History Fridge / Halo

* [[http://i.imgur.com/jTqmbkL.png This little detail in 343 Guilty Spark.]] It may be hinted that a couple of stranded marines and jackals dropped their differences to try and hold off the flood together

* There's something very appropriate about Dr. Halsey saying she chose John for his luck. Namely, another famous Halsey, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Halsey,_Jr. Fleet Admiral William Jr.]], commanded the task force centred on the ''Enterprise'' (CV-6), the luckiest of America's WW2 aircraft carriers.

** And the Composer. But yes, this is true. If you notice the Terminal videos, the Promethean warriors are all wielding powerful weapons that look like Binary Rifles and Incineration Cannons, and are probably more powerful and versatile than the in-game ones. Nowhere are the weaker weapons ever seen. Even the mechanized Prometheans, at their height, were wielding these weapons, and a single Knight could defeat a ship full of Flood. Now the Knights in-game have been massively nerfed, with weapons like Suppressors and [=LightRifles=] that are vastly less effective, shields that can be brought down by regular 7.62x51mm bullets, and apart from their translocation armor-ability, pretty darn slow movement - all likely the Librarian's doing after the Didact was imprisoned. Perhaps the closest you could get to those pre-nerf Prometheans would be to turn on the Mythic, Tough Luck and Thunderstorm skulls and play on Legendary. (Also talked about here http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Headscratchers/Halo4) Interestingly, the ancient Humans from the Terminals seen guarding the Lord of Admirals appear to be equipped with technology that oddly parallels that of the [=UNSC=]'s GUNGNIR project, such as a shouldered energy weapon with targeting lasers, and a visorless fully-plated helmet with vision provided purely through cameras.

** The "best soldiers dead or left behind in the middle of battle" theory would actually explain a lot, like why you never fight brutes or elite ultras(the two toughest common enemies in Reach) in Combat Evolved and only run across a dozen or so zealots (whereas in Reach you can get them out of a vending machine).

* Spartan Ops episode 10. We get a good look at Jul 'Mdama's fleet as they evacuate Requiem. It's ''huge.'' The guy literally has hundreds of capital-class ships, as well as support vessels and doubtlessly tens of thousands of warriors, at his command. Considering that 'Mdama is a [[RenegadeRussian renegade Elite]] [[NGOSuperpower commanding a tiny splinter faction of the Covenant]] and yet still has such an enormous fleet, it really makes you wonder, just how powerful were the original Covenant?
** That's nothing. In Halo: First Strike, they lose a fleet of 300 ships and it only delays the invasion of earth. The force that attacks Installation 05 is hundreds of times the size of the 'hundreds' of ships that attacked reach. It takes a planet full of reactors and miners to fuel even the local Covenant ships, such that the success of operation prometheus managed to actually slow the Covenant juggernaut. Suffice to say, they're a galactic empire.

* The two monitors' names are 343 Guilty Spark and 2401 Penitent Tangent. 343 is 7^3. 2401 is 7^4.

* The ending of ''{{VideoGame/Halo 3}}''. [[spoiler: Literally: Master Chief ]]didn't die, he's just MIA.

* The ending of ''{{VideoGame/Halo 3}}''. Literally: Master Chief didn't die, he's just MIA.

* The Covenant of ''{{Franchise/Halo}}''. When this troper read about them over at Halopedia, he just thought of the species divide as a form of state-sponsored racism that only depended on how had they been absorbed into the Covenant, with some influences from theocracies. After having read a few articles on Medieval Society and Culture, and suddenly having discovered the similarities with them and the Covenant (the social castes of religion, combat, and manual labor -- Including the fact that Knights tended to view commoners as unimportant, bringers of neither shame or glory when killed), it made this troper admire Bungie's storytelling even more.

* Just recently this troper questioned why Covenant ships didn't always utterly curbstomp human fleets no matter what, they're supposed to be using Forerunner tech. But then it hit me, the Covenant capital ships are good at glassing planets. The ships that the Covenant are using are after battle clean up ships, designed to completely eradicate flood a infestation after a real battle. And to the response of 'but they don't really glass the planets, just render them inhospitable by convection', they don't always have to glass the entire planet, as in Halo 3 with half of Africa, but if it really becomes necessary, just throw more ships at the problem.
* This Troper has always been annoyed by how the Marines address the Master Chief as 'Sir' and salute him, doubly so since the only branch that salutes in doors is the Army. Then it occurred to me that the Master Chief is the single most dangerous human being in the universe. He's taken out more Covenant troops in an afternoon than entire platoons have in a month. And to top it all off, the ending cutscene of Halo 3 shows that he was promoted to Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy (The highest enlisted rank in the Navy). With a record like that under his belt, the Master Chief must have recieved at least one Medal of Honor.

