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[Fuchsdh]

Sorry, couldn't hear you over the sound of how awesome Buck looks.

That hair feathering.

 

[Human_me]

This new ViDoc gives me the impression that Halo 5 will end on a cliffhanger.

 

[rokkerkory]

This new ViDoc gives me the impression that Halo 5 will end on a cliffhanger.

you don't s...

 

[Slightly Live]

This new ViDoc gives me the impression that Halo 5 will end on a cliffhanger.

Play as Locke, beat a boss, swap to Chief. "Finishing the fight". Credits roll. 343 apologises years later about faking the E3 demo.

 

[Fuchsdh]

This new ViDoc gives me the impression that Halo 5 will end on a cliffhanger.

Honestly I've never understood why people got so upset about that in Halo 2. I liked the story fine, and my campaign concerns had nothing to do with length and more to do with the linearity of the levels and how the Arbiter got saddled with Flood constantly because they didn't want the player to fight humans.

 

[wesleyshark]

Hunt the Truth season 2 confirmed for September!

 

[Toa TAK]

This new ViDoc gives me the impression that Halo 5 will end on a cliffhanger.

It's gonna be like Halo 2 all over again.

Nah, but even if it does, I won't be upset about it, at least we know there's another game coming and as long as the campaign itself is meaty and fun with a great story I'm down.

 

[Fathead]

This new ViDoc gives me the impression that Halo 5 will end on a cliffhanger.

If 343 has any balls they'll have chief need to get to a forerunner tank and have the cliffhanger happen right before getting to it.

 

[MrGreencastle]

Cortana...

Chief trippin'

 

[Darknight34]

Chief trippin'

Confirmed that Halo 5 will follow Chief as he battles drug addictions.

 

[Tzeentch]

If 343 has any balls they'll have chief need to get to a forerunner tank and have the cliffhanger happen right before getting to it.

Guardian Forest needs to be a thing now.

 

[Toa TAK]

Chief trippin'

Watch that be the cliffhanger instead.

Right as he reaches out to touch her--

*cut to black*

 

[MrGreencastle]

Watch that be the cliffhanger instead.

Right as he reaches out to touch her--

*cut to black*

I blame Gravemind. There's some funky stuff going on.

 

[Toa TAK]

I blame Gravemind. There's some funky stuff going on.

Especially after that "Human Weakness" story, I guess anything is possible with the Gravemind and Cortana. D:

 

[Hypertrooper]

Cortana...

Greenskull confirmed that he saw that scene at the press event when the single player had been shown to the press for the first time. So the Chief is dreamin'.

 

[Monocle]

Wouldn't it be great if Cortana's blue mug periodically filled the screen and made you move like you're wading through molasses? It would be as though Chief was actually hallucinating Cortana. These scenes would occur in real time so you couldn't skip them like ordinary cutscenes. I think that would be awesome and I look forward to 343 implementing maybe 9 - 12 of these character building interludes per level in a later build.

Paging Stinkles...

 

[AlStrong]

Cortana...

Uhura

 

[wesleyshark]

Guardian Forest needs to be a thing now.

Yes please.

I blame Gravemind. There's some funky stuff going on.

Couldn't sleep last night, so of course I passed the time watching various Halo-related videos, including some of the older stuff. Eventually made my way to the Halo Origins Part I and II videos as I fell into the clickhole, and something stuck out to me that I hadn't noticed before. I'm not sure if this has been covered earlier in the thread or not, but  I think it might be worth mentioning.

[All Hail the Conquering Stream]: Shadows and Foreshadows

In the Origins videos, we are given a scene in which Master Chief stands before the Gravemind. This is somewhat similar to the scene we know from Halo 2, but... at the same time... it's entirely different.

He's not ensnared in this scene. He's standing, and free, as if he were conversing on his own volition, and not as a captured audience. And then...

...Gravemind gives Chief Cortana's chip. This is an entirely new piece of information that certainly was not in Halo 2, nor is it in any other piece of Halo literature to date. Is this Cortana's estimation of how Chief rescued her? Is this just simply a matter of creative license? Or is this a foreshadowing of something that hasn't happened yet?

