I'm really looking forward to Primordium. It's only 2.5 weeks away, I'm surprised there hasn't been more promotion of it at Waypoint lately. Hopefully next week we'll get a Sparkast with a Greg Bear interview; the last one was great.

at least through Contact Harvest, this was still the story they were going with. That being said, the new direction probably lets 343 blast out the storytelling capacity of the universe to much wider levels.

i haven't read cryptum yet, but is there a way to interpret it that they can both the old canon and the new canon be "mostly" right?
 
at least through Contact Harvest, this was still the story they were going with. That being said, the new direction probably lets 343 blast out the storytelling capacity of the universe to much wider levels.
Yes, the new Human/Forerunner relationship in Cryptum certainly opens up the options for the next three games (as well as the books). I think it was a smart move.

i haven't read cryptum yet, but is there a way to interpret it that they can both the old canon and the new canon be "mostly" right?

If I recall correctly, the book vaguely hints at a special connection between Humans and Forerunner, but leaves that mystery unanswered for now.

Besides, the new canon doesn't "break" the old canon, it just interprets it in a different way. Back when Halo 3 came out Guilty Spark may have meant "You are Forerunner" literally, but now he just means it metaphorically. The old clues can be repurposed to the new canon without having to erase them.

I'm really curious to find out more about what being a "Reclaimer" entails. How that role was assigned, why, etc.
 
Because the Forerunners were rather chill and didn't get all up in other species' business if they could help it.
Actually, they were space assholes.
They would preach the philosophy of the Mantle, but they'd rather keep other races as pets in planet-shaped cages.
It must have given them quite the Foreboner. Just ask those sexy San 'Shyuum.
 
Semi-OT, but since I never really talked about Cryptum's story anywhere...what did everyone thing of the origin of the Flood revealed in it? Or as much origin as the story touched on, the
powder shipped into the galaxy via strange ships seemed at first to provide desirable effects, before revealing its true nature.
It was most unexpected, and appropriately strange. I kind of hope we don't go too much deeper into their origin, as I like the mystery and motives it implies.
 
Actually, they were space assholes.
They would preach the philosophy of the Mantle, but they'd rather keep other races as pets in planet-shaped cages.
It must have given them quite the Foreboner. Just ask those sexy San 'Shyuum.

Yeah, they were assholes in that sense,
but they didn't provoke conflicts and only got all assholish if their territory was encroached upon, or a race developed in a way they saw as detrimental to the galaxy. Before their conflict, the Forerunners had no reason to have beef with humanity, who were just minding their own business in their territory.

IIRC.

Edit: Just checked the Wiki and it looks like I'm wrong. Funny that I remembered it the way I did. Time to reread Cryptum.
 
Yeah, they were assholes in that sense,
but they didn't provoke conflicts and only got all assholish if their territory was encroached upon, or a race developed in a way they saw as detrimental to the galaxy. Before their conflict, the Forerunners had no reason to have beef with humanity, who were just minding their own business in their territory.

IIRC.
We have next to no information about how it happened, but
"rose up against and ruthlessly destroyed" doesn't make it sound like they were all that chill when they decided to murder their makers.
 
Semi-OT, but since I never really talked about Cryptum's story anywhere...what did everyone thing of the origin of the Flood revealed in it? Or as much origin as the story touched on, the
powder shipped into the galaxy via strange ships seemed at first to provide desirable effects, before revealing its true nature.
It was most unexpected, and appropriately strange. I kind of hope we don't go too much deeper into their origin, as I like the mystery and motives it implies.
It was really surprising if you ask me. Before Cryptum I thought the Flood were the ultimate
threat in the galaxy. But reading about them how their evolution was, it was ironic.
 
Semi-OT, but since I never really talked about Cryptum's story anywhere...what did everyone thing of the origin of the Flood revealed in it? Or as much origin as the story touched on, the
powder shipped into the galaxy via strange ships seemed at first to provide desirable effects, before revealing its true nature.
It was most unexpected, and appropriately strange. I kind of hope we don't go too much deeper into their origin, as I like the mystery and motives it implies.

