Halo (TV Series)

The Insurrectionist know and fear the Spartans yet believe the Covenant are rumors. In the original canon the Spartans only pulled off a handful of black ops missions against the Innies before the Covenant took their full attention. This is also not accounting for having the latest Mark VI Mjolnir, as the Mark IV was developed about 15 years after it started.

The weird thing is, according to the official marketing website (easier to navigate Halopedia transcript), the Covenant actually already attacked the sector of human space Madrigal is in all the way back in 2535 (said attack being the very reason the UNSC withdrew from Madrigal to being with), meaning that the UNSC and the Covenant have already been at war for at least 17 years. It also makes it weirder that the populace of Madrigal know basically nothing about the Covenant, since apparently at least a few of their neighbors have already gotten hit (especially since the site also notes that Madrigal continues to export deuterium to other worlds, so it's not like they've been completely isolating themselves).

Edited by UmbrellasWereAwesome on Mar 28th 2022 at 11:47:16 PM

I think it's heavily a case of Madrigal being way the fuck out in the space boonies and extremely against the UNSC, with us being shown specifically a group of diehard rebels. People in isolated rural communities are often poorly-informed about wider world events, and it only gets worse when they feel for whatever reason that they can't trust official news sources.

I personally don't find it much of a stretch; hell IIRC in the main timeline there were people on Earth, up to the point where the Covenant landed who genuinely thought the whole "alien invasion" thing was either overblown or straight propaganda.

Anyway, more theories about things they'll change: in the back of my mind I'm thinking they're going to make the Covenant's species-based caste system more rigid, in the sense that Elites will probably be some of if not the only combatants we see for the sake of simplifying fight choreography.

Specifically I imagine the Grunts will just be a labor caste when we see them, since hiring tons of dwarfs to wear motion capture suits and get beat up seems... problematic. Plus it'll fit with their "sympathetic weak coward" characterization throughout the games.

Edited by Dirtyblue929 on Mar 28th 2022 at 1:06:28 AM

Something that was in The Fall of Reach that has been downplayed ever since is the sheer length of time it takes to travel to other places. Slipspace was unpredictable enough that travel time is a guess that could be off by days if not weeks, and the exit vector may be far enough from the destination that it requires an extra day of conventional travel to actually arrive and dock. For convenience sake later works make FTL travel more predictable and avoid questioning "three months sitting in a fighter jet cockpit" logic.

All that in mind, it's not impossible to assume that even with some form of internet and wide spanning communications network that some information just doesn't land in places far enough from civilization. In addition, it seems that the Covenant is equally interested in understanding humanity and focusing on locating Forerunner artifacts. So even though they are vicious when they do decide to attack it is not quite the same methodical, uncompromising genocide as it was in the games.

^ I was thinking it was an interesting choice to only show Elites for the first action sequences. It would be more functional to depict Grunts and Jackals in alternative support roles like guard duty, scouts, labor, mechanics, etc rather than try to replicate the more linear difficulty hierarchy of the games. Grunts are meant to be numerous and fun to kill in the game (they actually aren't much shorter than a normal human, it's that Spartans are that much taller), so they are meant to be comical but I can also see the show interpreting them as a Lethal Joke Character where a squad decides to pull out Fuel Rod Cannons. And of course Hunters will be the big Oh, Crap! moment.

Edited by EmeraldSource on Mar 28th 2022 at 1:23:07 AM

That was one of the advantages that the Covenant had over the UNSC, too. Their Slipspace travel capabilities were way faster and more precise.

Instant communications too. During the war most interplanetary human news traveled only as fast as the ships.

Part of Kwan's rant was "the UNSC can fake any video, people know not to fall for your lies." So I think that some information on the war was certainly making it to the outer colonies, but they just dismissed it as propaganda and didn't even bother telling their people about it. Maybe they even assumed it was cover for brutal Spartan attacks. Elites don't look anything like Spartans, but they're close enough that you could buy an "Elite" in a video being a CGIed Spartan.

X5 and X4: That's the reasoning I usually see whenever this topic has come up elsewhere, and it would normally be my reasoning too from just watching the show. I think my sticking point has been that somebody responsible for the backstory lore (not even necessarily one of the main showrunners) decided to make it more likely that Madrigal had at least semi-regular contact with non-UNSC/UEG sources that would be capable of confirming the Covenant's existence. That's not to say that plenty of Madrigal's residents and rank-and-file Innies wouldn't have been skeptical anyways, but usually at least the leadership would take such reports more seriously simply for reasons of sheer practicality (unless they're going with the angle that Madrigal's Insurrectionist leadership was deliberately suppressing non-UNSC/UEG-based information about the Covenant for 17 years on the basis that it would have undermined unity against the UNSC, but Kwan's father seemed just as taken off-guard by their existence as everyone else).

Edited by UmbrellasWereAwesome on Mar 28th 2022 at 9:39:34 PM

I think these past two pages do indicate why they went with Alternate Continuity.

Keeping up with the minutia of all this would be insane.

Hence why I think the series might have been better off not having any "out-of-show" lore/media to muddle up what should be a clean start.

I read the full Variety article and much of it reiterates some known information about the Development Hell. For anyone unfamiliar, in 2005 Microsoft hired actors, dressed them as Master Chief and sent them to various studios in Hollywood to deliver a script and basically say "We're making THIS, you want in?" Despite Spielberg and Peter Jackson getting involved, that kind of power grab did not encourage participation and funding they needed. Hollywood rides on lunches talking about mutual benefits and this was swinging the IP around like a hammer.