Chief still holds her chip, as of the current. But...how did he come to have it? The last we see of her chip, it was digitized in the console that Chief had inserted it into. He never had time to remove it, and thus it was presumed to be lost.

So where did the chip come from? Is it possible that Chief will have a rendezvous with a new Gravemind at some point in Halo 5? Could his quest to resurrect Cortana lead him to align with The Flood to suit his own means? Could this possibly be a piece of what drives a rift between Chief and ONI? Perhaps he goes AWOL because they find out The Flood is back, and that a new Gravemind has appearaed.

During Cortana's time with Gravemind, it is very likely that pieces of her, or a copy of her, was assimilated in The Flood's collective conciousness.

Especially after that "Human Weakness" story, I guess anything is possible with the Gravemind and Cortana. D:

There's a lot packed into that story that will have future relevance I am sure of it.

Greenskull confirmed that he saw that scene at the press event when the single player had been shown to the press for the first time. So the Chief is dreamin'.

Not necessarily a dream. He crashes through some sort of area near the end of the level and arrives there. He turns a corner and sees Cortana, and she tells him that he has x-annt of days until the Reclamation and that the Domain is now open.

Seeing as she's the only one aware of that information, due to her time with the Gravemind in Human Weakness, I'm still theorizing her continued existence. Shards of her were left with Gravemind. Shards of her possibly hitchhiked in the Ur-Didact's armor at the end of Halo 4. Also, whatever the Librarian did to her during halo 4 has yet to be explained.

[Stream Echo]: The Seeds of the Future

Something that has always intrigued me is how AIs can fragment themselves in order to be even more productive (or secretive). Ultimately, an AIs first and primary goal is to acquire and attain knowledge. No matter what the function or purpose of said AI is, they will go about completing their goals via the knowledge they are provided with upon their inception, and as they expand and grow during their lifespan. This, of course, also leads to their inevitable rampancy, but it's just the way it has to be...

Or is it?

Throughout the games and the extended fiction, we see AIs split off, or that are fragmented purposefully for various means and ends. 032 Mendicant Bias is purposefully fragmented as punishment. Black Box sends pieces of himself to various locations and systems, in order to be as efficient as possible for ONI. Cortana, in the final moments of Halo 4, splits herself into multiple manifestations of hardlight (and possibly even sends a fragment of herself into the Ur-Didact's armor).

And that's where the questions begin to arise...

> How did Cortana come to know how to manifest herself in hardlight, and ultimately, use it to create a hardlight bubble to protect the Master Chief from a nuclear detonation? And if she already knew how to manipulate hardlight, why was it only until this moment that she made use of it?

> Was it actually a hardlight bubble, or is that what we've told for now, until later details can be revealed? Or could it perhaps be something else? More specifically, something to do with slipspace?​

At some point in the narrative universe, we're bound to see AIs that exist and operate via slipspace fractals, or something equivalent. There is so much in the current and past fiction that point to this eventuality- but which AI will be the first? Who will make the discovery (or has it already been discovered?) What could an AI achieve when it has limitless space for expansion? What are the benefits? What are the dangers? Would the AI be, essentially, immortal? What would a slipspace-anchored AI look like if it ever went rogue, or rampant somehow?

...Have we already seen the first inklings of an AI who has exceeded [her] limitations?

Within the first few pages of Issue #8 of Halo: Escalation we are taken to revisit Cortana's final moments with John-117, when she saved him from the nuclear detonation that ultimately destroyed Mantle's Approach and ended the Ur-Didact's campaign against Erde-Tyrene. But before this emotional send off, Cortana was able to help John-117 in overwhelming the Ur-Didact by creating hardlight? clones of her AI matrix and essentially tying the Ur-Didact down where he stood. He was then knocked backwards into a slipspace fissure to an unknown destination, which we now know was Installation 03.

Cortana: "I'm not coming with you this time."

John-117: "What?"

Cortana: "Most of me is down there. I only held enough back to get you off this ship."