** Which gets this Troper thinking even more... At the end of Halo 4, is she sad because she's dying... or because she left the one she loved and protected behind? She even realizes it's magnitudes worse for him because he's a soldier who was raised as a child to know nothing but war; he literally has no idea how to process his emotions or cope with such a personal loss, and ''she regrets that she can't protect him from the subsequent emotional trauma.'' Note how she chokes up when delivering the line "We were supposed to protect each other... And we did." But she didn't. She may have saved his life, but she couldn't save him from the bitter loneliness and despair her absence would bring him. Fridge TearJerker, anyone?
* Some fans complained that [[http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20121109215835/halo/images/6/6b/Librarian_closeup.png the Librarian]] looked older in ''Halo 4'' than they had imagined. This Troper noticed that in Spartan Ops, she [[http://auspiciouseagle.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/spops_09_hd-wmv_000095693.jpg looks younger]] than in her first appearance. In one of the books, she was described with the words "Whenever you look inward and see an ideal female... whether it be goddess, anima, mother, sister, or lover... For a brief, barely sensible instant, you will see the face and feel the spirit of the Librarian." The Librarian looks like the ideal woman ''to the person seeing her''. The Master Chief's initial priority in ''Halo 4'' was getting Cortana to Dr. Halsey, an older woman. He would see the ideal female not as an example of beauty, but as someone trustworthy and knowledgeable.

* ''{{Franchise/Halo}}''. Specifically, the Human-Covenant war. The casualties are never really covered in the games... but Bungie have released statistics. Remember when Miranda Keyes says "casualties from the initial bombardment were... extreme" in ''{{VideoGame/Halo 3}}'', referring to Truth's bombardment of Earth? Well, it turns out that this bombardment meant that there were only 200 million humans left on Earth by the end. Less than the population of America. And Earth wasn't even fully glassed - whereas around 70 planets were, many of them major colonies like Reach. You know what this means? '''Dozens of billions of humans''' have been killed in the Halo universe. Soldiers, civilians, children. All mercilessly eradicated by a beam from space so powerful, it turns the surface of the planet to glass. It reminds This Troper or pouring water into an ant's nest, in the most horrifying way possible... doubly so when you realise that's what we must seem like to the xenophobic captains of the Covenant ships. At the end of the war, we - people like you and me - may very well be on the verge of extinction.

** Which gets this Troper thinking even more... At the end of Halo 4, is she sad because she's dying... or because she left the one she loved and protected behind? She even realizes it's magnitudes worse for him because he's a soldier who was raised as a child to know nothing but war; he literally has no idea how to process his emotions or cope with such a personal loss, and ''she regrets that she can't protect him from the subsequent emotional trauma.'' Fridge TearJerker, anyone?

* Why is Cortana so insistent about John making promises that can't be kept? Not because she'd be let down, but because of ''[[MyGreatestFailure what he'd do to himself]].''

* If the Grunts home planet Balaho atmosphere is Methane. Then why did the UNSC not bomb it? If they fired a missile with Napalm into Balaho then it would have blown it up. Because Methane is a flammable substance that even a simple flame can ignite all of. If they at least had a Napalm bomb then it would have been a success. Causing a massive blow to the Covenant.

* If the Grunts home planet Unggoy atmosphere is Methane. Then why did the UNSC not bomb it? If they fired a missile with Napalm into Unggoy then it would have blown it up. Causing a massive blow to the Covenant.

* Spartan Ops episode 10. We get a good look at Jul 'Mdama's fleet as they evacuate Requiem. It's ''huge.'' The guy literally has hundreds of capital-class ships, as well as support vessels and doubtlessly tens of thousands of warriors, at his command. Considering that 'Mdama is a [[RenegadeRussian renegade Elite]] [[NGOSuperpower commanding a tiny splinter faction of the Covenant]] and yet still has such an enormous fleet, it really makes you wonder, just how powerful were the original Covenant?

** More like foolhardy. Simply letting herself be captured would be handing the enemy a valuable resource/piece of intel. Making the best of a bad situation is good. Trying to figure out something in the most risky way possible isn't.
*** Her catchphrase ''is'' "Nothing ventured, nothing gained."