[22:20] <IJoel> well.. UNSC gets to halo by pure coincidence
[22:21] <IJoel> when they get there, they see all this covenant armada and realize there's something going on
[22:21] <IJoel> anyway, they are attacked and forced to land in Halo and protect Cortana (earth's coordinates) from falling into the covenant's handas
[22:22] <IJoel> after that, well, it starts as a recoinnasance (sp?) mission and then evolves into finding out what the covenant is looking in Halo
[22:24] <IJoel> so cortana manages to find out they are looking for the control room of halo (the covenant)
[22:25] <IJoel> and so, thinking halo is a weapon, they set out to get there first
[22:25] <IJoel> that's when they get to the beach level and assault in the control room
[22:26] <IJoel> once they get to the control room, cortana stays there while MC goes looking for Keyes when cortana realizes that halo isn't really a weapon
[22:26] <IJoel> so MC goes to stop Keyes from unleashing the Flood, but he gets there too late
[22:27] <IJoel> once MC escapes the breached containment area, he meets guilty spark
[22:28] <IJoel> and so, guilty spark, the halo construct AI has been programmed with annhilation of the flood in case of a containment breach and possibly the flood getting outside of Halo and spreading, since it's pretty much uncontrollable
[22:29] <IJoel> and he (guilty spark) believes MC is the person (what's the word?) to do this (and this is a heavy hint of human's association with the front runners)
[22:32] <IJoel> they go through the library to get the control room index, which in short is the key to activate Halo's defense mechanism against the flood
[22:32] <IJoel> and MC is all for that, of course... and so they do that
[22:33] <IJoel> only when they get to the control room, Cortana bitch slaps Guilty Spark, and informs MC that the defense mechanism pretty much means starving the Flood... which means killing any potential food, which means killing all life in the galaxy..
[22:34] <IJoel> anyway... the halo defense mechanism would connect it to other halos in the same galaxy and they would cause a huge ass explosion to erradicate life in the galaxy and destroy the flood
[22:35] <IJoel> sooo... after Cortana bitch slaps guilty spark, MC and Cortana realize they need to destroy Halo to stop the flood from leaving Halo and possibly spreading
[22:37] <IJoel> soo... the only way to cause an explosion big enough to fuck up Halo would be by destroying the nuclear reactor in the Pillar of Autum
[22:37] <IJoel> and blah blah blah... they do it and escape