John-117: "No. No, that's not.. we go together."​

Let's break this down. Cortana says "with you this time" to John-117. Why would she phrase it in such a manner, as to imply that there could have been other ways for her to escape the exploding Forerunner vessel? This statement is further muddled when she adds "most of me" and "down there". Most of her? Down where? This is actually a pretty heavy statement when examined further, but when taken at face value, it can be overlooked and taken in a far simpler fashion, as the ending of Halo 4 and Cortana's supposed demise may have us currently believing.

Most of her: So- the fragment that we see saying goodbye to John-117 isn't the bulk of Cortana, but just a piece of her. Where is the rest? We know that she split off into multiple fragments of herself to overcome the Ur-Didact, but is she implying that there's still more of her left? Also...

Down there: Down where? In the ship's exploding systems? Down through the slipspace portal and hitchhiking inside the Ur-Didact's armor? Somewhere untheorized as of yet?​

So many possibilities haha.

Could be something, could be nothing.

 

[Captain Friendo]

So i've been having a think about the recent uproar about Chief's Mark VI appearing in TFoR trailer and i've come up with a small theory fellas.

In the scene, Blue Team appear to be near or on Reach, however a 2553 model Warthog is present. Now we do know these were field tested in 2552 and could theoretically have been present at the battle of reach although I heavily doubt this. I think rather the scene is a present day sequence with Blue Team revisiting Reach to uncover a clue to the mystery they're probably solving in Halo 5. With Frank and Kiki saying there would be definite Halo 5 links within the program, I believe that the only reason Chief is wearing his modified Mark VI is because that's not an event from the novel at all.

 

[wesleyshark]

So i've been having a think about the recent uproar about Chief's Mark VI appearing in TFoR trailer and i've come up with a small theory fellas.

In the scene, Blue Team appear to be near or on Reach, however a 2553 model Warthog is present. Now we do know these were field tested in 2552 and could theoretically have been present at the battle of reach although I heavily doubt this. I think rather the scene is a present day sequence with Blue Team revisiting Reach to uncover a clue to the mystery they're probably solving in Halo 5. With Frank and Kiki saying there would be definite Halo 5 links within the program, I believe that the only reason Chief is wearing his modified Mark VI is because that's not an event from the novel at all.

I've been under the same impression. Something from that book or from their angle of events is going to become relevant or meaningful to events that occur in the campaign. Maybe there'll be present day bookends on the animated series?

 

[A More Normal Bird]

So i've been having a think about the recent uproar about Chief's Mark VI appearing in TFoR trailer and i've come up with a small theory fellas.

In the scene, Blue Team appear to be near or on Reach, however a 2553 model Warthog is present. Now we do know these were field tested in 2552 and could theoretically have been present at the battle of reach although I heavily doubt this. I think rather the scene is a present day sequence with Blue Team revisiting Reach to uncover a clue to the mystery they're probably solving in Halo 5. With Frank and Kiki saying there would be definite Halo 5 links within the program, I believe that the only reason Chief is wearing his modified Mark VI is because that's not an event from the novel at all.

Certainly a possibility. The other option is that Halo fans often read too much into differences in visual representation that could just be chalked up to artistic license

 

[rrc1594]

Wesley is a Halo walking Wiki

 

[dragonelite]

So i've been having a think about the recent uproar about Chief's Mark VI appearing in TFoR trailer and i've come up with a small theory fellas.

In the scene, Blue Team appear to be near or on Reach, however a 2553 model Warthog is present. Now we do know these were field tested in 2552 and could theoretically have been present at the battle of reach although I heavily doubt this. I think rather the scene is a present day sequence with Blue Team revisiting Reach to uncover a clue to the mystery they're probably solving in Halo 5. With Frank and Kiki saying there would be definite Halo 5 links within the program, I believe that the only reason Chief is wearing his modified Mark VI is because that's not an event from the novel at all.

Doesn't first strike mentioned there are forerunner artifacts on reach.
Something about a spacetime crystal and such..

 

[MrGreencastle]

Doesn't first strike mentioned there are forerunner artifacts on reach.
Something about a spacetime crystal and such..

Haha! I was going to quote this and post something earlier but decided not to.

Basically, I agree. This is smelling like the Sigma Octanis IV Artifact to me.