It's a reality too that to attract talented people you want to entice them with the option to use their talent and not handcuff them to be puppets of the producers. In order to get the show made Microsoft had to agree to be more lenient on the lore and let other people work over the script.

I have been checking out some video reviews and it seems most people agree the opening fight is solid but opinions differ on how rocky the rest of the episode is. I find myself agreeing with those who say this feels like a complimentary adaptation of the games, that if you like the show you like it for the same reasons people like the games.

I mentioned before but I think if the show is trying to set up things like the defeat of the Insurrectionists, the Fall of Reach and finding Halo that might be the redeeming factor. Given the opening fight, imagine what they'll do when they come across the Flood.

Bloodier and Gorier treatment of the show makes me RESENT 343's current T-rated approach to their Halo games, and don't you tell me that the M-rating was just the Flood.

I mean, it was primarily the Flood (with the exception of Reach, which was deliberately going for a Darker and Edgier "grounded war story" vibe), but you are right that the bloodiness and swearing have been noticeably reduced in the last few games. It's rare to hear anything more risque than "crap" "damn" or "hell" outta the marines in Infinite.

Edited by Dirtyblue929 on Mar 29th 2022 at 10:19:42 AM

The Flood is most of it, but the M rated elements are much more subtle without them. Compared to Gears of War, Far Cry and COD, Halo has always been more kid friendly. The only reason Reach was M rated was probably because of things like the deaths of Kat, while Halo 4 included the Composer disintegrating people to ash. Halo 5 doesn't really have anything like that, and while Infinite isn't as dark as the other games it still had Spartan Griffin ripped out of his armor and tortured before dying.

So, new lore changes from the latest episode:

• Not all humans can activate Forerunner tech, only so-called "Blessed Ones" who meet a yet unspecified criteria (probably some sort of genetic ties to the Forerunners). The Covenenant actively abducted a lot of humans searching for one to indoctrinate to their cause before finding Makee.
• Spartans have their emotions dulled through a "hormonal pellet" in their spine. Soren-066 removed his after escaping during training, John still has his. It might be implied that John in particular had his memories suppressed for some reason but that might be a universal thing; I might have just read the relevant conversation wrong.
• Cortana isn't "just" a highly advanced AI, at least from how Halsey hypes her up to UNSC high command. She's intended as a networked intelligence that directly interfaces with the brains of all Spartans, serving as a mental upgrade to compliment the physical upgrades of their cybernetic enhancements. She also alludes to Cortana being capable of overwriting the personality of the Spartans. They seem to be deliberately playing coy with whether they're going with Halsey's Motherly Scientist characterization or her Evilutionary Biologist characterization; it's clear that one of them is an act she's putting on to cover for the other.

Edited by Dirtyblue929 on Mar 31st 2022 at 10:36:09 AM

Actually, prior canon already stated that only some humans could use Forerunner tech. “Reclaimer” refers specifically to them, not all humans.

The Covenant recruiting them is new though.

Edited by Chavez1127 on Mar 31st 2022 at 10:39:43 AM

Oh, really? I never knew that lol; I just figured from the games and the early books it was all of humanity .

We never really see an example of a human who isn't a Reclaimer in the primary timeline, but it seems like the Silver Timeline is going to make Reclaimers much more rare.

It's kind of like Stargate and the ATA gene in that respect.

I think at this point, if you can get past Chief without his helmet the show is laying down a lot of interesting story development and world building. The change so that not all humans have universal access to Forerunner technology makes a lot of sense, from the reverence the Prophets have for Makee, the significance to find someone who can use it and that some humans are getting caught up in the Covenant religion in the process. I was half expecting the POW to drop the line "Reclaimer" during that scene.

The multiple storylines set up in the first episode feel like they are already starting to pay off, which is a positive because it's not going to be 6 episodes of dull conspiracy meetings and just one payoff at the end of the season. Kwan being left with Soren was a nice little twist, John found someplace to get her out of harms way (UNSC or Innies) and immediately went back to face the consequences for his actions. The Halsey and Parangosky conflict over Cortana is being escalated by her jumping the gun with the upper leadership. And Makee is getting ready to make her move.

Lastly, the production design is really selling the show for me. It is doing remarkable things balancing physical sets and props with the CGI environments. I am also enjoying the sound design for Spartans in Mjolnir armor, they sound heavy and you can hear the servos whirling with every subtle movement. Not a lot of shows would pay attention to that. This might all be "first two episodes" syndrome, putting all the money and major plot points in the early episodes to catch everyones attention, but I am enjoying what the are doing so far.

The premiere episode has been made freely available to view on Paramount's YouTube page.

Not for all countries, though.

They appear to have taken it down following a viral reddit post where a user with a "reveal youtube dislikes" browser extension exposed that it's got twice as many dislikes as likes.

I'm pretty sure it was released on Youtube with the caveat it would only be around for a week or so. Changing the marketing strategy over a viral Reddit post would be stupid.

That seems more likely tbh; though the timing is hilariously unfortunate

Pretty much. Paramount did the same for its first episode timely preview of Star Trek: Prodigy, and that doesn't have anywhere close to the culture war baggage of this.

Edited by XMenMutant22 on Apr 7th 2022 at 5:42:25 AM