The way they described how it moved from Humanity's pets to humanity itself, involving the pets eating each other, then the humans eating horribly disease bloated humans, was extremely creepy. You can just imagine this horrible virus slowly taking hold, out of sight, spreading uncontrollably from population center to population center.

I think the concept of the gravemind is pretty excellent/terrifying as well, being able to absorb and steal all of the knowledge from those it infects, its basically like a giant, organic AI construct... perhaps it was constructed this way by the Precursors, or perhaps re-purposed for their desires. Or maybe the final precursor sensed the growing overmind of the networked infected and tapped into it somehow, to control its spread/purpose.

/hype for primordium
 
Semi-OT, but since I never really talked about Cryptum's story anywhere...what did everyone thing of the origin of the Flood revealed in it? Or as much origin as the story touched on, the
powder shipped into the galaxy via strange ships seemed at first to provide desirable effects, before revealing its true nature.
It was most unexpected, and appropriately strange. I kind of hope we don't go too much deeper into their origin, as I like the mystery and motives it implies.

It's absolutely crazy that the Flood started off as
vanity pets for the highly sexual Prophets/humans. My brain almost broke when I read that.

We have next to no information about how it happened, but
"rose up against and ruthlessly destroyed" doesn't make it sound like they were all that chill when they decided to murder their makers.

Yeah, I was wrong about chill.
Humanity had pretty significant beef with the Forerunners, fled their space to get awesome, and came back taking Forerunner claimed worlds (and giving the Forerunners themsleves a run for their money) because of the Flood.
 
The way they described how it moved from Humanity's pets to humanity itself, involving the pets eating each other, then the humans eating horribly disease bloated humans, was extremely creepy. You can just imagine this horrible virus slowly taking hold, out of sight, spreading uncontrollably from population center to population center.

I think the concept of the gravemind is pretty excellent/terrifying as well, being able to absorb and steal all of the knowledge from those it infects, its basically like a giant, organic AI construct... perhaps it was constructed this way by the Precursors, or perhaps re-purposed for their desires. Or maybe the final precursor sensed the growing overmind of the networked infected and tapped into it somehow, to control its spread/purpose.

/hype for primordium

I liked how it addressed a fundamental question about this kind of enemy:
how an infection goes from initial contant to galaxy-consuming terror. It either needed to arrive in such force that it consumed worlds from the get-go, or arrive in a way that it had taken hold before anyone realized what was happening. Anything in between would be easy to push back or quarantine. The latter is far more terrifying to me, and the details of how it played out were, as you said, extremely creepy.

That segment was one of my favorite from Cryptum. What I didn't like in the book was how far in the background the Flood were. The threat was described, but not seen, so I never felt a sense of urgency about them. I'm assuming - hoping - that changes with Primordium.
 
the highly sexual Prophets
8ax1Il.jpg


"Oh, I know what the humans like..."
 
That segment was one of my favorite from Cryptum. What I didn't like in the book was how far in the background the Flood were. The threat was described, but not seen, so I never felt a sense of urgency about them. I'm assuming - hoping - that changes with Primordium.

I figured Greg Bear assumed that the readers would get the urgency by association, because they would most likely know what the stakes of the Flood were. Therefore, the Flood in Cryptum would be a force fueled by the readers' respective imaginations and knowledge of the Flood from prior Halo media.


Dat Pherus.

The lower half of this thread page...so many black bars. Where's Kat's "black ink" line when you need it?
 
I figured Greg Bear assumed that the readers would get the urgency by association, because they would most likely know what the stakes of the Flood were. Therefore, the Flood in Cryptum would be a force fueled by the readers' respective imaginations and knowledge of the Flood from prior Halo media.
If that's the case, I think it's a poor assumption. He's building out an incredible universe, and I think it's a bit lazy* to drop a term and then not elaborate on it, instead relying on the reader's association with the game. The Flood are the reason for so much in the Halo universe, and for much of what happens in Cryptum.


*Which is why I don't think that was his intent. The writing style in Cryptum was very detached, and structured to keep heaps of critical information locked up tight until the very end so as to create hindsight epiphanies. I suspect the Flood will play a larger role next time around, a background threat pushed to the fore.
 