 

[wesleyshark]

Doesn't first strike mentioned there are forerunner artifacts on reach.
Something about a spacetime crystal and such..

A meteor crashed into Sigma Octanus IV some 60,000yrs before humanity would eventually discover it.. However it wasn't just a meteor.. It contained a Forerunner artifact. The humans that discovered didn't know this, and put the rock in a museum that was constructed on that planet.

The Covenant were scanning planets for Forerunner artifacts, as relics and guide posts for their Great Journey, and this is what led them to Sigma (it's also how they stumbled across humanity in the first place). They attempted to retrieve the artifact, but were stopped by a team of Spartans.

The artifact was then brought to Reach, where Cortana was able to translate what the artifact contained into a star chart, which would be the jump vector Keyes would use to escape Reach as it fell, and that's where Halo CE picks up.

 

[Captain Friendo]

Certainly a possibility. The other option is that Halo fans often read too much into differences in visual representation that could just be chalked up to artistic license

There's a difference between some light artistic license in the games and creating an animated adaption of a beloved story only to have it riddled with inconsistencies.
343 would know better.

 

[MrGreencastle]

There's a difference between some light artistic license in the games and creating an animated adaption of a beloved story only to have it riddled with inconsistencies.
343 would know better.

Every tiny missed detail is always going to bother some fans and not others. Personally, I don't mind. As long as the story stays mostly the same, I'm glad we're getting another view of it even if things like armour or ships or whatever look different than they were originally. There's already 3 versions of the novel, and a multi-part comic version of Fall of Reach - all with their own quirks, and that's besides all the other little different angles we see in the later fiction. It wouldn't bother me if the whole thing was a stylized anime that looked nothing like Halo, either. To each their own.

 

[etta]

Halo story explained in 15 minutes

Good summary video.

 

[MrGreencastle]

Halo story explained in 15 minutes

Good summary video.

I'd say we should put this in the OT, but... well we can't.

 

[Valkyri von Thanatos]

There's a difference between some light artistic license in the games and creating an animated adaption of a beloved story only to have it riddled with inconsistencies.
343 would know better.

Would they? Halo 4's CG intro was pretty directly ignorant of canon for really no reason. The modified Mark VI itself is pretty sketchy.

 

[wesleyshark]

I'd say we should put this in the OT, but... well we can't.

RIP rest in pieces maybe a mod can

 

[Kalentan]

RIP rest in pieces maybe a mod can

Is it possible? Cause we should totally do that. Like maybe put things up for votes to see what could be added and or changed?

 

[Toa TAK]

Every tiny missed detail is always going to bother some fans and not others. Personally, I don't mind. As long as the story stays mostly the same, I'm glad we're getting another view of it even if things like armour or ships or whatever look different than they were originally.

I think that's fine if it were in one instance, but if Halo 4 was any indication, anytime they're going to revisit any period in time before Halo 4 via flashbacks in-game or through other visual media, it's all going to have the 343i aesthetic. It makes sense for them to do so, considering they still have to sell the games but even with an inconsistent canon (yeah, many re-tellings of The Fall of Reach, for one, then you have Halo Reach), it feels like a slap to a lot of us following this for years.

Not that it really matters in the end anyways, but it's just how I feel about it. =\

 

[op_ivy]

can someone explain the confrontation between 343gs and the covenant construct depicted in the halo ce anniversary terminals? it seemed to go way beyond the usual covenant great journey talk with the construct having ulterior motives.

 

[Captain Friendo]

I think that's fine if it were in one instance, but if Halo 4 was any indication, anytime they're going to revisit any period in time before Halo 4 via flashbacks in-game or through other visual media, it's all going to have the 343i aesthetic. It makes sense for them to do so, considering they still have to sell the games but even with an inconsistent canon (yeah, many re-tellings of The Fall of Reach, for one, then you have Halo Reach), it feels like a slap to a lot of us following this for years.

Actually 343i seem to have set up two distinct visual styles: Covenant War and post war.
When they revisit the anniversary editions and make their related media for example, it still has a generally very Halo 1-Reach aesthetic, with new assets tending to borrow influence from Reach.
Plus, most of the Reach, FoR discrepancies were fixed in Halsey's journal, then the data drops.

People look at the H4 CG cutscene like it was a literal retelling of events but 343 employees have said again and again it was more symbolic than anything else. It was also one of their very first examples of storytelling and I (hope) they've gotten wiser since.

 

[wesleyshark]

can someone explain the confrontation between 343gs and the covenant construct depicted in the halo ce anniversary terminals? it seemed to go way beyond the usual covenant great journey talk with the construct having ulterior motives.

Which terminal(s)?

 

[Captain Friendo]

Which terminal(s)?

Probably referring to the truth and reconciliation terminal.

Yeah, that AI was certainly saying a lot of strange stuff. Almost like it wanted the flood out, so it could be "free," exist alone.

 

[Fotos]

Just bought The Fall of Reach... It begins

 

[wesleyshark]

Just bought The Fall of Reach... It begins

Do enjoy!! That book is a great read.

Probably referring to the truth and reconciliation terminal.

Yeah, that AI was certainly saying a lot of strange stuff. Almost like it wanted the flood out, so it could be "free," exist alone.

I'll have to re-watch those soon. Can't recall what exactly the AI said.

 

[T'Zariah]

Man, Fall of Reach is still the best Halo novel. It reads so goddamn well.

 

[op_ivy]

Probably referring to the truth and reconciliation terminal.

Yeah, that AI was certainly saying a lot of strange stuff. Almost like it wanted the flood out, so it could be "free," exist alone.

Yeah, that's it.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VTacHrwQPJM
Starting at 4:03

 

[MrGreencastle]

can someone explain the confrontation between 343gs and the covenant construct depicted in the halo ce anniversary terminals? it seemed to go way beyond the usual covenant great journey talk with the construct having ulterior motives.

=]

One of my favourite terminals. Drove me crazy trying to figure it out.

In short, that was a Covenant Luminary.

At some point, it was made into Covenant "law" that Luminaries were installed on every ship in the Covenant fleet.

They were used as a sort of primitive AI that would scan and point out Forerunner relics on planets the Covenant called "Reliquaries" (it was also Covenant "law" that AI were something the Covenant wouldn't experiment with all that much on their own).

The interesting bit, is that the Luminaries were sort of hacked copies of the Monitor that existed inside the Forerunner ship at the centre of High Charity, the "Oracle" of the Keyship as they called it.

It is also widely believed that that Monitor is a fragment of Mendicant Bias, an ancient all-powerful Forerunner AI.

So, in essence, every single Covenant ship has a sort of "piece" of Mendicant Bias inside. And that conversation between 343GS and that Luminary shows how messed up those copies really are, despite the Covenant's entire method (find planet, scan for relics, scavenge relics, kill anyone that doesn't submit, etc) being almost completely reliant on the Luminaries working correctly.

The Covenant's shaky expertise concerning AI is actually what eventually lead to the start of the Human-Covenant War - Harvest was initially scanned by a Luminary on a Covenant ship, and it revealed the densest "Reliquary" the Covenant had ever discovered. They were astounded! But it turned out, Truth, Mercy, and Regret (who's original job was to "speak" for the long silent Oracle) had accidentally "awoken" the Monitor (again, widely believed to be MB) inside the Forerunner ship at the centre of High Charity. When they did, it told them the entire Covenant were basically fools and that the symbol used to denote Forerunner relics on these Reliquaries was actually Reclaimer, not Reclamation as they had originally thought. They had discovered Humanity - the Reclaimers. Unacceptable, as far as the Prophets were concerned. At least, that's how it went in Contact Harvest.

It's very rare to "see" Luminaries in the fiction. At one point, Cortana goes toe-to-toe with one in First Strike on the Unyielding Hierophant flagship. Another time, it is hinted that Cortana is "fighting" the actual Monitor on High Charity during the events of Halo 2. You can hear her mention things that are very similar to how a Luminary would behave.

That's my thoughts on it anyway.

 

[op_ivy]

Very cool. Thanks for the insight on it

 

[orichalcos]

Hunt the Truth season 2 confirmed for September!