If that's the case, I think it's a poor assumption. He's building out an incredible universe, and I think it's a bit lazy* to drop a term and then not elaborate on it, instead relying on the reader's association with the game. The Flood are the reason for so much in the Halo universe, and for much of what happens in Cryptum.


*Which is why I don't think that was his intent. The writing style in Cryptum was very detached, and structured to keep heaps of critical information locked up tight until the very end so as to create hindsight epiphanies. I suspect the Flood will play a larger role next time around, a background threat pushed to the fore.

I agree with the asterisked, which is why I figured he thought "Flood by association" would suffice for the opening novel.
 
The Forerunners are quite the two-faced species.

Essentially conquering the entire galaxy in order to uphold the Mantle and to promote life.

Hey, it's an honest mistake. It's not their fault the Precursors didn't include "not just your life, assholes" in the fine print.
 
Hey, it's an honest mistake. It's not their fault the Precursors didn't include "not just your life, assholes" in the fine print.

Honestly, the Forerunners are a lot like the Dominion in this regard, but there is one very important distinction:
The Dominion conquered to protect themselves against other species. The Forerunners conquered other species to protect them and from each other.
 
If that's the case, I think it's a poor assumption. He's building out an incredible universe, and I think it's a bit lazy* to drop a term and then not elaborate on it, instead relying on the reader's association with the game. The Flood are the reason for so much in the Halo universe, and for much of what happens in Cryptum.


*Which is why I don't think that was his intent. The writing style in Cryptum was very detached, and structured to keep heaps of critical information locked up tight until the very end so as to create hindsight epiphanies. I suspect the Flood will play a larger role next time around, a background threat pushed to the fore.
It was really obvious for me why he put the origin of the Flood in the book.
We found out that there had been a war between Humans and the San'Shyuum against the Forerunner. The pre-Ancient Humans were nearly powerful as the Forerunner. But why did they lose? The Humans had a two-front war against Flood and Forerunner. But why didn't the Forerunner know about the Flood? Now the exposition of Flood takes part: You found out that cause of the Flood was implanted in nearly every pet of the Humans. The threat, it came from within, not from outside.

But I think how he put the explanation in the book was really poor executed. It was an embedded chapter with no real connection to the main story.
 
It was really obvious for me why he put the origin of the Flood in the book.
We found out that there had been a war between Humans and the San'Shyuum against the Forerunner. The pre-Ancient Humans were nearly powerful as the Forerunner. But why did they lose? The Humans had a two-front war against Flood and Forerunner. But why didn't the Forerunner know about the Flood? Now the exposition of Flood takes part: You found out that cause of the Flood was implanted in nearly every pet of the Humans. The threat it came from within, not from outside.

But I think how he put the explanation in the book was really poor executed. It was an embedded chapter with no real connection to the main story.

I kinda liked how pompous and arrogant the Forerunners are portrayed in the book. You get this melancholy feel that their own intellectual arrogance would be their downfall and at the height of their war against the Flood, with the very survival of life in the galaxy at stake, most Forerunners treated it like some second rate reported war in someone else's backyard or were simply ignorant about it all.

The Forerunners were too reliant on their technology, particularly the Domain. The Forerunner equivalent of an advanced version of the internet routinely changed known records for unknown and unexplained reasons yet not only were these changes unquestioned but they were regarded as sacred. And still the Domain was used extensively by every Forerunner and dominated each Forerunner's life and the entire Forerunner galactic society - from government to farm work. Heck, the Forerunners didn't even fully understand neither the origins of the Domain or how the Domain functioned.

When MB 505'ed the Domain the Forerunners' society simply carried on like a headless chicken for a while longer and it easily marked an important turning point, the ending chapter, in the Flood-Forerunner war.

Imagine if today we didn't understand how the stock markets and the internet really worked and tomorrow both went offline. To say we'd be screwed would be an understatement. And it would be entirely our own fault.
 
Ok, I found a copy of Cryptum in the wild, couldn't source Glasslands. I plan to finish Contact Harvest, jump into Cryptum and digest it before Primordium.

Thanks, Halo-GAF, for furthering the discussion on the lore...most of the time I lurk Halo threads due to not being active with MP as much as you fanatics, so I don't have much to offer by way of discussions.
 
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