Chief or Locke cameo pls!

 

[Captain Friendo]

=]
The interesting bit, is that the Luminaries were sort of hacked copies of the Monitor that existed inside the Forerunner ship at the centre of High Charity, the "Oracle" of the Keyship as they called it.

It is also widely believed that that Monitor is a fragment of Mendicant Bias, an ancient all-powerful Forerunner AI.

Actually I don't think it's so much a monitor as outright confirmed to be the aforementioned Mendicant Bias fragment, as seen in contact harvest, H2A terminals, etc.

I didn't realise that luminaries were all copies of the MB fragment, where does that come from?

 

[MrGreencastle]

Actually I don't think it's so much a monitor as outright confirmed to be the aforementioned Mendicant Bias fragment, as seen in contact harvest, H2A terminals, etc.

I didn't realise that luminaries were all copies of the MB fragment, where does that come from?

It's never explicitly stated, just a theory of mine.

Could just be a device aboard the Dreadnought that they copied, but they were modelled after the systems on board MB's dreadnought. These Covenant constructs I'm talking about "speak" so similarly to MB albeit in a fragmented way, I'm convinced they're related some how.

Usually she quoted Holy Writs only to mock them, but this time Chur’R-Yar was serious. Every Luminary was modeled after a device the Prophets had located aboard an ancient Forerunner warship—one that now stood at the center of the Covenant capitol, High Charity. Luminaries were sacred objects and tampering with them was punishable by death—or worse.

Also, minor correction for my post, Cortana doesn't encounter the construct on the Unyielding, it's on the Ascendant Justice.

Cortana began constructing a high-resolution map of the surface—especially the region where the Chief's mysterious signal originated, as well as Menachite Mountain. A quick diagnostic revealed that these tasks were taking much longer than normal. She had to free up some of her overtaxed memory. Cortana began to recompress the data she had retrieved from the Halo construct, and she briefly considered dumping all the data into storage on the Covenant system. She rejected that potential course of action. She had to protect that data at all costs.
Cortana felt her mind perceptibly slow. She was spread too thin. Multitasking too many jobs. This was dangerous. She couldn't react fast enough if— "Infidel!"
The Covenant word blasted through her communications routines and left her stunned for three cycles—just enough time for her to lose control over the ship-to-ship COM software suite. The Covenant AI transmitted a narrow-beam communications burst to the nearest cruiser.
For a Covenant communique, it was terse: a report that the flagship was "tainted by the unclean presence of Infidels" and a plea that every ship insystem "converge and cleanse the filth" from the captured vessel. Also compressed and futilely encrypted on the carrier wave was a record of Cortana's mathematical manipulation of Slipspace that allowed her to jump so close to the gas giant, Threshold.
Cortana squelched the channel—but it was too late. It was already gone, and she couldn't pull photons back from space. She shunted all COM memory pathways on themselves. "Gotcha!" she hissed.
"Infidel-Infidel-Infidel-Infidel-Infidel-Infidel-Infidel-Infidel-I nfidel-Infidel-Infidel-Infidel-Infidel-Infidel-Infidel-Infidel—" "That's quite enough of that," she said. "You and I need to come to an understanding." She reduced the memory pathways, peeling the Covenant AI apart code layer by code layer. "This is my system now."

While an operational Covenant AI would have been a prize for ONI Section Three—this particular Covenant AI was too dangerous. She could not allow its existence to continue. "Do what you will-wil-willwill," it screamed, "I go to finally to my heaven reward paradise final-finalfinalinfinityinfinityinfini-AT NONCOPYSTATE." Cortana's curiosity over this odd proclamation would have to wait—forever. She tore the AI apart, erasing, recording the Covenant code structure even as she destroyed it. This was analo- gous to a dissection, and it she did it quickly, efficiently, and without remorse—until she found the AI's core code.
She halted.
She almost recognized this code. The patterns were maddeningly familiar. No time to ponder why, though. She recorded it and then wiped the original. The Covenant AI was gone, its bits safely hacked apart and stored for future research. Provided, of course, Cortana had a future."

 

[WhiteRabbitEXE]

Regarding the Halo 4 opening, wasn't it said that they used higher fidelity versions of the in-game MJOLNIR and Elite models due to budgetary/time constraints? Plus they've talked about using anachronistic designs in the past to maintain visual continuity. Hence the visual changes in Fall of Reach, which I honestly take no issue with.

Honestly, Halo fans take artistic/design shifts too seriously. Like how people needed canonical reasons for Chief's armor (and various other things) looking different between 3 and 4, beyond hey, it's a new art team and a new engine that supported drastically higher fidelity character models, which honestly is enough for me. Not every single little change needs comprehensive lore backing.

Really, you all should try being Metroid or Zelda fans.

 

[wesleyshark]

Regarding the Halo 4 opening, wasn't it said that they used higher fidelity versions of the in-game MJOLNIR and Elite models due to budgetary/time constraints? Plus they've talked about using anachronistic designs in the past to maintain visual continuity. Hence the visual changes in Fall of Reach, which I honestly take no issue with.

Honestly, Halo fans take artistic/design shifts too seriously. Like how people needed canonical reasons for Chief's armor (and various other things) looking different between 3 and 4, beyond hey, it's a new art team and a new engine that supported drastically higher fidelity character models, which honestly is enough for me. Not every single little change needs comprehensive lore backing.

Really, you all should try being Metroid or Zelda fans.

- yep. That was the main reason. It also presented a visual continuity across the board for folks who aren't privy to the differences between the iterations.

- also something that frustrates me. I love the lore to pieces... But there's a line to be drawn between staying 200% faithful to every little detail that has no consequence on the overall narrative versus things that are done to either present visual consistency or staying under a budget and diverting those funds to other things and teams.

What I'm glad to see happening between 4 and 5 is that Chief's armor hasn't changed much visually. He's wearing the same build 8 months later after halo 4. Yeah it has ability upgrades and changes under the surface but the visual design is consistent. i think we're going to see these current armor sets be the base design from here on out. There'll be upgrades and such with each new title, but the core design will be present. This also makes it easier on the EU folks to keep things in-step as well.

FoR:AS looks to have the classic designs as well as the current designs- we might be getting present day bookends maybe?

 

[Fuchsdh]

It's never explicitly stated, just a theory of mine.

Could just be a device aboard the Dreadnought that they copied, but they were modelled after the systems on board MB's dreadnought. These Covenant constructs I'm talking about "speak" so similarly to MB albeit in a fragmented way, I'm convinced they're related some how.



Also, minor correction for my post, Cortana doesn't encounter the construct on the Unyielding, it's on the Ascendant Justice.

I don't think the luminaries are AIs, if for no other reason that the books make it clear Covenant AI are exceedingly rare. If the luminaries were AI it seems strange no one in the UNSC or Cortana realized this. They definitely were based off a device in the dreadnought (that's explicitly said) but given the fact that the Mendicant Bias fragment was silent for all recorded history up to the events of Contact Harvest it seems weird to me they would have even attempted to derive something from him. It is true, however, that some of the luminaries (not the ones described in Contact Harvest, but seen in the H2A terminals) have a superficial resemblance to other Forerunner constructs with its "eye".

My personal pet theory is that the AI from the Terminals was a piece of Abject Testament, just because the T&R construct sort of seems like a rampant version of the guy we see in the earlier terminal (he's voiced by the same guy, although that doesn't necessarily mean anything). Also, he's still missing on Gamma Halo, and given that Static Carillon took the ring I'm going to guess he wasn't on it during the events of Halo 4 at all. For all we know he could have decided to take a trip somewhere off his ring and got found by the Covenant.

 

[Captain Friendo]

Plus they've talked about using anachronistic designs in the past to maintain visual continuity.

Usually just in the making of the anniversary games, and even then it's usually Reach assets or designs, besides say the H4 warthog in H2A.

Besides the H4 opening, and the elite/jackals in FuD, I can't think of any examples of H4 designs inserted into covenant war era media, so I'm still not 100% sure that the Mark VI scene in TFoR trailer takes place during the war. By that logic, they could have just had chief wear that design in forward unto dawn, no?